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thesharktanksdriver · 7 months

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Blood's Thicker Than Water (Platonic)

Made this cause I love assassins creed and I hate how they left the plot point about Desmond having a kid from a one night stand. Like sure there’s a comic for Elijah but let’s be real, who here has read that comic?

Sorry if any of them seem out of character, I haven’t played the games in a long while lol

Also thanks to my friend for streaming the games so I can get back into them lol

You never really met your dad but from what your mother described him as he was….a troubled soul

Now to be fair you’ve never exactly met Desmond Miles yourself but from the stories she told it’s obvious he had his fair share of demons

Some of which seemed to spill from the cracks of his soul from the short time she spent with him

A bartender is what he was, until he suddenly up and vanished from said bar in 2012 and died not too long after

It didn’t really make sense then even to your young mind

The gap between his sudden disappearance and death leaving too much unsaid for your mind not to be annoyed by

But as a child you eventually put the thought away

Eventually you forget

Instead going on to pursue your next whim as you focus on the present, or in your case Learning about the past in the present time

Unlike your fascination with your father that went away, your love of history never faded with time

It just seemed to grow the older you got

Your not sure why but something about history just clicked with you

It was somewhere within the range of middle school and reading national geographic that you had realized you liked it

That despite how some areas of it were bleak and disturbing it was interesting

And it got even more so interesting as you delved deeper into the depths of libraries

Nose buried in books lined with dust and old parchment

Yellowed pages and old ink that you carefully decode from centuries of lost meaning and metaphors lost to the modern age

You studied from the ancients all the way up to Victorian

Easing your way though literal centuries of historical records as you soaked up information like a sponge

And it’s there you vegans seeing an odd…repetition of events that seemed to occur

Odd assassinations plagued each era you looked into, all of which connected somehow by people in odd dress

In some journals that had luckily stood the tests of time you uncovered more eye witness accounts

A solider’s log back in the revolutionary war talking about an odd man meeting with his superiors in the dead of night

The diary of a log master who wrote of an odd frequent visitor that had an odd blade hidden beneath his sleeve

The drawing of a Victorian child being freed from a factory that had a hooded lady and man on the rooftop

I’m one you found a symbol, one created from the bottom perspective of an eagle skull, something also commonly associated with these hooded figures

What’s odd as well is that with these hooded assassins you also find traces of another group

One well know to historians such as yourself

Oddly enough the symbol of the Templar knights keep showing up even after their annulment

It’s odd, but what’s more odd enough is that both seemed to be tied to other historical artifacts

Ones well kept in archives and from the public eye

Ones you shouldn’t technically know about if not for you sneaking into sections your don’t have the status to enter

Their always gold with odd symbols. Somehow always pristine and polished despite the fact their dated to be from before ancient times

They for some reason seem to call to you specifically

Tempting you with forbidden knowledge you wish to taste like Eve

But for now you choose to wait until you can do proper analysis on them without the risk of punishment

So you lie and wait

Admittedly you didn’t think anyone expected for you to be this good at your job

In their defence you were a university student here on Co-op and not an actual full time historian

Hell you were in first year for gods sake

But somehow despite it all

Despite the fact you had actual historians and people in the history program years above you here you quickly began to become an outlier

A shinning beacon within the large archive, so much so that you began being allowed in the restricted sections you already snuck into

Mind you, now properly allowed there with some supervision of sorts gave you much more flexibility in research

You got to touch these artifacts

Hold them in gloved palms as silk covered finger glide across its edges and ridges

You study them extensively decrypting and decoding the ancient texts and hieroglyphs

Jotting down what you found in both a report and your own personal journal

Your not sure why you do so but you chock it up to making sure no one takes credit for your work

And this continues to the point your eventually allowed alone with them

It’s great

You dedicate yourself to this task as you learn more and more

Soaking up knowledge like a sponge as you find out more of what was previously lost

Find new angles and perspectives on events

For history isn’t just a set time and date, it’s interpretation based on what we know from sources

And even then sources can be biased

Sources can lie and silence another person’s view on the event

Your more than happy to try make your own interpretations

Admittedly when you were asked to study what looked to be a necklace from these unidentified ancient artifacts you were ecstatic

How could you not be?

Intricate gold woven in something akin to Grecian jewelry

Yet also had hints of something akin to Egyptian

It also…glows? Or at least you swear you’ve seen it glow gold and pulsate a few times but that could be the sleep deprivation speaking

Either way it’s an honour

One you don’t take lightly as you study it

Spending countless restless nights and days trying to crack its code

An unknown source has been funding the archive and your research quite a bit

Betting big money on it much to your surprise and suspension

You get that this is potentially something big but it feels out of left field

Especially since no one knows the name of the company

It’s just under an anonymous donation every month

It’s sketchy

But you aren’t one to argue about free money to further your and your colleagues pursuit of knowledge

Not when this beautiful place used to be underfunded

Not when most historical records were donated by people with a good conscious

Not when this place was almost shut down

With a sigh you continue on your work

Diligently tact checking and writing up a storm

Your writing looks like chicken scratch but that was a commonality between all history majors

Well, along with being giant nerds

And it’s there at that desk at 3 am in the morning, tired and only running on 3 hours of rest you find something peculiar on the necklace

A sharp jaded edge that you absentmindedly prick yourself on by accident

With a groan you wipe the blood away on your pants

Then going up to get a bandaid

You swore to god if you died of tetanus you’d be positively pissed

Unknown to you the necklace starts to glow

When you get home your more exhausted than usual

Your limbs feel like their kade of concrete and your head is stuffed with tissue

Eyelids trying to glue themselves shut

You practically kick off your shoes before tumbling to the couch

Not bothering in changing clothes or showering for the sweet relief of sleeps embrace

So you flop down face first into the old leather cushions of your couch

Only putting in the effort of fishing a hand to grab a throw pillow and blanket from nearby that you burrowed yourself into

A comfy cocoon/prison you couldn’t will yourself to leave even as you swore for a moment you heard something in the house

But your mind writes it off

Your too tired to question anything let alone get up

All you want is sleep

And that’s exactly what you get as your eyelids shut

You fall into the realm of dreams, odd ones playing out in your mind

Blurred images of odd men

A weird void-like realm

The cries of an eagle overhead

A single word appearing in your head

Kenway

And then your eyes snap awake when the sound of arguing fills your ears

Yelling of several male voices jumbling up your already fogged up sense as you practically fall off the couch in a mixture of fear and confusion

Curses escaping your mouth when suddenly the voices go silent and your left in a realm of fear

Hair standing on end as the creaking of the house makes you more alert

Despite the fact you’d never fought a day in your life you will up the courage to grab a baseball bat and cautious cross to where you heard the commotion

Careful steps on the non-creaky boards of the home that you’d luckily memorized

And there you find several men in old garb

Accents of Red tying them together like a string of fate

Or a trail of blood fainting their very existence

they turn to you with sharp eyes

It’s the one in modern clothes that surprises you the most

The face of your supposed dead father staring back at you

Ocher brown eyes that had long lost their life now rejuvenated as they seem to find familiarity in your own features

Some of which mirror his own along with some of the others in the room

The bridge of your nose

A all powerful spark in your eyes as they flick between everyone and escape routes

The way your lip slightly twitches when you try to keep a brave face

Your posture as you decided what to do

It’s all too familiar to him and them in a way that isn’t just coincidence

Especially not when all of them are Kenway

Not when he had been able to prove to them that fact through the experience of virtually living through their lives up until his death

“I’m not sure who the fuck all of you are but get out of my house.” Your fingers twitch and flex as your palms grow sweaty, the wood absorbing the pressure and moisture “especially my dead dad look-alike”

You all but confirm his suspicions

Their suspicions

And it looks Ike for you tonight will be much longer than you anticipated

Turns out that artifact you were studying wasn’t just as normal one

Neither were the other ones you looked at

The way they explained it as was their “artifacts from dead gods”, a fallen civilization that engineered humanity into being their slaves

It’s a lot to take in

Even more so when your suspicions of something bigger happening throughout global history with those odd deaths were real

Oh, and these were you dead ancestors and dad somehow back from the grave and now in your home

…..yeah safe to say that’s a lot to take in after an already very long and tiring shift

You sit there as they explain this, half asleep, and half exasperated

Cause how the hell are you supposed to believe all this bullshit that for some reason feels correct

Something in you tells you that their right yet your mind is fighting that logic

You’d always been a logical person, when it came to most situations you used your brain instead of your heart

And in those cases things ended up fine

But now your faced with this

A situation where your heart is screaming for you to listen as your brain tries to take this all in

Cause logic is completely out the window at the moment

For now you have to trust them even if your still afraid

I mean, how couldn’t you be?

But you get the sense that they understand

At least a little bit by how their also thrusted into a new environment without much say

Perhaps that (along with your own apprehension) is helping comfort them as well

So for now they’ll stay

Your just thanking (the dead) gods that grandma and grandpa’s old home is big enough for all of them

Altaïr Ibn-La’ Ahad

The oldest down the line of your dad’s side of your lineage finds himself often reading through your books in your study

It was a bit of a surprise one day entering it to find him sitting in a spare chair but you don’t mind the silent company

Especially as he seems to find interest in your studies

Occasionally he breaks the silence and asks you a question about the subject he’s reading about

He’s by far the oldest (even if he’s back in the body of his prime) of them therefore he’s the one who has the most figuratively to catch up on

So you indulge him

And also asks questions as well that he seems eager in answering

Knowledge connects you both, scholarly intellect being the bridge between the two of you despite centuries of time apart

Typically he asks about thinks such as modern life and what is know about his home, what happened to it? What it’s known of his era

You answer as best you can

Especially since that era of time isn’t exactly your forte

But he appreciates it anyways

Appreciates that you try, appreciates that you passionately care about history in the first place

Admittedly your mom was supportive but never understood your love of history

She’d listen to your rants and long conversations with a polite smile but you knew she never understood what you were talking about

But he does

He does and contributes whole heartedly in just as much passion

It’s nice

What’s also nice is that he’s studied the artifacts you now study as well

So now your both constantly coming up and developing ideas together

A constant back and forth

Hypotheses, discussion, and testing

Delving deeper into discovery like you’ve wanted

But with this he also helps you see where passion and obsession mix together

After the loss of his wife and son he delved into studying as a form of escape

It drove who was left away

Made the pit in his heart deeper

He doesn’t talk about it often but he seems to see how you may go down the same path

And he warns you of it

Unlike his younger self (that he now appears as) he’s wise if a little rough around the edges

He encourages knowledge but not to the point where it’s an all encompassing and toxic obsession

Within the household he seems to take a somewhat neutral but quiet role

He helps out and offers advice and guidance

Much like a teacher and grandfather of sorts

Speaking up when he has to and making sure the house doesn’t end up in disrepair

He seems to have a fascination with modern appliances, or at least holds a thankfulness for them

Like a few others he sticks to his robes most the time but you’ve seen him sport more modern clothes once awhile

Stuff still somewhat reminiscent of what he wore before but with a modern flare. Things with hoods and draping. Silks and wool. Something with an accent of red mixed in

Sometimes when you fall asleep in your studies you find a blanket draped over you and a cup of tea at your side

He won’t admit it’s him but he’s the only one who knows your tea preferences

He keeps his worry for you deep down but it’s somewhat relived when seeing that you take his warning of not taking the pursuit of knowledge too far

“It says here there was something called the “French revolution”. Would you care to explain what happened here to me?” He asks making you pause your work for a moment, when he sees your smile he knows your answer. Sure he read some of this book and got the gist of it, but something about seeing your eyes light up at his inquiry makes him feel at peace for a moment.

“Would I ever!”

Ezio Auditore da Firenze

This man is quite literally all up in your (and everyone’s) business

Not in an annoy way per say but he’s definitely curious about the lives his descendants have led (both good and bad)

Ezio is very clearly a family man and it’s somewhat ironic to see since half of this household has some sort of familiar issue

Most of which is some sort of daddy issue stemming from either Haythem or Edward that trickled down the line to you

Something that Ezio is seemingly trying to wrap his head around

Out of the others he’s the one who opens up the most

Partially because you think he misses his immediate family and friends

It must be a lot to handle being away from home, now in a foreign land where everything has changed

Despite that though he keeps a brave face

Almost always flashing a smile as he drags you from your study to have some “bonding time”

You won’t admit it to his face but you don’t mind

Especially as he gives your poor hunched over back a break

And treats your pallet to some good old fashioned (literally) Italian food and not cup ramen once again

He tried it once and threw your supply out, saying he’d be supplementing you with food from now on

You can’t exactly say your disappointment or upset from the heaven that is fresh baked garlic bread and pasta

He cooks not only for you but for the others of the house as well, saying his sister taught him lest he piss off his future lady

Taking in their suggestions and cooking foods from their homes as a way of him offering comfort

Whilst he does these tasks he often hums in his mother tongue of Latin

You don’t have the heart to tell him it’s a dead language

Especially when he seems so happy that you can somewhat understand it

He’s happily rambling and teaching you words

Helping you sound out phrases and pronunciation correctly unlike your Latin professor

Some of his songs he lightly sings under his breath get stuck in your head since he has a good singing voice

But despite the facade you see the cracks

Sometimes you find him looking at modern objects mumbling about how Leonardo would have loved to see this or made something similar

Or how Claudia would’ve liked this book

How Petruccio would have loved this toy

It….leaves a bitter taste in your mouth

Once upon a time you felt this same type of longing for family

Once a time you thought of you dad before going to bed and staring at his old Polaroid with hope

One that would never come to fruition (until now)

It’s why you indulge him, to keep his mind off the deeper plunge of melancholy

Compared to the others he’s relatively open to modernizing

In fact he seems somewhat excited in these things

Raiding your wardrobe like a damn fashionista and critiquing what’s good quality

He also has a wide variety of looks, not sticking to something similar to his time of dress

Versatile and somehow up to date? Your not sure how but somehow he’s in fashion?

Like he must’ve found a copy of vogue or something cause there is no way he just guessed that this was the new trend

When you pressure him on it he replies that he’s simply that amazing

You call bullshit but have yet to find evidence

But in the meantime you ask get him to tell you about Da Vinci and you furiously jot down what he says

Sometimes when he looks at you he sees flashes of Claudia’s quick wit

It makes him long for home yet as he looks at his descendants and ancestor he also feels….something

A small pit of warmth developing as he gets to know the inhabitants of this house longer

Meet Altair besides through a weird vision

His home is in Florence yet that feeling of comfort from the Villa is bleeding into these old (yet new) walls

“So this painting is his most famous work?” He asks looking at your computer with a bit of confusion, his scared lips quirking at the digital image.

“Yeah. This is actually probably the most famous painting in the world”

“Really? Of all his works this one is considered the best? I’m not doubting his skill but of all his pieces?”

“Believe me, I get it. It’s only this famous cause it was stolen”

“Stolen?!? Tell me who did it! I swear-”

Edward Kenway

For someone who was a feared pirate on the seas he’s surprisingly much less violent than you’d think him to be

Sure, he’s scary as hell still but at least he’s not stabbing you in the back and making off with your grandmas pearls or something

Still your a bit unnerved by him considering you did a project on him back in middle school and he’s now in your home

Munching on some god damn biscuits as if this was a normal situation

His son Haytham avoids his as best he can but he seems to bond with his grandson quite easily

Or more easily than he does with Haythem

It takes some time but you eventually go to him when you find him awake at the dead hours of night

A whisky bottle in hands as he occasionally takes a swig in silence as he stares out the window

You don’t talk

You don’t need to when he drinks in silence for awhile staring at the moon before eventually talking about the guilt

In his pursuit of power and gold he let people die

Greed woven into his soul as he sacrificed good men for his cause

He changed and did good yet his past haunts him

Hands stained red

Guilt eating away

A son who doesn’t want anything to do with him

At some point when he stops his rambles you speak

Reminding him that while his actions weren’t good he changed

It doesn’t wash the blood away but it stoped more from staining his hands

Though Haythem avoids him Connor is more than eager to fill his place

It doesn’t fix his overlying problems but it does help

In the morning he ends up talking with you more after this as your initial fear melts away

You end up seeing Edward Kenway, not the fiercesome captain of the Jackdaw

You see a man burdened by past mistakes and still wishes to do better

You see a human being at its core

With history it’s easy to forget the people your looking at was once alive and a breathing being

One who was just as flawed as you and I

But seeing a infamous pirate captain cry about issues pertaining not just time him made you remember that

He isn’t opposed to modernizing but seems to keep a certain sea-like touch to his appearance

Clothes for labourers and something loose is what he normally sticks to

He’s lucky though since he doesn’t exactly have traditional robes and can incorporate what he appeared in with a modern flair

Occasionally when he gets drunk he slurs out old shanties and talks about his epic tales

You might or might not have freaked the fuck out learning that James kidd was actually a woman

Mind blown

Ezio and Altair had to drag you away from your computer from writing an entire essay

Sitting on your countertop he holds a glass of whiskey in hand, one held out for you as you sit down beside him. The moon casts its gentle rays and lights the marble slab you both sit on. “I prefer Rum but this’ll do” it’s said in a playful tone that makes you nod and take a sip.

“I can grab some captain Morgan later…speaking of which, did you know him?

“No, but I did find a few of his things laying about “

“Care to tell?”

“Aye, sure thing”

Haytham Kenway

As the only Templar in this house it’s safe to say he’s definitely the outlier of the bunch

A relative lone wolf from the group that all hold some sort of Ill feelings towards him

From his father its confusion and sadness

The others it’s a mix of that and anger

From Connor it’s just plain…well your not quite sure how to describe it

The two’s entire family situation is just plain messy and thick with tension that their blades could cut through

But here’s the thing, in this house your also an outlier

A neutral zone so to say

Hell, the entire house seemed to be a haven of sorts from their whole Templar vs Assassin conflict

To be honest you don’t really care about this secret war

Well that’s a lie you are interested in these war of secret societies but you don’t specifically care to get involved in their politics

Not when you have business in interfering in it unless a fight breaks out and your telling everyone to calm the fuck down

So safe to say your kinda the only one who talks to Haytham

He is…well sometimes he’s a bit of an ass (in the British type of way) but at the same time he’s good conversation

Specifically when it comes to that of morals and philosophical beliefs

He is a conflicted man

A flawed one

But he holds his beliefs and morals despite the fact he’s been hurt and betrayed by a man he viewed as a mentor

He doesn’t talk about it much but he’s still hurt

Still seething with venom that burns his soul and flesh

Makes him want to lash out despite his upperclassman appearance and attitude

That despite it all he loves his son, so much so he willingly walked into what would be his death knowingly

That despite what happened he loves his dad yet can’t face him yet on account of what he became

What ideals and morals he still believes in even now

It’s perhaps he’s venting this to you rather than a journal because he knows you won’t judge him unfairly on the basis of what side your own

Your judging him as a flawed man and as an equally flawed person

It’s with him as well you open up about your own frustrations

How you still don’t know how to feel about this all

The fact that a lot of what you once knew was flipped on it’s head

Along with the fact your not even sure how to address your dad

It’s an entire mess but perhaps your both messed up together and that also draws you both to talking

To discuss your feelings of insucurity and confliction

To feel comfort that your not alone in not having your emotional shit in order

On some especially…emotional nights you both both have a cup of tea

He seems to enjoy that each time you use a different type, much of which used to be hard to obtain due to shipping and it’s prices

He hasn’t really yet grasped modern technology but your slowly helping him with it

It’s kinda like trying to teach a grandpa to figure out a phone, but now it’s him with the concept of a microwave

Like some of the others he’s yet to really also change his clothes to something modern

There has been a few times though he sported sweaters and vests

Your now working on helping his wardrobe since he prefers a sophisticated look

Occasionally he looks at the photos that line your walls, looking as you evolve through the ages

It’s…odd

With Connor he never had the chance to watch him grow

Never a snapshot to immortalize what he was like a child but now ones of you litter the walls like paintings

He feels melancholy

Yet at the same time he’s happy to get another chance maybe

One that is seemingly being helped by your gentle hand unknowingly

“I never thought about it until now but the stars are different” he says taking a sip of his matcha tea, he lets it pool on his tongue and experience the flavour. Not his favourite but not the worst

“That’s cause of light pollution here…though the stars do move so it it’s possible they’ve shifted position in the sky”

“Do they teach you about the stars in your schooling?”

“Yeah I took some. Not sure why, it just kinda spoke to me. Maybe it’s the Kenway blood”

Ratonhnhaké:ton/Connor Kenway

Of the group Connor is the most quiet and surprisingly the one whom you connect with the best for some reason

Perhaps it’s cause your both socially awkward in ways that let you relate

Or the fact you’ve both been ostracized by society for various reasons

His company is that of a quiet one but one you accept it with ease as you both sit and enjoy each others company

A quiet kinship made of unspoken but understood words from one another

The reminder that someone else is there and your not truly alone

He is perhaps the one you feel you can understand the most

And it’s the same likewise for him

Your both people deeply hurt and still bleeding internally

People raised by only their mother in a cruel and harsh world

People who were let down one way or another by their father

People who are still mad and angry but use that to further their determination

It’s odd but you feel truly understood

Like your soul was peeled back to reveal at your core your still a lone spirit lost in the world

One clinging to what they know as their only lifeline in this confusing and jumbled mess of a situation

The hulking 6 foot 2 man shows you trails near your home

Taking to the forest paths you’ve know your entire life and helping you discover even more about them

And while he does this he teaches you more about the world as you both walk the old beaten path

He tells you how to identify what type of tree is which, which stones are likely geodes and what tracks belong to who

It’s honestly petty interesting especially since he adds snippets of stories from his heritage

In return you talk about what you know as well

Snippets of your own knowledge that he seems to store into his mind just as you do with his stories

An equal exchange of sorts

On these walks you begin to notice he takes you out on these when your at your most stressed

The times in which your mind is overworking and consuming itself with anxiety

The times in which you need to breath

Connor doesn’t seem like one to vocally express his care but he does so through action

Small inconspicuous actions that mean a lot more than what meets the eye

It’s seems that his towards you is helping you when you need it most

Taking you away to just take a moment for yourself

To just breath in the fresh air and let the sunset coloured leaves of autumn crunch under your boots

Letting the cold breeze take away your worries

It’s perhaps better than any type of verbal support

Yet another unspoken action of care and compassion through knowing and watching

Of watching and knowing when you need a break

When you realize this and give him a small tired smile as a thanks he seems to know

Only giving a small nod with a minuscule smile of his own

It only grows bigger when you begin to ask him if his traditions, of the stories and practices of his people that he’s more than willing to tell when he knows you ask out of genuine curiosity and respect

Connor is somewhat 50/50 in modernizing

He adapts quite well but still needs help with certain things as he navigates the situation

But like usual he is anything but resourceful as he watches what you do and figures it out

He helps the others quite a bit with what he’s picked up and somewhat takes pride in the fact he can help them

Whilst he’s privy to wearing his robes he isn’t against more modern clothes

The only problem though is sometimes finding stuff that fits him considering he’s not only a giant but also fairly muscular

But your both eventually able to find some stuff for him to wear that he likes

He really appreciates though that you try to buy clothes and jewelry from nearby indigenous peoples

It might not be his but he appreciates the sentiment and familiarity that the beaded jewelry give him

“I’ve lived here my whole life and walked down these paths a thousand times yet it seems more like your the local here” you say with amusement as you follow Conner through an area you’d be never been before.

He smiles, it’s small but there as he adds “just a matter of perspective. You see the paths your used to and I see ones you hadn’t noticed”

Desmond Miles

Yeah so this is entirely awkward for you

Like how the fuck do you emotionally deal with this and the fact your very dead dad who didn’t know you existed till now is now very alive

And living in your house with his very dead ancestors that are also now alive

Case and point you don’t, specifically you ignore the problem and act like everything is fine

You lock yourself away and try to avoid him like the plague

Somehow Scurry past him and into the kitchen to grab something before returning to your abode to eat

But then things got complicated

Things change

You began talking to the others

Slowly coming out the darkness of your study and joining the dinner table

But you still try to avoid him

It feels like the sight of him burns your mind, all those nights as a kid coming back to you

The hope and then disappoint in learning he died and that he likely never wanted you

Your mother never said this but the other kids did. They always teased and picked at the fact you were a mistake

It’s why you push so hard now to be the best, To prove them wrong (to prove to yourself that your worth existing)

The fact is that now he’s here and you don’t know how to deal with that

How would you even start?

What do you even say to him?

You quiet down when he enters a room because you don’t know what to do

Whatever your about to say dying in your throat like a caged bird and all that came come out are garbled noises as you evade him

Eyes casting down to your hands like a child averting their gaze from their parent when in trouble (he is your dad so it’s the same thing right?)

Leaving the room he’s in as quickly as you can once a take is done

The others notice quick, I mean how can’t they? A damn butter knife can cut through the tension

The whole thing with Haytham and Connor is less tense than this

But what can you even do?

How in thick do you talk to him and how can he even talk to you?

Your 18 and in university, he’s 25 and was a bartender in New York before apparently sacrificing himself for the world

He’s closer in age to being a big brother rather than your dad.

But even besides that he’s been long dead and gone since 2012

It’s been years since that point and more importantly he’s someone important and your not

He’s an assassin born to a bloodline of other assassins

Someone who was raised in this tradition with greatness not only in his origin but also in his death

And your you

A child born from a one night stand who’s only achievement is being good at knowing about old people

It hurts but it’s true

If he’s a star then your a candle compared to his light

A mere blip or spark to the greater picture

There had been times he looked like he wanted to say something but you scurry away before he can say anything

Sometimes you catch the looks and small gestures Ezio tries to make as if to encourage him to go up to you

How Connor sometimes brings up to you how he wishes for reconciliation with his dad and that perhaps it’s possible with your own

Altair not beating around the bush and plainly telling both him and you to talk

But it all feels for naught and dies when those feelings and thoughts return

But eventually he corners you

Well not really corners you per say but he catches you as you leave your study after a talk with Altair

“Listen I don’t have any grudge against you. For one you died, I’d be a dick if I blamed you for that or your decision to save the world and whatever. Second you didn’t know about me in the first place” you say briefly looking up at him before averting your gaze, he looks like he wants to say something but he can’t get a word out before you continue “but you don’t have to act like my dad or anything. You never asked for me, it was a mistake, I was a mistake and I’m fine with it.” (Your lying to yourself)

You leave before he can get a word out, and he’s left alone in the hallway. When he returns to Ezio he just sits down in silence. It’s enough for everyone to know I didn’t go the way he wanted.

Admittedly when you begin to notice odd figures at the achieves you write it off

I mean it could literally be anyone plus the supervisors aren’t making a fuss about them here

If anything their welcoming them and looking at them with hopeful eyes

Small glances full of opportunities in them

It’s odd but maybe their just some non-profit here to support the archive

Or even private benefactors of sorts

But then they turn their attention to you

Plastic smiles on their faces, artificial pleasantries as their main spokeswoman sits in front of you in a slick suit

Her stilettos tapping against the ground as your eyes trail to her bodyguards of sorts

They stand not too close nearby

Watching

Waiting

And then she begins talking

And slowly you grow more and more uncomfortable

Hands playing with one another, fingers twitching in your palm as crescent are indebted in your skin

They apparently are interested in your findings

In your research

But more specifically you

They’ve researched you…a lot

Down from where your mother was born to her great great something grandfather

And your father

…but that’s not public knowledge

It wasn’t even on your birth certificate

This….this isn’t

She smiles though now the darkness melts away into something more knowing

Dangerous and sadistic of sorts

And it’s there on her little pin showing her name you recognize the logo

Within your house you’d vaguely heard whispers of the others talking in hushed tones

You didn’t mind

The less you know the better in that sense

Out of sight and out of mind

But sometimes you’d hear the mumbles of a name that you didn’t put together until now

One spat with venom just as they did with the word of the Templar

Abstergo

You barely have time to react before your black bagged and sufficiently knocked out

Mind drifting to that of panic

What would happen to you?

What will happen when the others find out?

But then those thoughts fade away into the dark void of sleep

When you wake up things are odd

Everything is a sterile white and too bright for your foggy sleep tinged eyes

The room is blurred as is your senses as you weightlessly drift

Everything feels odd

And then it happens sharp and pure pain that leaves you writhing and screaming into the void

And that’s when you notice that white light had left and your in a void of sorts

Empty glitching effects all around you as your left to look around in confusion until you see something

A memory? Specifically one of your memories

Your staring at a simulation of sorts of your past self

A 8 year old in their bed with chubby cheeks pulled up into a melancholy smile

You recognize this moment, your small hands holding a picture that had long been put away into a scrapbook and forgotten

Your left wordless and confused

And then that bitch’s voice appears again and she explains

This entire thing is a simulation of your memories

And essentially their gonna go through your head picking through them to not only learn what they want but then use you as their lab rat cause of your bloodline.

Cause apparently memories of your ancestors could be accessed that way and it was generally easier to have a descendant rather than finding objects and artifacts

And it’s there in that simulation it feels like your mind is being ripped apart

Memories ripped from your mind to play out in front of you as she makes comments and documents them before their forced back in and another is ripped out

Like book having pages torn out and then crudely stitched back in

It hurts so damn much

Over and over

Your just left in screaming again on the ground of this simulated world as she makes idol comments

Left begging for it to stop

For someone to help

For the love of god someone help you make it stop

Of course this would happen to you

You’ve always had shit luck despite your whole family motto being “make your own luck”

What utter bullshit

You can’t make good luck from bad

Can’t just change things when the scales are already tipped one way

But then like a miracle from above she goes quiet and suddenly the memory is gone

And your left in the void still reeling from it all

Still on the glitching ground before once more white encompasses your view

Blinding and bright as your still recovering

And then an unfamiliar voice tunes in

“Your safe” it’s heavily accented, in an Irish twang that’s soft as he says these words to you. A reminder that your ok now, it’s over. “Can you walk?”

You try to look at him with squinting eyes yet they still can’t adjust, your limbs feel heavy like solid rock. Unmoving even as you try. With some difficulty you shake your head

“Aight, I’ll have you carry you then. Are you alright with that?”

“Just get me out of here…please. I just want to go home, I miss my family” it sounds pathetic but as tears begin to fall the stranger doesn’t seem to think Ill of you.

“Don’t worry, I get what that’s like.” The tone is sympathetic and like before is soft “you’ll be home I no time, I promise”

You think for a moment before responding “I trust you”. For a second you feel him go still at that before he picks you up.

For awhile there’s buzzing alarms and panic as your saviour gets you out whoever’s you were taken too

There’s not a moment of silence as he sharply runs and dodges past what you think to be gunshots

Occasionally he grumbles something but for the most part he seems calm

Composed despite the chaos of it all

So much so that it makes you wonder if this is an average Tuesday for him

There’s so much shout and yelling for your already pounding head

But sometimes the yells are silenced as the sound of a blade cuts it short

Footsteps far behind eventually stopping

Sirens getting more and more distant and allowing you and the man to breath

It’s there in the pocket of silence you learn his name

Shay

It sounds familiar, like really familiar yet you can’t put your finger on it

Either way your grateful because how can you not be?

Your away from that place

Away from the torture of having your mind picked apart like a lab experiment

Having the privacy of your memories looked at and prodded

But now your somewhat okay

Your eyes feel weird, your vision feels weird like it keeps switching between something

Your at least somewhat able to walk though it’s unbalanced

but Shay doesn’t seem to mind

He offers an arm that you cling to for support

A kind smile on his face as he makes sure you didn’t injure yourself further

And then you notice his clothes are….old

Like Haytham and Connor level old

And…shit

It’s halfway home through the trails you recognize due to Connor that your vision changes

The world feels bigger as if your third eyes opened or something

Shays figure and presence is highlighted in a clover green

And perched nearby is another green figure, one waiting for a good moment

Shay follows your sight before promptly having to duck out the way from a knife that flies at his head

He pushes you back behind him, you stumble back vision switch between monochrome and normal as someone else grabs you

Instinctively you almost yell before realizing who was now helping keep you steady

And the other person now attacking Shay

“Connor! He’s good! He saved me!”

“He’s a Templar!”

“So is Haytham and you haven’t killed him…again have you!”

At that Shay pauses, turning to look at you with confusion as Connor stops his attempt as slitting his throat

Ezio on the other hand helps you up but keeps a firm protective grip

Watching Shays movements like Connor in apprehension before the two settle down and stare at you for more detail

Both waiting on your word

“He saved me and today has been a long ass day-“

“You’ve been gone for 4 days”

You pause momentarily at that before adding “long 4 ass days of having my mind literally ripped apart. Can we please head back to the house and settle this there? Thank you”.

The moment you get back your almost immediately tackled to the ground by a familiar white and red hoodie wearing absent (dead) father

It’s….odd but nice

Desmond (still feels too awkward to call him dad) is holding you like a lifeline and you notice bags beneath his eyes

He looks like hell

But none of the others are any better either

They all like positively exhausted yet light up when seeing your safe

Your home

It reminds you of your mom when you returned home from school

The long work day evident on her brow but her smile lighting up the room at the sight of your face

It’s no different compared to then except for the fact they all (except Haytham) then protectively pull you away from the nearby Shay who’s being glowered at by Connor

Safe to say it’s a little awkward until you somehow pull free of Desmond’s death grip hobble your ass between the two lone Templars and Assassins

A long discussion having to take place between them all as you not only explain what happened but also it seems you all forget one crucial thing

It seems you forgot about your mom’s side of the family

Whoop de Doo you have more things to process and so does everyone else here

Specifically Connor and Haytham Because before apparently knew (or know of) Shay

Great, another complex relationship in this household like there needed to be more of that

But with this entire situation it also highlights something bigger

Your not safe

None of you are safe

Perhaps you never truly were

And that in turns leaves you with the difficult decision of what to do next

Because In this difficult game of politics between two ever warring groups your a neutral force

You wanted to stay that way but unfortunately fate had other plans

as your drug into this game your left with limited options of sides for not only yourself but for the others who seem keen on following you

Even the two (former?) templars seem to follow your decision

So When Des…er your dad suggests finding his old friends it seems like the best option

It’s either that or be kidnapped and prodded again and who knows what abstergo will do to everyone else (even one’s that once upon a time we’re on their side)

Besides, he says you’ll get along well with someone named Shaun so It can’t be too bad

So he sends out a message and you leave the home you find yourself look at with melancholy

It stopped being a home when mom died but now it seemed like it was just that again

Only time can tell what will bring upon you next

But….you think you’ll be ready for whatever is thrown at you when you have this odd group of family at your side

The expression of blood is thicker than water never really held much weight since you only ever had your mom until she was gone

But maybe you understand it a bit better now

#platonic #assassins creed x reader #assassins creed imagine #desmond miles x reader #ezio auditore x reader #ezio x reader #altair x reader #connor kenway x reader #haytham kenway x reader #shay cormac x reader #edward kenway x reader

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finsterwalds · 2 months

Text

Got my hands on the script of Anatomy of a Fall, and I couldn't help but compare it with some scenes from the movie because that's how deep I am rn :'D Anyway, here are some of my finds and things I personally enjoyed. I'm sure there are more things to dig out but these are what I wanted to share with the world. The order of my finds will be chronological, for the most part, but keep in mind that sometimes, some scenes were edited to show up later, or earlier than originally intended. Spoilers for the whole movie obviously so you've been warned!

Takes place when Vincent first visits Sandra to discuss Samuel's death. In the movie, Sandra stops Vincent and cuts him harshly, saying "STOP, I did not kill him". Vincent then says a line that I think is pretty iconic in the movie, a sarcastic : "That's not the point. Really". His line is much harsher than on the script, where he's a bit softer. "You don't need to tell me that" implies that he has some deep, loyal faith in Sandra, while "That's not the point" cuts any further discussion. He really doesn't wanna know if she actually did it. Comes from a wish to remain blind still, but with less innocence and a lot of denial. Oh, Vincent.

In the movie, his last line is way better imo, he says "No one's gonna believe that. I don't believe that." I like the emphasis on his opinion rather than the fleeting and impersonal "it's really hard to believe". Truly hits way harder and puts Vincent back in the position of a lawyer.

The rest will be under the cut because I think it's gonna be a wall of text I apologize guys...... This movie does things to my brain.

There's a scene that was cut where Vincent phones Nour while still at Sandra's, which I would have enjoyed a lot but I'll admit it's a bit filler-y. Doesn't add a lot and kinda cuts the serious tone of Sandra's confession, imo, as they discuss the judge's antics in a pretty comical manner. I just love Nour so I'm based......

Another, REALLY long scene that was cut where a medium comes into Sandra's house to feel Samuel's ghost and foreshadows Daniel poisoning Snoop with aspirin. I had a good laugh at that one, honestly. It feels pretty out of place with the tone of the movie, and the personality of the characters even... I can't picture Sandra calling a medium. I'm glad they removed it because the foreshadowing was unnecessary too. It's still interesting that they had planned it however.

This takes place after Vincent finds out about the tape. Interestingly, his whole line was cut after "before he died". In the movie, he never comments on Sandra's affairs/sexuality. He never really asks much about her life at all. He truly is blinded by his wish to shield himself from her inner demons, in order to maintain his undying loyalty towards her. To see what he wants of her...

Another scene that was completely cut (a flashback, I believe?) where Sandra makes Daniel pose for a german photographer to make some money, which Monica dislikes, and then they argue. I think it really frames her as too unsympathetic, so I'm also glad it was cut.

Okay, so now, here comes The Big Change. The scene where Vincent and Sandra drink together after the first trial was heavily altered, because its tone in the movie is pretty tense when compared with the lightheartedness of the script. In the script, they laugh and reminisce together about the past and even kiss at the end of the scene. In the movie, none of was I screenshot happens : instead of playing along with the 'firing Vincent' suggestion, the scene ends with Sandra scolding Vincent for judging her in his head. Vincent backs off and the scene ends. Another instance of him not pressing emotional depth to shield himself.

There are other scenes I liked (many that touch upon Sandra's books) but I'll stop there. Hope you'll enjoy that... I might draw some of these so stay tuned... This movie has absorbed my soul but it feels good to be alive, thank you Justine Triet.

#anatomy of a fall #anatomie d'une chute #justine triet #vincent renzi #sandra voyter #not art #im posting it on my artblog because i wanna find this again and store everything about my lawyer era in one place #i didn't translate anything because that would take some time but hmu if you need a translation or if something's unclear #i didn't proofread this and my native language isn't english so picture a crazy frenchie going about their theories to you okay?#fits the movie imo

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datesinredink · 2 months

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Yan turtles (rottmnt) with an m/c that’s allergic to reptiles/turtles? Idk I just think it would be funny (not Donnie trying to get m/c into getting injections to help the allergy-)

ANON I AM SO SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG BCIRBIFUNUIEH

Super duper sorry i ended up procrastinating really hard and i guess god took issue with that because he struck me down with multiple QAs and a Feelings crisis but the tests are over and I finally managed to sit down and finish Raph's part- seriously i struggled with him and mikey a lot but i guess it was kinda worth it in the end because Raph has an entire 110 more words to his part than the other three- hopefully it makes up for my lack of knowledge of his character. Enjoy!

Donnie

“My inspiration for this device was simplicity-”

Yeah you’re getting a hazmat suit until your allergies either magically disappear or he figures out some other solution

You’ll probably have to do a lot of tests, including possibly a blood draw but I’m no medical expert- since I headcanon Leo to be the medic he’ll probably end up helping too

After he finally puts the pieces together, he’ll start working with Leo to engineer a medicine to help suppress your allergic reaction, and maybe even be able to get rid of it entirely

Also anon you’re very right, you may be subjected to becoming the human pincushion of allergy shots while he figures it out. It’s safe. No it won’t kill you. Yes he made sure. Just, uh, maybe don’t ask your best friend their opinion on needles for a while….

In the meantime, he completely hates the current situation. He finally meets someone that he’s (mostly) fine with touching him, and they CAN’T TOUCH HIM without a HAZMAT SUIT. Just the worst. Awful times.

Normally, he’d have you around almost always, but, unfortunately, that’s currently not ideal.

Starts trying to keep things extra clean around the lair for you. Also everything that can be sanitized is sanitized. Good luck in the cleanliness prison after you get kidnapped later on.

The best about keeping distance, since he already wasn't super touchy before this whole situation. While he might tap you on the arm or something once or twice, it's nothing serious and you won't have a problem with him on that front.

Going back to the hazmat suit real quick, while it does do its job well, it's definitely not the most comfortable thing to wear, and you'll probably end up getting too hot pretty quick, so chances are you won't willingly be wearing it all too often. Donnie may occasionally force you to wear it, but otherwise you (usually) just... don't have to.

Leo

He’s the one who finds out you’re allergic. It was an accident he SWEARS. He only wanted to give you a pat on the arm when April first introduced you to them! How could he have known you’d get hives where he touched you?

At least he knows how to treat it. He managed to guide April through treating it, after which he sulked while rereading some Jupiter Jim comics.

Has a personal grudge against your immune system for daring to make you allergic to him. How dare your cells get mad about him.

When Donnie tells him that he might have “a fix, bro”, Leo jumps at the opportunity- oh thank god, he can finally hug you!

…Doesn’t mean he’s not super bad at focusing on actually working on it. Don’t worry, he’ll fix it eventually, just have a little patience.

Honestly, this is your chance to BOOK IT away from them, because none of them are as clingy as they will be after your allergies are cured/suppressed, which gives you more time to leave New York before things go from bad to worse.

Anyway, Leo’s about as clingy as he can be without physically clinging onto you for hours on end. Constantly hanging around you, like a ghost haunting their killer, except you’re not the one who kills people.

He might end up using your allergy to try and manipulate you away from his brothers. Mikey keeps forgetting to keep distance, Donnie’s suffocating and makes you wear a hazmat suit, and Raph almost treats you like a sopping wet cat that he has to take care of, so why not just stay with him?

As much as he likes to criticize Mikey for forgetting, sometimes, particularly early on, he gets a little too close, and your allergies flare up, and while he does genuinely feel kinda bad, he will exaggerate his remorse for sympathy from you. He genuinely does try and apologize for it later, and he probably portals you two somewhere nice and gets you a couple of trinkets you like or find useful.

Mikey

Absolutely heartbroken!

His love is allergic to him! This is awful!

2nd most panicked when they first find out. Is their new friend ok? Did they mess up?

If you have a low tolerance for pain/allergic reaction symptoms and cry a little he probably will too. High empathy, man…

He’s really understanding after everything’s resolved and they figure out you’re allergic to them. He tries his best to keep a fair amount of distance between you and him, but he tends to naturally be physically affectionate, so there may be a slight adjustment period. He really doesn’t mean harm though.

He occasionally tries to bring you something from the mystic city that he thinks would be safe- a small figurine, maybe a sketchbook if you also like doing art, if he manages to bargain for/steal a piece of jewelry, he’ll also give that to you.

As I mentioned before, Mikey’s pretty big on physical touch, but since that’s off limits (for now) he’ll try to show you affection in any other way he can think of

Mostly quality time. He likes to take you with him when he explores through the sewers/city to spraypaint a couple of blank walls, and he’ll probably get you to try it too, and regardless of your skill level he’ll tell you it’s great

After Donnie and Leo finish making the cure, Mikey squeezes the LIFE out of you- he doesn’t mean to practically strangle you, but he’s fairly strong and he got excited, so he does feel a little bad afterwards.

Will decorate the hazmat suit Donnie gave you if you let him. He'll put stickers on it that match his and draw fun patterns that may or may not relate to him in some way. Maybe the spots he has, or the face on his knee pads. It's pretty endearing, even if his brothers may occasionally glare at him. In Mikey's opinion, if they're really that jealous, they should add something themselves.

Raph

And the award for most paranoid goes to….

Ok but really, he’s the most overbearing about it. This probably isn’t a surprise, but it’s still something I've gotta mention.

You don’t really have to worry about Donnie making you wear the hazmat suit- he gets it, not a fun sensory experience- other than a couple stand-out occasions, but you will have to convince Raph fairly often that you’ll be fine without it.

To be fair, it’s partially because he also forgets not to touch you sometimes, and while he’s better about it than Mikey and most of the time Leo, he’s also self-aware and protective enough that he’d rather be safe than sorry.

If you’re having an allergic reaction, he’ll either get Leo/Donnie/April to help you, or go find the hazmat suit Donnie made him a while ago when Splinter got sick and then help you himself

There’s a chance he might not do great though, as he’s not always the best under pressure and tends to panic when the people he loves are hurt or in some sort of extreme situation, especially when it comes to you (seriously, he treats you like a porcelain doll), but you can be reassured that he’ll do his absolute best to make you safe and comfortable.

Feels terrible after, pampers you a lot after the ordeal. Every time, not just the first few.

If he wasn’t the one who caused it, then he’s definitely pissed at whichever of his brothers made your allergies flare up. He won’t kill them, and he won’t lose it and drop kick them into tomorrow (yet. If they ever intentionally trigger your allergies he might snap some bones) but there will be a noticeable irritation and tension for at least the next few weeks between him and them.

He’s super excited after Donnie and Leo finish the allergy shots! I personally headcanon him to be the second touchiest of the brothers (Mikey being the most touchy, of course) so there’ll be a lot more casual touch between you two after. Hugs, headpats, you get the idea. If you try to tell him to stop, he’ll be very upset, though doing his best to understand, he will try to respect your wishes.. Before going right back to it after a week tops. Sometimes he genuinely does forget, after all, he does have a fair amount on his plate, but sometimes he does intentionally wait until he thinks he can get away with it again before jumping right back to how things were before. He’ll vehemently deny it, but no matter what happens, you’ll likely never really get him to stop for an extended period of time.

#yandere rottmnt #yandere tmnt #rottmnt x reader #rottmnt leo #rottmnt raph #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt mikey #augh im so unhappy with raph and mikey's partsss #i shouldve known getting fixated on leo and donnie and forgetting about raph and mikey wouldve come back to bite me #<---- did not plan on writing fanfic when she started watching the show #sorry mikey and raph enjoyers i hope this was satisfactory #anyway i havent like #proofread this.#also none of my friends have ever watched rottmnt so im stuck with no one to check me on my characterization #pray for me

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meanbossart · 2 months

Text

A long over-due ask compilation (Art & Music)

It's vaguely based on a short story from the book "The Consumer" by Michael Gira, specifically "The Boss". I think it came up in conversation with a friend or something when I was picking a new username, so that's how we arrived at it - this was almost a decade ago so, my memory on it is a little hazy!

{MORE UNDER THE CUT]

HAHA thank you so much!!! Glad you enjoy what I do 😎🍻

I BELIEVE this little guide I put together over here might be helpful to you, also! I touched on pretty much everything you brought up.

As for reference material when it comes to facial expressions, I have a mirror next to my desk which I glance at often and make weird faces at LOL and for consistency, it's really a matter of learning to dissect and remember facial structure. It's just something you end up developing an eye for when you've done it for long enough! Naturally, if we're talking about drawing existing characters, it's always helpful to just look at some pictures of their mugs and take a minute to define what features about them make their faces recognizable - I touch on this at the link above as well!

I do plan on making a "drowstarion" (love that, by the way LOL) playlist eventually, life's just been kicking my ass and I hardly have the time 😭and when I do, I just wanna draw.

Otherwise I don't have any other playlists floating around at the moment, BUT the one my boyfriend made for his Vellioth comic can be found here, and it might scratch a similar itch!

Thank you! I believe this was in reference to this post. Something like that takes me about... An hour??? If we're talking just the colors, at least. Though that's a really rough estimate because I take a lot of breaks, so my sense of time when I work ends up pretty skewed. Even if the application of the colors themselves took less than 20 minutes I probably spent 2 hours just staring at it LOL.

My friend, I have no idea. I'm in a constant battle between "I want to draw more realistically" and "I want to simplify my art so I can draw more/faster". What you see is the result of that ongoing brain-tug-of-war.

Also, just the way I assume everyone else develops theirs - they see stuff they like and emulate it until their art is Frankensteinish enough to be it's own unique thing!

I'm far from a Type O Negative buff, BUT I'm happy to share some of my favorites with you! They're quite scattered across a couple of their albums so I'm not sure I have a favorite, but I would say October Rust is a good starting point.

In no particular order, these are my most listened tracks of theirs: -Love You to Death -Black N.01 -Haunted -She Burned Me Down -Can't Lose You -I Don't Wanna Be Me -Be My Druidess -September Sun -Tripping A Blind Man

Alas, I was one of those people who was already drawing in kindergarten 😅 though I would say I only started taking it seriously when I was around 15-16 years old. As someone who has tried their hand at several other hobbies since reaching adulthood, I get what you're saying that it can kinda feel like... You missed the wagon? I've felt that way about all kind of things lol

That said, I've seen adults managing to develop their art skills extremely fast and effectively before. Understanding where and how you need to improve, and how to follow lessons/guides best is something that is vastly improved by maturity and knowing how to best hone your time, attention, and resources - and those are skills we completely lack as children. So, I sincerely believe that as long as you commit yourself, you can definitely get to a point that you're happy with in a couple of years if not less.

JUST DO IT BUDDY we are all just people looking through a screen and you won't ever see, talk, or meet 99% of the folks who ever clap eyes on what you post. Whenever you start getting nervous about sharing something, take a minute to ask yourself why you're nervous, and if none of the reasons have any genuine substance besides being afraid of what people "might think", just go ahead and post it. You're no mind-reader after all, and if you are, I doubt you can hear what a guy from Argentina or wherever is thinking about the art you made.

Point is, nobody online can touch you 🤷and if someone doesn't like what you do, they can simply choose to not interact with it, and if they do you can block and move on. There are zero reasons for you to feel "bad" about putting up a doodle when our experiences on the web are so easily curated nowadays.

#ask compilation

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maxwell-grant · 2 months

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I guess it's also time for the annual ask: Thoughts on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

@mirrorfalls asked: Perhaps it's time to touch the elephant in the room: thoughts on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

anonymous asked: Any thoughts on Moore's LOEG? anonymous asked: any advice on how to do a fictional character mashup story ala chimera brigade, league, etc? anonymous asked: you wrote a bit on the wold newton universe and the chimera brigade, any thoughts on league of extraordinary gentleman?

(TW: sexual assault, also a whole lot of racism)

(clip from Anti-Spook Squad by Doctor Lalve)

Let it never be said I don't love or do anything for you people because Jesus Christ what an ordeal.

It was pretty inevitable that I'd eventually have to talk about LOEG given the, niche, I made for myself here, and given I'd read and touched on all these other works that either inspired it or were inspired by it, like the Wold Newton Universe, The Chimera Brigade, Tales of the Shadowmen and etc. I'd read through plenty of different LOEG takes and fics, it's an idea that has a lot of appeal on it's own and is easy to flirt with, if not so easy to pull off.

One thing to put upfront: Kevin O'Neil was a brilliant, one-of-a-kind creator and his work here is great, it's the one thing almost unimpeachably great about the whole thing except when he's asked to draw racist caricatures, which he does quite a bit, we'll get into those. I love the collaboration between Moore and O'Neil and I frequently enjoy the little tidbits where they show up as themselves within the supplemental material. O'Neil does a lot of heavy lifting in these even at their worst, in fact especially at their worst. This comic is a legitimately impressive achievement, and I don't regret reading it, if nothing else I think it was a hell of a wake-up call in regards to all of it's warts I may have been overlooking or replicating in my work or that of others.

I'm gonna break it down by going through the individual installments:

Volume 1: One of the nicest things there is to League is that it only keeps getting better, in the sense that it starts off on the worst foot and it gets better by virtue of not really being able to get worse (yes, even with the Golleywog and Harry Potter sections and whatever). From the moment you open the book it takes about six pages for Mina to be assaulted by Brute Arab Rapist Hordes that Quatermain and Nemo have to gun down, and that pretty much sets the stage on what to expect. Volume 1 is where the series has yet to jump off the deep end in tackling all of fiction, being a more grounded adventure story based on it's premise of being a comic book crossover/hero team comprised of Victorian era literary characters. It's LOEG at it's shallowest and most straightforward, and also at it's least impressive. I'm not remotely charmed by much of what's done here, I've seen a million variants of these before and many of those weren't that great either, but their lows weren't as catastrophic.

(text comes from an essay Alan Moore wrote regarding his usage of Fu Manchu in the book, which was scanned and sent to me by @mirrorfalls, thank you for that.)

The LOEG's first enemy is Fu Manchu and the book sure likes depicting leering hordes of yellow peril cartoons for our heroes, Mr Hyde in particular, to brutally mow down. Alan Moore thought the genius trick to making Fu Manchu not-racist was to make him as inscrutable and sinister as possible so as to not even appear human, which is a great understanding of how racial caricatures work guys, the "not potentially offensive" shirt has people asking a lot of questions answered by it.

I've heard a lot of claims over the years that LOEG was intended to be a parody, or satire, and that it's using Fu Manchu to make a point as a criticism of the British Empire and imperialism, and I'm gonna make this clear before we move on: LOEG is not a parody or satire, not as a whole. It parodies and satirizes a lot of things, but it is neither parody nor satire. It is very much in love with much of it's subject matter even when it wants to burn it down. LOEG is also a frankly terrible critique of imperialism, it is one of the most imperialist things I've ever read. Part of it is because you can't just recycle problematic garbage and claim it's commentary, especially when you're going out of your way to sensationalize said garbage to be provocative or in many cases add shit that wasn't even there in the first place. Moore asked if anyone else was gonna try and criticize colonialist bigotry in fiction by tripling down on reproducing it as hard as possible, and then didn't wait for an answer before doing it.

Volume 2: Objectively an improvement over the first if only because Fu Manchu isn't there. It's also where the book kinda improves in terms of making a critique. LOEG never really has much to say about it's characters, instead developing them in service of the story or social commentary, and Volume 2 is better at it than the first. Still has a lot of the same problems as 1, it's still a shallow team-up thing that wants to have it's cake and eat it too, it's still the worse version of a concept that's been done many many times before and after. Edward Hyde gets the bulk of the focus here and he was very clearly Moore and O'Neil's favorite character to work on, he gets the most memorable sequences for better or worse. I don't wanna talk about him much and I don't wanna talk about how the book wraps up the Invisible Man's subplot (and how it's not even gonna be the last time sexual violation of a villain is played for oh-so-horrific catharsis), I'd frankly like to stop thinking about it.

The Traveler's Almanac was definitely the most exhausting part to read in full and only not a total waste of time because of Jess Nevins' annotations, which turn this into fairly valuable research material. But so do Wold Newton articles and they're really not the most riveting thing to read, and at least those have a point or constrain themselves to a single topic or character, or are briefer and come with resources on hand or have a point or even can pitch some neat/cool ideas and concepts as a whole. Jess Nevins even did the better version of this in his own WNU chronologies.

Where as this is just complete ass and there's only so many times you can read a variant of "and then we went to this place with horrible cannibal savages and then we went to the other place with beautiful cannibal savages and then we found this utopia and then we found this dystopia and then we referenced this and that and this and that", and it brings me to another point I'd also seen brought up a lot in regards to LOEG: that it's too damn anglocentric to live up to it's premise, too contradictory within itself, and it was always too big of an undertaking to be done the way Moore and O'Neill did it.

I appreciate Moore trying to make this world feel like a world, in as gigantic all-encompassing a scale as he could possibly account for, with a full world tour and internal chronology. I sure would have liked a big fiction crossover almanac with entire chapters for Africa and China and South America, but we don't get that, because EVERYTHING in them is taken from colonial texts elevated to fact. Literally, entire paragraphs taken from political and colonial texts. All the time spent dicking around with all of those Euro political texts and ancient lore that just had to be paid it's due, and then Orlando goes to China and finds Sun Wukong stuffed as a public freakshow and dismisses his mythos as a bunch of loony (but intriguing and exotic!) hogwash, and Godzilla is later brought up in one line of dialogue to mention how Hugo Hercules killed him offscreen. (I think those might be the only two texts Moore brings up that aren't from European/American sources? There might be others but good luck finding them in the annotations).

Is it unfair to expect Moore to have read all of fiction? Of course it is, but that's what he wants this to be about, he wants this to be about All of Fiction and he wants to write about Africa and China and South America with nothing but colonial texts about those places as reference. He wants to write about how the things he likes are cool and happened and are real while the things he doesn't like don't count or are garbage or didn't happen the way we were told happened. He wants to make a story criticizing racism and misogyny in fiction while writing a text far more racist and misogynistic than most of the things he's bringing up. It's irreconcilable.

Black Dossier: It's constantly jumping between different formats and having to adjust it's prose and visual style accordingly, and it does that fairly well (the beatnik section is completely fucking unreadable though, the prose sections are already a handful to get through as is but that one was too much even for me), although Tempest I think is gonna do it much better. It's got some good parts, it's also got some bad ones. Definitely more readable than the prior two + Almanac.

This is the one with the Gollywog in it and I'm not gonna talk about that thing, I think what's wrong with it is self-explanatory as is. Look, I truly love a lot of Moore's work I've read, and I think a lot of the pushback against Alan Moore painting him as just a cranky old man who hates comics is overblown and shitty and symptomatic of bigger issues with how fans discuss comics and superheroes, but his defense of the Gollywog and his response to the criticisms of LOEG was embarassing and beneath him.

Century: This is the one with Harry Potter and The Lightning Penis in it. To those of you who heard at some point that Alan Moore had done a much-maligned pisstake on Harry Potter and got curious, don't get your hopes up. It's nothing, it's not even that mean, it's just a crude crayon doodle in service of a larger and very dumb critique of modern fiction that could have been anyone. Shame that he bullseyed ahead of the schedule the cultural about-face against Harry Potter without having anything actually criticizing Harry Potter to show for it.

Century does work for me a bit better because it dispenses with the pretense of the series and has it build up to the big awful tragedy it ends on, with all of it's remaining characters miserable immortals and all the fictions having curdled up and gone sour. It works for me only because I have no love whatsoever for this world and so it destroying our characters in the service of the larger narrative about stories and fictional immortality and whatnot is a decision I agree with and I think makes it stronger, even if the social commentary / the story's criticism of modern stories compared to the old ones is frankly absurd. Century I think was perceived as Moore/O'Neill having lost the plot, but to me it feels like the plot (more importantly, the point of it) finally showing up after so much pointless dicking around.

The Nemo trilogy: Easily the one I most enjoyed reading, the Nemo Trilogy is almost like a breather set in between books, just fairly straightforward pulp adventure stories done in far less rancid a fashion than Volume 1. It feels less like a LOEG book and more like one of those LOEG fanfics made by people who like the concept and characters but are dissappointed by the books, so they fill or add or rewrite in the blanks with their own ideas, which is basically every LOEG fanfic ever made. I quite like Janni Dakkar as a character and I'm already a huge mark for Captain Nemo, one of my favorite characters ever, and I was of course very glad to get away from the extremely tiresome Mina/Allan/Orlando trio for a change. Frankly I'd even recommend these as a standalone, they're so disconnected from everything else in LOEG.

If you guys want to read a comic take on Captain Nemo though, read Mobilis by Juni Ba. Infinitely better than anything Moore did with the concept of Nemo, takes far less pages to actually explore the character meaningfully and has far more interesting, more humane and personal things to say and do in general, one of the best things I ever read and a tremendous palette cleanser after LOEG.

Tempest: Tempest is what I'd call the best of the LOEG books, in terms of craft and in terms of achieving what it sets out to do. Namely, it's one of the most elaborate and most artistically impressive slowly unfurling middle fingers I'd ever read, Alan and Kevin in full burning down the house mode throwing everything they've got at the wall, playing around with as many different styles and gags and ideas as they can cram into the great apocalyptic ending of their collaboration. It's a very spiteful work that has a lot of joy and humor to it, fully divested from giving a shit about it's characters and instead recasting them as the bit players they always were in the grand fuckening of humanity at the hands of our fictions.

It gets to burn down everything and also preserve everything in a big dreamy Noah's Ark forever, it plays to every strength the series had, and frankly I barely minded the detours because this thing is all detours. The superhero parody that takes up so much of it isn't really anything funny or insightful or really anything, but there's good bits in it, and I like Alan Moore talking trash about superheroes (of course, it pales in comparison to What Can We Know About Thunderman, but that one is a league of it's own). It's Alan and Kevin's farewell to comics with all the mixed feelings towards it and the industry and the subject matter they both have decades of so much experience with it. It is The End of Everything and I think it ended on the best note it could have ended with.

In summary, I think LOEG has a lot of individually cool or neat or even great ideas that I think get lost, because there is so, so much of it, and so much of it is impressively painted sludge. Sometimes it is ingenious, sometimes it is fun, it is never not visually impressive, but it's more frequently dull and grotesquely self-indulgent and far too shallow. It suffers from an almost inescapable side effect of doing this dealing with the fiction he was dealing with without accounting for taste or bothering to reign in his worst impulses, too much to cover and not enough actually being said about it. In truth, much of it doesn't feel much different than reading the wiki summaries for it I had already read forever ago. It is a unique beast taking swings that I'd never seen before that most wouldn't, probably for very good reasons most of the time. It is also guilty of literally everything it's criticizing other works of being and doing, and sometimes it actually provides it's best commentary because of that! It's a complicated thing to tackle and wrap your head around. God knows what Jess Nevins must have gone through to make the annotations for this, as they put it on the Almanac annotations.

I don't consider it wasted time because, I did really enjoy the final two installments, there are good bits scattered across the other books and I learned some good things from it as a whole, but would I recommend it in it's entirety? Unless you're really a huge fan or completionist for it's creators (although reading LOEG really disillusioned me on Moore in a lot of ways, not that this is a bad thing, if anything that's a necessary thing to really try and grasp a creator's body of work) or you're the kind of sicko who'd be in the tank for the whole thing, no, not really.

It is one of the most impressive and accomplished works I've ever read, I will probably come back to it for research purposes, but holy shit am I glad to put it behind me.

#also thank you davidmann for sending me the epilogue #replies tag #loeg #league of extraordinary gentlemen #alan moore #kevin o'neill #abc comics #comics

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skyenish · 1 year

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Twisted Wonderland Personality Swap AU

Thanks so much for the support on my previous posts, it really means a lot to me. Because of that, I've decided to continue writing for this AU and keep you all updated! I'll also be using this post to answer some of your questions. (In this AU the Housewardens and Vice-Housewardens switched personalities)

I went ahead and made some doodles for Ruggie, Leona, Jamil and Kalim (Ruggie with Leona's eyes scares me tbh)

Questions/explanations/clarifications:

-I didn't change the characters' backstories (unless specifically stated). Riddle still has a horrible mom, Trey's family still owns a bakery, Leona is still second prince, Ruggie is still dirt-poor, etc.

-What changed is how the characters reacted to their respective trauma I guess, which resulted in their personalities changing.

-Their personalities are not exact copies of eachother. For example, Riddle isn't just Trey but with red hair. He's very similar to Trey, yes, but they have a few differences in their personalities too.

-I'll explain how the characters became the way they are over time. Plus, it's also fun to think about it yourself, right?

-I've already worked out Heartslabyul, Savanaclaw, Octavinelle and Scarabia.

-I'm planning on doing every dorm, but I play on the English server so I haven't finished book 6 yet.

-Yes, I'm planning on having the Vices + Kalim overblot, and to do that I'll be using their already canonically established backstories.

-I am NOT a professional artist, nor do I have ANY experience with drawing comics, but just know that I'm passionate about this little project and will work hard to make it as good as possible.

-I'm busy with school (I'm busy in general lol), so I don't have a lot of time to work on this AU- I've been sick for the past 4 days, which is why I could post so much.

-If you have literally any questions, just ask. I love to read you guys' reactions!

Characters:

Jamil wears his hair in a loose braid in this AU, since I don't think he has the patience to braid his hair the way he originally does and his hair is kinda connected to his personality. Jamil is much more optimistic and positive, and he's always supportive. People seem to naturally like him, which annoys Kalim. Jamil always tries to look at things from a positive perspective, trying to make the best out of his situation, though it's not that bad for him, because Jamil genuinely thinks that Kalim is amazing. When he got an invitation to NRC he INSISTED that Kalim come as well. Jamil always wants to throw feasts, and if his master allows it, he'll disappear in the kitchen to cook enough food to feed 3 entire dorms for a week. Jamil frequently tries to get Kalim to relax, because he just wants him to be happy, but Kalim then reminds him that they're at NRC to study. (I already talked about Kalim in a previous post but I'll copy paste it here too)

In this AU, Kalim is much stricter, much more focused and MUCH more responsible. He studies rigorously and insisted on actually working hard to earn his position as Housewarden instead of his family buying the position for him. He’s very sharp, quite intelligent, and is annoyed by his naïve servant and his carefree attitude, who keeps following him around.

Leona is a menace, playful, optimistic and cunning, but he also puts a lot of work into his dorm and school. He knows he has to work had to achieve his goals and he knows that he has a lot of responsibilities. He values hard work.

Ruggie is the complete opposite to Leona though. He is lazy, quick to irritate, and forces lower-classmen to do his work for him because he just wants to sleep. Ruggie is a terrible student, never showing up for class or duties and never putting in any effort. He feels like no matter what he does or how hard he works, he'll never make any changes and his life won't ever get better anyways, especially with a high-and-mighty prince as his Housewarden. He thinks that nothing he does is of any use , so why bother at all, right?

Thanks for reading this word vomit, reblogging would be appreciated lol

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emillyverse · 2 months

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This is not an update to the Comic, but it still has something to do with it !!!

(call it a little gift for the Wish Rewrite and KoW fandom)

Hello my little stars! How are you?

I mentioned in the last post in the series that I would be traveling for a week or two and that's why I wouldn't be working. Well I'm still traveling Lmao.

It's been a lot of fun, I'm visiting my Prince Charming and family, both of whom I haven't been to in a long time. Still, I couldn't stop thinking about KoW and Wish's Concept Arts. Disney sealed the fate of its fan artists by discarding so much good material, now they are embedded in our minds and we will not be able to rest until we see them realized. This is crazy but it's beautiful to see how much these discarded concepts generated creative potential in the fandom.

Because of all this I couldn't help but make some small sketches! And well, I came to show them here. They are not sketches of Comic panels, but they have something to do with it and I will show the photos and explain how.

This first one, very faded, are Magnificent and Amable's clothes (designed by @uva124, for the characters in @annymation's rewrite of Wish "The Kingdom of Wishes"). The drawings that Aled did are very complex, I don't judge her for that, in fact I thank her, she gave beautiful clothes to the centuries-old Disney villains and they are perfect. I really wish I could draw them with all the details, but I will do everything by hand, alone and seeking a minimally professional quality (I want to be a comic artist/book illustrator one day. This comic is my first step Lmao, and I want to do something that conveys the best I can give at the moment), so I need to make some things easier for myself. The costumes are one of those things.

" Better something simple and well done than complex and poorly done." — This is my motto for this Comic and for my life.

The next sketches are related to aesthetics. I've been watching a lot of "Analyzing the Art" videos of some Disney films and I was inspired to adopt some "Disney Style" features in my arts for this comic (not everything obviously, because I don't want to be sued by Disney lmao).

What you'll see next is me trying to mix this influence with my own style in some KoW character sketches.

(this last art specifically references a meme in which @rascalentertainments tagged me, Thanks for that, by the way! <3 )

(credits to the artist, I don't know who it is because I was just tagged in this meme and I was busy So I didn't look for more information, but I'll leave the post link and you can check the official credits)

Speaking of aesthetics. Anny received Chiara's aesthetic from someone — the north star, "daughter of Aster", created by his magic at the very end of Anny's fanfic. This Aesthetic inspired me to create an aesthetic for Asha and Aster too and these were the results:

What's your favorite?

Lmao, It took a lot of work to make Aster's. There are almost no things for "starboys" on Pinterest.

I'm leaving this up to you to share as you wish, consider it a gift to the fandom!

Lastly, I want to say that the artistic analysis videos They also inspired me to put together a moodboard for KoW and I'll be leaving it here. Not even Anny and Aled know about this and I can't wait to see their reactions! I wish I could print this painting and leave it on the wall, but unfortunately I don't have a printer T-T.

This moodboard is helping me with the artistic direction of colors, style and is a visual motivation to stay active at work.

I hope you like it too!

That's it for today, it's already midnight in Brazil and I should be sleeping instead of posting crazy things on the internet. I'm going to tag my friends and go to sleep, Lmao.

Kisses full of light and stars!

~ Emy

@wings-of-sapphire @flicklikesstuff @frogcoven88 @chillwildwave @gracebethartacc @gracebethartacc @kstarsarts @oh-shtars Come and get your therapies after the anguish caused by certain publications by Anny!

#kingdom of wishes #wish reimagined #wish rewrite #wish 2023 #disney wish #artists on tumblr #asha wish #starboy #starsha #the kingdom of wishes desings #the kingdom of wishes au comic #the kingdom of wishes au #behind the papers?#behind the scenes #aesthetic #scketchbook #scketchs #please write tags for me when reblogging #I am feeling lazy

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nemo-draco · 27 days

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Bendy: Secrets of the Machine Thoughts

Putting them under a spoiler cut for readability

So far, there is a lot of intrigue regarding GENT and their role, as well as the potential return of the Nightmare Run characters.

GENT's involvement so far as been more on the sidelines in the games. It's implied they have similar issues with the supernatural, and they are running experiments with the ink the Machine produces, the books also backing this up with the reappearance of Archie Carter. However, with the new character. Riley Wells, introduced, it creates a more interesting layer to this, in that it is implied that she was recruited by GENT shortly following her dismissal from JDS. Now, if she is a villain or a victim is up for debate. It could be that they hired her as a test subject similar to Archie Carter and her metamorphosis was just far more severe as a result of the traumatic experience in her childhood, or perhaps she provided the specs that ended up producing a real-life version of "Bloodwheel", the more monster-y version of Gaskette that even gets a whole song in Riley's flashback.

Riley's story is also interesting in that it provides a canon explanation for why the Nightmare Run toons are more monstrous, though it really only does so for Gaskette. She's never shown drawing any of the other bosses, just him. Which makes me wonder if maybe she was part of the character design for only him, and the others are all going to get their own stories later on in the game. I really do hope they go this route, mostly because it would be a nice callback to the no longer available Nightmare Run, and you could have some real fun with the bosses 'backstories', depending on how involved you want to be.

Can think of a few things immediately off the bat: Chester being another example of a childhood fear turned into a debilitating trauma, except involving someone who has thalassophobia strong enough to rival H.P. Lovecraft. Kind of paves the way for a lot of spooky imagery involving the ocean, ocean life, and ink.

Dewey at first seemed a little comical to think about in this context, after all, a fear of librarians seems extreme, though thinking more on it my thought is that he's the product of a different type of emotional stuckage. Instead of a fearful person, perhaps Dewey was created by a very angry person, someone who had a lot of trouble controlling their temper and would frequently blow up at seemingly minor issues. After all, Dewey's main character trait seems to be his temper, as we remember from his character card that he has a disproportionate reaction to Bendy knocking over some books. Granted, between the fact that the exact quantity of books is never mentioned, and a cartoon being a cartoon, it makes me wonder if Bendy might not have knocked over a few books, but more likely a few stacks or even whole shelves worth. I mean, what's funnier, a few books coming down or the library getting a spontaneous remodeling job thanks to a careless patron?

...It's probably not so fun for the librarian, but you get my point. So, potentially, we have someone who has a temper problem creating this character as a way to offset their issues. It might just be less helpful and creating a bit of a feedback loop, where they're constantly ruminating over their problems rather than addressing and moving on from them.

Canoodle was another one that eluded me a bit, though there are two potential driving forces that could have fueled his creation. On one front, junkyards aren't exactly friendly places sometimes, and it would be easy for some sort of accident to happen that could produce some sort of negative association, though there is also the fact that a sentient can being in a junkyard creates this almost weird mental image. You'd think that'd be a dangerous place for him, and this is somewhat proven true if you beat him in Nightmare Run, as he's promptly crushed and disposed of. So, perhaps a preoccupation with death, or a person who is constantly cheating bad or dangerous circumstances? It's something, and it could definitely be interesting played out if that's the direction they're planning on going with this.

There are also plenty of other fun moments and little easter eggs for fans, so either way, we do get something fun. I would honestly be over the moon if they did something for all of the Nightmare Run toons though. Gaskette is a good nod, and Riley's backstory intrigues me given the circumstances, and especially the apparent involvement with GENT. Kinda makes me wonder if they're, in a sense, keeping tabs on people who were associated with JDS, people who maybe would have some stronger ties to the art being produced there and potentially have a bigger reaction when the ink is used on them.

It's something to think about, for sure. If anything, I'll enjoy using these puzzle pieces in my own work.

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slytherinshua · 11 months

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WE MEET AGAIN

genre. fluff. warnings. kissing. they kinda diss a person together lol. pairing. jinmichae/dried squid fairy x fem!reader. wc. 1k. request. no. a/n. was i the only one who didn't know he had a name... 🧍‍♀️ i know jinmichae = dried squid fairy but still i just didn't know 🧍‍♀️

The thing Jinmichae hated the most about story hopping is fitting into his role without struggle. From a prince to the school’s dried squid chef to a college professor. And now he was in this world where he was a… bodyguard? A bodyguard to whom? He hadn’t quite figured it out. The story had only just started. He presumed he was a side character again, and the thought came with a heavy sigh. When would he ever get his chance to love on the stage as well?

There was nothing he could do about his role or his fate to stick as a side character, for that matter. The writer did whatever the writer deemed best with little regard for the characters who obtained consciousness. Jinmichae had always been the first to do so. Maybe that was his fate instead. Being painfully aware of everything going on without being able to do anything about it.

There was one thing he did like about story hopping, though. If he was lucky enough, he would stumble across you as the story progressed. He liked to see what role the writer put you in this time. Jinmichae was at least thankful that both him and you were centre characters to be included every time. At least you still existed.

He hadn’t found you yet, though. He hadn’t had much chance. He was currently having all these thoughts while at a… conference? Meeting? Of sorts? The room was filled with dozens of other men dressed in similar suits to his, each with walkie-talkies and earpieces. At least the costume design was pleasing.

The stage ended quickly and Jinmichae was free to walk around and investigate this new world a bit. That’s the lie he told himself every time. “Investigate the new world”, what that really meant was look for you. Sometimes he would laugh at the role you were given if it didn’t suit your personality, sometimes he would just be in awe. Sometimes he just missed you a lot and didn’t even care.

With quick steps around the building he was in, he figured it was some sort of company or corporation. There were many meeting rooms and lobby areas filled scarcely with prettily dressed people. He approached the front desk to ask if there was a library in the building. With newfound directions, Jinmichae made his way up a spiralling staircase and into a quiet (and enormous) mahogany designed library. It took up the entire 4th floor of this corporate building.

“It’ll take forever to find it…” He let out a soft sigh, anticipating his search that would take hours just to find the comic book for this world.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

He turned immediately at the sound of your voice, finding you standing right behind him, comic book already in hand, a lazy smile splayed on your lips. He laughed astonishingly at how easily you had snuck up on him, and how you had already managed to find the book.

“Let me see the character list.” He murmured, walking to you, arm wrapping around your shoulder naturally. You relaxed into his touch, smelling the faint citrusy scent.

“She gave you a new cologne, huh?” You remarked, flipping open the book to the first page. Jinmichae only hummed, eyes flicking over the drawings of the characters.

“Looks like you’ve got the main role.” He whispered a little teasingly, “A rich heiress to the most successful company in South Korea? No wonder there’s so many bodyguards downstairs.”

“Wasn’t my idea.” You giggled, trying to find his character among the list. “Damn, not even a name. You’re just ‘bodyguard’.” You wheezed.

“Maybe I won’t have that many scenes, then.” He seemed at ease with it, both arms now wrapped around you, hugging you comfortably.

“Nice for you. Ugh, but look at my love interest. This just won’t do.” You scoffed, looking over the profile of the character. A wanted criminal, arms adorned with tattoos all the way up to his neck and too many piercings to count. You glanced back at Jinmichae to see his eyebrows furrowed in distaste.

“He probably smells like cigarettes.” He quipped, grip tightening on you slightly.

“Wouldn’t doubt it.” You sighed, turning around in his arms so you were now facing him, “When will the author ever realise that my type is not a walking colouring book. He really looks quite disgusting.” You fake gagged, making Jinmichae chuckle.

“Who is your type then?” He asked with fake curiosity, already knowing the answer better than anyone else.

“Hm… I do know of this blond guy, he used to smell like cedarwood, but apparently it's more orangey now. Anyway, he’s very fond of dried squid, and you know, so am I. Really a match made in heaven, if you asked me.” You rambled, humouring him. The longer you went on with the description, the harder it was for Jinmichae to keep a straight face, and eventually, he let out a laugh.

You glanced back at the drawing of your love interest one more time, scoffing again. “I’ll probably throw up if there’s a kiss scene.” You said, the chances not that low.

“If there is a kiss scene, I’ll come find you.”

“What for?” You looked back at him, adoring the way his eyes seemed to only want to look at you.

“To get his cigarette taste off your lips, of course.” He smiled and you grinned cheekily.

“You’re only a nameless bodyguard, though. Are you sure you have the power to do such a feat?” You liked teasing him, maybe a little too much.

“Shall I show you just how capable I am?” He suggested smoothly.

“We’re in a library.” You deadpanned.

Jinmichae’s eyes flicked over the very empty room, “An empty library.”

“At least get behind a bookshelf or something, we’re still in the entrance.” You said, already grabbing his wrist to lead him somewhere a bit more secluded. “Is it scandalous for an heiress to kiss her bodyguard?” You wondered aloud, your hand already travelling up to the base of his hair, fingers sliding through it softly.

“Not sure I’m the right person to ask.” He responded, lips finding yours a second later.

If it was truly scandalous, neither of you really cared.

↳ k-drama taglist: @yeonjuns-redhair,, @wolfmoonmusic

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wyntereyez · 10 months

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GalaxyCon

I should probably post about GalaxyCon before I forget everything, huh?

My first day was Saturday and I. Was not prepared. Most of the cons I’ve attended are fandom-specific, and can draw large crowds, but nothing compared to this. According to a news article the next day, there were some 50,000 attendees.

I’d originally only planned to go Saturday, but then Colin’s panel was announced for Sunday, so I got another ticket for then. Saturday was spent beating my way through the crowds (or, more accurate, being beaten) - and getting my photo op with Colin.

It’s been four years since I’d last seen him at Enchanted 2, and damn, he looked amazing. The op was brief, because they do thousands of photos in one day, so I barely had time to do more than say ‘hi’ and ‘thank you.’ He thanked me for coming, and at that point I remembered just how blue his eyes were, and how lovely that Irish brogue is, since it’s currently very thick after being in Ireland for so long. Yup, I still swoon for Colin.

I didn’t get an autograph, but a friend did, and I hung around in line with her until were almost to Colin. His line was so long, it wrapped into the next aisle. I’m not sure the staff anticipated his popularity. And while I was in line, someone told Colin how long his line was, and he gave a little “Yeah!” and put up his arms.

Then we have the Sunday panel. I’m trying to remember as much as I can, but I know I’ll miss things. I’ll put it under a cut, since this is starting to run long.

First of all, kudos to the panel moderator, who helped rephrase questions and guide Colin so he could follow strike rules. That can’t have been easy, so good on GalaxyCon for being prepared and still being able to give us a great panel experience.

Colin was introduced as that actor from That Show, and That Other Show, and That One Movie, etc. At some point, OUAT became ‘The Thing,’ and now I want to embrace that as the show’s alternate title. Also, that would be an awesome crossover.

Anyway... We got a brief introduction, and Colin talked about how hot it was (it had been well over 90 degrees, with a Real Feel of over a hundred, on the day he arrived) and how he’d chosen to wear a suit jacket over his t-shirt and had Regrets.

He apologized for if he was difficult to understand, because he knew how thick his accent was, but someone yelled out they loved it, which he then said was why he brought it up, because he wanted people to say that.

He also said he was doing the panel because he liked having people tell him how great he was, to which the moderator had the entire crowd yell out, “You’re great!”

Then we got to the most bizarre mix of questions I’ve ever heard, and it was wonderful. Things we learned included:

- Colin owns 30 guitars, one of which belonged to Ringo Starr. He has another one that belonged to someone famous, but I can’t remember whom

- If he were a dog breed, he’d be a black Labrador retriever mix

- If he were a comic book superhero (the comic part is very important) he’d want to be Batman. He wanted to be Superman once, but now he wants to be Batman. He earned a blue candy for this, which he promptly put in his mouth with predictable results. Dude, don’t eat candy when you know you’re gonna have questions, LOL.

- Voice acting roles aren’t taboo, so he talked a bit about how different it was to voice Douxie, and how different it was to do dialogue in a booth because he had to be more dynamic rather than speak normally. He also at one point did a bit of Gerry the Leprechaun for us.

- Colin was asked about his feelings on ‘Rise of the Titans.’ He said he enjoyed it, then said he trusted the writers to know what’s best for the characters. I’m not sure if that’s how he really felt, or if he’s just being careful.

- If he were two scoops of ice cream, he’d be pistachio and vanilla - the real vanilla, with the bean.

- He likes pineapple on pizza. He will accept no criticism of this.

- If that one character with the thing on his hand had a dog breed, it would be a black Labrador retriever mix.

- Something he did for The Thing was play INXS’s ‘Need You Tonight’ and did a little strut while wearing the coat. Colin demonstrated. I died.

- When asked what comic villain he would want to be, he said the Joker. This earned him a green candy. He ate it, though he also said he didn’t care for the candy. Colin, why.

- If he could have one mythical creature as a pet, it would be Cerberus. But the heads would be black Labrador retriever mixes. I’m starting to think Colin really loves his dog.

- At one point, Colin said he was having a lot of trouble with this, and that he was worried he’d say the wrong thing. The panel mod assured him that he was doing well. I felt bad for him, because yeah, this can’t have been easy.

- Colin was asked what his most ridiculous phobia is. Colin answered that he fears NOTHING. Except panels.

- When asked if he still talks to people from The Thing, he said a very firm but teasing NO - then proceeded to list a number of people that he does, in fact, talk to.

- Then there’s the beard... at the end of the panel, he said he can’t talk about it, but there’s a reason he has the ‘stupid beard.’ He really doesn’t like it, and it’s kind of hilarious that thanks to the strike, he’s kinda stuck with it for an indeterminate period of time.

And that’s all I remember. If you have more, please add to this post!

#colin o'donoghue #galaxycon #galaxycon 2023 #galaxycon raleigh

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probablyhuntersmom · 1 year

Text

A Look at Hunter's Complex PTSD (Part 1)

Alrighty, here is the first part of excerpts about Complex PTSD that I have compiled from a beautiful, poignant and funny memoir, “What My Bones Know” by Stephanie Foo, which I will be linking to Hunter’s character arc with as much detail and as many screencaps as possible.

Other sources of info in these analyses are wise words from my seasoned internship supervisor (in total, about 170 supervision hours clocked in with her) during my past training before I got licensed to practice, my own lived experience with Complex PTSD, and loosely drawing anything relevant from almost 3 years’ experience with my own clients’ cases so far.

Special thanks goes to my friendo @wordsdarkerthantheirwiings (do check out her mental health blog!) for recommending this great book to me ^_^

Trigger warnings have been tagged in this post, and there will be multiple mentions of trauma and abuse in this series that I’m putting together.

I will be sharing parts of the book by following the order of the chapters, while the Hunter scenes might occasionally jump here and there and not be as chronological in order.

I’ll start with the author’s first overview of how PTSD works:

Someone with PTSD has a brain which tends to flag things on a scale of life-or-death. Their brain will shoot out what it believes to be the appropriate emotional response to perceived danger.

The above pic is so important. It may not be “reasonable” or “rational” as what we know those two words to mean on a normal day, but dare I say that it is its own reasoning and rationale. It’s a condition whereby the brain forms powerful associations after a life-or-death experience (or many such experiences), with the goal of protecting us but which can be debilitating after the real danger has passed. You could say it’s a state of being overprepared, almost constantly.

Related to the above statement, I’ll show one of the more light-hearted moments from Hollow Mind that happened before the true horrors really showed themselves in the second half of that episode:

It’s a more comical moment here, but the “Boo!” sound from the walkie talkie triggered a very believable response from Hunter. He raises his hands automatically to shield himself, in case he gets attacked. It’s not the exact pose as when he flinches when Belos makes physical contact with him (my bet is that if Hunter raised his arms high like this in front of Belos, he may have been punished or chastised for not standing stoic, strong and portraying “proper” Golden Guard strength) but is kind of along the same lines.

However, Hunter has undergone very strict military training, requiring him to be prepared for new scenarios including strange foreign noises or stimuli, which I would say has been both a risk factor and protective factor in his life. This will be covered in greater detail in future analyses. Therapists use the terms "risk factors" and "protective factors" when looking at what may worsen or improve our clients' conditions.

Related to above, Titan knows how many times Hunter has been struck and threatened like this, traumatized perhaps hundreds of times over the course of years:

Importantly, I believe he has gone through both Big T (e.g. a single life-changing event like a car accident) and Little T trauma (many ‘smaller’ instances, like getting yelled at four times a week over a duration of years), since this can certainly be the case for some people. In later parts of this exploration, I will cite examples of the various Big T and Little T traumas Hunter has experienced.

Like what happened with the book author, making mistakes is especially dangerous in Hunter’s case because Belos heavily implies that he will disown him or get rid of him if he slips up enough.

Dozens of people have also let him down and have been bystanders:

Is the world a threat to him? Well, there are very few places where he would feel safe. Hell, I bet he’s even safer while away on missions than when he is in his own room. But he always had to return home to the castle, or else. He has been manipulated into placing the most trust in the one person who cares the least for him.

In the following section, the author highlights how she would see flashes of her abusive father in other people, even years after her father left the picture:

For Hunter, being physically distant from Belos didn't erase his triggers. Him preparing for a possible strike from Darius in Any Sport in a Storm:

and the mirror scene in Thanks to Them, where he panics after seeing a flash of Belos as he is looking at his own long hair:

are relevant examples of him feeling as if his abuser is right there, when Belos isn’t actually present.

I have a few of my own examples, the first of which is how I had a couple of peers in classes who had bullying tendencies: and they would have crooked smiles and narrowed eyes that are eerily similar to my own parents’ expressions whenever I had traumatizing moments with my parents. Whenever these people had those evil-looking grins, I would either feel intense fear and/or rage.

Plus on two different occasions, I thought an abusive ex-housemate of mine that I lived with for 2 years was in the same room..many months after I got away from her.

The first incident was seeing someone who looked almost exactly like her (her beanie hat, black coat and black boots were the exact same shades and shapes), just a different hair colour and slightly diff eye shape, in a bookstore. Till today I still have no idea why this other girl stopped whatever she did just to stare at me with a sullen expression across the store space for maybe half a minute. I remember freezing and hiding behind the two friends I was with, whispering to them “I feel like that could be her…”, in case that girl turned out to be really her, because I felt she was still not done with criticizing my mistakes from our shared group project and saying awful things to me several months before that, even though I already blocked her across all platforms in 2015 and made a callout post here on Tumblr without naming her.

The second incident was a year after, when I was at the office and scrolled past a photo of Kristen Stewart (of all people..my ex-housemate looks a lot like her, especially the mouth) on my laptop, and for a solid minute I very strongly smelled this ex-friend’s perfume. I remember darting around wildly because I was beginning to believe she had followed me all the way there to sneak up on me, in the office that had doors locked with security codes. I felt she was about to turn a nearby blind corner and come for me. But the scent faded away after a minute, and I was left there in shock that my broken brain reenacted a scenario involving her presence and her perfume. Fascinating, honestly. Luckily Kristen Stewart pics no longer scare me like that.

So yeah, the Hunter mirror scene…I felt that spooky stuff. Eerie, right? PTSD, what more Complex PTSD, can rewire your brain and it does try its best to protect you, but it can be rather wonky sometimes. Children who are abused in a manner that results in Complex PTSD are hyper-alert to even the smallest twinges in facial expressions.

To continue:

Our poor boy might have been jumpy and guarded in a number of other scenarios, potentially misinterpreting or simply not knowing what was going to happen, therefore his whole body was geared up for a fight-or-flight response:

Thank goodness he had Flapjack in those months, along with the friends he would meet, and later Camila as well.

Like the author, Hunter definitely does not have one foundational trauma. Having been isolated by Belos, he was alone and defenseless in that throne room many many times. He has emerged with so many visible scars on his body and having to create his own identity on his own terms. At this rate, exposure therapy would not be enough as a treatment plan for him. His web of relationships and interactions with people and the world need a major reframing, for his state of being and view of self to be positive and leading to peace and self-acceptance. In fact, this reframing has already been unfolding gradually, with twists and turns along the way:

And losing Flapjack recently and feeling the effects of moral injury, may be the ultimate test for him as to where to place his trust. One of those places has to be in himself in order to advance forward.

The book is about how the author found hope in having to live with Complex PTSD for the rest of her life, and her early years of investigating what happened to her seemed bleak. However, she found relevant people to contact and interview over the years, to uncover new hopeful sources of info about the condition, which will be in my later analyses.

Is Hunter a lost cause (quoting Belos’s awful words from Thanks to Them..)? I wouldn’t say so! I obviously hope he’ll be alright in the remaining two specials…

Stay tuned for Part 2 next weekend.

#toh hunter #golden guard #toh analysis #the owl house #abuse mention #trauma mention #long post #complex ptsd #cptsd #hunter's cptsd #loz writes a meta

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