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hopeymchope · 3 years

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Judging the Danganronpa x Sanrio character pairings

You may have already heard that a DANGANRONPA X SANRIO line of crossover merch was announced a few days ago! Which is obviously AMAZING, because they’re combining cutesy characters that have often been marketed to wee children with everybody’s favorite murderdeathkill game! I LOVE IT.

I have a niece who went through a Sanrio/Hello Kitty phase, so I actually know a few of these characters. In turn, this means that I have THOUGHTS on how the DR1 and Sanrio cast were paired up.

Granted, I still had to look up a lot of these guys and read about them. But now I feel adequately educated to the point where I can judge just how well the Danganronpa and Sanrio pairings actually match up.

Makoto Naegi/Cinnamoroll - Obviously this totally works because Makoto IS something of a cinnamon roll, eh? EH? But Cinnamoroll is said to be shy albeit still very friendly. He also likes to seek out fun new adventures. So, aside from “very friendly,” I’m not sure that this sounds like Makoto. I also doubt that calling a character a “cinnamon roll” is common slang in Japan. So this is whatever.

Sayaka Maizono/Wish Me Mell - Mell has the power to connect people’s hearts by simply stating the feelings they keep inside. She was initially withdrawn and believed she didn’t have any friends, but the people who cared for her finally broke through her shell and convinced her that she DOES have friends. So uh, Maizono... I guess music can also bring out people’s feelings? And perhaps you could plausibly HC that Sayaka has often felt like her surrounding friends were “fake” and only there because of her celebrity status. There’s not really much to go on here.

Leon Kuwata/Tiran - Tiran is an orange T-rex that is said to be scatterbrained but still a strong and reliable leader. Meanwhile, Leon has orange hair, and he’s certainly strong and kind of scatterbrained sometimes. It sorta works.

Kyoko Kirigiri/Marroncream - Marroncream is bright, positive, and fashionable. She is talented at making crafts and sweets. She lives in Paris. She has nearly nothing in common with Kyoko, although Kyoko did live abroad a lot in her younger years. So I could try to latch onto the Paris thing.

Hifumi Yamada/Pokopon - Pokopon is a raccoon that loves to read but dislikes ghosts and “the thunder god.” (uh... what?) He also finishes his sentences with the unusual suffix “-das.” Of course, Hifumi loves to write (which certainly is connected to reading), and he likes to end all names with a weird suffix (”-dono”), so I can see how they might make a cute pair.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru/Pekkle - Pekkle is a duck who is good-natured and kind. He loves to sing and dance. It kind of sounds like he should’ve been matched with Sayaka, but instead he’s here with Taka. While Ishimaru is definitely a good person, I don’t think most people would immediately describe him as “kind.” And he certainly isn’t known for his love of music.

Yasuhiro Hagakure/Monkichi - Monkichi is a laid-back, easygoing guy who is upbeat and loves puns. His dream is to become a poet. It’s said that once he sets his mind on something, there is no stopping him! And in comparison, Hagakure is... well, he’s kind of laid-back in the sense that he’s kind of lazy? But he’s actually pretty high-stress a lot of the time, too. Honestly, there’s not much linking the two.

Chihiro Fujisaki/Kurousa and Shirousa - Shirousa is the white one and is the older sibling to Kurousa, the brown one. Shirousa is described as an energetic leader and Kurousa is described as being nice but lazy. They like to make cakes. What does any of this have to do with Chihiro? Beats me. This particular pairing is nonsense.

Byakuya Togami/Badtz-Maru - Badtz-Maru is said to have a bad attitude and dreams of being “the boss of everything” when he grows up. He tends to act a bit selfish, and he mocks things he dislikes/disagrees with. He enjoys expensive food and collecting photos of movie villains. With the exception of that last point, I’d have to say that this sounds like a near-perfect match for Togami.

Mondo Owada/Goropikadon - The Goropikadon are a group of cave boys whose actual names are Goro (blue hair), Pika (pink hair), and Don (teal hair). Goro is always hungry and joking around. PIka is a thoughtful, shy mama’s boy. Don is serious and places a high value on honesty. Overall, I suppose that how quick Mondo is to get angry and resort to violence kind of makes him seem like a stereotypical caveman? But in terms of their distinct personalities, only Don’s focus on honesty rings true for Mondo.

Toko Fukawa/Lloromannic - Another multi-character one. The Llormannic are a pair of creatures named Berry (the black one, who is male) and Cherry (the pink one, who is female). They are mischievous and love to play pranks on humans. Cherry was originally alone and created Berry for companionship; however, she mixed up her magic spell ingredients and used salt when she meant to use sugar, which resulted in Berry turning out to be a more hostile being than Cherry. I suppose the fact that Berry is a darker creation of Cherry’s sort of reflects the relationship between Toko and her other self, Genocide(r) Syo/Jack. However, Berry and Cherry are still best friends. Toko and Syo/Jack are definitely not that.

Celestia Ludenberg/Kuromi - Kuromi is the rival of a bunny named “My Melody” who doesn’t appear in this promotion. Kuromi is said to look “tough and punk” in her jester’s hat with the pink skull on it, but in reality she is very girly. She enjoys writing in her diary, reading romance books, cooking, and checking out good-looking guys. I suppose Celestia did have that dream of living in a mansion where she was served by handsome guys dressed as vampires? So... they both like hot guys? But that’s all I’ve got here. Pretty sure this pairing only exists for aesthetic reasons. And admittedly, their aesthetics mesh very well.

Aoi Asahina/Keroppi - Keroppi lives with his family on the edge of Donut Pond. He is bubbly, a fantastic swimmer and, because of the name of his home pond, is often associated with donuts and/or things that are donut-shaped. Ok, so this was an obvious pairing, then. They nailed it. Probably the single best pairing they came up with.

Sakura Ogami/My Sweet Piano - Yes, the character’s name is literally “My Sweet Piano.” She’s described as soft, kind, and girly. Given Sakura’s secret love of girly things, I can see how this soft, pink, girly sheep would be something she’d love to be around.

Junko Enoshima (...?)/Hello Kitty - Hello Kitty (a.k.a. Kitty White) is described by Sanrio as “cute, bright, sweet, kind-hearted and tomboyish.” They also say that Kitty is very close with her sister, Mimmy. As for Junko... look, the only reason I think maybe this is supposed to be Junko is because Mukuro already has her own Sanrio matchup (see the next entry), but in terms of her appearance, this “Junko” sure looks like it’s “Junkuro.” The telltale sign is that giant bow on the left side of the head, which only Mukuro-as-Junko has ever worn. I doubt we’re supposed to be thinking that they did two Mukuros in two different outfits, though?

It’s like this: If it’s Junko, well, I guess both Junko and Kitty are icons within their respective brands. And Junko tries to put on a “cute and bright” exterior persona, I guess? But that’s pretty thin. On the other hand, if this is Mukuro in disguise, this is actually a semi-decent matchup! Mukuro is arguably tomboyish and certainly very close to her sister (at least from her own perspective), so these two are not without their parallels.

In either case, both Kitty and the Unknown Despair Sister have a big bow on the left side of their head. Which I think is the real reason they’ve been paired, honestly.

Mukuro Ikusaba/Little Twin Stars - Kiki and Lala are a pair of twins that were born on December 24th. Mukuro is one half of a pair of twins ALSO born on December 24th. Instant connection! Kiki (the blue-haired boy) loves fishing and inventing things. He is curious and cheeky. Lala (the pink-haired girl) loves drawing, writing poems, and cooking. She is rather timid. In short, the “twins with the same birthdate” thing is the only thing connecting Mukuro to these two. Still, it’s not bad.

Also, the most amazing thing to come out of this team-up so far HAS TO BE MonoKitty. Hello Kitty cosplaying as our favorite psychotic MurderBear? How great is that? SELL ME MERCH OF MONOKITTY.

#sanrio #danganronpa x sanrio #sanrio characters #danganronpa merch #hello kitty #danganronpa crossovers #danganronpa official art

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debbiechanclub · 3 years

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Know You Better Now (*new* BTOOT sequel), Part 1

The title is the same, but I assure you the content is all shiny and new! The revamped BTOOT sequel is here!

Thank you to everyone for your patience on this. I just lost interest/direction for the original sequel after Ethan all but disappeared off Dynamite, but I'm honestly kind of glad I did because I like this new version so. Much. More. And we have Kenny's facial hair to thank for it.

So enough talking - enjoy! And please let me know what you think!

Know You Better Now

Synopsis: Nearly nine months have passed since Alex's freak shoulder injury, and she's still not cleared for action. But while Kenny has been a source of strength for her throughout her recovery, all her other relationships are in shambles - and she's finding it harder and harder to reconcile the Kenny she knows behind closed doors with his persona as the "Belt Collector."

Part: 1/?

Pairing: Kenny Omega x OFC x TBD 👀

Word count: 4.6k

Warnings: Language, ANGST

Find more of my fics here.

Tag squad: @galacticstat @hotyeehawman @hdbngsprnva @heelchampbucks @kingswitchblade @bec0m @betsy-bradock @linziland13 @librathepheonix13 @gabbynorth98 @exe-babymox-exe @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch @brokenglassslippers @rocca09 @meteora-fc @kawaiikels @adriii-omega @thatgirlforever5 @sugar-melts-mo-fo

May 30, 2021 AEW Double or Nothing

Surgery with six to twelve months’ recovery time. That was the prognosis Alex had received when she’d dislocated her shoulder in September. Now, nearly nine months later, everything had changed.

“Well, there’s good news and there’s not-as-good news,” Doc Sampson started. He’d just completed yet another check-up exam on her shoulder, and Alex could tell he was trying to keep up morale. But she already knew what he was going say. “The good news is you’ve gotten the full range of mobility back. The bad news is the strength isn’t quite there yet.”

She scoffed lightly to herself. It was exactly as she suspected. “So it’s no news, in other words,” she quipped.

“At least it’s not bad news?” Kenny hopefully offered.

Doc smiled sympathetically. “Just keep at it. Resistance bands, weights; you know the drill.”

Alex’s eyebrows arched. “Yeah, I do,” she returned. It seemed like weight training and physical therapy was all she did anymore.

“Just a few more weeks,” Doc said; but in medical-speak, time was relative. Alex knew all too well that weeks could easily mean months. “Good luck tonight, Kenny,” he added, and he went out the door.

Alex’s head fell back and she groaned in frustration. Kenny wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into him. “It won’t be much longer,” he assured with a kiss on the side of her head.

“It’s been almost nine months,” she muttered.

“I know. But you don’t want to rush your recovery, especially for something like a shoulder injury.”

She frowned. “At this rate Anna will be back from her shoulder injury before I am.”

“What?” Kenny laughed and hugged her tighter. “No, she won’t. I give it maybe another month and you’ll be back better than you were before. Which reminds me, you should probably have some new gear made. I bet your old stuff is too big on you now.”

The sound of her laugh was muffled by his shoulder. “Because you’ve been kicking my ass every week for the last six months,” she said. If there was a silver lining to her injury, it was that she’d gotten into the best shape of her life what with all the training she’d been doing—and it was all thanks to Kenny. Truth be told, Alex didn’t know what she would have done without him over the last nine months. He’d moved her into his house so she wouldn’t have to struggle through the weeks after surgery alone; he’d set her up with his doctors; he’d driven her to physical therapy appointments and trained with her every single week. He’d been there for her in ways she couldn’t even express, and she’d fallen even more in love with him for it.

It made it that much more difficult for her to admit that the Kenny she knew in private was a far cry from the one who called himself the “Belt Collector.”

“I wouldn’t push you if I didn’t think you could handle it,” he returned with a peck on her lips. “I don’t think anyone’s gonna recognize you out there tonight.”

Alex momentarily tensed in his arms, but she didn’t relax quick enough. Kenny felt it—and he knew exactly what it was about.

“You’re not having second thoughts about it, are you?”

She looked up at him. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t,” she admitted.

Kenny’s face fell. “Alex… we’ve talked about this.”

“I know,” she breathed. She stepped back from him, suddenly anxious. They had talked about it, at length. It was a big statement for her to accompany him for his match tonight, because she hadn’t been seen since her injury. In fact, she’d all but gone off-grid. She hadn’t been on television; she’d barely posted on social media; she hadn’t responded to any questions for comment about her recovery or her thoughts on Kenny’s pursuits. She’d just wanted to fly under the radar until she was back in that ring for good.

But then, two-and-a-half weeks ago, the match between PAC and Orange Cassidy for a shot at Kenny’s AEW World Championship had gone to a no contest. As a result, it was decided that Kenny would defend the title in a triple threat match against them both at Double or Nothing—tonight. And as soon as the match was booked, Alex knew—she knew—that Kenny would find a way to pull her into it.

But she didn’t know if she could—or should—go out there with him. Not with the way things currently were between her and the people she’d thought were her best friends.

Kenny reached out and took her hands in his, and she looked back up at him from the floor. His blue eyes were concerned. But she could tell he was frustrated.

“I want you out there with me, baby. And yeah… I’d be lying if I said Orange wasn’t part of the reason why.”

She frowned. “Kenny—”

“Just hear me out,” he gently cut her off, and she pursed her lips. But she let him continue. “Best Friends are actually supposed to be your best friends, right? But when was the last time any of them checked in on you? I know Chuck did for a while, but Trent? He’s been a complete asshole to you.”

Alex fidgeted, her chest tightening. His words were like salt in a wound—but he wasn’t wrong. At first, Chuck had checked in on her fairly regularly… but his texts and FaceTime calls had tapered off after the first couple months. At the time, she’d just chalked it up to circumstance. She was out of sight and out of mind, and he and Orange had been put through more than their fair share of bullshit by Miro, Kip, and Penelope after Trent had torn his pec muscle in December. She couldn’t really blame him for going quiet.

But then, two months ago, Trent had returned with Kris in tow—and Alex hadn’t been able to chalk it up to circumstance any longer. And when Kris seemingly became an official member of Best Friends, she couldn’t ignore the twinge of jealousy in her gut, either. She felt forgotten. Replaced in person just as much as she had been on the Best Friends t-shirt. And the thing of it was, none of them seemed to even miss her.

Least of all Trent.

Kenny squeezed her hands, redrawing her attention. “Look… I’m not trying to turn you against them. But I can see how hurt you are by how they’ve acted over the last couple months, and it kills me. And yeah, it pisses me off, too. So… why not come out there with me tonight, looking absolutely fucking fantastic, and show Best Friends just how good you’re doing without them?”

Alex’s brow furrowed. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, there was a petty part of her that wanted to do exactly that. But the softer side of her just wanted her friends back.

“I get what you’re saying, I just... I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

“I know you do,” he sympathetically returned. “But I’m not asking you to go out there and try to keep Orange from winning. I just want you in my corner. And maybe I want to show you off a little bit, too.”

He grinned and pulled her closer, and Alex couldn’t help the coy smile that pulled at her lips. Through all their ups and downs, Kenny had never failed to make her feel special; wanted. She didn’t take that for granted—especially not now.

“I did bring a really cute outfit to wear,” she said, sliding her hands up his arms. “It would be a shame if it went to waste.”

His smile widened. “Well then you gotta wear it.”

Alex bit her lip in thought. But she didn’t think for long. She put her hands on either side of his face and gave him a tender kiss. “You know I love you, right?”

Kenny gripped her waist. “Of course, I do. I love you, too,” he returned, and he kissed her again. “Come on, you should go get ready,” he said with a pat on her backside. And as they left the exam room, Alex knew that accompanying Kenny for his match was the right decision.

It was the potential consequences that worried her.

* * * * * * * * * *

“Holy shit, I almost didn’t recognize you!”

That was what Stella had proclaimed when Alex walked into hair and makeup. It was followed by a chorus of more of the same, a parade of hugs from everyone in the room—and dozens of questions.

“How are you? You look incredible!”

“Is your shoulder cleared?”

“So, are you officially living with Kenny now?”

“I’ve been dying to know how you feel about everything going on with him.”

And Alex had done her best to field each one of them.

“I’m doing pretty well, and thanks. It seems like I’ve been filling all my free time with working out.”

“No… not yet. But hopefully in the next few weeks.”

“I mean, not officially. I still have my house in Virginia—my cousin’s been renting it out. But I don’t know. It feels like I’ve officially moved in.”

“It is what it is. He’s just being Kenny Omega.”

Thankfully, no one pressed her on that last one.

Instead, Stella was all too happy to dish on all the latest and juiciest backstage news and gossip. Anna Jay and Jungle Boy were an item. Cody had estranged himself from nearly everyone. Callie had left AEW and pro wrestling altogether—and moved in with Cash. Alex had already known about that one, but it was still strange to hear. Looking back, it was hard to believe her friendship with Callie and relationship with Cash had ever even happened at all. It felt like another life; another time.

“You’re all done, my dear,” Stella said. She handed her a mirror—and Alex was taken aback by her own reflection. Long, sleek dark brown hair; glowing fair skin; pouty nude lips; a sexy reverse cat eye that made her hazel eyes pop. She sat up a little straighter. For perhaps the first time in months, she felt herself again.

She thanked Stella and hopped out of the chair, a pep in her step as she went out the door—

“Alex?!”

She halted in her tracks. Even though she hadn’t heard it in forever, she’d recognize that voice anywhere—Kris. She held her breath and turned around; but relaxed in relief. It was just her and Orange. At least she wouldn’t have to face them all at once.

“Holy shit!” She hurried over and wrapped her in a tight hug before she could even blink. Alex was stiff and awkward as she returned it. She hadn’t expected that reaction.

“Why didn’t you tell us you’d be here tonight?” Kris asked as she stepped back from her. Alex hesitated to answer.

“Um, I thought about it. But given why I’m here…”

She trailed off and looked awkwardly at Jim. He shrugged. “It’s business,” he returned. “So I guess this means you’ll be in Kenny’s corner tonight?”

Alex crossed an arm over herself and nervously fidgeted with the skin on her elbow. She nodded. Jim’s expression remained as indecipherable as ever.

“And you look hot as fuck,” Kris perceptively interjected. “Seriously, I think I might be questioning my sexuality.”

Alex breathed a laugh—

“You should come say hi to Chuck and Trent! Trent’s gonna shit himself.”

Just like that, her smile vanished. Her lips parted in silent question, uncertain if Kris was being serious. But she looked too genuinely excited not to be.

“I… I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Alex said. “I mean, considering the last time I talked to Trent…”

She trailed off and looked down at her shoes. There had been things said by both her and Trent in the heat of the moment that had made an already uncomfortable situation worse. They hadn’t spoken in more than five months, since right before he’d gotten injured. She didn’t think now was the time to start.

“Trent has his head up his ass,” Jim said, and Alex flicked her eyes back up at him, surprised. “You know how he is with this stuff. You’ll probably have to be the bigger person.”

Alex sighed. He was probably right. But again—tonight wasn’t the night. “Now’s just not the time,” she remorsefully returned. “But I’ll see you out there. Good luck—really.”

And before either of them could say anything else, she turned and continued down the hall, digging her nails into the palms of her hands.

* * * * * * * * * *

“Maybe you shouldn’t come out there… you’re gonna distract me walking around like this.”

Alex looked at Kenny through the mirror as he sidled up behind her. He reached up and brushed her hair back from her neck, and she tilted her head so he could press his lips against her skin.

“It's too late,” she returned. “I’ve already gone through all the trouble of getting ready.”

Kenny hummed. “Well, I can take it all off for you, if you want.”

He nipped her neck, and she smirked and squirmed. Her mood had completely turned around from earlier in the night; it was amazing what a little hair and makeup and the right outfit could do. The white bustier-style crop top she wore wasn’t her usual style, but it showed off the hard work she’d put in at the gym—and it didn’t hurt that it made her boobs look amazing. And even though she’d made the outfit more “her” with a pair of distressed boyfriend jeans and her white low-top Chucks, Kenny was right—they probably wouldn’t recognize her out there.

But truth be told, she’d never felt more confident.

“You can later,” she smirked, and she felt a low growl rumble in his bare chest.

“Get a room!”

Alex rolled her eyes. Matt’s voice was an unwelcome interruption from across the locker room. She’d almost forgotten that he and Nick were there.

Kenny shot a glare over his shoulder. “Why are you looking?”

Matt opened his mouth, but two quick knocks on the door cut him off before he could make a smart-ass retort, and then Don Callis walked in.

“We’re up, Ken.”

Kenny smirked at Alex. “Let’s go give the people what they really want.”

He picked up his AEW World Championship, and she helped him secure it around his waist, followed by the Impact World Championship, which he strapped across his chest. Then, he picked up the AAA Mega Championship and old TNA World Heavyweight Championship and held them in each of his hands. And Alex had to admit—it was an impressive sight, Kenny draped in championship gold. She’d be lying if she said it didn’t turn her on.

“How do I look?” he asked her.

She bit her lip. “Good. Really good.”

He grinned, cocky.

They started for the door; but before Alex could follow Don and Kenny out, Matt stopped her. “Alex.” He pushed himself up from his chair and cast Nick a glance. He stood too. She rolled her eyes. They weren’t subtle at all.

Matt gave her a discerning look. “You are one-hundred percent in Kenny’s corner… right?”

Her brow lowered dangerously. Was he really questioning her loyalty now? “Are you serious?”

He shrugged a shoulder. “Well… I know Orange is one of your best friends—”

“Or he was,” Nick interjected.

“—and I just want to make sure that there aren’t any conflicts of interest.”

He smirked, obnoxiously smacking his gum between his teeth. Alex bit down on her jaw. She’d thought that maybe—maybe—Callie’s departure and her relationship with Kenny would have led her and Matt to at least be friendly with each other. But she’d thought wrong.

She gave him a tight smile. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, Matt. The only conflict going on here is the one between what you think that outfit looks like and what it actually looks like.”

He abruptly stopped chewing his gum. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

But Alex was already out the door. She caught up with Kenny and fell in step beside him. “Forget something?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. Just got held up.”

They arrived at Gorilla, and Don went on and on talking Kenny up, boosting his confidence, assuring that neither Orange nor PAC stood a chance; but Alex tuned him out, nervously looking around. Waiting. And then she saw them: Orange, Chuck, Kris, and Trent.

Her heart jumped into her throat when her eyes met Chuck’s. He flashed her a smile; but it wasn’t as wide or as bright as she was used to.

“Hey. It’s good to see you,” he said, and he gave her arm a squeeze as he passed. She said nothing in response—just a tight grin of acknowledgement. Entirely impersonal compared to how they used to greet each other.

It’s the circumstances, she tried to tell herself.

Orange and Kris greeted her in much the same way, with awkward half-smiles as they walked by; Kris seemed apologetic, for some reason. And then, Trent reached her. His expression was cold, his eyes hard, and then he muttered underneath his breath, just loud enough for her to hear, “Thanks for telling us you’d be here.”

He kept walking, not waiting for her to even process what he’d said, and Alex’s heart sunk petrified into the pit of her stomach.

This was how things were now. She felt stupid for hoping for different.

* * * * * * * * * *

Alex had known it would be difficult to be ringside for this match. But, sixteen minutes into it, she hadn’t realized it would be this difficult.

PAC laid on his back, staring up at the lights courtesy of a bridging deadlift suplex into a pin attempt from Kenny. So, with him taken care of for the moment, Kenny turned his attention to Orange. He pulled his right kneepad down, and Alex had to stop herself from watching through her fingers as he kneed Orange hard in the face, once, and then again. She could feel the eyes of the fans at ringside watching her with keen interest, trying to gauge her reactions. They’d been shocked to see her come out with Kenny, and now her presence provided them with an extra layer of entertainment. At least Chuck, Trent, and Kris weren’t at ringside, too; they’d walked Orange out and promptly disappeared backstage. Alex didn’t know what she would have done if they’d stayed.

Kenny backed toward the ropes, aiming to deliver a third and final V-Trigger. But before he could, Orange held up his hands as if to tell him “stop.” And then he plunged them into his pant pockets and fell facedown onto the mat.

Kenny laughed, but he couldn’t care less. He walked over and started to pick Orange up; but then a revived PAC grabbed him and hit him with a hard forearm. They traded blows and kicks in the middle of the ring until Orange suddenly intervened and hit Kenny with a Michinoku Driver. However, Kenny rolled away and PAC hit Orange with a brainbuster. He covered him, but Orange thankfully kicked out at two.

Alex put her hand on Kenny’s shoulder as he laid underneath the ropes, halfway out of the ring. “Are you alright?”

But he didn’t answer her question. Instead, he said, “Go get one of my belts.”

She looked back at him in confusion. “What?”

“Go get one of my belts in case.”

Alex blinked and shook her head. She could not believe what he was asking her to do. “What? No, Kenny, I’m not doing that. You don’t need—”

But he rolled away, back underneath the ropes into the ring. PAC and Orange were in a precarious position on the top turnbuckle closest to them. It looked like PAC was trying to execute a superplex—but Kenny jumped up and shoved PAC off-balance, causing Orange to tumble from his grip and bounce off the ring apron to the floor. Alex started to check on him—but then she remembered she wasn’t out there for him and stopped short. She ran her hands over her hair, helpless. Inwardly hoping that he was alright.

Meanwhile, PAC had reversed Kenny’s attempt at a One-Winged Angel from the top turnbuckle and sent him sailing across the ring via a sunset flip powerbomb. They stood atop the opposite turnbuckle now, and Alex’s eyes widened in horror when PAC delivered an avalanche Falcon Arrow. But then, Orange suddenly scrambled back into the ring, tossed PAC out, and hooked Kenny’s leg. Every single person packed into Daily’s Place jumped from their seats as Bryce Remsburg slid to the mat and started to count. Kenny barely kicked out before three. Alex leaned her elbows on the ring apron, her head in her hands. That had been way too close.

All around her the fans started chanting, “That was three!” booming in her ears, and she bit down on her jaw. Kenny rolled out of the ring and stumbled over to her. For some reason, she already knew what for.

“Alex, go get one of my belts,” he said again. It was an order, not a question. But she stood her ground.

“No! I’m not helping you win like that!”

He let out a frustrated huff. “Baby, now’s not the time to argue about this. Just go get—”

She cut him off with a gasp as PAC came flying over the top rope headed straight for them. Kenny shoved her out of the way at the last second, taking all the impact himself and getting knocked to the floor. PAC, meanwhile, sprung back up and to the top turnbuckle. He slowly stood—and when Alex saw him jump into the air and perform the Black Arrow, she knew she had just seconds to act. She jumped over Kenny and rounded the turnbuckle as PAC hooked Orange’s leg. And just before Bryce could count three, she grabbed Orange’s boot and put it on the bottom rope.

Bryce stopped the count and pointed at Orange’s foot, none the wiser to what had happened. The fans, on the other hand, showered Alex with thunderous boos. Realizing what she’d done, PAC turned and shot her a glower that seemed almost inhuman. But she just pursed her lips and raised her chin in defiance.

Kenny pulled himself up by the ropes and ducked back into the ring, grinning like the cat that caught the canary, and the match went on, back and forth between him and PAC—until Orange scored another near-fall after he hit Kenny with a frantic Beach Break. PAC then tried for a Liger Bomb on Orange, but he fought out of it and landed a hard Orange Punch across his jaw, dropping him to the mat. Then he gave one to Kenny, and the crowd came unglued.

Orange fed off their energy, pumping himself up as PAC staggered to his feet. He hit another Orange Punch and went for the pin. Time seemed to stop as Alex watched, her heart in her throat and her hands on her head. She didn’t want Kenny to lose at all, let alone like this. But just as Bryce started the count, Don appeared out of nowhere and pulled him from the ring by his ankles.

Alex stood frozen to her spot as Bryce and Don yelled at each other, and she fully expected the former to expel the latter from ringside—but he didn’t. He simply got back in the ring, and the match continued. Don walked toward Alex, straightening his suit jacket. “Good work putting Orange’s foot on the ropes,” he said to her.

She didn’t say anything in return. She didn’t want a compliment from the likes of him.

Back in the ring, Kenny had been knocked to the floor once again—and PAC had the Brutalizer locked on Orange. When Kenny finally made it back through the ropes, he kicked PAC in the face once, twice. But he didn’t let go of his hold on Orange. So instead, Kenny made the desperate decision to hit Bryce with a hard double axe handle to the back.

The crowd booed, and Alex hid her face in her hands. “Come on, Ken…” she breathed. Not like this.

Meanwhile, Don took the initiative to do what Kenny had been asking Alex to do all along. He grabbed the Impact Championship from the timekeeper’s area and tossed it to Kenny in the ring. Kenny caught it, and then he turned and clocked PAC over the head. He dropped like dead weight to the mat, and Kenny tossed the belt aside, the fans still booing all the while.

But apparently, one belt wasn’t enough.

Don tossed in the Triple A Mega Championship next, and as PAC staggered to his feet, Kenny hit him again. Then he threw in the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. Alex had to bite her lip to keep from shouting at Kenny to stop. She looked away just before he hit PAC a third time.

Finally, Don handed Kenny the AEW World Championship. He took it and held it high above his head, gloating, reveling in the crowd’s hatred. Somehow, PAC was still moving, trying to stay in the match. But just as he climbed to his feet for a third time, Kenny hit him again and knocked him down for good.

Kenny held the championship up again, parading around the ring. He didn’t notice Orange darting toward him until it was too late. He laid him out with another Orange Punch across the jaw.

Orange crawled toward Kenny, obviously going for the pin; but Bryce was still down from Kenny’s earlier attack. However, it didn’t matter. As soon as he draped himself across Kenny’s chest, Aubrey ran down to the ring. Alex grabbed her own throat as she counted.

One.

Two—

But unexpectedly, Kenny reversed the pin and rolled Orange’s shoulders to the mat in a crucifix. Aubrey counted again.

One.

Two.

Three.

That was it. The bell rung, and Kenny’s music started. Alex let out a breath. He’d won by the skin of his fucking teeth.

She and Don both rushed to Kenny’s side as Justin Roberts officially announced him the winner. He clutched his jaw, and somehow his left hand had been sliced open. “What happened?” she asked, looking over the blood on his fingers with concern. But he wasn’t able to answer her before they were suddenly swarmed by both the Young Bucks and the Good Brothers. Matt and Nick practically pushed her aside as they congratulated Kenny, and Nick and Karl Anderson put an arm each over their shoulders and helped him up the steps to the entrance ramp. And as they all celebrated, reveling in Kenny’s stolen victory, Alex felt a sourness curdle at the back of her throat.

She was in love with Kenny. He’d come to mean the world to her over the last nine months. But she hadn’t signed up for this world.

#aew fanfiction #kenny omega fanfiction #the elite fanfiction #orange cassidy fanfiction #trent beretta fanfiction #chuck taylor fanfiction #kris statlander fanfiction

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otterskin · 3 years

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Dumb Details From the Loki Trailer I noticed but then got too serious about

First - apparently it’s not a trailer, so I guess we’ll get ‘Trailer 1′ later? ‘Exclusive Clip’ hardly seems accurate, but hey, I’m not Disney’s marketing division. I wouldn’t live in a shoebox if I was.

Dumb detail no. 1:

Owen Wilson’s jacket is...weird. Look closely.

And another shot:

Yeah...his jacket has a ‘reversed collar’. It’s a cut-out rather than cloth folding on top. Huh. What a strange design choice. What could it mean?

I’ve no idea, but that I watched the trailer enough times to notice this should concern you.

Detail No. 2

In this scene, we see what we can presume to be President Loki’s ‘Throne’. Notice the candy-canes. This is a Santa Claus throne, presumably from some mall Santa. This whole place might be in a mall, judging by the stuff in it.

But the Loki in this shot is not President Loki. Notice that he’s wearing brown pants, a thin brown tie, and the beige shirt he’s seen wearing in other parts of the trailer after he's apparently joined the TVA. President Loki wears black pants, a green vest and a wide green tie with a golden clip that resembles Loki’s little chevron he always has (more on that later).

So it would seem that Loki might meet President Loki here. President Loki might even be addressing him at the end of the trailer. It’s possible that his minions turn on him because there’s two Lokis and they don’t know which is the ‘imposter’.

Speaking of, there’s a minion with bicycle handlebars grafted to a football helmet here, likely meant to resemble Loki. I dig it. There’s also cans of food scattered among the rubbish here. Makes sense that food production is non-existent since everyone has resorted to wearing license plates and spoons. Love how tattered the whole aesthetic is.

This reminds me of the opening Michael Waldron’s script ‘Worst Guy of All Time’, which featured a similar post-apocalyptic setting after the ‘worst guy’ ruins everything and makes himself king of the ashes. That’s likely what’s happened here, but I hope that Loki isn’t anything like Logan Paul, who was the inspiration for that title character.

Ah, the mysterious female character watching a meteor shower WAY TOO CLOSE UP. But my eyes are drawn to one thing...

What is that oblong object with a shiny handle? Could it be...

A sword? I do love swords. Did you know there’s a bunch of pictures of me in the stock photos for ‘Fencing?’ That’s my cred for loving swords.

I suspect that this female character will be an amalgamation of Amora (shudder) and Sylvie and an alternate Loki of some kind. This sword is currently in her possession, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it or another timeline version of it becomes the Loki Show’s Loki′s weapon.

Loki has lacked a ‘weapon of his own’ in the MCU for quite some time. I mean, yes, he has his little knives, but they are many and disposable and something he chose for himself, rather than the two legendary weapons wielded by Odin and Thor, Gungnir and Mjolnir. In fact, throughout his appearances, Loki has seemed to want such a thing of his own - he briefly had Gungnir, and then the Gungnir-like scepter, and even tried to lift Mjolnir.

One might ask why Odin would’ve overlooked such an obvious show of favouritism. Why give Thor a storied weapon and leave Loki empty-handed? Heck, even Hela had the Necroblade.

In Thor 1, we might’ve assumed that the Casket of Ancient Winters was perhaps intended one day to be given to Loki, as it is shown with Mjolnir in the Vault and thus connected to it and the children who would inherit it. But in the comics, Odin did have another weapon of storied history put away for his second son: Gram the Sword.

It was locked for eons by Odin in a special vault which required five keys to be opened, and it was meant to be for Loki if he be worthy.[2] The five keys were infused by Odin with the powers of "journeys", "endurance", "secrets", "new beginnings", and "brotherhood", respectively.[3]

The sword, like everything else in comics, has a complicated history full of take-backs and twists, but let’s just leave it at ‘it’s a representation of Loki’s worthiness and belonging in the trifecta with Odin and Thor as a King of Asgard’. It gives him ‘equality’.

In the original mythology, it’s wielded by Sigurd to kill the dragon Fafnir, and the only relation it has to Loki is that Loki is partially responsible for Fafnir existing in the first place (my username is nod to this myth by the by. Sorry Ottär.) But hey, maybe that means we’re getting a dragon? The Fafnir would be very cool.

Or it could just be a bit of rebar in this mining quarry.

Then again...it appears somewhere else...

It’s easier to see in motion, but that’s a sword swinging on this person’s back.

So the hooded figure is this lady...shall we call her Amylkie? Does that mean she’s the antagonist of this show? Well...maybe, but I suspect the true antagonist is foreshadowed here -

So, what’s going on here? A young girl (Young Amylkie? Some other TVA prisoner that the guard is watching over? An oracle, A Norn, or a kid who wandered off from the tour group in a basilica somewhere?) She’s giving Mobius M. Mobius a...piece of chocolate. Maybe he saw a Dementor, I dunno. I suspect it’ll be a MacGuffin of some kind later. He looks pretty concerned here, which contrasts with his ‘another day at the office’ blaséness when dealing with Loki. But of course this is the eye-catcher:

So, Norse Mythology. It’s been Christiannized. You can thank Snorri Sturluson for that, but you can google all about him later. Let’s just say that he made many Norse figures into equivalents for Christian ones. Baldur is Jesus, pure and a sacrificial lamb who dies for a greater good. And the devil is...Loki. Something the Marvel comics and the MCU have continued.

Here we have a devil, dressed in green and with a distinct shape on his chest:

Hmmm...wait...I know that weird horny shape...

Ah. I’d say that cinches it. This is meant to be Loki. If you look at the devil’s hair, it also resembles Loki’s, being shoulder-length and black.

So, what’s devil-Loki doing? Laying an egg? Trying out a foot massager? For a second I thought it was a moon, but we see the moon over his left shoulder, amongst the stars. Which means this is - probably the Earth.

...Dammit; I live there.

So Earth is barren and being devoured by flames, likely caused by this Loki sitting atop of it (in a throne, no less). Aw gee, things look pretty bad, don’t they?

But wait - what’s that? Under the Earth (and, possibly, under the earth)?

It’s a plant. A shoot, to be exact.

Back to Ragnarok for a second. Ragnarok isn’t the apocalypse (something we see a lot of in this trailer - all of it seems to be exploring the end of days). Ragnarok is the fire meant to wipe out the old and fertilize the ground for the new. And after the gods have died, what happens? Well, Baldur emerges from Hel, one of the only surviving gods (hmm, seems him dying worked out, didn’t it?). He’s joined by Líf and Lífþrasir, who are the new first man and woman, who’s names mean ‘Life’ and who are pictured, usually, with plants and new life. It is they who are tasked who growing a new Yggdrasil after the destruction of the old. The previous first man and woman are Ask and Embla, meaning Ash Tree and Vine/Elm tree, so there’s a theme there.

So a new sprout, possibly a tree, growing out of the destruction of the old.

This fits with Loki’s role as understood in mythology. He checks the arrogance of the gods, including when they tried to achieve immortality (sorry, Baldur, nothing personal), and that keeps the gods at their best. After Loki is imprisoned, the gods become weak, unhelpful and foolish, and Yggdrasil starts to rot. Eventually Loki escapes and returns along with Surtur (who also resembles this figure) to burn it all to the ground. This is also referenced in Thor:Ragnarok, with Loki releasing Surtur in the Vault, a place of thematic importance to Loki and one that represents the hidden secrets and sins of Asgard). You could say Ragnarok continued into Infinity War, where Loki played an important part in aiding Thanos’ destruction, giving up the stone to protect his brother and essentially dooming the rest of the universe - but also ultimately leading to its salvation, even if, like Myth Loki, he wasn’t around to see it.

So, we see Amylkie literally start a fire in the trailer -

- in fact, this whole trailer is awash in flame -

It’s fire, fire everywhere and she’s setting them!

It’s possible Amylkie’s our big bad, but I think there’s a chance she’s either a red herring, or, much like how Loki ‘worked’ with Thanos in The Avengers, she is the pawn of a greater foe -

- a Loki bent on destruction, for some reason or other. The TVA is obviously aware that this is the case, and it seems like they might be trying to ‘fight fire with fire’ by enlisting one Loki to combat another. The villain could be President Loki, since there's evidence of 2 Lokis in that scene - or maybe that's one of many Lokis, and the Big Bad Loki is being played by Hugh Grant as Old Loki. In any case, it would appear that Loki will be coming face-to-face with the worst versions of himself, and many of them. And, if I’m right about this scene:

...Loki will likely eventually discover that even his ‘good’ timeline ended in the destruction of his people and home, plus his own gruesome and torturous death. Although I think the TVA will keep that from him, and just show him the happy parts in an effort to inspire ‘good behaviour’. Until Loki inevitably discovers the rest of how that timeline played out and realize he’s been lied to. I don’t imagine he’ll take that very well...

Damn, even our ‘hero’ Loki is burning stuff down! Does this mean that Loki is doomed, always meant to be an avatar of death and toasty destruction?

Well...let’s go back to that stained glass.

Hmmm...wait...I know that weird horny shape...

And there’s something else...the bottom of the Earth is being lit up, and not by fire. Light appears to be coming off this little plant.

What colour is this plant again? That’s right, green. Green is the colour of new life and growth and change and...hang on, I’ve heard that before, too...

Hang on hang on HANG ON... let me have a look at the shape again.

That’s...a letter. An L? For Loki? Like in the title sequence?

Wait...no, a different letter. An older letter. After all, Loki is old Norse. How do you spell his name in that again?

ᛚᛟᚲ ᛁ -

And ENHANCE on that third letter!

This, my friends, is a Kenaz/Kaunaz, or what would become 'K' in our alphabet. It is also known as the 'Loki Rune' (and the Ulcer Rune, for some reason. I suspect Odin understands why). It’s used to spell his name, but is also used on his own to represent him. Heck, it's even his Superman 'S' in the comics:

Runes are more than letters - they are symbols for concepts. So what else does it mean?

Primarly, it means ‘torch’.

And also ‘knowledge’ (ken). As well as ‘growth, change, the search for truth, decay, arrogance, elitism, feminine, kinship and creativity.’

...Okay, that’s a lot, but you have to admit it fits.

More specifically, it means ‘Mastery of the Fire’. As in, someone who has learned to tame fire so that it is helpful, not harmful. To bring light and, symbolically, knowledge.

There’s another way Loki’s been associated with fire - in the Wagner Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold, the opera that inspired much the Thor films’ aesthetic and certainly their helmets, Loki is called ‘Loge’, which means ‘Fire’. He’s usually dressed to match, too -

Many trickster figures are associated with fire. They are usually called ‘Fire-bringers’ - See: Raven, Lucifer, Prometheus, etc. They are often complex figures with a foot in different worlds, but who nonetheless help mankind with the gift of ‘fire’ - although they usually pay for it, and tend to be self-destructive.

(Side note. Lucifer means light-bringer, which is what luciferase is named after. Because it glows. Which is helpful in labs. In case someone needed to know that.)

Moving from a destructive fire-starter to a fire-bringer seems like a great character arc for Loki to take, especially given his rehabilitation in pop culture, the comics, and even wider culture. Loki has gone from being seen as an evil, deviant, destructive character to one who’s seen as a patron of the arts and creativity, of stories rather than lies. Heck, some scholars of Norse Mythology even posit that he’s the closet thing to a protagonist Norse Mythology has, so I guess that backfired, Snorri!). Being dressed in green and with the sprout clearly also being stylized after his Kaunaz, there’s foreshadowing that he’ll be capable of growing good things even out of ashes.

So, to sum up: Being ‘Satan’ sounds pretty bad, but with a little letter re-arranging like we see in the title sequence, you can be...

...practically a saint. Maybe even a saviour.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

#loki #trailer #details #meta #theories #theory #explanation #thor #tva #santa #devil #snorri sturluson whinging #christmas #fire #kaunaz #loki trailer

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Scottrospective: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together! or Days of Summer

Hello all you happy scottaholics! Welcome back to those of you who’ve read the rest of this retrospective and welcome to those of you just joining us. This is the Scottrospective, my look at all 6 volumes of Scott Pilgrim, the game and the movie. It’s all the video game refrenes, slice of life story telling and boob punches you can handle!

It’s been three months since I left off with “The Infinite Sadness” , and while I intended to cover this one for Valentine’s Day, my schedule got away from me and with March being full up, this ended taking till April

I”m not too put off by it though as the hiatus between these two reviews is fitting for this one both in story and out. In story there’s a couple month time skip between books, while out.. this book got delayed a few times.

This is notable to me at least because this was the first volume of the series I bought when it came out. As i’ve brought up before I came into the series via the Free Comic Book Day Issue and the second and third volumes, picking one up later. I still have my original copies despite no longer really needing them thanks to having the color editions in general. Always will provided something dosne’t happen to them. So this was my first instalment that I got to read fresh and got to wait for and be hyped about and i’d saved enough money that I was able to pre-order it. So the experince of waiting and waiting for the book only to keep seeing it slide back is vivid in my mind as is the frustration I felt having the one thing I COULD NOT WAIT FOR, keep going further and further back.

So with this long wait and the fact I bought this one when it came out, as I would for the next two which didn’t get delayed thank god, this volume naturally means a lot for me. When I wrote Scott Pilgrim fanfiction, this volume’s status quo is what I based it on. It was the coolest to me and the one I loved to reread the most. It has the most contained story, the most character growth at the time, and the best art due to Bryan’s style having finally hit it’s stride. Not that the art for volumes 1-3 is bad mind you, but it’s very clear his style was changing and shaping into what it is now with each one and while it’d change a bit more, this volume is where the style and quality everyone thinks of when they think of this series and the kind you see on various art done from it comes from.

So as you can tell i’m excited for this one. Before we get started there WERE two shorter comics released between this one both for Free Comic Book day, the first of which, Free Scott Pilgrim, is the reason I got into the series and the second, the Wonderful World of Kim Pine .. was both delightful and sets up Kim moving in with Hollie for this volume. Originally I intended to cover these in this review.. but I realized they wouldn’t of helped the pacing and this review is going to be way longer than my standard as is.

So instead I came up with the compromise. I did review them.. but as bonus reviews on my patreon. For just one buck a month you can read them and help me reach my stretch goals which now include reviews of Lost at Sea, Seconds and SnotGirl, aka Bryan’s OTHER comics. You can find my patreon THROUGH THIS LINK HERE if your intrested in the exclusives or helping me reach my reviews. I also intend to do an exclusive of Monica Beetle, a short comic Bryan did starring Scott’s dad in the 70s at some point so keep your eyes peeled for that, as well as the three strips he did of Style, the comic that gave us the prototypes for Lisa and Kim.

I will talk about their connections and setups for this volume briefly: FSP sets up the next ex as a ninja, with Roxy having a bunch of posters come to live and pummel our boy, while Wonderful World has Hollie tell Kim she can move in with her. It’s not much, hence why i made these exclusives but they are good stories, so check them out. And with that JOIN ME UNDER THE CUT, as we enter Scott’s world once more as he grapples with the past, employment, and saying the L-Word... which might be Lesbians. I don’t know. Find out bellow!

So we open Two Months after Volume 3 with a beach birthday party! Complete with Kim in a swim suit!

But it’s for Julie who lobs a volley ball at Scott’s head when he and Ramona try to make out.

I also dont’ know if “Manfiesting out of all the world’s collectives sorrows” counts as a “birth” necessarily but whatever. I love a good beach story. It’s just a fun setitng for swimming, romance and battling a giant crab with the help of the bird what lives in your backpack.

So after the beach our heroes get dinner and Ramona sweetly calls Scott the nicest guy she’s ever dated. He responds with “That’s sad”. Blunt, but entirely accruate. Julie calls it pathetic and tries to counter Ramona RIGHTFULLY saying “who the hell asked you?” something that really should come after EVERYTHING Julie said with “Back off bitch i’ts my birthday”

So later that night Sex Bomb-Omb has a beach sing along, and I can’t help but notice Neil’s hairy legs.

I mean yes it does make since for a 19 year old to have leg hair, but of all the characters besides Stephen, the ONLY other character we’ve seen it with to give it to, why the character you specifically single out as “Young” it’s just a weird choice I never noticed before.

But anyways Julie has to whine about it because she’s Julie, she can’t stand other people being happy and complains the song...

One of my faviorite moments of the series. Knives puts a nicer spin on it, she’s here too and not over with Neil because, as we’ll find out later they broke up, but she just asks if Knives should be drinking. She shouldn’t but for fucks sake lady she was just trying to talk. I also do like that despite Julie trying to control Ramona’s love life, you know the thing the VILLIANS are doing, Ramona cannot stand her now.. and honestly probably never did.

But Julie, SOMEHOW turns out to be right for once as Kim and Knives have disappeared later that night, and Scott elects to go look for them. Also Ramona says she wants to marry kim while drunk after Julie asks if she does. The throuple is strong with these three... serioulsy that’s my one true pairing for all three now. I mean it ballances out their collective flaws, it’s cute and Ramona is just as into her boyfriends ex as she is her actual boyfriend even when she’s not hamered. Why the fuck not?

Scott instead finds the two making out. I will confess I shipped these two when I was younger.. but I don’t. Not because their gay or anything or because I found another ship for them but because the age gap is still just as wide as it was for Scott. The game did not get this memo and made them a couple which is... ehhhhhhhhh. I mean I wouldn’t mind either being bi, but it just brings up the same problems even if their both hammered. I also question why this scene exists. No really outside of one face punchingly dickish comment from Scott later, this never comes up again and it doesn’t effect Kim’s or Knives character any. Why have this? it’s clearly not fanservice, it’s just a thing that happened. And while Scott Pilgrim as a series does have some of those, as does life and that’s fine.. this is a bit too major, i.e. Kim and Knives, two of the main cast, making out, drunkenly or not, to just.. gloss over you know? I feel Kim would feel majorly guilty for this, as she has the most active moral compass of the main group, and Knives would be massively confused but it’s just.. forgotten because I dunno. In a story that’s otherwise pretty stellar this stands out as an utter waste of potential. I’m not saying have them hook up, gay or not it’s still not better than what Scott did, but have them at least talk about it and have both grow or something from it. Sheesh.

So we cut to.. another day. Maybe the next day I dunno but it’s August. Point is Scott and Wallace are grocery shopping and Wallace notes they can’t get fancy mayo as their barely in budget. I would’ve glossed over this scene... but @panur pointed out back around the Infinite Sadness review that this scene reveals something very intrestng: Scott.. is kind of a fincial burdern to Wallace. Before this while Scott mooched off him it wasn’t all that clear that Wallace was struggling.

But here we notice that outside of some Havarti, it’s just the simplest stuff imaginable: turkey, bread, boxed mac and cheese ramen noodles... it’s nto BAD stuff, I have all of that in my house and it’s good stuff... but it’s not the kind of thing that you need to carefully budget for. Now granted part of this probably is Wallace as he likely spends a LOT on drinks, condoms and two 2 liters of diet soda a day.. but while he really needs to adress his alcohol issues, the rest is fair. He should be allowed to have as much sex and diet coke as he wants it’s his money. Same with the havarti. He earned it if he wants some really delcious cheese with herbs, seriously Havarati is the best, then that’s his bidness. But the rest of the time he’s barely managing to get a basketfull of cheap food.. because he has to provide for Scott. It’s clearly something Scott dosen’t get and something I can relate to not getting. It took me a while to get how hard it is to budget for a full family, let alone two people on one income like Wallace has to. But Wallace is working on a nice job... but still a call center or something. He can’t pay for everything and the finccial stress is about to give as their landlord wants to meet with them. And as we’re about to learn things were even worse than we thought.

Our heroes head home where we get a truly iconic conversation when, over margeritas (again proving my point that while Scott certainly isn’t HELPIGN wallace’s finacials, it’s not all on him)

This will be imporant later.. both the Lesbians part and Scott’s struggle saying it. he tried earlier on the beach but couldn’t get it out and Ramona clearly didn’t want to hear it as she kapt sshhhhing him.. playfully of course but still.

So some time later it’s moving day! Kim is moving into Hollie and Josephs, and Scott, Stephen and Jason are helping. You might be wondeirng who the hell Jason is. He’s Kim’s boyfriend. I do not likes him. Not because he’s kim’s boyfriend, getting upset because a fictional character you fancy is dating is just patently stupid. I’ts like getting upset a celebrity crush is in a relationship: you had no chance anyway why. I wasn’t even bothered as a kid. I don’t really like him.. because he has no real personaliy and no real baring on the plot and I struggle to think why Bryan included him other than for a really annoying plot twist next time, which does not help my liking him knowing what’s coming.

But while our heroes help our heroine move in, and Scott is suprised Hollie is there despite Kim having told him a minute ago she was moving in with her, something I can relate to sadly, we get something vitally plot important; Stephen passes Joseph’s room.. and notices he has a small recording setup in his room. Stephen quickly begs him to record the band’s album and Joseph agrees if only because he finds Stephen hot. Eh i’ve seen better relationships start on less, fair enough. And yes I said relationship more on that in a bit.

So after a brief scene of Scott and Ramona having lunch where Scott fails to know her age and when Ramona says he could just ask.. hea sks and she dosen’t tell, not a bad scene character wise just not very plot important and probably should’ve bene swapped in order with the previous scene, we get to the next day. There’s a heat wave so Wallace orders Scott to go to the mall maybe find a job. He emphasises that.

Instead Scott just sorta bums around thirst but nto having any money.. until an old face shows up.

For those who forgot like Scott has, it’s Lisa Miller from the Volume 2 flashback, the girl who had a crush on Scott and was close friends with him and Kim. After a tackle hug and some panic Scott eventually remembers.... if in a curiously unique and self serving way

At the time this was just hilarous. Now it’s very clear foreshadowing for the big twist in Volume 6. The two catch up while Scott is very clearly attracted to her but very clearly dosen’t want to be, with Lisa wondering where kim is, finding about Ramona, etc, before offering Scott lunch as the two catch up and Scott is very conflicted about how he feels. It’s nice visual stuff as he’s blushing, something more clear in the color version and trying to desperatley sort things out. As for why Lisa’s here she’s moving to the states soon, but is staying with her sister for now.

So after an incdental scene with Wallace we catch up with Knives, who has broken up with Neil. And after some talk about Clash at the Demonhead, Tamra notes Knives apparently put a big x on her shrine of Scott... which baffles Knifves as she sure as hell didn’t do it and is still, sadly, obessed with Scott as ever. Granted Tamra isn’t at all helpful here claiming she did it even when she says she didn’t, is clearly confused and while yes we don’t know who else would care Tams, that just makes it all the more creepy. Stop gaslighting your bestie, she’s already got enoguh issues. She dosen’t need thinking she might have a split personality on top of the stalking, obession over a guy who has no intrest in loving her back, and attempted stabbings. Knives dosesn’t get a ton of focus in this one sadly. She kind of takes a back seat, and while sh’es not GONE from the volumle and someone close to her does impact it, she dosen’t really have any personal progression, negative or positive, like she does in every other volume, a shame since her personal jouney is one of the most intresting of the main cast.

Anyways that night Scott hangs out with Lisa, having not gotten around to telling Ramona she exists yet and plays a game of find the Kim Pine. She goes to Neil’ and Stephen’s place for practice, but finds no one there and Neil being a dick... get used to that it’s going to get about 80 times worse soon enough. Though we do get this classic panel i’ve gotten some use out of

He goes to Kim’s place, but she , Hollie and Satan’s Misterss have all left to Sneaky Dee’s, the local mexican place, for something to eat and Stephen is either high or doing.. something with Joseph.

Yeah i’m not hiding that Stephen turns out to be gay in the final volume or cheating on Bitch and a Half with Joseph. And even if I hate Julie with the power of a frozen sun, I still dont’ think cheating on her is kosher. He could’ve just broken up with her and while part of it was likely confusion, and he could also be bi and not decided which one he wanted to be with, it’s still a dick move.. and later makes him a hypocrite but that’s a rant for next volume.

So our heroes FINALLY find Kim, along with Hollie and Mouthface. And a nice thing I like is that Kim and Lisa are just.. increidbly close, happily catching up and making plans to hang before Lisa leaves, that despite Lisa having feelings for Scott the two ended up as close and She and Scott did and i’ts sweet to see. it’s also just.. rare to see Kim GENUINELY happy. I mean look at her

It’s not like she HASN’T smiled across the series but normally she’s just so miserable, likely because her best friends are a grumbly asshole who forces them to hang out with a raging typhoon of bitchiness, and an insenitive asshat who she never got closure with. This is the first decent human being whose not Ramona or Hollie, and that last one’s not going to last, in a while. It’s genuinely sweet to just see her.. enjoy the moment for once, honestly engaged with someone. Ramona shows up and finally meets Lisa, who apparently was on Degrassi.. I mean she says candaian show no one ever watched, and I watched that plenty but i’d like to think she was on there for a season or two. I liked Degrassi.. I honeslty miss it and think it could use some form of revivial and think porting it to netflix was a smart decision.. what wasn’t so smart was not having the other seasons leading into it on there. Need to watch more of it.

So the next day Ramona stumbles into Scott’s dreams and both are annoyed, with Ramona suggesting he get a job. This finally gets him to try. He asks about Wallace’s work but understandably, he dosen’t really want scott there and asks if he even knows. So Scott sets out to ask his other friends for jobs, while Knives shows up saying she’s “totally not stalking him” but someone is following HER, a mysterious spiky haired dude in a black leather jacket, shades and with a sword on his back. Whu-oh.

He tries Second Cup, with Julie annoyed that Stephen’s recording.. it’s hard to tell if she’s annoyed because she’s a bitch or because Stephen is both gneuinely annoying right now and clearly screwing around behind her back. My take?

But Scott realizes maybe getting a job at his Sister’s place of work who also works with his arch enemy might be stupid and backs out. He next tries Kim’s, but backs out of that too, admitting to kim it’d be stupid and Kim lists off all the reasons (His lack of resume, the fact them working together would be stresful and his ountain of late fees) why that’d be stupid, but in a jovial way. For once i’ts clear that while she’s still taking the piss out of them she isn’t mad at Scott.

In fact she genuinely helps him get a job, taking him to Stephen’s work since hers is dead right now anyway, a vegan place. While Scott naturally compares things to a job system as he’d start as dishwasher while Stephen taught him prep, Scott agrees to genuinely take this seriously and Stephen’s boss decides “eh why not” when he asks her to employ him. Scott is gainfully employed baby! God I miss that. Seriously i’m not pimping my patreon for shits and giggles.

But as he celebrates and Kim wishes she could punch his life in the face, they run into some trouble on the way home: Katana man who slices a motherfucking bus in half and chases them, with Scott reluctnat to fight because he has a sword and Scott does not, which is valid. He does escape though using subspace. He and Kim part awkardly and he returns home to Wallace throwing a party with two intresting charcters, a woman and a man of color, one of the few in the entire work, who are never seen again.

The next night is practice.. or rather recording, and we start to see Neil get edged out, with him unable to come due to exams and clearly not happy about it, and Stephen just kind of ignoring anything he cares about like the dickhead he is. It dosen’t get any better as “recording” ends up just being Scott, Ramona, and Ratfaced Knacker watching bored with Joseph and Stephen work. Eventaully Scott and Ramona decide to get out of there as things are getting tensed between thing one and thing bitch, and leave.. and take Julie with them for some reason.

So the three have dinner with Lisa, Kim, and Jason before The Mummies Curse thankfully leaves. Jason thought they were friends.

We also get this exchange.

I mean.. she is the better option. She his THE option. But before we can get the obvious answer of

Stephen comes in with Knives. He smuggled her in. This leads to problems when Scott returns from the bathroom to find Queen Bitch throwing a bitch fit about him having brought her and screechs at her when she dares to talk to him “How do you even know my name?” Well Ted Cruz, you see when someone is an actually thoughtful and likes other people, they keep track of things about them and don’t constnatly tear them down or assume their partneer is automatically bonking a 17 year old instead of you know, actually forming something of a friendship and not shutting her out sensing she needs this friend group. Some people are not vacous piles of vitriol who care about nothing but themself and seem to go off at the slightest thing.

Scott takes Ramona home but finds a drunken barely awake wallace so no sexy times. Not that he could anyway as the next day is the meeting with Peter their landlord.

Peter reveals they’ll have to clear out by the 27th as their lease was for one year and their paid up.. as in only the first and last month. The two part melacholy knowing this sucks and isn’t a great situation. Then it’s time for Scott to work work, angelica, work work, eliza and peggy. After grueling day, can relate, he runs into a wisp on teh wend and steels himself for a fight.. okay he bitches about it being too hot but it’s Scott. so it’s expected. He does get a hit in on his mysterious persuer.. and that’s when we meet Roxy.

Via boob punch, something Scott’s not proud of but in his defense, as Roxy keeps complaning about it, he was blindly struggling for a hit and din’t know the next Ex, or any of them, were female.. not that Ramona didn’t suggest it loudly enough by empahsising “exes” but scott’s a bit of a fuckwit. She mentions “everyone allways remmebers you”.. which is kind of ominus and tells me she tried to hook back up with ramona despite her having a boyfriend and she rejected her. Still on good terms though. But this confusing encounter ends with Roxy vowing she’ll get him next time gadget, next time.

So we get some assorted slice of life scenes with the band, lisa and what have you as Scott tries to get in touch with Ramona but she keeps avoiding him. THat’s not worrysome at all. And Lisa brings up high school while drunk and clearly hits on Scott. He sidesteps it with her drunkness.. but this clearly isn’t over or going to stop being a problem.

Speaking of problems Wallace makes Scott confront the truth: He either needs to find a new place to live or commit to staying, though Wallace is trying to nudge him toward asking Ramona to move into her place. Scott starts thinking it over, it being very hard especially since, as Stephen points out this was his very first place of his own.. but Stephen also points out these things are temoporary.. right before Scott ducks from katana guy.

At work Scott wonders who it could be, though it turns out Stephen’s met him before, as he’s brought his family in here. So he’s PROBABLY not one of the exes.. but it leaves the question why he wants to cut Scott in half like Dewey Cox’s brother. But it turns out he’s nto the only enemy Scott’s casually running into as Roxy is there too.. with Ramona.

The two talk, clearly about Scott and Lisa with Roxy trying to convince her he’s cheating and Ramona rightfully trusting Scott: while he IS attracted to her, he’s been fighting it every step of the way. Scott storms over to find out what’s going on and while Ramona is more distracted by his new job, she eventually realizes Roxy did attack him and he simply dscribed her poorly when he mentioned the incident over the phone. Scott is confused as he dosen’t get it. Is she with one of the exes what? After some hiinting from both parties, and Roxy rightfully mocking him for not getting the obvious... he finallyg ets it in the grandest way possible.

So Roxy gets ready to fight and Scott can’t because sword, and gets fired in the background as he hides in Ramona’s bag and Ramona prepares to step in. Roxy screams at her for trusting him and defending him when Ramona.. just dosen’t her boyfriend to be bisected by her ex. A fight insues and a damn cool one at that. I honestly wish the movie had taken more from this, but simply didn’t have time leading it to instead be more like the envy fight with a bit of the Winfried Hailey fight from Free Scott Pilgrim.

Roxy chases her and Ramona rightly points out Scott can’t run forever but takes him into Subspace.. where Roxy heads them off, having “taught you everything you know bitch” leading to a cool fight in the wintery version of subspace. Again why THIS wasn’t used instead I have no real idea. We also find out she’s a half ninja but she eventually leaves afer Ramona presses that button.. but Rammy is actually apologetic about it and Roxy’s “I hope you and your 24 children are happy together comment” is telling.

Upon this readthrough of the volume.. I realized Roxy is the most layered and intresting of the exes next to Gideon himself. None of them are out and out terrible, but most of them have pretty simple motives: to kill Scott, ???, profit. Or in Todd’s case to kill scott, bang around and be a dick. But Roxy.. genuinely wants Ramona back. She’s the ONLY one who does: Gideon kinda does, but only in the sense that he wants her for his collection. But Roxy geninely still loves her, admitting so during this fight. And it’s not like she has no chance: out of the 7 exes she’s the ONLY one who parted with Ramona on anything resembling good terms. While intrestingly we don’t find out WHY they broke up, Ramona didn’t cheat on her like she did everyone else she was with. The two have coffee and hang out and Ramona geninely dosen’t even consider until Roxy tries to attack Scott that she’d really try killing him and tries her best to talk her out of it. But what holds Roxy back is her anger: She’s so bitter about the fact Ramona is bi or pan, so dedicated to viewing Ramona’s very orintation as a betryal (though Ramona calling it a phase dosen’t help and the movie RIGHTLY has Roxie comment on it and fly into a rage over it), and so driven to make sure the woman she loves dosen’t get hurt again that it blinds her to the fact Ramona dosen’t love her the same way anymore, and that while Scott is objectively a dick, and a cheater, and a greasy buttcrack pooflap, he is not a terrible person. A meh one sure, but he’s got good to him. She’s so biophobic she simply can’t see he’s a harmless moron.. well harmless to Ramona even with the cheating. He’s killed two people at this point and will kill again. Also she apparently has issues with only being a half ninja but this is never adressed. Point is Roxy’s really grown on me and is now probably my faviorite ex.

Scott and Ramona talk it over on their way to Sneaky Dees and Scott finally asks to move in and gets a yes. His response is downright adorable.

So at Sneaky Dee’s Young Neil is just a bit absolutely irate with Scott.. which isn’t fair as them not playing things is entirely on the blocky face asshole. Yell at him.. which he does, pointing out that they haven’t played shows in forever, and that the lady who owns Sneaky Dees not only runs shows, in the upstairs space, but has been asking them to play. Kim is rightly curious about this and to both Stephen just keeps saying “We’re recording right now.” And some of you may of wondered why I hate him. Well while he’s not exctly stellar in the first half in the second Stephen becomes goddman insufferable, slowly destroying the band for his affair and not giving one iota of a shit what anyone else wants. He’s a selfish, egomanical cheating prick. And yes I get it their recording an album.. but doing live shows would give them extra practice, MONEY, even if likely not a lot and exposure for said album. I get professoinal bands stop touring for a bit to do an album but you are not a professional band, and said bands still often iron out the album on the road. God you suck.

But while Scott sidesteps this argument he walks into another where Ramona confronts him about lisa about liking her.. and he rightly says if there was anything, which there was not it’s in the past. And while yes he is a cheater, she does not know this yet. This plot honestly would’ve worked better if she learned about the knives thing sooner, but instead she just comes off as paranoid for listening to Roxy about something that isn’t happening. Yes Scott’s been shown to be attracted to her.. but he’s been ashamed of it, fighting it and in denial about it, and is clealry all in with Ramona. Being attracted to someone else on a phsyical level does NOT mean your relationship is doomed.

Things get worse as he goes home to ruminate.. and instead sees a man’s Penis. And Wallace..is at his second most unsymapthetic, not letting Scott get a shirt or a bus pass or something like a decent human being for no goddamn reason. Usually when Wallace is a dick to Scott, Scott’s earned it and badly needs a slap in the face. Here he’s just being a prick because.. the plot needs him to? I dunno it dosen’t work for me. It’s in character, I just don’t have to like it.

So with no other options.. Scott ends up at Lisa’s. And so we get the last temptation of Scott. Lisa admits, embarassed that she’s been wearing sexy dresses and what not specifically to attract him, with Scott also mentioning how things are rough, Lisa tries to fight it herself pointing out he’s with ramona.. and when Scott points out they didn’t do anything in the past Lisa points out they should’ve.. and maybe they should now.

We fade to black as Scott ends up in a dream and finds Roxy, who naturally has the same skill and tries to Freddy Kruger him before he wakes. He finds Lisa but they didn’t do anything: Scott pushed her away and babbled about how much he loved Ramona instead. As i’ve said.... his heart was never with LIsa... and even when he was so close to giving in he couldn’t. It’s a tangible sign of growth: He screwed around on Knives with Ramona, and given how bad things were getting with Ramona, it would be oh so easy to once again ditch a relationship the minute he found something else and oh so understandable. But... he dosen’t. He loves Ramona even if he hasn’t said it, he wants to make this work, and he’s changed. She’s changed him. He’s not quite a good man yet.. bu he’s getting to be good enough. Love turned him from a skeezy dumbass into a far more loveable dumbass. Ramona’s gotten him to stop dating a teenager (even if again he cheated), face his past with envy to finally move on and now get a job. He’s realized just hwo much she means to his life and world and so he goes to tell her.

Riggghtttt after going to get his job back and works a shift, with steven wanting to punch his life in the balls. Stephen shut the fuck up. Just because Scott is lucky and your stuck dating satan’s scrotum does not mean you get to punch his life int he balls. Kim does, because he’s put her through more shit but not you.

He goes to second cup to talk to Stacey.. only to end up at the wrong one where Knives also now has a job... and we finally get an answer to who the mystery katana guy is...

Yup turns out wielding giant weapons in vengance runs in the family. As for how he knows about Scott her aunt mentioned her boyfriend, everyone freaked out and obviously while her mom was mentioned as knowing in volume 1, they did not tell her dad whose brain turned into an engine of vengance and defaced the shrine. While part of it is apparnetly racisim for Scott being white the fact is he clearly saw Scott’s photograph. The guy is 5 years older. I get him being protective. Still dosen’t justify cutting off his head. His balls maybe but not his head.

And then Scott ran, once agian finding a subspace entracne.. and this time we see inside ramona’s head and well...

Yeah.. that’s.. kind of fucked, and Ramona isn’t happy scott saw that, though she backs down once Scott explains..a nd then gets upset over him staying at Lisa’s but before SCott can tell her he loves her it turns out Roxy stayed over. So yeah, Ramona might of cheated, she tells him to alk it off and he runs around in a psycadelic haze of emtoinal confusion. And meets.. someone new...

Scott snaps out of his funk and ignores his doppleganger heading back for Ramona... whose fighting Mr. Chau. Scott left the door to Ramona’s head open and he followed him through Subspace. Scott lures him into the house and away from her only to run into Roxy. This leads to both of his attackers fighting and her wondering if Gideons ent him “Why does no one ever belivie in me?!”

She soon realize no i’ts just unrelated and calls Scotto ut on hiding behind not having a sword and behind her being a woman, caling it a flimsy excuse. I mean she’s tring to kil lhim. It’s okay to hit an enemy combatant. Scott realizes he has to stop running... and get real with ramona leading to a truly epic, romantic and heartfelt speech and given how far he’s come and just how heartfelt it is it’s a real sign of how deep he feels. Sure we’ve seen genuine chemstiry between the two.. but htis moment is a shit.. from a simple relationship.. into true love.

I may of only had a few but Relationships are not easy, They take work, they take time, they take patience and theyt ake love.. but if your willing to work with someone, look past some flaws and help them with the rest.. then it’s worth it. And Scott has finally realized it and for the first time in a while is running TOWARDS something difficult, actually working on this relationship and talking with his partner instead of running finding someone else or wallowing. He’s truly grown up. While he still has miles to go.. he’s taken about 50 steps forward with this. And as such given the kind of unvierse we’re in, as Ramona is genuinely touched by it he levels up a glowing sword with a heart shaped hilt coming out of his chest.. and realizing what’s happening he pulls it out....

So Scott faces off with roxy and in an awesomly short battle, their sords clash.. and he bisects her.

Scott then honestly talks down Mr Chau who leaves after a nod, and Ramona tells Scott she loves him two. The two make out and all is well.

One make out fades into another, as we cut to Scott moving in with Kim and Blockhead’s help. Well kinda they only had one box but they owed him one. He and wallace comiserate over the end of their time as roomies. They’ll always be friend but it’s truly the end of an era. Also Wallace gets off another bit of dickery as he’’s very glad it all worked out for scott...

Now there’s the Wallace I know and love. Dickish but just the right loveable kind of douchebag with that swagger.

Back at Knives house she’s apparenlty into somebody though who I have no idea, Mr Chau give sher his blessing and she.. apparenlty doesen’t know chinese. I dunno. As I said her subplot this go round was her weakest overall.

And so we end with the whole gang gathered to see Lisa off. It’s a REALLY nice shot, and one of the only times Wallace is seen with the Sex Bomb omb side of the group. Oh sure he goes to their shows and what not, but generally their never in the same vincinity so while there’s no interaction I still find this neat. Seriously the whole main cast is there, it’s a really lovely shot

Also Jason and Hollie.. who are getting awfully chummy. Whu Oh. And of course Craphole and Mouth Face are as likeable as ever.

So we jsut get a genuinely nice sene. Except Stephen and Julie reconciling. Fuck that. Please move on. And as everyone fondly wishes Lisa adeu and wish she stuck arond the res tof the series we end on Scott and Ramona snuggling, Scott asking her her birthday and finding out she’s 24, and they both will be come september. Scott wishes this moment could last.

They probperly snuggle as the volume ends on a high.

Final Thoughts:

Yeah.. Gets it Together is, on rexamination, DEFINTELY my faviorite of the 6. Besides personal value i’ts hte best contained story, contaning lots of character development, great character moments, jokes, and EASILY the best art so far, with goregouness and creativty abounding.

There is a problem here or there: Stephen and Julie’s subplot feels underbaked, and not just because I hates them, and there are several scenes that don’t further plot or character stuff. Ther’es also stuff that could’ve been expanded on.. but given this is still a pretty meaty graphic novel, it’s understandable why it wasn’t.. though it is why I’d love a streaming series since while the movie is excellent, a full series could expand on stuff from the books more Brian simply didn’t have time for. Knives also didn’t get a lot to do.

But their drowned out by tons of great decisions: Lisa was a wonderful additoin to the cast and I genuinely wish she’d stuck around, adding in some energy, blending well with the Sex Bomb Omb crowd, and having great dynamics with everyone and her arc with Scott is heartbreaking,knowing she can’t have him but wanting him anyway having never gottne proper closure on the man she’s always wanted. She’s a heartbreaking character and its nice to see her end in a decent place and on good terms with Scott, having let him go for both thier sakes.

And while Lisa is a highlight everyone is on their a game here for the most part apart from knives, girl hitler, and captain dumbass: Scott grows signfigantly but is funny as hell, Wallace has an intresting arc trying to nudge Scott out without being overt about it, scared to really confront him, Kim is in a happy and serene place for once and it shows. The villians are also intresting: While Mr Chau is a tad underbaked, he’s sitll a cool imposing presence. I do think he shoudl’ve had more to do with the plot.. but is still just so freaking cool it papers over that and him just.. disappearing after this like poor Lisa.

Roxy is far more intresting, having clearly more going on than we see and while I wish we’d got her backstory, she’s easily the most engaging of the exes, being the only one to actively compete with Scott (All her and ramona end up doing is making out a little it turned out), and have bigger stakes than just “The glasses wearing douche asked me to beat up my exes boyfriend and I was like alright.

All in all Gets it Together is really magical, the series high point, and just damn fun and it was a pleasure to go through

Next Month on Scott Pilgrim: It all falls down as we take a look into what once was my least faviorite Album, vs the unvierse. Two perfect assholes try and murder scott with Robutts, his relationship and band crumble and things get sad so very very sad.

Next on this blog: More LIlo and Stitch! The Proud Family come to Kauai and get into a fight with our heroes. Also wizard kelly... who if nothing else is now far more tolerable now i’ve had to spend another volume with the wicked bitch of the west. Touche universe touche. See you at the next rainbow.

#scott pilgrim #ramona flowers #wallace wells #roxanne richter #knives chau #stephen stills #julie power #mr chau #stacey pilgrim #neil nordgraf #young neil #comics #oni press #scotrospective #lisa miller #kim pine #jospeh

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zimms · 3 years

Note

do you know that reddit post that's like "i'm in quarantine with my roommate (we're both dudes) and we've been cuddling together a lot. am i gay?" because at least to me it has big olliewicks vibes

hey dude! i’m sorry this is so late, but hopefully you’ll like it!

Ollie groggily awakens to the feeling of two strong arms wrapped around his stomach, holding him close and grounding him. He lets out a sigh of contentment before squeezing his eyes shut and burrowing his head slightly further into the tangle of bodies, pursuing the warm heat of the other person. The body beneath him shifts slightly, emitting a slight groan and disturbing Ollie’s brief peace. That’s when he realises three things.

They’re in the middle of a pandemic.

His only human contact in the past two months, other than cashiers at their local grocery store, has been Wicky.

The person beneath him is definitely Wicky. Ollie can feel it in every plane, every angle, every curve of the body he’s laying on top of. It’s in the way that Wicky’s breathing slightly stutters after every inhale. He knows it’s Wicky because every inch of Wicky’s body is unique and Ollie’s memorised all of them. So yeah, definitely Wicky.

Ollie takes a moment to just breathe and catalogue the situation. He cracks an eye open and he immediately heaves a sigh of relief; they’re both wearing clothes, which means that they didn’t do anything that either of them might regret. Well, or at least, nothing that Ollie might regret; he can’t speak for whether or not Wicky might regret even cuddling him, let alone anything else.

He cranes his neck slightly to catch sight of the TV, where the Netflix Are you still watching? screen stares back at him. Oh yeah, they’d been watching Tiger King together on the couch before they’d fallen asleep on top of each other.

Ollie braces his hands on either side of Wicky and slowly rolls off of his best friend, careful not to land on the squeaky couch spring and wake him up. He slides slowly to the floor and places his head in his hands.

Fuck.

He squeezes his eyes shut and groans as quietly as he can into his palms. He’s been doing so well at tamping down his crush on Wicky up until now, but something inside of Ollie has ignited after spending the night in such close proximity to him. He’s not sure if he’ll be able to pretend when Wicky wakes up that he didn’t savour every moment that his skin was pressed against Wicky’s, that he doesn’t know exactly what Wicky looks like when he’s sound asleep, that he hasn’t memorised the way their chests rose and fell against each other in perfect synchrony.

Ollie shakes his head before pushing himself to his feet and padding into the kitchen to get breakfast. That’s enough thinking for today.

----

Ollie shifts his weight from side to side as he leans outside of George’s office and listens to the sound of chairs scraping behind the door. Thank fuck, they’re almost done; he’s been leaning against this wall for twenty goddamn minutes and his feet are aching. He straightens up as the door swings open and he plasters a grin on his face; no matter how annoying a long wait is, scowling probably isn’t the best first impression when you’re meeting your new employer.

However, Ollie’s grin disintegrates when he sees the guy that comes out of the office and instead his mouth drops open.

Holy fuck.

Ollie unashamedly stares at the guy as he ambles down the corridor. God, every inch of him is pure perfection. From cheekbones that could cut glass, to wide brown eyes that seem to reflect and emit light until the whole corridor illuminates with this guy’s presence. From the lopsided grin that plays across his face, to the biceps that are way too big for the sleeves of his Falcs t-shirt. Ollie lets his eye’s slide to the guy’s ass; yeah, that’s definitely a hockey player.

He’s stunning.

And, the little voice in the back of Ollie’s mind pipes up, a teammate.

Ollie slumps down the wall again and groans. He’s so fucked.

----

Ollie had hoped that he’d be able to avoid all thoughts of his crush on Wicky for a while, well, preferably forever. He’s always been so careful to never let their cellies on the ice go too far, never letting Wicky kiss him on the helmet like he does every other player, never letting their hugs last for too long, never actively seeking out physical affection from him other than quick bro hugs and a slap on the back.

The universe has other plans for him apparently.

That one night of couch cuddling seems to have opened the floodgates, because all of a sudden Ollie’s inundated by a tidal wave of physical affection from Wicky and it’s just becoming too difficult. Too difficult to ignore the onslaught of butterflies in his stomach when their hands brush slightly when they’re reaching for the salt at the dinner table. Too difficult not to stare at him when they’re watching a movie next to each other on the couch and he shifts over slightly so that their legs are touching. Too difficult to even begin to process and cope with the fact that Wicky has started coming into Ollie’s room to fucking cuddle with him. It’s too difficult because Ollie is finally allowing himself to hope and he doesn’t even fucking know if Pacer, Wicky, Pace, is anything other than straight.

It’s just too goddamn difficult to be around his best friend.

Ollie smiles down at where Pacer has tucked himself underneath his right arm, eyes softly shut and a peaceful smile playing across his face, and he feels his heart breaking. If he wants to preserve their friendship beyond this quarantine in any way shape or form, he needs to stop indulging himself like this. What if Pacer’s angry because Ollie’s taken advantage of him because Ollie’s using this- this thing between them to selfishly fulfill his own wants? What if Pacer’s only comfortable doing this because he thinks Ollie’s straight? What if-

Ollie squeezes his eyes shut and curls his hand into the sleeve of Pacer’s shirt, forcing that line of thought to come screeching to a halt before it becomes a trainwreck. He needs to stop thinking like that; Pacer’s not gonna abandon him after three years of friendship and being lineys because of some no homo, bro bullshit. Or at least, Ollie hopes he wouldn’t. Pacer’s not that kind of person.

(Aww, fuck. He also needs to stop referring to him as Pacer in his head. He needs to distance himself from Wicky somehow, and he’s definitely not going to pull away from him physically, especially as they’re each the other’s only source of human contact for the next month or nine, so emotional distancing will have to do.)

He heaves a sigh and lets himself slump against the headboard, careful to make sure that Wicky’s head doesn’t fall too quickly from where it’s leant against Ollie’s shoulder. Wicky stirs at the sudden movement and his eyes slowly open, a sleepy beam playing across his face and chestnut eyes staring intently at Ollie like he’s the moon gazing upon the sun.

Ollie muffles a groan. He just doesn’t know what to think anymore.

----

The second that Ollie and Pacer Wicks step onto the ice together for the first time it feels electric. They complement each other in every way; Pacer skates slightly faster than Ollie does, whilst Ollie has a slightly more accurate pass that finds Pacer every single time. It’s like they were made for each other.

It’s fantastic.

(It’s torturous.)

Ollie finds himself spending even more time with Wicky than he originally planned for, and things just keep going from good to great.

(They go from bad to worse)

They have the same taste in films to the extent that they now have a monthly The Princess Bride rewatch. They’re both cat people and it’s slipped into their pre-game routine to go for a walk together, looking for the neighbourhood cats and calling pspspspsp to them in the hopes that they’ll come running and grant them good luck before the game. They’ve won every game that they’ve stroked a cat before, so Ollie isn’t really inclined to let go of the superstition, and, judging by the way Wicky grins at the little fuzzballs, Wicky is equally reluctant to stop their pre-game walks. The best thing they have in common is that both of their leases are up at the end of this month; who’s Ollie to pass up the opportunity to live with the guy that’s rapidly becoming the most important person in his life?

(Ollie’s an absolute fool. Living with Wicky is going to kill him very slowly and definitely isn’t the way to rid himself of a crush that’s quickly morphing into something even more serious.

Ollie is, once again, fucked.)

----

Ollie tries to pull away slowly rather than withdrawing all physical affection at once. It’s painful, but if it keeps Wicky from hating him, Ollie will gladly do it. Heck, if it was to protect Wicky, Ollie would do anything.

He starts slowly. He shifts over a bit on the couch, leaving a deliberate gap between them on the couch, so that no wandering limbs can reach out for each other. He makes sure to hold out the condiments at dinner, so that there’s no way for either of them to find an excuse for their fingers to touch, no matter how much Ollie hungers for it. He starts spending more time in his room, doing his online college courses there, rather than in the living room like he usually does. He goes to bed earlier, hoping, wishing, praying that Wicks doesn’t try to join him for a cuddle.

(Ollie ignores the little voice in the back of his mind that’s screaming to feel the press of Wicky’s warm body against his again. He ignores the wounded glances that he receives from Wicky every time he avoids eye contact. He ignores the aching pangs inside of his chest that appear whenever he spends too long gazing at Ollie.)

----

Moving in together is the best idea and the worst idea that Ollie’s ever gone along with.

Pros: He gets to spend every day with Wicky.

Cons: Spending every day with Wicky might actually kill him soon. RIP Oliver O’Meara. Cause of Death: Walking into the kitchen and seeing Wicky topless and sleep rumpled, muscles rippling as he reaches for the coffee.

Pros: He knows Wicky almost as well as he knows himself.

Cons: He now knows that Wicky is hung up on someone after one particularly drunken ramble.

(Fuck.)

----

It’s a week after the first cuddling incident that Wicky pulls open the door to Ollie’s room and marches in, eyebrows lowered and eyebags darker than ever. Ollie immediately slams the lid of his laptop shut, straightening up from where he’s slumped against the headboard of his bed. He frowns. “What’s up, Wicky?”

Wicky freezes on the other side of the room. “What’s up?” he says, voice cracking and strangled. Yikes, this must be worse than Ollie thought it was. “You’re asking me what’s up?” He drops onto the bed, like a stone sinking to the bottom of a river. “You’re the one that’s disappeared recently.” He pushes the heels of hands into his eyes. “We used to do everything together and now whenever I look for you, you’re in here.” He tears his hands away from his face, to gesture frantically around the room. Wicky appears to be manic; his hair’s all ruffled and there’s this slightly crazed look in his eyes. “What did I do, Ol?”

Ollie scrambles out of bed to come and sit next to Wicky. He stretches out a hand to comfort Wicky, but withdraws it as he fumbles for what to do or say. “You didn’t do anything, Pace,” he says softly, resisting the urge to reach out and swipe away the tears that are trickling intermittently down his cheeks. “It’s me that’s the problem.”

Wicky raises an eyebrow at him, stare stern in spite of the crying. “Really? So you’re completely fine with me cuddling you? And definitely didn’t start shutting down any of my attempts to spend time with you?” Ollie flinches and Wicky scoffs. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“I-” Ollie trails off, eyes wandering until his gaze meets Wicky’s. The look in Wicky’s eyes isn’t scornful, no matter how much it deserves to be, instead his eyes are calm and fathomless like the earth after a long-anticipated rain. “I didn’t want to hurt you, though I clearly failed in that respect. I’m just so worried that you’re going to think less of me, especially once I tell you that-” Ollie clamps his mouth shut, as words he’s barely even thought to himself start to tumble out into the open.

“Tell me that..?” If Ollie didn’t know any better, he’d think that there was a trace of hope in Wicky’s voice. “C’mon, Ol, I’m not gonna leave you, no matter what you say.”

Ollie rubs his hand across his eyelids before stuttering out, “I’m in love with you.” Shit, that is not what he meant to say. “Fuck, I mean, I like you. Romantically.” He hides his face in his hands. “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, so I figured going cold turkey for a couple of days might do me some good.” He pulls his hands from his face suddenly and lets them drop to his knees. “Is that what you wanted to hear? That I like you? That I might be, fuck it, I am in love with you?”

The silence in the room answers that question for him and Ollie feels a tear roll down his face and a gutteral sob tear its way from his throat.

“Fuck, Ol,” Pacer says, scrubbing a weary hand across his face, and that’s when Ollie knows that it’s all over, that he’s going to be rejected by the most important person in his life. “That’s definitely not what I was expecting, but it’s not unwelcome by any means.”

It’s not?

Ollie suppresses a sniffle as he voices this sentiment aloud.

Pacer laughs, honest to God, laughs. “It’s actually very welcome, considering the fact that I’ve been pining for you since long before you got traded to Providence.”

He’s what-?

“I-” Ollie stumbles over the words, cheeks heating, “but you’re straight? And you’re hung up on someone?”

Pacer swipes a thumb across Ollie’s cheek, tracing the trail of his blush. “Ol, when did I ever say I was straight?” he asks, his gaze intently focused on Ollie. “Anyway, it’s always been you.” He leans in closer, breathing out one final word before sealing their lips together. “Always.”

#purple-is-great #my writing #ollie and wicks #olliewicks #omgcp

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misdre · 3 years

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misi's beyblade AUs masterpost

i like making AUs, i have many of them, here's a post of them from oldest to newest. (at least approximately) (the ones that got no art of them have photos from unsplash. i just enjoy setting the mood)

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Magical boy AU takao is an ordinary middle schooler who one day gets dragoon the magical spinning top from a cute little azure dragon, seiryuu, and transforms into a magical boy to protect the world from evil for some cosmic reasons that i haven't come up with yet. the rest of the characters have similar powers from their holy beasts and takao needs to gather up his team to fight the evil and. you get the drill is there art of it? yes 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 is there a fic of it? no note: i originally created this just because i like designing the outfits so i haven't planned the story much (this used to be my main focus but then 4kingdoms happened GJSDHGHSDG) i'd want to though, i'll get back to it eventually...at some point...... one of the charm points of this AU is that the holy beasts are these digimon-like animals that hang out with the characters and each have their own personalities.

Fairy tale monster AU takao and gramps live in a cabin in the middle of a forest full of monsters and takao decides one day to venture out to look for a silver-haired boy he once saw, he meets up with the other BBA characters one by one in the grim woods. is there art of it? no is there a fic of it? yes note: my oldest halloween fic. the characters are all these different cute spooky creatures and it's intended to sound like a fairy tale.

One day, he determined that the time was ripe: Takao decided to leave for an adventure. For his grandfather was old, it was not at all unusual for him to lay down to bed before sundown. Once the hut had fallen in drowsy silence, Takao packed his one and only bag with what little he felt he needed, took his cap and jacket, and stepped over the doorsill. He had left the safe warmth of the hut behind.

Royal fantasyverse AU (the tale of four kingdoms) takes place in a fantasy universe with four kingdoms (east, west, south & north) created by the four holy beasts, in an era where each kingdom happens to be ruled by an exceptionally young king due to their respective circumstances. when the four meet for the first time, a snowball of events is set in motion that's going to affect all four kingdoms. is there art of it? yes 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 is there a fic of it? yes 1 / 2 note: like a period drama with magic and gay and tons of worldbuilding. probably has way too many mysteries for the boys to solve because i have no self control when it comes to creating twists. this is The one AU that i have crammed every usable canon character into, i need enough people to inhabit four fucking countries

After creating the four lands, the holy beasts created people to inhabit them. Because the beasts were celestial beings and couldn't but guard people and the world they lived in from far above, they needed human vessels to lead the four nations. Thus they created four kings who would rule over other people using the four beast’s powers. The four kings were neither human nor gods, but something between – they were messengers, or icons, of the four holy beasts.

Omegaverse AU a canon divergence AU (i guess??) where genders are replaced by A/B/O and everyone being either canine or feline. max is a late bloomer canine and finds out he's the only alpha of the BBA boys thanks to a certain feline omega. is there art of it? not really but i do have dog boy max and cat boy rei art (which are a bit too cute for this kinkfest. i mean they're obviously aged up for the real thing.) 1 / 2 is there a fic of it? it's been in the works for like, five years but i always shy away from finishing it note: it's omegaverse, it's exactly what you'd expect. the smut is so filthy i've been too embarrassed to even post it. hiromi is also an alpha by the way

Coffee shop AU highschooler rei goes on a venture to hit on a local Hot University Teacher and coffee shop owner judy in a cafe owned by her, ends up receiving a bunch of flirty cups of latte from barista max working there. is there art of it? no is there a fic of it? yes note: i mean, rei being into blonde MILFs is pretty much canon

Now that Rei looked at the boy more carefully, he realised his hair was just as fair and eyes just as blue as he knew Judy Mizuhara's to be. Maybe they were related? It wasn't that strange if Judy had hired a relative's kid to help out at the shop, right? He certainly looked American, but he had spoken Japanese. And then, all of a sudden, the boy turned to look back to him. Startled, Rei blinked his own golden brown eyes and shifted them back to his now empty cup. God, it was rude to stare at someone, wasn't it? He'd been too deep in thought to even notice doing it. Not that the boy had looked judgmental – he only seemed to wear a smile.

Soulmate AU max keeps having dreams with peculiar scenarios about a boy named rei. one day he borrows a book on soulmates from hiromi and finds a chapter talking about meeting your soulmate in the realm of dreams. is there art of it? no is there a fic of it? yes note: i don't even care for soulmate AUs, this was my own dare to myself to find a single soulmate trope that interested in me enough to write a thing of it.

Max was walking through a crowded airport, carrying a heavy backpack with him. He had never been to this airport in his life, but somehow he knew exactly where he was, and where he was supposed to go. And he was in a hurry, and Rei had at some point emerged from the crowd, as usual, keeping up with him without bumping into any of the people that should have blocked his way. “I'm sorry, this is probably my fault,” Rei said. “I haven't even travelled in ages anymore, but these dreams just keep coming back to haunt me.”

Chess player AU rei is a young chinese chess champion participating in the world junior championships, ends up falling for the american chess prodigy max somehow in the process and is determined to get to play against him again. is there art of it? no is there a fic of it? yes note: so this is one of the weirder ones i've done. it was inspired simply by me having a very vivid mental image of a scene of them playing dramatic chess together. this is probably my most underrated AU even by myself, i think the writing is pretty solid for such a short story of a topic i know practically nothing about

As a child, Rei had initially been taught to play xiàngqí, a Chinese game much more popular back in his home country; but chess with its refined, uniquely shaped pieces was love at first sight for the young Rei. He was a fast thinker and had amazing concentration skills once he set his mind on something, and he also had an outstanding memory, making it easy to memorise game patterns he once saw and then use them for his advantage. This all granted him natural talent in chess. But despite his skill, he had a bad habit of easily losing his temper and becoming indecisive once his focus wavered. Also, he was just a tad bit too sentimental. These traits often became his worst enemy in important matches, much worse than the actual opposing player. Keep your cool. Focus. Play well.

Flower shop + fake dating AU yuriy doesn't really know anything about flowers but is working part-time in a flower shop for the easy cash. he keeps getting a pair of weird customers who ask about flower language for hypothetical situations. is there art of it? not by myself and i don’t have a link to the fanart made of it unfortunately is there a fic of it? yes note: did i write this for valentine's day? i feel like i maybe did. this is my only AU (and fic in general) so far that's about a non-BBA character as the main lmao

“So, I need some advice for a particular situation,” the customer then began, idly tapping the counter with his hand. “I mean, not a real situation, of course – hypothetically speaking, if someone was just pretending to be going out with another person, but they weren't really going but it just needed to seem that way to everyone else, what kinda flowers would get the message through?” Possibly an idiot, Yuriy concluded his analysis. “So you need suitable flowers for a date,” he stated, shooting his eyes at his notes about common flower-usage.

Classical music AU (the heart that i love) max is a piano prodigy attending a classical music college that holds annual music competitions for the students. he's got some haters for being the son of a world-known pianist who's one of the teachers, but he also ends up having a budding romance with rei the mysterious chinese violinist. is there art of it? yes 1 / 2 is there a fic of it? yes note: the origin of this was my "max and mao are besties" college AU. then it got mixed in with my thirst for classical instruments and max being bullied.

Max isn’t exactly a synesthet, but he has always been able to see music as pictures – as entire sceneries, as great adventures. This tendency of his emerges especially strong whenever he’s learning to play a new piece on the piano; as he moves along the melody, the scenery is also being built around him like a jigsaw puzzle, creating a complete picture piece by piece; and once he has mastered the song, he’s able to freely traverse and immerse himself in the world inside that puzzle. Some pieces have a more relaxed or soothing scenery than others, some are exciting and thrilling – even deliciously sinister in the way that a good horror film can be. Setting himself down in front of a piano is always an invitation to a world of his choice.

Bakeneko AU after moving to a small rural town in japan, max hits his head and starts seeing things, such as a weird white cat following him around. after a while, he's convinced that he's being haunted. is there art of it? yes is there a fic of it? yes note: another halloween AU, a more surreal one where max is human and rei is. well. not

Max kept walking, his eyes still on the narrow road. He hadn't noticed while deep in thought, but it really was quiet that evening. The sun had nearly set by now, leaving the sky striped with the dusk of the approaching nightfall. There was no wind to rustle the treetops, no birds chirping, nothing. Only the sound of Max's own footsteps on the pavement, and the matching sound that followed. Followed. What if someone actually was following him? A sudden, violent chill struck down Max's spine, causing his hair to stand on end. He stopped. After a short delay, the steps also stopped.

Genderbend AU a canon divergence AU where everyone's a different gender from canon (duh). starts off as an alternate version of the g-revolution world championships where the girls meet for the first time and befriend each other. rei is a professional model in addition to being a blader in the baihus, and max from the PPB is delighted to be able to battle her. she has no idea that rei has fallen for her at first sight, though. is there art of it? yes 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 is there a fic of it? it's... in the works. note: i created this because i wanted to design attractive girls, what about it. absolutely partial to maxine's huge badonkadonks.

It wasn’t like Rei hadn’t already taken notice of her before, given that they were participating in the same world championship tournament, but the real turning point was the first time they stood on the opposing sides of a bey stadium. It was the day when the match-up roster signalled the match between the Chinese team and the American team, the Baihus versus the PPB All Starz; and despite both teams consisting of five players, it came down to, to Rei’s immense joy, the tag team of Rai and herself against the two most interesting US players, Rikki Anderson and Mizuhara Maxine.

Vampire & merboy AU rei is a starved vampire just about to end his own life when he meets merboy max at a forest lake. is there art of it? of max yes is there a fic of it? yes note: yet another halloween monster AU, this time they are both monsters though. this one’s a pretty grim one i have to admit

Rei succumbed into deep thought, considering his few options, when something grabbed his unsuspecting hand. Something yanked him forward in one mad splash and forced not only the rest of his arm but also his shoulders and head underwater. Half a second later Rei, so badly startled that he’d come close to slipping into insanity, found himself staring at a pair of bright blue eyes only inches away from his own face. His other hand and lower body still firmly on land, Rei pulled himself back with strength that he didn’t even know his weak body still contained. As he did, he also pulled up whatever was clutching his hand, which turned out to be another hand – a white hand with elongated, dirty fingers, so sharp at the tips that they looked like daggers.

Mafia AU max is the boss of the BBA mafia family, rei is a hitman and max's right hand man, the rest have various roles in the organisation. salima, mariam and some other girls (at least) are reporters doing investigative journalism on organised crime who get interested in covering the story of a group of russian elite detectives doing a thorough investigation of the BBA. is there art of it? of rei and max yes 1 / 2 / 3 is there a fic of it? it's in the works but it's just a gratuitous reimax smut note: this is a story i wish existed but this kind of police investigation action thing is so not my genre of expertise. that's why i'm just doing a PWP of my boys and the rest exists on conceptual level

“Did you know,” Salima said, perfectly peppy about it, “that there are secret underground auctions for stolen artwork that’s sold in the black market? Not just online auctions in the dark web but actual, physical events held somewhere in the city! Isn’t that so intriguing? Can you imagine how an event like that would look like, Max?” Max can – in fact, he doesn’t need to imagine. But he’d rather not think about it; the memories bring the familiar taste of bile in his mouth and make his gut curdle with a mixture of disgust and very particular guilt. The mere thought of it makes him set his coffee aside and bring a hand between his tightly shut eyes.

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the next thing i come up with? who knows............

#bey things #i am only moderately insane #so i'm a person who never reads her own writing #but for this post i did. i read my old oneshots #and i wasn't disgusted by them!! actually i was rather impressed with them!!!#i didn't know such a feeling existed. to read your old writing #and be like how nice! writing of my OTP just the way i want it!#genuinely i was charmed by the soulmate AU because i'd forgotten most of it #bc i was so embarrassed about it for some reason? but it was a very nice story

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shihalyfie · 3 years

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02′s themes in relation to its finale

By “finale” I don’t mean “epilogue”, but rather the final battle and confrontation that make up 02 episodes 48-50. Generally speaking, 02 is a series that is much less about progression of plot events as much as it’s about theme and message, and my feeling is that this becomes increasingly so the deeper you get into its second half and approach its ending. Narratively speaking, we need a big, bad enemy to beat up in a fight, but if we shift our perspective a bit, what does this finale say as a close to 02′s themes and concepts?

The thin boundary between good and evil

Our major enemy for the first half of the series was the Digimon Kaiser, who was later established to be the very naturally kind Ichijouji Ken -- which is a pretty massive swerve, considering that most series with “reformed villains” would usually make them a bit of an edgelord who happens to be a little nicer. But instead, the series goes very deep into the psyche of what could make such a kind child be tipped over the edge, and, even though it’s all revealed to be accelerated by supernatural interference, it’s made very clear that his own trauma and insecurity was most of what did it.

So, anyway, it’s revealed in the end that the “final mastermind” behind it all was none other than Vamdemon, an effective midboss from Adventure. Vamdemon’s popularity aside, this initially seems like a very strange choice. But looking at some statements about 02′s initial planning is somewhat revealing: the original planned concept for the final boss was a Digimon that would ultimately be reduced to only “an idea” (and was rejected on the grounds of being too gory for the Sunday morning kids’ timeslot). When you think about this original concept of “a Digimon that had been reduced to only an idea,” that explains the initially odd-seeming combo of defeating a Digimon with the combined power of idealistic positivity, because it’s a plot point that would certainly make more sense if said Digimon had been reduced to a spirit of malice.

However, the interesting part about this is that the replacement for this original final boss was not Vamdemon but Oikawa and his lackeys, which means that, substantially, the real “final enemy” of this story is actually Oikawa, and the ideological questions he poses for the Chosen Children and those around them. Vamdemon may be the “mastermind” from a plot perspective, but, ironically, his important role is actually to define Oikawa’s narrative -- and, as if to drive this in further, he’s not even voiced by his original voice actor from Adventure (Ohtomo Ryuuzaburou), but Oikawa’s own, Morikawa Toshiyuki (and this voice change is actually pointed out in the series proper, too).

So why Vamdemon and not just a random spirit of malice? Well...

Vamdemon’s presence specifically establishes the precise moment in time Oikawa lost complete control of himself -- and, more widely, establishes the connection between himself as a “Chosen Child who could never become one”. Prior to this episode, we knew that Hida Hiroki’s death and their shared childhood had some relevance to Oikawa’s downfall, but the August 3 “Odaiba fog” incident in 1999 is the exact moment where everything could completely crash down in front of Oikawa’s eyes, with Hida Hiroki having just died, and Oikawa personally witnessing Digimon, the Digital World, and the Chosen Children (and boy, the way this scene is framed with him right next to the waterfront, you might even wonder what he might have done with himself had Vamdemon not interfered...). The Digital World didn’t have a huge amount of contact with the world before then -- in fact, Oikawa not being able to make much contact is a huge part of his character arc -- which basically leaves this as one of the only moments you can have this exact moment of Oikawa being ready to go over the deep end in this way. All of his regrets, of never being able to make proper contact with the Digital World, of Hiroki having died and left him alone, are ready for him in this exact moment -- as his own lackey Archnemon had said earlier, “human weaknesses are easy to manipulate.”

Moreover, of all of the “entities of malice” that made up Adventure’s villains, Vamdemon’s the only one who brought it all the way over to the real world (where the majority of 02′s conflict is set). This brief moment of contact with the real world was established in 02 episode 14 to be the defining moment of “contact” that would lead to Daisuke and Iori becoming Chosen Children. Particularly in the case of Iori, you can see the parallel -- Hiroki’s death and the resulting incident here would shape Iori’s strive to become a model citizen and a hero as a Chosen Child, whereas the exact same incidents shaped Oikawa’s descent into villainy.

Oikawa’s “sacrifice” in the end is not really a sacrifice in terms of sacrificing his life -- it’s said outright that his body is deteriorating, and so he would have died either way. What Oikawa does sacrifice is the ability to take one more step and make proper contact with Pipimon -- it is explicitly stated that he has to use the power of the dream world to grant his wish, meaning that he would never be able to take a proper step into the Digital World as a human, and therefore would never truly be able to have his initial wish granted in the way he originally wanted.

Thus, Oikawa leaves off with one last “regret” -- that, perhaps, if things had been different, he could have been just like the Chosen Children, going on “adventures” like them. But Iori points out right after that he did achieve his dream in some sense -- he got to reunite with the Digital World, and he did get to meet his partner, and so: it’s all about mentality. All of what happened to Oikawa was because of his own closed-in way of seeing himself and his place in the world, instead of being able to move on productively from his perception of what he “could and couldn’t do”.

In the end, Iori, the one who had once been so cold towards the idea of anything remotely associated with evil, is the one to guide him to that answer, and the other Chosen Children, who had previously not been very sympathetic towards him, still grieve over his death because they understand what it means to have a partner, and the sense of loss it would entail to be separated from one. It’s the one commonality they all can understand, and in the end, none of them were really all that different; it was just what they chose to do with what they had.

This is especially because we see extensive flashbacks of Oikawa in 02 episode 47, and his design is that of a completely average adult in 02, nothing like the “look at this instant villain!” design he had during the course of the series. Oikawa was, for all intents and purposes, a completely average person who had dreams that he shared with his friend, dreams that they carried into adulthood -- it took this little to push Oikawa over the edge, and yet the things that did it were the exact same things that, in a different context, Iori took to become a Chosen Child who fought him on the other side.

False happiness and pointless fixations

Tying into Oikawa’s fixation with “regrets” and an unhealthy mentality about his own position, Oikawa blames his inability to go to the Digital World in 02 episode 48 on himself being a “tainted adult”, not recognizing that it’s his own having fallen off the deep end that’s the likely reason he’s being rejected. Oikawa is, effectively, maintaining a fixation on “regrets” and a past he can’t get back; he’s still stuck on the image of his happy childhood playing with Hiroki, and all of the things he “couldn’t do” as a child after having his initial contact with the Digital World cut off. The ending reveals that he had met Pipimon before, and so you can interpret everything he’d done beforehand -- including creating two Digimon that are ultimately his “minions” more than they’re his actual “partners” (and were ultimately ripped away from him by the very same malicious spirit that represents his nihilism) -- as an attempt to reconnect with that partner, even if it resulted in him forgetting his actual purpose.

Beyond that, the Chosen Children themselves are momentarily sidetracked by a “fixation” of sorts --

02 is a series about “accepting things and moving forward”, so each of the illusions presented by BelialVamdemon have to do with a fixation that’s holding each respective kid back:

Takeru’s idea of seeing his family together again might not be completely impossible, but it’s probably not happening anytime soon -- and, as far as 02 episode 17 and 47 showed us, relations are at least improving and everyone else is doing a much better job of actually moving on and accepting the current state of affairs than he is.

Iori’s fixated on the idea of being able to please and be with a father who’s long dead (again, his issue is technically the same one Oikawa’s fixating over).

Hikari’s fixated on a future idea and dream that she wants to see pass, which won’t happen unless she can proactively work towards it now (and the 02 epilogue itself establishes that getting there won’t be all sunshine and roses).

Miyako’s fixated on her surface mood of stress and a desire to escape it, only to be confronted with the fact that it doesn’t actually make her all that happy either.

Ken’s fixated on ideas of “punishment” and “forgiveness” that ultimately won’t get him anywhere.

In the end, the one to avoid it is the most “forward-thinking” of all of them, Daisuke, who’s least likely to get caught up in such fixations. But even he has this to say:

Daisuke understands that not everyone is as simple-minded as him, and that’s not inherently a bad thing -- it’s just that when you need to go forward, you need to go forward (and people who exploit others’ weaknesses against them are still unforgivable jerks). You need to accept that things are the way they are at current, and use the information you get from it to keep moving forward and do something productive with it rather than clinging onto things you can’t have to the point you can’t do anything. Nobody was giving anyone shame for having those internal worries that BelialVamdemon plagued them with -- it’s just that staying in there forever, instead of moving on with important things they had to do, wouldn’t be good for them either.

Hence, that’s what Oikawa actually sacrificed -- he had a choice to use his final moments to spend his remaining short time with his partner that he’d spent so long unconsciously chasing after, but he instead decides to do something to help the Digital World and reverse some of the damage he’d personally caused instead of continuing to fixate on that regret. At the very least, he can continue to be with Pipimon in some other sense, even if it’s not what he originally wanted.

The pressure to be a “perfect person” as imposed by society; the conflict between that and pursuing one’s own happiness

In the last section, I mentioned that Oikawa was the kind of person who fixated on regrets about what he “couldn’t do” during his childhood. You can identify a bit of what was leading up to this in the prior episodes:

We learn in 02 episode 47 that Iori’s grandfather Chikara made the mistake of barring Hiroki and Oikawa from getting too deep into their connection with the Digital World, considering it “nonsense”, which led to the two of them becoming disconnected from it and continuing to wistfully chase after it -- which also led to Oikawa being driven further over the deep end when Hiroki, the only person who understood that, died.

Moreover, Oikawa ended up developing a complex not entirely unlike the Kaiser’s fixation with being a “perfect” person in the first half -- and, just like how he blames his inability to enter the Digital World on being a “tainted adult”, he fails to have the self-awareness that it’s this exact nihilism keeping him out of it, taking even further offense at the idea of him being a “tainted existence” (because of what he’s embracing) and deciding that his reaction needs to be sinking even deeper into it. And while he implants the Dark Seeds into the children with the intent of exploiting their power, he also indicates that he thinks he’s doing them a favor by enabling that ideology of “becoming a perfect person” within them.

Remembering that the final battle in this series is not necessarily about the physical fight as much as it’s about the ideology that Oikawa espoused, in the end, what Oikawa really “implanted” in these kids along with the Dark Seeds was the pressure that they should sacrifice their happiness to be “perfect” people. The Chosen Children reach out to them by asking about their dreams, and the children list off careers that have certainly gotten their parents scorning them for not being “good enough” for them, or gotten them mocked by other people (Hiroshi says that he gave up on his manga artist dreams because people laughed at him for it). In the end, “the pressure to be ambitious” is pressure in itself -- what if what you really want isn’t ambitious as much as it’s something that makes you and others happy (like, for instance, ramen making)? And especially when you’re a child -- shouldn’t this be the time when you enjoy yourself to the fullest?

This is even alluded to in Ken’s Spring 2003 track, in terms of how he and Osamu weren’t able to enjoy their childhood because of that pressure:

You were demanded to grow up fast, weren’t you, Brother? Because we were always being evaluated and compared by someone, we didn’t get a chance to have more freedom. We didn’t have any chances to run down an alley because we felt like it, or pull up weeds, or tumble around… meaningless things, things that didn’t bring any value to us at all. Just like the cat napping on the roof… we weren’t able to fully enjoy any everlasting freedom.

Like Ken and Osamu, the Dark Seed children accepted the Seeds because they decided that it would be better to trade in their happiness in exchange for getting closer to that ideal of “perfection”, only to destroy their own selves in the process. Which is accentuated when acknowledging their own selves is what leads to them meeting their own Digimon partners.

Takeru had said, earlier, that the Digimon will appear if you wish them to -- and given that a Digimon partner is a metaphor for the inner self, it says a lot that the point here is “the key to connecting with your partner is to connect with your actual self”. Like how Ken managed to reunite with Wormmon in 02 episode 23 by accepting everything about himself and resolving to live with it, and how Oikawa will later meet Pipimon after having come to terms with what he was actually looking for the entire time.

And in the end, what we see of Vamdemon isn’t really all that different from the original “reduced to an idea” concept we got from the original 02 final boss concept -- remember that BelialVamdemon has effectively become the incarnation of Oikawa’s own nihilistic ideology; perhaps he took on a lot more than just a voice actor! Actually, the whole sequence in 02 episode 50 with everyone listing off their dreams and destroying BelialVamdemon part by part is relatively similar in substance to the original proposal (the staff must have been really attached to that idea). And, hence, why what destroys him for good is the combined feelings of everyone together, resolving to move forward instead of chasing after meaningless things.

Oikawa ultimately recognizes that what was holding him back was his own mentality -- everyone here, Ken, the Dark Seed children, and Oikawa himself, all thought they were becoming “strong” and “perfect” people by ignoring them, but instead ended up as pawns for others, and all of these people could have found better ways to cope with their problems through embracing themselves and finding support, and would have come closer to those “dreams” while they were at it. Instead, Oikawa exploited others and clung onto shallow symbols because he thought that kind of straightforward idealism was an impossible route for him, and locked himself out of all of it. But in the end, he’s able to do something -- he’s able to use his “dreams” to have the Digital World healed -- and with that, is able to have his last moments in happiness.

Incidentally, back in 02 episode 49, Daisuke had even outright said that there’s no inherent issue in striving for self-improvement (after all, both Adventure and 02 were about people slowly getting past their insecurities and becoming better people). Daisuke himself is a person who’s improved a lot over the course of this series! But that’s something you need to do on your own terms and in a way you’re comfortable with -- not forcing yourself into the mold of an “ideal person” at the expense of losing everything about yourself, like Ken, the Dark Seed children, and Oikawa all did at some point.

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #shihameta

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godsofhumanity · 3 years

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I adore your Titan HCs, do you have any for the younger generation?

*jotaro kujo voice* YES! YES! YES! YES!

❤ warning: long post ahead! ❤

PROMETHEUS

okay full disclaimer- Prometheus is my favourite titan <3

i imagine him to be that guy that you bring home to meet your parents and they instantly love him... he's the guy that other parents see and are like "yeah he's a good kid, you should be more like him".

i think Prometheus does have a little bit of a mischievous side, but he's NOT immoral.

he enjoys good pranks and funny jokes, but he's not obscene- he's just cheerful.

i also think Prometheus is very intelligent. from all of the younger generation, i think he's the smartest and the wisest.

Prometheus is also very considerate and gentle. i don't think he's the kind to yell or shout.

he doesn't get "angry" as much as he gets "disappointed" (which we all know is worse T-T).

during the Titanomachy, the original myths say that Prometheus sides with Zeus, but i wanted to elaborate on this further- my hc is that Prometheus didn’t just side with Zeus, he had, for some time before he even knew Zeus existed, been going around and rallying the other younger Titans to form a resistance.

i think that he grew up around Cronus’ palace and watched Cronus as he slowly corrupted himself, and Prometheus knew that it was time for change.

so i think that Prometheus and a few of his cousins had a little superhero group going on, and when they finally met Zeus, i think Prometheus was essentially Zeus’ right-hand man. i don’t think they always saw eye-to-eye, but i think Zeus appreciated Prometheus’ advice and leadership skills, and this just makes the fire incident all the more tragic </3

about the fire incident- i think that Prometheus has a genuine love for humanity. to him, humans are the children of the gods and he believes that it's the gods’ responsibility to take care of them.

which is why he risks his life to grant humanity fire- he knows how important it is for them to survive, and his heart bleeds every time he sees the gods abuse and interfere with them </3

in a previous set of hc's (scroll down to the Cronus section), i mentioned that i think Prometheus' love for humanity began as a child when he saw Cronus create the first age of man- the Golden Age.

i think he was quite captivated by these living beings not born from the gods, but molded and shaped by them in their image. and i think that really impacted him deeply.

Prometheus' wife is Hesione, and i think that when Prometheus stole the fire from Zeus, he did it because he knew that Hesione is a strong goddess, and he knew that she'd support him (which i think she does!). i think his whole family shares his love for humanity.

when Prometheus was chained to the rock, i think Deucalion was still very small and didn't quite understand where his dad had gone, so i have this hc that when Deucalion grows up, he actually goes to the rock where his dad is chained and they talk it out- and Prometheus expects that Deucalion will be full of hate for him because he left them all alone, but in fact, Deucalion is a lot like Prometheus, and he actually really looks up to his dad and he’s proud to be Prometheus’ son, and he’s proud to help humanity the way his dad did :)))

more Prometheus hc's as well Atlas, Menoetius, Anchiale and Epimetheus hc's here <3

HELIOS

i think Helios is a bit of goofball.

in my head, he’s this incredibly handsome and elegant looking titan... he looks so cool and he’s turning heads when he walks.. but then he trips on the pavement because he got distracted looking at a frog on the sidewalk.

Helios is very kind, i think.

in the myths that he appears in, it’s usually because he’s seen something happening to someone somewhere and now someone else wants to know what’s up so they consult him- and it’s occurred to me that Helios literally never refuses to help.

he helps Demeter when Persephone went missing, he told Hephaestus when he saw Aphrodite and Ares having an affair. he helps his granddaughter, Medea, even after she commits a bunch of atrocities. i think at his core, he’s just a very amiable titan.

i think he does have a bit of an ego. he’s proud of who he is and who is family is. he knows that he’s important and that the work he does is important. but Helios isn’t arrogant or boastful about it. he values honour and despises cowardice.

Helios is very energetic. when he gets excited, i think he jumps around a lot and he just wants to tell everyone and anyone about what’s made him so excited.

in some myths, they say that Helios’ wife was Perse, an Oceanid, but my hc for him is that he doesn’t really have one wife- he has many consorts, and i think he doesn’t really care for settling down.

he’d think of himself as a romantic.

also, Helios is very paternal. i think he loves his children more than anything else in the world. he probably shows pictures of his kids to everyone, “hey have you seen my daughter? she literally just turned some guy’s friends into pigs,, isn’t she awesome? #prouddadmoment”

i don’t think that Helios is the brightest bulb in the shed. he’s not stupid, but i don’t think he’s an intellectual genius the way i’d say Prometheus probably is.

in the previous section, i mentioned the idea that the younger titans had a little resistance group, and i think Helios was a part of this group.

i have this brotp idea that consists of Prometheus, Helios and Pallas being bros. i think Prometheus brings the brains, Helios brings the looks, and Pallas brings the brawn.

i’ve always wondered why the younger titans never seem to have that much of a role in Olympus- i mean, it’s always Zeus and his siblings, despite the other titans being quite powerful (i mean, Helios is literally the Sun). my hc for this is that after Prometheus was so brutally punished by Zeus for the fire incident, everyone was pretty hurt- i mean, they were closer to Prometheus than to Zeus, so seeing him being punished like that was just extremely sad and heartbreaking for the rest of the titans.

i think as a result of the incident, the rest of the titans kinda distanced themselves from Olympus. no one wanted to be there anymore because it felt wrong.

i like the idea that Helios visits Prometheus at his rock often, and they sit and chat and Helios tells him about everything that’s happening :)

SELENE

i think that Selene is the eldest of Hyperion’s children. first came Selene, then Eos, and then Helios- the moon is followed by the dawn which heralds the coming of the sun and the start of a new day.

Selene is very tall. i imagine her to look very beautiful, but also very intimidating.

while her siblings are described as having numerous lovers, i don’t think Selene is much of a romantic. the only love of her life was the mortal Endymion.

i think Selene is very guarded. she comes across to people who don’t know her as cold and aloof, but that couldn’t be further from the truth- in fact, i think Selene is very emotional, but she’s not vocal about it.

she expresses her feelings through actions rather than words.

just as i think Helios was part of Prometheus’ little resistance force, i think Selene and Eos were as well.

as siblings, i think Selene, Eos and Helios are super close- they are quite inseparable. they’re all very protective of each other as well, and they’d defend each other at any cost.

EOS

Eos is the middle child in Hyperion’s family.

i think she’s very energetic and passionate. she’s incredibly friendly and not-shy.

as the goddess of dawn, i think she generally is a pretty gentle soul, but she can also be very loud.

i think she has more than a short temper- it’s a fleeting temper. she’ll start yelling and screaming, but then she’ll see a butterfly and she’ll calm down immediately.

Eos is also a little whimsical. she can be indecisive about what she wants or what she feels- that’s not to say that she’s deceiving. i don’t think she has a deceptive bone in her body- she always says what she’s thinking, maybe sometimes without a filter.

but even so, i don’t think Eos plans ahead. she’s a live-in-the-moment type of girl.

in the Eos-Tithonus myth, when Tithonus starts to age because Eos forgot to gift him eternal youthfulness to go with his immortality, Eos takes pity on the poor guy and turns him into a cicada- and even though it was kinda Eos’ fault that Tithonus was suffering from old age to begin with, i think it was a kind gesture that she relieved his suffering, rather than just ignoring him.

related to cicadas- i think Eos love bugs and critters and stuff like that. she loves all animals, and that includes little insects.

there’s a myth where Eos sleeps with Ares and incurs Aphrodite’s wrath- Aphrodite punishes her to be filled with insatiable lust and that’s why Eos kidnaps a lot of pretty boys. but tbh, i like the idea that Eos, at her core, is just naturally a lover.

i think she’s a bit of romantic, and she falls in love easily.

i think she appreciates typical romantic sentiments- roses, and chocolate.

of course, i think her greatest love is Astraeus, her husband (more about him below ^-^).

more Eos hc's here :D

PALLAS

Pallas is one of the titans who doesn't really have too much lore.

the Latin author Hyginus calls Pallas "the giant", and he was assumed to be the titan god of warcraft, so this makes me imagine Pallas to be decently tall, and muscular.

Pallas in my head is pretty stoic. i don't think he's all that verbal with his emotions.

in saying this, i don't think he's averse to saying what he feels- he doesn't think that emotions are a bad thing, he just doesn't express it too much.

earlier in this hc set, i mentioned my hc that Prometheus, Helios and Pallas have a brotp. i think that Prometheus and Pallas, in particular, are really close- Pallas is the son of Crius who was thrown into Tartarus for siding with Cronus, so i imagine that Pallas and his brothers must have grown up with Prometheus and his siblings.

related to his domain of warcraft, i think Pallas is a really good fighter. i think he likes to fight, but he's very honourable.

if he lost in a fight, i don't think he'd be a sore loser, or he'd rage about it- he'd accept his defeat with grace and dignity, and he'd acknowledge the strength of his opponent.

in my previous set of hc's for the elder titans (scroll down to Eurybia's section), i mentioned that although Pallas likely would have sided with Cronus rather than Zeus during the Titanomachy in the original myths, my hc is that Pallas sided with Zeus instead.

this ties in with my hc that Pallas is an honourable and noble titan.

Pallas' wife is Styx and i have this hc that while on a hunt, Pallas went to wash his bloody weapons in Styx's river, not realising that she was there. and Styx was really mad about him "polluting" her river so they fought. and i think Pallas was really impressed by her fighting skills, and eventually they became friends, and then lovers, and then they got married.

i also think Pallas was really lackadaisical about it- i mean, i don't think he's a romantic at all. he just looked at Styx one day and was like, "hey do you want to get married?", and Styx, who is also generally pretty chill agreed <3 i think they are probably the most chill couple from the younger titans.

PERSES

my hc is that Perses is the middle child in Crius and Eurybia's family. Pallas is the oldest, and Astraeus is the youngest.

i think Perses, from all his siblings, is the most like Crius.

he's very intelligent, and sensible. he's quite mature.

Perses' name means "to ravage" or "to destroy" which paints a pretty brutal idea of him. but i personally don't think that Perses is violent as much as he is a strategic and skilled fighter.

i like the idea that Pallas taught Perses to fight <3

i think he's a little colder than his siblings, and i think he has blind loyalty to his king, which is why i agree with the traditional lore that suggests that Perses ended up in Tartarus after the Titanomachy.

in the previous set of hc's (scroll down to Eurybia's section), i mentioned that i think Eurybia has moments where she can fly into quite a ruthless rage- i think Perses inherits this from his mum.

on Perses' wikipedia page, it says that he "was wed to Asteria", which, when i first read it, sounded pretty cold and aloof. i mean, it didn't say that Asteria was his consort, or his wife (which sounds more intimate and familiar), it just says that he was wed (which sounds like it's just something that *happened*)...

what i'm trying to say, is that i don't think Asteria and Perses had a love marriage- i think it was probably arranged.

that's not necessarily a bad thing. i think Perses and Asteria both agreed to it, and i think that for the most part of their marriage, though they may have not been in love with each other, they were certainly quite content to be together.

Perses, though he can seem indifferent to those around him, is still kind. i think he's very patient, and respectful.

i've said before that i like the idea of having Hecate's magic something that Hecate inherited from Perses' side and Asteria's- i think Coeus (Asteria's father) was pretty nifty at magic as was Crius (Perses' father), and i think Perses and Asteria both inherited this and passed it on to Hecate.

ASTRAEUS

Astraeus is referred to as the titan god of the dusk, and he was also associated with the winds and the constellations.

my hc is that, unlike his older brothers, Astraeus is a lot more in touch with his emotions. i think he's quite vocal about it.

in terms of personality, i think Astraeus closely resembles his mum, Eurybia.

more often than not, he's always smiling and laughing, and being positive.

i also think that Astraeus is a gooey romantic. he's the cheesy type.. the cringey lover.

Astraeus' wife is Eos, which makes a lot of sense thematically since Astraeus represents dusk, and Eos represents dawn.

i have a hc that Astraeus fell in love with Eos the first time he saw her- love at first sight. and i think Eos felt the same way.

because Eos represents the dawn, i imagine that she's an early riser.. i mean, really really early- 3 AM. Astraeus meanwhile, who represents the dusk, is a little bit of a late riser.

i have this hc that Eos stopped by his house at some obscene time in the morning and woke him up so that he could ride with her in her chariot and witness the sunrise the way she sees it, and it was the most beautiful thing Astraeus had ever seen (besides Eos of course <3).

anyways, then they got married and sickened everyone to death with their cringey nicknames for each other.

in the original myths, it's mentioned that Eos had many lovers on the side, but i think Astraeus is okay with it- i don't think he feels threatened by Eos' affairs because he's knows that he's the only true one.

also, i'm not sure whether Astraeus was originally sent to Tartarus, but my hc is that he fought on Zeus' side through Prometheus' little super-titan resistance team. this makes sense to me not simply because i like Astraeus and i don't want him to rot in Tartarus, but as the god of the dusk, he has a pretty important role as a personified concept. so it doesn't make sense why he would get removed from the narrative like that.

ASTERIA

Asteria is best known as being the mother of Hecate by Perses.

as i've already said, i think that Asteria was quite proficient with magic herself, and i like the idea that she taught Hecate.

in terms of personality, i imagine Asteria to be very clever, and witty. i think she's very gracious and patient. i don't think that Asteria is much of a fighter- she doesn't like violence or conflict, but she hates injustice more, and she is willing to make reasonable sacrifices if the cause is just.

my hc is that she is close to her cousin Prometheus. i think they get along very well because they have similar personalities. i also like the idea of her being good friends with Hesione, who becomes Prometheus' wife.

during the Titanomachy, she almost definitely sided with Zeus in the original myths, and i agree with that idea.

after the war, the myths say that Zeus pursued Asteria as well as her sister Leto, but Asteria rejected his advances. in most myths, Zeus' unrelenting pursuit of her ends with Asteria escaping from him by transforming into the island which becomes known as Delos.

i like the idea of Asteria becoming Delos which, as we know, becomes the refuge of Leto when she gives birth to Apollo and Artemis. i like the idea of family always finding away to provide support, BUT i don't like the aspect of Zeus as a forceful and insatiable god.

so my hc is that while Zeus did chase after Asteria, i think Delos had already been created by Asteria previously as a place for her to raise Hecate, and when Asteria returned to that place, i think Zeus knew that it wasn't happening and he gracefully gave up.

i mentioned in Perses' hc's that i think Asteria and Perses had an arranged marriage. i think their marriage was interrupted by the Titanomachy, and although Asteria took Zeus' side, i think Perses took Cronus' side- which definitely led to a little conflict within their family.

my hc is that Asteria already knew that she was pregnant with Hecate during the Titanomachy and she wanted a better life for her daughter which is why she fought alongside Zeus, and i think she also knew that Perses wouldn't fight against Cronus- so she had to choose between her child and her husband, and she chose her child.

after Olympus gets established, i think Asteria and Leto live on Delos together, happily retired, the way they deserve <3

LETO

i've actually already done a few Leto hc's here so i won't repeat them :)

#i love the titans.. god bless you for sending this ask to me <3 #prometheus #helios #selene #eos #asteria #perses #pallas #astraeus #hc #asks #lukewasrightaboutthegods #long post

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duhragonball · 3 years

Text

Hellsing Liveblog Ch. 82-86

LIKE A BLOODY STORM

Atsuku LIKE A BLOODY STONE

So it’s come to this. This is the “Black Onyx” arc and “Sorcerian Part 1″, where we finally get the payoff to the Major’s 55-year plot against Alucard. Walter betrayed Integra, the Hellsing Organization, and the whole United Kingdom just so Millennium would give him a chance to beat Alucard, and he’s failing. Alucard doesn’t see any point in dragging this out, so he’s sucking up all the fresh blood in London to power up and bring and end to this. Also, if you’re just joining us, Alucard looks like a 14-year-old girl. Just roll with it.

But the Major was counting on Alucard doing this, and apparently his plan to “poison the tyrant’s wine” involves his last henchman, Warrant Officer Schrodinger, cutting off his own head and adding his werewolf blood to Alucard’s meal. Why would this matter at all?

Walter seems to understand, because he begs the Major to stop this, as if the Major could.

Desperate, he bisects Alucard with his wires, but it’s already too late for that. Part of the secret behind Alucard’s invincibility is that he gains a 1-up for each person’s blood he consumes. That’s what Anderson and Walter were banking on when they attacked Alucard before. At the time, he had separated himself from the souls he had consumed, which meant that killing him once -- however tough that might be-- would finish him off. But now it’s too late for that. You kill him now and he’ll just come back and dare you to keep going. And he’s taken the blood of like three million people at least.

So the Major observes that Walter’s window of opportunity has closed. According to him, there’s only been two chances to beat Alucard in a fight since Abraham van Helsing captured him in 1898. I assume he’s referring to Anderson and Walter’s respective efforts.

No, Walter was never the final stroke in the Major’s plan, just part of the endgame. All of Millennium’s resources were sacrificed to get to this moment. Enrico Maxwell’s 9th Crusade? The Major was counting on them getting involved, which is probably why he leaked and shared so much of his plans with the Vatican, even though his target was always London. He wanted the Vatican to send all their best warriors to compound the horror, all so Alucard would use his full power to destroy them.

And then, once Alucard’s full power was deployed, the Major knew Anderson would step in and use everything at his disposal to kill Alucard. This battle destroyed all of Alucard’s familiars, setting him up for Walter to take a turn. And maybe Alucard could beat Walter without taking in more blood, but that;s never been Alucard’s style. He sees himself as a loaded weapon at the disposal of Integra Hellsing. He’s not going to drag things out for no reason, and Integra ordered him to destroy Walter, not humor him.

And maybe Walter was aware of all this, but he still believed he could buck the odds and kill Alucard before the Major’s winning move. Walter’s a rook who fancied himself a king. I guess that’s always been his problem. This was never Walter’s story, and I guess he couldn’t handle that truth. If he couldn’t be the hero, then he was content with being the villain, but in the end he was never more than a plot device, supporting whichever side he was on at the time.

And finally, it happens, whatever ‘it’ is. Alucard somehow hears the Major saying that he’s lost. Is the Major saying it? I don’t think anyone else would be. Whoever it is, he starts flashing back to all the other times he’s heard that.

Then he seems to realize something’s gone terribly wrong, and he pauses to notice the rising sun, which has been a common theme with all of his past defeats. Then all these eyes appear on his body and begin winking out, one by one.

Okay, so what the hell happened here? Well, get comfortable, because this is going to take some time to unpack.

The key to all of this is Warrant Officer Schrodinger, a werewolf with the power to be “everywhere and nowhere”. This sounds like he’s just a teleporter, like Nightcrawler from the X-Men, or.... Majik from the X-Men. Well, it’s more complicated than that.

Let me explain the “Schrödinger's cat” thought experiment, because that’s one of those things that’s widespread enough in pop culture that it’s easy to take for granted. I think people understand it has to do with an imaginary cat being alive or dead, but that’s about all.

The really short version of quantum mechanics is that subatomic particles don’t behave the same way as big objects like apples or planets or people. It’s convenient to think of atoms as tiny little solar systems, with electrons orbiting the atomic nucleus. But the reality is that electrons don’t revolve around elliptical orbits like the Earth around the Sun. What happens instead is the electron zips around the nucleus all over the place, from all angles and directions. What’s more, the electron can be at any particular spot at any moment. So it’s less useful to think of an electron having an orbit around a nucleus. What you have instead is this region where the electron is most likely to be at any particular moment. And you can do the math and figure out what the shape of this region is. You can’t locate the electron’s exact position at any particular moment, but you can consider the region where it’s most likely to be in an atom, which will resemble a sphere or a vaguely dumbbell kind of shape.

This is what the Schrödinger Equation is for. Erwin Schrödinger didn’t just talk about cats all day. He postulated his equation in 1925 to work out the movements of electrons in atoms. It was groundbreaking work, and he won a Nobel Prize for it in 1933, and don’t feel bad if you have trouble wrapping your head around all of this. I’m a professional chemist and a lot of this is over my head.

The point of the “Schrödinger's cat” concept was to help visualize how confusing quantum mechanics really is. There are principles to subatomic particles that we know to be true, but they make no sense in our macroscale world. For example, a particle might have a probability of being in multiple locations at a given moment. It can only be in one place at a time, but until you actually perform the measurement to find out, it may as well be in all of those locations. This is something called “superposition”, and I guess we could say that this idea is the basis for our wolfboy’s powers.

So Schrödinger (the scientist, not the furry) suggested a thought experiment where a macroscale event could depend upon a subatomic condition. Like there’s some subatomic thing that could happen or not happen, and depending on the outcome, it would cause a poison to be dispensed that would kill a cat in a box. If the particle goes one way, the cat dies, but if it goes the other way, the cat survives. But both probabilities are equal, and supposedly both outcomes are true for the particle until you make the observation. Therefore, you can’t know whether the cat lived or died until you open the box to look! Indeed, according to quantum mechanics, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead until you open the box to see for yourself.

How does that make any sense? Well it doesn’t, and that’s the point Erwin Schrödinger was driving at. In our large scale, things like gravity and being one place at a time are things we take for granted. But on the quantum level, subatomic particles are governed by rules that seem completely paradoxical to us. And yet, we’re not talking about some alternate reality here. Those subatomic particles make up the atoms that make up us. Cats, boxes, bottles of poison, they’re all just a huge pile of subatomic particles, each following these seemingly nonsensical rules. They’re just organized in such a way that they give rise to bigger rules that make more sense to us. Things like classical mechanics, chemical reactions, cats liking to be inside boxes, and so on. As Erwin Schrödinger put it:

“It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naïvely accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself, it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.”

In other words, we see the world as discrete outcomes. We read the black letters on the page, and not the indeterminate spaces in between, or the hazy, unfinished thoughts of the writer. That doesn’t mean the words on the page aren’t legitimate, or that the passing thoughts of the writer don’t exist. We have to accept the seeming contradiction of it.

So what does this have to do with Alucard? Well, Schrödinger (the furry, not the scientist) has the ability to be like one of these subatomic particles. Our were-boy probably can’t be literally everywhere, but he has this probability region of places where he can be, and it seems to cover at least half the world. He’s appeared in Brazil, London, Zorin Blitz’s psychic visions, and so on. He’s been shot twice in this story, but he just reappears like nothing happened to him at all. It’s not like he teleported away in the nick of time, either. We’ve seen his head burst open like a ripe melon. Like Schrödinger’s cat in the thought experiment, he can be alive or dead at any given moment, so killing him doesn’t actually matter. Warrant Officer Schrödinger can do all of this and he’s conscious of this ability. So as long as he’s aware of himself, he can observe himself and direct himself to be in any location he so chooses.

I would think getting shot in the face would interfere with this ability to control his power, but that’s probably where his werewolf nature comes in. Like the Captain, he can grow back from a nasty headwound, so that gives him time to picture himself someplace else, and in better health. Now that I think about it, that must have been a silver knife he used to cut his own head off.

So when Alucard drank all that blood, he drank Schrödinger’s too, and just like when he drank Rip van Winkle’s blood and got the power to fire that magic musket, Alucard absorbed Schrödinger’s ability to be “everywhere and nowhere”. Except that power only works when Schrödinger himself is conscious of it. And he’s not conscious of it anymore because he’s part of Alucard now. Alucard might figure out how to control this power, but until he does, he can’t choose a location and be in that one place. Instead, he’s “everywhere and nowhere” all the time. So he’s experiencing all of his past moments simultaneously, with no control over his current position.

That sounds bad, right? Well it gets worse. He drank all those other dead people’s blood too, so on top of his own perception, he has the perceptions of all 3 million plus of the souls he’s consumed. So that just further complicates matters. The bottom line is that Schrödinger’s ability is fundamentally incompatible with Alucard’s existence as a composite being made up of multiple absorbed lives.

And since Alucard can’t just cough up Schrödinger’s blood, it’s too late now. He’s got Schrödinger’s ability and he’s stuck with it, but he can’t control it, which means he just winks out of existence. As the Major puts it, he’s now neither live nor dead nor undead. He’s become like a series of imaginary numbers. You’ll need to look that one up on your own time, folks, I spent enough time talking about quantum mechanics.

And you have to hand it to Kouta Hirano, this is a really clever way to bring down an overpowered seinen manga protagonist. This whole time, all of these lower villains acted like they could just beat down Alucard if they applied enough brute force, but that was never going to get the job done. For the purposes of this story, Alucard has been, almost by definition, unbeatable. So the Major’s solution was to give him a new power, one that he would be unable to control. It wouldn’t kill him, but killing Alucard seems like a fool’s errand anyway. Instead, it just... makes Alucard go away, which is probably as close to destroying him as anyone could ever hope for. He might still be alive in some semantic sense, but he can’t carry out his duties to Hellsing and the Crown, so the Major seems to have at least brought down what Alucard is expected to be.

And there’s no way to stop it, because it’s already happened. Integra commands him to stay, but it’s useless. I like the way he signs off in the dub of the OVA, where he apologizes to Integra and says this is one order he cannot obey. It’s just out of his hands.

Then he vanishes, and all that’s left of Alucard is a bloody mark on the street, shaped like the Hellsing insignia on his gloves.

Wait, so does this affect Seras too, since she was Alucard’s servant vampire? Remember, way back in Chapter 1, Integra said that killing the head vampire would automatically kill any ghouls or vampires he creates. So maybe Seras is gone too?

Hell naw. Seras joins Integra in the Major’s command center, and she looks like she’s ready for some revenge. Does she know what’s just happened? I mean, she was furious at the Major to begin with, but she sensed Alucard’s return a while back when he floated up the Thames River. Surely she sensed her own vampire dad winking out of existence.

Meanwhile, Walter had a front-row seat for Alucard’s disappearance. At first he laughs with triumph. I guess he must be giddy with relief, since he wanted to kill Alucard, and for a minute there it looked like Alucard had him dead to rights. Imagine a guy’s about to murder you and then he just ceases to exist. But it doesn’t take long for Walter to realize how hollow this all is. He wanted to kill Alucard himself, and he bet everything just to get that one opportunity, and now he’s failed and he’ll never get another chance. His body is giving out and he’s betrayed everyone who ever cared about him and he’s got nothing to show for it.

Then Heinkel starts shooting at him with a sniper rifle. Yeah, she never left the battlefield after Walter killed Yumiko. The Captain stopped her from interfering before, but the Captain’s dead now and I guess she figures she’s got nothing to lose by trying again. And I suppose the sniper act proves she’s learned from Yumiko’s fatal mistake. Attacking Walter up close is dangerous.

At first, Walter seems to invite this. He even invites Heinkel to shoot him a few more times, as it’s a fitting punishment for a traitor. If you’ve only seen the TFS Abridged version of Hellsing, they actually use this as Walter’s death scene, but in the original version Walter takes a few bullets and then leaves. He says Heinkel can shoot him, but she doesn’t get to kill him. I don’t think she even heard him say that, but whatever.

Instead, he uses his wires to board the Major’s airship one last time.

So remember how the Major was protected from Integra by a reinforced glass barrier? Yeah, well Seras finds an 88mm cannon and shoots through it. It also shoots through the hull of his ship and rings a large bell on the outskirts of town. Right before she shoots, Integra orders Seras to “Search and Destroy” just like she always told Alucard. It’s kind of sad, but Seras has automatically succeeded her master as Integra’s weapon. I mean, it’s a triumph for Seras, but it comes at a heavy price for her. She’s probably too enraged by what’s happened to appreciate this moment on all these other levels, but there’ll be time for that.

So there’s no way the Major could survive a cannon like that at pointblank range, right? Wrong, the dude’s a fucking cyborg, and I guess Seras’ aim was a little off. I suppose the downside to using big-ass guns is that you have trouble aiming at small targets. Wait, no, what happened to all that “third eye” stuff from before? What’s wrong with you, Victoria?

Oh wait, she missed because she’s sad. Aw... :`(

So we knew the Major had to be something to have survived this long without aging, but we had already learned he wasn’t a vampire. He insists that he is still human, however, no different from a man with a pacemaker or an artificial limb. His mind remains his own, even if it should be a brain in a life support system or backed up on a computer. I’m not sure if either of these describes the status of the Major’s brain, but to his point, it doesn’t really matter. He describes himself as Alucard’s polar opposite. While Al is this beautiful monster who masquerades as a human, the Major is a human who resembles the grotesque form of a monster. I’m not body-shaming the dude, I’m just reporting what he’s saying. He’s taken a few fat jokes in stride, and I guess he’s got the same attitude about his cyborg body too. He doesn’t seem to care if others find this unpleasant, because it’s better than being a vampire with a diluted self.

Arguably, this whole campaign to destroy Alucard was the Major’s effort to prove his claim on being human. Alucard often said that only a human could defeat a monster like him, and the Major beat him, so doesn’t that prove he’s a human in the end?

So Integra whips out her other gun, the one she didn’t use to shoot at the Major’s glass case, and they start shooting each other at pointblank range. The Major’s a terrible shot, though, and yet somehow he manages to take out one of Integra’s eyes before she puts a bullet in his forehead. I still don’t understand how you can shoot someone in the eye and not kill them. Did the bullet just angle away from her brain or is the Major’s gun just really weak on stopping power?

Anyway, Integra’s shot kills the Major, but not right away, so I guess it’s not just his original brain in there. He’s just thrilled to have finally hit something after a lifetime of terrible marksmanship. It’s a fitting reflection of his win over Alucard, because he and the rest of Millennium were warriors who had never won a war before. In the end, I’m not sure the Major would have been disappointed if his plan had failed. He’d never won before, so I don’t think another defeat would have bothered him much. As it is, he dies contentedly, satisfied with his “good war”. What a shithead.

So yeah, we’ve got three more chapters to go and then we’re done. See you next time.

#2021hellsingliveblog #hellsing #alucard #seras victoria #sir integra hellsing #walter c dornez #the major #heinkel wolfe #warrant officer schrodinger #erwin schrödinger #uh... yeah #that's everybody #starting to run a little low on characters now

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rayofsunas · 3 years

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Ayo I just read your request page and got some thoughts with all those spin-offs (?) of Scara's mini-series!

He's probably gonna be SO heartbroken in those... Since reader is literally the only person in the world he actually loves and actually loved him back, and they've been together since FOREVER, I can only imagine how truly hurt he's going to feel when he sees her happy with someone else, moving on from him.

He'd first be so mad like THE AUDACITY OF THIS WOMAN TO LEAVE HIM LIKE THAT!! (he remembers clearly how he threw her out of his- their house). THAT OTHER MAN ISN'T EVEN AT HIS LEVEL! (that other man is actually better, he knows deep down).

Then he'd be... really sad even if he only looked angry. They had been together practically since they were born! It was only natural that they'd be together until they both died! Then why and how did she move on so fast when he couldn't even imagine himself loving anyone else but her?! What about everything they went through together, all those years they spent walking side by side?! ...Did all those years mean less to her than they had meant to him? Did she finally get tired of him? Did he take her too much for granted? Was he really such a bad lover that she'd take the first better option she found?

But does this mean he will give up? No, no he won't- He will try and do whatever it takes to break the new couple apart and take reader back! It was just a silly fight like the ones they always had and solved with no problem!! Or so he tries to convince himself.

And that's when reader and her new bae break his hopes and then just *insert angry sad scara noises* He has coming whatever they do or not to him tbh-

and that's about it! thank you for giving us such a good plot jae and thanks anons for having ideas with so much drama potential!! you're all amazing ✺◟( • ω • )◞✺

I agree!! reader and scara have been together so long in the baby daddy universe, so I think it would be quite hard, for him especially, to move on. he’s very difficult to deal with I imagine, and since reader is from his childhood, she’s seen him go through everything, supported him through a lot, and vice versa despite the relationship's current standings. he’s a pain in the ass, yes, but legit no other person in the world will treat him as kindly or as well as reader, so pushing her away was really not a good choice. you can still love someone, but not like their attitude, and I think that’s where reader is at when she decides to go find someone else. i agree with everything you've said; scaramouche would be so bitter about it, he may even get lost in what he was trying to achieve, which originally was trying to win the reader back over. but instead, i'd bet 100% he'd spend more time trying to one-up her new s/o, etc. smhhhh. AND NO THANK YOU! <3 everyone's support is immaculate, chefs kiss, ahh just so kind and sweet. all the anons have spectacular ideas, and everyone who has contributed to the plot and supported me has really shaped the story! <33

#rayofsunas #scaramouche can't get anyone else so he needs to stop being a brat #an angry scaramouche is an angry gremlin sigh #thank you for 1.7k followers and all of the support on my recent posts despite being so inactive when it comes to writing!!#i adore all 1.7k of you!! <3333 #thank you for sending this anon hehe

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biteghost · 3 years

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How do you come up with so many cool characters?? All of your OCs seem so vibrant and fleshed out. Do you have a specific process for developing them, or do they just kinda come to you mostly formed? I find I struggle with building a compelling OCs for D&D games & would love to hear your thoughts on character development.

(This answer got long, sorry.) This is a super nice sentiment, I’m happy you think my characters are all cool and unique!!

As far as process goes, uh, it depends on the character? I’ve spent a long time (years) rewiring my brain when it comes to what I think about when creating OCs. They don’t usually come to me fully formed - I get an idea in my head about a concept, and then over like a week or even months of fiddling I end up with a character for that concept.

A lot of the time my characters are simply people I wanted to see more of in media as a kid! Mostly, female characters I actually relate to or are as nuanced and messy as their male cast members, haha... (It was a trip when I realized in high school that I didn’t hate female characters - it was actually that none of them were written as well as the cool boys in the anime series I liked, haha! Be the change you want to see in the world, basically.)

Inspiration for characters (and stories for them to be part of) come from a lot of places. An easy piece of advice is to make an effort to intake media you like! Read new comics, watch new movies and television shows, read books, play video games, listen to music and obsessively memorize the lyrics - hell, obsessively learn everything there is to know about black holes or public domain characters (that’s what I did, lol...)!

(Note: ’New’ meaning new to YOU - you don’t need to only be partaking of media that’s created in 2021 - you can find a lot to love in media that was created before your time, or for generations before you!)

I must reiterate: intake new media that you ENJOY! You don’t have to like all the same things as everyone else, you don’t have to be invested in the same shows and podcasts as your friends. Varied interests and taste is part of what makes us all unique! Increasing your pool of inspiration will help you come up with interesting ideas, and help you find YOUR voice. Your particular interests and the niche things that speak to you will help you figure out what kind of characters and what kind of stories you like to create! But the process doesn’t end at just intaking media... When you find the stuff that brings you joy, analyze what exactly it is about that thing that speaks to you... Put it into words. Explain it to a friend. Make it tangible, analyze the feelings and why the series made you feel that way... and then take it and shove it into your own stories, lol!

Engage critically and thoughtfully with work you like, with characters you like, and it will help you have the language and thought process to recreate it in your own work!

My creative process is like an exquisite corpse of all the characters and series I’ve liked over my lifetime. I mesh them all together in a grim blender and what comes out is a shake in the vague shape as an OC, lol

BUT... it seems like you’re asking more specifically about making characters for tabletop roleplaying games like D&D? And THAT is a different process for me than making OCs for my comics or original story ideas!

I don’t usually join a tabletop game with a fully fleshed out character, actually?? I don’t spend a long time on their backstory, and I usually figure it out like halfway through the story, or through collaboration with my game master!

My TTRPG characters are usually whatever I think would be most interesting in the given game setting or set-up and... usually they exist in opposition to whatever the core concept of the game is. So, the examples I have from games I’ve played are:

In Cardians: West (World of Darkness: Hunter the Vigil): we played in a modern-day urban fantasy setting, where players were recruited into a supernatural Hunter group that was also a criminal organization that Did Crimes and Broke The Law in the name of keeping peace and protecting humanity from the supernatural creatures that go bump in the night. I played Andrew, a Lawful Good Police Detective, because I thought playing a character who would need to grow past his original ideals of ‘Right and Wrong’ in the name of the greater good would be interesting! (And it was!)

In SINNING ADVENTURE (WoD: Geist: The Sin-Eaters) we payed in a modern-day urban fantasy setting with the premise that the players all Died and were brought back to life by forming a pact with a powerful spirit (and getting cool ghost powers in the process!) I played Cassius, a character who could not cope with his death, and thus refused to use his new powers because they were evidence that he was no longer strictly human. It caused conflict in the group and world, but I thought it would be interesting! (And it was! Cassius was a Bitch.)

In Rex Machina (Dungeons and Dragons 5E), I wanted to play an Aarakocra, but was having a hard time deciding on a class or backstory... until I found out that in the ‘canon’ of D&D Aarakocra only live to be like, mid 20s???? Their lifespans are insanely short compared to other playable races!! And I thought that was stupid, so I decided to make MY Aarakocra, Izzy, a warlock that’s looking for ways to extend his own stupidly short life. His pact essentially granted that to him, giving him extra time to find a way to achieve True Immortality. His conflict challenges what’s ‘true’ living in this world, and his extended life is in direct conflict with a lot of forces in the world we play in, and while it is very stressful I think it’s really interesting to play!

In Lamplighting (Monster of the Week), my character Aicen is an assassin who made a deal with a demon and gained supernatural perks out of it... except I decided that she doesn’t WANT to be in this deal. She is actively trying to undo it because it wasn’t her deal - she inherited it from a CEO that she killed during an unrelated job. (Aicen is probably my character I’ve put the most backstory into, and that’s just because at character creation in MOTW you are given a lot of questions about who your character is and why they’re where they are!)

In Hand of Adam (WoD: HtV), the concept was that all players were going to join a post-apocalyptic supernatural-hating cult. I played Shouter, who was a self-preserving pacifist coward who also turned out to be a fae (which the cult would have killed him over). It was stressful but very fun. I love Shouter. He ran away from fights and didn’t actually kill anyone until the last episode where they fought God (whom he killed, lol).

NOW. THESE ARE ALL JUST EXAMPLES OF HOW *I* LIKE TO PLAY CHARACTERS!! For me personally, I enjoy playing a character who has built-in conflict either with the world, the story, or the other players. I’m only able to play characters like this because my friend group are all really cool and we all know that conflict is not bad - it’s fiction and we’re just roleplaying! If I didn’t trust my GMs and fellow players as much as I do, I probably wouldn’t have felt comfortable enough playing some of these concepts.

I don’t think you need to know every little thing about a tabletop character, and in fact, not knowing some things and leaving it up to the GM and story to flesh out is an easy way to help you get more invested in both your character AND the story your GM is telling! Tabletops are a collaborative storytelling experience, so if you’ve already plotted out your character’s whole story, there won’t be much participation from other players or your GM. Figure out what your character wants, and let your roleplaying and GM slowly put all the other pieces in place over the course of your campaign!

But the TL:DR about how I make tabletop OCs is that I just... try to give them a goal, an ideal, or a personality that is in direct conflict with some aspect of the game we’re playing. I don’t want the character to be undermining the whole game, because that’s really crappy to do to your GM, but I have to have something for my character to grow through or change. I like giving them built-in character arc starters, lol. I haven’t played a game where my character has gotten along with every other player character and NPC over the entire campaign since my very FIRST game, lol!

Also, if you’re having trouble, why not ask your GM what they think? Again, tabletops are collaborative! Don’t be afraid to talk ideas out with your GM for your character.

A final note about playing in specifically oneshot games (i.e. games that are not long campaigns but are meant to be played in one or two sittings). Personally, I always just retrofit an OC I already have to play in oneshots! When I make a new character for a long campaign, it usually takes me two or three sessions to find their voice and figure out how to roleplay them. If the game you’re playing is only one session, I find it easier to jump right in and get the most out of your character and the game when you’re playing a character you already know pretty well! I’ve played characters from my webcomic quite a few times, and it’s always a lot more fun for me than figuring out a new character on the fly!

SO UH, IN CONCLUSION... sorry if this is mad unhelpfu!! My personal processes are unique to me! but that's the point - no one person will have the exact answer that works for you! You have to keep trying until you figure it out for yourself! Good luck! Keep creating! <3

#long post #asktime #not art #art talk #writing talk #tabletop talk #gif #iwishihadhorns

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