#this is the fun of getting into obscure characters you get to think really hard abt it w/o worrying about consistency

[bitterrobin]

Exploration of Lance Bruner's Post-Crisis AU resurrection (Taxonomy!verse)

So Jason and Lance are dead. Superboy Prime punches the shit out of reality. They get resurrected around the same time. Jason escapes his coffin, is hospitalized, wanders Gotham for months, and gets the help of Talia, pushed into the Pit, trained, set on his revenge path. Lance...doesn't have the chances Jason did. He resurrects in his coffin and he's severely screwed.

By virtue of having died multiple years before Jason, maybe his coffin is older, more fragile, and not nearly as secured as Jason's more modern grave. His coffin is more breakable, but Lance just can't make it. It takes him days for Lance to dig himself out. He's tired, terrified, starving and actively bleeding from a gunshot wound. (Considering Jason's wounds re-emerged during his resurrection, easy to say Lance's wound would also reappear). Eventually, dumb luck maybe, Lance gets out. Then what? He doesn't have the issues Jason had with his trauma/memory, so he's just...alive again. Maybe something interesting could be explored if he remembers everything prior to his death and doesn't remember actually dying idk. Either way, there's the mention of possible grave robbers in UTRH that makes me think: okay grave robbers weren't the cause of Jason's grave disturbance, but what if there were grave robbers to find Lance?

Lance emerges from his grave, maybe the dirt is already being dug through by the grave robbers so he's saved from the effort. He comes out and scares the shit out of them. Perhaps they shove him back and run, maybe they yank him out thinking he was buried alive until they see the blood on his chest and panic. Grave robbing is enough of an issue that Jason's grave is secured by sensors, so I think Bruce would just place sensors on all of the graves at Wayne Manor. Lance gets out of grave and the sensors are tripped. He's bleeding and worn down. I doubt the grave robbers would actively try to help him but he can't be left alone. Even if he makes it out the graveyard, who's to say he doesn't just die again? To prevent this, I'll have to really think about it more. One of the grave robbers panics, maybe they feel bad or just don't want get caught as a murder suspect, so they just...take him. They take him and just dump his rapidly dying-again body on a hospital step, where he's quickly put through the Emergency ward. His GSW gets treated surgically and he spends a lot of his time recovering in the hospital.

The fact that Jason was Robin means all circumstances around his death had to be obscured/hidden. Lance may have died in the Robin costume but he wasn't Robin. His background in delinquency and the whole thing with Stark could've made it easier to blame Lance's death as an unfortunate consequence of his troubled life. It'd be easy to see Lance's death in the media set as a life cut short by teenage delinquency and Gotham's past-mob problem just before the teen could really make a permanent change with Bruce and Dick. There'd be records showing the transfer of his care from Prof. Bruner to Bruce and Bruce's adoption of him so they can't hide that. Officially, Lance's death is a typical tragedy of Gotham.

In the hospital, Lance remembers living. He remembers Stark and Bruce and Dick and Batman and Robin. While Jason wasn't able to reveal or respond to anything, Lance would get questioned about his suit, his wound, his identity. This go could go two ways: 1) Lance is still kind of an asshole and he tries to admit to the whole Batman and Robin thing. He could be angry that Bruce forgot about him (ha), he could just misremember the events and blames Batman for his death. Detectives and hospital staff question it, since by then theres been Jason and Tim and (maybe) Stephanie as Robin. Dick is a full adult now and Bruce is older but Lance is still a teen. Maybe they dismiss it as trauma/mental illness, maybe Lance keeps insisting hard enough he's put into Pysch care. 2) Lance adheres to his redemption, remembers everything correctly, and doesn't confess to anything. He makes up a half-truth about getting involved with the mob out of misguided intentions. Lance is probably malnourished and worse for wear, and Lance Bruner died at least 20-something years ago - so he isn't recognized immediately. But there's still fingerprints and records and the grave sensors were tripped. Lance is kinda fucked in this scenario. He keeps the secret but just by being alive he's jeopardizing everything about Bruce and Dick. The saving grace? The Cataclysm.

See, all of the above hinges on the fact that Wayne Manor plus it's graveyard is kept unchanged from the era of Robin!Dick. But it wasn't. Wayne Manor was utterly destroyed by the earthquake. Maybe all the graves in the family graveyard had to be actively searched for, recovered, and reburied. Maybe that's when Bruce puts in the sensors in place. Bruce's parents and Jason are taken great care of, but Lance is but many of the dead. Maybe Bruce never finds him, and with the chaos of No Man's Land he doesn't have the time to spare to look for every individual family member. Lance's corpse is massively displaced by the quake. The earthquake brought on thousands of deaths. There's movements and pushes for mass gravesites, a larger city graveyard in remembrance of the quake/No Man's land.

Maybe Lance's coffin (or just his corpse) is recovered by a charity or some bereaved family and he's placed in the public graveyard. No fancy Wayne coffin, no sensors, barely a gravestone. By then, his corpse isn't recognizable enough to be identified. His records are old and few, the adoption papers lost in the earthquake, the reform school record, the military school records, the police rap sheet are either destroyed or completely forgotten about. Lance resurrects in a sea of graves. The grave robbers still find him, he still gets put into the hospital, but theres nothing to connect him to Lance Bruner - adopted son of Bruce Wayne and biological heir of Professor Bruner. Lance has to take on a new name, but at least he can't endanger Bruce/Dick. It's a relief when he finds out, but also genuinely disorienting. Gotham isn't what he knew. Bruce, and Dick and the Titans are all wildly older than he remembers. Gotham has been destroyed and rebuilt countless times. There's more and more vigilantes around he has no idea about. For now, Lance's new life is uncertain.

[todayisafridaynight]

it’s actually kinda crazy how the rggo stories are real lol genuinely felt like i was reading fanfiction. They 100% had a minedai shipper hiding among the rggo writers

iirc one of the writers for rggo was. Not To Say A Minedai Shipper HOWEVER he was pretty earnest about how good together daigo and mine were so ..... not too far from the truth me thinks .....

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

trick to fun dialogue is just to make it a little hard to understand. maybe thats a cheap trick but i dont care

[prettyboykatsuki]

I LIKE IT BETTER WHEN YOU CAN'T KEEP WARM | ODXNY

✮ tags ; heavy themes, gender neutral reader, mentions of past suicidal ideation, getting together, romantic tension, angst to fluff, extremely lovey-dovey ending, some implicit and suggestive content (lit one paragraph n non descript), themes of touch starvation, small height difference (reader is shorter)

✮ wc ; 6.3k (this is so shameful bye forever)

✮ a/n ; every time a semester ends i lose my mind and me writing this in several hours straight is evidence. if i had a nickel for every time i wrote a character study with the central theme of loneliness, i'd have two nickels - which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

i will spare you the insane rambling for the authors note at the bottom of this fic.

✮ synopsis ; he wants something. to live maybe. and if he could be a little selfish, to be with you. he wants that, too.

Bright.

Could just be the dark room he keeps himself in talking. His computer system and encrypted Internet browsers are all in dark mode - and his desktop set-up doesn’t have any L.E.D. strip lights to keep him company. He prefers it that way, the ambiance a better environment to work in  when he’s doing his usual rounds. Down to the programs U.I. - Odxny spends most of his time in perpetual darkness. Cozy and familiar - totally safe and secure. Nothing but the low whirrs of a computers fan and the faint blinking of routers to keep him company.

You’re the brightest thing he’s had on his screen in a long time. You’ve got white walls and no precaution, really. You’re sitting at your own desktop - and he can see everything of your life in the background of where you sit. There are photos of you graduating high school, being around unnamed friends, vacations and trips, and head shots like the kind you take for a resume. It’s all so personal. Bookshelves, trinkets, poorly made clay sculptures. Posters of musicians you like and Studio Ghibli movies. Evidence of life surrounds you like a halo.

Awful. Angel comparisons to someone he’s only known for a day make him wonder if he’s more pathetic than he thought. He probably shouldn’t think so hard about a stranger, a real stranger. Thrim generated randomly, though he thinks it sounds like a name. Finds it fun to say, for better or worse.

Natural light pours in from a window nearby, casting shadows in your room. He already knows you, in a way. He did the background search. Where you were born, raised, grew up.  The schools you went too, the career you seek. Bits and pieces of you are all scattered in his memory and are not at all thorough. He wasn’t really trying for that at the time, just needed to know if you were dangerous. There’s a cognitive dissonance. To know a life so thoroughly and to witness it is completely, and utterly different.

There’s miles between you. Must be thousands. He can’t remember the last time he’s really met someone, though. It’s hard not to notice that this feels akin to that. Like the embers of a campfire, glowing but not burning. A comfortable warmth.

Bright. His screen is very bright talking to you. Even obscured behind the mask, it’s a little difficult to look at it and leaves him on edge - restless and mildly painful.

When his vision adjusts though, there’s clarity. A person, a stranger - with an exceptionally nice laugh and who is exceptionally trusting. Odxny tries not to think too hard about the feeling of warmth that flutters at your overflowing sincerity.

The conversation is easy.

“Does that mean you trust me now?”

Odxny pretends to think on it. “Enough to keep you around.”

“See you later.”

“See you.”

You accompany your last words with a wave - short and sweet. Darkness pulls him in, back where he started. He has a mild headache from all the light.

__

You pick up on the language better than he thought you would.

He underestimated you. Can you blame him? Your choice is language is ArnoldC, for fucksake. Sure, he has limited knowledge on esoteric languages but can it really be in-depth enough to show you the basics.

(It can. Or at least, Od presumes this to be the case because you’re rather helpful in Incri’s hacks and Incri is hardly helpful to anyone in the world, no less the server.)

You pick up on things quickly with little guidance - always to the point and not usually making many errors. He has to commend your abilities and give you credit where it’s due. It’s not a hard language to learn, but for anyone with no familiarity with coding at all he’d expect there to be a learning curve. Even if you had coding language, it’s not like you knew SQL coming in.

You fit strangely well into the server somehow. You’re happy to learn and nonplussed about helping with small things, though you don’t know these people at all and have no reason to participate in their nonsense. You talk to Incri fine, and manage to get Pep to accidentally reveal telling information. Odxny finds all of this rather… entertaining maybe. More than impressive, really.

He has a hard time making sense of the feeling. He would hope you don’t think you’re under duress - given the fact your relationship in two days has been pleasant. Then again - maybe he’s missed some social cue and you do think that. It’s possible. After all, he doesn’t actually remember the last time he’s spoken verbally to anyone with very, very few exceptions.

He manages to call you again after the fact - opens the call with sincere and heartfelt congrats and feels pleasant seeing you take the compliment in stride.

You land on the subject of programming again, inevitably. He interrogates you a little more over your choice in language - almost like he can’t help himself. It’s basic curiosity. You had said you were the best in ArnoldC. A little research proved that to be true, presence of you in the forums of various esolang pages. He landed on many things. You’re the best at ArnoldC, but you also know Brainfuck for some ridiculous reason.

He thinks you’re a little ridiculous in general.

“It’s really for the love of the game, huh?”

You nod when he asks this. Smiling, bright and unbothered with a soft edge of smug pride that makes the muscles of his face twitch up. “Mhm. I like my little collection.

Odxny doesn’t doubt it for even a minute. He’s seen the proof, but perhaps he doesn’t need to mention that. “Your trophy case of ridiculous language?”

Your eyes come to life all of a sudden. “Wait. A real trophy case would actually be so cool.”

He pauses, blinking as the words sink before a smile breaks onto his face helplessly. “That was not to enable you.”

“Too late. I’m already looking up the ugliest wood trim display cases I can find.”

The laugh comes naturally. “You really are just like this?”

You look proud again. “What? Fun?”

Yes, Odxny thinks but doesn’t say. “Baffling.”

You ask Odxny to elaborate and he does. The conversation flows with frustrating ease. So easily that he mouths off about his plans to you without a second thought. He doesn’t know why he does it. Not really. He’s thought it through over and over - so it’s not like he needs to disclose it. He made his choice.

He thinks about moving it along. About ending the call or simply brushing past without going into any detail.

When he glances at the screen, you’ve got a pillow in your lap and your eyes completely focused on him. There’s that feeling again, alarming clarity in your gaze and brightness that causes him immense unease in the world he’s made of nihilistic, apathetic darkness. There’s a plan, always has been. He’ll do this and disappear and the world will soon forget him. If it happens that way, than at least this loneliness is a choice he’s made for himself and not something the world has cruelly decided for him.

His lips move faster than his head, than even his heart. Compelled by a nameless and brilliant force. “I don’t have any reason to stay. I’m just — tired. Of everything.”

“No reasons? Nothing makes you happy here?”

His response is measured. Quiet. It’s not secret. He finds his voice crumbles around the words anyway as if they’re a confession. “Not for a long time. I don’t feel much of anything, really. It is what it is.”

You frown. He’s seen it all before. Heard it all before. “That’s…”

He cuts you off quickly.

“We just met. And we’ll be strangers again soon enough.” He says with as much conviction and resolve as he can possible manage. Who he’s convincing remains unclear. “So, not to be cold but..you know.”

The disappointment in your face leaves an impression, but you relent. He tries to make amends for the depressing conversation of talking again and you perk up so genuinely it makes want to cry, in a distant and foreign way.

“Catch you later, then.” He says, and closes at out the call. The room falls dark for the second time. He blinks a few times to get rid of the light clouding his vision.

__

Wnpep is eager to teach you on the third day.

You’re eager in reply - matching energy with sharp wit and enthusiasm. Wnepep is a better teacher than Incri by several miles. Evident in how much faster everything falls into place for you. Not that you really need too much help in the first place. You break down the crumbling walls of an insurance scam with ease and come out of the other side more accomplished.

It’s a noble last hack, Odxny thinks.  Not unsurprising from Pep - unofficially the most sane and likeable member. He figured it’d be something like this less than a matter of personal vengeance.

You go back and forth for a bit in admin chat. Od types an apology about winding you up and tries not to read too much into the innuendo of it as you reply back with your own faux offended replies. He insists he’s somewhat sorry, and you’re far from believing him.

He finds himself grinning at his screen while he texts you mid conversation. When the realization hits, he almost curls into himself from embarrassment - a hand covering his mouth like it’ll do away with the grave sin.

The inneundo happens twice in one conversation, before you get to call under the premise of a victory toast.

A brief conversation about the last hacks barely leaves room for much else except Odxny plans of total isolation.

“Mm. I should’ve known it would come back to this. Why do you care what I choose to do with myself?”

That baffles you in a terribly genuine way. “Am I not allowed to care about another person?”

Odxny speaks honestly. “You are but I mean…” He trails off. He knows how he feels. “I’m not really a person anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m no one. I’m going to be no one. You have other things to fill your life with.”

There’s a vulnerable edge to his voice that he winces at when he hears it. It’s true isn’t it? All of it is true to Odxny, but especially where he says you have other things to fill your life with. You might share the same hobbies, but he’s seen it. He’s seen how different you are - your livelihoods, your existence. You’d be missed if you suddenly disappeared. Odxny knows the same isn’t true for himself. It’s been like that for a long while now.

(It’s crushing. That’s what makes your very ephemeral existence feel like a burden. Why it casts the shadows of doubt on choices he made, about how he would live so long ago. You care, don’t you? At least, more than anyone else in his life in the present. You care so undeniably, and so obviously and it is all so simple to you.

He almost envies it. Almost resents it, too. It’s such a small shred of humanity, the barest forms of sincerity but it is painfully raw. A split nerve. An open wound It’s not like the server, all of whom have accepted this distant fondness. It’s a delicate thread - spider silk accuracy and just as much strength. There’s conviction in your missing him and it haunts him.)

You think of what to say for a long time before landing on it. “I do. But I can care about multiple things at once,”

It sounds like I care about you too closely. He finds himself shivering. He’s truthful with you, unsure of how else to be when it comes to these conversations.

“That sounds burdensome.” He says. “Isn’t that exhausting?”

You don’t lie to him either. “Sometimes. But it’s worth the trouble.”

“Why?”

“Because I like your company,” You reply. Soft sincerity in your words. More clarity. More painstaking light.

“It can’t be that simple.”

“Why not?”

“If it was that simple then -“ Then it makes it seem like things could be different. He doesn’t say that. Stops himself before it can happen. “I don’t know why I’m bothering to argue. Why do I feel like I need to prove this to you?”

He’s almost afraid to look at your face, wincing when he sees how knowing you look. Not in a condescending way - but genuine, full blown understanding. Like you see through him.

He wonders if he knows you as well as he thought he did.

Your face is so sympathetic. “Are you sure it’s me?”

He cuts the conversation short on his own - making an awkward transition from the topic at hand into whatever he can manage. It’s an awkward fumble - a poor attempt at distracting both of you from this line of thinking. You’re kind enough to let him have it. He asks about your hobbies. You tell him about how you like to try the weirdest things and combinations you can find in a restaurant.

He finds it suits you.

A lot of things suit you. Even your piss poor attempt at the Terminator that he quickly mimics - possessed by god knows what.

You laugh when he does. Brilliant and bubbly and characteristically warm. You say the words through giggles.

“That was so bad!”

“It was a lapse in judgment,” He replies back defensively, smiling against his will. He finds himself laughing too.

“I like your laugh, by the way.”

He pauses caught off-guard. “Oh? My laugh. Oh, uhm. Thank you.”

You make a face that he can’t read. Knowing. In a different way than the last. He feels nervous.

“I have been laughing quite a bit, haven’t I?”

You grin. Smug and deliriously happy. “Sure have.”

He looks away from you. “Ha...Odd.”

You giggle again. Your eyes crinkle at the corners, nose scrunched in genuine delight. It’s a pleasant sound but not because it’s particularly wispy or floaty or delicate. But it’s real. Pleasant in the way the white noise of park during summer. Pleasant like the varied playlist overhead in a record shop. Pleasant like a moment of humanity tucked between everyday. He clears his throat.

“I like your laugh, I think.”

You laugh again, gasping with faux offense. “You think???”

He tries not to feel so grounded by that sound and fails. “Yeah. I think. Laugh again.”

He tries not to add please. You shake your head like you’re reprimanding him.

“No, no, you have to earn that. Make me laugh.”

“Nevermind. Shut up.”

You do laugh again that time. He joins you soon after. “And now you laugh? At me?”

The conversation moves again, comfortable like a tide. You ask about his favorite language and he tells you as much. You’re quiet and growing cheeky, listening to him talk.

“So you do like coding.”

“Maybe a little.” He replies, not giving in. “You remember far too much of what I say.”

The conversation comes to a close again. He thanks you for how nice its been and you make an off-handed attempt to get him to change his mind. You could always talk more. The implication delicate beneath it.

We don’t have to forget each other. Odxny brushes past it - but says he’ll see you tomorrow anyway.

__

Extorting Elimfs childhood friend (?) is an easy enough endeavor. Odxny texts you through out - to ask advice on what things to take when he leaves.

He calls you again when its over too. He can’t find a reason for it - nothing that makes sense. He just wanted to call you. He hasn’t wanted something like that in a while,  but he tells himself its fine. This is the last time you’ll ever know each other.

So its fine. He won’t waver.

He’ll just.. call you.

He asks you on your weed habits, mildly surprised when you tell him you smoke and take edibles sometimes too. The conversation loops back to the fund at one point. You don’t hide your displeasure about the whole thing today.

You’ve talked about it already. No need to keep bringing up. But you seem to feel so strongly and Odxny can’t figure out why. Can’t shake the feeling of wanting to know why every single time.

“Is it really so hard to believe I’ve come to like you in a few days?”  You ask, after probing.

“In a way that matters, yes.”

You frown at him when he says that. It’s the most upset he’s seen you look, if he can call it that. You’ve never been upset when he’s been rude or insulting - but this is bothering you. It doesn’t help him pull away from you.

He says it again. Reinforces how temporary this all is. He’s trying to convince one of you. Both of you, maybe, of his unimportance.

“I don’t think that little of you.”

He finds it hard to reply to that. It’s that feeling against. It makes him uncomfortable. It’s not empty platitudes or some vague sense of responsibility for his life. All of it is real, and all of it is meaningful in how plain it is. You make it seem easy.

“It’s life. It’s normal. People come, people go.”

You shake your head. “Not for me. I can’t forget you that easily.”

He wishes you would. He’s painfully, painfully relieved that you wouldn’t it. He voices neither thought.

“Then- try! You’re putting so much on yourself, and for what? You don’t stand to gain anything.”

You shrug. “Peace of mind. Knowing you’re still out there.”

It’s heavy. The implication is heavy. He’s not going to kill himself. He doesn’t want that anymore, though he thought about it. At the beginning. Loneliness is more painful when you have memories of what not being that way was like - he thinks. At the start of all that loss, the hollowness bared an almost painful gravity inside of him.

It’s like being told to breathe or blink - becoming conscious of what was once a natural function, how full life was once when it’s escaped. He doesn’t want to kill himself, but living is meaningless.

 These things aren’t paradoxical to him. They haven’t been for all this time.

(They weren’t until he met you at least. A mirror of wanting. Odxny looks at you and sees life reflected back. Despite it not being his, its moving. It’s beautiful in a human way, reachable. Tangible. Earned.

Wherever you are. Whenever you’re together, the black hole inside of himself seems to fade back into average planetary darkness. He becomes cruelly human again, feeling warmth and laughter.

He’s tells himself he’s not afraid of dying and that’s mostly true. He’s most afraid of living. Afraid he won’t be able to learn it again.)

 He manages to tell you some of what he’s thinking. He has no clue how to start over. He doesn’t know if it’s possible. You don’t feed him any false hope, but he tells you how he sees it. You’re feeling pity for him right? And you should figure that out sooner rather than later.

“Is it really that easy for you?”

You shake your head. You’re smiling but it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “It isn’t. But I have to try.”

“Is that what you’re doing with me?”

“What?”

“Is this…?”

He cuts the call off when he hears himself, unsure of what answer he’s hoping for. The realization dawns on him too much, too quickly. The feeling of hope is loud in his chest but there is another feeling, embarrassing in it’s swiftness that follows shortly after.

Oh.

Oh.

__

The servers shuts down after a mildly sappy adventure to close up shop. The closest Odxny has gotten to flirting with you in his own way. He’s sad to see everyone go, despite there being no other choice.

It’s easier than he thought it’d be. To give you his number he means, even after shutting the entire server down. After leaving everything behind. He gives you the choice to make. Call me if you still want it - a silent promise.

 Maybe because deep down - some part of him always wanted to make this choice. Just maybe.

Your voice is different over the phone line. A little clearer, spoken softer. Just as lovely as it was the first time he heard it. Maybe more. Maybe.

The city beneath him is bright. So bright. It doesn’t hurt to look at, he thinks.

__

You call him every day.

You’ve been doing it for months.

He thought, at some point, you’d let up or start to forget. He’s been waiting on it to happen as horrible as it sounds. Like some self-fulfilling prophecy, he’d slip back into the background as is natural. A proof of his nonexistence, if you will.

You don’t forget though. He almost wonders if he’s dreaming when it happens. There’s a routine between you two, these days. You have your own life that you’ve been living the same as normal. When it’s night time for you, though - you hop onto your desktop and call Od like you’re two very average people.

There’s nothing solid to define your relationship aside from friendship as is. This is less frustrating than he expected it to be. Getting to know you better has only made him like you more. Your relationship is solid in a strange way. It’s been about six months total, and as corny as it sounds - Odxny feels like he’s known you for his entire life. You understand him in an intimate way, with vulnerable tenderness and radical acceptance.

He kind of misses the privacy of his old stomping grounds, but he doesn’t mind speaking though discord. It feels… normal. In a not displeasing way. You mostly talk to talk about whatever comes to mind. Sometimes it’s your job search, other times it’s  your part-time or friend drama. You’re vibrant as always. Without the wall of anonymity, Odxny gets to know of you like he’s just your average person. He finds he really, really likes that.

You play games together frequently. He’s never been interested in cozy gaming, but you play Minecraft and Stardew Valley together per your request. Odxny streams himself playing Ocarina of Time for you on Discord in the background sometimes too, and you keep it on when you’ve got work to do or you’re cooking or something else. There’s something very mundane to it.

You’re not doing anything with him today though. You’re calling him on facetime, rather than at your desktop. You’ve made the executive decision to laze around and Odxny has no problem joining you though you speak less than usual as a result of being sleepy. You had a long shift yesterday so perhaps Odxny can’t blame you.

“Need to get better shoes. For walking and stuff.” You say thoughtlessly. The corners of his lips twitch up.

“Yeah?”

You nod. Your face is smushed against your pillow at an unflattering angle. He smiles a little.

“Yeah. I’m on my feet for like nine hours when I serve and it hurts wearing flats. Need something sturdier even it diminishes my drip.”

He laughs at that. “Please never say that again.”

You continue onwards. “Decreases my aura, even. But alas, utility comes first.”

He snickers as he glances at you through the phone. You’re propped against one of his monitors as he does work on his computer. He’s getting back into programming for the love of the game, just seeing what he can do.

“Want help looking?”

“Feels a little ridiculous asking a super pro-hacker to shop Sketchers with me.”

“You seriously thinking of buying Sketchers?”

You laugh lightly. “Maybe I’ll get tipped more if I get the light-up ones.”

“Please don’t.”

“Hater.”

You break out into genuine laughter as Odxny shakes his head in despair. It’s something you’d do, no doubt. You sigh.

“I really do want a break from work.” You roll around on your mattress. Odxny can hear your rustling but can’t see you much. “The chains of capitalism shackle me in place. Woe is me.”

Odxny thinks on what you’ve said for a long while in silence. The question comes up every now and again though he’s never brave enough to ask it. His ludicrous amount of disposable income however is still sitting in his bank, collecting dust. It’s been six months and he’s hardly made a dent in it.

“Do you want to come visit?” He asks, cringing at the sound of his own voice. The words are strained and a little too eager. “I can pay the difference for expenses for wages and stuff. And, uh. Uhm,”

He loses his train of thought trying to speak, worsened by the way you pop onto his screen when he says that. Your expression is unreadable to him, comfortable and even. You smile a little as you lift the phone so he can see what you look like laying in your bed. Your face is in full view.

“It’d be a little weird to visit you before we start dating officially, no?”

His eyes go wide at the implication. You grin, mischief and mirth making your eyes practically beam. He can feel a blush crawl up his neck as soon as he registers it.

“Excuse me? Why are you saying that like it’s already been decided?” He bites back, not sure what else he could say.

“So you don’t want to date me?”

“I didn’t- you - damn it,” He groans at his own bluster as he giggles on the other side of the line. So cheeky. Damn him for liking it and damn you for being cute. “…You are saying you like me right?”

Your face softens. He can feel his heartbeat quicken. “Uh-huh. Just wanted to take it slow. But I’ve liked you for a long time.”

“How long is that, exactly?”

You shrug playfully and the fact he can’t be within reach to kiss you feels especially harrowing. “A secret.” You smile again, all trouble. “So. Wanna date?”

“Terrible confession. Zero stars,” He says petulantly. He leans back in his chair and finds himself smiling uncontrollably. “Fine. I guess.”

Your laugh fills his room. He doesn’t get tired of hearing it. His face hurts from smiling.

__

He manages to stave off on the anxiety of you coming to see him for a lot longer than he thought possible.

Making arrangements proves to be a little difficult. You have to tell your roommates that you’ll be gone for a while but promise to still pay rent and explain to your boss where you’re going. You have a good enough relationship and have been working long enough for them to agree to keep a spot open so you can start working when you come back.

After that, there’s the matter of Visas. Odxny goes out of his way to make that process go much faster than normal, though he doesn’t actually tell you. Once all of that’s sorted, there’s living arrangements. Try as you might to insist to live somewhere else, his place is too spacious for him to let you stay anywhere else. You can take the guest room.

He pretends that all of this is just happening in his imagination. He doesn’t even know the last time anyone came over, let alone lived with him. He does his best to make things presentable, and makes a guest room for you to live in should you desire. He even buys more decor (plants and things) to make it look… less like a cave and more like a home.

Nothing really feels real until the day arrives though. It’s a long flight and difficult trip. You refused to let him pay for the tickets so he moved it around to get you into first class both ways through other methods.

You text him the terminal, the arrival time, any and all delays. Still. None of it feels real until he’s already waiting for you near the bags. He can feel his heart race, his lungs short of air. He’s never experienced something so ridiculously contradictory in his entire life. He wants to run away while feeling stuck in place.

The anticipation nearly kills him.

He would recognize your voice anywhere though. Like he did for so many days alone in the dark. A hand waves high, shouting as loud as it can.

“It’s you!”

The sound of sneakers skidding across tile floors make his breath hitch. His eyes go wide as you stand still in front of him, luggage in hand and a million-watt smile on your face. He feels his heart beat so loud, he wonders if he’s going to throw up.

“Hey.” He says, dumbly.

“Hi!”

__

The adjustment period to living together isn’t what he expects.

It’s been a long time since he’s been so close to another human being. It becomes clear that you’re really living together though when your things end up in the bathroom completely incidentally. There’s something about finding your sleep shirt on a towel rack that makes reality settle in. You’re living together.

He’d be stupid not to notice the purposeful distance between you. An attempt to be thoughtful and not overwhelm him. It’s never awkward when you’re together. You eat together, watch movies and play games while sitting too close on the couch. You’ve been on a date in the two weeks you’ve spent, and it barely took any convincing on your end to make him go along with you.

Isolation aside though, Odxny is not clueless to the conventions of modern dating. You avoid touching him too casually. He doesn’t blame you, but he can’t help but crave your presence with a little more bittersweet longing as the days pass. He has to get past it or bring it up eventually, but it feels like something he’s never going to get over somehow.

The opportunity to do so gets thrown at him all at once. You’ve been living together for sixteen days. A conversation about love languages is what undoes it.

“Whats your love language, Od?”

He gives you a quizzical look. “Dunno actually. Never bothered to look.”

“I’d guess… hm. Quality time maybe? Or words of affirmation.”

He shrugs as he sits next to you on the couch, glancing at your phone as you read through the different ones. “What’s yours?”

“Physical touch. I’m super touchy. With anyone who will let me, honestly. Bad habits.”

Odxny gives you a long look as you say it. He debates if he should bring it up.

“You don’t have to be so careful around me, you know?”

You look up at him, startled by the comment. Several things pass over your face before you settle on an apologetic smile. “Sorry. It’s not like I don’t want to. I just don’t want to be too much for you.”

“That wouldn’t happen.” He says automatically. You laugh good-naturedly.

“Your confidence is assuring, but you underestimate how touchy I am. I’m afraid of I get my hands on you, I’ll never let go again,”

He thinks he wants that more than is normal. He shakes his head. “I don’t mind.”

You give him a long look, seeming struck by an idea, before humming and standing up. You turn around with your hand out towards him. His brows furrow in bewilderment.

“Have some faith.”

He takes your hand and stands up with you. He likes that he’s taller than you. Staring at you, he feels your fingers clasp around his hand and his heart thuds - loud and messy.

“Your room or mine?”

“What?”

You laugh. “Get your mind out of the gutter. Or don’t actually, but I don’t bear lewd intentions.”

He crinkles his nose at the word usage and laughs. “Shut up.”

“Just trust me, okay?”

He concedes with embarassing swiftness.

“Okay.”

__

You lead Odxny to the guest room you’ve been living in for the last two weeks. The bed is well-made and all the new furniture he bought is occupying so many of your belongings. It makes him dizzy. You shut the door behind him as you lead him in. It just feels especially surreal.

Wordless, you let go of his hand and hop up onto your bed. Once you’re laying down, you prop up on your side with your elbow and pat the empty space next to you, smiling at him as you do. Once it clicks what your asking, he can feel his face grow hot. He can’t refuse it though, and he doesn’t want too.

The sheets you bought together smell like you. Between there’s practically no distance between you at this angle. He’s gotten to look at you plenty through these few days but it’s different. You scoot impossibly close to him until there’s nothing separating you.

Your breath is warm - a soft exhale leaving your lips as you inch closer.

“What’re we doing?” He asks in a murmur, stone stiff. You smile, coyly.

“Touching each other.”

He frowns at the joke. Your expression goes a touch serious right after. The sincerity is debilitating. “Can I touch you?”

He nods. Can’t do much more than that.

He stares at you with impending, long-suffering longing as you bring a single hand to his face and cradle his neck. He flinches unintentionally, but pulls your hand back when you try to move it. He wants this. You relax a little when he does that.

Your hands are softer. Softer than a heartbeat. He can feel the various cuts and scars from years of working against his skin but they’re still so soft. He can feel how warm you in such a brief touch his chest aches. Your hands cradle his face tenderly, thumb brushing across his lip with a smile brighter than thousands of lights. Something in your expression wreaks havoc on his heart. Something so raw and so gentle and so full within it - all directed towards him.

It’s been so long. So long. He’s never wanted something so bad  he couldn’t remember needing. He’s never wanted to be closer to someone than he does to you in the moment.

“You’re handsome,” You say, so sweetly. Not a confession, but gentle appraisal. It’s rare he cries but he wants too. “I like looking at you. Can I kiss you?”

“Please.” He rasps, gravel in his voice unfamiliar.

You hum a little. Closing the space between you with a press of lips. It’s not chaste. Odxny is grateful for how long and how deep you linger. He wants it so badly. He wants you in some damning and unforgiving way. How could a human being feel so warm? Feel so pleasant with so little?

You press your foreheads together. His hand trembles when they grip onto your waist but you encourage him just a little. It’s just a kiss. His heart might beat out of him. It’s just a kiss. He thinks he loves you.

Your hand moves away from his face. You let it go underneath his loose shirt to touch his shoulder, running your palm down the plane of his chest. You squeeze his waist, and wrap your arms around his back and pull him to you until your bodies touch somewhere in the middle.

You guide his face to your neck and chest as you hold him. He grips onto you tight in response, a gasp in the back of his lungs at the sudden sensation. You coo above him, soft and light - your fingers threading through his hair and nails massaging his scalp.

Your voice sounds above him, despite how deep in a haze he is. He can’t do anything but cling to you with impossible longing. You speak softly as you pet him. Your heartbeat soothes his.

“I’m glad you’re here.” You tell him. There’s that familiar clarity that makes him want to cry. “I’m glad you let me come with you.”

He can’t think of anything to say back. It’s a soul-shattering emotion. “I love you.”

You laugh wetly above him. “I love you, too. So much.” And then much softer. “Let’s be together for a long time.”

__

You lay in each others arms until sunset. In small talk and silent murmurs. It takes him hours to work up the courage to kiss you again - but only minutes to take it further.

It’s desperate. Terribly. Inevitable. You’re beautiful in a way that is undescribable, best expressed through his teeth on your neck and his hands all over where he can reach - each grip and thrust and bite a reminder. You’re pretty when you’re pleased, warmth reaching up inside of him whenever you make the right face.

He buries himself in you. You’re soft and warm and beautiful and he wants to stay with you. Time is a thief. He damns the sun when it tears you from him come morning.

__

He decides to make breakfast when you wake up. Nothing complicated. You go to shower after him and he plates up toast and eggs and other various things. It’s half done when you come downstairs.

Your skin is still damp, and you smell of vanilla and soap. Your coffee sits in a cup on the table as you pad over to him. He turns to look at you as you reach your hand up and cup his face. You pepper a kisses along his cheeks stopping at his lips for the last one before you’re satisfied.

He fails in his attempt not to blush.

“Morning.” You grin. He tries not to be sick at the domesticity of it all and fails.

“Yeah. Morning.”

You sit at the counter and drink your coffee, glancing outside the window. “It’s bright outside.”

Odxny can’t tear his eyes off of you. “Yeah...” He agrees. He’s not torn his gaze away. “Very bright.”

✮ a/n ; i want all real life compsci men to kick rocks but odxny sweeped me off my feet in a way i can only describe as humiliating. he is a bit like astarion for me in that i see a lot of myself in him at least in the past. he is also incredibly babygirl and uhm . other things (fine. he's very gorjus.) but i truthfully was most compelled by his idealized idea of isolation. as the fic will show it resonated with me as a fellow compsci dork who also tends to isolate like crazy LOL

this fic was like a demon that possessed me. literally no meds, no caffiene - just balls to the wall demonic possesion of needing something out of my system LMAOO. and adhd of course. im working on all the other stuff too i promise. consider this a short interlude 👍🏾

[princessbrunette]

i was thinking this more for rafe than jj but I feel like it could work for both...

I can't stop thinking about frat!rafe/jj forcing you to give him the notes from class everyday and then one day you tell him no unless he gives you smth 😵‍💫

-` ♡ ´-ಇ.₊˚⊹♡

oh this is hot because you can literally never tell if he’s bullying you or flirting with you? and the way he teeters on the edge of both is sadly just too addictive for you to shut him down fully.

he leans over to you in your seminar, backwards cap, colourful polo— the works. it was sickening really, you had no idea why you were attracted to him. okay, you had some idea. he was gorgeous, facially — and tall, strong, probably packing like crazy. he wasn’t the most obscure character in your life to be interested in, just out of your usual tastes.

“hey… you got the notes? i uh, didn’t have time to study.” he gapes at you fairly innocently, gum tucked beneath his back teeth. by didn’t have time, it’s obvious he meant didn’t even attempt to study.

you say nothing, sliding your pink notebook over with no arguments. maybe it was the natural submissive in you.

“shiiiiiit,” his lip quirks up in a smirk as he eyes the neat and tidy organisation of your pages. “you’re really locked into this shit, huh?” he whispers, and your eyes flicker to the professor, hoping he didn’t notice you slacking off.

“well i know you usually need notes so… i just make it presentable so you can actually read it.” you shrug, and it only hits you how pathetic it was until it’s left your mouth. his brows jump up, eyes meeting yours again and his mouth opens, still smiling.

“really?” he asks but it’s more of a statement. “well that’s uh, that’s real sweet of you. thank you. shit, what’s your name again?”

the moments gone.

he continues his usual routine of begging notes off you after that, and you do so without any complaint. it’s starting to get on your nerves though, not quite clicking in your brain that rafe cameron is actually, annoyingly very academically gifted. he could store knowledge like it was nothing, and never flunked a test. he asked you for your notes each seminar because he didn’t know how to talk to shy girls, but he wanted to talk to you.

you lose your patience with his carelessness towards the module you’re studying, and totally ignore him for once. it was hard, and you could feel his slightly irritated confusion from beside you— following you quickly out of the class at the end of it.

“hey, wait up. did i— did i do something i thought we had a thing goin’ with the notes? can you stop and talk to me?” he emphasises, stopping in his tracks when you turn around right in front of him.

“you know it’s not that fun being used.” you accuse, more firey than you intended.

“wh— used?” he lets free an infuriating chuckle, itching his nose, a nervous tick unbeknownst to you.

“yeah. you come to the seminar each week unprepared and i have to do all of the work for the both of us for nothing in return.” you huff petulantly and unexpectedly his heart skips a beat, actually liking this riled up side to you. poor thing just wanted attention.

“well,” he scoffs wordlessly, looking around with his arms up. “i’m sorry, okay? what— here, what do you want from me? i got you.” he steps up seriously, and god— you’re clearly thinking with your pussy because without a second thought your eyes briefly drop down. not just downward, but specifically on his crotch before guiltily up to his gaze once more. he smirks, eyes widening a touch. “oh, shit? alright then.” he chuckles and you feel yourself heat up.

“w—well, well wait i—”

“n’here i am, like an idiot, thinking you’re shy.” he steps closer, lowering his voice in the now mostly empty hallway outside of your seminar hall. “you know, i— i think i can work something out for you.”

it’s not the arrangement he was expecting with a shy girl like you. he had it planned in his head, just charm you enough until he runs into you outside of class and find his way into your panties, telling you that it was okay, and that he just wanted to thank you for helpin’ him out so much.

instead, he had you knocking on his dorm door, clearly having had a long day, which occurred around two to three times a week in these occurrences — telling him that you’re stressed, and if he’s gonna use you, you really — really needed to use him.

which is how you’d end up sucking him inside you, whining and practically crying as you fuck on him like a personalised dildo, letting him work the stress out of your body with large and coarse hands. he supposed it was true what they said in all those corny college movies, the nerds really are freakier.

-` ♡ ´-ಇ.₊˚⊹♡

[most-datable-datable-bracket]

ROUND 5 MATCH 6

Claude propaganda:

"To say Claude has trust issues is an understatement—you have to spend half the game earning his. (Claude isn't even his real name!) Once you have it, though, he's absolutely ride or die for you until the stars go out. He is so full of heart and ambition: He wants both sides of his heritage to get along, he wants to open borders and eliminate xenophobia and promote equality between commonfolk, and deep down, I think he craves a partner to stand with him at that new dawn, or an equal who sees his vision for the future and will fight for it just as hard. Nobody believed in him when he was a kid, but if you put your faith in him, he'll return it tenfold. Some people don't like that he's calculating, or has to leave the player character at the end of the game to go back to his homeland, but both are necessary elements for his goals to change things. He will always come back, and everyone who bets against him and his love for his companions is wrong with a big fat W. #KhalidForMostDatablePrez"

"Claude is a fun little onion of facades. He calls himself the embodiment of distrust, he acts like he's carefree and without worries, an unscrupulous schemer--and so many in universe buy into that hook line and sinker. He's used to others viewing him with suspicion and uses it as armor to obscure his not-so-dark truth: that he cares immensely, that he values minimizing the loss of life, and that above all he has so much hope that people will fundamentally choose to do better given the choice.

His front guards a center that his conflict filled world would be happy to tear apart. As the child of people from two nations in constant conflict--one of which is explicitly isolationist and dehumanizes those outside its church's reach--he hasn't really had a place where he can be without his facade. As a child he thought he could run, but when confronted with the fact that this hatred existed no matter where he ran, he chose to instead try to create a more just and kind world.

His inability to let others in beyond his facade at first may lead to a sense of distance, but isn't it then all the more satisfying when you're allowed in? All he wants is a little trust, a little faith, and--like what he wants to give everyone--a chance to be better.

And like that you got a charming young lad with a fun personality that your grandma would be thrilled to have stay forever."

Josephine propaganda:

“you get to have a full Disney princess style romance with her, she is the most precious, the most sweet, I love her so much 🥺”

“Josephine's one of the "behind the scenes" companion for the protagonist and she advises them on diplomacy-related matters.

Her personal quest and romance is fairy-tale worthy: she gets threatened with assassination, you help her restore her family's fortune, you get threatened by her best friend to not break her heart, she doesn't dare to hope you mean anything serious when flirting until you spell it out for her, after which Josie agrees to a deeper relationship... And immediately after that she finds out her family has engaged her to a random noble without her knowledge!! You publicly challenge the suitor to a one-on-one duel to win her hand, she finds out and interrupts the duel because she's worried of the Inquisitor throwing literally the entire plot away and risk life in combat for her... To which of course you can confess that they're doing it because they love Josephine, and they get the cutest cutscene with Josie jumping in the Inquisitor's arms and them spinning her around before kissing each other <3 The betrothed steps away because he sees true love between the two. She and the Inquisitor stay together through the end game and after it, gaining a "second home" with her and her family.

She really believes in the Inquisitor's cause and from the very first conversations with her, she asks questions about your background and tries to make you feel welcomed (especially appreciated if the Inquisitor isn't human since people are less trusting of them). She's politically smart but dislikes violence, overall very sweet but still strong... Josie tends to overwork herself (she's a perfectionist) and at first she tries to keep a professional air at all times but if you encourage her, she will rant to you and spill all the tea about nobles lol.”

[cozage]

Would you write HCs for Sanji, Zoro and Ace (separate) with a dominant s/o who always manages to leave them all flustered and shy even if the s/o barely does a thing?

A/N: God Sanji was so painfully easy but the others were SO hard. I loved the challenge and I hope I served them justice. They got really dirty really fast- i hope that was okay 😭

Characters: gn reader x Sanji, Zoro, Ace

Cw: NSFW!!! Some kinkiness in this one. Flirting, edging, bondage (kind of), a little bit of humiliation

Word Count: 1.5k

Hey Minors- DNI with this post! I have so much more content for you to check out! If i find any minors interacting with this post, I’ll block you! (and then you won’t be able to read any of my work, so just skip this one!)

Flustered

Sanji

Quickest way to get him flustered? Corner him in the kitchen. Anything in the kitchen. Anything at all. This man gets flustered over anything and everything.

Your favorite thing to do is to come up behind him while he’s chopping up ingredients, peek over his shoulder, and ask if you can have some. If it’s a fruit or vegetable, you just reach over him and grab it off the cutting board, pop it in your mouth, give him a kiss on the cheek, and continue on your way. At first you didn’t even realize it made him flustered, but now that you know? Oh you do it all the time. Sometimes you even lean in on him and grind against him a little bit, just for extra fun. 

The first time it happened he almost fainted. He’s gotten better about it, but his knees still get weak every time you come up behind him like that and whisper in his ear. 

Another thing that absolutely flusters him is the way you eat fruit. Not just the obvious banana, but cherries, strawberries, oranges, everything. If you catch his eye while you’re snacking, you just hold his gaze and slowly nibble away at whatever is in his hand. You’ll swirl your tongue around it, pucker your lips out, anything you can think of in the moment. 

Most of the time he’s captivated by the way you sensually bite down on each morsel, excruciatingly slow, while you only watch him. When there are other people present though, his eyes nervously flit around the room, trying to make sure that nobody notices your seductive moves (not that you’d care even if you were caught)

Ohhh but your absolute favorite thing! to! DO!!! And damnnnn, does it get him worked!!!! Up!!!!! You love to see something weird or adventurous or just totally random and nudge Sanji to point it out to him. “Wanna try that in the bedroom?” you purr in his ear.

Sometimes it’s obvious, like handcuffs or food, but other times it’s less obvious, like candles or obscure clothing accessories. His eyes practically jump out of his skull every time you whisper those words to him. He ALWAYS nods enthusiastically, to which your response is always “Wanna go there now?”

This poor man is so in love with you he practically races back to the bedroom with you in his arms, eager to see what you’ll do to him next. 

Zoro

Zoro started out as the dom in your all's relationship until one very fateful, life changing day. 

You walk into his weight room, seeing him bench press an ungodly amount of weight. You saunter right over to him and straddle his stomach right in the middle of his bench press. 

“What are you doing, woman? Get off me!” Zoro pushes the barbell up with some difficulty and holds it in a locked position. “I’m trying to train!”

“You’re always training,” you pout. Your finger starts at his collar bone and traces down his chest until it reaches his belly warmer. “You never pay any attention to me.”

“Don’t be a brat! I’ll get to you when I’m done!” He struggles under you, trying to shake you off, but you squeeze your legs together to keep yourself on him. You sit back slightly, your weight now against his cock, and he gives you a baffled look, surprised at your boldness. 

“You just stay right there,” you murmur. You bend down to kiss the nape of his neck and begin working your way down his chest, mimicking the trail you just make with your finger. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

And you certainly do take care of the rest. Zoro stays in his locked position, the weight of the barbell trapping him in his current stance. After that, Zoro only ever wanted you to take the reins in the relationship.

Anytime you walk into his workout room after that, he drops whatever weight he’s currently holding. His arms hurt for DAYS after that first encounter, and he does not want to be trapped in that position again. Sometimes you just wink at him and relay the information you went to tell him, sometimes you tease him about it. On a rare occasion-the occasion he always hopes it will be-you’ll command him to pick whatever he dropped up again, and you’ll get to work on him. 

Sometimes you’ll just suck him off, sometimes you’ll do a quickie, sometimes you’ll sit on his face, but the most glorious moments are when you have him hold a stance while you slowly work on him. Edging him close and then stopping right before he cums, hearing him curse at you while you moan his name. Oh, those are your favorite moments. And they’re his too.

You guys made a code word for “I’m horny and want to fuck”, which is “I don’t know, Zoro, what do you think?” and GOD it is so hilarious to watch his face grow red in public when you seemingly ask him an innocent question. The crew always makes fun of him because they think it’s funny to watch him get worked up over having to be a part of a conversation, but you know better. 

Honestly even just the little things like winks or little kisses on the cheek as you pass him makes him unsettled. PDA in general makes him so awkward and tongue-tied, and you love watching him get flustered over the littlest of things. 

Ace

People always think that Ace is the dominant one in your relationship, but they just aren’t paying enough attention. And neither of you ever care to correct them. 

Sometimes you joke about it when people make jabs at your alls sex life. “Oh Ace, you want this rope for later?” some crewmate will jest. “He won’t need it, but I might,” you respond. Ace always goes beet red when you make lewd jokes like that, but everyone just laughs it off. 

This man will do anything you tell him to, without ever needing incentive to. Sometimes you like to put the promise of a reward in place, just to see how quickly he can get a task done. Little rewards like kisses are usually enough to get him moving, but sometimes you like to offer extra special rewards in the bedroom to see just how fast he’ll work.

You love to sneak up behind him and trace the outline of his back tattoo. The second he feels you, he tenses, but he quickly relaxes into your touch when he realizes it’s you. He’ll even lean his head back to see you, silently begging for a kiss from you. Of course you always give him what he needs. 

Sitting on his lap always gets him flustered too. He’ll just be sitting, casually talking to his friends, and you’ll just sit down on his lap, like it’s the most normal thing. If he’s eating, you’ll take a bite of whatever he’s having. When you’re feeling really devious, you’ll just straddle him and wrap your legs around his back and your arms around his neck, completely demanding his attention until he gives you a kiss. 

Oh and you also LOVE to take his hat from him. Just as you walk by him, you’ll take it off his head and swiftly place it on your own without saying a word. If he starts to protest, you just look back at him and wink, and that shuts him up real fast. 

He gets a little bratty occasionally, trying to act dominant in front of his friends. You’ll grab the tassel hanging from his hat and pull him down to your level. “What was that now?” You taunt him so only he can hear you, daring him to defy you now that he was eye level with you. He will instantly start stumbling over his words, embarrassed. You always give him a kiss on the lips and let him go off. As long as he knows who is in charge, that’s all that matters (and honestly, it kind of turns him on, you acting like that). 

In the bedroom, Ace loves letting you take control. He is such a pillow princess if you let him be. He’ll just lie back and watch you act on your own volition, letting you ride him all the way to both of your orgasms together.

Of course, he loves to love you. He’ll do literally anything you tell him to, and he loves to try new things and experiment with new ideas, and he’s always very vocal about how he feels about those ideas. He loves making you feel good and hearing you moan out for him, and he loves seeing all of your ideas and fantasies come into play by his motions.

[aaron-m-geist-ff]

JJK Men and Their Preferred Type of Woman. 🩷

Characters: Toji Fushiguro, Kento Nanami, Suguru Geto, Satoru Gojo

_______________________________________________

Kento Nanami

Kento is not very picky when it comes to a potential girlfriend. He needs someone who is kind and empathetic, those are two traits which he absolutely cannot go without. Luckily for him, most women fit that criteria.

Additionally, he would like someone who would be interested in being a mother. Kento has a dream of providing for his future wife and having at least two children. He needs his girlfriend to be serious about pursuing marriage eventually. Of course, he would never rush or force anything. But Kento is the type of man who dates with the intention of marrying at some point in the future. He needs his girlfriend to be capable of commitment.

Intelligence doesn’t matter too much to Kento. He doesn’t care if you got really bad grades in school or anything like that. He is much more interested in your heart. He really wants someone who is emotionally mature and sweet. Everything else pales in comparison.

As for appearance, he truly does not care. Kento’s only desire is that you are physically healthy. He doesn’t have any preference when it comes to hair color, eye color, or any other physical traits. Again, he is much more interested in your heart. :)

_______________________________________________

Suguru Geto

Suguru never really spent too much time thinking about what his type could be. But after constant pestering from his curious best friend Satoru, he finally started to consider it.

Suguru began to study himself. See how he reacted to different types of girls. He came to the conclusion that he likes the shyer type. Confident women can be really fun to converse with, and he finds them attractive, but there is just something about a shy and sweet woman which really makes Suguru weak.

He loves women who wear baggy sweaters or dress cutely somehow. He likes when a girl gets flustered or embarrassed easily. It’s so goddamn adorable to him. It makes Suguru feel protective.

He also wants someone who has a cute laugh. If his girlfriend is good at baking or cooking then that is definitely a plus.

And for appearance, Suguru really needs a lady with a cute ass. He needs to be able to stare at it sometimes, so it has to be a nice one ;)

_______________________________________________

Toji Fushiguro

Toji definitely has a soft spot for women with nice thighs. Whenever he sees a pretty lady with thicker thighs in a pair of skinny jeans he instantly gets dirty thoughts. Thinking about those delicious thighs wrapped around his waist as he thrusts into her. Goddamn, he often has to fight the urge to get hard in public.

Toji needs a girl with a high sex drive. There, I said it. He is the type of man who wants to fuck a lot. Of course he would never do anything forceful, which is why he needs his girlfriend to be enthusiastic about sex like he is. That would be a dream come true for him.

When it comes to personality, Toji is very flexible. He really doesn’t care what your personality traits are, as long as you aren’t a complete brat towards him all the time. He needs someone who he can hold a decent conversation with. You could have the most obscure interests and he wouldn’t mind as long as you are a good person.

Toji doesn’t mind how you dress. If you wanna be modest, that’s cute. If you want to dress like a whore, he will kill anyone who looks at you the wrong way. :D

_______________________________________________

Satoru Gojo

Satoru likes confident girls. The kind which aren’t afraid to make comebacks for his teasing jokes. It’s no fun if he teases you and you don’t fight back much. He’s very into bratty women because he likes to be a brat tamer.

A good sense of humor is essential with him. He loves to crack jokes and it would be troublesome if his girlfriend got offended easily. It’s important not to take his playful banter too seriously. It’s all done in good fun. Teasing is honestly like his love language at this point.

Satoru wants someone who doesn’t get jealous easily. He has a lot of admirers and he can’t prevent them from flirting with him. You would just need to have a lot of trust, he would be sure not to let you down. He is very loyal.

As for appearance, Satoru likes all sorts of women. Tall, short, skinny, chubby, brunette, blonde, redhead. Doesn’t matter. All that he asks for is a pretty girl with a good style. He likes to have arm candy to show off ;)

Master list link

[positivelybeastly]

Love reading through your analyses and I was wondering if you had insight on something I noticed with Hank/Beast and Kurt/Nightcrawler: writers often use both of them in the visible mutation metaphor and emotional cores, but Kurt's approach is more from faith and Hank's is more from curiosity. Often when one or either are gone/dead/changed, things seem to get worse for the Team overall.

Do you think those two would benefit each other's characters? Even just to have spirited philosophical discussion?

So, this actually touches on a funny thing that I've noticed with Beast and Nightcrawler over time - which is that they're almost never on the same team together, probably precisely because they serve an extremely similar function in a team composition, for the reasons you've kind of touched on here.

They are, after all, both heavily visibly mutated individuals who were, or are, considered figures of great integrity and morality, with a strong code of ethics and a depth of feeling that expresses itself in a deeply vivacious personality - romantic, friendly, charming, and erudite.

Therefore, having them both on a team is, unfortunately, somewhat redundant.

That being said! They do still interact, and they're shown to be sources of great comfort and friendship for one another. Their first meetings were - somewhat inauspicious . . .

See, this is the funny thing about old comics - storylines just flow and flow and flow. Comics didn't stop after ten issues and get restarted with a new #1 every few months, they just ran and ran and ran, and the pacing reflected that.

There aren't usually month long gaps where you can assume nothing happened and people just got to hang out, they're working hard! Hank has been working with the Avengers so much that he literally hasn't even had time to meet the new X-Men properly! Wild.

But, eventually, things did slow down, and they got a chance to properly socialise, and, as expected, they got along like a house on fire.

Like, these two are just born to be friends. They have so much in common. Where Hank leans more to the obscure, the erudite, and the scientific, Kurt leans more to the dashing, the swashbuckling, and, of course, the religious, but they're still both fundamentally cut from the same cloth - acrobatic, charming, philosophical, heroic, fun.

But, that same alike quality means you don't get a ton of interaction between them, so I cling to what they do have. One of my favourite interactions between them is in Nightcrawler's 2004 solo series.

First off, absolutely adore Hank in this art style. The fact that the artist decided to include the detail of his fur poking out of the shirt like that is just. It transfixes me. I really want to go over and just. Run my fingers through his side fur. But mostly, I just like their chemistry? Hank's a great supporting character because he's so emotionally intelligent and reflective, and he's great at giving people perspective, usually with a healthy dose of sarcasm and teasing.

That being said, this scene is always the one I point to whenever I say that the X-Men really have no idea what's going on in Hank's head a lot of the time, because this took place after Hank had been psychically brutalised, nearly beaten to death, and one of his best friends had just been murdered - and he's doing a really very good job of hiding that trauma.

So much so that Kurt thinks he's just fine. He's just fine. There's nothing to worry about. But it's not Kurt's fault, and it's nowhere near unique to him, either. He had no way to know, he had his own stuff going on (the subject matter of this solo series, as it happens), and Hank is doing well enough that it isn't interfering with things, so, let him deal with it in peace, I suppose.

At least on this occasion.

Kurt is, after all, an emotionally intelligent and caring individual. You can't stop Nightcrawler from trying to help where he can. And I think that even just the reaching out, just the show of support, can be enough for a character like Hank.

Moments like these matter, in my opinion. It's important to show that teammates and friends care about each other, in the moment to moment stories, otherwise it can all feel very impersonal and like no-one cares about one another. This is how you establish dynamics over years, even between characters who have, technically speaking, never really been on a team together before.

The next big milestone I can think of comes after the X-Men's move to Utopia, where, again, Hank and Kurt don't share a ton of panel time together, but . . .

This is one of the few times you'll ever hear anyone say that Hank was right. And it's not really a surprise that it comes from Kurt, because, again, these men are cut from the same cloth. They come at it from different angles, but they believe in much the same things.

And . . . that's why it hits so hard when Kurt dies.

I don't necessarily agree with the decision to have Hank break from the literal funeral procession to call Scott out for Kurt's death. Some fans of Nightcrawler really appreciate that moment, because it shows how much Kurt's death affected Hank, but I personally just. Don't think it tracks, for Hank to be quite that disrespectful.

After the funeral, or even before, but during it? Nah. Matt Fraction made a good few Hank characterisation choices I don't agree with, and this was one of them.

This felt a bit more apropos.

Remember what I said about how little moments build to dynamics between characters who have never been on teams together? I buy this moment so much more with the context of that moment from Endangered Species, where Kurt is literally positioned as the light trying to pull Hank out of the dark path he's following with obsessive fervour. The fact that he was trying went a long way. Hank felt it, even if he didn't take him up on it at the time. That moment mattered.

And that's why I absolutely buy Hank's reaction when Kurt came back to life.

Hank believes in Kurt. He believes the very best of him. On teams where Hank can often feel alone or isolated, someone like Kurt will reach out, and make him feel connected, and welcome, and pull him back. Temper his scientific pessimism and realism with optimism and belief. Restore his fervour, and remind him of simpler, happier times.

A lot of the best scientists, who have contributed the most to scientific inquiry, were religious, because for a lot of them, there's no real conflict between science and religion, they're both two sides of the same coin, in a way - a belief in a higher power. It's just how they react to that higher power that changes.

And while Hank was explicitly religious for a while, I always interpreted him as losing that faith over the years, becoming bogged down in the real over the sublime as what he went through wore him down. Someone like Kurt was able to spark that in him again. Maybe not his faith, per se, but at the very least belief in the human spirit.

It's important. As you say, massive benefit to each other's characters. Underrated dynamic, these two. Absolutely love 'em.

[saintofdaggers]

movie recs for Saw fans

Saw is a really unique franchise, for better or for worse, so finding movies with a similar aesthetic, theme or storytelling style is hard unless you're willing to dig into the really cheap ripoffs. well, I've been collecting movies that kind of helped the Saw craving, and here's my totally subjective rec list you can use as a reference point if you want to

The Collector and The Collection by Marcus Dunstan: these were written and directed by the guys who wrote Saw IV and beyond, so you're in good (?) hands here. the visuals and traps are distinctly Saw, and the second movie is giving Saw 3D if that movie drank a bunch of Red Bulls. make of that sentence what you will

Hard by John Huckert: an obscure thriller where a closeted detective has a cat and mouse pursuit with a serial killer targeting young gay men. very grimy, unflinchingly bleak and nihilistic. WARNING: this movie goes to some extremely unpleasant and upsetting places, so watch at your own risk

Pig by Rozz Williams: an art house short film where a guy in a pig mask tortures a young man in a desert. and that's it. this is pretty dreamlike and surreal and doesn't have much narrative substance, but I find it interesting to contemplate and it made me flinch more than a few times

Mindhunters: a bunch of FBI profilers in training get trapped on an empty island with a serial killer. this movie is completely ridiculous, but it gets pretty fun once the hilariously elaborate cartoon deaths start happening

X-Cross: Japanese action horror that's basically Fatal Frame doing Saw. weird editing, nonlinear storytelling, cool women, very ugly color grading. also a leg-cutting murder cult. hell yeah

Se7en by David Fincher: investigation, obsession, a dark urban environment, a serial killer with a weird method. it's considered a classic for a reason

the Broken short film by Nine Inch Nails: this is a music video that feels like a snuff film. it's disgusting, brutal, made me feel gross, and I gave it 5 stars on Letterboxd

Cure by Kiyoshi Kurosawa: think Se7en, but even colder and more mysterious.

Haze by Shinya Tsukamoto: this is one of the most claustrophobic things ever put to film. has some completely unbearable sound effects, but it's Shinya Tsukamoto, so that's kind of a given

Like Minds: an unhinged weird thriller about a psychologist trying to untangle the mystery of a high school boy's murder. very homoerotic, very weirdly structured and not exactly well-written, but the unreliable narrator gives a lot of food for thought

The Vanishing (Spoorloos): a man gets obsessed with finding his girlfriend, who disappeared mysteriously on a trip. this is one of the most chilling movies I've ever seen, with a genuinely terrifying character and an ending that took me days to get over

Cube: a bunch of strangers get mysteriously stuck in a labyrinthine structure full of lethal traps. it really gives Saw II but with a nice little sci-fi twist

Hostel and Hostel Part II: as an Eastern European, I fucking loathe Hostel and think it's very ignorant and xenophobic. however, the comparisons to Saw are pretty much inevitable, so watch it if you want and form your own conclusions (I haven't seen the second one, but I've heard it's quite good if you're into this vibe)

feel free to add your own recs to this post!

[therobotmonster]

Guys I think should be in MOTU: Origins

My love of MOTU Origins is not very hidden, and they've hit tons of great points, but there's so much further to go. So, here's my rundown of what I'd want to see joint the MOTU Origins lineup.

Section 1: Give it the Sun-Man Treatment.

Blackstar

The proto-He-Man of yore, Blackstar as an IP is probably well within the price range for Mattel to sweep up to sprinkle into the line the same way Sun Man's universe was.

For advantages, it's VERY aesthetically compatible and has several strong character designs. It's no more obscure than Sun-Man, and I want hordes of those imp-demons, damnit.

BraveStarr

Again, a no-brainer. Find the character rights holders, get the rights. New Texas is out there in space, use it as an excuse to do MOTU:Origins versions of the New Adventures designs ("space travel" He-Man) and Rio-Blast. If they already own all the rights then them not having already done this is toyetic malpractice.

Advantages are obvious. BraveStarr rocks. You have a POC lead hero, Tex-Frickin'-Hex, and Thirty-Thirty, who would be well worth the extra tooling to make a deluxe figure of (you can always do an upgraded Stridor repaint). You would scatter them through waves to keep from overloading with the Space Cowboy thing, but def a winner.

Also, Rio-Blast. Rio-Blast, Yo.

Skeleton Warriors

It was never strong enough to stand on its own. Give Skeletor some friends. 'Nuff Said.

One-Off Guest Stars

This section is a little different, as these wouldn't be permanent integrations, but more fun crossover one-offs rather than being a whole theme. Characters pulled from other Mattel-owned lines of the past:

Mojo Ken and Thunderpunch Barb-E

Here's the thing. This line is dead stupid, and should remain that way. Give Ken two heads (one 'bad' Mojo head and one 80s toy Ken style one) give Barbie weirdly plausible MOTU gear, the joke alone is worth the parts reuse. Best if nestled in with some Princess of Power characters.

Lets give Captain Power a hand, folks.

Its that live action TV show that interacted with the vehicles that landed in the uncanny valley between family TV and advert-traintment that never quite works!

Captain Power and Lord Dread are pretty much the only ones you'd want to hit, maybe the Soaron Sky Sentry. And really, they're not that hard to do. Captain Power could easily be made with Roboto legs and upper arms, any number of gloved hands, a new chest armor and a new head.

Any newly tooled pieces would be useful in MOTU movie and new adventure characters.

The Construx Alien demands your respect.

I know it makes no sense, I don't care, it's my list. He's amazing and needs to be big and buff with a weird hand.

Major Matt Mason has nothing better to do.

This set's a stretch, as it would require a chunk of new tooling, but again, maybe worth it for the New Adventures and She-Ra applications, plus hey, Astronaut prequel Biff Bestman, Evelyn Powers, and Captain Marlena parts!

He-Man's space-man friend is a role that could still be filled.

Next Up... Crossover Potential.

[glitteringcrab]

So I've been wondering who the Rick and Morty final villain/antagonist will be...

There are a few options:

1. Evil Morty

(NOOOOOOOOOOO I don't want it to be him T__T)

2. Rick Prime, revived/possessing Rick C-137/possessing Evil Morty

(I also don't like this option, I want him to be dead and gone, he's impressive but he's a jerk and deserves as little screentime as possible)

3. Puppetmaster Rick

(again, NOPE. He may be horribly dangerous but he doesn't deserve the screentime nor the importance of being the final, ultra villain)

4. One interesting option is Morty Prime and Rick C-137 having a falling out and e.g. Morty turning "evil" (but you know, not really, just in hurt teenager fashion) and trying to attack Rick, with Rick trying not to hurt him back...

(but honestly? I think Rick would just let himself get killed in this scenario)

(or maybe he'd desperately try to comfort Morty while Morty is trying to kill him)

(it would be so bittersweet)

5. The Galactic Federation, or its version outside the Central Finite Curve. We already know there is at least one tripping civilization outside the Curve:

And we know that, without Ricks' influence, technology has been advancing like crazy, everyone inventing portal travel and stuff.

The Galactic Federation could be A LOT more advanced and dangerous outside the Curve. They certainly have the manpower and resources to be the final antagonist... although I wouldn't really say they have the "villain" part nailed down. The Gromflomites aren't worse than any expanding civilization. As Rick said:

(plus their economy collapsed by changing a one to a zero lol)

Do they really deserve the honor of being the final boss?

7. There could be a completely new character. We know Rick Prime was outside the Curve...

...which means that the universes he was in had someone MORE INTELLIGENT than him. It could be more than one people (or not the same person in each universe) and I doubt all of them are nice and kind. So there could be a super-intelligent, power-hungry and bloodthirsty creature looming outside the Curve, and Rick Prime might have had a hard (but fun) time toying with them...

(Foreshadowing? Was said looming villain trying to catch Rick Prime to seize the Omega Device schematics for themselves? Did Rick Prime know that Eyepatch Morty having those schematics would turn him into a target?)

This option is very very cool, but I am slightly miffed that said supervillain would come out of the blue. I think it would be cool if we've had a taste of said supervillain beforehand.

8. With this line of thought, it could technically be either any introduced character who is already erring on the side of villainy (Churry? Mr Nimbus? Those are jokes...) or whose Out-Of-Curve version could be a lot more lethal (evil Mr. Poopybutthole? That's also a joke)

All these options, however, lack a certain je-ne-sais-quoi. They're small potatoes. I feel like we need something GRAND.

9. ...There is one option that fits the above criteria...

A character introduced early on and then forgotten, although I'm sure they were never truly gone from our memory due to the sheer impact they had.

Unique. Getting close and personal with the protagonists. Lethal.

A kind of creature never mentioned again, passing into obscurity, but still out there, waiting:

Does the wormhole it entered our universe through remind you of anything?

(Fart's wormhole is not exactly like the Central Finite Curve rift... No black hole in the centre. But it is kinda rift-like, ain't it?)

Rick was unfamiliar with this being:

Why had he never heard of it before? You'd think he knows everything worth knowing by now, and these creatures are definitely important for several reasons.

...Did it come from the other side?

Mind you, Rick never saw Fart's wormhole, and Morty never said anything about the creature's intentions...

...and said intentions certainly have the "villainy" part nailed down:

These beings been cleansing the multiverse of organic life this whole time.

And as we've seen, they're very effective:

(poor guy didn't even know these weren't his thoughts...!)

Wouldn't a collection of such beings be very, VERY interested in getting the Omega Device schematics... to aid with their cleansing?

(although would it really aid with the cleansing if they can only throw one person at a time)

And if they can construct materials out of thin air...

...would they also be able to construct complicated objects out of thin air? Like... screws? Knives? Guns? Circuits? Robots...? Weaponized robots?

I'm a bit skeptical about this, because if it was something Fart could easily do, he'd construct the necessary machinery for his survival himself. However, I wouldn't be surprised if a larger numbers of farts (lol), cooperating with each other, were able to do it.

(Or maybe Fart was just manipulative and laying low so the carbon lifeforms could do all the hard work for its sake)

Wouldn't these creatures' headquarters be particularly... alien to us, due to their gaseous nature?

And dangerous, if they can indeed materialize weapons, robots, shields, walls out of thin air? Imagine trying to escape or rescue someone from such a place, where the existing air can turn into something else, an open corridor can turn into a dead end, your weapon can run out of bullets without ever being fired.

(Ain't that a cool fighting location for a finale.)

And even if their ability doesn't extend to such extreme lengths, it's not unlikely that they can still build whatever they want, by a combination of endlessly creating their own raw materials and telepathically tricking other lifeforms into doing the menial work for them (wow, they really have good reason to think of themselves as the highest lifeform).

Wouldn't the creatures themselves be particularly formidable opponents, able to read your plans, predict your next moves, and project your own insecurities back to you, in such an insidious manner that you can't tell their thoughts from your own?

(Morty had to distract Fart by asking it to sing in order to kill it. He also took advantage of his wanting to protect other lifeforms to trick Fart into thinking he agreed with it. Pretty impressive, Morty. That's Eyepatch Morty level of cunning.)

Would these creatures essentially be able to build the whole Omega Device on the spot out of nothing... if they telepathically get the schematics from a certain someone's mind?

(Keep those creatures away from Eyepatch Morty)

(or not)

(Do you think they'd need Space Beth's rebel army as backup to defeat those creatures terrorizing the multiverse?)

(and then she can adopt Eyepatch Morty)

(ASFGFDSAFIFEIFOEWNOF)

(and then I will be happy forever)

(In theory, farts can also function as judges. Will anything change their minds about slaying organic life forms?)

Edit: I just remembered that these creatures can't go through a portal, so it should be hilariously easy to escape them. There goes my dramatic headcanon lol

[kuerie]

rocky and his water motif

ive seen a few people analyze rocky and his symbolism with water, and i thought id jump on the train and contribute what ive found. i looked through every piece of art in the gallery and messed around with the dead drop to find everything here! with that being said…

obvious spoiler warnings! and warning for a lot of speculation and over analyzing! a lot of things i mention are really big stretches but i added them anyways incase anyone else wants to look into it more

starting where the pilot starts and near the start of the comic (the page “lackadaisy dithyramb”), right off the bat we have an entire poem from rocky dedicated to the mississippi river. this iconic poem is literally just about the river, and he recites it in both scenes from on the bridge over the river.

note that in both cases there is also a crescent moon featuring in the background

more poetry! this one is from the comic on the page “lackadaisy doggerel”. this is actually one of my favourite pages in the comic, its very cool! we have this poem that, again, is entirely about water. it talks about water in a metaphorical way, comparing it to memory and the passage of time. maybe ill try to analyze this poem sometime but idk im not very good at that stuff. seems to talk about rockys past but im not sure

i didnt want to just put this entire page here but i will note that the page has a raging storm, an ocean, a water mill, another storm cloud and a waterfall all picured above rocky, who, in this case is ahem under water, in a way.

last bit of poetry im talking about is probably the most relevant. rockys feauture in the “lacrimosa” poem/halloween artwork shows him seemingly drowning outside a window.

the significance of it being outside a window is somewhat unclear to me, as every other character appears in something reminiscent of a picture frame. my only idea is that its meant to show him outside of what could be a home, in reference to him getting the “unceremonious boot”. the text emphasizes this idea, saying hes away from home

this next one is more obscure and much more of a stretch! after digging around in sketchbook pages, i found this tiny little sketch on a page simply labeled “lackadaisy preview 0018”. the sketch page features sketches that were used for the page “lackadaisy palaver” in the comic, and a few bonus doodles. this was one of the bonus doodles, and i cant seem to find a comic pannel that matches it anywhere.

this sketch could be a lot of things, its a bit hard to tell. most likely, its an unsused pannel of rocky that was going to be used on the comic page. maybe him on whe windshield, or something like that. that being said, the first thing i thought of was the lacrimosa art. its a stretch but i thought id add it, just in case! who knows really

next up is rockys character artwork, which features him standing on a barrel floating in a river.

be careful rocky, you might fall! one little detail about this art that i like is that hes quite literally hiding his sadness behind his back. and again, the crescent moon motif features in the background. the cattails in this image also remind me of this scene in the pilot

…but i mean cattails do grow near water so i dont think that means anything

speaking of the pilot, this scene has rocky accidentally blowing up a water tower and flooding the area, and getting a whole bunch of water dumped on him

be careful rocky, you might get hurt! ...i dont think he cares

one last note from the pilot (for now) is a line from mitzi after rocky comes back with alcohol for them. it could mean nothing, could be foreshadowing, who knows

note in the second image: “rest” as in the rest of the alcohol they were meant to bring back

the music video for liquid gold ends with rocky dropping a bottle and the golden liquid flooding the room

i wasnt even looking for water symbolism when i found this, i was just rewatching the music video for fun! i just about had a heart attack when it ended like that D: rocky please dont drown

back to the comics! sorry this is a bit all over the place. forgive me for just uploading an entire comic page, but the page “lackadaisy thunderhead” features rocky standing over a river. at the bottom of the pannel on the right there are daisys, a symbol that features in a lot of rockys artwork and is generally associated with the lackadaisy speakeasy. the daisys could just be for aesthetics or to frame the pannel better, but its also notable that they appear where the water is.

the name “thunderhead” is interesting given some other pannels

not sure what it means though

the very first scene in the comic aside from the introduction shows rocky at the river.

in the page “lackadaisy trouble boys” from the early concept art mitzi makes a comment about rockys aim, and makes an… interesting metaphor

side note: im gonna cry is that actually how rocky gets the little hole in his ear lmao

the mini comic “wilderness” has rocky climbing out of a small muddy pool of water claiming “the waters great”, despite looking absolutely horrible. isnt shown here, but he says he cant feel his legs and calls for freckle to come back.

knock knock! its time for the playing cards! rockys card depicts him as the 8 of spades, although hes also been shown as the ace of clubs multiple times.

first up, 8 of spades! i really like this art but i have a lot of questions. for one, why is rocky holding a shovel and whats with the lantern? theres nothing wrong with it, just caught my attention since i think freckle is drawn with shovels a lot more than rocky (might be wrong on that though) second, this is the only picture i can find where you can CLEARLY see rockys head injury healed. cool! third, the outfit hes wearing is… atypical for rocky, you could say. for obvious reasons. he always wears blue, why suddenly the change to black? and obviously, the choice of making him the 8 of spades. some quick google searches and this is what i found: from various websites (the first things that popped on on google), apparently spades symbolizes the winter season and the water element. it seems to represent old age, change, wisdom and acceptance. the number 8 supposedly represents victory, prosperity and overcoming. i was going to put images, but i could only have 30 and i ran out of space lmao im so sorry this is SO LONG djfjsjnrfj

make of it what you will. as for the ace of clubs:

my google searches were much less interesting so ill just put my own thoughts. the clubs is likely just for the association with the lackadaisy speakeasy, as in both of these cases he is shown alongside other characters from the lackadaisy and everyone has clubs. as for him being the ace, the main notable thing about the ace is that its generally the highest card.

the main idea i personally took from these cards is the idea rocky will possibly not be a part of the lackadaisy in the furure. we see him in his classic outfit, no head injury as the ace of clubs, with clubs being associated with the lackadaisy. but we also see him with a healed head injury (so clearly in the future) with a new outfit and no more clubs suit.

not sure if this is even notable but this entire (very iconic) scene in the comic takes place in the rain

be careful rocky, you might get shot!

and now, even more crescent moon motifs

so why have i been pointing this out? well its undeniable that rocky also has motif with this crescent moon. i have no idea what it means but heres my very quick five minute thoughts on it: one: the moon controls the tide. obviously a river doesnt really have a tide, but still! theres some association with water there, so its notablea. two: this might be a stretch but in the pilot theres this very memorable frame where it shows the reflection of the moon (which initially looks like a cat) ahem in the water. obviously water reflects stuff so its not abnormal for the moon to reflect in the water but i just thought it was cool!

aaaand last but not least

this analysis was brought to you while listening to hatsune miku, i probably made a lot of typos so yell at me and ill fix them but not my grammar its terrible and im not fixing that, lmk your thought and if i missed anything, thank you for reading have a nice day sorry it was so long <3

[phanboyo]

Okay I'm gonna rant a bit about the "Anti-Ecto Acts" trope for a minute so feel free to scroll past if you aren't interested but

It just feels so unnecessary in almost every fic it's used in. Like, okay, there's definitely some fun angst in Danny's existence being made illegal but people either take it too far or not far enough.

Okay, so when people find out that he is legally considered nonsentient and property of the US government for experimentation, they don't really do anything about that but get mad on Danny’s behalf. The only people who would hear about it and even think about turning him in are literal supervillains, why is Danny so worried about it, as if most humans go out of their way to obey obscure laws that require action. It's hard to find a person unwilling to jaywalk, let alone someone who cares about the law (and doesn't care about human rights) enough to actually figure out how to contact some hyper-specialized branch of the government.

It makes way more sense for it to be just a passing comment when talking about how obnoxious the GIW is. Like "oh yeah and they passed a law that makes my existence illegal, as if that would make them any less incompetent at ghost hunting haha."

And then when the Acts actually become a problem? Just let any random character know and suddenly its been repealed and the GIW is under investigation and the bad people are in prison and everyone lives happily ever after as they work through their trauma together <3 You know what would actually happen? A few puppets would be arrested to make it look like the courts are actually taking action, effectively nothing would change, except the public would incorrectly think that they saved the poor mistreated ghosts from the bad guys. If he were in their facility, Danny would disappear to a new facility with even less of a trace than before, and if he weren't, he would still be on the run and the GIW would be after him all the same, just as willing to hurt and kill people to get to him as when they were "government sanctioned."

My biggest issue with the Anti-Ecto Acts? Why on Earth would the GIW even pass them? You think the US government isn't ready and willing to break the law and commit unthinkable human rights violations at the drop of a hat? Even if they "snuck it in another bill" (which. What.) Drawing any attention to their organization or even the existence of "ectoplasmic entities" is incredibly counterproductive for their goals. That's why they're called the Guys in White. They don't give out their organization name because it's so secretive that it's even questionable whether they actually have any authority at all (and that's a point that I wish people explored more often, the possibility that the GIW isn't even part of the government at all), or if it's all just empty threats. If people go on thinking that ghosts aren't real, that's all the better for them. Can't commit moral attrocities on creatures that don't exist.

I could go into it more, especially when it's used in crossovers like DC or Marvel where there are existing enhanced/metahuman rights politics but really, the Anti-Ecto Acts being used as an actual plot device almost never makes any sense.

[most-datable-datable-bracket]

ROUND 3 MATCH 22

Claude propaganda:

"To say Claude has trust issues is an understatement—you have to spend half the game earning his. (Claude isn't even his real name!) Once you have it, though, he's absolutely ride or die for you until the stars go out. He is so full of heart and ambition: He wants both sides of his heritage to get along, he wants to open borders and eliminate xenophobia and promote equality between commonfolk, and deep down, I think he craves a partner to stand with him at that new dawn, or an equal who sees his vision for the future and will fight for it just as hard. Nobody believed in him when he was a kid, but if you put your faith in him, he'll return it tenfold. Some people don't like that he's calculating, or has to leave the player character at the end of the game to go back to his homeland, but both are necessary elements for his goals to change things. He will always come back, and everyone who bets against him and his love for his companions is wrong with a big fat W. #KhalidForMostDatablePrez"

"Claude is a fun little onion of facades. He calls himself the embodiment of distrust, he acts like he's carefree and without worries, an unscrupulous schemer--and so many in universe buy into that hook line and sinker. He's used to others viewing him with suspicion and uses it as armor to obscure his not-so-dark truth: that he cares immensely, that he values minimizing the loss of life, and that above all he has so much hope that people will fundamentally choose to do better given the choice.

His front guards a center that his conflict filled world would be happy to tear apart. As the child of people from two nations in constant conflict--one of which is explicitly isolationist and dehumanizes those outside its church's reach--he hasn't really had a place where he can be without his facade. As a child he thought he could run, but when confronted with the fact that this hatred existed no matter where he ran, he chose to instead try to create a more just and kind world.

His inability to let others in beyond his facade at first may lead to a sense of distance, but isn't it then all the more satisfying when you're allowed in? All he wants is a little trust, a little faith, and--like what he wants to give everyone--a chance to be better.

And like that you got a charming young lad with a fun personality that your grandma would be thrilled to have stay forever."

Hades propaganda:

“Fields of Asphodel is a work in progress (but nearly finished!) text-based IF game where the MC plays the part of Persephone (you can rename your character tho) who get married to Hades at the behest of Zeus (being a giant douchebag per usual) and move to the Underworld. Hades is kind and respectful and cares deeply for his realm. He feels guilty that the MC was forced into this arranged marriage and does whatever he can to make the MC more comfortable. Even if the MC wants to leave, he puts the MC's feelings first. He drinks that respect women (gender neutral) juice everyday. Listen, this marriage is arranged by Olympus King Dick Zeus, so Hades has absolute zero problems if the MC dates someone else from his realm. Choose someone else's route (if you can!) He has the cutest kid, Makaria and of course everyone's favorite puppy Kerberos. Hades is a slow burn, he dodges and swerves the MC's flirting, pretending to be oblivious. He's not oblivious at all to the growing feelings between the two and that's what makes it sooo good.”

[tj-dragonblade]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. spread the self-love ❤

Thank you! This is such a hard question! I love most everything I've written, picking favorites is hard, I swear it would be easier to name the ones I'm least thrilled with lol. And just because most of these are Sandman doesn't mean I don't care about my older fandoms either, just that almost always what I'm happiest with writing is going to be the most recent years. Maybe one day I'll go through fandom by fandom to pick a top three from each, or something. But for now! In no particular order, and after much thought, here we go.

When the Chips Are Down from the tail end of my Saiyuki days, published 14 years ago this month. It's comical crack-treated-seriously based on an obscure canon-adjacent factoid and that sort of thing has never been my forte, but I succeeded admirably here if I may say so. It was a joy to write, Jiipu is my favorite and forever under-utilized in fic so centering this around him, around a ridiculous tidbit of info about his counterpart in the original Journey to the West and telling it in his pov was absolutely delightful. I had so much fun writing this one and I'm still so proud of the character voice work I managed in here.

The Thessaly breakup fic from fluffbruary 2023, which I like for having a semblance of plot and because I see lots of talk about what Hob would think of Thessaly but I don't know if I've run into any other actual fics dealing with it. Not that this is the Hob-gives-Thessaly-a-piece-of-his-mind fic that I think we all need, but I'm still very pleased with it. And I just really like the scene of Dream crying on Hob.

Of Cutoff Shorts and Classic Cars. I'm just. So happy with how quickly this one happened, how much it kept growing in the writing and how it turned out in the end. I also laugh at myself for nitpicking over the right British terms for back yard and driveway and such but then I completely spaced using bonnet instead of hood. 😂 Also fun fact this was my first time ever writing oral with a vulva and I'm very pleased with how well it's been received.

The Keeper and the Traveler currently sits pretty high because I've always loved and wanted to write that fairy-tale narrative style and this got pretty close. I don't know if it will still be in my top five by the end of the year but for now, it is.

And lastly will cheat a smidge and say Cruise Ship Boys, because I love both pieces of the 'series' and can't decide which I like better. The porn piece again happened quickly and wrote easily and I'm delighted with how it turned out. The sequel was meant to be one cute-ish little scene to revisit them but snowballed into a whole depressing backstory for Dream and an illuminating look into his everyday life and again, it wrote easily which seems to be a theme with these faves, lol. But yeah. I would love to come back to this AU one day.