#heck even Sea Mechanic

[soul-wanderer]

The 100 is an excellent example of how I will become more and more unhinged with ships as years go by and will literally ship any queer pairing but the main one of a popular show

[deltaromeo3]

𝟷-𝟸 𝚒𝚍𝚒𝚘𝚝𝚜 ⋆ Daniel Ricciardo

pairing: daniel ricciardo x teammate!reader

• as requested by: lovely vex!

“They’re gonna think we’re idiots!”

It was a raining cats and dogs on race day. You were sat in your driver’s room because the race has been red flagged. You decided to wander out to the garage just for the heck of it.

You exit your drivers room and walked to the garage, only to be greeted by a sea of mechanics and engineers who were also feeling down due to race being postponed. You smiled and greeted them back, but your eyes were searching for someone else; your teammate, Daniel Ricciardo.

Your eyes scanned the garage. Ah there he is! Seated beside Tom, his engineer. They were busy discussing about what you assumed were data and statistics, and he seemed so in the zone, listening closely to what Tom was saying, so you took this chance to scare him from behind.

Tom saw you creeping up to Daniel but you put a finger to your lips as if to say “Don’t blow my cover”.

“Boo!”

“Jesus!” Daniel jumps in his seat, turning to look behind to see which bugger scared the living shit out of him.

“Gotcha,” You said as you laughed. Daniel smacks your arm in response. After that, you decided you didn’t want to leave. Instead, you took a seat on his right thigh, wrapping your arms around his neck and instinctively, his hands wrapped around your waist.

You listened as Tom was talking to him. Daniel of course was nodding along and asking him questions but you didn’t care so much.

Everyone around the both of you seem to not care that you were seated on Daniel, they knew that this was a common occurrence.

“Aw cmon Dan! Open your mouth wider!” You said as you tossed him another M&M.

The chocolate lands in his mouth. “Yes!” You celebrated. Daniel smiles and pumps his fist up into the air, celebrating as well.

The pair of you have been at it for a solid 10 minutes. Anything to chase away the rainy day blues, am I right?

“I have excellent aim.” You complimented yourself, a smug look apparent on your face.

“Oh is that so? Okay, your turn.” You nodded, getting into stance, opening your mouth wide to catch the M&M Daniel was about to throw.

Unfortunately you missed. You pout and Daniel laughs. “Cmon Y/N you can do it,” He squeezes your shoulder for encouragement. You took a deep breathe and stood in position again.

“Ready?” He asks.

You nod. “Ready. Toss me one!” You open your mouth.

The M&M lands in your mouth. Your eyes widened in excitement. Daniel comes over and daps you up, “Atta girl!”

Little did you know the cameras caught all of that. Practically everyone saw what the two of you were doing…

Post Race Interview

“Hey Y/N! It’s nice to see you again. How was the race? Congratulations by the way, 1-2 podium with Daniel by your side, how does it feel?”

“It’s nice to see you again too. Thank you! Um, it feels great actually! And it’s even better that it’s my home race. I feel happy. Even happier that I managed to finish ahead of Daniel.” You cheekily smile.

“So we understand that the race was postponed correct?” You nodded. “What happened there? Back in the garage? You and Daniel seem to get along well.”

You laughed, realising the cameras caught your nonsense. “Oh you meant- ah right!” Just as you were about to answer, Daniel comes into frame, scaring you from behind.

“Oi!” You turned around to be met with Daniel laughing.

“And that is how you scare the race winner, folks!” He says to camera and you rolled your eyes.

“Sorry I got a lil’ distracted there as you can see,” You rolled your eyes again, “Maybe Daniel can answer that question, right Daniel?” You looked over to Daniel.

“Y-yeah sure! What’s up?” He steps in front of the mic.

“We’re just wondering, what happened back in the garage? Was a lot of chaos as we saw it.”

Daniel laughs. “Oh that?” He looks over to you and the both of you exchanged looks, a stiffled laugh coming out of you.

“Nothing! We were just tryna.. um.. I don’t know, chase the blues away. It was raining and we were bored out of our minds.”

“So I take it that you both have a good relationship off the track?” The interviewer asks.

“Yeah of course. She may be annoying at times but I’m used to it y’know?”

“Hey!” You smacked Daniel’s arm. “As annoying as I am, at least I finished ahead of you.” You quipped back.

“She’s feisty,” The interviewer says to Daniel.

“Yeah. And thank God you’re not on the receiving end of it,”

The interviewer laughs before continuing to ask the both of you a few more questions before they finish off.

You walked away with Daniel, side by side.

“See, I told you!”

“Told me what?”

“That if anyone saw us, they’re gonna think we’re idiots!”

He laughs. “Well, the two idiots they just saw won a 1-2 podium. I’d say we make a pretty good team.”

“Yeah… I agree.”

[thegnomelord]

Hi, I want to start off by asking how you are doing, and that I loved the monster task force 141 × reader fic and the cyber-punk sagau headcanon’s.

Ok, now into the ask. Can you do a smut fic with Childe where the reader is a sub top and Childe is a dom bottom where Childe whorships cyber-punk readers body running his hands all over readers joints which are bonded so reader can’t touch him while overstimulating and orgasm denying (is reader able to be overstimulated and have orgasm's... if not then forget about those 2 kinks.

Sorry for the long ask.

Kink list to make it clear:

- Body whorship

- Bondage

- Overstimulation?

- Orgasm denial?

Heck yeah my peep, I'm doing better, and it's great that you liked my other stuff, sorry it took this long, med school is a bitch. Hope ya like it:DD

P.S: ya'll are always free to ask me/give me ideas of what to write, i'm gonna be trying to write more from now on.

Pious Worship

CW: NSFW, body worship, bondage, overstimulation, orgasm denial, mild electro play?, SAGAU au! Cyberpunk reader!, Sub Top reader, Dom Bottom Childe, riding, Dom/Sub dynamics, Worshipper Childe, Bondage. NOT proof read lol.

It had taken you a long while to convince him to do this. For all of his devotion he had been... hesitant; To please you was the highest form of reward anyone could dream of receiving, but what you had asked of him felt wrong — the thought of binding you like the heathens who'd fallen for pretty lies made him physically sick, the thought of chaining you, his guide, his light, his Steel Forged God...he couldn't even come up with the proper words to describe the sickening disgust he'd felt in his very bones.

But you are his light, his guide, his merciful creator, so how could he possibly refuse?

Childe is insatiable.

He rides you with wild abandon like a beast in heat, too caught up in the desperate chase for release and the need to please you to care about the strain in his muscles or his burning thighs. He slams his entire body weight down on your cock, moaning and babbling about how perfectly you stretch him out, how you fill him up so perfectly he can feel you in his throat, how happy he is to be the one who pleases you like this.

His heart flutters as you watch him, drawing pleasure from his pleasure rather than from how tightly his body grips you, your arms tied above your head with the finest silk. The corp remade you for warfare, not pleasure. Steel is unfeeling, it can survive more than living flesh, and with your enhancements you barely feel anything besides the hot tightness of his body.

He drinks up the little rumbles of your synthetic voice box he manages to pull when he takes you fully, driving his body to bounce faster on you, racing towards his second release while you are nowhere near your first. He moans whorishly, his fingers dig into your shoulder joints, cock twitching as sperm and electro shoot from his body.

A strangled sound leaves your lips before your body shuts down without notice, voice box giving a mechanical screech as it glitches, every artificial muscle in your frame contracting from the sudden flood of electricity.

"My Grace! Are you- no, no, no, no- please don't be-”

You hear his worried whimpers when your audio receptors finally come back online, your optics shuttering open yet barely able to see anything with the sea of blinking warning screens in your view. You feel his calloused hands on your cheeks, the usually dull sensation now making you shudder as your combatting systems had turned every synthetic sensor up to 11.

“My Grace, please tell me you’re okay, please, I couldn’t have- I didn’t mean to- I-, I-, I-”

He hiccups, and you manage a glitched warble from your frazzled voice box as you assess your internal diagnostics— his electro delusion had shocked you enough to lock your joints in place without damaging the vital life support systems in your core. You should be able to move again when the electricity wears off, your body geared to survive stronger EMP bombs. You tell him such, reaffirming that he hadn't harmed you.

"Oh, my Grace, I am so sorry, please, forgive me!"

He says, tears prickling his eyes as he rises off your cock, pulling a surprised gasp from you when that small sensation nearly makes you cum on the spot, your cock — your whole body — sensitive to the smallest touch.

And Childe gets...giddy.

Not like a child with a new toy, but like Dottore when an experiment is successful.

Childe hung on every sound leaving you, eyes growing wide; Had you thought of this? Had you prepared just for this to happen? For his electro to make it easier to feel, to make it easier for him to worship you? Yes, that must be it!

“My Grace, you are beautiful like this. Thank you, thank you, thank you-”

His voice was a hoarse whisper as he slunk down your body, carefully holding up your leg with steady calloused hands. His lips are dry as he places reverent kisses the metal surrounding your exposed ankle joint. Your metal parts taste no different than the tips of his arrows, like blood and war, but the soft sounds you make from the odd sensation has him wanting to give more.

He doesn't even notice when he cuts his lip on a sharp edge, but aren't you proud of him? Who else would bleed for you like him? His tongue delves into tight little cracks between your pistons and wires where only the smallest of ripperdock tools had ever come. His tongue isn't as small, nor as precise, but the sheer eagerness in his movement has him touching and pressing on the sensitive sensors all the same.

You jolt, or you would if you could, overcome with sensations your body isn't built to process. More warning screens flash in your sight, static pleasure/pain buzzing along faux synapses. His heart all but leaps from his chest as he listens to the sounds you make.

So he redoubles his effort, clever little tongue licking at sensitive sensor arrays, mouthing and sucking on cables until soft frazzled sounds leave your glitched voice box. He can taste coolant on his tongue, his lips tingling with electricity, blood and spit mixing together in his mouth and making your metal parts glisten in the light. He polishes your ankle joint until it shines, before moving up towards your knee, tracing the edge where metal plates meet faux skin.

You're internal cooling system has started at this point, body shaking as best it can. Your sensors don't know how to interpret the sensations, corp augs having been geared for warfare and not worship, so the processors don't even try to categorize the new sensations into neat boxes. Instead you're hit with the full force of it, the feelings flooding your mind, zapping through every neural cell and artificial link.

He's at your hips now, eagerly sucking you off as his clever fingers busy themselves worming and rubbing delicate hardware and artificial ligaments beneath inside your hip joints. You feel like you're on the edge, your release so close you can feel it burning at the base of your cock.

But something is wrong, like a knot or a rock inside your stomach, something that's keeping you from cumming, forcing you to experience these overwhelming sensations. You sob, barely able to think, and his heart soars at making you feel this way, making you feel this pleasure.

He's quick to finish polishing your cock and even quicker to climb up and sink down again. But that only makes the maddening heat burning in your loins worse, every nerve in your augmented body feeling like it's on fire with no sight of release. You can barely see him through the cracks between different warning screens, sensor arrays screaming at you with information your body can't interpret any other way than pure sensation.

"Please, let me do this your Grace."

You watch — you can do nothing but watch — as he takes one of your limp arms. His muscles bulge beneath his skin as he has to work hard to move your arm now that your motors and pistons are momentarily inactive. He smiles at you, mouth opening wide before he puts your fingers in his mouth. Little jolts of sensation run through your body every time his tongue flicks between different joints, teeth scraping along faux skin and metal plates.

He continues to bounce on your cock, unaware of what blissful Hell he's making for you when he pulls your spit shined fingers from his mouth, urgently but carefully pawing at the plates which cover your hidden weaponry in your forearms.

"Your Grace, I'm a fool to demand this of you, but please, let me see them, let me worship you like you're supposed to be worshiped."

He says, eyes wide and pleading, laying desperate kisses at your wrist joint, lips almost burning from how hot your metal parts are becoming. He needs to worship you, all of you, especially the part you usually keep reserved for the battle field and nowhere else.

Your voice box is back online to the point where you can talk, and you know that if you told him, he would happily continue bouncing on your dick until you were finally able to cum, with all notions of his own need forgotten.

But you don't.

For as much as your systems may be screaming at you. For as much as your cooling systems struggle to keep you from overheating. For as much as you desire to cum... you want to please him — the first character you ever wished for, the first you ever mained, your favorite.

The look on his face when you manage to get your weaponry unlocked melts your heart despite the lustful heat in your chest. Your combat systems are blissfully unaware of your true intentions as they power on the pistons and gears in your weapons, making them extend to their proper configuration.

"Thank you, thank you your Grace!"

He breathes, immediately reaching out to trace the sharp points of your weapons with his tongue before he latches on the first joint that connects your weapon with your arm. It makes sensation, neither pain nor pleasure but pure feeling, rush from your arms right down to your dick still balls deep inside him.

Your vocal box glitches a second time, your head moving just an inch as you're subjected to his torturous worship again, and you can only pray that your body is able to move again before you loose your mind to the pure sensations.

[capacle]

Missing your attack can be fun

Something that always bugged me during combat: waiting for my turn just to roll a miss.

I usually try to mitigate (misses) or eliminate (turn order) these sources of frustration in my games.

In Nexalis, however, I went the opposite direction: I combined them.

How? And why?

See, it starts with an alternating turn order.

A player attacks, then they choose an enemy to go next. The enemy attacks, and chooses a player to go next.

This is the basic ping-pong "I go, you go" sort of order (popcorn initiative, as I was reminded).

But when one of the sides misses, you're offered a choice:

If you miss, you can just accept it and pick an enemy to go next.

OR

You can receive a counterblow, BUT you get to pick another player to go next.

Your misfortune allows your side to keep the initiative!

This choice is interesting because of how damage works:

Your attack roll - their defense roll is the damage you'd normally deal.

If your attack is lower, however, you either miss OR receive the difference as damage yourself (the counterblow) for the right not to hand over initiative.

See the tactical choice here?

"I rolled a 5, they rolled an 8." "Should I take 3 damage and pick the caster who has 18 Energy Points to spend, potentially taking down the enemy before they perform a stronger attack?"

The frustration of missing becomes the power to influence the very flow of battle!

And it works both ways:

When an enemy misses, you can deliver the difference in damage as a counterblow, but you forfeit the right to choose a player to go next.

You've got to pick another enemy to attack you.

(Quick reminder: it is a GMless game)

Depending on the circumstances, you can even pick another character to deal or receive the counterblow (if their player agrees, of course)

Imagine the following scenario: you shoot an arrow on an enemy engaged in melee with your ally, and you miss by 2!

You can propose this:

"Hey, man, you got a lot of HP left. Can you take these 2 as a counterblow, and I choose the druid to go next and skydive on them?"

To which they could respond:

"Heck yeah, let's do this".

Or

"I'll take the hit, but pick me to go next".

Or... something else!

It is an informed decision.

You have to consider the circumstances of the battle.

Who is in a good position to go next? How badly would this hurt us? Should we keep the initiative at all costs?

Oh, and about 'initiative', here's how it works: 

You roll a d6 for each side before combat. The winning side picks their first attacker, and then the ping-pong begins.

When anyone rolls a tie (ATK=DEF), the circumstance changes somehow.

So initiative is rolled again (it's a single roll, so it doesn't break the pacing).

So I think that by combining two aspects that annoyed me, I turned a frustration into one of my favorite mechanics of the game!

If you'd like to read more, the free 60-page demo has all the rules!

Or back today to get immediate access to the full game!

[dungeonmalcontent]

I want to demonstrate one of my favorites about 5e d&d. The part of it that is unclear, RAW, is the best part. The things you could do in this game by abusing vague wording and badly thought out mechanics is fantastic.

To talk about this, I want to bring up everyone's favorite problem child of an item. The essential item every party tries to get their hands on for ease of game play. The hecking bag of holding.

See. Here's the thing. They're waaaaay volatile. Most of the item description is ways that it can go badly. But people still love it and every group tries to grab one so that they can plausibly carry a lot more things of have a slightly more secure storage system.

But the written out ways that a bag of holding don't even compare to the number of ways that you can make it waaaaay more dangerous and simultaneously more useful. So here's some bag of holding ideas.

1) the least likely to work, but it also makes sense when you think about it. Cast arcane lock on your bag of holding. Barring casting it on the bag itself, fit it with a mechanical lock that must be removed for the bag to be opened, cast the spell on that. This makes the bag password protected and significantly harder to steal from.

2) trap the bag, option 1: magic mouth alarm. Cast magic mouth on a rock, stick it in the bag. Set the magic mouth spell to go off with a bloodcurdling scream if it sees a hand other than yours. Other triggers are also available.

3) trap the bag, option 2: wait, you can do that? Cast glyph of warding at 7th level for the spell storing glyph property. The trigger for the glyph if is a hand other than yours enters the bag of holding (which you must cast the spell inside of). The stored spell for glyph of warding is contingency. The contingent spell is misty step. The trigger for the contingent spell is the application of the contingent spell. When triggered in this way, the misty step has a set destination within the bag of holding. In practice, the combo looks like this: thief sticks hand in bag -> triggers glyph of warding, which applies contingency to the thief -> the contingency spell puts misty step contingency on the thief and it is triggered immediately -> the thief misty steps into the bag of holding where they suffocate to death. Could potentially swap misty step for dimension door or another appropriate teleportation spell.

4) trap the bag, option 3: cheap and dirty middle finger Baja blast you into the astral sea. Glyph of warding at base level, spell storing, stored spell is rope trick. Pretty self explanatory. Thief reaches their hand in, triggers the glyph in the bag, rope trick gets cast in the bag. Rope trick opens an extra dimensional hole, triggering the self destructive "gate to the astral plane" clause of the bag of holding. Thief gets sucked into another dimension immediately, destroying the bag in the process.

3-4 and so on) other simple spell traps for glyph of warding that work to deter thieves reaching into a bag of holding: any damaging spell, as per the glyph of warding's intended purpose; polymorph, to turn the thief into a snail or something, ideally alongside the magic mouth option so that you know to deal with the snail; any spell which destroys the bag outright and causes it's contents to be cast into the astral plane; glyph of warding and levitate on a pouch of dust of sneezing and choking, so the dust gets levitated out of the bag and spreads over the thief. (Share your other creative ideas).

5) bear with me on this one (because I'm growing further into "creative ways to send thieves to the shadow realm" Territory) and this one is... A rune Goldberg machine. You must cast drawmij's instant summons on a bag of holding. You then cast magic mouth on the sapphire used to cast instant summons, and have it speak the words "my bag of holding". Then cast 6th level glyph of warding to store telekinesis. Thief reaches in -> magic mouth calls for the bag of holding -> glyph gets the trigger (name of bag of holding spoken in your voice) and casts telekinesis to crush the sapphire -> the initial bag of holding is conjured into the bag of holding the thief is reaching into -> gate to the astral plane. Alternatively... You potentially conjure the bag of holding into itself creating an extra-dimensional paradox and end reality. If your GM rules that telekinesis must be cast on a creature in order to crush the sapphire, hire an artificer to lend you a homunculus servant that lives in the bag to be the target that gets telekinesis and crushes the sapphire (hell, you might even make the servant out of the sapphire).

6) decoy bag. Carry a bag of holding around with you explicitly as a decoy. Fill the bag with something incredibly dangerous like baking flour and an ignition mechanism or just... A lot of sovereign glue. Position the bag so it is the most easy thing to be stolen from you. Whoever identifies the bag will learn that they can turn it inside out to empty it's contents. They do so. To horrible effect.

[papabearbobbynash]

Hi,

Do you think there should be more love shown to Bobby when he was in a coma? I mean when Buck was in a coma even May, Athena, and Chris was there. Everyone came to see Buck. But when Bobby was in a coma no one wait beside him only Athena? It would be great if May continue telling Bobby she loves him like when she told Bobby when Buck was in a coma. Maybe that would be the push for Bobby to wake up. His (step) daughter asking him to come back home to their family. What if there was an interaction between Buck and May beside his bed and them discussing that Bobby is basically their dad. Even Harry, remember when Michael was asking the family about proposing to David, Harry said that he now had 3 dads so Harry sees Bobby as his father too. Have the kids interact with each other would be great. Since Bobby's main guilt is about losing his kids. It would shown that in this life he has kids too though not his biologicaly. Maddie and Karen were not in the hospital. It seems like nobody cares about Bobby even though Bobby has always been the anchor to them. It's sad actually. Instead of the date with Tommy, Tommy could've supported Buck by showing up in the hospital.

Hi

there were many questionable decisions on this episode regarding Bobby and I definitely think the biggest problem was the lack of emotion of a dramatic situation they build up for three weeks.

They promoted the hell out of Bobby being in danger in this finale and when it reached the moment for them to gut wreck us, they cut most part of it (Athena in his bedside almost crying, Eddie praying on his bedside while Buck looks almost catatonic). Not to count the complete wtf decisions regarding it other decisions, such as May and Harry not being there for the painful part? When the actors are in the episode and we know it's hard for Corinne to be on the episodes due schedule with her college? Not a single solo scene with any of the 118 who lost their shit before for way lighter injuries Bobby had? Buck "almost lost my dad" thought turning into a sexual joke? Really??

The fact Athena was out hunting whoever done it, I get it, because i expected it end on that. People who expected Athena to do different don't know her character well tbh. The moment she heard from the doctors that Bobby's heart stopped for 14 minutes, she already lost hope, she thought he wasn't waking up from that, and she had lost him. With that? She wouldn't sit there and watch him die for nothing, because in her mind this wouldn't do anything good for Bobby. She already went through that with Emmet and she definitly wouldn't wait 30 years to catch the culprit. This time she had to do something even though it's completely a bad call from her part, because its mostly a coping mechanism to shield her from the pain she is feeling while trying to compensate for the guilt (into believing Amir was the culprit when she invited him in their house + her last words for her husband being on a argument) and to mask her pain. So this part i get it, even if her ways of doing it are definitely not the best to watch. From Athena's part i think we got enough emotion, even if misdirected, however it could have been better. (Forever mourning the promo scene not making to the final cut)

Overall I don't think they made Bobby unimportant (Considering the "goodbye montage" makes it clear he is that much important even if himself doesn't see it). The problem of the whole hospital moments is they writing ooc scenes that don't feel genuinely the character we've watched so far (except for Athena, personally she was totally in character) in the middle of a rushed episode that did not need to be rushed.

Heck they could have left Bobby's life hanging till the premiere. They had the perfect chance of a wrecking cliffhanger if that is what they wanted. They didn't need to worry about being cancelled with such an unfinished story line.

It would stress the hell out of me, but would have killed as a starting anchor to the next season, because it's literally an emotional disaster for the team. It would also allow certain breath in the finale for Athena's character, May and Harry presence could be more meaningful and not only after the turmoil and we could have scenes with the team and Bobby as well.

Instead we got that.. Anyway, it had some bathena moments, but this was underwhelming after all that build up. And i definitely think this episode should have been more emotional. Like allow the audience to feel the pain of the situation before rush to solve it?

Thank you for the ask, and sorry for the venting.

[phoenixcatch7]

While I'm on a totk information roll, I just want to add:

Did you know the diary slab in lookout landing isn't just placed there as a prop? It's very small, but there is a flower pedestal it comes from! I wonder what would happen if you made it there early.....?

But look at the view -

Forgive the pixel distortion, but it's just stunning. You can see the whole map and past the horizon from here. There's no weather to worry about, and the sunrise and sunsets are breathtaking. It's perfect for stargazing, or cloud watching if you look down XD.

And yes, you read that right.

Three km up exactly. Well, if you stand on a ledge. (For Americans, 1.87 miles.)

The air has started to get thin up here, ignore the game mechanics telling you it's a cosy 7°C. It's very much not. It's not quite in the human danger zone yet, though.

It's by FAR the highest thing in the game - the wind temple looks so tiny if it loads in at all! And even that's roughly 2000m up.

But to put it in perspective.... This is barely a third of the height of mount everest. That clocks in at a whooping 8km high! There's a hawaiian volcano that reaches 10km above sea level! Please do not go that high with human lungs!

If you make it up there, it's great to set a medallion down. Do whatever the heck you please. Set up a fake house with zonai devices! Use it to place beacons! Practice skydiving! You can fall forever, you can reach huge distances if you wear the full glide set too.

Just... Be careful when you hit the ground.

[blueskittlesart]

So, the discussion about Twilight Princess got me thinking, and I can't help but feel like that game was very much trapped in a "We can't do another Wind Waker, that was too cute, we need something dark and gritty and mature and grown up, like the other seventh gen consoles!"-kind of mindset. And how much that mindset limited what the game could have been.

I mean, just look at it: Low contrast browns and greys and greens everywhere? Check. Agressive Bloom levels that will sear your retinas right off? Check. Large but Empty open areas? Check. Story and Characterdesigns that REALLY try to be more "grown up" and "mature" and "gritty"? They are everywhere. Spectacular bossfights against huge enemies that look awesome but often end up rather straightforward? Yep.

I don't wan't to dunk on TP too hard, it still has lots of good elements in it, heck, I actually enjoy most of those bossfights, BECAUSE they look and feel spectacular! Some of the armor and weapondesign in this game is really good (whenever you can actually see the armor and the sea of blurry, low saturation colors, that is.).

Midna is the best.

But it feels so much like a game out of place, that was made as a knee-jerk reaction instead of truly considering what would and what wouldn't work on the Wii.

yeah. all of this. I think that tp definitely suffers from the devs attempts to make an overtly grown-up and gritty game, not necessarily because gritty, dark, atmospheric games are BAD, but because the zelda franchise is not a franchise targeted solely at adults. these games are very often coming-of-age stories centered around children and young adults. they are bright and colorful and very narrative-driven because they're meant to be enjoyed by anyone who is old enough to pick up the controller. children who can't enjoy the more difficult dungeon and fighting mechanics will still be captivated by the story and characters. some of my favorite zelda-related conversations i've ever had were with my three-year-old student who LOVED the vibrant characters and story of botw. (revali was his favorite.) twilight princess, in its quest to read as more gritty and adult, lost both its visual appeal AND its narrative appeal. what story it did have relied on nostalgia and plot from oot, alienating younger fans who hadn't yet had the chance to play that game. in order to compensate for its lack of narrative direction it padded itself with filler which showed off its willingness to go darker and scarier in terms of subject matter (look! we're going to kill this child if you don't rescue him!) so much so that the pacing and cohesiveness of the game noticeably suffered. so many elements of tp feel as though they were just thrown in because they looked cool and dark and freaky (the hero's shade, the bokoblin bridge fights, the aforementioned child-stealing segment, hell even the fucking wolf form didn't have any real narrative weight or significance!!!) with no thought to how they might actually impact the pacing and theming of the story. what results is a game with great dungeon design and boss fights but... not much else to speak of. we're left with a poorly-told, barely-comprehensible story that seems almost as if it was an afterthought, held together by some good dungeons. and it's fine if you like the dungeons and don't CARE about the story that much, but insisting that the game has a well-written narrative is just. wrong.

[kelpan]

So, remember how in my last author's note, I said I was feeling better? "More like a human"?

Yeah, I spoke too soon.

These past few months have put me through the wringer. Super stressful work environment, and new meds messing with both my mental and physical health. I'm taking steps to change the meds, and banish this nasty depression it has kept me trapped in. I can only apologize for how long it's been since my last update, though I did my best to keep writing.

This chapter might be a bit smaller than what they usually are, but it was hard-fought for. I hope you all like it, and thanks for being patient with me.

Credit for the OC Chrysanthemum headshot goes to wwispie on Etsy/Instagram!

Ao3: Petals on a Stream of Stars

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Act 1, Chapter 12: Such Wonderful Coworkers

Wednesday

7:30pm

Chrysanthemum

The alarm replayed across the air, ominous and oppressive. Chrys looked towards the sound, the weight of the message sinking under her skin. Never before had she found herself in this situation; never again did she want to. The worry that gnawed at her stomach threatened to make her vomit, and the last thing anyone needed was for her to bring her lunch back out for a visit. She forced the sensation down from the back of her throat, and turned to face her partner, ready to follow whatever instructions he had for her. 

“Sun, what are you—”

Yet she stood alone. The entrance doors clicked shut, broadcasting what must have been his departure. For him to leave without a word and so abruptly was unlike him. 

Wait, what even are our protocols? What am I supposed to be doing here??

The two attendants from the Atrium stood out against the sea of quietly occupied children. If anyone here might have a shot of giving her some kind of guidance, her best bet was from other employees.

“Uh, hey,” Chrys asked, hurrying over, doing her best to project some sort of veneer of calm, lest her anxiety take control. “Everything seemed fine when I left. What the heck happened?”

Neither moved to look at her, or acknowledged that she’d spoken. Their game of “Go Fish” was more interesting, eyes locked on their individual sets of cards. Chrys waited, arms crossed over her chest, gaze pointed, until someone caved. The one on the right took that title; A heavyset, disheveled looking man with greasy hair, who offered only a measly, nonchalant shrug in consolation. 

 “Eh, she must have slipped from the group while we were walking back. Kid was there when we lined up.”

Soon the other joined in, a small, diminutive stick of a woman, likely around the same middle age as her counterpart. She clicked her teeth and added a card to the center pile. “My guess is she got distracted by something we walked past and snuck off. I’ve heard of stuff like that happening from some of the other staff. Hell, this place is like temptation in a bottle for kids.”

Chrys’s composure threatened to crack. Could they not hear themselves right now? Her tone took on a sharp edge. “What do you mean “you guess”? Aren’t you worried about her?”

“Oh chill, she’ll be fine.” The male attendant answered, unfazed. “They’ll send every mechanical bozo they’ve got in this place after her, like that creepazoid clown you’ve got here. Soon as the lights go off she won’t stay missing for long, I can tell you that.”

Chrys bristled. She didn’t appreciate the blatant, derogatory dig. “Is that about Sun?”

“Nah, the other one.” The same attendant answered. “After all, the guy’s part of security now, it’s his job to handle shit like this.”

Just then, every light in the vicinity began to fade, blanketing the daycare in a soft but artificial twilight. Some of the children shouted in mock terror, their cheeky giggles giving away their true amusement. Chrys startled out of reflex, eyes wide as she watched the scenery take on new life around her. 

Stars. So, so many stars. 

On every post, every wall, every support beam, even the ceiling and the fake clouds dangling overhead, glow-in-the-dark stars greeted her with their nostalgic light. Never would she have thought that the cheap ones she used to have decorating the ceiling of her childhood bedroom might be able to provide any sort of substantial light, but here they were, their collective amount—and likely higher quality—creating more than enough illumination to easily see by.

“See? Right on cue.” The attendant continued. “I bet you he’s the one who finds her first. Five minutes, tops.”

“Nah, it’ll be Roxy. Fast is like her whole thing. Ten bucks.” The woman chimed in with a barking laugh.

“Ha! You’re on!”

In the background of their grating banter, a new message spoke through the intercom, pulling Chrys from the conversation.

“ATTENTION ALL GUESTS: PLEASE REMAIN IN PLACE. OUR ANIMATRONIC STAFF AND SECURITY BOTS ARE CURRENTLY INVESTIGATING. THEIR SCANS ARE FOR IDENTIFICATION PURPOSES ONLY. LOCKDOWN WILL REMAIN IN PLACE UNTIL THE MISSING CHILD IS IDENTIFIED AND RECOVERED. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.”

The automated voice spoke with an ignorable note of authority, demanding obedience through command. She could only imagine how frightening this situation must be to the other children throughout the pizzaplex; To go from having the time of their lives one instant, to then finding themselves in a world of darkness and danger the next. At least the children under her responsibility seemed impervious to this, safe and secluded as they were here in the Daycare. A small blessing.

Marigold, however, could afford no such luxury. Wherever she was, odds were that she was alone, overwhelmed, without anyone to guide or comfort her. And if anyone with less than innocent intentions found her before one of the animatronics could… she closed her eyes against such a thought. The math, however, remained clear; With each minute that ticked by, the risk of this turning into a catastrophe grew. 

There had to be something she could do, anything to help speed things along. In a building this large, with all the various nooks and crannies she might have wandered into, going about this in a blind sweep would be far too tedious. Kids were masters of subverting your expectations, able to get themselves stuck in the most ridiculous of places. Pressing her palm to her forehead, Chrys dug through her memories, seeking anything notable, any sort of outlier that might give her some insight into whatever was going on in that little girl’s mind.

She’d been teary and reluctant to leave her mother when she’d arrived. Commonplace, most children suffered from some form of separation anxiety at that age. She played, she laughed, she had fun… and seemed hellbent on continually bringing up a certain ambiguous “big brother” every chance she could get. Was that the missing key? What was it she had said about him again? Something about wanting to share a pizza together, that he was some grown up that worked at some beach…

No, wait, that wasn’t it. She’d said here at the beach. Did… did she mean the pizzaplex? 

“Hey,” Chrys said, interjecting herself back into the conversation. “Is there anywhere in the Pizzaplex that’s beach themed, or, I don’t know, might be considered kinda “beach-y”? Someplace like that?”

The two attendants shared a look of confusion, glancing at the other for mutual confirmation that they’d heard her right. 

“Uh, not really.” The man replied, in a tone that made clear what he thought of her question. “The big things are the band performances, golf, the raceway…. everything else is pretty standard kid stuff, like the arcades. It ain’t really a “beach-y” kinda place, if you catch my drift.”

The woman piped in with a snap of her fingers. “Oh, hey now, isn’t one of the free zones pirate themed? They might have some beach decor or something.”

“Oh yeah, Kids Cove, right? I always forget about that place. Hasn’t it been, like, under construction or renovations for forever or something?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

Internally, Chrys vibrated. It may only be a nugget, but this was more of a lead than she had thirty seconds ago, and she’d be a fool to dismiss it. 

“Yes! That’s got to be it! Marigold had said something earlier that makes me think that might be where she’s gone! We have to let someone know. How do we contact Sun? Or Moon? Is there a way we can ping them or something?” 

The pair scoffed at her. 

“Who do you think we are, Vanessa? She’s the only one with direct line access to those overpriced tin cans.” The man patted the seat between the two of them. “Listen, why not sit down and relax with us for a second? I’m sure someone will find her soon, and everything will be just fine. I promise.”

His voice dripped with a syrupy sarcasm, the kind that came across as both patronizing and belittling. In her veins, her blood boiled. A little girl was out there somewhere, likely now having the worst birthday of her life, and they weren’t willing to lift a single finger to help her? To even try?

No. Unacceptable. 

“Fine. If you won’t help me, then I’ll just go out there and find a way to tell them myself. Stay with the rest of the kids until I get back. Don’t work too hard now.”

 Without giving either of the two a chance to retort, she pivoted and left, marching her way to the entrance of the daycare, stopping only once to grab a flashlight from the charging station mounted on the wall behind the security desk before stepping beyond the gate. 

There was no way she was going to let that little girl suffer any longer than was necessary.

[ghostflowerhotpotch]

Wip: The face of Destiny

Summary: Who's to say the Spider-verse was the only universe rigged by their protagonists? And what if one of those worlds didn't have their own, could anyone fill the role? Or in this case, could Gwen fulfill the role of protagonist even if she wasn't from that dimension? Or would be her attempts to finding out what's going on end in the everyone's ruin?

"Shoot, that last part, it sounded different somehow, right? As if was off. Could this cause a glitch?"

Gwen made sure to check her surroundings as subtly as possible, just in case she saw something out of order, that has happened earlier. When she lost her balance on that cliff, it has come natural to her to hold onto the wall even with one hand, she could had pulled herself back together.

Until the cliff started to glitch out, and she let it go out of fear.

She got safe and sound to the ground (her quick reflexes has helped her grab onto her phone, which saved her...why this wasn't the weirdest thing about this place?) And had hastily made friends with this mechanical pokemon. Who could or not be the anomaly that she needed to look out for.

Would be better if she had more information about this case, but what Jess told her before coming here wasn't too descriptive, to top it all off, nothing has been normal since she crossed that portal.

She had a dream, of someone explaining this place in a detail that felt weird in her ears. When she woke up, a note beside her has sent had only made things more confused and in high sight, kind of scary.

It gave her more questions than answers, and compared with has happened before? Didn't make things better.

Gwen still needed to wait to get more information from anyone in the Spider Society, but this is the information she had at the moment.

This world was inhabited by super powerful creatures that roamed freely as animals. And she had no clue how any of them worked.

This place was far away from the whatever was the name of the Web with their canon events; but it seemed to have some events on its own. Gwen didn't know which ones could be.

The phone that has appeared with her in this world, has only one Contact: Miles.

There were many things that she didn't understand, yet after all the things she had seen now, of being part of the Spider Society and seeing so many new recruits come on-

Who the heck is EleSpider?!

(Future scenes under the cut!)

At first, Gwen hasn't thought of checking the phone she had. She has kind of forgotten about them ever since she had her watch; since it did all what her phone use to, but with the people in the Spider Society.

Now that thing was more a hunk of metal in her wrist than anything useful.

Her guardian (the mom of the girl who was in exchange, apparently in some other academy.) The woman had given her some tips of how to use the map; she hasn't feel sure on what type of situation someone her age wouldn't know how to use a smartphone.

Yet this time around it was a RotomPhone, so Gwen appreciated the help.

And it was when looking around that she realized she had one contact: Miles.

It has been a gamble, it didn't need to be hers- the Miles she knew, (specially considering she has already seeing the Miles of this dimension.)

There wasn't any good reason to believe this could be the other one, but among the sea of weird things happening, it couldn't hurt to try right?

It felt weird calling him Spiderman, even if he technically was one. Miguel could say what he wanted about anomalies, but destiny or not, she knew what she saw in him.

Yet Gwen felt herself get frozen in shock as she read the response.

She didn't thought she would ever hear from him again.

Remaining calml, and professional (just in case Miguel could peak, even if she wasn't sure if they could probably establish contact.) Gwen had asked directly, wondering if he could have a clue. Neither Miguel nor Jess had given her too much information before coming, from what Jess mentioned; they were clueless about what was going on in an universe so different from theirs.

Somehow, Gwen felt the response surprise her even if it should had felt obvious.

It couldn't be a coincidence.

Miles was the only one she seemed able to contact without interference, and somehow he apparently to nice this universe well.

Despite Miguel's words about the dangers of anomalies; Hobie had mentioned something interesting to her once she had caved and told him what was Miles's situation (mostly because she felt guilty knowing and being unable to say anything.)

"Ok, not saying I am an expert in this dimensional deal but, if it was that important to be anomaly, wouldn't his universe had collapsed by now?"

Hobie didn't know about canon events, Gwen knew telling that much when their paranoid leader didn't like the guy was a gamble she couldn't risk. But they resonated in the back of her mind, what if he was right?

Right now, she had a few clues of what was going on, but technically she was both an anomaly and someone who needed to complete a role, so she needed to work things carefully or wouldn't end well for anyone.

Canon or not, Miles seemed to be able to do that already.

After learning how canon controlled the lives of the Spider people, Gwen had started to believe there was always an underlying reason that things happened to her, not just coincidences. She just needed to find which one was this.

To answer Miles's question, she decided to take a selfie with Miraidon and Fowglove.

Miles lost his shit.

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"That's better" She felt herself sigh in relief, as she ran a hand though her new haircut.

As one of the mysteries of her current situation, she had realized her hair had magically changed to how it looked before; short and wavy. It was a style she had decided after a list of different hairtcuts, looking for the right one.

The hand incident still made her angry, yet when she had looked at herself in the mirror, had realized she missed the uneven haircut she had gotten to associate with herself, and Miles too.

Gwen has managed to get the cut she wanted, even if it had taken getting the right things- Miles had explained is just how things worked here.

Because it was a videogame in his world.

The implications kind of scared her; not so much being in a world that worked with videogame logic (which wasn't that unheard on the Spider Society,) but more of the thought of, if this world had a similar replica as a videogame, could her life be on something like a movie, or a comic?

Yeah, maybe keep those thoughts down until it was 3 am and she couldn't sleep.

For now, she was taking it easy. They were in the wilderness, she had made a picnic for her and her companions, and was focusing in feeding everyone.

Foxglove, (her sprigatito that she choose on the blind thought hat she had at least heard how to take care of a cat,) had taken his piece out of her hand and ran to hide below the table.

Yeah, there was a reason she named him like a poison; it definitely liked to act as a menace to her at times.

Thought with some sadness, she had realized some of these creatures seemed off-put by her, as if they knew she wasn't from here.

"Agia" Miraidon chirped, sniffing her hands as if it was looking for more. It had an impressive appetite.

Smiling a bit, she petted its head.

It was weird, it felt kind of mechanic, but also warm and alive; it moved like nothing she has seen, and she has already seen a lot from other dimensions. It was also, one of the few pokemon who had been friendly to her since the beginning.

That also happens to be a weird pokemon no one has heard of.

Miles haven't been able to provide too much information. Apparently while pokemon was a well known franchise, this "region" in particular has just been announced, he doesn't have the amount of information he has from others. He would offer his advice in what he could, but even he didn't had it all.

"It couldn't had been that easy." She thought, not surprised of this being her luck.

Looking at the Rotomphone, she thought if he would know about ways to win the trust of pokemon; Foxglove was suppose to be her first pokemon partner, and they needed to get along. It was probably part of her job as a protagonist. Or whatever the heck she needed to do here.

She wasn't doing anything wrong, even if Miguel got mad, she could justify it with working with the best she could.

He didn't need to see every single conversation, besides, wasn't rude to ask for what she wanted and not see how he was doing?

They could talk for a bit about other things, too.

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Moving around has been easier than she expected, Gwen was also working carefully to not temp her luck.

Galar was the place her guardian and her kid were from, it shouldn't be far- but there was no information she could look to how to get there. Even if she could find a way to risk it, she knew what happened when she tried to go out of the house instead of following instructions.

Gwen preferred not fight with invisible walls again, or deal with creepy voices.

Getting up to Kitakami has been a shock, it was supposed to be a far away place; and for what Miles mentioned, it wasn't that common for the protagonist to go too far from its region. There were no more glitches, so she must be in the right track here.

Though if given the chance, she may had preferred to use Miraidon as a ride (even if swinging could work from time to time without recoil, this wasn't New York. The motor lizard was more reliable.) The fly on the plane has felt eternal, and being trapped on a small bus wasn't helping her mood.

Until the teacher mentioned something that caught her attention.

"Oh this is interesting, did you know that Castelia City has a resident super hero?"

Gwen needed all her self control to not jump from her seat after finally getting a good lead.

"A super hero?" She asks, as casually as she can.

Mrs. Briar smiles politely at her, looking thankful for having someone interested in the subject. "Yes! I know a few years ago we had the incident of the two heroes, but this is completely different! It seems to have powers and everything!"

Feeling her nails on her tight, Gwen kept her grip if only to focus on keeping track of the conversation and acting casual. She needed to be the protagonist, and the protagonist probably should be surprised about this.

"What type of powers?"

"Shooting webs, sticking to walls, sending electric shocks, like it's pokemon partner!" She mentioned in excitement, as if she was relating a story from a comic book. "There are only rumors from now, but someone said the hero was bitten by a joltik that was genetically modified, and that's how they got their powers, doesn't that sound incredible?"

"Aha, yeah." Nodded, Gwen felt in the back of her mind how mundane it sounded for her now.

When she texted Miles if he had heard something about heroes, he told her it was the first time he heard about official super heroes in pokemon.

"People had always been into the idea, but the company has never actually done it. There aren't any super heroes in the world of pokemon."

Yes, just as she had suspected from her previous investigation. None of her powers were natural in this place, so it kind of makes sense that the world would react to them.

Sometimes.

"You may hate me for when they fail, but is for your own good."

A voice in her head has mentioned that a while ago, it didn't sound familiar, or even human. And she haven't seen anyone or anything around.

Another thing to the list of mysteries.

Since she was still a novice on this entire pokemon business, (also there were so many species, she couldn't believe Miles could recognize almost all of them in one glance.) So she searched about the companion pokemon of this hero.

Joltiks looked like fluffy, electric spiders. They were cuter than most of the other spider pokemon she had seen, though she didn't have issues with any of them. The pokemon in itself seemed on the weaker side, but it was a first stage which made sense.

Is when she looked at the evolution she got an answer to the clue she had since the beginning.

Galvantula.

She wouldn't forget that pokemon, it has been all that has appeared when she had started to look for the EleSpider; because that was it's title, EleSpider pokemon.

After all this time, she had a lead.

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Okay, Miles was used to weird things, you know? He got bitten by a radioactive spider, there were multiple dimensions with super heroes like him; and now he has been coaching Gwen on how to live in the pokemon world, somehow.

And a part of him knew this was a dream, he remembered going to sleep. But it has never been like this.

He was underwater, around him there was hexagonal columns of crystals that emitted light on its own, white with a rainbow shine that seemed magical. The water was the most beautiful tone of blue Miles has ever seen. It seemed barren of life however, thought he thought he saw something moving behind the crystals.

Miles could breathe fine, and the light didn't disturb him no matter how powerful it got (it contrasted with the dark sky he saw above him, muted by the water.)

"You are interesting." A voice said.

At this point, Miles wasn't sure what to say. Yes, dreams could mean anything, but they weren't normally this vivid, and his memory didn't work this well either. He knew this place.

Gwen had sent her pictures when she visited this lake.

Not from here though.

It didn't help that the voice was...off, light, yet flat. The words were said properly, but seemed as if it was trying to test they were said correctly. Something wasn't sure if it had trouble speaking this language, or what it could say.

More importantly- Gwen had mentioned a voice like this giving her cryptic advice.

"Um." He answered, eloquently.

Was dumb of him to be relieved Gwen wasn't around to see this?

"She has been a welcome addition, we are pleased" It spoke as if it was enthusiastic, yet the pitch felt as it didn't understand how to mimic the tone humans used. "However, now that we know who you are, this seems more your area of expertise."

Miles blinked, feeling that if anything, this was the part that now sounded like an actual dream. When he was a kid he used to have so many dreams of living in the pokemon world and being a champion; like many other kids.

Not to shoot his own horn, but considering Gwen didn't even know the basic fire->plant->water->fire combat system because there was no popular equivalent of this format in her world (somehow, or she just didn't care for those types of things.) It wasn't crazy to think he definitely knew better, at least at the beginning.

"So I would be a better pokemon master?" He asks, sounding almost hopeful.

"Uhhh??" The sound it made was not what expected, but at least, Miles thought it was confusion. "Ah, not why we want from you. It helps, but there are plenty of pokemon masters here. That's not the important bit."

Okay, Miles couldn't believe something so lowkey and neutral could sound harsh. Not that he still dreamed about being a pokemon master, but he felt little Miles inside him feeling deflated.

Regardless, something caught his attention.

"What's the important bit?"

"Ah, you don't know, right." It said, Miles thought two blue spheres- could those be eyes? somehow before he could focus better, they disintegrated like powder in water. "Not sure if we should tell, the web of the spiders is not familiar to us. You should ask who you know it knows."

Frowning, Miles wasn't sure what to say. Sure, there were other spider man and women, even animated spiders who got bitten by radioactive pigs. But that was just, parallel universe stuff; right? How much else it could be about?

And as far as he knows, Gwen knew some stuff about the multiverse, but she confessed the physics part wasn't her thing, and sometimes that Miguel could feel like he asked for ridiculous things. Miles trusted that if she knew something he should know, she would tell him.

Even via text, or phone calls or video...Gwen had told him a lot already, he believed that if there was something he needed to know, she would tell him.

So, who he was suppose to ask? Perhaps it was just general advice and didn't know who he knew.

"Would you want to come?" The voice said. Shocking Miles.

"For real?" He asked in awe, before thinking more carefully about it. He was in the middle of his school year, his dad has been preparing for months for this test to become captain, and it was still months ahead. Gwen told Miles it wasn't a big deal her dad didn't know where she was; but him? Yeah, he couldn't do that. "Look, texting Gwen works well for me- for now at least," He may or may not been distracted checking websites to help her out, instead of doing things like homework. It has only been a few classes. "But ghosting my folks? I can't do that, sorry."

There was a pause, to which Miles wasn't sure how to take. There was a heaviness in the atmosphere, like his spider-sense knew something was out there. Not necessarily to hurt, but...was the type of thing to be alert from.

As if it was a type a power that if it wanted, you were toast before you could even evade; so you couldn't ignore its presence. It reminded him of the stories he had read about.

"Could we found someone to cover for you?" It said out of nowhere, shocking Miles.

"Wait, how? Like faking being me? I don't know-" He started to think, it would made things easy; but he didn't like the idea.

Out of nowhere, one of the crystal's started to project an image; it seemed like his house, with his parents reading a letter. Miles didn't think it was real- the colours were a slightly off colour, things seemed flat. Perhaps it was projecting what it could be?

It could do that? He wasn't sure how to take any of this.

"An exchange program?" His mom read, she seemed intrigued.

"Apparently in the west cost, some fancy program for students into physics." Miles's dad seemed a lot more convinced an impressed. On this angle Miles could kind of read the email- huh, it also mentioned Miles as having "extraordinary achievements that made him the perfect candidate."

Damn, was this being was trying to butter him up? He wasn't sure what was special about him, but it seemed interested, enough to make a fancy letter to make him look great.

"Honey, this sounds amazing!" His dad said in excitement, totally on board. "He must had impressed those teachers at the academy! This is what we had been saying all this time, he has this talent and they see it too!"

Miles wasn't sure what to say, yeah, maybe this video was more of an idealized version of what it could be, but he wanted to believe it was trying to show something feasible. Even if the image didn't show him around; Miles hoped he could be there to show him this.

Sure, this wasn't about physics, and he hopes nothing weird appeared in his records, but it seemed like it was just trying to say that it would help Miles learn more on the areas that he needed. And more importantly, this was something bigger than just himself; it was a mission to another dimension, an opportunity of a lifetime.

This just, made it sounds less crazy, right?

"Jeff, this says is in another country." His mom said with worry. "I know the pamphlet says the school there has great counsellors and everything, but that's too far-"

"Love," He puts a hand on top of hers, smiling. "I know it sounds scary, but think about it. He really disliked this school at first, we asked him two weeks, and he had trouble adapting to his classes at first, but now he has straight A's in physics or Art, and they think he can go even farther. Wasn't what we wanted it for him? To do the great things we knew he could do."

Smiling a bit, Miles hoped he could prove them right. Maybe not in the way they wanted (he still wasn't sure how to tell them he was Spider-man, despite all these months.) But he trusted he was doing something right. And maybe he could do something right in other places, with Gwen, and who knows how else.

Miles promised to himself to find ways to make them proud, even if they couldn't know exactly why.

He wasn't sure how much physics he was actually going to learn here but...hey, going to some place far away was more closer to the truth than having some type of clone faking being him.

Regardless, he wanted to believe they could make this happen, and lowkey as possible.

"And who would be there to replace me?" Miles asked, just wanting to make sure.

"Someone sufficient." The voice contested, it almost sounded like...a purr? He wasn't sure. "We didn't think of it before, but we started to realize this has more potential. We have great ideas."

That part was more risky; even in dreams with the heavy presence, his spider-sense reminded him that this creature was probably more powerful that him, saw things in other light. For now they seemed to be in the same page, as weirder out as Gwen has been, she never sounded afraid of it.

Perhaps if it wanted her there, it was for a good reason.

He had reasons to believe in it, for now.

"I want to read that letter before they see it, and I want to give it to them; if you can promise me someone will take care of my city and everything would be cool...I want to hear more."

The lights suddenly went out, the water became as dark as the bottom of the of the ocean, and a whirlpool suddenly pulled him down. He didn't have webs, he barely could move under the current.

There was no pain, or suffocation, just-pull.

The last thing he heard before waking up, was "Then better make sure we start with the right foot!"

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Miles couldn't believe what he saw in front of him.

At this point, he had accepted than everything was possible, even in this world of creatures he had grown so familiar it had felt predictable- until now.

The battle he saw years ago, something he thought he could only see on television- It was indescribable.

Starting because he couldn't even begin to explain why, how- why they were here?

"So glad to meet you, Miles!" A voice in his mind said, yet by how everyone reacted, Miles realized it was talking telepathically with the others too. "Definitely you were the one we waited for."

We? Was this also the other creature, or it was just how they talked- Hold up.

All this time it has been-?!

Wait, was that its normal type?

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Miles and Gwen were running for their lives, and this once, Gwen was wondering if it was really worth trying to not use their spider abilities for this occasion.

Why do you mean there was glitching monsters looking for them now?!

Miles had taken her wrist, ran turned on a tunnel. She wasn't even sure how he saw it, but as they crouched out of pure survival instinct. The glitching being came by fast- and passed them as if they didn't exist.

With a hand on her chest, Gwen was trying her to control her breathing. She wasn't sure if that thing could hear, or somehow knew? It has been the first time she has crossed their paths with them.

"It has happened so fast-" Gwen thought, a bit anxious. Sure, she has run adjusted to things going south on the last second, or unexpected things appearing at the worst times.

Feeling something cold on her arm, Gwen realized Miles was offering a chilled water bottle, he had one too, of those you bought in the convenient machines.

"Thanks," She muttered, wanting to keep to herself the silent part; thanking for more than just the water. Gwen knew Miles wasn't afraid to open up if needed, but she had more trouble doing so; and asking for help too. Something as simple as water without any words was better for her to feel better than checking if she was fine.

With the sensation of water going down her throat, she felt get more calm, and try to pay attention to their surroundings.

It was night, bug pokemon and other types were around; nothing that seemed too worrisome in her eyes for now. It helped she had excellent night vision, and that ability was passive enough to not cause a fuzz.

Nowadays it was weird, but before- oof, somethings she preferred not remember.

After a few minutes, Miles said. "Okay, those things shouldn't be here, but...they reminded me of something."

Arching and eyebrow, she said, "Of what?"

"Well, sometimes in like the first few games, some pokemon would, glitch? Sometimes it was just straight up black and white code, other skeletons from the museum- yeah I know it sounds like it was on purpose but it was an accident."

"Why it happened?"

"Well- funnily enough, the first games weren't exactly broken, just doing much for the time. You see, as simple as the game has, there was too much content for the cartridges at the time, mostly because the size information was extremely small, and the technology was still kind of archaic at that time.

"The game could fit only so many things, and the gameboy couldn't play them all at the same time at times. Things got misplaced. Missigno appeared trying to fill the space of something the memory couldn't find. Or in some cases, when a specific set of things happened that made the code glitch."

Miles had said very casually, possibly nerding about the coding and creation aspect of games. It sounded interesting, (and perhaps kind of cute,) seeing him like this.

Except that she quickly realized that if Miles was right- well, those things were here because they activated something that that should had been touched?

"Miles" She said carefully, trying to hope there was no reason panic. "What types of things broke the game."

Opening his mouth, his eyes opened in shock, and nothing came out of his lips.

"Well that doesn't look promising."

"Miles?"

Biting his lower lip for a second, he says, "...It was random things, Gwen. This didn't happen just because, most of those glitches were made after doing some innocuous, but random combination of things; it could be unpredictable. There was no way to know."

Taking a deep breathe, Gwen tried to think this rationally. Before, there has been times where things glitched for a second but then it returned to normal- it has looked different. Colorful, spiky, like when she was glitching out in her universe.

Those things- white and black, a pattern of change yet almost computerized. They seemed different.

And for now, it was the first time they found it.

"Okay," She said, softly, nodding to herself, and then turning her head to Miles. "We will keep our eyes open, and try to take note of what could be this; maybe they aren't common, we aren't in those old games right? Maybe it would be fine."

Somehow, Miles didn't seem relaxed, but the smile that he gave her was genuine. "Yeah, we will be okay."

Gwen wasn't sure if he believed, or if she did; sometimes it was better to say it and hope it would be the case.

"Grhmm," Her lizard rumminated, between mechanical and animal like, and then dropped it head on Miles's legs and its chest on Gwen's lap.

"Miraidon!" She chuckle, trying to move the doofus- if her body wasn't being so resilient, that would had definitely been painful.

"Jeez, you are so spoiled" Miles commented, but still caressed its head. Miraidon made more motor sounds.

In the darkness of this cave, in the middle of nowhere, they seemed to forget about all those things for just a second.

Not realizing who was looking after them.

🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷

"THIS IS NOT HOW THINGS ARE SUPPOSE TO WORK."

"And who says how they are suppose to work? Last time I checked you also bend them at your pleasure!"

It was pandemonium out there, as Gwen and Miles hurdled together amidst the sandstorm around them, thought something told Miles there was most than sand, water and wind out there. Not that he could see.

But those voices- sounding larger than life, so loud he couldn't almost thing, it was jarring, demanding.

Powerful.

"THAT- THAT WAS DIFFERENT!"

"Yeah, which it was why it has pestered you about it. Just imagine the possibilities!"

He heard some type of attack- meteors? Was that gust of wind enough for swift?

"It has worked out well, better than the last attempt on that region- It can work!"

"Miles, what we are suppose to do?!" Gwen screamed, because even beside each other, it was difficult to listen to anything.

He couldn't even open his eyes, this- this has been more than he had ever imagined.

But they had gone to far.

And maybe he was reading too much, maybe he was being delusional, but now- He thinks he understand why he was here.

Time to show it off.

🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷~🕷

Oh ho ho, that was fun! I had heard from a group of writers than doing warm ups was a good idea, and one of those warm up exercises, sometimes consisted in expanding on silly ideas.

This is self-indulgent to the brim, I haven't done any serious crossover work in probably ten years, but I had a blast. Including how to make a low budget fan teaser. I did the same thing I used in photoshop, when you can't do something cool, add more effects!

Probably shouldn't publish this now, but I put a lot of hours in this, even if is more for me than anyone else. Should I do crazy stuff like this more often, is really interesting to see what you can do. I was impressed with the quantity of details I managed to squeeze both in writing and the video, wonder how many of them are obvious and how many of them are actually vague.

Hope anyone liked it! If you did, please consider either commissioning me or donating to my ko-fi, and if not please reblog!

Have a good night.

[beardedhandstoadshark]

I think I figured out why totk feels a bit iffy to me, and it‘s not in fact the story or the map or that "Zelda‘s sacrifice isn‘t worth anything cuz she‘s not suffering for all eternity“ (seriously wtf are you guys ok). Nope, it‘s that despite all its attempts to convince you otherwise,

This is just the same game again?

Seriously, what’s really new here? Nothing‘s changed. Sure, there‘s a 6-year gap now, and 1.5 new maps, that‘s pretty cool, but what else?

The setting is pretty much the same. The gameplay is pretty much the same. The goal is pretty much the same. The story is pretty much the same. All you do is pretty much the same. But then you look at it and it tries to tell you it‘s not.

Heck, even some of the things that are new are really similar. Ultrahand is Magnet but for everything. Same as Recall. Sidon‘s shield is Daruk‘s but passive-use. Tulin is Revali but sideways. Riju is straight up the same skill but mapped to your bow now. (though tbf that one makes sense character-wise at least).

The same can be said about the games that came before it (primarily the 3D ones) but those had, imo, enough differences in everything surrounding the "old Zelda formula“ to be unique. From graphics to story to setting to even the details of the gameplay surrounding that formula, the core is the same, but the things around it are not.

They also all have their own "vibe“ in settings, so to speak. For example, just like how Wind Waker’s a pirate sea adventure, TP is a fantasy wild western, while botw has its ruined civilications and rediscovered magitech.

And then Totk also has ruined civilisations and rediscovered magitech. Just in different shapes. And green this time.

(Fun fact: "The same thing in green“ is a real idiom in German, for when two seemingly different things are actually almost identical.)

It‘s not all like that ofc, there are things that make totk unique and I‘ll elaborate on later, but it just feels like there‘s still so that… something, that could‘ve made it unique.

And while having the game play in the past might‘ve helped, I‘m not sure if it would‘ve been enough, because even then, the vibe would still be similar. You‘d still be doing the exact same thing. You‘d still have your circle of ancient magitech skills that are basically-but-not-quite the same as the previous one. You‘d still have a hundred-something minidungeons to solve that already felt the same on their own. You‘d still be in a ruined civilisation with ancient magitech setting.

It‘s like with the pre-switch 3D Mario games- the core gameplay goal is the same (world -> level with missions granting you a star each-> get enough stars to unlock boss -> loop) but the gameplay surrounding that goal, as well as the setup and "gimmick“, are always different enough to make each game unique - except for the games that didn‘t do that, Galaxy 1 and 2. You‘re not missing out on much gameplay-wise if you only played one of them. And G2 has all news maps and a story, mind you, hence why I said having those couldn‘t make totk unique enough to make it feel like its own thing either.

Same with the Oracles games; technically 2 games, yes, different plot, dungeons and map, but are they? Are they really? Or are they more like two "editions“ of the same base game, like in pokemon?

And worst thing is; there‘s parts of totk that aren‘t like that! The truly new and unique things, those are pretty cool, and DO help differentiating totk from its predecessor!

The almost "crafting“ aspect of the improved weapon system, using what you find from exploring to strengthen weapons or give them new attributes (frozen-meat shield skateboard my beloved). The main dungeons all having their unique aesthetics and mechanics surrounding the core "find 4 switches“ loop (like how the old 3D games would do unique things around a "find keys to progress“ loop to keep things fresh, something that botw failed to do and totk fixed), the gloomy eeriness of the depths juxtaposed by the ethereal gardenlike calm of the sky islands.

The treat of cold machines and murderous analytics replaced by visceral rotten flesh, erratic in its movement and droven only by hunger.

Heck, even the cutscene for unlocking maps, getting shot out the tower by Purah‘s contraptions instead of climbing it alone; not being alone this time. There‘s others with Link this time. He‘s not alone this time.

Those help shape totk into its own game with its own unique feel. And it was SO close to succeeding. But it just barely missed the mark. Because the moment you‘re on the road again, away from others and going exploring, doing wjat the game is essentially about- it becomes identical to botw again. But it doesn‘t want to be botw. That might be the real issue. The setup screams "new“, while everything else screams "more of the same“, and the game can‘t decide which one it wants to cater to.

And if that‘s what you like, and wanted out of it, that‘s great! I‘m happy you got that! But I just can‘t play a different version of the same game for another six years again all while being told it‘s a different one.

Because that‘s what totk feels to me- like Mario Galaxy 2, like every set of a pokemon gen, totk feels like another "edition" to botw of the overarching "switch games“ generation.

TLDR, totk couldn‘t decide if it wanted to be a sequel sequel or a "its own thing but can still act as a sequel to those who played the other one“ sequel, went with one leg in each direction, and tripped over both of them doing so.

[goldendaydna]

Ya know what? I think I will scream into the void about Robbie's character design

Reminder that this is a random person on the internet and what I say below derives from things my silly little brain thinks.

The amount of connections from his human form, his Ghost Rider form and his personality is so dang cool. When you look at his human form and you look at his Ghost Rider form you still know which ghost rider he is even if you take away one of the main components which seems to be his jacket, you can even know which ride is his.

Design wise, I love that his skull isn't your average skull, ya know in a sea of ghost Riders with a lot of them having normal skulls. It makes a viewer just KNOW Robbie isn't you're traditional Ghost Rider. I'd include his car into that but I won't cuz there's been a horse as a ride before and there are so many other vehicles as rides now. (And as it should be cuz it would just be pretty silly if all Spirits restricted their rides to just motorcycles. They need to get things done, lol.). Also I think we can call it a skull cuz like, what else can be done? It's got the shape, and it's not a helmet, there is an organic jaw fused to it, just saying.

The v shaped scar and the single white streak in his hair, boom, the center flame on his skull. Heck it even makes a connection to the blower on the hood of his car.

Adding to that, because the flames on his skull are directed and channeled through holes in the back of his head, the center flame, his eye sockets ,and his mouth; can make for a better gauge on his emotions and what he's feeling due the size, shape, and location of be it flames, sparks, smoke and even the appearance of molten metal.

Just imagine a scenario where Robbie is transformed like

Gabe: Robbie are you ok?

Lisa: Yeah cuz you are sparking and smoking like crazy right now

Ghost Rider Form Robbie who just missed out on a good sale for groceries cuz of Eli's bs: I'm good.

Then there's his car in general. Not only does it have a history with Robbie, it becomes an extension of himself and he would be a liar if he says he doesn't like it. It lets him do things he hasn't been able to do freely before, like race or take his little brother to school or just out the house in general. Heck, it let's him be a mechanic with an actual car XD.

Still going on about the car but I have to say this. The fact that Robbie is a Mexican American and his ride is a car has to be 100% purposeful. Cars have such a rich history for Mexicans and Mexican Americans. Especially in California and Texas, and some of Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. From revolting, to artistic expression, to family connections. It's really too bad that the comic's run was cancelled cuz there could have been so many cool topics to mention stuff about it.

Onto his apparel, when he's Ghost Rider it becomes that of a racer. Something Robbie loves to do and is VERY good at. I don't even need to point out his leather jacket in his human form. The tight shirts mentioned in the comics are more of a reflection of his situation. They are too small for him and it's more than safe to assume he doesn't bother with new clothes until they cannot be used anymore, cuz that costs money that he can't afford to spend. Grey jeans, black jacket combined with a white hoodie, or just a simple t-shirt, it's simple monochrome and it's harsh. Much like the hell charger. Also two jackets in Cali? Either becoming a Ghost Rider did something for him to be unbothered or suns heat be damned the drip is just too important.

Now we move onto his eyes and some of the scars. I just personally love it when powers or superhuman abilities are given to characters and they leave a physical mark cuz they are physical reminders to the character in question that they are no longer the same. It can also gives a chance for side characters to make note of or mention.

(This one is more headcanon-ey) Even with his teeth. With some of the other riders all their teeth look pretty flat, at least from what I've seen but it's a pretty safe bet to say genetically Robbie is one of those people who have a set of sharp little canine teeth. That get longer and sharper in his Ghost Rider form which are visibly the most organic part of his skull when transformed.

I will say, I think his white hair streak being something he dyes is a missed opportunity, but that's just me. Eyebrow slits are always cool so there is that. That undercut and the little beard patch just makes sense. The plug earrings, also cool. Just, I love Robbie's character design. It's more modern than his predecessors, and it very much so says "Yes. It cannot be denied, this kid is Latino." And it's fresh and respectful and gives him his own personality. It's a 10 out of 10 for me.

I'm also not gonna talk about weapons, they just seem pretty inconsistent throughout his appearances so I don't got much to say on that.

Did I miss something? Probably but it is what it is lol.

[icestarphoenix]

I have questions on the American Dream Magical Girl story idea because it's my favorite! So I'm assuming based on the mechanic of going into dreams and fighting nightmare versions of other states means that it's sort of like persona. In that case, what is the reason that the different states succumbed and began nightmares?

To be honest, as someone who loves flashy fight scenes, I put more development into their powers, settings, and battle gimmicks first. Of course I didn’t just pick the Nightmare states willy-nilly, however.

I’ve decided that Mississippi shall be one of the Southern States that succumbed to the nightmare. It really takes a mental toll being at the bottom of the national barrel. It hurts when he hears his colleagues thank God for Mississippi, it really does. He wants things to improve, but there’s just very little he himself can do to change things. Though, it’s a lot easier to be at the top when there’s no longer anyone above you.

Being Minnesota Nice 24/7 is quite the reputation to uphold. He has so much he wants to say, but can usually only express himself with nothing more than a small passive-aggressive comment. With so much chaos, turmoil, and personal troubles in his life, time has really worn down Minnesota's patience. Wise folk always said to fear the sea in storm and night with no moon. There’s only so much someone can take.

Nevada's been under Gov's thumb ever since he could remember, under even more control than his colleagues. Always at the fed's beck and call to display like a pretty bird in a gilded cage that does whatever he commands. And frankly, he's sick of it. Winning always made him feel like the boss, the top dog. Because when else is he going to feel like his life is his? This might be the moment Nevada can finally be the one to call the shots around here.

Rhode Island's been picked on for centuries as the smallest state in the country. Despite being literally one of the oldest people in the country, he still gets treated, whether by mistake or as a joke, like a child. That's definitely enough to develop a complex over. Perhaps this is the one opportunity to show them all who it is they made the mistake of messing with.

California's been endlessly picked on and shunned by everyone else. They've always wanted acceptance from their peers, but they never give it to him. They're tired of being that easy-to-hate state. Hated just because he speaks his mind. Hated because of forces out of their control. To always be the state that ruins everything they get their hands on. And you know what? Fine. He'll give them exactly what they want. Maybe then they will all finally be happy.

Gov deals with the antics and chaos of the country each and every day. He does his best to keep order around the house, but why do the states keep making things harder for him? Heck, why do the people keep making things harder for him? He's only trying to stay in powe– support the nation and its citizens, and all they do is cause a ruckus and disobey him. It'd be a lot easier if Gov could just control everything.

[queenlucythevaliant]

👩🏼‍🔬

It's me! Hi! I'm the problem (too many science facts).

Since I know you like weird fish (lol), let's talk horizontal gene transfer between different fish species!

So for the uninitiated, horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is the process by which genetic information moves between members of different species by methods other than descent. It's typically associated with microbes, like the ones we study in my lab, which swap DNA back and forth via a form of conjugation (I study Archaea, they're weird). HGT makes prokaryotic evolution tricky to study; the simple definition of evolution is just "descent with modification," so what do you do in cases where there's modification without descent? (Lots of math is the answer.)

But! HGT has actually been demonstrated in other areas of the tree/web/coral of life too! Specifically, we've documented cases of different fish species swapping antifreeze genes back and forth horizontally.

So there are, broadly, five types of antifreeze proteins, each of which is very diverse. There are loads of these guys, because protein sequence space is enormous and there are usually unfathomably many molecular mechanisms by which to achieve something. Broadly, they've also evolved really fast (within the last 20 million years) in response to glaciation events, so sometimes you even get radically different antifreeze proteins in closely related fish species.

However! There are three very different, distantly related fish species (herring, rainbow smelt, and sea raven) that all encode extremely similar antifreeze proteins. They're so similar that convergent evolution just can't account for it: work the same way, unique disulfide bridge patterns, 85% amino acid identity across the board and higher in coding regions. For reference, they did a big survey of other antifreeze proteins when this was discovered (2008, I believe) and they couldn't find any homologous (related) proteins with greater than 40% amino acid identity. This was a highly conserved protein in both intron and exon regions.

like

Source

These three random, unrelated fish have darn similar homologous proteins. I said in a previous post that there are more possible proteins 100 amino acids long than there are atoms in the whole universe. So what the heck?

Horizontal gene transfer, baby! Between vertebrates!

Proooooobably this happened via viral infection? But we're not totally sure yet! It's an ongoing area of research and I, for one, absolutely cannot wait to read the textbooks in another thirty or fifty years.

When I first encountered this in a class several years ago, my response was genuinely just like. It's a miracle.

See, I get why YE Creationists talk about the odds of evolution occurring via random chance so much, all those piles of silver dollars covering Texas in which you just happen to pick the right one. It's compelling, in a way: these are crazy long odds we're dealing with.

Except no! When glaciation happens and one fish has a useful antifreeze protein, and then that fish gets some weird virus and it ends up infecting other fish and altering its eggs, who now have access to that same useful antifreeze protein which keeps them alive long enough to procreate... That's providence, baby! That's God looking out for our silly little fish buddies!

AND it's the power of natural selection! Because the fish that ended up with the useful protein DOES have a reproductive advantage now! And so of course these proteins spread like crazy, of course they do! It makes a world of sense.

It's just. It's so cool dude. HGT is awesome, and I mean that in the classical sense of the word. HGT is sublime.

[distracteddaintydemon]

Nature of the nightmare

Me, 10 hours into Sunless Sea: "Oh noes, my captain had a potentially nightmarish, potentially dangerous dream, what now? What decision should I make about it? Should I face it bravely and attempt to uncover mysteries of the universe? Should I choose silence?"

Me, 130 hours into Sunless Sea: "Heck yeah, Restless Night event! Free option to decrease Terror by one point without spending money!"

And, honestly, this transition is the fucking CLOSEST I've ever came in art to being SEEN with my own experience regarding nightmares. When I was little (think 6-9 years old), I discovered how to wake up on demand, because I was having nightmares so often. When I was 13, I almost accidentally mastered lucid dreaming, because I was fucking tired of running away, both in-dream and by waking up on demand. And at 33 I discovered that my nightmares never stopped; I just became so used to them, so intimately acquainted, that they lost entirely the ability to hit me with a cortisol-fueled shockwave and I started to perceive their occurence as mundanely obvious.

Who doesn't dream about being chopped in quarters and stored in an old sofa bed filled with acid? It's perfectly normal, and the only important part of it is the following: the sooner I find out about relevant alchemical / mythological symbols that could explain this peculiar imagery, the sooner this recurring dream will get out of my hair. And I would prefer to speed this up, because lying in acid is BORING.

If you have them long enough, even the nightmares can get boring and mundane. You can get tired of running and equally tired of fighting and finally decide to stay to the end, because maybe you'll get something out of this and whatever, mayhaps this time it'll be interesting or something.

And I want y'all to understand: how you become desensitized to nightmare-related events in game, it's not a game mechanic clashing with storytelling. It's a game mechanic used to tell a story. It's one of the ways how it can work for real people and you got to touch this through the game.

Oh, nightmare, nice. What am I getting out of it?

[autumn-foxfire]

1) That's my love language too! Dissing characters affectionately so I feel you XD 2) If we're talking about Hawks and broken dreams, what comes to mind is how emotional he got after Ochako's speech, thinking "if everyone were to think of each other even a little bit, if we could be united as one, I can see a future where heroes have free time on their hands, one so bright you can't help but grin" so after successfully ripping my heart out and smashing it on the pavement, because damn. That boy's eyes were literally twinkling with more emotion he's shown his whole life, it was overwhelming, I could already hear the rising inflection in his voice, like you're at a loss for breath, you can't look away. So awed. His dream was so impossible, but finally? An olive branch, the thought of possibility? I don't think Hawks thought he would live to see pay off, but he's getting a chance to see it blossom right in front of his eyes. Ever since he was Keigo, he's someone who looks like his tiny body would get knocked over from how painful yet relieving hope filling his heart would be, because when you're so down in the dumps, that "hope" is massive, it's smothering to be able to drag you out of the darkness. But now there's just a sea of pitch-black Twice clones descending on everyone, and Hawks' expression is the most twisted, pained and miserable one he's made to date. It really sucks how all that got sucked right out of him. Hawks is such a huge dreamer, it's been a reoccurring thing since he was introduced. We first hear his dream in PH arc, there's the two-page cherry blossom spread, "can I shine bright" the fantasy-aspect to his backstory, retreating into that dream world of heroes, the TV just like his moms coping mechanisms, until "fantasy became reality" the return of his dream but more flowery! Heck, even the "flying" teaching moment with Tokoyami is lowkey magically full of hope and dreams and freedom, of course with the subtle angst. Oh yeah, and the hopes carried in the second, "lets fly together!" with Twice. It's really surprising with everything else his character has been presented as, through his gloomy expressions, through other characters "idea" of him, through his pragmatism, but he's always been this person even if he doesn't often show it.

Aye! Good taste :p I say if you can't affectionately call out your favs for their dumbassery than do you really like them for their flaws and all.

Also, thank you for pain with this Hawks analysis T-T Hawks really is a dreamer and it hurts to see them crushed under the weight of reality. He had hoped that he could smile with them all again in April but he ended up having to mourn with them and now he has to face the fear of what he had tried to prevent in the previous war without anything he can do to stop it.

Hawks makes me hurt so much.