#forgive me for the long post

[apparently-artless]

i loved reading your comments on koushuu and the kousawa battery in the gifset you made on how nice it is to see eijun have someone so dedicated to him! i totally agree! i really liked miyuki for a long time while watching the anime, until the yips arc and the scene where he ignores eijun in favor of catching for furuya, eventually leading to koushuu catching for eijun for the first time. in both scenes miyuki's treatment of eijun really broke my heart and made it difficult for me to like him. seeing how attentive, sincere, kind, and present koushuu is with eijun is so so refreshing and eye-opening. miyuki and eijun undeniably have a lot of chemistry and are clearly favored by tj, but miyuki can just be so... unkind to him, and treats him like a pest. even when it's done jokingly, it breaks my heart because eijun so clearly admires and desires miyuki's approval- and miyuki is aware of this, and still treats him like that. seeing a catcher treat him like a human, a friend, an equal, the way koushuu does is such a breath of fresh air. theres no power imbalance, theres no chasing, theres no fighting for an ounce of acknowledgement. it's just two people seeing and understanding and supporting each other.

i know you didn't ask for this so im sorry this got so long dsfkdfkjh! its just unusual to see people who share similar recognition for the not so great parts in the misawa dynamic (as a battery and relationship). i hope you are doin good! :)

hey, anon! thanks for sharing your thoughts too! i do agree with what you said and I'm glad someone shares the same sentiments. i love miyuki as sawamura's battery, but adding okumura to the story is refreshing because he's experiencing something he rarely gets to experience with miyuki. if you've finished reading act ii, there was even a time (while sawamura was already the ace) when he mentioned wanting to go pro to furuya. let me repeat, he said his honest feelings to furuya and not to sawamura while sawamura was accidentally hearing this in the background. for me, it was frustrating and sawamura felt the same. sometimes, i do get frustrated with TJ. can't even say that he did a good wrap-up on that part.

but then, if you're going to think about it, this is just one of miyuki's flaws as a character. he's just so bad when it comes to emotional department that if i had to rate him from 0-10, i'd say he's a negative one. during yakushi's match, he admitted that it was his fault but didn't apologize sincerely to sawamura. during yips arc, he admitted that he noticed something's off about the pitcher but kept pushing him and pestering him about his control. even during the match with inajutsu, clearly, sawamura was already getting too pressured and too agitated but he failed to notice. and at that time they were trying to watch sawamura's pitching when they already found out about his condition, instead of saying something positive, he simply told sawamura not to think too much about it because he's an 'idiot'. he rarely praises sawamura because "he's always getting ahead of himself" as he keeps on saying. to make the long story short, miyuki is just emotionally constipated and he himself is aware of it. and while it is one of his character flaws, it made the readers/watchers love him even more. no one wants a perfect character right?

so rather than changing this side of miyuki, i'm glad that there is another catcher who has the same potential as miyuki that was added to the story. okumura is fulfilling the roles that miyuki cannot do as a character, in my opinion, and i am so happy to see this battery. did you ever see miyuki pester sawamura to catch his pitches? nope. okumura does. did you ever see miyuki praise the pitcher for his pitches? rarely. mostly, he would praise sawamura in front of other people or when he's having his monologue but not tell it straight to his face. okumura, however, can do that. if he thinks sawamura did a good job, he would honestly tell the pitcher. did you ever see miyuki stick to sawamura so he can look after him and made sure that he won't overwork himself? nope. although this is quite understandable because of miyuki's position so i am really glad that okumura is there.

if you haven't read beyond what's included in the anime, i suggest you try reading act ii manga. okumura is still fulfilling the role of a good catcher looking after sawamura. because in case some readers/watchers forgot. sawamura is still the MC of the story. he always accompanies sawamura even after the games. when the first years noticed that sawamura was acting strange because of what he heard between miyuki and furuya, okumura was the one who talked to miyuki to speak to sawamura. during the summer tournament games, he always checks sawamura's condition. he always tries to observe the pitcher and tries to know more about him. he's always concerned about sawamura and that really made me happy. with Chris gone, it's like there's another catcher who can dedicate his time to him and it's just so heartwarming. their conversations are also funny and it's really cute that okumura is always beside him.

okay. i think i made my point. now, it's my time to apologize for the long reply. nyahaha! (⁀ᗢ⁀)

and please, anon. let me know who you are. send me a DM so we can talk about this some more. <(￣︶￣)>

btw, in case you are also reading fanfics, you may want to read one of my fanfics that features the mura-mura battery (i kinda prefer to call their battery like this because it's kinda funny). yes, anon. i am shamelessly promoting one of my fanfics. please forgive my audacity. ( ◡‿◡ *)

[princessmoms]

Rare and Ruff!!! - By OverlordNeon

Finally dipping into making comics by introducing Rarity's business partner, Pek the Gem Hunting Diamond Dog!

She is visually based on a breed of Mexican hairless dogs, the Xoloitzcuintle.

Original Concept Design, for fun:

[Patreon]

[jenderenvy985]

[soosoosoup]

Funk branch au

Au and branch design by @bbc-trolls

[decadentparasite]

📸

[bloobydabloob]

Holy shit I love your Dirk interpretations, it's so true and I could talk about this shit forever. I feel like another part of his character that people seem to forget (along with Roxy for some reason) is that he's from the future in solitude in an apocalyptic wasteland. I just see that part of his character always removed which is disappointing because I feel like that's a pretty big part, especially regarding his themes around technology, his brother's theme of Time, his own isolation, and how he plays in the vastness of the universe and spacetime.

Art I drew related to the subject because I like to respond to asks with art.

But absolutely. I certainly understand where the lack of discussion over his isolation + upbringing comes from, considering a majority of the fanbase that I have seen builds their ideas based on their own version of postcanon. I’m not entirely sure how that would be fixed, but certainly even in the somewhat recent past I would see a lot more content regarding his upbringing both literally and symbolically. I don’t have much to add regarding the things you’ve mentioned, because they just are what they are. Dirk being confined to a singular room left to him by a father figure he never met, in a future where the only other person left on the planet is someone he cannot pursue a relationship of because of himself, with purely 3 robots to keep him companion, one being an exact replica of his own brain who is *also* trapped inside a pair of glasses, is about as literal as it gets to me.

The contrast to me involving the flooded, organic world in comparison to the little speckle of Dirk’s apartment packed with the dude and his technics is not only a representation of his isolation and entrapment within himself, but also of his lack of control. I think his obsession with & themes of control are a direct product in the case of Dirk specifically *of* this kind of upbringing. His themes of technology are also related to his themes around control. So much of his character is actually revolved around this to me like so much. Dirk is so deeply disconnected from humanity in every way and so much of his character + symbolism is based around that.

It doesn’t even have to be about the symbolism or anything though. It’s just pretty *interesting* in the literal sense that he lives in the middle of the ocean in the future. There’s not only a lot to theorise on to do with his young life there, but on how it might affect him in the way he acts for the rest of his life. The latter part is probably what I see mentioned the most by people talking about Dirk regarding this, I’m surprised I don’t see more discussion on the former too though. I really ought to actually talk more about Homestuck stuff on here. I will do it myself.

Roxy & Dirk’s relationship is largely ignored though because there is a narrative a certain demographic spreads that Dirk resented and blamed Roxy for her interest in him, and thus too many people believe that their relationship was or would continue to be an abusive one. Realistically, I believe it’s important to acknowledge that the way Roxy treated Dirk regarding his homosexuality wasn’t right while still acknowledging the obvious amount of respect and admiration Dirk had for Roxy. I mean we have a huge piece of dialogue from their post trickster mode conversations on the quest beds from Dirk purely stating how he feels about Roxy that people completely ignore somehow. I think this usually happens to characters that are women though. I know everyone says it, but it is true. Jane gets the exact same treatment of boiling her down to solely her negative aspects. The things I see completely mischaracterising both of them are horrific.

I mean how much more explicit can it get that their relationship is obviously very important to Dirk? But I digress. I think the best or I should say “most interesting” interpretations of their relationship usually come from DirkRoxy shippers actually.

I would be interested to hear about Dirk’s relation to his brother’s theme of time though. I don’t have any thoughts on this and I don’t recall ever hearing anyone talk about it before. If you or anyone else would be willing to enlighten me I’d be thrilled.

[rushinintolove]

insp:

[zorangezest]

ok but what if they were both kids and best friends and i was methodically shredding the canon storyline into confetti

and then they both became war criminals the end

[number-one-shadisper-shipper]

I've seen a lot of takes on what would happen if Sonic and Tails returned to West Side Island and confronted the people who were so abusive to Tails, and I had an idea for a somewhat new spin on it.

What if, now that Tails is a world famous hero, the Islanders try to try to basically gaslight him into thinking none of the abuse ever happened? They find out he's coming and they throw a big "Welcome Home" party and give him a medal and stuff, and when confronted about their treatment of him just completely deny or twist it. Like "oh yes I'm so sorry there were a couple kids who were bullies but that happens to everyone you weren't being targeted, and we tried to get them to stop it" or "we didn't know you were alone and homeless, if we knew we would have taken you in" and all sorts of garbage like that

And Tails, who's maybe a tween-young teen now, and no longer has distinct memories from that early in his life, starts to question if maybe he really was blowing things out of proportion. Maybe he really was just bullied by one or two kids, and they weren't really that bad. Maybe people didn't really chase him away and refuse to even let him go through their garbage for food. He knows he has anxiety. Maybe he was just imagining how much everyone hated him. And he almost wants to believe it, to believe that he was never truly hated.

But Sonic remembers. Sonic remembers the gang of older kids beating and violently attacking toddler aged Tails, and only stopping when he physically intervened with his own fists. He remembers questioning the townsfolk about the two-tailed fox he'd seen and being meet with sneers and complete disdain. He remembers how skinny Tails was, how his ribs were visible even through his fur and how he wolfed down the food Sonic offered him so quickly that he nearly threw it up later. He remembers how Tails flinched from any quick movement or attempt at touch. He remembers the long process of gaining the fox's trust, a process that tested his nine-year-old patience as he spent literal weeks urging Tails to come closer, keeping his hands slow and his face friendly, finally getting the fox to join him at the campfire, to walk beside him without dashing away when moved his arm too fast, and then, eventually, to let him touch him. He remembers the first few times Tails let him try to brush out his matted, dirty fur, each knot a testament to neglect, and finding scars and wounds on the skin beneath that spoke of so much abuse. He remembers realizing for the first time that normal, everyday Mobians could be just as cruel as Eggman.

Tails doesn't trust his own memory. But Sonic remembers. And Sonic is not quick to forgive.

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

going fishing - another segment from the beast of loch broom!

because my blog is a Mess this part happens after the argument between Haddock and Tintin and before Ramo Nash's studio in this post

[jazzzzzzhands]

When Clown talked about reading books to home, i knew i had to draw Wally reading my favorite childhood book to Home!!

Also Wally painted a little heart on Home like face painting! oh and take my line art because i love lineart!

[honeycreammilkshake]

"you are me."

i have a lot of thoughts on this whole scene, both shipping and non-shipping ones. the relationship between yuuji and sukuna is honestly the most fascinating and complex one that i have seen in anime, and one of the reasons for that is just how much these two actually understand each other, which i don't think a lot of people realize. yuuji and sukuna see right through each other, more than anyone else does, and i think that's why their bond is far more personal than it seems to be.

yuuji and sukuna are enemies. they hate each other for their opposing ideals and characteristics. yuuji is caring, empathetic, protective, kind, and willing to put his life on the line for both friends and strangers. sukuna is narcissistic, self-absorbed, indifferent to suffering, murderous, unfeeling, and unconcerned with any life other than his own. they seem to be polar opposites in every way, so why would yuuji say something as contradicting as "you are me" to sukuna?

i think it's widely overlooked just how complex yuuji's character is. he's overall a "sweet" person, but he isn't very stable (he has been described by quite a few characters as being a bit "crazy"), he has a high tolerance for disturbing or gory things (he took learning about curses and fighting them very easily), he doesn't question the danger he's been put into (he actually runs headfirst into it), and he can be really violent and vengeful as well.

this is all explored very well in his confrontation with mahito, where he also says "i am to you" to the curse.

why are these scenes so different? mahito and sukuna both killed people yuuji knew and cared about as well as strangers that yuuji would die to protect. shouldn't yuuji be approaching sukuna with the same hate, disgust, and vengeance that he shows to mahito? shouldn't he be lashing out and making sukuna pay for all that he did?

why is he showing his "crazy side" to mahito but not to sukuna?

to give some context to this scene with mahito, the curse wanted yuuji to accept their similarities. and, in the end, yuuji did.

yuuji is acknowledging that he serves as nothing more than a weapon to keep killing the curses of the world, perhaps with no other deeper purpose than that. just like curses only exist to bring misery and prey on humans, yuuji's sole existence at this point is just to act on the orders of sorcerers: to keep eradicating curses and eventually help kill sukuna by dying with him. he doesn't need more meaning or roles than that.

but sukuna doesn't see yuuji as just another cog. he doesn't respect yuuji, true, and he loathes to give the brat any kind of credit. but he knows yuuji is the only one who really, truly cares about sukuna's devastating impact. the death of innocent strangers doesn't affect others quite as much as it does yuuji (even nanami in the vs mahito arc noted how much yuuji cared about the suffering of others).

and many of the other sorcerers are also not as horrified or repulsed by sukuna's actions as yuuji is. in fact, sorcerers and curses alike look up to sukuna. gojo actually seems to respect the king of curse's lifestyle. it feels like yuuji is really the only one to truly despise sukuna for his actions and ideals.

and sukuna knows this. sukuna knows how much the suffering of others gets to yuuji. which is why he gives yuuji such special treatment: he saves a unique brand of torment just for yuuji that he doesn't really give to anyone else.

sukuna intentionally returned control to yuuji's body just for yuuji to witness the massive damage and death that sukuna's domain expansion caused. it killed thousands of people, innocent strangers included.

it led to yuuji breaking down, even wishing for his own death. but yuuji is strong and, deep down, sukuna knows this. yuuji doesn't give up and instead uses his rage to fuel his fight with mahito, where he snaps and shows us his vengeful side. he doesn't need any other reason than mahito being a curse to want to kill him, over and over. that is yuuji's purpose. which seems like an uninteresting and boring one to someone like sukuna.

but for all that sukuna keeps calling yuuji uninteresting and boring, he shows a lot of investment in yuuji's growth and in their fights.

he's even invested enough to show disappointment when yuuji lost to choso. (if he thought yuuji was so weak, why did he seem so bothered by yuuji's loss here?)

and then sukuna looked surprised and curious when choso got hit with some kind of false memory empathetic attack that included yuuji in it. he's having a lot of strong reactions to someone he claims isn't interesting enough for him.

sukuna also loves to aggravate yuuji, somehow knowing how to provoke a strong reaction from him.

there's a lot of interesting things about this scene, one of them being that yuuji refers to sukuna as a "curse" which is technically untrue. sukuna is a sorcerer who used a set of cursed objects to send his soul into the future, but he isn't a curse himself.

but to yuuji, sukuna is nothing more than a curse because he doesn't show any sort of positive traits. sukuna's mindset reflects that of a curse since he only exists to please himself and loves to cultivate the kind of negative emotions curses are born of (fear, hate, jealousy, selfishness, etc).

there's also a clever reference to sukuna being a cannibal through yuuji saying "let's see if you can chew up me and my suffering." yet what we've seen throughout this story is yuuji essentially cannibalizing sukuna by eating his cursed fingers, which he calls the taste really gross. so i wonder... what would yuuji taste like to sukuna?

every human has a unique taste but all of them are fleeting to sukuna. there's no actual meaning or savoring to it. it's just a way for him to pass the time until death.

both yuuji and sukuna are cannibalizing as a form of destruction. but while yuuji is eating the cursed fingers so that he can hold all of sukuna inside of him for them to be exorcised together, sukuna was eating humans simply because he wanted to. he ate whatever he wanted because he was at the top. he is an apex predator with no real rivals or threats. it was for a completely self-absorbed and depraved indulgence while yuuji is giving up his life on this plan to save others.

yuuji and his suffering is the complete antithesis to how sukuna's eating only serves himself. which is very interesting to see when yuuji challenges sukuna to "chew him up." yuuji is proving to be more predator than prey and is far more of a challenge than sukuna wants to admit.

but maybe something about yuuji's resilience does please sukuna? maybe he actually finds worth in yuuji never giving up?

though he still underestimates and discredits yuuji's strength, he actually looks impressed with yuuji and seems even a bit eager to take him on again.

for someone who claims to find yuuji not worth his time, sukuna is showing yuuji far too much special treatment that he doesn't give to anyone else. he even calls yuuji a specific name (kozou) that he doesn't use with anyone else. others are just various offensive terms, but only yuuji seems to have a name just for himself.

sukuna is a really contradicting and complex character, and his relationship with yuuji really shows that.

i've seen a lot of anti-sukuna sentiment after his death, and i understand why a lot of fans hate him and celebrated when he died. however, i think a lot of fans have this somewhat inaccurate view of him being nothing more than a static villain with zero complexities and no chance of any kind of character development.

some of sukuna's most underrated and interesting traits are that he is actually pretty smart (he has an overall plan and is making all the right moves to get there), he's cultured (a poetry snob who hired a chef just to cook him humans instead of eating them raw, and perhaps he even knows more about flowers than he lets on), he shows respect to those he deems worthy and even seeks to learn from them, and he might not actually be the most "evil" person in jjk (which I consider to be kenjaku, but that warrants another post).

overall, sukuna is and has always been more than what he first seems, but a lot of fans don't want to see this or they overlook it.

after sukuna reveals he was an unwanted curse of a child, there was pushback against fans who interpreted this line as sukuna having a tragic backstory that explained his current self.

i understand why these fans don't want sukuna to be a sympathetic villain and i've read posts on how gege writes his villains to be intentionally unsympathetic.

from here (https://x.com/soukatsu_/status/1520796590612566022)

sukuna is the perfect example of a villain that is unsympathetic. he is horrifyingly strong, lives as he pleases, murders people for fun, is a literal cannibal, acts and appears monstrous, and makes our protagonist yuuji suffer over and over again. he represents exactly all the ideals and traits yuuji despises and the two of them are fighting each other because of this.

however, one thing i want to point out is just because sukuna is completely unsympathetic now doesn't mean he couldn't have had an actually tragic past that made him into this.

i believe that sukuna was seen as a curse from his birth on. much like how jogo wanted curses to be the true humans (sukuna calls this jogo essentially wanting to become human) sukuna became purely curse-like to escape being human. whether or not you empathize with him is irrelevant, because after he became the king of curses, sukuna has committed countless irredeemable horrors that even i, as a sukuna fan, don't ever want him to be forgiven or easily justified for doing.

having a tragic past doesn't justify his crimes, it only provides a catalyst for them. it explains why he, who was born human, became more of a curse than some curses are. you don't need to have sympathy for him after that. just like he has no sympathy for those he considers weak and inferior, he has no more reason to be a tragic character.

a lot of people acted like sukuna potentially having a tragic past that turned him into the monster he is now makes him "uncool" or "uncharacteristic" of himself but, to me, it makes his character all the more detailed without changing the fact that he is still purely "evil" and irredeemable.

but does this all make him incapable of character development?

i personally believe that yuuji has been affecting sukuna throughout the whole series, especially in these last few chapters.

i recently came across a post on reddit on why sukuna could never be more than a static villain character. one of the arguments was that gege never intended for sukuna to have any kind of redemption arc.

(https://www.reddit.com/r/Jujutsufolk/comments/16vphxl/sukuna_is_different_from_other_strongest/?rdt=36326)

(now, i couldn't find the original source where this interview came from, and it's not worded very well so i'm thinking it's been quickly translated. and there's always missed meanings and alterations to the original message when translations have been made, especially with japanese. i'm also not sure if the "him" being referred to is mahito or sukuna, but i'm assuming it can apply to both of them.)

this post was made about a year ago, so i assume this interview with gege is also a bit dated now. i think gege is intentionally vague in their interviews because they don't want to reveal too much, but my own interpretation of this post is that gege never intended for sukuna to get any sort of redemption because he is incapable of being redeemed through any kind of love.

and i agree with that. i don't want sukuna to get redemption. what he has done is unforgivable and i don't want him to get off easy for it. but him showing character development is not the same as him getting redemption. and him being affected by love isn't the same as him fully accepting it either.

in these last few chapters, yuuji has offered mercy to sukuna multiple times, despite how even he himself considered it to be a lost cause.

as i wrote earlier, yuuji is the only character who really understands how terrible and curse-like sukuna is. he hates sukuna on this fact alone. yuuji told mahito that his purpose is to kill curses, and sukuna - in the end - is nothing more than just another curse.

so why did yuuji suddenly change all that up and show empathy and genuine concern for sukuna in these last few chapters? why was he trying so hard to convince sukuna that they can co-exist?

one of my sukuita-cult friends (flight-of-death) pointed out that during his fight with yuuji, sukuna explicitly recalled his conversation with kashimo about not needing another person to fulfill him.

while sukuna saying he didn't anyone else to fulfill him was relevant during his discussion with kashimo, it's very interesting that he was remembering his own exact words about it while facing down yuuji, who was making sukuna doubt some of his previous statements.

my friend has convinced me that sukuna and yuuji have found a "reluctant fulfillment" in each other. and i think this is proving to be very much possible.

yuuji was alone most of his life. without wasuke there for him, he could have turned into a ruthless monster like sukuna. yuuji has so much physical and emotional strength, but it was the catalyst of wasuke's death that motivated yuuji to use that strength for good. he might have chosen to be selfish and only concerned with his own wants and needs like sukuna did, but wasuke provided the role yuuji needed to be the selfless person he is now.

i think that yuuji, in all his loneliness, found a kind of closeness to sukuna, even if it was unwanted. and sukuna has definitely been affected by yuuji, too.

as sukuna is dying, megumi finally regains control. he notices how sukuna seems to be scared of death.

sukuna genuinely does look concerned about dying. his mouths are in the shape of a grin but are turned upside down and look more like actual dread. for someone who claimed that eating people was only a way to pass the time until death, sukuna now looks unwilling to die.

i think that this shows that sukuna gained some sort of respect for life, even if it was only in his will to keep living. he does seem to want to keep existing, and it's interesting that it's what yuuji offered him.

yuuji was created by kenjaku to be sukuna's vessel. the sorcerers wanted to use yuuji as a vessel to hunt down all the cursed fingers so that yuuji and sukuna would die together. no matter how you see it, sukuna and yuuji were bound to end up either living or dying together. that is their fate. but now that he has more power in making his own choices, yuuji seems to genuinely want to share the kinder fate with sukuna: to live together. and if you think about it, them coexisting makes a lot of sense.

sukuna has been described as a natural disaster, so how can yuuji have any kind of empathy for something as devastating and unfeeling as an earthquake or a tsunami? in truth, the human race has been coexisting with natural disasters since the beginning - especially japan, which has weathered many terrible calamities. yuuji is a lot like the embodiment of the resilience and strength needed to survive such disasters, so i think he's more than capable of handling a life with sukuna, especially if sukuna is far more subdued.

and sukuna being allowed to live isn't redemption at all. though it would be a form of character development for him, it would still be one of the most selfish things he could do, as it would mean condemning yuuji to an indefinite amount of time with sukuna.

but yuuji seems to want that. he is willingly offering up the rest of his life to sukuna, for them to live together.

personally, i don't consider this to be a form of redemption in any way. he is proving sukuna's mindset wrong, not forgiving him. just accepting his nature and still offering a way to coexist.

i think that by offering this to sukuna, yuuji would essentially become that person that sukuna claims he doesn't need to feel fulfillment. but it's clear to me sukuna wasn't satisfied with his life in the past, since he couldn't offer an explanation to kashimo about why he chose to cross the ages as cursed objects. he is obviously lying or beginning to doubt his own words.

and i think that's why he chose death.

accepting yuuji's mercy, finding that fulfillment sukuna denies needing, would be very un-curselike of him and he can't have that. he would rather be seen as an inhuman monster than something capable of accepting love.

so in the end, sukuna is doing exactly what gege said he would: rejecting love and rejecting anything that makes him less of a curse.

but yuuji isn't easily pushed away. he kept coming back for wasuke and i think that if he really does care that much about sukuna, that if he's wiling to live with him even if no one else accepts it, he won't let sukuna go without more of a fight either.

they can still find fulfilment in each other. they are capable of coexisting. and if sukuna decides to make that change, it doesn't necessarily mean he's completely broken character. and if they don't get to survive together in this lifetime, there's still a good chance for change if they're reincarnated.

[crnl-chicken-tots]

As I sit here putting Deadpool and Wolverine into situations, I also wonder what the people want to see. Friends and foes, I'm so smitten and trapped in a Honda Odessey full of thoughts, tell me what you want to see and I'll make it happen;;

I must continue to contribute to these primary colored idiots

[fatedroses]

And some days, I just wish you wouldn't look at me at all.

[lilybug-02]

Artfight against @ejsuperstar ft. The Mad King and Chip. They're both so evil. I hope they have the most extravagant downfall of any onscreen villain.

This interaction is based on a little fic writing >:)

[iliothermia]

The lovely liontaur guard, it's what he was born to do!

Stay put and keep people out of the labyrinthian garden. He's never seen someone in it before in his whole lives (Liontaurs are born with nine legs initially- they say one loses one with every life lost but never remember how. He's lost three and has no clue!)

Anyway, he's never seen another being in his garden. He just knows he was told to never let someone reach the center where a long-passed king's tomb lays. When he does cross paths with a stranger, he's actually quite horrified. He's never killed before, let alone fought anyone other than playfighting with his siblings. He acts rough and questions the frail man on his business in the garden, and the man claims to have no idea who or where he is- Only that he feels drawn to the center of the maze.

The liontaur does his best to try to scare him off, going as far as sinking his claws into the man... Inspecting him, trying to read him... (Why does he seem familiar?) Only to be stopped dead in his tracks with an offering of sharing a pomegranate.

The liontaur can't bring himself to truly hurt the man, in internal turmoil over of what a shame he'd be to his family. After he lets the man go, he decides to trail behind him and see what he's up to.

It's a long journey to the center, and it seems the man is Just... Soft and confused. The liontaur develops a bit of a.. Crush on him.

The man is aware of his presence and feels comforted by not being alone but lets the liontaur believe that he's oblivious. On particularly cold nights the silly cat will curl up surrounding him to keep him warm while he pretends to be a very heavy sleeper. While gazing upon the man's peaceful sleeping face the liontaur realizes why the man looks so familiar. He's seen it time and time again on statues decorating the garden and tomb.

The man is the reawakened king from the tomb, now making his way back to the center to another long rest. It turns out his duty was to keep the king from returning to the center for another long slumber, but his last sleep had been so long the lore was forgotten. Now it's his duty to keep the man overcome with instincts to return to nothingness from doing just that. He doesn't even know why it's important, other than his own selfish reasons (He's falling in love)