#an important appearance

[valkeakuulas]

14, post-o66 echo/rex 👁👄👁

Y'know, I don't recall writing about this ship before. Especially when it comes to the Bad Batch timeline. 🤔 So here goes nothing! This also grew legs and skittered out of my hands, turning into a lot longer before I managed to pin it down and finish it. Whoops?

Mistletoe: Mutual Pining

Echo stood in the shadows of the repair shop's massive doors, watching the traffic going up and down the underworld portal. Behind him, he could hear the music flowing from the floating speakers as well as the low conversation between the freed troopers and the Martez sisters.

Sighing, Echo closed his eyes and listened.

Just like their mutations, the Batch sounded different compared to the rest of the troopers, and while Echo had grown used to them, hearing more than one vod speak with that same, familiar voice soothed something deep inside him. It reminded Echo of his life in the not-so-distant (depending on how one looked at it) past when he'd been wearing white and blue.

"I was wondering where you'd go," one of those voices spoke behind Echo, making him shiver involuntarily as it had so many times before, ever since that cold, desolate moon.

Maybe not that same after all, Echo corrected himself as he turned slightly. Natborns might mix them up but vod could always recognize another one vod from voice alone.

He saw the smile first, small but sincere, before meeting Rex's eyes.

"Just needed a moment, it's been a while since was surrounded by this many people," Echo replied with a small smile of his own.

Rex hummed, thoughtful as he came to stand next to Echo, their shoulders almost touching. He looked at the never-ending traffic as well and it took Echo everything not to lean against Rex as he waited for his Captain Rex to speak again.

"It's been a while for me too," Rex said eventually, "I was on my own quite a while before Rafa and Trace helped me to free more clones." His brows drew together, the smile turning into a mild frown. "Never crossed my mind that I'd end up in a situation where I wouldn't be surrounded by vode. We clones aren't really meant to be alone."

He glanced at Echo. "I'm glad you had the Batch, Echo" Rex said, serious.

"And Omega," Echo had to add, witnessing how Rex's lips twisted, fighting a smile.

"And Omega," Rex amended, "she's different, that's for sure, but very brave as well as smart."

They both couldn't stop their grins as they recalled how the tiny girl had clocked Rex's age with one glance, effectively calling him an old man.

They fell silent again and another piece dedicated to the Life Day started in the background, the velvet-like voice of the singer crooning about curling together with their loved one under the Life Tree.

Echo felt his face warm up a little as he recalled another memory or, more accurately, a dream from the past. One that he hadn't dared to speak to anyone besides Fives and even that had been when he'd been drunk off his ass. Both of them had been drunk offf their asses.

Just like the singer, Echo had once dreamed of closing the distance between him and the man standing next to him, to hold Rex close and whisper words of love into his ear.

But that had been before Lola Sayu, before Echo had been blown to bits. Before the galaxy Echo had known and trained to fight for had turned upside down.

"So what do you think of this whole Life Day thing?" Echo heard Rex ask, the question effectively stopping Echo's thoughts before they spiraled further.

Echo shrugged. "I faintly recall Commander Tano telling something about it but not much. At least nothing like this."

He used his thumb to point back inside the repair shop and the colored lights, the fake tree, and the sparkly decorations the sisters had pulled out from some crates. The repair shop was too large to decorate completely but one corner of it had turned into a glittering, colorful nook like Echo had never seen before.

Omega and Wrecker would love it, Echo mused with a grin.

He turned to Rex to say that, only to freeze when he found the other staring right at him. Those gold-brown eyes were intense, scanning Echo's face almost as if it was a map that Rex needed to memorize.

"You miss them? The Batch?" Rex asked suddenly, jarring Echo once again.

"I do? Kind of hard not to after what we've been through," he replied, slow, uncertain what Rex was aiming at.

Whatever it had been, Echo's answer made him turn away again, and Echo got the sense that Rex wasn't all that pleased with it.

"I miss you, too," Echo blurted, eyes widening when he realised his mistake. "The 501st, I mean," he hurried to add when Rex turned towards him again, "the General and Commander, Jesse and Kix, Axe and Denal. Fives. I miss all of you."

The look Rex gave him wasn't as intense as it had been before but it still had Echo holding back a shiver.

"I miss them, too, Echo," Rex admitted quietly, "and I miss you as well."

Something twinged in Echo's chest and it had nothing to do with the tech embedded in his body. He opened his mouth to say, well, Echo didn't know what he was going to say but before he could, a light movement in the corner of their eyes caught Echo and Rex's attention.

Both of them turned sharply towards the repair shop, only stopping when they saw a branch of something green floating in the air before them.

Except that it wasn't floating; a closer look revealed a cord wrapped around the plant that was slowly moving closer.

Confused, Echo followed the cord and blinked in surprise when he spotted Gregor standing on the stack of crates next to the repair shop doors and, as it happened, next to Echo and Rex as well.

"What the - ?" Echo started just as Rex groaned, suffering.

"Gregor..."

"Nuh-uh, you know the rules, Rex," Gregor informed with a grin as he angled the plant right above them, "if you find yourself under a mistletoe, you need to kiss, otherwise you'll be hit with bad luck."

Echo felt his face heat up at that, his heart twinging again at the idea of Rex kissing him. He didn't know what kind of expression he was wearing but Echo feared it looked too close to a hopeful one.

Trying his best to push it away, Echo glanced at Rex, finding him once again staring at him. And, as Echo watched Rex, his gaze flickered down to Echo's mouth and oh, the flash of teeth as Rex bit his bottom lip nearly had Echo losing control of his knees.

The mistletoe swayed as Gregor shook it. "C'mon, you two have been mooning over each other long enough."

"There's been no such thing," Rex informed Gregor sharply but he didn't look away from Echo, who felt his jaw drop when a light blush dusted Rex's face.

Clearing his throat, Echo gave another look at the mistletoe. "Bad luck, you say? Think it'll hit me double hard since I'm already part of the Bad Batch?" he drawled.

The surprised snort Rex let out eased some of the tension in the air. "Don't think it would be a good idea to find out," he said, aiming for nonchalance but, just like Fives once upon a time, Rex had no sabacc face and he failed rather miserably.

That, and the look Rex was giving at him felt very similar to the one Echo was giving to him.

"Echo...," Rex started, hesitant.

For a second Echo thought about all the times he had wanted to confess his feelings to his Captain, to tell Rex just how much he meant to him.

Echo had survived against all the odds that had been stacked against him since Kamino. Maybe it was time to test if this was just another odd he was meant to win.

Swallowing, Echo stepped forward, closing the distance between him and Rex. He saw Rex's eyes widen in surprise when their chests touched. But instead of moving away, Rex's hands came to rest on Echo's hips, warm and gentle.

"I don't know about you, Rex, but I'd rather kiss you than tempt fate," Echo murmured as he wrapped his arm around Rex's shoulders. "If that's alright with you?"

Breathing shakily, Rex closed his eyes for a second, visibly gathering himself, before opening them again. "I'm more than alright with that, Echo. More than you can ever imagine."

Echo didn't know which one of them moved first but it didn't matter because they were kissing. After so many years, Echo finally got to kiss his Captain.

Above them, Gregor let out a loud hoot, one was nothing but pure glee:

"I told you that it would work, Nemec! You owe me ten credits!"

#Echo #Captain Rex #Star Wars: The Bad Batch #Star Wars: The Clone Wars #asks #softurl #fanfiction #askbox writing prompts #valkeakuulas writes AKA butchers English grammar #OTP #clone shipping #Captain Gregor #he makes an appearance #an important appearance

[shadowtraveled]

"mithrun is the only real monsterfucker in dungeon meshi" is objectively the funniest bit you can get out of his everything, but in all seriousness i think his attraction to his love interest is deliberately overstated—and that makes sense, because romantic jealousy is a classic and digestible motive, which is explicitly what kabru was aiming for in condensing mithrun's backstory, and also because until chapter 94, mithrun wasn't willing to admit to the true nature of his desires.

but because romantic envy is both classic and digestible, it probably isn’t a unique enough or complicated enough desire to tempt a demon’s appetite. mithrun’s wish, as far as we can figure from kabru’s reduced retelling, was to have a life in which he had never become one of the canaries, and that carries like 3857 implications and desires within it. that’s delicious. his love interest acts as sort of a red herring to his motivation for making it, though. (side note: i'm saying "love interest" here because, keeping in mind that i barely speak japanese on a good day anymore, "想い人" is something i'd usually take as just kind of an old-fashioned and romantic way to refer to a lover, but in context i wonder if both the connotation of yearning and the vagueness are intentional, and i think this phrasing gets those aspects of it more effectively. anyway.)

mithrun considered his love interest to be untrustworthy. there was a minute where i thought that comment might be about a similar-looking elf (yugin, one of his squad members), but comparing the two…

the "sketchy" arrow is definitely referring to the elf we know as his love interest—the bangs go toward her right, she only has the one forehead ornament, and, most notably, her ears aren't notched.

every time she’s given a full-body depiction in his dungeon, she’s drawn as a chimera, with the body of a snake from the waist down. (side note: the “what if a dungeon has chimeras before reaching level 4?”/“then the dungeon lord is unstable” exchange just being mithrun grilling his past self alive is so funny. he’s so. but anyway) there are a couple things about this.

first, the snake part of the chimera appears to be modeled after some species of coral snake mimic

which, in the biology-for-fun manga, i… doubt is a coincidence, especially with the added context of the “untrustworthy” comment. the dungeon’s conjured illusion of mithrun’s love interest was a harmless copycat of a venomous original. for whatever reason, he felt this person was a threat and made up a "safe" version of her to be in a relationship with, and while it’s definitely possible to be attracted to or even love someone you find to be toxic and/or intimidating, when you take that into consideration alongside the configuration of her body, you get some interesting implications.

which brings us to our second point: if we assume that mithrun was not in fact fucking a snake, then sexual attraction, at least, was so far removed from his idea of a relationship with this person that he did not even bother to keep her dungeon copy human enough to maintain the illusion of the option of a sexual relationship. this is somewhat echoed in the depictions of their interactions, which also imply a frankly unexpected romantic distance. she kisses his cheek and he doesn't seem to react; she's at the edge of a narrow bed with only one set of pillows, on top of his blankets while he's underneath them.

the kiss is particularly interesting because it seems to contrast the text. kabru's narration tells us this was everything mithrun could have asked for, but mithrun is there looking unreadable to pensive, likely because this is right before the panel that makes it clear things in the dungeon are beginning to go wrong.

walking through this backwards for a minute, we have the physical barrier of his bedding and the spatial separation inherent in a bed made for one person, the emotional barrier of his mounting anxiety getting in the way of his ability to enjoy the affection he sought, and... the snake, which historically carries the connotation of temptation, yes, but also mistrust, barring physical intimacy. okay. ok. if a dungeon reflects the mentality of its lord, all of this might suggest that mithrun was not able to have any real desire for a relationship with this person. his unwillingness to be vulnerable or let another person in was insurmountable. but in that case, why was she such a focal point that she remained to the end, after his dungeon had stopped creating iterations of his friends to come and visit him? why would he get so upset over her meeting with his brother that he became lord of a dungeon about it?

well. mithrun's brother was also interested in her, probably genuinely. and mithrun had to win.

you have an older brother who your parents completely ignore, probably in part because he is chronically ill/disabled and almost definitely in part because he received a ton of recessive traits that resulted in rumors that he was an illegitimate child. you are aware, most likely because those same parents fucking told you, that you actually are an illegitimate child. but they keep you around because you had the good fortune of looking just like your mother. what can that possibly teach you but that you, like your brother, are disposable?

it's utterly unsurprising that mithrun, under these circumstances, developed a pathological need to be better than everyone around him. people don't keep you otherwise. i'd argue this is also why he says he looked down on everyone he knew while milsiril claims his dungeon reeked of feelings of inferiority—he sought out people's worst traits and prioritized them in his mind to protect his already extremely fragile sense of self-worth, and all the while he tried to be as likable and high-performing as he possibly could be. his parents disposed of him anyway, but even then he tried to keep up the performance. he was kind to everyone. he never once lost to a dungeon.

when he saw his "love interest" meeting up with his brother, what he saw was himself being replaced by a person his parents had always treated as worthless, and if that was what they thought of the child they'd kept, what value could anyone possibly see in the bastard they'd given away to die? mithrun and kabru tell the story like he wanted to win this unnamed elf's heart, but it was never about being with her. it was about cementing his worth, proving that he didn't deserve to be thrown away.

and so it's particularly cruel that his demon discarded him, too. but maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.

kui laid it out in three panels better than i could hope to.

yeah. it's love. you wanted to be loved, even when the only way you were able to understand it was through the desire to be wanted, and you wanted that so badly that the idea of being consumed felt like the promise of finally mattering to someone.

#dungeon meshi spoilers #mithrun #dungeon meshi #this has been rotating for a while but i wanted to check my evidence before getting into it thanks user angelspenance for posting that meme #half of this is just the text and the other half i'm sure has been said before but it's making my brain [radio static] so here this is #someone did for sure mention this but i do find it very cute that in his fucked up conjured world meant to portray his ideal reality #his teammates came to visit him. like part of the fantasy was then explicitly that they cared about him and were his friends. even though #he says he tried to see the worst in them. #hm it does feel important to note that i do also believe 100% in mithrun suicidality--his desire to be eaten does seem to focus a lot on #wanting it to be Over. wanting not to be left incomplete and empty anymore. #but that loops back around a bit to the hole in your heart that appears when you feel unloved. it's many things and the same thing at once #snakes #long post #severe problems #meshy

[pinkravat-art]

good omens s2 e3 deleted scene (i saw it happen trust me i was the walking dead)

#good omens #i blacked out for 2.5 hours and this just appeared ok #this crowley costume is SO important to me i want to eat it #ineffable husbands #good omens 2 #good omens spoilers #good omens fanart #aziracrow #good omens art #crowley #gomens #aziraphale #illustration #art #drawing #sketch #artists on tumblr #digital art #artwork #my posts #character art

[spicymancer]

Gray was once the Sixth ActiRanger but was captured by the Gambit Gang and transformed into the Rival Knight.

Bonus part

#oc art #actirangers #he/they #Non-Binary Transmasc but also a centuar #now thats what I call bottom surgery #Gray having a humanoid form is important because I want them to appear in a scene indoors occasionally.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bare skin, bare feelings.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #lan wangji #wei wuxian #blood #Imagine coming off as homophobic to your crush so bad he weaponizes a strip tease against you. #LWJ is just having a storm of bad emotions. His tummy hurt real bad and he was just trying to be brave about it! #WWX is just trying to be a good bro and heal his friendcrush. It worked but not for the reasons he thinks it did. #LWJ's shyness is also hilarious here considering they have bathed together before. Literally nothing there he hasn't seen before. #Granted it was a few years back and before he was left to stew in his feelings. #LWJ is more focused on his pride than being responsible and reasonable (getting is wounds treated). #His arc really is about accepting that he can't be perfect. That there is importance in being honest and vulnerable. #The tragedy is that he realizes this way too late. #Pride is the worst sin because it destroys your ability to protect anything other than the smallest crown in the world. #When everyone is gone and you are left alone - was it worth it to feel safe and protected from showing your flaws? #Control over oneself is in conflict with connection to others. You cannot pick both. #Hanguang-jun appears to us as a 'perfect guy' but the truth is that he is the version of LWJ who is done with *needing* that validation. #And this time - He can properly reach out to those he wants to be close with.

[howlonomy]

Monster Clover, like this is so awesomecool.

They're such a little beast and it is amazing and please i need more, like written text even i just need the juicy lore and emotional moments that are circling in ur brain.

HAT: RETRIEVED!!

#undertale yellow #uty clover #flowey the flower #chara dreemurr #frisk undertale #monster clover au #my art #as for emotional moments. hang in there for another day or 2. got a big batch of comics coming 😈 #if i ever made a fic for this au i would not advertise it. i got irls following me #they can look at all my cringe ass art but if they read a WORD of fic i wrote i would have to end it all. hope this helps #anyways. frisk appears!! i wont be doing too many canon ut characters in this little au but i like frisk :) #theyre also important for the next part #narrator chara makes an appearance too bc i love them #cowboy (gender neutral) #SORRY I LOVE RAMBLING IN TAGS </3 i love Talking #BUT THANK YOUU i also love my little skrungly im so glad other people like them so much too #mcau comic #mcau art

[julijbee]

girlbossing too close to the sun.

#art #ive literally just been treating this game as a library simuator #i walk from bookseller to bookseller opening up all of their books #vivecs sermons are either a highlight or the point at which i stop reading #ive been trying to convince the ordinators that imitation is the highest form of flattery but it hasnt been working #let me wear your helmets please theyre so funny.. #posting morrowind in 2024 isnt a cry for help but youre not wrong to be concerned. #morrowind #almalexia #vivec #im going to explain the chitin armor give me a moment #so the bonewalker nerevar on the shrines is adorable and it was only after drawing it however many times that i realized #it looked relatively close to a modified chitin armor #and so i modified chitin armor a few times and this was probably the cutest result #i also know i drew almalexia relatively pristine and untouched by years and vivec not so much but my thought process was #vivecs role as if not a favorite then the most accessible divine or the most “hands on” in a manner of speaking #acting in ways visible to the general population or actions explicitly brought to their attention #like not that almalexia isnt doing anything she is #but the dissemination of information regarding that is very different etc etc etc #anyways to a certain extent a god is the face on a shrine or in art or upon a statue or carving #but vivecs presence is interwoven with the geography of vvardenfell especially and his actions and writings with pubished materials #and the arts and culture and customs etc etc etc #so to me the face of a god you know and feel a commonality with or a god that walks alongside you is a face you would recognize #and vivec is already otherworldly looking enough #the simple mark of the years on his skin in some way grounding him in reality felt more right #that and i think the ways in which he and almalexia care about outward appearance are slightly different- they prioritize different things #and the ways they present outward power and their embodiment of their respective attributes share some similarities as they both have that #important preoccupation with physical power and physical strength to a certain degree #oh my god nobody read this i am yapping so bad. #tes

[sergle]

Compromising someone's physical safety bc of an internet argument is so not funny, but what IS funny is that this is the type of content Sssniperwolf makes. btw. It's all like this. This is what is being criticized, and what she's doxxing people for talking about.

#sergle.txt #Sssniperwolf #hiiiigh quality content right here #and yes I see what you see. I'm seein it. but this guy hasn't brought personal things or physical appearance into the roasts. #(unlike her. who's called him ugly and bald etc etc) #so I shan't say anything either. keepin on target bc the freebooting and threats to other ppl are way way more important than (gestures)

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

i'm not an amputee so absolutely tell me to stay in my lane if applicable, but it seems to me that there's something really unique about the way that black sails handles silver's disability and the narrative role of his prosthetic. as in, it's one of the only shows i've seen (although i'm sure there are more out there) where 1) a character's mobility is more impaired when using a prosthetic, and 2) where using a prosthetic is explicitly portrayed as an effort to appear more able-bodied to others in a way that's harmful to the amputee character: silver insists on wearing the leg in front of the men to the point of giving himself an infection and limiting his mobility in a fight because he's worried about maintaining his authority. while he doesn't choose to stop wearing it, i think it's telling that he also doesn't try to have a replacement made after he loses it or otherwise seem bothered by being seen using his crutch after he establishes the myth of long john silver by crushing dufresne's skull with his metal leg for mocking him as "half a man," symbolically tying the myth to his disability

#black sails #black sails spoilers #john silver #i saw a post about how mobility aids often seem to be forced on people or withheld based on what would to make them appear most able-bodied #and didn't want to derail it with my pro-black sails propaganda bc that's like. an actual important real life issue #so i made this post instead #kvetch oc

[infizero]

i said this in the tags of another post but. the way that the desert always seems to PHYSICALLY pop up whenever scar and grian are together is insane. first them finding the only tiny patch of desert in double life, and now a desert appearing in front of them right as they're laughing together and riding on a llama camel. like we all know this but MAN. they seriously never left the desert. it's become a symbol of their past together, and they can't escape it.

#grian #goodtimeswithscar #desert duo #trafficblr #secret life smp #secret life spoilers #slsmp spoilers #serena.txt #this is genuinely driving me insane cause this is now a pattern. again this feels so intentional i can barely believe its real #the place where their relationship started keeps appearing now whenever they're together #it's so incredibly symbolic it makes me want to tear my hair out i need us to never stop talking about this please #edit: i think its also important to note that they werent LOOKING for a desert in either of these instances. they just randomly happened #upon it both times

[silverwhittlingknife]

i love a lot of things about dick & tim's relationship but one of my favorite things is that sometimes dick gets to be the unhinged one <3

#dick and tim #dick grayson #tim drake #my comic art but we are using the term ''art'' loosely #look - as an unhinged-dick-grayson enthusiast - it is important for his enrichment!! #he may APPEAR to be unhappy but the emotional release is very important for his long-term well-being in the comics enclosure

[haitani-trash]

i always assumed rick’s choice of athena kids having grey eyes was random but after 14 years i just found out yesterday that it’s literally in the fucking iliad that athena has grey eyes???

#I have an ancient history degree this is embarrassing #i literally never knew it was an actual reference #like to fucking homer????? #like I was sitting on the plane reading the iliad looking like shocked pikachu #either way it doesn’t matter because appearance is not important but it’s like wut #homer #the iliad #Athena #percy jackson #pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo tlt #pjo tv #pjo tv show #annabeth #annabeth chase

[anthurak]

So I think the opening narration for Hazbin introduced what might be our first big ‘lore question’ of the show:

We know what happened to Lucifer, Lilith and Adam following this backstory. Buuuttt…

What happened to Eve?

#hazbin hotel #hazbin spoilers #hazbin theory #lucifer morningstar #lilith morningstar #hazbin adam #hazbin eve #i mean eve's appearance in that storybook flashback just SCREAMED 'she is going to be important' #earlyaccesshh #hazbin hotel spoilers

[thebramblewood]

Exciting news: I now have a story page and a characters page! They're pretty basic at the moment, but I'm hoping to think of some fun stuff to add later. For now, you might find a few new nuggets of insight in the character bios! I just wanted a cute little hub for readers new and old to find everything they need in one place. Let me know if you think anything (or anyone) major is missing or if you notice any errors. Here are all the character portraits. Aren't they cute? And thanks to @buglaur for the incredibly easy to modify template!

#ts4 #sims 4 #story: hzid #the zhaoverse #i'm going to change my pinned post to this #at least until i get a better blog theme where i can more easily add links #but that will have to wait for another day #i know it's kind of silly to include some characters that showed up for only a post or two and exclude others #but i tried to choose based on relevance/relationship #so julia's friends feel more important than that dude in helena's creative writing class even if they appear less

[titenoute]

Being on the run does that to a mofo. Inspired by @djsherriff-responses 's excellent point about Rayman being blonder than his previous iterations and making him more white passing.

So what if, he is ALSO a red head in this version and was obligated bleach his hair, to be more 'acceptable' for EDEN's propaganda before he defected .

#captain laserhawk #rayman #ramon #Probably won't happen in the show coz there's still the possibility he keeps a more 'Rayman' appearance for stealth #tho I'll be honest #I hope he won't be as important in S2 #look I love Ramon and I'm so happy of what they did with him #but he kind of shadowed Dolph aka the actual protagonist #let the twink have more character arc he needs it

[starboundsingularities]

faster turnaround than usual huh? or should i say faster turnabout than usual no i shouldn't say that delete delete post turn this thing off

similar posts: 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

#ace attorney #ace attorney text posts #aa text posts #ace attorney textposts #aa textposts #in order of appearance: #franziska von karma #phoenix wright #dahlia hawthorne #maya fey #larry butz #miles edgeworth #matt engarde #wendy oldbag #aa shoe #YES i'm tagging shoe. he's IMPORTANT. #how come whenever one of these posts has dahlia in it she's in it like three times #everyone else can be in the post like twice but dahlia has to be in every other image /lh #dahlia and larry tbh end up on the most of these recently idk what that says about me