#there's . a lot of words in the answer arcs .

[blujaymi]

"What about you? It's all about you!"

RUBY + BEING BLAMED BY OTHERS (AND HERSELF) in 8x01 & 8x11 & 9x07

[satohqbanana]

I think this is how I'd like Arcane S2 to go based on what the fandom and LOL players have posted so far on socmed and other media sharing sites (and if I miss any plot point, my apologies, I'm neither watching it off Netflix or the pirate's bay).

For starters, S2 would open with a timeskip. Both Piltover and Zaun are in a mess. Neither have their leaders, after all, and potential candidates are currently fighting their way to the top, none strong enough like the previous ones.

Various factions are scrambling to take control over the borders and all known (and secret) passageways between the cities. Jinx is one of the faces at the front. Every Piltovan is out to get her if they can; kill her or turn her in, they'll win political power. She's even more ruthless this time, and she's enjoying the act of killing. It's also as if she wants to find someone strong enough to kill/stop her.

Meanwhile, the Chembarons are fighting for leadership over Zaun, but first of all, they are trying to court Sevika's loyalty. She has the charisma that helps her rally supporters towards anyone she finds fit. They do not know that Jinx is holding her captive exactly because of this. Their second priority is claiming monopoly on shimmer - or making an alternative. Since Silco's gone and Singed is holed up in his lab, production has gone places, and no one's brewed anything better yet.

Ekko has made efforts to support struggling Zaunites, but the Firelights' territory is growing smaller by the day. Thanks to the conflict, he now knows Jinx has survived their fight on the bridge, but he fully regrets having tossed away her bomb. (It is clear that he still struggles to separate Powder from Jinx. This is his actual arc.)

Heimer has started to shed his immortal naivety; now he's actively helping Ekko's community thrive. Particularly he's leading the Firelights in research endeavors. They have a working tonic for shimmer, though still imperfect, so Heimer thinks of sending Ekko and friends to Piltover to make things better.

On the side of Piltover, we have Vi. She's been forced into becoming an enforcer thanks to Caitlyn, who attempted to put her back in jail in grief and rage. Thanks to the conflict, one of the jail guards tattled about Vander and Grayson and Silco and Marcus, then suggested the team-up. Vi initially refused the offer, but she eventually agreed to it, because she has no allies aside from Ekko and she can't wait for him while Jinx is destroying both cities. She keeps on wondering why Vander agreed to acquaint himself with them, as day in and day out she's just assisting Piltovans and fighting Zaunites. A colleague suggests she's better off helping out in Zaun instead, and she punches him.

Caitlyn is exhausted to say the least. She has just buried her mother, Jayce and Mel (and Victor) have disappeared and nobody can say where they've gone, and Noxus is breathing down her neck. At the very least, she does have Ambessa guiding her, even if her words feel demanding. Caitlyn promised to comb all over Piltover and Zaun for Mel to prevent Ambessa from rallying Noxian forces, under the condition that if Caitlyn can't bring the cities to an acceptable state, Noxus is free to take control of both as it pleases. Caitlyn has also accepted Noxians into the military force of Piltover, sent by Ambessa under the guise of searching for Mel.

(And Ambessa is thirsty for blood. She has chosen to hold back for now, for she does worry that little peace-loving Mel might actually die in the crossfire between Noxus and Pilt/Zaun and Ambessa is not willing to go through the loss of a child again this soon. But she is getting impatient, and she is also considering taking the hexcore for herself.)

Overall, the season deals with themes of power and control. Naturally Vi and Jinx meet each other and clash twice or thrice during this leg of the story. But most of all, it's about Vi becoming Vi, much like how Powder became Jinx last season. Even if this doesn't solve all plot threads, it would at least give Vi the center stage to tell her "side" of the story, especially with regards to the Piltover/Zaun conflict.

In fact, I think it'd be great if Caitlyn captures Jinx, but keeps her incarcerated to get a better hold on both Piltover and Zaun and get things in order. As Jinx is lashing out in her cell, crying and screaming and begging to be let out, Vi is there, tearfully apologizing for all her shortcomings as Powder's sister. The series ends with Caitlyn giving some speech to promise a better relationship and system between Piltover and Zaun, then the speech getting interrupted by a jailbreak, one Vi initiates to free Jinx. As chaos again breaks out, Vi apologizes to Vander and grieves the fact that she truly is a bad sister.

I'd prefer letting the LOL players bridging the gaps between Arcane and LOL by themselves since they have better grasp of the lore, and also to help cover some obvious plot holes. Anyway that helped me cope; hope this helped you cope in some way too 💗

[cherubchoirs]

Are we just gonna ignore the ticking time bomb which is the truth about Lucifer's fall (eventually) coming out? What would or why would it happen? Or would Uriel and the other old angels take that one to the grave?

lucifer's fall is a now complicated narrative - anything written in uriel's books on the matter is obviously false, fabricated as god directed him to do so, but the memories of the angels from that time have been repeatedly put into question, making it difficult for even those directly involved in the war to now say what happened in those days. compounding this is the simple fact that god is seen as infallible and so, therefor, as the end authority on what the truth really is. uriel doesn't have access to thoughts, but god does. to this end, if god tells them all the lucifer had designs to take over his throne, that he was scheming, jealous, wicked, it must be so. lucifer's words, his public stance against god, were nothing more than lip service - he is the father of lies and used deception to his ends. at first, it's difficult for those who knew him to believe even if god's word must be so. yet, as time goes on, as they forget lucifer, as they forget his boundless love and his endless passion, they begin to accept it, believe in it, and ultimately hold it as gospel. because of their closeness, the archangels do hold private reservations, with michael's being the worst and resulting in the manifestation of his dogmatic adherence to god, but otherwise...it is widely accepted and adopted as true, even for those who were a part of the war. unfortunately, hell has access to the testaments.

now the testaments. aren't that important to v1. the history of this place isn't of particular interest to it and it largely puts them out of its mind after quickly reading and filing them away. however, gabriel will ultimately have to reach a true point of reckoning and deconstruction of his faith - he has reflected on god's world and its falsehoods, in his fall he has reveled for a time in rebelling against it and everything he was under it, but once the turbulence slows, he needs to actually confront himself as an angel that has lost its faith in god. and i think during that time, with all its suffering, its hate, its grief, v1 directs him toward the testaments it nearly threw in its trash bin. he deserves to see the truth as god himself wrote it rather than be an abandoned child left guessing. and while they hold a myriad of hard truths for gabriel to process, the truth of lucifer is devastating. he questioned the existence of hell, he questioned the validity of its purpose, and for that he was cast out. because god didn't have an answer. when gabriel sifts through the haze of eons, digs under the story as told by god, pushes past the severe punishments they all endured under the guise of rooting out any more like lucifer (used, in no small part, to make them all hate him, to make it seem as though their agony was caused by lucifer instead of god), he can remember him in parts. it's so hard to undo the damage done, all the deception, punishments, and threats god used to make them all weapons against lucifer, but now as a fallen angel, gabriel is faithless just enough to find his way to his own real memories.

they aren't strong. they barely cling to the corners of his mind after so much battering. but he remembers what it felt like in lucifer's presence, the warmth and jubilation of his experience. he radiated love and his words poured forth that love, his brilliance shared with all that joined to him. the pieces are broken, but i think this, paired with working up his courage to actually seek lucifer out and seeing his fate, would set gabriel on a campaign to finally pull his memory out of the shit god callously cast it into and force heaven to really see who they still cleave to. he deserves that much, though he may be now warped beyond recognition like so many of the angels that fell with him. and while he can do little to fight for this directly, his main goal is to make his siblings see what he does. they will all be VERY resistant to his attempts, but it would likely be uriel who is the first to admit to falsehoods in this narrative - he's written enough edited content to know god directed him to lie in his histories, so he accepts it the easiest. the other two prove much more difficult - raphael wants little to do with the conversation and michael is incredibly volatile at the idea. and gabriel knows why. he understands it. raphael is kind, he is so gentle-hearted the truth is too terrible to swallow - and, selfishly, he wants peace and harmony. this would disrupt the comfort he and all of heaven has left, and his main directive is always, always to make things comfortable. michael is just as obvious, he has combated this in his own soul for all this time, tearing apart from the inside out over the idea that lucifer may not have deserved his awful punishment and how holding that belief made him some kind of apostate in his own mind. so any mention of it sends him into a rage, proclaiming his hatred for lucifer and condemning gabriel's own hell-twisted mind for contorting the truth so.

the only way they could be convinced is to read the testaments for themselves and be sure it is god's word (hard to deny i think, as i hc they are written in the language of heaven which nothing in hell can reproduce...and v1 must actually interpret it for gabriel, as the words burn his eyes and nauseate him, so could come from no infernal source) raphael recoils from it, retreating into prayer as though that could change the words in front of him. uriel is....resigned yet ashamed, like he always knew this to be true and feels his hand in perpetuating it for all this time. but in reality, michael's determination is the most important - he is still the prince of heaven regardless of his current state, and so is now their highest authority. and he sees the words. he sees himself. he sees all this has come to, the kingdom of god as the banner he carried and his broken little family gathered around him. in spite of themselves, they want him to say something. but god's word is his word. he reads it for what it is and michael, always so legal, always so literal, can interpret it only one way. he grasps at his scripture, yet the closest crime worthy of hell he can attribute it to, accusing the work of the holy spirit to be evil, hardly fits. he would be twisting canon's meaning and lucifer's words, as he only questioned. he just asked. it could be a sin to ask...but never a sin that couldn't be repented. the more he thinks on it in measured silence, the more he knows he's inserting ambiguity where there is none. god transposed his guilt onto lucifer, knowing it was wrong. and michael can't go against the word of god.

he will determine with raphael and uriel how best to tell heaven. and he will finally undo his chains

[ssreeder]

Ok so Idk if u answered this ARLEDY, if yes then sorry haha

But I’m curious to ask like the kind of Dyanamic you will give Sokka n Suki.

From what we’ve seen sokkka cares abt suki, obv, but he dosent want to really open up w her and suki is tired of being takes as a joke, cus that’s mostly what she has taken from sokka’s attitude mostly and that’s why they are avoiding each other. NOW.

W THE WHOOE THING KATARA KNOWS ABT ZUKKA (BY ARA, OBV FANTASTIC) OF COURSE THE FIRST SHES GONNA TRLL WILL BE SUKI AND OMG I JUST KNOW THE BOYS WILL HAVE TO GO TROUGH SOME SHIT NEXT CHAPTER (i think mostly ZUKO but sokka isn’t completely save ither lol)

(Also sorry for the grammar but English isn’t my first language haha)

NOW Idk if that’s like a spoiler but what’s a random ‘katara-sokka interaction line in the next chapter’?

Sorry I’m curious lol

Anyways keep up cuz this series is so beautiful and ur writing is immaculate and DONT THINK YOU ARE ANNOYNG BC UR NOTTT I LOVE AO3 OR AUTHORS IN GENERAL THAT ARE ACTIVE IN THE END NOTES OR ON OTHER SOCIALS IT MAKES ME FEEL LIKE U ACC GIVE A SHIT ABT US W INTERACTING W US READERS SO STOP FEELING LIKE U ARENT GOOD ENOUGH BCUZ U ARE GOOD ENOUGH!! JUST LOOK AT WHAT U WEITE LIKE U DID THIS? U JUST DID THIS IN YOUR HEAD AND BE LIKE ‘OH YES LETS WRITE ABT IT’ THATS INSANE (in a good way) ok I’ll stop now lol.

Ok Im done now haha hope you have a nice day :) (I’m scared for the next cliffhanger next chapter.)

HIIIII…. ok so. Sokka & Suki lol…. I want to say they’ll get over it & be friends but I also feel like that’s unrealistic, and not very understanding of Sukis feelings about what happened?

Suki is a teenage girl who just experienced her first heartbreak by having the boy she liked lie to her,,, only to reveal later that he’s involved with someone else lol… yeah she’s fumming. There are also little things along that way that have added insult to injury, like the way sokka has ignored her and the other kyoshi warriors, or not even noticing her when she’s in the same room as him… idk with all the tension I wouldn’t expect her and sokka to make up to a point where they’ll hang out? But I do think a conversation between them is bound to happen.

AHHHHH….. I have so much I want to say about Katara knowing but the next two chapters will do that for me so ummm *sings theme song* BE PREPAREDDDDDD!!!!

ok so a random Katara sokka line from next chapter hmmm let’s see….

“Did you two visit markets together too?”

”Yeah, a few actually. We even stayed at an Inn once, it was nice. Do you remember, Zuko?”

Zuko continued nodding, ”I do.”

There’s a lot of Katara & sokka interactions this chapter but it’s ummm not super easy to show you because there’s a lot happening in these scenes. But you’ll see ;)

THANK YOU ANON I DO GIVE A SHIT I GIVE SO MUCH OF A SHIT I SWEAR THANK YOU FOR THIS GLORIOUS ASK AHHHHH!!!

[dangaer]

@deathsmaidens revokes: you never told me that. i can't believe you never told me. + lucifer. i hope you know what scenario i'm thinking about.

a collection of things you never want to hear. (no longer accepting!)

            it's with the most desolate tone that she chooses to address him with, spine stiff and a gaze far colder than he can ever recall seeing either dead or alive and it's telling, in a way, how far gone his attempt of hiding the truth has truly sunk. where he'd anticipated suspicion, uncertainty, he is merely met with the aftermath of such alongside the maloseum of her grief, rage. the aftermath of a ghost no longer seeing the demon standing before her but the angel with his own halo wrapped around his neck, feathers pristine yet rotten in spite. armed with a hesitance that comes only from the woman who had once believed in his guidance, his hope and all else that was taught from the promise of an guardian angel, until it was time for the story to change, for the betrayal to take place, for her to lose it all without the knowledge of a scream that mirrored her own echoing throughout the heavens, the heavenly being that had wished to do more if only to rebel thousands of years beyond, below and somewhere, somehow, it's worse than any sort of guilt that would have eaten him up for guiding her attention elsewhere, allowing them to live in harmony as he'd chosen to destroy their tombs and destroy their hatchets, the better ending for the betrayed and the betrayer / the harbinger of death and her reluctant narrator.

the sorrow sets in before the counter, before a slither of everything, sinking a heavy weight upon his shoulders and burning against his eyes in an emotion he'd long believed forgotten alongside the birth of another ━━ a memory that comes back to haunt him, partially, as the once firm line of his lips wobble into something of an apology and once he finally comes up with the eloquence to speak it is that of a plea to mirror the subtle steps forward to close their distance and oh, it's a juxtaposition to the way he's certain part of himself would want to bolt away from such a situation, to pull her hand to a place far beyond the responsibilities of the hourglass he'd fooled himself in believing would never run out. but neither life or death can offer anything remotely close to such a happy ending / it's long since become impossible to catch sand in his hands, he knows, and can only steel himself in the promise of pushing forward. it is his turn to own up to his very own judgement; not the opposite way around, not now it has become his choices that have landed them here.

❛  all i knew was from an outsiders perspective. ❜ the audience, a spectator; the role of watching the hero and feeling your own heart shatter once someone else stops their own from beating, no matter how often the ending is memorised; ❛  what i saw was never your tale, milou. it was never even your end for that matter, not the end i had wished to see you fall, if i ever had the chance to have a say in it. ❜ a loud swallow, hesitant exhale. they are now face to face, but he's uncertain in looking to her eyes, face, anything other than the still palm that catches his attention ---- that his own hand is gentle in seeking, and reaching, out to.

❛  i have no other excuse than the fact i couldn't bare to see you hurt in my presence once more. ❜ and there it resounds, the one way lucifer is familiar in keeping something safe, to deflect, avoid, in hope that it all goes away. the dissemination of the self as if to control the truth from seeking out. ❛  i only kept you in the dark to see your smile once more, so the only ones who's hands become stained are my own. there is one truth that will remain true until the end of my days: i did not lie when i said i would do anything to keep you safe. ❜ another exhale this time, louder. but you never told me / he never told her but he will now, everything she wishes to know, everything that he can spill despite how much further such secrets will get him down. ❛  i won't say it expecting forgiveness, but i am sorry. for keeping it a secret, for choosing the best option in keeping you in the dark. ❜

he brings her hand to his face, now, pressing his lips against the grooves of her knuckles as he chooses this moment to stare back at her. the uncertainty has quietened, his apology enough of a expose to what exactly he knows deep down he needs to say. but something gentle remains, the harmony of a beast, horns and claws and teeth all out, delegating the most gentle of touches against her skin / a wolf learning to love akin to a sheep in her presence. ❛  just say the word, and i'll do it. ❜ once more, much gentler:

❛  for you, i'll do it all. ❜

[sleepy-crypt1d]

am i?? losing my mind here??

okay, so, like, subnautica, right?

recent news is that subnautica 3 is in production/in the works, hooray!! literally cannot be more excited about this, it’s my favorite game ever and i am so thrilled to see where the next one is headed but, i feel like, what the next one is going to be about is. . obvious?

who knows!! maybe im losing my mind here and i am just a tad too into these games so other people didn’t think about this but, sub3 is gonna be about the architect home planet. it has to be, doesn’t it?? 

the exact quote from the people working on the game is “I dream of visiting new worlds, exploring intricate alien ecosystems and lost civilizations. I don't think I'll ever get tired of the fantasy of making contact with intelligent life. I also dream about going on these adventures with friends. Getting lost, together.” and people are theorizing that the game takes place either in the past, showing 4546B a thousand years ago, takes place in the crater’s edge, or another unseen part of 4546B but. . .4546B’s story is done? the only loose end there is Ryley, who i would love to see again, but the planet’s mysterious have all been answered? i don’t know how they are coming to those conclusions when BZ perfectly sets up what the next game will be about?

“I dream of visiting new worlds, exploring intricate alien ecosystems and lost civilizations” this??? seems so much like they’re talking about exploring the architect homeworld??? new worlds implies we’re going to a different place, doesn’t it? and lost civilizations, yeah, going through the arc homeworld and piecing together what happened??

“I also dream about going on these adventures with friends. Getting lost, together.” some people are interpreting this as sub3 going multiplayer, which would be okay i guess, but wouldn’t this make more sense if it were referencing Al-An and robin???? especially with the line BZ ends with?? ‘with you, I am ready to face whatever awaits us’ like???

also the second game ended with a cliff hanger!!! it ended with showing us the architect homeworld!!! WHY WOULDN’T SUB3 BE ABOUT THAT???? WHY WOULD THEY SUDDENLY SHIFT THE STORY ENTIRELY??

i dont know, maybe im losing my mind here, maybe theorists on youtube know something i don’t but the plot of sub3 seems obvious to me, because BZ literally ended with showing us where the story was headed.

am i crazy? or have other people also realized that exploring the architect homeworld seems like the only logical next step in the story? to find out what happened? we found out what happened to sam and the game ends with robin promising they’ll find out what happened to the architects. why are people thinking ANYTHING ELSE would happen????

who knows, if sub3 comes out and im completely wrong, i will take that L and dig myself a grave but until then, i will hold this thought pretty confidently 

[theokusgallery]

🐻 🎼 🌊 for the ask game?

Ohhh hi thank you for the ask !! I had almost forgotten about the ask game ldjflkj

🐻 Your go-to things to draw when you need comfort? It... might seem obvious, but anything Basil-related, lol. When I really really need comfort, I'll tend to doodle Headspace!Basil being cute, specifically... (Or Arsenic-related things depending on why I need comfort)

🎼 Your favorite music to draw to right now? Mmmmh. Lately I've been drawing on VC with friends or while watching YouTube videos, but the last song I draw to is probably that one (it's a song by syudou that I... don't know the English name of, oops. It wasn't translated I don't think)

🌊 What’s the hardest thing for you to draw?  I'd say either positions that have characters interacting physically (hugs, things like that) or comics. Anything that requires a too great understanding of composition, actually. I'm ot very good at making my art look appealing. I feel like I haven't drawn with the goal being that people had to... like looking at it? Or that it had to look interesting? Most of my art is just mindlessly doodling without an idea in mind until my hand comes up with something I like, which I guess means I rely on muscle memory more than actual ideas...

[commsroom]

So 2 questions, one Eiffel and one not:

What do you think happens post-canon with regards to Anne? Will Eiffel actually get to see his daughter again and have a chance to try to make what amends he can? (Whether before or after he regains his memories, which I think I recall you saying you think he will)

How does the not-Eiffel&Hera part of the crew deal with coming home? Do you have any thoughts on them?

I love reading your W359 analysis, and your Eiffel posting brighten up my dash every day!

thank you, that's very sweet of you!! 💙

i hope he will, but... even if he does, it won't be as soon as he's hoping. i do think eiffel will regain his memories, and my reasoning for that is in a ton of other posts, so i'll just say: i don't know if he even should attempt to make amends until/unless he does? no matter how it's framed, i think... doing what he did, and going to prison for it, and then everyone thinking he was dead... if he shows up alive, that's already going to open old wounds, but without his memories? i really don't think it would help. and again. i really hope he gets the chance to be in anne's life again, but it's really up to her, and i think. when he reaches out, he is probably not going to get the initial response or chance to fix things that he wants to get, and even if he understands why... i don't think he'll take that rejection well. it's going to take time, and he's going to need to learn to not push it if he wants it to work out.

hm, well. i think the show is clear that minkowski, eiffel, and hera intend to stick together, so i think minkowski post-canon is kinda inherently tangled up in that. but her personal issues are definitely going to be about... well, she's not the same person she was when she left, either. she has people she cares about, who she feels responsible for, who literally don't know how to live on earth. i think she might to have to learn how to stop trying to be the commander all over again, and let other people share her burden. even if he can't see anne, i think eiffel would want to stay in the same state as his daughter, and minkowski's life was... obviously, somewhere else. how does she feel about her husband now? would they stay together? she plans to talk to him right away, but i don't know if it'll be that easy to actually face; i think the way it makes everything real might scare her. likewise with lovelace, who i think actually had the most connections at one point - she was close to her family, and clearly had friends, etc. - but they've all thought she's been dead for years, and in a way she has been, so... seeing those familiar people and places and knowing on some level she's technically never seen them before? that would really freak her out. understandably. she can take a vacation far away from it all for a while, but eventually she'll need to decide how she fits into isabel lovelace's old life. she doesn't intend to live her life with the others, but i think she might need them more than she suspects, for a while. i think she and minkowski might end up doing that thing, like... pointing out the other person is avoiding something that scares her, getting called a hypocrite for it - ultimately, if clumsily, pushing each other to confront it.

[biggerbodies-reanimated]

...you two brought a cartoon character to life didn't you.

Start | First in Arc | Prev | Next

[seyaryminamoto]

When you posted the first chapter of Gladiator how far ahead were you in terms of planning the path the story would take? Are there any great changes from the original outline?

Uuuuuh... X'D

For me, planning stories isn't a linear journey. I DO write linearly as best as I'm able, because if I don't, I'm going to fuck up the continuity of my stories. I really am not good at just writing the big moments first and stuffing the rest of the content in later. All the power to the people who can do that, but the few times I've tried, I fucked up so badly that I always end up having to rewrite the scene I wrote beforehand anyway! So, yeah, I build up on things and try to have all cards on the table by the time I write the big stuff.

But planning? Oh boy, planning is WAY messier than that.

Let me see if I can illustrate this properly:

The core idea for Gladiator was suggested to me by a reader over at FF.net back in February 2013. One day, a month later, I gave the idea a little more thought than I had when he first offered it and my brain went into overdrive when I concocted these specific concepts that, at the time, were the very core of the story:

Azula and Sokka as partners with thicker sexual tension than anything I'd written in my life until then, in a will-they-won't-they situation that, of course, results in "THEY DID". In this setting, the war didn't end on time, meaning that a lot of things changed, including that Azula's got a blank slate in a lot of regards, so both her and Sokka need to be developed from scratch. Initially, I wasn't sure of where exactly I'd take the relationship aside from knowing that they'd obviously get together, but the specific concept of what I'd do with their relationship only arrived sometime later (as in, when I realized I was too addicted to this story and had too much to do with it to "cut to the chase", unlike what certain people wanted me to do). Also, of course, major potential to make them an epic battle couple, something I'd never gotten the chance to write them as until then, so big plus there!

Their biggest rival throughout the story would be Toph, banking on a very different portrayal than the fandom usually likes in Sokka and Toph's dynamics: she would be the big enemy inside the league that he struggles the most with defeating because, let's be real, it feels like no one could have ever imagined that Sokka could ever beat Toph in a fair, one-on-one battle until I outright wrote it in the final arc of Part 2 X'D Hence, I figured that giving him that HUGE initial goal to pursue (defeating Toph) would give us a solid story thread to follow for a long time.

Iroh as Toph's sponsor because of The Chase and their canon bond, with Toph basically being Iroh's biggest fan in the Gaang due to their bonding scene in that episode. I would then be expanding on a bond that, back in the day, was a fandom favorite and that, these days, seems to have gone completely under the radar because it feels like nobody even TALKS about it anymore. It's kinda taken for granted, I'd say?

Combustion Man as THE TOP DOG of the Ranking. The final hurdle both Sokka and Toph need to outdo to become the best gladiators in the league. Why are they trying to do that? In Toph's case, she loves fighting, this story basically gave her a chance to go wild in that sense and measure herself against all kinds of enemies. In Sokka's case? As proposed by that reader's initial pitch, he'd be forcefully taken from the Fire Nation and would want to go home: his deal with Azula solidified then as the reason why he wants to be #1. Once he wins and beats Combustion Man, Azula will consider their contract fulfilled and she will let him go back to the Water Tribe.

Zhao as Combustion Man's sponsor because I needed someone relevant to do it, it didn't feel right to just make an OC for a role so important, back in the day, and in this setting, Zhao wouldn't have died/vanished in the NWT so he was available for my needs -- all of which then led me into building a backstory where Azula held some manner of resentment towards Zhao that pushed her further in her need to find a gladiator and become the best sponsor in the league.

These five story elements were the first things that came to mind. As I liked the idea of Azula and Sokka having an immensely conflictive relationship at first, where they couldn't trust each other 100% but they LIKED each other way more than they wanted to, I switched the "Sokka gets captured by randos" from the original pitch to "AZULA captures Sokka", and that resulted in a LOT of extra chaos than what was part of the story's original concept :'D I'd dare say the main positive element about this was that the story felt more dynamic in the second chapter (when they meet for the first time) than it would have if Sokka had been caught by any other Fire Nation military officer. It even puts forward the deepest layer of rivalry in the story too: the one person in the Fire Nation settlement who could have outdone Sokka is Azula. If he had faced anyone else. he might have had chances of success... but not when he faced her.

This, then, means that Azula HERSELF is a big goal and hurdle Sokka has to overcome. Partly, their relationship would've granted Sokka the means through which he could achieve that goal, but the point is that, from very early on, I realized that I wanted the story to chronicle the gradual journey of how Sokka went from... uh, a hundred to infinity X'D because no, he wasn't a zero, he just wasn't THAT good just yet. I wanted this journey to become a full exploration of Sokka's potential as a warrior until he was strong enough to go toe to toe with Azula and defeat her one day...!

... And once I realized that, one of the first core scenes of Gladiator came into shape. As in, the day Sokka finally defeated Azula.

Also known as chapter 96 :')

On the day Sokka beats her, EVERYTHING changes. This change is primarily fueled by the fact that he DOESN'T want to defeat her, at that point. He is so done with their frequent conflicts when the one thing he REALLY wants is... her. And Azula wants HIM. So when he impulsively kisses her instead of dealing a killer blow...! Yeah, uh... pfft. God, I had done so little plotting of their character arcs that I ACTUALLY thought, back then, that there'd be tension in terms of the readers thinking "omg, is he going to kill her?!" ... yeah, that was dead in the water so fast x'D I sincerely doubt ANYONE ever imagined that he'd do that when that scene came around, but you asked about how the plotting went in the initial stages of the story, pretty sure this specific hilarious tidbit illustrates that fairly well x'D anyway, Azula surrenders and the whole underlying theme of a war between them finally gets resolved in the best way it could! :'D

But... how would THAT particular fight sequence come about?

And that's where the lead-up to the scene started to take shape! Sokka has been trying to beat Toph, but he can't! She beats him when it FINALLY looks like he might win. When that happens, Sokka seems to be ready to give up on everything, and Azula lashes out at him because she won't let him quit on her just like that. BINGO!

... And that, dear asker, was the first genuine scene and arc plotting that I did for Gladiator.

After this? I thought Sokka would go on to fight Combustion Man after a final fight with Toph in which he finally beats her. This fight with Toph, back then, was bound to take place within maybe a few months of his last defeat at her hands, I thought, but with the power of getting laid, Sokka was totally going to kick ass this time and then go on to defeat the BIG DEAL, COMBUSTION MAN HIMSELF.

And then he'd kill him. Paying a bit of homage to canon :')

It slowly came together, however, that a fight against Combustion Man quite so soon after defeating Toph was probably not going to be... well, completely reasonable unless the situation REALLY called for it for... some reason. While I'm not entirely sure that I came up with this right away, it probably wasn't over a week after I started plotting the story that I figured that Iroh would vindictively tell Ozai about Azula and Sokka's relationship after witnessing what he shouldn't have witnessed when they celebrated their triumph over Toph a little more enthusiastically than would have been appropriate :'D Then, since Combustion Man would be serving, in a sense, as Ozai's executioner of bad gladiators for sponsors who need a lesson, he'd be the one tasked with killing Sokka only for Sokka to kill him right back (?)

At this point? There was no Xin Long. The idea of Sokka killing Combustion Man through a volatile bomb predates Xin Long! I boldly snuck in a reference to how Sokka would defeat Combustion Man as early as chapter 2 because I'm crazy and wanted to make it a useful callback in future chapters, unaware that "future chapters" meant ALMOST 250 CHAPTERS LATER! X'D Anyway, point is, I wanted Sokka to defeat Combustion Man through different means than in canon, seeing how in canon he had advantages he wouldn't have had in this story (this is a controlled environment, a one-on-one fight, there's no cover where Sokka can objectively hide, he wouldn't have the opportunity to just fuck up Combustion Man the exact same way, he's not going to fall to his death, for there's no abyss nearby...). So, I came up with the volatile bomb for that purpose, and that tells you that I spent around 7 years with the image of Combustion Man burning to his death living rent free in my head before finally writing it :'D

OKAY! So! What else did I come up with...?

I think Sokka and Azula's first kiss was relatively early plotting too. The idea of Sokka carelessly flirting with Suki in the ring came to mind, and Azula being Azula, she wasn't going to appreciate that at all, so she would have kissed him recklessly in a very inappropriate and territorial bid to stake a claim over him that she really shouldn't have... but Sokka would've thought it was hot and gone with it anyway (?)

Funny reveal time here: back in the day, I was determined to ensure that they wouldn't kiss again after that first kiss, not until they were ready to bang in chapter 96. Can you believe I thought I'd have the self-restraint to pull that off? x'D I laugh at my innocence in those regards to this day.

The second kiss I planned, probably MONTHS later, was actually the one on the way to the Slate. I wanted them to go out of control at one point and for them to be like "omg that was very inappropriate of us! How could we! But omg does that mean you like me tooooo?"

And isn't it HILARIOUS that my plotting was soooo naïve that I STILL didn't realize how far the early chapters would take them in their relationship? x'D

This, in a nutshell, is the exact reason why I CAN'T write out of order: if I'd written the Slate's trip situation as early as when I first thought about it? You can bet it would've made zero sense with all the character progression we saw through the rest of the story. And then I would have had to rewrite it anyway :')

Xin Long, I won't lie, was a bit of a whim on my part, no doubt motivated by my frustrations with canon and how Azula seemed to only get screwed over. So I said "she gets whatever the hell she wants in Gladiator because I hate the world" and once the idea of helping her find a dragon came to mind, I just rolled with it (?) It took me a while to actually integrate Xin Long with the Rough Rhinos arc, I wasn't sure about when I'd introduce him once the idea came to mind, but there was no better chance than to do so while Sokka and Azula were lost in the forest.

About other stuff, I liked the idea of Piandao training Sokka more extensively than in canon, but I didn't want him to be Sokka's host FOREVER because that meant less chances for Sokkla interactions. So... I had to get rid of him.

Believe it or not, I didn't sort out the in-world reasons to explain why I'd gotten rid of him until well around 3-4 years into plotting the story :')

Piandao's connection to Ursa felt natural after I really started thinking about it, but that took AGES to properly plot. Initially? I just needed him to go away. And in a sense, the excuse was that Iroh was on his way home, meaning, there was a Grand Lotus near the Fire Lord's court, way closer than Piandao ever was, so he didn't NEED to be there anymore.

... And that kind of led into Zuko.

While I was absolutely overtaken by the wild plotting involved in soooo many other aspects of the story, my good friend @jordanalane, no longer active on tumblr or the fandom, put up with my rambling about ALL THESE IDEAS and went "Yay! This story sounds fun! What's going on with Zuko here?"

Me, internally: "... Well shit I forgot about Zuko."

I won't say that she singlehandedly set up Zuko's journey in Gladiator, but saying that she gave me about 65% of the ideas for what I'd do with him would probably be fairly accurate, unless the percentage is larger than I thought. I actually toyed with the idea of setting up Zuko and Aang on a way bigger, political journey that we'd only occasionally glimpse while we focused on Sokka and Azula's partnership within the Fire Nation culture and all the gladiatorial chaos. Very early on, the plan seriously wasn't for Sokka to become... well, what he is now xD So I was genuinely going to leave all the heavy lifting of the war to Aang and Zuko because, ultimately, the Fire Nation has to be defeated and they're the ones who usually get up to that, right?

I think I've mentioned that, post Combustion Man's death, I had no idea wtf I was going to do. Like... I knew that was far away. I knew I'd have the time (or at least, I faithfully believed I would) to figure out what I'd do before we got to that point. I absolutely knew the story could not possibly end there.

So at this stage of plotting, I toyed with Blue Spirit Zuko joining the Gladiator League briefly as a destabilizer within the system (and then I started writing Zuko in the story and realized that... no. There was just no way this guy wanted anything to do with the Gladiator League as a fighter or even as a sponsor. Nope). Then, I thought he should go south (though I had no idea how I'd get him there!), where he'd find Aang eventually! There was a veeeery small window of time in which I considered keeping Aang at 12-years-old, which would've made Kataang waaaaay too unsettling since Katara would've been over 20, and I thought maybe Zuko and Katara could be a thing? But the idea never really solidified into anything I wanted to write between those two, it felt like an older Katara would've focused even more on protecting Aang (becoming the actual mother figure the fandom and even canon are obsessed with adultifying her into at 14) because she'd be too aware of how young and fragile he was...!

... But then? I thought it would've actually made sense for Aang to be more than just the little boy who saves the day and everyone protects:

Why not make him an opportunity for Katara to learn her Tribe's traditional and lost waterbending styles?

If I aged up Aang, and made it so he had been frozen in the South Pole, not out of sheer chance but out of him actually BEING IN THE AREA when the storm struck him? That could do the trick! If his journey as a waterbending master was already underway by the time he was frozen, then he'd have two elements down... and he could be Katara's teacher instead! While there were downsides to this decision, of course, it actually made a ton of sense to me mainly because I don't love the way it feels like Katara, in canon, never truly reclaimed the traditional southern style of waterbending. This, then, meant that Aang could provide her with a connection to her own people and their past, something he can't offer her in canon.

So! With that in mind? I aged up Aang and made him 19, and Kataang could be preserved and be developed this way. Part of it is also motivated by my genuine confusion, when I first watched the show, over the old Air Nomad leaders deciding that Aang, already declared an airbending master, "needed to master more advanced airbending techniques" right after revealing that he was the Avatar. I mean... if he's already a master, doesn't it make more sense to send him to the next element he's supposed to learn? Especially considering it's water? And considering that the storm clouds in the horizon were coming from the Fire Nation, so the more water to fight them, the better? :'D

So yep, that was another reason why I made the choices I made.

Lo and behold, slowly and surely, the core bones of Gladiator were starting to take shape: Azula and Sokka start as contentious allies, joining forces for a common goal and very different motivations, all of which would lead them into falling in love over time. Their biggest threats in the league are Toph and Combustion Man, but perhaps bigger still would be Iroh, who would rat them out to Ozai (I'm 100% serious when I say this specific element of the story has been part of Gladiator's DNA since the very start, the whole journey I threw Iroh into was basically "how do I get him to the point where he would be THAT pissed off as to do something like this with no regard as to the consequences of his own actions?"). Zuko, Katara and Aang would more or less stick to being involved in fighting the war, they wouldn't be all that connected to the Gladiator League or anything to do with that.

Worth noting that my friend started to come up with ideas for Zuko and Suki to get together and make sense as a couple in the story, and while at first it was just a casual thing that I figured would work alright, her ideas became... so much more poignant than I ever imagined they would be.

About one year, maybe a year-and-a-half, after I started plotting Gladiator, I actually figured out what my endgame would be.

At that point, I actually knew where we were going and I started to focus my attention on plotting how to get there. New concepts started to pop up, things that I absolutely hadn't thought about from the get-go: I DID have my alternate idea on what was going on with Ursa since ages ago (the swamp concept, as you'll likely have read already...), and after The Search thoroughly disappointed me, I chose to stick with that path without looking back. But while this was in the background, something I knew had happened but that I doubted I'd be able to work into the story productively, I realized it would actually be something I could explore IN the story once Part 3 stopped being a big nebulous blob of mystery for me. I decided that Sokka and Azula would be torn away from each other, that HE would be the one leading the war faction out of the South Pole and into the chaos of war, that Piandao's tile for Sokka, mainly done as homage to canon back when I wrote that, could actually represent something FAR GREATER if Sokka joined forces with the White Lotus to fight the Fire Nation and return to Azula...!

... And one of my most evil advisors of those years also very casually inceptioned into my head the very wicked idea of pregnant Azula in the middle of this mess :'D

I could go on and on, honestly! I have one funny thing to bring up, and it's that the scene from the Northern Air Temple arc, where Sokka tells Azula his true fears and feelings about his family, how he doesn't think he's worthy of going home and is genuinely apprehensive of returning because he thinks his dad will be disappointed in him? That... was repurposed from a very early idea I had for Sokka and Azula, once they were properly together, traveling to Whaletail Island, and spending a casual day/night in bed talking about a lot of things, which then led into Sokka talking about his family and what he actually felt about them, which Azula wasn't supposed to know about until then :'D That was, ironically, the origin point for the Whaletail Island arc. The scene that originated it just... never happened x'D

As you may be able to tell... the progress of their relationship, the evolution and development of the characters, caused a LOT of things to move forward way faster than I thought they would. Hence, Sokka wound up telling Azula about all those things WAAAY sooner than I originally envisioned. By then, Whaletail's scene was kind of broken down and spread into other situations and arcs instead! Again: this is why I can't write out of chronological order xD

One funny thing to look back on was my confident belief that Sokka and Azula would spend the bulk of Part 1 doing a mutual pining thing where neither one realized the other felt the exact same way about them... when I was in the middle of their best conversations in the Rough Rhinos' arc, the THIRD ARC of the entire story, I was like "yo... they're 100% aware of the fact that they're down bad for each other already. There's literally no mystery about how they feel, THEY OBVIOUSLY ALREADY KNOW." And that hilariously changed A LOT of how things developed later, because I sure as heck didn't plan for them to kiss in the Rough Rhinos arc at all (it kinda happened on a whimsical plotting session, a few days before writing it :'D). I did NOT plan for them to kiss at Ty Lee's backyard, either (oh, this one was basically them getting out of my control and doing whatever they wanted, same evil advisor I mentioned earlier told me to go with it while I cried to her about how I apparently just COULDN'T STOP THEM FROM MAKING OUT???)...

Ember Island's arc, so poignant and crucial and such a KEY element in their relationship, was probably plotted well after... six months since the original idea of Gladiator came to my head. I did not think about this one until A WHILE into writing the story already. I was probably almost done posting the Rough Rhinos by the time the full concept of that arc materialized in my head! The beloved Pairs Tournament arc? That was 100% a reader's suggestion, from an ask I got one day! x'D I told them that sounded like a fun concept, and then, once I pondered it some more and fleshed it out, it ended up becoming a highlight for me, it's gone on to become a fan favorite arc of the entire story, as well as The Arc where Toph finally became friends with Sokka and Azula properly!

So. Yep. Basically... I do not plot anything linearly. I can't. If I did, I wouldn't have a clue of where I'm going and I'd lose my steam so fast that I would just crumble under the weight of not seeing the point of what I'm doing. I think I can write without a huge endgame, to a fault, with less demanding stories... but Gladiator was ALWAYS so much bigger than anything my brain could wrap around back when I first started to plot this story, and it's no joke to say that it's really taken me ten years to not only write it, but actually plot the story as thoroughly as I can (hell, only a few months ago I got struck by lightning with A PLOT TWIST that I just wrote yesterday! A crazy development I absolutely HAD NOT thought about, and that I fell in love with completely when it came to mind!). The amount of threads and possibilities and ideas that I've been juggling for AGES is probably a little crazy, honestly.

But yeah, in short, it's wild to think that even though I absolutely planned several things YEARS before they came into fruition, ultimately, the final arc of Part 1 came together before the first one, in many senses. It came together before every arc, basically, and all the material in between was just a matter of building a huge, solid bridge to the point where Sokka and Azula would finally act on their feelings. The process through which I got there absolutely changed me in a thousand ways, my ideas and my plans often wound up switched up whenever a random, crazy idea came up, and I thought to myself "... and why not?" after a few moments of indulging it and being on the brink of discarding it.

As another fun tidbit of information? That's kind of what happened with something as vital to the story as Rei has been, throughout Part 3: she is a character I came up with, not really on the fly, but at relative random once I was planning on having Azula seek Zhao for help over Toph's predicament back in Part 2. I loved the idea of a teenage, dorky maid who had NOT expected to meet the Princess, but initially? She's nothing to make a fuss over because we've been seeing heaps of people who are starstruck by Azula by then. She only stands out for having the dorkiest reverence ever x'D and part of why she stands out too, instead of getting written off, initially, as Zhao's nameless, aimless home staff, is because I had thought about the potential of making her Zhao's illegitimate daughter at this point in time! But I DIDN'T go all in with it on her first appearance... because I wasn't sure. Because I didn't think I could juggle ANOTHER plot point and new character on top of everything I had to set up (at this point I was particularly preoccupied by figuring out how to establish Shaofeng and Renkai as important characters for my future purposes with both of them :'D). So I said "nah, you know what? She's just the cute and quirky maid. We like her. Zhao is decent to her. He doesn't need to be her father."

... About two weeks before going all in on the Hahn's Gambit arc, I was pondering Part 3. The idea of Rei being Zhao's illegitimate daughter returned to mind. My impulse was dismissing my own thoughts, frankly, along the lines of "I mean, wtf would she even do once Zhao becomes Crown Prince? She'd be abandoned in the estate anyway, like, what, she would inherit it or something?" and then... then it struck me. I realized that she could very well just come with him. As his maid. And then, she could become Azula's maid...

... What followed was about three days of plotting that suddenly brought LIFE to Azula's Part 3 early storyline and I suddenly could not BELIEVE I had ever let myself think I could let go of this character and make nothing of note with her x'D

The situation with Rei is, indeed, something that happened often throughout Gladiator. Some ideas I've clung to, some ideas I've dismissed, some ideas have terraformed the groundwork I'd already set up... and instead of panicking about it? I've done what I could to work with it. Hence, that the will-they-won't-they did NOT include the agony of "but would he/she return my feelings?!" wound up being a result of the build up, something I didn't plan all along but that worked perfectly for my purposes. The idea of making Sokka and Azula's relationship not be just some powerful high, the be-all-end-all of the story once it was crystallized and once they were together? That wasn't immediate, either... but it certainly came along as a result of my greed, I'd dare say x'D

When I realized how long this story was going to be, I told myself this fic was basically the landscape upon which I could very well turn all my Sokkla dreams come true. And it wasn't ONLY the Sokkla dreams related to their fluff, or smut, or angst... no, it was even the fact that, for ONCE, I could build a story where Sokka and Azula were NOT the B-story to Zuko and Aang's A-story, unlike how it might have felt in most any other story, hell, even in my long defunct plans for how to conclude the story (and thank God that I dismissed that mess, honestly). Suddenly, I realized I could bring the ENTIRE Avatarverse together, reconfigure every character, repurpose as many of them as I cared to... and create a scenario where the story, every single major beat of it, was connected to THEM. Where the battle against Ozai was no longer some distant conflict with unexplored emotional stakes, it's a PERSONAL one, not only for Azula but for Sokka as well. And while I'm not going to pretend that I'm the only person who has ever rewritten ATLA to this extent without centering the story on Aang or Zuko, I can certainly say that I've never seen anything of this scale elsewhere (... which can be kinda literal too, considering this is, indeed, the longest fic in the fandom...).

But I REALLY didn't start out with that idea in mind. Back when the concept came to me... I really didn't know where I would be going, honestly. I knew this would be a HUGE commitment, but I didn't know how big, exactly. Now that I do know, that I have the full scope of the story in my grasp... I can tell you that yeah, I had no idea what I was getting into and I'm glad I jumped in anyway x'D

If anyone gets all the way through this long post and wants advice on how to cope with ridiculously long stories that are that difficult to plot? I think that my advice would definitely be to give it time, let it simmer, find the moments, the scenes you REALLY look forward to writing. Don't settle for powering towards the endgame without advancing the story beforehand: push things at other points of the story and if, when you reach your big story climax, you find that the leadup is different from what you were expecting you'd have in your hands, once you got there? ... Roll with the punches. Reconfigure the scene in your head. Improvise, to a fault, and build up FURTHER on what you already had... because the likelihood is that the outcome is going to be a thousand times better than your OG plans were. Don't let yourself get lost in enforcing a plot stubbornly: nothing makes a story come to life as vividly as surfing along with the new highs and changes that hit you at the spur of the moment, figuring out how to make your story the best it can be. I won't pretend Gladiator is anywhere close to perfect... but after just looking back on everything that has led us to where we are? I can definitely say I'm very proud of this story's journey, very proud of having jumped into this madness even when my vision of it, at the time when I started plotting, could have never informed me of every crazy thing I'd end up achieving with this story. While some important elements of the story 100% stayed true to my OG concept... I'm really glad that I let myself change certain aspects because it enriched everything I was doing well beyond the scope of what I could grasp back then.

Anyway. Sorry for the long rambling. I got a little hyped haha. Thanks for the ask!

[taffy-glitch]

Nature is healing/Cool Dice (don't need to tell me the hyperfixation I already know, but also do because my friends should talk about what they like)

aww :] anyway have you heard of cpu kerfu-

[yrkhn]

i feel bad so im gonna post this shi from23(?)

explanation:

1. Bruce tries to reconnect with Jason. This comes a couple of years after Jason's return and a lot of events afterward. During another family holiday, Bruce finds Jason alone outside the manor and the one-sided conversation happens, during which Bruce says those words. Anger and resentment prevent Jason from answering anything.

2. Years later and AFTER ETHIOPIA (you know... this Damien arc). Bruce screwed up. Jason hated him for it, a lot happened and after a long time and a showdown they came to peace. Jason can see how tired Bruce is and he knows every word Bruce is going to say to him, he knows it all by heart. So one day, after another fight, Jason just says THIS back to him.

He hadn't said that since he was the kid Bruce carried in his arms. And they both know it.

That's it. :3

sorry my english is bad i know i just wanted to share this with you

[majestyeverlasting]

𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐚𝐲 | 𝐞.𝐦.

Pairing Eddie Munson x Fem Reader [friends -> lovers]

Summary: You and Eddie ditch the party of the semester to fall into something you both know is meant to be [fluff, 3k]

A/N This is just fun, fluff, and feels. Felt like a vibe while I was writing it. This fic is part 1 of 3.

The music vibrates through the floor so intensely that Eddie can feel it in his bones. Even in the sunroom where he and a few others have settled. The small space gives sight to the backyard, where people mingle as they smoke, illuminated by string lights combating the night’s darkness. Those inside the house with him chatter, sing, and toss their heads back in carefree laughter, feet shuffling against the hardwood as they dance.

The entire scene buzzes with the kind of life only Steve Harrington’s place could ignite on a Friday night. One of these days, he swore he was going to loosen up and allow himself to get swept up in it too. 

For now, he watches. Eyes flitting to various faces, but always returning to you. If you weren’t smiling, you were talking, and the way your lips formed around your words was just as beautiful. The two of you spoke briefly when he first arrived, and he could still feel the delighted hug you’d given him over the fact that he decided to come. He wondered what he’d have to do to make it go away, but good thing he didn’t mind the feeling. It was a reminder of how much he wished your nearness could be all his forever.

Longing was a peculiar thing. Selfish in its occupation of his entire being. 

As Eddie takes another small sip from his drink, something fruity spiked with vodka, The Hair himself saunters up in front of him in a pair of slacks and a Polo sweater. Though rather polished for the occasion, it manages to look fitting on him. His cheeks are a little flushed and the metalhead raises a curious brow as his friend stares down at him with a smirk. 

Rebel Yell starts pulsing through the stereo as Steve offers him a hand off the couch. They end up weaving their way out back. The fall air is cool, but not all of summer’s warmth has vanished. A few people wave and greet them as they head towards a pair of chaise lounge chairs. Billy Idol’s voice is muffled as it continues thrumming from inside. Grooving bodies are visible through the windows as the party carries on. 

Steve pulls out a fancy metal cigarette case before they sit, flipping it open with a soft click. Eddie can’t help but snort as he relaxes into the chair. 

Steve’s brows furrow as he slips out a joint and begins lighting it. “What?” 

Eddie nods to the case in Steve’s lap. “Rich people shit.” 

Steve takes the first couple puffs before passing the joint to Eddie. “Jealous?” 

A smile cracks Eddie's face before he takes a drag. The answer is no, he isn’t. Once upon a time, jealousy was all he burned with, even though he was Hawkin’s poster child for no fucks given and had every reason to be grateful he wasn’t worse off. Grateful for Wayne, that he wasn’t in the pen with his deadbeat father, for finally finding solid friends. He had more than he could ask for, and it took growing up to see it. 

Eddie tips his head back and blows smoke up into the night before giving Steve his turn. What he can’t see is that your eyes have fallen on him from inside the house, sparkling and curious as Robin grins by your side. 

“So did I save you back there or what?” Steve asks as he ashes the joint onto the ground. “Looked like you were zoning in and out, man.” There’s genuine curiosity in his gaze though his tone is playful. 

Growing up with parents like his, Steve had gotten good at reading people. They vacationed a lot, but still managed to walk around with arc reactors in their chests whenever they were home. Bound to detonate in the wake of the most trivial inconveniences. Sometimes he wished he could shut everyone and their feelings out, but he wouldn’t quite be himself then. 

Eddie runs his ringed fingers through his hair. “Just a bit overwhelmed.” 

Steve takes a thoughtful look around. “These kinda things can be a lot.” 

Not even half the faces outside belong to close friends. There was a magic to it, nevertheless. For a few hours, everyone could throw their worries to the wind as Hawkins, Indiana began to feel less like a nowhere town and more like the top of the world. Lord knows Steve didn’t mind the distraction. 

“Not my scene,” Eddie settles on saying. The joint has found its way back into his hand. 

“Everyone’s got their escape,” Steve says. “You’re just too evolved for this one.” 

Eddie snorts. “Shut up.” 

“Yet here you are in the flesh,” Steve continues, thinking as Eddie smokes. “You should tell her how you feel.” 

Eddie coughs, lowering the joint from between his lips. “Dude. Fuck.” 

Steve bites back a smirk as Eddie recovers, extending his hand for the joint. Eddie refuses, taking another drag out of spite, for himself or Steve he isn’t sure. A distant swell of giggles makes multiple heads turn towards the back door, where you and Robin file outside. There’s an immediate flutter in Eddie's gut as he takes you in, your skirt flowing at your thighs. It takes him a second to realize you two are headed their way. 

By the time you make it over, Eddie has straightened up. Meanwhile Steve remains unphased. “Ladies,” Steve greets.  

Robin wrinkles her glittery nose at him. “Why weren’t we invited out here?” 

Chuckling, he makes room for her on his chair and she plops down beside him. “‘Cause you hate the way weed makes you feel like you’re going insane.” He leans into her with each word until she pushes him away with a helpless laugh.

“It’s the principle,” she counters. 

Eddie motions for you to join him and you smile as you take a seat beside him, bumping your shoulder against his in a gentle hello. When he offers you the joint, you shake your head. Steve reaches for it yet again, but Eddie pretends not to notice, taking another drag. A small smile pulls at your lips. 

“Actually, I think I will take a hit.” Eddie doesn’t hesitate passing it to you. 

Rather than indulging, you hand it to Steve, who laughs in victory. Eddie shakes his head, feigning betrayal in a way that earns a laugh out of you. It’s a sweet, melodic sound. He tries to ignore the way your thigh feels pressed against his, but it’s in vain. Even the vanilla notes of your perfume manage to cloud his mind in the softest way. No matter where he was, if you were near, he would always be painfully aware of your presence. 

It was your invitation that had driven him to this party in the first place. Although Steve’s invite came first, your insistence made him change his mind and say yes. Sweaty bodies and blaring music wasn’t your ideal scene either, but you gave in from time to time and looked good doing so. Earlier that night, Eddie almost hadn’t made it through Dancing In the Dark as you and Robin swayed and jumped around like you were alone in your room. There was something about the freeness of the way you moved that made it hard to look away. 

“Munson’s been meaning to tell you something,” Steve announces, looking straight at you.

Eddie’s heart drops into his stomach as he glares at Steve. Robin glances between the two of them, brows furrowed as amusement plays on her lips. You hug your arms as a cool breeze rolls through, but you’re more interested in what Eddie has to say than escaping the chill. In meeting your gaze, however, he silently begs you not to entertain the claim. It only piques your curiosity all the more. 

“Are you gonna spill or what?” Robin prompts.

“There’s nothing to spill,” Eddie insists, looking down to twist his skull ring. 

Reaching over into his lap, you gingerly take his hand into yours to slip off that very ring. He doesn’t pull away or argue, just watches as a helplessly warm feeling melts down his ribcage. His lips twitch upwards when you put it on your thumb because it’s the only finger big enough. It’s warm from being against his own skin for so long. Robin and Steve share a brief, knowing look.

“Speak now or forever hold your peace.” There’s hope woven within the lilt of your voice. Eddie chuckles, and you commit the breathy sound to memory as if you’ll need it one day more than you do now. 

Robin slaps her hands against her knees. “Well, it’s getting kinda chilly out here so I’m gonna head back inside,” she says, rubbing her arms as she stands. 

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” you tease. 

“I’ll stick to something tame like snooping around in Harrington’s room,” she says as she turns to leave. Steve rolls his eyes.

A comfortable silence settles between the three of you. However, his brows eventually pinch together as he reconsiders Robin’s words. Taking one last drag, he passes the joint back to Eddie.   

“She was joking, Steve,” you assure him, chuckling. 

“No she wasn’t,” he worries as he stands to jog back into the house. Eddie snickers. 

With a soft sigh, you lean back onto your hands, looking towards the sky as silence falls again. There are a few clouds visible in the light of the crescent moon, but the stars are everywhere. Like tiny shining freckles peppered against the face of the night. Part of you wonders if he’ll talk now. 

“What if the stars have been watching us back our entire lives?” you murmur. 

Eddie’s brows pinch together as he looks over at you, chest rattling with a startled laugh. “That’s something to think about.” His eyes are a bit glossier now. “Don’t think I’d mind if that were true.” 

You tilt your head, a smile budding on your face. “You wouldn’t mind billions of little eyes observing your day-to-day life?” you ask. “That’s a pretty big audience.” 

A grin eases across his face, half playful, half cocky. “I’m a pretty interesting guy.”

You lift a teasing shoulder, feigning indifference. “You’re alright.” 

Eddie laughs, but a weighted look flickers in his eyes as he studies you, catching the fondness you hadn’t tried all that hard to hide. Even with the pleasant buzz beneath his skin and somewhat of a looser mind, he can see it clearly. 

“Hey,” you speak up again. There’s a new softness to your voice, something mischievous dancing around the edges. “Wanna get outta here?” 

Eddie blinks like he can’t quite believe you’ve asked, but finds himself saying yes anyways.

••• 

Sitting in the passenger seat in his van, you realize you didn’t think much further than this. The air smells like him in all the best ways. Pinewood and faint cigarette smoke. As the engine rumbles to life, you shift in your seat and peek over at him, your confidence a distant memory. The radio bursts to life as well, but he quickly reaches out to turn it down. You bite back a smile at the fact that his skull ring is missing from his finger because it’s on yours. Eddie settles in with a sigh, turning to you. 

“So,” he says, eyes sparkling and a little red under the glow of the street lights. 

There’s an intensity to the warmth of his gaze. It drives you to hide your face in your hands. Which does nothing to make him disappear, if the way he exhales a chuckle is any indicator. “Stop looking at me, I didn’t think this far ahead.” There’s no real distress in your voice, only giddiness mixed with nerves. 

“Now I feel like an idiot,” you whine. 

“Well, you’re not.” He sounds more sincere than the moment calls for. “And I don’t think I’m gonna be able to stop looking at you, so I guess we’re both in a pickle.” 

“A pickle?” You snort, lowering your hands to meet his gaze. More laughter escapes you. Maybe it’s your body's way of not having to address the implication of his words. 

There’s a flutter in his gut as he watches you. It’s like old times, back when you were freshmen who stayed up too late laughing over the most ridiculous things. Except now, you were more than the girl who sat beside him in Biology because you thought it was cool he had a tattoo. You’d grown into a friend, perhaps even more. As composure finds its way back to you, that truth weighs heavy in the small distance between you.  

Eddie clears his throat. “We could hang at mine for a bit. Wayne’s at work.” When you don’t say anything, he bites the inside of his cheek. “It’s up to you.”  

“Sorry, yeah, that sounds good,” you breathe. 

Eddie gears the van into drive, only to put it back in park with a heavy exhale. You blink when angles himself to look at you, opening his mouth a few times before speaking. 

“There is something I need to tell you,” he admits. “No way in hell did I ever think we’d be friends, but you’re the raddest person I’ve ever met.” A lump forms in your throat as his words wash over you. “And you’re so pretty that sometimes I wonder how every guy in the world isn’t giving you whatever you want all the time.” 

You can hear your heart in your ears as you say, “Maybe that’s ‘cause there’s only one guy I want in the world.” 

•••

A small sound of surprise rises up your throat when Eddie backs you against his bedroom door. His apology is hushed against your lips as he continues kissing you, hands gentle where they grip at your waist, feeling along your sides. You’re warm all over as if you’re laid out before the sun, arms hooked around his neck. It hadn’t occurred to him how much he wanted to kiss you until you looked at his alarm clock and realized that it’d probably be best if he drove you home. It was well past midnight. Time had escaped you as you talked and laughed. 

When he does pull away, he studies your face like he’s looking for something. A few seconds pass, and he still doesn’t know what for. Perhaps your smile as it shyly appears. You move your hands to cup his face, thumbs stroking his flushed cheeks. You’ve never been close enough to notice he has the faintest freckles over the bridge of his nose. It almost feels like you’re getting a glimpse at sacred markings you’re not supposed to see. 

Eddie remembers to breathe when you peck his lips again, running your fingers through his hair. His breath is startled out of him, more like. It’s a wonder his knees haven’t buckled beneath him. He wants to kiss you again to see if that’ll finally knock him back down to earth, but instead he exhales the softest sigh over your lips, squeezing your hips to confirm you’re real. He’s not expecting the sense of guilt that creeps up on him. 

Your brows pinch together. “What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing. I just… I haven’t taken you on a date or bought you flowers.” He swallows. “I swear you’re worth all that, swear I’m gonna.” 

You gently scratch his scalp. “That’s nothing to worry yourself over.” 

Eddie shakes his head. “Don’t want you to feel like I’m just trying to come onto you,” he says. “I like you a lot—”  

“If it’s any consolation, I’ve been wanting to kiss you forever too.” Your voice sounds braver than you feel. 

A smile breaks across his face as he rests his forehead against yours. “Well, that’s maddening news.” 

Humming, you kiss him again, delicately running your tongue along his lips so he shivers. “Where are we gonna go?” you breathe, clarifying when he makes a soft, confused sound, “For our first date.” With the way you continue kissing him, he assumes you don’t really want an answer, that you’re trying to drive him crazy on purpose. 

His mind changes when you gently push his chest so he knows to pull away. He listens immediately, eyes dazed. 

“Maybe the arcade,” you supply, toying with the hem of his shirt. “Or a picnic by the lake.” Your hands slip under his shirt, gracing the skin of his lower stomach, your touch sending a rush of heat through him faster than any high ever could. 

You’re not trying to be suggestive, it’s more exploratory. A shared thrill in finally being able to touch him how you’ve wanted for so long. Eddie’s hands remain at your waist, grounding him even as he feels his resolve starting to slip. 

As much as he wants to indulge a step further, maybe even several, he holds himself back. It might be old-fashioned, but he wants to do this right, do a bit of course correction. He can almost hear Uncle Wayne’s voice from those lazy afternoons of his younger years, talking about life and how to treat a lady. 

“Next Friday,” he says, staring into your eyes intently. “It’ll be nice. I’ll surprise you,” he promises, taking your hands in his, relishing their softness, their warmth. His skull ring is still on your thumb. 

“Really?” Your smile is unabashed. 

He nods, a grin creeping onto his face. “It’s a date.” 

-

Thank you so much for reading! Feel free to let me know what you think. 

Turn on notifications for @taleseverlasting so you don’t miss the next one.

NEXT PART (18+)

MORE

[breannasfluff]

Danny’s standing next to a newly cleared lot, staring at the shining glass, when someone joins him. 

“Find something good?” The voice is soft and smooth and the air smells of jasmine. 

Danny glances over to see who can only be Poison Ivy. Her hair flows around her face and vines coil up her legs and across her body. Others wave gently around her, like tentacles. 

Not that he’s one to talk. He’s in ghost form, hovering a few feet off the ground so he doesn’t cut his feet. 

“Just a lot of broken glass,” he says, answering her earlier question. “I’m trying to come up with a way to clean it up safely. If I use ice, the glass will just turn brittle and break.”

Ivy tilts her head at him, brow furrowing. “You are…helping?”

“Sure. No one deserves glass in their feet.”

There’s something about the rogue that’s…familiar, somehow. The way she quirks her brow, maybe. He’s certainly never met someone who smells so much like jasmine, though. 

Poison Ivy gestures and vines rush forward below Danny’s feet. He floats up a little higher–hopefully out of easy grabbing distance–and watches them snake into the rubble. From there they grow. And grow. 

It’s a lot like the weed he helped Pam with at the warehouse, actually. No thorns and prickles, though. Instead, the weight of the vines presses the smooth skin into the ground–and glass. Ivy hisses slightly, then gestures and pulls the vines back. They tower up into the air, riddled with glass shards. The ground is clean.

Danny claps, throwing the rogue a delighted grin. “That’s amazing! I wish I could do that!”

Ivy stares at him, like she’s never come across such an odd specimen before. Danny ignores it; he’s used to people staring for one reason or another. Danny don’t do that; Danny that might explode; Danny that’s an untested hypothesis you can’t base an experiment on a hunch–! 

“Would you…” the rogue chews over the words before finally letting them go. “Would you take the vines somewhere to dispose of?”

“Sure!” Danny’s easy acquiescence seems to catch her by surprise. “I’ve got just the empty lot for it.” He floats up to the towering vine, reaching out to turn it intangible. Then he hesitates because that’s…a pretty distinctive power. 

Ivy watches him, making no move to attack or run away. Plants coil around her feet. Well, if anyone’s going to see his power, she doesn’t seem like someone who can judge. Or hopefully report him. 

Praying he’s not doing something stupid, Danny grabs the vines, turns them intangible, and shoots off in an arc to the Bowery.

[pathologicalreid]

what goes bump in the night | s.r.

in which Spencer's struggling with violent nightmares after prison, and you find yourself on the receiving end of his tossing and turning

who? spencer reid x fem!reader category: angst content warnings: reader gets whapped in the face. don't like don't read, please. blood, prison arc, black eye, a lot of guilt. therapy. word count: 1.89k a/n: (this wasn't a request but shout out to the anon who told me i had to repost this after i deleted it) this is some dark shit but i have to admit i do think about the possibility a lot. take care while reading my loves.

Several years in the BAU had inadvertently trained you to wake up at any slight movement or noise. While some might call it paranoia, you considered it to be a finely tuned skill.

Spencer didn’t sleep talk before prison, and even now, he only mumbled in his sleep when he was having a nightmare. Normally, he didn’t move, he just tossed his head around and begged for whoever he was seeing in his nightmare to just hold on. Tonight was different, he sounded like he was pleading for someone to leave him alone, and he was thrashing more than usual.

You knew there was a risk of waking him, but you reached out and gently shook his shoulder anyway. “Spence,” you whispered, not wanting to hurtle him out of his darkened dreamscape.

There was no response. No sign of him coming even close to waking up.

His thrashing became worse, and his mumbling became even less intelligible like something was covering his mouth in his dream. Reaching out from your side of the bed, you tried to grab his hand, hoping it would be something that he could use to ground himself. Gripping his hand, you said his name again, more forcefully this time.

The pain didn’t even register at first. The first thing you recognized was the sensation of having something stuck in your eye, a small twinge in the outer corner that sent your hands flying to the side of your face.

Oh.

With your uninjured eye, you looked up to see Spencer, awake. Breathing heavy, sure, but awake. Very slowly, his breathing slowed, but he had seemingly forgotten that he was sharing a bed with you until you felt liquid trickling from your nose and scrambled to the bathroom before you got blood all over the sheets.

His wide eyes followed your shadow through the bedroom, putting the convoluted puzzle pieces together as he came out from under his nightmare-induced fugue state only to find a different type of panic. You faintly heard him curse and rustle the sheets as you shut the bathroom door harder than you intended.

You looked at yourself in the mirror, your right eye was tearing up as a result of the impact, and your nose was trickling blood down your face. Grabbing a wad of tissues from the box on the counter, you pressed them to your nose, blinking the tears from your eyes to the sound of your heart beating through your chest.

Spencer knocked on the bathroom door, followed by a larger thud that you assumed was him leaning his head against the door. “Can I come in?”

You tried not to sniff, hating the sensation of your nose being covered, you responded, “It’s your bathroom.” Your tone was far too blasé, and Spencer was going to see through it immediately.

“That’s not what I asked,” he told you, a slight tone of desperation ringing through. You knew what he wanted to know; he was asking if you were comfortable with him being in the same room as you – if you’d feel safe with him in the same room as you.

Leaning your head back, you took as deep of a breath as your body would physically allow you before you answered, “Yeah, you can come in.”

Before you had even finished speaking, Spencer had opened the door to the bathroom, letting the light stream into the bedroom, “Fuck,” he murmured when he saw you, “Hey, don’t lean your head back. You don’t want the blood to run down your throat.”

“Okay,” your voice quavered, watching him lift his hands like he wanted to guide your head down until he realized he didn’t know what to do with his hands – he couldn’t bring himself to touch you. Leaning over the sink, you let coagulated blood fall from your mouth, watching it go down the drain before you looked up at Spencer, who watched on in horror at the mess he had created. “Can you grab more tissues?” You asked him, giving him a job to busy his idle hands.

Instantly, Spencer grabbed a handful of tissues and held them out for you, within your range of motion. Still leaning over the sink, you took the new tissues and held them to your nose, haphazardly dropping the soiled tissue in the basin beneath you. “I don’t… What-“

Cutting him off, you spoke, “Do you still have those ice packs? The first aid ones from last year,” you made a new request, giving him a job to perform so that he wouldn’t apologize to you. He’d apologize until he was blue in the face, but you still wouldn’t know how to respond.

He nodded, crouching in front of one of the cabinets and filtering through a first aid kit, hoping to produce a disposable ice pack for you to place near your eye. With the timidness of a newborn foal, Spencer set the plastic on the counter next to you.

Your boyfriend watched as you carefully peeled the tissues from your face, checking to see if the bleeding had stopped, only to quickly replace the tissue when you noticed a trickle of fresh blood making its way down your philtrum. “Aren’t you supposed to pinch it or something?”

“Yes, you can pinch the bridge of your nose to staunch the bleeding,” Spencer said, grabbing your discarded Kleenex and putting them in the garbage bin. He watched intently as you reached up your free hand to pinch your nose, “Does… does it hurt?”

Giving him a quick shake of the head, you met his eyes through the mirror, “I don’t think it’s broken,” you told him, avoiding answering most of his question.

He loosed a sigh of relief, “Thank god,” he murmured, keeping an eye on you as you wondered how terrified he must have been to invoke the name of a deity he didn’t believe in.

Once you were finally able to drop the last of the tissues in the sink, you were faced with an even worse reality. There was no way of escaping the black eye that you already had forming, the tender skin would be further marred with time. “I think it looks worse than it actually is,” you offered meekly, reaching to your side and grabbing the ice pack off of the counter. You popped the center of it before wrapping it in a towel that Spencer had set out for you.

Holding in a hiss as the towel touched your face, you allowed your eyes to wander across the rest of your body. Your shirt had drips of blood on it, but the larger issue was red encrusted all over your face. With the urgency of a sloth, Spencer took a different towel from the drawer and ran it under the tap, wringing it out before holding it up, “May I?”

“Yeah,” you breathed, thankful for your newly cleared airway as you extended your neck, giving him the access he needed to wipe the blood from your chin and neck. “Spence-“

“I’m so sorry,” he interjected, his movements faltering as he let his hand drop to your shoulder.

You shook your head, crinkling the icepack in your hand, you blinked rapidly, hoping to clear your vision. “It’s okay, I shouldn’t have grabbed you,” you told him, it was the truth. He had obviously been having a violent nightmare, and you grabbing him had likely triggered a fight or flight response.

Spencer sighed dejectedly, “I burst a blood vessel in your eye. I’m so…” his voice trailed off in the middle of his sentence, leaving you unsure whether he was going to apologize again or go off on a self-deprecating tirade. “I hit you,” he breathed, abruptly yanking his hands away from you, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have touched you.” Setting the washcloth on the counter, he put his hands up in surrender and stepped away from you.  

Leaning against the bathroom counter, you wished for an inkling – anything you could say to him that would prevent his auto-villainization. “I wish you wouldn’t say it like that. Saying you hit me sounds so…”

“Wrong? That’s because it is,” he said harshly, and you could almost see the storm of self-loathing that was brewing in his mind.

Shaking your head, you adjusted your grip on the icepack before looking up at him, “but it makes it sound like it was intentional. You didn’t hit me, you… thwapped me.”

Spencer loosed a shaky sigh, “I’m not so sure that’s better.”

“Would you prefer bonked?” You proposed, looking at him and hoping for a small smile, but being disappointed when you were met with the same haunted expression. “It was an accident,” you insisted, reaching out your unoccupied hand and taking his hand in yours, “I am fine.”

He scoffed dismissively, “I should have had a better handle on myself.”

You frowned, “You were asleep, Spence. You couldn’t have had a better handle on yourself. It wasn’t on purpose, and you’re taking care of me now,” you told him softly.

“But you’re scared of it happening again,” he challenged you.

When he had come home, you knew he had been changed. Not necessarily for the better or for worse, but he was most certainly changed. You had heard everything in bits and pieces, what had happened in Millburn, what had happened with Cat, but nothing had prepared you for the harshness of your new reality. He was capable of harming others, but that didn’t mean you thought he’d hurt you again. “You’re disappointed in yourself, but you don’t believe you get to feel that way. You’re projecting onto me,” you told him, taking your hand back.

Spencer flinched back, “Don’t profile me.”

“You, Spencer Reid, would never knowingly lay a hand on me,” you insisted, you believed it. You believed it even if he didn’t believe it himself.

The two of you sat in an angst-filled silence before he stood up straight, gently starting to usher you into the bedroom. Handing you a t-shirt from your drawer to change into, you could see his internal struggle as he grabbed a pillow from the bed and made his way toward the door.

Despondently, your shoulders slumped forward, “Where are you going?” You asked softly, hating to watch him leave your shared bedroom over this.

“I’m sleeping on the couch. I’m gonna… I’ll try to set up a meeting with my therapist in the morning. I just…” his voice trailed off as he looked at you with wide, sad eyes, “You’re okay?”

Your heart ached at his voice as you nodded, opening your arms for him and letting out a sigh of relief when he returned to you for a hug. Reaching your free hand behind him, you rubbed his back comfortingly, “We’re going to make it through this, mark my words.”

He nodded in affirmation as he pulled away, “For my own peace of mind, I’ll sleep on the couch for a while.”

You accepted it, knowing that he needed to deal with this in his own way, he closed the door behind him, effectively leaving you alone. Laying back on the pillows with your icepack still clutched to your face, you sighed, wondering how long it had been since your boyfriend felt any semblance of peace of mind.

[tiredsmashbros]

SMG34: LIPBITE COMIC WIP UPDATE

oh boy... i know a bunch of folks are hyped for this comic... and boy oh boy are ya'll's prayers going to be heard... kind of... butt for the celebration milestone, and granted majority are from this comic, i thought it was best to give EVERYTHING that i have currently.

starting off STRONG with what you freaks most want: the completed pages. andddd yep that's it that all that i have done LMAO. i've been fixated on my own smg4 oc: tsb, and during the end of my summer was unfortunately fucked over by some personal issues that fortunately got resolved last minute good grief the anxiety prevented me from drawing the gays sigh... aNYWAYS LINEART WIPS!!!!

here are linearts i have completed / in the progress of!! want to aim like i did in the past by finishing up lineart first, and then speed through with color + minor rendering. the reason i have a few colored is to test out what it would look polished and my god... i have improved A LOT. THESE GAY PEOPLE GIVE POWER I AM NOT KIDDING BELIEVE ME IM NOT CRAY- anyways onto wip pages!

jumpscare: tsb stickman sketches. oh yeah. this is how i sketch and i blame sensei eiichiro oda /j. and in case anyone is unable to understand it {i don't blame u LMAO}, smg4 wakes up from the dream and is startled to see mario by his bed. they have a short convo before mario leaves, and we get a job to smg4 in the bathroom trying to put up a brave face. until the moment he leaves he's stunned due to seeing smg3 at his front door. will i elaborate more on specifics or unwritten dialogue? NOPE! gotta keep secrets to make it even more enjoyable at the end!!

currently at 13 sketched pages total, but this is probably gonna be reaching towards 20-ish pages, surpassing part two, but it will depend on how i come up with how to end it. additionally to confirm there will be a PART FOUR / chapter 3, to end this story. my goal is to have it done before i finish my senior year, or at least during the summer after i graduate bc good lord who knows whats gonna happen.

and lastly, before i end this crazy update, SCRAPPED PAGESSS!!!!!

CONTENT WARNING : NSFW SKETCHES !!!! PLEASE LOOK AWAY IF YOU ARE A MINOR OR DON'T LIKE THIS TYPE OF STUFF!!!

oh boy... dont draw comics while sleep-deprived at 6am... idek what i was even aiming with this ngl other than just for fun, but i scrapped it due to not being what i had in mind for the story. if it doesn't serve a purpose or narrative, its bye bye YEAH BYE BYE THIS IS THE CLOSEST NSFW UR GONNA GET FROM ME HAHAHAHAHA- i say that despite writing a nsfw jojo wattpad smh im only confident doing it in words good lord. btw not watermarking these bc i gen don't care since they're legit scrapped {left top part was kept and completed} so idk what to do with these. im just throwing it and walkin away

now to end with this update, i can hear your question, "when will this be done?" and to answer that question: i'm not entirely sure due to my heavy focus on my smg4 oc: tsb, but my best chance is postponing my oc lore a bit and complete this before november UOIYGJDSIUHJKDWSXYUGHJKCS but we shall have too see...

if you want to join the ping list comment on this post LMAO [click]

ignore below if you're not from the tsb birthday partydddjdhdhdjd

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thurs: smg34 is canon in the tsb universe / au. though most of their encounters are platonic or best-friendy-way, they eventually express their feelings to one another and start dating 3/4’s way of the tsb storyline arc. tsb is a supporter of his friend's relationship and admires and takes inspiration from their relationship heavily to input his future love life. yearning to be in a similar position... to learn what is to really love someone... or what it's truly like to be loved...