#idk why exactly i decided i was gonna be more involved this time around??

[sanjisleggy]

no more hiding (smoker x reader)

req: Hi!!! Could you maybe do a Smoker x pirate reader. Like trying to hide the relationship and stuff from the other Marines and her pirate crew. (Whichever crew you want) idk I just want cute pirate x Marine stuff maybe little angsty if you want but need cute things

a/n: omg i’ve been thinking about this request for the past three (3) days and i might have gotten very carried away with the angst at the start, istg i couldn’t help myself ajskdhjakshja i hope the subsequent fluff in the flashbacks and ending was enough to make up for it!! ;;0;; i legit had a lot more angst planned but i cut it out bc the request asked for more fluffy stuff :’D

contents: suggestive themes (nothing explicit though, idk why i wrote Smoker and reader so h0rny for each other but alas it is what is), angst to fluff, mentions of wounds and stitching of said wounds

wc. 2.3k

i.

Smoker can’t help the tinge of bitterness that gathers at the back of his throat, the taste so strong that not even his usual nightly cigars can chase away the smell. it’s a rather rare occurrence, only really happening when he gets anxious and it’s been a long time since anxiety overrode every other emotion in his body in such a way.

though the experience is slightly uncomfortable, he supposes it can’t really be helped since it involves you; his childhood friend (the only one, in fact), his closest companion and the love of his life. 

the Vice Admiral wonders what’s taking you so long. you always show up at his doorstep roughly half an hour after he’s sent out a trail of smoke to go look for you—the signal you’ve used since you were kids. back then it was for innocent hangouts beyond curfew and now it’s for late night meetings that often end with either one of you on top of the other, tangled in his bedsheets.

as much as Smoker would like to think about your latest escapade, his nerves are starting to get the better of him and his mind begins to race. 

ii. 

“you joined Tomohana’s crew?! what’s the matter with you?” his voice cracked slightly near the end of his sentence. you normally would’ve made fun of him for it but the air between him and you was a bit too tense for jokes like that. 

“ i know you know they’re not like normal pirates,” you replied as calmly as you could considering your best friend was yelling at you. “everyone in Loguetown loves him and his crew, they’re always fighting off rowdy pirates to protect the neighbouring islands.”

”that should be the Marines’ job.”

”exactly! but they don’t really do that a lot, do they?” you could tell you’d made a point so good even Smoker couldn’t rebut. “with Vice Admiral Gokiburi around, all they do is make our lives miserable.”

”it won’t be that way for long and you know that.” 

“oh please, you just got promoted a month ago and you’ve been with the Marines for how many years now?” he glared down at you but even his deep scowl wasn’t enough to hide the redness in his cheeks. “we’ll be in our mid-thirties before you take his place.”

”so?” Smoker snapped, fists clenched at his sides as hints of white smoke trailed out of the corners of his mouth. “at least i’ll be makin’ an actual difference! unlike you.” the tone of his voice dropped to an eerily calm albeit deep one. 

“what about me?” you challenged before you could help it. you knew from experience that adding fuel to the fire was not gonna end pretty but in that moment, you needed to know what he meant.

iii. 

why now? why am i remembering this now?

Smoker finds himself outside your door at midnight. the radio silence from you had been too much to bear and he just needs to know if you’re okay; and yet there he stands, fist halfway to making contact with your door when the bitter memory of your most painful fight decides it’s time to claw its way into the forefront of his mind.

after that incident,

after i called you all those awful things

you stopped talking to him for five years.

iv. 

it had been Tomohana of all people who’d told you about Smoker that day. he didn’t provide many details but it was enough for you to show up at his front door after years of no contact. after knocking, you could hear the sound of furniture being toppled over and heavy, unstable footsteps before the door swung open.

Smoker’s eyes widened upon seeing your face and he became so still that one of his cigars slipped out from between his teeth, hitting the ground unceremoniously between your feet and his. without saying a word, he stepped aside to let you in.

amidst the countless empty bottles of varying types of alcohol and a handful of presents you presumed were from his subordinates, the two of you sat in silence. 

“i heard you got promoted,” you said suddenly, after almost ten minutes of nothing. “congrats.” as though surprised at hearing your voice, Smoker cleared his throat before responding.

”thanks.” he paused for a few seconds. “i’m Vice Admiral now.”

”i know.” you offered him a small smile. “you don’t seem very happy about achieving your childhood dream though.”

”i…” he clenched his teeth, his already flushed face turning even redder from something other than alcohol. “i wish i could’ve celebrated with you, is all.” his eyes turned down to stare at his feet. for a man so huge, he looked awfully small. “i miss you. i’m sorry i said those things all those years ago. i didn’t mean any of it.”

hot tears began to stream down your face before you could even fully process what he was saying. 

“why’d it take you so long then?” you replied with a sniffle—the sound seemingly triggering something in the man as his head snapped back up to look at you. “all this time—” you had to pause to take in a deep, shaky breath “—i thought you hated me.”

upon your admission, the one and only Smoker, a Vice Admiral of the mighty Marines, slid off his seat to kneel before you. although he was drunk, at that moment he was the most sober he’d ever been in his life.

”i could never hate you, doll.” he grabbed your hands in an uncharacteristically soft manner before bringing them up to his lips. your heart pounded so violently within the confines of your chest, you wondered if he could hear it. “i’ve loved you ever since we were kids.” 

speechless, all you could really do was stare at him with your mouth parted.

”please let me make it up to you, (Y/N),” Smoker pleaded with a pitiful look in his usually hardened eyes. you briefly wondered what his subordinates would think if they saw him like that, especially the girl with the spectacles who seemed to admire him so much. he looked so little like the aggressive, no-nonsense Marine the locals now knew him as and so much like the Smoker from when you were just children. 

you realised, in that moment, how much you’d missed him, too.

v.

it’s taking all he’s got not to show his anger and fear as the Vice Admiral watches you stitch yourself back together in quite the literal sense. he’s clenching his fists so hard he can feel his nails dig into the meat of his palms, he won’t be surprised if he draws blood.

the white-haired man isn’t quite sure what exactly he’s angry at: you? your crew and Tomohana for letting you go home wounded to patch yourself up? even maybe himself?

before Smoker can make his decision, he’s torn away from his own thoughts by the sound of a pained whine being forced through your gritted teeth. wordlessly, he closes the gap between him and you and kneels by your feet. carefully, he finishes up the final stitches as your hand grips his shoulder tightly to cope with the pain. 

unknowingly, his Devil Fruit power kicks in, causing a whisp of white smoke to curl itself around your face and body. the familiar cooling sensation of his smoke caressing your skin soothes the stinging pain of your open wounds and the aches in your tired joints. 

you already know he’s mad, not just at you for getting hurt once again but at everything else, as well. it’s just the kind of guy Smoker is: always angry or uptight over something. and yet, he ties off the final stitch so carefully and when he’s done, he simply sighs before resting his cheek atop your thigh as he tenderly runs his palm up and down your bare leg, as if trying to remind himself that you’re still there.

from the way he exhales his following breath, you can tell he wants to say something.

vi.

“leave the crew,” he said suddenly, breaking through the comfortable silence that had befallen the two of you after an evening of post-dinner cuddling. his hand reaching up to rub the back of your neck as you rested your head on his bare chest. the night was hot and humid but neither of you cared how sticky your skin felt pressed against his, you’d both grown up in this weather after all. “i make more than enough berry for us to live comfortably.”

”you know that’s not what i’m worried about, love,” you replied with a chuckle as you adjusted your position by Smoker’s side to bury your face into the crook of his neck. the Vice Admiral’s chest rumbled in a way not unlike a cat’s purring as he pulled you closer, pressing his lips to the crown of your head. “the crew helps to protect a lot of the locals from the neighbouring islands and i wanna make sure there’s enough manpower before i consider quitting.” 

“can’t believe i’m sayin’ this but i hope a hundred of new recruits show up at that bastard Tomohana’s doorstop first thing tomorrow,” the man beside you sighed, only half-joking, before he rolled his body over yours without warning.

”hey!” you protested, wiggling under his weight. he chuckled as he trapped you beneath him, pressing kisses all over your face.

”tell him to hurry up and gather more crewmates already, doll,” Smoker murmured against your skin, “it’s not like they’re doin’ anything illegal anyway so why the secrecy, hmm? tryin’ to keep my girl away from me?”

”it’s not like that and you know it.” you hugged his head to your chest with both arms, smile growing even wider when you felt his muscles relax from your touch. “besides, they’d have to know about us to begin with.” 

“i’m tired of sneakin’ around,” he mumbled into your chest, muffling his words ever so slightly. “the cadets can get so nosy sometimes, it pisses me off.” Smoker admitted whilst rubbing your sides tenderly. “‘sides, all this hiding makes it feel like you’re some dirty secret.”

vii.

before he can say anything, you speak your mind first.

”i’m done hiding. i quit the crew earlier today.” Smoker’s head snaps up from your lap for his widened eyes to meet yours. staring back down at him with a small smile on your face, you cup his face with your right hand, feeling the stubble on his skin when he nuzzles into your touch. “some cocky new recruit challenged me for my position afterward. he was a pretty good fighter but i beat the shit out of him.”

”that’s my girl.” Smoker says with a chuckle, his hand giving your calf a light squeeze as he stares at you for a good few seconds. “so you’re finally free?” he asks with a glimmer in his eye. 

”you say that as if i was held hostage or something.”

”can’t help it, doll. that’s pretty much what it felt like for the past three years.” he presses yet another kiss to your bare thigh. “so… move in with me?”

”tomorrow,” you reply simply but definitively, much to his pleasure. “but first,” you gesture for him to stand up before holding out your arms in his direction, “carry me to bed.”

Smoker raises an eyebrow at your request though he can’t help the smile on his face. he wonders how ridiculous he must look, like some lovesick fool.

”please?” you pout and within seconds, you’re swept into his arms bridal style. you let out a soft yelp of surprise despite how carefully he’d picked you up. “i’m okay, you didn’t hurt me.” you’re quick to reassure him when a look of worry washed over his face from the sound you just made. you can feel his shoulders relax in response.

“bath first, then bed.” he states simply, already walking towards your bathroom.

”together?” you grin up at him, tracing a finger down his chest. a redness blooms across Smoker’s rugged face as he shoots you a frown that looks more silly than intimidating. he doesn’t even grace you with a verbal answer, deeming it too ridiculous to even acknowledge fully.

of course he’s going to join you. the day he says no to such a request is the day hell freezes over.

viii.

the night air feels more cooling than usual, you realise as you snuggle closer to your beloved, trying to steal as much of his body heat as you possibly can. using his bicep as a pillow with your head nuzzled into the crook of his neck, you hug him like a koala to a tree: your arms around his middle and your legs locked around his right thigh. admittedly it’s not the most comfortable position for Smoker but he’ll die before he complains about it. 

for the first time he’ll be able to sleep the night at your place and wake up by your side under the morning sun. no longer will either of you have to rise before dawn breaks to sneak back home, pretend the other has nothing to do with you until the moon takes the sun’s place and his smoke trail guides you back to him. 

Smoker is careful not to touch your stitches as he turns towards you slightly to pull you closer. he runs his hands over all the bare skin of yours he can reach, leaving goose bumps in his fingers’ wake, his heart fluttering when you giggle and wriggle your body in response.

i can’t wait to come home to you every night and see you every morning.

although it’s been a long day, neither of you get much sleep that night. 

[wedontdeservethestars]

Can U do Johnny Cage w/ a reader who looks exactly like her sister Kitana? Thx 🙏

Ok. First of all anon I am SO sorry this took me like. 7 months to get around to. Idk why but for a while I just had NO workflow with this one BUT!! I ended up liking how it came out! Lots of emotional stuff in this one, with reader and Johnny learning to appreciate one another. Again--so sorry for the wait but I hope you like it!

(AO3 link here!)

“Kitana, baby!”

“No.”

“Ohhh, the other one.” 

That was how most of your conversations with Johnny began. Sure, you were technically the younger twin. You were second in line just behind the new Kahn, and despite the numerous times you and Kitana had agreed to this arrangement of Kahn and Royal Advisor (though, in all honesty, you held more power than a simple Advisor), you couldn’t help the jealousy you felt towards her. How could you not? All because of a few mere minutes of time-difference, you had spent most of your life in Kitana’s shadow. The forgotten sister.

“That isn’t my name, either.” It was bad enough being mistaken for your twin by anyone, but for some reason the fact that it was Johnny made you even more irritated. 

“Sorry, princess,” he shrugged carelessly. 

“And I’m not a princess,” you continued. The words felt sharp on your tongue. One of the first things you insisted upon when Kitana took over the kingdom was to remove your title entirely. You couldn’t stand the thought of her growing to such a powerful rank while yours stayed the same. Princess. You hated the word. It seemed childish. 

“Man, I just cannot win today, huh?” Johnny waved his hand as if to say, ‘ah, well,’ and wiped any memory of the past few seconds from his mind.

“If you’re looking for Kitana Kahn,” you said, emphasizing her title, “She’s with Master Liu Kang.”

You pointed a finger towards the opposite end of the venue, where, indeed, Kitana stood with a few close friends. Though she and Liu Kang weren’t touching, they were indeed standing rather close together. Besides, Johnny was well aware of their relationship to one another. Most were. You couldn’t understand why he tried so hard to gain the affection of an already-involved woman. 

Johnny, following your aim, squinted, lifting his shades. He apparently decided that he didn’t like the company she kept, because he shook his head, flipping the glasses back down. “Eh. Whatever. Was just gonna check if she’s havin’ a good time.”

“Are we supposed to?” you mumbled, mostly to yourself. Outrealm-Earthrealm meetings like this weren’t your idea of a good time, even if the events were thrown specifically as pleasant meetings where members could laugh and drink and be in good nature with one another. To keep the peace, Kitana had explained when she first brought up the idea. There had only been a handful so far, but you hadn’t enjoyed yourself at a single one of them. Maybe you were just too much of a wallflower. 

“Are you supposed to have a good time a party?” Johnny tried to clarify. “Uh…yeah. Yeah you are.”

“It’s not really a party…”

“Drinks. Music. F…” Johnny frowned as he drew out the ‘f’. His mouth started to form the word ‘friends,’ but he quickly backtracked. “Fffffun people.”

“I suppose,” you grumbled, arms folded over your chest. He sighed and gave you a nudge.

“C’mon, loosen up! You don’t have to do anything. No world to save, no politics or anything. Just relax.”

You were about to point out how, technically, the only reason this ‘party’ was happening was because of politics that specifically dealt with the two of your homeworlds, but the thought suddenly exhausted you and you let it slide. “I don’t…relax easily.”

“Yeah, I can tell.” Johnny chuckled and took a sip of his own drink, some sort of foamy liquid with an ungodly color of aquamarine fading to green at the bottom. It looked like it could kill. Half-heartedly, you hoped it would. “Tell you what, next drink is on me.”

Well. It couldn’t hurt. “Fine.”

“Hella.” He gave you a grin, his teeth too perfect and square, and grabbed you by the arm, practically dragging you to the catering bar. “C’mon!”

“Johnny, slow down–” you frowned. “I’m in heels!” 

“What’dya want?” he asked as you stumbled up behind him.

“Uh…” Your gaze skimmed over the menu. Drinks you’d never heard of with ingredients even less familiar. Of course, the catering company had to come Earthrealm. “I don’t know. That one looks fine.”

“Shoulda known you were a Pinot Grigio kinda gal.” He leaned over and murmured something to the bartender, who tried his best not to look flustered (and failed). You scoffed. You couldn’t ever imagine giving into Johnny’s “charms” so easily. Never.

Shortly, a tall fluted glass was in your gloved hand. You took a tentative sip and immediately felt your tongue dry up. Not letting yourself wince at the sick, bittersweet tang that overcame your taste buds, you bravely took another sip. Johnny didn’t take notice–he was in the midst of downing the rest of his glass. Slamming the glass down, he stifled a quiet burp into his fist and laughed. You rolled your eyes. When the bartender turned around again, there was already another glass of whatever horrid drink he’d just finished. 

“Thanks, stud.” He raised his glass and gave a wink to the server, who, this time, couldn’t stop a shy little smile from coming across his face. You felt sick.

“Thank you for the drink,” you mumbled and started to hightail it out of the crowd, but a hand on your shoulder stopped you. 

“Hey, c’mon. At least talk with me a little. Not like you were doin’ anything else.”

You sighed. Damn him. “Can we at least go somewhere quiet? I don’t like crowds.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he shrugged. Realizing you weren’t going to get rid of him so easily, you decided to suck it up and scanned the venue, looking for a way out. You spied a patch on the outskirts that wasn’t too populated, a little garden area with leaves that glistened in the dew of night and held promise for some peace and quiet. 

“This way.”

While squeezing through seemingly endless amounts of people, you heard Johnny behind you, stopping to talk to a few and saying a quick ‘hi’ to nearly everyone else. You wished he would just focus on the task at hand, but then again, did you expect him to act any other way?

“So, Edenia,” he said awkwardly as you two came up on your destination. Fortunately, your guess had been right–it was much emptier and calmer over here. 

“What about it?” You turned to face him and suddenly wished he weren’t so tall.

“Uh…how’s it going?” he tried. “With your sister as ruler, and all.”

“Did you really insist on continuing to stay with me just to take about my sister all night?” you asked curtly. 

“No! No, just, uh, y’know. It’s a big shift, I’m sure. And…” He gave a timid chuckle and lowered his voice to a stage-whisper, as if he had an audience you didn’t know about. “I’m just trying to make conversation. Help me out here.” 

Your lips twitched. You hid them in your glass. “It’s going fine.”

“Good, good.” 

There was a silence, and before Johnny could say something stupid, you decided to at least try. “How are your…movies?”

“Oh, great!” You couldn’t begin to describe the amount of relief that washed over his face. “We just finished wrapping Breaknose Mountain last month. That’s gonna be a good one. Give the audience a good ol’ tug at the heartstrings. Y’know, I don’t really get to do dramas often, which, like, whatever, every actor has their niche, and mine happens to be awesome-as-shit stunts and comedy and, like, shirtless scenes, so I always have to really appreciate the times where I get to hunker down and get into a serious role. Not that all my roles aren’t serious, at least, I take them seriously, but it’s different, y’know?” 

For a moment, you didn’t know what to say. Truthfully, you didn’t know–Edenia didn’t have movies and the stories and theater your culture did have were nothing like whatever was going on in Johnny’s films, based on what he had described to you before–but the way he spoke about this…it was the first time you saw something genuine in Johnny. Something more than the brash sense of style and flirtatious glances and overconfidence. 

“That’s…interesting.” You weren’t lying.

Johnny smiled, and for once it didn’t come off as entirely jaded. “Nah, I just…uh, actually, forget it. It’s kinda stupid.”

“I’m sure it’s not.” You were curious to see whatever side of him was starting to peek out. “Tell me.”

“Okay,” he chuckled with a nod. “I, uh…I haven’t been on a stage since I was a kid. Like, live acting, in a play. Probably not since high school. And…I miss it. A lot. It’s different from film. And the stuff I did then, I’m sure it was shitty as hell, but it felt real.”

He paused, a wistful look coming across his face. He looked distracted, like he wasn’t really seeing you anymore even though his eyes were still trained on you.

“I loved Shakespeare especially. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as alive as I did when I got to be Romeo. It was…everything. It was funny, it was sad, it was romantic. There was fighting. There was kissing. And the audience, they were right there in Verona with us. Living and breathing the same air. Or…that’s what it felt like, at least. With movies, you just…you film. And it’s usually on a green-screen set. And then you go home, and…you wait for it to come out, and the reviews come in. But they’re just words on paper. Comments. Everyone sees you act but no one sees you act.”

“Johnny…” You had no idea exactly what he was talking about in terms of sets and Shakespeare and whatever Verona was, but you didn’t need to. “That’s…”

“Dumb,” he said quickly, eager to put back on that Hollywood-boy persona. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I mean, I’m one of the biggest stars in America. Why would I want anything else?”

“I don’t think it’s dumb,” you frowned.

“Oh.” A look of genuine surprise came across his face. “Well…thanks, I guess.”

“Maybe you could still perform onstage if you really wanted to.”

“Eh, doesn’t really match the Cage brand,” he smiled sadly. “It’s okay. It’s just somethin’ I think about sometimes.”

“Well…I bet you were wonderful onstage.” You offered your best attempt at a smile, and Johnny gladly took it.

“Oh, I was.” Immediately your smile dropped as his old facade came back up, but he just laughed. “Kidding. Thank you. Really.”

“Humph,” you said in return. 

Johnny swirled what remained of his beverage around in its glass. “Can I ask a question? And promise you won’t get mad?”

You sighed, but nodded, finishing off your own drink almost just to spite the flavor. “Fine.”

“It’s about Kitana,” he warned.

“I thought we got past that.” But you waved your hand to tell him to keep going. 

Still, Johnny hesitated. “How do you really feel about her taking the throne. ‘Cause, like, you guys aren’t just sisters, right? You’re twins?”

You nodded once. Words sat on your tongue, but you knew you letting them escape would be a mistake. “I feel like…I shouldn’t talk about that.”

“Why not?” He cocked his head. “It’s just you and me. No one’s gonna hear.”

“I don’t care about what others think,” you lied. Surrounded by this kind of company, your jealousy could easily be misconstrued as planned treason. 

“Then why won’t you tell me?”

“Because I hardly know you. And it’s not an issue for a Earthrealmer to worry about.”

“So it is an issue,” he pressed. 

“No,” you huffed, “I didn’t mean–”

“Didn’t you?” His ocean blues pierced into your skull and you had to avert your own eyes. 

“Don’t do this,” you muttered. 

“Do what?”

“Cage.”

“What?” he asked again. “Listen, I’m just sayin’–if you can’t talk about this stuff normally, then I don’t mind being an outlet. Like me and my stupid theater dreams.”

“The aren’t stupid,” you said before really realizing you were doing it. Quickly, you moved on. “And that doesn’t equate to the politics of my kingdom. Not at all. One is a dream. The other is…”

“A dream?” he asked knowingly. “Of…running away? Being Kahn? Going back to the way things were?”

You didn’t deny any of his guesses. You also hoped he wouldn’t notice that detail. “Why do you care so much?”

“I…don’t know.” He frowned into his drink, and then had some more of it. “Just wanna get to know you. Know what you care about. Not what the Royal Advisor of Edenia does.”

There was silence for a long time. It got to the point where it was almost impressive how long Johnny was keeping his mouth shut for. You were clenching your teeth so hard you thought they might crack when you finally answered him. “Kitana has…everything now. We spent so long dreaming of the day when we would finally overtake that monster who killed our father, and when we could pay respects to our lost mother, and…Gods. I don’t know. We planned everything together, in hushed whispers at night, ever since we were children. We both agreed she should be Kahn. That I would remain by her side. But…it feels more like I’m behind her, or beneath her. And why shouldn’t I be equal with her?”

He stared at you. You suddenly felt awful for voicing your ugly desires.

“No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of that. That was…”

“You’re right.”

You stopped dead in your tracks. “Excuse me?”

“You’re right,” Johnny said again. “I mean, like, I don’t wanna start a whole-ass Edenian civil war or anything, but I think it’s pretty normal for you to feel this way.”

Secretly, you were immensely relieved to hear that. “It feels like it isn’t.”

“I don’t know how else you’re supposed to feel about it.” He wrinkled his nose. “Content? ‘Cause that seems like a pretty shitty deal.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter either way,” you tried to brush off. “I can’t do anything about it.”

“You could talk to her,” he offered.

“Deceptively simple answer,” you replied in such a way that made it clear how often you’d thought about this. 

“I don’t think it is.” But he backed off when you gave him an annoyed look. “But hey. I barely know what’s goin’ on with my own country’s politics, let alone yours.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” 

Johnny let you stew in the conversation while he finished off his drink, setting the glass on the ground beside yours. “Well, I guess…I’m sorry. That you’re in this position.”

Hearing him say that felt like a cool breeze filling your lungs. It didn’t solve any of your problems, of course, but it was nice to have someone just…listen. Understand. 

“Thank you,” you said, and you meant it. “I’m sorry for you, too. About your acting stuff.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he shrugged, but you thought you saw his chest relax like yours had.

The silence you shared was a little awkward, but it wasn’t tense like the previous ones. It was a little bit nice, actually. You looked around the venue, deciding that the location and lights and music were a little bit nice too now that you really thought about it, and when you looked back Johnny was staring at you in a very, very particular way.

“Hey,” he said softly. “I can give you something Kitana doesn’t have.”

“What’s that?” He was close, now, his face looming over yours. It made you nervous. You almost wished he would get closer. 

“I can’t tell you until I give it,” he smiled. His eyes searched yours for something–understanding of what he was talking about, maybe. His smile widened: he’d found it. Rightfully so. You did know what he was talking about.

“You promise she doesn’t have this?” you asked, feeling your chest grow tight. Johnny moved in closer–his strong nose was nearly touching yours now. 

“Oh, big time,” he laughed quietly. 

You gave a simple nod, and that was enough. Johnny sealed the kiss. 

[jitt0]

OK SO!

ik no one asked but I’m gonna just dump all my Petra Hcs on here (some things do involve my Oc but I’ll put that in another category)

So for me, before she was admitted into the asylum, Petra was an elementary school teacher somewhere in Texas. And her class was always particularly loud (she always got the bad classes because of how happy she always was)

One day in 2005 they had decided to take a school field trip to Germany (haven’t fleshed out exactly why yet) in Germany, Petra finally snaps and goes on a rampage. She ends up killing one of the kids in her class. This obviously gets the attention of dr Marcel and she gets admitted into the asylum. Getting stuck in Germany. (Great going Dr.) this is also where she decides to cut her hair.

Her and Almilio do end up escaping in 2006. Almilio was found just two days later but Petra stayed hidden until 2007. After she gets back she decides to stay (probably for Peter, idk I haven’t decided yet.)

Petra and Peter have also had a love hate relationship over the years. Peter would become more tolerant of her when he would have manic episodes and they would do risky stuff together. One time she even convinced him to Pierce her ears. Twice.

HENRY'S SEGMENT! (OC SEGMENT)

Henry gets admitted to the asylum in may of 2008. When Henry and Petra meet, at first it doesn’t go very well. Petra only speaks English, and Henry speaks Italian and some German so the only time they ever talked was when Peter was there to translate (that goes the same for him and Bruce but they met differently) they both liked to draw together in the art room, that was where their language barrier mattered a little less. eventually, Petra starts to learn German using books around the asylum, and Henry tries to learn English (so they kinda both help each other out:)

ANYWAY THATS IT TYSM FOR READING🤍🤍

[bebx]

Hey there! I hope you are doing well. I don't mean to bother you again as you are gonna figure out I am the same person who asked about your unexpectedly but hopefully temporary drifting away from ST sub fandom hehe. So I decided to do my homework and see if you probably left some clues or hints regarding your hiatus from it before but unfortunately I couldn't find any unless my dumb@$$ missed it despite thorough research as if I was looking for easter eggs in a deeply layered show like ST. My search report :- It had been going well on your side even when there was a drought in HC contents but slowly it lost the 'momentum' which I feel you played a key role in wonderfully building up yourself, ironically right at the moment of D-day which honestly feels like if reality had tv drama like loopholes lol.

So all I have now is what you last said to me that you are busy with stuffs and other things like hyperfixation on a character from Harrow series { although I haven't watched it yet but based on your enthusiasm which mostly resonates with my own interest, I have added it in my watchlist :) Cuz Bingo I can't tell you how happy I was when I found you with the same sentiments as mine after watching Damsel! } plus point is you did mention how he is certainly still in your heart and you are planning to make more posts and fanfic about him in future. So I decided to wait, months passed with more tempting Henry Creel info pouring while I still kept up with *patiently waiting for my favorite Tumblr user's ST fandom era to resurface as well as coexist with her new obsession of Harrow series*, so that one hyperfixation won't have to be sacrificed for another still worthy subject of hyperfixation :) Hence it has been quite an introspective and empathetic time but now I am like "okay at least lemme just ask her how she has been and what exactly is the status", to stifle my other apprehensive thoughts forming with the passing time as well as disappearing silver lining( as there is no sign of either Henry or JCB these days at all lol apart from Jamie Bower World Domination post) out of overthinking.

I always felt your contribution to this fandom has been immensely valuable and even though others may or may not have been enough reminding you that as I can see I am probably the only anonymous seeker regarding digging this matter up, I miss you and your blogs about it. I have mostly been a lurker kind so I never interactively participated in any discussion or thread but I have always inwardly appreciated people with a good taste of art. So even if anonymously, this is a great deal to me, sharing my wish embedded in vulnerability. *nervously chuckles* Idk if this is a stretch but given how what Jamie manually allows to be displayed on his tagged section had most of your posts, tells me that he must have subconsciously felt your absence lately too. The fact that this is true tho, makes it a reasonable theory.

So now after hopefully doing a great job at explaining the deep context behind my "ask away" here are the main deal of questions xD;-

How are you, once again? (I don't want to pressurize you into rejoining it earlier than you planned according to your life and schedules uk. Besides I don't wanna interrupt your balancing of multifandom fascination.)

Is there any particular reason behind this seemingly complete "switch off mode" which you can share? ( because my Spidey senses keep feeling it's more than what it is, could be false alarm tho) Could it be potentially because Stranger Things is so addictive, it is not possible to keep a track of its updates while continuing with hyper fixating on other fandoms?

If the aforementioned fear is unfounded, then here are my other theories and questions, have you stumbled upon the TFS spoilers of any kind?

If no, are you planning to watch it LIVE soon or later? (as the canon play is gonna stick around for a long time) is this why have you been avoiding discussions as they would involve major spoiling of the experience?

Or are you planning of watching it whenever it streams on Netflix as technically it just has to one day?

Have you been weakly following any ST S5 leaks? ( as we finally got a very *greatest leak of all time* kind of leak not even exactly 24 hours ago lol) [to tell you the truth- this is exactly what triggered me to get some clarifications from you, as despite knowing that I would open your page only to be greeted by Harrow, deep down I felt maybe you would say something about it because it directly involves JCB and it's quite making waves already.]

Did you check out the VR Game released this February?

Or are you taking a complete long break for a while because once S5 release date inches closer, there is no going back from its fever for another 2-3 years anyways? haha ( ngl this is my most optimistic theory I am clinging onto)

(optional question xD) Am I seriously the only one approaching you by bringing this old buried fascination or others have felt the same way too and they express their perplexity in your inbox instead?

(anyways I will be very grateful if you respond to my plethora of mystified emotions even though I think it would secretly answer to many other lurkers like me who found a sense of kindred spirit through you but are too busy abiding by their lurking policy)

hi, I’ve been looking at this for…. a while, because… oh my 😅 I understand that it’s been so long since my Stranger Things era, and I know some of my followers follow me for my Henry / ST content. I just didn’t know my silly ST posts actually have this much impact that they stay in people’s memories even after it’s been a long time. so this ask actually brings back so many memories. and I really appreciate that you’re still sticking around. really. I had to take a moment to just sit here and stare at this ask in my inbox and go “whoa” — but it’s a good kind of whoa. I am touched that you still remember, because gosh how long has it been since my ST days!

to answer your questions, I am fine and I am doing well. thank you. I didn’t mean to “abandon” my interest. and I AM still interested in the show. I still love Henry, even though I don’t really talk about him on here anymore. it’s funny because a part of me is kind of sad that I don’t talk about him on here anymore? to tell you the truth, anon, I don’t exactly know why? I mean… sure, my blog currently focuses on something else, but I never really stop loving Henry as a character. this sounds extremely cliche, but it’s the truth. I still love him and I still think about him and those time I spent writing fics about him.

I don’t know if there’s any particular reason behind this, according to you, seemingly complete "switch off mode" on my blog. but there’s no conspiracy theory or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about? I just kind of focus my attention on something else, for the moment, but again, I still do love Henry. just because I don’t talk about him here like I used to does not mean I love him any less. rest assured. he’s still in my heart.

I haven’t stumbled upon any real TFS spoilers, but that’s probably because I don’t follow many blogs that talk about it so it rarely reaches my dashboard anyway.

and I don’t live near the place where the play takes place, so unfortunately I don’t see myself traveling there to watch it live, as life has been a little busy for me here to take that kind of vacations. but I would have loved to. if the time were right. I do look forward to streaming it when or if it becomes available on Netflix though.

I haven’t been following ST leaks much, I can’t see “weekly” because I kind of just look at them if they reach my dashboard here or my twitter’s/X’s timeline. but I don’t actively go search for it nor do I avoid it for fear of any potential spoilers either. but I did just see the leaks you talked about, and I’m actually very excited. it actually reminded me of my fic “Salvation” — I’m not sure if you’ve read it, but yeah. gosh I am genuinely very excited.

though I haven’t checked out the VR Game. I mean… I don’t really play video games so that might explain why.

and no. I’m not “taking a long break” because I think there is no going back from its fever for another 2-3 years after season 5 is released. I don’t even know why I’m “taking a break” except that my mind has just been focusing on something else, currently.

also, yes, some people have asked, and I haven’t had the chance to answer them (I’ve been meaning to, though), so this might be the answer they were looking for as well? there’s no “real reason” behind my lack of activity when it comes to ST fandom, except that I’ve been focusing my attention on something else lately, but that doesn’t mean I love the show — or especially Henry — any less. I still am a fan of the show and of Henry. and I still love Jamie with all my heart, obviously. I still keep up with him and his music and I am so incredibly proud of him as an artist and a person.

I am super excited to see Henry again when season 5 drops. I don’t know when or if my hyperfixation will come back, so I wouldn’t wish to make any promises. but what I can say for sure is that, even though it’s not exactly a hyperfixation, I still love Henry just the same. I hope I will start making lots of posts and writing fics about him again one day.

last but not least, I will always love and support Jamie in everything he does. and he will forever be my source of happiness that keeps me going when things are difficult.

I also want to thank you for reaching out. it means so very much to me. if there is any further matter you wish to talk or discuss with me about, you are very welcome to drop by my inbox anytime.

(and yes, I still love talking about Stranger Things and Henry here. anybody is more than welcome to drop by my inbox to talk to me about Henry — who knows, it might re-spark that hyperfixation within me…)

[shinakazami1]

Uhh I would like to hear your opinion of either Stanley or the bucket take your pick.

But quick question I've had for awhile are you ever gonna return to the fandom? Or just talk about it occasionally? Or even just stop talking about it all together now that you're in a different fandom mainly? I enjoy your work regardless though of what you do. So keep it up!

Hi Cat!! Lovely to see you!

I answered about Stanley here so, I'll answer your remaining questions first and then the Bucket!

I don't know if I will return. I can't exactly enjoy the game anymore nor I want to be involved with fandom much. But I still hold the memories dearly. I have 10+ fanfics in my drafts, just need to reread through them. I have many ideas I still want to explore. I want to replay the game after I'm done with New Tales. I've been wanting to make a short comic. Idk if anyone still in the fandom would want it but seeing you and squoote in the asks does bring me hope someone still enjoys what I make haha

I hope to finish what I've already started. Good luck charm still waits for the next chap. We will see how it will go. But thank you for asking and remembering the lil ol' me :]

Now, onto-

The Bucket

How I feel about this character

Smart writing. Very, very smart writing. Started off as a joke and evolved into something so gorgerous and beautiful.

After so long on solitude, The Narrator decides to rewrite his story and be kind to Stanley. He sees they only have each other. He decides to use an everyday object that could be found in the office as object of comfort.

I think it represents most the Broom Closet ending, as a bucket would make sense to be from there. In the original - it's not an ending. It becomes a joke that it is. The Narrator knows there is a player. The game changes a bit between the runs and moves on. That's the BEST, to me, representation of the game, no joke.

And the bucket represents... A lot, actually.

First - what Narrator said. A calming presence. A bucket. A lover. But there is a lot.

The Bucket can be many things, depending on the perspective. Anytime the Bucket speaks - its Narrator speaking through the role. He shows he's playful. He shows he cares for Stanley. He wants to entertain and not hurt him as much yet he still ends up doing so (the fact you can still die in cargo ending). He changed, he wants to be held, he wants to be there with Stanley through the story they're both stuck in.

But also - the Bucket is Stanley. He is the comforting presence. He's seen as object without free will, just carried around, but also seems to have so much personality at the same time.

The duality fits them. It's a healing object for them both.

And this is why in Fernator AU--/silly

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Object to be desired, never to love back. Though Stanley x bucket x Narrator in the Bucket Apartment slaps.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Bucket x Narrator. Let him be with the symbols of his growth.

My unpopular opinion about this character

Once again, dunno the state of the fandom sieuehwh so headcanon time

- Bucket is a presence Narrator out himself in while he awaited for Stanley's return.

- The texture of the bucket feels off.

- You can't hold it by the handle. You have to hold it close. Holding by the handle feels like pulling someone by the hair.

- Narrator works in his free time after getting out of the game on more stickers. Fun work

- it holds liquids well. Soil too. In this Fernator analysis - /silly

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I will keep repeating myself. I love what is there and I don't want anything more. The game is finished. It said enough

[overthinkingtaleblr]

Ok… quick question before I seep back into the abyss that is the world off the internet, has anyone put much thought into the Johnnys and Jenny’s being related in some way??

Because I know I really like the idea of Jenny Ghost either being Ghost’s cousin or the daughter of the first Johnny Ghost that had died. And just being pissed that he’s got the same name as her dad now.

And then Jenny Toast I usually headcanon as being Toast’s sister Jenny who just… decided to quit being a cop and moved instead to the paranormal investigator business because it’s basically a cop for the paranormal. Find myself switching between her being older and younger too. Idk.

Granted I don’t remember much about the Jenny’s aside from the fact that they were fanmade and then pushed into the lore during a stream (plus that weird Twilight thing with Toast and Jenny Ghost…?)

Idk. Thoughts?

- Blue Strawberry

(Also hi! Back for a tiny bit! Probably gonna fall back into the habit of not posting for awhile and then bombarding the internet for a day again as we work through stuff over here.)

Tbh if memory serves, it wasn’t a stream that introduced the Jennys into the world, it was the billion-year-war arc— there weren’t many conversations about genderbending Ghost and Toast in the circles i was in (which tbh weren’t very involved circles so i could be wrong ^^;). People I was with also didn’t think they’d be around past the BYW… but poof, they came back in one video and I remember exactly zero details from it. Gavin was fanmade and made canon through a stream tho. I didn’t even watch the Twilight thing so you might know more stuff than me lol—

ANYways— having the Jennys be related to Ghost and Toast— whether it be through family or history— would be a good way to explain why their names are so similar. It wouldn’t give us too much to work with to figure out dynamics and relationships since they were played by the same characters to we couldn’t ever see them interact. That could also be decided through headcanons though! Seeing as i hc Ghost being raised partially by the other Johnny Ghost, having Jenny be his daughter could be interesting. Also, seeing as Toast does talk about his sister being named Jenny, I could see her coming in and joining the team if the world fell into an apocalypse. Also if it helps, i remember someone I followed on DA giving Toast TWO sisters named some variant of jenny, one older and one younger.

… tbh i sometimes wish we got more out of the Billion Year War arc— so many characters were untouched or had very little time to be developed and then never got returned to.

Also hi Blue! Glad you guys are working through things, I hope you’re staying safe

[mayakern]

ive only watched freshman year so idk who these are similar to in FH, but these two are my water genasi nem (short for anemone) and her fire genasi sorcerer wife flare!!

@corful this is gonna be a long one so i hope ur ready to strap in! cuz this campagin got all the way to level 20 🤭

their game started out when the party was just kids! we started at level 0 in our small, quaint town. all the og party members were childhood friends. nem was originally a very shy and sweet and bookish girl and all her friends called her nemi. her friends were leah (aasimar cleric), renevoire (tiefling storm sorcerer) and george (half-orc pugilist). bc we were level 0 our characters didn’t actually have real classes but that’s what they eventually grew up to become.

the group was soon joined by ixen, a young kobold spore druid. this art is by my bff @scookart bc i cannot find my art of baby ixen bc this part of the campaign happened in like 2019

im gonna add a cut here so this post isnt one million miles long on y’alls dashes lol

a lot of stuff happened. we delved into hidden ancient temples and gained extra-planar powers. we defeated a shadow monster that destroyed our home and killed a bunch of our friends and family and had to make a deal to warp time and set things “right”—our dead loved ones could come back, but only if we, the party, agreed to leave forever and never come back together as a group.

nem left for wizard las vegas, where she was immediately accepted into wizard school as a promising young mage. there, she met flare, who was kind of too cool for school and nicknamed nem “soggy boots.” some shenanigans happened and they started hanging out, partially because their teacher thought they each had what the other lacked (nem was very precise and studious but struggled to customize her spells to herself, flare had a knack for making her magic her own but lacked nem’s work ethic and control).

tldr bc a lot happened here, but nem helped flare sort out a problem with one of her friends and in doing so, the two kids got mixed up in some illegal magic and became fugitives, their citizenship revoked, and essentially became wanted criminals despite being like 12. bc of this, they fall into a life of crime. mechanically speaking, this is why by the end of the campaign nem was a level 2 divination wizard and a level 18 arcane trickster rogue. this also causes nem’s personality to do a 180. she goes from sweet and shy to jaded, gruff, and untrusting.

over the next 10 years, flare ends up quickly climbing the ranks of their thieves guild on a more administrative/leadership track while nem does the actual physical thievery. during this time, they also start dating. the vibes have been there from the start but they really take off around the time nem is 15.

they get an apartment together with a roof terrace and things are pretty good, tho nem doesn’t really enjoy being in the thieve’s guild. she doesn’t really like doing crime for a living and she struggles to be truly vulnerable around anyone, including flare, because she feels like at any moment that shadow monster, who managed to survive, could come back and rip her out of her life again.

and that’s exactly what happens after nem turns 21. she gets a job to steal some magical artifact in another city and the thing has weird vibes from the get go. nem and flare have traveled there together so flare can do her shmoozing and get more intel. nem receives a note that absolutely REEKS of shadow monster shenanigans and she decides to basically ghost flare and leave quietly in the night, leaving nothing more than a note that strongly warns flare not to go after her or to continue looking into this. she justifies this to herself by saying it’s better if flare doesn’t get involved and she knew that nothing in her life was guaranteed to be permanent, but really she did it because she was terrified of actually being vulnerable.

lo and behold! the shadow guy was involved. he’s in the material plane for good now and he called the original friend group back together to fight a bigger, badder evil. the rich guy from our small home town has found a way to merge with shadow beings and is using the impending confluence of the planes (think like an interplanar eclipse) to bridge the gap from the shadow plane to the material one so he can swallow it in shadows and rule eternal. so that’s bad.

the original shadow guy has been greatly weakened. his name is ammen and he’s also stuck in the material plane now in a human body and is having to learn in real time what having a body means. including having to poop. there’s a lot of shenanigans. he basically becomes a glorified and inept babysitter for a group of orphans the party rescued.

the party’s reunion is sweet and sad and also hella awkward. for the most part, everyone just grew up but their core personalities are the same. except for nem. no one really knows what to do about how weird and unsocial she’s become. when they ask about her job and why she’s become so fast, she says she’s a marathon runner. this becomes a running gag where all members of thieves guilds use sports, usually marathon running, as a cover for their work. rennevoire has become a ghost hunter. george has become a pit fighter. leah has been doing justicy-y things. ixen has been traveling the world doing archeology for fun. when the party reunites, george takes on a persona as a country music star, hannah montana style, named georgianna grande. rennevoire becomes her manager and basically starts a country music record empire/pyramid scheme.

(they’re all in separate images so i dont want to paste them in, but you can see the grown up party here)

lots of shenanigans happen. we go to different planes. each member of the party has a different plane associated with them and gains powers related to that. but you’re here for nem and flare!

flare shows back up in the city nem and the group are in and nem is sweating bullets. but flare is… weird. nem goes to talk with her and flare attacks her/the party! turns out it was a changeling in disguise. and in fact he is the dad of that kid nem and flare tried to help as kids, the situation that made them fugitives in the first place. that kid is still in a coma and has been all these years (their attempt to help him as kids failed miserably) and now his dad has basically gone crazy obsessed spending his whole life trying to get his kid back.

shenanigans ensue and the gang travels to wizard las vegas. turns out there’s like a sneeple curse going on that’s trapped the kid’s consciousness in another plane (a sneeple plane) and now flare is trapped there too. they’re both in comas. nem is distraught. she is usually very careful, but she starts getting reckless and making stupid mistakes bc she is so overcome with emotion. she visits their apartment and flare adopted a MAGICAL PUPPY while nem was gone. nem is absolutely horrified. she’s never taken care of an animal before.

eventually they manage to rescue flare and nico (the changeling kid who is no longer a kid). nem and flare have a heart-to-heart about their relationship, their fears, etc. nem is finally fully vulnerable with flare about how scared she was and how she was trying to protect both flare and her own feelings by leaving. they eventually get make up and get engaged. they try to elope quietly, mostly bc of nem’s avoidant personality issues, but the party catches on and gets mad so they do end up having a wedding, albeit a rather rushed one.

flare and nem go on a brief pocket dimension honeymoon where they basically just bang it out for a solid week, while only a day or so passes in the real world. they also spend 1000 gold on magical sex toys. i said this offhand as a joke bc at that point the party had like 50k and nem personally had like 10k, but my dm actually made them a "long distance relationship starter kit." (click the link to see the item, warning for nsfw content)

after this there’s more shenanigans. things are getting dire with the state of the world and the impending interplanar eclipse. eventually the party manages to find a way to circumvent the threatening apocalypse but in order to do so, they will have to turn back time to before the evil rich guy merged his soul with a shadow being. that means going back to when they were 10, to before flare and nem ever met. meaning flare will not remember her. nem is, understandably, crushed. previously when confronted with situations where nem could gain power if she sacrificed anything related to flare, even in symbolic situations that would have no real world ramifications, she has 100% refused. this is basically the worst possible choice for her. she cries a lot. talks with flare. comes up with a plan and the determination she needs to Do The Right Thing.

so the party have a final confrontation with the BBEG and it is during this fight, while he is distracted, that they turn back time. so as the fight progresses, they all become younger and younger, and they lose their powers (ie they level down), until they’re back to being kids and the BBEG is just a human and they can kill him before he becomes a problem.

the party is no longer forbidden from staying together/staying with their families. but nem still has a mission. she returns to wizard las vegas. she finds flare. she tells flare what her adult self told nem to say to her child self—information flare had never told anyone else, even in her adult years—and the two were able to reunite again and start fresh, and this time not as fugitives.

i think in this new version of the world, nem either goes full wizard or goes wizard 18 / rogue 2. i’ve tried to draw what i think wizard nem would look like but i just haven’t liked any of my attempts. idk maybe i’ll try again soon some times.

anyway i love my girls and i hope you’ve enjoyed this Very Long Post about them

u can find more art of them on my toyhouse

their campaign ended over a year ago but i’m still obsessed w them….

don’t think i’ll ever be over these two and their big stupid gay wedding that they got to have TWICE thanks to time travel shenanigans 😭

[magicmindless]

Cameo x Drakson (Camson? idk) HCs because I honestly really need to get them out of my head (these are subject to change and also be added to in the future if I feel like it)

When it comes to their sexualities I think Cameo might be either bi or pan and Drakson is homoromantic asexual

Met online in an RPG game. It was a game that Cameo had been playing for a long time, but Drakson was kind of new at it. Rithy introduced him to the game, but also happened to be a fan of Cameo so when he saw his game username, he got Drakson to friend-request him so he did, and Cameo surprisingly accepted

Since he was new, Cameo was more than happy to aid him through the game, even doing 1-on-1 quests with him. Soon, both of them became some of the top players from playing it so much

Before, Cameo didn't really know about Doom Brûlée. He's heard of them a few times before, but never listened to their music until Drakson told him he was in the band, so he gave them a listen and actually kinda liked it (even though industrial rock wasn't one of his favorite genres, he's more of a videogame OST and J-pop kinda guy)

They eventually decided to start video calling each other, and from then they talked about more than just the games they played together. They talked about their days, vented about their problems (Drakson especially did the latter lol), and overall got to know each other better

I think Drakson fell first but was pretty aloof about it because he had a doubt in his mind that it probably wouldn't work out between them, so when Cameo told him that he might've liked him in that way he was genuinely shocked

Meanwhile on Cameo's end he also liked him but he wasn't exactly sure about it because he couldn't tell if it was because he had spent so much time with him or because he kind of had a celebrity status or what which explains why he specifically told him that he might like him

Now because of how uncertain their feelings were for each other, they first sorta friend-zoned each other and thought "eh it probably wouldn't work out between us we should just stay friends haha" but then like a day later idk who says it but like one of them was like "hey I change my mind can we try dating I think i actually like you more than I thought-" and yeah they started online dating

After a few months of online dating they decided to meet up at Whiskview Mall at Papa's Bakeria. When they met up, Drakson's first impression of Cameo irl was that he was much taller than he imagined him in his head (he thought Cameo would be around the same height as him). Meanwhile Cameo's first impression of Drakson irl was that he was a little more scary-looking than he was during their video calls

They had a pretty good first date, they shared some pie together, walked around the mall, played games in the arcade, tried on clothes in fashion flambé, and even gave each other gifts in the end, Cameo giving Drakson a Hello Kitty plush he won at the arcade, and Drakson giving him a new pair of headphones since he complained that his old ones were broken

After their date, they kissed outside of the mall which was much more... intimate than either of them thought it was gonna be. It was first gonna be a quick kiss on the lips but then tongue was involved and- yeah they stopped it before they went a little too far because they were in public lol

The first people to know of their relationship were Orion, Rithy, and Liezel on Drakson's end, and Kaleb, Cherrisa, and Trishna on Cameo's end. Both parties were pretty shocked (especially on Cameo's end like "YOU'RE DATING A CELEBRITY???"). But overall, Cameo's side got good reception meanwhile Drakson got good reception from Liezel and Rithy, but a little mixed from Orion (Like "dude you're dating a nerd?" sorta thing)

Speaking of which Cameo despises Orion because of his stupid kart and inflated ego, which is a little ironic since Cameo is also known to be a bit snooty, but Drakson humbles him

Overall both are pretty open about their relationships but people still get surprised about it

Drakson did a big reveal about his relationship to their fans during a concert which he personally invited Cameo to, where right before their last song (which was a tribute to Cameo) Drakson called him up on stage and they kissed. The crowd went absolutely wild and most of his fans were very supportive (the ones who weren't were just given the blunt message that if they didn't like the thought of anyone in their band being queer then they were not fans to begin with)

Cameo totally shows off his gaming skills to Drakson at the arcade, especially at SSI (their DDR) which the two basically fight to the death over (but in a loving way). Aside form that, they also like to play the shooting games together and even made it to the leaderboards together

On the other hand, Drakson likes to show off his musical talents to Cameo who, unfortunately, has zero musical knowledge, but he still likes to learn about it. Drakson has even tried to teach him the higher part of heart and soul and while he wasn't great at it, it was cute seeing him try

Drakson's favorite quirk about Cameo is that if he laughs too hard, he'll just crumble to the floor and won't be able to get up until he calms down, and he thinks it's adorable. As for Cameo, his favorite quirk about Drakson is how much of a sweet tooth he has, so he'll sometimes bribe him with sweets to get him to do something for him (but hey it makes him happy)

[moogghost]

yknow i never exactly. liveblogged it when i played cassette beasts for the first time these past two or so months i should go into detail bc i don't think. the one screenshot of 900+ something fused material upon unlocking the noticeboard was enough to stress just How i decided to play this game bc i don't think a simple screenshot can get that across (and also bc lowkey i think this may give context for how i'm gonna write stuff with my cassette beasts oc asphodel in the future bc like. that is semi based on this playthrough and the reason she's Like That is partially bc of that fact .)

be warned this is very long and goes into detail about the whole game so also spoilers ofc

ok so when i first started my save file it was actually pretty late when i started and i got through like. the tutorial stuff and then went to sleep. but like i went through that relatively normally which is surprising even for me bc i need everyone to know that like. i'm the kind of person who grinds to like level 10 and up in the tutorial section for fun if the game lets me. if u know pokemon mystery dungeon explorers of darkness/time/sky. i literally grind to level 30+ each time right before i hit waterfall cave. there is no reason for this other than i just want to. for no reason. for those who don't know this dungeon is like a level 15 dungeon at Most and is a relatively early section in the game. this is very important to know bc i have a Habit of playing games like this even when i'm not given absolute freedom to do fuckall. and to clarify i mostly played the game in harder level scaling though i Did put it on easy if i was struggling enough with a fight but i generally went on harder difficulty once i got comfortable enough with the gameplay like around 5-10 hours in

the moment i picked up the game again i immediately decided to turn on the level scaling to max and did not stop destroying the local wildlife population until i hit like. level ~40-50 i wanna say? i also wanna stress that this was when i was supposed to head to the ranger outpost. i knew it was something marked as part of main quest and immediately decided to ignore it on purpose. i did also explore more and then managed to get all the way to thirstaton lake and then went back. i would regularly go back and forth for grinding by foot until i got too injured and fast travelled back.

now see another fun thing about this all was that i had no clue where to fight other archangels that weren't involved in any partner quests. bc i hadn't thought of the others that were just There at all with no partner quest involved. so i didn't even unlock any of the stations i could've until after i completed everyone else's quests. the only ones that i found were by complete accident until i realised like 50+ hours into the game. so i did not have fast travel to so many of the areas in this game for the longest time and honestly idk if that made the whole grinding situation better or worse

speaking of the partner quests. i had most of them except barkley's started Enough that they were marked on the quest log but didn't really do them yet for . whatever reason ???? honest to god i still don't know why. but anyways would you believe me if i said the first partner quest i actually did and finished was viola's. and that it resulted in robin goodfellow being the second archangel i fought. because it was and honestly thank god for level scaling except also not bc i briefly disabled it to check and see my level for that area and was surprised when it was still close to mine and i didn't think . to maybe do something else first instead for. whatever reason. but anyways yeah that was my second archangel fight and i struggled if only bc i was still figuring out strategy in this game and therefore while viola's signature tape was fully remastered by the time i fought robin goodfellow the moves were a little. a little ass. that is to say i just brute forced the entire fight all the same and did not bother with preparing for the angelic attack or. bringing cures. i still don't know how i pulled this off because this was the fight i was the least "overlevelled" for bc i was pretty close in level even without level scaling and this did not help me to remember walls are a valuable move to have in archangel fights

then i actually decided to do everyone else's quests, which i went through relatively alright with ?? it took me a bit. longer with each one if only bc i wanted to remaster everyone's tapes first (barring kayleigh's bc i'd already remastered hers before swapping her out for viola). i think this was when i did actually look on the wiki for specific things like the elemental altars and then like the landkeeper offices in the mire sea and autumn hill (the moment i got the personal quest for kayleigh i avoided autumn hill if Only bc my allergy to actually doing story in a normal way so i had no clue about the right side of the map ngl). but that i actually did without scary grinding for the most part except i think i did reach level ~70 ish around this point? and also i was losing my mind bc i accidentally knocked out the averevoir in barkley's quest and didn't record it nor get the ability. this becomes relevant to a whole mission i went on in an upcoming bit

okay so before i did the last partner quest i had left (kayleigh's to be specific), i was still. peeved about that damn bird. and looked into where i could potentially record it later. and then i learned of the fusion radar and that's where i went into the full grind on the ranger stuff. because until then i thiiink i went into the outpost but that was it?? and didn't do anything else but the moment i learned of the fusion radar i Needed it so. i immediately went on the hunt for all the ranger captains and i need to stress for the most part i think i brute forced everything except like. judas and clee-o's fights bc judas fight did actually teach me the value of actually using cures in battle (i forgot i could go back to dr pensby and. buy more) but clee-o's trashed me so bad i actually ran my own stuff with roll again with my southpaw and Then i won after stalling and hoping to god roll again would kick in for me. but i eventually did it and barely managed to win against ianthe and wilma first try?? idk. to be clear i was using eugene w robindam as my main partner for the most part during this and after getting my ass kicked i started experimenting with passive moves more so. that could also have influenced it

but anyways after that the moment i got my fusion radar you can bet your ass i went and nabbed myself that averevoir once it showed up on the map.

THEN after doing. a decent amount of grinding fusions ngl i eventually decided to do kayleigh's quest and fix up decibelle's moves bc reminder i hadn't had kayleigh as my partner in so long closer to when i started the game at that point. then i actually progressed the plot bc after that immediately the whole aleph banishing you to the dead world intermission happened and it was funny for me in the aftermath bc i was like. ok where the hell am i supposed to find other archangels now if i've done all the partner quests (did it know) (it did not know). i did figure it out after a while but tbh i got more preoccupied with grinding rogue fusions at this point and also i Did want to max out my relationship levels with eugene at least since i was already on 3-4 hearts before the intermission and i wanted to finish another partner's relationship levels since i already maxed out barkely's by this point so. give or take it took me a while. then i actually did all of the archangels except i think i did like cherry meadow's station like the dungeon earlier on but didn't come back for several in-game hours until i remembered. but either way i did all of them EXCEPT waterloop station and icelington station bc 1. those damn puzzles. and 2. idk why i didn't do icelington station sooner tbh there was no real reason bc it's one of the earlier stations i had unlocked

and also i will say before i did all of the archangels that i was probably supposed to fight sooner i Did do the dlc. this is important to mention only bc scarleteeth my beloved carrying me through so many of those archangel fights w carnivore and bite but also bc i think This is when i started thinking more heavily about asphodel backstory bc the implications with human experimentation made me think (the current backstory for it isn't the exact same as the original concept just similar in specific themes now but yknow). but i say this last part bc i think this is what helped me toy with making asphodel an archangel of sorts bc i mentioned it Once in the tags of an art post but yeah this is where that lore got stemmed from or at least gave it a gentle nudge in that direction. also i wanna say that i think gwen was the first time since clee-o that kicked my ass so bad where i got my ass beat and then won the second time after fixing my team a little bit. topsy turvy i hate you i hate you (i say like i even bothered with walls during archangel fights instead of brute forcing everything to begin with. no this didn't make me use walls in these fights after this)

but anyways bc i figured 'oh shit i'm close to completing morgante's song now i'm closer to end-game than i thought' i felt it would be a good time to stop before doing waterloop and icelington stations and max out everyone else's relationship levels bc like. by this point i had already maxed out barkley and eugene's so i figured i might as well, and also bc i wanted to fix up their signature tapes' moves more bc it'd been a while (note that i always keep their signature tapes on them. i had been making sure so much after i accidentally had eugene take my wyrmaw tape after switching partners. i was very distraught over my wyrmaw tape). and also just to 5 star those tapes too ngl bc i 5 starred some of them but not all and it felt wrong to have not done that by that point. i wanna say i managed to get everyone to around level ~100-115 by this point? and also a lot of the grinding to catch up in levels was done against rogue fusions i was accumulating a decent amount of it every so often

after that i switched back to eugene as my partner mostly bc I Like Him but also bc i had the most thought out moveset on his signature tape bc i'd used him the most thus far and it was easiest to grind rogue/swarm fusions with echolocation + pre-emptive strike and then toy hammer for the rest of the fight (this was before i made it worse with rarer stickers and sticker fusion). so i decided to grind rogue fusions again BUT i also wanted to complete as much of the bestiary as i could so that also happened too (i didn't decide on 5 starring everything until in postgame. which i have done by now). i got just about everything outside of anthema for obvious reasons i think? i mean khepri was. annoying. but i persisted

then i eventually got to doing icelington station first bc. the wretched puzzles that haunt me. and it was relatively alright so i eventually did waterloop and i need u to know i just looked up the puzzle solution immediately for the turning statues. i lose it every time i see those types of puzzles dragon quest 7 left me a bitter creature when i had to solve one of those puzzles without any way to look up and answer bc i was in a car (road trip) and no wifi and i struggled for hours. i did not forget nor forgive. but either way i did both archangels and if you're thinking i did the rest of the main story after this. you're wrong i went bootleg hunting for almost 50 in-game hours instead

bc you see i wanted more coverage for certain things so i decided to replace my southpaw for a plant bootleg one with a similar ish build to the old one? just with stuff like leech and poison pollen in addition to the roll again bc i liked the speed on it and i happened to like plant bootleg puppercut enough after burning my first ritual candle bc it was the first one i encountered so. yea

the others though. oh my god let me tell you scarleteeth and apocrowlypse were a pain in the ass . to be fair i did their first stage forms littlered and nevermort just bc i didn't wanna do all of that and also it looked easier to tell those fusions apart than with their remastered forms. but it was still painful. i was looking for ground littlered and fire nevermort specifically right. and while now i do think ground isn't really as good as other types please note that i had no other lightning coverage than robindam and it isn't always a guarantee i'm using eugene or just having him use it bc of type interactions. and also fire bc it was annoying me but ramtasm had it mostly covered so i cared less. i was very desperate. fire nevermort was bc i got so sick of the khepri tape breaking after one or two melee hits it immediately got benched after i grew annoyed enough ❤️ also bc i wanted more speed and a taunt user bc "having taunt would be useful" i thought, 80+ hours into the game. i mean now khepri finally got released from the timeout corner and is now used for random starter + headshot spam for rogue fusions bc funny but Never Again if i'm not doing that

but anyways littlered bootleg hunting was. painful. i found. everything but ground for a solid day. i found 4 separate glass bootlegs. 4 separate beast bootlegs. 3 plant. 2 poison. 2 metal. and then one of literally every other type until i found ground. i think i lost my mind during this but not enough to never do it again bc after this i did the fire nevermort hunt except that was less painful. this i actually liveblogged most of it on discord to my friends i was so distraught i even have pictured images of it all (...don't mind the nickname)

so after That whole battle i decided the only way to move forwards was obviously to go hunting for an astral bootleg traffikrab (this was less painful than the littlered saga but was more stressful in that i was trying to do this before i went to work and idk if i'd feel awake enough for video games afterwards since i had a 6-11 pm shift. i did somehow succeed though so yay?)

but anyways after this all i ended up fighting more rogue fusions mostly just to max out my rewind and respool upgrades, but also to get as many upgrades as i could to make my life a little easier (after doing many of the major story fights already). but eventually i think i got high enough level to the point where i was like 'fuck it i'll just go to level 200 then' and it was mostly just against rogue fusions? i mean i did captain rematches during this point too but it was mostly rogue fusions bc i had done most of the captain rematches before the whole bootleg hunting happened. but then i reached that and decided. why not do that with the rest of the partners. and oh my god going from level 200 partner to level 150 ish on the impenetrable grind fighting level 200 fusions is. something. if you're wondering why i didn't use olive ups it's bc i wanted the exp gained to get to the benched partners and i doubted using an olive up did that so i instead went the hard way with it. but in the end i don't even think i used the olive ups later not even with barkley who was giving me the most trouble leveling up ngl so i just had. 33 olive ups sitting there. i have at least 40 now

during all of this i was given like too much time to think while doing all of the grinding bc i think This is when i started thinking about asphodel backstory in full depth bc i had gotten vague spoilers about certain things but not enough where it was explicitly said (but like enough that i had an idea on stuff that would happen w the finale and also the mordread stuff bc i thought about it a lot i really did. though it was the stuff i was most spoiled on but not by too much). and was like. 'ok i wanna finish the main story first just bc i wanna get the information firsthand but the moment i do i'm hitting asphodel with the archangel beam bc like. idk i think it fits with specific aspects of her character and background.' and also bc i was relistening to kirby and the forgotten land ost entirely too much during that so it was bound to happen to asphodel at some point sorry girl. two planets approach the roche limit assignment be upon you

but after all of that. i did in fact beat the game and did the final stuff. like i didn't actually procrastinate it even after unlocking night's bridge station which is shocking for me. but the funniest thing to me is that i did not utilize fusion until it was forced upon me during the scripted part of the aleph null fight bc like. i need you to know even with having the levels close to mine it was like a one sided battle. fighting aleph was funny bc i don't even. think his angelic attack did that much to me or it didn't matter bc custom starter + sticky spray + two critical AP (one shared with allies) mothmanic with robindam that hits like a truck with ranged attack just. utterly demolished that guy. literally the same shit happened with aleph null except everyone else was there that i had. also maxed out and everything. i'm pretty sure if the fight wasn't scripted that would've been the end of it aleph is just a sore loser and cheated. i got through the scripted segment, i went through the credits and i decided to listen to into the light splatoon 2 after it and it made me feel. Emotions. did not help that this game reminds me the most of a pokemon mystery dungeon game out of all of the pokemon games i've played if anything

postgame has been mostly me grinding and i have not touched the gauntlet yet just bc there's other stuff i wanted to do first (such as completing here comes the sun and also eventually the morgante rematch...which i still haven't done yet. rn it's bc i'm procrastinating but before it was bc it forces me to actually use walls in archangel fights >:(). but i Will get around to it in between that and other things i need to work on

i think i said it before but i'll say it again: i had fun with this game and still am having fun! i played it on switch for the first time bc honest to god if i had gotten it on steam it would've taken me. months to get to and lowkey i would've been enraged if i had started playing it on my old laptop right before it broke bc i Did think about buying it on steam first i really did. i Do wanna play it again on steam at some point mostly to stream it to my friends on discord so i can spread my illness /hj but yeah it was definitely a fun experience to play a different monster collector genre game that wasn't pokemon or dragon quest monsters (i only add the latter bc i grew up w it specifically the joker series. more people should try that one too), the experience felt more unique to those and it was really fun actually going into the game absolutely blind to anything about it. i plan to eventually try out more monster collector games when i have the gaming energy to do so, though honestly a lot of the time it's gonna be on switch first bc i don't. trust my laptops to function properly for longer than a year any more despite me maintaining them well. i do plan to keep playing cassette beasts in the meanwhile, i had fun with it and honestly having a thing to hyperfixate on after the whole latter half of october and november as a whole went down. probably helped me not lose my mind as much lol

on a different front. i Will blame this game for causing me to introject like 3 different guys relating to it bc wtf man /lh (<- see: system. i know damn well that i was likely to introject at least one character from this game i just didn't think it'd fuckgin be. three guys at once)

but yeah thank you for reading this far if you did bc this is . very long i enjoyed explaining the way i played this game very much i hope this gives context on that one screenshot of the 900+ fused material collected

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

I absolutely love our flag means death and I love many of the blogs I follow, yours included, but I don't ever want to truly join the fandom. The blatant racism is abysmal and just a strong reminder how toxic and racist fandom culture is in general. The fact half the show is about the romantic lead is the monster legend has made him out to be, and they even like him, yet their bias can't make them actuve see a moc has anything but dangerous. The fact people stanning and apologizing unironically his toxic second mate who is more fascinating as a bad guy than a good guy. Who throw tantrums when people literally point out things within the show that happen but also act like people are insane and toxic for thinking racial stereotypes are bad. How can they literally watch the show and agree with the villian that a character who's been told who's cried and had panic attacks and is a dude bro that he doesn't deserve nice things actually doesn't and is as scary and mean as everyone says he is. How can you think that and still think youre in the right. This show is so fun and positive. These people are so fucking insane over a dumbass goofy workplace "check out this booty im hawking whip my balls pissing on boots" pirate sitcom. It's weird!! It's so weird!!!

honestly anon, that's probably a good call. i'm personally still having a blast because i've gathered a nice little circle of mutuals and mutual-in-laws whose takes i trust and whose ofmd content isnt fucking abysmal. but even then i still see Incredibly Shitty Takes on the regular. even if i turned anon off i'd still see shit if i went into the tags (which i rarely do) or if i just. tagged a post with the character that post is about. it's fucking wild

you're completely correct tho. the amount of Missing The Point Of The Entire Goddamn Show that goes on in this fandom so that people can woobify their white fave is fucking exhausting. i don't blame you for not wanting to get involved

[tartrazeen]

It is a bit tricky nailing down Angus' feelings for all this. 🤔

Deirdre's easy. She's the princess, she's got all the power, and the only line she has to worry about is whether or not something's fair. I'd say 'proper' or 'traditional', but she pushes back on those when she doesn't like them, so 'fair' seems to be the underlying factor for her - and she lumps in a lot of stuff as being fair by virtue of being the princess. Not always in a bad way! She was willing to sacrifice herself in the second episode because she was the princess, so she embraces the responsibility involved.

It's why it's so funny that she is more open with Angus and grabbing him all the time. Like she knows nothing's going to happen because Angus is Angus. Upheaving a whole bunch of rules just to give herself permission to hook up with him? That's not a fair trade. Unless - like... idk, is Angus interested, did he say anything 👀

The line's mostly drawn from her side, is what I'm saying. She's permitted herself to relax and damn near flirt, but going any further would be a massive change that'd need a massive commitment.

But then there's Angus. He's a lot harder to pin down.

First off, lololololol pin down

Second, assume this is separate from the polycule in Angus' mind. I always thought Deirdre was the first person he's involved himself with anyway, and the thought of what he's gonna do with her gets too easy when he's already comfortably moving around four beds.

Third, I'm not looking to rehash everything I've already said (even though I do love mentally rehashing it for fun uwu). There's a bigger fish to fry: if everything could work out the way Angus wanted, what would he do?

Rohan would have to give his blessing. That's the most important thing. We all agree, right? Yay!

Garrett wouldn't have to give his blessing so much as his acknowledgement. This guy's all about battles and showing off, so recognizing Angus as the 'best' for Deirdre and stepping aside would be enough. It's still a lot, but it's easier for Angus to force Garrett to accept it if he absolutely has to. Angus can't force Rohan into anything without risking their friendship, so that's the critical difference.

Ivar and Conchobar would both be non-issues. Ivar would be supportive of whatever made his friends happy, so long as it doesn't distract them from their duties and his quest, and I don't think he'd see an issue with their gap in class. He might chalk it up to being a quaint quirk of Kells. And to be perfectly honest, if Deirdre ever decides she's gonna marry someone in particular, her dad is not gonna stop her. Not that he won't try, probably! But he's gonna lose hard. Deirdre has "Remember when I ran off to become a Mystic Knight and saved Kells" and "Remember when you sold me off to Garrett and I said no" and "Hey remember when you were gonna marry Maeve" triple-attack on her side. Forget him.

Cathbad would probably need to give somewhat of a blessing. Not exactly that. More like... approval, maybe? I don't think Angus could handle a million jokes about a lowly thief stealing his way onto the throne, especially when he barely handles the jokes that are only about the thief part. So Cathbad would have to agree that he approves of the two of them and only give his unsolicited snark when Angus fumbles (oh, and he will. And Cathbad is totally welcome to say that - once).

The village - yes we're going that far - is sort of where it breaks down for him.

The guards - oh yeah, we're talking about the guards too, we're not stopping at the main cast when Angus wouldn't - would have to find a way to privately come to terms with it. There are a number of moments where someone says something in front of the king, and then when the king's out of earshot, a guard gives their real opinion; even if they swear openly that they're fine with Angus now that Deirdre's shacking up with the utter bane of their existence in this place, it's not gonna stick until he can walk around and ignore them. I'm not sure how long it'll take, since Angus'll be coming off of at least a decade of being chased and imprisoned by these guys. But ignoring him would be the best. He doesn't need to be friends with them, and I imagine he doesn't like a handful of them, but getting to walk around as unseen in a hall as he would be crawling through a passage seems like it'd fit his happy status quo.

Angus trying to leverage his status as Deirdre's boyfriend wouldn't be the problem. That'd happen all the time, mostly harmlessly, and the second it hits a level where Deirdre wouldn't like it if she found out, it'd stop. :P And it's not some sexist hen-pecked trope. I think with how seriously Deirdre takes her role as a royal, compared to how begrudgingly Rohan takes to his as a legendary warrior, Angus wouldn't dare to do something like ask the villagers for gold. Pushing Rohan to do it? Sure, Angus'll try, and he'd definitely use his own status as a Mystic Knight. But not Deirdre's as a princess. That's disrespectful, not cute and cheeky.

Angus spending some nights in the castle would be more of a problem, but not the main one either. It's not like he's going to stop talking to his friends in the village, just because that's the crowd he's depended on to survive and old habits really die hard. He's going to want breaks from all the royal prim and properness, too. Problems wouldn't come from any jealousy from anyone there, because he's been fairly comfortable brag-talking about how he's in the castle all the time as a knight. He's already taking any jealousy in stride. Yes, it is nice being with the princess, thanks. Oh, what's it like? Sorry, royal secret, can't kiss and tell. Anm Rohan might get a little lonely from time to time, since Angus is only ever gone when he's stormed off. While I do see Angus keeping visits with Deirdre to a minimum (as far as Rohan can tell) so he doesn't leave Rohan alone for too long, and that becoming its own problem over time, it's not really a problem with the village itself.

It's Deirdre.

Angus can fit in at the castle in his obvious "haha i don't belong here what are you gonna do about it" way, but Deirdre is going to piss off so many people if she's hanging around there for too long.

How do I know?

THE SOUP.

I can genuinely extrapolate every other thing from how it would based on just that soup. You know the one - it's like episode 48? 47? One of the later ones. Deirdre and Ivar go to Rohan and Angus' village, smell something awful, go to the hut, and turn down Angus' very happy offers to share his soup.

🙃

You might be asking what the problem is.

The problem is that Angus is a peasant. And poor. And has been both of those for quite some time. And very openly encouraged these two to try something he says is really good, and is almost certainly something he's made before, and would have definitely smelled as strong to the other villagers. He doesn't think anything of it.

Now it's one thing for the princess to politely hand out scoops of seeds in a charitable visit. It's another thing entirely to go with Angus to places in the village for fun, and not-so-subtly turn down certain foods or drinks, and very-loudly-in-outrage react toooooooo... Ye Olde Blue Collar Humour. A lot of which I am sure involves some crude jokes about the Princess of Kells, and just in general involves some general ribbing ('cause Angus got along fine with his two ex-friends at the tavern roasting him over his maps). There's an assumed All In Good Fun that she's not gonna fully prepare for, and that a lot of others are going to have sucked out of the room purely so they can be polite.

And what happens after that?

🥴 Angus just goes off by himself.

You know, ditching Deirdre.

Because what's he gonna tell her? "Sorry, Deirdre, you can't come, you kill every party you're at"? Hell no! She'll take that as a challenge! But there's one episode where Pyre goes nuts because of a plant and Angus and Deirdre are off to investigate, and Angus makes a joke like "uwu And you say we have nothing in common." A lot of what Angus is has to do with being a peasant! She didn't even find common ground with Rohan in the first episode, and he was the apprentice to the court's druid!

Angus knows this.

Angus also doesn't do well with confronting royals about their shitty ideas.

Angus is also gonna be dating her and ostensibly won't be as quick to say, "okay try it, let's see how this works out for you." (Well, maybe as a last resort, but if she actually comes back upset, he's gonna feel awful.) He's supposed to be her support, and setting her up to fail isn't going to work out on any level.

At worst-best, Angus somehow organizes the village to wait until she's back at the castle to start any 'real' parties. She'd still be hurt when she finds out, like he's hiding her from them (and she'll add some arrogant outrage at that too, since who hides a princess from peasants?), but I could see him thinking it's tomorrow's problem.

The funny thing is, those are all the mandatory obstacles Angus has to leap before he's getting publicly involved with her. And honestly involved too, not just humouring her on some fake-dates. Like I said, everything stops the second Rohan so much as frowns, but if there's not a solution for everything from the guards to the villagers, Angus still isn't surviving this relationship.

I find that hilariously ironic. It should be the other way around, right? Like Aladdin trying to fit in to be with Jasmine. But this time, Aladdin's already at the royal table. It's Jasmine who's gotta figure out how to hack it in the market - and even in that movie, she went out for five seconds and almost got her arm cut off.

🥴

... Oh my God.

Deirdre's gonna have to get Rohan to teach her how peasants live 😭

😭😭😭 Oh my God 😭😭😭 What if Angus thinks they're dating and instead of freaking out like they're cheating on him, he's like, "Yeah, it was a little too good to be true. I'm happy the two of you are finally together, though! I am absolutely okay with this. 🙂 No really, what else could I have possibly been expecting?"

ANGST. GIVE ME LATE 1990'S ROMCOM MISCOMMUNICATION ANGST.

uwu

I'm in ship mode.

Starting the new year with some Angus/Deirdre What If fluff.

By What If, I mean I don't actually think this fits in with the show, but they never technically said it couldn't happen uwu

To set the stage, we know Rohan lived in the castle since he was a kid, and Angus tagged along as part of a package deal. Angus also immediately took to crawling around in the walls, finding passages that were probaby meant for... idk, cats? Maybe? I don't know why there's so much space for him in there, especially as an adult, but there ya go.

But I'm also imagining that with the shape of the stones on the outside of the castle, there are enough handholds for small fingers to find purchase. Experienced rock climbers can get a grip on what seems like a totally flat wall because they can work with such subtle grooves after years of practise. Picture Angus getting into a dozen different places through a mix of gaps between the walls and crawling around on the outside to come in through a window.

Angus and Deirdre technically met in that episode about the curse on Kells, which was just when Rohan went to live in the castle, and immediately after Deirdre referred to Rohan as some "dirty boy". We see Angus getting into Cathbad's chamber, coughing on the way in from all the dust, so no matter how dirty Rohan was, Angus would be even worse. And from the look of things, Angus didn't have a reason to go in the castle until then; the guy makes such a big show of knowing everything about a place when he's introducing someone to it (like Garrett to Tir Na Nog and that kid-prince to Cathbad's chamber too), and he acts like he's never seen this room before.

So.

uwu

Imagine Angus, brand-new to the passages in this castle. He's trying to find his way to where Rohan is, but this place is a maze. He's never truly sure which room he's about to pop out of, but he does realize - after going in a few circles - that there are more than a few ways to enter certain rooms.

Deirdre, who's passing through these halls, hears louder skittering than any rat (or cat) she's heard before. She's curious, and she's bored from all of her princess lessons, so this is the perfect spark of excitement to go see what it is. She follows it around, trying to keep up with it going up and down the floors. It goes all the way until she's in an empty guest room, creeping closer and closer towards the fireplace.

And then out pops a soot monster.

(it's angus but she doesn't know that yet)

Deirdre's surprised for half a second, and then outraged that this even dirtier boy is intruding through her castle walls. Angus can't see her because he's got soot over his eyes, so he doesn't know this is the princess yet. But he figures it out after he pats himself off and covers the whole room in soot, getting Deirdre to start coughing and angrily yell for the guards. That makes everything snap into sense, and Angus is back in the fireplace and off through the walls a second later.

Then the rest of the episode with the curse happens, Angus finds Rohan, the two of them meet Deirdre, and they (or Rohan at least) pretty much never talk to her again until they're adults - based on how they are with each other in the first episode, anyway.

Except now I'm gonna change what happened over the years to plant some better seeds for a budding princess-and-thief romance. 😌

Angus is still going to want to visit Rohan while they're growing up (obviously). He's also going to want to map out the rest of this castle. So he visits, and he explores, and he stumbles into empty rooms, and he leaves a sooty mess behind, and he disappears before anyone else can catch him. He and Rohan probably giggle about this since the servants would mention some soot-ghost causing them all this extra work, and - more importantly - annoying the princess, who says it's some boy that's running around. Rohan won't admit a thing to Cathbad, and Angus is good at staying hidden.

Then one day, he crawls out of a passage in the corner of a room, and comes face-to-knee with...

😵‍💫 Deirdre.

Angus has just found out where her room is, and she is not happy.

She isn't the type to start hysterically screaming for help right away, and now that she's met Angus at least once (during the curse episode), she's much more likely to look down at him crawling in from that corner and go, "YOU. 😠 You're the one who's been hiding in the walls."

Angus goes "whoops" and disappears again, leaving Deirdre to shove some furniture over the hole to block it up.

A few nights after that, and Deirdre - stubbornly getting through her needlework in a different room - sees some soot sprinkle down and onto her fabric. She looks up, and beside a hole in the ceiling by the chandelier, she sees Angus. She goes, "😠," he goes, "🤫" and then he disappears again. Deirdre is scolded for getting distracted and quietly returns to her stitches.

A few nights after that, Deirdre hears rustling from behind the wardrobe in her room. She gets up to go see if it's a mouse that's been trapped... and finds Angus chomping on food he's stolen from the royal pantry. Clearly he's mapped out that route, but he mesed up on finding his way back to Rohan and on finding a better spot to rest for a snack.

Deirdre goes, "😠 OUT." Angus goes "😮 oop" and takes off again.

The key to this is that Deirdre thinks Angus is a pest, enough to want him gone, but is having an easy time getting rid of Angus by herself. No guards required, or else everything would forcibly end early.

There are a other few milestones I picture happening along the way when they're still kids, like Deirdre hearing muffled breathing from somewhere in her room, just to explore and find Angus behind the wall of another corner, only just visible behind a smaller hole that - for once - he can't actually fit through.

Except he's just snoozing back there.

He scatters when she wakes him up - throwing a rock at him or something, because he's in her castle and she isn't going to touch him when he's so filthy - but weeks later, he's in there again. Same thing happens. The third time, though, is when he doesn't really wake up from her snapping at him. With the hole being just smaller than their heads, she can't quite get a good look at him, but she ducks down and puts her ear against it to listen, all to hear him shivering. She thought it was the pop of the fire in the hearth, but it's him.

It occurs to her that the reason he's in this part of the wall is because it's beside her fire. He's freezing. It was winter but she hadn't made the connection to the cold and needing shelter. She knows he has a friend in the castle, but she assumes he wasn't allowed to stay with him because of Cathbad. Their druid's complained about him occasionally to her father.

She considers doubling down and waking him up for sure, but... well, the fire drowns out the noise, he's quiet enough anyway, and it isn't like he can get in here through that small hole in the corner. She puts a basket in the way to be safe, casually adds more wood to fireplace, and returns to bed. He isn't allowed to stay there forever, but if it's so cold that he has nowhere else to be, he can stay for one night.

She never asks about his circumstances, since he's a peasant and it's obvious what they'd be, but on the nights that it's cold enough to warrant a fire, she gets into a loose habit of checking if he's there before she goes to sleep. They don't bother each other, but if he's there when she checks (he sometimes is), she'll add more firewood.

He's interesting to her. There aren't any other kids around, and certainly not any boys (she's not counting Cathbad's apprentice). She's peeked at him during the night a few times, like he was a new kitten in a barn or something. He's always either been asleep or already gone to wherever he goes. Both are interesting, even though she has to wonder how he's somehow never awake to notice.

Another milestone is a time she's lost something. A necklace, maybe, and one that was important to her. She looks in her room and all over the castle, but it's nowhere to be found. Some time later, after another night she's cried herself to sleep, she hears a soft clink in the corner by the fire. There's no fire tonight, since it's quite warm this time of year. She gets up to investigate anyway, and finds her necklace beside the basket, which was pushed to the side a bit. There's no one behind the wall. She even calls out to be sure, and there's silence.

It's never really clear if she did lose it or if 'someone' took it in the first place. All she knows is that she got it back and she's grateful. Eventually, she decides she must have lost it. Every way of getting in here is blocked off by something already, and she doesn't think he'd be reckless enough to come in through the window.

She doesn't hear him for months after that. No scurrying, no snoozing, no snacking. She's pleased that it's finally done, and proud to have endured it...

... but one night, she decides to leave an apple in the spot behind her wardrobe. It's where he'd been snacking when she caught him that time.

The apple's still there days later. There are a few bites missing, but they look like rat bites. She throws the apple away, embarrassed by the whose idea, but a month later, the urge to try again returns. It might have something to do with Cathbad's newest complaints, meaning Angus hasn't actually disappeared. She leaves better snacks by the other corner, the one small hole by her fireplace, and waits to see if it's gone the next morning.

It isn't.

She's even more embarrassed. There aren't many kids she's allowed to talk to (including Cathbad's apprentice), and if she wasn't talking to Angus...

Well. It was probably for the best. That was the thing with strays: feed them and they never leave. Since she didn't accidentally feed anything, nothing is going to stay to bother her. Especially not a boy who wasn't supposed to be here in the first place.

... She keeps trying occasionally. Just to see if he'd come back.

A couple of years pass, and she hears a commotion outside her door. It's a guard running through a hall. Nothing to be worried about, she thinks, and she's about to forget it entirely when something comes in through her window.

It's Angus. :3 Crash-landing.

Trying as hard as he can to smile his way out of her screaming at him while he's still upside-down and on his head ¯⁠\⁠_⁠༼⁠ ⁠ಥ⁠ ⁠‿⁠ ⁠ಥ⁠ ⁠༽⁠_⁠/⁠¯

She's furious at the intrusion, demanding to know who he is to barge into the princess' room. She'll have forgotten his name at this point, since it's been so long, but she has a keen awareness that she knew it once. She'd never ask for it, though, and lucky for him, Angus doesn't misinterpret her demand as that. He's scrambling to right himself and say that he's just passing through, just has to get behind the wardrobe to leave, even moving over to it to start pulling it away from the corner it's been blocking for years.

Deirdre instantly cuts in front of him. He's not touching anything in her room, and she wants him out of it.

In the very back of her mind, she notices he's grown. He's taller than her now. Before, they were almost the same height.

He swears he'll be gone just as soon as she moves, but there's a knock at the door firsn. Deirdre's maid heard her in there and is asking if she's alright. There's an instantly pleading look on Angus' face, and Deirdre glares him into silence because she can't be bothered to kick up a fuss over this. Sweetly, she calls back that everything's fine, and the maid says that's good, but it's also cleaning time so can please she come in. Angus is like o_o because he needs to move the wardrobe out of the way, and that's decently loud.

I guess Deirdre gets inspired by his panic and decides to teach him a lesson. She says the maid can of course come in, but to please start at a certain corner. Angus goes O_O as the door opens for the maid to enter, and Deirdre shrugs while she leaves him to hide. He darts behind the massive curtain beside her window, since there aren't any other options.

The maid starts cleaning around the room, suspicious that the princess is paying this so much attention. Deirdre says everything is fine, but just as the maid comes up to fix the curtain, Deirdre asks her to clean under the bed right now. Not for any particular reason. Just as an order.

As the maid slowly agrees and turns around to do so, Angus sneaks out from the curtain and Deirdre points to under the desk. When the maid finishes there, she's about to go to the desk next, but Deirdre asks if she can go tidy the wardrobe next - and points Angus to under the bed, who figured out what's happening and goes >:( on the way. Deirdre has a great time leading the maid around the room like this, especially as the maid says it's strange that the floor is so worn beside the wardrobe, like someone's been repeatedly moving it. Angus is back to going o_o as Deirdre says, "Really? :3 That's so interesting - what interesting information that is."

Finally, when the maid leaves and Angus can get up, Deirdre scowls and says, "Do not go through my room, or I'll have every guard in my castle drag you to the dungeon."

Angus gives an awkward little bow, and then goes over to the wardrobe, loudly scraping it against the floor as he pivots it to reveal that hidden passage in the corner. Deirdre doesn't even bother saying he could've gone through the door, and simply watches him crawl through and loooudlyyyy scrape the wardrobe over the floor again as he pulls it back in place behind him.

Deirdre puts a small vase at the foot of the wardrobe. Sure enough, weeks later, the vase is awkwardly sat a few feet away - like someone pulled the wardrobe back into place behind them, but couldn't sneakily reach the vase to reset it too.

Once - and only once - the guards are particularly upset. She walks past them and into her room, just to see the wardrobe pulled slightly away from the wall. She rolls her eyes and goes to move it properly, but stops when she puts a hand on it and feels that it's wet. She sees blood on her palm when she checks it.

Before she can do anything, her door flies open and a guard barges in. Deirdre whirls around, and the guard - apologizing profusely for not realizing this was her room, having simply been told to search everywhere - tries to peek around while explaining that they're after a Temran spy. Deirdre tells him to search somewhere else because this is her room, but only when the guard lingers does she fully snap and tell him to gtfo right this second. It works, and the guard jumps and scurries away.

She doesn't yell at him this time. After she's done peeking out of that same, young curiosity, she takes a true look for blood and sees his hand's wrapped but leaking through. Wordlessly, she stands back up, finds another wrapping in her desk, grabs an apple from a bowl in her room, and puts both of them on the ground beside her bed in silence. But she's still not exactly happy at this, and doesn't want to seem like she's condoning it. Just to be safe, she kicks the apple over to him, and is satisfied by the little snort of disapproval that earns. It means he is only playing dead.

She checks outside the door and sees more guards crowding the halls. Then she firmly shuts the door and locks it. The smear of blood on her palm catches her attention again, and she slowly decides to wipe it off the wardrobe before anyone else happens to find it. She's procrastinating, she supposes, because eventually she starts having to check around the room herself.

She's only vaguely concerned that she's locked herself in with a spy, because a spy wouldn't know about that hole behind her wardrobe. There's nothing behind the curtain, but under the bed, there's Angus - eyes shut like he's playing dead.

Ten minutes go by before she finally hears some muffled chewing.

Angus is gone in the morning, along with any trace he'd been there. He must have gone back out through the window, because the door is still locked and the wardrobe was still slightly ajar. The guards caught the spy eventually; it was someone else, and the king notices how unusually pleased his daughter is to hear that.

I don't want these two getting too close while they're kids, because I still want everything to line up with the first episode, where Deirdre's pretty damn unhappy to have him knock her over and doesn't seem to know Rohan that well either. But I do want there to be some established level of familiarity with each other, because she was fast at kicking him for kicking her (which is very unusual for her; she's usually more composed than that, outside of the one time she punched Pyre lol) but Angus reacted like it was normal for them. So there's like a friendly, unique, antagonistic banter built up over the years, where Deirdre's more than comfortable snapping at him, teasing him, and touching him than she is with anyone else, who she always has to be A Princess™ with.

What I love about this is the curiosity Deirdre has. It's completely unspoken and easy to deny, even to herself, but she keeps finding reasons to be drawn to him. When she's young, she sorta treats it like she has a pet? Like a wild rat or something that she pretends is her pet, because she feeds it every so often. She keeps enough distance to avoid getting too attached, but she's quietly delighted to see signs of him around. She's also furious to see any mess because ew, a rat.

Meanwhile Angus gets more and more desensitized to her. He gets kicked by her and doesn't have any problem snapping back an excuse - almost like he does when he's being yelled at by Cathbad. He's comfortable enough to overstep their formal boundaries, but is still fully aware he has overstepped and is cautiously testing the new, 'real' boundaries that exist: he can hide in her room if he's desperate, she won't immediately call the guards if he doesn't make a mess, but she has very little patience for him altogether. It's enough for him to be cheekier and tease her back when he's not in her room (doing his "i think the princess would prefer my hand" schtick), but also to avoid rocking the boat so hard that he loses the tiny privilege he has. Well, until he gets more comfortable and bolder with his teasing over the course of the show.

The pet thing matters too, because I'd like to think the arrangement of Angus being in Deirdre's walls doesn't change. Angus doesn't just stop using those passages, but they wouldn't turn every night into a sleepover. Maybe once, Deirdre would hear a sound in the wall that wakes her up, and she'd nervously call out, "Angus?" And there'd be silence for a moment before he says back, "... Yup?" And that'd be the end of it. They don't have to talk, and there's a look of understanding between them the next morning. (Especially 'cause there's a guard who's pissed about something.) (Deirdre swears she doesn't think it's funny, and Angus swears he totally didn't see her grinning.)

But that emotional distance is important because Angus still defers to Rohan - and hell, even Garrett - as the real End Game for Deirdre. He's just a funny little pet rat that scurries around the walls sometimes. A jester at best. Nothing more, even if he's openly asking her for a kiss. He's completely harmless.

The truest test would be one night in the middle of the show, when Angus is passing through and hears crying. It's Deirdre, mourning her mother, since she never got to see everything Deirdre's accomplished over the years. He's torn on whether he should ignore this like they always do - this is her room, after all, so part of arrangement means respecting her privacy - but then he hears her call out, "Angus?"

He doesn't answer. In fact, he stays silent long enough for Deirdre to bury herself back in her pillow and weep.

It doesn't feel right for him to intrude on her.

He crawls through, back on his way, when he realizes there's no chance she would have heard him. She was guessing to see if he was there. That worries him, because there's a good chance that was to scream at him after correctly assuming he was intruding. He's already back to space where he can start climbing down outside as he thinks this. He can't explain why the hell he doesn't, because he really can't afford to lose his Wall privileges, but he climbs up instead - and through her window.

Deirdre doesn't notice until Angus has his hand gently on her back. At that, she's a bit startled, but mostly just relieved to see someone there. She doesn't hesitate to sit up and pull him around her, taking all the support she can get from him quietly holding her. He stays until she's asleep, and he's gone long before she's awake.

There's no look of understanding shared the next morning, because Angus just doesn't look at her. It's not meant to be rude, just affirming that they were both going to politely pretend it didn't happen. And it doesn't last forever, obviously. Angus does deliberately - cheekily, as always - find her afterwards and maybe even spins her around as extra proof that this is no big deal, and asks if she's okay. She says she is, and he ends it there almost instantly, trying to spare them from her awkwardly thanking him out of obligation. Somehow, it's exactly what they need to reset things. It's their emotional wardrobe sliding back in place over their emotional... emotions.

But just like the real wardrobe, even if Angus thinks he's sealed everything up again, there's something still out of place from Deirdre's side. In the moment, she'd really wanted anyone to comfort her. She'd only called out for Angus since he was the sole person with a chance of being in earshot. But the more she thought about it, she didn't know who else she could've asked for. Angus holding her felt so close and right, like he alone had any chance of soothing her.

She's not going to think about it. She's going to move the emotional vase back in front of the emotional wardrobe, but she's keenly aware that this happened.

And she's curious to see if she can feel like that again.

[pinkpicket]

Is this relationship\ situationship worth it?

Pile 1- pile 2- pile 3- pile 4- pile 5- pile 6

1. No. And you know why? Bc it seems like whatever this is it wont become better, i see no improvements at all and it genuinly makes me sad bc u seem like ur really trying and overthinking this, trying to not let go, trying to remain hopeful but deep down u know this wont ever bloom to its full potential. Honestly i see disappointment coming from this, it’s like ur gonna be asking urself all this waiting for what? And ur right. So let go or at least distance urself for now. But don’t get hopeless bc u have something better or it’s on the way, and they won’t disappoint u like this. So this one is not worth it but what’s to come is more than worth it.

2. I see two different people here, one is more than willing while the other seems to not even try. Now idk which one u r so ill tell u about both and u decide for urself: A) this person is such a giving person, so protective of the people they love( i see strong scorpio here) and willing to do whatever it takes. This is a person that will fight for who they love with whatever they can but also have their own boundaries too, like if u not giving the same way they’re not going to stay ( AND GOOD FOR THEM👏) while B) person is…. Um.. lazy and neglectful like someone u cannot depend on, definitely not to defend or fight for u. It’s like they dont see the worth in what’s around them. They’re ungrateful. So is it worth it? no, not at all. So should u leave? Well that depends on which person u r. So if ur person A definitely move from this pls, ur loyalty deserves to be reciprocated. But it definitely wont be easy for u to move on ( not surprising considering how loyal u r) but if ur B person then i guess dont leave, u know why? Bc u won’t find no one better but i cant guarantee they wont leave if u don’t change.

3. Fuck no. Absolutely no. Did u hear me???L? I said fucking no. Dude im actually pissed, why on earth are u even with this person????? Like u absolutely deserve better, WAYYY BETTER. This person is making u lose in life, so get out as soon as possible. This shit is not worth it at all. Im not even gonna tell u nothing more other than the fact this thing has no future. So love urself for once and leave.

4. Yes. Definitely. But u have to work for it like this is the type of thing that can become so beautiful and fruitful but it needs work like all things. So whatever ur problem is work it out bc in the end it will bloom into a beautiful relationship.

5. YES. Hell even more than yes. Honestly im so happy seeing this, i thought all the reading would be negative but this is absolutely gorgeous. Fight for it. So id actually like to give u some advice: even tho i see this as a beautiful mature ( or soon to be mature) relationship, try to be more giving like buy gifts for each other, talk more, share ur feelings more bc baby this thing u have going on is meant to be. The universe arranged this, so protect it with everything u have. Remember this reading, honestly save it up somewhere just so u can be reminded from time to time.

6. Wow okay this is very confusing. I see this as two situations, so maybe two very different groups of people chose this group. read both and decide which is meant for u.

So first group of people are the ones that i would give a small tiny yes, sorta bc this is not exactly the person that’s worth it but more like this person will lead u into something or someone that will be worth it.

While in this other group, i see two type of people( it can represent the people involved so once again u decide which is u 🤕) well number 1 is the hermit, this person rn is meant to be alone, they need to find themselves first then maybe yes this relationship will work, but as for now u have a journey ahead of u. And number 2 is the one that’s fighting for this relationship, i hate to say this but this is not worth it. So if u want to sure u can still try, but u wont get anything out of this. This is a waste of time.

[mono-dot-jpeg]

the antarctic idiots [pt. 2] - c!technoblade

summary; in which two anarchist piglins adopt an ender boy.

genre; child! ranboo, piglin hybrid! reader, slight canon divergence from dream smp, fluff, found family au is my shit, reader is now ranboo’s parent i don’t make the rules, techno is a grumpy father but it’s okay you love him, realistic minecraft? (idk how to describe it-)

pairing; c! technoblade x reader, platonic! ranboo x reader

word count; 1.3k

< previous - next >

a/n; yall here me out, i open my ask box to have you guys talk to the characters of the antarctic idiots,,, i just really wanna act in character, i love doing that kind of stuff kshdskjdf

i don’t completely know how it would work, but, i wanna do it someday maybe.

also, if you’re too lazy to look at my masterlist for this series or you just wanna see everything related to this story, use the #antarctic idiots tag! and if you have anything to share with me about it, tag me!

“i’ll take your word on that, y/n.”

“you should trust my words from the start, wilbur.” you commented, your voice light and teasing. “but i don’t blame you, you lost a lot after l’manburg’s citizens betrayed you.”

“they did not betray me.” 

“yes, yes, my bad.” you hummed.

“are we allies or enemies, y/n?”

“ally, enemy? i say neither. i was forced into this after all. what with that favor of yours.” you pointed out, he couldn’t even be mad at your response, he knew that you never wanted to be put in a war like this. “i may be part of pogtopia but my intentions are not the same. i will be clear that i’m only here to fight and then i will be taking my leave after this revolution.”

“yes, of course, understood.”

“now, just because we’re friends doesn’t mean i’m gonna train you with the easy stuff. you used to a president, soot, show me what you can really do. you’re stronger than you let on.” 

“i don’t expect anything less from you.”

“come on wilbur, you fought in a war, you should’ve been at least a bit stronger.” you muttered to the man before handing his some wraps to bandage his small wounds.

“i put up quite the fight though didn’t i?” he commented, starting to fix up his injuries.

“yeah, you did. you’ve certainly changed since the last time we fought.”

“techno has taught me quite a lot.”

“how do you know techno?” you asked curiously. 

“he’s my older brother, twin. actually.” you blinked. “yeah i know, we’re not really alike.”

“yeah, you’re a boar hybrid and he’s a piglin hybrid...”

“our mom is a samsung refrigerator, we don’t understand anything of how we existed.”

“fair enough..” you don’t question wilbur’s origins anymore, soon turning the conversation, “so you and techno grew up together?”

“yeah, we trained a lot together and now he’s a total master at fighting, but that’s thanks to our father.” wilbur smiled a bit, thinking about the old times. “maybe you guys should try and train together next time.” 

“i don’t think we will anytime soon. he seems rather busy with gathering resources.” you said, sitting next to wilbur as you put your pendant back on your shirt. “plus if he’s so well versed, i don’t think he’ll need any help from me. anyways, plans, what’s the plan for this whole revolution?”

“well, we plan accordingly to what info we get from tubbo. he’s shlatt’s righthand man now so he’s gonna know a lot of info which will help us out. techno and you are gonna train me and tommy of course. you guys are our wild card. our trump card. both of you are so powerful. we can take back what was ours.” wilbur looked at you, this confident glint shined in his eyes. “we will take back l’manburg.”

oh how you wished you felt the same way about l’manburg as he did.

another day passes as you live in the ravine that was pogtopia. you got accustomed to the small area rather easily. it didn’t feel too different from your own home other than maybe the cold temperatures despite how much glowstone or torches would be placed around to keep it warm. 

wilbur and tommy were busy for some odd reason, so that left you and technoblade. you weren’t the best with meeting new people and techno seemed like he was the same way, so you didn’t bother making conversation. it wasn’t until techno actually decided to speak.

“how can i trust you?”

“bold question to ask. what ever happened to, hi, how are you?” you joked a bit. “how can i trust you?” you looked at the fellow piglin hybrid who seemed to already start a staring contest with you.

“i asked first.”

“i asked second.”

“do you know who i am?”

“you are technoblade, are you not?” a beat of silence. “if you aren’t, i won’t hesitate to kill you.”

“i’m technoblade, yes, but do you know what else i am?”

“a piglin hybrid?”

“i’m the blood god.”

“interesting.” another beat of silence. you didn’t seem to show any reaction to his words which makes him wonder. were you just hiding your judgement or did you just didn’t care? “is that why wilbur and tommy recruited you for help?” 

“in a way, yes.”

“so if i were to say that they’re using you as a weapon, would i be wrong? i mean i’m just saying stuff right now. it seems like you’re really capable of doing a lot of things, technoblade.” you suddenly feel his hand against your neck. “ah- i hit a nerve. my bad.” you hummed as if you weren’t close to getting choked to death.

“don’t talk about my family like that. they would never use me.”

“so, tommy is your sibling too? didn’t see that one coming, although it seems like i didn’t really see any of this coming.” you shrugged. techno was silent, his piercing red eyes burned into your e/c ones, he was trying to analyze you. you could tell he wanted to know more, he was curious. he was cautious of you. “i’m here to finish a favor, so it would be very nice if you do not take any of my lives.” 

“i don’t trust you.”

“well, glad we could get straight to the point. i’m not really one for trust either so it’s nice to know that you feel the same way. again, i don’t really wanna be here, but again, here for a favor, i intend to keep that favor done.”

the voices in his head were buzzing, many said blood for the blood god, some said much less helpful words, a few suggested to get to know you but all of them said to not trust you. and techno listened to the few. he moved his hand back slowly. 

“who are you exactly?”

“well, as wilbur said before, i’m y/n. a piglin hybrid just like you. though, i’m pretty sure i lived in the nether much longer than you have. i live far away from the smp and l’manburg...well, manburg now. my intentions are questionable. but that’s nothing to worry about since they don’t involve you.” you explained casually. “i’m here to also train wilbur and tommy, unfortunately i have to fight in this revolution as well. who are you exactly?”

techno raised an eyebrow at your question.

“to be fair, you got to know about me, now let me know about you, piggie.” he huffs, air escaping his nose as he listens to your words. “at least we’re not killing each other. would you prefer that?”

“i’m more of a action over words person. though words can be very convincing.”

“so is that a yes or no?”

“my name is technoblade as you know from wilbur and tommy. i’m not really from the smp or manburg. i recently joined this area after ruling over antartica.” he can see your eyes sparkle a bit in amusement. “i’m just here to destroy government honestly. my intentions are very clear unlike yours.”

“that is very true, mr. blade. you seem to have your beliefs and intentions very clear. i do understand your need to end government. i can relate to that rather well surprisingly.” 

“i feel like the whole hating government thing might just be a piglin thing.” he looked at you with slightly furrowed eyebrows. “though i’m rather pleased to find someone that thinks the same way as i do.”

“see if you didn’t tell me about you, then we would’ve never found out that we both hate government. anyways, i would love to know more about you ruling antartica. then maybe you wanna try and train together?”

“you’re asking for a lot.”

“come on, mr. blade.” your voice teasing as you sit next to techno. i’ll give you some fun stories about wilbur and tommy.”

“you’re not gonna give up, are you?”

“i’m a stubborn person, what can i say?”

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idk how to quote tags on mobile where is the conner kent essay i NEED it

ALRIGHT OKAY! here’s 5k+ words plus panels & screenshots of me comparing and contrasting the two drastically different versions of Superboy (comics vs young justice cartoon) and going over what makes them such distinctly separate characters. someday i’ll refine this a bit more its kinda just a word dump that’s been living in my brain that i wanted to actually articulate after i read through Reign of the Supermen but here we go:

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Pretty frequently I see the question “Why is Superboy so different in the Young Justice cartoon?” float around in DC circles. I think there are two main approaches to answering this:

Why did the writers of the cartoon decide to create a very different version of Superboy?

What factors make this Superboy so different from the comic version?

For the first approach the answer is relatively straight-forward, from the start Young Justice as a cartoon was never meant to be a direct adaptation of the comics. They just used the title and a few elements so they could create their own approach to the DC universe with a focus on younger heroes. For example, Artemis Crock in their show is also COMPLETELY different from her comic counterpart, Zatanna is aged way down to be a member of the teen team, and Kaldur’ahm was created for this show (and integrated into the comics as Jackson Hyde). They were always trying to do different things than the main comics universe, so them making a different version of Conner also makes sense. Their approach to him is also very clearly influenced more by how he appeared in the Teen Titans comic run that was still coming out as Young Justice started airing (his design, and some other elements we’ll discuss along the way), as opposed to his original version from the 90′s/the Young Justice comic.

So the basic “why” is that from the start they wanted to create something unique to their universe, which they definitely did accomplish.

The much more interesting subject to dive into, though, is looking at the differences in Superboy’s story that contribute to him becoming such a different person. 

The drastic changes made to the following factors are what I view as the main source of his differences in personality/outlook/characterization:

The conditions and history of the world at the time he is introduced

The circumstances around him being introduced/leaving Cadmus

The reaction Clark has to him and how their relationship starts

The people he first interacted with & became close to, and how he interacts with the world

The timing of him finding out about his connection to Luthor

The State of the Worlds

In the comics, Superboy is first introduced in Adventures of Superman #500 by iconically saying “Don’t ever call me Superboy!” 

during a 1993 event called “Reign of the Supermen”, a follow up to the 1992 event “The Death of Superman”. Based on the title of the 1992 event, I think you can, uh, guess what one major difference in the setting here was vs. the state of the world at the time he was introduced in the cartoon. Obviously Clark didn’t stay dead forever, but Superboy first comes onto the scene as a young clone of Superman who insists he is the new Superman (one of the four characters trying to do so during the event). This is in the main DC universe in the early 90’s, which means that heroes in general, including teen heroes, aren’t a new thing! Not only has the Justice League been around for a while but so has the Teen Titans. Once Clark is alive again, Superboy goes off on his own to establish himself as an individual teen hero. 

So how is that different in the cartoon?

In the cartoon, Superboy is first introduced in the pilot episodes “Independence Day” and “Fireworks” 

on the 4th of July in (what most people consider to be) 2010. This was supposed to be the day that Robin (Dick Grayson), Speedy (Roy Harper), Kid Flash (Wally West), and Aqualad (Kaldur’ahm) would get to see the true Justice League HQ at the Hall of Justice, which... doesn’t go exactly as planned. 

In this world, superheroes are a newer thing, this is something that the creators have talked about before. At this point, while there is an established Justice League, there are no known teams of teen superheroes. Just the fact that as of season one Dick Grayson is still Robin is a pretty good indicator that this world is early in it’s time with a Batman. Now, the sidekicks aren’t a secret, as they appear very publicly in this first episode, but they are almost always seen acting with their mentors at this point. Again, there is no Teen Titans in this setting, and there never has been. 

So when they do form the first teen hero team? It is kept covert-ops. They do not publicize that they act as a superhero team, and the members who weren’t already publicly known heroes (mainly Miss Martian and Superboy) end up being pretty… unknown to a lot of the world outside the hero/villain community! Again their existence is not strictly kept a secret, but they keep the fact that there’s a team of minors who are heroes going on independent missions VERY under the radar on purpose. Thus, those who aren’t going around doing super public hero activities just don’t have nearly as much of a presence.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy is immediately put in a spotlight (he befriends a reporter and is all over tv and literally trademarks the name Superman) becoming known to the world and establishes himself as a solo acting hero YEARS before joining any teams.

In the cartoon, Superboy is kept relatively out of the spotlight, immediately becomes part of a covert-ops team and doesn’t act solo very often. The well known teen heroes in this setting are sidekicks working under a mentor, and Superboy does not actually act as a sidekick.

What does this mean for Superboy?

Superboy in the comics gets to, right away, act on his own and get a taste of what being Superman is like. In the cartoon, he’s brought into the world at a time where there already is a Superman. I think back to this bit from the therapy episode, where he says:

“See, from the moment I first opened my eyes in that Cadmus pod, there’s been one thing I’ve wanted, and feared. To know what it is to be Superman.”

Comics Superboy started out getting to do that! He immediately got a shot at filling that role, and he then makes the choice to relinquish it back to the original once he’s alive again. He (begrudgingly at first) understood that it wasn’t yet his time to be Superman, and knows he’ll someday fill those shoes for real- but in the meantime being Superboy is gonna be his own thing and he’ll embrace it and make it work.

Cartoon Superboy is left in a shadow, not ever truly knowing what it’s like to fill those shoes (except in a doomsday scenario training exercise gone awry that he then just feels intense guilt over). This leaves him a lot more frustrated and lost, and I think is a major contributor to how angry this version of Superboy is compared to his much more ‘chill go with the flow’ attitude in the comics.

Cadmus

In the comics, in that same issue he’s introduced, we find out that Superboy broke out of his cloning tube prematurely and left Cadmus with the assistance of the second Newsboy Legion, who also gave him his first leather jacket, before the programming that would allow Cadmus to control him was implemented.

He quickly gets up to speed with the situation, that Clark is dead. So he comes on the scene starting to save people and saying he is Superman, or at least the clone of the original one. A major thing that does influence his character here is the fact that… this is the 90’s. He is designed around the idea of what is ‘cool’ back in 1993. (look, even his original character design sheets call him cool)

So right off the bat he’s got a stereotypical ‘cool teen guy in that era’ personality, which is often played for comedy to add a little lightness to some of the dark things happening during this event. 

Anyways, he has left Cadmus, he’s acting on his own, and he starts realizing that his powers aren’t exactly the same as Superman’s over the course of the Reign of the Supermen story.

After the main conflict is settled and Clark is fully alive and acting as Superman again, the two of them end up going back to Cadmus to find out what the exact deal is with him. I’ll go into this more in a later point, but they find out he’s not exactly a clone of Superman (or Lex- him being actually involved as a DNA donor is a retcon that happened a decade later). They agree to let someone from Cadmus (Dubbilex- the grey guy with the horns in this pic) leave Metropolis with him, as he sets out on a press tour to establish himself as Superboy now that he relinquished the trademark on the Superman name back to Clark. 

Let’s pause and look at how this is different in the cartoon.

In the cartoon, when the trio of Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad decide to prove themselves to their mentors they run off on their own to attend to a fire at Project Cadmus when the Justice League got called off to do something else. Upon arriving, they accidentally uncover some weird things about Cadmus, like the crazy amount of sublevels, the creatures roaming around, and the fact that it’s not on the main power grids. They eventually find Superboy, still in his cloning tube. They break him out, but then get captured themselves.

When they are then put into tubes by Cadmus personnel, they manage to convince Superboy to help free them by promising him things like getting to meet Superman, and see the moon. The group of four now working together manages to escape from the building and it topples down, where they are then greeted by the Justice League who are Not Happy.

Superman flies away shortly after, and the group of kids explain to their remaining mentors that sure, they disobeyed orders, but they accomplished something good here, and they are going to keep doing it, whether the League likes it or not. The compromise is the formation of The Team, to be covert-ops while the Justice League acts publicly, and the boys are joined by Miss Martian.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy leaves Cadmus pretty independently (with some assistance) to go act on his own as a hero immediately. He returns to Cadmus later for more information, and they reveal truths to him about his existence. After he knows his truth, he goes off to continue establishing himself as a solo hero but lets Cadmus still supervise what he’s doing through Dubbilex.

In the cartoon, Superboy is rescued from Cadmus by Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad, without knowing pretty much anything about himself besides the fact that he is a clone of Superman, and is immediately put on the covert ops team. 

What it means for Superboy:

Comic Superboy goes to act on his own, even after he admits he’s not the real Superman anymore. Yes he’s not 100% alone in terms of ‘he’s got people (Rex, Roxy, Dubbilex, Tana) around him’, but as a hero he’s a solo act and ends up taking residence in Hawaii. In the cartoon, by joining a team right away, he’s taking on a very different style of being a hero, especially because the team itself is covert-ops. Rather than regularly saving the day all on his own much like Superman, which can help comic Superboy feel like he’s still living up to the name more, cartoon Superboy is working under the radar in a group setting, while still wanting to desperately fill those Superman shoes. 

He is overconfident in his abilities and wants to be the hero he was created to be, so him being put into this very different type of superhero situation is another major contributor to the frustration/anger. Even later on when comics Superboy is part of forming the Young Justice team, they were never a secret covert-ops team, they were always publicly known. (hell, a reporter is the one who gave them the team name Young Justice because he’d misheard Bart)

Superboy & Superman

In the comics, as we have established, Clark was dead at the time Superboy first came on the hero scene. Clark comes back to life, during a little bit of a lull in the middle of the huge conflict. He immediately accepts that Superboy is one of four who came forward to try to replace him, and one of the only two (Superboy & Steel) who genuinely only had good intentions in doing so. Clark, Steel, Supergirl, Hal Jordan, and Superboy then all work together in the big battle against the Cyborg Superman.

Once things are settled, Clark is curious about him, and where he came from and his origin, so they end up going to Cadmus together with Guardian and learning more about him, as I previously mentioned. Once it is established that Superboy is in fact a metahuman clone who was created to mimic Superman, but is not actually a clone of him, Superman still accepts him and thinks he’s earned his right to continue using the ’S’ shield and have the name of Superboy. 

They part ways so Superboy can go on his press tour, but in general they have pretty positive interactions where they mutually respect each other! Not too much later in the comics even (I forget exaaactly when this happens but it’s definitely before the 1998 Young justice comic), Superman is the first one to give Superboy a real name, “Kon-El”, something he is so happy about he literally cries.

How is this different in the cartoon? 

When the boys first escaped, and Superboy first meets the Justice League, Clark is standoffish. Other members of the league need to nudge him over to go actually talk to Superboy, and it’s not much of a conversation before he flies off and away, leaving Superboy frustrated and alone.

This… turns into the standard for almost the entire first season. Other characters constantly telling Clark that he needs to reach out and be support for the boy (like in this iconic diner scene with Bruce and Clark), but Clark consistently being too freaked out by the fact that someone made a clone of him without his knowledge to properly accept Conner. While this does over time get better, this being the immediate reaction when Superboy is brand new in the world definitely… has an impact! 

He is rejected by the person he idolizes, and feels neglected and abandoned, and definitely kinda overcompensates with ego to try to make up for it. 

So:

In the comics, Superman and Superboy work together from the start, not falling into a hero/sidekick situation but rather acknowledging each other as individual heroes with respect for one another. They grow to see each other as family much faster, and little tension between them. A crucial difference in situations, though, is that at the time these versions first meet Superboy is not actually a clone of Superman.

In the cartoon, Superman at first avoids Superboy, and does not offer guidance or mentorship or anything the boy needs. It is clear that he wants to work with Superman and be like him, since it was what he was created to do. It takes a lot of time for Clark to accept Conner in this setting, and there is a lot of tension for the first several months Conner exists. (they seem to settle this towards the end of season 1/during the gap between season 2, but it still has it’s impact on who Conner is early in his life)

What does this mean?

I feel like this is another major factor that contributes to Conner being so angry all the time in the cartoon, he feels immediately rejected by the person he’s supposed to be someday, rather than accepted by him. Again, very different from how comics Superboy got a chance to be Superman, and a chance to then work with the real deal as equals. 

Friendships, Relationships and Identity

When Superboy is freed by the second Newsboy Legion, it’s primarily out of a ‘we’re clones who are stuck here, but you need to be out there, you’re what Metropolis needs right now!’ kind of idea. The first person he actually becomes close to is a reporter named Tana Moon.

Tana and Superboy’s relationship is… bad once it actually becomes romantic due to their huge age difference (she’s around 23, he is for all intents and purposes 16), but during the Reign of the Supermen where they’re still just friends for the most part, it’s not as bad. Tana becomes the GBS correspondent who focuses on everything Superboy (at this time still insisting he is the new Superman) is doing as a hero, and they become close friends.

GBS then also brings in Rex Leech (and his daughter Roxy) to be his agent, to promote Superboy and manage things for him. Rex is exploitative as hell, but Roxy does become another really important person to Superboy. These characters along with Dubbilex are his main supporting cast at the start of his solo comic when he’s in Hawaii.

In this whole era, Superboy is pretty much a celebrity. He’s cool, he’s a superhero, and I think it’s very notable he does not have a secret Identity. For a decent chunk of time, he is always just ‘Superboy’ (until, as I mentioned earlier, Clark gives him the name Kon-El. Even so, he doesn’t adopt a regular secret identity [Conner Kent, although he actually used a different one, Carl Grummett, before that!] until he begins living with the Kents in the early 2000s). By the time he joins any teams, Kon is pretty damn confident in who he is as a hero and has a relatively good grasp on who he is in general, if anything he’s a little too confident.

Young Justice was created in the aftermath of World Without Grown Ups when the trio of Superboy, Robin (Tim Drake) and Impulse (Bart Allen) had teamed up. After they saved the day they realized they worked well together and formed their team, utilizing the old Justice League base in Mount Justice. They were eventually joined by more members, especially relevant here is Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) who Kon later dates for a portion of the Teen Titans run that these four are in after Young Justice ends. 

The four of them become close, and when Kon dies during Infinite Crisis it rips a hole in everything they had established growing up together over the past several years (Cassie joins a cult dedicated to bringing him back, Tim tries to clone a new Kon, Bart got aged up and took on the mantle of the Flash, etc) and Bart’s death that followed similarly shook the remaining Cassie and Tim. This group eventually does get to reunite, with Kon and Bart coming back during Final Crisis, solidifying how even things like death don’t keep them apart for long. It’s hard to look at the comic book versions of these four characters and imagine how they would be without their connections to each other... until you look at the YJ cartoon and see a world where they’re not even all part of the same generation, let alone a friend group.

Now in the cartoon…

The first people Conner primarily interacts with are Dick, Wally, Kaldur, and M’gann, along with the League members who interact with The Team pretty regularly, Red Tornado, Batman, and Black Canary. He’s shown to be friends with the other memebers of the team and get along with them relatively well, but in general he’s not much of a social person. 

Much like in the comics, Superboy is considered very attractive, and immediately upon their meeting, M’gann is interested in him. Very, very interested in him.

At first it definitely does seem more just like an innocent crush, but it’s later revealed to be a little more… concerning than that. As in ‘Megan subtlety influencing Superboy to become her dream boyfriend based on a TV show she likes’ concerning. Like… she literally gives him the name ‘Conner’ after the TV show character that was the boyfriend of the character she bases her human self and entire identity on. The two date and once that becomes a thing, a lot of their plot lines in the following seasons revolve around the ups and downs of their relationship.

In general in this show, Superboy doesn’t really get much of a chance to establish himself on his own terms. Within months of him leaving his cloning pod, he and M’gann start going to high school with secret identities, so he’s already having to hide who he truly is to blend in with other people, before he even knows who he truly is. 

So to compare:

In the comics, Superboy gets to figure out who he is as Superman’s Clone/Superboy very publicly, has multiple love interests and a celebrity status, and over time becomes part of a tight-knit group of friends. He doesn’t use a regular secret identity for the first several years he’s active.

In the cartoon, Superboy has one love interest with a very large impact on him, not nearly as much focus is given to his other friendships, and he immediately adopts a secret identity meaning he needs to hide who he is from the start. 

What it means:

These factors play a big difference in his attitude, particularly highlighting how extroverted his comic version is and how introverted his cartoon version is. Comic Superboy never really needed to hide who he was until years into his career, vs being told to do so early on in his life. When you get used to needing to hide things so early, that can definitely lead to being more private/disconnected from others. Also somewhat related- in the comics, when Kon is given knowledge in his cloning tube, more pop culture got included. He mentions knowing Star Wars without having seen it, and references a ton of TV and Movies, vs the cartoon version of him that seems to have been given a lot of history of the world but not the current fun stuff. It’s the difference between knowing what’s going on in the world and what’s popular, vs only knowing the past and what’s fundamental. Not knowing pop culture like this can also really contribute to feeling alienated and lead to introversion. (I just... I think about how in the comics Kon’s favorite TV show is Wendy The Werewolf Stalker, in the cartoon Conner just... watches white noise static)

Also, having a completely different set of friends with different personalities has a big effect, people are always gonna be influenced by the people they’re close to to some extent. Bumping Conner up to Dick’s generation of heroes instead of Tim’s not only gives him completely different friends, but it also puts him in this position of being one of the ‘Original Team Members’. By this I mean, a member of the first iteration of the only teen team, one of the people that younger heroes coming onto the scene and joining the team in later seasons see as an experienced and older team member to look up to (despite the fact that cartoon Conner is permanently 16- they never fixed that for him like in the comics). That just creates a different dynamic entirely, because in the comics even when the Tim/Kon/Cassie/Bart group are more experienced on their team late in the Teen Titans run, they are still always going to have heroes like Dick Grayson, Donna Troy, Wally West etc as the older generation of ‘original teen heroes’ who came before them.

Also, while I am talking mostly about in-universe reasoning here, I do wanna bring up one slightly more meta reason that might also have contributed to them choosing to go for a more ‘introverted brooding hero’ characterization with him: the fact that their version of Wally already filled the ‘flirty jokey’ archetype original Comics Kon fits into. Having two characters like that in the show from the start would definitely get... overwhelming. And at the time this show was first airing, in the comics, he was relatively devoted to Cassie and not nearly as flirty anymore anyways.

Lex Luthor / Details of Cloning

In the comics, as I have already mentioned and will now actually explain, when Superboy was first introduced he was not the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor as we know him to be today. Kon was a metahuman clone, made with the DNA of Paul Westfield who worked at Cadmus, that they genetically altered to look like Superman, and gave powers based on the energy aura they discovered to exist around Clark’s dead body. This telekinetic field gave Kon the distinct powers he had for his first decade of existence: His Tactile Telekinesis (often referred to by him as TTK)

Lex Luthor was originally not directly involved in his creation, but he was aware that it was going on as is revealed during the Reign of the Supermen arc. Kon’s TTK allowed him to mimic Superman’s flight and strength, but not all of his powers. TTK also gave him powers Superman DOESN’T have, such as his ability to dismantle machinery or mold materials he is touching into different shapes. (The reason this is called Tactile Telekinesis is because there needs to be a tactile element, he needs to be touching the things) 

It is not until 2003, a decade after Superboy was created, that writer Geoff Johns in his Teen Titans run decided to alter Superboy’s origin. He established that Lex Luthor had been the real human DNA donor and that Superman’s Kryptonian DNA was actually used in the cloning process. Around this time, Conner also begins to exhibit more of the typical Kryptonian powers, like Clark did around this age. 

This information is at first only known by Conner and Tim, because the email had actually been sent to Tim directly. The two keep it a secret as Conner was not ready to tell the rest of the team, because he fears the implications it has, and is afraid of becoming evil or being rejected. This revelation about Lex being one of his ‘parents’ DNA-wise coming years into his hero career changes a lot of things for Conner, and makes him begin to question who he is. Unfortunately, Lex does at one point take control of Conner and force him to break Tim’s arm and attack Cassie directly (as well as the rest of the team, but these two specifically are what Conner expresses the most guilt over after the fact). This era of Conner in the comics is where he’s definitely closest to his cartoon counterpart, because he’s very troubled and dealing with a lot of heavy stuff regarding himself as a person. Yet there’s still traces of who he has always been in there. I mean, if you’re only familiar with cartoon Conner, can you really imagine his final words as he’s dying after saving the world being “Isn’t it cool?”

Now, looking at the cartoon…

Conner finds out about his connection to Lex in November, only a few months after having existed outside of a cloning tube. He finds it out on his own, from Lex speaking to him directly, after Conner went back to investigate the remains of Cadmus and ended up having a fight with Match (another clone who is able to pass for Conner’s duplicate who they… their version of Match is another thing they drastically changed from the comic version but as we’ve established that’s something they like to do so I’m not gonna dwell on it).

In the cartoon, Conner’s powerset is, from the start, different from both Superman and comic Superboy. Here he has heightened senses and strength and the ability to leap really far, but he lacks actual flight and some of the other standard Kryptonian powers, and has no TTK. The cartoon explains these gaps in his powers as being due to his half human DNA, and they introduce these patches that are able to suppress his human DNA and give him temporary access to full powers. Lex uses these patches as a way to manipulate him. Much like in the comics, Lex has a code word programmed into Conner that effects him, although it isn’t quite used for the same amount of ‘total mind control’, and he doesn’t get fully brainwashed and turn against the team or anything. Instead, the code word (here “Red Sun” rather than “Aut vincere, aut mori” [Translated as “to conquer or die" / "victory or death”]) just leaves him stuck in a hypnotic trance.

So:

In the comics, Kon finds out after years of believing he was a metahuman clone who was given powers to mimic Superman, that he is actually a clone of Lex Luthor and Superman, which alters his entire perspective on himself! This causes him to become a lot more unsure and anxious about who he is, in stark contrast with how confident he was before. There are still traces of his old self within him, but this is a development in his character that influences him moving forward, making him a bit more serious but still at his core the same person he used to be.

In the cartoon, Conner finds out after months of thinking he was a clone of just Superman, that he has half human DNA and the donor was Lex Luthor. While he always had confidence in his abilities, he was still somewhat lost as a person in knowing who he really was outside of things other people have assigned to him (teammate, boyfriend, superhero, etc), and finding out this information about himself just adds to the uncertainty and frustration.

What it means:

Having this struggle be something Conner has to deal with so early in his existence is one of the most fundamental changes in my opinion. Finding out that Lex Luthor is one of your clone parents is something that will alter your entire perception of yourself and who you are! In the comics, Conner had already been confident in who he was so it shakes his world in a really big way, but in the cartoon he still didn’t know who he really was so it just adds to further confusion. 

I think that even with the more serious characterization Kon starts getting in the 2003 Teen TItans run, his history and past as the fun cool 90′s Metropolis Kid isn’t entirely forgotten, it’s still a part of who he is/was. Sure, maybe he’s sometimes even embarrassed by how he used to be, but it’s not treated as though it didn’t happen. All of his history comes together to create the character and who he is by the time he wears just a T shirt as a costume.

By skipping over the fun era of his life and jumping right into who he was when he started facing these huge changes, it creates such a completely different set of challenges for him and that contributes directly to how he’s characterized. 

Putting it all together

The ultimate point I am trying to reach in all of this is that, beyond just ‘they made a writing choice to make him different’ the environment that Superboy was brought into and the events that took place right when he came into the world greatly influenced the type of character he would become. Every time an adaptation is made of something like comics, there are going to be changes and alterations to fit the world the creators want to make. Sometimes these changes are minor and don’t actually change who a character is (an example for the YJ cartoon’s universe itself: In the tie-in comics [issue 6] it’s established in this universe that the Flying Graysons weren’t just Dick and his parents, but other family members were active parts of it too. One was an uncle also named Richard, who actually survived the fall that killed the rest of his family but was left paralyzed and thus unable to care for him. This uncle already used the nickname ‘Rick’ which is likely why Dick ended up using ‘Dick’ as a name in a modern setting even though it has fallen out of popularity as a nickname because uh, connotations. This is something that is mostly unique to their world and helps to explain some things, but it’s not like tragically losing a few more family members changed their version of Dick and his backstory that drastically. At his core, he still has many similarities to his comic self) but they’re still changes, and that’s okay. Superboy, though, is such an extreme case where they made so many changes that at his core he really does become a completely separate character. Sure he has the name and design, but I was able to write five thousand words about differences here and am struggling to come up with more similarities beyond that.

I think there still could be specks of the original Superboy buried inside cartoon Conner, and that maybe he could have been more like his original version under other circumstances. Looking at these differences and where they come from is, I think, a cool way to begin to understand what elements contribute to who each version of Conner Kent really is. I think it’s clear from how I wrote this that I prefer the comic version, but there are definitely things that are fun to look at and think about with both.

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if u read all of this UH thanks for listenin to me ramble! sorry if this is incomprehensibe!

[elsa-writes]

Alfie Solomons x Reader: Beauty and the Beast

Part 1

Authors note: this is my first time writing for Peaky Blinders, and my first time writing a fic in a while, so please feel free to bully me for my inaccuracies! also I might change the title later cuz idk what else to title this. Enjoy!

—-

Polly pretended to disapprove of you and Arthur’s shenanigans. Reality was, she knew with you around, Arthur couldn’t get into too much trouble. True, it was not the most respectable of hobbies for a lady, to be playing cards and hanging around bars every Friday night. However, Arthur couldn’t be getting any whores pregnant when he had to watch over his young cousin. And he’d make sure you’d stay out of trouble, too. Tommy had a similar line of thinking. Although with this latest scheme, you weren’t sure you had his full support.

“Are you sure this is the best idea?”

“I think,” Arthur paused for a beat, stroking his mustache. “It will go smoothly. You want to prove yourself, that you can function in this line of business, this is it.”

“And what did Tommy say about it?” You questioned. He’d sent Arthur in his place for a meeting with Mr Solomons. You were sitting in the car outside of the distill- bakery. Arthur insisted that you come along to this meeting. Camden Town was a bit nicer than Birmingham-though not by much.

“You know Tommy, he’s, well, you know,” he blustered. In the back seat, Billy coughed.

So Tommy was not aware of this arrangement. “Right.” But you were not going to NOT go in.

You’d bumped into Mr Solomons once. He’d been leaving after having a conversation with Tommy. You scampered away before he could say anything to you. Not out of fear of him; you ran away because you were afraid Tommy would know you’d been eavesdropping. Though Mr Solomons had made a reputation for himself, from what you’d overheard, he sounded like a bit of a clown.

“Are you coming or are you going to stay in the car like a baby?”

“I’m not a baby,” you protested and stepped out into the cold air. “Finn is a baby.”

“Yeah, and I didn’t invite him for a reason.” Arthur punctuated the sentence with a slam of the automobile door.

You adjusted your outfit, making sure you looked proper and professional. “Let’s get this over with.”

A man awaited you by the door and led you inside the distillery. It was dark, and damp. The odor of rum-er, bread, permeated the air. The smell made you light headed. Your shoes echoed on the cement, the loudest sound in the room.

As you descended into the labyrinth, a man appeared from behind a corner. Mr. Solomons himself.

His hat cast an ominous shadow over his face- definitely planned for theatrical effect.

He did not react to your presence. If he recognized you he gave no sign. “Welcome, welcome! You must be Arthur!”

“Mr. Solomons,” Arthur greeted, offering a hand.

“I’ve head so much about you,” Mr. Solomons said. The amusement in his voice was evident. He wasn’t taller than your cousin, but he was stockier and way more intimidating. Billy stood on the opposite side of you, wary of the large man.

Arthur replied, “Shalom.”

You cringed. Mr. Solomons gaze flickered to one of his men behind Arthur.

“Let me just say, Shalom,” Arthur repeated, painfully serious. You felt ill. If it were a less tense situation you would have smacked him over the head.

Solomons tilted his head just enough for you to get a glimpse of the look of incredulity on his face.

“Shalom!” He said. “So glad you could join us for this most joyous of celebrations! And I see you’ve brought friends for the occasion.” Solomons nodded in your direction. You’d been instructed by Arthur to not speak too much or get involved. The same went for Billy.

Arthur shifted on his feet. “This is my cousin, and my associate. Shall we discuss business?”

“Cousin, eh? From the sounds of it, there’s a new Shelby every fucking week.” Mr Solomons chuckled. “Come along, come along.”

He lead you into a room with a table in the center. Something was off. Perhaps it was the comment Arthur had made. It had surely offended them. The Solomons men hadn’t even looked at you. Not that you wanted to be looked at. It was unusual, though. They weren’t even looking at each other.

Something else in the room caught your attention; a goat tied to the leg of the table. It bleated sadly at you. You resisted the urge to pet it.

Mr Solomons circled the table and gestured. You took note of the pipe in his hand that also seemed to function as a cane. “Take a seat, why don’t you?”

Arthur hesitated, both you and Billy watching him before making a move.

He took the chair on the end. Some of the Solomons boys were standing behind the three of you in a perfect line. Another one took a chair next to Mr Solomons, still not looking at you.

Mr Solomons himself remained standing, studying Billy like he was the most fascinating thing on the planet. “And you’ll be...”

“Billy,” Billy said.

Mr. Solomons focused his attention on you. “Shelby?”

“(Y/n),” was your answer as you sat down at the table. There were plates and cups arranged before you. You kept your hands in your lap, careful not to touch anything.

“(Y/n)...You know, out there in the sand, out there in the desert where me forefathers come from... started out as a little speck...”

“Is everything alright?” Billy leaned over to whisper to Arthur. One of the men lurking around had shut the door behind you while Mr. Solomons rambled on. Arthur tried to dismiss Billy’s concerns with a wave.

“Billy, don’t worry mate, yeah, if you want you can leave. If you need to go to the little boys room or something you can leave.” Mr. Solomons interrupted, sounding a little too much like a school teacher.

“He’s alright, he’s alright,” Arthur grinned, rubbing Billy’s shoulder. “Billy boy.”

Your stomach churned. Something was wrong. This was not the kind of conversation that Tommy and Mr Solomons had had the day you eavesdropped. This was not the simple meeting you were promised.

“You want to stay?” Mr Solomons asked Billy; staring at him so intensely you had to look away.

“I’ll stay.”

“You stay there, then, treacle.” Mr Solomons grimaced, and his voice suddenly became much louder. “So! The pharaoh! Have you heard of him?”

Without thinking, you nodded, and he pointed in acknowledgement at you.

“He kept my people, the Jewish people, in slavery for thousands of years.”

“Persecuted, right,” Arthur interjected, pleased with himself for making this astute observation. Mr Solomons eyes lit up with amusement.

“He did, he persecuted my race. killing the innocent, right. So this feast that we’re having here , is basically the day what when the Jewish angels decided the evil fucking Egyptians had pushed their fucking luck!”

“Right,” Arthur added.

“It’s part of our tradition to do this, for in order to make it good with god to kill a king.”

Oh fuck. You glanced towards your cousin. By the look on his innocent smiling face he had not come to the conclusion you had. Okay, keep it cool. From the rumors you knew Mr Solomons was an intelligent man who spoke in idiotic riddles. You could have been misreading things. Sabini could be the pharaoh in the story.

“Right,” Arthur said again. What was Tommy doing at this moment?

“That is the ritual of the sacrifice of the pass over goat.” Mr Solomons said.

Everyone at the table turned to look at the bleating creature.

Arthur looked ill. “A goat?”

Mr Solomons gestured to it. “Yeah, we’re gonna sacrifice it. Tonight. That’s part of the reason why we have to shut the doors as well.”

You wished Arthur had let you keep a gun. You were a sitting duck. Every muscle in your body tensed, ready for the action. No, Tommy wasn’t the pharaoh.

“But this year we thought we’d give the fucking goat a name!” He grinned.

“You named it.”

“We fucking did.”

You averted your eyes as a man put a knife to the goats neck. “Arthur?”

“You named the fucking goat.” He shifted in his chair. It seemed as if he was catching on.

“Evil fucking Egyptian pharaoh-“

“The fucking-“

“And you know what we called it?”

“What’d you call it?”

Your hands balled into fists.

“Tommy Shelby,” Mr Solomons answered with a hint of triumph.

As the blood of the goat spilled on the ground you dropped to the floor. Chaos ensued; a gunshot fired so loud your ears rang. It took a few seconds for your hearing to return. Arthur was screaming. You looked up to see poor Billy slumped in his chair, covered in blood, not moving. You brought your knees to your chest and covered your head to avoid any potential stray bullets. Three of the men had to restrain Arthur, who thrashed and cursed.

Heavy footsteps approached. You scooted back further under the safety of the table. Trying to help him would be useless; you were outnumbered and they had guns.

Arthur went quiet, his freckled face pale.

The back of Mr. Solomons came into view.

“That’s that. So, and the evil Egyptian scum was finally cleansed by the blood of the Passover goat. Mate.”

You covered your moth with a hand.

He kissed Arthur’s cheek twice. “That’s for Sabini.”

Then he promptly bashed Arthur over the head. Funnily enough, it brought back memories of all the times you’d seen Arthur do the same thing to someone else. The urge to laugh overwhelmed you.

Mr Solomons dropped into a squat and placed the gun he’d shot Billy with into Arthur’s hand.

While he was in this position he noticed you under the table.

“Ah, hello there,” he grunted, eyes looking you up and down.

You wanted to swear, or grab the gun from Arthur’s limp hand, or do something very impressive.

He stared at you, waiting for a reply.

“Hi,” you sputtered out. “Is he dead?”

“Oh, nah, that would ruin the fun. You were not supposed to be here tonight.”

“I know.”

“Right. What the fuck am I going to do with you?”

“Let me go?” You suggested. It was worth a try.

He scratched his beard, lost in thought. “Cute, but I think not. That wouldn’t exactly wrap things up nicely, would it?”

A heavy pause lingered in the air. You pulled your knees in even closer, in an instinctual effort to protect yourself.

“Ok. Well! Lads, why don’t you take our guest upstairs?”

“Excuse me? No, no way.”

One of the men grabbed your arm, yanking you to your feet.

“Hey!” You struggled to get your arm free.

Mr Solomons stood up and turned away from you.

“You’re gonna kidnap me and you can’t even look me in the face! Fucking coward!” You shoved the man off but slipped in the blood on the floor, letting him get the advantage.

Another grabbed your other arm and despite your best efforts you couldn’t elbow him off. The near tumble had discombobulated you.

Mr Solomons glanced over his shoulder, as cool as a cucumber. “My good friends the London police are here if you’d prefer to go with them.”

The shock of what he’d said made you forget to fight. “Wait, what?” He didn’t have police on his payroll. Oh, Sabini did, how could you forget?

“Get the fuck off me!” You screamed.

The two men dragged you out the same moment as the doors flung open. A group of police stormed the room.

“Fucking animal came in here with a gun and he shot him in the face!” Mr. Solomons gestured with his cane, ignoring your pleas for help. “And my lads restrained him. Look at him! He’s dead! Is he dead! He’s fucking dead!” His false astonished voice followed you down the hall.

You fought back with all your effort.

“Stop fucking fighting, you’re lucky he didn’t shoot you too!” One of them said.

“Oh, how kind! How generous! Please be sure to thank him for me! Arthur! Arthur!” You didn’t know why you were screaming for him. They were carting him off to jail. Fuck. Would Tommy know? How long would it take for him to find out? “Bastards!”

Going upstairs was the worst part; you managed to slither out of their grip and ran up a few steps before tripping onto your face. They at least had the decency to not laugh.

The upstairs appeared to be some sort of flat. The two assholes threw you into the closest room, probably out of desperation to be free of you.

“What are you going to do with me?” You demanded, although you were scared of the answer.

They exchanged glances. They had let you free but blocked the door.

“Well, we’re not sure. He didn’t really give us instructions.” One said.

“I could give you some instructions. How about you go shove a-“ the threat was enough. Without rhyme or reason you charged at them like a bull.

Before you could spring your attack, they slipped out, locking the door behind themselves.

Slamming your fists on the door, you swore at them, every word imaginable.

Once you exhausted yourself you switched gears. Taking in the room; you noticed a bed shoved against a wall, a large, messy desk, and a small window. The style of the room was at least ten years out of date, and was covered in what looked like ten years of dust. This must be where Mr Solomons slept. For someone who had money he didn’t live like it.

You moved to the one window in the room. Here was a potential escape route. Except for the crowd of men huddled outside smoking. They wore aprons, like the others you saw. There was no way you could get past all of them.

But you could once they left. The only issue was making sure nothing happened to you in between then and now.

Who knew what upsetting plans he had for you? He fucking shot Billy. He could have shot you. Maybe the only reason he did it was because the police were nearby. He could be on his way up here at this very moment.

You needed to block the door. Anything to stall for time.

There was a coat rack in the corner that you used. The large cabinet full of decorative China plates looked easy to push; after a few tense moments of pushing you abandoned it and went for the desk. You investigated your work. The door could still be opened a few inches. Anything more than that would be blocked.

It should be enough. It didn’t feel like it. You were becoming aware of the heavy, dull ache in your muscles. Your ribs hurt from you dropped to the floor and bruises had begun to appear on your arms. You sat down on the creaky bed. If you were trapped in here, you might as well enjoy the “comforts” of this place.

A few hours passed. It had to be the next day already. Your thoughts were with Arthur, wondering if he’d woken up from the bashing yet. And Tommy, if he knew you were being held hostage. He was smart. He’d get you out of this. Unless he’d finally had enough of your antics and disowned you. No, no. Polly, John and Ada wouldn’t let that happen. You were spiraling and tired but too paranoid to sleep. Laying back on the bed, your eyes closed as you strained to listen for any sound. Why in the ever loving fuck had you let Arthur do this? When had he ever done anything smart?

Someone knocked at the door.

“Fuck off.” You said, a conditioned response from years of your cousins barging in on you.

Mr Solomons huffed. “Yes, yes. Listen. I’m not going to shoot you-well, I might if you get on my nerves- I have actually come to the conclusion that you may be quite useful to me.”

You sat up. “What?”

Mr Solomons opened the door, and to your relief, it got stuck on the desk. “Moving my fucking desk around?”

“I doubt I’m any use to you,” you said in your bravest voice. “Tommy will be looking for me. And he will want revenge for your betrayal with Sabini.”

He jiggled the door again. It didn’t budge. “Yeah, exactly. Revenge and all that. And I know he’s fond of you- you were at his house that day- so if I have you, right, as leverage, he’ll be less likely to put a fucking bullet in my head.”

“Did you really put Arthur in prison?”

“Yes, and I’ve just gotten word that Michael...Gray, is it, he’s been locked up too. So Tommy is probably a bit busy at the moment.”

Michael? That was probably a lie. A bluff. Polly would be in shambles.

“So are you going stay in there forever or are you going to come out?” Not taunting. Curious.

“I’ll stay in here.”

“You can come out, I’m not going to fucking hurt ya-“

“I saw you shoot Billy in the fucking head! And nearly kill Arthur!” You barked and flung the nearest object you could find, an empty bottle, at the door.

He cursed and shut the door before the bottle could slam into his head. “Didn’t you listen to a fucking word I said? Tommy Shelby would really come after me then.”

“Fuck the fuck off!” Another bottle flew through the air for good measure. This time the liquid contents splattered on the papers on the desk.

“Fucking hell,” he growled. “Stay in there as long as you want then, yeah?”

Your voice wavered. “He’s gonna come for me! And you’ll be sorry when he does!”

[papyrusgayfont]

* all the miraculous episodes coming out are making me think about my miraculous ladybug/undertale au, so uh I’m just gonna talk about that for a bit

* I just wanted to explain the characters a bit, who’s actually in the au, who’s not, etc

* basically, all of the original Miraculous characters are in the au, but they’d mainly just be side/background characters. Some would be more involved, like Marinette, Nino, Alya, basically most of the class, but for the most part the au would focus on the Undertale/Deltarune cast

* Adrien did exist in the world of this au, but he passed away, idk when exactly that would’ve happened, but probably soon after the monsters were freed

* Unlike the show, Adrien wouldn’t be a sentibeing (assuming he is, he could not be, but there’s so much evidence that suggests he is that it’s basically confirmed), so therefore Emille would exist. She wouldn’t be around for Gabriel’s shenanigans, she’s probably staying with Amelie, idk, but, yeah

* the list I made of which UT/DR characters replace which Miraculous characters is kinda misleading, no one is really “replacing” anyone, since no one would take anyone’s personalities, just the miraculous that the character uses, who gets akumatized, and their role in a given episode (so, for example, Sans would get the snake miraculous, but he wouldn’t really act like Luke or usually take Luka’s role in an episode. He would get akumatized into Truth and Silencer, but other than that, there really wouldn’t be any similarities between Sans and Luka)

* ok now onto some more general things:

* Berdly x Jockington would be a thing, because I decided to do that. For some reason. The relationship would probably start to form in like, Dark Cupid or smth, idk

* Max’s mom and Berdly’s mom would be married, also because I decided to do that

* Susie would have been adopted by Alphys and Undyne, mostly because I like the idea of Undyne adopting Susie in Deltarune, so why not I’ll put that in here

* Frisk and Chara would be able to switch between who’s controlling Frisk’s body, the way that you can tell them apart is that Frisk would wear their blue shirt with purple stripes and brown pants, and Chara would wear their green shirt with a yellow stripe and beige pants. Kris would wear a hoodie with a darker green and a darker yellow stripe and idk brown jeans or smth I don’t know fashion

* the rabbit miraculous would still be a pocket watch, but it would have a chain so you could put it around your neck, and for Kris it would be camouflaged into Chara’s heart shaped locket

* in the show, it’s been explained that the reason a child holder has to detransfrom after using their power once is because they don’t have enough energy for the kwami to feed off of, so the kwami has to eat and recharge. For monsters, the kwami would have to feed off the magic they use to form their physical bodies, and so that’s why they would detransform after using their powers once

* the Gabriel Agreste company would also have an acting company as a part of their brand, apart from the fashion company, and that’s where Mettaton would have worked before the main events of this au

* Mettaton, at this point in time, wouldn’t want to leave acting completely, but he would want to take a break, so that’s why he would be the theatre teacher at Françoise Dupont High School. Alphys would be the second science teacher, and Undyne would be the second gym teacher.

* Dess and Noelle would live with Asgore in his house, since Asgore wants to take care of them after Rudy’s passing and their mom leaving them

* both Mettaton and Papyrus would be gay, but Mettaton would publicly be out, and Papyrus wouldn’t (I’m not saying that the world of this au would have homophobia/transphobia as a problem, like 99% of people in this world would be accepting, but ofc there would be those few)

* some of the akuma villains would probably be some of the darkners from Deltarune, since the dark worlds wouldn’t be a part of the au, and I’d just like to include them (so Markov - Queen, Bob Roth - Spamton, Burgerpants - Jevil, etc)

* I’ve got some (very basic) ideas for how certain episodes could play out: for example, Silencer. Essentially, the episode would mostly be the same, the only difference would be that the band isn’t “Kitty Section”, it would be a band that Papyrus started in his spare time, and Mettaton is their manager. Papyrus would have designed the costumes, and seeing that they were stolen, he and Sans would go and confront XY and Bob Roth about it, and Sans, upset that his brother’s work is being stolen, and also hearing that XY has blackmail on Papyrus (see Papyrus not being out), gets akumatized

* for Papyrus being a sentibeing, I don’t have it fully finalized, but I was thinking that the object that holds his amok would be a piece of his scarf that Gaster used to test and see if what he was doing would work

* for “Felix”, I was thinking he could be a shapeshifting monster that was Papyrus’ old friend from the Underground, who knows that Papyrus is a sentibeing, and wants to try and protect him from any harm that Gabriel could bring him

* for Mad Mew Mew’s “Queen Bee” arc, in the “Miracular” episode of the au, instead of Mad Mew Mew never getting to be Queen Bee again, she and Ladybug would come up with a plan where she would come up with a new costume and name for her so that she could still wear the bee miraculous, but Hawk Moth wouldn’t recognize her. This would lead into the season 3 finale, and then the “Queen Banana” episode, where we’d learn Mad Mew Mew’s new superhero name and her new outfit

* ik these are all horrible ideas, but my brain will literally not let me think about anything else, and I just had to write them down