#i guess i'll also tag that one too?

[aroaceleovaldez]

I was reading a post about CoTG and I realized: Rick has seemingly started to write every character pairing with the exact same dynamic, and he's not good at writing that dynamic and it doesn't make sense for 90% of the characters he writes it for.

It's that very specific dynamic of one half of the pair who is almost aggressive to the other party - "teasing" them constantly/insulting them, affectionately punching/judo flipping/maiming/etc, seemingly almost always exasperated with the other - and said other party usually just accepts this treatment or blanketly views it fondly, and may generally be framed as more incompetent than their partner and a little bit of a doormat (particularly relating to being insulted/teased/etc by their partner).

We start seeing this dynamic in HoO with Percy and Annabeth, as a sort of semi-inconsistent twist on their rivals-to-friends-to-lovers dynamic from the first series. Then the dynamic pattern develops further with Leo and Calypso. Then Magnus and Alex. Then Nico and Will, particularly in TSATS. And now in CoTG, it's Percy and Annabeth again but even more in this direction.

I know people have talked about Nico and Will's relationship over the series rapidly being shoehorned into Percabeth Two™, and it's extremely apparent in TSATS that Rick's doing it on purpose (including directly quoting Percabeth scenes but minorly tweaking them to be Solangelo). But recognizing it as an overarching trend in Rick's later books honestly reminds me a lot of how Rick started trying to apply the "Percy Formula" so-to-speak to nearly every protagonist in HoO (and then try to replicate similar character archetypes with Magnus and Apollo's narrations - moreso Magnus in being jaded and sarcastic, very much trying to be first series Percy. He only sounds unique because Rick failed at making him Percy 2. Apollo is more akin to later-series Percy characterization of being goofy and incompetent. Apollo [and Zeus] even got retconned to give Apollo a more similar backstory to Percy's). Rick seems to have decided that he thinks the audience wants this specific dynamic but 10 times over, except he's not good at writing it the first time because it's a bastardization of the time he did a different thing okay.

And Rick also seems aware of that too! Because he retconned Calypso and Leo at the end of TOA, probably because he realized how absolutely awful it was reading when they were written with that dynamic of Calypso just functionally hating Leo and constantly being aggressive towards him! The only time Rick's actually made the dynamic even semi-successful was with Magnus and Alex, because it actually fits within their characters, their dynamics with each other, and their environment. Alex beheading Magnus on the regular works out fine because there are no repercussions to that in Valhalla, Magnus will be fine, so it does genuinely come off as humorous. And Alex has been effectively established to be abrasive at times but have her genuine feelings shine through regularly, and that meshes well with Magnus' jaded-and-aloof-but-quietly-very-empathetic character. And Magnus has been established to, yes, not be great at combat, particularly compared to Alex. They are the only time that flavor of dynamic in that form was effective and cohesive.

Percabeth is no longer rivals-to-friends-to-lovers badasses on equal levels with shaky pasts who finally found some form of permanence with one another. Now it's super smart doting and affectionately aggressive girlfriend and her silly goofy 50%-of-the-time incompetent boyfriend who she judo flips/pushes off cliffs/etc - but affectionately~! Solangelo is trying to riff off of the early series "Poseidon & Athena are enemies" dynamic that Percabeth had but with Apollo & Hades being "opposites" but learning to accept each other, except it ends up with Will just coming off as a huge asshole and Nico being retconned to a complete doormat about it - when prior to that those characterizations would be completely contrary to their established characters (even just from TOA!). Calypso in HoO gets retconned from her PJO characterization to being snooty and aggressive, and Leo's false persona gets merged into his just normal personality except he just also becomes a doormat but more goofy than Nico with occasional haha-dark/depression-humor! Which Nico also got. Which was also a bastardized Percy trait that got redistributed.

It's exhausting. Rick write more than one relationship dynamic you can do it I promise

[snarkspawn]

some KoD/Spirealm sketches

[lilacthebooklover]

me, looking at the most toxic, awful, horrendously unhealthy fictional relationship in the world: why can't i have what they have? :(

[starrysharks]

i want to delete my twitter account so fucking bad

[clowningaroundmars]

heeyyy yaaalllll

so i was thinking to myself, i love punkflower. i really do.

what if there was a hobie in miles' universe and he didnt have to do the whole long distance relationship across dimensions thing, though? just keep his lil secret crush on spiderpunk a secret and keep it pushing, only to literally bump into his own hobie brown in 1610 one day?

wouldnt that be cool, guys?

wouldnt it? :)

wouldnt :) it :) be :) so :) cool? :) and so cute too?

:)

update: >part 2 here<

Miles was late.

It was his first day back, the very beginning of his junior year at Visions Academy and he was late. God damn.

His parents were really gonna kill him this time, no doubt about it. There weren't even any good Spiderman excuses he could use to weasel his way out of getting into trouble this time! He'd just have to cross his fingers and pray that his chemistry teacher for this year wasn't a total hardass like last year's English teacher.

Maybe he could make up some dumb excuse this time, try to wriggle his way into the professor's good graces with some blatant lie. Anyways, whose dumb idea was it to put him in a class so damn far from the entrance doors so early in the mor--

BRRRRRRING!

Miles tore around a corner just as the final bell rang throughout the mostly-empty hallways, inciting panic in his chest and making him nearly launch himself down another hallway just to get to his class.

In his haste, he nearly knocked over a very tall and very... familiar looking person that happened to be in Miles' trajectory. Luckily, bodies didn't end up colliding but the shock of having a person fly so quickly into their line of sight shocked the both of them into skidding to a sudden stop.

The tall person ended up dropping a textbook and what seemed like an enormous packet of papers, because sheets scattered absolutely everywhere, almost like snow.

Ugh. Of course.

They both stared down at the mess in the middle of the hallway floor for a beat.

Then, Miles exhaled a laugh, shaking his head.

"Aw man, I-I'm sorry! I just uh... here, lemme just--"

They both bent down to quickly scoop up the papers as Miles stuttered and spoke a hundred miles a minute, trying to apologize for the heart-stopping scare he caused. Just as Miles shuffled the papers together in his hands, he finally looked up at the unlucky student he almost football-tackled first thing in the morning... and nearly dropped the papers onto the floor again.

Kneeled right in front of him with papers and a textbook tucked under a skinny arm, long fingers nervously plucking up what was left of the rest of the packet, was none other than... Hobie Brown.

Oh. God.

This Hobie didn't seem to be Miles' Hobie, though.

(Miles' temperature rose a bit as he quickly thought: wait, my Hobie? That's not right, either.)

Instead of large freeform locs that tapered off like wicks, he was sporting long uniform locs that were piled up high in a loose ponytail on his head, most likely due to the school policy that stated boys needed to have hair above the nape of their neck. Miles kinda wondered about that policy, if he ever decided to grow out his hair; would pulling his hair up be enough? Or would they police his hair length and force him to cut it all off?

Well, turns out the answer was literally right in front of him. Another shock to the system right after the first one.

That was Miles' excuse, really. It was just so dang early in the morning and he really really wasn't thinking when he opened his mouth and basically shouted "Hobie?!"

It honest to god sounded like it echoed in the hallway.

He slapped a hand over his mouth, immediately chastising himself for the stupid mistake he made, mentally kicking himself. Stupid, stupid, stupid!! He wasn't supposed to know this guy obviously, they hadn't even met in their dimension yet!

Hobie, for his part, didn't seem perturbed by this at all though. He took the papers from Miles' hands and straightened himself back up to his full height, offering a hand so that Miles could stand up too.

He shrugged shyly and hid behind a couple locs that happened to fall back into his face, holding the books and papers closer to his chest.

"Uhmmn yeah, sorry. I-I'm runnin' late to my first class so I can't really give any autographs right now. Maybe later... if we see each other, ok?"

Miles blinked owlishly. Did he just say... autographs?

And wait a minute... was this Hobie... American?

Miles' poor little sleep-deprived mind was being blown again and again. He really didn't know if he was ever going to recover from this.

Hobie started to back up and walk away so Miles held his hands up to stop him. "Wait wait wait, autographs? I'm not uh-- sorry, this is weird," he laughed, rubbing his neck. "Nah, man. That's cool. I don't really want any autographs. Are you uh-- are you famous, actually?"

It was this Hobie's turn to blink owlishly now, hesitating a bit. A non-pierced eyebrow was raised as he said, "I... I kinda am...?"

He turned and pointed out the giant window of the hallway that they happened to be standing by, and Miles craned his neck to peer outside.

It smacked him right in the face once his eyes landed on it: a giant billboard fixed atop a neighboring building that depicted Hobie Brown in a luxurious-looking perfume ad. He sported the same locs as he did in real life, wearing shiny-looking makeup and giving the viewer the fiercest, smokiest look Miles has ever seen from a model in a hot minute. He was clutching deep purple satin, wrapped in it, basking in it. A single perfume bottle with a deep purple bow on the neck was photoshopped next to him, matching the overall vibe of the ad.

Miles was rooted to the spot, absolutely gobsmacked. How in the world did he miss that?!

Distantly, a small echo of a conversation he had in what seemed like a lifetime ago floated up from a memory. "I was briefly a runway model" pulsed in his neural pathways for a quick second.

Slowly, the gears started turning in his head. Slowly, he turned back to his dimension's Hobie Brown, who was giving him a strange sort of look.

Miles awkwardly tried to gather himself up, waving his hands around as he struggled for a non-weird explanation to his very weird behavior.

"I-I mean-- ahahaha! Yeah I mean, obviously you're famous! I was just y'know-- playin' with you. Pulling your leg and all that, I guess... heh."

The strange dubious look on Hobie's face didn't budge. "...Right."

Miles coughed conspicuously, trying to change the subject. "But uh yeah, haven't seen you around this school much then! Are you... you in a different grade than me or...?"

The corner of Hobie's mouth twitched suddenly, and for a split second Miles wondered if he said something wrong.

But then Hobie chuckled a bit. "No, I don't think so? This is my first day here. Like... ever. So I'm not really surprised you haven't seen me before. I just transferred over."

Miles practically sighed in relief and nodded, hands in his pockets. "Right! Right, very cool. Welcome to Visions then, I guess. Uh... I'm Miles! Miles Morales. Nice to meet ya!"

He goofily stuck a hand out, which Hobie actually accepted. They shook hands for a second, and then Miles was suddenly taken aback by how cold his hand was against his own skin. It was a definite contrast to the warm and lanky body he remembered practically draped across his own, back in Mumbattan.

He forced those particular memories away for now.

This Hobie was smiling down at him, sad eyes set inside a seemingly genuine expression of fondness. "Cool. I'm Hobie. But, uh, it seems like you already knew that, so."

"Aha, yeah yeah! It just-- honestly it's just the shock of, uh, running into a major celeb in the middle of my school that really got to me, I think. Sorry. I probably look like a total weirdo right now!"

Hobie shook his head, and Miles took the opportunity to really study this guy now that the shock was over and the vibe was more chill. This Hobie was just as long and lanky as the punk anarchist Miles was already well acquainted with, but he held himself completely differently. Where Spider-Hobie was all confident strut and careless swagger, this Hobie seemed to be all reserved grace and... sadness? He definitely reminded Miles of a willow tree drooping down into a lake, beautiful but tragic at the same time.

Okay Miles, get it together, he thought, stop thinking this guy is beautiful. I mean, he is beautiful yeah... but c'mon man, focus!

Hobie's non-pierced lips were moving now, finishing a sentence that Miles most definitely did not catch.

Then, Hobie looked at him expectantly.

Oh shit. He just asked a question didn't he? Fuck.

"Uh, sorry... one more time?" Miles grinned as wide as he could, apologetic. Nice going, Morales, the humorless voice in his head chimed in. Definitely not convincing this guy you're an alien from outer space or anything!

Hobie huffed a laugh and cleared his throat. "Sorry, my fault. Sometimes I mumble and... yeah. Mom says I need to work on that," he sighed, then continued, "I was just wondering if you knew where room 301 was?"

Miles nearly jumped with the force of the realization that just hit him.

"301? Mr. Moriarty's class?"

"Y-yeah, that's the one," Hobie smiled, twirling a loc on one finger and tugging it a bit. Then he tucked it back behind his ear. "I'm actually so lost it's not even funny, I'm godawful at directions and like, navigating. I've been looking for it for like 20 minutes now--"

"That's where my first class is too! AP chem!"

Hobie seemed to brighten up a bit at that, straightening his posture up from his own self-conscious hunch. "Oh cool! We should probably get going then, if we don't wanna be more late than we already are."

Without thinking, Miles places a hand on Hobie's shoulder and steers them both towards a classroom right at the end of the hallway they were in.

"Of course, right this way! Pretty lucky you ran into me, huh? I can help you find your other classes later on if you want, too."

For the first time since nearly crashing into him, Miles looked up at Hobie and saw genuine happiness in his eyes as they grinned at each other and walked down the hall together.

"...Yeah," Hobie said, nodding slowly. "Yeah that'd be pretty cool. Thanks!"

♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧

Their chemistry teacher ended up not being a total hardass after all! Especially when Miles rolled up with none other than Famous Model Hobie in tow, immediately causing a ripple of whispers amongst the students sat at their desks.

Mr. Moriarty was a short and stumpy old man with a kind face and a severely receding hairline. He took one look at Hobie after squinting at his attendance sheet, accepted Miles' quick explanation that they were late because Hobie's minty fresh enrollment got him all lost in these maze-like hallways, and excused their tardiness with a wave of a hand.

"It's the first day and you were very kind to help a new student out, Mr. Morales. You're both excused for today, but try not to make a habit of it, alright?"

Miles bobbed his head as he picked his way past rows of desks. "Absolutely, sir. No problem at all. Thanks a bunch!"

Hobie stuck close to him, and smiled a bit as the only two desks left empty in the whole room happened to be right next to each other, right up in the back of the class. Nice.

They took their seats and exchanged a couple of glances as they pulled out their notebooks, barely listening to their professor's quick introduction and class syllabus. Well, Miles was barely listening, anyways. He was too caught up in the euphoria of running into a dimensional variant of one of his friends, in Visions Academy no less! His mind started to wander a bit. Did a 1610 Gwen exist too? a 1610 Pavitr? Were they also here at Visions? And what was with these random stares he and Hobie were getting from their fellow classmates right now?

Every now and then a student's head would swivel back to glance in their direction, awestruck looks evident on their faces.

How famous was Hobie anyway?

Of course, there was that giant billboard conveniently placed within view of the school's back hallways near a busy intersection, but Miles really started to think. He sneakily pulled out his phone and swiped down to the lowest brightness he could in case the classroom's fluorescent lighting wasn't enough to hide the phone screen's own light.

He kept his face straight forward, eyes flicking to and from his typing that he was trying to conceal behind the student sitting in front of him. He typed Hobie Brown model, Hobie Brown perfume ad, Hobie Brown supermodel, getting absolutely nothing every single time. Well, nothing that looked like the Hobie Brown sitting next to him, who happened to be dutifully scribbling down some notes in his notebook. Miles looked down at his own empty sheet of paper and quickly copied his new friend, whipping out a pencil and hurrying to catch up with the lecture on the whiteboard before the professor moved on.

Groan. What gives? Was Hobie this super accomplished, totally famous supermodel or not? Maybe he wasn't on social media, oddly enough. Maybe he just started an illustrious career and happened to be famous only in Brooklyn right now? No, that didn't make sense. If he was some small-time influencer or whatever, people would not be asking for autographs so often that Hobie would just automatically assume anyone who recognized him wanted one. And the looks on these other kids' faces convinced Miles that... maybe something was missing. Maybe he's just not searching up the right terms?

Agh, if only Spiderman business didn't keep him totally detached from reality sometimes. He really felt like he and the rest of the world were on totally different planets. If he had any friends besides Ganke, he probably would've heard about Hobie by now.

He bit his lip in concentration, trying to multitask between forming theories and keeping up with the lesson in the front of the classroom.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a pair of eyes staring straight at him that didn't belong to the other classmates he barely even knew. He glanced over at Hobie, who quickly looked away.

Was that... an embarrassed look on his face just now? Miles scratched at his jaw a bit, more confused than before.

That was weird. Whatever. Anyways...

Before long, class was over and the bell rang. Miles and Hobie both meandered slowly up to the door and hung around the outside, leaning against the wall as they compared schedules before they had to make their way to their next class.

"Dang," Miles lamented, clutching his own schedule and moving to slot it into the cover of his binder. "Looks like we don't share any more classes besides 1st period..."

Hobie stopped his hand and squinted at the sheet again, glancing back at his own. "Uhmm... nah, actually. I think we might have 6th period together? Right after lunch."

"Do we share a lunch period too, actually?" Miles asked excitedly.

Hobie made a small noise of triumph, a smile playing over his lips. "Yeah! 1st, lunch and then 6th. Okay. Better than nothing, right?"

Miles chuckled, shoving his schedule into the plastic and tucking it under his arm. "Definitely. We can eat together at the cafeteria if you want! I'll walk you to your next class though, since it's basically right around the corner."

Hobie shrugged his own backpack back onto his shoulder and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. His eyes were cast downwards as he grinned at the floor and said, "yeah, if you don't mind... that'd be pretty cool."

This guy sure does like the word cool, Miles thought, and away to Hobie's next class they both went. They both ignored the various whispers and stares in their direction. Miles was already used to it by now.

They walked together amiably, in near lockstep for a little while before Hobie finally spoke up again.

"... So... if you don't mind me asking... why are you so nice to me if you didn't know I was famous, then?"

It was an innocent enough question, but it kinda caught Miles off guard nonetheless.

He laughed nervously. "Uhh ahaha, whaddya mean? I did know you were famous! I just... y'know my brain doesn't work the best real early in the morning. I'm, uh. Sometimes I can be pretty weird, if you haven't noticed by now."

Hobie nodded slowly, digesting this information for a bit. "Yeah, you did recognize me in the first place, I guess. It's just weird, you're like... the first person I met that doesn't look at me like I'm made out of solid gold, though. That's all..."

They exchanged glances again, and Miles' brain was working into overdrive, thinking of an appropriate response.

Before he could open his mouth, they finally reached their destination and Hobie bumped Miles' shoulder with his arm, smiling.

"So, thanks. For, uh... this. All this."

Miles raised a brow at him. "Oh yeah, this is nothing. I just walked you over to your next class, no biggie. My class is right over here anyways, so--"

Hobie laughed and shook his head, the expression lighting up his facial features unlike anything Miles has seen on that face yet.

"No, Miles. Not just this. I mean, like..." Hobie dipped his head, a bashful sort of move. "I mean, like, being nice to me. Like forreal. I really appreciate this."

They looked at each other for a moment, something real warm growing in Miles' chest all of a sudden, something... familiar.

He was just about to casually brush the gratitude off a second time with a dorky quip, before some girl's screechy voice interrupted their private little moment out of nowhere. It honestly startled them both, and the nice warm atmosphere dissipated immediately.

"Oh. My. GOD!! Is that Hobie Jones? Like actually?!"

She giggled and bounded up to them, blatantly ignoring Miles to insert herself between them and crowd into Hobie's space. She coquettishly asked for a selfie with him, promising to tag him on social media. The sudden commotion unfortunately attracted some other students who then took their cue to also bother Hobie for autographs, selfies, throwing compliments left and right.

Miles backed up out of the crowd, eyes still on Hobie as he watched the poor guy metaphorically slip on a mask, the very same that Miles saw when they first met not 2 hours ago. It was a sad, detached sort of look, and Hobie was forced to hunch in on himself to meet his fellow students' heights as they snapped selfie after selfie. His lips formed a smile all the while. His eyes did not.

A pang of sympathy hit Miles as he slowly turned away and made his way down to his own classroom without so much as a goodbye. He shrugged to himself, shaking his head. Yeah, he knew how that felt, just trying to mind your own business and live your life, do what you have to do-- and being stopped by nearly every living being within a 50 ft radius wanting their photo ops and their babies kissed.

Miles smiled to himself as he shouldered his way past other students and sauntered into his class, right on time. The bell rang as he reached his desk, and he pulled out another notebook out of his bag before the realization finally hit him with the force of a truck.

Wait... Hobie JONES?!

Miles quickly glanced around at his surroundings and mentally kicked himself yet again for choosing a seat so close to the teacher's desk, almost right up at the front. Damnit!

But the teacher wasn't in the classroom just yet, most likely making a quick run down to the printer down the hall to make copies of the class syllabus or something.

Okay, Morales. Gotta be quick.

He hastily pulled out his phone yet again, one eye on the door. He quickly typed in Hobie Jones model in his browser's search box, letting out a breath as search results loaded up and gave him exactly what he was looking for this entire time.

Bingo.

Hobie's face popped up in the image search previews, all sorts of cool and striking photoshoots lit up in all kinds of different ways. And the very first link at the top of the page? Hobie's own Flickstagram.

With a shaky hand, Miles tapped the link and impatiently waited for it to load, for his phone to get with the program and just open the damn app already. He kept glancing every so often at the door yet again, praying that the printer or copier-- or whatever-the-hell that was keeping the professor away from the class-- would keep them away for just a second longer.

He finally cast his gaze back down onto his own Flickstagram app and his heart nearly dropped out of his chest.

At the top, right next to Hobie's own smoldering profile picture was his username: hobiemjones

hobiemjones... hobie m jones. Hobie M. Jones.

M.J.

Miles exhaled again and tucked his phone away in shock just as the classroom door opened yet again and all the students quieted down. This class's teacher made their way over to their desk, piles of papers in hand. They started to pass them out to the students in the front row, introducing themself and then going over the usual attendance policies.

Miles accepted the syllabus sheets with trembling hands, turning to pass them over his shoulder once he got his own, his mind running a hundred miles a minute.

Peter talked nonstop about his wife, whenever he managed to stop talking about his baby, that is. It was always MJ this, MJ that. Flashes of a middle-aged man staring forlornly at a picture of his then-ex wife-- grieving the one who got away-- raced across his mind's eye. His universe's own MJ standing at a podium, strong but deeply hurt as she addressed all of Brooklyn after Spiderman's funeral.

"She wanted kids and I... just wasn't ready," echoed over and over in Miles' mind. Of course, they're together now. But the way Peter talked about his divorce... oh god.

Wait... was Miles ready for kids? Were he and Hobie going to have a messy on-and-off again relationship that ended up with them having to care for a spider-baby just like Mayday?! Maybe even multiple spider-babies?!?!?

Miles loosened his tie a bit, sweating profusely.

The fact that neither Hobie nor Miles were equipped with the parts to make a baby together flew right over his head. No... instead, his mind skipped straight to marriage, messy emotional fights and inevitable breakups. How was he gonna juggle school, work, Spiderman stuff and a relationship all at once?!

Without realizing, Miles started hyperventilating.

No no no no no, cool it Miles. COOL IT. Don't be weird. Miles mentally slapped himself and tried to even out his breathing as he leaned back in his seat and wiped some sweat off his brow.

He just proved to Miguel O' Hara and the entire multiverse this past spring that he can do his own thing, canon events be damned. Miles Morales was no victim to fate. Maybe all of the other spider-people had their own MJs. But maybe in this universe, MJ and Spiderman were... just friends. Good friends! ...Yeah, yeah, just friends...

The idea floated around in Miles' head throughout the entire rest of the class, but it didn't really make the tightness in his chest loosen up any at all.

Once the bell rang again and everyone started packing their things up, Miles dawdled a bit by the door, fumbling with his phone as his classmates filed out of the room. If he was late enough, maybe he'd completely miss Hobie in the hallways and not have to see him at all. Miles double-checked, triple-checked his schedule again and again, mapping out an eventual escape route through the halls in case Hobie's path did intercept Miles'.

God, Miles thought ruefully, checking the hour on his phone for the 15th time in a row and smiling awkwardly at his teacher's questioning glance. You're being so fucking weird about this right now!

The rational part of his brain kicked in and presented a quick slideshow of other calmer, more reasonable explanations as to why he really shouldn't be avoiding his new friend like the plague all of a sudden.

1. Hobie probably doesn't and won't like me, it stated. There is literally no proof that Hobie Jones is even into guys. Or me, Miles Morales.

2. Even if Hobie Jones is into guys-- or me, Miles Morales-- that does not mean the endgame is automatically marriage. No sir, no proof of that at all!

3. Canon events were officially disproven. Kinda. Mostly. Sort of?

C'mon, bro. Just man up and get out there. You're gonna be late for the next class soon anyways.

Right. He inhaled deeply and steeled himself.

"Okay well, uh. Have a nice day Mx. Gonzalez! See ya... tomorrow." Miles cringed inwardly at how lame that sounded, but his teacher didn't seem to notice as they bid him a nice day as well.

With his heart in his stomach, Miles slowly made his way into the hallway and started walking at a brisk pace, keeping his eyeline straight in front of him, trying to reach his next class on the floor below quickly but manageably. It was when he reached the stairs that his heart sank even lower.

Hobie was standing right next to the stairwell, glaring at the school map placed on the wall off to the left, fingertips on his chin as he mumbled to himself. He was glancing up and down between the map and his schedule in his hand, clearly befuddled.

Damn, he really is bad at navigating, Miles mused, once he recovered.

But as luck would have it, tragedy struck right then. Miles being pretty much the only other kid in the hallway attracted Hobie's attention, and even though Miles' feet kept him moving, he almost tripped on air once Hobie perked up upon seeing him.

"Miles!" Hobie grinned and waved him over, clearly happy to see him.

Oh noooo. Miles was not as happy to see him.

Without thinking, he launched himself down the flight of stairs, hopping over the railing and landing loudly on the 1st floor. Once steady, he basically sprinted over to his 3rd period class, completely missing the way Hobie's sunny grin slowly disappeared and his hand lowered back down to his side.

♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧

Lunchtime came and went. Miles ate his packed lunch at his usual perch on top of the school building, where he always hid while trying to avoid the rest of the student body. He managed to pick a good spot away from prying eyes, and it never failed him.

Hobie ate alone, at a table tucked into the corner of the cafeteria despite being invited to several other tables. He sat and chewed sadly, locs back in front of his eyes, posture hunched over and defeated.

6th period came and went. Miles purposefully kept his gaze averted as Hobie walked in 5 minutes late. They sat at opposite ends of the room, never acknowledging each other's existence.

The school day ended and Miles made his way back to the dorms, sighing with relief once he glanced out the window and saw giant rainclouds rolling in over the horizon. Man, was he glad he got to bunk up on campus with his best friend! He greeted Ganke, kicked off his shoes and climbed up onto his bunkbed, laying back with a sigh. Maybe tomorrow he'd confront Hobie about his erratic behavior and apologize. Maybe.

But that was a problem for future Miles...

♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧

Outside, the rain started falling fast and hard.

Outside, Hobie M. Jones waited miserably by the curb with an umbrella in hand, getting drenched by the water nonetheless. He checked his phone for the 15th time and sniffled angrily, pocketing it and gripping onto his umbrella handle.

Late. Again.

His mother was late to pick him up, as usual.

He swiped at a tear rolling down his cheek and finally loosened his ponytail, letting his locs fall all around his face.

Once she arrived, his mother was going to inevitably ask him how his day was, look only slightly concerned about his angry tears and ask if he made any new friends anyways, despite knowing the answer.

No, mom, Hobie would say as he kept his eyes glued to the car window.

No. I didn't make any friends.

[fellamarsh]

another thing i've been trying to do recently is read more self-published stuff. "but fell," you say, "you're a self-published author. surely you've been reading self-published stuff all along" and then i laugh for so long in response we both become uncomfortable.

see, the fear (which has for a long time been killing my mind) that i'll read other self-published stuff and find out that it's so much better than mine that i might as well stop writing forever kept me from doing that basically ever. i have a hard time not unfavorably comparing my work to others and had convinced myself i was being smart by withholding an avenue of de-motivation (reader: i was not being smart). it also doesn't help that i'm pretty low income and have a hard time spending money on books i haven't already read, and that self-published stuff isn't always available at the library---but really a lot of it was just me being a coward. which i'm working on. i could talk about how this particular cowardice is Very Silly, but i think enough has been said about it on writeblr and in the Writing Space in general that i don't feel the need to (though i will if anyone wants me to).

instead, i wanna talk about the self-published things i have read in the past few months and ask about the self-published things you love!

so: what happened was i got real sick, and while i was real sick i (naturally) read over 200,000 words of ace attorney fan fiction in the span of a few days. eventually i got bored of it (and also maybe annoyed at how people were characterizing some of my guys), but i still wanted to read something gay and romantic and nice, something i knew was gonna end happily, which isn't my typical fare.

now you may be saying (having gotten over all the uncomfortable laughter from earlier) "fell, you write gay romance. what do you mean that's not your typical fare?" listen. until a couple months ago i hadn't read a cut and dry romance novel since before i finished college. for context: i graduated in 2015. i know it doesn't make sense. i'm a guy who doesn't make sense.

but in this case it worked to my advantage. not the not making sense thing, but the not having read Published Romance in 1000 years thing. I didn't know where to start. I was very skeptical of everything the library had Available Now in the Gay Fantasy Romance category. what if it was all bad and also not good?

and then i scrolled past the familiar cover of our very own @ashen-crest's A Rival Most Vial.

now this was comfortable territory! this was a novel by a very nice writeblr person whose posts i enjoy! i already loosely knew the plot, i was familiar with the characters, i knew the names of things like rosemond street and the griffin's claw and that ambrose had blue hair and that at the end of it all there would definitely be Boyfriends. i didn't have to worry that this would be bad! i only had to worry that it would be really good!

but i wasn't worried about that, because i was officially Not Writing at the time, and because why the hell hadn't i read this book yet Ash literally emailed me some very kind words last year when my cat died??

Y'all, I devoured ARMV. If you haven't read it yet---especially if cozy fantasy is more your thing than it is mine---you should check it out Immediately. It was fun! It was heartwarming! It was sweet and earnest and confident! I was delighted to find it was occasionally hot! Ambrose and Eli snuggled up into my sick exhausted heart and found a permanent little place there. (Especially Ambrose. I have such a thing for Stiff Guys who Kind of Suck for Tragic Backstory Reasons and are So So Lonely They Don't Even Realize It. gawd)

(And a very small part of my brain spent the whole time wondering why I had been so afraid to really engage with the work my community is doing. The community that I'm in. The one I'm a part of. Why?! Maybe more on that later.)

But from there the curse was broken! I immediately devoured @stjohnstarling's What Manner of Man in a similar sort of frenzy (and hooooly shit guys am I excited for the expanded, finalized version to come out at the end of next month!) and started digging into @lurinatftbn's The Flower that Bloomed Nowhere (which I can already tell is going to be an All Time Favorite).

And now I want to ask you what your favorite self-published books are so that I can read them, too, but I think I will in another post that doesn't dedicate so much space to talking about my various and sundry Issues and isn't Terminally Long

[calicotisane]

Hylics design explorations and an unrelated bit of rain world but never you mind

[flying-cat]

Can I get uhhhhhhhhhhhhh doomed or unfortunate yaoi

[mspaint-flower]

I HEARD YOU HAVE A SONA,,, MAY YOU SHOW MAYHAPS..??? :0

i do have one yes! been having one for a while, mostly based on how i look irl, here's a (really bad and rushed) reference

never really posted about her because i thought no one would be interested HSJKHFJKHDKJEHG but yeag. her name is himawari which basically means sunflower and she wants to be a nurse

[cherealta]

I've gone back into an huge high school story hyperfix for No apparent reason for this past month and half so i decide to make a new tumblr! it's been a while since i've been in an fandom space so i decide to stick to an more niche(? i guess) fandom with not so many people still here as it's not as overwhelming for me.

these girls have been with me since 2013 and 2014 respectively with many many different changes! however their core characteristics have stayed the same.

(more info under the cut!)

i was planning on drawing them about a week ago buuut my drawing tablet has decided to die on me and my only drawings of them are from <2022. which isn't ideal. then i remembered a few days ago i can just create them on sims, so for the time being i'll use ts4 as a way to visualize them until i get a new tablet!

a little brief introduction to them -

vivienne is my high school story prime mc and she transfers over to berry high in her sophomore year. bc of this the timeline is a bit different to the canon one (especially since the choices games are canon to the original timeline) as in my tl hss prime takes course from her sophomore to senior year (there's NO way all the stuff that happens in hssp happens in one year!!! pixelberry u can not convince me otherwises!!!). side confession but despite hss/hwu being an defining part of me i've never touched choices... which means i've just never considered were those games would fit into my timeline. so i guess i'd consider my tl an au.

agnieszka or angel is my hollywood u mc who i miss dearly and i'll forever be torn up by the fact that hwu is unplayable now. she's vivienne half sister (vivi is a product of affair. there's A LOT of lore that i'll hopefully go into in later posts) and the two aren't aware of eachothers existence until around 2010. despite this angel loves the fact she has an younger sister, even in unconventional circumstances, and wishes to grow closer to her. vivienne is hesitant at first but by 2018ish they have a very good relationship!! sure it takes a while but the two had to overcome a lot when it comes to their family.

for the years vivienne starts berry high in 2013 and agnieszka starts hwu in 2014 (basically when the games came out). they don't start having an consistent relationship until about mid-to-late 2015.

also this is my first time doing character sheets that aren't heavily drawn so hopefully they aren't too hard to read/understand. this is all i'll say for now as i don't want this post to get too long! i'll drop more info abt them as this month goes by.

[hrokkall]

Saw a post the other day asking how P03 is able to see; my best guess is something like this.

I actually inspected P03′s 3D model for this which I don’t usually do (and then I proceeded to draw it off-model anyway. Whoops) but even outside of its hypothetical camera-vision, there’s a few other things of note:

P03 seems to have a lot of large vents (or at least things that look like some sort of ventilation/cooling). Two major ones on the chest, three on the top of the head (with potentially another on the side of its head), and one on the underside of its base (though that one might be for the hologram projection it uses to float). My best guess is that it’s because his factory is built right by the water where there would be a TON of moisture in the air. For that reason, some of them have got to be exhausts to make sure all of the air circulating in his torso is dry. That or he just overheats extremely easily I guess, but I’m leaning towards the humidity explanation (or it could be a combination of the two).

Its “eyes” are somewhere on the front of its face; whether it sees through a camera or just through the eyes on the screen via video game magic is up for debate, but it turns to face the player when they stand up so its vision probably isn’t on the sides of its head or something.

Similarly, P03 has some sort of sensitivity to touch (he reacts to Leshy’s hands gripping his monitor before Leshy says anything). I don’t think any “touch sensors” would be externally visible though.

Presumably (based on the ending to Act 3) P03′s head isn’t just a monitor, there’s vital systems in there as well (otherwise tearing its head off wouldn’t do anything to disrupt its upload/its ability to function). My best guess is that his power supply is in his chest so it would be the equivalent of just... unplugging your computer while it’s trying to preform updates.

The wire it uses to connect to the modules to update cards in Act 3 seems to come from either its neck or its torso, but in act 2 it’s very visibly on the side of the head. Granted the act 2 sprites are all pretty different from the Scrybes’ 3D models so that’s not an outlier.

The range of motion in P03′s arm seems pretty similar to a human arm; he has a ball-and-socket joint on the shoulder and a hinge joint on his elbow plus separate segments for the “wrist” and “hand”. The only thing it probably can’t do is twist its forearm.

I don’t have any idea what either of the cranks do. The head crank moves when it changes its expression so it might have something to do with its display, but the arm crank is only shown doing anything on the G0lly Uberbot hologram. My best guess is that P03 used to have a lot more built-in functions but ended up removing them in order to operate faster so a lot of the buttons and switches on it are just vestigial leftovers. (The idea of the arm crank being able to function as a hand-crank motor in a pinch is really funny though. Spin it a few times when P03 is out of power and you can generate just enough battery for it to tell you to fuck off then go back into sleep mode again).

I have no idea how the levitation works either. It’s cool and that’s why it works. No need to get more complicated than that.

[megamozartx]

"Hey Mozart, what kinds of things do you draw?"

Occasionally good, mostly shitposting, and apparently I redesigned Piano to be a judgmental goth.

And here's one time I drew Ruby-Spears Bass + Piano + Zero:

I've been drawing since I was 8 years old I'm very serious.

[articularreview]

⚠️Spoilers for Shinrei tantei Yakumo - the lamenting doll file 03 and the epilogue⚠️

Here in case you missed it

I just read it and spontaneously wrote this.

Be careful if you haven't read it yet.

The file starts with where it left off the last time with them deciding to locate Mahiro's mother.

I kinda forgot about it since we haven't seen Isshin for a while, but this volume reminded me of how much Yakumo is influenced by Isshin. Be it the way they talk or sometimes even their mannerisms.

It's pretty much a given that they'll have to stay another night at the hotel but that would mean Haruka will have to stay in that creepy ass room again. Isshin really told Yakumo “accept the situation or sleep with her”😭😭😭

But sadly It's just like Gotou said, Their relationship label won't allow it smh

Gotou's snores and Isshin's bad posture are KILLING ME. My mom entered the room while I was having a fit of laughter I just looked crazy to her 😭

Isshin is so chill he doesn't care if you try to make him look bad. Rather his hilarious responses made Gotou look silly for complaining. Poor Gotou-san. Maybe I should learn from him... Unbotherement sure is powerful~

Anyways I guess that means Yakumo is the only one who sleeps normally hahaha

Just like I expected, Mahiro's death is weighing Hiromi down. kinda knew it from file 02, but hearing the details from Masae made me want to cry. No parent should ever go through this.

And so they split into two teams: team Gotou and Yakumo. and team Haruka and Isshin. All I'll say is that the latter team sure is a good match.

And then we have Gotou-san who not only has to put up with Yakumo's comments but also got a Salary cut too!! He suffered too much this trip. Imagine wanting to skip work only to get dragged all the way to a whole different prefecture. Still kinda his fault for ignoring Ishii smh.

Speaking of Ishii I'm happy he and Makoto were mentioned even though they didn't make an appearance. Isshin's mere presence made up for any other character's disappearance. Kaminaga-sensei is a genius for mentioning Eishin too. I think references like that will increase in the complete version. Knowing the future and the direction of your work sure makes a big difference. It was really interesting knowing that Eishin was the one taking care of Nao when Isshin's not around. Nao must really miss Isshin even if she doesn't show it on her face. I head canon afterwards Nao being overjoyed to see not only Isshin but Yakumo and Haruka too after his two-day disappearance.

The scene when that madman dragged Haruka gave me the chills. Kaminaga-sensei using TTCM as a reference sure was brutal I ended up imagining it. Haruka did her best till the very end but the situation was hopeless. She can't even resist. her mouth, legs and wrists were taped. And on top of that he had the audacity to slap her! How dare him! If that man wasn't charged with attempted murder after all this I'm throwing hands!

In the end the case was solved and we find out that Takahiro-kun was the one talking to Hiromi all along. It really broke my heart knowing that all this time he didn't even know he was dead and yet played along to try to comfort Hiromi who was mourning for her child. What a strong kid. He and Mahiro are.

The lamenting doll huh... makes sense.

In the epilogue we learn that Yakumo can't handle hot food which I thought was really cute.

Tbh his whole food preference was quite unexpected. First we learn that he has a sweet tooth (Which Haruka thought doesn't suit him at all lol) and then a similar situation to the one in the epilogue happened in vol. 7 iirc when Yakumo was (again) staring at the sake and when Haruka asked if he can't drink he stubbornally tries to only to spit it out. This man just can't be honest😂 I actually really respect men who don't drink or smoke so that's a flex~

Now some of my favorite Yakumo lines which for some reason all happen to be verbally abusing Gotou (Can't blame Haruka for laughing because c'mon how could you not?)

• “You can say that because you've never heard it yourself. Compared to Gotou-san's snores, even a train would be quieter.”

• “A member of the police stating that he'll be driving under the influence? Japan is finished.”

• “I'm saying bears can't understand the taste of wine. What if someone made up a new proverb: bears and wine.”

• "I don't want to waste any more calories than this."

• "Well, that's not surprising. A bear with damaged taste buds such as Gotou-san will never understand."

Bye I'm using these irl.

I'll also add these two because I keep remembering these two exchanges and laughing:

1)

"I see. If you don't want to, it's fine. But please stop bringing cases to me from now on."

"This and that are a different story."

"No, it's the same thing. Ah, that's right. So that Gotou-san will stop bringing me cases, I'll be reporting to the police that you've been leaking investigation details to a civilian."

"What!? Don't joke with me! I'll get fired if you do that!" Gotou shouted in panic.

"Good then. That way I won't have to involve myself in cases that have nothing to do with me, and taxpayer money won't have to go into paying the incompetent Gotou-san; just like killing two birds with one stone."

"What did you say!?"

"Isn't that great? This way, Gotou-san can also play around to your heart's content. So it'll be more like killing three birds with one stone," said Yakumo, grinning as he looked at Gotou.

He really stabbed where it hurt. Having been commented like that, Gotou wouldn't have a way to refuse. "Fine. I'll help. Happy?"

Gotou lifted his heavy bottom up from the sofa reluctantly as he sighed. Yet Yakumo wasn't done with his counterattacks.

"Not really, it's fine even without Gotou-san helping."

"That wasn't what you said earlier!"

2)

"Sorry about that. Could you please tell me what I should do?" Gotou asked formally while swallowing his displeasure.

"You should know if you listened to the story"

"I'm asking because I don't know."

"You should have if you paid close attention to the whole story."

"Well I don't know!"

"Is that something to be proud about? Good grief.”

Too much Yakumo😂

Volume 11 is up next. I'm really really excited for this one because Unkai and Miyuki are one of the best antagonists I've ever read. I'll never forgive them for what they did to Yakumo but their back stories are very very well written and explains how they ended up that way. That last arc will wrap everything up. I remember reading the book description a while back but Laute's translations stopped at the time so I thought I'll never read it.

The day has finally come!!!

[velvetredskies]

DUEL

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

everything's coming up roses

[can-of-slorgs]

Local owlbear, what she gonna explodee✨