#so there’s not as strong of a core to her character ig?

[vonkarma2]

💋🍊⭐🌳💙🔮🌷 deep cut ocs! i'm intrigued

let’s pretend this didn’t take 80000 years Im so sorry I was really busy 

I’m defining “deep cut” here as like. Any character I have thats underdeveloped bc I have to add more to a lot of them. I’m also gna pick them randomly bc if I picked the best cha tra cuter for every question this would take even longer than it already has LMAO 

💋 How affectionate are they with their friends? Their family? Their romantic partner(s) (if they have any)? Are they more physical or emotional when it comes to displaying their affection? Why?

Tora (<long story short she’s an oneiroi which is like a dream demon) is overall a pretty serious person, especially when dreaming. She doesn’t feel as at home in the surreal landscape as most other oneiroi do, she likes to be in control of every situation. Because of this, it usually surprises her coworkers to know that she is very nice towards her family— she isn’t all that close with her parents, but she is with her grandparents and younger siblings, being the oldest of four. With people older than her, she more so tries to be kind and respectful rather than actively affectionate, she really wants to impress her parents and grandparents and make them proud. But with her siblings, she likes teasing them in like an older sister way, but she can also be very nice and encouraging. She’ll like affectionately put them in a headlock and things like that a lot of the time, she’s only like verbally nice to them when something is wrong and she’s trying to cheer them up. (For the record she is (the equivalent of) 28 but her siblings are significantly younger, they’re 16F, 12M, and 9M.)

She’s capable of acting this way around people she’s close to outside of her family, but due to her frigid disposition (distant at best when she’s not being overly confrontational), she doesn’t tend to make a lot of friends, and has an even more difficult time finding romantic partners since she hates small talk and appearing fake or insincere. She also tends to be openly critical of other people, even when she doesn’t know them that well.

🍊 What is your OC’s favourite meal? Snack? Dessert? Drink? Any reasons behind this besides liking how it tastes?

Nadia’s favorite meal is probably something like a specific flavor of cereal or something that she eats every single day. The type to have the same meal over and over again and not care. I don’t think she likes eating snacks in general. Dessert probably a milkshake, she likes sweet things in general but I think would prefer something you can just drink bc it is less trouble to eat and to clean up afterwards.

Drink hot chocolate or tea she likes both a lot she thinks hot drinks are calming. Obviously not coffee bc it has the opposite effect.

⭐ What is your OC afraid of? Any crippling phobias or some such? How do they act when scared and what helps them calm down? Does anyone ever find your OC scary? Why?

Victor is of course afraid of bodies of water due to the circumstances of his original death via drowning. I don’t want to go into every other thing he’s become afraid of due to the way his second life went before the story because it would be depressing, but like he doesn’t like being around unfamiliar adults basically and he is like shy and nervous around people in general. Unless if he thinks they’re much, much weaker than him and as such don’t pose any threat. This is why he was able to become friends with Joseph and Angel (<this is a joke because Victor is 15 Joseph is 13 and very sheltered at that but Angel is 19 and pretty physically strong so it is a joke at his expense. I should have just said that and not given any context these posts should make sense only to me)

When scared he’ll either like get angry and confrontational (if he’s around people he likes + doesn’t think he’s in actual danger) or like shut down completely like go very quiet and try not to be noticed. He can calm down by going to like he by himself or honestly just by having someone talk him down and reassure him. Not a stranger but someone he actually knows, even if he doesn’t believe them he’d like appreciate the effort. 

After the story, he stays living in Zeolan, where most people are surprisingly ok with demons even after that whole incident— the culture has a lot of like respect for the dead or whatever and there aren’t any negative superstitions that people associate with demons at all. People would only be scared of him if they were 1) small children who didn’t know what a demon was/didnt fully understand the concept 2) particularly paranoid abt the whole world collapsing event happening again. Maybe if he went abroad to somewhere where they were more familiar with demons and seeing one was considered bad luck/a sign of death to come or something. Then they’d probably be scared of him. But ordinarily not really.

🌳 Compare your OC to themself from 10 years ago. How has their mental state changed since then, how have they aged and grown up? Would they say they’re in a better place than they were back then or do they need help? What advice would they give their younger self? What advice would their younger self give to them now?

When the story takes place, Anjara is I think 22 let’s just say so she’s still very young. She’d probably tell her younger self, like, where the vent is that she can use to escape the factory. She’d warn her about the fire. Honestly, in personality, she’s still pretty similar to how she was at 12– obviously she’s more mature than a literal child. But in terms of her priorities in life and like her worldview, she still wants the same thing, which is to help her family and keep them safe. Only now, they think she’s been dead for 8 years since she has no way to contact them. So she’s like obviously very distressed over that they meant the world to her and still do etc etc but she feels like she at least has a plan now so that helps like keep her going or whatever, whereas before she was acutely aware they could all die at any moment. So like she’s not really in a worse place mental health wise necessarily. She’s just more lonely. Her younger self would probably be nice to her and tell her not to give up, maybe also to try to find friends/allies to help her instead of going it alone. In the last she was more appreciative of other people whereas she’s more paranoid now.

💙 What did your OC want to be when they grew up and why? Did they have any lifelong dreams or ambitions they never got to work on or are they currently working to achieve this dream? Has their life taken a very unexpected turn and put all these plans on hold for a while or have they given up on any dreams?

Let’s do Remy’s backstory back when he was a little frog alien growing up in an evil generic sci fi empire, he dreamed of escaping and living far away from it on a nicer planet that wasn’t a police state and actively arbitrarily evil. Genuinely he just wanted to live a peaceful life, he thought of becoming like a farmer or something, but nothing specific necessarily. As he got older he became more jaded and not as interested in this idea, and became 1) resigned to a life of misery 2) more resentful of the empire, putting up mild resistance to it and eventually getting into enough trouble that he had to escape and accidentally crash landed on a planet as of yet untouched by the empire. However, it was touched by comically evil sci fi corporation and so he was forced to become a shill for them and also make mediocre pop music. He’s famous he has a lot of dedicated fans and a lot of people who hate him and he’s stuck supporting a sinister institution so essentially it is still the exact opposite of what he was hoping for. At this point he’s like mostly given up on his dream as impossible since he’s like a prisoner and there are no off planet ships how sad 😞✌️

🔮 Star gazing or cloud watching? Hand-holding or snuggles? Early mornings or late nights?

For this one I tried to think what character would prefer hand holding so that I wouldn’t have to write out the other answer but I couldn’t think of anyone. Fuck it Im doing Connor star gazing the one that’s not hand holding and late nights. Canon forever you’re welcome isaac

🌷 In what ways would your OC alter their body if they could? How would they do it using mundane means (hair dye, surgery, make-up?). What is their ideal look for themself?

Every single character I think of it’s either “they wouldn’t” or “they’re transgender” the only one this really applies to is Rocio and I refuse to cave and do her Ive talked abt her over and over again already. Ummm ok Henry would like to go back to being human, of course he’s used to living underwater by now and he doesn’t hate it or anything but he does resent it and at the end of the day he misses seeing the sun and the sky and breathing fresh air and et cetera. Obviously this is impossible to obtain via mundane means. Instead he compensates by wearing like a lot of jewelry accessories whatever he can find that he thinks looks nice. 

His ideal look for himself would be how his human self looked but with nicer hair and incredibly expensive clothing and taller and more conventionally attractive in every way. Also he’s from like the 1500s so he’s working by 1500s england standards. 

[sparklingchan]

A Duel of Hearts || Kim Seungmin (Stray Kids)

Pairing: Reader(fem.) X Seungmin Word Count: 5k+ Warnings: Suggestive, strong language(ig), mention of suicide (not the main characters). Genre: Royal AU, Friends to Lovers, Dark Academia, Angst mixed with fluff. Description: Caught in a dilemma of affection, Kim Seungmin, a prince, finds himself drawn to you. There was but one obstacle to his pursuit —you've set a single condition for all potential suitors: no royal lineage. A/N: Hello everyone! Here's another installation of the SKZ Royal AU. Idk why but Seungmin has this Dark Academia kind of vibe so I tried to incorporate that here. Hope you guys like it! More to come<3 Do check out the other fics in the skz royal series. (The stories are not interrelated) Here's the link.

You like to believe that your new dorm room is starting to grow on you.

It wasn't anything like your room back in your parents' house of course; but over the past twelve months, you'd renovated your dorm room enough to feel at home.

You'd replaced the light blue curtains with grey ones, swapped the single candle stand with a lantern to help you study better at night, put on a white table cloth and the list goes on.

A knock on your door pulls your attention.

It must be Wendy, you think to yourself, walking toward the door.

Correction: your only friend Wendy.

"Gosh, I really hate this academy, y/n." She walks in complaining, "I cannot believe they gave me a B in geography. I love geography. I cannot believe they'd ruin my overall grade like that."

"What happened?" You ask, closing the door behind her.

"I don't know! I will deal with this later, anyway," she says, fishing out a note from the pocket of her blazer. "I'm here to discuss a more pressing matter."

"What's that?"

"Of course, it's one of your lovers, y/n. I have two more lover letters in my backpack. Do you need them?"

You half chuckle and half sigh, taking the note from her and tearing it into bits.

"Ouch." Wendy says, staring at you, "Tell me y/n, it's been over a year since you joined the academy. All the boys here would die to even see you across the hallway yet you've kept the door to your heart locked. Why?"

"I am not not open to having a relationship. I just dislike how most of these men who pursue me are of royal blood. And if there's anything I despise most is royalty. That letter you gave me right now? It was from the Duke's son. It's his third letter in a row. That boy just doesn't know when to stop." You press your hand to your forehead, stressed.

Wendy nods her head, "Yeah, he is an annoying brat, I'll give you that, but y/n, I really don't understand your dislike towards royalty? Any girl out there would love to be pursued by royal suitors, including myself."

You smile in response, "It's a secret."

As always, Wendy just chuckles and doesn't push you to answer further because really, you don't know what you'll do if you ever have to explain yourself. It's a secret you rarely even discuss with yourself.

"Come on, we'll be late for our afternoon class." You say and walk towards the door, already tired of the day ahead of you.

*

“But Professor, do you not think that the first king of Taru was a horrible person morally? I mean, he did kill all of his wives when they failed to birth a son.”

If there is anyone in this academy who you think hates you to the core is your History Professor. The amount of times you’d ask him a question and he’d reply very vaguely, never answering to the point was insane. So naturally, you had developed a habit of asking him odd questions just to spite him.

Your Professor looks at you, almost angrily, and answers, “We are no one to judge a historical figure. Miss y/n.”

“But sir, you are portraying him as a role model to the class. Don’t you think that’s wrong? As you said, we are no one to judge him.”

Your professor hisses through gritted teeth and turns towards the board, not bothering to answer you. A subtle smile finds your lips.

“So, class as I was saying. The first King of this country- Taru- built the longest bridge in -”

“Excuse me, sir?” A hand shoots up from among the students followed by a voice, “May I answer Miss y/n’s question please?”

Your professor rubs his temple and sighs, nodding, “Go ahead, Mister Seungmin.”

You turn your head up to look at the owner of the voice, and much to your surprise, it is Kim Seungmin. He’s one of the quieter kids in the class but you’ve worked on a few projects together so you know that there’s more depth to him than just being the quiet kid by the window seat.

“Y/n, I think we could still look up to the King as a leader. Yes, he was ruthless to his wives but we don’t need to look up to him as a husband. He was, on the other hand, a great leader who led his country to become one of the greatest in the world, second to none.”

“Well, does that answer your question?” The professor asks and you nod, bowing towards Seungmin. He bows back.

The professor teaches the class for an hour more, letting you guys dismiss after his daily warning of, “You'll be going to universities next year so do work hard this year,”

You gather all your things and walk out of the class, stomach growling, almost begging you to make your way to the dining area for lunch.

For lunch, the menu rarely changes except on holidays.

And in all honesty, you’re tired of having chicken stew with rice everyday since you stepped foot in this academy, but the other options are extremely limited so you join the line of hungry and tired students, complaining about how difficult this year has been.

Once you have your plate of rice and stew, you seat on one of the empty benches and begin to gobble up the rice like there’s no tomorrow.

“Um, y/n? Mind if I join you?”

“Seungmin?” you ask, almost surprised, “Have a seat, please.”

Seungmin mutters a small ‘thanks’ and claims the seat in front of you, placing his backpack on the sides.

“So what have you been up to?” he asks to break the ice. It seems like you’re more focused on the rice in front of you than him.

“Eating?” you chuckle, “What’s up with you? How’s your preparation for University?”

Seungmin, licks his bottom lip, deep in thought.

How was his preparation for university going, really? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t even remember the last time he opened his books after school.

In fact, lately, his mind has been occupied with something entirely different-you.

You, who acts so indifferent to the rest of the people yet helped Seungmin when he was almost failing a chemistry project evaluation.

You, who says she has no friends yet packs extra food from home for Wendy.

You, who says she is having a hard time adjusting to the academy yet she’s his favorite person here.

How could you not be on his mind?

“Eh, it’s okay. I guess.” Seungmin scratches the back of his head. “How’s yours?”

“Not really well, to be honest . If only that duke’s son would stop sending me those stupid letters, my life would be a lot more peaceful.” you say and it’s true that those letter have been nothing short of a nuisance since you came back from the semester break. You respect his feelings, but you’re not obligated to like him back. Hell, you’ve never even spoken to the man. “He’s so persistent, it scares me, really.”

Seungmin could feel his anger building up. Of course he knows you have quite a few admirers. Even some of his friends are in that crowd. But Seungmin likes to think he always had the upper hand.

Yet he feels annoyed, offended at the thought that someone was pursuing you to the point of fear.

“He might be a duke’s son but he isn’t behaving like one.” Seungmin comments.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. All of these aristocrats and royals believe that the world is at their disposal. They could just command it and everything would go according to them. It’s ridiculous. I’m so glad you’re not from a royal line or else we wouldn’t have been having this conversation.” you say and Seungmin’s world stands still.

You think he’s not from a royal family?

You didn’t know who he really was?

He almost wants to tell you the truth, that he, in fact, is the descendant of the very king you were talking about in History today. But he chooses to remain silent. He’s enjoying your company way too much to ruin it in one day.

“Yeah, thank god for that.” Prince Seungmin replies.

*

The next few days pass by in the blink of an eye and the academic pressure gets worse.

"Wendy, could I borrow your lantern? Mine is broken, I think." You ask Wendy one afternoon.

The sun brightens up the inside of Wendy's room.

"Yeah, sure." She passes you her lantern, "I have a spare one. Going to the library?"

You nod.

There's no better place to study than the library. Especially on such a warm and cozy afternoon when everyone just wants to take a nap.

"I'll see you at dinner then?"

"Sure thing."

You walk the corridors, fiddling with your pockets, making sure you'd taken all your stationary. It would be a hassle to walk back to your room again.

As soon as you enter the library, the sounds of the world as if disappear. Not even the tapping of pens could be heard without focusing hard.

You find a suitable seat for yourself by the window and settle down there.

The library feels colder than your room and you're grateful for it. At least you wouldn't be sleepy now.

"Someone's working hard, I see." A teasing voice whispers from behind, "May I join you?"

Seungmin’s voice, much to your surprise, brings a smile to your face.

"Sure." You say, shy like a kid in kindergarten.

He claims the seat across you, setting his books and stationary on the table.

And for the next three hours, the only sound you hear from his side is that of his breathing. Even and steady.

He's busy reading a book and his eyes are focused on the pages, never once wavering anywhere else.

He's quite sincere, you realize.

The sun sets and the students light up their lanterns and immediately go back to studying. Seungmin glances at you for a second, his lips curving into a soft smile. You smile back, albeit shyly.

Hours pass by and you know it's almost time for dinner because your stomach is growling. Louder than ever.

"Y/n," Seungmin speaks to you, putting his book down, "Want to have some warm Noodles? There's a new stall in town which sells delicious noodles."

You contemplate for a second before agreeing with a smile.

"Noodles sound amazing right now."

The both of you pick up your lanterns and walk out the main gate into the streets of the town.

While the town is busy and bustling with activities during the day, at nightfall the town comes to a standstill. Something you've always liked.

"It's not in the market square, I presume." You say as Seungmin navigates through the lanes of the market.

"No," He replies, "But it is quite near to the market."

After a five minute walk from the market square, you finally see an old bamboo hut in the distance, dim and quiet.

But the moment Seungmin and you are seated on one of the wooden benches, you're as if in a trance. The aroma of herbs and spices and chicken broth is nothing like you'd ever felt before.

"Grandma, we'll have two bowls of noodles with a side of Kimchi, please." Seungmin says.

"Sure thing, son." The woman replies with a twinkle in her eyes.

"You're a regular here. " You say to Seungmin, looking around the interiors of the stall. "It's cozy and the noodles smell amazing already."

"Oh, y/n, wait till you taste them. It'll be like nothing you'd ever had before."

And true to his words, the moment you eat those noodles, flavors burst in your mouth.

It is a perfect blend of sweet and salty, but the black pepper adds the perfect spice to the combination of flavors.

"Seungmin, this is amazing!" You say, taking a second bite. "We have to come back here again!"

He can only chuckle at your reaction. If you'd say the word, he'd bring you to this place everyday. Without fail.

The two of you eat quietly, only sharing a glance of amazement once in a while.

"I'll pay, y/n." Seungmin offers once you guys are done eating, bellies full.

"No! Let me pay." You get up immediately and walk up to the old lady.

Seungmin can only shake his head at you.

"How much will that be, grandma?" You ask, taking out your purse.

"Oh, its on the house today. " the lady says, much to your surprise, "Master Seungmin brought his girlfriend out for a date at our place. I couldn't take money from you today."

Seungmin and you stare at each other, wide eyed and speechless and hearts racing.

"Grandma! She's not my girlfriend! We're classmates." Seungmin says, the tip of his ears bright red.

You nod, shyly, "There's nothing of that sort going on between us!"

Grandma smiles as she pours soup into a bowl, "Well, not yet maybe. I have an eye for things like that, you see."

When you exit the hut, Seungmin remains quite, his lips pursed in a line. It's truly endearing to see him flustered like that.

"Well, that was awkward." You say, trying to lighten up the mood.

Seungmin nods, rubbing the back of his head, "Sorry about that. I don't know why she'd say that."

"No, no, it's okay. She's an adorable woman." You say.

The rest of the walk passes by in silence.

For some reason, you always find yourself in these silent moments with Seungmin. But you like the silence. It's calming, not uncomfortable.

"So, I'll see you tomorrow?" He asks as the two of you reach the entrance of your dorm building.

You nod. You're about to turn around when he pulls you in for a gentle embrace.

Your heart stops. Your breathing stops. The earth stops.

Without even meaning to, you find yourself melting into the embrace.

The next second, Seungmin pulls back and walks towards his dorm, not even saying a word.

And you're standing there, mouth hanging open.

What are these nervous sensations Seungmin is making you feel?

*

"So why were you not at dinner yesterday?" Wendy asks the next morning, an eyebrow raised in suspicion, "Were you with a boy?"

You try to calm the heat spreading to your cheeks, "Kind of. But it wasn't anything like what you think. I swear. We were studying together and then he asked if I wanted to try a new food stall in town. That's all."

And then he hugged you Goodnight. And you haven't been able to forget the way his body felt against yours.

"And who exactly is 'we'?" Wendy asks again, the tone of suspiciousness still present in her words.

"Seungmin and I." You say.

Wendy stares at you, flabbergasted.

Seungmin and you?

You went out on a supposed platonic date with a Prince?

"Y/n, Seungmin is-" Wendy's words are cut off by the ringing of the hourly bell, indicating that your classes are about to begin.

"Wendy, I'll tell you all about it. Promise. See you later." You say and disappear into the crowd of hurrying students but Wendy doesn't move.

Wendy has a different plan in her mind. Something she considers more important than attending boring lectures.

*

"Kim Seungmin, can I see you for a second?" Wendy drags Seungmin by his arm the moment he steps out of his dorm building.

He stares at her, confused.

He didn't have a class yet; he was just stepping out to get some breakfast. Where was she dragging him early in the morning?

"What's wrong?" He asks.

Wendy and him have never even talked with each other before so why this sudden interest?

Wendy stands in front of him, eyes full of doubt. Her hands rest on her hips.

"Are you trying to mess with y/n?" She asks flatly.

Seungmin is taken aback, "What? No! Of course not!"

Why would she even think that? Seungmin almost feels angry.

"Then why are you hanging out with her late at night and why is she oblivious to you being of royal blood?"

Seungmin sighs, "Okay, Wendy, listen. I'm not trying to mess with her or anything. But its true I haven't told her about my family yet. And I will tell her. But I just want her to know me for me. Before she starts to dislike me just because I'm of royal blood. Do you think I'm wrong?"

Wendy thinks for a second before replying, "Well, you don't mean any harm. But...I think you should tell her about yourself. I mean if you're trying to get her to like you back, might as well be honest about your life."

Seungmin’s eyes are wide with shock. How did she even know about Seungmin’s crush on you? Did one of his friends spread the rumor? Did she try to spy on him?

"Hey, don't look so surprised, your majesty." sarcasm drips from her words, "Everyone here knows you like her. We have eyes, you know?"

Seungmin doesn't reply, embarrassed. Of course it is hot gossip when a prince falls in love, isn't it?

People have written sagas and books and poems about it. What is a little academy gossip compared to that?

*

You find out Seungmin hanging out with a female friend the a few days later during lunch, and you try to shake off an uncomfortable feeling.

"Seungmin, could I speak to you for a second?"

The girl looks at you, from head to toe and nods her head. "Hey, she's quite pretty, Seungmin."

Seungmin sighs, "Oh, shut up, Sojong. Don't you have a class?"

His ears are red again, like how they were back at the noodles shop.

"I'm going now anyways. Bye sweethearts!" The girl walks off with a smile, and you're left confused.

"Don't mind her. She's my cousin. An idiot cousin, if I may add."

It feels as if a weight is lifted off of your chest. Your lips automatically curve into a smile.

"I didn't know you had a cousin in the academy."

"Yeah, well. Now you do. So what's going on?" He replies.

"Um.. did Wendy say something to you a few days ago? About you going to the noodles stall with me?"

Seungmin chuckles, "Oh yeah. But it's alright. She's your friend. I get that she's quite protective of you."

You smile, "Thanks for understanding. But , umm...Seungmin, she also might have implied that you kind of want to go out with me."

Seungmin’s soul almost leaves his body. Wendy could not have shut up about it, could she? Now you probably think Seungmin is some kind of creep trying to get into your pants.

"Hey, it's okay. Wendy always exaggerates everything and she wants me to get a boyfriend desperately so I understand if you didn't say anything of that sort to her. She's not very good at conveying messages." You say.

"But I did." Seungmin says, mustering all his courage, "I did say that. To her. And it's totally okay if you don't feel the same way about me. I really do. "

You almost feel like laughing.

You haven't been able to get him out of your mind for the past few days. And he thinks you don't like him?

The both of you had been busy with different classes and tests and projects. The few glances and greetings you shared with him during lunch would become the highlight of your day. And he thinks you wouldn't want to go out with him?

Impossible.

"I do, though. I'm open to the idea of going out with you."

Seungmin was not prepared for that answer. He was sure he'd get rejected, but here you were, looking all shy and sweet while confessing to liking him back?

"Um..so how about tomorrow night? There's a nice restaurant with live music and all. I could book us a table there."

You try to supress the grin that is trying to claw its way onto your face.

"Sounds great. See you then."

"Yeah, see you." He replies, heart hammering hard against his chest.

*

The night finally comes and you find Seungmin standing just outside of your dorm building.

He wears a black long coat and pants, paired with a high collared white shirt and a rose in his hands.

Your legs feel weak the moment your eyes meet. And the gravity of the situation finally dawns on you.

By tonight, Kim Seungmin might become your boyfriend. He's handsome, intelligent and funny, yet he decides to go out on a date with you?

Why? How did the two of you even end up here?

On the other hand, Seungmin feels like he'd been hit by the cupid's arrow. The only thing he can think about as you make your way towards him is how beautiful that long, pink dress looks on you and how he couldn't wait to make you his.

"For the beautiful lady." He says, offering you the red rose.

Shyly, you take the rose.

"Shall we?" He asks, gently taking your hand. Your hand feels warm.

"Yes." You reply, intertwining your fingers with his.

Oh, how beautiful it feels.

To be able to walk hand in hand with the man you admired so much. It feels natural. Like this is how the two of you were always meant to be. Maybe if Wendy had never told you about how Seungmin felt about you, you'd have never made the effort to ask him if he ever saw you in a non-platonic way.

But you're glad everything that happened happened. You're not someone who liked to live with what-ifs.

The restaurant he'd booked just adds to the beauty of this evening. The ambience is nice and a musician plays a beautiful melody on the piano, matching to the aesthetic of the place.

"I had booked a table for two by the name of Kim Seungmin. "

The waiter takes you to your place, a large candle adorning the center of the table.

You take your seats and the waiter takes your order and leaves.

Seungmin gets a hold of your hand again, intertwining your fingers.

"I can't believe we're actually out on a date." He chuckles, tracing his thumb across the back of your palm.

"I can't either. It's surreal." You say, "But I love it. I love being here with you."

Seungmin nods, "I love being anywhere, as long as you're with me."

"Didn't know Kim Seungmin was such a flirt, huh." You laugh, your cheeks heating up.

"Oh, you're in for a long ride, baby girl." He says, pressing his lips softly against your fingers.

Goosebumps.

Indeed, you were in for a long ride.

*

That night, the two of you walk back to the academy campus in silence.

A silence that is so calming and so comforting, it feels almost like a soothing hug from Seungmin.

When you two reach the main entrance of your dorm, Seungmin pulls you in for a hug again.

And just like last time, you melt into his arms.

He smells like smoke and mint and comfort.

"I had a great time, y/n." He whispers, pulling away but keeping your faces close.

He put strands of your hair behind your ears, so soft and tender.

"I did, too." You reply, your hands gently settling on his cheeks.

"Can I kiss you, y/n, please?" Seungmin asks, almost pleads. Like kissing you is what would keep him alive from that day on, like kissing you would fill his lungs with oxygen, like kissing you is the drug that he just cannot quit.

And you can only nod before he crashes his lips onto yours.

And yet again, he's gentle and tender and you sigh into his mouth when he pulls you closer.

He tastes like the tiramisu you had back in the restaurant, sweet and like strawberries.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then." He says when you pull back, breathing heavy. His eyes are shy with a sense of pride in them. He couldn't believe that the girl he'd been crushing on since last year was finally his. He couldn't believe his luck.

And neither could you.

"Yeah, see you!" You say and kiss his lips once again before jogging into the dorm building.

Seungmin goes to sleep that night dreaming of you and wakes up yearning for you in the morning.

And the cycle repeats every day, for the next 2 months.

The two of you had become inseparable, spending every possible moment with each other.

Whenever your schedules would not let you spend a lot of time together, the two of would make sure to have at least one meal together. That single meal would be the highlight of both of your days.

But the final exams loom over you like an ominous grey cloud.

"So, as you already know, our country neighbors multiple other countries, each with their own king and set of rules. I want you all to remember the names of all current kings and all new rules they had added to their country during their tenure. " the history teacher was going on and on, "Remember, you only have a month left for your finals. That final grade would determine the trajectory of your lives. Study well."

And he finishes off with that threat.

You were so busy jotting down notes during the class that you didn't notice Seungmin's absence from the day's class.

You'd been late this morning and didn't have time to even have breakfast before coming to class. Naturally, you'd assumed he'd been in the class.

"I don't see your boyfriend today, y/n." Wendy says after class, as if reading your mind.

"Yeah, I've been wondering the same thing." You say, absently, stuffing your books back in your bag.

Wendy tags along with her other friends for lunch and you excuse yourself, making your way towards Seungmin’s dorm building.

You'd been to his room multiple times now, yet everytime you're surprised by how neat it is. The books are neatly lined up on the shelf, the blankets are folded on the bed and his shoes are neatly stacked by the corner of his cupboard.

"Missed you at class today." You say to Seungmin, whose eyes widen with excitement when he sees you enter the room.

"Yeah, I spent nearly three hours solving a problem last night, I didn't wake up on time." He says, patting the space near him on the bed.

You sit beside him, "Can we study together at night? I need your help."

He agrees immediately, pecking your cheek.

"In fact, we could go to the library right now, what say?" He asks.

"Did you forget, Seungmin? We have a field trip today. In the second half. We're supposed to assemble at the playground after lunch."

Seungmin chuckles, "Yeah. A field trip to the old fort of Taru. Almost forgot about it."

Something he'd been dreading for weeks now.

When it was announced that the final year students would be going on a field trip, he was excited in the beginning.

But when he found out the location of the said trip, he was devastated. The old fort of Taru was his ancestral home. His grandfather and great-grand father and great-great grandfather fought multiple wars and ruled the country from that fort and when they passed away, Seungmin’s father had shifted his family to a new palace just outside the city, deciding to turn the old fort into a museum for tourists.

Seungmin didn't dislike the old fort. In fact, he loved visiting that place . Every year, he'd look forward to visiting the old fort to pay homage to his forefathers during special festivals that only the Royal family celebrated.

Yet, he was dreading today's trip. Because at the entrance of the new museum, stands a tall painting of him and his family, welcoming tourists to their ancestral home.

And if you see the painting, his façade is going to disappear and you'll know his identity and that would be the end of his beautiful daydream.

But when you pull him by his collar and kiss him with so much love, he cannot help but wish for this dream to last forever.

*

When the time finally comes to board the horse carriages that would take the students to the fort, Seungmin starts rethinking every single choice of his till date. He knew he was hurting you, he knew you would be devasted to find out who he really is. But he would die if had to lose you.

And his greatest fears come to life the moment he sets foot out of that damned carriage.

Wendy, with her hand on your shoulder, stands near the fort entrance. You'd reached the fort earlier since the girls were sent off earlier. And Seungmin wishes they hadn't been.

You look confused, sad, eyebrows furrowed in exasperation.

When Wendy sees Seungmin, her eyes widen. "She knows." She mouths at him.

Seungmin swallows the lump in his throat, "Y/n, I swear..I swear I didn't do it to deceive you. I really like you and hell, I even love you. Please. Hear me out."

You don't say a word and stare at him with a piercing gaze.

"Y/n, please. I don't know why you hate Royal families but I promise you, I'm not as bad as you think they are. You know me, y/n. I'm your Seungmin!" He insists, trying to hold your hand.

But you pull away.

"You lied to me. You're no better than them." You say, almost a whisper, "Forget about what happened between us. It's over now."

And with that, the love of Seungmin’s life walks out of his life, leaving him in shambles.

*

You'd not slept properly for a week now and even stopped attending any classes. You had buried yourself in your books, revising every single page of every single book for as many times as you could.

The only time you did step out of your room was during lunch and dinner and even then, you made sure to avoid him at all costs.

It had been dreadful, really. You thought it would be easier for you to move on and forget the past few months if you kept reminding yourself of Seungmin’s lies, but it only made you miss him more.

He lied, yes; but he also made you fall in love with him, which was worse. Falling in love and dreaming of a family with Seungmin was never on your cards, you were sure you'd always marry the person your parents would have chosen for you. But here you were. Heartbroken and infatuated; both by the same person.

And today is no different from other days, or so you thought.

At around half past midnight, you hear a knock on your door. Wendy had gone home for a week and would be back tomorrow, so you are genuinely curious as to who would knock on your door at such an ungodly hour.

When you open the door, you see those eyes again- the black orbs that you'd fallen so deeply for.

"Y/n, do you have a minute? Please?" Seungmin pleads when you freeze at the sight of him.

"No. I'm afraid not." You reply, your heart hammering against your chest. The tightness in your throat does not help.

"Please, y/n. I beg you, please."

Across the hallway, a few girls pop their heads out of their doors, wondering where the male voice is from.

Sensing no other option, you pull Seungmin inside your room reluctantly.

"Fine. Say what you have to and then leave." You mutter.

You're doing everything in your power to avoid any sort of eye contact with him because you know that is what your weakness is.

He sits at the edge of your bed, while you sit in your chair, across the room.

"Y/n, you don't have to take me back. But I want you to know that I never meant to deceive you. It is pure, genuine love that I feel for you. I know you hate me because I'm of royal blood but ignoring that part, you did like me, didn't you? Before you even knew about my family. I'm still that person. I may be a prince but that is not all I am."

Your throat gets tighter and your eyes mist over with tears.

"It doesn't matter. Our relationship started from a lie. And as a matter of fact, I cannot ignore that you're a prince. I had one condition for all suitors and I cannot withdraw it for anyone."

Seungmin swallows, his eyes bloodshot, "Can you at least tell me why you hate Royal blood so much? What did they ever do to you?"

You scoff, "You really wanna know, huh? Does it still matter now? Because I'm never going to get back together with you, Seungmin."

"I want to know."

And so you tell him.

"I hate royals so much because I am one of them. I am a princess. A forgotten one, but the blood of royalty still courses through my veins."

You were a little girl of around four when your now parents had adopted you, more or less. You didn't know who they were or why they were taking you away from your mother and father- the king and queen of Nabha- a country neighboring Taru. You only remember crying till your head hurt. You remember your birth mother crying, standing at the gates of the castle while her emerald crown fell at her feet.

When you turned twelve, your adoptive parents told you the truth of your adoption.

Your adoptive mother worked in the Royal Palace as a governess for royal children while your adoptive father worked as a royal architect. They'd both met in the palace and fell in love, eventually married. You were born to the queen and king a year later. Everything was going well.

But as all stories go, yours had a villain too. Your own birth father- the king. He was the worst kind of person. He was cruel, unjust, abusive and hated you because you were a girl. He had prayed to every God known to mankind for a son, only for him to receive a daughter in return. But he refused to crown you the heir. For the next few years, the king traveled to all neighboring countries , looking for some solution to his problem. And then he found it. An oracle that told him to disown his first born daughter, in order to be blessed with a son.

When the king arranged for your adoption, he didn't even bother consulting his wife. One morning, you were in her arms and the next, you were being taken away to Taru by your adoptive parents.

The Queen killed herself the next morning.

"And that was the day I promised two things to myself: First, I would never set foot back in that country. I made Taru, your country my home. Second, I would never marry a man of royal ancestry. Because I know, no matter what happens, I never want to be associated with royals ever again. Betrayal is all we'll receive at the end under the pretense of a greater good."

Seungmin is speechless at this point. He thought your dislike towards royal lineage was just a matter of preference but now, he understands you. Truly. He understands why you'd take his lies as a sign of betrayal.

"Y/n, I-"

"Save it. You have your answers and I have mine. Leave."

He walks out of the room without a word and the moment you lock the door behind him, he falls on his knees, crying. His heart aches for you. For everything you'd been through and for everything he put you through. He cries for you.

But little does he know, behind the closed door, you're on your knees too, sobbing into your hands. Every single fiber of your being begged you to stop him and you chose to ignore it.

You wonder if you'll ever be able to hate Seungmin like you wish you did.

*

Wendy is lecturing you again this morning, her face tense.

"Y/n, we're leaving this academy forever tomorrow. Can you please give yourself the closure you deserve? Just go and talk to Seungmin. You don't have to hate his guts forever. "

The final exam results are out today, which means that your parents would be coming to pick you up tomorrow evening. You'd be leaving this place and all the bitter-sweet memories associated with it forever. It hurts you a little.

But you had to be strong.

"I've got my closure, Wendy. I promise. Can we talk about something else now?"

Wendy sighs, "Y/n, if this is what you want, then I shall support you. But know that I genuinely will always believe that you and Seungmin were meant to be. Even if you get married and have ten kids with someone else!"

For the first time in months, you allow yourself to laugh at Wendy's stupid statements. She joins in too.

But her words stick with you throughout the day.

That night, after you're done packing most of your stuff, you crash on your bed, a thousand thoughts circling your head.

I genuinely will always believe that you and Seungmin were meant to be. Even if you get married and have kids with someone else!

Even the thought of marrying another man and having his kids nauseated you. Are you really ready to let go of Seungmin, forever?

You had spent a long time trying to forget Prince Kim Seungmin, his voice, his words, his touch, but had you really succeeded?

After today, you might never see him again. Are you ready to live with that regret forever?

The answer to all these questions is no. You are not someone to live wondering the what-ifs.

So you jump out of the bed, lantern in hand and run towards Seungmin’s dorm.

*

"Y/n, did you come here by mistake?" Is his first reaction when he opens his door, hair messy and eyes alert.

You shake your head, "No. I need to talk to you. Can I come in?"

He let's you in.

"So, what's up?" He asks, rubbing the back of his neck. He looks nervous. Like the first time he had taken you out for dinner to grandma's noodle shop.

"I've been thinking. About you and about us. And I.. I'm scared. I will not lie. I do not trust royals, but for some reason, I trust you. I know that there’s a thousand things that could go wrong but I still want to be with you. If you'll have me again"

Seungmin is dumbfounded. Literally. How does one even respond to things like these?

"Seungmin, say something!" You insist.

He forces the words out of his mouth, "I'm g-glad you feel that way."

You scowl, hands on your hips.

"I bare my heart open to you and this is all you have to say? Really? Listen, if you've found someone else in these few weeks then I understand, I really do but please at least-"

He kisses you. He kisses you so beautifully, it pains you to even think that you were willing to give up this. And for what? A horrible father who coincidentally was also of royal blood?

His tongue nudges at your tongue playfully, while his hands are cupping your face, thumbs circling your skin in comfort.

You'd never felt so much peace.

When you pull away, he gently presses his forehead onto yours, "I wouldn't dare find someone else. I assure you, whatever prejudices Nabha had, they do not exist here in Taru. I'm not like your birth father and I will never be. I promise. I will do everything in my power to convince you about it."

And for some reason, as usual, you believe him.

You kiss him again, knowing that if you could go back in time, you would not change a thing. You would let Seungmin easily win the duel of your hearts a thousand times over.

[mickeyluggage]

True detective: how to surround your protagonists with ghosts

Something that's really effective in terms of storytelling in True detective, is how many characters never actually appear on screen- they're mentionned, sometimes many times, and you can feel the weight of their existence on the protagonists, but you can never see them.

We hear about Marty's father being dead, about how strong he was, we can feel how attached to him Marty was. We know he had a huge effect on his life, that he very likely influenced the way Marty thinks a lot. But we never get to see him.

We hear about Rust's father as well, we hear about their relationship, what he learnt from him, but we never get to see him (nor his mother). We hear about Rust's daughter Sophia, we even hear about his wife a little, but they are never seen.

(In the original script, we were supposed to see her in a flashback, we were supposed to get a little glimpse into that scene which shook Rust to the core and changed the trajectory of his life; but it never made it to the screen.)

In a way, this also works really well with the series being detective drama, a genre in which we always spend a lot of time looking for someone (a culprit), who's mentionned but not seen until the very end, when the bad guy is arrested and we get to the conclusion of the story. True detective plays on this aspect by giving us both Reggie Ledoux and Childress; they play the role of the unmasked bad guy. But when it comes to actually dismanteling the pedophilic system that covered for them, nothing happens. And when it comes to showing us faces for the characters we've been hearing about for eight episodes, we get nothing. Because this is a world where nothing is solved.

The only way we can access those characters is through the lense of the protagonists' perspectives. We're stuck in their minds, firstly because they're the ones narrating the parts of the story which take place in 1995 and 2002, but also because we only ever hear about the people in their lives based on what impressions they left on them (i.e. the way Marty talks about his father). This has such an impact on the whole story for us as spectators, and it works really well to make sure that we are stuck with Rust and Marty. We're about as lonely as they are in their respective lives, we're as limited as they are. We're prisonners of their narrative, just the same way that they are prisonners in their own lives.

Every character, whether they are already dead or not, is a ghost.

I could make a whole other post on the way that this storytelling technique changes when Rust and Marty leave the interrogation room at the end of the series, once we see what really is and not a retelling of their own memories, (in fact I even wrote about that for my final exam), so if anyone wants to read it, well, I could do it ig

[noodle-made-a-mistake]

A short list of things that bother me about the Magisterium canon:

Forgive me in advance for rambling, I have to get these thoughts out of my brain lmao (also it's been a couple years so correct me if I'm wrong! (I really hope I’m wrong on some of these :’) )) Spoilers ahead obviously!

● The lack of Calron :(

● Not taking the opportunity to develop Tamara's character and keeping her static until she's randomly just different. Strong female characters aren't just skilled and perfect until their one flaw (usually it's having feelings like any other human being) is revealed shockingly (that's just sloppy characterization), they should be crucial to the plot and not overlooked in favor of developing other characters (from what I remember she literally was my favorite while reading the series until she just got annoying (??) after a while, of course that could just be because the story is told through Call's perspective but still)

● The entire school system that I need more info on bc it sounds so unthought out and not like something that has existed for hundreds of years

● The forceful nature of making people serve as masters?? That makes no sense? Like, “Congratulations on not dying during your schooling or in the war(s), your prize is forced labor 👍.”

● Also THE COLLEGIUM WAS MENTIONED AND NEVER ELABORATED UPON

● TGT. Least favorite book. Get out. Tgt truthers how do you do it??

● The Maugris plot twist. It destroys the meaning behind the past four books. It's just so uncalled for and frankly just sloppy ig? I love the idea in a way, but only if it's foreshadowed from the beginning. Also I'm too attached to the complicated dynamic of Alastair raising his possible ex-bestie for it to end up like that

● The fact that the iron trio is out of school for half the series, I'd like to know what's normal, y'know??

● THE LACK OF ELABORATION ABOUT THE FIRST GEN I WANT TO KNOW MORE I HAVE TO KNOW MORE

● They did my man Constantine especially wrong, give him some ✨️character✨️ aside from E V I L and problematic (trademark) and charming (???)

● AND ALASTAIR GOD TELL ME MORE?? He's characterized as distant and obviously traumatized with his hate of his magic involved past but I just need to know what that past was like. Like who was he before his dead wife syndrome?? Idk but I'd of liked any excuse to know more about it just so I can understand him more??

● Please give me a single character trait of Declan's?? Like he was mentioned a handful of times and that's all we got. He was just some guy and I am hating it !!

● And Sarah. Like. She was a mom and liked peace as a concept but she also made a cool ass knife. That's a lot of things left up for interpretation. And I know Call wasn’t allowed to ask questions for plot reasons but god i wish he had more information about his own dead mother for Christ's sake

● Also other than a victim, who was Jericho? I need to know who this kid who drew scribbles in the margins of his very important journal while writing about how he was slowly being killed was. What was his relationship really like with his brother if he was so scared to say that he was dying or what gave him the impression that he didn't care?? It's fascinating and I need him under a microscope immediately

● Also the lack of queer representation until the last two books. AND THEN IT WASN'T EVEN ANY OF OUR MAIN CAST. Literally the saddest L ever :(

● AND AARON WAS NEVER CONFIRMED QUEER LIKE WHAT THE FUCK JUST L O O K AT HIS CHARACTER AND INFACT ALL OF OUR CORE CAST IS AT LEAST BI LIKE C O M E O N (ik they're like kids but even I knew I was not straight when I was like 11 and i lived in the most conservative non-LGBTQ-friendly town known to man)

● Low key, callmara was so bad, like I love them but not the way it happened, horrible set up. Tamara deserved so much better and to not have her entire character destroyed by becoming a love interest. I wish they thought about her as an independent character instead of the means to implement a romantic subplot in tgt, they did so good in the first books with that

● Also there's no elaboration on what chaos is. It's the mystical 5th element. Wow! Let's go girl, give us nothing! You'd think that if Makaris were so exceptionally rare and special that we'd get some explanation on how they come to be and what it is exactly that they can control but we're just left to assume it's the special "chosen one" type of thing. Idk it bothers me for some reason :/

That's just off the top of my head and it's been years since I read the series all the way through (I should do a reread soon). For the most part I adore this funky series and I hate to bash it but I felt the need to ramble about it's shortcomings because I'm not crazy, right?? It had so much potential! Anyway, I'm sort of glad for the blanks in the story despite complaining about them because it leaves room for fics and fan interpretations that I always love to see, but on the other hand, I'd like for the story to feel finished and not like a last minute science fair project.

Thanks for sticking around for my late night rambling lmao

[theerurishipper]

Idk I always find it bizarre when people shocked that Marinette just let rubble and whatever fell down to Emilie's coffin just so Gabriel move to protect it as if it's smt new. Miraculous can be inconsistent with it's characterization sometimes, but not for Marinette. Her characterization is still strong and constant from s1. Her let the rubble fell to the coffin is her s1 equivalent of taking down Eiffel tower at the Mime episode or s2 when she baited anansi to punch the arc de triomphe so she'd be buried under it's rubble.

What bizzare is the amount of what Marinette destroyed is far exceed what Adrien, as the holder of desruction ever did. Chat Blanc excluded because he was akumatized while Marinette did all that intentionally.

Can't imagine just how much destruction she caused if she were the holder of black cat miraculous instead. Must be terrifying.

I feel like those other two were different because The Mime and Anansi were akumatized villains with superpowers, so they wouldn't die from that or anything, and they could defend themselves just fine. But it's not the same with Emilie Agreste. This is an innocent woman who as far as she knows wanted no part of this. This is the mother of the boy she supposedly loves and is fighting for. And she drops a whole elevator onto her body without a single second of hesitation. That's so cruel. That's awful.

This literally proves why Marinette is so unsuited for the role she occupied in the finale. She has no connection to any of this. The whole Agreste arc was built on their family drama and the emotions they have for each other. We're supposed to feel something for Emilie Agreste, regardless of her lacking presence in the story. And here comes Marinette, who cares fuck all for any of them, treating this innocent woman like a prop in her fight, literally dehumanizing her in order to get an advantage over Gabe. There's no consideration for Emilie, from the narrative or the characters. Gabriel had to be the one to save her from Marinette.

And I am a proud "Emilie Agreste was an abusive parent" truther, but that doesn't excuse this. At the end of the day, she was an innocent in Gabriel's supervillainy, and Marinette threatening her life as part of a strategy to defeat Gabe is awful. And like I said, this shows why it's so counterproductive to have her take the central role in the resolution of this conflict. We're supposed to watch Emilie's heartfelt words reach Gabriel, as if she matters, when Marinette just treated her like an object and almost killed her (not sure if she's already dead or just in a coma, but my point still stands). The emotions are all gone. Nothing matters expect Marinette being a girlboss (which is literally the stated reason for why Bug Noire happened, so that Marinette could look cool).

Like, can you imagine if Adrien was here? Could you imagine how he'd feel watching his partner who supposedly loves him using his mother as a tool to defeat his father? Could you imagine how he'd feel to see his mother's body be almost destroyed, to see his mother be killed because Ladybug wanted to beat Gabe's ass? How would it feel to see that Marinette doesn't consider his mother a person more than she thought of her as a prop to get an advantage over Gabriel?

But no, treating Emilie Agreste with any kind of dignity is secondary to letting Marinette be awesome and cool ig. Removing the character who is the emotional core of the story removes all emotion from the finale, who woulda thunk it.

Thank you for your ask!

[connorsjorts]

one thing i absolutely hate about this game is how they did kara dirty. like, the fact that i love connors storyline is no surprise, ive always had a soft spot for those buddy cop/detective kinda thing, and for clancy. but i wanted so bad to like kara, i waited for a good female character, i wanted to be as obsessed with her as i am with connor. but when giving out personalities they just kinda. forgot about her ig. i hated the alice was actually an android all along twist, bc her being a human was the only spicy thing in this whole fiasco for me. like, i get it that they wanted to make her a mother first and foremost but this trope is so overplayed. and alice being an android is just so... disappointing? do we even know if she was deviant?

My hot take is that I actually like that Alice is an android—considering the theme of family that runs throughout the game, I like that Connor’s family is human (and a dog 🥹), Markus’ has both humans and androids (Carl + his found Jericrew family), and Kara’s is completely comprised of androids. I like that in the context of the question, “Can an android really be a partner/son/mother,” the answer is yes, and that in Kara’s case human validation is not even part of the equation. I think that’s important!

Of course, like most things in this game, it’s executed poorly. My major problem with it is that there’s no conflict behind what is supposed to be Kara’s most important choice, which is whether or not to accept Alice once she finds out the truth. There are like, zero stakes involved, no overcoming a long-held false belief, because there’s basically nothing in Kara’s story (including her backstory) to suggest that she believes androids are inferior to humans. When the androids she meets are mostly sympathetic and sometimes even helpful, and most humans are cruel, why wouldn’t she accept Alice? And don’t get me wrong, I do like Kara, I think Valorie Curry did a great job in making her genuinely charming and likable, but it feels like the writers left out major chunks of her character development in their attempt to write a “good woman.”

Personally what I would have liked to see in Kara’s story is for the reveal to happen much earlier and for the question of “can Kara accept Alice for who she is” to have less to do with this human vs. android distinction that isn’t really relevant to the rest of her story, and more to do with her accepting Alice as a person. Like, YKs are supposed to be the “perfect children,” they’re quiet, docile, obedient—which pretty much describes Alice. So what would happen if, as she starts to experience actual parental love, she starts to come into her own a bit? What if she laughs, loudly? What if she squeals in excitement? And what if she actually starts to feel and express the anger that we know she must have—what if she acts out, talks back, cries hard, throws tantrums? What if she has strong opinions? How does Kara deal with it when these big feelings become inconvenient? If she forces Alice to stifle them, does that make her any better than Todd, even if it’s for a good reason, like ensuring their safety? If the writers wanted to make her core identity be “mother,” then give her hard choices that are actually related to motherhood! It’s not like parenting involves a lack of difficult choices, lol.

Alternatively—“do we even know if she was deviant?” Now that’s a question. What if she wasn’t? Suddenly the choice to embrace or reject her becomes harder. It’s not “do you still love her even if she’s an android?” which is like, duh, because the game shows us again and again that emotionally, deviant androids and humans are the same anyway. But this, this question has weight: “Do you still love her, even when you know she doesn’t love you back?”

[m1ckeyb3rry]

SitH thoughts under the cut for the roughly two people that have read that story:

- why is Y/N so shippable with EVERY character EXCEPT FOR COLT (literally the main love interest)

- like the conversation with reiner on the bridge??? so romantic and for what…wdym you wished you knew each other in a world where you weren’t both terrible people. wdym you’ll meet each other in another life some time. WDYM YOU’LL FIND HER IN THAT NEXT LIFE HUH REINER 🤨🤨🤨🤨

- her and hadrian have a narrative reason to be shipped so ig i can’t complain about that but i still can’t get over the impact that he has had on everyone reading the story. bro was there for 1.5 chapters max and he’s still on everyone’s minds even now. those pseudo-italian genetics are strong i suppose

- i have actually tried to figure out why it is that friedrich seems like more of a love interest than colt at times though (besides me being the BIGGEST victim of second lead syndrome) and i think i’ve finally got it!!

- the story is essentially Y/N’s life story, and while it was inspired out of a love for colt, the story more so focuses on the effects of things like war on a person (in this case Y/N), and how “cool girl boss beating up and killing people and getting no trauma from it” is a trope that just doesn’t make sense. so Y/N was created first and foremost to be a way to depict these impacts and to be a character that does questionable things and is faced with real consequences for them instead of just being hailed as a hero

- meanwhile colt is a character i’ve borrowed from isayama, so i can’t do much about his base characterization (although i’ve certainly pushed the limits on that), but i was the person to make friedrich, and as his writer, i can say that he was quite literally created just to love Y/N. of course he does other things and has other relationships and (hopefully) seems like a character that has more to him than just ‘being in love with Y/N’, but that doesn’t change the fact that at his core, being in love with Y/N is his narrative purpose, just like showing Y/N the other sides of war is hadrian’s. this is especially hard for me to navigate when writing because i have to show that while also trying to make sure that he doesn’t take over the story (which is after all a colt fic).

- i would say that in the beginning, her and colt were closer due to their more compatible personalities, but her during (and post) war personality is much more in line with friedrich’s just because he’s a lot more cynical and blunt. i’m somewhat limited by the canon in terms of how things like athyae affect colt because he does have a generally kind and almost naive?? personality in the small crumbs we get of him in the show, so i have to balance that with also making sure that everything he goes through does have an effect on who he is as a person the way it does on friedrich and Y/N

- this story is going to be so sad in the end. like it’s already probably my least happy work just because of the grim stuff that it covers, but i would like to reemphasize that Y/N’s life…is not that great. i think she’s my most tragic Y/N because everything that happened to her was brought about by a choice she made — to be a warrior candidate, which is not something she was forced to do. the L/Ns were decently well off, her parents loved her, and she was generally happy if not bored with her life pre-candidacy. but then she made that one fatal mistake and now she’s become what she is and she can never really leave and it leads to a general life of pain anguish and suffering (although i will say that my best friend heard my plans for the ending and said that it was relatively happy compared to what i normally write, so take that as you will)

- i forgot how self-aware the characters are at some points. there’s this one scene where friedrich and colt literally make fun of how many guys like Y/N (because at the end of the day she’s still Y/N duh ofc she’s beautiful everyone likes her) and it’s so unserious…even despite how heavy the fic can get there is some levity here and there which i forgot about tbh. but the story will literally go from Y/N having a crisis about something to friedrich and colt saying some bs like “i really admire [him] for not being one of the many men to instantly fall in love with you” “true seems like he really had remarkable self-restraint” “what a commendable fellow”

- i love marek and i am very sorry for what i put him through but would i do it again?? yes. also he and Y/N are rlly cute together

- at this point i’ve gotten so attached to these characters that i could genuinely write fics about them. like fanfics about a literal fanfic. fanfiception.

- atm i think writing one of those otome isekai stories (they are my guilty pleasure) with Y/N from this fic specifically would be so fucking funny and honestly i might do it just for personal enjoyment but idk if i would ever post it because it would be such a derivative work that anyone going into it expecting an aot fic would be angry and disappointed because the only aot character in it would be colt and idek if Y/N would end up with him in such an au

- okay most of these were about Y/N’s relationships with every character BESIDES colt but her and colt honestly are really sweet together

- he cares about her so much and honestly there are many times where i’ll be writing and i’m like “nah colt deserves better” because he is SO patient with her it’s insane

- on a similar note i think it’s crazy how we’re almost at 150k words and there’s been ONE kiss (which barely even counts because it WASN’T WITH COLT)

- but at the same time the lack of romance is kind of on purpose because Y/N is NOT in a mental state to be in a relationship atm and i hate that whole trope of ‘getting a romantic partner and getting over your trauma immediately’ as that’s just not realistic. colt and friedrich are there to love and support Y/N but all three of them know that the way they are currently is not conducive to being with someone long term. there’s a lot of trauma there that needs to be resolved and spoiler alert it will not be for a very very long time

- there’s so many interesting dynamics that Y/N will have with future characters that i’m excited to write but they’re all like 200k-300k words away which is killinggg me

- ship in the harbor will definitely be my longest story and i’ve changed a lot both as a writer and a person since beginning it, so it’s super special to me. thank you so much to everyone who reads it and comes up with theories about it and falls in love with its characters — i know it’s such a niche fic and it’s been rough at times and i’m so spotty with updating it, but i really do love this little version of the warrior candidacy program and what was going on in marley while the scouts were busy doing their own thing. here’s to many more chapters (but hopefully not too many more years) of me stealing what i want from isayama and filling in the rest as i please, so that this entire mess of a story comes together into something that’s somewhat comprehensible and makes at least one person cry

[mdhwrites]

Ok, so i watched the finale, it was pretty predictable but enjoyable. But during the after cred scene, it really just solidified how aimless these characters are, Willow truly became just 'strong athlete' who serves as Hunters arm candy. She doesnt seem to give a shit about plants anymore ig? shes just 'buff' now.

Gus went straight back to 'guy who likes humans who has a group to celebrate said interest'. Amity is just... making abominations? i guess? Hunter is making palismen, which seems shoved in because caleb apparently carved.

Luz is... magic. yeah thats it. Eda is a headteacher, which feels widely out of place, but whatever. King Is. Other characters are rebuilding? i just- it feels like these characters have nowhere else to go because they just had no personal goals outside of very basic shit.

With amphibia, sasha became a child therapist, anne became a biologist who specialised in amphibians, marcy became a game designer. These are all goals that reflect their journey.

Now I want to start by saying that endings are hard and that character endings can be even harder than that. If you do a time skip epilogue, you have to somehow be able to show that all the characters are happy, successful and moving on in a way that makes sense and is narratively satisfying. You also usually have VERY little time to do this with because it's purposefully meant to be fluffy and sweet and disconnected from the rest in a way that isn't going to fit with the core of the show. The problem is that part of why this is hard is because characters are meant to be complex and their endings should reflect on the themes of the piece as well. Marcy's creativity and wonder about things blooming into a webcomic (I believe it's a webcomic and not games at least, though games works too) is great because she found a healthy way to share those passions with others and make connections through them. Anne's whole arc was learning to find the wonder in others and the strange world she was in and so her aquarium job is dead on the money. Sasha had to learn the hard way how to stop being controlling, angry and manipulative and passing those lessons on is far deeper and useful to others than anything her cheerleader base would have made you expect. It also makes it so when the show states the theme of the piece, about separation being a chance to grow and what you'll find coming back together is all the stronger, it hits SO. FUCKING. HARD. And comparing that to TOH... Well, we got effectively six character endings from what I've seen, seven if you count Lilith but hers is just more of what she was already doing as her job in the series, just now with a harpy form so I don't. Only six are meant to be any sort of final cap on their character/lives. And I'm just going to say this outright: They're not all bad. So from best to worst, with the name at the start of each in bold in case you don't care about someone, let's talk about: Hunter Amity Eda Willow Gus Luz Hunter: It's good. It's genuinely pretty damn good. That's not a joke or a setup or anything either. If Hunter's arc was about rejecting Belos to any extent, then this is a GREAT finish, even without Flapjack. After all, the part of the Isles that Belos himself most directly destroyed through his consumption, greed and wrath was the palistrom trees and palismen. Having it be that Hunter is now helping restore those elements is incredibly potent. Of course, there's also the obvious connection of Hunter and Flapjack but arguably the bird had more to do with his arc than any one character so him influencing Hunter's future just makes sense. I think it also just fits well with Hunter's character though. Watching out for people trying to steal palistrom wood uses his old soldier training but now in a constructive way, he's obviously not a very social person so the isolation is probably nice to him to get away from things and the boy has a LOT mentally to deal with. Working on regular wood while thinking about all of that is going to be a good place to release those anxieties and tensions in a good, creative manner. And for themes of identity, I think it's fine too. While Flapjack was Caleb's palisman, I don't think we ever get it confirmed that Caleb himself carved for a living or the like. That makes this genuinely something Hunter is doing himself and not because of someone else. That includes if he's doing it somewhat for Flapjack because honoring a friend is a very personal thing and very different from copying the dead. And again, frankly, the job feels very right for Hunter because it plays into his strengths rather than his weaknesses and gives him the peace he needs. No notes. Good job show. You got one. Amity: Okay, that's a little mean because Amity's is... Fine. It finally gives a point to her and her father's arc that you can't argue with through "X led to nothing" like angst about her father or the abomaton problem. There is a through line to this, especially with her abomatons. It makes narrative sense and functions.

...Except how much have those things actually mattered to her and in how long? She still rejected her father's hug in Reaching Out and didn't ask Em and Ed about him so their relationship by the end of the show still wasn't good. Escaping Expulsion explicitly said Amity was letting her grades slip so she's been at least distracted from magic for over a season at this point. Yes they claim her hair is abomination styled but it's WAY too light colored for that frankly, making it look way more pink than any sort of purple. Worse yet is that Amity's arc, besides becoming Luz's girlfriend, can be generously claimed as having a theme of becoming her own person instead of what others want of her. This technically works but clashes some by her still following in one of her parent's footsteps. She just swapped from her mother's dream to her father's passions. Now Alador never pushed her to copy him, he was neglectful after all so that would have been hard, so it still works. It is still theoretically a form of abominations that is characterized in the show by being about passion rather than simply performance with Odalia pushing the need for it to be commercial, something Amity theoretically won't care about. Frankly though, with how much her arc tries to push her caring about others, her reading to kids, there even being from what I've seen a sweet moment between her and the Collector... Why not make her a teacher or a caretaker of some sort? That's harder to portray than abomination mechanic but it fits as an ultimate capstone for going from someone who only cared about personal position, being the best and would throw away lives for her goals to someone who rejected all of that. To someone who spent their life now lifting others up and her knowledge empowered her to do that better than she otherwise could have. So Amity gets like a B. It works narratively and for the character but there's some improvement that could be done.

Eda: Oh look, a job that is going to make her absolutely miserable! That is my first thought hearing that she's a headmaster. After all, being the lead administrator is NOT the same as being a teacher. The paperwork alone is going to make her wish she was dead, much like when Tsunade became Hokage in Naruto. But that's not really what you're supposed to be thinking with it. It's supposed to be the ultimate extension of both Momma Eda in her students being her kids but also the fulfillment of Eda going from reluctant mentor to full on teacher. Which... If there were more than two episodes of the series where Eda was actually even attempting to be a mentor to Luz, that might actually mean more and that is EASILY the stronger thread being pulled here. You have to make the students into a more abstract concept for the Momma Eda theme to really fit here. What could you have done with her? I don't entirely know but I would probably have said enjoying retirement with Raine. Living a life finally at peace and without a need to hustle and bustle to fight against the curse or the system. She could have the freedom she always wanted without having to fear for her life. Having her partner by her side also makes it so you know she has family, something she spent so much of her life without. So essentially it's an ending that works from a more meta perspective but when you actually consider the events of the show and the character, it's questionable how much it fits or how 'happy' an ending it will be for her, especially when it ties her down so hard.

Willow: Okay, being fair here, from a setup perspective this actually works better than Eda's ending. Her strength is much of what defined her character, magically and physically, and she decided personally to want to go into sports in S2. Her becoming an athlete fits on both of those levels. For a character who is mostly a plot device, that's not bad.

Except it really doesn't play into anything about how she began and her resentment towards the name Half a Witch. It also has nothing to do with her plants. These elements that the show tried to claim had her seething resentment, that dominated her childhood, are ENTIRELY gone from her ending instead of reclaimed in any way. It's frustrating because it really paints that early stuff as pointless and genuinely just for Amity's sake, not Willow's and that's not great when the athletic stuff always felt tacked onto me in S2 just to give her SOMETHING to do with Hunter.

It also just continues pushing this feeling to me that despite setting up and wanting Willow to be the shy, plant girl archtype at times, S1 especially wanting her to just be willing to wilt away, SOMEONE on the writing team hates that archtype. Just wanted to surgically remove every last scrap of that from her character, regardless of if she was given the time to justify it or the like. That was frankly more okay to me with the shy element than the plant element seeing as she feels BORN to do plant magic by the fact that she was a master practically from the first time we see her use it without no training.

But here's the real reason it's below Eda: I hate her design. It's mostly fine but it's also UNFINISHED. She has one kneepad and ONE SOCK. You can make excuses for one of those but not the fucking sock and it drives me up a wall. I also don't like that the reformed Isles would still have a character like Willow having spikes on parts of her uniform for sports. Get rid of those and imply things have become gentler show. It's not like you've ever cared about keeping the Isles' identity intact before.

Gus: Here is where we go from "It functions but is maybe not good if you think about it" to "You're being way more honest than you're meaning to be show." After all, we have that cyclical aspect of Eda where Gus is returning to the start of the show but there is NO thought put into this.

If there was, if the show was willing to show that Gus had become wiser and more considerate, he wouldn't be studying humans. Not on the Isles. After all, how is he even going to do it on the Isles? Studying Luz? That feels weirdly like being friends with Bigfoot while saying you still need to find Sasquatch and prove the legends are true. Dude, maybe stop being... weird about this race you know exists properly now. It's kind of uncomfortable.

It's not even a hard thing to fix: Say he's here to see Luz off before going through the portal door with one of those glamour stones to cover his ears. He needs to go learn anthropology and the political sciences of our world in order to prepare to be a proper ambassador. That actually might have been neat.

But, you know, that would have taken any thought or care with Gus and we're lucky he was even remembered in the finale frankly. It's a flat failure though and really highlights how Gus hasn't grown and is still mostly a joke to the writers.

So then the question is... If Gus is this bad, can it really get worse with

Luz: *breathes in slowly*

*breathes out slowly*

I've been pretending to grade some of these and if that's the case, I don't even accept Luz's ending. I tell the student that they ignored what the assignment was and just copy and pasted the first paragraph of their wikipedia entry and tried to hand that in as their answer to how the MAIN CHARACTER OF THE SHOW ENDS IT. Because that is exactly the vibe of this ending.

Luz didn't grow and she sure as shit didn't learn anything. Remember: Her theme for her character arc, the worst decision to me creatively, is the fantasy she wants to live versus the consequences of that fantasy. It doesn't even matter how bad that theme is ever handled in the show because this is theoretically the largest, explicit theme of the story outside of personal expression being all that matters.

And Luz literally ends the series chasing the same dream she had at the start.

I... I don't even entirely know how to respond to that. The show, which is a kid's show remember, legitimately said that her running away from her problems to play out one of her fantasy books was such a good choice, it should be the thing she does for the REST OF HER LIFE. That it is the final, definitive note for the character that Luz the Human is going to be Luz the Witch.

And you know what? If Luz's journey to being a witch actually meant anything in the show, this might have literally any justification. If during the course of the show she had genuinely learned a lot as a person over the course of becoming a witch, if magic itself had so many rules as to require you to be a functional human being in order to use it, it MIGHT work. It's not great but it might work. Except... Remember back when I was talking about Eda? About how Eda spends two episodes teaching Luz and that's it?

Remember: Luz is like 90% why the Selkidamus is beat while on the boat. By the beginning of S2, and explicitly with Escaping Expulsion, she is already closing in on the ceiling of her powers. She already outshines most other witches to the point where the Emperor is the only person to give her a real challenge combat wise so long as the series is actually remembering to let her cast spells. Half of her glyphs aren't even tried to be connected to anything but instead, as she puts it, are found from other witch's spells randomly. They're just... There and no one else noticed somehow.

And this is what you want to say her character was leading up to? A profession that in the human realm has no transferable skills because she can't just be spinning Stringbean all the time without it being obvious and glyphs don't work in the human realm. It's actually worse in the Boiling Isles because unless she's going to get employed as a glyph master or something, she still needs a job. Everyone has magic there after all and anyone can use glyph magic with ease. You don't even need to be confident in it. Thank you Gus and Looking Glass Ruins.

It is bizarrely revealing how little thought and care was put into Luz and the themes of the show with this being how it ends. It is just, top to bottom, a failure. The only way it functions is fans of the show being happy she's chasing her dreams into eternity. You cannot think about it for even a second without some sort of question coming up.

And what else would she do? Easy. I've been saying she should have become a counselor or a therapist literally even before S2. That was just the obvious way for her to grow to me. She learns that you need to balance reality and fantasy, your passions with the demands of the world and takes up a job that lets her help kids like her find happiness and a place in their world. Either world. It would imply she understands childhood fantasies are just that, it would highlight her empathy and understanding of others and also is an amazing culmination of the theme of Fantasy versus Reality.

And instead the show's response was probably as far from caring about any of those things as you can possibly get. I don't understand it and it blows my fucking mind.

But I mean... if you want to finally drop the pretenses and just admit that your show is nothing but basic, escapist fantasy... I guess there really isn't a better ending than this, is there? =======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[auradons-trash-heap]

What are your most unpopular opinions on Descendants as a whole?

Idk how popular/unpopular a lot of my opinions are, but here are a few that I think are unpopular haha:

1) I like Mal. Yes even when she’s making bad choices, which she certainly does. I like that she’s a messy protagonist & even tho I prefer a lot of things about her book characterization I also lowkey still like the movie version of her. I know people say Dove was phoning it in especially in D3 but I think she did a really good job in D1 & D2; at the beginning of D2 she did a believable enough portrayal of a stress-based mental breakdown that I’m convinced Dove was drawing from personal experience. When you can see her zoning out every time no one’s talking to her directly bc she’s mentally working through a checklist of everything she needs to do—I’ve been there. Mal was sleep deprived & living on sheer willpower & fear of failure and Dove crushed it in terms of portraying that experience.

I’ll admit that I’m biased bc I am not immune to Dove Cameron in purple hair & studded jackets, I relate to Ben bc I too would abuse my position of power just to make Mal happy oop

2) I like beast!Ben okay I did not like the makeup job but I did like the character design & I think if they were gonna have him do stupid shit like roaring in D2 when overwhelmed/stressed about the fight with Uma or physically shake water off of himself like a dog then we could’ve gotten more than him being beasted by a spell for 2 minutes (even tho the FX makeup did Not hold up well on camera). Also they were cowards for using the magic lake super soaker to mostly break the spell, every single version of Beauty and the Beast that refuses to show a human/beast kiss on screen is made by cowards. This was the only spell in D3 that was broken in this way & they did that specifically bc they were cowards. Mal should’ve broken the spell by kissing him in the first place I don’t care if it’s weird

Given the slightest inclination I would’ve made a beast!Ben au anyway but I only initially started writing down any of it out of spite

3) I don’t love that Mal spelled Ben but I still ship Bal. I support & enjoy other ships with both of the characters (Malvie, Bevie, core four all together, etc) but I am a Bal shipper at heart. And I think Ben proposing with a callback to Did I Mention was really cute okay, yes that’s salt in the wound for Audrey but just on its own it was a really cute & romantic way to propose & I love it

4) Ig the really unpopular thing, going off of the prev one, is this: I don’t think Audrey & Ben were ever actually in love. I think they were friends & them dating was something that Audrey was encouraged to do & Ben went along with, & I think as much as Audrey absolutely was unfairly humiliated in front of her peers she was more upset at losing the crown than Ben. Ben still owed her an apology & an explanation once he broke Mal’s spell; it wasn’t his fault that he embarrassed Audrey while under the influence of a spell but it was pretty cowardly & lame of him not to own up to it right away & instead just use the spell as an easy out from the relationship. But I still don’t think Audrey & Ben were ever in love. As a Bal shipper, I am definitely biased about this.

Also, I’m not opposed to anyone shipping Audrey with Ben! I think it’s cool that all of us can see this same franchise & come away with so many different ideas & opinions

So those are my hot takes lol. Overall I just enjoy Descendants as the beautiful garbage fire it is & I don’t have super strong opinions about ships or anything, I just like playing in the sandbox :)

[oh-captain-my-captain-greyhorn]

intros-carnival thoughts

wow. okay. what a way to start

so like. okay - first of all, wow. these blorbos are a mess. the mess ever. <3 love them

some collected thoughts in mostly chronological order

the cracking. why is it always cracking? so the cracks connect all of the characters. are they holes between the different realities? it seems like the realities are at least tangentially connected to one another. does that cause the cracks?

teeth's "Exalted" (blue motif character?) looks a lot like maris. is that relevant?

maris seemed uncomfortable going towards her blue motif (krackens?) in her intro. why? it seems like she fights most of the monsters, including the giant red motif person -- she avoided that one, though.

also maris "she shouldn't be here. not now" who is she hjashkdjh ??? sister? friend? ex??? something about the fog and the area she was headed to. maris <3

okay i had trouble seeing the place that they all headed to (the brown motif one took them there -- "telos"?) but i caught some glimpses

maris tried to snoop around. trust issues perhaps? who hurt u queen

maris in a hammock <3 that is all

okay that is not all bc maris in a hammock w stringray <3 sobbing screaming crying

next up - the circus of the gods!

maris stances up with the "ringmaster" (blue motif character again, connections?) almost immediately. it's the captain in her probably, she probably has always had to take control and when someone else steps in she doesn't know if she can trust them i just -- ah <3

there's some abrasion between maris and 42 haha kind of iconic tho

maris and the acrobat (pink motif character) i -- oml. the vibes. wow. the tension. what is going on there? she also does not look happy with the pink motif character. at this point, it's clear that the different places they go all have the same motifs, so there's probably some negative history there. dear god(s?) i am obsessed already

*what was up with the maris in the hall of mirrors ajhsjdkhsajadh* she looked so young. why was there blood everywhere? what happened to her? did she kill someone important to her? was she hurt by someone she loves? she looked so young ajkshdksa <3

also how old is maris asking for a friend

"the tortured. hurt what hurts the most, over and over. how far are you driven by pain? this far, it would seem. tortured where it hurts the most. difficult to hurt there, most of the time. i wonder who could do that to someone like you" h e l p akjshdkja what is this maris?? hello? i knew it she was so heartbroken core gods i <3 <3 <3

my guesses right now are the red motif character, the blue motif character, the pink motif character, or the sort of light teal motif character for maris trauma core. could be this grey/green motif character? but she didn't seem too bothered by them in particular

the fight with the cultivator is so. wow. tucker was really slaying oml what's going on w them? she's giving me like. caretaker vibes. like he's always had to take care of others or something. older sibling maybe? tucker also seems very bothered by the concept of control. poor experiences with being controlled/limited? very interesting stuff

okay back to maris -- maris has this whole monster-slaying thing going on and seems very standoffish with the characters here. this seems to be the "pantheon" people keep mentioning. is she. a. god slayer?? is that what this is? because. wow. <3

also worth mentioning even though she's all hardened and strong she still wants the animals to be happy and free i.. wow. i bet she's such a good parent to stingray i <3

okay last thoughts re: when they go back to wherever telos lives (it was a bit easier to see this time, but my coverage must have been patchy ig)

what's in telos' basement?

what's in telos' upstairs, for that matter?

what does it mean that telos has pulled the hourglasses from the other hourglasses? does that disrupt destiny or something? are they dead? undead? can they die now?

how does telos handle every single person who "dies" (etc) while also being here with the group? are there multiple of them? do they exist outside of time?

where is telos' house and why isn't it like the other realities?

what is in the space surrounding telos' house? why can't the crew see it?

we need to name the group. the crew? telos' crew? maris' crew?

why aren't there the different motif characters (pantheon) in telos' house? how do they exist outside that? do they, or can we just not see them? is that what's in this empty space?

how does telos have the ability to move from reality to reality?

why is telos covered up all the time?

maris and 42 really do not get along. once again iconic -- but what's the deal with him being a traitor? and why is that so frightening to maris? she has definitely been betrayed.. protect maris <3 that is all

okayokayokay i'll stop. lots of questions and like zero answers hjkashd i'll work on that. next time i update hopefully we'll have some more info!!

[quenthel]

saw your fav ocs page! it's cool how you made such complicated paintings for each. i would like to know - what classes are these characters? :)

aw thank you! I sometimes like to switch up classes when im replaying so uh this might be a bit of a longer explanation

Pathfinder ones:

Duncan is an Oracle (blackened curse!! this is important lol) initially but i went legend w him so he was also like 10 bloodrager/10 dragon disciple but i also tried making him a 10 sorcerer/ 10 eldritch knight and the second one was not as good as the first (but still useful on core bc he was just unkillable for being lvl 40 lol)

Cassia i first played as a magus (eldritch scion) and that was very strong and then i replayed her on core and i made a mix of magus eldritch knight (10/10) and that was p strong too but not as strong as fun as scion....

Joy was a necromancy wizard. P straightforward but also kingmaker ig does not have the cool classes i loved in wrath so i just went w something cool for myself.

Paprika is also first and foremost a wizard (its like i love wizards or smthing) but sometimes i play her as a hierophant in deadfire (thats cypher/wizard).

Dane i played always a sentinel and she has a double sided lightsaber bc i found that the coolest. Also her sabers are purple.

Cori is my arcane mage turned frost mage who is retiring next patch bc my guild needs me to heal lol. (hey another wizzer)

Baldur's gate ones:

Wranlen i played as a shadowdancer (bc i couldnt pick drow so he was technically an elf but he is actually a drow lol) but if i replayed the game i would have made him a tief/wizard multiclassed.

August is the one and only wild magic sorcerer and honestly this class choice was so intrumental in his writing i never really would change it.

and Oxoth! She is an Oathbreaker paladin (first time i had her on devotion going oathbreaker but on my replay i picked vengeance). This one also just fits too well for me to change (being an oathbreaker and rejecting bhaal are very 🤝for her lol)

[clownkiwi]

alright sonic prime thoughts (spoilers ahead)

OH MAN WHERE DO I EVEN START????? i didnt expect the bad future world to be like. the main backdrop and motivator for the plot, i thought we were gonna get like. one or two episodes at most to take place in the bad future world. and the rest of the episodes would've taken place in different universes and just be episodic. i didnt expect there'd be an actual story going on throughout this whole show!!!

AND HOLY SHIT, THE BAD FUTURE WORLD. i did not expect for it to get this dark in a modern sonic product approved by sega. the most tragic part about this world, beyond nines (tails) whole deal and relationship with sonic and where it went, was with rusty rose (amy). i knew she'd be roboticized, but i'd never guess she'd stay the villain. i'd assume from the advertising that she'd be on sonic's side the whole time, but ig it was only because nine hacked her to join sonic's side for a whole episode or two??? hell, i didn't expect amy's character to get so many antagonistic roles for like. a good half of these universes for sonic to hop into. she's sonic's bestie!!!!! i did NOT expect to see the worst happen to her, im pleasantly surprised.

i think the most. darkest thing i've ever seen was in the first/second episode when sonic asks rusty "do you even have a heart???" and rusty responds "yes. i do" and she opens up her chest and you see a barely breathing, dying flicky in there like. HOLY SHIT. i did NOT expect for this show to get so dark. and for what??? a kids show??? if i were like. 5 or 6 and a huge sonic fan, this defo would've scared me shitless (even more dark that you later find out. amy had this EXACT SAME FLICKY IN THE NORMAL UNIVERSE & JUNGLE UNIVERSE AS HER PET, LIKE. FUCK, MAN)

they made tails character and relationship with sonic so much more interesting through nine, like. Finally, a show that actually takes a look at sonic more interpersonal relationships and realistically tests them to their core, especially since nine's not keen for friendship or getting along with others. and he was willing to give it another try and even help his new friend sonic. but after he shows him a dark world that's a cold, empty slate and wants to start it over, but sonic tells him that he has to go save his bad future world pals, nine. doesnt actually go with sonic. tails always follows sonic, through thick and thin, but this is the first time i remember that. he says no. nine still wants to live and make a world safe from the chaos council and be friends with sonic, but sonic's deterministic and heroic to save people that don't even know him all that well (even if they look familiar to his other friends). which is in sonic's good spirit, but nine barely knows these people. yes, it's the right thing to do to save them, but what would they give him in return??? he's not sonic, someone who he personally helped after being told that he saved him first in an alternate universe. so, i thought this was all very interesting

speaking of, the chaos council is so much fun. i dont think they are related by familiar relations, i just think mr dr eggman time traveled and picked up versions of himself from different points in his time, or he just. cloned them, so he wouldn't be alone when he rules sonic's world. i especially love the extremely violent baby and the edgy gamer kid eggmen, i thought the old man eggman &. japanese culture enjoyer eggman were pretty fun additions too

i'll be honest, while i'm glad this show finally gave tons of stuff for tails & amy & big to do, i felt like. what they did with knuckles wasnt too particularly strong??? we either get Serious Protector of Angel Island Knuckles or boom!knuckles again. and while i love boom!knucks & Serious Knucks, i would've loved a more strong characterization of him that actually developed as a result of sonic, because i thought that was the direction the show was taking (first one focused on tails, then one focused on amy). but instead they made knuckles the main one for the pirate world. and i like pirate knuckles enough. ig i thought him getting obsessed over a gem like halfway through the pirate world was pretty rushed and not given too much time even if it did take up two half-hour episodes. and rogue, hasn't really been given too much to do, despite appearing in every alternate universe at this point. maybe in season 2 or 3 she gets her whole own arc with sonic

i was also surprised we didn't see shadow at all in any of these alternate universes, like. at first i liked the idea that shadow never showed up in the bad future world, because the eggmen ruled unopposed, that they never needed to wake him up from his chamber for a last minute resort. that novelty sort of rolled off when he. never appeared in any of the alternate universes??? even tho this version of shadow was simply established as sonic's rival, as he is in fact the reason sonic was so late to catch up with his buds in the inciting incident that lead to all of this. in fact, shadow only showed up in flashbacks or as holograms that followed sonic whenever he sonic boomed. he didn't even show up in full again until the last episode on a cliffhanger. so, hopefully we'll see alternate universe versions of shadow following this. or just more shadow in season 2, where he's more relevant to the plot than. being indirectly responsible for the inciting incident

beyond that, i just really enjoyed these batches of episodes that dropped, and i really do hope we get more and see how this story ends (hopefully in a satisfying way)

[angabby-zzz]

2, 8, and 15 for the oc asks

Under cut cuz i dont wanna take up 2 much space

Gabby is like really passionate about love and like being happy n stuff ig? Like as a kid she really struggled w bein understood and liked and making friends and now she struggles with like what her future will be like and if she truly likes how shes working towards that future? And like if her like plans and everything will even work out the way she wants them to. But she doesnt rlly know how it will be after HS so she rlly just tries anything she think will make her happy n avoid thinking about any like things shes uncertain about rlly

Surprise kailani mention!!! (I wanted 2 talk more about non-JAG characters - part1)... i think ive talked abt her connection w her mom b4? So like thats smth shes v passionate abt cuz she thinks shes like mega cool and 2 her shes a better mom to them than most of the (major) gods r to their kids so she thinks even higher of her mom. This kinda goes with her brother siding w their dad rather than her or her mom so its like?? She has an even more special bond w her despite them not rlly talking? Like she takes pride in being more like her (strives 2 be a mini image of her) and into her godly parentage. This kinda goes in2 how she thinks about herself n her future also cuz like shes been living at camp for almost her whole life and doesnt rlly know how that will go 4 her or what she rlly wants 2 do l8r in life (though not as sad n intense about is as gabbys feelings r) (extra example is that thing i talked about w her wondering abt if she will have a love life like glaucus or kymopoleia did)... n shes like very judgy and fights for anything good in cuz it makes her different from her brother also? Idk shes just very like strong about her ideals and who she is (i realized kinda opposite of angel and gabby in a way?? how cool)

I think the most obv/worked on relationship is angabby duhh and like. They are literally so twizzler candy core. but like they cannot b separated. items frequently bought together… idk i dont wanna spend this whole ask just repeating stuff ive said so many times b4 but like obv first in elementary they were like each others first true friends ever and finally felt totally cool w being w someone their age?? So that kinda influenced them i guess cuz they trust each other sooooo much sm sm bro. Like they get the anxiety with anxiety person unlocked powers and gabby kinda helps angel fit in and like figure out what 2 do sometimes. Angel supports her in wtv shes in2 n like helps her not be totally stressed 4ever. Like without each other they would probably be still so sad n stuff

Again going like verrryyyyy obv with jade but its like. Finding divinas necklace? Cuz like thats what led 2 her bein claimed n finding out about demigod stuff. She like also makes friends she can relate 2 during that quest? So she doesnt feel as lonely anymore but Also has more like hashtag thinking moments about how she is w people and how she wants to be and what she wants ig. Like all of p1 n p2 obv changed her cuz like Hello shes the main quest kid

[lxikoniko]

here's the thing tho is that i think he had the intention to make them a prominent team early on but ig he just forgot about them, or just stopped caring.

they were set up to be a strong team during the Chunin exams, being the first ones to draw blood and get a scroll by setting up a trap using the wildlife around them in the forest. they could have been the first ones to the tower if Kiba didn't distract them. but still being the second ones to the tower only behind the Sand siblings is still impressive. They were easily the most skilled/prepared to handle the forest of death out of all of the Leaf Genin.

even past that the characters themselves felt like there was intended to be more to them that just never happened:

Hinata having a massive crush on Naruto and being the one who looks up to him the most, and also having an ability that was said to be "stronger than the Sharingan in terms of pure insight". If it is true that Kishimoto planned Naruto and Hinata getting together from the beginning (doubtful but still) then her herself should get a decent amount of screen time if she's that important to the main character. Kishimoto clearly wanted to make her prominent even by Shippuden when she stood up to Pain for Naruto. The Byakugan is cool and it could've been used to give Hinata more screen time and depth, but Neji also having the Byakugan inadvertently gave him the time that could have been given to Hinata.

Kiba was set up to be a rival to Naruto in his goal of becoming Hokage, which ik is laughable now but it's a good core foundation for a character. when writing the side characters for anything you want them to reflect the main character in some way. Naruto had a bunch of characters challenging him in terms of strength and ideology, but Kiba was the only character at the time who challenged his main motivation of becoming Hokage. Unfortunately the conflict between Naruto and Kiba over Hokage was solved very early on with their fight during the Chunin Exams, i feel like it could've been carried out for longer. he did appear in the Sasuke Retrieval arc but he spent pretty much the entire time either bragging or running for his life.

Shino didn't have much character to him early on and since Kishimoto just gave up on Team Kurenai, he won't get any character to him outside of Konoha Hiden. but even then during the Chunin exams he was set up as this strong and silent intimidating character. he was called "not human" by Pakkun (ik was referring to his bugs but still) and having the ability to drain opponents of their chakra is a pretty useful technique. Shino was easily Chunin level both in jutsu strength and strategy, he was someone who seemed like he'd be more important later but Kishimoto dropped Team Kurenai so fast once Shippuden hit.

As much as i love the Chunin Exams, i think it would have been really interesting to see each team given their own dedicated arc to introduce them, and it could've given the teams more depth then what we got. at least it would have been nice to have more arcs like the Sasuke Retrieval arc where different Leaf Genin went on missions together (outside of filler).

Naruto as a series just had so many ideas that it wanted but most of them fell through, and Team Kurenai is no exception.

The more I think of it the more I realize that kishimoto did not give a single fuck about team kurenai lmaooo

[rviden]

hello <3 may i request headcanons with xiao, scaramouche, dainslief, kazuha and albedo with a female s/o that had a really bad day/rough week. (ig in a similar situation as traveler and she misses her sibling terribly so she ends up breaking down or sobbing in front of them. what do they do to comfort her or how affectionate would they be?

— COMFORTING THEIR OVERWHELMED S/O

#includes — scaramouche, kazuha, xiao, albedo

#warnings — n/a

#pronouns — no pronouns mentioned

#note — i don't actually write for dainsleif anymore unfortunately - i don't know enough about his character :(

#SCARAMOUCHE

now he's not the best with the whole feelings and comforting thing, but the minute you start to feel the overwhelming sadness or just stress in general, he knows

being super perceptive of your feelings is something that scaramouche is great at, so you can bet that before your knee's even remotely give out, scara is at your side

while he doesn't comfort you with kind words or reassurances, his hands are wiping away the tears falling from your eyes, his body is close to yours, and he's running his thumbs along your cheek bones — he holds you and shows that he's there through words

scaramouche 100% asks "are you done?" when you stop crying — both in attempt to make you laugh, and also in attempt to just get you to speak — he's not good with mushy feelings, give him a break!

#KAZUHA

puts down anything and everything in an instant so he can be at your side to provide you anything you need — kazuha is also a very preceptive lover, so nothing goes unnoticed by him

kazuha would pull you to a quieter place (ect. your bedroom, the dining room) just so there would be no other distractions around the two of you

now kazuha is both physical and verbal when he comforts your distressed figure — his body if shuffled close to yours as he holds you into his chest, and he's whispering light encouragements and professions of love

kazuha just wants to see you smile or at least calm down, seeing you in such a state of distress worries him to the core, so he'll do anything in his power to help you (somewhat people pleaser kazuha)

#XIAO

another boy who isn't the best with strong emotions — he understands what you're going through, the overwhelming feelings that you're going through, so the most he can do is just be there

xiao would sit silently at your side, not being overbearing in touches as to not cause you any more stress then you're already going through — his shoulder just brushing against yours as if he was trying to say "i'm here for you"

once your heart finally calms down, and your breathing becomes even, xiao offers you whatever he can think of — a bowl of your favourite food, a certain comfort item, or even just a hug, whatever it is that you want, he'll get you

he's patient yet awkward — xiao will wait an eternity for you in silence if that's what you need most

#ALBEDO

physical over verbal comforts

albedo is on the quieter side of the scale, so he puts his words into his actions — the minute you walk into the house, tear stains on your cheeks and puffy eyes, albedo is walking over and pulling you towards the couch

he'll sit with you and listen to you rant about what in your day/week had gone wrong, never once interrupting you and giving you all the time in the world to let it all out

when albedo senses that you're starting to come down from the stress and becoming more exhausted then anything, he'll pull your head into his lap and just sit with you — his fingers nimbly massaging your scalp as a way to help you relax

albedo would sit quietly for you to fall asleep, and once you do, he'll be right behind you — falling asleep with the blanket thrown over the two of you

taglist — open

@bluexiao // @kxmorri // @seppyco // @immaswallowurkids // @cynettic // @lasignorasearring

if your name is crossed out, it means i couldn't tag a blog with that name!

[max-nico]

Amy Rose headcanons

If you have any headcanons put them in the tags, reply, or my ask box ! Any character you want me to focus on ? Message me, or hit my ask box ! Suggestions are always welcome .

Okay I don't care what canon says, Sonic's eyes are a dark emerald green and Amy's are a bright seafoam green.

You remember Amy's tarot cards? I think she has some minor abilities that have to do with witchy things like tarot cards, future telling, predictions, etc. That's why she tends to just KNOW where people are

But according to her it's "just a hunch"

Amy is very very strong, she can absolutely go toe to toe with Knuckles in hand to hand combat. I think they enjoy arm wrestling with each other, but their scores are normally tied

I also think she's the type to cheat during board games and not get caught, but also call out other people for cheating during board games since she just seems to always know ;)

Amy likes to carry Sonic to embarrass him, it's all in good fun... It's mostly fun for her.... But she would put him down if it bothered him that much

Amy can take up a whole room just by standing in it. She has a HUGE aura that everyone can feel. She's just so head strong and passionate, she's loud too, and confident. Plus her whole witch thing definitely gives her a strong aura

Amy is really in tune with people's emotions. She can feel the slightest change in people's moods which makes her really sociable and easy to be around

I think Amy dresses like,,, fairy grunge,,, if you know what that specific alternative category looks like. It has lots of long skirts paired with short crop tops, large bags, shawls or sweaters, with just a ✨dash✨ of glitter, usually earthy tones but I see her wearing a lot of white/red/green/pink (so her usual color palette)

Honestly just fairy-core in general for the most part

Amy can be naggy and a bit stand offish at times but it's just because she wants what's best for you, even if it feels like you're being treated like a kid sometimes

I also see her as the type to pack her friends lunches with cute little notes in them

Amy can't hide her emotions for shit, which is great for her friends so they all know when something is wrong.

She enjoys venting to Tails the most because she normally talks to him while he works, so all their conversations go like:

"And then he told me to GO AWAY, LIKE I DIDNT JUST SAVE HIS LIFE ! Can you believe him, Tails !?! Uhg ! He's just SO RUDE" .... "Uh huh... You're so right." .. "He should appreciate me more ! I do so much for him and what do I get back ?! NOTHING !!" .... "Uh huh... You're so right."

What can she say, she likes being told she's right.

Amy is ladylike with her mannerisms, like she sits with her legs crossed, makes eye contact when she speaks, holds her pinky out when she drinks tea, but she's not ladylike in the way she speaks. I don't think she has a big potty mouth or anything, but she can come off as rude at times. She speaks bluntly and tells you exactly how she feels, which can oftentimes lead to misunderstandings

I think Amy makes insecure men nervous, ya know like the ones who call women whores and stuff because they'll never be able to land a woman like her? Yeah, she makes those guys incredibly nervous.

I want to be her ❤️

Her quills are short, but if there's a will there's a way. Most of the time her quills (hair ig lol) are messy, you can normally tell when she's been busy just by the state her quills are in, but when she puts effort into her appearance?? Zoo wee mama them quills are gorgeous. Them bitches sleek, shiny, radiant

Amy in general tends to be radiant, mostly because of that mostly untapped magic she uses. I think she feels mythical when you're next to her, she feels powerful, and I love that for her

Alright that's all the headcanons I can think of right now, but I'll reblog with more if I think of some. If it becomes too many I'll just make post #2 electric boogaloo. Feel free to reblog with your own headcanons for her. I'll probably also do a post for how I think all the characters would dress, not just her lol

If you have any headcanons put them in the tags, reply, or my ask box ! Any character you want me to focus on ? Message me, or hit my ask box ! Suggestions are always welcome .