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titilationexpress · 3 years ago

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StarscreamxReader-Sweet Dreams are made of Screams Ch.1

First ever lemon. Please give your input. Reposting from my Ao3.

You haven’t been able to sleep properly for weeks now. And frankly, you’re wondering if you ever will again in your lifetime.

Yet what caused you to have such a problem with something that once came to you so easily? Ok, maybe not easily. No, scratch that. It was never easy. You had to take some sleeping pills every night to even get a few hours in. Still, how did it happen?

Well, the trouble had started back not long ago. In fact, from what you could recall, it hadn’t even been a full month before your ‘problem’ started. See, you were a fairly average individual. You had your quirks, your habits, the little things that make each person an individual. One particular interest you had though was quite specific, and even more, came from a decade long before you were born.

Transformers.

Oh yes, your beginnings were humble when you first started with the franchise, and you looked with wide, awe-filled eyes. Your starting place was where you first discovered it, the one show that will remain in your heart forever. From that, you got into the characters, the story, the lore of what started as a toyline for young boys (though it was clear now that both sexes had a love for it), all of it. And from there, you went on to past and future generations from your starting point, and now, you were a certified Transformers fan! Hell, one of your favorite sites ever is TFWiki.

With this entrance into the fandom, you took to devouring everything that you could: the cartoons and animes, the books, the movies, fanfiction, fanart, fan comics, doujinshi, anything and everything that you could get your hands on, you did. And not long after, you began contributing yourself, drawing, writing, whatever you could to make your stand and have your place in the community. At first, it worked well enough, you weren’t exactly prolific, yet you were doing well enough. You managed to get a few requests for certain things to be drawn/written, believe it or not, but still, you weren’t overly big.

And then came your discovery of the Reader genre.

What is the Reader genre? Why, as far as you were concerned, only one of the greatest genres ever to be conceived! Well, to be more accurate, the form of writing wasn’t anything new, remembering the ‘Choose Your Adventure’ books. It seemed said genre now spread everywhere, you being very aware of the numerous games and dating sims that ranged from well done and engaging to outright ridiculous and stupid (but those were fun in their unique way). And since you didn’t have any knowledge or time to do that, you settled for writing them yourself. Your first piece was a simple Optimus x Reader with the standard plot and standard outcome, which was a declaration of love and a resulting kiss with the Autobot Leader. You were NOT expecting the overflow of response that it had gotten. You were quite shocked, but at the same time, overjoyed. Soon, you decided to try your luck with another one, this one being of Bumblebee, the scenario being mostly the same, albeit with a bit more cutesy fluff, as in your mind, Bumblebee was always the little guy. This one was just as successful, and you beamed, having finally found your calling.

Since then, you were getting requests left and right for more and more choices, all spanning different universes. From the animated cartoons to the comics, different universes, everything that spanned from the most well-known incarnations to the more obscure. It was through these that you managed to get even more into the Transformers multiverse as a whole and even discovered some truly overlooked gems. You opened yourself up to the people and declared that you would write whatever they requested, but you had some taboos that you wouldn’t touch. But any scenario, character, and universe, all of that was fair game.

You had originally begun working on more mundane, typical stories with expected outcomes (but sweet ones nonetheless), yet over time, the requests and your imagination began getting more creative and crazy. Soon, you were delving into several different areas that you had never touched. Elves, goblins, mermaids, vampires, forbidden love, love triangles, all of these were laid at your feet. And while it took a bit to find your rhythm, all of this having come on you so fast, you eventually got it and soon, you had a wide collection of X Reader stories, ranging from G1 to Prime and IDW’s run.

You mainly did Autobots, for you had to admit that writing for them, while they were still complex characters, came somewhat easier for you. True, each of them had their faults and quirks (both from canon and headcanons people had come up with), yet they were still the good guys, and even those with more questionable morality still came out as heroes in the end. But then one day came where you were asked to write about a Decepticon. This threw you for a loop, as, while the thought had intrigued you, you had been writing for good guys for some time, so a total shift in direction was somewhat off-putting and scary. Possibilities of it being too saccharine or sweet, or getting the characters wrong or out of character scared you a bit, yet still, you wanted to test the waters and see if you could do it. And if you could, this would open up so much more for you.

And judging from the input, you had just struck gold yet again.

Soon, not only were you flooded with requests for Autobots, but now their foes were also available, and, as you found out, people had just as much an attraction for the darkness as they did for the light. Again, the same scenarios were implemented, yet now, they had something of a darker edge to them, which allowed you to explore some subjects you couldn’t touch with the Autobots without toning it back somewhat. In a way, the Decepticons provided you with more freedom. Ironic, seeing as Megatron’s motto was “Peace through Tyranny.”

That said, you went through the list of available characters throughout the generations, and so far, those had been garnering quite a following as well, your Autobot and Decepticon stories neck and neck in popularity. Everything seemed to be going well for you.

Then that one question came.

‘Hey, where’s Starscream?’

Then another.

‘Could you write one about Starscream?’’

Then another.

‘Hey, hate to bother you, yet I think that Starscream could use some love here.’

More and more questions and requests for the particular Decepticon filled your messages, and frankly, you were at a loss on what to do. Truth be told, you and Starscream had something of a complicated history. When you had gotten into Transformers, you had heard of the character, yet at first, you never saw why he had gained such a large fanbase. True, he wasn’t a bad character, yet he wasn’t your favorite. But over time, as you wrote more and more for the Decepticons, as well as read X Reader stories from other people, you slowly began to, as one would say, gain an interest in the winged robot. And soon, you found yourself enamored by the smug jerk as well.

But this only made you reluctant to write for him.

True, when you started writing for the Decepticons, you were allowed to experiment with some more intimate and extreme situations, yet with Starscream...it was different. It was hard to explain, yet whenever you got a request to write for him, your brain seemed to seize up. Thoughts came to your head that you had tried to banish, thoughts that came every time you saw the Seeker’s name. You had no idea what was going on or why this was so difficult, yet it seemed the Silver Snake had taken to making your fingers not touch the keyboard.

You had no idea at all. Or at least, that’s what you told yourself.

And since you had gotten the slew of requests, your sleep problems began. The moment you shut your eyes, the scenario began all over again.

…

You needed no introduction to where you were or what you were seeing, it all quite familiar to you now. Around you were towering walls of a silvery mauve color, the only available light from above sparse and leaving several areas coated in darkness. This place was all too familiar, for you had seen it many times in your watching and reading of Transformers.

You were in Decepticon headquarters.

Your dreams had been filled with the base of the enemy faction of the Autobots, and at first, it had shocked you as to why you were here at all. But over time, night after night, you came here, and soon, you grew accustomed to the sight of it. You took on the form of your Transformers persona/OC or remained in your regular, human form, whatever pleased you as if you had some control over this environment. Yet as you grew more familiar (you were never sure if you’d be comfortable), you began to explore the place, finding that, to your surprise, there was no one here. No signs of any sort of life aboard the ship, and while it took a good while, you traveled everywhere you could think of, and still, nothing. No Megatron, no other Decepticons, no one but you had been aboard.

At least, that was what you believed when you first had this dream. Then, you heard it. The voice. His voice.

“Oooh, I’m the Boogie Man,”

Singing, serenading, just loud enough for you to hear, yet low enough for you to know it was far away. It always started this way.

“The terrible, horrible Boogie Man,”

Your ears/audio receptors registered the voice as it echoed throughout the ship. When the dreams had begun, you knew immediately who was singing, and then you were more surprised at how it sounded. Sure, it had its infamous high pitch, yet it wasn’t bad to listen to. Daresay, it was rather enjoyable in its own way.

“I come in the middle of the night and frighten bad little girls like you.”

The first few times you had this dream, it would almost always startle you, yet it led you to look down the other balls and corridors of the ship. The results were always the same though: no one was aboard. No one but you...and him.

“Beware, better have a care,”

The song changed each and every time you entered the dream, tonight being a track you heard on a video game you played not too long ago (Bioshock 2 you believed). Yet the songs always had the same effect on you.

“I’m going to follow you everywhere.”

Despite your trepidation, you wanted...needed to follow it.

“I crawl through the ceiling and the wall and call on bad little girls like you.”

Walking, then running, you traversed the winding path before you, taking several left and right turns, having no sense of direction but that voice. A voice that, despite its infamous sound, held power to it, a siren’s song in a way. Ironic, you thought. Still, you followed, for you had reached your limit. You knew what would happen if you didn’t find him.

“I’ll torture you and hunt you,”

And never leave.

I’ve got you where I want you,”

And never let you escape this dream.

“A victim of my dark and dirty plot.”

And he knew it too. He knew he had power over you. And you hated it.

“And at the slightest whim, I’ll tear you limb from limb,”

Or…

“In other words, I’ll put you on the spot.”

Did you?

“Oooh, I’m the Boogie Man,”

You were close. So dangerously close.

“The terrible, horrible Boogie Man.”

Just a turn around the corner.

“I come in the middle of the night and frighten…”

He paused, you stopping in your tracks at what you saw. There he was. Situated behind violet bars of energy in a cell, the Decepticon stood there with his arms folded and looking upon you with satisfied, hungry red eyes.

“...bad little girls like you.”

It was him.

Starscream.

Your favorite incarnation of Starscream, those ruby orbs boring into your own eyes/optics. You stepped back from the cell, eyes/optics wide at what was before you. Sure, if you were to go by dream logic, some part of you always knew that it was ‘him’ that awaited you at the end of this journey, but still, to actually see him, standing there so casually when it looked like he was locked up, it chilled you. As if he had absolutely nothing to worry about.

“My, my, so you finally found me,” he said, his voice perfectly matching the incarnation that stood before you. “Or rather, I found you. Whichever way it goes, it doesn’t matter,” he smirked. “For I already know the outcome.”

You blinked a few times, still trying to see if who was before you had truly been there. “St…” you began nervously. “Starscream?”

The Decepticon chuckled and stepped out of the shadows, allowing you to fully see him. “In the mesh,” he said. “And I see that introductions won’t need to be made either, will they, Y/N?” your eyes/optics went wide. “That’s right, pet, I know everything. This IS your mind after all.”

“Wh-What?” you stammered. “I don’t understand.”

Starscream’s grin only grew wider. “You will soon. You will understand EVERYTHING.”

Just what was he talking about? From the looks of it, he seemed to be enjoying your tension and trepidation, very amused. Your mind went into fan mode, recalling every fact you had known of Starscream and his various incarnations, which then led to you going on the defensive. “You…” albeit, it took you a try or two. “You’re the one that’s been doing this to me. Giving me these...these weird dreams.” the Decepticon didn’t answer, yet it was clear that he already knew that the secret was out (even if it wasn’t much of one). “You’re also the one that’s not letting me have one decent night’s sleep without being trapped here!”

“Or me serenading you?” he added in. “How do you like it? I don’t do it often, yet if I wish, I can stretch out my vocal components if I want.”

Your cheeks grew hot. Damn, this bastard was already making you too wound up, and you had only gotten a few words in! “Well...I’m here now,” you said, trying to sound confident, and, ironically enough, trying to channel Megatron’s dominating aura. “So, what do you want?”

This didn’t phase him in the slightest. Despite him being the one locked up, you were the one who felt like his prisoner. “I think you already know that dear Y/N,” he said. “But to put it simply, I’m feeling left out.”

You were confused. “Left out?” You asked. “Left out of…” you paused. Indeed, you knew well what he was talking about. “My...my reader inserts.”

Starscream nodded. “Quite an extensive library you’ve built up over time.” He told you. “Though your choices could be much better.” he scoffed. “Of course goody-good Prime would be on the list, along with the rest of the Auto-dolts.” Then he grimaced. “Yet there are those that actually want to FRAG Megatron? Ugh! No taste at all!” He then looked back at you. “You’ve written for everyone, from either faction, of every series,” he then pouted. “But none for me. Truly, Y/N, I’m hurt.”

You felt quite awkward. True, while you were known online for your stories, it was your username and persona they were seeing. They weren’t someone that was right around the corner that could walk in and see you writing these things. While you loved doing it, the thought of your family or friends discovering you wrote in this genre was a thought you dared not entertain, as you swore that you’d die from embarrassment. Thus, you were very careful whenever you did it, your room completely locked tight so you could focus without fear of someone barging in. The only times you left during your writing periods were for bathroom breaks and/or to eat/drink something. It was a big secret...and thinking about it now, it was a secret no more to the most infamous backstabber in all of Transformers. You had been found out.

“Well...so what? Are you going to keep haunting me until I do?” you asked. “You can’t do that!”

Starscream didn’t seem phased by this at all. That damned smirk of his both frustrated and made you excited, a combination that left you very unsure. “Can’t I?” he asked.

You didn’t like his tone. “What do you mean?”

“Well, let’s consider for a moment, Y/N,” he said. “You believe that I’m merely a figment of your imagination, yes? A stubborn thought that is lodged in your subconscious. Am I right?” you shifted a bit, knowing well what he was saying would lead to something else. Something that probably would flip everything on its head. “Well...who’s to say that I am?”

“I...I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. But what I say might just jog your memory.” he then went on. “In your last X Reader, you spoke of multiple versions of the characters, such as Prime and...yes, even Megatron,” Starscream scoffed. “And how it would’ve been peculiar if they met. Then, one of your readers linked you to a page on the TFWiki.” Starscream then chuckled. “Quite an array of knowledge, I must say. Especially for a primitive species such as yourselves. Anyway, said page spoke of what is labeled as the Transformers Multiverse, which, if I may say, is an excuse for you all to toy with and shape us into what YOU want. But back on track, you did a small amount of research on that, then went on about your business.”

“...and what does this have to do with why you’re here?”

Starscream smirked. “Then, after some time, you went and read the entries of me from various series and incarnations. To get a better feel for what you were thinking of writing. What you wanted to write. Only, you never did.” You were about to speak again, but the seeker spoke again before you could. “There was one detail from my earliest incarnation that spoke of a ‘ghost’, an immortal spark that couldn’t be snuffed out. One that could travel through space and time.” He drew closer to the bars. “And then discovered a way to travel through dimensions. Wherein, I found out all about how so many humans have seen my reality behind a television screen.”

What was he talking about? What did any of what he said mean? It was then that it all clicked for you. Sparks were essentially the ‘soul’ of a Transformer, which Starscream’s was indestructible. You read that he made an appearance in Beast Wars, and had made cameos elsewhere. What was before you right now...mere feet away…” Are you.. “ you stammered. “Are you really…”

The Decepticon nodded. “Yes. Yes, I am, Y/N.”

You were left speechless. No. No, this...this was impossible. It...it couldn’t be him! It couldn’t be the REAL Starscream! He was a cartoon, no, a toy! A damn toy! A toy from the eighties that were made to be marketable to young boys (and the girls that were secretly into it) among several other toys that were made be marketable to young boys (and again, the girls that were secretly into it)! There was NO way he was in your mind right now! He wasn’t real! He wasn’t real! He wasn’t-

“You step out into the chilled air, wrapping your arms around yourself as you do.” the Decepticon suddenly began. “He’s there to pick you up. He’s there to pick you up. You’re both terrified and exhilarated, eager to start the night, but also to make it fly by just enough so nothing embarrassing would happen between the two of you.” your jaw dropped when you heard him say that. How did he- “Know that you recently read over your very first entry? The one that started it all?” he then ‘rolled’ his eyes. “The one that clearly displayed that you had little taste at first?”

Of course, you did! That was from your very first X Reader story! It told of Optimus Prime and you, a human, in a relationship. Odd start, you knew, especially given that Transformer x Human relations was sort of controversial, yet overall, it wasn’t a bad one. Still, the fact he knew that…” No.” you said aloud. “It can’t be.”

He smiled. “I am.”

You stepped back until you hit a wall. “S-Starscream.” you stuttered. “You’re him. You’re the...the real one.” he was quite satisfied with your reaction, you clearly flustered yet cautious at the same time. The sensation drove you mad. But then you remember, this was just a dream! You were just making up all this stuff! You were relieved by this revelation...yet at the same time, you were...curious. Just where would this go if you continued? “Well...well, what are you doing here? What do you want?”

“Exactly as I said before, I feel left out,” Starscream told you. “And considering my popularity in this universe, I’d think me being here should tell you something.”

You knew what he wanted. “You want me to write about you.” it was obvious. “I-I know. I mean, I’ve been wanting to. Really, I have. But...but I...I just…” you sighed. If you knew Starscream (and you had at least a decent enough faith you did), you knew that this could potentially earn you his anger. Yet, to your surprise, he didn’t try to order you around. Instead, he seemed like he already knew you were going to say that.

“You can’t,” he said for you. “Understand, I’m the one in YOUR mind. Thus, you could say, I know everything about you. A perk of being something that, in this universe, started out as a drawing on a piece of paper.” you were confused, this seemed to humor Starscream even more. “Oh, come now. Surely you know that concept art exists, right?”

All of this was so insane for you, yet it was then that you felt the urge to speak up and say something for yourself for once. “Well, if you’re here from the...well, YOUR universe, what are you doing here in the first place?”

“Why, this is one of the few places I win!” Starscream exclaimed. “Of course, when I first came here, I was quite perplexed about how I and many others were known as products from a company called ‘Hasbro’. But overtime, I discovered your version of the internet, and, well, as you flesh bags say, the rest is history.” he then continued, not giving you a chance to speak. “And bring that I am an idea in this universe, I can go freely as I wish, peering into minds,” his red eyes looked upon you. “Become one’s permanent muse or vice versa.”

God, you felt weird. You felt so confused and conflicted. You wanted to sink into the wall to get away, but you also wanted to know more about this. You had to know more. You needed to know more. “So…?”

“So, I’ve come to you, as you’re truly in need of some inspiration,” Starscream said. “As well as some changes in your thinking.”

“Like what? Worshiping the ground you walk on?” you ask, feeling a little bolder.

“Oh, you already do.” he said. “If you didn’t desire me, I wouldn’t be here.” he grinned at your shocked expression. “That’s right, Y/N, I know what truly holds you back from writing about me. Your fears, your anxieties, your loves and lusts.” you had no words. “You fear that you may get me wrong if you will. That I won’t be in character. Or you fear that you won’t be able to satisfy the wants of your readers, as I AM so highly anticipated. Or…” he leaned closer to the bars, the only barrier separating you two. “You fear exploring those more intimate pleasures with me. You’re intimidated and unsure. After all, writing for Autobots is easy, yet us Decepticons are more difficult. But it HAS awakened things in you that you wish to explore on either side. Things that you are dying to let out.”

You had no words, he was completely right. Damn him! The smug bastard knew he had you in the palm of his hand...and yet also probably knew that’s what made you so hot and bothered right now! “So...what? Are you here to force me to write those things with you in them?”

“Dear Y/N, I can’t technically make you do anything,” Starscream told you. “Oh yes, I can stay and torment you night after night until either I pass onto another universe or I grow bored of you, but my reason being here is for both our benefits.”

“How?”

“It’s quite simple,” he said. “We shall go through those scenarios in your head.” his ruby red optics bore into yours/your eyes. “Together.” he then reached out from in between the bars and traced a digit around your jawline. “Believe it or not, I want to help you, Y/N.” his voice was smooth and sultry, something you never expected from a voice like his. “But only you can allow me to do so.” he then stepped back from the bars. “This prison of mine is something you’ve constructed from your fears and insecurities. Allow yourself to embrace what you fear…” he then extended his hand again, yet stepped back as well, sinking into the darkness. “Only then, will you truly be free.”

You were at a standstill. You knew what he wanted, and, to your horror, you were wanting to give it to him. Deny it all you want, this was something that had been in your mind ever since you got the first request for the Seeker. You approached the bars, trying to get some sign that he was still there. Surely he hadn’t left you, had he? No, he hadn’t. He was still there, you could feel him. Watching, waiting, and perhaps, knowing what you would do before you did.

Yet would you do it? Would you bite into that forbidden fruit?

Some while after pondering this question, you looked at the cell, the energy bars vanishing. Why fight it when you could already taste the sweet tartness of said fruit in the back of your throat?

#starscream g1 #starscream #tfp #transformers bayverse #transformers animated #transformers cyberverse #transformers x reader #lemon #set up #fanfic #reader #self insert #first part

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alaffy · 2 years ago

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The Sandman, Ep.3 – Dream a Little Dream (Spoilers)

I have got to read the series this was based on. So far, this is an amazing show. Normally, binge watching for me is watching two episodes in a day before I want to do something different. I’ve watched three episodes today and don’t plan on stopping. I’ll probably get through this this weekend.

Like the last episode, this is broken up into two storylines. The B plot is pretty simple. Ethel goes to visit John. She wants him to tell her where the ruby is so that she can collect it and give it to Morpheus for their safety. However, John doesn’t believe her as she seems to be a habitual liar. During this conversation we find out that John has done something to the ruby to make it work only for him and that John killed a number of people who were trying to take the ruby away from him. Or he believes where trying….we don’t know what really happened yet. John also says he could use the ruby to protect himself and his mother by using it to get rid of Morpheus. Ethel, realizing that she’s never going to be able to convince John she truly is doing this for him, decides the only thing she can do is give him the protection stone. So long as it’s in his possession, he cannot be harmed. Of course, the minute she takes off the stone, she’s no longer under its protection. Ethel rapidly ages and dies. Of course, the guards think John did it and try to kill him. However, the stone ends up ripping them to sherds (in fairness, John did try to tell them….sort of). Anyway, John escapes to the outside where it’s snowing. A friendly passerby gives John his coat. And by passerby I mean it’s Corinthian and it’s clear that he’s waiting for John to get the ruby.

In the main story, we meet Joanna Constantine. Now, of course, this character is the gender swapped version of John Constantine. I know Constantine has been in other series recently (even had his own show), so I wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to change the character in order to separate this show from the others. That being said, it seems like a number of characters are different then their original comic book counterparts, so it may not have anything to do with the DC Constantine at all. I really haven’t kept up on all the legal issues surrounding the character.

Anyway, we meet Constantine who is a person who exorcises demons…for profit. Yeah, she’s a hard nose person with a tragic past which haunts her dreams…you know the type. Still, she played very well by Jenna Coleman; so it’s fine. Also, I do appreciate they don’t drag out the tragic past for long. There is an exorcism that goes wrong and a young child, that Constantine seems to know well, dies because of it. Anyway, Constantine doesn’t remember where she put the sand but promises to look for it…in the morning (to be fair, she had just gotten off of exorcising a demon). Morpheus isn’t happy about that, but he’s also a little distracted as he has found that Lucienne has decided to send a raven after him. The Raven is named Mathew. He’s a newly deceased human, who has found himself suddenly as a bird; believes Lucienne is the boss; and has no idea who Morpheus is. However, Mathew (being a former human) knows that it’s best for Morpheus to find Constantine now; which he does through her dreams.

That’s when we see what haunts Constantine’s past. Morpheus tells Constantine that he can make the nightmare go away forever if she helps him find his sand. The two of them search their office, where Morpheus finds the picture of Constantine and a former girlfriend. Morpheus comments that Constantine looks happy in the photos and Constantine suddenly remembers what happened to the sand.

It turns out that Constantine lived with the ex for a few months, but….clearly with her line of work and commitment….basically Constantine leaves one day and doesn’t come back. That was six months ago. Constantine is strangely welcomed back by the girlfriend, or she seems a little too…calm for someone who’s significant other suddenly left them and hasn’t been in contact for half a year. Morpheus soon shows Constantine why. Apparently. the girlfriend has been using the sand to create good dreams for herself. The problem is, because she’s been using the sand; she has become addicted and she’s wasted away to the point that her body is shutting down. Constantine begs Morpheus to save the girlfriend, which he cannot do. Constantine points out that, if Morpheus wants to save humanity, that his chance is here. Or, at least, the chance to do something. Morpheus can see the guilt that Constantine has for leaving her girlfriend. Morpheus asks Constantine to leave the room and then he uses the sand to give the girlfriend one last, peaceful dream as she dies.

Outside, Morpheus tells Constantine what has happened. He also tells her that she no longer will be plagued by her constant nightmare. Constantine, before departing, tells Mathew to watch over Morpheus because he will need it. Morpheus begrudgingly allows Mathew to stay, as he might need his help fetching the next item. And so, Morpheus and Mathew depart…to Hell.

#the sandman #morpheus #mathew #joanna constantine #corinthian

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ofbloodandbullets · 3 years ago

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So it’s recently come to my attention that not everyone in the world has actually watched The Old Guard (WHO KNEW?!) so I’m going to try and do some info dumps about the world, the general canon and Andy’s history, personality, powers etc. This will ... probably get kinda lengthy.

Also: MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS FOR COMICS & MOVIE.

The first thing you need to know is that for the main part, the history and the world that TOG takes place in is the exact same one as the real history of the world. It’s set in modern day, though the plot points stretch back to 7k+ years ago. It’s also important to note that there is a lot of historical inaccuracies and some things in canon that conflict themselves so it’s best to just take it all with a grain of salt and just go with what works best for your particular preferences etc.

The main difference between reality and TOG is that in TOG there are a very minute like .00000000002% of the population that are immortals. Now, it’s important to note that these people can die but they resurrect pretty close to immediately after they die no matter the amount of damage done. Now it can take some time to fully heal or reform, depending on how extensive the trauma (being blown to bits or burned etc. will take longer to fix but there’s no amount of damage that we know of that can actually keep them dead).

There are times when, for reasons unknown to the characters in character (or to us as readers of the comics / viewers of the movie etc) that the immortality just stops. There’ll just be a time that they suffer injuries that just don’t heal, and they die. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to this, be it age, number of times they’ve died, whatever. Now, I have my own entirely headcanon and personal preference based theory which you can find HERE but it’s totally just a random idea that I had that I liked to explain the loss of Andy’s immortality in the movie (that doesn’t happen in the comics) and lets me say that she regains her immortality post canon so that I can nudge things back in the direction of the comics for post movie plots and so on.

Andy is, as far as we know, and as far as she knows, the oldest (human) immortal, coming in at around 7,000 years old. She was born into a tribe, the Scythia (hence what she’s generally called: Andromache the Scythian). A nomadic warrior tribe that I headcanon to be a matriarchy, Andy was betrayed by the ‘queen mother’ when she was sixteen and killed in battle because the leader feared that Andy posed a danger to her continuing rule. This person was practically a mother to Andy and it was a horrific betrayal. What was almost as shocking to Andy was the fact that she got back up again after being literally stabbed in the back and killed.

In the vein of trying to thwart prophecies making them happen, Andy killed the matriarch and took her placce ruling the tribe, eventually becoming a God King to her people and ruling over them for hundreds of years until her loneliness absolutely overwhelmed her and one day she just vanished.

At some point after this, she began to dream of a woman, feeling a pull towards this stranger that she couldn’t begin to explain. After dozens, maybe hundreds of years, she managed to track down the woman in question (Noriko in the comics, Quynh in the movie) and realized that they’d been dreaming of each other. (In the comics she meets Lykon before Quynh/Noriko, whom she had also been dreaming of).

Now, the connection between these immortals isn’t explained in canon, and for a long time, Andy, Lykon, Noriko (and eventually Joe, Nicky, Book) thought they were the only ones but there is a scene in the second set of comics that implies that there are other ‘packs’ of immortals. I headcanon that it’s a ‘like calls to like’ / kind of Sense8 simpatico type thing - like minded souls drawn to each other, which is why Andy and the others didn’t know about the other immortals, but again, that’s just entirely my thoughts on the matter.

Lykon is the first to succumb to the loss of immortality, a short couple hundreds years after he and Andy find each other. He dies on a battlefield, one that he and Quynh/Noriko and Andy fought on like a hundred/thousand before, champions for the abused etc. Skip forward a couple hundred years again and enter Joe & Nicky, a Knight and a Muslim warrior who kill each other on the battlefield only to both wake up and spend (an unspecified amount of time) hunting and killing each other before eventually Andy & Quynh/Noriko find them. In time, Joe & Nicky realize that they love each other. (Important to note that Quynh/Noriko and Andy were also lovers). In the movie, when the first major surge of witch hunts began, Quynh/Noriko and Andy go to help the women that stood accused, only to be captured and accused of witchcraft themselves. After being hung, drowned, burned at the stake and coming back to life every time, the witch hunters settled on locking Quynh into an iron coffin and dropping her into the ocean. (In the comics, Noriko is lost at sea during a massive storm that had thrown their ship entirely off course with Andy having no clue where they actually were at the time.)

Joe & Nicky arrive in time to rescue Andy, but Noriko is already gone and despite spending decades tracking down every person even remotely involved in the so called ‘investigation’ into the women’s inquisition and punishment, Andy wasn’t able to find anything about where Quynh could be.

Cue angst & depression & guilt for ages after.

The trio still steps in over the following decades, trying to help prevent the worst of atrocities, but Andy quickly begins to spiral into an, at best apathetic, at worst, entirely distant and withdrawn mindset and steadily begins to lose hope that they’re actually making any difference at all.

Skip ahead a century or two and enter Book; a Russian conscript who had been forced into the fight after being convicted of forgery. Hung for desertion, Book spend days dying over and over again as he hung there, unable to attempt an escape until the troops finally packed up and moved on. He and Andy, Nicky and Joe meet up and Book kinda reluctantly joins their little group. It’s revealed that Book dreams, still, of Noriko/Quynh and while he can’t tell where hse is, dreams of her still dying, drowning on the floor of the ocean over and over and over like she had been for the last hundred or two years.

Book returns at some point to his mortal family which ended in disaster when his last remaining son was dying of cancer, cursing and screaming at Book for ‘choosing not to save him’ by making him immortal too, even though it’s something Book had no ability to transfer or make happen. Between his nightmares, losing his son and a number of other factors, Book decides he wants to end it all but no matter what he tries, doesn’t die and stay dead.

Eventually he’s approached by a pharmaceutical company that has figured out what he is and wants to run tests on him to see if they can unlock his healing / immortality for other people. Merrick’s company works in league with an ex CIA agent whose wife died of a horrific terminal disease who hopes that they can find a way to keep anyone else from dying if they don’t have to. Initially it was just supposed to be him, but he’d set up a display to stream for proof of what he was / they were and the corp decided they wanted all of the immortals. Book ends up betraying the team, and he and the others end up locked up and tested on / killed / experimented on etc.

There’s another character introduced in the meantime, the first new immortals in centuries, an American soldier named Niles. There’s a lot more that goes on here, but the main point is that in the movie, Andy stops healing from her wounds shortly after she tracks down Nile and is put into incredible amounts of danger when Merrick (the leader of the pharmaceutical company) captures Andy, Joe, Book, Nicky. Book is devastated, Nicky and Joe are furious, Andy’s just tired.

Eventually, Andy and the others break free with Niles’ help, destroy the lab they were originally held in etc and set out to try and hunt down any other proof, lab results, anything that Merrick got his hands on during the tests.

The group meets and settles on a hundred year exile for Booker (which I think is one of the stupidest things - like, the man’s clearly desperate and depressed and lonely and mentally unstable so by all means let’s isolate him for a fully century) and at the end of the movie we see him stumbling home to his apartment six months later to find Quynh standing in his apartment, pouring and drinking a glass of water which is a whole power move considering how many millions of times she died by drowning.

In the comics, Quynh/Noriko was driven entirely mad and to the point of wanting vengeance against Andy for abandoning her and spends a while gaslighting Andy and torturing her physically and emotionally and what not until she manages to isolate Andy from the other immortals and scoops in to ‘rescue’ Andy. IDK what they’re going to adapt this to in the second movie,

Again, via the link posted above, my Andy slowly begins to regain her immortality (again, IDK what they’re going to do with the next movie).

Uhhhh yeah. So I .. think that’s the majority of what you need to know for canon info about Andy. THIS is also an important PSA regarding my Andy’s history & her longest lasting relationship that has nothing to do with canon at all but that is part of Andy’s bg in every verse, even if it never comes into play.

#CHARACTER INFO.#BIO.#HEADCANON. ( do not reblog. )

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thenightling · 4 years ago

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My opinion on some of the Netflix Sandman rumors

We fans don’t have much in the way of substantial news about The Sandman Netflix series. All we have are rumors and gossip. I have compiled some of the rumors here along with my opinions on those rumors. Consider this a disclaimer. I am only a fan. I do not have any inside info. All the rumors here are ones that can easily be found on various sites online. Now to begin...

Rumor: Morpheus will be captured in 1916 but will not escape until present day.

This rumor has been confirmed true by Neil Gaiman on his Tumblr account and other Social media websites. In my opinion this was wise because it enables Morpheus’ capture to continue to overlap with the real-world sleeping sickness outbreak of Encephalitis Lethargica.

Rumor: Michael Sheen is playing Lucifer.

This rumor was debunked months ago by Neil Gaiman but I surmised that the one who started the rumor had found out he was playing Lucifer for The Sandman audio drama and had gotten confused. I was right. I DO however suspect Michael Sheen and possibly David Tennant will have roles in The Sandman Netflix series, just not the same role Michael Sheen had in the audio drama.

My Opinion: I’m all for Michael Sheen having a role in The Sandman Netflix series. Him and David Tennant.

Rumor: Doug Jones is going to be in The Sandman as a supporting character.

This rumor comes from two clues. The first being that Neil Gaiman has spoken about his like of Doug Jones and Guillermo Del Toro almost did a Sandman adaptation with Doug as Morpheus. Doug Jones even brought this up recently, which suggests that the subject might be on mind.

My opinion: Doug is an excellent character actor and I want this to be true. He should be in Sandman. I love Doug. And there are plenty of characters he could play. Lucien, Mervyn Pumpkinhead, Doctor Destiny, various nightmares.

Rumor: Liam Hemsworth or Dacre Montgomery will play The Corinthian.

Opinion: I like Liam Hemsworth. He deserves a shot but Dacre is also good.

Rumor: Tom Sturridge is playing Morpheus.

Opinion: I am 90% sure this rumor is true. There are a number of sources claiming the same thing. Also just google how the man looks. I think he’ll do a fine job. I thought Oliver Farnworth would have been excellent too but I’m sure Tom Sturridge would be fine.

Rumor: The Netflix Sandman series will see Dream take many forms including a female form.

Opinion: This isn’t really new. We saw Dream’s feminine side in Overture. If it bothers you to see Morpheus might have a feminine side, you probably shouldn’t be watching something like Sandman anyway.

Rumor: Death will be played by a black woman.

The source of this rumor comes from Neil Gaiman saying something about loving the actress chosen for Death but feeling some people will complain.

Opinion: ...So? She’s an Endless. She can look any way she wants. I would have liked to have seen Jamie Chung in the role though. She voiced her for the Death short that accompanied the Wonder Woman: Bloodlines Blu Ray.

Rumor: Morpheus’ extended capture will effect his reunion with Hob.

My opinion: Uhhhh Duh.

Honestly though this makes me VERY curious as to how their reunion will play out. I hope it is just as sweet as the comic.

Rumor: The Corinthian will appear fairly early in the series and even advise Roderick Burgess how best to contain Morpheus.

Opinion: Well, according to the leaked Corinthian audition this is true. I don’t mind it at all. It makes sense. It fits.

Rumor: Alexander Burgess’ story is now more sympathetic and he as well as his father will age slower because of Morpheus’ capture.

Opinion: This seems likely based on certain leaks. And I kind of hope this means Morpheus will be able to punish Roderick and not Alex.

Rumor: Alex will now have an older brother who died during World War 1, a brother that Roderick preferred, and he takes out his grief on Alex in abusive ways. it also gives Roderick a new motivation for wanting to capture Death.

Opinion: This is likely true based on certain leaks from last February. I have mixed feelings about this because sometimes parents are just assholes. They don’t need a tragic loss to set off their abusive behavior. It also made Roderick worse (in the comics) that he treated his only (known) son the way he did. It’s been recently established in the comics that John Dee was actually Alex’s half-brother. I guess it all depends on how this is done.

I also don’t think Roderick needs to be grief stricken in order to want to control Death. This is a cliché, a cliché we saw in Disney’s Gargoyles and even in Hercules and Xena. Someone loses someone they love and tries to capture Death in order to bring them back. Roderick doesn’t need this trope. He was an occultist who wanted to be a big shot in the world of early twentieth century magick users. In my opinion that should be enough but I’ll keep an open mind.

Rumor: They were supposed to start filming in May but it was delayed to late October because of Covid.

This one is true.

Opinion: Hurry up!

Rumor: Roderick Burgess has no real magick in the show.

Opinion: Sadly this is likely true based on a character description leak from the casting call. I shall miss seeing Sykes’ head explode... Honestly I kind of hope this is wrong. I’m tired of magick being diminished in comic book TV and film.

Rumor: The first season of Sandman will combine Preludes and Nocturnes with The Doll’s House.

Opinion: This is likely true. I’m fine with it. It might flow better for TV this way.

Rumor: The “A game of you” storyline will have trans people writing.

Opinion: This makes sense And this is pretty much already confirmed true.

Rumor: The Netflix show will have the same cast as the audio drama.

Opinion: Though I would not mind this, I know it is not true. This is likely the result of an IMDB listing for the audio drama mistakenly calling it a show and some fans mistaking that IMDB page as being the one for the Netflix series.

Rumor: The Netflix Sandman series is canceled and the audio drama is all we’re getting.

This rumor is absolutely false! It’s a stupid rumor made by those who had no idea the audio drama was happening before the pandemic even hit. The audio drama is not compensation because there will not be a Netflix show. Both will exist.

Opinion: Shame on those leaping to this conclusion and spreading it as fact.

Rumor: A character named “Ann” is being cast and she’ll be a major recurring character.

Opinion: I’ve seen this sort of thing before. It’s how you hide what character they are trying to cast. Clearly this is a major female character for the show and probably was a name used as a place holder for Death of The Endless or even Rose Walker. I’m not too concerned about this. Some fans are upset and already raging that they’re making up a new character just for the show, ala Chloe Decker in Lucifer. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about here.

Rumor: Tom Ellis will not be playing Lucifer.

Opinion: Tom Ellis has wanted to move on from Lucifer for a while. He wants season six of Lucifer to be its last. Let him move on. Neil Gaiman also wants his Lucifer to be different from the Lucifer TV show version. The Lucifer TV series deviated heavily from the comics and it might confuse people with the big differences in lore. It is probably for the best that Tom Ellis not play Lucifer.

Rumor: The Sandman is why Lucifer is being canceled.

Opinion: No. Lucifer has been canceled three times now. In fact the first time it was canceled The Sandman TV series had not been picked up by Netflix yet. Lucifer has had six seasons. For a paranormal police procedural that’s a good, long, run. Not everything can be Supernatural. Forever Knight (and most shows of that type) only had three seasons. Lucifer out lived the norm for its type of show and survived two cancelations. Let it go. Do not blame Sandman. The Sandman is what gave us Lucifer, not took it away. The Sandman is where the story of Lucifer quitting, opening Lux, and taking up piano came from.

Rumor: The Sandman is the most expensive show DC has ever made.

According to Variety this is true.

Opinion: It probably has to be expensive. Look at all the stuff they need to show us, the sets and special effects needed.

Rumor: Lucien might be played by a woman.

Apparently this rumor started because some of the Morpheus auditioners let slip that they auditioned with a woman as Lucien.

Opinion: I’m not sure how I feel about this. I love the character of Lucien. A a woman version might take a little getting used to. I don’t hate the idea, I just prefer how he appears in canon. Further note, I kind of hope he has a full head of hair like he does in the recent comics. There is a very high chance she was just reading his lines since at the time the role being cast was Morpheus, not Lucien.

Rumor: The Sandman could air as early as Summer of 2021.

Opinion: *Insert bitter laugh here.* I wish...

Rumor: Alexander Burgess is gay.

Opinion: And in other news water is wet!

Rumor: Desire will be played by someone who identifies as Genderfluid or nonbinary.

Opinion: This is very likely true.

#The Sandman

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anothersillyfanblog · 4 years ago

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Earth On Hell

This is my Sanders Sides gift for @marsupials-of-mars for @sanderssidesgiftxchange!!! Basically all the sides are demons, hanging out in hell, but one of them (wonder who) is a teeny bit more chaotic than the others. (P.s I am gonna post on ao3 in a few days as well btw.) Btw I’m not great at tags so mega apologies if it still slipped through sorry.

Hell.

Lunch breaks round here weren’t boring- there was plenty to see and do in hell- it had just kind of reached a point for Janus where most of it had already been done. Hence why, no matter what his colleagues in the eighth circle said, there was something interesting about sitting down with this chatty little demon and watching the human flesh blister.

“Y’know what I think?” the younger demon, Remus, casually asked. Janus sighed. “I try not to.” “I think that everyone who ends up here is dumb.” He tossed a rat into his mouth “All you gotta do is act nice and suck up to the big daddy in the clouds- that’s it! Easier than boiling babies!” “No,” Janus raised his eyebrows. “Because it’s based on the nature of your soul not what you do.”

“Well that ain’t fair! What if you can’t HELP dreaming of torture and carving hearts into carcases (or whatever these idiots got in here for), like it’s in your pretty little head from day uno?” He wagged his finger at Janus. “They could never do anything wrong in their entire life but get sent here for naughty thinking… seems a lil shitty to me.” “Well apparently they can ‘repent their sins and get eternal salvation’.” Janus revelled in the other guys’ confusion for a moment. “Say sorry a lot and it’ll be ok.” “Ohhhhhhhhhhh right. Oh yeah ok.” Remus nodded. “Seems a bit suspicious, are you sure that’s a thing?”

A couple of screams got louder, and Janus turned to see a scrawny horned demon carrying a bucket and biting his lip. He had his arms comically wrapped all the way round it- an ugly neon yellow bucket with a ‘warning’ label (because hell needs health and safety standards)- and he was edging towards a nearby cliff.

“Hey Virge!” Remus called out “What’cha doin?” “I…” the horned demon tipped the bucket over the precipice as the screams intensified “…am adding a couple… of new souls… to the… whirlwind.” “Come get lunch, Virgil! It’s rat day!” he grinned, holding up a rodent “Also didn’t Pat tell you to do that like, a week ago?” “Yes but I’m also a dumb bitch.” Virgil sat down next to Remus. “Who’s this?” he glanced awkwardly at Janus. “I-” “HE’S my friend from the EIGHTH FUCKING CIRCLE!!!” Remus interrupted. “That not being the eighth circle of fucking, though it might well be…” “It’s not.” Janus clarified. “Yeah, I didn’t think it was.” Virgil smiled “I’m Virgil. I work with him under Patton? Second circle so-to-speak.” “Oh yeah I know the guy.”

Patton was the overseer for a lot of things in the lower levels. Not really a specific tier, or a specific expertise, but if you spent any time in one-five then you at least saw him. Most people ‘above’ him were aware of him in a general sense. Janus had met him twice? Three times? Yeah, if you counted bumping shoulders at the river Styx that one time, then it was three.

It made sense that Remus and Virgil worked for Patton- a lot of the younger demons did these days.

“UGH doesn’t everyone?” Remus whined “He is annoying!” “He’s your boss.” Janus observed. “Yes, and he’s annoying! I say we, I dunno, set fire to his ass or something…” Virgil shrunk into his seat “He’s our boss? Also he isn’t in charge of everyone, he has a boss right…” “Yeah, but uh…” Remus clicked his fingers “We were saying weren’t we?” he looked at Janus. “No. Whatever you think we were saying, we weren’t.” “People shouldn’t get here for wanting to do crimes!” he clapped his hands “I think we should break everyone out of hell.”

One week later: Hell

Work hours, naturally. Janus was trying to process new souls but honestly there was no signal and his tablet just wasn’t working.

“And they say eighth circle is an enviable job…” he tapped the screen “I- I’ll be with you in a moment, sorry about this.” He said to the guy in line to be thrown into the pit. “No, no, take your time.”

Finally, the sound of footsteps approaching! Janus looked up and smiled. “Ah, the tech guy! Yeah, there’s no service on this, so if you could-”

“Where’s Remus?” Janus smiled a little “Excuse me?” “Which circle can Remus be found in?” the tech guy kept his face stern (if he was the tech guy) “I know you know him.” “I’m working right now, or trying to, so come back when I’m not and then we can talk.”

The tech guy ripped the tablet out of Janus’ hands.

“Where can Remus be found?” “He isn’t an important demon-” “Lower tiers…” “Not what I mean, I meant you shouldn’t need him.” “But I do.” “Why?” “Irrelevant, just tell me where he is located.” “Well forgive me for thinking you’re going to hurt him, but I think you’re- you know- going to hurt him.” “Falseh- it’s inconsequential, I must find him.” Janus paused. “Fix my tablet, please. I believe you.”

The tech guy looked momentarily confused before realising what Janus meant and doing so. “Second circle, every time I’ve seen him.” Janus said “Is… is he in trouble?”

“Not with me, negative. I do not have the influence to get many people into trouble. As for the future…” he sighed “I would advise you to keep your distance from him, though that’s my observation.” He left off towards the exit of the tier.

Janus grimaced, looking at his now-working tablet.

“If it’s any consolation, it probably won’t affect you.” The guy in line said, making Janus jump in surprise. “Shit! I need to get all you processed, I am gonna get in trouble.” He smiled at the guy who now frowned. “Okay name and age at time of death…”

One month later: Hell

“Where’s-” “Remus?” Patton interrupted. “we’re dealing with it.” Janus chuckled “Will anyone down here actually let me finish a sentence?” “Of course, my apologies- what were you going to say?” “Where is Virgil?” he smirked. “He works in your general bracket, right?”

Patton breathed in sharply. No one had seen Virgil since Remus had started (conveniently) quietening down, and Janus knew it. Everybody knew it. His work tallies were still placed in- by who, nobody knew- but the second circle was widely lacking in Virgil.

“He’s doing some work on…” Patton’s eyes darted round rapidly “admin. He’s working on potential field experience up there, needs to put in the admin first.”

Janus raised his eyebrows, looking up towards the Earth. “The thing is, Pat, I’m Eighth circle. I specialize in fraud- you know what that is?” Patton nodded. “Deceit, Patton, lies. And every day suave fuckers queue up trying to tell me why I have ‘the wrong circle’ or why ‘they should get special treatment’ and guess what, Patton? It’s always bullshit.”

He stared straight at the other demon. “I have been doing this for too damn long to not have the fucking right to tear the throat of anyone, ANYONE, who dares to be as lousy as you at lying to me. So don’t ever tell me that Virgil is doing admin, FUCKING ADMIN, because no one here will believe- or miss- you.” He sighed. “Let’s start again. Where’s Virgil?”

Patton swallowed “I…”

“Do you not know?” Janus asked, “This will go a lot better for you if you just admit that you don’t know.” Patton shook his head “Not exactly, no.” he whispered, “We’re not sure where he is.” “Not sure or don’t know?” “We know he’s in hell… we know that, we’re aware of him but not where.” Janus pinched his forehead “Okay so out of all the nine circles of hell, you have no clue, none. Lovely.” “If Remus would co-operate…” Patton muttered. “If I would what now?”

Ah yes, Remus. Walking cheerily towards them, smile slightly wider than ever, living his best life. Of course it was most likely that he had been questioned on Virgil’s whereabouts, given their activities during the past month-or-so, but Remus had decided to ‘calm down’ now and had ‘no idea about anything that anyone was doing’. Or so he had said to Janus.

“Patton! You already know I told ya everything about Virge, didn’t I?” he grinned. “Of course, don’t doubt it.” Patton said, as if he were lecturing a child. “And you got all your silly little friends to stand down which was very good of you.” Remus clapped his hands. “Yes! I did that!” “BUT!” Patton wagged his finger “I think you may have forgotten places that Virgil could be- or things you knew about Virgil.” Remus gasped in shock “Oh no!” “We want to find him, you want to find him. Let’s do this together please.” Patton nodded towards Janus. “Isn’t that right?” “Huh?” Janus smirked “Oh yes, working together. Of course.” Patton smiled again, then turned to leave.

Remus groaned “Ugh, what an annoying piece of poop! Wanna feed him to a pack of rampaging squirrels!” “Where’s Virgil?” “Up your butt!” Remus laughed, “Just kidding, don’t check, I have no idea.” Janus nearly prayed out of sheer frustration. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Remus, unholy shit.” “Okay, okay!” he giggled. “So I might know… but I can’t tell you.” “Why?” Janus asked, confused, “You think I’m going to run to Patton?” Remus looked down “Well, Logan says you shouldn’t be involved in-”

“You’re still working with Logan? You said you’d told them to stand down…” Remus chuckled “You believe that?” “Well, no,” Janus admitted, “But I…what the fuck are you planning?” “Eh, just a little bit of trouble…” “What you did already was a ‘little bit of trouble’- hell, it got your supervisors’ attention, so actually it was kinda a bit more than that.” Janus explained. “I made a group?” “A militia.” Remus threw his arms up “Well, we barely did anything! Pat WAY overreacted!” “Not… if you’re actually planning something he didn’t.” “So you are on his side?”

“I…” Janus looked away. “I don’t want this going south. For you, Virge, us. That’s the bargain you make when you leave heaven, to look out for you and yours. Get what is considered ‘best’ down here.” “But what if what is ‘mine’ is…” Remus looked wistfully at the hurricane of souls swirling around them “Never mind. See you around!”

He made his way off towards the offices where he worked, leaving Janus listening to the winds scream for mercy.

One year later: Hell

“Here.” Janus held out a bucket of blood that spat angrily at both of the demons, “from management.” Roman didn’t look up. “Chuck it in, before they get too comfortable.”

Janus peered down at the bubbling lake, almost glad to see that some parts of hell hadn’t changed that much. He poured the new blood in and watched the souls writhe- no hope of Remus for this lot. Though somehow, in some corners, they screamed out his name. How? Patton had nearly torn his horns off the first time he’d heard it, because how? How could they know about him? And that was the problem when the fresh blood was added and the screaming began anew.

What they screamed for.

Roman rolled his eyes “I’ve never wanted them to stop more…” Janus scoffed “You should see Patton, he has lost it.” “How so?” “Apparently,” he began, “He’s been inventing and subjecting harsher tortures for any souls who mention his name- or the others.” Roman chuckled at this “Well! Woe betide any gossip outlet, then…” “He’s getting them shut down, I think.” Roman gasped “His higher-ups can’t approve of that- right?”

Janus raised his eyebrows “His higher-? Roman, after the whole, well, you know… after Remus did all that, his only higher ups were a couple of folks in what used to be ninth circle.” He looked to the lake of blood. “Now? I don’t think some of them would even challenge him…”

“Oh.” Roman smiled. “How long’s that going to last?” “What?” “Patton- in charge? Until things are figured out, right?”

At this Janus started to laugh. He kept laughing and laughing till Roman joined in then realised it just wasn’t funny because it never had been.

“Forever.” He scowled. “He’s going to stabilize and reorganize the layers he has, take back the ones he doesn’t, put the souls back into torment, then execute the demons. All of them. Remus, Virgil, Logan, Remy, ALL OF THEM WILL DIE. Painfully. And then! He will rule over hell forever.”

“That’s a bit cynical.” “Well EXCUSE ME-” “No, I just thought- being an ex-friend of Remus- you might’ve been more cheerful.” Janus bit his lip. “We weren’t friends because we were even remotely similar. We were friends because I was bored, work was boring.” “Okay, makes sense!” Roman smiled. “So we’re all gonna end up working under Patton (if we aren’t already) and it’s gonna be aaaahhh ooohh not good very bad?” “Little bit more than that, but yes.” “Ah so more painfully terrible every moment we’re awake?” “Yeah.” “Hm… why not leave?” Roman casually asked. You know, casually.

Janus scoffed “Because of the whole dying thing?” he gestured wildly “I can’t go off on my own; I don’t stand a chance, I can’t repent; you have to mean that shit, and I can’t go with Remus and his crew because- because…” he looked down “I’m sorry Roman but the reason I never got too involved in the first place is because what he plans just isn’t going to work. He can’t win- he’ll die, and if I get involved then I will too and the point of all of this,” he spread his arms round “Is so you can look out for yourself, so you don’t have to be selfless and give up everything for someone else. Why do I have to be ashamed for not wanting to be a martyr?”

“I… you don’t.” “Exactly” Janus snapped. “If you truly believe that this is what’s better,” Roman added. Janus whistled “No, that’s…” he shook his head “Anyway. Whatever happens, they can’t be faulted for trying.” “No, absolutely not! Wait we are talking Remus and-” “Of course I’m talking about Remus’ lot.” Roman nodded “Ah, well yes- I agree. They’ve done a surprisingly competent job, all of them.”

They both paused for a moment. “It’s because they have the tech guy.” “It’s coz of the tech guy.” Roman agreed “I mean it’s not like the rest of his crew can’t organize things, but…” “It’s the tech guy.” Janus concluded “I hear he orchestrated the ‘Virgil plot’.” “Exactly!” Roman exclaimed “and that was wow, just impressive as anything (if you don’t mind me saying), like- hiding Virgil for that long to steal that many souls? If they don’t win it’ll be a little depressing.” “It’ll be more than that.” Janus smiled solemnly.

“It’ll be the end of life as we know it.”

Ten Years Later: Italy.

“Virge!” Janus could hear someone calling outside of the cavern “can you get that thick ass over here, please?” That ‘someone’ was probably Remus. “Janus, that includes you too!” “How does ‘Virge’ include me?” he called back. “Don’t question the king of crimes!”

Reluctantly, Janus stood up and wandered out to the frosty mountainside. He grimaced- the cold bits of hell had never been his favourite, even when they flaunted ‘coveted positions’ and such. Still.

“You want a coffee?” Remy asked. “Please.” He gestured over to a nearby hut “The coffee machine is right there, honey.” “But I never get the ratio right…” Janus pleaded. Remy chuckled and sipped his drink “Girl, that just ain’t my problem!”

“Janus!” Remus grabbed his arm suddenly and yanked him away “You sexy motherfucker, I called you an AGE ago! Now come on!” “Right, what do you need?” “Emotional stability…” Remus placed his hand on his chest “Just kidding! So basically, the waterpump’s broken (but Logan’s “dealing with that”), we received word that Patton has guns now- so we need better defences just in case- and also Patton has guns so yeah. Can we have those please?” Janus’ eyes widened. “Ok so is Patton-with-a-gun confirmed, or a rumour? Because hell basically never deploys projectiles.” “Are you sure I can’t be used as a projectile?” Remus half-spoke aloud “Yeet me at them.” “You’re getting distracted.” “Oh. Yes, it’s confirmed. One billion percent.” Janus pinched his forehead “Well, somehow I doubt that statistic, but okay. Let’s work on anti-gun strategy, defence, etc. because it is possible they’ll get hold of unholy projectiles specifically for us.” “Why can’t we get guns?” “Maybe one day, but if you actually think I trust you with a GUN-” “Fair point”

“Um, I was called?” Virgil was stood in the snow, watching them talk. They both jumped. “Yeah like, FIFTY YEARS AGO!” Remus cried. “Oh I’M sorry, look I did show up- it’s just I didn’t want to interrupt…” he trailed off. Janus smiled. “That’s understandable.” “That’s understandable.” Remus mimicked “Ooh, whatever, we were just chatting! No rules on chatting! Also what are your thoughts on guns?” “I think we should focus on hiding for now…” “BORING! Guns?” “Let him speak” Janus warned. Virgil looked down “I mean, our last skirmish went well, and we are getting more to join… but right now I think we should focus on what we have. And that advantage is mystery. Let’s keep it.” “Ooh mystery! Spooky!” Remus wiggled his arms. “No, I get what you mean.” Janus nodded “Like how you got so many in the beginning because they were intrigued, people will talk if we stay off the map for a while.” Remus tutted “Oh, you. Being sensible.” He frowned “We’ve been lucky, haven’t we? To live?” Janus smiled “Like this? Absolutely.” “Yeah, we should go under. Be sneaky! Recruit people who aren’t dicks and so on.”

Logan agreed with the idea for once, which was probably because it was Virgil’s, but also he stated: “We have already been living ‘both figuratively and literally underground’ so it makes an appropriate amount of sense to make this an officially secret place of dwelling.”

He also agreed with Janus’ gun-plan. This, of course, being that they focus on defence and perhaps work on getting weapons of their own in the future. Though he was a little heavier on the “no gun-wielding-Remus” stance, stating: “On no condition can he be allowed a gun, none. Others in our company- fine. I will trust from the upper-most generals to the smallest child amongst us with a projectile, but never Remus. Oh and can we consider adding Remy to that list?”

Janus didn’t bother to question the part about trusting children with guns, he simply nodded and got to work on defence, sometimes smiling at Remus as he did.

And it didn’t matter what anyone was or wasn’t doing, Remus always grinned away.

One Century Later

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cosplayinamerica · 4 years ago

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COSPLAY THEME PAGE : ShareMyCosplay.com

Tell us about ShareMyCosplay, what was the genesis of the ShareMyCosplay?

Share My Cosplay has gone through quite the journey to get to what you see today. I can still remember the day that I came up with the idea that would eventually lead to Share My Cosplay. I was eating lunch with a few friends at my day job. A friend of mine showed me a cosplay of Jessica Nigri as Pikachu, and because I worked in IT, for some reason had an idea of doing a website related to cosplay. The actual website took a while to set up, but I started off slowly, with an initial launch on social media. We launched with Tumblr and Twitter, slowly building an audience. Then eventually a little bit later adding Facebook, and eventually much later introducing Instagram into the “family’. Eventually we added the website and have been going strong since then. We’ve of course made tons of adjustments over the years, and most recently started adding content on YouTube. It’s been a great ride so far, and hopefully it will continue.

What was your first experience with cosplay as well as the convention scene?

Like a lot of people who are into gaming and comic books, I was aware of cosplay, but didn’t really know much about it. It was only after looking into the idea of starting a site that I really got to know what goes on behind the scenes. It was meeting and talking to people in the scene that made me realize what an amazing community of people are involved. That is why I have continued the site for so long. As our social media following grew, I got to know more and more of the cosplayers, and was so happy I was able to use what I had created to help them gain more exposure. Share My Cosplay exists as a place where all cosplayers can have their work properly showcased.

As for conventions. While I live in the capital city of Canada, Ottawa is a relatively small city of one million people. Conventions have only really made it big in the last 5 years or so and before that were never a really big thing. I had travelled to other cities within Canada for some conventions, but those were mainly toy based conventions, so there would just be a handful of devoted cosplayers hanging out. It wasn’t until much later, when conventions started to take off, that our city got it’s own “Comic-con”. Then things exploded quickly. When our first Ottawa Comic-con launched, I was there day one, and the lineup was out of the building and wrapped around the whole building. I think it took a couple of hours to actually get into the convention floor. I could only assume it was similar to something like entering SDCC, but on a much smaller scale.

So while that has been a staple in our city for the last 10 years, I’ve also been traveling to Montreal Comic-con, which is a little bigger. Since there are maybe fewer conventions in Canada, people seem to come from great distances to show off the cosplays they had worked out. The dream has always been to try and get to SDCC, but that hasn’t happened yet. Travel is so expensive from Canada.

So for the short term I had set my sights on visiting NYCC, which is a “quick” drive from my area of Canada. However like all plans, they fell through. I had plans to go to NYCC and E3 in 2020, but of course those fell through because of what happened around the world. I miss conventions. One because they are such a great way to meet and interact with the cosplayers, and two, it’s one of the primary places we get content to share on our site and pages. So that has been lacking for us recently. Fingers crossed things will get back to normal soon.

How has cosplay changed over the years in your perspective?

Like everything you get to know, it evolves and grows over time. Being knee deep in cosplay all the time (my inbox once had 100+gb of cosplay submissions), I have certainly seen it change over the years. Obviously cosplays have become more elaborate in construction. Things like LEDs are so cheap now, I always find it amazing when people incorporate them into a costume. So the cosplay builds just get bigger and better every year. Also I find the resources on the internet have gotten better. Cosplayers are now able to find more detailed pictures of what they want to create, giving them a way better idea of what and how they will do it for a certain character.

Another thing that has changed, are the absolutely stunning Cosplay edits you’ll see on social media. So why the cosplay photographers have always been an integral part of the equation (we try hard to tag them when people include their details on submissions), the level that the editing on pictures has changed over the years is dramatic. You’ll often see the time-lapsed photo creations on Social, and they are just mesmerizing to watch. People put so much time into creating these worlds to help elevate the cosplay to the next level. That has certainly changed over the years. That being said, we still love regular shots of cosplay too, the amount of photographers that specialize in cosplay has jumped a lot too.

In general, it seems cosplay has evolved from a simple hobby where you could throw something together to wear to a weekend convention, to a full time gig where people spend months on at a time for each one of their creations.

How has ShareMyCosplay changed over the years?

In my eyes SMC has evolved greatly over the years. As the editor there have been two major changes, and I think it has improved the way we do things. The first thing would be, when we first started I used to go “collect” the cosplay that we shared. So I had to either go find it, or reach out to people. I spent a lot of time tracking down cosplay to share, that I personally thought was cool or very creative. As you can imagine this took a lot of time. So this has changed dramatically over the past 3 - 5 years. Now I’m happy to say that we are 99.9% based on submissions from users. So while there is less than 1% of content that we do go out and ask for, it is basically all based on what people send us to share. So that is why you see such a great variety of cosplay content on our pages. There is a downside to this in a way, as compared to some other pages out there that only feature certain types of cosplayers, some people enjoy that a bit more and those pages can have more of a following then we do. However we are really happy with the content we put out.

Then the second big change, that has certainly led to better content for our pages, is the introduction of automation. When SMC first started, I had to do everything manually. Like I would be on Twitter or my phone doing everything live, and sharing items. It took up a lot of my time, and greatly affected my personal life. At times I think I must have been crazy, as this is a free service that we provide, and I was putting hours into each day. Now of course things have changed and the Social Media aspect of SMC is way easier to manage. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all have official tools available that allow you to schedule your posts. So you can easily take an hour or 2 and work on several days of a week at the same time, or if you were really organized, schedule the whole week. So I’ve learned to embrace this a bit more and learn the ins and outs of it. This leads to a more constant stream of content that our followers seem to enjoy. Which seems to lead to more engagement from our followers.

What’s the best part / worst part of running a cosplay theme page?

The best part has obviously been meeting & interacting with the community throughout the years. We do our best to present a positive place where everyone can share their cosplay creations. We’ve been invited to some really cool events over the years, and our team has been able to go to a lot of conventions all over the world. It’s been a fun ride.

The worst part for me personally, is that while our team has grown and shrank over the years, I do most of the work by myself. Sharemycosplay.com is run by a single person, me. Also for the most part there is a single person doing all of the social media. So I do my best to have content up all of the time, but sometimes life gets in the way. We’ve put a few calls out for people that might want to help with content creation for the site, but sometimes it’s hard to attract people interested in helping. Right now I’d love a few writers that could write articles that I could wrap around cosplay posts for the page. We will have to see how that turns out.

What future plans do you have for ShareMyCosplay?

I’m always looking to expand Sharemycosplay.com with new content. During the pandemic I’ve been off my normal schedule so unfortunately updates have been a bit slow, but hoping to get back to things. With conventions off the table for now for the most part, I’m trying to move in different directions. I’ve recently tried to put more effort into YouTube, but even that has been impacted by the Pandemic, so I’ve leaned more on gaming content. That is going to change as I’ve started a new initiative that I just launched on our page a few days ago called “CosplaySELF''. Basically we are looking to have cosplayers interview themselves, and us edit the footage into the “episodes' ' featuring 3 cosplayers. Hopefully those will start to be live very soon. We are already into the editing phase and hope to have the first episode live soon, over on our YouTube page. Keep your eyes peeled. Hopefully, as long as people show interest, this is something we will continue to create and upload on a regular schedule.

Is there anything that wasn’t covered you like to talk about?

Lastly I want to thank you for taking the time to include Share My Cosplay in this interview. It really means a lot when someone else in the community that you respect, takes a moment out of their busy life to recognize the work you’ve done. There have been times in the past where I have considered possibly giving up doing SMC, but getting some recognition really helps put things in perspective and allows me to continue on. Hopefully Share My Cosplay will continue to grow over the coming years, and continue as a great tool for all cosplayers to use.

https://www.sharemycosplay.com/

#cosplay theme page #cosplay interview #cosplay page interview

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captainelsaeverdeen · 5 years ago

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I like me better when I’m with you.

Okay so! I never considered writing on this blog, but I just had the cutest idea e v e r and I decided to do something about it. I used to write a lot but I stopped to publish anything years ago. Maybe it’s time to come back. Who knows! For now I just wanted to see if someone would like it! English is not my first language so pretty, pretty please forgive me if you find any mistakes :(

summary: based on ‘To All The Boys I Loved Before’. Y/N Henderson used to be in love a couple of times. This time she’s sure it’s something bigger, something serious. Her love for Jonathan Byers is unlimited, untamed and endless. At least she thought so. You can read Part 2 Here.

We knew that it was wrong. That he was betrothed to my best friend. But if this isn’t what he wanted then why did he come to the field of desire? It was faded, that we should meet like this. So when his lips touch my neck to put a gentle kiss on it…

“Mom asks you to wash the dishes” Dustin was standing in the doorway of your room, smiling silly. He presented his full teeth with pride, moving his eyebrows in a funny way. “It’s not my turn” you said and slowly turned over a page of book your brother interrupted you from reading. “Yours, if you’re planning on going out with Nancy and Jonathan today” he shrugged his shoulders innocently. “Excuse me?” you turned your head so fast that your neck hurt. “Says who?”

“Says me. You forced me to vacuum last week when I wanted to go to the arcade, but it was your turn. So if you don’t want to be late, you better hurry” “I hate you” you sighned putting the book down. You ran you fingers through the cover of it with two lovers, leaning towards each other just before the kiss. Dustin was still standing in the doorway.

“Do they not mind when you are going to their dates?” He asked suddenly. “They don’t call it ‘dates’ when I’m with them. They have time for each other, but we’re still friends. Just because they’re together doesn’t mean… that I’ll stop being their friend” you said. “Whatever you say. I think that’s weird. Totally weird. I wouldn’t want to take Mike or Lucas or Will if I wanted to meet my girl”. “No one asked for your opinion, you abominable little shit!” you screamed going to the kitchen, aggressively putting plates in the sink. They didn’t deserve such terrible treatment, but Dustin was right. It was weird. Weird as fuck.

After the infamous party at Tina’s last Halloween night, when Nancy broke up with Steve Harrington, and rumours about them didn’t go silent for a good month she and Jonathan became extremely close. You always spent time with them separately. When Nancy and her boyfriend wanted to be alone, you would watch movies on the couch at Joyce Byers’ house. When Jonathan promised Will to take him for a ride in the car listening to The Clash, Nancy combed your hair as Donna Summer filled her room with her songs. But after Halloween, everything changed. Nancy started sitting between you and Jonathan as you guys were watching ‘The Shining’ with a bowl of popcorn. And Jonathan knew ‘I Feel Love’ by heart, although he hated Donna Summer. Something was wrong. Something was diffrent.

By Christmas, everyone was sure that Jonathan and Nancy started dating. They spent Christmas Eve together and then announced their relationship to you together. And that’s not when your heart started beating faster when you saw him. Not when they were holding hands, not when they kissed every time before the car started from the driveway when they came to your house. Not until Nancy Wheeler took your seat on the couch at Joyce’s house. It wasn’t until then that something unimaginable, something wrong happened, something that should never have happened. You started to have, a little, small, tiny crush on your best friend.

And it wasn’t that you were jealous of Nancy. She was a great girl, smart and deserving of a wise, loving boy, which Jonathan was. But the heart is a treacherous tool. You could leave it with a cat for a month, thinking everything would be all right, and when you get back, you’d find that it threw it out the window. Because it can never be trusted. Admitting your feelings was not an option. You could lose Nancy or Jonathan. Well, Robin and Dustin would still be staying by your side, of course, but losing someone close hurts too much. Too much to be dealt with by an organ that throws the cat out the window. So smiling is okay, pretending everything’s okay is okay. As long as no one guesses and stupid feelings go away.

Not for the first time, right?

“Y/N, honey, what are you still doing here? Jonathan’s here” Mom came to the kitchen. “Ask the youngest” you rolled my eyes and kissed her on the cheek, running out of the house. Nancy pressed the alarm button a couple of times, dropping the window on the passenger side. “I don’t think you’re so excited to see Jason Voorhees for the fourth time since you’re two minutes late” she said, putting her wrist with the watch on it out the window.

“Maybe if my brother weren’t such a troublesome goddamn gremlin, you guys wouldn’t have to wait for so long” you fastened your belt and smiled at Jonathan. “Tell me about it” Nancy rolled her eyes. Her hand was clenching on Jonathan’s hands, their intertwined fingers were on his thigh. He was probably just letting her go to change gear, to grab her hand back, wanting to touch her. You smiled slightly to yourself. “I’m a little offended” you hit the back of Nancy’s chair a little bit. “You questioned my love for Jason, knowing he’s the man of my dreams. I wouldn’t miss this movie now or ever”.

“Man, you have a strange taste in men” Jonathan twisted his head.

Oh boy, if you only knew.

“Who’s gonna pick them for you when I’m out of college?” Nancy said quietly. When you were a year younger than them, you had to reckon they would be gone soon, but the thought still was terrible. You opened the window and put my hand out, feeling the cold wind on your fingers. “Robin’s doing great” you smiled. “She likes Michael Myers”.

“I’m begging you. He’s not even half as terrible as Freddie” Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and my father is Stephen King” you snorted. Nancy smiled a little. “And Robin’s driving terribly” Jonathan got ripped off. “Whatever my life depends on it, I’d rather give my car to Carol Perkins, she can at least turn around.

“I gotta get off so you two can both stop making fun of her?” “Oh no. We don’t want Jason to get you here… on a dark road… near the woods…” Nancy wiped out and turned to you with her hands ready to attack. You hit her hands to turn around so she didn’t even think to touch or tickle you. “You can ride with me” Jonathan shrugged his arm. “I like Robin, but your life is in danger when she’s behind the wheel. I’m not going anywhere yet.”

There it was. The stomach’s fickles, the heat on your cheeks and the smile and the awful awareness of how wrong it was. How inappropriate and how unfair it was to Nancy, who sat so close to you, that she could count your moles if she turned around. But before she even thought about him, he was yours. Not exactly, of course. But when Will went missing, he didn’t turn to her for help first. He wasn’t at her door in the middle of the night, rambling about how his mom is getting crazy. He was always a lonely ship drifting in the dark sea, and you were his anchor, which drifted in time to hold him.

Well, once Jason had killed everyone he was supposed to kill, and for most of the movie, Jonathan and Nancy spent most of the time giggling and whispering to each other, after looking at their inseparably intertwined hands, it was time to go home.

It’s not that you wanted to steal your best friend’s boyfriend. You were super happy for Nancy. She deserves a great guy like Jonathan. So it was time for another letter. Fifth, if you believe your stupid heart. “How’s the movie?” Dustin asked when I walked by his room. He was only wearing one sock and reading a comic book. “Didn’t you faint from the excess corn syrup blood?”

“I’m not you” you showed him your tongue. “I didn’t forget about the dishes!” “Oh, you did! The pan is still dirty!” Dustin screamed, but I already locked the door to my room and sat at my desk, hiding my face in my hands. After a few awfully long seconds and listening to the bang of an owl outside the window, I pulled the card out of the drawer looking for a black pen.

Dear Jonathan Byers…

These letters are your biggest secret. You weren’t going to send the letter, it was just for you to understand how you were feeling. But really, you guess it was mainly about how sometimes you imagined what it would’ve been like if you’d realized how you felt about them sooner. To all of them. There are five of them: Chris from summer camp, Stanley from the homecoming, Ralph from the neighborhood who lived across the street for just three months, Steve Harrington from high school, and Jonathan.

You’ve seen Chris once in you life, for two weeks in the riverside forest. Stanley was the only one who asked you to dance, seeing you sitting alone on a bench. Ralph moved into Hawkins a few years ago, but his parents decided to go back to Florida. Steve… well, he became quite a different person when you went to high school. And Jonathan… Jonathan is still an infinite chapter. A chapter in book that’s too beautiful to finish reading it early.

You write a letter when you have a crush so intense that you don’t know what else to do. Rereading your letters reminds you of how powerful your emotions can be, how all-consuming. You hide them between the vinyls on a shelf above the bed, where no one will ever find them. Robin would say you’re being dramatic, but drama can be fun…

“What are you doing?” Dustin asked suddenly, entering the room without knocking. “Nothing” you smiled, covering the unfinished part of the letter with your elbow. “Your room is a mess” brother looked around. “And listen, about that pan-”

“Good night, Dustin. I hope you will be dreaming of something nice” you smiled sweetly, showing him the way out. It wasn’t until he left that you finished pouring your feelings onto the paper that you put the letter into the envelope, addressed it and put it between the vinyl, where there were four similar envelopes. Each one was for another boy, who would always be a part of you.

Yeah, drama can be fun. Just as long nobody else knows about it.

“So you’re telling me” Robin stopped halfway down the track. She didn’t care about getting a pass at the PE, anyway, you too. The coach sent you an indulgent look, and your friend just shrugged her shoulders. The other girls ran past you, rubbing your shoulders, but besides that, they didn’t pay much attention to you. “That they were on another date, taking you with them again? Why don’t you just say no to them?”

“I don’t know” Robin groaned and grabbed her side. “What’s going on?” “My body reacts badly to physical effort” she muttered and sat on the treadmill, pulling her legs out. “Some running won’t hurt you” Becky Miller snorted, running alongside us. “Running is humiliating” Robin didn’t even look at her. “Dude, you have to stop this. Every fucking time you come to me and tell me how badly you’re feeling, you’re the one who’s responsible for it. Tell him finally how you feel. Nothing’s gonna happen. There will be no earthquake. The aliens won’t find their way to Earth. And you will finally fall asleep and free yourself from that strange triangle”.

“I don’t want it to be weird between us” you shruged your shoulders.”If I push them off, I’ll start losing them. They’ll find that the two of us are actually better off and… forget how cool it used to be.”

“That’s why relationships sucks” Robin moaned and grabbed your hand. Coach had already started walking towards us, but he was still far away. “But hey… Nancy is your friend. Jonathan is your friend. They care about you. They love you. Maybe not as much as I do, but they do. You don’t have to worry. Everything’s gonna be okay, just… just don’t let it break you. Okay?”

“Okay” you smiled. Robin smiled too and turned her back, frowning her eyebrows. “What’s Harrington doing here? He’s all sweaty and, oh, my God, he looks gross, but shouldn’t he have basketball practice now?”

“Hey, Henderson!” Steve has spoken to you. You lifted your head and swallowed. Steve hasn’t talked to you since you guys were thirteen. Damn thirteen. “On a scale from one to ten, how bad this looks like?” you asked when your hands started shaking. “I’m hovering somewhere in the high thirties” Robin responded quietly, standing up. “Me?” you made sure and Steve nodded his head. His hair was in terrible disarray, but although it was wet and stuck to his forehead, it still looked impressive. He wasn’t angry or upset, which was good, but… but he didn’t look happy either.

“If you need me, I’ll be in the nurse’s office” Robink winked and walked away. “Look, I just wanted to say that I really…” Steve licked his lips and wiped his forehead with the palm of his hand. What the hell was going on here. “Goddamn, this is the first time I’ve been in situation like this… I appreciate it, but it’s never gonna happen”.

“I’m sorry, what?” You asked. Why did Robin have to leave? Why did she have to leave you? “From what I remember that kiss was hot, you know, for being in seventh grade” Steve said slowly, leading the eye somewhere outside of you, just to avoid looking you in the eye. “And I think it’s really cool you think I have golden specks in my eyes. And that my hair is gorgeous. But this is a strange moment for me… I just broke up with Nancy, you know… Becky is… she’s fine, she seems fine. I may not be ready at all…”

You stopped listening to him and looked at his hands. You don’t know what you expected, maybe they will shake as much as yours, but no. He was holding the envelope. A white, slightly old envelope, with his name written with your writing. With your pen. And your hand.

“At first I thought it was just Dustin’s stupid joke, but that dipshit probably doesn’t even know how to write…” Steve kept on talking, but your mind was somewhere else. It went all the way from school to your house, tossing the whole room in it’s memory, wondering hhow did the letters get in sight. How did they even reach the people they were never supposed to reach?

“I don’t want to be an asshole, and I certainly don’t want you… I don’t know, to feel bad about it, but…” Steve’s voice was drilling into your brain, and your stomach started to shrink painfully. Maybe it’d have managed, if it wasn’t for the fact that Jonathan was just going to the pitch, and he also was holding the envelope.

Oh, no.

#steve harrington imagine #steve harringotn #jonathan byers imagine #jonathan byers #steve harrington x reader #stranger things #stranger things imagine

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centuryofdean · 4 years ago

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Of Food and Comfort - Part 10

Author Note:: SMUT Alert. Like... I got carried away.. again. Now that I am rereading it before posting, like damn. I’m wondering what the hell got into me and what I can do to write something like this better next time. Criticism is always welcome! *As long as it isn’t left in a degrading / hurtful way.*

Author Disclaimer:: Marvel and its characters are not mine. I take no credit. Instead I claim the maybe not so great plot, writing and characteristics of the reader insert character. I am not a die hard Marvel fan, I haven’t read all the comics, but have watched the movies. I may get some things wrong, so please don’t hate me. I also have been incorporating Old Norse as terms of endearment.

Summary:: You worked for Tony Stark as a…mechanic of sorts. Anything around the Avengers compound that needed a technicians touch, you handled. With working and living there, you had grown to be friendly with the super heroes. Of course you had grown to have feelings for one of them. The muscled Thunder God to be exact.

Rated:: M for Mature. Please do not read this story unless you are 18+. Smut. NSFW

Pairing:: Thor x Reader

Before you knew it, January and February came and left. It was a little saddening that time seemed to be flying, but every day was just as beautiful and magical as Christmas.

The Avengers weren’t called away on any missions, and Thor hadn’t been called back to Asgard. This left you with a month of bliss with him. Just like before, Thor followed you around the base as you worked, he helped while you cooked dinners. Only now there was kisses.

A lot of kisses.

A while ago when you were making dinner, Thor entered the kitchen and zeroed in on you. Before you could even utter a ‘hello’ he had grasped you by the hips and lifted you up and onto the counter top of the island. Thankfully there wasn’t anything on the island, because surely it would have been pushed to the floor with the force of his actions. In seconds he descended on your lips.

Every kiss you both shared was enough to make you lift off the ground with the amount of butterflies in your stomach. This one on the other hand was—it was hot. He wasn’t frantic, but each movement of his lips and tongue was precise. Warm hands worked up under your shirt to trace the skin of your sides, ghosting over your bra cups slightly before dipping back down.

Unconsciously you worked your legs open and had the heels of your feet digging into Thor’s thighs while you tried to pull him closer. A fire ignited in your core, and the friction only made it burn hotter and warm you from the inside out.

“What has gotten into you,” you gasped for breath while he kissed your neck and rutted into your center. Each movement worked you up more and more.

He didn’t respond at first, just nibble at your collar bone and pulling your body tightly into his grasp.

“I was blessed with a very nice dream,” he murmured.

Your hand reached down towards the button of his jeans, fiddling with the button for a second before popping it open.

“Come on guys!”

Thor immediately pulled away, facing away from you and the entrance of the kitchen. Clint was standing there with one hand plastered across his eyes and the other on his hips, foot tapping fast in frustration. “Could you at least do this kind of thing somewhere like in your rooms, or in the movie room or something? Somewhere that no one will be likely to interrupt, like me,” he muttered.

When Valentine’s Day rolled around, you made a little dinner for the both of you and ate it in his rooms. There wasn’t a lot romantic about it, you had a feeling Thor wasn’t aware of the holiday for couples and that was fine by you. It truly felt like a made up holiday just for cards and candy sales. Romantic gestures should be made year round, not just on one day.

Instead the both of you ate, then cuddled and watched a few movies.

Well, you tried to watch movies, but Thor’s wandering hands kept distracting you with the small images he traced on your stomach and thighs. Eventually you both ended up wrapped in one another, yanking at each other’s clothes between frantic kisses.

Even though you were determined to finally have sex with him that night, Thor pleased you with his mouth and silver tongue instead. When you asked him later why he still hasn’t taken the next step, he simply said it wasn’t the right time.

It was now rounding on the third month of being wrapped up in the life of Thor, when the team finally had a mission to do. Everyone was either running or walking with purpose through the base either collecting their gear or looking for something that was out of place. Thor simply grabbed the hammer and strode towards the doors out to the grounds. The quinjet that was used for missions was kept out on a helipad out behind the building.

Since the moment FRIDAY sent the message out through the intercoms, you were trailing behind Thor. It was just a mission, he had been on dozens of them with the team. Still you couldn’t help but feel a little off kilter at the idea of him—and everyone else—going out to fight again. Everything had been so nice and calm for the past few months and you enjoyed it too much.

Soon the rest of the team were filing out of the building towards you both and the quinjet. Thor turned and walked a few yards out away from you before thrusting Mjölnir in the air. In return lightning shattered down from the sky and struck the sleek Asgardian metal and flowed through Thor. Before your eyes, his clothes changed from the relaxed jeans and t-shirt he adorned, to the dense Asgardian leather and metal you had only seen him wear and handful of times. His hair even erupted into braids leading from his forehead down to a low pony tail at the base of his neck.

Was it possible you could get Mjölnir to do a cool costume and hair change on you? Maybe when he got back you could ask him to show you how.

Thor rushed forward and wrapped you in his arms for a bruising kiss. When he finally pulled away you couldn’t help but smile. His bright blue eyes twinkled when he glanced down at you.

“Be careful,” you patted his shoulder. “I’ll have some chilli ready for you all when you get back.”

“Is chilli a soup,” he questioned.

“Depends who you ask,” you laughed. The others were boarding the ship, calling for Thor to join them. You quickly hugged him closer to you and kissed his neck softly. “I love you big guy.”

Thor finally pulled away from your embrace, holding you at arms length while his now steel grey eyes looked between yours. A slow smile worked its way onto his face before he kissed you quickly, “And I love you as well drotting.”

Then he was gone, jogging towards the ship that had already started and was hovering a few feet off of the ground.

You watched the jet take off, still wrapped up in the thought that you both just said you loved each other.

One Week Later

Worrying wasn’t something you resorted to usually, but oddly when it came to the God of Thunder all you seemed to do was worry. You tried to tell yourself he was a God, and had the rest of the team with him. Everything was fine and the mission was just taking longer than normal. So you tried to keep yourself busy.

FRIDAY had compiled a list of things for you to work on to keep your mind busy. There were numerous tasks around base that needed an installation, tune up or a complete repair. This started around day four, from the moment you woke up until the moment you went to sleep you were tinkering on things. It worked all too well. One time while trying to replace the brakes on one of Tony’s Roadsters you fell asleep underneath it between brakes.

You had just showered and was thinking about ordering in a pizza when FRIDAY came to life on the intercoms. “The Team is on their way back Miss L/N. Estimated time of arrival is five hours from now,” the AI stated.

Five hours was a little short for you to make chilli, but if you cooked it on high in the crockpots you should be able to get it done just as they arrived.

The hours flew by. You had prepared the chilli shortly after hearing FRIDAY’s message and it was almost ready. Everyone would want to shower and change before eating anyway you would think. Smiling to yourself, you waited by the door eagerly to greet everyone when the reached the living room.

Tony was the first to get through the door, he didn’t look injured but just extremely tired. Soon everyone was piling in the living room, some a little roughed up but all tired. Thor was the last to get in the door, and you started to stampede to him with excitement of seeing him.

Just as you were about to throw your arms around him, you noticed that blood coated his left shoulder.

“What happened,” you gasped, lightly using a finger to lift at his shredded armor to see the shallow wound.

He didn’t answer but pulled you to him and kissed you soundly. After he pulled away, he smiled through a hiss of pain as he shrugged, “The enemy got in a few good blows.”

“Chilli is in the kitchen,” you called out as everyone started to disperse, “help yourselves!”

Thor started towards the hall towards his room. “Schat,” he said. Accustomed to the nickname—though you didn’t know what it meant still—you turned back to him. “I am going to bathe myself. Will you bring food for us both to my rooms? I would like to take a nap after we eat.”

Wanting to give him enough time to shower, you grabbed a few Tupperware bowls and lids to carry the chilli in. After filling both bowls up, you sprinkled in some bacon and cheese and put the top back on. A few slices of sourdough bread and some drinks later, you were making your way to Thor’s room with a small picnic of sorts. The shower was still running when you dropped off the food and left to your own room to change into something to sleep in. If Thor was going to take a nap, you might end up taking one as well.

Just as you settled yourself against his dozen or so pillows, Thor emerged from the bathroom with steam covered in just basketball shorts. The way he smiled when he saw you caused you to smile. One week away made you yearn for his touch and affection. You missed the way he smiled at you, or the way his eyes would almost twinkle when he looked into your own. The gash on his shoulder didn’t look as bad as before, though it should probably still get bandaged.

Thor settled himself down on the bed just as you got up. “Where are you going,” he asked confused, reaching out for you when you slid past him towards the bathroom.

“To get something for your war wound,” you replied as you riffled through his medicine cabinet. Tony kept everything stocked here, bless his soul.

On your knees, you leaned over Thor’s side and carefully used some topical ointments, gauze and tape to cover his gash. He hissed once or twice while you rubbed in the ointment but did not complain.

After he was bandaged, you settled in and passed him his food. Each of you ate in relative silence, but quickly. Your mind stopped racing and calmed its worry the moment he walked through the living room door. Even with blood on him, your worry reduced significantly. Surprisingly you had forgotten your small conversation about loving one another before he left. Now—well now it was all you could think about now that he was here and settled.

He must have meant it, Thor doesn’t typically say things he doesn’t mean. That being said, you felt ecstatic at the fact that he did feel the same as you; that he loved you.

“Ah,” he smiled after taking in his last spoonful, “this is chilli. I like this one.”

You laughed softly, using the bread to scoop up the last of the tomato sauce in your bowl. Thor collected the empty dishes and set them aside on one of his nightstands. You mentioned you were going to put them away, but he grunted, pushing you back into the pillows and curling up against your side with his head on your chest. “Not now schat,” he grumbled, “now it is time for napping, we can clean the dirty dishware later.”

He snuggled up against you, arms around your waist and legs curling up towards yours.

That is where you laid for a few hours, your hand tangled in his hair while the other rubbed up and down his arms. The TV was flashing some show, sound turned down low. You had tried to sleep yourself, but you couldn’t bring yourself to, because you were enjoying him being draped around you too much. At one point, his one of his deep snores cut off, throwing him into a coughing fit. You couldn’t help but giggle softly, running your hand down his back in an act of comfort so that he settled back into normal breathing.

One of his hands slipped under your shirt and slid up to cup your rib cage, thumb rubbing back and forth over your skin softly. You sighed in content, letting your eyes drift from the television to him again. Lazy blue eyes were twinkling back at you, sleepily awake it seemed. “Hey big guy,” you murmured, not wanting to completely rouse him from being asleep. Everything was nice and peaceful for the time being.

“Hello drotting,” he whispered back, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to your neck where he could reach. “I missed you.”

A smile worked its way on your face between giggles as his mustache tickled your flesh.

“I missed you too,” you replied, threading fingers through his hair as his lips started to build pressure in kisses. They started soft and low on your neck, lazy, and then built up to harsh and sucking at the spots you were most sensitive.

A soft moan left your lips when his teeth nipped at your earlobe, toes curling. In just a few moments he had easily slid from your side to straddling your thighs and leaning over you while he lavished your neck and collarbone with kisses. Hot hands were rubbing the skin of your hips and stomach, working your shirt up inch by inch.

This wasn’t new to the both of you. From the time you returned from Asgard, there were plenty of times the both of you were completely naked to one another. Those times of fooling around were amazing, but you still wanted to take the final step. Determined to make those wants come true, you helped him pull off the t-shirt you were wearing before gluing your mouth to his.

Heat consumed you fast and hard. A small patch of sweat started on your forehead as the kiss you shared grew—as did the ache in your core.

One of Thor’s hands sought out your breast, softly rubbing a thumb across the pert peak of it in between soft squeezes. The other was slowly inching your underwear down to your thighs. You honestly only noticed when the cool air of the room was brushing against your warm heat when he gently urged your legs apart.

“I must make it up to you for every day I have been gone,” he said, voice deep and husky as he pulled you by the hips to the edge of the bed. “Seven days. Seven orgasms? Does that sound fair to you schat?”

The fire in your core blazed to life and left a nice red blush from the tops of your thighs all the way up your stomach to your neck and face. Thor did like to say things to get you worked up, this wasn’t an exception. Just the idea alone of being pushed to explosive pleasure seven times seemed like it would break you almost. Was that even possible for one day of fooling around?

Your thoughts were cut short as a hot moist heat lapped at your opening for a second before swiping up to your bundle of nerves.

A ragged moan left you as Thor repeated the action. Debilitating pleasure coursed through your veins as you grabbed a hand full of his hair to yank him up and away. His brows furrowed in confusion as you panted and gazed down at him. “I’m not sure if I can take seven, but I want one to be with you inside of me,” you blushed even as the words left your lips.

One of the most wicked grins you had ever seen erupted across his face. “Yes Y/N, those are my intentions,” he murmured before diving back between your legs.

At a loss for words you fell back into the bed with both hands on his head, urging him to continue while your hips shamelessly thrust against his lips and tongue. You were thrilled at the thought of finally experiencing sex with Thor. Just trying to imagine what it would be like sent tingles down your spine and into your core. Another whimpering moan left you as you continued to think about it, letting Thor pleasure you while your mind ran wild. The soft thrust of two fingers into your opening, caused you to twitch with ecstasy, you were close.

The inner fantasy you conjured changed drastically to envision Thor thrusting into you, in tandem with his fingers thrusting into you, and his soft moans of pleasure, and the simulation to your clit by him sucking softly at it. This pushed you over the edge, crying out softly as your hips jerked out of control and riding out the waves of pleasure that were consuming you. Through it all, he lapped at you more erotically, fingers twisting and turning inside of you while you cried out.

When the last dregs of pleasure left you, you laid limp on his bed panting for breath and smiling softly at the euphoria that settled in you. “I love you,” you murmured softly.

Thor’s hands ran up and down your sides softly, pressing soft kisses to your thighs as he climbed back onto the bed with you. “I love you as well schat,” he replied, lips coming back to your neck before gently pulling you back into the pillows. You got to enjoy a moment of bliss before he had coaxed your legs open once more and trailed his fingers softly over your dripping sex.

“We have all night to enjoy one another,” he laughed, “but I don’t ever remember being such an impatient man as much as I am now.”

Your hand reached down and started to yank at his shorts, trying to pull them off of him. The task wasn’t too easy as he was kneeling on them between your legs, but you managed to get them to his knees. Reaching up with your neck, you pressed a gentle kiss to his chin while a hand grasped him and squeezed affectionately. “I am impatient too,” you murmured, “I think we waited long enough. I just want you already.”

He laughed loudly at this, slipping a finger back into your relaxed sex, pumping slowly. “I have wanted this for a long time, but told myself we couldn’t until I knew you felt the same,” he smiled. His hand expertly played you like a musical instrument while he kissed you thoroughly. The noises he got you to produce was enough to be embarrassed about, but you stopped caring a long time ago.

“Wait,” you pushed him away softly with the soft-spoken word. “You have been waiting for me to tell you I love you before we could sleep together?”

Thor looked so relaxed on his knees between your legs. One of his hands actually was stroking himself slowly while the other was between your thighs. All the while he was smiling happily. “Of course,” he said simply. “As I said, you are too good for simple pleasures. Loving one another is far greater than simple pleasures when it comes to sexual relations.”

You were at a loss for words. It was a little hard to try and focus with him pleasuring you still, and your mind was racing. How long has he loved you? How did he even know he loved you? As a God, he had to have lived many lifetimes. You weren’t young exactly, but you lived long enough to know that this feeling you had for him was truly love. Starting to become overwhelmed with all the thoughts and feelings, you were breathing harder as you felt your body start to build for another climax.

All at once Thor impaled himself in you, causing yourself to climax again and cry out in pleasure while tears streaked down your cheeks. What was this emotional state you were in? The bliss from another orgasm was there, but you couldn’t help the tears that were coming quickly now as you moved your hips against his.

It was a tight fit, but you felt so complete and whole with him stretching you around himself, riding out the orgasm with small thrusts against him.

Thor pressed his lips to your cheeks, tongue trailing all the tears that you created before kissing you soundly while he thrust into you. This pleasure was better than anything else he had done to you. Every time he retreated and pushed back into you, he stimulated your bundle of nerves and had you crying out for more. You almost couldn’t breathe it was so good. Suddenly Thor thrust deep and hard, causing you to scream out in surprise with another climax and loss of warmth as he quickly pulled out of you and held himself above you.

How in the hell could he bring you to bliss so quickly like that?

Trying to gain your barrings, you looked up at him confused as he had his eyes closed and held himself in his hand tightly. His hand didn’t move, but he took a few deep breaths before opening his eyes to you once more. Confused, you touched his shoulder lightly, feeling yourself still throbbing in beat with your heart after another onslaught of pleasure.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, leaning forward he kissed you thoroughly for a moment. “I didn’t want it to end just yet.”

He pounced on you again, kissing you back into the pillows and taking your legs to wrap around his hips while he ground his pelvis into yours. You could feel his member between your legs, pushing between your cheeks and into the sheets. “Before I get lost in you again,” he smirked, “where would you like me to spill myself?”

You had been prepared for this. Just when you started seeing Liam all those months ago, you decided you needed to be prepared and get on birth control. Granted you were determined to still use a condom until you knew of his sexual history, but with Thor you weren’t really worried. Gods didn’t really get STDs from what you could gather. A long time ago you had asked Thor if he ever got sick and he replied that human aliments didn’t affect him, Asgardians never fell ill.

You crushed your lips to his chest, kissing and sucking on his neck as you worked yourself over his pelvis. “You finish with me,” you whispered. “I take a shot to prevent pregnancy.”

Reconnecting your lips with his, he guided you back to the bed, gently cupping himself and sliding into your center slowly. A soft grunt left you as he became fully seated. It was a little less tight than just moments ago, but it still felt amazing. He worked himself slowly in and out while kissing you hungrily. The pleasure soon built up again and you were moaning uncontrollably into his mouth or neck when you needed air to breath. His hips snapped at just the right angles, but the slow steady pace was maddening. More than once you tried to urge him faster by moaning in his ear, “Faster, please—oh Thor please.”

He moaned into your neck, but paid no mind to your wishes. Instead you clawed at his back, crying out as you edged closer and closer to another blissful orgasm.

“If you won’t go faster,” you pleased, “harder?”

Thor grunted and obliged, snapping his hips a little harder than the last time and grinding his pelvis into you for more stimulation. You screamed happily, enjoying the ease of ache. Still it wasn’t enough, but you were content for the moment.

One of his hands reached down from by your head and cupped a breast, tweaking your peaks almost painfully. In turn your hips twisted in the action and sought out more pleasure from his aching pace. A loud whimper came from him before he kissed you harshly. Your lip got pinched and you could taste blood slightly when his tongue invaded your month you tangle with your own. It brought on another moan, but suddenly he increased his speed.

Even when you needed breath, he didn’t tear his face away, you both just panted into each other’s lips. In seconds you were crying out again, falling into blinding oblivion as pleasure racked your body once more. Thor’s thrusts had grown erratic, and his own moans grew in volume. Your pleasure only seemed to peak and tumble over even more when you felt him grow and explode inside of you, more heat filling you from the inside out.

Every motion between the both of you seemed to slow, breath lost as you settled onto the bed and felt Thor’s weight press against you softly. Not enough to suffocate you but enough to feel comforting.

Suddenly Thor started to laugh, causing you to open your eyes and take him in. You were shocked to see wetness on his cheeks. Your thumbs wiped it away, and in turn he did the same. Not realizing it, you had cried again, and for some reason so did he.

“Why are you crying,” you asked. You had only seen a handful of men cry before.

“The same reason you were,” he said smiling before pressing a quick kiss to your lips. “I told you loving one another would make joining greater than simple pleasures.”

Laughs left your chest at his words because he was right. You had had sex with men before, but this was the most beautiful and pleasurable time it had ever happened. Before you thought you loved one man, but that was nothing compared to this. Both of you were still panting and wiping at each others faces, trying to catch breath. His skin was molded perfectly with yours as he was still nestled inside of you.

“We should take a shower,” you murmured, kissing his shoulder. “I still need to clean up the kitchen.”

When Thor slowly pulled out of you, you whimpered at the loss. Suddenly you felt completely empty, as if you were missing something that belonged. “Sh,” he whispered, “we will come together again soon.”

Did he feel it too? As if something was missing? You didn’t get a chance to ask before he kissed you again and lifted you into his arms.

“I love you,” he murmured into your hair. A smile that threatened to break your cheeks came over your face.

“I know, I believe you already told me,” you cheeked back to him, enjoying the closeness between you both.

“I have seven days worth of telling you to make up for,” he said as a matter of fact. “And more pleasure to bestow on you too, but that can wait for later.”

You closed your eyes in the shower as you felt Thor’s fingers work shampoo into your hair. The warmth that encased you from his body pressed against yours, the water from the shower and the feeling of a mild scalp massage was amazing.

This, this was love.

Previous Chapter << Part 9: Popcorn

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Hickman’s X-Men Line: One Year in Part 1: Prelude, House and Powers of X, X-Men and New Mutants (Hickman)

Under the cut is an explination of how hickman’s run happened (the mass decay will be covered another time probably), and dives into his x-books: house of x, powers of x,x-men and his breif run on new mutants and what i thought. Pax Krakoa baby.

One year ago, I breathed a sigh of relief as I read the utterly masterful house of x #1. See for the past few months, i’d been waiting on baited breath for this comic with a level of anticipation not matched by any before or since. Even the debut of a spinoff to Chew, one of my faviorite comics of all time that i deftnetly need to do a retrospective on, this week got within the same galaxy and it still wasn’t on the same level. This was big, grandiose and everything I hoped for. And whatever issues I had as House and it’s sister series came out slowly died out as the full story unfolded, my jaw dropped and my faith in Hickman to save the x-men was fully delivered. At last the x-men were back on top. And it was going to be one hell of a ride.

As you probably know the x-men had been treated pretty badly at marvel due to fox having the movie rights, a move that still baffles and frustrates me. Instead of making money to rub in fox’s face by promoting the hell out of them in merchandise, animation, video games and of course comics ALONGSIDE the avengers, they basically ignored the x-men and fantastic four to give fox less to work with to spite them while fox.. entirely ignored this as since both franchises have been around since the 60′s and the x-men had had mountains of spinoffs to give them mountains of characters. So in short: a decision to spite and hurt their compeitors only cost marvel money, pissed off fans and fox’s eventual absortion as far as I can tell had absolutely nothing to do with any of this.

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Thankfully marvel DID stop being stupid eventually and relented: The Fantastic Four came back a year before house of x with a decent run by dan slott, which is thankfully more like earlier spider-man work and ff work, and less like what his spider-man run became from superior onward despite the ocasional misfire but i’ll talk about both runs another day. I mostly bring it up because with this revivial, marvel also slowly reintegrated the four back into the marvel universe and made their return feel like a big deal. The X-Men however took a bit: while they got an earlier shot at returning with ressurxion. Buuut with the idea of having hickman return in their back pocket, marvel apparently refused, at least according to cullen bunn who I fell has no real reason to lie, to let the writers rock the boat too much and the era perdictably was just meh, especially flagship book X-Men Gold which was written bafflingly by Mark Gugenhiem and outside of one or two good ideas basically felt like the comics equivlent of one of those party store albums where every song is a cover done by someone who couldn’t give half a damn. There were bright spots though with Cullen Bunn finishing out his awesome x-men tenure with x-men blue, Sina Grace’s wonderful iceman that took the wonky execution of Bendis’ decision to make bobby drake gay and made it work beautifully, and the decent if somewhat baffling x-men red. But overall it just felt like a missed opportunity and with the fox deal in bloom and a new EiC, marvel NEEDED something bigger, bolder and grander to do with marvel’s strangest heroes of all. After all all eyes would be on them while Marvel’s Movie department took a few years, probably longer now thanks to the pandemic, to let things cool off before bringing the x-men into the mcu. Enter Jonathan Hickman: Writer of another one of my faviorite runs of all time, his Fantastic Four run, along with an enjoyable but heavily flawed avengers run, a secret warriors run i’ve read half of that was a hell of a ride, tons of ultimate comics, and a bunch of indies I haven’t read but are probably great. A wordy weirdo and i’m convinced the second coming of grant morrison, and I hope one day the two work together on something tha’ts equal parts weird and amazing.

The morrison comparison is also apt as both came into the X-Men at a time when the x-men badly needed them: Just like Hickman morrison had to deal with a largely stagnant x-men and changed them to fit the times. And yes unsuprisngly i’ll also be covering morrisons run, warts and all, and it’s also one of my faviorite comics of all time. However Hickman was given a huge advtange his spirtiual predecessor, and really few comics writers EVER have gotten: full control of the x-men line. Unlike morrison who wasn’t even allowed to use certain characters despite writing the main fucking x-book, Hickman got full creative control: full say in the direction of the story, full say in who came on board and to let them pitch whatever they wanted to do. And honestly it’s an apporach that’s not only reovlutionarly but makes the books FEEL like their actually occuring around the same time. Sure their all still seperate entities, but it DOES feel like one coheisive universe. Contrastingly with the avengers Black Panther’s solo has had him on a year long sojurn in space, before returning to earth.. while also running the avengers over in jason aaron’s run and having his own spinoff team, without any fucking clue as to when intergalactic empire of wakanda takes place in relation to everything else. Tony Stark is currently just taking back both his own damn name and the iron man name in his own book, but is also a major player in avengers, and empyre with no mention of his seeming drunken spiral (itw as a ploy) or arno taking up the armor and I feel these issues rather than the neglect the x-men once had are why krakoa’s impact isn’t being felt more in other titles. I’m not saying don’t let books do their own thing, but I am saying let them have fucking consequences and weight instead of just acting like one isn’t happening or at the very least have a character be absent for an arc so you can fit the other stories into continuity easier. As X-Men’s shown it dosen’t stifle inovation and hell even immortal hulk easily fit into no road home with a fucking note saying “this takes place before x issue” it’s not that hard. This advantage was likely part of Hickman’s terms for coming back. See the x-men were the one thing at marvel he never got to do. The Gillieon and Aaron runs and Bendis runs meant the spot simply wasn’t open and by the time he was leaving it was clear marvel wanted to bury the x-men not praise them, so his ideas had no run. But the X-Men were what got Jonathan into comics. A shocking fact I learned at last years comic con, during which most of the dawn of x titles were revealed, was he WASN’T a fantastic four or avengers fan as a kid, not hating them but like me with the avengers for some time, not really caring about them. But with both runs, he did his homework, read as much as possible, and BECAME a fan, and it shows as both runs show a deep love for both marvel and the teams present. With X-Men they were his dream, his golden goose, his windmill, he just never was in the right place at the right time... but with Marvel needing his starpower and creativity and having nothing to loose with the x-men and badly needing a big run to hlep keep intrest in the x-men till the new movies, he finally was. So seeing the company needed him and he could get his dream and the control he needed, while dc had just taken bendis, didn’t need him and until very recently was ran by a moron, his choice to come back to marvel instead of go to dc as he’s admitted, was obvious. And it ended up being the right one. House and Powers of x were massive creative and commerical hits and the following titles have all been mostly praised. The new direction has been a boon for the franchise,k the fans and marvel. So being a fan of this direction, as you can tell by the massive intro, to give my thoughts on each book so far: what I think their doing right, where some went wrong etc, since I’d rather wait another year or so befor ediving into these and let some more of hickman’s plans and future story hints spread throughout his books pay off first. WIth that all out of the way it’’s time for a deep dive of x.So grab some plant based snacks, your x-shaped helmets, and your krakoan coffee, it’s time to finally get into hickman’s era of x-men.

HOUSE OF X AND POWERS OF X The opening salvo and just with two mini series that are one, though why he DIDN’T just have them be one big mini series I genuinely do not know, probably to justify having two diffrent artists to carry the load, is an utter masterpiece. Plain and simple. Let’s get the status quo the series set up out of the way so I can dig into it more: Magento and Xavier were revealed to have been working together for years behind the scenes.. with Moira Mactaggert, one of my favoirite x characters who the series changes utterly and forever. See instead of being the one human who consitantly is on mutants side and one of the x-men’s staunchest allies who sadly hadn’t been resusrected in 20 fucking years, she was a mutant herself, her ablility being reincarnation.. and thus had lived through 9 of her 10 lives seeing mutantkind always loose so told xavier and magneto about this in the hopes of breaking the wheel and letting mutantkind live this time. However hickman , while revealing the alliance does brilliantly still make it work in continuity for me: it’s clear from moira’s notes in one issue, as house and powers and any following titles love having charts or text based sections that I feel give the comics a unique flavor and really help boost most issues, that Charles optimism she was trying to break him of and faith in humanity took years to fully shatter: he plotted and schemed with her to protect his species but it was clear he probably felt it woudln’t be necessary that humanity would prove her wrong.. and by this series it’s clear, no they haven’t changed, the majority of them just want to genocide mutants and have tried again and again and again while the rest who don’t necessarily want it, paticuarlly the superheroes did nothing while Magneto chaffed against her after the whole “alter his infant self after he was deaged by a mutant he made into a baby to be more pacificsitc which naturally pissed him off when that wore off”. Yes that’s a thing that actually happened pre and post retcons it’s why a survivor of the holocaust is , while not a YOUNG man, still healthy and vibrant. It’s a clever way to not undermine those stories while still telling this one and this retcon is a move I like as unlike most retcons it’s both there to tell a good story and excuted in a way that outside of moira dosen’t undermine anything. The Moira retcon I was and to a degree still am mixed on. While the new version of her is brilliant, creative and intresting and I can’t wait to see what happens with her next time she shows up, I do mourn the old as the x-men had few human allies and now their only big one is now a mutant herself, but it IS in service of a really damn good narraitive and the twist that the bad futures presented were in fact other lives of moira was brilliant, and it’s nice to see SOMETHING done with her. I’d rather something that i have a small problem with lead to really great things and be worth the sacrifice of her former character, than just changing things because “fuck it I want to do this and their letting me do this’ as a lot of retcons tend to be. Hickman’s story needs moira and her cycle of defeat to truly soar to the heights it’s reaching, and to make Charles and Xavier’s back alley actions make sense, so i’ll glady sacrifce one version of a character that I really liked for another version of her that’s also really good. The other big swing though I was completley on board for: Hinted at early on by serveral dead mutants being alived, after a sucidie mission against new big bads and mutant hating extermists orchis, who are far better written than other extermists, it’s revealed just why death has seemingly taken a holiday: the big plan that has been decades in the making for xavier and co? That will reshape mutant kind and required working with mr sinsiter of all people? Revivie all dead mutants. See in a brilliant reveal Cerebro isn’t just a mutant tracker; It’s a copier, copying their essecnes reaguarly and storing them for later, updating them every so often and thus meaning any who died can come back. Why it took Chuck so long to do this is also explained as he needed 5 specific mutant power sets to do it and thus had to wait till they had everything they needed: Goldballs, yes goldballs, spits out his giant golden balls, phrasing, which hickman in an insane and awesome turn revealed to be EGGS. Yes EGGS. Proteus, Moira’s son and former villian whose now pacificed since this body cloning process means he has an infnite suply of xavier bodies to burn through and thus isn’t killing people, warps reality to mamke the eggs viable. Elixir, a healer whose been through some shit the poor guy,gives the eggs , once injected with the mutant in questions dna via syringe because of course, life, and Tempus, goldballs former classmate fellow bendis creation and mistress of time, speeds it up a bit so they don’t have to wait a good few decades for some mutants to rerez. The fifth that makes all this possible is hope summers, mutant messiah and adopted daughter of cable returned to promence once more, whose power is revealed to be power maniulation and thus can boost their powers to the degree neded for this. it’s a BRILLIANT turn that not only undoes all the pointless deaths mutants have undergone, but changes the game: Genocide is now near impossible, as humanity has no idea bout any of htis, and instead of mutant lives going down, they can only go once.. as one man once put it...

And as an x-men fan having watched characters I love die again and again for stupid reasons, especially int he placeholder run right before house of x, this was so satsifying. Everyone the x-men had lost, every character I loved who was gone and forgotten.. they were back or would be back. And thanks to Krakoa they were thriving: By giving mutantkind a homeland instead of a headquarters, a nation given to one of their own because he demanded itbasically, or an island fortress designed to give a dying species refuge, they have a goregous sentient island (I’ve always loved krakoa for the record though I wonder what happened to his clone son), with abundant food, teleporting gates across the world to visit wherever they like or live in the various worldwide habitats if they please, and peace and security they’ve neve rknown. No more being woken up to get to a panic room because a sentienl attacked. No more having religious maniacs blow up busses containing your tine. No more having the vast majority of the superhero community do nothing as a fucking plauge cloud wipes out your species. Anything apporaching krakoa now has hundreds of the most powerful beings alive defending all mutants.. and that includes the worst of the worst, all given amntesty.. but they must tow the line or else be given a fate worse than death. After years of pain and suffering and misery mutantkind is free safe and happy. They still have to fight to get the rest of their kind out of racist hands and to saftey, the fight’s not over.. but now the odds are in mutantkinds favor. It’s paradise. And yet this mini, and this whole run dosen’t run from tough issues; The mutants are now isolationists and only mutants are allowed on krakoa itself.. on the one hand this is a bad idelogy and potentially dangerous, instead of fighting for harmony fighting for my land alone.. but it’s also see why Mutantkind has taken to it. The X-Men have tried for at the least a decade in universe and at the most and most likely 15 years to live in harmony, fight for mankind and make peace with them.. and only a small chunk has acutally tried to help them with that. The other large fraction? They either build death machines to try and wipe out all mutants, and in the case of Cassandra NOva who while not a human is still a racist genocidal bitch, SUCCEED in wiping out a large chunk, or do nothing while mutantkind suffers. The series forces you to think about the implications that marvel comics themselves previous ignored: That with all the superheros in this world who arent mutants.. more often than not htey’ve done fuck all when terrible shit happens. When Genosha died, not a one asked the x-men what happened or tried to hunt down those responsible. When Decemation happened, the avengers were more concerned with helping the x-men cover it up than helping them move on and did nothing as the goverment made xavier’s into a reservation, even after regrestration happened and the goverment had more heroes than ever to spare to helping them. When the T-Mist happened years later instead of stopping terrigin or asking the inhumans to stop it for the good of another race, the rest of the heroes just did fuck all. Sure the avengers were on a budget and the ff were asbent, but there were enough heroes in the world still and enough teams to do something about it and only the ones with mutants on them did!. IT’s hard to say “well you shoudln’t exclude them”.. when the rest of superhero kind has been subtly doing it their whole lives. But it dosen’t shy away from the claims of racial superiority the isoaltion or the fact the x-men basically sued for nationhood by making requiring recognizing their nation hood the price for trading for their life saving and extending, world changing drugs, which you would still need to buy. There’s other issues, one that i’ll get to in a moment as it was only revealed in x-men. Various characters, Corsair in issue one of the ongoing, the fincial summit in issue 4 and the ff both in house of x #1 and ff/x-men, all question this and some of the ethics. Hickman brilliantly decides instead of just painting the x-men as absolute moral rights, to show their new nation warts and all: the genuine good their doing and trying to do but also the price they have to pay for it and the mistakes they may be making. And the compromise necessary to build a nation. It’s all chiling, compelling shit that’s even more releveant in a time when bigotry is piling up like crazy. Both house and x-men, which i’ll get to in a second, ask questions with no easy answers and it makes them a compelling read. Also compelling is the two mini series use of flashbacks: The two previous moira timelines, which we learn are just that as we go, are compelling with the apoclaypse timeline having loveable heroes were are heartbroken to see die in the struggle, while the last timeline seemingly sees the mutants turn as bad as the humans.. only to peel back a layer at the end and reveal humans are still very much the real monsters, and them evolving via machine is a threat to mutant kind's natural evolution. It was a good story twist and of course there’s FAR more to dig into in both books, and I defintely will at some point in the future as I said. But there’s tons of great ideas here: Sinsiter not only being a mutant but a reluctant ally, the same of apocalyspe, the heavy questions I got into above, the idea of machines being mutants greatest threat which makes a ton of sense, and the various ones I already went into. I can’t gush about this book enough, but since this is already long enough i’m trying. The point is both mini series are great and how you do a self contianed event perfectlY plenty of consequence, plenty of scope but enough character and brilliant ideas and a FUCK TON of quotable and iconic lines, all blend into one of the very best series i’ve ever read. And lead directly into..

X-Men I talked about a lot of what this book represents above as it’s a direct continuation of the above, but the book on it’s own is still something diffrent. while it continues setting things up, playing with the new toybox hickman set up, and asking the tough questions, x-men does it in a diffrent way. House and Powers bounce around through time while all telling one huge story and one huge bundle of setup for this status quo. X-Men instead is a bunch of single issues. It’s still a ton of setup, though with enough payoff to house and powers that it at least so far hasn’t become tedious, especailly since hickman specifically has plans for all of it and has shown in the past he’s a long game man when it comes to storytelling, but through more action packed stories that, with the exception of mistque’s spotlight issue so far, have one shared element: Cyclops, aka Scott Summers, who as grand captain of krakoa is the nation’s ruling council’s go to guy for missions and who he himself can form any team he once for any mission. Cyclops, like the x-men hadn’t been treated well for years; Various characters lambasted him after the phoenix force drove him mad and lead to him killing charles xavier, and before that his run as leader of utopia, not helped by x-force painting him as a cold heartless dickweed, had him forced to make questionable decisions that made fans turn agains thim despite the hard position he was in. But now with the burden of absolute leadership of mutantkind in other hands, HIckman writes scott beautifully and has restored him to his proper place. WIth Xavier taking over as absolute leader of mutantkind and his race no longer hanging by a thread for the first time in years scott can relax and ENJOY himself. As the first issue shows he has everything he ever could have possibly wanted: A healthy marriage with Jean again, and an open one at that with him free to still see emma and Jean openly seeing Logan. Logan himself no longer trying to murder scott for his mistakes or kill his teenage self due to bad writing, but being his best friend again and also living with him and presumibly having threeways because they have connected bedrooms and of course jean would want both at once. Maybe they also just fuck each other sometimes again the details haven’t exactly been clear but it’d explain the tension disappearing. Maybe the schism would’ve ended quicker if Cyclops and Wolverine just fucked each other after children of the atom. Hey not every question is a deep personal one on krakoa sometimesm it’s just “Are these two fucking and could it have solved things faster in the past if they did?”. Also I almost forgot to mention, and added this near the end of writing this, in additoin to everything else scott now lives ON THE FUCKING MOON, on the blue area with a breathable atompshere, on a moon house with his family and fuckbuddy and Vulcan’s buddys. It’s fucking amazing. But moving back to other things scott’s gotten besides logan’s wang up his butt, as seen in issue one thanks to the gates his dad can now visit anytime, his brothers live with him with Vulcan going from genocidal dickweed to weirdo thanks to his experinces between his “death’ and this series, and he’s just. happy. And as a leader he takes the x-men on thrilling missions: the series combines action with character and worldbuilding and it is great. The worldbuilding part has been tremendous; we’ve seen new foes in the returning children of the vault and horticulture, aka what if the golden girls were tv ma, and also plant based supervillians plotting a better future for mankind that krakoa’s drugs clash with. We’ve seen nimrod creeping close, charles and magneto not playing ball with mystique start to backfire, the return of krakoa’s lost love, and in my faviorite arc, we’ve seen broo, one of my faviorite x-people and intellegent brood, eat an egg and thus become god emperor of the brood, not only giving the vicious race a chance to reform but giving the x-men a huge advatange in space, doubeldby events we’ll get to in a second. And biggest of all we saw the crucible: Since those depwoered by the decimation can get power back by dying again, and to prevent overworking the five with mass sucidies krakoa came up with a nasty solution,: earning resurection via ritual combat. And like the above there aren’t easy answers to this: mass sucidie isn’t better or faster, but having mutatns forced to EARN repowering by dying brutally isn’t a great solution either and is kind of sick. And it also opens up questions about ressurectoin that Nightcrawler feels made need reegion to answer htem. It’s again good heavy instreating stuff. We also got my faviorite issue #4 where the x-men go to a fincial summit, and while security detail cyclops and gorgon fight off hired goons...

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Xavier, Magneto and Apocalypse discuss with world leaders about the implications of krakoa’s policys, with Magneto not hiding his love of flexing his superiority. And Charles ends the confrence, after it’s revealed one hired them in an utterly masterful moment: Taking off his helmet to reveal no this is charles, this is him and that even after they tried assintating him he has and always will love humanity he’s just sick of being treated like crap and suffering for doing it and his people suffering for it and he won’t tolerate this sort of shit again. See it for yourself it’s an absolute triumph:

It’s a great scene. Overall an utterly great title that really keeps the momentum moving and I feel is only setting up for even more things.. the only real issue is that A) the title’s been slower at coming out than the other dawn of x titles, though in the case of the empyre tie in’s it’s not hteir fault but the rest sure as shit are, and B) that it has mostly been just setup but it’s been good enough and enjoyable enough and I feel payoff is coming, so I truly don’t care. At long last we have a main x-men book that’s not only fantastic but uttterly engaging and I read most issues multiple times. An utter slam dunk

Giant Sized X-Men: This one is incomplete, so I can’t fully say what the full picture is.. but for the three released so far it’s a mixed bag, though the art in all three is gorgeous as Hickman brought on the best artists in the buisness but it’s telling that while New Mutants bellow had issues that bugged me but was still kinda fun, and the above havem y utter priase I nearly forgot to include these issues. None of them are bad and all have gorgeous art as I said, these are some of the best in the buisness, they feel padded. These were supposed to be annuals, but when they decided to change this to one shots.. they shoudl’ve just made them regular length instead, as there simply isn’t enough story here to fill them and so far only Davis’ issue has both had huge setup (both revealing doug’s fusion with warlock is a secret for some reason and that he is indeed still fully alive and revealing what happened to the x-mansion), and due to Davis background as a writer/artist the pacing to fill one issue and even then it could’ve been trimmed. Not bad and I don’t fault the artists for not being used to being writer/artists or having to do so while also conforming to a larger narriative which likely didn’t help or in the third one’s case having to take over for someone else entirely, but it’s , while not bad no ton par with the two above books and I expect better from hickman.

New Mutants (HIckman’s Issues) I’ll cover Brisson’s issues next time as they feel like a diffrent run entirely, but New Mutants was.. a disapointment. I was utterly pumped for this title going in being a huge fan of the team thanks to finally reading the claremont and sikenwitz run and before that re-reading abnett and lannings utterly great run and hey jonathan hickman who’d already done gangbusters was writing it! It had a great roster!

And it starreed one of hickman’s faviorite mutants and one he’d taken a shine to on avengers, and one of my faviorite superheros, Roberto DeCosta, aka Sunspot. On Avengers hickman took Roberto , already a decent character and made him amazing. He was still rich, young and a playboy as ever.. but he used said wealth and his love of fun wisely. When undercover at an AIM casino instead fo throw down, he offers the agents a free day of partying and gambling on his huge dime, then puts them on payroll as his undercover agents. So to recap Roberto DeCosta won the avengers two valuable double agents in what at the time was one of their biggest threats.. by buying them tons of beer and gambling and presumibly hookers. And later got the loyatly of the rest of AIM through these guys, and when Steve found out tony betrayed him and went off hte deep end hunting him instead of stopping the end of the goddamn world, TOOK OVER AIM HIMSELF IN COMBAT WITH THE AIM SUPREME, and then formed his own avengers.

Literally. He got his own avengers team, most of which left after the apocalypse but he simply found younger and hungrier replacements, and aim.. with blackjack and hookers. The man is a legend. And knowing Roberto if hookers were actually involved he probably treated them with respect and overpayed them because he’s a class act. Then under Al Ewing’s mighty pen, Roberto not only formed another avengers team since most of the avengers he formed to stop the end of the world were busy elsewhere, of young and great avengers, while dying of the aformentioned death cloud, but became an utterly brilliant chessmaster, only failing ONCE becaue of hydra cap getting into his head while AIM was working for the us goverment towards the end as the USAvengers. And yes that’s a real team. It’s as insane and beautiful as it sounds. And his new avengers once fought american kaiju, a godzilla with a flag painted on it chaning usa. Al Ewing is the best and I love him. But he also became a master stratigest and schemer with schemes within schemes within schemes, his crowning one being faking his own death and using his fake funeral to clear out any remaning enimies in AIm, and only quitting AIM to keep it out of goverment hands and in the hands of a trusted friend. He was and still is one of the best avengers there ever was and ever will be. But here, as the new mutants go on a road trip to get sam? He’s a fucking dumbass who hires the worst space laywer possible, only gets off trial because Sam and his wife save them, glad they weren’t broken up by the way, and is utterly useless most of the time. It’s like HIckman forgot the last part of his run.. granted time runs out isn’t very good but still, that wasn’t a good thing to forget and like Hickman wants to ignore ewing’s work for no damn reason, even though Ewing did great things with Roberto and kept him relevant when marvel was choking the x-men to death. It’s fucking embrassing and disapointing to see. The rest of the New Mutants aren’t much better mostly being happy but also not really acting like themselves, with only mondo really standing out since he gets great moments and hasn’t done anything in a while. And Doug, who I negelcted to mention above is one of my faviorite mutants and thanks to being krakoa’s primary method of commuincation, is now one of krakoa’s most important mutants, has a seat at the council with krakoa, and weirdly has his best friend warlock hiding on his arm for reasons that haven’t been explained yet. In Short doug went from beign forgotten to being used awesomely again. Roberto instead of getting the same is set back as a character and ends the arc deciding to stay in space because he misses sam, and will likely become third in his marriage i’m sure, and wants to bone deathbird, x-men villian and frequent shiar usuper. But while rahne actually being happy is a good sight to behold they , except Dani, really dont’ do much. Though Magik gets a fucking amazing scene where she asks the various assasians sent ot kill them if they want to make out , not only revealing she’s bi, but that she’d prefer that to killing them all but does so when they dumbly refuse .. I mean seriously who, whose not in a relationship that’s open or way older than her, not take her up on that? The plot their thrust into isnt’ great either, mostly just more setup but not present as well as in x-men about Gladiator giving the shiar empire to xavier’s daughter.. yes charles has a daughter that was created from his and his ex wife lilandra, whose still dead’s dna, and letting DEATHBIRD Of all people teach her instead of his damn self. Xandra taking over isn’t a terrible idea it’s just handeld poorly. It just feels disapointing.. like hickman WANTS to do a JLI style book here but the combination of him only doing one arc and not really wanting to write the characters as they should be, an issue that only pops up here and in the new mutants cameo during x-men proper and not for doug ever, that makes it fall falt.. I mean there are utterly great moments like the above, and hte image i used to lead off their just stifled by misusing roberto and everyone else.

But overall hickman’s works on x-men are fucking great, intresting and engaging. I’ve read the issues a ton and will again. One small mistep dosen’t take away from all the large good he’s done and he’s made the franchise feel alive again and hopefully the MCU take on it will take after this run, as it’d be a great way to break from the endless xavier vs magneto battles of the fox universe. So yeah overall 2 great books and a thankfully short misfire, HIckman’s on top. And next time we’ll see who he picked to help him carry the x banner home to us all, and who did well with it and whose stumbled a bit as part two delves into the rest of the dawn of x. For now subscribe for more comics stuff as I plan to get back on that, including I hope a restrospective on the fox era x-men sometime soon, animation reviews, and more fun stuff. And until then, courage.

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thelifetimechannel · 5 years ago

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“So what the fuck was all that” or, I acknowledge that we laid all this plot stuff out like 3 years ago so if you forgot here’s a rundown of what Coda’s Deal was

As some background, when we first started this project, the main idea was to have the versions of the kids we were invested in win the game. But as we kept working, and as the world around us got progressively nastier (and listen, I drafted this explanatory post months ago, so the ride don’t stop on that account), that didn't feel like enough. The game is sick. The game is broken. The game tortures children and builds new worlds off their backs. SBURB is what gave Caliborn the power he used to become the monster he did. How would simply playing by SBURB's rules and giving it a win be a victory? To quote TLC!Roxy,

TG: when the meteors start coming down again do we just watch? TG: when we get 2 the new universe callies gonna b there and we have 2 let her suffer bc the loop says so TG: so if the rules are still gonna force us 2 do shitty stuff do we ever rly get out?? TG: how do u win a game like that?

And so, the game became the last villain. Or what the game represents: an endless cycle of profiting off torment, promoting creation at any cost. I wanted the kids to break the cycle, since so much of the story centered around breaking out of bad patterns (personal, societal, structural). Especially in light of... everything going on in the world, I wanted to tell a story about a bunch of people who had gone through absolute hell and said, No one else should ever have to do this. I wanted to tell a story about survivors saying, Tomorrow is going to be better than today, and we are going to make sure that happens. That's a conclusion several of the characters start to come to in the later parts of the comic, until Rose directly states that her goal is to make a better system (following in her Act 4 footsteps after having learned to balance destruction with creation):

ROSE: There has to be a better way to perpetuate reality. ROSE: We may be trapped in a time loop when it comes to the cherub session, but beyond that... ROSE: I don't know what, or how, but I want to do something for the world we create, if that's where we're spat out. ROSE: If we let it keep selecting a few malleable lost children as the sole survivors to keep this cycle going, we're no better than the puppetmaster we're trying to escape.

How to accomplish that? Well, one of the forces that serves as an antagonist is the Alpha timeline. Characters who make perfectly good decisions that simply deviate from what the Alpha demands are punished with death and banishment to the furthest ring.

ARADIA: working within the alpha timeline can be frustrating ARADIA: sometimes in my role as the maid of time i had to doom timelines where we succeeded because it would cause a paradox down the line ARADIA: for example you had to create the cancer in the humans genesis frog, otherwise a whole chain of events contributing to our own existence wouldnt be! ARADIA: there were realities where you didnt make the same mistakes ARADIA: there were some where we all did great

TG: it sux that it works this way TG: that u need some sort of hacky workaround 2 not die bc someone down the line fucked up or mayb u were just in the wrong place at the wrong time

In canon, it is established that the Alpha timeline is based on Lord English, as Scratch explains by saying,

The path which alone has my absolute mastery is the alpha timeline, a continuum I define as that which boasts exclusive rights both to my birth and to my death, two circumstantially simultaneous events.

Which means, without the Lord of Time forcing all viable timelines to feed into his being, multiple timelines could hypothetically coexist as long as none of them break other pre-existing loops.

ARADIA: english narrowed the options to direct all energy toward his desired outcomes much like a virus repurposing a cells production mechanisms to reproduce itself instead ARADIA: but he is gone now ARADIA: there are plenty of realities my selves left behind that could have survived if not for his loops and his insistence on wiping clean all offshoots that did not contribute to him ARADIA: an insistence that bled into the very laws of the universe ARADIA: but with his defeat the way forward is much broader

The alpha timeline isn't the only oppressive force at play, however. The other is the game and behind that, Skaia itself. Skaia is portrayed as a benevolent force for creation, but it supports a system where killing children isn't a bug. It's a feature. It's very devoted to the bigger picture and the greater good at the expense of the people caught in the system's gears, which sounds... familiar. Sure, Skaia could just exist, but Homestuck is an origin story. Almost everything has a starting point, so why not Skaia and the game too?

DIRK: The point is, this game didn't come out of nowhere. DIRK: Someone had to make it.

It made sense to me to have a benevolent cherub behind that, just as a malevolent cherub is behind the alpha timeline. So, enter alt!Calliope.

CALLIOPE: through the rules of the game that brought you here, i gave you my blessing. CALLIOPE: in doing so i hope i have created a battlefield for soldiers to rise up against him, even as my efforts brought about his own birth. CALLIOPE: both he and i labor bound to our own path from creation to destruction, locked in an ouroboros that will only end when you have passed through the final door.

JADE: just to make sure im understanding you correctly JADE: youre behind the game that ruined our lives?

And if one Muse of Space got us into this mess...

CALLIOPE: if she'd grown Up with friends like i had, she woUldn't have bUilt it that way, i know she woUldn't have. ROSE: Maybe this is your chance to set it right. CALLIOPE: what? ROSE: You're a Muse of Space too. ROSE: If she had the ability to craft the inner workings of an entire multiverse-spanning system and set it in motion, you must have that potential too. ROSE: Maybe you can change the rules.

In the walkarounds, Rose starts making her case to the other characters.

ROSE: Your mistake with the DNA affected our game session, which means the frog's construction influences how SBURB games launched within it are played. ROSE: If you did that accidentally, we might be able to influence future SBURB sessions intentionally.

And in the last update before our two flashes, they make their plan and put it to a vote.

ROXY: we need 2 come up w/ a world we like

That brings us to Coda. The alpha timeline (red snake) winds around the dream bubbles filled with ghosts who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Skaia's influence (green snake) winds around the events it engineered. We see the characters digging into DNA readouts, temple carvings, etc. to figure out how to reverse engineer the game. Then Calliope makes it happen, banishing the ouroboros of the two cherubs' influence so they won't poison the new universe. But of course, if we are banishing the alpha timeline and saying any number of realities can exist concurrently, we can't see any of them. That would be pinning us down to one. So, as Calliope works her magic, the viewers lose sight of the characters, so they can finally be free. Because if we're rebelling against authority, even we authors have to step aside in the end.

And so, for now, let’s drop the curtains and take our bow. :) As for what’s behind those curtains, who’s to say? Maybe us. Maybe you. Maybe everyone.

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chaoartwork · 4 years ago

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Multivoid: Chapter 2

A fanfiction revolving around 2K, Palindrome and the alternate Zims in the aftermath of the Battlevoid arc.

Based on Invader Zim comic issues 46-49.

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“Brother, you silly! That’s not how you play the game!”

“But I’m tired. Can’t we do this later?”

“But brother! If you do, we’ll never play it again! Come on now, sleepyhead! I think someone is going to join!”

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A familiar whirring sound can be heard. Palindrome can feel his squeedlyspooch twist and churn sickly the moment he felt his body wake up again. The heavy sensation was there and strong, but his consciousness felt a little stronger than last time. He weakly squinted upon his eyes, trying to process his surroundings again. There was one thing he noticed since his vision has gotten clearer. The Zimvoid. Something’s different about the Zimvoid. It looks so closed in-

Thud!

The whirring sound was replaced with something falling on the ground, sending a moment of vibration that Palindrome felt on the ground his body was motionlessly lying on. He felt Miniwhale wiggle out of Palindrome’s arms, who was embracing him as he was originally resting, and made a squeak of surprise. Who did he see? Could it be he maybe sees....

“2K....” groans, despite feeling nauseous,”2K, is that...?”

“Zim?”

The fish hybrid’s body stiffened by a voice he knew too well. Few seconds of processing what he just heard, his body struggled to softly shift so he can look at what was behind him. It was much brighter where he was looking. A figure about the same size as him was behind the brightness, viewing the figure’s head to be too massive in the hybrid’s viewpoint to even maintain his small body. A human boy walked closer to him, his dark brown open jacket softly flowing a bit by his movement. His entire appearance was no longer hidden from the brightness by the time he approached him, his more reddish pupil eyes widen a bit in soft disbelief.

“Oh my God. My alien tracker was right. You actually came back.”

Palindrome’s breath quickened a bit in order to find the strength to respond again.

“Dib human?”

His Dib crouched down to take a good look at him.

“Yeesh. You look like a pile of poop right now. No literally. What’s up with that filthy water in your bowl? It looks as though you haven’t cleaned that in months.”

Palindrome squeedlyspooch churned again by another wave of heavy sensation,

“Please don’t mention it,” he groaned again.

“Better yet,” he glared angrily, “where have you been? You think I can just monitor your house for 6 months?!”

“It was actually 3 months,” the sick Irken corrected as he was attempting to gain control of his body’s condition.

“Alright fine, it was 3 month, so what?” He crossed his arms, “you better really tell me what’s going on and what exactly you did this time! Why did we all dissipate and then reversed back to normal?!”

Palindrome laid still and tried his best to process.

“....What?” His eyes traced back to his enemy.

“Oh you know exactly what I’m talking about, Zim! You had something to do with that dissipation incident. Did you go somewhere and attempted to fully wipe this whole planet with...whatever that was?!”

“Dib human,” he grunted as he shakily sit up halfway, his arms shaky, “I dont know what you’re talk about. But whatever it is, I didn’t do it. If anything, I want to ask you something. Why are you in the Zimvoid?”

“Zimvoid?” His eyebrow raised

“Yeah, this place is called the Zimvoid. It’s where I have been trapped in this whole time. How were you able to access here?”

His Dib stood still for a long while. Looking at him as if he lost it for whatever reason.

“Zim. I don’t know if the illness is so bad for you that your picturing about your conquered Earth, which won’t happen. But you do realize you’re in your home base, right?”

“My...what?”

His eyes blinked multiple times in order to look about more clearly on where he was. It hurt his eyes, but they strengthened to see his surrounding. His Dib was right. He was not in the Zimvoid this whole time. He was actually in the living room of his home base. He was....back home. Back in his own timeline. Just like he....

“No. No this can’t be right,” he murmured, his heart sinking as he glanced about even more, “this can not be.”

Miniwhale moves next to to the human boy, staring at his master in concern. His enemy’s eyes furrowed.

“Zim-?”

“I was there a split second ago. He was right in front of me, Dib. I could have caught him right there. He....”

“Zim, what are you going on about-?”

“No. It couldn’t have been a dream,” his body started to tremble in disbelief and confusion, his eyes straining from trying to hold back the overwhelming emotion, “The Zimvoid was real, I’m sure of it. 2K was real too! I know he was-!”

“Zim!” His Dib grabbed him and sharply turned him to make him look at him, “Would you snap out of it?! And who is this ‘2K’ you keep mentioning?”

Before he could answer, the heavy sensation rushed across body again. And with the combination of the stress he was now going through, it was enough to cause him to completely loose his appetite. And given the fact his head had been stuck in a bowl filled with water for few months, it made things even worse. He knew that breathing the water was impossible now in this condition.

“Ew gross!” He felt his enemy drop him back on the floor, “what the heck, man!”

“Nya!”

“I know he’s suffocating, what do you want me to do?! Help him?! Because that’s the last thing I want to do!”

“Nya!”

The conversation was starting to blur out as his consciousness began to fade from how much his body was screaming. He can then feel his violently squirming body give in as he is succumb to darkness once again.

————————————————————————-

The first thing Palindrome remembered when regaining consciousness was the great feeling of fresh clean water rushing across his body, followed by his gills sucking in as much of the water as it can content. His eyes flew wide open and let out a gasp, the first thing seeing is the fresh water surrounding his entire body. It took him a moment to process this experience until his ear fins fluttered at the great sensation he hasn’t felt in a long time. He smiled in in overwhelming and relieved glee, letting himself enjoy it.

“Ah!...Fresh water how I miss you....”

“Now will you tell me what exactly is going on?”

He fully snapped out of his trance, turning to realize that he was inside of his huge fish tank that was within his lab. He also notice his body was feeling lighter because of how he was no longer wearing his suit or his helmet. He has fully forgotten how light his body really was. without it, it made his body feel incredibly strong when swimming about. Guess it was also the fact that three months physically training and doing his duties with 2K really paid off.

He then remembered Dib’s voice and swam up to poke his head out of the surface, seeing his enemy and servant standing in front of him. Miniwhale, shortly after Palindrome pokes his head out of the water quickly floated over him and nudge against his chest.

He let his arm wrap around his robot in a cradling position in order to comfort him, already having the idea he must have worried him when he passed out, before looking back up at the human in suspicion.

“You saved me?”

“Please,” the boy crossed his arms, “I never wanted to save you to begin with. Your whale robot wouldn’t shut up about having me save you. Besides, you still haven’t answered all of my questions.”

The fish hybrid remained eyeing him.

“First,” he replied to the human boy, “You have to explain to me what you were talking about back there.”

“Which one?”

“The dissipation incident.”

“Oh come on! Why do I have to be the one to explain first?”

“Cause maybe it might give me a clue on exactly what happened in the Zimvoid.”

“Seriously? You’re going on about this ‘Zimvoid’ again? What even is it?”

“Explain to me about the dissipation incident or I won’t explain to you anything,” Palindrome softly squinted.

The human child glared at him for a while. But he gave in and sighed. He sat down by the ground and began.

“I heard nothing about you for months. I tried to use the alien radar many times to see if you were doing something in another galaxy or something. But no matter how many attempts, the tracker could not find you. It was almost as if...you were no longer present in the universe. I eventually was starting to think I actually won, even though I didn’t feel like I earned it until I really did defeated you in person. But I tried to push that though aside and instead continued on with my life. One early morning, I left home to go to school. It was about the third month since you disappeared and I was starting to think less about even counting the days of your absence. I was walking pass through the city....”

He suddenly went quiet, now showing an expression that he was feeling haunted.

“....I started to feel strange. In fact, it turns out I was not the only one. Everyone were shouting and screaming and...everything just turned into these particles of goo for whatever reason. And so was I. I woke up and a second after started feeling pretty sick. But everything was back to normal as if everything that was dissipating reversed back to their own form. I really don’t know what that was all about, but I was at least strong enough to head back home so me and my family can recover from the aftermath.”

“And did your ‘dad’ of yours say anything about it?”

“Pfft!” He rolled his eyes, “he just said that some sort of pollution in the air might have been the reason we all-“ he finger gestured, “‘hallucinated’. He was at least not as sick as me and Gaz were though.”

“What did your ‘sister’ think.”

“Gaz just wants to pretend it didn’t happen. Just continue on with our lives cause thinking about that incident will just loose our minds. But I obviously couldn’t stop thinking about it. Soon after I recovered though was when I realized my alien tracker was going off for who knows how long in my closet. It gave me a signal that there was an alien on our planet and...”

His Dib looks back at him, his eyes furrowed,

“Well, you know the rest of the story.”

Palindrome blinked and then placed his finger on his chin, his body nearly flinching since it was the first time he touched his own head in months, and pondered.

“Well,” His enemy said a bit impatiently, “any ‘clues’ you might have?”

Palindrome was quiet for a short while before responding,

“So it was not just me and the other Zims...”

Dib’s expression changed into confusion,

“Other Zims?”

“It also happened in my future conquered planet,” he continued.

“Well you’re not going to conquer my planet, that’s for sure,” the human child narrowed.

“And if that’s so,” the Irken hybrid gazed up at the ceiling, “I wonder if it happened throughout our entire universe. If so....Could it have also happened in the other Zims’ timelines?”

“Other Timelines?” His Dib grew confused again.

“But that still wouldn't make sense,” Palindrome furrowed in confusion while still talking to himself, “why did we dissipate? Why did it reverse? Most importantly, why am I back in my own timeline? I mean it’s what I always wanted, but....somethings not right. The only reason could be that something happened to the Zapper.”

The human grew even more confused.

“....Yeah. It has to be the Zapper that did something to us. Something was off about it when I last glanced at it, I’m sure of it. And someone might have triggered it to do this. Maybe the Elder pushed the wrong button. Or maybe....maybe someone else triggered it on purpose. Maybe someone like.....”

His eyes narrowed.

“Zib. It must have been Zib. He must have had something when pressing those buttons that automatically caused the Zapper to-“

“Alright alright ALRIGHT ALRIGHT!” His enemy fully cut him off of his pondering in which caused Palindrome to finally look back at him, “I don’t know what ANY of what you just said makes ANY sense whatsoever! You’re gonna make my skull crack wide open if you don’t tell me what you were talking about and where exactly you have been!”

“Human skulls can do that?” Palindrome was a bit impressed.

“IT WAS AN EXAGGERATION! Just tell me already!!”

The fish hybrid was quiet again. For the first time since he passed out last time, he felt the sadness weigh down in his chest again, his fin lowering at the traumatic thought of what happened the last time he was conscious in the Zimvoid. He softly looked at his Dib.

“Do you really want to know where I disappeared to?”

————————————————-

His Dib tried processing everything he has been telling him, with Miniwhale also listening in awe. About the Irken signal he got. How he crashed into the Zimvoid. A world that was filled with alternate versions of himself. How he met a baby version of himself name 2K and how he joined the Zim Resistance. How he learned the entire function of the Zimvoid. His growing bond for his Resistance partner. How three months after meeting 2K that they eventually stumbled upon an alternate version of a Dib and Gir, which led them on adventure all the way to encountering Number 1, revealing to be a fusion of an alternate Zim and Dib.

They are told of his main scheme and brought nearly all the Zims together to engage in a war against him. But he tells him what happens during the battle. How everyone in the Zimvoid dissipated. And 2K being the very last one he saw in the Zimvoid before watching him disappear as well, along with him blacking out.

“...And that was when I woke up here.”

His Dib was deadly quiet for quite a while. He blinked multiple times and needed to sit down. He rest his palm on his forehead.

“Uh...wow. Wow. Uh...a world full of my greatest enemy. Man. That sounds like something that is my worst nightmare coming true. How was other me able to cope with that place?”

“He was kind of shook about it when we found him and the other Gir. He seemed to cope with it pretty fast. But,” his eyes slanted, “he thought that me, 2K, and the Elder were the less intimidating and feeble version of his Zim. Don’t know what that was all about, but oh well.”

“Well I can’t blame him,” His Dib said unamused, “you do tend to not put enough work into conquering our Earth.”

“Yes I do!” Palindrome responded in annoyance.

“Whatever. Did you ever know what happened to him and that other creepier me.”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I just last saw them sitting by the top of the robot where I last saw 2K.”

“Hm. Oh well. Whatever happened to them, I just hope they got out of that place alive. Well....I don’t really care too much for that ‘Zib’ though, he was too far gone. Anyways, I’m just so glad I didn’t respond to that signal.”

Palindrome sigh,

“I was guessing that you did.”

His Dib looked at him in surprise,

“How did you know I got the signal?”

“Zib told the other you that he was the only one that responded to the signal. That was when I learned why you did not chase me down while I was heading to the vortex.”

“Oh. I mean, I did see the signal,” his enemy rubbed the back of his head, “but it told me that there was a very violent storm ahead where the signal was coming from. I figured that it would be far too dangerous to come after you at a condition like that. And given how you mysteriously survive everything, I just figured you would turn back or get past the storm somehow.”

“Figures...Mmmph!” Palindrome deeply groaned and hugged himself with one of his arms. Miniwhale felt his master’s other arm around him tighten a bit, making him look up at him in confusion and concern. His Dib noticed and looked back at him,

“Zim?”

“Rggh...it’s nothing, it’s nothing,” he gulped and tried to catch his breath, “...Just having another one.”

The kid just nodded and did nothing else but wait patiently. It took several seconds for the sensation to fully die off again, making the fish hybrid sink almost completely into the water tank in exhaustion, his free arm grabbing onto the ledge. He took easy breaths, with Miniwhale squeaking,

“Nya?”

He tiredly look to notice his servant’s worried expression. He tried giving at least a soft reassuring smile,

“It’s fine, Miniwhale. It’s at least lighter than last time.”

“How long have you been having that?”

“Not sure. Maybe since everyone here woke up?”

“You seem to have it a lot worse though. Do you know why that is?”

“I don’t know, stink face. I’m not in a mood to think about it either. But given it was a long while since the last time I had it, that’s a sign that those sensations won’t last long.”

He calmly breathed out and let himself fully relax,

“I just hope it goes away fast. I can’t stay like this. I need to find 2K. I need to know if he’s ok...along with the others.”

The scuba diver softly narrowed,

“And I don’t care whether you believe my story or not, Dib. I need to find my best friend no matter what.”

Miniwhale frowned,

“....Nya?”

“Yeah, you did not mishear it. He really did matter to me,” his said in a bit sadder tone.

“So...your best friend is yourself,” His Dib processed it a bit.

Palindrome responded by eyeing at him in offense.

Dib noticed, not caring too much on how he felt about that comment.

“Then again,” the human shrugged, “I’m not really too surprised.”

His Dib made a pause and looked away.

“I will hate to say that I do believe in everything you have told me.”

“Heh. Funny,” Palindrome was not convinced, “you always refuse to believe me.”

“Well my incident is one thing that made me do so. But there was another thing that really stood out.”

Dib stood up and walked few steps away from him. Palindrome was confused at where he was going as he watched him stop and look down at something. He bent down and picked it up before turning back to walk towards his enemy again.

“You were wearing this when I found you. Isn’t that part of your story?”

The fish squinted, trying to figure out what he was carrying. His face slowly morphed into a complete stunned and emotional expression when his sight of it became far too familiar to mistaken it. His Dib stopped and handed him what appeared to be a heavy metallic looking collar that gave off the pale reddish and pinkish color. Palindrome hesitated before reaching out and softly taking it from him. He let it get very close to his chest so he can fully look at it from a perfect view.

The collar was now unlocked, with it pried open. This indicated that his Dib was actually able to successfully open it for whatever reason. There was something else that he wanted to see and he softly turned it to see a four digit bar that still reflected from the light. The four digits provided four random numbers, reading out 2|0|0|2.

“When you passed out, Miniwhale and I rushed you to your water tank and took your suit and water helmet off in order for you to breathe the water easily. However, the collar was avoiding the water helmet from being removed. So the only way to do so was forcing open the collar. And that was for me to laser the key hole, which is why the key hole looks completely melted.”

The alien was completely frozen for a long while, staring at the digits. He perked a soft smile for a second before they tensed and he started to choke up, his eyes getting watery. The boy also noticed this and scoffed,

“Oh come on, are you seriously gonna cry over me destroying the collar? The one that you said you were stuck wearing all those months? Because if you turned out to have grown attached to it, it’s just a stupid collar.”

Palindrome softly shook his head and sniffed, letting his arm rub his tearful eyes.

“N-no, no it’s not that. Stupidly enough, I’m actually happy. I knew the whole time that the Zimvoid really did exist. But....”

He emotionally looked back down at the collar, softly smiling again,

“I still needed proof to know I really was right.”

His body hiccuped just a bit before letting his arms wrap around the collar and pressing it to his chest.

“Don’t worry, buddy. I have proof now that you and the others were never a dream. I’ll come find you, I promise.”

Miniwhale stares before smiling at his master’s relief in a response. His Dib just awkwardly gaze,

“...Is no one going to talk about the fact that he’s hugging a collar?”

However, as soon as he said this, an alert went off.

“IRKEN DISTRESS SIGNAL HAS BEEN LOCATED.”

Palindrome’s eyes snapped open by the feeling of deja vu. It also sent chills across his body, but he can’t tell if it’s a good or a bad chill. He and his enemy almost immediately looked at the large computer screen with it showing an internet connection signal and the Irken Empire symbol above it, big blinking letters below reading “IRKEN DISTRESS SIGNAL DETECTED”.

“Wait,” his Dib said, “isn’t that the same signal that I...?”

Palindrome silently stared at the screen. His eyebrows furrowed.

“Computer, get me a back-up suit.”

“Yes, sir.”

A huge tube buried Palindrome’s body before uncovering him to reveal what looks to be his swimming suit, except the suit is black while parts of it remain pink, along with his gloves and shoes, and a new clean helmet filled with water being worn. A small tube came out of Palindrome’s PAK and went up to attach itself from the back of his bowl.

Palindrome gently put the collar down and tried climbing out of the huge water tank. But pushing himself out of the tank cause the heavy sensation to come back, causing him to end up having his body collapse at the edge of the floor. The boy looked,

“You sure you can get over to the controls when you’re this weak?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he grunts and looks up at him, “in fact since you’re so ‘worried’, carry me, filth human.”

“What?! Why me?!” He then point to Palindrome’s robot, “why can’t the whale do it? He has telekinesis!”

“Nya!” Miniwhale answered.

“BUT YOU CARRIED A GIANT TRUCK ONC-!”

He stopped right there. He became unamused.

“Oh. I see what you’re doing there. You’re just saying that so I can be the one to carry him.”

“I said it doesn’t matter! Carry me to the controls!”

“Urgh! Alright fine! Yeesh, you aliens are so lazy and selfish,” he starts walking over to him.

“Oh yeah,” Palindrome mumbled, “I should maybe make a body switching machine so you can know what this really feels like right now.”

“I-“ Dib let out a grunt as he lift him up with both of his arms, “been on this same page too you know.”

“No you don’t since you just stated my condition is the worst one.”

“Yeah yeah sure whatever,” Dib grunted again when making a second short lift. “Yeesh, it was much easier carrying you before you had to wear that stupid suit. When are you ever going to get that thing upgraded to a lighter one.”

“Hey,” Palindrome pointed out as Dib starts waddling over to the controls, “it’s not easy when your body really needs water. Not only for breathing it, but to have an inner layer of the suit that helps keep my scales moisturized so they don’t dry up to the point where they get extremely itchy and then they-“

“Ok, you don’t need to explain your fish issue again. It’s still disgusting no matter how you explain it.”

Palindrome sigh in irritation,

“Just put me down. We’re already by the controls.”

His Dib rolled his eyes and did what he told him. Palindrome however yelped when his legs failed to stand again and it cause him to fall. It took a while after to recover. Shaking, with his teeth clenching by the heavy sensation rippling across his body again, he made his legs use all the strength to stand up a bit and hold unto the controllers. He panted for a short while and looked back at the screen, exhaustingly reaching out and pressing the button. The screen change, showing what appears to be...

Palindrome paused, trying to process what he was seeing so he can make sure his mind wasn’t making it up.

“What is that?” His Dib asked, “it looks like some sort of an abandoned settlement on an asteroid.”

The fish hybrid’s eyes softly traced as he looked at the picture on the screen.

“The Zimvoid.”

“The what?” His Dib asked. But then blinked into realization of what he meant. “Wait. THAT’S the Zimvoid?”

“No doubt about it,” he said and pointed out a very tall device standing on the map version of the Zimvoid, “I know that there is no other planet that holds the Zapper.”

“And this is the one that you said caused everything that happened here on Earth. Especially....”

“I’m certain of it.” Palindrome then squinted. “Along with the certainty of Zib being behind it all.”

“Again, how are you certain that it was Zib? You sure that elderly Zim didn’t accidentally cut the-?”

“Nya!” Miniwhale suddenly pointed out something.

“An email?” Palindrome glanced at his servant in confusion and looked back at the screen. Almost instantly, he took notice on a symbol of an email that appears on the bottom left of the monitor. His eyebrows furrowed.

“Computer, open the email.”

“Yes, sir.”

The email opens up to show a note that is typed in Irken.

“Oh boy,” the human boy scoffed, “more alien writings. Hey fish alien, can you translate what it says?”

The scuba diver went ahead and read it.

“It’s says....’If you really want everything to go back to normal, come see me at the place where you last saw me.’”

“Huh. That’s strange. I wonder who wrote this.”

“Based on what I read and the location, it’s already obvious on who it is. Can’t believe that Roach Human is still alive.”

“Roach Human? What kind of nickname is that?”

“Well since he hates being called ‘Zib’, I might as well give him a much better name. It fits since he’s both cruel, he looks like a human roach, and he’s a Dib.”

“Isn’t he half a Zim too?”

But Palindrome didn’t respond this time and instead quietly stared at the screen.

His Dib slightly tilted his head in confusion.

“Zim?”

The alien hybrid stayed like this for a short while before speaking once more,

“I just don’t understand though. I shouldn’t have received this map. The Zimvoid is from another timeline and I remember when I was trapped there, I could not communicate with my own timeline. How was he able to send me this? Why now?”

“I mean, he did send us a distress signal before, even if it was between two different timelines. It wouldn’t even make sense if it didn’t work for you yet it did for him.”

“The signal he used was far advanced from my own communications. Then again, maybe you could be right. But this signal is different. If the signal is leading me to the Zimvoid, it would have pointed me to Pandora’s Quadrangle. The vortex portal should be there if I’m getting the signal now.”

“The vortex wasn’t there when I checked that place,” His enemy let him know, “and I have never picked up any activity from that place since.”

Palindrome kept on pondering more.

“Hm. That wouldn’t make sense if the vortex really is closed. I wonder...”

He looked back up at the monitor.

“Computer, zoom out the map on how long it takes to get to this signal.”

“Zooming out!”

The map completely changed from the zooming. The enemy duos and Miniwhale looked at the screen.

The entire room was quiet.

“Um....” His Dib finally spoke, “...Zim? Are you sure the map isn’t glitching?”

“No,” he murmured while his eyes remained glued on the screen.

“Are you sure? Like I’m for real, you’re really sure. Did you check if the computer is glitching?”

“Hmph. Well that’s just rude. My scanning is indicating that my glitches are 0%”

“Are you SURE.”

“Ok, you really need to stop repeating that sentence. It’s getting very annoying.”

“Well I won’t tell until you give me proof that you aren’t glitching!”

The boy sharply turned to him.

“Zim! Check his wires or something! After all, this is a glitch, right?”

Palindrome face of disbelief remained in his face. There was absolutely no doubt that the map was just a glitch.

“Oh Tallest, Roach Human, what did you do?”

——————————————————————-

Within an broken throne room, a strange looking creature was fixing his throne until he heard an alert from the other room.

“Huh, that was fast.”

He stopped what he was doing and entered a lighter room, his appearance being a mix a what appears a child that is half human and half Irken. The PAK that was attached to the back of his head remained to softly glow as he approached a huge cracked monitor, which was damaged as a result of the war. It would glitch and flicker for a split second every now and then but regardless, it was still functional.

“Who responded?” He asked his computer.

“Signal was responded by Earth Number 2002, Number 1.”

“Number 2002. Yeah,” he scoffed, “Ofcourse it would be from one of the Resistance leaders. I guess I’ll have to deal with him too if he decides to come. Speaking of that, what is the condition of Earth Number 2000?”

“The altered timeline of Number 2000 remains stable. It does not appear as though it will change any time soon or rather there is no indication yet if it will ever show a sign of shifting back to its original state.”

“Well that’s one good news I guess,” he sighed, “then again, there’s no telling if he will notice the sudden change of his environment if he’s in a state for this long, or for any Zim that is in this state for that matter. Whatever the case, the timelines cannot remain like this. And I will make sure I don’t underestimate any Zim again. Especially that....”

The rage, just remembering that particular Zim, makes him want to kill him without hesitation. The thought of him was enough to make him tightly form his hands into a fist.

Short beeping sounds was suddenly heard from the computer, distracting him. A monitor points to a specific Earth out of the rest of its alternates that live nearby.

“Number 1. I detect another timeline that is having another unknown triggered time anomaly from Number 2004. The timeline’s shift back into its original state is therefore happening momentarily.”

The hybrid species looks at the screen in awe.

“Another one, huh?”

Without a moment to loose, he looked up at the ceiling that has fully broken off and let his spider legs fully come out of his PAK, launching him up there. He launched out of the hole and made a careful landing on the roof of the castle.

With his spider legs sinking back the where it came from and fully standing up again, he looked out at the Zimvoid. The world felt emptier than it ever was. Especially with the vortexes no longer seen from the sky, resulting in not feeling any wind. Along with the destroyed Zapper, who’s lower bottom half was slightly tilted to the left, as the result of powerful impact of the explosion, and the top portion of it being broken off and laying on the ground, several pieces of it splayed out and surrounding around it. Without the bright light of the powerful device, the Zimvoid has plunged into complete darkness, the stars and moon being the only lights left in such a completely dead world.

There were barely any broken ships left, given that they all dissipated along with the Zims and their destroyed Girs’ bodies, resulting in giving him very little resources he needs to start rebuilding his technologies. However, several broken and crashed ships can now be seen laying about the asteroid planet. Crashed ships that he had upgraded and were believed to have dissipated.

Zib looked up at the sky, waiting quietly and patiently. After several seconds of standing there, he suddenly heard a windy eerie-like sound that steadily grew loud. He quickly glanced about the sky until his eyes laid upon what was starting to become more noticeable. Extremely few portions of goo started to softly appear out of thin air in the distance. Then more and more of them appeared, getting bigger and more noticeable. They all started to pull towards each other until they clumped together, morphing into an object that became more recognizable until it became a single particular voot cruiser. It was starting to fly in a very slow motion, almost as if time was in a slow state for this ship in general. But time started to speed up more and more until it was speeding in its natural state.

However, the ship was gliding down, having no passenger inside to steer it, as it was charging almost directly to the top of the castle where Zib was at. He took notice of this and his hair strands, surprisingly, bristled in alarm.

“Oh SHI-!”

He jumped the the other side of the room and covered his head. The ship barely missed the tower, but the wing hit the edge of the roof, causing the wing to break off and make the ship spin out of control. It continued falling in almost a gliding style until it hit the ground and burst into flame, skidding into a stop.

Zib stayed in his position until he was certain that it was safe to uncover his head and shakily get up. He walked steadily walked to the other side of the roof in order to get a good viewpoint on what almost hit him. He stared at the ship for a long while.

“Time shift from Number 2004’s timeline is complete.”

Zib was quiet. But then hummed in interest.

“2004’s timeline changed even quicker than the last one. Actually...each timeline keeps coming back quicker than the previous one.”

Zib stares at it expressionless. Then he smiled.

#multivoid #zimvoid #iz fanfic #zim 2000 #zim 2002 #zib #zib membrane #zim 2k #zim palindrome

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batmanisagatewaydrug · 4 years ago

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book blogging #1: Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation

by Olivia Judson, published 2002

Question: what do you think of when you think of books that are “fun” to read?

For me, a lot of speculative fiction comes to mind. Recent books that I found fun include Space Opera (Catherynne M. Valente), The Beautiful Ones (Silvia Moreno-Garcia), and everything by Sarah Gailey that I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. Though I haven’t gotten ahold of it yet, I’m pretty sure Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) is going to be spectacularly fun as well.

These are books that aren’t necessarily my favorite stories of all time, but they have been some of my favorites to read. They’re all propelled by zany premises and whirlwind plots, enjoying themselves way too much for anyone to ever stop and worry about the parts that don’t make that much sense. When Sarah Gailey says “I have a crew committing a heist while riding hippopotamuses, do you want in?” I don’t ask questions. I just say yes and go along for the ride.

But there’s one major anomaly that always comes to mind when I think of books that I’ve had fun reading, and that’s David Sax’s The Tastemakers: Why We’re Crazy for Cupcakes but Fed Up with Fondue. It’s a 2014 work of nonfiction, and as the title suggests it’s an analysis of popular food trends and the forces that power them. The Tastemakers isn’t what this blog post is actually supposed to be about, so I won’t go into too many details, but suffice to say that I was engrossed despite the fact that I know pretty much nothing about the world of culinary trends or foodie fads - or cooking in general, if I’m being totally honest. But there’s something really delightful about learning things that are entirely outside your wheelhouse without having to worry about the material showing up on a test later.

Given that I’m posting this on a blog with relatively few followers and that this is a write-up of a very niche book that was published eighteen years ago and could not be further from trendy, I’m well aware that anyone reading this is probably already at least passing familiar with me and what I do, so you folks might be saying, “Hang on, Makenzie. Are you seriously trying to say that this is outside your wheelhouse? The title on your Tumblr has been “Ask The Sex Witch” since 2015. You’re a whole sex educator, for fuck’s sake!”

Well, yes and no. Judson is a real-deal evolutionary biologist and gets into some pretty serious science in this book, which is pretty wildly different from what I usually do. I talk to people about sorting out their likes and dislikes, their boundaries, their sense of personal sexual autonomy, and so on. Although I definitely advocate for introspection and self-examination, I rarely go looking for answers far beyond the individual level. Judson asks big biological questions to figure out how some truly peculiar-looking behavior evolves: Why is it worthwhile for some animals to fight to the death trying to fuck? What’s up with some species of insects eating their mates? And who, pray tell, is engaging in the noble art of penis-fencing? Clearly, this is a totally different ball game on many levels.

(Speaking of ball games, did you know that the male shiner perch’s testes completely shrivel up over the winter? That’s rough, buddy.)

Offering sex advice to humans is hard enough, but Judson - writing as chipper sex advice columnist Dr. Tatiana - easily offers education to an impressively vast variety of species. The framing device of the book is a charmingly weird one. Each segment opening Dear Prudence-style, with a short letter from an animal badly in need of advice. The first chapter, for instance, begins with a query written by a stick bug called Twiggy (aww) wondering how to get her boyfriend to stop having sex with her after ten continuous weeks of intercourse. (Answer: Girl, he’s not gonna. Apparently that’s how he stops any other stick bugs from getting it in.) For the final chapter Judson mixes it up by formatting a discussion about the pros and cons of asexual reproduction as a hectic daytime talk show, complete with microscopes to view the tiniest guests and seating that offers both saltwater and freshwater tanks for aquatic audience members to sit in, like something out of Zootopia.

(I haven’t seen Zootopia and the only thing I know about it for sure is that in one scene there’s a DILF-looking tiger, but I’m pretty confident in the assumption I’m making here.)

Judson does an admirable job of providing pretty comprehensible explanations for a lot of evolutionary science, and while I did have to power skim through a few segments that were really beyond my grasp, it did make a pretty lively read out of the biological pros and cons of producing sperm bigger than your own body. It’s not exactly a book that’s difficult to put down, but I had a perfectly pleasant time reading it in the moments between doing anything else - eating a meal, resting in bed, getting some sun in my backyard - and even learning a little while I did so. I fully intended to use Dr. Tatiana as a break between the two installments of N.K. Jemisin’s Dreamblood duology, and it has served that role magnificently.

Am I recommending this book to you? Not exactly, unless you’re extremely interested in evolutionary theories that are nearly two decades old or a science fiction writer looking to give your non-human characters some thoroughly non-human sexual habits. I’m not supremely interested in making recommendations with the blog in general, unless someone specifically asks for them; I’m hoping this will be more like writing up my personal thoughts about books and then hurling them into the virtual void like messages in bottles. If they wash up on your shore and you read them and come to the conclusion that this is something you, too, would like to read, that’s pretty rad. I love that for you! But it wasn’t necessarily my intent.

Strictly speaking, I didn’t even recommend this book to myself. In 2019 I tried to stay pretty intentional about my to-read list, really whittling it down to stuff that I actively wanted to engage with rather than anything that sounded vaguely not awful. I was hoping to keep that trend up in 2020, but like many other things that are much more serious, this whole pandemic situation has scuppered those plans a bit. I get most of my books by borrowing them from the public library where I work, and that’s been closed for nearly two months. Unlike many book bloggers I’ve observed I don’t keep a massive stack of unread books around at all times, so I’ve really been relying on the kindness of friends to keep me supplied in these trying times.

My friend Paige slipped me Dr. Tatiana’s (along with the aforementioned Dreamblood books and several volumes of Kurtis J. Weibe’s comic series Rat Queens) in exchange for some books I lent to her, because we all have to look out for each other in These Trying Times. I trusted her good taste, despite having no idea what the book was about and more than a few reservations.

At other times I think this book might have sailed right over my head - not to sneer at the so-called soft sciences, but there’s a reason I gave up on my childhood dream of marine biology and got a sociology degree instead - but right now, as I’m finally adjusting to the slower pace of life in quarantine and remembering how to focus, I’m finding that it fits my needs. It’s unlikely to live on as an all-time favorite, but it’s something to do and gives me an occasional excuse to gasp and tell my roommate something absolutely wild, like the fact that spiders have two penises and that the dual arachnodicks are located on their faces, on either side of their mouths.

My basic understanding of evolution is that change rarely happens based on logic or reason, but by finding something that works and then sticking to it, no matter how improbable it may seem. When male elephants get horny they apparently develop an insatiable bloodlust and piss so constantly their penises turn green (yikes!), which is definitely not the most practical way to do things, but evidently it’s been getting the job done. Getting through quarantine has been sort of like that, has it not? A lot of behavior that might not be the most intuitive but is somehow enabling ongoing survival, like occupying myself with books that I might not have given a second glance in the halcyon before times.

That’s totally the same thing, right?

Right.

A note about the appearance of this book:

I’ve been talking a fair amount lately about my dislike for what I see as pretty transparently romanticized materialism in a lot of book blogging spaces, with an emphasis placed on acquiring and showing off as many pristine books as possible. I don’t own this book, and it looks like ass. It looks like Paige stole it from a library in North Carolina, which would not be shocking. When I noticed the large brown stain in the corner I jokingly asked if she’d dropped it in coffee, and she unflinchingly confirmed that yes, she had.

#bookblr #in which makenzie is a book blogger until she forgets about it

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goddessofthundathighs · 5 years ago

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I’ll Take Yo Man

A little college Hennessy and Erik foolishness concocted by @hearteyes-for-killmonger & myself. Based on the following prompt:

Friday. The day Hennessy had been looking forward to the whole week. Erik would be home from his most recent deployment the next day and she needed to prepare for his return. She went and got her hair done, opting for a silk press to her usually springy curls. She followed that up with a well deserved pedicure and a full-set of stiletto dick grabbers, both in his favorite color on her: sunflower yellow. She was now perusing the shelves of MAC, looking to restock her dwindling supply of Snob and Saint Germain lippies and her prep + prime lip primer. The freshly cleaned diamonds in the Cuban link necklace Erik gifted her twinkled under the light of the store, attracting the attention of the young woman working. She was about 5’9, 150 pounds wet with what looked to be a 24-inch body wave weave with a lifting frontal and lipstick that clashed with her undertones. Cute, but not Hennessy. She looked Henny up and down with familiarity before her eyes finally landed on the letter E tattoo that rested on her collarbone.

“Oh, you must be the new freak of the week?”

“Excuse me?” Hennessy asked with a raised eyebrow. Erik was popular, so it was no surprise that the whole state of Massachusetts knew that he was officially off the market.

“I know that Cuban, he gave me one like it when we were fucking around. Erik?”

“Who are you?” The name tag on her chest read Brittani, but it should’ve said Bold Bitch, seeing as how she was questioning Henny like she was Erik’s mother.

“I’m Brittani. Erik and I fucked around on the regular up until about a year ago.”

Hennessy smiled as Brittani spoke, remembering the day that he stumbled on her doorstep.

"And you still on him? Baby, move on." This caused Brittani to give her the most menacing look.

“Funny, you’re bigger than his usual type.”

Oh, you one of them bitches. Salty as the everlasting fuck that a thicc bitch took the nigga you wanted.

“Any particular reason why you’re divulging this information? I’m just tryna buy some lipstick not hear your dating history.”

Brittani smirked, snatching the items from Hennessy’s hands and ringing them up aggressively.

"History tends to repeat itself. I could take your man. Easily! Look at me and look at you.”

Hennessy laughed loudly then, completely disregarding the Great Value Cyn Santana. Having been officially dating the soon-to-be King of Wakanda for a year now, she was used to slimmer, Instagram-esque women feeling loose at the lips when it came to her boyfriend. At face value, Erik was the total package. He was incredibly smart, handsome, and his sex could convert even the most devout nun. But the real Erik, the fragile lost boy who had discovered his father’s lifeless body when he was only a young boy, that was a completely different story. The real Erik was moody, mean, and when he was in Killmonger-mode, a vengeful shell of a man that cared about nobody else’s feelings but his own. It had taken some time, but Hennessy had skillfully and meticulously broken down some of the rougher areas of his psyche and had learned things about him that no one else would dream of knowing. In him, she'd found a kindred spirit. A twin flame. They had bonded over their love for marijuana and their need to escape the realities of their tragic childhoods. She'd seen him at his weakest, his ugliest, and his most tragic. They'd butt heads and found homeostasis more times in a month than most couples even saw each other. She knew no one else could handle the man she called hers and she’d be lying if she said the idea of someone trying was not comical.

“I'll tell you what. You can have him, but I guarantee after 24 hours you’ll give him back.”

“Shiiid. I know what that dick is like and I swore that if I ever got it again, I’d never let him go.”

Hennessy laughed harder as the young woman slid the bag of purchased items across the counter.

“I’ll give you 24 hours. Any longer and you're stuck with him.”

“Deal.”

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

“You really out here tryna pimp a nigga, huh?” Erik asked from his place between Hennessy's legs. After having successfully broken her back on every surface of their shared apartment since he stepped foot in the door the previous day, Erik was now lazily resting on Hennessy’s belly while she massaged through his dreads. He had missed the way her plush body melted into his, much like the memory foam mattress they were currently lounging on. He loved the way their bodies fit together, like Bast had created her just for him. She was his personal Sour Patch kid, sweet and sour depending on her mood, but always soft.

“It’s only pimping if we're getting paid. Lil’ Mama said she could take you from me, so I told her she could have you. You and I both know you’ll be back.”

“You damn right. You’re my favorite brown liquor and plus, I can’t leave my Creole lady for too long. What you gonna do while I’m gone?”

Um, party? She thought to herself.

“Relax,” she said instead. Though there were experiments that needed to be done, she was going to use the day for some much needed self-care. Her hair had long since sweated out from its silky state, so she planned to wash and twist it, exfoliate and shave, and binge watch all the shows she’d missed during the week.

“You relaxed while I was gone, ma,” he pouted as he snuggled closer to her.

“No, I worked while you were gone. You know I have to keep busy so I don’t miss ya fat head ass so much.”

“You love my fat head though, boffum,” he teased as he ran his fingertips up her thighs.

“You’re disgusting,” she sneered.

“Filthy,” he called back, dipping his fingers between her thighs, drawing a soft mewl from her.

“Again?” she pouted.

“I missed my baby,” he growled before his tongue met her folds.

Here we go again.

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

Erik watched Brittani's back, unimpressed by her lack of food and general unpreparedness. Hadn't she heard that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach? She sat a bowl in front of him and stuck a spoon in it like she was done.

“Bruh. What the fuck is this? I asked for shrimp and grits, not oatmeal,” Killmonger fussed from his seat at Brittani’s counter. He had been in one of his moods ever since he came over, mentally noting to curse his girlfriend out for subjecting him to such torture, and now she was trying to kill him. Immediately he began to remember why he cut Brittani off in the first place. She was cute, but that was all she had going for herself. She couldn’t cook, she wouldn’t clean, and she was always in his business and trying to go through his phone. If she wasn’t trying to force herself onto his dick then she was whining about wanting him to take her shopping and show her off, though she wasn’t much of a trophy. She couldn't even keep her wig under control. He could see the screen door material sitting on top of her forehead. Henny always put makeup on hers. He could see her in the mirror now, doing that goofy ass dance she did whenever she got a new wig, patting and parting to make sure it looked good. He looked down at his watch. 16 more hours to go. This was finna be a long day.

“That is shrimp and grits, babe. I followed the recipe and everything.” Hennessy didn’t need a recipe.

“My name is Erik,” he reminded her as he tried to lift the spoon from the bowl. “Call me babe again and I’ll slit ya throat,” he threatened, mostly serious. “Why the grits so thick? Did you devein the shrimp? Is this a shell?!” His appetite quickly diminished when he spotted a creature the size of his thumb crawl across the stovetop.

“SHIT…. I’m going to the gym,” he snarled dusting himself, suddenly paranoid.

You love me especially gentle every time // You keep me on my feet happily excited // By your cologne, your hands, your smile, your intelligence // You woo me, you court me, you tease me, you please me // You school me, give me some things to think about // Ignite me, you invite me, you co-write me, you love me, you like me // You incite me to chorus, ooh

Back at their apartment, Henny was soaking in a vanilla lavender bath while her curls deep conditioned under her large pink bonnet. Jill Scott serenaded her while the warm water soothed her aching muscles, an indication of the previous night’s activities. Her music was interrupted by her ringtone.

“Miss me already, Daddy?” she teased, putting the phone on speaker so she could finish her bath.

“This bitch got bugs bigger than me crawling around her shit. Them bitches benching 350. I’m not sleeping there tonight for them niggas to jump me in my sleep.. and I’ma beat ya ass when I get home,” he fussed, still dusting himself occasionally as he drove.

“Aww, baby it can’t be that bad,” Hennessy tried.

“She needed a recipe for shrimp and grits. Who the fuck needs a recipe for shrimp and grits?! It’s in the fuckin’ title! Damn shrimp still had shells on ‘em, the grits was hard as a fuckin’ brick… it was just a mess. Then Craig the Cockroach or whatever the fuck it was came crawling across the stove like he was lookin’ for a plate too. I had to go.”

Hennessy was a giggling mess as Erik explained his morning ordeal.

“Didn’t y’all use to fuck around? You ain’t know she had roaches?”

“I used to fuck that bitch in her driveway cuz she lived with her mama. I had no idea what the inside of that place looked like.”

“You was a dirty dick ass nigga, huh? Just sticking it in anything warm.”

“First of all, fuck you. Second of all, I’m aware of the error of my past judgement, but this is NOT the time to be making jokes. I’m distraught and you laughing. If I die in there, it’s your fault.”

“I mean, according to ya military paperwork I’m ya wife, so I’ll get a nice check.”

“Wooooooow, it really be ya own people. Just for that I’m going in ya ass with no lube tomorrow.”

“Wait, I take it back. I’m sorry. If you wanna come back sooner, handle her. Make it so she knows you're mine or help her move on. One or the other.”

“BET.” With that, the line went dead and Hennessy already knew which option he chose. She had basically given Killmonger permission to hurt this young lady’s feelings, and boy did he intend to do just that.

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

Hennessy was mid happy baby pose when her phone rang again, this time with an unfamiliar number. She cleared her throat and pulled out the French, just in case it was a bill collector or one of Erik’s more shady acquaintances.

“Bonjour, Aurélie.” She was met with the sound of soft sniffles, followed by her boyfriend’s voice roaring in the background.

“The fuck you crying for? You knew what that shit looked like when you woke up this morning. Didn’t even try to run a brush through it. That ain’t what Beyoncé meant when she said she woke up like this.”

“Please come get this nigga,” Brittani said between sniffles. She had had it. Ever since Erik had returned from the gym he had been tearing into her. Hennessy knew it would happen and she almost felt bad for releasing the beast. Almost.

"I would’ve kissed you good morning just to be nice but I went through your bathroom cabinets and you ain't got no mouthwash. Your toothbrush look like it was originally owned by George Washington and your breath smells like halitosis personified. And don’t get me started on Craig the Cockroach. That nigga probably twerked his ass all over your lips and your tongue the way you were snoring. Why you sleep with your mouth open when you got roaches?”

“That’s actually a valid question. That can’t be healthy,” Henny finally spoke up.

“That nigga Craig pay rent or is he like Bruhman from the fif flo? This his house, huh? You just his pet human.”

“Nigga!” Hennessy exclaimed through the phone. She had been successful at keeping her laughs at bay, but was done when he called her the roach’s pet human.

“I can’t do this anymore, you can have him back.”

“It’s only been 9 hours, sis. I thought you said you’d never let that dick go.”

"So now you don't wanna be with me because I'm telling yo triflin’ ass the truth? And who said she was getting dick?! Nah, you ain’t about to put no voodoo curses on me for sticking my dick in the Men In Black bug. I try to bust a nut and my shit just fall off. Hell nah.”

“Just get ya shit and go, nigga. Shamu can have you.” Time seemed to stop once those words left her lips. Even Craig the Cockroach disappeared. It was one thing to disrespect him, but his woman? All bets were off when it came to her and Brittani was about to learn this the hard way. With deadly stealth Erik zipped from across the room to right in front of her face. He wiggled the phone from Brittani’s grasp and ended the call before putting his face as close to hers as his nostrils would allow.

"You fix them crusty lips to call my woman Shamu one more time.. and I'll throw you in the ocean with Bruhman chained to your ankle like a weight." Brittani remained silent, only nodding her head fervently when he was done.

"Nah, you know what? That's not good enough. Call my girl back. Yeah, call her."

“Yeeesss?” Hennessy sang from the other end of the phone.

"The bit-, I mean Brittani got something to say to you. Go 'head."

Brittani hesitated, Erik's eyes giving her the option to cooperate or face consequences. He'd taken pictures of her dirty stove capturing a roach on the move and was threatening to post it on a MAC forum along with a short video of her asleep with a roach on her forehead. She decided it would be best for her to cooperate and cut her losses.

"Hi, Hennessy. I'm sorry for what I said to you and you were right, I couldn't handle him. I guess..," she wavered briefly, "I guess you're a better woman than me all-around. I could never. I see that now."

Erik cleared his throat quietly.

"Oh, a-and you're very beautiful, very statuesque and curvaceous. I wish I looked like you--"

“You don’t have to lie, now, sweetheart. You don’t wish you looked like me, you’re only saying that because you’re afraid of what he’ll do to you if I give the word. However, let this be a lesson to you. Just because you think you’re better than someone, that may not always be the case. Even if this little experiment had been his own choice, he’d still come back to me because he knows that no woman will ever treat him the way that I do. I’m one in a million and he’d be stupid to let me go.”

"So I can come home now?"

“Of course you can, Daddy. I got homemade crab cakes and lobster man n cheese waiting for you as well as two freshly pearled blunts of some new shit. I even felt generous and made a bananas foster cheesecake.” Erik’s mouth watered when she mentioned the dessert he fell in love with when they visited her parents the previous summer.

"A nigga need a bath, a nap, and a backrub. I ain't get no sleep. I had one eye open all night."

“You can have whatever you like, baby. My schedule is clear for the next week.”

“Shiiiit, I’m on my way.. And be naked when I get there.”

Horny ass nigga.

"Take notes," he said to Brittani as he hung up. “And tell my nigga Craig he can have them clothes. I ain’t tryna bring none of y’all kids home.”

TAGS: @panthergoddessbast @amethyst1993 @vikkidc @blackpantherismyish @youreadthatright @mareethequeen @princessstevens @bartierbakarimobisson @madamslayyy @nickidub718 @chaneajoyyy @blowmymbackout @muse-of-mbaku @killmongersgurl @thehomierobbstark @forbeautyandlife @wakanda-inspired @thadelightfulone @purple-apricots @trevantesbrat

#vanity writes #my shit #erik stevens #killmonger fic #erik killmonger #erik killmonger x black oc #erik x henny

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comicteaparty · 4 years ago

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Art Resources

Check out this plethora of art-related resources archived from Comic Tea Party’s Art Resources Channel!

RebelVampire

starting this channel off with @Kabocha 's site http://www.shooting-stars.org/ lots of fantastic brushes and materials to use for both photoshop and clip studio(edited)

https://inkarnate.com/ - a nifty site for creating maps. while there is a pro version, the free version still has a lot of features if you just need a map for personal use to reference for your stories.(edited)

https://bodykunposeoftheday.tumblr.com/ - lots of pose photos of the SH Figuarts Body-Kun figures. really great if you want to get some anatomy and pose practice in!(edited)

http://blog.studiominiboss.com/pixelart - if you're a fan of pixel art, this is a hugely great collection of tutorials by Pedro Medeiros. it's got everything from process explanations, animation tips, shading, and more.(edited)

http://terawell.net/terawell/ - Design Doll, a great 3d program solely focused on doll posing. learning to pose the dolls can be a bit of a learning curve, but it can be fantastic if you really need a specific pose reference.(edited)

http://www.yeoldemapmaker.com/ - another map making website. this one is a lot better for interiors, especially if what you want is to just understand the base layout of a room for reference.(edited)

https://www.textures.com/ - a good site for textures. you have to make an account to download them, unfortunately. however, theres tons upon tons of them. for comics they should be safe, but would recommend checking terms for other things.(edited)

Kabocha

Free Software: I have not personally tested all of these programs. Download at your own risk. indicates that I have used it. Pixia: http://www.ne.jp/asahi/mighty/knight/index.html Artweaver: https://www.artweaver.de/en (has paid version) Medibang Paint: https://medibangpaint.com/en/ Krita: https://krita.org/en/ MyPaint: http://mypaint.org/ (Pressure does not work properly on Surface devices newer than the Surface 3) SmoothDraw: http://www.smoothdraw.com/sd Paint.Net: https://www.getpaint.net/ GIMP: https://www.gimp.org/ Pinta: https://pinta-project.com/pintaproject/pinta/ Inkscape: https://inkscape.org/en/

RebelVampire

https://nattosoup.blogspot.com/ - If you aren't familiar with Becca's blog yet, it's really great. while there is an emphasis on watercolor and traditional art supplies, theres honestly just great information all around. processes, supply reviews, and so on!

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

http://leifandthorn.com/2018/07/resources-for-making-webcomics/ - resources I've collected over the years. Mostly art stuff (fonts, color harmony, body types, etc), plus some help with website accessibility and some general webcomic podcasts.

Desnik

This is not a free resource so I hope it's okay, but in just a couple of days poring over the first two pages of this book, I'm really feeling a difference in the elasticity of my character's poses. It doesn't get bogged down by medical terminology and sorts parts of the body by 'landmark' instead: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23580472-anatomy-for-sculptors-understanding-the-human-figure

this is speaking as someone who has multiple years of figure drawing practice from life...I wish this book had been out much earlier, it's just amazing

JaSketch

https://www.calligraphr.com/en/ Here’s a free to use website that turns your handwriting into a legit text font, and it works too!

keltyzoid!

speaking of fonts i've actually made a few that are free to use. there's a couple of webcomics i know of that use them. should can i post them?

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/r8wmj4kp2566jbn/AACCrP70zPVLr8h2f5F4d6BIa?dl=0

they're free, no license or credit necessary

kayotics

this is a pretty basic level "how I do comics" but i like to reference these how-to's from Mad Rupert sometimes as a refresh on comics: http://mynameismad.tumblr.com/post/163801383099/hello-in-case-you-havent-heard-the-sakana

lonelytuatara

for any fellow photoshop users who wanna get better at perspective, this video's been really helpful for me! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upxBGNcryRs

Delphina

Really helpful Twitter thread about effective paneling! https://twitter.com/h0lysarthole/status/1117464886123089921

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Install old versions of Adobe products for free: https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/cs2-product-downloads.html?promoid=19SCDRQK There are terms & conditions, but the programs don't actually check if you fulfill them. It's up to you to know how much money you've given them, and what you're ethically clear to download in return.

Kabocha

If we're talking about Image Editors, a not-free alternative is Affinity Photo, which is reasonably priced. (I'd look for it to go on sale, but $50 for a perpetual license isn't bad at all!) https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/ Their indesign competitor is in free Beta right now, too: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/publisher/

Paint.net also still exists: https://www.getpaint.net/

https://www.patreon.com/posts/26834357 In the meantime, here's a post for alternatives to adobe.

https://twitter.com/robochai/status/1124044195092672515

JUNK

https://blog.reimenayee.com/graphic-novel-outline-onion-method/ neat

Hey, I'm sure everyone already knows, but clip studio is on sale for $25 right now! It is (imo) one of the best programs out there for making comics! https://twitter.com/clipstudiopaint/status/1169159411304210432?s=19

MJ Massey

if you're looking for a new display tablet, I found this useful site with tons of tablet reviews! They're organized by size and look at several different brands http://brad.site/reviews/wacom-cintiq-alternatives.html

Attila Polyák

How to draw good looking lightning/electricity! https://www.facebook.com/leesartandmore/photos/a.1370091679712083/2411389295582311/?type=3&theater

seetherabbit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pDE4VX_9Kk

DaeofthePast

Free to use comic font http://purastik.net/ames/e.html

MJ Massey

If you haven't watched Jake Parker's videos, I highly recommend them. They are very informative AND relaxing and encouraging https://www.youtube.com/user/jakeparker44

MJ Massey

GESTURE DRAWINGS! They're important for art practice, especially if you are looking to improve your forms! https://www.quickposes.com/en is my favorite. It has a feature where you can set it to show you different photos every 30-300 seconds to practice gesture drawing!

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Just saw this on Twitter. Haven't actually gotten a chance to look at it closely, but I thought other people might also want to take a look https://twitter.com/Worstwizard/status/1183475129084329984?s=09

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

https://twitter.com/noahbradley/status/1185286707819827201?s=09

Attila Polyák

Loads of useful facebbok stuff I meant to post a long time ago, but never got around doing it: https://www.facebook.com/AikaLockheart/photos/a.413147142066258/2235198713194416/?type=3&theater https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=472362883489284&set=a.130547804337462&type=3&theater https://www.facebook.com/geektower/photos/pcb.1089341477902964/1089341267902985/?type=3&theater

MJ Massey

picking pens! From Jake Parker himself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNgYvTI09XE

MJ Massey

for anyone who likes podcasts, I enjoy 3 Point Perspective, particularly their most recent episode on building an online store and making sales https://open.spotify.com/episode/2twCBBjRWZlmzbvWkRoARG?si=N7PiY3UoTJCzq0zZovXsdg

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Here's a good reference generator: https://line-of-action.com/

SAWHAND

Hope this counts as a resource, here's a list of Best Comic Covers in a given month by Paste magazine, it goes up to June 2019. It was really helping me get ideas for covers! https://www.pastemagazine.com/search?t=Best+Comic+Book+Covers&m=Galleries

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

This is great!

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Ooh, yeah, those are great.

I did a redraw where I added another 7, for shots that aren't in the original that I also get a ton of use out of: https://www.deviantart.com/erinptah/art/29-Panels-That-Always-Work-748887838

carcarchu

ooooh https://twitter.com/cathygjohn/status/1216093817734139904?s=20

carcarchu

https://twitter.com/ClipStudioTips/status/1217058241613651969

renieplayerone

This may have been shared before but i am a HUGE fan of SenshiStock. Their references are so good and ive used their stock photos for a ton of studies and practice too https://twitter.com/SenshiStock

carcarchu

https://twitter.com/celesse/status/1219674655663042561

carcarchu

https://twitter.com/dankelby/status/1220254171049418752

mariah (rainy day dreams)

https://kingofooo.tumblr.com/post/161105648449/by-storyboard-supervisor-erik-fountain-a-few

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

https://twitter.com/ImRachelBradley/status/1216042005698174977?s=19

carcarchu

https://twitter.com/cyanparade/status/1229450046480867328

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

@Feather J. Fern This is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEvMHRgPdyk

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

@Javi An oldie I still find useful for learning how to draw people: https://archive.org/details/andrew-loomis-drawing-the-head-hands/mode/2up

Nutty (Court of Roses)

https://twitter.com/Lowtwait/status/1232479451721502725

Artem Ficta (Ring Spell)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlh4PO-ISCA

video that looks into this current humble bundle pack

looks kind of interesting

doomedfrgarden

I'm not sure if Borodante's Over-Paint series has been posted here (I didn't see it, but I don't have my glasses so I can't promise a thorough search), but his digital painting tips have been incredibly helpful and inspiring to me, so I hope it helps someone else here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDKgohjbwY8&list=PL26-CxnLWOfD_h42yjpO44dPAo3-pijgb&index=23

Feather J. Fern

Found something that explains Bleed for comics. https://makingcomics.spiltink.org/pgtemplates/

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

A soft-shading demo I made for@Feather J. Fern & @Artem Ficta (Ring Spell) Sorry this took so long to complete! https://youtu.be/Cyc9EVissw0

carcarchu

https://twitter.com/hanari0716/status/931463182354227201

Mei

For people like me who mess up their bleeds and have to fix them in post, I had this lying in my bookmarks! https://twitter.com/TheDamnThinGuy/status/1190321427314032646?s=20

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

There are lots of guides to tangents, and here is one I like a lot! http://curiousoldlibrary.blogspot.com/2011/10/schweizer-guide-to-spotting-tangents.html

carcarchu

https://twitter.com/Sasquatchiix/status/1236987090874667008 This is a visual novel zine but section 2 on resources actually has a lot of cross-over in terms of usability for comic creators, check it out if you feel like testing out some new tools! Update - I read through the articles now and I actually really recommend checking them out too for advice when it comes to story-writing and how to lay it all out(edited)

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

Want to share this with you all! https://creatureartteacher.com/product/fundamentals-of-animation/?fbclid=IwAR0ahSOtdTBPmi0cHQlBpyMK7RveLZXptqcLrFX559KQMOkp-oLjGG9JA_0 Fundamentals of Animation Course Aron Blaise a big disney animator, has an animation Course that take you through the princibles of animation. This course is free for a limited time if you want to learn about animation!

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Really cool video I found about pricing your commissions: https://youtu.be/pN4P82Y_3k0

carcarchu

a handy tool for those who work in clip https://twitter.com/2TooToo2/status/1243101802435727360

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I'm not sure if this is the right channel, but I'm going around shouting about how Adobe users can get two months free because of the pandemic this morning. Here's an article about how to do it! https://www.creativebloq.com/news/adobe-payment-holiday?fbclid=IwAR108UH-2fQfvQzyc2STIHZh9H7LOzr1xvOoLPM_7pylHNoQ9isvMDT4wRw

I also made a tweet for easy sharing if you don't want to type your own. https://twitter.com/RainyDayMariah/status/1243573425697742848?s=20

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

https://twitter.com/metalsorcery/status/1247930202073829377?s=19 This is a survey to answer for webcomic creators to get their work featured in this newsletter! Open to every one!

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

@Miranda (Into the Swell) This one's pretty good: https://www.deviantart.com/theinkyway/art/Manga-Studio-5-Clip-Studio-Paint-Brush-Pack-619455926

carcarchu

@Miranda (Into the Swell) this is my ultimate fave http://fav.me/d7s799d

carcarchu

this is handy reference image account that only posts pictures of suits and mundane things https://twitter.com/madarameBK

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

Follow Art of Webcomics (on Twitter) which help independent creators host a site and share your page updates: https://series.artofwebcomics.com/(edited)

carcarchu

https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1725189 a handy sfx brush for clip studio paint that can help save some time with your process (it's got various effects built in the brush itself so you don't have to have several stroke layers to achieve the effect) it costs 2 dollars

SaltySalmonella

I made an SFX (sound effect) booklet for comic artists who are having difficulty visualizing sounds for their comics. It's free to download on Gumroad! https://gumroad.com/SaltySalmonella#VOZQM

Elliot

https://twitter.com/nicparris/status/1253710231781036043

CoppertheCarutor

I'm not sure if this goes in writing or art resources because it's art based, but the focus is on using colors to aid the story, but I thought this was a pretty neat video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXgFcNUWqX0&feature=emb_logo

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I was looking up some moonlight tutorials for an illustration last night. Figured I'd share~ https://tips.clip-studio.com/en-us/articles/1684

https://www.deviantart.com/ryky/art/MOON-easy-tutorial-399161176

carcarchu

https://youtu.be/LokpJy7KHpE Shilin talks about her thought processes when laying out her comic panels

carcarchu

some free flower assets for clip https://assets.clip-studio.com/ko-kr/search?user=miyage3&order=new

carcarchu

Reimena Yee did an interesting thread on the visual language used in comics https://twitter.com/reimenayee/status/1263755464853995521(edited)

sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead)

yess I was hoping someone would put that up here!!! such a good resource

that reminded me of the 22 panels that always work, something I've been trying to utilize more when I get stuck working: https://cloudfour.com/thinks/22-panels-that-always-work-wally-woods-legendary-productivity-hack/

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

It's so reliable, last year I was able to recreate the whole thing using only pre-existing panels from Leif & Thorn. (Then added another row because there were a few other shots I keep coming back to...) https://leifandthorn.com/comic/erin-ptahs-29-panels-that-always-work/

(Note, there's a horizontal scrollbar under the image, since I uploaded the big version.)

DaeofthePast

found this tutorial/tips on drawing scars that I found useful https://jetfeather.tumblr.com/post/163383759536/i-have-a-hard-time-drawing-scars-how-do-you-do

carcarchu

For those who suffer from pain while drawing: https://twitter.com/lost_paw/status/1271540123688210433

Evil_Chippy (My Hero!)

https://twitter.com/Darchala/status/1272257378881175552?s=20

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

@Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§ Here's the brush pack. The one I used is called "Pensona": https://www.deviantart.com/theinkyway/art/Manga-Studio-5-Clip-Studio-Paint-Brush-Pack-619455926

carcarchu

How to draw a lot of books https://twitter.com/yoshida_seiji/status/1200432951671939073

carcarchu

Mentorship directory for this interested in that kind of thing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vfcr_F0utixw7D-rsbUoId1kwU2Ee_c_jXy2r5df-Jc/edit?usp=sharing

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

https://www.lackadaisy.com/exhibit.php?exhibitid=333 A fun tutorial on drawing expressions

carcarchu

A really comprehensive look into the panel border tool in clip https://professorfaf.tumblr.com/post/178927411355/comic-paneling-tools-in-clip-studio-paint Great for beginners but even if you're already acquainted with them it's helpful for finding out things you may not have even realized

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED289uthfNQ&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1ka0j6gwtFcj5aXS8wIj-zpgwaYiI2ncP-g4Tn6hL0h4VFa-rKn6MM_1Q this is my old illustration instructor who did a tutorial on watercolour if anyone was interested in the medium! her stuff is so vibrant and solid, and i was so happy to have her as my old prof!

CoppertheCarutor

Light bounce! https://twitter.com/KikiDoodleTweet/status/1276565894051753984?s=19

carcarchu

https://twitter.com/Ghadaaax/status/1277158331761807360 helpful tips!

cAPSLOCK (Tailslide)

Colorist K Michael Russell has been streaming nightly as he colors pages from comics he's working on, while giving tips and insight into his thought process: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCps08eOJfFRm00TE5LStIIg

carcarchu

Advice on how to utilize speedlines https://youtu.be/Y_3Rbjn_0r0

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I just have to plug this amazing program here: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/publisher/ It's basically a replacement program for Adobe inDesign, but waaay cheaper. If you're like me and have sworn off Adobe, I highly recommend it. I've been messing with it all day to begin setting up my first volume for print, and I love it so far, especially after trying other budget publishing softwares. Can't recommend it enough.

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

hii! https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m8yv10gevqv2x5s/AACVoWTvK-B7qB1yRGUZadB5a?dl=0 Here is a little gallery of fat bodies!

carcarchu

world building tool thing https://www.worldanvil.com/artist i haven't tried it out yet but it looks interesting!

carcarchu

https://twitter.com/soteikat/status/1285036231592558592 takie made some free to use comic resources!

carcarchu

https://twitter.com/aeipathea/status/1285048061518061569

carcarchu

it is a website that shares dimensions for things. Helpful for referencing proportions https://www.dimensions.com/(edited)

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I don't necessarily agreed with everything they said, but it's still a good video, and I definitely agree with many of the points they brought up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZQKeHnKK90

Especically the "stop drawing _" advice

I dealt with that a lot in school

#ctparchive

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