#kinda frustrated w the background but i ended up working on the water for a hot minute and got tired of the drawing LOL

[where-are-the-spooky-gays-2]

My fam is having car troubles and it's preventing me from being able to go to school (frustrating bc I already have the attendance office on my chronically-ill ass 😭) so here's more mechanic Remus things with a little sprinkle of "Roman's his little brother instead of twin (remember that?)"

- he and Virgil don't come into contact super often for a while. This shits a slur burn. But eventually things just keep winding up wrong with the car and he keeps calling remus

- he calls Remus specifically (Remus gave him his personal number) (said all the other guys there were shady as fuck and Virgil was too cute for that bullshit) (also in case Virgil was interested)

- looooootta trips where Remus comes to Virgil's place

- awkward host Virgil who is like ".. do u want some water?" meanwhile Remus is just straight up under his car

- Remus coming inside the house with completely pitch black hands like ":D please turn on your sink for me. And maybe put some soap in my hands. So I don't turn your whole ass kitchen black." my dad always makes me do this it's so fun /j /lh

- Virgil DOES hang out w him outside though don't get me wrong I just mean that one time

- Virgil once went inside and then came out an hour later and saw his backseat completely removed and was freaked out (Remus needed to check smth. He put it back!!)

- once Virgil just kinda. lied. said he wanted Remus to check this Weird Noise the car was making. (There was no weird noise he just weirdly missed him)

- one time, different car, Remus mentions how their scheduled time is really close to when he has to get his brother. So like. When he shows up. Remus will not be alone.

- cue Fuck It™ and Roman comes with him

- what a day for Virgil, dude (Jesus Christ this kid never stops talking) (also Virgil couldn't spoil Disney for him?? Wtf Remus?? He has to learn eventually??) (it's fine whatever he's a good artist) (did call Virgil easy to draw, though... lil bastard—)

- otherwise, when it's just Virgil and Remus, they find out they have a lot in common! Interests-wise, but they def. bond over music at first. Gotta have smth going on in the background.

- Virgil can't get over the fact Remus looks hot though. It like becomes a problem for him. I can't blame him tho— greasy mullet mechanic in a tank top working on my car? Sweating and covered in grease?? Hello??? Shits hot. If virgil is weak I am too.

- their first date is when Virgil offers to buy Remus dinner for a really tight squeeze-in for a check on something. Remus takes him up on the offer and they schedule for that weekend. They have a really good time and then at the end Remus mentions how he kinda wished it was a date. Virgil realizes he did too. Oh Shit™.

- they kiss anysay

— 👑

Damn that sucks man hope everything starts working soon but Y E S Mechanic!Ree and lil bro Ro!!! I will never get over Vee constantly calling Ree specifically for his car even when there isn't an issue he's simply Gay for a chaotic man in a mullet and feels safer XD I'm cackling at the thought of Vee just making a snack for Ree and seeing the backseat completely gone and he just almost drops the plate jaw dropped and all XD Also the fact that Ro's lowkey a lil shit and Vee can't spoil Disney for him has me cackling Ree get your bro XD It's really nice to see the beloveds easily click and it all started because of Vee's car <3

[astrunaria]

LUCULIA LOREDUMPPP (Bc I don't think I've done this properly for her)

Ngl I was gonna save this post for when I FINALLY redesigned Lu but w the state of my laptop rn and my abundance of projects I've gotten impatient and I love her and keep talking about her lately sooo

Backstory

Iris Meier was born into the beginnings of a less than ideal situation; a poor family in the more lower class area of Amerton. By the time her younger brother Aster was one, her father had already left the house, forcing her older brother Sage to have to step up and be the man of the house while their mother, Cecilia, neglected them. She never really learnt to care for her mother’s coldness, however; Sage more than made up for that with how much he tried. That didn’t really stop it from completely affecting her, however.

Her mother was like extra baggage. Even if she was in the background of her life for the most part, she still caused extra problems for the family, her drinking habits taking a toll on the money Sage earned to support his siblings. Over time… She really did start to see how messed up her home situation was.

And it kinda hurt.

Still, they had to live with it. It was difficult for Sage to move out and be able to have custody over his siblings, so they had no choice but to stay. At least their mother was usually out during the day a lot, typically wasting away at a local tavern.

But one day, while Iris was home alone, Cecilia came back earlier than expected.

She was drunk. And angry. Spotting Iris, she stormed over to her, and started verbally berating her, taking out all her frustration with her “failed” life on her. She’d never seen her mother like this. It scared her. Unsure what to do and panicking, she ran off - but Cecilia went after her, wildly knocking things over along the way. She reached the fourteen year old with ease, and tackled her towards the ground. Iris wasn’t sure what to do - was she… going to kill her? It was uncertain… but could her mother be capable of such a thing? And then, in a moment of weakness, she grabbed one of the shattered objects off of the ground… and slit her mother’s throat.

Blood spilled everywhere.

As Iris got up, she froze, watching her mother choke on the ground. It was like she stopped working as she struggled to process what was happening. Soon enough, however, Cecilia gave out her last breath - leaving a disgusted Iris alone with her thoughts. What would Sage say? How would he even react? What’s going to happen now?

Did she really deserve that?

Her legs carried her out of the house and into the woods as the world spun around her. She doesn’t know exactly how long she hid. Days? A week? She was too panicked to really think about it, hiding in bushes and madly trying to clean blood off of herself with filthy water from puddles during all that time. It was one evening however, after a good few days, when two particular individuals finally found her. Remus Ramobus and Julianne Bougainvillea.

They’d apparently gone out for Jules to do a reading of the stars that evening, when they came across the young girl, Jules picking up on the smell of blood. Sympathising with her, due to their shared background of being orphans and assuming she could be one (perhaps traumatised from a troublesome incident), they brought her back to stay at Remus’s extra apartment, where Jules had apparently been hiding out due to her curse. She’d end up staying after she warmed up to them; which was no easy feat. They’d been calling her “the kid” the entire time because she seemed so shaken up to talk.

When she finally gave them a name, she gave them the answer of Luculia.

Misc Fun Facts

Most likely has undiagnosed ADHD

She keeps a lot of flowers (fem urge to tie this in with her guilt like maybe she thinks if she can nurture she can't hurt)

Steals 1 cig from Remus everytime he buys a new pack, hiding them in a tin and smoking when she's away from Remus and Jules

Honestly a lil stuck in finding herself since the incident

Dancerr she used to love the atmosphere of Amerton's disco as a child

She is my oldest OC, used to be a Genshin OC (like a few others) who was basically a personality ripoff of Dazai from BSD with NO backstory until I realised her character writing was a joke and decided to do her justice at the time of writing I think Lu's like 4 years old??

Speaking of Genshin influence her magic type is wind! She was born on third quarter moons so pretty alright magic level

Weapon of choice is dual guns (Remus influence)

Wants to be a witch (?? honestly still pondering on this like she ORIGINALLY wanted to be an astrologer but considering Arphene lore it's risky af and I honestly just love witches)

[spiaem]

made a phone lockscreen in the style of a webtoon of aeëtes!!

[clotpole-art]

Retrospective: Illustrated Merlin Alphabet Challenge

Finally finished the Merlin Alphabet Challenge, so here's the artist notes no one asked for! See below the cut for comments on each piece by order of creation. Be warned folks, it's a long post.

Before we begin: credit to @merlin-gifs for the challenge, which can be found here. It's awesome, go do it.

First thing you should know is I did probably 80-90% of these while on phone calls or in Zoom meetings and that's reflected in the simplicity of most pieces -- the compositions aren't complicated, the lines aren't refined, the coloring is slapdash. If you noticed variation in quality of the pieces, that's why!

Second: I tried to focus on trying something new for each drawing. Didn't always happen, but this challenge did succeed in helping me push me out of my own comfort zone.

Without further ado...

A is for Arthur Pendragon

Textures, baby! Brushed metal of his armor, scratchy linen texture of his shirt, wispy softness of hair and skin. I'd recently gotten my tablet out of storage after a year of figuring out where the hell I was going to live and this was one of the first pieces of digital art I spent time on. Glad it was Arthur kicking us off!

B is for the Beginning of the End (1x08)

Fun fact, I did not draw this with my tablet. I drew it with my work computer's touchscreen. It was awful, would not recommend.

C is for Camelot

I wanted to get used to different brushes, so landscape of the castle it was! There are brushes that help with drawing grass; I did not use said brushes and my wrist hurt afterward. That being said, I really enjoyed working on this and it was one of the few pieces I didn't do while multitasking.

D is for Daegal

Also drawn on my work computer's touchscreen, not my tablet. I didn't learn my lesson from B and the experience was even worse. This is my least favorite piece which sucks because it's Daegal so I'm slated to redo this sometime in the near future. Gotta do our boy justice.

E is for Elyan

Oh, I adored drawing this. Elyan often gets shafted in terms of fandom appreciation so I made sure to choose Elyan for this prompt and to participate in the Elyan fest. Plus, I love a good ghost story and figuring out a way to include the druid spectre was fun. Didn't multitask on this piece because Elyan deserved my full attention.

F is for Freya

Ho boy. This piece. I have such mixed feelings on this drawing. Really really didn't like it after I'd decided it was done and very nearly scrapped the whole thing. I had a vision in my head that I just couldn't render into reality and it frustrated me SO MUCH. Looking back, I like it much better than I did when I first created it.

G is for Gwaine

What can I say, he's pretty when he's cold. I didn't stretch too much with this one -- it's my normal drawing style, I was just trying to find a brush that mimicked the softness of pencil.

H is for Hunith

Another one that didn't stray too far from my comfort zone. I was stupid sick and slammed at work, so a motherly Hunith manifested herself. I blame the bad brush choice on the cold medicine.

I is for Isolde

I woke up and chose violence! Tried to vary my figure drawing style a little in this piece but my brain resisted, resulting in... this. Not mad at it, but not happy with it either. Poor Isolde.

J is for Juggling

Ah, this lovely piece was drawn during a particularly vexing meeting at work. Fun fact, there's another version of this line art that's less about Merlin's stress and more about mine.

K is for Knights of Camelot

Continuing the theme of doodling through bad news and shit meetings. Like I said above, normally meeting doodles aren't complex because I'm concentrating on something else. This one was more involved because I didn't want to concentrate on the meeting. I have a few issues with this from a technical standpoint (perspective, my nemesis) but it's still one of my favorites. Tried some funky coloring technique, didn't hate it.

V is for Vibrant Colors

And here is where we said fuck the rules and started going out of alphabetical order! This one was really fun to do and I loved kicking off Albion Party with this as my first submission. The colors were a challenge (as I hoped they would be) and this is the first time I had to do some color tweaking midway though and after finishing the coloring process. Vibrant Arthur, my beloved. This started as a multitask doodle but took dedicated time to finish.

O is for Old Religion

The concept for this one was buzzing in my head for a bit before a quote-prompt solidified it. I adore the thought of more visible, tangible representations of Merlin as the son of the elements, of "magic itself" -- not just sun-gold eyes, but sea-water hair and sandstone-skin. A complement to the vibrant Arthur portrait.

S is for Sorcerers

When I said I wanted to challenge myself, I wasn't kidding. Ho boy, this was fun but frustrating. I wanted to completely illustrate a gif. So I did. Will I do something like this again? Maybe. A while from now.

M is for Morgause

See above -- same illustrated gif style so at least I was able to reuse some drawings. Poor Morgause ended up looking a little wretched here because I was mentally done with this when I was drawing her. Love the concept of tarot cards + Merlin but others are doing it so I won't continue this series.

Z is for Zzzz

This one was specifically done to test out some custom brushes I made in Krita to make abstract background drawing easier for me. I think they turned out well! Plus who doesn't love bb iridescent Aithusa.

L is for Leon, P is for Percival

Quick, minimal doodles of the boys! Mentally, I was going for a Brady's-style retro ensemble cast TV show credits feel. Not mad at it! Some boys look closer to their actors than others (I think my brain broke drawing Percy, my apologies to Tom Hopper).

T is for Tristan

It wasn't until after I posted this that I realized there was more than one Tristan in Merlin. Could have drawn Isolde's bf but I drew Ygraine's dumb jock undead brother instead. Had some fun with dark greys and blacks here regardless.

Q is for Queen Annis

Best royal in Albion, bar none. I tried a different coloring technique here and I kinda like it! may make it my go-to but we'll see. Old habits are hard to break. Also: our queen deserved more badass clothes.

X is for Arthur X Merlin

Oh, be still my shipper heart. Doodled and colored during a meeting. I had hoped to spend more time on it outside of multitasking but alas, work is a bitch. This one is slated for a rework sometime in the future; I adore the concept too much to let it go without creating another version of this that isn't an utter mess.

U is for Uther's Ward

And here's my attempt at forgoing line art. Not fun, do not like.

Y is for Young Warlock

Channeled some pain into this one. Those are the dead eyes of someone who had been told that he'd succeeded when his friend died. That the destiny he'd been expecting to carry on his shoulders into old age was done and dusted before he turned 30. Grief plus the existential dread of the aimless immortal. Oof. One of my favs.

N is for Nimueh, R is for Rising Sun, W is for Will

And we end on this sorry offering. I was away from home for a while without my tablet and I just got tired of waiting. So, pen doodles at the airport. This was a challenge in its own right because 1. pen only and 2. I wasn't able to pull Netflix up for a reference on the fly. Which is why Will's face is obscured and Nimueh looks.... not like Nimueh lol.

In summary: this was a goddamn joy to do. I finished 26 letter prompts in approximately 21 weeks, which exceeded my own unspoken goal of filling one letter per week. I found a good, happy corner of the Merlin fandom after a years-long hiatus away from being a fandom creator. If you did make it this far with me, thanks for reading my inane comments and giving this little project even a moment of your time -- I'm so grateful.

[army-of-mai-lovers]

Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

oh my gosh I have so many I’m literally incapable of sticking to one or two projects at once this list is going to be so long ahhh ok

keep the world at bay- Avatar Sokka au/nonbender Zuko au/Yue lives au/Jet lives au/Azula redemption au....she has layers (unsurprisingly, she’s projected to be 200k). basically, Aang didn’t go into the iceberg and grew up during the beginning of the Hundred Year War and spent most of his life trying to end it, but then he disappeared and there was a 40 year gap between his disappearance and the surfacing of the Water Tribe Avatar, Sokka. this fic frustrates me to no end sometimes but I really really love it. I am a bit of a nerd about writing, but there are some things that I’m really nerdy about within writing and alternate history stories is one of those things. I have a google doc with pages and pages and pages of text about what happened in between the first Sozin’s Comet and the start of the fic, and how this all ties in thematically, and this is all like, exactly the kind of stuff I live for. it’s self-indulgent as hell but I love it. I just posted earlier this week that the hiatus on the new chapter for this fic was going to be even longer and now I’m working on chapter 14 so...yeah I change my mind on a whim what about it? 

not ready to make nice- Jet lives au, one of my only fics in which Jet is not affiliated with a coffee/teashop in some way. basically, he wakes up in an apartment of Ba Sing Se after the events of Crossroads of Destiny, severely injured but alive, and finds out that Smellerbee and Longshot have been taken. even though there are three jail/prison break scenes in 9 chapters, it’s a very slow, very intense character study kind of fic exploring Jet’s many many traumas and how he learns to love himself enough to survive and thrive. fun fact: this fic was part of my six month plan to slowly convert people into jetru shippers, and right after I started it everybody started shippng jetru and the whole plan became moot (this is also why Haru doesn’t get introduced until ch 7) 

like ripples, like love- wuko enemies to lovers coffeeshop au, featuring background korrasami, bopal, jetru, and zukka. also probably the weirdest experience I’ve ever had being inspired for a fic--I made a couple jokes about how the perfect wuko fic would be a 200k enemies to lovers coffeeshop au in which Mako is the employee and Wu is a Karen, and then some of my mutuals were like “yo I’d read that fic” and I was like “lmao ok I’m not doing it” and three months later I have a 75k wuko enemies to lovers coffeeshop au, so...joke’s on me I guess. I really love the opportunity to be funny in a fic, honestly. my canonverse stuff is kinda depressing, and considering both the world and the atla fandom are dumpster fires, it’s really nice to just make something fun and lighthearted. this fic is also set in Hong Kong, which initially was me trying to be more responsible as a member of a fandom for a show based on Asian and Indigenous cultures, but it has grown into me just being interested in Hong Kong culture. I’ve done a lot of research for this fic and I’ve enjoyed all of it. I never would have listened to Chet Lam or Leslie Cheung or AGA if it weren’t for this fic, and I never would have read about Jessica Park and the Transgender Equality and Acceptance Movement. All of this has really enriched my understanding of queer culture and queer organizing outside of the US and it makes me really happy that I’ve gotten the opportunity to learn about all of this stuff. just posted ch 2, will probably post ch 3 soon!

it’s only a paper moon- yueki fic in which Suki talks to Yue (the moon) while she’s at Boiling Rock, and falls in love with her through these conversations. this is one of the first straight up angst things I’m writing (read: angst w/o a happy ending) and as someone who adores yueki being able to write about them in a variety of situations is really fun. also, it’s Suki pov and ngl Suki pov is my favorite pov to write. I love her so much and I love deconstructing her and making her vulnerable (instead of the invincible queen that everybody stans but nobody takes the time to treat like a human being) 

on my honor- probably the only straight up zukka fic I will ever write. It’s a donnaverse fic, set a few months after the events of bad girls and love will always find you, and Sokka and Zuko compete to be the biggest fans/supporters of their friends and sisters by having a Kyoshi merch arms race. I love donnaverse everything so I’m really excited about this, plus this fic has a lot of Sokka & Aang and Sokka & Haru and Sokka & Jet (and it features Jet and Haru’s first meeting). also, Zuko the Douchebag! so few zukka fics feature Zuko the Douchebag and I miss him I want him back. the whole point of Zuko is the character development so if I’m writing a zukka fic it’s got to have Zuko developing and becoming a better human. 

and finally....

Super Secret Zone Collaboration fic- [REDACTED]

fanfic meta ask game!

[ohsweetflips]

DAO really was the best game, the lore the ability to absolutely wreck shit, the fact that they didnt do that bullshit ‘all sides are grey’ and clearly showed oppression. I think of my warden, an elven mage, and wonder how she’ll be rewritten more than anything.

right like!!!! i love each dragon age game with my whole heart and they all have super special places in said heart, but origins handles a lot of the social problems really well, or at least from the perspective that i play it as (also an elven mage!)

the rest i’m putting under the cut bc holy shit i can talk abt dragon age a lot. also nothing is proofred. i’m so sorry this got so long i hear “bioware” and “grey morality” and i go wild

(pls talk to me abt dragon age.....)

(also please don’t reblog this!!)

like i understand da2 having a type of grey-morality thing bc the final battle was choosing between the mages and the templars (tho imo they could’ve done better than “the mages hate us bc we keep them locked in a tower and there are multiple accounts of us abusing them and therefore some of them turn to blood magic so therefore we should kill all of them” but still, in a setting like that where the Main End Game Choice was mages vs. templars, then that is understandable)

(but also i haven’t played da2 in a couple years so maybe it’s more nuanced than that)

but inquisition! it’s weird bc inq has a super special place in my heart. i’ve played it 6 or 7 times to completion, not counting the other times i got 20/30 hours into it before external forces distracted me. inq is overall the game i think abt the most, most of my playthroughs average over 100 hours, it’s the only game that i have all the dlcs for, for me it’s the easiest to replay, and yet there’s so much that frustrates me abt it! like, i’m gonna avoid talking abt the actual parts of the writing that bother me, bc that can be it’s own standalone thing, but imo it felt like they never actually solidified what actually caused the mage/templar war? there are those that say anders started it (seems likely), then there are those who talk abt fiona leading the rebel mages in the war? and there, of course, is the “the templars have done wrong but so have they mages and therefore you’re shamed either way for what you do” like i Get what they’re trying to do, trying to encourage players to explore their options and really delve into their own moral values of the game and not just adhere to what the game says, but idk the way they always went abt it always rubbed me some type of wrong

i think part of it is bc, when people mention circle mages turning to blood mages and demons and such like that, it was always framed as “ah these evil mages!” and not “[if these are circle mages] most likely their want for freedom pushed them to that”

does that make it right? no, not necessarily! look at uldred from dao! imo, he was wrong! i don’t like the circle and my warden herself has a complicated relationship with it, but i like that you can say “hey! this is wrong!” without legitimate plot-based “but what if it isn’t?”

of course there will always be companions who push for the more chaotic/harsh choices (morrigan is the one i have the most experience with giving me disapproval for being what i think is nice) (still love her tho), but i think dao handled “okay, look at the big picture, and really think abt what hill u want to die on” stance well

and then there’s the way the mage/templar thing is handled in inquisition vis a vis companions. specifically cullen. and, listen, i as a player have a very complicated relationship with cullen and my heros do too lmao. and i really don’t want to get into the nuances of that bc that can 1) turn into a fight i don’t feel like having and 2) can be it’s own discussion, but basically, from my own perspective, he’s a well-written character who makes for a good antag to a mage-siding hawke in da2 bc of how pro-templar/anti-mage he is. again, don’t agree with any of it (honestly da2 alone puts me on the “okay fuck this” level w/ his character), but it does offer an extreme that is interesting to see. origins is more complicated bc in a game not directly stepped in mage/templar and also a game that stems from 6 different origin stories, it’s very easy to be a non-mage and be like “why do i care abt this guy” (if you get what i’m saying? like i got immediately invested in saving the mages bc my first warden was a circle mage so i was very put off by being told to kill all of them, as compared to if i played a non-mage origin and didn’t really have that background knowledge). but overall, origins and da2 puts cullen on the “pro-templars, mages are more dangerous than they are good side.” and then inquisition is where things get interesting!!

and, for a quick ref, i’m very into getting invested in my characters and really figuring out their morals and what they would actually do, or at least think, so dai becomes interesting bc i play as another elven mage who has never stepped foot in a circle and never will. so, bc of that, i play him as naturally more inclined to not initially Think abt cullen’s past like as a templar bc, as a dalish mage, i hc that he does not know what actually goes on in circles (as compared to my warden, a circle mage, and my hawke, an apostate) (but i hc that, overtime, as he has more and more experiences with templars, he becomes more cognizant of that) (but bioware doesn’t give me the option to just dictate everything my camris lavellan is thinking akjsjkdjk)

and dai-cullen, imo, is actually very interesting! and, tbh, i do have to give it to bioware. i feel like i’m abt to say an unironic controversial opinion, and i feel like i’ve already talked abt the nuances of all of this, but i do think dai did well at reworking cullen’s character. however, i feel like that was also done to feed into the grey-ness of the mage/templars. and, imo, i think they almost did well at actually making cullen show regret for how he treated mages. almost. again, i think there’s a lot of nuance! bc we do see him show some type of regret for how he treated a mage!warden (if he said all that shit like “all these people’s blood are on your hands” if u talk abt not wanting to kill innocent mages) and we do see him step away from templar life (that is, if you tell him to stop taking lyrium)

but!!!! there’s One Thing that puts a thorn in this, and it’s that cullen says something along the lines of, “meredith wasn’t all wrong, she had reason” like bitch!!! no matter what side you choose in da2, you fucking fight meredith!!! she’s wanted to kill innocent mages/make them tranquil even before anders blew up the chantry!!! meredith was all wrong!! she was evil!!!!! she was objectively a harmful person!!!!!!!!! bioware really makes this bitch the final boss of da2 and then has the audacity to say “but maybe she wasn’t all bad” in dai like WHERE IS THIS FOR ORSINO??? ORSINO ISN’T ALL BAD, IS HE???????? OH BUT HE IS BC HE RESORTED TO SUDDEN BLOOD MAGIC IN THE LAST TEN MINUTES OF THE GAME, AS COMPARED TO MEREDITH WHO WAS A DANGER FOR THE ENTIRE FINAL ACT and i digress but the fact that bioware is trying to redeem cullen but also showing that he still sympathizes with a woman who 1) turned against the templars and 2) Literally Everything She Did To The Mages always makes me “hmmmm are u really trying tho :/”

also tho one thing i’m actually not the biggest fan of is that cullen is like “oh i knew hawke in passing........ knew varric in passing.............” meanwhile let’s just cut to everything that happened at kirkwall. this is my own opinion bc i see varric as hawke’s #1 but i personally think that at least half of the comraderie varric and cullen sorta-kinda-had in inq was varric testing the waters of “okay what is cullen going to be like if and when hawke shows up”

also tho i will say a hot-take of mine is that if cullen gets to be redeemed by bioware, then i want something for anders, too, but i doubt bioware would do something so clearly pro-mage. but it could be two sides of the extreme! extremist templar gets redemption, extremist mage does, too! come on, bioware, show your grey morality

(again, i think it’s interesting what they did with cullen in dai and does give some sympathetic light but i also do think the reworking of his character was working towards bioware’s moral-greyness agenda with dragon age. not that that’s necessarily a terrible thing, i understand them wanting some nuance, but it’s the way they do it. like, you can show bad templars and bad mages and still not have “but who is really the bad guy? the oppressors or the oppressed? who is it really?”)

(and also just bc i feel like i need to put my own player claim in this, my opinion on cullen is complicated and also i’m gonna be completely forth-right with u, dear anon, i appreciate cullen in inquisition but, as a whole, he can be terrible to ur warden in dao (that’s not me being shifty it literally just depends on the choice you make in broken circle) and in da2 he’s a nightmare, so bioware had to do a lot of legwork in dai) (tbh tho in my personal-player opinion, if i was to ever romance cullen in inq, it’s not gonna be with a mage)

god this got so out of hand anon i’m so sorry you probably didn’t want this messy essay but i just love talking abt dragon age!!! i think abt it a lot and i have five years worth of headcanons and i have a family tree set up for my surana/lavellan bc of some bullshit i pulled and also!!!! bioware’s writing can get so frustrating but i also think it’s so interesting to pull apart and discuss bc i think the bioware has actually shifted from pro-mage (origins) to neutral-mage (da2 kinda) to anti-mage (dai) and i feel like So Many Choices with characters and their plots reveal that!!! so it’s a frustrating agenda but i also just love dragon age so much that i can’t help but get excited and talk abt it!!!

like, as all things, i do believe there are times when grey morality does work, but, at least from a mage-siding perspective, it hasn’t really landed well for dragon age. bc, and i don’t want to drag in real-life scenarios bc i feel like it would be incredibly inappropriate of me to use any oppressed minority as a comparison for a fantasy world, but it’s the age-old thing of people saying the shitty “but the oppressed fight back and therefore they’re just as bad as the oppressors!” and that’s like....... not how it works.

but also you’ve caught me in a wonderful mood so i feel like, if i was in a bad mood, this would be a lot more “and fucking bioware can’t make a goddamn decision on what side they actually support so instead most of the companions are gonna made rude remarks abt you supporting mages and the ones that support you are seen as distrustful and fuck this and fuck that” but i think that is the joy of loving something with you’re whole heart and also saying “there are so many things abt this that piss me off and so many things that i would change”

and also!!!! ik bioware probably killed my warden so like rip electra surana but i would love for the warden to make an appearance in da4 as a temporary companion/advisor. but! but!!!!!! i also don’t know how much i trust bioware with my “elven mage who is alistair’s mistress and preferred the mages and wanted to free the circles and etc etc etc” bc... idk how to explain it? like, i don’t want them taking my warden and putting words in her mouth that go against choices i meticulously made in dao

[mywrittings]

time to let go 03 / jeon jungkook

summary: y/n and jungkook have been friends for a long time but their friendship has had a lot of bumps along the way. when y/n sees that jungkook has been acting really weirdly towards her, she tries to forget about him and move on. but jungkook being the person he is, she finds it hard to do so.

01 |  02 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08

jungkook didn’t stop at all, he kept knocking and ringing the door bell like crazy. his girlfriend was chilling by his side and her hands were locked with his. when jungkook was ringing the bell, she didn’t take her eyes off of him. she was looking at him like he was this big giant prize that she had just won. her eyes were sparking with joy, while yours were filled with tears. 

‘‘y/n open up!’‘ jungkook screamed for the tenth time, while you just listened to his screams. again you were very much confused with this whole situation and didn’t get why he’s here...with his girlfriend.

it didn’t seem like he was going to stop, so you took a step back from the door and took a few deep breaths. you were always feeling a lot more relaxed if you did that and it felt a lot easier afterwards.

you grasped the door knob and swiftly opened the door. it was time to get this over with and end your friendship with him for good.

as soon as you opened the door, jungkook’s face changed. he went from his happy self that you saw a few seconds before to the most shocked face of all times. but arinna was the total opposite. she was mad, very mad. the sparkle in her eyes disappeared and it was replaced with darkness. her eyes got really intense and you knew that she wasn’t excited to see you.

‘‘what do you wanna discuss now?’‘ you mock him as you crossed your arms and leaned on your door frame. 

it took him by surprise when you said that but part of you didn’t care. you wanted to end all of this, as he has put you through so much pain for the past couple of years.

you wanted him but you wanted that jungkook back that would talk to you and not disappear so suddenly. it hurt because there was nothing you could do. you tried so hard to fix everything but he didn’t seem to care. yet one week he’d be totally okay and he would be acting like he was your best friend.

it was all so confusing and as much as you wanted to find out the real truth about why he’s changing up his mood towards you, you were afraid he might say ‘what are you talking about’ or ‘your making a big fuss out of nothing’. it’s like you can never win with him and that sucked. it sucked that despite all of this, you still cared for him.

‘‘well this is my girlfriend arinna as you already know and I just wanted you to know that.’‘ jungkook said and pulled her closer to his side like he did that yesterday right in front of you.

‘‘I know that. so what?’‘ you talked back

‘‘I know how much you were mad when I didn’t tell you about my ex and I dating, so just wanted to clarify that, as I didn’t get to finish my sentence yesterday.’‘ he explains, staring at you, his hand still wrapped around arinna.

‘‘w-what?’‘ you stutter, jungkook really took it to the next level and proved himself yet again that he’s an absolute asshole. and again you were the one in wrong in his eyes because he didn’t tell you about his ex-girlfriend at the time and stopped talking to you. is this logical to anyone? 

not to mention how he pointed out that his ex-girlfriend didn’t allow him to hang out with any other girls but just her. so here you were thinking for those a couple of months how you must’ve made a mistake when in reality it was jungkook who did it. who leaves their friends for a girlfriend? 

‘‘you heard me y/n.’‘ he strongly responds and fixes his posture

‘‘jungkook I really don’t understand. be with her fine at this point I don’t care anymore but just to be clear you were the one that pushed me away and you were the one that came back seeking a shoulder to cry on. you won’t get that from me ever again, you and I don’t know each other.’‘ you state but in a very calm voice. there would be no good to shout at him because he probably will not understand what you had just said anyways.

however to your surprise the look in his eyes changed. it sounded so silly but it was as if you saw a hint of sorrow in them. his eyebrows furrowed but then quickly he let out a fake laugh and you knew that he was feeling uncomfortable at that very moment. it wasn’t one of those laugh from the heart but a plain, fake one that he plastered on his face just so that he could fool you.

‘‘oh so you don’t wanna talk to me anymore?’‘ he questions and raises his voice

‘‘are you...’‘ you were about to say if he’s serious as he is the one who always stops talking to you for no reason and no matter how many times you tried and tried to figure it all out at the end it just makes you frustrated. 

‘‘yes.’‘ you quickly say and slowly take a step back to go inside and close the door right in front of their faces. but jungkook’s hand finds it’s way on your forearm and he spins you around. you could hear arinna huff in the background.

‘‘is that what you really want y/n?’‘ 

‘‘yes.’‘ you pulled away from his grip as soon as he managed to get his grasp on you. you don’t say a thing but just walk in your house and this time you smash the door shut closed. you lock it and turne around, waiting for them to go. but you decided to take one final peek at them because you knew that you will never see jungkook again. 

‘‘leave her jungkook. she’s no good to you.’‘ arinna said and in that moment you looked through the hole and saw jungkook, as he staled for a moment. he looked at the door, now you were face to face, looking at him straight into his eyes as he did the same but of course he didn’t know that you were still there. arinna was trying to take his hand and pull him away from your house but he continued to stare at the brown door of your apartment. 

it was the look in his eyes from before, a hint of sorrowness like he felt miserable about what just happened. part of you was happy because now he finally understands how you felt throughout all of these years. but the other part wished him no harm and you felt kinda bad for what you have said. it was a weird feeling inside of you, you were torn between two feelings.

however what is done is done, you can’t go back now no matter how much you want that. you have to keep in mind what jungkook did to you, countless times he’s put you down and made you think you were in wrong. you have to admit to yourself that he’s wrong. you have to admit that you are right and you have to stay strong and stay away from him. but that won’t be hard right?

a couple of days pass by and everything went back to normal. your life of course not jungkook. you haven’t seen him in a while, maybe because he’s busy with his new girlfriend arinna. busy taking her around and buying her things. you didn’t care about what he was doing but you were still upset about what happened. he just left some scars open that you were trying so hard to close them. but you were afraid he might open them again once and you’d have to make sure that doesn’t happen ever again.

your friends kept calling you and checking up on you, just to make sure you would have not fallen into a hole and never come out again. they’d come over and bring you food or they’d visit you at your work, when they had time off.

right now you were taking a coffee brake from your work. you worked in a small convenience store that was just across from the coffee shop. you liked your job, on most days it was quiet and you could enjoy that time to watch some dramas and munch on food. your costumers were regular, you haven’t seen a new face there in a while. but you like that, you have chats with them and that makes your job less boring.

you’ve been working there for quite a while now and sometimes it also helped you take your mind off of jungkook. you kept yourself busy with checking things out or stocking the shelves. he actually visited you once but he told you he’s busy and just bought himself a water bottle before he ran out the door.

you took a sip of your coffee and decided to check up on your social media. you scrolled through some photos on instagram, snapped back to some of your friends and then decided to go on facebook to see if there’s any news. suddenly your phone starts ringing and it was your friend mi sun.

‘‘hey.’‘ she yelled through the phone and you could hear loud voices in the background of people talking and cheering

‘‘hey, what’s going on there, are you at a party this time around?’‘ you ask and hear how the laughing slowly fades and a door shuts

‘‘no...I just went to the bathroom so that you could hear me better. no it’s a business event, we just presented this brand new product and now we’re having a celebration I guess.’‘ she explains

mi sun was the only friend that was working somewhere ‘higher’. she was always very productive and very smart. even back in high school you remember how much she liked studying, she’d study for hours to get the perfect grades. and all that hard work brought her up to here. you were really proud of her and for all her goals that she had accomplished.

you however weren’t the one to be studying 24/7 and have your face glued to the books. you rather prefered going easy and although you were slacking off you still managed to get good grades. but after finishing school you didn’t know what to do and then you found an offer for this small store that you fell in love with.

‘‘sounds fun and congrats.’‘ you say while taking another sip of the coffee

‘‘yeah thanks. um anyways so I was wondering...I don’t know if you’ll like it but I kinda set you up on a date.’‘ she laughs awkwardly 

‘‘what?! what date, with whom?’‘ you almost spat all of your coffee but managed to keep it cool as a few people passed by and looked at you weirdly

‘‘shhh...yes a date. so what y/n, nothing bad will happen come on. after all that jungkook did to you, you deserve someone. even if he isn’t the right guy, just go and have some fun huh?’‘ she suggested

honestly she was right, you could use some fun and just bury jungkook in the past. that’s over with and although you are still not 100% okay, you’ll be soon and you can’t wait and just sit around and be sad. it was time for a change.

‘‘okay...okay yes I’ll go.’‘ you accept her offer and hear her giggle in the background

‘‘yes! you’re gonna love him, he’s a colleague of mine and I know him pretty well. I’ll send you the details tonight!’‘ then you hear someone open the door in the background and yell something

‘‘oopss...gotta go y/n, talk to you later!’‘ and she hangs up the phone

the night comes around and your friend sents out the details to where you’d meet him and at what time. but she didn’t tell you with whom she’s setting you up with. she described him as a extremely handsome guy with sleeked black hair, his gorgeous brown eyes and his kindness towards women. she says that all the girls in her department go crazy when he walks by or just waves at them. she also pointed out that’d he be wearing all black, so that you’d spot him easily but there’s probably going to be a bunch of men wearing the same tuxedo.

you were actually really excited to meet your mysterious date but also very nervous. from what she told you, you knew at what you had to look in order to find him. but you were just anxious, this is something new for you and you’ve never ever been on an actual date.

you got ready and got picked up by a taxi. you drove to the location exactly 15 minutes before you’re suppose to meet your date just so that you’d be directly on time and not a second late. while you were driving there, you kept checking up your makeup and made sure that your hair looked nice. meanwhile your heart was beating super fast and you thought that it might explode out of your chest. 

the driver finally pulls over to a fancy restaurant that was absolutely gorgeous. you have never seen anything like this before. it was a romantic setting, with a bunch of lights and all sorts of flowers. the windows were huge and you could see so many people inside, dressed perfectly for the occasion which you assumed was also a date.

‘‘thank you.’‘ you thanked the driver and paid him, before you closed the door behind you. you still admired the tall building and you were fascinated by all of it. how did find mi sun this place?

I guess the answer was pretty obvious, she is in fact a business woman and she knows her way around when it comes to finding the most fanciest place there is. you kinda feared you might fall out of place here, as you felt like you didn’t belong here. you liked dressing up and putting on makeup but you also liked days where you could just throw on a random outfit and be comfortable. still you managed to clean up nicely when it came to things like this. 

‘‘are you my date?’‘ you hear a deep strangers voice in the background

you slowly turn around and see a tall guy standing in front of you. he had black hair just like mi sun described it and he was wearing a black tuxedo with an even darker tie. and she was right, he looked very much attractive and elegant.

‘‘oh...y-yes I am.’‘ you shyly say and laugh

‘‘my name is chung ae.’‘ he introduces himself and you shake his hand

‘‘I’m y/n, nice to meet you.’‘ you say back as he lets go of your hand. 

‘‘so should we go?’‘ he proposes and you nod your head, before the two of you head inside the restaurant

the date was amazing, you didn’t think you’d have this much fun and chung ae made you feel really welcomed and comfortable. your fears went away just by talking to him and he had a great way of forming words. like mi sun had mentioned he really is a nice and caring guy. he kept asking you if everything is okay and if you needed anything. 

he was the total opposite of jungkook and you’ve been on this date with him for maybe only an hour. but in that hour you have learned a lot about him. he told you that he lives close by and that he loves his job. however he did say that sometimes he gets pretty lonely and he wishes he’d have someone by his side. he wants to talk to them and relax after a hard day of work. 

the date was coming to an end and chung ae offered to escort you back to your house. you didn’t wanna feel like a burden to him so you refused but he insisted, so that he’d take you with his car and that way you’d get home safe 100%.

arriving back at your apartment, he was such a gentleman and opened the door for you. you two then walked to your door to say your goodbyes.

‘‘well I hope you had a good time today, I did.’‘ he admits smiling with his hands in his pockets. he looked unsure there for a moment, so you quickly assured him 

‘‘I did and thank you.’’ you say and smile to him. you never thought that there could be someone out there, that would you treat you this way. you believed that maybe it only existed in movies and fairy tales. but it turns out there’s people out there also in real life.

‘‘thank you for what?’‘ 

‘‘for tonight, you really made me feel special and I just wanna thank you for that.’‘ 

‘‘no problem. I’d like to see you again if that’s okay?’‘ he asks and takes a step closer to you. 

‘‘of course.’‘ you happily answer back, as he takes another step closer to you. you thought something was stuck in your throat as you took a big gulp but you were just nervous as to what he’s going to do. a kiss on a first date is normal and not bad at all but it was too quick, you two have known each other only for three hours. but you didn’t wanna come off mean so you quickly leaned in before he could and kissed him on the cheek.

he was startled for a moment and you thought you had made a mistake.

‘‘oh, I’m so sorry I-...’‘

‘‘no, it’s okay. I liked it.’‘ he admits and tries to return the favor but in that moment you hear a loud scream, coming from the right side. you turn around to see a familiar figure approaching you. they were wobbling and almost losing their balance, which meant they were pretty wasted.

once the person came into the light that was illuminating the street you noticed him right away. you gasp and chung ae turns too, to see who it was. 

it was jungkook.

[tamgerines]

KH3 First Impression and Complete Thoughts

BACKGROUND: i've played kh1, com, kh2, bbs, 2.8, and a bit of khux. i've watched coded and 3d on yt, so i know the story relatively well. this is an impression of my first playthrough. i did my run on standard mode and watched the secret ending on yt. i mostly did this for story, so this will have my initial impressions based on my run that will not cover extra content like the phone mini games and cooking.  my opinions are subjected to change if i ever do any later playthroughs. pls, feel free to disagree w/ me.

!!! WARNING: THERE WILL BE A LOT OF STORY SPOILERS!!!

AUDIO: 

Music: utada is queen!!! that opening song!!! also i kept noticing how lit the songs are in each world esp frozen???  and aqua's. worth a replay just for the soundtrack alone.

Voice Acting: everyone sounded great for the most part. sora’s va have certainly improved and sounds less strained. his vanitas voice has suffered significantly though lolololol. i think i read that someone called it a wannabe dark knight voice? the organization sounded incredible, w/ my fav being xemnas, marluxia, and larxene. the disney and pixar va’s are incredible w/ my fav probably being randall in monster’s inc. 

some ppl did not get vas like xaldin and laxeaus. and phil in hercules. which were all very disappointing bc in the scenes that they were in, they would just stand around woodenly, and it’s very noticeable. 

VISUALS: 

mostly a+. environments are beautiful. water and frost textures are amazing!!! you can really feel that waterga and blizzaga. fur textures in monster's inc. could use some work. little details like the sails moving in potc rly make the worlds come alive. this could be a me prob, but environments in certain worlds make it very hard to see map markers, treasure chests, and disney emblems (which are supposed to be hard to find, but still). mostly in tangled.

strangely enough, this is the only game where i prefer in game graphics to cgi. it's already highly expressive and there's something creepy and uncanny about the cgi esp in the final fight. and it's mostly bc sora's thin chapped lips throughout the entire game suddenly becomes full.

DESIGNS: 

i don't love everyone's outfit or sora's outfit changes in this game besides toy story. this is something i alrdy knew going in, but i've always felt like the outfits in kh1 and 2 rly suited each of the character's personalities. and this is not just destiny trio but even chars like roxas, the twilight town kids and the hollow bastion crew. the move towards a uniformed look makes no sense to me like is it to unify the key bearers as one force against the organization? i could understand why destiny trio was wearing plaid but why the twilight town kids also? by the end of the game, almost everyone was wearing black and it's just boring to me. like there's a right way to do uniform while retaining characters' individual looks, and that's the wayfinder trio in bbs. in this game, not so much.

an aside, but i'm sort of disappointed in the hud moving to 3d too. the 2d portraits have always been part of kh so it's kinda a bum to see it go away.

i don't love the lvl designs but it might also be due to a narrative and pacing issue that i'll expand on. any case, vertical maps are a challenge to figure out. i don't consider myself bad at directions but there are so many moments, esp in hercules and tangled where i would be like where the heck do i go next (and i have the map) only for me to look up and find a shotlock teleport point (and this isn't so much a thing that heightens the difficulty but a time waster).

lvls and bosses in previous kh games have always been known for their gimmicks and mechanics, but in this game particularly i found it to be more tedious? and this mostly applies to frozen: who the fuck designed frozen? who the fuck thought it's a good lvl design to have sora climb a mountain, get kick off it twice, and climb it again as good lvl design? who?

all the disney bosses started blending together for me bc they're literally all giant monsters and rly easy. i think the mistake here is the fact that the disney worlds are put back to back whereas in kh1/2/bbs you have the interruption of original worlds and an actually playable important parts to the main story, in this game all the important storyline in radiant garden are locked in cutscenes interspersed throughout the game between finishing disney worlds.

a lot of ppl might disagree w this, but i miss the cinematic reaction commands and limit attacks. we still have them but i find them to be on a much smaller scale in the form of drive finishers and situation commands, but i find them to be less imaginative in kh3 in order to be less """"disruptive""" to the gameplay. i've always found cinematics charming in previous games as a way to show sora interacting with his party members during combat. little things like beast putting a hand on sora's shoulder, aladdin leaning on him, or riku bumping his fist have a way of making the friendships he forms feel organic. outside of link commands/ summons, in this game, he........just throws a lot of ppl around or is thrown around?

GAMEPLAY:

already sort of went through parts of it in the previous section, but overall combat was smooth. i love how mobile sora is in this game. the improvement to his running speed and addition of all the mobile skills like dodge roll, super slide, flow motion, blizzard skating, etc. makes combat feel fast paced and juking so easy.

magic is super improved on ever since 2.8 and feels satisfying to use esp bc i feel like ur given a lot more mp now and with the ability to save the last of your mana for cure, it feels like you're not always budgeting your magic.

underwater combat was smoother than i expected.

it's a mistake putting almost all the commands on the triangle button. there's so much options you can do in combat and you'd mean to activate one thing, but then an attraction flow comes out and you just want to die. it gets a bit easier as i went on and got more used to the controls, but in general, i still think it's a mistake to not to have an ability or something to disable certain features like in kh2 fm.

gummy ships continue to be a thing. why. i don’t like how i have to turn the camera myself now ;;;. 

i'm not a speedrunner or anything, so i can't say too much else about fighting. the physical combos to me did feel like he was spinning a bit too much tho.

STORY: oh, fucking boy.

i'm not mad, i'm not disappointed, and i'm not even surprised. i already knew that post bbs, kh has already departed far from the franchise i loved as a kid and still today, at least story wise. but let's walk through it.

Disney Worlds: the disney worlds was literally a retelling of their movies. and unlike in kh2 and bbs, where visits to disney worlds were split into two parts, with the first part following the disney story and the second part being heavily tied to the main kh story and thus having original content, the disney worlds in kh3 only get one long visit. and the integration of kh into disney was just done so poorly. remember how kh villains used to kidnap princesses? remember how they used to actually conspire to take disney characters' hearts and turn them dark? remember, you know, when they were still evil and actually interfered with the worlds? in almost every world in kh3, an org member just comes says vague menacing things to sora, calls him stupid, and then leaves. yeah. and oh, maleficent and pete looks for a black box only to not find it, and leaves. AND THEY DON'T DO ANYTHING ELSE FOR THE REST OF THE GAME.

the pixar worlds + bh6 were the only ones with any actual new content and they feel so fresh. i esp loveeeeeeeed toy story omg. the script was so good, funny, and heartwarming. the pixar consultants should have helped kh all the way tbh.

like previous games, there's an attempt for each disney world to thematically tie into the main kh story. in this game, it was as heavy handed as ever, probably even more so. 

Original Worlds: onto the meat of kh, the main story was rushed up until the end. you have a slew of disney worlds, then bam, they slam you with all the human bosses and the important story stuff. 

the ‘awakening’ of roxas, xion, and ventus were very rushed. you literally have one moment they’re no there then two seconds of white screen and all of a sudden they’re there. 

there’s a shit ton of shoehorned character redemption arcs: vexen, demyx, saix, eraqus, xehanort, xemnas, ansem. all were done either offscreen or by some miracle, they reached an epiphany after sora beat his keyblade into their heads. 

the only death scene that i actually liked, that a lot of ppl complained about, was vanitas bc yes, although i thought his character had so much potential, it was at least a consistent and sympathetic death. bless him, born a villain die a villain. same with xemnas bc i loved his last speech. 

xehanort was a shitty villain through and through. no one understood his motivation; it’s like nomura took a page from thanos’ guide of how to write villains, gave him some stupid ass goal to have a keyblade war to restart the world, and then just have him...get everything he wanted? his estranged friend comes back in ghost form for whatever reason and is just like ok we’re cool man even tho u took my student and indirectly murdered me and then gets taken up to heart heaven, like O K. and like what’s the most frustrating is that it’s implied they’re keeping him as a villain??? bc fucking ymx is like ooohh imma just go back to my own time via time travel. it’s too late for u sora hurdur. 

and the younger members of the organization, the ones that we do know were in khux. we don’t get to know how they became nobodies and they don’t get a redemption??? really???  

you can tell they tried, TRIED, hard to give everyone closure. and they miserably failed to close plot points. they actually opened more. who the fuck is the unnamed girl in lea and isa’s storyline? why the fuck did you mention her if you were going to play the pronoun game and not name her??? what the fuck was in the black box??? why are they looking for it when no one know what’s in it??? why the fuck was repliku inside of riku the whole fucking time??? why have org members be norted if they can still have agency and choose to betray xehanort??? why the fuck was BOTH sora and riku in different worlds in the secret ending????? ? ? ? 

and tho i’m very glad that wayfinder and sea salt trios get their happy ending, the destiny trio had their characters assassinated. kairi was teased to become an independent character of her own and fight alongside sora, only to get shafted to become a damsel in distress, again, literally replaced by xion in one of the last battles, AND referred to as ‘motivation’ for sora by xehanort lol. sora, the guy who’s always going my friends are my power, ONLY grieves about losing kairi, accrediting all of his strength ONLY TO HER. riku, who spent the first game desperately trying to get kairi’s heart back, and who protected her from saix in the second, suddenly doesn’t give a shit about her and is just there as sora’s moral support. it’s so frustrating that nomura has the audacity to say that this series is primarily about friendship and then pull this shit lol. it’s transparent. 

CONCLUSION: 

i think for me, the quintessential kh trilogy has always been kh1, com, and kh2. as far as i’m concerned, the story should have ended there for destiny trio. and it’s like nomura said, how he feels more sympathetic towards villains now, i think nomura’s ideas have outgrown his main character. 

sora’s journey worked in 1, com, and 2 because he had an overarching goal to find kairi and riku and return home. not everyone has to understand heartless vs. nobodies or dark vs. light but at least, anyone can understand the desperation of saving your friends. when that framework is taken away, sora’s goals and motivations become unclear; he’s a kid and has little reason to be caught up in xehanort’s plans, the keyblade war, or the organization’s agendas. and his failure to grow with the increasing complexity of the plot, to investigate for himself the bigger picture or even come into a similar realization of his own darkness/ balance like riku, makes him unfit; he’s a reactionary character instead of an active one. that’s why this game, being experienced from his point of view, felt mostly like a catch up to speed for sora and a set up to nomura’s next big thing instead of a genuine ending.  i honestly don’t think nomura knows what to do with him and with kingdom hearts anymore. 

kh3 is a game wrapped in nostalgia and promised something bigger than it could fulfill. and aside from better graphics and improved gameplay, the story wasn’t worth the wait. 

[ashadowcalledkei]

Wow I wish I was getting these out quicker.  Ever time I make a significant amount of progress I end up getting sick somehow.  But, I AM working on the next part of TLtN.  I’m just taking my time to get this chapter right because ooh boy it’s an important one.  So, umm, in the meantime ... small sad/cute other fic update?

Alright, time to reveal the final inspiration behind this fic … kittens.  I keep up with two people who foster abandoned kittens and some of their stories are heartbreaking and wonderful.  And this story in particular was very much influenced by an amazing little kitty named Grant.  He was a whole lot of determination in a very small package, and his story is proof that sometimes you really can beat the odds.  So, yes, this chapter is going to get very … very sad … but, trust me when I say this story will have a happy ending.

(And umm, as a side  note ... thank you so much for the reblog @askull4everyoccasion ! o.o  I wanted to thank you before b-but, aah, didn’t know how to without being really ... awkward ... k-kinda like this ... a-anyway, my fics don’t get many notes on their own but that one did, so thanks so much!!  Okay, just wanted to say that, I’ll umm, go away and promise not to annoy you with tagging and such anymore. *hide*)

Bend

Pairings: None Characters: W. D. Gaster, 1-S

Warnings:  sad, so sad, very sad, hurt puppy, discussing euthanasia (doesn’t actually happen don’t worry)

Notes: Baby Blasters AU belongs to the wonderful @spacegate, I just write here.  The background character Sif is mine though.

Chapter 2

Sometimes, W. D. Gaster felt like he was chained to his desk.  He was always working, that much hadn't changed over the years, but at least in the past the problems he'd had to solve had been more, for lack of a better word, practical.  He could experiment, test, and do more than just theorize and hope his calculations had been correct.  Even when those test resulted in failure, at least he'd felt like he had accomplished something.  But when it came to this stage of the Determination Trials, that sort of experimentation was no longer an option.  

He downed the dregs of yet another cup of the cold, strong coffee that had been his lunch.  Things were supposed to get easier once he'd successfully extracted subject 1-S from its incubation tank.  But instead, the complications just kept coming.  1-S wasn't doing as well as Gaster had hoped it would.  Which wasn't to say that things were all bad either.  His creation had yet to melt or fall apart like the previous attempts had.  Magic still pulsed through its soul.  Truly, not much had changed from the day he'd removed 1-S from the tank.  But, that was exactly the problem.  The creature should have been growing, gaining mass and strength each day, but after a whole week it had barely grown at all.  

The words 'failure to thrive' marked Gaster's notes like an ominous prophecy.  Sometimes, baby monsters just didn't make it.  It was a tragedy to witness but an unavoidable part of life.  Given the similar symptoms, it was only logical to assume that the same thing was true for subject 1-S; the creature just didn't have the will to survive.  It was distinctly possible, but the scientist was beginning to doubt his own conclusion.  Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he never wanted to believe it in the first place.  As he went over his calculations for the next phase of the project, tentatively dubbed 2-A, his thoughts kept wandering back to 1-S.  There had to be an explanation for the creature's listlessness and a way to fix it.  

The sound of sloshing water echoed in the lab.  Most often, the space was filled with the electric hum of machines and occasional frustrated muttering, so this came as a surprisingly pleasant change.  Seeking out the source of it, Gaster looked up to see his assistant placing a large plastic bowl of steaming water on an otherwise empty counter.  A towel was flung over their shoulder and a soft looking cloth was draped over the rim of the bowl.  It seemed that Sif was going through with their plan to give 1-S a warm bath.  Not that it was entirely necessary.  

Skeletal creatures were naturally clean due to the lack of fur or slime their more fleshy counterparts sported, and it wasn't as if the creature had been out of the sterile environment of the lab.  Its temperature was acceptable as well, neither too hot nor too cold, though that was mostly due to the blankets and heating pad they'd placed on the cot that served as the small skeleton's bed.  1-S had yet to begin producing any heat on its own, yet another worrying fact that marked Gaster's observation notes.  Still, the scientist's assistant had latched on to the thought that a bath might help the little creature.  Gaster had agree that there was some merit to the idea, if only as a new source of stimulus, though he lacked the time and patience to carry it out himself.  Luckily, that's just the sort of thing assistants were best at.  He returned to his work, blocking out the sounds of splashing water and soft, muttered speech, but it wasn't long before that relative peace was broken.  

“Doctor Gaster?” Sif called with unexpected urgency.  “You'd better come take a look at this.”

A distressed frown pulled at Gaster's features.  It wasn't like his assistant to worry without cause.  He hurried into the main lab, leaving his notes open and his coffee once again abandoned.  The blankets and heating pad had been taken away and replaced with a large towel that was stretched across the cot.  1-S rested on that thick fabric, having been shifted to lay on its side.  At first everything seemed almost normal, the only difference being that the pup's breathing was oddly fast and shallow.  Even the monitors displayed the same painfully low vital information they had when Gaster had arrived an hour earlier.  Then, he saw it.

The small creature's chest cavity should have been rounded, bowing out in a gradual curve that would expand as it drew in air to regulate the temperature of its soul and help circulate its magic.  But instead, the thin ribs were oddly flattened and the sternum bent inward, pressing into the narrowed space where his creation's magic core rested.  It hadn't looked like this a few days ago, Gaster was sure of that.  Everything had been fine when he'd pulled the tiny creature from the tank.  What had changed?

“What caused this?”

“I'm not sure, but look.”  His assistant carefully rolled the puppy onto its belly, lifting it at the shoulders to avoid putting any more pressure on its flattened ribs.  The creature's thin spine had started to warp as well, only just beginning to curve out of its natural alignment in a way that would hinder, if not completely impair, its movement if allowed to continue.  Gaster reached down and ran his fingers along it, tracing the wandering path of those tiny, trembling vertebrae.

1-S was worryingly passive through the whole thing.  It didn't struggle or fight, which at least made the doctor hope that his creation wasn't in too much pain, but the little whimpers of distress it managed between panting breaths weren't a good sign.  Why hadn't the monitors picked up on this?  This sort of deformation had to have a cause, and a serious one at that.  Gaster activated his own magic, focusing it in hopes of finding the source of this problem before it got any worse.  

Through the tint of indigo magic, he saw into his creation's soul.  The pure energy of its lifeforce was diminished, just like the monitors indicated, but there was something else there too.  Something that couldn't be quantified by the safe, logical data that Gaster surrounded himself with.  The soul he had created was marred and the magic within it agitated.  Energy swirled restlessly within its core, shades of blue shot through with bright red.  

Leaving Sif to watch over the creature, Gaster retreated back to his desk and the thick folder full of his meticulously kept notes.  When those failed to shed any light on the mystery, he turned to the new information that his computer had recorded overnight.  He poured over the data, checking each set of numbers against those from the hours and days before it.  Nothing had changed until recently.  During the night, the creature's respiration had begun to increase steadily until it reached the fevered pitch they were now witnessing.  That was when the warping must have started, but there was no sign of what might have caused it.  Unless …

The scientist flipped through the avalanche of papers, casting some aside until he found what he was looking for.  He felt his soul grow heavy behind his own ribs as he compared them to the latest readouts.  With 1-S failing to process any nourishment other than the liquid magic that had sustained it during incubation, they'd continued administering the same formula post-extraction.  And in doing so, they'd continued to give the tiny creature trace amounts of Determination.  That hadn't been a problem before, when the pup's own magic was developing as it should, but now that its soul growth was at a standstill, the DT ratio was off.  Any more Determination in its system and his creation would destabilize completely.  

Gaster trudge back to the main lab, still clutching the page of data that contained the damning evidence off his oversight.  Despite finding the cause of the trouble, he felt more defeated than ever.  Especially with the way his assistant was holding their creation, cradling the pup in their arms.  1-S was panting, warped chest jerking with each sharp breath.  Sif rubbed a thumb over the crest of its skull.

“Maybe we can do something.  Fix it before it gets any worse.”

“Possibly, but it's a long shot.”  There was a chance that, with swift intervention and a lot of luck, they might be able to save the creature.   But if they did, what then?  They knew what had caused the partial melt, but not the reason for the creature's stunted growth.  Even if they solved the immediate problem, that wouldn't truly fix things.  And chances were high that the incident would have a permanent impact on 1-S.  What if it couldn't fight?  Couldn't walk?  Couldn't even survive without constant assistance?  This wasn't some pet he'd taken in, it was a weapon specifically crafted for a single purpose.  Or at least, it was meant to be.  

Though he hated himself for it, Gaster couldn't deny how attached he'd gotten to his creation.  A part of him couldn't help but view it not as the weapon he'd spent so much time engineering but as an innocent life in need of protection.  Though those thoughts contradicted each other, in many ways they were both true.  1-S was a living being, but one made for a purpose so much greater than any one life.  He wanted to save it, to do all he could to see this thing he'd made flourish, but at what cost?  For the sake of his work, he had to draw the line somewhere.  Besides, there was no point denying the truth; the poor thing was suffering.  Ending things before they got any worse would be mercy.  

“We should probably just put it down and try again,” Gaster muttered, his voice sounding as flat and dead as his soul felt.

“Probably.”  His assistant sighed, shoulders slumping as if the weight of the world had settled upon them.  They cast a sorrowful glance towards the struggling creature and carefully set it down on the cot.  “We were so close.”  

The pup whined at the loss of contact, squirming and flailing its tiny limbs as if that alone would bring Sif back, but even that small amount of movement seemed to exhaust it.  It lay still when Gaster approached, his long shadow falling across the cot.  The scientist looked away.  He didn't want to do this.  

Magic flashed in Gaster's eye sockets once more, bright flares of it curling around his hand as he held it out, palm down, over his creation.  1-S shuddered as its soul was summoned, the pale core drifting up and into the scientist's waiting hands.  The creature's tiny soul beat wildly in his grasp.  Its brilliant white surface was marred by a patch of dull, muddy purple, bruising caused by the constant compression it had been subjected to.  It should have given up before that mark had even formed.  It wasn't as if the creature had that much life in it to begin with.  But somehow, it still remained, clinging to that life even as it struggled to keep from being snuffed out.  1-S, it seemed, was determined to live.  

The pup let out little yelps of distress, tiny paws swiping at the air as weakness kept it trapped on its side.  Gaster released the magical core, guiding it back down to his creation.  The small, bruised soul sank back into warped ribs, pulsing bright within for a moment or two before fading from view.   1-S whimpered, its cry so soft that it was hard to make out even in the quiet of the lab.  Gaster placed his hands on either side of the creature, leaning heavily onto the cot.  He couldn't quite manage to stop himself from shaking.  The pup whined again and managed to wriggle closer to him, pressing the top of its skull against his arm.

“Sir?” Sif said, hopefulness more than evident in their otherwise professional tone.

It took Gaster a few moments to find his voice.  “There's still a lot we can learn from this one, even if it doesn't make it.  And it would be useful to have a prototype available to test some of the procedures we've got planned.”  

“So … we'll fix it?” the other scientist asked, dark eyes practically glittering with barely restrained excitement.

“We'll try.”

Deep down, Gaster knew he was making a mistake.  Sentimental decisions like this could spell disaster for the project, even with the slim yet valid justification he'd managed to find.  And even if they did save this one, they might just be sentencing the creature to a life of misery.  He couldn't afford to lose sight of why they were doing this or what was truly at stake.  The fate of their entire race wasn't worth one artificial animal.  But no matter how many good reasons he had to end his creation's short life and move on, he just couldn't bring himself to do it.  

Gaster placed 1-S back on its heating pad, covering the shaking creature with a soft blanket.  He carefully pet the pup's skull until it calmed, drifting off into an uneasy sleep.  He would do his best to save this tiny creature that depended on him.  He owed 1-S at least that much.