#me thus far so / j haha)

[mad-hunts]

anyhow, i'm now back to your regularly scheduled barton-related shitposting and it's the way that this man's back was literally only pictured in one panel, BUT it got me like yes — i must make barton have the same kind of strong back muscles in my verse for him LMAO ( no, but i can't be the only one who can admire a good ol' muscular back on a character, even if they are uhhh. Very terrible... right? ☠️ )

[arikihalloween]

Welcome Home × Wakfu AU ramble

The people have spoken, Wakfu AU comes first !

What's Wakfu AU ?

Set in the universe of the mmorpg games and serie Wakfu, Welcome Home is a little guild of adventurers of all kinds known for their adventures (and misadventures) !

Starting off by answering this question by @gaypyro

Home is not a Shushu possessing a house ( that felt overdone, since Luis exist lol )

Home is a Xelor, adoptive father of Sally and Wally, and owner of the guild. He took under his roof many promising adventurers, and seems quite entertained by their antics. Despite his looks, he's pretty friendly, and loves a good joke or bonding moment with the guild members. ( Just don't get him mad ! We don't know what would happen then 👀)

Sally is a dramatic young xelor adopted by Home. She received a full huppermage education as well, and will boast about it whenever she can, making it a whole show. Rather than time, she has particular interest in the stars and astral readings.

Wally is the second son of Home. He has no affiliation to any god, he just lives his life, going on adventures with his best friend Barnaby, an oujinak.

Julie is a iop that was raised in a Sadida family. Hyper energetic, curious and playful, she tends to run in fights head first ! When she's not adventuring with Frank and Eddie, you'll find her hanging out with Wally, Howdy or Sally.

Frank is a feca that specialised in shield magic, to cover Julie while they get into fights. However, he's not above throwing a good punch, and thus Eddie often has to drag the two back to the guild as they are injured or bruised all over. Frank is a curious fellow, who loves knowledge. Julie helps him identify the new plants they encounter.

Eddie is a sacrier, who tried his best to appear calm, although he's often pretty anxious. He generally travels with Julie and Frank, getting the two out of fights more often than not. He likes traveling and discovering new locations !

Howdy is an osamoda merchant, who joined the guild to try adventuring after his old shop was destroyed in a fight, although he can't really get rid of his old ways ... Poppy is his trusted dragodinde companion, who gained sentience after one of Sally's messed up spells ! Poor Poppy is quite the anxious animal, but she finds comfort in the guild's cheerful atmosphere.

And finally, we have Nyxie ( because I have to include her and Suave haha) as an eliatrope !

Full page

And that's all the characters I've done so far !

I've also included Bailey as a baby dragodinde and and the Joyful family !

Don't hesitate if you have more questions, headcanons, ideas of situations and adventures for those sillies, etc !

I had fun designing everyone, although some characters gave me troubles

Turns out it's hard to apply different species, logic and cultures to muppets from the 70s /j

I tried to keep them easy to recognise while making them more adapted to the wakfu world

It's just a silly AU to do silly comics and jokes ! Completly angst free, just a calm lil heaven of sillyness

I hope you liked it !

[amaltheas-garden]

Some food for thought: I am an a Dany fan who supports a very nuanced reading of her that makes most other Dany fans accuse me of secretly hating her (lol) and I also do ship her with Jon because she’s had horrendous experiences with creepy older men and I would find it cathartic for her to find love with someone her age.

BUT I don’t like the idea of them just being king and queen and having a standard fantasy romance. I think there’s a distinction between Dany fans who love Dany the character and Dany fans who love Dany the ruler, Dany the queen, Dany the perfect chosen one. In fact the only way I’d actually want to see J/D played out in the books is them escaping the narrative together and fucking off somewhere (which, regardless of Jon’s involvement, is also the only realistic happy ending I can imagine Dany having that would be a satisfying end to her arc for me). To me it’s clear that Dany does not enjoy ruling and doesn’t genuinely want the throne—she wants the feeling of home and to be loved. I think she’s chasing the throne because she sees it as duty, both a familiar duty as taught by her brother and a divine duty as evidenced by hatching the dragons. I can see a world where she’s able to accept that she hates ruling because violence sickens her deep down (evidenced by her feeling sick recalling the crucifixions and having to convince herself it was just) but being unable to tolerate the moral compromises she must make to avoid violent solutions and thus can carve out a new path, eliminating the sense of threat because she’d be “free.”

However I’m not sure I would’ve considered the ship if not for the show (not that it was at all good in the show but it planted the idea) and I don’t agree with other fans of the ship that it’s undeniably foreshadowed in the books. So I just don’t really engage with ship content because I don’t jive with most of it. Especially because many of the fans get hostile about the fact that I also have positive feelings about Jonsa, although I’m just as picky about what kind of Jonsa I like, haha. Such a bizarre and frustrating experience. Luckily, most Sansa and Jonsa fans don’t mind that Dany is my favorite and that I also like J/D, but the same can’t be said for other Dany and J/D fans when they see I also love Sansa and Jonsa.

Weird fandom

Hello anon!

This is an amazing breakdown of Dany's character! 100% agree with the Dany ending up as Queen of the 7K being a bad ending for her. It just seems like a miserable job to have. Dany has had it ingrained since birth that the Targs must reclaim the IT at any cost and only then will their lives get better. The trauma Viserys inflicted on her has definitely left her clinging to that dream as motivation to keep going, which is the saddest part. She wants the IT, but she really just needs a home where she feels safe and loved (and far far away from the creepy men plaguing her chapters). My only real objection to J/D is I can't picture Jon leaving the North, but they do share a ton of parallels, and I can see why so many people love the ship. And since pretty much every big fan ship doesn't have anything more than possible parallels and foreshadowing, it's really anyone's guess at this point. And Jon is also one of only three dudes in the series (Sam/Gendry) who is nice and of an appropriate age to be shipped with most of the main female characters, so it makes sense both Sansa and Dany fans would want our faves to end up with him lol. I also can't really blame J/D fans for not liking Jonsa, when most Jonsas think Dany will have a villain arc. Like yeah there's bound to be some animosity, but it got way worse after the show since it kinda confirmed there was a decent chance Dany might die in the books. Ultimately the fandom is gonna continue to be at each other's throats until we get answers in twow/ados. Weird fandom indeed.

[true-blue-sonic]

It's crazy to think that Silver only has seven canon game roles.

Let's see, there is '06, Rivals 1, Rivals 2, Generations, Forces, TSR... Are we counting Colours DS as well? I think it should because my boi is in there XD /j

But yeah! I believe I've once read a theory (I don't remember where, sorry) that it was actually a good thing Silver very swiftly got delegated to minigame-roster-filler and "who owns a PSP anyway?"-character after '06 and the hatred it generated around him: it gave people a chance to warm up to him without putting him too much in the spotlight, helped tremendously by his completely revamped and genuinely fun and fair battle in Gens. I think that, if he'd gotten a mainline role again so shortly after '06 (or even his own game, of which there were apparently signs that was an actual plan in that time?), it would have made people far more resistant to growing to like him. Characters that are shoved in your face endlessly are hard to warm up to if there's something about them you dislike, especially if it comes at the expense of characters that are more beloved. But as history shows, Silver only began to have actual plotline relevancy again almost a decade after his last main big role (Forces, compared to Rivals 2). And in that decade, he didn't fill any roles that made him more important than other characters: in Colours DS he's just one of the dozen characters showing up in the park with nothing special about him, in Generations there's multiple other boss fights with previous rivals and enemies (and Silver's fight is generally considered to be leagues better than what he had in '06, which helps too), and in minigames and racing games he's just there to fill the roster. Thus, when in Forces he actually played a big role, people either enjoyed seeing it because they had time to get used to the character and grow fond of him, or it was enjoyed by more recent fans who knew nothing about '06 and just liked Silver for how he got presented in his handful of minor roles and Forces (like me! I got introduced through the franchise through Mario & Sonic London 2012 3DS). Perhaps there was some help too from a pendulum swing of the fandom at large beginning to appreciate '06 more, after the change in direction the franchise took in the 2010s? Though, I am not knowledgeable on that, I am too young to know what the fandom mentality was like in both eras. So what all that in mind, it's indeed quite wild that Silver has appeared so little in canon games, but I do believe it's a good thing he's shown up a lot in rosters with dozens of other characters as just a playable option who did not have any plot relevance. I wouldn't say Silver is super popular currently, but the sheer hatred the fandom allegedly held for him in the second half of the 2000s is certainly not here anymore. So, who knows what the future might hold for him? I believe SoJ quite likes him, after all. But this all is just a ramble from my side, haha!

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 36 of Harrow the Ninth

I've spent most of Saturday entering 145 of my ~200 sims into a new family tree program, which is sort of like the mental equivalent of stimming, but I think it's time to take a break and do more Locked Tomb liveblog

The symbol on this chapter is, I gather, meant to be a Herald, or possibly something else that's resurrection-beast-adjacent. Also, we are at one week before the prologue, now, if we can trust these chronological notes

Harrow has an absolutely massive case of Former "Gifted Child" syndrome, but she's only 18

She's one week away from probably dying while fighting a resurrection beast and she's way more worried about who is betraying John. It's also interesting how she compares her various experiences to decide whether or not something was a hallucination

I kind of wonder if at some point she is going to come to the conclusion that BOE can perform resurrections, since she saw three apparently resurrected (based on her memories of them) people, who claimed to be with BOE, or if that would be too sacrilegious an idea for her

First of all, what does "G" stand for in "J. G."? If John has a cavalier, I'd expect it to be A.L., or possibly the soul of Earth, not someone whose name starts with G

Second of all, why do they have callsigns? The purpose of callsigns (at least in ham radio, anyway) is to uniquely identify each individual radio geek, communicate their position in the radio geek hierarchy (and thus what frequencies they have access to, etc.), identify where they are from, and be relatively short because Morse Code is pretty verbose. But they are communicating in spoken language here, there's no reason for them to use Morse Code or a similar system, so there's no reason for them to shorten their names. Also, if this really is meant to be English, enunciating single letters over radio in English is notoriously prone to miscommunication due to how similar a lot of letter names sound, and for the purpose of being clear while doing this the NATO phonetic alphabet was invented, if you're actually going to do a radio thing in spoken language, you should be saying "Juliet Golf" instead of "J. G.", etc. Anyway, in addition to all this, this system is not even guaranteed to create a unique callsign for each Lyctor, it happens that all of these are unique, but that's just an accident. Goddammit, this pisses me off and I'm not even a real radio geek, I was just raised by radio geeks

So I'm guessing the resurrection beast/herald fear aura is directly related to guilt over the indelible sin, which makes sense if they specifically pursue people who committed the indelible sin. I believe when they were discussing how BOE hunted down a herald in order to make it into herald bullets (which I now retroactively realize means that BOE must use guns) they said that it affected all necromancers, so I wonder if it's more generally about gaining power from death

Also "it knows what you did to its kin", maybe referring to John consuming the soul of Earth? Or locking it in the Tomb? I'm not sure anymore

I mean, I think the Body going away probably has to do with the resurrection beast and not with Harrow, but haha, poor Harrow

You know, I've heard non-Americans complain that saying "Not!" after a sentence in this way is an Americanism, so I'm surprised to see this here. Or maybe it's only here to emphasize how grating Mercy's lecture is?

Is this a reference to the "it's for a church, honey, next!!" lady?

I know this is supposed to be a "Mercy is not fun at parties" thing, but honestly I feel this

I was curious how far that actually was, it turns out that is 33 and a half astronomical units. Yeah, that's pretty far away

That 2,000 kilometers is a mere 1 2.5 millionth of the total distance of 5 billion kilometers, though. I would think just covering that whole distance in a reasonable amount of time would be harder? Supposedly they don't have access to the stele system out here

This is the "Sex Pal" moment of this book, isn't it? I have no actual idea if John is lying about the peanuts or not, but I love the idea of Mercy just fuming over this one peanut incident for a significant part of 10,000 years

Also, the way describes this fantasy exchange between her and John feels like a bible story to me. Is it just me?

Ok, so this is interesting, because Number One has been mentioned, which means that if the beasts are numbered according to the way the Houses are numbered, then Earth can't be the missing beast. Previously we had only heard about Two, Six, Seven, and Eight, now we are up to One, Two, Four, Six, Seven, and Eight, which leaves Three, Five, and Nine. John said at the beginning of the book that there were three left to defeat, one of which is obviously Seven, and I guess the remaining two are Three, Five, or Nine. I wonder if the beasts are instead numbered based on their order from the sun, which would make Earth Three? That would make Seven actually be Uranus, which does match up with the 50,000 kilometer in diameter number from earlier, but I thought the point of that number was that the resurrection beast was supposed to be bigger than the original planet?

Does north/east/south/west even have any meaning in space, or in the River, without the presence of a magnetic field? I mean, the resurrection beast is a planet, so it might have a magnetic field, but we've established that they will not be attacking its actual body

Is this actually some missing information about what the fuck Mercy's powers even have to do with the rest of the Eighth House, or is Augustine just saying things to be saying things?

I wonder if it actually turns out to be something different, seeing as John literally has no intel on it

Also, you definitely do believe in sin, like, I don't think the concept of sin is necessarily universal across all religions, but it's definitely a big part of this one, necrophilia has been mentioned as a sin, we also have the indelible sin, and Mayonnaise Uncle definitely seemed to feel like some things were sins back in Gideon the Ninth

[fumifooms]

I think there are two of us here that are new askers but also have been asking a lot. Probably both got into the manga recently because of the anime. But just goes to show how good your posts are and how much we love your insight on a character like Chilchuck. I don't know how he became my favorite character, but I love the depth and flaws and facets of the characters.

Also you're probably one of the few people who ship Marchil and their dynamic is so underrated I think.

Haha that’s so fun actually, piecing out which asker is which like we’re in a detective novel and the web keeps getting new layers. Thank you so much! I can get self-conscious sometimes so it is really nice to hear that some people appreciate my posts. All characters in Dungeon Meshi have so much potential to be analyzed but yeahhh yeah Chilchuck is just special 🫶 He creeped up on me as my fave as well but I shouldn’t have been surprised haha. He has layers, like an onion!

Aah glad to hear you like marchil as well!! Yesss it really is so underrated, especially with just how much they interact and the fun chemistry they have, alongside the character growth they get through each other. Like, y’know that meme collage I did for Chilchuck recently, for funsies I wanted to see what expression was caused by who and boy the results may or may not surprise you! Click on keep reading for more, not clickbait!! ✨👇

They are my OTP for realssss they mean everything to me- They’re actually what got me into dunmeshi too, I saw some shippy art for them years ago and found their banter cute and so when I saw the manga at my bookstore I was like oh yes, I know these blorbo shaped guys!! I’m trying to spread the good word for the ship, and I’ve successfully gotten some people interested and/or invested in it thus far so hehe I feel quite accomplished. I’m a multishipper and I like quite a few dunmeshi ships, many being with Marcille because she bounces off of other characters in really fun ways, but none get me quite like marchil… It’s the opposites attract, the banter, the softness, the thematic relevance, the narratives… No bc the way she has to accept that time is counted no matter what and loss is inevitable, meanwhile he has to learn to not shut himself off from others and to have some hope… They are narratively soo complementary AND THAT IS WHY in the anime opening their pose in the mural shots mirror each other so strikingly, hello in this essay I will-

Ok so some of these are more debatable than others, for example shriveled up Chil after the succubus in the laughing section could be blissed out instead of still laughing at Marcille’s bad taste, and in the upper right corner the sitting Chils are reacting to Marcille’s dream dalclan fanfiction and not to her exactly, but close enough. Besides how he always teases her so much this is why I say Marcille makes him laugh (and blush) the most. He loves laughing at her so much 🧍So romantic /j They are so romcom shaped to me I’m sorry

[phoenixtakaramono]

Sending another ask, because of lack of space: I loved the idea of the Fix-it because billy in it is pretty much steering HL away from his worst impulses, not because HL is automatically a better person when he's in love, but because their association has taught him how to think for himself, how to be more subtle, to not trust Vought uncritically and to gather information when possible before making a decision, and to think through how to present it to the public, instead of depending on PR only

Re: Fix-It AU Threadfic (🔗)

Initially I started this threadfic because I saw a tweet of someone saying how there were no Fix-Its in the 200+ Butchlander fics on AO3 (sorry, my mistake 🙏, someone has reminded me that there is at least one):

At the end of the day, I’m glad I was operating under an erroneous assumption because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have bothered writing this.

The way I’d envisioned it: we start with that Diabolical episode where Homelander had just had his hero debut (~18 y/o), and that’s our future husbands’ first official Meet Cute (/j). Billy, at this juncture, is a young CIA operative (~23 y/o) but he has not met Becca yet. It’s essentially a honeypot/ honeytrap operation—but without the seduction at least not from Billy’s POV; the readers voted for the yandere speedrun option with Homelander planting cameras in Billy’s flat at the Flatiron, haha, so obviously certain things will follow because of that chosen route. It also allows us an opportunity to play with HL’s past as a lab-rat (I’m playing with the possibilities), and have that affect the threadfic.

We then tie in the more important The Boys canon comic events and events from the TV version—and “fix” a couple of the more pivotal disastrous f*ck-ups such as the Cruz Chemical incident (animated show canon) and the crash of Transoceanic Flight 37 (TV canon), etc, with a couple original incidents if I’m feeling up to it.

I love what you wrote about how HL’s not automatically made a better person just because he’s in love. Billy can steer him from his worst impulses to an extent. But at the end of the day, the idea is that whilst it is a Fix-It, and we are rewarding him with Billy as a boyfriend for his “good behavior” (later, so he gets his crush fulfilled), John as The Homelander is still not a very good man. I very much enjoy reading about a psycho narcissistic HL who has an obsessive crush, and I think a lot of people like reading that too. We have Billy as the hot older European young and bright CIA operative whomst HL wishes desperately to impress (gotta give it to a guy who’s infatuated). He one-sidedly envisions William Butcher as his partner-in-crime. William, in the threadfic, represents the CIA, a secret government intelligence agency that has the legitimacy Vought desperately wants—and so far only Homelander’s been given this opportunity. It’s a resource that only he has access to—and it makes him feel ✨special✨ —> William is special —> thus, William can only be his. Homelander doesn’t like to share (in this AU).

The silver lining is this HL, while still objectively awful, haha, is encouraged at his younger age to not be so reliant on Vought—and that impact will carry into his 20s, 30s, and 40s. We are essentially weaning our brainwashed murderous baby from sucking the teat of corporate.

[cornerihaunt]

omg thank you!!!

she’s a huge capitals fan (and loves her boy ovechkin) so i def keep up with the caps now. i know there are intermissions between each period, i can gauge how a game is going based on score (like 1-0 isn’t a HUGE thing by second period but 2-6 as a final score is a curbstomp kinda thing)

i don’t have a team myself yet that i support beyond the capitals, which is a support-by-proxy thing, but i always keep up on the score at least when i’m busy doing something but i know she’s watching a game

i also know enough to know the poor flyers got HUMILIATED saturday. i’m an ohioan and i know damn well the jackets suck ass but then they turned around and won 6-2 against the flyers and fucked up the flyers’ path to the playoffs despite the fact that the jackets sure as hell ain’t going this year

she listens to it a lot more than watching it until the playoffs unless she can go to a game or isn’t busy and can sit and watch it, so following has been more difficult since i have auditory processing issues BUT watching numbers has helped. i know about goalies being pulled if they’re sucking (which blew my mind) but i’m still trying to understand the circumstances where a team pulls players and it’s like 3v5 etc and more complex things than that

i’m just a simple gay but i’m rly enjoying it thus far! idk how i’ll pick my team tho

boooo the caps boooo /j!!! i do love ovi tho (he scored what i’m pretty sure is my favorite goal ever, against arizona in… 2006? it always makes the highlight reels. for good reason!!)

imo the team finds you and not the inverse. like i literally imprinted like a baby duckling (or a baby penguin? haha) on the penguins.

that one flyers game i was checking on for playoff race purposes and my god. i was hoping (sort of foolishly, bc as you’ve said, they’re not the best team lmao) for a jackets win but i did not expect that blowout from both of those teams??? insane little game

speaking of playoff race. i feel like rn it’s such an exciting time to get into hockey!!! you have an insane playoff race for a spot in the east, and anyways the playoffs themselves are gonna start soon!! (right during ttpd release week lmao so that’s gonna be fun FOR ME)

i prefer to watch the game simply bc if i only listen i can’t really… see it? but i have listened to a couple of games and imo it is sooo much more intense with the radio broadcast than the tv broadcast. if you like numbers you might like “watching” a game as i did last year, so by literally checking on the gamecenter on nhl.com which has aaaall the numbers (shots on goals, hits, face-off percentages, etc) and it’s a fun way to gauge the way a game is going. also you’d love. LOVE the standings bc those are sooo fun once you get into it and know how to read them!! calculating who needs to win what in order for your team to get into that one playoff spot is fun (if not unnerving. but fun)

on the when a team pulls a player etcetera imo that stuff you get it by watching really. bc there’s shifts and there’s line changes and power plays and penalty kills but they alllll make sense in the context of the game.

[brotherhoodoftheblade]

Ah, I see! I've been paying zero attention to what's been going on with S7 thus far - other than the gifsets featuring John that end up on my dash periodically, I've been contentedly clueless. lol Although...if they're already nearly five episodes into book 7 and Percy still hasn't shown up (and I think he'd been in the very first chapter of Echo) then he mostly likely won't make an appearance (for S7 at least). :/

Haha, well, I hadn't even heard of the Outlander books until the show came out, and then John became my new favourite character in S3 so when I found out he had his own books series I just excitedly jumped straight into reading them. And then after I'd finished them I went through the OL books just to read John's parts and find out what happened with him afterwards -- which largely proved a disappointing experience, unfortunately.

Though I was gasp-worthy excited when I first started Echo and Percy was unexpectedly introduced! And yeah, having read BotB before he shows up in the OL books makes a huge difference to how readers perceive him. People who haven't read it just take John's assessment of Percy at face value without realizing what an unreliable narrator he is when it comes to him; his perception of Percy is far too strongly coloured by his own personal biases to be taken straightforwardly.

Haha, good, if the Jamie/John ship rests on the bottom of the ocean for you then you'll be far less likely to be offended by my sometimes blunt AF opinions of it. lmao So there was a brief period where I could still see the appeal (or more the interest) of J/J - when I first watched S3, during the years before Claire returned - but then I read the books and THAT experience put SO many nails in that coffin that I doubt I could ever resurrect it, even if I wanted to. And I DON'T. It fundamentally irritates me on so many frigging levels (which I will kindly spare you an essay on lol), so should you ever post your meta on the subject I will be all eyes (although John & Jamie are still estranged throughout Bees so there's no interaction between them). 😂

But YES, the ever perpetual pining on John's part just makes me want to smack him for being a goddamned idiot lacking in self-respect and common sense at this point. smh 😐

My feelings about the situation are pretty succinctly summed up by John in these two scenes. In the first one I still had a great deal of sympathy for John (despite thinking it highly unethical of him to fucking proposition a prisoner of a gaol he's the bloody warden of). But fast-forward 20 years of the same nonsense (and yes perpetuating the done to death stereotype of the gay man in love with his straight best friend - internalized homophobia/bisexually coded elements of the narrative notwithstanding - for literal decades is complete and utter regressive nonsense, and John deserves so much better!) and my initial visceral reaction to John in the second scene was not sympathy but, "Omg, please just get out of my face with your woe-begotten needy cow eyes already!" 🙄

I mean, how exactly am I meant to maintain my sense of empathy for someone who's spent well over TWENTY BLOODY YEARS OF HIS LIFE behaving like a dumbass who's glutton for punishment by building his whole life around a man he knows perfectly well can't/won't ever love him back??? At a certain point I've found myself asking whether someone who's made himself such a martyr to love, rather than actually making a real effort to FIGHT for his own happiness, is in fact truly deserving of happiness.

Certainly he has little to no business whining about his own loneliness and heartache when all he's done is keep digging the hole deeper rather than trying to climb out of it. Sure, you can't control who you love, but you CAN control your own actions, and at a certain point you just have to shake yourself and refuse to keep feeding the fire of an unrequited love and make yourself bloody well move on with your life.

This kind of prolonged fixation isn't remotely romantic to me anymore (if indeed it ever was), it's just ridiculous and tedious. Such high levels of stupidity are just plain beneath John's intelligence, and it's a poor and toxic excuse for gay representation to boot. (Full offense meant, Gabaldon.💀)

(I did give you fair warning that I can be blunt AF about my opinions, did I not? 😂)

So Brianna...yeah, I find her quite easy to like, given what I know of her so far. She's far more my type than Claire, actually. I mean, she's very intelligent (I LOVE that she's an engineer! <3) and passionate, but at the same time she's also much more reserved and tactful. She doesn't just wear all her thoughts and feelings on her face/sleeve, which I personally quite appreciate. I find characters that are so overt as to be easily understood kind of boring. I like characters who make me work to understand what makes them tick, I like a mystery.

Plus, I love red hair on women (just not really on men, sorry not sorry, Jamie :P) and Bree just makes the bi part of my brain pleasantly tingle. lol And 60s!Bree in particular is just...😍

Although, 18th century!Bree isn't without her charm...💕

Sorry. *coughs* What was I saying? Got distracted. lol

Also, I'm probably very much in the minority of liking Brianna more than Claire, if only for the reason that she doesn't viscerally get on my nerves the way Claire does. Don't get me wrong, I actually do really like Claire a good part of the time, but just in terms of personality, she can grate on my nerves. She has an abrasive personality (to me), and people like her always instinctively rub me the wrong way. (Behold the personal bias. lol)

(If I had to psychoanalyze myself, I'd say it stems from self-hatred. I can't stand anyone who seems to share the qualities I dislike most in myself, and I know just being around them brings out the worst in me. I've always been drawn to people who are gentle and sweet in temperament (probably why I love Percy so much, and why he brings out my protective nature), and I feel like I'm the kind of person I most want to be around them, too.

(Another part of the reason I'm drawn to John/Percy over Jamie/John - the latter are far too much alike for my taste, sharing a lot of the same negative qualities, thus ending up locking horns half the time as a result, whereas John and Percy's opposite personalities both challenge the other while balancing each other out and providing much greater scope for personal growth over time.

Contrastingly, what do John and Jamie truly have to learn from each other? They've known each other for over 20 years and Jamie has yet to really learn how to NOT be a homophobe - and, NO, him treating John as the lone honourable exception to his perception of gays generally being depraved, pedophilic perverts does not count as him truly having unlearned his prejudice against them - really the thing Jamie needs most to have learned from his friendship with John.

And as for John...there's honestly nothing he has to learn from Jamie that he didn't already know himself (they already share the same ideals and sense of honour, after all). He's convinced himself that he needs Jamie far more than he actually does, while in reality he's just been using the idealized version he holds of him (as a talisman and as his "North Star") as an unnecessary crutch to lean against rather than take responsibility for leading his own life. At this point, he's long been using Jamie as an excuse to keep his heart on a shelf and away from the risk of further grief and loss...that abyss within himself he so deeply fears.))

But yeah, Brianna generally has a much gentler mien than Claire, but she's no less strong, and possesses greater self-control to boot. <3

(Got carried away there - again xd - but I'm done now, I swear. LOL)

john/percy making me come back to tumblr in 2023 lmao

[toxapexremade]

im sure i would like him or at the very least be mildly endeared to him but playing bl3 and knowing Nothing about tales from the borderlands makes interacting with basically any character from it almost unbearable but Especially vaughn. negative amounts of character personality depth if you dont know tales from

[zombvibes]

According to the tags of your last Allyswap post, you have other AUs. Would you like to share the premise/any doodles you have?

This sounds you’re interrogating me, anon. /lh

Anywho, I DO have other aus and YES I would LOVE to share junk about them.

So when I made the teammateswap and allyswap guys, I had multiple ideas for the characters (obviously). So one day I thought “Man. I still really like these ideas and I wanna use them.” So I did!! Which became the alt aus like as in : alt teammateswap and alt allyswap. They were originally called tms! side b and as! side b. (Which tbh? Might go back to those names…not sure though.)

Like normal teammateswap and allyswap : alt tms is susie swapping with noelle, noelle swapping with berdly, and berdly swapping with susie. alt as is susie swapping with berdly, noelle swapping with susie, and berdly swapping with noelle!

And if y’all don’t mind I’ll just share their (old icky) sprites and some haha hehe dialogue boxes :

TOP = alt teammateswap , BOTTOM = alt allyswap

(There’s also art of them but um. It’s too old and grody for me to show on here. Unlike twitter, I want to seem prim and proper on tumblr /j)

Anyways, I’ll probably redesign them at some point and make them ““official”” and also because some swaps don’t really make sense. (But mostly talking about the Susies and Noelles here. The Berdlys are only there so the Noelles could mess with them. Don’t tell anyone I said that though.)

There’s also like…other random aus I thought would be cool or funny but I don’t plan on doing a lot with them (which I will list now) :

THE TIMEOUT AU

- An old snowgrave au idea I had where during the Berdly fight right before Noelle does her spell, Kris rips us out of their chest and puts us in a far they found in a trashcan off screen. Kris would finish the chapter without you and you’d have to watch and think about what you’ve done. (Hence the name.)

- I already talked about how the au would work on twitter but I doubt you’d wanna go onto twitter to see something so I’ll just copy and paste everything here :

This route is called The Timeout route! Kris is tired of your bullshit so they stuff you in a jar they found in one of the trashcans from the city! You get to watch Kris, Noelle, and Berdly finish the chapter without you because you’re a prick! To start this route, during chapter 1 you have to make Kris play the piano (which they do poorly). (You’ll probably have to do many other things to piss Kris off but I can’t think of any at the moment..just know that playing the piano is not optional) Chapter 1 ends as normal! Chapter 2, you gotta start the weird route! Like just killing stuff, then you get the ring etc. But when you get to the Berdly fight, there’s a small chance that Kris stops Noelle right before she does snowgrave. Afterwards, Kris (still in battle) rips out their soul and walks off the screen. There’s trash can rummaging noises the the background. Noelle and Berdly stand there shocked and Berdly asks what’s wrong with Kris. Noelle said that Kris was acting weird all day. Kris comes back with a jar that has their soul in it. Noelle and Berdly proceed to flip their shit. Kris puts the jar in their inventory and grabs Noelle and Berdly’s hands and drags them off to the right thus ending the battle. You get to see Noelle and Berdly ask Kris plenty of questions that Kris ignores and says that they’ll talk about it later. When Kris and co meets up with Susie and Ralsei, they notice that Kris is different. Susie asks what’s wrong, and Kris says that they’ll talk later. Yadda yadda yadda Everyone gets caged (except for Ralsei). Things happen as normal with some things happening differently cause Kris is in control duh. When Susie and Kris are in front of the fountain, Kris takes out the jar and opens the jar. The soul comes out and does its thing. Susie stands there shocked. Once they’re in the lightworld, everything happens normal. Berdly and Noelle leaves thinking it’s all a dream. Susie after they leave looks bewildered at Kris then shakes them : “What the hell was that all about????” You can finally control Kris here and pick between : Tell her what happened and What are you talking about? Telling her what happened : Susie becomes even more confused and Kris (out of your control) says that they’ll elaborate at some point and the conversation ends there. “What are you talking about?” : Susie flips out even more and shakes Kris angrily. Kris doesn’t say anything (this is your doing) and Susie just says : “Whatever…” and leaves without Kris. Susie will still have the sleepover but will be weird around Kris (depending on what which option you choose). Everything will end the same but Kris puts you in the cage and not between the couch. You’ll sit there not being able to see what happened to Susie and Kris. You’ll hear what happened though, you just can’t see it. Then the chapter ends! …Btw you don’t fight spamton in this route, Kris just doesn’t fight spamton.

- (I would’ve made the route work a little different if I worked on it NOW but hey…you get the idea I hope.)

- This au was meant to basically Kris giving the player the middle finger

DELTARUNE BUT IT’S SUMMER NOW I GUESS

- Another old idea I had. It’s normal just deltarune but it takes place during summer school. (Or just the summer I didn’t put too much thought into it. I just wanted to see Kris and Susie have fun in the sun together tbh) It all started because I wanted to make a Phineas and Ferb reference—

TIMESKIP AU

- What kind of au hoarder would I be if I didn’t make a “They’re adults now” au? It mostly focuses in Kris, Susie, and Noelle (Berdly’s there too but I mean…he’s just there. Not too important). The darkners don’t really age in my timeskip au because I just…think they wouldn’t really age like lightners would? Since they’re objects? I feel like they would still look the same but like…with eyebags or dirt/dust on them or something. (Didn’t think about it too much,,)

- They’re all around 20 something? 25??

- There’s art of this too but again…too old and grody for me to show. Pretty sure I posted timeskip suselle stuff on here once but you’ll have to find it yourself I’m not linking it. It’s still a little embarrassing,,,

- I think I may redesign them in the future since they look too “self indulgent” and not how I would actually imagine them in their 20s.

- It’s basically The “Everyone gets facial hair now” au honestly LMAO

SPECIES SWAP

- Another obvious thing for an au hoarder to have— Basically, Kris is a reptile, Susie is a goat, and Ralsei is a human! (There’s also Noelle, who’s a bird, and Berdly, who’s a reindeer…but. I’ll probably not do that or at least it wouldn’t be “canon” to the au.)

- In this au, Susie is a darkner and Ralsei is a lightner (along with Kris.) And this is kind of a role swap as well (kinda?). Ralsei would be the one the player controls. Kris isn’t controlled by their soul and has their regular personality. Susie and Lancer were already established to be buddies before Kris and Ralsei arrived in the dark world. Though in this au, Susie’s personality would be a little goofier to match with Lancer’s. She’s still mean though but chapter 2 mean and not really chapter 1 mean. Ralsei would talk but we wouldn’t be able to hear him (like with human Kris.) He does talk way more than human Kris though. Kris doesn’t talk at all unless necessary or for a funny/dumb quip. For their dark world versions um tbh? I can’t really choose on whether Ralsei should have a sword (like human Kris) or magic (like goat Ralsei). I guess the sword would make more sense but goat Susie would feel a little empty if she isn’t swinging her big ol’ axe around. Again…didn’t think about it too much. OH YEAH AND darkner goat Susie is a prince like goat Ralsei is. (Not princess though because Susie still has her butch lesbian swag in this au)

- Uhhh I do have concept art but it’s not much…I hope to actually sketch out the concepts at some point because darkner goat Susie sounds so much fun to work on!! I have clear ideas of everyone’s designs in my head, just didn’t put it “paper” yet.

So uh…YUP! Think that’s all! If anyone’s interested on hearing about or seeing a specific au, I’ll try my best to elaborate on it more or quicking sketch out something)

(I’m asking you to send me asks about them if you’re curious)

[eemoo1o-animoo]

So I co-wrote Black Butler fanfiction with an AI generator…

“Th-This is my OC Farris, he is from Connecticut.”

“What cool powers does he have?”

“Nothing. He just gets to kiss Grelle whenever he wants.”

“Oh–”

“He also likes video games.”

“Well, is he non-human at least. C’mon, a good Kuro OC must at least be–”

*narrows eyes suddenly, bitterly* “We’ll see.”

“Wha– What?”

“Oh, nothing!”

So after that whole ordeal, the AI generator took me to The White House, where it suddenly became obsessed with starlings.

So, naturally, I added in Ronald.

The AI had different plans, of course. So I had to call upon forces nary a soul has called for so willingly: William.

That wasn’t good enough for the AI, though…

Admittedly, it was my mistake of merely adding only a reference to a penis, and then the AI went bonkers for a moment.

Just a moment though… right?

So even as the AI left the pressing subject matter at hand, I realised that I’d never heard the word “conscripted”, or why Farris—now known as the titular ‘Farris Grelle’—had done it, or why it had done Farris, but what I did know is that we needed to add more characters.

So I mistakingly added the Undertaker.

So, the AI needs therapy. Okay. But really, it’s my job to fix it. It’s not all bad, it has its highs and lows, I can’t just be a fair-weather user, haha, right? Right?

Shut up. No, you.

So Grelle is back in the casket with yet another. Perhaps this is how Yana wrote the series thus far…

But, Lord Bu-no was an interesting character—you could truly tell how much he loved her, couldn’t you?

So, I made her leave. I knew her true objective: to get back to Farris, the poor dear. Her one true love! Oh, Grelle missed him dearly, I’m sure…

Until Lord Bu-no spoke fondly of her bibbly bobs- I mean, her nudie bits.

Grelle sees dead people…

Shocking, for a reaper, isn’t it?

Or, is Undertaker suddenly up and about again?! *gasp* Let’s wait and see!

Oh…

So, I think it was at this point that I officially gave up. It continuously added characters that felt like something from Lau’s estate back home (Kuro names are weird /j) and yet there was nary a large breasted Asian woman in sight!

This story clearly wasn’t worth our time.

So I brought back William.

(Oh, and Mey-Rin, I guess. Damn, William really said “no horni” with that spoon.)

AI generator not only made William forget his lines but also changed the scene again.

I brought back Farris.

I had to—he was the one thing that had come out of this generator light and pure.

Also, the AI really said “no Mary Sue” for Farris and went completely mental with that… by making him die of… liver spots, I guess.

Grelle’s one true husbando… close to death and still he got the girl—you mad, bro?

#SaveGrarris — just one dollar a month to their OnlyFans from all of you could help prolong this man’s life… for another uncanny 30 years.

And just like that, Grelle has lost her immortality! No! Through what? That god that had attacked her? Lord Bu-no who happens to be standing idly in the background of this beautifully cinematic scene?

Or, had she given it all up… for love? *Titanic theme plays*

Oh yeah, and then it just changed scene because fuck tender love, am I right, hosers?

[arikihalloween]

Welcome Home × Wakfu AU ramble

The people have spoken, Wakfu AU comes first !

What's Wakfu AU ?

Set in the universe of the mmorpg games and serie Wakfu, Welcome Home is a little guild of adventurers of all kinds known for their adventures (and misadventures) !

Starting off by answering this question by @gaypyro

Home is not a Shushu possessing a house ( that felt overdone, since Luis exist lol )

Home is a Xelor, adoptive father of Sally and Wally, and owner of the guild. He took under his roof many promising adventurers, and seems quite entertained by their antics. Despite his looks, he's pretty friendly, and loves a good joke or bonding moment with the guild members. ( Just don't get him mad ! We don't know what would happen then 👀)

Sally is a dramatic young xelor adopted by Home. She received a full huppermage education as well, and will boast about it whenever she can, making it a whole show. Rather than time, she has particular interest in the stars and astral readings.

Wally is the second son of Home. He has no affiliation to any god, he just lives his life, going on adventures with his best friend Barnaby, an oujinak.

Julie is a iop that was raised in a Sadida family. Hyper energetic, curious and playful, she tends to run in fights head first ! When she's not adventuring with Frank and Eddie, you'll find her hanging out with Wally, Howdy or Sally.

Frank is a feca that specialised in shield magic, to cover Julie while they get into fights. However, he's not above throwing a good punch, and thus Eddie often has to drag the two back to the guild as they are injured or bruised all over. Frank is a curious fellow, who loves knowledge. Julie helps him identify the new plants they encounter.

Eddie is a sacrier, who tried his best to appear calm, although he's often pretty anxious. He generally travels with Julie and Frank, getting the two out of fights more often than not. He likes traveling and discovering new locations !

Howdy is an osamoda merchant, who joined the guild to try adventuring after his old shop was destroyed in a fight, although he can't really get rid of his old ways ... Poppy is his trusted dragodinde companion, who gained sentience after one of Sally's messed up spells ! Poor Poppy is quite the anxious animal, but she finds comfort in the guild's cheerful atmosphere.

And finally, we have Nyxie ( because I have to include her and Suave haha) as an eliatrope !

Full page

And that's all the characters I've done so far !

I've also included Bailey as a baby dragodinde and and the Joyful family !

Don't hesitate if you have more questions, headcanons, ideas of situations and adventures for those sillies, etc !

I had fun designing everyone, although some characters gave me troubles

Turns out it's hard to apply different species, logic and cultures to muppets from the 70s /j

I tried to keep them easy to recognise while making them more adapted to the wakfu world

It's just a silly AU to do silly comics and jokes ! Completly angst free, just a calm lil heaven of sillyness

I hope you liked it !

[salcreus]

Hermits Helping Hermits, and why it’s so brilliant

Excuse any grammar mistakes, it is very late and I am very tired as of writing this haha

First off, if you don’t know, there’s this new thing that the Hermits came up with called Hermits Helping Hermits- HHH for short as I like to call it.  Here’s twitch’s VOD of Ren’s POV if you want to get to know that better, instead of reading a badly written paragraph about it by yours truly. (This one is by far the one with the most interactions with it, but there are far more hermits involved in this event :) <3 Check their twitch streams and/or Youtube VODS channels for more of that chit-chatting spicy goodness)

But, if you don't want to sit through two and half hours of video footage (which honestly I don't blame you), the best resume that I can give of it is- actually very explicit in the name. It's just a bunch of hermits helping out another hermit with a certain task, something that is repetitive and would take that hermit absolutely aeons to get done with. It's a very small resume, but at the end of the day, that  /is/ the core of this "Event" of sorts.

Now that you got that out of the way, excuse me as I indulge in all of the details that make this simple concept fry up my brain with joy.

Collaboration. That's a word that we thrive for and love whenever a new stream or episode comes out, it brings out the best of all hermits involved while combining their skills and humour (which I'll touch upon in a bit). It's just overall a bomb fest of creativity and oh boy do we eat that shit up whenever we can (If you need any more proof of the fandom's love for collaborative works, check out the poles our beloved miners and crafters have done to us, audience, asking about which content we prefer. Really. It's absurd how much collabs destroy the other options of the polls).

And honestly... HHH is exactly all we have ever wanted in terms of interactions between hermits. You have a bunch of buzzing bees that are together, in this calm environment, doing tasks that don't quite require that much brainpower, and you got yourself this podcast-Esque vibe going on that just works wonderfully with the stream format that they have going on- And that's not even mentioning the use of the voice chat mod! The way that they don't have to just jumble about in VCs, and can just fly away to talk, promotes this easier way of being part of the action (In this first stream we could see hermits just showing up midway through, or leaving, which, unlike having to click away from Minecraft and onto Discord and switch VCs and all of this tedious process- It doesn't feel forced. It's organic, and they are the ones that have the power to do whatever they want.)

(Also quick note not to ever pressure the content creators into talking or joining in yada yada don't be a prick about it <3 They are human beings too, not your personal TV show)

Humour. (Told you that we were going to talk about this) ...Actually, I'm lying, this is more to analyze their interactions and tie with the thing that I talked about above, but I don't actually want to make two separate tabs for this text so like ehhhh- Okay okay so. We all know that putting different types of personalities into a room is bound to give some good shenanigans, we all know that show and tale, so I am not going to re-tell it (Unless someone someday wants me to write about that which I doubt because I'd be a massive nerd about it). No, I want to focus more on the environment itself and how /that/ is one of the tricks on how their conversations turn into this amalgamation of chiller, more daring topics.

Now, by more daring topics, I don't mean that they are going to start cursing out their viewers, but it overall feels like we get to retire a bit from the Minecraft Funny Persona, and focus more on the humans being behind it. Of course, their personal lives are none of our business, but it's nice to see them acting like the nerdy adults that they are- Which I feel is a bit forgotten in this fandom, yknow?  The fact that they, too, are absolutely silly and would laugh at 69 jokes as much as we do (season 5 chatting my beloved). This chill, lowkey profile induced by the conditions I talked about above impacts their humour, and thus, their way of interacting in this free for all space where they can just vibe!

Also, I cannot mention this ^ without congratulating Rendog for his way of giving everyone their own moment on the spotlight. If it hasn't been clear before by the Hermitcraft panel at Minecon a few years ago (which he was the host of :) <3), Ren is bloody AMAZING at sparking conversation, and overall debate managing; I blame his cockiness and his lack of shame, but who am I to judge. The way that he managed the tasks given, and was able to put everyone on track when the train was moving away from the action, really shows his skills when it comes to entertaining an audience. I am NOT going to forgive him for the pee talk though, hate the furry </3 /j

Creativity! This is just a small thing that I catched on when I was watching, but I really liked how Bdubs was giving tips on how to make the spikes on the biome pop up more (by the use of walls, stairs, slabs). It wasn't something that was really the centre of attention in this "episode" of HHH, but I appreciate the possibilities that this gives in terms of hermits learning as they work together on something, the sentiment of giving tips and tricks as to how to make something pop up, or how to improve on a certain detail- Another moment involving this was when Xisuma was talking about that lava cast shemanty machinery that I am far too dumb to talk about but you know what, he sure was saying words and I am sure they are very useful. The collaborative process of coming up with ideas and solutions is one that always fascinates me (Maybe that's why the mayoral building is my favourite one of the season so far) and I cannot wait to see what else they can bring to the table, even if it's small.

If this hasn’t convinced you yet I don’t know what it will, but, to be fair, I'm just someone that is Far Too Excited about HHH :pensive_emote: But to wrap things up very badly because I am awful at closing statements, the hermits look like they are having fun with it, which is what matters at the end of the day! They are all kind, wonderful individuals that treat us far too good, and this is not exception. Can't wait to see what they are going to do next, and how this event series is going to develop :) <3

(I was also going to go more on topic about the interactions that happened and jokes, but honestly I think that's a side document for another day dsjffsdmf;;)

[arteacactus]

Can we get a sick fic Janus hiding in his room until someone else breaks down the door? Cause he thought no one would care

this is so out of nowhere bc i like never get fic requests here anymore it’s like always on my sideblog hissceit ,, but it’s 10000% welcome and appreciated JDFJFD thank u .. also i apologize for how needlessly wordy this is HAHA i strayed from the prompt like .. a lot

warnings for sickness , the coughs , vomiting, sore throat , etc , the whole shebang-- and some cursing 

-----

It’s not that Janus had never been sick before, it’s just that...

Well, he’d never been sick before.

He wasn’t positive why (which irked him; he hated being in the dark about things, especially things concerning himself), but he had some theories- the most plausible one thus far simply being that while Thomas had always viewed the Light Sides as human, to some extent, he saw Janus as a two-faced snake; a monster kept hidden away in the shadows under his bed. And monsters didn’t get touched by things like disease. So while the others got touched with sickness occasionally, Janus never did.

But if Janus was getting sick now..

That implied that after he told them his name, Thomas started seeing him as somewhat human, too, with vulnerabilities like the rest.

He wasn’t sure just how he felt about that, but he didn’t love it (he liked being untouchable, okay?).

Ah, well, Janus supposed the why didn’t matter much at the moment. He could ponder that after the fact.

Right now was the time to think about how to end it, because it was pure torture.

He was too hot and too cold all at once, his head throbbed and his body ached in places he never knew could ache, his eyes were sore and oozing and his nose wasn’t faring much better. His throat was raw as if he’d spent hours and hours screaming at nothing, and even after trudging his way into the Dark Side’s kitchen for a cup of tea (though it was more like a cup of honey and lemon with a hint of green tea), it felt absolutely no better; in fact, he just felt worse, because he had to leave bed, go downstairs, spend twenty minutes standing around to make the tea, and then go back up the stairs to his room again.

He’d been fidgeting with his blankets for the past three hours; having them on made him too hot, having them off made him too cold, and so he settled for having one leg covered and nothing else (oddly enough, this was actually a good compromise). The air in his room was hot and stuffy which certainly didn’t help- nor did it help his sinuses any, as it made his headache pound worse and his airways were thoroughly blocked off. He dreaded drinking or swallowing anything as it sent the most uncomfortably painful sensation down his throat and rendered him to a groaning, pained mess.

He clutched his pillow weakly, pressing his head into the hot surface. He hated this. Usually, he thrived in the heat, as his room was typically colder than a jail cell, but this time he wanted it gone. He wished it was winter, just so he could full-body launch himself into a mound of snow and sleep for eternity. 

He felt a slight tug, the distinct feeling of someone requesting his presence, and promptly shooed it away. Not only was he just wearing pants, but he was sick, and he’d rather die than show that level of weakness to anybody.

Three days before, when he’d first felt his symptoms come on, he’d briefly considered going to someone for help; perhaps Remus, because he was his best friend, or Logan, because surely he’d know how to handle diseases and how to cure them, or maybe even Patton, because he was a father figure and might have even made him soup- but he had quickly banished the thought. Sure, maybe they knew his name now, but they still really didn’t like him and had absolutely no reason to help him and not laugh at his predicament.

Well. Remus liked him well enough, but he would have just taken his morning star and bashed Janus across the head with it and called it good, so Janus had to pass on that.

Another tug came, a little more forcefully this time, and Janus dismissed it, just as forcefully. For a little precaution, he took a deep breath and waved his hand, locking up his room so no one could rise up/appear in it, nor could they come through his door. The strain it put on him to maintain that lock was almost enough to make him pass out, but he didn’t dare remove it; he couldn’t risk anybody seeing him in this state. 

He forced his body to roll over to the side, pressing his face into his pillow and sighing in relief as his nose unplugged just enough to take a deep breath in. He found himself actually wishing he’d sneeze, just for the temporary relief it brought. 

He pointedly ignored the next few tugs that hit him, though they weren’t as forceful and harsh as the past couple were. He could only assume the only reason they actually wanted him up there was to lecture him, because him being incapacitated like this surely was affecting Thomas in some way that they didn’t like.

Well, sucks to be them, Janus thought in mild frustration, I’m staying right here until this all goes away and I don’t want to die anymore.

Eventually, the incessant tugging slowed to a stop, and then they finally left him alone.

Letting out a relieved sigh, Janus curled his body into a tight ball, cringing at the sticky feeling of his sweaty skin against his silk sheets, and tried to fall asleep.

Thankfully, sleep claimed him easily, and he drifted off.

However easily it came, though, it certainly wasn’t very forgiving. 

He didn't wake up randomly, but he kept getting thrown so many vivid nightmares and odd, fever-induced dreams that he almost wished he was waking up every few minutes, if only to get away from whatever things his mind kept throwing at him.

He wasn’t awake, but he was aware of his own constant tossing and turning, his bed creaking in protest every time he thrashed and threw his body around the mattress, and when he finally did open his eyes (his throbbing head wasn’t very appreciative of it), he realized he’d somehow twisted himself so his head was at the foot of his bead and his blankets had been fully tossed onto the floor. His pillows weren’t faring much better; only two of his usual six remained in place, and they were mangled to death, the rest on the floor with his blankets.

Janus truly couldn’t bring himself to give a damn- instead, he weakly pushed his body upright, trying not to topple over as his head swam, and fell right back down in the proper position. Thankfully, though, his head not touching the pillows in a while meant they were delightfully chilled, and he moaned aloud at the lovely sensation it brought him. Absently he wondered if he should gather the strength to get himself an ice pack or run an ice bath, but thought better of it. After all, he was still part snake; he’d rather not throw himself into a self-induced comatose state from the cold. 

He blindly reached out and grabbed ahold of his bedside clock, a little antique thing he designed himself to fit his aesthetic despite being very poor at reading Roman numerals, and squinted as he tried to decipher how long he’d been asleep for.

He nearly dropped the thing upon realizing he’d slept for eleven straight hours.

He slid it back onto his nightstand and groaned loudly, though it quickly turned into a pained, chest-wracking cough. He couldn’t avoid it; he had to get up and eat something, or drink something, or get literally anything in his body, because whether he liked it or not, that was the only way he was going to get over this thing quicker. 

He managed to move just enough to get up and off the bed (nevermind the fact he nearly fell straight on the floor the second he stood), and took a couple shaky steps towards the door. The moment he reached out to turn the knob, though, the knocking started.

He froze, looking like a deer caught in headlights as he stared wide-eyed at the piece of wood in front of him, the only thing separating him from them.

There was a call of ‘Janus?’ that was so soft, Janus didn’t actually know who it came from; but that didn’t matter now, because the doorknob was turning and fuck, when did he let go of his lock?

Janus snapped his fingers, and managed to summon all but his hat when the door opened and revealed- much to his surprise- Virgil.

Janus and Virgil blinked at each other for a moment, dumbfounded, but thankfully, Virgil didn’t seem to see anything off about him, and just lowered his gaze and shrunk into his hoodie, refusing to meet Janus’ eyes.

“We- uh, they were trying to call you earlier today, you know.” Virgil’s voice was low and gruff, and Janus could honestly say this was the best possible Side to come see him. Remus was loud and shrill, Patton was too cheery and Roman was boisterous- Logan probably wouldn’t have been awful, but with his insistence to look everyone in the eye as he spoke to them, Janus was sure he’d have deciphered what was going on in a second.

“I’m aware,” Janus replied, internally cringing at his rough tone. He cleared his throat, which was screaming in protest at speaking. 

Virgil didn't seem to notice- or if he did, he didn’t care. “Well. You made them worry, and they sent me to come collect you.”

“Worr- Collect?” Janus echoed in confusion, taken off guard by everything Virgil said.

“Yeah, uh, you worried them so now they won’t take no for an answer. You’re gonna have to come with me.” Virgil, at least, seemed a little sheepish saying this, but he also has a particularly determined and frustrated look to him. Clearly, he wasn’t happy being the one picked to come ‘collect’ Janus, and he wasn’t going to take no from him as an answer, either.

“Wh-” Janus was cut off as Virgil gripped his arm, and any protests he could have made died on his tongue as they started moving. Dizziness attacked him with such ferocity that he was honestly astounded that he hadn’t immediately fallen over, and his stomach lurched at the speed they were moving. Of course, he didn’t bring this up, just took a deep breath and pushed through. After all, Virgil was the last person he wanted to know about his current state.

Once Virgil brought them across the line that separated the Dark Sides from the Light Sides, the immediate bright artificial light from the lamps and ceiling lights making his head pound in a way that was even worse than what the red light of the heat lamps in the snake terrariums in his room caused. 

The air here, though, was clear and fresh, and he basked in the coolness of it as it surrounded him. If it wasn’t for the lights, he’d almost be tempted ask to stay for a while.

Once they made it to the living room, Virgil released him from his grasp, and slunk over into his own corner in the stairwell- and Janus found himself standing right next to Logan.

Unfortunately, they were all staring at him.

Time to put your acting skills to work, Janus, he thought to himself as he heaved an internal sigh, and plastered a toothy grin on his face that bared his sharp canines just enough to make them flinch away.

“So. I was summoned?” His throat protested speech, but thankfully his voice came out smooth and silky, not one bit of it hinting towards his predicament.

“Yeah, and you never answered..?” Thomas seemed more concerned than anything, but Janus definitely saw some suspicion on Roman’s expression (he couldn’t blame him, after how his name reveal went), and Patton was more fidgety than usual. Logan, bless him, didn’t seem to be acting any different, and Virgil looked just as bored as he usually was.

Remus, however...

Well, Remus was looking at Janus with a suspicious gaze similar to Roman’s but far more scrutinizing. Janus briefly felt a flare of panic. If there was anyone here to notice he was off, it would be his best friend, who he lived with and saw every day.

“I was resting, Thomas, would you blame your personification of self-preservation for taking a day off for self-care?” Janus’ tone was exasperated. He wasn’t lying, not really; he was resting, and he was taking a day off for self-care.

Just.. more than one day.

“Respectfully, I have to.. what is the term, ‘call bullshit’?” Came Logan’s voice next to him, and he hoped to God that Logan didn’t notice Janus’ feverish tremors. “You’ve been MIA for the past few days, and it’s escalated to the point where Thomas is beginning to react to it. There is something else going on, and we’d like to know what’s going on.”

Ah, yes, for the good of Thomas, Janus couldn’t help but think a little bitterly, Really, I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not like they’d worry about my wellbeing. “I’m afraid I wasn’t bullshitting you, Logan,” Janus replied coolly, “It was the truth.”

“Then how come your room looked trashier than Remus’?” Virgil’s voice, where earlier it was comfortingly gruff, was now an offputting growl. Despite his words, though, Janus could tell he was trying to act like he didn’t actually care. He took note of that, because Virgil caring about him was odd.

“Rearranging,” Janus replied simply, and hoped they took that alone as an acceptable answer.

Of course, they didn’t.

“You never rearrange,” Virgil’s tone turned accusatory, and then Patton cut in. 

“Well, maybe then that’s why he’s doing it now? For something fresh?” He sounded hopeful, as if he couldn’t wait for this entire conversation to be over. Janus felt similarly.

“I’ve lived with him, Patton, I know him, and it’s not something that happens.” Virgil argued, but this seemed to set off Remus as he cut in with, “And you left, so who are you to claim you ‘know him’?”

This sparked an argument amongst themselves, as they fought over the sudden new topic that thankfully centered around Virgil more than anything, and with Logan, Roman, and Thomas trying to mediate, there was no attention put on him anymore.

Janus took this momentary distraction to let out a sigh of relief, the mix of loud voices and trying to act like nothing was up was doing absolutely no good for his headache and exhaustion. He mourned the loss of his hat, because he could have used that to hide his face away from the lights that were bearing down on him and making his skin feel uncomfortably hot.

Though perhaps that was from all the layers of his outfit.

Unfortunately, though, as the seconds passed, the voices seemed to get louder, the lights got brighter, the clothes got hotter and his stomach was churning, his hands were sweating, his head was pounding his legs were getting shaky oh god his ears were ringing oh fuck fuck stop the noise please turn off the lights please stop please stop-

Distantly, he felt his throat start hurting intensely and he realized he was speaking out loud, stammering out pleads that were growing muffled as everything swamped him. His hands raised to cover his ears, trying to drown out the noise around him, and his legs gave out beneath him. He collapsed, feeling something warm and wet trickle down his face- tears? Was he crying? No, surely he was just imagining the feeling- but before he hit the hard floor, he felt something grab a hold of him, long, spider-like fingers gripping the undersides of his arms like a lifeline. He felt sharp nails and soft ruffles and realized Remus had caught him, he must have run from his spot to catch him before he fell, and Janus felt the stinging gaze of everybody on him. He felt like a mouse that was dropped into a snake’s cage for feeding, cowering beneath the penetrating gaze of the predator before him. The roles were reversed, and he hated it.

He managed to pry open his own eyes- when had he shut them?- and the moment he saw the horrified gazes trained on him, he fled.

He forced himself from Remus’ arms and he vanished, retreating back to his room, where the lights were off and the curtains were shut and the only thing he had to deal with was the light of his snakes’ heat lamps.

The hot, stuffy air attacked him with a vengeance, though, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care. He stripped himself of his clothes again, his skin glistening, heat radiating off of his person. 

He hurriedly locked up his room again, and fell to his knees beside his bed, and retched.

Thankfully, he’d managed to grab his trashcan, but it didn’t make him feel any less humiliated.

He thought he was doing himself a favor, hiding his state from all of them, but from not going to just one of them when he could, he had ended up breaking down in front of all of them. 

Body trembling and chest heaving, Janus collapsed onto the hard floor beneath him, unable to pull himself onto his bed, and curled up into a tight ball.

He wanted this to end.

Janus was so caught up in his misery that he didn’t even notice pounding on his door, all of his senses wrapped up in himself, in his throbbing head and hot skin and burning throat and sore stomach and the sound of his blood pumping in his ears, until there was a deafening ‘crash’ and splinters of wood came flying into his room.

He flinched at the noise and forced himself to sit up, but the sudden movement made him gag, and he found himself panting like a dog trying to cool himself off and calm down his raging nausea. 

There was a barrage of voices at first, but they were quickly hushed- from what, he didn’t know- and then a delightfully cold hand clutched his bicep, and he couldn’t hold back the relieved moan he let out in response.

“I’m gonna put you in bed, okay, Janus?” Came a soft voice- Remus- and Janus didn’t protest as he was gently lifted up by the Creative twin. Admittedly, he didn’t even know Remus could be that gentle, but he was grateful for it nonetheless.

There was some quiet shuffling and the sound of a dull ‘smack’ and then someone cursing softly, but soon enough Janus was set down on a set of smooth cotton sheets, clean and cool, and an absolute blessing.

“Jan-Jan, why didn’t you tell us you were sick?” Remus’ tone was scolding, like a parent to a young child (ironic, considering Janus was the one who raised Remus), and Janus opened his eyes just enough to see Remus’ face swathed in the shadows of his room. 

“Weak,” Janus croaked in reply, his voice wrecked, “Di’n.. wan’ see.”

“Your pride is going to be the death of you,” Remus sighed, and Janus heard some other voices pipe in.

“We would have helped you, Janus,” Thomas sounded sad, almost regretful. For what, Janus would never know.

“Indeed,” Logan’s voice was a comfort, Janus was willing to admit. “In fact, I will begin researching how to best care for this as soon as possible, so you are in utmost comfort while you recover.”

“I’ll make some soup,” Came Patton’s quiet promise, “And water, and tea.”

“I changed your bedsheets,” Roman seemed shy, “If you need me to, I can try and make a set that keeps you cooled down.”

Janus almost moaned aloud at the thought, and Roman must have seen it in his expression because he perked up right away. 

“Sorry for, uh, dragging you away so forcefully,” Virgil muttered, and Janus just managed to flap his hand dismissively. 

“You didn’ know.” He mumbled weakly, and he felt Remus’ cool touch brush away hair that clung to his sweaty forehead. 

“And now we do. So we’re going to take care of you, because we care about you.” He promised in a tone with no room for argument, with the others murmuring in agreement behind him.

And for once, Janus believed him, and let himself be taken care of.

[somebody-909]

i think shin ae and dieter will date at some point, i’m kind of looking forward to that(? of course stalkyoo is always in my thoughts they’re my whole heart!! but i think shin ae should date (at least platonically) or hang out with someone else first, and have someone who supports her and is her friend. dieter obviously cares for shin ae, i think they will be good. also they need some time to talk and think about their own feelings!! especially shin ae has some feelings that she doesn’t understand dhdhcjcj i hope this doesn’t sound wrong or anything! dieter is one of my favorite characters too, it would be cool if that happens first. i think they would end it in good terms and still be close and trust each other as friends! it would be healthy and until yeonggi gets better it’s going to take a long time, he doesn’t need a relationship right now (will alyssa break up with him now that he’s found guilty? it definitely isn’t favorable to her image) and then until he accepts his feelings for shin ae it’s gonna take another timeskip too 😭😭☠️ /j

OOOOH for sure!! I actually think Shieter is very very cute. I very much approve! And I definitely agree that Stalkyoo need some time to grow as people...

I had a bit of a feeling they'd end up dating when he started showing up more after the formal and especially when they went on their theme park date... and I'd love to see it come to fruition. I think they'd both enjoy it and it'd be great for them.

However, I was also aware there'd be a time-skip at some point so I thought they'd date during that (but by the end of it Shin-ae would be single).

@/cronch.monchi on Instagram has a PHENOMENAL post describing why this is (go read it! and check out her whole account while you're at it!). As someone who veered more towards YooTip, she decided to take an analytical approach to understand Stalkyoo's broad appeal (this is kind of funny to me, as someone who always understood Stalkyoo's appeal lmao).

She describes how Stalkyoo provides the right balance between volatility and stability; narrative potential and current compatibility. YooTip is too volatile and uncertain (it's something that can only begin to be built after a few years, after all), but Shieter doesn't have much narrative potential.

While Dieter is sweet, he is a minor character. She says that if Shieter happens, a lot of it would be off screen. And if it were endgame, romance would thus be not as important to ILY, which isn't a romance story to begin with.

I disagree somewhat with that last assertion.

Yes, there is more going on than romance — it isn't the primary driver of the plot nor the character motivations.

But, I'll argue that Shieter being endgame would transgress what we've already seen. It would be disappointing.

And this is due to more than just the future narrative potential of Stalkyoo — the progress in their relationship (platonic and romantic) has already been woven into the narrative. It's essential to the story of I Love Yoo.

Of course this may be due to my bias, since I've already decided I like Stalkyoo I guess... but I like Stalkyoo because I saw it in the work. I even had a period of time where I thought ILY would be cynical and sUbVerSIVe, and not have a major romantic subplot. but then I realized, "but it's literally right there" and then i started writing analyses so eh. im both the worst and best type of person to ask about stalkyoo's potential.

Anyways, I struggle to fathom how that'd work with all the development so far. It'd just be a total waste of what's been building. Being subversive isn't cool because "haha sike" but because it offers something refreshing that works with the story being told.

Dieter's lovely though and I do sincerely hope he and Shin-ae have a friendly break-up. (pls, yes I understand the irony of already wishing an amicable end for a relationship that hasn't even happened yet 💀💀)

Essentially, Stalkyoo seems like the best way to capitalize on what's been going on so far. Of course this depends on the course of the future story... but I have a sense we're wrapping up season 1 soon... and it'd be weird to throw away the stalkyoo subtext and subplot... unless it were to be built on later.