#tried to draw the other protags

[eyeimagerysexy]

a little doodle of yosaf i did

[killjoy-prince]

A kiss from Death

[fala-alfredo-pasta]

Just wanted to ask about your talentswap pics for Nagito and Chiaki. Does the Tragedy still happen in it, and if so does either or both of them become part of Ultimate Despair? Also if its only one of them, would Chiaki still die or would it be Nagito in her place. And lastly how are their relationships with their classmates altered in the AU?

I honestly didn’t think anyone was gonna remember my talentswap au much less ask about it in 2023 you have no clue how excited I am to write this lololol

I also wrote a little too much so I’m adding a read more because this got quite lengthy

Okay admittedly though, I didn’t think too too deeply into this au so some of what you asked is what I’m speculating could potentially happen probably.

The tragedy: Does in fact happen ✅ though not in the same way it went down in the games/anime

I’m not sure who will be the Ultimate Despair seeing as what really spurred Junko into becoming who she is was her ultimate analysis talent that basically made everyday life a general bore to her who can quite literally predict 99% of outcomes accurately. The only real excitement she got was when chaos struck and caused disorder in the usual schematics. She learned to thrive in not only her own perpetual despair of boredom but also in the despair in others—becoming the Ultimate Despair we know today. On top of which it’s because of this talent she was able to pull off the tragedy (and most of her schemes) to begin with so if I swap everyone in this au that would include her too. Not sure what unlucky soul would wind up with the Ultimate Analyst talent, but much like how Nagito’s talent greatly impacts the character’s personality and entire backstory, so too would this one. 

What I do know is that Junko would most likely NOT be the Ultimate Despair in this au. Though, that being said, she won’t be an entirely nice person either. I do believe that Junko has a personality type that leans more towards the mean side regardless. Her obsession with despair just made it extreme. (Although if Ryouko is anything to go by, perhaps she is a relatively nice person. ‘Course it’s hard to judge considering that Ryouko forgets everyone within 24 hours and so her relationship with others makes it hard to establish how Junko would treat them in the long term).

Something to note though is just because someone gets the analyst talent doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed to be Ultimate Despair. After all, everyone’s getting swapped and maybe a character winding up with a wildly different talent impacts them enough to take up that title instead. Which is why I say the tragedy will most likely NOT go down the same way Junko orchestrated it. Which brings me to my next point:

Chiaki does not get sacrificed. For a couple of reasons: she’s not the class’ beacon of hope as her lucky talent causes Chiaki to become closed off in order to keep everyone in a far enough distance from her so they don’t get hurt. As such she’s more like the class cryptid at best. She’s still kind and values life, and most of her classmate see her like an aloof stray cat they’d like to befriend someday but runs away whenever you get close, but the bad luck she’s experienced has left her rather pessimistic and anxious. Also, since the Ultimate Despair isn’t Junko and might do things differently, not sure how many (if any) class 77 students are going to be sacrificed in the way Chiaki was.

Regardless, SHSL Gamer Nagito certainly wouldn’t be sacrificed seeing as he uh…doesn’t have the best reputation among his classmates. His woefully pitiful social skills, interest in concerning hobbies (*cough*bomb making/playing with literal fire*cough*), and romanticizing of people’s struggles (because he still loves hope in the form of how greatly it shines at the end of a storyline—and the harder the level=the more struggle one faces, the more satisfying and brighter that ending will be), doesn’t lend itself well to making friends irl. As such he wouldn’t be their beacon of hope. Just the creepy gamer guy.

More specifically he’s a rich kid who hasn’t struggled much in life besides his (unintentional) self-imposed isolation from others to focus exclusively on his games that crippled his social skills. As such, Nagito isn’t as humble nor as self-depreciating as OG Nagito is. You probably won’t like him as much as the original because of it. Yet, he’s still just as manipulative—if not more, to get what he wants, and for all his lack of social skills, he does have a way with words when he’s trying to give a “pep talk” to another player—I mean person—to keep them from quitting (if he finds the effort worth making/their storyline interesting enough). He’s grown a little tired of playing games alone (read: lonely and bored).

On the tangent of gamer Nagito though, he really would lend himself well to being a mastermind and perhaps, maybe to some capacity he is one. Or maybe even THE one. One of the ones anyway. Wouldn’t it be fun to see the world plunge into what resembles an apocalyptic survival game and seeing everyone deal with the most unimaginable struggle to date and watching their storylines play out? See who persevered? See whose hope was too weak and died like the disappointing npcs they are? But wouldn’t it be even more fun to be among them, to be player and participant?

Which is why, I feel like Nagito played a great part in the tragedy in that he helped make it happen. Though, I don’t believe he was the only mastermind. This was a team effort. Nagito ISN’T the Ultimate Despair after all. Just their co-mastermind. Because he would really like an immersive survival game experience where stakes are high and there’s much to lose. I really wouldn’t put it above him to request to be turned into a remnant too. After all, he has more fun playing the game than making it—it wouldn’t be fair if he started off with an advantage while everyone else already had the disadvantage of their morals being corrupted right? Course Nagito already had loose morals as is so how effective his remnant transformation is can be questioned. How much is he affected and how much is he playing the part for the sake of the game? Who knows~ A good player doesn’t reveal his skill set right off the bat y’know.

Chiaki, meanwhile, will potentially become a remnant as well. I say potentially because I feel she’d be a sort of in-between the way Original Nagito was. Not fully despair fueled as her other classmates, but also not entirely trustworthy either. This is due to her constant living with despair due to her luck with a combination of her innate kindness that fend off some of the effects of remnant-fication. As a remnant, she goes back and forth between wanting to cause despair and wanting to help her classmates (and the world) get better. In a way it sort of makes her one of the more unstable remnants, in that you don’t know when she’s here to genuinely help and when she might do something in a wave of despair. It’s like a coin toss and you gotta hope you’re lucky and get her in one of her helpful moods.

This has gotten long enough but dang this au really does bring me lots of joy to explore. If I had more time on my hands I would get into other characters and what their swaps are and how that’s changed their backstory but for now take this instead.

[transmasc-tabris]

.

[ravencromwell]

I have to add Archivist Wasp and its sequel Latchkey by Nicole Kornher-Stace. (Both those links lead to Weightless Books, an arm of the incomparable Small Beer Press that sells drm-free versions of numerous small presses' books for ease of reading and to avoid the amazon monster; to tout the awesome of Small Beer and Mythic Delirium, both primarily responsbiel for publishing Kornher-Stace would be a post of its own, but look them up if you're unfamiliar because they've provided some of the most envelope-pushing, queer-heavy scifi of the last decade.) Archivist Wasp is in the "destroyed earth" rather than the space category of scifi and...well, Amal El Mohtar can sell it better than I ever could:

An Archivist has two jobs. The first is to hunt and catch ghosts in order to learn about the precataclysm past from them; the second is to defend her life and position against “upstarts” — the other girls marked by the goddess Catchkeep’s claw-shaped scars at birth — once a year. Wasp has been Archivist for three years, and wants nothing more than to escape a dismal life of killing her sisters and obeying the Catchkeep-priest — so when an unusually powerful ghost asks her to help find his former partner in the underworld, she agrees. But, as is so often the case with the underworld, she finds both more and less than she bargained for. More than anything else, this book is sharp. You could cut yourself on the prose — Wasp’s world is one of thorns, knives, edges of thick, broken glass, a constant background-hum of pain that sometimes swells into a shout. Wasp’s perspective absolutely thrums with tension and violence, but also aches with a fierce, hollow loneliness to break the heart. The longing and gratitude for the smallest beginnings of true friendship make the betrayals more vicious, and the stakes just keep rising. I burned through this book in about three hours, desperately rooting for her. It’s also a brilliantly constructed narrative and world. The gods are cruel and absent. The underworld is a maze in layers, a twisting, turning palimpsest, one that allows Wasp to descend almost archaeologically through time by literally experiencing her ghost-partner’s memories. The pre- and post-apocalyptic worlds reflect each other in shards and fragments, all the more powerful for being subtle, for their resistance to being spelled out. It was also keenly refreshing — especially in something that’s ostensibly YA, where the Love Triangle of Doom is so annoyingly pervasive — to find a book in which all of the strongest, primary relationships are friendships; where friendship has the narrative, motive force usually reserved for sexualized romance. I very much wanted to see the A in QUILTBAG represented in this column, and this is a fine example: while the connection between the ghost and his (female) partner is intense and loving, it is never represented as sexual, and sex is in fact completely irrelevant.

Sci-fi books where a queer woman has the ghost of an annoying dead guy in her head

*Misery is nonbinary (she/they) and who’s in her head is not dead or a guy but I’m counting it, okay

[the-dragon-girl-27]

Since im in a dino mood:

today on old art i never posted here's some conepts I made like a year or two ago

so like the 2 most fun things to draw are dinosaurs and anime girls so I had a galaxy brain moment and decided to design some dinosaur magical girls (plus evil T-rex villian lady)

so like hear me out so the girls would do magical girl transformations to fight evil dino girls and then it would be like power rangers where after they are defeated once they come back in their dinosaur form and then the girls have a second magical girl transformation where they would turn into their dinosaur forms (and like power rangers there's no reason they don't do this from the start other than just because)

I didn't actually do anything with this concept but like it is a banger concept still

bonus: concept art and more rambling

each girl was designed with a color in mind and i tried to get a variety of dinos (originally the Yi Qi girl was a microraptor hence the 4 wings in her hair but it felt to similar to velociraptor so i went for a different flying dino) velociraptor girl would be protag kun. The last 4 would be like characters who join the group later with the the pachycephalosaurs girl being an anti hero and the Gallimimus and Yutyrannus girl straight up starting as a villians

i wrote like 2 scenes in my head one where Yutyrannus girl betrays and fights evil T rex lady and its a cool tyrannosaur vs tyrannosaur fight and one where velociraptor girl and gallimimus girl talk about something and i ship them for it (so like gallimimus girl is self concious that gallimimus isnt a traditionally like cool dino but raptor girl cheers her up and then gallimimus girl joins the good guys)

also side note that Yutyrannus girl might be one of my best character designs ever lol (I also gave her the most clever name for an OC I've done so like her name would be Yukiko because it starts with a "yu" like Yutyrannus but also yuki = snow and Yutyrannus is accociated with snow)

for the record i forgot what i named the rest

anyway yeah i never did anything with this concept depite how galaxy brain it is lmfao

[starreyblueberry]

Whenever people compare Hazel and Timmy its like why r we making two bad bitches fight, they could easily be best friends guys, like I fully think Hazel would help Timmy kinda think his actions though and help him actually process his emotions while Timmy would help Hazel to try not to overthink things and that everything will be ok in the end. Cosmo and Wanda love BOTH of them guys, yes there's a difference in status (IE. Hazel doesn't need Cosmo and Wanda as her parental figures, being more like aunt/uncle vs Timmy who kinda does, and has more of an adopted kid vibe with them) but that doesn't make Timmy or Hazel bad characters!! Nor does it make Timmy or Hazel a worse godkid, I legit just think they both show different styles of godparenting respectfully, and I think that's perfect? It was obvious that Cosmo and Wanda were doing something different with Timmy, Him being proclaimed the favorite, as well as the amount of time they spent with him in general. Timmy was a lot more neglected then Hazel, and I think Cosmo and Wanda had more of a parental attachment to him.

Hazel though has different problems, she has more severe anxiety and is in a new place that she's having trouble adjusting too! and unlike timmy, she experienced a loss of a caretaker when she was a kid, which is a different type of pain than having no caretaker. Comso and Wanda don't try to be Hazel's parents though, rather just another adult figure in her life that she can go too!! Yes I think that Hazel is a lot more fortunate than Timmy and I won't lie one of my criticisms for the new show is the fact that she too happy, which contradicts a lot of the OG's shows' logic that Godkids have to be miserable, but I think this was done for a writing shift, so that so much humor wasn't focused on the cynical tried to be funny outlook they had with Timmy, but actually focused on the fun a godparent CAN be! Hazel is still an amazing protagonist and cause of her we get more fun adventures with Cosmo and Wanda, and adventures in her world too!

I also think that Timmy in general is a more compelling main character but that's cause of my own preferences and beliefs. Im sure there are so many kids rn who watch A New Wish and see themselves in Hazel, like how so many of us saw ourselves in Timmy! I think there's a lot of misinformation and mischaracterization between both of them, and it sucks ALOT!! Im not super into a new wish as I am compared to the old show, but I can respect both protagonists without trying to make the other one seem any less. Saying that Timmy is worse then Hazel just feels like were writing off his characters to the bare bones that were kinda fucked up by butch Hartman himself. If you actually watched and took time to see his character, you'd see how he always just wanted to be a part of his family in the end, that a lot of his wishes were suppose to be somewhat selfless, and meant for the people he loved to be happy!! The "selfish" wishes he made were made out of emotional distress, which, what 10-year-old isn't experiencing at all times??? He had severe circumstances that its hard to draw the line as to what was just cartoon exaggeration vs what his reality is, cause as the show went on his parent's disdain for him felt very real.

He still stood up though, and he put his fairies safety above all else at times, and its so sweet, and shows how much Timmy really was part of their family. He is very much an average kid who no one understands and its sooo funny that it ended up being like that in the general public as well. Timmy did the best with what he had and tbh it was amazing!! I really loved the found family of it all and I do think he belongs with Cosmo and Wanda <3 BUT I THINK IN TERMS OF SHOWS, THEIR BOTH GOOD PROTAGS!! they just have diff storytelling/different circumstances and both are experiencing a different style of godparenting

im saying this as one of the top 10 Timmy Turner fans ever btw

[echoweb2]

hate the whole 'sayaka is a snake so bad person' / 'leon technically didn't have to kill her so bad person' discourse so much. tell me you cant read without telling me you cant read honestly.

the thesis of chapter 1 is that otherwise good people become their worst selves due to the killing game. that's why dr team had the sweet, scared teen idol kick off the killing game and backstab the protag in the process. but still had her go back on her decision to frame makoto, taking the time to write out her true killer's name with her last bit of strength. that's why, to a much lesser extent, they had leon not be completely blameless in sayaka's death, even though the plot would stay mostly the same if it was truly self-defense. but still had him crying, screaming, and even taking the time to draw a extra cg of him distressed to show that he's really no cold-hearted killer and likely wouldn't have done it if he felt he had any other choice.

leon and sayaka are good people and that goodness shines through in their last moments. but they both unambiguously tried to kill someone, and now both must die for it. even though they were actively encouraged by the setting to kill.

it's all a big commentary on the tragic nature of the killing game to change its victims for the worse!! to make its victims act in opposite to who they really are!! to create natural human desperation and then punish it!!! blaming leon/sayaka instead of their material conditions is just silly and against the point. and the game even explained this outright.

(you can find the full context at the end of any chapter 1 walkthrough, but I'm really not misrepresenting anything. the game really is this obvious about it. )

((also this discourse completely undermines that danganronpa as a whole is a tragedy first and foremost about teenagers being forced to kill eachother. this is literally step one of understanding danganronpa. and chapter 1, again, is just a long way of setting up this theme. how do people argue about this??))

[drezendragon]

V to UV Art by DonnyK9 Murder Drones AU Idea Rambling Alright this is a “Drezen Ramble” I watched Murder Drones as it was coming out and after the last episode had an idea for a AU that then spiraled out of control a bit. It took a long time to finally find someone to draw some stuff for it and hopefully I can find more people to comm stuff for this but here we go. Should probably note I copy pasted most of this from a conversation I had with a bud so sorry if it comes off as nonsense XD

Context: this idea was inspired by the last few episodes where we find out “Effective Drones were cloned more” and Cyn’s comment that N’s Team always surprised her along with the fact V was willing to make a deal with the solver and that V’s persona kind of a mask to deal with the horrors. 

Most of this little story would take place on a different world probably a few years before Copper 9 and the main plot. I mean the solver had to get through Copper's 1 to 8 after all plenty of space to fill so assume it takes place on one of those many outings. 

Basically this AU would center around a different V who went with a different persona to mask behind instead of canon V this AU V takes up the persona of a "Tomboy" (+ a little shonen protagism) this Persona of V basically sets out to try and make sure this Squad is a proper Team and not barely functional mess... Basically She and N use “Democracy” to vote out J as leader and put V in charge who then actually raises team efficiency (much to J's annoyance) by basically doing all she can to be N and J's friend attempting to give them both therapy while mediating their clash of Extrovert and Introvert. N she actually deals with the fact his brain is wiped although basically spoon feds him info (basically tells him the mansion stuff but not the Gala incident) and also kind of gently shuts down his crush on her because she can't really remember what it was like to be the Girl N fell for and she thinks he deserves someone who can take all the love he has in his big dumb heart (She does promise to wingman for him though if they ever find someone who meets his fancy). Becoming friends with J was a lot harder. The girl has so many walls up she basically lives in a mental fortress but together they actually get their job done much faster and making N less annoying for J to deal with they become actual friends.

The Team did so well they actually finished the job with a year to spare which they spent further bonding and talking about what they might do after..... then Cyn and the other J show up. The Team freaked out but they did their job and they did it well and V hopes that this means the deal she made of "Leave us in Peace" will be upheld which Cyn says it will... as she proceeds to rip one of V's arms off. This of course freaks them out and Cyn clarifies it is holding up its end of the deal to "Leave them in P-I-E-C-E giggle" in fact she is so happy with them she is extending the deal to "Pieces"  isn't she the best boss (Happy Sarcastic Tone) the Team panics and tries to fight back but doing so causes Cyn to kill N (guess he didn't want to be left in Pieces oh well hopefully the next back up is more of a team player) J (Team) fights J (Solver's Pet) kind of messes up the “Solver's Pet” to see herself fight back choosing her Team over Corporate... but she too goes down once Cyn gets bored with the resistance and uses Admin permissions to lock up the Team has her pet J finish off the other J and then Cyn takes time ripping V into pieces removing her arms, peg legs, smashing her visor face and shredding her voice box after V tries to curse her out/ scream to just annoy Cyn. In the end V is left just a torso with her upper leg stumps still attached, a smashed face and something that shouldn't be called a voice and due to Cyn being Admin she won't be regenerating. Cyn eats the planet but makes sure to leave the chunk with V and her team’s remains as untouched as she can after all would be rude to not let V keep her reward.

Cyn eventually leaves for the next planet and V is just kind of left she can't see or hear anything only feel the wind but even that eventually fads and she is left alone with her thoughts for a very long time.... until something finds her something finds a broken doll discarded by a cruel "god" V is not sure if she has gone mad but she tries to call out and whatever it is doesn't retreat from her distorted cries instead it seems to try and comfort her and she feels herself being gently picked up so long since she last felt kindness that she drifts off to sleep. When she wakes up she has been repaired.... mostly it seems whoever repaired her used the parts of her team leaving her with N's lower legs, J's voice box patching up her own (Basically she doesn’t sound like V or J her voice is either deeper or growly-raspy sounding), no idea whose arms she has since they all look so similar but her upper arms seem to be new parts, seemingly J’s unbound hair, no stinger tail and when she looks into a mirror she sees her eyes are now basically the color of UV lights and on closer inspection she swears she sees more eyes beneath her visor but before the panic of whatever that is about set in she notices another addition of…. Animal Ears in place of her Headband eyes with said ears expressing her current mood before twitching as she hears someone in the next room and with checking herself over done she leaves out the room to whatever awaits her next.

Notes:

She is nicknamed "UV" because of her eyes she never actually introduces herself to the person who put her back together so “UV” is just what they call her until she either introduces herself or picks out a name for herself.

Her lights were changed from yellow to purple by the person who put her back together both as a side effect of some of the alterations made when repairing her and also so that she hopefully wouldn’t freak out when seeing yellow drone eyes looking back at her when she looks in a mirror.

She is the admin of her own system Cyn’s Admin rights were replaced but despite that UV was unable to regenerate which is why she was repaired with available parts. The current status of her solver is UV has admin rights but the solver does not seem to work in any capacity. 

She can't use her arm weapons so has to carry actual weapons which after finding some Disassembly Drone arms with their Swords sticking out she takes the blades to make into actual swords she can wield. She also can’t use her wings anymore.

Her body has a few upgrades beyond the patch job repair due to the person who repaired her getting hit with inspiration while examining her but they stopped themselves from going overboard as they acknowledge UV is a person and any alterations should really be of her choice… granted this person also looked through her memories just to make sure they weren’t repairing a psycho.

Upgrades and modifications she now has are: Her new upper arm parts compensate for her lack of wings since they allow her arms to extend (Think Reg’s arms from Made in Abyss), her visor she can now customize things like the type or eye brows she has when she expresses along with a range of other options to help her be who she wants to be, She can eat human food being no longer reliant on oil but she can still eat it and other drone foods if she has to and probably a few other features relating to her new visor and ears that she didn’t bother to ask about once the shock of being rebuilt started to wear off.

Having her Teammates limbs attached to her has had a bit of an effect on her psyche causing her to take up some of their personality traits on top of her Tomboy Persona leading her to be more Chipper like N but also making her call the person who fixed her up "Boss" (thankfully she is spared using the mountain of corporate jargon that J does)

She has a lot of mental grief, having survivors guilt and refusing to get any further upgrades or better repairs to desperately hold onto what she has left of her friends which sometimes leads to her hallucinating them when alone or stressed out.

Character Inspirations: Murder Drones's V: Eldritch Robo, Fake it till you make it, Cloned Traumatized Killed Cloned again, Sacrifice her own happiness for her friends.

Fate's Mordred: Knight of Rebellion, Artificial Being Cloned from another, Tomboy, Traumatized but kind of dealing with it.

Underverse's Cross:  Quotes "Am I evil for what I did? Am I evil for what I am?" " What's the point of feeling useful and valid in a reality plagued by thousands of us...?" "Yes, our origin is an imitation... ready-made from another. But...our pride, our experiences... Maybe they make us authentic." Scrapnik Mecha Sonic: Haunted by the fight that left them in pieces, Shadow of their “maker” looming over them, feels like a misshapen thing with scraps for limbs, surprisingly dangerous for their current state of repair. 

[stepswordsen]

【大海原 AU：暗黒星の冠】 イダ竜

【WATGBS AU: COTDS】 IdaTatsu

Idate and Tatsumiya 🖤🤍❤️💙

WATGBS AU: COTDS

WATGBS AU: COTDS is an Idate and IdaTatsu centric AU between me and my friends 💞 COTDS stands for Crown of the Dark Stars 👑💫 Its other name is Ankokusei no Kanmuri.

I just wanted to post some rough sketches/WIPs of my magical oarfish wife, and my homicidal oreo, my cat cot son 🤗 Magical oarfish MILF x Buff chaotic demon DILF.

I'm planning to give Tatsumiya matching Star and Moon earrings to match with Idate's Black Sun and Star ones...

Read more under the cut if you're interested in our IdaTatsu AU!

Our WATGBS AU is named Crown of the Dark Stars (暗黒星の冠, Ankokusei no Kanmuri) 💫👑 It's an AU with its own story, separate from the original WATGBS.

WATGBS AU: COTDS is an Idate and IdaTatsu centric AU between me and my friends 💞 COTDS stands for Crown of the Dark Stars 👑💫 Its other name is Ankokusei no Kanmuri.

WATGBS AU: COTDS, which stands for Crown of the Dark Stars, or Ankokusei no Kanmuri, is an Idate centric and IdaTatsu AU between me and my friends that's a complete revamp and rewrite of WATGBS.

WATGBS AU: COTDS is an AU between me and my friends! We all contribute to it whenever we have time to draw and write for it 😌🙏

Summary of WATGBS AU: COTDS would literally just be: (Yoinks characters and the settings, makes an original story)

It's just us writing our own stories and exploring our ideas with the characters, mainly focused on him and his dynamics with other charas. We made up our own lore and revamped the characters' writing and designs. It's just us playing with our revamped and rewritten blorbo OCs in our sandbox 💞

WATGBS AU: COTDS is centered around Idate, a chaotic evil demon orca man who originally wanted to unleash the apocalypse, but became too mellow after meeting Tatsumiya.

It's an Idate centric AU that heavily focuses on IdaTatsu (Idate/Tatsumiya), and the platonic familial dynamic between the orca brothers, Idate and his older twin brother, Takama. And it has a heavier emphasis on fantasy elements. And we have our own OCs we created for it too, like our IdaTatsu fankids 🤭

Idate: The Star Eater and Grand Demon

Idate (伊達 (イダテ)) is the evil protagonist of WATGBS AU: COTDS 🖤🤍💙 He is Tatsumiya's husband and Takama's younger twin brother.

Idate is the "Star Eater" and Lord of the Underworld. Idate drinks peoples' blood and eats their souls as nourishment. He and his older twin brothers are Demons. They're secretly Grand Demons (大魔王, Dai Maou), who have much more powerful magic than other Demons. They originally lived in Iceberg Isle, but Idate ends up convincing Takama to move to the Blue Sea Kingdom with him so he can live with Tatsumiya.

He's a chaotic evil demon orca and the evil protag of our AU, which makes him very fun for me to write! 🐬💞 I love writing for IdaTatsu and the others, and coming up with and adding onto each everyones' ideas whenever we discuss.

He's extremely chaotic and the world's most insufferable wifeguy /endearing that falls devastatingly in love with and eventually gets married to Tatsumiya. They feel drawn to each other, someone who's the complete opposite of the other, someone who represents what the other has never known, and tries to figure each other out.

Idate's character theme is "Void" 🖤

Idate eating and stealing souls also plays up to his whole void theme.

He's the Lord of Space and the Underworld, whose void world that contains the dead souls of all the people he ate for power.

Idate's powers represent the concept of "Void."

Idate can access a different dimension (the void between worlds), to create darkness and call it from within himself. Infinite darkness. An infinite void. Idate can create and access voids, and can call upon and manipulate darkness.

Idate's leitmotif is the Black Sun. His void is a black hole.

Idate can make makeshift weapons from dark energy. It's a black demon aura that can be controlled at will and slash into things.

Stardust is the source of all magic in the sea in our AU. Idate can make makeshift weapons from dark energy (black stardust).

Tatsumiya: The Dragon Flower and Grand Sorcerer of the Blue Sea

Tatsumiya (竜宮) is the Grand Sorcerer of the Blue Sea Kingdom 🤍❤️ She's the Lord of Creation, and Idate's wife. And also my wifey wife wife <3 🥰😘 She's a magical oarfish that serves the Blue Sea Kingdom's Princess, Lucinda, our Blue Sea Princess (BSP) OC. Her specialties are healing and star magic. 🌠

She's known as the Dragon Flower (龍花, Ryuuka) because her reputation with the sword spread across the Blue Sea. She has soul restoration and soothing properties with her powers to calm souls.

Tatsumiya is the Messenger/Aide to the Blue Sea Kingdom's Princess 💞 Her title is Grand Sorcerer (大魔導士, Dai-Madoushi). In our WATGBS AU, she took on the role after Meikai's disappearance.

Tatsumiya's leitmotif is the Moon.

As the complete opposite of Idate, her main powers are controlling flowing water, star magic (creation magic), and healing. Her royal duties as the Blue Sea's Messenger, are similar to a shrine maiden's.

Tatsumiya is so wifey to me 🤭

In WATGBS AU: COTDS, she is Idate's wife!

IdaTatsu: The Two Messengers, the Sun and the Moon

Tatsumiya is the Blue Sea Kingdom's Grand Sorcerer. Idate is one of the Grand Demons that came from elsewhere. The two Messengers of their opposing Gods.

Idate and Tatsumiya are opposites in terms of their powers, personalities, and roles. Both Idate and Tatsu are Messengers of their opposing "Gods" and queens. Our own OCs, Algol and Lucinda, are the Red Sea Princess (BSP) and Blue Sea Princess (BSP) respectively.

Tatsumiya, one of the brightest stars in the sea, and Idate the Star Eater 💞

WATGBS AU: COTDS' headcanon versions of the characters' designs

In our WATGBS AU's revamped versions of the charas (our headcanon designs), Idate is buff and has scars.

He wears blue eyeliner, and black sun and star earrings to match with Tatsumiya's red eyeliner and star and moon earrings 🌠☀️🌕

(I'll add Tatsu's earrings in the future!)

Idate wears blue eyeliner, which is the same as Tatsumiya's favourite colour, ultramarine blue (群青色, gunjyou iro) 💙

At first this was coincidental, I added it to his design cuz I thought he looked nice with eyeliner and so it'd have great visual contrast with Tatsu's design, but then I found out that Tatsu's favourite colour was ultramarine blue. So the colour I chose for Idate's eyeliner coincidentally, ended up being the same as Tatsu's fave colour…

Unintentional big brain play from me 😌

I want to give them matching couple eyeliner and earrings! Idate wears black sun and star earrings, and Tatsu wears moon and star ones ☀️🌙🌠

Ofc these are still WIPs, so I'm planning to add them eventually.

IdaTatsu are the Sun/Moon, Yin/Yang, Light/Darkness themed couple in our AU <3 The Black Sun and the Moon ☀️🖤🌙

IdaTatsu's leitmotifs have a lot of narrative significance in COTDS, which ties back to our AU's central themes 🙏 I've given a lot of focus to their relationship ☺️

Name Meanings

Idate (伊達) 伊達 = Meaning “elegance; gallantry; sophistication; showy; having style”, or “putting on airs; showing off”

I chose the kanji reading Idate (伊達) cuz both meanings fit him very well! 🖤🤗

Idate (伊達) is my headcanon kanji reading of Idate's name. Since I wanted to pick a reading with a fitting name meaning for him!

My son. My homicidal oreo… 🐬 Oreorcat

I'll eventually turn these WIPs into concept art reference sheets! Though I might format them differently.

Tatsumiya (竜宮) 竜宮 = Meaning “Dragon Palace”

It's an alternate reading of Ryuuguu 🐉🏯 The Undersea Dragon Palace from the story of Urashima Tarou in Japanese folklore.

It comes from 竜宮の使い (Ryuuguu no tsukai), a giant deep-sea oarfish, known as "The Messenger/Envoy of the Undersea God's Palace" which is exactly what Tatsumiya represents as a character!

I chose kanji readings of Idate and his older twin brother Takama's names, as well for our other OCs in WATGBS AU: COTDS, like our IdaTatsu fankids. I'm excited to show them in the future 🤗💞

[somereaderinblue]

Melanie & Rem, Flawed Mothers

I've seen a lot of people draw parallels between Rem & Meryl and they're right, I can see them. However, today I noticed another female Trigun character with parallels to Rem, one that doesn't get as much recognition as the aforementioned insurance agent/reporter.

Miss Melanie.

So based on this brief Tristamp appearance she has, there are 2 possible theories.

She's worried because she has a feeling that something is wrong.

She's worried because she KNOWS something is wrong.

Theory 2 was always a gut puncher to me. Maybe it's because some of us subconsciously hold mothers, the ones who carried us, birthed us, nurtured us, in higher esteem. Maybe it's because in-universe, the 'evil' characters outnumber the 'good' ones so we ourselves latch onto what little 'good' any character has. Heck, in all Trigun iterations, the main protag, Vash, himself puts his mother, Rem, on a pedestal.

Then I realized that's the point. Trigun is first & foremost about human flaws. Being a parent of all things is the last position that grants one immunity from messing up, it isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card from weaknesses. Rem herself is proof of this.

Both Rem & Melanie take on maternal roles to children who aren't related to them biologically but still theirs in every way that matters. Both did their best to give them a happy loving childhood in a world that will (never might or if, not a possibility but an inevitability) chew them up & spit them out.

Both of them have failed & continue to fail these children.

Rem failed Tesla & she tried her best for the twins. But sometimes a parent's best isn't enough & as they die (in the same spaceship that served as a coffin to the first child they failed), they can only hope their children grow up to be better than them.

If either theories I mentioned earlier were true, it's possible that WW isn't the first child the EoM has taken & considering what happened to Livio, he's not the last. Hopeland isn't the only orphanage on NML either. How many other adults in Melanie's position had to send their own wards off to the slaughterhouse? How many had to be complicit to their crimes?

More importantly, what can Miss Melanie do? She's one woman against an entire murder cult. Rem was a SEEDS navigator & had the resources to forge fake data for the twins but even then, she was also one woman against an entire spaceship of scientists with dubious morality.

But.

Even if the world sees you as one woman, your child sees you as their world. They'll be forced to grow up fast because the only other option is dying young, but they'll be grateful that you were there to give them a childhood, brief as it was.

So both Miss Melanie & Rem kept trying, kept loving and kept giving. They're mothers who've committed mistakes they'll take to their graves; but like their children, I love them, flaws & all.

[smugpugchimera]

God damn I just woke up from dreaming about a non existant piece of media that I wish was real.

I even tried to look it up In My Dream cause it was bonkers, but alas, it's but a figment of my mind

I dreamed of watching a small portion of it, so I don't know (or understand?) the plot necessary, but it's style and surrealism blew me the fuck away. We follow some kind of girl-entety protagonist, and the entire environment is an abstract mesh of 80s-style abstract geometric surrealism, old math book covers, and encyclopedia illustrations. The places are disjointed in space and get simplified in a single void of color when far away. Everything has a vibe of living on a microscopic level. While at it, there're were also kinda, gruesome scenes with other characters that don't quite make sense but left a very visceral impression, the way gore felt in that environment (and how weird and nonsensical it was) is very striking. For a bit, we follow a sentient cat-like entity that has some trouble delivering its kitts. They meet with the protag and hide together from some sort of a giant fish predator. I won't describe any of the strange gore things cause I honestly don't know what that was, necessary, but the situation ends in the protagonist having to take care if the kitts of the cat-adjacent being. prologue is spent in a kind of a primordial space that also distinctively feels like the periphery of the local society. I think I'd also draw a similar vibe comparison to Samurai Jack environments. Though, again, more abstract, but also more well-rendered? It's as if it's an older film that uses mixed media animation, paintsprayed backgrounds, and early 3D to achieve this very particular type of uncanny. Later in the plot, our protag has to move into a different place, that is like, an industrial core of the area. Even compared to the previous location It's a blight of abstract geometry. It has this unnatural, AI generated polish and artifacting. Things are less cluttered, more spread out, and have a strange regularity. There're products and brand names all around, all scrambled to the point of being unrecoverable. And the empty spaces, softly lit, as if, non tangible voids of color that surround everything. It's mostly bright, synthetic green. The skybox but a gradient of a few colors, no clouds or celestial objects to be seen. The plot didn't progress much further than that, but despite the very strange cover, the core of it felt like a Don Bluth film in a sense, specifically "All the dogs go to heaven", kinda? Again, just a vibe.

I tried to search for some visual aid and surreal 2000s encyclopedia art I'm referring to is Impossible to find, but I tried to find some other things in the similar vein. First area was very organic on a macro scale, but did manifest strange regularities too.

All "land"scapes featured both ringgit geometry and lava lamp like formations

The spacing of things in the second location reminds me also of this old puzzele game "Balance", tho that has to do with the feeling of the gameplay too :0

I'd say the disjointed-ness and unrecognizability of the familiar also gives me the work of Ivan Seal

Idk I'm just saving this for later inspiration, I lament many imaginary media my brain comes up with aren't real :(

[nejishadow]

I felt the sudden compulsion to draw Joker and then immediately the rest of the entries had other characters sneak in whoops

They're my Persona Protags and I'll ship them because it's funny if I want!

This was for: "Kiss on the Hand"

Also used different refs for these than the other entries, tried out diff colors for Yuki. Akira's are from the last piece I had him in I mostly like having these two together because of Dancing, they bring me joy

Also pose was from some CSP models, I didn't feel like adjusting it for the height, so ignore that Joker would be way taller if he stood up, whoops! Maybe they're on some steps

[justlarkin]

Imma just go off anon cause idc, same person as that anon who talked about housamo woman and bombom and chrsitine.

Anyways yeah! Bombom females are amazing, like looking at who's he drawn, I didn't even realize he drew some of my favorite females 😭. There's Babylon, Arc (is Arc female? Or just straight nonbinary?), my queen Christine (even tho I'm gay but like 🙏), Maria, female protag (I love her so much. She's my favorite to use cause who doesn't like strong woman). So yeah, bombom defender here too! Also, the hands thing? Honestly same. Hands suck ASS to draw 10/10 do not recommend. So I understand his pain.

Also Arc must be protected at all costs. They're a sweetie pie who needs love and affections 🙏

Gosh, I may not use MC2 as often as MC1, but she's like wow, you know. I know it's such a plain student design like the other designs, but there's just something special going on here.

I think Arc is supposed to be non binary, but the game has or had them clocked as female despite using they/them pronouns for them 💀. They are very cute regardless and needed to be mentioned!! That Little Red Riding Hood outfit is down right adorable and they're a badass when they get the spotlight. I love that Bab's isn't only motherly, but also a bastard schemer. And just look at the details on both these outfits!!

So true tho!! Protect Arc at all costs!! ❤

I have to say that I love Ibaraki's fem looks because I think girls look cute in guy outfits too 😌

I think Maria and Taromaiti are so cute and cool too. Like the way Maria carries her entire guild and is just so self-sacrificial and forgiving that it freaks out guys like Nyarl and Kirito is so goofy and based, I love her. And Taromaiti fighting gender roles and garnering an army of feral lesbian simps? Based. We don't see much of her, but she's always so kind and tries to be understanding when we do 😖❤

Also, he cooked here with this mob tbh

[citrine-elephant]

simmons versus leon idea...

leon and helena have just ended the fight with simmons after he had taken a face full of pain and train.

and the one they're on is about to crash. they jump for it.

when helena resurfaces, she doesn't see him. leon doesn't come up. she's panicking now, back and forth trying to figure out where the fuck he was. over the sound of the water, the fires, the metal creaking, she just barely hears him above her. he got snagged on a mess of tangled rebar and scrap, but is otherwise okay.

"just hanging in there," he says. and that's when simmons reemerges.

helena tries to intervene, leon's taking shots. but when he's not swatted into the water or chewed up in he jowls of dogman simmons... helena's left alone when simmons grabs leon. he doesn't bother with her, he's all focused on leon. fuck that guy. she tries to communicate with leon through comms, begging for a response.

he manages to get the point across that simmons isn't killing him, but he's kinda stuck in his monster jaws. the last comms helena gets is hearing simmons threatening leon. something something, helena gets the gist that he's not gonna kill leon, but he's kidnapping him -> absolute fucking panic because of what he did to deborah.

(havent went through the other campaigns again, but i will later, so im kinda hazily remembering how it goes)

flash forward to helena getting into contact with chris through hunnigan (who is kinda panicking herself lol). this leads to a quick turnaround where, once sherry and jake are saved, they deal with that big hunk of unkillable bastardry. turns into a leon rescue mission next.

two ways from here:

-> heavy pain:

simmons spends some time torturing leon, bcuz why not. involves psychological torment about what he's going to do to ada. yadda yadda, he says he's gonna break all of his bones and make him watch while he kills her. draw it out just for him. let him suffer. yadda yadda, simmons gets more irrational the longer he's infected. more cruel.

this could branch off between leon making his escape, or actually needing to be busted out. either way, things kinda go similar to canon ending where simmons goes t rex, then big bug bitch. kind of like a side plot where the protag get lost after exploring that side entrance and the DM has to reroute the fuckin campaign for them and try to get them back on track-

-> HEAVIER pain:

the above happens. except, simmons decides to infect leon to get back at ada instead. he tracks her down, as she tracks him down, now aware of leon's disappearance.

... maybe helena gets a little snarky back to ada, asking her why she's so upset since leon's trying to kill her. (damn i get it but ada, you didn't have to be so fucking rude over that scene lol)

IF piers had still died, chris makes it his mission to get leon back. he won't let leon die. he can't. he has to save SOMEONE. figure out a way to trap him and get him pinned so... maybe. maybe rebecca can help...

the good ending: he's not too far gone and can be cured.

the hurty ending: ada's cradling leon as he's taking his last breaths. already dead, died when simmons infected him... snarling at her as he dies in her arms-

the only semi hurty: leon NEARLY dying in ada's arms. he's weak and rational enough. says he loves her, asks her to keep an eye on sherry... asks to be put down before he hurts anyone else..... buut ~! he's saved. somehow. magic cure outta nowhere ! uh. maybe jake just sorta spits on him and he's good. LMFAO

[pinkomcranger]

I saw your post about Saga and I 100% agree. I love her character so much and was so happy they avoided stereotypes AND gave her agency. She wasn't there just to save Alan (the horrid magical black person troupe was avoided) she was there for people who meant something to her and they just so happen to work together by the end. Remedy truly wrote a fascinating character and got a great actress to portray her. I'm glad the hate died out from the reactionaries but the apathy from the fandom is just as bad sometimes. I love her personality and I honestly love AnderCase as a ship and incorporating Saga into ships (AndercasexWake is a thing for me lol). I also like them as friends, their dynamic is so damn good I want to see them in future games. However, I gave up writing Andercase because people just ignore it most of the time. The fandom in general kind of feels isolating if you don't like the standard ships/characters. It's discouraging and sad and makes it hard to want to post. I tried again and of course the fic did poorly so I don't bother, reminds me how little people want anything to do with Saga. Even general fics would be awesome if people are squicked by het or don't like Saga and Casey as a ship. The fan space for her and ships/dynamics with her is so small...Drawing her is scary too given someone was attacked over it, so that worries me too and I kind of backed away. There's barely anything of Saga in any fanworks and when women are involved they gravitate to Rose and in some cases Estevez (the Yakuza mod just broke my heart they did not think to add Saga before Rose who has less time and at a point people shipped Casey with Estevex BEFORE Saga like WHAT). I know that struggle you're feeling. Saga and anything with her is a footnote and I know it's not malicious but it sucks. Fandom favoritism does not help, even in the smallness of Saga fandom content only a handful are seen and the rest ignored. I've been there and seen it, it pushes newcomers away. I hope this gets better in the future but not holding my breath. Love Remedyverse/Remedy but the fandom space depresses me which sucks because everyone seems nice to me, just...sorry for the rambling. Just saw a post that resonated with my frustrations.

Do you know the thing that gets me the most about Saga? She was created by a white man. And he, along with the other writers, made SURE to avoid the stereotypes we usually get in black women protags, especially in video games. She has a power, yes, but she's not using it solely to save one person. She doesn't even know she HAS a power until halfway through the game!

She wants to save her daughter first and foremost and then Casey, she tells Alan this point-blank, save my daughter and Casey, non-negotiable, she's NOT helping him otherwise. And you can see that as selfish, but it's not, if it had JUST been herself thrown into the story? She would've been FINE with it, you see her getting more and more excited about the case. She's intrigued EVERY step of the way. It only becomes personal when Alan has the audacity to use Logan and Casey, that's her line in the sand.

Melanie puts so much into making Saga come alive, because as amazing as the writing is, she could've still fallen into the sassy black woman trope, and Melanie doesn't let that happen. I think the ONLY criticism you can give her is that her accent slips, but I really never noticed it. I agree that I'm glad the hate from the dumbass gamer bros, but like you said, the apathy can be just as bad, it's a choice to not say the quiet part outloud.

I genuinely wish they'd just say, she's a black woman, therefore, I'm not interested in her. I only care about the white men. At least be HONEST about it, instead of raving about how fun it was to play as Saga and she's so badass but not backing it up with actions.

I love Andercase with every fiber of my being. I loved them from their first scene, despite knowing she was married to somebody else. Casey is Saga's support, you see her loving to crack her puns to Casey, she even thinks of one and saves it to memory solely to tell it to Casey. Not Logan, not David, but Casey.

They mirror each other, again from their first scene, drinking coffee at the same time. A trait they keep, even as the horror story creeps closer. Casey wouldn't be even a little bit interesting to me if he wasn't paired with Saga. He's the moon and she's the sun.

I'm so sorry you were discouraged to write and post about Andercase, even just as besties. Because their dynamic IS gold, and it echoes even when they're separated. The second Kiran shows up and kicks Saga off the case, she gets over it, fine, she'll deal, but help her find her partner, damnit! I've enjoyed fics where they are just besties, the ones that ACTUALLY focus on them and, you know, doesn't make Saga the driving force for CaseyWake and nothing else.

I think that's one of the reasons it's hard for me to ship Saga and FBI Casey with anyone else, because they're each other's closest interactions for so much of the game. It's hard for me to ship Alan with them because I see him and Saga as the true platonic soulmates of the AW2 cast and Casey HATES Alan. All the way up the ending of the final draft. You can see it in his expression and body language, if he hadn't just been through the wringer and so happy to see Saga, he definitely would've punched Alan for all he shit he's put them through.

Writing a pairing you love, feeling so proud and happy about the work you've done, just to see it brushed aside is one of the most painful feelings as a creator. Fandom is supposed to be for EVERYONE, it's not supposed to be high school cliques that can't interact with each other. I don't ship Alan with Saga's Casey (it's just the only way I see him, heh), but I've seen some AMAZING fan art for them that's made me smile. But you rarely see Saga involved, which makes no sense in regards to her Casey. If it was fictional Casey, that would make sense, he doesn't exist outside of Alan's head, while Saga's Casey is a living, breathing person who spends most of his time with Saga or talking about her.

Yet she's relegated to the bro when her Casey and Alan only have her in common. I can't buy Casey being soft and domestic with Alan to save my life. I see it with Saga, I can see Saga being soft with Alan because she does show that side to him. That's who she is, if you've earned her trust and respect. You can tell Saga is always the "good cop" while Casey is the "bad cop." The only time you see him sympathetic towards Alan is when he first washes up to shore. He's mocking him but holding his tongue because Saga's not going to take that nonsense from him.

You only see Casey show the full force of his anger towards Alan when Saga isn't there to stop him. To say "Yes, THAT'S the actual love story here" is a...choice, one that actively ignores the on-screen narrative. Again, fictional Casey and Alan are a completely different topic and not something I care enough to write about.

NOBODY should be attacked for liking a pairing because what does that do? What does it accomplish except make yourself feel better and superior? Again, it's been a choice to ignore the two main women in the series, which are Alice and Saga. But I've seen quite a few fics where Alice gets to be paired with CaseyWake, while you'll be hard-pressed to find a fic where Saga gets to interact with them. That tells me something that makes me uncomfortable. And that's covert racism.

You can't even make the excuse that there's nothing left to learn about Saga, because that's simply untrue. We know the bare minimum about her family on the Anderson side, and absolutely nothing concerning her father (who is Warlin Door and I will die on that hill). We don't know much about her created family, certainly nothing about David, outside of the fact he likes Bright Springs, and boardgames and doesn't take his daughter to get checked out after she hits her head in the shower. The fact her entire identity ISN'T just Logan's mother and David's wife means so much to me.

You can't tell me it's because she's married either, because how can you say that in one breath and then ship Alan with anyone but Alice in the same breath? It genuinely leads me to think it's simply that she's a BLACK woman. And as you said, seeing people create ships for Rose and to pair Estevez with CASEY, when she's an out-and-out lesbian that Casey only meets near the end of the game speaks volumes.

I genuinely think if you swapped her race, she would be less ignored, and that's extremely fucked up. Saga was created with so much love, care, and respect. A black woman protag that we could get behind and feel represented by. A smart, strong, caring badass, who still retains her femininity, but who has an identity outside of "mother" even though saving her daughter is her driving force, it's not her only one. She cares about her newly found grandfather and great-uncle. She cares about Rose, despite the woman irritating her in the beginning. She worries for the residents of the nursing home. She has mixed feelings towards the CULT. And of course, her secondary concern is Casey. And once she sees how hard Alan is trying, she comes to care for him as well. Why else tell him he's a hero when she has every right to hate him more than anyone else in the game?

She cares about these people she's met, and she knows they deserve to be saved. And Alan is the first to admit he can't do ANY of it without Saga. If the main character of the series acknowledged Saga, why can't the fandom?

I truly hope that you can find the courage to try again with Andercase, or just Saga in general. Because I'm seeing that there are people that love her, and maybe they're not content creators but consumers, and that's now one of my motivations. To feed their hunger because they're part of the fandom too, and they shouldn't be ignored. I promise you, you'll have a fan in me. And sometimes, just one person knowing they love what you create and how they look forward to it is enough. I'm not interested in a popularity contest. You'll never see me in ship wars. I'm here for FBI Special Agent Saga Anderson. This is her story too, to make her the footnote in fanworks is terribly egregious and goes against the very thing Remedy wanted.

If you ever want to ramble, my inbox is always open. If you ever have ideas you want to see in regards to fanfic for Andercase or Saga, I'm right here. Thank you so much for giving me a chance to read about your feelings for Saga and her partner. It means the world to me.