#reunited with his giant besties

[crowdusk]

fave panels from this week’s chapter 🥹

[princess-glassred]

IT 2017 Role/Personality Swap AU

An au where everybody gets switched <3

Henry Bowers

Growing up with an abusive monster like butch Bowers is hard, but if you're strong enough you can overcome anything. That's what Henry always says anyways, he's only 12 years old and has been through hell and back, so the fact he's remained a kind, brave, sweet kid is quite miraculous. He's determined to help others and be a hero so nobody will ever have to go through what he did ever again. He feels immense guilt for what happened between his father and Connor and how he wasn't around to protect him, but that just makes him fight harder.

He suffers from awful nervous tics and anxiety due to his abusive upbringing, and people have bullied him for it for a long long time, but once again, something like that doesn't stop Henry, it just makes him fight back harder.

When fighting the evil comsic entity known as Maturin, Henry seeks guidance from the kindly creator of worlds, pennywise, via the moon. He urges Henry to save everyone and never stop fighting, even when he gets scared or feels like he can't go on.

He grows up to be a wonderfully successful artist, holding galleries and making paintings based off his complicated childhood.

Upon reuniting with his old friends Maturin tries to conjure up hallucinations of his father to scare him, but even that won't stop him.

Bill Denbrough

Bill Debrough is a 15 year old boy with a lot of issues. He's violent, abusive, cruel, and the sad part is he wasn't always like this.

Before his brother died Bill was a very happy kid, but after his funeral his parents became horrifically neglectful, until Bill felt he could only ever get attention by acting in the worst ways possible.

He's walking a tight rope of sanity, and unfortunately he loses his mind quite early on. On day, Maturin sends him a paper boat through after his parents yell at him that when unfolded, simply reads "kill them." over and over again. After killing his parents he attempts to kill the losers club and is promptly arrested by Butch Bowers and his partner, where he is then sent to juniper hills to rot for the next 27 years. Even inside of Juniper Hills Bill isn't safe, s Maturin gives him visions and makes Georgie's corpse visit him sometimes. The only solace Bill has anymore is writing, but to anyone else they look like the chicken scratches of a mad man. Just pages and pages and pages of "The turtle can't get us." over and over. Maturin eventually breaks Bill out via the rotting corpse of his old bestie, Ben Hanscom, and tells him to go kill the losers. He very nearly succeeds but is thankfully killed before he seriously hurts anyone.

Greta Keene

Greta Keene seems like she'd have it all, she's pretty, her dad's a rich pharmacist, and she lives up on the nicer side of town with all the other rich kids in Derry. Greta is hiding a secret though, a dirty dirty little secret. She likes girls. And ONLY girls. To overcompensate for this she often acts hypersexually and makes jokes about boys alot, which most people find annoying and gets alot of slut accusations thrown her way. She's bullied alot because of this, and the fact her dad is a known creep doesn't help with her reputation at all. When she's with her friends she's very sarcastic and quite sharp, often making jokingly mean girl esque comments to annoy them for fun. She does care about one of her friends though, especially one that she's been in love woth for the past 27 years.

She grows up to be a sucessful model with a relatively happy life, but her feelings for her friend and internalized homophobia prevent her from being truly happy. When she gets back to Derry she winds up having to confront her own painful queer upbringing, including a terrible incident at the mall that involved a misunderstsnding with Beverly Marsh, Bill Debrough, and a giant hyperfeminine mannequin chas her through the parking garage.

She eventually learns to accept these feelings as they are, but unfortunately her one true love is killed by maturin in the final battle. Before she leaves Derry for the last time though, she makes sure to stop by the kissing bridge and carve in a quick G+M to remember her by...

Richie Tozier

Richie Tozier is the kind of guy who just never grows up, son of the rich dentist Wentworth Tozier, Richie seems to have a real chip on his shoulder for no reason. It's pretty clear thst underneath all his petulant, bratty behavior, is a kid who hates his glasses and crooked teeth so much he lashes out at innocent people to make himself feel better about it. He makes a lot of cruel jokes at other people's expense, and particularly likes targeting Connor Bowers because he's queer. He's done all sorts of awful things to him, most notabley when he found him hiding in the boys bathroom stall, called him a fairy, and dumped a bag of trash over him. He never grows up or matures at all, staying in Derry forever and ever, working as his dad's receptionist, reading MAD magazines to pass the time away, and just generally being a loser who peaked in middle school.

Myra Kaspbrak

Poor Myra Kaspbrak was never taught how to be a kid. Her father took to adultifying her after her mother left, and that lead to a miriad of issues for Myra as she was expected to constantly worry about her younger siblings and fathers needs, but never her own.

She's picked on at school for being a fat, nervous wreck, and often called "mama" by Bill Denbrough and Richie Tozier. She just wants to be a kid, but that's impossible for her when she's never allowed to be free from her father's constant begging for attentioin and care. Her biggest fear takes the shape of a homeless leper that begs to be taken care of by her forever and ever, and the worst part is she never really gets to escape this life style.

She kinda gets coerced into marrying a man who acts and looks just like her father, some one who's problems with his own parent has turned him into a whining man baby who "needs" Myra to watch over him all the time.

When she goes back to Derry she has to stop by old Wentworth Toziers dentist office to retrieve a bracelet she lost there when she dropped her sister off for a check up. She's extra nervous about it because Richie's gonna be there ofc, and the last time they ever talked was when he scribble "LOSER" on a cast she got.

The check up with Wentworth takes a terrifying turn when he brings up the prospect of her having mouth cancer and it being an awful thing to go through because "You can't do anything with cancer. Can't eat, can't drink, can't take care of the people you love.".

She gets attacked by the leper again, but manages to make it out and back to her friends, but poor Myra ends up dying later on anyways.

All the losers are badly shaken up by this, but none more so than Greta, who actually confesses she was deeply in love with her but just never got the chance to admit it. It's all deeply sad, but at least she doesn't have to take care of anyone anymore...

Eddie Kaspbrak

Eddie Kaspbrak practicslly forced Myra to marry him, and he doesn't really care how it's affected her. He looks eerily similar to Myra's father, and acts eerily like him too, using things like weaponized incompetence and guilt tripping to make Myra stay with him and act like his mother.

He doesn't really care about Myra at all, and is just using her to fill the hole left by his abusive controlling mother that smothered him til he could hardly take care of himself. He likes to invent new illnesses and pretend to have them just to make her worry more, and when she tries to go back to Derry he cries that if she leaves he won't be able to remember to take his pills or use his inhaler or do pretty much anything.

The very last time Myra ever talks to him is when he obsessively calls her from his car and DEMANDS she stay on the phone and reassure him that he won't get in a car wreck.

Connor Bowers

Connor was forced to move in with his cousin and uncle butch sometime after his mom died, and sadly this was not a very happy or kind place to be.

Butch began to sexually abuse Connor after only about a year of living there, making sure to do it only when Henry wasn't around to see it.

The details of this abuse are too gorey to mention, but it deeply affected Connor and made an already isolated child feel even more isolated.

After one incident where Butch commented on how much he loved Connors cute curly hair though, Connor just kind of snapped and buzzed it all off in a fit of rage.

In addition to the sexual abuse, at school he would be picked on for being visibly queer and in the closet.

Many people just loved to call him slurs and beat the crap out of him, especially Richie Tozier, who actually seemed to be projecting his own closeted feelings onto him more than anything.

Henry probably would have helped Connor had he asked, but Butch often threatened to hit Henry more if Connor ever told him about what he was doing, so he just kept quiet about all of it.

He did find the strength to fight back on his own, stabbing butch in the neck and running off to the sewers with his cousin and friends, but child protective services ended splitting Henry and him up after they defeated Maturin.

As an adult Connor becomes a very famous game developer, having turned his coping mechanism of arcade games into a lucrative career. Unfortunately he winds up in a very similar situation to Myra though, where he hastily marries the first gay guy who will accept him, only to find out he's an abusive creep just like Butch.

After they were split up Henry and Connor kind of forgot the other existed, but they manage to reconnect through their fight with Maturin.

Connor does actually get a happy though, he manages to put his past behind him, get a much needed divorce, and runs off to go live with his cousin on a big yacht somewhere. Hooray!

Beverly Marsh

Nobody really knows what happened to Beverly Marsh, and frankly nobody wants to. She never left much of an impact on anyone, but the impact she left on Greta Keene fucked with her for basically her whole life.

They only met once, when Bev was visiting from portland to see her old friends, and she and the rest of the Denbrough gang decided it'd be fun to stop by the mall.

While Bill and his other friends were off at the food court, Bev stopped in a store to take a look around.

Greta was shopping there too, and once she noticed how lost Bev seemed to be in the make up aisle, Greta offered her some help.

They talked for a bit, Bev mentioning how she's not used to make up or being super feminine and Greta telling her which shades would match her skintone.

Looking back on it now, she was definitely crushing on Bev, but only because she reminded her a little bit of Myra.

After they were finished with the make up, Greta awkwardly asked if she'd like to look at the clothing racks with her, even offering to buy her something if she wants.

Before Bev could even respond though, Bill and the rest of the gang come looking for her and see them in a pretty compromising position.

In panic, she calls Greta a dyke and tells her to fuck off, catching her off gaurd and hurting Greta quite a bit.

Bill's reaction is even worse, not only because bill's homophobic, but he's had a crush on Bev for a WHILE.

Bill calls her some slurs and poor Greta runs as fast as she can until she finds herself in the parking garage.

She sits down snd cries alone for a while, until she hears some one call her name and noticed a massive, feminine, faceless manniquin bolting right for her.

Patrick Hockstetter

Patrick Hockstetter was never quite the same after his brothers death. Maturin took Avery Hockstetter right out of his crib and devoured him with out even a second thought.

Patrick had only caught a glimpse of the act, but that glimpse was enough to leave Patrick traumatized and emotionally stunted.

He didn't really show any emotions after avery died, or even much concern for his own well being either.

His development was either halted or started to regress, because he went from drawing fully fledged haoly pictures to just meaningless black and brown scribbles soon after.

Because of his lack of emotion, many people made a game out of messing with him, with even Bill Denbrough cornering him after school and carving his name into his stomache to see if he'd scream about it.

Patrick just kind of accepted he probably wouldn't be able to love anyone or anything properly due to his trauma, but then he met Henry and everything changed.

Something about Henry just made Patrick feel weird, but in the best way. He grew even more in love with Henry the more they hung out, and even wrote him an anonymous poem at one point to express how he felt.

He grows up to be a typical business man, and througy his fight with Maturin he's able to confess his feelings to Henry after 27 years of waiting.

In the end, he manages to actually marry Henry and have a wonderfully healthy relationship with him, in spite of his emotional issues.

Ben Hanscom

Due to the overwhelming isolation of constantly moving towns, Ben Hanscom developed solipsism at a pretty early age.

He's onlt fifteen, but he's utterly convinced he's god and the only real person in the entire universe.

Their constant moving also enables Ben to think none of his actions will really ever have consequences, since everytime they move it's like he starts with a new clean slate.

He does basically anything everything he wants, wether it he creeping in Bev and Bill, killing animals in a fridge, or just being a general weirdo, Ben doesn't care who he hurts.

There have been times when people try to mess withe Ben, crack jokes about his weight or threaten to beat him up, but Ben's quiteness and lack of caring quickly makes people leave him alone.

He views every situation analytically, studying everything he can about the places he moves to to see what chaos he can bring.

He help Bill attack Patrick outside the library at one point, and meets his end in the sewers when the corpse of a headless boy chases him through the tunnels and Maturin finds him.

He goes missing after that, only reemerging 27 years later when his corpse visits Bill Denbrough to help him escape.

Belch Huggins

Belch was picked on for his weight all the time growing up, in fact, that's where the nick name Belch came from, Stanley uris picking on him for how much he ate.

He took the nickname though and wore it like a badge of honor just to stick it to them, and it was a fighting spirit like that that made Belch the one who decided to stay behind in Derry of his own volition.

He never had any friends before the losers club, but their willingness to stick up for him made Belch feel like he was part of something important and meaningful for once in his life.

When everyone went their seperate way, Belch was devastated, especially because he knew in his heart Maturin wasn't dead for good.

So, he made the sacrifice to stay and research as much as he could on Derry.

He was woefully out of his element against a cosmic horror, considering he was just a white trash hick nobody, but he was determined to be prepared for the inevitable return.

He makes the calls to reuinite everyone, and to say he missed them all would be the understatment of the century.

They needed each other, and Belch is just so damn happy to have them back, even if Vic wasn't there to see it.

Mike Hanlon

Mike never meant to do more than have a little fun, he didn't expect getting wrapped up with Bill's friends would lead to his own death or cutting a kids stomache open, but it did, and there was little Mike could to stop it.

Homeschooled and raised on the outside, Mike just wanted to mess around with the other kids for a bit of a laugh, since it wasn't like he was gonna see them anytime except for summer.

There was no way for him to know just how fucking crazy Bill was gonna get though, and by then it was already too late.

He tried to get through to him and offer Bill a bit of support, but Bill was too far gone by then.

He tried to leave the group after that but Bill caught him and killed him along with Stan before he could ever even make it back home.

Vic Criss

Growing up in Derry, Vic's gender identity and sexuality was often called into question. He wasn't really gay or trans, but his love for fashion, hair and confidence in his appearance painted a big target on his back for bullies.

Vic never wanted to be a girl like some people thought, but sometimes he wished he was so he could enjoy his more feminine interests with out people insultiing him all the time.

Treatment like that made Vic a very worrisome kid, to the point some even found him prissy or a downright scaredy cat, which really only lead to more teasing.

He was by far the most reasonable member of the losers club back in the day, always thinking of the future and wether or not they even stood a chance against that turtle.

He never quite believed in the same way his friends did, and that lack of faith was what pushed him over the edge as an adult.

He found a lot of success later in life, becoming a magazine editor for the number one fashion magazine in the whole world, and even finding a wonderful lady to make his wife, but the fears from his childhood still had a hold on him.

Even though he promised to come back just like everyone else, Vic's insecurities about himself diminished all hope he had in defeating the turtle.

So... he took himself off the board.

Stanley Uris

There's not much to say about Stanley Uris, by far the least remarkable member of the Denbrough gang, but just because he's boring doesn't make him any less of a jerk than the others.

Being one of the very few jews in town, Stanley realized at a young age it was either whip or be whipped in a place like Derry, and quite frankly, Stan was a little too cowardly to accept the former.

So he started picking on people, it didn't matter who, gay kids, fat kids, poor kids, even some of the other jewish kids if it made his bestie Bill happy.

All in all his life was fairly normal for your average shitty bully, but then Bill went nuts and Stanley began to have some regrets about encouraging him so much.

All his regrets ended up being pretty useless though, becaude Bill killed him and Mike shortly after killing his parents.

Pennywise

The natural predator of Maturin, Pennywise is an objective force for good who loves every child in their own special way. He is the creator of worlds and takes on the guise of a friendly circus clown to appeal to kids, he tries to offer the losers as much guidance as possible with out interfering too much, and typically communicates with Henry through the moon. He tells the losers that deep down Maturin is terrified of them, and that they must hold no fear when confronting him. He sadly dies when Maturin manages to snuff out his dead lights, but his kind words to Henry stick with him til the final battle where they defeat the turtle.

Maturin

Maturin is a being of pure evil that feasts off fear, it takes the form of a massive godzilla esque turtle that lives in the sewers, but can shape shift into anything else it wants to scare you. It's only interests is feeding itself and has reigned over Derry for years.

He has many attempts to kill the losers, even sending Bill Denbrough to do it for him, but none of them end up working in the end.

Through the power of friendship the losers club make him shrivel down until he's nothing but a pathetic wrinkly reptillian mess, thus ending his reign of terror and setting Derry free.

[fluffalpenguin]

⬅[Prev] Day 2: Family

@ygoc-week Day 3: Decks

I wanted to sketch something for each of my ocs with their aces but unfortunately i passed out last night so i'm just going to chuck the actual card beside a picture of them, lol

Image heavy post below!

Starting off with the Synchro Dimension, Hamelin uses a Yang Zing deck, and has two "secret roommates" (read: pet rats) that she named after Ba Xia and Jiaotu, her two main Extra Deck Aces.

She switches gears to Magikeys when in her Phantom Thief persona, who has a deep grudge against...

Jackie, who uses Swordsouls, an archetype that carries much meaning to her. Her belt is based on QXYL's sword(?)tail(?) and her unwavering devotion to an estranged childhood friend makes her a worthy wielder of the sword the card is based on, which represents integrity.

Jackie works for Fleur, who uses Aromages. As someone who is very at home behind a chessboard, she doesn't like dueling that much as it has too many uncontrollable factors, such as luck.

Moving to the Standard Dimension, first up is Cider and her Myutants! What? Her duel disk? Oh, that's because she's originally from [REDACTED]

Weird, how did we end up in the Xyz Dimension? Anyway, Alcidis uses Witchcrafters, and before you ask me how he Xyz summons with this deck, my answer is that he splashes in Dogmatika cards from his bestie:

Arte, who uses Dogmatika! When she duels, it's like a switch flips, and she looks a lot like her brother... It scares her teacher, because it reminds him of a very unpleasant memory...

Viol used Mermails during the war, but after the events of the show he upgrades his ace from Abyss Dweller to a... custom monster... that I haven't designed yet lmao sigh one day i will

Back in Academia, Faye and Fence shared a Dream Mirror deck, each memorising one side of the deck as they struggled too much to memorise and use a single deck by themselves. After they moved to Standard, Fence picked up Normal Pendulums and Faye uses a custom Xyz archetype that lets her transform like her favourite masked riders!

(Above art by @mechaseraph go throw money at them you won't regret it)

Last but not least, Fuschia with his Despians! He picked it because he loves red and purple, but more importantly, he found the love of his life... Aluber the Dogmatic. Yeah, he's one of those weirdos with a duel monster crush (same tbh)

He'd never admit he had a crush on Aluber during the events of ARC-V, but post-canon he unabashedly has a giant poster of him (pictured above) in his room.

死の舞台で闇と光こそ栄える… 答え探し道はここに途絶える！ 融合召喚！レベル⑧ デスピアン・クエリティス!

Upon this stage of death¹, darkness and light² alike thrive… Your path for answers³ ends here! I fusion summon! Level 8 Despian Quaeritis!

Did I make a summon chant in japanese too because i could yeah i may be cringe but at least im free

[1] Despia is a portmanteau of 'death' and 'thespian'. [2] His ace's fusion materials requires one Despian monster and a LIGHT or DARK monster. [3] Despian Quaeritis is named after quem quaeritis i.e. Whom do you seek? It's a question Fuschia often asks his quarry during the war. (And then he cards them all together after helping them reunite)

➞[Next] Day 4: Relationships

[atherix]

Aci i am looking 👀 at the avatar au u say about 👀

👀 Imagine... for some reason, the world is in disarray. The four nations are divided, not by like war but by like geography and just general isolationism (including the north and south tribes of the water nation from each other). Scar is just your run of the mill water tribe kid, never showed any signs of having any other element. And he grew up with bestie Cub, the two of them having been raised by the village elders after Something™ happened to each of their parents. And they've grown up into fine waterbenders, but have never had any reason to even want to leave, knowing nothing about the outside world.

Grian, an airbender, decides to go searching for the avatar for... reasons... watcher reasons... and crashlands in the south pole, where he's found and rescued by Scar and Cub. He doesn't realize Scar is the avatar for like half a day, thinking he's just some waterbender, but something happens that makes him realize and he confronts Scar about how he's not "doing his job" and reuniting the nations and all that stuff, to which he just gets confused staring and has that Oh Shit moment of realizing Scar doesn't know. How a man can go 20+ years without knowing he's the avatar, well, Grian certainly doesn't know, but whatever the watchers are planning Grian's purpose is won't be successful if Scar can't use the other elements. He manages to convince Scar to go traveling the world with him, telling him stories about the world outside the water tribe. Unfortunately Grian wasn't counting on Cub tagging along...

Mumbo as a nonbending citizen of the fire nation, him relying on technology and inventing all these really cool things... but still being overlooked bc he's a nonbender in a family of benders... wanting to prove something to the world (and himself), so when Grian, Scar and Cub stumble into his little town and get to know him, and they offer him (against Grian's protests) to come see the world with them... well, who is he to say no to that? It's not like his rich bending family would even notice he's gone... right? He'll just take his tools and his blueprints and go on the greatest adventure of his life and maybe accidentally get dragged into whatever Grian's planning...

Cleo as a master firebender, participating in underground firebending rings as the undefeated champion... secretly like the cousin of the crown prince(ss) or something, so fucking bored of palace life... just wanting a little more out of life than what she has... stumbling across the others and quickly figuring out Scar is the avatar... coyly blackmailing them into letting them join... "Oh, no, yeah, that's fine. I mean, sure, if I stay in town I might slip up and tell someone very official that the avatar has been found, but yeah- go ahead, it'll be fine. I'll just be here, alright? Talking in these... very official circles, drinking some very good drinks- well, who knows what might slip, but it's okay, everything is fine- oh, what's that? You want me to come with you? Well, I don't know... hmm, alright then." :)

BDubs as an earth bender who loves to garden... living in a communal home with Ren, Etho and Martyn (earthbender, nonbender, nonbender),... Scar accidentally destroying his garden beyond like any chance of recovery, and BDubs dragging his roomies/boyfriend(s) into basically following Scar & Co. to try and "make them pay" for destroying his garden and ending up saving them... becoming friends with them.... (getting a certain firebender's attention ofc bc I'm me...)

Just 👀 Picture it. It's just a giant messy roadtrip story where nothing bad happens at all, all sunshine and roses yep, definitely no airbending cult extremists manipulating and pulling Grian's strings at all, absolutely no need for terrible realizations and feelings of betrayal and redemption and Grian having to make a choice between the family he'd always known and the family and the men he'd come to love no siree

[okami-zero]

More Dawntrail Ramblings

And while this is only...mildly spoiler-y for the...mid to second half of things, I will put a readmore for spoiler avoidance.

So, this is very much a ramble, and honestly nothing earth-shattering, but I found the focus on memory in the latter half of things was very similar in some ways to what we learn with Wuk Lamat during the feats hosted by the Yok Huy, and their belief around how no one is ever truly dead, so long as they are remembered. This echoes/is based on real world cultural beliefs (I recall reading about them in Mexico, but they are likely more widespread, I am sure) that are very similar, linking remembrance and death and how they are related, etc.

The thing that has ping-ponged around in my brainbox is how the efforts of Preservation created the Endless from their own memories (and likely memories of others who knew them), and is kind of like the Yok Huy's beliefs. But at the same time, it is very different and... kind of hollow. Because the people who would be remembering those they lost are bereft of that ability, indeed having those memories just removed POOF! As if their loved ones never existed. Though people close to the deceased retain some small shadow of recollection - "I had two parents, but I don't remember their names or what they were like" - I find this to be the Regulators's most insidious function. We do meet at least one person who seems to retain a little bit more than most about their long dead parent, and we find out that people who do not have Regulators when they die remain in the memories of those they knew and loved. But for those hooked into the system, them simply vanish "into the cloud". And THAT is a phrase that knocked me for a loop, because I have worked in and adjacent to IT and was kind of horrifed that people's very memories and essence were being shunted into cloud data storage (and it kind of was, too. O.o)

But the thing that niggled at me the whole time I am running through the MSQ is how very close, and yet how so very FAR from the Yok Huy tradition the whole system is (not even getting into souls as a commodity, me and Akagi almost BSOD'd learning about that whole deal). Because, instead of those who loved and knew and cared for these people being able to remember them, they are robbed of the ability, which is then given over to basically giant fucking storage servers. To be "remembered" by machines. And recreated as a facsimiles of themself based on their (and I assume, others stoeln) memories. It's a broken mirror reflection of the Yok Huy traditions and a very interesting point to present.

And I have seen people going "oh we killed all those Endless, we committed mass murder"! Bestie, they were already dead. Those are all ghosts - quite literally ghosts in a machine. (Which is not the exact meaning of that phrase, but you get it). "But okami," you might say, "they were living and walking around and experiencing joy and wonder and life!"

Were they, though?

Imagine someone dies before they turn, say, 15. If they had a Regulator, not only do they vanish from the lives of everyone who knew them, they are now, if recreated as an Endless, eternally a child. Never aging, never growing up, never maturing. They are locked in that state, and while it looks like there can be experiences in Living Memory, it's not really life. That kind is now forever a kid, and their existence is now tied to that state forever. And we even meet some Endless who are very much unsure of whether they are really happy with their lot, because they are locked in stasis, basically. Yes, we did reunite that one fellow with his childhood love, and he was able to propose to her, as he had been unable to do in life, which was honestly one of my favorite quests. So there is SOME change, but... it's kind of like a pseudo-afterlife that is materially unsustainable. That would exist at the cost of other worlds and lives. Sacrificing the living to preserve the dead. And possibly create EVEN MORE ENDLESS, which would exacerbate the issue even further. All the sustain a stagnant amusement park full of ghosts.

So yea, this whole ramble to say that Living Memory's terminals juxtaposed with the Yok Huy sepulchres was really neat, and Living Memory and Spehene's existence was so very, very sad. And I am really enjoying Dawntrail.

Also...

DID ANYONE ELSE NOTICE AZEM'S SYMBOL POP UP OVER THE TOP OF THE KEY?! CAUSE I SURE DID!!! AND I WAS BOUNCING IN MY SEAT!

[zeequicks]

kennel for strays

decided the zee & kon besties verse needed more love. so here is another one! inspired by zee's intro scene in young justice where she dips mid conversation to stroke the giant fluffy canine. (1.2k words, G-rated) | read on ao3

Summary:

Zatanna gets distracted by animals, Conner quickly notes, in all situations and scenarios. (Or, the one in which Conner and Zatanna are unlikely besties and bond over animals.)

Over the years, Conner realises that Zatanna has a habit of. . . pulling a disappearing act. (And no, that was not a Dick Grayson pun, thank you very much.)

The first time Zatanna is introduced to the team, she disappears mid-conversation when the adults start talking. Everyone whips their head around the room, only to find Zatanna curled up against Wolf on the floor. She strokes his fluffy coat, scratching underneath his neck and belly, as his tail swishes around.

Conner doesn’t think anything of it, at first.

-

Zatanna gets distracted by animals, Conner quickly notes, in all situations and scenarios.

Conner is fighting off monkeys, standing in the way between them and the secret base they’re meant to be finding in the Sumatran rainforest, when Zatanna throws herself in between them and says, “No! Don’t hurt them!”

Artemis was also wrestling with one, voice jumping an octave to argue against Zatanna’s protest, “Zee, these things bite!”

“Just—” Zatanna pushes her gloved hands out, says some sort of spell, which puts all of the two dozen monkeys around them to sleep. Conner shakes off the one on his hand, as it drops to the ground.

Zatanna disappears off into the forest before anyone else can even notice, and Conner actually has to use his super-hearing to track her down.

She finds one baby monkey left on the ground, fully knocked out. Her spell must have affected a larger area than she intended. It’s clearly separated from its mother. Zatanna picks it up and scans the trees for signs of her.

“Seniv dliub a esacriats,” she says, and Conner catches that one—because she’s used it before.

“We don’t have time for this,” Wally zips over and complains. “The rest of the team are getting a move on!”

Zatanna won’t have it. “We’ll catch up,” she says, still scaling those vines with the sleepy mammal safely pressed into her chest.

“Are you sure?” Wally says, punctuating each word like a last-ditch attempt to not have to explain this to the rest of the team.

“Yes, it’s fine. Conner is fast. He’ll get us there. Won’t you, Conner?” she says, head fully in the trees now. Conner can’t see her face, but he sure as hell can see the smile on it. “Or, I could portal us there.”

Wally groans in resignation. “Fine, just stay on the comms!” He then zips away, leaving the two of them in total silence.

When Zatanna manages to reunite the pair, Conner helps her down the tree. She looks at Conner, curious and impressed at his choice to stay, but mostly grateful, above everything else.

“I—” she hesitates, uncharacteristically. “I hope that wasn’t too much trouble for the mission.”

He shakes his head. “No problem. Just a short detour. I still don’t like magical portals, so I—uh, I could carry you. If that’s OK with you. You’re not running through the woods in those things,” he points at her shoes.

She does not mind at all.

-

Conner walks into the kitchen one day and nearly immediately walks back out.

Wally is fighting a bright green parrot over a baguette and losing spectacularly. Has Conner mentioned that there is a parrot in the kitchen?

“I swear if this is one of Dick’s runaway circus animals—ow, let go of my hand!”

Zatanna walks in and rushes over to intervene, “Elfie, stop! Let go of Wally.” She offers the bird an arm to perch on.  

It—the bird, the bird named Elfie—rapidly loses interest in the battle over the baguette and flaps its wings as Zatanna reaches into her coat pocket for a handful of nuts.

Zatanna can sense when Conner has a question, even before he asks.

“I might have taken in a stray when we were on our last mission,” she admits, with only the tiniest bit of reticence. “I ran it past Black Canary. She says she knows how to take care of birds, and she says she’ll try to get Green Arrow to buy a better enclosure for Elfie.”

Conner can understand Zatanna’s motivations. He took in Wolf under similar circumstances, after all. “I don’t have a problem with birds. We should get Elfie introduced to Wolf, to avoid any territorial disputes.”

Her eyes light up at the encouragement. “Elfie is short for Elphaba, you know, from Wicked?”

Neither of the boys understand this reference.

-

Conner and Zatanna become very good friends. He gets along well with her, more than most people would expect them to, but despite that, they still don’t talk much about their personal lives. Conner likes that about their friendship, likes the fact that he can trust her to have his back without having to pry into his mind, or his emotions, which he doesn’t always have a grip on—and he thinks she likes that about him, too.

But when Zatanna’s dad dies, she shuts them all out. She pulls another disappearing act. He knows not to take it personally. He understands. He always does.

Still, the walls in Mount Justice are thin for a Kryptonian with super-hearing.

Conner decides that he can’t take another day of listening to his friend crying all by herself in her room, because she didn’t just lose her dad, she lost her home, her entire life.

So, Conner knocks one evening, with Wolf by his side and a pack of his favourite treats.

“It’s me, Zatanna.”

Silence.

“Can I come in?” he tries again, and for good measure, adds, “Wolf wants to see you. He misses his favourite walking buddy.”

She sniffles and blows into a tissue, muttering a spell Conner can’t quite make out. He hears boxes moving across the room and realises that she must be tidying the room. Conner chuckles, and the door flies open.

“Do you say that to all the girls?” Zatanna says, and there’s a tired rasp to her voice, but Conner is only glad that she’s making jokes again.

Inside, they still don’t talk about what she’s been through much. Conner isn’t the best at offering advice, or knowing what the right words are to say, but Zatanna doesn’t seem to care.

She feeds Wolf the treats Conner has been saving for her, and surprises even Conner when she commands Wolf to perform a new trick. He rolls onto his back and plays dead, only getting up when she says the words, “Where’s my standing ovation?”

Wolf gets up and drums his paws on the floor, before leaping up into her arms and licking her face in a giant, sloppy show of affection. She laughs, like this is just another night, and Conner forgets for a moment why he hasn’t heard her laugh in so long.

“Thank you, Conner,” she says, with both her arms wrapped around the canine and her head buried in his fur. Conner’s reminded of the first time they met, now.

“For what?”

“For bringing the best distraction from heartbreak a girl could ask for,” she plants another kiss onto Wolf’s neck, then then glances up at Conner, “and for being you, of course.”

Conner doesn’t know why, or how, but Zatanna has a way of making people feel like they’re exactly who they should be.

“I’ll always be me,” Conner says, and it sounds like an affirmation to himself.

She beams, emitting that signature Zatanna smile that puts Conner at ease when he goes back to bed that evening, trusting that Wolf will keep her company for the rest of the night.  

[sadhorsegirl]

been more quiet on here for season 2 bc a) im drastically more employed this time around (rip) b) it felt like so much of my opinion of events in this season were going to hinge upon where everything landed in the finale.

tbh i also ended up being p critical of certain elements this season and didn't feel like spoiling anybody's fun while the show was still airing new episodes. a lot of my opinions of this season were shaped by the fact that i started reading the books. i am a firm believer in allowing for necessary changes when making an adaptation and allowing it to evolve into its own thing so it also felt kind of shitty to be like. she (the books) wouldn't say that!!!! lol

anyways lol i've decided to make a little list of things i enjoyed, things i thought were mid, and things i actively disliked this season

LIKED:

a) new mat! i thought his performance was really strong and just about everything they did with him this season made me appropriately sad. bonus points for making his dynamic with min reading like a frat boy and a begrudging grad student going on a bar crawl together as "repayment" for tutoring lol

b) elayne! again i thought ceara coveny did a really good job and i liked how she fit into relationships with the other characters.

c) nynaeve and the liandrin of it all! nynaeve's arc this season was one of the strongest this season imo, and i think using liandrin to discuss the culture of abuse present in the tower was smart.

d) egwene and madeleine madden!! emmy campaign begins now!!! episode 6 was one of my favorite episodes of the season in large part due to her performance. the damane arc is truly harrowing stuff and the entire creative team handled it pretty well

c) moiraine telling lan that he was always her better in the finale!!! insanely unfortunate that this is pretty much my only Moiraine Moment without major qualms this season!!!!!!!!!!!!

d) the forsaken! their business casual swag had me laughing every time. could not stop myself from shouting w at the tv screen when mogehdien showed up at the very end

e) the ef5 reuniting in the finale! im totally fine with how this changes the ending in the books. sure i missed the giant fire battle in the sky but i gained all the besties going squad mode+elayne not introducing herself with her royal title to rand lol

MID:

a) lan and moiraine bestie devastation battle - i didn't outright hate all of this from the start like some people have but i def think this ended up severely fumbled in terms of execution. one of my fav moments in the books so far has been their fight in the second one where she basically says the most upsetting shit possible to upset him to get him to admit that he has found a new connection that could lead to an actual life (aka nynaeve) and he calls her on it but still gets upset and proves her point anyway! would have preferred moiraine went even more jigsaw emotional torture trap this season tbh

b) nynaeve's accepted test - mostly liked, felt like they didn't quite hit the right tone of dread these tests achieve in the books. its not completely a "i dreamed up a family that isn't real and now i have to abandon them" thing for me and more about how they don't understand why you have to leave them and beg you to stay. feel like this could have been more emotionally powerful

c) verin - meera syal obviously a very talented actress and she did grow on me as the season went on but i feel like she was almost TOO charismatic in a way. wanted her to be a little colder/wryer? she could definitely be charming in the books but i always felt like a lot of her power socially came from getting people to underestimate her by acting like a distracted and disconnected weirdo only to go in for the kill. missed this a bit this season

DISLIKED:

a) literally pains me to say it but.....moiraine's arc this season really didn't hit for me...felt kind of unfocused....wished she had been even more brutal in her pursuit....liked the start of her washerwoman era but it didn't really end up liking much of what came after......poor execution of what could have been a really interesting exploration of both her backstory and the way she would have to change the way she operates without the one power.....etc etc

b) cairhien :( could and probably will make a whole separate post about this but the design principles at play here were Not It for me at all. rococo? rococo bro? also don't like the way its political elements and lore were communicated which leads me right to......

c) house damodred/laman. major book spoilers ahead but thought it was a complete misfire to hold off on explaining laman's whole deal and moiraine's connection to it presumably until next season to parallel it with the aiel. cairhien is inherently shaped by the aiel war and moiraine is made a far more compelling character when u learn about her relationship to it thru her family. i thought the switch in birth order was interesting but basically every other change or delay in her backstory was a flop for me. her whole connection to trying to undo the sins of her own family makes her drive to save the world way more interesting!!! was hoping the show would take the time to expand on her relationship with elayne not (at this point seemingly) erase it. are u telling me i don't get galad now? be serious?

d) moiraine and lan's suicide conversation in episode 7. felt awkward and nearly too direct without acknowledging the fact that moiraine's dedication to The Work above all else is in some ways defacto suicidal

c) episode 7

d) siuan :((((((((((((( i get that we didn't have sophie around as much as she needed to be this season bc of contracts to other shows and stuff but man did we mismanage the time we did get with her lads....will prob also make a separate post about this as well but i do want to say that while i think her and moiraine having a major split over what to do with rand could have been interesting i think the execution is really REALLY poor here. think that confrontation would have been more emotionally powerful if they were just appealing to each other and the fourth oath wasn't used. wish people had been gossiping about what she was up to off screen so we had more context for her actions this whole season generally. L's all the way around

e) episode 7. again.

f) thought it was fucked that when lan and moiraine reestablished the bond again neither of them even brought up how he has to share any heartbreak she has over siuan now. another miss for full emotional impact

g) episode 7. AGAIN.

[leviiackrman]

who is shen??

Shen is my earthbending oc from avatar: the last airbender!! She’s a baby and pure sweetheart, nothing but good vibes from her!

A little more about her:

She’s from the fire nation, her father was a fire nation soldier and her mother was an earthbending farmer from the earth kingdom! They met on his patrol and fell in love, so he snuck her back to the fire nation and they had Sakiya (Shen’s former name)!

Her mother became a hand maiden in the fire lords palace after settling into her new semi secret life and started taking Sakiya with her to keep her out of trouble (she was also asked to do this by the fire lord’s wife, so that Zuko could potentially make a friend) and that’s exactly what she did!

They became besties and Azula resented her for it cus Sakiya preferred playing with Zuko rather than her. Azula found out about her mothers history and how she had been teaching Sakiya (who was also an Earthbender) how to use her bending abilities in private

Sakiya’s father was arrested and her mother was assassinated for their betrayal, while sakiya was imprisoned and tortured for more information (hence the burnt whip scars on her back and shoulders). Her father helped her escape alongside her familiar Hayami, the giant puma, and they fled to the earth kingdom forests

She met a bunch of earth bending elders who hide in the forests, maintaining the natural landscape away from the societal problems, and taught her everything she knows now - on how to control her emotions and use wisdom and tranquillity over anger and violence

Later she leaves the safety of their camp high in the trees to aid the travelling ‘team avatar’, who she promises her abilities to as well as be a source of guidance to the young adventurers, a big sister of sorts!

She reunites with zuko later on (she thought he was part of the reason her family were murdered) but finds out that he never knew and thought she had betrayed him so it was a vicious cycle of disliking each other but they made amends and she became chancellor to his fire lord in the end!! Besties at each others side again!

She is also adoptive mother to my legend of korra oc: Ziri!

There’s plenty more content about her and lots more detail so if you wanna see more, here’s her OC page! Links to her Pinterest, oc tag and Faceclaim are all accessible there too!

Apologies if you didn’t want an info dump aha but hey, ask about my kids and that’s what you’ll get!

[tea-with-evan-and-me]

What do you think what kind of person is Evan in his private life? We only know about Emma treating Evan horribly but both Halsey and Emma seem to feel quite vengeful towards Evan. (Tbf i don't know how H typically behaves when she breaks up with someone, maybe she is generally this bitter?) But I mean if Evan is just a normal ex, they should just move on right? Why are they so obsessed with wanting to harm him? And he is such a giant sweetheart too, so gentle! could never hurt a fly! Why would someone want to harm specifically him? I include H because she liked horrible tweets against Evan and even now commented under Emma's latest post like a bestie. If I knew my s o was horribly abused by a woman who they arrested, I wouldn't want to have anything to do with her, despite breaking up with my ex. I just wouldn't support someone violent?!

So there are 2 options - either Evan is really the biggest A-hole in private life and he did things that would justify talking badly about him or halsey teaming up with emma because they were both wronged in the same way and are searching for public revenge. Or both are crazy narcissists who really have no empathy and are hate filled toward him just because they didn't get what they want in a relationship / or just out of pure narcissism. I used to not feel as strongly about Halsey because there was no indication of her mistreating Evan, but after seeing her social media behavior post- Evan, it's really disgusting to see what extents she goes to defame Evan. So for me they are both in the same category, of emotionally abusive people. Except of course, if there is a real explanation for this behavior. Something horrible we don't know about Evan which he's always held back to the public. A very unlikely option but still an option.

Sorry for such a long text and for the amount of questions. As you can tell I like to theorize. But I would like to hear your opinion (especially to the first part) :):)

first off, i don’t think having awful, or even abusive exes, who resent you no longer being with them is any indication of your character or some dark personality you’re hiding.

halsey commenting on an instagram post from emma is not teaming up with her. but even if it was, why should anyone care if two of evan’s exes from years ago became friends? as if they would ever do anything besides shit talk a man they have not moved on from. in a perfect world, when two people break up you wouldn’t feel the need to make your ex the devil in disguise, but unfortunately many people do this even if nothing terrible happened between them - sometimes, when a person feels rejected they lash out and start demonizing the ex who did not reciprocate their feelings. in this situation, it looks like halsey was obsessive about evan (even before they met, as a fan) and i just don’t think evan was matching that energy at all. i think he was just rebounding after his final split with emma, and that’s why they fizzled out so quickly. it was probably humiliating for halsey to have done all those interviews mentioning evan, and having people recall her many gushing social media posts and that video talking about him like a fangirl.. even name dropping emma, only for that relationship to go nowhere.

“But I mean if Evan is just a normal ex, they should just move on right? Why are they so obsessed with wanting to harm him?” i don’t think you can really simplify things like that. one, i can’t say that either of them are trying to harm him now that he’s an ex - they may dislike or hate him but they are no longer in his life. it’s all too common for people to have exes they hate for a variety of reasons. relationships are complicated, and the two you’re speaking about (emma and halsey) are night and day. emvan were together for 7 years, engaged, and there was known DV on emma’s part. they broke up and reunited many times, and it’s clear why emma would hold resentment towards evan. she was an abuser who lost control of a person with low enough self-esteem to take her mistreatment and still adore her and treat her like she hung the moon. he worshipped and wanted to marry her.. good luck finding another man like that. nothing angers abusers more than losing the upper hand, and evan has moved on.

with halsey, they were only together 6 months, they burned out fast. i already shared why i feel she has negative feelings about evan: he did not live up to her expectations and she did not get her fairytale. evan very well could not have been the best boyfriend to her, or anyone - he’s human, and he obviously just left the woman he thought he was going to marry before he got with halsey. there’s a lot of baggage there. that doesn’t make him “the biggest a-hole” in his private life, at the end of the day he’s just a human who shouldn’t be put on a pedestal - nor should anyone. he makes mistakes. he has his own shortcomings and trauma and issues he has to work through like anyone else in this world. when we look at celebrity relationships and see exes lash out, talk badly about their former partners, make petty remarks.. we will almost never know the whole story. we will never know these people intimately. but we can look at the whole picture and deduce whether or not we think someone has valid reason to feel wronged, and when someone is just a bitter ex who is hanging onto the past.

FYI - this is the comment from halsey.

[just-another-self-shipper]

I'm gonna go ahead and post headcanons for the f/os/sources I post most often here. Familial, platonic, and FWB f/os included. With how many I have, I'll put them under a cut.

Romantic

Gantu: Demiboy, bisexual, biromantic, he/they

Demencia: Trans woman, demisexual, demiromantic, polyamorous, she/they

Black Hat: Agender, pansexual, demiromantic, polyamorous, he/it/they/she (he or it most often)

Tyr'ahnee: Cis woman, bisexual, biromantic, she/they

Alex: Cis man, demisexual, panromantic, he/they

Bulkhead and Wheeljack: Here

Sun/Moon: Agender, demisexual, demiromantic, he/they

Randall: Cis man, pansexual, panromantic, he/they

The Groke: Genderfluid, asexual, panromantic, any pronouns but "it"

Platonic

Ruben (625): Genderqueer, demisexual, biromantic, he/they

Snufkin: Nonbinary, asexual, demiromantic, Achillean, polyamorous, he/they

Snorkmaiden: Cis girl, asexual, heteroromantic, polyamorous, she/they

Izumi: Cis woman, demisexual, biromantic, she/they

Sig: Cis man, demisexual, heteroromantic, he/they

Optimus Prime: Agender, aroace, he/they

Ratchet: Cis, demisexual, panromantic, he/they

Bumblebee: Genderqueer, bisexual, biromantic, he/they

Arcee: Cis, demisexual, demiromantic, she/they

Jack: Cis, biromantic, bisexual, he/they

Miko: Genderfluid, aroace, she/they

Raf: Token cishetallo (he's ND, so it's fine), he/they

Familial

Nani: Cis, bisexual, heteroromantic, she/they

Lilo: Demigirl, asexual, biromantic, she/they

Dr. Flug: Cis, bisexual, biromantic, he/they

5.0.5.: Agender, aroace, he/they

Moominmama: Cis, asexual, biromantic, she/they

Moominpapa: Cis, asexual, panromantic, he/they

Moomintroll: Demiboy, asexual, biromantic, polyamorous, he/they

Little My: Genderfluid, aroace, she/they/he

Ed: Cis, bisexual, heteroromantic, he/they

Al: Genderqueer, demisexual, biromantic, he/they

FWB

Starscream: Genderfluid, bisexual, aromantic, he/they

Knockout: Cis, pansexual, demiromantic, he/they

Holy shit coming up with new tags wasn't easy. I didn't even come up with that many new ones ;~;

Also, I've never hit the tag limit before. That's kinda neat.

[grismavessel]

Grimhilda, the ghost typer trainer from Kalos!

I've posted very little about her, unless you read some of my fics I don't bring her up that much.

More lore and drawings of her under the cut!

Her name is Grimhilda, originally from Alola and had been good childhood friends with Plumeria. Unfortunely Grimhilda had to move to Kalos because of her family and lost contact with Plumeria.

When things in Kalos didn't pan out (Grimhilda doesn't get along with her family because of her love of ghost types), she looks to moving back to Alola. She finds Plumeria and they reconnect, to her shock she found out her best friend was the former admin of the now disbanded team skull.

Plumeria insists that Grimhilda moves in with what's left of the old team skull crew until she gets back on her feet.

But Plumeria doesn't know how to drive, so she makes Guzma go pick her and her luggage up. Guzma doesn't know much about Grimhilda so he wasn't sure what to expect. He expected somebody just like Plumeria, strict, a little mean, but overall fun still.

The minute he meets her Guzma is very much surprised.

Grimhilda is a very shy/timid person. Whenever she meets someone new or is just nervous she talks and talks without realizing and hides behind her hair. Guzma sees her just going on and trying to make sure things don't get awkward by talking about not making things awkward and he feels his heart skip a beat because wow it's not what he was expecting at all. She is nothing like Plumeria.

He falls in love at first sight because:

She's gothic (ghost typer users am i right?)

She's really cute when she's mumbling

She is smol

They drive back to the new and fixed up Shady House. Grimhilda reunites with her bestie and she falls in love with Alola, the place already feeling more like home than Kalos ever did.

She's still really nervous and doesn't like to wander around the house without Plumeria, but eventually she runs into garden and sees Guzma with his bug pokemon. He panicks for a minute, unsure of what to say, but Grimhilda is in awe of Golisopod. The giant bug sweeps her up in a hug and Guzma panics even because he thinks it's gonna scare her off and he really doesn't want to make her feel threatened or scared or make Plumeria mad.

But Grimhilda laughs and opens up a little.

Later that day Guzma asks if she would want to go up against him in a pokemon battle. A switch flipped and Grimhilda becomes super excited and loud.

And so they have a battle, and that's when Guzma sees why her and Plumeria were best friends.

Grimhilda is very intense during her battles with her strange Doublade.

She wipes the floor with Guzma and immediately is in tears crying because she beat him and she feels bad. And Guzma laying on the ground, wind knocked out of him from the battle and thinking to himself 'Shit she's cute and scary'.

Guzma's never been in love before, and every moment he spends with Grimhilda he just fell deeper and deeper. And Grimhilda feels more and more comfortable being around him. She opens up to him about her family troubles and they share a moment. She tells him about her old dream of becoming a gym leader but she was always too scared to try. Now she just wanted to work and help as many ghost type pokemon as she could. Guzma gets to tell her about all the misadventures and trouble Team Skull used to get into and about the Aether foundation and what that did to him.

One day, the two decided to go on a small little trip to Poni Island to catch a Dhelmise, but they get distracted and end up playing in the waters and field grass.

And that was their unofficial official first date.

They started dating soon after. When Plumeria found out she nearly killed Guzma and threatened that if he so much as hurt a hair on her head or broke her heart she would feed him to her Salazzle.

And that's Grimhilda!

Gris get's the square eyes from her and the gothic/punk style. He's also cursed to be average height due to Grimhilda being on the shorter side and Guzma being tall as hell.

[dokifluffs]

thank you for the happiest years of my life

warning: *spoilers to like parts of basically the entire show and manga but also mostly crack. soo you have been warned* also warning, l o n g

thank you hinata for your toilet song and your sunshine persona, never giving up and also all your bowel issues getting you in the most uncomfy situations with other teams, for being the greatest decoy thank you kageyama for your jingru bell, jingru bell and all your hinata boke’s, milk breaks, and probably deformation of hinata’s skull from how many times you grabbed it thank you tsuki for your arara gomen and being tol boi #1with great character development but also staying the sassiest one omfg thank you yamagucci for your gomen, tsukki and being tol boi #2 with superb confidence building thank you yachi for being the best townsperson B thank you tanaka for killing dadchi. Tanaka, nice kill! and being literally one of the best characters thank you noya for your rolling thundas and being the coolest senpai and being karasuno’s guardian and also choosing to come to karasuno simply because you liked the girls’ uniforms thank you ennoshita for being best dad #2 and tutoring tanaka and noya thank you kinoshita and narita for existing even tho you two are the most slept on akjhdkad thank you suga for being the best mom and also singing under the sea  thank you asahi for being unintentionally scary and dressing up as jesus evry year for karasuno christmas  thank you kiyoko for always looking out for karasuno  thank you dadchi- deadchi- daichi for being best dad #1 thank you takeda for being the teacher sponsor of the club and having the best quotes out there homie, you really big brain thank you ukai junior for reminding the crows that volleyball is a game where you look up 

Thank you Karasuno, for teaching me to fly

thank you oikawa for teaching me that instinct is something you polish, talent is something you bloom. also for all your yoho, tobio chan’s and milk bread being your favorite food, for hitting it till it breaks. you were always enough and i wish we could’ve seen you bring your team to nationals. hope your knee gets soon buddy thank you iwa for always calling oikawa shittykawa and etc. best bestie out there and also, you did your best. you are not a failure as an ace for aoba johsai. also thank you for making sure oikawa rested  thank you mattsun and makki for being such an iconic duo  thank you kunimi for sticking out your tongue in season 4  thank you kindaichi for being onion head and having a great character development thank you kyotani for making me intimidated of an anime character like bruh. homie, your back said “C”-  thank you yahaba for being best setter #2 tehe and also putting kyotani in his place  thank you watari for being Aoba johsai’s guardian and being tanaka written in cursive thank you yuda, sawauchi, and shido even if i didnt pay you any attention adkjah im sorry 

thank you Aoba Johsai for teaching me how to rule the court 

thank you kuroo for your hyena laugh, befriending kenma when you moved in next door, and being literally everything  thank you kenma for being best pudding head and being the best sugar daddy after the time skip to our hina baby  thank you lev for being long boi and having one of the best glow ups in s4 like literally scrumptious. Cant want to see your time skip animated and also, you’re gonna be a great nekoma ace one day bb  thank you yaku for being literally the best libero im sorry noya kajdhas omg akjda goals and also putting lev in his place  thank you shibayama for stepping in as libero when yaku got hurt in land vs. sky you did great bb  thank you yamamoto for being tanaka written in magnum sharpie, punk font and getting into a dispute with Tanaka on S I T E thank you teshiro for being best setter #2 uwu  thank you kai for being one of many underrated characters that should’ve gotten more  thank you teshiro for looking the most like a cat and being a pinch server thank you inuoka for being a lil sunshine too 

thank you Nekoma for teaching me how to connect

thank you bokuto for serving all of us your juicy a$$ but also being the best hype boi out there, capable of being so strong and proving to be so much stronger by growing out of your emo modes, for making akaashi choose to come to fukurodani thank you akaashi for playing with your fingers, for always looking out for bokuto, teaching all of us that we are the protagonists of the world, having a list of his weaknesses memorized thank you konoha for doing what we all wanna do and knee bokuto’s voluptuous ass thank you waisho for being like a normal lookin type bokuto  thank you sarukui, anahori, komi, and onaga for being part of this great team and also boosting bokuto up

thank you fukrodani for teaching me how to pour my soul into everything (every ball) 

thank you ushijima for teaching me how to harvest and farm for the ripest of fruits thank you tendo for BAKI BAKI NI ORAE NANI WO and being a weeb too. you were never a monster as a child or ever in your life  thank you goshiki for being female jirou from my hero academia and also realizing how much you need to improve at the end of s3. made me cry man  thank you semi for being suga in punk rock font  thank you reon for being you cause you rock homie. you and kai would so vibe together man. good vibes all around thank you soekawa, yunohama, kawanishi, and sagae for existing even though yall were slept on thank you yamagata and akakura for having shiratorizawa’s back’s as liberos thank you shirabu for using ushijima to your disposal like he wished. you gon be a great doctor bb

thank you shiratorizawa for teaching me how to have an intense force to my persona thank you aone for being the best iron wall and having the cutest friendship with hinata like omg his current fear is no one wanting to sit near him on the metro akdjhahds i’ll sit with you  thank you koganegawa for being the best angry bird bb  thank you Futakuchi for getting knocked over when you chest bumped aone  thank you obara, onagawa, and fukiage for existinggg thank you sakunami for having Dateko’s backs 

thank you dateko student section for making the most iconic cheer out of the entire show that’ll never die also, check out the live action stage ones akjdhas nekoma is stuck in my head 

thank you dateko for having the best cheer in the show 

thank you saeko nee-san for being the best tokyo drift driver out there with your Taiko team and being the best leader leading the karasuno cheers for da bois thank you karasuno’s voice principal for not expelling our two celled boyos, kageyama and hinata   thank you third gym for all the oya oya’s  thank you bokuto for hooking tsuki onto volleyball when he blocked ushi  thank you takeda for scaring ukai junior in season 1 when he repeatedly went back to beg him to be the coach for karasuno, begging to so many coaches and making sure they could have practice matches with other schools thank you to hinata’s tennis friend who taught him how to splatter step(?) thank you ukai senior for teaching them about the tempos thank you to the old guy that goes to every karasuno game even tho literally no one knows him bruh  thank you to Shimada for teaching our bb boi yams to float serve thank you for the twins and sakusa and so many more teams  thank you for bringing us to brazil with hinata, reuniting him and oikawa  thank you for all the commercial breaks  thank you for all the memes aka haikyuu dubbed thank you for all the radio shows with characters we may never get to see on the screen together thank you tsukki for pressing hinata’s diahrea spot thank you for dub yams’ he he he waluigi laugh thank you hinata for inspiring asahi to join the team again thank you kageyama for probably breaking hinata’s back so many times by kicking him  thank you asahi for calling out to suga  thank you kageyama for scaring the living shit out of hinata when he hit you in the back of the head with his rushed serve in season 1 in the practice match against aoba johsai thank you for all the meat buns eaten after practice, the popsicles nishinoya ate in two bites thank you noya for all the epic saves and pancakes you dove for  thank you for kageyama’s “nuff, nis, niceu-” to tsukki  thank you for tanaka and noya and yamamoto for all women are queens club  thank you suguru for getting under kuroo’s skin and making him petty asf in land vs sky  thank you alisa for being literally breathing, you and lev look so goodd post time skip like haiba sibs rule the world thank you tv that hinata had happened to be passing by, playing the game with the little giant, inspiring him to go to karasuno  thank you kageyama’s grandpa for getting him into volleyball 🥺 thank you for all the races while running, all the flying receive laps, the hill runs, the training camps, practice matches thank you for all the disputes that could happen before all the gears could be made and put into place  thank you kiyoko for saying that tanaka for some reason looks good with a banana thank you for the meat god dance, the serve cheer poses  thank you for making me love volleyball tenfold thank you for moi pon  thank you kageyama for telling hinata that he’s the greatest when he’s around, giving him his first official toss thank you hinata for telling kageyama that he sets just fine

thank you to all the voice actors for starting and staying through all the years to bring all our favorites to life, never failing us once

thank you spyair, burnout syndromes, tacica, nico touches the walls, sukima switch, galileo galilei, and more for so many amazing ops and eps

thank you for all the memories, all the laughs, cheers, heart racing moments, the moments that made us grip onto pillows, the edge of our seats, tears, addicting chants, making me simp for like 50 people, making my cheeks hurt from smiling so much, my voice raspy for cheering and screaming so much. 

thank you to this fandom for being like a second family, sharing all our love and crackheadedness 

thank you for the happiest years of my life

thank you haikyuu, thank you Furudate for bringing this amazing story to all of us and touching our lives with it 

[favvnsongs]

Hey so what is ahead to still waters 👀👀

I - oof even what is Ahead to still waters, indeed, lmfao.

Uhm, so very long story short-ish:

Atsw is the sprawling, all over the place, sometimes a gritty traumatic war drama, sometimes an indulgent opulent space opera, occasionally an uncomfortable psychological horror, more often than not a heartbreakingly tragic and agonizing and tenderly romantic monsterbeast of a catradora(...?) fic that happened when a dubcon chipped!catra/adora pwp drabble morphed into Cry little sister and then that au morphed a second time into Ahead to still waters.

It's @trashcanpunch and I's favorite fic-child and we basically come crashing into one anothers DMs on a constant basis to scream feelings at each other. I mean mostly like angsty feelings as if we're on two different sides of a vicious guerilla war and heartbreaking plot moments or snippets or whatever the fuck are spike pits in the jungle but... yknow.

Lmfao no but uh. basically. Atsw, much like Cls, is the "what if" exploration i guess based on if adora&co had left catra behind after catra had helped to rescue glimmer off of prime's flagship.

(mind you that the backstory "lore" of the universe is only like... 5% canon compliant bc I dont fuck with canon when it comes to aus it's stupid and I dont like being limited like that lmao)

no but uhhh. yeah. without the events of Save the Cat, adora never really becomes she ra again. meanwhile, catra isn't forcibly baptized in the mountain dew pool of doom against her will and shoddy chipped and shoved into the hivemind. rather prime sees how much she's hurting and how much internal conflict and despair she's got in her, and very gently and tenderly and so so so uncomfortably grooms her into turning on etheria. essentially handing over not only everything she knows willingly, but also taking the light willingly, joining the hivemind willingly, but also giving herself over to the war effort bodily in letting him use her physically for the creation of little sister, who is kinda sorta an entirely separate personality? it's weird. that whole aspect is sorta... it hasn't been ironed out yet.

(if any of y'all are familiar with my aus, youll know nothing is concrete and everything is always changing and being retconned lol so things may change but)

catra is essentially given the light rather early? and the light and the chips and the hivemind all work differently than in the show, obvs. and she wants to repay prime for giving her a new home and a place of belonging and a purpose?

(oof and I loooove prime in this au. like. i love him because I have such a love hate relationship with him. and I think that's his entire point?? because he'll Make You Like Him??? and make you trust him??? and it's just So Good. and then you'll be reminded that he's an absolute fucking monster it's Amazing)

no but. so. catra. but also little sister. so like, catra is given the light and she's been relieved of her despair and her grief and her anger and bitterness and pain and all that jazz. she's also done some other shit too but we won't get into that here lol. she's earned her place, so to speak. but she wants to do more. she's a true believer. she has seen the truth and heard it from on high and followed him from out of the darkness with pure blind faith and been rewarded. she has really truly deeply drank the koolaid.

prime basically through some weird process splits her - personality? entire wholeass consciousness?? idek. but there's catra and little sister and theyre two different people but they're not and they have two separate personalities but they dont. and they have different memories and knowledge of things but then at the same time they dont. they share a body and a soul but thanks to chip shenanigans and prime's influence, little sister is intentionally so much stronger than catra, she's the one in control most of the time? and yeah sometimes, though very rarely, catra can shove her way to the front but more often than not prime has to allow catra to be present.

(it's not like she'd want to be anyways. committing warcrimes and whatnot. she's comfy where she is. as long as adora's safe she's okay to let little sister be of service to lord prime's plans. that's okay. as long as adora's okay, she's okay.)

but then yknow turns out prime is getting kinda bored af with the war and the heart of etheria isn't like. he doesnt really want it to blow up the universe bc that's dumb as fuck?? lmao what. he mostly either wants to harness that magic so no one else can have it who Would blow up the universe bc there are much more evil fuckers than Prime out there and they aren't members of the evil version of the space united nations or whatever who are all like "so hey uh what's the deal with basically that giant bomb I guess you were gonna take care of or something...?" or he wants to conquer etheria and her surrounding planets (which is mostly his current plan but etheria is kind of just... being a bitch..) bc he cant really just. leave something like that sitting in what is his backyard now. but either way he's getting really fed up and he's all "alright we're gonna just mass chip everyone fuck it i don't care" or something like that, and then honestly prolly destroy all the runestones or something and then just pack up and see if the planet explodes like a pressure cooker.

but also prime has a bit of a soft spot for catra (I mean its more that that but we're not gonna get into that rn) and shes all 🥺👉👈 do you think mebbe I could go and talk to adora and see if i could convince her to join the light? she might be so happy to see me that she'd say yes?

and little sister and prime are all "lmao this kid" and "oh you sweet summer child, how precious you are. sure, it's worth a try" but at the same time they both know that adora isn't an idiot and that she's gonna put two and two together and realize pretty quick why catra isn't dead and why she has a chip but hasn't been seen in years. and oh gee yeah I mean you've been committing God awful horrific atrocities but sure I'll come with you and join ur cult ex bestie sure ♡•°` so little sister pretty much promises prime that she'll kidnap adora if/when she says no to catra both bc adora is a good asset to have Anyway and bc like it or not she's got a soft spot for catra too, even if she's a spoiled little fuck who gets special treatment.

so adora obvs says no and catra is all 🥺 and little sister is all 😤🙄😒🗡🗡 and so adora gets kidnapped...? politely taken prisoner? ... rescued from maybe being blown up? ... reunited with her ex-bestie who she abandoned to prolly/potential doom? lmao pick one. catra is pouting bc adora was mean and rude even tho catra was so excited and happy to see her again and adora is grumpy and stubborn and impolite and little sister is like "I hate you both So Much" and prime is all "drama! I love it :3"

aaand I gotta go run errands and try to be productive so I guess thats all the explanation you'll get for now.

@trashcanpunch can prolly sum it up MUCH MORE seriously than I can tho lmfao

[luckycheesefoodie321]

This Pukyuu Watch (Ch 171) only has 5 total Pukyuu sightings but the badassery of the remaining chapter cannot be denied so prepare yourselves for some SPOILERS+long post (I’ll end on our gurl)

So in continuation with the previous chapter, Hak and Kuelbo finally meet...

Kuelbo is not impressed with Hal’s obliviousness...trust me Kuelbo, we done been knew what you’re suffering right now...

Then comes just this tug of war situation where Kuelbo keeps blabbing nonsense about Yona and defeating Hak and Hal’s about done with this dude acting like he and Yona are besties after KIDNAPPING HER...then proceeds the stupidest conversation held on the battlefield ever, and the best part is definitely the spectators...

But then we get some major Dark Dragon vibes from Hak...like are we sure he isn’t a dragon???? That whole Soo-Won/Yona are two halves of the same soul, can Hak get in on it???

Strongest soldier in a thousand years, you stole his friends and he’s bled out a crap ton of blood...he’s about done fighting and you would do well not to underestimate him Ying Kuelbo!

And then it’s so sweet when the Fire Tribe rally for Yona and the Dragons return...Tae-Jun just RAARGH it’s so sweet...and you don’t just mention the Dragons when he’s been fighting so desperately to protect the ones he still has...and yeah it’s FASCINATING how captivating Yona is, that she’s captured the attention of her enemy in such a way, but a few possessive intentions aside, he really seems to respect Yona??? So it makes sense that he intends to make her the new Goddess of War for the Tully tribe...she has all that “symbolic value” as the reincarnation of Hiryuu, and commander of the dragons but also she’s just so fearsome and determined and just like Hak scares you, Yona inspires you in much the same intensity...and Kuelbo seems to have clocked into that, even if hes only seen a sliver of her potential...but he gets cut down by Hak SO WE’LL HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE DRAGON JAILBREAK!!!

Speaking of, that small bit with Yoon and the dragons reuniting??? SO MUCH YESS

First PROTECT MAMA YOON!!! But love that there’s no question of whose side they’re on, and the fact that they’re being forced to cooperate...just instant switch to help Yoon escape (PROPS TO MAH BOI SHIN-AH!!! He did say he would only hurt enemies), and they don’t even hesitate to hug in front of their supposed captors bc yo they’re about to split up again after so many days apart and the Dragons are off to more danger, and Yoon has to help Hak and his wounds... their tired banter as they follow their captors is so funny and emotional at the same time like “we’re finally on the same side again but we still have more work to do. Time to rescue the princess! But dammit Shin-Ah why are you like this??” And just shows how close they are and how confident they are in each other’s company...Yoon’s safe and Yona needs to be rescued and they’re just ready...

Also love that there’s never a question of whether Yoon is a hindrance or not, like thus far this arc all he’s done is be a hostage, but he has a place to be and a role to play, and Hak needs someone by his side to take care of him, and only Yoon can get that done!

And prior to this, one of Kye-Shook’s soldiers was trying to treat his wounds and Hak was like GET AWAY but he doesn’t hesitate to let Yoon help him take off his jacket thing and just relaxes against him bc he knows the Dragons can take care of business for a bit and he can tend to his wounds for a little while at least and trust in them...

Also his reaction to Yona kicking Gobi even while delirious was adorable...

AND NOW FINALLY WHAT YALL BEEN WAITING FOR!!! GET READY FOR OUR GURL AO!!!

She’s just...still working on that giant bao bun thing bahahahah...also notice that she jumps away from Yoo-Lan right before she splashes Gobi?? Like she can sense that trouble is brewing and leaps to a safer position...Hell she may have just wanted a better vantage point to watch the whole thing...

Always love our gurl...and take note that there are 3 badass ladies in this room and one pile of trash...

And also take note that not one, but TWO ladies shut this pile of trash down HARD

WOOH WHAT A WAY TO END THE CHAP!!!

[fire-fira]

Aquaman (2018) is a fucking GEM and here’s why

Buckle up, get your popcorn, get a drink, because my squawking about this film--

--is gonna be long!

Okay, so as anyone who knows me reasonably well or has followed me for my DC stuff can tell you I am a MASSIVE nerd about DC’s Atlantis (thanks in large part to my wonderful and adorable fishy son La’gaan).

(Obligatory shot of this kid’s happy smiling face because I love him and he deserves at least a moment of attention.)

SO--

The Big Things

This film freaking delivered with showing us Atlantis in full lit-up glory, not to mention showing a clear delineation between the lower levels and the upper levels. We didn’t get to see much of the lower levels unfortunately, but the fact that what we did see of it was an old shipwreck says some things. (Which I’ll probably extrapolate on under Social Things.)

I was never left in doubt for even a moment that Arthur and Mera were capable of what they were doing. Both of them are badass beyond words, are goddamn tanks who should NOT be trifled with, and have genuine complexity and chemistry that makes me heavily invested in their relationship. I can understand why they would be drawn together and how their dynamic would work out, and even as that’s going on I am never once left in doubt that both of them are a force of nature who are just as capable of flattening their enemies individually as they would be if they joined forces and fought side by side. Get on their goddamn level, because they are a power couple who can and will destroy you (or make you wish they had) if they deem it necessary.

BLACK. FUCKING. MANTA. I was not prepared for the sheer level of genius badassery from this man. It was one thing finding out that he got his tech from atlanteans (fuck you Orm), but it was something else watching him break it down and rework it to suit his needs while making his own helmet for-- oh yes-- the goddamn eye-lasers. We are very clearly shown that with his first attempt if he’d been wearing the helmet he would have died, but this brilliant badass pretty much just, “Guess I need a bigger helmet,” and then just went ahead and made a second one with everything figured out and sorted so it wouldn’t blow his damn head off any time he used his main weapon! Just HOLY SHIT BLACK MANTA! On only the second try?! What the shit dude?! Granted, you started out as a pirate and then stepped it up to being a supervillain, but HOLY SHIT. I’m surprised he stuck with being just a pirate for as long as he did!

Also, Black Manta’s motivation makes perfect sense. It took one of the more dick-ish moves Arthur’s done (which was also in character for him at that point in the movie), but that act of not saving Black Manta’s dad (especially since with their interactions I’d argue it’s fair to assume that his dad was a good dad to him) feels exactly like it was all that was needed for him to decide he wanted Arthur dead.

 (And RIP me, when I first saw Black Manta’s dad my first thought was ‘Is that Coffeepot Guy from Young Justice?’)

Orm. Hoooolllllllyyyyyy SHIT Orm. Full props to that actor, because he completely sold Purist McDouche-Face Orm for everything he was worth. Even down to the subtle nuances of how easily he let Atlantean slurs fall, the casual arrogance and unnoticed contempt for anyone who wasn’t ‘pure’ (though that specific word didn’t come up) or who he viewed as ‘traitors’, and the fact that this son of a ba’athu-kest had his brother dragged to him unconscious and in chains in his throne room. There was a fucking COLLAR around Arthur’s neck! And then he has the fucking gall later on to essentially say, ‘If you leave now I’ll let you live and we never have to be at odds again, just ignore the fact that I’m going to be committing genocide that’ll probably include your Dad since he’s close to the shore. No hard feelings. ‘Kay?’ and act like it was an act of goddamn mercy or benevolence. Just... OMG. Seriously, just... fuck you Orm. Fuck you so much for engineering a goddamn war. JFC.

And speaking of Arthur’s Dad-- Arthur’s Mom and Dad are PERFECTION. Yeah, we don’t get to see as much of their relationship development as we do with Arthur and Mera, but Tom Curry and Queen Atlanna are the kind of partners you would expect to see epics written about in the old and ancient days. If we’re talking The Odyssey, then they are Odysseus and Penelope with their roughly 20-year absence from each other-- except Atlanna’s Odysseus and Tom’s Penelope. And when they came back together? I was almost crying in the theater. Holy crap. It was just SO MANY FEELS. Not even a moment of doubt that the two of them loved each other, that they loved each other deeply, that they loved each other intensely, and that they loved each other so much that they were willing to wait until the end of time if that’s what it took for them to be reunited. And if I’m not careful I’m going to get misty-eyed over them again.

And can we just appreciate the fact that Tom and Arthur are indigenous? I mean actually? Because dear gods when Tom greeted Arthur and they pressed their foreheads together and breathed I started fucking crying in the theater. I needed that. I needed to see an indigenous superhero with his culture woven in in subtle ways and for it to play out through affection between him and his dad WHO HE ACTUALLY HAS A WONDERFUL RELATIONSHIP WITH-- and fuck I’m crying again. (I’m assuming because Jason Momoa is Maori that that means they’re Maori? I’m not sure though. I hope the specific culture gets mentioned on the bluray whenever it gets released, because I’m forever after this film going with indigenous Arthur and I want to know I’m referring to his people correctly. Indigenous Arthur is in, all other versions of Arthur can go home.) Gods I have so many feels. If Atlanna had showed that she’d adopted small parts of Tom’s culture by doing the forehead thing with Arthur that would have ended me. On the spot. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, 404: Fira not found due to breaking down over all the feels.

Shifting a little (because otherwise I’m grinding to a halt and I have SO much more to get into) let’s talk about the kisegra, the Trench, and the various beasties! Of the kisegra we only really get to see two types-- the Fishermen (merpeople essentially) and the Brine (lobster/crab-centaur-ish people). I’m not going to fault the people working on the movie for showing us only those two types because they busted their asses on this movie and it shows-- hell, even among those kisegra there’s a diversity of coloration and body-build!-- but I was a tiny smidge disappointed not to see more diversity. Maybe something for a later movie. And then there’s the Trench. THE GODDAMN TRENCH. THESE NIGHTMARE FUEL BA’ATHU-KEGEST.

The La’gaan muse in my mind may as well have been screaming bloody murder. The scene with them is THAT MUCH NIGHTMARE FUEL. It’d be one thing if only a couple of them had been on the boat and the ones on the boat were all there were.

AHAHAHAHAHA-- NO. I do not have words for the SWARM of them that we end up seeing on screen. JFC. (Though there is the vague indication that the Trench may???? be some type of kisegra???? in this reality??? Don’t like that implication one bit, especially with how it gets tied to bigoted purist comments. Might just be a thing purists were saying because fucking sea-nazi purists though.)

And can I also say that the Karathen is a damned Queen? Yes, Julie Andrews voiced her. Yes, she was voiced by Mary-goddamn-Poppins. Yes, she is “practically perfect in every way” and will flatten (or eat) a bitch as needed. Lava doesn’t affect her, she is fucking impervious. It’s no wonder why King Atlan wanted her to go with him when he fucked off into permanent self-imposed exile for his GIANT ASS mistake-- because who wouldn’t want to have their bestie to spend the rest of their life hanging out with when said bestie is the ORIGINAL ‘Deep Beast’ and will cheerfully destroy any of your upstart descendants if they try to be as stupid as you were by attempting to repeat your mistakes? (Real talk though, the fact that King Atlan made friends with her in the first place implies that he learned how to let go of almost all the excess pride that got him in trouble in the first place. Congrats for having some character growth and having stuck with what you felt was right my dude.)

SEA. HORSES. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA They were SO DAMN COOL.

And armored sharks. Fucking armored great whites. For when you absolutely, positively, have to kill every mother-fucking thing in the ocean around you.

The Differences From Other Realities

So one of the big things that stuck out to me was the “only the high-born can breathe air” thing. While I do agree that the ability to breathe air, or water, or both probably varies due to genetics and whatnot, in most realities and interpretations I’ve seen the ability to breathe air isn’t something only found in ‘high-born’ individuals. (Case in point, La’gaan. I love him to pieces, but as someone from the Outer Provinces there ain’t no way that boy is ‘high-born’, and yet he can breathe air.) I’m not pointing this out as a “screw up” of any sort on the part of the writers, but more to point out that this is a detail that makes the DCCU unique from other DC universes.

Atlantis-- Something that caught my attention was how Atlantis was spoken to in relation to other kingdoms. We have several kingdoms mentioned in the movie-- the Kingdom of the Fishermen, the Kingdom of the Brine, the Kingdom of the Trench (who tf decided they had a kingdom???), the Kingdom of Xebel-- but the way they’re each spoken about implies that they’re not seen as being part of Atlantis. Whiiiiiich is kind of weird, because Atlantis (in most iterations) is implied to have been a small continent/large island and not just a single city-state. On the other hand there have been (mostly older) renditions where it was a single city-state. Going off of what we see though, I’m inclined to think that what may have happened is that what was that world’s Poseidonis at some point during their history got renamed Atlantis (so kind of like a New York, New York situation; New York City in New York State, Atlantis City in Atlantis).

The number of kingdoms-- This is something I’ve seen vary SO DAMN MUCH. Some realities it’s only one, others have implied as many as 12 (before several were lost), and this reality says that there were 7 and that 3 have been lost. Fun details.

And Xebel being one of the kingdoms? Most renditions I’ve seen have it as a place for criminals or sealed off in its own pocket-dimension. So it being one of the kingdoms is pretty unique.

ARTHUR’S. PARENTS. ARE. ALIVE. HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT.

AND NEITHER OF THEM DIE!!!

And thank you SO MUCH to the writers for completely erasing some of the more questionable things that have been done with Mera and Xebel, and with Black Manta. As far as I know none of the recent comics dip into that uncomfortable written history, but I still couldn’t help but be thankful that none of that awful crap got used.

No use of the word ‘pure’ in regards to the purist rhetoric of some of the characters, but it was so heavily implied that I think it’s safe to assume. Still mentioning it because with everything else going on it was almost weird that it wasn’t mentioned even once.

BORDER PATROL AND WALLS AROUND ATLANTIS. What the actual fuck?! What the fucking fuck?! Who the hell in Arthur’s family thought that was a good idea?! ‘Oh, you’re trying to go up and over the wall and not through the only gate into or out of Atlantis-- ‘cause that’s not asking for trouble AT ALL-- how about... No. Instead we’ll just FUCKING ANNIHILATE YOU WITH GIANT ASS LASERS BECAUSE THAT’S REAL PROPORTIONATE TO THE SITUATION.̓ (Seriously. What the fuck.)

The split between upper and lower levels. I’ve seen splits between inner and outer provinces before with various iterations, but this reality is the first one where I’ve seen an upper-versus-lower-level split in Atlantis.

Arthur being the eldest. Some realities he’s older than Orm, and in other realities Orm is older than him. It’s kind of a toss-up.

Atlanna being ‘sacrificed’ to the Trench. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ATLANTIS?! Granted, the Trench are a recent addition to the Aquaman mythos (a la New52), and it could be argued that for other realities they’re almost a myth, a legend of nightmare stories to warn reckless guppies away from going into open and empty areas away from others where it’d be easier for predators to snap them up and swim away; but for a reality where they’re known to factually exist and for people to be completely okay with SACRIFICING THEIR QUEEN TO THEM... What. THE. FUCK.

The Social Things

Technically I could put this point under Differences From Other Realities, but it has to do with a huge social detail for this movie, so it’s going here. ARRANGED MARRIAGE. I think it’s fair to assume that it may have been a thing in the past in most DC realities, but this reality is the first one I know of where it’s a current thing. Obviously this has HUGE repercussions for how things play out (like Queen Atlanna getting ‘sacrificed’ to the Trench for ‘committing treason’ thanks to having fallen in love with Tom and having Arthur-- WTAF Atlantis?), and it implies a lot more heavy restrictions in Atlantis than even I headcanon-- and I’ve headcanoned some really dark shit based on the crumbs and hints DC has given us over various renditions.

This movie did not sugarcoat or simplify the bigotry in Atlantis. They very clearly conveyed that being bigoted isn’t just “deliberately being mean to someone” and that bigotry is pervasive and can affect damn near everything. In fact they did an artful job at subtly and carefully weaving it into interactions that you might not even notice unless you know what to look for. This includes such “tasteful” (NOT) Atlantean slurs and comments rendered in English as:

- Half-breed (canonically an in-world slur)

- Mongrel (implications similar to ‘half-breed’)

- Savage (I hate this word so GODDAMN MUCH, you have NO fucking idea, my kneejerk reaction to hearing this word is the urge to either deck someone or set something on fire)

- “If that half-breed mongrel wields the trident, then that half-breed mongrel is your king.” (May not be word-for-word exact, but it was said by Mera’s father-- which fuck you Nereus, you purist piece of shit, and fuck you for daring to refer to the man you just told your people to follow by using a goddamn slur.)

- There’s more, but goddamn if I went through it all this thing would get even longer and I’d be screaming even more about Orm and Nereus.

- Though I will say with Arthur being indigenous, that insult of ‘half-breed’ carries WAY more weight than it might otherwise. Like WAY MORE.

Oh yeah! And before I forget! Because fuck that hagfish-sucking purist piece of ba’athu-kest shit ORM! THE ASSHOLE KILLS KING RICOU, KING OF THE FISHERMEN, IN FRONT OF HIS FAMILY BECAUSE HE WAS CALLING ORM ON HIS SHIT AND REFUSING TO GO ALONG WITH HIS WAR.

And then he fucking threatened to kill King Ricou’s partner and daughter if they don’t do what he wants!

Just... FUCK ORM. Fuck his purist bullshit, and fuck his purist bullshit that obviously made him think nothing of killing a kisegra where he actually hesitated over the idea of killing someone ‘pure’. (Think Vulco, to a certain extent, and Nereus when Nereus told him to back down over killing Mera.)

Mera says that people try to get into Atlantis over the wall “all the time.” Um, hi, because that’s not saying anything intense. At all. What it immediately calls to my mind is that it may be a direct hint of kisegra not being seen as citizens in Atlantis and (generally) not allowed in. In fact, in the main crowd scenes during the first fight between Arthur and Orm I only noticed ONE kisegra, and then only because of their tail. I may be wrong, there may have been more that I didn’t notice, but in the brief amount of time there was I tried to scour the shots of the crowd for kisegra and came up empty aside from the one. (Can we say ‘possible hints of that arc in the pre-boot comics where kisegra weren’t citizens until Arthur took the throne’?) It also implies-- if they’re willing to risk getting FUCKING ANNIHILATED BY GIANT ASS LASER-CANNONS to get in-- that things are B A D outside Atlantis.

(Arthur, you poor bastard, you’re walking/swimming into a shit-storm.)

And ‘battles to the death for the throne’???? In a goddamn ARENA?! What kind of fucking hellscape is Atlantis that they’ve had such advanced tech at their disposal for centuries and they’re doing that shit?! (Again, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ATLANTIS?!)

The division between the upper and lower levels. Um... What... the fuck??? Apparently the “low-born” aren’t able to breathe air-- which okay, whatever-- but they apparently have to live with/in wreckage???? Without electricity??? (Obviously the Atlanteans have some form of energy production going. Magic or electricity or both, idek, but that shattered wreck of a ship looked like there wasn’t anything on it or in the area around it that might have cast some light that wasn’t whatever happened to be shining through from higher up.) And apparently without the means to build actual houses???? Great system there for the poor Atlantis. Really.

Arthur, you poor, poor bastard, you’re swimming into a shit-storm.

A gigantic shit-storm.

Arthur, you poor, poor bastard, you’re swimming into SUCH a gigantic shit-storm.

Arthur, you have my deepest sympathies. (Pun not intended.)

I know I said it before, but I’ll say it again: the implications for this world’s Atlantis are way darker than my headcanons have been.

Though this does make me wonder just how much shit Arthur and Mera might get over their relationship and how it came to be (since it obviously wasn’t through “proper traditional procedures”).

Some Other Points I Realized After Getting Some Sleep

Even though we get the sense that everything is headed by kings in Atlantis (HA), we also actually have evidence that Atlantis might not actually go in for surface-world sexist shit.

- Atlanna is clearly Atlan’s descendant, not Orm’s father, otherwise Arthur wouldn’t have been eligible for the throne. Which means the throne was hers (before she was going to be ‘sacrificed’ as a traitor). So that brings up the possibility that things may have played out differently if she’d been found out before Orm was born. (Maybe they wouldn’t have been able to safely ‘get rid of’ her without having someone of her family line available and ready to step in.)

- When Orm kills King Ricou it’s very clearly implied that the throne immediately goes to Ricou’s daughter and not his partner. There is no question or doubt that the princess is immediately in charge of her people’s armies, not even a hint that her gender is a factor in the situation. (It also reinforces the prior thing in the point about Atlanna that family-line seems to be the important factor over everything else for the royal families.)

- Atlanna and Mera both are shown to be highly capable fighters who aren’t to be taken lightly, and though we only really see them being pursued by and fighting against men, there’s not even a moment where any of the atlanteans seem surprised that they’re as capable as they are.

- The Karathen is arguably the biggest badass tank in the entire movie, and yet it’s safe to assume that when King Atlan went into his exile that he cared more about what she was capable of than he cared about the fact that she was the biggest badass woman in the entire ocean. (Assuming the Karathen even has the concept of gender. Pretty sure that’s up for question.)

Chances are high that when Atlanna was ‘sacrificed’ to the Trench, Orm saw his father’s show of harsh and callous ruthlessness and told himself that it was strength, it was admirable, and he wanted to be as much like him as possible. And there’s also the possibility that he had some part of himself deep down somewhere that was absolutely terrified over what his father might do if he ever was or became anything that his father saw fit to ‘destroy’. (Not that it excuses his purist bullshit for even a moment-- purist fucking McDouche-Face Orm can still fucking die in a fire as far as I’m concerned-- but that kind of thing may have added fuel to the fire for his purist bullshit.)

Since it’s very clearly implied that Mera and Orm were raised together, there’s a high chance they were friends as kids. It also means she got to see his increasing asshole-ish-ness, and while she may have missed the friendship they used to have as kids (thank you @tamlins-stories-and-poems for bringing this point up) she also would have known how quickly the switch could be flipped from him caring about her to him deciding she needed to die if he saw her as a ‘traitor’. (Which also explains her deliberate anti-surface comment to him before trying to say that she felt he was going too far.)

I just have to say, in regards to my fishy son La’gaan, he’s the kind of person who doesn’t willingly bow before or submit to anyone unless he feels they’ve earned it. The versions of Mera and Arthur in this movie? They are exactly the sort of people he would be ecstatic to call his Queen and King. They’re the sort of people he would be loyal to and fight with everything he has to defend them-- because they’re both the sort of people to essentially say “fuck you” to social conventions to do the right thing.

With the 7 kingdoms, at least 6 are outright mentioned (unless I’m not remembering the seventh, and even so I’m dubious about the kingdom of the Trench even counting).

- The Remaining 4: The kingdom of Atlantis, The kingdom of Xebel, The kingdom of the Fishermen, and The kingdom of the Brine.

- The ‘lost’ 3: The kingdom of the Deserters (implied to all be dead), The kingdom of the Trench (again, I’m dubious about their claim to the title, but there’s that purist rhetoric about some people having ‘regressed’-- fuck that noise SO much-- but if we put any stock in it then it would imply the kingdom was ‘lost’ because they ‘fell’ so far), and then the third one which may have been mentioned but I don’t recall.

- I just have so many doubts in regard to the Trench having their own kingdom. They’re screwed up nightmare fuel, and claiming they’re one of the Lost Kingdoms feels almost like one of those things that purists thought up as a way to support any claims they have about kisegra being “savage” and all that shit.

And while I’m at it, I fucking love how Orm’s spouting bullshit about how ‘savage’ and ‘barbaric’ kisegra are, and meanwhile the King of the Brine and King Ricou both tell him in no uncertain terms that he’s the one who’s being a violent asshole who needs to back the fuck off.

Really fucking pissed about how Orm killed Ricou and was going to kill the King of the Brine (after he’d already ripped his arm off, fucking asshole Orm).

- Also not thrilled about how after Orm gets ripped away from the King of the Brine, we don’t get to see that king again. I would have liked a moment of him making his way to Arthur to talk. (Maybe something to hope for in a sequel. And hopefully they’ll give him an actual name.)

Also, I appreciate that the one group of kisegra were called fishermen and not fish-men. It’s only something I’ve seen come up in a couple iterations (the animated Young Justice being the main one), but ‘fish head’ is yet another Atlantean slur. Presumably going off of that, things like ‘fish face’, ‘fish lips’, etc.-- while possibly not outright slurs-- could be similar enough to the actual slur to (justifiably) make any kisegra bristle. By going with ‘fishermen’ for that group, it’s pushing away the negative connotations of a possible slur by invoking a term and imagery that implies they are hunters, and therefore shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s a nice little touch that I’m not sure if the writers intended or not, but I appreciate it all the same.

That said, for all my screaming, I LOVE THIS MOVIE.

[vicccwrites]

More Than Friends - Zhu Zhengting

(A/N: This has been sitting in my drafts for as long as I can remember lol so I finally decided to finish it ^^ Someone told me they liked the friends to lovers trope and I guess that’s why I came up with it originally? It’s been a while lmao,,, anyway, enjoy~~! <33)

Masterlist

- Picture Source: Google -

You and Zhengting had been friends forever

And by that I mean that you two had literally known each other since before you were even born

Your parents had long since been family friends, and when it turned out that Zhengting was only a year older than you, it was natural that you two would grow up together

From watching tv to going to family barbecues together, the pair of you were attached at the hip for the entirety of your childhoods

You two even walked with each other to school every morning, and had several mutuals friends from your various classes

This all changed when Zhengting went off to college though, leaving you behind in the small town that you both called home

Ofc you missed him dearly!!

But you made up for the fact with many, many phone calls

So much so that your parents started to joke that you two were practically dating

You laughed along with them, not realising just how much that statement would come back and haunt you later

Eventually, you manage to wrap up your high school career for once and for all

And while you were slightly sad that it was the last time that you would share classes with some of your close friends

(Since you were all going to different unis)

You also couldn’t give a flying fuck because SUMMER!! Meant that Zhengting would be coming home and you would finally be reunited with your all-time bestie

Plus you would be able to start a new school year at college with Ting come fall! 

In what was the first time you were excited for anything remotely related to school

When his car pulls into the driveway, you all but sprint out of the house to meet him

Nearly tripping flat on your face welp

As he steps out of the vehicle though, you can only stop and stare

wOW ok….

He got hot

Not that you hadn’t always found your bff more than slightly attractive

But college man,, something had to have been in the water there because he was looking REALLY good

Completely oblivious to your wandering thoughts, Zhengting came up and engulfed you in a giant bear hug

He had missed his best friend too, after all

You were quick to regain your wits and hug him back, determined not to let your sudden feelings interfere with what was sure to be an awesome summer break

They were probably just an effect of not having seen him for so long, and you suspected that they would go away pretty soon

Except,,, they didn’t

If anything, as the summer wore on, your less-than-strictly-platonic feelings for your bestie grew

Which confused you?? A lot?

You tried not to let them get in the way of your plans

But your gaze couldn’t help but linger on his toned abs whenever you two went to the beach to play a game of volleyball or fool around in the ocean

And you found yourself becoming increasingly distracted by the movements of his plump lips as he talked

Logically, you knew - because of how close the pair of you were - that it wouldn’t be long before your gig was up

However, at the same time, you were determined not to bring up the elephant in the room, and you hoped he wouldn’t either

It wasn’t as if he would ever accept, or even return, your feelings anyway

He would probably think that you were really weird 

Or something to that degree

Not wanting to lose your closest friend, you were fine with bottling up your emotions

....But you should have known that was a terrible idea from the start

Zhengting was smart, very smart; and you knew that

It shouldn’t have come as such a surprise when he eventually figured out something was wrong and confronted you

It was about midway through the summer?

One day, the two of you were just hanging out in your room

Nothing was out of the ordinary

Until, in a random lull in the conversation, he turned serious all of a sudden

“So, y/n, what’s up?”

*cue mini internal freak out*

You knew exactly what he was referring to, but tried to feign ignorance anyway

“What do you mean, Ting? We’ve spent the past month together, you should know what’s up”

He dramatically rolled his eyes, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips

Before he got up and cupped your face in his hands

“I think I might just know, princess,” he whispered in your ear teasingly

The words sent a shiver down your spine

This was it, your friendship was over

Years and years of companionship, of comfort, all crashing down in one moment because of your sheer inability to keep your damn crush a secret

“I’m sorry, Ting, I didn’t mean to ruin it.”

You mentally cursed when your voice faltered halfway through the sentence, trying to wrench away from his grasp

A frown creased his beautiful features, and you knew this was the moment everything would go to hell

“What on earth are you talking about, y/n? You haven’t ruined anything.”

??? Could he even hear himself? What was he saying??

He pulled back tentatively, surprised by the tears he could see welling up in your eyes

After a moment’s silence, he prompted again;

“Tell me what’s wrong, angel. I can’t fix it if I don’t know what’s going on.”

“I think I might like you, Zhengting. As,,, more than just a friend.”

“I think I just might like you back.”

What?

Before you could even process what was happening, you had a pair of lips on yours

holy shit this is happening right now

“Yes it is, y/n. And if it’s ok with you I’d like it to happen a lot more in the future,” he muttered against your lips

Oops, you must have said that out loud

“I’d like that,” you sighed, pressing your foreheads together as you both laid - somehow having sprawled out on your bed, slightly out of breath

“Does this mean we’re dating?”

“It means we’re more than friends, that’s for sure. Let’s just go back to kissing and figure the rest of it out later.”

“Sounds great - lead the way, princess.”