#i made so many comics back then. had many ideas. wrote out story ideas with friends. dreamed of becoming an animator

[ohdeerfully]

Hii!! i’ve never requested smth before but i absolutely adore your lil one shots for alastor and was wondering if you could write smth based on someone’s idea?

https://www.tumblr.com/sockmeat/741700944177315840/alastor-in-rut-but-instead-of-him-being-horny-hes

completely fine if not!! i just thought it was a cute idea and would love to see it wrote in an actual scenario!! :3

this is really simple and short but god writing block is killing me quickly... hope u like it anyway!!!!!! mwah mwah

as stated in the request, this is based off of @sockmeat 's post, which you can access by clicking here!

Jealousy Looks Good on You

alastor x reader (fluff) TW: alastor is super possessive, reader is referred to as female but doesn't really effect story at all, thats it i think

join my discord!

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It was that time of year again for Alastor. A few months of absolute physical and mental torture—which, considering he lived in Hell, maybe that was how Heaven finally managed to torment him for eternity. It never took a genius to figure out what put Alastor in such an odd state.

He was a deer.

Deer go into rut.

It was incredibly embarrassing, to say the least, especially for him when the rut was over. However, for his “mate,” who faced the brunt end of his seasonal affections, you didn’t mind in the slightest. In fact, it was probably your favorite three months of the year. 

You were currently lounging in the hotel lobby, chatting with Angel Dust about a bar he was interested in going to. You had one leg thrown up over the other, clad in a dark red outfit that had been “mysteriously” placed on the edge of your bed when you woke up—you knew who the culprit was as soon as you saw Alastor a few minutes later in a suspiciously similar outfit of the same color scheme.

He had been sitting next to you for a while, making small, nearly unnoticeable bids for attention as you tried to focus on Angel’s words. A pressure on your knee with his own, a light graze of his fingers through your hair as he lifted his hand to adjust his monocle… to anybody else, the contact would’ve seemed only coincidental; however, to you, it was obvious considering the great care he always took to mind his personal space.

A brief glance out of the corner of your eye confirmed your suspicions. You couldn’t help but lightly grin at the tense grin on his face and the growing expression of frustration as you continued to keep your attention on Angel.

“–so, that being said, I wanted ta invite’cha out with me! And Cherri’ll be there too,” Your eyes turned back towards the spider. You could nearly feel the tenseness in Alastor’s shoulders heighten, and that radio frequency of his tuning up ever so slightly, but still noticeable.

“That bar is no place for my lady,” Alastor responded in a snap before you could even open your mouth. You whipped your head in his direction with a frown. 

“She isn’t your anything, Smiles,” Angel shot back, also interrupting your own attempt at defending yourself. 

It was almost comical, the way your head twisted back and forth with each remark the two made at each other. The tension was rising quickly, and you were getting more agitated with how many times you got cut off from saying a single word.

You were distracted from your own mental anguish when Alastor abruptly stood, hand gripping his cane with more force than usual. There was a dangerous look in his red eyes as he grinned down at Angel.

“She is mine,” Alastor stated with finality. “And what’s mine stays with me.” He reached down and gripped your hand, tugging you up with him. As angry as he seemed he was still gentle with you, at least. 

You’d be lying if you didn’t find the possessiveness attractive. Heck, it would probably be impossible to date the Radio Demon if you didn’t want to be obsessed over and practically owned. You were only slightly embarrassed at the heat on your cheeks when you felt the almost desperate grip of his on your hand, to which Angel pointed at with a defeated “what the hell.”

He basically dragged you away from the situation, ears slightly pressed back. He refused to look at you as you caught up to his steps and walked beside him. He didn’t have to look at you, though, because you already knew the turmoil that was going through his head.

“Don’t be so embarrassed,” You tried to comfort as he opened the door to your shared bedroom. “I think it’s very becoming of a gentleman to protect his property.” You enjoyed the way his eyes glittered with pride when you referred to yourself in such a manner. You didn’t truly consider yourself property, of course, but you simply enjoyed seeing that look in his eyes and the way his chest involuntarily puffed up.

What a different being Alastor was during his rut. More expression than ever with the way his affections and frustrations were so visible in his body language. He pulled you closer to him, squeezing you against his body as he let the two of you fall into the bed. You lifted yourself off of his chest with an elbow and looked down at him.

He met your gaze with his own wide, needy eyes and quivering smile. To put it simply, he looked… pitiful. Endearing. You loved it. He hated it. You knew if anybody saw him in this state he would go on the attack immediately without a single thought. You briefly glanced back to make sure the door had been locked. Just in case.

You smiled at him and peppered kisses on his chest and up, finally nuzzling your head into the crook of his neck. He sighed pleasantly at your motions, swooping his arms up to position you on your side in front of him, wrapping himself protectively around your body.

“I crave you, my love,” He stated in an incredibly forward way. His voice lacked the typical radio effect as he spoke, and you realized your skin was also not prickling with the sensation that usually accompanied his presence. You responded by layering your hands over his own, which was resting comfortably against your waist. “I never want you out in such a… dirty place with that overly sexual spider.”

“I know, Al,” You said with a sigh. “Too many ‘hungry eyes’, you’ve told me this.”

He remained quiet, and you could barely feel the way your hair flicked every time he exhaled against the top of your head.

You also remained quiet, opting to just enjoy the moment. These three months went by so, so fast, so you didn’t want to waste time speaking and bickering over meaningless things. You didn’t care to go to bars, anyway; you weren’t much of a drinker. You also hoped to get Alastor’s mind off of his disdain for Angel. While you trusted him to know better to attack one of your friends—more importantly one of Charlie’s friends—you didn’t want to take any chances. He was somehow even more unpredictable during his rut.

You leaned your head back, tilting up slightly to meet Alastor’s gaze. He placed a feather-light kiss against your forehead in response.

He was in for a long three months, but you were going to enjoy every second of it.

#ohdeerfully #hazbin hotel #alastor x reader #hazbin hotel x reader #alastor #alastor hazbin hotel #fluff #alastor x you #im sorry imm taking one million years to write anything #ive been so lazy

[duhragonball]

Akira Toriyama (1955-2024)

I wouldn't say I'm feeling better today, but I'm feeling less bad than yesterday. So let's see if I can put some words together.

In case anyone still hasn't heard, Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama passed away on March 1, 2024. This news was made public on March 7 or 8. I woke up early on Friday morning and found out while I was checking Twitter. I had a long, busy day at work, and I kept getting on my phone to scroll through fan reactions and tributes.

I think that, more than anything, is what's gotten me so worked up about his death. My Twitter timeline and my tumblr dashboard were just chock full of touching message and images about how Akira Toriyama's work has changed their lives. I wanted to write my own tribute, but I'm not sure what else I can say that hasn't already been expressed by Archie Comics, professional wrestling trio The New Day, and the Republic of El Salvador.

There's this immense, global community of fans, and it's easy to lose sight of just how big it is. It's easy to get bogged down in the infighting and petty squabbles. I saw one tweet responding to the criticism of Dragon Ball not being like this "entry level" franchise compared to other, more high brow anime and manga. It's popular with so many people, that critics will assume it's designed to appeal to the lowest-common-denominator. But the opposite is true! Dragon Ball is accessible, which is how so many people from so many different places and walks of life can get into it. The guy telling the story was such a master storyteller that he could grab an audience's attention and make it look easy. So easy that the haters would start to think that it was a trick, and he must be overrated.

Let me talk about this panel for a minute.

Last night I started going through the original manga, looking for panels to screencap. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I thought maybe a selection of panels that really stood out for me might be worth posting. I'll probably still do that one of these days, but I got to this one, where Gohan tells Chi-Chi about Goku's death, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

This was a powerful scene in the anime, of course, but in the comic it's even more profound. It's just one panel, no dialogue, because the reader already knows what's happening here. We know Gohan is telling his mother that Goku died in the Cell Games, and that he refuses to be wished back, because he thinks his presence on Earth will attract new enemies. It was hard enough to hear when Goku said it to Gohan and the others, and now Gohan has to relay that message to Goku's wife. All she can do is lie prostate on the floor and weep.

And look at the composition. She's surrounded by all that negative space. Gohan's there for her, but she still feels so alone, surrounded by her husband's absence. Pots of flour for food he'll never eat. An empty chair he might have sat in. Their son, who will have to grow up without him.

I saw this, as though for the first time, and it was so gut-wrenching that I had to post it by itself. I felt like it summed up my feelings better than any words could. We're all Chi-Chi in this panel, reacting to Akira Toriyama's death. And we're all Gohan too, each of us consoling one another with our own thoughts and tributes.

So what did Akira Toriyama mean to us all? Lots of people have answered this in a lot of different ways. Obviously his art, storytelling and cultural impact speak for themselves. I've seen people compare him to other luminaries like Jack Kirby and Osamu Tezuka. I'll try to add my own two cents with this:

I wrote a post about "Dragon Ball Daima" back when it was first announced, and I led off with this image of a note from Akira Toriyama. I guess this was from some big fancy presentation about Daima at a convention. I forget which one. In particular, I was skeptical that the Daima rumors were even true, and if they were, the whole idea seemed half-baked to me. Turning Goku into a kid had been done before, and it wasn't exactly successful the first time.

But this note from Toriyama was very reassuring to me. More than the trailer clips and character designs, this was what got me interested in the show. That's because he took the time to not only hype up the show, but also to explain what's going on behind the premise. He took the time to tell everyone that he's working on this show, and what "Daima" means, and why all the characters get turned into kids. It's "due to a conspiracy", and the good guys will have to "fix things". In short, he established a plot, conflict, and resolution to the story. He didn't just slap this together to sell new merch. I'm sure that was part of the motivation to make Daima, but there's more to it than that.

I think that's the loss I feel with Toriyama's passing. It's not that there won't be new Dragon Ball stories in the future. I'm sure others will continue telling their own versions long after I'm gone. I'm not that worried about the fate of Daima. I'm sure they'll figure something out, whether it's delayed, rewritten, or canceled. But we'll never see another message from Toriyama to promote a new project, and that's what I'll miss. From here on, his credit will just be an acknowledgement of his past contributions.

There's this great credibility with Akira Toriyama's name. Fans will argue about how involved he was in a project as a way of establishing how good or bad it was. Dragon Ball GT has his name on the credits, and he provided some designs and artwork early on, and for some fans that proves the series has his endorsement. For others, the sole problem with the show is that he wasn't directly writing the script. There's similar debates over Dragon Ball Super, where he was involved, but only writing those mysterious "notes". So if a fan doesn't like something in DBS, who do they blame? Did Toriyama lose his touch, or did his co-creators fumble the ball? Dragon Ball Evolution basically ignored all of Toriyama's advice and bombed, while Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, Broly, and Super Hero all put Toriyama's writing credits up at the very beginning, and each film made plenty of money. I read his comments on the Daima confirmation, and immediately thought "Okay, this should be pretty good. Akira Toriyama knows what's up."

That's gone now. I mean, there's still a lot of talent out there, but we'll never again have the little gas mask-wearing robot telling us that this story will be good because he worked on making it good. I don't think I really appreciated how much I trusted that guy until now. I still can't believe he's really gone.

I'll probably have more to say about this in the coming days, but I'll stop here for now. Thanks for letting me ramble a bit on this.

#dragon ball #akira toriyama

[gillanfryingpan]

For The Forgotten Ones is completed, I haven’t read the final chapter yet because I wanted to finish this first

Buddy thank you so much for this wonderful story, I know I keep saying it but it genuinely changed my life. I hadn’t been in the Undertale fandom since about 2017, it was my first fandom experience so it was very special to me, but I left it far behind. at the start of this year I stumbled upon Calcium-cat’s comic based on the first chapter, and I found my way to this fic and read I think seven chapters in one night LOL. I had to stop because it was so late, but afterwards I sat in the dark of my room and just, felt. this fic felt like the peak of the old Undertale fandom, it was almost overwhelming (in the best way). all these emotions and this energy that I hadn’t felt in years all came rushing back it was like magic. like rediscovering the meaning of life. I know that sounds ridiculous and cheesy but Undertale genuinely made me who I am, it was my first fandom, drew my first fanart and wrote my first fan fiction and went to my first con and made friends and discovered this whole community that made me feel like me. and this story is interwoven with all of that. it feels like Home.

because of this fic I gained the motivation to create SO MUCH art, my skills have developed so much and I genuinely love my art now when I didn’t really before. I’ve found my style bc of you :) I’ve also gained an actual following now that continues to grow which is a dream come true since I first joined the internet. and I’ve made so many wonderful friends, I’ve got a group that came together bc of this fic and they’re all such wonderful people that I may never have met otherwise.

I’ve still got so many screenshots and ideas to draw for this fic so I’ll be appreciating it for a long time still, but this is a thank you, a gift and an appreciation for all that you’ve done. you consistently uploaded a sizeable chapter EVERY WEEK which is INSANE, your dedication is so inspiring. you created a beautiful world and characterized all these popular characters so well, especially when mischaracterizations have become the fandom canon atp (looks at Swap Sans,,,) you did so much. you created a family we all adored, we laughed and cried and prayed and joked and created this wonderful community within a wonderful community just to appreciate your words. truly effing masterful. I love For The Forgotten Ones, I will print it out into a book someday soon, to put it on my shelf where I can see it always. Thank you thank you thank you I’ve said so many words and still I feel I have not expressed the depths of my feelings

oh well

I gotta post this sometime lol

ok bye :) 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

(and to anyone else who reads this, this art is also going to be my dtiys event but I’ll make a separate post for that !!!! it’ll be going on until the end of November)

For The Forgotten Ones by Im_Sorry_Buddy

Ink!Sans and Aster by @comyet

Nightmare!Sans and Dream!Sans by @jokublog

Geno!Sans and Error!Sans by @loverofpiggies

Killer!Sans by @rahafwabas

Cross!Sans by @jakei95

Blue/Swap!Sans by p0pcornpr1nce

Dust/Murder!Sans and Phantom!Papyrus by @ask-dusttale

Horror!Sans by @horrortalecomic (Sour-Apple-Studios)

#ftfo #for the forgotten ones #ftfo fanart #for the forgotten ones fanart #ftfo ink #ftfo nightmare #ftfo dream #ftfo killer #ftfo geno #ftfo blue #ftfo dust #ftfo horror #ftfo aster #ftfo error #utmv fanart #utmv #undertale au fanart #undertale multiverse #ink sans fanart #ink sans #nightmare sans #dream sans #geno sans #killer sans #swap sans #dust sans #horror sans #zephyrtale gaster #error sans #undertale fanart

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Man, I like Daily Wire in concept but Matt Walsh needs to shut the fuck up about video games. The same guy who tried to resurrect the tired old "violent video games are harmful!" crap is now acting like he's the first person to notice that video games are pushing woke nonsense (even though there are about a hundred channels and outlets that have been talking about this for years) but his solution is to, of course, for the right to stop playing video games.

No. Just, no.

This is the same "bury our head in the sand and pretend pop culture doesn't exist" mindset that got us into this situation in the first place. You can't win a war (and there is a culture war going on, no matter how many people on both sides want to pretend otherwise) by retreating from every battlefield. You win by raising awareness of a problem and then offering a real solution.

And it's especially stupid seeing this cultural retreat mindset from someone working for DW because DW actually knows exactly how to fight this battle. They created their own media company to fight against woke Hollywood. Are all their movies and shows good? No, not at all. But they still did the right thing. They put their money where their mouth is, and created an alternative.

A much better example is Angel Studios, which is probably the only Christian movie studio I've ever seen that puts out top quality content with great acting, writing, and production values. They're raking in money and getting their content onto mainstream streaming services as well as theaters. In other words, they're taking their message to the people who need it the most. The ones who aren't already in the echo chamber. Unlike Daily Wire, which only offers its content on its own website through a subscription service to its own audience, and never advertises anywhere.

Another successful example outside of movies is Eric July's Rippaverse. He's been killing it with his comics, with every single one of his campaigns raking in over a million dollars, every cent of which is reinvested back into his business, helping it grow, creating more content, and expanding his already impressive roster of writers and artists. Mainstream writers and artists, by the way. Like Chuck Dixon, the guy who co-created Bane and wrote the seminal Tim Drake Robin comics, among many other credits, and Mike Baron, who wrote some of the best early Punisher comics. Eric had a following before he started the Rippaverse. He runs a successful YouTube channel and he's a regular contributor to The Blaze. He could have walled himself off with his fanbase, wrote comics about ancaps saving the world from the evils of government, and made some money while pandering to the people who already agreed with him. Instead, he went big. He invested his own money, runs his own distribution center, owns his own business with zero outside investors, hires the best talent he can, and offers a product that focuses on story and characters over messaging. His work isn't even "anti-woke". It's just not woke.

And that's what we need in video games. We need alternatives. We need to roll up our sleeves and wade into the deep waters and actually contribute our ideas and our talents. Offer an alternative. Hire people who know what they're doing, who care about quality content first and social engineering never. There is a huge untapped audience who would pay hand over fist for good video games free from microtransactions and woke nonsense.

But retreating is not an option. It's not brave or moral to hide in our echo chambers and scoff at anything fun. Entertainment is necessary. And maybe more importantly, it's not going anywhere. We will never live in a world where people go to work and spend time with their families at home and do nothing else. We need to engage with the world as it is. Not wait around for whatever our idea of a perfect world is to magically form so we can finally interact with it. You can't change society if you keep pretending large swaths of it don't exist.

#matt walsh #daily wire #video games #gamergate 2 #sweet baby inc #culture war

[pomegranate-pen]

Hello! May I request More exam x gender neutral reader? Who's his roommate and usually helps him if he's wounded when he comes home? The j you for your time!

A/n: ahh this was quite fun to write! Mordecai is my second favorite character in Lackadaisy, so writing this wasn't much of a struggle heh. though I must warn you all, I wrote this based on his personality in the comics, since they're much much fleshed out there than in the pilot (though that's not really any problem, it's a pilot after all. it had to sell the main story first then character lore, which they did drop hints of here and there in it!!) anyway- hope you all enjoy this!

Mordecai Heller x gn! reader

title: It's a date.

warning: mentions of blood and a small hint to a huge fight- jealous Mordecai lol, and obviously heavy spoilers for the comic

----

It was not unusual to be alone here, in this small tidied-up house that steeps closer to the forest than the city.

Though sure, one could say that all the fun in having a roommate is having the house not be so quiet, you’d argue that noisy roommates were always seen as a complaint at the end of the day, no matter how fun it was at first. Or at least, that’s the excuse you give your friends and co-workers when asked about your peculiar roommate, Mordecai Heller.

Not much of a talker, and certainly not much of a loud noise-loving type of guy, Mordecai can either be seen as an annoying bossy roommate, who has an obsession for cleanliness and tidiness alike, or a weirdo who barely ever is in the house and comes back home with a bloody axe yet a sharp and clean suit. For anyone else, this, and many other things, would be the warning sign, the flags that’d beg them to leave.

However, if asked you on what living with Mordecai is like, you’d merely shrug and summarize it on a much more positive note than others would, and add that sure, following those set of rules and chores he has for the house, with his idea of perfectionism in everything can be quite an annoyance at times, the worst nights aren’t that, the worst ones are the times when he does come home soaked in blood, body cut and stabbed at and his stubborn behavior toward it all when confronted about them.

The thought which, brings you back to reality, as you finally remember what your main goal here is in the first place.

“And for what is the purpose of your gawking?”

The stern, cold, and proper voice of your patient at the moment makes your brows furrow, as you click your tongue and grab the cloth, washing the small, yet sharp gash off his back, thankfully not deep enough to cause any infection of sorts, yet seeing the deep pure red of the blood shine through his normal dull-colored body made you hiss, unable to not feel horrible when seeing him like this. Especially when his favorite white cloth in the kitchen had to be used for this and most likely disposed of after, and his face looked frustrated with the turn of events. That critical face of his made you even more irritated than before.

 Mordecai was not the type of guy who’d come home like this, not one to open the door to the house and drop dead on the floor from exhaustion. Something has happened, something is wrong and he won’t tell you a word about it. Typical; but also infuriating this time.

 If this was a usual day, you’d see him not answering your questions or telling you about some worrisome parts of his job the norm. After all, the relationship between you two, no matter how much it had grown over the years, has still strictly started as professional.

It was a deal struck between you two, the landlord of the house was always quite suspicious of the man, and wouldn’t give him the place unless he found a suitable roommate, Mordecai tried to suggest his friend Viktor, which the landlord immediately denied, becoming a bit too afraid at the power the two duos could have over him if maddened enough. Mordecai spoke to Atlas about it and Atlas spoke to Mitzi. And she, always the fan of teasing Heller, has suggested you help. Newcomer to St. Louis, a pianist, and in need of a good home after your last one was littered with the loudest neighbors you’ve ever met. Mordecai was displeased with the idea at first, but given how the house was a perfect fit for the job he had, he had no choice but to accept.  

Rules were set, boundaries were given. The relationship has always had a professional and begrudging beginning, since you for one didn’t want to be roommate with him either, being baffled by the idea of living with the guy who could stand in front of a mass of corpses yet care for his lost cufflinks more. Yet, you didn’t have the heart to say no to Mitzi at the time, since she was the one who found you doing a gig in an old dirty nightclub and was generous enough to give you a job here. Your reason makes you feel bitter now, given how easily you left when everything started to crumble.

 “I’m not gawking.” You grumbled. “ I’m just shocked. That’s all.” You spoke, as you pointed to the torn to bits coat dripping with what smelled like gasoline. “where were you?! was it some psycho circus?” you scoffed. “ I’ve never seen you this messy since-“

He flinched in his seat, and you weren’t sure if it was because you were putting too much pressure or the amount of embarrassment he felt from that day.“Don’t, bring that up.”

“And it wasn’t a circus, mind you.” he surprisingly answered, most likely to run away from the latter subject. “My partners decided to make a simple task into an outnumbered fight. It was impossible to not get injured.”

“Partners?” you wanted to ask more, given how this is probably the only time he’ll share the details of his job in Marigold. “you mean those two cats that drove you here last night?”

He nods as he lifts his arm, letting you pass the roll of bandage through the front and behind his shoulders. You hum, shocked by this new information, given that, “You know, they visited me at my job today.”

To that sentence, Mordecai seemed to have startled. Turning around you and looking at you with widened eyes. “Seriously?” his brows shift in concern. “You’re certain it was them?”

“I mean, they did approach me.” you shrugged and added,” suddenly started flirting with me too. It was weird, but kinda cute.” They were pleasant to speak to, in their own way. There was this sort of charm they had, a strange trance that made you easily speak to them, though being cautious enough to not spill anything about Mordecai’s life while doing so.

Mordecai’s brows even furrowed more, yet he turned back around to let you finish the task at hand. Moving on to the next scar as he spoke. “That explains their behavior tonight. ow-” He then hissed a bit in pain, and you mumbled out a sorry. “I didn’t expect them to ask what your ‘type’ exactly is. “He grumbled. “It has distracted me much throughout the fight.” He seemed quite annoyed by it all, his expression being just like the times when he sees a vermin trying to crawl through your windows. “And why on earth would they flirt with you?” he grimaced, and his nose scrunched. “Why would they find the need for such an act?!” this, was the Mordecai you knew. It was the same Mordecai that Viktor and you have grown so accustomed to. The cat who likes order and is strict about attire and presentation, since he believes it’s a mirror to one’s personality, the guy who has debates about different books you’ve both read, a man known for his lack of understanding of social situations, something that he always goes to you for help about it, or just to rant about the ‘absurd’ situation he was put in. this was your roommate, and perhaps that’s why you haven’t left him. Even after Atlas’ death.

“Maybe because I’m gorgeous,” you joked. “Have you ever thought of that as a reason?”  

He went quiet in response, and you gave a fake gasp of distraught.

“Mordecai Heller, do you think I’m ugly?”

As the roll of bandages was now cut, he turned around to you as you sat down on the bench near him. “No,” he replied, yet there was a conflicted frown on his face. “ I have no thoughts on your appearance. I don’t care much for it….though…I…” he seemed to be in thought, as if he didn’t know his own feelings or opinions on the subject either. “…I don’t like this.”

“You don’t like…what exactly?”

He shifted at that, his gaze still deep in frustrated thought as he sighed and looked up at you with stern eyes. “Why so many questions?” he tries to stir the conversation away. “I don’t see why you’d be so interested in them.”

“Well, you might not, but as someone who‘ll go on a date with Mr.Savoy soon—“

“NICO?!”

You held back your snort as you leaned into the chair, looking back at him with a teasing smile. “Well, to be fair it’s on trial for now.” You shrugged. “But he seemed quite the charmer, pretty handsome too so— why not?”

Mordecai became silent, and you wondered what you’d done wrong to not have him ramble on about why a date with him is preposterous instead. Living with Mordecai for so long has made you learn how he truly feels by just his posture or movements. And of now, with the still, almost like a statue form and furrowed brows, with his green eyes staring intensely at you, you knew something was up. Something did happen, a situation that is much more likely involved with the Savoy siblings.

After an uncomfortable few minutes of silence, he finally speaks. “Well, I wish you luck on the date.” He clears his throat.” But….” He looks away, but from his voice and years of experience, you knew he was concerned, and his eyes though gazing away from yours are full of subtle worry. “I advise you to not associate with them for long.”

You take a breath, shifting in your seat a bit and straightening your posture, looking at him questioningly. “And I shouldn’t because?...”

“They’re dangerous.” Says the guy who has the same job as them. Your eyes squinted a bit as judgment and he rolled his. “I mean personality-wise.” He continued. “And in any case, you’re not much of a good fit with Nico….” His arms crossed and he muttered. “You’re certainly better than that.”

The words make you smile a bit, some tensity of the situation now slipping away. “Alright then, I’ll decline him…If…”

He gave you an annoyed frown, eyes showing a complete grimace over letting you add a deal with this. He sighed. “Yes, yes I’ll do your dishes for a week-“

“No. that’s not my deal.” You cut him off, and he looked at you with shock.

“Then what do you want?”

“A date.” You answered. “With you.”

“…”

Silence seemed to be your answer. He looked baffled, yet a bit endeared, his form jolted a bit when he caught you staring and awaiting his answer. He looked flustered and hesitant as he spoke once more. “I don’t see why you’d want that.” He nearly mumbled.” Dates— are for people who’d like to see each other every day, but due to some circumstances cant— so they pick up a time to do so.” He clasped his hands together. “You and I, however, are roommates.” He tilts his head a bit forward. “Though I must admit I do enjoy your company, I already see it every day, so then— what would be the goal of this date?” he gives you a confused look. “It would be pointless and an annoyance given how two should be in a crowded, extremely social place for dates.”

You nod a bit, and start sitting a bit more comfortably in your chair and start to debate. “Well then, I’d have to disagree.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Well, to start off,” you looked at him with a small smirk. “Dates— are not just for people who can’t see each other every day. If that is the case then why do married people still go on dates in this day and age? Dates can also be seen as a change of atmosphere— and though I enjoy your company as well.” You nod your head. “ I’m a bit tired of this routine I’ve trapped myself in, day in and day out I just work and come back home— surely you’re tired of your work as well- given your state at the moment.”

He huffs and tilts his glasses back. “I suppose I am.”

You gave a grin. “And third of all—“you lean back on your hand. “There’s no need for it to be someplace crowded— you just think it must be social because you’ve only seen it in such places. We can go somewhere quiet, so how about a library?”

He pauses for a moment before answering. “Library sounds nice.”

“So it’s a date?”

He hums for a moment. “It’s a date…if…”

You scoffed. “Well played. What’s the catch?”

Mordecai gives you a small smile. He gives a glance at the bandages on his back. “It’s settled if I can acquire your assistance with wounds next time as well.”

“Fine then. That is if you do get injured. Tonight was a rare one.”

For a moment in his thoughts, Mordecai considered if he should get injured up a bit more again. “It’s a date then.” He concludes.

“It’s a date.”

-----

A/n: BTW the 'that' day line is basically a hint to the canon day in the comics where Mordecai gets drunk for the first time and just acts straight out of character and starts praising Viktor a lot and talking about him happily to others mdfenkgt

#lackadaisy #lackadaisy x reader #mordecai heller #mordecai heller x reader #mordecai x reader #lackadaisy mordecai #lackadaisy mordecai x reader #lackadaisy mordecai heller x reader #x reader #reader insert

[cookieblobber]

The Possible New Future of the Sonic Franchise - Thanks to fucking Sonadow

WOW! SO…THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED 💀

A few days ago it was rumored a Sonic Generations remaster was happening and will be revealed in the State of Play, which then revealed Shadow will be playable. It was really unknown what the hell this meant, but many theorized this was going to be a Bowser’s Fury/Kirby Return case: Game from an old console is remastered/ported with a whole brand new campaign that may or may not be related and possibly intertwined with said game’s story or lore.

They were correct.

Oh yea did I forget to mention BLACK FUCKING DOOM IS BACK?????

There isn’t much yet to go off of right now in terms of what’s being planned here besides this excerpt on steam

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Alright, enough showcasing, what the hell am I talking about by this game (that was just revealed) being a new future for the Sonic franchise? Well, it’s mainly due to these two things: the usage of Black Doom, and this fucking logo

A little bit of a history lesson -

Shadow the Hedgehog (2005)

….wasn’t really a well received game. Besides how many viewed it to be trying too hard to be edgy and dark and gritty, its gameplay was a lot left to be desired. Confusing and lore retconning writing, weird awkward gameplay, you probably already know by now, it was arguably where SEGA/Sonic Team got scared of doing spin-offs with other characters. The concepts and ideas were there, there were still reasons to like the game and like how Shadow improves as a character in the canonical story of the game, it was a small shiny stone in a pile of coal. Besides 06, this was the most development or focus Shadow would ever receive as a character before his massive change in writing in 2010.

Due to the 2010s change in writing style and how characters were written thanks to SEGA to avoid any association from “erm Sonic tried to be serious at one point? Cringe!”, Shadow possibly became the most controversial character of the cast, with him going from a really intriguing 3 dimensional character about trauma, loss, and trying to move on from the past, to many feeling like he’s regressed into a Furry Vegeta or a tryhard loner who doesn’t need friends to help him, the IDW comics being a big example of this. He still had a few good moments like his whole prologue in Sonic Forces, but even then it wasn’t anything intriguing like his story in Sonic 06 where he learns to accept his future might turn out shit, but he’ll always fight back with his team if things get dark (see what I did there?).

Before I continue, I would like to say - blaming Ian Flynn for how Shadow’s written in the IDW comics where he’s more brute and moody…..doesn’t seem correct, imma be real. I know he may have the occasional odd idea of the characters, but it’s very clear the way he’s written is due to certain mandates from SEGA and how characters/the world should be like. If Shadow’s whole moody brute demeanor is truly how Flynn views the character…..how does that explain how he was written in the Archie comics? aka the older comic series Flynn wrote for before SEGA started to get strict with the franchise, aka the series many believe to have had really great Shadow moments? I’m not saying there can’t be criticism for how Flynn may sometimes write characters, but in the case of him being the sole reason for how Shadow is written, that assumption made on him is a lil unfair.

Regardless, in recent times, it’s no doubt that the franchise is starting to rebuild it’s confidence again: acknowledging the old 3D games, including 06, having a more serious story with layers and depth like in Frontiers, Frontiers itself reintroducing Sonic’s friends and their struggles, making them playable once again in a 3D game (again, Shadow was cool to see in Forces but, you could only go so far with a simple reskin of Sonic). Not to mention after the update that brought back these characters, we got Sonic Superstars where the main selling point was that it was a co-op game, and Sonic Dream Team having a focus on the franchise’s more forgotten character: Cream the Rabbit (not to mention bringing back a sorta SA2-style gameplay where 6 characters were grouped into 3 styles of controls). Oh yea also prior to all that, Amy was made playable in the original Sonic genesis games via Sonic Origins.

———————————————

So, what does all that have to do with the future of the franchise, and why is Shadow 05 important here?

First off: Shadow is getting that same treatment as other friends, but possibly on an even bigger level: being a new playable character in an older title and being a big enough deal to get his own story and reintroduce people to what makes him who he is sadly no co-op gameplay but hey that would require completely changing this game from what it was initially was. This is really perfect timing as with the upcoming release of Sonic Movie 3 and Shadow being the next foe for Sonic to face off, Sonic x Shadow Generations will be a perfect title for new fans to dive into and learn more about Sonic’s history and dive further into Shadow’s history, just like what Sonic Origins was for fans who just came back from watching Sonic Movie 2.

This whole thing is also a massive implication that other characters than Sonic may start to get their own campaigns again, building more lead-ups to possibly full on spinoff games. I should say this again: Forces did try to do something with Shadow, but for the most part it was just reusing whatever the game already had to create a quick and easy 3 level prologue that…doesn’t really add all that much to the overall story (at this rate you can probably assume Forces tried to do a lot of things Sonic is now attempting to do, however due to the kinda era it came from, it didn’t have much going for it). Sonadow Generations seems like something bigger and more personal to the character involved, something that could possibly rival the OG game’s campaign.

The fact in this story, they’re going so far as to make Black Doom the main antagonist of this campaign and giving back Shadow’s tribal logo is a massive sign that this is a true attempt to revisit Shadow’s entire legacy. They could’ve easily just made his whole ordeal involve what happened in Sonic Adventure 2, after all that’s what he’s most remembered for, but going as far as to properly acknowledged a lesser known game as being part of the Sonic lore instead of dismissing it simply because it wasn’t well received, it continues to show the confidence this series has started to regain. Sure, it’s weird, it’s wacky, it’s wild, but it doesn’t make it any less something to acknowledge or at the very least make good out of something bad. While we did get hints of Shadow 05 still being part of the canon via the Eggman logs in Frontiers mentioning Black Doom, having him come back officially was still a completely wild thing to see; never in a million years would anyone have thought he would come back as the main villain.

The biggest part of this whole thing is: if SEGA is allowing for Shadow 05 to be fully acknowledged

.

this might mean they’re starting to pull back on their restrictions on the character.

——————————————

As I stated before, it is very clear they wanted nothing to do with this game or anything similar to it ever again, I mean the fact we never got any spin-offs after this really shows they weren’t gonna come back to other characters ever again. But now…everything’s on the table. If Black Doom is making an appearance, if Shadow’s tribal logo is back as part of his identity, what else could there be next? Will Shadow start to use guns again? Will he ride his motorcycle, and other vehicles like in 06? Hell, will motherfucking Mephiles come back again for this campaign?

Not to mention the description of the game stated that Shadow will confront painful memories, will we see Maria in HD getting shot, or the commander from Shadow 05 who was out to get him making a reappearance? This might be the first time in a whole decade since other human characters (not counting Sage since she isn’t exactly fully human) making an appearance again in the Sonic franchise. Again, we may have gotten hints of them still being a thing with the likes of Frontiers’ Eggman logs bringing up GUN and Maria, but actually showing up in-game means other humans can still make appearances in-game.

(Take this part with a massive grain of salt but I’ve heard that Ian Flynn in the past has expressed he wanted to bring back Black Doom and Mephiles, but SEGA didn’t allow it, now that one of them happened, it proves that there indeed has been less restrictions now)

If there are less restrictions being made on stuff like acknowledging Shadow’s game, what could this mean for how Shadow himself may be written now? We’ve seen how apparently well written Shadow was in Sonic Prime, could this carry over to the games and comics where he has a less frustrating depiction? I mean, the fact Ian Flynn was hired for one massive mainline game (Sonic Frontiers) and suddenly they’re doing all these lore related things for the franchise or going back to pull up any old stuff and see what they can do with it, it shows there is a level of trust between SEGA and Flynn and letting the man cook. And it makes complete sense too, he’s been a long time writer for the franchise since the Archie comics, he seems to have a great understanding of the characters.

If Shadow 05 is getting this level of acknowledgement, what about other more forgotten games? Will we one day see Sonic 06 be better acknowledged, or more likely a character like Silver having a bigger role in something related to the events of 06? I mean for some reason recent episode titles of the upcoming Knuckles show revealed one episode called “Flames of Disaster,” who’s to say they aren’t already looking into 06 for some ideas for not just the movie canon, but as well as the main canon?

—————————————

I’m drifting off a little but I’m sure you get by now what I’m tryna say. This game, as it may seem like just a simple small remaster with extra content, may end up creating something bigger for the franchise going forward. Seeing how Sonic Team is behind this remaster and not Blind Squirrel (the people who made Sonic Colors Ultimate; while possibly rushed by SEGA, they’ve also have had a questionable track record with remasters), and hints that Flynn is behind this story, I think we are in great hands with this game. This may be the first remaster to finally be flawless in every level, which I know is a little sad to say when it comes to this 30+ year old franchise, but hey, can’t win them all!

——————————————

Before I end this comically large essay, I would like to make one final note on this whole topic. As I was writing this and taking breaks last night, I came across a tweet that was kinda starting to go around about this game.

To summarize, the tweet essentially claimed that Sonic was still stuck in the past. The franchise was still relying on nostalgia pandering as its identity, and due to the contents of Generations being a whole celebration of Sonic’s history (and what unfortunately started SEGA’s cling onto Green Hill and Chemical Plant), aka alleged nostalgia pandering, it proves the franchise’s identity is still about how when Sonic used to be cool. It hasn’t attempted to evolve in the past 14 years.

You can probably guess what my thoughts on that take is after reading this whole post.

.

.

.

.

.

No.

I don’t think so.

As I already showed, the addition of Shadow’s story more than proves this is still stepping forward. It’s taking an old beloved game and instead of just updating graphics or performance and leaving it at that, they’re making something brand new out of it that may define future ideas for other characters that isn’t about Sonic. Not to mention this game barely attempts to be all like, “Revisit all these iconic locations from your childhood!!!” SEGA is clearly looking at Generations not as that one game they can rely on for easy nostalgia pandering, but as a successful and fun game from the last decade in its own right. I mean to the general public, it’s considered to be “one of the few good Sonic games.”

It can be argued that the addition of Shadow and Black Doom may be pandering to the audience into Shadow but…really? They’re tryna solely pander and play on the nostalgia of a small minority of players who liked a game that was considered to be the start of Sonic’s downfall in the 2000s and make that the selling point of this remaster to the general public? Where some in said general public may argue that they’re about to ruin a rare good Sonic game with stuff that they think no one ever liked??? I don’t really believe it.

Hell, speaking personally, I’ve never played Shadow 05, I don’t own a GameCube, maybe a PS2 but even then I didn’t get much games at the time. While I sorta played around with the franchises growing up, I fully got into it around when Sonic Mania came out (and even then it took me a while to finally play it). So even though I may be hyping up Black Doom’s return, I myself am not coming from any rose tinted glasses or anything, these are just observations from the many discussions I’ve seen online or videos showcasing these games. Same would go for a lot of people into that game as many while loved it, still would acknowledge where it fumbles and how it’s definitely not the definitive Sonic experience to have.

Sonic has begun to evolve, experimenting with new ideas and offering new and different ways to enjoy the franchise. As mentioned earlier, lots of shit happened in the past 4 months. While I agree that something like Frontiers relying on the same old levels for Cyberspace to be stupid, that shouldn’t undermine the actual new stuff it offers for the franchise. I feel like we’re already far beyond the franchise needing to be like “hey remember Green Hill???” as it’s main identity for a game/the franchise. And even then, this shouldn’t mean Sonic can’t look back on previous entries anymore ever again.

Many want Sonic to be like other franchises, like Mario, Kirby, etc, they’ve been also occasionally doing the look back on an old title or old past, so why not let Sonic do the same? We shouldn’t immediately respond to a callback with claims that it’s poor nostalgia pandering, as the take away imo always should’ve been that there should be a balance between original and new and looking back on what worked.

I am happy to say that regardless what this remaster is, we are in good hands again.

———————————————

also unrelated as hell but pray for this man, he has not uploaded a Sonic video in 4 months, I think SEGA killed him by over feeding him with content 😭

#Sonic #Sonic the Hedgehog #Sonadow #Shadow #shadow the hedgehog #sonic x shadow generations #SEGA #Sonic exe #I’m only adding that cuz I think that’s funny #State of Play #gay #lol gayyyy #gayyyyyyyy #they’re gayyyy these two hedgehogs are gayyyy

[ihaveatheoryonthat]

Code of Conductors

Like many, I've found myself enthralled with @critterbitter's recent comics. While this is 100% based on trends I noticed in the story, I'll admit that the tone is something of a departure, so if you're looking for comedy, this might not be the fic for you.

(As a disclaimer, I wrote the bulk of this before the most recent arc began, so it might stray a bit into that territory, as well.)

If you'd prefer AO3 over tumblr's formatting, it's also up over there.

---

Having a starter Pokemon… wasn’t going the way Ingo might have hoped, so far.

He’d tried to temper his expectations-- not everyone could have the storybook encounter that Emmet and Tynamo found-- but he couldn’t help but feel disappointed by the reality that met him. He’d wished to Zekrom for a partner whose ideals would align with his own, and while he understood that it didn’t mean he and this hypothetical Pokemon would see eye to eye on everything, his thoughts had been that they could at least find an accord.

He’d longed to meet someone who might accept him for his imperfections-- for his inability to emote the way other humans expected, for the peaks of volume he couldn’t always control, for the creeping doubt that he was too much and not enough, all at the once. He wanted so badly to work with Litwick, but even though her telepathy made it possible for them to communicate more clearly, his misgivings only grew stronger with every passing day.

Ingo thought he understood. He wasn’t her first pick by any stretch of the imagination; if she’d had her way, she’d have left Emmet as a disoriented heap on the floor and faded into the background, never to be noticed. Instead, he’d caught onto her game, and then caught her. He knew it wasn’t a terribly uncommon phenomenon, and that good trainers could work with even the most reluctant Pokemon, but nothing he’d attempted was working. He’d tried letting her feed from his soul, and while it eliminated the language barrier between them, functionally speaking, it only meant that he could understand her malcontent in her own words. He’d tried compromise, to meet her on her level, but hearing how bland he was-- how utterly lacking-- became difficult to take day after day. He’d even overheard Emmet trying to bribe her into cooperating with him, and it was humiliating. He knew his brother wasn’t blind to how he was struggling, but to have her ambivalence spelled out so plainly made his doubts resurface, tenfold.

He’d waited this long for a Pokemon to show interest in being his partner, so he could wait a little longer. If Litwick truly wasn’t happy-- if he really was dragging her down, as she seemed to imply-- it was only right to let go. The situation in the Celestial Tower had meant that he couldn’t give her a choice back then, but he could now.

It might delay their outset, but maybe a minor miracle would happen, and he’d find a Pokemon that wanted to be his friend-- or was at least open to the possibility-- within the span of two weeks. They hadn’t tried the Desert Resort, yet. Even if he was incompatible with ghosts, maybe a Sandile or Dwebble would suit him.

...and if he couldn’t make the turnaround, he could try to ensure that he’d be the only one inconvenienced; he didn’t have any earthly idea how he’d convince Emmet to go ahead with their plans on his own, but surely being left behind by choice would feel better than holding his loved ones back.

In a roundabout way, that included Litwick.

Ingo had already talked himself out of and back into this course of action multiple times, so he knew how difficult it would be to stick to his convictions-- the last thing he wanted was an audience to convince, too. That was why he waited until it was time for Tynamo’s daily charging session, took Litwick’s pokeball, and sneaked out to the shallow portion of the greenbelt nearby. It wasn’t where Litwick had come from, but everyone had heard stories about forests infested with will-o-wisps ready to lead an unsuspecting hiker off the beaten path, so he could do worse. He walked far enough that the waning daylight dimmed even further, but not so far that he was left without any trace of natural light to lead him home.

He turned the pokeball over in his hands, practicing the words in his head one more time, then drew a bracing breath and released its occupant.

“Alright, sock Grookey, what’s going through that fluff-filled head this time?”

He looked away, keeping Litwick in his periphery, but unable to look her in the face. “You can go, if you would prefer.”

“...what?”

“You can leave. I don’t want to keep you confined if I’m only making you miserable; it’s not fair to you.” The pokeball had automatically clicked shut again, but he toyed with the latch, popping it open for when he’d need it.

He heard Litwick scoff, “Oh great, you’ve hit your emo phase, huh? Nothing like a soggy cracker to snack on.”

“Then you can find someone else.” He said, keeping his eyes trained on the lowest limb of a nearby tree, imagining how its rough bark would feel if he were to reach out and touch it. Cold. Hard. A far cry from malleable wax. “No one’s stopping you any longer.”

He could only imagine that she was rolling her eyes-- maybe her flame flickered in irritation. They may not have spent long enough together to become friends, but he’d learned to read her, and he wasn’t sure he’d lose that knowledge once it became irrelevant.

“Yeah, yeah, read it a hundred times.” She drawled, rolling her eyes. Her nubby little arms raised into the air, waving in an exaggerated shooing motion, “’Get out of here, I don’t want you anymore!’ Have anything more original?”

Of course. Of course Emmet got the fairy tale meeting, and now he was living out some novel fishing for a Clawitzer Prize. He swallowed hard, trying to banish the thought; it wasn’t about him-- none of it was. He could be jealous of his brother and Tynamo, and he could be upset about how badly his short-lived partnership with Litwick had gone, but for their sake, he should keep it to himself. His feelings weren't their responsibility, only his own.

Any and all of the words he’d practiced failed, and all he could do was wave a hand, certain that if he spoke up now, his voice would betray him.

“Are you serious?” Litwick asked, surprise quickly morphing into anger, “Well screw you, too, muppet boy! Do you really think you can do any better? Good luck!”

“I know! How can I possibly miss it when every Pokemon whose path I cross turns up its nose?” On some level, Ingo was mortified that his restraint had failed him, but he was too distraught to let higher thought dictate his feelings. What was it they could all sense that chased them away? What was the deficiency in the core of his being? What was so terrible that no one could look past it? He was so afraid that he was going to be left alone someday, unwanted by anyone new and cast aside by those who had no choice but to tolerate him. In spite of his brother’s reassurances, he felt certain there would come a day where he’d reach out to find that no one was there.

He couldn’t think of anything else to follow that, and Litwick was still simmering in outrage. Dashing a hand across his eyes, Ingo returned his attention to the pokeball and inverted it, holding it by either side to bend its hinge backwards, past the point of repair.

“Wait.” Litwick said, and he felt his own frustration bubble up.

“Why can’t you make one thing easy?” He demanded, a sob working its way into being. He was trying to live up to his own ideals with all of his might-- to ensure that Litwick was able to find her highest state of self, even if this was the only way he could help-- but it was so much harder than everyone made it out to be. Was that the problem? His ideals were so flimsy, so hard for the person who held them to maintain, that no one could align with them?

Ingo didn’t know what he expected anymore. He’d thought Emmet would tell him he was being ridiculous when they'd had their heart to heart, but he hadn’t-- in this situation, though, he couldn’t imagine that Litwick would turn around with an apology, and he wasn’t even sure that he’d be able to believe it was genuine, that she wasn’t saying it to shut him up.

“I don’t get you.” She said, and he could have tossed his hands up in dismay. If nothing else, he supposed they’d come to the understanding that they didn’t understand one another-- and just in time.

As she continued on, however, he went very still, listening carefully.

“It feels like you should be something else, but I can’t tell what. Why are you only half baked?” She asked. It was weaker than it would normally be-- a light fizzling instead of a pointed burn.

That felt like it should have hurt more; it was practically confirmation that he was lacking something intrinsic to the human condition, but Litwick’s bafflement made it fumble the landing. Maybe… maybe it was normal? He’d watched Emmet mature a great deal in the time since partnering up with Tynamo, so there could still be hope for him-- though it did seem like something of a Pokemon-or-the-egg situation. He needed a partner to help him grow, but he needed to grow if he was going to find a partner.

Ingo didn’t realize it in the moment, but his hands relaxed a bit, and one fell to his side, abandoning the pokeball all together; some of Litwick’s tension eased, unnoticed, and she molded back into her preferred shape.

“Maybe... we can make a deal, eh? Mutual aid or whatever you want to call it; we, uh-- we try to train each other.”

For the first time since they’d started this conversation, he looked at her in full. Her flames were low, but still spitting, and he’d never seen that combination before; the dim fire meant that she was upset, and the sputtering was indicative of agitation. Something in the recesses of his mind-- the part that wrung its hands, so utterly convinced that he was a terrible brother and friend-- whispered ‘guilt’, but he wasn’t about to go making any decisive statements. That seemed presumptuous at best.

He took a moment to think her words over, and realized that he couldn’t argue with that. Wasn’t it precisely what he’d wanted, all along? To help Litwick evolve into the best version of herself, and to grow as a person?

Was this what it meant to find someone whose ideals matched his own?

Slowly, he inclined his head, and used both hands to fold the pokeball back together.

---

Litwick never could have imagined that she’d find herself in this situation.

She didn’t see herself as a Pokemon who would ever take a trainer. Something deep inside of her rankled at the indignity of being captured, and so she’d taken it… poorly when she wound up stuck inside a pokeball. She was a literal free spirit, unable to be contained, and not some everyday Pokemon who would allow themselves to be domesticated.

And-- and if she had deigned to attach herself to a human, it would be someone she’d deemed worthy: a savant, someone who understood their partners and knew exactly the footing they stood on together. She wouldn’t tolerate any incompetence, any disrespect; she knew her worth and she wouldn’t compromise.

Muppet kid was… a kid. He’d slapped her in the face with the realization that she wasn’t the heavyweight she’d believed herself to be, and so he’d needed to be taken down several pegs, too. She saw how he looked at his brother and the flying fish that chased after his heels like a needy Lillipup, and being turned into that was an insult she wouldn’t suffer. She hated that he tried to humor her-- that he thought her so far beneath him that she could be humored-- and so she’d lashed out.

She’d never thought she’d be someone’s partner.

She definitely hadn’t thought she’d be someone’s failed partner.

Before she’d migrated to the Celestial Tower, Litwick had spent some time in a nice library; there had been a woman who’d frequented it, reading aloud for the empty archive, and it had sparked a curiosity in her. She’d mostly read cheesy romances because they were hilarious, but there had been a few instances where she’d branched out-- and one of those times, it had been to browse through a book on literary criticism. At the time, she’d thought it encompassed her own snarky commentary, and finding that it was something else entirely had turned her off of it, but it came to mind now.

The exact words escaped her, but it had stated that if criticism caused a writer to give up their craft, then it had failed at its job; the worst thing a critic could do was snuff the desire to create.

Litwick was beginning to realize that she’d done just that, metaphorically speaking, at least.

Even if she didn’t like how he went about it, the ki... Ingo had been trying, and in recent weeks, she’d taken that for granted. She hadn’t given it a second thought when he stopped refuting her mild insults or answering her sass with a subtle sarcasm of his own.

He thought she truly didn’t like him-- and she’d thought she didn’t like him, but now, faced with the prospect of being released into the wild, she had to reevaluate her feelings.

She guessed he was… sweet, but dull, in the way of someone who hadn’t figured out who they were, yet. Somehow, she just expected more from him, and she wasn’t sure why-- there was a smokiness he lacked, the steel of willpower honed to a razor’s edge, and of burning want, the drive to reach an undefined goal. It was frustrating to know it should have been there, but just wasn’t for some reason.

His soul was flatter than ever, now, albeit with a melancholic tinge that felt more like what she’d expected. Litwick realized she didn’t like it any better and-- worse-- that there was no one but herself to blame for its current state.

As things stood, she had been a bad partner. In those daydreams where she allowed herself to have a trainer, they were a master of their craft, someone whose orders in battle were confident and without flaw, who saw her worth and respected her for her power and wit-- but Litwick… had to be able to prove herself worth that ideal, in turn. That was why she’d been so mad at Ingo at first; he’d unwittingly shown that she wasn’t that noble and mighty Pokemon who wouldn’t settle. She’d been captured by a shocked 12 year old whose first instinct had been to catch the ghost snacking on his brother.

If trainers shared their ideals with the Pokemon they trained, using those ambitions to help them grow bigger and better, then couldn’t it go both ways? She already knew what she thought her kid was capable of-- all she had to do was train him back, help in grow into it.

“Maybe... we can make a deal, eh? Mutual aid or whatever you want to call it; we, uh-- we try to train each other.”

Finally, Ingo looked at her, and she hadn’t realized until that moment just how much his refusal to do so had grated on her-- not in the sense that it was disrespectful, which she might have guessed even five minutes ago, but because he couldn’t look her in the eye. For the first time since her spike of white-hot realization, Litwick considered what he’d been trying to do here. He was offering to let her go, yes, but only ever on her terms: ‘you can go if you would prefer,’ ‘it’s not fair to you,’ ‘no one’s stopping you.’ Not once had he implied that this was something he’d wanted and, in fact, the miserable allegation that she was only making things harder on him suggested the opposite

The internal tension holding her wax firm ebbed as he lowered his head into a tiny nod, sealing the deal by tucking her pokeball back into its intended shape. More than anything that came before it, that was the moment Litwick realized that she was at peace with this decision; if she so chose, she could move in another direction with her life, but she would always wonder what might have been.

“That’s an acceptable course of action.” Ingo said, voice hushed in a way she vaguely remembered hadn’t heard before.

“Deal’s a deal, then.” She said, and inched forward, waiting to see if he was about to recall her. He didn’t, and she moved closer, until she was standing just a foot away.

As she moved nearer, he knelt down onto her level, and considered her as she came to a complete stop. After a moment’s deliberation, he held a hand out so she could use it to get up. “You’re welcome to board as our conductor.”

Her first instinct was to brush his comment off with a snide remark, but after the conversation they’d just had, deliberately softened it. Now that they’d reached a new understanding, she thought they could go back to roasting one another within the week, but it would be kind to give it a grace period for the evening.

She took the offer. His hands were gentle as he lifted her, putting her in the mind of rough but discerning fingers running across a chin she didn’t have, and pleasant though it was, she cut it short by climbing onto his shoulder.

“Sounds good. Where’s this train headed, anyway?”

“Tonight, we’re returning to home station.” He said, and then gave her a subtle look, inclining his head, “But tomorrow… we’ll start to run toward our next highest state, together.”

#submas #pokemon #subway boss ingo #fanfic #ihaveatheoryonthat pkmn

[emillyverse]

Out of context + Production change + Creators freaking out !

HELLO KOW FANS!!! How are you???

For this weekend's updates we have great news! I managed to finish the 17 sketches of the first scene of KoW (that giant that tells the backstory of the emergence of kings who grant wishes, for those out of date)... YAYYYYYYYYYY!!!

Unlike last week, I won't be showing the comics here, instead I'm presenting them "out of context"!

I'll throw some random images here, and on the day the Comic comes out, you guys try to come back here and try to see where I fit each reference!

Ready?

Set?

GOOOOO!!!!

(throw the images there and run away, good luck understanding them)

Still talking about Comic, I had already mentioned that this is my first time working on a big project. I don't really know how to do things, I just know that I must do them and reach a result that the team and I consider satisfactory.

With that in mind, I was studying some creative processes and came across that of the great director Hayao Miyazaki .

I believe many of you know him, the internet hasn't stopped talking about him since "The Boy and The Heron" won the Oscar for best animation, besides @annymation already mentioned it in her fanfic, but in case anyone is new and doesn't know him, he is one of the biggest names in animation directors in Japan and the world.

Anyway, I discovered that, in his creative process, Hayao Miyazaki began to storyboard his films himself, sometimes without a pre-determined script, he just sat down and sketched out what he wanted or how he visualized the scene happening.

I tried this with a scene I was trying hard to write in my own original story and had a very fun and satisfying result. So, I decided to try to apply this process to making KoW: basically I'm reading the scenes that Anny wrote and trying to capture their essence by sketching as I read. Let's see what happens! Something tells me that this will make the Comic production process lighter and more fun for me, and that's a good thing considering that busy days are coming in my life (good busy days) !

However, this does not mean that the process will speed up. No. It may still be a little slow. But it does not matter. Calmly and with smiles, Me, @annymation and @uva124 let's make it happen!

OOOHHHHH ! AND SPEAKING OF SMILES!

I want to share something that made me, Anny and Aled freak out last night!

Yesterday, we were talking about my favorite topic: Aster.

I arrived presenting an idea I had while hiking — for Aster to get a star tattoo on his chest, with the words "Lacaille 8760" naming it.

And then this happened:

(prints taken directly from Anny's cell phone, showing conversations from our rewriting group. enjoy, we don't do this every day!)

So yes.

That's exactly what you're thinking.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

I PRESENT TO YOU.....

THE VISION OF PARADISE !!!! 😍❤️‍🔥

(throw this and run away because asha is chasing me)

This is it.

To the next.

Kisses full of light and stars!

~ Emy

________________________________________

( @uva124 COME HERE LITTLE AND REBLOG WITH YOUR VERSION OF OUR DEAR )

( @annymation @signed-sapphire @chillwildwave @flicklikesstuff @gracebeth3604 @frogcoven88 WAKE UP ALL OF YOU, COME SEE THIS)

#kingdom of wishes #kingdom of wishes fic comic #wish reimagined #wish rewrite #wish 2023 #disney wish #asha wish #starboy #starboy wish #star x asha #asha x star #starsha #artists on tumblr #artwork #comic strip #comic art #comic artist #comic books #comic process #scketch #dumb scketchs #my art #my artwork #my process #behind the papers? #behind the scenes

[felassan]

Article with some information on topics like early BioWare games, the early BioWare romance model, early LGBTQ+ representation, the origins of Dragon Age as a world etc.

Excerpts:

"BioWare’s first gay character was Juhani, a feline Jedi with a romance storyline which Gaider neither suggested nor wrote. “It couldn’t be explicit, because LucasArts wouldn’t allow that,” he says. “So she couldn’t say ‘I love you’. It just had to be very gal pal. ‘These gal pals are really close!’ It had to be hidden.” Gaider isn’t sure whether LucasArts were ever asked about the romance, or whether BioWare obfuscated it for fear of being overruled. “LucasArts certainly shut down anything they thought was over-the-top sexual innuendo,” he says. “But they looked at everything on a line-by-line basis, so if there was no single line that made it explicit, it went unnoticed.” BioWare’s first openly expressed same-sex romance came in Jade Empire, and Gaider was bowled over. “When I heard that the other team had done this, I was like, ‘This is something we can do in a video game? Holy crap.’ “It’s hard, especially for the younger audience today, to think of what it was like back then in the early 00s,” he adds. “Even when we started Dragon: Age Origins, on many levels, there was a lot of trepidation. I had a character I wanted to make gay - Zevran, the assassin. And they were still going, ‘Oh, well, you know that’s a really small part of the audience, so if we’re going to do that much content for it let’s make him bisexual at least’. So he can do double duty.”"

[...]

"In other words, Baldur’s Gate II was where the highly influential Bioware model was first nailed down. “James Ohlen came up with this idea of romances as something cool to try as a lark, not even thinking that they would be noticed much,” Gaider says. “I was just happy to be along for the ride. We had four romances and I did three of them, and that was really just Lukas Kristjanson and I sitting down, figuring out time-based conversation triggers so that your relationship grows.”"

[...]

"Dragon Age took off, and Gaider became the primary custodian of its world - leading the writing of all three released games in the series to date, as well as a stackful of novels and comics. “I felt like I’d gotten all the sword and sorcery stories out of me that I wanted to tell,” he says. Afterwards, he moved onto the early development of Anthem. “But that project was not going anywhere good,” he says. “I already could see the writing on the wall: ‘This is not gonna work out and I don’t belong on this team, but I left Dragon Age so there’s nowhere else for me to go.’” The solution was to depart BioWare, Gaider’s home for 17 years."

[source and full article]

#dragon age #bioware #anthem #jade empire #video games #lgbtq #homophobia cw

[motleyfam]

hey! so its 4am and ive just finished my, um... fifth(?) reread of world's saddest breakfast club and like! aaahhhh!!!

do u got abything to tell us abt this story? like sbt the writing proccess or things u thought that did not make it in or hc or anything really. i dont have a question exactly, just wanted to hear you talk about it. im a bit. well. obssesed.

Oooh cool question! I definitely do!

World's Saddest Breakfast Club: Fun Facts

The opening line is a result of me angsting to @batmoniker about how I couldn't figure out how to start my fic, and her jokingly being like "I got you, bro. Ready? 'It was a dark and stormy night'" and then me just being stubborn and committing to the bit.

The story started with a vague idea of "everyone in the kitchen at 3am for different reasons and Jason channeling his inner short order cook." All I knew going in was the order I wanted people to appear, what was wrong with them (sick, hurt, insomnia, etc) and what food Jason would be making for them. Everything else I made up as I went.

If I could go back and change one thing about this fic, I'd reduce how long Jason was kidnapped to like, 6-8 days, max. 16 days seemed funny when I wrote it, but in hindsight, I feel like he'd be a little more fucked up in the story if he were really escaping from that many days of captivity lmao

I headcanon Dick as the kind of person who straight-up forgets to eat when he's preoccupied, and Jason as the kind of person who cannot FATHOM this concept. Jason absolutely will miss a meal if the situation calls for it, don't get me wrong, but he's aware the entire time he's doing it and it makes him super antsy. (This once turned into A Thing™ when Jason was like, 13 years old and staying with Dick for the weekend for some brotherly bonding and Dick forgot about lunch and by 5pm, Jason maybe sorta kinda had a minor panic attack about it. Dick was a lot more mindful of that moving forward)

Bruce's favorite food being lobster thermidor is a reference to the Lego Batman movie

I wrote this whole fic with Julia Child's recipe pulled up in one tab and my google doc in the other

At some point I realized that since I started with fresh lobsters, I was going to have to write Jason killing them, and it derailed me so hard that the fic nearly became about meatloaf instead. (Never mind the fact that Jason canonically kills human beings — that's totally fine. I just draw the line at him killing lobsters 😰)

(in the end I just kinda glossed over it and made sure they were already cooked before Damian appeared so I wouldn't have to address it 😬)

Dick's reoccurring shoulder injury is a reference to the DCAU where I swear that man has dislocated his shoulder/injured his arm at least 4x

The line about Tim being allergic/throwing up when he eats eggs was inspired by a line in chap 11 of @goldkirk's fic Hymn, which I've reread about 37x

Jason is correct— grits are fucking delicious and definitely not baby food.

My favorite line is "Okay there’s self-sacrificial bullshit, and then there’s whatever the fresh hell that is."

The idea for Cass being a big meat-eater comes from a comic panel where Steph offers her a plate of rice and beans and Cass says she needs meat and starts mischievously eying Steph's hamster. Can't find the panel to save my life, but I promise it's out there.

EDIT: finally found it!

Steph's nickname of "Zombie Boy" for Jason is borrowed from @audreycritter's Cor Et Cerebrum series (which is a fucking masterpiece, btw)

This fic was gonna be called "Creatures of the Night" until batmoniker said Steph's line made for a better title

Several people have asked me whether Jason was really cooking Bruce's lobster to spite him, or if he was actually intending to make it for him all along. The answer is... both? Like Jason's kind of an unreliable narrator in that he's trying to convince himself that he's just doing what he's doing to be a little shithead when deep down it's all stemming from his need to take care of his family, you know? Like he'll never admit it, but that's where his heart is at.

To everyone who's asked for a part 2 where the family finds out Jason was kidnapped, I'm gonna be honest: the main reason I don't think I'm ever going to write that scene is because I can't come up with a good enough joke for him to make to accidentally out himself 💀

#thank you so much for asking! #you're super sweet and I'm so glad you enjoyed the story

[definitely-not-iorveth]

a couple days ago, a stream featuring andrzej sapkowski came out, supposedly announcing a new book in the witcher series (see link below).

i've watched it, and personally, considering the context, i would reign in my enthusiasm until some kind of official announcement.

i'm including the notes of what he speaks about, for anyone interested.

the first short story started with the title: a male form of the polish word wiedźma (witch) doesn't exist, so sapkowski came up with one. the idea for the story came afterwards.

the first short story was supposed to be a one-time thing. he never expected to write a continuation.

he didn't do any research for the witcher books beforehand because 1/ it's a fantasy book, so he's allowed some leeway & 2/ he already accumulated a lot of knowledge throughout his life by the time he started writing. some research on things was needed during the process, but not a lot of it.

he did do beforehand research for a different, more historical series he wrote afterwards (trylogia husycka).

he once again stresses that the book series is not based specifically on slavic mythology - that was something made up by journalists. he took inspiration from various mythologies indiscriminately, and the plot was more important to him than using any specific sources.

he doesn't remember how many short stories he wrote for the witcher.

back when he started, there was no point in sending manuscripts to publishing houses, because the publishers were not interested in polish fantasy books, preferring the foreign ones. instead, an aspiring writer's best bet would be to send a short story to fantastyka (means fantasy, but only as a literary genre), a magazine that published fantasy & sci fi short stories. at some point he got tired of publishing short stories though, and he sent his manuscript in (he says he doesn't remember what book that was). it was successful, and it encouraged more authors to do the same.

he regrets writing under his real name and not under a literary pseudonym.

nilfgaard's similarities to ancient rome are accidental, and nilfgaard should not be interpreted as based on it. sapko came up with it as an aggressive fantasy nation that wants to take over the world, with no deeper meaning behind it.

first map created for the witcher was the work of the czech translator, and most subsequent maps were based on it (or, as sapko puts it, stolen.) "why i never created a map? pettiness." all fantasy books of the time had a map, so he decided his wouldn't have. and so it doesn't.

the witcher comics were parowski's idea (a witcher fan & comic book author). sapkowski didn't participate in its creation. he tried to give his input about the drawings at first, but the artist basically told him to go fuck himself.

he has a cat

he used to be a senior sales representative, and it gave him some knowledge about sales, banking, currencies and economy which he was able to work into the plot of his stories

he reads at least 50 books per year. of recent works, he recommends madeline miller's circe, steven king's two new books, v.e. schwab's the invisible life of addie larue, peng shepherd's the cartographers, herve le telier's the anomaly, r.f. kuang's babel, holly black's book of night. he considers the above the literary events and fantasy milestones of the past few years.

his commentary on people who study and analyze the witcher and its themes: "they come up with things i never could have come up with." he claims he never assigned any specific philosophy or meaning to his works, but he's happy to read the works of people who do.

he says he didn't base any of his characters on himself in any way. at the same time, his opinion is that it's difficult to write a character that doesn't retain some of the author's qualities. however, the characters are in their own setting and their own story. in his words, "you don't write books about yourself. you write books about characters that you come up with, and you give them their own qualities. […] who cares who i am? the reader is interested in who the witcher is, or who the other characters are."

when asked why geralt is different than the other witchers (more sensitive, kinder), he responds that it's because he's a made up character that's supposed to be interesting for the reader, so he needs to be distinguishable from others. a book is supposed to be interesting, and creating an interesting character is one of the ways to achieve it.

when asked why the smell of yennefer's perfume is so specific, he just says that he made it up and perfume like that doesn't exist.

witchers, although they use magic, are a completely separate group from the sorcerers in the book. there are no common points between them. witchers are also not a reference to any specific mythological archetypes or characters.

he doesn't like announcing what he's doing, because he changes his mind a lot, and doesn't always finish what he starts.

he does say that he is working on a new witcher book and that it should come out within the next year or a couple. considering the context of his words, however, i would consider it as more of a 'maybe' than an actual announcement.

#witcher #the witcher #wiedźmin #witcher book series #the witcher book series #andrzej sapkowski #sapkowski #Youtube

[elf-osamu]

other suggestions with the same settings! prompt 3 from fluff list 2 w/ oda, nb reader who says the line, both platonic/romantic is ok

“YOU GOT ME FLOWERS?”

[ masterlist ] [ event ] [ reblogs are very appreciated ]

fluff, canon divergence, romantic (can be interpreted as platonic), oda sakunosuke x non-binary!reader (no specific prns used)

warning(s) : not proofread

word count : 599 words

plot : “a bookstore meeting with him. perhaps with a few flowers along the way home”.

a/n : i literally thought “it's probably too short but i don't have any other ideas”, however i wrote so much words in a short amount of time????? ngl inspiration hit me suddenly while writing this 😭 nevertheless, i hope you like it vess ! <3

prompt taken from here !!

during summer sunny days were always hot yet rather humid in yokohama, making it difficult for you to feel comfortable when going outside; your clothes stuck to your body in an unpleasant way, you couldn’t stop drinking water for more than ten minutes, the heat made you feel unsteady — so, generally speaking, you couldn’t stand those sensations.

despite it all, you had accepted oda’s invitation to the library, one which was his and your favorite: you liked the atmosphere there, from the simple yet fairly enjoyable disposition of the bookshelves to the faint scent of old books that were there for who knows how much time.

oda wasn’t a talkative person by nature; he preferred to be the listener, someone who could take care of others and support them in a peaceful way, without having the attention directed to himself for too long.

however, when it came to literature, his eyes seemed to be enlightened by a new light, as if you had uncovered a hidden aspect of his being.

why would one write a comic or a novel? what makes our reality from the fictional one so different? are stories eternal? at which point the author’s beliefs are blatant in a work of fiction?

these and many other questions would have been discussed by him, the man who was saved by literature and wished to make it happen to everyone else; a man who was known to be a listener, yet just had his introduction as a speaker.

the afternoon was spent in that way, talking and listening to each other’s thoughts and ideas — still, oda was the main character for once and you were glad he had found his passion.

the library closed when it was late at night, the same moment you two had ‘decided’ to head out of the building.

it wasn’t too hot like that morning and you felt fine, wandering through the streets with him, a person you were grateful to have by your side.

at some point, you arrived at your apartment.

“what would you say to a bowl of curry rice and complaints about dishes during those boring and strict dinner parties?” you asked with an amused grin, knowing very well how much he disliked those dinners.

he seemed to suddenly remember something, but then he looked at you as if it was nothing. oda rarely acted like that, unless he already had a plan that was meticulously prepared in advance.

before you could question his behavior, he had already started to talk.

“how could i refuse,” he commented in his soft-spoken voice. “still, there’s a matter i have yet to accomplish, it won’t take much time. wait me there, i’ll be right back” and, without saying another word, turned to his right and walked away.

you sighed and shook your head — what could have possibly come to his mind in that moment?

it took him around fifteen minutes to come back to your apartment.

your curiosity had gotten the best of you and you couldn’t wait to ask him what matter was so urgent.

however, the answer arrived as you opened the door for oda: he was holding a bouquet with your favorite flowers. it wasn’t relatively big, but its fragrance and colors made you extremely happy.

“you got me flowers?”, you said while taking the bouquet and welcoming him in your home.

he nodded and a warm smile appeared on his face. “it’s a small gift to thank you for everything you do for me; i wanted to let you know that i truly appreciate it”.

[ do not copy, translate, repost, etc. | by @ elf-osamu ]

#bungou stray dogs #bsd #bungo stray dogs #oda sakunosuke #bsd oda sakunosuke #bsd odasaku #bsd oda #oda sakunosuke x gn reader #odasaku sakunosuke #sakunosuke oda x reader #oda sakunosuke x reader #oda sakunosuke x gn!reader #gn reader #x gn!reader #gn!reader #oda x gn reader #x gn reader #gender neutral insert #gender neutral reader #gender neutral pronouns #gender neutral y/n #oda sakunosuke x y/n #non binary reader #non binary #nonbinary #non-binary #non-binary reader #enby #enby reader

[lunawho47]

Hold Me Like You'll Never Let Me Go -- a Fourteen and Rose One Shot

A/N: Okay, so for the first time in actual years, I was bitten by the writing bug. And, as I should have expected, it was Doctor Who (and specifically the possibility, however small, that I may get a Doctor and Rose Tyler scene at some point) that nipped me. I am firmly on the Metacrisis Ten and Rose lived happily ever after train, but this is a scene between the Fourteenth Doctor and Rose and is canonically how I think a scene between them would play out. Spoilers for what we know about the upcoming episode of The Giggle and a lot of supposition based on what I remember from the First Doctor story of The Celestial Toymaker. Spoilers also for the Titan Comics story of Empire of the Wolf and the short stories about the Metacrisis Doctor done by Big Finish Audio. The only thing that's not canon is that rubbish short story Jenny Colgan wrote for Target Books.

Give it a read and let me know what you think!

<0>

The Doctor could feel the buzzing starting underneath his skin. Multiple times throughout his battle with the Toymaker, his next self had already come through; in truth, it was only by using the differing skill sets of both incarnations that the Doctor felt he was going to regenerate again and not just simply die. But, oh...he was now so, so tired. The artron energy shot through him again and he watched as reality flickered in and out around him.

The Doctor's legs gave out from under him and he collapsed on the sofa in Donna's house. His best friend and her family were all safe. They weren't unscathed, of course -- that was nigh on impossible when it came to playing inter-dimensional games with a Celestial being -- but they were alive and Donna could remember him. The Doctor even lied to himself for a moment and promised himself that he would come back and visit her with his next face, that a regeneration would not stop him from keeping up his friendship for once. But with the next burst of arton-induced pain, he stopped lying to himself. Donna would need to move on with her life and protect her daughter, Rose. As long as he kept showing up at her doorstep, she would be in danger. And Donna would never turn him away. And one day, she would let him in and it would be the time that would get her or someone close to her killed. No, the Doctor would tell Donna goodbye and then he'd slip away.

After a nap, maybe. Yeah, a nap sounded good.

He lay down on the couch and closed his eyes. Goodness, he was running through regenerations. This most recent one, even though it had been manipulated into its appearance by the Toymaker, had only lasted him a few days. As the Doctor thought about it and remembered that he had no idea how many new regenerations the Time Lords had gifted him with, he mentally schooled his future self to try to live as long as possible. His Thirteenth self had only lasted a few decades, and most of those she had been in prison. No, his next self needed to last at least three hundred years because otherwise he would be really dead before he could find a way to restore what he could of the universe. And he needed to fix what the Flux had destroyed.

When the Doctor coughed, even more energy burst from his lungs. As he lay on the couch in Donna's house, he couldn't help but remember another regeneration with the same face. *His* Rose had sat beside him then, dealing with an alien invasion while he had slept and healed himself. Up until Jackie had made him a nice cup of tea anyway. He had been so hopeful then. With his pink and yellow human beside him, he had felt like he could run forever, and he had foolishly thought that that particular Christmas would be a day that felt like every other day. But Rose was gone and she had been gone for millions of years. However, over the previous few days, the Doctor had seen his old face return, come across one of his oldest enemies he had never thought to see again, had gone on an adventure with his best friend again and seen his old friend Mel working at UNIT. Why couldn't he see the love of his lives show up again, too? The Doctor smiled a bit at the thought.

He tried to picture what his Rose would be like now. He imagined his Metacrisis self would look a lot like his fully Time Lord self currently did. He would be thinner in the face, a bit more salt and pepper in his hair, and he would probably have to wear glasses because he needed them and not just to look clever. Rose, he was sure, would be beautiful. He hoped she would have laughter lines around her mouth and crow's feet at her eyes. He also hoped that by this point in their lives, Rose would have a couple of rings on her finger. Maybe they even had children together! The more he thought about it, the more clear the image became in his mind. He was sure that if he thought about it long enough, he'd even be able to hear her voice.

Even sooner than he could have hoped, his imagination provided him with a crystal clear rendition of an older Rose Tyler's voice.

"Yes, Mia, you can stay the night at Yvonne's. Just don't...I know you get tired of me telling you to stay away from the Cybus kiosks, but it's better than listening to your dad tell you the entirety of that adventure over again, isn't it? And it's definitely better than having to listen to your Granddad's rendition of the tale... Yes. Yes, I will tell your father you love him. Yep. Yep. Be good and I'll see you tomorrow. Love you, darlin'. Goodnight, sweetheart."

The Doctor kept his eyes closed. He had pictured his former love's voice many times over the centuries and this was as clear as it had ever been. Her voice was a bit scratchier than he remembered, and she spoke with a much more cultured tone than she'd had at 19 years old. His mind had even taken the motherly tone he'd heard Donna use with her daughter and molded it on to Rose's and it melted his heart completely. If his imagination was right and Rose was a mother, then Rose was a remarkable one he was sure. Definitely a better mother than he was a father.

"Oi! Sleepy head, it's time to get up! Aliens to battle and young, teenage girls to raise. Though you get a bit of a break on that one this evening. Lucky you."

The Doctor felt Donna nudge his foot. He tried to raise his head, but felt no desire to open his eyes. Donna's words could match Rose's voice if he kept his eyes closed. But if he opened them, then the fantasy was over and his regeneration would knock away all the happiness he had brought back to himself over the previous few days.

"Doctor! Wake up, you numpty!"

"Sorry, Donna, I just really wanted to rest my eyes."

"Donna? Have you been dreaming again, Doctor?"

The Doctor forced his eyes open. His imagination had done a very good job constructing a realistic fantasy. The Doctor's eyes were looking up at a pair of honey brown eyes framed by light brown hair and a face that was rounder than he last remembered seeing it four lifetimes previously, and a body that possessed less curves than he remembered, but that looked healthy and warm.

The Time Lord then moved his eyes around the room as much as he could without moving his head. He was no longer in Donna's house. Instead, he was in a living room painted a dark blue and in the window over Rose's shoulder, he could just glimpse a zeppelin floating across the London skyline. As with his best friend's home, fantasy Rose's house looked lived in and comfortable, with various knick knacks spread across the coffee table adjacent to the couch and what the Doctor guessed was a television mounted on the wall. It looked like the flat screen he was familiar with in the 21st century, but was see through instead of black.

The Doctor praised his clear memory of everything Rose Tyler related because he adored that the fantasy version of her managed to raise her eyebrows at him exactly the way her real counterpart had always done. He had often feared that his memory of her was fading, but everything about her at this moment was in high definition visual and stereo sound. He theorised that maybe his regeneration sickness was helping to make his illusions more detailed.

"You feeling okay, love? You're staring at me like I've grown another head. And of the two of us, I'm the one least likely to do that."

"Rose," he muttered. It was a name he'd said multiple times over the previous few days, and after centuries of not saying it at all if he (or she) could help it, it felt like a revelation to be saying it to the face that word always conjured to mind. Without warning, he was seized with pain again and he saw the regeneration energy encircle his hand.

His illusory Rose stood up, her eyes going wide as she stared down at him.

"Oh my god, you're regenerating! How are you regenerating? I thought you couldn't regenerate! Does this mean Mia can regenerate? Wait, why are you regenerating? You didn't even go into Big Ben today! I know you didn't because Mum was complaining that you weren't around to stop Melvin disrespecting her when he came through the canteen earlier today. What did you do? Pick a fight with a Weevil? No, you couldn't have done. No bite marks or anything. Doctor, answer me. What's happened? What do I tell Mia when she asks me why her father looks like a completely different person when she gets home tomorrow? Oh god, what happens if you go full alien?"

The Doctor wanted to answer her, but in addition to not being left any room or space to throw his voice into the ring, he was also taken aback by how detailed his mind was being about the kinds of questions a parent version of Rose would ask. As he breathed out more energy, he saw the room and Rose flicker in and out, the flashes interspersed with Donna's living room.

"Wait," Rose said, her voice slowing down and getting softer as she sat down on the edge of the couch next to the Doctor's torso, her hand reaching out to grab the Doctor's own. The Doctor held his breath as he felt two warm fingers reach down to his wrist and put themselves against his pulse. The Doctor allowed his dark brown eyes to meet the lighter brown of Rose's as she then put both her palms against the two sides of the Doctor's chest and felt his heartsbeat. "Doctor," she muttered softly.

"Hello, Rose Tyler," he whispered. Rose took in a shaky breath as the Doctor let out another cloud of energy. The room flickered again, but the Doctor noted that the warmth of Rose's skin was still present against his own body. The Doctor couldn't help but acknowledge the truth then. His imagination was good, but it wasn't as flawless as what his senses were telling him now. He didn't understand fully how it had happened -- doubtless the Celestial Toymaker's machinations with dimensions had thrown things briefly out of whack at the quantum mechanical level and the Doctor was reaping the most unbelievable benefits from it. He may be regenerating, but he was getting one last wish out of the bargain. Oh, if his Tenth self could see him now. His tired, regeneration sick mind couldn't quite work out all the whys and wherefores, but he knew a gift from the universe when he saw it, and damn it, he was going to take advantage of it.

"I should have known it was you and not my husband. You have a slightly different dress sense than he does. Oh, and the wedding ring is missing, of course."

"Of course," the Doctor agreed. His eyes went down to her hand and he smiled to see that his Metacrisis had done what the Time Lord had always dreamed of doing and made a full life with his favorite human woman.

"So, I take it you were with Donna still when you found yourself here. Is that why you thought I was her?"

"Well, more like with Donna again. It's complicated."

"Oh, of course it is. Wouldn't be you if it was simple."

The Doctor watched Rose as she took in his ensemble and his face after all their years of separation.

"Wow. You and my husband look exactly the same in the face. I mean, I know you did last time we saw each other, but I didn't think you'd age. God, how many years has it been? I mean, it has to have been awhile because you've changed your outfit a bit and I didn't think you did that very often."

"Oh, I'm not the same incarnation you remember. I've regenerated a few times since we last met. Ended up with this face again earlier this week, but it turned out the fact that I came back with this face was a bit of a setup from an old enemy. It was more like I got paused mid-regeneration and I can feel the next one fighting to come through."

Rose and the Doctor both looked down as he said this and saw his hand pulse with energy and shift to a black hand and back to white again.

"Okay, so you obviously don't have long. I won't ask how you ended up here because I don't think we have time for that explanation, but...how are you? All these years, that's the main thing I've worried about. I knew one day you would regenerate and I'd never know, and I worried you'd be alone."

"Sometimes I have been. I've lost people. I've lost a lot of people. I found out I saved Gallifrey." The Doctor almost laughed at how wide Rose's eyes got at that point. "And then I lost it again two lifetimes later when the Master -- I'm guessing I've told you about him -- destroyed it when he discovered that the Time Lords had lied to us. We didn't get our regeneration gift naturally. They got it from me and then they scrubbed my memories -- whole lifetimes I may never remember -- and then they destroyed over half of the universe to cover up their mistake. I've blown up the TARDIS numerous times. Fell in love a couple of times..." The Doctor sheepishly looked up at Rose's face as he squeezed her hand. He was happy to see that she only smiled softly, squeezed his hand back with her right hand and used her left hand to brush his hair back from his forehead.

"What were your incarnations like? The ones after I last saw you, I mean?"

"Well, there was one who looked like a twenty year old professor who liked to wear tweed. You actually met him once -- he came to tutor you in maths back when you were in year 4 and I was so proud of how quickly you learned what you claimed made no sense -- and then I became an angry, white haired Scotsman, and then a young, blonde Yorkshire woman. And then I got this face again."

"You were a woman?"

"Yep!"

"Bet you were a babe."

"Oh, I'm always a dish, Rose Tyler." He paused. "I take it that is still your name, isn't it? I didn't make you Rose Smith or something when I married you, did I? Because that would be absolute rubbish! To work so hard to make you fall in love with me and save you from marrying Mickey Smith, only to saddle you with the same name."

"When you married me, you said, and I quote, 'You have always been and will always be Rose Tyler,' and then you asked if you could take my name. You had been going by John Noble on legal documents up until then, but you didn't have any sentimentality for the name, outside of your connection with Donna, so you didn't mind giving it up. I agreed that you could take my name as long as we could remember Donna through at least one of our children, if we ever had any."

"And then came Mia?"

"And then came Mia Donna Tyler."

"It's a shame this dimensional breakdown is only working with me because Mia has a cousin who I know would really love to meet her. I've spent the last few days getting to know Rose Noble and she is so much like you. One of the first things I heard her do was ask about an alien's pronouns. You would have loved her."

"I already do. Just listening to the way you talk about her."

"What's Mia like? Is she more like you or me? Just whatever you do, don't say she's like Jackie."

Rose laughed the loud belly laugh that always made the Doctor smile in response.

"Well, she's too smart for her own good, like you. She's more than a bit rude, like you. And she has a tendency to wander off, like me. She also cares about everyone and everything, like you."

"Oh no, Rose Tyler. That kind of caring isn't from me. That's all you."

"Agree to disagree on that one, love."

The Doctor seized again. He could feel his insides morphing, the change becoming insistent.

"What can I do, Doctor? What do you need?"

"Nothing. I just needed to see you. I need to tell you something. This particular incarnation has one thing about it that's very different from my previous self. I'm not afraid to say things anymore. I've lost too much now for it to scare me. I know now that not saying things doesn't help me let them go. I spent days wondering why this face came back. And I kept thinking I had figured it out and then I would be proved wrong. But I understand now.

"The last time I had this face, I didn't want to let go of it. And it made me a vengeful, frightening, reckless god and other people paid the price for it. But I didn't want to let go because I was terrified of what person I would become without you there. Because you had been there for me before I had even met you -- it's a long story, don't worry about it -- and I held on to you, to the memory of you and all the things I wanted to say that I was too afraid to, and as long as I had this face, I thought there was the possibility I would see you again. And then I saw you for the last time, do you remember?"

Rose furrowed her brow and tilted her head to the side in question.

"2005. January the First. I told you that you were going to have a really great year."

"Cognitive dissonance most likely. You weren't thinking at the time about the fact that one day I'd be without you, so why would it occur to you that I would ever go back in time to see you?

"Oh my god. I held on to that message from what I assumed was a drunk for months. Until I met you in Henrik's. Of course that was you. I can't believe I never put that together before. That was your voice. How did I never recognize it when you first changed?"

"Anyway, within hours of getting this face again, I found myself face to face with Donna, and then I met her daughter, Rose (whose name nearly gave me a hearts attack at first, let me tell you), and then I came across an enemy I haven't seen since just after I first left Gallifrey! But in these last few days, everything my Tenth self was terrified to say has come pouring out of my mouth. Any person I find attractive -- male or female -- I say it! The love I've always felt for Donna and her family? I've admitted it to them. The feelings I had for the wife I had after you -- River -- and for my friend, Yaz -- I've talked about them with other people and without having to be prompted!

"The one thing I haven't done is tell you -- my greatest love -- how I feel about you."

"Doctor, you don't have to ---"

"And I know you know. I know the version of me that is your husband tells you every day. I know because I would have even then, if I wasn't so afraid of what losing you a second time would inevitably do to me. But I need to say it. Not because I think you need to hear it. But because I need to say it for me. I need the memory of having the words come from my lips just one time."

Rose leaned over the Doctor's prostrate body. Her right hand disentangled itself from his and reached down over his face to caress his cheek. It was at that moment that the Doctor realised, much to his embarrassment, that he was crying.

"Then say it."

"I love you, Rose Tyler. I always have. And I always will."

"Quite right, too."

"I guess I deserve that one."

"Damn right, you do. But I love you, too, you daft alien."

The Doctor felt the heat under his skin start to itch the familiar tones away. Despite the pain, he was soothed by the briefest touch of Rose's lips against his own. It wasn't the passionate kiss he'd witnessed between she and his Metacrisis all those years before, and it wasn't what he had fantasized about for many a lonely night on the TARDIS, but it comforted him. This was the kiss from someone he loved and who loved him and he felt the warmth of it through every inch of his body and soul.

"Y'know, Rose Tyler...For the first time ever, I think I'm ready to go."

"Then I guess this is goodbye."

Rose's voice broke and the Doctor noted for the first time that she was crying. And oh, how that hurt him. Every time they said goodbye, she was crying for him. He just wished he could find some way to stop breaking her heart.

"Oh, it's never goodbye for you. This face will be coming through that door to greet you before you know it. It's never over for you. You get my forever, lucky girl."

"I am a lucky girl. Because you loved me enough to make sure I would get a happy ending you couldn't get. Know this, Doctor. I love you. All your friends love you. We will always love you and if you ever need any of us, no matter what face you wear or what trouble you bring to our door, you are always welcome. I may not have met all of your friends. But I know what kind of people you take with you, and I can guarantee you, you never have to miss any of us.

"Until we meet again. Goodbye, Doctor."

"Goodbye, my Rose."

The Doctor closed his eyes and felt Rose's lips once again chastely embrace his own. After a few moments, the warmth of her mouth faded, along with the solid build of her body. When the Doctor opened his eyes, he once again saw the familiar surroundings of Donna's living room. He still was not entirely positive if he had really slipped through dimensions or if he had merely fallen asleep, but the tingling in his lips from Rose's kiss made him inclined to believe the happier of the two options. After all, the Toymaker had shown him twice in his lifetime that reality is shaped by how people perceive it, and the Doctor's desire and will to see his former companion had been the strongest thing he had ever known.

In the quiet hours of the early morning, the Doctor slipped out of Donna's house and took the TARDIS to an isolated beach. As he stood outside, watching a sunrise in this too short regeneration for the last time, he smiled. As he had told Rose, for the first time that he could remember, he was ready to go.

#doctor x rose #fourteen x rose #otp: better with two #fourteenth doctor #rose tyler #my stuff #my fanfic #mia tyler #tentoo x rose #spoilers...kinda?

[kurisus]

So you love noragami we all love it any reading recs of things like it? Or that you just like?

YES!!!!!

So I have to preface this by saying there's nothing quite like Noragami. And there is nothing wrong with rereading Noragami over and over. But I still have a lot of recs that give Vibes or in general make me Feel Emotions, so here's a non-exhaustive list.

Anime/Manga:

Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya. I've been saying for years that Fruits Basket is Noragami if it was a shoujo. It deals with the same cycles of abuse and an outsider who tries to break them with pure compassion that Noragami does, although it's much more of a drama than a fantasy. Just watch it and think of Yato as the Zodiac cat. I rest my case.

Fullmetal Alchemist (Fullmetal Alchemist) by Hiromu Arakawa. Chances are you've read or seen this already but it's objectively a masterpiece by any standard you care to use. Whether you like shounen fights, deeply emotional interpersonal relationships, political dramas about war and revolution, fantasy based on Greek myth, or anything else, FMA balances them all perfectly (another thing it has in common with Noragami). I love it so much.

Code Geass. This may seem like a wildcard pick but I rewatched Code Geass a few years ago and realized there are a lot of shared elements (like, Suzaku and Kazuma are the same guy). I may be delusional but it's hands down one of the most insane anime I've ever seen, in a good way. Like how FMA and Noragami balance a bunch of genres, Code Geass is a mecha action anime, a school slice of life, a political drama, and a Shakespearean tragedy all at the same time.

Chainsaw Man by Tatsuki Fujimoto. Again this may be one you're familiar with, but after I caught up on Part 1 of the manga I was so deeply wounded I had to start thinking about Noragami again (which is a worse idea). Chainsaw Man is much more of a Shounen™ than Noragami is, and I still maintain that the saddest parts of Chainsaw Man are like happier Noragami chapters, but it's a very good story and one that also has a lonely, cast-out protagonist who craves human affection but has no idea how to get it (and when he does, it's ripped away from him).

Durarara by Ryohgo Narita. In the anime adaptation, pretty much the entire voice cast is shared between it and Noragami (in the Japanese dub). It is a very weird story about a lot of weird people who are competing to be The Most Normal Person In Ikebukuro, a task which they all fail at spectacularly. It doesn't have much in common with Noragami aside from the voice cast but I love it so I recommend giving it a watch (or reading the light novels if you're feeling adventurous).

Link Click. This is a donghua (Chinese anime) about time travel and it steadily drives me more insane the longer I think about it. The three main characters have such lovely relationships with each other and the emotions go OUCH every time. It's a little harder to pinpoint the connection with Noragami here, but it is a story about the things people will do for love. The writing is crazy good especially considering it's not based on a novel or comic; I haven't seen an anime-original with writing this good since Code Geass.

Not a specific anime but the other week I thought about, what if Yuki Kajiura had been the composer for Noragami? Her style suits its aesthetic so well so now whenever I watch something she wrote for, I yearn.

Books:

The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir. If you've looked at my blog at all in the last 2 years you'll know I am very sane over this book series. I actually made a Venn diagram comparing it to Noragami a while back, but the gist of it is that they deal with a lot of similar themes such as love, death, and the curse of immortality. It also has soooo many messy and complicated relationships and twists that leave your jaw on the floor. You can also use the worldbuilding to put your blorbos into and it's very fun for giving yourself Thoughts. For example I've done it both ways by putting the Noragami characters into the TLT universe and the TLT characters into the Noragami universe. Both are very painful.

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint by Sing-shong. I'm not done reading this yet (about 2/3 through), but the further I get the more I realize it's about all kinds of love, the same way Noragami is. The narrator forms a "party" of people in the apocalypse, and they go through life-or-death scenarios together, and the way they grow to love and care for each other is so natural and feels so earned whenever it pays off. If you want romantic relationships, queerplatonic relationships, parent/child relationships, or any other type of relationship, ORV has it. There is also a webtoon adaptation but I'm reading the novel because it's completed; the webtoon will take many more years to get there.

Miscellaneous:

The Adventure Zone: Balance. This is a DND real-play podcast and it doesn't really have anything in common with Noragami but, like Noragami, it made me feel every possible human emotion, so I recommend it. It has a slow start but it grows into something so beautiful and creative and by the end of it I was sobbing in my car. Listen to it if you can, or at least listen to the music (it gets music later on and all of it is soooo good).

Okami. This is a video game heavily inspired by Legend of Zelda and much like Noragami it's a retelling of Japanese mythology, so the storyline will def have some familiar elements. I recommend playing it for yourself (it's available on Steam for PC and pretty much every other platform you can name), but a playthrough would be good too. It's nearly 20 years old and has withstood the test of time because the creators decided to make it look like a classic Japanese painting come to life, and the gameplay involves drawing, so it's very artsy and fun (although the controls are really weird).

Thanks for the ask! Hopefully you found something new, and I'll be sure to share if I find anything new to add to this list because I am always on the prowl for Noragami-adjacent things ❤

#simplysslytherin #ask

[ladymordecai]

I have been reading DC comics fic again for the first time in like . . . a decade-ish? because I'm a masochist, apparently. Finding new stuff and reading old favorites and being reminded of canon and all my thinky thoughts about superheroes and specifically Tim Drake, because he's my Robin and I imprinted (much like he did).

canon has put that boy through the wringer in the last decade, including smushing like, all his tragedies from 15 years of comics into like, ten seconds of comics time. I was reminded of the storyline where his dad found out he was robin and threatened batman into making him give it up, which at the time pissed me off because it was both a clear illustration of what a terrible parent jack drake was (in a way the narrative itself didn't seem to get??), and also because everything about it was so obviously For The Plot.

There was like, nothing in that storyline that I remember that actually came from the characters. It read like the writer or editors or whatever TPTB* decided they wanted to write a story about robin's dad finding out about robin and making him stop**. it's an obvious story for the only robin at the time who wasn't an orphan, and one of few kid heroes whose parents didn't know about them, and also it was Batman and Robin! The Drama! it so clearly had nothing to do with TIM when he should've been the main character, and it made me so angry, and then that anger was compounded because TPTB used it as an excuse to screw over Steph and then make the only non-orphan robin into an orphan, i guess just because. I hated it then, I hate it now.

BUT

I have a lot more perspective now, and have read a lot more (both published work and fanfic), and I have had a thought that I cannot believe I didn't have back then and that I've never heard before anywhere. (which doesn't mean somebody else hasn't had it, i just haven't found it)

One of my core objections about the storyline is that Tim's dad didn't figure out his ID, he just found the Robin uniform in Tim's room. Which is so out of character that it should invalidate the entire storyline.

This is the kid who wore another mask under his mask to prevent his other superhero friends from SEEING HIS FACE--not knowing his ID, just seeing his face. The kid who kept his identity from goddamn ORACLE for a while there. The kid who was able to sneak out and photo-stalk BATMAN AND ROBIN for literal years as a preteen and never get caught. Nobody ever knew anything about Robin III unless Tim made a deliberate decision to reveal the information. This had been a cornerstone of his character for 20+ years. Robin III's secret identity was arguably second only to Oracle's in-universe.

Yet that entire story rested on the idea that Jack Drake, inattentive parent maybe-kinda-misguidedly-authoritarianly trying to connect with his son for the first time ever, snoops in Tim's room and finds proof that Tim is Robin?? AND that Bruce Wayne is Batman?!?? Tim, whose best friends still call him "Rob," left proof of his identity and Batman's somewhere his civilian father could find it??!??!

There is NO WAY THAT MAKES SENSE. There is no version of canon in which that makes sense.

Things that would make sense: Is that old poster of the Flying Graysons how you met the Waynes? or Hey So I Noticed You Have Three Half-Empty First Aid Kits, Talk To Me? or Dad! Did you read my freaking diary and find whatever normal-teenager angst I wrote as a cover and possibly also some real civvie-ID angst mixed in?! Not cool!

OR

Somebody set that up.

That was a freaking supervillain plot.

There's like. No other explanation for what Tim's dad found. Either a supervillain figured out Tim's ID and took him off the playing board in the way most likely to disrupt as many other superheroes as possible, or a supervillain who didn't know Robin's ID mind-controlled him into revealing it for nefarious reasons.

So uh. I really don't want to get into writing DC fic, because I have shit to do that is not that, but SOMEBODY NEEDS TO TELL THAT STORY. Like, either all the characters involved don't contract plot stupidity and thus realize there's something hinky going on, or at some point after that in canon new evidence comes to light or an existing rogue says something suspicious or . . . there's just so many possibilities.

AND THEY'RE ALL MORE INTERESTING AND MORE IN-CHARACTER THAN CANON, DC!!!

(the creators involved in that storyline should feel very very lucky i don't remember who they are and am too lazy to look them up. because i would bring up how bad they are at storytelling every chance i got, forever)

--translations for fandom young'uns and some snark:

*TPTB: the powers that be, shorthand for the vast array of people in charge of multi-creator stories run by companies, such as tv shows, movies, and comics

**Buffy did it better

#tim drake #dc comics #meta #dc comics meta #fic bunny

[jitterbugjive]

It's kind of funny to me, but I don't really have a lot of ideas from childhood that have been developing into the things I have now. But that's because I didn't really do a lot of world building in the past, I would make a bunch of characters and plop them into ambiguous fantasy worlds or alternate earths and I wouldn't focus on anything in the world. If there's demons, there's demons, but they wouldn't have any sort of lore beyond the barebones 'demons are generally bad'. Random species would just suddenly exist and that was that. And I haven't really brought any of those characters back because they don't appeal to me any more.

I didn't even world build when I made my first serious comic project. It was just Earth, with some hidden mythological creatures and vampires, and the vampires were the only thing I wrote the lore for. And that's probably some of the only fantasy lore I carried over into My Magic Grandpa, is how vampires work in that setting.

The first time I ever really bothered to do world building was when I wrote my Dystopia project for a school assignment, and all that world building can be found on a single piece of paper with notes scribbled on it. I haven't really developed this world much, it's basically a future Earth. But it's the oldest story I have that I plan to make an actual project some day. The hangup was always what medium I should make it, which I only figured out recently what the most viable option was. And it probably won't exist for a few years.

Once Upon a Calamity was my second oldest project which I started when I was 18, and it never really had world building either. It was just self contained stories in ambiguous worlds and it was only until after I started MMG that I decided it takes place within the same world and would be a way to explore the darker aspects of it.

My Magic Grandpa was the first time I ever took world building seriously and I literally have hundreds of documents of notes for it, and I recycled a lot of ideas and characters... But all from my 20s, not from my childhood. Because I just feel like my childhood characters are bad, or they connect to bad memories.

Leporia is my first full on separate world from Earth that I seriously developed. It doesn't have anywhere near as many notes as MMG has, and pretty much all of its lore is new ideas. I have only 2 recycled characters from further back than the pony stuff, and one doesn't even exist in the story because they're on another continent entirely. Leporia still has a lot of unexplored lore, and I wish I had more time to make lore posts, but I also really want to just explore it more in general so some day I hope I'll have time to do a series of short comics that take place in that world from different character perspectives.

Anyway my point is, it's kind of weird to me that I never took lore crafting seriously until my late 20s, and weirder still that I just abandoned so many ideas that I'll never touch again.