#so it takes a second for his mind to kinda... reboot in a sense

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

IDK if you've ever said anything about it, but in the Lights Out AU, what was Wally's first reaction on realizing that Frank was alive and he wasn't alone anymore? I imagine it was...quite emotional

i Haven't talked about their Initial Reunion yet, no! but yes, it was very emotional! there were certainly many emotions!

namely: fear, confusion, shock, and nearly killing your friend with an oversized baseball bat <3

[plantdad-dante]

Book #141 - Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett

(Only Discworld can give me a character that reverse-infects vampires with their personality through their blood and I take it without question. Only Discworld.)

I have to open a new category: Discworld first-reads that kinda seem haphazard and weird until I get to the end and I see "oh. that was what this was about." and then suddenly I don't mind that the story spent 90% of the pages meandering through some woods with occasionally spotty action. On second thought, maybe that's a bit long for a category name.

Mightily Oats finds sincerity through a plot that would normally give him a manic-pixie dream girl to fall in love with, but instead he has Granny Weatherwax and they build mutual respect and I love it. Also, him flinging mud at Death to keep him away from Granny is my favourite thing to have happened in this book. Mainly because... it's such a small thing, but he does it with his whole heart, without second guessing or overthinking it. He just does it, and I love him.

There is something really interesting in the scene were the vampires talk to Verence and Nanny and Agnes at the castle. They, the vampires, explain their plan and everyone around them is too enthralled by the vampire magic to realize that what the Count is saying is grotesque and evil, so they just nod along to everything - and since we are in third person limited with our protagonists, it is left entirely to us, the reader, to realize it for ourselves that something is wrong. Because the Count makes sense. If we, like him, allow ourselves to forget that people are people and that just because vampires are powerful and alluring and talk in a sophisticated sounding way, it does not mean that they can be trusted.

Granny explains later that evil starts with treating people as things, but it is in this scene that we are first shown.

The Count, in his rational, industrial way of thinking, disregards matters of belief, matters of heart, matters of care and duty and righteousness and community. In his evilness, the Count disregards the sincerity of those he treats as cattle, and it is his downfall.

Because rationalizing evil, even if meant seriously, even if there is a logic to it, has nothing to do with sincerity. Sincerity requires the heart, and that's a thing the Count refuses to consider. This book is an argument in favour of radical sincerity in all matters of life and I think I need a lie down now.

Final note: Even though I am very annoyed with the current trend of nostalgia bait-y sequels, prequels and reboots everywhere I fucking look, and even though I try to avoid getting conditioned by it, and while the corporate machine has destroyed my perception of even the most sincere easter eggs of this kind... I still have to admit that I did clap like a silly little circus seal when Brutha's name first popped up.

[alicepao13]

Rating the Kommissar Rex/Il Commissario Rex/Hudson and Rex human partners for funsies, in chronological order. Contains spoilers, some bias, and opinions based on superficial characteristics. I will take the blame for any distorted memories I have of the shows, although I did a full rewatch last summer. (Rewatch refers to Kommissar Rex and Hudson and Rex. I could only watch Il Commissario Rex once. Well, 0.75 times. I couldn’t find some of the episodes.)

Kommissar Rex

Richard Moser: The blueprint. Not necessarily the best one in my opinion (although if you ask kid me, yes), but they modeled at least two other characters after him in the reboots. Pretty nice (although a product of his time), street smart, recently divorced, and the first few episodes where he and Rex are getting used to living together are hilarious. Moser’s dry humor was good too, also his whump scenes where great. And I appreciated the nude scenes a lot (thanks, German tv of the 90s). 8/10

Alex Brandtner: The hot one. Also, more of a “new age” cop (new age here means post 90s, don’t get confused). Kid me didn’t appreciate the hotness but I watched it in my teen years, and oh boy. And the action scenes, while sometimes ridiculous and making you wonder why???, really showed the actor’s training in physical scenes too. I always liked the way Brandtner immediately bonded with Rex and then we learn of the tragedy with his own dog. Too bad his love life was even more non-existent than Moser’s. 9/10

Marc Hoffmann: I’ll be honest, I just didn’t care for him for the most part, but I did like the fact that for the first time there was a ship with him and Nikki. They went for a different style with this one and it shows. Marc is less type A than the previous two, not a bad thing, but by that point, it was clear that Kommissar Rex as a show was nearing its end and I think it sometimes showed. 7/10

-----

Il Commissario Rex (At this point, let me just say that I don’t associate the two shows with each other. And whoever has watched both, would probably agree with me. It hardly matters that the Italian show starts as a spinoff.)

Lorenzo Fabbri: Ugh, I don’t know what it is with this guy but I didn’t like him much. His style was a lot like Moser at first (adopting Rex, saving him from a miserable fate, learning to live with him, etc.). I absolutely hated the storyline with the forensics scientist throwing herself at him every chance she got and him trying to avoid her instead of flat out telling her he’s not interested, and then at some point they slept together??? Anyway, did not like. 6/10

Davide Rivera: I liked that guy but sadly we didn’t have that many episodes with him. He could have had more to offer as a character. More quiet than the sometimes too loud Lorenzo, and took some time to warm up to Rex if I recall. I liked that he took no flack from his boss (Sidenote: the boss didn’t like Rex at first and kept wanting to get rid of him, and I wanted to rip him to shreds). 7/10

Marco Terzani: I literally found one season of his episodes, so I’ll reserve judgment (if anyone has his second and third season, please give it to me lol or point to the right direction). He seems kinda reckless? He’s definitely attractive. ?/10, more research needed.

----

Hudson and Rex

Charlie Hudson: Started off as kind of mediocre for me, then he made me change my mind. When I started watching, I was hellbent on comparing every single thing of this show to the characters of the original at first, so I’m partially to blame for my initial perception of him. However, I won’t blame myself for the bad writing, pacing, and overall mediocrity of S1 that contributed to a big part of it. Anyway, they used some of Moser’s backstory (divorced, adopts Rex after his K-9 partner tragically dies) and expanded on it. Charlie has had the most development as a character than any of the others, which makes sense since he’s the first of Rex’s partners to live that long or not get rebooted lol. He definitely gets bonus points for having a love life too. And for not dying, despite all the whump situations he gets himself into. Definitely falls under the reckless category too. 70% himbo, 100% whump magnet. 9/10

[dreamerthetimelady]

My random Avatar TWoW thoughts/ramblings about Jake

Long post, so everything under the cut; includes spoilers for Avatar 2009, Avatar TWoW and High Ground Vol. 1

Jake only became ‘Military Father’ after Sky People returned - so as we know Jake is pretty harsh on his sons and they also call him ‘sir’ a few times in the movie. However from what I noticed they only use ‘sir’ when 1) he is mad at them or 2) in a ‘military setting’ scenario. Otherwise they just call him ‘dad’; based on this and what we saw in the flashbacks, I believe that their behavior is mostly a result of what was happening during that one year skipped in the movie (although keep in mind I didn’t read all of High Ground yet, so I might change my mind). Additionally as to why Jake treats his sons and daughters differently - It seemed to me that both Lo’ak and Neteyam were very eager to get involved with the action. I’m guessing if they didn’t Jake would be happy to let them help in other ways (actually he would probably prefer it, especially when it comes to Lo’ak). But he probably reluctantly agreed because of their eagerness and decided being strict would be the best way to keep them safe - that’s including discipline (which isn’t going so good anyway, considering our introduction to grown-up Lo’ak is literally him disobeying an order, which did put people in danger), code names etc. While Kiri is technically old enough to take part in the military actions, she doesn't strike me as someone necessarily interested in that? Like I'm sure she could defend herself if needed, but she didn't seem enthusiastic about it the way the boys were (see: Lo'ak in the train attack and Neteyam's "I'm a warrior like you, I'm supposed to fight" later). And if she's not part of the 'war party' she is not under the same discipline. As for Tuk, she's currently too young, but I have no doubt she will become a great hunter/warrior like her mother when she is older and she already has the enthusiasm for that (see for example: her playing 'attack' with an ikran toy). Jake is an idiot, but his actions are well enough motivated in-universe to make sense - okay, hear me out. First of all, yes I’m very much frustrated by Jake’s ignorance, unwillingness to listen to others and general “I’m the most knowledgeable person in the room” vibe. However I feel like all these kinda make sense from his perspective; this is very subtle in the movies (I mean ‘you have to guess and also read between the lines’ or ‘maybe implied but not really’ kind of subtle), but more touched upon in the comics - Jake is expecting Sky People to return. He knows they will return one day and he keeps telling it to people only to be ignored/doubted. It’s mentioned in High Ground vol. 1 that this is a reason he forbid Omatikaya from choosing a new Hometree (which is a dick move btw, but if you remove emotions from the equation makes sense - it would be an easy target if the Sky People wanted revenge on him or the Na’vi in general). And then one day, after 14 years during which many decided it probably won’t happen - the Sky People return. It turns out Jake was right all along. And this time they brought much bigger force with them, just as he expected. Add to that that Jake already thought of himself as an expert on Earth’s military and other stuff and I think it becomes fairly clear on why he thinks he is qualified to speak over anyone when it comes to Sky People threat (he is wrong of course and I think the second movie tries to show that - with a very painful lesson); ‘Didn’t he learn that already in the first movie though?’ - well, yes, but 1) it was fifteen years ago and as mentioned earlier, in the meantime he was validated by the fact he was right the Sky People will return with bigger force and 2) not an in-universe reason, but the whole A:TWoW feels a bit like a soft reboot - the amount of parallels to the first Avatar makes me think they specifically wanted to cater to the audiences that didn’t care or maybe weren’t even around when the first came out (while also I guess winking to the part of the audience that did remember it well? Idk, the parallels were a lot less jarring on the consecutive viewings, but they stood out so much to me when I was watching it for the first time). Anyway, I really hope this was intended as such and we get better character development from Jake in the future. The other big criticism is ‘why did they leave their clan and left them vulnerable?’ and I would agree the logic here is a bit of a stretch, but I believe Jake thinking went more or less like this: Quaritch and the recoms are specifically hunting me and our family -> they are the only ones that can go into the Hallelujah Mountains and not be immediately attacked by the wildlife -> if we leave they will leave too and thus the clan will be safe. There is a big gaping hole in this logic though, which is ‘how would they know we left’ and ‘why wouldn’t they destroy the High Camp anyway if they discovered it’ and either there is some deleted scene here that explains this or we are supposed to just accept this the way it is. Presumably Jake leaving means Omatikaya stopped their attacks. Or they continued, but Jake was not spotted on any of the footage, so Sky People assume (rightly so) he disappeared somewhere. It feels like this specific thing could have been addressed fairly easily by just that - No one’s seen Jake for a while, so it looks like he’s either hiding somewhere or left (it kinda is mentioned by Quaritch, but we have no idea how long it took them to realize or how they found out at all). It does not address the issue of High Camp’s existence being discovered means it will probably be destroyed. I’m not sure if this isn’t on purpose though - Jake specifically leaves to protect his children after seeing them being almost kidnapped and not-too-far-from-dying shortly after seeing Lo’ak and Neteyam almost die in explosion. He is most definitely not thinking straight and it’s a shame Neytiri is not able to convince him otherwise, but I see how he comes to the decision. I mean, he claims he is ‘protecting the people’ but I think he is just primarily thinking of his children at the moment. Otherwise they would not go to a different tribe, but hide completely on their own. Okay, this got way longer than I intended and half of it is probably rambling XD But anyway, I’m happy to discuss, I might have got some things wrong, I might have also remembered some things differently to how they were. And as I mentioned somewhere in the text, I only read the first volume of High Ground, so some of my thoughts might change when I get my hands on the rest (hopefully that will be soon).

[b0tsbby]

"I would like to hear more from you"

Oh absolutely! I myself, tend to get quite obsessed with and verbal about Stampede Knives, whether I like him or not. (I don't like him, but he is also, my everything) So much so, I had to bust out the laptop at midnight for this.

I must say, in regards to 98, I think he is framed much differently and a lot closer to a "mad villain" archetype, but I feel his 'shallowness' could also be a matter of perspective. He feels evil as a villain is suppposed to be, but I think he also explores an aspect of being born into a world where you're already a second class citizen. He's still a victim. I mean he was abused. And his pain and confusion turned into anger, at both humans and the unjust nature of the world. As Knives tends to go in the narrative, it ended up being 'a little too much', at least from the perspective of humans.

I think his iteration just came across poorly cause i believe as an audience, we've heard that kinda story of a victim turning 'villainous' like one million times already. It's worth analysing in itself why, that trope in itself has somewhat lost weight and meaning.

But alas this is not about him right now. I'll be his defense attorney another day.

It's notably interesting to me you feel Stampede was a lot clearer. I'm not sure if you have engaged with Max, but he seems to take the trophy as the most readable and understandable antagonist of the three. (An achievement I think he deserves mind you). I say antagonist especially, as i struggle to really call any Knives a true and final villain. There's just too much in him and Trigun for me to really box them in these terms insinuating good or evil.

BUT Stampede Knives, by definition probably is the more villlainous of the three by a bit of a mile. He's...pretty selfish. Knives allegiance to some form of justice is floppy for all three, but Stampede really, really, has no/little concept of outward responsibility. His goal is one so deeply rooted in himself and I'm not sure if the weight of what he's done has really hit him on the noggin yet.

And even so, I get it. I get what you're saying and I get where he's coming from, more than I'd like to i think sometimes.

There's a myriad of themes interwoven into his design, his dialogue and the first season of the reboot as a whole! I could break him and Season 1 into themes of self-hatred, denial, identity, safety, autonomy, delusion and a coming of age...oh, and mommy issues of course.

In my view, every character feels so weightless and lacking substance in a way that's just so messy compared to their Max counterpart. I sound mean, and I don't know if it was truly an intention on Studio O's part, but I attributed a lot of that to the fact it feels a lot like growing up, and how messy that is. Shit, Knives entire character design is driven by the visual metaphor of a caterpiller nestled in a cocoon. If that doesn't at least whisper the hints of still developing into oneself I could simply be insane.

And I feel it. While Vash is driven by some sense of guilt and self punishment (WHICH IS A VERY FLIMSY MOTIVATION) in comparison, Knives first feels like at least, a 'villain' with maybe some sense of real direction...

Until he talks, and I'm listening to an edgy reddit gospel sermon.

Point is, it's funny, I think he's actually pretty hard to analyse, considering he really only shows his hand, or a semblance of real character, at the very end when he's literally dying on screen. While Vash is so painfully vulnerable and open to the viewer, its a game of masks with Knives. A game he seems to be playing with himself too. A master of lying to the world, but more importantly himself.

There's a lot on each individual theme, and we'll be here until 2025 if i try to get it all in one post, but I have to say S1 really sets up the brothers as black and white, a good vs evil debate for 98% of its running. Knives really plays a good big bad villain, and Vash a perfect noble heroic knight. We really don't get any Knives exposition beyond crumbs, cause the little church boy monologues don't mean shit.So any dislike feels warranted.

Perhaps I'll have to write that big essay after all.

It only concerns me a little bit I haven’t really seen a written introspection on Stampede Knives’ character, specifically him. 98 is 98 and Maximum Knives has enough elitists on his case to cover him, definitely not a fan favourite but people have broken him down.

I’m aware of how disliked he is, Stampede that is, but it really is something. Could I write it, and could I kill an analysis of him? Most likely. I’ve been injecting the character into my veins, breathing him in and out for a year, every incarnation of him.

But I’m so curious to see someone else do it. Curious to see if someone else will do it…Maybe to convince myself I’m not a complete fool, or stuck in delusion. Maybe to find someone else that got it.

Hate and disdain, is something I’ll never protect him from. He’s an asshole. But man, even he doesn’t deserve the shallow reading of him that’s too widely accepted I think.

But who am I to say what is and isn’t…

[sparkbeast20]

Obey Me characters and MC kissing passion turn aggressive but one of the other characters walk in and seeing the two of you! (Brothers Version)

warning: cursing and suggestive content.

Lucifer

· Both of you were in his study like all was.

· You were reading out loud the things about his curse records, and commenting how amazing his collection is. His pride is awakened.

· you look over to Lucifer and saw his eyes and a smirk.

· It’s rare but not uncommon for Lucifer to ask to kiss you, most of the time you were the one who asks.

· He gestures for you to come and sat on his lap.

· You walk over, slowly taking off you're school jacket, and sat on his lap with a smile on your face.

· Both of you exchange compliments, while you feel his arm. Damn this man coving his body with too many clothes

· He moves in closer giving you a light kiss.

· But you wrap your arms around his neck not letting go.

· In second a passionate kiss turns into an aggressive one.

· Your arms go down on his back and started clawing on it.

· He pulls you even closer now your chests are touching.

· The door opens big enough for Mammon to come inside. Planning to steal one of Lucifer’s records.

· As he was coming in, he saw his older brother and his best friend eating each other

· In reaction he accidentally pushes the door open.

· All of the sudden Lucifer pulls away, he looked over your shoulder and narrow his eyes.

· You turn around, to see Mammon standing right at door red face and silent.

· You bury your face into Lucifer’s shoulder, he senses you feeling embarrass, he glared at Mammon tells him with a stern tone.

· “I give you to count of three to leave before I tie you up and feed you to Cerberus”

· Without even counting, Mammon ran as far away from the two of you

· Lucifer looks at you, with just his eyes ask you, if you still “want to do it”

· You sheepishly nodded, with a smirk on his face, with just one wave of his hand, the door is close and he make sure to lock it.

Mammon

· you were just leaning down on your bed, in your underwear read a book.

· When Mammon barge in. he never knocks

· He stops dead on his track, after seeing you and completely forgetting the whole reason he come to your room in the first place.

· You saw his red face, gesture him to come over to you.

· Without wait a single moment, he rushes over and stared peppering you with kisses.

· Tickled by his kisses, you cup his face and brought close to yours.

· You when in for a kiss.

· Like instinct he wraps his arms around your back, lifting up.

· As you grab onto his jacket pulling him closer, that was his switch.

· Hugging you tighter, while one of your hands move behind his head holding on to it.

· The door open by Belphie looking for somewhere to sleep.

· He saw Mammon on top of you, he watches in silent for a second, before pulling out his D.D.D and started to record.

· A chuckle was heard, Mammon pulled away and turn around to see his younger brother with his D.D.D

· His eyes widen as he jump off you, to face Belphie.

· “Looks like a have something to use against you, Mammon” Belphie tells his older brother.

· Mammon took off his jacket and throw it over to you so you can cover yourself.

· Mammon lunges at Belphie, but his younger was quick enough to close the door on his face.

· After recover from a door to the face, he open door to chase after Belphie.

· Not before he turns around to tell you.

· “ya wait there, I’ll be right back…... we’re not done!” as he ran after his brother.

Leviathan

· Its game night for the both of you.

· You were seating between his legs, as they wrap around you.

· You’re at the final level, trying your best to finish it.

· he was there guiding you, holding himself back from taking over. You wanted to finish it and not let him take over like every god damn time.

· With one press of a button, you manage to complete the game without your boyfriend butt it.

· You drop the controller, hug Levi and kiss him on the cheek.

· He turns red and reboot himself like all was.

· You stood up giving him sometime, when all of the sudden he pulls you back for a kiss on the lips.

· Right now, he kisses you with a little force, but you wrap your arms around his head pulling him even closer.

· You were on top of him, his torso is between your legs.

· His kisses got more aggressive then usual. Maybe you beat the game, it might kinda turn him on, if so, you might as well try to beat more game.

· As you to continue your “make out” session, Asmo walks in to ask Levi about a new camera he just bought.

· He saw you two, have at each other.

· As the avatar of lust, he feels his older brother’s lust overwhelm him, he sometime thinks how could Levi hold it for so long.

· Levi the insecure otaku that he is, sense that someone is watching the two of you.

· He stops, pulls away long enough to look around to see Asmo seating on top of his tub, once he and Levi made eye contact, Asmo started to talk.

· “You know, really need to display more affection- “

· Asmo cut himself off when he saw Levi a demonic aura around, he stood up and slowly walks away out of the room and closes the door.

· Levi loses the aura, and bury his face in your chest, starting to mumble.

· “I-I n-never feel embarrass like this” all you can do is comfort him right now. Thanks, Asmodeus

Satan

· You stare at the cat ears you bought as joke for Satan.

· After mins thinking about it, you decided to try it on.

· Once you put it on, you walk over common room’s mirror to see how you look with cat ears on.

· But didn’t notice your boyfriend seating in the room, reading.

· He looks over his book, and immediately drop it.

· With a cocky grin on his face, called to you like a cat “Psf”.

· You turn around, to see Satan with a Smirk on his faces. Well, so much for your prank.

· Walk over to him with your hands making cat paws, you sat on his lap your legs on each side of his hip, you place your “paws” on his shoulder and started kiss him on the cheek.

· His quit calm about kisses. Maybe he doesn’t want to lose his façade.

· But the second you “Nya” at him

· You just awaken the Beast.

· He places one hand on your hip, and the other on your back pulls you closer to the point both of your chests are touch.

· He kisses you with a growl, feel cocky yourself you stared to purr. You thought to yourself, thinking if this was a good idea.

· His hand on your hip, move to your neck and wrap around it.

· Levi, went down to pick up his order.

· He saw the common room doors are open, he looked to see the two of you making out.

· He switches to his PDA office persona, to put the stop to this.

· ��PDA police, you’re under arrest for kissing in a family friendly area”

· Ashamed of yourself, you jump off Satan, you took of the cat ears, covering your face with your hands, and turn your back on the two demons.

· Satan senses your distress, walks over to you but you step away from him.

· Anger is on Satan, as he turns to Levi in his demon form, glaring at his older brother.

· Knowing what he just done, Levi quickly turns heel and sprinted out of the room.

· Satan ran after Levi while yelling.

· “COME BACK HERE YOU SON OF A BITCH”, you can help to feel warm inside, for Satan’s protective nature.

Asmodeus

· The two of you were in the Planetarium, for modeling session.

· He asks you to model for his Devilgram. He loves showing you off.

· You couldn’t say no, to him

· After a couple of pictures, brings out a reveling outfit. Okay now you can say no.

· But like a mind reader, he says it isn’t for devilgram.

· With that you change into the outfit and started to pose for him.

· He squeals and giggles how beautiful you are in the outfit he brought for you.

· Asmo walks over to you, he couldn’t content himself, he wraps his around your back and started peppering you with kisses.

· While you were giggly by his kisses, he tells you how your body fit so well in the outfit.

· He made you flustered. he knows how make you lustful for him

· He took your arm, and started to make a trail of kisses going up your arm.

· Once he got to neck, he gave in a nibble, cause you to yelp.

· You poke his waist on retaliation. In hindsight you should haven’t done that.

· Quick move to your lips, and started kissing you aggressively.

· It’s too late back out now, when his like this.

· You wrap your arms around his neck, holding him closer.

· Beel was walking around the house looking for Belphie.

· He walks in the Planetarium, and saw the two of you.

· He said, hi to you.

· You heard him, look over Asmo’s shoulder to see Beel waving at you.

· In shock, you push off Asmo causing you to stumble and fell in the fountain.

· Both Asmo and Beel ran over to you, they saw you all wet and angry.

· Asmo reach out his hand to you, but you jump out the fountain and ran out the room.

· Asmo pouts and glare at Beel, after giving Beel a punch on his arm, he ran after you while calling out to you.

· “Darling Wait! I’ll help you dry off…… pls come back!”

Beelzebub

· You were in the kitchen, with a cake you brought for yourself and your boyfriend.

· But the aroma is luring you into taking a slice. Great Beel is rubbing off on you.

· Frosting is still on your face, when you feel two gigantic hands holding by the waist.

· It was Beel, he turns you around and start kissing away the frosting on the corner of your mouth.

· Then he landed on your lips for too long. Is he digging for the cake in my mouth?

· Honestly you want this.

· So, wrap you’re are arms around his neck pulling him closer.

· He lifted you up by the waist and place you on top of the counter.

· You let him hold you two together, while your hands move down under his shirt to feel his abs you always do this, but his not complaining.

· he giggles while kissing you.

· Satan try his luck on the fridge not be touch by Beel.

· Once in the kitchen he saw the two of you basically eating each other.

· He tries to snick around the two of you, once he got to the fridge, he opens it and saw it empty.

· A little angry, Satan looked around to see the cake.

· Wrath already in him, he doesn’t care anymore, took the cake and started to eat it.

· You open your eyes, to see Satan a grin wiping of the frosting off his face.

· You pulled away from Beel, and glare to Satan.

· Satan shrugs and start walking out the kitchen.

· Beel saw your sadden face, turn to see the cake is missing.

· You whisper to him it was Satan.

· “we’ll buy another cake, okay” he tells you as he walks out to follow Satan.

· “You own us a Cake, Satan”

Belphegor

· Tired from the meeting, he walks around the house looking somewhere to sleep.

· He when in the library seeing a making shift bed in the middle of the room.

· He slowly leans his head on the blanked cover pillows.

· But he felt moving under the blanks. They’re not pillows.

· Belphie, lifted up the blanket to see you cuddled up hold a pillow.

· He chuckles, and start teasing you by poking you on the cheek.

· Your brows narrow, little annoyed by the poking.

· So, you grab his school uniform, and quickly gave him a kiss then when back to sleep.

· Stun, he blinks few times, his smirk and lean in for a longer one. Great, now both of you aren't tried anyone.

· You pulled him in.

· He was on top of you, your hands feeling his torso, and one of lift up touch his waist.

· He uses one of his free hands, to bring the blanket up, coving the two of you.

· You two when at each other, like there’s no tomorrow.

· Lucifer was looking for you. You were in charge of dinner.

· Walk in the library, he saw the blanket and it moving restless.

· He let out a sigh, and walk over to the blanket.

· Grabbing the blanket, he throws it away, reviling the two of you.

· Both of you didn’t care that Lucifer was there, looking down with narrow eyes and a frown on his face.

· Without warning, Lucifer grab your arm and pull you out of his brother’s grasp.

· But Belphie not the one to let go, wraps his arms around your waist and holding on tight.

· Lucifer has no time for this, he continues to drag you all the way to the kitchen, with Belphie.

· You hold Belphie with your free hand, and tells he to let go.

· “No, were not done yet!”

[quirklessidiot]

Title: filthy rich [3/3]  Pairing: millionaire!sakusa kiyoomi x y/n [filthy capitalist au] Genre: mystery, major angst ahead, thriller, mafia!au-ish

Synopsis: Just run, Y/N. Don’t look back.

Warnings: dark and yandere themes, toxic relationships, mentions of violence, shady business, class differences, mentions of rape, smoll breeding kink, unwanted pregnancy, mentions of abortion, and sakusa being a manipulative bastard 

Notes: 

Im disappering again for a week or two so as a parting gift, here ya go, im starting a bokuto fanfic soon and posting the reboot of notice me soon too hnnng thanks for the wait guys uwu

A sorta realistic take on a yandere is harder than it looks kssjdn omg anyways here yall go the long awaited last chapter of filthy rich. I’m not sure if I should put like a one shot sequel but so far im marking this series completed. Thanks for sticking by!

previous || series masterlist || blood son [sequel;one shot]

You run your hands through your hair and shut your eyes tight, the quietness and stillness of your shared apartment was something to bask on before you put on a fake mask of happiness. It had been exactly two months since you found out about the birth control switch and the medaide agenda. 

In the span of those two months, you had grown more observant towards your boyfriend’s actions and you knew that it wouldn’t be anytime soon until he actually notices that you were onto him. 

You let out a shaky breath as you recollected some weird things you’ve seem to have noticed, how his brows would furrow when he’d receive a call indicating that something was up and it was serious or how you visited your ex-boss one time a week or so ago along with Kenjiro since you wanted to see how he was doing.

“...Well, he just didn’t come home and sold the place. Apparently he was in a rush to move or something because of family matters so I didn’t exactly see him.” the neighbor gossiped to you two.

“Y/N?”

You jump on your spot as you hear that dreadfully familiar voice.

“Hey,” You greet, walking up to him, you decide to do your usual hug but stop when you notice a small red stain on his necktie, the tie is dark blue and although it wasn’t obvious from afar, it definitely was up close. Your brows are furrowed together, this time in pure curiosity, “Did you get hurt? It’s unlike you to get messy.”

You notice the quick shift of attitude in his eyes, you were seemingly getting good at observing his emotions these days and it looked like he panicked for a second there.

Odd.

“A friend of mine had gotten hurt a while ago, you remember Atsumu Miya?”

A vivid image of a blonde man crossed your mind, he was another conglomerate friend of your boyfriend, another person to be weary of to add to the list, “Oh, is he alright?” you asked, trying to keep it casual as you untie his tie for him as usual.

“Yes. He’s awfully clumsy. You don’t need to worry.”

“Oh…” You mumbled, “by the way, I visited my ex-chief.”

“Ex-chief?”

“Mhm.” you hummed, “You know, my boss from before? Me and a few co-workers decided to visit him since he was a really good boss. Turns out he just left without telling anyone, poor man.”

“Sounds unpleasant. Did you know why he quit?”

“No.” You shrugged as you take the tie out and place it on the side, “He suddenly just quit his job and moved, neighbors said it was also because of family matters. It’s kinda weird because as far as we knew, he didn’t have a family.”

“Would you like me to look into it?”

You almost stiffen when he slithers his arms on your waist but you didn’t want to give away any suspicion, “No. I don’t want to pry. Hopefully he’s enjoying his retirement.” You sighed, turning towards him with a tight smile, “Now what would you like for dinner? I was thinking Mediterranean? I need to lose some weight since I’ve been feeling bloated for a while.”

He leans in for a soft kiss on your temple, “Mediterranean would be fine. Would you like anything else? We could order more.” he hummed, his lips slowly started to dangerously hover on top of yours.

“No, it’s fine.” You give him a quick peck and wiggle your way out of his arms, your stomach doesn’t feel well these days. Whenever you were near Sakusa you had the urge to throw up your innards despite having an empty stomach.

You don’t notice the dangerous gaze on your behind as you pick up the phone for your take-out.

Sakusa hasn’t felt you in a long time and it’s driving him insane, he wants to feel your heat, your body, and everything in between. He wants to fill you up and see you pregnant with his children. He wants everyone in the world to know you were his and his only.

Yet he can’t do that.

You’ve ignored his affections these past few weeks and it had been driving him insane to the point where he had to ask one of his men to put an eye on you to see if you had been cheating on him or seeing someone else.

Yet you hadn’t.

Your routine was the same old one and Sakusa is digging his nails deeply into his skin in his office one day with his tie uncharacteristically untied. Miya Atsumu sits across him, taking a sip from his flask, “Ya look like shit.” the blonde points out.

“Fuck off, Miya.”

“Heard from your cousin that you’re not getting laid by your girl these days.”

“You better be thankful that you’ve got men behind you or I’d be shooting your fucking brains out for saying that.” Sakusa spats, his dark gaze pointedly looking at the blonde across him.

“You should just find someone else then and not yer prude of a-”

“Keep telling me ideas like that and maybe I might just shoot you and chop your body up until it looks fuckin’ unrecognizable.”

Atsumu raises his hands up, signaling that he was giving up, “Gee, omi-omi. I was just giving my advise. It’s so easy to drop her.”

“I don’t want to drop what’s mine.”

“You’ve got issues.” He chuckles, “Haven’t you been switching out her pills and fucking her raw for the last couple of months? I bet yer ass you got her pregnant on that before but ya just don’t know it. Getting her pregnant would definitely secure her spot in her life. Woman’s nuthin’ without ya.”

“She’s...she’s not showing…”

“When was the last time ya two went at it?”

“Two months ago.”

“Ya poor boy.” Atsumu sighs, shaking his head, “Ya sure you don’t want to take a break from being a loyal boyfriend for one night? i bet Y/N wouldn’t notice.”

“And no one would notice if you fucking disappeared. I’ll make sure of it, now get out.”

You may not have been the sharpest tool on the shed but you know that someone’s been tailing you these past few days, you’re not stupid. You could only come to the conclusion that it was Sakusa who was doing such things but you couldn’t get why.

Something just didn’t make sense. It felt like you were missing an important piece in the puzzle, med-aide and the switch of your pills and now a hidden tail?

You furrow your brows together in deep thought  as you sat down next to a teenage boy on his phone, you decided to take the bus today to the grocery store, surprisingly the one tailing you wasn’t around today.

Your eyes slowly shift towards the boy’s phone, it seemed like he was playing a video game.

An otome game, to be exact.

You felt your lips twitch up, you remembered those games a lot growing up. The graphics seem to have massively improved now by the looks of it, “...That looks interesting.” You tell the teenage boy who turns to you in surprise.

“Oh, thanks.” the blonde replied quietly.

“Is that a new otome game?”

“Kind of.” He blinks, his gaze returning back to the screen,  “It’s sort of a remake of the yandere simulator from back then.”

You feel your shoulders tense up.

“A yandere?”

“Yeah.” The blonde nods, “The girl’s awfully creepy in the game, she stalks him, does things to get him. The player has to catch her in the act and evade her at the same time.”

“Oh…” You blink, “I-uh, this is weird… but what’s a yandere again?’

“It’s someone obsessively in love with you. They’ll do anything to have you stay by them.” He says, pushing on a button but suddenly the screen turns red and you feel shivers run down your spine as you hear him curse and the words ‘you’re caught’ appear on the screen.

“W-what happened to your character?”

“He died. Nothing much.” he mumbles, “If the Yandere knows they can’t have you, they’ll kill you.”

You immediately went pale as soon as you heard that. Maybe, just maybe you were being paranoid. He wouldn’t go to that extent, would he?

“How did your character escape the yandere in the game?” 

“Well, I haven’t finished the game yet but based on some anime’s and manga’s I've usually read. They either killed to get away or they moved so far away where they wouldn’t be seen so I think the creator might have the same ending.” The blonde said, he slowly looked to your side, “You’re looking awfully pale, ma’am. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, j-just remembered a horrible game I played back when I was your age.” You gulped in, “Nightmares, you know? The yandere tried to get my character pregnant and tried to get in her way of moving out of the country.”

“Sounds like a very realistic one.”  He mumbles, “What did your character do?”

“I wasn’t able to finish it.” you whispered, loud enough for him to only hear, “I couldn’t really find a way out.”

“The developers of the game must’ve made it hard for you. Maybe your character should’ve ran away,” he advised, “Or better yet, you should’ve killed him.”

“I-well, I don't think there were options like that.”

“Well if I were you and there was no option for killing, I’d run. Far, far away. Change my identity and all that.” he exits the game and stuffs the phone back in his pocket, you get a good look of his cat-like eyes and immediately feel a shiver on your spine with the next words he say, “I mean its a game but you wouldn’t wanna loose and get your character killed, right?”

“R-right.”

The teenage boy hops down without even saying goodbye and you have a scary realization that you can’t break it off like you originally had planned. You needed to run, run far as you can and get lost.

The words that the teenage boy says echoes in your head for the next few days, from that point on, realization dawns upon you that, nothing is certain now. You couldn’t trust anyone, you couldn’t let friends and family be involved in this. Sakusa Kiyoomi is a powerful man so you needed to be careful with how you were going to disappear.

You continue to act nonchalant and the same as you try to lay out your plan but you knew that you had only a week or so to complete this for it to successfully work.

Sakusa Kiyoomi wonders what he should do to save the relationship, he’s tried everything in the book that he could think of but you remained the same. Was this the end of the relationship? For real?

He could never stomach the idea of having you leave him.

It’s eerie that day, something felt different when he came home to an empty apartment. It looked the same yet something felt very, very different. Apparently the apartment guards said you were here since your car hadn’t left the driveway and they hadn’t seen you go out.

He checks out your side of the closet, your clothes remain there untouched and your toiletries were there too. He scans the fridge for your notes but nothing is stuck there. He suddenly feels like something cold was dumped on him.

It couldn’t be, right?

Right?

He runs to every room, checking every nook and cranny and when he finally reaches the last room which was the bathroom, nothing is there.

Everything was in its place except you.

Where were you?

Your bank account remains untouched, your wallet and phone was left in the apartment. It was as if you were returning home, the very least. Komori tells him to calm down, saying that they’re letting the best people find you around the city, they don’t rule out that someone might’ve had the audacity to touch you.

Whoever took you would be given hell to pay, that’s for sure. Was it the triad? Kkangpae’s? Or opposing yakuza’s? Oh, they’ll definitely have their heads on the platter if they tried to harm a single hair on your head.

Sakusa doesn’t even hesitate to notify the police about you already despite the memorandum that twenty-four hours is needed to consider a person missing, it's nothing a little money can fix.

“I hope we find her soon.” Your aunt sighed, “I’ve notified her parents about it. It’s definitely weird that she’d leave all her valuables behind.”

Hinata and Natsu sit there next to their mom, completely sad and worried, “I’ve hired the best people for it already, obaasan. We’ll find Y/N.” Sakusa replies yet his thoughts are in a complete frenzy now.

And find you they did.

No stone was left unturned. He made sure of it. Yet after a month of relentless searching. Nothing came up, it seemed like you had just vanished and Sakusa Kiyoomi had turned the whole underground world upside down for you but nothing came up.

Some say that you disappeared and ran away but that was immediately ruled out, no security cameras saw you in and out during that day and it would be impossible for you to just leave without security cameras on you. The guard had exclaimed that despite the blackout that day, the generators only took a few minutes to power up so they’d definitely catch you on camera in case you ever exited the building (along with the guards since they knew exactly what you looked liked) plus the clothes and such were still there, left untouched.

Some said you died, it was definitely impossible for you to just vanish without a single trace after all since everyone was looking for you.

Yet no one dared to say it in front of the boss, not if they valued their life.

The billionaire had dried out his connections to find you. What good was it to be the most powerful and richest man in the country if he couldn’t find you? Life had no meaning now, you were gone. It felt like a part of him was ceasing to function.

Sakusa Kiyoomi was a dead man walking now.

Unknown to the whole world, you’re in a small town with little to no signal. Your hair is chopped unevenly and your skin is darker from the repeated exposure under the sun, your life is simple and mundane now yet you’re happy.

For the first time in months, you actually felt free.

You shut your eyes tight, the events that transpired this past few months replayed  in your head. Your escape was definitely done as carefully as you can and you didn’t even know if you’d succeed since you weren’t a master in that sort of thing.

You recalled that it was a week before you ran away, a few days after you met that kid in the bus. Someone from the electric company had come to inform you that there was a scheduled black out in the city that day during the afternoon and you felt something bubble up in you. That was the day you’d put your plan into motion.

You knew that the longer you delayed your plan, the harder it would be to escape.

You had a few minutes to actually put your plan to work. The camera’s on the hallways would cease to function for a few minutes according to the guard downstairs as he did a protocol on the building (apparently the generators were quick). So that morning after Sakusa left, you placed only a few clothes and the stash of money you had been carefully hiding in a garbage bag and chopped your hair short in an uneven manner. Burning all the remaining hair on the fireplace and the black hair color that you use with it. The maid uniform that you stole on your floor and a fake name plate that you made was on and you were good to go.

The minute the black out started, you took the garbage bag and walked out. Taking the stairway used by the caretakers, you made sure to just look down and never directly up at the camera’s pretending to work.

When you finally made it out of your building. You let out a stiff sigh and put down the bag, it was only the beginning. If you thought the same way as Sakusa Kiyoomi, you could only imagine that you needed to be more careful from this point on.

You take the newly bought duffel bag that you strategically hid behind some boxes. Thankfully when you had placed it yesterday afternoon, it hadn’t been touched. 

You put on a pair of shorts and a baggy shirt with cheap shades and stuffed the maid uniform in the duffel bag along with your belongings in the garbage bag. You take the other route that led to the busy streets. It was easy to look like a tourist and seemingly blend in the crowd, from that point on, you only had one destination in mind.

When you were younger, you vividly remember an acquaintance telling you about this small town outside of Tokyo where her grandparents were from. It was only an hour away via plane and when you went down another few hours via bus yet if you took the bus route all in all, it would take a few days.

Since it was far, only a few busses actually went there and since you had to leave within the day, you decided to just take the bus nearest to that town and take another bus when you arrived there.

The plan smooth-sailed from that point on.

Except for one minor detail.

You open your eyes and look down at your now small bump. The monster who almost had you trapped left a parting gift, you grip your garden hoe tightly.

A big part of you wanted to kill it.

Yet every time you try to, you hesitate.

The moment you arrived here, you had to pretend to be a weary and poor widow. You just didn’t expect to be a weary and poor expecting widow. You let out an uncharted sigh at the thought, it was hard enough to be alone here with little to no money. 

This child had the demon’s blood in it.

Yes, you may have gone free from his cage but in truth with his seed growing in your stomach day by day, you started to feel quite the opposite.

taglist [thanks for your support ilyasm skkss im so sorry for updating late too :(]

@maraudusk ;; @iamnotobsessed  ;;  @ssuna ;; @weebartistinc ;; @aomineavenue ;; @tsukkismamagucci ;; @onlyshinji ;; @ichiraku-verse ;; @watevermelon ;; @victoriasee ;;  @caramelcandescence ;; @n-nara ;; @bloody-bella ;; @ricefarmerkita​ ;; @paripedia ;; @srhlsx ;; @craftyfawns ;; @kepchups ;; @soggycardboardd ;;  @vinnieluv ;; @dinablossom ;; @yourstruly-01 ;; @shinhiromi ;; @dinablossom ;; @kneecotinee ;;  @vicassa ;; @ahoeforshouto ;; @benimarus-main-mop​ ;; @atsunakaashi​ ;; @myaaa-xoxoxox​ ;;  @newfriendjen​​ ;; @usedcoupon​

@kn0xiousnight  

[can’t tag you guys uwu just make sure ur tags are open :<]

[iaintyourbro]

The Unknown Journey Continues

Part 1

I know it's been a while... but I've been going down a rabbit hole with @starlight-samurai regarding time loops, Jenova, Minerva, and more fun. So I figured I'd try to put it into one post to get the insanity out of my head. Everything in here is based on things we've found by either going through more obscure Ultimanias, learning more about Dirge of Cerberus and trying to decipher what the hell Jenova is by putting together various sources - including other Square Enix games - and how they handled freakishly similar scenarios.

Did you know there is a companion mobile game for it that was out on the good old flip phones? Did you know there was an online mode in Dirge of Cerberus only available in Japan, but had story elements that were not in the main game?

The sad part is, there's still so much to go through...

(I've also had various discussions with @ourfinalheaven, Manu, who doesn't have Tumblr, so here is her Twitter. and Somebody's Nightmare (here is her Twitter). So I wanted to tag them here, as it's much more fun to discuss these ideas as a group, since it'll only help you build on and strengthen your own ideas.)

Please be aware, there will be Spoilers for FFVII - Almost all Compilation titles, Xenogears, and NieR Automata throughout this.

So let's go on a journey where we explore what actually already exists in the compilation - including the idea of the whispers and timeloops - how Minerva may play into everything, and what exactly Jenova is capable of doing.

I asked Sesi if he'd ever played any of the NieR games, because he'd said something that made me wonder if they were going to take a similar approach. As a very, very quick high level summary: NieR Automata deals with a time loop type of idea. The androids will be rebooted and repeat the same things over and over again. This is broken when 2B is killed by A2 because she becomes infected with a virus. That being said, you have the option after Ending E to either erase all of your data and end the cycle OR you can try again. The Pods have a discussion, and one asks, "But won't they just do the same thing again?" and the other replies with "Maybe. But it could also be different this time."

Here's Sesi's message back to me when I asked him about this (cleaned up a bit since we were having a casual conversation over Discord):

Maybe I could just guess based comparatively on the Dirge storyline, because that was sort of SE's first flirtation with “robots and androids” since they’re all programmed and locked behind like task managers and shit that can shut them down. The story of the online mode for DoC that came out in Japan, we never got to see it, you’re basically an Android OC and you have to get to “the end of the level” and then essentially die, and a new one takes its place. This keeps happening until Weiss is essentially freed from being able to be task managed by the guys who are suppose to be able to control them and I know from tons of years with Square games that they’re verrrrry bad at differentiating their narratives they tend to just keep “ripping themselves off” so is it anything close to that?

Cuz if so I think I kinda know what you’re saying and yeah, I agree, I think with CC bringing in its poetic symbolism and LOVELESS, and DoC bringing back the cyclic nature of the lore, whispers, premonitions and future visions, proto-Materia and the perversion of this next cycle since the planet can no longer cleanse and protect itself and its will is weakening lesser and lesser to the point where it’s fate is “in a true sense of jeopardy This time essentially it’s all tied in together and sort of played as though it's a fated track; a cycle of events and something has hitched it, thus the whispers manifesting and Sephiroth's higher implied control over his destiny. Of course, even all that is just their new red herring game, but it’s definitely a part of the lore they want to play with, in order to go back and reMAKE the OG with the comp inserted from inception. Also gut punch a lot.

Time Loops

I was somewhat surprised to find out that this concept is NOT new to FFVII's universe. It's discussed in Dirge of Cerberus... probably one of the least played and least understood of the compilation. (Trying to sell a third person shooter with terrible controls to a market of mostly people used to turn-based combat wasn't going to go well.)

On top of it, we didn't even get all of it, since online mode was never released outside of Japan, and the Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode was on Amp'd Mobile and Verizon flip phones back in 2006. Were you around for the cell phones in 2006? I had the ones on the list, and how somebody could play a game on those blows my mind.

Square has a tendency to reuse themes from their other titles. Probably one of the most blatant is the similarities between Xenogears and Final Fantasy VII. They were both being developed at the same time and a lot of ideas that didn't make it into FFVII ended up in Xenogears.

NieR

So how does this work? In NieR (both Replicant and Automata), you play the same path multiple times. Each time, it's slightly different depending on what side quests you did your first and second playthrough, but there's also other subtle differences throughout the story. In Automata, you get to play as 2B your first playthrough and 9S for your second. They follow the same path, but you get it from his perspective the second time and it reveals a bit more of what is going on. However, even with some slight differences, the main plot points stay the same and the ending result it also the same.

Then on your third playthrough, you wake up in the Bunker, and you're getting ready to go on a new mission. This time, though, 2B is killed and shit hits the fan. Things get crazy, you play as a new character: A2. In the end, pretty much everyone "dies", but you can choose to "reboot" and try again. You also can say you are done and let them all rest and delete your save data (the game gives you the option for both Automata and Replicant, and with Replicant, it actually leads to a new ending).

The striking thing for me is... There are certain events that will always happen, no matter what.

Fixed Points in Time

It's been years since I've watched Doctor Who, but there was something that stuck with me, and that was the fixed points in time. You can read about all of them here, but here's the basics:

Now, of course Doctor Who goes into this with much more detail and it's a recurring theme. However, as you read through that page, you'll probably find many aspects that have been used in various JRPGs that you've played. And Doctor Who most likely pulled some of the idea from classic Science Fiction novels. Each story puts its own spin on it.

How does this relate to FFVII Remake? Well, when they say that the major plot points will stay the same, it reminds me of this. No matter what, Cloud must fall into the Sector 5 Church, the Sector 7 Plate must be dropped, Aerith and Zack both must die, and Meteor has to be summoned, to name a few. So, with a time loop, those things would still have to take place in order to prevent a complete collapse of reality (at least in how Doctor Who uses it).

Therefore, the Whispers are ensuring that the Will of the Planet is followed.

One of the major themes in FFVII is that of loss. People die and they do not come back. Yes, other FF games do allow this to happen (FFX, FFXIII, FFXV), but VII is not those games. It was written with that idea in mind, that once a person dies, they, just like in real life, are dead and cannot be brought back.

I've previously written that I think they'll make us believe we are able to change fate, but we will eventually be slammed with the reality that we can't. That is because the planet has determined that certain events are fixed points.

Xenogears

Xenogears takes a bit of a different approach to the loop idea. Instead of repeating the same time period over and over, it has the characters reincarnated, and the same outcome happens each time: Elly dies. However, each time it's different. After all, they're in various time periods, in some cases thousands of years apart.

In all of the lives of Fei (who will have a different name in each time period) and Elly (who is always Elly/Elhaym), Elly will end up dying trying to protect Fei and the others. In one life, she is a religious figure at a totally not Catholic church, in another she's the wife of a scientist who was working to create children from nanomachines due to mass infertility issues. But she is ALWAYS with Fei, even if his name changes.

In her Mother Elhaym time, this is when Lacan (Fei) finally snaps. Though he's not fully aware of his past lives, he becomes aware, the anger consumes him, and he becomes Grahf. Fei is then reborn into the time period you play the game in.

There's a lot to unpack with this, so I won't go into it. Grahf wants to destroy God (Deus) because he thinks if he does, then it'll stop the suffering (his suffering).

If you do want to read more about Grahf, you can do so here, but it probably won't make much sense unless you've played Xenogears up to that point... Since it's much later in the game that this is all explained.

Lacan's desire was to stop the cycle of Elly always sacrificing herself for his sake. Though Grahf is not a perfect existence - he's not fully "The Contact", he sacrifices himself in order to let Fei move forward, and hopefully stop the cycle, by destroying the Deus system. (Elly also tries to sacrifice herself here, but Fei goes after her and stops her.)

Now, some people may think I'm saying that Cloud or somebody is going to do this in order to save Aerith or Zack (or his village or mom), but in FFVII if they do the loop method, I don't think Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and the others are aware of it. Most likely, it's only 'Sephiroth' and Aerith who are aware of it.

How this Could Be used for Final Fantasy VII

I'm stressing could because there's so many different possibilities on how they use this (if they are using this), so please, don't take this as fact. This is based on speculation based on what we know.

A time loop is a great way to explain away the differences in the story that we've seen: Biggs being alive, Wedge living for longer than he should have, etc. Since these are not major plot changes, they can simply say that this time it'll be slightly different... but your fixed points (major plot points) will remain the same.

It's a way to pull in some of the more obscure themes from Dirge of Cerberus and also play with the LOVELESS lore.

It could all simply be a big red herring and it's really just a remake of OG, but with the compilation tied together nicely... since it works much better when it's combined and not in 50 different games, books, movies, etc.

I don't think it's a "sequel" per say, not in the way I generally perceive a sequel. It's more of a loop of the same thing. The question is, when is the loop started and what will cause it to end? When will the planet (if it even is the planet) determine that it's good enough to begin moving forward?

JENOVA, Sephiroth, Genesis, and Minerva - Oh My!

Let's be real... Genesis isn't exactly the most popular character in the FFVII Compilation... but what if they make him one of the most important to the story? //Ducks as various fruits and vegetable are thrown in my direction//

I think what Genesis is probably most known for is his love of LOVELESS. He has the entire thing memorized and randomly says lines from it throughout Crisis Core. LOVELESS lore is still something I'm trying to grasp, so I am not going to comment much on it. Once I understand it more, I'll update this.

...And then this happens. The secret ending for Dirge of Cerberus, where Genesis picks up Weiss. Weiss, who has now been introduced along with Nero in FFVII INTERmission and is an optional ridiculously hard boss in the Shinra battle simulator in chapter 17 of the main story. There is some lore associated with the battle sim - so if you don't plan on beating it or you just can't, you can look up the pre-battle and post-battle cut scenes on YouTube. They're very short, but interesting. (I beat this asshole last night - it's a hell of a fight.)

....To Be Continued because apparently Tumblr won't allow more than 10 images per post now.... Next will be more on JENOVA and Sephiroth along with Minerva.

[fabdante]

Not to keep on with this but right so I made a post about Vergil and Bernini  and in that post I mentioned what art works and pieces I think represent the other parts of the DmC trio, Kat and Dante. And I just wanted to follow up on that with more focused posts because yall have no idea, I’m very into this whole thing.

First up: Dante

So Dante I go into a good deal in the Baroque essay already so some of this is a rehashing but I just wanted to go more in depth about Dante and Caravaggio’s Davids. 

(David and Goliath, 1599)

(David with the Head of Goliath, 1607)

(David with the Head of Goliath, 1610)

More about Dante, Caravaggio, and especially that last David under the cut! This one got a little long.

Ok so first things first, like discussed in the Baroque essay, Dante is Baroque and the game is based around Caravaggio’s Baroque to a point where many of his paintings are directly referenced. That last David in particular is referenced directly in the game. See below:

so I’m not really saying anything the game hasn’t really done itself here. Dante is the main character, he is represented by Baroque and Caravaggio. That’s his vibe, that’s the parallel. And it’s a very intentional one I mean in Talexi’s art book he discusses picking Caravaggio as an influence and the overlap between Dante’s whole deal and Caravaggio’s own. But I’m like really into Caravaggio’s David’s and want to talk about that and the neat way this plays with Dante’s whole deal so, let’s do it.

To quickly summarize Caravaggio and the background of his last David: Caravaggio was an angry guy who worked in Rome during the Baroque period until he killed a guy for Reasons (probably a bet, possibly a woman, possibly a tennis match or something, probably the bet). He gets kicked out of Rome, does some stuff (joins a knighthood? at some point then leaves the knighthood?), gets word that the pope wants to pardon him. He goes back to Rome with some art but dies on the way at the ripe age of 38. One of the paintings with him that makes it on this trip is the last David. 

What I like about Caravaggio’s David’s is how different they are then other David’s that come up in the art history canon. Just for comparison I’ll share the famous David but also Bernini’s David from the same time period.

(The David, Michelangelo)

(David, Benini. Pain to get a photo of s2g)

The first key difference is I mean, all three of Caravaggio’s David’s are wearing clothes which I think is neat in that I imagine he would be wearing those given the situation. But beyond that, what strikes me about Caravaggio’s David’s is their youth. In the biblical story, David is more the age Caravaggio consistently depicts him at. Which is about approximately preteen or teenage. The second thing that strikes me is the confidence and power displayed in Bernini and Michelangelo’s David’s evoke. But Caravaggio’s are not confident, not the way these one’s are. And especially that last one. 

Caravaggio’s David is unsure. He’s just done this thing, killed this man, but he doesn’t seem to have quite processed it in the first two. But in the third, he is processing it. And he’s not processing it well. This is a David who is unsure. This is a David who seems to pity the man who’s head he now holds by the hair. This is a David who is not strong and unwavering and confident and elegant, this is a child who just killed a man. This echo’s in the games interpretation of the scene, that same worry echoing in Dante’s brow that’s in Caravaggio’s. It’s a sympathetic David in that he seems to be unsure if this choice was worth the personal toll but also in the sense that the viewer is sympathetic to him, they feel bad for this child who has just been forced to make this choice. 

Reboot Dante’s life is not one about choice, it’s not really something he seems to be able to do often. Sparda put him into the orphanage and the orphanage put Dante into the foster care system. And ever since then Dante has had to fight. Not by choice, but by necessity. It show’s in his combat style, in his clearly untrained movements focused on power and strength rather then tactics. Vergil, if you watch him fight, he’s much more elegant, his style reflecting practice and technique. Dante, though, throws everything into his movements to kill as fast as possible. That if he just swings hard enough, this’ll all be over faster. He even stumbles in his combat because he’s put so much power into his swings, it’s my favorite little detail. 

In the game, it’s mentioned that Dante’s first recorded demon kill was when he was eight years old. It was one of the ‘caretakers’ at the facility he was in. I often wonder if that’s the moment that they were trying to depict in this image, the moment after that. I'm not really sold that he looks eight here but I mean you be the judge of that but bare with me. It’s the mood, that moment right after he’s been forced to enter his new reality for the first time. That he is going to have to fight like this the rest of his life. That bewilderment and regret and just general disbelief that he’s done this, that he’s just killed something. That sorrow for the Dante he was before, like that sorrow that David must be feeling for who he was before as well. 

But there’s a second layer here I haven’t gotten to yet. And that’s how Caravaggio’s David is also thought to be a self portrait. No, he’s not David. Caravaggio has painted himself as Goliath. A portrait of Caravaggio for reference: 

(Caravaggio as depicted by Ottavio Leoni in 1621)

Usually this is read as a tongue and cheek thing to the pope, like Caravaggio is offering himself in the ultimate repentance for his crimes. He’s sorry, here’s his head on a platter. But there’s something about it being a self portrait coupled with David’s pity for this Goliath that feels kinda...sad in a way. 

Further context to this is Caravaggio, on the run or not, did not have a studio. He was a solo artist, which is a bit odd for the period at his level. He did not take students, so his techniques died with him. No one else worked on his paintings, they’re all by his hand. This in particular David was not commissioned either, it was done as a gift. So this was a deliberate thing entirely thought through by him, painting himself as Golith, painting David so full of pity and grief. 

It’s sort of this idea of pity for the monster when you yourself are the monster as well as a sort of self hatred. Which reboot Dante is familiar with. Either Dante, preboot or reboot, kind of has this arc about trying to cope with being half demon while hating being half demon. It’s not a part of himself that he likes. The reboot goes further with this though because he doesn’t even have the solace of being half human, he’s also half angel. Reboot Dante goes from seeing himself as a human being to being told no, your not, your the things that you hate and it’s your job to protect people anyway. You are both the out of control monster and a threat, but also their protector. 

In either reboot or preboot this isn’t like the most explicit character beat, though it does come up. In the reboot we see it peak through in moments like Dante’s interactions with Phineas. The ‘my father was a demon and I’m nothing like him’ mentality. The reboot makes this more pressing to in that like, the reboot makes it clear that demons are not a hive mind. While they seem to vary in intelligence and free will and all that, the game does not imply that Phineas and Sparda are alone in their grievances where as the preboot paints demons like Sparda and Trish as complete oddities. But part of either Dante’s rejection of Sparda is always rooted in ‘Sparda is a demon, and I’m nothing like the demons.’

This is interesting in the reboot because, unlike Vergil, reboot Dante is always visually contrasted with demon imagery. His world is very red. His color is red. The colors on him, even the blacks and grays, are warm tones. His devil trigger is designed in such a way that the abundance of reds in it are even more prominent then his initial design. The only time he’s not is the scene with the graffiti where he’s positioned on the side with the angels. But visually it’s still made clear. Dante is the demonic twin, Vergil more angelic. On top of that, characters in the reboot love to point out how Dante reminds them of Sparda. Phineas does it and Mundus really does it (the ‘just like your father, too big for your fucking boots’ line). Which further puts Dante at odds with his identity. As much as he thinks he is nothing like Sparda, he’s his fathers son. He’s the demon half of this twin relationship. 

I think to like Caravaggio’s David’s just...they don’t want to do this. They’re just kids. They don’t want to kill their Goliaths. But they have to. Which is the spot we see reboot Dante in. He doesn’t want to save the world. He doesn’t want to fight for his life as often as he does. He doesn’t want this. But he has to do it. He might say he doesn’t give a shit, but what’s his choice? When has he ever had a choice? He’s the unwilling savior.

This runs through the game to. Dante doesn’t really want to be here. He makes that clear a lot. And his bravado is constantly a cover to keep him from being too vulnerable, too exposed. But it’s that last fight with Vergil where it all falls apart. He did this because Vergil asked him to, and Vergil didn’t even tell him the truth. And just like everything else, Dante doesn’t want to kill Vergil. He doesn’t want to fight him. But he’s provoked him anyway and got himself in this fight and he can’t let Vergil take the throne. David can’t just let Goliath go.

It’s the end of the game where we finally have Dante completely free of his walls and completely bare and entirely unaware of who he is and what he’s supposed to do next. It’s the same sort of vulnerability that I feel is abundant in that last David. Who is he now after all of this? Does he like this person? What’s he to do now that he knows what he’s capable of, knows what he’s done?

What makes him any different then this head in his hands?

[bigskydreaming]

Okay, long time followers will probably remember having read this, but I can’t find the original post and I’m trying to like.....force-reboot/jumpstart me working on my ‘Kings of the Sky’ AU again because I haven’t touched it in awhile and I have like literally eight different installments in various stages of completion and that’s ridiculous even for me. So here’s a repost of the first part of “Teachable Moments” the canon-divergence point of that AU series, where Jason calls Dick for advice after the Garzonas case and everything changes from there.

******

The way Jason Todd warily eyed the device in his hand, one might think it was an instrument of great and terrible destructive power, rather than just…his own personal cell-phone.

To be fair, he was Robin, and pretty used to the idea that even the most unlikely of things could be used for evil in Gotham. It could’ve been stolen and replaced at some point by a henchperson of Mr. Freeze, and using it could unleash some kind of cryogenic freeze ray that would turn him into a Robinsicle. Mad Hatter could be up to shit again, and dialing the phone at this very minute might mean syncing it up with a remote radio signal that would override his natural brainwaves and turn him into Tetch’s mindless minion of like…doom and stuff. Or…or…

Or sometimes, even in Gotham a phone is just a phone, and Freud is still a dumbass. And neither of the above possibilities had anything to do with why Jason was being a giant freaking pansy about entering the last digit of the phone number he would never ever admit to having had memorized for months now.

Nightwing had said to call if he ever needed to talk. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t actually want Jason to call, right? Like, its not as if Jason had remotely been expecting him to do that, so its not the sort of thing someone did just because it was ‘expected’ or shit. He was pretty sure. Rich people manners were weird though. Had to factor that in.

But Nightwing had also even made a point to say not talking to people about stuff was Bruce’s problem and that Jason shouldn’t let it be his problem too, and even though months ago Jason had been a starry-eyed dumbass who was totally drunk on the Bruce is the Bestest Kool-Aid or whatever, ‘Wing had definitely known what he was talking about there. So maybe he’d get it, and having this conversation with him wouldn’t be. Like. The actual worst idea in the history of ever.

Deductive logic said that Jason was getting worked up over nothing and there was no rational reason for him to be this nervous about dialing a fucking phone number. And he’d gotten pretty good at the whole deduction shit, given all the work he and Bruce had put into training his mind to view the world through entirely new paradigms, so Jason was pretty sure his math on that checked out. But on the other hand, Bruce was a hypocritical asshat that Jason was currently not speaking to, so what the fuck did he know about anything?

Aaaaand he was back to square one. Well damn. This was excellent. Very productive. Good hustle out there, Jay.

Sighing gustily, Jason flopped back on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and trying to pretend he hadn’t gotten used to how luxurious and cushion-y his ridiculously expensive mattress was. He’d gotten soft, he told himself. Then he scoffed at the idea that the past year and a half of rigorous Robin training and patrols had made him less tough than the pipsqueak he’d been back when living on the street, getting his ass kicked by bigger and badder on the regular. That hadn’t been hardness, that had been bravado.

But it had gotten him this far in life, so maybe there was something to be said for it after all?

Ugh. Decisions were hard. He objected on principle. He also really wanted to understand why he was this nervous…if he could literally fill the guy’s shoes and kick supervillain ass as Robin, what freaking sense did it make that he couldn’t even call him up on the phone?

Maybe you just know better than to ask him questions you don’t really want to hear his answer to, a smug voice said in the back of his mind. It sounded suspiciously like Willis Todd, which was all kinds of weird and fucked up, cuz Jason was damn sure his abusive a-hole of a deadbeat dad had never said anything that insightful in his life.

Which meant it was his own screwed up subconscious - presenting in the voice of his not so dearly departed douchebag dad, no less - that had Jason reacting out of spite, entering the last number and hitting Talk, all while totally on autopilot. Because apparently we’re all making healthy life choices in this Chili’s tonight, Jason snickered somewhat hysterically while his phone rang once, twice, three times.

Ugh. Was he always this fucked up in the head and he just never noticed, or was it a side effect of running around rooftops in a cape. Inquiring minds wanted to know.

“Hello?” Someone said then, answering on the fourth ring. Jason sat bolt upright, his nervous humor vanishing as quickly and unexpectedly as it’d hijacked him in the first place. For all that he’d only actually interacted with the older man a few times, his voice was instantly recognizable. As was his slight confusion.

Right. Because why would Nightwing have the untraceable number of the latest burner phone Bruce had given Jason, when the ever paranoid Bat had him swapping out phones every freaking week? Duh, Jay.

“Uh, its me,” Jason said hastily, as if he could somehow catch up to and overtake the epically long ten second silence he let lapse before his mouth started making words again. “Jason?”

“Jaybird! Hey! What’s going on?” The older vigilante’s tone instantly morphed into one of surprised delight, so apparent even across the phone that Jason actually pulled it away from his ear and stared at it, as if that could explain Nightwing’s inexplicable giddiness. He’d literally only met the dude three times. Give or take a concussion he was forgetting about maybe? Weird.

Then again, the older man was a circus performer from birth. Might just be good at faking being super excited to hear from people? Whatever. Still weird.

“Uh, you said to call if I was ever having, I dunno, issues with Bruce I guess? So I kinda had a question? I mean, if you’re not busy or anything.”

Just one question? Willis’ voice asked snidely, echoing in time with the rapid tripartite beat of Jason’s heart. Since apparently everything Jason said was trying to come out with a question mark attached to the end of it at the moment. Ugh, fuck you, subconscious, Jason thought forcefully, even as he ransacked the recesses of his mind for that bravado he was thinking about earlier. It had to be in here somewhere…

“No worries dude, I’ve got time. Hit me!” Nightwing said cheerfully. His lighthearted cadences were so at odds with the sweat suddenly breaking out on Jason’s forehead, the younger teen couldn’t help but wince in anticipation of its inevitable change once he got his actual question out. This was a bad idea, he decided, way too fucking late for it to make a difference. He had a hunch Nightwing wouldn’t be content to ‘just forget it’ or whatever even if Jason chickened out now.

So he took a deep breath, shrugged and did what Jason Todd did best. Said fuck it, put pedal to the metal, and drove at full speed for the metaphorical police barricade that was his way of picturing all the things telling him He Should Definitely Just Not.

“Do you think I’m someone who could kill somebody in like, cold blood?”

Aaaaand there went the lightheartedness. Well, he’d definitely stone cold killed that, Jason thought grimly into the silence that followed.

“Huh,” Nightwing said at last. “You’re gonna have to give me a second to switch gears here, Jay. I was kinda expecting something along the lines of ‘how do I avoid Bruce giving me the safe sex talk.’”

Jason flushed and nodded jerkily, not that the older man could see it. Still, it’d been enough of a workout just getting to this point. He didn’t trust what might come out of his mouth next if he kept trying to force it. Thankfully Nightwing didn’t make him wait too long before continuing.

“I think anyone’s capable of killing somebody in the right circumstances,” Jason’s predecessor began carefully. Except that was not remotely what he wanted to hear. Or helpful.

“I’m not looking for platitudes,” Jason grit out, not angry at the other vigilante so much as the whole fucked up mess and his inability to think about anything else at this point. “It’s just a simple fucking question. You’ve met me, do you think like, I’d be capable of just killing somebody or not.”

“I’m not offering platitudes,” Nightwing continued calmly, as if he wasn’t phased by the younger boy’s interruption or sudden aggression at all. “And its not a simple question at all. Speaking from experience, most people wouldn’t think of an eight year old as a cold-blooded killer, but that’s what I could have been if Bruce hadn’t stopped me from killing my parents’ murderer when I first tracked him down. And yet that’s still totally different from when I held a gun on Two-Face barely a couple years later, about to shoot him because somebody else told me to, and because I wanted to hurt him like he’d hurt me. Wouldn’t you agree those are two different situations and two different ‘kinds’ of cold-blooded killer? Context is kinda a big deal here.”

Huh. First off…what the fuck? Jason stared blankly up at the ceiling, trying to hurry up the processing functions of his brain because, again, what the fuck? He was like ninety nine percent positive none of that had been in the Dick Grayson Is The Greatest and Here Are All The Reasons Why brochure he’d had read to him every time someone new found out he was Wayne’s newest stray, and like. Uh. Yeah, that part would have definitely stood out. Because once more, with feeling:

“What the fuck?”

Oops. That hadn’t been supposed to be out loud. Bad mouth. Bad.

Nightwing just did a weird kinda half laugh half sigh combo. Rueful, Jason would describe it, if he were describing it to someone else, which it kind of felt like he was, relaying the conversation to himself now that it’d taken a hard right turn into the surreal.

“Blindsided you with that, huh? Sorry, should’ve figured neither of those are the kinda stories Bruce would want to share with you. Then again, I don’t really have any idea what Bruce has told you about me.”

“Not much,” Jason admitted. Which was a major source of irritation, if he was being honest. The much sung praises of Dick Grayson came from literally everyone he met except for Bruce. Who usually just got a pinched expression whenever Jason brought him up, and a rapid subject change that was not nearly as subtle as Bruce seemed to think it was.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Nightwing sighed. “I hope you haven’t put too much stock in anything else you’ve heard about me then. I’ll admit to a bad habit of enjoying my mystique, so secondhand hearsay tends to lose my best nuances.”

Despite himself, Jason’s lips curved up and he let out a rueful huff of his own. “I mean, this definitely isn’t where I saw this conversation going.”

The older man chuckled. “Thought I was going to just assume the worst and chuck the book at you?”

“Well. Yeah.” Jason shrugged, even though he knew it wouldn’t come across. “Bruce did.”

Nightwing heaved an exasperated breath. “Yeah, that’s kinda the thing about B. Sometimes, he’s great. Other times, he’s an ass. Its kinda an either or thing. He’s never really mastered the art of finding a midpoint between two extremes. Mostly because he’s never seen the point of aiming for middle ground.”

“Well its not like he’s ever really had to,” Jason griped. It just slipped out before he could stop it, leaving him feeling guilty for bad-mouthing B when he wasn’t around to defend himself. Especially since he knew Nightwing wasn’t the guy’s biggest fan these days. But he couldn’t deny it also felt good, in a way.

To his surprise, Nightwing just laughed. And not even in a malicious, spiteful kind of way, but almost relieved.

“God, thank you. You’d think that ‘hey, so my billionaire guardian kinda has entitlement issues’ would be a water is wet kind of revelation, but try saying something like that to pretty much anyone else…”

“And they look at you like you’re an ungrateful asshole?” Jason finished for him. Not that he’d ever actually tried saying that to anyone before, though he’d definitely thought it a time or two. But he could all too easily imagine the reactions he’d get, which was pretty much why he’d never gone so far as to speak the words.

“Yup,” Nightwing drawled, dragging out the p and popping it with emphasis. “And its not about being grateful or not, its just…there are some parts of everyone that just aren’t up for grabs, for other people to weigh in on or take charge of, you know? And a lot of people just don’t get that…because nobody’s ever tried it with them, or had to deal with expectations that…overstep, let’s call it?”

“Is that why you left?”

Jason winced the second it left his mouth. Too far. Definitely way too far, but he’d just gotten unexpectedly comfortable with the back and forth, and now he’d done the overstepping thing himself and was left with just dead air.

But ten seconds of heavy silence stretched into twenty, and went no further, as Nightwing sighed into his side of the phone again.

“The spiteful part of me wants to say it was more of a push than me just up and leaving,” he laughed again, but this time with unmistakable bitterness. “But even while that’s true, its not really the right answer to your question, because no matter how much of a clusterfuck that was at the time, its not…I mean, I knew at the time how to fix it. Where and how I needed to cave in order to make up with him and let things get back not quite to normal, but at least close enough.”

The pause wasn’t as heavy or tense this time, as Jason could almost sense the older man gathering his thoughts, trying to put them into words. He bit his lip rather than risk any more unexpected utterances escaping. This might not have been where he’d thought his phone call would lead, but now that he was here, hearing the answers to questions he’d wanted to ask for over a year and finding them almost comfortably familiar, he wasn’t going to risk distracting Nightwing or shutting him up for well. Anything.

“But it would have meant me caving. Settling in ways that I just…couldn’t. So in a way, yeah, I did leave, it was still my choice. And all of that was definitely a big part of it. I love Bruce, I do. I just couldn’t live with him anymore. Not without feeling like I had to give up my own autonomy and just be what he wanted. Or what he’d expected me to grow up to be, back when he first took me in. And as grateful as I am to him for that, I can’t honestly say I would have stuck around back then if I knew that was the price tag attached. I’m not…I don’t do well with people trying to force me to stick to one place, one thing. I was born on the road, you know? When I was a kid, I expected to spend the rest of my life living like that. Home was people. Not places. And so Gotham…its never fit me quite right, the way it does him, or even Barbara. Its not like I was miserable there, its just.”

“It wouldn’t have been your first choice,” Jason finished again, quietly. There was silence again for awhile.

“No. No, it wouldn’t have been. Not then.”

[pokelec]

A Dead By Daylight Novice Reviews All the Killers' Trailers (and makes suggestions for what they'd change)

Reveal trailers are paramount for an audience's first look at new characters. First impressions are everything, so your trailer for your shiny new character needs to be perfect for what's in store for the video game! I started playing DBD a month-ish ago but watched all the trailers for the killers before I started playing, and watching some of them got me to thinking about how I would have changes some of the trailers. Some require no changes, while others I think need an overhaul.

Disclaimer: This is in my personal opinion, is not objective at all, and I'm only doing this because this is something I've been thinking about for a month and need some sort of release or else my brain will implode.

Under a read more bc this gets long.

The Trapper - The first trailer! For a first trailer, I think this one is pretty spot on. It follows a lot of beats of slasher movies, in terms of following a survivor that's gonna be killed, her encountering dead bodies, and the suspense of the killer looking for her. Considering Dead by Daylight is effectively a playable horror movie, I think this is a perfect intro to the game. As for what this means for the Trapper, aka our Jason substitute, I think it showed him off alright! We saw his bear traps and got a good look at him doing this thing. Pretty good, all things considered!

The Wraith - The Wraith, Hillbilly, and Nurse all features gameplay as the means of showing off what the killers can do. The Wraith's isn't too bad, since it does show off his Wailing Bell power enough for people to understand "This is a killer that can turn invisible, and you may not know he's right next to you until it's too late". I wish it has a more cinematic style, but I'll be forgiving here because DBD was still young when this was made. I also thing it showed the new map, Autohaven, pretty well. I'm not too big of a fan of ending the trailer with his mori, but that could be because I don't find his mori exciting.

The Hillbilly - Next is our Leatherface expy! This one feels shorter, still using gameplay to introduce our new killer but at least shows off his chainsaw wielding and hints at the map associated with him. I like the shot of him revving his chainsaw underneath the tree with the animal carcasses! I don't mind the ending with his mori here because even if it's off screen, getting cut with a chainsaw is brutal enough to leave a lasting impression. Again, I wish it had the cinematic style, but it's fine.

The Nurse - I think the Nurse's trailer is the weakest of the three gameplay-focused trailers. The text intro is... fine, but I honestly think it fits the Doctor more. It does an okay job of showing us her Blinking mechanics, but it also doesn't? Like we see her teleporting to Nea, but it feels lackluster. I do like the ending shot of dead Nea as the Nurse just blinks away. I'm not quite sure how to change this trailer to be more effective in my opinion, if I'm being honest.

The Shape/Michael Myers - Our first franchise killer, and a perfect trailer. The first second in, we hear John Carpenter's legendary Halloween score. Even non-horror fans will quickly pick up which killer this is. The suspense of Laurie see Michael, Michael coming up the stairs, and especially the shot of Laurie and Michael being on opposite sides of a door is *chef's kiss*. We see enough of the Shape to be satisfied and eager for his release. It's the perfect trailer for him AND Laurie imo.

The Huntress - Ah, the Huntress. She is my favorite killer to play as, and I probably have the majority of my playtime on her. Unfortunately, I think her trailer leaves a lot to be desired. It's the start of the 'let's look at the killer from different angles, have them turn around to the camera, and then attack the viewer' trend of DBD trailers. I call for a complete rewrite! Here's what I would have done:

The map is Mother's Dwelling. Two survivors (David aaaand idk Dwight?) are running and hides behind some trees. We hear the Huntress's lullaby get louder, and we see the bottom half of her and her axe as she walks past the survivors. The lullaby gets quieter, and the survivors take a sigh of relief. Then, a hatchet is thrown and lodged into Dwight's head! David screams and runs. We then see our full look at the Huntress as she picks up the body. Her signature lullaby continues as the trailer ends.

The Hag - The Hag's trailer also follows a similar formula to the Huntress' trailer. There is an animation bump, so we get to see the Hag's emaciated appearance in full detail. I'm not too mad about that, since the Hag's appearance is unsettling enough to cause viewer distress and curiosity more than the Huntress' would. However, because this is a DBD original killer, we need to see what her deal is with her trailer. Thus, I propose this:

On the swamp, Ace is repairing a generator but hears another survivor (Dwight?) get hooked. Ace goes to rescue him, but we see as he steps on a rune in front of the poor survivor. The illusion of the Hag pops up, jumpscaring poor Ace (and the audience) but disappears. Ace then rescues Dwight for real, but Dwight quickly runs away. Why? Because the real Hag is behind Ace and lunges at him, biting his neck. Trailer ends.

The Doctor - I now realize that my taste in writing DBD trailers is 'have the survivor do a thing, they think the killer is near, they then relax, and only then are they attacked by the killer'. It's a bit stereotypical, but again, we're dealing with a game centered on the horror genre, so that's why I'm okay with it.

I mention this because that's effectively the story beats the the Doctor's trailer follows. Instead of attacking Feng, however, the Doctor just looks at her run and stares menacingly. Even though we don't see the Doctor's shock therapy powers here, I think the long look at the killer is still effective because of his design. A first reaction I (and other reactors) experienced went from the initial "OMG the killer is here, run girl!" to "Why tf are his own eyes and mouth held open like that A Clockwork Orange scene?!". We also don't linger for too long on him either, so I think this trailer works well enough.

The Cannibal/Leatherface - Another franchise killer, this time good ol Leatherface! This trailer is a little different, using text to draw up suspense. I do like the reveal of "What is his mask made of? YOU.", but I would've loved to have seen some actual Cannibal action, or at least his in-game model doing his Texas chainsaw massacring thing.

The Nightmare/Freddy Kruger - Oh, c'mon, we got one of the most well known characters in horror in this little video game, and all we get for his trailer is some scratch marks and a 'killer does nothing but stand there menacingly and attack the camera' trailer?! I do like the detail that when we see him, it's DBD's version of the dream world, but we could've at least featured a survivor falling asleep and then seeing him for themselves.

(Also kinda sad it's the reboot version of Freddy instead of the Wes Craven version and the survivor is Quentin instead of Nancy Freaking Thompson, but I guess we should be happy he's in the game at all)

The Pig - Largely, I think this trailer is pretty good. I'm not too big of a fan of Amanda just standing there menacingly near Dwight, but I do like everything else. I especially love the security camera shot of the famous Saw bathroom and the cutaway when Dwight's reverse bear trap activates (but we still see a good bit of gore!). It feels very Saw-like.

The Clown - This trailer is pretty good! Even though we don't see the Clown in much action, we get a lot of visual storytelling with the bottles, the circus, and the ring of fingers, all leading up to the reveal of his face. The diagetic music from Kate is a nice touch, too.

The Spirit - This one is alright. There is a lot of focus on Adam, but it does build up tension to when the Spirit reveals herself. My biggest problem with it is the ending card that is used for her. Yes, I know that's traditional for the end of these trailers, but her pose and expression is kinda meh after the face she makes when she's about to attack Adam. Seriously, that couple of seconds haunts me (sorry) otherwise.

The Legion - My other favorite killer to play! It's so funny how I didn't like Legion when I first heard of them but now they're my favorites. I love how the trailer emphasizes that the new killer(s) looks similar to survivors and the brutality of when Frank reveals himself and stabs Jeff. However, the trailer does a disservice to the other members of the Legion. C'mon, that's their whole shtick!

My recommendation would be to end with a shot of Julie, Joey, and Suzie joining Frank (and obviously getting a good look at them) and surrounding Jeff right before they all stab him. This is a little disingenuous since you can't play as all four of them at once (unless you count that one Blighted skin...), but you also can't disguise yourself as a survivor, so... Yeah. They are The Legion! They act as one! Treat them as such in their trailer, dammit!

The Plague - The Plague's trailer is interesting. Even though we don't see her in action, I think it's fine because seeing her puke on people during her trailer might be a bit off-putting. Just a bit. We still get some storytelling with her whispered prayers, the candles and incense thingy, and, of course, her face. I think because the Plague's design is inherently unique among all the killers so far, she can get away with the 'let's just tease the audience by looking at the killer and nothing else' trend.

The Ghost Face - Not too much I can complain about with this one. I do like the wtf factor of 'wait, why is a DBD trailer at a modern day warehouse???', especially if you're watching a trailer playlist like I first did. It all makes sense when you learn it's Ghost Face, though! Also, justice for that poor cashier.

The Demogorgon - RIP Stranger Things DLC. I don't watch this series, but I really like the Hawkins Lab map and I'm going to be sad when it's gone. :(

I love this trailer! When I hear the Stranger Things music, it actually gives me chills. I'm legitimately so sad the DLC will be gone from the stores, but I do own them myself. I need to actually sit down and play Demo, Steve, and Nancy one of these days. Why am I crying? No, I'm not kidding, why is this trailer making me cry? Renew the contract, Netflix, please! I don't want this stuff to disappear forever!

(Is it weird that I've been nagged on for years to watch Stranger Things but it's Dead By Daylight that's actually convincing me to watch it?)

The Oni - This is an interesting case. The "main" theme of this trailer is the contrast of modern day Japan's Yui and her motorcycle vs the literal ancient samurai Oni. I think it works out, and again, I think the presentation makes up for us not seeing too much of the new killer.

The Deathslinger - Oh boy, do I love my cowboys! This trailer is nearly perfect. We establish the western setting quickly over the sounds of some poor bastard in pain. The reeling in of the chains and the closeup of The Redeemer is so great. My biggest complaint with this trailer is that we linger a bit too long on the Deathslinger's face at the end. Yeah, he's creepy with his eyes and his disjointed jaw, but you can only look at a horror for so long before you want to move on.

The Executioner/Pyramid Head - I like this trailer! I haven't played Silent Hills, but I'm at least somewhat familiar with the premise and Pyramid Head. I love the shot of him passing the classroom door window and the sword cutting a rift through the ground. Yeah, my lack of SH knowledge makes me unable to recommend any changes here.

The Blight - I have no changes to suggest. The Blight's transformation is super horrific, reminding me of the typical depiction of Jekyll and Hyde. Honestly, he is so much more terrifying in his trailer and in lore than in gameplay.

The Twins - No changes needed. BHVR is really starting to hit their stride with these trailers! Seeing Victor come out of Charlotte's body is amazing.

The Trickster - We depart from all of the other trailers by using an K-POP music video style. It does a good job at referencing some of his story beats (namely torturing/killing people, recording their screams, and using them in his music), but it doesn't really make me afraid of the Trickster. Sure, it fits with his theme, but I would have preferred seeing more of him, y'know, instead of just looking pretty and making faces? I still wouldn't change the art style of the trailer, though. It's fitting enough for him and a breath of fresh air from the doom and gloom.

The Nemesis - No change needed, mostly because I'm not too familiar with the Resident Evil series, but seeing Jill, the twink Leon, and Nemesis on-screen is a very cool moment. Also can we get an F in chat for Meg?

The Cenobite/Pinhead - This is a perfect trailer. We got the Lament Configuration, we got the chains pinning up Dwight, we got Pinhead himself! What more can I ask for?

If you actually made it this far, thank for reading? I don't think I really contribute anything to the fandom with this analysis, but DBD has been living rent free in my brain for the past month, so I may as well write something, eh?

[ceaderblocks]

Like Real People Do

A collab with @mine-sara-sp ! She drew the amazing art for this fic ♡ 

Iskall was in the middle of working on Sahara with Mumbo when he realized a very important, completely out-of-the-blue fact.

Iskall had been hanging around Mumbo for years before realizing they had never done a redstone grind together. Sure, they had gone End Busting and raided the Nether together, but they had never once strip mined for redstone.

“What a waste!” Iskall said out loud, slamming a shulker box down on the ground with much more force then required.

“What’s a waste?” Mumbo startled, looking at Iskall after his sudden outburst.

“You are!” Iskall gestured to Mumbo with both arms. The redstoner looked offended, and then a little hurt.

“Well, I think my skills are valuable and contribute greatly-“

“No, no, no no no,” Iskall cut him off. “You’re a magnet to redstone. You always seem to mine a bazillion shulker boxes-“

“It’s easy to find!”

“-and it’s a waste I haven’t gone mining with you. If we go together, you’ll do your weird redstone-attraction thing, and I’ll be set for the season! Plus, I need more for Sahara anyways.”

“... Do we need to go right now?”

“Yes,” Iskall said cheerfully, placing his hands on his hips. “I accidentally broke the last repeater I had when I slammed that shulker box down.”

Fifteen minutes later, Mumbo and Iskall found themselves underground in a long, hollow strip mine.

“Alright,” Iskall rubbed his hands together. “Let’s get mining! I’ll take the left side, you take the right.”

“What?” Mumbo asked, scrunching his nose in confusion. “Why?”

Iskall stared at Mumbo for a moment.

“So we can spread out and quicken out chances of finding redstone?” Iskall said, suddenly uncertain of his plan.

“Oh, well there’s a vein three blocks down and to the right,” Mumbo said, pointing in the general area he had just stated.

“Dude, what.”

“Can’t you feel it?” Mumbo asked.

“No! Oh my god, Mumbo,” Iskall squished his friend’s face between his hands. “How much redstone have you inhaled to get this superpower?”

“Well- I mean- well, you know,” Mumbo stuttered, gesturing wildly.

“Can you do this for other blocks?” Iskall asked, Mumbo’s face still in his hands.

Mumbo shook his head. “Just redstone.”

“That’s insane!” Iskall said with a laugh, dropping his hands. “You might want to get Xisuma to check that out, it doesn’t seem right.”

“Oh,” Mumbo said, his face falling. It was news to him that other hermits couldn’t detect redstone. Iskall said it was wrong, but Mumbo, from his first memory, could always sense redstone.

“It’s alright dude,” Iskall said, and threw an arm around Mumbo’s shoulder. “I don’t think it's an immediate health concern. Plus, we still have redstone to get!”

Iskall patted Mumbo’s chest with his free hand, spun away from him and pulled out his pickaxe in one smooth motion.

“Let’s get mining!”

Mumbo agreed nervously and directed Iskall where the nearest vein of redstone was.

That night, covered in redstone, Mumbo sat on the edge of his bed, staring at his red shulker box. It hummed with power, and Mumbo could see the faint outline of the redstone dust wrapped in a bag. He wondered why no one else could see it too.

——

Grian stood in front of Mumbo’s witch farm, humming to himself. He needed some goldstone (and gunpowder), and decided to borrow some while Mumbo was AFK. The problem was Mumbo was AFK inside the witch farm, which threw a very large wrench in Grian’s plan.

“I can sneak around while he’s AFK! It’ll be fiiine.” Grian said to himself. “It’s not like he’s awake.”

With his pep-talk out of the way, Grian opened the door to the farm. He immediately gave a small scream as he came face-to-face with Mumbo, staring directly at him.

“Oh!” Grian gave a nervous laugh. “Hey Mumbo! I was just coming to borrow some glowstone!”

Mumbo didn’t respond. In fact, he didn’t react at all. Grian frowned.

“Uh, hello? Mumbo?” The builder waved his hand in front of Mumbo’s face. The redstoner stared on, unblinking.

“Oh! You’re AFK? Who AFK’s with their eyes open?” Grian asked. Leaning forwards, he frowned.

“Don’t your eyes get dry?” Grian asked. “You really are AFK. I can basically see the loading screen in your brain.”

Grian scoffed, and stood back. Then he frowned, and leaned forwards. Now that he was looking, there was something in Mumbo’s eyes. It didn’t seem like a reflection, either. As Grian looked closer, he could see three circles ellipsing themselves, moving constantly to create a sphere shape.

“Huh, it kinda looks like a screensaver,” Grian said, tilting his head and leaning in closer to admire Mumbo’s eyes.

“Kinda like NPC rebooting...” Grian muttered. He was much too close, their noses almost touching when Mumbo suddenly blinked, the sphere shrinking and being replaced with a pupil. Grian shrieked and jumped back, but Mumbo didn’t respond for a moment, robotically blinking again before giving his head a small shake, emotion returning to his face.

“Grian!” He said. “What’re you doing- hey, are you okay? You look kind of pale.”

“Oh! I, uh,” Grian waved his hands around, trying to come up with an excuse why he had been nose-to-nose with Mumbo. “I was, uh, stealing glowstone?”

“Oh, you just had to ask.” Mumbo said, unfazed.

“Wait, do you not…” Grian paused. Mumbo had a terrible poker face, and would tease Grian mercilessly about this interaction. But he wasn’t. It was almost like he wasn’t aware it had happened, which was impossible.

NPC sometimes takes a few moments to reboot and never remembers the first 5 seconds of waking up. A rogue thought in Grian’s head provided.

But NPC was a machine, and Mumbo was not, and Grian was a little thrown off by the whole thing.

“Gri?” Mumbo asked, looking concerned.

“You know what? I just remembered I had some at home. Bye!” Grian said hurriedly, snatching rockets from his inventory and flying off.

“What in the world was that?” Grian asked himself, a large frown on his face and worry in his mind. “People don’t need to reboot.”

——

The more Grian thought about his interaction, the more concerned he became. He knew how robots acted, and Mumbo was not a robot. Uncapping his marker, Grian set to work writing everything down on his large whiteboard.

Robotic Traits. He wrote, underlining the title.

Robotic Movements

Rebooting when AFK or offline

Monotone or simple emotions

Overly polite

Grian paused, and added a smaller bullet point under the last.

(except when trying to kill me or take over the server)

He started on his next list, switching to a red marker and drawing an arrow from each robotic point to an explanation of why Mumbo Jumbo couldn’t possibly be a robot.

Mumbo Jumbo

Robotic Motions -> He’s just lanky and exhausted most of the time

Rebooting when AFK or offline -> dissociation(?)

Monotone or simple emotions -> mumbo is deadpan

Overly Polite -> ???

(except when trying to kill me or take over the server)

Grian sighed. His answers weren’t very convincing to anyone, let alone his own paranoia. He had been killed and kidnapped by both NPC Grian and Robot Grian in the past, and he couldn’t get Mumbo’s AFK loading icon out of his head. What if Mumbo wasn’t really a robot, but had been replaced by his own copy? What if this mechanical copy of his friend was trying to overtake the server? What had it done with the real Mumbo?

How long had the real Mumbo been gone for?

“Dude,” Iskall said, breaking Grian out of his spiraling thoughts. “What is… this?”

“It’s, uh,” Grian paused, trying to think of an explanation. ���Well, I think Mumbo has been kidnapped and replaced by an evil machine counterpart.”

“...What?” Iskall said, letting out a nervous chuckle upon seeing how serious Grian was.

“No! Seriously!” Grian grabbed Iskall’s shoulders. “Listen, I’ve been replaced by robots many times in my past-”

“ You Have!?”

“-And I know what they act like! Seriously, Mumbo is always jerky and uncoordinated, just like Robot Grian. He’s suspiciously polite, almost like manners have been programmed into him! Plus I saw him wake up from AFK just a few hours ago, Iskall, it wasn’t natural. He rebooted.”

Iskall stared at him for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

“Well,” He finally settled on saying, gently removing Grian’s hands from his shoulders. “That certainly is a theory.”

“You don’t believe me?” Grian cried, wrapping his arms around his torso, clearly distressed.

“Woah, woah,” Iskall said, “It’s not that I don’t believe you! It would explain Mumbo’s weird redstone mining.”

“His what?”

“He can, like, see it through blocks. It was so strange. He could also feel it when it was deeper,” Iskall said, deep in thought. “It was very useful when we were mining it, but it was very odd.”

“Oh my god,” Grian muttered, and sat down on a nearby shulker box. “He’s a machine. Mumbo’s been replaced.”

“Oh Grian,” Iskall placed a comforting hand on Grian’s back. “Let’s not jump ahead, okay? Why don’t we get more information first?”

Grian brought his head from his hands and nodded in silent agreement. He just prayed that Mumbo wasn’t suffering like he had.

----

Embarrassingly enough, it took Mumbo almost a week to notice Grian’s silence and avoidance of him. No more Sahara meetings were called, and Grian often said the bare minimum to him. Uncomfortable, Mumbo brought it up to Iskall once while they worked on Sahara together.

“Hey Iskall?”

“Hmm?” his friend responded, chest deep in a shulker box.

“Is… Is Grian mad at me?”

Iskall’s head hit the top of the box, and he let out a short curse. “Why would you think that?”

“I feel like he’s been avoiding me. Since he swung by my witch farm last week, actually.” Mumbo said, frowning. If he said something that made Grian angry or uncomfortable, he wanted to apologize for it.

“Nah,” Iskall said with a lackluster shrug. If Mumbo had been paying attention he would’ve seen the sweat on Iskall’s brow. “I think he’s just busy.”

“Oh,” Mumbo said.

“Speaking of busy,” Iskall stood. “I’ve got to go grab more redstone. I’m out. See you in a bit!”

“Okay,”  Mumbo said, his friend flying off with a wave.

Biting his lip, Mumbo noticed Iskall left his Redstone shulker box. They had just gone redstone mining a week ago, had Iskall run out that quickly? Mumbo opened the shulker box (not that he needed to) but he hoped the red outline he could see around it would be wrong for once.

He inhaled sharply.

It was full.

Sighing, Mumbo closed it. He decided that instead of overthinking why his friends were suddenly ignoring him and lying to him, he’d work on redstone instead.

Redstone, at least, was easily fixable.

-----

Cleo stood in front of Sahara, her face scrunched in an unpleasant emotion. Something in the shopping district stunk, and she followed her nose to find out what. It had led her to the redstone part of Sahara, overwhelming her senses.

It wasn’t a stench that could be smelt by normal hermits. She knew it well, it was her own. It was the stench of magic overworking itself to keep something alive.

Whatever this magic was keeping alive, it was working very, very hard.

“Hello?” She called out. “Wow, you guys need an air freshener in this place- oh! Mumbo!”

“Hello, Cleo!” Mumbo said cheerfully.

Cleo smiled, watching the redstone-covered hermit approach. Then she frowned.

“Mumbo, you smell dead.” Cleo said. “Well, not dead. You smell... un-alive.”

“I- wow. I don’t know what to say.” Mumbo said with an awkward laugh.

Cleo leaned closer, taking an intense sniff. Mumbo leaned backwards, a little uncomfortable.

“Yeah. It’s you.” Cleo confirmed. “What’re you working on?”

“Oh, uh... redstone?” Mumbo said, gesturing to himself, very confused with the whole scenario. His usually neat suit was covered in redstone, the red dust already settled in his hair.

“Are Grian and Iskall here?” Cleo asked. Mumbo made a face at that.

“Uh, no, actually. I haven’t seen them in a while.”

“How long is a while?” Cleo asked, pushing past Mumbo and walking into the redstone circuitry.

“Oh, uh, maybe two weeks?” Mumbo said, frowning and fiddling with a ring on his finger.

“Huh,” Cleo said. “It’s because you need a shower.”

“Excuse me?” Mumbo said.

“Seriously, you smell like redstone and overheating code.”

“I showered this morning, thank you!” Mumbo said, a little angry.

“Then why,” Cleo turned and poked Mumbo in the chest, a small amount of redstone poofing off his suit. “Do you smell like an overheating machine?”

“I don’t-“ Mumbo stopped talking when Cleo took another long sniff.

“Mumbo, are you human?” She asked suddenly.

“What-“ Mumbo was furious. “Yes! Of course I am! God Cleo, what is wrong with you?”

Mumbo grabbed rockets from his inventory with much more aggression then they probably deserved. He lit one and flew off before Cleo could get another word in, and the Zombie watched him go, unbothered by his words.

“I guess I should see X,” Cleo muttered to herself, the scent lightening as Mumbo flew away.

——

NPC Grian usually kept to himself. He had a small plot of land that he had built outside the Hermit’s main map, not to be undiscovered, but to be peaceful. Hermits swinging by to say hello was not uncommon, and Grian came by every week or so to catch him up with whatever chaos had happened.

NPC was not surprised to hear a knock at his front door on a stormy, Thursday night. Grian often stayed when it stormed. He was a little surprised to see a soaked Mumbo standing at his door instead.

“Hello, Mumbo Jumbo.”

“Hey NPC.” Mumbo said, shivering slightly in the rain. “Can I stay here tonight?”

“Of course,” NPC said, stepping to the side and letting the redstoner in. As Mumbo passed, a line of stats popped into NPC’s view, as it did for all hermits.

Name: Mumbo Jumbo

Species: Machine

Level: 54

Health: 20/20

Staus: Online

Role: Player

“Thanks. Sorry for invading, I needed somewhere without any Hermits.” Mumbo apologized.

“I understand,” NPC said, handing Mumbo a blanket and a towel. Mumbo smiled appreciatively, taking the towel and scrunching his hair dry. The dark, normally neat locks fell around his face, highlighting how pale Mumbo actually was.

“Sometimes humans get a little overwhelming,” NPC smiled, and Mumbo paused, a confused look coming over his face. NPC waited for his response.

“Uh, yeah.” Mumbo finally settled on saying, removing his suit jacket. “I guess we can.”

We? NPC mentally filed away the way Mumbo had used that language.

“Would you like some tea?” NPC offered instead, guiding Mumbo to the couch.

“Oh, yes please.” Mumbo said, all but collapsing into the cushions. The large fireplace in front of him was flickering, the fire strong but not overpowering.

NPC didn’t say anything while he made two cups of camomile tea, letting the clinking of cups and the whisper of the fire fill the air. Mumbo seemed much more relaxed by the time NPC came in, wrapped in blankets and eyes half-lidded.

“Your tea,” NPC said, offering the mug. Mumbo reached to grab it. “Careful not to spill it, you’ll fry yourself.”

Mumbo paused, retracting his hands. “Fry?”

“Your circuits,” NPC said, as if it was common knowledge, and he shoved the mug into Mumbo’s hands.

“I don’t have circuits?” Mumbo said, thoroughly confused. “You sound like Cleo. She said I smelt like an overheating machine.”

NPC hummed at that, realizing a few things at once.

One:  Mumbo has been confronted by Zombie Cleo about his origin, and most likely ran away from that conversation if the knock at my door meant anything.

Two:  Mumbo’s friends are starting to realize he might not be human.

Three: Mumbo does not realize that he is not human.

Four: Mumbo Jumbo must be malfunctioning if he is unaware that he is a machine.

A reset should fix that problem.

“Mumbo,” NPC said and sat next to him. If Mumbo thought he was human, NPC would have to treat him like that. “What made Zombie Cleo think that?”

Mumbo scoffed. “She said that I smelt ‘un-alive’ and like a ‘machine’. And redstone! That one was probably true though. It’s just like Grian the other day! He came over to get glowstone while I was AFK, and when I woke up he was a few feet away and super flushed. He said something about rebooting, and then flew off before grabbing glowstone!”

NPC took the mug from Mumbo’s hands as the redstoner got more animated when speaking.

“Oh! And then Iskall! We went redstone mining and he said he couldn’t see the redstone under the blocks, but he must be able too, because he always has lots of redstone too! He acted the whole trip like he didn’t know where it was, which, frankly, it just rude. Now Grian and Iskall have been ignoring me!”

Mumbo huffed and sat back. NPC handed him his mug again, and Mumbo took a very long sip.

“Thank you, NPC.” Mumbo finally said after a minute. “For listening. And also the tea.”

“Of course,” NPC said with a gentle smile. “Can I suggest a solution?”

“You have one?” Mumbo said, thoroughly confused.

“Of course. You just need a reset.”

“Not you too! Now you’re talking to me with weird machine terms that I know you don’t use those with Grian!”

NPC frowned. It was worse than he thought.

“That is because Grian is not a machine.”

Mumbo stared at him a moment, before placing his mug down and standing abruptly.

“Thank you, NPC. I have to go.” Mumbo headed towards the door when a strong grip caught his wrist. NPC tightened it as Mumbo struggled against it.

“Mumbo, when you get to respawn, don’t restart right away.”

“NPC, let me go!”

“Listen to me,” NPC said. “Don’t respawn right away. Just wait until you feel ready.”

“I don’t control respawn!” Mumbo said, his voice rising in fear. He desperately tried to break NPC’s grip, but his exterior was not made of metal as the builder’s was.

“Good luck, Mumbo Jumbo.” NPC said, and summoned a sword into his hand.

“NPC, no-!”

< MumboJumbo was slain by NPC_Grian >

——

Mumbo reached the void and was filled with panic. Immediately he went to hit the large, looming ‘Respawn’ button out of muscle memory. Right as his fingers brushed the lettering, he stopped.

He stayed still and waited as if he expected some invisible force to push his hand on the button, but nothing happened.

He always thought he had to respawn immediately, but here he was, hand hovering over the option as time ticked on.

The other hermits just woke up in their beds, he was sure of that. He moved his hand from the looming button, and took a deep breath.

Something else to add to the list of odd things about himself.

NPC said he could wait until he felt better, right? Besides, he had a lot to think about. Iskall and Grian were ignoring him anyways, and he didn’t really want to see Cleo or NPC. He could just wait a few minutes and collect his thoughts. Nothing bad could possibly happen, he was already dead.

He’d just stay here for a while. Just enough to collect his thoughts. Then he’d go back.

Just a few minutes.

Just a few...

----

Xisuma had never felt so much anxiety in his life. Having been an Admin for ten or so years, he was pretty adept at solving all problems. Evil counterpart destroying the server? Xisuma could deal with it. Bugs and code problems? He could do it in his sleep.

A server player being killed and not respawning for two days despite there being no bugs and his code being perfect? Xisuma was out of luck.

“God damn it!” He swore, covering his face in his hands and inhaling sharply. The line of code he had run had failed to bring Mumbo back, the redstoner still being stuck in respawn void.

Mumbo had been quite a character in Xisuma’s last few weeks. Iskall had come first, worried about Mumbo’s health when the man could apparently sense redstone through solid blocks. A few days later Grian had swung by, babbling feverishly that Mumbo had been replaced by a robot and was up to nothing good.

Xisuma had brushed both off with a gentle smile and a ‘I’ll look into it, thanks for letting me know’.

He wasn’t able to ignore when Cleo walked through his door three days ago, claiming Mumbo smelt un-alive. This very much caught Xisuma’s attention, and he sat her down to get her to explain everything.

Only an hour later the death message had come across his screen.

< MumboJumbo was slain by NPC_Grian >

Grian whispered to Xisuma: See! Even NPC realized Mumbo was replaced! Or worse, NPC is orchestrating the entire thing. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Xisuma left a concerned Cleo, teleporting immediately to Mumbo’s spawn point, waiting anxiously for the redstoner to reappear.

He waited.

And waited.

Xisuma sent a message to Mumbo.

Waited some more.

And then realized something was very wrong, teleported to his base and started working on Mumbo’s code.

“Okay, another try. Then a break.” Xisuma muttered to himself. He had been awake for far too long, but he needed to figure out what was wrong for Mumbo not to respawn. He couldn’t have the other Hermits panicking if something was wrong with respawn.

A gentle knock at his door brought Xisuma out of his thoughts. Standing and stretching, Xisuma walked over to the door, and opened it to find NPC Grian. He immediately took a step back. Grian’s messages creeping in the back of his mind.

“NPC Grian! It’s... good to see you.” Xisuma smiled, trying to look friendly, forgetting for the most part his helmet didn’t show his mouth. “It’s been a while.”

“Indeed it has, Xisuma Void.” NPC said, as emotionless as always. “May I come in?”

“Oh! Actually it’s not really a good moment,” He muttered closing the door slightly.  “There’s just a huge mess, I’ve been-“

“Trying to bring Mumbo Jumbo back from respawn?” NPC interrupted.

“... Yes, actually.” Xisuma said, a little wary.

“There's no point in forcing him back.” NPC leaned in closer and patted Xisuma’s shoulder. “He’ll come back when he wants to.”

“Sorry,” Xisuma asked, confused. “But how do you know this?”

“Because he is like me.” NPC said. “If you need him back sooner, I can go get him.”

Xisuma decided to ignore the first part of NPC’s statement and the suspicions around him. He opened the door and let the robot come in. “Would you go get him? Everyone’s worried.”

“Of course. Set Mumbo Jumbo’s spawn point here-“ NPC put down two beds, and gestured to the bed on the right. “And I will set mine here. Then, kill me.”

Xisuma took a moment to fully digest the plan.

“And then what?”

“Well, then I will talk to Mumbo Jumbo and bring him back.”

“Oh,” Xisuma said, grateful for the apparently easy solution put before him. He was exhausted and decided that NPC was his best shot at this point even if there was the chance it might be a trap or something. If NPC tried to take over the server like Ex did he could deal with that later. He had already tried fixing every line of code of Mumbo’s, and he had nothing to lose.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, and I already set my respawn.” NPC said.

Xisuma nodded, and brought up Mumbo’s code again. He changed the respawn to the nearby bed, and then closed the menu, drawing out a sword.

“Are you ready?” Xisuma asked.

NPC nodded.

< NPC_Grian was slain by Xisumavoid >

--

Being dead wasn't so bad.

Well, he wasn't really dead right now. Dead in the overworld, maybe, but not dead here, even if it wasn't clear where here was.

Was it respawn void? It didn't really matter.

Strangely, Mumbo felt better and better the more he stayed there, suspended into nothing with the looming respawn button hovering not too far away from him.

It was odd, resting here. Mumbo felt as if he had taken the longest sleep. Compared to how he usually slept, it felt like he had never once truly rested in his life up until that point.

Mumbo felt rejuvenated, his mind sharp like he could go and rebuild all the machines in Sahara from the ground up in a week.

Strange how NPC was right apparently.

Just about respawn. Mumbo reminded himself.

There must be some other explanation for all the weird things going on. Regardless of all the strange things that had happened, he wasn't a machine.

Mumbo would have noticed, it's not like he was born a week ago.

The redstoner felt ready to go back to the server, even if he would have had to talk with Grian and Iskall about why they were avoiding him. Also talk with Cleo… Maybe she was just having a weird zombie flu? It’s the only reason Mumbo could come up with for why she was smelling weird stuff.

It’s okay, it was just a weird couple of weeks! It happens.

Mumbo looked at the button ready to press it. He reached out and - wait.

Didn't he use to have fingers and hands?

He would have blinked but he realized he didn't have any eyes that needed blinking. He didn't have a mouth to speak, ears to hear anything, arms or legs.

He should have been terrified, but strangely enough something very, very deep in his mind felt almost comfortable with this sudden realization.

Which, arguably, was the really terrifying part.

He was reduced to… nothing? No, he was still something. He wasn't sure what. He felt immense but not really, like he'd always been wearing something too tight and only now he could finally stretch out.

His body…

His body didn't fit what he actually was.

What was he?

He was human! Right? Right?!

This void was just messing with his head. It must be--

"Are you ready to come back yet?” A familiar monotone voice spoke.

--

Xisuma watched the beds with bated breath. A few minutes passed and panic filled his chest, quickly becoming overwhelming.

“Shit,” Xisuma said, pulling up the Admin menu again. Fingers hovering uselessly over the keyboard, Xisuma didn’t even know where to begin. Should he access NPC’s code first? Try and drag him back? But it hadn’t worked on Mumbo, and NPC was not a traditional player.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to enter any code, as NPC and Mumbo respawned on the bed. NPC sat up and gave Xisuma a emotionless thumbs up while Mumbo clutched his chest and rolled to his side, coughing.

“Mumbo!” Xisuma rushed to his side, rubbing his friends back.

“He’s alright,” NPC said. “It takes a moment to adjust back into a body. I go through it too after extended time in respawn. Being a machine forced into a flesh cage is very difficult sometimes.”

“I don’t…” Xisuma said, brain blanking after that information. “Okay, I’m going to ignore that. How do you spend so much time in respawn?”

“Machines are not affected the same way humans are.” NPC said.

“Shut up!” Mumbo wheezed, and pushed Xisuma away, stumbling from the bed. “I’m not a machine! Stop saying I am!”

“But you are.” NPC said, almost sounding confused.

“Okay,” Xisuma said, reaching towards Mumbo. “Regardless if you are, are you okay?”

“Regardless?” Mumbo squeaked, voice rising in anger. “Xisuma, you can’t be siding with them! Everyone has been treating me weird and now he says I'm a machine, and I’m not!”

“Mumbo-”

“No! There’s no proof! Everyone is just imagining things!”

NPC sighed, and brought up Mumbo’s code, displaying it for everyone to see.

Name: Mumbo Jumbo

Species: Machine

Level: 1

Health: 20/20

Staus: Online

Role: Player

“Okay, so, you get very different stats than me. ” Xisuma said. “But that doesn’t matter- It’s okay, Mumbo. Not everyone on the server is human. Hell, I’m barely human myself.”

“No,” Mumbo muttered to himself. “No! It’s not right!”

"Why can't it be that you're not hum-"

"Because I bleed!" Mumbo shouted. "I bleed and I cry and I get headaches and I get sick and all these stupid things that make me human!"

He tried to rub away some tears forming in his eyes as he continued shouting. "I can't just be a machine all of the sudden! It doesn't make any sense. I can’t be!"

There was silence, and for a moment no one knew what to say. The only sound was Mumbo's erratic breathing, muffled slightly by the hands covering his face.

Then NPC stepped over and patted Mumbo on the shoulder, which felt almost mocking.

"Silly! All those things only mean your body is human. Being a machine goes a little bit deeper."

Mumbo’s hands dropped, and the man looked exhausted.

“Mumbo,” Xisuma took a step closer, and Mumbo took a step back, hitting a wall. Uncertainty and confusion flitted across his face. “Please. Mumbo, not being human doesn’t lessen your worth. We still love you.”

There was a long silence, and finally Mumbo leaned against the wall, sliding to the ground and placing his head onto his knees. Xisuma sat beside him, hesitating for only a moment before pulling Mumbo into a side hug.

“I hate this.” Mumbo muttered.

“I know.” Xisuma said.

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know.”

“I am human. I have a human body, NPC said so. I’m human.” Mumbo said, sounding unconvincing to even himself.

“It will be okay, Mumbo.” Xisuma said, praying that it would.

Mumbo said nothing, hoping with all his heart that tomorrow, when he woke up, it would be nothing but a feverish dream. That he had worked on redstone a little too hard for a little too long and had fallen into some strange lucid dream. Mumbo felt Xisuma rub his arm lightly, the up and down movements calming.

“It’ll be okay.” He said again.

Mumbo had no choice but to trust him.

[galactic-glamour-girl-posts]

First time watching Pinky and the Brain SEASON 3 since childhood!

Season 1

Season 2

...actually I'm not sure if I watched that far into the show when I was a kid, I only caught its reruns on Kix! (anyone remember when Pop Max was called Kix?) every now and again, but whatever, moving on (just a heads up-season 3 is almost thrice as long as season 1/season 2 were so this might be a long one):

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--Seasons 1 and 2 started with full 22 minute episodes, but season 3 splits its first episode into multiple segments, which is somewhat interesting considering its the first and only season to do so. I think my favourite joke in the first episode (the second segment in it, "Cinebrainia") is that Walt Disney cameo.

--I can't NOT talk about "Pinky and the Brain... And Larry". The story behind this one is that Kids WB! demanded that the staff add additional characters (specifically a third main character) to the show, and this segment was their response. The nailed lampooning the idea-Larry's dialogue is generic and repetitive, he adds nothing to the plot, he steals bits from other characters (specifically Pinky, with him sometimes being bopped by Brain for acts of stupidity, it's even claimed that he says narf too in the intro). "Three Blind Mice" even plays when they're in the White House, that was a cute detail. It's perfect, this segment gets its point across quite clearly. Unfortunately execs didn't listen and made the staff create "Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain" anyway...ugh. This is still a fun segment, but the existence of "Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain" makes it kinda sad in hindsight.

--Mr. Clown (from the Animanaics segment "Clown N Out") makes a cameo in "Where the Deer and the Mousealopes Play". It's a silent cameo and he doesn't add much to the story at all, but I just wanted take take this opportunity to say that I head canon that he and Mr. Director are the same person. After "Hearts of Twilight", I headcanon Mr. Director was fired, couldn't find get a job as director anywhere else, and took a job as a clown to make due. They're not confirmed to be the same person, and I know the reason they're similar is because they're both references to Jerry Lewis, but I think it makes sense and until they're in the same room at the same time I'm not changing my mind. But uh, anyway-back to Pinky and the Brain.

--Billie returns in "Brain Noir", which was a fun episode. Snowball's there also, so that was cool. This segment sort of creates a love square (its so weird using that phrase when not talking about Miraculous Ladybug) between Billie, Brain, Snowball and Pinky. Not that that matters because this episode was most likely a scripted episode in-universe anyway (supposedly takes place in the 40's yet Brain has already met Billie and Pinky already knows who Snowball is despite meeting him for the first time in "Snowball"), but still I liked the character dynamics in this episode.

--In "Pinky's Plan" it's Brain's birthday, and there's a joke about how Pinky couldn't even count to 2. That itself isn't that interesting, but what is interesting is that in the Animaniacs reboot segment "Happy Narfday!" it's Pinky's birthday, and there's a similar joke, but this time he manages to count to 3 before getting stuck. It's nice to know he's gotten slightly better at counting (character...development???) Although Brain already mentioned being two years old in season 1, but whatever. This segment was good, Pinky planning that surprise party for Brain was sweet, though it's kinda sad that Brain would've had the world if he had just trusted Pinky more (although it's nice to see how their relationship has developed since then-compare that to how he trusts Pinky over his own future self in "Future Brain"). But it's nothing we didn't already know-Pinky loves Brain and would give him the world if he could, Brain has book smarts but has the emotional intelligence of a cucumber, same old same old.

--Brain goes through a midlife crisis in "This Old Mouse" after seeing a future where he and Pinky grow old and still haven't taken over the world. I think the most memorable gag in this one is when he uses water as a substitute for alcohol. Pinky even puts his foot down afterwards and shows him some tough love by taking Brain away from the bottle and telling him to "Just Say Narf". I like seeing more of these moments where Pinky show concern over Brain's health. The whole episode was less comedy focused and more of a straightforward story about Brain temporarily losing his perseverance and trying to find a new way to spend his life; and on top of that there's a great lesson about how the future isn't set in stone and Pinky once again shows his undying love loyalty to Brain. This is probably one of my favourite episodes in the show (my other favourites right now are "TV or Not TV", "A Pinky and the Brain Christmas", "Snowball", "The Pink Candidate", and "Welcome to the Jungle").

--To be honest, in addition to being more of a cynical series, the entirety of Pinky and the Brain so far seems a little less comedy focused than the original Animaniacs was (though it's still undoubtedly a pretty madcap cartoon comedy) and seems to focus a bit more on character-driven, slightly (and I do mean slightly) more grounded and serious stories. I like this-I'm glad there's more of a distinction between the two shows other than "one is wacky comedy that stars puppy children who are insane, the other is a wacky comedy that stars mice men who are insane", you know?

--"Brain Drained" is another pretty meta episode (kinda like "Megalomaniacs Anonymous", but rather than one moment that kickstarts the plot, it's the entire premise that's meta) about Brain not wanting to repeat episode plots plans for world domination, so he literally tries to hire new writers for "Pinky and the Brain" so he can steal their ideas and use them as plans to take over the world. This show doesn't use meta humour as much as Animaniacs does, so those moments where it does stand out more. Also I loved the jabs at action shows that are mostly merchandise-driven and overly-cutesy shows (like TMNT/Transformers and Smurfs/Care Bears for example). Pretty sure it was also a jab at the network (Kids WB/The WB), which wanted the show to shift focus from world domination.

--Actually, speaking of episode ideas, it just me or are some of these segment plots getting rather...I don't know, I don't wanna say "scraping the bottom of the barrel", that's too harsh because it's not like many of these episodes are bad, but some of these segments could literally be summed up as "Pinky and the Brain talk to beavers", "Pinky and the Brain Celtic dance", "Pinky and the Brain run out of ideas", etc. Some of these plots give the impression that they were struggling to come up with over 33 ideas for segments this season.

--If A Pinky and the Brain Christmas emphasised just how much Pinky cared for Brain, "A Pinky and the Brain Halloween" does vice versa. It kinda feels like a follow-up in a way, even Brain's plan in the beginning is similar to the one he had in the Christmas special. It's nice to see Brain literally give up not only the world, but any chance in the future to take over the world if it meant he didn't lose Pinky. Also Snowball's in this episode, so that's always fun. He wasn't in it for long but he's apparently the one who convinced the Devil to make a deal with Brain in the first place, so there's that. Also this is apparently the only episode of the show after season 1 to air during primetime, which I'm positive is because it has Hell and the Devil in it (in fact, "Hot, Bothered and Bedeviled" was almost banned for that exact reason).

--The spin-off gives us another backstory for Brain in "Leggo My Ego". Apparently Brain was taken from his parents and home as a child, brought to Acme Labs where mice were conditioned to submit to the will of humans, and punished for acting even slightly out of line. Sigmund Freud (yes, that one) comes to the conclusion that Brain doesn't really want to take over the world, but rather wants to return home (since his old home was a can with a picture of the globe on the label). This take on his backstory is pretty good, and is actually goes well with the backstory he's given in "Roadent Trip". The one in "Leggo My Ego" shows how he got to Acme Labs in the first place, and his tail isn't kinked throughout it all. The story in "Roadent Trip" probably takes place after that, since it shows how his tail got kinked (and the story of how he met Snowball comes after that, since in that his tail is kinked). Plus if the Acme Labs scientists wanted the mice to submit to the will of humans, then the "learned helplessness" experiment makes sense.

Although it does mean that Pinky and the Brain, whilst they are about 2 years old physically, have actually been alive for decades (the reboot segment "The Flawed Couple" also supports this) since "Leggo my Ego" takes place in 1912. So like the Warners, they're older than they look (DO NOT take that the wrong way, the Warners are still children ya creeps) except rather than because they're toons, for Pinky and the Brain it's likely because of their spliced genes.

--The ending of "You Said a Mouseful" is easily one of the funniest moments in this show, oh my god. I'm not even gonna spoil it, you gotta see it for yourself. The rest of the episode is okay, but I can tell why it's one of the most well-remembered episodes, it has a unique and fun gimmick (the fastest talking person in the world-at the time-even guest starred!) .

--The Anti-Smoking episode ("Inherit the Wheeze") isn't subtle, very in your face, and is a little preachy, but it's still a fine episode. At the end of the day it's spreading a good message, and it's nice to see that Pinky watching and showing concern over Brain's wellbeing is becoming a consistent character trait of his...even if it did feel uncharacteristic of him to suddenly be so knowledgeable about the effects of smoking at points. It's also nice to see Brain give up the chance to take over the world for a reason other than Pinky this time, but rather just because of his own moral principles (although given that Pinky very clearly was against the plan, he likely influenced Brain's decision at least a little). Also, once again there was a jab at Space Jam, well, less of a jab and more of a brutal swipe at it. They didn't like that movie, did they?

--"Brain's Night Off" is kinda sad; by the end of it Brain is convinced the only thing he's good at is trying to take over the world, and even then concluded the reason he fails is because he can't even do basic things like enjoy himself. Meanwhile throughout the episode he inspires people to stand up for themselves because he's such a grouch, he was succeeding in gaining followers without even trying, but neither Brain nor Pinky notice at all. Oh the irony.

--Having Eric Idle voice both Pinky's parents is pretty meta, lol (Pinky's voice was partially inspired by Mothy Python). "The Family That Poits Together, Narfs Together" was really good. I don't have much to say about it though.

--"You'll Never Eat Food Pellets In This Town Again" is another obvious dig at the network, Sandy Dreckman (the head of the network in the episode) is even referred to as Jamie Kellner in Hulu's plot synopsis for this episode! Jamie Kellner is the one responsible for ending this show and the original Animaniacs for those who don't know. It's no secret that Kids WB wanted to revamp the show (despite it already being popular at the time) by adding more characters, moving attention away from from world domination, etc. This episode in basically a response to that. Well, the third response at this point. Not to mention that this was the final episode to have a story by Peter Hastings, who had grown so frustrated with Warner Bros. executives for attempting to change aspects of the show that he left the show to work for Disney. Oh, and this episode is (technically) Billie's final appearance in the show. Wish she was in more than just two episodes of this show (she even complains about her lack of appearances in this episode lol).

--They're Pinky and the Brain, yes Pinky and the Brain

One has a diploma, the other's...the Brain

--Getting to see Pinky's point of view was adorable, but otherwise "The Pinky P.O.V." was an average episode. It was interesting to see where Pinky's responses to "Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" come from though.

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In my post about season 2, I said I felt like the dialogue at times felt less concerned with being witty and funny in general and more concerned with namedropping celebrities for the sake of a joke, meaning a lot of the dialogue would only be funny if you knew who they were talking about, and a lot of it is now dated. I think this season had less dialogue with too many namedrops, so that's good. However, now it seems they are focusing more on coming up with random scenarios to put the two mice in and less on doing something new with their characters (for the most part), probably because of the large episode order for this season. This does lead to some episodes having fun gimmicks (like "You Said a Mouseful" and "The Pinky P.OV."), but it also leads to some episodes either having kinda lame premises or being similar to previous episodes. There's still some great character writing done here, like Pinky missing his family or Brain trying to do anything other than take over the world; but a lot of it is stuff that we've already seen done before with these characters at this point (Brain giving up the world because of Pinky, giving Brain a sad origin story, showing that Pinky would give Brain the world if he could, Pinky falling in love a with a member of a different species, etc). Again, this is likely due to the large episode order, but I still enjoyed this season. Season 4 is much shorter, so I'll see how that turns out.

Find out here!

[swimmingtvshowghostwoman]

This is my thoughts from my first listening of mercury act 2(not including bones and sharks because this is not my first listen to them)

Ahhhhh so excited

General thoughts:

I love that they put act 1 and 2 together

I am really tired but this is so worth it

Bones is so fun I can’t not see Dan dancing

Honestly I will probably love all of this in many different ways

And will definitely have more thoughts once I listen to each song more times

I love sharks . It is a whole vibe

They honestly keep outdoing themselves

The bubble in sharks gives me life

Symphony:

I really like the beat

This is so catchy

I really like this

Ahhhh

I just fucking love this it is so cool

It is so different from everything they did but yet so them

It gives me beach summer vibes 2014 in the best way

I’m obsessed 

I don’t like myself:

Like the beginning

The lyrics!

It is insane how opposites the lyrics and melody sounds but at the same time it is the same

I love their brake verses in all songs and this one is so good

80’s mixed with like 00’s in teen drama vibes again in the best way(like I can see this in the oc or OTH maybe even later things)

Blur:

I don’t know what this is but I like it

It’s so good

The range!

This reminds me of their earlier stuff

“You should give up the fight” hdhdbdjsjsn

I really like this

The instruments are just wow

I honestly love Rick

Honestly I don’t know the vibe but I love it

Higher ground:

I like the rhythm

Idk why but it made me think of bullet in a gun

I like it but it is a mood based song for me or at least need to listen to it more

It is cool

Is it weird I can see them preform this even though I never saw them preform this (i don’t think they have) 

Crushed:

If this is anything like wrecked I will cry

Rain in the beach at dark vibe

His voice gives me chills in like a inside pain way

It is so soft and beautiful

Idk what I’m feeling but I’m feeling it

It is amazing

Take it easy:

My brain went blank and I have zero thoughts other then I liked it and I LOVED the last minute and 8 seconds a lot

Waves:

I ducking love this

I like the way he is singing this

Fuck sad lyrics vs happy music . ID specialty

The end ♥️🤍(slow line)

Again beach vibe but in a completely different way 

I’m happy:

I just ….idk

No words really

Kinda stab in the heart but in a good way but also not good

The end is weird

Ferris wheel:

I love the melody at the beginning

Ferris wheel is very love Simon so lets see if this song is that vibe

I want to hear this as a duet

It is love Simon vibe! honestly it is more the book then the movie (I’m probably just looking for it but still)

I love this

So calm and lovely and just pure it makes me smile

Peace of mind:

The meaning is the vibe

Okay ouch feels called out

I also want someone like this

It makes my brain just work idk how to explain it but it just makes my brain jdisjdbjdjd

Sirens:

Already love this

The melody lyrics vibe rhythm all work so well

I love this

A misunderstood Witch in the hero role vibe

Tied:

Fuck this is sad

It makes me sad smile

The emotions in his voice !!

It’s beautiful . And so sad

But like sad with a tiny bit of hope in it and I love this

God…. Again the last minute…wow

It is so beautifully broken if that makes sense

Younger:

I’m excited for this one

It makes me smile

It is weirdly hopeless and hopeful

Plays in the back of a reboot

This part!!! The solo!! I want to hear it live!! Wayne

I wish:

Fuck

Tears

Fuck

His voice

Beautifully painful

Continual:

It reminds of dolphins for some reason

It’s so ✨🤍🍀💫🎼hope

They don’t know you like I do:

I can’t believe it is the last one

Hurt

Fuck

Tears

I love it is is so open and just amazing

End thoughts:

This album was so beautiful

I love Rick Rubin

My feelings during the listening 📈📉📈📉📈📉

I can’t wait to listen again and again and again on a loop

They just keep reinventing themselves and just keep on doing amazing work and are just wonderful

It was definitely worth staying up for

[echo--flowers--writes]

ajhhh!! i’m a huge fan on ao3 && it’s only now i’ve followed on tumblr :,)) congrats on 50 followers you absolutely deserve it, luv!!

okie, okie..this is weird but i have a request for a drabble for classic,, what would i be like for our ketchup loving gremlin man to dating someone who’s different from him in the sense where s/o is not only really stylish but also is kinda a punk, where they use to be a huge troublemaker as a teenager, although they are a huge softie for their skeleton. how would you imagine it?

!!!!! AAAAA! Thank you so much, love! I really appreciate the support! ❤

Okay, this was really fun. Thanks for the request!

You never imagined yourself dating someone like Sans. The two of you were so different. You were a punk, he did nerdy science stuff and all that jazz (or pop, if you wanna get technical). 

But when you met the ketchup-loving skeleton on that fateful night in Grillby's, you couldn't help but be drawn to the pun-throwing gremlin. He absolutely lit up the stage when he performed, cheers and uproarious laughter following his every joke or story. He had the crowd captivated, anticipation buzzing through the crowd like electricity, waiting for his next joke. 

And when he came down from the hot spotlight, blue sweat dotting his cranium, asked Grillby for a whole bottle of ketchup, and processed to chug it? You knew you had to get to know him. 

By the end of the night, you had gained both his friendship and a huge soft spot for the goober. And that was saying something. You didn't often grow close to someone so fast, especially given your shoddy past. Weeks turned to months, and before you knew it you'd know Sans a whole year. He accepted the not so innocent things you did during your teen years, from skipping school to the fights and everything in between. 

He just... shrugged it off with that charming grin of his, saying that everyone can be a good person if they tried. At that moment you knew that you had fallen head over heels for the slouching, disheveled, pun-loving, mess of a skeleton. 

And that brings you to today. It's your second anniversary with your gremlin of a skeleton. You sighed with a fond smile as your mind drifted to your bonehead. Your reflection mirrors your smile as you run your hands down your chosen outfit for tonight. It was a simple little ensemble, not too far off from the ones you usually wear (so different from your date-mate, who wore the same jacket and shorts till Papyrus forced him to wash them). 

"hey, babe. lookin' good." A small shiver ran down your spine as the atmosphere right behind you shifted and, with a soft clicking sound, your skeleton was suddenly lounging across the bed in all his bony glory, Titanic style. 

You rolled your eyes with a smile, meeting his soft eyelights in the mirror. You straightened the sleeves of your dress shirt and strike a dramatic pose that Mettaton would be proud of, earning a hardy chuckle from Sans. 

"You like what you see, boneboy?" You winked at him through the mirror before turning to face him with a wicked grin. The look on his face was priceless. He tugged at the collar of his work shirt as a flustered blush splashed across his face. "you know i do, sweetheart."

You pressed a kiss to the dome of his skull before sashaying out of your shared bedroom. "When you're finished rebooting, meet me downstairs cutie." You called over your shoulder teasingly. 

A few minutes later, Sans appeared beside you. You take in his slightly cleaner shirt and sweatpants with a smile. He cleaned up nice. 

"ya ready?" He wrapped an arm around your waist with a wink. You could feel the warmth of his phalanges through the thin cotton fabric of your shirt. 

You pulled him close with a wink. "You know I was born ready."

The last thing you saw was a cyan blush light up his zygomatic bone and his eyelights blazing with wide-eyed delight. Despite your past and your clear differences, you loved this skeleton. And it was pretty clear that the feeling was mutual.

[peralta-guaranteed]

*runs past, throwing a pegging fic at your head*

look I know I said I’d actually work on the smut prompts I got but this popped into my mind instead and I had to get it out

*runs off again*

(AO3)

She found him sulking in bed when she came home, a full two hours after he’d left the precinct in a bit of a huff as his shift ended - she wasn’t perfectly up to date with the detectives workload anymore ever since moving downstairs, but she’d still gathered from Rosa’s tense replies during their lunch date and Charles’ hurried goodbyes and hellos that they were all stressed from whatever they were working on.

Not least of all her husband, who seemed to have taken on far more than he could chew yet again with two new cases, on which he obviously insisted to be the primary and which had been driving him slowly mad with pressure as she noted from every evening that she came upstairs to pick him up for their ride home, muttering under his breath about context clues and bad intel as he packed his bag. Holt had actually sent him home earlier today to ‘settle his mind’, which he hadn’t taken in a particularly good way, as he basically stormed past her desk on the ground floor to tell her he’d be heading home, still stopping for a kiss and a heartfelt ‘see you tonight’ though - even stressed out he still had the manners of her perfect husband.

Right now, though, he was back to angrily shouting at Wario on the gamepad in his hands while she changed out of her uniform in front of the dresser.

Usually he’d give her a little joking leer and a wolf whistle when she did, or a flirty comment. But this time his attention seemed to be much more focussed on raging about the game, and she knew that as another sign of pent-up frustrations that definitely needed a better outlet.

So Amy had climbed up on the bed with him in her oversized shirt and fresh underwear (it was a hot summer, and she felt like soaking through everything in her dark, heavy uniform, so at-home-time was strictly relegated to as little clothing as possible), nudged the gamepad out of his hands carefully and pulled them around her waist instead with a smile and a soft wink.

And here they were now, slowly and languidly making out with her hands roaming all over him, and earning themselves a lot of little sighs from him whenever she massages a particularly sensitive spot on his sides, or between his shoulder blades after getting rid of his shirt. She can feel him melting into her even as she’s positioned on top, all of him lifting up to reach her whenever she moves just an inch away, his hand on her lower back softly pushing her down again. But most of all, she can feel his half-hard erection as she presses her thigh between his and his breath against her lips hitches for a second.

“Mh, babe…” he mumbles as she pulls away from him again and is faced with his hazy, half-lidded eyes, always a bit disoriented after a particularly good kiss. Maybe a little more so today - she can already sense the stress lift from him, but not nearly enough. And she knows just the perfect way to finally get him to really let go, even if he’d probably not admit it.

“I really want to fuck you.” She offers before another little kiss, and feels his trademark grin against her.

“Yeah I kinda figured this is where this was heading anyway…?” He jokes, but she only presses her thigh against him a bit more insistently.

“No, I mean.  I  want to fuck  you .”

“Oh.” The atmosphere in the room changes as he follows her words, and she can see his still hazy eyes darken just a bit. “Yeah.”

“Are you up for that?”

“Yeah.” He nods maybe a bit too eagerly as she smiles and leans down for a quicker kiss.

“Can you get yourself ready while I go get a dick?”

“I really want to know how many people on earth have ever said that particular sentence.” He laughs as she climbs off the bed again, but also reaches over to his bedside drawer where they keep the lube while she squats down in front of the dresser, unlocks the lowest drawer filled with the toys that aren’t on regular rotation in both their bedside drawers.

She’s met with the view of a completely naked Jake once she returns, his slicked up fingers already reaching past his still growing erection down to his hole, one finger pushing in with slow motions.

“So sexy.” She says, earnestly, yet he laughs again, a bit more breathless this time with his eyes closed. And he really is, no matter how many times he denies it whenever she tells him - he is sexy, both in his looks that can make her feel hot and cold at the same time even if he’s not intentionally doing anything, and in the sincere eagerness he has in going along with her, willing to try almost anything she might suggest, and being honest about his likes and dislikes about it all. It’s unlike any other relationship she’s had, and she has to admit it was quite surprising at first to find this much maturity in her usually so childish partner. But she’s glad for it, and for the many things they’ve discovered together (and quickly noted down in what Jake has titled her ‘sexy binder’, for which he was equally on board with - he loves her nerdiness just as much as her sexyness).

Things like this - Jake under her and giving all of himself to her control, letting himself fall in the knowledge that she’s going to catch him and treat him right. She’s figured out pretty quickly how much they both enjoy the whole pegging process - simple physical pleasure aside, it especially gets Jake into a mindset he needs sometimes, shutting off from the pressure of the world and just giving in and letting go of the reins into Amy’s care. The fact that it makes  her  feel incredibly empowered, and bonded with him in a new kind of trust is just an added on benefit. Right now, she knows it’s mostly the first thing that he really needs, essentially a ‘turn off and on’ reboot of his brain that is still fussing over everything he couldn’t leave behind at the precinct.  

“Can you do one more?” Her voice is almost husky just from thinking about it all, even more so from seeing him laid out before her like this.

A second finger joins the first in lieu of a response, and Amy has to swallow hard as she watches him spread himself open, paired with an already slightly laboured breath and the loveliest facial expression of tense anticipation. She knows the feeling of those fingers working away too well from between her own legs, although he seems slower and more careful now, of course.

She shakes her head to get back into the moment after watching the scene before her for a bit too long, her hand sliding down the inside of his wide-spread thighs to get his attention back to her too, as his eyes flutter open again.

“Which one?” She simply asks, holding up two of the dildos that fit into the soft harness they bought a while ago that seemed a lot less daunting than the heavy duty leather straps they found in most sex shops. (She’s as good at ‘toy’ store research as she is at any other research, though, and quickly found a far more comforting boutique with a saleslady who very eagerly explained anything she could, no matter how much Jake was blushing beside her.)

“Uh.” He stutters as his brain slowly comes back to reality. “The, uhm, the blue.”

“You like the little bulge.” She states matter-of-fact (a fact that’s definitely already in her sexy binder too), even as he still blushes about it while she discards the other one and affixes the toy he picked to her harness.

“Alright.” The lube he left on the nightstand is quickly spread over it. “Turn around?”

She wanted it to be a question, but he only gulps as he nods, far more used to commands in these kind of situations as his fingers slip out and he rolls over, lifts his hips up enough that she can wedge a larger pillow under them to keep him up yet off his knees, a pose they’ve found to prefer much more than the usual doggy style. She playfully squeezes his butt before spreading his cheeks a bit more, and he feels the slick tip of the dildo against him.

“Ready?” She asks more clearly this time, and waits for his short  ‘Yeah’  before pushing in.

He’s already done a good job getting himself open, but she still takes her time to slide in, back and forth with rolling hips, pulling out and pushing in just an inch more each time while she’s met with little moans from between his bitten lips with every push. It turns into a drawn out, quiet groan as she finally presses her hips flush against his backside, feels him tense under her. Her hands stroke up and down his rigid back, and wait for the feeling of his muscles finally relaxing under them and his breath returning to a more steady beat before she starts to rock into him at a soft pace.

It’s a lot to take in - both figuratively and literally, as the blue dildo between her legs is slightly bigger than their usual toys, but she could see the glint in his eyes when he picked it. She would love to know more about that - about how he really feels when she’s inside of him, if it feels the way it does for her when the roles are reversed, but it’s one of the few things happening in their bedroom he doesn’t like to talk about too much. There’s a sense of vulnerability still there, and an underlying fear, she suspects, of being judged for it - even if the notion of Amy judging Jake for anything that gives him pleasure seems laughable, she knows him too well not to notice. She still remembers the almost apologetic tremble in his voice when he first ‘admitted’ that he wasn’t new to anal sex, albeit completely new to it with a woman, and his nervous look to see her reaction.

“You’re doing so well, babe.” She mumbles soft affirmations while her fingers dig into the work-tense skin around his neck, leaning her weight onto him as she thrusts, feeling him grind up against her at the same speed, essentially humping the pillow under him as well. It’s a wonderful rhythm they always find, but something’s not quite right - not quite enough, she can tell both from her own response and the almost hesitant noises coming from him, moans and sighs that aren’t fully there yet, not where she wants him to be.

He whines when she slides out of him, though, and she can see in his one dark eye with a blown pupil staring at her from where his face is pressed into the pillows that his mind was still slowly working to get to that place. She almost feels guilty for pulling him away from it for a bit, but she also knows what will be much more helpful for him.

“Can you turn back for me, actually?” Her voice is apologetic before turning husky again. “I really want to touch you.”

He complies, of course he does, twisting around a bit more carefully now, shifting aside the pillow that was under his hips, and god, she still loves the view of it all as both her hands travel down his thighs and wrap around his now fully hard cock, eliciting a far more intense moan than before.

She knows he’s capable of coming untouched in their previous position, the friction of the pillow enough to bring him over the edge, and it’s a special kind of orgasm that wrecks through him then, but that’s not what she’s going for right now. And given how he bucks into her hands immediately, even while she pushes the strap back into him a bit faster than before, tells her he’s definitely on board with it all this, too.

And yes, from seeing his mouth drop into a basically constant o-shape as he moans louder with every thrust, his eyes half-lidded and with fluttering eyelashes, turning impossibly dark, and his breathing out of synch, she knows she’s right back on track. He grabs onto the covers after a particularly hard push, his other hand trailing down to reach hers, interlocking their fingers while her other hand lazily strokes him - not fast enough for any quick effect, but more than enough to feel him tense and react under her with every motion. It sets a slower pace than what they usually go for, but she wants to drag this out anyway, wants to continue watching him shift his hips under her to get more of her touch from both ends, hear those little whines and empty pleas that are a rare treat from his otherwise very engaged talk during sex.

“Ames”, he says surprisingly coherently still, and she pushes a bit harder to get him over that, “Ames can y- ahn! God! - can you take off yo-uhhn- your shirt…?”

She has to let go of both his hand and his cock to do so, but she doesn’t stop her thrusts while she pulls the shirt over her head, and is met with just pure adoration in his hazy eyes as they rake over her.

“Fuck, I love you.” he whispers between moans, and it’s enough to make her lean over to kiss him, his mouth hungry on hers and both his hands immediately cupping her breasts as she returns her hand to stroking him. Her tongue slips between his lips just as she pushes into him again, and the change of angle has him almost shout into her open mouth.

“Fu- Oh god- Amy- please-” She repeats the motion twice, quickly, and watches his eyes almost roll back as his face slackens.

“Finally found your sweet spot.” Amy can’t help but boast, but Jake doesn’t hear it anyway as she continues to hit him exactly right, and nothing registers anymore but for that sensation shooting through his body every time. Her hand on him speeds up as well, while his noises reach a level and pitch she barely knows from him, ending with a proper shout as she feels him tense and twitch in her hand as he cums, his whole body going rigid and his back arching off the mattress, shaking through his orgasm.

The movement of her hips slows, but never stops, not until he’s dropped back down into the soft bedding and tries his best to get his racing breath back into control, a few last shivers cursing through his body with every exhale. He looks downright obscene as she surveys him under her - his head still thrown back and throat pulled taut, blushing bright red and with his mouth hanging open through a few more gasps, his chest and stomach covered with his own spend and his softening cock in her hand twitching once more as she ever so slowly pulls the blue strap-on out of him.

Her fingers travel down from his shaft, circling his rim carefully - she knows, if she were to push in, she could probably work him up again in barely a few minutes, and has done so before to get her own ride of pleasure after it, but that’s really not what this time is about. So she pulls her hand away from him completely to a soft little whine, and climbs up and over to settle at his side after getting rid of the harness.

His arm wraps limply around her waist more on reflex than anything while his breathing finally calms, but his eyes are still fully hazy and half-closed. She wanted to turn his brain off for a bit, but she might have just turned it into complete mush with that last move, she fears before he turns his head to place a kiss to her forehead.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.” She shuffles up a bit to kiss him on the lips, surprisingly chaste for what they just did. It seems to have worked - the tension has gone out of the room completely, and he’s smiling all soft and dopey instead of the frustrated frown he was sporting earlier. “You know it’s okay to- you know you can ask for things, if you feel like you need them.” She tries to word it as carefully as she can, because what he makes up for in sexual maturity, he sure doesn’t bring all too well when it comes to talking about actual needs and worries.

“You don’t get much out of it, though - I don’t wanna…”

“Babe, you have  no  idea how much I get out of this.” She interrupts him before he can explain it away. “I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t like it. And I like seeing you like this so much.”

“By ‘like this’ you mean getting railed to death?” He can’t keep from joking, but she hides her responding grin with a more insistent kiss before whispering against his lips.

“I’d call it ‘blissfully fucked’ instead.”

“Yeah.” He whispers back without moving away from her. “That sounds better.”

She kisses him again, right back to the slow and languid pace that set all of this off, while his hand from her waist travels all across her backside with soft fingertips.

She knows she’ll have to bug them both out of bed soon enough for a shower - for obvious reasons - and he’ll most likely try to ‘make it up to her’ there, like he always does, but right now he seems perfectly content to just lay next to her, his mind as settled as his body limp between the sheets.