#or like. idk. looks out of place and the design somehow does not look fitting despite the comparative simplicity

[skunkes]

Not saying this with hater intent but. anyone else not like Melinoë's design in Hades 2.

[blood-starved-beast]

Wouldn't say it's the best character design in Hades game franchise (that is subjective) but for me personally Eris Hades game II has to be my favorite design in the whole IP.

From Hades game I the goddess of strife was established to be source of conflict within the narrative - she is a bearer of the Adamant Rail - something that goes against the narrative setting of the story within Ancient Times. They build further on this anachronism by evoking Punk aesthetic - we see her short hair, wild colors, studded corset, torn clothes, wild makeup (which double as evoking her own wings), her band makes her look like she's got tattoos, eating plastic wrapped snacks, her disregard for typical social norms. Her and Exagryph both are anachronistic and therefore punk by the aesthetics of the game. While also not being too off - she wears a chiton still. As well as that braided bra style idk what's it called.

Her design simultaneously works withing the narrative of the story. I've already talked a bit here how she scratches out the Moon Sigil on her gorget and wears it upside down on her face to opposed the Unseen. But that sigil on her face also golden - which we've specifically associate with Chronos, the Unseen's Enemy (who prefer silver). It's also gold like her Iconic Golden Apple, the symbol of her most famous crime. Eris's design also bears the colors of the Three Eriynes - who in the first game, serve as a much more personal antagonist and foil to Zagreus the protagonist there. Here, Eris is Mel's most personal guardian boss outside of Hecate - they've got beef with each other, and that's likely due to their past history.

The colors and the tassels to me also recall the jester archetype. The jester in history was tasked to entertain the king and also dole out information that the royals might not want to hear (and do so without getting killed cause rule of funny). Eris is the most verbally opposed to Mel - challenges her on her motivations especially. Why is she so hell bent on this task when she doesn't even know her family (who she might not fit in with)? What does she plan to do with her life then? Loosen up! Which she tries to get Mel to do - by fighting her to the death. "This is for your own good Trouble" and all. The Jester indeed.

This conflict leads me to another detail - Eris is an excellent enemy foil to Melinoe. Melinoe who is neat and proper compared to crass and messy Eris. Melinoe who is hellbent on restoring an Order she's got no familiarity with. Eris, who lived it and opposes it. Melinoe who's a slave to her task and whose future post-task is a big Question Mark - she's never considered it, never questions it. Eris who also lives in the present but specifically to have freedom and hedonistic-ally strife causing as possible. Melinoe who has an insane level of rizz and is absolutely adored by all around her - but is unaware of the effect she has on others but somehow is fixated on Eris herself. Eris, who is loathed by all and actively is aware of the effect she has on people at all times and intentionally cultivates a negative response from them - with the exception of Melinoe, where her troublemaking serves a dual purpose of exasperating her but also luring her in. Melinoe and Eris both are estranged from their birth families - Melinoe due to circumstances leading to nurture, Eris due to her nature. Melinoe, who Chronos describes as not fitting anywhere despite her clawing for a place in said world, Eris who had no place to begin with, and continues to dig herself out of each subsequent one. I could go on.

It's such a great foil dynamic for a boss. I love Eris.

[anonymouscheeses]

Vaggie and Valentino are connected and no one has been talking about it (I think 😭)

Brutha. I've always known this but like these two are surface level similar yet so SO SO SOOOO different its terrifying.

Question might be, why tf am I comparing the r*pist and the beautiful, gorgeous, fantastic, inspiring, humble, generous, smeggsy, former angel?

Simply because they are both moth demon's that speak Spanish. It's a bit too specific. And rlly that's kind of all I have right now. Sure, you could say "erm actually, Vaggie isn't a moth demon 🤓" and ur probably right. But if she's not, why is it that in her redesign for the show they lean into the moth hair? It's look much MUCH more moth than in the pilot. So if Viv wanted to stray away from the moth theme, why make it look more like that? She may not he exactly a moth demon but she does have intentional moth features. Perhaps Vaggie just disguised herself like that, either way, still a connection..

I would get it if one of them were in helluva boss jst as a way to recycle and make room or whatever. But no, they are in the same show, same world, same ring of hell, same city(I think). It's a weird connection and I kind of don't want it to exist. Like at all. Because if they are connected I can't think of any other way they are except that Val could be a fallen angel. Which I CANT imagine. Unless Vaggie is like, a winner that became an exterminator, but genuinely that would be a bit complex. But what isn't in this show. Then again, Adam said he created her, or that could be a metaphor for that Vaggie was never noticed as a human and just brushed off to the side so therefore Adam "created" her (created a name and image/status of her). But that's unlikely, I don't they would be that smart lmao.

Personality wise, they both have anger issues. Pilot Vaggie and show Valentino are more alike but show Vaggie is still somewhat spicy. They also both have hot voices, sorry not sorry, like fuck Val (not literally) but his voice is BAZINGA 😍 and I'm a simp for Stephanie Beatriz. I'm a simple gal.

Design wise they have rare commonalities. They are both heavily red but thats everyone in the show it make my eyes bleed. But. A weird thing someone pointed out in a slideshow on tiktok is that show Valentino has white stripes on his hips. Me personally I'm not sure what to think about it really. Like I mean it IS a new detail that spawned AFTER the pilot and it is like... on the EXACT place. But like, it's such a weird thing to include when it's such a common pose yknow?

Also the X's on the boobs are so sensual I cannot be the only one. And ykno Val is the king of sensual (🤮)

Maybe you could be asking, "if Val and Vaggie r connected jst because they are moth demons then that jst means that anyone that are the same species are somehow tied to eachother huh? 🤓" like Angel Dust and Zestial. But what I think differs from that is the fact these two have actual big similarities apart from jst the fact they are moths. Like what I just explained, personality, design, both speak Spanish. While Angel Dust and Zestial are only just both spiders. Angel's reason for being a spider is due to the ykno, "web of crime" thing. And Zesty man? Idk he probably got bit and fucking died by a poisonous spider. I mean, health shit wasn't exactly great back in his ye olde time.

For Val and Vaggie we have NO idea why they are moths

But I did find this! From google AI.....? (I didn't even know that was a thing..) but, I think it's true. It explains the dynamic with Angel alot and I think that's an interesting detail.

Which could also apply to Vaggie because of her hyper-dependency on Charlie.

Plus this fits Vaggie so. SO much. If my theory that Vaggie just disguised herself as a moth to blend in then that would be a good connection to the entire moth motif. Love, I don't even need to explain.

It can fit Val too if you think abt the disguise part a bit. Like he disguises himself as this charming and calming figure to avoid suspicion and lure victims... fucking creepy 🤮

Also in Vaggie's past designs she was more moth.

Here is like. ONE image I could find that wasn't too blurry. Like I wouldn't say it's heavy moth but I think if you asked me what insect she was based off I would guess moth in like a few minutes. The colors being dark, the fluffy legwarmers. Yum, that's a mothy. (THIS DESIGN YHO KINDA PISSES ME OFF. WHY IS THERE THE FEMALE SIGN OK HER SHIRY I THOUGHT SHE WAS STRAIGHT IN THIS VER??? also str8 vaggie scares me don't ever bring up that thing around me. They are NOT the same. #notmyvagina)

From what I know there aren't any previous old beta designs of Valentino, so he was likely made for the show specifically.

Overall, they are both sexy Spanish speakers who are moth demons, in the same show, oddly specific connected design choices, and have some anger issues.

Oh also they both hate Angel Dust 💜

[mewkwota]

hello, if i may join in on the character ask thingy, may i request mmx zero? (idk how much you know about that series, but just thought i would shoot my shot, also your art is a treat to see :D)

My unfocused self misread your question and I thought you said MMZ somehow, so here we go, you got two Zeros. (It's the same guy)

Send Me a Character

And I will tell you my:

First impression Following my deep dive into the Classic series, I would simultaneously check out the X series. So I'm actually fairly familiar with a good chunk of the characters there, especially X and Zero.

For those who have tracked me down here from the Deviantart days, you'd see I worked greatly on Classic and X prior to delving more personally into Battle Network (as I should've been in the first place).

Zero's design is a bit busier than X's, but I still find parts of it to be appealing. And I made it a very known fact my kiddo's hair is derived from his. So I am not immune to the pretty locks either. ^^;

I was also intrigued with his backstory and character. You may notice a big theme I like to work with in this series is "family", especially since it typically involves unconventional ones that aren't quite related by blood (they're robots, but also Zero's case is complicated). So not only did I find it interesting to depict a disconnect of Zero from his "roots", but he also finds some connection in X's side. Maybe not from everyone, but at least Dr. Light tries to understand him, even in-game.

And of course, I love seeing his dynamic with X, even when it's the very simple interactions. They compliment each other so well, especially since they don't quite fit in anywhere else.

I also like that Zero's VA gave him such a unique voice, the tone Mr. Gilbertson uses sounds so pleasant in my ears.

Impression now I still think Zero is appealing, and nothing much has changed there. But I don't think you can make me choose between him or his buddy.

I am aware of his great bias in the community for how overshadowingly cool he is, but I'll take him over the other Ryoutarou Okiayu character that does virtually the same thing elsewhere. Maybe it's because he's a robot, and I have a soft spot for them.

Favorite moment He and X get called "cute" in PxZ2 and that guy got cranky about it. Though, Zero didn't quite deny it in his response either.

"We may look cute, lady. But..." Yes that's because you two are.

Idea for a story A lot of people, me included, seem to agree that Zero and Roll could get along well. But wouldn't you wanna be on good terms with your best friend's older sister? Anywho, I have a few lighthearted ideas where the two would hangout, one of which involves working together to get something for X's birthday.

After all, wouldn't your best friend's older sister probably know what he wants the most?

Unpopular opinion I would pick MMX Zero over MMZ Zero any day. I don't think the story or atmosphere of the Zero series is bad, not at all! The premise and everything is a very unique turn in the franchise. However, it's just not my thing personally. Maybe other people ruined it for me.

Favorite relationship Take a look at the years upon years of art I have of this guy (and half the things I said here) and I think it'd be obvious. L(///L )

Favorite headcanon This is partly a friend's fault, but Zero's favorite spot is X's right shoulder. He'll get a little protective over it.

[gemsofgreece]

Η ΦΟΝΙΣΣΑ (The Murderess): A film review

My cinecritic side greets you again! This time I watched The Murderess, (only!) half a year after its release. I had to watch this one because it is based on my favourite Greek book, written by Alexandros Papadiamantis, which is also one of the most acclaimed Greek stories.

I knew that the movie would be underwhelming compared to the book because there was not any chance a movie could match it. Therefore it was unsurprising that I had this watered down response to it. It is a good movie, it has several merits. If you have read the book however, you tend to focus on the drawbacks and those are very prominent.

My biggest issue was the understandable choice to make adjustments to the story, in order to fill it some more, because the original is a short story. Reasonable, yet the adjustments made were in my opinion poorly thought out for several reasons.

PROS:

The cinematography is amazing. I also liked the camera work. Congratulations to Eva Nathena, very neat job. Very haunting atmosphere, great scenery chosen. We need more creative direction in Greek movies, so this was refreshing. However, I have some criticism about it too, below.

The elements of the folk culture and the architecture were beautiful and very interesting. The movie in general is stylized (in an appropiate way) and I have no problem with this at all. Nathena's first profession is actually costume designer, so her attention to detail makes total sense.

The score is imposing and appropriately used.

Karabeti has the leading role. Obviously, the acting is great. I will say that I had imagined Frankogiannou different in my mind, even less refined or, idk less agile?, but that doesn't mean her approach is not valid.

Okay this is silly but it was a long time since I read the book and that moment when Frankogiannou says to her daughter "Σα σ' ακούω, θυγατέρα", a reference to her favourite catchphrase, it brought back the memory I had forgotten and I nearly cheered!

I did not like the liberties taken in the screenplay but I LOVED Maria Protopappa as Frankogiannou's mother. This character does not exist in the book but I don't care, she was amazing. Honestly she doesn't do all that much but her presence, so DORIC so STERN so SCARY. A perfect portayal of an abusive, misogynistic mother. I don't know, she was chilling, unpopular opinion but somehow I liked her more than Karabeti. Of course I acknowledge Karabeti's part was a lot harder.

Protopappa as Frankogiannou's mother, facing the camera.

CONS:

I already praised the cinematography, right? Yes, it was good but I would appreciate it more if the story actually took place in Mani! The story however takes place in Skiathos, not Mani! Whereas the choice to film such a dark story in an ominous place like Mani seems fitting, the true challenge would be to bring it to life in a happy looking place like Skiathos, where it is supposed to have happened after all. In short, the scenery fits the story but it was also a cheap trick to avoid making the direction more challenging. If foreign followers read this, Nathena in short said "I have a very dark movie to direct so I'll shoot it in this place

so I will avoid filming it in its original place which looks like this:"

I mean, the scenery looked awesome but you get what I mean? Moreover, my point is that she removed a lot of the realism from the movie - the scenery looks so gloomy, the people are so pensive, it kind of creates a type of dystopia where the Murderess's tale is just another part of it and not a shocking outlier.

[this paragraph contains spoilers]Which brings me to the second point. For anyone who doesn't know, the Murderess was written in 1903 by Alexandros Papadiamantis, a man, and it is one of the very first feminist literary works quite possibly on an international level. The way the inequality against women is portrayed in the book is so... novel and unique and genius and groundbreaking for its time and even for today, that I loathed to see it getting a coating of the standard contemporary mass feminist perspective. Because on its own, it was in my opinion far more successful and piercing. There are a lot of changes made in the film. Essentially, all men are depicted as straight out monsters and the only man who was probably not a monster, the priest, is blind. Get it? As in, blind to the evilness. That level of symbolism, come on, guys. Too much. Furthermore, the movie makes the whole community of the town in some way or another complicit to what is happening. That was horrible in my opinion. Instead of showing how inequality and hardship created an outlier whose mind got in a really bad place, like Papadiamantis did, the movie just creates a whole society of horror, where most everyone is a criminal. What is this, the Lord of the Flies? Men are viewed as problematic in Papadiamantis' book as well but in a more realistic way, some being absent, some being indifferent husbands, some being lazy, some rejoicing in their gender privilege and living expecting everything from women. But in the movie ALL of them are !Spoiler! kin rapists and kin killers??????The fuck?????? Live your myth in Greece, I suppose. [SPOILER] The incident of female infant killing by poor people who had no money to raise and provide a dowry for their daughters was indeed a phenomenon in Greece and elsewhere before the abolition of this custom (as pointed out in the movie credits), maybe it still is in some countries, but I want to believe that it wasn't happening in the way that it happens in this movie. In the movie this town's people are one step away from hiring her as a professional baby killer. Like, that wasn't how it was happening or how often it was happening. They turned a documented crime of the past into a custom?! A person who was suspected to do that did not casually live amongst the rest with their family as if everything was alright. Which is why it is stupid in the film that even though most everybody has asked her help (apparently in this movie they were giving birth everyday to 58259 girls and 0.1 boys), then everyone turns against her and wants her arrested. In short, she was portrayed almost as a scapegoat and I did not like this. It's like abdicating her a lot from her guilt. She is a tragic character indeed but she is not a scapegoat. And in the book the townfolk had no idea what she was doing until it became obvious.

At least a little touch of the extremely heavy, drool-enducing Skiathian dialect Papadiamantis was known for using was greatly missed. Then again there was nothing from Skiathos in this movie whatsoever. Even the folk attire was not Skiathian. It looked like a mix of Peloponnesian and Roumeliote, totally irrelevant. It wasn't even Maniot, I think.

Too. Many. Symbolic. Scenes. It made sense to add them but I mostly enjoyed only the ones with Protopappa.

The acting of the supporting cast was subpar in my opinion. Not bad necessarily but too theatrical for my taste.

So, with all this in mind but also taking into account that someone may watch it without having read the book first, I give it a 7+/10. If you compare it to the book, it must fall to a 6+/10. My recommendation? Watch the movie if you want but read the book ASAP.

[striveattemptfail]

does anyone have tips on how to make a book collection ✨Look Pretty✨ when all the books are radically different sizes, genres, and designs?

this is the best i got and I'm Upset bc it doesn't look like anything i see on pinterest* LMAO

for reference: this is soooo far from all the books i own. this is probably 15% of my collection—if that. i have artbooks, biographies, magazines, newspapers, fanzines, manga, graphic novels, individual comic issues, children's picture books, regular paperback novels, and so. much. more. i have the space to house them—i just dunno how to fit em all on a shelf

what i've done in the past is sort by height and it was an awful system to maintain bc adding to my collection meant i kept shifting books everywhere trying to keep a virtually unachievable pattern. it also was a horrible organizational system bc all subject matter was mixed up and trying to find a specific book only happened if i actually remembered the exact place i put it

(spoiler alert: i never remembered where anything was. i'd just pull out books and hope it was the one i needed lol)

this time around, i've actually sorted my non-fiction stuff by category/genre, but the above photos are what i ended up with and I'm Unsatisfied by these results. i'm also planning to sort my fictional stuff by author, so maybe that'll go better? but idk y'all (=_=)

if anyone wants to reply/reblog this post with any tips (or photos!) of your own book collection, pls feel free bc i'm pulling at straws here tryna figure out wth i should do we these books. my dms are also open if you'd rather not reply publicly~!

* disclaimer: i'm well aware nothing i do will make my shelves looking like something off pinterest simply due to my own personal aesthetic preferences. that said, it'd be nice to display my books in a better way than "make em all fit on a shelf somehow" /o\

[wetbloodworm]

still in AIverse hell, now considering those kids in dnd au

the first question is whether i stick more to their canon for inspiration or if i lean more towards the generic human AU i've got. the problem with the latter is that there isn't much plot or really any kind of foundation there, it's just 'modern times and also zeph is human'. so my instinct is to go the canon route, so that i at least have a starting point for whatever kind of story is going on

OKAY so the next question that follows is what the fuck is zeph's deal here. warforged are the robot equivalents in dnd but that doesn't feel right, both in appearance and especially in the species features. i think reborn is actually a better fit for him? reborn origins can be all over the place and there are examples of reborn having manufactured bodies. i think that's a more fun space to play in here, zeph already has straight-up 'sentient robot' in his canon, why not complicate the situation here. throw in some mad science. so he's a conglomeration of organic and artificial parts plus some random soul that got snatched up for the experiment. maybe he's powered by a soul gem? potentially multiple soul gems? i can include crystals in his design that way fuck yeah. so yeah, science/magic experiment that's awakened without any memories and very quickly decides uh he wants no part in this actually? this feels kinda... real fucked up. so. uh. bye

zeph escaping the necromancer somehow, he meets up with andrew eventually b/c gotta get my boys together, but we’ll touch on that later. i think zeph does get occasional flashes of memories from his previous life (lives, if there's multiple gems) but largely he just feels hugely uncomfortable and tries to ignore them. he doesn't fully conceptualize those memories as HIS, more like... he views himself as a new person with an unfortunately stolen soul. not his fault, but that person had to die for him to be here now, and he doesn't like thinking about it.

idk what class he'd be? a caster of some kind makes sense to me. sorcerer? or potentially warlock? looked up subclasses and i think warlock w/ The Undead as his patron. he wasn’t the one that made the pact, the necromancer was during his creation. zeph isn’t like... 100% sure that his patron can’t just fucking un-awaken him for not doing as instructed so he lives in fear of his patron contacting him.

now andrew... i know immediately that he's a martial class. just his vibe. fighter, i think? fighter feels the most right out of everything, and i like the cavalier subclass. it mentions that cavalier are usually born among nobility and that feels right for him. for species... half-elf sounds right. and i just really like the idea of andrew as an adventurer! exploring the world, taking on jobs as they come, trying to help people! i’m deciding now that he’s traveling with sada (air genasi artificer), aimee (half-elf ranger), and gaige (elf wizard).

andrew’s situation is much simpler than zeph’s so i don’t have as much to say about him unfortunately, sorry my son. but he and zeph run into each other shortly after zeph has escaped. i don’t know exactly how they meet, but i know that zeph would feel safer in a group than alone, and also he hasn’t been awakened for very long with only spotty memories so there’s a lot of shit he needs help with, so he might’ve been seeking a group to travel with.

i’m losing interest in this post and i don’t want it sitting in my drafts forever so we’re ending it here. i’m probably going to make character sheets tbh

[faithfromanewperspective]

okay okay okay the thing about suburbia is it’s so so viscerally imagery I feel like it can speak to So Many People and feel like it’s their experience of suburbia too, and as an urban designer it makes it Ultimate Song for me as it really brings together the people’s experience of the city, any city, and that really is what I hope to do in the building layout and public spaces etc I design. You’ve made me really want to go to Chicago!! And i will say it does sound so so similar to sprawling suburban Southside Sydney or various places in new south wales I do assume it’s written about (though I know very little about these guys’ background compared to say 5sos). even in queensland the highway lights ARE broken near my parents’ place too anyway. I love the feeling of never quite fitting in it portrays and wanting more than what this place and it’s people offer (same vibe as a lot of early 5sos stuff (like people say she looks so perfect is about sex but to me it’s All This, the excitement of ‘life could be better bc there’s someone I love and hope in new places’ and idk if you relate as a neurodivergent whose needs are never really properly met by Surroundings you probably do anyway) but it somehow PAIRS IT WITH NOSTALGIA LIKE IM THE BOY THAT GOT AWAY and the whole second verse about a past love (?) like that’s full tis the damn season territory and it’s the full mixed relationship w hometown I love it. not to mention the rural to urban migration themes it covers on like, fast car by tracy chapman expertise levels.

anyway if you’re looking for recs for your fic (and you didn’t ask I know) song wise there’s another song called suburbia by troye sivan that’s also super super nostalgic and imagery-y and if you’re looking for needs unmet neurodivergent restlessness you’ve got the good old (proper old for them) gotta get out by 5sos (and social casualty as well and their beloved socialist anthem hey everybody but I’ll move on from them), getaway by ross copperman. I feel like Lone Ranger by rachel platten really captures some of it too. unfortunately I can’t think of any other short stack songs that fit in this category and I wish they did more because I adore suburbia I think it’s a masterpiece that should win prizes they did it so well. I do like a lot of their other songs but idk which you’ll like in the rest of their discography!! (maybe live4 I’m not sure but it’s a cool one) anyway I’m so glad it did speak to you there’s something about having that hometown experience held and witnessed by a piece of beautiful art and knowing there are people out there who wrote this song and others who listen and relate to it that get it!!

looking forward to your fic!!

I GOT YOU INTO SHORT STACK DID I

the one song, i haven't had the mental spoons to listen to the rest of their catalogue. but i spent my child-childhood in south side greater chicago, land of the trains, of the food deserts, of the tree-lined streets and the pothole-cracked pavement, of white castle and the cal sag canal and the rock island line from la salle st. station to joliet with its green-tinted windows that left you seeing pink when you disembarked on your way home in the muggy wind-swept smell-the-river hear-the-highway see-the-streetlamps not-truly-dark of your home neighborhood where the night sky is pink as pedialyte any time it's clouded over and you walk home with your father from the station passed the closed businesses of western avenue and the empty playground of your school and when you go past the clinic on the corner there are rabbits in the yard. that song spoke to me.

[theringers]

V-card anon: hi sorry about that first ask i kinda went into a fugue state (spelling?) altered state of reality maybe when i wrote that and damn near outlined a fic in your inbox

The way we played hot seat was either part of a larger drinking game when a certain card was pulled from a deck, or just on it's own. You sit in a circle, everyone has a drink, usually a beer or cider. In the card pull version, the one who pulls the card gets asked a question by every person playing and if they refuse to answer they drink from their drink. In the standalone, you do that but everyone gets a turn being asked until people get bored and leave. Fun way to find out shit about people. Usually the unwritten rule is that you can't lie. I imagine everyone sitting on shitty chouches and chairs in a semi circle around a table full of cups and bottles playing it

Questions i have been asked: are you a top or bottom? Do you like anal? Wheres the weirdest place you've fucked? Body count? Favorite position (sexual)? Fuck marry kill/ignore people in this room (EVERY TIME I PLAYED I GOT THIS QUESTION)? Tits or ass or other? Favorite non sexual body part ex. Thigh? Ideal fuck buddy? Sex regrets? Etc

Also more weird details i have head cannoned out for some drivers and most likely does not fit with irl personalities, do with this what you will, use it or don't i just have feelings. Also everyone is like compressed in age to like 20-27ish except for some of the grid who i will just think of as younger alumns who come back:

Danny R: social chair, owns a jeep he takes the doors off of in the summer, walks girls home at night to make sure they're ok, tries to DJ house events and is rebuffed by literally everyone, has like 30 pairs of vans you trip over in his room, stolen roadsigns everywhere, masters in something arigcultural or physiological, cutoff frat shirts for days, fuckboy but nice, a bit cringe, will drive around with you at night so you can scream, met reader bc she had a band tee on and wanted to talk to her about it (no gatekeeping)

Charles: some kind of engineering or math degree but no one has any idea how the fuck he's gotten so far, 4.0 never studies, games with other house members, will show up at events randomly you will have no idea how he gets on your couch but he is there, the best and worst taste in clothes, is the only one allowed to play the piano in the house, sweet, cannot help you with studies but is always down for helping you out after, has to be reminded to clean stuff, disaster bi, reader met his gf first and they probably met through that

Pierre: good fashion and music taste, shirt is gone halfway through the night, also fuckboy but wholesome, actually studies, plays a sport for sure probably soccer in some way either club or Division he's too good for rec, will hold your hair back so you can throw up, will tell you your outfit sucks, good at math, also part of the squad that games, econ major, workout buddies with reader anday have taken a math class together

Max: is part of the hockey team he will go pro, also actually studies, got into gaming because of Charles, has the nicest car, is serious until he gets a couple drinks in him, he and Daniel are close and roomed together at some point, owns like 30 sets of the same outfit a white tee and jeans, knows reader through Dan and they get dragged by him to some of the same stuff

Lando: is a pledge or new member his big is Carlos, undeclared major, just happy to be here, gaming squad, used to play lacrosse or something equally obscure, king of knowing where the good snacks are, weirdly good at beer pong, growing into a fuckboy wholesomeness level tbd, probably sweet with reader as she helped him through a blackout or something, met her because she's basically house mom for some of the new boys (the kind of mom who will teach you to do laundry or iron ONCE)

Carlos: hockey flow but does not play hockey, actually studies and is smarter than what people give him credit for, came from a private high school and uni really opened his horizons, also good study buddy, gets along with most people, goes to office hours the most out of the actually studies gang, fun at parties, owns the frat dogs, he and reader met at Office hours (they were the only students) and found they had mutual friends too

Lewis: is/was president of frat, great grades greater bod, did full evolution from fuckboy to good man, has the back tests and the moral support, up for late noght talks about life, definitely was a D1 athlete, best fashion game, implemented no hazing policy, fits into notable alum or PhD category

Mick: undergrad like Lando, also plays soccer or something, too sweet, also walks girls home/holds your hair back etc, cleans parts of the house that aren't his responsibility, higher alcohol tolerance than you expect, everyone is bizarrely protective of him, legacy member (his dad was a legend), drives a motorbike around campus and can't decide between law and psychology, actually studies, met reader through the frat and she would die for him, brings her to class on the bike sometimes because the bike is faster

George: business major, frat treasurer, three ring binder business casual in class kind of guy, nice enough, shirt comes off when drunk, runs marathons and a podcast about investments, best notes in the game and great study partner, actually studies, is drinking monster at 6AM but not because he stayed up late, he and reader met through the frat and sometimes drink wine and bitch together

Lance: hockey player, legacy member, studies sometimes, sarcasm on point, great at stack cup, very chill, knows every good nap spot on campus, also has high alcohol tolerance, is the kind of person who does well in the cold but does not like it, wears headphones so people don't talk to him, great one on one but not in crowds, business major and minor in computer science, probably also met thru Lance's gf but vibe as more introverted people and will cover for each other if one does not want to go out

Nicky: a good boy, part of the walks people home squad, sets up designated drivers for parties, good snack game, future in medical field, good listener, pretty good study buddy, midnight snack enabler, met reader through frat and his gf he and reader are on babysitting duty together sometimes when others get too drunk/high

Yuki: also a pledge or new, majoring in games or computer science as they gave me the same energy as him, games squad, bit of a mad lad, has several stolen street signs, good, met reader through frat and Yuki is the only one patient enough to explain some games to reader, they cuss people out on mic

Esteban: good man, has a full ride scholarship, actually studies, also good study buddy, Dan's little, plays soccer but maybe on a rec team because he prioritizes school, very sweet guy as well, probably chose a really practical major/dual major, met reader through Dan and are also dragged similar places by him

Antonio: manbun, philosophy or classics major possibly business dual, generally good natured but can be seen supplying his own wine at parties, used to be really into metal but kept the hair, does not know that people find him attractive, soccer boi, met reader through frat and she's the only one who will (pretend) to listen to him rant about philosophy

Alex Albon: another full scholarship guy, somehow gets along with everyone, switched majors due to an asshole professor, electrical engineering or computer engineering, actually studies, helps with frat pets,will show you pictures of his cats at home, sweetie, another contender for will hold your hair or walk you home, probably met reader through a class or club and found they had mutual friends and that reader is friends with his gf

Notable alums:

Checo - dad, successful in finance somehow (he looks like an really successful accountant of CFO to me idk why)

Kimi - dad but people forget he is, holds the record for most drinks in 24 hours that will never be come close to by anyone else, shows up on random alum weekends with 2 kegs, legally cannot tell you what he does or he would actually have to murder you

Valterri - was good at a sport when he was there, now a very effective lead engineer at an architectural firm

Seb - environmental or mechanical engineering, all around good guy with someone the best grades in frat history

Alonso - legendary for sexual exploits (consensual)

Anyone I put as actually studies is probably the type reader would hang around for more serious stuff/schoolwork and would probably be closer to, with the exception of Dan bc I feel like he'd be like we're friends now :)) we shall hang or Charles bc he will just show up. I also imagine she has a pretty good friendship with any existing gf, however if a driver does have a gf and he is the love interest sorry bb girl u gotta go for the purposes of this fic

Sorry this is so long hahaaaaaaa glad you liked my Charles thoughts ilu

i honestly wasn’t going to share this like the rest of the anon asks i’ve gotten that i keep close to my heart but this was just too good to keep to myself.

LOOK! AT! THIS!

f1 drivers as frat bros/college students headcannon

i’m writing a series - each “chapter” will be a smut with a different frat bro and i’m hoping to post a sneak peek this week some time but here’s something to hold you over and give you some ideas

to my vcard anon - i appreciate this so much. my inbox is always open for ur thoughts bc they are SO GOOD !! can’t wait for you to read the first part of the series bby

PS if some of this doesn’t make sense to u feel free to send in asks (i know a lot of this is focused on american college culture so if u don’t get it i’m happy to explain)

[pixeljade]

Anyways things WoW does well:

1) Their environment design in 95% of the game is TOP TIER, like most zones feel real, and theres plenty of nooks and crannies to explore.

2) the dungeon progression is incredibly fun, they actually design them based on real world ride design principles, and it really shows in some places like Karazhan

3) the music, especially in the pre-shadowlands expansions, is so fucking excellent. There's tracks i listen to for fun to this very day.

4) the two-faction system genuinely creates some fun and interesting pvp experience if thats your jam

5) the lore is surprisingly dynamic, in that it is a world where almost any story could fit into. Its got fantasy as a base, sure, but some entire expacs are sci-fi, and many areas dip into horror--sometimes even genuinely scary and unsettling stuff, like a lot of Battle for Azeroth.

6) Several overtly queer characters, including trans ones, and the creator of the game series even said no matter what anyone else says, trans people are canon in world of warcraft. (Still would be nice if they banned people for being shitheads more, but hey. At least i feel included in the game itself)

7) its honestly just fun for most of it! A lot of people complain about it feeling like a job, but it only feels that way if you do raid progression or competitive pvp. If you stick with engaging with it on a casual level, it doesnt feel nearly like that!

Things that Homestuck does really well:

1) the characters are some of the most unique you will ever encounter. Somehow there's a ton of characters and almost none of them feel like a cheap archetype or a stock character.

2) great music as well! Toby Fox famously came from Homestuck and many others are just as great as him. There's also an absurd amount of music to it too!

3) The sense of humor is fucking unmatched. I really cant begin to describe how much Homestuck UNDERSTOOD internet culture, and shaped it during its era. A solid chunk of it is still memed about today.

4) the use of themes and motifs is fucking insane? Like Andrew Hussie mixes and matches symbols like chess and playing cards and somehow makes it all make sense, and have metaphorical implications. Theres references and homages which people are uncovering in basically every line to this very day. Theres so much you can pick apart in this story, and yet, none of it is necessary to enjoy it! Its just there if you wanna be a nerd about it!

5) also has a ton of overtly queer characters! Almost every single character is revealed to be queer in some capacity by the end. A lot of folks complain that it isnt queer until later, but like...its a story about a bunch of teens. They figure out they are queer as the story progresses, and its very fun to watch them figure it out.

6) a ton of incredibly unique worldbuilding! Like, the plot is often treated as secondary to the characters, but the way the world is built up around them is incredible. I cant really describe it but its a slow build that creeps up on you and then suddenly youre looking up what your classpect is and learning about an entire culture of trolls so fleshed-out it rivals JRR Tolkien.

Idk. Theres absolutely reasons to hate both of these creations, but im quite sick of the negativity when theres so much good and the bad parts are such a small part of both of them. Give em a try, and see for yourself, before cringing at the idea of them!

WoW is in the same category as Homestuck for me, where people will cringe at the very idea that theres anything positive that could be said about them but those same people have never even really touched them theyre just going on reputation and it tells me immediately that that person is someone who is incapable of thinking for themselves. Yet at the same time both of them very much are flawed creations that a lot of complaints ARE valid about, but nobody engages enough with the actual creation because they HEARD its awful and/or the fans of it are SO annoying so their opinions are all secondhand, thirdhand, or more

[hyperfixatinglove]

Hii!!! 1, 6, 10 and 13 for the meta asks!😁😁

1. how did you discover your f/o’s content?

I think I discovered it through yt? I watch a lot of gaming videos so sometimes yt just recommends random games to me and I think wat//ch dogs was one of them. I vaguely also knew abt the graphics etc controversy because I sometimes watch top x number videos about games.

I wasn't interested in Aiden's source at the time (this must've been around 2015 or something idk I have the worst memory with dates / years) and wasn't for long time. Suddenly his game just became interesting to me and I hyperfixated on it big time. The rest is history or something.

6. if your f/o is from a series, which episode/movie/game/book of their source content is your favorite?

First game obviously.

He's also in Legion (2nd sequel) as DLC character but his design is so far off what I imagine Older!Aiden to be AND Jackson is so wildly different to what I imagined him to be at 26??

Does this look like the same person to you??? I get that ppl don't stay the same (Jacks is 8 in 1) but?? this??

Also the downgrade of Aiden just...

I'm going to say it; that beard does NOT fit him.

Aside from.. superficial stuff like this, the way his dialogue is written is far too generic (at least in main game or something? I can't shake the feeling his dialogue is off somehow even when his VA did reprise the role or I don't like change this badly lmao) and doesn't FEEL like HIM at all. Also him working WITH Dedsec as whole when in Chicago he explicitly refused is bit, wtf moment for me (yes I'm aware that both San Francisco and London Dedsec are different from Chicago!Dedsec and his mind can change but?? still??) Also I can't see Aiden tolerating Wrench at all. He didn't as DLC reveals so anyway.

Also the whole "he's in coma and his mind is this Silent Hill-esque hellscape bc he never moved on from Lena's death in last 10+ years for majority of DLC" plot is just.. I'm letting out the biggest most annoyed sigh. (Him digging his own grave in the coma dream was kinda neat as it's sad tho)

All in all his inclusion felt like poor attempt at some sort of pandering or something. No effort.

Also he's mentioned to be homeless in Legion?? When in books he has safe room in house he rents to elderly?? He has his container safe houses?? He can just steal money and rent some place??

The only thing I kinda give to Legion is canonically him & Jacks & Nicky had no contact for years. Also the fact that Jacks is bitter and angry at Aiden bc he aggravated his PTSD and other shit.

I did like his short cameo in 2, where he's stuck in cell and 2's protagonist helps him out a little so he escapes by himself (and he's explicitly there to shut down human trafficking operations).

I'm kinda iffy but kinda love how he's famous in both 2 and Legion and his name and nickname Fox is known widely in hacker circles as sorta celebrity / legend type. I love it bc it's cute & makes for sorta interesting narrative but also I'm iffy bc I want him to be able to be under radar so he doesn't have to move all the damn time but he did become famous at the very end of 1 so I guess I gotta deal.

10. if you could change one thing about your f/o’s source content, would you? what would you change?

Either have the game explore more deeply how and why Aiden acts and thinks the way he does OR Clara survives

If we don't talk about story things, I'd change the gameplay from all the damn car chases to heavily feature ´hacking and potential gunfight / sneaking opportunities

13. do you have a favorite line your f/o has ever said

Favorite line I didn't mention earlier?

"You're not the first woman to tell me that" after Clara said she'd "open his world" in reference to her phone she gives Aiden that has some Dedsec stuff that makes it easier for him to hack stuff or smth. (Clara's observation of Aiden's intimidation being "very textbook" is my favorite line of hers)

Also the lines where he wonders did he get Bedbug killed are obviously my favorite because FOR ONCE Aiden actually stops to think about larger consequences of his own actions also he sounds pretty panicked there.

[axemetaphor]

im definitely not ripping off my friend by making a list of au ideas i have no siree //gonna slap this under a readmore cause i. well i say a lot. all of the time. i tried so hard to format this Good but tumblr fucked me up i am so sorry

so first-off i know i already have one WIP AU (Auckland) on ao3 so i wont talk about That one cause like. spoilers. i actualyl have it like 80% created so its likely gonna truly get finished for once and i dont wanna ruin shit

the other one ive posted about is something me and ben (catgirlrepublic) have worked on together its not at all close to done or anything but it's. a fun little crossover. Between jdate and my fuckinuhm. Original characters story “Untitled Villains Project”. the sketches of the comic version ive started is actually my pinned post 👉👈 its like the first chunk of the story, i think half of part 1? yea.

Tldr john fucking Somehow is able t oget into contact with a certain curious scientist from another reality who’d just love to study the Soy Sauce, most certainly not for her own nefarious purposes

John and Dave meet up with the scientist, her name is Boss, and her lab assistant, Toxic, and after a bit of a preliminary Vibe Check where john determines her trustworthy (which Dave doesnt agree with,) the two agree to be taken to the world UVP is set in. from there they stay in Boss’s lab (big old fucking abandoned military lab). John and Toxic are fast friends due to mutual love-of-chaos. John n Dave get to fuckin, camp out on an air mattress.

The day after they arrive, the two get split up, not exactly intentionally; big plot points of UVP are liek. Fueled by Boss sending Toxic to go fetch her “research materials,” which are usually important artifacts

Fuckin side note i guess i have to explain my dumb bullshit: Boss’s, uh, field of expertise so to speak is actually fckin, basically the scientific study of magic and superpowers n shit like that. This shit’s all real in that world. Toxic’s got fuckin superpowers, so do 4 other main characters, whatever. It’s got a bit to do with spirituality, iss Boss’s hypothesis. So she has Toxic fetch important artifacts that might have “energies” to them. The thing is actually way more fuckin complictated than that, this is just Boss’s initial hypothesis.

Motherfucking anyways. So Boss gives Toxic a job to do, and John get excited about how Cool that sounds, and ends up going with Toxic, leaving Boss and Dave alone. Neither is thrilled about this. But Dave and Boss get to have a bit of conversation (while Toxic and John are off bonding and having a good time) and come to a… mutual grudging understanding of some kind. They still dont like each other though lmao

Theres gonna be deeper shit going on but we havent sorted it out yet/tbh havent like Written For It in a while but i still like thinking about it a lot lol

Also pretty sure our endgame is john and dave steal toxic and bring them back with em lmao boss is kind of not nice and toxic would most certainly be better off in Undisclosed. Actually theyd fucking love it. Theyd become a local cryptid im sure. Undisclosed’s mothman is a teleporting spike baby.

I have. Another crossover AU that i might. Post something about for halloween? Maybe? If i have it finished?

Crosses over into, you guessed it, another one of my original-character projects. God, am i vain or something?

I promise this is just because i think blue and dave should get to team up to beat up some monsters

Quick briefing on my fuckinuh. Original character story, this one doesnt have a name (yet? Idk lol my work never actually goes anywhere sso who gives a shit). It centers around two grim reapers, Red (26, bi woman) and Blue (22, aroace agender asshole). In this reality or whatever, grim reapers function kind of like low-level office workers. They get told who’s going to die + when by some middle-management types, and upper management only involve themselves when punishment needs to be doled out. These Higher-Ups can be seen as analogous to Korrok; they’re decidedly not human, never were, and fucking terrifyingly powerful. Additionally, grim reapers are sort of .. designed to be “background noise” people. In reality theyre supernatural beings and, uh, look Real Fuckin Weird (the whole deal has a neon aesthetic im terrible at drawing uwu) but most humans just perceive them like extras in a movie. A body’s there but the camera’s not focused on it.

To the narrative: the shit starts when Red n Blue get relocated to Undisclosed. Relocation is something that just happens every now and then to reapers; they usually work in teams, but they get split up into different cities to avoid any strong bonds forming (a counter-union strategy from the Higher-Ups).

Red, Blue, John and Dave end up running into each other for the first time in a McDonalds where John n Dave are getting some 4am “hey, we just survived another horrific monster fight” celebration burgers. John and Dave are the only two people who can see how… strange Red and Blue are. Nobody else notices.

John unintentionally pisses Blue off, leading to Blue whacking him upside the head with a dildo bat. They all four get kicked out of McDonald’s. Dave and Red both are less than thrilled

Blue and John end up resolving their differences, somehow. Red and Dave briefly bond over their dumbass best friends being, well, dumbasses. They all part ways amicably.

somehow-or-other (idk yet) they end up running into each other a few more times, and eventually john invites them over to his place, and the four (plus Amy now!) get to know each other a little better

while there, Blue gets a text about some guy who's gonna die and John offers to drive them to where that's gonna go down. they take him up on the offer and get to have a bit of one-on-one conversation

after that ordeal though Blue has had Enough of people and bails, leaving John to head home alone

theres a sort of mirror-development going on with the five of em. Red, John, and Amy would all like everyone to get along, though theyre a bit tentative about it (John moreso than the other two, actually, jsut cause. well Red n Blue could still be Sauce Monsters). Dave and Blue on the other hand do Not like people enough for this shit, and Dave's not unconvinced theyre Sauce Monsters. he will not trust them until proven he should

the story's kinda nebulous but i got an idea for some Shit going down that involves both Sauce Monsters and also the Higher-Ups to have some fuckin absolute chaos go down.

Oops! All Trans

Everybody is transgender. Everyone

Ive actually workshopped this one both with ben (catgirlrepublic) and ghost (ghost-wannabe) lmao its a fun lil concept ive had from the get-go cause i mean. What’s an internet tran gonna do other than hit all their favourite media with the Everyone’s Trans beam

Dave transitioned post-high school and faked his death for it. People go missing in Undisclosed all the damned time, after all. He moved to the next city over, transitioned fully, then came back as a completely new man. Yes i know this doesnt exactly fit with the “everyone knows David from high school” thing alright, hush.

Anytime anyone brings up John’s old best friend (pre-transition Dave) John throws an entire fit like an overdramatic grieving widow. Full-on sobbing “why would you bring her up?! I miss her so much—” to the point that people just stop bringing up because Jesus Christ That Sure Is Uncomfortable KJHGFDS.

This is a scheme he and Dave came up with prior to Dave leaving, though Dave hadnt exactly anticipated John putting on this much of a performance about it— but it’s stopped Dave from ever having tto hear his deadname again, so hey.

Amy transitioned sometime in middle school/early high school. Her family was super supportive and loved her a ton and most people just know her as Amy. she was super shy her whole life really so. Yeah. people just dont think to bring it up lmao also i Feel Like big jim would absolutely wallop anyone who gave her trouble of any kind

John’s nonbinary (genderfluid specifically) and not exactly Interested in transitioning ? like hes fine with how he is. mostly.

he came out to Dave in high school but hes not out to anyone else exactly. Maybe his bandmates. Probably any other trans person in Undisclosed knows, too, cause theyre safe to tell lmao. Johns mostly a “he/him out of convenience” kinda nb who’s cool with any pronouns but does prefer they/them most. Dave and Amy use they/them when the trio are alone

Also this is a totally self-indulgent caveat that i think would be great, Dave’s actually agender but because he's transmasc and transitioned when he thought there were really only two options, and being Boy at least felt less weird than being Girl, he just kind of assumed he was a dude. It’s only through a lot of (like fucking years and years hes probably in his 30s/40s when he puts 2 and 2 together on this one) talks about gender with John that he realizes he actually feels like No Gender. Masc aesthetic with none gender.

I Just Think It’d Be Neat Is All Okay

Also Amy came out to Dave about being trans early on in them seeing each other and his response was to get very nervous before blurting out “me too” and then just being too embarrassed to talk about it for the rest of the day. Hes got a lot of hangups on talking about it actually it takes years for him to get comfortable in that

by contrast when Amy comes out to John about it his response is to yell “EYYY ME TOO” and give her a big ol hug lmao

I think itd be neatt if Amy ran a like. Transfem help/advice blog on tumblr. Kind of helped-with by John who can give her transfem nb insight for certain asks. I also just think that would be neat.

Cowboy AU - i put this one last cause its got drawings to it actually. Theyll be at the bottom

Basically just. Hey you ever watched a western. I think they look neat

This is another one me n ben have come up with lol

The soy sauce and all that shit still exist, im not sure where korrok fits in yet but ill figure it out

Theres no real like solid narrative yet ? but heres the barebones of everybody’s arcs.

John

Johns an absolute troublemaker, Of Course. Hes wanted in several towns for absolutely stupid shit. Hes a loner who shows up, causes chaos, gets drunk, does some drugs, runs away if people get too mad at him

He definitely had the same kind of deal with the soy sauce as in canon— he was at some kind of party, somebody offered it, he took it cause why the fuck wouldnt he, now he can see monsters and shit

Hes kind of a mooch also. Like. dont let him stay in your barn man he’ll never fucking leave and drink all your booze.

He runs into Dave when they happen to just, cross paths in the same town. the bullshit John stirs up ends up involving Dave in a way that makes it seem like it's his fault too, and they both get run out of town

after that he just tags along after Dave. hes decided this guy's Cool he wants to stick around. Dave is pissed at first, but not enough to shoot him or anything, and eventually, John grows on him

Dave

Dave also is a loner but unlike John hes simply so fucking awkward and bad with people. He doesnt feel like he belongs anywhere so he just travels

He’s the stereotypical Lone Ranger tbh. He wanders from town to town, solving their problems, though hed deny its out of any moral obligation (it kinda is, a little bit, tbh. He does like feeling useful). He shows up, fixes things, leaves. He's kind of a legend but most people think he's hiding something dark. other people jsut know him as that guy who farted real loud in the middle of the saloon and promptly skipped town out of sheer embarrassment. you know how it goes with Dave

He ends up involved with the Soy Sauce when a snake (not Actually a snake,) bites him. The snake’s more like the wig-monsters, really. Anyway, it injects him with the soy sauce, he fucking trips balls in the middle of the desert, he can see monsters now

He runs into John and shit goes tits-up, as said, but they become traveling buddies after that. he'd never say so, but he's glad for the company, actually. it's nice. hes not used to companionship but he feels a strange kind of easiness hanging out with John....

not sure how the Monster Dave concept will like fit in to this reality but like. trust me i want it in here. I'll Figure It Out.

Amy

Amy’s been living in a town John and Dave end up passing through and she is very curious about these two new Handsome Strangers who claim to fight monsters and just kinda. Persistently tags along til they let her join for real

Her family’s all dead, unfortunately, just like in canon, and she’s been living alone for a few years before meeting John n Dave. she had nothing left in that town to stay for, she'd been fantasizing about escaping on wild adventures for a long time and this felt a little like a dream come true. (Dave still gives her a spiel about how Difficult it is, but really, her fantasies were pretty grounded-in-reality already. i jsut think thats how she is, yknow?)

Shes the first person to react to the whole “we see monsters” shit with a kind of “oh, okay. neat” kind of response lmao

John and Dave fix whatever the fuck is up with her town (maybe that’s where the Korrok shit can fit, who knows) and Amy ends up being integral to that. After, she insists they take her with them because “they need her now” and Dave just cant really say no. John too is very much "the more the merrier!" and hes actually glad to have another person along he loves people lmao

At the start she has long hair but after she joins them she chops it short with a knife for convenience

also she still is an amputee. justt. idk. it was a wagon/stagecoach accident rather than a car accident lmao. just to clarify since i hadnt mentioned it, i wouldnt rob her of her ghost hand or yknow. all of the significance to her character that Missing A Hand has. although also now im going to have to research what was used as painkillers way-back-when, but im betting shes still got, like, her pain pills, they probably had those, maybe i wouldnt have to try too hard there. old timey medicine could be WACK though,

Shitload

Yeah hes in tthis shit mostly cause i liked designing his cowboy self lmao

Hes a kid (like 16, 17, technically i think in those days that was more Young Man than Kid but whatever. Hes Young i mean.) who got possessed by the Worms out in the desert and, by his family’s perception, just went missing!

Hes also a wanderer, but he ended up at the same town john and dave met in, at that same time, and starts following them after, already aware of who/what they are.

He keeps his face covered 24/7. actually he covers a Majority of his self for reasons. kinda want him to be a slightly more horrifying Worm Entity rather than human idk,

I kinda dont have much for this boy yet sorry Shitload

images !

with some editing notes for me cause im doing a very specific aesthetic with this lmao. i might change some lil details/colours though ...... idk

im also kinda 🤔 about shitload's colour palette. i want things assoicated w the sauce to be black'n'red predominantly but i think his palette might mirror dave's too closely. also im working on a korrok design i jsut am too busy to draw it now

[maggies-scribblings]

Ladynoir, thinking post-reveal pre-relationship but idk whatever makes you happiest: “I’ll kick his ass if you want me to.”

I decided to make it a continuation of this. Hope you like it, and sorry it took me so long. 

Ass-kicking

It was the first Saturday afternoon after the night they found out about their identities, and Adrien and Marinette were at the Historical Library. They were working on an ongoing History project with Alya and Nino, meeting there every weekend.

“Oh, great!” Marinette huffed, looking at her phone screen. “They just bailed.”

“Really?”

She showed him the message on her phone. 

[Alya] Hey sweetie, sorry, we can’t make it today. Nino’s family is away and I need to help him with his French homework.  

“French homework, huh?” Adrien said as he returned the phone.

“Somehow I doubt that.” 

“There will probably be French involved,” he quipped, waggling his eyebrows, “but definitely not homework.”

Marinette had to cover her mouth as she snorted. 

“How about we investigate that other subject?” he leaned over the table and whispered conspiratorially. 

The library was mostly empty, but Marinette still shushed him. 

“What? Here?”

“Where else? We can check out books about ancient languages, history…”

“Hmm… I don’t know… what if someone sees us? Won’t it be suspicious?”

“We’re still working on a project, right? I know! You’re applying for fashion internships in the summer, right?” She nodded. With a playful smirk, he pointed at himself with his thumbs. “Who better to help you with a fashion presentation than your friend, the actual haute couture supermodel?”

Marinette giggled softly while Adrien winked and made finger guns, in full-on Chat Noir mode. Her laughter made his heart sing. 

“Okay, actual supermodel. Where should we begin?”

A few weeks later… 

[Alya] Hey there gorgeous! Girls’ lunch today? 

[Marinette] Hey Alya! No can do, project work all day. 

[Alya] Secret project again, huh? 😉 

[Marinette] Quit it Alya, I have to go. Raincheck?

[Alya] How’s Sunday? 

[Marinette] Great! Text me in the morning. xoxo

[Alya] Yeah, right… I’ll drop by to wake you! xoxo

Alya sighed as she put her phone away. Marinette had been acting weird for some time now. Ever since that day she showed up at school with dark circles under her eyes and with a silly grin on her face, which she explained away with some excuse about good news from her Chinese relatives, and staying up late on Facetime to talk to them. 

After four years of BFF service, Alya could tell when she was making up stories… and yet, even when caught in a lie, there were some things Marinette just wouldn’t share. It was frustrating, but Alya was respectful of her friend’s privacy. Well, most of the time, anyway.

It was also weird that she was hanging out with Adrien so often, seeing that not so long ago she had trouble even maintaining a simple conversation with him. 

“Sooo, giiirl…” Alya playfully asked, before taking a bite of her kebab. “Got anything you want to share with meee?... ”

“Share?” Marinette looked genuinely confused. “What about?” 

“Don’t play innocent with me, sweetie. You thought I wouldn’t notice you and Adrien sneaking around on breaks, going to your place after school?”

Marinette’s reaction was even stranger. Instead of her usual sputtering and denial, she coolly replied they were working on a project together, refusing to add any other details. And yet, Alya couldn’t resist some gentle teasing.

“So, does this… erm… project include any nookie?”

“A-Alya!” There she was. Blushing, stuttering Marinette. “No-nookie? No! This is strictly professional!”

As it was, Marinette refused to discuss the project any further, except to add it had something to do with fashion and her application for summer internships with established designers Adrien knew. It was the exact same explanation Nino had heard from Adrien… almost verbatim. Her reporter's sixth sense was tingling, but she let it go. If her best friends were seeing each other in secret there probably was a good reason for it. 

“Alya’s on to us.”

“What!?” Chat Noir almost spit out his palmier. “She knows?”

Ladybug shook her head and corrected herself. 

“No—not that! I mean she’s not buying the story about the…”  she gestured air quotes, “‘fashion project’!”

“Oh. That.” After licking his fingers, he took another cookie from the box Ladybug had brought to patrol. One of the best perks of the job, and now much more frequent. “Nino was also acting weird about it.”

“What do you mean, acting weird?”

“He was all like, oh, you dog, finally saw the light, took you long enough, whatever.”

Ladybug swallowed her juice quicker than she should, breaking into a coughing fit. Chat Noir tapped her back, which was no help at all but made him feel like he was doing something. As the coughing stopped, the pats turned to gentle rubs. 

“He did?”

“Yeah, he was so… smarmy about it. Like he knew something I didn’t.”

“Huh.” Ladybug scooted away from him and went very quiet. 

“Are you alright?”

“I… I just need a minute, okay?”

Adrien was confused by her reaction. Sure, things were different after that night. Since then, Ladybug seemed slightly more restrained around Chat Noir. Although he had toned down his banter, she seemed more embarrassed whenever he made some flirtatious joke. 

The civilian side of their lives was altogether a different story. After a few days of mutual awkwardness, working together on the grimoire brought them closer than ever. 

Of course, they had been friends for a long time — well, except for that time in the beginning, when she had been so uncomfortable around him. The gum incident when they met was probably a bad start, and there had been ups and downs between them ever since. He even asked Nino if she had something against him, but he wasn’t any help. 

Eventually, that bashfulness faded as they grew older. Marinette started going out with Luka, much to the joy of their mutual friends and his own inexplicable chagrin. Adrien and Kagami were also dating within the confines of their controlling, yet approving, parents. After that, whenever they hung out there was a relaxed familiarity that made her open up more, and Adrien considered her one of his best friends. 

Now that he knew she had been Ladybug all along, he couldn’t help but feel the bitter twinge of regret. What would—could—have happened if he knew then what he knew now? 

“You really don’t know why Nino teased you?”

“No—I don’t.”

“They think we’re, you know, dating in secret.”

“What? Why? They think you’re cheating on Luka?”

“No! Not cheating… Luka sorta dumped me six months ago.” 

“Luka dumped you?” Adrien was totally confused. How could anyone dump Marinette? “I’ll kick his ass if you want me to, Milady.”

“Nah, it’s okay,” she chuckled sadly. “It wasn’t working out anyway.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, you know. He has his music, I have all of this,” Ladybug sighed, pointing at her suit. “He wanted me to be more present, and I just couldn’t. It’s like we were always out of sync.” 

“—out of sync,” Chat Noir ended the phrase with her. “I know what you mean.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it was the same with Kagami,” he admitted. “She wanted to do, you know, couple things, when I was exhausted from all of this. She needed me to be there for her. By the seventeenth time I ditched her during an akuma alert with a lame excuse, she was done and ended everything.”

“You still seem hurt about it.”

“I think I’m over it now,” he shrugged. “It’s been almost a year. I just couldn’t be the kind of boyfriend she needs and deserves, so…” 

Ladybug was silent for some minutes. When she spoke, Chat Noir jumped a little. 

“I can’t believe she dumped you,” she said indignantly. “She was so in love with you…”

“How do you know that? She’s usually so reserved.”

“Well, besides it being written all over her face when she was near you? She told me. Well, actually she told Ladybug.”

“She told you that? When?”

“Oh, it was a while ago, the last time she was Ryuko. She said you were made for each other.” 

“Oh yeah, when you saved her from Heart Hunter. They were after people who were in love.”

Ladybug cringed with embarrassment, then sighed and straightened her back, psyching herself up.  

“I—I need to be honest with you, Adrien… I didn’t exactly save her. I chose her that day because I was jealous.”

Chat Noir nodded, but she wouldn’t look at him. 

“Jealous?” he cleared his throat. “Of… me?”

“Yes.” She uttered a sad chuckle, shaking her head. “I was so confused back then. So tired. I liked Luka, but I was so obsessed with Adrien-you, and I was trying not to like Chat-you. Then you and Kagami looked so happy that day… I tried to walk away, but jealousy got the best of me.” Ladybug covered her face with her hands. “I made so many stupid decisions that day. I almost ruined everything.”

Chat Noir pulled her into his lap and hugged her. 

“Hey… hey… It was a tough time for all of us, with Hawkmoth chasing Master Fu—”

“—and I led him straight to where Master Fu was! It was all my fault.”

“No.” He gently lifted her chin to meet her eyes. “It’s all his fault. Hawkmoth’s the one who’s caused all this. Don’t you ever forget that.”

Ladybug nodded, sinking into his arms and pulling him closer. 

“You can always count on me when you feel overwhelmed,” Chat Noir whispered, kissing her forehead. “Or if you need me to kick some ass.” He felt her chuckling softly into his shoulder. “Now you always know how to find me. Any time, day or night, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And we’ll talk about that other thing another day. I’m still annoyed with our so-called best friends and their teasing.”

“Okay.” This time there was a hint of laughter in her voice. “Please don't kick their asses.”

“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t… Now, let’s clear this up so I can take you home.”

To be continued? Let me know! 

Thanks to @chanceuseladynoire,  @zenmisery and @nomolosk for the beta read.

Asked for a sequel and/or to be tagged: @miraculous-elcie-fanfics @ao3bronte @bowser14456 @alexseanchai @delectablycoolscientist @lecolibribleu @omgpercabethadrinette @damelicorne

[indiavolojones]

Diavolo eats a pomegranate while Lucifer works. Lucifer doesn’t realize that the plate of pomegranate seeds that’s just been steadily growing is, in fact, for him. 

alternate summary: serving/sharing fruit with another is one of the most tender shows of love in the world and i am a soft, gentle soul that just wants canon-compliant-ish domesticity somewhere in the 1800s?? idk, they’ve known each other a damn long time. u_u 

2.2kish words, G, dia/luci, #no warnings apply except for like, idk, a sizzle of diavolo thirst on lu’s part. we can angst later, y’all

Special thanks 2 @canonlucidia for being 1) my rock and 2) my resident lucifer expert that wrote the report line and lastly 3) just being so, so good with lore and patient with me when cv brain go wuh??? 

-

A memory, a snapshot in their thousands of years spent at each other’s sides, the scene burned into his mind. 

Not all their moments are stretched to the extremes, interactions eternally caught in fire and brimstone. Some of them rest here, in a gentle domesticity that Lucifer is hesitant – and rightly so – to acknowledge. 

Here, with the two of them alone in Lucifer’s office, is a tentative, trembling contentment that Lucifer has yet to fully take apart in his mind. 

Lucifer sits at the desk with almost painfully perfect posture, as lamented by Diavolo, several sheets of parchment paper drying in front of him. A small white plate with intricate gold designs burned into the glaze rests nearby. Diavolo pulls out a blade from thin air, cutting it into a ripe pomegranate with the practiced efficiency of someone who grew up with the trees keeping him company.

“I will not be re-writing these reports if you make a mess,” Lucifer says apropos of anything Diavolo might do, on purpose or otherwise. 

The admonishment in his voice half-hearted at best, even as he warily eyes Diavolo slicing the fruit open. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Diavolo quips, returning a cheeky grin, slouched over the empty side of Lucifer’s spacious desk as he cracks open the pomegranate into fours. 

Diavolo opted for his human form today, which is a laughable concept to Lucifer in itself. Diavolo’s aura can barely be contained by him in his demon form, but to see his essence stifled into a mortal’s appearance… Diavolo’s human teeth are always a little too sharp at first glance or in one’s peripherals. His gold eyes are too molten to match any human shade. 

Pair it with Diavolo’s inability to sit on anything without it becoming a throne – sprawling with languid, regal grace as natural as breathing, much to Lucifer’s annoyance – and discretion is a difficult request. 

Lucifer has called him out on his slipping control of the glamours before, especially in the instances where they find themselves working in the Human Realm, the risk of detection a very real threat. Not that many princes are discrete, but Lucifer supposes that if he expected someone to spill out past the seams, it would be Diavolo, who has always been larger than life in both personality and power. 

Despite a grandiose description, Diavolo’s attire does not reflect his status. His outfit is more fitting for a common human rather than the next ruler of Hell. 

The other is dressed in indecently tight trousers and a loose, finely-woven off-white tunic that dips low on his sculpted chest. Cording at the hem of the shirt drapes over his exposed skin, and Lucifer offhandedly wonders why they even bother getting Diavolo fitted for garments if he’s just going to wear things too loose, too tight, or forego most clothes altogether. 

In the past, Lucifer might have asked why are you here? or don’t you have your own work to do? All such inquiries have been shut down with a colorful multitude of responses, displaying the future king’s creativity. 

Some honorable mentions being:

Diavolo’s wild claim that Barbatos was staging a coup, and clearly, Lucifer was the only one who can fight off someone with control over time. Lucifer had asked when Barbatos was hosting the next recruitment session, which led to a troublesome, if not amusing, outburst from Diavolo.

A somehow unionized group of suitors threatened to storm down the palace gates for his hand in marriage. Diavolo was merely hiding in the safest place, for once they believed he was not home, they would give up and leave! 

"A curse, Lucifer. It was a curse!" If more than two pairs of eyes were to witness Diavolo, he would surely burst into flames. That's why he tried to hide behind the door when Barbatos came to collect him!

Nowadays, when Lucifer can’t kick Diavolo out of his study/Barbatos is off running the household and can’t drag him away, he allows himself to lean into giving Diavolo a hard time – nothing unbecoming of their stations, nothing disrespectful – but enough to give Lucifer quiet vindication. 

It serves him right, for all the grievances he causes Lucifer on a daily basis. 

(Levi calls it teasing, but Levi has not left his quarters since the last major war killed one of his favorite authors before a series was finished, so what does Levi know of social interaction?) 

“If you’re in need of something to do, Barbatos and I found a few errors in your last few missives…” Lucifer begins. 

Diavolo, surprisingly, doesn’t jump to the bait.  

There are no witty remarks that come from the future king’s lips, only the lazy upward curl of a smile and a contented hum in return. 

Unused to the lack of a response from the other, Lucifer glances down at the small plate, Diavolo's cultivated pile of seeds gathered in the shallow puddle of juice.

Another pomegranate seed plinks onto the plate, and Lucifer watches through his peripherals as it topples the delicate balance of the seeds already there. 

He narrows his eyes at it briefly, as if it holds the answers to his obvious questions, but says nothing. Diavolo works at a steady pace, humming quietly under his breath as his nimble fingers pluck seeds from the fruit. 

For a while, they go on like that. 

Diavolo alternates between quietly munching on seeds and adding to his growing plate. Lucifer scribbles away at the parchment, his clean script much more legible than Diavolo’s own. 

Diavolo deserves an award, Lucifer thinks, for the longest amount of time spent not getting into trouble in Lucifer’s recent memory. Perhaps he should be more suspicious of the other’s uncharacteristically quiet nature, but Diavolo looks at ease with his menial task.

Diavolo’s tune continues, a soothing, low cadence to his voice offsetting the relative quiet of Lucifer’s quill scratching at the parchment. It’s a waltz, syrupy sweet and with a dreamlike quality as Diavolo’s humming carries the notes into creation. 

It casts a spell with charisma alone, and Lucifer doesn’t notice when his hand stills, quill hovering over the page as he tries to recognize the tune. A smile twists the prince’s lips, his lips stained darker with the sweet purple nectar.

Diavolo doesn’t hesitate in his motions, only glancing up at Lucifer through his lashes. Lucifer’s breath involuntarily catches in his throat.

Lucifer does not think about how Diavolo’s fingertips are stained as well, stained deeper than the curve of his lush lower lip. Does not think about the juice dripping down his tanned skin, drying sticky on his wrists. It is in the middle of these not-thoughts, their gazes catching in passing, that Diavolo speaks.

“20%.” 

“What?” Lucifer startles, despite himself, brows cinching with narrowed eyes. Diavolo reaches down with one long, purple-dyed finger to point at the line where Lucifer’s quill has stopped. The smile only grows, Diavolo tilting his head to the side as he reads the line off of Lucifer’s report.

“‘The sixth circle has under reported their amaranth yield again this quarter, their numbers being off by roughly,” He pauses for dramatic effect, which Lucifer finds wholly unnecessary considering this is a report, not a performance, ”20%.’”

Diavolo purses his lips, before it turns into a huffed laugh, “It’s probably because they pay tithe to Beelzebub. You should talk to him about that.” 

His eyes and hands go back to the fruit in front of him. Lucifer does not admit that the next part of his report was about to mention that it is likely due to his hungriest brother.

Saved from having to formulate a response, there’s a knock at the door, and Barbatos’ muffled voice on the other side calls, “Lucifer? Have you seen Prince Diavolo?” 

Diavolo’s posture immediately jerks up, and then his shoulders curl in on himself, like a child that knows he’s been caught. Barbatos is, most definitely, here for Diavolo. 

Lucifer is absolutely not relieved at the distraction. He levels Diavolo with a singular stare that somehow says I’m not covering for you, and nearly rolls his eyes when Diavolo returns a pained look that begs please?

A strange, out of place idea has Lucifer wanting to concede to Diavolo’s whims, to pretend that no one is there. Ridiculous. As they sit in the silence, there’s a moment where Diavolo’s eyes light up, as if thinking that Lucifer might actually help him out –

“He’s in here,” Lucifer says, because of course he is. All three of them know there’s no way that he wouldn’t be, and Diavolo deflates. 

It’s clear from the slight, upwards quirk of Barbatos’ lips that he knows Lucifer’s hesitation. Lucifer bristles at the thought, at Barbatos’ ability to always see more than is shown. 

Barbatos does not startle easily – in fact, Lucifer believes he can recall maybe a handful of times that the other has reacted with little more than resigned acceptance or rueful amusement. 

It wounds his pride, in a sense, to have Barbatos walk in on a scene like this (like what? Diavolo slowly working at Lucifer’s carefully constructed walls, trying to carve a contented little spot in Lucifer’s life? Yes. Lucifer is aware.) and have his reaction be anything less than shocked. Appalled? 

Perhaps aghast, that Lucifer too has fallen to the whims of his lord. 

Unless Barbatos thought that Lucifer would cave from the beginning, Lucifer realizes, and it sours his expression in the slightest. 

“Barbatos!” Diavolo grins, still slouched over the edge of the desk like it pains him to have good posture. 

“I have been looking for you, my lord,” Barbatos says, his voice as even and polite as ever. 

“I’ve been taking a break!” 

“It’s been four hours since you said you would be right back, sir. I thought I would help you find your way, since you seem to be having some trouble.”  

Diavolo, a devil of almost immeasurable power and status, has the gall to look sheepish in front of his butler and aide. He glances big, pleading eyes at Lucifer as if asking for help again, and Lucifer cocks one brow, saying nothing. 

A beat of silence passes, before Diavolo suddenly exhales loudly, tossing his hands (one of which is holding a knife, and the other a pomegranate, and juice splashes on the desk alarmingly close to his nearly-finished report) into the air. 

“Okay, okay! I’m coming,” Diavolo concedes, still brimming with amusement as he easily disposes of the empty pomegranate husk with his magic. Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, he wipes the remnants of sticky juice off the blade and his fingers, staining the pristine white purple. 

“Let’s stop by the kitchens on the way there, Barbatos. Fruit has only made me realize how famished I truly am!” Diavolo says, placing the handkerchief down and stretching his arms up as he stands. 

“I can bring something to your office, my lord.” Barbatos shoots down the attempt at escape, and Diavolo tsks under his breath. 

“You’re too smart, Barbatos,” Diavolo says, walking towards his butler and patting one hand on the other’s shoulders, “You know all my tricks by now.” He nods sagely as they walk to the exit of the room. Barbatos gives a soft sigh. 

“We both know that’s not true, my lord.” 

Lucifer watches, unafraid to admit to himself that he finds some amusement in Diavolo’s plight, before he realizes the mess that Diavolo has left behind. 

“Your – ” Mess? Pile of fruit seeds? Penchant for completely derailing Lucifer’s productivity? Whatever Lucifer had intended to say is cut off by a dismissive wave of Diavolo’s hand and a cheerful slant of a smile on the other’s face. 

“Those are for you!” Diavolo laughs, and Lucifer doesn’t have the opportunity to get a response in before Diavolo whirls into the hallway, Barbatos shutting the door after him with a soft click. 

Lucifer sits in silence, listening to the muffled, familiar chatter between the two, fading as they travel further from the door. He tells himself that this is to make sure that Diavolo has truly left, not for any other frivolous, flowery reasons that his brothers might claim, were they to know of his lingering gaze on the plate, the stained handkerchief Diavolo left behind. 

The plate of pomegranate seeds rests in the corner of his desk, still untouched.

Lucifer ignores it until the candles in the room burn dangerously low, the only indication of time passing thanks to the endless twilight of the Devildom. When he finally decides to stop, he rolls his neck to alleviate the stiffness, eyes fluttering shut at the tension. 

When they open again, his gaze lands once more on the plate. 

This time, it stays. 

Alone in the privacy of his office, Lucifer props an elbow unceremoniously on the table. He brings his hand to his chin, gloved fingers tapping at his lips. More silence passes, a decision is made. Lucifer tugs off the glove of his right hand.

For him, Diavolo had said. 

Lucifer isn’t particularly fond of pomegranates. 

The flavor isn’t anything amazing to him, and they’re much too messy, but there’s a strange, perverse pleasure beginning to blossom inside him at the fresh memory of Diavolo devoting his time to a task solely for Lucifer, understanding coloring where there was once muted shades of gray.  

Kings are servants to their kingdoms, but there’s an undeniable intimacy in the act of servitude for one. 

It makes the initial burst of flavor on his tongue all the more sweet. 

[fizzingwizard]

Episode 34 arrives and it’s a MUCH NEEDED breath of first air. I mean, this episode could have actually BEEN a 99 Adventure episode. I guess at least one person on the production team has actually seen the old show at least once!

In my opinion, it doesn’t quite equal the cuteness, silliness, and personality of similar 99 episodes, but it comes very close, and it’s certainly the best we’ve had in a long long while.

And it’s all because of these two.

More below!

The episode bizarrely begins with Tailmon barking to communicate with Komondomon. Which raises the question, if no one could talk with Komondomon before because he can only bark, how were they communicating? Did Lopmon just tell Komondomon everything he needed to know and tell the kids “just follow his lead” or something??

Also Tailmon’s opening line being her barking is pretty surreal. And yet, fitting for a cat Digimon who is a dog at Child level.

The kids are shown taking a break - the first sign that this episode is gonna be A Bit Different.

Taichi: Something feels weird. Why aren’t we fighting?

Sora: Taichi, don’t you think you should rest once in a while?

Taichi: I mean, I do, I just got the impression the rest of the world didn’t agree...

Sora: By the way, why do we like this world that constantly tries to kill us and never gives us any pleasant memories so much? Why don’t we just take our partners to the human world and leave this place to its fate?

Taichi: How else am I gonna get an outlet for my pent up aggression and adrenaline junkie issues?

Sora: That’s your backstory?

Taichi: I’m a complicated man.

Komondomon then randomly jumps... into the sea. “Oh no, they’ll drown!” No, they won’t, because Komondomon has the ability to build a dome over his back trapping oxygen inside. Submarimon I get, but Komondomon?

As they dive, Tailmon explains what we learned last week about Millenniumon trying to resurrect himself with a new body. Apparently a very large fragment of him is located undersea in a place called Farga (transliteration TBA). She thinks resentfully about how she was almost absorbed into Millenniumon’s most recent resurrection effort.

Hikari tackles her with a comforting hug, which Tailmon seems a bit discomfited by. But does not object.

Tailmon considers defeating Millenniumon for good to be her personal mission as a Holy Digimon. Patamon sees her determination and does his best to put on his game face too. It’s like being glared at by a sock puppet.

Tailmon: I can’t allow Hikari to be put in danger. It’s my job as the Holy Digimon -

Tailmon: - gosh darnit and she’s just so cute too!

They wind up getting hit by a rip current or something?? and thrown into another weird submarine sort of thing. They discourteously break a hole in it and wind up inside a self-sustaining underwater kingdom, apparently, which instantly goes on Red Alert as Manbomon come to attack them.

This is Daipenmon, or Big Penguin Monster. I love him. He is glorious. Gaze upon his expression of perpetually stoned haze.

Daipenmon: You try steering this thing every day in and out nonstop without turning to hard drugs.

She attac!

While fighting, some Mantaraymon break in through the hole they made and the Manbomon go to drive them off as apparently they are not welcome. Then MarineAngemon appears in all her creepy glory and they sort everything out.

MarineAngemon: Oh, Tailmon, I see you’re a Holy Digimon! I can tell by your Holy Ring. I have one too.

Takeru: Patamon, why don’t you have a Holy Ring?

Patamon: .... -.-’

Look! See! So cute! They are floating on bubbles! All the kids get their own and each has an individual design that shows their personality. Here Tailmon tries desperately to keep Hikari from falling off. I missed this kind of thing! Flashbacks to Monzaemon’s Toytown...

Turns out MarineAngemon is extremely small and the scene before was all “don’t pay attention to that man behind the curtain” type scare tactics. Not very effective since no matter how big MarineAngemon gets, she’s still extremely adorable. She invites them to stay the night. I really expected it to be a trap, but it wasn’t.

OH MY GOD IS THAT FOOD ARE THEY EATING ACTUAL FOOD OMG OMG

quick someone alert the producers! Someone’s having FUN with this show! I was starting to think that was illegal or something!

It’s not AS fun as when they went to Devimon’s illusory castle in 99 Adventure and stuffed their faces after starving and living on potentially poisonous eggs for a week... but I’ll take it.

Meanwhile an undersea band plays music and Taichi ACTS LIKE THE FIFTH GRADE CHILD THAT HE IS. For about 0.5 seconds but HEY he did something child-like! holy cheez wiz batman!

Hikari is mysteriously absent so Tailmon goes to find her. Turns out she’s asked MarineAngemon to heal Komondomon who is tired and wounded from their journey. Tailmon’s like, “Aw, what a nice person she is.” I’m all for exceptionally kind-hearted Hikari, but taking care of Komondomon should have been priority 1 for EVERYONE. At least Sora should have thought of it. I can see Taichi being too forward-focused, and Takeru a dumb eight year old, but Sora would definitely have thought about Komondomon.

Clearly the show wanted to establish how nice Hikari is, but I hate when shows inadvertently make all the other characters look like asses just to trump up the current star...

Taichi’s digivice glows and...

... MINI KOUSHIROU RETURNS!!! Hurray!

Um, what’s that Sora’s drinking? A mimosa? o.O

Well anyway, Koushirou just shows up to remind everyone of the situation with the satellites and that things are getting worse.

Taichi: Do you have any idea what we can do about it?

Koushirou: No, but I’ll keep you posted.

Taichi: Thanks for nothing braindead

Koushirou: That’s it! You’re not the man I knew in episode 3 anymore! I want a divorce!

Taichi: Fine with me it’s not like you’re ever home anyway!

Koushirou: Well at least I’m not cheating with YAMATO!

Taichi: I HAVE NEEDS!

*cough*

Uh, I know Taichi is shorter than Sora, but he looks... pretty tiny here... lol. Or maybe Sora’s just had a growth spurt again.

They spend the night sleeping in bubbles. Aw.

By the way, question: the kids seem able to walk and breath normally in MarineAngemon’s kingdom... but the fish-type Digimon can also swim around normally. And it seems the kids wouldn’t be able to survive in the ocean itself, but they and the fish can both survive here? And yet bubbles? What... what kind of scientific anomaly is this place??

So... MarineAngemon’s kingdom appears to be a Whamon’s corpse! X’D Wow that’s dark.

They are attacked by Anomalocarimon! For reasons. Actually, they did explain earlier that the ocean Digimon have been more aggressive lately and it seems to be the influence of Millenniumon’s stone in Farga or whatever.

Daipenmon: This sucks I don’t have health insurance

Tailmon frantically tries to fight off the intruders while also keeping Hikari out of danger. This entire episode is about Tailmon wanting to protect Hikari and keep her at arm’s length so she doesn’t end up in danger, while Hikari just keeps trying to stay close to Tailmon and support her.

Tailmon: I can’t take you with me, Hikari. It’s too dangerous.

Hikari: Fine. Big brother, will you bring me into the heat of the action with you?

Taichi: Sure thing.

Tailmon: ...

In his defense, Taichi does seem a bit freaked when Hikari TAKES A FLYING LEAP off MetalGreymon toward Tailmon.

(no I really love that Taichi immediately understands why Hikari wants to fight and takes her right to her partner without even a token “nuu but you’re still a baby.” I mean, if Yamato’s cool with Takeru being in danger all the time, Taichi shouldn’t be much worried about it...

Hikari has a flashback! Turns out she’s heard Tailmon calling for her since she as a little kid!

She caught one of Angewomon’s feathers back then too.

Hikari promises Tailmon that she’ll be by her side. Awww.

Hands again.

Crest of Light! I kind of expect that we’ll find out about the Crests and what they mean really fast at the end of the season... although I’m still kind of hoping Mimi is mining Crest crystals atm.

Hikari is able to magically produce a Digivice... I’d completely forgot she didn’t have one till now.

Here I expected Tailmon would evolve, but instead, the power of Light appears to give everyone a power boost like it’s done in the past. They all glow with their Crest colors, kids and partners alike (except for some reason Tailmon glows yellow???) and launch a joint attack on Anomalocarimon and defeat him. Yay.

Then they say goodbye to MarineAngemon and go on their way, I guess to Farga.

So... yeah! it was a nice episode. It had a theme. There was fighting, but it didn’t overwhelm everything else. There was character development. I really can’t complain about it. And it was SHOCKING that Taichi had so few lines (compared to what’s become the norm - a GOOD shock but still I was like “omg what’s going on!!”)

I am just confused because why is this sort of episode happening when we haven’t seen it in ages? What happened in that interim between when they all met up after the first team split up and just now that prevented the show writers from having fun with the show and just writing nonstop fighting all the time? I’m so confused. It makes no sense. Still suspecting that they couldn’t get anyone to come in and voice characters for long enough so they just focused on Sanpei Yuuko/Taichi, but without the others they couldn’t figure out how to push the show forward and make it fun too... Idk. It’s so weird. But oh well. We got a good episode, and maybe it’s a sign of changes to come. I hope so.

Next week...

We get attacked by a scary looking Digimon and Hikari... Idk, thinks she can block the attack somehow? haha. Aw but look how awesome she is protecting her brother and Greymon!

Hikari gets touched by the dark powers! Oh noes!

And more cuteness.

The episode title name-drops Angewomon, which surprises me because I figured they’d hold off on her and give Tailmon Nefertimon for an evolution first. But *shrug* whatever! Looking forward to it.

[whatapunk]

Holy butts I wrote a second chapter!! I am soooo thankful for everyone who liked or reblogged the first chapter because truly, truly, truly you gave me more motivation than you could possibly realize! 

A couple things: 

I’ve included dialogue from the s02e01 scene where Kanan and Hera have a very Han/Leia hallway argument and I definitely don’t want to take credit for such things (I only wanted to add it to help me with my flow a bit)

Right now I’m firmly trying so very hard to fit it perfectly into canon (it’s just something I like doing, idk) but eventually it might go a lil more AU, I just haven’t decided yet

This shit had me on wookieepedia searching the most random stuff, but rest assured, there is garlic in the Star Wars universe

Enjoy!

Title: Endings

Fandom: Star Wars Rebels

Relationship: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla; Kanan Jarrus/female OC

Rating: t for now, m in future chapters (I'm guessing) for language and some non-explicit intimacy

Word Count: 2446

Previous Chapters: Ch. 1

Chapter 2

Kanan sat on the step ladder leading up to the Liberator’s control panels. His presence was a silent mark of informality in the middle of the crew’s debriefing meeting with Commander Sato. The rest of the crew, plus Ahsoka, stood around the holo-console in the middle of the floor. Sato was saying something about the Ghost crew- his crew- but Kanan was barely half listening. For one, every other word that came out of Sato’s mouth was some military formality and, thus, not something that interested him in the slightest. But the main reason he wasn’t listening was that Rhia Denley’s image was still burned into his thoughts.

Seven years. When you hadn’t seen someone in this galaxy for seven years, you started to assume you never would again. At least, that’s how Kanan had felt. 

However, suddenly she was here again- she existed again, something Kanan had tried hard to convince himself wasn’t even true. It was easier to convince himself she was something he’d imagined than for him to remember her and the way she’d crushed his young heart years ago. Besides, thinking about that heartache had always made him feel guilty once Hera was in his life. Now, however, he was feeling so many things he didn’t even have room for guilt.

What he did have room for was a hefty amount of bitterness, and for more than one reason. First of all, he was already bitter before Rhia showed up; he’d hardly hidden his feelings and had become almost spiteful about how they had been sucked into a military operation. But even that wasn’t totally separate from his thoughts about Rhia.

Rhia and Kanan had become a “thing” on Gorse, very soon after Kanan had set up what passed as a life there. Their meeting was by chance, but they had run into each other briefly when he was even younger and worked with a smuggler named Janus Kasmir. It was actually Rhia who told him about low-profile jobs on Gorse then, so he wasn’t altogether surprised that she ended up there eventually too. While he wasn’t much more than a kid when they first met, when they reconnected on Gorse, he was older and far more interesting to Rhia. They quickly became infatuated with one another for the better part of four months, which was practically a lifelong commitment to Kanan. Before Hera, Rhia was the longest relationship he’d ever been in. 

Rhia, however, had bigger goals than being a bartender’s girlfriend and working as a miner on Cynda. Rhia, much like Hera, was interested in the Rebellion. She’d made this clear early on, but she didn’t try to preach to Kanan, and he’d liked that about her. However, once she’d found a connection to a group of Rebels on the Holonet, she had tried- more than once- to get him to come with her. That’s what made running into her here, of all places, all the more exasperating and awkward. He’d ended up here anyway, despite his countless protestations- and he didn’t even want to be.

Seeing Rhia again reminded him, among other things, of all of the reasons he told her he didn’t want to join the Rebellion. And that reminded him that they were all still true.

Kanan heard Sato say something about the Spectres being “invaluable,” and then suddenly Chopper burst into the meeting, much to Commander Sato and Hera’s dismay. He was going on about an emergency incoming transmission, and, frankly, Kanan welcomed the change. His bitterness with this situation, this Rebellion- this meeting had reached its peak.

***

Less than ten minutes later, Kanan’s bitterness had already gotten him into trouble, and with Hera, no less. 

After telling Chopper to play his transmission during a “secret debriefing,” Hera had scowled at him for the rest of the meeting. He’d tried to rush out and get out of her line of fire once they were dismissed, but she’d caught him in the hallway and firmly let him know he wasn’t authorized to do that.

“Authorization! Procedure! That’s what’s bothering me!” he’d raised his voice, uncaring of the people that were attempting to walk past them as they argued. 

Hera put her hands up gently, sighing at having finally gotten him to drop the passive aggressive quips about their work lately. It wasn’t hard to guess what had been bothering him, but he was a grown adult who should be able to talk to her, of all people.

“All right. Talk to me,” she said, lowering her voice. Kanan sighed and did the same.

“After this mission, I want us to go back on our own,” he said firmly. “Fighting alongside soldiers isn’t what I signed up for.” At that, Hera frowned at him and shoved him into an open doorway, pointing a gloved finger in his face.

“You seem to be forgetting these soldiers helped save your life,” she said, looking at him with those big eyes that could be both demanding and softening at the same time. After that remark, he couldn’t meet them.

“And I’m grateful,” he started, “but that doesn’t mean I want to join their little army. When you and I started together, it was ‘Rob from the Empire, give to the needy,’ a noble cause. Now we’re getting drawn into some kind of military thing! I don’t like it.” 

Somehow Hera’s voice became more serious and more earnest.

“We are fighting a bigger fight, but it’s still the right fight,” she said, all but pleading with him to understand that they’d been fighting in the name of the Rebellion all along. Kanan wasn’t having it.

“I survived one war. I’m not ready for another one,” he said, turning away from her. She grabbed his arm. “I saw what it did.”

“To the Jedi?” she asked, almost whispering. He looked back at her.

“To everyone.” He left the doorway and continued walking down the hall, hearing Hera’s exasperated sigh behind him. 

Kanan loved virtually everything about Hera, even her flaws. She was incredibly stubborn, but since he was so go-with-the-flow, it never really got in their way. In fact, it practically complimented his own personality. She would get adamant and obsessed over something, and he would follow her anywhere and do anything she asked of him. At least, that’s how things had gone for them for the past seven years, right up until the formal Rebellion had rescued him from the Grand Inquisitor. Now it was suddenly a reality of Kanan’s world that he was part of a military operation and that could only lead to one thing: war. 

Hera had been familiar with war her whole life, but not in the same way Kanan had. He’d fought in battles as a young teen alongside his master, Depa Billaba and seen the realities of it all over the galaxy. Hera’s own world was war-torn, for sure, but her role in that war was far different than Kanan’s. For the first time since he’d met her, he felt like she was incapable of understanding him.

Kanan headed to the only place he really wanted to be right now: his quarters on Ghost. He felt like meditating, if only for the quiet. He lost himself in his thoughts there for maybe an hour, and eventually his sour attitude had at least subsided. He remembered his harsh tone with Hera and his obvious instigation of Chopper in the meeting. He still didn’t care about what Sato thought, but he felt bad for making Hera look bad. Now, it felt like such a childish thing to have done.

He left his quarters and, once seeing the Ghost was still empty, he went back out into the bay. It was less busy now, as most of the cargo that littered the area earlier had been taken elsewhere by now. His eyes scanned for Hera; he knew he should apologize to her. When he didn’t see her, or any of the Spectres, he set off down one of the hallways that he believed led to the commissary. He hadn’t taken the time to get to know his way around this ship (by design) so he honestly had no clue where to start looking for her. He’d gone pretty far without seeing anything resembling a commissary and was about to turn around when an amazing aroma hit him and made his stomach growl: garlic. 

Something told him to follow the smell, which led him down a corridor that opened up to a large galley. Standing in front of a pan sizzling on the stove, as Kanan had expected, was Rhia. She looked up at him, surprised, but then smiled.

“I should have known this would attract you,” she said with a smirk, then turned her attention back to the sizzling pan, stirring the contents with a wooden spoon. 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to get me here,” Kanan added, grabbing a seat at an empty table near the stove. “You know how I feel about your cooking.” She looked up and grinned at him.

“The same way everyone does,” she said, confidently. She left the pan and attended to a cutting board with what looked like an onion and some kind of pepper on it. 

Kanan’s stomach growled again. Rhia was an amazing cook and loved every piece of food he’d ever seen her hold. She only ever ate ration bars or drank nutritive milk when she absolutely had to. Otherwise, she kept her own stock of spices and quality ingredients and went well out of her way (and budget) to get fresh produce. Kanan’s mind drifted back to memories of watching Rhia cooking in her kitchen on Gorse. He remembered breakfast with eggs and some sort of mushroom, watching her move her hands skillfully around knives and pans and the ingredients, often wearing nothing but-

“So,” Rhia started, pulling Kanan out of his memory. “You finally joined the Rebellion.” Kanan’s brow wrinkled.

“What do you mean by finally?” he asked, already feeling himself becoming defensive. Rhia rolled her eyes.

“Nothing,” she said, slicing into her pepper, grinning.

“And no, I did not join anything,” Kanan said, putting extra emphasis on “I” and jabbing his thumb to his chest. She looked back up at him as she scraped ingredients from her cutting board to the pan. 

“That was Hera Syndulla, wasn’t it? Captain of the Ghost? You’re part of Ghost crew, right?” she pressed, confused. Kanan was more than a little surprised.

“You’ve heard of us?” Kanan asked, his vanity getting the better of him and nearly allowing a smile to creep onto his face. Rhia rolled her eyes again and laughed.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Kanan. I’ve heard of Captain Syndulla, not her first mate,” she joked, laughing more at the fall of Kanan’s expression. Then realization struck her. “Wait, are you the one we just blew up a star destroyer for?” Kanan grimaced.

“Yes, but that wasn’t my fault. I didn’t tell them to- and it was Chopper who-” Rhia held her hand up, seeing him getting defensive.

“Kanan, I don’t really know anything about what happened. I wasn’t here for it, I just heard about it. I was on a freighter headed to a rendezvous. I don’t even know who Chopper is,” she said, going back to her pan.

“He’s our droid,” Kanan said flatly. “Anyway, my crew performed the rescue. I was aboard Tarkin’s destroyer.” Rhia looked up at him again, this time a little more serious.

“What was that like?” she asked.

“Not fun.”

Rhia didn’t push the topic further. She grabbed a pan of noodles that had been sitting over to her right and mixed them into the skillet with some oil. Kanan was suddenly fascinated by the chipped edge of the table in front of him. 

Satisfied with the meal in front of her, Rhia reached into a cabinet behind her and pulled out two plates and then matched them with two forks. She set them out on the table Kanan was sitting at and then divided the noodles in half. Before she sat down, however, she went back to the cabinet and grabbed two glasses. When she set them down the table Kanan looked up at her, arching his eyebrow. She went to a backpack that sat on the floor behind the counter and pulled out a glass bottle with no markings and a familiar light brown liquid sloshing inside. She poured herself a drink, placed the mouth of the bottle over his glass and paused, looking at him, silently offering the drink. 

“I can’t think of what goes better with your dinners,” he said, and she poured. 

As soon as Kanan took a bite, his memories were triggered all over again. He was pretty sure he’d never even eaten this specific dish before, given her access to such a wide variety of ingredients. But it didn’t matter. Rhia’s meals were memorable for some sort of shared quality that bound them all together, even when they were drastically different. Not only that, but he realized how long it had been since he’d eaten, and how much longer it had been since he’d eaten something of this quality. For a few minutes they ate in silence, Kanan unavailable for any and all conversation. Eventually, Rhia spoke.

“So explain to me how you haven’t joined the Rebellion?” Kanan sighed, but the food had made him quite amenable to discussing just about anything. He did, however, take a drink before he replied.

“I didn’t know we were a cell. I didn’t know there were cells. Hera was the only one who spoke to Fulcrum and knew of the larger operation. I found out when I was… rescued,” Kanan ended quietly. Rhia could tell that being rescued and needing so much from so many, made him uncomfortable. 

“That had to be quite a shock,” she said, sensing the need for a new subject. “So you and Hera, when did you two meet?” she asked. Kanan looked at her, surprised. He could tell by the way she asked, she knew that they were together. Rhia gave him a “give me a break” look.

“Kanan, really- my ‘pilot’? Shit, I’ve seen explosions that were more subtle.” She chuckled and took another drink, emptying the glass. Kanan did the same. Rhia offered up the bottle again.

“Another?”

Kanan looked at it, hesitating. He hardly drank at all anymore, let alone like he did when they were living on Gorse. However, depending on where this conversation was going to go, Kanan felt like he would need something more than blood in his veins. 

“One more.”