#'don't put me in the spotlight; i work better in the background'

[thankskenpenders]

Amy's fortune cards

The Sonic fandom has long been the kind of fandom that takes minor details very seriously, for better or worse. On the one hand, this means fans will really dig for the diamonds in the rough, latching onto fun character interactions, animations, bits of background worldbuilding, and more in pieces of Sonic media that many would write off as "the bad ones." But it also feels like every week another needlessly hostile debate over Sonic minutia erupts on Twitter, whether it's over individual lines of dialogue, fanart that makes Tails' shoes blue, or the ideal length and volume for Sonic's quills.

So it was probably inevitable that a fandom-wide debate would erupt upon seeing Amy's new gameplay style in the DLC for Sonic Frontiers, which takes the once-obscure fact that she enjoys reading tarot and shines a spotlight on it like never before.

I mean:

The thing is, while I basically always try to tune out Sonic fandom bickering... for once, I kind of sympathize with the detractors? Don't get me wrong, I like Amy's tarot stuff, and people on all sides of the discussion are being overly nasty about their opinions, as usual. (Sonic Twitter remains my personal hell.) But when I set aside the hyperbole and zoom out, I do think I understand why some fans are put off by the sudden shift in focus for the character, even if I think it's cool.

It's complicated. Let me attempt to present the cases for and against Amy's fortune cards

For years, I was always one of those fans who thought it could be fun if they played with Amy's tarot reading, or even leaned into some kind of magic with her. Part of that is my own biases showing, but there's just something that makes sense there, especially when you look at Sonic, Tails, and Amy as a trio. (I would argue that's the real "Team Sonic" these days, especially in the comics where Knuckles is more likely to be stuck on Angel Island or otherwise doing his own thing.)

You could argue that Tails is all about logic, relying on science and technology and deductive reasoning to solve problems. But Amy is all about emotion. She wears her heart on her sleeve, is extremely empathetic, and is very prone to magical thinking - both figuratively and sometimes literally. Her origin story has always been that her tarot cards told her it was her destiny to meet Sonic on Little Planet. She's claimed to be able to "sense" peoples' presences - particularly Sonic's. She's the type to believe that The Power of Love is a literal magical force. So, on some level, it makes sense to mirror Tails's science by having Sonic's other best friend believe in magic. And then Sonic is somewhere in the middle, primarily following his own gut instincts but taking advice from both of them as needed. This isn't totally accurate to how their dynamics actually function in canon stories, but I think it's a mode that could work for them.

Going off of that, it's fun to lean all the way into Amy being a magical girl, or even a witch, using her fortune telling as a foundation. Take, for example, this version of Amy from Diana Skelly's old Sonic cast redesigns from before she freelanced for Archie and IDW. This is one of MANY such redesigns for Amy.

Fast forward to the 2020s, and Amy's tarot cards are, in fact, finally getting brought up again in canon. Which is fun! I like seeing that. I like all of the individual stories involving Amy's fortune cards. This is a fun character trait for Amy, a fun nod to old lore, AND a fun storytelling device, all in one. It's really cool that the Sonic universe has its own thematically appropriate arcana, and that the cards are getting made as physical merch. And sure enough, the official card backs and borders were designed by none other than Diana Skelly, in yet another cool example of an ascendant fan leaving their mark on the series.

BUT... when you step back and look at the big picture, I get why some fans find this shift in focus jarring. At the moment, it's starting to feel like every new story about Amy involves her fortune cards to some degree.

The most recent mainline comic arc to feature Amy as the lead character, 2021's Trial by Fire arc, prominently features a sequence where she reads fortunes while camping with the girls. The Origins version of Sonic CD now bookends the game with scenes of Amy and her tarot cards. Sonic randomly mentioned it in a scene in Frontiers. And now, just this week, we got the (very cute, gorgeously illustrated) Amy's 30th Anniversary comic with a story revolving around Amy's tarot cards, followed the very next day by the Frontiers DLC in which she gets a brand new tarot-based moveset. Even her base melee attack now has her throwing tarot cards instead of swinging her hammer. Again, I like all of these individual things, but after years of it almost never coming up at all, it's VERY noticeable that Amy's tarot cards are suddenly everywhere.

To be fair, I'm looking at this from the perspective of a superfan who's actively following ALL Sonic media. Casual fans - especially kids - aren't necessarily going to be reading the comics every month, buying the thousandth rerelease of the Genesis games, or playing the ultra-hard new alternate ending DLC for a game that came out last year. Each of these stories is going to be someone's introduction to the idea that Amy can read tarot, and that's probably part of the idea behind this unified push.

But to play devil's advocate, for my fellow superfans, I understand why it feels like a very minor footnote of Amy's character is suddenly becoming the entire focus of her personality. While Amy has always been said to enjoy fortune telling, that wasn't really a character trait in and of itself, but rather an example of her being a typical girl who hopes she'll be able to find true love one day. It's less that Amy can literally predict the future and more like her using a cootie catcher or going "he loves me, he loves me not" while picking the petals off of a flower. So I get not vibing with this stuff, or feeling like it's being pushed very hard out of nowhere.

What I don't agree with are comparisons like "it's like if they made Knuckles' moveset revolve around him liking grapes." Like, I get it. Ian Flynn loves shoehorning in his little winking references for us nerds, and mentions of Amy's tarot cards were previously on the same level as other random bullet points from old Japanese manuals. But a multifaceted hobby like fortune telling that opens up so many narrative and aesthetic possibilities is obviously very different from having a favorite food. It's ALWAYS been a part of her story, not just a random fact, and there's no reason why the fortune telling can't be elevated to something more.

And, hell, even if it wasn't an established character trait, there's nothing inherently wrong with injecting new ideas into a character. One of the best Amy stories in recent years, the Free Comic Book Day special "Amy's New Hobby" written by Gale Galligan, came up with the idea that Amy's secretly been drawing little comics about her and her friends. Is this based on Lore? No. But it's cute, and helps tell the story of a younger Amy who's still coming out of her shell as both a hero and a friend.

Certain fans are also looking at Amy's Frontiers moveset and using it as evidence that once again the Vile American Contributors like Ian are CORRUPTING Sonic Team's perfect vision of Sonic with their misinterpretations. And like. Come on. Ian does not control the gameplay. He's a freelance writer. The tarot stuff is clearly something that Sonic Team likes if they made it the basis of Amy's new moveset - and, you know, if they keep approving comics and animations about Amy's fortune telling. None of this gets made without their blessing, and lord knows how much they can micromanage shit and shoot down ideas over the most minor of details.

Like, yeah, Amy's fortune telling was probably conceived less as a sign that she Knows Magic and more as a pretty mundane hobby for a lovesick young Japanese girl to have. But you're gonna sit there and tell me that using Amy's tarot cards for more than that could only be the result of a cultural misunderstanding? That nobody in Japan uses tarot card theming and aesthetics (or the general idea of magical cards) for the cool factor? Stardust Crusaders? Persona? The Astrologian class in FFXIV? Cardcaptor Sakura?? Hello??? Do you think Capcom put Gambit in Marvel vs. Capcom ironically because they thought using magic to throw cards at people was stupid? There's tons of precedent for this! It's nothing like Knuckles throwing grapes at people, be for real.

Giving Amy a very magical girl-esque moveset also just makes a lot of sense. For decades her hammer attacks have literally made sparkly heart shapes appear around her. Leaning into both that and her tarot cards in her new moveset makes a lot of sense to me.

But, admittedly... I do think it's very odd that her hammer is treated as a secondary element here, rather than having her primarily use her hammer and adding the cards for extra flair. If hitting the attack button made her swing her hammer instead of throwing cards, I'm not sure we'd even be having this discussion right now.

But the tarot-cycle and Amy riding her hammer like a witch's broom are fucking SICK and I will not concede on this point

The thing is, this whole fortune card discourse is but a small piece of a bigger problem. Amy's been a character who needed some work for ages, but there's basically nothing you can do with her without pissing SOMEONE off.

Years of stories where Amy's crush was her primary motivator and Sonic went "Ew, cooties!" have lead many casual fans to believe that being Sonic's obsessive fangirl is Amy's entire personality. At best people might call her Sonic's Minnie Mouse. This isn't just a matter of Amy having haters within the fandom - venture outside of that bubble and you'll realize that this is how MOST video game playing people seem to see her to this day. I don't feel like this is a fair assessment of the character, but this idea didn't come from nowhere. No matter how much good deeply entrenched Sonic fans may see in their old dynamic where Amy perpetually chases Sonic, this is a very real problem that Sonic Team has to contend with for their leading girl. Of course all those games where the way-past-cool protagonist thought Amy was annoyingly clingy and tried to get away from her made people think less of her.

If new stories were to go back to emphasizing Amy's crush on Sonic a little more, they'd probably be taken as confirmation that Amy's just the girl with a crush on Sonic and that this is her entire personality. Conversely, when the crush is played down, you piss off the hardcore SonAmy fans who don't seem to understand that they're Charlie Brown and Sega is Lucy holding the football. You can't win.

And so here we are. In the absence of what was once her defining trait, now reduced to an occasional blush or wink in Sonic's direction, new stories are trying to mine Amy's past for additional material to work with. Having been a thing fans wanted to see for years, right now we're getting a lot of tarot, but we're also getting reminders of her compassionate nature and her desire to go out of her way to help the little guy. This is an ongoing process. I continue to hope that her bubbly, exuberant demeanor can shine more in future stories. Now, I also hope that the tarot stuff gets balanced out a little better with other traits of hers. But I don't want it to go away. I think it's fun.

This course correcting is far from exclusive to Amy. Knuckles is getting stories that remind us that he's a competent fighter, an experienced treasure hunter, and even a self-taught archaeologist after years of him being perceived as either the dumb one or just the guy who stands in front of the Master Emerald all day. And Tails has been getting some stories reminding folks that he's a capable hero in his own right and not just Sonic's timid kid sidekick.

But no supporting character will ever compete with the sheer number of new ideas Sega has tried with Sonic himself. Like Amy, his Frontiers moveset has also given him half a dozen new superpowers that he never had before, from the Cyloop to air-slicing projectile attacks to his own take on Shadow Clone Jutsu and beyond. He's also been a hoverboarder, a swordsman, a time traveler, an Olympic athlete, a racecar driver, cursed with a Flame of Judgment, imbued with alien power, a fucking Werehog with stretchy powers, and on and on and on.

If Sonic can do all that, Amy can try out using a tarot-cycle.

Anyway TL;DR the REAL problem with Amy's current characterization... is where the FUCK is Amy's bestie, Honey the Cat???????

#tkp post

[mel-13-29]

-She's 'into' me?-

paring - Wednesday addams x fem!reader

summary - y/n attends nevermore for the first time and meets someone named wednesday. enid confronts y/n and tells her about there mutual pining.

warnings - mutual pining - fluff - i think that's all if you find anymore please tell me i'll update!

1619 words its the first time i've wrote that much ——————— Fuck.

That was the only thing going through my mind the whole way to nevermore academy. the mear name makes me shiver.

The crazy school. yes. I heard rumors that there was a girl who almost killed someone. 

yeah sure. I punched someone in the face. but he deserved it. I saw him pushing a girl in a locker. and yeah I guess I should've just minded my business. but I'm a gentlewoman. I just had to punch him and I would do it again. 

and again. 

   and again. 

       and agai- 

But whatever it is what it is if I wasn't being sent to a fucking juvie for phycos now my parents are driving me there in their 6-year-old car I don't even know how it is still working. 

"Why am I even going to nevermore I only punched him and he deserved it," I say trying to change their mind I know they would still take me there but I had to put up a fight that dumb principles son what's his name oh right Jack.

"Cause you punched him!" my dad argues.

"That doesn't mean I have to change schools! it's the principal's son he probably told his dad."

"Enough of this young lady, you are going to nevermore, and you are going to love it there." my mom says closing the argument.

After that, I shut up being silent the whole way to Nevermore. 

And now I'm here in front of the gates of Nevermore. I feel crazy. I know if someone else did punch someone. they would just get detention but this was the principles son. a bastard among basterds he thinks he's the king of the school just because his dad is the principal? 'there are always people like that in the world all you have to do is prove them wrong' my grandma once said so I'll trust her, once I get out of this school. I will get back at Jack. 

I take my bags and hug my mom and dad then I say goodbye. the bags were kinda hevy but I think I'm strong enoph to cary them. I walk up the stairs. finally reaching my dormroom I had to put my bags down to open the door and I saw two people in my dorm. I thought I was in the wrong one until someone said. 

"Oh! you must be the new girl." a girl says standing up on her two feet. 

"Hi." I say awkwardly the other girl says 'awkward' in the background but I don't hear her all I was looking at was the plain room. that consisted of a plain twin bed, a normal bedside table, and nothing else honestly I expected worse. 

I put my bags down and the other girl leaves the girl said 'bye Yoko' so I assumed her name is Yoko. cute name for someone who looks like a real-life human zombie if it had not green skin. 

"The one who just left is Yoko she's you're roommate I'm just staying here Yoko's bed is very comfy so much better than mine," The girl says sitting back on the bed facing me.

"My name is Y/n what's yours?" I say asking her name and sitting down on the bed too. I can't just keep calling her 'girl' for the rest of the school year.

"Enid" enid says then akuward silece again

"Well, I have to go now," I say trying to get out of the awkward situation even though I don't even know how the school works I don't even know what to do after I get out of the room.

"But why you just got here I wanna get to know you!" Enid says standing up "Wait your new right? I can give you a tour?" Enid offers. I say yes. and now were walking down the halls of nevermore academy.

I never thought I'd be walking in the hallway of nevermore academy I thought if I was good enough. they wouldn't send me to detention or suspend me at all. 

for that matter, I just lived my life in silence. always letting the other kids take the spotlight. I just stayed hidden some people don't even know my name. it's dumb. but I loved it. I loved being the school mystery.

Of course, I never told my parents they would urge me to 'make friends' but those 'friends' always stay away from me for some reason. 

"Earth to y/n!" Enid says into my ear waving her hand in my face. crap. I was spaced out.

"What were you thinking about silly?" Enid questions. "I wasn't thinking about anything," I say quickly, trying to avoid the question then Enid opens her hands as if she was pointing at, the lunch room I supposed.

"This is the quad," Enid says introducing me to a place with lunch tables and people in black and blue outfits "Come on I'll introduce you to some of my friends," Enid says walking towards a guy.

"Y/n this is Ajax, ajax y/n," Enid says introducing me to a boy named Ajax I smile trying to look decently good for someone I just met.

"I'm Ajax," the boy says and reaches his hand out for me to shake. I shake his hand and then let go. 

"welp bye, Ajax I gotta introduce y/n to Wednesday!" Enid says, grabbing my hand and guiding me to wednesday.

"Who's wednesday?" I ask, wondering who the person was. 

"Wednesday my roomie," Enid says runing to a girl with an all-black attire she looked really pretty.

"Wednesday!" Enid shouts to get the girls' attention.

"Enid what are you doing here I thought you were with Yoko," wednesday says dully.

"Oh yeah but I wanted to give the new girl a tour around the place ya know so she doesn't get lost," Enid says excitedly to introduce me to her friend.

Wednesday looks at me with her black eyes like she was examining me for some reason it didn't feel odd I kinda got shy and looked down at my shoes until Enid put her hand on my shoulder I look up and see wednesday again it was not visible but I'm blushing

"y/n this is wednesday, wednesday this is Y/n," Enid says and I reach my hand out for wednesday to shake it was just an excuse to hold her hand but she only nodded I pull my hand away a little sad I didn't get to touch her hand

I wave my hand awkwardly not knowing what to do I mean she was just staring at me what am I supposed to do? 

"Well I'll leave you two alone I kinda have to do something," Enid says seeing the tension in the air I almost tell her to stay like she is the only one that can break the tension 

Wednesday walks away and I go after her now knowing what to do "So where are you going?" I ask and she turns her head slightly to look at me not blinking "I'm going to class why are you following me" she says I don't know why I'm following her I should stop I'm probably making her unconftrorbal 

I stop in my tracks and say "Ye-yeah I should go I have um ms. thornhill ill just ask someone else to show me her class" Wednesday hears this and grabs my hand before I could walk one step 

"That's also my class," she says dragging me through the hallways I was surprised but relaxed in her cold hands I'm holding her hand I'm holding her hand I'm holding her hand I'm holding her han- before I could think any further we reach a door I assume Miss. Thornhills class

"So this is miss. Thornhill's class?" I say a little disappointed when wednesday dropped my hand 

She doesn't answer and sits down on one of the chairs I sit next to her not knowing anyone in the class she glares at me but I look at the teacher focusing on the lesson

*Time skip*

It is now lunch and I look around for Enid or wednesday she walked out the door right when the lesson ended and I have to confront Enid for leaving me in that awkward situation 

I feel someone tap my shoulder and I look behind me seeing Wednesday and Enid hiding behind a pillar in the quad she has a thumbs up I feel like she knows something but I look back at wednesday 

"Um, do you need anything?" I ask not knowing why she would come up to me she looks at me with that look again just like when we first met which was 3 hours ago.

"Is Enid behind me?" she asks I nod and before I could ask why.

Wednesday walks away and enid runs towards me "What did she say?" Enid asks.

"She just said 'is enid behind me?' and then left why do you want to know?" I ask and her eyes widen.

"She's totally into you. I saw her walking out of the classroom and in the dorm, she wouldn't stop covering her mouth and looking down like she has never done that before. like ever." enid clams.

"What how- why would she be into me?" I ask stunned by the news. 

"I don't know but she's definitely into you and I know you're also into her 'cause I say you blush when she was looking at you don't try to lie," Enid says then walks off back to her dorm.

How can she also be into me I mean wednesday? how? wait if Enids telling the truth I might have a chance with her.

——————

#wednesday netflix #wednesday x reader #wednesday addams x reader #lesbian #wednesday #wednesday addams #netflix wednesday

[thetrashbinseries]

— Fahrenheit ( bangchan x reader )

rated - mature | minors dni

parts - one, two (explicit)

warnings - idol universe, name changed idols, mature themes, drug use, alcohol use, sexual themes, mentions of mental illness, slight angst

x x x

“It’s not rocket science, Chris."

My annoyance hits the roof. What the hell is his problem? Why's he turning this into a damn soap opera?

"You're back in LA. New York—yes or no?"

Chris tiptoes the line ever since last year's scandal close shave. I get playing it safe, but I'm alone in a six-bedroom Jersey fortress. In the U.S. media game, I'm golden. No cancel threats, not yet in my rising career.

But the spotlight got hotter after the last single went viral. Chris, in the crosshairs of relentless management, dances a careful routine.

He's the big shot, leader of the world's hottest K-pop group. His company would shoot themselves in the foot by axing him. Yet, Mr. Libra doesn't dig rocking the boat.

"-I want to, babe, but it's too risky right now."

I sigh. Twisting my computer chair, neon lights bathe me in purples and reds. I'm in the studio, bullshitting on songs for the third album.

I've had it. "Catch you later, Chris." The call drops, facedown on the desk, anger swirling.

"Seriously, fuck you." I spit out, taking it personally.

Being a foreigner feels like the snag. His industry would call me a disgrace tagging along.

I don't need that energy.

Am I settling as his 'little secret'? I'm 29, he's 27 – grown folks. Pings remind me of him, but I silence the noise. Facetime interrupts, Jake, the friend with benefits. Games or busy, no time for emotional plays.

Warner signed my band, deep in commitments, mind racing. A shrink's gift? Adderall for my ADHD.

Now, even less time for the BS.

"Hey, daddy." I purr, thickening my accent.

Jake’s smile fades as he eyes me. "What?" I giggle,

"Stop playing with me like that, y/n."

"How am I playing with you?"

"You're gonna end up with your legs cocked back like last time, girl, cool it."

Laughter ensues. I glimpse his background – a parking garage stairwell. We catch up every couple of weeks via Facetime.

"Where are you at?" I squint.

"Recognize it?" Jake turns his phone, revealing the New York City skyline.

"You're out here? Aw, shit." I lean back in my chair, a half-cocked grin, tongue behind my lower lip.

"Aw, shit is right! What's up? What are you up to tonight?"

I chuckle, rolling my eyes. "Nah, uh, Jake. We gotta play nice. I got a good thing going on right now."

He sighs, exasperation audible. "You two still a thing? Thought you were photographed over there, outside the JYPE building?"

"I was."

"They ain't letting that fly, you serious, y/n?"

"I mean, they're being hard on him, but we're still trying to make it work." I express more hope than Chris does. Jake’s viewpoint is valid – he's been through the K-pop circuit, burned out, went solo, and found massive international success.

Which is why he bitches about it.

It's unfair.

"I do wanna see you, though," I admit, the need for an adventure kicking in.

"That's my girl. Hey, I'm about to hop in the car. Should be able to make it over in twenty. You at your spot in Jersey?"

"Yes, I am, Jake, but don't come in on no bullshit."

"I'm always on bullshit. See you in twenty."

Jake hangs up before I can fight back.

Why is my grin so wide? I roll my eyes at my own excitement, surprised at how genuinely thrilled I am to be around someone who wants to be with me. Scanning Chris's messages puts me in a better mood.

babydaddy: there’s no way you just hung up like that -_-

babydaddy: this is my life…my career…

babydaddy: why can't you be more patient?? this is hard for me too…

babydaddy: we need to talk tomorrow…

babydaddy: about us, and where this is going.

The last message triggers something in me. My stomach twists like it always does before bad news. It doesn't change, whether in poverty in my hometown or a small Jersey mansion. The same sunken gut reaction. We've been going back and forth, but this sounds... final. At some point, he'll grow sick of it. I know I have.

Yet, there's so much I love about Chris. Selfishly, I don't want him with anyone else. He's the man of my dreams, flawed as he is, he’s human. My human. I panic, feeling like my boat has sprung a leak, desperate to plug it somehow.

Knowing myself, I turn my phone upside down, placing it on my desk and stand up, distancing myself from the setting. Something else would trap me; all I want is not to reply to him with charged emotion. It wouldn't help anything.

Jake’s on his way over.

I take a deep breath, letting my anxiety settle. I'll talk to him; he always has good insight and wisdom beyond his years. I look at myself in the mirror. I'm in comfy mode, barefoot, walking across hardwood floors.

Entering the dimly lit kitchen, I brew hot chocolate, curling my toes against the balls of my feet, cracking knuckles as I chew my lower lip, mind drifting to Chris. Resistance is weaker now; the reasons to text back sound more convincing. I shake my head, trying to clear my mind, grab my cup, and sip as I walk past my bearded dragon's tank. It's late; he's asleep, tucked into his pink bed. I stare at each plant, trying to keep my thoughts in check.

My outdoor motion detection buzzes the smartwatch on my wrist, signaling someone's arrival. I glimpse headlights through my foyer. My grin widens; I bite my lip, urging myself to behave.

"Alexa, shuffle my evening playlist on Spotify, downstairs."

The nearest speaker obeys, filling the space with music. My dog scurries around my feet as the doorbell rings, and my bigger dog's deep barks echo throughout the house.

“Hey, cool it!" I shout at them, stepping over the little one weaving through my legs, nipping my ankles for some ungodly reason. I open the door, visibly exasperated, while my larger dog bellows from the top of the stairs.

Jake points to her behind me, furrowing his brows dramatically. "I thought we were friends!"

My dog hurls another final, loud bark before slowly making her way down the stairs. I let Jake in, lock the door, and he takes off his shoes, grabbing a disposable guest pair from the basket by the front door. I turn, starting down the hall, and Jake’s full body weight slams into me from behind, arms wrapping around my body, causing me to stumble. Seemingly unpredictably, he stops us from falling while laughing. I catch my footing, give him a firm shove, swipe stray hair behind my ear, and correct the other side, giving him a side-eye.

"Now, you know damn well I'm too clumsy for some stupid shit like that," I scoff, turning into the living room. I walk over to the glass coffee table near the sofa, grab the nearby gold electric candle lighter, tip it into the wide, three-wick candle, and light each of their blackened tips. The scents of apple-cinnamon, cedar, sandalwood, and vanilla fill the room, complemented by the warm orange glow of well-placed LED lights. I sit on the edge of the sofa, and Jake takes his favorite spot on the oversized black beanbag chair nearby. He pulls his hood off, followed by his knitted beanie, ruffling his dark brown hair.

I've got to say, Jake is a handsome guy, no doubt about it.

But I've got problems, and I've caught heavy feelings for one of my biggest headaches lately—Christopher Bang.

We're in this so deep, at least on my end.

I start to think a little harder, trying to see beyond the rose colored glasses for a moment. His text plays through my head as I scroll on my phone, my excuse being searching for another song to skip to on Spotify. But, of course, I get back to the messages Chris sent earlier.

"About us, and where this is going…"

We'd never had an official conversation about being exclusive. We met by chance, fell for each other, and started sneaking around together. I consider Chris my boyfriend, and I’m saved in his phone under ‘baby.' That's got to mean something, right?

The horror begins to set in—has this been a situationship this whole time? Is that why he never went public?

Anxiety creeps in.

"Yo," Jake snaps his fingers, waving his fingers. Damn, I must've been really distracted, crinkled brows as I stare into my phone, thumb tapping against the glass but not doing anything. I look up at him, raising my brows as if I had just briefly missed something he recently said.

"Hm?" I ask.

He's sitting up more, his left hand stroking one of my cats. "Talk to me, girl," he gestures to the marble ashtray with half of a joint, "And pass it."

I lean forward, grabbing the pink joint and placing it between my lips. I use the lighter nearby, sparking it, blowing a few times, the smoke thick and pungent, rising into the air. I tap it into the ashtray and lean over, passing it his way. Jake takes it graciously, placing it between the center of his pink lips and taking a big inhale. He holds it in, nodding, looking down at it as he blows the smoke out the side of his mouth.

"Chris and I got into it again. He told me they were coming to LA for a show over at KCON, and he was like 'maybe I can fly over to see you,' trying to fit it in, delaying his trip to Korea by like three days, which didn’t seem like a big deal. But then after everything ended, he was just hyper-aware of the attention on them and changed his mind," I begin to explain. Jake has taken a few hits during my story; he's leaning forward, passing me the joint again. I take it, hitting it.

"Did he say why?" he asks. Jake’s voice is low, even-toned. He’s invested in my story and the way I’m feeling, I can tell by the way his laser focus is on me as I speak. His eye contact is intense, fiery, the Aries in him.

"No, he didn’t, and that’s what frustrated me, so we got on a call tonight. He like—called me and was dancing around it, and I was like 'look, it’s not hard, are you coming to New York or not.' I was just... over it," I reply, pausing to take another hit before passing it to Jake once more. "He was all 'I want to, baby, but it's too risky.'” I mock his Aussie accent, and Jake can’t help the cough of smoke that comes out from trying to repress a laugh. He turns his head, full-on coughing a couple of times before he catches his breath again.

"Do you need water?" I ask, successfully holding back my own laugh. I don’t wait for his reply, instead, standing up and taking a few steps over to the mini-fridge and grabbing a bottle of spring water, handing it to him.

Plopping back down on the couch, I sigh. "So I didn’t even let him get the rest of it out. I was like 'ok, I’ll talk to you later' and like, hung up."

Jake places the burnt-out joint tip into the tray, effectively ending our puff-puff-pass session, making us both more relaxed and a little spacey. "Oof, y/n, this is... such a unique situation that very few people go through, and even fewer non-K-idols. I mean, I don’t agree with any of it, right? But it’s not me, and Chan, he’s in like–the peak of their career as a boy group, dude." Jake shakes his head, sitting back, my cat jumping from his lap, considering him having moved too much for his comfort.

"I don’t—care," I blurt.

Jake’s head drops back with a sigh before he picks it up again. "That’s probably part of the problem. Chan’s risking his career; Korea is no joke when it comes to this shit. I promise you, unless you’re physically in the industry as an idol over there, you have no idea. It’s so obsessive, and these companies, the management, they will not let you breathe, and the bigger you are—the tighter they hold onto you because there’s so much more to lose at that point."

He only leaves a half second of pause before he says, "I don’t think you’re compatible with—nor do you deserve, that kind of relationship with anyone."

Ouch.

It hurts that much more because—he’s right

"Now that doesn’t make Chan a bad person, or you a weak person. He’s got a right to this life he’s worked super hard to get to, and you’ve got a right to someone to love you the way you want to be loved, especially while you’re in the beginning stage of becoming great yourself. It’s a huge distraction—maybe not a relationship, but like, that kind of relationship."

I can do nothing but sigh, throwing my hands up and sitting back onto the couch, feeling, well, defeated. Can you blame me? It fucking sucks, the reality of it all that I was trying to avoid.

"Fuck," I finally say aloud.

Jake’s looking at me; I know he feels bad for breaking it down so plain, but he does it because he cares about me and wants the best for me, and I know that. “You still do what you want; it’s your life. Whatever you two decide is what you two decide, but that’s just—my limited experience.”

I scoff with a roll of my eyes, “Limited experience. Yeah ok.”

He laughs.

We both understand the subtext of the brief exchange.

“He says we need to talk tomorrow, about us and ‘where this is going’,” I say with air quotes.

“I mean, hey, it’s an opportunity to get your concerns out there, listen to his, and decide what’s best for you. He’ll decide what’s best for him. If that’s being together, great, if not, great. Either way, you’ll be ok. That’s how I like to see these kinds of things.” Jake says, his words profound and his perspective valuable to me. He leans forward, “We’ve known each other like what? Almost a year now?” I nod to confirm, and he continues, “In that short period of time, I can just—tell that you’re a strong person; you wouldn’t have gotten this far if you weren’t. If you ever need someone to talk to, my line is always open.”

I let another long breath go before laying across the sofa on my stomach, bringing myself closer to Jake as I lazily hug a pillow, resting my chin atop it. His advice is logged in my thoughts. I really don’t want to talk about it anymore—the way he phrased it did something to lower my anxiety so I was going to let sleeping dogs lie. “What about you, huh? What’s got you on the East Coast? You’re never over here, rarely in America anymore for real.”

“Yeah, I’ve been—busy, but it’s a blessing, you know? I’m so grateful that so many people support me, as a solo artist, doing my own thing, my way.” Jake never fails to acknowledge those around him that have supported him, and keeps himself grounded and humble somehow through being an international celebrity. “But I was at the Versace show over in Soho. I’ve got a couple of other shows to see for New York Fashion Week, but I touched down and had to come see you.”

I lift a brow. “I’m not gonna fuck you, Jake.”

Without hesitation, he fires back, “I’m not asking you to, y/n.”

It’s enough to drag a snort from me.

He laughs, “The hotels get lonely, and most places I go, I don’t know anyone. I like it here; you’ve done a lot since the last time I was here.” Jake looks around at the decor. He points to a painting of a cat skeleton on a black canvas. “That’s new, I like it.” He says.

“Yeah? I do too; it’s simple but it matches the vibe of the space, I found it by accident one day.”

When Jake says the hotels are lonely, I believe him. He often confides in me about how lonely his lifestyle can be and how it can drive him so crazy that he’ll call everyone through his phone until someone answers, and when that person hangs up, he’ll keep going. More often than not, he doesn’t have anyone to call, despite my insisting that I was an option. Some nights, when it gets really bad, he’ll have a tendency towards drinking, which is something I don’t like, and we’ve talked about ad nauseam. Of course, he’s always welcome in my safe spaces.

“So what’s new with the band? When you texted me the other day, you had like, tons of shit going on that you were freaking out about.” Jake cracks open the bottle of water, taking a gulp.

“I’m flying out to LA next week for a couple of events, but we’re like focused on album three right now; I’ve been locked in the studio just writing.”

“Ok, ok, you got anything for me to hear yet?” He seems to perk up to ask this question.

“Eh, nothing I’m ready to show or anything, just fragments of songs right now. The label is really pushing the work we did with album two to build the hype up for album three, and that’s the one they funded.” I kick my feet slowly in the air behind me as I talk.

“We should do a song together.” Jake says, quite suddenly. He can tell I’m taken aback. I mean, creatively, Jake and I get along great, but we had never discussed merging on a record before. “An official song, I think it could sound incredible.”

I immediately want to agree, of course, but I have a couple of hurdles I know I need to jump now that I’ve gotten to this point in my career. I hated that. I used to be able to agree to a collaboration immediately. But Jake had even more hoops to jump through; he couldn’t commit to something official now either.

So why was he proposing it?

“I gotta ask the label—”

“Fuck the label, dude.” Jake waves his hand, “They don’t have to know anything, not yet. We’ll just work together and see what happens. Whaddya say?”

It takes no thought for me to reply,

“Let’s do it.”

—

Jake wore me down enough to bring him down into the studio, insisting he didn't have anything important to do until tomorrow evening. I don't want to encourage his drinking, but when he spots the whiskey decanter, he gestures to it as I sit down in the main chair in front of the soundboard.

"What’s in there? Hennessy?" He answers his own question as I spin around in the chair to see what he’s talking about. He’s already over at the mini bar, opening it up and whiffing.

"Yeah, but I rarely drink it. I got it for guests." I turn towards my soundboard again, powering it up and waiting for the two large screens to load. I add another thought to the end of my sentence, albeit, to myself. Not like I have guests anyway.

Jake comes over with a glass, the brown liquor sloshing around as he tilts it in my direction. I roll my eyes, taking it, and he’s already got his glass, which he holds out for a toast.

"To the music," Jake says.

"The music." I oblige, clinking his glass and taking my gulp down a lot less gracefully than he does his, before he pours up another for himself. "Don’t overdo it; you’re gonna have a nasty hangover, and I won’t be the one to blame for it." I press a few buttons, and the house lights lower, back to the blue and purple hue I was sitting in earlier.

"I am a grown man that knows my limits." Jake states, matter-of-factly. He sits in the rolling chair at the table alongside me, pulling himself up to the soundboard and sitting back in his chair, sipping his drink as his eyes dance across the screens while I click around, pulling up my digital audio workstation of choice.

I point to the keyboard nearest to him, "Press a key for me?" He does, confirming it's connected and functional, the note ringing out through the monitors.

"Aw yeah." Jake sits up, setting his glass down on the designated cupholder space on the edge of the mixing table as he places both hands on the keys, beginning to fiddle with the limited random keys and chords he had learned how to play while being forced to learn as a trainee. "Damn, it’s been so long." He says, a half smile on his face. I can tell he’s reminiscing, I just can’t tell if it’s good or bad. "You’re so lucky to have control over your music, you know that?" He says, looking over at me before focusing back on the instrument again, slender fingers of his right hand climbing up the keys.

"I don’t really have total control, not anymore. Not sure I ever did." I say with a sigh. "It’s always been like—an Eli and me thing, not just a ‘me’ thing. I just get a little more attention because I’m the one out front, singing." I continue to explain. Jake’s stopped playing, instead choosing to lean in his chair and eye me over the top of his glass as he sips, listening to me with an empathetic nod. "Now with a major label involved, there are so many other factors now."

"You get the final say though, right?"

"Well, yeah, I guess I do." I say with uncertainty, not because it isn’t true, but because it still feels like the decisions I make have to be based on what everyone else thinks is best for us. If I vehemently object, I’m persuaded down to the decisions of others. Sometimes, it feels like I’m being gaslit. But I don’t have much time to ruminate on that, since everything is moving forward at top speed.

"Guess it’s complicated?" Jake concedes.

I nod.

"Girl, you got it," Jake croons in his gruff voice, eyes closed, fingers snapping to start a rhythm. "And I know it, baby, why don’t you?”

I nod, sliding him away from the keys as I hit some chords to match his singing. Unsure if it's a freestyle or something pre-written, I catch the composition unfolding. Music flows through me effortlessly—my natural talent that's brought me this far. It didn't happen overnight, but creating is the part of music that feels like pure joy, a distraction from all the BS.

Soon, we're vibing out a hook, laughing for hours, blending funk with '90s groove, a nostalgic fusion. My phone rings, freezing me in place. The weight of unresolved problems crashes over me. Jake senses it; I bolt before he protests. His eyes speak understanding; he knows when to let me deal with my demons. I answer the phone, attempting to steady my voice.

“Hello?”

“You answered.”

It’s Chris.

His voice is tired, ironic, as if he couldn’t believe it himself but didn’t care.

It irritates me. Why call back so soon if compromise isn't on the table?

“I just called to say, that I’ll be there in about four hours.”

A lump forms in my throat; I glance around for a clock. Holed up in the studio with Jake, time escaped me.

“But you said—“

‘First class, you are now welcome to pre-board flight 917 to Newark, First class, you are now welcome to pre-board flight 917 to Newark.’

“I gotta go, but I’ll see you in a few, yeah?”

“Y-yeah.”

The phone beeps, leaving me in stunned silence. The studio's muted song hums in the background. I'm not ready to face it yet, still figuring out what this sudden visit means.

“Said I wouldn’t do this.” I mutter, pressing my fists against my forehead, heaving a frustrated sigh. I vowed not to let another man stir my emotions, yet here I am—almost having a meltdown. But my feelings are valid. No explanation after a heated argument, and suddenly he's on his way here?

Maybe he got another perspective from the members or his friends. Maybe he thought about it. Either way, he'll be here in four hours. We can hash it out then.

I muster the calm to return to the studio. Jake sits back, his chair turning towards me. “Well?”

I plop onto the nearby sofa. “He’s boarding a flight here now, said he’ll be here in four hours.”

Jake’s brows lift in surprise. “See? I told you…this was going to push you two in some direction it needed to go. Four hours? My man, okay BangChan!” Jake laughs, toasting with his glass. “So I added some drums, check it out.” He plays the track; the groove multiplies.

“You added that part too?” I notice another musical flair, and he nods proudly. After a few seconds, he turns it off, a slow fade of the volume knob.

“I think that’s enough for me to work with for now, what do you think?”

"The skeleton is definitely there, but what about more instruments?" I question. Jake pushes his chair back, picks up his hoodie, slipping it on as he stands up.

“It’s enough to write to; we can come back to it; if Chan’s on his way here, the last thing he needs is to see another guy here late night.” He slips on his shades, his phone reflected in them as he orders an Uber Black. I didn't think he cared like this, feeling closer to him; he did what he felt was best. I was freaking out about how to get him out in time, and Jake took the initiative.

A relieved sigh escapes me. “I owe you.”

“Absolutely nothing. You don’t owe me anything, sweetheart. I had a good time here tonight.” He tucks his phone in his jacket pocket. “Twelve minutes.”

I nod. “Follow me upstairs, I made some cookies yesterday; you can take some with you.”

“Ooh what kind?”

“Chocolate chip.”

“A classic.”

#bang chan #bangchan x reader #chan x reader #chan x you #bangchan smut #chan smut #skz fic #stray kids fic #kpop smut #chan x y/n #chris bang #skz smut #jackson wang #jackson wang x reader #jackson wang fanfic #idol fic #crossover

[nerdasaurus1200]

Why Cassandra's Moonstone Armor Sucks

*cracks knuckles and dusts off keyboard*

It's time to finally rip this armor to shreds...figuratively because it's indestructible XD

And big shoutout to @whosbex @archivedwoods @th3p0rtalmaker @the-reverse-mermaid @aziraphalesbookkeeper and @majorabbey who all wanted to see this. I thank you all so much for your patience 🥰

Don't get me wrong there are some elements of this that absolutely work. The blue and black is a wonderful color scheme, especially that blue swirl that goes down and around Cass's body. And the spikes on the shoulders, forearms, and calves looks super cool and gives off a more black rock feel and a very intimidating silhouette. But...that's about all it does right.

1- It doesn't fit Cassandra's sense of style at all

In all the outfits we can see Cass wear throughout the show, we can very easily get a sense of exactly what her style is. It’s very clear that she dresses conservatively. And especially in armor she values practicality above all else. Her clothing has to serve its respective purpose. And up until season 3 the only revealing thing she wears is her island outfit and even then that’s pretty modest. And the moonstone armor comes along and completely disregards her established sense of style.

2- It undermines the moonstone's capabilities

We get it very explicitly confirmed that the Moonstone made the Dark Kingdom, and made Cass's tower as well. We see the amount of detail it puts into buildings. Even the rocks, the most simple thing it can make, are magically complex enough to know to seek out the Sundrop. And you're telling me that this thing can't make better armor than that?? Nuh uh, no way. I don't buy it. There’s absolutely no reason for the moonstone to provide a skin tight catsuit with a few spikes when we know its power can be much more sturdy and intimidating.

3- It's Chris Sonneburg's fantasies showing through

Those of you who have been in this fandom know the crush that Chris, the director, has on Cass. She's supposedly based on his college crush or something, and from day one he always wanted Cass to be the villain and plan to betray Rapunzel even as far back as the very beginning of the show. And of course, don't you want to see your crush in something hot? Therefore, I'm certain that the retaining of the catsuit was his idea. Because if you look at the moonstone concept art you can see more and more the visual leaning into a catsuit rather than actual armor

4- It's not at all practical or historically accurate

For reference, THIS is what armor has typically looked like throughout history

And even in works of fantasy you still have some version or variant of armor like this. Throughout the middle ages you can see just how tanky armor used to be. But as you can see, the moonstone armor looks nothing like that. It doesn't at all look like it could realistically defend a person.

Granted Cass's guard uniform is also kinda form fitting like the moonstone armor, but there’s still protective elements of it. The helmet, the breastplate. You could still believe that that is practical armor. Despite it being indestructible, the moonstone….is not at all practical armor. It doesn't look like it belongs in history or even fantasy. It is so obviously modern it’s almost painful.

5- It makes her disappear.

This is actually something that @moltenhair pointed out a while back that I never realized. There's too much black in there. A lot of the time we see Moonssandra at night and because there's so much black on her armor it makes her fade into the background to the point where she looks like a floating head and hand because the blue is all that really catches your eye about the design. Granted one can make the argument that this could have been done on purpose because taking and using the moonstone isn't actually giving Cass the spotlight she thinks it is but...eh...it's a loose argument.

#tts #rta #tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #nerd talks #cassandra #moonstone #analysis

[sapphic-agent]

The more i think about Izuku is written, the more i believe that, right after the Gentle arc, Hori stopped writting him as a characther and started treating closer to an archetype/pro, he isn't the only one, but Izu being the protagonist makes it more obvious. Wich is also when Bakugou started to get more focus too. Admittedly, the signs were already there with Deku vs Bakugou 2, but i personally believe that it didn't fully became a problem until the Joint Training arc.

At least to me it feels like that, do you think that this accurate?.

You might actually have a point here.

I don't think it started after the School Festival Arc, (but I do think you're right that it was the most noticeable at that point). Tbh, I think it even started before Deku vs Kacchan Part 2.

I really think it started between the Sports Festival and the Hideout Raid Arc.

I've mentioned that what makes the Sports Festival Arc go from pretty good to barely decent is its pandering to Bakugou. Using Aizawa to justify his behavior, using his entire fight with Uraraka to make us think he has respect for his opponents (he doesn't), having him win when he was nowhere near Todoroki's level, and then having him receive 3000+ internship offers despite his shitty attitude/actions. In comparison, Izuku didn't get nearly that much attention during the Sports Festival.

Then during the Final Exams, he's being used to teach Bakugou to work with others. This did nothing for Izuku's development, he was a tool to make Bakugou better. He gets more spotlight during the Training Camps, but even that's overshadowed by Bakugou being kidnapped (would also like to add that Bakugou's kidnapping received 100x more attention than Izuku being held hostage). Bakugou's character was given the most attention during the Hideout Raid Arc and even though Izuku was part of rescuing him, Kirishima (whose whole character is a Bakugou prop) was the one who orchestrated it.

Between these two arcs, Horikoshi was slowly transitioning to putting Bakugou in the spotlight and moving Izuku to the background. My guess is that he was seeing if the audience was receptive to Bakugou being given more attention. And once there was a positive reaction, he decided to go full force after the School Festival Arc (which tied up the Overhaul arc so he could easily take the spotlight off of Izuku)

#anti bakugou katsuki #mha critical #bnha critical #anon ask

[satureja13]

It took Arturo the whole day to get Kiyoshi stable enough to send him home with the others. And it took Saiwa, Jack and Vlad just as long to get over their first shock. Now that they know everything. The Bond told Ji Ho that they were on their way home. And that something went terribly wrong. Jeb and Ji Ho waited for them. Poor Saiwa still doesn't know how to deal with all this, dismounted and walked right past them. Vlad and Ji Ho need no words. Saiwa is the closest with Jack and Vlad. But it's clear that he can't deal with Jack right now. And they can't let him be on his own either. (Vlad and Ji Ho not being the messiest couple - we don't get to see this often ^^)

So Vlad went after Saiwa, Ji Ho will care for Jack and Jeb for Kiyoshi...

Worst thing is: It's no one's fault. No one to shift the blame at. Each of them would have done exactly the same to protect the others. And no one feels better now that they all know the truth.

That Kiyoshi had been sent by his father to torture Jack and Saiwa at the lab and that he decided to safe them instead. And that he almost payed with his life for it and he became a demon because Kojin decided to spare him and Dtui. And that it was the best for all of them to keep Kiyoshi's relationship to Jack a secret to not put them in in the spotlight of the council... And it had been wise to not tell them about Kiyoshi's duties and actions for the Resistance and against the Council. Now they have to be very careful should they return to the Muggle World. The Council would torture any of them for information should they get a grip on them. (See their background stories -> here)

There are more bad news waiting for poor Kiyoshi. Jeb knows that after all that had happened, Kiyoshi would continue to try to go back into the tree. So he had to tell him about Other Jeb's message. That - for unknown reasons - some of them have died in a possible future. Because they parted ways and cut the bond. Jeb: "It will be hard to stay together and forgive each other - and ourselves. But it seems it's the only way to avoid some of us getting killed." Kiyoshi: "Gods Jeb. I don't know what to do. Now that Saiwa and Jack know that my family was involved with their torture at the lab. How can we ever be carefree together?" Jeb: "But you also saved them in the end - after I had failed. Gods - and I don't know how to face Saiwa again after all this fated mates thing... I even urged him do be with you..."

Vlad is silently working next to Saiwa. All they'd talked about was about their game. Saiwa needs time to process it all - but he can't be alone right now.

After a few hours Saiwa finally started to talk about Kiysohi: "This is so crazy. I'm thankful that Kiyoshi saved us from the Lab and I feel horrible that he almost payeed with his life and now he's a demon - because of us. But I could also slap him in his handsome face for what he did to Jack! I don't know how to feel and what to do, Vlad. Argh! And Jack! I know he swore by his life not to tell us about Kiyoshi. But..." Vlad: "Ach - I know... I feel the same way. But we also know that they had no choice. If they had, they'd done better, right?" Saiwa sighs: "Right. None of us has a choice. We need to get over all this madness. As always... Oh gods - how am I supposed to look Jeb in the eyes again!?"

Jack told Ji Ho everything. And it seems he's adopting his puppy strategy to himself to keep him from freaking out. "It's good we all know the truth now. Being not able to talk to you was driving me crazy. It's sad it had to end like this with Kiyoshi but now I'm finally able to heal, right? And now you can help me to keep my distance to him. We will get over this, right?" Ji Ho: "Uhm, right. I'll do anything to help you, Jack. Anytime, hm?"

Ji Ho knows it won't be that easy but he kept quiet to not bring Jack down. It's just a matter of time until it will fully hit him. They went over to the fire to ease Jack's pain. After Jack fell asleep,Ji Ho saw a face in the flames - it's Kojin! Therefore the fire and the warmth does Jack so good! (Kojin is the god of the hearth and the fire controlled and turned toward a good purpose. He likes Jack a lot since they've met in the Otherworld and Jack worked in his garden.)

'Now your pictures that you left behind Are just memories of a different life Some that made us laugh, some that made us cry One that made you have to say goodbye What I'd give to run my fingers through your hair To touch your lips, to hold you near When you say your prayers, try to understand I've made mistakes, I'm just a man'

Always - Bon Jovi

From the Beginning  ~  Underwater Love ~  Latest 🛺 'Home happy Home' from the beginning ▶️ here 📚 Previous Chapters: 🛺 'Home crappy Home' from the beginning ▶️ here 🌴 'The Expedition' from the beginning ▶️ here 🎤 'Putting the Boys Back together' from the beginning ▶️ here 🥀 'Disbandment of the Group' from the beginning ▶️ here

#home happy home #sims 4 story #simlit #sims 4 #ts4 story #ts4 #simblr #jeb harris #tomarang #underwater love #sims 4 vanilla #The Crappy Home #the sims 4 for rent #sims 4 for rent #for rent #jack callahan #vladimir tepesz #saiwa #giga byte #kiyoshi ito #lunatic #diablo #tyalindo #kiri #woo ji ho

[bratty-metalhead]

Headcanons for Special Ghoul Phil?

I fucking love Phil. I miss him.

I don't have the time to put these into picture format, but I'll answer them in text!

[I don't have any kind of fact in the lore to back up any of this shit lol roll with me here. A lot of this is driven by... personal feelings]

Nothing NSFW here, it's just long because I'm an author and don't know how to shut up.

He was a little insecure about his position as the "spokesperson" for the Ghost project and the Clergy.

He didn't think he deserved to be the person who spoke for the entire project. In fact, when they were first coming up with the idea of appointing a "spokesperson" outside of Sister Imperator, Special's suggestion was that the position to go to whoever was the current sitting Papa... He quickly figured out that the reason she didn't like this idea was because she thought she couldn't control the Papa's the same way she could control the Ghoul's. (Another part of it is how much of a fuck up Nihil was when he was in charge of speaking for the Clergy).

He ISN'T the one who killed the other Papa's, and didn't have a hand in it AT ALL.

He gets very upset when this is even mentioned. Special was very close to all of the Papa's and worked with them all closely, but he was especially close with Terzo. At the time that the murders happened, he wasn't at the Ministry. In fact, many of the Ghouls weren't "on campus" that day... And now, of course, we know why. No one is completely sure who did it, though the rumor is that either a Ghoul was summoned specifically for the sake of doing Sister's bidding, one of the "old Ghouls" (since a few of them left of their own accord shortly after; we're looking at you, Alpha, Air, Water, and Earth), or someone in a Ghoul mask that wasn't actually a Ghoul. No one knows, and not for a lack of trying.

For a while, he was isolated from the other Ghoul's and Ghoulette's because of his position as the "mouthpiece".

There was a lot of jealousy back in those days (again, LOOKING AT YOU Alpha, Air, Water, and Earth, ya fuckers), and for a while, he wasn't welcomed in the Ghoul's wing of the Ministry. There was also a lot of jealousy related to how close Special was with the Papa's. Rumor swirled about why he was allowed to talk to the public while the others were sworn to secrecy and silence, or that he would be spying on the Ghouls and reporting things he said back to Sister. In reality, he hates Sister and spent a good portion of his time mocking her with the Papa's.

He's actually a very talented musician, and felt a little hurt that he wasn't selected to be in the touring band.

He can sing, and he can play guitar. He was selected for his position based on his knowledge of the Clergy, and the devotion he had to them previously. But what he really wanted was to be in the band, because he thought that was a better way to spread the message.

He's an avid vinyl collector.

It's his favorite thing to do. He says music sounds more authentic that way, with the clicks and pops and scratches. He especially likes records that are harder to find or more rare. Special has been found multiple times lying on his floor, staring up at the ceiling, listening to one of his records and drowning out the world around him.

He's still at the Ministry, though he very much works behind the scenes now.

And usually, he's helping Copia. Special and Copia first met shortly after the other Papa's deaths, an accidental meeting in the Ministry's library, both in shock and mourning over what happened. Copia would then be pushed into the spotlight as the "next in line" to be Papa, and Special fell back into the shadows, refusing to be associated with being the public face of the Clergy any longer. However, in the background, he was assisting Copia and showing him the ropes now that his brothers were no longer around to do so. Remember, he worked closely enough with the Papa's that he had intimate knowledge about their jobs... And the things that the boys did to sneak around Sister's influence.

He is very devout in his worship of Satan, but no longer holds true allegiances to the Clergy.

Because... Fuck them. Previously, he thought they were doing good through their message and that his views aligned with theirs. However, it didn't take long after the transference of power from Primo to Secondo for Special to figure out just how fucked up things were behind the scenes. He saw first-hand how little power the Papa's truly had, how much they put up with from Sister. And the more he figured out that she was the driving force manipulating everyone and everything in the Ministry, and more he worked on the side of the people who don't agree with her methods.

The "New Ghouls" are much more accepting of him than the "Old Ghouls"... With the exception of Omega.

Omega is chill and, with an exception of a few others, was one of the only Ghoul's from the "old group" who gave Special a chance. Let's be real here--it's because he was so close to the other Papa's himself, and because of his relationship with Terzo, giving him the same unique perspective that Special had about the way that the Clergy was really being ran. And on top of that, he understood how important it was to not expose the other Ghoul's to certain truths that they just didn't respect. However, with the "new" Ghoul's and Ghoulette's, because Copia wasn't raised within the direct line to the Papacy, he got to know many of the newly-conjured Ghouls on a deeper level than his brothers were ever given the chance to. (They knew their Ghouls, yes, but they were watched much closer than Copia was... With the exception of Terzo, who did everything in his power to piss off Sister). Because of this, the new Ghouls didn't have the same bias against Special, and were much more accepting of him.

He's very passionate about various social issues, especially when it comes to sexual freedom and freedom of religion.

And man, did he piss of Sister with some of his opinions. Rarely did he stay "on script", starting when Secondo was Papa and he was allowed to really speak, but especially ramping up when Terzo took on the Papacy. He made a point of going around to people in the Clergy, asking them if they had anything he wanted to say. One of his favorite things to do was ask the Papa's about their opinions related to Ministry affairs, and put his own spin on them when he was allowed to talk to the public. He would also through in his own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. And it pissed Sister off to no end that (1) she'd hired him for the roll and (2) if she did anything about it, the Papa's would flip their shit, so for a long time, her hands were tied. (That is, of course, until she decided that the only choice she had was to murder them).

These days, he can mostly be found teaching in the Clergy's private school.

You better believe this was a calculated move, egged on by Copia. Copia himself had been very dedicated to the Clergy's education when he was still a Cardinal, given that he'd experienced the world of the children in the Clergy first-hand, not part of the "royal treatment" his brothers had, due to him being this "hidden secret" for the first half of his life. After the Papa's were murdered, Special conspired with Copia to come up with an alternative curriculum that would start to plant the seeds of the truth about the Clergy with these kids, and show them the way things should be, not the way that Sister wants them to be. He likes to teach the religious courses, and he has a heavy hand in music education, as well.

#I'm totally not biased at all #not me working Omega into this #Phil #Phil Ghoul #Special Ghoul #Special #Nameless Ghouls #ghost #the band ghost #ghost bc #tobias forge #brattymetalheadtiktok #ghostbc #ghost band #ask #Emily answers #headcanon #ghost headcanons #Special Ghoul hc #Phil ghoul hc #this ended up being waaayyyyy longer than I intended oops

[uwublorbos]

Blorbo Spotlight: Trynnt

Howdy gamers! In today's spotlight we have a character from Pip/Pyppyn (he/they) @pyppyn. Go check out their blog!

Who do we have the pleasure of speaking with today?

Excelsior! I'm Trynnt! That's Explorer or Artificer Trynnt if we're using titles, but I just like my name.

What's your background? Where do you come from?

I'm from a smaller settlement on the Tarnished Coast called Rata Kasus. It's a good way away from Rata Sum but there are just as many krewes and labs at work out there. Fishing too, your regular coastal town. I graduated from the College of Synergetics and apprenticed with a few different krewes before making my own way in the world. These days I live in Lion's Arch with my family!

What are some important relationships in your life? (romantic, platonic, familial, etc)

I'm lucky to have two romantic partners - my wife Seffi and our other partner Welxx. His name may not be on our marriage contract but he's every bit important to us. They both mean the world to me and I'm glad to have made a life with them.

My other closest relationship would have to be my older brother Czoll. He and Seffi always looked out for me when we were little and to this day he's the kindest, most caring person I know. I love 'ya, big guy.

I have some great friends as well! i could talk to Zexx for hours about jewelcraft and chronomancy and the same goes for Neffh's understanding of the magitechnical use of necromancy. It's been a delight to work and learn with them and I'll always enjoy the time we spend together. True geniuses and great people, both of them.

This ah- this list would get really long if I kept going, so I'll move on!

Have you done anything you'd like to brag about?

You're giving an Asura an opportunity to brag? You're either very brave or very foolish and will regret this by the time I'm done!

I'm an elementalist - a weaver specifically - and I've always been fascinated by the way different kinds of magic interact. It all exists in a kind of balance across a broad spectrum. Not just the four elements, but everything! It's always changing, working in harmony at one point or total dissonance at another. That kind of ordered chaos got me thinking.

I'm also an artificer - an inventor. I make machines and technologies that I hope to use to better the world around us. Tyria's changed a lot in the past decade, and now more than ever is it important that we rebuild and we've been given an amazing opportunity to do that thanks to Aurene and Her unique fusion of different magics that should react violently - but don't!

-ah bolts, I'm rambling. I made a machine that uses prismaticite to alter the state of magic from one input to another! I call it the Prismatic Aetherconverter. Turns out if you cut those crystals in the precise way, you can alter their output of magic. Put that assembly in a channel and feed magic through the whole system, you get a means of shifting its attunement to your exact specifications.

I use this for my other craftwork. It's a great way to speed up enchanting or charging magitech and it's a great source of magic for study in lab environments! I hope to improve its scalability and introduce a number of different form factors in the coming years, make magic more accessible to the masses.

What's your profession? What does a typical day look like for you?

I'm an explorer with the Durmand Priory. I joined almost ten years ago now and my responsibilities there vary from day to day.

If I'm out in the field it probably means I'm part of an expedition or a Pact taskforce looking to discover something or solve a problem. For me that often means I'm a small part of a much bigger team. Excavation, ruins-delving, anomalous materials handling. Everybody's important and everybody's got their role to fill. What we uncover tends to end up in my lab for analysis and adaptation into artifice.

If I'm working back at the Priory proper, I serve a logistics role. Any equipment requests for advanced technology, enchanted items, and specialized tools flow through me and artificers like me - a golem suit for hazardous environments, a camera designed to look into the Mists, or special munitions for use against dragon minions, for instance.

I find the work to be quite fulfilling!

What are some hobbies you enjoy?

I like to collect and restore old technology for starters! Really old - stuff my grandparents would have used. Datapads, audio devices, communicators, golems and golemites, that sort of thing. A lot of it doesn't work but it has a history all the same. We Asura don't have many connections to our past because of the Elder Dragons, so it feels like a way to look back on where we came from.

I play Polymock too. I was never good enough for the pro leagues but what could be more fun than some simulated holographic violence between Tyria's deadliest monsters? There's a card game variant too that makes for good entertainment on longer expeditions.

If all of that wasn't enough, Seffi's good at keeping me active! We swim or go on hikes or head out to Tyria's different mountain ranges for rock climbing. We don't bother with climbing back down though - that's what gliders are for! She calls me a cheater for using earth magic to speed my way up the cliffs, but she sure doesn't complain about more airtime after the fact. The Festival of the Four Winds is the best time for it - tall rocks, strong currents, and the summer sun? Alchemy, that's just perfect.

-

That's all for today! If you're an UWU guild member and would like to put your character in the spotlight, use this form!

#uwu blorbo posting #spotlight #scheduled post

[craacked-splatters]

OKOKOK I JUST FINISHED DHMIS AND IM GOING INSANE HOLY SHIT

tumblr is the only place where my hyperfixations and ramblings won't make me seem like I've been trapped in a basement never seeing the light of day as I piece together a century long conspiracy. Apologies 4 the person I'm about 2 become . I'm gonna full theorist mode but I only have time to point out the puzzle pieces in d first ep for now cuz I got work in like 6 hrs :(( ill come bak n do rhe rest ltr feel free 2 add if u want

--

Ok so i was rewatching the eps again on my phone & collecting screenshots for my conspiracy board when I found this symbol in the intro 2 d first ep

And I was like wait a min that kinda looks like d ones from the book so i went to see if was true and yep

I don't know if there's anymore symbols scattered around in the other eps or if it was just forshadowing either way its making my brain vibrate. Has anyone else noticed this before? It's so cool

The other things in d intro that seemed a bit weird 2 me was the pics n letters on the fridge, the fact that our 3 guys r coming out of a clock house, and fuking roy looking into d house thru a hole in the wall. The symbolism and metaphors r there guys. I know it but Im putting a pin on unraveling that for ltr cuz I don't have time rn :((

I kept my eyes peeled 4 anything else n then I saw the similarities between the breifcase n his older bro and yellowguy and his imaginary older bro

Both of them were like stuck in the shadow of their younger sibs u know kinda left behind, like the smol suitcase felt inferior n could only watch as his younger was running around being bigger n better, the yellows fake bro was always stuck in the background while yellow took the spotlight,

and they both like lost their shit and injured themselves. The suitcase bro punched a wall n the fake bro literally comitted suicide. Maybe I'm looking to much into this but that kinda intrigued me a bit. Again I'll dissect to that ltr cuz I don't have d time 😔

So the 1st EP was about work & jobs right?

Noticed how like each guy had the same positions in each job?

Duck: (The judge, cryptocurrency, General, astronaut)

At 1st duck's jobs are more centered on power,on bieng a higher authority figure, someone who is respected, admired and successful. He views himself above the rest, he said one needed aggression to get ahead in workplace, (u know w/ the attention freaks part lmao),he narssistic, hes selfish, and is always strivings for better positions, better everything (the vending machine, wanting a better job etc)

He doesn't like this job, he failed at his work tasks, and no one is taking him seriously.

When the screen lady starts singing about stress n shit I was like hold up

First we see, him on the beach with a crab offering him pills. Relaxation=drugs?? An escape from reality perhaps 🤨

Then him walking on a tightrope with a bunch of red things under him (portraying his struggles with his inner demons maybe?? Showing that he is or was barely keeping himself from falling to them??)

This whole thing. The line segments with the relaxing never being an easy straight line,(gotta go thru hell 1st b4 ur happy type of thinking??) And also the colors on the diagram. It's our 3 main guys. Red duck and yellow. (I'll dissect this ltr too no time rn😔)

And this. The coins, (cryptocurrency?? financial issues??) The screw(shitty work jobs maybe) the crab(drugs) the red snake(inner demons?) And the green thing...idk what that is it has scissors n looks like its shushing(untold secrets/issues?) Maybe ita part of himself he doesn't like or harms him

Duck is forced to like his job. He tries to go along with this whole bs, but he can't and snaps causing the hand accident. Is that what happened from before he was dead? Did he cause the death of someone? We know they all died at the same time different places.Then we see ltr that his jobs aren't as powerful as before, he is a mailman, hes a struggling artist, those jobs usually arent seen as impressive as say a CEO. Is this lore👀 could it be a bit of backstory for duck👀

Next we have Red: (Doctor, Barber, boss 2 whole company, horseshoe maker) His jobs are more concentrated on responsibility and expectations. A lot of ppl rely on doctors to help them out, a lot of pressure is laid on their shoulders especially with serious situations. With barbers you want them to give you exactly what u asked for, or at least something acceptable if u cant think of anything. Bosses are bosses. They're literally in charge of a shit ton of things. They keep everything running smoothly cuz 1 wrong move and everything starts going haywire. And horses need shoes to walk I guess

Notice how red is kinda... negligent? I wouldn't say lazy hes not. But remember how he would always want to do something else besides what they were doing? Or be anywhere else besides in the now? He didn't want to do anything at all in the 1st ep deciding to just chill. He didn't want to acknowledge yellows sadness in the Death EP, I guess he didn't want to deal with it? He wanted to meet a real fam, saying that the 3 of them weren't it. The whole road trip breakdown and "Im not going back to that house"?? Very interesting 👀

Yellow: (lumberjack, icecream man, fisherman, assembly worker, therapy patient??)

Yellows jobs r more centered on labor. They're average jobs regular ppl like u and me could get whenever. They usually don't ask for degrees or sumthn just experience perhaps. They might be easy, but there is a form of danger to them Lumberjack? You chop up wood dude, you could easily lose a limb or die. Ice cream man? Well you could always run over someone and uh, stranger danger? Fisherman? Fall out and drown or get lost at sea Assembly line worker? You saw what happened the same as the lumberjack (Trust me I work at a GE and ppl r always getting hurt)I got nothing 4 patient 😔

Besides the assembly one(I'm not counting it it was a lesson), the other jobs could be viewed as experiences.

Lumberjack- helping build the shack with his dad (Roy was there)

Icecream man- its icecream. lot of us go after that car. Especially children.

Fisherman- going fishing for fun, could be a bonding experience idk

Therapy patient- c'mon

There's a lot of shit I didn't cover but it's fine. Everything is so cool and fascinating I'm losing sleep to this whole thing. I'll talk more about it later I'm tired n it's 5am I've got 2 hrs to sleep.

Edit: yo I'm literally at work rn but I realized something. Yellows jobs are repetitive too. A cycle of things that are done a sort of loop. Lumber jacks, assembly line workers, etc etc usually focus on doing one task only, over and over whether it's screwing in bolts, chopping wood, serving food doesn't matter. It's repetitive, meaning you don't have to worry about changes bcuz there aren't supposed to be. You become accustomed to it, it's reliable.

This might've been a bit forshadowing about the way our 3 characters have to start the same routine in the same house again and again, a seemingly endless loop.

Did y'all notice how yellow was extremely against the road trip idea? And the death episode? He didn't want the routine to change. he didn't like it was confusing to him. And just when he's getting used to a change it all collapses on him. Man :(( this show is so cool fr I'll continue dissecting ltr gotta go now

#don't hug me i'm scared #dhmis spoilers #dhmis #splatter rambles #like a madman #god im tonna regret this #its 5am #ajd i have work in 2 hours #o well lol #this show has me by the throat #its so good #i care them sm man

[springvaletales]

⋆ NAME?: Soli

⋆ PRONOUNS?: She/They (anything goes, really, so long as it's not meant insultingly).

⋆ MOST ACTIVE MUSE(S)?: Michael, though I've been making an effort to put his four friends in the spotlight more, as they were originally meant to be. XD It's tough tho, because I also never turn down an opportunity to use some of my worldbuilding characters for some memes.

⋆ RP PET PEEVES?: Responses that disregard details or actions my muses have openly made/have/done. It makes me feel like my response wasn't actually read, but more skimmed just enough for the other person to continue writing the idea they already had down. If there's going to be an established plot or action sequence, I'd at least like a heads up so it doesn't feel like my muses are suddenly being benched for a Main Character cutscene.

Alternatively, responses that know things about my muse(s) that wouldn't be common knowledge (like who Michael's real patron is, knowing about Haaruma's scars, knowing how Bashur broke his horns, etc.). I'm cool with plotting for muses to know that kind of thing going in, but when it happens without any communication between writers it feels like metagaming, and makes the thread less of a collaboration.

⋆ EXPERIENCE / HOW MANY YEARS?: I've been writing/RPing in some form for about 15 years now. I started off trading giant empty notebooks with friends between classes to write painfully 2000's self-insert fics, and moved to Tumblr in 2009 when I realized there were social spaces beyond Facebook.

I've been here ever since. >:3c

⋆ FLUFF, ANGST, OR SMUT?: Of the three I most prefer fluff. I am ace, so writing smut, for me, is an exercise in frustration (I don't want to bang, but my muses do, and what my fictional children want they get even if it kills me) and takes a looooong time, so it's not usually something I share with others.

I do like angst, but only if it's wrapped up with some comfort at the end. I went through a period of my life a few years ago where all I wanted to read was angst, and it burnt me out like a dry piece of hay. I had to step away from angst fics for a few years, and while I'm better at handling that kind of content now, I still prefer it to have some kind of happy or hopeful ending.

⋆ PLOTS OR MEMES?: Both!! I love plotting out longer threads with people (whether serious, silly, or other), but I think memes are a great way to just throw characters together and see how they click!

I also like using meme interactions in the backgrounds of longer threads, to either quietly establish how muses met or just as extra information we can pepper in to past interactions.

⋆ LONG OR SHORT REPLIES?: As long as the response can move the thread forward and I have something to react to, I don't care how long it is. I tend to make mine a couple paragraphs, if ever possible, just because I like to give my writing partner's as much as I can to work with, but I never want to pressure anyone to match lengths.

I've lived that pressure, hated it, and don't wish it on anyone.

⋆ TIME TO WRITE?: Usually the evenings, 5pm-midnight. Sometimes inspiration strikes during the day, but I usually don't have time on a workday to fully write out responses, so I just have to sit on them until I get home.

⋆ ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S)?: Now that I've gotten into therapy, yes. There are many ways in which I am like my muses. A lot of those ways are kind of personal, and I'm still fully detangling them all in my head, but I have definitely been using these poor NPCs to work through some things through D&D.

Tagged by: @deaddoveadventures

Tagging: @cupcakesmuses, @wanderingarcherviola

#OOC #ask box game

[tartrat]

I want to give some more context to the Knight Light Painting that I'm working on for school.

The theme that we have to work on is based around viewpoints and i have gone with how people interpret fictional characters and how they completely change them, as well as how an outsider would view these actions.

So how does Knight Light fall into this theme?

Well firstly, since his backstory is kind of vague (it really is just him triumphing over luminous in battle that lasted like a week at most and being stranded in the light realm) and his personality is just typical Knight and Angel stuff, I wanted to add on to it to give my own view on it.

My headcanon for him is that, he is just lost, tries his best to make others happy and always sacrifices himself for them, but doesn't know that they don't care, after losing his parents and sibling he feels a continuous need to try and protect the other Light skylanders (mainly Astroblast and Aurora), has strange relations with the rest of the trap masters. I feel like i should make a whole post relating to these headcanons but the basic takeaway is that i view him more as someone who has to put up a strong front but isn't fine inside. Again I would need to fully explain in it's own post.

Face wise i wanted to change the emotions he's showing from a somewhat stern look to a more solemn one contrasting with the brightness of the armour. Relating to this is my colour choice for his armour. In game its pure white, but the figure as an iridescent purple glitter to it. However, in this painting I'm making it look pink and purple. Knight Light does have a quite masculine design, so i want the pink and purple to contrast as well as make his armour appear softer to match the expression on his face. The now actually yellow/golden background (previously supposed to be a light greyish yellow but came out as a vomit green) is there to make the colours less harsh as well as unintentionally being close to the colour that was used for Knight Light and spotlight's official artwork background.

I guess that what drew me towards him compared to the other skylanders that were in my collection was that he was my first Light element skylander and that was what was special, and surprisingly not the fact that I was an eight year old boy who these buff heroes were to appeal to, well thats part of it now so maybe he was part of my realisation that I was gay (that and probably preferring to play as the girl ghostbuster in the ghostbusters wii game because she was a lot cooler than the guy)

It is hard to explain this sort of stuff to a teacher so I'm my sketchbook I literally just said "The game he is from is very vague with his backstory, like with all characters in the series" which to an extent is true, however other characters such as Spyro (coincidentally sharing a voice actor with Knight Light) are more fleshed out because they were around from the start.

If i were to able to analyse better this would be more coherent. I do want to talk about Just Dance maps (as Just Dance is actually my main interest) and give my own thoughts and theories on them so I'll probably make a side blog for that. This post mainly serves as an exercise for me to get better at giving context in my school art work.

Anyway to basically end me explaining a headcanon and school work i leave you with the refence photo (top) and two extra photos that i took to decide on (ignore the last one being sideways).

I don't know if this will make much sense to anyone else so when i actually finish the painting I'll rewrite this when i develop my thoughts more, as there is more i want to say but I don't know how to phrase it as of now.

#skylanders knight light #skylanders #Headcanon #i love this guy so much #school work #i think #this reads like i made this for homework #Like i was forced to do this for school

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Reviews: Last Christmas!: FINALLY

Happy Holidays All You Happy Ducks! Today we have a special one for you as we're FINALLY talking about Ducktales first full christmas episode, Last Christmas!

This one has a bit of a history with me. For starters I.. didn't see this one when it came out. I have a bad habit of storing christmas episodes for next year if I don't get to them.. and the next.. and the next. Yeah my tendency to let things I need to watch pile up does NOT go great with episodes that have a timer on them. Eventually I ended up watching it a few years back on Disney+.

This episode ended up being cursed for me apparently as this is the THIRD christmas i've tried to put it on the schedule and the first it's actually gone up. I tried doing it the first year I did this, last year, every year something comes up and I had to put this aside. Well it's finally here.

This also has the honor of being the first episode reviewed after getting my copy of Art of Ducktales, which gives a lot of background info into the show, how it was made, that sorta stuff.

It's especially useful here as it turns out Last Chrismtas was orignally planned for season 1, serving as another piece of the Della mystery. Dewey goes back to try and talk to her.. but ends up with her as a kid instead. It was decided it was too early in the series and honestly.. that was probably the right call. Shows CAN do good holiday episodes in their first season, as we'll see with the Ghost and MollyMcgee soon, but most shows tend to wait till season 2 to break out Halloween and Christmas/Hannukah episodes. It makes perfect sense to me as to why: By Season 2 your characters have fully settled into their characterizations and who they are, making it funner to play with. It's especially true in animation: while sitcoms and such will likely get one a year and thus have multiple attempts to do whatever, usually with a cartoon you get ONE holiday episode they can reair forever and ever. This is becoming less of a thing these days as both this show and big city greens have had two, but there's still no guarantee your release will synch up to where you can do christmas twice. Amphibia only got the one and while they nailed it, sometimes that one shot can misfire pretty badly. Ask My LIfe as A Teenage Robot. I.. I dread the day i'l lhave to deal with that mess of an episode but I know it's coming.

So saving the proper holiday episode to season 2 was a smart move and worked out: as the creators put it it allowed them to give us a preview of Della before her full spotlight episode next time out, as well as reintroduce the stakes of her returning from the family's perspective since they woudlnt' be around next time we saw them. Add in a clever twist on a christmas carol and you've got a holiday classic. I will say the Santa episode is better.. .but it dosen't mean last christmas isn't still a masterpiece. They just somehow outdid themselves the nexdt time around As you can probably tell I like this episode so let's get on with the long awaited review under the cut.

Something I forgot is that this episode.. is really two diffrent 11 or so minute stories. Their interconnected and start at the same point, but since the show usually just has it's two plots play off one another, I had it in my head the two went back and forth. In reality it's just two diffrent shorts covering two very diffrent plots with a shared message, theme and antagonist. It's a neat way to do it do: just let Scrooge and Dewey's seperate stories breathe as while their learning similar lessons, their still their own journeys. It also makes the twist less obvious. So starting off

The Setup: The episode starts with Scrooge doing what you'd expect: throwing a big tantrum about not liking christmas. We eve I think eget a ba hum bug. Only Micheal Caine or Dylan Saunders has been this cranky a scrooge. We do get some nice bits thougH: Donald not only being super into christmas to honor his sister, but fighting with an inflatable snowman, Webby only decorating a small portion of the tree, and the fact the ducks have an annual christmas viewing of night on bear mountain, a stellar nod to the story that introduced scrooge which I covered my first christmas. It also implies it happened in SOME form in this universe though how I don't know. Meanwhile Dewey is also not feeling the Christmas Electricity, but mostly because he's missing his mom, sadly looking at a photo of her like he's wolverine. Donald comes in and while he's combative at first because A) he's donald and B) He sees Dewey hiding something once he sees it's a picture of Della he understands and gives the boy space, saying he can join them when he feels like it. Dewey's mopey solo time is interuppted by laughter.. and following it Dewey finds.. Scrooge.. eating, drinking and being merry with three strange figures. There turn out to be the Ghosts of Christmas Past (A cricket similar to Jiminey voiced by Jack McBrayer), Present (A wild pig…)

I know and I missed you. Voiced by Bil Frabrake, of Patrick Star and nailing a nutsack to his door fame, and the Ghost of CHristmas Future Played by

Turns out in a nice twist, the three came to scrooge one holiday, implied to be during the decade Della was lost judging by some Dialouge from past later, thinking he was the other guy, and ended up liking him. So they've come back every year after their usual spiel to party with Scrooge through time and space. Well mostly time but i'm sure they can travel through space too.

Scrooge also explains why the whole hating chistmas deception: He dosen't really.. well except Santa , ex boyfriend troubles amirite?, and that'll be fixed next holiday special. He's just so exausted from taking care of his family, his company, keeping the world serpent Jormungandr at bay, which is still one of my faviorite lines in the series. Fun Fact from what the art of book tells me they didn't have a concrete plan right away, but they did throw this out here knowing they'd do something with it eventually.

Dewey agrees to keep his secret at least for this year as he understands needing some me time, and thus our stories splinter off: Scrooge heads with his boys to the past.. and as we find out later Dewey grabs on to tag along but ends up falling off into the past. We'll catch up with him later. For now

Party of Christmas Past

So Past's idea this year is to go where they left, the mansion but not when (Scrooge is done with all the time travel puns). I also love the touch of Dewey later making the exact same pun in his story.

It's the First Annual McDuck Industries Employee Christmas Party, sometime in the 1960s. So clearly this is when Scrooge Conglomrated everything. HE also wasn't as succesful yet, but they had fun. It's honestly a nice subtle parallel to the party from A Christmas Carol, our hero visiting a happier time. The only diffrence is he's the boss. OH and he meets his past self who brushes it off with an "older me" and a hat tip.

This works out well enough for Present (Who naturally goes to destroy the buffet) and Future (Who Mrs. B, whose got it, hits on), but not so much Scrooge, who can't relax as he has to deal with his board, who apparently decided to going to the office party was part of their evil plans. Look it's free food and booze even evil masterminds and their clones have to eat and get embarasingly drunk. Even seeing Goldie.. ends up going nowhere as buisness calls and he's up to his ass and shit. What is this buisness? A bunch of people pitching stuff. Scrooge is annoyed, feeling he shoudl've stayed with his family and planning to leave. Past melts down a bit over that nad comes up with another idea: Scrooge's very FIRST christmas in duckberg. Just a tend the stars and no one around. Scrooge likes this.. for about five minutes. He realizes that as a lot as they can be.. .he misses his family, and christmas should be with them. It also makes sense why it took so many years: As I said past hints about in a second that Scrooge's family returning changed him. It was a nice escape when he had an empty mansion with only his best friend and someone he barely knew who turns out to be his daughter later for company. He was keeping everyone at arms length. Now his mansion is full of life again: He's let Beakley back in as a friend, taken Webby as surrogate family, reconciled with donald and met and got to know and mentor his nephews. There's also Launchpad whose like the dumbass himbo son he never knew he had nor never wanted but accepts anyway.

Thing is Past.. is a bit of a clingy bitch. It's also a nice take on the character: Past wasn't trying to teach Scrooge the meaning of christmas.. he's pissed someone is going to leave him AGAIN. It shows the strain this job would have on someone: getting to know them, helping them.. only to never see them again because as a better man, they dont' need you anymore. His behavior isn't RIGHT, he's trying to trap scrooge in the past for his own selfish desires and not getting that he can't keep scrooge here and maybe he shoudl find other firends or take solace in his fellow spirits, but it's sympathetic enough. We still want scrooge to win but we at least get why Past has sunk this low. Jack McBrayer also does a great job as a villian. Part of casting him as this was to see if jack could pull it off and boy does he. It's also a nice smokescreen: Given Jack hadn't played a ton of villians at this point, it gets you to drop your guard and not realize Past is going to be a problem till it's too late.

Scrooge of course being scrooge eventually beats him. When a straight up fight just goes in cricles, he simply asks to go back a minute to live the fight over.. thens teals Past's umbrella and strands him. Classic Scrooge. Past thinks Scrooge will just come back..b ut he undferstandably doesn't. Which leads us into

Siblings of Christmas Past

Dewey picks up like I said falliing off future, making a pun, that sort of thing. But now he realizes he's here in the past.. his mom might ALSO be and goes to look for her. instead he finds Grunge Donald Duck

Yeah this came about from Frank realizing the timeline being adjusted meant Donald would be Dewey's age in the 90's, and given he used to be a musician.. he would totally be a grunge kid. Maybe we'll see teen donald on that 90's show. Fingers crossed. At the very least Kev has given me the idea of Della, Donald an the Cbas doing a circle. I guaranteee Donald would be the one who talks about a car that runs on water man.

This was also a golden opportunity for them to bring in a legend that they'd left out of the series thus far. See the one downside, and really the ONLY downside to making the boys unique characters instead of the hive mind that will one day loom over us all as our cruel overlords in all their 90s misogny, was that Russi Taylor wouldn't be playing them. So like most classic actors who weren't reprising their parts in favor of new talent in the roll, the crew found something else for Russi to do: voice a young donald. And once again , just in time as sadly she had passed by the time the episode aired. Just like her apperance on OK KO it was only through sheer luck and good timing that she got to be a part of this and god bless it. She does a terrific job, as you'd expect and it was a nice way for her career to go out: doing something new with a voice she'd perfected so very well.

At any rate Della is apparently out front camping and Donald is moping about christmas. And this brings up a recent problem. See when the episode aired, I like most of the fandom, assumed the Duck Parents were dead. This episode was my biggest evidence: The kids are here on christmas, alone, and Donald moping in his room is clearly supposed to parallel Dewey doing the same because Della, while not dead, is lost to him.

So here comes Art of Ducktales (Or specifically the suplimental interviews I didn't get because I only bought the standard edition because it was almost double the dollary doos. Thankfully fine folks like you put the info from it out there and yeah.. turns out Quackmore and Hortense are alive.

YEAH. I mean i'm fine with it as had Disney not pulled a Disney, and maybe with someone compitent in charge we might get a second chance at season 4, we would've gotten an episode with one of my faviorite disney Ducks and the husband whose atomic hate sex helped them create two of my other faviorite ducks. And Grandma Duck, whose just the best. But even then it raises a LOT of questions that, given the show is over and MAY not come back even with Iger in charge now, I don't think Matt considered when he dropped this fucking bombshell.

Why did they live with scrooge so much then? (As kids anyway). Why did it seem like Scrooge saw them? Did the triplets know them? Did they know Della was lost and if so howd they react? Do they know she's alive? Do they know they have a clone niece now? Why weren't they there at christmas? Were they just going to show up? Were they stuck in the duck version of planes trains and automobiles? Why haven't I written that? And do I know that film was about thanksgiving and not christmas?

We don't know..except the last one. I do but I like that film better than i'll be home for christmas and it fits the situation better. I like to think they were both steve martin and john candy was Goofy's dad. Not the point. It just kinda delutes THIS episode a bit. I thought it was about Donald being in mourning and having to accept that his sister needed him too. About both of them coping. Instead it's just.. Donald bein ga bit of a dick. Which is usual for him but not exactly as satisfying.

That's not to say it still dosen't work: Donald having to get over himself as well as the implication that their parents and Scrooge were both too busy, leaving them alone, still works well enough, especially with the irony that Dewey would give ANYTHING to see his mom in some form while Young Donald is just throwing it away, adding weight ot WHY Dewey is so instiant.. and his relization he's done the same thing. Sure he's in pain, that's fair.. but so are his siblings. And shutting them out is just hurting them. It's a godo message and still works, but maybe they shoudl've thrown in a line or something about his parents being gone just to make it seem like the twins were a touch less orphaned.

Like I said though this segment still slaps. While it's on the crew it came off like Hortense and Quackmore were dead, likely as a deleberate misdirect, it's still a lot of fun. There's a nice load of hints Della wanted Donald to come stay with her and hunt santa: the adult sized tent, snacks for more than one, the letter for him. It also makes her holding him hostage evne as the Wendigo is a comin make more sense: she'd likely cut him and Dewey down if it got too close.. but the answers are BLINDINGLY obvious and only Donald's own arogance and selfishness, rarely seen in this version since he'd largely grown out of them by the time we meet him, force Dewey to hammer it home.

It's still heartbreaking too. Dewey does meet his mom.. but it's not a proper meeting and he ultimately and tragically isn't allowed to warn her. Not because of some contrivance either: Della outright stops him as she's savy enough to know anything Dewey told her could destroy time and space. And the saddest part is there is no right answer: Dewey tells them and Della gets to raise her kids, live her life and Donald isn't under the pressure of raising the kids.. but it also erases the GOOD memories he has raising them and being their dad. I'm not saying Della going to the moon was WORTH all that, but I am saying it's the double edged sword of fucking with history: you loose any good that came iwth the bad and you can't predict how things will change. But your still letting something awful happen to make that happen and not break time over you knee.

The Wendigo itself is clever. This version, for obvious reasons dosen't have the creature formed from Canablisim. And yes that's what makes a wendigo in mythology. And marvel comics. Fun fact that's how Wolverine debuted: hunting a Wendigo and then ending up fighting the hulk.

So instead it's a being created by intense sorrow and regret.. i.e. Past. And luckily our heroes can beat christmas past turned into a mythgical creature because this is the duck family. This is an average christmas for them. Scrooge apologizes, which he really shouldn't have to and gives past his umbrella back and he takes our present day heroes home, where they celebrate with their family.. and Scrooge invites the spirits to join. I'd say this is suprising but the amount of people who have tried to kill scrooge that he now casually parties with is probably pretty tall. IT's a sweet ending though as Dewey and Donald hug with Donald welcoming him back, clearly remembering his help all those years ago, Beakley hits on the ghost of christmas future and we end on something truly special: Mike Peraza, who did Mickey's Christmas Carol drawing and end credits sequence in that style, nicely doing it in the classic style and even using the same parchment he used. Seriously he still had it lying around. Holy shit. Oh and Della wishes her kids merry christmas from the moon I guess that'll be important later.

So yeah as I said up front and will again Last Christmas is great. It's two great character pieces with a good message at the core: Don't push your loved ones away, celebrate with them, Cherish them. Enjoy your time with them. And for god's sake don't befriend jiminy cricket's bastard brother you'll regret it. IT's heartfelt, well acted and a nice twist on an old classic christmas formula. Check it out if you have'nt and have a happy holiday.

#ducktales #christmas #scrooge mcduck #dewey duck #della duck #disney channel #disney xd #disney #donald duck #a christmas carol

[hyunsoolgc]

-ˋˏ VIDEOGOMDORI ◡ EP. 01

in which hyunsoo replaces his gpu and puts together a keyboard and new computer chair.

The nerves eat at Hyunsoo's insides. It burns the inner walls of his stomach, causing it to grumble in protest. ( Or is he just hungry? )

The mere idea of having his own personal channel is more than enough to riddle him with anxiety. His jaw clenches at the thought. Organizing episodes in advance, figuring out the logistics and scheduling of shooting footage between his work schedule and classes. He could only assume using a hobby of his would make things far easier. The videos could easily be shot and edited at home in one go... And so, he chooses to tackle the subject of gaming with little hesitation.

There would be no better way to begin his channel than an introduction to himself and his set up. His new PC, keyboard and chair arrive just in time for him to begin filming. He flicks on the camera, steadying it to full display his desk and the two unopened boxes in front of it.

"Hello, this is actor Lee Hyunsoo," He appears in frame to wave his hand in front of his face. Of course, it is not that he is too shy to appear in front of the camera. On the contrary, he has gained confidence in it; rather, he is unsure of how much of himself he should be showing on screen. "As you can see... there's a lot for me to do already. I'm going to be replacing my GPU and putting together my new keyboard and chair. I decided to make a whole day of it and... if I don't finish it by tonight, I'll do it tomorrow."

"I'll comment about my channel name first. It sounds a bit silly, right? My idea was to make it sound like a word play between video game… mashed with teddy bear..." a shy laugh cuts his words. "Which is my nickname now, I suppose? I hope it's okay." He clears his throat before he begins to ramble. The episode run time is limited to around twenty minutes and he does not want to overdo it for the first episode.

"As you can see..." He holds up the box with the graphics card, marveling at its size. As he speaks, he makes sure to edit over the definitions with text. "I managed to get a Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card... 24GB GDDR6X memory. I'll get raytracing as well... Today, you'll watch me replace the old one. I'll have to disassemble my PC, take out the old GPU and put in the new one."

He awkwardly ends the shot, transitioning into a sped up montage of him taking apart his unplugged PC on his desk. Text with instructions on what he is doing overlays the screen, and he adds a soft bit of music to the background. The fast forward pauses and he leans into the shot a bit more, holding up the case with a gasp. "So much dust!" But the footage proceeds again to show him cleaning the inside.

While the process goes on, he suddenly realizes he should probably be talking about something. He looks up, offering a bashful grin coupled with a short chuckle.

"I got a bit engrossed," he leans on the desk, giving his hands a break. "I've always had this interest in computers, ever since I was young. Admittedly, I don't know as much about them as I wished I did. This is probably the pinnacle of my ability to impress with it... I actually..." Hyunsoo furrows his brows and adjusts his glasses as he leans forward, plucking out a strange fuzzy from the edge of the computer's fan. He lifts it to the camera with a skeptical gaze before flicking it in the trash. "I actually wanted to become a computer engineer when I was a child but nothing really ever came of that. I'm glad I became an actor, though."

Now was not the time to reminisce about his parents and their dreams for him. Acting just so happened to be the closest compromise. Had Hyunsoo had his way, he would never be in the spotlight to begin with but he believes in the matter of making do with his circumstances.

He wears a small smile as he finishes up, turning the computer on to make sure everything works. The fans whir and the lights fade from color to color ever second.

The remainder of Hyunsoo's video is rather mundane and quiet, shots of him going about the rest of his tasks spliced in with the delicate tune of a piano playing atop it. He makes sure to keep himself in frame, occasionally glancing up to make sure the camera is still filming. By the time the video ends, it is already dark and he shows the window, waking at his reflection in it before turning it towards his face.

"If you made it this far into the video, thank you. I know the subject isn't for everyone so I'm grateful for anyone who finds it interesting. This is just my first episode... so please tune in for the next one. I'll make sure it's a lot more exciting. Bye!"

#lgc:personalchannel #𝙨𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙘𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙙𝙚 ( solo. ) #𝙘𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙯𝙚 ( edit. )

[fyeahmeddy]

so i was thinking about the Mass Effect series and how I don't feel much of anything for a good portion of the human characters, especially the early game ones, but the aliens and a few of the human characters from later games are some of the best characters and most compelling stories I've seen in ANYTHING, and i think a lot of it boils down to a writing problem I think of as 'you're supposed to care'. It's similar to movies where a lot of the character or feelings feel a bit vapid or vague, and I think its because you're supposed to do the work yourself, of conflating their love interest (which is often a shallow dynamic) with your own loves, or the ones you fantasize about; you're intended to project onto them, so they don't do the work of making you care. This is a common thing with characters and concepts where it feels like the appeal is built in, and they tend to feel shallow to me. Conversely, take the aliens of the setting. By default they HAVE to do work to explain who they are, the differences of their cultures, and as a result they come off as far more realized characters, even if nothing they do is super relatable on a superficial level. Whether it is Urdnot Wrex lamenting the ferocity of his people contributing to their collective doom spiral, the robotic hive mind Legion having a mental breakdown when they realize their treacherous kin are SPYING on their people and cannot comprehend why they can no longer understand each other's motivations, or a fair number of other characters that have a LOT going on (Samara the MILF but played for tragedy, as an example). So as a result, they all feel a lot more interesting in a way that default squad mates Kaiden and Ashley (whom discus their backgrounds and relationships if you ask, but almost show up in a more tangible way) feel a bit by the numbers. Heck in my experience, those two mostly are significant by how they annoy me, rather than anything I really remember in their stories. So there might be something to consider here; when doing character stuff, always assume the audience has no reason to particularly care, so you put the work in to make sure they do, which generally will at least get some notice.

I've never played Mass Effect tbh, but the phrase "Samara the MILF" has put it in my radar now.

I get what you mean!! Sometimes we are thrown characters that, only because they are the protagonist, we are demanded to care/relate to them, and it's not rare that many times people end up caring more about secondary characters because those usually have better stories than the protagonists which main goal is achieving something (a dream, a power level, a treasure, love, social recognition...).

And there are times when the story actually shows how shallow the motivations of the main character are and and re-shape them, give them a new goal.... but we end up with the same plot and attitudes.

Meanwhile, the secondary characters have a lot of lore going up with them! We are fed their stories little by little because they are not the protagonist and they don't get the spotlight so much, but that's precisely their forte! By unraveling the character's layers we find they are actually deep and complicated. We understand them in a deep level, we can see many dimensions of themselves, they are just way more interesting! Even when they are not RelatableTM, they are interesting!

And in a setting of humans and/vs aliens, the difference shows up a lot more. Because the human characters are like us, we are supposed to identify with them and care about them from the start. But aliens are a different thing, they are not human, so the writing has to make the effort to explain what they are and what they want. They are given actual characterization.

When you are offered a plain ass chicken breast with normal water vs chicken breast with vegetables, rice, ranch or salsa and bubbly mineral lemonade.... they choice is easy!

Story reading and creation shouldn't be about being relatable, but being interesting.

[sonorous-strings]

Sonar stepped back out onto the stage after the short break during his first appearance in what felt like weeks. Which... to be fair, it was. Usually he did stuff like this weekly, but lately, what with all that had happened? It felt like he hadn't had any time for anything else. Everything just seemed to be taking them this way and that, without any time to rest.

He'd never had a song come together this fast. He was lucky that the rest of his band actually liked the song. He would have made them learn it anyway, because he very much wanted this to be played for Carol. Something about them, how he felt, and just how precious everything seemed to be.

So the cheers came up again. There was Carol, having shoved her way to the front like usual. She was the Battlesphere Champion; she could just have her own spot with a view just as good. Knowing her, though, she probably just wanted to be a part of everything and be her usual selfish self like that. And it was kind of cute, honestly. But their eyes met and he dropped his performance persona for a moment to just smile at her. This was going to be good. He wondered if she would recognize the intent of the song, that it was about them, a sort of message to her that he didn't know how else to say.

And what better way than as a rock star?

"This is something I wrote pretty recently," he said into the microphone. "Don't really have much to say about it, really, that's how new it is. But I think you guys are gonna like it. Let's just say it's something people need to hear. And, come on, it's me, so it's a good song, right? Are you ready?!" The crowd responded with a roar.

"This is 'All We Need'."

The lights came down and the spotlight was on him... and began to clap, hands held over his head to signal the crowd to join in, as if helping the drummer get the beat for the new song. The crowd would know when to stop, though the intent was when his guitar would kick in. They usually got it, though. He grinned to himself as he began to play, being greeted with the clapping dying down- his fans knew him pretty well. Funny how he had more fans after moving to another planet than he did before.

If you could read my mind now What do you think you would see? You'd see my life in your hands now You got a hold over me

I see it in your eyes 'cause they tell no lies I guess it's part of the thrill You're like a shooting star with a vacant heart That's going in for the kill

We got a good thing going So don't let it die

All we need is some love and emotion All we have is a moment in time All we need is a promise unbroken and to believe in the dream Is all we need

This ain't no bedtime story This one you'll never forget You're like a night never ending That I can't wait to regret

I can't control myself, don't want nobody else Is this too good to be true? You gotta dance just like there's no one watchin' So come on, kick off your shoes

We got a good thing going So don't let it die

All we need is some love and emotion All we have is a moment in time All we need is a promise unbroken and to believe in the dream Is all we need

He went back to clapping for a few seconds, getting the audience back into it, then letting his solo flow out. Truth be told, it was quite different from his usual style- more heartfelt, not as shreddy. Not nearly as long. But he couldn't just leave it without one, so he came up with one that worked. It just wasn't as "active" as usual.

There was a few seconds of lull, just the background guitarist letting a few clean notes ring out, so he grabbed the microphone off its stand- "Come on, you know the chorus by now!"- and held it out to the crowd as the drums came back full swing for the last few chorus lines. They'd have help- the backup singers were singing as well, so they could at least flub along to the tune. He wouldn't play for the first chorus line, only returning to the act once the crowd had finished and he'd put the microphone back, motioning for everyone to keep singing.

All we need is some love and emotion All we have is a moment in time All we need is a promise unbroken and to believe in the dream Is all we need

All we need is some love and emotion All we have is a moment in time All we need is a promise unbroken and to believe in the dream -He let his guitar ring out, his arms flung out- Is all we need The music carried over into its outro, repeating the intro as Sonar sang over it while the backup singers harmonized with some "Ah's." Oh, it's all we need

Yeah, it's all we need

It's all we need

Yeah, it's all we need We got a good thing going Oh, it's all we need We got a good thing going Yeah, it's all we need We got a good thing going So don't let it die

There was a glance at Carol, and a wink accompanying that smirk he'd perfected.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0FCcpe4ibI

#drabble #man I really write a lot of drabbles about musical tea don't i #musical tea #song is 'All We Need' by Def Leppard #heard it and wanted to use this

[yourlunarspice]

My General Fics Masterlist

I figured that my original masterlist post would get too long. It actually began crashing when I originally tried to put all my fics in, hence why I'm splitting them up.

All of these are from My Hero Academia because I have a hyperfixation. This list only contains fics rated G for General Audiences.

Teen & Up | Mature | Explicit | Unrated

My favorite fics will be in bold while my beta reader's favorite fics will be italicized.

"You call it 'torturing', I call it 'mercy killing'. Same difference." | 589 words, 1/1 Chapters Main Character(s): Eijiro Kirishima, Hitoshi Shinsou, Katsuki Bakugou

Bakugou is so done with Kirishima. One day, he acts accordingly.

Academia With A Side Of War | 3509 words, 2/? Chapters My Hero Academia & Food Wars crossover Main Character(s): Katsuki Bakugou, Eijiro Kirishima, Soma Yukihira, Takumi Aldini, Background & Cameo Characters

It happened without warning.

Although, when 1-A is included, that's pretty much par for the course at this point.

Soma couldn't even begin to explain it.

A Christmas To Remember (With Friends Like These, Who Needs Bad Memories?) | 7739 words, 9/9 Chapters Main Character(s): Class 1-A (My Hero Academia), Shoto Todoroki, Endeavor, Rikido Sato, Rikido Sato's Father, Izuku Midoriya, Inko Midoriya, Katsuki Bakugou, Eijirou Kirishima, Ochako Uraraka, Ochako Uraraka's Parents, Hitoshi Shinsou, Shouta Aizawa, Momo Yaoyorozu, Denki Kaminari

It was a week before Christmas And all through the dorm Not a creature was stirring Not a single form...

But that was because of the giant bombshell Todoroki had dropped on his classmates.

When Todoroki reveals that he's never celebrated Christmas, his friends take it upon themselves to make his first Christmas special, while reminding themselves how important the holiday is for them too.

A Hard Pill To Swallow | 762 words, 1/1 Chapters Part 31 of Lunar's Whumptober of Suffering (2022) Part 2 of Anger Management Main Character(s): Katsuki Bakugou, Shoto Todoroki

His groan returned as he blearily opened his eyes and saw the kissing witch next to him.

Oh yeah, that's right, because fucking IcyHot brought him to the infirmary.

His middle finger lifted up instinctively as he turned away from the centuries-old woman.

And came face-to-face with fucking Half-'n'-Half.

A Better Hero (Hopefully) | 543 words, 1/1 Chapters Part 29 of Lunar's Whumptober of Suffering (2022) Main Character(s): Hitoshi Shinsou, Shouta Aizawa

What doesn't kill me makes me a better hero.

What doesn't kill me makes me a better hero.

What doesn't kill me makes me a better hero, Hitoshi repeated the mantra to himself.

It had been a rough couple of days.

An IcyHot Date | 1,296 words, 1/1 Chapters Part 18 of Lunar's Whumptober of Suffering (2022) Main Character(s): Kyoka Jiro, Shoto Todoroki

Kyoka pulled on her usual leather jacket and considered her reflection critically.

She wasn't particularly nervous, but she wasn't really excited either.

Maybe she should go without the jacket?

She could hear Mina's voice in her head, saying, "Jiro, that jacket completely clashes with that outfit! Don't you dare wear that on a date, especially with Todoroki!"

The 'Eligible' Bachelor | 528 words, 1/1 Chapters Part 9 of Lunar's Whumptober of Suffering (2022) Main Character(s): Mina Ashido, Shoto Todoroki

Mina looked back over the expanse of other students laid out on futons in the middle of the common room.

When she'd suggested a sleepover party a few weeks ago, this was not what she had in mind.

In The Spotlight | 462 words, 1/1 Chapters Part 3 of Lunar's Whumptober of Suffering (2022) Main Character(s): Neito Monoma, Setsuna Tokage

Neito pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders as he walked towards the prop house. "Ah, it's so good to be back, he said grandly. "There's no place like home!"

The scene shifted in an instant, thanks to multiple Quirks working in tandem. Neito found himself walking into a somewhat sparse house. He quickly spied Tokage working in the kitchen and walked towards her. "Katniss, my love!"

The Trouble With Plushies | 317 words, 1/1 Chapters Main Character(s): Shoto Todoroki, Katsuki Bakugou

Bakugou gets angry. Shoto gets sassy.

"We need to talk" | 1,295 words, 1/1 Chapters Main Character(s): Katsuki Bakugou, Eijiro Kirishima, Mina Ashido

Something's wrong with Shitty Hair.

It's not bothering me.

It's not.

So why can't I sleep?

Memories | 1,095 words, 1/1 Chapters Main Character(s): Denki Kaminari, Hitoshi Shinsou

So what if he couldn't remember small details here and there?

Everyone got gaps in their memory, right?

This was normal... right?

Late-Night Hypotheticals | 304 words, 1/1 Chapters Part 14 of Shinkami Month 2022 Main Character(s): Denki Kaminari, Hitoshi Shinsou

"'Toshi."

...

"'Toooshi."

...

"'Toshi."

"What?"

"Are you awake?"

...

"Who do you think said 'what'?"

Opportunities | 342 words, 1/1 Chapters Part 11 of Shinkami Month 2022 Main Character(s): Denki Kaminari, Hitoshi Shinsou

As the pair walked out of the restaurant, Denki felt happiness bubble up inside his chest.

They were just finishing up their second date, and he could tell that Shinsou was beginning to open up to him.

Aizawa Discovers His Student's Love Life | 1,332 words, 1/1 Chapters Part 9 of Shinkami Month 2022 Main Character(s): Shouta Aizawa, Hitoshi Shinsou, Denki Kaminari

Shouta Aizawa loves cats.

Because he loves cats, people would normally assume that Shouta Aizawa would rather enjoy being a cat.

He naps a lot and he's grumpy, but he's also very loving and sweet (in his own way) with people he's deemed 'good' and 'deserving' of his attention.

However, in actuality, Shouta hated being turned into a cat.

As You Wish | 1,234 words, 1/1 Chapters Part 5 of Shinkami Month 2022 Main Character(s): Denki Kaminari, Hitoshi Shinsou

Popcorn ready to be popped? Check.

Floor vacuumed? Check?

Showered? Check.

Candle?

Denki hesitated, thinking about the implications of a candle during a date. He might think I'm trying to set the mood or something.

Better not, then.

Addict | 264 words, 1/1 Chapters Part 3 of Shinkami Month 2022 Main Character(s): Denki Kaminari, Hitoshi Shinsou

"I'll take, uhhhh, a double mocha chip frappuccino with extra whipped cream, please!"

Denki loved his coffee sweet. It was the only way to drink it.

Birthday Shenanigans | 1,319 words, 1/1 Chapters Part 1 of Shinkami Month 2022 Main Character(s): Hitoshi Shinsou, Shouta Aizawa, Denki Kaminari, Bakusquad

Hitoshi twirled the pencil in his fingers as he thought furiously.

It had to be perfect. It just had to be.

Kaminari's birthday was coming up, and Hitoshi wanted to treat him to lunch.

It wasn't a date. It was not a date.

He Had A Quirk The Whole Time | 956 words, 1/1 Chapters Main Character(s): Izuku Midoriya, Katsuki Bakugou, Other Characters Mentioned

For the longest time, Izuku thought he didn't have a Quirk.

He tried to use telekinesis and to breathe fire, but nothing worked.

Izuku was distraught. All he wanted to be when he grew up was a hero like All Might.

All Might was the coolest in the universe, and all Izuku wanted was to get a Quirk so he could become a hero just like All Might.

It wasn't until his early middle school days when Izuku discovered that he had a Quirk.

"Get in" | 674 words, 1/1 Chapters Part 22 of The Merry Whump of May Main Character(s): Shouta Aizawa, Hizashi Yamada, Emi Fukukado

The kitten stumbled into the room, giving a small, pitiful mew.

"You can cry, it's okay" | 359 words, 1/1 Chapters Part 9 of The Merry Whump of May Main Character(s): Nemuri Kayama

Nemuri had been working late one evening when she received the phone call to her work number.

"Hello? I can't find my little sister."

"Don't mind me" | 420 words, 1/1 Chapters Part 3 of The Merry Whump of May Part 1 of Stalker Monoma Main Character(s): Hitoshi Shinsou, Neito Monoma

It was dark.

That was the first thing that registered in Hitoshi's brain when he clawed his way into consciousness, sleep-heavy limbs still numb.

Quiet Day | 748 words, 1/1 Chapters Main Character(s): Hizashi Yamada

What happens when the Voice Hero - the guy who seems incapable of shutting up - shuts up?

#my writing #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #bnha #rated g #fic rec #masterlist #ao3 fanfic #ao3fic #read on ao3 #ao3 link #ao3