#which i think was more in line w his original ORIGINAL style anyways

[chickenoptyrx]

had a 12+hr. drive back home yesterday- was very tired and miserable- hadta go get keys from friend at 1am- got SURPRISE GIFT!

Ive seen a lot of the images in here before but theyre extra crispy in print (something you will not be able to see from my blurry ass photos) but i hadnt seen these comics before (there were others too but even smaller/harder to get clear pics of)

Theres also a few images i HADNT seen

And lastly, id seen someone mention how raditz arm and leg band look more metal in the manga, and yeah, it def looks like that was the original design intention, especially in the new drawing (right)

[raptorladylover6969]

JWCT SPOILERS BELOW‼️ (theory time once again hehehhe)

who the HELL do the atrociraptors belong to. Like officially. Legally even. Who owns them?!? Is it Soyona or The Handler?? I’ve been trying to come up with plausible ideas regarding who has official “custody” over them so URHHRHR. Jensen said and I quote to The Handler “You trained em good.” And its clear with the bond between her and the raptors, she’s been by their side for YEARS. But then somehow, Soyona pops in and comes into play, claiming that she too also trained and “nurtured” them.

She clearly has history with them too via the painting of Ghost in her penthouse. And yet somehow, both Soyona and The Handler’s training styles are complete polar OPPOSITES. Their motivations and feelings about the raptors are also COMPLETE OPPOSITES. Soyona loves to brag about the fact that Red will kill anyone she tells her too. (Red would even kill HER.) Soyona doesn’t seem to show much care for Red either, and might I add, isn’t THAT strategic when sending Red after someone. She’ll just blindly point the laser at someone and hopes that Red will get the job done. She’ll blindly send her off and walk away, probably not even caring about the fact Red is 100% at RISK most of the time.

The Handler meanwhile, is extremely calculated about when she thinks its a good time to send her raptors. She cuts down the alarm system in front of Darius’s cabin, hell she literally calls his NUMBER to double check if bro is still home. Literally during the first few seconds of s1 ep1, you can see her truck in the rearview mirror, she’s clearly assessing the area, and securing the perimeter before she chooses to act. And when she notices its unsafe for the raptors, or they’re not feeling well, she retreats. I feel like this has turned to me shitting on Soyona 💀 which ykw HAS AND WILL….

“Najdnsksnd laser is soooo much more precise than a whistle.” You left your own laser lying around for literally anyone to pick up and use against you. The Handler keeps her stuff ON HER and IN HER LINE OF SIGHT 💀 and the laser is easier to use. Someone else mentioned (sadly forgot who) that with the whistle, sure its not as simple or quick and hella tedious, yeah, to anyone else it is. But to The Handler? Its GENIUS. Only she knows the correct pitches and blows, and exactly how many blows to initiate a specific command, theres a big list of commands, so it takes a LOT to know them all, so The Handler being the only one who knows them, is perfect, and the only way for someone to even acquire her whistle is going up to her, and yanking it off her neck, which she 100% sure isn’t gonna let happen. Also, it not being completely precise is what makes it better. She clearly trained the raptors enough for them to KNOW what she wants and needs them to do with just a couple of BEEP BEEPs.

Anyway, back to my original point since my last paragraph was just a random rant 💀 I have a few theories. The Handler is the one who actually owns the raptors, Soyona was just someone else who was interested in her work and probably assisted her with the care of the raptors. The whistle method was the og method of training, but Soyona thought that the process was kinda trash and too tedious, so SHE came up with the laser pointer.

Theory 2 is Soyona owns the raptors, and The Handler was her second partner, but The Handler was the one who was mostly around the raptors as they were being trained, thus forming the bond she has with them. The laser method is the og, but The Handler came up with the whistle as a “side project” so she can better communicate with the raptors.

Theory 3 ties back to Theory 1, except The Handler and Soyona both have shared custody over them, and are on-going partners, but The Handler being like the og og is in more control when it comes to the atrociraptors. It was The Handler who came up with the whistle method, AND the laser method so Soyona would have someway to command the raptors with whenever she has them, like with Red, who I’m assuming The Handler just gave to her since they have shared custody.

What do yall think?

[aqueousablution]

(January-February 2023) Don't mind me, just transing a vintage OC's gender

I opted to skip the original palette proposals for her and jump straight to the finalized one (which later got revised with dark sclerae), and that pistol concept is slightly edited from the initial posting to have a shorter barrel, for reference

Original post bodies under cut (warning, long as fuck):

Post 1 (sorXa & her armor)

Update (1/31/23): Now with mostly-finalized color schemes! The design of sorXa's armor itself needs a little more work, but I think these palettes fit her pretty well (I swear I wasn't intending to make her vaguely cohost-colored)

-

When I woke up I miraculously had the energy to draw, so instead of getting up and taking a shower I spent a few hours brainstorming a massive overhaul of one of my old Lego OCs, because while looking for Zero's missing right hand in my bedroom (as mentioned here) I stumbled upon his old mech walker in a drawer, with him inside it, and because he was vaguely self-insert-y (in the way that many of my long-term D&D PCs tend to be, in that they're not meant to be me per se, but they definitely borrow heavily from my IRL traits) I decided to make him a trans girl¹. I then very quickly hit upon the idea of making her an android (or more properly gynoid, I guess? I'm gonna call her that, anyway), and then further the idea that her old lore was in some capacity canon, but at some point her consciousness was transferred from her old AMAB supersoldier body into a more feminine artificial body untouched by the processes that made her original body a supersoldier. I'm not 100% sure on her name, though I particularly like the Gaelic name Sorcha since it's roughly equivalent to my IRL name, Clara, and I have both Irish and Scottish ancestry²; I might sci-fi it up a bit, maybe, since her deadname was sci-fi nonsense based very loosely on my deadname (same first letter, same ending phoneme, same number of syllables). Maybe borrowing a character from a different alphabet to transcribe the "ch", like Sorχa or something? Possibly just Sorxa, since the voiceless velar fricative is rendered as "x" in the international phonetic alphabet? I'll figure that out later, I guess. Edit: I think I've settled on rendering it as "sorXa"; starting with a lowercase letter gives me vibes similar to chaos from Xenosaga, which I think fits the sci-fi setting (not to mention that her design has some similarities to chaos's, now that I think about it)

I'll transcribe the notes under the cut since I know my handwriting is pretty illegible here (it's not always this bad, but when I'm cramming notes to myself around a drawing on a 3"x5" card, it tends to get sloppy)

Image 1: casual wear

Sorcha(?) | she/her | gynoid, formerly AMAB human

glowy eyes when needed

auburn hair (pointing to darker part of hair)

strawberry blonde? orange? gold? plat. blonde? (pointing to lighter-colored bangs)

chromatophore-like tech allows face markings to be hidden & hair color to change, among other aesthetic things

Image 2: armor

Sorcha(?) | she/her

glowy gold visor

black helm (blue accents? red accents?)

black w/ gold (or copper? rose-gold?) accents (pointing at breastplate and spaulders)

black? (pointing at forearm)

blue? grey? blue-grey? red? (pointing at upper arm, abdomen, and thigh)

poleyns? (next to knee)

MMZ-style big boots (next to side-view of one such chonky boot)

Bridget-like? HJB-like?³ (next to another boot, but with something on the ankle à la Bridget's GGST design)

speaker? (pointing at circle on the bevor of a mildly revised version of her sallet)

add earpiece?

Notes from another drawing I'm not posting on this page but that I think might be relevant:

modular limbs? (i.e. could attach extra limbs or swap out some of her normal ones)

not actual choker, just pigment per... (has arrow pointing to next bullet point)

chromatophore-like skin pigment - can change colors, good for both camo and looking more organic (can hide cheek lines, but thinks they look cool)

Notes: (I feel like I have these on every chost, I guess footnotes are my Cohost calling card now??)

I remember, actually, that one time I played out this scenario where he ran into an alternate universe version of himself who was a girl, and they... teamed up or something? Hung out? Fuck if I remember, and it actually may have been a different sci-fi Lego-based OC, but I'm pretty sure it was an early version of him which had a very different appearance barring the red hair and laser sword (though even then, the not-lightsaber went from yellow to blue). I do remember that their first interaction was passing each other on their not-speeder bikes as she came out of her universe, which was linked to his universe by some sort of cave opening or whatever? I'm getting way off track, the point is this isn't the first time this character has been a girl, even if at the time my younger self had no idea that might be related to me being trans. #JustEggThings

I'm not exactly sure how much Scottish ancestry I have on my mom's side, but in terms of Irish ancestry on my dad's side, my grandfather and grandmother were from a town in County Fermanagh and a tiny village (really more of a homestead, it's only a few houses in a small cluster) in County Leitrim, respectively (my dad and my aunt were born in New York, though). I actually visited Ireland in Summer of 2019 for a family reunion, and we visited the (heavily renovated) house where my Nana Bridie grew up (one of the families who lived there when she was young is actually living in that house now, though it's substantially more modern than the dirt floor and hearth farmhouse she grew up in), as well as the rowhouse my Pop-pop Mickey designed and had built in his hometown when he and my grandmother briefly moved the family back to Ireland in the 60s because of the rioting in NYC (which was, as you might image, the exact wrong time for a family of Catholics to move to Northern Ireland; luckily they were unharmed, but they still returned to New York after only about a year or so).

"HJB-like" refers to the high jump boots from Metroid, which add forward-facing spikes to the ankles of Samus's power suit. In case you couldn't tell, this armor leans heavily on the character design aesthetics of both Metroid and Mega Man Zero, with a splash of late medieval/early renaissance European armor (hence the sallet and poleyns). I'm a huge sallet fangirl, if you hadn't noticed (did you know that some designs of Samus's helm have a very sallet-like shape? I did, and I pogged IRL when I noticed it, like the fucking dweeb that I am)

---

Post 2 (updated unarmored palette and weapons)

I think I've finished all the designing I need in order to finish this drawing of sorXa that I've been working on, namely the dagger/beam sword and handgun she carries normally, plus an update to her color scheme.

A general note that applies to both the sword and the gun: energy-based weapons in the setting I'm developing around sorXa require too much energy for a compact power source to fuel for any significant length of time, so they often have cords to be plugged into an external power source for added functionality. Normally this would be something like a clunky battery pack or generator, but being an anthropoid¹, sorXa's abdomen can open up like KOS-MOS using the X-Buster (Xenosaga Episode 1 spoilers in that cutscene btw), but instead of the X-Buster it contains a set of jacks for said cords, and then she can plug a weapon in to draw from her internal power supply à la Heavy Metal L-Gaim.

To briefly touch on the updated color scheme: Pink is a pretty color. Simple as. (Well, okay, the idea is that it's more of a white jacket with reddish-pinkish iridescence, or maybe it's just a very pale pink, I'm not sure)

Weapon descriptions under the cut:

Dagger ("Devilhorns")

Based primarily on a cinquedea and the version of the Z-saber wielded by Girouette in Mega Man ZX, but also a kabutowari. I need to update the design to reflect that the guard flares out into more proper quillons when it's powered, but still I'm quite proud of the idea of the wire spool being in what would normally be the palm-swell of a typical cinquedea hilt. The name "Devilhorns" is in reference to the fact that relative to a cinquedea, it's missing about 2 "fingers'" worth of physical blade, not entirely unlike some variations of the "devil horns" hand gesture (particularly a hypothetical variant where the thumb is raised flush with the index finger, but I don't know that I've ever seen or heard of that version being a thing), though I'm not particularly married to the name since it feels... clunky? Also, the yellow beam blade is in reference to an ancient iteration of her², when she was some sort of Lego bounty hunter whose main weapon was a lightsaber with an opaque yellow blade (since I didn't have a translucent yellow blade for her to use and wanted hers to be ~special~).

Handgun (unnamed)

Based on the two handguns most heavily associated with Mine Fujiko from Lupin III, the Browning Model 1910 and the Remington Double Derringer (based moreso on the appearance of the Browning than the Remington), combined into what's essentially a MMZ/ZX-style buster pistol. Normally it relies on a magazine-shaped battery that can power... 12 shots, maybe? before it has to be swapped out, but when plugged in it can shoot effectively indefinitely without needing to reload, or it can draw on the internal battery as well as the external power source to fire a charge shot³ (which consumes what would have been 1 or 2 shots from the battery normally) in the vein of Mega Man and Metroid. The ventilation on the obverse (which in this case is the left side, since this is meant as an off-hand weapon for a right-handed character) is meant for releasing excess heat, meaning that while it wouldn't be pleasant to have your hand there when it shoots, it's certainly not going to blow your hand off like the small drawing in the middle might make it seem. I went with Fujiko's iconic guns as a basis for this pistol since they're both relatively small and concealable, which suits the needs of this particular gun as an emergency sidearm to use in self-defense when sorXa isn't necessarily looking for a fight. Considering that this is literally the first time I've ever tried to design or even draw a semi-realistic gun (in no way, shape, or form do I consider myself a gun enthusiast, I'm much more of a "medieval and early-renaissance hand-powered weapons" kinda gal), I'm surprised by how happy I am with how this design turned out (though it probably helps that this borrows so heavily from the real-world Browning Model 1910)

I'm leaning toward "anthropoid" as a gender-neutral catchall for humanoid robots in the setting, since "android" is explicitly masculine, and while I have no problem calling sorXa in particular a gynoid, I feel like having a broader term is important. Apparently I'm not the first person to arrive at using the term in place of "android", but I personally learned of the word via... anthropoid-hilted Celtic swords, of all things (though "anthropomorphic" seems to be the more common term to use for that hilt shape these days).

We're talking, like, gradeschool here, maybe early middle school at the latest. She also had a starry black cape (which would have been from a Harry Potter Hairy Pooper set; the mild irony of a character who previously incorporated something tied to a Rowling IP in their design winding up as a violently anti-fascist trans girl is not lost on me) and a red bandana on her head, if memory serves? A later version of her had a more traditional translucent blue lightsaber (maybe 2 of them?), but that version of her is now part of her backstory when she was a (less-than-willing) supersoldier (I need to flesh out that lore better, so I won't go into it here, but there's a lot going on there), so I'm going back to the classic yellow for her new beam sword.

This particular pistol is actually meant to be a fair bit more robust than some others in the setting, at least when it comes to charging shots. I had the idea that in a firefight while using a temporary civilian-grade body (while her custom combat-grade gynoid body was still being built), in an act of desperation when faced with a hallway full of enemy soldiers advancing toward her, she'd have tried to power a weaker pistol plugged into a port on herself that wasn't designed to handle the amount of power drawn by a charged shot and, in the process, blew up the gun, wrecked both arms, launched herself backwards into a wall, and severely damaged her body's power core (as well as accomplishing her goal of killing everyone in her line of fire, of course, essentially following Mega Man charged shot rules, i.e. they pierce any enemy they destroy). This incident, in addition to helping her gain the trust of her new comrades (who would have mistrusted her as a former member of the enemy forces), also led to her receiving a pistol capable of firing charged shots without destroying itself (the one shown here). (As an aside, she didn't count on the charged shot having that much blowback, since she was used to using military guns while wearing power armor, as opposed to a relatively flimsy pistol scrounged up by rebels while in a body that's not much more resilient than a relatively sturdy but otherwise ordinary human; she certainly figured it would be a risky maneuver for her, but nowhere near the "possibly get yourself killed in the resulting explosion" kind of risky that it wound up being.)

[aquaquadrant]

hi, apologies if I’m using this wrong I’ve never really interacted on tumblr before.

but I’ve been following your HTP au and as many other previous asks have mentioned, it has consumed my soul and I love it.

however, I have been thinking about something and I wanted to ask if you/y’all. Apologies if you’ve been asked this before, but I didn’t see it anywhere.

So the helsmit’s names, very cool very cool (largishlegumes made me cackle when I read it for the first time) but for a while I was wondering why Bravo didn’t have a similar name to Tango, other than the fact that they’re from the military/NATO phonetic alphabet. However! I’m a nerd and I remembered something just now. Each of those words that represent a letter is also connected to a specific nautical flag used for signaling. And those flags have meanings! B - Bravo means “dangerous cargo”

T - Tango means “keep clear of me”

And that is hilarious. Also very fitting for their characters! And also kinda sad if you think about Tango’s whole attitude towards himself, “keep clear of me” definitely makes sense.

I know y’all have only vaguely mentioned this bc of spoilers but like something along the lines of reflecting how Tango’s more of a good person than Bravo is? Hmm

anyway, idk if y’all knew the flag meanings before you made this AU, but it’s very fitting which makes me think you did. If so, very smart! That’s a whole extra layer of thought and angst that others may or may not have recognized. If not, well that’s very fitting and a fun coincidence.

alright well that’s all from me for now. Keep up the great work both of y’all.

oh man i really wish i could claim that this had been the intent behind the names all along, but NOPE 😂 i was not, in fact, aware of the flag meanings. i literally just chose bravo because it’s part of the military alphabet and sounds similar phonetically (tan-go, bra-vo). plus, it’s higher up in the alphabet so it matches w bravo’s superiority complex. so, fitting and fun confidence!

i did originally consider a better corresponding name, like another dance term to match tango. see, i’ve had this au idea for a WHILE (like, since helsknight was a Thing) but in between then and now, there have been many hels!tango’s in the community and i didn’t wanna use any of the names that had been used already, so that kinda ruled out the dance terms approach (waltz was a personal fave of mine, as it’s a great contrast to the tango style of dance but both are partnered ballroom styles).

so this is where we landed. very neat to know there’s another meaning behind the names.

[brofightiscancelled]

your dub propaganda posts have definitely got me curious about it, but how close would you say the translation of the dub is to the original japanese? like if the changes between languages are at ghost stories levels or not? i don't mind some adlibing and stuff like that, but i also don't want original language's humor to be completely lost by watching it in english if that makes sense.

well it's not going to capture the japanese humor style because it's in english lol. frankly i dont think comedy dubs can be 100% faithful to the source language in the first place because that makes them unfunny in their original language lol but it's funny in english! a lot of the humor is good lateral equivalents which is the point of a localization. like i cant say it exemplifies the tsukkomi/boke humor bc that's not an english language concept but i can say that choro gets snappy one-liners!

i guess the main qualm w the dub ppl have is it doesnt take as much care with giving the characterizations nuance or plausible depth, which the jp direction is very good with. for example a lot of people dont like how jyushi feels a lot Simply Stupid in the dub when in the jp there's an intentional nuance in his writing that lets people read deeper into it. and sure there's a small handful of line localizations that i think are unforgivable lol. im personally ok w prioritizing the punchline first though

anyways i watched the dub first and it was suitably funny since it got me into the franchise! it's a 9/10 dub i sorely miss that s3 didnt get one. if you have been into ososan for years you'll probably be a lot more picky than i was going in blind though

[kbthebearcat]

An old comic from 2022, but I still like how this came out! It’s Troy and Alice just chilling in his room, but they’re getting hungry! So why not order out? 

I think they’re supposed to be on htrae, and then maybe Martha and Adam went on a mission or something, and Troy doesn’t feel like cooking this time… so the two of them decide to order some food! And of course… tacos are certainly going to be one of the things they order! 

I tried to make up something similar to Grubhub for the app, but I realized that I didn’t exactly think everything through as far as like… it being in english. Technically it should be in htraein, because it would make a lot more sense for Troy to be ordering from a htraein food delivery service in this setting, buuuuut…. Maybe he just translated it to english for Alice to read. Yeah we’ll go with that! >w>  

And on another note, I forgot how much I love drawing my characters in this line-less/painted style… 

It’s just that it takes more time, and my patience with the process still needs work. ;w; 

I haven’t minded doing more lined artwork though, that has been a lot of fun to do again too. There’s something about inking that can just feel really nice for me, and you can still do a lot with lined artwork and mess around with all sorts of shading techniques, which it what I’ve been exploring recently.  

I actually started this drawing back in 2020 I think?

But then I finally got the motivation to finish it, and I’m happy I did!

One of the things I think that made me stall was because the original idea I had for this had Troy playing a Candy Crush type game called “Taco Munch” but I ended up bailing on that idea for now, and instead went with this one. 

I would still like to explore this “Taco Munch” game though, lol… maybe do some concept art for it just for fun. 

Anyways, I think I rambled long enough here… 

[888bambi]

SEASHELLS - PARK SUNGHOON

✰ a/n: okaay so there's a small reference from the song 'reflections' by the neighbourhood somewhere in this since i was originally planning to base this all on it but i somehow got carried away- anyways, enjoy!!

genre: fluff i guess? !boyfriend sunghoon x reader

warnings: none (lowercase intended)

word count: 715

✰ 05.03.2023

-

‘’a shell! look, there’s another one!’’ you couldn't help but get overwhelmed by the amount of beautiful seashells you saw washed up at your feet. taking delight in such a childish yet refreshing activity was not your style, yet there you were: collecting beautiful seashells of all sizes and colors, shiny rocks and other things you found beautiful.

your boyfriend was silently watching you from afar, shielding his pale skin from the hot sun rays under a small beach umbrella. if you had to be honest, he looked extremely funny, all curled up under the umbrella, barely covering his whole body, as he desperately tried to avoid getting his skin burnt. for some reason, seeing you get all giddy about rocks made him happier than ever- and now he was smiling like an idiot on his own, heart eyes as he watched you turn on your heels and run towards him. ‘’sunghoon!’’ you screamed at the top of your lungs, quickly reaching the towel, ready to show him whatever you found that made you so excited.

‘’hmm?’’ he distantly hummed, as if he was only physically there with you, his mind far away in another place.

‘’look! isn't this one pretty? i’ve never seen a brown seashell so pretty. they’re kind of common.’’ you stated, pressing your lips in a thin line. without a second thought, you aligned the seashell with sunghoon’s eyes, a wide smile taking over your lips, ‘’if i have to be honest, it kind of reminds me of your eyes.’’

‘’is that so?’’ he questioned, shifting his attention from you to the shell, which to his surprise, seemed to match his eyes perfectly, ‘’does that mean now i have to find one that reminds me of you?’’ you both laughed at his statement, and he took that as a response, leaving you under the umbrella as he quickly made his way towards the area you were searching earlier.

five minutes passed, and those soon turned into ten, then twenty…and somehow an hour passed yet sunghoon didn't seem to be satisfied with his findings. defeated, the tall male slowly made his way back to you, a loud sigh escaping his lips as he sat down beside you. ‘’what happened?’’ you asked, concern visible in your voice.

another sigh left his lips before he finally answered, ‘’i couldn't find any seashell.’’ he simply stated, almost in a robotic way, catching you off guard.

‘’what do you mean? hoon, there’s plenty of them there. we can go look together-’’

‘’you didn't let me finish.’’ he cut you off, turning his gaze from the pretty ocean waves back to you, ‘’i couldn't find any seashell that reminded me of you. they were all so bland, dirty and some even broken. you are too lovely and bright to be compared to any of those dirty shells. truth be told, i don't think there’s anything in the world that equals your beauty. nothing can swoon me more than your beauty does. your laugh, your hair, your voice, fuck- it’s the way i see my reflection in your eyes, every single day i see my reflection like i’m staring in a mirror. no item in the world could match your beauty in my eyes, and never will. sorry i couldn't find a seashell for you too.’’

with a bright smile you pulled him closer to you, so close that your arms were squished together; he would rarely say the sweetest things at random times, and that made you love him even more. the way he would be so direct about confessing his love for you and then getting frustrated afterwards really did something inside your brain. ‘’i never knew somebody like you. somebody with so many charms. you never fail to amaze me, park sunghoon.’’

gently kissing your forehead, your head was now resting on his shoulder as the two of you were watching the ocean in silence, simply enjoying each other’s presence, the pile of stones and seashells long forgotten now, somewhere behind your back.

slowly lifting your head, a daring smile popped on your face, quickly catching sunghoon’s attention. ‘’wanna go for a swim?’’

as he stood up his lips slowly curled up in a smirk, helping you get up as well, ''thought you’d never ask.’’

[hoardlikegoldenirises]

*edited Sept 2023: alternate version of agony because it bugs me how much the original one looks like a penis in this color scheme.

**edited Jan 2024: added another costume for him to use in a different post: (link)

***EDITED AGAIN Feb 2024: to be actually up to date for the years, including the black suit in late 2015/early 2016, between the pink tarantula and the fully pink shocking pink spider costume. Also made some new updates to the styling of the suit because I'd been avoiding figuring out how to give him a more practical suit. Now it's more practical.

agony is still just a hypothetical but I am not removing it from this post.

Anyway here he is, the one with a dedicated color scheme

obvs this uses the costumes i designed from (this post) but like ben's have been modified a teensy bit as i thought of small details i liked better or changed the soles etc. plus some minor additions like the fact that kaine doesn't have *checks notes* fingerprints

closeups under the readmore:

woo

kaine's face is real fucked up esp early on, just fyi

this is early one when Kaine is still only like... two years old (well, he's like, 24 physically and mentally, but Technically—)

anyway kaine only gets this outfit after a couple years, when warren sends him out to threaten peter's loved ones as leverage to get peter to cooperate/surrender. before this he mostly only wore hospital clothes.

he's pretty lean at this point but def buff.

because of this fact kaine doesn't know how to tie his own shoes at first (but he figures it out) (he has a lot of amnesia so peter's memories aren't necessarily super helpful and the muscle memory is lacking i guess)

anyway the one (1) outfit warren gets him is probably all from an army surplus store or a thrift store or something, like the salvation army or w/e

(that's how you know he's evil)

i gave kaine's other suits vibram soles on purpose but this one was totally on accident, i was just looking for american army-issue boots that came in black and the ones i found happened to have vibram soles.

After Kaine is rescued/escapes/starts hunting Ben down for reasons, he ditches the balaclava and starts growing his hair and scraggly beard out and steals a couple of other clothing items including a hot pink rain coat. His hair is greasy.

Also at that point he's homeless and his only source of medication is *squints* stealing ibuprofen and pepto bismol, so he's not doing so hot in general 😅 but at least he has ~bodily autonomy~ while wasting away.

he probably also kills some people (aside from Louise i mean) 🤷

i haven't been very consistent about what marks, wounds and scars go where (except for some of his burn scars) but i was reading some wikipedia pages and decided i think probably a lot of the open sores and other things follow Blaschko's lines but maybe not all of them.

so in spring 2014 after the aforementioned Lost Years and Redemption-based stuff, Kaine ends up leaving the country after making himself a costume, which is, of course, pink, and probably mostly stolen fabric.

His mask is like the Tarantula's 100% on purpose cause it ties into a little subplot where he goes to Medellín, in Colombia, gets mistaken for a member of the Tarantula's (Jacinda's) gang whilst minding his own damn business, and ends up dubbed the Pink Tarantula (aka La Tarántula Rosa) because of it. which he thinks is annoying but what can you do

Also he gets braces in Colombia after he starts stealing from rich tourists. i would say not so much out of vanity as much as the fact that his teeth need some help straightening themselves out after being physically (etc) abused by Warren for 3 years but it's probably both. but, you know, it's easier to chew when your teeth aren't aligned like a broken cartoon piano.

He also gets a whole new medical regimen while he's down there so he looks slightly less like a decaying corpse though he's def still plagued by clone degeneration side effects and feels like death a lot of the time but... better than before lol

Only vomiting blood SOMETIMES and not every day

color matched soles—i saw these and was like omg... they're perfect... black and pink... (in your area) has been updated to be boots which I'll admit make him look extra Tarantula-y...

Suit has been updated to be a two-piece so that Kaine can like. go to the bathroom without getting naked. Now it's a leotard which has been DIY'd to have a snap crotch (thus the back zipper).

it's regular ol' spandex... maybe with a slight metallic sheen of bluish idk... not the best material but he was just taking what he could get at the time.

gloves. modified work gloves from before, and then some uh... well they're pole-dancing gloves to be perfectly honest, but i picked the style because they have a very low cut on the hand and i want as much room as possible for his spikes—could i simply handwave it and say all he needs is a hole in his sleeve, probably, but where's the fun in that.

if i can't overthink logistics i'll die—anyway in this AU the spikes are a direct malfunction of a spinneret organ that Warren tries to give him, and which Warren does successfully give Ben (who has organic webbing). Kaine's don't work right so instead of webbing he makes spikes. they come out of his wrist and it's hard for me to draw 😂

black suit

(this black suit has a separate post cause it's new) another leotard over tights. less visible since it's black.

it's black. it's gothy. etc.

this is a repurposed suit i was originally gonna give to peter but i changed my mind, adjusted some minor details, and am giving it to kaine instead.

and he'll swap to the pink suit after he stops shaving his head—v

At a certain point Kaine stops shaving his head and starts wearing a new costume including a new mask... same old same old— expensive fire resistant materials etc.

i just reused the texture overlay from peter's FR suit for this. stretch nomex blend, basically. very durable, fire resistant, but still stretchy.

OBVIOUSLY this suit is HEAVILY inspired by his red and black Scarlet Spider costume but I modified it a bit in terms of color and some of the patterning (like black arms), to make it pink, because... I think he should wear pink lol and I didn't include his tattered pink cape (i know, tragic) so I had to include something other than the rain coat

it's not a high tech stealth suit though. just regular expensive fabric.

Also updated the logo and has been made mroe practical now—it's tights over a snap-crotch leotard which, of course, means that all three of the boys are rocking the same setup, just in different ways. Even Ben, underneath his hoodie. lol

Also, as i mentioned before, he has no fingerprints this whole time. because his palm is melted from using the mark of caine/kaine.

lol.

oh and his new gloves are made of lambskin and calfskin with perforations to make them more breathable. the claws are probably metal or something though idk.

he does have to take his gloves off to use his mark, though, which is true the entire time. it doesn't work well through fabric (though depends on the fabric) and if it did activate it would probably just burn or destroy anything on his hand since it's essentially just an exothermic chemical reaction related to his wrist spikes rather than... uh... magic? or whatever the 616 version is 😂 i mean lbr it's still basically magic bullshit though but i have pseudo-scientific basis for it (it's superglue)

the whole thing is intended to be durable. still has to get naked to use the bathroom though lmao

these are also vibram soles. my reasoning behind this was that (i was tired of trying to make up new sole designs) he just buys shoes and takes the soles out, modifies them if he needs to, and attaches them to his suits by hand, either with sewing or glue or both.

decided to update these into boots.

also I originally wrote he has thermasilk underwear under this suit but I think I'm gonna ditch that.

here is a bonus of what the mask would be like for the above costume if he was still buzzing:

also yeah he doesn't have web-shooters, because of his spikes, OR organic webbing, also because of his spikes, so he is a mostly parkour-based spider-man XD but he can still stick to walls and stuff since that's a different mechanism (electrostatic)

the real reason of course is that i was trying to come up with a design that would let me keep the lenses and also his beautiful long hair LMAO

(for a different design my approach was adhesive lenses which is also what felicia uses)

(speaking of that design i did recycle the body for this:)

AGONY!!

IDK if I'll actually use this, it was mostly for fun as I was thinking about how I could prevent Kaine from... uh... dropping dead and I was like. oh symbiote. Literally their whole thing in this setting is they originated as a medical thing so a symbiote is perfectly suited to Kaine's autoimmune dysfunctions etc.

And then I was like, hm which symbiote though? and then I was on the wiki page of symbiotes and was like, oh, Agony, duh lol she even has acid??? (not that kaine's mark is acid but, still)

also, you know, pink. (and purple since the color of Agony seems to vary slightly depending on artist team, host etc. so i decided to use both)

so i ended up with possibly the most glam rock hair metal blacklight poster symbiote-host pairing I've ever drawn in my life

and of course i couldn't resist making them just a little bit glossy.

like every symbiote, is expressive, but kaine... isn't, so. you know. they're pretty much always glaring.

alternately could go without the hair for a sleeker spider-man look i suppose.

i wanna say by this point he's gained some weight as well. I did slightly modify the lineart so that the Agony "suit" is slightly more solid than the Pink Tarantula suits and before but...

lbr... very minimal difference in the lineup lol which bugs me but... you know. would prob be more of a difference if i was drawing it from scratch for each one instead of editing an existing drawing. he should be slightly less skinny—he's def huge either way tho just by virtue of being 6'4".

long pretty hair... post 2015 prob. The hair color isn't quite right (his hair is supposed to be a little lighter and redder than Peter's) but I don't care enough to change it.

he is missing a piece of his ear, yes.

anyway his hair grows super fast:

terminal length is to his knees as an adult, ~5 feet long ish... technically longer since it's curly and doesn't hang as far down.

here is a bonus pic of him and Aracely from a drawing I have not finished yet which is basically just size comparison with a McLaren 650S lmao. that would be 2015 in-universe probably.

also for the others:

Peter's high school and college suits: link

Peter's post-college/FF/late 20s suits: link

Peter's 30s-40s/post-Aunt May death suits: link

Ben's suits: link

[lilac-kitkat]

WIP Weekend Challenge

Appreciate the tag, @pearlypairings! <3 I actually have stuff to share, haha.

in a reblog (or new post w/ rules attached), post up to five (5) filenames of your WIPs; not titles, file names.

post a snippet from one of them. snippet must be words you wrote in the last 7 days. we’re posting progress here. if you haven’t made any, go make some and come back to post!

after you’ve posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. you must then write 3 sentences in that file. if the filename is one you can’t share from (for example, an event fic), write 3 sentences on it anyway, and then 3 more on another to share.

that’s it! you can invite others to join in, or just post. if you tag me in your post, i will send you an ask request!

Current WIPs:

Leave 'Em Burning (Chrissy x Eddie, Eddie POV only, multichapter)

When the Witnesses Are Gone (Zuko x Katara, alternating POVs, multichapter)

I will share a snippit from LEB, since I just had the doc opened:

“I got your stuffed toy. It’s sitting at the foot of my bed, staring at me with its beady, little dog eyes.”

He heard a stray note of laughter and smiled to himself.

“That dog’s been with me since before we moved to Hawkins. I think I called him Binky when I was small,” she told him in a voice that was partially shy, to which he could imagine her digging a toe into her carpet or twirling a piece of loose hair.

“Binky? My Uncle Wayne thinks you may have crocheted his overalls together. If so, I wish you had come to me for drugs sooner because I really could have used a tip or two to impress Mrs. Fordham in Home Economics. I barely passed.”

A playful snort. “So I take it someone else is patching your jeans cut and jackets with band logos?”

Eddie’s eyes fell to his splinted fingers, and he turned his palm up to examine the dried blood under his fingernails, a smirk twitching across his face. “Ah, how observant of you. Yeah, that’s all me. I may have an Exodus patch laying around, an original, you know. I’m sure little Binky would love a black pentagram ironed onto his overalls.”

He pictured her scrunching her nose. “Does it have to be black?”

Now it was his turn to laugh. “Cunningham, you gave him to me. What did you think was going to happen? He’s due for a miscreant Munson makeover.”

“I’m sure he’s in good hands, whatever style you decide to give him. If not, I trust your uncle to make sure he’ll be alright. Your uncle is super sweet.”

His amusement faltered, and he struggled somewhat to shift the position of his sore, bruised legs. “What happened, Chrissy? You didn’t come to school for two days.”

A shaky sigh came from the other line.

[achoshistor]

things i noticed about various character themes in dgs

hi guys. I cant motivate myself to work on my chemistry at all :'(. Anyways the onlhy thing i am good at determining by ear is meter and thats what unites all three (four?) of ryuu's pieces. Overture, Objection, Prelude, n Pursuit are all in a steady 4. Also instead of just follwing 1 2 3 4 theyre all at least majority 8th note rhythems (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +) or 1e+a2e&a which i bet serves to unite all these pieces or goes with the overall style which is out of 18th century 4 voice lines which these use 4 voices i think (orchestra) but most of those r like quarter notes so its probs not a time thing but this also again reflects the unity of ryunosukes character throughout the game.

[spoiler time lol]

kazumas themes on the other hand....... the original one is also def a steady four but his nocturne theme is like super slow and i would personally write this as a 2 but count 4... grand return is basically samurai w/ a mission so thats also a four (maybe i will listen closer later) BUT revived prosecutor on the other hand is def compound its got a p lilting feel... i think its 12/8 which is basically just evil 4/4 which def reflects what happened to his charcater (lost his memories) but it still contains the core rhythm of his theme cuz like hes still him when his memories are gone... also one more thing i think his main motif goes do re fa la(le?) or in intervals loike M2 M3 M3 i think but anyways i think they skip over 3 which is like super important bc it can change a chord (triad but whayever) from major to minor and this specific motif still holds its essence in both pieces bc of that i think. theres like a rhythmic device thats specifically this but i forgot

revival also contains elements of baroks theme (harpsichord) and the meters having some element of a 1 2 3. But i think baroks goes from 4 to 3 at like the first cadence (perfect authentic i think? the note for the melody sounds liek do assuming the piece starts on do and that makes 1 the highest voice too) which probably means something but now i am tired and cannot write more for now. goodbye.

[sencrose]

literally nobody asked for this but i feel like yapping about random stuff about sapphire passion (mostly a lot of rambling about idols + a smidge of actual things about the fic lol)

think of it as additional commentary :'D

I. putting in way too much effort into the research

first off, i would argue i'm way more familiar with k-pop idols than i am with jp idols, esp. jp chika idols (16 yrs vs 1 yr lol) but it was really fun diving into the rabbit hole! anyways this is just a disclaimer that i'm still really new to (non-anime) jp idols so uh cut me some slack if i get some stuff wrong lol

anyways, i think k-pop fan meets have a lot less opportunity for intimacy (2 second hi-touches, group meet and greets/photos, short facetime chats.... you get my gist). fansigns are a thing but definitely not in the western sphere so i'll admit i kinda forgot they existed. regardless, it just did not pique my interest.

the whole idea of chekis really lured me in. if you're loaded/have the time/your oshi doesn't have much of a line, you can just. keep buying more cheki tickets lol. you make nice small talk, and you can build a rapport if you're a regular. pretty sure there was some twt thread a bit back about an idol who married her fan? and then some people qrt'd saying that it was a pretty common occurrence (not that i've fact checked it. another possible fic idea?)

another rabbit hole i fell down was trying to hear how loudly audiences chant depending on the gender majority, which was REALLY hard for some reason? there's a lot more fancams for female chika idols than there are for male chika idols, and when you do find performances for male idols, it's usually an official recording which cuts out all the shouts from the crowd -___- all i wanted to do was see if it was in chara of reader to be shouting and cheering intensely ;___; (i mean they would regardless, but. idk the rabbit hole consumed me)

also fem fans seem to move their lightsticks differently! usually more in like... a figure 8 wrist thing??? than the usual up down up down motion i'm used to seeing in wota.... lots of inch resting things..

in case anybody also wants to fall into the hole with me, here's some of the groups i now listen to on a regular basis teehee

lovesick (wagamama happiness + aisarefacedearitai are my faves bc i like chanting/mixing along with them! but if you find that's not your style then stalking love and erabare valentine are my other faves)

yumekuineon - i really enjoy their cover of kodokuasobi! (i think it's originally from touken ranbu? correct me if i'm wrong)

scapegoat - lobelia and nodoukaruma are my faves! also they're a bit more on on the gothic? visual kei? side? (i'm so sorry if i'm using those terms wrong, that side of jfashion isn't my niche)

all of the songs and groups listed above are also on spotify if that's more up your alley :)

II. ok actually on to the fic

im just gonna try and talk about w/e comes to mind in chronological order (sorry if it's not, i just be yappin)

i didn't describe the new stage outfit because i didn't have one completely set in mind at the time of writing. i did recently see these stage outfits from save point and i think this with light blue detailing + maybe an asymmetrical capelet is what i envisioned. very knight/prince-like vibes. that being said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you can imagine whatever you'd like :)

gojo does not know reader's name lmao. during the text messages, i made the conscious decision of not using "y/n" (or alternatives). i literally had it in there but took it out because i thought it'd be scummier if you fell for it hook line and sinker without realizing. (also i just don't like typing out y/n in fics if i can avoid it, personally)

the date scene was really hard to write, i think i scrapped and rewrote it like three times? i was contemplating between a naive reader (which i went with) vs a reader that started picking up on something not being quite right, but i just did not feel like i had the skill to pull it off nor did i know how to move the plot on from there? it's not the usual reader i write... here's a snippet of what could've been:

anyways moving on past the date:

“Not at all,” you gesture towards the case with your hands and a slight bow, a bit too formally for the situation at hand, “go ahead.” You swear his eyes sparkle as he looks over the case before settling on one of the light sticks. “Did you decorate this one yourself?” “I did! It was before you released official light sticks.”

In terms of decorating light sticks, that sparkly white inside? it's paper. you can remove it. my personal penlight just pops off when you twist it, there's not much resistance. you can decorate it with fake flowers, ribbons, sticker decals, whatever you want. some groups have official lightsticks, though they're usually the type of act to sell out stadiums. (forgot i was writing for a chika idol for a split second)

i think everything that comes after that came really naturally. penlights are phallic and approximately dildo sized. like what else was i supposed to do man.

iii. rejected titles lol

toru taiga! (not rejected, i just. thought about it after i posted it. rip. reference to kahen 3ren mix)

iettoru!/yes 'toru! (thought nobody would get it... another mix ref)

penlight passion (too on the nose? but then again i ended up going with sapphire passion...)

chekis and romance (like the wota move romance? but also the story isn't that romantic..)

all (six) eyes on me (thought i was being unoriginal/too on the nose)

fade to blue (placeholder title for a while bc i could not think of anything lmfao)

anyways that's all! if there's something i didn't cover that you're interested in, my ask box is open :'D

[powdermelonkeg]

So, BO2W Breakdown

Buckle up, this is gonna be a long one.

Here we’ve got Ganon’s...energy taking over Link’s arm. Ordinarily, I’d call it Malice, but based on what it turns into, I’m just going to be calling it corruption. We don’t get much information from this scene besides this expression:

Link’s grabbing the corruption with his other hand, and wincing. It looks painful. I personally think it’s for cinematic effect that it was included, but it COULD be a gateway into a Phantom Hourglass sort of mechanic--Link has to function on a time limit, or using the corruption’s power could drain his life.

Next we’ve got a closeup of Ganondorf. F in chat to the rehydration theorists.

And the closeups of his jewelry. The only significant thing I can see is his necklace, which looks like a cross between the Gerudo symbol and a Fleur de Lis:

But what I’M most interested in is this tie on his belt:

For one, it’s WAY bigger than it needs to be, and that’s deliberate. Ganondorf’s got a jewelry aesthetic he’s already hit above; everything else is gold, why not this bit?

Most importantly, you can barely make it out, but the designs either look Sheikah or Zonai--they’ve got that same kind of swirly busy pattern to them. The red tint and tan-ish lines in it makes me think it’s possessed Sheikah tech.

Next, we’re shown Zelda falling. This looks like it happens right after these two caps from the first trailer:

So we reach for her as the ground collapses, and evidently, we fail to pull her back up. So my next question for that scene is going to be what the in-game reason is for us not diving in right after her. Maybe we won’t get one, since the appeal of the original BOTW was that you could fight Ganon whenever you wanted.

Up next, we’ve got a skydiving shot:

The first thing to notice is that Link’s pose while skydiving is just about identical to his pose in Skyward Sword:

Second is that, yes, he’s falling towards a floating island, and that in itself is noteworthy, but he’s FALLING. There’s something either above him that he jumped off of, or a force that carried him high enough TO fall, and I doubt Nintendo’s encouraging magnesis flying.

So, there’s a few options: Loftwings making a return (which is unlikely, but a hope I have), something like Revali’s Gale boosting Link up for a cinematic shot, indicating that the corruption arm has that kind of power, or islands higher than the one shown here.

Now the island itself:

In Skyward Sword, Skyloft looks like this:

And (spoiler alert) we loose this island here over the course of the game:

Now, it’s not a PERFECT 1:1 match, as most things between games aren’t, but a quick rotate and overlay shows it’s got the same kinds of shapes between the two. The same “W” shape along the eastern side, the same tiny island off the northeast point, the same relative edges.

Now, I don’t know what happened to the plaza at South Skyloft, or the Knight’s Academy isle, but it could very easily be drift away from the central island.

The presence of other islands through the clouds seems to support that theory. Now let’s look at Link here:

The outfit is new. We haven’t, to my knowledge, seen one of this design in other games. My gut reaction to this image was “oh, we go back in time and we’re the first hero now!” because it’s vaguely reminiscent of Tapestry Hero.

But upon closer inspection, that theory’s null and void. Under Link’s tunic in the image above, you can see that he’s still wearing the shorts he woke up in in the first game. So either Sheikah boxers haven’t changed in 10,000 years, or it’s taking place in present day. Jokes aside, I’m curious to know if the outfit he’s wearing is modeled after Tapestry Hero.

Next thing to point out is the obvious:

Link’s arm here looks less prosthetic and more...withered, I almost want to say. The corruption here’s made his hand look frailer, and armored them up with Zonai patterns before it fades out at his shoulder. Based on how the tattoos look, I think they’re an artifact of the corruption taking hold.

Also, the belt here:

Aesthetic purposes, or specific function? The presence of the second, smaller one on the side reminds me of Skyward Sword’s adventure pouch, which could be how the new game handles inventory size:

Next we’ve got another flying shot:

It seems like he’s flying towards Ruined Skyloft, and you can see the bottoms of islands above it, possibly meaning that the sky serves as more than just a hub world like it did in Skyward.

Now let’s look at the paraglider he’s using. It’s new.

This is how the paraglider looks in the original BOTW. It looks like we still have the Rito symbol in the center, but other than that, there’s a LOT of changes here.

First off is the color. We’re now blue and gold. The shade of blue makes me think of the Kochi Dye Shop’s navy blue:

So, possibly a dyeable paraglider?

The new pattern surrounding the Rito symbol makes me think that it’s combining the paraglider with Skyward Sword’s sailcloth:

Other than that, there isn’t much else to say about the paraglider besides the handles looking like they’re made of bone. Craftable paragliders? God, I hope not.

Back to Link:

Here we have him in different gear than the last shot. He’s wearing the snow boots, he has a shield with a stylized Eye of Truth looking upwards, and he looks like he’s carrying a traveler’s sword and an unknown bow. The presence of the bow makes me think that the shield here is a lower tier item, rather than this game’s Hylian Shield equivalent.

Now, let’s get a better look at the horizon:

The trees here look a lot like the smaller trees you can find in Akkala, but there’s a distinct lack of red among them.

Then it looks like we’ve got some ruins at the furthest isle.

Whatever the rock formations are over there, they don’t LOOK natural.

Another thing I noticed is the bottoms of the islands.

These look a little too geometric to be natural, too. Now, this one, I’m a little muddy on, because it COULD be a stylistic choice. But it also reminds me of the Shrines if you clip out of bounds:

And a little bit of the dormant Gate of Time from Skyward:

My money’s on the cube-like nature of the islands’ undersides being deliberate, rather than just a far-off render.

And then there’s this thing!

What is it? It doesn’t look broken at all; look how nicely the roof(?) is kept. The ribbing on the sides makes me think it might be a Zonai thing, but the shape makes it difficult to figure out. A giant temple? An airship? A sloped coliseum? This thing haunts and vexes me.

Our next shot is presumably from one of the islands, based on the color. Here we can see that there are definitely ruins all over the place. Link is in the same gear as before, so I won’t touch on him.

This, however, has my interest. The design here has more geometric patterns--Zonai ruins?

We’ve got another one off in the distance here. Sky checkpoints, like Sheikah towers?

Now this guy here. There’s a LOT to look at. First off is the eye design, it’s the same sort of upward looking one that Link has on his shield in the previous shots.

The energy that’s pulling this thing towards its base looks like the same green energy that surrounds the arm holding Gan in place in Trailer One:

This stuff. That, plus the fact that the robot has to be pulled into its base rather than just existing, implies that either A: Link activates it himself, like a trial thing, or B: that the green energy here functions in the same way Malice does in the original BOTW.

This pattern at its base is intriguing, too. I don’t recognize the gold symbol in the center, but the green around it reminds me of the portals from Twilight Princess.

Which, yes, everyone’s already said that the Twilight Princess patterns look like Zonai things. But another thing this weird dial thing reminds me of is from Lanayru Desert:

On top of that, the color palette of this guy looks like that of the Lanayru Robots from Skyward:

BO2W robot on the left, Lanayru robot on the right. Given that Skyward is a lot more vibrant than other non-Toon Zelda games, I think this is a fair enough comparison to draw similarities from.

And then we get a closer view of the sky ruins from the last shot. I don’t know if the geometric pattern in the corner is a deliberate carving, or wear from time, but since the pattern looks ALMOST mirrored around the corner, I’m going to go with the former.

A better shot a few frames later. The robot has HANDS, which I do not like in any way shape or form. However, we get a better look at the sky ruins.

We haven’t seen this style of stairs before, to my knowledge. The pedestal out front looks like a light source, and it has the same floral egg thing the robot above has on each shoulder; the eggs could easily be a power source for Zonai tech. And at the top of the stairs, we see a pedestal, backing up the theory that these ruins function as our new Sheikah towers.

This is our next shot. Which...

Unikoblins. Can we talk about that? UNIKOBLINS.

Anyways, Link is here again in his old clothes. This is a very early game shot, because his right arm isn’t corrupted yet; this means we get to explore Hyrule before we embark on the main quest. Which gives rise to a question: Where’s Zelda?

The hopeful side of me wants to say that she’s a tutorial companion, like Navi or Tatl, at least for the beginning here. The pessimistic side of me thinks that she’s waiting for us at a predetermined location, and this is just part of getting to her.

Now the unikoblin structure itself is built on a Talus, meaning that the dev team at least intends to have more inter-monster interactions. But if you kill the Talus, does that mean that the base falls apart, or does it just drop down as a separate entity?

Also, what are these background ruins? The one on the left looks like it’s a distinctly different style than the one on the right. It looks almost like a giant guardian arm.

Our next shot is Link’s arm getting corrupted. Which, first of all, the effects look beautiful.

Now, we can see a corner of Link’s hip here, and we know that this is his right arm. So Link’s lying down here. Unconscious? Knowing how Zelda games like to start with Link waking up, probably. Although it looks like at least part of his shorts got an update.

We can see what looks like circuits here. It looks a bit like the electricity puzzles you can find in the Divine Beasts and Shrines in the original.

Then we’ve got these strange symbols.

Whatever this circular stone he’s lying on is, it looks a lot like the Zonai puzzle from the “A Fragmented Monument” sidequest.

This one that everyone thought was the Mirror of Twilight for years.

Our next shot is Link using the corruption powers against enemies:

The spike ball itself looks solid; the question is, is this a duplication power, or a visualization of how the spike ball is set into motion?

We see it barreling over a poor Unikoblin or two, but I’d like to turn your attention to the Moblin and the background.

The moblins here have helmets, and the bases, while they carry the same design, look like they have more cause and effect in mind. The left base’s rock, for instance; that’s a lot bigger than the rocks we got to play with in the last game, and it looks like we can barrel anything in the screen over with it.

The helmet, though, concerns me a little bit. It looks natural rather than forged; like it’s the moblin’s horn, just very much deformed. Does it mean a harder enemy, or is it just for flavor?

Our next shot is this strange flower thing. Note that Link’s right arm is perfectly fine in this shot, meaning that it’s still early game.

This is what Link’s flamethrower looks like. And this:

Is Zonai art.

So the question is, what IS the flamethrower? My first thought was that it’s either a new item in its own, or it’s a Sheikah Slate upgrade. The latter might sound a little far fetched, but Link in this game is right-handed, and in BOTW, he always held the slate in his LEFT hand when using it.

We have more of the weird faded designs that we saw on the Sky ruins:

And we’ve got some kind of pedestal or stage behind the ground flower thing:

It looks like it’s either an altar or a grave, from what I can tell. The stairs aren’t the same design as the ones in the sky, and there aren’t any patterns on it.

More importantly, though, is that this place is underground. This could be a part of the game you’re required to go through, in order to get to Raisin Gan.

A few seconds later, though, we get our answer to what the flamethrower is!

It’s a shield!

Off to the left side, we can see pillars with more weird scribblings towards the top. These match the Sky ruins’ pillar shape, with a narrow base and a wider top.

Our next scene is...weird.

We see a puddle splash in reverse. It’s hard to tell if it’s actually water or not, but the design on the ground implies that it’s either been there for a long time, or that that’s a dedicated splash spot. And the quality and zoom makes me think that this is part of a cutscene. Return of the timeshift stones?

We then see Link...surfacing out of the island? I don’t know how else to describe it. However, his arm is changed again, and glowing, meaning that this is a corruption power. And the “water” he rises out of here looks a lot like the puddle in the last clip.

We get a good look at the Zonai Lights:

A Sky ruin that looks like it contains a room:

And a glimpse of other isles’ ruins in the far distance.

And then as the camera zooms out...

We can place a location!

We’re right over Thundra Plateau!

We also get a mildly better look at the back wall of the sky ruin, which looks to be some kind of table:

The next scene is Hyrule Castle:

The ground shakes and it starts to rise up. However, notice that the columns surrounding the castle are now missing.

We’ve also got red sparks in the air, like we would have in a blood moon. However, due to the sky color, we can assume that this is a conscious decision by Gan himself, and that he isn’t drawing power from his surroundings.

We then see that power bleeding out of the ground. It’s MUCH more red than Malice is, which has always been a kind of burnt pink-ish color.

However, even though Ganon lifts the castle up, he doesn’t lift it very high.

The castle’s about triple the height it was. But since we’re talking Skyloft levels of floating islands, this is still pretty ground-level. What’s interesting to me, though, is that in this shot, despite the game now being about sky islands that we should be able to see from ground level...there aren’t any here. This, to me, means that there’s going to be a sudden appearance of the isles in the sky, rather than them simply being accessible now.

And that’s the whole trailer! I have many questions.

My blog! If you have any opnions/questions/theories, feel free to drop an ask!

Part 2 is up! We missed a lot!

[asterlark]

ok. samwell college of music au. i wrote all four years let's go babey

eric bittle is this lovely southern tenor (sounds kinda like mitch grassi or ben j pierce) who posts covers (& sometimes originals, but always with neutral or no pronouns because he can't post anything that says he or him ☹) on his youtube channel and has major stage fright but is very talented; he also plays ukulele

he got into samwell college of music on a voice scholarship and his dad doesn’t exactly approve but eric was never the 6′2″ masculine football player he wanted anyway so why not go for his dreams

he auditions for the very competitive samwell men’s contemporary chorus (there’s like 20 choirs; chamber choir, jazz choir, a cappella groups (lax bros do a cappella), combined choirs, etc- smcc does contemporary pop/rock music) and while he’s very very nervous and shaky as he auditions, directors hall & murray see a lot of potential in him (with major grumbling from student director jack)

(the rest of this ridiculously long au under the cut)

the group is small, for a chorus, because the point of the group is not a wall of sound but a focus on all of the very talented guys’ voices coming together in these gorgeous harmonies and basically they’re like one of the best choruses on campus and all the male singers want in

so there’s jack zimmermann, who of course eric knows because everyone knows who he is, he’s the son of bob and alicia zimmermann, both incredibly talented and famous musicians, and basically those genes were in his favor because he’s mega fucking talented

(jack was supposed to sign a recording contract to be in a band with his best friend kent parson when he was 17 but something happened between them and the pressure was too much and jack overdosed on something- there’s so many rumors no one knows what’s real- and kent signed solo in LA & went on to win grammys for his albums about a mysterious ex and jack disappeared for a few years to be a counselor at a music camp and reappears at samwell, knocking everyone’s socks off again like he’d never left, except with a renewed vigor and intenseness that freaks everyone out)

jack is a contemporary writing & production major, freaky talented and sings like a modern day frank sinatra, and he plays like 20 instruments and can read music like breathing air and writes songs like if he stopped he’d die; his music is folksy and mournful and he plays all the instruments on his tracks himself- guitar, piano, strings, drums- it sounds like a full band but nope. just jack. he’s intense

“we all get nicknames in this choir,” justin informs eric on his first day, “we’re those kinda guys.” so he’s bitty, which he finds vaguely offensive (bc he’s not that short!) but still cute, & the rest of the group is introduced to him:

“shitty” knight (voice like colyer) is a musical education major and an enigma of a singer with this awesome, earthy, raspy voice that’s really interesting to listen to and a very.... unique style & look; he writes cheesy but shockingly good raps about social justice topics and he will sing-lecture you if you’ve said something offensive (he also plays banjo)

justin “ransom” oluransi is a music business & management major with an angelic voice you can’t help but listen to; he’s sultry and has an incredible range and does runs like nobody’s business (with a voice like daniel caesar or leslie odom jr UGH)

adam “holster” birkholtz is a voice performance major, wants to be on broadway and it’s all he ever goddamn talks about basically, he’s a belter and has a lot of charisma and starpower and he’ll charm the pants off of you within one note; can also play piano and irritates everyone constantly because his regular volume is like a level 11 (voice like the frontman of my brothers and i combined w/ x ambassadors lead singer)

larissa “lardo” duan is at the local art institute because performing arts is not her jam and she’d much rather paint; she’s a barista at annie’s and supervises open mic nights and keeps the annoying choir dudes from driving away all her patrons

“i’m not even in your dumbass choir,” she says when the group gave her her nickname. holster just told her that she was an honorary member and then started sing-shouting a song at her about how good she is

bitty’s first year is hard because he’s talented and he works hard but he shies away when anyone asks him to sing outside the group and like, he can sing to a camera by himself but being on a stage with everyone looking at you and the sole responsibility of the song on your shoulders is terrifying and no thanks

jack does not. understand this. he’s been performing practically since he came out of the womb and he doesn’t really get performance nerves (what he gets is anxiety about how he did after he gets off stage that follows him home and makes it so he can’t sleep) - so he bothers bitty about it constantly like “you just need practice, you just have to sing by yourself a lot and then you’ll get over it” which like.... that’s true but it’s also hella scary and bitty’s like “no thanks!!!!”

but jack’s annoying and intense so he makes bitty do open mic with him every saturday night and it’s going okay and bitty loves his choir and loves his school and these new friends he’s making and he finally feels comfortable enough to come out to them during his second term

then during their spring choral showcase at the end of his freshman year bitty has a solo and he’s worked really hard on it and he’s feeling good- okay he’s completely freaked out but he’s trying to feel good- but when he gets up on stage there’s so many people and the stage lights are so hot on his face and he flips out a little and maybe he passes out from anxiety and stress right on stage and it’s terrible and he’s so embarrassed and ashamed that he ruined their set at the showcase

of course jack blames himself because “we shouldn’t have given you a solo before you were ready, i misjudged it, i’m sorry” - and they all feel kinda bad bc holy fuck they didn’t know his stage fright was that bad like they didn’t know someone could pass out just by being anxious to sing

he practices all the time over the summer and goes to his local open mic at jack’s insistence and it actually helps a lot because instead of a sea of strangers judging him it’s a bunch of people he knows and they’re all smiling at him and when he finishes his song they cheer for him and it boosts his self-confidence a lot

his sophomore year they have three new members- chris ”chowder” chow (voice like ieuan), an excitable music education major with impressive rapping skills, derek "nursey" nurse (frank ocean or leon bridges type), a songwriting major who can also play violin and guitar, and will ”dex” poindexter (like tom west), a production & engineering major who tried out with chowder bc he needed moral support and didn't expect to get in but impressed the directors with his voice

the year’s going pretty good, bitty’s still pretty scared of singing alone but more confident now and the open mic nights with jack haven’t stopped, so he’s getting better. and one night they’re hanging out at annie’s after closing waiting for lardo to be done so they can walk her home, and bitty suggests that jack sing with him one of these nights, and jack says he doesn’t know any of bitty’s songs and bitty says they can write one together half jokingly but then jack is like “yes.” with that Intense Look

SO they get together a couple days later in jack’s room at the house they all live in together (bitty moved in at the beginning of the year after previous smcc member john johnson called him- how’d he get his number?- and told him he could take his room if he wanted), jack with his guitar and bitty with his ukulele, and it’s a little awkward until bitty says jack should play him one of his songs

and, okay, he doesn’t really know what to expect because the only music jack ever released to the public was that one single he did with kent parson when they were 17 so bitty doesn’t even know if he has anything to play him, but he does- he starts playing these soft, sad notes on the guitar and opens his mouth and sings about being lonely and scared and unsure, about false starts and shaky ground and not knowing where you stand with someone, about expectations and lying awake at night and wishing so hard you were someone else, and bitty watches him sing and just kind of... realizes he’s head over heels for this boy and internally Freaks Out a little

he tries to put that aside and they start to write this song, at first it’s weird because jack’s like “all your songs are love songs i can’t really relate to happy love songs” and bitty’s like “listen... i’ve never even had a boyfriend i just write a bunch of sappy love stuff because it’s not about me it’s about whoever’s listening to it, they’re gonna project their own experiences on my music anyway so it doesn’t matter if it’s my real life or not” and jack’s like “alright while fake af that’s smart and i respect you” (what bitty doesn't say is that he writes about what he really wants which is to fall in love & be in a happy relationship)

they say they’re just gonna write this kinda vague sad song but they both secretly write lines about their actual lives so it ends up being really personal and real and raw for the both of them

they sing the song at open mic that saturday and the crowd at annie’s is never that big but they’ve never got a standing ovation here before, and some girl shouts “MAKE AN ALBUM” (it may or may not be lardo) and they both blush furiously and bitty’s like “... that was really nice, jack” and jack’s like “... yeah it was good good job you’re really getting some confidence out there nice work” (bitty: “THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT AAAAH”)

around this time jack’s really thinking about what he’s gonna do when he’s done at samwell, talking with his parents and his agent and looking into different record companies and deciding if he wants to sign with anyone or possibly start his own company- the head of a small company called falcon records in rhode island has been talking to him a lot, and jack talks to bitty about how he thinks it’d be nice to start small, and the record exec georgia and the producer marty had both been really nice and welcoming, and bitty’s so happy for him but also just... sad that he won’t be around jack every day after he graduates

THEN at a haus party celebrating their win of a local choral competition, who shows up but none other than pop star kent parson to Ruin The Fun

bitty sees the way jack pales when kent walks in, notices them disappear upstairs together and feels a little sick worrying about jack but chalks it up to the highly alcoholic concoction shitty and lardo had cooked up but nonetheless decides he’s sick of the party and goes up to his room and hears.... a little too much

and YIKES he’s standing right there and kent parson, pop star, two-time grammy winner, is looking a little rumpled and staring right at him and he puts his hat on and clears his throat and snaps at jack- “hey. well. call me if you reconsider. but good luck with rhode island. ...i’m sure that’ll make your parents proud.” and jack’s shaking, and bitty doesn’t know what to do but jack goes back into his room and bitty’s just kind of standing there like What The Fuck

so.... he kind of stews over winter break but tries not to think about it too much and he and jack text a bit and jack tells him to practice and bitty’s like “oh, you” and jack’s like “im serious” and bitty’s like “>:( it’s christmas”

spring semester starts and they're doing well in competitions and they go to semifinals and then finals for a prestigious collegiate choir competition and the pressure is mounting but they all are so optimistic and really feel like they're on the same page and bitty’s confidence is better than ever and then.... they don't win

jack especially takes it very hard, but then he also has signing to worry about, which everyone helps him with and he decides to sign with falcon records and start work on an album after graduation

speaking of graduation, shitty and jack graduate and it's hard for them but harder for bitty who feels like he's losing jack in a way, he knows how intense jack gets when he's making music and it doesn't feel like he'll have any time for bitty anymore so when they say goodbye bitty goes back to the haus and listens to his and jack's song and just cries

but, like in canon, dadbob has words of wisdom to impart and jack has an "oh" moment and races across campus to kiss bitty

they get together and the next few months are spent with jack working nonstop on his album (which tbh, he'd had many of the songs written already so it's mostly recording and producing) and texting bitty constantly and coming to visit him and playing him demos of all the songs

jack also asks bitty if they can record the song they wrote together & have it as a bonus track on his album & bitty says of course, so when jack visits they set up an impromptu studio and record vocals in the guest bedroom and this deeply personal song they wrote before they were ever together means so much more to them now

and bitty is so happy but so scared and sad too because jack is playing him these songs telling him "they're all for you bits, & a lot of them are about you" and he just doesn't know how he's going to keep all this love inside even though it feels like jack's career is at stake

he tries to shove it down and stay strong though, especially since he's now an upperclassman and they're taking on new members- connor "whiskey" whisk (voice like finneas or the male singer in valley), a music business/ management major who seems to hate bitty's guts and tony "tango" tangredi (like chaz cardigan), a jazz composition major who astounds everybody with his endless questions but also his ridiculously impressive composition skills & naturally perfect pitch (he can also play saxophone??)

i want ford in this au so fuck it she is a composition major with dreams to write scores for musicals and she stars training as a barista at annie's (aka training to corral the smcc)

the pressure of it all proves to be a lot and bitty and jack have their hi, honey moment where bitty's like i can't be this deep in the closet!!! and so they tell the smcc and also jack's label that they're together and that eases things a bit

jack's album comes out to much critical acclaim and shouting in the groupchat ("#1 ON ITUNES BRAHHHHH!!!!!!!!") and several months later, when smcc has already been eliminated from choral competition in an earlier round, jack is nominated for SEVERAL grammys including best album, song of the year, and best new artist

when the time comes he takes his parents and bitty on the red carpet which, everyone keeps being like "who are you here with jack?" and he's like "my family and my good friend :)" and yes it is awkward

jack wins... all three awards. it's the comeback everyone is stoked to see and when his third win is announced, he and bitty are so elated that they kiss before he goes to accept the award

his speech is basically just "um... wow. thank you. i just kissed my boyfriend on live tv. this is amazing and i'm so humbled. i'd like to thank my boyfriend and georgia and marty and my parents and my friends and my boyfriend"

obviously the press has a FIELD DAY with this but bitty & jack are honestly vibing and so happy that it doesn't matter untiiiillll bitty's mom calls and he has to tell her "mama i'm gay and i'm going on tour with jack this summer okloveyoubye"

the last few months of bitty's junior year pass quickly and he's voted student director which is a huge honor considering how much he struggled with stage fright and confidence & how he'll now be stepping into ransom & holster's shoes

r&h and lardo all graduate (the smcc basically crashes the art school graduation and all scream when lardo gets her diploma lmao), which is a bittersweet occasion and they all do a bit of tearing up

that summer bitty goes on tour across the u.s. & canada with jack and his touring band (snowy is a bassist, tater is a drummer and poots does backing guitar, he also brings nursey to play violin on a few songs) as well as georgia who's there to manage logistics

and tour is so fun & chaotic with many bi and rainbow flags in the audience that end up thrown on stage and draped around jack's neck and they spend so many nights in the bus drinking and laughing and fooling around on the guitars and bitty's uke and exploring new cities bitty has never been to before and it's the freest bitty has felt in a long time

summer ends though, and jack leaves for the uk/europe leg of the tour, and with the new school year brings a few new members- river "bully" bullard (voice like gregory alan isakov), a music therapy major who draws his own cover art for his songs, lukas "louis" landmann (like jr jr), an electronic production and design major with a penchant for EDM, and johnathan "hops" hopper (like keiynan lonsdale), a film scoring major who wants to write music for movies and video games

bitty meets and befriends some of the other student directors- shruti, sd of the women’s contemporary chorus; sharon, sd of the chamber choir; and edgar, sd of jazz ensemble (even chad l., sd of the all-male a cappella group)

senior year passes similarly to the comic; coach visits and sees one of bitty’s competitions, jack comes to madison for christmas, smcc does well in competition and goes to regionals etc

however… bitty keeps putting off and putting off gathering the songs for his senior recital

he has a hard time doing that because he’s so focused on the group and making sure they’re performing well and as they advance in competition, everything else starts to fall away

eventually the rest of the smcc has to lock away his uke and change his youtube password and FORCE him to choose songs for it and start preparing because he cannot graduate without doing this recital and doing well on it

he chooses (of course) a beyonce song, a few of his own songs, an ellie goulding song, and an adele song

with all that his breath hitches and his hands shake before he goes on stage, he does really well and his voice instructor prof atley tears up a little in the audience as does his mom

meanwhile smcc goes to semifinals, then finals, of the national collegiate choral competition they participate in

and i imagine bitty faces somewhat less homophobia in this au because i mean, he’s in the performing arts, but i think it’s still there and he also faces a good amount of classism from richer students and performers who think they’re better because they had the resources and money to be performing professionally from a very young age, and he has been practicing via filming himself on a shitty camcorder and posting it to youtube

but they still get there! and the national finals are fucking HUGE and a big deal and a little overwhelming

bitty’s stage fright is Present because this is the biggest stage and the biggest stakes he's ever had and he has a big solo in one of their songs so if he fucks up, he fucks up a national championship for his whole group and school

luckily though, when he steps on the stage with his best friends and sees his boyfriend and family and smcc alums in the audience and they perform their first song, a high-energy pop medley that always gets the crowd going, everything seems to melt away and it's just him living in this moment and singing his heart out

when it gets to the next song and his solo, he forgets to be nervous and belts it out, getting screams of approval from the audience when he finishes

(dex and nursey do have a duet together that they had to practice for many long nights in the practice rooms alone but that's neither here nor there)

their time on stage seems to last both hours and no time at all and then they're done, the crowd gives them a standing ovation and it's at least 30% r&h & shitty's hooting and hollering and jack's enthusiastic clapping that makes bitty & the others beam with pride

then it's just waiting, giddy and nervous beyond belief in their green room, for the judging to be over

after what feels like forever they're back on stage, arms linked together waiting and hoping for their name to be called and it is, they win and it feels like years have built up to this moment, and bitty tears up because years ago when he was fainting from anxiety at having to perform in front of people he never could've imagined that he'd do this, that he'd be the student director that led them to a championship

they get the trophy and a ridiculous amount of flowers from their loved ones and they all are just in giddy disbelief that this is happening, they're national champs!!! they are the best choir boys in the nation!!

they come home and the rest of the school year passes by so quickly that it's very suddenly graduation and bitty can't believe his college career at samwell is over 😢

(he and ollie and wicky take pictures together, o&w talk about how excited they are to devote full time attention to their band & wedding planning and bitty's just like wait you're gay??)

bitty got plenty of offers from record companies but he likes his freedom of creativity and he has a built in fanbase from doing youtube all these years so he decides to make an album independently (jack helps him produce & master it 🥰)

when bitty's album comes out about a year later, full of bops about being gay and in love and having struggled but come out the other side more confident than ever, it doesn't get any grammy nominations- and he didn't expect or need that.

what it does do is it resonates. it makes the rounds in youtube and queer internet circles; people his age reach out to him saying this is the music they wish they had as a kid and kids reach out to him saying he's a role model and they're so glad to have his music to listen to. his album is written about as an underrated gem that shines with queer brilliance and is sure to start a party when it comes on.

his parents may not fully understand the road he's chosen for himself but they're still so proud and promote the album as hard as any of his loyal fans (especially the one country-inspired song on the album that he wrote and dedicated to them).

and jack, jack who saw this album from its infancy to its release date, who took the film photo that ended up being the album cover, who worked with bitty to make sure his vision was realized exactly how he wanted it to be, is proud beyond words.

jack starts using his semi-abandoned twitter again to tweet "stream [album name]" every day and bitty retweets them sometimes, with just a "this boy. ❤"

and they're happy. they're good. they have come so far and they are reaping the rewards of all the hard work they put in to make the music that they truly love.

the end :)

[larabar]

I would personally love to hear you rant about sonic x as I too loved that characterization of him ;w;

There was more than a few episodes of him legit going against the grain and being perceived as “the bad guy” and he didn’t care just cause he thought it was the right thing to do and I friggen LOVE that. I know some games have that characterization as well but it was just neat to that on a show

fair warning my ramblings get off the rails VERY quick get ready for this. its very long

i wanted to wait to answer this till after id watched more of the jp version because id only seen like. the last 3 eps. as much as i love the 4kids cast the original's just. so good man. watch it. i like sonic's personality in both versions but still

k. so

one of my favorite parts of his characterization in the show is how much it embodies his sa1/sa2 theme it doesnt matter.

so uh first thing that comes to mind is how. not self-centered he is. like i dont know where that characterization came from but its all over sonic media (dont get me wrong i still love that personality and think its hilarious. boom!sonic looking at you) but its just not how id describe his character in general

ANYWAYS like you said he literally Does Not care if something is 'good' or 'bad' he just does what he feels is right which is SO COOL for a character like him

like that one section of the show where egggman was making weird moon things for people's yards or something and sonic took one look at that and said Nope. literally everyone else was like bro?? we kinda need that light to live what are you doing?? and once again he Did Not care like he knew something was up and it wasnt good

and honestly i think its the little things about his personality that stand out to me the most. from his love for flowers. to spontaneously deciding to look for a small field of flowers in the mountains in the middle of nowhere becuse he knew cream had been feeling homesick. to random naps on rooftops because he feels like it. that kinda stuff

also he doesnt talk as much as his other characterizations. he figures stuff out silently in his head and you never really know exactly what hes thinking because his brain's moving a mile a minute (real adhd moment there) which is another thing thats not brought up much hes actually really smart? favorite example is the dark sonic episode (you know the one) when cosmo leaves to talk with black narcissus or whatever his name was. nobody knows where she is and everyone starts panicking but sonic's already figured out that she left the ship with the help of chris to get past the security. can we talk about how smart he is more often its one of my favorite characteristics of his

little off topic but theres also an episode of aosth (case of the missing hi-tops or something like that) where hes like a mini sherlock holmes and figures out who stole his shoes how they stole his shoes and why they stole his shoes and its. such a great episode guys please watch it. okok back to sonic x

i forgot what i was gonna say. uhhhhhhhhh oh yeah the race episode

sam sets up a giant race and pulls up to the thorndyke's house with the entire city lined up parade style at like 3am and challenges sonic to a race to which he once again says No and goes back to sleep. he could care less about what the city wants he just. idk man this whole situation is so funny. sonic finishes the race wayyy before sam, poses for the camera, goes back to sam, and finishes the race in an almost-tie i love this episode so much. im getting off topic again

ok i know everyone talks about the helen episode but im gonna talk aboout the helen episode. sonic just casually tells chris he promised one of his classmates he'd take her to an island in the middle of a lake and he Does It. with the entire army following him because he refused to go to a party with the president. how could a better episode be written its perfect

can i talk about cruise blues now. cool so cruise blues is one of my favorite episodes because it completely changes up his character and at the same time keeps it the same but also gives him character development ? that sounds really complicated just bare with me. sonic doesnt like boats. at all. for good reason tho theres no room to run theres water everywhere and also seasickness is a thing. anyways sonic takes the situation really well and decides the only way off this boat other than launching himself off the deck 30 times is to psychologically manipulate everyone on the ship through various means that leave him hanging on for dear life to a pole so amy doesnt smash him to pieces. he learns his lesson after that i think

point is by the end of the episode he learns to relax and its just all in all really chill at the end? he learns he needs to take it slow and rest sometimes and i think its the only ep to actually try to develop sonic's character

idk what else to talk about. ep 26 and the last two eps of s2 are really good but i have no idea how to put them into words

tl;dr: sonic x is good (understatement)

[in-the-name-of-styles]

Need You.

Author’s Note: Hello! After answering tons and tons of asks, and explaining how Tumblr had deleted the second part “Please Stay” to my one shot named “Only If” for god knows what reasons. I had to do this for you guys. I stopped writing years ago, and but kept my masterlist open for you to come and read my writings whenever you wish to. Trust me, this was so effing difficult for me to do! but I’m kind of proud that I removed the time and managed it. but let me inform you it’s not the same, because I do not remember what happened in the original one clearly. I hope this is a better and hopefully more well-written (amongst my other writings *cringe*) version of the old one.

It’s not proof read. I haven't edited it, so I’m sorry in advance for the typos. 

So, guys, gals and non-binary pals, I present to you (apology for it being light years late) the part two to your favourite little creation of mine “Only If”, with a new identity... please welcome “Need You”!

Do let me know how it makes you feel in the ask box or comment section. I love reading them. Happy Reading!

Word Count: 5K

Warnings: tons of angst with tons of fluff, sensitive harry???? (or do you guys call it sub!harry nowadays??) anyways it’s a cute!harry :P !

.

It’s been four hours, and you still weren’t back. Though it wasn’t new for you to go for a drive after an argument with him, you often came back within an hour or two. The blizzard outside was making Harry quite anxious. Even though the fight was extreme, he wanted you back safe and sound. He now realised how harsh he was on you. You didn’t intentionally leak the song. It was a mistake and it could happen to anyone, himself included. He felt guilty over the way he yelled at you; it wasn’t like him to react like that.

Suddenly, Harry felt the need to do something special for you. Though he planned on apologising to you verbally, he wanted his actions to prove it too. He made his way to the kitchen to cook you your favourite meal. He got a hold of his phone and switched on the playlist which include all the songs both of you enjoyed. the sound of the vessels clucking against each other minimised over the song playing on through the speakers.

A smile lit up on his face as he reminisced back to the moment when you were dancing to this song while making the two of you breakfast.

FLASHBACK

Harry rubbed his eyes as he walked down the stairs, his dimpled smile already making its appearance when he heard your voice blasting through the kitchen entrance. He didn’t know why you bothered turning the song on so loud, you were anyways going to be louder. He stopped at the kitchen entrance, a silent laugh escaped him as he leaned against the door frame and took in the scene going on in front of him.

“You say you want a good time! Well here I am, baby, here I am, baby” you belted out loud, cheeks turning red with the happiness radiating out of you. You’d decided that the whisk was your microphone of choice with batter stuck to it and everything. You’re moving those luscious hips which drive him crazy right to the rhythm of the song.

“Talk to me, talk to me, talk to me talk to me, tell me what's on your mind!” you missed a note but you don’t care. This scene right in front of him, he wished he could capture and watch it forever. Bruno Mars did bring a wild side out of you, and he couldn’t bring himself to be jealous of the multi-talented singer. He would give anything to see you like this. Knowing you’re the shy type who doesn’t enjoy too much of attention, getting to watch you like this was definitely a sight.

He walked right up to you and wrapped his arms around you slowly. You jumped in a scare, as you were lost in your own world. “Harry! You scared me.” You complained, trying to ignore the blush on you cheeks after you realised he must’ve been watching you from a far.

He nuzzled into your neck and sighed, while pressing a kiss there, “Hmm… I’m sorry, m’love. But you just looked so beautiful I didn’t want to stop you.” He murmured while pressing more kisses to your neck, then trailing them up to your jawline. “Y’ look utterly ravishing right now. Forget pancakes, instead I’ll have you for breakfast.” He smiled and went on to kiss your cheeks. His comments made you smile. He saw his chance and lightly bite the side of your cheek. You squealed and tried to push him away.

“H, stop!” you laughed. He tightened his arms around you and swayed to the beat of the song then went on to sing next lyric “Tell me baby, tell me, tell me baby what you tryna do!” he slightly lifted up your t-shirt and moved one of his hands under it, and muttered, “huh? What are you trying to do to me, baby?” and pressed yet another kiss to your cheek.

“Gosh, your hands are extremely cold!” you gasped. He then turned you around to face him. You instinctively wrapped your arms around him. The two of you smiled quietly towards each other, then he leaned down to kiss you properly. You shifted one of your hands into his the nape of his neck and the other went on to cup his cheek. He moved one of his around your shoulder and the other around your waist. Both of you sighed and bathed in each other’s presence.

“G’morning, froggy” you teased as pulled away first and smiled up at him. He frowned and tutted, then smacked your ass lightly. You always teased him for his morning face, said it looked like a cute frog. He rubbed the area he spanked and quickly pecked you once again before pulling away to look at you.

Brushing away the hair stuck to your face, “Morning, precious. How’re you feeling?” he asked, hugging you towards his chest. Let’s just say the rest of the day went on just like this. Him being needy for your attention, and you loving on him without any hold backs.

END OF FLASHBACK

Right as he was getting ready to plate the dish, the doorbell rang. He smiled, happy to finally have you home. He quickly washed his hands and walked up to the door as he rubbed his hand dry with the towel which was once on his shoulder. He buzzed you in thinking you’ll unlock the main door with the security code. But after two minutes of waiting and not seeing you walk through the door, he turned on the camera above his buzzer to see what was wrong.

He frowned when he saw two police officers standing outside his door. His heart suddenly started racing at rapid speed. He rushed towards the door and unlocked them. Coming face to face with the two sombre looking men, he tentatively asked, “G’ evening, officers. How may I help you?”

The two men exchanged looks and the tall one replied, “Sir, there has been an accident and we found an ID on the victim. Is this Ms. Y/N Y/L/N residence? we’re here to inform you about the unfortunate event.”

“I-I don’t understand? What happened?” he stuttered, his legs almost felt as if they were about to give up.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have much information for you. May we ask what’s your relation to the victim?” the other officer asked, and gave him an apologetic smile.

“Fiancé.” He cleared his throat, trying to calm himself down. He could feel his panic attack rising. “I’m her fian-” he shook his head, “Just tell me where she is please…” he pleaded and quickly put on his shoes. He took his car keys and raced up to his rover.

“She’s over at St. Thomas, Mr. Styles.” The officers had clearly recognised the distressed man. “Here’s her ID. We hope everything is well.”

Harry couldn’t bring himself to thank them as he started his car and backed out of the parking spot. He raced up to the hospital, and once he reached, he ran up to the reception.

“Y-Y/N Y/L/N? S-She just c-came in? I’m her f-fiancé?” He gasped out your name. The lady was busy tending to others to notice him. “Hey! Hey! Please ma’am just tell me where she is!” he was on the verge of weeping in front of her.

The old lady looked at him with a bit of annoyance, “Take a breath, young man. I’m trying my best here!” She walked up to him. “Now tell me, what was her name again?”

“Y/N Y/L/N!” He rushed. He couldn’t stand straight. Once he got what he wanted, he ran towards the elevator, up to the fifth floor. The corridor was busy and he couldn’t care less about pushing people aside. He just wanted to get to you as soon as he could. He found your door and barged in, not caring about the doctors around your bed.

“Y/N!” He rushed to your side, dropping beside your bed.

“Sir you can’t be her-” the male nurse tried to pull him back.

“I’m sorry…I’m so sorry, precious!” He cried, trying to get the man off of him and get back to you. “I’m here now, okay? I’m not going anywhere- GET OFF ME. SHE NEEDS ME!” he yelled pushing the guy away.

“Hey man you’re no good to her at the moment yeah? Let the doctors do their job!” the nurse tried to make him understand while pulling him back yet again. Tears streamed down his face as he tried to reach to you. He sobbed over your state, blood was streaming down your forehead, and all he wanted to do was protect you and wrap his arms around you.

“No I need to be here! Please let me!” he cried. All of sudden a beep brought his cries to a halt. He looked around frantically wanting to know what had happened. “W-What’s wrong?!” he hiccupped.

The doctor and the nurses around him started rushing around the room. He then heard those words which made his heart stop, “She has flat-lined! Someone pass me the defibrillator!” the  doctor raised his voice.

Harry couldn’t believe this was happening. The nurse had enough of the unwilling man and pushed him out the door, “Sir we cannot help her if you’re being difficult. Please calm down and go to the waiting room. We will inform you about her doing as soon as we can.” and then shut the door to his face. Harry could no longer see you. The group of doctors, covered your body.

He slid down the wall next to your door and sobbed into his hands. Only if he would’ve stopped you from leaving. Only if he would’ve told you that he forgives you and that he loved you more than anything. Only if he would’ve let the argument die and kiss you instead. Only if…

Later, the upset man walked himself to the toilet. He caught his reflection in the mirror. He didn’t care about his red swollen eyes, his sweaty forehead and matted hair. The image of you lying on that bed yet again brought tears to his eyes. The thought of you not making it made him retch and he rushed into one of the restrooms. He dry-heaved and cried. Once he was able to breathe, he took out his phone.

Sniffling as he dialled the only number he could think of, The voice on the other side made him breakdown. “Mum I-” he couldn’t complete his sentence, as he tried to wipe his eyes.

“Harry? Darling what’s wrong?!” she asked shocked at her son’s rapid breathing.

“Y/N s-she is- Mum I can’t lose her. I’m such an idiot. I shouldn’t have let her leave. What if she doesn’t make it?” He wept while running his sticky fingers through his hair.

“Love, what-” she tried to ask him, but he cut her off.

“What if she…What if she dies, mum?” he cried and coughed.

His mother had figured out by now that you were not okay, and might be admitted in the hospital. She tried to calm her son through the phone. Unfortunately, she wasn’t near him and by the time she would reach it might not be enough. So she did the only thing she could once Harry hung up the phone, she rang up his friends.

Harry sat himself down on one of the wating room chairs. No one was telling him anything, he had no idea how you were doing or if you were okay. He was out of tears, and soon enough the exhaustion took over him. He didn’t even realise when he had fallen asleep until he felt a hand brush the back of his head. He opened his eyes and saw his two friends crouching in front of him.

“Hey buddy…” Louis smiled softly. Harry jolted back up, and got up to run towards your room. But before he could stand up straight Mitch stopped him. “H, they just came in here to inform us about her condition.”

“How’s she? Is she okay? Is she awake? She needs me, I need to be beside her.” He rushed. His two close friends, tried to calm him down.

“They said she’s stable now, mate. But we aren’t allowed to meet her yet, okay?” Louis stated.

Harry took deep breaths and looking at their extremely destressed friend, Louis pulled him into a hug. Getting the comfort he desperately needed, Harry started sobbing again. He was tired of crying but he couldn’t bring himself to stop.

“Everything is going to be okay, Harry. She’s our little tigress, she’s going to pull through, yeah?” Mitch ran a hand drown his friend’s shoulder. Harry nodded lightly and tried to slow down his heart.

48 Hours Later

It’s been two days, yesterday Harry was allowed to visit you since they moved you out of the ICU. Thankfully, your internal recovery was rapid, and you could wake up anytime. He was getting a bit impatient. He wanted to see you open those shiny eyes and look at him the way you always did, with so much love that made him giddy and flustered. These past two days he’s been talking to you, continuously apologising for his behaviour, and how he’s going to make up for everything that went wrong. You just had to come back to him.

“and then Louis got frustrated because Mitch was not answering him. But that’s Mitch for you, right?” he slightly smiled and ran the hand which wasn’t holding you hand, through your hair. “You’re going to hate your hair, once you wake up. You always like them a certain way, don’t you? But don’t you worry, I’ll help you wash your hair as soon as you wake up and come back home.” He stated and kissed your hand. He was silent for a while, just continued to run his hand through your hair.

“You’re going to come back to me, right precious?” he asked quietly, “Why aren’t you waking up, huh? Your froggy needs you to open your eyes....” he continued, as he forced a laugh out of his throat which had a huge lump in it. His eyes turned misty as he continued, “I hate it here. Seeing you like this is a nightmare. I miss you so much. I miss you calling me annoying little names. I miss you smacking me when I’m being a narcissistic little prick. I miss your voice. I miss everything about you, and even though it’s just been two day, I feel like it’s been forever. Wake up, baby. Please…” he pleaded.

As the day turned into night, Harry decided to stay back. He asked for an extra blanket and a pillow for his makeshift bed on the couch. He didn’t know why he bothered because he spent the entire night sitting beside you, holding your hand as he fell asleep leaning against it.

You could listen before you could see. The only thing you could hear was the air conditioner and someone lightly snoring against your right hand. You tried to move your fingers as you opened your eyes. The bright light made you squint, you blinked rapidly as your vision cleared. You turned to your right and saw Harry’s peaceful face sleeping against your hand. You felt the need to clear your throat, and your eyes searched the room for a glass of water. But the sound made Harry wake up from his sleep. He lifted his face and wiped the little drool from his face and the little amount on your hand.

“whoops, you’d kill me now if you were awak-” he turned to look at your face, and he had to double take. He gasped, almost falling off this chair. “Y/N…Oh my- you’re awake!” he nearly yelled. He pressed the button to call the nurse and then cupped your face going on to press kisses to your face, “Baby I was so scared. I thought I had lost you!” He laughed his airy laugh and looked at you with utter happiness.

For some reason, you couldn’t bring yourself to look at him. The words he said to you were the only thing swimming through your mind. For you time had stood still, like the fight had happened mere hours ago. You moved your face away from his hands. Harry frowned noticing this change in your mood.

“Hey what’s wrong? The doctor is on her way, yeah. Do y’need anything?” he asked frantically following your eyes round the room. He saw you eye the plastic cup beside your bed, “Y’ want water? Hold on I’ll get it for you.” He ran to the other side and brought the cup up to your face. You didn’t realise how thirsty you were until the first sip hit your throat, you started gulping it down quickly.

“Take it easy, precious. They took out the tube just yesterday.” He explained softly.

Once your thirst was quenched he kept the cup aside then went on to pull his sleeve over his knuckles and wiped the wet corners of your mouth. You moved your face aside yet again, he couldn’t understand what was wrong. But before he could ask you, the doctor came in to check on you. She did her tests and asked a few questions. She left as soon as she was done, and told you even though the injury looked worse than it actually is, you had take it easy for a couple of days.

Neither of you spoke for a few minutes, “How’re you feeling, love?” he asked quietly. You nodded, “I’m okay.” He came up to you and raised his hand to caress your cheek. But before he could touch you, your head turned to the opposite side. He couldn’t take it anymore, so he asked you.

“Will you please look at me? What’s happened, precious?” as he caressed your hair.

“Why should I look at you, Harry? So you can tell me how careless I am, or how I’m not trustworthy?” you rasped quietly. For a minute he was unable understand what you were trying to say. Then flashbacks from your fight the other night came back rushing to him. The things he said to you, and how guilty he felt later. His words had left a huge impact than he thought they did.

He took your face in his hand with very much to little force, he had to tell you this, “Y/N y’have absolutely no idea for how sorry I am for that night-” but you didn’t let him complete.

“That’s only because I got into this accident.” You snapped. He shook his head rapidly, he saw you getting worked up over this. You’ve always been a little firecracker, and you never failed to tell him when he was being a dick or to defend yourself quite amazingly, he always loved that quality. Apropos, he couldn’t let you hurt yourself in this condition.

“First of all, please calm down-” he started, “don’t tell me to calm down, harry!” you raged. He hated himself for smiling when you’re clearly very upset. But for the past few days he had to witness you lie there lifeless which had taken a toll on his mental state. He loved the fact that you were awake, so you yelling at him was more of a reward than a punishment. You looked at him sharply and saw him not taking you seriously, this brought tears to your eyes.

You sniffled and looked away from him to rest your head against the pillows on the raised up side of your bed roughly. Harry’s small smile melted away as quickly as it appeared. He rubbed the side you almost banged to the pillow, “I’m so sorry, precious. I swear I did not mean anything I said.” He pleaded and took a seat down on the chair beside you.

Right then the nurse which pushed him out of the room the other day and now was much like a friend to him entered the room with a tray which had a bowl of soup and jello in it. Harry smiled at him gratefully and took the tray from him as the guy set up the table on your bed.

“How’re you feeling, Ms. Y/L/N?” he asked once he was ready to leave. You gave him a small smile and said you were feeling better. The moment he left Harry looked back at you with a longing look on his face, when you refused to look at him he sighed and set the tray down on the small table and took a seat in front you on the bed. He looked at you as he removed the metal spoon from its cover, and then went on to remove the cover set on top of the soup. He blew light air on the spoonful of soup, then brought it up to your mouth. You refused to touch it. He sighed and looked at you pleadingly, “Y’ know someone told me we shouldn’t remove our anger on food.” He stated, turning your words against you.

You glared at him in anger for minute as he looked at you with a loving smile. “Please?” He moved it closer to your mouth, “You’ve got to eat it, I’m not budging unless you do, Y/N.”

Even though you wanted to stay stubborn, you were kind of hungry. So you let him feed you the soup. When he got to the jello, you refused profoundly. “But it’s the chocolate flavoured one! Remember the time we used to share one when I was here for my fractured foot? C’mon we’ll share this one too, if y’want?” he tried convincing you with his soft eyes.

“I don’t want to share it with you. Actually, I don’t want anything to do with you at the moment to be completely honest.” you snapped. You were aware of the fact that you were being very unreasonable and bitchy but it was his words that has caused extreme hurt to you. Your words hurt Harry, and it was evident on his face. He wrapped up the jello and cleared everything. The day passed, and in the evening your last visitor entered the room.

“There she is!” Louis came up to you and hugged you lightly, making sure not to hurt you. “Hello, darling. How’re you?” he kissed your forehead. Harry left you alone with him as he went to get the two of them some coffee.

“What’s happened to him? Why the long face still? I mean I get that Harry loves to pretend that he’s this macho man and all. S’ a bit ridiculous to be honest. Like who’s he kidding, he’s a puppy.” Louis laughed. You smiled at this.

“I’m still a bit upset with him over our fight. So I haven’t been talking to him.” You explained. Louis frowned at this and then sighed, “Oh love don’t do that... This has been very tough for him. Should’ve seen his state these past few days. The man has been a mess ever since the officers came to your house that night.”

“I’m trying, Lou. But I just can’t forget all the things he said. I was so hurt, I still am!” you rubbed your forehead, as it was beginning to give you an ache.

“He’s very sorry, Y/N. Trust me when I say that I’ve never seen him like I saw him that day. He just wanted you to wake up. He was just blaming himself, how he shouldn’t have let you leave the house.” He took a hold of your hand, “he loves you so much, darling. He’s absolutely mad over you.” He rubbed your hand, “A’bit obsessed if you ask me. If I were you I’d have him get that checked with a therapist.” He joked, you laughed loudly. He smiled with you, and passed you the water you signalled for.

“Forgive him, Y/N. He can’t even bring himself to go home. The only time he went there was to get some clothes, and to put the dinner he made for you in the rubbish bin.” He sassed. “and I know I’m speaking for Mitch too here when I say this, but both him and I could use a break from all the non-stop stress weeping calls we’ve been getting from him.” You gasped at him with a mock offence for Harry, and lightly smacked his shoulder. You were always thankful for Louis in moments like these. He was a great friend to you and Harry.

Harry came back with two coffees and passed one to his blue-eyed friend. He took a seat on the sofa which was against the wall, and the three of you, though it was mostly you and Louis, had a light conversation while the men finished up their coffee. Louis bid his farewell with another kiss on your forehead and a well wish, you thanked him and waved goodbye. Harry walked him out the door, and came back in a second later.

“Y’ need anything?” He asked as he took a seat on the chair beside you. You shook your head as you observed him fidgeting with the cuticles of his nails. He did that when he was anxious.

Neither of you spoke for a while. But the minute you heard a sniffle, you snapped your head towards him. You tried to get a look at his face, the tip of his nose was a bit red and he was now fidgeting with his feet too. He wasn’t crying but he sure was on the verge of it.

You suddenly felt an overwhelming amount of love for the man in front of you. You leaned against your bed and sighed, smiling a little. It’s pathetic how in love you were with each other. You couldn’t even stay mad at him.

“Harry?” You whispered softly. He hummed without looking up. So you continued, “I need you to do something” you faked a stern voice to play with him a bit more.

“Yeah sure, what’s it?” he muttered as he got up and rubbed his hands down his thighs, then finally looked at you. You looked at him without an expression and said, “I need you to come here and give me a good cuddle, a kiss too if I like the cuddle.” And then smiled at him lovingly. He looked at you for a second. You almost thought he was  going to yell at you, but the opposite happened. He started tearing up and heavy tear drops ran down his cheeks.

You gasped and quickly leaned forward to take a hold of his hand which was near you. “Oh Harry..” You whispered as you pulled him near you. He the minute you sat him in front of you, he started crying heavily. You were so shocked yet you’ve never been more mesmerised by him. You quickly tried wiping his tears away and comforted him, “Honey, don’t cry. I’m not upset anymore!”

“I-I’m honestly s-sorry! I promise I didn’t mean what I said that day, Y/N!” he tried to speak while wiping his tears.

“I know, babe. I know!” you tried to say it properly but it came out in a laughing manner and tried to draw the crying man close to you, but seeing you laugh made him more upset and he pushed you away lightly, so you forcefully pulled him into a cuddle.

He told himself he’s letting himself be pulled because he didn’t want to hurt you, but it was actually because he wanted you close, so he went in head first. You lay down against the pillows and cuddle him against your chest. He went on sniffling into your neck and wrapped his arm around your waist.

“Harry why are you crying!” you tried controlling your laughter. He whined and pulled his face away, “Y’were so fucking mean since the moment you woke up. I didn’t expect it.” He said and hiccupped, thanks to the sobbing breakdown he just had. You pulled on your lips so you wouldn’t smile.

“Well now you know, honey. It hurts, doesn’t it? You were so mean to me too!” You teased. He nuzzled back into your neck, pressing kisses there which always made you giggle.

“I’m really sorry, precious. Honestly, I really am.” He said into your neck, yet producing another hiccup. You couldn’t control yourself anymore so you smiled and pressed a quite a few smooches to his temple, and inhaled his comforting scent.

“It’s okay, baby. I forgive you. I’m sorry for my foolish mistake too, I really didn’t mean to ruin your hard work like that.” You apologised. He pulled away and brought the hand that was around your waist to your cheek and said, “I forgave you a long time ago, but you honestly don’t have to apologise at all. It could happen to anyone, m’love. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did. Y’know I made dinner and everything as an apology. But then the officers…” his tone dropped and he couldn’t continue. So, you sadly smiled and pulled him in for a kiss.

He sighed and reciprocated the kiss with so much love and passion that you couldn’t help but wrap the arm which around his shoulder a bit more tighter and ran the other through the back of his head gently. The two of you pulled away and looked into each other’s eyes, he moved the hair that escaped from your braid and tucked it behind your ear, “I was so scared. I thought I had lost you.” He whispered softly, and swallowed the small lump, “I missed you a lot, baby” he said and you couldn’t help but peck his cute pout.

“I missed you too, froggy” you replied. The pet name made him reward you with a dimpled smile. He nuzzled into your neck and whispered, “I love you.”

“and I love you.” You kissed his forehead.

“Just for your information, I’m not letting you out of my sight for a really long time.” He stated sternly.

You laughed but stopped when you saw he wasn’t joking, “You know I have to work, right?”

“Y’can easily take a break for a month or two.” He said, as he yawned and cuddle closer to you. “A MONTH OR TWO?! Have you gone mad?” you gasped, lightly pulling on his hair.

“No I haven’t. Try to get rid of me, baby. I dare you.” He laughed a scheming laugh. You knew he wasn’t joking. He tended to become quite paranoid and obsessive over you when situations like these occur. But you wouldn’t have him any other way.

“We’ll see, mister.” You said, and caressed the back of his head.

“oh we will, missus.”

The End.

Author’s Note: I really put in a lot of efforts on this one, so you guys kind of owe me *wink* y'all gotta humour my praise kink now!!! ;P

Love you guys! 

[gxccistyless]

the untitled song

The one where he royally fucks up. Y/n is friends with Harry and has been for a long time, but he hurts her in the worst way possible. TRIGGER WARNINGS: mention of attempted suicide.

When Harry first wrote the song he had never intended for it to see the light of day and he had most certainly never intended to hurt you. Sometimes he finds himself writing songs as a form of therapy and sometimes as a gentle reminder of memories he never wants to let go of, this song was a creation born for both of those reasons. You had been his lifelong friend and had seen each other through all different seasons of life, he had been your friend first and then somewhere along the line he had begun to feel something more toward you, but he had a complicated life and he didn’t want to throw you into the circus of it all, he liked that when he went home he was just Harry to you and not Harry Styles the celebrity. Truthfully somewhere along the way, your feelings toward him had also began to be something more but you were unaware of the way he had felt about you and so you never acted on it

A week after his stepfathers funeral and almost a year to the day since your own mothers’ death you found yourselves in his backyard slightly intoxicated. Harry had a rough time figuring out his emotions and would often turn to writing, it gave him a way to put everything into words. You on the other hand did everything in your power to hide yours. Six drinks in however, you had both been able to open up, Harry sharing his struggles, his fears and his worries and for the first time ever you were sharing yours too.

You had known him before he was anyone to be known, and although his life had become quite the circus, the two of you still remained close.  When you heard the news about his stepfather, he asked if you would come and you were quick to oblige dropping everything to head to be with him for the week. It was your last night there after what had been a long week and Harry had decided they should have a few drinks and just relax and let off some steam. He told you about how in awe of you  he was, how you’d handled your mums death so gracefully and had remained so well put together afterwards, he hoped he’d be able to do the same and be as strong as you had been. Harry’s words eat at you, he grows concerned that his comments had upset you when your head falls toward the ground, you can feel the tears welling in your eyes.

He’s a bit taken back, he was only trying to compliment you, show you how much you inspire him. You wipes the tears that have now begun pooling on your cheeks and then sharw with him something you hadn’t dared talk about to anyone since it happened  I tried to kill myself, Harry. It all went down shortly after your mothers death when everyone who was significant in your life had dispersed out of their small town after the funeral and back to their jobs. Your brother had found you and managed revive you. Between a short stay in the ICU, ten days in a ward and then a stay in the psych ward you had been in the hospital for weeks afterward. Harry shakes his head at your revelation, this couldn’t be true, he would have known. It’s true Harry, I didn’t expect you to know though. You had barely enough time to be here for the funeral I didn’t even see you that day that’s his quick you came and went, and then you were on tour... it’s okay that you didn’t know, I didn’t want anyone to see me like that. Harry didn’t know what to say or how to feel, he just brings you a little closer to him and grips you a little tighter, thankful that you’re still here. Harry was sure that if anything had happened to you that Anne would have told him. At this point you are really intoxicated and Harry is starting to feel the effects of the alcohol heading closer to the point of recklessness. The two of you call it a night.  

You left town the next day to head back to London, you had recently taken a job in the city and were able to afford rent there which finally got you out of this small town and kept you busy, the two of you returned to normal life and never talked about it any further. But still the conversation played on his mind, how you has been in your darkest moment and he hadn’t been there. How he had barely had enough time to be there for his closest friend when her mother had just passed, how he had failed to check up on you in the weeks that followed, how you could have actually died. 

When he finally got back to writing, his conversation with you was one of the first things he wrote about. It was one of the first pieces that he wrote beginning to end, he never intended for it to get further than him and a guitar and a recording on his phone, something he might play to you someday, but then one night whilst he was high he accidentally showed it to his engineer who immediately fell in love with it. His engineer convinced him to just see the song through, told him it wouldn’t have to be in the final cut for the album but that it deserved to be finished properly, so Harry obliged and he finished the song in its entirety.

The album was close to being finished, his label telling him they just needed one or two more songs that were slower in tempo and had more emotion you know like  a tear jerker were Jeff’s exact words. Harry you should show him that untitled one we had been working on at the beginning Harry silently curses his engineer in his mind, he’s reluctant to play the song to Jeff but he does it anyway. Jeff loves the song says that it should be the second single, the public will eat it right up. Once again Harry reluctantly agrees.

He knows that one way or the other you are going to hear this song and you are going to know that it is about you, and specifically about that night when you had shared your darkest secret with him. Harry wanted to be the one to play the song for you, he thought it would be best coming from him in a controlled environment and he most certainly didn’t want you to hear it for the first time at his launch party or on the radio. The week that he intended to drive home to show you, your father suddenly passed, it didn’t seem like a good time and he didn’t want to cause you any more grief than you were already going through. He tried again two weeks later but you had been in such good spirits, he didn’t want to ruin your time together by making you upset. 

The original plan was that he would drive back to his mum’s the day after his listening party and play it for you before it would be released to the public. The listening party was only going to be intimate and was due to be held two days before the release of the album, and since you had to work and wouldn’t be there he didn’t see anything wrong with the plan. Except this is Harry and almost nothing goes to plan. Gemma and Anne who are unaware of the song arranged for you to have a ticket, to surprise Harry on one of his biggest nights. He doesn’t see you till he comes out into the room and it’s already too late they’re already about to press play on the album, he thought he felt nervously sick before but now seeing you here in the room he feels even worse.

Everything was going smoothly and everyone seemed to be enjoying the songs as they continued to go through each of them, Harry introducing them and talking a bit about them before hand, when he gets to track 5 his throat dries up and he feels as if he can’t talk. He doesn’t give this song an introduction just pressing play. The song is halfway through the first verse when you begin to realise this song that you are listening to in a room full of people who don’t know you (minus Anne and Gemma and Harry of course) is about you, is about that night by the fire where things got a little too deep and dark and emotional. You stare at him waiting for him to make eye contact with you, but he never does, he’s too scared to lift his head and have your eyes meet. He knows he will look up to undoubtedly find you crying and that he has let you down and right now he can’t think about it too much, he needs to push through the last eight tracks. You excuse yourself quietly, telling Gemma you aren’t feeling well before the chorus even hits and slip out the back exit.

Harry knows that he has royally fucked up. He tries calling you when he excuses himself to go to the bathroom, it goes straight to voicemail a few times and then after that your number doesn’t even dial at all. He has disappointed you, he’s disappointed himself. When he gets back out and spots his mother and sister the anger and disappointment is all over their faces too. The car ride back to his house is silent, Anne taking in deep breaths so that she won’t scream in front of the lovely driver Harry’s management had hired to get them home. When they finally make it through the door and they are by themselves she absolutely lets him have a piece of her mind. You should have asked her permission before putting out something like that. Harry tries to reason with Anne, explaining he had no choice when he knows deep down that he did, explaining that he tried to show you the song but he couldn’t catch you at the right time. It’s Gemma’s turn to chime in now  There was no right time Harry, should have never been on the album in the first place. Gemma was right, but it was done now the only thing he could do would be to try and salvage things with you as best he could. But you wouldn’t take his calls, didn’t respond to his texts and truthfully he had no idea where to start looking for you.  The following morning when Anne had calmed down some, she had found Harry sleeping on the sofa still in the clothes from last night gripping his phone on his chest, she knows he must have fallen asleep there as he desperately tried all night to get in touch with you. When he woke up he told her everything from beginning to end, he knew that song shouldn’t have been on the album and she knew that there was nothing he could do now to change the fact that it was. 

Whilst you weren’t replying to Harry’s texts or answering his calls you had no intentions of doing the same to Anne. The first time Anne rings you, it goes to voicemail. Anne leaves you a lovely message, tells you she’d love to see you before she leaves London to head back home. Only when you know that it is her calling, you send her a quick text back to explain that you are okay and that you have escaped for the week back home to Holmes Chapel, but would love to see her regardless.  It had been too long since you had last seen Anne. You think it may have been at the funeral, or in the days after, but your weekends have been busy and you hardly make it home. Even when you do make it home, recently your weekends had been filled with looking after your sick father and your brother who even at 24 years old was unable to do anything for himself. Regardless of how long it had been since you last saw Anne, she held a special place in your heart. Her and your own mother had been close and Anne had been there for you in the months after losing her, she came every day that she was allowed to see you in the hospital, to make sure you knew you were loved. She promised to never tell Harry, you made her promise. You didn’t want to worry him and you didn’t want to distract or burden him, you somehow still worried for everyone else even though you were the one struggling. It’s almost noon when she arrived at your house in Holmes Chapel on Sunday. At this point Harry’s album had been out for 24 hours and had shot straight to the top of the charts. Even though you were angry at him, you were still proud.  Anne brings you in tight for a hug as soon as you open the door. You are relieved that she has come by herself, not having decided yet if you ever want to talk to or see Harry ever again. Once tea is drunk and scones have been had Anne flips out her phone. Y/n love, have you had a chance to listen to Harry’s album... in full? She knows it’s a tough ask, especially because of the song. I haven’t, no. I hear it’s doing wonderful though... he must be so happy. You secretly hope that this conversation is nearing its end, not wanting to talk about Harry anymore. He’s not doing the greatest love  Anne pauses for a moment. She knows she shouldn’t get involved, but she has loved you like a second daughter since you and Harry were young and has always secretly hoped the two of you would end up together. I know he shouldn’t have put the song on the album, but my wonderful numbskulled son really didn’t know you were going to be there at the party and apparently he had been trying for weeks to share it with you but between your dad and then you having really good days he didn’t want to mess it up... I know it might be hard for you, but if I’m being honest, it’s one of my favourite songs. Will you try to listen to it? Because she is like a second mother to you and because you don’t want to let her down or cause her any pain, you agree. She hugs you extra tight when she leaves and makes you promise to visit when you’re back in town again next. 

You fulfil your promise to Anne listening to the song two nights later after making your way back to London and having five too many wines. It was hard for you to listen to, but when you finish it the first time you instantly want to listen again and suddenly it’s on repeat and you instantly regret leaving before the chorus. In between sobs you manage to dial Harry’s number, the phone barely ringing before he answers. Y/n? Ello? You there? He hears your muffled sobs on the other end, where are you? Are you back in London? Please tell me where you are? You tell him your address and twenty minutes later there are some light taps on your apartment door. When he comes in you’re still sobbing and the song is still playing. He puts out his arms and wraps them around you and you sob, the two of you standing there whilst the song plays three times over. It’s a beautiful song you manage to somehow get words out between sobs and laboured breathing I mean it’s okay, it wasn’t supposed to make the album, but it’s there and there’s nothing I can do and I’m going to be sorry for the rest of our lives. Somehow the two of you make it to the couch. You share with him your anger and frustrations and thoughts about everything, how he’s broken your trust, how you’re scared to tell him anything anymore, how you’re angry that his team made YOU sign and NDA but he’s free to write songs about your disclosures and how that isn’t fair. He agrees that it isn’t fair, and he apologises again and again over and over until you can’t take it anymore. 

It takes you some time to trust Harry again after this. He has his lawyers draw up an NDA for him to sign, with a promise that you can sue him if he ever discloses anything private about you ever again.