#proto man/reader

[megaman-fluffcanons]

Snake Man and Proto Man fluff with a Quetzalcoatl (Feathered Serpent with wings) S/o designed for a chemical plant and can use chemical attacks and actually has a tail to slither with instead of legs.

Snake Man:

*you and several others think that Snake Man likes you because of how serpent-like you are, but that’s really not the case!

*well, it is a little bit, but he does love you for your personality as well as your appearance!

*he thinks it’s pretty neat you use chemical based attacks, as he’s seen you use them before

*his search snakes adore you, which you both find absolutely adorable, as they’ll just slither up to you and rest on you

*occasionally you’ll carry each other around, since you have wings, which he does not have, and he has legs, which you don’t have. Those who have been around you two, tend to question you both.

Proto Man:

*Proto Man is rather intrigued by your appearance, since you’re serpent-like, but have feathers and wings.

*you let him touch your wings/feathery features, and you watched his face light up, even if he wouldn’t admit this

*you do feel a bit bad for slowing him down sometimes when you two are out, since you don’t have legs, but he’ll assure you that it’s fine, that he will wait for you/walk with you at your pace

*…or he’ll just pick you up and carry you around, which flusters the heck out of you

[eksvilbcrihxv]

4 5 1 7 8 9 2 6 3 0

[creative-type]

The Romanticism of One Piece

I’m always amazed by how Oda has managed to stay thematically consistent for more than two decades while writing a thousand plus chapter epic about silly pirates having fun chasing their dreams. One Piece, at its core, is about the dawn of a romantic adventure, and its been that way since volume one, chapter one.

But romance is one of those terms whose meaning as shifted over the years and is drastically misunderstood. So what is literary romance, and how does One Piece fit within its framework?

Well buckle up, folks. This is gonna be a long one.

Romanticism as a movement started in the late 18th century, and is described by Isaiah Berlin as the “the greatest single shift in the consciousness of the West”. The modern ideas of childhood, imagination,  and sentimentality were born here. It’s a rejection of society’s constraints in favor of impossible yearning for impossible goals. Romantics were restless and passionate, and embraced the magnitude of their feeling over the scientific rigors of the Age of Reason.

Sound familiar?

Romanticism gets its name from the old medieval ballads (themselves written in the Romantic languages) that became popular with the growing movement. The 19th century was a period of incredible change. Industrialization, urbanization, and the development of the middle class were all new. Revolution, both industrial and political, was changing the course of the world forever. The Romantics worshiped heroes of the past (in fact, the term hero worship was coined during this time) and sought a return to nature. William Wordsworth famously lobbied against the building of railways in his beloved Lake District, and much of the art of the time, whether it be painting or poetry, focused heavily on man’s relation with nature

In addition to rebelling against traditional political structures, the Romantics also broke away from the traditional religious teaching, many believing that man found enlightenment not through theology or the bible, but by study and attunement with nature. One of proto-Romantic writer Jean-Jaques Rousseau’s most influential works Emile, or On Education was banned in parts of Europe and even publicly burned due to its ideas on natural religion.

All of this leads to the Romantic pursuit of the sublime. While Enlightenment thinkers would often attempt to remove themselves emotionally from what they were experiencing in order to understand said experience through objective, immutable fact, the Romantics sought emotion, awe, and reverence that transcended rational thought. They celebrated and marveled at the wonders of creation, allowing themselves to be consumed by emotion and experience. These were not stoic people, and its here where One Piece truly begins to shine as a work of Romantic art

The world of One Piece, particularly once the story gets to the Grand Line, is chalk full of impossible wonder and whimsy. Each island visited along the journey is a feast for the eyes, and Oda’s art does each distinct and incredible location every justice. Luffy has no desire to see the boring or everyday, and he has no qualm in expressing his excitement everywhere he goes. Oda has made the conscious decision never to let the reader look into Luffy’s thoughts via thought bubbles, but the audience is still able to connect with him because they are always aware of what he he is feeling. Every smile takes up half his face, every sadness drawn as a sniveling wreck. Logical ideas are routinely rejected in favor of desired experiences, and Luffy himself rejects the opportunity to hear the answer to the series’s biggest questions because to him, the journey is more important.

It’s important that Luffy’s mindset isn’t all that common, even a world as wild and wacky as One Piece. As the Jaya arc proves, Roger’s execution initially inspired a generation of pirates to go out and follow their dreams, but in the twenty years since his death that ideaolgy has crumbled under the weight of a new wave of dreamless pragmaticism, the same way the Romantic movement gave way to the Realists who followed. 

Luffy’s Romantic spirit stands out, even amongst the Straw Hat Pirates. Many of the Straw Hat’s character arcs involve Luffy helping to remove the blocks that prevent them from living out their Romantic ideals. As the series progresses, the crew inches towards embodying that freedom of spirit that Luffy exemplifies. What that looks like for each crewmate is different (Romanticism is highly individualistic, after all) but they’re given the opportunity to live out that ideal because of their association with Luffy.

This theme of freedom of expression and pursuit of dreams follows the Straw Hats wherever they go on both the micro and macro level. The Romantic pursuit of self-determination bleeds over nearly every arc with Luffy at its epicenter, until it comes to a crescendo during the Wano arc, when the true nature of Luffy’s fruit comes to light for the first time.

Luffy is the beating heart of One Piece’s Romanticism. He specifically imbues many of the Romantic ideals of childhood, such as innocence, joy, and being unprejudiced by a corrupting society. He’s uncomplicated yet passionate, without a care in the world for what anyone else thinks about him, and because of that disregard for authority he comes off as equal parts wise and naive.

In Emile, Rousseau lays out his idea of childhood education, which doesn’t include a classroom so much as the child’s interaction with the world, emphasizing the senses and building on the child’s own observations and inferences. The Romantic child was instinctual and in tune with nature, and a character like Luffy growing up on the fringes of society while spending most of his time romping around in the woods would not be out of place (see Mary Robinson’s The Savage of Aveyron, based on the real story of a feral boy that had been found in France).

What makes Luffy different is that he never loses that simplicity of character even as he interacts with an increasingly complex world. Yes, he matures both as a person and a captain, bearing the weight of terrible loss and difficult decisions, but he does it still while maintaining that curious mix of selfish desire to do whatever he wants and selfless sacrifice towards the people he cares about. Luffy doesn’t want to be a hero, but remains uncorrupted by the malevolent social hierarchies that rule One Piece’s world.

But for all the ways One Piece is a Romantic story, the philosophy of the series departs in several key places. The Romantics of the late 18th and 19th centuries were reacting to the anxieties brought around by the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent urbanization that came along with it, while One Piece belongs squarely to the post-modern era of the 21st. While both glorify a long-gone past, what that past looks like is very different. One Piece fully embraces technology and progress, as best seen during the conflict between Noland and Calgura in the Skypia flashback. While industrialization is sometimes portrayed negatively (see Wano) it’s just as likely to be seen in a positive light (Water 7), and the mysterious civilization of the Void Century was more technologically advanced than the present day manga, not less.

What’s more important than modernization and technological advance is the ways people use said technology. The beautifully rendered locations along the Straw Hat’s journey are just as likely to be vast stretches of wilderness as bustling metropolises, and that search of wonder and the sublime is equally likely to be found in both.

More importantly, I think, is that the Romantics of old were solitary creatures, brooding and isolated from the people around them. There was a preoccupation of creating art devoid of outside influence. The sublime was a deeply personal experience that by its very nature could not be shared with others. Melancholy, loss, solitude, and death were preoccupations of the Romantic mind, the price of visionary genius being social isolation.

One of the most famous Romantic heroes of the 19th century was Thomas Chatterton, a young genius of a poet who, in the midst of poverty and depression killed himself at the age of 17. He was immortalized in paintings and poems, and his influence can be felt to this day by the persistence of the trope of the suffering artist that he, and countless others, helped codify.

One Piece is the story of a boy who rejects the confines of society in search of his own freedom, but he does not do so alone. Luffy is driven as much by the desire to be with his friends as he is by his desire to find the One Piece. The series agrees that risking death is an acceptable part of chasing ones dream, but rejects the notion that it should be sought out or celebrated. It’s better to live an undignified life in the hope of a better tomorrow than to give into an easy death.

And that’s the fascinating part about how philosophies evolve over time, because as much as One Piece borrows from the Romantic era of the 18 and 19th centuries, it isn’t a Romantic story, just as how no amount of research and copying of style could ever turn a historical novel written today into a product of the era its trying to emulate. Oda has taken an old idea and made it into something new, using that idea as the guide for the entire series. Like sun, guiding to the dawn of a new era.

A Romance dawn, if you will. 

[princesssarisa]

I hope no one is getting tired of this. I just like seeing everyone's reactions to these silly takes on a classic novel.

These are takes I couldn't fit into the last two polls about our heroine Elizabeth herself. Plus one about Darcy's feelings for her.

**Mrs. Bennet is a lousy mother, and Elizabeth is her least favorite daughter until she marries the richest man, but let's not exaggerate.

[lizzy-bonnet]

I love Jane Austen's work and I love podcasts, so naturally I follow several JA podcasts (please drop recs in the tags). I'm enjoying Live from Pemberley from Hot and Bothered, but a comment from literally the first episode of the series has been circulating in my brain since I listened to it several months ago: one of the hosts expressed surprise (and disappointment?) in the fact that when we first meet Lizzy, she is "employed in trimming a hat". This comment literally comes right after a conversation about how Austen tells us so much in the very short space of Chapter 1; without wasting any words, we know exactly who Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are (lightly toxic relationship), understand their family situation (need to marry well), meet the main driver of the first act (rich man in the neighbourhood), and understand a social dilemma (girls can't meet him if Mr. Bennet does not make the first overture). So what is Austen telling us when we meet Lizzy in the employment of trimming a hat?

We so often read a sort of modern girlboss feminism into Lizzy because she is smart and stands up for herself, but I think that's something that really gets embroidered on to the text. Lizzy trimming a bonnet is telling us several things about her:

She is frugal - new hats and bonnets are really expensive (my casual hobby is shopping for reproduction bonnets and this remains true), because the straw is braided by hand, the bonnet shape is assembled and blocked by hand, feathers have to be gathered from real (living or dead) birds, ribbons and flowers are hand-finished, the whole situation is fuck expensive. Lizzy is most likely putting new trim on a straw or wool bonnet she already owns to make it work better for this season's fashions, or a new dress, and possibly recycling trimmings from other hats. Contrast this with Lydia's spending all her pocket money on an ugly hat in Chapter 39, just so she can reduce it to parts, even though she acknowledges she'll also have to buy some extra satin too, to finish the project.

She cares about fashion - we don't get a lot of information on sartorial choices in Austen's work, and when characters are discussing fashion, it tends to be a framework for explaining something about their characters; Miss Steele's need to know how much Marianne's dresses cost (rude, crass); Mrs. Bennet's loving description of the lace on Mrs. Hurst's gown (shallow); Catherine Moreland's agonizing over what to wear to the Assembly (young, a bit flighty); Bingley wears a blue coat (has probably read The Sorrows of Young Werther, is fashionable). The fact that Lizzy is trimming a hat tells us she is fashionable, but paired with the fact that she will get a petticoat muddy in order to see her sister, and does not spend a lot of time worrying after fashion like Lydia tells us that she does not live and die on fashion.

She is creative - I've trimmed various hats and bonnets over my years of interest in historical fashion and honestly it's not easy. It's quite fiddly to get a nice ribbon edge, a ruched lining takes forever, and getting sprays of florals and feathers to be nicely shaped and all in a complementary palette is quite fussy. Getting a nice looking bonnet requires some thinking and planning. But it's also great fun! The Regency era is, in my opinion, a particularly good period for hats.

She is normal - I think Austen wants the reader to understand that Lizzy is a young woman with normal cares and concerns. She doesn't have cash for a new bonnet, she wants to look nice, she knows how to put an outfit together, she's not frivolous like her sisters, and she engages in the typical pursuits of someone who is not yet one and twenty who does not have a specific occupation.

A lot of modern readers are expecting Lizzy to be striding around the countryside unconcerned with "girly" things, or reading a clever book because we have come to think of her as proto-feminist in a way that suggests she might be a bra (corset) burner, but I think that comes from an outdated feminist lens that still wants to tell us that girly things are bad, or at least, a bit weak, and I don't see that in the text at all (I think some of this trickles over from the adaptations). Lizzy walks enthusiastically, she enjoys reading (but not to the exclusion of other employments), she dances very well and plays with mediocrity, she cares deeply about her friends and family, she has excellent manners, and dammit, she trims hats.

[snakeeeater]

hey man, nice shot

[dante sparda x gn werewolf!reader] -> prologue

PLEASE READ:

★ This is DMC5 Dante!!

★ This is borderline crack right now but will develop a bit more bear with me fellas

★ That’s all! Enjoy this wacky woohoo garbage

So, you’re fucked.

That’s what you’re thinking when the uglyass pyrobat you’re stalking breaks through the roof of a warehouse on Seventh. The building’s got these hellish glowing red lights pulsating from the cracks forming in its dilapidated state, and suddenly your M1911s and dearly beloved 14 Randall don’t feel sufficient.

You’re thankful for the rain and overcast sky tonight, because it masks your footsteps and softens your shadow’s mark against the ground as you slowly approach the place. The hood of your sweatshirt is soaked through— you thought about putting on your windbreaker earlier to stay dry and warm, but the plastic-y sounds it made when you moved would certainly gain unwanted attention from the demon you were stalking.

You shift one of the straps of your holsters before crouching by the window. Your knees crack. You press your back to the wall for a moment. 

Okay.

Now that you’re this close you can tell that there’s definitely some sort of demonic ritual going on inside from what you hear— voices that sound like sandpaper speak in an overlapping chatter. You strain your ears. There’s the sound of magic sparking and the sound of something… squishy? It sounds like someone being sliced in a horror movie.

You shudder at the implications of that sound, but keep your mouth shut.

When hearing doesn’t yield any more ideas, you turn on your heels. The rubber soles of your combat boots grind the gravel under your feet a little too loudly and you freeze. A fearful eye of yours shoots up to see if the demons heard anything.

A second passes.

Another.

You seem to be safe… for now.

You decide against sticking your head over the windowsill and opt to put an eye to one of the holes in the walls. You squint through the hazy red filling the room.

And your blood runs ice cold.

A cross levitates in the center of the empty warehouse and a naked woman hangs upside down from it, spinning slowly. She’s been brutally ripped open and you’re sure all her blood was used in making the markings on the floor that you’re failing to interpret. Her— oh god, you want to vomit— her organs are organized in messy piles in what you assume are the cardinal directions.

In a fleeting attempt to tear your eyes away from that disgusting scene, you decide take in the demons. 

You see three bowing Hell Caina, a triad of pyrobats circling the ceiling, the shadows of three Death Scissors, three massive Proto Angelo heading Scudo Angelo units of three, and at the center of it all, three goddamn Lusachia which were doing all the raspy chanting you hear.

You turn around, pressing your back to the wall. 

The number three seems to be important to this ritual. You’d have to tell Morrison.

“Shit.” You press the heels of your palms to your eye sockets.

You almost laugh.

If you got back to Morrison from here.

Sure, you weren’t human anymore. Sure, you were legally dead, so it wouldn’t really matter if you were crushed like a grape. And sure, you survived a freak werewolf attack.

But after dying, being buried, transforming during the new moon cycle, and crawling out of the ground, you still weren’t able to bust out the monster hiding underneath your skin at will.

You massaged the scarring bite wounds that had been left behind on your left shoulder. They was no longer tender, but they still looked angry as hell.

“Maybe a life-or-death situation will bring it out.” You whisper so softly you can’t hear it yourself. It worked for most fictional characters, anyway. You’re left with virtually no choice.

You position yourself at the window. 

Feeling like a stereotypical “bad boy” in a straight-to-DVD teen movie sneaking into his girlfriend’s room at night, you enter the warehouse slowly through the window. You’re not quite sure how the quiet rustling goes ignored. Plot armor, maybe.

You crouch in the shadows a stack of crates cast upon the floor and aim down the front sight of your gun, like Morrison taught you. You remember some wise words from… well, every movie you’ve ever seen featuring a person learning how to use a gun: aim where they’re headed, not where they are.

You take in a shaky breath and

BANG!

You’ve fired a shot at a pyrobat. By a miracle, you hit it and it spirals downward gracelessly, whacking itself on a Scudo Angelo’s head and twitching to death. 

The entire hellish garrison turns to face you. If this were a Marvel movie, you’d make a quippy one-liner and kick ass.

In your current situation, however, a Hell Caina shrieks at you and slices a gaping hole in your body with its scythe. You blinked, and it was tearing into your flesh like a rabid dog to a raw turkey on Thanksgiving.

Through the pity-training Morrison put you through, the two of you found out that you can tank hits because of your werewolfish condition.

But it didn’t mean you liked to do it.

“Ow.” Is your response to the Hell Caina. It’s not even a shout, it’s more of a lame, throwaway comment. Some may even smell the stench of predetermined defeat radiating off of your body.

Since you’re close enough to shoot without missing, you point your pistol at its face and use your free hand to press against your wound. When you pull the trigger, it squeals loudly and melts away.

“Too bad I’m not like the other hunters.” You mumble. The tank role in video games was pretty boring. All they did was take damage so their cooler DPS-skilled teammates could do the actual killing. And then you died if you had nobody else with you.

It fits with your general luck.

You shoot a few bullets into the air and miss every shot. You shoot a Proto Angelo. The bullet ricochets off its shield, and you almost start sobbing.

You’re stupid for doing this. You’re no hunter. You’re too old to pick it up efficiently, according to everyone else you’ve talked to about jobs. You’re probably going to die somehow— maybe these demons will overpower your uncanny healing or just send you to Hell.

“This was supposed to be easy.” You laugh because if you’re not laughing, you’d be crying.

Your guns click with the telltale sign that they’re empty now.

“Great.” You growl. You hadn’t counted on wasting so many bullets in such a short amount of time— call it wishful thinking, call it ignorance, call it a total mistake.

A pyrobat spews fire in your direction, which you somersault to the side to avoid. At least you still had that ability.

You sigh as it obviously charges up another shot of fire to spit at you. “I wish I did Krav Maga when I was a kid. Then I’d rip and tear you guys apart.”

The pyrobat is unamused by your reference to Doom, the pyrobat spits fire again. You roll out of the way again. “Or maybe I should’ve been more like a stereotypical American and started learning how to shoot young.”

You’re talking too much for someone about to die. Your head is too light for someone who wants to run away.

The revving sounds of a motorcycle round up by the entrance of the warehouse.

“And that’s probably the police.” you sigh. This was turning out to be a whole mess. Now, you’d have horrible things happen to you and civilians would also be involved.

The doors to the warehouse bust open with a loud BANG. A man with hair the color of undyed silk walks in like he owns the place and every building in a five mile radius. In his hands he carries twin pistols that look like a similar model to yours. And on his back, he carries a sword like a badass.

You immediately envy this man’s swagger. He’s clearly another one of those “I’ve been doing this since I was ten” hunters, here to clean up a mess you couldn’t even get out of unscathed.

The man clicks his tongue at the sight of the mutilated woman. “That’s unfortunate. I guess that means… it’s time to groove!” 

And the man grooves.

With a dramatic twirl of his twin pistols the man transforms into a force of nature so powerful, you swear all over that he could secretly be a demon king down in Hell. His mission? To come up here to crush the dreams and this power-boosting ritual of demon king wannabes.

Or something. Your mind gets a little carried away.

But he really is a whirlwind of carnage, seeming as though he is fused to his sword and ripping through demons like there was no tomorrow.

Correction: there is no tomorrow. Now for these pathetic pieces of Hell scum. He even laughs at one point after vanquishing all of the Death Scissors you’ve been narrowly avoiding. He drives his sword into the helmet of a Proto Angelo and it shatters with the force. He shoots a barrage of bullets into the Lusachia and it they fall dead before any even had the chance to teleport to safety.

And when he tap danced on the body of his final victim while humming a jovial tune, your jaw actually dropped.

He shoots you a look after the spectacle. “You one of them?”

The guy wasn’t even breaking a sweat.

“Uh…” you look down at your body. Nothing about you screams demon. “No. I’m human.”

The man shakes his head, like he knows you’re lying but doesn’t care enough to let you know that he knows. “Call the cops on this place after you leave, alright sweetheart? Wouldn’t want that poor lady to become another face on a milk carton.”

“Yeah.” You nod. He called me sweetheart. You think dumbly.

It’s— made evident by your immediate thoughts— been ages since you’ve been flirted with, let alone talked to someone who wasn’t Morrison.

The man turns and begins walking away. Before his silhouette disappears into the night, he raises a hand. “Ciao.”

You spot the guy with hair as white as snow again at a crosswalk while walking home a couple nights later.

It goes like this:

You were rightfully restless after your warehouse fail. Your pay from Morrison was still in full, so you had enough to splurge a little on the finer things in life, like restocking the dwindling supply of Budweisers you liked to keep handy in your fridge.

You make your way down to the closest 7-11, which happens to be a five minute walk away from your shitty new apartment. 

This area was the type you’d avoid in your old life— sketchy hoodlums loitering in alleyways, the telltale twitches of drug addicts walking by, and the accusing shouts of petty thugs getting into murderous fisticuffs. 

You are by no means a pearl-clutching socialite with a plush and stuffed trust fund, but living here as someone who didn’t have the best means of defending themselves… well, it wasn’t a good idea. The people here weren’t significantly more dangerous, but they were a hell of a lot more jumpy than other people you’d pass on the street.

However, after being bit by one of those mangy dogs of the night, you weren’t so scared of meeting the next Ted Bundy while hunting demons.

(Okay. Attempting to hunt demons.)

As Jason Dean in the cult classic movie Heathers once stated, 7-11 is consistent across all American locations and you’re inclined to agree.

Every chain location you’ve been to has looked like a front for a meth lab. Every time you push a 7-11 door open, it feels like the introductory gas station scene in the Resident Evil 2 Remake is being superimposed over your reality.

You avoid a shirtless guy who won’t stop coughing onto the chip rack and make your way to the refrigerated drinks section for your Budweiser. You grab a box of fifteen cans for about twenty dollars and make your way to the front. You flash your impeccably-crafted fake driver’s license from Morrison to the underpaid cashier who doesn’t bat an eye at its legitimacy as you slide thirty dollars over the counter. 

You almost tell her: “Keep the change, kid,” but you’re more broke than she is, so you grab the coins she’s pulled from the register.

You step outside the store and walk away from the encampment of cigarette smokers loitering by the entrance so you can place the box on the floor. You wiggle a beer can free, planning on popping it open when you get closer to home and chugging it.

You reach your first crosswalk shortly after this. 

This is where you meet the guy with hair like Danny Phantom again. Out of the corner of your eye, you see him notice you, do a little double take, look ahead again, and then get closer.

“This is probably gonna sound real cheesy,” is his opening line, complete with a suave pause. “But you look familiar.”

“Hi,” You reply, feeling your face start to flush a little at the sight of a good-looking dude. Jesus Christ. You were in need of some normal human interactions. “We were in that warehouse on Seventh a couple of days ago.”

“Ah,” the man nodded. “The one where that poor woman was kinda… turned into spaghetti.”

You nod. “That’s the one.”

“Fancy seeing your face again.” He has a flippant lilt to his voice, which makes you want to bury your face into a pillow and start giggling. Thank god it was dark out and he couldn’t see how you were awkwardly biting your bottom lip and thank god both your hands were occupied.

“So, uh… here.” You say in a genius reply, holding out the sweating can of beer meant for yourself.

The guy looks at it in your hand. “Hunh? What for?”

“Well, you, uh, helped me out with that warehouse situation so I figured…” you shrug, the inside of the can sloshing slightly with the motion. “Y’know, it’s certainly the least I could repay you with.”

“Well, thanks,” He reaches for the can and your fingers brush. He shoots you a crooked smile. “I’d love to stick around but I really gotta bounce. I’ll see you around?”

“See you.” You try to echo his coolness with your words, but it feels artificial.

This marks the moment where white hair guy crosses the street away from where you’re going so you march onward, not bothering to look back at him and thinking quite hard about it.

But when you get home, crack open a beer, and begin to watch T.V through your neighbor’s window across the street, you realize you hadn’t asked his name.

[next]

masterlist

[bonny-kookoo]

Lock Me Up | Short #1

In which he realizes some things, but denies himself others.

Tags/Warnings: Detective Agust D my friends, Criminal Kitty!Reader, hybrid Yoongi, mentions of murder, mentions of violence, mentions of blood, mentions of past abuse, strangers to enemies to I don't even know, sexual tension?, dead dove do not eat

Length: Mid/short

-> Series Masterlist

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"Takehiko is under arrest currently, and is being watched until we can all agree on a court date. She's still with you, right?" The detective is being asked, as he takes a drag of his cigarette outside his apartment on the rooftop.

"She is." He agrees.

"But..?" His superior questions over the phone, knowing Yoongi well enough to realize when he's got something to say. "Don't tell me she wants to retract her statement. Tell her she's safe-"

"No, no that's not it." Yoongi denies, flicking the ash off of his cigarette while he leans his arms on the railings. "Rather.. unforseen circumstances that will probably push anything involving her back by a week or so." He explains with a sigh. "At least."

"So she's in heat." His superior chuckles, and Yoongi feels a bit irritated. Kim Seokjin might be a smart man, but he sure knows how to draw amusement from Yoongi's struggles every single time the chance is there.

"Not quite yet, but probably soon. She's medicated, but still, she won't be able to make any date you might have in mind right now." He explains, flicking away the smoked bud somewhere down to the ground while he checks your tracker- just to make sure.

Legally, any statement you make in court won't have any weight as long as you're in heat- so right now, you're pretty much holding the whole process in the air until you're no longer under the influence of any drugs or your hormones to say it bluntly. Yoongi himself entirely forgot about the possibility of this.

"Oh, I was about to ask how you wanted to handle that." Seokjin chuckles.

"Anything else would've gone against proto-"

"Ah come on Min Yoongi, everyone steps over the protocol here and there!" He laughs over the phone. "Do you not like her? She seemed cute when I met her, not going to lie."

"…" Yoongi can't answer. He wants to- but he realizes in this moment that he just.. never thought about it. Does he like you? Or has he just gotten used to you?

Well, he certainly doesn't mind you.

He neither minded going out to get your medications, nor does he mind how you sometimes reach for his hand at night when you sleep. He doesn't mind how you constantly try to rile him up or get on his nerves, and he definitely doesn't mind your presence when he works. But does he like it?

He.. kind of does, come to think of it.

"It's alright to admit it, you know." Seokjin hums over the phone. "I'm not testing you or anything."

"That would be exactly what you'd say if you were testing me." Yoongi argues back defensively. "Listen, I'll supervise her while she's on her meds, and I'll ring you up the minute she's through with it."

"Well, you do you detective blank-face." Seokjin jokes. "Have fun!" He laughs, and Yoongi rolls his eyes before ending the call and walking back into his apartment where you're laying flat on your stomach-

In the middle of the main room.

"And.. what is this?" He asks, though you just groan into floorboards in agony.

"I'm gonna die~!" You wail, and he sighs.

This is going to be the longest heat he'll probably ever have to sit through.

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"Stop- hey, slow down alright? One is enough for now." He tells you, taking away the pack of snacks from you. You immediately become teary eyed, grabbing after them- though his arm is longer, palm pressed against your sternum keeping you away.

"But I'm hungry!" You cry out. "I'll starve! You're gonna make me starve, is that it? Did I bother you so much that you want me dead now?" You ask dramatically, and he takes a deep breath.

"You're not starving." He clarifies as carefully as he can manage, putting the snacks back into the highest shelf where he keeps most of your foods at the moment since you use any moment where he's not looking to practically consume everything edible in his household. "You just feel empty, and you confuse that with hunger." He explains, and now you just look annoyed.

"Yeah well, who's fault is that?" You accuse with crossed arms. "Anyone else would've just screwed me already to get it over and done with." You say, and he looks at you with a blank face.

"I'm not anyone, however." He reminds you.

"I know.. I'm sorry- you're tryin'a be nice and I'm such a bitch for no reason.." you suddenly deflate, walking away from him to crawl underneath a blanket on your chaotic bed, hiding.

It's your medication- and he honestly feels sorry for you.

When you're not cramping and uncomfortable and most of all nauseous, you start to feel empty and hungry, not to mention the mess that's your emotions. One moment you're irritated by nothing, the next you're scared of everything. It's a little tough to handle, he won't lie.

Mostly because he wants to help as much as he can, but there's really a tough limit to what he can actually do without.. well, that.

"Here, drink something instead, that's more important right now." He offers, squatting down at the side of your bed with a bottle of water.

There's no answer.

"You're not asleep."

"How'd you know?!" You suddenly ask, throwing back the covers as you sit up, holding your heat quickly from the whiplash.

"Its not that hard to tell." He- chuckles?!- before he unscrews the cap of the water bottle. You drink eagerly- though you keep your eyes on him the entire time, as if you're thinking of something that involves him. "What?- no no no, my God..." he sighs as you try and talk without having swallowed down the last gulp of water, immediately forcing yourself to cough.

When you finally stop, he tries again. "First drink, then talk." He reminds you, and you nod.

"Can I ask how you got that scar? Like, who did that?" You wonder, finger reaching out to touch it- and he instinctively leans away from you. "Oh sorry, my bad." You apologize, and he shakes it off.

"Its not a cool story, really." He mumbles quietly. "Nothing what you might expect." He shrugs, screwing the cap back onto the bottle before he stands up to put it back into the fridge.

"..so?" You ask meekly, still wanting to know. "I mean you don't have to say-" you start, but he cuts you off as he washes some dishes in the sink.

"Me." He says, and you freeze in your spot. "You asked who did it." He says over his shoulder when he notices your silence, and at that, you watch him with an unreadable expression, before you get up. "What, you wanna look at it aga-"

But he's caught off guard when you simply quietly hug him from the back, soft purring trying to somehow get your feelings across.

And he understands.

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"What is it?" He asks when he notices you pacing again, not wanting to sit down at all it seems like. Your tail snaps upwards at the sound of his voice- but you're not answering for a moment.

"I need to go outside." You say, and he puts his pen down, ready to argue. You've already argued twice about this very specific topic- he can't let you outside like this on your own, the risks too high. And unbeknownst to you, it's not just because you're still a key witness to his case- but also because he personally doesn't want you to roam around outside while clearly still in heat, medicated or not.

He doesn't want to admit it yet, but his reasoning aren't just because he's a hybrid and therefore influenced by you.

"I know! I know you said I can't but I really need something and-" you argue instantly, standing in front of his desk with your legs pushed together suspiciously.

"I bought them already." He tells you nonchalantly, picking up his pen again to continue working. "They're in the bathroom, underneath the sink." He explains, and you stare at him for a moment, before you squint your eyes in suspicion, walking where he told you he'd pit what you need.

There's no way he actually-

He did.

It's definitely a more expensive brand you'd be using- but you won't question it for now, rather glad to be able to clean up and regain some comfort as you do your business and line your underwear with the hybrid-heat pads.

Maybe that'll help him, too.

You know he's affected by you inside his home even if he doesn't admit it- it's not hard to notice. He tends to go outside a lot more, he keeps a window open next to him when he works, he tries to keep any close contact to a minimum. You like that he stays respectful, sure- but you also feel awful about it, because you're just making his job and life so much more complicated right now. No one wants to willingly take care of a medicated hybrid in heat- it's exhausting, annoying, and most of all-

"Everything alright in there?" He asks through the door, knocking pulling you out of your thoughts.

"Y-yeah, no issues!" You call out, and he seems to leave at that, making you deflate. The detective seems to be a pretty good guy underneath that weird tough guy persona he puts up during his work- but it's clear to you that while he might tolerate you, and doesn't truly mind you, he doesn't like you either. He's still someone who despises his own genes, so it's a no-brainer that he probably doesn't like you either.

And you don't blame him at all.

Walking outside the bathroom, you rub your eye- and he immediately gets up to check on you. "What happened?" He wants to know, thinking you're crying, but you wave him off.

"..got.. something in my eye.." you mumble, making him click his tongue as he holds your face in his hands to tilt it upwards so he can see better. He's concentrated on his task, but his grip isn't rough or anything- he's awfully gentle, careful in locating and brushing the hair out ofbyour eye, before he lets go of you again. "..thanks." You mumble, and he nods, walking back to his desk.

"No problem." He simply answers, orange hue from the setting sun coloring the entire interior of his apartment.

"Hey, Detective.?" You ask, carefully pushing some things on his desk with your leg as you sit on the corner, making him furrow his brows at your antics- though he's used to them at this point. "Do you have like- hobbies?" You wonder, and he clicks something on his laptop before he closes the device, leaning back in his seat with crossed arms.

"Not really, no." He answers dryly.

"Boring." You huff. "Not even old-people-stuff like, I don't know, collecting stamps or something?" You ask, and he shakes his head.

"No." He simply answers, and you let your shoulders drop.

"Oh come on man, I'm trying to make smalltalk here!" You whine, and he chuckles- something he's been doing recently, and it fills you with happiness, in a way. "You gotta help me out!"

"Why would I?" He asks, leaning his head to the side a bit. "You're pretty entertaining like this." He shrugs.

You, in return, pull out your tongue, before jumping down to walk into the kitchen, attempting to climb on the countertop to reach your snack-stash.

"Hey- stop that!" He immediately calls out rushing to you, pulling you down but your middle before setting you back down onto the ground.

"But De-te-ctive~!" You wail dramatically. "I'm gonna-"

"You're not going to starve, I told you." He reminds you, but you simply suddenly fall limp in his grip, practically melting through his arms like liquid before you're on the ground, giggling. He sighs.

"Your life is gonna be so fucking boring when I'm gone." You joke-

And he knows, deep inside, just how right you are.

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"Pssst, Detective.!" You hiss- but he's dead asleep. "Detective!" You hiss again, but still, he's unconscious.

It's unusual for him to sleep this tightly, not even reacting to you when you're pulling on his arm. And it's freaking you out- because you know for a fact, someone's on the roof, and its a stranger.

You're just about to slap the man, when the window crashes, making you instantly try and hide- but it's no use, because his apartment isn't big at all, and gives you nowhere to truly go in the spur of the moment like this.

You notice how the detective's eyes slowly open, as if he's fighting to wake up- but he still doesn't move.

The food delivered. The young delivery guy at the door that seemed awfully nervous. The soda only he himself had drunk yesterday.

He's so fucking stupid, he thinks to himself.

You can feel Yoongi's grip trying to hold you close to him as you hold onto his hand- but he can't bring himself to do anything else as you finally slip from his fingers, a hit to your head making you go limp as you lose consciousness right in front of his eyes.

And suddenly you're gone, apartment cold and empty again.

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[that-gay-guy-from-hell]

I've Got You: Dante x G/N Reader

SUMMARY:

Dante and you are on a job where something happens; something that scares Dante. 

BEGINNING NOTES: Protective Dante x Quarter-devil G/N Reader Unestablished relationship 🩹🩹🩹 The reader works at the DMC as a demon hunter Quarter devil = A situation like Nero, second gen. hybrid. You can heal like Nero does--much slower than the twins.  The reader uses Gilgamesh Another semi-short story: Not fully proofread, will check later just wanted to post this now lol

==

     A slowly slipping sun on the horizon gave the current gory situation a sickly divine glow. The cause of such bloodshed? Dante and you--both hard at work. While you worked, your face in particular had curled up into a devilish wide wicked grin; the madness of which only being further accented the furious insatiable appetite for violence that had consumed each one of your moves The reason for this uncharacteristic ferocious attitude was simple, you were drop-dead tired. This exhaustion was intense enough that it had swung all the way around back to you feeling rejuvenated and invigorated. A large spray of crimson carnage shot upward toward you, decorating your face and chest, as you used Gilgamesh’s boots to curb-stomp a Proto Angelo.

     All the while, your red devil partner was cracking random jokes and making quippy remarks, as per usual; however, he couldn’t help but focus on your oddly sadistic behavior. Which, to his surprise--and slight horror--he found extremely arousing. 

     The way the sunset illuminated all the blood that sprayed up from each of your kills, how your body bent and contorted in just the right way, that unfamiliar dark smirk; all of it combined into a perfectly seductive bloody waltz. After ripping the throat out of a Hell Jeducca, you wiped some of the accumulated blood from your face. That’s when you noticed Dante’s stare, turning your smile from violent to loving as you waved happily; which evidently was too much of a distraction for the red devil. In a split second, a Fury that he’d been fighting managed to slice the side of Dante’s neck open and a large red spray came from the gouged-out flesh. 

     Dante let out a hissing grunt through gritted teeth and took a deep calming breath, turning to the large demon. As the pair circled one another waiting for the other to strike, both Dante and the demon were caught off guard by you shoving Gilgamesh’s gauntlets right through the Fury’s spine and out it’s stomach. 

     Dante’s heart skipped a beat as he stared; a part of him was fearfully concerned about your rash action but another part of him was amused by it--in more ways than one.

     With an irritated grunt, you shook the corpse from your forearm, dropping it to the ground. Your breathing was ragged and you were standing staring down at the demon’s corpse; reeling at the fact that your stupid impulsive action worked. 

     After a short pause, you sighed in relief at a brief moment of peace and stretched your arms up, cracking your shoulders. As you stared at Dante, you felt an odd nervousness take over your body. He looked hot normally but with the way his hair was disheveled and stuck to his brow from the demon blood that coated the majority of him, it made him look both terrifying and tempting. He smiled at you through his heavy breaths, winking at you, and had his hands resting on his hips. It was then that you noticed his neck wound. 

     Taking care not to trip, you made your way over to the ragged man. Gingerly, you placed a hand over the torn flesh as a sad look crept into your eyes, Dante's eyes trained on you the entire time. 

     A small frown tugged at your face, “You alright?” 

     The youngest son of Sparda smiled and set his hand over yours; or rather, over the demonic gauntlet you had on, “Eh,” he shrugged, “I’ll live. What about you? You feelin’ alright?”

     A surprised huff left your lips as you titled your head with a raised brow, confused as to why he was asking you.

     With a faint hint of concern, Dante began to mindlessly thumb over your arm, “Your fighting style is a little more uh… brutal than normal, you can take a break. I can take care of the rest--we’re almost done anyways.”

     You smiled softly as you began to slowly thumb over his neck, speaking in a smooth gentle voice, “I’m fine, Dante. Don’t worry about me.”

     “It’s my job to worry about you,” he smiled warmly, “You’re my partner after all.”

     With a bright closed-eye laugh, you gently punched his chest with your free hand. However, when you opened your eyes, you slowly stopped laughing. His eyes were trained fully on yours and they were half-lidded, filled with an oddly caring feeling. Bit by bit, the two of you leaned closer and placed your noses right beside one another--

     A sudden intense pain shot through your middle as you pulled back from him, pushing him away. It seems Dante felt it too as he reacted the same way; however, when he looked down, he realized he was just barely nicked by the tip of the blade. 

     You had taken the brunt of the blow.

     With shaking hands, you looked down at your middle and saw the sword that had pierced you before it was harshly yanked back out of you, leaving a gaping hole in its wake--allowing you to see much more of your insides than anyone probably ever should.

     “Dante..?” You looked up at him with an almost confused stare before stumbling forwards.

     “It’s okay,” he caught you as you fell and your hand had vice gripped around his arm, digging your gauntlets into his coat and bicep as he laid you onto the ground, “I’ve got you- I’ve got you.” 

     His eyes met with yours as you let go of him. As he stared into your eyes, an intense wave of emotions overcame Dante--it was a toxic combination of fear and anger, a pairing that only leads to one result. 

     In an instant, Dante he was in his Sin Devil Trigger. The first thing he did was shred a Gladius--the one that had speared you--into tiny insurmountable pieces. Then his attention was on the rest of the newly formed horde. To say that Dante is feral when in his Sin Trigger would be ludicrously underselling it. He’s only supposed to even consider using it when in a completely sound and stable mindset--the furthest thing from what his mind is like right now. All that was in his head was he wanted to protect you-- he needed to protect you, from anything and everything that might hurt you. It didn’t take long for him to have the demons killed off which then he should’ve returned to your side, allowing him to calm down and de-Trigger, but something else caught his eye. 

     The two of you hadn’t been alone when you started this mission; no, in fact, you had two other hunters that had gone through the opposite side and finally had reconvened with you both in the middle of the nest. 

     Vergil and Nero.

     The father-son duo stood dumbfounded for a moment. Although Vergil was far from afraid of his brother’s devil forms, this was one of the very finite times that Vergil had seen Dante use it outside of their time in Hell. Whereas Nero could count on one hand how many times he’d seen his uncle like this; rendering him completely clueless of the amount of danger he, and Vergil, were truly in.

     Nero smiled with a shake of his head, walking towards the rumbling red devil, “What? You two get your asses kicked that bad?”

     Instantaneously, Dante was in front of Nero. Before the young hunter could even process what happened, Dante shot up in the air and dropped straight down. A large bright explosion emanated from the devil’s actions, which then decorated the area with bright sparsely placed hellfire. With a snarl, the red devil stood back up and expected the “threat” to be gone; however, it wasn’t--at least not in the way he expected. A faint smell of demonic magic in the air as Dante surveyed what happened. 

     He turned to the side and saw, a now Sin Devil Triggered, Vergil, holding Nero tightly to his chest. The two of them locked eyes and both flared out their wings, letting out a low growl the entire time; sizing each other up. Vergil, however, was quickly preoccupied by a pissed-off Nero complaining about how Vergil is squishing him “--to death”.  

     Dante noticed Vergil’s distraction and took a step toward them.

     Seeing what was going on, you decided to intervene; even if it made you want to gouge out your own throat in pain, “Dante..?”

     The red devil’s attention was immediately upon you and he was by your side, frantic at your still injured state.

     Gently and carefully you placed a hand on his cheek, thumbing over the plate that created the underside of his eye and his cheek; doing your best not to cut or burn yourself, “They’re not going to hurt you or me; everything’s alright.”

     Dante made a small chirping purr as he leaned into your touch before picking you up, careful as to not agitate your wounds. It was unclear just how far he had taken you but it was far enough away that the weather had changed completely becoming cold and rainy. There was no cityscape or demons in sight, just forest for miles around. 

     Perhaps if Dante hadn’t been in such an intimidating form, you may have considered this to be a date. Being out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but forest as far as the eye could see; it was breathtaking.

     Dante set you down, gently bunting his head against you before standing up. He was scanning the area, listening and looking for anything moving or anything that might even so much as think about harming you. 

     “Dante?” You reached up for his hand, grabbing one of his claws.

     The red devil turned to you in a panicked manner, thinking that something was wrong. 

     “Sit with me?” Your voice was soft, trying to calm him down, “Please?”

     Although hesitant, Dante did as you asked with a small grumbled huff and sat beside you. 

     With a small grunt, you stood up and saw that he was going to as well, “Stay.” He growled in slight agitation, so you quickly tacked on a “please” to your request.

     Very carefully, you sat sideways between his legs, doing your best to keep yourself from getting stabbed by his thigh spikes. Bit by bit, you leaned your head against him and a loud purr began to emanate from deep within Dante’s chest as he wrapped his arm around your lower back. You had the other hand in yours, using both your hands to hold it and play with it slightly. In your time working with Dante, you’d only seen this form once and it had been due to a similar situation where you’d been hurt. 

     “You know, you might look scary when you’re like this but,” you looked up at him, meeting his gaze, “you really aren’t much different than you are normally,” You adjusted your head a bit and let out a small laugh at him putting his wings around the both of you, “Okay, maybe just a little more protective.”

     A small rumble came from deep inside his chest, laughing at your words. Even though he knew that you were going to be fine, that you would heal just like everyone else, Dante couldn’t help but worry about you. 

     “I love you; you know that Dante?” you smiled at the sound of his purring grow tenfold louder, “I thought so,” with a laugh you placed a small kiss on his middle, “When you are back to human we can finish that kiss, okay?”

     He chuffed at you, eager to be able to kiss you. 

     With how hot it was within his grasp and the noise from both the rain and his purring, you couldn’t help but fall asleep. As you slept, Dante had managed to slide back down into his regular Trigger and then to human once more. A small content smile tugged at his lips, although your shirt was totaled, you were just fine. Without disturbing you too much he took off his jacket, wrapped it around you, and pulled you closer to his chest--setting you properly on his lap. 

     Dante closed his eyes as he held you tightly and, with a voice as soft as silk, he whispered against the top of your head, “I love you too, darling,” he placed a soft kiss atop your head, “So very much.”

==

Sorry for the typos (and apparently unsaved/half-done paragraph?? Not sure what happened but I tried to fill in what I thought was supposed to be there *Google Docs didn't save it for some reason smh*), they should be fixed now lmao

==

Want to see more like this? Want to read my work quicker and several stories that are not on Tumblr? Check this out on my AO3 (Linked here)

MASTER LIST FOR TUMBLR

[rottenraccoons]

Not sure if this has already been asked yet, but how did the team come up with the four love interests in the first place? I feel like the hardest part of developing a character is figuring out how to start. All four feel so wonderfully complex, and are not very "trope-y," which is what I struggle with the most. Thanks!

Aw, thank you! I love answering stuff like this, so I decided to go through my process on Keir and rambled a bit. I'll put my answer under a readmore for brevity.

For us, we started building Obscura with the idea that we wanted to do something dark and mature, and began with developing a setting. Once we picked and started building out the marketplace under the mountain, we could start asking ourselves "why would anyone go to this place?" and work from there. (Vesper's fractum anima is one answer to this question that we really liked for the MC.)

"Thief" feels like a pretty natural role for a marketplace, and Tobi made it clear that she wanted to develop a very dark character, so I thought a more heroic Robin Hood-type character would be a nice contrast. My original concept of Keir was for a thief who burns for justice in a deeply unjust setting; think shounen-anime hero and you're in the right neighbourhood. Pretty tropey, and I say that with love! Proto-Keir would be a delight to write in a different story.

But the rest of the team didn't think that type of character really suited the dark tone we wanted to work with, and they were right. So we took the trope and twisted it. Yes, he's a good man who burns for justice in an unjust world; and he is extremely burned out. And that twist on the formula unlocked Keir for me and the rest of the team. Burned-out Keir could be exhausted and sarcastic and even cynical about the world, bitter about the state of the marketplace and very protective of Mouse Hole as a place he can improve.

This isn't to say that "burned-out activist Robin Hood" is an original characterisation that's never been done before; TV Tropes has a whole page on the Knight in Sour Armor, which deals with similar characters. But it was the foundation we could build on as a team to make a character that felt strong enough to be a romantic interest.

I've mentioned this before, but one of the inspirations I draw from when I write about the marketplace is the awful Web3/crypto environment, a topic I enjoy reading about mostly for the schadenfreude and ended up learning about as a consequence. For Keir, I use concepts like activist burnout and compassion fatigue, things I learned about much more intimately in 2020 (you can guess why). Taking these real life ideas and bringing them into my writing is my favourite way to add depth and texture to characters and settings. If you're looking to do the same, try looking outside fiction and see what things interest you, then bring them back to your fiction.

Not to say that tropey characters are a bad thing! I could write a whole other essay on the utility of character tropes, especially in the world of romance games. Tropes can be a great place to start constructing characters to ensure that they all have their own appeal, and they're just fun to experience as a reader, especially when it's one of your faves. There's no shame in being a bit tropey, if it suits the story you want to tell!

(And if you're looking for a bit of extra ~secret sauce~: give your characters two things they want super badly, but getting one thing will compromise the other. Safety and love are a classic pair; safety often means staying closed off from other people to avoid being hurt, love requires opening up to others. Then let them struggle with those competing wants.)

[kerubimcrepin]

Live-Read: "Dofus Manga" - part 1

(But only the bits with Atcham, Kerubim, or Joris.)

I'm sure that someday, I will read this comic. That day is not today, though. Today, we are looking for jurgencrepin content within it. Which isn't a lot, but it is present.

Firstly, I would like to note, that there is an appearance of proto-Kerubim and proto-Khan, in one of the volumes in the 2010-2013 time frame, as figurines. (the guy next to them is not Joris, but a whisperer.)

I do not know which volume, because I do not want to search for them.

To be exact, it seems to be the same proto-Kerubim, as the one that appears in this video, depicting one of the early drafts of the movie. (In this one, I am pretty sure Joris was still meant to be a homeless orphan. And Lilotte was always planned to be either a rogue, a princess or both at the same time.)

Now, onto actually canonically relevant appearances of the Jurgen-Crepins

Dofus: Issue 19

In a Brakmarian shop, Katar (guy who killed Goultard's family, idk, too long, don't know french, didn't read, know him from the short Goultard cartoon) sees a sword and wants to buy it.

It was ordered by a "very renowned Brakmarian ecaflip who will literally kill me if I don't sell it to him, he's That passionate about this sword. Please don't touch it," according to the shopkeep. Who is then promptly literally killed by Katar instead.

This will become relevant to us in a few tomes.

It is revealed that the king Clustus Sheran-Sharm has taken a dragon for his queen, — and it is revealed how that happened via a flashback.

NOTE: Clustus is an ancestor of the king Leorictus Sheran-Sharm (insane war-criminal, cause of the huppermage genocide, a probable target for Joris to have murdersuicide fantasies about, lives ~110 years in the future from Clustus), and Amalia and her family (who, in turn, live ~600 years in the future relative to Clustus, and are now the royal family of Sadida kingdom, and not Bonta.

NOTE: We do not know why Sheran-Sharms are now the royal family of Sadida, but, the king of Bonta that followed Leorictus is named Théome Beldarion, and he was put on the throne by Jiva after Bonta was without a ruler for 70-90 years — it is unknown if he is related to Leorictus or the Sheran-Sharm family in general.

Perhaps, all the warcrimes made it quite literally so that the Sheran-Sharm family had to seek political asylum in neighbouring lands after Leorictus's suicide caused the all hell to break loose and the following years of huppermage persecution ensued. But idk man. I'm not Tot Ankama.

By the way, Clustus is mentioned in the show, multiple times, — but this is the most direct reference that came to my mind.

Anyway.

The group of adventurers, — of which both Kerubim and his majesty Clustus were a part of, — wanted to collect the Dofus to hide them, to keep the world safe.

Kerubim and Crail (a guy, from the manga, don't ask me, man) studied under the same master, — Master Nabur, — albeit, in different years, so they hadn't met during their education.

At the comic's time, Master Nabur has passed away somewhat recently.

Kerubim pulls out his stupid anime armor and the hoes get scared. (Because if Kerubim is excited about a battle, one should be scared about it.)

He will keep wearing this armour for the next 600 years. Even as it loses its golden paint completely. Even though it has a huge-ass hole from that one time he got shot and died in it. Talk about dedication...

I regret to inform you, reader, that I still desire him carnally.

He says that "the probability of the logs hitting us is very small".

Things go as usual after he says that.

The king and the dragon fall in love, the dragon turns into a woman, and the two of them pretend that he rescued her from the dragon.

Only Kerubim realizes this lie due to his "strong ecaflip sense of smell" (honestly thinking it might be the whole "has so many luck buffs he can predict the future and be a medium or something" thing. and the demigod thing. Combined.)

He decides not to tell anyone, saying that everyone deserves a chance, while asking the dragon not to betray the trust he puts in her, by making this decision.

Dofus: Issue 21

I love you, Atcham...

Atcham has found the body of the smith and the fact that his sword is gone-gone. He waxes really poetically and neurodivergently about how much he loves swords and how badly the guy who did this is going to pay. Atcham is never beating the "swords are his special interest" allegations.

My headcanon, which ties into my "Atcham is autistic" agenda, is that when he was a child, weapons became his one way to keep himself safe, — so because of that, he developed a strong emotional attachment to them. (Though all of Jurgen-Crepins are very... passionate, about objects. But Atcham is mostly only like that about swords, in canon.)

Anyway, if Joris has the deragatory nicknames like "shorty", "kid", and "lil guy" constantly applied to him, then Atcham's personal never-ending hell nightmare is various combinations of "disgusting" "dirty" and "rat".

His response to being threatened with hanging for not attending Brakmarian political stuff is "uhh i don't give a sssshit?" and calmly correcting them that he is an ecaflip, not a rat. (They don't care, but he will make them care very, very soon.)

He's literally so funny for this. I am in love with him.

[thelordofgifs]

director's cut on dearest..................

(director’s cut ask game)

fhshfhshdh ok FINE. (For context, I hinted at/threatened a ramble on the use of the word “dearest” in the fairest stars in this post.)

Maedhros has called Maglor “dearest” six times so far in tfs:

Part 3: He stands up, and then stoops to kiss Maglor's brow. “I don't want to leave you, dearest,” he whispers. “That's how I know I have to.”

Part 15: He puts his hand against Maglor's clammy cheek. "Thank you, dearest," he says softly. "I'll be back soon."

Part 16: “Should I send you away, dearest?” he asks.

Part 20: "I am sorry," he says again. "But I am asking now. Will you stay, dearest? For me?" (sooo fine and normal about this one in particular)

Part 28: Maedhros looks at him as though trying to memorise him. He rises, and then stoops to press a kiss to Maglor’s brow, bathing them both for a moment in the gentle hopeful light of the Silmaril. “I’ll come back to you, dearest.”

Part 30: Some of Maedhros’ thoughts must be showing on his face. He rearranges it into a smile, and says, “Shall I sing you to sleep, dearest?”

… just realised the phrasing on the part 3 and part 28 lines is almost identical, which was not actually intentional and is now giving me a crisis about being repetitive. IT’S FINE IT’S FINE just pretend I am a genius writer who was doing Parallels on purpose ok.

Anyway! For some reason this whole thing has become a minor brand of mine and shows up in most of my m&m fics. I do not know why, but I’m attached to it now. I do think “dearest” is an excellent affectionate nickname for Maedhros to give Maglor: it’s Tolkien-esque – that man did love his words with proto-Germanic roots rather more than he did the Romantic ones – and also, more importantly, it speaks to a very specific dynamic between the two of them. Maglor likes to be reassured that he is Maedhros’ favourite brother, and that Maedhros loves him best, I think: in Valinor he was rather jealous of Maedhros’ affections, and after Thangorodrim it has become rather more of a Guilt thing and a reminder that Maedhros still loves him after what he did. In tfs, Maedhros never uses the word when he is seeking reassurance from Maglor (it’s notably absent in parts 22 and 25, for example, as those both contain m&m scenes where Maedhros is feeling guilty and tormented and desperate for absolution from Maglor); calling Maglor “dearest” is one of his ways of casting himself explicitly in the role of affectionate elder brother, of making himself Maglor’s protector. In reality, their relationship is much more complicated than that – unfortunately for him.

But another thing the word has ended up signifying in tfs is how frightened Maedhros and Maglor are of leaving each other: and Maedhros almost always uses it specifically when he is saying goodbye to Maglor, whether because he is heading out to battle or because Maglor is minutes away from dying in his arms or because he is about to do the stupidest thing he has ever done in his life. For this reason I was Cackling Evilly when I dropped it into part 30, because it was very much directly foreshadowing Maedhros’ imminent departure, and intended to dramatically raise the blood pressure of any reader who had picked up on this.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Noah Berlatsky at Everything Is Horrible:

In the Anglophone world, the intertwined issues of Jewish identity and antisemitism are connected in public memory obsessively, and almost solely, to the Holocaust. Occasionally, perhaps, people also mention the blood libels of the Middle Ages, or the pogroms of Eastern Europe.

The Dreyfus Affair, however, is almost entirely forgotten. It is not a moment revisited in movies or television shows. Politicians do not reference it; there are no public museums in its memory; it is not a part of school curriculum. Even Jewish people hardly discuss it. I doubt one in ten Americans, of any ethnicity or religion, could even tell you vaguely who Alfred Dreyfus was. The disappearance of Dreyfus memory is a real loss. That’s not because we need to remember antisemitism. We do, as I’ve mentioned, remember the Holocaust. The Dreyfus Affair, though, was a victory over antisemitism, and a victory particularly for the diaspora, in a way that World War II was not. The Holocaust has largely been interpreted as an object lesson in the untenability of the diaspora, and the necessity of a Zionist Jewish ethnonationalism. The outcome of Dreyfus’ story is considerably more ambivalent. As such, it is worth revisiting at a moment when Zionism is busily and horrifically delegitimizing itself.

The Affair

Since, the outlines of the Dreyfus Affair are probably little known to readers, it’s worth covering them briefly. My discussion here, and throughout the essay, is mostly based on Maurice Samuels new excellent biography/history, Alfred Dreyfus: The Man At the Center of the Affair, part of the Jewish Lives series. During the French Revolution, France put into practice its new ideals of liberty and equality by, among other things, making Jewish people full citizens of the republic. After legislation in 1791, Jews were suddenly—for the first time in any European country—able to live where they wished, attend the best schools, and work in every profession. The results were immediate and dramatic. Jews made rapid gains in political and economic life; some became quite wealthy and influential.

Among those wealthy Jews was the Dreyfus family. Alfred Dreyfus, born 1859, grew up, like most French Jews, with a passionate commitment to the French nation and to the principles of equality which had liberated them. Determined to serve his country, Dreyfus attended the French military academy. He excelled and became arguably the first Jewish officer ever on the General Staff. His future seemed bright. And then, it all fell apart. In 1894, the French army discovered that there was a traitor on the General Staff who had been passing top secret information to the Germans. Dreyfus was accused of treason. The evidence against him was weak to nonexistent; his handwriting was said to match that on the recovered documents, even though it obviously did not. Nonetheless, he was arrested, tried in a sham military trial, and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was sent to the horrific penal colony on Devil’s Island in French Guiana. He endured tortures almost certainly intended to kill him. His wife, contrary to law, was not allowed to accompany him.   Dreyfus was singled out because he was Jewish. The generals, once they had begun down the path of antisemitism, decided they could not turn back without undermining respect for the military. They forged more evidence, and stonewalled investigations as long as possible.

The Affair polarized sentiment in France, both on Dreyfus and on the place of Jews in French society. Liberal intellectuals like Émile Zola who believed in the Republic and a forward-looking, cosmopolitan, free and equal France sided with Dreyfus and demanded a new trial. The Catholic Church, the military, antisemites, and proto-Vichyites insisted that Dreyfus was guilty and should be punished—or, really, insisted that as a Jew he should be punished whether he was guilty or not. The hatred of Jews erupted into antisemitic riots throughout the country; Jews were beaten, their homes burned, their businesses destroyed. Several Jewish people were killed in Algiers, where there were violence against Jews occurred almost daily in 1898.   Dreyfus was brought back for a new trial in 1899; he was convicted again despite overwhelming evidence in his favor, and eventually exonerated completely in 1906. He was restored to the rank of Major, and served with distinction in World War I. He died in 1935. Jewish people in France still leave stones on his grave.

[...] It wasn’t just Dreyfus and Jewish people who fought for Dreyfus though. The Affair energized every corner of the left, calling them almost uniformly to their best selves. Zola, for example, believed in a number of antisemitic stereotypes at the beginning of the Affair; his first article on the case argued that Jewish people had an innate talent for making money. From that inauspicious beginning he quickly became one of the most passionate gentile opponents of antisemitism in history; his famous 1898 pamphlet J’accuse was a devastating denunciation of the military coverup intended to force a number of generals to sue for libel. They did, and Zola was forced to flee the country—but not before opening the case again and ensuring Dreyfus’ retrial.

The political left in France was also, initially, wary of standing with Dreyfus because of antisemitism. For many socialists, Jewish people symbolized the banking industry and the upper class. Dreyfus, a wealthy Jew serving in the military, seemed the wrong man to rally working class parties. But eventually Socialist leader Jean Jaurès, and others in his party, recognized that Dreyfus had become the man, and the issue, on which Catholic monarchist and capitalist forces had decided to fight for France’s soul. In 1898 Jaurès gave a speech in which he denounced antisemitism as a threat to France; shortly thereafter he published a book defending Dreyfus and presenting the Affair as a matter of socialist solidarity. Some on the left refused to join Jaurès, and the Socialists split. But as Samuels’ biography of Dreyfus notes, “Jaurès helped ensure that a large part of the political left in France would align itself with republican values and against antisemitism for decades to come.”

Noah Berlatsky wrote in his Everything Is Horrible Substack about how the Dreyfus Affair served as a victory against fascism and antisemitism, and how it gave the left a tool to fight back against oppression.

[wildwren]

The thing about The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749) is that it is fundamentally about women’s desire. I’m not saying that I like everything that Fielding has to say about women’s desire, or that his own obsession with women’s sexuality isn’t baldly plain on the page. It is! It definitely is! For every one of his culture’s biases about women’s sexuality that he aims to deconstruct, there are several more of his own that remain unexamined. It’s one of the knottier (and perhaps more compelling) parts of the text as a modern reader — to observe how these sort of proto-feminist threads are at tension with the lazy misogyny still on the page.

However, it is undeniably the female characters' desires that shape and propel the narrative, so it’s very interesting to see how modern readers who have never read the book or have only learned about aspects of it through osmosis apply a knee-jerk assumption that it’s Tom’s desires that are shaping the story. They know it’s about a man who sleeps with several women, so therefore Tom must be a seducer, a womanizer, a rake, a playboy, or even a rapist. When in fact, it’s a central conceit (if not THE central conceit) of the novel that Tom is never interested in a woman who isn’t interested in him first. The romance begins when Sophia decides she wants Tom, not when Tom decides he wants Sophia.

There’s certainly a lot to unpack in the fact that Fielding wrote an 1000-page novel about horny women lusting after his hero, but in as much as it’s possible to back something like that up, he does back it up. Women don't just like Tom because he's attractive, they like him because he’s genuinely good with women. He actually likes women, he enjoys spending time with them in both sexual and platonic contexts. He feels safe to be around because it's not his default mode to objectify women -- he literally never once considers sleeping with a woman until she has already propositioned him. He regularly leverages his privilege to defend and advocate for women who others around him have decided are worthless and maintains positive feelings towards his partners after their sexual relationship has ended. He remains friends with his ex-girlfriend Molly for the rest of his life!! He is -- literally -- the definition of a himbo in its truest form.

Anyway, I'm just really grateful that Gwyneth Hughes and Georgia Parris both understood this about Tom as a character and understood the opportunities in the text for actively centering the women -- giving the voice of the story to Sophia and adding much needed roundness and complexity to the other female characters on the page. It's really what I've always wanted for this book. Of course the story still has issues, some of which are baked in, most notably the execution of the HEA and how it requires Fielding to uphold the systems he's spent the novel critiquing (but that's a different essay.) But at the end of the day, I love these characters so much and it's just nice to read interviews with Hughes where she makes it clear: "I didn't update Tom. This is Tom."

[soapkaars]

this is kind of a series of questions in one big question but do you think any Peter Lorre characters have tattoos and if so, who is it, where do they have it, and what does the tattoo look like? (I kinda have this feeling that at least one of them has a tattoo that says "Kleine" (baby girl in german) in cursive and it's embellished with hearts)

Oh this is such a fun ask!! I spent way too much time on this and it’s three in the morning now but here goes!

First up is Victor Emmric from The Verdict:

Everyone’s favourite morbid illustrator from the Victorian era, if anyone has a tattoo, he surely does. I’m imagining a gothic Victorian vampire tattoo with an edgy snake across, and because Victor is somewhat of a wine woman and life man, he’s also got a very shitty tattoo drawn on in a drunken mood on his hip. Live every regret tattoo it has an ex-flame named on there, later corrected in another drunk mood with another ill-fated name

Next, there’s Marko from Black Angel:

Ever the sentimentalist, I think it’s extremely in character to have a tattoo on his chest with his daughter’s name on there. I’m thinking it’ll be something very simple, a bunch of roses for instance, because Marko isn’t one for grand gestures.

Kismet from My Favourite Brunette:

Our (my) favourite French-speaking, knife-wielding, civics test studying butler/gardener! This man is definitely tattooed, and I’m going all in. I’m giving him a badass French tattoo with obscure symbolism, knives, blackjack and hookers. A bizarre collection of symbolism only he knows and understands and something that’ll instantly intimidate mild-mannered photographers who fancy themselves to be a detective!

Gino from The Chase:

Love or hate this film, I certainly love its weirdness and proto-Lynchian atmosphere. Gino is an Italian name, so I settled on some Neapolitan mafia tattoos, and I think they fit well with the character.

The General from The Secret Agent:

Does this man look like he makes well-thought out decisions? I’m imagining an early 20th century version of a tramp stamp: on the lower back just above his crack, a sword piercing a heart, a crudely drawn woman cleaved in two, and some latin meaning ‘shit bitch’. An edgy shitpost of a tattoo! Also to answer your question, this man is the most likely candidate to wake up one morning with ‘babygirl’ tattooed on his buttcheeks. The design of which I’ll leave as an exercise to the reader…

Finally, Abbott from The Man Who Knew too Much:

The man has a scar and painted hair. How would he not have a tattoo? But, being Abbott, it’s gonna be a map of the prison he last stayed (and escaped from). Also an anarchist black cat because I like it and I think he carries his politics on his sleeve.

I was too tired to draw more, so honorary mentions to:

Nick Dramoshag from Quicksand. He’s bitter, he runs an arcade, he drinks, he smokes, he’s a nasty crook with a switchblade… This is definitely a man with a faded sweetheart tattoo.

Marius from Passage to Marseille. He was a prisoner on Devil’s Island, I don’t think many would come away uninked from there. Maybe the amazing lockpick has a little safe in a heart tattooed on his arm?

Major Siegfried Grüning from Lancer Spy. My headcanon is that this guy eventually becomes The General, so he’s gonna have the ‘shitbitch’ tramp stamp and ‘babygirl’.

Mr Strangdour from Muscle Beach Party. The strongest man in the world, I think he might have some fun ones under that turtleneck of his.

[thecomicsnexus]

THE SHREDDER (FAN MADE)

2024 By Andrew Modeen, Mark Pellegrini, Arseniy Dubakov , Jim Lawson, Dennis Kennedy, Yuri Kochin, Andres Ponce, Rick Arthur, Keith Aiken, Frank Fosco, Dan Berger, and Courtland Brugger.

The Shredder returns once again to give exposition, kill characters that were already dead, and whatever.

SCORE: 3

This was almost a 2, and the reason it isn't is because there is a style already in place with Jim Lawson, and while it became confusing at critical moments of the story, I cannot really say I was expecting anything different. It's definitely not his fault that I got confused when I did.

And it's weird, that a story that completely underestimates the reader of a very targeted fan project, got me confused in the end. Well, more than just the ending... it kind of undid things that I assumed were going to stay the same in this alternate universe.

You may already know how I find epigraphs pointless most of the time, this graphic novel wasn't the exception. But I already know Andrew has some sort of compulsion to add them, so I wasn't really annoyed by them so much, mostly because, like what happened with the art, it is already a part of Andrew's style.

But the dialogues, man, that's where it always hurts. The unnecessary "LET ME SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU" exposition that takes up almost 40% of the dialogues, and sequences in this story, are just too much. And there is something in the way his character talk that just feels artificial.

As I was saying, the reader of a book like this, already knows 75% of the story. It's not cheap to make these puppies, so I feel like that was wasted potential to tell a fresh story. Did we need to bring back Shredder one more time? Did we need a Super Shredder?

There is a segment of this book penciled by Andres Ponce that made me wish the whole thing was done by him (although it wouldn't have really made things clearer). I am not sure what caused this chapter to be done by Andres, but his style, while manga inspired, is just more realistic than Jim's style. This wouldn't be a bad thing, but it is in the middle of the book, and the change of style is just too jarring. Since there is yet another chapter of Raphael fighting with Lucindra in this book (talk about endless cycles!), I think this encounter between Shredder and Karai could have added as a back-up story. I understand why it had to be in the middle of the book, but then the choice of art styles was wrong.

The moment that made me laugh was when Amaya died again. Why does Andrew keep bringing her back only to kill her?

And what is going on with Pimiko? Hear me out...

Pimiko and Amaya were explained to be mother and daughter in that "Image run unofficial conclusion" that Andrew made. Their death scene was one of the things I remember the most about those issues (not for any good reason), but that was there, and it was done. I wasn't expecting that story not to take place in the same universe, because the ending of it implied it led to Volume 4.

So we got a new spin on that story here. Which already took me (literally) out of the story, as I had to go check those issues, just to make sure I wasn't imagining things.

Then the other bit that really confused me and I just gave up was the last page of the main story. I feel I should recognize the characters... but I just couldn't tell what it meant. In a story that spells out who's who all the time, and what their relationship is to everyone around them, this last bit was a mystery.

There are significant changes to the origin of the Shredder as well. Nagi's act of violence is no longer the initial trigger of the cycle of revenge. Instead, it is explained that the Foot Clan... killed Saki's family... and then... kind of pushed Nagi into getting himself killed by Yoshi (okay...), to fuel Saki's rage and make him into their greatest warrior. It also introduced a proto-Shredder figure.

The book also ties ends. It kills April and Casey, because I am not sure why, April had to be at the duel with the Shredder. It is also revealed why Raphael and Shadow stopped seeing each other after this.

Also, female characters in these stories are technically the enemy, no matter what they're doing. Even when they're helping, they manage to betray someone, get themselves killed, or change their motivations every two pages.

There are Turtles in this story as well, but as you can imagine by the title, they are all kind of non-important and indistinguishable (I know Mikey is there because a Turtle has nunchaku).

The story does follow "TMNT: Origin" and namedrops "TMNT: 2030" (a story I thought took place in 2030, therefore the future of this timeline, but I now realize I have to read it again). This means the story is also in the same timeline as Odyssey, but lucky us, that story is not linked to this one explicitly.

So what did I like about this book? Well, it's always nice to see Mirage artists come in and do Turtles and their cast. Even if I feel the whole premise was a story I wasn't interested in reading.

How does it compare to Odyssey, Origin, and the conclusion of volume 3? Probably better than those. It has stiff dialogues with unnecessary swearing, and it's filled with cliches, but I think I either got used to them, or there was an actual improvement, especially in the story itself (not the dialogues). It looks like something Image Comics could have printed in 1993.

I don't know what plans Andrew has for the future, but I think getting more efficient with dialogue and script would really make his stories more entertaining.

Then again, it's clear that I am kind of alone in this line of thinking, as I always get recommendations from fans to read his stories. So what do I know?

[elliepassmore]

Snow Crash review

3/5 stars Recommended if you like: hard sci-fi, dystopian sci-fi, tech bros, sword fighting, VR

TW statutory rape

So...let's have this be the last time I'm fooled by pretty colors and Sumerian cuneiform (also the last time I take a book recommendation from another book). This book and I did not get off to a good start, what with it opening with a million random words thrown together with exposition on what those words meant. Then I got used to it, then Stephenson had to bring in the anthropology and linguistics.

Now, normally I love seeing those things in books. I love both of those subjects and studied them in college and on my own time. That being said, Snow Crash is like if a tech bro was court mandated to take linguistics 101 and anthropology 101, only paid attention 33% of the time, then retold his tech bro buddies all about ancient civilization and ancient languages after having a couple of beers. This is, perhaps, a bit mean, because Stephenson does get some of it right. But then he goes off the rails and while I understand this is sci-fi....well, the basic facts are just plain wrong. Go off, but at least base it in fact.

A slight rant, so perhaps skip these next two paragraphs if you don't want to read about me complaining about linguistics and anthropology more, I'll try to make it brief. Stephenson was off to a good start talking about Sumer and Sumerian religion, he actually stays pretty on track with Sumerian religion, interestingly enough, but then he goes and starts talking about how Sumer was stagnant and yet somehow everyone spoke Sumerian and how me dragged Sumerians out of cave-man-hood.....except, Sumerian wasn't the first language. It's just the oldest language we have written attestation for. People could speak, and were modern humans, well before Sumer became a thing. Hell, Akkadian and and some form of Proto-Old-Chinese (among others) were both spoken at that time, the Sumerians just got to writing first. (and let's not even get into the "cave man" concept)

Further, Sumerian didn't just magically vanish, what happened was a series of smaller and larger civilization collapses caused by a whole host of factors, through which Sumerian gradually went from being the predominately spoken language of the area to a language spoken almost solely religiously due to the influx of newcomers and conquerors to the region combined with certain conquering dynasties forcibly migrating native Sumerians to the outskirts of the empire (where they had to interact with the natives there, who definitely did not speak their language) and bringing other cultural, linguistic, and ethnic groups into the traditional Sumerian heartland. Also, more minor, but there were not "tens of thousands" of languages being spoken in the 1980s. We have approximately 7000 languages today and while we are losing languages at a rapid rate, we are not losing them that quickly. Language, and by some extension culture, was the whole basis of this book and Stephenson just got so much of that basis wrong that, while I enjoyed a decent portion of it, I just couldn't get over the incorrectness of it,

Okay, back to the regularly scheduled programming. As far as plot goes, it was actually pretty interesting following Hiro and Y.T. as they got tangled up in web after web of this conspiracy. There were so many moving parts that seemed disparate from one another and yet somehow connected, and I really enjoyed seeing how it all came together. I liked how things built up and I think the showdown with Hiro gets a good climax, but stuff in the real world fell a little flat. I would've liked to have a firmer resolution with things, even if it left some things open ended. As is, it just feels like a let down.

Hiro was a hard character to get into. He's just kind of there for the beginning part of the book, a problem which is compounded by the sheer amount of lingo and information being dumped on readers at the beginning of the book. He turns out to actually be a pretty chill dude later on and even when he was confused, he at least seemed to grasp things quickly, so there wasn't too much just standing around and questioning things.

Y.T. was a bit easier to like from the get-go, though her lingo is just as confusing as Hiro's. 15 definitely seems young to be doing a lot of the things she's doing, and while I know her mom works long hours for the Feds, I'm surprised she has 0 clue what her daughter is doing. I liked Y.T.'s spunk and tenacity. She could get freaked out at times, but she was a go-getter and immediately jumped into doing anything she was interested in or thought would help.

While I did spend a good portion of this review complaining about the technical linguistic and anthropological side of the book, I did enjoy some of the book. The problem is, is that combined with the factual problems, the book reads too much like your stereotypical hard sci-fi that's easy to make fun of because the authors are using a gazillion weird words to enforce the 'futuristic' idea. Things like "franchulate" I can see where it comes from; 'Kouriers' are on thin ice, but whatever, they're trademarked; but there was a lot of stuff that I thought was just unnecessarily in "sci-fi lingo." All of this put together, plus the very ending of the book, reduced my overall enjoyability.