#mostly posting this for my own future reference

[honey-tongue]

My personal collection of panels from Homura’s Revenge that had me in a chokehold. let’s gooo

[library-ghoulette]

Special kind of brainrot where I read Christian mysticism and relate it not to God but to my blorbos

(Excerpt from The Seven Manners of Holy Love by Beatrice of Nazareth)

[springvaletales]

In the main verse, Michael has lived with Velenna for three years, and has gotten through some of the harder parts of his recovery post-lich captivity with her help. He sees her as his primary maternal figure, and refers to her as such.

In the Modern Fantasy verse, Michael has only been in Velenna's care for around six months, and is still addresses her as "Miss Velenna" most of the time. He refers to her as his mother to his friends, but hasn't yet worked up the courage to say it to her face.

[backtothefanfiction]

Oh Baby | PART TWO: SETTLING IN SEATTLE

Manny Alvarez x Reader Insert

Summary: You and the gang settle into your new lives with the WLF

Warnings: MATURE!, pregnancy, angst, fluff, manny is a bit of a jerk, swearing, guns! We are playing fast and loose with both the timeline and general story canon, if that’s gonna bother you, don’t read.

Word Count: 5.2k

A/N: Hi, so here is part 2 of Oh baby. Thank you so much for the love and support on part 1, I can’t wait to share the full story arc I have planned for this. I’m sorry there isn’t a tag list, I’ve just come to realise I’m just really shit at keeping one. The series will be listed in the South Wing of my library (masterlist) from here on out so will be easy to find for future reference. If you really want to make sure you don’t miss an instalment when I post (I’ve not really thought out a schedule with this, just gonna post whenever) then maybe hit the follow button as an extra security. Anyway, Manny is a bit of a dick for a bit during this chapter, but his heart is in the right place, so we can’t be mad right? Right?

It took another day and a half of trekking through the snow to get there, the high snow drifts making it near impossible most of the time to move through the woods, but you made it- and you’d only thrown up twice in that time. You were considering that a win. Manny remained close to you for the whole journey, but never too close to draw too much attention to you both. But he kept a constant eye on you.

When he noticed you weren’t being sick again he tried to encourage you to eat some more, even sneakily offering you some of his own rations. You had tried to push them away, worried that this blessed nausea free break would be ruined by you suddenly adding food back to your stomach again. But he was pushy and wouldn’t take no for an answer- and you were glad he didn’t, thankful when your body remained settled and you were able to enjoy the first lot of food you had kept down in days.

You all mostly walked in silence, all of you conserving your energy as you moved through the howling cold as quickly as you possibly could. When you made it back towards the road things became a little bit easier again, however by that point the fatigue in your body was so great that no matter how much closer you were getting to the city, it still felt like it was miles towards your destination.

Once again you slowly began to fall behind. The cold air made your lungs burn. Your legs were starting to cramp from walking too much and you desperately just wanted to sleep.

“How much further?” you asked Manny as he doubled back to where you had finally come to a stop, your body hunched over, hands braced on your thighs as you desperately tried to get your breath back and muster enough energy to go on.

“I’d say maybe another hour and a half?” he said, turning his head to look for a marker against the city skyline to where the WLF were camped out.

You stood back up to look for the marker yourself, but your eyes were too tired from both your fatigue and the endless white that continued to surround you from all sides.

“Have I ever told you I hate the snow,” you panted, as you tried to instead focus on the man before you and find some solace and energy in him.

“No,” he muttered, his focus split on attending to you and keeping an eye on how far ahead the others were.

“I grew up in Arizona,” you muttered, “not all that much snow in the desert,” you complained and it made him chuckle.

You watched as he took one more look over his shoulder at the others, before his eyes softened. “Come here,” he said, reaching out for your backpack.

You reluctantly let him, once again, shift some of the items from your bag into his to lighten your load and take some of the strain off of your body.

“Thanks,” you said, as you moved to put it back on, the weight of it considerably less. You wondered how heavy his pack must be now, but you knew this was yet just another one of his ways to try and make amends with you.

“So you really think this is a good idea?” you said to him as you slowly began to walk again.

“I mean if you’d asked me yesterday before you told me-“ he hesitated as he struggled to say the words ‘you’re pregnant’ out loud, but you couldn’t blame him, nor did you actually need him to say it for you to understand. He blinked hard and swallowed down the unspoken words before he continued. “I would have said yes. And considering the current weather and the fact our supplies are running dangerously low, I won’t deny, I still think it’s the right move to make. Whether or not it’s a long term solution though?” he said, airing his thoughts, “I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.”

“I’ve heard Isaac can be quite the hard ass,” you confided as you looped your thumbs through the straps of your pack and hoisted it higher on your back as you walked.

“That may be, but if it means he keeps control of the city and we get to settle down in one place for a while…” he offered, his voice trailing off as he struggled to find a conclusion for his train of thought, but you got the gist of where it was headed.

—————————————————

“So how do we do this?” you asked as you approached the old media tower that the WLF had made their main base and finally caught up with the others. “Do we just knock on the door and show them our old fireflies necklaces or?”

You didn’t have time to receive an answer as the doors suddenly flew open and a surge of WLF members came out onto the front steps with their guns trained on the six of you. You immediately froze, your hands instinctively flying up into the air in a show of surrender, but to your surprise Manny stepped forward to block your body with his own. He had a hardened and protective look on his face, but it was a stance you knew was meant to protect everyone, not just you.

“Wait, don’t shoot!” Mel eagerly said, stepping forward, moving her backpack into view and showing off her old fireflies necklace. “We’re former fireflies. We were told by one of your scouting parties in the area we would be welcomed here,” she said optimistically, but your heart was still in your throat.

One of the leaders of the WLF pack lifted a finger and signalled for you to wait where you were. He gave a look to the woman beside him, silently telling her to be vigilant and keep the rest of the pack's eyes trained on you all, as he moved back inside the door to radio to his superior and give them an update.

It was an agonising wait that had your toes tapping with restlessness as you tried to focus on staying calm and optimistic. But on the inside you were mentally berating yourself for ever letting you all go through with this crazy plan.

“You got names?” The man came out again and asked and slowly each one of you introduced yourselves. He didn’t seem to react to any of them until he heard Manny’s and he seemed to grow a little starstruck. Once he had collated your names, he hovered back inside the doorway again to radio them to the superior once more and you were left frowning at the back of Manny’s head as you wondered why the man had reacted that way.

Another couple minutes went by of you all waiting out in the cold, before you were given the all clear to finally enter the building and you let out a low breath of relief as you followed everyone else inside. You stuck close to Manny’s back as you all climbed the stairs single file up to the 4th floor. He took one look back just to check where abouts you were, but you could see him relax when he realised you’d kept yourself close.

“You’ll wait in here,” the man who had led you in said, as he ushered you all into an old conference room that still housed an old wooden table and a mass of swivel chairs.

Although the group of you had been left in the room alone, it was clear from the shadows through the glass in the door, that a couple of WLF members had been placed there on guard to keep an eye on you all just in case.

Although you had been tired the whole way there, the adrenaline from having numerous guns pointed at you was still coursing through your body and you found yourself unable to sit still. You instead moved towards the windows that lined the back wall of the room and took a moment to look out at the snow covered city.

“What do you think they did with all the infected?” you asked, noticing the completely empty streets, but knowing from the fact you had all walked in here with no problem, there wasn’t any fence or defenses like they had in Jackson to keep them all out.

“Probably forced them underground,” Manny’s voice replied quietly, as he hovered looking out the window at your side.

—————————————————

You all waited in exhausted silence for what felt like nearly an hour before someone came to speak to you all. He was a black man of average build, but his presence in the room was immediately all encompassing and commanding.

He came to a halt at the end of the long conference room table before slapping a handful of paper files onto the table top with a heavy slap. Slowly you all came to hover around the table to accept your fate.

“Looks like you all check out,” he said firmly, yet his voice had a softness that told you you no longer needed to be on edge. His fingers slowly began to fan out the different files, his eyes dipping to scan the names on each of them.

“I will say though, many of your fellow fireflies who have sought refuge with me and my ranks thought you dead, as none of them have seen or heard anything about you in months.” He hesitated as he let his steady words permeate the air. “Anyone like to enlighten me as to what you’ve all been doing in that time?”

“We had a personal mission we were carrying out,” Abby spoke up confidently, before quickly adding a ‘Sir,’ as a formality.

“And what kind of personal mission would that be?” he asked, his attention focused on her.

“We were tracking down the man who attacked our base out in Salt Lake City,” she supplied.

“And was the mission successful?” the man asked.

“Yes, sir,” she said coldly and without feeling.

You didn’t know how she could be so closed off to what she had done. How she had acted. Even just thinking back to the way that man, Joel, had looked lying on the floor, his body bruised and bleeding, was enough to make your stomach turn again. The memory of the young woman’s screams echoed around your ears and you leant forward slightly to brace yourself against the table, your knuckles growing white as they wrapped around the edge.

You could feel Manny shooting you a subtle look of concern from your side, but you ignored it, not wanting to bring more attention to yourself than you already had.

“Which one of you is Manny Alvarez?” The man at the head of the table finally asked, his eyes flitting between Manny and Owen. But with a name like Alvarez, you thought it was easy to work out which two of the men it was he was looking for.

“Me,” Manny said, raising his hand slightly to get the man’s attention.

“The file we’ve got on you says you come highly recommended,” he said, singling out one of the files in front of him and flicking it open. “I’m told you’re good with a rifle and have a near perfect shot record.”

“Yes, sir,” Manny confirmed.

“Good, we could do with someone like you upstairs,” he said, before finally dragging his gaze back to the rest of you. “We’ll try and find you all accommodation. Training and drills will begin tomorrow at 08:00 hours. You’ll have 1 week to prove your worth, or you’ll be back out on the streets, you hear me.”

“Yes, sir,” you all affirmed

“Good,” he praised softly, picking back up the files and beginning to move towards the door again. “Oh,” he said, doubling back a step and turning back towards us. “My names Isaac by the way. And welcome to the WLF.”

—————————————————

TWO AND A HALF MONTHS LATER

The six of you had been split between two rooms. After a small debate it was decided that Abby, Owen and Mel would take one room, whilst you, Manny and Nora took the other. You were grateful too, because then neither you or Manny had to hide what was going on between you (not that Nora wanted many details, but you could speak freely even when she was around and it made things less stressful).

You had all completed the WLF initial trials, not that there had been any doubt that you would, being ex-fireflies and all, but it was a weight off knowing you could stay. You had regular food, a place to sleep, a steady routine that made the long winter days go by fairly quick.

You and Manny had managed to keep your little secret under wraps fairly well, the only issue being when you all had a physical. Although the nurse was supposed to report the result back to the doctor, you had managed to get her to take pity on you and have her sweep it under the carpet for the moment. After all, given everything else you had going on with the WLF, you still expected yourself to miscarry and this whole thing to resolve itself naturally. But that didn’t happen.

Your morning sickness had gotten better over the last few weeks, you were only throwing up once a day (if that). You were sleeping better at night allowing you to feel less fatigued in the day and you were finally starting to get some colour back into your cheeks now the weather was starting to turn.

The last of the snow had melted well over a week ago now, bringing with it fresh flowering buds on the trees and an influx of greenery to surround you. You had always loved Spring and that cycle of new life that began to emerge everywhere you looked. It always reminded you that things could so easily change and that even on the bleakest of days, something new was just around the corner. It gave you hope.

However the changing weather didn’t just bring new life to your surroundings. Just like the warmer weather had started to bring all of you out of hibernation, it did the same for the infected.

There had been many talks and meetings over the last week on how you were all going to combat it. More patrols. More groups marching through the streets to show the WLFs force.

You and Manny were often split up during the day, him relegated to camping out upstairs in the watchtower, whilst you were left to act as one of the many boots on the street. Luckily you usually had either Mel or Nora with you to watch your back and ease Manny’s mind, but it still didn’t stop him from worrying about you night and day.

“We’re going to have to say something at some point,” he said as he lay on his single bed across the room staring up at the ceiling, throwing and catching a small ball to keep his hands busy whilst he thought.

“And what if I’m still not ready for that,” you said as you rolled onto your side on your own bed to face him.

It was a small room with a set of bunk beds against the wall on one side and a single bed on the other. There were three lockers placed at the ends of each of the beds for storage and a single extra chair in a corner by the door. You had taken the bottom bunk so that Manny could better keep an eye on you, leaving the top bunk for Nora.

“Well when will you be ready?” Manny rebuffed gruffly, catching the ball and sitting up to look at you properly. “I mean, you’re not going to be able to keep it a secret much longer,” he berated, but his tone wasn’t unreasonable. “We’re three months into this thing now. Isn’t that when they say you’re usually out of the woods? It’ll only be another couple of weeks before you start actually showing.”

“I know!” You said, cutting off his rant.

You’d been having the same conversation for days now. Manny had been protective of you from the second he found out you were pregnant with his child, but lately he’d stepped it up a notch.

“Just, give me a few more days, okay?” you reasoned with him as you rolled back over onto your back to stair at the slats in the bed frame above you.

“Promise,” he said, his eyes staring at you, but you didn’t meet them.

“Promise,” you sighed noncommittally, but it seemed to ease his mind. For the moment anyway.

—————————————————

That was until another week later and you were all pulled into a meeting with Isaac and a few other higher ups in the WLF.

“I need a strong team to go out and survey the Eastern blocks of the city. We’ve been having an insurgence of infected in that area and we need to work out where they’re coming from so that we can push them back,” Isaac said from the head of the table. “Manny, I want you and Abby to head up that group.”

“We’ll take the rest of our crew from Salt Lake,” Abby quickly offered up. “Pad it out with a few of-“

“No,” Manny quickly interjected, cutting her off. All eyes fell on him as the room went quiet. When he turned and met your eyes, you knew what he was going to do and you silently begged him not to, but he ignored you.

“We’re not taking the whole Salt Lake Crew,” he told her.

“What do you mean? Why not?” Abby commanded, her brow furrowed, eyes laser focused on Manny.

“Yes, Manny,” Isaac chimed in, “why not?”

“Manny,” you warned him, your voice low.

“No,” he turned and said to you, “I’m not letting you come with us.”

“Manny, please don’t do this,” you asked him calmly, trying to keep things from escalating before they’d even begun, but he wasn’t having any of it.

“Why can’t Y/N come with us?” Mel asked from across the room.

Your eyes moved to Nora sat beside her and you silently pleaded with her to step up and say something. To counteract Manny before he could go any further. But she wouldn’t.

“Manny,” you turned back to him and nervously warned him again. You weren’t ready for this. You liked it just being the three of you that knew. The moment everybody else did they would look at you differently. And even if you were ready, this was definitely not how you wanted them to find out.

“She’s pregnant!” Manny blurted out before you could get out another word.

You glowered at him, a storm held in your eyes that told him how much you hated him right now. How betrayed you felt.

“Since when?” Owen asked, rising from his seat as he struggled to process the information.

When silence fell and it was clear Manny wasn’t going to say anything else, you finally bit the bullet and confessed. “I’m 3 months along,” you reluctantly told them.

“What?” They muttered between themselves, asking each other different questions and berating themselves for not realising. The only quiet one amongst your crew was Nora, who just stared at the two of you as the debris of the bombshell slowly settled.

“Well who’s the father?” Mel asked, still struggling to put all the pieces together.

“Well it’s fucking him isn’t it,” Owen snipped. “Why else would he know and the rest of us not.”

“I guess congratulations are in order,” Isaac said stoically, as you sat mortified in your seat. “After all, our repopulation efforts are just as important as all our other endeavours,” he continued, but somehow his words didn’t make you feel any better.

“This does change things a little, I guess,” he continued as the rest of the members of your crew in the room began to settle, “but Manny, I do believe the choice should be up to Y/N. We have had some pregnant recruits continue to partake in missions well into the late stages of their pregnancy-“

“I want to go!” You insisted, standing from your seat and leaning forward on the table with authority. You could feel Manny at your side shooting daggers back at you but you ignored him. “If everyone else is going, I want to go.”

“No!” Manny said forcefully. “Bringing you along will only compromise the mission.”

“How so?!” You interjected, rage beginning to rise in your voice. “I am still more than able bodied. I am keeping up with all the drills. I am still a highly skilled member of this team!”

“But I can’t guarantee your safety,” he stressed.

“Yes, I understand that and am prepared for any-“

“But I’m not!” he shouted back. “If you come with us, you will only be a distraction for the team. I don’t want anyone losing focus on the mission because they are too busy trying to protect you and watch out for you instead.”

“Then why the fuck did you tell everyone!” You spat back at him.

“BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO LOSE YOU!” he shouted and the room went deadly silent. “Either of you,” he clarified more softly. “Permission to deny Miss Y/L/N’s attendance on this and future missions,” Manny said, turning to Isaac for a final ruling.

Isaac hesitated a moment, looking between you and Manny, silently weighing up the situation. But you saw the way he looked at Manny and you knew there was no going back. “Permission granted,” he finally affirmed and you fell like led back into your seat as you felt your fate finally settle on your shoulders.

—————————————————

You didn’t talk to him for a week after they returned. Refused to even look at him. How dare he bench you like this. It was ridiculous. He knew how much of an asset you were to that team, baby or not, and yet he still sidelined you- for what?

“You know, you can’t ignore him forever,” Nora said one evening when it was just the two of you in the room.

“Watch me,” you bit, irritated, but you both knew your words were meaningless.

“If it makes you feel better, he was in a grumpy as fuck mood the whole time. Carried this look of guilt on his face and almost got himself killed because he was still too distracted thinking about how he’d hurt you.”

“What?” You said, sitting up and leaning your head out from the bottom bunk to look up at her.

“The fucker was too in his head and wasn’t looking where he was going. Fell through the fuckin floor didn’t he. Thank fuck he caught himself before he could fall through the next floor. There was a fuck ton of infected down there,” she said. “I mean he still disturbed them and they came swarming up the nearest staircase, but thankfully we had enough time to hop back out the window and climb down the same way we went in before Abby and Owen torched the place.”

“Shit, is that why he’s been limping?” you found yourself asking concerned.

“See you do care,” she smirked.

“Oh shut up,” you spat back, flopping back down onto your back out of sight again.

Two minutes later, Manny was returning to the room freshly showered, a towel tucked tightly in at his hips, his damp curls still dripping down his back. His sudden presence made the room tense and it wasn’t long before Nora was shifting herself off the top bunk and making a quick exit.

“I’m gonna go take a shower too and give you guys some time to talk,” she said, grabbing her things before lightly skipping out the door.

Although she had given you space to talk, neither one of you was chomping at the bit to break the silence between you. That was until he let out a low groan as he settled himself down on the edge of the bed. When you finally chanced a glance his way, he had lifted his leg slightly to observe the large scab that ran down the length of his shin.

When he lifted his head and was met with your eyes, you felt caught, like a deer in headlights. But you didn’t move.

“That looks painful,” you finally said.

“Yeah. Was,” he replied. “But it’ll heal in about a week or so, no big deal,” he added, putting his foot back on the floor before standing up.

You continued to watch him as he pottered around the room collecting the things he needed to get dressed, laying them out on the end of his bed. “You just gonna sit there and watch me get dressed?” he asked with his back to you, as he lifted his arms and applied deodorant.

“Maybe?” you said, but you didn’t turn your eyes away. After all, it wasn’t like you hadn’t seen him naked before.

“Fine,” he sighed, brashly turning around to give you a full eyeful of his junk as he finally dropped the towel.

Your eyes became glassy as they focused on his abs. You knew it was weird to just stare, but you couldn’t help yourself.

“You okay there?” he asked, as he rested his hands on his hips and waited for you to look away, but you weren’t fully there.

“Huh? What?” you finally said, blinking out of your daze and finally moving your eyes back up to his face. “Yeah- I’m fine,” you said, turning your body away from him fully and staring at the wall beside you.

You listened attentively to him as he continued to shuffle around and get dressed into his T-shirt and sweats, the usual items you all wore to bed. You heard the mattress springs groan as he finally sat himself back down on his bed and only then, did you turn around to look at him once more. He was sitting on top of the covers, his toes dangling over the edge of the bed. His arms were wrapped tightly around his knees and his fingers circled his wrist to hold them in place as he stared at you.

His face looked tormented and you wanted to ask him to unload his burdens on you, but you were also still pissed at him and liked that you were at least causing him some torture.

“You know I had to do it, right?” he said as an opener, but you didn’t respond. “You promised you’d say something and you didn’t,” he continued when all you gave him was silence. “What else was I supposed to do?” he said, his voice becoming irate when he couldn’t get a response from you.

Instead of answering, you rolled back to staring at the wall.

“Uhhhgg,” he groaned and you heard the sound of him running his open palm down his face in exasperation. “Look what do you want me to do? What do you want me to say?!” he finally barked, getting up and standing directly next to your bed.

“How about an actual fucking apology!” you turned and spat at him. “Did you think about that? You fucking out me to everyone and then sideline me from all further missions and you didn’t even apologise!” you barked back at him and his face fell.

You could feel your hormones coursing through your body. Feel your rage literally bubbling under your skin as it became flushed. All you could do was sit there and glower at him, words suddenly failing you. You were so mad- so angry- and you had no idea how to regulate that.

“Y/N-“ he said hesitantly.

“Don’t-“ you said, cutting him off. “Unless the next words out of your mouth are I’m sorry, just don’t,” you warned him and for once he actually looked frightened by you.

You both hesitated in silence for a moment, your eyes locked on one another as he waited for you to calm down. He listened to your breathing, counting the breaths out in his head as they gradually became deeper and longer.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said when your body began to soften and he knew you’d actually listen to him and accept it. “Please Y/N, I’m sorry,” he said, crouching down beside the bed so he was at eye level with you. “For all of this,” he added.

You sighed, closing your eyes and taking a deep breath.

“It’s not all your fault,” you reassured him. “It takes two people to make a baby and we were both reckless,” you said, your words chosen carefully to let him off of the hook he had placed himself on.

“Yeah, but I-“ he started, but you cut him off again.

“But nothing,” you said. “We are both grown adults and just sometimes…” you paused, taking in another calming breath, “sometimes these things happen.”

He gently reached out his hand for yours that was resting over your stomach and you let him, his thumb rubbing soothing lines across the back of it as he tried to work out what to say.

“How were you while we were away?” he finally asked.

“You mean apart from being cooped up here?” you asked him. “I’m fine- we’re fine,” you corrected and your words made the corner of his mouth quirk up.

You remembered back to what he said in that meeting, ‘Because I don’t want to lose you… Either of you.’ Although those words had gotten your back up at the time, your anger at being pushed aside clouding any other feelings those words might have made you feel, you sure were feeling them now.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he suddenly frowned, leaning closer to you and you realised you had begun to cry.

“Uhhh, shit,” you said, wiping at your cheeks. “Just stupid hormones,” you explained, letting out a small laugh at yourself as the tears continued to roll down your cheeks. “You know yesterday, I cried over a cucumber. A fucking cucumber,” you laughed, remembering the absurdity of it all.

“Why? What did the cucumber do to you?” he said with his own lightness, as he continued to hold your hand and help you ride out this wave of emotions.

“Didn’t taste right,” you told him.

He let out a breathy laugh before he lifted your hand to his lips and pressed a small tentative kiss there. “Kids not even four months yet and he’s already rejecting his vegetables,” he mused.

“Or she-“ you interjected, because there was really no way of knowing after all.

“Oh good, glad to see you two have made up,” Nora said as she stepped back into the room enrobed in a towel, her old clothes bunched up in her arms.

“Yeah,” you mused as you let your eyes roam over Manny’s side profile and you smiled. “We’ll see how long it lasts,” you joked and he turned back to you and smiled.

—————————————————

TO BE CONTINUED…

[katsukis-wifi]

Single For The Summer

☆ katsuki bakugou x f!reader

★ modern au / social media / college au / loosely based on this song

☆ sfw / slow burn-ish / tension + banter heavy / reader recently single

★ word count: ~3k

☆ warnings: cursing, strong language, suggestive references, thirst traps, implied past relationship (reader), lots of yelling via text, one (1) very flustered bakugou

“Spotting sounds fun,” you said, quirking an eyebrow.

“But I already did my upper body sets. Mina said we were doing legs today?”

“She lied,” Bakugou said flatly.

Katsuki wasn’t crazy about social media. He was a young adult, he kept up with the times and all, but he mostly used it to check in on his friends.. When it came to his own profile? Zero posts. Decent profile picture, and the most basic-ass username he could think of: BK0420.

Still, when he had nothing to do, he’d scroll through random videos or tap through people’s stories without really thinking. It wasn’t his thing– but sometimes, it filled the silence.

Today, one post made the silence loud.

He was tapping through people’s stories, not even really paying attention, when he stopped dead in his tracks. 

There you were.

On Mina’s story, posing in the mirror beside her, with the same stupidly gorgeous smile he couldn’t get out of his head. You looked–God, you looked insane. Like you knew what this photo was going to do to him. 

But the part that really got him? 

#singleforthesummer @yn/ln

He muttered under his breath, “What the fuck...” 

He pulled his phone away from his face and closed the story for a second, blinking at the wall like it would explain what he had just seen. Then, he tapped back onto the story, clicking your tagged username.

His breath hitched.

Bakugou wasn’t the type to stalk your account on the regular – yeah, he thought you were hot, but he didn’t want to look at your boyfriend’s ugly face all the time. 

This time? 

No posts. No story highlight. Just a brand new profile picture – which was shamelessly a thirst trap.

You finally were done with that loser.

It was no secret – Bakugou wanted you bad. He never shut up about it. Whenever your boyfriend came up, Katsuki had two settings: pissed, and pissed-er. He made it very clear: he thought the guy was a total dick. Kirishima could probably write a book titled Shit Bakugou’s Said About That One Guy She Dates.

But now?

Now you were single.

Right on cue, a notification lit up his phone.

GC: [future dropouts + katsuki] katsuki:  y/n and her troll thing broke up?? kirishima:  BRO. KATSUKI. YOU GOTTA GET ON THAT, LIKE, YESTERDAY. kaminari:  need to ask  lmfao mina did you KNOW y/n was single and just decided not to fill bakugou in?? mina:  no, i knew she was single and wanted to announce the good news on her behalf with a hot thirsttrap when she felt ready yk kaminari:  LMFAOOO mina:  no because let me walk you through my mastermind - i knew fuckass katsuki would never hit her up unprovoked even if he knew she was single SO i figured a hot story was the perfect excuse katsuki:  ?????  when did they split mina:  like a month ago? thats when she told me at least

Bakugou’s jaw went slack. 

A whole fucking month?! And no one thought to fill him in? 

kirishima:  MINA….A MONTH????

Katsuki dragged a hand down his face, then dropped back onto his desk chair like someone had punched him in the chest. 

He glared at the screen again, thumbs hovering over the keyboard. 

What the hell was he even supposed to say? “Hey, you looked fine as fuck on Mina’s story, we should hang out”? Jesus.

He was in genuine disbelief.

mina:  ok hate me all u want but she was lowkey pulling hella huzz and i didn’t wanna mess up her game sero:  not for nothing bakugou is a little late to the game LMFAOOO mineta tried to hit her up like three weeks ago when he heard. also she posted about it on her spam account a MINUTE ago

“Fuck all the way off…” Bakugou muttered out loud. 

What the fuck was a spam account? 

And why the fuck was he not following it to see these VERY IMPORTANT life updates of yours?

katsuki: what’s the @ ? katsuki: I’m so fr if one of you doesn’t put me on, you’re all dying

Bakugou never ended up sending you that message.

 It’s not that he didn’t want to – he just genuinely had zero idea what to say. He had plenty of encouragement; his friends constantly advised him on how to approach you. But honestly? You being single didn’t take the pressure off. It just made it worse.

And Mina wasn’t helping when she reminded him, “If you don’t make a move on her, someone else will. Trust me. She’s shown me.” 

So now?He didn’t have to worry about your sorry-ass ex-boyfriend anymore. 

He had to worry about how many guys were slumming it in your DMs.

Great.

This was the issue that had taken over Katsuki’s mind. Doing chores, he wondered what to say to you. When he saw his friends, he asked them if there were any updates on you. When he lay awake at night, he contemplated what could come from a bold message to you. Even now, at the gym, mid-workout, getting himself situated at the pull-up bar, he was still thinking about it. About you.

And then a familiar voice cracked through his headphones.

“Oh my gosh, Bakugou!” He shot up an eyebrow and turned around, scanning the area for the voice when he very quickly noticed a pink silhouette speeding toward him, waving happily. 

“Oh-em-gee, what are you doing here? This is such a fun coincidence!” Mina waved her hands around while she spoke, making dramatic expressions and overcompensating for something she was obviously hiding. 

He stared at her, deadpan, “You stupid or something? I come here at the same time every day. You know this, idiot.” 

He turned back around, reaching up to start his set, but kept half an ear open. If she wanted a favor or a sparring partner, she could just say it.

“That’s so true! That’s so true,” Mina nodded frantically. “I must not have realized it when I showed up! You always work out at this time!” 

She was lying. Badly.

“Why are you talking to me right now?”

Mina’s eyes widened. Then she crossed her arms and let out an over-the-top huff, pouting as she stood. “Jeez! Sorry for wanting to have a chat with my good friend at the gym! Gosh!”

“Yeah, well, if you really just wanted to chat, you wouldn’t be acting so damn weird. Do you need something from me, or are you just-”

“Girl! You left me at the stairmaster! What the fuck?!” 

Another voice cut in from behind him – and Bakugou froze. Completely caught off guard.

Mina’s annoyed pout shifted into a mischievous grin as she tilted her head and waited for him to let go of the bar and turn around.

  “Sorry!” she called back, chipper. “I just went to use the bathroom and you’ll never guess who I ran into!”

Bakugou dropped from the bar, already snapping his gaze back at Mina, when he saw you trailing behind her with a pissed off look…and a really flattering gym set that made him question his entire life. 

“You’re fucking dead,” Bakugou said, just loud enough for Mina to hear.

She ignored his comment, stepping aside like she was presenting a prize on a game show to make some space for you.

“Ta-da!” she whispered under her breath.

You finally caught up, giving Mina a flat look before turning your attention to the guy she “ran into” – only to freeze for a half second when you realized who it was.

“Oh,” you said, catching yourself mid-step. “I didn’t know you worked out here.”

Bakugou stared at you like you’d just roundhouse kicked him in the jaw. That set? That stupidly flattering gym set? He didn’t even believe in fate, but this felt like the universe had beef with him, clearly.

“Yeah. Every day,” he replied, trying to sound normal and absolutely failing.

You blinked. “Well, that’s cool. I just started tagging along with Mina a couple of weeks ago. It’s more fun to with a friend, y’know?” 

You gestured vaguely, then crossed your arms under your chest like you wanted him to break eye contact. 

Mina clapped. “Ugh, this is such a great coincidence! My two good friends, in the same place, lookin’ cute and sweaty – we should work out together! Or stretch! Spot each other! I’m just brainstorming!”

Bakugou gave her a look like he was mentally setting her on fire.

You, on the other hand, were trying to suppress a laugh. “Spotting sounds fun,” you said, quirking an eyebrow. “But I already did my upper body sets. Mina said we were doing legs today?”

“She lied,” Bakugou said flatly.

You shrugged before turning to Mina, “You lied?”

Mina placed a hand over her heart, gasping dramatically, “You two are literally so rude to me. You hate me. I know it. I try to orchestrate one beautiful moment of friendship and all I get is slander.”

“You’re so full of shit,” Bakugou muttered.

You tilted your head, studying them both for a moment. “Is that why you were acting weird? You knew he’d be here?”

He didn’t answer immediately–just stared at you like he was torn between punching a wall or sprinting out of the building. Then he scratched the back of his neck and muttered, “Yes. And she’s just annoying.”

You smiled – small, but real. “Thought so.”

A beat passed. You gestured at a bench near him. “Were you planning on using that?”

He blinked. “Uh–no. You can. Or we could…I mean–” He cleared his throat, straightening his posture. “Wanna finish our workouts together?”

Your brows raised slightly. Not a total surprise, but close.

“Only if you don’t wanna train alone,” he added quickly, looking away. “Not trying to invade your space or anything.”

“No, I wouldn’t mind!” you said, a little too fast. You caught yourself, smoothing it over with a calm shrug. “Yes, sure, why not?”

Mina looked at you two like she was watching her OTP become canon in real time. 

But then– buzz buzz.

Your phone lit up. You glanced at the screen and sighed. “Shit. I think I have to cut this short – it’s my boss. Work thing.”

Bakugou’s jaw twitched, but he gave a short nod. “Yeah. Go ahead.”

You gave him an apologetic look, gave Mina a little wave, then turned, phone already to your ear as you walked toward to exit.

Mina stared at you as you left like she’d just watched the final scene of a canceled show.

“NOOOOO,” she groaned, dramatically collapsing onto the bench. “COME BACK! MY DREAMS WERE LITERALLY COMING TRUE.”

But you were already out the door, not even looking back at the pair of them.

Bakugou sighed, picking up his water bottle from the ground and dragging a hand down his face. “You planned that whole thing, you’re not fuckin’ slick.”

“I was so close to greatness,” she groaned. “I could taste the sexual tension between you two. It was delicious. Like protein powder if it were crack.”

He rolled his eyes and turned away. “You’re actually so fucking weird. Remind me never to ask you to be my wingwoman.”

“Not true,” she grinned. “You have zero game! None! But, it’s fine– I’ll be officiating your wedding when my work here is done, thank you very much.”

Bakugou scoffed and muttered something that sounded like a threat.

Mina only beamed wider.

GC mina:  just want it on record that I watched bakugou and y/n EYEFUCK each other at the gym and end the conversation like nothing happened. katsuki:  that’s NOT what fucking happened kaminari:  excuse me????  context. Asap. mina:  [blurry chaotic photo of the two of them mid-convo.] Live footage, ur welcome all. kirishima:  OHHHHH SHIT!!!!! katsuki:  you’re actually psychotic.  when and why the fuck did you even take that mina:  doesn’t matter. You both looked hot. It’s actually a crime against humanity that the two of you didn’t start macking on the spot. kaminari:  i’m dead  she was right there and you still got no play??? yeah…this is going to take longer than we thought chat katsuki:  she literally had to leave because of a work problem  I invited her to join me and she said yes. sero:  ok?? if she wants you so bad then dm her Or even easier Just request her spam mina:  DUDE JUST FOLLOW HER SPAM She’s so fucking funny on there and she’s always posting HOT selfies. katsuki:  Yeah, not doing that. She’s gonna think I’m a fucking creep.  mina:  It’s not creepy, you’re just a pussy,  She posts the best shit.  I literally shed a tear whenever her selfies grace my eyes kaminari:  nah cuz if it were ME I would never let her walk out that gym without at least a number. katsuki:  i was literally in the middle of my workout trying not to blow up the place.  Can we drop this shit? sero:  if u don’t dm her i’m gonna do it and ask her for lunch Or i’m gonna steal ur phone and do it on your behalf katsuki:  do either of those things and we can fr square up. don’t try me. kirishima:  pause. You invited her. she said yes. And you STILL don’t wanna message her….. broplease i’m losing hope REF DO SOMETHING!!!! katsuki:  i swear to god i’m not in the mood She had to leave for work shit, that’s all. I wasn’t trying to make a fucking move. mina:  you can all just ignore him because he’s LYING THROUGH HIS MF TEETH. Yall were both giving each other that look. I saw it. it moved my heart katsuki:  bro WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT

Some days had passed since the last encounter you and Bakugou had, an event your good friend Mina was still living vicariously through.

“I just think you two look super good together,” she said, fanning her hand wet nails dramatically. “And, I promise you, there’s no harm in sending him a flirty little message. I’ll even give you his number if you want, I’d never steer you wrong.”

You laughed, glancing up from your phone as you both sat criss-cross on the floor of her dorm. She painted her nails with precision while you aimlessly scrolled.

“Okay, but I just broke up with Neito, what, two months ago?” you said. “I’m gonna look like a bop.”

Mina scoffed, rolling her eyes, “Okay, I love you, but literally no one was rooting for you two. Like, you know you were out of his league, right?”

You shrugged, flicking your thumb down your feed, “Hindsight’s 20/20.”

She clicked her tongue and leaned over, peeking at your screen. “$5 says you’re looking at his socials right now.”

You angled your phone away, “No.”

She raised a brow.

“.....Yes. Maybe. Shut up.”

She grinned smugly. “See? You like him. And he doesn’t even have any pictures posted! That’s how I know it’s serious– you’re pressed over a guy with zero selfies.”

You groaned and threw your head back against the side of her bed. “Girl– he’s hot, obviously, and we’re into each other or whatever. But he’s also like… a human grenade? He’s so intense. What if I text him and he blows up? I’m so serious, by the way.”

“You literally couldn’t be more wrong,” Mina said, chuckling as she slapped your arm lightly. “He’s one of my best friends. He only acts like that because he doesn’t talk to women. He gets all…intense. But he’s not a scary guy.”

“Yeah, maybe not to you,” you muttered, eyes flicking back to your phone. “Like, I feel like he could either kiss me or yell at me at any given moment, and I wouldn’t know which until it was happening.”

“Oh, so you’re complaining about hot sexual tension?” she teased, laughing out loud as the words left her mouth. “That man wants you. I’d show you receipts, but he’s my friend, so just trust me. He wants you and doesn’t know what the hell to do about it.”

Right then, your screen lit up with a new notification from your spam account. 

Someone had just requested to follow it.

You blinked.

Bakugou Katsuki.

“Mina.”

“What?”

“He just requested my spam.”

Mina nearly dropped the nail polish. “YOU’RE LYING.”

You scrambled to accept it, hands shaking. “I didn’t even know he knew I had a spam. My name’s not even on it.”

“Bitch, I barely knew you had a spam! This man is so deep in the trenches.”

You both stared at the screen like it had asked you a riddle.

“Maybe he followed by accident?” you offered weakly, already pulling up his profile to confirm it was real. Tagged in three posts. No bio. Same profile pic.

“Don’t even start with that,” Mina said, pointing her nail file at you. “Explain how you accidentally follow a locked spam with no name on it? He is invested.”

You didn’t respond to her, refreshing your screen until anything new appeared.

Bakugou Katsuki liked your post.

You tapped it.

It was on old mirror selfie. From months ago. You were posed provocative, all confidence and angles, captioned: “like if u want me.”

Suggestive. Flirty. Bold.

You blinked. “Mina.”

“Please tell me good news, I love good news.”

“He liked a thirst trap. From November.”

“Oh my GOD!”

You grabbed her by the wrist. “That means he scrolled. Like, really scrolled. That post isn’t even recent!”

“He’s digging,” she gasped. “He wants you so bad he’s literally excavating. Katsuki Bakugou is clicking through your spam account with sweaty gym fingers, doing research. I used to pray for times like this.”

Your heart was racing, you could barely even look at your phone. 

“What should I do?” you asked. “Should I post something? Should I hit him up?”

“You do nothing,” Mina said immediately, eyes wild as she shook you by the shoulders. “You should wait and let this man COOK. He’s plotting on you right now. He followed your spam and liked a single thirst trap from the archives. You don’t interrupt a man mid-plot.”

You laughed–half crazy, half sick with nerves. Your thumb hovered over your phone again. Nothing new.

Then: a message notification slid across the top of your screen

BK0420

didn’t know u looked like that off-campus.

you always post like that? or were you just hoping i’d see that one?

You screamed.

Mina screamed.

And somewhere, not far away, Bakugou put his phone face down on the bed. Heart pounding like he just ran a fifty-yard dash…and immediately regretting everything he’d ever said in his life.

[crescenthistory]

Hi Carina! It’s the anon who referred to your fanfics as poetry if you remember lol.

Number 1 I still stand by that and it’s even more enforced after reading your most recent poly!postwar!marauders I was hooked!! And number 2 I finally have a proper request for regulus and whiskers - perhaps some scenario where reader comes to regulus all scratched up and he p a n i c s but treats her (the scratches are from some random student’s pet cat that decided they suddenly wanted that specific patch of sun reader was napping on or something silly like that) and it’s just a mix of fluff and humor?

You totally do not have to do this specific prompt especially if you think of something similar but better, I 100% trust your vision. Also I’d like to be 🧸 anon for future posts if that’s ok with you. Once again thank you for blessing us with your stories and sorry for the long message haha❤️

of course i remember, that is my favourite compliment to date ��� all i want is for my writing to be considered poetry, thank you so much. i'll add you to the list as 🧸 anon my love, feel free to share your age and pronouns too<333

Words: 1.5k

Warnings/tags: gn!reader, no use of y/n, light injuries, some blood, physical and emotional hurt/comfort, established relationship, mentioned bsf!sirius, idiots in love, like literal soulmates, some cat telepathy bc i can lmao

A/N: more of whiskers and shadow can be found starting with this fic ! the cat pictured below is @nrthernsong's sweet Echo who is my whiskers faceclaim, exactly how I picture her<33

Regulus heard that something was wrong before he saw it.

The past hour had been spent on the sofa closest to the fireplace in the Slytherin common room, alternating between lazily reading his current paperback and dozing off. You had grown restless and given him a sweet forehead kiss before whisking out the door, assumedly to run out your leftover energy chasing mice and climbing walls. The mere thought made him smile, but he was far too comfortable to join you, and you were sleeping over in his dorm tonight anyway.

He figured it was no harm; he enjoyed knowing that you were doing your own thing and would be coming back to him. That you were such a fully realised person with your own desires, impulses, life and friends – even if one of those friends had to be his very own brother. That you were such a remarkable individual and kept choosing him every day, with every ounce of that self. It was as good a way as any to spend the evening.

That was, until he heard the desperate clawing of familiar paws against the stone common room door.

Apart from his usual doomsday gut feeling, he found it strange that you weren’t transforming back into yourself to open the door and walk in. Though, he told himself, you clearly could not transform in the still half-filled room, and perhaps you just wanted to remain in cat form without giving your animagus status away. Yet, your scratching seemed almost fervent, even over the sounds of chatter and laughter, which told another story.

Regardless of why, Regulus shot up out of his seat from the second he registered the noise as coming from you, hurrying across the floor. A wave of dizziness hit him from how fast he went from a reclining to borderline-sprinting position, but he pushed it down without a second thought.

When he opened the common room door and a white and grey figure sped in past him at an unbelievable speed, he realised what the problem was. 

Because your usually beautiful, fluffy fur was ruffled all about and there were distinct streaks of redness across it. The blood was striking against the already blinding white, and Regulus could not fight the way his breath hitched. 

“Amour,” he all but hissed, speed walking after you to where you had hid away in the first available corner.

Despite remaining mostly aware of your human self, once you were in your animagus form, certain animalistic tendencies took over. It was how you were able to communicate so efficiently through hisses and pets, but also why in states of panic, you would seek out physical shelter to hide beneath rather than coming to him for protection and comfort like you otherwise would.

Uncaring of how he looked running after a cat and murmuring to it as if it was a person, Regulus followed you, crouching down on his knees before you when you hid beneath an armchair against the wall. He couldn’t see you well in the darkness, but he did see a pair of yellow eyes shine out at him, so stunning that the fear in them should be illegal.

“Mon amour.” Regulus decided to forgo any reservations, and laid down on his stomach with his cheek against the floor so that he could be face to face with you. “Darling, what happened to you? Are you alright?”

The whimpering sound you made shot straight through his heart, drawing a rather pathetic coo from him.

You curled further up into yourself. Regulus inched his hand forward so that it was close to your face, but you made no move to butt your head against it like you usually would. Your eyes seemed to be pleading with him, but in this form, Regulus couldn’t read you as well.

In this form.

Regulus suddenly knew what he had to do.

Before that though, he retracted his hand in favour of letting his fingers curl around his wand. He brought it up to rest before you, slowing his movements down so as to not alert you in this frightened state. Even in a moment like this, you still trusted him entirely, and only blinked slowly at him while you shivered. He brought the tip of his wand up to rest just above your red spots.

“I’ll make it better, amour, I swear,” he mumbled, almost as if to himself. With a light graze and two whispered incantations, Regulus spelled away whatever shallow scratches you had across your beautiful fur and cleaned up the blood that had stained you so unjustly. 

Though he could not be certain, he thought he heard a sigh escape you. This time, when he put his wand down, you leaned your patterned forehead down against his fingertips. Worry was still clouding most of his mind, but his lips did twitch at the sentiment.

“I’m not leaving you.” He declared before saying anything else, not wanting fear to take over you once more. “Just stay right there, lovely, and I’ll be right back for you.”

Regulus almost stumbled when he pushed himself up onto his feet and near-sprinted up towards his dorm, taking the stairs three steps at a time. If you were startled, he could neither see nor hear it, and fully intended to soothe you in a mere moment.

The second he was out of sight of any other students, Regulus twirled into his own animagus form, Shadow.

At this new level of elevation and with the animalistic instincts taking over him, Regulus felt the wave of concern spark in him anew. While he could sense when he spelled away your injuries that they were not serious, the thought of you scared ached throughout him. On speedy onyx legs, he leaped back down the stairs with just one thought swimming through his mind.

Amour, amour, amour.

You must have smelled Shadow on his way to you, because even before he saw you, he picked up on the keening noise you made at the approach of your mate. 

Still sheltered carefully beneath the armchair, you were perched up on your front paws, staring eagerly towards where Shadow was pouncing towards you. This time, you let him slip beneath the seat and into your hiding place without any hesitation. On the contrary, you made space for him, and as soon as he was within reach, you curled up against him, hiding away.

With your face burrowed into Shadow’s furry neck, he could finally feel you sigh out in relief, any tension and fear seeping out of you. It was exactly what he had been hoping for, exactly what he wanted, no needed to accomplish.

Your love was true in any form, but the connection the two of you shared in animagus form was different from anything Regulus could even think to communicate through words. He had yet to find any relevant literature on animagi explaining the bonding experience you had in animagus form, but perhaps this was one of the things in his life that Regulus didn’t need to intellectualise.

Instead, Shadow curled back up against you, keeping his head over yours in a protective manner as he held you close with his paws. Absentmindedly, he began grooming your fur, placing every strand back down in the correct direction, ridding you of any evidence of whatever tussle you had suffered when roaming the castle. Certain places of your fur seemed to demand more of his attention, and though Regulus could not prove it as he healed and cleaned you up magically earlier, he had a creeping suspicion that was where you had been scratched up. So he didn’t resist it, instead doting on you exactly how he wanted.

Beneath his touch, you were becoming soft and pliant once more, purring loudly and occasionally looking up at him with the yellow eyes he had come to love so. His Whiskers. His amour.

Using the very bond he had no words to explain, Shadow asked you through some odd form of cat communication and animagi telepathy: What happened?

Your grunt and huff communicated what he had feared. Mrs. Norris.

Shadow made a hissing sound directed at your shared menacing nemesis before doubling down on his efforts to soothe you, nudging you over onto your back so that he could groom and kiss along your neck and chest – your most vulnerable areas in cat form, showing you just how safe you were now. 

This was part of what occasionally living as a cat entailed, but Regulus would be damned if he did not care for you as if it was a tragedy each and every time. Spelling out I love you with every lick and pet and nudge and purr.

Based on the lovely sounds you were making and how you seemed to melt into him until you were one and the same, you loudly claimed I love you too.

Regulus could rest easy with you safe and sound in his hold, content just to have you near him, any anger subdued for as long as he was comforting you. In the meantime, he was dreaming up how a certain big black dog might have a little chat with Mrs. Norris.

[nyctosaurid]

when i was a kid i got banned on neopets for being hacked (neopets staff claimed hacking did not exist and I must have provided my password to someone in an attempt to cheat) so i, heartbroken, branched out to different virtual pet sites (many of which are now defunct). my favorite was called sorpiland, which had very little gameplay and was mostly just a forum where people chatted. once i got banned from the sorpiland forums for 3 days for writing and proudly posting the lyrics to my own sorpiland themed cover of kids of america, which the moderator, who had apparently never seen cinematic masterpiece jimmy neutron: boy genius, identified as plagiarism of the jonas brothers cover "kids of the future". another time i got banned for mentioning neopets, which the same moderator referred to as "the N word"

[hexcii]

Hi hi hello!! I’m Hexcii!! :DD

FAQ

✮ YIPPIE!!! ✮

I’m a disabled artist and writer who’s currently fixated on the DCA! Most of my work here is of them (my wives) <33 I’m a self shipper so I’ll mostly be drawing the dca and my sona, but I do draw Y/Ns sometimes too. I usually post right when I finish something, so it’s a little all over the place

My blog is SFW but some of my art and writing has suggestive or horror themes and is not suitable for younger viewers. I will tag these whenever necessary for those who want to avoid certain topics.

✮ Masterposts ✮

The Name Game masterpost

Faulty by Design masterpost

✮ My tags ✮

My art is where you’ll find all of my art!! (Shocker)

Hexcii says stuff is my text post tag

Ask is for when I answer all your guys’ questions and things

Mer au is for the fish, blub blub blub

Meteor shower is my dca self ship tag!!

DCA fandom is where you’ll find all my work relating to the DCA in any way

✮ Other stuff ✮

A reference for my sona (mostly for my own benefit hehehee)

My AO3 with all my of written works, currently only two but more is hopefully coming in the future ^^

My toyhouse!! I mostly use this as an art archive for both my dca and oc stuff <33 it also holds some extra information about my work :33

My instagram where I’m a bit more personal. I don’t post but I do spam my story if that’s anything lmao

[battlestar-gasmacktica]

Happy Pride month! I have completed or at least put on hiatus my little Pride flag series and here they all are together on one post. Technical details and further thoughts after the pics.

First, the technical: I wove these on an untensioned frame loom at 6 epi using Lettlopi yarn for the weft and cotton seine twine for the warp. They are krokbragds, a Norwegian word which means “crooked path.” Krokbragd is a Norwegian twill weave. All of these are traditional Norwegian motifs, but you can also create figurative motifs using krokbragd. Each of these range in size from 10” x 11” to 12” x 12”.

Now, the design: The colors of each weaving correlate with the colors of a Pride flag: rainbow, transgender, bisexual, lesbian, and gay men (also heard this flag referred to as the Vincian flag). I didn’t do every Pride flag that exists, mostly because I’ve grown a bit tired of the twill pattern and need to put in some hours on my other tapestry loom to develop my hachure skills. In the future, I may develop more of these, but damn I need a break from over one under three with a pickup stick.

My goal in this work was to weave Pride flags and celebrate my queer community while exploring a weaving practice that connected me to the immigrants in my own family tree. I wrote a long and more indulgent essay about both immigrants and what it means to me as a bisexual cisgender woman to relate to the queer community but I know you are here for the weaving so I’ll just sum it up: Fuck ICE, and these weavings are dedicated to the gentle and grounded queer elders, mostly older gay men, who saw me and mentored me in my early jobs in theater and demonstrated a resilience and kindness I have sought to emulate ever since. If you’re really JUST here for the weaving, understand this: textiles are political and will never not be.

Okay, thanks for reading and looking! I am going to weave some other stuff now, bye!

[moredorkysj]

The secret to draw canon All Might~

References!

This file is HUGE! so here's a LINK to the original size.

The references isn't only about details, angles and facial expressions, it's also about how All Might moves his body and his characteristic body language.

It is quite chaotic, I know. Also, I updated it recently, so there might be some doubles. I might have somewhat of a photography memory, but I'm not a robot (#^^#)ゞ.

I have a passion for making collages and have being doing those since my early 20s. (It's kind of therapeutic for me^^)

2. Chose your favorite All Might!

As we all now, Horikoshi's art-style changes through the whole series. He sometime also exaggerates the angles when he wants to add some drama or comedy into the facial expressions.

It can be useful to know what style of All Might you want to draw. (It doesn't have to only be from the manga, it can be from the anime as well). Here are some of mine:

After choosing your favorites, it will be the blueprint of what your drawings of him will mostly resemble. HOWEVER! It's important to know that you can twist it with your own style too. That can help you feel more comfortable with your hand and to draw without relying on only references. (A good example is how I draw All Might's hair, it is sometimes a bit different from how Horikoshi draws it).

3. My step by step sketch

This is an example for how I would draw All Might in a quick pace, without looking at any references. And I would not consider them finished, because there are some shapes that needs some configurations. like: slightly elongate the forehead, lengthen the nose, etc. It's always okay to be extra messy with the sketch, we have erasers for a reason ;)

--

I hope you find these tips helpful. You are all free to download and save the All Might collage ٩(^ᴗ^)۶

Edit: Oh! There is a big chance I might add more of younger All Might to the collage in the future. I will of cours post an update for y'all when it happens.

Edit: I just noticed that the collage picture on this post was an old version. I changed it to the recent one. The link was always correct though :)

[cellsshapedlikestars]

It sounds like a wolf, thought Sansa. A ghost wolf, big as mountains.

So a few days ago I decided to start learning how to do digital drawing. Now, I don't think art is anything I have a huge passion for, so who knows if I'll pursue it, but I had a ton of fun making this.

A few disclaimers:

-i was using a reference panel from a manga as the base pose bc how do bodies work?? And I was mostly just trying to figure out how to use the art program/pen. Unfortunately, I was clicking through lots of pages/images and cannot for the life of me remember what the manga was or where I got the image. I almost didn't post this because I wouldn't be able to credit them, but I will say, it's only the pose & hair shape that I used, everything else I did on my own. You can tell by how sloppy it is :)

-dont @ me about the shaky lines and poorly drawn bricks. Idc I had FUN and that's all that matters right? RIGHT?

-the wolf shadow is free clipart lol. I tried to draw my own but ya girl is NOT there yet

-why is Sansa in a sky cell?? Who knows. Trying to hide from LF probably. She's also growing out her hair in defiance bc why not

-ooh or maybe it's an au/future fic where sansa is put in the sky cells for something. and maybe a ghost wolf comes to get her out. who knows

[octagava]

E4 dazatsu... 👀

[Art Challenge]

As it turns out, I have a lot to say about this, mostly because I added some of my headcanon for a post-canon AU (I think you can call it an AU).

After everything that happened, Dazai's leg finally gave out at some point, so he uses a crutch for support. He can and does use a cane sometimes, usually when he goes out on missions, but he claims that the crutch gives him better support and control. (He also uses that one to wiggle out of certain work tasks and Kunikida.)

Atsushi's eyes, on the other hand, are usually purple nowadays. Turns out that the blend between golden and purple was not because of his natural eye color, but because of his ability. He used to be in a constant state of alert because of what happened to him in his younger years, but as he grew more secure and happy in his current life (plus some therapy, thank you), he himself is not under such stress anymore. Beast Under The Moonlight was constantly subconsciously activated because of his state of mind, and it gave a visible sign of that as a color in his eyes. But as it turned out, that’s not the only thing it did. Whilst using his ability, it actually heightened his senses, but it turns out Atsushi, in fact, has bad vision and needs glasses.

And yes, Dazai did take Atsushi's last name, but no matter how much he tries, he is still known as "Dazai." He's suffering.

Akihiko was actually made by the book just like Sigma.

(More info below since it's quiet long as it is)

Akihiko's Naming and Relationship Dynamics

Akihiko, on the other hand... Quite frankly, I spun a wheel to choose his gender, which landed on a boy. Then I started to think about a name for him. I was thinking about Souta, but that sounded too much like real-life Dazai-sensei's child’s name, which I did not want to connect to at all, so this was pretty much instantly scrapped. Haruto also was a very good choice in my mind (since it means sunlight and soaring).

At some point, I realized that Dazai-sensei, in fact, named his daughter a name that would be considered gentle and traditional, which I found very sweet. Meanwhile, Atsushi-sensei did not seem to have any children (I don’t think, at least?). [note; I've made a mistake here, Atsushi infact has 3 children in total, with one sadly passing away after birth] In the end, I settled on Akihiko, a traditional name that would be seen as composed and dignified. It could also be seen as a name that plays into a legacy, which can be interpreted as something hopeful, hopeful for the future for both Atsushi and Dazai.

How They Call Akihiko

Okay, okay, because I was thinking about how both of them would also call Aki-kun overall.

Dazai would, the majority of the time, switch between calling him his full name, Akihiko, and Aki-chan. Though Aki-chan is mostly reserved for when he teases his little son or is being playful with him overall. But there’s also Hiko, which is used by him, but this is much rarer to hear than anything else. It’s when Dazai is being genuinely gentle, which doesn't happen often. Hiko would be said in sincere moments, when he's trying to tell him something truthful, or in the quiet moments when he maybe bandages his son’s scraped knee.

Atsushi uses Aki. It’s his go-to everyday name, which is nothing but pure affection. It’s short, casual, but deeply sincere, the kind of thing that carries years of love. Haha. He did used to use Aki-chan towards him when he was younger, though he still slips into it during comforting moments or when being gently playful.

Needless to say, neither Dazai nor Atsushi uses his full name usually. The only times it actually happens is when they’re giving him encouragement.

How Akihiko Refers to Dazai and Atsushi

What might actually surprise you, or not, when it comes to Akihiko, he refers to Dazai as "papa" ('Tousan'), something that is way more familiar and warmer. This is caused by Dazai's own insistence on that and the fact that he tends to be very familiar with people. But with Atsushi, it's always "dad" ('Otousan'), a more grounded way, but I’d say it’s more in a softer tone than anything.

A tiny bonus -> Kyouka actually has a huge presence in their lives, but when it comes to what they call each other, it’s soft but respectful. Kyouka is referred to as Kyouka-nee, while Akihiko is referred to as Akihiko-kun.

Another thing: when asked, Dazai swears that he and Atsushi "birthed" Akihiko, especially if it's Chuuya who calls his bullshit. But at the same time, doubt creeps up because of how adamant Dazai is about it for years. ToT

[hibiscusseaart]

huge ass post with MadaTobi Babies

its finally done, its almost 1 am, I started at 7 pm

OK SO HERE THEY ARE

So a little lore and then I'm gonna introduce them.

As you may remember from my earlier post, Tobirama (they married when he was 19) after the marriage, decided to create a child to tie Madara to him and the village stronger just in case Madara would try to leave the village. He couldn't destroy the village if there's his kid running around, right?

So Tobirama started learning biology pretty early in their marriage + Itama (@oh-no-its-bird 's one) helped a lot too. Mito helped with the seals to make an incubator. Tobirama didn't want a surrogate mother just because he was afraid that Madara would get attached to the mother of his children and he didn’t want that (plus he's jealous but doesn't realise it 🤭).

He created some sort of very real transformation jutsu that would trick his body to think that he has ovaries and he'd get the eggs that way! But he couldn't keep uterus and ect for 9 months, plus this jutsu is HARD to keep on for very long periods of time. It's easier to make a few organs from chakra that could produce real eggs than a whole new system. Plus Tobirama really didn't want to get pregnant and he wasn't sure he wouldn't fuck up his own body. Tobirama, with as gray morale as his, could just scrap failed embryo and start anew. He can't do that with his own body.

Anyway, incubator it is!

At first he did all of that in secret, stealing Madara's sperm (that's... a thing now) for his first experiments while they had sex. (Tobirama fucking Madara real hard that he’d pass out after and then take samples) ANYWAY

So he announced about his plans when the first stable and pretty healthy embryo was ready.

The first baby, Motoko! The melanin quee. She got all of it. Nothing left for her brother or sister. Ofc she's not THAT dark skinned, but she is for an Uchiha who are mostly white as a paper in canon.

(Tobirama is 21 for reference)

Her name literally means "Experiment seed first". Tobirama named this project this way for secrecy if someone would overhear his talks with Itama and Mito. It’d be Uchiha clan head’s child so hush-hush.

The name meanings + kanji! Hope I got them right, I have no japanese knowledge

oh and there is flirting with past and time in general in this name so it might be Tobirama reminiscing his first timeline. Like Motoko didn't even EXIST before.

So when he presented the embryo to Madara and Hashirama, they were ecstatic of course.

Madara almost cried. Hashirama became a river of tears.

Madara never really hoped for his own children since he married Tobirama cuz, well, they're both men. Doesn't really work that way. But Tobirama made it work and Madara is in love all over again.

Madara refuses to leave their future baby for a long time, just looking at them in the incubator. But the baby doesn’t need much there so Tobirama makes him leave and live a life while they’re waiting when the kid is ready.

Oh and Madara was SO against the name that basically means “experiment seed 1”. But when Tobirama asked if he got smth better, he ran away to his compound and tried to find the PERFECT names. He got lost in so many variations and never really decided. So when the kid was “born” (Tobirama just… took her out of the incubator*) and medics checked her, Madara took her in his hands, started crying and while he was having “A moment” Tobirama wrote her name as Motoko, cuz they needed it for administration and Uchiha clan.

*come to think about it, wouldn’t it fuck up a kid a bit? i mean, children develop under pressure of their mother’s organs and they’re in tight position. maybe test tube kids don’t really like to be wrapped in cloth? as i know ppl do that with newborns to imitate feelings like they’re in the womb.

But this name also can be read as “Festival child” so its kinda cute? Madara def told her that that’s exactly what her name means. No seed 1.

Interesting thing, when Tobirama made the baby, he thought he’d make a boy first, a heir. But something went wrong and the kid developed to be a girl. Tobirama was confused why. But technically, the kid is a boy with XY chromosomes but bc of their development and being a genetic experiment something went wrong and they developed as a female (its a real thing btw).

In the long run it didn’t really matter except that Motoko can’t have her own kids bc of all hormonal weirdness. And I don’t think that Tobirama would figure all of that out. He’d think he made some mistake when choosing gender, but kid was born healthy after all. Ofc when they found out that Motoko can’t have kids Tobirama will blame himself, that he ruined his daughter’s life. But she’s would be ok, she had her little siblings growing up and other clan kids so she’s done babysitting.

Okay for her personality! I think she’s kinda like Shisui? Very happy kid, spoiled rotten by her uncles (Hashirama and Izuna compete who is THE BEST uncle) and Tou-san (Madara). Btw Tobirama refuses to be called Kaa-san or any motherly terms. He’s barely holding a kunai in his pockets when Madara calls him wife.

But she’s also very Uchiha with temper and protectiveness. She was trained to be very much Uchiha cuz she’s the future clan head so her jutsu’s are strongly fire natured. Oh and her secondary nature is eath! She took it from the Senju side :)

Good sensor, but not as strong as her other siblings. Have really good chakra reserves and vicious on the battlefield.

Surprisingly looks really like Madara and Izuna’s mom. Her face is all that. Has soft dark hair and soft features. Considered to be very beautiful among Uchihas.

Oh and as you can see, I wrote that she has the Mangekyo. She got it when she was around 14. She was already really strong and cuz of her family, she got cocky. So, you ask me, who died? I think it’d be her female teammate (maybe from Hatake clan? idk I take suggestions) who she was in love with.

So yeah, she got a reality check. Because she got Mangekyo, Tobirama didn’t want her baby to lose her sight, so he improved his own seals that helped him with his albinism. Seals improve his sight and protect from the sun. So he drew Motoko tattoos on her face, like his. Years later it’d be a new feature of the main line.

But before that, when Motoko is 12 and Tobirama is 29, after 8 years of research (and possibly sealing/killing Black Zetsu in the meantime) he decided to try to make another kid. He still wanted a boy.

And he was successful. Meet Akemori! The Music King

The name was suggested by Hashirama. It means “red forest”. Red eyes, plus he sensed that the kid has a bit of mokuton!

But on the downside, Akemori was born an albino. Tobirama himself was really lucky, cuz he had a strong health and I hc that he still has healing abilities, but not as strong as Hashirama’s. But it still helped him in his childhood.

Not for Akemori tho. He was a sickly child, almost blind and burned on the sun easily. Tobirama had to put seals on him when he was about 3 years old. But even then his eyesight was still poor. Seals can’t fix everything.

Tobirama, once again, feels guilty that he didn’t notice any mistakes when he was creating the child.

And being born almost blind in Uchiha clan of all people wasn’t really nice. Though he is still clan head’s child and has a whole bunch of very powerful adults to protect him. Plus his older sister who loves him very much and wants to protect him from any harm.

But because of health issues Akemori was never really trained in shinobi arts. Well, he was trained (his fathers are literally… them) just that he could protect himself, but no one expected him to go on missions or even become a shinobi at all. Uchiha elders treated him as a potential political marriage pawn (even though Madara and Tobirama would never let them do that). Akemori caught on that and never had the motivation to become a shinobi at all. He was offended and said that he’d NEVER become a shinobi.

Madara was a little mad at that, cuz they’re SHINOBI clan, what the hell. But he shut up the second Tobirama sent him The Look. Tobirama was ok with Akemori’s wishes, like his twin and himself are shinobi by necessity, but they finds more joy in research.

Akemori was trained in Mokuton by Hashirama of course, even though Senju elders bitched about him selling clan secrets to Uchiha. But Hokage does what he wants.

Akemori’s mokuton isn’t as strong as Hashirama’s, plus he never really wanted to fight. But he was good with plants so he joined Itama-oji in his research a lot! Especially since Hashirama is busy with Hokage stuff, Itama was delighted to get a new helper.

Akemori is also a really good sensor because, like Tobirama, he had to compensate his bad eyesight. Basically, Akemori is a very Tobirama’s kid.

Surprisingly, he awakened the Sharingan! He was 6 and some foreign ninja (prob Kumo) thought it’d be cool to steal a kid with the Sharingan. Because of his naturally red eyes Akemori got stolen. Ofc when Tobirama felt his kid out of Konoha bonds, he sounded the alarm in the whole Uchiha clan to check on their kids whereabouts and was first to chase the kidnappers.

Kumo nin were killed by a very mad Tobirama and bc of the stress Akemori awakened the Sharingan. It wasn’t much of a use for him, since he’s not a shinobi. But at least Uchihas acknowledge him as a fellow Uchiha and not just Tobirama’s carbon copy.

(btw noone outside immediate family actually KNOWS where the kids coming from. They don't see any pregnant women in the main line house or anyone in the clan with the same time who gave birth these days. Tobirama himself or god forbid Madara aren't ever seen pregnant. Where the fuck kids are coming from? Do they just spawn in the house or what)

(they basically do spawn)

Sharingan helps Akemori to actually see! At least he could see something and could read. But stll, its not really strong, cuz not trained enough.

Basically Akemori is a perfect mix between Senju and Uchiha with Sharingan and Mokuton, but he was nerfed by albinism.

Being almost blind boy who can navigate only with his sensing, doesn’t gives him much hobbies. Ofc he helps Itama and he studies plants and medicine a lot with him, but he still needs a hobby. Books don’t work for him, any type of handicrafts too cuz he can’t just use Sharingan all the time, his head hurts and sometimes he doesn't want to remember a whole book perfectly. He’s also not very interested in training as a hobby.

So in his tweens while Itama and he were traveling (with Uchiha escort (prob Motoko) just in case) to the near town for some medicine and plants, he noticed (heard) a group of musicians and he fell in love.

Itama immediately bought him an instrument (maybe Biwa?).

And now the second son of Uchiha Madara became a musician! Isn’t it fun. Elders are furious.

Madara was baffled but “You do you, son. When you learn, show us? Oh and maybe you can copy someone else’s playing, but be discreet. They may not like that you’d try to copy their music. Shinobi don’t really like when we copy their jutsus too”

With age he learned to play several instruments (I take suggestions on which ones). Some people even thought that he’s trained to become geisha (he's not, he's just a pretty boy who plays music for fun).

When he grow old enough, Itama started to give him weed for inspiration and to relax. Akemori is prone to quiet anxiety attacks after he was kidnapped.

Okay, the final kid. She was born 4 years later after Akemori.

Nari! The pout queen

Madara finally got to name his kid. Her name means “Calm, harmonic village”. Yeah he decided to name his kid after a village. It's still better than Konohamaru

And she’s the final kid, because Tobirama finally got it and produced a “normal” healthy kid. Plus he's not sure how many kids (3) and students (another 4 and Kagami) he can actually handle.

She has very Uchiha coloring, but Tobirama’s facial features. She also inherited his stare.

She’s the baby of the family, but she grew up slightly strict and serious cuz she stayed a lot with Tobirama, cuz he decided he won’t spend another maternity leave out of the Tower. The first two times were a disaster when he came back.

Tobirama left on maternity leaves just cuz he needed to monitor his kids health, especially Akemori’s. Idk about Konoha maternity leaves, but they should be really short, since well shinobi are needed all year long and they can’t wait for mother-shinobi to spend a whole year on that. Though on the other side, mothers need time to recover or they won’t be able to perform good on their missions (plus they probably have a milk smell lol). Who knows, maybe Tobirama was the one who drafted a law about at least one year maternity leave. He got very popular among kunoichi (can you believe that I just remembered that this word exists)

Nari is really like Izuna, but got her temper under control. Maybe think of teen Kakashi but without dead fathers and angst. But also brat.

Her chakra is water nature and she has 0 affinity with fire. Still she did produce great fireball as their traditions dictated, even though it took her many trials and errors. After that she decided that she hates traditions like that. Got really rebellious in her teens, about 13 and even tried to challenge her sister (25) for the clan head position. She didn’t win ofc and was bitter about it.

Also because her sister and brother both have seals, she always dreamed of the same, cuz as a baby she thought that it’s something special for their family. But Tobirama doesn’t think she needs them cuz her sight is perfect and her skin is pale, but it doesn’t burn like Akemori’s.

It triggered interest for seals in general cuz “FINE if you won’t give me seals, I’ll just make them myself!”

Tobirama was completely okay with it. He always strives to encourage kids when they want to learn something new. So he sicked her at Mito. Though his aunt was quite happy to teach her niece sealing art.

also idk why i write evil near her. she's just a brat. though she has the potential to become Azula ish

And that’s it!

I will write more about them later cuz im tired. I have some other ideas I wanna expand. Like Tobirama introducing his pups to his Hatake aunt (did i tell you that i LOVE Hatakes?),

Oh and fun little sketches close ups for a treat

i love this Hashirama with the kids, ugh he's so father

if you have any questions you can send them to my ask box!

[characteroulette]

Happy Layton Big Bang!!! @proflaytonbigbang !!

Here's my contribution: a whole new ukagaka to play around with!! (Grab them here!!)

Layton and Luke come with a few features --

Sit on your desktop and chat to themselves

Serve them a spot of tea! (Be careful not to jostle them)

Read through Luke's journal and get anecdotes from all their adventures!

A simple affection system!

Update functionality! So if they get more dialogue in the future, all you need to do is tell them to update and they'll grab it automatically!

Other ukagaka functionality (checking your email, deleting the files in your recycling bin, recognising certain files you drag and drop onto them)

And three whole shells! One made by the fantastic Danganny_art (Instagram) (X/Twitter) (check her post on it over here!!), the other made by @smooley (Instagram) (Itch.io) (coming soon!!)!! (I made the third but it was mostly for sprite sheet reference haha)

They come with their own unique balloon as well, made by @ageofzero!! It comes with designs from all 6 of the mainline games, so you can choose your favourite!

I have also posted all of their dialogue lines on ao3 in case you can't get ssp to work, though it's only the barebones dialogue from their release version.

Here's how to grab them --

Download SSP (you are looking for the ダウンロード button)

(as a note, SSP currently only runs on Windows. for solutions to a linux setup, check here!)

Make sure to place SSP in its own folder! Don't extract it directly onto your desktop and don't remove any of the files from its folder. Not even the application.

(You might have to add ssp to the exceptions on your virus protection software so it can run.)

Say hello to Emily (the cat girl)! She will always be there to greet you the first time you run ssp.

Download Layton and Luke's .nar! (You can download their balloon separately, but they come bundled with it so that's not necessary)

Drag Layton and Luke's .nar file onto Emily once she's finished speaking so she will install it.

(Alternatively, if you are having trouble with this, a .nar file is just another .zip, so you can grab the files from it and place it into a folder yourself! Make the new folder in the Ghosts folder of ssp's files (you will see Emily's folder in there!) (make sure to name it the same name as the .nar itself) and place all of Layton and Luke's files inside it!)

Then you can switch or call up Layton and Luke by right clicking on Emily and selecting them from the Switch Ghosts or Call Ghosts options! Simple as that!

Thanks so much for everyone involved!! Happy Layton big bang!!

[pearsandrust]

Aventurine and the Rule of Three: Past, Present? and Future

Disclaimer: I did not edit this post very well, and it has not been beta-read. Please let me know if you see an error.

IT'S AVENTURINE ESSAY TIME!!!!!! While I previously planned to expand on my original post on this topic, I realized that things actually go a lot deeper with Aventurine.This post is therefore going to address a different interpretation of the motif of "threes", one that will hopefully be more interesting when explored in detail. My thoughts on this have been so chaotic that this will feel more like a rant than an essay, so sorry in advance!

Thanks to everyone who reblogged my original post to point out that Kakavasha, Aventurine, and Aventurine's future self also make a trio in the 2.1 quest. I owe you a trillion credits. (i think the first person to mention it was @onceuponaladye -- thank you so much!).

Alright, I'll stop yapping. Words below the cut. As usual, I'm not sure if any of this is coherent.

INTRO:

Aventurine's lore is completely intertwined with the number three. Three dice. Three slots. A goddess with three eyes. And not to mention all the other instances where it appears:

Three spade-like symbols on his coin

Three screens behind him in his boss fight

Three stages of his life (life on Sigonia-IV/life as a slave/life as a Stoneheart)

Three Cornerstones gambled for Penacony

Three parts in the prayer to Gaiathra Triclops

... and probably a lot more I'm missing! Feel free to point more stuff out :)

Notably, the writers use the motif of threes as a narrative device in the 2.1 quest segment "All the Sad Tales", in which we see three versions of Aventurine: Kakavasha (his past self), his current self (who I will be referring to as Aventurine), and his future self (who I will be referring to as Future-Aventurine). This gives us a framework for thinking about the other instances of the rule of three. IN THIS ESSAY I WILL! ... try my best to dissect two very prominent instances of the rule of three in the Penacony 2.1 quest, and elaborate on how each acts as an analogy for Aventurine's past, present, and future. The interesting thing, however, is that Aventurine's present self stands out among these three versions of him. While his past and future selves have very distinct identities and morals, present Aventurine doesn't. He's conflicted, insecure, lost. He's caught between the weight of his facade and the burden of his past. And while we already know this from the story, it's pretty cool to see just how much subtle symbolism there is in his lore.

Note: Unless stated otherwise, all quotes are from the 2.1 quest.

SECTION 0: Preliminary Thoughts on Kakavasha and Future-Aventurine (mostly a preface -- skip if needed!)

Before I start my analysis, I'd like to point out that Kakavasha and Future-Aventurine are both complex and well-written characters in their own right, and I am definitely not going to do them justice in this essay. Both of them have incredible depth; each has their own opinion on justice, luck, power, preservation, and so much more. However, while looking through Aventurine's lore, I found that their characters are best represented through sets of two, like the pieces of jewellery Aventurine's mother left behind or the paired quest descriptions in "All the Sad Tales". I'd like to do a complete analysis of them someday, but I will be oversimplifying them a bit in this essay, and I'm sorry about that. Kakavasha and Future-Aventurine specialists (if any of you are out there), feel free to correct me in the notes.

My best analogy for the relationship between past, present and future Aventurine is that Kakavasha and Future-Aventurine are two sides of the same coin, and current Aventurine is the edge of that coin. We usually approximate a coin toss to two equal and opposite outcomes: either heads or tails. The third option -- tossing a coin and having it land on its side -- is rarely acknowledged due to its near-impossibility. However, Aventurine is exactly the kind of person to toss a coin and have it land on its side. It should be impossible for him to hold onto both his past and his future given how much they conflict, but he tries anyway.

SECTION 1: The Three Cornerstones

One of Aventurine's biggest feats is choosing to gamble not one, not two, but three entire Cornerstones on Penacony. Furthermore, Aventurine tries to make both Topaz and Jade's stones seem like they're his own. This mirrors how both Topaz and Jade both share distinct similarities with Aventurine, which allows for us to interpret the three Cornerstones as symbols of the stages of his life:

Topaz represents his past.

Aventurine represents his present.

Jade represents his future.

I'm going to go through the Topaz and Jade sections first, as they're a bit easier to explain.

The Past: Topaz and Kakavasha Topaz and Aventurine share a similar origin. Like Aventurine, she also comes from a desolate home planet, and like Sigonia-IV, that planet was also targeted by the IPC. However, the most important similarity between Topaz and Kakavasha is that both of them believe that human lives should come above all else. When Kakavasha's sister tells him that the rain is a gift from Gaiathra, allowing them to turn the tide in their fight against the Katicans, he says this:

But… but people will die, and you will be in danger… How is that good fortune? Why are you all doing this…

Kakavasha has never cared for the politics of Sigonia-IV, and he also seems to question the traditional belief that poverty and suffering are just the trials of Gaiathra Triclops. In his eyes, all of the ideas that his family taught him (that he should appreciate poverty, that defeating the Katicans is important) have only led to more senseless deaths. To him, his family's survival is the only thing that really matters. Topaz expresses a similar (albeit more twisted) belief to Bronya:

I know freedom is precious to people, but in reality there are things of much greater value… such as survival.

In addition, Topaz states that she works in the interest of the common people, and she's known for not caring much about wealth. In this regard, Topaz and Kakavasha have similar ideals.

Topaz also seems to be one of the most honest IPC employees. It's even mentioned in her Character Stories that the one exam she failed was business etiquette, suggesting that she never really puts up a facade for the sake of making a deal. Accordingly, Kakavasha is the only version of Aventurine that isn't acting. He lives as himself: questioning the world around him, grieving what he's lost. The other versions of Aventurine do not have that privilege.

The Future: Jade and Future-Aventurine As we know, Jade was essential in recruiting Aventurine to the IPC in the first place, and they've worked together on many missions. Both of them are experienced in making high-stakes deals, often using lives as bargaining chips (although Aventurine only ever bets his own life -- I'll get to that). These are traits that become more and more central to Aventurine's character as he tries to bury his past and commit to his Stoneheart persona. In the 2.1 quest, Future-Aventurine fully embodies this facade: he's cynical, manipulative, materialistic. Good at sweet-talking in a condescending way, to the point where he sounds a little too much like Jade:

Which is why once you step into the hotel, you remove your high hat and beg everyone you come across for help, like a hyena scavenging for scraps in the desert. - Future-Aventurine, 2.1 quest Unfortunately, there are no more Avgins in Sigonia. You're the last lucky dog. - Jade, Aventurine’s Character Story III

They both speak to Aventurine in the same patronizing manner, and they both refer to Aventurine as a kid/child/young person at some point.

(Side note: When Aventurine is "in character" as the confident negotiator that his future self seems to be, he also acts a lot more like Jade. For example, in Aventurine's animated trailer "Non-Zero Sum Game", he swirls a flute of champagne around the way Jade swirls her wine. Pretty neat detail.)

Future-Aventurine and Jade also share a trait that neither Kakavasha nor current Aventurine possess: the willingness to put other people's lives on the line. Future-Aventurine points this out himself:

In your hands, those who follow you could've become joker cards. They're far more useful that way. - Future-Aventurine, 2.1 quest You will become the IPC's agent in the Silverchain Galaxy. From this moment on, every huff of your breath and every minute of your life will contribute to the Amber Lord's great cause... - Jade, Jade's Character Story: Part I

Future-Aventurine and Jade are both willing to take advantage of people's desires, ultimately using lives themselves as betting chips (or "joker cards", as Future-Aventurine says). It's important to note that Future-Aventurine specifically mentions "those who follow you", which perfectly parallels Jade's ideology towards deals. She waits for those who need her to come to her first.

So, if Topaz represents Kakavasha's innocence and hope, and Jade represents Future-Aventurine's unapologetic, cunning nature ... Where does that leave present Aventurine, represented by the real Aventurine stone? Luckily for us, Future-Aventurine has the answer to that:

The Present: A Fractured Sense of Self?

...Just look at it, tsk. Shattered, just like your life. Poor thing. A humble pebble coated in the most lustrous sheen.

See, the irony of Aventurine's Cornerstone plan is that the two stones he surrendered to the Family -- Topaz and Jade's -- are the ones that make it out unscathed. His own stone is not so lucky. And like his future self says, it's a perfect representation of his life. Because Aventurine's current self is fragmented. His identity is a mosaic of every life he's lived before and every life he'll live after, patched together with escapism and a proficiency for acting. He is the facade and the person under it. He's Kakavasha, Future-Aventurine, both, and neither.

To explain this better, I'd like to look a bit closer at the phrase "a humble pebble coated in the most lustrous sheen". This phrase is especially important because Acheron basically says the same thing of Aventurine, and she knows him especially well after everything that went down in 2.1.

A shattered emptiness draped in the guise of desire... his existence is strikingly powerful, yet the self beneath is extraordinarily faint. - Acheron, "About Aventurine"

(Side note: I find it funny how Acheron just occasionally just drops a Very Accurate Statement about Aventurine and then refuses to elaborate. She's so real.)

"A humble pebble coated in the most lustrous sheen" can be interpreted in two ways:

The first interpretation describes Aventurine's relationship with his past. Kakavasha grew up on a desolate planet, living mostly in poverty. In this situation, he is the "humble pebble". Aventurine's origins make him somewhat of an oddity among the employees of the Strategic Investment Department, and many people were against him being selected as a Stoneheart in the first place:

"And let's not forget the letters from the councilors of the Sigonian Sovereignty. They denounce his tribe for once breaking agreements and sowing discord, leading to significant changes in the balance of peace between the tribes, resulting in repeated delays in the signing of agreements between Sigonia and IPC. Allowing such an employee to join at the IPC would be a severe detriment to public relations..." - Aventurine's Character Story: Part I

Regardless of what others say of him, Aventurine's success in the IPC has given him a great deal of wealth and status, which he uses to mask his difficult past. This is the "lustrous sheen"; the "strikingly powerful existence" that hides his suffering beneath it.

We can tell from the story that Aventurine has never forgotten his past. The "sheen" that the IPC affords him only exists on the surface; no matter how much wealth he has, he cannot use it to erase his previous suffering. And on top of that, Aventurine usually has to conceal his past to maintain his power. But even if he didn't ... the IPC destroyed Kakavasha's home. Aventurine can't bring himself to reconcile with his past identity because of the guilt it causes him, knowing he's now on the enemy's side. In fact, he already thinks of Kakavasha as someone as someone who'll be better than him:

"Kakavasha": Awesome, I hope I can become as good-looking as you when I grow up. Aventurine: Of course you can. Aventurine: You'll be better, and stronger than me.

What does one do with a past they can't return to? It is a problem with an impossible solution, and in the end, it leaves Aventurine stuck between acknowledging his origins and burying them. He knows that Kakavasha will always make up a part of him, but he can't bring himself to accept that -- not when the very company he works for caused his younger self so much pain.

So if present Aventurine both is and isn't Kakavasha, then what about Future-Aventurine? Could Aventurine become him? Could he commit entirely to the facade, living off of deals as Jade does? Could he, perhaps, acquire enough power to be truly free?

This is where the second interpretation of the phrase "a humble pebble coated in the most lustrous sheen" comes in. Because interestingly enough, aventurine is often used as a substitute for jade.

??? (Future-Aventurine): This type of stone isn't rare, but its hue is very similar to a certain gem. In fact, it's often used as a substitute. And that more precious gem is... Aventurine: ...Jade.

A "humble pebble coated in the most lustrous sheen" can also be an act of deception. It can represent Aventurine using glamour and frivolity to make himself seem more confident, daring, valuable -- more like Jade, who has always had more power than him.

I mentioned already that Future-Aventurine is very much like Jade. He's willing to throw away a lot of things for success. In fact, he tells the present Aventurine that (like Jade) he should have no problem putting other people's lives on the line:

In your hands, those who follow you could've become joker cards. They're far more useful that way.

But Aventurine refuses. In all his endeavours, he never gambles away anybody else's life; he only ever stakes his own. That's something he's unwilling to budge on, because he knows what it feels like to be treated as a bargaining chip. And tragically, that's what prevents him from fully realizing his potential as a Stoneheart -- from fully becoming Future-Aventurine, who is so much like Jade. Because Jade's entire business operates on the principle of using lives as capital. Therefore, Aventurine can never become equivalent to Jade if his morals stay as they are now; he can only be a "substitute", a less valuable version.

The present Aventurine is a study in irony. He can't forget his past as Kakavasha, but he can't fully acknowledge it either if he wants to be a Stoneheart. And yet, the pains of that buried past are what prevent him from truly reaching the top of the IPC. He is truly just as shattered as his Cornerstone, made of bits and pieces of other people. People that he once was; people that he might eventually be. And yet he himself is close to being nobody (the self beneath is extraordinarily faint).

Although the Cornerstones are arguably the best representation of the relationship between the three versions of Aventurine, there is another set of three that represents him very well. And although it'll feel a bit repetitive, I'd like to address it too.

SECTION II: The Prayer to Gaiathra Triclops

May the Mother Goddess thrice close her eyes for you … keeping your blood eternally pulsing. May your journey be forever peaceful … and your schemes forever concealed.

You guys probably know what I'm going to say in this section, but this is one of my favourite things about Aventurine ever, so I'm going to say it anyway. The prayer he and his family say to Gaiathra Triclops is yet another example of a set of three: it contains three wishes, each corresponding to one of Gaiathra Triclops' eyes. And like the Cornerstones, these three wishes seem to perfectly align with the stages of Aventurine's life. Again, I'll start by talking about the parts that coincide with his past and future identities, as those are a bit more straightforward.

The Past: "... keeping your blood eternally pulsing." When interpreted literally, this phrase parallels Aventurine's childhood fairly well. Of course survival would have been a priority for Kakavasha -- he and his family were living in terrible conditions on a conflict-ridden planet. There wasn't room in their lives for much else. However, "blood" can also refer to one's relatives, giving this phrase a double meaning; Kakavasha's primary goal was not just survival, but also the survival of his family. Despite his sister emphasizing that he was the blessed child of Gaiathra Triclops, that he would be the one to survive, Kakavasha always thought of his other family members. In his mind, their survival was just as important as his own.

There is also a third interpretation of this phrase, which Kakavasha's sister brings up in their final moments together:

As long as you are alive, the blood of the Avgin will never run dry.

As Kakavasha's sister told him, he was the hope of the clan -- the one who would lead them to happiness. If anyone could make it out, it was him. And so the burden of preserving the Avgins' memory falls entirely onto his shoulders.

One of the reasons Aventurine cannot let go of his past is because of this responsibility. If he truly lets Kakavasha "die", then the history of his people will truly be lost, reduced to only what the IPC was willing to say of them. And Kakavasha will die as soon as Aventurine truly loses himself to his facade.

The Future: "... and your schemes forever concealed."

You're a natural, kid. You don't stop at fooling the audience — you fool yourself too. - Future-Aventurine

I (hopefully) established in the last section that Future-Aventurine is every bit the cunning gambler that people think he is. He's deceptive, condescending, always taunting Aventurine. He even acknowledges himself that he has very few likeable traits. He has no qualms with playing dirty, using others as chips for his deals. He even tells Aventurine he should've sold his mother's lucky charm, completely ignoring its sentimental value (he is both right and wrong about this, but that's a story for another day).

In the context of his character, this part of the prayer is bittersweet. On one hand, it's a sigh of relief: Future-Aventurine has the power he needs. He no longer has to wish for survival. On the other hand, it's tragic, because it means that Future-Aventurine really does completely fool himself. It means that he buries his past, his fears, his suffering. All he's concerned with is his schemes.

(If you need further proof that Future-Aventurine, this phrase, and Jade are connected, Jade repeats "May your schemes be forever concealed" to Aventurine at the end of their first meeting.)

However, for Future-Aventurine to exist, Aventurine must first completely fool himself into believing his Stoneheart facade. He has to convince himself, again and again, that it's worth it; that he can abandon his past and commit fully to the act. And that is the ultimate scheme that he wishes to conceal. Future-Aventurine is a product of Aventurine successfully deceiving himself, and that's tragic. Because even though Future-Aventurine finally has enough power and influence to save himself, there is no self left to save.

The Present: "May your journey be forever peaceful ..." Finally, we get to the last section of the prayer (and the last big section of this post!) Of all three parts of the prayer, this is the least specific. The concept of "peace" isn't as concrete as those of survival and deception, and the idea of a "journey" is equally vague. This aligns with Aventurine's uncertain present; he doesn't truly believe in the IPC, and he doesn't solely desire wealth or fame. He has no way of saving his past or future selves. Then, what does Aventurine want? He questions this himself in the 2.1 quest:

Even if I overcome this difficult trial, what would come next? What awaits me after this glorious gamble... an even more glorious one?

Aventurine is always looking for the next deal, the next gamble. This is his journey -- he goes from one opportunity to the next, never settling too long in one place. He needs the thrill of danger to distract himself, and yet anxiety underscores every bet he makes. He can't win without wondering when his lucky streak will end.

What Aventurine truly lacks is peace. He wants closure; he wants a purpose; he wants answers to those impossible questions (Then how bad were our sins? / Then what did we do to deserve living in a world like that?). He remembers enough of his past for it to haunt him, but not enough to feel whole. And of the million lives he's lived, not a single one has been truly fulfilling.

To tie it all together, this is the description of Aventurine we get at the end of 2.1, which parallels both his need for peace and the concept of his "journey":

His life knows not quietude. His fate yet demands him to win them all, to weather tempests, one after another... til mire enshrouds his very breath. And now, in the unfathomable depths of dream, the once falling die... has at last landed on its earthly rest. Quietly, peacefully, it at last landed.

"Quietly, peacefully, it at last landed". At the end of 2.1, Aventurine does find some semblance of peace, which is a writing decision I am infinitely grateful for. For at least a moment, Aventurine's needs are fulfilled. For at least a moment, he's okay. I very much hope it's not the last.

FINAL THOUGHTS (it's 3AM)

If you made it here, congratulations! Or "I'm sorry"? It's been years since I've written something like this, so I'm not entirely sure which is more appropriate.

In any case, thank you for reading! I love Aventurine and Penacony so much that it was hard to really express my thoughts on them. Most of the time I spent working on this essay was just me staring at my computer with a vague ache in my chest. Penacony is all about illusions and deception and false identities, but I still think it's neat just how well the characters embody these motifs. Aventurine is not who we think he is, and he's definitely not the person he once was. But none of those versions of him were wasted, because they all contribute to the strange, messy, wonderful character we know. I hope I did him at least a little justice with this rant.

Thanks again for reading, everyone!!

[boxturret]

BMOP: A history of the Abandoned Koro

Now that things have all come out, and the project is well and truly over, I thought I'd take a moment to talk a bit about something I worked on in the game, the "Abandoned Koro" area, now that there's video footage of a playthrough I can easily reference.

I suppose as a quick primer, I was with the BMOP team from around March of 2021 to November of 2022, serving as both 3D art lead and Level design lead for a time. There's a post out there about my experiences with the leadership of the team that I mostly stand by still, I do feel bad for how the project ended, and I have come around a bit to remember the positive times more than the negative, but that doesn't erase what happened.

So to begin, when I came on level design was a fairly inactive sub channel of the game development discord, some ideas got tossed around occasionally, but not much seemed to be happening, before I'd joined there was a rough map drawn up by the then current level design lead.

It was very basic stuff, there was a version of this map in engine that had been extruded a bit to make it a kind of playable space, one area had some trees on it and some random platforms.

One area that interested me greatly was this part in the south, the so called "Abandoned Koro"

The rough idea being that it was the Le-Koro seen in the GBA game Bionicle: Quest for the Toa, that had been abandoned in favour of the one seen in the browser game Mata Nui Online Game and the cancelled PC game Bionicle: Legend of Mata Nui, as the one in QFTT had a lot of wooden structures while the one seen in the other two was more like a woven nest.

At the time I was just a 3d modeller, and had never really done any real level design, but the concept just really inspired me, so I went off and in blender sketched out a possible level layout for this area.

I made a bunch of renders and wrote out how I thought the level could work, which can be seen in this document HERE.

For a quick overview, the idea was you'd enter the area, the bridge would break, you'd have to clear a river to activate the water wheel on a large mechanical tree that would allow you passage upwards, and then navigate through the Nui-Rama infested ruins of the village before coming to a cave.

The tree was something I poured a lot of time in to, its worthy of its own post at some point in the future.

Now I'll be honest, I was super nervous about releasing this document to the team, I thought I was overstepping my bounds. I was just a relatively new 3d modeller on the team, I didn't have the right to be talking about level design, but to my surprise people were really receptive to it, and I very quickly got added to the level design team¹.

I ended up doing a rough blockout in engine. This was back in the time before Lewa had been chosen to be the main player character, so it was still Tahu.

This was the first time I'd ever touched Unreal, so it took a while. That's why the sky is black, I didn't know how to add a skybox.

I never got in to level scripting, but as a proof of concept, I think it was successful.

You can see that in this version of the level it had already progressed, now there was the idea of using the Pakari to break the dam, so finding it was the first task on the ground.

This version wasn't in the actual demo map, because as I said before the demo wasn't really very fleshed out at the time. One thing my map showed though was that the demo was way too big. The level design lead at the time had decided the size based on how long it took to get around the map as a perfectly flat plane with no terrain, at max run speed, with no obstacles. This is a very flawed methodology to say the least. Having an actual level with things scaled to the character really started to show the holes in this, and eventually, once I became lead, the demo area was massively shrunk.

Here's a version from just a month later. The version is now part of the new, more compact demo area, but its mostly barren at this point.

This version was actually completely rebuilt from the ground up because it had been decided to try out voxels as a basis². They were a pain to deal with and this was overturned eventually. I'd say in total, including the 3d sketch I did, I re-built this map maybe 4 times.

One benefit of voxels was it was trivial to have caves, so this is where the idea of the pakari being found in a cave started to emerge.

As I continued to play and refine the demo it became clear how much the movement systems would need to be tweaked. There seemed to be this idea in the team that everything could be done separately and bolted together later, so character moment was all handled by someone jumping around on some big blocks in a test map whereas level design was off doing their own thing, but it really wasn't working. So while the movement felt good in a vacuum, actually putting it in context really exposed a lot of issues. You could easily jump over any enemy you could come across, as said earlier maps had to be huge in order to make the world seem big while you were running at full speed, and after about 3 jumps you'd be 20 metres in the air.

At this point the idea still was to have the entire island of Mata Nui be one large open area you could freely explore, so the sheer size of the maps resulting from the over powered movement was a major issue. I lobbied very hard to have things pulled back and eventually they were.

its a bit out of order, but here's the demo area from closer to when I left. Its a fraction of the size of the original map

Here's another video from a month later.

As much as it pains me to say it, this is basically it in terms of meaningful development. By this point Lewa had been locked in as the playable character, and the movement had been dialed back to a more reasonable degree, so I was able to really start trying to refine the area. This is where I ran in to a fatal issue.

No one else wanted to play the game.

And what was worse barely anything worked.

The level is still in what I would call a grey box state. I used a couple tree trunk assets I'd made here and there, and put in a big canopy asset from one of the many asset packs we had for a bit of ambience, but it was all still very basic geometry, easily changed or modified.

Unfortunately, there's only so much you can do for playtesting your own area. You built it: you know where everything is, what's supposed to happen, where you're supposed to go. You can try to pretend to play it as a new player, but that only gets you so far. I was hoping people on the team would play it and provide feedback³, but outside of maybe one or two people a handful of times⁴, trying to get any really feedback was was a futile effort.

The thing was that this area was very complex. If the demo was a vertical slice of the game as a whole, this area was itself a microcosm of the demo⁵. It had platforming, puzzle solving, combat, mask powers, the lot. Now unfortunately for me, barely any of those systems actually worked.

As an example, this long ledge was for a long time a stand in for vine swinging, then rail grinding⁶, then was ultimately just replaced by a platform.

So things had kind of hit a wall. I couldn't properly design areas with combat in them until combat existed in a more stable state, I couldn't design platforming sections until platforming worked in a consistent way. I couldn't even adjust the overall flow of the level because everyone else basically refused to give feedback.

But the unfortunate thing is, in August of that year they'd released a teaser trailer.

And that trailer had gotten hundreds of thousands of views.

This is where the whole development of this game really went off the rails. Now there was this push to get things in a presentable state, start set dressing and making final assets so things could be shown off.

But I refused. Everything was too up in the air to commit to set dressing, this is why block out exists, if the jump changes height its no big issue to grab the couple cubes an area is made out of and shift them up or down, if combat is found to need more space its easy to make things bigger, or add or take away walls. If something is confusing things can be shifted. Once set dressing starts now you're dealing with dozens to hundreds of objects being scattered about, even the smallest tweak can lead to a mess.

Not to mention set dressing raised its own series of issues, from plants triggering the IK on the toa's feet, making their knees go up to their chin when walking through a bunch of ferns, to collision volumes being oversized or offset, meaning that big rock face they just added has now created a massive invisible wall in another area. Once the addition of some plants caused all ledges within a wide radius to no longer work⁷.

It was a miserable state of affairs. My mental state rapidly deteriorated as I fought against this, I became very short tempered and irritable, and eventually near the end of 2022 I was kicked from the team. It was such a relief honestly.

I think the tragic thing is, set dressing is actually quite a fast process. The starting area went from looking like this to something quite like the final in about a month?

But you can't show off the first screenshot on twitter⁸.

I guess I'll spare a quick moment to talk about the final version seen in the video.

Its at 46 minutes in if the link doesn't work

Its...fine? The assets they've made are all good, though I think they lost the QFTM inspiration along the way. The thing that stands out to me is just how...little its moved on from 2022. Just look how much progress was made in like 3 months, compare that to now, 3 years later. Temporary platforms I placed are still in the exact same spot. I do find the addition of a matoran with a key for the cave to be a not great addition, if only for the fact that you need to find a tiny green man in amongst the overwhelming greenery to proceed.

One part I found quite amusing was the final enemy encounter. It was supposed to be this large hut, probably Matau's, that had been completely overtaken by a hive, and Nui-Rama would spawn constantly from it until the encounter was over.

There were a lot of concepts drawn up, but I guess it just...never happened. I also don't know why there's waves of fikou there either, that was after my time I think.

So that's really all I have to say about that version, it looks okay. Its still clearly unfinished. It kinda works more than it did when I left, but its shockingly not that much different, outside of some new assets.

I'll be honest, I did intend this to be more of a happy, reflective post, but when watching part of the developer commentary a quote stood out to me.

"Traditionally you would kind of have really basic blockout for an environment and play test that to see how the level design is working. Because of the the situation we had we were kind of forced to just go ahead with set dressing and prettying it up and everything so if it were in a perfect world I would have loved to have gotten to do some more play testing early on but we did what we could with it. And I mean you basically had to just blindly trust the process because many systems weren't working at the time things were designed." -AN UNKNOWN BMOP DEVELOPER (2025)

And I just fundamentally disagree. This was a fan project, there were no deadlines but those that were self inflicted. This process they blindly trusted just lead to a thing that on the surface looks okay, but is still riddled with bugs that were well known for years. I've seen some people on the team say the game was 90% completed, feature locked, just 3 more months of polish and it would have all been working, but from what I've seen of the game I really doubt it. They say themselves in the commentary that there's bugs they've been fighting for nearly a decade still rearing their head.

So yeah, its not exactly a happy tale. I'm quite proud of the work I did, I learned a lot, and met a lot of people I'm still friends with to this day. Its a shame the project had to end this way, and I'm sad everyone's work has gone to waste, but I'm also not going to pretend this was some amazing project that was struck down right before achieving greatness.

But most of all: Fuck you lego.

If you're interested in seeing a few more of the things I worked on in my time with BMOP, go HERE. I may post more publicly about some of them in the future, who knows. I have a post about the regional Kini temple I designed and built for the game HERE. Also some renders I did for some of my game design reports HERE.

¹-I say team, it was maybe two other people who were barely around. ²-I'll be honest here: Some people wanted to have the entire map destructible so that they could have Bohrok dynamically destroy it. For the post game DLC after we'd finished this Zelda sized free fan game⁹. ³-💯👍👀 isn't helpful feedback at the end of the day. Its supportive I'll give you that. But sometimes you need more. ⁴-One person on the team even outright refused to play the game until final release, to "save their first reactions for their stream"... ⁵-idk if its clear at this point but the "demo" is, was, and now always will be the entirety of the existing game. Oh there were ideas for other things, but nothing concrete ever materialised⁹. ⁶-You know, like Sonic⁹ ⁷-The ledge's over sensitive detection for something blocking it is one of the most frustrating things about the game's development for me. ⁸-You absolutely can show off real development stuff, there are lots of people who find that fascinating. ⁹-This game was nothing if not ambitious.

You see that kind of mop is called a "Bee Mop", because of its sponge's resemblance to honey comb.