#i have every single panel i’ve found saved..

[gaydexvocaloid]

i see that's totally fine. i didnt know there's a zola manga btw where can i read it?

i’m glad!!!! you can read the first few chapters here :) https://comic.pixiv.net/works/2049

unfortunately it’s not all of them though, i haven’t read the whole thing either just this and some other panels i found online by chance, i think the only way to purchase it now is thru amazons kindle thing..? ( i don’t know ngl.. i think it’s something like that to read it online ) or you can buy it physically but you have to have a jp amazon acc….. :( i would kill to own the physical copy, i would also kill to just have the digital version.. .. alas..

[mamapyjama]

————————

I’ve been thinking about these reblogs, like, a lot. See, I and many others have always assumed that the films are a fun way for the studio to capitalise on the original property, to sell some merch and go all-out with some fun animation. I’d never really thought that deeply about it.

That’s how anime films work, right? They make the film, everyone is fine at the end and no non-reversible, destructive actions are taken that would affect the existing ‘canon’ universe/timeline. That was the case for the first and the third movies. Yes, Deku ended up using Melissa’s support gear, but they never refer to her by name, and yes, Star & Stripe was retconned into All Might’s US back-story from the film, but both of those things make complete sense if you haven’t seen the film. Them being in films ultimately changed nothing.

This is different though. If Vestige Katsuki is based on him having used OFA in Heroes Rising, that means that the film directly impacted the entire trajectory of the story, and ultimately resulted in his (temporary!) death.

In fact, the more I read about Heroes Rising, the more it seems like Horikoshi has done quite a lot to make us see this particular film as part of the main timeline. For reference, the trip to Nabu happens over the winter break, just after ch240 (Ujiko asking Shigaraki to bring Nine to him) and prior to the Christmas celebration in ch242 (second panel).

Luckily, while I was researching I found this excellent Reddit post that means I don’t have to go into all the gubbins about how it links in. Yay!

Which is great, because I didn’t want to do that. What I wanted was to do a self-indulgent little Thought Experiment to see what Heroes Rising being canon would mean for the story.

If Heroes Rising is fully canon, all of these things are necessarily also canon:

Bakudeku really spent 8 seconds just staring at each other while alone outside, and again for like 20 seconds once they’d been healed and they were reminiscing about AM telling them they could be the Greatest Heroes together

Katsuki, when hearing “SOMEONE SAVE DEKU!” zoomed across the island in the blink of an eye to blast Nine in the face

The whole of class A planned to have Bakudeku work as a team (but I thought they got on horribly?), and they finished each other’s sentences while strategising together

They fought in perfect unison, finishing each other’s sentences (again, this was quite prominent), protecting each other and holding hands while fighting

Deku was willing to give up his dream of becoming a hero for Kacchan

Without using words, Katsuki knew what Deku was implying when he held his hand out to him, they communicated without words

Bakudeku shared bodily fluids (hurhur)

Katsuki actually said “This is the end for your dream then, too?” acknowledging the loss Deku is about to suffer, sympathising in his own way and checking they’re on the same page.

Every single thing that happened from the Endeavor Agency arc has been in a world where some part of OFA resides inside Kacchan, waiting to emerge and give him a quirk upgrade, sparkly rainbows, speed boosts and eventually, an exploded heart. OFA giveth and OFA taketh away I guess…

And Izuku says all this to Katsuki:

It’s fine. This is the only way. Besides, I’m sure All Might would say that it’s fine if it’s you. If it’s you, who shared our secret… who admired the same person as me… If it’s you…

Then they start talking in unison and do their beautiful sparkling mountain-melting rainbow dance. And… guys, maybe this actually happened?

And then, at the end of it, Katsuki can’t remember any of it. Obviously this helps them slip back into the main manga storyline without having to provide any extra info, but it’s also kind of odd. If the film was not canon, they wouldn’t have to do this, because nobody would ever mention it again anyway (like the other two films).

So Horikoshi had already planned out how he wanted the manga to end and most of the story beats leading up to that (he says in a 2016 interview that he wrote the first chapter with the final one in mind), then Bones asked him to help with the second movie. Because he enjoyed making the first one so much—and he talks a lot about making the most of opportunities while he can—he decided to be way more involved in the second film. He talks in Volume R about how he plotted out the film, assisted with the script and then provided notes throughout the process.

He also mentions that this is one of the first times OFA shows the will of the predecessors, and he was only able to do this by setting the film at the exact time that he did. He was so careful!

Although he knew all this wouldn’t fit into his preplanned manga plot, that didn’t mean he couldn’t use it to his advantage. So here’s my theory:

Horikoshi always intended to have Katsuki and Izuku both use OFA in the finale of his manga, and when he said in the Volume R interview that he’d have to surpass it, maybe he knew he was planning to have his cake and eat it too. The element of them sharing OFA had already been shown, but since he’s made sure to embed the film firmly into the manga canon he’s now able to use that in his ‘real finale’ as he calls it.

I mean in actuality, who knows, right? But wow is it interesting to examine your preconceptions occasionally and consider that this has been under our noses this whole time. And before I go even deeper into a research spiral about how the cast viewed the plot (stop it, just stop it now), I’ll leave you with this prescient quote from All Might:

For the one who risked his life to protect and the one who risked his life to win… One For All gave them a miracle…

I honestly can’t wait to see what Horikoshi has up his sleeve next.

I woke up thinking about vestige Katsuki casually having a chat with vestige All Might. WHAT THE DUCK was happening there if not something seriously fruity and why did we not circle back to it once we’d got over the fact that his heart had exploded?!

What must non-bkdks think is going on? I’m not even sure if we’ve fully discussed what is going on? Whyyy would he have a vestige if he doesn’t have OFA?

It’s not ghosts because a) ghosts haven’t been introduced as a concept in-universe and b) AM is there and he ain’t dead.

SO WHAT IS HAPPENING? Did we just totally overlook the fact that Hori made it canon that Katsuki either has OFA or just has access to the vestige realm for reasons unknown?

Also why is he fully clothed and able to speak, when poor Izuku spent every vestige scene nude and mute? And why is the background white not black? Vestige purgatory? A vestige waiting room?

I feel like when you suddenly realise you haven’t studied and the class has all moved on to new topics and you’ve somehow missed a key, fundamental part of how The Whole Thing works.

If anyone has meta on this please point me towards it because at this point I’m

[yoooespinosa]

a different state of mind | d.m

➤ summary: After years of being together, draco broke up with you, leaving you to cope all alone.

➤ warnings: Allusions of sex, alcohol consumption, angst w hopeful ending, post-war

➤ word count: 1.6k

Masterlist | Taglist

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“It’s not working out anymore.”

“I’ve tried to save this relationship, but i can only do so much.”

“I just feel like we’re going through different phases in our lives.”

“Different opportunities and things like that, that i think we need to experience alone.”

“You understand, right?”

“I love you and you’ll always have a place in my heart.”

“And these past years have been the best with you by my side.”

“It’s just not enough anymore.”

“I’m sorry.”

You were swimming in your head, walls built up by the words he spoke only a few days ago. You couldn't even remember your own responses, had you even said anything?

Did you even fight to make him stay, to make it work? Or did you just watch him leave?

You couldn't remember.

You lay in bed, the bed you had shared with him. The bed you both slept in. The bed you held each other so closely, that your bones shifted to fit one another, every single night. The bed that had to have both of your imprints dented in, due to those lazy Sundays when you stayed cuddled up for a few extra hours. The bed that held your moans and sighs deep within the silk and cotton from those late nights.

You turn around, shifting the sheets that covered you and stared at his side. It was still made, you couldn't find it in yourself to even let a toe stray near, so different from all those years before when you found yourself practically on top of him when morning came.

He slept on the right, closest to the door. He always slept closer to the door, even back in school. When you asked him about it, he said, "In case someone breaks in and try’s to hurt us, they would have to get through me first."

It was one of the many ways of him trying to protect you. You would always laugh about it, now though, you couldn't feel more vulnerable.

The streams of sunlight peeking through your blinds slowly stirs you awake. You sit up and rub the sleep from your eyes. You slept later than usual, already two hours late to work, you didn't have the motivation to go either way. You get up from the warm bed, stretching out your sore limbs. You make your way out of the bedroom, avoiding all contact with the vacant side of the bed.

You could feel the coldness of the wooden panels seeping through your socks. You always slept with your socks, a habit that he made fun of, he thought it was the weirdest thing in the world.

You shook your head. Quit it, you told yourself.

Reaching the end of the small hallway, you approached the window that was placed on the wall. You opened the curtain, letting the sun light up the dim area. It was sunny out, no cloud in sight. The weather was opposite to how you were feeling.

Turning, you entered the sitting room. Clean, the whole flat was clean. Everything was just how it always was, everything was the same, yet so different.

You walked into the room fully, dragging your fingertips over the black leather coach. The same coach you'd sit on for hours, with him. Looking up, you see the television, the culprit of your wasted hours.

You had introduced him to some muggle technology, the television being one. He was hesitant at first, but he eventually warmed up to it. Especially after showing him what it could do. You smiled to yourself, the awe and wonder on his face when you did, flashed through your mind.

Then, your vision blurring. You didn't even get to finish the new show you both had started together.

You breathed deeply through your nose,1...2...3,

You breathed out through your mouth, 1...2...3,

You walked swift steps to your room, you couldn't face the hard reality today.

Today you decided that you will make it past the living room without almost having a meltdown. Taking a deep breath you walk with fast steps to said destination. You passed the sitting room in a blur and found yourself in the kitchen.

This was much harder than you thought. You could still hear the echo of his voice, his laughter. Why the fuck did he leave you with the flat? Was he trying to torture you?

You took a look around the room, spinning in a circle to do so. You caught glimpses of his memory in every corner. When you would dance around the big space together, waltzing like two idiots in love, in the morning sun. When you'd eat breakfast together on the small table to the right corner, you'd always venture to his lap in the end, feeding each other. When you were teaching him how to bake and he got creative with the flour by throwing it all over you, ending up in a flour fight, if you looked close enough you would probably find some of the powder in the cracks of the floorboard.

You can do this, you told yourself.

Yes, you can do this. But maybe with a little alcohol in you first.

You walked light footsteps over to the cabinet that held many brands, picking the strongest. Just one drink.

One drink soon turned to two. Then three, until you lost count.

Your mind was all over the place and you just couldn't deal with it. Couldn't do this all alone.

Sitting on the floor, your back to the bottom cabinets, you dial up a number you knew too well.

"Hello.." A tired voice sounded through the static of your muggle telephone, a voice that warmed and pierced your heart all at once.

"Draco," You breathed a sigh of relief.

"Y/n? Are you okay?" He sounded more awake now, you could hear him shifting in his bed. His, no longer ours, the thought brought tears to your eyes.

"Please." Your voice was weak, almost a whisper. Your voice was thick with tears. You don't even know what you were trying to say.

Please, come home. Please, don't hang up. Please, don't leave. Please, I need you.

"Wha- Y/n, what's wrong?"His voice sounded just the same as always, you wonder if yours is the same to him.

"Draco, I just-" You slurred, full sentences not being formed. "I can't- not tonight" Tears were running freely down your cheeks, you couldn't wipe them away without a new one filling in its place.

"You can't what, y/n?" He was always so patient with you.

"I can't be alone," You cried softly. "just- can you stay here- just on the phone, please Draco."

You heard him let out a soft sigh, more rustling of his sheets. "Anything for you." He lets out softly.

He stayed till you fell asleep and hung up when he heard your soft snores, leaving you to wake up alone in a pool of regret and an ache to your neck.

You had stayed in bed for two days after that embarrassing night. Your phone was blown up by calls of your friends and your work. None of them were who you wanted to hear from.

You woke up to sweat covering your body and the sheets below you. You decided it was time to take a shower, to take care of yourself.

You scrubbed yourself until you felt clean. Scrubbed until the heartache washed off, it never did though.

You walked to your closet and chose to at least do something productive. Cleaning out your closet was the only thing that sounded bearable. You had too many clothes that didn't fit or that you simply no longer wear, might as well donate them. You'd be doing something productive and helpful.

Halfway done with your clothes, you let out a tired breath, rearranging the piles of giveaways and keeps.

You grabbed the last clothing article and immediately tensed at the smell that seemed to suddenly surround you. In your hands was one of Draco’s old t-shirts. The same one you would always steal from him and wear around the house as if it were your own.

You couldn't help yourself from bringing it closer to your nose, letting his scent sooth you. It still smelt like him, so clearly. A sob broke through you, as you held the last physical thing you had of him close to you.

Today was a better day. You returned every text and call. You even took a long bath, while doing a face mask, proceeding to shave your legs. You decided today would be a good day, a day filled with progress.

After getting dressed, you grabbed the box of clothing and set out to donate them.

You hadn't been outside in so long, you had to close your eyes for few seconds due to the harsh sun. Blinking away the sensitivity, you set out to your destination.

It was such fast errand for a lovely day that you decided to treat yourself to some ice cream.

The sun beamed on your back, gathering a thin layer of sweat on your neck. You always hated the feeling of having your hair down when it was hot out. Pulling your hair up in a neat ponytail, you paused. You didn't have a rubber band.

You never did. He always held them on his wrist for you. "Here, you always forget them." He would say, while finishing the ponytail for you.

No, you shook your head. You refuse to put yourself through this again. You're only hurting yourself. You wanted ice cream so you will go and get some.

You will no longer condone in this self torture.

He had left you with a different sate of mind. A mind that left every memory of you both replaying in your head.

All while you were just trying to move on, to cope with this new life. A life without him.

Being without him was a different state of mind.

And that's fine, you can and will adjust to this change. And you could do it on your own without the fear of loneliness looming over you.

Starting with ice cream.

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[moonlight-frittata]

I Don’t Need a Mechanic

Overwatch: Dva and Brigitte (a few others make appearances)

Word count: ~5500 

My take on when Dva meets Brigitte and the first month or so of them getting to know each other on base.

---

Six months Hana Song had been a part of Overwatch, and during that time she set a very strict precedent that no one, not even Winston or Athena the AI was allowed to touch her mech, Tokki. So seeing the back of someone inside the cockpit as she entered the Watchpoint Gibraltar hangar made her blood boil. 

“Excuse me!! What the hell are you doing??” 

The person’s body jerked, their head banging against the low roof of the cockpit ceiling they wedged their torso inside. Hana heard a short mumble of something incomprehensible and a long, thick ponytail of red hair retreated from the mech in a hurry. A very tall, buff young woman around Hana’s age emerged blushing with a sheepish grin.

“Ah! I’m so sorry, I couldn't help myself. I’ve always wondered what these Korean models looked like up close. But in hindsight I really should have asked first.”

Her accent was European, but it was hard for Hana to place with any real certainty. Could have been Scandinavian, remembering some of the players from Finland she competed against back in her pro days. 

“Yeah, you should have fucking asked.” 

The crimson hue on the tall, possibly Finnish trespasser’s cheeks faded and she held her ground, not scared off yet by D.va’s harsh tone.

“Right. Won’t happen again, I promise,” she said. 

Dva scoffed a bit and pushed past the buff intruder to look inside the mech to inspect if anything was out of place. A moment of stuffy silence passed between the two and Hana hoped the other girl would get the message and leave.

“I’m Brigitte Lindholm by the way.”

Hana let out an audible huff as a familiar freckled face appeared looking through the glass on the other side of her heads up display.

“Oh. Yeah, Fareeha warned me a new girl was joining,” Hana replied from inside the cockpit while she busied herself checking Tokki’s systems. 

“And you’re Hana Song, right?” Brigitte continued lightly, clearly unperturbed. “Or do you prefer to go by D.va?”

Hana paused at the mention of her gamer tag turned call sign. 

“It’s Lieutenant Song, actually.”

Brigitte raised an eyebrow at the curt reply, her smile fading to a neutral expression. It only dipped for a moment though as she extended her hand. 

It was an awkward gesture to shake hands from inside the mech, even though the front of the cockpit was partially open near the joysticks. Hana looked at Brigitte’s outstretched hand and gentle smile on the other side of the glass. Was this a joke? She pursed her lips and sized Brigitte up for a few tense seconds before reaching out. The grip was firm and Hana’s hand practically disappeared in Brigitte’s large palm.

“Lieutenant Song. It’s an honor to meet you.”

Hana sighed and rolled her eyes, a little of the bluster going out of her at the sincerity in Brigitte’s tone. Satisfied that no harm had come to the mech, she backed out of the cockpit.

“Just call me Hana. That rank doesn’t really mean anything here anyway. Lena will probably make fun of me if she hears you calling me Lieutenant.”

Brigitte walked back around Tokki to join her, a lingering hand tracing over the pink exoskeleton as she moved. “I’m surprised she doesn’t make you call her Captain.”

“Oh, she’s tried.”

Brigitte laughed. 

“Sounds about right.”

D.Va chuckled for a moment, briefly disarmed by the new stranger, before she remembered how this person was rudely poking around her stuff only moments before, and snapped back into her gruff demeanor. 

“Lindholm, you said? Like Torbjörn Lindholm?”

Brigitte sighed, clearly used to this connection.

“Yes. Genius engineer of Overwatch 1.0, founder of Ironclad Industries, husband to Ingrid, and father of way too many children, including yours truly.”

“So, you grew up in an Overwatch family?” Hana asked as her full attention focused on Brigitte for the first time in their conversation.

“You could say that,” Brigitte said. She picked up a silver ratchet resting on a nearby worktable, spinning the head around between her fingers and levering the handle back and forth, testing the weight distribution of the tool in her hand. 

Hana could tell there was more to the story than her new teammate seemed willing to let on. She found it interesting that Brigitte, who had been all candid smiles a moment ago when she was caught somewhere she shouldn’t be and oversharing to someone she just met, was now hand waving around the subject.  

Overwatch kids are pretty up their own asses about 1.0 normally. Wonder what her deal is...

This was what Hana was known for back in her pro days. Seeing a flaw in an opponent’s defense and breaking it wide open. But she needed to remember she only just met this girl, who would soon be her teammate. Maybe save that for another day. 

“Well, Lindholm. As long as you stay clear of my mech, I don’t see a reason we should have problems working together. What’s your specialty?”

Brigitte perked up at the change of subject.

“Support. Both base level engineering support and in the field. I've got my bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, and I’ve been working on Reinhardt’s gear for over a year now. Angela - I mean, Dr. Ziegler, is training me to be certified as a field medic.” 

“Tough job. Think you can handle the gore?”

A wry smile pulled at Brigitte’s lips, her head shaking back and forth in a small, bemused gesture as she placed her hands on her hips. 

“You don’t pull any punches do you, Lieutenant Song?”

D.Va crossed her arms, holding eye contact with Brigitte who matched her gaze with amusement. 

“The best shot caller in the world is just a loud piece of shit if her team isn’t up to the same standard. So yeah, I like to know who has my back and if she can handle herself.”

Brigitte regarded D.Va for a moment, her jaw working back and forth as if chewing on the approach she wanted to take in response.

“I’ve been patching up Reinhardt for a while now. If I’m honest though, I’m scared it’s not going to be enough one day. But that’s not what I need to focus on, and instead I’ll do the best I can to support the people here.”

The plain way Brigitte shared her apprehensions left Hana uncomfortable. She couldn’t imagine telling someone out loud she was afraid, especially on her first day. Though in truth, she herself felt scared shitless half the time while doing this work.

Brigitte’s smile was back. Did it ever leave that pretty face? It did suit her though, framed by the freckles and warm brown eyes. If this girl wasn’t built like a literal tank of 6 foot something muscle, Hana might have more apprehension about sending her out to fight Omnics and Talon. 

“Well Lieutenant Song, I think I’ve taken up enough of your time with my intrusion. Fareeha and Winston will be missing me very shortly for the rest of their planned orientation schedule,” Brigitte said as she carefully placed the ratchet she previously picked up back on the workstation, breaking the spell of awkward silence.

D.Va smirked, feeling tension leave her shoulders to match Brigitte’s playful demeanor. 

“Mmm, well now I understand why you were hiding down here.”

“Yes they are indeed quite enthusiastic and thorough with their material.”

She gave a wink and started to walk away, turning briefly to call over her shoulder.

“I noticed there was a small coolant leak under the left fusion cannon. Might get a bit sticky on the left hand.”

“Bye Brigitte, enjoy your 300 page orientation manual quiz.”

Brigitte waved once more and turned around, already so sure and familiar with the layout of the hangar and the base.

She’s just another Overwatch kid, and just another nosey engineer trying to get in my mech.

Hana lingered by her workstation, picking up the ratchet Brigitte had been fiddling with and thinking over their brief encounter again. 

Would this girl be a liability on the battlefield? Brigitte looked strong on the exterior, but then, so did Tokki. If you took away the mecha armor, inside was just a squishy human target bullets and fire could cut through like paper the second she was exposed and vulnerable.

Hana took a deep breath.

She walked around to the left fusion cannon and did indeed see the signs that a coolant leak was backing up inside the casing. Pretty subtle to spot with minimal visible damage to the exterior. 

Not bad, Lindholm.

D.Va pulled her headphones on, turning to her latest loop of pop songs to blast while she went to work removing the panels on the cannon to replace the broken coolant line. The task felt good, and helped her mind drift to thoughts other than her conversation in the hangar.

---

Hana didn’t see much of Brigitte the next few weeks. The new recruit was busy with training and learning mission protocols expected of field agents in addition to shifts with Mercy in the clinic to  fulfill the certifications Brigitte was required to complete. Hana would see her sometimes at dinner, often in a spirited conversation with Reinhardt or Lena. It seemed to take Brigitte no time at all to fit in amongst the old guard, but it seemed that’s what being the favorite niece of pretty much every person here would get you. 

Hana would half listen to their stories, always feeling awkward and out of place amongst their banter. Overwatch was like a family, but she was more like the stranger invited as someone’s plus one. Everyone seemed to have an ingrained familiarity with each other. A single word could trigger a whole series of anecdotes every person around had some personal insight to add on to. 

Remember this! 

Oh how is so and so?  

Damn, that was 5 years ago already? 

Even on her squad in Korea, she never had what they people here seemed to have. Dae-hyun was a close childhood friend and followed her into the MEKA squad, but the other pilots were a different story. There was always a bit of friction and distance with the rest of her teammates because of their history as pro-gamer competitors forced into an arrangement as teammates. It never really gelled beyond cordial coworker relationships. Hana’s celebrity status didn’t help either, only adding another barrier between herself and the others. The fame of D.Va closed her off in access to most people unless they were on the other side of a screen, and then they only saw a polished up version of herself. 

Not exactly the best way to get close to people.

Sometimes she was curious to learn more when she heard the Overwatch stories, but she always stopped herself before saying anything. It was easier to pull out her phone and queue up a game. Easy to pull back and ignore them, and usually they left her alone to do it.

She was okay with that. She was okay with keeping Hana and D.Va separate. She was okay with only polite greetings and trite platitudes. She didn’t need to know about the times from before, or what her Overwatch teammates did on the weekends. She just needed them to listen to her in the field and leave her room to make her plays. Like every time she started a new game, she didn’t have to focus on the past, or what others thought, she just had to focus on the objective in front of her. It’s what got the job done and what kept her alive.

---

Brigitte kept her word to stay out of Hana’s mech. She set up her own work station on the other side of the hangar where she worked on Reinhardt’s gear as well as her own. Hana would sometimes see the blue flash of a shield out of the corner of her eye over the hum of diagnostic scans or smell the burn of sparks from welding. 

One day curiosity got the best of her when she heard the loud, repetitive pounding of a hammer on metal and she wandered across the hangar. 

“You’re doing that by hand?”

Brigitte stopped working when she heard the voice behind her, the deafening echo silenced on the metal shoulder guard she was beating against.

“On this armor I do. Reinhardt’s gear is special from the time it was made. It has to be maintained with some older techniques.”

“Why?”

Brigitte looked at her surprised for a moment then laughed, loud and warm. 

“You know, I wondered the same at first. It’s a bit of the way this armor is made, modern techniques can be too harsh on it, interestingly enough. Too precise and it becomes too fragile.”

“That doesn’t sound true,” D.va said.

“Oh, questioning my methods huh? Well, maybe the truth is more I didn’t originally have the right gear out in the field, and Reinhardt didn’t have much modern tech either, so the only way to do it was by hand. But it’s nice actually to keep doing it this way, I like getting my hands dirty with it. Helps me relax.”

“See that I believe.”

“Well, I’m glad I have your approval, Lieutenant Song.”

D.Va rolled her eyes, but smiled a little.

“I told you before, you can just call me Hana. Although, I do like the respect of authority.”

“Lieutenant suits you.”

Hana smirked a little at the complement, turning to pick something up on a nearby table. She picked up one of Brigitte’s gauntlets, slipping it on her hand. Her arm sagged under the weight, the glove coming up well above her elbow.

“Is it exhausting wearing all this armor? How do you run around with it on? I can barely lift this thing.”

“There’s movement assist when the unit is turned on. But I mean, I think I can handle it.” 

Brigitte smirked as she made a show of flexing her well defined arms, and Hana couldn’t help but gawk a bit before she turned back to fiddling with the glove. 

“Um, yeah I uh, noticed you seem to be in good shape.”

“Oh yeah?” Brigitte was smirking, clearly enjoying the slight fluster she was causing in her new teammate. Hana put the glove back on the table and gave Brigitte a light shove on the arm.

“Oh give me a break, you know you’re buff. Do you even own a shirt with sleeves?”

“I’m very familiar with OW 2.0’s handbook, and the dress code is quite lax about on-base personal attire. But, mostly I just like hearing you complement me.”

Hana rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m glad you’re strong enough to move your ass around in this armor so you can protect my blindspots while I’m doing all the real heavy lifting.”

Brigitte laughed again. Hana couldn’t help but smile too at the warm sound. Brigitte’s whole face lit up, and her eyes crinkled around the edges. No wonder she was the favorite niece.

“Fair. I’ve seen your battle footage and some news clips when you were back in Korea. You’re so strong, I doubt you even need me.”

“Ah, another fan of D.Va. Well, who can blame you,” Hana said with a flick of her hair. She continued to walk around Brigitte’s workstation, picking up random pieces of armor. Brigitte didn’t seem to mind.

“Actually Reinhardt was the real die hard D.Va fan. We used to always have a stash of the instant noodles with your face on them in our rig. Great shelf life. I’m surprised he hasn’t asked you for an autograph yet.”

“Well he’s one to talk! Did you know, when I was a kid there was a Reinhardt special edition line of noodles? I remember I tried them once and they had such a weird flavor. It was like ketchup and curry powder or something. He had a pretty big fanbase in Korea actually.”

“Hah! I didn’t know that, but I’d believe it. There’s been so much Overwatch merchandise over the years, I’ve lost track. They were such celebrities back in the day.”

“Yeah.”

Hana knew a thing or two about having her image used for propaganda. She wondered for a moment what it was like for Brigitte, growing up amongst the same environment, but removed from the center of it. An image of her laughing in the cafeteria with the old guard flashed through her mind. She decided it must have not been too bad, and refrained from asking the question.

“Okay well, I’ll leave you to your meditative, hammer time. I need to get back to my mech anyway, I’ve got a mission tomorrow morning,” Hana said, turning to leave. Brigitte let out a long sigh, slumping into a chair. 

“Oh, it must be nice to leave the base.”

Hana stopped in her tracks, curious again, hearing such an outburst from Brigitte. She turned around and poked one of Brigitte’s large muscles near her shoulder.

“Oh come on, don’t be dramatic. You’ll be done with your training block soon. Fareeha is just, really particular before she lets anyone out on a mission. It took almost two months, and me breaking every score in the simulators for her to let me out in the field.”

“I know, I know. It just sucks sometimes feeling like everyone is being overprotective of me. I can handle myself, I’m not a little kid.”

Hana couldn’t help but give a little hmphf sound, her lips pulling down at the corners. 

“Yeah, I get that feeling. You can’t speed up time though, you just have to grind it out.”

Hana wasn’t normally one for listening to whining, but she thought Brigitte looked quite cute while she pouted, her arms crossed tight against her torso and her lip jutted out. It was hard not to laugh at the sight a bit, but Hana held her tongue. She really did know how it felt to want to prove yourself.

“Hey come on, there’s plenty of work you’re doing here that’s valuable. And when you’re ready, you’ll get called up and out there with the rest of us.”

Brigitte took a deep breath, seeming to blow out the negative feelings in one dramatic sigh. When she straightened up in her chair she seemed to be in better spirits, smiling at Hana again.

“You probably know better than anyone how to do that. Thanks Lieutenant, I’ll try. Let me know if my hammering gets too distracting. I can always go find something else to do.”

“It’s fine. I hardly noticed.”

“Well in that case, I’ll just be over here until dinner time.”

---

A few days later Hana almost threw her computer across the hangar. 

“Why is this piece of shit so useless!”

The MEKA diagnostic program she used to keep Tokki up to date was crashing every five minutes when she tried to run a scan of the system. It had slowly been degrading the last few weeks and after the latest mission it apparently decided it had enough. She tried every trick she knew, both from working on the mech for years and everything she could think of on her personal gaming rig, but she only had rudimentary coding skills and was vastly out of her depth.

“Everything okay?”

Brigitte’s gentle voice called out from a few feet away as she had stopped her own work to come see D.Va’s meltdown.

“Everything’s fine. Except I’m going to have to go throw this piece of crap, and then myself, in the ocean.”

“Sounds like a costly solution. What’s going on?”

“It’s fine. I’m fine, I don’t need anyone’s help.”

She could feel Brigitte’s sympathetic look burning into her cheek and hated it.

“Okay no problem. I’m around though, just let me know if you want an extra set of eyes.”

Hana stared at the email she had sent to Dae-Hyun the day before that still had no response. She knew her mech’s hardware inside and out, but he was the one who really handled all the intense computer program internals. She was out of her depth here and needed him to call her so she could get this thing working again, but he wasn’t answering. Maybe he was deployed somewhere or too busy with a social life now that she was gone. 

She had decided to come here for Overwatch. So maybe she should trust Overwatch.

“Brigitte, wait a minute.”

The other girl paused and turned, only having walked a few feet away from D.Va’s workstation.

“I could probably use some help here, if you’re still offering?”

Brigitte smiled, but it was more muted than her usual mega watt grin. Hana appreciated that she wasn’t making a big deal about it. 

God, why is this girl so nice.

“Definitely.”

Brigitte walked around the workbench where Hana set up her computer station and listened to the general description of the problems. As Hana started clicking through screens to show the protocol she usual ran, Brigitte held up a hand to make her stop.

“I understand what you’re saying, but looking at the text, I can’t read Korean. Does it have a translation setting?” “I doubt it. This thing was only meant to be used by the Korean MEKA squad.” Hana felt her stomach drop at how quick her hopes of getting this programming running were already dashed.

“Well lucky for us, Overwatch has some very robust translation tech we can utilize.” “Really? It’s not the AI is it? I’ve been so resistant to letting her in my computer.”

“That would be one possibility, but there are some more localized options we have. I’ve had to do this once or twice on one of my papa’s projects.”

“How long will it take?” “Don’t know! Could take a while, I’m not going to lie to you, especially with your program already acting buggy. But don’t worry Lieutenant, we’ll sort you out.”

Hana groaned, already having major doubts about letting Brigitte mess with her tech. But she didn’t have a lot of options, and this was probably the least embarrassing choice on the table at the moment. 

Brigitte moved back and forth between D.Va’s workstation and her own across the hangar, gathering cables and a laptop she would use to debug the system. Hana watched over Brigitte’s shoulder for a while, monitoring her work to get the translation program working on the MEKA diagnostic software. 

“Where’d you learn to do this type of thing?”

“Back in college. I had to learn a certain amount of coding for my major, but I helped out Winston some in his lab on campus and he taught me a lot of tricks too.”

“Jesus, is there literally anyone on this fucking base you don’t have some personal connection with?” 

Hana stepped away from the computer and dropped down into an empty chair with a huff, spinning the chair on its axis in erratic circles.

Brigitte stopped typing and watched Hana’s tantrum. “It bothers you that I’ve got a close connection to Overwatch?”

Hana did not reply, but crossed her arms and let out a frustrated sigh. Brigitte’s gaze held her for a moment but eventually shifted back to the computer screen as she seemed to weigh her thoughts on how to respond.

“Why did you leave the MEKA squad to join Overwatch?” she asked finally. “It doesn’t have the best history as an organization, you know.”

Hana stopped spinning to look at the side of Brigitte’s face, who’s eyes were still trained on the laptop screen. “Well it’s better to actually be in a fight than on the sidelines.”

Brigitte stopped what she was doing and turned to face D.va. “You’re the best pilot in the MEKA program. Why would you be sidelined?”

Hana let out a bitter laugh. “Best pilot? I was more than that. I was the face of the fucking Korean army! Which eventually meant I was too valuable to be an actual soldier.” Hana stood up walking to the end of the workbench, reaching out to touch one of her mecha’s guns. She couldn’t see Brigitte, but she could feel the other girl watching her.

“I got real banged up in a fight with the Gwishin. Like, probably should have died kind of banged up. I was out of action for months. After that, the army realized they couldn’t let the poster girl for their success stories die in an actual fight. So they moved me off the Busan base and deployed me to lead baby fights happening inland, but whose sole purpose was really just a photo op.”

Hana balled her fist in anger at her side, remembering how awful it hurt seeing images of herself on television in all those epic battle sequences, reporters singing praises of heroism, only to know the real truth that it was all a fabricated lie. She couldn’t stand it.

“So when Winston and Lena came to my apartment and asked me to join the new Overwatch, it was a no brainer. My piloting skills are too valuable to just be sidelined in a studio with a green screen.”

The MEKA squad team was fairly understanding when she told them. The same couldn’t be said for her commanding officers, but as D.Va, the amount of influence and money at her disposal proved sufficient for a smooth enough transition.

“I believed this was my shot to get back in the fight. So even if there’s some bad history there, this is a new chance for me, and I am ready to deal with any fallout.” 

Text whizzed by in the background of the computer screen as the console spat out a continuous stream of logs from the program Brigitte fired off as she listened in silence. 

“I never liked Overwatch. I still don’t,” Brigitte finally said.

Hana turned to face her, very confused. 

“Really? But, you’re like, one of the legacy kids.”

“All that means is I know more of the gritty details and seen firsthand the way people I love were chewed up by this place.”

Hana’s brow furrowed in thought, crossing her arms as she focused on Brigitte. Hana had been so taken in by all the happy scenes in the mess hall and around the base, she hadn’t even thought about the implications and complications that must have been a part of Brigitte’s life. She was so good at always putting on a bright face, how could she have known? 

Brigitte took a deep breath, looking weary as she took a moment to gather her thoughts. 

“When I was a kid, it was like I was one of those audience members you talked about. I was told all the best stories about heroes and villains, and it so happened that my family were literally starring as those heroes. But when I was a little older, I started learning more about history, and the other side of things. The PETRAS act. In fighting and war crimes. Blackwatch. Angela’s medical tech weaponized against her wishes, by my own father it turns out. Winston and Tracer buried under so much red tape, I’m honestly surprised they were ever allowed to leave a military base of their own free will. And Reinhardt... He’s a lot like you, I think. Brave, loyal, too stubborn to be just the face of a movement without putting his own skin on the line. Not when there’s something bigger than himself he believes in.”

A deep sigh, and an almost painful expression crossed her face.

“So no, I don’t like Overwatch. But I also can’t sit on the sidelines while they risk their lives, knowing I can help them. They’re my family. So here I am. Family can be complicated, ya know?” 

Before Hana could come up with something to say, the computer dinged behind them. Brigitte tapped on the keys, reading quickly when a smile crossed her lips. 

“Look at that, perfectly legible Swedish.”

“It’s fixed?” Hana hurried over to look at the computer screen.

“Well, the translation program is running. Now I need to actually debug your diagnostics program.”

“Ughhhh, I’m never going to leave this place.”

Brigitte chuckled. “Don’t worry, we’ll get it done. Feel free to go get some dinner if you want. This will take a while.”

“No way I’m going to leave you here all alone!”

“I promise I won’t touch Tokki.”

“It’s not...it’s not that, Brigitte. I just don’t feel right strolling off to dinner while you’re stuck here fixing my shit.”

Brigitte smiled.

“Okay. I definitely don’t mind the company.”

---

Hana tried to keep up with what Brigitte was talking about as she debugged the code. And she could follow along, for a while. Eventually she was way too lost to feel useful, and didn’t want to distract Brigitte while she was fixing the issues, so she retreated to a nearby futon against a wall. It was well past midnight, and Hana’s eyes were starting to droop. Brigitte drank one of the Dva branded nano cola energy drinks a while ago and seemed to be completely in the zone. 

The next thing Hana knew there was a strip of bright light in her eyes as the sun started to stream in through a window in the hangar. Hana stretched to pull out the discomfort her back protested with from not being in her bed, but it was really not that unfamiliar, considering some of the positions she’d fallen asleep at her gaming computer before. A blanket was draped across her body she didn’t remember picking up when laid down on the futon. She was all alone in the hangar and her watch told her it was just after 5am. 

“Brigitte?”

No one answered.

She sat up, noticing an unopened water bottle and energy bar laid out on the ground beside her futon with a little sticky note.

“Give it a go, Lt - Brig”

Hana scooped up the rations and dropped in front of the dark screen of her laptop. When she started up the terminal screen, her diagnostic programming kicked off like it normally did. All in Korean. 

The screen showed exactly where an electric circuit was tripping in the defense matrix grid of the mech, which had been glitching in the field the last few days. Hana noticed the parts and tools needed to complete the fix laid out on the workbench neatly, but when she poked her head in the mech, it remained untouched.

She smiled to herself.

“Kept her word to stay out of Tokki. These Overwatch kids are too much sometimes.”

D.Va pulled the panel off her mech and got to work.

----

At dinner that night, Hana spotted Brigitte in the mess hall with Reinhardt, Tracer and Winston. Brigitte gave her a wink when she noticed her. Hana got her meal and sat beside her, leaving her phone in her pocket for once.

“Thanks for the help with Tokki, Brigitte. Works like a charm now.”

“It was my pleasure, Lieutenant Song.” Brigitte’s smile was kind, her expression gentle and warm. Hana noticed this close up Brigitte’s eyes were lighter around the edges, and she had a few more freckles on her left cheek than the right.

“Did I just ‘ear you call ‘ana Lieutenant?” Lena cut in. “She’s ‘Lieutenant’, but I can’ get none of you to call me Captain? Double standards round ‘ere, I tell ya what.”.

“Well, Hana was a more recent officer in her respective position, while you have been discharged from the RAF for several years now.”

“Who’s side you on Win!? Those ranks don’t expire!”

Brigitte chuckled, whipping her head around to look at Tracer’s shaking her hand dramatically in the air, eyes downcast in an over acted, scandalized look. Hana also let out a small giggle.

“Your rank on the flight simulator scoreboard sure did,” Hana said, poking her tongue out with a playful smirk at Tracer. Brigitte, Reinhardt and Winston all laughed.

“She’s got you there, Lena,” Brigitte said.

“The youth of today. Ruthless.” Tracer grabbed a fist over her heart as if shot in the chest by a bullet.

“You know, back in my days of Overwatch…”

Reinhardt started in on one of his specially tailored stories for whatever situation was at hand, this case a very detailed recount of the first time he granted a field promotion in the Crusaders. Brigitte sighed, correcting inaccuracies she heard along the way, giving a wink to Hana when Brigitte’s presence in the story was pulled into the story much later on.

Lena took up the torch after that, remembering a time she accidentally flew into restricted airspace and managed to sweet talk her way out of being shot down. They all took turns sharing more elaborate one ups from their time before Overwatch. Hana even volunteered a story, sharing the time she convinced Dae-hyun to set Tokki up to stream a battle with the omnics. She broke her single day subscriber count in under one hour.

They all laughed well into the night, and for the first time Hana really started to feel like part of the team.

---

Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed!

[andrevasims]

TS3 Resourses & Masterlists

Sooo I guess I’ve played TS3 enough to finally need something like this - Though tbh I’ve probably spent more time downloading things than playing so far lmao

Anyway these are just guides/programs for improving game performance or gameplay in general, plus CC resources other people have compiled that I found useful for picking things I’d like to use.

Tweaking / Improving Technical Performance

• Performance & Bug Fix Guide 2023

• Borderless Windowed Mode Tutorial

• Limiting FPS Tutorial (or just use the NVIDIA Control Panel if you have that, which is detailed in the Performance & Bug Fix Guide above)

• How to Minimize Lag and Stabilize the Game (very similar to the guide above, but it doesn’t hurt to check if there’s anything else to be done)

• OneEuroMutt’s Game Cleaning Guide (again similar to the previous two but may have a few extra things worth trying)

• HQ “Mod” Tutorial (editing your GraphicsRules.sgr to enable the CAS level of sim definition at all times, which will probably make performance worse but just for reference lol)

Useful Programs

• 4GB Patch (universal .exe editor that allows programs to access/use 4GB of virtual memory instead of 2GB; just apply it to the TS3W.exe in “Electronic Arts > The Sims 3 > Game > Bin” wherever you have the program files installed... idk if another program/tutorial listed does the same thing but it doesn’t hurt to try I guess lol)

• Newer GPUs Add-On Support Tool (need a Nexus account to download)

• LazyDuchess’s Smooth Patch

• NRaas Mods (most notably: Master Controller, Error Trap, Overwatch, Traveler, Traffic, Go Here, Saver)

• S3PE (mainly for merging packages to save space/loading as per this tutorial; idk if this is the “old” way compared to using CC Magic but it’s how I do it lol)

• CC Magic (easier way to merge packages and organize CC - Liegt’s guide on usage)

• Regul Save Cleaner

• Compressorizer Redux

• Recompressor (you can use this on save files, but Regul Save Cleaner does the same thing; this also works on Sims3Packs before installing which could help with file sizes or weeding out “bad” files)

• Dashboard Tool (mainly helps find packages that conflict or have other issues)

• Sims3Pack Multi-Extracter (converts Sims3Packs to package files so they can be installed without the game launcher, but worlds/neighborhoods have a more complicated conversion process so only use it on sims or singular lots)

EA Stuff but Better

• Store Content / Alt Link

• Texture Defaults of CAS Store/EP/SP Content

• Worlds with Fixed Routing - A major culprit of game lag is routing issues, and pretty much all EAxis worlds come with routing issues, which these aim to fix... However, these fixes were created with the Create-a-World tool, which has a built-in bug that corrupts the sim data of ghosts & mummies. This can result in save errors/corruption (Source). Since pretty much all EAxis worlds also come with ghosts, there’s a good chance that every single “fixed routing” world is corrupted. I just found this out after using these for like 8 years, so I wanted to actually explain it instead of just deleting the link.

Simmer Resource Lists

• MtF Conversion Catalog

• horusmenhosetix

• gummifish

• dangerouslyfreejellyfish

• hiddengnomes

• pixelbots

• hiddenspriings

• muckleberri

• nectar-cellar

• imaginary-sims

• portpromise

• glazeio

• lillith-dreamer

• simtanico

• shockshame (specifically sliders)

[dameronology]

rescuer {din djarin}

summary: din djarin rescued you - and then you rescued him {for @drinksomecoco !! i hope u enjoy}

warnings: brief mentions of torture, swearing

this is like....4k words?? it got a little out of hand, i won't lie to u.

- jazz xx

It wasn’t often that The Mandalorian found himself becoming attached to bounties.

Twice. He’d done it twice.

The first time, he swore to himself that it would be the last. Adopting his little green surrogate...frog? Son?

Okay, adopting his little green surrogate Grogu had brought enough tension into his life. It had gotten him back onto the radars of both the Empire and the New Republic; thrown him into some weird form of fatherhood that he wasn’t quite ready for and tipped his entire way of life upside down. Despite all that, he never stopped to question if all the exhaustion was more trouble than it was worth, because he loved his kid. Completely and entirely in ways that no parenting book or fairytale could ever quite describe. It was an intense form of love and attachment - and Din knew it was going to hurt when he would eventually have to return the Child to his own people. That was a little far off though, because he couldn’t investigate any further til he had the means to do so. Money and resources weren’t limitless and even The Mandalorian had to find means to an end.

Going back to the Bounty Hunter’s Guild wasn’t ideal, especially not with the kid in tow - but did he have any other way? Din didn’t know any other way of life, let alone another way of earning money. Besides, he figured it would only be a quick few months. A couple jobs here and there until he had enough in savings to travel far enough to find where Grogu really came from.

But it was two bounties; two bounties that he would find himself becoming attached to. Grogu was the only one.

It was through that decision to return to the Guild that Din Djarin would find himself stumbling across the next one. He was offered five pucks - the first four were easy. Standard jobs, really. Runaway criminals and Imps who had crossed people so many times that trying to work out their loyalty was head-ache inducing. He found them all in a matter of days, really. They were good at hiding but it didn’t count for much when The Mandalorian was good at finding.

Then there was you; the fifth puck. The one he thought was going to be the easiest.

Finding you wasn’t a problem. Tucked away in a corner of rural Tatooine - maybe twenty, twenty five minutes shy of Mos Eisley - you were hiding in plain sight. It would have been enough to protect you from anyone else but Din was an unrelenting expert in finding those who didn’t want to be found.

He never quite knew what to expect when he closed in on a bounty. Sometimes they ran and sometimes they hid. A few of them had tried to appeal to his humanity; to try and connect with the man they hoped was behind the mask. Because aside from the husky voice that occasionally escaped the helmet, there was no proof that The Mandalorian was anything other than a very convincing droid. That was, until, someone would lay a hand on his son or ship and suddenly, a wave of pure human rage would burst out from beneath the beskar.

You couldn’t have hidden from him or run away, even if you wanted to. Not because you were scared, but because you were chained up; wrists and ankles in shackles, keeping you tied to the walls of a filthy docking bay. From the sand piled around your feet, it was clear that you had tried to kick up a fuss at some point.

But based on the way that you looked at him - with tired eyes and a hopeless expression - that made Din realise: you’d lost the will to fight. He knew that you weren’t going to wriggle away or try to engage in combat.

“Are you…” The Mandalorian trailed off. “Are you alone?”

“Probably,” your eyes flicked up from the ground, unknowingly capturing his gaze. “I think I’ve been left for dead.”

He sighed. “I’m looking for a...Kan Durant. Is he here?”

“No,” you shot back. “He left me here for dead about a week ago. Probably knew that a bounty hunter was going to come after him at some point.”

“Do you know where he went?”

“I’m chained up,” you said. “Isn’t the answer to your question a little axiomatic?”

“Maybe,” he replied. “But if you know anything, it might be helpful.”

“Try Corellia,” you muttered.

Corellia. That was...doable. Not too far and not too hard to search. That would be his fifth and final puck and then Din could set off for the sunset in search of his kid’s home planet. That’s what this whole thing had been about.

But...you. You’d been left for dead - and based on the bruises around your eyes and on your limbs, that was the least of what you’d gone through recently. What kind of man would it make him if he left you? A fucking awful one, obviously, but what was he supposed to do?

Din slowly leant down, pulling a thin tool from his belt. He fiddled around with your cuffs for a moment, until there was a low hiss. They fell from your hands and onto the sandy ground - he expected you to get up, or to run, or do anything but sit there and stare at him with gaunt eyes. Maybe it was foolish of him to think that merely freeing you of your restraints was doing his part for the greater good.

“Is there anywhere around here where you can go?” he asked. “An inn? A cantina?”

You snorted. “No. I’ll die.”

“You can get food and medicine out there.”

“Mos Eisley is swarming with Durant’s men,” you explained. “The minute I step foot in any town or port here, they’ll know.”

Maybe being with Grogu had softened him, or maybe The Mandalorian genuinely couldn’t find it himself to leave you. But, he found himself doing the unthinkable: sticking his hand out to you, lifting you up, and leading you out of the docking bay and back towards his ship. He didn’t know what he was going to do or how he was going to do it but really, he hadn’t thought that far ahead. His main focus had been on keeping you alive until you were within the safety of the Crest.

You stumbled slightly when he put you down, tripping and falling towards the control panel to shut the loading bay doors. At least you were intuitive.

With that, you fell back to the ground. It was becoming clearer and clearer that you were in a bit of a state - how long did you say it had been? A week since Durant had left - so that was at least seven days without proper food or water. It was a miracle you were alive. Din had got there just in time.

“Why are you helping me?” you asked. “What do you want?”

He glanced over in your direction. “I don’t want anything.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” you shot back.

“I wasn’t going to leave you there,” Din replied. He paused for a moment, before turning to face you. “I’ve heard Durant’s name before. I know what he does to people.”

“Aren’t you more worried about finding him and getting the bounty?” you pushed.

Truth be told, Din wasn’t that bothered. He had enough money from the last four pucks to get him where he needed to be. The fifth had just been a little extra, so he had an easier time letting go of it. He certainly wasn’t the only hunter going after Durant’s ass and worst case scenario, Karga would give him a little bit of shit for not completing the job. All of that was a lot more manageable than living with the guilt of leaving you in the dark to die.

“Someone else will get him. I’m sure.” Din muttered. He reached for a ration pack stored away on a shelf and tossed it in your direction. “You should eat this. I’ll get us in the air and find some bacta-”

“- you really don’t need to,” you cut him off.

“Eat,” he pushed again. “You’re weak. You’ll need it.”

--

Over the next few days, you would come to find that forceful-but-caring demands were The Mandalorian’s main language.

He didn’t talk much - or at all really. He didn’t need to, not when you kept to yourself on the lower deck of the ship whilst he dealt with everything else. He didn’t seem to mind that you weren’t helping; after all, you’d been in a weak state when Din had found you and standing up had been hard, let alone maneuvering around the flying hunk of metal. You were beginning to feel a little more spry, thanks to the food, water and bactaspray. The combination was hardly an elixir of life but you’d found yourself feeling a little more human.

Sleep was the hard one. A combination of confusion - at the situation, at Din, at where you were going - and nightmares made it hard. Every time you closed your eyes, you found yourself hurtling back in time to when Durant had first captured you. You’d been a test dummy for all his weapons and experiments and really, you were just lucky to be alive and in one piece. It didn’t count for much though, not when you couldn’t get a single fucking second of shut eye.

You would have been a fool to think that Din hadn’t picked up on it.

He was observational by nature and even more so by craft. A man who was constantly looking over his shoulder and straight ahead; a warrior who had been raised to keep a weapon by his side at all times. Of course he was going to notice your insomnia, and the way your eyes seemed even more sunken and dull than when he’d first found you.

You were sitting in the hull when he approached you. Not a lot had been said, other than the occasional eat this or put this on your bruises. Again - all a little forceful, but with a sense of genuinity behind the words. You still had a hard time believing that he was legitimately just a man who wanted to help you.

“I find that noise helps.”

You glanced up at him. “I’m sorry?”

He cleared his throat. “When I can’t sleep, and when I have nightmares, I find that being in a room with white noise helps distract my brain.”

“Oh, right,” you gave him a small nod. “I s’pose it is pretty quiet down here.”

“It’s noisier up there in the cockpit,” he replied. “We’re going to be in hyperspace for a while so if you want to get some sleep, I’ll stay down here.”

“Thank you.”

For the first time in days, you finally showed a glimmer of emotion. It was just a smile - and one he figured was a forced one - but still, it was a good sign.

Din’s eyes followed you as you stood up, heading for the ladder up to the cockpit. You stopped in front of it for a moment, palms wrapping around one of the rungs. At first, he thought you were just pondering, or taking a moment to rethink your actions, but then a light bulb went off in his head. You were too weak.

Moving slowly, The Mandalorian positioned himself behind you.

“Is it okay if I put them here?” he quietly asked, large, gloved hands hovering over the side of your hips.

“Uh, yeah,” you replied. “Thank you.”

With Din’s support, you were able to grab onto the hatch above and pull yourself up, boots hitting the ground of the cockpit. He followed you up, guiding you over to one of the pilot’s chairs. The lights of hyperspace were flashing by, illuminating the entire room in a white-gold glow. It felt odd to be up here after so many days of confining yourself just to the hull - forbidden, even with the invite from The Mandalorian himself.

“How did you know that I get nightmares?” you asked, turning around to face him.

The helmet tilted slightly. “I get them too.”

“I’m sorry,” you softly sighed. “Thank you again for your help.”

“It’s okay,” Din brushed it off as though it were nothing. “We have about four hours til our next stop. I’ll wake you up before we get there.”

“Is that where I get off?” you asked.

“No,” he firmly replied. “It’s not safe there either.”

You had more questions that you wanted to ask - now more than ever that he was finally talking - but you were far too exhausted to even try. Once you’d fallen back against the chair and been handed a blanket out of nowhere, the noise of the surrounding machines practically dragged you out of consciousness.

---

One question you had wanted to ask Din had been about the duration of your stay.

How long were you supposed to stay on board? How long did he want you there?

You were almost scared to ask, for fear of the answer. After all, you barely knew him. He could get up at any moment and demand that you left, and you wouldn’t have been able to argue. All of this - this looking after you, this roof over your head, this care - felt too good to be true. Like it was all part of some elaborate ruse.

But it was funny, because you were even more scared that it wasn’t. If Din - or The Mandalorian, as you knew him - was truly just a nice person with pure intentions, then that was about to be dangerous territory for you. The minute that you started trusting him, and the minute you started to see him as someone who could protect you, would spell trouble. You had never intended to become attached, but it was only natural. You hadn’t had a single person look out for you - not once in your life.

Every time he made you food, or helped you up into the cockpit, you felt yourself slipping that way. A six-foot pile of beskar should not have been a sign of comfort, but the helmet came to symbolise...something. You didn’t know what. Attachment, maybe? A little inkling of affection for whoever the hell was below those inches of steel?

A few weeks passed and the tension slowly began to falter. It was probably the proximity more than anything, but the time proved to you more than anything that Din was genuine. He was helping you because he wanted to - there was no personal gain for him, nor monetary. He actually, honestly just wanted to do good.

And doing good, he was. Whilst he still kept his distance, he looked after you. He made sure that you ate enough to recover from your periods of deprivation and once a day, he would clear out of the cockpit for you to get some rest. He still helped you up the ladder every time -and even when you told him you were strong enough, he still stood back and watched just to make sure.

Because, truthfully, The Mandalorian was beginning to see something in you. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what, but he was intrigued by the way you were slowly beginning to show him parts of yourself. Where your eyes had once been gaunt and lifeless, they now had a spark in them. You were quiet when you’d met, but now you spoke to the kid and you hummed to yourself. It was like the life that was sucked out of you was slowly being breathed back in, day by day and bit by bit.

“Do you wanna get some sleep?” Din asked you one day.

“Yeah, sure,” you glanced up at the Child, giving him a small smile. “When did you last sleep, Mando?”

Another helmet tilt. “I get enough sleep.”

“I don’t believe you,” you thinned your eyes at him.

The Mandalorian sighed slightly - normally, that would have been a sign to literally anyone else to drop it. But with you? Nope. You saw that as a sign of progress; that the little, tiny display of emotion meant you were beginning to chip past those godforsaken layers of beskar.

“I get nightmares about Durant,” you continued. “Every time I panic and wake up in a cold sweat, I remind myself that I’m safe, because I know that you and the kid are here.”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” you admitted. “You can tell me anything and I promise I won’t judge you. You’ve never judged me.”

He pondered for a moment, before releasing another deep breath. “I can’t sleep alone.”

“Really?”

“Last time I did, I woke up and my parents were gone,” Din explained. “So I wait til the kid wants to go to sleep and I just go with him, so that I’m not alone.”

Your heart dropped a little at that - partially because he’d opened up to you, but also because the Child rarely ever slept. If Din only ever waited around for their exhaustion to coincide, it must have been months since he’d last got a decent night’s rest. It was the least he deserved.

Nodding, you stuck your hand out towards him. “C’mon.”

“What?”

“I’m gonna sleep and so are you,” you replied. “You need it and if I’ve done everything that you’ve instructed so far, I think I should have the same in return.”

--

Din didn’t want to admit it to himself at first.

It being multiple things: the fact you were helping him, the fact your presence on his ship had made the place seem better, the fact that his heart skipped a beat every time you brushed past him.

Bar his surrogate son, Din had never been close with anyone before. He’d never even slept in the same goddamn room as anyone else, even. That was a fucking mammoth step for him, but when you took his hand? It felt like a baby step. Just a tiny hop from A to B. Not a massive milestone, or a moment of personal progress. You had made it seem so simple.

Maybe that was it.

You never over-complicated anything. Your intentions were always clear and simple - there was no moral ambiguity, no moments where Din had to question whether or not he could well and truly trust you. He just knew. It was funny, because it was the exact same situation you’d had with him - questioning why he was helping you, trying to work out what he wanted. This whole time, Din had been helping you solely because he thought it was the right thing and it’s what you were doing for him too.

Din liked when you sat close to him. There was a little wave of warmth he felt every time you shuffled a bit nearer to him when you both crashed on the floor of the cockpit, and a tiny swarm of butterflies that flew through him when you stuck by his side in busy towns and cities. It was clear that you found comfort in him after so many years of going without it.

In turn, he found comfort in you. Not just in the way you unintentionally looked after him, but just...everything. Your presence had been a little odd on the Crest at first, but now it felt weird to be without it. Hearing you single quietly in the shower and have one-sided conversations with the Child filled a hole in his life that he hadn’t even realised had been there.

It was as though he’d had a missing puzzle piece his entire life; a gap between all the interconnected parts that hadn’t been integral, but certainly inconvenient. And now that it was filled, he could take a step back and finally look at the bigger picture that had been forming. All the pieces were finally there - you and the kid and whatever odd family unit that made you - and the galaxy didn’t seem so nonsensical anymore.

A little over two months after he first found you, word got around that Durant had finally been captured. Not by Din, but that hadn’t mattered - because killing the man who had hurt you, even after everything, would never amount to everything he’d done for you.

The relief didn’t last long for you, though - because as soon as you realised you no longer had a reason to hide, it dawned on you that you no longer had a reason to stay with Din. Or, at least not one you were willing to share with Din. Begging to let you stay just for the sake of being near him didn’t seem like a very convincing argument - at least not from where you were standing.

But from where Din was standing, it was a little different. You were part of his life now, even if you had no idea. That wasn’t your fault, though. He wasn’t exactly the best at vocalising it. Admitting it to himself had been hard enough, let alone to you.

“So,” you spoke softly, clearing your throat. “I suppose you’ll drop me off at the next planet?”

You were both sitting in the cock-pit; the Child was asleep downstairs and the Crest was soaring through the last stretch of hyperspace before Nevarro.

Din didn’t want to drop you off. He didn’t want his ship to be silent all over again or to sleep without you by his side. The thought alone of not having you around anymore was enough to make him a little watery-eyed beneath his beskar barrier. You’d grown on him, and in return, he’d kind of, accidentally fallen in love with you.

“You don’t have to go,” he said.

You peered over at him. “If you can think of a reason for me to stay aboard, please do let me know.”

“I want you to stay,” Din replied. He gently reached out a hand and took it in his - it was the first time that he’d given you such a vast gesture. “Isn’t that reason enough?”

“Yeah,” you smiled. “It is.”

--

Staying aboard the Razor Crest was one of the best decisions you’d ever made.

Not only because it meant you were well and truly safe, but because Din’s direct request was a sign to you that you weren’t imagining things. Whatever attachment you felt to him, he felt it too - but it ran deeper than that. There was a mutual concern and respect for one another. Something born of two lifetimes spent on their own, finally coming together in one.

Things had been a little slow before then; the way that you danced around each other, like two magnets that were meant to come together - just with a little hesitancy. There had been a lot of late nights and long trains of thought about the signals that the other was giving off; about whether you’d misinterpreted the way his hands lingered over yours, or the way you’d practically passed out on his shoulder.

But, after that - after Din had openly asked you to stay, and you’d happily agreed, things began to move a little faster. Where you’d once been slowly walking down that hill and towards each other, you were now slipping, tripping and falling.

With each passing night, you inched closer towards each other. God forbid you ever found out, but Din even found himself pushing the pilot’s chairs closer to each other when you weren’t in the room, just so he could properly feel you next to him when you dozed off. He enjoyed your presence at the best of times but it was those dark, quiet moments when he genuinely and fully needed you.

It came to a head one night when you’d laid down with the Child beside you - not upstairs in the cockpit, but in the tiny cot in the hull of the ship.

There wasn’t room for one person, let alone one person and a tiny creature. Even worse, for two people - one in a beskar suit - and the creature. It just didn’t work. It shouldn’t have worked.

But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and the moment that Din saw you dead to the world with the Child in your arms, he was certain that he was going to make it work. Maybe with a bit of reshuffling there, and if he just moved the kid here - and that was when Grogu bit him pretty hard on the finger.

Disregarding his reshuffling plan, he knew there was only one option left.

It was something he’d never dreamt of doing before, simply for how terrifying and exposing it was - but he took one glance at you, and once glance at his kid, and he knew it was going to be worth it in the long run. It was merely a necessary step to getting closer to you - physically, mentally emotionally.

You stirred slightly at the sound of metal clattering to the floor - not enough to wake up, but enough to be a little more aware of the room around you. A moment later, there was a quiet hiss, and then everything went black.

In your sleepy state, your brain reacted a little slowly - but then the mattress beneath you dipped, and you felt someone’s skin against yours. Not just skin, but stubble against the back of your head as he pressed a kiss to it, and warm fingers tangling with yours.

“The armour,” you murmured. “You took it off.”

“It was the only way,” he softly replied. “It’s okay. Go back to sleep.”

“Okay,” you let out a sleepy hum. “Good night…”

“Din,” he quietly said.

“Good night, Din.”

[inhonoredglory]

Run Away from Me: A Levi Meta

The core of this meta is to show that, IMHO, Levi’s violence against Historia in Chapter 56 is his emotional fallout from the torture of Sannes, as well as his own guilt at the person he had become. Coming from having only watched the anime, I personally found this placement in the manga of the Historia scene right after both the torture sequence and the Reeves Company alliance as incredibly meaningful, especially for Levi’s character and his emotional journey.

Levi is an immensely compassionate person, someone who wants to aspire to the “unimaginably altruistic” life of Erwin Smith (Isayama, SNK Encyclopedia). So how would this torture he had to inflict affect him? Because imagine for a second: This is the man who was the only one to truly react with horror and sadness at the knowledge that they’d been killing human beings all this time when they fought Titans. This is the man who went out of his way to ally with the Reeves Company in order to answer the Trost townspeople’s woes:

In Chapter 53, Levi is confronted with blatantly disrespectful Trost merchants who think the Survey Corps haven’t done enough to save their town. It’s the everyday things that burden these people—taxes, thieves, putting food on the table. Levi doesn’t once shoot back at them for their criticism. Instead, he listens. And then he spots a woman at the side of a merchant’s stall. She’s holding a baby and her eyes burn into Levi’s. She holds his attention while above him, the merchants continue their tirade. I think Levi’s thinking of his mother here: like this woman, she was a single parent raising a child in a city that is not unlike Trost now, a town abandoned and forgotten by society, poor and struggling. That child reminds Levi of himself, and this time, Levi can do something about it.

This is why Levi goes out of his way to ally with the Reeves Company. Levi and Dimo share a long, deep conversation, demonstrating that Levi’s alliance with them is more personal than merely the company’s strategic value. Dimo Reeves called Levi an “awkward yet kind man.” He goes on the say that Levi will “protect us and the barely-alive District of Trost, even though he doesn’t really have to.” This is Levi answering that townsperson’s accusation that “you in the Survey Corps aren’t working hard enough.” Levi entrusts to the Reeves Company the responsibility to bring the town out of poverty in the new world the SC will create. That’s his compassion, that’s his care, that’s his humility. That’s how he values the lives of people, not just by defeating Titans, but valuing their livelihoods. “A man like that must have come from absolutely nothing,” concludes Dimo.

This is the same Levi we find torturing Sannes.

In Chapter 55, the torture of Sannes happens because of the horrors Hange saw inflicted on Minister Nick. It is Hange’s passion for avenging Nick that drives the torture sequence, their anger at the tortures that had happened under the MP’s First Squad that motivates the payback inflicted by Hange and Levi. Levi’s violence is done, not out of his own desire, but primarily Hange’s. This is not to say that Levi was guiltless or without responsibility for Sannes’s torture; on the contrary, his actions weigh heavily on him, as will be discussed. But it’s interesting to note that out of all the tortures they did, breaking Sannes’ nose was the only retribution all Levi’s own (in reaction to Sannes’ justification of a series of horrific things the MPs had committed).

I also find it relevant that after everything they had done to Sannes, Levi was still visibly shocked at Hange’s overreaction to Sannes’ hesitation to answer their first real question. Because in Levi’s mind, everything they had done up to that point wasn’t torture—in one sense. It was instead a like-for-like payback for the horrors Sannes had inflicted on Nick. Note that it was Levi who had to pull Hange out of the emotional distraction of Nick’s death in Chapter 52, the same emotional distraction that drives Hange to overzealous violence here.

There’s an interesting parallel in what happens next with what Levi had gone through with Annie earlier. Levi threatened Annie with torture of her real body and said he enjoyed intimidating her as she was bound and trapped. Sannes confessed that for him, he enjoyed violence and tormenting the helpless—so why should he complain if these torturers, Hange and Levi, are the same as him? It’s a subtle parallel, but it’s a relevant theme in SNK that everyone, on all sides, are devils and monsters. Or as Sannes says later, “The world will always have people like us.” People who are violent, people who are lunatics, people who condemn themselves and get their hands dirty for the sake of some higher “good.” Sannes’ accusation isn’t lost on Levi, because this is the same Levi who looked at a struggling mother in a forsaken city and did something about it.

Justified violence is still violence. So what if Annie deserved to have her limbs cut off, time and time again, without relief of death? So what if Sannes deserves to have his fingernails torn off, one by one, without even a question put to him? They had, after all, inflicted death and untold horrors on innocent people. But does justice look like this? Does the name of justice absolve your hands from actions this ugly?

Morality is complicated. And Levi is the first to tell you that he doesn’t know how to slice it. “I’m not telling you what’s right or wrong. I certainly don’t know what is” (Chapter 59).

So now in Chapter 56, we come to the scene with Historia, right on the heels of that torture. The first red flag for me went up when Levi realizes he has “forgotten” to tell his squad about Historia’s true bloodline. It’s not that he didn’t intend to tell them, it’s not that he was not supposed to tell them. (Unlike, say, the entire Female Titan arc.) He forgot, and he’s clearly embarrassed when they confront him. Why? Because he’s not supposed to lose focus like that. But he did, because that information came from Sannes, and after that horrendous experience, Levi, like Hange before him, was emotionally distracted. That’s the only reason I can figure for Isayama focusing on Levi’s oversight like this, and showing Levi in such an obviously emotionally awkward place.

Hange isn’t here to translate for Levi, like she did when Levi berated Eren for being unable to harden during the experiments in Chapter 53. Levi takes the scenic, colorful route when explaining his feelings. To Eren, he admitted that his criticism wasn’t about blaming Eren for being unable to harden, stating that “going over our shortcomings and bitching about our situation is an important ritual.”

In this light, we can read Levi’s words and actions with Historia as a complicated picture of his psychological landscape. Notice how just prior to this scene, we saw Hange act out the aftermath of the torture by kicking the table. Levi too reacts, taking it out on Historia.

Imagine where Levi is right now. He’s taken on the role of Sannes in this new world—the executioner, the ultimate killer, Humanity’s Strongest. “Your hands are already dirty. You can’t go back to the way you were,” Levi tells Armin later, but it’s also what he believes about himself. All that idealism that brought him into the Survey Corps—a life bigger than being a thug in the underworld. Did all that idealism bring him here, to do this? He has to make it worth it, he has to make it count for something. It’s what he does every day when his soldiers die under him—he’s been there to make their deaths worthwhile. But who’s there to make the deaths and terrors he’s dealt out worthwhile for him?

Levi’s expression in the last panel is angry, yes, but also wracked with pain.

So when Historia says she’s unfit for the role of Queen, when she says she can’t be Queen because she’s not good enough, Levi snaps. “Then run,” he said, grabbing her. “Run away from us as fast as you can. Because we’re going to do anything and everything to make you do what we want.” Levi’s eyes are downcast, not looking at her, because what he’s saying is more about him than it is about her.

Because he knows he’s dark enough to follow those orders to do the worst things to a human being to make the entire world a better place. He knows it’s in his bones to commit these atrocities. He is afraid of what he found he’s capable of. He’s already come to terms with killing humans as Titans. He’s come to terms with torturing humans as humans. He knows he can and will do horrible, unforgivable things. That’s his strength, that’s what makes him valuable, useful, important. He’s not like other people—“I’m abnormal… probably because I’ve seen far too many abnormal things.” But he’s ready to condemn himself, to make his hands dirty for the sake of others. He’s decided he has to go full through with the darkness he’s committed, because how else can he justify what he’s done? “I’m fine playing the role of the lunatic who kills people like that. I have to be ready to rearrange some faces. Because I choose the hell of humans killing each other over the hell of being eaten. At least that way… all of humanity doesn’t have to be damned.” His are the hands that will be stained with blood, his is the conscience that will be stained, his is the soul that will sink to hell—all so that others’ innocence can be spared.

The 104th look at him like he’s gone mad, abusing a young, helpless girl like that. But they haven’t seen what he had to do. They haven’t seen how bloody his hands have gotten. His violence here is a desperate reaction to get someone to save him. He’s always been able to avenge the deaths of his soldiers. But this time, he is the one in need of redemption. He could not justify his violence completely, he could only plea for her to make them unnecessary in the future. By becoming Queen, it means he won’t have to keep torturing, keep killing, keep shedding human blood. Her becoming Queen means a peaceful transition of power. Her becoming Queen means he won’t have to pave the path to a new government with more blood and more guilt, at least, not more than he has to. He’s enslaved to doing what his strength allows him to do. He’s begging her to not let people ask that of him.

[nataliescatorccio]

📝 ok how do you add more than one gif/moment in one gif? like in some of your veronica in every episode gifsets or when you do the outfits one? i can't find a good tutorial also if you have a tutorial to how you did the side bar, that would be awesome. i am trying not to send you a 10000000 things bc you are so talented and i love you sfm!

okay, i’m going to do a little tutorial on how i use layer masks and clipping masks to get ‘multiple gifs in one’ and i hope that will answer your questions! 

we’ll start with the basics of getting several smaller gifs together to make one:

and then i shall build from that and explain how i use clipping masks in sets too to create something like this:

SEVERAL GIFS IN ONE:

so we’re going to use layer masks to create the four-in-one gif. you can apply this method for any square/rectangular gifs, so for example if you want to put five gifs in a line instead you can adjust the sizing and make that work.

the most important thing is to first work out what size you want each gif to be. i like to map it out with black rectangles first so i know exactly what size i’m using and that the spacing between each one still works (tumblr has a spacing of 4px so i just maintain that throughout my mapping). so these are a size of 132x275px:

now i know exactly what size i’m using, i can get started! first you’re just going to make your gif as you usually would with your usual colouring:

i’m then going to go to image > canvas size and resize this to the 132x275px size i decided on earlier:

that’s then given me the size that i want! you can move this gif layer around to then sit nicely in your new canvas so it’s centred nicely, and then i put all of my layers into one single folder on the layers panel.

i’m then going to select the canvas using the rectangular marquee tool so that the entire canvas shape is selected (this is really important or the area you want to mask will not be defined), and then add a layer mask as so:

this will effectively ‘set’ your gif at those exact dimensions. i’m then going to go back to my image > canvas size and alter the canvas to the size i want the final gif to be at, for this one i’ll alter the width to 540px as that’s tumblr’s ideal width size:

you can now move this gif along to place it where you’d like on this canvas, so i just repositioned this to the very left hand side so it’s the first gif in the row:

you can then repeat this for all your other gifs! top tip: make all your gifs the same length of caps for ease. it is possible to adjust your gif length using the timeline on the animation window if need be, but it’s a lot easier if you just make all your gifs the same number of frames. when all the other gifs are done, we get this:

as you can see, i didn’t make all these gifs the same number of caps so i’ve just dragged the time bar at the top along to the place where my shortest gif runs out when i press play. then i can save and ta-da, all done!

USING OTHER SHAPES:

unfortunately the above technique only works when using rectangles/squares as other shapes do not have the exact sizes to enter in. so i’m going to introduce you to how i use other shapes to create several gifs in one, say hi to clipping masks! 

i’m going to make my gif once again and colour it as i usually would:

then i’m going to insert a shape. now, there are two ways to do this! firstly, photoshop has custom shapes you can use under the ‘custom shape tool’ window, then going to shape and choosing from the options. you can then drag this onto your gif to insert the shape you want at the size you want:

the other option is you can generally find good geometric shapes available for free use on the web. searching for ‘geometric sun’ for example brings up a lot of great shapes to play with, make sure you add ‘clear background .png’ to your search and it brings you to a lot of resource sharing sites that will allow you to save these shapes as cut-outs. 

here i found the cut-out i wanted, re-sized it and pasted it on top of my gif like so:

now for the fun part! you need to reposition this shape layer so that it goes at the very bottom of all your layers. make sure you have absolutely nothing within a folder as well (this is important for speedy clipping masks!). 

once it’s at the bottom of everything, i’m going to right-click on the gif layer and then select ‘create clipping mask’ on the drop-down menu:

and this will clip your gif to the shape! you then need to select all your colouring layers (just control shift and click on the very bottom layer then very most top layer) and then also right-click and select ‘create clipping mask’ to clip it in the same way. this will not work if any of them are in folders, so remove any layers from folders first! you can then continue to make edits to these colouring layers (just double check any new ones you insert are clipped!) until you are happy with your shaped gif like so:

i then drag and dropped this gif on top of another gif i’d made (similarly to how i’ve outlined in the several gifs in one section) to create the shape as a statement on the gif:

to create gifs like my sidebar, i’ve just repeated this shaping several times over and dropped them onto a ‘background gif’ to create the overall pattern i wanted. it is really helpful to just have a play around with just plain shapes to get your layout sorted before you make them into gifs. for example, i made a template for my sidebar gif first so that the size and layout of all the triangles were exactly as i wanted before i giffed anything! you can then just copy and paste these shapes to use as your clipping masks.

THE END

i hope this makes sense and is helpful, layer masks and clipping masks can seem like complete wizardry when you first start using them but you’ll soon learn how to get your head around them and experiment. if you have any further questions as always, please do let me know :)

[spacetimewraithwrites-archive]

Find the Word Tag Game

tagged by: @sleepyowlwrites!! my words: book, button, borrow, being, bereft, blushing tagging: @drippingmoon, @drabbleitout, @ashen-crest, @zmwrites, @sleepyowlwrites, @muddshadow, @athenswrites, @indecentpause, @jasperygrace anyone who wants to, and this video, which I am obsessed with and highly recommend watching with closed captions on because it makes me ugly laugh every time lmao your words: inside, introduce, innocent, intelligent, inspire, inspect

book (Aurora)—

Thrive interrupted his thoughts by taking another book to the table and setting it down. Warren realized then that he'd been reading two of them at the same time.

"Here," Thrive said calmly, pointing to a passage in the thinner tome.

Warren leaned forward to see, unsurprised that it was not only upside-down but all written in fehrzhai and he couldn't understand it whatsoever. "Oh, definitely. I agree."

Thrive spun the book so it faced Warren anyway and continued to point. "'...Felt as if one were breaching a silver veil into yet another dream.' And here," he slid his finger over to the second, still upside-down book to point out a separate passage. "'...Being clutched within a dream by the hands of a lively sun and nurturing star.'"

Warren peeled his eyes from the passage up to Thrive's face. "...Okay?"

button (Meridian)—

Warren took a shower and washed his hair, shaved, and emerged into the bedroom to find Thrive moving to the door, which had chimed to let him know someone was on the other side. He pressed the comm button on the control panel.

"Your Majesty," the pilot said. "Apologies for interrupting, but there's an emergency and I've been required to depart."

Warren frowned, holding his towel around his waist. "What kind of emergency?"

"Security's just informed me that the Node is under attack."

borrow (Eternal)—

Emnophene approached. "I’m sure we'd like to avoid imposing, but...would it be possible to borrow a battleship for the fight with the eliyi? Our Ganymede isn't built to go against them like this."

Lilori bowed their head, their four eyes blinking in sync before they followed their guards away from the house. "Please. Whatever we have is yours to use. I will tell the Tetori Defense that you are permitted a warship."

Thrive glanced at Warren.

"What?" Warren said.

"R'lisian warships are not a joke." Thrive passed his fingers through his own hair, pushing a strand back into place. "Just a few of them would've eliminated most of the eliyi dreadnoughts in your solar system."

Warren grinned. "Would've saved you some effort, huh?"

Thrive's face returned the grin but his eyes did not.

being (Rebirth)—

"They're getting fucking slaughtered down there," Guetry growled, striding back into the shuttle bay as the twins and Alec came up behind him. "If you knew about this, you knew about this way before anyone else did. That was too goddamn specific to be a coincidence."

Warren felt his insides curl up and his breath began to shallow out. "Are you...are you serious right now? You're accusing me of being on their side?" He turned to Thrive again. "I had no way of knowing for sure, I was just speculating."

Thrive's head tipped to one side in suspicion. "This isn't the first time you've speculated something about all of this only to have it come to fruition later."

"Thrive," Warren said, louder and more panicked than he'd anticipated. "Don't do this to me. I would sooner die than betray you, you know that."

"Then how do you explain—"

"You out of all of us should know that some things can't be explained," Warren interrupted. "But I'll be damned if I'm going back to square one with your trust. I would never do anything to hurt you. I would never let you down on purpose, you know that!"

bereft devoid (Rebirth)—

Warren squinted and held his hand up to block his face as his eyes adjusted to the onslaught on his retinas. Once able to look around normally, he found himself in a small square residence almost devoid of furniture or technology save for a single tablet in the meaty hands of a Morrite standing directly across the room from him.

She regarded Warren with reasonable suspicion in her beady eyes, drawing herself to her full height, which, to him, seemed small for a Morrite, though his only point of true reference had been Elygro. A handful of Rotangans rushed into the room, various weapons at the ready, and as two more of them moved out from behind Warren, they lowered their weapons.

"Yes, stand down," the Morrite said. "Orthrive'poliea. Is this…?"

"Warren Cougar," Thrive said, lowering the hood from his cloak. "I trust him with my life."

blushing flushing (Rebirth)—

Thrive opted to remain on the ship while Warren hurried to be present for what was left of the concert. Varussa and Emnophene caught up with him as soon as he hopped off the ramp, cringing as his calfs and thighs seized.

"Finally decided to join us again?" Emnophene asked.

"Uh…" Warren ran a hand through his still-damp hair and attempted valiantly to catch his breath, hobbling the rest of the way to them. "I...don't have an excuse prepared."

"Don't need one. We're silhou, remember?"

Warren coughed, flushing. He instantly removed the implications of that statement—and the fact that he had, in fact, forgotten the entire station was full of silhou—from his mind and relocated his thoughts. "...So how's the show?"

[kayla1507]

How to create your own custom textures for Detroit: Become Human (Epic Games + Steam)

Some people have been asking how I get the dbh models to look like this in my game:

So today I’m going to break down how to manipulate the textures in the game with deadray’s custom tool and how to avoid crashing. 

Before we start with the tutorial, we require several tools. The dbh custom tool found on the website linked above, a texture exporter tool and an image converter which you can find and install in the "resources” folder I’ve prepared here.

PART 1: RECOLORING CLOTHING & ACCESSOIRES.

The character textures we want to change are in the tools "catalog" section. You can locate any specific model by typing their name into the search function, we are going to start with Kara. Kara uses mostly DDS textures which won't cause trouble in your game, while Alice and Connor for example use mostly QD textures which will cause crashes if not used correctly.

Once we’ve searched for KARA, the catalog lists all of her models. Here I have opened the section “maid” which is her standard outfit and selected her armband. To change the texture, we select to “extract” the file and pay attention to the required image format listed on the right side of the panel. Her armband is listed as DTX5 / BC3. 

Once you have installed the Nvidia Texture Exporter, launch Photoshop and open your exported DDS file. (Btw, the texture tool can’t be installed with a cracked PS version, so if you can’t purchase PS then Gimp will also work.) In Photoshop, I have recolored the blue armband to pink and I save my new file, selecting the “DDS - Nvidia Texture Exporter” under “Data Type”. The Texture Exporter will open in Photoshop and ask for the required DDS image format. I select BC3, as listed by the custom tool, and click “save.” 

Now you need to insert your new file into its respective thumbnail by selecting “import” in the custom tool. I have changed Kara’s triangle in addition, which is the same image format (BC3) as her armband. Close the tool, open your game and voilà, Kara is now sporting preppy pink android markers! 

PART 2: OVERWRITING FONTS & SERIAL NUMBERS.

To change fonts and serial numbers, we simply need to paint over the file’s original letters and overwrite it with something else. Here you can see an example of Connor’s original model identification marker and my custom marker. You can blacken out the whole thumbnail if you want to erase the markers on the jacket altogether. The image format for this particular DDS is DTX1 / BC1 and you can find it in the catalog under CONNOR_HOSTAGE, CONNOR_INT02 and CONNOR_WAR.

CONNOR_INT03 is NINES, so don’t change those files unless you want to overwrite Nines’ markers as well.

Serial codes can be swapped and overwritten in a similar fashion. The RK models all draw their serial numbers from the same file. In this example you see I’ve swapped the serials of Connor-51 and Connor-60. The image format for this particular DDS is DTX1 / BC1.

However, a swapped serial won’t update accordingly with every death within in the game. If you were to do a death run starting with -60, the serial bugs out at death five because of the modified starting number. -65 becomes -66 instead because -55 can’t be overwritten. 

PART 3: EXTRACTING AND IMPORTING QD TEXTURES.

Don’t start with QD textures unless you’re already experienced with DDS textures or don’t know what you’re doing. Otherwise I guarantee you will break/corrupt your game files. Always have a backup of your original files on your PC in the case of corruption. QD textures are usually shared between various different models and need to be updated within every single model in the game that uses the same texture. Otherwise, your game will crash.

First things first, open the tool and add the detroit_img.exe in tool settings in order to display QD texture thumbnails.

We are going to change Hank’s intro shirt for the QD example. All of Hank’s shirts are shared between HANK_INT01, HANK_INT03, CLO_HANKSHIRT_01 and  CLO_HANKCLOTHESBALL. They are DTX1 / BC1 QD formats. In order to export the texture, we need to unlock “enable editing” on top of the catalog chart.

To export and edit QD files, it's important to "enable editing" in each catalog section you want to modify. QD files are exported in uneditable data format. Drag and drop this data file into the detroit_img application to convert it into a TGA file. Open this TGA in Photoshop or Gimp and flip the new image vertically before you save the edited file as a DDS. 

Afterwards you need to import this new DDS into each thumbnail that used the original QD texture. After I imported the first custom DDS into HANK_INT01 its thumbnail will turn black in every other section and needs to be refreshed. Therefore remember the position of your original thumbnail or note their file names in order to find them again later. If your game starts crashing because you haven’t refreshed every shared texture, selecting “restore” for the thumbnail won’t work for QD files. So it’s always important you have backed up your game files in case something goes wrong.

For beginners, stay away from QD eye colors since they are shared with lots of random NPC. (If you’re absolutely itching to edit the eyes, you can message me and I can send you a list of known NPC who shares it with them).

PART 4: COUNTERACTING SHADERS.

Some texture have an inaccessible colored shader assigned, meaning your own recolor and this shader will combine and create an entirely different color. We don’t want that, so we need to counteract the shader’s color preset. An example is North’s hair for EXT01 and EXT02, both are assigned a red shader. To turn her hair brunette I’ve recolored her hair texture into a soft blue and lowered the lightness to counteract the red. 

Some color shaders are accessible to you, like the hair coloration of Echo (blue) and her girlfriend Ripple (reddish). Her shader looks like this: 

In Echo’s case, I’ve turned her hair black just by recoloring the blue-ish section and left her actual hair texture the way it is. I don’t recommend recoloring these type of shaders with android uniforms unless you only want to take photos, as it will take a toll on gameplay and cause a slight lag (same goes for editing facial textures with heavy make-up).

I hope I managed to explain the tool in a somewhat comprehensible way. This is all old news to me by now, but I remember it was incredibly hard to understand back when I was a newbie with modding dbh. If you have any specific questions about the custom tool that I haven’t addressed, or if you get stuck with a texture and don’t know how to procced feel free to chat me or comment under this thread! :)

[calif0rnia-lovers]

sweet as pie.

a/n: please join me in welcoming sam wilson to the page. first story dedicated to this classic man, surely not the last.

pairing: sam wilson x black!reader

rating: 💙

main masterlist | taglist | divider © @whimsicalrogers

sum: sam is home. although times have changed, his sister’s intentions for him have not. sarah would love for her brother to settle down, and she knows the perfect person to make him do it. but when sam gets caught up with work, he misses the date sarah has set up for him.

words: 2.3K

It’s funny how the human mind works.

How easily certain moments can slip through its cracks. Names, dates, songs, conversations, faces lost to the wind, never to be remembered again. In the same turn, how those same things can be retained, recited down to the last detail in perfection.

Sam Wilson has seen enough in his lifetime--more than most men. No one could condemn him for forgetting the smallest of details from time to time. Sometimes he does. He is human. But, strangely, he can never forget a single detail when it comes to you.

Sam can still remember the first time he saw you.

The coffee-colored, cardboard box you carried in your arms--'living room' written across the front panel in your mother’s flawless penmanship. The dark curls pineappled to rest atop the crown of your head--a last-ditch attempt of fighting the Louisiana heat. The oversized Purple Rain t-shirt faded from too many runs through the wash. The round, black sunglasses sliding down the brim of your nose as you paused to take note of the boy watching you from his front window. Down to the scuffed, worn high tops that could barely pass for white.

He even remembers the soft smile you gave him once he froze--too embarrassed to move from the window after being caught watching you for the third time--before turning to lug the box up the steps of your front porch.

It was the summer of ‘94, and Sam Wilson was running late. He was expected to be at the docks assisting his father. Instead, he was peeping around his mother’s powder blue curtains, attempting to score glimpses of his new neighbors. Primarily their teenage daughter.

It’s not every day that Delacroix welcomes a new resident--let alone an entire family. Later that night, over dinner, his mother shared that you were entering your senior year--same as him.

He still remembers the knotting of his stomach. The strange and unusual experience of being tongue-tied when he’d tripped over his name--his name for god’s sake--that morning, you opened your front door to find him and Sarah on the other side. The kindness of your dark brown eyes as they met his, the soft giggle you released as you ignored his sputtering to accept the chocolate chip cookies his mother sent her children to deliver.

He also remembers the vision of you in your wedding dress. The smile he had to keep plastered on his face the night he learned his skepticism, surrounding death by broken heart, faded. You’ve never felt pain until you’ve seen the woman you love marry another man.

Sam must admit. When he returned, he expected--hoped--that those feelings would have disappeared. That they would have been erased from his life. Only, the moment he returned home, Sam discovered those feelings remained--were stronger even.

Five years later, he found you in the same house. Your parents no lived there. After their return from the blip, they packed up their things. Suddenly, tackling their bucket list was their main priority. You still had your husband’s last name but no husband. He was gone, lost to a younger woman.

Five years later, and Sam Wilson finds himself still frozen by the sight of you.

The long-sleeved maroon shirt he’s tugged on is not his number one choice. It’s all he had in his bag. The time on his watch had forced him into an ultimatum. Either run home, shower, and change into the outfit Sarah helped him pick out and risk being five hours late. Or head straight to your house, and risk being four hours and forty-five minutes late.

Sam opted for the latter.

Flowers in hand, he stands in the gateway of your backyard. His eyes admire the glow of the string lights against your skin. The yard has been transformed. Several tables and chairs, enough to host the entire neighborhood, squeezed into its space. Filled with music and laughter a few hours before the backyard is now quiet. Only the sounds of crickets, and the rustle of the trash bag in your hand, can be heard over the racing of Sam’s heart.

“Hey.” Sam takes a step forward, clearing his throat. “Sorry, I’m late.”

“Late is an understatement.” You don’t bother looking up from the plates stacked in your hands. Dumping them into the black trash bag, you move towards the next table. “You missed the entire party.”

After dumping the trash, you realize that Sam is no longer in the backyard. You find him in the kitchen.

“What are you doing?” You ask, coming to a stop in the doorway.

Sam glances up from the soap-covered glass in his hands. “Helping you clean up.”

You glance around the kitchen, only to find that he’s managed to wash nearly the entire stack of dishes you’ve been dreading the entire night.

“I didn’t realize you still did stuff like this,” you tease. “What with you running off to save the world. Figured you’d just hire someone to do it for you.”

“Guess it’s a good thing I got you to keep me humble,” he winks.

Sam dries his hands with the bumblebee printed hand towel, a satisfied grin on his lips as he takes in the spotless kitchen. He’s too busy admiring his handiwork to realize you’re standing alongside him.

He turns, the snarky comment he’s prepared lost in his throat as he takes you in.

You can’t deny him a smile as you watch his eyes widen, a boyish grin brightening his face as he takes in the plate you’re holding. On it rests a single slice of homemade apple pie, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and perfectly drizzled caramel.

“I think you’ve earned this.”

“You saved me a piece?”

“No,” you sigh, allowing your eyes to roll. “I actually saved it for me. But if I have to look at your pathetic attempt at puppy dog eyes one more second--”

“You were hoping I’d show up.” The grin on Sam’s face has morphed into a trademark smirk, the sight pulling a giggle from your lips. “You and I both know you don’t save, or share your pie with just anyone.”

Sam’s observation is spot on.

You don’t share your pie--or food, for that matter--with just anyone. In the chaos of hosting the neighborhood, you didn’t have a moment to stop and enjoy your own party. Let alone a slice of the apple pies you’d spent the previous night preparing.

Apple pies--specifically yours--were Sam Wilson’s true weakness.

The moment he sees you lugging home a bag full of granny smith and macintosh apples, he’s on full helicopter mode. You’re not sure how he knows, but he’s got a radar. One that somehow allows him to prophesize the exact moment the pies are out of the oven and set aside to cool.

He’ll show up, stopping by to say hi, or to see if you still need the drainpipe your ex-husband never got around to working on fixed, or to “pass along a message” from Sarah--as though your best friend couldn’t pick up the phone and call. Whatever the excuse Sam Wilson always manages to be the one to get the first slice of your apple pie. He’s smart enough to know that once the children of the neighborhood catch a whiff, they’ll show up on your doorstep. And as much as he loves the kids--Sam isn’t letting them steal his pie.

Sam’s words come out muffled through a mouthful of apples and crust. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Y/N. You should sell these. You'd make a killing.”

“And I’ve already told you, it’s just for fun,” you dismiss his advice, taking another spoonful of ice cream. “Besides, what do you expect me to do? Quit my good paying--although painstakingly boring--job in the hopes that enough people will like my baking to keep me afloat?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Sam nods, a smile growing as he watches your eyes roll.

It’s a conversation the two of you have had for years. Here is the rundown of how it plays out--every single time.

Sam: suggests that you finally open up the bakery you’ve been talking about since your teenage years.

You: dismiss his words of advice, reminding Sam that most teenage dreams are foolish.

Sam: ends the conversation with, “I’d show up every day for a piece.”

You: spend the rest of the night wondering if he’s right, about taking the chance, only to psych yourself out before going to bed.

“I’m just saying,” Sam sighs, sliding the plate to the side. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned. Life is going to pass you by, regardless, no matter what you do. If you give it a shot, and it fails--which is never going to happen--your life isn’t going to end.”

You glance up from the table, a tiny smile on your lips as you take in his soft smile.

“Maybe you’re right,” you shrug. “If all else fails, I’ll just tell everyone it’s the Falcon’s favorite pie--”

“You’ll have people flooding in from across the country.”

“It’s settled,” you giggle. “I’m using you in my business model.”

“Hey,” Sam chuckles. “As long as I get a cut, I’m not complaining.”

A silence falls over the tiny kitchen as your gaze drops from his.

Sam lightly raps his knuckles against the table before pushing his chair back.

“Uh—I should probably head out. You’re probably tired. I just wanted to come by and apologize...again.”

“Wow,” the light laugh you release halts Sam’s act of standing up. “The second you get what you came for you hit the ground running?”

The response is automatic. The chance to tease him is one you never pass up.

Sam’s brow raises as he takes in your smile.

“That’s not what I came for,” he admits.

“What did you come for then?”

“To ask you over to my place for breakfast tomorrow.”

The proposition hangs in the air, Sam nearly squirming in his seat as you take your time studying his gaze. You let out a sigh, your shoulders shrugging lightly, once you finally speak.

“I don’t know, Sam” You shake your head. Picking up the plate, you stand and cross the kitchen to the sink. “You just have so many responsibilities, nowadays, running around trying to save the world--”

“I’m not going anywhere tonight,” he’s quick with the reassurance. “Or any day, until we get through that date you promised me.”

You turn to face him, arms crossing over your chest as he comes to a stop before you.

“Say I show up. You have to promise me something.”

“Whatever you want.”

He knows that promise can end up being a slippery slope, depending on how hard you’re willing to make him work for it.

“If something comes up, in the future, you call me. And you tell me exactly why you can’t be here. Nobody gets to stand me up. Not the Falcon. And sure as hell, not Sam Wilson. Understood?”

Sam’s eyes drop to your interlaced fingers, a soft chuckle escaping his lips as he gives your hand a gentle squeeze.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.” Standing on your toes, you place a kiss against his cheek. “Now, go get some sleep. You’re making me breakfast in the morning. I’m expecting waffles, bacon, freshly squeezed O.J.--the works.”

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[captnjacksparrow]

Hey, really liked your analysis of Hinata. I feel almost the same way about her. Even though generally I dislike female characters who are naturally meek, subservient and pointless with no character arc in any type of media, what made me absolutely hate her character was how she treated Neji. If Kishi wanted to show her arc being developed organically, instead of proposing to Naruto that removes her stuttering and gives her new found confidence (because girls only get confident when proposing to guys 🙄), Kishi could have shown her talking to Neji after he literally told his bitter story on the chuunin exam grounds in front of everyone. She is shown like she is sympathetic but didn't do anything about it. She didn't even talk to him after he was hospitalized. She knew exactly why he was the way he was, and yet she fights him as if it was his fault. She, an heir of the clan, could have asked her father to support Neji, she had some clout. But nope. In fact, it was Neji who apologizes to her in a way, he is the one who trains her and help create a new jutsu for her. What did she ever do for him exactly? And Neji didn't have to help her. She was in the best position to help and understand Neji but what did she do? A lot of fans like her character because she is reserved but kind and sympathetic. She is reserved but a coward. She was not kind towards Neji. He died for her when he didn't deserve to, he had dreams and goals that were much bigger than Hinata's entire existence. She couldn't even see her own cousin's pain and she claims to understand Naruto?? Really??

Even Kishi said she was a pitiful character who only watches from a distance. He deliberately made her that way, no goal, no backbone and no lines. And I think she sucks the most after Danzo.

WoooW!!!! Thanks for the ask, Anon.

[[Hinata and Sakura fans!!!! Please stay away and don't interact. I fucking tagged them properly]].

Even though generally I dislike female characters who are naturally meek, subservient and pointless with no character arc in any type of media, what made me absolutely hate her character was how she treated Neji.

We definitely share the same thoughts on this one, Anon.

I am really tired on most of the media for their poor treatment of female characters.

The last time I was amused by a female character was from 'Game of Thrones', I loved Cersei Lannister, who is an absolute biashhh and Sansa Stark, started out as an annoying rose tinted princess but ended up winning everyone's heart. Both are non-combative, soft spoken and somewhat powerless women in a world dominated by men. But they just didn't let the inconveniences stop them and instead they learned how to fuck that world back and take control. Both are similar and yet very different.

After seeing, such well-developed characters..... For me girls in Naruto series, is blehhhhh..... Nothing to get inspired from them. And I knew it by episode 3 itself. I have no idea how can girls, in real life, treat Sakura as some feminist icon, which makes my skin crawl for number of reasons. If you point her mistakes out in any discussions, they will pull the misogynist card to your face. When in reality, I am also a girl and my world views are entirely different from Sakura or Hinata. There is no way a 12 year old girl would want to look at the Duck of another boy.

And the problem is, They form the majority, I mean people who can connect with Sakura or Hinata. So, as long as girls like them exists, we really should suffer from these crap portrayal I guess.

That's why I advise people that If you want to see a good woman character, Narutoverse is not the place.

Having said that, I find Temari, Konan, Tsunade were better (I mean inside the Narutoverse). Though their motivations or reason to achieve a goal revolve around their men, I find their attitude relieving. Unlike Sakura or Hinata, they don't wet themselves on the sight of the men they love.

What irritates me was, Kishimoto could've easily put a character like Temari or TenTen or Tsunade into Team 7. It would've made my viewing experience a lot better. If he doesn't want the strong girls to take over the attention from his boys, then he should've introduced a meek character like Rin Nohara. She is silent and cute but atleast she was willing to die for the Village and never wetted herself over Kakashi, though she loved him. And she treated Obito like her best friend. But he deliberately made Sakura hateful and he never stopped.

Sakura and Hinata were the lowest of the low, compared to any other side characters. And, in the end, they got the main Character's Ducks without actively doing anything. For me this tells me three things

He was using these girls as a shield to close the hetero normative mouths while in reality hiding those boys true feelings under that shield.

He really hated these kind of girls and constantly showing his hatred on them at every given chance and never redeemed them back. 

He knew the target audience’ mindset and he simply caters them by giving them what they need and at the same time writing the important arcs according to his wish.

I think, it’s the combination of all three. 

Just to give you an example.

There is this delusional SS shipper Who justifies Sasuke was acting Tsundere throughout the war arc. I mean, come on!!!! 

I came across this post because, the Original Poster was an idiot who comes into the anti SS tag and reblogged my content and saying I was wrong... So, I don’t mind sharing that person’s content.

So I don’t know where this delusion comes from... It's truly pathetic.

There are millions of idiots who believe in this kind of shit and Kishi is deliberately feeding them with bits and crumbs while making his boys go out and save the world.

These delusional mindset tells us they don’t give a single shit about the story as a whole. They watch it purely for the pretty faces and getting high over them. In this case, Sasuke.

It’s as clear as day that Sasuke didn’t care about anyone other than Naruto when fighting the war. You don’t have to be a shipper but even a non-shipper can point this out. I mean Sasuke wouldn’t have saved Jugo either, if he didn’t come to Sasuke and advice him. Do you think Sasuke would’ve tried to look for Jugo and saved him at all cost???? It’s just that he came to Sasuke and he helps him back. But Sasuke would’ve saved Naruto from the bomb blast even if he was standing a mile away.

So, if these delusions reflects the mindset of the majority of the women audience, then the creator will never try to give anything better but instead give us some low-life characters like Sakura and Hinata. 

So, Anon, your expectation for Hinata’s character could’ve been developed much better is just a wishful thinking. Because, Hinata is a character for these kind of people and not for us. And the author deliberately did it. 

She was in the best position to help and understand Neji but what did she do? A lot of fans like her character because she is reserved but kind and sympathetic. She is reserved but a coward. She was not kind towards Neji. He died for her when he didn't deserve to, he had dreams and goals that were much bigger than Hinata's entire existence. She couldn't even see her own cousin's pain and she claims to understand Naruto?? Really??

For me, this also irked me a lot. 

Hinata could’ve tried to talk to Neji about his problems even when he was a child. But she was simply playing innocent when in reality, she is just a coward. Even after the Chunin Exams, there was no apologies from her side, like you said. Because she is from the Main Branch. That hierarchy never changed. If she had the gall, she could’ve easily broken that hierarchy by saying, ‘I want Neji Nii-San to take over our Clan, He is the best candidate for this and I can gladly help him with all my efforts’.  A single line and just 2 or 3 panels, it all takes.

For me killing Neji is where Kishi asking us silently, 

Do you really want these pair to happen despite having a blood stain of another character??? 

Most people said, ‘Yes!!!’, because they don’t give two shits about Neji. As long as Hinata gets Naruto, the main character’s Duck, that’s all there is to it. It doesn’t matter who dies, who lives. 

That's why Kishi is shitting on them by making her as a non-existent woman in the Boruto Manga.

Even in real life, there are many hopeless foolish little girls who would do anything for the man she loves. I've seen them and I always stay 2 miles away from them. I mean, they even ditch their own friends and spends her entire time with him and when he dumps her later, she will come back to her friends for consolation. I think Sansa Stark is the best example for this. She started out much similar to Sakura and Hinata, believing in Princes and shit, she even naively betrayed her father for the man she had crush on. But the author made her to learn her lesson in a much painful way and later she came out as a Queen who no longer needed any man at the end. I think, this is called Development.

At the end of the day, Romance and Sex is all that matters. The author knew it. So, he is feeding these girls with some low quality cookies and they are very glad to take and eat it.

[katzkinder]

Day 8: Melancholy/THANK YOU!

I ended up joining Servamp fandom here on tumblr about... Four years ago now? In 2018, right after moving to a different state and leaving everything I knew behind. I found the anime by complete chance while browsing the Josei tag, and now... Here I am!!

I don’t know where I would be right now without this fandom, I really, truly, don’t. I’ve met so many wonderful, kind, amazing people through this series, rediscovered my love of creation, and made tons of friends!

To everyone who’s been with me on this journey... THANK YOU!

First up, @hello-vampire-kitty thank you for your hard work translating the chapters! I really appreciate the translation notes you add, and how clearly important it is to you to treat this series with the love the English localization won’t /hj

@xchibikai thank you for providing the RAWs! You’ve been doing it for so long, and without you and Kitty, we’d all be totally lost! Not to mention your Tsukimitsu sib art always makes me feel so warm and fuzzy; it’s so cute!

@servamp-announcements Even though you just started, I’m already so grateful! The formatting on posts is really easy to read, and the blog theme is also very easy to navigate! I especially appreciate that you provide sources and links back to the original announcements 🥰

@ryotakun-translations it looks like I can’t tag you, but I still wanted to give my thanks! Commissioning translations from you is always so easy and pleasant, and I know I’m getting quality work when I do.

@kalu-chan Thank you for uploading the interactions from Final Servamp Quest, and the translation for both the White Day routes and Gear of Night Trick! Your doc was super easy to navigate, and it must have taken a long time.

@rubyleaf We haven’t really ever talked before, but I still wanted to take a moment to say thanks!! Your fanfic Guilty Pleasure Friends is AMAZING, and I really admire the dedication it takes to keep updating something like that for so long. I love reading it during long car rides, and the cafe scene to this day brings me so much joy

@crazyanime3 I’ve been taking excellent care of the boys you sent me... Was it already two years ago?? Thank you for helping me start my collection way back when! I still have the little message and doodle you sent along with the buttons, saved somewhere safe

@snowlilys-wife @cottoncanada @shinychxndelure Thank you for being so supportive and accepting! I love talking with you all and hashing out scenarios and headcanons is always really fun! Also, y’all are funny af

@mahi-does-some-art @pomfry @hisakata-resutomoshibi @yarrayora @haru-jje @unwelcomedfox  @revoleotion @xthunderbolt @madburnishes @tipzycat y’all some talented and also incredibly sweet motherfuckers, holy shit. I’m so, so glad I met all of you.

@joydoesathing your genderbend designs are always so creative and I love so, so many of them! I think my favorites are Gil and Hugh. I also love your Virtues au a lot, too! Your eye for character design is incredible, and then you do all that in pen on top of it? Amazing!!

@chayam-chi Your art is so cute! You’re such a sweet person, and so funny, too! I always look forward to seeing you on my dash, and I look forward to seeing where you go from here!!

@danozi1 Your sense of humor and the creepy cuteness of your works always scratch a very specific itch for me, and also you have Good Taste

@mystivio @meiwaku-san Your panel colorings are so good and always leave me floored. Like, coloring goals, full on.

@random-husky I’ve super duper enjoyed everything you’ve posted this week, from your ideas to your compositions, you’re so creative!!

@kiwitheweebartist you’re getting better and better every day! Your little commentary posts and random thoughts are all very cute and it makes me smile whenever I read one.

@kchk-55 @d01110010rr You’re so young, but already so talented?? I’m amazed! I hope good things find you both going forward, and that school and life in general is easy on you. If anyone is mean to y’all, I’ll beat them up!!

@jutsuzuban MIKEY. YOU. I love you!!

@niccodoesart Sushi! I love the way you color; you’re so good with markers! The way you draw feet is so cute ❤

@faith-gigliorosa Your edits are so cool, holy shit. I always look forward to them! Ballad of the mona lisa is still one of my favorites.

@blackrose4242564 @theartcat2 @maria-the-mage @wingedpaperpeachpurse @radioactivesweet @fgfhfhfhf @ourelenabespalovafan @ezuja-deatro @ninjagirl142 @pause143 I see you guys in my notes for practically everything I post and thank you so much for your support!!!

@bluemoonfantasiesiii there’s a lot of things I could say to you and about you. There’s a lot of things I want to express. There’s a lot of moments and talks that I hold dear to my heart, but I think the best way to sum up my feelings towards you, is this... ......... >:3c

... That was a lot of people, huh. |D Sorry if I annoyed anyone with this, but I just... Wanted to express my sincere gratitude to each and every one of you. I’m a better, happier person for each person I’ve met here, and I’ve never quite had this kind of experience within a fandom before. I’m glad Servamp was the first time I held my hand out within an online community to quite this degree, and thank you to every single person who reached back.

A very merry, very belated, HAPPY 10TH ANNIVERSARY to you all!

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

The Voyage So Far: Skypiea

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)

the bar scene in jaya is one i didn’t really get the first time i read it- like nami, i mostly found luffy and zoro’s refusal to fight back frustrating more than anything else. i didn’t realize the connection to shanks in the prologue until someone else pointed it out awhile later, but when i did, it made me appreciate the entire sequence and luffy’s choices a lot more. 

honestly, i know this is one of the pages that gets the most attention from jaya, and it absolutely deserves it. blackbeard here is effectively dropping one of the biggest main themes of the series- people’s dreams don’t end!!- and how interesting that we get that delivered by the antagonist to the protagonist, instead of the other way around? how often do you see a series do that? 

and the line hits. look at the emphasis. there’s absolutely nothing on these two pages except for the three strawhats, blackbeard, and blackbeard’s line, bigger than anything else. 

chapter 232, with luffy punching out bellamy in one hit is still, to this day, probably my favorite one piece chapter. it opens with the drunk pirate seeing the newspaper with luffy’s hundred million bounty and realizing just who bellamy was kicking around, and it hits on one of my favorite plot threads of one piece- the growing infamy of the strawhats and luffy in particular, and their rise in the world. 

the atmosphere of the whole scene is so good, the tension in their air, the way all the bar patrons jump when luffy yells for bellamy to come out- and when the hit comes, the satisfaction is visceral. 

i’ve talked about it before, but god, i LOVE the way one piece defines “romance”- the arthurian kind of romance, the adventurous kind, that romanticizes the world and its wonders- romance dawn. in an arc as thematically heavy as jaya, it makes sense that it, too, is explicitly brought up. can you think of a more romantic, impossible adventure than traveling to the sky?

nami’s confidence when faced with the task of navigating into the sky is so fantastic. 

the expressions, and the art in general, in skypiea, are really so lovely. look at the variety between the strawhats when they first emerge from the white-white sea to lay eyes on angel island. look how expressive they all are!! i have such a soft place in my heart for the art in these earlier arcs, honestly.

somewhat related to the above: there are so many little moments in skypiea where the strawhats just get to have FUN, and be stupid, and get fleshed out more as characters, and honestly it’s such a delight. also, everyone’s skypiea outfits were just really really good. cowboy hat robin... i miss u every day 

i really like the whole scene where robin is exploring the ruins, and these panels in particular have such a lovely sort of ethereal look to them. i love seeing robin doing archeology, i think for the same reason i love to see sanji cooking- the strawhats are all such cool and passionate people, and it’s really really nice to see them doing and talking about the things they love and excel at most. 

i’m sure i’ve said it before but i LOVE how logia powers are depicted, especially when used to avoid an attack. it’s so cool. ace’s cover story runs through most of this arc, and we get some great examples of it there as well. 

1. wife 

2. skypiea is SUCH a good character-building arc for robin- which is good, because the next saga is almost entirely predicated on how much both the audience and the strawhats care about her. it’s here where we learn about her passion for archeology, her reverence for history, and get a much better look at the softer sides of her personality and her fast-growing admiration and affection for the strawhats. 

man, enel has so many huge, terrifyingly powerful shows of force throughout this arc, but this right here, this little sequence where he appears behind raki between panels without warning and we see him reflected in her eye, communicates better than absolutely anything else just why he’s a nightmare.

“jonny you sure are posting a lot of panels of zoro being cool without any real commentary” yeah. he kicks ass in this arc 

conis is a very underrated character, i think. she’s pretty easy to overlook, but she also manages to completely break the indoctrination she’s been raised into and gambles her own life to save most of the population of angel island from complete extermination. she yells that she doesn’t recognize enel as god, an instant death sentence at any other time, just to get them to listen to her. 

there’s a moment, in this scene, where a boy throws a rock at her for insulting enel, and she just stands there, and lets the blood trickle down her face, and keeps making her case. honestly, i really like her.

look at this page. look how it’s framed. luffy in the foreground, taking up most of the page- enel in the background, tiny, inconsequential. 

now that’s how you draw god’s natural enemy. 

this is one of my favorite nami character moments in the whole manga. nami is a greedy person. she has a lot of things she wants. it’s one of her defining traits. 

but when faced with someone with godlike power, offering her absolutely anything she wants if she’ll just abandon her friends and come with him- she doesn’t want anything, for that price, even with her life on the line if she declines. she knows exactly what her treasure is. 

obviously this is an awesome panel, but sanji’s little smile just before enel strikes him is what really, really makes it for me. he’s about to get slammed with several thousand volts of lightning, but more importantly, nami and usopp are going to be safe. 

the skypiea flashback is one of my very favorites, and also the first time one piece ever made me cry. i nearly cried just flipping through it again for this post. it’s just so fucking devastating.

noland never stopped looking, and calgara never stopped waiting, and neither of them ever lost faith in each other despite how badly they fell out at the end, and wow, that just kills me. but at the same time, it makes the way the flashback and the main story come together at the end so satisfying and cathartic.

i do think skypiea has one of the best climaxes of any arc. the way all the disparate elements and plot threads- enel, the story of noland and calgara, the war between the skypieans and shandians, cricket’s search down on jaya- come together and tie up so perfectly that the entire arc can be ended by the ringing of a single massive bell is nothing less than genius writing. 

i really love the establishment of roger’s poneglyph message and all the things it implies here. it raises so many questions, most of which we’ve only now gotten answered, in wano. oda’s capacity for long-term storytelling is one of his greatest strengths, and this is probably one of my favorite examples of it. (see also, in jaya when sanji mentions offhand that he was born in north blue.)

i just really love seeing them all smiling, and i love the parallels to calgara and noland’s sendoff here. feels like a wound finally healing, after four hundred years. 

and, of course, it ends with cricket, asking what crazy, romantic dream they’re going to chase down next. because this is one piece!! just because you find the end of one rainbow doesn’t mean you stop looking for the next one. 

[mandoalorian]

I know I sent in a request like this week but I saw your post about you being sick so if you want something to do I’ve always had a headcanon that Mando would take his helmet off in front of the kid so what about he’s playing with the kid while you’re supposed to be off the crest but you come back early and see him and he gets all angst but then he’s like I wanted to marry you before anyway this just gives me a reason

Also I really hope you get better soon I hate being sick so if there’s anything I can do to lighten your day let me know!!!

Children with Din Djarin

DAY SIX: Children with Din Djarin [requested by @cobb--vanth but thankyou @100layersofdaddyissues for submitting this specific request weeks ago! I'm sorry it took so long to complete but I figured it was the perfect time to combine both the prompt and the request. I hope this is okay/what you imagined!]

Taglist (let me know if you want to be added!)

Permanent: @supernaturalgirl @phoenixhalliwell @ah-callie @luvzoria @stardust-galaxies @wickedfrsgrl @goth-topic @nerdypinupcrystal @wonderfulfluffer @kiwi-the-first @pedroepascal @castiel-barnes @honeymandos

December Writing Challenge: @mandos-blaster @silent-and-resigned @valentinasubmarina

December Writing Challenge Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Word count: 1.8k

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: mention of recreational drug (spice), pregnancy, mentions of sex but nothing explicit.

The beskar helmet was on the mantle in the hull of the ship when you returned— although you hadn't noticed. You hadn't thought to assume it would be there. You figured it would be on your boyfriend's head. It always was. You had come back from the farmers market about half an hour earlier than expected, with a paper bag filled with sourberries and powdered caf. You placed the paper bag by the door, tapping a few buttons on the Crest's panel and watched it slide shut. You sighed, rolling your shoulders and letting out a tired yawn before padding to the cockpit.

"Grogu," Din called, his unmodulated voice was soft like honey. The helmet had certainly enhanced the gruffness and his rasp, but he didn't sound completely unfamiliar. The little green bean gargled at the calling of his name and Din let out a chuckle. "On three I want you to grab the ball," Din ordered, holding the metal ball between his gloved finger tips. "One… two…." the metal ball shot out of his hand and into Grogu's tiny green claws. "Dank Farrik!" Din gasped, slapping his knee. "Great job kid, but I said on the count of three. It's all about timing, remember-"

The cockpit door slid open and you entered with a sigh. You hadn't told Din why you were really so desperate to visit the farmer's market. "Can't it wait?" he would ask, to which you replied with a simple shake of the head. He wouldn't fight with you. He wouldn't argue with you. If you wanted to visit the market then that would be your next stop. "Maybe spice will help your nausea?" Din suggested, but if your intuition was correct, there'd be no way you'd be taking recreational spice anytime soon. You had told Din you'd just look for some more bacta. It's not what you needed, but it was a good excuse since he was running low on it last time you checked the medbox.

"The market didn't have any bacta pods; we'll have to stop some place on the way to-" you froze, your voice coming to a halt when you saw him. The Mandalorian.

The Mandalorian you had fallen in love with. You met him around eight months ago during one of his bounties on Corellia. He picked you up, assigned you as 'crew' on his ship and not only did he save your life— he changed your life. He gave you hope and meaning and purpose. Your feelings weren't one sided.

Din was enamoured with you. It started with the way you were with the child, so gentle and caring. It was the way you tended to his injuries when he came back after a bounty. "Sweet girl," he'd mutter, his mind in a euphoric haze from all the bacta as you bandaged him up. "So soft. So pretty."

You pushed away the comments. Focusing on them would do you no good. You knew enough about his creed to know that any romantic interaction between you would render pointless. Besides, he was a bounty hunter. He was too busy. He wouldn't want to settle down. Or so you thought.

He was going to ask. He had to ask. Your relationship with Din had got physical in the last few months. It started with gentle touches, the slight grazing of bare skin. When he held you, you felt safe—protected—untouchable. In his strong arms, it was like nobody could get you. Nobody would tear you away. Din would often find ways to satisfy himself, or at least visit a brothel in the depths of the inner-rim that would keep him going for a few days tops.

He swore with you it could just be a one time thing. With Din, that's all sex was meant to be. One time. No strings attached. Easy. But it wasn't. Din could shut out his feelings as much as he wanted but in that moment when the lights went out and he removed his helmet, placing gentle kisses in between your thighs and towards your core, there was no denying the emotion and the chemistry.

So it wasn't just a one time thing. It became a regular occurrence. And you loved it as much as he did. But now, look where you were.

He had brown locks of hair, dark brown and wavy, curling at the nape of his neck. The curve in his nose looked as though it had been crafted by the Maker himself, it was so perfect. His skin was tan, and the golden bronze rendered you somewhat speechless as you wondered where he had found the time to remove his helmet and catch a little sun. It must've been natural. He was beautiful. You recognised his stubble. When you saw it, you could place it with the memory of feeling it when he nestled between your legs. You pursed your lips into a fine line at the memory.

Din was frozen too. He didn't even blink, instead, staring at the child as if Grogu would give him the answer he so desperately required. This was it. No living thing (besides Grogu), had seen Din without his helmet since he had sworn to the creed when he was just a young boy. He wanted you to see him— he really did. So much so he had considered marriage, and the ring crafted from solid beskar felt like the heaviest weight in his pocket right now— as you stood in the door frame with your lips perfectly parted. He was just waiting for the perfect time. But now, all that had been taken away from him and he only had himself to blame.

You whispered his name timidly, tears pricking your eyes. "I'm sorry." you said quietly and waited a few moments for a response. But nothing. Just the sounds of your hitched breathing and the child's confused babbling echoed through the cockpit. You sniffed, walking back into the hull of the ship and picking up his helmet. You closed your eyes out of politeness and handed Din his helmet. He took it from you and placed it on his lap, his finger tracing the curves and edges. He realised you were still standing there with your eyes closed. You were waiting for him to put on his mask so you could open your eyes.

A million thoughts raced in your mind. Was this going to be it? What if he was going to kick you off his ship? Or even worse, would he kill you? Would The Mandalorian have you terminated? No… surely not, you knew your Mando… but the silence in the room was deafening. You were half expecting him to quick draw his blaster and shoot you in the heart, get the job over and done with.

But Din done no such thing. He placed his helmet on the chair next to Grogu and took the beskar ring out of his pocket, polishing it slightly with the leather of his mustard gloves. He threw his gloves aimlessly to one side and dropped down to one knee.

"I've taken my helmet off," he lied through his teeth. You did consider his voice sounded strangely unmodulated, but you didn't think too much of it. After all, surely Din wasn't going to be dishonest about such a thing.

You opened your eyes, gasping when you were greeted with Din down on one knee holding the most beautiful ring up. "Cyare, will you marry me?" he asked.

You were too taken aback by his face than the ring. Beautiful. A glint in his dark eyes, the way his pink lips curled into a positive smile. He was perfect. How could someone as rugged and experienced as the Mandalorian look so damn beautiful under all that beskar?

"Din…" your voice was barely audible as a lonely tear fell down your cheek. "If this is because I saw you without your helmet…"

"No sweet girl," he told you, nervously biting his lip. "I've been carrying this ring around for months just waiting for the right moment. I've wanted this for a long time." he revealed, causing your heart to flutter.

"Are you sure?" you croaked, smiling and finally diverting your eyes to the gorgeous silver ring.

"I've never been so certain about anything in my life," Din replied quickly. "Cyare, please, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?"

"Yes!" you cried, tears falling down your cheeks as he slid the ring onto your finger. You wrapped your arms around The Mandalorian and he held you tight, picking you up and spinning you around.

"I love you so much," He mumbled in your ear, biting down on your love gently as you brought your hands to cup his cheeks. "Is it what you imagined?" he asked, gesturing towards his face as you took in every single detail. Every freckle and scar.

"So much better." you told him, noticing a small pink blush crawl over his cheeks. "Din." your tone was like velvet as it interrupted the adoring silence.

"Mm?" Din mumbled, his hands falling to your waist. You pulled off him slightly so you could look at him in the eyes.

"I don't need bacta for my nausea," you revealed nervously. "And I can't take spice because… well, I think. I'm pregnant."

Din blinked, staring at you. "Wh- pregnant?"

"I was so scared to say anything but I have a gut feeling… I can't describe. It's just like… I know. I can feel it." you told him. Din was speechless.

Grogu shimmied out of the copilot chair and reached up to your stomach, closing his eyes and reaching out. "What's he doing?" Din asked eventually as Grogu hummed a deep breath. You felt it. You closed your eyes and knelt to the child's level so he could place his claw on your lower tummy.

"He feels it too," you whispered. "It's true. I am pregnant." you confirmed and Din's lips curved into an ecstatic smile.

"This is a happy day," Din said, picking up the child and cradling him in one arm while he wrapped his free arm around your waist and pulled you into his chest. "The happiest day of my life."

[mikeana]

So I keep seeing this sentiment used in pointing out the differences between Hawks vs Twice and Midoriya vs Shigaraki (often used to prove how Midoriya is a true hero unlike Hawks) that Hawks never understood Twice, or even tried to understand him before he killed him, which... what?

Not only do I think that’s not true (or at least, not to the extent that people claim), but even if Hawks did understand Twice, knowing his entire tragic life story, understanding the bonds of the League of Villains... would that even have made a difference?

There are a lot of differences between the characters of Twice and Shigaraki. Twice kills people in order to protect his friends - the bond he found with the League is what his entire character revolves around - whereas Shigaraki kills because he was brainwashed into thinking that that’s his purpose. He was born to destroy - so why not destroy everything he doesn't like about society? Simple as that.

Because what drives them are so different, the process of ‘saving’ them - breaking them away of that motivation to kill and do active harm - would be different as well. Midoriya can appeal to that crying child inside Shigaraki, showing him that he is more than just destruction incarnate. Midoriya would also have to get past a wall of hatred towards... just about everything (but him especially) in order to get that message across - how he manages to do that, I have no idea - but we still have quite a bit in the story to go. Meanwhile, in order for Hawks to have successfully saved Twice, he would have had to come in between the bond that Twice shared with the League.

I know that there are several people that tout the LoV as a ‘found family’ but... it’s not. It’s not a healthy environment in the slightest. The entire League revolves around their status of outcasts and their hatred of society - but while it’s nice to have friends that can understand your past, the fact is that the League does not do anything to take a step forward and move on from sitting in their negative emotions. They ‘express themselves’ sure - by killing and doing whatever they want, but that’s not self-improvement. It may give them a temporary feeling of satisfaction, but at the end of the day, they’re as stagnant and lost as ever, enabling each others worst habits. It’s completely unhealthy - and one of the worst type of environments Twice could have found himself in.

Twice - who has little to no self-worth of his own - found himself surrounded by a bunch of people with similar sad backstories and who were also social outcasts like him. They also happened to be murders. Because they showed the smallest appreciation and kindness towards him, Twice was then given purpose - do whatever it takes to protect his friends. That’s the motivation that led him to overcoming him drama and breaking out Sad Man’s Parade. Unfortunately, while the League did give Twice senses of direction, purpose, and belonging, they didn’t do much to actually give him the proper help and care he needed (and vice versa - in protecting his friends, Twice is also protecting the status quo). I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again - it was no coincidence that, while Twice managed to miraculously ‘overcome his trauma’, his split-personality condition was stated at the end of the MVA arc as becoming worse. The League enables each other’s worse habits - and while Twice did grow during MVA, it was in the wrong direction. Coincidently, I think MVA is also the point where Twice can no longer be saved.

So, in order for Hawks to miraculously have saved Twice, he would have to had come between his bond with his League - aka his entire reason for living. And Hawks did do exactly that - he destroyed clones of all the League members for crying out loud. But still, some people assume that Hawks didn’t understand Twice - didn’t understand his backstory, nor his connection to the League.

I’ll be honest, we never got a panel of Hawks thinking about said connection (or at least, not that I remember), so there’s no way to know exactly how much he knew about Twice. But Twice was one of the villains that Hawks had information on (the only ones he didn’t were Dabi and Shigaraki), and the two hung out fairly frequently. Hawks could have known all about his past, or maybe he knew nothing at all. He didn’t know about Twice’s trauma with being double-crossed by Overhaul, leading to the death of Magne - so again, who knows how much he knew? Even if Hawks looked over Twice’s case file though, that still wouldn’t have changed the fact that he would have had to overcome his connection with the League - which leads me to my next point.

Hawks definitely understood Twice’s connection to the League. Or at least, he knew that his love of them was the motivation of his crimes. Hawks admired Twice because he was a kind person - he wanted to be useful to his friends, just like Hawks did. However, that same drive can also be dangerous. If Hawks thought that Twice’s level of commitment to the League wasn’t so strong, that Twice would automatically agree with him and accept his offer when he started talking, then Hawks wouldn’t have sent almost all his feathers to surround him. Twice was a kind person - and that’s exactly why he was such a threat.

So, in order to surpass the bond that Twice shared with the League, Hawks would have had to do one of two things: 1 - gain Twice’s unwavering trust so that he accepted his deal or 2 - show Twice that he has more inherit value than he gives himself credit for, giving him another motivation besides the League.

Scenario 1 was what Hawks attempted to go with, though it was doomed from the start. As soon as Hawks double-crosses Twice, reveals himself as a spy, he’s immediately clocked in shadow, seeming monstrous from Twice’s perspective. Any trust Twice had extended Hawks was immediately broken. This doesn’t help that Hawks has to come out with a bunch of sharp feathers pointed in his direction. No matter how much he liked Twice, he was still an active threat, and Hawks needed to be able to act at a moments notice in case he resisted (which of course, he did). 

I’ve seen some people suggest that Hawks could have promised that the League would be safe, that his failing was that he didn’t understand the entire League the way Twice did - that if Hawks had just calmly approached him beforehand without the feathers, told him the situation, promised that he’d get the entire League help the same way he promised he would with Twice, everything would be fine. But - there’s no guarantee that Twice would agree with that. During their months together, none of the League have ever tried to reach out to get help with the intention of improving themselves. The status is that they have to maintain their way of life - aka them doing whatever they want with no repercussions. In order to get proper help, that would have to change. Twice protecting the League means protecting their way of life and any active threat against it. Again, as soon as Hawks came out as being a spy on the heroes side, Twice’s immediately distorted him into something monstrous. With his former trauma with Overhaul, I believe that - no matter what the scenario - Twice would have immediately lost all trust in Hawks. Therefore, there was no hope that option 1 would work.

But what about option 2 - giving Twice some self-worth, and giving him some motivation outside of the League? Well, I think that would also be impossible - at least, for Hawks anyways. Because, like it or not, Hawks and Twice have the same fatal flaw - aka they both have little to no self-worth outside of being useful to the people they want to protect - to the point that either would happily lay down their lives if it meant the people they care about could be happy. The only difference is that Twice’s care extends only to the League whereas Hawks’ extends to the whole of society. In order to give Twice that sense of self-worth, Hawks would first have had to found some in himself - a little hard to miraculously do, considering he’s on an undercover suicide mission. The tragedy of Hawks vs Twice is that, at the end of the day, they were both kind characters - which meant they both had the same ‘unbreakable will’ that make up some of the most dangerous characters (according to Hawks).

Even if it the person that fought Twice wasn’t Hawks (which first off - good luck to anyone but Hawks dealing with Twice’s clones), this second option still requires some deal of trust - which meant you’d have to find a hero or anyone who Twice wouldn’t have thought of as an immediate threat to his friends. Twice didn't hesitate to attack Midoriya or the UA students at the training camp - what makes anyone so sure that if Midoriya faced Twice, there would be a different result?

So in synopsis, I think Hawks did understand Twice enough before the fight (at least to know what drives him) - but even if Hawks did know every. single. little. thing. about Twice's life, it wouldn’t have made a difference.

In order for a character to be saved - in order for them to start their redemption - they have to want to change. That is the key difference in what makes a person savable or un-savable. However, by the time of the PLF arc, Twice is actively choosing to side with the League - and nothing Hawks could do was going to pull him away from that.

How Midoriya will convince Shigaraki to want to change is something we’ll have to wait and see.