#those are the main things i think. there’s a few other things i like but not enough to note here i think

[keferon]

Chapter 2 of Blurr storyline >:D

“Actually” says Swerve ”I'm an alien.”

“Heh” giggles Blurr ”sorry, my head is all cloudy, I thought you said you were an alien.”

Part one

Holy shit I actually managed to finish it…..Oh. My god.

Under the cut⤵️

Is it stupid to miss someone who doesn't even exist?

Probably yes, but hey, Swerve already has several degrees, might as well get another one. A degree in Stupidity or something. Who cares?

For the first few days after waking up from his coma, he feels like he's going crazy. Everybody has realistic dreams, right? The ones where you can scrutinize every angle, memorize every face and smell and sound. The ones that make you lie still for a while after waking up, grasping at every thing you can. Trying to memorize everyone you meet, imprint them in your head.

Because apart from your mind, they don't exist anywhere else. So that's your only way to keep them.

It never works. Obviously. Details slip away. Impressions fade. Just a couple days, and you won't be able to recall anything but the main events from memory.

Wait, hell, not days. Cycles.

His life is a weird, pathetic, fantastical circus. Earth term. Heh. There are no circuses on Cybertron, haha!

But Swerve remembers. And the word circus, and the smell of asphalt, and rains that were made of water not acid. Remembers the English language. Can speak it fluently, even if you wake him up in the middle of the night.

Remembers his work schedule and remembers which company makes the best details. And Tailgate with his bright blue uniform and Wheeljack with his endless experiments and Swindle with his expensive coat and of course...yeah, no, don't think of Blurr, don't think of Blurr, don't. Don't.

He'd heard about it. Read about it, too. Mechs waking up from comas and doing wild things. Some forgot how to speak at all, some gained a new skill, some lived a whole life while they slept.

Articles tell Swerve, don't worry, what you've experienced isn't unique. The doctor tells Swerve that the same thing has happened to others before you, it will be okay, it will pass.

Swerve isn't sure he wants it to pass.

He's been in a coma for who knows how long. The medic said it was caused by an internal trauma that decided to suddenly get worse. One minute he's recharging , the next he's gone. Internal injuries are insidious.

So it turns out. One day he just disappeared from the world because he was busy slowly dying in his room and no one noticed until a thief tried to sneak in. The only one who came to him was a Mech who wanted to steal his stuff. Huh.

That feels revolting. Swerve liked to think he had enough friends. Or at least enough good connections. Enough those who should have noticed his absence, right?

Apparently not. His shifts at work were reassigned, his contacts never texted him first, his...

His small persona wasn't important enough for anyone to notice his disappearance.

Would his human coworkers notice? Would Tailgate have noticed? Or Jazz? Swindle?

Jazz would have noticed, he was always surprisingly attentive when it came to his friends. And he was friends with just about everybody.

Swindle would probably get upset about the money he'd lost.

It's amazing how much his brain-- wait, no, his processor. How much his processor could create to entertain him. It's a more elaborate world than the most complex series Swerve has ever known. And that scrap had forty-six seasons and fifteen encyclopedias!

People, Earth, a bunch of new languages and rules and all for the sake of the end being like, OOPS! ...it was all a dream. Hilarious. Worst plot twist ever. Swerve hates it when stories go in this direction even more than when they kill off their characters.

In his humble opinion, death is better than the revelation that none of the experiences made sense or had any value. In terms of writing scripts obviously. Haha.

He's busy roaming haphazardly through his own memory. He's looking, comparing, trying to find inconsistencies or things that don't make sense. All the stuff that usually gives away the fact that what happened was a dream.

Most of his memories are occupied by--No. Frag.

Don't think about Blurr, don't think about Blurr, don't think..

He's thinking about Blurr. A lot.

Blurr occupies a surprisingly important role in his comatose dreams.

In the time he spent just looking at him, you could hand-build an entire Mech. Maybe even three. Swerve remembers picking up every bit of merch he could reach with his paycheck. Watching hundreds of videos and buying every new themed drink even if it was a flavor he didn't like.

Then spent a surprising amount of time resenting Blurr for not living up to his fantasies.

Blurr's behavior hadn't helped either, of course, but now, looking back at the past himself Swerve thinks that.. Oh wow. You weren't just annoyed at him. You blamed him for ruining your beautiful fantasy. You were having so much fun entertaining yourself with thoughts of this marvelous image, and he came along and corrupted it. Poisoned the well you drank joy from.

But that's not quite true, Swerve thinks.

Blurr was more complicated than that. But exactly how, he'll never know. All he has are his memories, and those memories are cut short at the most interesting point.

Swerve knows this plot twist. The asshole character that no one loves at the last second turns out to not be what everyone thought, but it's too late.

Oh no, he's not an evil jerk, he's actually traumatized. Oh no, he wasn't bad, he was actually secretly helping everyone. You thought he was awful? Well now you're going to feel awful reading fanfics.

Serevus Spayne didn't actually betray the main character's dad, no no, he was in love with him! Bam. Drama.

Swerve isn't a big fan of this stuff. He likes his characters developed properly. But he can't deny the appeal of a character leaving behind a bunch of questions you thought you knew the answer to.

Uggh.

The doctor was wrong. These thoughts don't go away. These memories don't dull.

Swerve just boils in them, constantly getting stuck in his own head. Sometimes he puts English words into his speech and everyone looks at him strangely. Sometimes he reflexively says some inside joke and no one gets it and he's left standing there with an awkward smile. Because. Guys, you don't understand, if my coworkers were here they'd think it's hilarious. I promise, in my fantasy world, it's funny.

When he gets a job on one of the Autobot ships, he accepts it thinking it might be a good distraction from his thoughts.

When he happens to see Prowl with a tiny human on his shoulder in the corridor of that ship, he thinks he's lost his mind.

The whole thing. The whole load-bearing structure on which his picture of the world has been held suddenly gives a lurch. Living your life in a super realistic dream is wild, but meeting a character from your dream in real life??

Freaking cursed.

Jazz looks puzzled by his reaction, but all Swerve can think about are two things.

One, if Jazz is here, does that mean everything else was real, too???

Two - holy shit, Jazz is tiny.

It never occurred to him. But he didn't really know what size humans were. Well, sure, he could measure it in numbers. But he was among humans himself. And about the same size. He was generally even shorter than most of them.

If Jazz is so small, he can't imagine how tiny Tailgate would be. Or--

He can feel his spark freeze. In fact, he can almost hear the sound of a string breaking in his processor. Does that mean Blurr is real too? Real and just as tiny and currently dead? Because Swerve was there but was too convinced it was all just a dream to help?

He's going to get sick.

He needs to talk to Jazz right now.

____________

Swerve taps his fingers nervously on the countertop. Come on. You're good at talking. Talking is your greatest skill. All you have to do is tell someone else about your comatose hallucinations and hope they don't think you're crazy.

They're sitting at a table at the bar. More specifically Swerve and Prowl are sitting at the table, and Jazz is sitting right on the table. (God he's so small).

“So uh. I got injured a while back and...uh...well, it got worse, turned out important systems were affected and I kind of. I was in a coma. For a really long time.”

Jazz frowns

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

He speaks in a mildly wonky Common, Swerve notes to himself. He waves his servo a little too cheerfully in response.

“'Ay it's no big deal really. I saw a whole other world while I was asleep and like. See, I thought it was just my fantasies, but it seemed very real and...”

Swerve mentally crosses his fingers.

“And it was about this planet called Earth and about people who were building their own inanimate huge robots to fight huge aliens and their boss wanted to launch Mechs into space, so he picked the best of the pilots named Jazz and sent him on this test mission and...”

Jazz looks at him with huge eyes before switching to English in surprise.

“Mech, what the hell?”

“...And we lost him...” finishes Swerve with a sad smile.

Before thinking for a bit, and adding.

“I'm going to show you a trick I can do.”

And then projects his holoform onto the table in front of him.

This. It's weird. Not in a way that would tilt it in the direction of unnatural. More like walking around in his comfy indoor pajamas right in the middle of the street. Being human is familiar to him, but being human amongst huge Cybertronians? Strange. And a little creepy.

Prowl looks confused.

Jazz looks absolutely frantic.

“SWERVE????”

Swerve doesn't even manage to respond, only to smile in relief before Jazz rakes him into his arms. In his holoform, Jazz feels right again. He's taller than Swerve and oh boy, he's alive and unharmed. To think everyone thought he was dead, staying up nights trying to find what was left of him, and he was on the other side of the universe the whole time?

Swerve chuckles into Jazz's shoulder. Then picks him up and spins him around a couple times just because he needs something to get his energy out. Man, it's nice to hug people. Warm and soft, eight out of ten.

Jazz pulls away but still stays standing very close. Swerve can literally see the happy stars in his eyes.

“Dude, I'm not complaining but what...how???? You just kinda..."

Swerve laughs and twitches his eyebrows playfully.

“I still speak English, you don't have to torture yourself with Common.”

“Oh thank fuck.” Jazz throws his hands up dramatically “you're my favorite person right now.”

There is a polite click of the vocalizer resetting above their heads.

“I” Prowl says “very glad you two are happy but I'd like some explanation”

Swerve presses his head into his shoulders guiltily. Prowl has the unique ability to always sound like you've done something wrong in front of him.

Although Jazz doesn't seem to feel the same way?

“Short version - I sleepwalked my holoform to another planet.”

He pauses dramatically.

“The long version is...”

Jazz raises his hand

“What's a holoform?”

Swerve sighs.

“It's a holographic avatar that I can project using a holomatter generator. Sort of like a remote controlled game character.”

Jazz whistles impressed. And then immediately turns back to Prowl

“Have you been able to do that all this time too?“

Prowl hums

“I can create an avatar, but it takes a lot of practice to make it at least believable. And to fully perceive the world through it takes even more. It's a whole new technology. What Swerve does is essentially an art form. Sophisticated and impressively detailed may I add.”

Swerve shrugs shyly. He's still using the holoform to stand on the table next to Jazz. Looking up to speak to Prowl isn't exactly comfortable, but Jazz definitely looks like he's been missing the human presence. Swerve isn't human, but he might as well be.

“Thank you. Yes! Uh. Anyway, it seems while I was in a coma my processor projected my avatar onto Earth and I...let's just say I lived there for a while.”

Jazz laughs

“Dude. So you're telling me you were basically sleepwalking the whole time?”

“ I was.”

Prowl frowns.

“But the range limit of the holomatter generator is only four hundred miles...”

“.... I had a lot of practice...”

Jazz claps his hands.

“You learned a whole other language! Got an ID!. You had a job!!!”

“I got carried away,” Swerve admits.

Jazz scratches the back of his head, still looking very amused

“How many degrees did you get? Haha wait no, I have a better question, did you pass your driver's license?”

“Two. And I failed my driver's exam.”

“Dude you are literally a car without a driver's license!” collapses Jazz on the table with laughter.

Swerve blows the hair out of his face

“Says you who retook the physical several times. You couldn't pass the "being human" exam.”

Jazz just wheezes incoherently in response. Prowl looks alarmed.

“Don't worry, that's him getting excited. So...where have I been...”

Swerve nervously shoves his hands into his pockets

“...Do either of you two know where Earth is?”

Prowl twitches his door wings

“No. Since Jazz was teleported we don't have much clues.”

Swerve grimaces. Scrap. Of course nothing's going to be that easy. He's also been, like,....teleported.

He stands there for a couple minutes and just feels fifteen different emotions rise up in his head at once. A crooked, unsteady smile creeps across his face.

He's thinking.

Oh hell, yeah! I knew it wasn't a dream!

Then he remembers the mess he left behind.

Oh, no, it wasn't a dream.

Jazz puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Swer... Swerve? Dude, are you okay?”

“Ah frag..” Swerve says weakly ”it wasn't a dream.”

Jazz looks...puzzled.

“Is that bad?”

Swerve remembers his friends. Remembers the Mecha program. Remembers fire and smoke and screams and rumbling and crackling flames. Ashes flying through the air and the smell of burnt wires. He remembers blood and debris and...

“It's...complicated.”

This wasn't just a stupid plot twist he'd dreamed up because he'd watched too many shows. This wasn't a hallucination or a disembodied fantasy that just happened to linger in his head. This was real. His friends exist out there somewhere. His work and his collections and his little apartment...

And Blurr. Was real. Or still is? Swerve doesn't know. Blurr wasn't a product of his imagination. He was real and what he did was real and Swerve left him there alone, bleeding and trapped in rubble and tiny and...

Hahahahah oh fUCK.

He doesn't like this plot. It's too much. Too much to handle, too complicated, too ambiguous.

It's also probably too late.

But he can't leave it like this, right? Blurr went into the damn burning building just because of the possibility that there might be someone alive in there.

And Swerve doesn't even have to go through the flames. He has to look. He has to try at least.

Jazz glares at him with a worried look on his face

“ That expression you have...”

Swerve puts the smile back on his face.

“I need to get to Earth.”

___________________

Swerve is not an idiot.

Or maybe more accurately an idiot, but with several degrees.

He's well aware that finding Earth in space with only a description of it is impossible. Which leaves him with two options.

Ask the Quintessons. Or look for it himself.

The first sounds like death. The second like coma. Swerve has exquisite enough taste to know which is better.

He just needs to do some preliminary reserch.....

Jazz, now back inside his Mech looks doubtful.

“You're not going to die suddenly and for no reason, are you?”

Swerve laughs.

“Pfffff what, no of course not, would I kill myself hah. No no, look I'll just put myself in stasis for a bit. Send myself to Earth. And try to figure out where it is from there. Get the coordinates. If I'm lucky, I can see what Space Bridge the local Quintessons use. All you'll have to do is wake me up after a while.”

“It's not harmful?”

Swerve makes an uncertain gesture with his hand...servo.

“If I have enough fuel. And an additional connection to an external generator.”

Jazz tilts his head

“ Why are you so eager to get to Earth? Don't get me wrong, I miss it too and want to go back, but.”

Swerve bites his knuckles.

“ I have some unfinished business?”

“Pshhhh you sound like a ghost.”

Swerve only laughs in response.

_______________

Concentration is tricky.

Swerve tries to think about Earth. And not to think about the fact that he doesn't know where it is. If he's already been there once, he might as well go there again yes? In theory? Perhaps?

Except for the possibility that his sleepwalking just takes him to random planets. That would be very inconvenient. It would be a whole new level of lost

Shit. No. Earth. Think Earth.

What's he even gonna do when he gets there? How far away is it? Swerve is very talented with his holomatter generator, but if it's really far away... maybe he should reset some settings.

He mentally starts going through his options. Does he need tangibility? Probably not. Come to think of it, it would only make him more vulnerable and take a lot of energy. Yeah, the tangibility has to go. What else? Touch, too. Sight and hearing should stay, that's not even a question, but colors and textures are not really necessary.

The amount of detail and picture quality can be reduced as well. His holoform will become colorless and grainy and will probably ripple with static, but he'll survive it.

After he finishes making changes to his holoform he thinks about his old stuff left in his house. Then about the posters. Then reminds himself that he needs to focus on the goal or he'll never find Blurr and...oh FUCK his phone! Where was his phone when he disappeared? Was it found?? There were so many personal things on that phone, he's hoping the phone was burned under the rubble. Either that or the arriving investigators will find his browser history and he'll go into another coma from pure embarrassment.

He blinks dazedly when he realizes he has loads of rocks in front of his eyes. Oh..Did he screw up? Did he end up on the wrong planet? Is it a cave or--

Then he notices the odd shape of the “rocks” and. Oh, no. It's not a cave. It's charred concrete debris.

This is the place where he was last.

He hastily looks around. Anxiety creeps up the back of his neck, makes him feel like something slippery and cold is crawling over his skin. There is nothing but ruins all around.

Blurr is not here. The place where his Mech was lying is empty.

Which means he was at least found and dragged out. Dead or alive.

Swerve's bites his knuckles. Okay.

All right.

He's got things to do.

_______________

He's trying to stay out of sight. Which isn't hard, considering he's just a hologram. At first, he just sneaks around in the quiet areas. Then proceeds to do a facepalm and start teleporting. Think, Swerve. Did you read all those comic books for nothing? Superheroes who couldn't really use their superpowers creatively always annoyed him. And he does, in fact, have a superpower. Gotta get creative, right?

He stops and looks at himself again. His holoform is going static and is a dull white color. He thinks for a bit, and then shrinks himself. Thinks some more, and makes himself almost transparent. There's no way he could pass as a normal human right now, so he'd better just do his best to avoid being seen by anyone.

He looks around thoughtfully. Hmm. Even if he's going to be absolutely tiny, he needs to make sure no one sees him, otherwise the whole base will think the Quintessons are now spying on them through holograms or something.

Breaking the rules feels...it's exciting.

All his ..human life here he hadn't thought about it, but if he threw away the rules he was used to about what people could or couldn't do...

He looks up in a sudden rush of sly genius. All people look under their feet when they walk, but how many look up? And how many of them notice the barely visible tiny holoform hiding just behind the blinding lamps?

The answer is probably none.

Swerve projects himself onto the ceiling and mentally pats himself on the shoulder for his impressive intellectual accomplishments. A creativity degree should definitely be a thing.

A degree in spying on the Quintessons' ships wouldn't hurt him either.

Fortunately sneaking onto their ship turns out not to be that difficult. Swerve makes himself absurdly tiny and hides in the darkest corners that no one would ever think to look into. Why hasn't anyone thought of using holoforms for spying before? Could he be the first to think of it? He doesn't know, but he mentally decides to patent the idea.

Finding the Space Bridge is surprisingly easy. The local Quintesson fleet is clearly used to being the dominant force in space. And that's generally logical. Even if humanity collects a mountain of money from somewhere to throw a dozen Mechs into space - there will be thousands of monsters waiting for them. In such a situation, you don't have to hide, the guards are enough.

Well done, well done, don't hide, Swerve thinks, copying the coordinates and address of the space bridge to himself. You have absolutely nothing to fear here, he thinks, so stay where you are and don't move. Please and thank you.

Once the coordinates are obtained, he... has some freedom to explore. And he uses it for probably the most boring-sounding thing in the world. He returns to his usual workplace.

It’s simple. As damning as the Mecha program was, Swerve loved his job in it. He loved his position in the assembly shop. And he missed his friends.

He quickly teleports through several rooms, continuing to hide close to the lamps. Tailgate is here. Alive and unharmed. Wheeljack is too, though his face has some scars added to it. It's great to see them again, even if he can't talk to them right now. No one will probably react well to a grainy unexplainable hologram. He's just glad to know they're okay and honestly, the last thing he needs is paranoid Onslaught installing extra signal jammers.

It takes time to find Blurr. Partly because Swerve is terrified of what he might find if he started looking. So he goes to check the death lists first, and only after flipping through and re-reading them three times does he finally exhale in relief.

Blurr's name isn't there.

So his smug, shiny ass must be around here somewhere.

He checks the hangar. Flips through the Mech launch logs and feels an uncomfortable knot begin to form in his chest. Blurr's Mech has never been repaired or launched even once since the incident. Its plating has been replaced with new, well polished, and put in a prominent place where anyone who wants to can take a picture of it. But all the internal systems are destroyed. This machine hasn't been used for anything other than being a beautiful exhibit.

That's...something's wrong.

He checks offices and schedules as well as eavesdropping on a few conversations and ends up secretly following Swindle, who is arguing loudly with someone on the phone. He says something about deals and how he doesn't need anyone meddling in his business. Then he talks about how he's got everything under control and the person on the phone is “a dumbass who's making drama out of nothing” and that “he doesn't need anyone's handouts". Then he sighs and says, “you know how celebs are. Dumb and dramatic. You can't take their words literally.”

Then drops the call and for a couple seconds looks like he's just had a large bill taken right out of his hand. Curses again, but in a quieter voice. Leafs through his contacts and stops at the one signed 'free ice'.

“Blurr? Where are you? Wha...ah, no wait. No, the advertising agency called. No, liste...Can you shut up for one second?Where are you?

Uh-huh....... Uh-huh.Okay.

Give me half an hour...okay, yeah.”

This is it, Swerve thinks.

He shrinks himself further and teleports under the collar of Swindle's coat.

He wants to take a look. Just. Just a peek. Make sure everything's all right. Then he can go about his original mission in peace. He watches Swindle get in his car and drive off somewhere. Swerve doesn't recognize this part of town. The houses here are much nicer than where he lived. The streets are cleaner.

He tucks himself further under the coat collar. He's not going to be a stalker or anything, but he's worried and he doesn't have time to wait for Blurr himself to show up for work. Just one little look and that's it.

Swindle's car stops outside a beautiful, shiny hospital. Swerve nervously tries to bite his knuckles, but remembers he's disabled touch in his holoform. Shit? Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shi

Blurr looks like a mangled corpse.

Okay, not really. His left side that faces the door to the hospital room looks like a mangled corpse and that's the first thing that catches Swerve's eye when he's inside.

Blurr is pale and thin and his hands are covered in bandages. The left side of his face has been turned into an absolute ugly nightmare. A piece of his ear is missing. In the place of the left eye is a creepy empty hole.

Suddenly Swerve realizes why Blurr didn't show up for work. You can't even show him to his coworkers like that, not just to the public.

Blurr turns his head and the spell breaks. His lips stretch into a cocky smile.

“'Got bored without me Swindle?”

Swindle doesn't show the slightest emotion at the gruesome sight. He casually pulls a chair over to the hospital bed and sits down.

“Shockwave is trying to sneak a new project into the program. And he's slowly swaying investors to his side, using you as an excuse. Tells everyone you're a poor martyr he can save if only he's given the green light from above.”

Blurr wrinkles his nose.

“Not that he's wrong. The doctors say I need to pick a new career because with this...” he jerks his head to the left implying his damaged half, ” neither racing nor piloting is an option for me anymore. I'm out of your project.”

Then he stops talking for a few seconds and raises an eyebrow curiously.

“You wouldn't have come here in person just to say that. Why are you really here?”

Swindle adjusts his glasses

“Have I ever told you why I made the contract with you?”

“Because you like money” Blurr says without hesitation.

Swindle lets out a quiet chuckle.

“Fair point. But money wasn't my only priority.”

He pauses for a second. Gets up. Draws the curtains in the room. Checks to make sure no one is outside the door.

Goes back to his seat.

“You didn't see what the Mecha project was like before. Brutality and absolute disregard for human rights multiplied by a thousand. People were desperate and no one cared to maintain any decency.”

He raises his hand when Blurr rushes to say something.

“No no, listen to me. If you think things are bad now, you're right. But it used to be much. Much, much worse.”

Swindle sighs and adjusts his glasses again

“Vortex was taken as a boy. He wasn't even out of high school when they shoved him into the lab. Me and Onslaught were pulled right out of the college exams. The others were no better, although they were usually a little older. My point is that it was allowed. It's what the superiors could do and no one told them no.”

Blurr tilts his head and gets a little all turned around to see Swindle better with his right eye.

“But you... found a way to change that, didn't you?

Swindle rubs the bridge of his nose

“I have no power over my own superiors. But Onslaught and I have come up with a plan. Look. I'll put it in simple terms for you. Above me is my boss, and above him is another boss, and so on but at the very end of that chain are people from the government. The investors. So we figured out a way to cut through the chain of command and influence them directly. Make them worry about us. It's a kind of social shield. Onslaught is a genius.”

Blurr blinks.

“Why are you telling me all this.”

Swindle takes off his hat and just. Crumples it in his hands. The back of his head shows numerous scars and the glint of tiny metal implants barely visible behind his hair.

“You're that shield right now, Blurr. You can't leave.”

Blurr's eye widens

“Is that why you insisted on ‘befriending’ me with all those bullshitters?”

“I needed to make sure that in their minds we weren't just a military unit. To keep them thinking that we're as human as they are. So I gave Project Mecha a face.” He tugs on the hat again, “Your face.”

Blurr runs his fingers through his hair

“Shockwave can't do whatever he wants cause...because of me his efforts would risk going public and people wouldn't like it and it would ruin the reputation of our investors-and-they'd-cut-off-his-funding.”

Swindle puts his hat back on.

“Exactly.’ That's why he's being so persistent right now. He knows you're vulnerable and he wants to capitalize on the opportunity. Make you part of his new project and tell the world about it. Make publicity his weapon, too.”

The lamp above them flickers faintly. Blurr takes a breath. Long and tired and exhausted and. a bit doomed.

Swindle puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Please. Don't leave. At least not now. And don't let Shockwave get to you. That would open the way for him to get to the rest of the pilots you represent.”

They just. Sit in silence for a while. Blurr quickly taps a finger on his knee. A rapid tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

Swindle moves his hand away and gets up from his chair.

“There's a press conference coming up. I need you to be there. I've told everyone who needs to know that the problem is exaggerated and you're fine but they need to see you.”

Blurr smiles sourly.

“My lawyer is going to charge you such a handsome sum for that stunt.”

Swindle laughs, but his cardboard advertising smile doesn't reach his eyes.

“We’ll see about that. Seriously though. I need you there.”

Blurr bites his lip.

“I..don’t know...”

Swerve...doesn't know what to think of that.

Blurr shows up for the press conference. Late, but he makes it. Just as Shockwave is presenting his new project in his amazingly well-pitched voice. Blurr swings the door open and waltzes lazily inside, skillfully pretending not to notice the many cameras and eyes instantly directed at him.

Swerve, whose memory is still fresh thinks for a second that no, no this can't be the same person. Past Blurr looked like a wreck. Past Blurr was tense and tired and hunched over. Present Blurr couldn't look more alive. His shoulders are squared proudly, there's that cheerful springiness and grace in his stride. He moves with ease and confidence. Smoothly.

The left side of his face is neatly covered with fresh white bandages. Carefully, without leaving the even the slightest gap through which his injury could be seen. His hands are hidden under a fancy jacket. He smiles wide and bright and squints playfully toward the table.

The very embodiment of nonchalance. The few pilots sitting in the audience roll their eyes.

Swindle breathes out a barely perceptible sigh of relief. Swerve, once again using Swindle's collar as a tactical cover, can't help but let out a silent triumphant laugh. Maybe slightly more nervous than he is supposed to be.

Blurr sends Swindle a sly, sharp smile and even knowing it wasn't meant for him, Swerve feels his cheeks heat up.

Ah, damn it.

Swerve breaks the rules. He tells himself that peeking is fraught with consequences when it comes to military organizations, but he can't stop himself from being curious. And from worry, too.

And now that he knows where to look, he sees things he'd rather not see.

Blurr ... is crumbling.

Swerve doesn't know all the details and consequences, but that incident did leave a mark.

But every time Swindle calls him and says “I need you at some place in two hours” he gets up and assembles himself into a human being. Like a goddamn puzzle. Tapes and covers the burned half of his face. Covers up the bruises and hides the stitches. Fixes his hair and sets off on shaky legs to pretend he's fine.

He smiles so bright and carefree, laughs so sweet and beautiful that no one would ever think that even standing up sometimes hurts.

And continues to act like a jerk of course.

The only difference is that this time Swerve mentally gives him the presumption of innocence before he starts judging.

Blurr does a lot of things that seem rude. He also does a lot of things that are actually rude and figuring them out without resorting to alien superpowers would be nearly impossible.

When the pilots see Blurr sitting right on the table while negotiating with investors, they roll their eyes and make comments about his terrible manners. Or when he stops showing up for even the most basic, rudimentary training.

Or when he develops that stupid habit of leaning his elbows on people standing next to him.

It's the model behavior of a rich, spoiled brat.

It's also an inconspicuous way to stay upright.

Employees say “that dumbass has never heard of personal space.”

Investors say, “I think he likes me.”

Blurr leans on Swindle's shoulder and through a charming smile says “Don't move or I'm gonna fall.”

Swindle also keeping up the smile discreetly holds him back, pretending it's a friendly half hug.

Swerve feels like yelling at both of them, but he's not sure what for exactly. For one thing, Blurr in his condition is very VERY VERY contraindicated to even get out of bed, let alone participate in social activities.

On the other hand, without Blurr, everything is going down the pit.

Without Blurr, all the government sees are dry reports and spreadsheets. Without him, all the high command has is numbers and a sense of impunity. Swerve is sickened by how easily people tend to forget that numbers represent other people.

Most pilots are able to draw a parallel between deteriorating working conditions and Blurr's sudden fondness for staying home instead of working. But they think the rich jerk got scared and ran away. Considering the way Blurr has always behaved at work - Swerve can't even judge them too much for it. They assume Shockwave getting more freedom is the cause of Blurr's absence, not the result.

Blurr's influence only becomes noticeable when it slowly starts to fade away. It's like switching from expensive tea to a cheaper one. The awful flavor only becomes noticeable in contrast.

Blurr doesn't lead the development of new technologies or go out to fight in the field. He doesn't make plans and reports, he doesn't participate in drills, he doesn't cover anyone's back in battle.

But he's the one who puts his hand on the government's shoulders when they're about to sign the next piece of paper. He's the one they have to look in the eye before they have a pen in their hands and a document authorizing Shockwave to stick more needles in people's brains.

It makes a difference. Small one. But still.

It turns a disembodied imaginary “combat units” into a tangible person.

From “do you want to accelerate the combat training of new soldiers” to “are you willing to tell the living, breathing guy standing in front of you that shoving poison under his skin is an idea you approve of.”

More importantly (And Swerve actually admires Swindle for this) Will you be able to explain anything to your families later on, when this same guy is on TV all over the country saying that's what you did to him?

There have been two fronts here all this time, Swerve realizes.

While the pilots were protecting people from monsters wearing teeth and armor, Blurr was protecting the pilots themselves from monsters wearing ties and lab coats.

After another conference, Shockwave stops Blurr in the hallway.

“Good show.”

Blurr laughs. Soundly and proudly.

“Thanks darling~ Sorry I interrupted you. Your speech sounded like something important, but I don't really know much about nerd stuff.”

Swerve, hiding on the ceiling again, snorts.

Shockwave doesn't move. Doesn't give any indication at all if he's offended or upset or whatever.

“It must have been hard getting here with your injuries.”

Blurr shrugs and lazily turns his head around distracted.

“It's just a few bruises here and there. Not the end of the world.”

Shockwave nods slowly. His voice and posture and all, Swerve thinks, looking very uncomfortable.

“Of course it isn't. But hardly good for your career.”

Blurr freezes.

No, Swerve thinks. Shit. No, don't listen to him, don't listen to him, don't listen to him, don't

“Your brilliant achievements have always been a source of admiration to me” continues Shockwave “it would be a pity to lose them.”

Blurr makes an indifferent face and tucks his hands into his pockets.

“Like I said. Not the end of the world.”

Swerve imagines choking Shockwave. Dropping a lamp on his head. Maybe jumping on top of him himself. Shut up, he thinks. Shut up, shut up, stop fucking talking.

Shockwave with a nice, slow gesture pulls out a notebook from somewhere and flips a couple pages.

“Multiple burns, cracked ribs, poisoning from carbon monoxide and combustion products of toxic chemicals...”

Blurr visibly shivers and looks away.

“...loss of vision on one side...” Shockwave continues reading, ”and partial hearing loss. Finally, the impact of neural link malfunctions. And this, if I'm not mistaken, is on top of the already existing memory problems?”

Shockwave takes a step closer. Not fast enough to make it look threatening, but enough to hover.

“It may not be the end of the world, but it is the end of you.”

He writes a set of numbers on the same page, tears it off, and hands it to Blurr.

“You are broken. I can fix you.”

Blurr frowns, but takes the piece of paper.

“That fixing would involve giving you consent to mess around with my head, wouldn't it? It's brave of you to think I'd go for that.”

Shockwave tucks the notepad into his pocket.

“I can assure you, neither I nor anyone else is interested in your brain. I just want to give you back what you're truly valued for.”

Blurr flinches.

“I don't need your help.”

“ If you say so,” Shockwave agrees easily. Nods, slowly and smoothly. Then starts to walk away “But you do need your fame.”

...

“By the way, you might want to wipe the blood off.”

Blurr waits until Shockwave's back disappears around the corner, then quickly pulls a tissue from his pocket and brings it up to his nose.

____________________________

Swerve wakes up looking up at the ceiling of his room. The high, metal ceiling, of a metal room on a metal spaceship.

Holy shit...

Jazz pokes him gently on the forearm

“Are you alive? You've been gone for like quite a while...Did it work?”

“Hey Jazz” frowns Swerve “what do you know about Blurr?”

Jazz laughs

“What are you fanboying over him again? Still??? Dude's smug and arrogant. Good boss though. I was hired to perform at his parties before I became a pilot.”

Swerve sits up and rubs the back of his head.

“Ah...”

“So it worked?”

“Wha...ah! Yes! Yes, it worked! I managed to get the number and codes from the space bridge the Quints used on you. We just need to find another space bridge and we'll have a pretty much direct route to Earth...well. Or rather, to the Quint ship that's located near Earth. You get the idea.”

Jazz rubs his hands together happily.

“I'll take it.”

Swerve jumps to the floor and heads to grab an energon cube. Man, these holoform exercises are burning energy like crazy.

He stares at his metal hands like an idiot for a couple minutes. Just...Contemplates how non-human they are.

He has eight fingers again instead of the human ten. Huh.

Prowl downloads the information he's gotten and immediately runs off to plan a route to the nearest working space bridge and for a while Swerve is just.

Left to himself.

He tries not to think about Blurr. What would he even say to him? Hey, look, I'm sorry I accidentally set you up, see, I'm actually an alien who was sleepwalking and thought you were fictional, surely this won't affect our non-existent strictly professional working relationship? Nah, screw that. If he's going to sound crazy, he needs to at least come up with a good presentation for his insanity.

....

Is it weird to think humans are beautiful if you're not human? If you're kind of human, but only in your soul and only half human?

He looks at Jazz and Prowl.

“You two get along really well.”

Jazz chuckles, sitting on Prowl's shoulder.

“Right now, yes. But we got on each other's nerves quite a bit when we first met.”

Swerve looks up at Jazz's chattering legs from his height and thinks. This is working somehow.

On the other hand, Jazz is the exception rather than the rule. He's friendly with everyone, he's easy to get along with, he's the soul of any company and most importantly, he was a little too much into robots before he discovered they could be alive. If anyone could find common ground with the Cybertronians, it would definitely be Jazz.

_____________________

”Are you a ghost?”

Swerve shrieks in fear and gets covered in static. He hadn't planned on talking. He hadn't planned on being noticed at all. Blurr was supposed to be asleep! And Swerve just wanted to close the curtains and leave, because there's some noisy party going on outside and bright illuminations are very bad for a patient already suffering from neural connection withdrawal.

He freezes in place like that dude from Jurassic Park. Like if he's still enough, he won't be noticed. Oh, or was that from another movie?

“I'm just uh” he awkwardly reaches up and closes the curtains “Lights. Bad for...you...now.”

Blurr chuckles. It sounds suspiciously joyful. His whole posture and facial expression. He looks very relaxed for someone who had a ghost materialize into the room out of thin air.

Swerve traces the line of the IV with his gaze. Oops, that looks like painkillers.

“Yes I am. Uh. A ghost watching the curtains. And now the curtains are fine, so I guess I'd better go?”

Blurr squints amusedly.

“You can walk through walls?”

“Uh, I can teleport into the next room?”

He backs up his words by making himself disappear and reappear in another corner of the room.

“Cool!” says Blurr cheerfully.

Swerve is involuntarily infected by his mood and makes a couple dramatic bows as if he were some kind of magician.

“ Show me more?”

“Hehehe okay eh” Swerve spreads his arms like he's presenting something and then makes himself the size of a soda bottle and teleports to the edge of Blurr's bed “Ta daaaa~”

“Wooooo look at you, you're like an action figure~”

Blurr immediately makes an attempt to touch him, but fails to reach and drops his hand back on the blanket.

Swerve chuckles and steps closer. It's funny to see the usually incredibly agile Blurr struggling with something so simple and ridiculous.

“They really drugged you huh?”

“It's not the drugs” snorts Blurr ”...it's my eye.”

He raises his hand once more and hesitantly pulls it towards Swerve until it bumps into his hair

“... depths Per…percen.. ah, shit. I can't tell how far away things are.”

Swerve just. Lets Blurr fidget at himself, while starting to feel really bad at the same time.

"If you can't tell how far things are, how are you going to drive?

Race???”

He must have a plan right? Something? Let’s-prove-Shockwave-wrong tactic???

Blurr drops his hands back on the blanket

“I won't.”

He freezes when the all too close fireworks rumble outside the window. Then points to his head.

“With this. I can't drive, I can barely walk at all, and I look like horror movie material. Pathetic heeh.”

Swerve sits down quietly cross-legged on the blanket.

“Well...at least you're alive....”

Blurr shakes his head.

“If I had died, it would have been epic. You know? Dharm...dramatic! It would be big news and everyone would be talking about what a hero I was or...or something...”

“...”

“Swindle would be so angry, but he'd figure out a way to make money out of it. He'd make a commercial about how people should be heroes. I'd be remn..remembered for being cool and brave and stuff.”

Fireworks can be heard from the street again. Swerve notices that there is a thin slit between the closed curtains through which a slim, flickering strip of multicolored light streams into the room.

Blurr frowns and leans back against the pillow, looking up at the ceiling.

“I've turned into a boring wreck. My records will be beaten, my career forgotten , and all the guys from work will remember me as a brat. In a--in a--in a way, it's worse than death. Shockwave's right.”

Swerve isn't sure what exactly would be an acceptable gesture of comfort, so he kind of just. Places his hand on the blanket covering Blurr's lap.

“Hey, don't say that. I think what you're doing is great.”

“Liar” smiles Blurr crookedly ”You hated me. I saw your posters collection.”

Oh shit. The ones he ripped off the walls and destroyed in a fit of fan frustration? He didn't even hide them, just shoved them in the back corner. Aw, man...

Swerve folds his arms awkwardly across his chest.

“I can be mad at you and think you're cool at the same time. I'm a multitasker.”

“You're a very specific kind of ghost.” says Blurr. Then, apparently inspired by the painkillers, decides to drop the conversational equivalent of an atomic bomb on Swerve's head “You died because of me?”

Swerve stiffens.

“I...Wwhat?”

“You know.” he makes a gesture with his hand that's ..unclear what it's supposed to mean. “You were working there with everyone else, and then there was that fire and I was sure I saw you down there under the rubble.”

He's silent for a couple seconds before he hesitantly continues

“And then no one could find you so most assumed you either burned or ran away. And now you're here with all your weird ghost stuff, so you must be dead.”

Swerve has.No idea what to think about it. And what to say? He's been so busy blaming himself for Blurr getting hurt that it hasn't occurred to him to think about what it looks like from Blurr's own perspective.

“Actually” says Swerve ”I'm an alien.”

“Heh” giggles Blurr ”sorry, my head’s all cloudy, I thought you said you were an alien.”

Swerve wants to run around and bang his head against the wall.

Instead, he gets up from the hospital bed. Carefully.

“You're high. I'm not going to explain things to you while you're high, you won't understand or remember them. Go back to sleep. It's the middle of the night.”

“You'll tell me later?”

Swerve hums quietly and pulls the curtains all the way closed.

“If future, sober Blurr would want my company.”

---------------

Jazz looks at him. Very intensely.

“Are you going to tell me who this mystery person you keep coming back to Earth for?”

Swerve snorts.

“What makes you think it's anyone in particular?”

“You're right, you're right~” raises his hands in surrender Jazz “So are you going to tell your friend the whole thing?”

Swerve crosses his ..metal arms over his metal chest.

“Is it that big of a deal? He thinks I'm a ghost or something.”

Being a ghost...somehow better, he thinks. If you're a ghost, it kind of automatically implies you're human. Or was a human.

“Sooner or later, he'll put the facts together~” says Jazz in a chant.

Swerve laughs.

“That's unlikely. He's got a pretty bad memory.”

_______________

His plans to stay out of anyone's sight combust with a dramatic pop the next time he projects himself to Earth. He doesn't plan to interfere, he doesn't even plan to linger. He just wants to see what's going on.

He actually just quietly sneaks into the hospital to make sure nothing's happened to Blurr since last time, but when he finally finds him then...oh shit, is that Pharma in the same room with him??? This can't be good.

They don't speak, but Pharma has clearly locked his eyes on Blurr and starts making his way towards him with the relentlessness of a industrial metal press.

Swerve does some rough math in his head. If he briefly gives his holoform back its detail and voice, will that be enough to fry his processor? He's not sure.

Pharma gives a believable impression of a shark getting close. The staff, as if sensing something untoward is about to happen, leaves the room in a hurry.

Blurr looks indifferent, but Swerve's attention is drawn to the way he squints tensely. Man, the lamps are too bright in here.

Pharma smiles sweetly and reaches out for a handshake

“Mind some company?”

Swerve's mental processes fly out the window. Oh no no. Not Pharma. Not in his fucking fanfic. He quickly changes his work clothes into a slightly more business-like looking shirt. Thinks for just a moment and adds a cap to his head to blend in more strongly with the attendants and hide his face to an extent. And then projects himself around the nearest unoccupied corner and runs out of behind it looking as anxious as he feels.

“Blurr!!! Sir, there you are!!! I've been looking everywhere for you!”

Pharma wants to say something, but Swerve doesn't even let him start. He stands in front of Blurr separating him and Farma expressively waves his hands trying to keep his head down.

“The guys you were talking about didn't bring the new hydraulics! It's a disaster, we'll have to use the one on the old models!”

Blurr, to his surprise, backs up his act almost instantly

“Really? But I thought there was nothing to take from the old models?”

“That's exactly the point! I got the paperwork this morning and...oh those assholes are going to screw it up if you don't step in as soon as possible!”

Pharma tilts his head

“Can it wait? We were actually talking here!”

Oh no, thinks Swerve I'll show you who's talking.

“Sir, no offense but this is a matter of extreme urgency. Are you implying that the safety of your patients is not important?”

“What do you mea...”

“Old faulty hydraulics, that's what you want?” raises an eyebrow in horror Blurr.

“No I'm just...”

“I had a better opinion of you, to be honest.”

“I...” opens his mouth Pharma “...WHAT...?”

Swerve shakes his head.

“And I thought his profession was to help people, can you imagine?”

“Wh..”

Blurr rolls his eye.

“Any idiot can get an important position these days.”

“Wait..”

“Tell me about it. Especially doctors.”

Pharma looks like he's about to start pulling the hair out of his head.

“Can at least one of you shut up??”

Swerve adjusts his cap in a businesslike manner

“Sir, I understand you're a bit detached from reality spending so much time in your department, but you need to take better care of your reputation.”

He raises his eyebrows knowingly

“Wouldn't want the rumors about you to turn out to be true. You know what I mean?”

Pharma doesn't even answer anymore. Pharma just looks like a discarded fish.

“…..Wha....there's rumors?”

“Of course” shrugs Swerve ”Ask Norman, he usually knows everything about everyone. And about your interesting tricks with safety, too.”

He leans in conspiratorially, effectively pulling all of Farma's attention to himself

“So if I were you, I'd stay out of any more things you don't understand.”

Pharma wants to say something. Swerve can tell by the look in his eyes. Pharma tries to come up with a witty and context-appropriate response, but this whole conversation has no more context than a typical episode of Teletubbies.

“Where does this Norman guy work?” finally finds the ground beneath his feet Pharma

Swerve shrugs.

“Block C, if he hasn't been transferred yet. He's already been fined several times for spreading harmful information you know? The guy can't keep a secret.”

Pharma throws his hands up angrily and storms away. Probably looking for context. Or revenge.

A quiet cough sounds behind Swerve's back.

“So. Should I be worried about Norman's health?”

Swerve feels the hair on the back of his neck shiver and slowly turns to face Blurr while still looking somewhere on the floor.

“Uh...only if you're concerned about the fate of fictional characters. I made up Norman's wife, she'll be upset if he gets fired for gossiping.”

Blurr chuckles. Then goes silent. Then, after a couple seconds, starts laughing again. That's a good look for him, Swerve thinks. It's not like Blurr's usual velvet-smooth laugh that he uses at social events. It's more like a quick, jerky giggle, and in Swerve's subjective opinion, it's pretty damn cute. He can't help but grin.

Blurr snorts one last time, cutting off the laughter.

Then he reaches out his hand to him.

Swerve reaches back, expecting a handshake, but Blurr ignores his hand and instead goes for his cap and lifts it by the brim.

Swerve, not expecting this, freezes with his hand outstretched.

Blurr freezes as well, still holding the cap in his hand and looking...like he's rethinking his life. A little.

Ugh, and how to explain it all to him....

“Uh...you...uh...probably don't remember me. I...it's...”

Blurr shifts his gaze from Swerve to the cap in his hand. Then back to Swerve.

“You're real???”

Swerve awkwardly waves his hands in front of him

“Ah not.., not really. Do you know why Pharma was looking for you in the first place? He doesn't work with patients anymore, he's been reassigned to the research department, right?”

Blurr shrugs.

“Last time I saw him, he said I might have implant rejection in the third ..uh..what? stage? or something? I think he's trying to get me in for a checkup.”

Swerve twitches.

“Third??? How are you still standing???”

He then quickly reaches up with both hands to Blurr's head and tilts it so he can see his face better. Using one thumb, he pulls his lower eyelid slightly and mentally catalogs. Temperature normal, pupil normal, eyes are steady, no darkening or trace of blood on the eyelid. Implants? He puts both palms up and gently feels the places behind Blurr's ears. No signs of rejection or malfunction.

“No no no” sighs Swerve ”You're fine, it's only stage two. I mean, second sucks too, migraines and all, but you just need to rest and no bright lights and...” he finally notices his hands are still on Blurr's head and pulls them back as fast as if he's been burned ”I MEAN I'm uh...sorry, I didn't mean to, I...”

Blurr laughs quietly.

“I'm glad you're back.”

_____________________

He wakes up in his quarters and can feel his face burning.

When he goes out to get the energon, Jazz throws him a look.

“Is something wrong? You're all kinda...shaky.”

“Hhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuu” imitates signs of life Swerve “Say, doesn't it bother you that Prowl isn't human?”

Jazz smiles

“ Oh, I went crazy when I found out. But we figured it out.”

“Like...on a scale from ‘bad grade in school’ to ‘an asteroid is coming to Earth’ how crazy was it?”

“Worried about what your human friends will think?”

Swerve swings back and forth on his heels

“Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff. Whatnooooo, no of course not. I'd be worried if I planned on telling them at all.”

Jazz frowns

“No offense, but keeping secrets isn't your strong suit.”

“Haha” Swerve waves his servo “ Watch me.”

[warblogs17282]

Now that helluva boss season 2 has hit it's finale, let's discuss everything we know about season 3 at this point in time!

aka, a comprehensive list of everything about season 3 that we've been told about so far. (Please tell me if I've missed anything, thanks!)

I do not think that any of this information necessitates a spoiler tag on this post, but if you want to go into season 3 completely blind, click off this post now.

Bluesky Stuff:

What we learned from this bluesky thread posted shortly before Sinsmas was released is as follows:

The wait until Season 3 starts will be quite long.

The team decided that helluva boss having closer releases of episodes was the best decision (heard this meant a month in-between episodes but I forgot where I saw that), so thee team wants to commit to a more traditional release going forward.

Confirmed once again that season 3 has a total of 15 episodes.

We will also be getting shorts in-between the wait until season 3 starts, and I assume this means monthly shorts as well, based on the fact we had monthly shorts last time as well.

Vivziepop has also described season 3 as a 'queer roller coaster.', so we gotta be prepared to get back on that ride again.

At some panel it was confirmed that in season 3 we will be getting an episode that contains some more Millie backstory.

Tweet link here:

In some other panel, alongside confirming Vassago's appearance in the Mastermind episode, they also confirmed that we will be seeing 'much more' of Vassago in season 3, the post in the picture above contains the clip of this moment in the panel as well.

In what appears to be a recording for the second half of season 3, they're doing recording work for a Stolas song titled 'Dirty Bird', and yes, it is going to be super horny. There is a video of this Instagram post on the post below, plus one extra screenshot.

In the Los Angeles Comic Con 2024, quite a few things were revealed to us, with those being as follows:

As said before, this traditional release schedule does mean that the episodes will hopefully be a month apart from each other, and that Vivziepop saw the show was moving towards a more narrative direction, with this also being where the heart of the show is, and as a result, the direction the team is going in.

Lastly, we probably won't see all 72 Goetias, but we will see a lot more of them in season 3.

Post referenced in above screenshot contains a youtube link to said Comic Con.

According to the reblogs under this post, it appears that Erica (Loona's VA), was asked what her favorite song/episode was, and she responded with 'the song that Loona has in season three', confirming that Loona does have a song during season 3.

Video can be found within this post:

At 1:06:19 of this video, Vivziepop does state that the show will eventually get to Stella's perspective, which I have to imagine the show will get to in season 3, and that Vivziepop hearkens Stella's character to the character of BoJack Horseman's mother (Beatrice Horseman) because they are very similar in that regard.

Finally, Vivziepop posted these screenshots of her doing some audio editing to her Instagram over a year ago, we don't know what episode this is from but based on the long name in line 7 that doesn't appear to match any character we know at the moment, this appears to likely be a picture of some season 3 audio.

The main things we can gather from these screenshots appear to be Millie talking with Stolas a bit, and the absolute explosion of voices following something that Blitz said.

Post where I found these screenshots from can be found here, some additional discussion regarding is also in the reblogs:

This YouTube video covers a few instagram videos covering recording footage that Vivziepop uploaded to her account, with them being from the first half of season 3.

What we learn from these instagram videos is that Wally Wackford returns in season 3 with some new lines, and there's also a courtroom scene as well involving Blitz and Stolas, with it also looking like Stolas will be acting as defense for Blitz regarding something we don't know at the moment.

To wrap things off, I believe the next significant reveal or such regarding season 3 will be found in the 2025 LVL UP EXPO, as there are quite a lot of VAs involved with Helluva Boss there, plus Sam Haft and Vivziepop.

Especially considering that in the 2024 LVL UP EXPO, the first helluva boss short was shown, we got the song featured in s2 e8, 'When I See Him' and the season 2 trailer.

[greenmango-kai]

lmao it's okay, I didn't mind the wait

spoilers

He's definitely not the best, but if you think of all the leaders that have been in power, they're not great either so compared to them senkuu is amazing. Senkuu cares so much about his friends (Tries to get Chrome to stay behind while he get the acid so science doesn't disappear, Saves Ruri (someone he's never met because he sees how much she's liked, for his own selfish gain but y'know, point stands)

I'm pretty sure he was the actual club leader in school before the petrification lol

Ryusui probably has more experience with leading larger groups (the Nanami fishing school, can't remember the name sorry)

When I was reading this I was definitely thinking of the 5 generals, they definitely counter and neutralise (words?) the others flaws, I think in the future the main village, KoS and TE will be like the worlds government or something like that which will be good because they've experienced things most people haven't (if the world comes back, not many people will experience the stone world)

I also feel like when Senkuu realises the Legal system is so messed up, he's going to rebuild the whole thing just so Hyoga and Homura get the sentence they deserve ("Do I have to do everything now? This is 10 billion percent boring.")

I Loved treasure island and I love that Hyoga respects women (That's what I took from him fighting Moz instead of Senkuu)

I've never actually read the manga, I'm an anime watcher (I'm sorry) I've been meaning to get the manga because Sai is just a little guy, I have seen a few panels online but I haven't seen it. However, I do want to see Taiju and Yuzuriha actually start dating because those two are perfect for eachother.

I'm happy talking about anything, I really don't mind :)

*eats a chip (crisps or fries) before handing them both back to you*

Happy holidays <3/p

Your honor they're homosexuals

[bunnwich]

Why Leona Gave Himself The Bad Ending

Leona Kingscholar Analysis

Usual disclaimer to say that these are just my thoughts and you don’t have to feel pressured to agree. This was my thought process as I played through the parts of Chapter 7 Parts 212-226, featuring Leona’s dream triggered by Malleus’s magic.

--

I wanna start off by saying that I believe all the dreams are a mixture of Malleus’s magic and the dreamers themselves. 

Idia theorized that Malleus is sort of “setting up the parameters” in a way, then each of the dreamers' personalities and imaginations affect the dream in different ways. The emphasis of this has been brought by Idia several times that it’s the strength of imagination that determines how complex dreams are. Which is maybe why in the first years dreams seem so basic? They’re young, their magical abilities are still new, and their magic is no match for Malleus’s magic. That and, to be fair, most of the first years don’t have the same amount of angst and turmoil as some of the other second years and third years have.

With that being said, I believe that because of his high intelligence, magical prowess, and his hyper-vigilance, that is the main reason Leona’s dream was so…different than the others.

But let's get into it!

There are a lot of Lion King references in this dream, and it’s very clear the writers wanted to play around and show this off. I feel like they did a good job of integrating the themes of the movie into Leona's dream. It does give me a little validation as I feel Leona’s struggles and personality are closely linked to his great Seven Counterpart, Scar. More so than any of the other overblotters. When I analyze Leona I sometimes I do use Scar as a starting point to understand his intentions.

This is how I came to the conclusion long ago that being king would never make Leona happy because it's not what he truly wants.

We start with the dream back in the Sunset Savanna. It’s VERY interesting to see that there is hyena prejudice right off the bat as a woman flees from Ruggie while he attempts to buy food. 

Right off, everyone can tell something is…off about the city. Especially coming fresh from Ruggie’s dream where everything was idyllic and happy for hyenas BECAUSE of Leona.

Grim hits us with the: “I laugh in the face of danger!” line. We even get the three hyenas referenced and the “love for you to stick around for dinner” line. The once proud lioness-dominated palace guard has been taken over by hyena “ruffians” (interesting choice to portray a disenfranchised group being given jobs as the new guard as a negative thing, but moving on.)

The first interesting thing we get is that the palace is somewhat rundown and empty? The group makes comments of how dark and dreary it is, and how few people are around. Is there an implication that the servants fled at some point after Leona became King or did he replace them? This further shows me that Leona for whatever reason has chosen to isolate himself. To me, it's most likely that he already feels isolated by his country and those in the palace.

From the looks of it “Malleus’s magic” has given Leona the one thing he has always wanted, but has he? Leona seems less than thrilled and genuinely upset by the fact his whole family is...gone. As I mentioned in my Leona relationships post, I think that he holds a complex relationship with his family, and while he resents them, in no way can I see him wanting them to be dead. 

It’s now I started to think that Leona’s magic was overriding the simple “let them eat cake” logic of all of the happier dreams. This dream feels TOO real, dark, dreary, and…sad. Could it be Leona’s intelligence or cynicism, ruining what’s supposed to be an idyllic scenario?

Why is even in his WILDEST dreams Leona is still miserable?

Hmm.

A lot of people have talked about Kifaji and their thoughts on his presence. It’s strange to see people praise him as “a loving parental figure” as if he’s really there trying to help Leona. But, Kifaji is not there. This Kifaji is a manifestation of Leona’s mind and I’ll get to why that’s interesting and what I think he represents. Remember, that often in other dreams we’ve seen of loved ones or rivals and they can act normal, out of character, or even cruel. Vil and Neigie come to mind and Neige turned out to be the blot keeping Vil asleep.

Kifaji is a bit different. He actively tries to help the group wake Leona as opposed to encouraging the twisted dream logic. For this reason, to me, Kifaji represents Leona’s conscious and the Dream!Leona we see represents his shadow self, like the dark side of the moon. AKA, the Leona we meet in Chapter 2. In fact, this whole dream feels like a rehash of Chapter 2.

We get the outdated Leona that dumbs himself down and settles for less, cloaking himself in his pride and believing that everyone is below him. An idle king while he lets others do his dirty work. (Scar basically.)

Leona asks Kifaji to sing (another Lion King reference) and it plays out how you would think. Leona tells Kifaji that he is the only competent person in the kingdom. And he argues that the kingdom is in shambles, not because of his choices as King, but because everyone else sucks basically.

Hmm. 

Kifaji reminds Leona that while he is clever and his plans are grand, that he can not treat people like human chess pieces. (Can I just say I love when chess is brought up to us because I find that when people analyze Leona or his thoughts they often forget how much he uses chess to process his thoughts. We saw that plenty in the Tamashina Mina event!) I think it helps him sort his thoughts and emotions which he can have a hard time doing.

I think Kifaji represents Leona’s mindset post Chapter 2 and because Kifaji in his real life is one of the only people who probably stands up to Leona, he has placed him in this antagonist role in his mind. (but not really) Plus, it’s not far off from Kifaji’s actual treatment of Leona in the Tamashina Mina event.

So yeah, Leona acts more like he does in Chapter 2—he's the player or the king even and everyone else around is just lowly pieces.

Just like the scene from The Lion King, Scar and Leona are not happy. Even though they are supposedly getting their deepest desire, they remain bitter and…alone. 

When I first began to read into Leona it was quite obvious to me that the whole “I’ll never be king" thing was just a front for something else. What I think Leona truly craves is approval and acceptance.

Being king, especially of a broken kingdom that despises him, will never make him happy. But, why do the people not love him? This is supposed to be a fantasy right?

There is this interesting layer of how he became king too. Instead of Cheka or Falena simply not existing, like I thought it might be, they are dead. That is…so much more tragic than it needed to be. As if deep down Leona believes the only way he can become king (his dreams to come true) is if tragedy happens. This reminds me of his bitter view/the symbolism of his unique magic. That he can only bring misery wherever he goes—everything he touches turns to sand. 

I also think that Leona is afraid of failing and much of this dream is his anxieties and insecurities that linger from all his past failures.

Though interestingly enough, I sense that in the dream, as implied later by Idia, Leona has implemented an “over-exaggeration” of his policies and plans for the kingdom. It was almost like he purposely ran his resources dry and gave up trying to compromise with anyone for the sake of “progress.”

Why, though?

It’s very masochistic in a way. It’s almost like he wanted to prove himself right. Everything he touches will turn to sand eventually and his grand plans will fail even if he claims they are “perfect.”

That’s why this dream is probably the most masochistic and self-deprecating we have seen. I think what initially began to draw me to Leona’s character is because of the hidden pain he holds. He is by far one of the most easygoing, and lackadaisical acting of the cast, but…he cares, he cares so, so much about how he is perceived and his haunted by his hopelessness about his future and the failures of his past.

I think the pain of never feeling good enough, causes his mind to be unable to “play nice” with Malleus’s dream magic to even manifest any sort of positive future. One where he holds a position he wants AND is loved and respected. it’s just impossible that he could ever have that, even in his wildest dreams. 

He’s too much of a “realist.”

Side tangent, but a frustrating take is to see was the: “Oh yeah, see? He would have sucked as king.” tinged comments after this came out.

 I think it’s more complicated than that. 

This isn’t me trying to defend him necessarily, but to be fair, all dreams tend to be over exaggerations by the dreamer. Plus, I think the fact that Ruggie HATES Leona in this dream and is suddenly in favor of Falena, is a sign right there we can not trust Leona’s interpretation of the people he knows in his dream. He is sort of an unreliable narrator that way. 

Besides, like in The Lion King, why would all the water dry up, just because the hyenas over-hunted? 

A big theme in Lion King and even The Lion Guard TV show is "the balance of nature." The blight upon the Pridelands when Scar takes over feels more like symbolism of the “unbalance of nature” caused by the tragedy of Mufasa’s death. Which makes me again, connect that Leona feels the only way he can succeed is by inflicting misery on others. Like his magic, perhaps a part of him believes he is a curse. 

I theorized in my Tamashina Mina review, that maybe Leona feels like an outcast himself, and the separation he feels from his country is showcased in how he blames the citizens for the decline of the kingdom, rather than his plans. He feels isolated from them.

By this point, I was having flashbacks to Chapter 2, where he got a whiff of his plan failing and he still pushed through even though he knew it would fail. At first, he may have started doing okay as king, but maybe when he came upon too many obstacles or pushback, He just gave up. Because he was not instantly loved by the people, who probably already feared him, he’d rather not even try. Suddenly, they are “not worth his time”, and he can’t help them because they suck.

Leona’s problem has always been his pride. I think he has to put it aside to genuinely help people reach their potential and learn to collaborate with others more. Part of how this dream plays out, is him realizing that maybe some criticisms Kifaji had about his pride all along may be true. Leona refuses to play nice with others. 

That’s why I think Kifaji represents a more sensible and lucid Leona. He is in a sense, talking to his past self, and trying to shake himself from the dream and his outdated ideals.

Ortho even points out that Ruggie is not really the Ruggie we know but rather a part of Leona’s imagination. Again, which puts emphasis on how the characters in his dream are more indicative of his mindset as opposed to being “in character”. Maybe Ruggie hating him in his dream is his inner anxieties about him and Ruggie post Chapter 2 fallout. He feels like Ruggie could never forgive him for what he did. He let him down. And Leona being bad with people and feelings, doesn’t know the proper way to apologize.

Kifaji (woke Leona) says that the state of the kingdom is a result of him “pursuing efficiency over all things and disregarding other people's feelings.” It really feels like he is calling himself out here. Does he REALLY wanna help people? Or is it just Leona’s selfish pride who wants attention for just being smart?

Dream!Leona complains about the protesters interrupting his nap which is another sign for me of the exaggeration of the scenario of Leona being the king. Like...did he not criticize Falena for having the same carefree and laid-back attitude? And yet here he is...complacent in the same behavior he once criticized Falena of. 

Interesting.

Ortho mentions that Leona’s dream is clearly a more complex situation than the other dreams.

I think there is a key implication we are missing here too, that I haven’t seen many mention. There is a throwaway line that Jack mentions that Leona has not attended school and is king instead. And he doesn't seem to know Dream!Ruggie either. Nor Ruggie him.

There is no doubt his time at NRC has shaped him to be the Leona we know now. Someone who has at least somewhat benefited with the connections he made at school. It does seem like this Dream!Leona is regressed. And because he never attended school, he is a much colder person who has no regard for others' feelings at all. He is even more socially inept.

I feel like this is a common theme to show us that despite the independent nature of most of the students at NRC, that it can still be “the friends we made along the way.” trope.  These connections do matter and especially to Leona. He mentions this in his post-overblot monologue in the light novel. He found his pack at NRC.  This time with his dorm members affected his personality for the better. It's kinda sweet when you think about it!

Ortho mentions Dream!Leona appears DEEPLY absorbed in the delusions of his dream. This means that even though he has the lucid failsafe of Kifaji, Leona’s self-deprecation, despair, and pain are still overtaking his logic. That's what's crafted this nightmare. (And he later references it as such.) 

Everyone acknowledges that he can’t possibly be happy and looks EVEN MORE miserable than at school. It can't be a silly happy fantasy, but a grim dark reality of what he thinks of himself. 

That's why he gave himself the bad ending.

I love the double entendre of Idia saying Leona is building his dream like a “sandbox” game. Lots of Minecraft references. (Leona Minecrafter confirmed? Or hear me out…Leona playing King Crusaders or Civilization V FGHJ)

Anyways, Idia or Ortho, (I forget) suggests that perhaps he has run out of ”simulations” for his dream playthrough. And being an intelligent person his mind tends to overthink naturally and this caused his dream to have a more realistic tone. Plus, I theorize that because Leona is powerful and his intelligent, his magic and imagination was almost able to overwrite Malleus's, a standard happy dream formula.

Ortho suggests Leona chose a more “realistic mode “on purpose.” Perhaps like I theorized earlier, it is almost a masochistic test to see if he could have everything he wanted? Leona is a very analytical person who enjoys games. It makes sense, the way he often plays chess alone to practice “strategies.” But as I mentioned before, I think he just genuinely believes it's not possible. Ortho mentions he thinks Leona’s the type to understand that an “aggressive urban development” would come with risks.

Jack asks “If Leona knew this was a bad plan then why would he make the citizens suffer and be hated?”  (Sheesh, now we know Leona really is the type to play pretend and get a lil too real with it.)

Ruggie adds that Leona may be “doing something he knows he shouldn't be on purpose.” Like maybe he did it to be dastardly and maybe he just wanted to “feel the rush” of being a ruthless and hated king.

When Azul asks Ruggie if he thinks Leona takes pleasure in immoral things he says that he can't say for sure, only that he is a prince that no doubt can take pleasure in “bad things”.

To me, however, it feels like a masochistic move to prove to himself his happiness is unattainable. 

Then Sebek chimes in: “How could he go so far to kill his family only to abandon his responsibilities as a king and become a horrible one?"

No one seems to know for sure. Everyone in the group has their theories but the consensus in the group is that - nobody fuckin’ knows why this guy intricately carved himself such a miserable fantasy for himself. Very masochistic for a guy who appears to be so proud huh?

Idia continues to mention that Leona’s imagination is so vast compared to everyone else's. It fills out a whole “world” completely and the mechanics of this world must make sense. He's playing on hard mode. In Leona’s brain this seemed to manifest as if he is to “get what he wants” it can't be serendipitous or through triumph, IT MUST be through tragedy.

Can we lighten up a little?

Again, he may have started to do “good work” but quickly realized that keeping up with all to create a perfect kingdom was waaaay over his head. Maybe he was afraid to give it his all, because he knew everyone would still hate him anyway.

Another reason I think Leona thrives better as a “big fish in a small pond” so to speak. Like his dorm leader role where he can interact directly with his cute (this man used this word a lot for some reason) froshes, make tangible make things better for a small group or community. 

But as we saw, even with his dorm Leona began to feel overwhelmed with the pretty promises he made to his underclassmen in Chapter 2 about the Spelldrive tournament. He like…wants to be wanted but he’s terrified of people actually relying on him, because trying your best and then failing anyways is the most painful thing to him. His instinct when he gets too frustrated with something is to act like he never cared about it in the first place or anyone. AKA “I did everything right and it's THE REST OF YOU who are incompetent.”

That’s why I personally think that in the future Leona working within a small community might be a better fit for him, using his skills to see potential in others as a way to connect with them and teach them how to thrive. 

So yeah, needless to say the group is stumped on analyzing Leona’s intentions and Azul hilariously notes that Leona is just…a complicated person. 

What an understatement.

The group hatches a silly plan to have Ruggie puppet a Cheka hologram and yeah obviously it didn’t work.

This is where it started to get interesting again.

Dream!Kifaji said he’s been “waiting for the day Leona would wake up from his bad dream” and joins the fight against him to wake him. It’s like Leona telling himself that it's time to let his original dream go.

Ortho is surprised Kifaji is on their side, that he should be the darkness pulling Leona back in, but like I mentioned I think Kifaji is actually a “fail safe” Leona created to stay lucid or...maybe the little bit of hope he has fostered now that he has grown from Chapters 2’s events.

Since Kifaji is the one to normally call him out, maybe he's Leona’s way of processing his relationship with him. And that maybe…sometimes as annoying as Kifaji is, he has a point. Kifaji is the one who is implied to have raised him after all, so it's no surprise Leona sees him in a father-like role more than his own father.

“No one understands me, it's not my fault.”  Leona laments running away, running away from himself.

Reminds me a lot of Chapter 2 Leona where he began to feel sorry for himself instead of actually trying to fix things. It's clear that no matter how smart and mature Leona is…is that he still has a lot of growing to do. And that his relationship with his family and country are complex. There is not a black and white or good and bad with this situation and I feel like this is important when talking about him and his relationships with his family.

He was very much ostracized and probably neglected to some extent by his real parents but at a certain point, Leona decided to give up on improving himself just because he didn't achieve the results he wanted to. It's one of his biggest flaw.

His complacency is what drags him further into the darkness. Not Kifaji.

Sitting and stewing in his despair and how unfair his life has been instead of reaching out. Rehashing all thise chess strategies alone on his chess board until his brain hurts. Making grandiose plans instead of actually working hard toward a realistic goal. 

The idle king. A king with naught. (Nothing.)

I am now realizing that in a way (because Ruggie and Leona are so similar) Jack is Leona’s foil; he is the determined and earnest one who admires Leona at his best. He still holds the innocence and the idealism of working hard.

The group jumped through the darkness with Leona and we are replaying the events of Chapter 2 once again.

Ruggie and Jack watch it go down in dismay. Ruggie addresses that he once did think Leona’s way of thinking/plan was good and it’s cool to see he clearly regrets it now too.

They watch the drama play out as if Leona’s plan in Chapter 2 actually succeeded and see that he craves more. More ways for Savanaclaw to get ahead by unsavory means.

Jack says even if Leona becomes king there will be no end to his dissatisfaction. BOOM, there it is.

That is why Chapter 2 is so mind boggling.  Leona’s whole speech was about being king and second. But it’s clear now, it's not what he truly wants. I think Leona is afraid to admit what he really wants. Because that takes vulnerability and then comes the possibility of being rejected.

Jack also notes that, despite Leona getting “everything he wanted” he seems more grumpier and dissatisfied than usual.

“Leona is not your King, hes’ our Dorm Leader,” Jack growls. They fight and we get a nice callback to Lion King here. “Remember who you are.”

As Leona wakes up from his dreams he straight up says, yeah the scheme from Chapter 2 was…stupid. (Nice.)

Oh and we finally get some acknowledgement that Ruggie feels like Leona abandoned him in Chapter 2 which SHEEEEEEEESH. This is a deep cut for me, considering Ruggie’s real dad abandoned him. And it really confirms the fact he sees Leona as a father/big brother figure.

But, Leona doesn't, he sacrifices himself for Ruggie as the whole group tries to escape the crumbling dream. And while Ruggie cries out for Leona, Leona goes down smirking not knowing what will happen to him.

It’s time for him to face himself, his blot monster.

Blot!Leona wants them dead, all of them. Cheka, Falena, everyone. The real Leona finds it kind of pathetic. Because, in reality, I don't think Leona hates Cheka or Falena and he doesn't want to be alone anymore.

Leona admits to his blot that yeah, no he can’t do the job. He can’t be king. And instead of it being a negative it’s more a relief? Maybe he is incompetent too. He is addressing himself and his previous grandiose illusions. He hasn’t done anything worthy of being king.

However, he will not give up. He’s finally living up to Savanaclaw’s motto of perseverance (which he sorta laughed off in Chapter 2?)

This next part is what struck me the most because. He just lays it out so simply, finally saying it out loud.

Self awareness!! Like he finally said it!! (And I felt very vindicated in this moment, NGL) 

What he desires most is the approval of others.

Ah, and Blot!Leona responds with the fact he can't earnestly try, it's too painful to think of failing. Props for Leona acknowledging his flaws! Just like with the other overblotters. But I'm especially floored here because of how PRIDEFUL he is all the time.

In order to have better relationships with people, he has to leave that whole “they all hated me” shit behind. Because in reality, there are people who care for him despite his flaws. There are those who look up to him and admire him, for him.

But, the idea of that I think is so…crazy to him that he tends to deny its very existence. Then when he is genuinely complimented on his leadership or whatever skills he brushes it off.

He calls himself disgusting which feels kinda sad but it’s proof he has moved on from his previous way of things. What did I say earlier? Leona is afraid of failure. 

Giving being a king a earnest optimistic go is too painful for him because ultimately he is afraid of failing. Like he was happier to play the role of tyrannical king than to bother to build relations with the citizens of his kingdom.

As his blot self withers away it’s almost…sad compared to the previous blot monster showdowns we’ve seen. It mentions something about “his friends” (A reference to Scar’s final words.) like he’s reaching out for Leona so it's not alone anymore. And Leona almost embraces his monster? It’s clear he feels pity for this thing…him. His pain, his depression, his loneliness. Maybe a step in the way of self-love? He acknowledges (almost as to soothe it) that it will always be with him, clawing from inside. Except now, he won’t give up.

He vows that he will get what he wants one day, for both of them. He’ll have his “own throne and pride” instead of wanting for someone else’s. He’ll find his place to belong through his own merit.

It reminds me of that expression “find your own tribe” which is an expression that those who are not close to heirt families understand all too well.  He wants to find satisfaction outside his desire to rule and maybe because we know he prefers NRC to home, this confirms his fondness for his dorm life. (Savanaclaw found a family dorm.)

When he returns to his original dream of being king Kifaji is there as they look on at Pride Rock. The fact that it is raining is telling that hope has returned. (Just like at the end of Lion King) and that by accepting that “being king” is not what he really wants now “all things are balanced again”.

They have a nice moment here. Leona acknowledging that he has been given the tools to do good things by Kifaji’s training is a big mature moment for him. (Especially how they acted toward one another in the Tamashina Mina event)  And Kifaji praising him, since this a dream, could be a testament to what he wishes would happen between them.

AKA Leona finally feels more, “at peace” with himself.

As Leona destroys this false kingdom with his sand he seems reserved, it’s almost bittersweet as it all settles over him, his new found aspirations, letting the old ones go. He's letting the past go. A big theme in Lion King. (I really feel the writers must be fans of the movies.) 

Kifaji says: “Go to the place you really belong.”

This line kinda got me. Because the implication is that Night Raven College and his dorm is where he really belongs. Leona is confirming that his experiences at NRC have shaped who he is SO MUCH. 

For years he accepted his life as it was, a cage, and now he is acknowledging that he has the power to break that cage and do whatever he wants. It’s a great callback to the advice he gave Jamil in Chapter 6.

This is quite refreshing as he mentioned before that it was too “late for him”. Now, he realizes it isn’t.

Back with the gang, Ruggie admits his fear that Leona will abandon him again. Leona denies it, and says somewhat casually that he is in fact a true friend of his. This feels like a clever inversion of the line that Scar says to the hyenas about being his “friends.” 

But, we know now that Leona does mean it now. And this shows Leona’s desire to finally stray from the “path”  of his Great Seven counterpart and actually like…have friends?

The reunion of the Savanaclaw trio is actually really sweet. For a dorm full of cocky jocks with strong personalities they seem to be so genuinely happy to be reunited.

Jack bursting out into tears and crying got me tearing up. Like Ruggie and Leona clearly are bit more reserved in their emotions but we see Savanaclaw really are close, despite their disagreements. They care for one another as a dysfunctional little family. 

As a dorm that doesn't get much mainstream attention compared to others it was so nice to have this little moment. It's hard to tell, but I’m 99% sure there was a group hug based on how the sprites moved and the sound effects. At least a nice back pat from Leona. (Thanks, dad.) 

All in all, I really...enjoyed his dream section. As someone who is pretty hyper-critical, for the most part, it satisfied most of the things I wanted to feel. I even got emotional at a few points! Yes, it would have been nicer to spend more time with “king” Leona and dive into it more. Or get more lore about his family. But, he admitted it FINALLY, everything I have clocked about him all those years ago. It’s very satisfying to see his growth in a tangible straightforward way, instead of just me reading between the lines.

I hope we will continue to see even more growth with his character (Like we did in the Halloween event)  and I’m excited to see the role he will play in the rest of Chapter 7, even if it’s just him being a cranky old man. (What do you expect he was raised by one?)

I'd like to end this with some positivity. As someone who deep dives into character stuff a lot I know it's really comforting to see part of yourself reflected back in your favorite characters.

To anyone reading who feels they have things in common with Leona or his despair, the truth is that you should keep going, even if it's just to spite the world itself.

Your vision and presence in this world are valid all on their own and that failing is not indicative of your value as a person. It never will be.

Keep fighting to find your place, your pack and never forget who you are.💚

--

Thanks for reading!! This one took quite a bit to edit and think through so if you like my Leona analyses, I’d appreciate a reblog or even just if you wanna share it with your friends! Shoutout to the youtuber ガスマスクゲーマー whose video I pulled these screenshots from. Thank you!

[jiraisupportgroup]

Important Update:

It has been brought to my attention by several people that there was / is a blog that is impersonating me and posting very hateful & harmful things aimed at the jiraiblr community. This blog had a username very similar to this one (jiraiisupportgroup and then jiiraisupportgroup both with double “i”s at different points in the username) they copied my profile picture, header image, blog description, pinned post(?), and even went as far as to copy anonymous asks I have been sent and send them to themselves to reply to to create confusion and trick people into thinking that blog was me.

In light of this I want to make a few things clear:

- This blog is a side blog. It cannot follow you, it cannot like posts, and it cannot send asks. All of those things would instead link to my main blog. If any blog that looks like this one ever follows you, likes one of your posts, or sends you an ask please block them immediately.

- If this blog does get terminated for whatever reason, any back-up blogs to replace this one will be made as another side blog. So please know this warning to block any blog that looks like this one if they follow you, like one of your posts, or send you an ask will never change.

- In the event that this blog is ever terminated, the first few posts of any replacement blog will be proof that it is actually me. What this details I am not entire sure of at this exact moment, and likely will not share to avoid the case of another disgusting copy-cat.

I want to give so much thanks to @bpdgrrrl1312 @bl0odied-kittypaw @criminaldoenjangjjigae @twistedsweetheart @sakiyaki-sashimi @oneeyawn @jiraikasa-kun as well as any others I may have missed (and all the anons who contacted me) for bringing this first of all to my attention, but more importantly to everyone’s attention. Thank you all so much for spreading awareness about this impersonator, and for helping distance myself from the horrible horrible things this person was saying.

As far as I can tell at the moment it appears that the blog is deleted? (Can anyone help me confirm?) But I will keep an eye and ear out to make sure, and update everyone if they pop up again. Thank you all so much for reporting this blog while I was not online for the night T-T not only for myself but also for the jiraiblr community as a whole.

It really hurts my heart and sickens me to know that someone impersonated my blog to spew hatred and vitriol. I did not get to see a majority of the things the blog did post (I saw screenshots of maybe 2 or 3 of the posts), so I can’t even imagine what else they were saying (especially to get banned so quickly because tumblr typically does not ban accounts very fast).

If this blog targeted you or even if you had the misfortune of seeing this blog, I am so deeply sorry. Please know that no matter what this person may have said you are loved, you are important, you are valid, and you deserve to be safe and feel welcome. I truly believe that, and I am so sorry that anyone tried to make you feel otherwise.

I am sending all of you so much love and as much support as I can ♡ I know many of us are stressed going into holiday season and this whole situation did not help with that. From what I can gather you all handled it quite well and for that I am so so appreciative. ₊‧°𐐪♡𐑂°‧₊ love all of you so much and I am sending everyone the warmest wishes and happiest days I possibly can ♡ ♡ ♡

[zushiisamess]

rating mxtx novels based on…. FANDOM-O-DRAMA-METER!

(This was my experience first entering every fandom hehe although as always, there are exceptions 😉)

MDZS: 4/10 the plot is just so centered around wangxian and there are few side characters for people to argue about, it also requires a certain level of media literacy to appreciate, leaving the only real argument material on whether characters deserved their suffering or not (Lan Xichen & Jin guangyao) *Clears throat* ANYWAY

TGCF is a solid 8/10, you’d think it would have the least toxic fan base, considering it is the only one rated 13+ and has the most characters. You’d be wrong! oh my goodness gracious why are there 13 people in a room brawling over this rare pair?! Cute ar—OH MY GOD MY EYES 😨 JAJSSHJSHSD, the chillest people in this fandom are the cute plushie cute character crowd, and those are in every fandom [I love u tgcf but man, your fans are like xz and ny temples at the lantern ceremony…. Devoted to competing]

Svsss is a 3/10 and I know what you’re thinking, “but op, everyone either hates or adores svsss!! They have so many haters” and you’d be right, but I have one thing to say. Svsss enjoyers have mastered the art of never prolonging altercations, crowd from outside goes “what is this trash?!” And they answer “ ok sy have a nice trip! 👋🤭” and nobody inside the fandom shames eachother’s ship or other choices because they know, anyone who enjoys svsss is a FREAK, complete freak, and nobody wants to get dunked on first. it would be like kinkshaming at a bdsm club LMAO

(All three will in fact send you to the hospital if you say anything bad about their main ship though, but mostly tgcf… DEAD ON SIGHT8

(If you are lucky….)

[on-a-lucky-tide]

A soldier yearns for home as a pining pilot watches on.

cw: hints of a shitty ex, soldiers away for Christmas.

Nik hadn’t questioned the guitar that John had loaded onto the Black Hawk. He had transported more unusual things into the heart of eastern Europe, and would do so in the future at John's behest, no doubt. That hadn't stopped him inspecting it while John had been busy briefing the 141 and an attaché of mercenaries Laswell had sent to support.

The case was solid black plastic, chipped and dented, and littered with band stickers. Some had faded to white completely, while others had peeled in places. His eyes lingered over a few bands he'd never heard of - The Fratellis, The Wombats, The… Pigeon Detectives - and some he did. John had a rather broad musical palette.

The instrument itself was well loved too, with a chip out of the main body and more faded stickers across the back and front. The varnish had worn off the fretboard, but the strings were relatively fresh; Nik ran the pads of his fingers over them and they hummed out a warm note. The musical echo of John's smile, Nik thought fondly. He clipped the case closed and grabbed a ratchet strap from a shelf to keep it secure.

They made camp in an abandoned building in the suburbs outside Timișoara. Nik could think of worse places to spend Christmas than the City of Roses, but everyone else's spirits were low. It was Christmas Eve and every soldier huddled in that little building was yearning for hearth and home. Nik had spent so long without one that he had learned to find solace where he could, and if that was enjoying the philharmonic opera and a glass of Țuică in a beautiful Romanian city after the mission, then so be it.

As he walked the floors, he heard Gaz talking softly on his phone, Soap and Ghost too, with muted Scottish voices coming through from the otherside. The lieutenant had lost so much and the sergeant had taken to including him in his own family. One day they would make it official. Nik had already picked out his suit for the occasion.

The team had a limited amount of downtime before all boots hit the ground and they went dark, and every single one had searched out their loved ones in whatever way they could. Nik hadn't realised his own heart had done the same until he ended up outside John's door.

It was ajar and Nik could hear him moving around. He was about to knock when he caught sight of John sitting down in front of a laptop, and his hand hovered in midair. A hazy picture appeared on the screen, flickering once as John adjusted the antennae.

“C'n y’ear me, Carol?”

“Yeah, John. C'n ‘ear ya, la.”

“‘Ow ya keepin’?”

“Fine, it's… I wish y’were ‘ere. I'm… it's hard. Bizzies were round lookin’ fer ‘im, he's gone an' been a prick again.”

“I know, ‘m sorry, be home soon–ahh, there she is!”

Nik leaned in and saw a new face appear on the screen. Kimmy. She was a combination of John and his sister, without a single trade of her father, as far as Nik could tell; erratic brown hair that had fought a comb to the death, broad nose and distinguished forehead, and those blue eyes were clearly a Price birthright, because they gazed owlishly from the screen as she worked out who her mother was talking to and then squealed with delight.

“Uncle John! You commin’ fer scran? Ma go’ pigs in blankets from down The Asda an’.. an’ that spotted dick wi’ custard, an’ an’...”

John chuckled. “Naw, love. Gotta sort out some bad men, then ‘ll be ‘ome, but ‘m gonna miss dinner.”

“Again?”

“Yeah, love, ‘m sorry. Ma got the clobber ya asked fer though.”

“Yeah…”

She didn't look convinced and Nik's heart ached for her.

“Bu’ listen, figured we could still do ar sing along at least. You ready?”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Eh, yeah! Wait, wait…”

She left the screen, returning moments later with what looked like an Action Man doll in a carrier vest, and plopped herself back down on her mother's lap.

“Ready!”

John tweaked the strings and played a few trial notes to test the tuning, before he opened up into the introduction. Nik had never heard him play before. Not in all the years they had known each other, and it felt strangely intimate now, John's full bicep sloped over the body of the guitar as he strummed through the chords, agile fingers moving across the frets. Nik wished he could see from the front. Imagined it so clearly in his mind’s eye.

And then John started singing and Nik had to place a hand on the wall to steady himself.

“I wanna thank the storm that brought the snow, and thanks to the string of lights that make it glow, but I wanna thank you, baby. You make it feel like Christmas.” His voice was rich, the auditory companion to the dark amber of the whiskey in his office, gravelly and a little rough from so many years smoking strong cigars, but he carried a note perfectly, even if he was keeping the volume low. Nik felt his heart trying to beat out of his chest, a little breathless as he drank in every word.

Despite the subtle crackle of the poor laptop speakers, Carol’s voice carried just as well, low and silky, as John played through her verse, his smile visible even at the sides through the perk of his round cheeks. “It barely took a breath to realise, we're gonna be a classic for all time. I wanna thank you, baby. You make it feel like Christmas.”

When they fell in together, Nik realised this wasn't a one-off. They harmonised perfectly, practised, John dropping his lower baritone to allow Carol's voice to carry over the top, and Kimmy’s delighted squeak made Nik grin so broadly his face hurt. “Sweet gingerbread made with molasses, my heart skipped and I reacted, can't believe that this is happenin’, like a present sent from God, sleigh bells singin’ Hallelujah, stars are shinin’ on us too, I wanna thank you, baby… you make it feel like Christmas.”

John leaned back, dipping his shoulders, chuckling as he played through another bar, before he carried the next verse with Carol humming and echoing beneath. “Thought I was done for, thought that love had died, but you came along, I swear you saved my life, and I wanna thank you, baby, ‘cause you make it feel like Christmas.”

It was as Carol squeezed Kimmy and pressed a kiss into her hair, the Action Man dancing across the screen in Kimmy's small hands, that Nik realised John was singing to his niece. Not some abstract lover provided by the song, but the little girl that beamed at him like he was a superhero, held by the sister he had raised himself. John had no wife, no children, but he did have a family. A family that loved him, missed him, looked at him like he hung the stars.

Nik dropped his eyes for a moment, but he couldn't look away for long. It was like staring into a bonfire in a snowstorm; the warmth on his skin warding off the bitter cold, but the intensity of the light hurting his eyes. He wanted it so ardently that his entire body ached.

“I never thought I'd find a love like this, but I found forever in that very first kiss, I wanna thank you, baby, you make it feel like Christmas.” Carol finished the lyrics and they harmonised through the last few bars as she kissed her daughter’s rosy cheeks, bouncing her on her lap as she giggled.

John struck the final note and rested his palm over the strings to bring their warm hum to an end.

“Ahh, ‘gain! Again!’

John chuckled, a sound even warmer than the one made by his guitar. “Naw, sweet’eart. S’time fer bed, or Santa ain't gonna visit."

“Yer Santa,” Kimmy said tartly. “An’ y’ain’ ‘ere.”

“Olrigh', smartarse, but if I ‘ave t’ get a flight back over ‘specially t’ rob yer presents back, I will.”

“You wouldn't."

He said nothing, but Nik could picture the raised eyebrow, the stern set of his eyes and lips. Kimmy pouted and slid from her mother's lap, looking mischievous and reluctant, but complying because she knew there was no room for negotiation. Before she disappeared, she leaned in and the camera caught the top of her head as she kissed the screen.

“Love ya, Uncle John. See soon.”

“Sleep tight, ya little beast.”

She scurried away and Carol looked back at her brother, her eyes, just as blue as his, brimmed with anxiety. “You come back safe, y’ear? Safe. No heroics, ya get the job done, ya get yer arse t’ my dinner table before New Years.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She kissed her fingers and they covered the camera briefly. “Love you, big brother.”

She took one final look at him and then the camera went black. He stared at the screen and then let out a long, rattling sigh, his face falling to his palm. Nik’s heart caught in his throat and he was frozen between leaving John to his sadness or offering comfort and revealing he'd been hovering there the whole time, invading his privacy.

He didn't need to worry for long. John's phone rang and he snatched it from the nearby table, sliding his guitar behind him to hang down his back. “Price,” he said, a stern bark. Back to business; John tidied away into the recesses of his heart, Captain Price assuming his place. John listened intently, hand on his hip. “Copy. ETA?” Another pause. “Fuck, that's too soon, we’re… yeah, Rog, we’ll be ready. We’ve got Nik with us.”

Nik smiled, stepping back. He had barely retreated four paces down the hall before his phone buzzed in his back pocket. It was John: “need you, 5 mins”.

Nik ducked into a nearby room to wait out the time. If he appeared too quickly, John would know he had been lingering nearby. He had no right to have invaded that private moment, and John deserved to believe it had been all his. A quiet moment to himself before the clusterfuck to come.

As Nik waited in the dark for the minutes to tick by, he added two new people to his silent, unwavering commitment to John Price. Nikolai would personally return John to Carol and Kimmy, their hero, safe and sound. They would sing together at Carol’s dinner table by New Years, Nik would make sure of it.

Nik left the room and knocked on John's door. When he entered, he was greeted by a lopsided smirk as John looked up from checking his M1911. “Time to get evil, Comrade.”

Nik grinned back. “It would be my pleasure.”

[numberonetacostan]

ONE HEADCANON FOR EVERY II CHARACTER!

Hello everyone!!!!!^^ For a little holiday season special, I’ve typed out a little headcanon for every character!!! By character I mean contestants + host + assistants!!!!! Sorry to all the Nick Le fans out there, he is not included. Since everyone is here, there are characters I may not know as well as my main roster, so if I get anything like, objectively wrong, feel free to let me know!!!^^ Please enjoy!!! (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ

Apple- Her favorite song is Pink Pony Club by Chappell Roan. She doesn’t really understand the lyrics but she really likes ponies!!!! I also think she’d start misspelling her name as “Appell” pretty often after she finds the song. 

Balloon- The first thing Suitcase does with her prize money is buy him a poetry book. He is so very moved by this and writes her dozens of poems with various styles he sees in the book within a few days. He’d read from the book and his own works to Suitcase every night before they go to bed. Some others could join in for a nice bedtime story :). 

Baseball- Once, while the hotel was under construction, Baseball fell down the stairs. And then kept rolling. And rolling. And bouncing. And rolling some more. Overall it set construction back two weeks and Paintbrush broke their leg trying to help stop him. Baseball was banned from the hotel until the elevators were finished. 

Bomb- He can’t eat spicy food. As in he’s banned from eating spicy food. If he gets too hot, he can accidentally set himself off, so despite his claim that he has a great spice tolerance, he is not allowed anywhere near the hot sauce. He doesn’t complain about the ban anymore post-canon, too risky, yeah? 

Bow- She watches so very many makeup tutorials, but being a ghost, can’t practice any of it on herself. That is, unless she possesses someone, like Marsh who would be very easy to put makeup on relative to other objects!!! She’d probably get pretty good at it, after some time, and Marsh would have some lovely new eyeshadow looks every day! 

Knife- He has a longer ghost tail than Dough and Bow do, so I propose him wrapping said tail around people and things he likes!!! Wraps around Pickle when they’re standing next to each other, wraps around Suitcase’s handle when they’re together, etc.!!! He’d get rather flustered if anyone called him out on it. 

Lightbulb- Gives incredible hugs. Incredible. How does an object made of glass and metal give such cuddly, warm hugs? Nobody knows. Sometimes she’ll turn herself on during the hug to make it extra warm!! As long as the person she’s hugging closes their eyes, it really elevates the already sacred experience of a Lightbulb hug. Luckily for everyone else, she is always happy to give one!^^

Marshmallow- She’s still pyrophobic after having been burnt all those years ago. As a very flammable marshmallow, fire would be scary to her anyways, but after having been roasted it’s a whole other story. She’d rather freeze than get close to a fire, but that’s not a problem since there’s a certain fruit always willing to warm her up with a hug <3!!

Nickel- He became very, very, very nervous to give his apology to Suitcase after she blew up Cobs and ate his corpse. He was planning to apologize either way, but clearly Suitcase could absolutely obliterate him if she wanted to do so, which means this apology has to be quite good or else. He has a serious amount of respect for her now. An upgrade, I’d say. 

OJ- His favorite Pokémon is Charizard. It’s orange, it’s very popular, OJ loves it. I know Justin has made a list of the contestant’s favorite Pokemon, but I have not read it in a while so Charizard it is!!!

Paintbrush- Experiments a lot with their image after season 3, mostly by dyeing their bristles with paint!!! Lightbulb helps :3!!! And by helps I mean makes it silly and very fun. Maybe she puts a little dot between Painty’s eyes to give them a “nose”. I think they’d try a solid color first, then maybe a fade, and eventually dye the nonbinary flag into their hair!!! They slay it of course. 

Paper- Pickle once wrote “Property of OJ” on Paper’s back and he didn’t notice for three days. No one told him it was there. When he asked everyone why in the world they would not inform him they said it was because they all thought OJ had written it and he was keeping it because he liked it. OJ did not know why Paper avoided eye contact with him for a week that one time but he did not like it. 

Pepper- Hotel OJ head chef. Yeah you heard me. Let me cook by letting her cook!! Salt wouldn’t like cooking, too much work, so this is something Pepper could enjoy on her own!! And it would be the sole reason that OJ has not yet kicked Salt out of the hotel- if he does than Pepper might be too sad to cook, and with the depressingly low amount of hotel residents that can make food, and the even smaller amount who are willing to make enough food for everyone, they need her. And, if Payjay help out, they can spend more time with her and get to know and enjoy her presence without Salt ruining it!

Pickle- With some help from Tea Kettle and Pepper, he makes Knife a new Dora doll post-finale, since it vanished with the rest of the stuff made by MeLife. He lets Knife possess him if he wants to hug the doll, but it also gets possessed by Knife so he can hug Pickle. Ah shit sorry my Knickle got all over the headcanon dang it. 

Salt- I headcanon her as the only cisgender, straight, alloromantic (I think that’s the right term?) member of the cast. Basically the only one who isn’t queer at all. But uh an actual headcanon for the ~60 or so Salt fans out there, both she and Pepper sleep with those little hair bonnets on to keep their salt and pepper from falling out of their heads in their sleep. 

Taco- This one is fitting for the winter season!! Taco is afraid of snow. Like, straight up terrified. I think she would grab a bunch of blankets and hide in the vents of the mansion whenever it snows, so she can be inside of the inside, as far and safe from the snow as she can be!! Having been homeless for years, she’s had some miserable experiences with hypothermia after it snows, and now that she has a home to live in, she’ll be staying inside until all the snow has melted. 

Mephone- I think he should have a pet bug post-canon. A little beetle or something that just chills on his head and feasts on the many crumbs he gets on himself while he eats. An intelligent one, like Baxter!!! Since we know Mephone will be stepping up into the more ‘big brother’ sort of role for 3GS, I think the bug would be a good outlet for Mephone to talk about his more intense feelings, specifically revolving around Mepad and the contestants. I also think, following his very creative naming of the contestants, the bug would be named Buggy. 

Box- I think she would be an insomniac. After years and years of living in an empty, timeless void-space thing, she’d have a lot of trouble getting to sleep!! She’d definitely need the whole works, warm milk, cheese, lullabies, etc., etc., just to get to sleep, and even then she probably wouldn’t sleep for very long. A lot of nightmares on this one, yeah? 

Cheesy- I think he’d actually quite enjoy eating cheese, as long as it’s not a chunk like he is. He’ll eat nachos, pizza, mozzarella sticks, grilled cheese, etc., etc., but he will not eat cheese cubes. He’d make approximately 5 cannibal jokes every time he does this, and this average goes up to 8 if Pickle is around. 

Cherries- They give Toilet their old Mepad mask post-canon, to try and make him feel better. Toilet might hang out with them a bit more after this- they can do some drawing together!! The more prank-buddies, the merrier, yeah? 

Dough- He eventually did get the recording of Bow saying that he was her brother!! Was it a cut-off version of her denying it yet again (though this time more playfully than anything)? Yes. Does that make him any less happy about having it? No. 

Fan- Out of everyone, he’s the most upset about II ending, and wants to find a new special interest!! He’d try a whole bunch of things, games, music, movies, TV shows, art, and I think it would be funny if he settled on the ii-universe equivalent of Survivor, since it was such a big inspiration for II!! He’d also occupy himself with being very interested in whatever Test Tube is doing and cheering her on!!! Also being a good Dad to Bot!!^^

Microphone- Has, on occasion, accidentally had her volume button pressed in her sleep and woke not only herself but everyone in the vicinity up with her snoring. The first time it happens post-canon it takes her a half-hour to get a very startled and scared but very sleepy and confused Taco to come out from her hiding spot under the bed. 

Soap- Her soap is french vanilla and rose scented!!! She’d find her own scent rather pleasant, yeah? I think being empty for her would have a similar effect on her as it does on objects like OJ and Test Tube, though if she’s in a real pinch she will use her own soap to get clean!! Letting someone use her soap would be a sweet gesture of love/appreciation from her!!!

Suitcase- Balloon would write her a lot of poems once they’re back together post-canon, and she’d keep them all inside of her!! She’d keep a lot of special little gifts from important people inside of her. The stone that Knife set beside her the first time they spoke on the docks, a dried flower bracelet from Box, whatever suits her fancy! (Get it? Ge- ‘cause she’s a suitcase? okay ill leave).

Test Tube- I think she would make phones for everyone post-canon!!!^^ It’s a big island, yeah? And they really need to be able to contact each other in case of emergency, with them being able to truly die now. She could make a functioning rocket out of a vending machine, I fully believe she could make however-many functioning phones out of what she can find on the island. (Or even better, Mepple HQ. I think they all should loot it.)

Tissues- He likes coding :) I personally hate coding, because I sucked at it in school and never want to look at one of those evil “easy kids coding” websites ever again. HOWEVER coding is something he could still do while he’s feeling sick, most of the time!! And we have quite a few gamers living in the hotel, so it would be a great way for him to connect with others!!!

Trophy- He always enjoyed photography as a hobby, but very much threw himself into it after being freed from the elimination closet. After months of seeing nothing but the snotty closet walls, he had a lot more appreciation for scenic and natural photographs. He’d hang a lot of them on the wall of his room to look at as he sleeps, since the rooms don’t have windows. 

Yin-Yang- This one is from my partner @galacticrain!! Because I consider them my resident yin-yang expert^^ Yang isn’t actually gluten free, like he says in season 2 episode 5, he just knew that Yin would confess to the eating of Dough if he put any ounce of pressure on him to tell the truth. 

Mepad- Another cold weather hc! As a Mepple device, he doesn’t really get cold! However, during their first winter together, Toilet worries that Mepad has no winter clothing!!! He buys Mepad one of those super fluffy, pink cases. Mepad does not take it off for months, until his systems start to overheat because of it. 

Toilet- I think he would be rather curious about what having limbs is like. He wouldn’t be particularly upset about his own lack of limbs, just curious!^^ He would ask Mepad about his legs, (try to) ask Mephone about his arms, and maybe make a little doodle of himself with a lot of limbs. A biblically accurate Toilet, if you will.

Blueberry- I like to think his white eyes glow a bit. He functions best in pitch-black darkness, yeah? So imagine you’re walking in the dark and two white eyes are staring at you from the depths. He would love scaring people with it, I think. 

Bot- Hanging out with everyone post-season 3 finale and even more so post-canon, they discover that they really do love videogames, similar to what they told Cabby!! They would absolutely dominate in fighting games, and would main R.O.B. in Super Smash Bros.!!! A fellow robot with a 3 letter name? Sign them UP. 

Cabby- She is endlessly fascinated by how Taco’s arms work. They just…go back in? How? Could she pull them out backwards? Both on the same side? Could she reverse them? Taco does not know either, and the two of them spend a full day together just trying to figure out how they work. Cabby gets a lot of new info about them, and Taco in general, after that :). I’m projecting but I think Cabby would be curious too.^^

Candle- Her meditation training post-canon is what keeps like half the cast from losing their minds after everything that happens. She is very very much needed after… all that. Meditation would help her too, of course, in the way that it usually does, but being so helpful would probably make her feel better than that. 

Clover- She was once blown across the entire island because someone dropped a penny on the ground. It was a particularly shiny penny, though, and the year was one her many, many lucky numbers!!

Goo- My little fella!!! Uh obviously he and Bot would make comics together. They like to draw, he likes to write, it’s perfect!!!! They could help him condense his writing down into a comic format as well!!! They could also make fanart and fanfics together!!! Goo would be a shipper I think he already ships Silver and Painty if you sit that little guy down in front of Steven Universe he will explode. 

Lifering- With everyone losing their immortality post-canon, he quickly becomes one of the most popular among the contestants. Twisted your ankle? Go see Lifering. Migraine? Go see Lifering. Ate the mushrooms that Taco very clearly told you were poisonous? Hurry to Lifering!! He’s happy to be of so much help, but gives some long and rather informative lectures on proper safety checks. 

Silver Spoon- Fills his room with candles. Particularly purple ones. And ones scented with lavender and chamomile. He’ll go on and on about how much he loves candles. Particularly purple ones scented with lavender and chamomile. No one can tell if Candle is trying to politely turn him down or really hasn’t noticed. He progressively gets more and more obvious with his candle collection and nearly sets a building on fire. 

Tea Kettle- #1 Nickloon shipper. I’m serious. Whether they get together or not, she ships it. I don’t think she’d be pushy about it, insistent that they get together if they’re interested in other people, but… we know silly Nickel, always chasing a Balloon. And if he needs a little help catching it, TK will be there in a flash!!!! She’d make them a little romantic picnic complete with hors d’oeuvres! 

The Floor- My guy The Floor still visits Mephone almost daily post-canon. I really don’t see the guy being super upset or holding a grudge over Mephone having made him. He’s pretty cool, if he does say so himself!!^^ And they’re buddies, anyways, so Floory would want to check in on him after his abusive father killed everyone and then was exploded!!!! He might even befriend 3GS while he’s at it :).

[ughsecondblogsdontwork]

I don't watch a whole lot of television, so maybe I'm missing some perspective, but I've never seen a TV show where the Main Character was a fat gay man (or person in general, I'm not crazy enough to think they'd ever try to pull this with a fat lesbian for instance) where neither his sexuality or fatness were 1. An overt problem in the narrative or 2. The butt of routine or mean-spirited jokes. What We Do In the Shadows was awesome in so many ways, but it was also awesome because I got to see a gay and fat person do all kinds of shit as a main character without being constantly questioned or degraded for being fat! I really, really love Guillermo. He's a vampire slayer! An action hero! He looks cool, cute and sexy all at once in his action scenes- I love watching him grow as a character and stand up for himself, I love his jokes, he's really such a great character! So this final season sucked, right. Like this final season was total shit ass, I'm sorry. I'm so disappointed. I feel so let down. There are a million reasons why it sucked, but right now I just feel sad because of how everything turns out for Guillermo and the queer and fat representation in the show. First of all, it really threw me for a loop when the show opened with crazy fat jokes about Colin Robinson. That obviously did not land for me at all and why would it land for wwdits viewers? We are following a show where we are emotionally invested in a fat MC and we don't have a *problem* with fatness- so why would I think it's funny that Colin Robinson "got fat"??? Make it make sense lmao.

And I don't know why the fuck Nandor and Guillermo's entire relationship was abandoned. Did every single writer jump ship and get replaced by someone who's never seen the show or??? Well, it feels like a punch in the gut for a few reasons:

This show is supposedly "queer". Every known vampire is queer and Guillermo is gay. But the only consistent relationship is Nadja and Lazslo, which isn't a problem obviously we love them, but would it kill the show for there to be...? More visibly queer relationships? It's a show that insists its gay over and over again in word but not action. I don't care if Nandor and Lazslo like to fuck each other silly offscreen, and Nadja is also supposedly queer in some way, off screen- everything is conveniently off screen. Nandor and Guillermo did not *need* to get together, but the lack of explicit acknowledgement is weird. It just is.

Also, it would just be nice! Like am I crazy? Is it too much to ask for? To see a fat MC be in love and in a relationship not in spite of their appearance but just bc the other person likes them? I feel like every show with gay couples as main characters is a romance based show that is mostly About them getting together. Wwdits is so much fun because it's about so many things! But why couldn't this be *one* of those things? Can you think of a single show in the world right now where a fat queer main character is in a relationship and their looks or their sexuality are not the key point of conversation about the relationship? I can't! This was the perfect opportunity! Nandor and Guillermo fell into a well established relationship trope that had nothing to do with appearance or sexuality, and people who like that trope were naturally drawn to it. Why did they just spit on the whole thing? It makes no fucking sense.

Any response like "well sometimes unrequited love is a good plot" "X needed to grow and Y relationship was bad" "It's better this way because of XYZ" "It would have been toxic" this is a silly tv show about murderous vampires. Guillermo is also a murderer. There is just no possible way that a relationship between Guillermo and Nandor would have ruined the show lmao. It would have been fun! Remember when TV comedies were about being fun! I sure do! Apparently asking for a fun gay relationship between the queer main characters of the "queer TV show" is just too much to ask- better luck next time! Honestly, I feel so bitter lol. Bitter and sad. A show this fun and a cast this good deserved a waaaaay better ending all around. This post isn't even touching all the other weird shit and quite a lot of objectively bad shit that was wrong with the season

Before anyone gets all weird about my use of the word fat if you're not familiar with that, I am fat and I think fat is a neutral word and am trying to normalize the usage of it instead of substituting it with shit like "plus size". Fat is not an insult in the context of my words lol

[atheneum-of-you]

I havent been on Tumblr in a few days and that's kinda sad for my brain. I love Tumblr. But I had to do some introspection and realized that posting had stopped feeling fun and moreso an obligation.

I started my blog as a little virtual diary, and a way to just talk about hellenic polytheism because it made me happy. But at some point I noticed that all of my posts had started becoming educational and I felt stressed at the idea of not putting up long teaching posts but I'd be stressed writing them because I wanted to post other little stuff about helpol. And I kinda had to sit with myself and ask why I felt like I HAD to constantly post lessons. Because I don't. My blog is my own, I can have fun with it.

I think some of the anxiety also came from some comments people have made about me and my server. About how a lot of my members have looked to me as a sort of leader and guide and how it's a bad thing. Which I can understand. I think sometimes I get scared of being wrong, so I try to learn as much as possible, and then I share that, and I'm looked to as someone knowledgeable on stuff. And it makes me happy when I can help my friends and members! It does make me anxious, though, when it's treated like they don't have minds of their own and follow me exclusively without doing research. And then the idea of doing lesson posts fills me with dread because it feels like I'm feeding into those allegations. But then I don't want people to NOT be educated on a topic I know a lot about. But I don't want people to think the people who follow my lesson posts are mindless sheep. And I'm certainly no shepard, I'm still learning myself. So it kinda becomes this endless cycle of internal turmoil.

It was a weird sense of catharsis, making these realizations. Remembering that this was never a teaching account, but rather, one for me to gush about how happy I am in helpol and vent when I'm upset and share the things that I learn and know and hopefully inspire/teach others. That this account was started because I live in a Christian household, and I wanted a safe space to be my most authentic self.

I'll continue posting lessons, of course! I genuinely love making them, and I love how many people they help. But I'm gonna keep in mind that the main focus of this blog has always been my secret little hidey hole of emotions ♡

[cozymochi]

With all this Nyoka talk, are you lowkey tired? I fear with all these Nyoka asks might become annoying to you. 💔 Or when there’s too many asks about a specific thing or person.

WAAAAA?? If anything, I have the exact opposite fear. Everyone else being annoyed by seeing him so much from me.

I bring it up and allude to it sporadically, but It’s not like I’m unaware that the majority of people would much much rather have me go back to posting art about the canon cast. It certainly has more mass appeal.

Though if anyone followed my bluesky or looked at my kofi they would see all the WIPs of that exact thing. But, that’s not my main, so it probably doesn’t count, does it? (I don’t really like posting WIPs on main.)

It’s a very VERY high privilege to be able to indulge in a non-canon character at all, more specifically at the behest of other people asking for it. Like, genuinely.

I never really bought the idea from a few people calling me “big” or “popular” given I never really talk to anybody off my own posts (sans IRL friend), and the only art that ever seems to truly pop off and cycle everywhere that I can see tends to only happen when when Malleus or Leona is in it (mainly the former, regardless of the quality im disatisfied with). In a way, I still don’t fully buy it.

Those two are already popular with built in fanbases, so that’s a given.

But then Nyoka dropped and he’s popping off to nearly their levels and I haven’t gone too long without somebody asking about him or his mouth

SO THAT’S A WAKE UP CALL.. Something that made me go “huh. maybe they were right about me…” or at least… Something happened with him specifically that clicked for whatever reason. I MEAN. MY TOP POSTS SPEAK FOR ME.

LOOOOK! He’s playing with the big boys??

One oF MY FRIENDS WROTE AN “X READER” FIC UNDER MY NOSE. AND IT DID WELL ouTside of our goofy asses. ThAT’S INSANEEE

Understand this though, while I do have the autonomy to not answer asks about him— If I was really tired of it, I wouldn’t keep answering. I answer so long as I receive them.

Cuz, Idk if anyone’s noticed, but I’m not the best at bringing up my own stuff on my own accord. If I do, there was a high chance I was pushed into it by somebody else, or I might have liked the art a little more than I should have to the point I think giving it it’s own post is justified.

I’ve always had Tia as my defacto Prefect, but she’s the Prefect. A character that can be anything and anybody (and almost everyone has one). And I never really brought her up willingly too much. I don’t even bother making her cameo in scenarios where she could be there. I just use Grim as a stand in. I don’t even post or talk about 80% of her junk out of nervousness and fear.

I AM GRATEFUL AND THANKFUL FOR ALL THE ASKS I RECEIVE AND THE ENTHUSIASM 💖 I know I’m not the best at showing it since I haven’t ascribed to the keyboard smash + crazy image in a while, but i AMMMM. I go feral.

(ALSO bear in mind, I had Nyoka for almost two years before he ever went public. 😭👍 I think we’re good.)

…Still, with all that said: The self-inflicted-but-possibly-justified pressure still exists. With every new ask I answer about Nyoka or some other non-canon guy, I feel like the others who only really followed me for the more canon specific art are certainly getting annoyed watching it unfold and are just waiting for me to get back to it.

(Again, haven’t stopped. Bluesky/Kofi.)

I mean for example, I doubt it was intentional, but I got one reminder the other day when I was asked about updating a Leona WIP after that whole gacha pull bet thing.

That shows me somebody is waiting for something not Nyoka related. Though, given the nature of the material, they’ll probably be disappointed (its not even all that big). I took it in stride the other day but upon reflection it’s starting to gnaw at me. I only really posted the WIP to break up all the Nyoka stuff so people don’t get upset. Otherwise, I would have kept it under wraps properly.

So, I can only imagine what others are not saying.

And if I’m paranoid enough (which i am), it’ll only be a matter of time before somebody hits a wall and decides that enough is enough on my behalf. Hype backlash is a real thing, and while I don’t know when it’s coming, It’s inevitable. So, if anything I should slow down.

But then I get left in a position where I’m not posting any art at all.

Granted, not posting enough art and especially ones that are more generalized gnaws at me all the time regardless.

Getting Nyoka or other non-canon character stuff is honestly the most freedom I can get. There’s a lot less stakes involved, and I just have an easier time. I do genuinely like thinking about them!!! I LikE DRAWING THEM!! Again, being prompted by OTHERS IS especially a high privilege to be able to do.

Don’t get it twisted though (no pun intended), I also enjoy the canon cast and I put them above my own junk any day. Heck most are easier to draw than the non-canon freaks, but... Idk I do more self comparison to other artists more than people think, and it mostly comes down to me believing that I can’t draw them that well nor can convey anything high-concept or even LOW concept about them in an appealing enough way.

There’s just sooo many other artists to choose from. And better stuff at that. It’s also why I don’t fully believe people if they value me above other ones. With the stuff I put out, it doesn’t make any sense as to why that would be the case.

And while I am trying to compile a bunch of work *cough kofi/bluesky cough*, I get stumped really quickly while working on them. There’s a bar of quality I want, and with each characters built-in fanbases and stans it’s very taxing trying to not potentially let anyone down.

With Nyoka and the others no such bar exists. He and the others fall into a category that most people don’t put much stake in to begin with.

I think it’s a different beast when following an artist who sticks to drawing or writing about the same canon character all the time. There’s a niche for it and a built in audience who wants that, so nobody is going to get up in arms. (Well except maybe a bad apple who gets territorial about two cakes.)

As opposed to a non-specific artist/writer who suddenly posts an OC and for the next few weeks that’s seemingly all they post about, even if it is mostly from asks. There’s nothing backing that up. They came for cakes, why tf is this chef making stir fry?!

Yeah, some people may be cool with it since it keeps being asked for and I like making it. But, sooner or later someone is going to go “when are you go back to baking cakes? Wasnt this the whole point?”

TL;DR: NO, IM NOT TIRED OF HIM. I don’t exactly lose drive for my own little batch of chaos and I’m super thankful for it 💜💜💜💜💜 But I do have a very real fear of others getting annoyed by it.

Even this ask has me raising my eyebrow a little. I can’t imagine anyone being tired talking about their own stuff.

…But I can imagine the opposite.

And I know I get this reply constantly with “Oh just post what u want it’s your blog” I can only give a look that I can’t translate into text. 💃

[venstm]

I want to preface this by saying that I am holding myself accountable for not stepping up and either breaking off the friendship sooner or defending myself properly. As it stands even now I am not someone who copes well with confrontation and would rather stay as far away from it as possible. I’m speaking now because other people are coming forward with their stories and experiences. Whilst I have very few actual screenshots of conversations please understand that the interactions I’m discussing impacted me quite a lot mentally. It’s up to you to decide if you think I’m overreacting but by the end of those six months I had basically decided I no longer had a place in the rpc where I was welcomed after losing that friendship. I’ll be putting this under a read more so look at your own discretion. I won’t be speaking about this again after this.

If terios / ty sees this and decides they wish to unblock me and speak about it in order to see these feelings discussed and resolved im okay with that and if anyone else who has been in a similar situation needs someone to talk to or discuss it with in also open to that.

At the beginning of our friendship things were pretty intense and feeling like you were the main writing partner for someone who had already established themselves a place in the rpc was such a good feeling ? It’s like you really belong and you have someone who is so invested in your portrayal that you feel really important. There were many times where this once good feeling became tarnished by negativity, bitterness and what to me, felt like being bullied or belittled.

I’ll touch on a few things I really do remember quite clearly and be understanding that my adhd / ptsd and other things impact my capacity to retain information all the time I try to be very clear with this when talking with mutuals to avoid them becoming frustrated when I don’t remember everything all the time. they would tell me I wasn’t listening or paying attention when I tried to explain this.

there was a lot of time monopolising that I ended up enabling, this one in particular was mentioned to me by my partner who ended up feeling like I really distanced myself from them and even when I did want / try to spend time with them terios’ reaction would always be to change their tone to speaking bitterly or giving off this change of energy and if you recognise it you know it’s the sort where you’ve done something wrong and you need to fix it immediately.

There were also times where other friends became an issue, terios had problems with someone I was interacting with on dash. At the time I wanted to be in their corner because we were really close, they were my closest friend but these people had also been nothing but nice to me and I didn’t have issues with them. This tension went on for a while until terios let me know that I was two faced for not taking their side fully and I ended up blocking them which I thought was the right answer to appeasing someone who was upset. Yes, this was my fault I should have said no but they were a really important friend to me and I wanted them to feel like they were heard and understood. In the end I lost both of those friends and another friend who told me that if I continued to always take terios’ side in arguments like that I would have no one else left but them in the end.

It also happened when I mentioned that I was watching things with my mutual, we had only just started writing again after not speaking for a long time and terios was instantly making comments about it, usually vague and never good and when I finally said hey you know this isn’t cool to be saying this their response was just that I should have told them that sooner.

They were always unpleasant about Gepard ships that weren’t ours and I don’t know if that was because they just had a bias or not but I remember plotting an almost au verse with a firefly writer and dropping it because they were telling me when and how would that happen why is this something you’re writing ? basically implying that I owed it to some how justify what I was deciding to write for my muse ?

This also happened when I was creating an au for Gepard around being a vampire hunter I was so excited about it and I wanted to tell them and their response was to pick it apart reminding me oh this doesn’t make sense for Gepard’s canon age or this doesn’t make sense for his family and whilst I get caring about canon it really made me feel ? like my spark had just been squashed something I was so excited about just being torn to shreds completely and I never spoke about it again, tobias was there when this happened I had just came home from the gym in tears because I was so upset about it.

As those who interact with me know I am someone who is always earnestly trying to expand my vocabulary and learn new ways to incorporate cool stuff into my writing and there was one time one time when I used a word wrong and I did apologize for it and they ended up bringing it up over and over again for three months and whilst it was a joke in their eyes I don’t doubt it really just made me not want to try to improve my writing anymore and minimised myself to be someone they would approve of.

it also felt like anytime I began to get the confidence to bring up how I was feeling that it was turned around to make me feel worse or shit and like the whole situation was my fault rather than looking at it and both taking accountability and working to find a solution. I found this so challenging because so many times I left feeling like I was truly in the wrong because they had told me I was.

The last thing I will mention is that they will jump between gepard writers quite frequently. I wasn’t on the receiving end of this but I do know that when they blocked me only a day later then were dming a mutual and friend of mine who they had all but ghosted for those six months asking to write again. While this isn’t the worst thing ever I can only imagine how shitty that must feel and I know when they spoke to me and I said this it really hit home for them that they had been second best for those whole six months despite being there before me. This has happened with other Gepard writers too not just me and that person.

In the end a lot of this shit could have been amended if I told them your behaviour is shitty and it’s making me feel like shit but who wants to be put in a situation with a friend or writing partner where they feel like they have to make that choice.

I still do think terios is a good writer and they’re committed to the sampo they’re shaping but there are ways to interact with people that are kinder and not always with this undertone of being nasty or mean or spiteful. Again, if they or anyone else does want to talk to me about this they can and I trust that everyone can decide who they want to write with themselves. I just want my feelings and story to be heard and others to know they can speak up too.

[fortemelody]

hot take: there aren’t that many “annoying” sonamy fans out there as some people think

i’ve been seeing more people complain about this kinda stuff recently than there are people actually doing the things they’re complaining about

it goes to show that obviously EVERY ship in the world will have annoying fans. i understand that. but like… if it’s not harmful (like pedophilia or something illegal) there is no reason to be advocating against it so much becus you’re accomplishing nothing 😭

i would say the main problem is that the few bad ones are obviously the most vocal. i’ve already ranted before about how bad “sonamy channel” on twitter is. but that’s literally one person. do not judge a whole fan base on one person and literally just block them. i also don’t see much of a distinction when talking about these “bad” types of people from twitter to tumblr. like the few times i have talked about it i very much stated in the beginning that sonamy channel was active on twitter. i haven’t seen them very active on tumblr as far as i know, meaning that others only follow in suit with their weird antics, including calling everything “canon”, ON TWITTER. like all i’m saying is if there’s negative things happening on one social media platform, don’t blame it on another. i’m sure tumblr has its problems too that i don’t know about but like it doesn’t seem to be as bad overall.

another reasoning behind why i think this is so prevalent rn is becus whenever sonamy fans get new content (like recently those idw panels) they obviously like to talk about it. which is inherently fine, but the fact that we usually get new content like at least once a month atp makes it so other people might see it as us just constantly shoving things down their throats. i mean yes, if someone’s spamming about it every two seconds on unrelated tags, MAYBE i can see a problem. but if that’s not the case… literally just let people be happy dawg omfg 💀 like i know this is sorta a weird way to phrase it but it’s not our fault if or when we get official content. sega decided to release something, so we like it. it’s as simple as that, it’s their choice to let our personal tastes influence on their franchise in any way. like we’re not storming their HQ to tell them to make more sonamy related stuff, it ain’t that serious and people just wanna enjoy what comes out. there’s nothing wrong with that.

idk man it’s late at night and i’m just straight up yappin so i’m not sure how coherent this all is but yeah

[lumiy-a]

I appreciate a lot the explanations and I think it’s fair to give some space also to later arcs. Thanks for that! I’m sure that there are good things to take away from these, I can’t say much about the quality because as said, I haven’t read them. Even though I have them, physically, in paper, almost all of them and in their original edition for collection reasons. Since I’m one of those who only talk and create about this Meridian-Arkhanta-Basiliade-Kandrakar axis, I feel a bit called out here so I’ll share my two cents:

For me, and I think for others too, the point is not really a decline in quality or a prejudice because I heard the quality is worse.

The main reason I cannot read after arc 5 is that my favorite characters are not there. My favorite pairing is 50% dead and 50% weeping in Kandrakar. Another one of my absolute favorite characters is falling off the tower of Kandrakar for eternity. And another one is ruling on Meridian and forgotten by everyone. It’s certainly my problem if my favorite characters of a comic about five teenagers are not the five teenagers themselves, but that’s the reason. Had the comic kept these characters, I would have read all the issues even if the quality sucked. I would read literally anything where Cedric appears, even when he’s drawn by artists who hate him!

Another point I wanted to mention is that I don’t think the fandom is focused that much on Metamoor or Basiliade. One may have this impression from Tumblr because the few active blogs who post regularly with the w.i.t.c.h. tag (which can be counted on the fingers of one hand!) focus on these side aspects. But the thing remains that in bigger spaces like the subreddit or the general fandom server, the focus is mostly on the five girls and their stories (including later arcs) or on the cartoon storyline. I think on Tumblr there is just a higher concentration of fan creators who happen to be fans of these aspects and create the content they want to see on these.

Anyway, I think it would be great to give some visibility to the later arcs and to any aspects that are less talked about or subject to more prejudice so I’m curious to see what you will share!

Thanks for coming to my TED talk

Alright people let’s do it, I’m curious:

Reblog for sample size!

[knightforflowers]

recently got the opportunity to make charms using some of my Ethersea art!!

I’ve ordered just these four samples for now, but if enough people were interested I’ve been entertaining the idea of opening a little shop to sell a few of them! I’m also planning on trying to make this Coriolis shaker charm I did some time ago real, ordering a standee of this piece, as well as designing a couple more additional things!!

I was initially making all of this merch just for myself bc I need objects of my blorbos to live, but since several of my friends have expressed interest in owning them, I thought I’d see how the wider ethersea nation felt abt it too!

(you can find the full art used in these charms here and here! (since the photos aren’t very good LOL they look better in person))

[psychomusic]

oc time again! + her town & culture (heavily inspired by pre-roman italic populations)

she is suri sauthon. her story is linked to my swtor imperial agent, tar'x, but most of her life except for the one year away where she meets him, is spent in a town in the mountains of mirial.

despite mirial being cold and desert, and many cities developing underground, her town flourishes thanks to a force nexus, venerated in the form of an ancient, sacred, alive crystal. the ecosystem of that mountain depended on what "the horned crystal" was capable of giving them, but mirialans couldn't live off of that alone, so they developed trade and some rudimental technology, even if oftentimes it was bought thanks to the highly profitable trade of a plant used to make medicines that slowed down aging and had overall healing properties.

note: everything that's generated by this nexus has these healing properties BUT they have to be processed, except for those who bathed in the waters of the cavity under the crystal - the "real" nexus, but not the worshipped one. the waters were sacred but they were not thought to be miraculous, unlike the crystal, who instead was thought of as the keystone of the ecosystem: without it, everything would fall apart (and that is partially true: the cavity was the "real" nexus but thanks to the crystal, also strong in the force, the properties were spread all over the mountains). those who bathed in the cavity's waters - so, all of the town, who had a sort of baptism there - could eat the plant, make whatever food with it, and not only that plant, but everything generated by the nexus, that, again, had similar properties. this allowed people to live up to normal life-spans without advanced medicines or, much, really. to those who didn't live there, though, after the processing, had incredible effects, slowing down aging - for those who took it regularly - and making people able to live up to half a century more than the average]

originally, there were four tribes of nomads that lived thanks to horned farm animals that decided to settle down into one bigger town and other smaller settlements, to live off of transhumance. this division of the tribes stayed into the political and social organization: every person belonged to one tribe specifically, and had slightly different rituals and culture. for examples, each tribe had their own priests and healers, with different techniques and traditions. the town, tho, was guided by a group of people in the high priesthood, a position you could reach only by having earned the trust of all tribes. those high priests had many roles: they guided the people into sacred processions common to all the tribes, they managed the trading with outsiders, they did the maintenance of the temple of the summit (the one that functioned as casket to the crystal) and created a special liquid to offer the crystal that helps it grow.

this particular temple was important because 1. it was very visible, from every angle of the town, and it became an important identity symbol; 2. it stored the venerated horned crystal; 3. it had the altar where sacrifices were made for the crystals. that altar had a hole connected to the cavity, that allowed the liquids to reach the underground; 4. it had various symbols: statues representing each tribe + the high priesthood, and typical mirialan tattoos carved into the wood of the trees that served as columns for the temple, symbolizing 8 values that who dared to enter HAD to have; 5. it was on the way to an important lake (called "mother lake" because the lake the town was built around to depended on the waters of that other lake) where they traveled to in important processions; 6. it was said that a the wizard who unified the tribes made it with its magic, making the plant grow to hold the temple's roof. this wizard was, actually, a force user, obv.

BACK TO HER THOUGH: she's daughter of one of the high priests, who was in charge of managing the trades with outsiders, and lives in a house on the mountains with her mother and him. her parents are from different tribes (that's one of the things that earned him trust from the 4 tribes): when a child is born from two different tribes, they don't pick one to allign to, but they're usually linked automatically to the one with more relatives in it (in her case, the father's tribe: she had many uncles and aunts on his side while her mom only had one sister).

later, though, she got quite tied to her mother's tribe due to a mysterious illness that only her mother's tribe healer was able to cure. she spent 4 years (from 10 to 14 years old) living with the healer and learned her secrets. to better study, she wrote them down. when she returned home, she studied to become a priestess with her father. at 22 (the average age: you can't become priest before your 20s), she was supposed to take a test and become a priestess, but the healer of her mother's tribe died and the tribe asked her to take her place. she couldn't technically do that, but both tribes estimated both her and her parents and she was allowed to become both. she then decided to try to become a high priestess, and became one at 25 (a quite young age). being part of the council, she tried to convince the various tribe healers to unite their knowledges and write them down, and eventually made it. healers still remained tribe based but they now had an "upper, inter-tribe level" similar to high priesthood.

years later, the sacred horned crystal is stolen from the temple by some Hutt mercenaries looking for a profit. given the trust she has earned from all the tribes and the fact that her father is the high priest that deals with outsiders (and she's been hearing stories and advice about it since she was little), she is the one tasked with getting it back. without the growing crystal, the keystone to their ecosystem, the village would have lasted only a few years. in hrr quest, she meets imperial intelligence agent tar'x laran and, as they "solve the mystery" and fight to have it back, they get closer. they'll get married and have a daughter, Vegoia (who's the only one who actually will get to the plot of my story. this was all background)