#technically. I’m sure he can play guitar like. canonically

[sionnaach]

Started reading toa again. Favourite girlfailure

[ciaossu-imagines]

For one of the event days, I did the below fandom prompt for Class of the Titans. While the show is definitely older, I still love it dearly and think it still holds up well. I love being able to share ideas for the show for any remaining fans of it, and hope they’ll enjoy the below headcanons 😊

Which character enjoys a nice nap?

Out of all of them, it’s Herry to me. While he’s perfectly fine being up, active, and on the go, he’s also not at all averse to just kicking back and relaxing. While he and his Granny did a lot of exciting things together, life with Granny was definitely more low-key and relaxed than the life he’s leading in New Olympus. He just can’t adjust and keeps that relaxed vibe, including taking long naps whenever he feels the need or whenever he has downtime but doesn’t really want to do anything.

Which character is the most emotional?

To me, this is a surprising two-way tie. While all of the heroes can be very emotional at times, as they are all only human, these two are either the most over-the-top about their emotions or they really don’t know how to handle them the best. When I say over-the-top, of course I’m referring to Neil. He’s very much an emotional man, very ego and emotion driven as a person. He’s not shy about speaking up about his emotions and creates scenes when he feels like he’s not being appreciated properly or whenever anything even the tiniest bit bad happens to him, so I do feel he’s quite a bit more openly emotional than the others. However, when it comes to someone who is really emotional but has zero idea how to healthily handle their emotions, that is always Theresa to me. Sure, she might snark, she might try to talk to people about how she’s feeling, but she’s really not the best at it. It always comes across to the others as her talking at them, which can lead to some fights. She also pushes down a lot of her feelings, because she’s just not sure how to properly deal with them, how to change the situations causing those feelings, or she feels like she can’t do anything about them. She bottles up and bottles up and then blows up, making her the other tie for a character that, in my opinion, is incredibly emotional and emotion driven as a person.

Which character can play an instrument?

It’s canon that Theresa is a talented lyre player. However, I do headcanon that Archie can play the drums. He got into it in middle school, something to divert some of the anger he has into, and the act of playing the drums really does soothe him. I also think Neil owns a guitar and has half-heartedly tried to learn to play it, if only to appeal to a whole new audience as a rock star, but the strings hurt his fingers when he tried to play and left unsightly red marks on them, so he just gave up.

Which character tends to bottle things up?

As mentioned above, my biggest contender for this is definitely Theresa. However, I also do think that Jay, because of the pressure he feels to really be a confident leader and to always know what to do, does have a bad habit as well when it comes to bottling up any feelings that he believes make him look weak. Archie tries to bottle up feelings, thinking it would be easier that way, but it never works out for him. He can’t easily damper down and not express his emotions, in the various ways he does.

Which character is the best leader material?

The answer here is completely obvious, so I’m sorry for it not being much of a surprise. Jay is listed as ‘The Leader’, he’s addressed that way, it’s his whole shtick. And that’s for good reason. While he was nervous about being a leader at first, we see him really grow into the role throughout the series and become more comfortable with it. He’s the guy everyone else looks to, the one that not only keeps them all together, but keeps them functioning well as a unit.

Which character has the best singing voice?

I guess I should technically say Theresa, given her voice actor’s fame as Barbie in most of the movies, where she always sings, but her singing voice, while okay, isn’t something that necessarily really appeals to me or that I think is amazing. So, I wanted to explore some other characters that I think have good singing voices – Cronus does, though he sings rarely. He’s got range though and is great at keeping on beat. Archie has a good voice, but he’s a little tone-deaf so he can’t keep the beat while singing without tapping or drumming away on his drums. His voice is very rock-bandesque. Specifically, he’s got one of those voices that would sound great in an alt-rock band.

Which character has the best fashion sense?

This is totally Neil’s jam. The man is obsessed with looking his best and that, of course, extends into the realm of fashion. He is omnivorous when it comes to information about fashion. He knows the history of clothing, he knows the ins and outs of different fabrics, he’s got great colour sense, is up on all the latest trends, and knows his designers. He likes to claim he’s allergic to anything fast-fashion, that only designer clothes are safe to put on his body. While he strives for a casual cool style, he can definitely dress up to the nines as well. While he is, of course, his number one priority when it comes to looking good, he’s also got a really good sense of what will look good on others too, knows how to make their unique bodies shine with clothing. Despite offering help with the other’s fashion choices though, the other’s don’t really take him up on the offers. Might have to do with him being more than a little obnoxious in his wording of the offers, who knows?

Which character has an insatiable sweet tooth?

Herry is, of course, a big eater. That’s proven time and time again. I think he’s really got a huge sweet tooth though, with dessert being almost mandatory for him. I also do think that Theresa has a hidden sweet tooth, though she tries hard not to over-indulge because she does worry about her figure and her health.

Which character has suffered the worst injuries?

While all the heroes really do get battered and bruised up throughout the series, I have to say Jay really does win out. He did actually die in an episode, so that probably does count as the worst injury one can get, even if he did come back from it.

Which character would survive in an apocalypse?

Every single one of them. There’s not a single one of these lovelies who wouldn’t figure out some plan to survive in an apocalypse setting. They all have their own unique talents and they’re all very skilled. Even the least combative inclined of them, like Odie and Neil, would figure out ways to survive. Neil does it out of blind, dumb luck while Odie holes up in a safe bunker and uses technology to ensure his survival. Of course, their best bet is to find each other, join up, and not only survive but start creating a new world together after an apocalypse happens, because they really do shine the brightest and get the most done when they are all together.

Which character is most likely to drunk text someone?

Theresa would not only drunk text but would drunk call. If the person stopped answering their phone or didn’t answer in the first place, she’d be the crazy drunk girl leaving voicemail after voicemail for the person. She’d be so ashamed and embarrassed by her behaviour afterwards and would take steps to not get that drunk again. Odie, in a surprising twist, is also one who would definitely drunk text. He’s a chatterbox of a drunk, though a good spirited one, and alcohol gives him the liquid courage to say every little thing that’s on his mind. He rambles, goes on tangents, sends texts that don’t make a lot of sense, but he’s having the time of his life doing so.

Which two characters would get along well if they met?

Okay, so I’m placing this question and the next in the realm of an AU, where none of the others have ever met and they just happen to meet, as normal students, without any necessity for them to spend time with each other. In such a case, I really do still see Archie and Atlanta getting along well, forging a pretty strong friendship.

Which two characters would get into a fight if they met?

Like the other question, this is kind of set AU! I do think that Neil would have fought with everyone when they met him, because he does take a while to warm up to as a person. He comes across very arrogant and more than a little self-absorbed until you get to know him and people tend to dislike him right away. I also do think that, just meeting each other without having to be together, Archie and Theresa would never get along. They’re just too opposite and they’d rub each other the wrong way.

Which character is easiest to get in the head-space of?

While it’s a lovely challenge writing any of the characters, even the ones I don’t find as easy to write, I will admit to finding Herry, Odie, and Neil the easiest to write for. Archie is hit or miss, depending on the topic, while Jay is the hardest for me to write, though I still enjoy doing so and hope that practice makes perfect.

[moonlight-fan2008]

Moonlight rewatch for millionth time

Episode 7 random thoughts and feelings I had while rewatching again: cause I’m bored and have nothing else to do or watch. And I love this show

And Steve is gone again

More tidbits of Mick’s human life; I take it he was an only child since he said my parents would take me here (Franklin hotel) for bunch after church on Sundays and not my brother/sister/siblings and I

Flashback also reveals he musical abilities playing guitar and being the lead singer of a band

It’s very interesting how the mind screws with you when it comes to trauma. Coraline kidnapped and terrorized Beth as a child and she doesn’t remember Coraline at all when she meets her as Morgan and doesn’t really have any hostile feelings towards her until she knows she’s is Coraline. However Beth instantly knew Mick upon seeing him again as an adult.

“Was she dead?” Love how blunt Josef is

“Beth doesn’t remember me from back then and I’m the one who rescued her.” She technically remembers you but (and I still love him) you kind of gaslighted her when it came to that

Josef was four in 1603 making his birth year 1599

I like how comfortable Beth is with Mick and just like walks into his office

I’ve only now realized the flashback at Coraline’s home is mainly in black in white and only a few characters are shown in color and are primarily those wearing red. Ex: Coraline in her red dress, Mick and his band mates with their matching red Hawaiian shirt with the white hibiscus flowers, the fire from the tiki torches, etc

“I have a 50’s thing I’m trying to shake” very on the nose Coraline

According to WIKI: “Remembrance of Things Past, and sometimes referred to in French as La Recherche (The Search), is a novel in seven volumes by French author Marcel Proust. This early 20th-century work is his most prominent, known both for its length and its theme of involuntary memory. The most famous example of this is the "episode of the madeleine", which occurs early in the first volume.”

I like how Mick and Beth are bouncing ideas off each other and Coraline is just there like 👁️👄👁️ you weren’t supposed to figure this out so quickly or together

“Coraline did not come back from the dead to exact revenge on you” oh Josef how wrong you were

“You need to let her go” immediately followed up by Mick in fact not letting her go

Idk why but I always thought she was putting her hand on his knee but she’s actually grabbing his hand/wrist

“You’re jealous” Mick smiling ☺️

“Don’t touch anything” proceeds to touch things

Is the ice breath thing a thing Mick has or do you think other vamps can do it too?

I know Coraline is partly manipulative because she grew up and lived during times where woman were not treated fairly or had basic rights and I have a semi head-canon she may have been pressured by her brothers or at least Lance to be a courtesan but like you’d think she’d try and not play mind games with people after a certain point. Im sure Mick’s not the first one to try and break things off with her because they’re tired of her shit

I feel like Cynthia was probably the one who Beth was talking to when she was talking to “Morgan’s” family

“Next time I’ll find a Beverly Hills thief” Mick is sassy and Josef’s little “thanks” back

“You got your cameras back this case is over” Josef was saying that to Morgan but is looking at Mick

Is Mick taking a picture here? Or is he just randomly shining a light on his hand? He sits down grabs something from the table, the light flashes off then he sets something in his lap

I know Josef is not interested in going back to the human world but I wonder if there’s anything that is solely made for humans (ie tanning bed) or modern day food he’d like to try

This is supposed to be Hank right? That’s what I always thought

For someone with super senses and reflexes Mick sure does get his butt kicked a lot

Another flashback that’s in black and white save for candles burning

“Were you disappointed?” And Mick stays silent but that says more than words

Again I like that they don’t drag out certain plot points like Morgan and Coraline are the same person.

[chrysallaire]

Pokémon Teams

Since I’m playing Light Platinum rn, I couldn’t help but think what Pokémon teams c!Wilbur, c!George, and c!Fundy will have + notes of other characters’ Pokémons but I don’t have that full of an idea to really write them down and quite frankly my mind can really only focus on dads!wiggy + sondy.

Fundy

Teddiursa - First Pokémon. He got this one as a gift from Wilbur. If you’re wondering why I gave him this one in particular, well it’s an inside joke (because I love the idea of Wilbur being Wilbear—) and it’s a cute Pokémon and I feel Wilbur would give Fundy a cute Pokémon instead of something cooler or stronger.

Nickit - Second Pokémon. He shares this one with Niki. This one is in reference to Fungi, who was Niki and Fundy’s pet fox who Sapnap killed. Hopefully the Pokémon fairs better lmao.

Litten - Third Pokémon. Litten’s a cat Pokémon which is a reference to cc!Fundy’s actual cat, Boots. Plus, Litten is a Fire Type and I think Fundy should have a fire type because he has to burn the L’Manburg flag down.

Honedge - Fourth Pokémon. This one isn’t really Fundy’s Pokémon, this is actually Schlatt’s Pokémon that Fundy decided to take after Schlatt’s death, as a reference to the Shclatt Sword. Ignore the Pokedex entry...

Darkrai - Fifth Pokémon. Well... not exactly Fundy’s Pokémon, but it more or less decides to stay near Fundy. This is in reference to Fundy’s reoccurring nightmares and Darkrai is known to cause nightmares.

Alolan Vulpix - Sixth Pokémon. This one is a reference to Yogurt.

Wilbur

Murkrow - First Pokémon. He got this one as a gift from Phil because crow. Wilbur also uses his Murkrow to send letters to Phil.

Toxtricity - Second Pokémon. A reference to cc!Wilbur being a musician because the Gigantamax form has an electric guitar.

Ursaring - Third Pokémon. The second part to the inside joke in giving Fundy Teddiursa, because Wilbur being a Papa Bear type of guy... at first.

Golem - Fourth Pokémon. So there are other Pokémon that have the move Self-Destruct, but most of them didn’t really vibe with Pogtopiabur other than Golem. It’s also known to be immune to dynamite explosions and Wilbur did blow up Manburg... and he survived the explosion. So, I feel Golem fits more with his character.

Wooloo - Fifth Pokémon. Not really Wilbur’s Pokémon since this is supposed to be Ghostbur’s Pokémon, as a reference to Friend.

Ho-Oh - Sixth Pokémon. I know it’s a Legendary Pokémon, but it’s the only Pokémon that canonically can resurrect the dead.

George

Shroomish - First Pokémon. I guess this is also an inside joke, though not by that much since I’m sure everyone already knows Mushroomgy or Mushroom Hybrid! George because of the house he made.

Abra - Second Pokémon. This guy sleeps a lot, so I think he should have Pokémon that sleep a lot or having sleep-inducing abilities.

Jigglypuff - Third Pokémon. A gift from Wilbur, because Wiggy and you can pry this ship out of my cold dead hands. Jigglypuff because it makes you sleep when it sings, so it helps connect to Wil being a musician too.

Hypno - Fourth Pokémon. Another sleep-inducing Pokémon and it eats dreams... the joke is there haha do with that what you will.

Shiinotic - Fifth Pokémon. A mushroom Pokémon but I mostly chose it because of the way it looks... yeah I feel like it fits George’s vibe.

Arceus - Sixth Pokémon. Listen. If god (Dream XD) canonically likes George and considers him a friend, then I think the Pokémon equivalent of god would also like George.

Additional Notes

Ranboo and Fundy having a shared Pokémon, Vanilluxe, but it was left abandoned just like the Ice Cream Shop :)

Phil having a Honchkrow and having a ton of Murkrow that he sometimes gives to other people. He has given Murkrows to Wilbur, Techno, Niki, and Ranboo.

Dream and Tommy also having a Ho-Oh, mostly because Tommy also got revived and Dream technically can revive people so...

Other people that I think would have Legendary Pokémon is Techno, Phil, Foolish, and Tubbo... except Tubbo lost his Legendary Pokémon and no one knows where it is (in reference to the missing nuke).

I thought about Slimecicle, and I am torn from him having a Legendary Pokémon because I think it would be funny... or if he’s just a Ditto.

Only because I find it funny, Dream has a Yamask.

[myundeadgayson]

SBI found family dynamics just,,, i’m crying, you don’t understand.

there’s something so especially cute about AUs where each of the Sleepy Bois decide to take Tommy under their care because they realize they’ve suddenly become attached to this tall, reckless child.

maybe they’ve found that Tommy really enjoys something they love, or they see themselves in him, or they just simply decide that “oh, i think i care about this kid. let me pass on every bit of knowledge i know to him and keep him safe in the process.” either way, they’ve each individually decided “oop, i care now” about this kid.

like, i’m talking all the adoption AUs, Origins AUs, the DSMP AUs or canon-related fics where the author explores how the SBI are still connected and care for each other despite their differences and the events of the world pushing them apart— all of it. there’s just so much care to explore and various dynamics of why they care so much about one another.

like one of my favorites to explore: Bedrock Bros dynamics.

there’s all the various SBI AUs and canons, and there’s almost always a moment where you can see why they’d relate to one another, be it through their actions, goals, or personalities.

Techno having a moment in whatever AU where he looks at Tommy. he looks at this tall child that almost always starts off being so rambunctious, so obnoxiously loud, so bright-eyed and full of life and potential. he has a such a fighting spirit in him that Techno relates to. he relates because he’s also a fighter, though he isn’t as loud about it.

any moment in AUs or fics where Techno decides “i’m going to teach this reckless child how to fight because even though i don’t care about him (spoiler: he does), i might as well teach him how to protect himself” and it means so much more because it’s Techno taking the time out of his day, his weeks, his months to teach this thing he knows well and pass on his knowledge to Tommy, and it creates bonding time between them. and Techno slowly opens up and finds himself caring more and more every time Tommy pushes through and greets him with the brightest grin as he asks Techno to teach him more things.

or any fic where Techno is reading or sitting quietly in an area by himself.

he’s relaxing in his own space. maybe the Voices are loud that day, maybe it’s some internal anxiety getting to him, maybe he just wants to be alone— and Tommy finds him, and instead of annoying him, Tommy realizes Techno wants quiet time, but Tommy wants to be around someone. so Tommy just sits quietly down near him.

i can’t express to you how simple, yet wonderful the concept of Tommy simply sitting quietly in the floor at the foot of Techno’s bed while Techno reads is to me.

Tommy’s normally so loud. he’s a storm of chaos and energy, but he can recognize when people need space and quiet. and exploring Tommy’s knack for understanding emotions and people by him deciding to sit nearby, but not next to Techno. he offers Techno space, but he also hates being alone, so he stays nearby and occupies himself with a phone, a book, or whatever else until Techno wants to talk, or Wilbur comes in to join them and sits down quietly with his guitar and strums until maybe Tommy falls asleep.

Wilbur and Tommy dynamics get me too.

like, my favorite are the found family modern AUs, but they haven’t adopted Tommy. instead Tommy’s just this kid that Wilbur meets by some various means. the two of them bonding and creating such a brotherly bond because they realize through talking and bantering with each other that they have so much in common. and Wilbur going home to tell Techno and Phil about the little gremlin child he’s met with a new story to tell each time.

those AUs, but Tommy finds out Wilbur knows how to play guitar and Wilbur gets so stunned because maybe he’s never played for more than Phil, Techno, and a few others. maybe he only plays small gigs in tiny cafes and hasn’t gotten the confidence for more than that because he’s not sure if he’s even good yet.

that scenario, but Tommy hears him play and gets so excited. he’s so enthusiastic and genuinely impressed that Wilbur’s just taken back.

this kid is looking at him with stars in his eyes and telling him with wholehearted honesty that he believes that Wilbur is talented and he wants to hear more. and Wilbur’s smile growing so soft as he decides that he can do that for Tommy. and that being such a pivotal moment for Wilbur believing in himself because no matter what anyone else thinks, Tommy thinks he’s good and he meant it.

just to top it all off, i have to give a Phil moment.

i think the best Phil and Tommy moments for me are just always Phil deciding that even though this child isn’t his (adoption AU moment), he doesn’t care. Tommy’s still his son.

that’s so vague and basically every Dadza/adoption AU, but let me explain.

i mean specifically those ones where Phil realizes they are different. like in any AUs where Phil’s got wings and maybe Tommy’s an avian, or a raccoon-hybrid, or just a normal human. and Philza realizing that they’re not the same at all in many ways, but especially for the fact Tommy can’t fly or relate to whatever bird-like habits Phil has.

but also, Phil saying fuck you to those thoughts and taking Tommy flying with him anyway. Tommy can’t fly, but that doesn’t stop Phil from showing him the joys of being high above the clouds with the wind in your hair.

Tommy being so delighted by it every time and Phil being so overjoyed by the way Tommy asks to go flying again.

Avian Tommy hits big on that one because though Tommy technically has wings, he can only glide. he can’t fly with Phil, his wings aren’t strong enough, but Phil teaches him how to embrace that Avian side. he guides Tommy through the art of gliding and showing Tommy how he could glide farther, how to land safely, and basically all the ways of mimicking flight in a way that won’t get Tommy hurt. he shows Tommy how to take care of his wings too and Tommy becomes like his own.

or another favorite: Human Tommy/Racooninnit/whatever other non bird-related version of Tommy having to adjust to Phil’s weird bird habits.

specifically i’m talking preening. like, Phil occasionally fussing over Tommy’s hair when Tommy comes home from playing outside with Tubbo. or whenever the boys used to have trouble sleeping when they were little, i always imagine Phil messing with their hair and it lulling them asleep. Tommy becoming a part of that trend after getting brought into the family no matter how old he is because nightmares are nightmares, and Phil will absolutely sit with him anyway.

and anyway, i got off topic but i just,,, Sleepy Bois Inc dynamics involving Tommy constantly have my heart.

(this is all revolving around their characters by the way, not the IRLs. i think it’s obvious, but just in case anyone was wondering to be sure.)

[forgiveness-in-the-misery]

Skwisgaar's Psychology

After rewatching Metalocalypse a total of three times ever since the news of the potential finale movie I kind of had a realization; I really fucking love Skwisgaar. I also started by halfway through rewatch two realized that his story and background and general psychology is really fucking fascinating to me.

So I am going to do my best to discuss his character and his psychology and how we see him progress through the show....I already did this with Toki a while back and kind of would love to do it with Murderface and maybe Pickles as well, I'd say Nathan, but he's the....least fucked up in a sense.

Skwisgaar let's start has the most dialogue in the first couple of seasons of the show and even then it isn't overwhelming compared to the other members of the band. By season four he speaks very little and rarely.

When we are introduced to him in the beginning of the show he seems to be like the rest of the group; a diva spoiled rich rocker who has been grossly wealthy for so long that he's forgotten how to function as a human.

You also with the first season especially have this running gag that isn't even a running gag that Skwisgaar or Toki will say something weird and then the other will add onto it and they just say weird shit about life and death or the violence of man, it's weird, and strangely endearing.

Which speaking of how those two play off each other brings me to the fact the pilot episode immediately establishes that these two are almost always together. The band goes to a grocery store and everybody splits up, except for Skwisgaar and Toki who go off together when in all reality that isn't remotely necessary. We also learn in that first episode that Skwisgaar gets pissed when Toki teases him and calls him a woman despite Skwisgaar calling him one like a second earlier and also that Skwisgaar is sexually attracted to elderly women.

Two things are heavily associated with Skwisgaar as a character; he is extremely sexually active and he's got his guitar with him in 99% of scenes. Skwisgaar also doesn't appear to be the most talkative, he can be bitchy and throw tantrums like the rest of his bandmates, but also seems to be more prone to crying and becoming anxious or worried for his friends and their wellbeing/safety, in terms of socializing he seems to be a bit awkward and seems the most comfortable communicating through sex and music. He's teasing and can be a dick, but there's no real edge to it. He also while seeming in some regards to be a bit....dumb to be blunt about it seems to actually be rather smart, though often seems to just keep that to himself probably because he knows who his friends are and they aren't prone to listening to people.

Season one wasted no time in introducing the band's parents and this included Skwisgaar's mother, Serveta. One thing that I do find super interesting is that he is the only member of the band who comes from a single mother, technically it isn't interesting, but the theory (probably canon) that their fathers aren't really their fathers at all and that their mothers became pregnant by the Deth Star makes it interesting. To me at least.

With Skwisgaar's mom in regards to the first season of the show we quickly learn that their relationship is strained. She's an older woman who just like Skwisgaar is very sexually active, we see her come onto Nathan's father who is married and sitting with his wife and son, Skwisgaar's reaction to this is to get upset and begin frantically playing his guitar. Skwisgaar spends a good portion of this episode drinking and at one point saying that ever since his mom got there his stomach had been hurting and he'd just been feeling like absolute shit. When we see him bonding with his mom he's brushing her hair and looking like he'd rather be dead or any place else, seeing him helping her groom is weirdly a red flag to me.

We learn by the third season of the show that his mother is intensely vain and in love with herself, she resents Skwisgaar because being pregnant with him and giving birth to him ruined her 'perfect' body and I'm sure the years where he was too young to fend for himself annoyed her because it meant she couldn't party or have men over or run off whenever she wanted, something I get the feeling that changed when he was about ten years of age. In a bonus video that comes with the first season of the show you see interviews with the band on various random topics; one of the scenes that is...uncomfortable to say the least is when family is brought up. Skwisgaar begins to say something, but trails off and becomes visibly upset before saying he's just going to shut down for a while, Toki confesses some more physical abuse before also shutting down.

I'm going to take a guess that Skwisgaar only had his mother when he was growing up and she only had him, I'm sure she has parents and maybe even siblings and aunts and uncles, but it appears that she has absolutely no relationship with them and Skwisgaar most probably never met these people.

The walls of Serveta's home sport dozens of headshots of herself and a couple of pictures of Skwisgaar as a kid thrown up by the front door almost as an after thought. It's likely and most probable that Skwisgaar was thrusted into the position of caretaker and even a husband sort of position when it came to his relationship with his mom; given the task of looking after her, holding her hair back when she pukes after a night of drinking, doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc. We know when he was about ten or thirteen years old he came home from school to find his mom having sex with two men, an event that scared him and led to him being chased by wolves and falling into a pit where if he weren't a demi-god he legit would have died. I feel like his mom reached a point with him where she stopped caring whether or not he saw her....personal life, perceiving him as an adult despite still just being a boy and also seeing him as somebody who is taking up space in her home and preventing her from having fun.

When she marries Tyr they're all over each other constantly....until Skwisgaar and Tyr become friends and begin spending time together, then she cheats on him. She was jealous that her latest man wasn't giving her constant attention and got angry at the concept of sharing him with her own child, which is super fucked up.

Skwisgaar throughout the show has a fake persona. He likes to pretend he in some way is like his mom; he likes to pretend he has his head up his own ass and doesn't need anybody but himself, he loves himself more than he could ever love another person. Which isn't true. At all.

I think that growing up with a narcissistic parent who emotionally neglected and emotionally abused him put him in a position where he had to shut down like that. He had to learn at a very young age that crying and yelling and being angry gets nothing done except maybe piss his mom off more, after finding his guitar he threw himself into music and appeared to shut himself off socially, preferring music over human interactions.

Music is something that Skwisgaar can rely on no matter what happens; he will always have a guitar, he will always be able to create music even if it is just for himself and nobody else. People come and go, people physically hurt you, people emotionally hurt you, or make you feel worthless. When we see the flashback to the night Magnus was kicked out of Dethklok Skwisgaar is faded into the background, almost like a ghost with his slumped shoulders and his hair curtaining his face as if he wants to just disappear. When they're auditioning for a replacement Skwisgaar is positive he doesn't want somebody else in the band, that they are fine just being four.

I think it comes from the fact he was terrified of repeating what just happened with Magnus, finding somebody he might think he can bond with over music only for that person to turn into a monster who makes him feel like he can't even do the thing he loves more than anything correctly....Then Toki came in and when they had their duel it quickly turned from a competition into a conversation. Because that's the one way Skwisgaar knows how to communicate, the way he is the most comfortable with; he likes to communicate through guitar and finding somebody who he could speak to through music excited him.

It's clear for obvious age related reasons that Skwisgaar has/had a care taker role where Toki is concerned. I mean he was about 15/16 when Skwisgaar took him into the band so he was a literal child, even when he's older Skwisgaar still looks out for him and is in his own sense immensely protective where he's concerned. Skwisgaar is also that way with the rest of the band even if it's more subtle. He worries about his bandmates, if they get injured or nearly killed it bothers him and he doesn't want anything to happen to them. When the band is going to break up he completely shuts down, because admit to it or not they had become the only family he ever had. I think Skwisgaar is so hard wired from his childhood to care for people that it's something he can't shake and maybe with the band he doesn't feel its a bad habit, because unlike with his mom, his bandmates arent forcing him to look after them. It's something he does because he wants to do it.

Of course in regards to his attraction to older women that definitely comes from issues relating to his mother....I don't think it's in a creepy Freud way, but more so just wanting to feel cared for back. Very obviously he can't exactly approach any of his bandmates and ask for a hug....well except maybe Toki and Pickles if he's super drunk or high, but outside of those two instances....they aren't people he could exactly just ask for validation or comfort or consolation. They aren't....good with that shit. Older women though usually have a tendency to be coddling and kind, Skwisgaar probably learned that as a teen or in his twenties, I think it's less about the sex factor and just feeling important. In terms of sex with people closer to him in age (I will die on the hill that he's bisexual, because he keeps just throwing it out there that he would blow a guy and he had multiple three ways with Melmord) I think it's a distraction for the most part, he uses sex the same way he often uses music, and honestly....He grew up seeing his mother have men over constantly.

Skwisgaar didn't grow up seeing love or healthy relationships, he saw his mom parade various men through the house and maybe she kept some of them for a while and I doubt the relationships were healthy and I'm sure he knew that his mother didn't love any man she dated or married for a short while. Even in the show he isn't fond of love or marriage, the only time he dates somebody is when he moves back to Sweden and finally starts to get his life together in a more healthy sense and that relationship didn't feel like it was based on sex. It was based on physical and emotional affection and it was the only time Skwisgaar ever looked actually happy in terms of intimacy.

Sex is a job, a chore for him; he's the God of Life so it's technically what....it's y'know his thing, creating life. As a lot of people notice....he seems far more sexually active after him and Toki's second fight in regards to music and petty bull shit. Season four is essentially the season where Salacia gets what he wanted aka the band tearing itself apart and you can see them all fall apart individually. For Skwisgaar falling apart means closing himself off, throwing himself more into his guitar and more into sex. He becomes more of a tool and an object as if that's all he wants to be, because being a person who opens yourself up and lets people in and tries to care about people ends up with you being hurt, badly.

Which does bring things back to his super complicated slightly homoerotic to the point even the show had to mention it for a hot second relationship with Toki.

We can gather from Doomstar that Toki was far more into music when he first joined Dethklok which I think worked out great for Skwisgaar, because as I said before; Skwisgaar communicates through music and this gave him somebody that he could talk to without the awkwardness of verbally conversing.

Though that changed clearly and you can feel that Skwisgaar is bothered by it, like in some weird way it feels like a minor betrayal. Toki notoriously never practices or puts in a lot of effort in terms of making music which Skwisgaar often comments on, complains about, or gets on him about. Reasonable. Guitar is part of who he is, but at the end of the day a talent that made him rich, that's what it is to Toki.....Skwisgaar on the other hand his guitar is literally an extension of himself and seeing him without a guitar in his hand for longer than a single scene gets weird.

Still despite the two of them losing the art of communicating through their music....they're close. Super fucking close. If you watch Metalocalypse and tell yourself going into the show that you're going to focus heavily on a single character or on a certain relationship you notice a ton of shit. Like you notice that Toki and Skwisgaar almost always sit together, stand together, talk over one another, finish each others weird sentences or ideas, copy each other to the point they spend an entire episode bickering like children over copying each other, and often spend their time hanging out together. Again. They're really close as if they're a single person split into two.

They're close to the point that inverse their fans just to some extent assume the two of them are fucking and madly in love and I mean I'm gonna be honest just objectively speaking here I would not be surprised to find out they have had sex before at least once or more times. Just saying.

That aside though and just sticking to the platonic here....They're close, Toki means as much to Skwisgaar as guitar does, and that's saying a lot. One big reason I want to bring up their relationship is that his relationship with Toki brings to light Skwisgaar's issues with death or more specifically death where Toki is concerned.

In season one when Toki has a bit of a breakdown and Pickles suggest they kill him, Skwisgaar looks tense and uncomfortable and says that he doesn't like the idea because it's a lot and it makes him feel not so good. In a deleted scene where the band watch Nascar together Pickles ask Toki and Skwisgaar if they were supposed to be dead or in jail or something because it's the same episode where they got shit faced and got into a high speed chase. Skwisgaar when responding about it changes the word dead/death out for sleep, stating they were supposed to be put to sleep but just had to do community service instead (Toki corrects that it was jail, not being put to sleep). In the deleted IKEA scene when Toki stressed says maybe the two of them should just kill themselves Skwisgaar immediately freaks out and later when they return to Nathan and Murderface they both look super emotionally fucked up and when Nathan ask if they had been crying Toki gets defensive and says no while Skwisgaar beginning to cry again says they had been crying. Then of course after Toki ruins Skwisgaar's reputation and becomes Magnus Jr. for a few weeks and ends up having a panic attack and making an ass of himself....Skwisgaar thinks he's having a heart attack and freaks the fuck out terrified that he's dying.

Then finally for a compilation of Skwisgaar not handling Toki dying well; in Doomstar before they go in to save Toki Skwisgaar makes the sorrowful comment that sometimes he wonders if they should have stayed a one guitar band. It isn't him being a dick, he isn't saying this isn't worth it. He's saying essentially that Toki was stabbed, kidnapped and possibly murdered and it's completely his fault; if he hadn't taken Toki in then none of this would have happened. Which immediately leads me to believe that post the funeral episode that Skwisgaar spent those months high and drunk and late at night blaming himself for Toki being taken/murdered. That's a lot of blame to put onto yourself and to say its your fault solely because a few years ago you took this kid in off the streets is honestly heart breaking.

Early on in the series there's an episode where Toki's pissed that he isn't seen as Skwisgaar's musical equal, he wants solos, and Skwisgaar turns him down. Which through the series and within that episode itself we easily learn why Skwisgaar never gives him a solo; Toki has performance anxiety and he never practices and quite honestly knows almost nothing about guitar. It's valid. Either way in this particular episode Toki gets pissed and decides he wants to take lessons, Skwisgaar offers and Toki turns him down because last time they tried...he kind of just ended up beating the shit out of Skwisgaar. (to be fair don't dump a bucket of blood on your friend's head) So he goes off and finds an elderly man to teach him how to play guitar, Murderface being a dick decides to tell Skwisgaar that Toki is super good at guitar now and.....Skwisgaar doesn't react well. He gets pissed off and has nightmares about Toki becoming better than him. He even confronts Toki and his guitar teacher and threatens to kick him out of the band. When he realizes at the end of the episode that Toki is still....really not great with music....he's chill again, everything is forgiven.

I kind of think that episode is a reason people perceived Skwisgaar as a dick or is one reason, but honestly he isn't being a dick. I mean sure, a bit, but they're all dicks. The thing is guitar is a crutch for Skwisgaar, it is super important to him and he doesn't know who he is without his guitar, without his music. So somebody else threatening to take that from him freaks him out and he reacts poorly to it.

Then we get to near the end of the show when the same issue arises except completely different. Toki again later in the series ask Skwisgaar for a solo and Skwisgaar annoyed refuses him, Toki being the mild psycho shit that he is decides to just kind of ruin his life as revenge. Again by this point in the show its kind of obvious if you actually pay attention at all that Skwisgaar keeps telling him he can't have solos because Toki never fucking practices and even in the studio Skwisgaar has to record most of the rhythm guitar parts. He's also known since Toki's audition that the kid is prone to choking up and making mistakes, so he's technically protecting him without just outright confronting him.

Toki writes a book calling out Skwisgaar as an abusive tyrant and an over dramatic bitch. Admittedly Skwisgaar is a slight diva and just like the rest of them can be a total asshole, admittedly to a lesser degree than the others. What's really fucking interesting for me personally about this episode is that Skwisgaar is catatonic and depressed for 99% of it. He doesn't speak. This starts literally the second that Toki releases his book saying that Skwisgaar abuses him, this is before Skwisgaar's career goes down the toilet, his career hadn't been impacted by this yet.

Skwisgaar falls to pieces because Toki, Toki who he's known since he was just sixteen and took in off the streets and they're always practically attached at the hip and have been since day one just released a book calling him an abusive monster.

I do have a feeling one reason this fucked him up is because he might be terrified that he's turning into Magnus without realizing it, that perhaps he has become an abusive monster and has been making Toki feel the way that Magnus made him feel towards the end of his time in Dethklok. I think there also is probably something soul crushing about the person you love platonically or otherwise referring to you very publicly as abusive. Of course all of this worsens when Skwisgaar's career begins to fall to shit, eventually towards the end when Toki is at the top of his ego trip being a prick Skwisgaar does confront him, that in itself is interesting.

Skwisgaar goes in way calmer than I would be in that situation, sure he gets pissed off as they bicker, but again he's waaayyyy fucking calmer than anybody else would be especially since Toki just yells at him through the entire conversation. Of course interestingly is that Toki perceives Skwisgaar in a way that isn't entirely true, he thinks Skwisgaar mocks him and thinks of him as nothing which isn't true at all, when he says Skwisgaar laughed at him he just responds that he never did that and he sounds slightly hurt by that. They're both hurt and none of these men are good with healthy emotions. Skwisgaar never loses his shit on him in the entire conversation, he looks like he could easily go ape shit but instead warns him that the audience will eat him alive the second he fucks up.

Which turns out to be true, Toki fucks up and people begin turning against him which leads to him having a severe panic attack. Like I mentioned before Skwisgaar thinks he's dying and tries to save him, scared out of his fucking mind at the concept of Toki dying. Which....the dude just spent several weeks treating you like garbage and calling you a monster who abuses him, if Skwisgaar was actually a shitty person then he would have laughed at him or mocked him or given him shit about this moment for years to come....but he doesn't do any of that. He is worried about saving him, probably terrified that if Toki dies then their last conversation was a fight.

Their dynamic changes a lot after this, not in a way that's overly obvious unless you watch it closely. They spend a lot less time together and what feels almost out of character initially in Dethcamp is....Skwisgaar easily going along with Murderface and bitching about Toki, because....again can't stress the Scandinavian dudes are always attached at the hip and now suddenly he's easily saying mean shit about Toki. It feels weird until you remember that not long before this they had a massive fight, Toki called him abusive and momentarily ruined his career and most likely afterwards tried to act like nothing happened at all while Skwisgaar probably wasn't capable of doing that.

Occasionally in season four Skwisgaar and Toki will sit together or stand together, still talk or have that physical closeness but it's far between and you see Toki spend a majority of his time with the toxic trio: Murderface, Rockso, and Magnus. Skwisgaar spends his time typically with Murderface and Pickles then near the end spends most of his time with Nathan.

Skwisgaar is a person who grew up in a home lacking affection and love or safety, he didn't grow up with examples of love or healthy relationships and as far as he's concerned relationships are a waste of time and energy because they all end the same.

Of course for as much as he says that, as they all say that....it's bull shit. He cares deeply about his bands and him trying to act near the end like Dethklok was just another gig it isn't, these people are his close friends and his only real family. Seeing Pickles and Nathan fall apart wrecked him and having Toki turn on him so easily gutted him. Skwisgaar is a super emotionally fragile person, he seems absolutely terrified of showing anger or aggression as if it's something he's never been comfortable with or learned when he was young gets you nowhere or perhaps there were men around who were violent and loud and it made him scared to ever be that way. He's the only one of the band we never see really lose his shit or be randomly aggressive and violent, he also strangely enough cries the most out of them canonically. People always make the assumption Toki cries a lot, but like canonically he cries waaayyyy fucking less than Skwisgaar.

I really find Skwisgaar interesting....clearly and this analysis might be a jumbled mess, but there's strangely a lot of things to unpack and things I probably didn't even touch on as much as I could have, because this is already insanely long. I have a deep appreciation of him rewatching this show now that I'm older and far more into analyzing works of fiction.

I hope that this was remotely coherent.

[yrpreciousmoon]

To Build a Home

Title: To Build a Home Fandom: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure  Pairing: Akira Otoishi x Rohan Kishibe Rating: G Description: Rohan discovers a place of safety and comfort, and learns little by little to just let go.

AN: OK SO... I stumbled ass backwards into this pairing and welp, here we are. Special thanks to catvvitch for falling down this hole with me.

-This technically takes place in the same AU as Morioh Hi-Fi, but you don't have to have read that for this to work. (Although I would be so happy if you did!) Honestly though you could picture this however you want, even canon universe.

- Also I wrote this with a romantic relationship in mind, with Rohan falling somewhere on the asexuality spectrum, but again you can interpret their relationship however you wish. I'm happy to hear your thoughts/headcanons as this pairing does not get enough love! :)

.

It’s not his home. He knows it’s not. But still, coming to this place after a long day of work feels right somehow. Comforting. Safe.

As Rohan unlocks the door and steps inside, he feels it straight away: the stillness of the house that says Akira is locked away in his studio. Sure enough, as Rohan pauses to listen he hears the distant warbling sound of lyrics belted out and echoing through the halls.

He adjusts the strap of his portfolio on his shoulder and pads down the long hallway towards the source of the sound. As he approaches he can hear the acoustic guitar accompaniment. Akira only plays his acoustic when he’s focusing on the vocals; Rohan remembers. He wonders if tonight’s focus is on lyrics or vocal harmonies.

The door is closed, not latched, and with a warmth settling in his stomach Rohan recognizes that this is his signal that it is okay for him to enter. He's expected. Wanted.

He pushes the door open and tries to enter as quietly as possible. He doesn’t want to interrupt; might even feel best if Akira is unaware of his presence entirely. Rohan just wants to be near him, feel his presence, settle comfortably into the picture that Akira is painting.

Akira does notice him, looks up from his guitar and smiles, but he keeps playing. Rohan allows a faint smile on his own lips, pausing for just a moment to observe before he walks to the well-loved couch in the corner and positions his sketchbook in his lap.

He doesn’t have anything specific to draw today, just that omnipresent pull to create something, so he starts where he often does: by drawing Akira. Trying his best to capture the cascade of his unruly purple hair, the positions of his fingers as they deftly navigate the fretboard, the way his lips curl tenderly around each word.

Before long Rohan has sailed beyond gestural drawings and is letting his head, his heart guide his hand, rather than his eyes. He doesn’t mind letting his gaze linger on Akira, beautiful subject that he is, but the draw of the paper is compelling in its own way. He lets the flurry of observational sketches inform the work, starts drawing moody male protagonists in striking poses, taking care with the curves of the back, the neck.

It’s only a matter of time before Akira’s strumming quietly trails off, and Rohan doesn’t quite register that the other man is watching him now (though he wouldn’t mind it even if he had.)

Soon Akira is crossing the room to him, kneeling beside the couch to get on Rohan’s level. Rohan doesn’t so much as bat an eye. Still, Akira knows he is welcome in his space; a luxury granted to few.

Akira rests his chin in Rohan’s shoulder as he peers down at the drawings, his breath warm and soft against Rohan’s neck. The artist doesn’t mind his touch; likes it, even. It’s remarkable to both of them, given Rohan’s general disinterest or outright distaste regarding physical touch. But Akira’s touch is different, alien yet somehow soothing, just like the house.

Akira presses a kiss to Rohan’s neck, wordlessly. Lets his lips linger for several seconds before drawing them up to the edge of Rohan’s jaw, the tender spot just behind his ear.

Rohan stops drawing mid-stroke, his eyes falling shut easily. He doesn’t want to miss a second of the electric bursts Akira sends through his nerve endings.

In time Rohan pushes his sketchbook away, kicks it down to the other end of the sofa, inviting Akira into his space. Akira obliges and wedges onto the cushions beside him. It's a tight fit but Rohan doesn't mind, in fact, he's counting on it. He turns onto his side to make room and feels the warm press of Akira's body enveloping his own, the hand resting heavy on his sharp hip, the soft kiss to the nape of his neck that makes his hair stand on end.

He stays quiet. He hasn't noticed until now just how tired he really is, not until all of his responsibilities have been set aside and his defenses lowered. But now the stresses of the work day, the gossip about his co-workers, the anxiety about his latest manuscript submission all fade into background static and the only thing he thinks about is how Akira's breathing is rhythmic in his ear and against his back.

How funny, he thinks, that everything about this man is like music.

Akira shifts his grip, then, his hand moving to coax Rohan's shirt from where it's been tucked into his waistband. Rough, calloused fingers push their way beneath the fabric to brush against his abs, making them twitch and flex involuntarily, and causing a secret flush to spread across Rohan's face. But he breathes and relaxes into it and Akira presses him closer, filling every crack between them.

There's no expectation here. Rohan knows Akira wouldn't deny a night of heated passion, but he also knows that it's okay for them to just be like this.

He's still figuring it out. They're still figuring it out.

(The truth is, Rohan never sleeps as well as he does when he's beside Akira. The tossing and turning, the stress dreams, they all melt away. He's long since come to understand what that means, but he's still working on admitting it.)

Just as Rohan is about to slip past the veil of sleep, he feels Akira's hand moving higher, coming to rest over his heart. He feels vulnerable, then; fragile in a more literal sense than he already has. That strong hand splayed heavily over his delicate chest, separated from his heart by mere centimeters of skin and bone... More than capable of crushing it if he wanted to. More likely to hold it gently like a baby bird.

He reaches his own hand to cover Akira's, holding him there. It's an affirmation and a plea all at once, and Akira responds by not responding. The two of them stay like this for a long while, still and silent as the house itself until their breathing and heartbeats eventually stumble together into the same melody.

[hoseas-angry-ghost]

YES YES YES I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR UR THEORIES

Hello anon! I am very surprised anyone wants to hear my chutney but here's my Strange Man Hot Take with some hopefully interesting info for curious parties:

To be honest, R* included so much misdirection around the Strange Man's identity (especially in RDR1) that I'm not *totally* convinced they're married to any one idea. RDR2 also complicated things by introducing new religions into Red Dead's world (Voodoo, Old Norse, etc.): he's no longer limited to just Christian / Western interpretations, as in RDR1, and it's possible R* might try to syncretise him with figures from other faiths (they did place Bayall Edge in Bayou Nwa, where most of the Voodoo stuff is).

At the same time, though, I think RDR2 actually narrowed things down somewhat in terms of the direction R* chose to take his character, and what we were shown of that. There's still a level of misdirection in RDR2, but IMO, it almost comes off as half-hearted in comparison to what was basically trolling in RDR1 -- it seems like they were a lot more focused on playing the "bad news" angle the second time round.

Based on what we know, and on the balance of things, I'm not convinced that the Strange Man is necessarily meant to be any one thing or figure, but I do think he's meant to fulfil some type of Satanic role within Red Dead's world, either in main or in part.

I won't compare and dissect other theories or anything, I just thought I'd list off some things that people might find interesting:

Armadillo. The deal between the Strange Man and Herbert Moon seems to be a pretty textbook Faustian bargain: Moon is offered earthly rewards ("happiness or two generations"), and although the price was (tellingly?) never specified, it seems like the recent Blood Money update for RDO all but confirmed that the cost was probably his soul. Although it's left ambiguous what Moon actually chose, the Armadillo curse was possibly an unforeseen (for Moon) consequence of the deal's terms, which would fit with similar tales of the devil or demon in question taking liberties with their end of the bargain.

In the files, there's some great audio of Moon off the shits and straight-up saying "I've made a deal with the devil, and I will never truly die!" It's possible this was cut for its own reasons (too overt?), but as a lot of stuff was apparently cut from Armadillo, I'm guessing it was either cut when Arthur in New Austin got cut, or it was part of something that R* didn't have time to implement in the epilogue. Either way, if it's not actually in the game then it's not technically canon, but it is an indication of what R* was thinking during development.

There's a lot of audio from the Armadillo townsfolk in general about devils and "devil curses," but the only thing I know of that definitely made it into the game is a line from the town crier ("Devil has the town in his hand").

There's audio of the Armadillo bartender saying "I heard the Tillworths made a deal with the devil to keep from gettin' sick! I don't wanna die any more than the next man, but ain't no safety worth a man's soul." Possibly idle gossip, but given Moon, possibly not.

RDO seemed to flirt with the idea of soul-selling a little bit with Old Man Jones' line "Well, this is America, so anything can be bought -- even souls," but then RDO pretty much just came right out and said it with Bluewater John in the Blood Money update. Bluewater John also apparently made a deal, almost definitely with the Strange Man (given the Moon deal and how close Bayall Edge is to all the drama); he was based on blues musician Robert Johnson and the myth that he sold his soul to the devil for mastery of the guitar. It's basically a rehash of the Moon deal, except it's... not subtle in its dialogue about deals, devils and souls.

"I GAVE EVERYTHING FOR ART, AND I LEARNED TOO MUCH AND NOTHING AT ALL" written on the wall at Bayall Edge also sounds like a reference to another one of these deals to me ("everything" being their soul, and "I learned too much and nothing at all" the foolishness of accepting eternal damnation for temporary knowledge). I think Bayall Edge might have originally belonged to a painter who struck a deal with the Strange Man for artistic skill, but then the Strange Man slowly possessed him or something -- which could be why some of the landscapes depict RDR1's I Know You locations, and why the writings on the wall kind of look like they deteriorate in quality. The puddle of blood at the foot of the portrait might also be linked to this somehow (whose is it?).

It's the deal-making for souls that really pushed the "devil" theory over the edge for me, because I can't think of whose wheelhouse that would be in except a devil's, or someone similarly malevolent.

Alternative name. The Strange Man's character model is called cs_mysteriousstranger in RDR2, and he's referred to as "the mysterious stranger" at least once in RDR1's in-game text. This could be a reference to The Mysterious Stranger, written by Mark Twain between 1897-1908, in which the stranger is a supernatural being called Satan. (At the end of the last version written, he tells the protagonist that nothing really exists and their lives are just a dream.)

Bayall Edge. Bayall Edge was possibly based on a Louisiana urban myth called the Devil's Toy Box, which is "described as a shack. From the outside, it is unappealing and average. ...The inside of the shack consists of floor-to-ceiling mirrors, including the walls. No one can last more than five minutes in this room. ...According to the legend, if you stood inside this mirror-room alone for too long, supposedly the devil would show up and steal your soul." The Strange Man does show up in the mirror eventually, and it's kind of curious that the paintings that change depending on your Honour act as metaphorical mirrors. This was also cut, but in the files, Arthur's drawing of the interior of Bayall Edge is unusually sloppy, like his faculties were impaired or something.

"Awful, fascinating and seductive". John writes this about Bayall Edge after the portrait is finished, and I think that's as good a description of something like the / a devil as any, but "seductive" is a big red flag for me, because it's such an odd choice of word and, from a Christian perspective, it's so loaded with connotations of evil and sin and temptation.

I Know You. Some have pointed out that I Know You in RDR1 resembles the Temptation of Christ, as it also takes place in three separate locations in the desert, and John is given moral tests in which he must choose between higher virtue or worldly vice. John is also, in a weird way, a kind of Christ-like figure in that he ultimately sacrifices his life for others. I do think the "temptation" in these encounters is very surreptitious but very much there ("Or rob her yourself" -- excuse me??), but they may also be operating on a Biblical definition of the word, i.e. a test or trial with the free choice of committing sin.

RDR1 dialogue. I don't want to get *too* much into this because I feel like we're all just getting punked in RDR1, but I think the Strange Man's dialogue broadly fits with something like a "devil" interpretation, or at least doesn't contradict it.

I'm thinking particularly of lines like "Damn you!" / "Yes, many have" (which would work metaphorically but also literally, given that the devil was thrown from heaven by God and his angels), and "I hope my boy turns out just like you" (of all the leading theories, I think Satan is the only figure who's popularly conceptualised as having a son, or prophesied to have a son -- God obviously had a son, but that ship kinda sailed).

I think the "accountant" line refers to Honour (which even uses an invisible numerical system), and how John's fate depends on the number of both good and bad acts he's committed throughout his life, and how these weigh against each other. If the Strange Man likes to collect souls, then he would have a vested interest in auditing you and seeing if your accounts are in the black or the red, as it were (and providing you with opportunities to push yourself further into the latter...), because if you're bankrupt, you're his.

Blind Man Cassidy. Interestingly, Cassidy seems to distinguish between "Death" and the Strange Man, implying that he's something else beyond his understanding: in one of Arthur's fortunes, after his TB diagnosis, he says "the man with no nose [Death] is coming for you," but in one of John's fortunes, he says "Two strangers seek thee: one from this world, perhaps one from another. One brings hatred; I'm not so sure what the other brings."

Arthur's cut dialogue. In the files, there's audio of Arthur having the exact same conversation with Herbert Moon as John in the epilogue, asking about the Strange Man picture because he "just seemed familiar". I think it's interesting that, like John, Arthur also would have apparently recognised the Strange Man despite (presumably) never seeing him before. Given how strong a theme morality is in Red Dead -- and how much both John and Arthur struggle with it -- my theory is that they find the Strange Man vaguely familiar because they're both familiar with the evil within themselves, or the potential for evil; and likewise, the Strange Man "knows" John because he embodies evil in some sense, so is aware of John's worst sins (like his involvement at Blackwater), or possibly even all of his sins (which would be, like, a lot).

Honourable mention: There's such a greater emphasis on conspiracies, myths, etc. in RDR2 that I half-wonder if the Strange Man's RDR2 incarnation was partly inspired by Hat Man (~excuse the link~ but often it's hard to find good sources for the kind of weird shit R* includes in their games).

ANYWAY, this got a little long but I hope someone found all this at least passably interesting. Thanks again for letting me ramble about the video game man, anon!

[theonlygamergost]

French homework and a Dream - Fd!au ( 2 / 2)

This fanfiction is based on the Family Dynamic au made by @antarctic-bay if you would like to know more, go check them out!!!

Also please bear in mind that the things written in this might not be canon!This fic was corrected by the lovely @im-default

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Techno and Dream did the fatal mistake of choosing French over Spanish and now they have to suffer the consequences together ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

<----first part Enjoy~

“Please tell me that’s all of that…” Techno faceplanted into the book in front of him, Dream took his diary out of his backpack and started flipping through the pages, “Hold on… the text of Monday and the highlighted texts from page fifty to sixty-three- WE DID IT!” He exclaimed, Techno sighed in relief.

They had finished the reading and memorizing part of the homework, it was now ten pm and the others would come back soon, so Techno proposed a small break before getting back to do the second half of the test prep, yes there were small exercises on the textbook, but it was two or three of them for eleven pages, and after three hours of speaking and memorizing french words, Techno needed a break or he would have exploded.

“Some fresh air would be nice… “ Dream stretched his arms above his head, Techno got off his stool and grabbed two glasses, “we can go to the roof, there is a vent that shoots out hot air in a corner” he poured some water and gave one of the glasses to Dream, “We can go sit there for a while”.

They both gulped down the water in one shot, “Sounds good, lead the way”, and so he did, getting their shoes back on and almost forgetting the door keys, they walked up to the last floor and exited one to the roof.

Techno was at home here, he and his brothers passed lots of time on this roof: Phil came here for the peace and silence (not having a room made this his safe space), Wilbur to sing and play the guitar, Tommy came here to unwind while Techno to simply look at the stars, but all of them came up here to think, to organize their thoughts.

“Wow…” Dream jumped on one of the big metal pipes and looked at the scenery, “It’s so… pretty… “ Techno smiled.

The tall buildings that surrounded them emanated little to no light so you could see how bright the stars were tonight, it wasn’t a full moon, but that small slice of light in the sky was enough to see the outline of objects in the dark. ”Yeah…” Techno sat down, hugging his jacket a bit tighter.  

Dream sat down next to him and yawned, Techno smiled again, “You’re pulling all-nighters too?” The other boy stared at him, blinking a few times, “Don’t think I didn’t notice the bags under your eyes deepening” Dream mouthed an “Oh” and turned the other way in embarrassment, “N-no no, no all-nighters, I just got back into speedrunning and the only time I do so is at night” he rubbed his hands together to warm them up and placed them into his pocket.

Techno knew how cold it was up there, but Dream didn’t, his green hoodie wasn’t enough, not that Techno was much warmer than him even with the jacket on.

“It’s getting kinda cold… follow me” Techno got up and walked on the metal vents until he reached a corner of the roof, the noise of a fan had gotten louder now, and Dream understood why when the pink-haired boy jumped in front of a grate and his hair and clothing started moving.

“We can stay here for a while” Techno brought up the cap of his hoodie and sat down, “It can be annoying if we stay in front of it for too long, but for a bit, it will do”

Dream mimicked the other boy and pulled his hoodie on before jumping into the stream of hot air.

Techno took off his glasses and looked up at the sky, without the lenses everything was pretty blurry, but that feeling of not being able to focus on anything made him relaxed: he didn’t have to worry about the world like this.

“Thank you for inviting me here, apart from the French homework everything is going great” Techno smirked, “Technically you came here for the homework, so that’s not good to hear” they laughed at the stupid joke and chatted a bit more until Dream sneezed. To avoid getting a cold, they went back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They caught the other Pandel brothers on the stairs, so when they entered home Techno and Dream moved their school work in Techno’s room, being that they only needed to do the exercises in the textbook, Techno didn’t need to shove everything on his desk to the floor since Dream was comfortable enough on Techno’s bed, but as time went by, Techno joined him.

It was around midnight now and they were laughing their asses off, looking at Minecraft and Among us memes. Their focus had left the room a long time ago and they both weren’t sure how Phil hadn’t woken up and checked up on them.  

“Oh come on… we have five more exercises Techno” Dream pushed the other boy who was scrolling through Twitter, “I’m done with this language, I’ll do them tomorrow before the test” Dream laughed at how done Techno actually looked, “Fine fine… wanna play something?”

At the word “Play” Techno’s eyes light up, “Oh! Wait here, I’m grabbing something” he gestured at the other boy to stay silent before opening the door, Dream carefully closed both of their textbooks and placed the pens back into their respective pencil case.

When Techno came back, Dream excitement met his as he saw what he was holding, “I forgot Tommy had a switch!” Techno held up the Nintendo Switch like it was the holy grail to make the other boy laugh, “You know how to play Smash Bros right?” Dream nodded meanwhile Techno proceeded to set up the Switch on his monitor. “Phil bought us Steve, wanna bully nerds with the power of Minecraft?” Dream could do nothing but agree.

“So here is the plan” he started while they insta-locked Steve and searching for an opponent, “We protect each other while we mine, and we build, we just build, build until the limit and then drop on them with an anvil” Dream snickered at the powerful but toxic strat, “We could also stunt-minecart” Techno nodded as he was taking the thing seriously, “Yup… Oh! We can build to the side and camp them with the lava bucket!” Dream laughed at how toxic Techno’s strats were, but where is the fun if you can’t bully them?

After two hours of bullying, tea-pot laughs from Dream, and countless rage quits from the opponent they decided to stop and go to bed.  

“Oh my god… that was too funny” Dream held his belly as he was still giggling at the bullying that they just committed, it was two in the morning and they had a test in five-six hours. Hopefully, the studying they did previously would be enough to carry them through the tiredness.

“We need to do that again someday” Techno placed his glasses down and turned the lights off, “Yeah, we do…” Dream was interrupted by a yawn to which Techno smiled and wished him a good night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So? How did the test go?” Skeppy asked as the two friends sat down at the same table of the previous day, the two looked like walking corpses and their constant yawning and deep bags under their eyes didn’t help, “I feel like I passed, and that’s all I care about” Dream explained and Techno nodded before placing his arms in front of him and letting his head rest, “You guys look like you fought a hoard of zombies last night jeez” Skeppy sipped on his juice.

“If Smash Bros nerds count as zombies, then yeah, we did” Dream smiled at the reference while Skeppy looked at them in confusion.

[kris-p-banana-bread]

Here DOAFP fandom, have some organic, locally-sourced, home-grown pain. This is basically just me, a scarred older sibling, projecting on Bobby, another scarred older sibling. I really reached into my post-loss psyche for this, so I hope you enjoy the headcanons and meta (AKA I hope you shed at least one tear).

It won’t let me link it here so the post that inspired this is under the read more at the bottom ✨

- When I first watched doafp, I couldn't understand Elena's aversion to Sam becoming a prominent figure in her mom's and her life. Now I understand it almost too perfectly. There was never supposed to be someone after Robert. He and Gabi were deeply in love and happy. Robert was it; he was the first and true love of Gabi's life. Sam showing up probably felt like a huge and utterly disrespectful slap in the face of Robert's memory, because he wasn't even supposed to be there. I don't know if that's as eloquent as I wish it was, or if it makes sense, and it probably sounds really mean to Sam, but it's not even really about him. It was always supposed to be Robert; Sam hasn’t earned the right to be apart of or associated with her family

- After Robert dies, Gabi and Bobby make it a habit to find and keep photos and recordings/videos of Robert, even if the latter only has him saying one sentence. They won't make Elena join them for the search, but after they find some of those old audios of Robert, they'll sometimes play them back for little Elena

- Bobby put up the keep out sign (I credit this to a few other blogs for discussing this tho) because that's where he would cry sometimes. He actually used to be pretty close with Elena, but after he put up that sign and started distancing himself from them a bit so they wouldn't see the times he cracked, he got a little more short and jaded with her. It's that, plus just growing into a teenager and stuff. And I'm not saying that he and Elena have a bad relationship, but he's become more snappy and has more walls up than he used to

- Sometimes Elena feels bad because she doesn't always remember her dad's voice. She was pretty young when he died, so even though she recalls it a bit, and the recordings help, it's been a while since she's talked to him in person, so of course she doesn't quite remember what it's like to actually talk to Robert and she's forgotten some of his mannerisms. She likes to think she's all done (she marked the stages down in her grief journal after all) but grief isn't linear or all that rational, so it hits her hard sometimes

- I keep reading as an action close to my heart because that's a strong bond me and my mom shared. She would rec books to me, and we would joke and talk about them, or she would hint to some future event and then refuse to tell me until I caught up to that part. So Elena and Bobby do something similar in their grief. Elena has writing and words, because that's something Robert loved if I remember correctly (but if I’m not and that’s not canon, then I now declare it so) and Bobby has tennis. But besides tennis (I sent a couple anons to @freshlybakedfandoms about it but I'm not sure where she went) Bobby also was taught to play guitar by Robert (I liken it to Devi Vishwakumar and her harp) so when he misses his dad or is just sad, he'll take out his dad's old acoustic and strum

- (This next one is something I also think a lot about so this is pretty much 98% projection) Bobby thinks sometimes about the fact that he was never able to come out to his dad. He hadn't really started growing into that part of himself yet, and he never got to show it to his father. He wonders what he would have thought of him. Would he be angry? Would he dismiss him and say it was just a phase? Bobby didn't think so, but a little part of him insisted that you could never be too sure. After he comes out, Gabi and Cami assure him that Robert would've been so proud of him and would've loved him regardless (Since we know virtually nothing about him, I maintain that Robert was one of those dads who teases their kid relentlessly about their crushes and I think he would've done that with Bobby and eventually Elena)

- When Elena's quince rolls around (if she chooses to have one of course), Sam dances with her during the father-daughter dance. A part of her still hurts, still aches and wishes that Robert were dancing with her too; still knows on some fundamental level that he and Gabi had planned for this day, but he had simply never made it. But she's known Sam long enough that she feels comfortable here. Nobody can replace Robert, but Sam is her family, and it feels right like this.

- I might do some more research and deliberate, but for the moment I'm saying that Robert had cancer, I’m thinking along the lines of colon. My mom was terminal, but idk if I should make Robert terminal? Maybe towards the end. Or maybe he was diagnosed as incurable early on but Gabi kept it from the kids because, tbh, being told your parent is balancing on that kind of edge is traumatic for them. So anyways, I’m going on that assumption for this last point, and I’ll see if I can recover some of my old knowledge and talk about technical stuff later if anybody would like to hear it

- Elena and Bobby were both pretty young. Bobby understood about PET scans and tests somewhat, and knew generally what different answers from doctors meant. Elena mainly just understood what was happening by reading her parents' and brother's expressions when getting lab results in from the doctor. They both remember on some level what it was like when Gabi would leave the kids with Cami and take Robert out to the car (later she would have to help him) and they would all feel like they were holding their breath until they got back and confirmed that everything was ok (and later, the little shocks of fear when the answers were no longer as positive and there was more apprehension and risks. After all, cancer doesn’t deal in absolutes)

- Bobby can still remember Robert when he had to stop walking around a lot. He still remembers the phone call that Cami got from his mom, saying that something had gone wrong, and if this last treatment didn’t work, he wouldn’t have much time before he passed. Still remembers Cami rushing into a room when she got that call, and trying to hide what was happening until Gabi could get home and explain it; but Bobby was a sharp kid believe it or not. He heard about the treatment, heard Cami crying. He still had hope... but when Robert came home in a gurney, when he could barely stay awake sometimes, when his voice was quiet and his skin was a little jaundiced, Bobby felt incredibly empty. But Robert always had a smile for his wife and his beautiful kids, even if it was small and very tired, his eyes still crinkled the same. He always had a smile; right up until they had to say goodnight and get some sleep one night. And then... he passed.

- After he passed, the Cañero-Reeds needed help, and a lot of Gabi’s coworkers would bring food or materials if they were running low. Cami and Danielle would babysit and would distract the kids when Gabi needed a good cry.

- Like you’d imagine, and because of what is sort of implied in canon and in my own head, the kids dealt with it in different ways. Bobby put up that sign, and withdrew. He wasn’t awful, but his patience with certain people got a bit shorter and he was a bit quieter. And he was a really good helper when he had the energy and he cared deeply, but he would sometimes get physically and emotionally exhausted after helping Gabi/Elena/Cami/anybody else with something and would go into his room or mentally tap out to recharge. He took comfort in things that seemed natural and that he sometimes took for granted before, like video games and skateboarding (hehe bobby skateboards. Anybody second me on this?) and clothes etc... and other stuff. A lot of materialistic things or experiences that he would skip out on before. But they bring normalcy back to his life now so he loves them for that.

- Bobby doesn’t wanna think about big themes or anything anymore, which I can’t remember but I think it was Vi (freshlybakedfandoms, again, idk where she is and I hope she’s ok) who said he was a math and science person and I think that as much as that could transfer over to those subjects as well, it’s much harder to avoid existential and emotional themes in English and History class and Bobby doesn’t like it as much as Elena does for that reason. He had to live with the back and forth of his dad’s treatments and tests, so math and science is comforting because it’s more concrete (There could be a million arguments for why he would distrust math and science because of his dad’s passing though, I realize) Ultimately, though, it reminds him of Robert too much.

- On the other hand, after a period of shock and confusion, Elena threw herself into new things. First it was a grief journal, to make sure she was going through the motions. Then she read a lot, and when she felt too alone or like she wasn’t doing enough, like she was stagnant, she’d just find something to focus and persevere on again. That feels like her personality type to me; something is wrong so let’s fix it right away. But that could also transfer sort of negatively into “Something feels off or I’m very sad, let’s get this thing done and be productive so we can put off having to confront that but at least we get work out of it” but I could be entirely wrong (this is based off some of my family members and how they dealt with the loss.) And Elena throws herself into history and english because her dad loved it, and she wants to remember more of him. Because she believes words have power and history is a lesson and that’s incredibly interesting for her

[singingaboutwishingx]

the west wing: are they musically talented?

listen, i’m not sure if most of this is canon or not. head empty just vibes.

this is quite long, so it starts under the cut.

jed and sam give me very play-guitar-and-sing-around-the-campfire vibes. they’re pretty decent.

jed also plays the harmonica

i have no idea why but i feel like will bailey just has a beautiful voice and a knack for piano

(i have this scene in my mind where he’s sitting at the piano, playing and singing “vienna” by billy joel over a montage of an exhausted senior staff having a late night at the white house. it’s a little bit glee-ish, but i feel like it could have been executed so well. i do not know if josh malina can sing)

josh was technically involved in theatre (and truly, i would kill to see eighth-grade josh in lil abner), but he gives me *extremely tone deaf vibes*

cj and toby can both definitely sing; if she’s drunk enough, she’ll sing in public. only when held at gunpoint will he sing in front of another person

donna can carry a tune well enough. josh thinks her voice is sweeter than apollo’s himself (especially when she sings lullabies to their kids)

charlie and abbey can also carry a tune. they both sing to their kids, but they don’t pretend to be able to do much more than that

leo used to sing to mallory when she was little. mallory remembers him being better than he was, but he wasn’t bad

kate harper can SING but she hums around the house and that’s about it

matt is truly tone deaf and his kids go “DAAAAAAAAD” when he tries to sing around the house (he’s started to do it to antagonize them)

helen knows how to play the piano but she can’t really sing

ainsley hayes played the tuba in high school marching band (she waws about as good as one would expect a high schooler to be)

was donna canonically in marching band or did i dream that? either way she was definitely also in high school marching band (clarinet queen)

annabeth schott can carry a tune and will randomly burst into song (this one i think is actually canon)

amy gardener is very tone deaf and does not even try to sing

none of the bartlet children can sing except liz, who is about on par with her mother. jed and abbey forced them into piano lessons as children, though, so they can all plunk out about one song each

zoey fucking hated piano lessons, so hers is just the chorus to “rasputin” because she learned it out of spite. jed thinks it’s hilarious and abbey HATES it

ginger, bonnie, carol, and margaret can all sing really well and they like to harmonize with one another. move over, whiffenpoofs, their rendition of “winter wonderland” is COMING for you (donna cannot hold a harmony and thus is not included in this group)

john hoynes and bingo bob are both tone deaf

percy fitzwallace can sing; nancy mcnally cannot. however, she was an excellent violin player in her youth

cliff calley can sing but he definitely plays it off like he can’t (“oh, me? up onstage for karaoke? haha nooooo... if you insist”)

danny concannon sings to his kids and he’s... fine

[doomedandstoned]

Chatting with Austin’s Shitbag

~Doomed & Stoned Interviews~

By Shawn Gibson

In his never ending quest to find the filthiest bands from around the world, Shawn Gibson brings us face-to-face, virtually speaking, with frontman Keith Young from Austin, Texas trio SHITBAG. The band dishes out a harsh blend of crust, grindcore, hardcore, and sludge, a sound you may already be acquanted with if you've heard their new EP Burden on Transylvanian Recordings. (Editor)

SHITBAG - BURDEN by SHITBAG

So why are you a Shitbag? What's the name all about?

I guess when I came up with the name, the thought was that Shitbag was a person I didn't want to be and I lived in fear of becoming. It's a catchy two syllable band name. (laughs)

Oh very catchy!

Half of it's just taking the piss right?

Oh yeah.

People think it's great or they think it's really fucking stupid.

I love the name Shitbag. It grabs your attention. It is so fitting for your style of music, the sludge-grind duo.

Definitely. The idea was to get a very dirty sound from the start. The name stuck with me. You can tell from some of our earlier releases to hone the sound but you can see that it's falling into place. I think we were zeroing in on the sound on the album we put out last year.

Which was 'Furnace,' right?

Correct.

Your latest release 'Burden' is out now.

Yes, that's now through Transylvanian Records.

Awesome, they are a good label! I have definitely heard of them and have some of their artists' music. So is 'Burden' your third release?

I guess it's our fourth, if you count the first EP. We don't really push that one out anymore.

Furnace by Shitbag

'Furnace' is a really good album! I think I bought all your digital albums on Bandcamp.

Oh, thank you.

I definitely fell in love with the sound! "Emasculator" is a great sludge song from the record Can you tell me a little about that one?

It is about castration. The riff was a fun thing I kind of threw out there. I told Eli our drummer this is in 4/4 and he said" it is absolutely not, I can try to play along to it anyways." As usual, he did. the different pieces kind of fell into place. The bass guitar always stuck out to me on that one. The speed of the song and the mix we got on those recordings allows the bass to shine through I think. Also, I think that might be one of my favorite vocal performances off of Furnace as well.

Who all is in the band and what roles do they have?

So I play guitar and vocals. Eli Deitz plays drums and Eric Prescott plays bass.

I would say 'Burden' sounds heavier than 'Furnace.' Can you tell me about your guitars and the set up you use for writing and recording?

Oh, sure!

What are you using to get that Shitbag sound?

So first off I think it's worth noting that we recorded Burden at a different location and we had more power at our fingertips. The guitars definitely did get beefed up. For the first two releases I had been playing a Randall RH 150 with a Randall 150 amp head. It gets this really nasty distortion right out of the box, you don't need a distortion pedal, which is pretty convenient. It wasn't reliable at high volumes. That was becoming a problem more and more playing alongside Eric, as he was playing an "O-R something" Orange head and also running that through an HM2 and some fuzz stuff in front of it, as well. He gets a very loud, snarling bass tone.

He's covering the low end, but there's an intersection where the guitars and bass compete when we are playing live. So I needed something that I could crank up just to keep up. The Randall wasn't cutting it. May of last year I purchased a Sunn Coliseum 880. That was great but I needed to beef up my cabinet setup. Before I had been playing out of a Laney 4x12 with two different Celestion speakers and an old Marshall 2x15. The Celestion speakers are just not cut out for running something like a Coliseum880. At 4 ohms I think it's already at 230 watts.

Oh, wow!

That is when I moved up to a Worshipper 4x12. It's an Intown establishment, and some good friends of mine run it. They got me a new cabinet in 8 to 12 weeks. Kinda crazy to think about from what I heard from Dillon at Worshipper they had good business during the pandemic.

That is great! I love to hear that everyone's keeping up the practicing at home.

Yeah, It definitely has a silver lining. I got a 4x 12 and I'm trying to remember what speakers are in it. My technical knowledge of that stuff is a little limited, I'll be honest. I went with Dillon's recommendation. I told him what I was using currently, this is what I want out of it. I already have a 2x15 cabinet so I don't need a whole shit ton of low end power coming out of the 4x12. He kind of went with something that had the right profile and could handle 320 watts. After that was the matter of finding a distortion pedal, because Sunn Coliseums don't really have a built in distortion the way a Randall does. For a while I was a really great distortion pedal that does all kinds of great stuff the Earthquaker device's grey channel.

It has six different clipping presets, clipping diodes, and you can do just about everything from straight up gain to kind of a fuzzy effect to full-on Moss clipping diode, which does the whole balls to the wall heavy metal thing. Great diversity on that pedal but it wasn't quite hitting the right spots. I went to a Boss HM2 and was very reluctant to do so because I know everyone does those. I ran that with a Graph equalizer like I would any distortion pedal. I made it not sound like I'm playing in tuned riffs. That's my equipment set up and how it evolved from Furnace to Burden.

Awesome, thank you. Something that attracted me to Shitbag's music is the sludge is the jelly and the grind is the peanut butter that makes this great Shitbag sandwich. There are moments in your music that it is as thick as swamp mud, then the next it's firing out like bullets out of an AR-15!

Hell, yeah!

Cordycep by Shitbag

With that being said you have a song like "New Day" that's grind as fuck, clocking in at a minute long, just blasting through! Then you have songs like "Rogue Furnace" that's right up the sludge/doom alley clocking in at 15-minutes, 20-seconds. Shitbag has a really great balance between different styles in your music.

Well, thank you!

What bands influenced Shitbag's music?

Yeah, so I think the time I was getting into sludge and doom in my college days and I came across Primitive Man.

Oh, yeah!

I grew up listening to death metal and shit like that.

Me too!

The way they threw that together with just oppressive doom sound. It was something I had never heard before. I instantly heard that and said"this is the future." I don't want to shit on anything but Black Sabbath has been around 50 years and that sound has been around 50 years.

Newer and current bands are still using that sound, yeah.

Maybe I shouldn't disparage it, right? Even the stuff I'm drawing influence from is 30 years old now. Maybe I shouldn't say it that way. I think it's a matter of pervasiveness rather than how old something is. There are a lot of bands in the sludge/doom canon that are like, "Black Sabbath, hell yeah!"

You can find lots of music that was coming out of the death and grindcore scene in the '80s, '90s, and 2000s that had very slow, lurching oppressive moods. To me, it's not so much a matter of the notes that are being played or the rhythms, it's the atmosphere. So yes Primitive Man, God Flesh, they are a big one. I'm a big fan of Assuck, Dystopia, and Grief. Then a lot of older death metal shit, too. Napalm Death, Eric and Eli loved Entombed. Full Of Hell is tight as shit, too!

Yes they are! By chance have you heard of Clinging To The Trees Of A Forest Fire?

Oh yeah, yeah.

I thought you might, being they were before Primitive Man. Great shit, as well!

Every band of theirs that the members of Primitive Man have been in that I have checked out, I have been very much into.

Vermin Womb, Many Blessings...

John put out an album with a death metal band called Black Curse last year that I thought was fucking phenominal!

I'll have to check that out! I like just about everything across the board, personally.

You are mentioning that we're striking this blend, we are not even playing the same genre through the whole EP. It's kind of like there's moments where it's one thing then there's moments where it's another. I think the more important thing is that it sounds like a cohesive thing. I hope we manage to do that.

You do! Shitbag has it's own sound that is unique to you guys!

Well, thank you!

I stumbled upon Shitbag's music on Bandcamp on Fathers Day. I saw the song title "Fathers and Sons" off of Burden and thought, "That's no coincidence -- I need to check this band out!" I was wondering if you can tell me a little about that track?

The song is about grappling with father and son relationships that are, I don't want to say estranged but you know trying at times. That was something that was a really big deal for me over the past year and a half, cause my mother passed away at the end of 2019.

I am sorry to hear that!

Thank you. When you have a death in the family like that, there is a lot of time for reflection that comes about. That's where the concept came about. I would not say that it's entirely autobiographical, there is definitely some exaggeration in there. We had the music for the song written and we couldn't figure what to write the lyrics about. I was just spitballing ideas and concepts to Eli. That was the one he said, "Yeah, I'm not really a fan of this draught but this is the concept to go with. Keep going with this."

Historically, I think I have been a weak lyricist. I would not call myself good by any means. We definitely made that part of the writing more collaborative process. Like the music has always been with us. We ironed out the words with each other so it felt a lot better. We came out with something more polished.

I understand completely.

A little graciousness opens yourself up. I think it's true with lyrics, as well. You probably don't have people say that to you very often, I imagine. I think it's especially true with lyrics when you're trying to make something that's personal and vulnerable. Having someone say, "Hey I would word that differently!" YOU MOTHERFUCKER!

Exactly. (laughs)

Take a step back from the initial knee-jerk response and just let it sit. You can really go places with that. I think lyrics are different just because people are not accustomed to making themselves vulnerable in that way.

What bands from Austin and surrounding areas that are heavy and you love to see them play or play with?

Let's see... Zyclops, really fucking great! There's bands like Glassing, Inhalants, Portrayal Of Guilt.

Yep, familiar with them.

There's a band called Godshell, they are new. I saw them play at a house show in North Austin in a living room full of people younger than myself. A crowd that was young enough to make me feel old. They played an outstanding fucking show! Those guys are rad live! There's also Metal Abortion, who is a pretty fun noise core band that Shitbag has played with a couple times. They put on a hell of a show and they have some crazy fucking records, too!

We have had the pleasure of playing many great shows with Desist on account of Shitbag and Desist being the two "Austin sludge" bands. Lucas is an outstanding vocalist and an even better human being. I don't know if Desist has been active through the pandemic but word is they have shit in the works. Another band forming a major constellation in the Austin shit-verse is the crusty blackened thrash outfit Vacha. Every show we've played with them was a fucking barn buner. I have nothing but love for all those dudes! Special shout out to Carlos for his God-like endurance behind the kit.

What makes Shitbag laugh? What's funny to you guys?

Oh, man. Eli and I have decided that a good way to get around when I bring a riff and don't know the time signature, is that we count everything in one. There 's no more time signature.That's a fairly recent joke. There are times at practice instead of playing a Shitbag riff with the distortion and everything balls out, I will go to the clean channel and push on the wah pedal and play with a funky staccato thing.

Hell yeah!

I think everyone else finds it annoying.

I have always enjoyed when the one guy in the band during practice either gets funky or jazzy, one of the two.

There is also something that Eli does that is fucking histarical. He never warns me he's going to do it. We will be in the middle of a song in the intense parts of the song he slips in the ba-dum tiss like a joke was told. When he nails it it's really a special thing.

Well, Keith that is all I have for you. Thank you again for your time!

Thank you very much, Shawn! The cassettes are available through Transylvania Recordings and Bandcamp. They are up for pre-order. I am not sure when those pre-orders will be in. There are some delays.

Several bands and labels having a tough time with vinyl getting pressed and shipping, too.

If you order the cassette you will get it eventually. I hope there is new music to announce in the near future.

We hope so, too!

Follow The Band

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[chipsandcoffee]

Whouffaldi Fanfic

“You Sound Like a Song”

Post-Hell-Bent, fix-it of sorts, memory loss, confessions, angst, romance, eternal love, s10 spoilers, canon compliant (well technically at least), cameo appearance by Bill Potts

Also on AO3 at this link.

______________

He knew her name was Clara. He knew they’d travelled together. But that was all he knew.

The list of things the Doctor didn't know about Clara was so much longer and went so much deeper, prodding away at him from a restless corner of his mind. What was she like? What had they meant to each other? Why would he have wiped the memory of her from his mind? And the one question that troubled him most: what had happened to her?

He ruminated on these questions yet again as he slumped in a leather armchair in his office at St. Luke's University, absent-mindedly strumming his guitar. He often felt a sense of melancholy on these solitary nights. Nothing was sad until it was over, he thought. Then everything was.

He had spent a long time trying to look for Clara (being stuck on Earth for a number of years hadn’t stopped him, for he was based where she was most likely to be). Of course he didn't know who he was looking for (hadn't someone told him that once?), but he believed he would know her if he met her again, and she would surely know him. But it had never happened. And he’d never heard a word from her.

He'd eventually reached the most logical and painful conclusion: she was dead. She'd likely been dead all along, even before he’d erased her from his memory (he could tell he’d used a neural block, could feel the sensation of a hole in his mind where something ought to be). Maybe that was why he'd taken the drastic step of eliminating those memories in the first place: her death had simply been too painful for him to bear.

He obviously had no idea how Clara had died, but he had the painful feeling that it had somehow been his fault. Hers was probably another life cut tragically short because of him, just like too many other people he’d been close to.

Indeed, he’d experienced more than his fair share of loss over his long life, and the last few decades had certainly been no exception. River had gone to her inevitable death shortly before he’d arrived in Bristol (at least by his timeline). He’d also very nearly presided over the execution of Missy before rescuing his oldest friend and bringing her to St. Luke’s. But for reasons he couldn’t quite grasp, the very idea of Clara being dead made his hearts ache in a way nothing else did. Perhaps more than anything else ever had.

It was strange grieving for someone he didn’t remember. His grief after losing River had made sense to him, and he’d been able to move on from it (even if Nardole, devoted to River as always, continued to assume that any sign of sorrow from the Doctor was connected to his late wife). But he had a vague, shapeless sense of loss deep in his bones that he knew, he just knew, was the grief he was still carrying for Clara. He obsessed over the unknown and unknowable details of her life, their life, and her presumed death. 

His grief frequently bubbled up to the surface when he played his guitar. In fact, as he sat there in the shadows of his office, he realized that he'd once again started playing a variation of a song from long ago that he knew was called “Clara.” Bill was always curious about that tune, but he'd never told her its true title. How would he begin to explain the story behind it when he didn’t understand it himself? 

The Doctor suddenly recalled with regret that he’d been rather curt with Bill earlier that day when she'd teased him that that particular song was the only one he knew how to play. He thought maybe he should say something to her by way of apology when he saw her again. He also knew he was rubbish at such conversations, so he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and fished out the stack of dog-eared index cards that he relied on for such occasions. He'd had them for many years, each card a neatly-written sentence that he could use in tricky social situations (which for him was most social situations). One of his companions had probably made them for him at some point, but he couldn't remember who. He liked to imagine they came from Clara, that he still had something tangible left of her that he carried with him. He wondered if she would have liked that.

The Doctor put his guitar aside, ran his hand down his face, and started pacing around his office. All this brooding wasn't doing him any good. He needed a distraction. He paused, fingers drumming on his desk, as his eyes fell on his TARDIS parked in the corner following his last outing with Bill. He'd been thinking recently that the timeship’s interface stabilizer could use an upgrade; that would keep him busy for a while. But he’d need to get his hands on a few parts first. He considered his options. 

His favourite place to get spare parts for the TARDIS was at a marketplace on the planet Haligonia. Of course Nardole would give him grief if he found out that the Doctor had travelled off world, but Nardole was currently occupied with tinkering with the locks on the vault deep under St. Luke’s and likely would be for a while. The Doctor could be gone and back before Nardole knew he’d left. He rubbed his hands together, his decision made. He pushed open the TARDIS doors.

A few minutes later, the Doctor was strolling through the bustling marketplace on 48th-century Haligonia. The planet was a human colony, but the well-known market attracted shoppers of a variety of species from all over the galaxy. It was a warm, sunny day, and the breeze carried smells of local street foods as he made his way past vendors selling everything from the latest tech gadgets to exotic jewellery to flowers of every possible colour.

Soon enough he spotted the parts dealer’s stall. As he approached it he noticed there was a rather spirited conversation going on between the tall, burly dealer and a petite young woman. The customer was dark-haired and wore a black leather jacket with a well-worn satchel slung over her shoulder. Her clear voice stood out over the din of the market, and as the Doctor walked up behind her, he could hear her haggling over the price of something.

“Come on, this would've cost less when it was new than what you’re asking for it now.”

The dealer folded his arms. “Yeah, well life’s not fair, lady. And if you can find it new somewhere else, feel free to buy it there.”

“Fine,” she said nonchalantly, “I will then.” The woman spun around and began striding off, nearly walking into the Doctor.

“Sorry,” she said, glancing up at him. She did a double take and suddenly froze, staring at him, her strikingly large eyes becoming impossibly larger. She stood stock still for a long moment. “Doctor,” she breathed.

He peered down at her, knitting his eyebrows and squinting slightly. “Have we met?”

“Yeah, yeah we've met,” she said faintly, sounding dazed. She continued to stare at him, and now her eyes were starting to look distinctly watery.

The Doctor became increasingly concerned that this stranger might inexplicably burst into tears right in front of him, a prospect that he found rather frightening. He reached into his pocket for his social cue cards in a desperate attempt to find something to say that might diffuse whatever was happening.

He found one of his frequently-used cards, and recited, “I apologize for not recognizing you. I am a time traveller and I sometimes meet people out of order.”

The woman tore her eyes away from the Doctor's face to look at what he was holding. However, much to the Doctor's horror the card had only made things worse, as she had clasped her hand over her mouth and a tear trickled down her face.

“I, um,” he spluttered, his arms flailing.

The woman suddenly seemed to snap out of her emotional state and darted her eyes around the marketplace, as though searching for an escape route. “I'm um, I'm so sorry,” she said, trying unsuccessfully to smile. “Have a good day.” And with that she turned and strode away without a backwards glance.

The Doctor felt somewhat relieved that this problematic encounter appeared to have resolved itself. But he also felt responsible for upsetting this person, and he found himself chasing after her through the crowd of shoppers.

“You there,” he said, starting to catch up to her. “Are you okay?”

He thought she must not have heard him, because she kept on walking. But then she came to a sudden halt, and the Doctor had to stop himself from running into her from behind. After a moment’s hesitation, she turned around, her face somehow conveying trepidation and relief at the same time. The Doctor was baffled how she managed to do that. 

The woman heaved a long sigh. “I am so sick of hiding from you.” The Doctor frowned as she stepped towards him, the crowd swirling around them. “The reason I recognize you but you don't recognize me isn't because of time travel. It's because you’ve forgotten me.” She paused for a second and wiped away a tear. “You, um, you chose to forget me.”

The Doctor felt as though his hearts had stopped and that all the blood had drained from his face. His mouth fell slightly open. Some distant part of his brain thought he must look like he'd seen a ghost. To him he had.

“Clara,” he whispered. It wasn't a question. He knew somehow, he was certain who she was.

“Yeah,” she whispered in return, gazing into his eyes.

“You're not dead,” he blurted out, immediately realizing how ridiculous that sounded.

“Yeah,” she frowned. “Why? Have you remembered--”

“I haven't remembered anything. I'd just… guessed. That-- that you were dead.”

Clara looked into the Doctor’s eyes and he immediately felt like she could see into his soul, into every lonely, hopeless night he’d spent grieving for her. Her face grew concerned.

“Oh, Doctor.” She reached up and laid her hand on his cheek, and the Doctor surprised himself by not flinching under her touch. “I think we should talk.”

______________

A few minutes later, the Doctor found himself incredibly, miraculously sitting with Clara at a small table in the corner of a quiet cafe on a back street near the marketplace, a steaming mug of herbal tea in front of each of them. They sat in silence at first as they stole glances at one another and tried to figure out how to navigate this strange situation.

“I like your coat,” Clara started, nodding at the blue-lined black velvet jacket he'd favoured of late.

“Oh, um, thanks.” He felt himself blushing. He wasn't used to people saying that sort of thing to him. Another moment passed and he asked, “How did you travel here?”

“In my TARDIS,” she answered easily, as though that were something that humans did all the time.

“What?” He was flabbergasted. “You have a TARDIS? How?”

Clara sighed. “Oh, this is going to be a very long story, Doctor.”

Several cups of tea later, Clara had told the Doctor the story of their final days together: the raven on Trap Street, the Doctor pulling Clara from her time stream on Gallifrey (which partly explained the vague memories he’d had of being trapped for a very long time in his confession dial), and her escape in a stolen TARDIS (oddly with the immortal woman Ashildr).

Once Clara had finished her story, the Doctor sat in stunned silence, attempting to make sense of it all, of the extreme lengths he'd gone to for Clara. He tried to wrap his mind around the idea that he’d actually plucked this woman from her time stream right before her death. And here she sat, still time-looped. Still, in essence, alive.

“You know how to fly a TARDIS?” It probably wasn’t the most important question, but it’s the one that popped out of his mouth.

“Yeah,” she laughed, her eyes twinkling, and the Doctor thought her laugh was perhaps the loveliest thing he’d ever heard. “I picked up a thing or two in the years we travelled together.”

The Doctor was impressed. “So how long has it been for you since you last saw me?”

“Oh, um, I'm not sure anymore. A while back I stopped keeping track of how long it’d been. It was--” She paused, lowering her eyes, a hint of pain crossing her face. She cleared her throat, met his eye again and continued, “I figured that was for the best. But I guess it must be close to a hundred years now.”

The Doctor raised his eyebrows slightly. "I think it's almost exactly the same for me."

The corners of Clara's mouth quirked up. "Yeah, that's just the way things seem to go with us. We've always been… connected, somehow.”

“What have you been doing all that time?”

“Oh you know, flying about a bit, watching the odd star being born, saving the odd planet.”

The Doctor couldn't help but laugh at Clara's jokingly casual tone, and he marvelled to himself at this amazing woman. But there was an important issue that Clara hadn’t yet explained.

“So why don’t I remember you, Clara? Based on the type of amnesia that I experienced, I’m guessing that I used a neural block of some sort?”

Clara’s face turned serious and she glanced down.

“Um, yeah, you did.” She gave a puzzled frown. “It's weird though, I saw you shortly after the neural block, and you seemed to remember a bit more than you do now. At least some of what had happened on Gallifrey.”

“Ah, well it's not uncommon in the early stages following a neural block to be left with some disjointed shards of memories. Over time, if the brain can't process those fragments, they're forgotten. It's sort of like forgetting a dream shortly after awakening.”

“Right, okay.”

The Doctor searched her face. “Clara, why did I use a neural block to forget you?” 

Clara looked upwards as if searching for inspiration on how to respond to the Doctor’s question, tears threatening in her eyes again. She took a deep breath.

“It wasn't meant to be you, not at first.”

“What do you mean?”

“You, um, you were going to use the neural block on me. You thought I'd be safer from the Time Lords if I didn't remember you.”

The Doctor frowned in confusion. “So what happened?”

Clara lowered her eyes. “I used your sonic sunglasses to reverse the polarity on the neural blocker when you weren't looking.”

“You what?”

“I didn't want it to go off on you, I just didn't want you to use it on me.” She began to raise her voice while a tear spilled down her face. “I didn't want you to use it at all, I told you what I'd done!”

Her voice broke and she paused, catching her breath and wiping her face. The Doctor felt a rush of sympathy and heartache for her. He realized that as difficult as it had been for him to live with his missing memories, Clara had suffered too, in a different way: she'd had to carry around the weight of everything they'd been through, while he had been blissfully ignorant.

Clara continued, speaking more quickly as she got through the rest of her story. “So. You didn't know at that point what would happen when the button on the blocker was pressed. That's when you suggested that we both press the button together, knowing that one of us would forget the other, but not knowing which one. Better than flipping a coin, you said.” Clara dropped her gaze and her voice fell to nearly a whisper. “And I guess you kind of lost the coin toss.”

The Doctor watched Clara for a moment, her head bowed. Then he found himself leaning forward and placing his hand on hers. Clara looked up at him, surprised at the contact.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“For what?”

“For everything, I guess. For forgetting you. For trying to make you forget me. I'm sorry that you feel bad about what happened with my memories, because it wasn't your fault, Clara. We knew the risks and we pressed that button together.” 

She squeezed his hand, a hint of relief on her face.

“You didn't say why I thought one of us needed to forget the other,” the Doctor continued. “But I think I'm starting to understand. Everything I did, the confession dial, the extraction chamber, my plan to hide you away and make you forget me.” The Doctor felt his hearts stirring as he now wrapped Clara's hand in both of his. “I think I would have torn the sky apart for you, Clara Oswald. And I think I knew that.”

A sad smile crossed Clara's face. “And I would have done the same for you.”

The Doctor and Clara gazed silently at each other, her small hand wrapped in his two, lost in the universe that was each other's eyes. 

After a while Clara swallowed, leaned forward, and spoke in a quiet voice. “Doctor, there's one more thing I still haven't told you. When you and I were on Gallifrey, we sat together in the Cloisters, and I told you something important, something I'd never told you before.” Clara took her free hand and laid it on top of his, her eyes round and sparkling. “I told you that I loved you. That I'd always loved you and I always would, and that I wished I'd told you a long time ago. That maybe if I had, things would have turned out differently.”

The Doctor had been surprised by many things Clara had told him that day, but somehow her declaration of love wasn't one of them. He’d known it, felt it, from the moment he'd met her in the market outside.

“And how did I respond?” he whispered, scarcely breathing.

Clara gave another sad smile and shook her head. “You didn't. That was the moment you got the service hatch open and, well, we had to keep running.”

“Ah,” was all he could think of to say.

“Yeah. We’ve had a lot of bad timing, you and me.”

As if to emphasize the point, the cafe owner at that moment walked by their table and turned off the “open” sign in the window, pointedly clearing his throat as he did so.The Doctor glanced around and realized that he and Clara had been alone in the cafe for quite some time.

“I think we’re being kicked out,” Clara whispered loudly, her eyes twinkling.

“Looks like it,” the Doctor replied with a crooked grin.

Outside, the Haligonian night had fallen, and the streets were nearly empty. The planet's two champagne-coloured moons shone overhead, and the air felt damp and cool after the warmth of the day. The Doctor and Clara wandered together through the town for a while, swapping tales of adventures and wild escapes, their bursts of laughter ringing through the stillness of the evening. The streets and laneways they walked eventually gave way to a green, park-like area on the edge of town where the scent of blossoming trees drifted through the night air. The Doctor wished they could keep walking forever, but as his TARDIS came into view in the moonlight, he was reminded that their magical day had to come to an end.

They walked together across the dewy grass and stopped near his blue box, standing in an uncertain silence, the only sound a nocturnal bird calling in the distance. Clara finally spoke. “So what happens now? Me and you, what do we do now?” The hint of tears glistening in her eyes told the Doctor that she probably already knew the answer.

“Oh, Clara. I don't even need my memories to know that there’s nothing in this universe I’d like more than to travel with you again. But I said today that I would have torn the sky apart for you all those years ago, and I know in my hearts I still would. And that you’d still do the same for me.” 

He took a step closer to her. “Everything you’ve told me, everything I can see and feel now tells me that we were amazing together. But also that we were dangerous. And I don't think there’s any way to stop that from happening again, because of who we are, and because of--” He paused and took a deep breath. “And because of how we feel about each other.”

Clara looked down and nodded, a tear falling to the ground. “Yeah,” she whispered.

The Doctor tenderly placed his hand on Clara’s cheek, and she looked up at him. Clara had told him so much that day. Now there was something he felt he had to tell her, something that was burning within him. He wasn't going to let the opportunity pass him by again, not this time.

“Clara, I never got the chance to respond to you in the Cloisters, and I know a lot of time has passed since then and I’ve forgotten so much. But I know, I’m certain of one thing. I loved you, Clara Oswald. I loved you-- I love you with both my hearts. And I always will.”

Clara smiled up at him, even as another tear rolled down her cheek. The Doctor wiped away the tear with his thumb, feeling dizzy with the emotions swirling inside him. He found himself slowly leaning towards her, feeling a pull as irresistible and inevitable as gravity, as Clara ran her hand up his arm. Their lips met in a soft, heartfelt kiss. To the Doctor it felt surprisingly natural, right, perfect. It felt like the long-awaited conclusion to a conversation begun 100 years ago.

The Doctor stepped back and took Clara's hand as he stood there smiling softly at her, warmth and contentment infusing his body. She smiled back at him, all dimples and shiny eyes.

“I’m really glad I got to see you, Doctor.”

“I’m really glad I got to see you too, Clara Oswald.”

But his smile faltered as the reality of his situation sunk in. Clara frowned.

“What’s wrong, Doctor?”

He released her hand and sighed. “My neural block, Clara. I don’t know what'll happen when I leave tonight. Seeing you today, talking to you, learning all about you, about us. I don’t want to forget any of it, not again. But my brain has blocked my memories of you for a very long time, and I'm afraid it'll do it again.”

Clara’s face was filled with concern. “There must be something we can do.”

He shook his head and half-shrugged his shoulders.

Clara’s eyes lit up. “Hang on, I have an idea.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and opened her satchel. After some rummaging around, she pulled out a small cardboard box and opened it. “I carry these around with me. They still come in handy for all kinds of things.”

______________

Bill started packing up her things as the day’s tutorial with the Doctor wrapped up.

The Doctor was sitting behind his massive desk, continuing to flip through the book they'd been discussing. “And don’t forget that your research paper on laser-cooled ions is due tomorrow.”

Bill rolled her eyes good naturedly. “Don’t worry, you’ll get it.”

“Good.” The Doctor tried to look stern, but he had a feeling he wasn’t quite pulling it off. Tossing aside the book, he stood and picked up his guitar from the chair where he'd left it, wandering around his office as he played the song that he now knew was named for the woman he loved.

Bill paused as she walked towards the door. “Don't think I've heard that version before. It's, I dunno, cheerier.”

The Doctor smiled to himself. “Good night, Bill.”

“‘Night, Doctor. See ya tomorrow.”

Now alone, the Doctor played for a while longer before setting his guitar down. He relaxed into his favourite armchair and reflected on how different things were for him since his trip to Haligonia a few weeks earlier. He could still remember much of his wondrous encounter with Clara, though some of the details were growing hazy, almost as though the whole thing had been a dream. Sometimes he thought maybe it had been a dream. But whenever that unsettling feeling arose, he would do as he did now. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small stack of index cards. Some were old and dog-eared, but some were new. All of them had the same neat handwriting, and now he knew whose handwriting it was.

He picked out the new cards. The one on top read, “Clara is alive and doing well. She wants you to be happy.” He gave a contented sigh. The next two were his favourites.

“Clara loves you. She always has and always will.” 

“You told Clara that you love her, and she will always cherish that.”

He smiled even as his eyes felt wet with tears (perhaps he was malfunctioning). He gazed at the cards for a long time, his fingers running lightly over the words.

He knew her name was Clara. He knew they’d travelled together. He knew she was still out there, exploring the universe. He knew they'd loved each other deeply and truly, and they always would.

He also knew that nothing was sad until it was over. And he and Clara would never be over. Not in his hearts, not ever.

______________

Thank you for reading! This is my first fic and any feedback would be very welcome and appreciated!

[tysukis]

Okay hello I am back to get way too into this au! Also I do technically write, in that I love to outline the hell out of something and then never put real stories together. This is my favorite part, and the compliments from you and @zukkau have made my day. :)

I think it was @procrastinatingqueen who mentioned Sokka dating Suki in a Zuko-Left timeline and it got me thinking about the band situation. Let's say the band is three members at first - Sokka, Suki, and Jet. (He's a shit but he deserved better....) Sokka lands them the gig, Suki is adrift and immediately on board to bounce. I like the fanon that the modern Kyoshi Warriors are a roller derby team, but regardless they're not quite an anchor for her and might even push her to take the opportunity. Sokka is the same. I imagine he and Katara are navy brats, they're used to moving and his sister just demands tickets and facetime calls, "No I don't care how tired you'll be."

Jet, though. He's not the primary caretaker on paper for Smellerbee and Longshot but he's the de facto caretaker. He can't just *do* that. So they replace him - Haru? Teo? Jin? I'm not picky, a handful of canon folks would work. So newly single Sokka goes off with Suki and their new bandmate, and Zuko is simmering on the fact that he's touring with his ex and probably always wanted her anyway. (Probably not, I imagine Suki has at least one supportive partner in their hometown, but maybe also yes for drama?) And Jet, who understands commitment to passionate goals and hard-won family, who now also understands the anger of being abandoned by Sokka in some way, is just so conveniently there. Like, they're not healthy together for sure. But Jet would be chill with Zuko keeping his emotional distance (whether real or just perceived) because Jet also does that?

I promised myself I wasn't going to send you a novel and here we are. But I haven't nailed down why they come back - end of tour? Do they piggyback onto another tour immediately or is this a relatively short separation and the aftermath is still messy?

[context]

Hello! Okay, yes, let’s run with this.

(I like that we now definitively have both a Zuko-Leaves Timeline and a Sokka-Leaves Timeline lmao)

I am proposing: front man and lead guitar Sokka, punk drummer Suki, Haru on bass. (If you wanna make it 4 - Teo on keys.) Of course Zuko would assume the worst, what with Sokka and Suki touring together (and probably misjudged Suki’s reasons for how eager and down she was to just up and leave) but we, the audience, know that she has a covert thing going on with fellow-roller-derby-skater Ty Lee; it’s probably pretty low key for the professional sake of the team.

Sokka and Katara growing up being moved from place to place, and therefore Sokka going on a new adventure with minimal reservations makes sense, I approve. Also Katara and Aang would definitely tag along for at least one leg of it for fun until they have to return to whatever careers/education they persue in their own lives.

I LOVE the idea of Jet and Zuko being brought together by scorn (and I love the way you phrased it - seriously dude I know you said you rarely go further in writing than an outline but that’s a tragedy) it slots in nicely with the canon. I’m a big believer that Jet was a traumatised child in the show and I think translating that into him being A Massive Shithead in fics can be a bit of a played out trope. It’s high time for Complex Character But Not Terrible Person Jet™️. I think they’d bond nicely and, in addition, I think because Zuko never got that whole older/younger sibling dynamic growing up he would adapt and be really good with the freedom fighters.

Whilst we’re looking into how the other characters slot in; Toph? Mai? Azula? What are our thoughts for them? I like to think Toph would be the one to set Zuko straight in the end with his constant moping and pining (I think their friendship was and is chronically under-utilised in both canon and fanon) but I can really see it being any of them.

Dw about not sending a novel, I’m happy to talk about this au all day frankly. I can see them being gone for a while, long enough for Sokka to assume Zuko has moved on etc. I’ve had multiple suggestions for why they come back but a common one is the good ol’ visiting the family excuse. Galaxy brain rachel @zukkababey immediately suggested tis the damn season by taylor swift as a fitting song and I think that works really well - idk if they’d celebrate Christmas per se but I can deffo see them coming back for at least some holiday or celebration. (perhaps an important birthday or graduation?)

[ofieugogyshz]

otoya + idol sister hcs

featuring all my idol daughters!!! which is like, 4 main ones currently but five or six if i include nozomi who i’ve lost interest in and yoshiko, who i’ve gained interest in.

this wound up SO LONG and if you read all of it then you get a shiny gold star!!! featured idols are Rin, Mari, Hanamaru, and Ai Miyashita!

Otoya + All the girls

he loves having so many vibrant and awesome little sisters!!! they love to hang out together and play

Otoya, Rin, and Ai are usually the ones down to play sports together!! 

Mari and Hanamaru are the ones he has a little difficulty connecting interests with, but they all still manage to get along and have fun together!

he’s also a little scared of them 

because they work so hard to achieve their goals

and because they’re only school idols and have to do a lot of work more work themselves rather than thru an agency like he does

he is often in awe of them and he supports them and loves every single one of his sisters!!!

they all like to help out at the orphanage from time to time!!!

him and ai are the best at handling the little kids! ai is like a big sister and the most down to earth one of the genki girls trio

mari is a little too..... encouraging of the kids’ outlandish ideas and also sometimes likes to scare them with silly-weird stories! to which all the kids go running crying to their oniichan and otoya has to tell her to not scare them! they’re just little kids!

rin would color/craft with the kids and while she can be mature for the little kids she would also often get caught up in their excitement/energy and basically be the one who would be yelling mcdonalds! mcdonalds! with the kids 

hanamaru would be the quietest one there, helping the kids read from time to time or quietly cutting crafting paper and talking to all the little shy ones who she happens to notice staring at her. 

when they quietly ask her if they could become an idol like her and their oniichan, she tells them, “I used to believe that I couldn’t become an idol, too. But then I met great friends, and they believed in me, and pushed me. If you work hard, and find yourself surrounded by people who believe in you, then you can become an idol too!”

(I’mma just shove that gif in there bc that’s it that’s the scene)

sometimes they like to practice their routines together, so they can all get feedback from people with very different points of view, since they’re all from different groups and backgrounds. 

otoya tries to give them a few pointers from what the academy taught him, but he’s mostly just like “wow!! you are so amazing!!” or something. Most Supportive Big Brother award when?????

he does provide constructive feedback though! it’s usually just after his usual surprise at how awesome his little sisters are already!

he’s best at providing feedback for dance movement since he loves to move around. 

if a fight starts to break out among the girls somehow, he tries to step in and ask everyone to take a deep breath

the girls enjoy listening to otoya’s music! They find it very refreshing and it’s nice getting to listen to him sing and play on his guitar!

Otoya + Rin

omg sports siblings

basically anything he does with syo would also include rin

they love to play any sport together obviously but soccer is their fave!

he’s really sad to hear that she thinks she can’t wear any cute, girly clothes 

[and is also understandably confused when he points out that she has no problems wearing the cute idol clothes her and her friends make?]

but he does his best to cheer her up and make her believe that she can!! He just... tells her that she’s the cutest little sister he could ever ask for and for her to please believe in herself!!! because he doesn’t know what else to say or do to show his support

of course rin is just flustered and storms off upset because she feels like no one is understanding the problem she’s having! and basically everything else follows like it does in s2e5 of love live

they love to go for runs! especially at parks!

if they pass by pet shops they will both wanna go in but they can’t stay long because rin is allergic to cats, nya :(

rin makes them cat earbands and he happily wears them with her because if that’s what will make her happy, then so be it!

orange + red hair siblings = best siblings

Otoya + Mari

oh my god. the chaotic energy. 

mari is probably the one he feels most awkward with

i mean, for starters, she’s hella rich and has some detachment from reality that the rich boys in starish don’t seem to experience

she probably also has a lot of fun teasing him

especially about his s/o

oh my god don’t let her know about his s/o

you know the >;3 face? she makes that face. all the time. any and every time s/o’s name comes up

she also probably ‘helps’ push them along by buying him two tickets to something ridiculously elaborate or expensive. because she can. she can do what she wants with her inheritance from the Ohara family

he is just a poor boy who grew up in an orphanage and hasn’t forgotten his roots mostly. he does not understand the freedom she has in spending money. he’s amazed when she arrives in a jet the first time they meet

Otoya probably feels bad for Mari when she manages to finally open up to him about her problems with her friends with the original Aqours and why they split. he probably tells her something like “that’s a toughie” and to be more honest with her feelings and maybe if she explained everything, they can all go back to being friends again!

ofc that doesn’t happen

and i forget what happened in s2 or whatever that got mari worried again bc sunshine was just that bad but i digress

When Mari makes her Stewshine, he is very intimidated by her and suddenly feels like he’s going to experience Natsuki’s cooking again

(it, fortunately, seems to taste better than Natsuki’s cooking)

Otoya + Hanamaru

this sister is so quiet, so sweet!

otoya usually does most of the talking, but hanamaru doesn’t mind! it’s nice to listen to him be so excited about stuff, and it reminds her of her best friends a bit, too!

if he doesn’t know what a word means or has trouble understanding some difficult text, and tokiya isn’t answering, he’ll go and ask her for help! 

he feels a little bad about it bc he’s supposed to be the one that’s helping her, but she doesn’t mind and never makes him feel bad for it!

he cheers for her the most when it’s workout time! he helps her learn to do some breathing exercises to help build her stamina or something

i honestly don’t have much for him and hanamaru bc she’s the only one that isn’t an energetic child, but they are still very sweet to each other!

he tries to help her sometimes when she’s working the library but he’s too loud and impatient and distractable to help with some of the busywork. maybe he can help reshelve books.

Otoya + Ai Miyashita

He is scared of Ai the most!

i’m not sure how to phrase it or point out specifically why, but maybe because she’s just as excitable as he is!

she’s very energetic, so both of them can go on talking forever and ever about things!

she’s a lot more fashion-conscience than he is, so he’ll sometimes ask her for her opinion on stuff

he also probably would ask her to help with rin’s character arc re her feminity, but love live canon would not make it so. except maybe in that all stars app but i don’t have enough room to run it between llsif and shining live......

while they don’t have many interests in common, ai is still good at school and athletics, so she probably joins him and rin from time to time for a game of soccer! or something. 

i’m p sure ai mikaze vs ai miyashita comes up in a conversation at some point early in. like

like how she’s really loose with her language and informal and energetic and stuff, while he’s very quiet and formal and cautious and calm. the stark contrast between the two ais!

also ai probably makes a pun about it? can you make a pun about it? I wouldn’t know I’m not a japanese speaker.

puns. so many puns

a lot of them fall short of their mark with otoya? maybe?

like, he probably is just like “Eh?” when she busts out into laughter at her own bad puns.

despite them not having many similar interest outside of idol work, they both get along very well! they both have very ‘easy’ and relaxed personalities, despite their big energy! 

they both are very big helpers!!! so ai would be the one that he would ask for help from the most when it comes to the preschool orphanage 

ai helps out there the most of all of the girls, because she really loves helping!

he probably helps her brainstorm her call sign! because they’re both very friendly individuals, he probably helped her come up with the high five part of her call by accident when they high-five’d sometime!

if you made it this far, congrats!! that is about all i have for my idol children!!! well the two actual idol series. I guess i technically have two more from tokyo mirage sessions! but it’s not the same as an actual idol series!

[haledamage]

Kira Grace Kingston

female, she/her

5'6”, slender build

shoulder-length, straight dark-brown hair

pale, lightly freckled skin

light brown eyes

bisexual (though I play her in-game as straight because I just really connected with the all-male Unit Bravo for some reason)

Taurus, born 28 April 1992; 25 at the beginning of Book 1, turns 26 between Book 1 and 2

left-handed

Romance: all of them, I’m using the same Detective for all routes

(infodump about her under the cut, for my own purposes mostly but also for anyone interested)

--Was inspired to become a cop to help people after having one help her when she really, really needed it. Wanted to pay it forward, so to speak.

--Kira is a natural leader and very good at deduction and problem solving (it’s her second highest stat, after people/psychology). She would have likely gone out for detective soon anyway, but didn’t think she was ready or old enough to be in charge of the whole station yet and was surprised when the promotion came. The rest of the station had been secretly considering her their boss for years before Detective Reele retired, but Kira somehow has no idea.

--Totally shot Adam. Feels really bad about it but would never tell him that.

--Will drink tea or coffee, but prefers tea. Her favorites are cinnamon tea and masala chai. If she’s drinking coffee, she prefers the sugary, flavored, Starbucks-like variety, but will sometimes drink it black just to unnerve people (people mostly being Tina).

--Doesn’t wear much make-up, but likes to paint her nails. Usually black or some other dark color, a “layover from her misspent youth.”

--Wears contacts. Has gold-framed glasses that she wears when she has to, but hates them. She’s farsighted, so if for some reason she can’t wear her contacts, she only puts on the glasses for reading.

--Plays guitar and lap steel guitar. Prefers to play blues music, but can play just about any genre. A pretty good singer, but very shy about it. Probably only Rebecca and Tina have ever heard her sing as far as she knows. (she sings to herself at her desk sometimes, but doesn’t realize it. All of UB have probably noticed; Felix definitely has, and is likely waiting for a good opportunity to tease her about it)

--She’s always been very close with Rebecca. They’re both rather independent-minded, so she didn’t mind her mother’s absences so much. Mum was always there when she needed her, and always willing to listen, and that’s what mattered. Now that she knows what she does, Kira is sure that she’s called her mother while she was on a mission before, but Rebecca still always answered, and that fact makes her respect and admire her mum even more.

--Lost a bet to Verda in regards to The Reveal. Verda had said the Murphy case and its oddities were supernatural in nature, Kira said it was science experiments gone awry. Technically, they were both right, but Verda was more right. Kira looks forward to one day being able to tell him, even if she’ll be out £50 for it.

--The only reason Kira isn’t some reclusive hermit is because of Tina Poname. Tina and Kira met when they were both in a very low place, and have lifted each other up and helped put each other back on their feet. Their friendship is very important to Kira, and the fact that she can’t tell Tina that the Hot Secret Agents they’re working with are Hot Secret Agent Vampires is the hardest part of The Reveal. She’s not used to keeping secrets from Tina.

--Tina and Kira have a monthly movie night. One of them picks the movie and the other picks the food, then they swap the next month. It’s more like an adult slumber party than anything else, really, lots of wine and gossip and venting if need be. It’s a tradition going back years now and neither would miss it for the world.

--Is very good with people, it’s her highest stat, but doesn’t actually enjoy being around them much. Very much an introvert, prefers silence and solitude or the company of close friends only. She works very hard to be as approachable as she is.

--Curses like a sailor. Poor Nate.

--Loves to read. Anything and everything. You put a book in front of her and she’ll read it. Mysteries are a favorite.

--Her favorite color is wintergreen like Adam’s eyes.

--Apartment style would be somewhere between cosy and dark. Kind of a Spooky Grandma’s House vibe. Lush fabrics and textures, soft sofas and chairs, but subdued colors. Black, gray, navy blue, with pale blue and wintergreen accents. Artwork is mostly made by locals or by friends from university. Bookshelves nearly overflowing. Apartment is kept clean, but always looks a bit cluttered.

--Preferred clothing style is casual but professional. Jeans, most often paired with a t-shirt or button-up shirt. Mostly long sleeves, but with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Usually black, sometimes white or gray, very, very rarely dark green or dark blue. Black leather jacket when it’s cold. Almost always wears black boots; she paid more for those boots than she did for her car (but that says more for how little she paid for the car than how expensive her boots actually are).

--Speaks seven languages. English, Sign Language, Spanish, French, German, Welsh, and, because someone dared her to at university, Sindarin Elvish. With the exception of the elvish, she learned most of them out of necessity or exposure.

--English literature major. Doesn’t serve much in her job, but she’s still proud of it.

--Very shy when it comes to flirting. She hates it about herself. She’s very confident and self-assured in almost every other situation, but if someone starts showing the slightest bit of genuine interest in her she flusters very easily.

--Dated Bobby in year one at university for a couple months. With him in journalism and her in English lit, they had a lot of class overlap early on, and he was familiar and clearly interested and that was enough, for a while. She regrets that she fell so easily for his flirting and has resolved since to not be such an “easy mark” in the future. Hasn’t dated anyone since and hasn’t wanted to (until UB barge into her office, obviously). Kind of hates him, but would never let him know that; she is, instead, very meticulously polite to him, never any more or less.

--At the beginning of Book 1, she has 4 tattoos. Gets a 5th one during the 2 months between Book 1 and Book 2.      -a small, stylized crown on her right wrist (Rebecca has a matching one that she hides under her watch band at work) because Kingston     -bars of music wrapped around her right bicep (watercolour-style effect behind it - the music is Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down”)     -a quote on the inside of her left bicep (“I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein)     -a large full-color floral piece from her left hip almost to her knee (forget-me-nots for her father, lupines for her mother, lavender roses and verbena for herself)     -new tattoo is a simple, black crescent moon on the back of her neck to symbolize a new beginning (keeps it hidden under her hair most of the time, especially at work).

--Preferred method of working out is rock climbing/wall climbing. Has some combat training, mostly just from the police academy, but she tries to attend aikido lessons when she has time. She likes that it lets her defend herself without being stronger than her opponent, especially now that she deals with the supernatural so much.

--Kira didn’t realize how attached she’d grown to Unit Bravo until the attack on her apartment. She wanted to stay to help her team; on every route, she has to be dragged away in order to get her to leave. Completely, 100% ride or die for all of them.

Kira is my only Detective and I’m using her in all four routes (sorry, folks, I can’t do the Love Triangle. I tried, but I can’t, it already hurts and I’m not strong enough). It’s been very interesting, since she has the same personality no matter what, to see in what ways she connects with each member of Unit Bravo, and the slight changes in her personality stats based on how she responds to romance-specific scenes.

Adam: arguably my “canon” romance for her, though I legitimately and completely love all of them. On his route, her stats skew a little more toward Stubborn and Impulsive because she’s spiteful and he’s kind of an ass, especially to start with. 

They’re both headstrong and natural leaders, so they butt heads a lot in terms of authority. She doesn’t like that Adam tries to order her around, he doesn’t like that she refuses to listen to orders sometimes out of spite. But when they actually try to get along, they agree more often than not and could probably make an amazing team given time. 

She’s completely, head-over-heels in love with him, but she hasn’t figured it out yet, though she knows she feels something for him. He makes her feel safe, which is how she knows that she’s in deep. 

On Adam’s route, Nate is Kira’s best friend. Poor guy’s gonna be stuck between the immovable object and the unstoppable force for 7 fucking books.

Nate: On Nate’s route, Kira’s stats tend more toward Cautious, and also a bit more Heart on the Heart/Mind scale. 

Of all of them, Nate would be the one Kira would be most surprised to find herself falling for. She’s not much of a romantic, generally, but she’s also never had anyone look at her like Nate does, or treat her like she’s something precious and important. She feels completely off balance with him and has no idea how to react. She has never been so overwhelmed with a desire to kiss someone before. 

Personality-wise, they have a lot in common, both are good with people, compassionate, linguistically talented, and avid readers; to anyone except Kira, them getting together makes perfect sense. He probably doesn’t like how stubborn and foul-mouthed she is, but between Adam and Mason, he’s used to dealing with it. 

On Nate’s route, Mason is Kira’s best friend. No one is more surprised about that than they are, and they aren’t really sure how that happened.

Felix: On Felix’s route, Kira skews more toward Easygoing and Impulsive. 

In a word, Felix helps Kira relax. She’s a bit of a workaholic and he brings her out of her shell and reminds her that she’s more than just Detective Kingston. It’s refreshing and overwhelming. Romance with Felix is easy. 

He’s the only one where she doesn’t end up 100% shy because, even though she still gets horribly flustered by him, he doesn’t make her as tongue-tied as the others do. Maybe it’s because he’s so much less intense than the others, but also she kind of feels like she’s always known him. 

She wants to show him the world, all the little things about being human that she’s always taken for granted but he never had in Echo World. Paper airplanes and creepy travelling carnivals and movie theater popcorn and photo booths and everything. They’ll be good for each other, but them joining forces is probably very bad for everyone else. 

On Felix’s route, Nate is Kira’s best friend. Unlike with Adam, he isn’t so much trapped between two opposing forces as he is an exhausted parent trying to corral overly-curious children.

Mason: On Mason’s route, Kira’s stats tend even more toward Genuine than they do on other routes, as well as Stubborn. 

On the surface Mason and Kira probably don’t look like they’d work, but really I think they’re the pairing that makes the most sense. Mason doesn’t drain her social batteries as much as the others, even at the beginning when he’s as hostile toward her as possible. They both enjoy the quiet, and that’s where the first romantic feelings from her would form, in the calm and silent comfort she feels with him. 

But obviously, it doesn’t start romantic even a little bit. At the beginning, she’s neither intimidated nor put off by his sharp, brusque personality, and she’s very flustered and intimidated by his intense manner of flirting, though she’s not really put off by it either. She doesn’t know how to respond to it (though he clearly enjoys how she reacts), but he makes her feel desired in a way she never has before. There’s a certain comfort to knowing that he only wants her physically, that he’s straightforward in his interests. 

I imagine that she figures out she’s falling for him after he does something small that should be innocuous, some little off-hand affection that he didn’t even think about and she just goes “oh shit, I’m in love with Mason.” 

On Mason’s route, Felix is Kira’s best friend. He definitely sees them falling for each other long before they see it and does everything he can to get them to stop being idiots and realize that they’re in love.