#so I’ll probably have the most interesting but fucked up backstory

[exopelagic]

my players don’t know it yet but the adventure we’re doing rn is me being silly goofy bc they hadn’t made their characters in time for me to plan around them. now that I Know Things the game can really start

[makeste]

Plus One For All

so guys. can we talk about how there’s somebody chilling out inside of Katsuki’s mind who’s not supposed to be there.

hello there Mister All Might Vestige sir. you should not exist, just FYI. you’re not some Nighteye-type plot hallucination. because if you were, you would not be appearing here as Cloud Might, a version of yourself whom Katsuki has never met and has no frame of reference for. ergo he did not imagine you. ergo you are, in fact, real.

which means Katsuki has One For All.

because that’s the only way he could have a Vestige -- which is indisputably what this is -- inside of him. he has OFA. so. where did he get it. how does he have it. and why is it only making its presence known now.

let’s discuss.

okay so I’m going to try and lay this all out as clearly as possible while also attempting to be as succinct as I can. but knowing me, I’m probably going to wind up sacrificing the latter in pursuit of the former. I’ll do my best though. here goes.

1. Heroes Rising is canon.

which is a fact we’ve recently been reminded of not once, but twice -- first with the appearance of Katsuma and Mahoro in chapter 405, and then in chapter 406 with the “Bakugou no Kacchan” callback. the timing of this almost certainly isn’t coincidental. Horikoshi wants this to be fresh in our minds.

mind you, it is extremely unusual for movies, even technically!canon ones, to actually be relevant to the plot. but BnHA may be one of the few exceptions. we’ve already seen movie 1 impact the series both with Star & Stripe’s backstory, and with Deku’s new gauntlets. so there’s precedent, and it’s something I am paying very close attention to.

2. Deku giving OFA to Bakugou is canon.

just in case anyone here hasn’t yet seen or been spoiled for Heroes Rising, that is in fact what happens in that film! so yeah, that certainly seems like an extremely relevant detail right about now.

3. we never found out why and how Deku got OFA back at the end of the movie.

okay so I was looking for a clip to link before we discuss this next part, but I unfortunately couldn’t find one that hadn’t been edited to avoid copyright issues, so you’ll just have to make do with this.

skip ahead to about 7:10 for the relevant part. for the purposes of this theory, we’re just going to ignore everything All Might says here, because tbh he has no fucking clue what’s actually going on and is just guessing wildly lol. however, I do want you to take note of one thing which will be important later. and that’s the fact that, when OFA “returns” to Deku’s body, it’s only his body which starts glowing, and notably not Kacchan’s. the latter just keeps lying there unglowingly. nothing to indicate any kind of transfer is actually happening between him and Deku, in other words.

moving on.

4. OFA and AFO are probably the same quirk.

as summarized here and here. which is relevant because if they are the same quirk, or close to it, then OFA can most likely do anything AFO can do. so file that away for later.

5. AFO was able to split his quirk and give it to Tomura while still keeping a piece of it for himself.

what’s more, he was able to do the same with Garaki/Ujiko’s quirk, and presumably other quirks as well. while it’s possible that this quirk duplication has nothing to do with AFO and is simply something Garaki was able to figure out using ~*~Science~*~, I think it’s more likely that the two of them used AFO’s quirk in some way to accomplish this feat. particularly since Tomura not only received AFO, but a bunch of its stored up quirkdata as well, such as the information stored in Ragdoll’s stolen Search quirk.

6. OFA responds to Deku’s feelings and desires.

or at least this is the case according to Banjou in chapter 213. recall this interesting conversation on how Deku first activated Blackwhip.

he was thinking that he wanted to capture Monoma, and so OFA obediently activated his “capture Monoma” quirk. despite him being unaware he even had said quirk. it responded to his need, even though he wasn’t consciously trying to activate anything.

now then, let’s revisit that scene in Heroes Rising one more time.

7. during the climax of Heroes Rising, Deku was NOT thinking, “I need to give OFA to Kacchan.”

here’s the scene one more time for reference. this time you’re gonna want to skip to about 3:57.

here’s where we are going to get extremely technical, because this scene right here is the key to everything. Deku’s lines in this scene are, and I quote: “a way we can protect [everyone]... there’s just one way...!” but he very notably does not specify exactly what that “one way” is.

until we get to this scene a minute or so later, which spells it out for us very clearly.

two One For Alls. as in, “with two One For Alls, we could win this battle and save everyone.”

that’s what he was thinking at the moment of the “transfer.” NOT, “give OFA to Kacchan.” but, “we need two One For Alls.”

which, I think, may have made all the difference.

8. OFA created a copy of itself to share with Kacchan, so that both of them could have OFA and use the two OFAs to defeat Nine.

let’s recap. OFA is AFO. AFO can clone itself. so it stands to reason that OFA can presumably clone itself as well. and that’s exactly what Deku wanted to do. make a second One For All.

he didn’t know that he could do that. but as previously established in the Blackwhip incident, OFA is more than capable of making its own executive decisions in key moments just like this in order to help him out.

which would mean that what we saw at the end of Heroes Rising was not OFA being transferred from Bakugou back over to Deku. it was actually just Deku’s OFA briefly self-activating (possibly in response to his delirious apology to All Might -- kind of a “no worries bro, you’ve still got your quirk actually, so go back to sleep and stop stressing over it” type of thing). and Kacchan’s OFA doing... absolutely nothing. it didn’t actually transfer back into Deku. it didn’t actually go anywhere.

let me repeat that: it didn’t actually go anywhere.

in other words, Kacchan still has OFA. and has had it ever since Heroes Rising. he just didn’t realize it. and neither did anybody else.

9. Kacchan’s OFA went dormant once Nine was defeated.

okay, so. remember all of this exposition from chapter 304?

basically, if someone who already has a quirk receives OFA, using it will slowly destroy their body until it kills them. the Vestiges learned this from All Might while he was researching the past generations of OFA in chapter 241, incidentally. Heroes Rising takes place right around this same time (immediately following MVA if I recall). so by the time the film’s climax rolled around, the Vestiges would have known that giving OFA to Kacchan could have devastating consequences down the line if they did not take action immediately after the fight.

so they did.

once Nine was defeated, the Vestiges shut the whole thing down. the crisis was averted, and they no longer had need of a second OFA. they have this boy who is way too similar to Deku in terms of his willingness to put himself in harm’s way in order to achieve his goals. and they absolutely do not want any harm befalling this boy. more on that momentarily.

so they go dark. and they even seal his memory so that he’s no longer aware of even having the quirk. they are essentially in sleep mode. and if circumstances hadn’t eventually become desperate enough to force their hand, they might have remained inactive for the rest of Katsuki’s life.

now, you might be wondering to yourself, “why is OFA willing to go to such unusual lengths in order to protect Katsuki?” and well, the answer to that is pretty simple.

10. Kacchan does not have the same version of OFA as Deku.

Deku is ninth gen. Katsuki, however, is tenth gen. which means that his version of OFA has one additional Vestige. a Vestige whose presence immediately explains why OFA is so goddamn determined to protect him at all costs.

:’)

long story short, while Deku’s version of OFA has proven itself all too willing to enable him in his increasingly suicidal mission, Katsuki’s version of OFA is very much a different story, on account of it being under the management of what I’m guessing is the most willful Vestige ever to exist. and said management being just the slightest bit unhinged when it comes to Katsuki’s safety in particular. seriously, you can’t tell me this is not exactly how a Deku!Vestige would behave. “oh hell no. no OFA for you!! and no memories either, because you can’t be trusted, goddammit. we never should have done this. what the hell were we thinking. if anything happens to him I will kill everyone in this room and then myself.”

so yeah. dormant.

right up until they literally couldn’t afford to be anymore.

11. OFA can self-activate in moments of crisis to protect its user.

Sports Festival. chapter 33. Deku vs. Shinsou.

aw yeah. it’s all coming together.

12. OFA reactivated itself in order to save Katsuki’s life.

I would now like to briefly draw your attention to this scene from chapter 405, in which Edgeshot explains how Katsuki was finally saved. please note my man is very clear that he did not restart Katsuki’s heart himself. he was basically just performing quirk CPR up until Katsuki’s own quirk returned him to life apropros of nothing.

“what brought you back... was the power you’ve honed.”

except... that should have been impossible. because Katsuki was dead. meaning he should not have been able to activate his quirk on his own, on account of the whole “being dead” thing.

however, if he by chance had a quirk with just enough of a mind of its own to activate in critical situations in order to help its user. situations like being forced under mind control. or, perhaps, being stabbed through the heart. well then. that would certainly go a long way towards explaining all of this.

and oh hey, when exactly was it that we saw this guy, again?

oh? it happened at the exact moment when his heart was stabbed through? you don’t say. well that certainly is interesting.

in summary:

Deku cloned his quirk in Heroes Rising and gave Kacchan a copy of OFA. owing to the hyperprotective Deku!Vestige inside Kacchan’s copy of OFA, it shut itself down once Nine was defeated, and all of Katsuki’s memories of having OFA were deliberately wiped, or sealed away. OFA itself remained inactive until TomurAFO stabbed Katsuki through the heart, at which point OFA was forced to reactivate itself to save his life. which it did, by forcibly restarting his heart.

that’s it. no idea how close to the money any of this is, but I think it would explain most of the lingering mysteries and questions about what exactly is going on with Katsuki. and I’ll throw in one last observation as well -- Katsuki has a nine in his name (BaKUgou), but not a ten. which I know sort of contradicts what I was saying earlier about him being the tenth gen, lol. but he both is and isn’t. if Deku split his quirk, Kacchan would in theory receive everything that’s currently in Deku’s quirk right now, and that includes Deku’s own power that he’s been adding to the mix. so he’d still have the Deku!Vestige. but he’s also still ninth gen, because he and Deku are sharing that distinction now. or at least I think the argument could be made at any rate.

so yeah. I’ve been obsessing over all of this for the past few days lol. what do you guys think?

[ladyloveandjustice]

Fall 2024 Anime Overview: Acro Trip

Premise: Chizuko is a huge fan of her local  magical girl, Berry Blossom. The magical girl’s arch-nemesis is a villain named Chrome, but he’s…incredibly pathetic. He’s hardly a challenge for Berry Blossom, and Chizuko is disappointed because this means her hero doesn’t really get a chance to show her stuff. She has a lot of ideas on how Chrome could be a more effective villain, and he overhears her talking about some of them. Now he’s trying  to recruit her for his evil organization, saying that if she helps him, it will mean cooler fights for Berry Blossom that will make her rise in popularity. What’s a fangirl to do?

Acro Trip is a lot of fun, and I recommend it to any magical girl enjoyer. I also recommend it to anyone who loves pathetic failguys, because my man Chrome is the most hilariously pathetic of them all. You like bad boys? Well this man is literally bad at everything.

He’s incredibly endearing—his idea of  “evil” is flipping restaurant maps or littering, he trembles pitifully when a middle school girl hits him with an umbrella, he fucks up in every way possible. At the same time, he’s a sweetheart who clearly takes his responsibility to be a good “mentor” to Chizuko very seriously and cares about her a lot. The show loves him and so do I.

 But wait! Girl failures have their rep too!

Chizuko is incredibly relatable to all of us magical girl fangirls, and her matter-of-fact way of dealing with things bounces off Chrome's himbo antic well. She has her fair share of failgirl moments herself, usually caused by her…well, it definitely seems like it's her crush on Berry Blossom.

We’ve been there, girl. I do feel Chrome gets a little more of a spotlight than her, but we also get to see her actually develop, going from refusing to get involved with Chrome to embracing her power.

Meanwhile, one of my favorite running gags is Chizuko's sweet lil’ grandfather who just rolls with every weird thing that happens and is way too excited to engage in criminal activity.

Berry Blossom herself is actually almost as big a dummy as Chrome is, with her mascot being the one who has to keep her on task. The classic dynamic! I do wish there was more to her, but I’ll discuss that later.

I felt a little concerned when it was confirmed Berry Blossom was a teenager and that Chrome was…probably in his mid-to-late twenties, because in the first episode there was a part where Chizuko seemed to think he was in love with Berry Blossom, and he was also very clear he was a masochist who is, uh, blissful when he gets punched in the face by Berry. However, the show immediately drops this. The idea of Chrome being in love with Berry Blossom never comes up again, and in fact it’s made clear he isn’t, as he repeatedly is more focused on being a good surrogate big brother to his “apprentice” over her. The masochism is mostly dropped too. On the other hand, Berry Blossom does seem to be developing a crush on Chrome, which makes me wary, but thankfully it’s extremely one sided right now. He’s completely oblivious to this, clearly doesn’t think of her that way, and it’s built on her constantly misunderstanding him requesting gifts to cheer up Chizuko (like her autograph).

It's not exactly a perfect show though,. As fun as it is, not all the gags hit, some side characters kind of dull, and my enthusiasm waned a bit as the series went on. The animation is…pretty rough. This anime clearly did not have a lot of resources allocated to it.

There’s also a bit of missed potential. It takes Chizuko way too long to get in the action, Chrome’s backstory would probably be more effective if his “rival” was a little more complex and sympathetic, there’s an interesting part in the finale where Berry Blossom mentions she doesn’t really have interests or hobbies and her mascot gave her purpose and then that’s just…brushed aside. Like how is it she doesn’t have any interests? She lives alone too, is she like, depressed? It feels like a major thing for her to say, and something Chrome should acknowledge but it’s like. "Well fight for your fans! They love you”. Perhaps it gets addressed in the manga or an (unlikely) season 2, but it sort of felt like the show wasn’t putting any thought into this heavy, kind of sad character detail they introduced. Whenever the show attempts to give its characters some depth and pathos it always seems a little half hearted.

The finale also set up a really dramatic conflict where various truths come out, and then just. Undid it all immediately. One of my least favorite tropes. There was obviously more manga left, but it really felt like the season just came to a stop rather than ended in a satisfying way.

However, the show succeeds at it’s main purpose- it’s a cozy good time for those who enjoy goofy, incompetent villains and goofy, incompetent magical girls. It’s a very sweet, silly, and occasionally funny show. Don’t go into expecting anything deep, but you can certainly have fun with it.

I implore you to give it a shot, because it’s fantastic that the lazy dark and edgy Madoka ripoffs are finally dying off, and we’re getting more variety again. We’re finally getting magical girl shows with fun premises, ones that aren’t reboots or Precure! So if you care about the genre at all, it’s so important to support them!

[brucebocchi]

Ranking 2024 anime, Pt. 2: #40-31

hey, this post is also available on my ko-fi, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i do this for free and am currently between jobs. you can find part 1 of the list here. thanks!

Alright, on we go to the list proper. The first post was probably whiplash-inducing, going from a bunch of shorter stuff I loved to whole seasons I hated, but we can only go up from here. I watched a lot of anime this year, as the numbers indicate, so there's a little positivity to be found even in the lower rankings.

As always, OPs are linked in the series titles. Watch them, they're almost all great.

40. Metallic Rouge

One of the biggest disappointments of the year, one which I didn’t think could be outdone (and I’ll get to that one shortly). Metallic Rouge had so much going for it as a Studio Bones original for its anniversary, and managed to fumble all of its promise and goodwill in slow, agonizing fashion. 

It’s a shame, too. Metallic Rouge still looks awesome; the character and mech designs are excellent, the space-cyberpunk aesthetic is undeniable, and the animation can be terrific when it counts. The story, on the other hand, is so completely asinine that I was sick of this show before it ended. I’ve mostly forgotten what even happens, partly because it was that infuriating to keep up with, and partly because I feel like the writers forgot too; the bulk of any actual story felt backloaded into the last two or three episodes because they focused too hard on vibes for a while. I think they were trying to go for some “G-Witch by way of Detroit: Become Human” something or other, but all of it rang hollow. I’m still not sure whether it needed more runtime or better writers. Probably both.

Not worth your time. Just watch the OP and imagine a better show than what we got.

39. Mysterious Disappearances

I’ve thought so little about this show since it went off the air that I don’t really have anything new to say. Looks pretty lousy most of the time, not that interesting, oddly horny, and the plot structure gets kind of cloying after a while.

I know I harped on that last point when I reviewed it at the end of the spring season, but something funny happened after I did. Back in July, I mentioned that I took issue with the formula of “we encounter a paranormal anomaly, it’s identified as a yokai or urban legend, we learn its tragic backstory, our protagonists give it closure, and we move on” because it felt manipulative after I realized that it happened with every arc, and then I went ahead and read DanDaDan, which basically does exactly the same thing but a hell of a lot better. Comparing a middling work like this to DanDaDan of all things feels unfair, but they cover pretty similar ground. Maybe it’s sharper writing, or maybe it’s just a more engaging work. Who’s to say?

I’d also said in my review that Mysterious Disappearances unintentionally gives off the vibe of a poorly-archived mid-2000s series, but I hadn’t realized just how right I was: It turns out that studio Zero-G just went ahead and made up its own ending even though the source material is still ongoing. Better shows did the same this year, but the studio and I seem to have the same level of faith that this anime’s ever coming back.

38. My Deer Friend Nokotan

Honestly? Fuck this show.

I’ve already gone into what I did and didn’t like about Nokotan after it went off air a few months ago and I don’t care to revisit that while it’s still relatively fresh. Not nearly as funny as it pretended to be, yet still not even confident in its own sense of humor. The OP's still a bop (calling it "Shikairo Days" was a genuinely great joke), and a small handful of gags do land, but not enough to prevent this from being a massive disappointment.  At the same time, Nokotan was still somehow not the biggest letdown of the year.

37. Uzumaki

This was the biggest letdown of the year.

When an anime adaptation of the legendary Junji Ito horror manga was first announced in 2019, it was hard not to get excited. Even when I’d mostly fallen out of anime fandom, I knew damn well who Junji Ito was and I knew Uzumaki. Adult Swim was funding the project, a prestige studio in Production I.G. was handling the animation, and they even nabbed Hereditary composer Colin Stetson for the score. Ito’s manga is famously very difficult to adapt well, and it looked like we finally had a project being taken seriously. Delays and radio silence in the ensuing years were disappointing, but I was willing to be patient if it meant everything was being handled right. When the trailer dropped this summer, it looked like it would be worth the wait.

And for one glorious episode, it seemed like everyone’s patience paid off. Uzumaki’s debut episode was one of the most visually arresting pieces of animation I’ve ever seen: The entire look and feel was faithful to Ito’s inimitable style, from the meticulously detailed linework to the stark black-and-white color grading of his manga’s pages. On top of that, the animation itself was absurdly good; the process of rotoscoping 3D motion capture seemed arduous, but the end result was beautifully lifelike for a story where that quality could only serve to instill further terror. Several of the most iconic images from the early chapters looked incredible in hi-def motion. Sure, the pacing was a little fast, but this was a four-episode miniseries. We could deal. This was just too good.

And then came the second episode.

I’m not going to over-elaborate or relitigate every single thing that went wrong here, because it’s a lot. Uzumaki was in development for a long time, and that five year gap between announcement and release included several detriments to the production process, not the least of which being COVID, animation production changing hands between several studios, and new leadership for Adult Swim’s parent company that now favors profit over product, especially when it comes to animation that doesn’t involve DC characters. Plenty of us figured that all of these delays and a run of only four episodes meant that they had the time to hammer out all the issues and give us the best possible product. That, unfortunately, was not the case.

Responding to complaints about the decline in animation in the second episode, executive producer Jason DeMarco (who, to be blunt, has overseen several mediocre-to-awful anime products released under the Adult Swim brand, including my bottom-ranked anime of 2023) claimed in a quickly-deleted Bluesky thread that there is indeed a higher-up to blame and that they were left with an ultimatum to either drop Uzumaki after just one episode, let it go the way of so many other Warner Bros non-releases under David Zaslav’s disastrous leadership, or release the whole miniseries in its half-baked state. They went with the third.

So, what we got was an uneven, often sloppy work; another mediocrity to throw on the pile of failed Junji Ito adaptations. All goodwill established in the first episode is soon undone by wonky character models, uncanny walk cycles, and movement that looks like PNGs being dragged across a background at the most inopportune times. Plenty of viewers, myself included, were willing to overlook the accelerated pacing after the first episode, but that issue was thrown into stark relief by the second when entire chapters of the manga began playing out simultaneously, and one was even reduced to an afterthought for a cheap “scare” at the end of episode three. 

Not that I thought Uzumaki necessarily needed a full 12-episode season for a proper adaptation or anything; Ito’s output can often be light on story, and dragging it out too far risks losing interest. What makes Ito’s stories actually work, though, is a proper sense of setting and space to let tensions rise. That didn’t entirely happen here; while the atmosphere of Kurozu-cho does plenty resemble what we’ve seen from Ito’s pages, and Stetson’s atonal saxophone does a lot of work to raise the level of unease, things just kind of happen. Few things really get the chance to land as intended, in part due to the production quality cheaping out at climactic moments.

This was the last anime I finished this year even though I’d watched the first two episodes after they aired and it went off the air in October. I was looking forward to the last two episodes that little. There are still bits and pieces of great animation and faithful adaptation here and there, but not enough to regain any goodwill from the second episode’s wheels visibly falling off. Maybe it’s finally time to declare Junji Ito’s works unadaptable once and for all. 

Definitely watch that first episode, though. At this point I kind of wish that’s all we’d gotten.

36. Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable!

Straitlaced Nice Guy moves to a new town, laid-back gyaru from his class immediately takes a liking to him, a couple other girls enter the picture, shenanigans ensue, and a slow-burn romance begins in parallel. Nothing special on paper and nothing much more special than that in execution. The setting is lovely, though, and it really made me want to visit Hokkaido one day. Nicely done, tourism board.

If you watched this and were put off by it, I don’t blame you; I probably would’ve been too if I hadn’t decided to read ahead in the manga. I will say this, though: If you liked Hokkaido Gals even a little, read the manga. It’s a minor investment, but if you can get over the halfway mark, it gets surprisingly good and has a really lovely ending. 

The anime, on the other hand? Meh. Doesn’t look super great and didn’t have enough time in 12 episodes to overcome most of the issues the source material had to move past to get to what made it worthwhile. It would take another season or two to get there, and that probably isn’t gonna happen. Great OP, though (I'm starting to repeat myself, I know). Just read the manga.

35. No Longer Allowed in Another World

Boasting one of the most audacious premises for an isekai I’ve ever seen, No Longer Allowed in Another World doesn’t shy away from the implications of an Osamu Dazai isekai, has the dark humor to match, and provides some fascinating commentary on the type of person who tends to consume wish-fulfillment isekai. Unfortunately, the presentation was a little lacking and threatened to lose my attention several times. I think the idea is much better on paper, to the point where I might test that theory and go read the manga.

34. The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic

The next dozen or so anime in the rankings fall into a category of either “well-made anime that I found kind of frustrating” or “middling anime that I kind of enjoyed.” The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic is very much the latter. It’s a standard isekai on paper; demon king, special powers, what have you, but it has a likable cast and laid-back vibe for much of its runtime that made it pleasant enough to watch.

As I said after the winter season, I really liked that Wrong Way spends a lot of its early story ensuring that the protagonist expends the time and effort necessary for him to become the hero he’s meant to be instead of the narrative just handing it to him from the start, which instantly sets it apart from most other wish-fulfillment isekai. It’s far from the best-looking anime I watched this year, but it has a mid-00s throwback look and feel to it that works more to its benefit than in Mysterious Disappearances. Nothing groundbreaking and a little too backloaded, but an enjoyable enough experience and one I’m looking forward to seeing come back. 

The only really upsetting thing about this show is that Atsuko Tanaka (Major Kusanagi, Bayonetta, Kainé), who was tremendous as the intimidating Captain Rose, is no longer with us. She was an exceptional talent with an iconic voice who will be sorely missed, and future seasons of this show won’t be the same without her.

33. Go! Go! Loser Ranger

Though not a bad anime by most metrics, I still consider Loser Ranger a minor disappointment. It mostly looks great, and “what if The Boys was a sentai series” is a killer premise, but the story so far is extremely frontloaded. Almost too much happens in the first four episodes, and then the bulk of the last arc of the season takes place in a goddamn parking garage. I’m still annoyed by that. Still looking forward to season 2, but I wish the debut season had been 24 episodes to avoid the sour taste in my mouth.

Did you hear that echo? Yep, that's me telling you to watch yet another OP. Easily the best part of the show and one of the best of the year. Tatsuya Kitani can't keep getting away with it.

32. Astro Note

2024 turned out to be a banner year for Rumiko Takahashi’s older works making their way back to modern screens, and one of those entries wasn’t even hers.

Astro Note is an overt homage to Takahashi’s less-famous romcom Maison Ikkoku, which ran parallel to Urusei Yatsura for most of the latter’s run. Like Ikkoku, Astro Note follows a down-on-his-luck young man living in a boarding house full of bizarre miscreants who only stays because the manager is super pretty. Unlike Ikkoku, and unbeknownst to our protagonist, said manager is actually an alien who is practically turning the house over to find a secret alien MacGuffin.

This show looks lovely and has a delightful cast and some surprisingly moving subplots, but it’s nothing too special otherwise. There are some fun creative flourishes here and there, like the alien stuff shown in flashback being made to look like an older space opera anime, but aside from a very fun turn near the end of the season, Astro Note rarely rises above the level of simply “pleasant.” And that’s fine, but it doesn’t quite live up to the material it’s aping, and what we’ve ended up with is just a nice distraction. 

I’m so glad I finally decided to read Maison Ikkoku though.

31. Shangri-La Frontier, second cour

It’s been a running joke for me that the more I watch Shangri-La Frontier, the less I’m sure whether I like it or not, and now with 25 episodes in the tank, I’m less sure than ever. The back half of the debut season improved on a few of the things that annoyed me about its first cour by focusing more on the high-quality action and introducing minor stakes to the proceedings, and then everything else surrounding it made it feel no less like I’m just watching a guy playing a goddamn video game, and the stakes still mostly seem to amount to "he wants to be good at it."

You may notice that I didn’t include the second season in this review, and that’s because I flat-out didn’t care to pick it back up. I’d been busy during the fall season and continuing a show I didn’t enjoy that much just wasn’t a high priority. It’s continuing into January, so there’s time to catch it while it airs, but I’m still not in any hurry.

[silly-little-soul]

SDV Highschool AU

A/N - in celebration of my graduation today!!

Very rushed and not formatted properly cause I’m at prom rn and writing this on my phone I’ll fix it later but like i wanted to post sth for the occassion

-

Summary: sdv highschool au, the ones under the +++ are x reader

Characters: Harvey, Shane, Elliot, Haley (cause theyre my favs to write for)

Warnings: drug mention

~~~~~~~~~~~

HARVEY

- Big nerd

- He’s planning to study medicine so of course he puts accordingly much effort

- Awkward as fuck icl

- Everyone lowkey loves him cause he’s always really helpful

- Aka almost the entire class just copies his homework

- Lives off coffee in every life and scenario

- (One of the) best in class and beloved by the teachers but not annoying about it

- If y’all wanna act like there wasn’t any homework in front of the teacher cause no one did it (except him ofc bcs NERD) he’ll totally play along

- Which is probably why the whole reason it worked

- Some ppl def have a crush on him

- But he’s just so awkward and oblivious… I love him

- Also not rlly into the kind of dating that’s most common among teens? Does that make sense??

+++

- So for you, let’s say you’ve been his friend since forever, best friends perhaps

- He’s had a crush on you so long but has like no idea how to go about it

- And you think he’s not interested cause he has friendzoned you so hard multiple times before

- It was a panic reaction don’t blame him

- I can picture you coming together at sone school dance and it’s like really cliche

- I’ll make these longer later I’m sorry

-

SHANE

- stoner

- Like sorry but

- Maybe it’s my Connor Murphy obsession or maybe I’m right

- I’m basing this v much on mentally ill Shane ik that backstory only semi much works with a highschool setting but we dont rlly know abt pre mental illness shane so

- Generally not bad at school he just has intense down phases where he completely falls behind (relatable)

- Works at some fast food chain and hates it but yk money is money

- No one ever shows up for parent teacher talks bcs he doesnt want the school to know about his family and his family about school yk

- Quiet most of the time

- Mean when talked to

+++

- But also like he doesn’t rlly mean it with some people you just gotta po ker if he does for you and talk to him

- Good news: you’re very much an exception

- Phew

- I’m thinking forced project or something

- No actually I’m thinking one of you is the others dealer

- Probs starting as a kinda fwb thing that becomes serious

- There’s sm potential here icl

- I’m gonna rewrite all of this next week and get more into it

-

ELLIOT

- The weirdest kid in the grade but beloved by all

- Writes a lot, probably started a club that’s related to that somehow

- Wins a lot of those lil writing competitions schools do

- A romantic, hands out flowers or something to people on Valentine’s

- Like super mysterious and no one can tell if he does it on purpose or if it just kinda is like that

- Def has some ppl crushing on him

- Has been ppls secret admirer before

- Except it’s not rlly secret bcs who else would do allat

+++

- So when he falls for you it’s like that too

- You get mysterious letters and flowers from an admirer

- Except it’s not mysterious bcs Elliot everyone knows no one else does that!!!

- You pretend not to realize a while tho cause it’s sweet

- And then after a but you just give him a secret admirer letter back

- Even if it’s not quite as poetic as his

- He appreciates it sm cause it’s so rare people match his energy

- You’re couple goals but also lowkey make ppl sick with all your sap

-

HALEY

- Pretty popular

- She’s very confident and can be a bit brash so you might get the idea she’s a typical mean girl but she’s actually pretty sweet

- Especially with the girls

- You might get a comment about your messy makeup but best believe she’s fixing it up for you

- Girl in trouble? She’s right there without hesitation

- Has told so many of the guys off before for harassing girls or not taking a hint

- She’s a guardian angle ngl

- A whole bunch of people having a crush on her and it’s getting kinda rough

- If the person is respectful she’s really nice in rejecting them (or at least tries), she was mean about it like once and felt so bad after

- She knows she comes off as pretty harsh and it’s not always intentional yk

+++

- You probably meet through extra activities i forgot the name

- She gets a crush p quickly but like y’all wait till you rlly know you work as a duo before you dare ask her out

- Like you wanna have sth behind your question and what you say yk

- Okay i gotta stop writing but !!!!!! will fix this up and write more next week

- Also send requests or fandom talk please and thank you

[l00rem]

So Spinel fr said fuck those kids huh? I had a genuine murder attempt from him on my ep64 bingo tho so i consider this a win. When he was running around in the caves it reminded me of those horror games where you see little girls running all spooky as a jumpscare (can you escape the spinel obby??) Umbreon 100% looked ready to maul Amethio to death when it was on drugs, good thing terapagos stopped it before it could lol. And now that the anime has depicted a genuine murder attempt (even if they hide it behind words like disappear) i do think the odds of ames dad having bit the dust have increased substantially, especially now we know what the rakrium can do

I don’t have as much to say about this episode so i’ll probably save a lot of it for next weeks but I really liked all the little moments showcasing Amethio and Ceruledge’s bond like ame running up to check on him when he’s defeated. I liked how both Amethio and Liko had a very similar moment with their respective partners before entering the cave, really showing the similarities between the two. Him telling Liko not to follow him was also sweet, now we can look forward to some fun campfire bonding! (something something the power he left to search for at the end of ep54 was actually the power of friendship the entire time)

At first i was confused and thought this scene was showing Ame already back at the base, but i’m guessing this is some backstory for his and Spinel’s beef with eachother instead. Tbh i don’t think we’ll get too much ame backstory next week, and i kinda feel like it would be weird for him to just tell everything about himself to this girl he’s barley talked to, even if they think they might die.

Interesting that Spinel calls Amethio ‘Amethio-kun’ Amethio probably despises being treated like a kid more than anything so he definitely does that to get a rise out of him

Agate mentioning how his blood connection to Gibeon would lead to hardship really intrigued me- It seems she’s also involved with Spinel’s potential betrayal plan (but now knowing how much rakrium gibeon has i would not wanna cross that guy- we saw what it did to umbreon imagine that stuff on zygarde 😧) maybe Sango and Onyx are in on it too, but obviously they can’t include amethio because his blood tie makes him too loyal. I also wonder if Agate’s comment will reflect anything about herself as she says ‘now and then’ glad we’re finally get some crumbs for her she’s been deprived for far too long.

Amethio does seem to have been convinced to join liko by the fire at some point (i wonder if cerueldge lit it in the first place?) so i’m really looking forward to what they talk about. this shot particularly is intriguing- liko looks surprised by whatever amethio’s saying and he has a look of conviction… i wonder if they’ll talk about their mutual losing streaks or something and bond over it. I hope terapgos warms to amethio next ep too, or at least stops getting triggered by his similar looks to gibeon.

That’s the most of what I have to say for this ep, overall very enjoyable ep but now i’m gonna drive myslef crazy waiting for next weeks episode lol

[tater-tot-jr]

Yapping time! Spoilers for DRDT C2E14

So the entire episode was great, but there’s one part I’d like to talk about most. David’s monologue towards the end. Specifically the second half, where he gets away from his logical stuff and into the more interpersonal stuff. I’ll break it down line by line.

“All I want is for Teruko to distrust others.”

Okay we are starting off interesting. Now, due to David’s nature we can’t trust him to be honest. We cannot take this as explicit confirmation of any sort of goal. With that said, his goal appears to be fucking up the class trial in some manner. We don’t know his motive, but that goal seems consistent enough to work with. So let’s work with it. Teruko is literally one half of this classes helpful trial participants. Her and Charles are the entire brain of this class. Charles can be killed, he has a glaring flaw in a debilitating fear of blood, he’s easy enough to deal with when the time comes. Teruko is stupidly resilient. To everything. The one thing she obviously struggles with is her trust issues/paranoia. If you’re looking to get under her skin that’s where you gotta go. Saying this is a clear demonstration he intends to poke at Teruko emotionally, which is an interesting thing to admit out loud. If I had to guess, it’s because he’s trying to kill two birds with one stone and make the class start to distrust Teruko as well.

“That’s why I’m doing this, telling such obvious lies.”

This is him saying he’s lying about seeing the body, I think. He’s doubling down on inciting paranoia, in both Teruko and the class. It’s interesting he would say this out loud. He’s hyper focused on fucking with Teruko and it shows. If you take out the brain, the body goes as well. It’s certainly a strategy of all time.

“There is no other proof of Eden’s innocence.”

As far as we know, this is a true statement right now. Unless I’m unaware of something that was the biggest piece of evidence meant to clear her name, and he brought it into question.

“As long as there’s a possibility that the evidence is false, as long as there’s even the slightest reason to distrust others, then Teruko cannot trust Eden.”

Oof, he’s got her dead to rights. I don’t think there’s a good faith argument for him being wrong. It’s cool to see how much he understands the cast. It’s an interesting way to show how Teruko’s thoughts process works without betraying her guarded nature. Having a character so ready to pick at her weakness is a good writing choice, and I hope they keep David around for a time. Teruko is the least trusting character I’ve ever seen in any fangan game, granted I haven’t played them all but still. There’s a chance the story doesn’t have any sort of lesson, and we’re just gonna watch Teruko suffer. The idea that she can’t bring herself to trust if there’s even a 0.001% chance of something being false is such a good character flaw. She’s clearly terrified of risk, and she doesn’t know how to get rid of her paranoia, even though I think she wants to.

“Isn’t that right, Teruko?”

Ohohoho you smug piece of shit. You fucking dick. This is more proof he’s not just saying these things in an objective way. He’s just trying to hurt her, as far as we can assume.

“…”

Yeah she’s fucking rocked. Teruko really doesn’t take things lying down. Befitting of her backstory, she’s the type to struggle and fight back against anything she can. But here she has nothing to say. David has read her for filth and they both know it. Now that I think about it, this probably also plays on her fear of being vulnerable. What could possibly be more vulnerable than someone telling you your own exact thought process?

“It’s in your nature to distrust people.”

This is a more interesting statement than it appears at first glance. Specifically because he says it’s in her nature. To him, this isn’t a choice she’s making because of the killing game. It’s not circumstance that has pushed her into this. No, this is who she is, and this is who she’ll always be. Which is a horribly insulting thing to say, because it’s within most humans nature to trust each other somewhat, and it’s life circumstances that push them away from collaboration. He’s saying that Teruko is so fucked in the head that she’s fundamentally different from the standard human baseline.

“Everyone you know has already betrayed you. There’s no one in this world who won’t hurt you. Even the people you love will turn their backs on you in the end. You know that well enough, don’t you?”

…Jesus Christ. He really is just the devil on her shoulder. These are her worst thoughts said out loud and back to her. Do you think she considers someone dying on her and leaving her alone a betrayal? Is that a part of this? Him saying “even the people you love” is interesting, does she really even have anyone she loves in the cast? Or does she just tolerate them. He’s making grand, sweeping statements about her life potentially before the killing game and hitting the nail on the head every time. An impressive feat of manipulation and perceptiveness.

“So distrust in others. Because that’s the only way you know how to live.”

Ow. Ouch. Owie. Not only is this a banger way to end the monologue but it’s just so telling. Teruko doesn’t even say anything in response she just waits for Charles to change to subject. Also, is he even really wrong? She tried to afford people trust and then she got stabbed and everyone else blamed her. She’s definitely swung too far the other way, but it’s not like she was good at knowing how much trust to afford people. This life is really the only way she knows how to live. How things are now, she’ll suffer any other way. It’s such juicy character writing. Damned if you do damned if you don’t. David has definitely been watching Teruko’s behavior, and quite frankly he has her figured out. He’s perceived her, and she hates it. I think we all know Teruko is lonely, she deeply wants people around her. But between being a danger to them and all her trust issues she shuts herself away. David is doing everything he can to keep her as far away from forming meaningful connections as possible. He’s clearly got some sort of plan.

—

There’s also a few things I want to talk about that I didn’t have the ability to put under a spoken line, so I’ll yap down here.

Firstly, Teruko extending some “trust” to Eden doesn’t prove David wrong. If anything, it strengthens his argument. Looking at the actual content of Teruko and Eden’s back and forth, it’s barely a scrap of trust and it’s completely conditional. Teruko basically said “because you helped me last trial I will trust you enough to investigate you second” which is still incredible progress for her, but it’s nothing close to genuine trust. This is not to diminish the progress Teruko made in that scene, but it’s nothing close to countering David’s claims.

Secondly, THAT VOICE ACTING HELLO?!?? David’s VA has always been great, but combined with DRDTdev’s wonderful writing and sprite design/choices he really brought this scene to life. He was perfectly smug and condescending. He had a voice that really portrayed that “I’m 100% right about you and you can’t do anything about it” vibe. Just a total piece of shit. 10/10 would listen again.

[asktheevilgeniusesson]

Brain is stuck on the thought of infinite, shadow&sonic as a pairing, but i know damn well thats a VEERRYY toxic ship for my main verse, and probably alot of other peoples.. cause. One. Main verse Infinite thinks shadow killed his family. Then infinite goes to torture sonic for a year cause of it. And alot of other shit.. but GOD. Just my brain thinking up scenarios for those three, in some other context where they arent hating the fuck outta eachother…. Oh one can dream…..

“But metal mod, you can just make your own little side au to fix that!”

Stares at you. My eyes go all big like a cat who just saw something they like. Flutters lashes.

NYEHEHEHE. IM GOING TO MY CAVE OF THINKING FOR THIS SELF INDULGENT AU. MOOTIES YOU WILL NEVER HEAR FROM ME AGAAAAAAAAAA-

Nah im not actually going anywhere, i Am however, going to think on a side au for something like that for my own self indulgence, cause its cute to ME.. also not to mention ive also had some thought on silver and infinite but we’re not gonna unpack that rn….

I may or may not have someone else write as shadow/sonic for this au, i’ll see if any moots or my boyfriend are interested in this sort of pairing, but its most likely going to all be written by me. In either case, i’d LOVE for you guys to throw some ideas my way! Either in dms, asks, or comments, idm. Infinites backstory is the core of how i write him in the main verse and the reason for his entire personality, so making an au where the whole “YOU KILLED MY FATHER-“ schtick never happened will make it interesting to think of another backstory for inf.

..is this annoying?? This is prob annoying- y’all are here to see me like write depressed robots n shit not listen to me ramble about my favorite character and ship dynamics/aus of him- im gonnnaaa zip my lip now and expect this post to just uh. Sit here. Untouched. Lmao

[cawslew]

bsd anon back at it again to say that i also really want your opinions on akutagawa because i heavily typecast him and want angles i haven't considered. my brain, comically, likes to contrast him against chuuya. i think he recognizes his power could have been used to protect others but he's heavily defined by how unfair the world was to him since birth. what kid deserves to be impoverished and starving and when he failed to protect what he could, rather than focus on what was left, he raged against the world because it wasn't fair at all. but i think it deeply impacted him and he shuts off people because he *was* strong and failed to keep those under him safe. i think he ends up following dazai because he sees this guy who managed to effortlessly achieve what he could not yet. i think what's worse is that dazai doesn't have a drive to live and is going with the flow, and akutagawa who lost his life's drive (not that he would get one after fulfilling his revenge which is probably why beast!dazai took his sister) was drawn to what could be beyond him actually, a meaning to his life. but he couldn't get past dazai, which is why he substituites dazai's approval his meaning to life, which is merely the strength to inflict the same harm the world did to him back. i think it might be why atsushi contrasts with him too. i know he roasts atsushi for not appreciating what he has and being too caught up in the past, but akutagawa is also kind of not grounded. i mean, if he was worried about protecting what he had left (gin), then he would be completely different. he's just very loudly and blindly trying to leave an impression on the world before his end but because all his tethers are so vague, he still doesn't have a meaning to live other than the hand that elevated him to where he is. although, akutagawa is honestly... a little fucking crazy too. i think he also runs into battle to die on his own terms. that rather than die to weakness beyond his control, he will die as a warrior within his control (which is to an opponent he can't handle). maybe surpassing atsushi is also important to him, beyond just mere strength, because he hopes it can give him a purpose beyond what he has right now. maybe because he doesn't kill, he is forced to treat things as less of a life or death battle and that allows him to mellow out just a tad bit more. idk though, the guy is just... so interesting as well... i don't fully understand him but he's like also the guy i'm rooting for in character development for bsd. i still dont quite know what i'm rooting for in him but i think it will ultimately involve cutting off dazai from his life. no need for any acknowledgement of strength or seeking remorse for the hell inflicted onto him but a simple "i don't need you anymore."

I'm not going to even lie, I had to sit down for a while and think about what I wanted to say, since when it comes to me and Akutagawa I feel like I can say a lot but it ultimately being nothing, devoid facts of actual meaning.

Mind you, I’m about to go on a rant, so I might not fully answer your ask, haha.

But since I have a problem deciding how I want to tackle this, I’ll start from the angle I’m most comfortable with. Akutagawa being both the foil and the other half of Atsushi. More than anything, the way they mirror each other’s journeys is what makes them so compelling.

Akutagawa and Atsushi have eerily similar backstories, and BEAST straight-up confirms just how much they have in common. More than anyone else in the entire story, these two are the closest to being the same. They were both raised in hell, but the key difference lies in how they process the value of life.

Atsushi grew up in an abusive orphanage where he was conditioned to believe his life had no worth, unless he could prove it by saving others. His entire struggle revolves around trying to justify his own existence. I won’t go into detail about Atsushi here since this isn’t about him.

Akutagawa, meanwhile, grew up in the slums, where life didn’t have meaning in the first place. He wasn’t just dehumanized, he was raised in a world where survival meant killing, where his life and the lives of those around him were worth nothing. A piece of bread had more value than a human life. But despite that, he still had people, his sister, Gin, and his friends.

And then they were slaughtered. The moment he failed to protect them, everything snapped. He didn’t just want revenge, he wanted to rage against a world that had already discarded him. He was willing to throw away his life to do it. And that’s when Dazai stepped in.

Dazai’s Influence: Making It Worse

Meeting Dazai didn’t save Akutagawa. If anything, it ruined him further. Before, at the very least, he could still see life beyond just feeding himself and keeping others alive. But under Dazai and the Mafia, that tiny sliver of perspective got completely erased.

Dazai drilled into him that if he wasn’t strong, he didn’t deserve to live. And Akutagawa learned that lesson the hard way by having his weaknesses constantly thrown back in his face. Before, he saw weak people as insignificant at best. Now, he saw them as undeserving of life. The Mafia shaped him into someone who saw power as the only thing that mattered, and because of that, he became obsessed with proving himself.

But the problem was that Dazai never actually gave him that validation. Dazai, who had no real will to live, no personal ambitions, no deep attachment to anything, became the one thing Akutagawa revolved his existence around. And that’s what made it so much worse. Akutagawa devoted himself to earning Dazai’s approval, to proving he was strong, but Dazai couldn’t care less. And because of that, Akutagawa kept spiraling.

This is why his drive feels so hollow. He isn’t fighting for something, he’s fighting because he doesn’t know what else there is. He throws himself into battles not just to win, but because dying in a fight he chose would be better than dying helpless. And that’s where his obsession with Atsushi comes in.

Atsushi vs. Akutagawa: The Other Half of the Picture

Atsushi is everything Akutagawa can’t understand but also can’t ignore. He sees value in life, in people, in things Akutagawa long discarded as meaningless. And yet, Atsushi is strong, stronger than Akutagawa in ways that aren’t just about combat. That infuriates him.

Akutagawa constantly roasts Atsushi for not appreciating what he has, for being stuck in his past, but Akutagawa is just as stuck. He’s so caught up in proving himself that he never stops to think about what comes after. If he truly cared about protecting what he had left, Gin, his entire approach to life would be different. But he doesn’t think that way. His rage, his need to make an impact before he dies, his obsession with leaving a mark on the world, it all overrides any real sense of grounding.

And that’s where Atsushi messes him up. Because Atsushi forces him to see things differently. Because Atsushi refuses to kill, Akutagawa is forced to treat their fights as something other than a life-or-death battle. And because of that, something shifts. Not much, but enough. Enough that, over time, he starts to change.

The idea of selfishness Akutagawa and Atsushi are both selfish in their own ways, shaped by how they survived their childhoods. Atsushi believes his life only has value if he saves others. Akutagawa, on the other hand, was taught that survival means being the strongest, and strength is the only thing that makes him worth anything. If he isn’t strong, he might as well be dead.

But that’s the thing. Akutagawa criticizes Atsushi for relying on others to find meaning in his life, yet he does the exact same thing. He defines his worth through the people he fights, the people he kills, and most of all, through Dazai’s approval. Atsushi risks his life trying to save others, but Akutagawa does the same, throwing himself into battles with no regard for his own survival just to prove his strength.

When he fights Hawthorne, he’s already injured, but instead of retreating, he practically begs his opponent to take the fight seriously, to go in with the intent to kill. Because in his mind, if he’s going to die, it has to be by someone stronger, on his own terms. He’s not just reckless. He’s looking for a way to validate his existence, even if it means losing it.

And that’s why this cycle can’t continue forever. Akutagawa kills because that’s all he’s ever known, but if there’s a way out for him, it’s going to start with breaking that mindset. He and Atsushi both need to find balance between selfishness and selflessness, to learn that survival isn’t just about proving something to the world. If Akutagawa has a future beyond this, it won’t be through strength or destruction. It’ll be through realizing he has the right to live for himself.

What Akutagawa Needs to Do

At the end of the day, the biggest thing Akutagawa needs isn’t power or validation. It’s to let go of Dazai. To stop seeking his approval, he has to stop chasing a ghost that was never going to give him what he needed in the first place. The real moment of growth for him won’t be some grand act of strength, but the simple realization of I don’t need you anymore.

Because that’s when he’ll actually be able to be happy with himself.

So yeah, those are my thoughts on Akutagawa, but I’m not an expert on his character in the slightest.

[pigeonpeach]

You’re safe now

A/n: boothills backstory had me sobbing so I made this. This isn’t a x reader btw its just boothill being fatherly over a stranded kiddo. I just got inspo of this randomly so here it is

“See? i can eat just about anything now.” He laughed as the little girl looked on in amazement. He never expected to see s kid this far out in peacony, far from the protection and stuck in the middle where dozens of stray robots and creatures lurked waiting to turn the innocent little girl into s splatter. That thought angered him. The thought that there was anyone or anything in this world so cruel to do that. She hadn’t hurt no one, she didn’t do nothing a kid wouldn’t be expected to. But more importantly, she looked like his had. His little sweetheart who started walking when she saw him come home. The little bundle of joy he found tossed like trash that he coddled and raised. That bundle was now gone, along with all he had known thanks to the jerks at the IPC. He was going to make sure they paid no doubt, he wouldn’t let that Oswald off so easy. No money in the world could buy him off, he’d have him beaten and bloody begging for mercy before putting rounds and rounds of bullets into his stupid fucking face. He wouldn’t stop until his fuckin skull was dust. But for now his focus was on the stranded girl. She was so little, so innocent, she was also very scared. She clung to him so tightly. She was a halovian, her wings were so tiny and cute, her little halo made her look like s true beacon of innocence. How could he just let her become another tragedy? He may be s cyborg now but he has more of a heart than most people do.

“Could you even eat the sundaes but with the glass intact?” She asked. He chuckled. “Of course. Once we get back to the main city I’ll show you, how about that?” He said. She nodded. “By the way, wheres your parents at.” He asked. She paused before looking down.

“Well… they aren’t here right now.. I was supposed to be watched by my uncle but… he brought over some friends and they got real noisy, I wanted to visit my friend but I got lost.” She said. He pondered, that wasn’t exactly a address, but kids don’t usually know their addresses anyways. He could probably report it to the bloodhounds but take her with him around the city to keep her distracted and happy. He wasn’t sure what their policy was with lost kids though.

“Now when you say ‘aren’t here’ do you mean like they aren’t home or…”

“They’re not in Peacony right now. They told me they’d be gone for a bit but they’d be back.” She said. God she was adorable, her little wings looked so soft he wondered if she preened them like birds do where they take broken feather out or groom themselves, or do halovians have a brush?

“Ah I see. Whats your uncle like?” He asked. She followed behind him as they walked through the empty and confusing landscapes.

“Well he’s loud. Too loud. He’s also to touchy. He gets all up in your face like ‘Oh my gosh I haven’t seen you in soooo looooong’ but he saw you a week ago! His friends got really noisy. I think they were playing some game.” She said. He pretended to be interested but he was also scanning the area for enemies ahead. Of course he still cared but he needed her to be distracted while he kept watch.

“Sounds awful. They couldn’t get a better babysitter?”

“I know right!” She agreed. “Say, why are those tv guys so mean here? In the Golden hour all this machines are so friendly. One even gave me candy once… but that one back there… it was angry at me… did I do something wrong?”

“Sugar, the ones here are feral. They aren’t allowed around people and if they get caught by any of those bloodhounds they’re supposed to take care of em’. You didn’t do nothing wrong kiddo.” He said. “In the future you shouldn’t approach any wild ones.”

“Okay Mister Boot.” She said. He chuckled, that name was quite silly even to him. He liked it.

“Now, just stick behind me okay? We are in enemy territory here so caution is necessary.” He said.

“Enemy territory? Oh like when Brother Hanu has to sneak through the bad guys bases! I love those cartoons!”

“Something like that. Now you focus on being hidden while I do all the heavy lifting okay?” He looked at her as she nodded excitedly. Apart of him felt so natural taking care of her. Selfishly he kinda had hoped she’d been a orphan so he could scoop her up and take her with him. He missed having a family, having a home. And although he could never replace his baby girl he couldn’t ever stand to see a child cry or be alone.

“Mister Boot? Do you have any parents?” She asked. “Or would that be like s screwdriver..” he paused.

“Yeah I did. And they weren’t screwdrivers.” He smiled reminiscing on those memories of his family, how they took him in, how close they all were. Just them on the ranch.

“Are they alive?” She asked. He was a little surprised, kids like her don’t usually know the concept of death. Her parents are supposedly still alive so he wondered were this came from.

“No.. they aren’t. But they loved me dearly and I cary them on in my mechanical heart.” He said, he pretended to be okay about it, that he had moved on. He had to, after all children rely on adults for morality and hope. He couldn’t let her know how painful it was, that’s her parents job to do.

“I.. I worry sometimes.. mama and daddy seem to be In trouble.. but they won’t tell me anything about it… Uncle said I should lay low and wouldnt let me out today.” She said. She seemed more anxious than ever. “If I lost my papa and mama.. then what would I do.. I can’t lose them…” tears pooled in her eyes. “I don’t wanna lose them to the bad people. I don’t wanna be alone!” She cried now. He quickly lifted her to his chest, holding her close, one hand supporting her with the other still on his pistol.

“There there. I’m sure wherever and whatever business they got they’ll handle. Don’t worry kiddo, you’ll see em again.” He said.

“But what if? What if they do go.. my uncle is in no position to take care of me…” her cries were s lil muffled. He hostled his gun to pat her on the back.

“You know something? while people can die, they don’t leave you. Everyone you love sticks with you. In your heart and in your mind.” He said. “You’ll remember their voice and their words, and you’ll remember their love. It won’t be easy, it hurts alot but no one can take that from you.” He said with a smile. She seemed to top crying as she wiped her tears away.

“Really?” She asked. He nodded.

“Yeah. So long as you keep living, and you don’t ever let them get you, they live on in your heart and in your memories.” He said with a smile.

“Okay.” She laid her head in his chest again, listening to the motors and gears as he continued walking.

“Oh we’re here! See? Safe and sound.” He said. She perked up to see the familiar lights close by. The spotlights, the noise of the city returning. She seemed happier.

“Can we get icecream? I’m kinda hungry.” She asked. He chuckled.

“Of course, I’ll even show you that trick I promised.” He winked.

“Thank you so much for helping us find our daughter! I cannot thank you enough.” The man in front of him was close to kissing his feet from the looks of it. It just so happens that they returned early from their trip and came home panicked when they didn’t find her.

“Its no problem really. If you ever need any help here,” he wrote his number on a piece of paper and handed it to them. “Id also be okay with babysitting, that brother of yours didn’t do a proper job if she managed to get out so easily.”

“Yes I assure you he won’t be trusted with such again. Thank you again so much.” He said. He trusted her parents. They looked relieved to see their lil girl again. The little girl snuggled in her momma’s arms, it looked like she’d live the rest of her life like that with how tight she was held.

“Alright, don’t go running away anymore lil missy. Just give me a call if you need anything.” He said. She turned to him and nodded, there was still a little chocolate icecream on her lips that was now rubbing off on her mother’s shirt.

“Okay Mister boot! Please come visit sometime!” She said waving goodbye. He smiled, as he nodded.

“Yeah, I’m sure we’ll run into each other again.” He said. “Just be good, and don’t ever give up.”

[ternfic]

Reboot

Chapter Twenty-One

“Giving Emmet the cold shoulder now?”

Lucy scowled into her glass, holding back an irritated huff. Of course he would come find her just to harass her. “Fuck off, Rex.”

“Ooh, she swears! I hope you haven’t taught my dear sweet innocent baby brother the fuck word.”

Lucy snorted in spite of herself. “No, I’m not giving him the cold shoulder. He wanted to spend some time with Watevra to get to know her. So I figured I’d take the time to myself to get my head sorted out.”

“And you thought alcohol would help with that.” He plopped down in a chair beside her.

“Of course not. It’s iced tea. What do you want, anyway?”

Rex didn’t answer for a while. “I guess I just… want to make really sure you’re not going to abandon him again. Been hearing some interesting rumors going around about you and a certain General.”

Lucy’s cheeks turned a fascinating shade of pink, and she thumped her head onto the table. “That’s part of what I’m trying to get sorted out…” she muttered. “I love Emmet, I do! And now that things are finally settled and we don’t have to worry about danger anymore I want to tell him yes, but…”

“Systar’s brainwashing effects got to you too, huh?”

“Yeah,” she sighed miserably. “And she’s just… so sweet…” She let out a helpless laugh. “I seem to have a type.” She sat up again and scrubbed at her face. “That and all the new memories. I used to think being a nobody before I became a Master Builder was such a terrible thing, but compared to this new ‘I used to be a pop star’ backstory, I think I preferred being a nobody. It feels so alien.”

“That’s a mood,” Rex muttered. He let out a long, slow breath. “I’m still kind of pissed at you all, but I think… had I been in your shoes, I would have made the same decision. I’ll probably even be grateful for it someday, just. Not right now.” Lucy nodded absently. “Lu. Whatever you decide to do, talk to Emmet about it first. He deserves that much from you, at least.”

“Yeah…” she murmured. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I never should have asked Emmet, asked you, to be someone you weren’t just to make me happy. That’s not a mistake I’ll be making again.”

Rex stared at her for a long moment. “…Thanks,” he murmured eventually, and shoved himself back out of his chair, leaving the hall. Lucy watched as he retreated, then shrugged and turned back to her tea. She’d said what she needed to.

Plans for the merging of Apocalypseburg and Systar were already well underway. It sounded like the Systarians were intending to move several of their inhabited moons into Alterra’s system, but for the most part they would be relocating to the planet itself and working on terraforming it to restore it after their warring had rendered it nearly lifeless. They’d even already begun some of the reconstruction- the ruins of Bricksburg finally got torn completely down, and foundations for the new city were being laid down.

Lucy wore a new ring- a proper engagement ring, this time. She’d insisted on Emmet making this one as well, and loved it just as much as the one that had been lost, if not more. She and Emmet had also eventually sat down to have their talk about Lucy’s increasing interest in Sweet.

“I know,” Emmet soothed as Lucy fumbled over her words. “I’ve known for several years now.” She stared at him, dumbfounded.

“How…?”

“You’re the most important person in my life, Lucy. I know I’m not always the most observant person, but when it came to you, I paid attention.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“It seemed like something you were still coming to terms with. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“And you’re not- upset? Jealous? Anything?”

Emmet reached to twine his fingers with hers. “Of course not. You deserve the world, and Sweet’s an awesome person. I’d be happy to have her around.”

“Why? You like her too?” Lucy teased, finally relaxing. Emmet smiled, gently tugging her close to touch their foreheads together.

“You know you’re the only one for me.”

A year to the day after their kidnapping, Syspocalypstar was ready for its first inhabitants. There was a planet-wide celebration involving a lot of food, music, and fireworks. “I gotta admit, it feels good to be home,” Rex told Emmet.

“Rex, you’ve been here helping to rebuild the whole time.”

“Yeah but it didn’t have the ‘home’ vibes til it was finished.” He paused. “The flowers everywhere are gonna take some getting used to, though.” Emmet laughed.

The two brothers glanced up at the sound of Mayhem’s jetpack approaching, and the General dropped Lucy down onto the overlook with them. “Hey!” Emmet greeted, giving Lucy a hug. “Where’ve you two been?”

Lucy only grinned and shoved a pair of binoculars into his hands. “I’ve got a surprise for you,” she purred, directing his gaze to the distance. He scanned the horizon for a moment, and then froze, nearly dropping the binoculars.

“Our house!”

Lucy smiled and wrapped her arms around him, kissing his cheek. “Sweet and I worked on it all day yesterday. Hope you don’t mind that we made some modifications to it.”

“Not at all!” He leaned back into her embrace, wiping his eyes. “I’m just- you actually rebuilt it…”

“I loved the house you built for us. I’m sorry I ever made you think otherwise.”

“You do realize you’ve got an audience, right?” Rex drawled, and laughed when Lucy flipped him off.

“You’ve sure got the ‘obnoxious big brother’ thing down pat now,” she huffed at him. Sweet started giggling. Rex only smirked at her.

“Gotta say though, I’m jealous Emmet gets to live with two gorgeous babes.”

“Flatterer.”

“So where are you gonna stay, Rex?” Emmet asked.

Rex shrugged. “I’ll probably just get a flat in the city. The raptors will stay with the Rexcelsior, keep an eye on it in the meantime. I probably won’t stay, the boredom will get to me at some point-”

“Aww Rex, no-” Emmet gasped.

“But I want some time to enjoy being back home first. And it’s not gonna be like last time, I’m not gonna disappear for ten years again. I’ll be sure to come back and tell you all about my adventures.” Emmet sulked at him. “Hey. I promise. I finally got you back, I’m not gonna risk losing you again.”

“Just- don’t leave without saying goodbye…?”

“Of course not.” Rex reached over and ruffled Emmet’s hair, grinning. “You’re stuck with me now, kid.”

[showtoonzfan]

As I’ve said before, the Fizz episode is the only episode of the entire second season that I’m interested in, and it’ll be like a big bang to me, cause I CANNOT wait to see how they fuck it up. It’s going to be a train wreck and I’m here for it, I have so many predictions, so here’s a list of them!

— I always referred to it as the “Fizz and Ozzie episode” but I feel like most of it will be about Fizz and Blitz and their backstory, judging by the trailer shot of them as little kids again and the one where Fizz is seemingly singing to Blitz but then drops him. Also bc Blitz always needs to be in every single damn episode and Viv refuses to show someone else’s perspective lol.

— It would be nice if we dove into how Fizz met Ozzie, how he took him in and how they started to perform/date, but I honestly don’t think we’ll see much of that, and for all we know, the shots of Fizz performing could be in modern time instead of a flashback. Judging by the two shots of Fizz and Blitz fighting that was at that panel, this episode is definitely more about them then his relationship with Ozzie tho.

— I have the feeling that the “Hell finding out Ozzie is a hypocrite and dating Fizz” conflict probably won’t be resolved, I mean look at Ozzie’s for Blitz and Stolas lol. It either won’t be resolved and the episode will be unfocused, or resolve it too fast and in a forced/underwhelming way. I highly doubt it’ll be a huge conflict anyway since Viv never really dives into the class system in the first place.

— Fizz and Blitz will either patch up things up immediately at the end of the episode, or not so Viv can use the characters/conflicts for another future episode that obviously won’t be planned. I already know they’re going to paint Blitz out to be this guy who’s sweet and deep down wants to make amends with Fizz so I won’t waste my anger for that, (how much you want to bet Blitz being responsible for Fizz’s body was an accident and he never meant for it to happen so the fans can say he’s an uwu baby who must be protected) but if Fizz actually ends up forgiving Blitz at the end of this episode (especially if it turns out he’s responsible for Fizz’s missing his arms and legs) I’ll be pissed because even if Fizz DOES end up forgiving Blitz, doing it at the end of this episode would feel too fast and forced. I don’t want this to be Loo Loo Land again lol.

— Stolas may or may not appear in this episode to do the crystal deal. Ofc it would be WAY too much to cram in for an episode that already seems to have a lot in it, but they might do it. I will be honest, I 100% doubt the “Stolas making a deal with Ozzie to give Blitz a crystal” plotline will actually go anywhere tho. Knowing that this season clearly wasn’t planned and that Viv is making stuff up/pulling things out of her ass, this probably won’t go anywhere since Stolas later in the season is clearly going to be taken in by Imp anyway, and we gatta push him and Blitz being together regardless of they’re doing the book deal or not. Anyway that shot of him sitting in a room and the clock ticking could be from another episode, but of we do get Stolitz content here, who knows, maybe Blitz will see how healthy Fizz and Asmodeous are and want that with Stolas.

— Knowing that Fizz is one of Viv’s favorites, I wouldn’t be surprised if this episode DOES jab at Blitz more and really show how hurt Fizz was by him. Like I said tho, they might patch things up quickly. Either way, gatta love how she clearly plans to show how negatively Fizz was affected by Blitz but can’t do the same with Octavia, Verosika or Barbie since they’re females and boring to her.

— If this episode has another pointless M&M B-plot like Loo Loo Land, Seeing Stars, or Western Energy did, I swear.

And that’s pretty much it. We can all predict that Blitz burned Fizz somehow, there’s not much to say other than it’s ganna show how they used to be friends and make a soap opera about how bad Blitz feels so.

[moghedien]

obsessed with the saga of Selûnite drow mommy vs Shadowheart’s deeply rooted Mother Superior issues & goodest girl complex. her selûnite closet is made of GLASS. what does your character think about everything that’s happening between the two of them?

So usually I think of characters for a while before I play them but this one I was just like “I wanna make a drow Selunite” and made one the same day without much thought so I’m like developing a backstory and how she acts in the moment more so I’ll probably be in a different spot as the pt goes on

I’ve played a very dogmatic lolth cleric before (literally would not let myself kill spiders even though the game wouldn't really punish me for) and so I’m being much more chill this time for playstyle diversity which does help when you have a Sharran yelling at you about how your goddess sucks. I gave her an urchin background and the game still tagged me as being from the underdark, and I imagine being an urchin child in the underdark to be a bad time, so I’m like “there’s no way this girl grew up as a selunite because there’s no moon underground so she to have been converted once she came to the surface.”

All this to say, that in order to go from an underdark urchin from some drow city to a relatively chill cleric of Selune, she’s got to have dealt with most of her baggage and hang ups already. So she meets the most obvious Sharran in the world (who is probably also the first Sharran she’s met) who very very clearly has not dealt with literally anything in her personal life ever, and it’s just like “well let’s explore this.”

Admittedly her interest in Shadowheart was probably just “what the fuck is this Sharran doing” and wanting to see where this went. Like she’d want to keep an eye on a potentially dangerous person while also being somewhat practical about taking help where help is offered.

But then Shadowheart is being cagey as fuck while also begging for them to stick together, and seeing her be very clearly wanting to help people and be nice and struggling against that (and sometimes feeling literal pain when she does) and it’s less a vague interest in what the suspicious Sharran is doing more a specific interest in what the fuck is going on while Shadowheart and getting more and more confused the more she learns until she can finally get the girl to admit that she’s a Sharran.

And then when she does admit that she’s a Sharran, she just starts yellling about how shitty Selune is which is admittedly hilarious. I made the choice in the moment to basically never shit talk Shar or Sharrans to Shadowheart. Partially because that tends to end conversations early but mostly to counter how aggressive and clearly upset Shadowheart is every time she has to think of Selune.

At the point I’m at now, I just got her to admit to being Sharran and then she talked to me about wanting to be a DJ so we’re really just at the beginning of the Selunite vs Sharran tension between them and I don’t think my Selunite girly is gonna realize there’s like actual like attraction/romance until the first romance scene. Right now she’s just constantly going over to Shadowheart like “I wanna study her like a bug” because she wants to know how Sharrans think of Shar and Selune and how their religion actually works and whatnot. She is someone who was drawn to Selune so she wants to see what it takes for someone to be drawn to Shar and what that life looks like compared to hers.

And I mean she also has like an incurable disease where she has to help every shitty little kid she finds because of her upbringing as a shitty little kid with no one to help her, so it’ll probably trigger something in her once she gets the scene where Shadowheart shows her what happened to her as a kid. Also because of some things im thinking about with my Selunite’s own conversion involving that rite

Once the romance kicks off tho I imagine she’ll be thinking a whole lot of complicated things about what’s going on between them and she’s gonna be like clawing at her thigh resisting the urge (lol) to just be like “please leave Shar” but I also never wanna like specifically ask/tell her to deconvert from Shar/convert to Selune. It’s all gonna be a big fucking mess with Shadowheart never wanting to discuss their religious tensions because it’ll ruin the mood while that’s literally all my girl wants to talk about because thats what’s getting her into the mood

[mk-writes-stuff]

Writer Interview/Questionnaire Tag

Rules: answer the questions

Thanks @kaylinalexanderbooks and @moltenwrites for the tags!

About Me

When did you start writing?

In the fourth grade! I had a school assignment, but I was so excited to finally write about my OC (I had exactly one OC at the time). I still have the story, it’s awful :)

Are there different genres or themes you enjoy reading other than the ones you write?

I read the same things I write, for the most part. There are definitely things I read that aren’t quite what I would write, but my general preferences are the same

Is there an author you want to emulate, or are compared to often?

Uhhh… I feel like Brandon Sanderson influenced me a lot. So did Alison Luhrs. But I don’t really intentionally emulate anyone, I just kind of write.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

I write on my laptop on whatever reasonably soft surface is available, usually curled up like a shrimp. I’m working on having better writing posture but it’s a work in progress

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

Most of my ideas come from developing a special interest and then talking to my gf for six hours about it. In terms of getting motivation to write, I am extremely bad at that, so I’ll get back to you :)

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and/or places you write about?

They did more when I was younger. You can still see shades of it sometimes, but not that much I don’t think

Are there any reoccurring themes in your writing? If so, do they surprise you?

Oh, absolutely. Recovery from trauma and abuse is probably the biggest one. The idea that healing is possible and the idea that, while there are shitty people out there, most people mean well, are two important ones. That and that every single person acts how they do for a reason. That reason might be that they’re selfish and entitled, but they have one

Characters:

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character?

I’m assuming you mean OCs (if we’re talking about fandom it’s Captain Rex from the Clone Wars) so I’ll go with Tatum because I can’t stop thinking about them recently

Tatum is a character from the Pirates’ Roost, and they’ve been through the fucking wringer. When you first meet them, they’re an unwilling lackey for a violently abusive captain who forces them to hurt and torture innocent people. They’re also dying of cancer and said captain has the only medicine keeping them alive. They get a recovery arc, absolutely, but there’s a lot of awful shit that happens to Tatum, including two separate awful exes, vampires, a stranger with magical drugs, their backstory reveal, and their extremely racist shitty teenage brother (don’t worry he gets better). They’re a really complicated character with a lot of depth and a lot of issues and their healing arc means a lot to me

They also are beefing with a bird and the bird is winning, so… they’ve got range :)

Which of your characters would you be friends with in real life?

Hmmm. I think I would absolutely be pals with Stellaris. He’s a sweetie, and we’d have good autism to autism communication. I also think I could be friends with Corbin, the boatswain of the Sea Star, although honestly Corbin’s pretty friendly with anyone who does their job so he’s not too picky

Which characters would you dislike the most of you met them?

…Narcissus (although he is my gf’s OC). He’d annoy me so much

Honestly I’d dislike pretty much all the villains in my stories, they’re all pretty intolerable people. Special shout-out to the Thief from To Kill a Dead Thing though, because he’s not only a terrible person but also absolutely terrifying

Tell me about the process of coming up with your characters?

My gf comes up with some of them and helps me brainstorm a lot of them. The original concepts usually just kind of pop into my head, and I start building off of that, adding on details as they become relevant. It’s kind of hard to explain. Occasionally, I’ll see a character with some really compelling elements in a published work and use those for a base, but again, I’ll develop my own spin on them

Do you notice any reoccurring themes/traits in your characters?

Trauma. Pretty much all the major characters in my works have trauma. Other than that, a few recurring archetypes that tend to pop up:

Absolutely jacked lesbian

Extremely autistic

Small/dainty/effeminate woman with a personality of steel

Very pretty man

Mildly persnickety doctor who probably has too much on their plate

How do you picture your characters?

My brain. Also picrew, especially this one

My writing:

What’s your reason for writing?

Because I like it. Also it’s a good way to get my ideas out of my head to share them with other people

Is there any specific comment or type of comment from readers that you find particularly motivating?

Anything! (That’s not hate obviously). But probably my personal favourite is specific questions/speculation. I eat that up

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Um… I guess I’d like them to think I’m kind of cool? “Person who’s pretty friendly and made this cool thing” is my goal

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Characters and worldbuilding. Those are my two favourite aspects and I think I delve into them really well

What have you been told is your greatest strength as a writer is by others?

I’ve been told my characterization and portrayal of complex/dark situations is good

How do you feel about your own writing?

I love it! Sometimes it’s not perfect but it caters to all my tastes. I reread my old work sometimes honestly, I just like it :)

If you were the last person on earth, would you still write?

Absolutely. I’d miss the feedback, but I’d still do it. It would give me something to pass the time, and I like what comes out

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, do you write purely for yourself, or is it a mix of both?

I write primarily for myself, but I do consider what others might enjoy. In the end, I prioritize what I want to write, but if I can also give some focus to what others might like, I want the people who put in the effort of reading my stuff to feel rewarded for that too

Thanks again for inviting me to do this one, it was great! @illarian-rambling @paeliae-occasionally @somethingclevermahogony @touloserlautrec would y’all like to give this one a go?

[noneuclydianpotato]

Y’all just ever get the urge to just do a big ol’ pointless info dump about your OCs?

Because that’s what this is going to be. Except now hypothetical internet wanderers can gaze upon it to heckle or gaze upon.

Basic info- Name, age, likes, dislikes, etc.

Name: Script (Full name: Dancing Script)

Age: 250

Pronouns: He/Him

Orientation: Demisexual

Height: 6’3 (Around 193cm I believe)

Likes: Quiet, his symbiote, honeyed whiskey, coffee, kids (in a fatherly/brotherly way), individuality, honesty

Dislikes: Loud noises, decaf coffee, vodka, parasites, being part of a collective, dishonesty

Phobias/Fears: Claustrophobia, Philophobia, Thanatophobia, Harm OCD, fear of losing control

Abilities- From least interesting to least interesting.

Superhuman speed and strength

Bone magic

Ice magic

Fire magic

Teleportation

Time slow (3-5 seconds)

Regeneration

Resurrection

Void magic (I’ll explain this more in depth because this stuff needs a whole section on its own.)

Backstory

Script was made in a lab as a clone of his dad in a multiverse that existed adjacent to the UTMV, having similar themes and characters to Undertale but slightly off. In fact, in his multiverse, Script would’ve probably taken the role as both a Sans-adjacent and a Papyrus-adjacent character. That was until Script’s fourth birthday where his father, in a fit of manic paranoia, threw his son into the void.

Now to add context, Script’s father didn’t do that out of malice but misplaced love. His father is immortal thanks to a symbiote he got from the void (I’ll explain what those are dw). So, one of his greatest fears as a father was outliving Script, thus he tweeted his 4-year old son into a void and just hoped he would find a symbiote.

Luckily, Script did, and a particularly strong one that. Its name, Apthos, or ‘Apth’ for short. Thanks to Apth, Script able to survive and even thrive in the void and eventually got out of the void some 12 years later by his father. The fucked part being that no time had really passed for Script’s dad. It had only been a few minutes at most before Script was let out, but for the teen Script, it had been years.

Understandably, Script was not happy being tossed in a void and all that anger, pent up resentment, rage- all of it caused his newfound void magic he gained from Apth to go haywire and made him transform into what I call a ‘Void Beast.’ An impossibly tall, walking apocalypse capable of wiping out a multiverse if Script doesn’t calm down. He completely erased his home universe from his rampage and left only himself and his father. His father, not knowing how to grapple with the fact that all of this was his fault, ran from Script.

From there, Script went around his multiverse destroying universe after universe in a fit of rage. This rampage lasted for years, and his power grew at an alarming rate to the point where he could destroy a universe by punching too hard. His symbiote grew too, feeding off the mass amounts of death their host inflicted, and grew to an elder symbiote (I’ll also explain the symbiote life cycle in another post).

However, on the last universe left in his multiverse, he would meet someone who would manage to tame Script. His soon-to-be wife, a skeleton named Lapis.

Lapis acted as the Sans-adjacent character for her universe as Script’s dad never existed in this one, so by extension, a Script never existed either.

Lapis was a reserved woman, stoic, gentle, skilled, powerful, and yet forgiving, but not too much so as to simply forget someone’s misdeeds. If she needed to she will use violence to defend herself or others but prefers to use non-violent measures if she is brought into conflict. So when Script came rampaging through her universe, she of course tried to talk to him, but those plans went out the window when he almost killed her and she decided in order to get through to him she needed to teach him a lesson. A lesson in consequences.

Script died 40 times to her and Script couldn’t explain how. Here he was, a world-ending powerhouse, getting his ass kicked by some random skeleton. And each time she would always ask if Script would give up, which he did very reluctantly. Despite the damage he had done Lapis would teach Script how to actually function as a person, helped him bring his mental issues down to a manageable level, and eventually fell in love with him. That didn’t mean she forgot what he did and was always sure to bring it up if Script got too big for his britches. She may forgive, but she does not forget.

Nevertheless, the two would marry and have a child together. A son that they named Callisto primarily thanks to his wife. Things were looking good until one day Script had a nasty manic episode, which weren’t a common occurrence since Script met his wife, but they were never pretty, and Lapis often had to calm Script down so he wouldn’t hurt anyone. But Lapis was out getting baby stuff and left Script at home to get a room ready for the baby.

When Lapis came home, she didn’t even have a chance to all out to her husband before an arm pierced through her ribcage holding her soul. Script’s arm. The infant was next to go.

When Script came too, his symbiote was screaming at him to snap out of it and he found himself standing in a clearing covered in blood and dust. It didn’t take him long to realize what he did and that just broke him, undoing years of progress, and it resulted in the destruction of the universe in a fit of rage and finally ended his multiverse.

Though not all of it was destroyed, that clearing he came to in was quite literally broken off and saved so Script could place two graves. One for his wife, and one for his son. On the day he made those stones he promised to never fight to harm anyone ever again. He would only fight to defend himself and others, but never would he attack anyone.

Some few years later, Script would manage to salvage some of what his wife taught him, and that’s when he stumbled into the UTMV. He adopted a whole new approach when it comes to the UTMV, acting more as a passive observer than actually trying to get involved with anything major or minor. That isn’t saying that he wouldn’t get involved if he can’t help it, or say if a child was in danger. He may have sworn off violence for the most part but he was once a father, and he will always be a father.

Aight imma just leave that there otherwise I’ll just keep going o u g h. I’ve been building this fucker since 2016 so I have entire anime-ass arcs built for this old man. Next info dump/lore post I’ll go more in depth about the void and what those symbiotes are. Be safe yall.

[atomicdela-au]

Alrighty we back again bois

It is time for talking about the TMC characters, and what their roles are within this AU. I’m gonna give a brief description of each character is at right now for their development. I’m not going to go within detail about the characters backstories because that would make this post WAY too long lol

(Note all of these characters are going to be in alphabetical order)

Adam Murray

Probably my favorite character that I am having the most fun writing for within this AU. Not because that Adam is my favorite character from TMC originally (Yeah, I know everyone hates him Lmao) but his story that I came up for him was an interesting take on his character.

In the first act of the AU he isn’t so much a major character, but rather of a bridge between both acts. Adam is more of a major character within the second act of the AU.

Archangel Gabriel

Within this AU there is a plot between the alternates we know and love. To put it in simple terms, there is this build up plot of during the years after the bombs had dropped, the USDOTP (Known as the United States Of Temporal Phenomenon) have been trying to build themselves back together after the attack/war that had occurred.

Throughout the story, especially second act there are mention of rumors that the department was undergoing some tests or experiments with a new type of creature or monster that had emitted from the radiation. And these creatures are known as the alternates.

The rumors that people have been spreading across the wastes had to do with the fact that the department was subjecting humans with extracted alternate DNA (Yeah I know, it’s weird but bare with me) because it was known that alternates are tough to kill. Perhaps you can even call them immortal.

And I know that I am spoiling one of if not the biggest twist of the story but those rumors turn out to be true.

But what does this have to do with Archangel Gabriel? Well with this AU, Gabriel is not the embodiment of Satan like he is originally in TMC.

Gabriel was one of the first humans to be conducted underneath this test. And before he was experimented his human name was Gabriel Jackson.

(I know I said that I wasn’t going to do any backstory talk but I had to give context as to why Archangel Gabriel was referred to Gabriel Jackson in this AU.)

Cesar Torres

Cesar is definitely one of the major characters in the first act. But he is not a major character in the second. He is a supporting character to Mark Heathcliff.

More on him later with the backstory post that I eventually do.

David Lee (Or Dave Lee)

David is not much of a major character in act one, but certainly is in act two. It is due to the fact of with his association with MandelaTECH in this AU. Along with his work with work with Thatcher. Can’t really say much else than this, I did not really develop him so much yet.

Evelin Miller

Like Dave, Evelin is in the same boat. Her only development of right now is just the “Girlfriend Role” but soon enough I’ll get around to developing more stuff for her.

6/Intruder (Also known as Hugo Zamora)

Just like Gabriel, 6 or known famously as the Intruder also underwent the same experiment by the USDOTP. He was the sixth person to undergo this test (haha see why I put him as the sixth one?).

Also ALSO like Gabriel, I gave the Intruder a human name, which is Hugo Zamora. (I know it’s a weird name but I think it’s interesting)

As for his role, Hugo is a minor character in the first act but more of a major role in the second act. This is due to his affiliation with Adam Murray.

Jonah Marshall

Like Adam, Jonah is a major character in the second arc of the story. In this AU he shares a backstory with Adam too, and I really like how I have built their dynamic so far for both of them.

Like Cesar, he is a supporting role.

Jonny (The Cat)

Yes, this is the fucking cat Jonny.

All I have for him so far is that somewhere in the second act, Adam adopts a cat and names him…well Jonny.

Jude Murray

Ah yes, Jude Murray. Also known as Adam’s Father. He briefly appears in the first arc, but not isn’t a major character in the second arc. I can’t say much about him either yet, since again I’m leaving

Lynn Murray

Like Jude, Lynn appears briefly in the first arc, but isn’t major in the second. But she is mentioned by Adam in the second arc. After all, it is Adam’s mother.

Mark Heathcliff

Good old Mark Heathcliff is a MAJOR character in the first part of the AU. He is the center character. Not only is he a central character in the first arc, but he is also a major character in the second arc as well, which is neat.

Mervin Marshall

I know Mervin is a joke character but fuck it. I don’t care what anyone says lol

Mervin has the last name Marshall, which I like to head cannon that he is related to Jonah Marshall in someway. So that deems Mervin to be Jonah’s father in this AU. So far what I got planned for him is that he is a major character in the second arc due to his relation to Jonah.

But I had the idea of Mervin also making an appearance in the first part too.

N (The Alternate)

Ah yes, another well known alternate, N.

Just like Gabriel and the Intruder (Or Hugo) I gave the same thing to N. His human name was Ethan Sutton, but once he was injected with the alternate DNA he was given the alternate name of N, but was given another name named Nemesis.

After Gabriel he was the second one to undergo the experiments.

Ruth Weaver

Ruth Weaver is a supporting role in the first part, due to her affiliation with Thatcher Davis. But she is not a big role in the second part.

Sarah Heathcliff

Sarah definitely is a supporting character in the first arc but then picks up her character in the second arc because of the relation with her brother Mark and of course Adam and Jonah.

Stanley (Or Stanley Zamora)

I know that Stanley is the same person as the Intruder, but hear me out. There is a story dynamic that I am sticking with for this AU. I thought to make Stanley and Hugo (The Intruder in this AU) as twin brothers. Both of the brothers underwent the same experimentations.

Although Hugo was the sixth person to be experimented, Stanley was the Fourth. More on their backstory later when I get around to post more about the characters.

Thatcher Davis

Like Ruth, Thatcher appears in the first part briefly. But the difference is that he becomes more of a major character in the second half. More on him later too.

The Preacher

The Preacher (Or her Human name in this AU is Amelia Phillips) also underwent the experimentations. She went after Gabriel and N, making her the third person.

Like a bunch of other characters I do not have much to say about her either until I talk about backstory.

Other Characters (Mostly fan-made to help the story along):

James Heathcliff

James Heathcliff Mark and Sarah’s father in this AU.

Michelle Heathcliff

Michelle Heathcliff Mark and Sarah’s mother in this AU.

Kimberly Marshall

Kimberly Marshall is Jonah’s mother in this AU.

Sebastian Torres

Sebastian Torres is the father of Cesar in this AU.

Milena Torres

Milena Torres is Cesar’s mother in this AU.

That’s about it for characters. I know, it’s pretty boring but soon enough I’ll make a post about their background lore is about soon (not sure when but I know it’s one of my priorities to post about.)

I know it’s sorta spoilers but oh what the hell. Who cares about spoilers.

Anyway thanks for taking the time to read this SUPER long post. See y’all in the next one.