#i wanted to see how he'd look like in my current style since my friend said one of my redraws looked kinda ygo

[meii-jasmine]

✨ Marik Ishtar! ✨

[itstheghostofmypast]

Loyalties

Kim HongJoong x (f) Detective Reader

Summary: He held her itty bitty heart in his bloody palm and she knew that, but did she love him enough to let him win his little game everytime? Did he love her enough to risk her safety?

Genre: Hurt/Comfort Fluff

Warnings: Joong's a perv (Idk okay), mention of gunshots, strong language.

Word Count: 2.5K

Read Time: 12 min

Rating: nc-17

Networks: @cromernet @k-labels

She hated him, no she despised him, no she loathed that disgusting, horrid, weasel of a man. She despised his cheap ass fur coat, his unnecessary bling and those pants! Her blood would boil at the mere name of that demonic, immature moron, she despised every little detail about him; his angular face, his sharp eyes that would glimmer like the stars swirling with pure mischief, his light chuckle that would ring in her ears like the voice of an angel, oh and she really, really, abhorred the way he'd look at her, with the warmth of pure love - NO!

Mentally slapping herself she cleared her throat, rehearsing the first stanza of hatred that ran hot in her veins for the infamous leader of MATZ. Technically it was just two men, boys who were usually called in for petty crimes turned into men who were now challenging the system- a knock-off of any vigilante out there. Batman, Daredevil, even the Punisher, see these men had class and style- MATZ, well, they had style...but perhaps the fact that explaining how her once high school friends are now notorious criminals or wannabe Robinhood would be a bit difficult. Perhaps this little fact only added to her current presiding problem, one she had mentioned to her lover, explicitly mentioning her concerns; for the safety of his life and her professional career. Once again, that bastard let his deflated ego in the way, her words bouncing off it without ever reaching his useless, dysfunctional brain.

So, here she stood, in front of her captain, watching him go on and on about the need for order and justice, the need for law and police work, and more importantly the need for loyalty. Loyalty, a trait that was of importance, though her's was being questioned.

"Where do your loyalties lie detective?"

"With the force, Sir" With a salute she looked dead ahead, not at him, no, through him, trying to figure out the answer to this very question. Where did her loyalties lie?

"Then how is it, you've been leading the task force to capture MATZ for three years and each time you are close they miraculously slip away!" his large, meaty hands slammed on the table, her partner beside her flinching, though not a jerk left her bones. Instead, her eyes flickered to his face, instantly scanning his form, this man looked like anything but eh definition of justice, safety and security - if anything, he looked more like a criminal than that moron of hers.

"I assure you, Sergeant, my loyalties lie where my heart has ever since I was a little girl. My friendship with Joong- " pausing she cleared her throat, ignoring the way he raised a brow at he before glancing at her partner as if hinting at something "MATZ, both Kim Hongjoong and Park Seonghwa ended as soon as they started this life of crime."

"I don't trust you an ounce detective, not one bit." slumping back in his seat he stared up at her, "But the Captain trusts ya for some reason, believes you a good egg- I just think you're a cracked egg, too far gone for anything else- so I'll tell you this, I'm on to ya, I'll be watching you, listening to you, from the moment you step into his precinct ill be watching your every move."

.

"Well, that was something." Jongho muttered, closing the door behind him, "Do you...want to grab a bite or something?"

"I'm good." giving him a small smile she sat back at her desk, sifting through the papers, not a word written processing in her already occupied mind. The traffic of thoughts only stopped when a hand rested on hers, "I may be younger than you, but we're partners, and my mentor has always told to me trust my partner. "

His soft words, followed by his cute smile had her sigh in defeat, sitting back down and nodding, "Some mentor you have, huh?"

"She's the best of the best." Puffing up his chest with pride he placed his hands on her desk, "Now, what can I do, to make my mentor feel better."

"Nothing, really Jong, I- " her words caught up as she noticed something. Her eyes caught the way her system was on, the screen lit up, the mouse icon moving on its own, she was being - shit. Instantly reaching for the cable, she pulled the plug on the CPU.

"Um...did you see what I just saw?"

"Jongho, get Yunho and tell him to track whatever the hell that was."

"Yes, Ma'am."

.

The door slammed shut, the darkness just adding to her anger, of course, he wouldn't turn on the lights, no lamp or bulb, choosing to sit on the small balcony - maybe she should just push him off, the idea extremely tempting at this point.

Placing her badge and gun on the table she made her way to the small balcony at the other end of the living room, making sure to turn on a lamp on the way out. Sliding the door open she sighed, the cool breeze prickling her warm skin, a shiver running down her spine as she stepped out completely, barely missing the small table as she made her way to the seat her boyfriend was currently sprawled on, limbs extending like the roots of the potted plants behind him. His head lay against the cushioned headrest, turning his head to face her, an easy smile making its way to his face, the warm glow of the fairy lights from the wall beside him only adding onto his beautiful face, making him appear oh so soft and lovable.

"Hey babe." his words barely above a whisper.

"Joong~" she sang, slowly getting on top of him, making herself comfortable until she was fully straddling him, his hands automatically finding their place on her back, holding onto her tight, her arms loosely hanging around his neck, "Did you miss me?"

"You bet your pretty ass, I did," he mumbled, eying the way she moved closer, her chest pressed against his, fingers playing with the hair at the base of his head.

"Aw~ baby" she pouted before gripping onto the ends of his hair and tugging hard, his head tilting back as a whimper escaped him, damn, his girl was in the mood- or so he thought.

"I didn't you f*cker." her grip tightened, tilting his head further back with another tug, his own fingers digging into her sides, trying to keep some form of control.

"Why~" whining with his eyes closed, he treasured the burning sensation, his princess knew how to play and he liked it so very much.

"Did you get Youngie to tap into my system? Do you want me to get fired? Or do you want me to shoot you in the d*ck?"

"Aw baby~ it's just work." his eyes finally snapped open, standing up without warning as a high-pitched squeak left her lips, arms instantly locking around his neck, much like her legs around his waist, staring up at him wide-eyed.

A chuckle echoed in the dark of the night as his hands finally gripped her close, "Don't worry doll, I'd never let ya fall." Walking them into the apartment he looked down at her frowning, "Did someone piss off my princess ?"

"Joong, " sighing she glanced away, letting him carry her around like she weighed nothing, like she was a mere muse he was addicted to, clinging onto him, onto his fur coat- wait God, he was wearing the orange one, she hated it.

"Yes, love?" slowly setting her down on the bed he shrugged off his jacket, going to the cupboard to hang it, his precious baby wasn't cheap!

"I can only protect you if you trust me, but if you hack into my system or pull shit like that and they fire me, who knows what- I- I just can't lose you" her words clogging up in her throat, the burning sensation all too evident behind her eyes, " what I mean is" sighing she paused to rephrase, his casual attitude just adding to the frustration as he walked towards her, swaying like a cat, stopping right in front of her sitting form, "Hongjoong, I'm serious, with me, it is just a game of cat and mouse but if I get replaced, if its someone else, it'll be serious and they might even-"

"Shhh..." placing a finger on her lips he hushed her, his hand caressing her cheek, admiring how she nuzzled into his palm, "You know love, " he whispered leaning closer till their noses touched, "I am a very dangerous man, I am more than just your lover."

"But-"

"I'll lay off your system," brushing his lips against hers, "Detective." Pulling back he smiled down at her, admiring how she looked up at him with teary eyes filled with nothing but love and worry, letting his intrusive thoughts win and squishing her cheeks with one hand, laughing at her whining in protest.

His other hand pulled out something from his back, showing her the shiny metal toy of his, "If it were someone else, other than you, that f*cker would already be dead, you're the only reason why I haven't torn this system down to shreds." with one last kiss to the forehead, her lovable idiot of a man once again promised to stay out of her way, at least for a while.

.

"This is team two, The ground floor is clear."

He did it again, he must've done it again, no way in hell did he not do it.

"Team three reporting from floor 1, all clear."

"Boss" Jongho mumbled beside her, turning off his comm, "Did you tell him?"

Sighing she adjusted her bulletproof west as the two walked into the basement, "Yes, I told that bastard, my system wasn't tapped, I double-checked." Of course, her junior knew about her little relationship, she did teach him that a mentor and mentee should have no secrets, even ones like these. It didn't take him long to accept it either, saying something along the lines of, "Is he really that bad if he's fighting against a system that has failed us?"

"Because Yunho just texted me saying your phone was tapped instead. "

"I hate him."

"Team two reporting, roof's all clear boss."

"This doesn't look good," he mumbled, trailing hot on her heels as the two entered the basement, a parking lot with two entrances. They were going to split up, "We can't go empty-handed, we need something at least."

"I know. Let's split up, and be on your guard."

With that the two parted ways, her footsteps echoing across the empty parking lot, the scraping of her boots muffling the jingle of her gun, one that was aimed and ready to shoot. A low chuckle caught her ear.

"STOP RIGHT THERE." She yelled, turning to aim at the fool, his smirk pissing her off even more, "Don't.Move."

"Hey doll." the deep voice from beside her alerting her senses, "You should go check up on your partner, baby bear's knocked out like Goldilocks." Seonghwa chuckled, making his way to stand next to Hongjoong who had his hands up for a show, the smug look never leaving his face.

"Aw, come on detective, just let us go and we can call it a night."

A loud bang, followed by a series of bangs, resonated across the entire parking lot.

"ALL UNITS TO THE BASEMENT, NOW!"

.

"You okay?" she asked, pressing the icepack against the bump on his head, "Told you to wear the helmet."

"Are YOU okay?" he asked, others around them looking at their head's bulletproof jacket, staring at the four shots right across it. Though that's not what he meant, he was definitely asking about something else.

"Yeah, great actually." Patting her head she turned around when someone called her name, eying the office who handed her a phone, "It's the sergeant, detective." rolling her eyes she pressed it against her ear, "Hello?"

"Detective. I heard about the encounter but didn't think you had it in ya to shoot him. Glad the bulletproof vest worked though, you're a good agent, we can't risk losing. I take it back, you have my trust and support. Get home safe."

.

Slamming the door shut she sighed in relief, kicking off her shoes she made her way into the living room, oh? The lights were on, what a pleasant surprise, wonder what happened?

"Hey honey how was work?" she smirked, leaning against the wall, arms crossed as she watched her shirtless boyfriend glare back at her, both ignoring the other man in the room who was tending to the gunshot wound.

Raising a brow, he scoffed, "Oh great love I got shot today by a bitch-"

"I'm still holding my gun Joong, don't test me"

Slamming his hand on his thigh he yelled "YOU SHOT ME- you SHOT ME IN THE SHOULDER!" hissing in pain as Seonghwa clicked his tongue, mumbling a stay still as he patched up the hole. This was all he could do before Yeosang could come over and have a proper look at it.

"YOU TAPPED MY PHONE"

"WELL YOUR SERGEANT WAS GETTING TOO COZY WITH YA- man's a perv, I know it" he spat back, shoving Seonghwa out of the way with his free hand, earning a curse in return.

"HONGJOONG, HE WAS DOUBTING MY LOYALTIES!" she explained and pointed at herself, "AND YOU SHOT ME TOO!"

A dramatic gasp echoed across the room followed by a hand placed on his chest - his heart, mind you-, causing Seonghwa to roll his eyes, here we go again, he should've never befriended these two in high school. Mumbling to himself about their idiocy he walked out to the balcony, deciding to smoke instead of listening to these idiots.

"First of all, YOU shot ME first and" he yelled and turned to point at the balcony, "That motherf*cker shot you, not me! I agree four times was a bit excessive but hey you were the one who kept going on and on about us being too soft on ya." Turning to her with raised brows, "And loyalties? Babe, come on, I mean, you and I- like we like- I've been in you multiple times, day or night and-"

"CAN YOU NOT!" she screamed, gesturing at the open door of the balcony.

'I don't care, pretend I'm not here, that's what I'm pretending too!' was all they could hear from the balcony, causing her face to resemble a tomato, though her shameless boyfriend was as nonchalant as ever, continuing his little speech, half naked in the living room.

"All I'm saying is, I don't question your loyalties because I know you've got the hots for me like I completely get it, I'd wanna sleep with me too, but your creep of a boss knows his soggy sausage aint worth your time and-"

"I should've aimed for your d*ck"

"Would you really though? Cause I know you loyal to my d-"

"And this conversation is over." with that she stomped away, speed walking when she heard the loud cackles of Seonghwa followed by the laughter of her own idiot of a man. No, boys, they were still the same shameless teenage boys, she accidentally had the unfortunate fate of meeting in school, when she was nothing but a victim of loneliness, turning her grey dull days into chaotic, colourful ones pulled out of the ass of the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland.

[wordsaresimple-imnot]

So I’m a HUGE fan of angst. With Joe’s temper and with being unhinged from the war, any kind of physical affection can get a little rough. 😈 I feel like it’s totally his style and everyone needs to know it. Frienemies to lovers with angst and classy smut and a happily ever after is how we all deserve Joe Liebgott. 😘🥰 🪖♠️ 🦅

Oil and water - Joe Liebgott x F!Reader

Warnings: 18+ content, smut (p in v), fingering, angry sex to soft sex, mentions of violence and war/death, cursing, 1st person POV (female), female body part descriptions.

A/N: I have the biggest respect for the real life heroes of WWII (and all other wars, past & current), this work & all other works is based on the actor(s) and character(s) portrayed in the Band of Brothers series.

A/N pt 2: I had so much fun with this request and wrote this faster than any of my other fics! I hope you like it, @she-wolf09231982lovely, and that I did it justice!! Please let me know what you think and if you want a different one done if I didn't quite hit the points you wanted. As always, feel free to leave comments, likes, and reblogs; they make me happy! :)

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

Another punch echoes in the room, followed by more yelling. The man sitting in the chair can barely open his eyes as blood covers his entire face. I try to find any sense of morality and sympathy but come up with nothing. He's a replacement that got drunk, killed two German's and shot Chuck Grant in the head before stealing a car and trying to hide. He'd yet to show any type of remorse for his actions and the men around me were getting closer and closer to doling out their own personal justice.

Everyone got quiet and backed out of the way when Spiers came in like a dark thundercloud and hit the man across the face. In the blink of an eye, he had a gun pointed right at the man's face and just held it there. My stomach dropped and I glanced over at Liebgott next to me, but his face was dark and unfazed. Spiers would probably kill this man and no one was going to bat an eye. This was wrong. The war is over and we are still losing our friends and companions.

After a long, tense moment Spiers lowers his gun and commands us to take the man to the MP's. As he's walking away I hear him tell Tab that Grant is going to pull through, thanks to a Kraut doctor. For the first time since this night started I feel like I can breathe a little. I follow the rest of my company into the street as we follow Spiers' orders. Suddenly a scuffle erupts and our prisoner has briefly broken free from the group and is trying to run away.

I'm the closest to him and immediately run and tackle him to the ground. As I'm attempting to get him flipped around and restrained, he elbows me hard in the gut knocking the air out of me. As I'm trying to catch my breathe, a pair of arms lifts me up and I'm being pulled away from the group. Someone is steering me to an empty house and all I can hear is more yelling and fighting behind us.

Once we are inside and seating in someone's abandoned house on a couch, I look up to see who I'm with. Liebgott. To say I'm shocked is an understatement. We only look out for each other during battle, because that's our job and we are soldiers. The only times we semi get along is when we are around our friends and can use them as buffers. It's been a running joke through Easy that we are oil and water and should never be left alone together because we'd both end up dead. Now here we are totally alone and emotions are running off the rails.

"You hurt?" His face is stone cold and his voice is almost filled with disgust, like he was forced to look after me and didn't put himself in this situation.

"I'm fine. You can go." I bite out, wincing as I press on the tender spot.

"Stop being such an uptight bitch. Let me look." Liebgott rolls his eyes as he moves my hands away and lifts up my shirt. I glare at him and then glance down. The spot is a deep red and I can see spots where my blood vessels have burst. It's gonna be a hell of a bruise soon.

"Okay, you got to lift my shirt up. Good job. Go away." I shift out of his hold and cover my torso again. His glare hardens on me.

"What's your fucking problem?"

Scoffing, I jump up and pace a little ways away. "We just beat a fellow soldier bloody and Spiers almost shot him right in front of us. He deserves to be punished for what he did, but we can't start taking justice into our own hands. That's now who we are!"

"Spiers should have killed him. Grant is our friend. If anyone should give that punishment, it should have been one of us." His voice is cold and detached. We were never best friends, but it hurts a part of my heart to hear how this war has been changing him.

"Of course you would say that." I laugh humorlessly and spin to face him. He jumps up from the couch and stomps over to get in my face.

"What's that mean?"

"I heard about your little road trip the other day. I know shit's been different since Landsberg, but that's no excuse to go hunting people down and playing judge, jury, and executioner." I straighten my back and stand still as he leans further into my face. He's never focused so much anger towards me before but I'll be damn if I show any type of reaction to it.

"You don't know fucking shit. How can you? It's not your people that's been tortured and killed this whole war. Now why don't you go bat your pretty little eyes at someone who cares what you think and leave me the fuck alone."

Before I know it, I'm pushing him away from me. Hard. He takes half a step back and continues to glare at me. So I do it again, and again, until I'm beating at his chest with my fists. I'm so angry and he's the perfect target to let it out on. In the blink of an eye he has my hands in a death grip in one of his and is pushing me backwards with his other hand on my waist. He holds my hands above my head as my back hits a wall and keeps his hand on my waist.

I'm not sure who moves their head first, all I know is that we meet in the middle and it's not a kind or tender kiss. It's all teeth and tongue and biting. Neither of us want to submit so we keep at it until we are breathless and our lips are bruised. He releases my hands, which immediately fly to his hair to pull hard enough to make him wince, and places his newly open hand around my throat. When he applies pressure, I moan and press myself closer to him. A flash of something other than anger moves across his eyes; lust.

"You going to be a good girl and take what I give you?" His voice is low and rough. I feel myself clench around nothing. Never one to be agreeable with him, I just smirk.

"Fuck you." Joe just smirks back and shoves his hand that was on my waist down my pants and under my underwear.

"Feels like that's what you want." He watches my face as his fingers glide through my soaked folds, parting them to rub directly on my clit. Another moan escapes me but is cut short by his hand squeezing my neck again. "Eyes on me."

I open my mouth to say something flippant back but only a gasp comes out when I feel him shove two fingers inside me and start pumping them in and out. The hand on my neck alternates between squeezes and lightly stroking my skin. I keep my eyes on his face, taking in how clenched his jaw is and the way his pupils are blown wide. Another moan comes out when he hits a particularly sensitive spot.

He shifts closer to me, angling his hand so he can keep hitting that spot and rub my clit at the same time. His face stops when our lips are a hairs breathe away.

"That's my good girl. Take it." He places a soft kiss against my lips that's such a sharp contrast to the pressure on my neck and movement of his hand inside me. Joe leans his forehead against mine and keeps repeating his previous words as my orgasm gets closer and breaks through so hard I see stars.

As my vision starts to return I hazily watch him bring his soaked hand up to his mouth. The moan he lets out after tasting me is sinful and has me clenching again. When he's done, I pull his head back to mine, kissing and licking his lips begging for entrance. My own moan comes out when he opens his mouth and I taste myself on his tongue. Suddenly we are a blur of moving limps as we dispose of our clothes, not caring where they land and move back to the couch. We land with him on top of me and I roll my hips up to feel his erection slip through my folds.

Just as his tip slips in, Joe freezes above me and time stops. He's got one hand holding my thigh up around his waist and the other is on the arm of the couch, keeping him hovering over me. He trails his hand from my thigh, up my side, over my breast and up to cup my cheek. Our breathing slows down as we just look at each other, his hand holding my face like I might break if he's not careful. I run my own hand up his back and cup his cheek in the same fashion, gently pulling him towards me.

"Are you sure?" He whispers against my lips, eyes searching mine. They're softer now, the anger having melted away and now there's an open rawness in its place. I nod my head and whisper a soft 'yes' as I pull him into our first slow kiss of the evening.

Carefully, he pushes himself inside me and pauses again when he's bottomed out and our hips are flush against each other. We exchange more slow kisses and when I gently nip his lip, he knows it's okay to start moving. Once he sets the pace, slow, thorough and unrushed, we know this isn't just a simple fuck. Neither of us speak, just let ourselves get lost in the feelings as we moan and gasp against each others lips. As I start to clench around him signaling the approach of my second orgasm, I moan his name. Joe picks up the pace, some of the earlier frenzy returning as he focuses on pushing me over the edge again.

All I can keep saying is his name and after a few more thrusts, I'm seeing stars for the second time that night. I feel his thrusts become uneven as he chases his own release, moans flying out of his mouth. When he cums, he presses himself as far into me as he can and says my name like a prayer against my lips. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.

Once we've stabled our breathing a little, we shift around so we are laying more comfortably on the couch, him still half inside me, completely entangled together. Joe leans up just enough to pull a blank from the back of the couch over us and tucks me back in against him. It's silent as we enjoy the afterglow and feel of each others skin.

"Did I hurt you?" Joe whispers, kissing the top of my head. I smile and kiss his chest.

"No more than I wanted you to." We share a small laugh. "I thought oil and water could never mix."

Joe pulls back enough to look at my face, "I don't think we are oil and water. I think we are something that can't be defined." He drops a kiss on my lips and then lays back down. "Now, get some sleep. We are going for breakfast tomorrow and then wherever you wanna go for the whole day."

I fall asleep with a smile on my face, not knowing he does too.

[mew-ya]

can we see Marens OG Design?

MAREN HISTORY LESSON!!!

this was the very first drawing I did of him from 2016! his OG design! at the time, he was just like, a genderbent self-insert because my friend wanted me to make a one piece OC sibling. he was always intended to be older and part of the whitebeard pirates! he wasn't part fishman yet. he also got allergies a lot (like me!) so i would draw him with a runny nose. i have since removed this feature from him lol. he honestly looks pretty similar to his current design though except that he used to be super twinky to match my body type.

here are the only other drawings I have of that old design (along with my friend's oc)

his next iteration didn't come til way later! in 2022 or so? basically i had no interest in any canon/canon katakuri ships at the time and realllly wanted to draw him with a "good future". so i took my old op oc and made him fit katakuri a bit better--i wanted him to have sharp teeth so i decided to make him a fishman, but keep him looking fairly similar to the old design. so he was only half. it was also important for me to have a partner who was katakuri's size because i think he deserves to be held <3 so that's where the idea for a porcupinefish/pufferfish came in!

I got a bit better at drawing chubby bodies and made this reference, which is the closest to a current ref i have. back then, i had this thought that he'd only look chubby when he "inflated" since it makes more logical sense that way.

but i later felt that having a character who was "optionally fat" was just insulting in a way (and also bordering on fetishes that i wasn't particularly interested in my work being part of). so now i just draw him fat at any size, at varying levels. if i could change this reference, he'd be chubbier on the left.

here's a fun redraw I did to show how they've both changed!

and here's the latest most "reference" appropriate art I've done of him. I love this because I tried to make it fit the OP anime style as much as possible so it's really fun to see how people translate this into their own style.

[star-lights-up]

okay, cherik idea here.

And this is a really, really wacky one.... but hear me out (honestly, I think I'm just built for thinking of/writing crackfics).

So, you know that thing where your brain has to make everything you see, think of, listen to, and talk about relate to your current hyperfixation? Well, if you don't... just know I do.

So, I rewatched the barbie movie tonight (you can see where this is going) and my brain was like, hm, okay, how can we make this cherik?

I present to you: this very dumb idea.

So, it's a few years after the ken takeover and the barbies and kens talking things out and mattel visiting barbieland and that one barbie leaving to be a human, and slowly kens are starting to carve out their own places in society.

Let's look at this one ken. He's always felt a little like the odd one out, even during the ken-mojo-dojo-casa-house-kendom-kenland takeover thing where supposedly all kens were just living their best, most kenough lives. (He wonders sometimes, what the other kens would think, if he knew he'd felt the way about some of them that they had felt for barbies.)

After all that happened, he decided to go to university, since he had always been friends with biologist barbie and doctor barbie and philosophy barbie (okay the other two might not be real but I KNOW doctor barbie's a thing). So he goes, he gets a degree, he's chilling. Whatever. (you guys see where this is going, yeah?)

He also chills with weird barbie all the time, since he finds her really smart and interesting to talk to, and sometimes she has books from the real world that he gets to read. And that's really cool.

Then one day, he gets really sad. And really tired. And he's thinking about loss a lot, like, what if he lost his friends? what if they grow up, and change, and they don't need him anymore? And his wardrobe, which had always been kind of a cute, ken-ish style academia, has gotten super depressing and subdued. And he doesn't know what to make of it.

So, he goes and chats with his friend weird barbie, and she tells him all about the barbie who went to the real world a few years ago -- a story she never wanted to talk about before. She says that this is exactly how that started for her -- and that whoever's playing with him must be experiencing some kind of crisis, and their emotions were bleeding into his life.

And before she can even finish talking, he's gripped with this overwhelming sense of sadness for that person -- and the feeling that he wants to help them stop feeling so awful. And so, when weird barbie says that he could go to the real world to help, he doesn't even think twice.

She does, though, and says that since it worked out so crazy last time, he needs a plan going in. While barbieland has become a little more like the real world, it's still REALLY different. So she has him make up a story and choose a name for himself.

Charles Xavier: thirty three years old. He lived in westchester for years. He has a degree in genetics and a passion for learning (though those aren't a lie). He's estranged from his family, but still has some money (weird barbie gave him this thing called a credit card). He's new to LA.

With that, weird barbie sends him forth into the real world.

(I'm going to take a pause here and just mention that originally i had the ken as erik, but then realized i needed a girldad to be the human. Not that charles isn't, but he's got david, and erik has... wanda, nina, anya, and lorna, not to even mention peter, so we're just sticking with erik as the human and the twins as his kids. no, i can't add all his kids i'm too tired to work them into the plot.)

And everything's different there, and messy, and he finds himself a little intimidated, especially after wandering around and meeting weird people (let's just say he hit a bad spot of the city) and he's about to go home when he stumbles into a library. And it's a little bit like he's seen this library before, somewhere, in a dream... but also like it's his first time seeing this big, beautiful library, and obviously he's a nerd, so it's like a kid in a candy shop.

He's been roaming around the aisles and browsing through some of the books for hours, and then he gets kicked out because it's closing. And it's night. He finds himself walking around, and then stumbling into a fight...

well, not so much a fight -- more just one boy, getting beat up, by a few other boys. Older boys. Bigger boys. Well, bigger than the first boy. Not full grown adults with ken muscles. So, the ken intervenes -- first with his words, then with his fist. And he can't even think about how it hurt to hit those guy's faces when he's focused on comforting the first boy. A boy who... well, the ken almost feels like he knows him, somehow.

He says his name's Pietro, well, nobody calls him that, it's actually peter, and when asked what he's doing there at night he gets really quiet, then admits to the ken -- to... Charles -- that those boys told him to meet them there. That they were going to hang out, finally. That they'd be his friends if he just sucked it up and stopped being such a little wimp and snuck out tonight. So he did, and now his face is all messed up and he got blood on his jeans and his dad is going to be so mad-

Charles manages to calm him down, and he walks the boy home, fending off the creeps of the city because protecting peter has become his new main priority.

And when the door opens, he recognizes the man standing there, just like he recognized the library, just like he recognized peter. And he's not sure why, but he gets the feeling that maybe this is the person he's come to the real world to find.

The man, Erik Lehnsherr, as he introduces himself, is obviously livid, not at Charles, but at peter. He thanks Charles, though, in a very heartfelt manner -- he's so grateful that someone brought his boy back safe.

And then, like that, he says goodbye, and the door closes, and Charles doesn't know what to do. Erik's the person he's come here for, he's sure of that.

He gets himself a hotel room not too far away with weird barbie's credit card, and decides to try and figure it out tomorrow.

Meanwhile, after scolding Peter for sneaking out, cleaning up his face, promising to use his magical homemade stain-remover potion on his son's jeans, and sending the boy to bed, Erik finds himself unable to sleep. It's been like this for months now, really. Ever since the twins have gone to high school he's been feeling down and out.

He goes to his desk in his office, thinking that maybe he can get some work done if he's not going to sleep, and ends up pulling out that stupid ken doll that he saved from the donate bin wanda put out on the street three weeks ago.

When he played dolls with the twins when they were little, this was always the doll they made his doll marry. "dad's ken." Even back then, even when they were making the barbies fight to the death and launch air raid attacks on the legos, his kids didn't want him to be lonely.

Though now, as they're getting older, it's like they've forgotten how they all used to be friends. His friends. Wanda and peter are always fighting now, and peter's hanging out with jerks and sneaking out and getting low grades, and wanda has a boyfriend who seems perfectly nice but there's just got to be something wrong with him and erik worries she's gotten too caught up in all the drama and he's just the same as he's always been. They're growing up, and he can't help them, and sometimes it's like they're changing and growing and he's not -- he's just getting older.

(I'm going to make a side note here -- why the hell have i been typing a cherik barbie au for 45 minutes?? what has this fandom done to my brain???)

His thoughts turn, suddenly, to the kind stranger, Charles, who saved peter tonight. Brought him home safe.

He almost looked a little like the ken. brown hair, blue eyes. But then again, he was better -- he had freckles, too, and his eyes were even bluer than any painted-on blue could be, smart, too, and with that accent... Erik shakes his head, scolds himself for thinking those thoughts about a complete stranger, and forces himself to go to bed, hoping it will all be forgotten in the morning.

But then he sees Charles again. And again. And again.

Charles, at the library he frequents. Charles, at the coffee shop where he goes sometimes after the twins have gone to school. Charles, randomly, on the street, Charles, Charles, Charles.

Meanwhile, Charles -- because, yes, that fits better than ken ever did -- is having the time of his life exploring the human world. He's read so many books. He's eaten so many delicious new foods, and the coffee cups actually have liquid in them (disgusting liquid. He's found he prefers tea). He's found that he really needs a proper cellphone to exist, and goes out and gets one -- making an email with his new name. He finds that there are places he just instinctively recognizes, the way he did the library and erik and peter, and he explores those places -- and new ones, too.

Speaking of Erik; he sees him everywhere. Sometimes it's on purpose -- he does know that the man will frequent the spots he recognizes -- but a lot of the times, really, it's by complete accident.

They strike up a conversation at the library, about a book. Charles mentions that he's kind of new to LA and doesn't really know anyone yet, and Erik asks if he'd like to meet up with some friends of his for drinks sometime. Now, mind you, he has no clue the next time all of them will have an evening free, but the offer's there.

And then Charles asks if maybe, he'd like to sit at the same table together at the cafe tomorrow morning. They're both going. They may as well. Erik accepts, and Charles feels this strange fluttering feeling in his chest -- a little bit like how he'd felt about a few people back at home, but never with this intensity.

They have coffee. They have coffee twice, three times, five times. Ten. Every morning. Coffee turns into dinner, which turns into three dinners, which turns into dating.

Erik makes a joke a few times, about this ken doll that he stole from wanda, the one that they used to joke that he'd marry that looks just like him. And Charles feels that fluttering feeling again, because while Erik may not know it, he's that ken doll, and somehow the idea of having been married to this incredible man, even in a make-believe setting, is amazing.

Charles meets Wanda. Charles hangs out with her and peter and their dad. Charles moves in. Charles comforts a crying wanda when she breaks up with her boyfriend -- and much worse, her best friend is ghosting her too. Charles helps peter with his homework and talks with him about his friendship problems and his problems with his sister. Charles learns to cook, Erik laughing by his side in the kitchen as he burns eggs. Charles meets Erik's friends. Charles gets a teaching position at the nearby university (he found a way to use his barbieland credentials. I'm too tired to think up the specifics right now so that's all I'll say). Charles convinces Erik that he's still living and growing, too, just like his children. To be human is to change, constantly -- an idea he's becoming more and more familiar with as the days pass. While he thinks of his friends back in barbieland from time to time, this, what he has with erik, his new friends, even peter and wanda, this is more real than anything he's ever had before. He feels like a person. Maybe he is. All he knows is he wants to stay.

But, of course, eventually mattel realizes one of their dolls is on the loose in the real world again -- and this issue must be rectified as soon as possible, because, wow, look at what happened last time (they had to continue producing ken's mojo dojo casa houses because people wanted them so bad, even after the ken takeover was over). They notify the heads of their departments: keep a look out for british ken (probably not a thing but you know what we're making it a thing), brunette, blue eyes, on the shorter side, wearing cardigans, reading books.

Erik lehnsherr, head of the art department, gets... a little concerned.

Hadn't he been thinking that Charles was just like that ken?

Hadn't charles shown up right after he'd seen the doll for the first time in years, dug out of the back of wanda's closet (ha, he came out of the closet) to be donated?

Didn't he fit that exact description?

Well, how do you ask your boyfriend if he's a barbie doll?

And what do you do when he gets all quiet, and asks how you figured it out?

Mattel intervenes, obviously. Shit gets tense for a little while, but in the end... They realize it hasn't made an impact. Nobody back in barbie world is worried too much about one missing, discontinued ken. Not enough for it to effect either world.

Maybe it makes Charles a little sad, that his old friends seem to have forgotten about him. But what matters more is he gets to stay with the man he loves, the man who somehow still loves him back, the two messy, sometimes awful, amazing teenagers that he's come to love as though they're his own, and all the friends he's made.

They have a big-ass, glamorous wedding, curtesy of weird barbie's self-refilling credit card (yeah, they're pretty much infinitely rich now. they decide not to ruin the economy and just use it when they need it and make large donations to charities as much as they can.)

And that is what I thought of the entire time I watched barbie tonight.

[ratwithhands]

Since I finished the manga a few days back, I wanted to revisit my two demon slayer OCs I made last year. Here's Yoshi and Syougo ^^

Syougo and Yoshiaki are childhood friends who both ended joining the Demon Slayer corps after being separated earlier in life. Yoshi spent his years training under his retired slayer father before passing the final examination, while Syougo ended up having to figure his own methods out after his first teacher made it so he couldn't use a true breathing technique again.

As an overview of the techniques they use:

Field Breathing is a technique Yoshi's father came up with over his career in the corps. When he retired, he continued to polish the forms and taught them to Yoshi. Both the name and the forms it utilizes are based on the flora around the rice fields he was raised and later retired to. The technique emphasizes speed, flexibility, and applying pressure to the opponent as much as possible. It's fluidity and aggressiveness leads Yoshi to be quick in handling threats since he pushes opponents around

Spirit Breathing (or if you're using archaic kanji, Vengeful Spirit Breathing) is a breathing technique Syougo made as a way to regulate his body and state of mind after losing the lung capacity to use Total Concentration or other methods. It's based around his base breathing rate so he doesn't overexert himself, which means to an extent he is always using it. In combat it's intended to psych out opponents and help highlight their weak points. Since it's mostly a distraction/intimidation technique, Syougo uses a secondary weapon to get the jump on opponents when they're not focused.

For some bonus design notes, here's some details for how they dress:

Yoshiaki's samue is based on what he'd wear when working at the rice fields with his family. The light green colour comes from being dyed with wisteria leaves, a precaution his mother took hoping it would protect him

Having nostalgia from weaving baskets with his mom when he was younger, Yoshi tends to use dry reeds for securing things. He ties his hair with it, decorates his equipment with it, and though his legs aren't visible, he ties reeds in a crossed pattern over his kyahan

The brown cotton sageo and tsuba he uses are handed down from his father. The scar on his cheek is also there for the same reason, his father had one and Yoshi decided to cut his cheek to look cool and match 💀

Syougo's haori has kogin-zashi embroidery across the sleeves and shoulders. He sewed it himself in between his training as a way to decompress and slow down. His kyahan have a matching stripe across the front

Syougo's tsuba was gifted to him by his current mentor who thought he would enjoy the oblique patterning to match his outerwear. His current mentor also requested a nichirin style tanto for him to use for his secondary fighting technique

The ragged look of Syougo's hair comes from him prioritizing training over all else, even appearance. The only instance where he will fully comb and dress his hair is for important meetings and ceremonies. He does maintain the part of his hair though, modelled after his mentor's (much shorter) hair. This is one doodle with clean hair

I'd write more about their character but this is getting long as it is 💀

I have a piece with Syougo that I'm going to put up soon, and at my sister's request I'll try doing a matching one for Yoshi

Hope you guys like these fellas ^^ I'll see you later

[shelbgrey]

Next to me(Emmett Cullen)

Chapter 17: prom dresses and hoes

A/n: I'm back baby!

Table of contents

The sun shined brighter than ever today. It was kinda comforting to see brightness the town barely got. I smiled as I felt the heat on my face as I opened my currents and opened my window wider.

As I got dressed and ready for school my phone dinged. A smile apered on my face as Emmett's name popped up.

Emmett: good morning Babe, I won't be at school today because of how sunny it is. I'll see you later tonight though. Love you.

I smiled and quickly replied. I went to get my laptop from Bella's room when my phone went off again. I looked and to was Rosalie this time.

Rose: hay, you want to go prom dress shopping with us tonight?

I responded a simple sure with a smiley face then jogged down the stairs for school. Before heading out the door I went down to basement where Owen's room was. I knocked on the door but no response. Bella came down and looked in my direction.

“I think Charlie took him to school” she said softly. I nodded slinging my backpack over my shoulder.

“okay, see ya at school” I called out as walked out into the sun.

~~~~~~~~(.......)~~~~~~~~

Since the weather remained perfect throughout the day everyone was outside for lunch. I sat at a picnic bench with Tyler, Eric, and Bella's friends.

Me, Bella, and the boys were playing Uno. When it was her turn she didn't go due to the fact she was too distracted looking for Edward.

“they're not here today Bella” I said not looking up from my cards. “and it's your turn”

“where are they?” Bella asked putting down a card that made Tyler draw four cards. “nunya” I mumbled.

“Emmet and them ditch?” she asked ignoring what I said just a minute ago.

“when ever the weather is nice Dr and Mrs. Cullen pull them out of school for hiking and camping” Jessica said.

“I tired that on my parents, not even close” Jessica said as I put a plus four card down making Tyler draw.

“guys! I'm going to prom with Eric!” Angela said coming up behind me and giving me a hug.

“that's great!” I said as she sat down next to me. “yeah, I just asked him and took control”

“we told you he'd say yes” I said giving her a side hug. Angel then gave me a sad look. “are you sure you have to go out of town?”

Oh right, Rosalie told Mike I was going to Alaska. I didn't even think about that white lie getting to our other friends. I shook my head smiling. “no me and Emmett are going... I just didn't want to go with Mike so Rose told him we were going to Alaska”

Jessica gave me a dirty look as me and Angela continued our conversation.

“well I don't blame you there” she chuckled. “but I'm glad you and Emmett are going, you guys make a cute couple”

With jealousy in her eyes Jessica chimed into the conversation. “Angela, we should go shopping in Port Angeles before all the good dresses are cleaned out”

Angela nodded then turned to me. “yeah, y/n you want to come with us?”

Jessica rolled her eyes, ignoring her I gave Angel a soft smile. “I'm actually going with Alice and Rosalie tonight, but hey, maybe we'll run into each other”

Angela nodded agreeing. The bell rung and Tyler slapped down his last card. “UNO! suck on that!” he threw the deck of cards at Bella as everyone started to go back in side for our next class.

~~~~~~~~(.......)~~~~~~~~

The girls sorted through different dresses and threw them in different piles. As Rose and Alice went through them like a couple of tornados with lipstick, y/n looked at the more casual ones with darker colors. Alice saw this and her fashion police persona was about to kick in but Rosalie stopped her.

After awhile Rose and Alice both found dresses, but y/n on the other hand was freaking out in the dressing room. As the two vampire girls sat on the uncomfortable couch they watched different dresses of colors and styles.

“I don't look good in any of these!”

Rosalie rolled her eyes playfully and dropped her hand on her thigh. “well, it would be nice to see one of them Sweetheart”

Y/n huffed and came out in a short blue dress. Alice and Rosalie's eyes lit up with happiness. To the two vampires it was like a memory they always wanted with a sister. The two had a moment and had the realization of how comfortable they really are with each other.

Rosalie, still in her white one, spung her around checking out how the dress compliment her figure. There laughter came to hult when a group of guys knocked on the window and cat called them.

“gross” Alice mumbled.

“bunch of creeps” Rosalie growled not realizing she was blocking y/n from the prying eyes of those men.

“come on let's pay for all this” Alice said happily.

--------( the boys pov )--------

The same group of guys giggle with laughter, they were obviously drunk. “hey, did you see that blonde! She was smoking” the drunk cackled and blindly bumped into Damon and Jasper.

“what the fuck man?” Damon said throughing his hands out.

As the boys got out of the way, rage filled Jasper and Edward. Edward could hear every vile thought the those guys had about his best friend and sisters.Jasper could feel the lust and he almost did the unthinkable when he found out on of them was lusting for Alice.

“let's go find the girls” Edward said. Emmett gave him a confused look as he slung his TUX bag over his shoulder. “What wrong?”

Unless they wanted a blood bath Edward nor Jasper told Emmett about the vile guys thst pushed past them. Emmett asked again and Edward shook his head.

“I'm board, let's find the girls... There's movies and must story y/n wanted to go to” Edward lied.

The boys walked in and met up with there mates. Emmett smiled as he walked up to Rosalie and Y/n as they waited to pay for their dresses. “hey Beautiful”

She smiled as Emmett kissed her forehead. “let me see the tux” she said turning towrds him. Emmett held the hanger and unzipped the dust cover showing a black and blue tux.

“looks awesome, and we match” y/n grinned as she held the dress up to her body.

As they were having their moment, Jasper and Alice kept their conversation dark and hushed. “did a group of drunk guys come into the store?”

Alice shook her head no. “they banged on the window and cat called... That's it” Jasper nodded feel a bit better about the situation. It still angered him that thoses guys would even look at Alice that way, but he was just happy she was untouched.

As they left the dress store they mistakenly split up again. Rosalie and Y/n left for the movie/music shop while Alice and Jasper went to a shoe store. Edward went God knows where while Damon and Emmett left to get a car part at an auto part store for the jeep.

It was about night time when Rose and y/n left to met up with the rest of the family. It was dark and uneasy and both girls could feel it. Rosalie linked her arm with y/n so they stayed close together.

“stay close” Rose said as she noticed the same guys walking close to them.

“Hey, saw you girls in the dress store” one guy chuckled. Roses blocked their veiw of y/n as old memories came flooding back to rose. Royce kings voice rang in her head fearing that she'd have to kill again just to make sure the same thing that happened to her didn't happen to y/n.

“pretty thing” one said as he touched y/n hair. Roses immediately pushed him off of her. “don't touch her”

“Iike the blonde... She's got fire in her” another one said. Y/n then swung her fist making the guy fall to the ground. As he did tires screached in the distance and Emmett's jeep came flying in.

“get in the jeep” Emmett said as Damon came flying out of his brother's car. He sped over to the guy that touched Rosalie.

“Damon don't!” Rose said, but it was too late. Damon sunk his teeth in the guy killing him instantly. He didn't drink the blood like the family feared just left the body and pulled Rosalie towrds the jeep like Emmett did y/n.

“drive!” Damon shouted as he got in the passenger seat. Y/n started to shake in the back as Emmett's engine roared and speed through the slik streets.

“we should go back there and finish the job” Emmett grited as he pushed his foot harder on the Gas. Rosalie rubbed y/n's shoulder as she started to shake.

“no you shouldn't” Rosalie said.

Damon just as pissed punched the glove box. “shit! Don't tell Carlisle I killed a guy”

Emmett rolled his eyes. “that's the least of our problems right now” he speed up making the car feel like it was flying. It made y/n heart pound as Emmett made sharp turns that made by standers honk.

“Emmett please slow down” y/n mumbled. He didn't let up, his anger was making it hard to think straight. Damon looked behind him to the backseat seeing y/n having a panic attack.

“dude slow down” Damon said a bit more calm.

“shut up!” Emmett said.

“EMMETT STOP THE FUCKING CAR!” Rosalie shouted making the jeep go to a sudden holt. The sudden movement made Damon lung forward and hit his head on the dash.

“fuck” Damon said.

Emmett wripped his door open and speed to y/n. “I'm so sorry baby... I-I wasn't trying to scare you” he said pulling her into a massive bear hug. She held on tight as the other cars came up to them.

“is everything okay?!” Alice said coming over. Jasper walked over to y/n and she immediately started to calm down.

“guys let's go home” Rosalie said. “Esme already talked to your uncle, your staying the night”

“your driving” Emmett said tossing the keys to Rose so he could ride in the back with his girlfriend. The drive home was silent expect for the occasional joke from Damon. They were trying really hard to turn the night and and not give those guys the satisfaction of ruining the party.

[ginnymoonbeam]

Ginny's weekly watches rundown

I won't make any promise of doing this on a schedule, but from time to time I want to run down everything I'm currently watching, in rough order of how invested I am.

Current Favorites

Cherry Magic (Thai) Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka (Although I Love You and You) Cooking Crush

Bundling these three together because I'm loving a lot of the same things: grownups! Direct communication! Being nice to the person you like and showing that you care about them! Cherry Magic delivered the most romantic sequence in the world to me this week with Karan observing and quietly meeting a bunch of Achi's trivial daily needs, and then Achi realizing this and immediately rushing to undo the hurt he'd carelessly caused. Cooking Crush is also doing a wonderful job of queuing up a bunch of potential problems and then having the lovers resolve them with honesty rather than letting them escalate. And SukiDoya looks to be setting up a beautiful slow burn between two men who have drastically different communication styles, but are drawn together and appreciate each other.

Dead Friend Forever

On the other end of the spectrum, we have the slasher drama with a bunch of students trapped in the woods watching their pasts catch up with them. So far this is delivering exactly what it promised: a solidly-executed suspense thriller with a hefty dose of gay drama. I'm enjoying it immensely.

I Love You, But...

The Sign

Look. It's a mess. As soon as I saw the second trailer and realized we were doing big mythology as well as crime drama I knew this show was biting off more than it could chew, and I knew I'd be seated for the duration. Billy and Babe are doing a fantastic job anchoring this wild hodgepodge of a drama, and I'm having a great time with it.

Last Twilight

This one was in the top bracket for me up until last week. As I've said before, my feelings about it are really going to hinge on how they move forward from the big episode-11 fight and breakup. We shall see.

Intern in my Heart

Not a BL, but with what looks to be a developing BL side plot. I'm enjoying this one, but three episodes in I'm not deeply invested enough to put it into the top bracket. Favorites are the female lead, played by Cris who I loved in Mama Gogo, and the gay bestie, played by Toptap. Hi Toptap! Missed you!

Doing Just Enough

First let me say that I will cheerfully drop shows that I'm really not feeling, so even this bottom bracket is all shows that I like. I just don't look forward to them in the same way I do the above shows, and they might be a few wrong moves away from getting dropped.

7 Days Before Valentine

Episode 9 was my favorite one since the beginning... I liked getting more hints of Q's backstory, and I thought the final rooftop scene was a good culmination of what the show's been building toward. It's been draggy at times, but I am interested to see where we'll go from here.

Playboyy

I'm a sexuality educator and sex nerd, so a show like this is going to have my eyes no matter how messy and chaotic it gets. I've been watching it mostly with that lens: none of the stories or characters are particularly compelling to me, but I'm enjoying seeing what it wants to say about sex each week.

Sahara Sensei to Toki-kun (Mr Sahara & Toki-kun)

I'm kinda sticking this one out for morbid curiosity, and because Toki is perfect and deserves the best. Sahara is a character I could really love in a different drama, but the romance here isn't working for me. I'm not even opposed to a (fictional!) teacher-student romance, and if this show was setting up their relationship as problematic but compelling I might be here for it. Instead it seems to be stalwartly ignoring that there might be anything weird or inappropriate, and it's both jarring and dull.

[linabirb]

Go ahead, Lina, talk about why you like Rollo. I need a reminder on why he's the best ever :DD

SORRY FOR A LATE REPLY AURORA I GOT HOME A FEW HOURS AGO AND NEEDED TO REST and the power went out while i was typing this. why is this world so rollophobic

warning for lots of rambling under the cut!

first of all, his design.

"haha funny boy with a bowl cut and a huge hat" virgin vs "literally the most fun design to draw" chad. yes i'm the second one.

of course his design is heavily inspired by his counterpart but i just love it a lot! i really like the colors (some of them lowkey remind me of a bi flag JDKDLSLSL) of his outfit and i like how the color of his hair and his eye color look with them!

i actually disagree with people who say that he'd look better with longer hair or a more detailed/"unique" hairstyle bc i think in that case his design would feel very overwhelming? meanwhile here it looks much more balanced! when i draw him, it feels really nice bc i don't have to do much when it comes to his hair, i can just focus on the outfit! (though i had to get used to drawing his hairstyle, bc my art style is just. floofy hair.. soft hair..)

speaking of his hair..

I'M STILL NOT OVER HIM HAVING MORE MESSY-LOOKING HAIR AND EVEN HAVING AN AHOGE. I'M STILL INSANE ABOUT IT THIS IS SO CUTE. i've talked about it with my other friends and i hc that his hair is like that simply bc he wears a hat most of the time and.. yeah, your hair can become like that after you wear a hat. and like, maybe his hair has no choice but to look like that no matter how much he tries to take care of it and make it look better, so he also tries to hide it with his hat HDJKDKSLD.

also, i find it so funny how on some images it looks like he has really bad dark circles, meanwhile on other images you can clearly see that he wears makeup, so here's my rollo headcanon number 420 (i have so many of them. so many. literally about any topic. i am going insane): rollo tries to hide his dark circles with makeup, but fails miserably and he's really bad at it and nobody has a heart to tell him that he's actually not really doing a good job.

HIS CHIBI VERSION IS SO. SQUISHING AND BITING HIM. WHAT'S THAT EVIL SMILE FOR. YOU SILLY GOOFY MAN

now, his personality.

HE'S SO. SIFGHDHJFBDFBHDJNDVFDNM!!!!!! i love how rollo isn't just a "cold and emotionless anime guy". HE HAS EMOTIONS!! HE HAS SO MANY OF THEM!!! LITERALLY THE WHOLE MASQUERADE EVENT CAN BE A METAPHOR FOR EXPRESSING ALL THE FEELINGS YOU HAD REPRESSED FOR SO MANY YEARS AND ENDING UP DOING SO IN A WAY THAT'S HARMFUL FOR OTHERS (and probably you).

okay, i've said it before in my other post (the ask game one) but the fact that he's literally one of the few characters (if not the only one) who actually says that yuu must feel weird being the only magicless student and that it can be very scary and tiring. man. and like, when everyone has to split up into groups, rollo is the only one who asks what yuu will be doing. i could try my best to not go "this man is in love with them" at least for a second, but no, this man is in love with them. "oh it's only because they're magicless" shut up. so what if it IS because they're magicless. what if yuu is so pure to him, nobody can touch them. what if he wants to protect them from magic users. rolloyuu can either be the cutest and softest ship ever or they can be the most toxic ship BUT IN A GOOD WAY. IN A WAY THAT MAKES YOU GO "waittttt 👀👀👀 that's kinda. that's kinda. hold on a minute" LIKE YOU KNOW WHAT I'M SAYINGGGGGG. all variations of rolloyuu are good. all of them. his ghost room voicelines are also so. it's like, even if he's studying at nrc currently, you can clearly see that he still has favoritism for yuu. it really feels like he sees them as the only "good" student here. it feels like he's a little bit more.. um.. maybe he's more of a tsundere now, since now he knows that yuu likes magic? such as him being surprised when yuu shows him that they want to be friends with him and thinking that it's all just some kind of evil scheme and then being shocked that they're just genuinely nice and saying that it just makes everything even worse. OTOME GAME LOVE INTEREST BEHAVIOR. and him also kinda scolding them for "asking for a present" from him but then saying that birthdays really are important and that he hopes he won't disappoint them with his present. man. m a n. AND HIS OTHER VOICELINES STILL MENTION HIM FEELING SORRY FOR MC AND SAYING THAT THEY CAN ALWAYS RELY ON HIM AND ANYWAY ROLLOYUU ARE MARRIED-

but i should go back to the topic of his personality! you know what makes me insane. it's that rollo, no matter how hard he tries to look like this serious and organized person who has everything under control is canonically a dork in the most affectionate way. HIS FLYING LESSONS VOICELINES ARE SO FUNNY. the fact that he goes "WHY WON'T THIS THING LISTEN TO MEEEEE" when it's not working out, but when everything is fine, he immediately goes "oh, it's quite simple actually"?? i'm going to kiss you on the mouth, you idiot SJKDKDLSLS. he's also canonically a horse girl, which makes sense bc of his counterpart, but also HORSE GIRL ROLLO REAL. i need his lab coat sr. or at least let him take alchemy classes with his current card i want to know what he'll say.

his battle voicelines are so cool, i'm literally obsessed with them. HE LITERALLY SAYS THAT HE HAS UNFINISHED BUSINESS TO TAKE CARE OF AFTER BEATING UP SOME GUYS. HOW COOL IS THAT. some of his voicelines totally didn't make me giggle and kick my feet. totally. don't look at me. me reading "good, how obedient" and "it seems you still desire punishment" and choking on my tea

also i love how his vignette exceeded my expectations and didn't just make me go "i love him <3", it made me go "i need to take care of him, i need to give him a blanket, i need to force him to go to sleep when he needs it, i need to kiss his stupid face, i need to tell him that he's enough-". like what do you mean he eats the exact same things (and not just food, but also the exact amount of it) for lunch and i'm pretty sure he does the same with breakfast and dinner. what do you mean he wakes up BEFORE SUNLIGHT to clean the bell and the gargoyles. what do you mean he likes the bell of salvation (yes, i'm sticking to fan translations) because "it rings when it's supposed to", meaning that he likes predictable things and things that he "already knows" (i think you can say that it's also implied in one of his voicelines where he can't understand why mc is "acting so familiar with him". they're being unpredictable. it's too hard for him to understand them.) what do you mean even when he knows that it will be easier/more convenient for him to do something different, he still does it the same way that he always does. i need him to go to therapy, this man has at least one mental illness and i'm like 100% sure that he's neurodivergent. (i've said it so many times on discord but he's ocd-coded. i say that as someone who has ocd. that's it. i do so many of the things that he does, it actually was a little uncomfortable (but also validating) to read his vignette, i was like "?? DUDE?? PLEASE?? PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW UNHEALTHY IT IS?? wait i don't have a right to say that". the bit where he says that he eats the exact same foods to "avoid unnecessary desires" especially reminded me of my own behavior, because my brain often makes me stop taking care of my needs because "otherwise the Bad Stuff will happen". but i won't go into detail)

also i like how he's loved by literally all nbc students?? say whatever you want, call him manipulative and all that, but it takes hard work to make people like you and admire you and rollo is definitely hardworking.

now, his role in the story. sure, him and idia have very similar backstories, but rollo's past resonates with me much more, because i really wish we had more characters that express their grief and other negative emotions as anger. of course, some people cry, some people isolate themselves, some people become afraid of everything, but in those cases those characters are usually portrayed as sympathetic, meanwhile those who want to punch people, want to fight back, want to scream and yell at everyone, often get portrayed as unsympathetic, scary or even abusive and toxic or just evil. which is.. not good. not good at all. anger is a valid and understandable emotion and it's actually good to be angry about things. i actually was shocked when my therapist told me that i SHOULD "bite and scratch people more" (as i've said it myself) right after i was describing to her how easy it is for me to get angry we also found out that it's actually one of my alters' doing and i was like "i sound like some kind of monster don't i". so it's really nice and actually kinda healing to see him just steal everyone's magic, set the town on fire (with flowers, but whatever) and still hate magic and not really getting a redemption arc. it's okay, he'll get there someday. him immediately starting to sob the moment he remembered what happened to his brother also broke me.

however, there is one tinyyyy problem with his backstory, though that's just me, probably. you see, idia blaming himself for what happened to ortho was more.. i wouldn't say understandable, but it makes sense story-wise. he really was involved in it, even if it really wasn't his fault and he was only a child, i can still see why he'd blame himself. but in rollo's case, him secretly blaming himself.. doesn't really make sense to me? i mean, his brother just wanted to show him his magic, sure, rollo could blame himself for just standing and not being able to help him, but.. i don't know, it just feels a little bit weaker to me. so when the story goes "hey, look at him, he's blaming the magic users for not saving his brother, when he actually thinks it's his fault"! i'm like ". okay. what do you want me to do. do you want me to give him a hug and tell him that it really wasn't his fault." like, according to him, other mages really couldn't help and they ignored him, so what do you want me to do?? do you want me to point at him and go "HAHA SO IT REALLY IS YOUR FAULT"?? i'm not gonna do that!!

also, the thing is that rollo isn't selfish at all. i don't think he thinks that highly of himself. i actually bet that his self-esteem is horrible. when idia tells rollo that rollo wasn't trying to save other people, but he actually wanted to save himself, rollo is genuinely confused and can't believe it and idia himself says that it looks like rollo really did think that he was doing it for others. and even if he secretly wanted to do it for himself, i don't think him saying that he wants to save others and end their suffering is selfish. and he also says that he'd love to lose his magic too and he doesn't like using his magic.

his parents also being worried about him and making sure he's fine in the vignette also breaks my heart.

soooo yeah! that's all i can think of right now, but of course, there's most likely much more, my brain is just a little tired, haha.

maybe none of this makes sense and i'm just biased and i'm projecting, but who cares. at least i'm having fun.

if you've read all of this, thank you and congrats! have a pic of my croissant plushie (+ a bnuuy!!) :)

[cigarettesandinevitablebetrayal]

4, 5, and 17 for end of the year fic ask?

4) A fic you wrote this year that was most fun to write?

Probably Ricardo's chapter of Stand Tall to the Beast. I'd been wanting to rewrite the villain debut for Rashad for a while just because I see it happening so differently from how Ryden wrote it and being able to play around in the empty space of a villain named Heartbreak was a lot of fun.

I used to be really bad at writing action, so this chapter in particular was a fun challenge, especially given all Rashad's restrictions (can't rely on telepathy or their old style of fighting due to their HBI injuries). It took me ages, but I had fun the whole time.

5) Weirdest fic you wrote this year?

Probably Unorthodox Strategy for OC Kiss Week. I was running a bit low on ideas and was rifling through my Sidesteps and my friends' Sidesteps and trying to match up a pair that seemed like they'd fit when I decided on @nebuluxx's Damian. Damian and Miro are just a fun pairing given that they're a gay man and a butch lesbian, but they're both kind of dirty fighters so the sparring scene just came together nicely.

17) Two favourite lines/paragraphs/scenes from this year's fics?

The camera flashes have stopped. Figures. It's no longer looking good for him, and nobody actually likes having the footage of a Ranger's murder. He failed. Again. Failed Anathema, failed Herald, and now he'd be failing Rashad again. Ricardo drags in a ragged breath, electrical currents building up in his emitters, and he screams out into the dark as he lets the electricity loose. It explodes out around him in cascades of light. A useless rage against the inevitable. As the streaks of lightning subside, Heartbreak's helmet creeps back into his sight. He stares up at them, snarling through the pain, "You'd better do your worst, pendejo, because I'm never going to stop hunting you down." But Heartbreak doesn't move, like Ricardo expects. They stare down at him with their impassive mask, unreadable to him. "Did you hear me?" He yells again. Let them get angry. What's the worst they could do? He doesn't care anymore. "Finish the job!"

From Beast. I actually wasn't planning this interaction at all. This wasn't the intended ending of the chapter. Ricardo was originally going to just accept the defeat, but it wasn't sitting right with me. I'm not sure where this interaction came from. I just sort of let the character speak through the writing and came out with a significantly more impactful and in character response, in my opinion.

And two paragraphs from Riches and Wonders:

It’s funny how many little things Mortum hadn’t noticed he was missing until Mariana waltzed into his life, filling his lab with sound and light and color that had, unbeknownst to him, long since seeped out between the cracks in the concrete floors. The silence had made it easy to keep focused and now he finds it grates on his nerves, feeling like so much dead air without Mariana’s conversation or soft humming. The endless monochrome of greys feel drab without the pop of Mariana’s merlot dress or cobalt pantsuit. Could he ever really go back to just the smell of detergent after having the lingering scent of her perfume on his lab coat?

I really loved this paragraph (and the original, which was a touch longer before editing down) and how it highlights the differences Marianna has brought to Mortum's life. I like the symbolism used here a lot and the imagery it evokes.

Mariana snorts at that, a most undignified sound from her, but it makes him smile. It’s been a joy to watch her facade drop bit by bit as the time passes. He finds himself doing the same with his own mask, hanging it up beside hers like a coat by the door.

Another really nice indication of the affect Mortum and Marianna have on each other. It also ended up giving my the inspiration for Mateo and Mortum's ship name.

Find More Year End Fic Questions Here!

[nknoxe-n]

Heya I've seen that your match ups were open and I'd like to give it a try^^ Romantic matchup please :3

My name is Beatrice but close friends call me Bea, She/her Mbti- infj, zodiac- Capricorn, love language- gift giving and quality time

I really like painting, drawing, trinket collecting, sculpting with clay or wood, I sometimes make plushies (if I have enough materials) and psychology/neurology

In my free time I really like to paint on a canvases while I listen to hour long video essays of different topics such as psychology or listen to audio books of classic literature or play video games if I'm in the mood.

Currently I'm listening to The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai while I paint, and I really like the writing style and story so far. And as far as games go I'm really into hollow knight (like literally obsessed), reverse 1999 and cookie run games, plus I really enjoy playing hardcore Minecraft.

I don't dislike many things but I'm not a fan of crowded and loud places, cold weather and overly judgemental people that are very narrow minded

Appearance wise I'm shorter than average, have short wavy brown hair , brown eyes, got a couple freckles on my face and my body is slim and a bit muscular

Personality wise I'm really introverted preferring to stay indoors with a couple friends rather than going outside, plus I tend to be timid and closed off when approached but after a while I warm up and become really friendly and tend to yap about my interests 24/7 to my poor friends

As for partners, I don't look out for any physical attributes, but I mostly look out for people I genuinely enjoy spending my time with and I really feel attracted to people that share the same passions as me (thus we can yap about them for hours on end)

And these are my fave songs: Dark on me (by starset), alkaline, hypnosis (by sleep token) and poison tree (by grouper)

I apologise for my long yapping session anyways I hope you'll have a wonderful day or night! Love your fics btw!!!

Your Blue Lock Matchup: Nagi Seishiro

Nagi’s laid-back, introverted personality aligns well with you being calm, reserved. He is someone who can appreciate quiet, meaningful moments, which would make your preference for staying indoors and spending time with a few close friends feel comfortable and natural. Nagi’s the type of person who doesn’t crave the spotlight or loud environments, making him an excellent match. Since you do play games he will be taking full advantage of that, he'll almost beg you to play anything with him, he mostly plays mobile games, but that is probably because he has no friends (besides Reo)

He isn't the biggest talker, I mean he's not a yapper at all, but he does listen to you pretty often, he'd rather just sit there and listen to you rant about every detail of your day then have to do a back and forth. Nagi may not be the most intellectually stimulating, but he's a piece of work in himself, pick his brain every so often, it might be fun.

While Nagi is not in tune with his feelings at all, sure he understands what he feels kinda, but he finds a hard time putting labels on things or understanding why he will feel a certain way about something. He does know a few things for certain though, he is in love with you, Nagi isn't really sure how, but he knows you don't make like a hassle and your presence isn't boring, he wants to keep talking to you and spend time with you.

Nagi’s ability to be in his own world is a perfect fit for your introverted tendencies. You’ll appreciate that Nagi is content with being by himself or just hanging out with a small group of people, which matches your preference for keeping things quiet and intimate. You can see eye-to-eye on the value of spending time on individual interests.

Nagi’s quiet, laid-back nature complements your gentle, friendly energy. Like you, Nagi may appear closed off initially but warms up once he feels comfortable, he's more willing to put effort into things because he wants to see you happy even if he isn't entirely sure why. He may not be quick to open up, but as your relationship develops, his trust in you would lead to him sharing more about his world. You both value depth and quality over quantity, and your patience and warmth would allow Nagi to slowly open up to you, making him an ideal partner for someone who values closeness and genuine connection over superficial traits.

In terms of your shared moments, Nagi would cherish your time together. He would join you in quiet companionship, showing his affection in subtle, thoughtful ways. He doesn’t need grand gestures—just the act of sharing quiet time together would speak volumes to him. His love for peaceful activities would blend perfectly with your own need for calm, and his natural charm would provide you with the kind of easy-going, unhurried connection that you thrive in.

Nagi would appreciate the little gestures that show you care, like creating a handmade plushie or planning a quiet day to play games or paint together. Nagi’s naturally calm and easy-going demeanour would put you at ease, creating a safe space for both of you to truly be yourselves.

[invinciblerodent]

Hhhnnnnngghhhh thinking about Ver's past

For the longest time, I was undecided on whether I want her "ex" of sorts, Adris (who was, long story short, first freed from indentured servitude by the Shadows, then joined them, and years later took the fall for a job gone wrong and was saved from execution only by a Grey Warden recruiter scouting in the prisons) to have survived the Joining.

Whether he was alive all those years at all, I always meant to be sort of a point of purposeful ambiguity, something for Ver to occasionally think about and gnaw on herself over, both a reason for her to be slightly wary of growing to care for someone (and of Wardens in general), and a reason for feelings of both guilt and inadequacy to cling to her shadow everywhere she went.

But now that I know what happens in-game, and how Warden-heavy the story actually is (including the Warden love interest working so damn well for her), I think I definitely want him to have survived, and I kinda want him to show up in passing, too. In Lavendel, as a Weisshaupt survivor. (Adris Lastname, the utter cockroach of a man that you are.)

Though they were roughly the same age, I think he and Ver always had this caretaker/charge type of underlying dynamic to them, with him depending largely on her for most of their time together: at first he was a duty, then a reluctant roommate, then her best friend, then sort of a lover, slash, messy queerplatonic something (port in a storm? partner in relieving stress? some kind of chew toy???), before all that went down, and he became more or less a stain on her conscience. (He was a painful memory far longer than he had been anything else, kinda.)

I really quite like the idea that the way she'd remember him would be as a scared, skinny, pale kid with little to his name besides a boatload of resilience, but now... they're a good eight years older than the last time they saw each other. (Which was ugly, and happened with him walking away from practically under the gallows, and her yelling, demanding to be recruited as well, only to be denied.)

Now, he has a couple new scars (maybe one matching the one on Ver's nose? that'd be cute, she's had that since before she even knew him), some fat on his ribs and muscle on his frame, some of that Grey Warden swagger, people looking to him for guidance and calling him Lieutenant, and he's... oddly happy, which really spins her wheels out.

And I was thinking, that meeting Adris (and realizing that he and Ver have that history, because I think they might know of each other at least) would then give Davrin reason to sort of decide to himself that, well, this must just be her style, right? Not the "going for elf Grey Wardens" thing, that's a coincidence, but that all their flirting, the talk about hunting and being hunted in turn, the almost-kiss, it doesn't mean that she' doesn't really do much in a way that's'd be serious, not really. It could give him a (bad) reason to think that by "I could see us heading somewhere, sure 😏", she moreso meant a loose, casual attachment, which he's like, totally fine with, as a Warden. (No, really. It's perfectly fine. Ideal, even, considering his rapidly approaching expiration date, and the way he'd been thinking about it all.)

(Nah, he absolutely doesn't catch himself searching for- and catching her gaze more often than it'd be necessary, or holding it a second too long. Or following her with his eyes, or fighting just that bit harder whenever she's looking. It's, like, fine. It's cool. They're so cool. Positively frosty. Never mind the deep understanding bordering on mind-reading, or the almost animal awareness crackling between them whenever they're in the same room.)

(Meanwhile, that same meeting will distract her with such intense relief that she fucking forgets to explain her past situationship to her current one that she actually wants to be her boyfriend, and it's just!!!! Agh.)

I just. Head in my hands, the simultaneously excellent, and absolute shit communication. The being fucking stupid about each other. Openness disguising an underlying ambiguity. Reluctance to make the first serious step. Weirdness. The "well yes, we sleep together semi-regularly, and that Moment in the Forest I GUESS could mean that we're, like, together, but I'd rather bite my tongue off than ask a followup question because if I misunderstood, I'm throwing myself into the raw Fade".

Ffffnnnnnnnngghhhh I'll need to replay Ver sooner than I thought I would, because the recordings alone do NOT give me Sufficient Context to careen off the edge about them properly. (I definitely need to add at least one big conversation between the starting of a relationship and the endgame confession-- maybe extending the little forest date one, or just tacking a followup onto it for later that night??? Ggggghhhhhhhhh.)

[iheartchv]

Hey I was hoping I could get a cod matchup? Sorry in advance for the yapping

Umm as for appearance I am 5’4” in my early twenties. I have layered curly brown hair that comes to just above my shoulder, blue eyes, freckles pale as hell, a few scars here and there that I’m kinda proud of (from various causes) I don’t really have a specific style it can range from a tank top and sweats to t-shirt and jeans or something completely wild, color coded decked out in jewelry, skirts, layers the whole bit. Relatively active build, used to be a gymnast until an injury now I just workout twice a week w a friend. Interests; I like movies top five rn probably Scream (1996), Spiderverse, 10 things I hate about you, the last unicorn, Dead poets society, +Star Wars cause I can’t leave it out. I like playing chess every now and then, I’d say I’m pretty good but I still have a ways to go. I’m also an artist, and I like music I can’t do anything music related I just like listening to it, all kinds. I like baking when I’m stressed, typically cookies during finals week at 2 am. My future prospects, or at least what they are currently, is just going to law school, after that I’m not really sure, I’ve thought ab going the military route, both of my parents served/are serving, so I’ve thought ab the possibility of being a military JAG or something in Intel, but I’m still feeling for it, I mostly like law cause I’m pretty good at it and I like knowing more than people. I’m Bi so my taste in Men/Women varies. As much as I’d like to say I don’t have a type, hot people are hot, there have been patterns in the past few fictional guys. Tbh my taste in men is shit, like I don’t have daddy issues, I have a great relationship with him, but my past fictional crushes say other wise. But basically, capability is HOT, if they’re good at something to the point of mastering it I’m entranced. Women are just pretty, there’s not much there. I’m relatively paranoid, even describing myself like this online is strange, I think it’s just growing up around military but I’m typically just cautious. That and trust issues. I’ve done some martial arts/self defense and I think sparring is really fun I just need someone to teach me. Also I am a huge simp (with shit taste as my friends say) I’m an ambiavert, so I like to be pretty adaptable depending on who I’m around. I’m also German/American but definitely more American than anything else, I ‘grew up’ in south Germany and we still have family there but since we moved here I’ve forgotten most of  the language. JFC in hindsight I am SO SORRY about all this I got carried away. I hope it didn’t come across as self absorbed 😭😅 thanks 

Sorry again 

🤔 I'll pair you with...

Captain John Price 🚬

Price might be the one to fall for you

If you ever decide/decided to join the military, him and Laswell will look through files and find you

He can't help but feel that you would bring something to the table

Recruiting you, along with many others, he'd be watching you

Through the tests, he'd be silently hoping you'd pass

When he asks to see you, you think you've done something wrong

Instead he just tells you that you've done a good job with all the training and tests he's put you through

"I admit, I thought you would call it quits anytime soon... but... you're determination surprised me."

"You've got guts, spirit. I like that"

He wants to take you under his wing and train you

He was right about you; there was something special there

Though he didn't know just how special you would be to him later on 🤭

After many months and near death experiences later, he'd come to realize he cares about you... a lot

💞

When off duty, he will take you somewhere to talk

Price doesn't play games, you know that

So... he tells you that he really likes you

All this time he'd spent getting to know you, he felt something he hadn't in a long time

One time, when he looked like he was about to fall asleep he was surprised that you showed so much concern for him; You wanted to do something, anything, for him

His hand gently held yours, showing how gentle he can be

"If you'll have me, love, I can make you happy... even if it takes my whole life to"

[radioactiveshitstorm]

For the OC thingy:

Vasya: Canvas, Road, Alternate

and (obligatory bc when I saw his profile my polish levels went skyrocketing lol xD):

Wabik: Stillness, Roots, Change

(ps. sorry for the prompt spam but I thought you would like some more when one per character lol)

OH FUCK YEAH do not apologise, i get to talk about my tall quiet son and my short rowdy son! :D

Vasya

canvas: Does your OC have any scars, piercings, tattoos, or other markings? Do they display or cover them up at all?

No tattoos or piercings, and he'd probably never get them on account of being terrified of needles/sharp pointy things being stuck in him, but he does have scars. Mental illness is a hell of a thing, y'know? He's also got a scar across his right palm where he tried to de-stone an avocado like he'd seen on the internet. It turns out the knife was, in fact, sharper than he realised, and he did not know the right amount of force to put behind it! Whoops! This one he doesn't care about people seeing, but the SH scars are more of a sensitive topic - he pretty much always wears long sleeves unless the weather absolutely demands it.

road: What does your OC wear while traveling? Do they have high-quality equipment, or are they making do? What does their gear look like?

This man is not travelling. On the rare occasion when he's taking like a flight or something, it's cheap and cheerful comfort all the way. Joggers and a hoodie, headphones, that's about it. I am at something of a loss for this one bc his ass does not Go Anywhere

alternate: What would your OC's alternate universe look be? If they're a fantasy character, what's their modern look? If they're sci-fi, what's their fantasy look? What AU would you want to see your OC in, and how would they dress themself?

Oh. Oh I have infinite AUs for this man. Fantasy AU? He's a funky little forest-dwelling druid with four dog familiars, who sells homemade potions (and soups) to friendly travellers who pass through. Sci-fi? I had a story written out once which was just an excuse to throw all my characters onto a space-station, Vasya works as the on-station gardener and spends 99% of his time with his hands in the dirt and figuring out how to grow fruit in space. Another classic is the lighthouse-keeper AU; his upbringing is the same but he flees home and becomes a lighthouse keeper, adapting to life alone on a desolate rock and enjoying it more than he should. On the fandom side of things... There's his various Fallout-AUs, where he's Courier Six with a med-x dependency, or sometimes a nervous wandering ghoul trader. His Destiny 2 AU, where I turned him into a spacemagic robot and went full oc x canon with one of the loudest characters in the game. And my current favourite AU, the one confined to a friend's server, where he lives & works as a maintenance guy on a military base, and manages to befriend literally everybody he meets almost instantly. He's the most-protected beanpole ever in that one :) And I will stop describing his AUs there or we'll be here all night!

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

Wabik (aka Ludwik)

stillness: How does your OC act while still? Are they fidgety? Do they have any common gestures or tics? Does their clothing affect how they hold themselves while at rest?

Wabik cannot fucking stay still for the life of him. Man's a ball of barely-contained ADHD, even if he's not actively moving around he's still tapping his fingers or clicking his tongue or doing the ol' leg-jiggle. His current go-to fidget is tapping the fingers on his left hand with his thumb, in like a sequence (since it's a prosthetic, it makes a more satisfying noise). Clothing only really affects that if he happens to be wearing bracelets that day, in which case those are getting fiddled with. (He used to fiddle with his wedding ring, until he lost his arm and got the ring engraved onto his prosthetic instead.)

roots: Is your OC's look inspired by any specific style of clothing or fashion trend? What are the roots and/or inspiration for their look?

PASTELS. ALL PASTELS. He's just a happy lil pastel guy, he took that style and ran with it! Pale pinks, lilacs, minty-green, baby blue, all that jazz - he loves it, loves to feel pretty. Doesn't restrict what he wears based on silly ideas of gender either; if he wants to rock a crop-top and a skirt, he's going to damn-well do it, and look damn cute in the process. No real inspiration for it, he just liked dressing like this pre-transition and didn't see any reason to change it up. Plus, this particular style goes great with his favourite heart-shaped sunglasses.

change: Has your OC ever drastically changed their appearance? Significant haircuts, big tattoos, complete wardrobe swap, etc? Why? How do they feel about the change?

Only once, and it was temporary, and for a not-particularly-pleasant reason. After the events of The Breaking of Ludwik Nowak, he desperately had to change something, partly out of a need to regain some control and bodily-autonomy, and partly because his usual style didn't feel safe any more. So he shelved all his cute pastel stuff, switching it for plain darker-coloured clothing, and shaved his hair off completely. Did he like it? No, he fucking hated it. Hated that it was a very visible and obvious tell that something was Not Right with him, felt almost ashamed of it. But he physically couldn't get through life any other way, at the time.

He's gone back to his usual look by this point, for the most part, although still has the occassional Bad Day where he'll pull out some less-vibrant clothes and tuck his hair under one of his husband's baseball caps. He's less ashamed of it now, too, although it's still not enjoyable.

[ctl-yuejie]

only friends ep 7

1/4

hmm...don't know how to feel about the hospital scene. felt like something was missing. no matter how drunk and drugged up rain was, sand seems a bit too chill for his own good.

wish we could have had cheurm and april waking up in bed being cute as a scene and then have mew knock at the door for emotional support.

top really isn't that clever isn't he? doesn't even consider nick as the perpetrator. however, that might fit with how little regard he has for nick as a competitor.

you know it is coming....but once again cheering for mark's acting here. neo and him really delivered this scene. interesting that boston seems to still want top...hmmm. probably the best thing for nick to be cut off by boston like this. might hurt but at least it's a clean cut.

2/4

hmmm...sand baby...really not sure whether he wasn't hurt by what ray said or if he has other things on his mind.

i actually really like how close ray and mew are and that we are getting heart-to-heart talks like this. the hand-holding was very cute.

i just love when boston raises his eyebrows like, yes, deal with me. maybe better than not meaning your apology, but i am cackling at how not sorry boston is. THE iconic scene from the trailer. perfect balance of someone could seriously drown and it looking very pathetic. particularly Boston's slap of the water in the end. love to see that cheurm (as expected) clearly is the leader of the gang.

when he yelled at nick, boston clearly knew he'd lose his friends but somehow still looked surprised when the whole group shunned him.

3/4

yes!!!! first and nick in a serious scene??? give me more. yes! you tell everyone nick, it's YOUR misguided call to make. (went into this series happy to see neo and mark in bigger roles, didn't expect to enjoy them this much). HOW is it so easy to baby Mark as Nick, he looks so sad and teary-eyed. Boston is a strong man to not hug a crying Nick despite himself. love the initial rejection of Sand hugging him quickly being won over by "please hug me, I am the most heartbroken person that has ever existed". i like that he sees Boston for who he is but also thinks he got close to Boston falling for him. maybe Boston being so hung up about Top gives him hope that that could be him (beyond trying to emulate his style, since Top is Boston's type)

fairly certain that while top might not be that much into mew, he certainly was hurt by his drawings getting burnt. i feel like it's one of the few times he made himself vulnerable by showing mew his hobby (i think there is still a struggle between him wanting to try something serious like this but uncertainty whether he want it to be with mew, or whether mew is the image of who he wants to be vulnerable with. vice versa similar projection onto top by mew in the earlier part of the series).

(again, the soundtrack is just all bangers. my week currently: ofts on saturday - sun, mo, tue, wed, thurs, fri: listening to the ost on repeat)

another unexpected combo? hmm..idk mew, not sure whether nick sees himself fully as the victim here. Ohhh, would Nick want to hurt Boston?? Ahhhh, Nick!!!! This is getting so dark.

Ahaha, I like how we can see that Mew is trying out to be "a villain". even re-using his accident with Top to deliberatedly approach someone this time. (everyone was joking about Neo single-series-ly getting to the top of the list of same-sex kisses in gmmtv, but I see Drake threw in is hat into the ring unsuspectingly). okay, Mew, let's whether you can get out of this in time. omg! he and boston really did a lot more that just what was shown in episode 1...the file is called boston69. p'jojo, please enlighten me.

4/4

ahaha, mew in his new fit is visibly so out of place in his own flat. i like seeing boston squirm. boston hasn't really much regard for himself. he is very egoistic but at the same time, his concern is about the consequences for his dad. not even the consequences for the realtionship he has with his dad. he even told nick, that he wouldn't mind it that gap hat recorded him, if it wasn't for his dad. (rotates boston in my mind for the next 24 hours)

it cannot be repeated enough how cringe top can be. and again, mew hates to be put on the spot. how has he still not understood that mew might let him into his flat to talk but will not tolerate him showing up unannounced overcompensating (possibly clear throughline to how Top's parents and everyone else around him tended to apologies to him). Wish we could have seen more of Cheurm hosing them all down before Top hit Mew.

Somehow they heard me and gave me another Mew Ray heart-to-heart? Khao is so good at making his long crush so visible whenether he is with Mew. Hmm...when will Nick realise that Mew might not have really helped his case (unless Boston approaches him to get rid of the videos for good).

(Oh god, Nick's outfit in the preview...after the kiss/marry/kill game I wait for each week to give me the episode when Sand and Nick hook up)

[colleenmurphy]

"B...Bruce! Pull. Up! I SEE TREES! We almost HIT THAT EAGLE!"

Was all he heard from his terrified flight companion turned in flight entertainment. Her long dark hair was spilling down from it's plastic hair clip and her aviators were sliding down her nose as her hands waved wildly at the clear blue sky that matched her eyes.  He couldn't help but grin a slow easy grin at her. She was truly his fish out of water today. 

"Man...you're a mermaid, huh?"

"If I'm a mermaid then you're an albatross!"

The belly of the plane was mere inches from the pristine tree line as they roared along with the flight path of the local geese. He had to admit her hometown was a pretty little place. Pulling up they had a better view of some cozy houses along the coastline. In fact they buzzed Minnie's place as they spotted her in the back yard having a cigarette. He decided to show off a smidge and loop a hello before continuing on. The neighbor's grandson now things the Murphy house is the coolest place on earth.

He'd been born in Chicago, moved around to Indiana as a kid and then joined up to the Army on his 18th birthday. He'd been in Florida ever since after he'd come home from his three tours. The woman to his right was about ten years his junior, an internationally licensed boat captain named Mary Colleen Murphy, or Col as she preferred to be called. Currently marveling at the view her face lit up like a kid at Christmas.  He could count the dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose and the fact that her eyes were now tinged a little spring green meant she's calmed down enough to enjoy herself. The fact that they could simply pack a bag and fly out to her hometown from their place in the Hatcher Keys blew her mind. To Bruce it was just another two hour flight that went smoothly. 

"I can deal with being a bird. Here's the part you hate..."

He figured ample warning would help settle her stomach. She knew that the most critical time was during take off and landing, it still didn't help her body to know not to gag at an angle normally not achieved. 

"I doubt I'll ever get my license. I've a feeling that's not looked kindly on during the final exam?"

Her dry reassurance to him that she was fine. They were traveling light this time, just some luggage and gifts for the family and friends she had to introduce him to. There had been talk to merging her mother's bar, The Gull's Nest and their place The Trade Winds but they had yet to put anything into writing. Minnie was setting to retire and move closer to her own mother in Miami so it only made sense to keep it in the family...unless Harvey Starling, Col's god father wanted first dibs at a turn key operation. Bruce knew Colleen would gladly do that over taking it over. Even though she lived down south nearly 1500 miles away she still cared about the town where she'd grown up. 

"BVY tower, N2789 5 miles west, inbound for landing."

The crackle of the controller picking up filled his head. Whoever it was had a hell of a head cold. 

"N2789 you're clear for landing. Welcome to Massachusetts."

"I can't just take it from them, Bruce. The Gull's Nest was built by my great grandfather when the town was founded. Second on the waterfront besides the old butcher and green grocer. Did you know the Starling's used to own that? That's how far back our families go...oh my god Harvey! Hel's florist shop is right there...perfect!"

He'd heard her last night as she'd packed for them both. He'd admitted to her that he didn't have a clue about packing for cold weather anymore so she had delighted in walking him through her process and parts of her family's backstory came out as she carefully rolled his shirts and pants up. She'd learned the military packing style. Bulky sweaters went on top to act as a cushion if you were bringing back souvenirs, or in Col's case, if you were bringing a stash of homegrown herb to share with your mother and best friends. Deep down his wife really was a pirate, even if she didn't realize it. 

"Who taught you how to pack?"

"Chief Petty Officer James Murphy Sr."

Bruce caught a glimpse of a pirate smile ghost across his companion's face. All he could picture for a moment was his wife in a plumed buccaneers hat with a dainty silver dagger between her teeth. Perhaps he'd just given himself a new tattoo idea. 

"He was a Navy man...then he came home became a cop and met my mom."

"All American boy."

"Guess you could say that. My mother was almost a nun until she met him."

"Damn beats Mel and Rita's story. She was a barmaid and he was bootlegger."

"Two sides of the same coin, Miller."

The tidy landing strip was fast approaching as the landing gear came out. Wheels touched down and all was well. Another one down in the flight logs. 

In their combined down time from the bar they did flight and boat charters together under the Trade Wind Tours name for the tourists. They weren't above doing a favor to a friend or two with flying in goods. Colleen was going to be needed if his buddy Whit ever gave up his wings. She had also expressed an interest in doing angel flights for sick and needy children. 

"You'd be surprised. My first time I puked out of a bird just straight up didn't care about anything except not wearing it. Bulls eye on an enemy from above. I can still see his face...I still feel bad about that."

"You were under heavy fire in a military war plane. Vastly different as I'm not open and exposed."

Reaching out to pat his jean clad thigh she sighed. 

"You'd be amazed at people can forgive. I'm sure you were the least of his worries back then. You both just wanted to get home."

He'd forgotten she'd been a nurse and just how deeply her compassion ran. He smirked and patted her back as they pulled upwards 

"If it makes you feel better I get sea sick."

A deep chortle sounded in his head that warmed him. 

"Always keep above deck where you can see the horizon and get fresh air or keep to the middle of the boat."

He heard the snicking flick of her lighter.

"You forget we're still in an airspace?"

"Nope. But I figured out my window. Until they come out with a flameless option I'm sticking with hand rolls. Helps my stomach and in all honesty I think you may need some when we're on solid ground. You're wide eyed and your eyebrows are touching your hairline. I love you, Minnie loves you...my Grandmother loves you, Harvey and Helene are going to adore you too."

Directing towards the hangar Bruce shook his head. 

"The last thing I need to do is meet the town chief of police smelling like your home grown, Col."

Wide innocent eyes met his as she held out the joint with a smile. Her next sentence made his face fall momentarily.

"But he's my god father...and I know the perfect spot."

Nimble tanned hands rolled two more joints as they were directed into the proper hangar by the ground crew, a rather an elderly portly white haired fellow wearing safety orange muffs with 'Willy' stitched into his green coveralls. Waving his sticks he looked almost like a Yankee blue collar ballerina.  A thankful two finger wave and they had some privacy.  

"Thanks Willy!"

Colleen called as she hopped out earning a Roebucker smile her way, Willy's teeth matched his shocking white hair before he hobbled back into the warmth of the hangar office. Col had grabbed her small shoulder bag and her flash light before taking off out of sight. Giving him a bird whistle he saw her crook her finger from inside what looked like a solid tree line. 

"Join me on a side quest brave traveller."

Snow crunched under their feet as he followed Colleen. She evidently knew exactly where they were going to end up. A twisting path lead to a rough stone walking path the lead to a rumbling sound. 

"Watch your step here..."

Her left hand reached out to touch a large pine tree with 'HS + JL' carved into the bark and it made him smile to see her reconnect with a tangible object from her past. The initials were newly carved into the bark, especially the JL. From the look on Col's face HS finally found a love well deserved. 

"Where...what...wow."

Looming overhead was a weather beaten lighthouse sitting at the mouth of the harbor. It's light cutting through the fog that was setting in. Between the two of them they'd planned the timing perfectly.  

"This is Tortoise Harbor light...or Turtle Point. I've mentioned it a few times in my stories of home but well...this used to be our secret spot. Me and Helene Starling. A little birdie told me that there's still heat in it."

Knocking the snow from their boots they ventured into and up to the top of the ancient lighthouse on the point. Outside the winds had picked up and the sound of rain was almost indistinguishable against the sound of the surf hitting the rocky coastline. 

"We used to come up here all the time watching for our Dads when they sailed away or came back in. I guess it was our clubhouse...in some way it still is."

The very top held a battered fold out couch upholstered in a rather interesting shade of pea soup green and outfitted with numerous blankets and throw pillows. A handmade three tier shelf held ancient paperbacks along with a wire spool coffee table with bar ashtray advertising 'the regal taste of Reinhardt beer'. tucked to the left hand side by the railing away from the light. The floor below still held a snug little alcove with a lamp and a few layered feather beds for the nights that were especially tough going home. 

"We used to have a working kitchen and bathroom downstairs but that's been boarded up since we were in our 20's. That's the past though."

Settling herself down onto the couch she sighed before inviting him to sit down as she lit the joint. He'd have wondered what she looked like young and carefree and unscarred but she seemed to bloom before him. Healed and restored. The smell of her homegrown hit him right between the eyes and he smiled as curled in next to him. The storm raging outside as they flew higher together allowing their inner teenagers to bond for the first time.