#she seems so interesting and cool

[the-whispers-of-death]

I'm so sorry, this is literally just a brain dump with no structure or anything 🫧

My first OC I came up with goes by Bandito (I haven't decided on her actual name yet), and she's pretty heavily inspired by the Twenty one Pilots song of the same name.

Bandito is either Ghost's sibling or close childhood friend. They joined the military together and were both captured by Roba after being betrayed by Vernon. While Ghost was buried alive, Bandito stayed in custody and continued to be tortured. Ghost was told Bandito was dead and took his revenge on those who had betrayed them both. Bandito managed to escape Roba's clutches, but heard the news about Tommy and the rest of the family, and since Sparks' body was assumed to be Ghost, they both assumed the other was dead. (I'm using the Ghost comics for the backstory because it's tragic and what better character development than serious trauma?)

Bandito is a member of Shadow Company, who works between the Shadows and the 141 as a sort of liaison, supporting the 141 on missions when requested. She and Ghost have not yet realised who each other are.

Bandito wears a hoodie with the oversised hood pulled up, and a bandana wrapped around her to obscure their nose and mouth, with dramatic eyeliner. The callsign 'Bandito' has a couple of explanations - It can be a reference to her skills in sabotage and infiltration, the desire for freedom from her past, and maybe a tongue-in-cheek reference to all the times she's pickpocketed her fellow Shadows and 141 members for fun (She's weirdly good at pickpocketing). The bandana also has some personal significance, either as a physical symbol of her defiance or because one of her bandanas was a gift from Simon. On missions, Bandito tends to wear darker colours to blend into her surroundings, but she much prefers to wear brightly coloured and patterned bandanas.

She has a unique skillset geared towards stealth operations and infiltration, and is particularly skilled with knives. She also excels in a particular brand of interrogation (the more violent kind - while Bandito resisted Roba's torture and brainwashing, it left its mark and her moral compass is a little scuffed, so she can easily stomach torturing people). She is motivated by a sense of loyalty to those who took her in (Graves and her fellow Shadows, and eventually the 141), as well as a desire for some sense of normalcy. She knows this is unrealistic but surrounding herself with those who care for her seems to help, especially on the days where her past seems to haunt her a little too closely.

My second Blorbo is a guy called Damien but he goes by either Crow or Coffee, and then after that they just get progressively less well-thought out - but some of them are called Viper, Winter, Doberman, and Andromeda.

Holy hell this is long I'm so sorry

I'm struggling to come up a callsign for my new OC (why is naming the hardest part?), so I feel ya about naming Bandito. I love her though, I hope she and Ghost eventually realize they're both alive.

I don't have much to say, except that I love her, I love how traumatized she is.

[leashybebes]

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

tommy must live in a perpetual state of confusion over buck

do you think the longer buck allies the more tommy realises that "oh, he really is like this but he's definitely some flavor of queer"? because i see tommy maybe gently testing buck's jealousy to see what it'll take to make him break

oooookay once again this is not a snippet (sorryyyyy) but is more me attempting to understand wtf is going on in tommy's head throughout all this that he keeps "sure, okay"-ing himself into ridiculous situations with buck, so apologies for just unloading the contents of my brain on you

there are a few things i've been chewing on in terms of figuring out how tommy reacts to the buck of it all, which i hope will make it make sense that i actually don't think tommy pushing or testing for jealousy is on the cards in this fic (although i do love the idea!)

so first of all, this is a younger tommy than we've seen interact with buck in canon (of course), so whatever happened to make him Like That in the breakup hasn't happened yet (and won't, because i am a slut for a HEA). he's newly out and in my experience, a lot of newly out people, particularly people who are a bit older have something of a second adolescence. so yeah while this means he's incredibly horny (horny enough to let a self-proclaimed straight guy give him the absolute best sex of his life) it also means he just wants to have fun!! and buck is SO. MUCH. FUN. he's spent so long so tightly controlled that he's trying really hard to just go with the flow.

second, when i say newly out tommy, i mean newly out. like, it's one thing to "stop lying about who i am" - to me, there's a non-zero chance that just means "stop making up girlfriends" rather than "actually grapple with the life-long process of coming out (again and again and again)". so in my head (and it might come up in the fic, idk yet) the scene early on where he tells buck he doesn't want the cute girl's number because he's gay is probably one of the first times he actually said the words out loud. which ties into...

third, we know tommy was work friends with sal (at least and again, don't know that it'll come up in the fic but for the record, he 100% had a monstrous crush on him, like it made him ILL how much he wanted sal, i will hear no arguments), and that he developed good - again, work-based - friendships with hen and chim, but i feel like for a deeply closeted guy under dadt with a shitty childhood buck might be his first actual friend who knows all of him and likes him. spends time with him. doesn't care that he's gay. actively supports his gayness. doesn't recoil and in fact actively encourages tommy to talk about it. so i think tommy is just...deeply, deeply grateful for this confusing train wreck of a man

fourth, while i think there are definitely times that tommy thinks "he...he's flirting with me, right? is something gonna happen here?" this is a guy who has spent his entire adult life not looking at that kinda thing. not letting himself wonder if a guy (particularly a friend) is into him. or really, even if he's into them. he's really, really good at compartmentalising, and buck's pretty insistent that he's straight, so tommy's taking that at face value. hey, buck makes compelling arguments ("tommy, straight men have prostates too!")

aaaaand there we have the contents of my brain as it relates to one tommy kinard. even in my own incredibly stupid AUs, i am frankly obsessed. i want to gnaw on him. i'll settle for having buck do it instead.

[mercy-main]

Freja I'm so sorry but you are being overshadowed by a background character

!! Emre spotted !!

[mensahbots]

i am normal about tv mensah and pin-lee's dynamic

[amoresenza]

everyone asking sam r/ockwell about his monologue but not a second spent on my close personal friend lottie le bon's extended discoursing on childhood (as) sexual fantasy that served a similar and maybe even more narratively urgent function on the show. just a little thing called misogyny

[seaeclipse]

Nobility AU Countess Louise loves swords.

She had once run into one of the Grand Dukes tranining to become the kingdom's greatest swordsman, and she'd joined the traning under his tutelage.

Needless to say, Grand Duke Benjamin, was definitely the worlds greatest mentor for the sword.

And it wasn't like she was the only swordswoman in the kingdom either. She knew Marchioness Lydia prided herself on defeating several of the empire's swordsman at once singlehandedly. She'd even seen Lady Evelyn, yet another Marchioness, simply practicing in her garden in order to train her reflexes while she herself was out for a stroll and waved to her.

She also knew that the other Dukes of the kingdom had their own training grounds in their dukedoms for practicing. Though she wasn't quite sure if the youngest Duke was a swordsman, or if he was even aware he owned a training ground for swordsmanship, given how the rumours spoke of him...

She also heard that the only current Duchess of the kingdom, after Lady Barbara and Lady Susanna became Grand Duchesses, Duchess Sara, did not practice swordsmanship but frequently let others who she was on good terms with borrow her grounds. Perhaps she should have a tea party with her? Her attendant did seem to be on good terms with Lou, after all.

[ganondoodle]

Regarding Demise: He is an interesting concept, as is the whole eternal cycle, but for that to actually become something worthwhile the games/stories would have to actually DO something with it. So far they are introduced in Skyward Sword and thats it! No other game even references them. And, yes, that cheapens EVERY other game because there is this implication that its all out of the control of the actual characters in the story because of this one asshole that we only ever saw once! Why not have Ganondorf realize that he is possessed/manipulated by this weird old Demon God? How would he react, would he embrace it, would he rebel, would he be broken by the realization that none of his actions were ever *his*? I dont even care which of these options they pick, as long as they pick any of it and do just ANYTHING with the concept.

Or maybe Link or Zelda figures out the Cycle and starts looking into breaking it because endlessly repeating Demon Attacks kinda suck and you dont want that for your descendants.

Or have a game focus on them remembering bits from past lives and having to piece it all together or, again, just ANYTHING!

The closest they ever came to was with BOTW Zelda praying to Hylia, aka HERSELF, to unlock her powers, which is some brutal narrative irony, but not much more.

And regarding the whole Zelda is Hylia thing, I've seen some headcanons about how Skyward Sword Zelda is terrified of herself after learning that, because she now has to assume that everything she did was planned by a version of her that she no longer is. Is Link her friend or is he the useful pawn that Hylia needs to turn into the Hero? Does she even deserve his affection when she probably manipulated him into becoming her champion and fighting, possibly dying for her all her life?

Thats juicy, thats something you can do something with but Nintendo really does like to plan those stories game per game without any care for the larger story.

Which I guess is the Irony of it all. They tried the whole larger connected story/universe thing once: With Skyward Sword. After all that was also the time we got the first Hyrule Historia & "official timeline" as well as "How it all began" in the game itself.

It felt like the start of a new era for Zelda games and stories and then it just... wasn't.

And while I get that they want to focus on gameplay over story, I will never stop mourning the stories we could get/have gotten, if they put a bit more thought into things.

I actually feel like its harder to make the 'cycle' into an interesting plot point when its a .. divine thing that happens, and not perpetuated by the people (though not impossible, given how the series is build up it would need alot of work to not make it worse still..)-

i actually cannot stand the idea that ganondorf is possessed or manipulated, made eviler by demise somehow (demise is dead, leave him beeeeee hes not some evil master mind behind anything aaaaah) bc it STILL takes away ganondorfs agency and character and gives right into the whole hes basically born evil and just pushes the fault tm onto someone else it in turn legitimizes that the kingdom of hyrule and its high rule (heehoo) is right and if only gan wasnt manipulated hed be good tm, aka allied with the goodest guys, hed gladly accept their invitation and join their holy empire of goodness tm if wasnt for da demon

(and i love to say, who decides what is good tm and evil tm? bc hyrules monarchs making every other tribe their subordinate and persecuting shiekah for example isnt what id call good but its fine bc the good holy guys did it in the name of "peace" -what is their idea of peace? everyones under their rule and must worship their god? uh oh- and resistance to it is gonna get you labelled as evil!! (unless you join their holy kingdom and become their vassal of GOOD) what good and evil boils down to in zelda is .. being allied/ruled by the kingdom of hyrule and being opposed to them, even if its only not wanting to be subjugated by them)

i can see the appeal to some degree, but i dont like the idea of ganondorf even being able to be manipulated or possessed, what makes his character, before it got flattened into well he just be demon in the eyes of the average fandom, interesting is his unbreakable will, that drive to keep on living and resisting those that want him dead, its poetic and sad, to the point that (until totk ...) it was really just ONE ganondorf that refused to die and came back over and over (also something i found a compelling thought for botw, that after all this time theres nothing left BUT his will to resist, its a tragic idea that rly spoke to me)

my personal idea of the cycle is that its only a cycle bc they, the kingdom of hyrule and their belief system, keep it going, its not a divine thing that needs to be broken (though the divine surely messes with it, just for the bit i guess) but something that keeps repeating bc hyrule is so soaked into the idea that their princess once was a god and hers is the right to rule it all in light- so anyone who doesnt agree must be of the demons from the darkness seeking to destroy the world, and what means the 'world' could just mean the kingdom of hyrule- in botw even with the calamity people went on and lived, same in windwaker, they dont need the holy kingdom to live- (who is to say the 'monsters' are bad for the land, to me they mostly looked like well adapted territorial beasts, and the bokblins etc clearly arent mindless monsters either, why do they need to be eradicated? they attack you? ok dont go into their territory, or defend yourself, you dont need to exterminate something just bc it could be a threat at some point)

(i do agree that conflict with zelda being interesting but uuuh .. well they never did anythign with that huh)

in the end, demise was just a throw away villain, and if i may get my tin foil hat back here, i feel like the whole creation myth skyward sword does was really just a way for them to get out of the predicament of having to consider a villain to be treated like a person to save themselves from having to think about what they imply and can just go, well this is the evil demons, this is the good gods- ironically enough the attempt to get out of having to consider complicated writing it ends up reversing straight back into the WORST of kinds of implications .. that arent even subtext anymore, if totk is anythign to go by, the most 'simple' or 'easy' narrative to go for might not be actually simple, just a so often retold one that it appears simple if not made aware of its dark maw, the status quo repeated ad nauseam

(and if i may, the whole gameplay over story thing is bs in my eyes, that sounds like the typical attempt of dismissing any critique, just like the stupid, and frankly, offensive "its just for kids" argument, story and gameplay are inherently intertwined, the story influences the gameplay, the gameplay influences the story, especially in a series like zelda that is a futile thing to go for and a reason why the stories themselves lack depth, how are you gonna have an epic adventure that drives you to get through any amount of puzzles and battles if there is no story to motivate you, at this point it feels like the series has set itself up for catastrophic failure bc i imagine, people might just keep buying and playing the games bc its attached to the series, bc they hope to see characters they loved return, new ones that will grab their attention, perhaps be taken away by a world that meant alot to them once before, hope that there will be something exciting-

i am not saying the series has no value or doesnt do anything well (hello who am i) but how many times can you repeat 'this guy good he fight evil guy he get the pretty princess as reward' without any interesting twists or narrative, even the most beloved characters can only keep it passable for so long, even the best gameplay loses its potential if its surrounded by cardboard characters and a story so "simple" as offensive it fits into a single page, i often wonder how a game would be seen if it wasnt titled -the legend of zelda- ..

it hurts especially when looking at its long history, how much estblished thigns it could exploit and expand, the potential the series has is still immense, it hurts to see it be wasted over and over :(

[caluupin]

neuvi is meeting his peepaw rn

[akascow]

Corazón Marikit :3

okay no need to worry about another sad soul on your dash sucking the fun from every new doll they release (self roast bc ive definitely done this in other posts but this is different i swear) for the most part this is all positive with like a few small notes of "eh idk abt this but its no biggie" BUT overall i think its a super cool doll i really like it :3

i totally started writing this BEFORE seeing ANY other opinion post about her btw bc my tl hadnt caught up yet so sorry if it seems similair to another's

this started as a simple opinion post bc i do it for all the new MH characters but here i am THREE HOURS later finally finishing writing this and its basically just an entire deep dive into every single piece of her outfit and how it was inspired by Filipino fashion and culture bc i kinda autism'd too close to the sun for a while there HAHA

okay thanks anyway enjoy my silly words

**also to preface, im not Filipino so i cant speak on if its good/bad rep obviously SO this is j from an outside perspective and with the small facts i already knew about the manananggal aswell as my somewhat brief research deepdive into Filipino culture and fashion in relation to the doll, which i did try my best to make sure i got these right (part of the reason this post took me 3.5 hours to make LMAO) BUT pls correct me if im wrong for any of these names bc i dont want to spread misinformation or seem like im treading on someone else's culture... oh and dont take my word for shit HAHA **

EDIT here is a great post from someone who IS Filipino, bijoubetrayal if you want to know their insight from personal ties and firsthand knowledge into her design, i recommend reading through it :33

before we start for the maybe one person that was wondering yes i totally bought the doll already HAHA im a massive sucker for extremely unique monster high body features (isi's hooves, marisols huge feet, iris' single eye, wydowna's 6 arms, etc) so when they announced her as a manananggal and that she can separate at the torso i immediately ran to snatch her lmao i am not a strong soldier okay. also u can get her [here] if u want

FACE + HEAD

her screening is super cute, and she's got bat ears ! bc well ig shes basically a vampire HAHA but i think thats neat PLUS im always a fan of beauty marks and darker/thicker eyebrows theyre really nice

AND !! the nose is so pretty we dont get to see a lot of MH dolls with the flatter nose bridge :3

idk where else to put this so i'll do it here but her name Corazón Marikit means Beautiful Heart (im fairly certain) and i find that really sweet for some reason but also its like humorously ironic given that manananggals eat the hearts from their victims AHAHA

okay idk if ive been staring at her too long but they somehow managed to make her color palette coherent ? like red pink purple cream and lime yellow generally dont work well together and it worried me when i first saw her but it actually looks pretty good the longer i look? i could be losing it tho so

DRESS + SHOES

the dress pattern is starting to grow on me, still not sure on if i totally like the foil but that might just be bc im not a fan of red-heart designs in general, although thats just for the pattern, i still like the look and style of the dress overall its cutie

i think the puffy sleeves plus the cut of the neckline and shape of the dress are all akin to the Filipiniana style mestiza dress and terno sleeves (from what i could tell)

also dude ? the red tassels imitate how the intestines hang out when manananggals detach themself brooo thats so neat LMAO like iykyk but if u dont it just adds some fun motion HAHA

cannot make out the specific design of her heels i think its like a palmtree over a house ? but anyway i always love when MH make heels look like tiny objects or a person or smth its so fun HEEHEE

and the sculpting for the shoes are suuuper detailed looking like woodgrain and woven palms, maybe a shoe design from PH which im fairly certain are Bakyâ (?) so uh hell yeah HAHA

ACCESSORIES

those wings thooooo like the wingers (wing fingers) being so thick and prominent, though they couldve been bigger kinda like batsy claro's given theyre such a big part of the story but alas

ALSO WOAH the skin(?) between them being actual embroidered fabric instead of just plastic ooh that is SO INTERESTING to me its so tiny and intricate omgggg

neon lime green jewelry is an uhhh interesting choice to pair with her color palette but i dont really care enough about colors to get into that lmfaoo

the necklace is super hard to make out from the stock photos but it looks like pooka shells ? which i doubt is correct, however the closest thing that it looks like i THINK are the bailog style of necklace from what i can find, but theres a a bunch of styles of those it seems so i cant be completelyyy sure

her head piece are sampaguita/jasmine flowers which are the natl flower of PH its pretty lmao

PLUS !!! the stand is SO COOL !!! it bends at the top so u can position her to look like shes separated and flying THATS SO THOUGHTFUL ?? idk it made me smile at least lmao

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

OKAY SO i think she looks reallyyyyy cool definitely one of the better skullector dolls from the past few years imo

ofc i really like the idea of introducing other cultures’ monster-mythology to mainstream, especially bc there are some really cool ones out there that are seldom heard or seen unless theyre completely butchered or changed in western media

and its a nice way for people to learn about them,, plus for people who grew up with these folktales to see their stories and culture actually represented

it is amusing to me that they somehow turned this horrific mythological monster lady-- that usually has intestines hanging out of her torso, flying around at night, eating fetuses straight out of the wombs of pregnant people and seducing men before eating them alive-- into a cute pink and purple girlie HAHA /lh but i mean yeah clearly thats kinda always been the point of monster high lol, this one just feels especially drastic if you compare a manananggal to like an original sea monster or a were-animal LMAO

and like everyone else already said, that price tag is a lot as usual🙄 like mattel seems really inconsistent with their pricing on creations dolls that are seemingly super close in detail and quality lmao idk... i wasnt expecting mattel to be humble tho, and i wont go into another fang club pricing rant here again, its just always a tad disappointing to see but oh well i guess, doesnt play that big a role in this post's topic so im not elaborating lol

it seems like a lot of care and effort went into her design, however, in order to represent PH as far as i can tell, so that makes me happy bc MH Does Not have the greatest track record in that category lookin at you jinafire lmfao

okay thats all im officially out of words to conjure up in my brain :3 if u sat through all this, im sorry for allat but thanks for staying HAHA

[hooved]

what is even the point of neopets anymore once you have enough np to afford all the pets you want. i'm not into doing anything else on there but just collecting cool/cute pets lmao

[ironunderstands]

Genuine question, where are yall getting the “robins eye dots + the stuff behind her are Xipe colors” from?

Because like I don’t see it, like at all. Xipe has like every color under the sun behind them and the shades aren’t similar to Robin’s at all, they aren’t in the same order and there’s like three million other colors mixed in there. I do think the “that rainbow behind her represents moon lesbians” is a little silly because even if it looks like the flag I doubt hoyo’s devs know what those are (I learned about them today 😭).

However, the other colors on the traffic lights and her cheeks straight up look like they are meant to look like a lesbian flag or at least a pastel version of one, and for the life of me I can’t see where people are coming from when they say it’s related to Xipe. I guess her eyes cover the other colors, but purple and yellow are still missing if she truly wanted to represent them on her face alone

Idk man, let me know your thoughts

[sysig]

Let him dad her!! (Patreon)

[katfreaks-hidyhole]

[mintaikkcorpse]

Whats the ship name between Flug & Miss Heed? I've just been calling them Paperheart rn

[ostensiblyfunctional]

Sometimes I think about how the only God Slayers seen in Fairy Tail are ones that are direct parallels to Dragon Slayers. How God Slayers have practically the only form of a Dragon Slayer's element that actively hurts them to eat. And it starts making headcanons spawn like bunnies in my brain.

[r0semultiverse]

The implication that Terezi is stronger/immune/indifferent to Dirk's narrative writing/reality-warping powers is interesting. 👀

I am so excited for the new writers to explore her character more.

Hopefully this also means we'll be seeing more classpect & god tier power exploration as well!