#no spoilers for post time skip btw

[buff-muffin]

Post Marineford spoilers nerds

You guys ever think about how in that small recovery arc after marineford that Luffy was still wearing the same shorts from the battle? Like, Law and the others could have lent him some clothes. Or idfk an old jump suit. Like. I know the pants were red but they would probably be black with the amount of blood that must of soaked those fuckers. His blood, Ace’s, Jimbe’s and the amount of corpses that must have been on the floor.

Do you think they still smelled of smoke, gun powder and blood? Do you think they made Luffy’s flashbacks worse? Do you think seeing his blood soaked yellow vest triggered him? What do you think happened to that outfit? He wasn’t wearing it when he returned to marineford. Maybe he burned it. Like stripping himself of that layer of himself or shedding his skin. Maybe it’s at the bottom of the ocean. A scar he could never rid of not forgotten but buried.

Idk man I’m just snowballing :)

#marineford #marineford spoilers #one piece #op #portgas d ace #monkey d. luffy #luffy #trafalgar law #I haven’t started on post time skip yet. I might next week depends on if I feel I’ve waited enough. #so I don’t actually know much about how Luffy handed things if more information is given later #I just KNOW Rayleigh had to be his therapist for those two years #no spoilers for post time skip btw #I’m sad we didn’t get to see more sad Luffy #like idk man. he’s at his LOWEST #COME ON ODA LET IT SIMMER LET US H U R T #SMH I GOTTA DO EVERYTHING AROUND HERE #one piece headcanons #head canons #rambles

[rakumel]

Raku Plays Her Faves, Ys VIII, Chapter 4: Badly Abridged

Let’s see if I can squish Chapter 4 into a single post. On one hand, it’s a lot shorter than I remember. On the other hand, I generally can’t shut up when talking about this game.

Also: major end of Chapter 4 spoilers at the end of this post.

Hummel shows back up and joins the party permanently.

From the summit they can see some ruins and a massive tree, but no clear way to get to said ruins. Still, turning back’s not an option, so down the other side of the mountain they go.

They camp for the night at the foot of the mountain. Adol fesses up about his highly detailed dreams, where he’s actually experiencing things as Dana, not just seeing her.

The group doesn’t know what to make of that, but they stay supportive. I’m 99 percent sure no one at Falcom meant it this way, but in my dumbass imagination, I can’t help but wonder if at least one person in the party wondered that night if Adol was trying to come out as genderfluid. I don’t know about y’all, but I’d buy every Ys game made until the end of time if they were bold enough to do that.

He has another very vivid dream that night, where we play as Dana again in the royal capital of Aegias. It’s fuckin’ ornate and gorgeous, and none of the way too many touristy-style screencaps I took can do it justice.

If you saw the title The Lost World and immediately thought of the Jurassic Park movies, you’re not alone. In the screenshot you can kind of see the ruins in the distance, but to get there, they’ve got to cross these plains full of Primordials, most of which will stomp your party flat if you try to pick a fight with them at this point.

If you love the found family trope, you’re in for a treat in this camping scene that takes place after they’ve crossed the plains, but just before they get to the ruins. Ricotta’s always wanted a family like the ones she saw in the books she and her dad collected, and with this group, she feels like she’s finally getting her wish. And everyone else is all, “Heck yeah, we’ll be your family.���

This isn’t a major plot point or anything, but I shared it anyway because it gave me both the warm fuzzies AND the happy sniffles.

Back in the past, Dana sees - through Adol’s experience - that he and his group have made it to some ruins, but a big chasm’s keeping them from actually entering them. Also, oh shit - she recognizes the ruins as what’s left of Aegias. Apparently something happened between her time and Adol’s that destroyed the capital city.

Remember back in Chapter 3 where Dana planted a sapling in the past that grew into a big-ass tree in the present, allowing Adol’s party to cross a canyon and get to the mountain where they couldn’t before? She basically does the same thing here.

Back to the present day, and....

After exploring the ruins a bit, they finally find Thanatos Beldine (kind of...more like he finds them) and turns out he’s both older and goofier than they imagined. He’d been captured by a flying Primordial, but managed to barely escape with his life. Unfortunately, it left him stuck on the wrong side of the mountain. But at least now Ricotta’s finally reunited with her adopted dad :)

Speaking of goofy, the story’s been told very well and very sensibly so far. So even though this part’s a stretch, I’d say they earned the right to have a little silliness. As a treat.

So turns out the reason Hummel came with the party this time was to deliver a suitcase to Thanatos. And its contents turned out to be...seriously, y’all might want to sit down for this if you’re not already...a jar of pickles and blueprints for a ship. And the reason Thanatos got those things was because, on a whim, he wrote that request down on a note and put it in a bottle, then threw it out to sea. And Hummel found it, and apparently that’s good enough to count as a contract.

(Yes, I have many, MANY questions about all of that.)

But yes, Hummel’s been walking around with blueprints for a ship this entire time. God damn it. (For the record, he also canned the pickles, and according to Thanatos, they were damned good.)

To Mr. Beldine’s credit, he generously gives Adol the ship blueprints to take back to Castaway Village so that everyone, himself included, can get off the island. Once they take care of the giant squid problem, of course.

So. MAJOR SPOILER TIME. 

But first, I’m posting two images of really big fish catches, because a) I want to give you ample time to turn back if you don’t want to see the spoilers and b) damn it I nearly killed my thumb again trying to reel these big stupid scaly bastards in, so I’m showing them off.

(Wait...464.1 cm? You’re telling me Sahad landed a fish that’s over 15 fuckin’ feet long with only a homemade fishing rod??? God DAMN)

Er...anyway. Once again, major spoilers for the game and the end of Chapter 4 ahead. Everyone still here, you ready?

So Thanatos mentions to Adol that there’s a temple in the ruins, at the foot of that massive tree they saw way back on top of the mountain, that he should check out. But, there’s yet another gap in the ruins they can’t cross. So there’s yet another trip back to Dana in the past, who plants another sapling near the temple. (Dana does a lot more besides that; I’m glossing over so much exposition and shit here, it ain’t funny.)

So once again, plot tree to the rescue. After making their way through the temple and fighting off all the monsters that have taken up residence in it over the years, guess what Adol and company find?

Another tree! No, wait...something’s in the tree.

Did I say something? I meant someone.

Holy balls, IT’S DANA. Like...really, actually, physically there.

She wakes up and recognizes Adol, but can’t remember why she was in the tree, or how she got that red tattoo-like mark on her shoulder. Dana’s still groggy, which is understandable for someone who’s been asleep for god knows how many years, and hasn’t had anything to eat since. The party quickly agrees to take her back to Castaway Village, and that’s where the chapter ends.

Well...huh. Damn.

I’ll admit that characters having amnesia in games like this isn’t exactly breaking new ground storywise. BUT, I still love the breadcrumb way Ys VIII tells its story. Mysteries arise, then get solved, but the act of solving them opens up more mysteries, advances more of the story, reveals more about its characters. Even sidequests that in other games would be wholly separate and self-contained contribute to the story.

For example, there have been notes left behind on pirate skeletons that we’ve been finding since way the hell back in Chapter 1. We get a full explanation of those in Chapter 5, PLUS a thing at the end of the pirate story that’s necessary to the main story.

And, jar of pickles with ship blueprints aside, none of it feels unnatural. None of it feels too rushed or too slow. None of it feels like filler. Even the optional quests you do for the characters don’t feel pointless or like a waste of time. Since Adol’s the main character we’re meant to project onto, he unfortunately remains mostly a blank slate, but almost everyone else? Feels as multi-layered as actual people. 

Considering we’re now up to over 20 characters, that’s fucking amazing to me. And there’s still a few more of ‘em to come. Aaaaand by the way, we’re not done with past Dana, even though she’s been found in the present. Yep, Dana’s such a badass that she continues to solve mysteries while existing in two different timelines.

This game, y’all.

#ys viii #lacrimosa of dana #ys viii spoilers #raku plays her faves #raku plays her faves: ys viii #I'm skipping over so much stuff and I don't like it -_- #I didn't even get to talk about gladiator grandma :( #or any of the stuff going on in Dana's side of the story #but eh...just gotta be more careful with the screencaps next time #I've made it to the beginning of Chapter 6 btw #and it's going to be insanely difficult to discuss without spoiling the game #in fact it's probably impossible #so the next few posts won't focus on the story so much

[jazeswhbhaven]

Maybe I want Him to Bite...(Lucifer Selfie Card Prologue React) *Spoilers*

Let me just start off by saying I am GAGGING in a good way about this prologue and it's going to sit well with me until further spoilers are posted for the unholy board story. I tried pulling as much as I could for my saved seals but I only got his artifact for the erolabs account. (watch me get him on the censored version but not his artifact so I'm stuck on either app lol)

But this thing fueled my Luci lore needs. And I took more screenshots than I thought I would so get ready for another long react from me lmao grab a snack my lovelies and let's get it goingggg ✌.ʕʘ‿ʘʔ.✌

I'm not gonna lie, my ass skipped the whole looking and seeing Phenomenon because it's pretty much the same as it is in every selfie card lol

Someone in the tower of Hades sees him and then apparently so can everyone else. This time MC is in Gehenna just casually witnessing everyone being excited about his arrival.

MC brings up that Gehnna would be pretty nice as a tourist attraction with less destruction about and Ppyong is like "nah"

And further confirmed by Sitri, others simply just like it that way and there's not much to patch up each time there's an attack. MC doesn't really get it until they're like "Ah right, we're in Hell." (damn Ra-On when will you finally understand the assignment?)

But Sitri is suddenly being summoned by Satan iirc...and Ppyong is being contacted by Paimon who sent him a long ass text lmao, so they leave MC alone for a bit so they can walk around on their own and....

A new door?? Ooooo

OH???

GAMI GAM MY BBY BOI ^^ <3

So Gamigin has come to escort MC to Paradise Lost, which btw is like the epitome of most Rococo style paintings imo. At least in most areas.

MORAXXXXXX <3 *gently holds*

He greets MC first, and he hopes they're doing well but MC is more concerned with his body and wellness and he's just like "Awh only you say that often" HE SO WHOLESOME

Oh Marbas...I will never forget that time you tried to fucking kill us :D Hey buddy.

But no, srsly he is happy to see us in his own way lol

Buer is straight to business, as expected but also he can say hi too. I love that we get to interact with the healers more because I love seeing everyone's personality combined when it's obvious which King they used to serve before.

So MC agreed to a request, and Buer is explaining that request on the way to this beautiful ass palace. I dare say more beautiful than Leviathan's *cough*

Also Buer reminds MC of Bimet based on how he speaks and how he thanks MC for accepting the request and getting straight to the point. (which I think is hilarious)

So there are apparently RULES for Paradise Lost. Mostly concerning Lucifer himself. Marbas brings up the eye contact rule. MC then asks oh so I can look for less than 3 seconds then look away and back at him again?

I fucking love them. Because why are they acting like that wasn't an option lmao P L Z

So this rule makes sense. Lucifer has absolute authority which to me is an overpowered ability BUT hey it works for someone like him and I dig it.

MC asks once again, hey so is that rule expired at some point?

Again bamboozled by another question instead of MC just accepting the rule for what it is. Lol It seems like Gamigin does the same thing and he was over there like ???? :o being clueless and cute as usual.

The snake on his suit is alive???? WHOA that's pretty cool.

So the snake is similar to that like the "scarlet letter" The fact that no one really knows for sure what the snake does just yet is a great mystery within itself. But you know, Paradise Lost is "newish" and I imagine Lucifer doesn't interact with many others outside of Paradise Lost so ofc no one would know what that snake does if no one provokes it.

Now this here. At first, I was under the impression that his fangs are like you know vampire vibes but nope, snake boi

that makes him h o t t e r

And thanks Marbas, because I mean why make these rules if you don't know wtf is gonna happen? My anxiety will be lovely.

MC is just like, oh wait does he bite??? LOL

Just imagine that Lucifer does just randomly bite people. Some people do this irl if overstimulated and don't know it's not socially acceptable. I do not rule out Lucifer being one of those people.

Luci is so nuerodivergent coded. If you remember from Raphael's christmas card though, he also doesn't like loud sudden noises so it's possible that they share the same traits as brothers! (but also it's possible Luci has ptsd or similar so loud noises is a no)

MC though thinks none of these rules are even needed if they don't meet Lucifer...

He's so goddamn pretty, I'd break the 3 second rule immediately if it weren't for my own aversion to looking folks in the eyes lol

So MC asks if this was the plan to meet Lucifer and Gamigan is like yeah! But Luci is just focused on how terrified MC looks.

I mean check it. A really fucking tall man that looks like a statue, with bloodied wings, demonic eyes, and a scar across his lovely big chest, and voice that could make me cause crimes is speaking to me. I'm going to be like Jjok and piss myself.

So we go into a small flashback though of why Lucifer agreed to meeting up with MC in the first place.

So Luci is just enjoying tea quietly in his greenhouse right? And it's very simplistic in design, nothing too crazy and I think that's perfect for him.

He complains slightly about how noisy it is outside but he doesn't really do much about it because he's been overworking his wings lately (poor bby it's probably a reflex that he's always gonna have)

So he notices that the devils are in high spirits and that's when Morax comes in to give him the news.

The dyanmic here and Lucifer's reaction is appropiate because he just kinda sits there and sips his tea quietly as Morax explains plainly that Phenomenon has landed and hasn't done so since 100 years prior. That's when the war first started, (if you remember the event this likely happened around the same time he became king of Paradise Lost)

Morax starts to feel sentimental about it, and Marbas is being empathetic toward him stating it's not his fault.

Now I've noticed that they call each other "brother" the same way Lucifer's brothers in heaven would. So this for sure tells me that this is the set dynamic for the 3 nobles plus Gamigin!

Yeah? See lol

Lucifer's reaction here amuses me because he's just like "Ah so this is how they truly are..." which could for sure be why he didn't believe in starting a fight with them way back when (maybe, though the event shows me he was favorable toward dragons...I can only assume he was favorable toward devils too, maybe certain ones)

Gamigin coming in being loud and happy lol I love his energy so much it fits him. I think the only person who can be loud around Luci IS Gamigin lol

SO lovelies, part 1 stops here, darn picture limit. But get yourself ready for part 2~ I'll see ya there!

#whb #what in hell is bad #whb lucifer #whb paradise lost bois 🤍 #whb gamigin #whb spoilers #lucifer selfie card

[manicrouge]

SIN CITY

[𝙺𝚎𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚗 𝚁𝚞𝚜𝚜 𝚡 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛]

[𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝙿𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚍]: 09/02/24

[𝙰𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝]: Rorke finds the Ghost's and you fear you're never going to see Keegan again.

[𝙲𝚠]: Major character death, violence, gore, graphic injury, hurt/ comfort, reader goes THROUGH IT, idk if there's anything else.

[𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝]: 7k (exactly btw)

[𝙰/𝙽]: This has literally been in my drafts since Decemeber and I wrote way too much of it to not do anything with it so = I hope this is enough to suffice. Also, this is entirely based off of the mission 'Sin City' in call of duty ghosts, so if you haven't seen or played the game and don't want spoilers then please skip this !! (I would be surprised if you've not seen this yet you're in the Keegan tag.)

Also, if people do enjoy this I am down to write a part two so please let me know :3

ENJOY !!

There may be typos, apologies!!

Please don't post my work anywhere else without my permission !!

‘If I ever went missing, would you go and look for me?'

It was silent for a moment, and after five seconds passed, you turned to look at the man lying beside you. As you observed his features, you realised that his eyes were closed and while you doubted someone’s ability to dose off so quickly, you sure as shit didn’t doubt Keegan’s. His hand on your waist gave him away as it tightened on you, pulling you closer to him.

Opening his eyes, he peered at you with a furrowed brow. ‘The fuck kinda question is that, princess?’ He asked, ‘of course I would. Besides, need you with me,’ he said, ‘who else would I have to watch my back? Didn’t spend all that time training you for you to disappear on me, did I?’

Smug bastard.

'You're full of yourself,' you bit back.

'Good reason to be,' he said, brushing a hand through his black hair, moving his fringe away from his eyebrows, 'I'll consider being humble when I lose you, princess. But that hasn't happened and it won't be happening on my watch, not at all,' he reassured, pulling you closer to him.

You slapped his chest, letting out a heavy sigh, resting your head against his chest. In the dead of the night and the silence in your room, you listen to the thud of his beating heart while held up on a tiny bed. You were practically on top of him, legs intertwined. 

There wasn't anywhere to go, however, and he didn't seem to care about you closeness at that moment. Rather, he settled with the heat of your body much better than he would have settled in a bed with more space.

'You think this'll ever be over?' you mumbled, closing your eyes, 'I'd like to sleep in a bigger bed with you; this ones a little cramped. Maybe even watch something on a TV too.’

'You're free to take the floor if you want to, I'm not stopping you,' he grunted, pinching your waist.

'I'm gonna blow your brains out,' you sleepily mumbled, placing your hand over his. His chest twitches as he lets out a short laugh, folding his arm behind your head so he can brush his fingers through your hair. 'I mean it,' you grumbled.'

'Of course you do, princess,' he said, 'of course you do.'

—

Throughout your training as a Ghost, you gained an understanding that things will never ever be as easy as you wish they were. But, it came with the job, you suppose, whether it was spoken or not. 

Feelings as such only ever drift in when you don’t have a distraction, and the absence of Keegan after Elias sent him to Colorado Springs proved to be bruising. 

Admittedly, you had been apprehensive with Elias’ request, although, in private, you digressed as you noted that Elias is your Captain, and you were to never question your captains judgement. Even when it came to someone that you loved. So, you bit your tongue, and for the first time in what felt like a long time, you allowed yourself to relax. 

But, you have some things you needed to do before you got any sleep, or before you thought about anything else other than Rorke and the Federation. 

‘JSOC’s going to want to move fast on this, so load up before you get any shut eye,’ he advises.

You follow behind him, standing beside Logan as he walked with Hesh and Merrick by his side. Fortunately, the brunt of the experience has been dealt with, you had survived Keegan’s absence overnight, and in a matter of hours, he would be back by your side. Inwardly, you’re embarrassed at your clinginess to him, but deep down you know he enjoys it. 

‘We’ve got six hours until Keegan gets back,’ Elias says. 

Upon the mention of his name, Riley brushes his head against your leg, and you look down at the German Shepherd, rolling your eyes. Leaning down slightly, you scratch his head. ‘Shut up,’ you grumble to the pup when he looks up at you, his tongue poking out from the corner of his mouth. When you pull your hand away, he licks it, staring back at you. With a huff, you fold to his attempt of cuteness, moving your hand to the his head again. 

‘Hold up,’ Merrick says abruptly. 

An arm grabs your forearm suddenly, and you let out a startled breath, though when you look in front of you, you realise you’d almost walked right into Hesh. Exhaling, you turn your head to Logan who gives you a short nod. 

‘Somethin’ feel off to you?’ Merrick asks, turning to Elias.

The man immediately turns to his right, observing a laptop left perched on a desk. He says little for a moment, and when you turn your head away from your Captain, you acknowledge Merrick’s watchful eye as he peers down the scope of his gun, observing the sights through the broad windows located to the left of you. 

‘Security’s working,’ says the man to the right of you. 

Merrick slowly backs away, keeping his eyes trained o the window. You feel your throat tighten as you keep your eyes on the man, his paranoia working well to leave a heavy feeling in your chest. Logan lets go of your arm as he glances at his brother, a look that you don’t miss, and Merrick looks at you. You open your mouth to speak, holding the gun in your hands close to your chest, snapping your head to Riley as the dog begins to bark, glaring directly through he window that Merrick had just kept his eyes trained on. 

While he may be a dog, he is surely not an idiot- in fact, you’re quite sure that Riley is much smarter than many of the people you had encountered when you had been a simple rookie, before Elias had taken you under his wing. He could certainly kill more people, that’s for sure. 

It all seems to happen in slow motion, and the night you had spent prior seems to dissipate in one moment. There’s this hissing, you hear it from below, and before you have time to contemplate what exactly it is, a black can is thrown over the balcony, a train of green smoke pouring from out of the top of it.

‘Fuck,’ you curse, ‘get out!’ you yell, watching as another two cans containing the same foul smelling gas are tossed over  the balcony, hitting the ground with a clink.

As you begin to sprint, you find the air around you is similar to the air you breathed whenever you were spending time with Keegan on his smoke break. All oxygen left your lungs as you broke into a sprint, your eyes water, and before you know it, you falling down to the ground, gasping for air as you feel your eyes grow heavy. 

In the midst of the panic and over the thumping of your heart in your chest, you hear Elias call out, ‘Riley, hide!’ before breaking out into a fit of coughs.

You wretch, clawing at the ground in some form of futile attempt to escape, but nothing works as you watch Logan collapse right before you, spewing out violent coughs. Never have you felt so defenceless, so weak as you succumb to the gas, the world around you growing blurry before fading into complete darkness. 

—

‘What are you doing up, kid?’ Keegan asks, seeing you appear beside him.

Letting out a small yawn, your boots crunch against a few stray rocks as you approach him, taking a seat against the rock he was leaning on, looking out at the remnants of No Mans Land. Logan and Hesh had regarded it as their home, as did their father, though, you couldn’t really picture the place without the addition of a crater which grew every day, claiming the lives of old rickety buildings and unsuspecting wildlife.

It was a sorry sight to see for sure, and inwardly, you were happy you never had the misfortune of seeing your own home falling to pieces.

‘You need sleep,’ he said, taking a drag from the cigarette between his lips. 

Your eyebrows raise as you look at him, crossing your arms over yourself. ‘I thought you said you didn’t smoke,’ you say, 'you're a liar.'

You didn’t miss the way he rolled his eyes at your comment, and when he pulls it from his lips, exhaling a cloud of grey smoke, he chuckles. ‘Thought I told you not to hang onto every little thing I tell you, princess,’ he stated, ‘seems like we’re both guilty of doing something we’re not supposed to, hm?’

Placing the cigarette between his lips again, he turns his attention to you, noting that you’d crinkled your nose as the smoke he’d exhaled blew back into your face. ‘You can handle the fuckin’ dust in the battlefield, but the moment you smell a cigarette you fold?’ he mocks, laughing.

Your brow furrows at his comment and you fought of the urge to rip the cigarette out of his mouth. Instead, you allowed him to have his silly little cancer stick knowing that, if you did so something so cruel, he was sure to be upset at you, no matter how close the pair of you were. Cigarettes were difficult to come by and you liked him enough to let him have one in peace. 

—

When the world fades in, you’re moving.

You don’t know how, and for a short second, you’re convinced you’ve died. But, when you take a sharp breath and feel your lungs burning, you’re crudely brought back to life. When you look ahead of you, you witness two soldiers trailing behind you. Keeping your head bowed, you wince at the dizziness wrecking your tired mind, attempting to hold your breath in fear of the due ache in your lungs.

Swallowing, your mouth is dry and you feel the urge to vomit as your head keeps swaying from side to side. Your limbs feel like jelly, fluid. You can hear them talking, although, everything seems miles away from you, and you feel your eyes water as the tightness in your chest grows. If they know you’re here, do they know where Keegan is? The thought sends a chill down your spine, and in your delirious state, you declare that you will kill anyone who even dared to touch even a hair on his head. Even if it meant your death too. 

‘That all you got you piece of shit?!’

It’s Merrick, you recognise his tone from anywhere, it nearly shatters your delirious state entirely, though, the grip on the back of your collar tightens as your pulled away from him.

There’s more shouting and a loud smack, Merrick, you imagine, is on the receiving end of such a hit. A Ghost in true fashion, that’s for sure. As you attempt to lift your head again, you find the world growing dark once more, and, while you feel as though you should fight against it just as you had seen him do, you allow yourself to fall back into the abyss as you feel your lung burning and throat swelling. 

—

There’s a screeching when you come back around, a vile ringing in your ears. ‘Well, I guess if you want something done right, do it yourself.’ 

Your blood runs cold.

As you slowly begins to lift your head, a hand grabs your face, forcing your head up. The light protruding from the window to the left of you is nearly bruising, and when the hand holding your face successfully tilts your head up, your eyes meet with Rorkes. He looks down at you with a wrinkled smirk, his hold tightening on your hair, yanking it harder. You wince at the pressure as he keeps his eyes on you.

‘You’re finally awake,’ he acknowledges, pushing your head down, letting go of your hair. ‘Good.’

He walks away from you, and as you look around, you note that Hesh is sitting directly across from you, Logan is to the right of you, and Elias is to your left.

As you continue to look around, your face pales at the disappearance of Merrick, and while you sit, you recall the faint memory in your banging head of the man being surrounded by Federation soldiers.

He’s smart, you think, you could leave that bastard in a forest with a knife and he’d have his own fuckin’ city in a month. He’s fine. 

‘Nice to have the family back together, isn’t it?’ Rorke asks, looking to Elias. The man shows no fear, looking the devil right in the eyes with a stoic expression on his face. ‘One thing, though,’ he says, ‘we’re just missin’ our quiet friend, aren’t we?’ he says.

Your heart calms at such a statement.

He doesn’t have him, he’s fine, he’s safe.

You expect him to keep his eyes trained on Elias, counting on the fact that he is the Captain, but, he turns his head over his shoulder and looks at you. Heaving a heavy sigh, he turns his back to Elias, placing his hands down on his knees, ‘where’s Keegan?’

Looking him in the eyes, you spite your dry throat as the muscles in your neck contort and you muster up a mouthful of phlegm. He keeps his eyes trained on you, and you lung forward, a spray of mucus and saliva coating his face. ‘Fuck you,’ you heave, ‘I’m not telling you a fuckin’ thing,’ you sharply state.

He looks at you with wide eyes, standing up and wiping his face with the palm of his hand. 

‘Damn bitch has got some fight in her, doesn't she?’ he laughs, turning to Elias, ‘not your daughter by blood, but by attitude… fuck me, Elias, you’ve got yourself a mini me!’ he exclaims. You bite your lip, taking a deep breath as you look at your Captain with bleary eyes. Grabbing the back of the man’s chair, he pulls it to him. Elias’ gaze doesn’t leave his. ‘Where is he?’ he slowly questions. 

There’s a moment of silence.

‘You know I’m not telling you a damn thing,’ he spits, baring his teeth in his direction.

Never have you seen the man so agitated, his bruised face flushed red, his split lip oozing with blood, a thin line of it trailing down his chin. He looks like a savage beast as the sunlight behind him renders his features darker than typical, and the curve of his lips when he addresses Rorke even sends a shiver up your spine.

Of course, a Ghost was loyal to his own until death, and even then, they were buried down to watch over them. Once a Ghost, always a Ghost. Elias proved his worth much more than Rorke ever could, and while you wondered what exactly they had done to break the man who Elias had described as ‘one hell of a Ghost,’ but one thing was for certain. A man who broke was not a Ghost. Never was, and never would be.

’Go fuck yourself,’ Elias hisses.

Rorke laughs, nodding his head, letting go of the back of his chair. It lands with a clatter, and you watch as the man continues to nod to himself.

‘Dangerous fuckin’ game you’re playing,’ he states, and you watch as his right hand moves from the front of him, trailing around to the side where his pistol sat in his holster.

He’s gonna shoot Elias. Your eyes grow wide as you watch the man retrieve his weapon. Your muscles tensing as he holds it out in front of him. It’s aimed right at his chest, overing above his heart. ‘Well, let's see if I can change your mind,’ he exhales. 

BANG.

In a moment, his hand whips around, and when the trigger is pulled, all the air in your lungs exudes like puss from a pimple.

The shot causes your ears to ring. It’s loud, and everything is fuzzy. For a moment, you look up in search of the wound, hoping that the bullet had not went through your Captains skull. Only, when you look in his direction, you see the smoking pistol pointed directly at you. Your eyes grow wide, and you let out a short breath.

You heard the gun go off, the bullet had to be somewhere. And then, you felt a wetness pooling against your thighs. Everything seemed to move slowly when you raised your head up, looking across to Hesh with wide eyes. 

I’m going to die, I’m going to die and Keegan isn’t here with me.

As you manage to get a short breath in, agony hits you like a truck and you lean over without a second thought.

I’m going to die.

All you training, everything, how to stop the bleeding, none of it matters; you’re truly at the disposal of the enemy and there’s nothing you can do. Not even you Captain can do anything. 

‘NO!’ Elias screams, dragging you back into the moment. 

Between the thudding beats of your heart, you hear Hesh screaming out bloody murder, thrashing against the ropes that keep him tied to the chair, ‘Son of a bitch!’ he screams, looking directly at Rorke, ‘I’m going to kill you! You hear me? I’m going to fucking kill you!'

A shaky breath leaves you as your eyes well with tears, and when you look down, you gulp hard at the sight of a wound oozing blood. Your throat tightens as you feel your entire body grow hot.

‘Easy junior,’ Rorke warns with a disapproving tone. You keep your head bowed as his shadow looms over you, ‘I ain’t even started with you yet,’ he chuckles.

Keegan, where’s Keegan- I’m going to die.

Your eyes sting as your trembling hands press against the rope, pulling against them. You need to get out of there otherwise you are going to die. 

Elias calls your name, you hear it, he shouts it, yet, it seems so quiet.

'Look at me!’ he demands, and while everything in you is telling you to keep your eyes trained on the wound, you force your head up, sniffing hard as you look your Captain in the eyes. At the very least, even if Keegan isn’t there with you, you have him.

Elias, you captain, your military father. There have been plenty of jokes made during particularly bleak moments in missions where Hesh and Logan have likened you to their sister. It's an honour, truly, to know that they were your brothers no matter relation, and Elias entertained the idea that you were the daughter he had never had. 

Rorke appears behind him and it’s then that you don’t realise how many seconds are passing. Every single second feels like an hour, and you’re more than aware that every second passing is yet another drop of wasted blood. You’re running on borrowed fucking time, and there’s Rorke, the big fucking man he is, parading around in front of you like he’s a jester. ‘That’s right,’ he chuckles, placing his hand on Elias shoulder, ‘that’s it,’ he sighs, ‘show him how much pain he’s causing you right now.’

‘Keegan will kill you,’ you rasp out, stifling a short whimper as you clench your teeth. ‘And if he doesn’t, then I will.’

You’re more than aware of the situation your in and your pessimism seems to waver with your consciousness as a sudden boost of adrenaline fills you with defiance. If you’re going to die, you might as well run your tongue; the worst thing that can happen in this moment is him simply putting you out of your misery. 

Rorke laughs at your threats, ‘you see,’ he begins, ‘funny think about your old Captain here,’ he stops himself for a moment, shoving Elias as he resumes his position, looking you in the eyes, ‘He lets his men die to save his own ass,’ he states, turning his attention away from you, turning his attention back to the Captain.

Exhaling shakily, you look over to Hesh and Logan who return a look equally as frightened. Never have you seen the pair of them appear so apprehensive, although, you definitely don’t miss the look of anger. No, even though the look isn’t intended for you, you feel a chill run up your spine. 

‘Dammit, Rorke,’ Elias yells, ‘this is between you and me!’

The world seems like its on a merry-go-round, twisting and turning leaving a delightful fuzziness in your head. Adrenaline is pupping through you, and you’re thankful for the emotion, for, if you didn’t have it, you very well would have been out like a light. Your hands continue to pull against the ties of your rope, and while your wrists are burning from the constant pulling and tugging, you breath a short sigh of relief when you feel them loosening. Whoever tied it clearly weren’t trained in the art of kidnapping. 

‘Leave my kids out of it!’ Elias demands.

You feel your heart warm at his sentiment, giving you all the more fight to get out of these damn binds. Works gun is right next to him, you can get it, you can reach for it, and you can blow that fuckers brains out. 

‘You’re talking to a superior Lieutenant,’ Rorke says, pacing back and forward, before finding his way right back to Elias. Looking down at the man, he calmly speaks, ‘show some discipline.’

You feel your face grow warm listening to their exchange. 

‘You were never one of us, you’re not a Ghost,’ Elias cruelly says, turning his face away from Rorke, looking down to the ground. Rorke hums, turning his attention back towards you.

The ties are growing looser, they’re getting there, you can almost get your hand out of them, yet, you maintain poker face as you look up at Rorke. 

‘Well,’ Rorke breathes, ‘that’s just cause I’m better than you!’ he exclaims, keeping his eyes trained on you. You watch as they narrow, it’s a subtle one, one that you had noted during parring matches with rookies.

As Keegan had taught you, when soldiers get lazy, they give themselves away and it’s always in the eyes.

Your eyes dart to his hands, seeing him clench his fists as he snaps his body around, driving his fist into Elias’ face. The man falls to the side with a grunt as Rorke takes a short breath before raising his other fist, ‘I’ve always been better than you!’ he seethes, punching that man again. Elias tilts his head back against the chair, and you watch as both Logan and Hesh begin to fight much harder against their restraints. Either way, someone was getting out and Rorke was going to pay. ‘But you… you call yourself a Ghost?!’ he barks, hating Elias again. 

As he looks down on Elias, you pull a hand free from the ties. Keeping your eyes trained on Rorke, you look down at his gun, gritting your teeth. ‘You’re nothing! You and your kids, you’re dead!’ he declares.

Wrong move.

With his proud declaration, you push yourself up from out of the chair, snatching his pistol from out of the holster on his thigh. Such, unfortunately, doesn’t go unnoticed by Rorke as he whips around, grabbing your arms, forcing the pistol up. You place your hands against his, using all the strength you can muster to pull the gun away from him. 

Nothing moves him, however. 

But he’s a monster, he likes to play with his food.

He’s not using all his strength, he’s taking it easy on you, and you’re still losing. As he does so, he laughs in your ear. ‘Oh,’ he gasps, ‘she’s still got a little life in her,’ he laughs aloud, positioning the gun so your pointing it directly at Elias. ‘Didn’t he ever tell you not to aim guns at people?’ You grunt, driving your foot against his boot, feeling his grip falter for a moment. You attempt to move the gun upwards, your finger pressed against the trigger. Everything burns. Everything hurts. But you’re not going to stop, you’re going to kill this bastard even if it kills you. 

Unfortunately he’s a scummy man, and as punishment for you stomping on his foot, he drives an elbow into your stomach, winding you.

Your hold falters- you almost fall to the floor- but he keeps you up on your feet, and through gritted teeth declares, ‘they could go off!’ His finger jams against your pressed against the trigger, a loud shot ringing in your ears. You watch a Elias throws his head to the side as a bullet drives through his chest. You fight against him harder, shaking your head. ‘That’s is!’ He grunts, ‘just a little more that way,’ he instructs you, forcing your hand further to the right. You actively pull away as the both of you fight against each other. Tears are running down your faces at that moment, every pull and tug driving the bullet in your stomach further and further. 

‘Dammit, Rorke, STOP!’ Hesh begs. 

 ‘Point it… at…’ another shot is fired, and Elias takes it with a grunt, 'your Captain.’

As though taking candy from a baby, he lets go of your hands, plucking it out of your sweaty grasp. Gunpowder invades your nostrils as he lets you go. Rookie mistake, you hear it in your head, but it isn't your voice. It's Keegan's.

You wobble on your feet, staggering backwards as your get your bearings. What you need to do is untie Logan who is right behind you, and then when he's distracted you can get to Hesh. Yet, as you step back and begin to move towards Logan, Rorke whips around to face you again driving the butt of the pistol into your face. It hits you with a crude thwack, a stoke of colour meeting your gaze as you fail to catch yourself, tumbling to the ground.

Logan screams out as you fall to the ground, and you tense as you brace for impact. You land with a thud, a broken cry escaping your lips when you feel the bullet lodge in your stomach dig further in.

The pain leaves you gasping an you clench your teeth as the room spins. Nausea spread through you as you lay there attempting to collect yourself, gulping back the urge to vomit.  Resting your palm against the ground, you begin to attempt to pick yourself up. If you can just make it to Logan, you can make everything right.

Keeping your eyes trained on Elias, you watch as Rorke circles him as a shark did its pray. Both Hesh and Logan are calling you for you, the rattle of their chair thumping causing your ears to ring. Licking your dry lips, you tense when Rorke turns back to you, pointing the pistol in his hand directly at your head.

‘You got fire in you, kid,’ he breathlessly confesses, ‘I like that… risking your life to protect your Captain,’ he chuckles, leaning into Elias, pressing his finger against his chest. ‘You could learn something from her, Elias.’

‘She’s my daughter,’ he croaks. 

‘Yeah,’ Rorke nods, glancing at you, ‘and she’s gonna get to watch you die. Her and your boys.'

Shot after shot is fired, every bang against you to witness as you grab your stomach, pressing down against the wound to keep yourself from losing more blood than necessary. You’re far too dazed to get up and fight against the man who saw the very life of your Captain as some sort of joke. So, you watch, helpless, as Rorke empties a clip into Elias.

‘No! No! Dad!’ Hesh cries. His face is red as he frashes against the ties keeping him from his father, the very sight making your headache. His tone is piercing as he carelessly spits out curses at the man before him. ‘I’ll kill you, you hear me?’ he screams, ‘I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch! I’m going to kill you! Motherfucker!’ 

The worlds a little blurry. 

Your eyelids grow heavy, and when you force the open upon hearing a thud right in front of you, you’re surprised to see Elias’ face meters away from yours. You fight against the urge to drift off. You’re not going to die, you’re getting out of this and you’re seeing Keegan again- you can't die.

‘You did well,’ Elias breathes, looking at you. Your blood runs cold at the sight of blood seeping onto the ground, ‘I’m proud of you, you and my boys,’ he utters, wheezing for a single breath of air. His lips are blue as he stares at you, your eyes welling with tears as you're forced to watch as the man struggles for his last breaths.

Rorke’s boot is planted firmly on top of his head, and you catch your Captain glancing up at the man.

For the very first time, you see fear in his eyes. It's a dastardly look, mixing with the loss of blood in an unappealing manner as his face grows sickeningly pale. Something tells you that Elias Walker is scared of dying.

No Ghost is to be scared of death, that's not who we are.

But, we're scared of losing each other.

Elias Walker is scared of losing his family, of leaving them behind.

Rorke sighs, pushing his boot further down, leaning down to press the muzzle of the pistol against his forehead.

Keegan, please.

‘Oh… you are right, Elias,’ breathes the man, ‘I’m not a Ghost,’ he grins. There's a pause in his words, and you find yourself searching for some form of sickly hope that just in the nick of time, there will be a bullet in Rorke's head rather than Elias'.

Rorke remains tall and as he licks his thin lips and eyes Elias, you find a dismal pit in your stomach that you know you're never going to recover from.

‘I’m the man that hunts them, and sends them back to the other side.’ 

With that, he pulls the trigger. 

You scrunch your eyes shut as you hear the rattle of the man's chest, a wet pray covering your face. Your lips form into a thin line as you choke out a broken sob, and when you bring your lips together again, the metallic taste of your Captains blood. Behind you, you can hear both Logan and Hesh sobbing, the anger the pair of the showed silently dissipated into grief.

The rustle of fabric in front of you unnerves you, and you attempt to turn away from Elias' corpse, letting out a startled breath when a shadow looms over you and you're grabbed.

'Leave her alone,' begs Logan, 'you got what you wanted. Leave her be... please.'

Rorke holds you in his arms like a child would a doll, and to your surprise, he guides you back into the chair you had jumped out from, forcing you back into it.

Standing back from the three of you, he rubs his mouth with his hand, his lips curling into a small grin as he hums to himself. 'Some talent is between you kids,' he says, 'real shame you're fighting the wrong side of this war, really, it is.'

—

Much to your pleasure, you find Merrick alive.

Despite your doubts prior, you knew well the man was capable of surviving. After the execution of Elias, Rorke left you with his soldiers and you, Hesh, Logan and Merrick were all forced onto your knees, kneeling on the balcony where the attack had first initially ensued. You’re unsure as to how much time had passed, but you were sure the wound was not getting any better as every time you shifted, you fell light headed. 

The soldiers that had been observing you receive something on the radio, although, your entire body is hot and your ears are ringing, the memory of Elias’ face stuck in your head as you were forced to witness his death close and personal. You’re quite sure there is residue on of the crime on your face, so, you keep your head bowed, out of the way of both Logan and Hesh who look completely broken. 

‘You alright?’ Logan whispers.

You’re shaking, but you nod your head. 

‘Just Peachy, L, don’t worry about it,’ you utter, keeping your head down. 

A shadow is cast over you and you catch sight of the boots of three soldiers.

‘The boss wants the girl alive,’ says one of them, causing you to snap your head upwards, looking at the three of them.

The one in the middle is pointing at you, marking you out of the crowd while the other two simply observe. 

You feel dirty. 

The man beside him nods his head, grabbing his pistol from his holster, aiming it at Hesh, while the other one approaches Logan, repeating the process.

It’s terribly calculated, killing both of the brothers, clearing the world of Elias once and for all at the same time. You keep your eyes trained on Hesh, eyes occasionally drifting to the window as you sit and wait. Planting the pistol firmly against Hesh’s head, you hear Logan grunt beside you. Hesh moves to the side, his forearms tensing, preparing for the shot. At the very last, they’re showing them mercy. They could have slit their throats, left them to drown in their own blood, yet, they’re making it easy.

One shot to the head. 

Then you see him. 

A small flicker of light in the distance. 

The light at the end of the tunnel.

The glass shatters, the man holding the gun to Hesh’s head stumbling down onto his knees, his hand firmly planted against his chest. It all happens so fast, the man beside him stands dazed, looking at his colleague. Another shot is fired, going right through the mans skull. A spray of brain, blood and skull covers you as the man fulls forward.

‘HESH, LOGAN! NOW!’ Merrick demands, the pair of them jumping to their feet. 

Logan shoves the guard to the ground, pulling him away from you while Hesh and Merrick rush two of two of the soldiers by the balcony. The awestruck soldier is left to you and you watch as he rushes forward, pulling the gun from the corpse of the dead soldier. Fortunately, Hesh manages to grab the rifle from off of the solider standing on the balcony, elbowing him in the stomach. Rushing up to you, he hits the back of the mans guns with the butt of the rifle, causing the man to fall to his knees. You watch with wide eyes as the solider attempts to rush up to him while Hesh fights with the other one. 

Another shot is fired. 

The soldier behind Hesh falls to the ground. 

‘I got you! Go!’ Merrick yells as more shots are fired.

The rest of the soldiers standing behind are dropped. To the right of you, you hear a gunshot as you stand up, watching Logan push himself up from off of the ground, the blood of a Federation soldier soaking into his t-shirt as he steps over the corpse. Grabbing the pistol discarded on the ground, Logan quickly fires a shot through the head of the solider Hesh is fighting with. A bullet whizzes past you, and without a second thought, you snap around, firing two shots directly into a soldier to the right of you. There are more shots from the right of you, and when the final body drops, you exhale. 

‘You okay, Merrick?’ Logan asks as Merrick unties the ropes around his wrists. ‘Rib’s broken, but I can move,’ he reassures, rushing up to Hesh. 

Logan pulls himself free, immediately approaching you, ripping off the edge of his t-shirt. You watched with a furrowed brow as he eyes you. 

‘Need to keep you from bleeding all over the place,’ he states, ‘c’mere,’ he instructs. You step forwards and he hands you the scrap from his t-shirt. Pressing it against the wound, you groan as he wraps the rope around you waist, trying it tightly around your waist. ‘Keegan’ll kill us if you lose a drop more blood… lost enough today too,’ he says, tying it tightly. ‘You still good to fight?’ 

‘Always,’ you say.

Holding his hand out, the pair of you bump fists and for the first time since this morning, you feel the dread swirling in your blood slowly coming to a stop. 

‘We got to get going,’ Merrick sharply states, marching ahead of the free of you. Hesh follows after him. ‘Keegan, we’re up and moving, get here as soon as you can,’ he instructs.

You look at his back in surprise, your own hand falling to your ear piece realising thatchy hadn’t taken them off of you.

‘Check… I’ll meet you in the kitchen,’ confirms the voice you have missed so terribly.

You clear your throat, wincing as you proceed forward, following after Merrick. Part of you wants him to say something to you, to tell you that everything is going to be okay, but you understand that doing such would absolutely be irresponsible, so, you busy yourself listening to Merrick. 

‘We need to make it to the west side of the building,’ he states, ‘it’s the best chance of getting out of here.’ You nod silently, taking a moment to take a breath. Everything was going to be fine, and in the end of this, you were going to have Rorke’s head in your hands. ‘You still good to fight, Eclipse?’ 

‘Always,’ you give a short nod, ‘bleedings calmed,’ you confirm, despite the burning causing you legs to wobble slightly. In due time it will be over, all of this ill be a distant memory. Just push on a little longer, that’s all you have to do. 

‘Shh.. noise behind the door,’ Hesh warns as he approaches it, ‘lets make this quick.’

—

As you push through the room, you exhale when a voice calls, 'I'm almost there,' Keegan confirms as your brow furrows, a particularly step sending a shot of pain through your stomach up your back.

You clamp your mouth shut as you whimper, your dry mouth longing for a drop of water. Eventually, this will be over, you just had to stick to it. He's almost here, you just have to keep pushing on. That's the only thing you can do.

Just keep fighting.

'You better find a place to hide, though, lotta guys headed right to you,' he warns.

You want to complain upon hearing such, why can it never just be easy? Everything has to be difficult, no matter what you're doing, you can never just catch a break.

‘Key,’ you exhale seeing the man standing before you.

His hardened haze softens upon catching sight of you, and you waste no time rushing up to him, throwing your arms around him. While unprofessional, you feel no shame in confessing that you were going to die without him, and if anything, you were deserving of this moment. The hug you share is brief as he grabs your forearms checking you over.

He stops when he sees your stomach. 

Merrick curses and falls to the ground, ‘shit,’ he hisses, attempting to push himself up off of the ground. As you look back to Keegan, the pair of you turn your attention towards the doors behind you, hearing voices edging closer and closer.

Grabbing you, he looks to Hesh and Logan, ‘get him up,’ he demands, gently guiding you into the room behind you. ‘We gotta hide, not gonna be able to take them,’ he states, pulling you to the side. ‘What the fuck happened?’ he whispers as Logan and Hesh quickly help Merrick inside the room.

You feel his hand against your stomach, wincing as he looks at you. The pressure on your stomach falters as he pulls his hand away, observing a wet patch in his gloves.  

‘Got shot talking back to Rorke,’ you confess, and while you’re sure it’s something you certainly should not be proud of, you speak with a glowing tone as you look at him. Besides, he trained you all those years ago, why should you be ashamed?

'Logan thought fast, used the rope he tied us up with to try and stop the bleeding,’ you mumble. His gaze hardens as he looks at you, and you swear you can see his Adams apple bobbing beneath his mask. Gently he pushes you behind him, helping you to the ground. Looking over his shoulder, he reaches his hand behind him, squeezing your knee. 

It’s so quiet, yet you feel as though your heart is going to burst. 

You place your bloody, shaking hand over his and offer him a wavering smile. He takes it in for a moment before snapping back into action. His hand is pulled from your knee and you’re left alone. 

'Turn that radio down,' Merrick hisses as Hesh helps him down

He hums as the doors burst open. Pushing you behind him, you all sit and watch as shadows pass you by.

And then the world begins to still. You're unable to describe just what it is you're feeling, although, despite the weight and severity of everything happening around you, you feel light as a feather. Your clothes are soaked at this point and in spite of your efforts, you find your breathing slowing as you lean against the wall.

Clumsily, you reach your had out to latch onto the floor as you feel an overwhelming drowsiness hit you. You've put in all the work and effort you can muster, yet, you've tried from it and as you wade through the mush of panicked voices and the thudding of your heartbeat in your ears, you succumb to your body's desperation and fully close your eyes, wading into the quiet of the stream.

#cod #call of duty #cod ghosts #cod keegan #keegan p russ #keegan russ x reader #keegan p russ x reader #keegan russ x you #cod x reader #ghosts #call of duty ghosts #call of duty x reader #cod x you #call of duty x you #cod ghosts x reader

[lloydfrontera]

wait lmao what I didn't know there was such a skip. I'm sorry this is comedy to me. so you're telling me they have this crazy ass dimension-jumping shenanigans with Javier tearing up as he finally finds Lloyd, his best friend, the most important person in his life, while it's a mutual statement for the both of them, and then we get no dialogue. and skip to Lloyd getting shoved into a hetero romance with no build up. sorry I can't believe this is real. this sounds like a joke and I choose to treat is as such. this is the most hilarious ending and the marriage now feels even more out of place hdufiskaoa9o

OH MY FUCKING GOD RIGHT?!?!?!! it is weird isn't it???? i'm not being crazy for feeling like it's a weird ass choice??? i felt like i was going insane!! i swear to god i felt like i was being gaslighted when i read it!!! there was no way that was the ending!! there was no way that ch 401 ended with one of the most romantic and heartfelt scenes i have ever read and then the next chapter just????? did a time skip where none of that was acknowledged and lloyd was just fucking married off to alicia??? completely off-screen if i may add!

i made a post about it before but i simply need to rant all over again oh my god

general warning for spoilers because i'm about to dissect the entire novel through a llojavi lens

AGAIN. SPOILERS WARNING FOR THE ENDING OF TGED.

i literally cannot express how much of a mid fuck it is when you realize that lloyd and javier's relationship is very much Thee Slowburn of tged. like. this is an indisputable fact. even if you don't think there's anything romantic between them, which, holy fuck that's such a fucking reach one must be really be in denial to not see it but whatever, even then you simply cannot argue that their relationship isn't the most important one in the entire story.

javier is the very first person lloyd talks to in the first chapter. he's the first person that welcomes him into his new life. he's the one he has to work the hardest to endear himself to. he's the one he spends the most time with. he's the one that follows him around literally everywhere he goes.

from the very beginning their relationship is given a special attention that few other things get in the plot.

through the entire story we get constant moments of them getting to know each other as people and getting closer as a result. they're constantly in each other's thoughts, which is very natural as they're in each other's company almost 24/7. it is actually hard to find a chapter where they not talking to each other or at the very least together. i cannot emphasize enough how,,, enmeshed and entangled they are with one another as characters. i mean it when i say they are a set do not separate them.

it takes lloyd 222 chapters to even admit to himself that javier is his friend and that he wants to keep him safe not because he's the protagonist of the story or useful to him or anything like that but simply because he cares for him and doesn't want him to die. because, and i quote, 'he thought he'd always be with javier for the rest of his life. just like now, he thought they'd spend all their time together moving forward. and like they always did, they'd be by each other's side during hard times. happy moments. relaxed days. they'd share all these moments as they exchanged insults and corny jokes, growing old as a lazy lord of a fiefdom and his knight. lloyd always thought so. the thought just came naturally, without much effort from him, much like breathing. lloyd believed that javier would always remain by his side as that was how it had been until now.' (ch222) <- actual textual quote. btw. if you even care.

and then. it takes javier 320 chapters, a hundred chapters more, to realize that he cares about lloyd much more than a knight cares about his lord's son. because he, and once again i quote, 'is [his] true master in [his] heart. lloyd was his friend. and now, javier wanted to protect lloyd. he would sincerely protect him with everything he had.' <- this is, if i may add some context, said as javier is fighting against a goddamn angel, literally heaven's will, to protect lloyd. after figuring out lloyd is a fake. that he's been lying to javier for several years about almost everything including who he is. and yet. this is what javier feels for him.

they are the definition of a slowburn. it takes them this long to even admit they are friends. and this is with us getting to see them together almost every chapter of the way. we get to see every step of the way. we see their relationship develop with all manner of detail.

and then. when you think you cannot get even more dramatic about them. guess what the major conflict of the plot is. guess fucking what the last obstacle for the story to get a happy ending is.

let me set the scene for you:

lloyd has just finished the jewel of truth, the artifact that will get him the answer he seeks on how to stop the restoration of fate, how he can stop destiny from making the original events of the novel come true and destroy everything he has worked and kill everyone he loves. he has javier at his side, who rushed to join him underwater to make sure he was safe and sound while using it, and he can't help but fondly think how lucky he is to have javier, who is loyal and true and has never abandoned him.

a quote of lloyd's thoughts in this scene:

That’s why, you bastard. I’m going to take care of you until the very end. Once I, your wise and older friend, solve the restoration of destiny problem, you’re going to enjoy the rest of your life by my side in peace. [...] He smiled at Javier and thought to himself. You’re my only friend, Javier. I couldn’t have overcome all the obstacles in front of me without your help. So, my trustworthy and reliable comrade, stick with me until I become a lazy lord and you become my personal guard. I hope we will be able to grow old together… -ch 327

as you can see. he's once again planning on spending the rest of his life with javier. canonically. not even an interpretation this is straight up textual i cannot emphasize enough

and then. the jewel of truth gives him the answer. how to stop the restoration of fate. it's very easy. very simple solution in fact.

either lloyd or javier have to die or otherwise vanish from existence.

that's it. there can only be one protagonist in the world and because of everything lloyd has done he's now being acknowledged by fate as the protagonist of the story along with javier. which cannot stand.

so that's the only thing stopping lloyd from getting his happy ending. he just,,, has to either kill his best friend or kill himself.

let me rephrase this from a narrative perspective: the major conflict of the story is now lloyd facing either the choice of letting everything he's achieved and everyone he loves be destroyed. losing his best friend, the person he cares the most about and has been developing an extremely close relationship through the entire plot. or dying himself.

lloyd of course then spends the rest of the plot trying to find a way to avoid having to die. that's literally what the rest of the novel is about. lloyd trying by all means possible seeking a way to not having to die. because at no point, does he ever consider letting javier die in his place even an option. he doesn't want to die of course, but he never saw javier sacrificing himself as the solution to that problem.

the entire conflict of the last part of the novel is lloyd finding a way for him and javier to be able to remain together without either of them having to sacrifice their lives for the other.

he doesn't succeed.

they end up in a battle down in hell where both of them try to give for one another leading to this absolutely delightful parallel

so fucking tasty oh my god i still go crazy when i see this set of illustrations actually

lloyd wins btw. he gets to sacrifice his life for javier. to javier's absolute heartbreak.

but lloyd doesn't die. he does end up stuck in korea tho, a place he would've rather died than go back to, so he has that going on for him. he's back in his goshiwon, absolutely heartbroken and without knowing what to do.

and then we end up with that scene. javier at his doorstep, having crossed dimensions, tearing up as he sees him and tells him how much he's missed him, looking at him with this face:

now. let's pause here. let's take a moment. take in everything i've just explained. everything that has happened to get to this point.

be honest with me. what would you say is the most natural way the story can progress from here.

take into account all that i have recounted and that i skipped so many other things of the same nature so we wouldn't be here all day.

what do you as a reader would expect to happen next

well, i'll tell you:

cut to black we're now an unspecified amount of time later lloyd has already had all the important conversations we've been waiting to see the entire time off screen and is now preparing himself for his wedding to alicia that we will also not get to see by the way

and you know what the funniest thing is. you know what is the cherry on top.

fucking guess who's the last person we see him talk with.

guess who's the person he ends the novel sharing a smile with.

yeah. Yeah.

i really don't know what else to say. i don't know how else to explain how insane this feels. how incredibly dissonant it comes across. i don't want to use the worse gaslighting like this but it's the closest word i can find to describe what it feels like. i feel like i'm being told something is happening when i can see with my own eyes it is not. or rather that i'm seeing something happen and i'm being told that no it is not and that i'm making it up.

i don't know what bk moon was going for. i really don't. especially when this is what he has to say about chapter 401 aka the chapter with javier coming to find lloyd in korea

clearly he feels very strongly about this scene too. it's the one he's been wanting to show the most, he must have analyzed it from every angle possible, must have put special care to get across what he wanted to convey with it.

so why does it feel like the last true chapter of the novel is meant to,,, undercut the feeling of it?? it almost feels as if the last chapter is telling us 'yeah yeah those two are extremely devoted to each other and would and have given their lives for one another and plan on growing old at each other's sides but don't worry :) it's nothing more than them being pals :) just two guys being really good friends :) see, lloyd is even getting married to a woman that's his real happy ending he's not gay or anything :)'

and this is not me saying that two friends cannot be devoted to each other. absolutely not of course friends can love each other platonically and that be more than enough to justify their devotion to one another.

but. it feels weird when the entire novel is dedicated to building up the relationship between lloyd and javier, taking so much time to make us really feel like their relationship is growing at a realistic pace, take almost 3/4 of the novel to even make them come to terms with how much they care for one another, spend actual years following their development,,, and then make lloyd just marry someone else. someone the novel really didn't spend enough time with to justify him developing feels for her.

this is not a diss against alicia i have nothing against her i just don't... buy that lloyd developed romantic feelings for her. much less that he acted on them that easily.

this is a man who took 222 chapters and several years in-universe to even accept that javier, the person he spent all day with, with whom he spoke almost every single day, who he had risked his life for and had been saved by several times at that point, was even his friend.

and now i'm expected to believe he's in love with someone else who, by comparison, he meets a couple of times and spends a little amount of time with.

well. i don't! it's not in character, it wasn't properly built up in the text and truthfully they don't have enough chemistry to make up for it.

i don't know what happened there. i don't know why bk moon decided to add a romance when the novel didn't need it. i don't know why he chose to make it happen between two characters that didn't have a relationship as deep as the one he spent the entire novel building up and promoting as the most important one. which may i add was between his two protagonists. y'know. the ones the novel is supposed to be centered around.

i don't know. i don't know what happened. i don't know if it was censorship, last minute panic, fear of opposition or rejection or actual obliviousness to what he had written looked like, i simply do not know.

i really hope it wasn't homophobia tho that would absolutely suck lmao

but uh. yeah. i do think the ending is very funny when you put it like that askhdsjkfds

#hey i got an ask #Anonymous #tged #the greatest estate developer #tged spoilers #lloyd frontera #llojavi #javier asrahan #long post #i don't what happened i started typing and suddenly all of this came out of me #i was possessed #most of what i said here i have said before but it's now all in one post #and i have So Much left to say about this topic but i really cannot make this post longer i am so embarrassed already aksjdhk #i feel a little hollow i need to shitpost to get back to normal oh my god #this is. why it takes me so long to answer asks btw. i literally cannot shut up. #i apologize but i cannot promise to change

[writing-for-life]

Sunday Mourning—About Dream Entities and Stars

Why Head-Canons Are Wonderful, But Forcing Them On Creators Isn’t

And as always: Send me asks about everything Sandman-related!

First of all: I don’t want to take anyone’s head-canons away from them, it’s what fandom is partly built on. I support them, I love them, I have plenty of my own. The Sandman very explicitly tells us about “books never written” in Lucien/ne’s library, and we can be sure ours is in there.

But that’s not quite the same as harassing both creators and other fans in an attempt to make fanon canon, and that’s what partly sparked this post. So if a super-long meta exploration of “Sunday Mourning” (and there is a lot in this post) that also contains a bit of fandom criticism (feel free to skip that if you just want the meta) isn’t your thing—this is your warning 🤣

Also: Massive spoilers ahead…

The theory that Morpheus forever lives in Hob’s dreams (and with Hob) as a dream entity regularly makes the rounds. And it’s a nice theory, and I get why people like it. I also get that “The Wake—Sunday Mourning” is maybe ambiguous enough to consider it a possibility (which then goes into head-canon territory). All good so far.

What’s problematic is when fans begin to leverage their head-canons/theories as “true because Neil gave it a like”, and then proceed to present them as canon.

Neil likes posts, yes, but he said *several times* and *very explicitly* that’s never endorsement of anything, but rather valuing that people put thought into stuff and engage with his stories critically (and he also said that it’s sometimes just a slip of his finger, but that just as an aside, you’ll find one example here).

So if Neil liked a happily-ever-after-dream-entity post, that means he supports your head-canons as head-canons because he always does (or his finger slipped—I guess we’ll never know). He is awesome that way and always was. Again: In a way, it’s even an integral part of The Sandman. It also means that he likes the fact you engaged deeply with the source material, in either a heartfelt or critical way.

What it *doesn’t* mean: Head-canon is the same as canon despite both being valid in their own way. He said all of this a million times in a million posts.

Let’s explore that particular theory and start with an ask:

His endorsement goes as far as acknowledging that “it’s never only a dream,” and that “dreams are where the stories are.” And we need to stop pretending it’s anything more than that, even if he likes a few posts here and there (posts that go in all different directions, btw). Neil used his own experience with grief and mirrored it 1:1 in how Hob handles Morpheus’ death in The Wake and Sunday Mourning.

Here is a quote from the Sandman Companion:

NG: […] Bette's stories have happy endings. That's because she knows where to stop. She's realized the real problem with stories—if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death.

HB: It also makes me think of Hob's dream in part 3.

NG: That was something that actually happened to me. [1]I dreamt about a friend who'd died six months earlier, woke up completely upset that she'd died, [2]and then realized I'd simply had a dream and felt enormously relieved... [3]and then I woke up all the way and remembered that she really had passed on.

[numbers and bold by me]

And then remember what happened to Hob:

1. He found out in a dream Morpheus had died and woke up upset and crying in The Wake, Chapters 1-3 (#70-72).

2. Then he had another dream that somewhat gave him closure and a sense of relief (Sunday Mourning, #73).

(Can I also just point out where Destruction’s fingers are pointing here and then contrast it with what he told Daniel in The Wake about “walking amongst the stars”, or Morpheus actually turning into a star?)

(What might the end of the story be? Who knows, but once again, have a look where Destruction’s fingers are pointing.)

3. Then he woke up all the way and felt peace (also in Sunday Mourning).

Make of that what you will, but to me, saying that scene was based on his own dream is basically Neil confirming that Morpheus has “really passed on.”

Will Hob remember Morpheus? Of course he will. That’s what humans do. Does Morpheus live a happily ever after in Hob’s dream with Hob? And would that be in character? And would he want his memories to be intact to make that happen? Would that truly be passing on?

I will explore why canonically, we don’t find much to support that notion, and why it would seem OOC. But if you believe it, it’s your personal truth. Should we call for the ending to be changed though to make our personal truth that of the author?

Life and death are our own, and it’s never just a dream

Destruction was in Hob’s dream (when Hob never really knew him), and Destruction walked away from it all. As did Morpheus. They’re both free. It was very likely (and I'm phrasing this carefully on purpose) a dream gifted by Daniel!Dream (who had a very long talk with Destruction during the Wake) to give Hob closure, and it seems straightforward enough if you read The Wake not just single-mindedly focused on one thing. Daniel!Dream is not in the original panel, but he is in the background of concept art of that panel for a movie pitch by Jill Thompson and Neil Gaiman, so we can probably assume it was always the intended subtext.

And what does Death say in Façade? Or what does Morpheus say to Orpheus, or to Delirium after he killed Orpheus? That life and death are our own.

Destruction’s life is his own.

Morpheus’ death is his own.

And Hob’s life AND death are his own.

The three of them are the literal embodiment of that sentiment:

One walked away and chose life.

One walked away and chose death.

One chooses life for as long as he sees fit and can choose death if he stops doing so.

It makes sense to put them in a panel together at the end for that very reason (and a few others of course).

That, right there, is already “more than just a dream.” It is the story, not just a metaphor. It is canon, and it is fairly explicit.

Would Morpheus ever want to be a dream entity with all his memories intact?

From this point onward, we get more into interpretation based on canonical character traits:

Morpheus living forever as a dream entity *tied to Hob’s dream* is canonically antithetical and OOC. There, I said it. He wanted to be free from the Dreaming, he even said so to Death (“But even the freedom of the Dreaming can be a cage, of a kind, my sister,” in #69).

But existing as a dream entity WITH ALL HIS MEMORIES INTACT (that alone should make people say, “He would never want this in a million years” because it’s the very source of his pain—he wanted punishment for Orpheus’ fate/death—Nuala called him out on it) would forever tie him to it. Plus, it would make him Daniel’s subject in a way. It would be, again, very OOC.

Also: Dream had very strong feelings about the dead NOT belonging into dreams/the Dreaming permanently, or the living building their lives around them. WHY would that apply to Hector, but not to Morpheus himself? Again, it makes no sense in continuity.

But Destruction was in that dream…

Destruction visited Daniel!Dream during the Wake. They talked about a lot of stuff that’s very relevant, I recommend a reread if you’re not certain (this is long enough as it is, so I’ll skip it at this point). And it makes narrative sense to anchor that in Hob’s dream for reasons already outlined (they might not make sense to Hob, but they make sense to us, the reader, if we are willing to see that “it’s more than just a dream” isn’t equal to two people riding off into the sunset together, as nice a head-canon that might be). What I *do* want to point out though is that Destructions talked about “walking amongst the stars” and again, where he points in Hob’s dream.

Someone said this somewhere else and drew parallels to Stardust: Morpheus *does* become a star (or returns to them, who knows), it’s all over The Wake. That star is in literally *every* panel with a window/sky after his barge has transformed. And what becomes of him as that—who knows, since we all know stars have some sort of sentience in Gaiman’s universe, and that “oblivion is not an option” if Death took your hand to lead you into the afterlife. Again: Head-canon territory…

Head-canons are beautiful

No one is trying to take them away from us. Let’s knock ourselves out in fanfic and fanart, it’s comforting and healing. The Sandman is a story about stories. Our stories are our own, and they are true for us, that’s the whole point. And Neil will *never* tell you your head-canon is not real, because for you, it is, and that’s all that matters. But the constant need to elevate fanon to canon really gets exhausting at times, especially if it involves pestering the creators, constantly being on their blogs/tagging them and trying to get them to confirm what we want.

And to those that insist we will undoubtedly get a happily ever after because “Hob’s dream says so”, and think the writers somehow should “read the room” and provide fan-service (side-note: What is it with this entitlement in fandom? The creator tells *their* story, not yours):

One of the main messages of the story is (already in 24/7) that stories only have a happy ending because we know when to stop, but that they ultimately *all* end in death. No matter how much people say that “the show is so much more hopeful”, that very line has already been brought into the show. They didn’t take it out. It will have weight at some point, I’ll put my money on it.

But show!Murphy isn’t comics!Murphy...

People point out that show!Morpheus is different from comics!Morpheus to justify we will get a different ending. Making Morpheus a bit softer around the edges seems, at least to me, a move to make him likeable as the protagonist, because it would be very hard to like early comics!Morpheus, to be frank. The fact that he brought Gault back from the darkness—I saw that as giving show!only fans a nicely wrapped end of the first season, because we didn’t even know if we would get a second one at that point. It also shows us that he is capable of change—a thing I am near certain he will repeatedly deny as we go on (he already did). So no, I personally don’t think it set him on a different path. There are even scenes in the show that very heavily foreshadow The Kindly Ones (the cracks in the window are overlayed onto his face in such a way that they heavily hint at the scar he is going to receive).

So yes, by all means, let’s have a bit of ambiguity in Sunday Mourning for the people who don’t like the tragic ending, but let’s also focus on more than just making everything about the ship. Their relationship is important, and even more so because it isn’t romantic—that’s why it grows and lasts (unlike Morpheus’ romantic relationships). But it’s only the tiniest fraction of what The Sandman is about.

I write fanfic. I give Morpheus happy endings, too. I get it, I want him to be happy, too. But no matter how much we write him in character, we will ultimately break character the moment we make him do things that lead to a different outcome. In canon, he is the way he is. And I am afraid to say:

I personally think he is also like that in the show, even if they softened him a bit around the edges and shoved certain messages down our throats that people who know the comics didn’t need, but newbs to the Sandman did (“I’m listening now…”)—it was a good move, and all of that made sense for show-narrative reasons. But not once did I have the feeling that he wasn't exactly the same Morpheus underneath it all, and we already had too much foreshadowing to think that we would really get a different ending.

Why chemistry isn’t confirmation of the ship

That’s another one: To turn one (!) show-writer’s comment that Morpheus’ and Hob’s chemistry was a thing, and that they allowed that type of ambiguity, into, “Their romantic relationship is canon.” These two things are not the same. And Neil said that Benton’s comment did not make Dreamling any more real/canon, but people conveniently forget that. He also didn’t deny it, he just didn’t confirm, because, again: He doesn’t confirm or deny head-canons. They’re ours. Let's please stop pestering the man to confirm our head-canons and fantasies, but that just as an aside.

It shows one thing, however:

How conditioned fandom is to make everything about romantic relationships (ideally m/m), even if they have nothing, and I say nothing, to do with the main message.

And it’s okay the wish for these relationships matters to some people, but they don’t have to matter to everyone else, to the extent that we expect the actual story to change. Why try to twist his arm into changing his own story, and the way he wanted to tell it?

So again: Head-canons are beautiful. Trying to get them confirmed by creators and foist them upon everyone else (to the extent that people get harassed) is not.

And if I'm proven wrong on this, I’ll still die happy, but I'm putting my chips down right now and say:

Morpheus will die in exactly the same way as in the comics. And if we get The Wake, we will get a scene in Sunday Mourning that can hold ambiguity for processing our grief, just like the comic can. And the shippers will say, “He’s with Hob, yay!”, and the non-shippers will say, “Nah, not what I saw.” And Neil will get a million asks and answer each single one with:

“What do *you* think?”

#the sandman #neil gaiman #dream of the endless #morpheus #hob gadling #sandman #sandman meta #sandman spoilers #sandman comics spoilers #the wake #sunday mourning #façade #sandman book club #sandman bookclub #canon vs fanon #harassing creators and other fans is never okay #neither is constantly creeping into their inboxes to get your head-canons confirmed

[malicedafirenze]

I unintentionally skipped a lot of the romance content in Baldur's Gate 3 and I want others to learn from my mistakes:

So: I managed to lock myself out of romance entirely and ended up alone, which was a huge bummer and a serious crack in my motivation to play the game. I finished my playthrough (because I was already close to the end of Act 3 when I realized it), and plan to do another one eventually. I'm making this post in hopes of a) keeping others from making the same mistakes and b) to possibly get some additional insight re. what to watch out for in my next playthrough.

PSA: Pick a Partner before Act 3

The key learning here for me was this explanation from the poly mod

In BG3, romance is divided into 2 steps: dating and relationship(also called partner). Dating is basically where you are at after the 1st romance scene. Relationship is where you are at after the 2nd romance scene (relationship also unlocks the kissing menu). BTW, If you enter A3, all dates will break up with you (partners won't, ofc).

I hadn't realized this until well into Act 3, at a point where going back to a save to properly fix it would have meant replaying large parts of Act 2 as well - I decided to finish my run instead and then start a completely new one later.

Note: lots of spoilers below. (click here to read this post on reddit instead)

My Romance Woes

I read in advance that you couldn't romance multiple people (except for the specific Halsin combos with Shadowheart and Astarion) and therefore turned down Gale and Lae'Zel early in the game (not realizing you could just date/bonk them without fully committing or getting anyone upset)

I didn't take approval all that seriously, thought I'd have more opportunity to fix things later. I was playing pretty good guy, and ended up with high approval for Karlach and Shadowheart, but low for Astarion. Weirdly, I don't recall an option to romance Shadowheart (no clue what I missed?) and the only option I had for Karlach was at the Tiefling party, where I went with Astarion instead. I had a scene or two with him, but then didn't progress further in the relationship, without really realizing what I was missing.

I wanted to romance everyone, sat on the fence for too long, and ended up not romancing anyone at all, by missing a thing or two in act 1 and 2 and being too late to fix it in act 3. Don't be like me, it feels bad man.

Early Act 3, I got Astarion's breakup dialogue ("we haven't spent a night together in some time" --> him explaining it was just transactional and he doesn't see the value in it anymore) and got super worried, but when trying to look up if I'd messed up, I didn't find a clear answer for without more spoilers, so I just continued playing Act 3, including all of the companion quests.

I later learned that I missed out on at least one important Astarion romance interaction by not going to Moonrise Towers until after freeing Nightsong. (when the Towers are already on high alert, i.e. I could only fight and not have a lot of conversations)

After realizing I had messed up companions romance, I instead fucked everyone it was unwise to fuck (Emperor, Mizora, Harleep...) for fun and to see what would happen... but chickened out and reloaded after Emperor and Mizora. Still, got to enjoy some fun content that way!

The ending I got (going to Avernus with Karlach) was really cool and made me cry a lot. I then did try to reload my last save though, to see if I'd get any other epilogue content if I didn't go to the Hells, but... apparently that scene on the docks (Astarion goofily running off, everyone kinda agreeing to go party after this, no other conversations with anyone again.... is just... it?

Idk how much of this is the lack of romance, but I really felt like something was missing there. I at least wanted to talk to everyone again one last time.

This is a post about my romance failures and regrets so I'm not gonna talk about everything else that I loved about the game, but just in case this is getting a bit too negative: I had an absolute blast with the whole game regardless, I'm stoked to give it another go the "proper" way (i.e. with romance). I also generally think it's really fucking cool that this game's romance options depend on how you behave, and that you can't just e.g. give someone the right kind of gift 20 times in a row to make them love you, like it works in games like Stardew Valley.

Next Playthrough Plans

I'll probably wait for another patch or two - considering how much got fixed and tweaked with the first three patches, I suppose it's worth to wait a bit and see what's coming

I'll play with the Poly mod next time and try to romance all of the Origin characters.

I plan to play with the camp notifications mod, as well as the approval ratings in dialogue mod. Both in hopes of being able to game the romance a bit better and get much of the romance in one playthrough

I'll play Dark Urge (haven't seen any of that so far!), but probably still go for a "good" playthrough mostly

I plan on equipping & levelling all Origin companions and switch them out more freely, in order to get approval from everyone and edit my party as makes sense depending on story events (e.g. take Lae'Zel to the Creche, take Gale to the Ketheric fight...)

I want to romance everyone. I already saw some tips for early game Astarion approval and assume the aforementioned mods will help in optimizing this

Am probably not gonna do anything all that differently otherwise because my heart can't take an actually evil playthrough

Aand that's about it. As mentioned, I'm mostly posting in case this helps anyone else.

I was really damn sad when I realized I had locked myself out of all romance, because the romance was a significant part of my motivation to start playing this in the first place. At the same time, I loved so much about the game that I still got a lot out of it in 110+ hours even with minimal romance content.

If you see any red flags about my plans for the next playthrough (or if you have experience with the mentioned mods!), I'd appreciate comments and insights. Other than that, here's hoping others can learn from my mistakes. Thank you for reading <3

#bg3 #baldur‘s gate 3 #baldur's gate #astarion #bg3 romance #karlach #gale #lae'zel #shadowheart #astarion romance #baldur's gate 3 romance

[helluvabossrewrite45]

Always sunny anon replying: funny you mentioned Bojack being I believe Viv has said in the past on her twitter that she wants HB to be the next BH yet seems to not understand what makes a show like Bojack work to begin with. (I'll admit I haven't watched Bojack Horseman yet. I've been sleeping on it way to long tbh).

Yeah absolutely. Viv doesnt seem to get that bojack worked in not only in its ability to make people like bojack while not excusing his actions, but also how its structured as 'comedy turned drama'.

(major spoilers for bojack horseman btw, you can just skip to the end/the last paragraph of this post)

Now in bojack's first season, it was a comedy pretty early and stayed that way till later down the season and it continued to grow naturally to a drama (though the comedy is still there of course). Helluva boss though, seems to be all over the place as just after episode 1, episode 2 takes a more serious/dramatic approach when the show is meant to appear at first to be a dark humoured comedy, along with most of the season not even sticking to its original premise, instead focusing more of set ups and stolitz drama that both didnt go much of anywhere (striker might be an exception though i feel like the end with him could be another set up). What wouldve worked is that episode 1 - 4 is entirely on the original premise for helluva boss and the rest would be more serious (with strikers introduction, the agents and stolitz drama) with season 2 continuing the more serious approach. Hell, if their gonna include stolas family drama, why not portray it as comedy at first, then use it later on to portray it more seriously. Like in season 1 of bojack where he and sarah lynn slept with each other, its being treated as comedic. But when he revealed that he slept with her in the interview, its being treated completely seriously and use it to highlight bojacks problem from him with young women and his issues with accountability, episode 2 could portray the cheating as comedic (with stella throwing objects while rambling while stolas dodges them like a dodgeball game with octavia initially being presented as the typical 'lonely stuck in the mud teenager' but we still get hints of her being more than that later down the episode) and while it ends on them leaving the festival in an awkward comedic way, that would used in seeing stars where octavia vents about her family drama, including on how neglectful stolas has become as a father from the festival incident. Im kinda surprised viv didnt consider to use it because it would be a perfect tool for helluva boss to use.

Another reason why bojack worked compared to helluva boss is its characters. While bojack was written well, the rest of the characters (especially women) shine through and we get to see more of who they are overtime. We dont really get much on that with helluva (especially the women), sure we get their backstories though we dont really have much depth if that make sense. Like when we compare todd to moxxie, todd's deal is that he's extremely helpful and he actually have stuff going on for him, its only bojack thats holding him back so when he finally distance himself from bojack, not only is it consistent but its also not repetitive, instead we get to know more about todd, seeing his relationships, discovering his asexuality etc...hell, he even has his own episode where he learn to make time for himself too instead of always helping out everyone. Moxxie has an arc of overcoming his weakness but the thing is, it repeats the same arc that it can get tiring to watch. What would work for him is that he slowly develops him overcoming his weakness instead of it just being repeated (like maybe further snapping at blitzo or confess that he considers quitting) Its a real shame too because him being close to morally good than morally grey or bad (which i predict thats what most of hells beings would be) opens a gate to a lot of possibilities for him as a character like why he took the job, how he met his wife, how he views the world around him etc...but they clearly didnt know what to do with him especially when season 1 wasnt even properly planned (as viv literally admits this on twitter too) so its why he as a character feels stagnant. But a bigger comparison however, has to be the women in the shows. People tend to praise the show for how it writes its women characters, often from diane and princess caroline. They're shown to be as messy and complex as men like bojack in the show though other women characters had their time to shine like hollyhock, kelley, gina, penny, bojack's mother etc...Its clear that bojack writes both men and women well in the show. Helluva boss on the other hand, is quite unbalanced in its writing for men and women. Specifically with the men having more variety and generall knowledge about them than the women. Like millie and loona, despite being major characters, have very little depth especially with millie who wouldnt even be a character if we remove her from moxxie. And even with the other women characters, they dont have much depth either (or at last we dont get to see that depth often like with verosika), they all in some way are in the roles for men characters (octavia and loona being there to establish the good in stolas and blitzo or stella and verosika being there to establish to either be the villain or to show a part of the man's past) Its very clear that viv favours men characters than women as alastor and angel dust having more going on than charlie, the main character herself. I mean, both shows are technically character driven and to be character driven, your gonna have to make sure your characters can equally shine on their own instead of one having more depth than the other.

To put it shortly, i dont think viv really gets why bojack was successful to audiences to begin with and in turn, failed to achieve that success with it being how she structures her show for the 'comedy turned drama' style being all over the place when bojacks was of natural progress and her imbalanced/poorly planned writing of men and women characters where it wasn't an issue in BoJack

#helluva boss critical #helluva boss critique #helluva boss criticism #helluva critical #helluva criticism #helluva critique #helluva boss rewrite #ask #anon #ive also been sleeping on bojack for too long though i finally watched it a few months back #its really good i definetly see why so many people like it #me included #major spoilers for bojack skip to the last paragraph for nonspoiler summarization #hopefully if you watch it you like it too

[shimamitsu]

if u ever wanna complain abt blue flag id be all ears. ive had it recommended a ton but never got around to hear abt it

ah, the old blue flag. every few months i remember this manga and i feel pure anger deep in my heart. long post incoming! i know a lot of people like it so i'll preface this by saying that this is my opinion, you can still like it, let's hold hands and read manga together. anyway, blue flag. my main problem is that it feels like something that was written for heterocis people to sympathize with lgbt's people's existence instead of something that actually included lgbt's people's experiences and opinions. all you have to know is that there's this scene where a character makes a list of lgbt songs or smth like that and one of them is shake it off by taylor swift. yeah. i said this yesterday but it's not like i think it's bad for lgbt manga to be educational, that's totally ok. there are works like 'i think our son is gay' that are very good at that. the whole plot of the manga is that a mom finds out her son is gay and it follows how she learns about sexuality, lgbt issues, etc etc (it's also told from her pov). its purpose clearly is to be educational for a non-lgbt audience. with blue flag... it felt like they were trying to explain lgbt 101 to me and failing. it raised a lot of questions about sexuality that in the best of cases the author couldn't give an answer to (and sometimes it's ok not to, but we weren't dealing with queer theory here, the question was like. do gay ppl deserve rights), and in the worst of cases just fumbled the resolution completely. the best example for that is how a character's outing got handled. spoilers here ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ but man. the mc gets outed by his homophobic friend, later it is revealed that this friend is homophobic bc he got assaulted by a man (wow gay predator trope, never seen that before), and the manga could've taken 10000 different directions to deal with that but what did the author decide to do? yeah -> homophobia is just a different opinion! we have to understand where both sides are coming from <3 hell no. die. (it was awful and heartbreaking to read btw). more big spoilers ‼️ another thing that made me violent (and i mean it), was how the manga handled another character's sexuality. one of the main characters, a girl whose name i can't remember, spent the entire manga rightfully struggling with coming to terms with the fact that she liked women. she explicitly said she couldn't like men if i remember correctly. well. here comes a time skip. she's married to a man. how. what. and ofc i'm not saying she can't be bi, but she was clearly written as a lesbian. why on earth is she married to a man then i wanna KILLLLLLLLL. anyway the ending also sucked. in the time skip it's implied the main boys were dating (idek how we got there, ig we skipped the entire sexuality journey of one of them) but it was told from a 1st person pov for some reason so we literally don't see them together (i wonder if it was too gay for shonen jump). when this manga was ongoing, even when it ended, people were promoting it to hell and back, saying how good the "representation" was. i assure you i never saw a manga that centered lgbt characters be talked about THAT much, except maybe shimanami tasogare. it seriously was huge. it was a lot of people's first approach to lgbt manga as well. why people think lgbt manga peaked with ao no flag is beyond me. last year a mutual made a post talking about it and they made a great point which was that blue flag would've never gotten that popular if it wasn't a shonen jump manga and i totally agree. and i'll be bitter about it being licensed where i live while shimanami tasogare isn't until the day i die. but yeah that's a summary of my issues with it. obviously i don't recommend it lol

[lixxen]

Charlie Kelly and Newton Geiszler Twin AU Headcanons

Hiya guys. For the first time in probably a year or so, I am actually posting writing to my Tumblr. And this time it's a crossover. It focuses more on Charlie's perspective because I'm slightly more into IASIP than I am to PacRim. If y'all want me to do Newton's perspective, I will

There is a fic to go with this!

Fic can be found here!

Thinking about making it a series

Anyways. Here it is!!

--

Newton and Charlie grew up practically inseparable. The two are identical and as kids they would dress up to try and confuse people. Nobody could tell them apart besides for Newton wearing glasses and it didn't help that nobody could know one without the other

Their mother could tell them apart in a heartbeat. She didn't even have to look at them to be able to tell

The two are autistic, but with different support needs. Charlie has more support needs than Newton does. This is reflected in how their mother treats them (with Charlie she is more soft with and has to flip switches because she's convinced something bad will only happen to Charlie)

Charlie is actually pretty smart and dyslexic. He may not read/write English, but he can catch on pretty quickly to stuff. He of course learned Irish Gaelic through letters and it stuck to him. He is considered street smarts, and if he didn't go down the road of drugs and alcohol he probably could have actually gotten his degree

Newton is book smart and excelled at everything. He realized Charlie was better at Irish Gaelic so he helped Charlie learn it instead of written English. He was convinced that Charlie could follow him to skip grades if he just learned one language and got accommodations

Spoilers: he did not.

Mac met the twins in kindergarten and became best friends with them. He was their third piece and protected them whenever was needed. Charlie stuck to Mac more, spreading his attachment issues onto Mac also

Newton was recognized to be a "gifted" kid and was pushed up grades, much to their mom's disagreements. She didn't want to separate them at first but watched Newton shine on his own

Charlie sort of started to give up on school pretty quickly by third grade because of this. Newton was two grades ahead suddenly and getting scholarships to the nice smart kid middle and high schools that were private. It made Charlie upset and Newton spent a ton of time trying to teach Charlie stuff to help

(So, Charlie did know everything that he needed to also skip grades, but he couldn't read and write and he couldn't articulate it because he just started to shut down a ton at the sudden change)

Charlie spent a ton of time with Mac in school and started to bite at other kids. He became a menace pretty quickly in retaliation for his brother not being there with him.

So when Newton was there, he was fine. But the second they went to school, Charlie and Mac became little demons

Charlie is the root of the gang's codependency btw. He became codependent to Mac in grade school to cope with his brother not being there

When Dennis and Dee came around, Newton was already in high school and trying to become top of his class so he could go to college for free. At this point Newton was obsessed with the idea of monsters and science, so he was already on track for what was to come

Dennis and Dee never met Newton because of Newton being grades ahead and in high school. Charlie had made a joke about being a twin and understanding their blight, but they didn't know what he meant because they were convinced he was a single child

Charlie and Mac never brought up Newton, even as they became really close to Dennis. Charlie didn't want them to ruin Newton's chance at becoming good. He understood that Newton was a genius and wanted to support his brother. So that meant keeping him away from what could fuck him up

Charlie did enjoy though having rich friends and would bring back things for Newton whenever Frank and Barbara gave Mac and Charlie stuff. He was pretty smart at smuggling shit for him

When his sisters were born, Newton was almost done with his first PHD. Newton came home and interacted with Dennis and Dee once. They thought he was Charlie and he went along with it to keep the peace

Newton spent time at home for a bit before he went back for his other five degrees (which he did in a chunk of two then three). He spent as much time as he could with Charlie and helped Charlie get his GED

Charlie had flunked out of senior year btw. Good thing his brother is supportive. The gang doesn't know he has his GED.

Newton got a job with the government researching a ton of different things a few years before the pub opened. Newton started to send letters to Charlie because he knew Charlie was upset his brother was now gone

Charlie would constantly get homesick and Mac would call up Newton to have him call the burner that Charlie had at the moment (which Newton helped to set to the right language)

Charlie gets to hear all about Hermann, who Newton wouldn't shut up about while he was in college. He literally knows everything Newton knows about the guy and Charlie wants them to just get together already

Mac is still a bit weird about gay people at this point. They have the bar and all, so he's started his journey to being an out gay thankfully. But still a struggle. He's pretty supportive of Newton though. Literally the only gay he openly supports-

When the drift opened and Kaijus first appeared, Charlie was terrified.

Through Newton talking nonstop, Charlie actually knows a lot about Kaiju. He also watched a ton of the Godzilla movies, which stopped production after the drift opened. People didn't want to see the movies and producers just... Didn't want to make them.

Newton automatically moved to research and work on them. The guy was obsessed with them. It terrified Charlie to see his brother ramble about wanting to be up and close to them when he would come home

Charlie and Newton are rift compatible. Charlie visited for a week, where the two tested it out. Their sisters aren't somehow.

Charlie could probably give the best college course on Kaiju thanks to Newton talking non-stop about them btw. It surprises the gang when he randomly starts to ramble about Kaiju brains

Newton got his rank in the K-Science division and gets to work with Hermann full time, their communication gets cut in half. It stresses Charlie out and he starts to freak out constantly

This is where Charlie leans into the glue and alcohol more. Not that he didn't already. It just... Got worse.

Somehow Kaijus never hit Philly btw. Fun times. They aren't fully effected and so they just live their lives

The gang doesn't pay attention to the Kaiju stuff on TV. Besides Mac and Charlie. Mac pays less attention, but Charlie is always glued to the TV as he watched Jaegers run across the screen

When Newton is transferred to Hong Kong, Charlie is suddenly very sober. He starts to clean up and the others are unnerved by how level headed he is. It's still Charlie, but he can actually think straight

Dennis catches Charlie crying over a beer for the first time while watching some big fight between a Kaiju and Gipsy Danger. Dennis had no idea what was going on, so he left the guy

Mac ends up taping Newton on TV after they win the battle. Mac and Charlie celebrate together in a nicer bar without telling the others. When Mac got home that night, he was carrying a wasted Charlie into his and Dennis's apartment. Charlie was gripping onto a mini Kaiju plush and Dennis raised an eyebrow

Charlie and Mac slept huddled up in Mac's bed like they did when they were kids. It was a special night for them

#pacific rim #PacRim #it’s always sunny in philadelphia #charlie iasip #charlie kelly #iasip charlie #iasip #newton geiszler #newt geiszler #mac mcdonald #mac iasip #iasip mac #it’s always sunny in philly #it’s always sunny #always sunny #pacific rim uprising

[biconickyoshi]

hey there!

this might be like a weird ask, but i've seen you post a lot about the legend of korra, so.

do you think it's worth watching the show? i've been avoiding it for a while now simply because i'm afraid it's gonna disappoint. i know it is a separate narrative with entirely new characters, but from the few scenes i've seen it just looks sooooo different from the gaang's story that i'm just afraid they've butchered the original universe. plus, my favorite character from atla is aang, and i do not know if any character from korra will have that same kind of charm.

on the other hand, i know it attracts a lot of fans. what do you think?:)

(btw, amazzzzzzing job on both your zukaang fanfic and the artwork for it !!)

Hi anon! :) This isn't a weird ask at all, I'd be happy to help!

So the short answer is: yes, I think it's worth watching! I know exactly how you feel - Aang is also my favorite AtLA character, so I was also very apprehensive when LoK was first announced way back in like 2011. But my apprehension didn't stop me from looking forward to and eventually enjoying it, mainly because AtLA was/still is my strongest and longest running hyperfixation to date, and I (especially at that time) was willing to consume any scrap of media related to it lol. We were very starved for content in the olden days :')

I'll go ahead and give you a spoiler-free breakdown of the four LoK seasons - this might help you decide:

Book 1: Air is definitely is quite a bit different from AtLA (which was done on purpose by the creators to differentiate it so it wouldn't just feel like the exact same show). Book 1 is still my least favorite of the LoK seasons for this reason (as well as for questionable writing decisions), but there are still some great moments. You may notice that Book 1 ends very "neatly" - this is because LoK was originally supposed to be a miniseries before Nickelodeon picked it up for 3 more seasons (which I think was a large part of why the writing suffers a lot in the first half of the show as a whole).

Book 2: Spirits also starts out pretty rough (with more questionable writing decisions), but it picks up about halfway through. Some people say this is their least favorite season, but I've always enjoyed it overall a ton more than Book 1. While some of the additions to the lore of the Avatar and the Spirit World are polarizing amongst the fandom (and there are some things I wish they'd done differently), I still ate that shit up when it first aired lol.

Book 3: Change is where, in my and many others' opinions, the show suddenly rises to the same level of quality as AtLA. There's a lot of traveling, we get to see some familiar faces and several classic AtLA locations from Book 2: Earth, the villains are the best villains in any Avatar media, and the plot and emotional core of the season are just so, so good. I can't say any more because I don't want to spoil even a little bit of it. I personally think LoK is worth watching just for this season alone.

Book 4: Balance is not as good as Book 3, but I enjoyed it a lot more than Book 1 and Book 2. It does a really good job of exploring trauma/PTSD and the relevance of the role of the Avatar in a modernizing world, and is a decent followup to Book 3. What happens at the end of Book 4 is also SO culturally impactful (not sure if you know why, but I won't say anything specific), especially for queer AtLA fans such as myself.

While LoK definitely isn't perfect, I still accept it as canon for the world of Avatar, and it's still a show I've rewatched several times (though I tend to skip a lot of Book 1 and the first half of Book 2 when I do lmao). If you decide to watch it, go in with an open mind knowing that it is not going to be exactly like AtLA. Even in the not-as-good seasons, there's still some gems to behold. And what's also nice about LoK is that each season is about 12ish episodes, so you'll get to the really good stuff (Book 3) pretty quickly if you binge lol.

Feel free to send me another ask if you have any more specific questions about LoK! :)

#asks #lok #legend of korra #avatar the last airbender #atla #tlok #the legend of korra

[sjofn-lofnsdottr]

The Inevitable Farron Post

So I mentioned it a tiny bit offhand in places people likely didn't notice, but Dusk has ... hm, how to put it. The characters are already married in game, so I tend to refer to him as Dusk's husband, but in their actual RP timeline, they are decidedly not married yet, because they haven't known each other THAT long and are already barreling along their relationship at breakneck speed as it is.

In any case, Dusk has a partner, let's use that term.

His name is Farron, and Dusk loves him very much.

(some environmental spoilers from EW, if that bugs people)

Farron has his own tumblr over at @petitfarron and I am going to let him decide how much jibberjabber about the character he decides to do. Strap in for a long post, though, because I can sense I'm still going to write a lot even skipping that.

I have so many pictures of these two, and over time I'm sure I'll shove them in people's faces. You will inevitably notice as you look at them that Farron has changed his coloration, his height, his hairstyle several times. He's actually done it far more than I've chronicled, because after four plus years of watching this dude repeatedly fantasia himself, I can usually tell the difference between a flight of fancy that won't last more than an hour, and an actual change, and I do not bother with elaborate gposes if the appearance has no staying power.

When we first started RPing, I intended to RP Dusk as not-the-WoL, but Farron encouraged me to change my mind. And I figured fuck it, it's just us, who cares. It's turned out to be really fun, because regular-ass Farron learning about what absurd shit his boyfriend got up to before they met has been really, really funny.

They first met after the end of 6.0 in Gridania. Dusk is technically a member of the carpenter's guild in addition to being the savior of the world, and after a day of being a big weirdo with Beatin (Beatin is 100% what I expect Dusk to turn into once he's old and retires from adventuring, btw), he walked outside and was accosted by Farron, who (correctly) asserted Dusk looked like a man who could use an energy tincture. Dusk, even after all the times he's had something to drink and it didn't go well after, is still a trusting soul and downed it.

Farron wanted to 'observe' how the tincture affected Dusk, who did not seem to think this was weird at all, and since Dusk had mentioned being hungry, invited him to dinner at the Last Stand. Dusk found it mildly surprising this rando was assuming Dusk could get there, but he could, so off they went.

Dusk was blissfully unaware he was on a date at this point. Farron, if he wants, can explain why his brain melted over the course of their meal, but he went from brazenly walking up to Dusk and just talking like they've known each other for years, to a blushy mess before dinner was over. Dusk politely pretended not to notice, since he didn't want to embarrass him.

Farron met Duck (of course he met Duck!) and they went for a walk, and he mostly calmed down enough to have a nice conversation. Although he almost exploded again when Dusk offered to walk him home after they got back to Gridania.

Nothing sexy happened that night, but Dusk did spend the night (it was perfectly chaste) and Farron made him pancakes. They agreed to hang out that evening. Dusk was still completely unaware these were dates in Farron's mind.

He figured it out eventually.

And Farron got some of his swagger back. Some of the time, anyway, Dusk can still make him melt into a puddle of embarrassment if he hits him with the right sort of sentimental nonsense at the right time.

It was a couple of weeks before Farron figured out his Dusk was THAT Dusk. It was one of those situations where it never felt like a good time for Dusk to mention, and the longer he went without saying it, the harder it was. Luckily, Farron wasn't mad.

They're currently in 6.1 (Farron got to go on ~adventures~ with Dusk, very exciting!), moved in together in Empyreum (I need to take some pictures for you guys to see, Farron did the bulk of the decorating and it's so cozy) and we really need to pick up our pace if we're going to actually get them to 7.0 in a timely manner. :D

Farron's pet rabbit is named Miss Wiggles, by the way. He was embarrassed to tell Dusk this, but Dusk thought it was incredibly cute.

Now that I've told you the extreme basics of their relationship and where it's at, I am going to complain. So kisses are, by far, the most difficult thing for me to pose. They feel EXTRA DIFFICULT when there's a huge height difference, and I was glad Farron was at least tall for a viera dude.

At first.

The DAY AFTER they got married, Farron fantasia'd to be a 20 on the height scale.

Fine, I thought. It's annoying, but not the worst, I can deal.

Then a few days later, he shrunk all the way down to minimum height.

He's lucky I like challenges.

#ffxiv #gpose #let me tell you about my characters #dusk and farron #long post #seriously I sulked for days #at least dusk is exactly 50 on the elezen scale

[professional-nutria-enjoyer]

came from your phone case post. beautiful. what's your favorite memory from each of the games?

wow! Thank you so much for the kind words! So, to start answering your question i must admit i have still to play half life and blasphemous, I know what those games are about but obviously I can't give my opinion about those. Serious spoilers for some of the games by the way

Disco Elysium) I absolutely adore this game, best memory? Well, my brother was gifted the 'KIM KITSURAGI: never fuck with Kim Kitsuragi' mug before i played the game and I literally said out loud 'thats the line!' when I first heard it while playing Suzraneity (idk how to spell it sorry). Another moment worth mentioning is the Insuladian Phasmid sequence, the feeling I got from it all was that if the impossibly big stick bug existed in this world destined to collapse and it found meaning to continue to exist despite it all then Harry isn't so doomed.

Outer Wilds) very probably the final voyage, it was the impending sense of dread and joy and sadness and acceptance that got me. Outer wilds is a game that gets more beautiful the more you think about it, I have expanded more of this concept in another post of mine if you wanna hear more.

Pentiment) Andreas confession with the priest in the second act, the fact that he trusted so blindly the one that got him in that mess in the first place is just so aaaah.

Prey) might be basic, but the moment where Morgan breaks the 'window'

Pseudoregalia) the lowly rendered room inside that final door, like it was out of bounds and sybil was never meant to see it.

Hollow knight) mmmh probably the sequence in the lowest part of the map (i forgot the name of it sorry) when you slowly climb your way up with all the other vessels bodies falling down, i think it meant that ghost is just apparently different from his siblings, but in the end they will all fall. They were not the chosen one.

Ori and the blind forest) this game didn't really hit the feels factor, I don't really remember much about it, also i haven't played the other game

Signalis) probably the first time i chose 'continue without saving', really set the mood of the game.

Red dead redemption 2) Charles Châtenay kissing Arthur or the final stand unshaken don't make me choose. Oh! Also the moment in chapter 4 (second mission i think?) where Arthur and Dutch enter a bar and everyone turns to stare at Arthur like they know who he is and what he has done and then they look away because they dont care.

Dead Cells) my first death, probably. Because i cant read and i didnt know it was a rougelike

Dishonored) when corvo said its dishonoring time and dishonored all over the place

The stanley parable (ultra deluxe in this case)) well, it's probably the long and lonesome walk in the desert after the skip button sequence. Just. Not having the narrator around, you know?

Thank you for asking! Btw my first idea was that of drawing random characters, thats why chainsaw man is there

#Signalis #red dead redemption 2 #hollow knight #ori and the blind forest #Dishonored #dead cells #disco elysium #outer wilds #Pseudoregalia #pentiment #prey 2017 #the stanley parable ultra deluxe

[gayscytheblog]

Opinions and headcanons because I FEEL LIKE IT

Btw asks are open :3 (also spoiler warningggggsssss)

Starting off with my favorite Scythes-

Scythe Faraday:

-GGGOD HE DESERVES SM BETTER

-Favorite Scythe in the whole series.

-His character is really well written and I love it.

HEADCANONS TIME. (haven’t finished The Toll yet btw, just to note)

-He’ll never get over Scythe Curie’s death. Never. He might deal with it better, but he will never fully get over her.

-Cat and dog person.

-Probably doesn’t gaf if he’s referred to as “old man”

-He def has some sort of soft spot for kids. (Not in a gross way istg)

-Prolly thinks of Rowan and Citra as his kids

-He’s giving Bisexual or Pansexual. Idk

-He needs a hug or something goddamn

-I feel like as a kid he was shoved into a pile of mud. Idk he just seems like it.

Scythe Anastasia:

-2nd favorite Scythe

-I FORGET HOW MEAN SHE WAS IN THE FIRST BOOK I STARTED TO REREAD IT AND I JUST KEPT LAUGHING MY ASS OFF I love her for it though

-Character development was nice

HEADCANONS TIME.

-She probably looks back at her old self and cringes.

-Fetal position sitting is the safest sitting position for her

-Probably hates freezing cold weather since it reminds her of the Vault when, yk, Scythe Curie died and she died for a good 3 years or so??

-I feel like she’s more of a cat person than a dog person

I have no more ideas for her rn help

Scythe Curie:

-GOD I LOVE HER why the FUCK did she have to die NEAL.

uuh I don’t have any hcs for her rn i’ve been stuck on this for days

Scythe Volta:

-I will admit, when he was first introduced I didn’t gaf

-To be fair, I was only reading the Aoas series originally because there was nothing else interesting in the library. Soo I was mostly skipping through parts of the first book like an idiot.

-Now though? 4th favorite Scythe.

HEADCANONS WOOOOO

-Idk I feel like he’d be both a dog and cat person

-idk what else to add my brain isn’t functioning i’ll think of more eventually

NO MORE SCYTHES NOW.

Jerico Soberanis:

-Favorite character in the whole series.

-Jerico was the only reason why I actually started The Toll. I didn’t want to read it because CURIE FUCKING DIED but my friend mentioned that there was a genderfluid character in it.

-Jeri occupies my thoughts 50% of the time.

HEADCANONS TIME again

-I feel like he (it’s cloudy rn) would be pretty damn flexible. Idk why I just feel like it.

-Probably gets along really well with just about any animal except for cats. Idk why

-But at the same time I can see Jeri being a cat and bird person

-If it’s freezing out, and Jerico’s cold, he’d act as if he’s not cold in the slightest.

-Can be the biggest smug ass BITCH sometimes

My head hurts im done (for now..)

Note: I forgot to post this two days ago help

#arc of a scythe #jerico soberanis #scythe curie #scythe faraday #scythe anastasia #scythe volta

[chernobog13]

The stuff of my nightmares.

I grew up on the East End of Long Island, and spent a lot of time fishing in deep water (bays or the Atlantic Ocean). And my overactive imagination always conjured something like this appearing to chase/eat whatever boat I was on.

BTW, this is part of a short (approx. 40 seconds), subtitled clip that is making the rounds on YouTube and elsewhere. While the footage is great and exciting, I would recommend skipping the clip. Based on some other articles and posts I've seen about the film, the clip is probably a huge spoiler for the end of Godzilla Minus One (2023).

Unless, of course, you're someone who doesn't care about spoilers. In that case, have at you.

#Godzilla Minus One #Godzilla #kaiju #tokusatsu #Toho #two weeks to go!

[beanghostprincess]

when did you start watching the anime (also how/why)

and how many episodes do you watch per day to go that fast??? (im asking because im genuinely impressed)

It's a funny story, I think-

Basically, I was hanging out months ago (like, the start of this year?? End of last year?? I think??) with my brother and his friend at his friend's house and they were like "Oh! What if we watch One Piece? The first episode, cmon, Robin!" and I was like: "Fuck, no. Shit's too long. Not watching all that. I'm sure it's cool and you two love it but I'm sooo not getting into this". But then they wouldn't stop insisting and the show started playing out of nowhere and, like, I just wanted to eat my salad so I guess I just didn't care if they made me watch a few episodes. The salad was really good, btw.

Anyway: I watched the first two episodes and I kind of?? Fell in love?? With everything about it??? Luffy was so charming and early OP is amazingly beautiful in all the ways. I kind of miss the energy, honestly, sometimes. But I loved it. I laughed. And I was like "Oh, okay. This is good. I'm probably not watching the rest because there are a lot of episodes but, like, cool show, guys!"

Spoiler: I did watch the rest.

But I didn't watch more until February. I was on my period and when I'm on my period I get really, really sick and I feel like shit in general. And I wanted to watch something to distract myself from that torture. So I asked my brother where he watched the show in Catalan (here in Spain/Catalonia it's also dubbed in Catalan and let me tell you, it's one of the best dubs I've seen. It's SO good) and I started watching it for real then.

The thing is, I was really, really slow watching the show because I was studying at the time and I could only watch at night sometimes and in between classes or whenever the teacher wasn't in class (or, you know, I just did it without the teachers noticing. The hyperfixation was growing). Besides, I started talking to my brother's friend more and more and more (now he's kind of like my best friend??? What the fuck lmao) and I literally told him every fucking thing that happened so, yeah, I wasn't quick watching the anime at the time. I would've probably caught up by now if it wasn't because I didn't have much time to watch it then.

Then I started Arabasta, and ever since, me and my friend have been watching the show together on Discord (I started watching it in Japanese and subbed, then). We watch the show every single night (except when we're busy, but it doesn't happen often) and we usually watch, like, 6-10 episodes every day. That's the average amount, but we've pulled all-nighters before when we've watched like 20 episodes during the night (we watched Marineford like that and we kind of did that too with WCI).

I think I don't go THAT fast tbh I could watch more every day if it wasn't because I watch the show with him only because it's sort of an 'us' thing. Now I'm on episode 1015, so I guess I'll catch up with the anime soon! Then I'll catch up with the manga and then I'll cry because I'll have to wait for episodes/chapters every week. What a torture.

TL;DR: I started watching in February, because my friend and my brother told me to and I fell in love with the show, and I watch 6-10 episodes every day unless I'm busy or I pull an all-nighter.

Fun fact: I watched the Baratie arc exactly on Sanji's birthday this year. I think he was truly meant to be my favorite character.

Oh, and the only reason I wasn't online commenting on my experience watching it before is because I physically stopped myself from looking for content because I didn't want to get spoiled. When I got to post-time skip, I created this side blog!! So, if you want a lil bit of a timeline: Started watching in February, got to post-timeskip in September when I created this blog (so 516 episodes in kind of half a year) and now I'm on episode 1015 (so 499 episodes in three months). I think it's pretty obvious that I'm not studying anymore and I'm just working 20 hours a week, huh.

#okay so i'm insane basically #the hyperfixation is too much #and i have so much merchandising now lmao y'all don't want to see the mental illness that is my room #anyway i love this show a lot aefnjkdfnalsndlanewflk #actually thanks for this ask bc i've been meaning to do math about my experience with op for a while and i never do it #one piece