#a bit over-animated?...sure but AI-generated? fuck off

[silvadour]

One Piece (1999-) Ep. 1072 - "The Ridiculous Power! Gear 5th in Full Play" Episode Director: Tasuku Shimaya (嶋谷 将) Storyboarder: Megumi Ishitani (石谷 恵) Key Animator(s): Shinya Ohira (大平 晋也) & Akihiro Ota (太田 晃博)

[toffee-hammer]

Big FFXIV 7.2 MSQ spoilers below.

Okay yeah, I'm a big fan of real Sphene actually.

She spends basically the whole patch talking about how she's not Alexandria's ruler anymore and she doesn't have any place leading them after 400 years in stasis but her actions make it seem like she'd be much better at it than AI Sphene was. She's kind and compassionate the way people always talked about but she also drops a couple of hints as to where the AI Sphene's whole "HISTORY'S MOST BRUTAL QUEEN" thing might have come from (after four centuries of desperation I mean).

I was worried she'd be a generic, super passive, cinnamon roll kind of character so it's nice to see she has just a little bit of anger in her. She screams at the villains and bares her teeth and shakes with rage and asks you to destroy a walking mockery of her old friend and tells you she wants to become a combatant like she was in the old days so she can fight with you. I'm into it.

I also love that I don't hate her haircut and outfit the way I did with AI Sphene and I kinda dig her new look although I am wondering why Shale gave her the hotpants with the pockets hanging out the back to wear. Girl, you're an absolute tree compared to Sphene. Where did you get those?

Also, I kinda love "Simulant" Sphene as a villain tbh? She's just so much of an overt bastard compared to AI Sphene to an almost comical degree and she's so animated in every scene she's in that it's hard not to just love whenever she's on screen.

Seriously, I've never seen so many custom animations than when she was going off about something or other. That one scene where she was fucking with Wuk Lamat over her "soft spot" for the AI Sphene? That's the good stuff.

Also, the Underkeep dungeon where Calyx is running you through a bunch of fights to try and figure out why you're so strong so he can kill you had probably the most interesting thing in the whole patch for me. When you finish the dungeon and you're heading into the trial you pop out Azem's crystal like usual and Calyx immediately notices it.

No other villain since Shadowbringers has cared even a little bit about how we summon our battle group to fight them but Calyx sure does. I feel like that's going to be a big deal at some point.

Is my theory that Azem's crystal might get stolen/destroyed revealing that the crystal was only ever a focus and the power was in the WoL the whole time and they're now rejoined enough to use it after having practiced it a bunch not completely insane after all?

[januaryone2am]

Gametape Review - 022425

Taking me a minute to get here but lit to keep it up. Proud of the work i put in on friday. Deadass woke up at 9PM and got to work and finished the shit at like 9am next day. 

Any other thoughts on the general process before i get to it. Proud of the ideas in it. Proud that it felt more like a 2025 piece than some of the stuff i have been making in week’s prior. a lot of those felt like they were locked into some old version of myself. old ways of doing things, old printed processes, and product that was limited in its scope accordingly. 

was just looking at ell.yot’s poster before this. taking the same format and then stitching it into the tag of a shirt. i feel like he fully embodies my movie or sculpture thesis. I cannot wait to contribute on his level.

Just bought Peverse Optimist by Tibor Kalman. stoked to read that guy. realized while listening to a magnus karlsen interview that the people that are the kind of goated that i want to be love this shit more than anything. 

okay. starting off. i knew from the beginning of this night that i was exhausted by the idea of printed. and so i pivoted. was a good start. and tbh a cool part of being high. you are the right kind of lazy in that state. (the hard part obviously is that laziness begins to spread over time, from productive to anything but productive and so you have to be extremely careful w it)

cool thing to realize about AI is that it is all about how specific of a lens can you ask for. if you just ask for a drawing of a car, you get a bland car. if you can ask for a 1980’s illustration of many different car stickers then you get highly specific versions and several different reps per image generated. 

In my first images generated (first 10-20) i just got a fuckload of reps, walls of images. Some of them interesting. mostly i was just stoked to be able to get that many different ideas at once. and that some of them were cool. 

It was like this until i found my guy. and realized that he looked like he was holding a lightbulb. And that he was just cool. i like when ideas within designs are a bit meta and break the fourth wall to the viewer. this seemed like a cool way to work toward that. 

proceeded to add lightbulbs around him and the imagery felt new and different together. But also did a fuckload of edits in order to arrive at the lightbulbs. lots of pikachu esque guys. i think i did a good job not getting dismayed by half-done shit. or shit i had seen before. i just kept pushing until things were exciting. and then after they were exciting they were tiring. i was like. oh fuck now i have to spend the next 5 hours finishing this shit. and i did my best.  

i would love if i had tried to make it move. or to light up somehow. no idea how i woulda done that. or it woulda been cool to try and make it feel more real almost. not sure how that would work. but i had ideas that were like that today. clearly digital objects / images placed harshly into the real world. so the contrast is evident. coulda gone harder with that on this one somehow. the lightbulbs look quite real but the little anime guy for sure does not. Would have been cool to make that more pronounced. Also would have been cool to give him more space. This image is banging for how sick the idea is but the composition is like basically unfinished lol. Really should go back and polish it this week. make sure all the lightbulbs have a banging image of their own and make sure that they are no longer in the way of the lil anime man. the words on the lightbulb graphic should go way harder. the texture on the bulb graphic should go way harder. lots of things to level up on. Just realized that i should be playing with textured bevel way more these days.

Was so cool to see some of my heroes like it on insta. Life is so lit. this guy can be way better. Questions coming away from this. 

What are ways for me to utilize my textures while still having it feel 2025?

Should i be using AI other than midjourney to do this? it feels like the control on MJ is almost there but the almost was really fucking me up throughout this process. 50 edits of the same image, each of them failing type shit. Google that tomorrow. That can be my hour maybe. Optimizing my AI processes. i looked at rembagram’s patreon yday but should do that again. Crazy how much less cool it is to see the inside of the AI design process instead of just receiving the result. 

What is the most efficient learning i can do to optimize myself?

How much do i need to improve my skillset vs how much do i need to improve my fundamentals?

[koyagi-writes]

Animal-Hybrid-Boys-HCs.exe

Folder: Genshin-Impact Accounts (characters): Arataki Itto, Baizhu, Cyno, Gorou, Tartaglia, Tighnari, Xiao, Zhongli Query: N/A Pop-Up (warnings): Fluff, Smut (will be marked), GN!AFAB!Reader (female anatomical language), but you/your are used, overstimulation,  monsterfucking, biting, marking, inappropriate use of visions, breeding, aphrodisiacs (consensual), oviposition, drug use (mushrooms), high sex, intercrural sex (thigh fucking), semi-public sex, Spoilers?

Minors and Ageless blogs, please DNI. Koyagi does not consent to copying/plagiarism, translation, and AI data use

General

We headcanon that most (if not all) of these characters have rut or rut-adjacent experiences, and you being there makes it “worse” for them. At least you can relieve any of their pent up stress.

Arataki Itto (Oni, bull/cow)

Itto is a big, beefy boy, everyone is aware of that fact. Not only is he the tallest playable character, he’s also one of the strongest. This is all thanks to his heritage as an Oni, plus the support of the gang in his formative years.

Once you come into the picture, Itto is a big showoff; he’s an Oni, and Oni are proud beings, evident in his initiations of PDA. He’ll kiss all over, even leaving bites and hickeys--that almost mirror his markings in color--in places he knows you can’t possibly cover or hide. Also, don’t eat beans; his allergies will spike if he even kisses you.

Bulls often display unpredictable aggression, a trait that Itto and Ushi share with you. As your boyfriend, he’ll catch you off guard by playfully tackling and wrestling you. He’d try not to hurt you, but if he gets too rough a tug on his horns will immediately get him off of you. He’ll panic and worry if you’re mad at him, even almost crying as he inspects your body for injuries. Once he’s sure you’re okay, the play-fighting will cease, replaced by cuddles under the softest blankets you own. Ushi would headbutt the both of you, but otherwise makes a soft pillow once the brawl is over.

He will fold if you can scrounge up the mora to buy the both of you matching pajamas or lingerie (strawberry cow bikini strawberry cow bikini strawberry cow bikini).

(NSFW) During his rut, Itto becomes more aggressive, and advises the gang that he’ll need to be alone for about a week. Early on in the relationship, he would have Shinobu keep you busy to keep you safe (he doesn’t want to hurt you :( not even by accident) and wait the week out.

The first time you insisted on helping him, Itto was astounded. His hair disheveled, crimson skin covered in a thin layer of sweat, large teeth on full display as you entered his room, much to his protest. It doesn’t take much to get him to cave and be a bit rougher with you, and his aggressive demeanor slips as you straddle his lap and press the sweetest kisses into his skin. He has you ride him, makes you set the pace at which the two of you melt into each other. He knows you want to help him feel better, but he won’t do something unless you explicitly tell him or let him know. After a while, maybe he’ll let loose and give in to his instincts and fuck you into the mattress. He will definitely want to breed you, but again will only do it if you say so.

Outside of his rut, sex with Itto is different. The room will be filled with small giggles and moans as you indulge in each other’s bodies. He’d make stupid jokes here and there, or his mind will completely wander and he’ll start rambling while thrusting into you. On nights when you’re both tired, he’ll spoon you, and slowly grind his cock just between your thighs and play with your body, then--once he knows you’re dripping--slip it into your relaxed cunt, continuing his slow movements. He’ll build you up, groaning sweet affirmations into your ears, as he ensures your pleasure before chasing his own. There’s a chance he’ll stay inside you as you both drift off, but on most occasions, Itto will pull out, and you’ll take good care of each other for the night--mainly with snacks, water, massages and cuddles.

Extra tidbit, it’ll be hard to hide if he does breed you, since you may or may not temporarily develop some of his markings on your chest, arms and tummy.

Baizhu (Snake/serpent)

We headcanon Baizhu using he/they pronouns. Also that he can sometimes turn into a lamia/naga for the sake of our monsterfuckers.

It seems Changsheng has an effect on Baizhu’s personality. While maintaining the people skills necessary for the pharmaceutical business, he’s reserved and quiet, and rarely speaks, usually only to you, Changsheng, Gui and Qiqi. When he does speak, however, they have that traditional hissy, seductive tone. He’s lean, relying on different herbal remedies and meals to stay healthy.

Again, Baizhu is reserved, and prefers to keep his affections between the two of you, rather saving his kisses for those cozy nights in bed. Poor boy is cold-blooded, so he’ll cling to you and leech off the warmth radiating from your skin as the two of you retire to your soft bed for the night.

You and Baizhu coparent Qiqi, helping her remember various information, keeping track of her, and helping her carry the herbs she picks on harvest days. He’ll greet you with a kiss on your forehead, then take over taking care of Qiqi for the rest of the day. You guys are just like a happy little family!

He is resourceful, incorporating his venom in various supplements and remedies. They’ll even “prescribe” you some of these supplements.

(NSFW) A side note before we begin, Baizhu’s venom contains a mild aphrodisiac, one that induces or strengthens the effects of one’s heat or rut. It also may contain a very mild sedative.

During their rut, Baizhu will close the pharmacy or have Gui manage the place while he’s out of commission. He’d keep you in bed all day, gently trailing kisses, bites, and sweet nothings into your skin, before prepping the rest of your body to take him, even if you do feel a tad sleepy (You had the talk with him, and ensured that the venom’s effects were safe). They’ll have two cocks, one for eggs, and the other for his cum. He’ll wrap his body around yours, feeling how warm your soft body has gotten, then slowly push them both into you from behind. Once you’ve adjusted, he’ll begin pumping into you. They don’t need to, they can just release the eggs into you, but they know that poor little humans need friction to reach their climaxes. He’ll tease you about it, how his sweet darling would get so needy and demanding, releasing an egg with each thrust, filling you until he’s satisfied.

Outside of their rut, Baizhu will only have one cock (the other will be sheathed away). He’ll still wrap himself around you, using his coils to massage your body and help coax your orgasm. They’ll be more gentle, thrusting into you from the front, whimpering and whining your name as he indulges in your pleasure. They love cockwarming, so once they’re satisfied, be prepared to fall asleep in a sweaty, cum/egg filled mess, round with his young. There could even be a chance you give Qiqi a young sibling.

Cyno (jackal)

Cyno is about as lean as Baizhu, but has strong legs and abs, and immense stamina. He may not be a hybrid, but he’s just as protective of you as any jackal would be with its mate. The General would bring down the whole wrath of the Matra just to keep you safe and happy.

He’s mostly reserved and keeps to himself, believing air shouldn’t be wasted on frivolous words. All of that goes out the window when he retires from his duties for the night. You’d probably already be in bed, or lounging around your shared home, but once he removes the headpiece and armor, he’d cling to you and ramble, be it about a TCG match, a case he recently resolved at the Akademiya, or the meal you packed him that morning. He’d hold you close, rehearsing his dumb jokes that no doubt have you giggling into his neck.

By even associating with Cyno, you’ll become popular amongst the people of Gandharva Ville. Tighnari will sometimes have you come over to help Collei with her studies while he goes out for field research, and he trusts you dearly; you basically become family to the pair!

(NSFW) Now, we know we said that Cyno isn’t a hybrid, but we like to think he goes through something similar to rut. Every once in a while, when the stress of his work and the heat of the desert culminate into something potentially dangerous or unhealthy, he’d take a break for a while once he realizes where his mental state is taking him. During that break, he’ll have you laid out or bent over any surface in the house he deems adequate--which will probably be all of them--and take out all the stress on you. Cyno would never hurt you, clearly, but he just needs you so badly, it’s not his fault that he’s being so rough with your body, leaving blossoms of purple and red on your skin, thrusting in and out of your cunt with such fervor, going for as many rounds as he needs. At this point he doesn’t care much about getting you pregnant; if you do then you do, but if you don’t want to, he’ll at least listen to that. If you end up pregnant, it’ll just make him even more protective of you while you’re so vulnerable.

Other times, he’ll be more gentle, more rational, most in tune with your desires. Cyno’s most vocal at this point, whining and “howling” as you sink deeper into pleasure together. Some nights, you might catch him off guard, your figure adorned with violet and gold to match his attire, straddling his lap and taking care of both his and your needs. He’d hold your hips gently, gaze deep into your eyes, and beg you to push him over the edge.

No matter what time, you and Cyno have aftercare down to a science. The two of you sat down and had a long, thought out discussion about keeping each other safe before, during, and after the two of you have sex. He enjoys a warm shower, water, and cuddles afterward, and he’s willing to treat you with the utmost care. You could almost say he spoils you sometimes, and at some point you’ll both get competitive over it. You just love each other so much, you’d rather “fight” over who loves who more. Even that will end up with one of you on your backs.

Gorou (Shiba Inu)

Like Cyno, Gorou is lean, with strong legs and arms. Before meeting you, he used to spend almost all of his free time on training and building his endurance. Now, he only spends half of that time on that, opting to rather be pampered and spoiled by you, whether by brushing out his tail, scratching that itch behind his ears, or even preparing his favorite dishes every sundown.

At some point, the rigid muscle of his abs will develop a little fat, making his tummy much softer and more squishable. He’ll be a bit self-conscious, worrying that you and his soldiers will no longer see him as the pillar of strength; he couldn’t be further from the truth. You love him, no matter his size, and his soldiers even continue their diligence and respect.

During the colder nights on Watatsumi, Kokomi will have the General retire to your shared quarters early. You’d greet him at the door briefly before wrapping him up in a blanket and spoiling him all night, a warm meal and cuddles awaiting his arrival.

He’s bold, but likes to keep clean. When the two of you bathe together, he’ll lean into your touch as you lather homemade shampoo into his scalp and tail. If you’re lucky (which you are, no doubt), he’ll let down his guard and have you rub his sensitive belly, whimpering and yelping at your gentle touch.

(NSFW) The poor Doggy General has a rut, during which he’s extremely sensitive and emotional. He’d hide away, and cry as he tries and fails to take care of himself again and again and again. Once you come into the picture, your scents would have him absolutely intoxicated. He’ll try to pounce on you, only able to restrain himself by a thread, but catch himself, and cower into his little pile of blankets. He wouldn’t lay an unsavory finger on you, so he’d let you take the lead for the time being. He’d buck his hips up at any touch, begging you to just satiate his urges. Once you’re straddling his hips, bouncing up and down on his length, he’ll squirm and cry, seeking out any friction your body is willing to give him. Gorou will try to knot and breed you as you both fall into depraved ecstasy together in his quarters, but that’s only if you let him (we love consent out here, folks). If not your cunt, at least let him knot your hand; please, he’ll be so good for you~.

Outside of his rut, Gorou will be slightly more dominant, his rationale being that he has more restraint of himself, and there’s less of a chance he’ll hurt you. His stamina will remain the same, only able to indulge in your warm, slick cunt for so long. His knot will be smaller, if not completely gone, so you can more safely take him into your mouth, swallowing load by load as his fingers grip and tug at your hair. Once he has you prepped, and his cock is aching for that searing, soaking embrace, he won’t hesitate to bottom out immediately. But he won’t move, not until he feels your hips buck against his. At that point, forget trying to say anything; any words will be interrupted by sweet moans enveloping the room around you, moreso on your end now. He’ll chase his own pleasure, but still maintain a shaky thumb against your twitching clit to help you find your own release. Scratch at his back, bite him, mark him in any way; he’ll only reciprocate tenfold while he has you on his cock.

Usually it’s you taking care of him after, gently petting him as he apologizes incessantly into your marked neck. Poor Gorou will feel bad if he made a mess of you, so he’ll insist on cleaning his cum out of your sore cunt. But if you insist, he’ll just let you carry him to the bath, wincing as you rub gentle soaps and shampoos into his hair and skin, ointments and lotions into the scratches you left on his back, and him doing the same to you in exchange. You’d dress in cozy shirts and underwear, and grab the fluffiest blankets you own, draping it over the two of you and cuddling the rest of the night away with steaming cups of tea that would be cold by sunrise.

Tartaglia (Fox)

We all know that a crucial piece of Ajax’s charm is his cunning, charismatic nature; it’s what got him so far in life (aside from the power he obtained during his time in the abyss). He even had to employ such cunning tricks to win your heart, which even he struggled at. You gave him a hard time at first, teasing him and playing hard to get. But due to his determination and adaptive nature, he ended up wooing you anyway. Now it’ll be him teasing you from now on. Aww, don’t look at him like that, then he’ll want to kiss you even more.~

Ajax is well built, and his figure astounded you the first time he had let you see his body. He trusted you the most, allowing you to gently trace over his scars and freckles with your fingers and leave kisses in their wake. His body is versatile, built for all manners of combat and warfare; a true warrior’s body.

He’s possessive of you, that’s a given, and as a proud Snezhnayan man, Ajax would damn near beg you to have some sort of sign of himself on you. He doesn’t care how--be it you wearing something of his (clothing or his cologne), or having a tattoo, hickey, or a piercing-- it just has to signify him. He’ll even get one to match, if that’ll make you more comfortable.

This possessive nature comes not out of malice, but of the want to be near you. As a Harbinger, he’s often mobile, embarking on perilous missions for the Fatui, and can only make it home every few weeks, leaving you alone in your shared home. His position is a dangerous one, and there’s always a chance he won’t come home, which is one of his greatest fears.

Ajax is a family man, always striving to keep his siblings safe and make his parents proud. As a result, he’ll have you meet them as soon as you can, and as far as you can tell, they seem to like you. Tuecer recognizes you immediately from his time in Liyue, and clings to you, calling you big sib and having Anthon and baby Tonia do the same.

(NSFW) Now we know Ajax is one of the few people on this list to not have a rut, but do you know what he does have? He has an alternate form of an abyssal beast that does, which has way less restraint than his human form. Foul Legacy’s “rut” is the culmination of Ajax’s tendency to tease but never follow through, his need for you even when he’s away, and his absolute adoration for you and your body. Huge claws tracing your skin, leaving angry trails of red on your waist, hips, back, wherever he can reach. The opalescent orb settled in his mask admiring the bulge of your tummy as your poor cunt struggles to take all of his cock; he’ll understand if you can’t take it all, but a pleased chirp-like sound will erupt from his chest if you can manage all (checking notes) 16 inches (40.6 cm) of him, including the fat knot at his base. He may hold back, but that same orb will look down, and your facial expression will be enough to make him lose control, bucking into you at a pace you almost can’t handle. He’ll get loud, groaning and growling into the vacant space of the Golden House or the bedroom you share with him.  And as if just his cock was too much, just one load of his cum would leave you looking pregnant, and may end up getting you pregnant anyways (this goes without saying, only if you let him).

As a human, Ajax is most able to treat you just the way he wants--like the most precious and delicate relic he had ever laid his eyes upon. Unlike his demeanor in battle, he’d be gentle with his hands, ghosting his fingers over your skin, taking slow, deep strokes inside your weeping pussy. Now it’s you digging your fingers into his skin, throwing your head back as he hits the spot that drives you crazy, laying hickeys up and down your neck and chest. He’s also quite loud like this, never shying away from how his body reacts to yours; moans and groans would accompany the sweet, sinful sounds of his body connecting with yours. He’d press his forehead against yours as you reach your highs together, guide you through the foggy sensations washing over your body, and help you come down with even slower thrusts and gentle circles of his fingers around your clit as you scream his name, his real name. He knows pulling out is the worst, so he’ll insist on staying inside of you to ensure you feel full and warm inside.

Sure, he can be rough with you. He can tease you and edge you until you’re a crying, whining mess for his touch, his cock. If anything, he savors every night that he has you to himself, no matter how fast or slow, rough or gentle, whether he dominates your senses or becomes your submissive foxboy for the night. Any way it goes, you both bask in the aftercare, cuddling close under the warmth of the various sheets and blankets to combat the sudden drop in your bodies’ temperature, and the piercing frost of Snezhnaya’s mountains.

Ajax always looks forward to coming home to you, and he wouldn’t exactly mind coming home to a kid or two. Again he’s a hardcore family man, and would devote everything he has to settling down and having kids. He’d still worship the Tsaritsa and keep Foul Legacy, but would step down as a Harbinger and return his Delusion to Pierro in order to keep you and the children safe.

Tighnari (Fennec Fox)

Also uses he/they pronouns.

We imagine Tighnari developed his physique and knowledge from engaging in field research. They have a strong upper body due to his heavy use of a bow, and legs built for sprinting through the terrain of the forest floor. For the most part, he’s solitary, only keeping close company. Tighnari only seems to open up to Cyno, Collei, and you, only able to tolerate Al-Haitham and Kaveh during their weekly TCG duels at Lambad’s. He’s caring, but will display his care for others with a sassy, almost mocking tone and attitude, excluding the times you are alone together. At that point is when they feel safest, and can be vulnerable in your company alone.

Most often, his idea of a date is a research date, where you’ll accompany each other into the wild and assist each other in various experiments and observations. Other times, they’ll surprise you by leading you to the canopies of Ghandarva Ville to stargaze. Either way, Tighnari would hold you close and just ramble about anything and--if you let him--everything. He’d be cheesy with his flirting, perhaps Cyno’s knack for dumb humor is rubbing off on him. Tighnari would incorporate topics like research, mushrooms, the forest into the dumbest, cheesiest pick up lines for you (even though you’ve been together for years).

Speaking of mushrooms, most meals he makes and eats incorporate some delicious fungi. It’s been said that edible species of fungus have great effects on one’s health, so one of their ways of showing you affection is to cook you dishes that are both delicious and healthy.

Tighnari never really anticipates the effects some mushrooms have on the body and mind. Like seriously, you’d be wandering in a beautiful clearing, then boom there he is, splayed out in the grass tripping his ass off. Once they catch sight of you, it’ll be like they’re falling in love with you all over again, clinging to you and headbutting your chest, almost as if demanding that you scratch their ears.

(NSFW) After so long, and so much research, Tighnari is able to exploit his knowledge of fungal species to aid in your trysts together. Be it taking one with hallucinogenic properties, or a straight up aphrodisiac, you and Tighnari always find a way to enhance the pleasure you two feel.

He does experience ruts, usually in the late winter to mid-spring. For that time, they’ll become possessive and hide away with you in your shared hut. He’d rearrange your living space, and spray his scent (cologne, or something that reminds everyone of him) around the hut; even you end up smelling like him. Expect them to cling to you, even if you have to venture away from the safety of your shared home. His cooking will alter, and he’ll ignore any invitations from Cyno or Al-Haitham; all he’ll want to do is be with you. He’d be extra careful, and not risk using aphrodisiacs on you during his rut.

He’d take you at any hour of the day, his hips rocking against yours while you’re bent over any surface he can fit you on (which would be all of them). Or they’d have you on your back, be it on the sofa or in bed. Either way, he would want to be on top of you, or at least parallel to you. This will give them the chance to control and restrain themself much better than if you were on top. If that were the case, Nari would be bucking his hips up into you, whimpering and moaning loud enough for the neighbors to hear. They’d rather stay quiet and enjoy your moans, despite them knowing how much you adore their sounds, and claw at the soft skin of their back. You can always use his ears as an indicator of how close he is, as they’d be downturned the whole time, but begin to twitch indiscriminately as he reaches his peak, at which point he’ll ask where you want him. If you want them to pull out, they will and let you finish them off, knotting your hand while they reach down. If not, he’ll knot your cunt, pumping ropes of his thick seed into your walls. They’ll stay close and cuddle you, opting to keep you warm with their body and tail.

Outside of his rut, Tighnari is more keen on using fungi in the bedroom. Some nights, you and him would have the usual conversation, putting each other’s minds at ease, and hold each other close--foreheads pressed together, exchanging soft giggles and kisses--as the drugs you both took begin to take effect. You’d take it slow, basking in the warmth of their lips on your skin, fingers tracing over your most sensitive bits as they prep you to take them. The foreplay would be slow and drawn out, Nari focusing on your pleasure over his own as his nimble fingers and tongue gently stroke your slit until it’s drooling, weeping for his cock. Only after you’ve had a few orgasms will they even want to feel your pussy clench around their length. Even then, he’ll pull you into his lap, having you set the pace. In tandem with the mushrooms you had both eaten, the emphasis that Tighnari places on your pleasure will have your head reeling as you grind against them, feeling every touch of their skin against yours as you overstimulate each other.

Again, Tighnari will hold you close once your bodies are too exhausted to keep moving, curling his tail around your spent body, pressing kisses to your cooling skin and massaging any soreness from the muscles beneath. They love you dearly, and their actions both in the field and in the bedroom convey that clearly. He cherishes you, and is proud to have you as his mate for life.

Xiao (Bird)

We headcanon that Xiao specifically would be a solitary prey bird, like an eagle or an owl hybrid. This means that he’s territorial before anything else. He doesn’t want to lose anything else, let alone you. You are one of the few people he holds close to his heart, and he’d destroy anything to ensure your safety. The only limit he finds to protecting you would be his loyalty to Rex Lapis.

Your adeptus boyfriend is slim and lean, built for speed. He has a long stride, despite his short stature, and can traverse Dihua Marsh in the blink of an eye.

You are one of the few people he’ll let near him at any given time, especially as Spring approaches. Xiao may spend most of his time away from Wangshu--leaving your nest-like bed cold and empty--but he always ensures that he returns with another blanket, pillow, or flower to add to the cozy pile. You don’t mind patching him up, just so long as he comes home in one piece. He doesn’t mind you scolding him, just so long as he can return to your warm embrace.

(NSFW) The yaksha are damn near extinct, so it shouldn’t be a surprise if you wake up one spring morning to his hard length grinding between your plush thighs, hands gripping your waist to hold you steady as he whimpers into your ear, begging to pump you full of his seed.

Be ready for almost constant contact with Xiao during his rut. All day, and all night, he’ll want to hold you close. He won’t care where, but if he can, he will most definitely be whispering his lust into your ear. He’s shameless and blunt, his words reaching down your spine to your core. Don’t worry, he’ll drag you somewhere nice and private to fulfill his lascivious promises. He’s not afraid to get caught, he’ll take you to Wangshu’s roof, drag you to Luhua pool, or just bend you over a random rock in the marsh

Other than that, Xiao’s habits remain pretty consistent when it comes to those hot nights at the inn. He’ll prep you with his tongue and fingers, every time, without fail, to ensure you can take his length without hurting. He’d hold your hand as he bottoms out, instructing you to squeeze if anything hurts. Once he’s in, tip kissing your insides, he’ll hold still and whisper his love and lust into the skin of your neck. Despite your teasing, he takes it seriously the whole time, each thrust is deliberate and precise as whimpers haphazardly escape his soft lips. He doesn’t experiment much, but is at least willing to try out a couple of things. His hard limit is anything regarding actions that will actually hurt you or permanently scar you, and he won’t touch you unless he knows you’re comfortable.

After a few rounds, he’d give you a choice: either you fall asleep while still connected, or he’ll carry you to the bathroom to clean you up. Either way, you always end up cuddled close together, Xiao carding his slender fingers between your hair as you watch the sun rise.

Due to Zhongli’s generosity (and Childe’s wallet), you and Xiao never run short of fancy lotions and soaps. His favorites, of course, are the ones that make you smell of a plate of Sweet Dreams (almond and qingxin).

Zhongli (dragon)

We headcanon that Zhongli uses he/she/they pronouns, depending on the form they take.

Even after retiring, Zhongli retains many of the qualities that once signified the great Rex Lapis; be it their shapeshifting abilities, immense strength, or their stoic demeanor. Over the millenia, the Geo Archon took many forms, finding themself preferring the half-dragonic figure that sculpted the very earth you stand on, Rex Lapis. During the early stages of your relationship, however, they were getting self-conscious, constantly assuring you that they could take any form you wish. You’d retort, telling them that you’d be happiest with them in their most comfortable form, which broke the stony expression lining his visage.

As the dragon hybrid, Rex Lapis is most relaxed, and your shared room will reflect that with soft lighting, pillows and blankets piled up in the bed (almost akin to a hoard), and a constant loop of Liyue’s finest hymns and lullabies emitting from the euphonium unbound; it’ll be quite the chore to tempt them away from the cozy space. Perhaps you of all things, their most esteemed treasure, could be the perfect little trinket to lure your draconic love from the mountain of bedding. Or you could just be the opposite, the crown jewel pinned between the plush duvets and their imposing figure as their tail surrounds your leg and their tongue dances with yours.

In his human form, Zhongli poses less of a bite risk, and he’d rather just rest with your head settled on his lap, reading the latest light novels. The room will reflect this as well, with stacks and shelves full of scrolls and books surrounding the cozy bed, floor lamps decorating the safest space one could imagine. He’d be engrossed in said books, absentmindedly carding his fingers amongst your hair as the stories enthrall his attention.

(NSFW) Rex Lapis will most often be their form of choice during monthly ruts, as their dragon-esque body would need to retain plenty of energy. Usually Zhongli and you would have the necessary discussions and preparation for both you and himself ahead of time, be it buying extra food or medicine ingredients, running extra laundry, or just talking to each other through the whole thing. Rex Lapis becomes more secluded, only remaining in your shared bed except to either eat, or to find you for spicy time. Speaking of which, Rex Lapis would often just wake you with their nose bumped against your belly, just above your womb. If you got the message and agreed, you’d spend the day getting pumped full, load after load. Their preferred position would be you straddling their body, controlling the pace as they hold you close. They wouldn’t speak much, opting to show their affections for you in the form of pleasured grunts, growls and whines; their yearning for your heated body in the form of languid strokes of their tongue against your burning skin. They’d show some restraint, evident in their gentle thrusts as they press their cocks within your hot walls.

Rex Lapis will overstimulate themself with your body, going round after round before their mind goes blank, giving you as much room to take over as you’d like and keep fucking them brainless to your heart’s content.

During the rest of the year, Zhongli is more willing to experiment with you, and toy with your body. He won’t need to be as gentle with you, but will still take precautions so as not to hurt you. If anything, Zhongli wants to spoil you at all times. Everything you say goes, including your pleading moans and cries for him to plow into you harder, faster, more, and he will certainly acquiesce. It’s fairly easy for Zhongli to dominate you like this, seeing as he has more control over his body and mind. Seeing you, spread wide open on his cock, legs anchoring him in, taking everything he’s willing to give you, now that just turns him on even more as his hips slam against yours. He enjoys the sight of you drowning in pleasure, the tears of bliss rolling down your cheeks and your cunt weeping with need. He’ll give you everything, reaching between the two of you to roll your sensitive clit with his thumb in order to overstimulate you as you reach your peaks together.

During the last round, Zhongli will be slow and gentle, grinding into you while planting kiss after kiss anywhere he can reach--your neck, chest, lips, cheeks, etc.--as your orgasm slowly builds. Ironically, he’ll speak words of worship, adoration, praise into your ears as your climax washes over your body like a tidal wave.

In the afterglow, your skin shimmering with a layer of sweat, Zhongli will always be there with you, ready to spoil you and make sure you feel safe and loved in his arms. Cuddles and massage would ensue, and if you’re up to it, he would draw you a warm, steamy bath to help relax your muscles. He’d pull out all the stops to ensure your comfort, opting to dress you in your softest pajamas afterward, replace and wash the sheets, and carry you around as he pampers you. He’ll lay you down in bed and crawl in with you, holding you close and humming a soft lullaby as the two of you drift off among the soft sheets and crashing waves of the harbor.

[vanivenivici]

Sorry I’m coming back here again this thing has unscrewed the tap and I can’t shut up. I must rant about it some more. Netflix has all the money in the world and they continuously pump out mediocrity I won’t stand for it. 100% unorganized stream-of-consciousness. You’ve been warned.

ANYWAY. MOONRISE.

I saw a negative review for it in passing that said something akin to “the characters have too much downtime. they spend too much time chitchatting” and I’m like….. did we watch the same anime?? Bc there is virtually NO downtime. The characters suck because we know next to nothing about them, ESPECIALLY their motivations. And the reason that we don’t know anything about them is because Every Time they actually start to talk to each other SOMETHING EXPLODES.

Everything and I mean everything the main cast attempts to do turns into a crisis. They can’t even have dinner and decompress after being chased all over the moon and almost dying several times without a fucking bomb going off in the bar it’s EXHAUSTING.

And then the general keeps giving them these important missions but they never succeed once!! “I want these guys in particular to do it,” why??? Have they proven that they’re even the least bit competent??

So much of the plot hinges on the audience not knowing what the fuck is going on, and I hate that. I hate when important info is deliberately hidden from the audience for nothing but shock value. Maybe that’s just a pet peeve of mine. But then the show can’t be upset when I don’t give a shit about any of the characters because I have no idea why these people are here. I have no idea what they’re fighting for except this vague idea of revenge. For the mysterious antihero this makes sense. The story unfolds around his goals. But the main cast?? Why are Rhys and Georg here? Why is ANYONE but the main character here? Because AI mommy said so? SAY THAT THEN. SAY SOMETHING.

The idea that humanity has become so reliant on this AI that they literally do not think for themselves anymore is a good angle!! Too bad it’s never touched upon!!! Unless you count the incident in last episode which I do not!!

Rhys in particular leans on the AI so much. Our poorly written tsundere who is all tsun and zero dere. In episode one it’s implied that she and our main guy Jack are supposed to be in some arranged relationship between rich families, but there is never any inkling of chemistry between them. I didn’t get the impression that they liked each other at all until some forced “I’d be sad if you died” scene and Rhys did the “えええー?!” anime girl blush. She yells and fusses at Jack for the whole show for both good and inane reasons, but it’s her only. character trait. And not like in an actual tsundere way where she’s a little mean but secretly cares or is strict with him because she’s his grounding line. She just yells at him. All the time.

Anyway her motivations for… anything she does are a mystery. We could chalk it up to “the AI told me to,” but that’s just speculation. And she has no inner conflict on that front until literally the last ten minutes of the show. She’s helpless until after the last of the (several) time skips, and after that we’re supposed to believe that she’s suddenly this cold blooded badass who can go toe-to-toe with the strongest captains in the rebel army. For why. You have to make me believe that. The audience didn’t see her go through enough or work hard enough to earn that shift. If I believed that she actually cared about Jack and therefore his betrayal would push her to fight hard to bring him back, then sure. But I don’t. All I get is a weak jealousy subplot because “grr he picked Mary over me,” which is 1) not true and 2) actually aligns with Jack’s character thus far because the alternative is LETTING YOU KILL HER BECAUSE AI MOMMY SAID SO.

Rhys could’ve been an interesting character completely devoted to the AI and clinging to her fraying world order by any means necessary. I can SEE the skeleton but the writing did absolutely nothing for her. She’s written more as an obstacle than a character. Everything I wanted to be fleshed out was left to rot in the back of the cupboard……

And Georg. I have no idea what this guy’s deal is. To my memory, we’re never told how he knows Jack or why he’s on this team. Apparently everyone got arrested for some reason or another after the terrorist bombing in episode one. But don’t dwell on that because it’s just a means of extortion. It’ll get mentioned a few times and then quickly forgotten. Georg is the goofy best friend character without any of the personable warmth. He gets so so close to questioning super AI mommy and then immediately, like within the same episode, his character takes a 180° because Plot. (The writers didn’t know what to do with him. Or any of the characters except Jack and Phil, for that matter.)

And poor Mary is the best character in the show and then she gets swiftly demoted to a PLOT DEVICE. Free my girl why did they erase her autonomy. I swear they could’ve had ONE but they fucked it up!!

I could rant about how badly the main cast is mishandled for years but I haven’t even complained yet about how the entire premise has little support in the text!! The fucking war! The people of the moon fighting for independence!!!! We get told that they’re treated badly and  Earth is pillaging their resources and maybe dumping waste? But do we see these things? Of course not. We’ve got another giant space battle to animate! Whyyyy is this war so widely supported by the people of the moon? We have no idea! It just is! Stop asking questions!

What’s with the giant sentient slime mold that just kind of materialized out of nowhere around episode 9? Don’t worry about it. It’s just a thing. We’ll give you one throwaway line within the last 5 minutes of the entire anime that hints at what the rebel army wanted to do with it. Where did it come from? Haven’t you learned to stop asking questions yet??

Do we get literally any information on the SEED project that propels & links every major player in this entire show???? What do you think this is, Gundam?

You know I think the whole ‘Netflix wants shows that you can play in the background while you’re on your phone’ thing must be true. Even for subtitled anime. It has to be because I’m not that type and if you even GLANCE at the loose seams on this show the entire thing falls to pieces. 

I’m so mad because the premise is interesting and there were so many signs that this could have been good but they were SQUANDERED. If the characters just TALKED to each other and we knew a little more about them. If the plot leaned into humanity’s reliance on the all powerful AI. If we got a better idea of WHAT the Rebel army was actually trying to do for the last five episodes. If we spent more time picking apart the main character’s origins and its relationship to the AI. If only. If only.

……..Oh and that previous tag I had about the guy that died off-screen and then the following episode is a flashback of him mostly just playing pokemon go? That was in no way an exaggeration. In fact that tag should be taken completely literally.

Oh yeah I watched that Moonrise anime over the weekend. lmao what a trainwreck… I knew I didn’t like it but it’s been days and I just can’t stop thinking about how bad it was yk?

the pacing? trash. the characters? unlikeable (with the exception of 2). the plot? a tshirt cannon full of half-baked sci-fi confetti.

Personally my fav was the sentient, acre-big assimilation slime mold that was only explained maybe in one throwaway line during a battle.

AGH the more I think about it the more I keep going “AND ANOTHER THING—”

[ace-reviews]

SPRING 2023 ANIME RECOMMENDATIONS

Maybe it’s because I’ve begun actively avoiding isekai, but there seems to be….. Less of it? This season? And I actually watched a couple of them! One sucked in a fascinating way up until it sucked in a gross way and the other was fine, I guess.

Anyway, don't watch any of this season's isekai. Watch these, instead.

---

ACE’S RECOMMENDATION: OSHI NO KO

I was originally planning on recommending the Dadime because it’s a Dadime and there’s nothing else particularly good this season except Mashle (watch Mashle) and The Dangers In My Heart (watch The Dangers In My Heart), and by the rules of the site I can’t recommend either because I read the manga. But then this one came out and it was either actually good or sunk cost fallacy kicked in because the premier is an hour and a half long (I think I was actually good but that fallacy can be a powerful swayer of opinion).

I’ve gone on record multiple times about how much there needs to be an idol anime that actually addresses how fucked up the idol industry is, and while Oshi no Ko is not exactly an idol anime (what it actually is changes about three times, hence the extra-long first episode), it sure doesn’t pull any punches about the entertainment business in general and the idol industry in particular being kinda shitty, especially to young and/or female performers. I don’t know why Ai’s eyes are like that, though.

---

CHARLIE’S RECOMMENDATION: A GALAXY NEXT DOOR

It was a toss up for me between this and I Got a Cheat Skill…, which is also decent, but this one wins because it’s cuter, and a little more realistic in terms of characterization. I’ll admit the stinger thing threw me for a second, but Galaxy Next Door is shaping up to be a very sweet slice of life with a little bit of fantasy thrown in, and I’m kinda looking forward to how it plays out. Bonus points for the Female Lead not being the school girl, and also the two actually having a conversation about their situation IN THE FIRST EPISODE and agreeing to getting to know each other first.

The bar is in the Earth’s molten core.

---

FEN’S RECOMMENDATION: TOUCH GRASS

[EDITOR’S NOTE: She watched at least three.]

---

NOAH’S RECOMMENDATION: SKIP AND LOAFER

I briefly considered recommending My Job is Yuri! just for Fen, who insists it’s the best anime of the season, but didn’t watch it until her recommendation had been submitted.

Unfortunately watching high school girls gaybait people for money, while hilarious in concept, doesn’t really do it for me.

Instead I’m going to VERY POLITELY and with a TOTALLY NORMAL AMOUNT OF ENTHUSIASM suggest Skip and Loafer, a thus far charming little romantic comedy with a premiere that instantly won me over for showing the two leads actually hitting it off and having fun together. Shima’s charming and laidback, which actually meshes really well with Mitsumi’s hardworking ambition instead of grating against it. From the very first episode we get to see how they inspire and support each other as friends instead of wearing each other down through forced exposure. It’s not an especially groundbreaking premise, but it’s sweet and sincere and genuinely funny. I’m looking forward to seeing how things turn out for them.

[pogokitten]

Lost and Found

By @pogokitten for @lost-lunar-wolf

Rating: Teen (for swears)

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, Ben Parker, May Parker

Summary: People lose things all the time, keys, toys, favorite socks. It happens, it’s just a part of life. But sometimes these lost items make their way to soulmates. It’s phenomena as old as civilization itself. You lose your favorite hair tie and poof, it just appears near your soulmate for them to find and eventually return. Romantic or Platonic, it’s expected that everyone stumbles over some of their soulmates' lost items here and there. Some people just end up waiting longer than others.  

Or: The platonic soulmate AU where Tony and Peter find and hold onto a lot of each other’s stuff over the years.

Tony is speed walking through his mansion the first time it happens. He’s not paying attention, tie barely on straight and coffee almost sloshing out of his cup as he rushes for the door. He’s late for a meeting and usually he wouldn’t care, but Obie has been up his ass about this one. Something about a grouchy general that thinks Stark Industries weapons are overpriced and overhyped needing convincing.

So when Tony stumbles on something caught under his dress shoes, he finds himself cursing colorfully as splashes of coffee dot the marble floor. He glares down at the offending object when he has his footing, fully expecting it to be a tool or something that migrated out of the workshop.

The engineer stops short and stares however, when he takes in the soft blue baby binky on his floor.

Tony is no stranger to having strange things in his house, being an eccentric billionaire and all, but he has absolutely no clue how a pacifier of all things has ended up on his floor.  

Tony scoops the binkie off the floor examining it, completely baffled.

It looks new if the bright color and barely chewed appearance is anything to go by. Tony wracks his brain for any possible reason a pacifier could have made its way into his home. This wasn’t a week for the cleaners so it wouldn’t be something of theirs, and the only other people who have been in his house since yesterday were Happy and Pepper.

The engineer knows Happy himself is allergic to children, but doesn’t he have a sister or something? Does she have a kid? Maybe it got mixed up in Happy’s things? It’s not the most plausible explanation.

As for Pepper, Tony’s pretty fucking sure she doesn’t have a kid. He knows from her comments that she doesn’t have much in the way of family anymore and that she’s single. Maybe one of her college friends has kids? Could one of their kid’s binkies have ended up in her purse during a visit or something?

The theory’s not great, but that’s at least more believable than Happy being the culprit, and for the life of him, Tony doesn’t know where else the thing would have come from.

Tony stuffs the pacifier into his pocket and continues out the door resolving to ask Pepper about it later.

---

Tony never ends up asking Pepper about the binky.

He came home from an extremely long day at the office spent schmoozing the stuffy general and tossed the thing out of his pocket along with his keys onto a cluttered table in the workshop. He then proceeded to drink the night away to dull the built up tension. When JARVIS wakes him up the next morning, the pacifier is a distant memory due to his ragging hangover and Obie calling to talk business.

It’s not until a few months later that the binky even crosses Tony’s mind again.

It’s another typical day in the life of a party addicted billionaire genius, when Pepper pages him through JARVIS to help her into the house. Tony finally emerges from his lab for the first time that day, muttering equations under his breath. He’s lost in his own head, still focused on the designs he’s been hammering out downstairs.

So Tony nearly falls on his ass when he steps onto something that slides under his feet in the entryway. The engineer is quick to catch himself, heart still racing from the near drop, and looks around irritably for damn banana peel or whatever it was that almost killed him.

He quickly spots what looks like a scrap of fabric nearby. Grumbling, Tony snatches it off the floor and realizes it's not a pocket square or a tie like he thought.

No, it’s a lovey.

He gapes at the toy with wide eyes.

The blanket bit of the toy is a soft yellow fabric, the stuffed animal portion a smiling dog with floppy ears. It’s a bit love worn and could probably use a wash, but it doesn’t seem especially old.

It also absolutely shouldn’t be here.

No one else has been in the mansion for the last two days except for him, and Tony knows the lovey wasn’t there this morning.

“JARVIS, did someone break into the house to leave baby toys for me to trip on, and you just neglected to tell me?” Tony asks.

“Of course not, sir,” the AI says, sounding almost offended, “No one has been inside of the mansion aside from yourself and I would have alerted you to a perimeter breach.”

“Then how is this here?” Tony questions, holding the toy up to the nearest camera.

“It simply appeared in the foyer, sir,” JARVIS tells him.

“That’s impossible, things don’t just appear.”  

“It is possible, sir. I thought it would be obvious,” the AI refutes, a hint of a smirk in his tone.  

Tony rolls his eyes. “Not in the mood right now, J.”

“I believe that your soulmate has lost both the toy in your hand and the pacifier you found approximately three months ago,” JARVIS explains.

Any sort of snappy retort dies in Tony’s throat and he snaps his gaze back to the lovey he’s holding.

Soulmates were not something that Tony Stark had thought about often in the past two decades of his life.

Growing up he’d been as intrigued by soulmates as any child his age, waiting to find mysterious clothes or toys like many of his peers. He’d waited and hoped and looked for years, anything to ease the loneliness of the Stark Mansion. Only to find himself at the age of fifteen without a single lost and found object to his name. That had been when he started to doubt, when he stopped looking for items that weren’t his and steered away from conversations about soulmates.

It’s not unheard of to not have a soulmate until adolescence and beyond, but after he hit twenty-one, Tony had concluded that the cosmos hadn’t bothered to give him one. That, or his soulmate had died before they’d had anything to lose besides their life.

He is well past the age where he would have gotten a romantic soulmate bond, but a platonic or familial one…

It’s pretty common knowledge that a lot of parents and children share a familial soulmate bond, and it’s not like Tony is the most...celibate...person in the world. He’s been careful about his fun, but could it have happened? Or was this some random kid who had gotten stuck with Tony Stark as their ‘shared soul’ by the misfortune of fate?

Tony stares at the lovey in shock while his thoughts race for a long enough amount of time that Pepper irritably rings the doorbell again. Still practically in a trance, Tony opens the door for her on autopilot.

Pepper bustles into the mansion carrying several packages of mail and one of his freshly dry cleaned suits, strands of her vibrant hair escaping the usually tidy bun they’re usually pinned up in.

“Finally! I’ve been standing out there holding all these boxes for ages! Really, Mr. Stark what in the world did you order that’s so-?”

“Pep…” Tony manages to choke out, the nickname and his tone catching her attention.

His PA puts the mail and dry cleaning on a side table and turns back to him, concern on her face.

“Mr. Stark?” she asks.

With a slightly trembling hand he holds the lovey out to her. “I… I found this. And a binky a while ago. I’ve got… I’ve got a soulmate.”

“Oh… Mr. Stark-” Pepper’s mouth opens in shock as she takes in the toy, before her eyes crinkle in a smile, “Tony, that’s wonderful.”

“God look at this thing,” Tony chuckles, and to his slight horror, it’s a bit of a wet sound, “Between this and the binky, the kid can’t be more than half a year, huh?”

“I’d say so.” Pepper says smiling down at the little plush toy.

Tony swallows. “Do you think he’s mine?”

His PA looks back up at him, eyebrow raised slightly. “He?”

“Just a feeling.”

“A feeling, huh?” Pepper smiles, “Well he is yours. Your soulmate. It doesn’t matter if this child is yours biologically, because you’re going to care about them either way right?”

Tony nods, unable to voice any of his vulnerable thoughts. Too many emotions are still swirling inside, crowding his mind.

“Besides I don’t think he’s blood related to you,” Pepper tells him.

“How do you know?” Tony asks.

She gives him a bit of smirk. “Just a feeling.”

Tony gives a little laugh, giving her a grin in return. But eventually he looks back at the toy in his hands and feels it slip off his face. In his bones, he already knows that the bond he and his soulmate will have is going to be a familial extension of a platonic soulmate bond. Or more accurately, a paternal one. And that absolutely scares the shit out of Tony.

“What’s wrong?” Pepper questions, peering down at his whitening knuckles.

“Even if he’s not mine by blood, I don’t want to be like my dad,” Tony confesses in a rush, “I can’t keep the cycle going… I-”

“You won’t,” Pepper cuts him off, “The fact that you’re worried about that at all is proof enough that you care, and that you want to be better than Howard. So you will be.”  

Tony doesn’t say anything to that, gaze dropping back to the lovey in his hands. He wants to be better than his father, but can he be? He’s been following in Howard Stark’s promiscuous alcoholic shadow for a long time now. But he owes it to this kid, and Pepper, and hell, even himself to try and be better.

Pepper eventually clears her throat. “Will that be all Mr. Stark?”

Tony gives her a genuine smile, the kind that is reserved only for the few people he trusts and cares for. “That will be all Ms.Potts.”

***

Peter sits on the couch in his aunt and uncle’s apartment pouting. The adults are standing near the doorway, talking. Sure he loves Aunt May and Uncle Ben, but he loves his Mommy and Daddy more, and they’ve been going on trips so much lately. They just went on a trip a few weeks ago and now they’re going on another one. And this one is so far away.

“We should probably head out. Thanks so much for looking after Pete this week,” Peter hears his dad say.

“Of course, we love having Peter,” May tells him.

“Don’t go!” Peter jumps up from the couch and tackles his mom’s leg.

“It’s not for long sweetheart,” she soothes, brushing his hair back, “Daddy and I have to go to a few boring meetings. You’ll have more fun here with Uncle Ben and Aunt May.”

“But I’ll miss you!” Peter whines.

“And we’ll miss you kiddo, but we’ll be back before you know it,” his dad says, kneeling down to hug him.

Then his dad picks him up so his mom can hug them too. Peter likes it when they all hug like that, it makes him feel warm and super safe.

“Love you. Bye-bye,” Peter mumbles into the embrace sadly.  

He knows by now that no amount of begging will get them to stay, but that doesn’t stop him from trying at least a little bit every time.

His mom kisses his forehead. “And we love you Peter.”

Peter’s parents set him down and hug his aunt and uncle before they step out of the apartment and are gone. Peter’s eyes feel hot, but he doesn’t want to cry. He’s six, so he’s almost big now. Mommy said it was okay to cry no matter how old you are, but most of the other boys at school just make fun of Peter for it.

Aunt May cards her fingers through his hair. “Why don’t you go get settled, sweetie. Then we’ll all go to the park so you can play and feed the birds?”

Peter nods, subdued, and shuffles to the small guest room with his backpack and suitcase.

He sniffs back tears while he makes quick work of his suitcase, throwing his clothes haphazardly into the dresser, but takes much more care with his backpack.

Peter unzips it, double checking that all of his prized possessions are there. His dumb inhaler that he has to carry everywhere, check. His GameBoy and the handful of games he has, check. Toebeans, his stuffed snow leopard, check. His three favorite action figures at the moment, check. And… Peter panics for a moment before he feels his hand close around cold metal.

With a sigh of relief, Peter pulls the tool from his bag.

The screwdriver is small, the perfect size for Peter’s little hands. It’s old and its red handle is worn. Uncle Ben told him it’s for putting together small delicate things since it’s way too small for normal sized screws. Daddy said the screwdriver had turned up in Peter’s crib when he was just a few weeks old. He had explained that it belonged to Peter’s soulmate and that they must have lost it.

Peter’s soulmate must usually be good about not losing things though, since Peter hasn’t found that much stuff. So far it’s just been things like nuts and bolts or a couple of pretty neckties. Peter’s pretty sure his soulmate must be a grown up, since they never seem to lose fun stuff, like toys. Ned’s soulmate always loses toys, like My Little Pony dolls and plastic dinosaurs.  

Still Peter keeps all the things he finds, even if they’re usually kinda boring. Uncle Ben and Daddy always say it’s important to return lost items, and there’s no way Peter would ever be mean to his soulmate. Especially when holding his soulmate's screwdriver makes him feel better whenever he’s sad. It’s familiar and it makes him feel safe, like his parents’ hugs.

Staring down at the screwdriver, Peter wonders what lost stuff his soulmate has from him.

...Maybe they’ve got that bouncy ball he lost two weeks ago? It was a really good one. He hopes they have fun with it.

Still Peter can’t wait to meet his soulmate, even if they are old. Mommy told him to be patient, but Peter’s never really been the best at that. Daddy said they would meet when the time was right and he and his soulmate needed each other most. Whatever that means.

“Peter! Come on, let’s hit the park!” His uncle calls.

The boy quickly puts the screwdriver back and zips his bag closed, swinging it onto his shoulders. “Coming, Uncle Ben!”

His aunt and uncle lead him from the apartment, his little hand clasped in his uncle’s calloused one.

Uncle Ben gives his hand a squeeze and a gentle smile when Peter looks up at him. “Buck up champ, your parents will be back before you know it.”

“Yeah,” Peter smiles and never once that week did he think Uncle Ben would be wrong.

***

They’ve just finished a meager dinner of mostly tasteless stew, and Tony wants nothing more than to collapse after another day of hard labor. He’s lost track of how many days he’s been in this godforsaken cave, no longer having any concept of time after being hidden away underground. Since that first week, most days have been the same. Tony and Yinsen desperately trying to craft the instrument of their escape without being caught, all while making their captors believe they’re cooperating.

It's a terrifyingly fine tightrope they’re walking.  

At least he’s finally getting used to the constant pain of the reactor in his chest, something he’s very likely to live with for the rest of his life. However long that may be.

Tony has just stood and turned away from the fire, intending to finally sleep, when he stumbles over something in his exhausted state. He glances down half-heartedly, expecting a rock or a divet in the cave floor only to freeze when he sees it.

It’s an action figure of some sort. Clearly a superhero of some kind, his outfit is red and white with a helmet that hides his face. Tony thinks he’s flicked passed this show on TV once or twice. Power...Something. Power Riders..? No that’s not quite it.

Tony picks the toy up, feeling his lip quirk slightly despite himself.

“Stark?” Yinsen questions, coming over to look at what he’s holding.

“My kid...my soulmate,” Tony explains with a sad little huff of laughter at the other man’s raised eyebrow, “They must have lost this.”

“My children are the same, always misplacing their things,” Yinsen tells him with a nostalgic smile, “What are they like?”

“Well…” Tony heaves out a breath, blinking away the sudden urge to cry, “He’s a little boy if I had to guess, probably around seven or eight since that’s how long I’ve been tripping over his toys. He likes action figures and Legos, considering how many he loses, but I don’t...really know. I… I never got to meet him.”

And it’s true, he hasn’t. And god it feels like everything’s been a waste. He never even got to meet the little kid who’s stuff he’s been stumbling over for years. And now Tony’s in a cave held captive by terrorists with shrapnel near his heart, the only thing keeping him alive being the electromagnet in his chest and the knowledge of a missile his captives want him to build.

Yinsen puts a hand on his shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “You have not gotten to meet him yet.”

The engineer nods then, his jaw set. “Not yet.”

After that, Tony makes sure to keep the action figure close during his time in the cave with Yinsen. It’s almost obsessive how many times he checks that it’s still in the same place. But it’s like a little spark of hope in their dark cavern, a tangible reminder that there’s a life out there for him to return to, if he can just escape this hell.

Tony’s got to make sure he’s there to give all those toys back to the kid someday, after all.

***

Peter blinks awake sluggishly when May shakes his shoulder. “Come on. Get dressed sweetheart, breakfast is almost done. I know you don’t want to, but the two weeks the school let us have is up.”

Right. He’d been trying so hard not to think about it, he nearly forgot.

“Yeah,” he mumbles.

Peter pulls his aching body, sore from tossing and turning, out of bed while rubbing sleep from his eyes. Last night was definitely one of the worst nights he’s had these past two weeks. The teen had spent the first half of it shifting restlessly, unable to sleep, then he’d cried for at least an hour or two before finally succumbing to his exhaustion.

The boy shuffles into his clothes, not even bothering to check what he’s wearing. Moving to the bathroom, Peter cringes at his reflection after he finishes brushing his wild curls. He’s pale as a ghost, but his eyes are red and watery. Dark shadows sit under them, marks of the past two weeks of mostly sleepless nights.

He looks horrible. Like he’s a zombie or is deathly ill. There’s no way people won’t notice. The teen is really not looking forward to all the pitying looks and whispers he’s going to get just from the news he’s sure has gotten around, let alone how he looks like a ghost. Peter really doesn’t want to go back to school today...or well ever. Going back to “normal” after Ben… Well, it just doesn’t seem possible.

Unbidden more tears spring to his eyes.

Peter sighs, dropping his gaze back to the sink.

To his surprise an unfamiliar pair of sunglasses are sitting on the porcelain edge. Peter picks them up examining them, already aware that they don’t belong to May...or Ben. They’re a nice pair of sunglasses from what he can tell. The lenses are a deep red so dark it looks black, the frames a dark burnished metal. Clearly some really expensive name brand that probably costs near the apartment’s monthly rent.

Impulsively, Peter slips them on and checks out his reflection in the mirror. To his relief, they do a great job of hiding his red rimmed eyes and the dark shadows underneath them, perfect for his first day back to school. And he can admit, although they’re a smidge big, he does look pretty cool in them.

Peter slides them off and slips them into his hoodie pocket so that May doesn’t see. She probably wouldn’t approve of him trying to wear them all day. But hopefully his teachers will give him some leeway since they’ve probably all heard what happened.

Worst comes to worst, he can just lie and say he has a migraine or something.

He eats a solemn and slightly charred breakfast with May, sharing a long and tight hug with her before he forces himself to head out. As soon as he’s clear of their building, Peter slips the sunglasses back onto his face.

On the streets, no one gives him a second glance, but it is New York after all and that’s just the norm. The real test starts when he finally makes it to the front steps of his school. There are some kids milling around outside chatting about their weekends in the few minutes before the first bell. He slips past them easily enough, with only a few brief glances thrown his way.

In the hallway some of the students and teachers do give him lingering looks, but he keeps the glasses on and his head down and the whispers are minimal. When Peter finally makes it to his locker, he breaths out a sigh of relief. The sunglasses do attract a few lingering looks, but no one has commented on his distressed state.

He keeps them on for the rest of the day, sighting a migraine when asked. None of the teachers seem keen to try and force him to take them off, as expected. Peter’s pretty sure it’s just because none of them want to be responsible for making him cry or have a breakdown.

He ends up wearing the sunglasses a few more days that week, on the mornings after rough nights. The sunglasses almost feel like a shield, protecting him from prying eyes. It feels a bit like his soulmate is there, letting Peter hide behind them. They make him feel safe, and like he’s not an open book for the first time since that fatal gunshot rang out.

Eventually, after the rubbed raw pain of Ben’s death has faded a bit, the glasses end up tucked away with the little red screwdriver in the box that holds his most precious items.

***

Tony really wants a drink, despite all his promises to Pepper. He really has been trying to lay off since they finally got back together after such a long break. Not to mention he’d gotten black out drunk so many times in the first few weeks after Siberia that the few people left in his life had come together and begged him to stop before he killed himself. Tony’s a lot older than he was when he went out drinking every night after his parents were killed, and the drinking isn’t nearly as gratifying as it was then.

He hates that it’s still a struggle to not seek alcohol out on his own.

Now more than ever, especially after Ultron and the media dubbed “Civil War”, Tony wonders if he’s even managed to do any good in the world as Iron Man. More and more it seems like he just makes bigger messes than the ones he tries to clean up. Sure, he’s had his good moments, but they feel like they pale in comparison to all his missteps.

Not to mention how even when it’s a group failure, most of the world is content in letting just him take the fall. Everyone else seems to get off scot-free while Tony and his loved ones are left in the blast radius of the aftermath.  

The engineer sighs, heading back to his lab after taking a stressful SI call in his office upstairs. FRIDAY opens the door for him without comment and he heads towards the single worktable he’s managed to set up so far in the compound. But then Tony blinks at the backpack that’s now sitting on top of the letter and dinosaur tech Rogers mailed him.

The bag is dark blue and little worn, something inexpensive that’s easily bought at big box stores. Feeling a bit excited, almost like he’s opening a present, Tony pulls the first zipper open. This isn’t the first backpack his kid’s lost, but it is weird that it’s happened at least four times this year alone.

Inside he finds a handful of pens and pencils, a mostly blank notebook with some pretty high level physics in it, an advanced calculus textbook that’s seen better days, and a change of clothes. There’s no name of course, because the universe hates to “ruin the surprise” as the saying goes, but it still tells Tony a bit more about the type of person his kid is.

Obviously the kid is incredibly smart, although Tony already knew that from finding the kid’s advanced biochem notebook in the first lost backpack and seeing the sort of stuff he was working on (Some of which seemed to be of the kid’s own initiative and was complex enough that Tony himself had needed to brush up on the subject to decode it).

He also knows that the kid must not come from a super wealthy household going by the cheap bag and worn clothes. Of course he already knew that too. Most of the stuff that the kid’s lost is generally well taken care of, but always inexpensive. That knowledge had certainly gotten Tony to fund a lot more scholarships for advanced school programs around New York City. Not that he knows where the kid is other than somewhere in America, but it still made Tony happy funding the future.

Smiling slightly, Tony puts everything back in the bag and is about to take it to store with the rest of the kid’s stuff when he catches sight of the pin buttons decorating the front. One is a Star Wars one with some nerdy meme on it, but the other one has the Iron Man mask on it. He lets out a surprised and almost wet laugh. Even after all these years he's still the kid’s favorite.

Tony will never forget the first Iron Man drawing he’d found that the kid had done, or the first action figure of himself he’d tripped over in the lab. Tony remembers preening like a peacock and showing the toy off to Pepper, Rhodey, and even Happy for the next week.

Somehow, despite all the shit he’s done, Tony must have done something right to end up as his kid’s hero. Becoming a superhero might not be why he originally set out to be Iron Man, but somewhere along the way he learned that he couldn’t just stand by and let people get hurt. Tony may not be as much as a pure hearted superhero as the spider kid, but it’s nice to have a reminder that he’s still got people to live up to.

Speaking of the kid, Peter is eager for sure. He’s smart as a whip and has a good heart despite all the times the universe has shit on him. And young as he is, the spiderling is using his superpowers with a maturity that most kids his age wouldn’t have. That and he did really well in Germany.

Tony looks back at the backpack frowning. Iron Man won’t be around forever, as much as Tony hates to admit it, he is getting old. And with almost all of the Avengers in the wind, he needs to make sure there are still heroes, real heroes, for the world to believe in.  

Tony nods to himself and pulls up the design for the Iron Spider suit.

***

Peter pulls himself out from under the rubble of the collapsed warehouse, gasping for breath, limbs still shaking. Behind him the rubble shifts and tumbles further and the teen is quick to scramble away from it, coughing at the dust it kicks up. For a moment he just stands there trying to catch his breath and still his shaking.

Holy shit, that just happened. The Vulture dropped an entire building on him and left him to die. Peter can feel the embers of his panic trying to crawl up his throat and reignite. He already knows this incident is gonna be nightmare fuel to rival the ones he has about Ben’s death. Just like that night, Peter feels like he lost something of himself, only this time it was lost under the rubble and not in a puddle of blood.

But he thankfully doesn’t have time to dwell on it.

There’s no telling how far Toomes has gotten while he was trapped under the warehouse. Peter needs to move now if he wants to stop the villain from stealing dangerous Avengers tech. If that stuff gets out on the streets no one in New York City, or maybe even the country would be safe. The thought of what kinds of people Toomes could sell those weapons to is horrifying.  

People are in danger, and even if Peter messes up or disappoints Mr. Stark again, he can’t let anyone get hurt when he has the power to stop it.

So, still trembling slightly, Peter raises his arm and shoots off a web, swinging into the night after the Vulture.

He doesn’t give a single thought to his Spider-Man mask, lost and left behind in the debris.

***

Tony is in the Avengers Compound again when he finds it.

Moving all the old Avengers tech to the compound has proven to be a nightmare. He’s still got the government up his ass after the “Civil War” debacle. Not to mention the modified alien weapons on the streets that both the DODC and FBI have been too incompetent to get a handle on, or even find the source of. But he’s still so busy with SI, the Accords, and the move upstate that he doesn’t have the time to track the guy properly at the moment.

And this Vulture guy really is below the Avengers’ pay grade like he told Peter. They were never really in the business of taking down arms dealers, not even high tech ones.

Tony sighs. He is starting to feel bad about taking back the kid’s suit. Sure, Peter was being reckless in it, but hadn’t Tony done the same in his? And Peter had the excuse of being an actual child. Not to mention sooner or later, the kid is going to remember that his powers don’t come from the suit. He’s going to run into a crime he can’t ignore and he won’t have the one thing that keeps him safe.

Tony had been telling the spiderling he didn’t want to be like his old man before the ferry shitshow, and what had he done as soon as Peter slipped up? Screamed at him, taken away the suit, and basically told the kid he didn’t want to have to deal with him anymore. And before that he had barely interacted with Peter after the whole thing in Germany, and yeah, Tony had some good excuses for that, but it was all still the exact same shit Howard would have done.

As much as Tony doesn’t do feelings, maybe he should call the kid up and apologize soon. It’s already been a few weeks.

Tony has just collapsed onto his desk chair in his workshop and started massaging at the tension headache sitting at the front of his skull when it catches his eye. A strange flash of red on his work table that wasn’t there just a moment before. Tony already knows it’s not something of his considering how little he’s been using this lab up until now.

His lip is already twitching up fondly as he reaches for it, wondering what the kid lost this time. He grabs the fabric object and pulls it out from under the stack of blueprints it’s ended up under.

For a moment nothing makes sense.

He’s holding Spider-Man’s mask.

The first one, from the kid’s onesie suit with the googly-eyed goggles sewn in. It’s soaking wet and covered in concrete dust. There are also a few smears of darker red that take a moment to register as blood to the engineer. All he can do is stare at it in utter confusion for a few seconds.

Then it suddenly makes so much fucking sense and Tony is so damn stupid. Of course It’s Peter, of course it’s always been the kid. Of fucking course his soulmate is the superpowered genius orphan with a guilt complex as big as his own. Of course it's the kid who agreed to help fight when Tony needed him the most. It was right in front of his face and he’s an idiot for not realizing that he found his soulmate nearly six months ago.

A soulmate who he’s been foisting off on Happy and refused to grow close to out of paranoid fear. A soulmate who’s looked up to Tony his whole life despite how shitty of a person Tony is. A soulmate who has obviously gone out in his homemade onesie of a suit and has obviously been wounded recently, if the fresh blood on the mask is anything to go by.

“FRIDAY, call the Forehead of Security,” Tony orders, vaguely realizing that his hands have started to tremble.  

As soon as the line connects, Tony is speaking before his friend can get a word in. “Happy, where’s the kid?”

“Tony- what?” Happy asks, sounding baffled, “Who? Parker?”

“Yes. What other kid do we both know? Where is he?” Tony questions.

“Why are you asking me? I don’t know. You have his number don’t you? Or just call his-” Happy cuts himself off, and for a moment Tony thinks the connection dropped until he hears Happy swearing, “Shit! Shit!”

“What?” the engineer demands.

There's a long moment of silence and Tony thinks he might actually hear Happy gulp. “The plane. It just went down.”

“Oh God, that’s what he’s doing,” Tony breathes out, heart clenching, “Peter’s there, Happy! He’s trying to stop it and he’s going to get himself killed!”

“What? How do you know? Besides I thought you took his suit?”

“I did! But I found his old Spider-Man mask covered in dirt and blood!” Tony practically shouts into the phone, the fear he feels coming out easier as anger.

Happy is silent for a moment, maybe stunned at the outburst. “Tony what are you talking about? You’re upstate-”

“You aren’t getting it,” Tony cuts him off, feeling panic starting to win over anger, “I just found it in the lab! The lab that Peter has never set foot in! On my work table that was clear about five minutes ago!”

“What..? But that means...” there’s a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line, “Oh God. Shit- Okay. Coney Island that’s where-”

“I’m on my way,” Tony says, shoving Peter’s mask into his pocket and stepping into a suit, hoping with everything he has that the kid, his kid, is okay.

Then he’s blasting out of the lab’s launchpad, streaking through the sky towards the glowing beacon of New York City in the far distance as fast as the suit can take him. He tries to call Peter from his HUD but it goes straight to voicemail and Tony tries not to lose it completely.

---

When Tony finds Peter, bleeding, battered, and unconscious on top of the Cyclone coaster he greys out. FRIDAY is feeding him info on the kid’s condition and giving him instructions, but even as Tony’s body moves to follow her recommendations, it’s like he’s not even there. Or maybe he is but only in flashes, like his brain is skipping.  

One moment Tony’s picking the kid up as if he’s made of porcelain and the next he’s shooting off into the air, streaking back towards the compound since he stupidly moved upstate and left Peter without support in the city. It feels like Tony blinks and he’s landing again and Helen and her team are taking Peter’s limp blood covered body from Tony’s arms. He thinks Pepper calls him, and then Happy.

He has no idea what he says to either of them.

And then, what must be hours later, it feels like Tony finally wakes up in the compound’s medby, sitting at Peter’s bedside. The kid’s old mask is still bulging out of his pocket. He pulls it out and stares at it for a bit before looking back at his kid, his soulmate, laid out in the narrow bed.

Peter in his hospital scrubs is smaller and paler than Tony has ever seen him against the crisp white sheets. Not that he’s seen much of the kid, a dark part of his thoughts remind him. The kid’s broken ribs and head wound are bandaged, and he’s got an air cast for a wrist fracture. Helen’s got him hooked up to a complicated IV drip of some sort and FRIDAY is keeping careful track of the spiderling’s vitals on a nearby monitor.

Tony doesn’t remember too much of what Helen said about Peter’s injuries, other than they were somewhat severe and he’d lost a good bit of blood, but they thankfully hadn’t had to operate. Although he remembers there had been a fair amount of stitches needing to be done on the kid’s torso. That and something about having to give him an insane amount of pain meds to even touch his metabolism.

Peter shivers in his sleep and Tony hesitates for a moment before pulling the blankets up higher and tucking the teen in. After a few minutes the shivering stops, and tentatively Tony takes one of Peter’s hands in his. The kid’s hand is cold and a bit clammy in his, but Tony doesn’t mind. His curls are adorably wild and the engineer has to resist the urge to brush them out of Peter’s face.  

Tony doesn’t know how long he sits there holding his soulmate's hand, going over in his head again and again what he could possibly say to the kid, before he feels Peter grip his hand back weakly.

“Finally back with us, Pete?” Tony asks with a softness he didn’t know he possessed when the spider kid’s eyes start to slit open.

“Mis’r S’ark?” the teen slurs still half asleep.

Tony manages a weak grin. “The one and only.”

“Wha’ are you doin’ here?” Peter mumbles squinting his eyes open a bit more.

Tony squeezes the kid’s hand. “Didn’t want you to wake up alone and freak out.”

The physical contact and words seem to get through some of Peter’s drowsiness and confusion because he blinks rapidly then snatches his hand out of Tony’s own. The engineer tries not to feel stung by the action.

“Oh my god, your plane! Toomes! Is he okay, is anyone hurt?!” the teen asks frantically.

Tony is quick to stop the spiderling from trying to sit up. “The only one hurt was you, kid.”

Peter slumps back against the pillows. “That’s good.”

“It’s really not. Peter, you could have-” Tony cuts himself off and breathes out a long sigh, not wanting to lecture the kid while he’s still recovering.

The kid is giving him a wary look, like he’s waiting for Tony to lose it on him again. It makes him feel like even more of a piece of shit. So he does the only thing he can think of and holds the Spider-Man mask out to the kid.

“I found this,” Tony says abruptly.

“Oh. At the old warehouse?” Peter asks, taking it from him without meeting his eyes.  

“No. In my lab.”

The spider kid’s head pops up at that, confused. “But, Mr. Stark, I’ve never been to your lab. And I had it for part of the fight with Toomes.”

Tony nods and clears his throat. Well, now or never. “I know. But you did lose it.”

Peter’s brow furrows in confusion. Tony sees it dawn on the kid after a few seconds, his eyes going wide and shooting up to stare at the engineer.  

“You… So you’re…” the kid stutters.

“Yeah, kid. I’m your soulmate and I’ve got several boxes full of old toys, clothes, and backpacks that I’ve been holding onto for a long time,” Tony tells the boy feeling a little choked up.

Peter doesn’t say anything, he’s still staring at Tony looking completely gobsmacked. When the silence continues to stretch on, the engineer feels his insides squirm with insecurity. After everything that’s happened, maybe Peter doesn’t want to deal with such a shitty soulmate. Tony’s not sure he’d be too forgiving after the last few months of no contact and a near deathmatch with a supervillain that probably could have been avoided.  

When Peter still doesn’t manage to get a word out, Tony lets himself deflate. “I don’t blame you if you don’t want anything to do with me anymore. I know I’m not anyone’s first choice of well…anything generally, and you deserve a better soulmate and mentor... But give me another chance, Pete. It won’t be perfect at first but let me try and fix-”

“That’s-!” Peter bursts in suddenly, cutting him off, “That’s not true Mr. Stark. The whole ‘not anyone’s first choice’ crap, I mean. You were...one of my first heroes and- and you still are. Both in a science and superhero sense. And yeah you, uh, do really suck at the whole…emotional availability thing, but you just need practice. Probably.”

Tony finds his mouth twitching up, especially when Peter’s ears go red at the last bit. The kid is endearingly honest and awkward.

“What I mean is, that I’ve been trying to follow your footsteps for a long time now. And I forgive you for the whole…ghosting me thing, and I don’t blame you for taking the suit after the ferry. And I want to be your soulmate if you’ll still have me after I crashed your plan, and-” Peter cuts off his own rambling and looks down, still flushed with embarrassment, “Sorry, I’m totally still freaking out that it’s you.”

“You and me both kid, I don’t know what I did to deserve compassionate, responsible, superhero Peter Parker as my soulmate,” Tony tells the kid, and immediately shoots for a joke to cut away from the vulnerability of that statement,  “Even if you’re a little shit that gives me grey hair, especially with all the all the times I’ve nearly broken my neck tripping on your stuff over the years.”

“Well, I don’t know what I did to deserve Tony freaking Stark as my soulmate, even if he only loses boring crap like ties and metal scraps. Seriously, Ned’s soulmate lost Nintendo DS games and all I had to show from mine were socks or nuts and bolts. You made me so lame, Mr. Stark,” Peter whines dramatically, a spark of mischief in his eyes.

“Oh yeah, and it doesn’t ruin my very polished image as Tony Stark, billionaire genius, to trip over your Legos while out in public?” the engineer teases back, ruffling the kid’s hair.

Peter gives him a big innocent grin in response like the smartass he is and Tony just rolls his eyes.

The engineer leans forward and opens his arms in invitation. “C’mere spiderling.”

Peter lights up and gingerly leans into the embrace, careful of his injured ribs. He lets out a soft sigh of contentment and Tony won’t admit to anyone that the sound makes him melt a bit.

“Is this actually a hug this time, since there’s no door to get?” Peter questions with false innocence after a few moments.

Tony snorts. “Yes, you little shit it’s a hug.”

Peter’s laughter in his ear is the best thing he’s heard in months.

“So, when do we get to return each other’s stuff? Can we do it now?” the spider kid asks when they break apart, excitement shining in his eyes even as they began to droop with fatigue.

“Not till you’re healed, first of all. And we’ll have to take a day to do it. It’s a lot to go through. You’ve lost a lot of stuff over the years, kiddo,” Tony tells him, helping to settle the drowsy kid back under the bedsheets.

“We’ve got time,” Peter yawns, “Besides, if I didn’t lose anything, then how would you ever know to come find me and give it back Mr. Stark?”

Smiling fondly Tony finally gives in and starts combing his fingers through Peter’s hair. “I’ll always come find you, Pete.”

The spiderling gives a happy sleepy murmur in response before he slips back into sleep.

***

A few weeks later, after May had found out about everything, superhero alter egos and soulmates included, Peter is finally ungrounded enough to be allowed to go to the compound one weekend. May and Tony had talked a lot in the last few weeks and she had come to terms with everything. Well, after a lot of yelling at least. But now she was glad that Peter had another adult to care for him and watch over him.

Peter wasn’t just teasing about his not losing much over the years. He’s only brought over about three cardboard boxes worth of forgotten items. It’s a stark contrast to the eight or so big plastic bins that Mr. Stark keeps Peter’s things in. To be fair, he knows Mr. Stark has an eidetic memory which makes it pretty easy to keep track of most of his things, while Peter seems to be a bit more of a disorganized genius.

Mr. Stark starts in on his collection first, cooing over Peter’s baby toys and books while the teen sputters in embarrassment. In retaliation Peter just shoves the entire box of screws, nuts, bolts, and other assorted metal bits of various sizes at his mentor with a huff. Even Mr. Stark admits that it would be pretty boring stuff for a kid to find. Although Peter does confess to using a few spare parts in his refurbishing of tech he’d found in the trash.  

“Oh wow, I always wondered what happened to my red Power Ranger!” Peter exclaims when he spots the bright flash of red and white in the box of toys Mr. Stark has just opened, “I was so sure one of the other kids at school had stolen it.”

“I found that guy when I was in Afghanistan,” his mentor divulges quietly.

Peter freezes half way through grabbing the toy. “What?”

“When… When I was kidnapped, I tripped over it in the cave the Ten Rings kept us in. I carried him around with me the whole time after that. That little dude went through the ringer with me then,” Mr. Stark explains ruefully, his eyes locked on the battered action figure.

The expression on Mr. Stark’s face is hard to decipher. It’s sad and haunted, but there’s also some deep fondness as he looks at the plastic Power Ranger. Obviously there are a lot of heavy memories tied to the toy, good and bad.

“You should keep it, Mr. Stark,” Peter says firmly, gently pushing the action figure back into his mentor’s hand.  

Surprised, Mr. Stark seems to shake himself out of whatever stupor he’d fallen into. “You sure, kid?”

“Yeah.”

Mr. Stark doesn’t have to say anything, but Peter can tell. His Red Ranger means a lot to his mentor. It’s not something Peter wants to take away from him. Mr. Stark gives him a warm smile, his genuine one that he saves only for a select few people, and sits the toy on his work desk in a place of honor.

“Are you good to keep going?” Peter asks uncertainly.

He’s still not sure where the lines are with his mentor yet. They’ve slowly been getting closer over video calls and texts while Peter was grounded, but they’re both still waffling in that awkward phase when you first start actually getting to know someone.

Mr. Stark gives him a soft smile. “Yeah, kid. I’m fine.”

A bit later, after they’ve gone through and reminisced over all Peter’s baby stuff, Tony pulls a big binder out of one of the bins.

“I loved finding your drawings,” his mentor admits, “Rhodey, well you’d know him as War Machine, hung some up on the fridge as a joke when I showed them to him. And then, before I knew it, I was putting them up there myself.”

“You did what?!” Peter gapped, “Mr. Stark!”

“Oh come on kid, your artwork was adorable. Especially after the Battle of New York and I started finding a lot more Iron Man drawings. I even had a few of them framed,” his mentor grins.

Peter gives him a flat look. “You did not.”

In response, Mr. Stark  just raises an eyebrow and pulls a framed colored pencil drawing of Iron Man out of one of the bins. It’s not a bad likeness, done on lined notebook paper depicting Iron Man blasting a giant monster out of the sky. Peter vaguely remembers having drawn the thing when he was bored during math class a few years ago. The teacher confiscated it when she saw he wasn’t paying attention and Peter never did get it back.

The teen hides his red face behind his hands. “Oh my God.”

Iron Man literally put Peter’s childhood artwork up on his fridge like a proud dad. He doesn’t know if he wants to preen or hide from knowing that.  

Mr. Stark just laughs and claps him on the shoulder. “Don’t be like that, kid. Come on, I can’t not be proud of my kid’s artwork.”

Peter feels himself turning an even deeper shade of red. His kid.

Stuttering out something incomprehensible, Peter reaches for one of his boxes of Mr. Stark’s lost items. Still chuckling, his mentor leans over his shoulder to see what he’s digging through. He makes a surprised noise and reaches down to extract something from the collection.

It’s a very familiar small red screwdriver.

“Well, what do you know? That’s my favorite screwdriver from when I was in MIT. I put DUM-E’s circuit board together with that.”

“Seriously? That’s so cool, Mr. Stark. My parents told me they found it in my crib when I was just a few months old. I used to take it everywhere with me when I was little,” Peter recounts with a small smile.

Mr. Stark’s eyes crinkle, a subtle upward quirk to his lips. “I can see you took good care of it.”

“I’m glad I could finally bring it back to you,” Peter tells him earnestly.

He’ll miss the screwdriver a lot more than he wants to admit, but it’s something so important to Mr. Stark. This is the tool his mentor but his first AI together with. He deserves to finally have it back.

“Keep it, Pete,” Mr. Stark places the tool in Peter’s hand and fold’s the teens fingers over it, “You’ve obviously given it a good home.”

Peter looks up at him. “Are you sure?”

“It couldn’t be in safer hands, kid,” his mentor affirms.

Peter beams in response. He’d been so impatient to meet his soulmate when he was a kid, but now he knows it was well worth the wait. And there’s no one he’d want more as his mentor, father figure, or soulmate than Tony Stark.

@friendly-neighborhood-exchange

[deltaengineering]

that was the winter anime 2021 that was

Still not quite ready for a dozen posts about how terrible the likes of Combatants Will Be Dispatched are, sorry. Watch Vivy though, it owns. Here’s some more things that are (mostly) good. As always, worst to best.

Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki S3

Yatogame has long run out of hot Nagoya facts and its ensemble comedy never amounted to much, so now it seems mostly content to just spam more and more wacky character designs. About the only thing that it has left going for it is that 3 minutes a week are more effort to drop than to watch, so I expect them to make a movie next. 4/10

Go-toubun no Hanayome S2

Quints is a weird one. S1 was a barely good enough (i.e., well above average) implementation of the ages old harem chestnut. S2 is actually better at the core of its appeal, since it gives all the characters a sharper profile (things like taking Nino from joke to badass and making Ichika a villain are no mean feat), but it does pay a steep price for it. You see, to deliver a steady drip feed of meaningful character moments it apparently has to rush through the source material at a breakneck pace, which completely wrecks the "story" part of this story and makes every episode seem like a recap. And it still keeps wasting precious time on vestigial nonsense like its framing device and the Kyoto flashback scenario that was already the worst part of S1. But by far the most annoying aspect is its insistence on keeping all the options valid, since it prevents any real progress and makes everything seem arbitrary and pointless. So sure enough, after a season of much ado we still don't end up anywhere — you can't really raise the stakes if all at stake was "who wins" to begin with. It's watchable and even enjoyable scene-for-scene but it's getting harder and harder to call it a solid show overall. 5/10

Skate Leading Stars

I was watching this primarily because I didn't like Yuri on Ice much and wanted to see if something that is a blatant attempt to cash in on it would be better — because while YoI delivers on one aspect (being hella gay), it really is an absolute shambles of a sports show. And sure enough, Skate Leading has none of the auteur appeal of YoI, but it just works much better. In particular I appreciate how it managed to make me care even a little about a cast of assholes, which is a nice contrast to the nauseatingly ingratiating way YoI tries to make you love its characters. Also, Skate Leading is just generally cheap and unambitious, so not susceptible to trying hard and painfully flaming out on the presentation side like YoI is. But at some point you gotta let go of these comparisons and on its own Skate Leading is... just fine, I guess? Competent, mildly engaging, not very memorable. And that's probably where it loses to Yuri on Ice in the end after all, even if I think it's "better". 6/10

Idoly Pride

Idoly Pride sold itself on me with a really good (and hilarious/tragic) first episode that was just too bizarre to ignore — I mean, how can you ignore GHOST IDOL MANAGERS. Well, the majority of the show isn't like that. It's a competent and solid version of the idol franchise show, yes, but it really had more potential than that. Especially midseason, it gets lost in these dozens of characters, and while they're all likeable, it does seem like a waste of a good story just centered on Mana/Kotona/Sakura. By the end it comes back around to the heart of the matter with a Maeda-style sob story, which could be a disaster but seasoned veteran Jukki Hanada makes it work anyway. Overall, there's quite a bit of ridiculous hacky melodrama in this, but quite honestly that's the best part and I wish it would concentrate more on it. The rest is just okay. 6/10

Yuru Camp S2

Yuru Camp is still likely the best pure iyashikei show when it gets down to business. Compared to S1 though, this seems to happen less and less. At its peaks (i.e., basically any quiet moment with Rin) it's at least as good as ever, and there's some good cast additions like Mini-Inuko, but it appears that Yuru Camp simply has run out of things you can do with camping and it fills up the time with other... stuff. This stuff includes the generic school club shenanigans it was never particularly good at, and a gigantic helping of crass consumerism. Yeah, I would say the majority of Yuru Camp is just a straight up infomercial at this point, which itself ranges from the perfectly acceptable (which cute anime isn't about food constantly), to the sketchy (I don't know whether the Izu tourism board cut this production a fat check, but if they didn't, Yuru Camp still gives its best effort to make it seem that way) to the highly irritating – I am aware that camping requires gear and you can't just ignore that, but you most definitely do not require whole arcs dedicated to talking about raising funds for the purposes of acquiring the Lamp of Comfy Happiness at your friendly local Caribou™ either. Not to mention an arc where the aforementioned lame school club does the same, for double irritation. Make no mistake, this show is so riddled with scenes that beg for a solution to embed affiliate links in video files that it makes me wish I was watching something as anticapitalist and underground as Love Live. And irritating really is the last thing a show with this core concept, as stellar as it is at that, can afford to be. Bummer. 6/10

SKOO the Infinity

Skoo has one really huge asset: ADAM, its magnificent villain. It also has one really huge liability: Reki, its not magnificent protagonist. To be more specific, it's very good at anything outrageous, physics-defying and silly, such as most scenes ADAM is in, and quite bad at anything serious, dramatic (in a serious way) and down to earth, such as most scenes Reki is in. So, what's the verdict? Well, the rest of the cast is more ADAM-like, and Reki's co-protagonist Langa is fine as the straight (yeah, right) man. The tedious buddy drama is a comparatively small part of this show, and at least it pays off quite well in the end. Seriously, I was ready to give this a 6, but the final episode is probably the best one of the show, in all of its aspects. That's really not something you see often. Skoo's a great time. Except when it's not. 7/10

Non Non Biyori Nonstop

Speaking of the rare good ending, what about we gave one of those to a slim and inconsequential slice-of-life show? NNB has always been solid, comfy and amusing quality with a couple of standout moments (usually something with Renge), and Nonstop has that plus an ending as conclusive as any show of this type is ever going to have. Besides, it does a lot of things right by focusing on more characters than the central 4 (especially Konomi has great material in S3), it expands the universe just enough to not get stale, and it moves things forward — It's definitely a lot better than the movie, is what I'm saying. Apart from that, well, we're three seasons in, if you have any interest in this you probably don't need me to explain what's good about NNB at this point. Bonus points for being nothing but an ad for the manga. 7/10

Wonder Egg Priority

Oh boy, so here's the big one. Wonder Egg is the rare Meaningful Arthouse Show About Real Issues You Guys, as you might have heard. And well, the long and short of it is that it's a very good show with quite a few glaring problems (besides not actually being finished due to production issues, but what we have is enough of an ending to be able to meaningfully talk about it). In particular, one problem: WEP is, at its core, one of these metaphorical Magical Girl-ish series that are just a thin layer of abstraction over coming-of-age or societal problems. The issue is that "metaphorical" in this case means "literal" and "thin" means "basically nonexistent". This show is not subtle regarding what it's about, at all. This is a double-edged sword — on the positive side, some things really should just be said aloud, and I'm really, really fucking tired of the Ikuhara style of "here's some wacky things, maybe a blog post will eventually tell you how it's actually about the most important thing ever" obfuscation — if it's really so important, just spell it out. On the other hand, there are limits to this and when a second, different Ai appears I don't really need a voiceover line telling me that yep, this show is about parallel universes now. WEP spells out many important things, but it also spells out many things that are implicitly clear or better left vague. Not to mention that with being so obvious up front, the show's tendency to leave figuring out what it's actually saying about it up to the viewer can leave the wrong impression. Again, I settled on the opinion that it's subtle after all where it counts the most, but you might easily get the impression that it pulls its punches (Ikuhara does this the exact other way around — once you figure out what the fuck he's talking about it's abundantly clear what he's saying about it).

In fact, this show is so good at subtle, quiet character moments that it calls into question the need for big huge fighting fantasy layer in the first place, especially since I'm not a fan of the fantasy designs and the fights aren't great. Sure, they look impressive on a technical level (this show is very good looking in general), but the lack of actual impact or rhythm makes me think this is not made by people who are very familiar with action and maybe they should have asked some seasoned shounen veterans for this — or just, you know, not do it. They can (and do) impress with character acting in quiet scenes just the same. And while Ai's character story actually does pay off quite nicely by the end we got, and Momoe and Rika are also handled well, Neiru's backstory is significantly less good, not to mention the whole Frill subplot regarding the show's mythology that they introduced just before (and that's the part to be resolved at a later date), which is a huge can of worms. We'll see how well they handle that, I suppose, but as it is it's a weird and vestigial detour that doesn't add much besides thematic headaches.

But yeah, apart from all that — I like it, a lot. Great character writing in the details, cool looks for the most part, tons of ambition, and a message that I consider to be appropriately handled — for the most part, and for now. Not quite ambitious arthouse anime at its finest, but also not a pretentious disaster like Sarazanmai, Monogatari et al. 8/10

[canmom]

in short actually what the fuck

I'm sure sometime in the last few months I must have said something like 'yeah they will probably solve the spatial and temporal coherence issues that hamstring every instance of AI rotoscoping sooner or later'. I didn't really expect it to be this soon though??

like you've got 3D rotations of complex objects. detailed multilayer forests and snow and shit like that with complex camera moves. cloth physics. hair physics. movement in and out of depth. complex multiplane camera rotations with water physics. photorealistic humans at all kinds of angles and poses. stylised characters. crowd scenes. pictures in pictures. i'm going over stuff that's complicated and time consuming for a human animator, I don't know what a diffusion/transformer model finds difficult.

but honestly what's really throwing me is like, the types of jank? yeah, here and there you get a little bit of classic AI jank like shapes morphing into other shapes, objects vanishing behind other objects, that kind of thing. a big tell is the failure of object permanence, so if something walks out of view, it will likely disappear entirely, and something else can appear out of nowhere. (though not always - it's improved here as well.) that's the sort of jank I expected.

but a lot of the examples, the jank involves weird levels of coherence, like the one with the basketball - the basketball generates a second basketball which clips through the hoop, sure, but how the hell is the AI's model of 3D space good enough to figure out that a basketball there would have to intersect with a hoop in the same location? sure, if you frame through the video, you can see that the hoop kinda dissolves through the ball... but at full speed it really looks like a 3D render with clipping.

further flaws I notice - the videos notably don't include very many examples of fast motion. a lot of them have a bit of a floaty, slow-mo feel to it. I suspect that has to do with how it propagates the motion through time. it also tends to have that kind of glossy advert-like quality to the photography which I've come to associate with AI - everything is perfectly studio lit. in general I'd say it's better at photorealism than stylisation - the stylised images (mostly furry 3DCG-looking characters) tend to look a bit creepy, with too-wide staring eyes.

anyway in classic OpenAI fashion, they post a lot of glossy pictures but they're kinda cagey about how the thing actually works. it splits images into spatiotemporal chunks and does ~transformer magic~ on them and apparently that just gives you a really detailed world sim. besides that, they used a recent technique where you get another AI to label the training data to feed into the training of their main AI - you'd think it would collapse in on itself but no that works apparently?

on some level I guess it makes sense. transformer models scale well with data and like, video gives you thousands of closely related pictures to train off of and discern underlying patterns.

but also it can just straight up render a convincing simulacrum of minecraft. minecraft!! though probably not in realtime lmao. the pages here don't mention how long it takes to generate a video and what sort of hardware you need to throw at it to get these kinds of results.

until I saw this I would have said that 'AI-generated animated film' is years away at least. like the 'Animate Anything' model from that team in China earlier this year was impressive but clearly limited to fairly specific scenarios. this one... this one you could probably make an entire AI-animated feature-length film and have it not look like shit. it wouldn't be as striking and intentional as a really good human animator, you'd have to throw out a lot of bad shots along the way and have a pretty specific vision of what you're aiming at. I suspect the first good AI films will be made by people who are experienced making films using other techniques, and the best uses of the tech will combine it with other techniques to get a 'best of multiple worlds' situation. but still...

I'm too tired to figure out what I feel about this. future's gonna be fucking weird.

They've done it again. How do they keep doing this? If these examples are representative they've now done the same thing for the short video/clip landscape that Dall-e did for images a while back.

OpenAI are on another level, clearly, but it is also funny and sort of wearying how every new model they release is like an AI-critical guy's worst nightmare

[oh-boy-me]

Idk if you’ve ever talked about it before, but how does Mammon speak in Japanese? In the translation, he speaks kinda rough and casual (maybe a bit of a southern USA flair? he uses y’all once or twice iirc) Does he have a particular accent or dialect in the OG text?

Oh, Mammon might be hard to break down, but I’ll see what I can do!

So I don’t think Mammon has any particular accent, per se?  I think he’s just very informal.

From what I’ve noticed, Mammon’s speech is characterized by informal phrasing and some phonetic changes.  I don’t think it goes into any actual ヤンキー (”delinquent youth”) territory, but I might be wrong as I don’t have any experience with that subculture.  Regardless, it’s pretty rough, and very informal.

The following example sentences all come from the phone call where he cancels your plans (I think it’s intimacy 25?), his home screen dialogue, and the current Halloween event.

And this time more than any before, Japanese is not my first language and I have never lived in Japan, so if you find anything incorrect about the content below, please let me know so I can fix it.

---Informal Phrasing---

Japanese has lot of different ways to say the same thing with varying levels of politeness.  Mammon tends to use (one of) the most direct ways of saying things.

It’s important to remember though that a lot of these “direct” things are characteristic of male speech in general, and I won’t go over those.  Mammon says やつ (guy, basically) to refer to others sometimes, but so does Lucifer.  Likewise, it’d be weirder if he didn’t use the dictionary verb form most of the time.  There might be some that I describe even though they aren’t particularly unique to Mammon, because I’m not an expert on masc-coded Japanese.

悪い！！ (warui)

(Phone call) This literally means “bad,” but in this context it’s “my bad” or “sorry.”  It’s a rough way to say it, rougher than ごめん (gomen), which I know Levi says off the top of my head, and すまない (sumanai), which I know Lucifer says.

If you need to apologize in Japanese, I think it’s best to stick to すみません (sumimasen) or ごめなさい (gomenasai) to avoid accidentally coming off as too rude or too stiff.

許せ！！ (yuruse)

(Phone call) This means “forgive me,” but like.  As a command.  A pretty demanding one at that.  An example you’ve probably heard is when a man yells やめろ (yamero) to make someone stop what they’re doing.

その時は何があっても予定を空けろよ！ (sono ji wa nani ga attemo yotei wo akero yo)

(Phone call) Here’s the imperative again.  空けろ (akero) is the command form of 空ける (akeru), which here means to clear your schedule (予定 is schedule).  The よ (yo) at the end softens the command a little. The sentence means “At that time, no matter what you’ve got going on, clear your schedule!”

A softer way to say it would be 空けて (akete), and even softer would be 空けてください (akete kudasai).  I’m pretty sure Mammon isn’t the only character to use the imperative like this, but he’s certainly uses it a lot.

館中の掃除を言いつけてきやがって…… (yakatachuu no souji wo ii tsuketeki yagatte)

(Phone call) You can tag やがる (yagaru) onto a verb to show your contempt for someone’s actions.  You hate that they did something.  Like most of these, it’s pretty harsh. The sentence means “He had the nerve to order me to clean the house,” but with the strength of やがって, “He fucking ordered me to” might be closer in attitude.

近いうちにまた誘ってやるから (chikaiuchi ni mata sasotte yaru kara)

(Phone call) If you read the Levi post, you might remember that やる (yaru) is a more colloquial way to say “to do” than する (suru).  It’s also a more colloquial way to say あげる (ageru), “to give.”  It used to imply that the recipient was on equal or lower standing with you, but I don’t think that’s really the case anymore except for how it’s not really a polite phrasing.  Attached to a verb, both あげる and やる imply a favor is being done. This means “I’ll invite you out again soon before long, so”

---Phonetic Shift---

In general, the most common phoneme shifts in Mammon’s lines are cutting the middle and monophthongization.  Cutting the middle is a term I’m making up for the sake of this post and is exactly what it sounds like: lengthening the first syllable in place of the next ones.  Monophthongization is when a vowel made of two sounds (diphthong) is pronounced as one sound (monophthong).  In the case of rough Japanese that we’re working with, that usually means <ai> and <oi> turning into <ee>.

そのなんつーか…… (Sono nan tsuuka......)

(Phone call) つーか (tsuuka) is short for というか (to iu ka).  You can see how “to iu” assimilates to “tsuu,” especially if you say というか a few times fast. なんつーか/何というか means “How should I put it?”

だぁっ！わーったよ！！ (Da-!  waatta yo)

(A Devildom Halloween, 1-3) わーった (waatta) is from わかった (wakatta), which means “I get it.”

そりゃ傑作だぜ！ (sorya kessaku daze)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-16) そりゃ (sorya) is a shortened それは (sore wa), “that is.”  Also, I’m not sure where else to put this, but ぜ (ze) is a very strong assertive particle that I don’t think many people actually use anymore irl. The line is “That’s a great joke!”

すっげースピードで鞭とんでくるんだけど！ (suggee supiido de muchi tondekurun dakedo)

(Phone call) Here we start the examples of monophthongization, which is probably the worst word you’ve had to read in a while but I promise is the easiest phonetic concept to understand here.

すっげー (suggee) comes from すっごい (suggoi), which means either amazing or terrible, depending on the context.  Like I said before, <oi> often simplifies to <ee> (the second “e” is written either ー or え). The line means “The whip’s gonna come down real fast.”  すっげー is emphasizing the speed.

By the way, やばい (yabai) also means amazing or terrible, based on context, and can be changed to やべー (yabee) in the same way.  Mammon’s said that before too, but I don’t think it’s in my example pool.

あー…金降ってこねえかなー (Aa... kane futte konee kanaa)

(Home screen) This time, the negative こない (konai) turns into こねえ (konee), with the same <ai> --> <ee> shift.  This time, it got written as ねえ instead of ねー. This is his “wish it’d rain money” line, and the translation is basically the same.

うるせぇ…… (urusee)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-13) うるせぇ is from うるさい (urusai), which means “shut up.”  This time the second え is the smaller ぇ!

おっせえよ。俺を待たすんじゃねえ (ossee yo.  ore wo matasunjanee)

(Home screen) We’ve got two here, with 遅い (osoi), late, turning into おっせえ (ossee), and 待たすな (matasu na) becoming 待たすんじゃねえ (matasunjanee).  Putting んじゃない where a な would normally be makes it a rough-sounding command.  And then the ない turned into ねえ like tends to happen with Mammon.

The line is “You’re late.  Don’t keep me waiting.”

気安くさわんな！ (kiyasuku sawanna)

(Home screen, UR+ animation) This could possibly be in the first section too, idk, but.  The general way to say “don’t touch me” is 触らないで (sawaranaide), and a more casual way to say it is 触るな (sawaru na).  Mammon takes it a step further, and drops the る to say さわんな (sawanna).  Levi uses the 触るな style, so I assume Mammon’s style is pretty noticeably informal.

他人の為に何か買ってヤンなきゃならねぇんだ！ (tanin no tame ni nanka katte yannakya naraneenda)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-13) やらなきゃならない (yaranakya naranai), is already a pretty casual way to say “have to.”  Mammon’s version uses the same んな as the last line, turning やらなきゃ into ヤンなきゃ (yannakya).  Also notice the switch from hiragana to katakana, which is often used to convey the conversational tone.  And then ない once again becomes ねぇ! The line is “Why do I have to buy something for someone else?!”

And last but not least... そうだ、殿下。　言い忘れてた (souda, denka. ii wasureteta)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-23) This line means, “that’s right, your highness.  We forgot to say.” Why is this one last?  Mammon says this line to Diavolo.  From what I’ve seen it’s about the same level of politeness that Lucifer uses when talking to Diavolo.

It’s worth noting though that Lucifer and Mammon both speak casually to Diavolo.

So this isn’t organized at all, but I hope this gave you an idea of how Mammon’s idiolect ended up giving him a distinct one in the localization!

This is always a hot topic with Mammon’s portrayal as a POC character, so I need to say that I don’t know enough about Japanese subculture and language codes to say anything for sure about whether this makes him sound “uneducated.”  Impolite, definitely, but “uneducated,” I don’t know.  Regardless, the connotation definitely exists in how he’s written in English.  And with that I’d like to remind everyone that your idiolect says nothing about your intelligence.  Don’t judge a person’s worth by how many big words they use.

[vegalocity]

10/18 spicynoodles plis

Prompt meme || @deborahsworld

10.A Shy Kiss/18. Holding Hands

Hell yeah time for fluff

--

Okay... first date....Going pretty well so far. The Movie was okay—MK wasn't very big on horror movies even ones as old as this one was, but Red Son was really excited when he saw it was being played for a ‘foreign movies’ night at the movie theater and what, could have have argued against such enthusiasm?—if a bit slow going and atmospheric.

Though after the heroes found the monster frozen and seemingly dead in the abandoned Norwegian outpost, all twisted and malformed, he really hoped his appetite wouldn't be killed by the end of this with even worse when the monsters started actually moving.

And then the monsters actually started moving.

The dog turning into a monster and killing the other dogs hurt the animal lover inside him, and he felt a bit of his latent arachnophobia begin to rear its head when the hairy legs sprouted from its back, and then the actual form the monster, halfway through killing the remaining trapped dogs had sent a chill up his spine and then-

“See how they were able to make the monster look goopy? It's not really very goopy except during the close up shots, because it's an animatronic so it had to be dry most of the time, they got the shine effect by piling liquid latex ontop of the finished paintjob until it started drying while it trailed off of the frame. And that right there? When it took the hurt dog? That was actually filmed in reverse, having the tentacles start out around the dog puppet and then rapidly pull away so when they reversed it it looked like they actually moved and had torque behind the action.”

“Really?”

“Yeah it's really fascinating how they went about effects before computer graphics were refined, everything had to be practical so even if it doesn't look the best, it doesn't hit that uncanny valley that bad CGI makes because even if it doesn't look real it looks real enough.”

It didn't feel quite as disturbing with that rattling around in his head, focusing on how much work must have been done to make the monster move as realistically as possible, how many times they'd practiced and trained in a controlled sound stage and adapting it to the set...

They weren't the only ones in the theater, but it was a mostly empty showing, as was usually the case with foreign films as old as this one. So it wasn't like they were disturbing anyone with Red Son leaning over to whisper interesting details MK would have never even thought to look up to make the overall experience less scary. Red Son seemed aware that he wasn't the biggest horror fan, and was trying to soften the blows the more intense moments would bring by talking through them and bringing back  the reality that it was just a movie they were watching.

“I was alive in this era and I can state with general expertise that computers were certainly not that advanced yet. Computer AI wasn't past that of your average graphing calculator until at least the mid 1990's.”

“They got that sound effect by putting a microphone in a tin trash can and recording the sound of a racecar zooming by and put it in a reverb chamber until it sounded completely unrecognizable”

“Blair is already a Thing at this point, you remember when he was dissecting the Norwegian base's monster? He was using a pencil eraser to point out that era in its chest and then he'd touched the eraser to his lip! And since it started by probably just a small contingent of shed cells it probably took him longer to assimilate than the others.”

“This is actually really cool! The stunt double for Copper that they got for the scene actually was a double amputee! They made fake hands for him out of latex, filled them with fake blood, and styled the chest jaw like a bear trap for that disgusting pulling shot.”

Though... That one didn't work as well... When the long tendril shot from the Thing's stomach and sprouted slider legs and a second head, the extending neck hissing and glaring down at the heroes, he felt his gut turn, even as the heroes took the flamethrower to the monster.

The monster's first head ripped from its body and grew spider legs. And Oh GOD that was disgusting, without thinking he reached for the edge of the armrest to grip as the heroes had to play cat and mouse with a severed, spider head. He'd missed, and his hand clapped down atop of Red Son's and squeezed.

Red Son jolted beside him and MK saw him turn in his direction in his periphery.

“You know if this is freaking you out too much we can leave.”

“No! No, it's okay. You like this movie! You wouldn't know so much about it if you didn't like it!” Besides, he shouldn't be getting so spooked about some kinda gross kinda spidery horror movie from the 1980s, what kind of hero got freaked out at a little practical effects?

He couldn't see Red Son's face very well with only the light of the movie itself to see by, but he made a strange sort of humming noise and slipped his hand out of MK's, moving his arm to put the arm rest up and then slide his hand back into his own.

“Here, that should be more comfortable then.”

And it was. Red Son's factoids and chatter alongside the movie were doing well at cutting the edge off of it again, and it was aided by not just their connected hands, but now by his physical closeness as well.

“I've heard the director had this stylistic rule about after the Things start invading, the idea is that if a character has light reflecting off their eyes they're human, if not they're a Thing.”

“Most people think Palmers was the shadow the dog assimilated back earlier but I think it was Norris, Palmers didn't get turned into a thing until after they go and talk to Blair again I don't think.”

“Actually...I don't think I like that translation very much. Like yeah it's more polite and Gary's a gentleman, but 'I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter tied to this fucking couch' emphasizes the stress of the situation better.”

And then came the time of the final confrontation, MK braced himself, squeezed Red Son's hand in his own. It was indeed gross, and frightful, and the puppetry alone was REALLY good. All those moving parts and there's no way that THAT was an animatronic so it HAD to be a puppet. And wow that was a REALLY good explosion.

...huh...Apparently he could do it too.

The movie ended with what MK felt like was a tentatively optimistic note. The remaining two heroes sharing a drink as the research facility and the monsters it housed burned around them. And you maybe get the feeling the two of them won't survive the cold, but they stopped the monsters and that’s what matters.

Though MK was right to worry over the movie killing his apatite because by the time the lights went up and the credits rolled he found he wasn't very hungry. Which felt ridiculous since he was always in need of quick carbs for Monkie Kid things. But Red Son had lost his own apatite as well apparently and the two of them could do nothing but laugh a bit awkwardly at their date being derailed by a movie being a bit too gross.

So MK pulled him into a nearby park and they went for a walk instead of the restaurant they'd planned for.

“Most people think that Childs is a Thing and I'm tempted to agree, He doesn't have the eye shine but neither does MacReady and we know he's not a Thing, but MacReady's breath is steaming and Childs' doesn't until the very end there, and MacReady wasn't drinking, those were Molotov Cocktails, that was gasoline and Childs just downed it without a thought to taste or smell.”

“So you think the Thing won at the end?”

“I don't know, but they do have one flamethrower left and Childs whether he's a Thing or not just drank gasoline. So MacReady as a person is probably as good as dead.”

“I Dunno, I like the idea that he wasn't a Thing in the end, gives it something not dissimilar to a happy ending, but like, it's not like they hadn't been wrong about who was a Thing before. The dog handler wasn't a Thing but he got shot anyway.”

“That's very true.”

It was about there that MK realized he'd yet to let go of Red Son's hand.

Well... he hadn't pulled away... MK squeezed Red Son's hand in his own, and Red Son—on a tangent about how in the time before CGI they'd made the stylistic title card with use of a fishtank, garbage bag, flash paper and a lot of smoke—squeezed him back.

A few hours and a plate or two of street vendor food when either of their appetites returned later and Red Son had insisted on walking him home. He was staying in a penthouse that his family technically owned but he was the only one who actually knew about it, and he wanted to be a gentleman before he headed back there.

“Well,  I hope you enjoyed yourself a bit. I feel as though I should apologize for choosing such a niche film, mother always said I was the only one who cared about foreign horror movies and just because I find movie effects fascinating especially in a time before technology was as advanced as it is now doesn't mean I should subject others to my incessant yammering.”

he didn't really think Red Son could pull off shy, but he'd folded his arms tightly and was very pointedly NOT looking at him now. And Sure, this felt like a big step, but that playfully self deprecating tone wasn’t gonna fly here. He moved slowly, giving Red Son time to pull away if desired. Placing one hand on Red Son's shoulder, the other on the side of his face to turn his head. He had to get on his tiptoes to make it to his level, but he leaned in-

It was nice. Soft, and Red Son of course ran hotter than an average person so it was warm too. He pulled away just as he felt Red Son start to press back against him. When MK opened his eyes, he noticed Red Son's were still closed for a moment longer before fluttering open.

“I like your incessant yammering.” He had such a cute blush. “it means you're passionate about something.” 

“You... wanna come in? Monkey King gave me this new tea blend I've been meaning to try out.”

--

Prompt meme (I’ll stop when y’all stop sending stuff)

[rosy-cheekx]

Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Additional Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, The Lonely Fear Domain (The Magnus Archives), Canon-Typical The Lonely Content (The Magnus Archives), Martin Blackwood Feels Lonely, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), Tumblr Prompt, Prompt Fill Summary:

"Tea, tea, tea. Rooibos and chamomile for sleepless nights. Herbal for variety. Jon likes caffeinated teas. Maybe some chai? That’ll be good when it gets really cold…god how long will we be here? Through winter? Forever? He could stay here forever if it meant Jon was there too."

Martin can't remember the last time he drank tea. It's unsettling, the habits he picked up and habits he lost while overwhelmed by The Lonely.

Chapter Two is here! Thanks again to @ombreblossom for the prompt suggestion: “please don’t shut me out” and “we can talk through the door.”

Enjoy! (posted below too)

Jon didn’t know what to do. He was worried about Martin, had been for a while, after they had—for lack of a better word—evacuated to Daisy’s unoccupied safehouse. Jon knew Martin needed time, but it was still so strange to see a shell of the man he knew instead of the man he loves.

No, that’s not right. He loves this Martin too, there’s no doubt there. Jonathan Sims, the Archivist, doesn’t think he can put a modifier on that word. Love. “Loved” implies he doesn’t anymore, which he does. “Loves” implies present tense, which is technically true but still doesn’t sit right. It feels like it invalidates all the past versions of Martin, the ones who have waned into this one. Maybe it’s the monster in him, the eldritch being that exists out of time, that Knows and Sees everything at the same time, all the time, forever. But to say he love Martin sounds silly. There must be a better word.

He knows he has love for Martin (better?) when he finds him, quaking or shivering behind a door or in the shower or frozen under the covers. In those moments all he feels is a desperate desire to make things better, to ride out the storm alongside Martin and wish away anything plaguing him. He can’t, but tea and the biggest duvet in the house is close enough. It’ll do for now.

He can feel his love for Martin when Martin reaches out for him, clinging to his hand like a lifeline. Its rare. He’s gotten less tactile since before, well, everything. Martin was always the one to pat your shoulder comfortingly or pull you into a hug when your vision blurs from tears. Apparently people felt so warm to him, as he had told Jon in a calm moment, after he had flinched the first time. Searing hot. Something to do with the relationships they have with others heats them, like embers in their bellies. It was a debilitating reminder that Martin had given up so much, and a curse bent on keeping those relationships at arm’s reach. Literally.

“You’re not too bad,” Martin had said, a ghost of a smile reminding him of the man he knew. “T-that’s probably not good for you, all things considered. But we’ve both lost our connections, haven’t we?”

“Mmm. Everyone but you, I think.”

-

Jon has been too afraid to leave Martin alone. They’ve gone on a few walks together but overall neither of them has left the house. Jon’s afraid to be around people, to hear the whisper of a statement and be unable to resist the pull to Ask, to Know, to Beg for the knowledge if that’s what it takes.

The time has come, though, the day Jon dreaded. They needed to go shopping.

Jon reminded Martin over and over that he didn’t need to come, that he could stay and rest or write poetry or just take a break. But Martin was determined, it seemed, to fight his battles as much as Jon was. Maybe it would be easier to resist with Martin alongside him, his anchor to humanity.

The grocery wasn’t too busy, all things considered, but compared to the ambient silence of the house and the car, the noise was deafening. Jon felt a bit like an AI unit, using his all-powerful powers to figure out where the tinned soups, bread, and tea were stocked.

God that tea. He hadn’t meant to upset Martin, it was just that he knew how vehemently Martin despised oolong. Jon had tried to make it for him a while back at Sasha’s behest; only to return, tail tucked, with a full mug of tea in newly shaky hands. Jon had thought it was because Martin had finally snapped, lost his cool on his new boss. But Martin had stuck his head in the door, mumbling something quick about oolong and his mum and how he hated it now and he was sorry. Jon had forgiven him. He knew what it was like to be caught off guard by something from your past, whatever it was. But now he was here, staring at the spot Martin had been, shivering as a low fog pooled at his feet briefly before dissipating into the air. His connection with the Lonely was wearing off, sure, but it clearly wasn’t completely severed.

Jon vacillated for a moment. Should he stay here? Hope Martin reappears in the same spot he left? He knew that wasn’t how it worked. Martin had told him about the parallel world in which he could walk, this world but lonelier, softer, more distant. The safehouse would still exist in Martin’s world. It was probably the only place Martin could feel secure in. He couldn’t Know where Martin was going; even if he hadn’t promised he didn’t think it would work if he tried. Martin was avoiding being known and seen. He needed space, as much as Jon could give him, until he was ready to come back.

Jon paid for the groceries, grateful the teen at the till barely seemed to acknowledge his existence. No statement to give; mother on her deathbed; irrelevant, unhelpful child; girlfriend cheating with—Stop it.

Fumbling with bags of bread, fruit, tea, rice, pasta, veg, soup, anything that seemed healthy and easy enough to make between the two of them, Jon loaded everything into the car, backseat precariously filled. He drove home (how quick it was, to admit the safehouse felt more like home than anywhere Jon had lived for a while) in silence somehow more deafening than the scratchy Georgia Ann Muldrow playing from the speakers and the bustle of the tiny Scottish village. It was slow-going, half-hoping he’d spot Martin on the drive and half-dreading the idea of getting home and him not being there, willing himself to put that off as long as possible.

Jon did arrive home eventually, however, to a pant leg and shoe slipping through the front door. Martin. He wasn’t sure if the recognition was the Eye or just Jon, but either entity was certain enough in their knowledge.

Making a point to put the car in park, Jon shouted for Martin, diving out of the car as soon as he could and rushed into the house. He couldn’t tell where man he carried such love for had gone; the Eye beckoned, teased him with Knowing. Just this once. To help him. He pushed the thoughts aside and began to systematically check the usual places. The space behind the front door, next to the couch, the bedroom. As Jon closed the door to the apparently empty bedroom he heard shuffling coming from the bathroom and the unfortunately familiar sound of Martin’s suppressed crying.

Jon approached the door with the coiled tension of one approaching an injured wild animal, pressing his ear to the door. “M-Martin? It’s-it’s Jon,” Stupid, obviously. “Are you alright? I mean-I assume not. But—hmm. what can I do?”

“Leave me alone, Jon.” Martin’s voice was muffled; Jon could practically picture him, elbows resting on the sink, face in his hands. “I-I can deal with this myself.”

“I know you can, of course you can, Martin.” Jon ran a hand through his tangled curly hair, tugging on an errant curl as he spoke. “But-just, don’t shut me out. You don’t need to do this alone. You have people who—you have me. I care.” Sigh. “I-It’s the Lonely, Martin, it’s trying to trick you.”

“Its stupid. I-I don’t think I can say it to your face.”

“Then don’t. I can hear you. We can talk through the door. I certainly don’t have anywhere to go.”

Martin was quiet for a while. “It was that stupid tea, of all things.” His voice was slow, shaky; Jon could hear the effort he was taking to keep it controlled. “It made me realize how not me I was, am, whatever.” Jon didn’t speak, didn’t want to break Martin’s focus. “I haven’t drunk tea since Peter. That sounds so-so stupid to be the thing to lose my cool over but it’s more than that. I lost so much of myself, Jon, while you were gone, after my mum, after Peter-fucking-Lukas.”

Oh shit.

“It’s not just that obviously, it’s the loneliness and the touch and the anxiety I feel all the time. I changed so much, Jon, and I didn’t even realize it was happening until it was too late and then I didn’t have a choice. I haven’t felt human in so long and I don’t know what to do with myself now.”

“Martin?”

“I’m cold all the time, Jon, I used to be the warm one! I used to be the one Sasha and Tim and you would cuddle next to during movie nights in the Archives because it was freezing down there and now I can’t get warm.” Martin’s voice was escalating in tone and volume, a fever-pitch of anger and sorrow. “I just want to feel normal again! I don’t want to be lonely anymore, I want to be human!”

“Martin!” Jon had stepped back from the door, watching a faint haze seep out from under the door, thick and white, rising in front of the door. “Martin, what’s happening in there?”

“Wh—Oh!” Jon hear the click and squeak of the door opening, and the fog billowed out tenfold. He could just make out a silhouette of Martin, seemingly more solid than any way he had seemed in a while. Jon stuck out his hand, thin and tight and scarred, and felt another hand, thick and large and warm, grasp his. “Jon, w-what’s happening?”

“I-I’m not sure Martin, I can See, if you like.” He pressed his other hand to Martin’s face, treasuring how warm and soft he felt. “But I think-I think you healed yourself. Not wanting to be lonely, anymore, maybe?” Jon saw the warm, soft, exhausted smile on Martin’s face and was dimly pleased to feel it mimicked on his own.

I love you, he wanted to say. I think I have always loved you and will always love you. But there was time for that, Jon knew. There was time for sleepy love confessions and understanding exactly the right word to define how he felt for the man in front of him. Some things just need time.

(They remembered the groceries about an hour later, when Martin mentioned making a cup of herbal tea.)

[wonderful-emoji]

Oh the full story on that one is something else and I'm using this comment as an excuse to infodump thanks.

Ok so Moltar was the original host of Toonami. Now Moltar's Toonami appearance is definitely the same character as Moltar on Coast to Coast, and thus the Moltar that's been around as a supervillain since the 60's (I'm clarifying this because the HB/CN/WB multiverse is crazy and you have stuff like the two different Aqua Teen Hunger Forces it's own rabbit hole).

Anyway Moltar was a bit of a nothingburger character before Coast to Coast. A mere alien in a hazard suit who makes robots out of lava, but Coast to Coast really gave Moltar some character. Moltar's role in Coast to Coast is that of the show's director/producer/broadcaster, who is as hostile towards his enemy Space Ghost as his band leader best friend Zorak is. And one of his preferred forms of insubordination was watching the tv show Chips in the middle of filming the show. It became a character trait for Moltar that he loved the show for its absurd violence and lead actor Eric Estra who he had a crush on (there was an episode where Space Ghost interviews Estra and it might be the gayest episode of the series I'm not even joking).

With Moltar's love of action TV shows, among other general nerdiness, already established, it really wasn't a stretch that he would dig action cartoons, and he really was a perfect character to host an action animation block.

However he didn't host the block alone, as he received a sidekick named Clyde 49. Clyde 49 was a satellite probe sent from C2C's setting of Ghost Planet Industries on Ghost Planet off to earth via being shot out of a cannon.

Basically Clyde would hang around on earth or the space between Earth and Ghost Planet, pick up the best action cartoon TV feeds he could find to send back to Moltar, who would then broadcast the cartoons back to Earth on the Toonami block (pretty effective of a back story expecaly with the fact toonami was exclusively sindicated action cartoons at the time).

And then one day, Moltar was gone without explanation. He was replaced by TOM, a robot piloting the Ghost Planet Ship Absolution. Moltar was back to exclusively appearing on Coast to Coast (save a single appearance on The Brak Show), His time on Toonami not really coming up on C2C (although they did reveal he wrote homoerotic Star Trek fanfiction). And Clyde 49 hasn't been seen since (save for being depicted in graffiti in Crossover Nexus). And Coast to Coast ran for another four years after Moltar left Toonami.

I will say having watched a ton of Toonami bumpers, TOM's vibes really were established to match Moltar's. TOM even took over Monologue and Video Game review segments that Moltar had established. However apparently the relationship between both characters is distant.

The only time the characters have been seen interacting was in a Tribute to Moltar's Voice Actor C Martin Croker, who suddenly passed in 2016. In the tribute short TOM gets a message from Moltar, Something TOM's surprised by because Moltar doesn't talk to him. The message was along the lines of "I'm going back to my home planet and I'm not coming back. You will never be as good of a toonami host as me". TOM laughs it off and wishes Moltar the best to himself.

And it's like. It's weird to me these characters have next to no relationship? Like Moltar is a cartoon Lava supervillain if he had a problem with a little hero robot taking his job he'd do something about it, and you think he'd be interested in making sure his successor is holding up his cartoon show. Is Moltar avoiding TOM and if he is why is he avoiding him? Like even in the forge the booger alien is like "Damn TOM your AI programing is weird as hell who the fuck made you?" And TOM has no idea? And TOM doesn't know where he's from either despite Ghost Planet, the planet that belongs to Space Ghost, being in the name of his space ship. What the fuck happened when TOM took over? I have no idea but what I do know is that I don't expect any of this to be resolved anytime soon.

To wrap this all up, if you miss Moltar, you may be in luck. It's been confirmed by Brak's Voice actor Andy Merrill that Brak and Zorak will be returning in an upcoming episode of Jellystone (the show from the creator of chowder where Yogi Bear is a doctor). This means Zorak will be voiced for the first time since, Zorak and Moltar's Coast to Coast era Voice actor C Martin Croker's passing in 2016, and Merrill has also implied Moltar might also be returning complete with some sort of Toonami nod.

I wonder if I could get people to watch Space Ghost Coast to Coast if I say it's toxic slow burn enemies to lovers yaoi or if I need to add more genre buzzwords to get you to watch a cartoon talk show where 60's cartoon superhero with very apparent mental health issues and weighing morals enters an awkward on and off gay affair with the lamest supervillain in his original rouge galley super group who Cartoon Network hired to work under him as a prison labor broadcasting professional

[ambered-glazed-sheep]

Please do go on about Doomslayer and his morals. I'm legit fascinated by him since starting the let's play I'm watching and I'd love to hear your take on him (I know literally nothing about the Doom franchise other than lots of blood and violence against demons and also badass music)

You know, a year ago when my friends asked me 'hey do you wanna play minecraft' and i said 'yeah sure' i would have never thought i would one day have a minecraft sideblog where i get questions about the personality of the main character of a shooter fps game (of all things!) that is known for its incredible violence.

But here you go:

(prepare yourself this has gotten way longer than i thought oh god, and also it has nothing to do with hermits whatsoever. warnings for language and descriptions of violence? and i assume the readmore won’t be working the way i want it to)

Ok so, Doom!

First of all, i know nothing about the old games, and i’ve only seen a minimal amount of Doom Eternal Letsplays. Most of this is based on Doom (2016). 

Ok so we all start out thinking Doomguy! It’s the guy you play in Doom. The hand that hold the gun YOU are shooting demons with. And sure, you can go trough the whole game with that mindset, but that’s boring and we are overthinking fictional characters in this house.

ID software actually managed to give Doomguy/Doomslayer a TON of personality despite him never saying a word, barely any cutscenes to show what he does when you don’t control him (at least in Doom 2016), and not a lot of other characters to interact with despite enemy monsters.

The game just leaves you little hints and snippets and that’s what makes Doomslayer so exciting to think about. Just the right levels between ‘cryptid half-god who never shows emotion and is a player-insert’ and ‘this dude’s got an AGENDA. he has PLACES TO BE’. You are him as you play, but sometimes he makes decisions on his own. But personally, i could never find myself to disagree.

First, you got the intro sequence. 

You got a unknown voice telling you: 

“They are rage. Brutal, without mercy. But you. You will be worse. Rip and Tear, until it is done.”

First of all, YO. WOW. HOLY SHIT.

The scene immediately shifts to Doomslayer waking up. He’s naked, he’s chained down somewhere, theresa SHIT TON of scars littering his arms and hands. First thing HE does, on his own behalf, is ripping off the chains by flexing a little (literal iron chains!!!), smashing a zombies head against the sarcophagus he lays in and completely obliterating said head into a bit of blood (mind you, three seconds after he woke up from a thousands of years long coma!! but we only learn that later), and then promptly gets up, picks up a pistol, and now it’s your, the players turn. This takes like 8 seconds in total. This man means BUSINESS. That’s the first thing we learn.

Second thing that strikes me is the interactions with Samuel Hayden. 

Doomslayer is patient when a computer voice tells him the status of the base. He is patient as he looks at the screens to see what is going on. (a demonic invasion, thats what). But then dear Dr. Samuel Hayden calls. 

Dr. Hayden says “Hi, i’m the boss here, i’m sure we can work together in a way that benefits us both uwu”. Doomslayer immediately grabs the PC screen and pushes it aside. His gesture says, i’m done with this. im sick of this dude. this guy is full of shit. And he’s right! And that after barely hearing two sentences from Hayden!

So the second thing we learn is that he has no time for people trying to exploit him. He hears Hayden, he has a gut feeling that this dude is a little fishy, maybe he just plain doesnt like higher ups and heads of facilities. But we learn that he IS. NOT. going to listen to this man, and his body language makes that very clear without being actually violent against the person (he doesnt destroy the Screen either! just pushes it aside very annoyed. He isn’t mindlessly destroying property here.)

This continues. 

Hayden goes ‘hey maybe don’t destroy that energy source!’ in the few seconds you dont control him, Doomslayer listens. He hesitates. He considers. Then he destroys the thing anyways. Hayden keeps telling him to stop, but Doomslayer doesnt listen. He’s got his own mind!

This was mostly about Haydens Company, the UAC, harvesting hell energy, and hurting people in the process. 

There’s a scene where Doomslayer rides an elevator. Hayden, over the comms, tells him that everyone that has died in the demon attack was a nacessary sacrifice that will bring a new future or some shit like that. the camera pans down to show some poor sods corpse at those very words. Doomslayer cracks his knuckles. he is NOT HAPPY about that, so we know he doesnt like it when human lifes are sacrificed. He destroys the communicator, so he doesnt have to listen to Haydens voice telling him lies and trying to sway him anymore. 

(then he takes out his shotgun, the doors open, metal starts playing and the doom logo is shown, but that’s more about making the player feel epic than showing doomslayers personality,,)

Now i would like to talk about VEGA, the AI that controls the mars facility. 

VEGA occasionally talks to us/the Slayer. He is very straightforward, tells us what to do and why to do it, and is generally very polite. In the story, Doomslayer listens to Vega. 

Now why does he listen to VEGA but not Hayden? 

I think it’s because Hayden tries to get him to do things that just benefit him, and Hayden is very manipulative in his words (or tries to be lol), while Vega just says (if you destroy this thing, that door will open. I think Doomslayer appreciates it when people are honest to him.

And in the end, Doomslayer on his own decides to save a backup of VEGA. VEGA didn’t ask him to, Doomslayer did that on his own. It’s not relevant to his mission, he doesnt need VEGA to go to hell to close portals and whatnot. But he does save him. Why? I think it’s because he cares. Because he’s come to like VEGA. Because Vega didn’t try to manipulate him and screw him over. 

Next up is the Slayers Testament. 

These are a bunch of writings/recordings that you find scattered in the hell levels. (i highly recommend listening to them/reading them, they are metal as fuck and give me such an immense feeling of power bc they are talking about me, the doomslayer)

These testaments were written by demons. They were genuinely afraid of the slayer. 

Quote:

Unbreakable, incorruptible, unyielding, the Doom Slayer sought to end the dominion of the dark realm.

As said, i don’t think these are purely talking about his physical strength. They are talking about his... well, mentality. His Codex. They see him as an unstoppable force. He is incorruptible. Let that sink in. Man walks trough hordes of demons and at no point ever thinks ‘yeah maybe this is a bit much’ or ‘they just keep coming this is pointless’. No. He’s unyielding. (Can you tell how much i love the words in these testaments? It’s just got such a nice ring to it.)

In battle, the Doomslayer is BRUTAL. He tears apart demons, rips their eyes out, all that. He stomps on heads like they’re water balloons and isn’t fazed at all. Nothing stops this man. (except players like me who fall off the map 5 consecutive times, but lets just imagine the doomslayer is actually like he would be if someone played the game perfectly. player skill shouldn’t be considered in my headcanons jahdjhgd) One could even argue he has fun at this, because there are some animations like ripping off a zombies arm and beating the Zombie with it, or feeding a demon it’s own heart.

I feel like that says a lot about his personality as well!

He doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t doubt himself. He doesn’t question his cause! He fights to get rid of the demons, not just the ones in his way, but every. demon. He will go out of his way to kill more demons. You could either take this as him having fun, or him following his own moral codex to get rid of every demon, or him being a not-quite-human war machine, or wanting to protect humanity from them. 

I would say it’s a healthy mix of all that :D

In older games, there was this whole backstory snippet of him returning to earth, finding that the demons had invaded his planet but also killed his pet rabbit (Daisy), and he then goes onto a 2-game long revenge trip.Take that as you will.

The last thing i would like to mention is this post.

Please watch the video. Doomguy walks trough the rows of random human guards. This is the walk of a man who doesn’t owe them SHIT. Yes, he wants to save humanity. Yes, he cares. But he also knows who he is. He knows what he did, and what he will do. He doesn’t have to justify himself in front of these shady scientists and jerky guards.THEY owe HIM, in fact. This video emits the sheer CONFIDENCE of someone who has walked trough hell multiple times and knows none of these people could even touch him. Yes, he would never kill them. He would not harm humans. But he doesn’t care about making them uncomfortable with his presence, either. He doesnt ask for permission.

(i think by now i am using the exact same words they did in that post. really, its worth the read. i think there’s a lot of repeated things between this post and that post by now but i encourage you to watch that video. its worth it.)

Also, the impact he has on the people in this room! they trip. they walk backwards. they go quiet, stutter. they are intimidated. They know he’s technically here to help and save them, but now, standing in front of them.... just wow. it really puts things into perspective. it tells the player that all the demons that he’s killed, all that the doomslayer has done... its noted. it has an impact. 

I’m not really sure where i’m going with this anymore, but watching those NPCs react to the slayers presence just adds so much more to his character. it tells us how people see him, and boy.... do they see him. 

i think it also ties a lot into how the player is made feel, controlling doomguy. all these head stomping and limp tearing animations, the guns, people being scared, watching doomslayer destroy important equipment from first pirson or pushing open doors or whatever... it just gives me such an immense feeling of power! i can’t even describe it. (...it also has nothing to do anymore with the original question but holy shit did i love playing doom for the sheer atmosphere of it. despite me being horrible at playing.)

(at the end of this i’m realizing that all of this never addressed if doomslayer is happy and content murdering demons, or if he just wants his peace and quiet but can’t help himself every time he sees a demon. i would propose to leave that up to headcanons. mine is a mix of both but in a way that makes it not angsty. like he loves to have his calm moments, but is just as happy to rip some demon’s spine out. probably gets a little itchy and impatient if he hasn’t fought in a while.)

also if you’re interested in game design and way more professional people talking about why doom 2016 is great i reccomend this documentary

...anyways it’s past 1am and this has gotten way out of hand but

tl;dr: the doomslayer is metal as fuck, he has a lot of agenda he is following, and i love him so much

[ihavenoside]

Reverse Verse (because I’m so creative lol)

NAME: Connor Stern

Nicknames: Detective, The Negotiator.

Date Created: August 15, 2008

AGE: 30

SPECIES: Human

GENDER: Male

RELIGION: None

ORIENTATION: Asexual/Demisexual

PROFESSION: DPD Detective

EYES: Brown

HAIR: Dark Brown

HEIGHT: 6'0

WEIGHT: 160-180

SIBLINGS: known twin and younger brother.

PARENTS: Adoptive Mother Amanda Stern

ANY PETS?: No, but likes animals in general

COLORS: Doesn’t have a preference

SMELLS: Colognes

FOOD: Fast Food

DRINKS: Anything caffeinated and/or alcoholic.

Connor comes from a bit of a complicated background. The where abouts of his biological parents are known to him. He was given up to the foster care system at the young age of two with this biological twin Sixty, a nickname Connor gave him to mark himself as the rightful older brother and a younger brother named Caleb.

Thankfully or at the time, not so thankfully, the three were adopted together by a woman called Amanda Stern. A University AI professor at Colbridge, who wanted children but let the passage of time escape her grasps, thus resulting in her wanting to adopt.

Trying to show they were apart of something, she had their last names legally changed to hers and while she struggled to be the best mother figure she could be, she had the teachers approach to keeping them all in check. She often held high expectations for them, which after learning there they adopted and unwanted, only added to his insecurities about never being good enough.

While Amanda Stern did her best as a parent, Connor wasn’t always the best role model for his younger brothers. He picked up smoking in high school because of peer pressure and now uses it as a means to deal with his stress. He never fell into the E.cigs or vaping trend. Knowing that if anything was going to kill him, it might as well be the cigarettes despite several attempts throughout his life to quit.

By the time Connor was 19, Amanda stern passed unexpectedly, leaving himself and his brothers to be thrown into the world and forced to fend for themselves. With the economy being taking over by automation and humans being replaced by androids in other fields, jobs were hard to come by which left him sometimes having to turn to petty crimes just to make ends meet.

Connor likes to pride himself on being very cunning and his for planning, so when he was finally caught, he was surprised and pretty sure he was up shits creek without a paddle. He didn’t expect the officer to be lenient with him and have a conversation. Which later lead to him joining the police academy and now working as a DPD Detective, addicted to coffee and cigarettes, has insomnia and an irrational phobia of hospitals.

Connor also has a love/hate relationship with androids. He sees their usefulness but mostly resents the people that use androids to replace people in the workforce. Androids that stay home, cook, clean and do errands because people don’t have time to do that themselves are fine with him. Androids that are brought in to run and stock businesses, well those owners can fuck right off in his books.

[polar-stars]

Shigeo Eizan, Erina, Eizan Etsuya, Chigeo, Kimiko and Hayama for the character thing please?

Ohh, I didn’t think anyone would ask for my own characters but ;v; !!! Sure !

Shigeo

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life [Shigeo is a character I’m really proud of haha ; 7 ; But I’m glad he’s actually well-received. I can only repeat, that I did not expect that]

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang [Honestly, I feel a bit weird over commenting on the looks of my OCs ahdhd but, I gotta admit Shigeo is much of my type...but I mean, apparently I’m not alone on that? dshdfjFGJ So many have complimented Shigeo’s appearance now and I’m screaming. Y’all are making his ego grow.]

hogwarts house: gryffindor | S L Y T H E R I N, Shigeo’s a full-fledged snake...what do u think? | ravenclaw | hufflepuff 

best quality: I said it once already, but I would actually say his loyalty is his best quality. Now, the number of people that Shigeo is loyal to is extremely slim but...well, it is a very strong loyalty. It’s just, again, it’s only few who earn that loyalty.

worst quality:  lol. I could name numerous things in that regard. But as I also said once already, I guess his most fatal flaw is that he swallows up his fears, his trauma and a lot of other things in himself and never works through it. 

ship them with:  ShigeChi >; Chieko had multiple ship-options at a certain point, but Shigeo’s only ship options always Chieko and welp ahdh The moment I started fleshing Shigeo out more, their dynamic grew more and more onto me and she also sneaked her way into his character-arc so. 

brotp them with: There’s Moe & Kiyoko, who are really close friends of his and I really love their relationships. But I also gotta bring up Suzume here. Suzume’s and Shigeo’s relationship makes me so happy, despite it not being exactly friendly ahdhd. It’s a lot of fun to think of their banter and interactions to me. Also well, Umino & Yamada deserve their mention as well, so here they go ahdh.

needs to stay away from: Ai Kabutoyama. Pls, don’t ship them. 

misc. thoughts: If “Shokugeki no Kimiko” was animated and had it’s own soundtrack, Shigeo deserves to be having a jazzy theme for himself. 

Erina

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life  

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang 

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff 

best quality: I really love how much of a Boss Bitch Erina really is, she steps into a place and she owns it and she knows it. But at the same time, her social awkwardness and also obvious care for Hisako, the PSD later on etc. also make her a cutie at the same time.

worst quality: This is really more on Tsukuda’s part, but I do not like how she’s written in BLUE Arc at all, and how she honestly keeps pushing Soma away while he goes out of his way for her multiple times...

ship them with:  Soma is my favorite choice for her

brotp them with: Hisako !!

needs to stay away from: HER DAD. AND ASAHI. AND HER MOM MAYBE- IDK, give her a better family. 

misc. thoughts: Takumi said in his match against her that if she’d be on the Elite Council “She’d be the zero seat”. And honestly, I kinda found myself wishing for Tsukuda just having run with that instead. Just establish a new seat extra for Erina because she’s that good. It still sounds kinda dumb yes, but not as dumb as making her actual headmistress. With 16. What also bothers me about her being headmistress is that it’s a very busy job, I’d imagine....Let Erina be a normal teen, could you? She was already robbed off a childhood, geez. 

Eizan

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life  [ Or more of: An Angry Opposum, I found in the trash and that I decided to adopt]

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot [without bangs] | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang [wiTH BANGS]

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin [...duh] | ravenclaw | hufflepuff 

best quality: Eizan is SO entertaining to me, you all have no idea. He’s so god-damn funny at times and I’m just ahdhd I love him. Meep, he’s intelligent and tactical and I like that in characters? I wish, we could have seen more of him being smart instead of having him being blinded more and more by rage and vengeance ;v; 

worst quality:  Lmao, do you want a list? His obsession for money? His unscrupulousness? His disregard of fucking...decency?? ahdh I could go on.

ship them with:  //takes out megaphone// nENE KINOKUNI, LADIES AND GENTS. In my eyes, he legit seems to hold some sort-off respect for her and I hold the headcanon that Eizan is actually crushing on her a little ver since middle school. Come on, I do think it’s plausible that he’d find himself attracted to a person like Nene: She’s smart, she’s no pushover, she murders people with just a glance, her hair is green. One of the meanings attributed to the color green is actually...finances, profit, banks, moNEY- 

brotp them with: The few interactions Eizan had with Somei legit cracked me up so...hdhd yeah, Somei. But also...Momo, being real. And of course, Isshiki & Kuga. Can’t forget them.

needs to stay away from: PSD, lol. I’d say Azami, but honestly Eizan seems to handle Azami fine? Azami just shows up at his work and is like: “What u doing owo?” and Eizan replies with “Are you bored or something????” like ahdhd WOW

misc. thoughts: Honestly...Is it plausible to assume that Eizan and Nene actually had a Shokugeki?...A Shokugeki which he won? I mean, somehow he had to earn that seat above her’s......right? (Would have been nice, if Tsukuda could have explained the new Elite 10 Ranking or show what got them there but nOPE)

Chieko

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life [She’s the first fanchild I ever made. I love her so much]

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang [It would break my heart to say anything else...She has insecurities]

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff 

best quality: I do love Chieko for how feisty she can be. The girl will mouth off multiple times to one of the most dangerous people at her school and I think it’s neat. 

worst quality: She does take longer to make her moves at times though, sometimes she’s just too careful and overthinking instead of stepping into battle. 

ship them with: Shigeo Eizan. Both of them succeed mainly through intellect, booth in cooking and other areas of life. It’s kind off natural, that they’d get eventually interested in each other. 

brotp them with: Yasu, Hideyoshi & Daisuke mainly, but the rest of PSD as well.

needs to stay away from: Shigeo, according to Yasu.  I don’t know as of right now honestly ahdh

misc. thoughts: Funfact, but her wearing a hairband once she’s a 2nd Year is kinda inspired by Disney’s Cinderella haha 

Kimiko

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life 

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang 

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff 

best quality: Kimiko is brave and also most definitely an actor!! And as someone, who’s neither of those, I always admire these qualities ahdh. 

worst quality: Kimiko pretends that she can’t feel feelings like sadness for a good chunk of the story. She plasters a wide smile on her face, even if she’s really not okay and that’s not a good thing...I’m saying this from very strong personal experience.

ship them with: Hiroshi! It was a thing for me from the beginning on!

brotp them with: Mika and later on Kaori, mainly.

needs to stay away from: her brother, okay no ahdhd but well, the nasty part of her family she does not know too well to begin with I’d say

misc. thoughts: I’d LOVE to draw Kimiko more, you gotta believe me on that but her hair is super exhausting to draw ahdhd I love your twin tails Kimi, but they’re suffering. 

Hayama

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life  

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang 

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin(?) | ravenclaw | hufflepuff [I can also picture him win Ravenclaw]

best quality: I kind off love how he’s the straight man in every group of friends he’s in? Someone give the poor man a break ahdhd. But I also really love how determined and ambitious he is, it’s inspiring to see (Which is why I kind off hate, that his shown that he refused to go to BLUE, because he didn’t feel strong enough? Idk, I feel the Akira I met in the Autumn Election wouldn’t have passed out on such a chance)

worst quality: not.....Not a big fan of the Central!Hayama/Soma-Shokugeki being real. I did not really enjoy his performance during that ; 7 ; But that’s just how I personally feel ;v; I don’t really dislike the idea of him joining Central, I just think it could have been done better

ship them with: Hisako!

brotp them with: Alice and Ryo of course 😤!!

needs to stay away from: Azami, haha. (Also...Not into shipping him romantically with Jun. At all. It does kinda creep me out, ngl since I do see her as a sort-off mother-figure in his life...)

misc. thoughts: It’s kinda crime, how he basically triggered the bit of Character development Hisako had, yet they never truly interacted with each other again afterwards ever again?? Like...Why? Why would you do something like this?

HISAKO AND HAYAMA REMATCH, SOMEONE GIVE IT TO ME