#then i thought. that's literally the bare minimum of game design...

[karlachismylife]

Masochistic Kid With a Split Lip

CW: gn!sergeant!reader, descriptions of injuries and violence, brief descriptions of hospitals and medication, hurt/comfort.

(Title from Ren's song "Suic*de" , although I'm not sure the asterisk is by author's design. There is nothing about this theme in the fic itself!! Just a really good song with a fitting lyric.)

Also I wrote the fic first, then saw this art and it's kinda fitting. Beware, depiction of injuriess!! Go support the artist, it's beautiful work.

Usually you didn't have a single complaint about staying on a sniper position, providing cover and watching the main action unfold through a well-tuned scope or a pair of binoculars. Keeping your head clear, hands steady and ready to shoot whenever an order came in or the situation demanded.

However, this meant a lot of things escaped your attention, only coming through the comms as a radio play - and as any radio play, it relied heavily on your own imagination painting the picture, often much more saturated and vivid than reality turned out to be whenever you were re-told the events by your fellow teammates.

Close combat and buildings infiltration stayed outside your sight. And you were content with not witnessing someone's heroics firsthand - up until today.

Today you cursed the order that held you in your place.

Now, looking at Soap's face, beaten to a pulp, blood literally gushing down like a full-water river from his split eyebrow and nose that got almost evened out into a flat surface - that must've been that horrifying wet crack you heard before his microphone got torn off and trampled - you could put every hit, groan and thud to a visual aftermath. Limping and nursing a hand with a wrist that should have never been able to take that angle, he hung off Ghost's shoulder like a flabby, ratted scrap of cloth, but even as his inhumanely bloodshot eye struggled to focus or simply stay open, he still looked at you and tried to grin, teeth painted red behind painfully stretching split lips.

You held his one good hand that didn't get shattered into pieces after being repeatedly stomped on all the way back to the base.

"Get some sleep. You look exhausted," told you your Captain, his big supportive hand squeezing your stiff shoulder. You tried to voice a protest, sitting upright in the uncomfortable chair across from the infirmary bed, where Soap was already out like a light on the generous painkillers cocktail, but Price shoot you a warning, stern glare and furrowed his brows. "That's an order, Sergeant. Soap's gonna sleep for hours straight, and he'll need ya fresh and awake by the time he comes back, not a barely coherent sleep-deprived mess. Take a shower. Grab a bite to eat. Drink a cuppa. Have some sleep."

"Go. I'll stay in case he wakes early, I'll shoot you a message." You nearly snapped your neck as you turned to the source of the gruff voice - how long had Ghost been standing there, arms crossed, hunched back supporting the bleak medical green wall, eyes with some black still clinging around even after a shower glued to what could barely be recognized as Johnny's face.

Leaving this little room reeking of hospital seemed terrifying, but arguing with both your superior officers was a losing game - especially when they were right.

You still could barely sleep, waking up twice to the phantom feeling of blood from a broken nose filling your sinuses and throat, thick, viscous irony mass preventing you from breathing. Your sheets sticked to the wet patch of cold sweat between your shoulderblades, heart racing as you tried to push away the invasive thought of Johnny silently choking on his own blood in a closed off medical wing.

Morning found you with a warm thermos of sweet black tea - liquid energy - clutched in hands hanging between your knees on the same chair you were banished from mere hours ago. Ghost left an hour later after you sat down and showed no intention to move, probably satisfied with the bare minimum of rest you took and unwilling to argue with you when your eyes had that crazed glint of desperation deep inside pulsing pupils.

The first sound Soap produced sent a shockwave down your spine, jolting your whole body and immediately forcing you close to his bedside with the power of a gravity field of the sun that Johnny was.

"Well, good morning to you too," you smiled at him weakly, gripping the healthy hand he outstretched towards you and bringing it to your lips. "You're still handsome, you know?"

"LT said Ah looked lik' shite yesterday, " his own smile was timid, small, constricted by the pain of fresh wounds - his pouty lips were a swollen mess with dried blood stuck in the deep cut in the middle. "Dinnae ken whom tae believe oot of ye two."

Even the softest chuckle, successfully elicited from you, made Johnny's eyes sparkle brighter - beaten or not, he still charged off other people's energy, and now you were grateful to your Captain and Lieutenant for the fact that you weren't an exhusted knot of naked wires ready to shortcircuit and burst into tears due to plain emotional exhaustion.

"So you'll take Simon's word over mine, huh?" An unsaid I'm glad you're alive and laughing fell onto the stale sheet, barely avoiding Johnny's fucked up hand, put together like a puzzle in the course of several hours yesterday. "I want to kiss you, you know."

"I wanntae kiss ye too, bonnie," he rasped, licking his dry, bruised lips and glancing at yours. "Doc didnae say we cannae, ye ken? Gonnae kiss me a'right and Ah'll be good as new, aye?"

"Are you sure I'm not gonna hurt you, sunshine?" Oh how tempting he was, even lying with a broken nose and stitches in random patches of skin - still victorious. Ye shoulda seen th' other guy, bonnie - he told you in his dazed state yesterday. Ghost chuckled darkly and muttered there wasn't anything left to see under his nose.

"Ah'm sure. C'mere, Ah missed ye." Johnny's good hand gripped you almost desperately, barely a shiver of pain in fingers weakened by huge doses of whatever they pumped into him to keep his shocked body stable. He tugged on your wrist insistently, and you gave in, leaning down carefully and timidly touching his lips with yours.

Of course it wouldn't do, it was Johnny you kissed.

He pressed his mouth into yours greedily, breath stuttering with a poorly muffled grunt - startled, you tried to pull away and check on him, stop causing him pain and soothe the wounds you disturbed, but he already cupped the back of your head, digging his fingers into your scalp harshly, and showed no intent of stopping.

"Mmph, Johnny, you're- hurt... mmh!"

No chance. Wincing and grunting like an old man with a broken back, Soap kept kissing you, giggling into your worried mouth like a little troublemaker.

You decided, you were going to tell Ghost.

[coffee-and-tea-time]

S͟͞i͟͞n͟͞g͟͞,͟͞ ͟͞L͟͞o͟͞v͟͞e͟͞

Sup’! This is our little Halloween surprise!

Yup, we asked ourselves what would happen if instead of falling on the shadow dilf’s liminal space, you fell in one that isn’t quite as sweet. - Tea

Yup Yup, and for that, we decided to write it with some of our shared phobias in mind and make our Phobiarooms with a special yan- - Coffee

Shh, no spoilers. - Tea

word count: 3.3k

tw: hehe, trick or treat? Gore! We gotta warn that one (⁠・⁠–⁠・⁠;⁠)⁠ゞ and it's written in you/yours

This really is like a cliché horror movie, cleaning pools at night sure looks like the perfect excuse for a new horror movie saga, or maybe a game, like-

"Honey, you're gonna fall off, be careful!"

The sweet voice of your coworker interrupts your train of thought, saving you from falling over the pool with the cleaning supplies. You were truly grateful that you got the night shift with her, she literally treat you so sweetly, guess she got the habit to treat people like she treat her children, but it's always sweet and never weird so, everybody just smile when she subconsciously start talking with her mom shenanigans.

"Thanks! Sorry, it's my first night shift so I guess my mind wander a little over silly horror movies"

Fuck, why are you so awkward? Hope you didn't seem so weird. Thankfully, she only smiles at you, giving you a pat on the head before continuing working. God bless her heart.

You walked with shoulders slump to the next pool, cleaning supplies rolling beside you in your cart as they are too heavy to carry by yourself. This job was tiring to say the least, but the pay was damn good, which would be sketchy if it wasn't for the fact the pools you had to clean were massive and always so fucking dirty, stupid kids. How do they manage to lose so many toys without the parents noticing?

The outside ones were more bearable, as the process was more forgiving, leaves and dirt are unavoidable when the pool is out in the wild. Inside pools though... Those were the vain of your existence, everything had to be spotless, the floors were slippery so falling was almost a given, and they always stuck you with cleaning the dressing rooms which were filthy every single time. Today you had to clean the inside pools, so to cope you dragged a coworker with you to help, also some tunes couldn't hurt.

Mindlessly chatting with your coworker you find yourselves wandering to the next pool to clean, the white tile hallways all too cold and echoey stretching farther than you remembered, but at last there the hallway ended, opening up into a round, deep and honestly disgustingly dirty pool. Your coworker comments on it too.

"I really can understand whorever plans this, why do you need hidden pools? I don't think I ever cleaned this area so they sure got some extra people cleaning this."

Your coworker agrees with you, both clueless on how they manage to keep this area a secret for special guests with so many people wandering around on a daily basis. You gotta admit, it got a fancy design, even putting some tunnels of water on the hallways that miraculously were all really clean.

"We might need a bigger vacuum.. I'll be right back" She said,  turning around with a tired grunt which you second while looking down at the green-ish water. It didn't smell though, thank god, and so you started to clean a bit while waiting for your coworker to bring the bigger vacuum. 

With a soft bristle broom gathering the dirt and grime off the white tiles, you hummed and quietly sang to that one song you had stuck in your head.

Fuck, stupid tiktok and his catchy 6 seconds of a song, you just can’t help but have it on repeat on your brain. Well, you have a lot of time to kill anyways. You gotta admit whatever guests they bring here are really clean, there isn't much dirt, just the minimum that people make by walking.

Your eyes drift through the white tile, from the small, barely there pile of dust you managed to gather to the edge of the circular pool in the middle of the room, the water this soft green like before, but something is… off.

The water wasn't still, it swayed ever so slightly like there was movement, and now that you focused enough, you could see this strange… string? Was it some sort of moss? A deep green mass of what looked like hair could be barely seen at the bottom of the pool through the shadows of its depth, was it there before? You couldn’t recall. 

Your immediate thought is to ask your coworker if there is some kind of tool convenient enough to reach the bottom of these giant pools and take out what is down there without having to empty them. But now that you think about it, where's your coworker? Shit, she probably had some trouble in the storage room since it's always so messy there and the tools you guys need are big and difficult to carry, you should've helped her.

You start walking to the hallways once again, sweeping a little as you make your way to what you assume is the way to the storage room while that damned song was still playing on loop in your head, why did it have to be such a banger? Worsened also by those damn majestic edits people have been making… God.

Though… this is not the full story, is it?

The green mass at the bottom of the pool wasn't there before, the water indeed moved, but not on its own.

There is something down there.

As you walked, you heard the slight echo of rustling through the hallway, grunts of struggle, but very subtle. You assume it's your coworker trying to carry all those tools on her own and you feel a pang of guilt, quickening your step and calling out to her.

“Mary? Stay there! I'll help you with the stuff, sorry for not going with you!”

You said casually jogging down the hall, but then a voice makes you stop, the voice of your coworker, but…

That can't be her, can it? You still hear her grunting on the other side, down the hall… so why? 

It's right behind you, coming from the pool room you just left

You keep walking, trying to ignore that voice that calls out your name, it is your coworker’s voice, but something feels off. You follow the sounds of those grunts instead and it leads you to one of the side pools, a very gorgeous design with pristine white tile and stairs leading down to a square pool, but the elegant and minimalist pool was tainted with that sight.

Mary was there, grunting with what you now knew was pain, the once green-ish waters painted a haunting shade of crimson, half of Mary was gone, her throat was disheveled, gurgling with her own blood as claw marks covered her whole arms. She struggled, but there was no saving her, she was choking on her own blood, on her own flesh.

You stood there, paralyzed by fear and the gruesome sight of a coworker torn to pieces right before you, her last breath a chilling notion now as you also heard her voice calling out for you from behind.

 ҉"҉H҉o҉n҉e҉y҉,҉ ҉i҉s҉ ҉t҉h҉a҉t҉ ҉y҉o҉u҉?҉"҉

The distorted voice of Mary echoed closer through the hallway, and with it a dragging sound, almost like how the vacuum’s tube dragged through the wet floors while cleaning. Your mind dissociated for a moment, unable to comprehend the situation you were in, but it didn't take long for everything to scream at you to stay alert, just as that dragging sound creeped behind you through the entrance.

You didn't dare look behind you, the thought of not being alone in a scene like this, in what you foolishly thought was the pool area you worked at. The dragging stopped, for a moment at least. Instead you heard the tapping of wet palms against the floor, then dragging again, and drops of water or whatever it was, dripping down onto the floors with a soft sound. 

It took everything from you not to scream and collapse right then and there. Mary's cloudy, blood soaked eye staring blankly ahead, behind you, telling you that you were indeed not alone. Slowly, you turned around, your heart pounding so hard you dreaded the possibility of whatever this thing was hearing every beat and there it stood, a creature, a monster.

Thick, green-ish hair resembling what you saw at the bottom of the pool earlier covering its face, yet not quite hiding its eyes, shining like an opal, if it wasn't for its haunting image you'd say it was beautiful, but it wasn't. The thing stood taller than you by a lot, its snake-like body trailing behind… him? Like an endless rope of green scales that reached up to his hip, scattering along with what looked like clouds of dark green over pale mossy skin. His hands with sharp claws, probably the ones that slashed Mary into pieces, also evident by the thick amount of blood that dripped from them with soft thuds that marked each beat of your heart.

You felt the adrenaline rushing through your veins, like if an explotion went off inside you, your lungs take all the air they can in a matter of seconds. 

You took off running, your legs pumping, your breath coming in ragged gasps. You never moved so fast in your life, each step a desperate attempt to escape the danger that loomed behind you. Every nerve in your body was alight with the primal need to flee, to survive. There was no time to think, only to act.

You feel a growing sense of panic as you run through the endless corridors trying to avoid the pools, you swear you can hear your heart beating on your throat as you try not to strip with the water, that thing keeps following you, no longer talking with Mary's voice but instead scream incoherently in differents voices like and old radio, are those the voices of other victims who faced the same fate as your coworker?

 ҉"҉O҉v҉e҉r҉ ҉h҉e҉r҉e҉!҉ ҉T҉h҉a҉t҉ ҉t҉h҉i҉n҉g҉ ҉i҉s҉ ҉n҉o҉t҉ ҉h҉e҉r҉e҉!҉"҉҉

 ҉"҉L҉o҉v҉e҉,҉ ҉i҉s҉ ҉t҉h҉i҉s҉ ҉a҉ ҉p҉r҉a҉n҉k҉?҉"҉҉

 ҉"҉I҉'҉l҉l҉ ҉b҉e҉ ҉r҉i҉g҉h҉t҉ ҉b҉a҉c҉k҉"҉҉

You spot a set of stairs leading down, and your heart leaps with hope. Could this be the exit you've been searching for?

Oh, naive little thing, you already know the answer

You start running towards the stairs, your mind is filled with expectations as you head down the stairs, finally, a way out! But as you are half through it, your heart sinks. Instead of a door or an exit, you find yourself face to face with a massive pool of water.

Desperately, you try to turn around and run back up the stairs but you move too quickly and lose your footing, your ankle twists painfully, and you are thrown off balance, your head slams against the sharp edge of the staircase. The last thing you remember is the feeling of the cold water hitting your back roughly as you fall into the abyss of the pool.

. . . 

You groggily open your eyes, your vision still blurry, the room seems deathly silent and your surroundings are eerily still.

As your vision clears, you find yourself lying on the cold floor next to a large pool of water, you notice a tunnel situated in the wall opposite the pool. It seems to be the only way out of this isolated room, but you know it won't take you out of this place entirely don't you?

You carefully turn your head to the other side, trying to inspect the other side of the room. You were met with a rather curious sight; Piled up in various corners of the room are countless trinkets, personal belongings, and various objects that you usually complain about while you work.

Among the items, you see broken glasses, faded and crumpled pamphlets, forgotten toys, some broken bags and a lot of stuff in general, some of them look like they’ve been there for a long time, covered in dust and mold or straight up rusty.

Others appear more recent, still retaining some of their original color. It’s unclear why these objects are here, but they sure do create an odd feeling. How did they end up here in the first place? Is this room like some sort of discard bin? Somehow it doesn't feel like it... It's feel more like it's someone's

 ҉"҉T҉r҉a҉s҉u҉r҉e҉"҉

You almost jump as you hear that radio voice again, but your hurt leg forbids you to do so, you gather all your courage to look at the direction of the voice and see that thing peeking out of the pool, can he read minds or something? What kind of creature is this?

 ҉"҉T҉r҉a҉s҉u҉r҉e҉"҉

He repeats, nuzzling his face against your hand as you froze still, okey, he wasn't replying to you but rather, calling up to you? Maybe, just maybe there is a way that this could be like a fantasy book and this thing wants to help instead of eating you? He sure must know a way out… probably.

 ҉"҉I҉s҉ ҉t҉h҉a҉t҉ ҉y҉o҉u҉?҉"҉

You watch in speechless fear as the creature emerges from the pool, its half snakelike body undulating through the water gracefully. His long, serpentine body glides gracefully through the water, his scales glistening in the dim light. 

With a surprisingly delicate touch, the thing reaches out with one of his arms, grabbing a hold of a toy resting on top of a pile. For a brief moment, the monstrous creature locks eyes with you before holding the toy up in a strangely cute display.

҉"҉I҉s҉ ҉t҉h҉a҉t҉ ҉y҉o҉u҉?҉"҉

He repeats himself in yet another voice, you focus on the toy, trying to figure out what he's trying to say. The toy is a classic waterproof toy for kids shaped like a balloon with lights and music. However, this particular toy has seen better days. The once bright lights now flicker weakly, and the familiar cheerful tune of the children's song has become distorted, sounding more like a sad, warped version of its former self…. Wait a minute.

"D-do you… want me to sing?"

You manage to ask, your voice quivering a little. The thing seems confused, like he has never heard such words in his life, his eyes fixed on you, waiting for you to comply with his silent request, so you figure out it's better to give it a try and not test the patience of the creature.

You clear your throat, trying to force out the words without stammering and then inhaling deeply, steeling your nerves, and begin to sing. Your voice wavers a little at first, but you force yourself to continue. The thing watches you intently, his eyes never leaving the focus on you.

As you sing while praying inside not to forget the lyrics of the music of the toy, he moves slowly closer to you, his long body slowly slithering across the ground in a strangely graceful manner, almost as if it's being drawn to the sound of your voice. As the last notes of the song die out, you take a deep breath and try to speak to the creature in the most simple words for him to be able to understand.

"You want me to repeat that?"

 ҉"҉R҉e҉p҉e҉a҉t҉"҉

You blink in shock, momentarily thrown off balance by the thing's ability to mimic your voice. But then you shake your head, you had to focus on what this creature wants, so you start singing the song again.

And again

And again

And again

AND AGAIN

 "̶̦͎̲̜͊̏̽̔R̷̬̱̮̫̲̈́́̂e̸̦͍̮̥͙̔̈́p҈͙̣̒̀e҈̱͇̯̝̙̚̚à̸̩̲̆ͅt̶̬͚͊͒,҈̟̯͕͋͌͗̏ L̴̯̞͈̣̅̓ͅo҈̘͇̮͙̃͑̽̂̎ͅv̵̤̬̩̞̓̃̊̉e̸͇̟̓̚"̴͖͔̭̆͂

You try to sing again, forcing yourself to muster up what little energy you have left, but your throat is dry and sore. After a few moments, the coughing starts, and you simply can’t continue.

You quickly try to explain to the creature, gesturing to your throat and making coughing motions, hoping that it understands.

 ҉"҉H҉u҉n҉g҉r҉y҉?҉ ҉U҉n҉d҉e҉r҉s҉t҉a҉n҉d҉,҉ ҉L҉o҉v҉e҉,҉ ҉I҉'҉l҉l҉ ҉b҉e҉ ҉r҉i҉g҉h҉t҉ ҉b҉a҉c҉k҉"҉

You watch as he slowly submerges itself back into the water, its large form disappearing beneath the surface. Relieved, you attempt to stand up, trying to seize the opportunity to escape.

However, as soon as you put weight on your injured ankle, a sharp pain shoots up your leg, causing you to gasp and sink back down to the floor. Looking down, you realize the severity of your injury, the ankle purple and swollen.

You curse under your breath in pain, maybe you could crawl and hide under a pile of trinkets but it sounds really stupid, he could easily find you again, and you sure as hell don't want to risk making him angry.

You didn't have much time to figure out what you should do as he returns from the depths of the pool, and you look up, expecting it to have found something to help you. Instead, it was something completely unexpected.

He holds a horrific amount of limbs in his arms, and with an almost loving-like delight, it carefully places them on the ground beside you before giving you an expectant look, like a puppy bringing a bone to his master.

You feel your stomach clench as revulsion and horror wash over you, a cold sweat breaking out on your skin.

The creature's smile is nightmarishly sweet, his rows of sharp teeth gleaming, as he takes something from the corpse's pile and presents you with… the dismembered head of Mary.

You're paralyzed with disgust and terror as the thing act like he's offering you a top tier snack, you quickly press your lips together as he press the open cut of her neck against your mouth, trying to feed you lovingly as you force yourself to not start crying out of fear as your mouth and cheeks get painted with her blood.

 ҉"҉N҉o҉ ҉l҉i҉k҉e҉?҉ ҉D҉i҉f҉f҉e҉r҉e҉n҉t҉.҉.҉.҉.҉"҉҉

He finally stopped trying to feed you after seconds that feeled like an eternity. But your peace didn't last long, his cold, slimy tongue glides out of its mouth, leaving a trail of glistening saliva in its wake. Suddenly, it begins to lick your lips and cheeks, cleaning the blood, the sensation both repulsive and unnerving, putting you on the verge of throwing up.

The thing moves away from you to reach for one of the broken bags that lies on top of the pile of trinkets and rummages inside. To your surprise, it extracts actual human food and a bottle of water, both seemingly in good condition. 

With an almost cat-like eagerness, the creature pushes the 'gifts' towards you, his serpentine body coiling anxiously, as if awaiting a sign of acceptance.

"T-thanks" 

 ҉"҉T҉h҉a҉n҉k҉s҉"҉҉

You shiver as you take the food and water from his hands, your hands trembling involuntarily. The creature watches you intently, its gaze fixed on every movement you make, almost like a protective guardian watching over you. As you begin to eat, he seems to relax slightly. It seems happy to watch you eat.

"You know if… this repeat?"

You said pointing to the water and food, it's very important you have proper things to consume in order for him not to try feed you a somebody's limb again, and he nods happily, you sight in relief, at least he seems to understand you need different type diet that him, and he seem very happy to be able to provide it to you.

You're sipping the water, happy that at least you aren't going to die from starvation, and suddenly, the thing's long, snake-like limbs wrap around you in an embrace that feels both comforting and terrifying. He rests his head on top of yours, its muscular arms encircling your body, trapping you in its coils. As you tense up, feeling the panic rise, he speaks, his voice once again mimicking yours.

҉"҉R҉e҉p҉e҉a҉t҉"҉

Your voice falters as you begin to sing again, the realization of your dire situation slowly sinking in. You know deep down that there's no escape possible. There's no exit in this room except the watery tunnel placed after the void deep pool that the creature uses to move in and out, and the odds of you outrunning him are close to none.

He, however, seems completely oblivious to your despair. Its head rests calmly on top of yours, almost like it's listening intently to your voice.

 ҉"҉L҉o҉v҉e҉ ҉T҉r҉e҉a҉s҉u҉r҉e҉"҉҉

The creature holds you firmly in his coiled embrace, his head nuzzling against the top of yours in an affectionate manner. Your mind races in a panicked frenzy as a sickening thought takes root in your mind.

Is this your life now?

HIII, this is a really something new for us to write so I hope it came out good. My twin did a simple doodle before university stabbed him with exams, and I love it. He wanted to draw more but he's being forced to rest (no clue how he manages to draw such good doodle in a damn minute or less)- coffee

And just in case i'm giving y'all a clear version of some of his/its dialoogues:

"Honey, is that you?"

"Over here! That thing is not here"

"Love, is this a prank?"

"I'll be right back"

"Treasure"

"Is that you?"

"Hungry? Undertand, Love, I'll be right back"

"No like? Diferent..."

sorry for any misspellings or weird sentence structure ❣

image from pinterest, drawing by Tea ⚘

[writinrealslow]

Here as promised to bother you about your thoughts on the changes to Chaos' character design from Hades 1 to Hades 2!

Okay, so I actually love what they did with chaos! In the first game, chaos has this wholly alien look to them, which represents their nature as the primordial birthplace of everything. Their entire design is meant to demonstrate how different they are from every other god, and this works really well, it's my favorite in the entire game. But this is also a chaos that's been isolated from everyone else and is disconnected from the universe they created, as well as the people within it. I don't think it's a coincidence that the most recognizable parts of their body are their hands and face, which they use to interact with Zagreus. It's literally the bare minimum required to take part in zagreus's journey, a way to talk and a way to touch. But Chaos is also lonely, and they express that they'd like to reconnect with Nyx, and even that they'd miss zagreus if he stopped visiting. And if you do reconnect them, Nyx spends a lot of time in chaos's realm, nearly as much as she does in the actual house.

Now. we don't know exactly how much time passes between games, but we do know that chaos spends a lot of that time with nyx and being visited by zagreus, which serves as a tether to both the universe and it's people for them, it grounds them in reality, even if they can't actually set foot in our reality without the risk of destroying it. And we actually see that this influence has changed chaos in hades 2. They're more willing to talk to people, even chronos, and they seem more welcoming of company. And this personal growth is reflected in their physical form.

Chaos is very androgynous yes, but they also resemble nyx: they wear a similar expression, they have almost identical cheekbones, and they're wearing lipstick. They've also copied nyx's gold trim and have styled their hair in a similar manner, along with a few other details you can see if you look at them side by side. Their design still makes it VERY clear that they're different from and greater than any of the gods or titans, but it's more human now. They've taken a form that's suited to interacting with people, and this demonstrates just how much they've changed. 10/10 design and narrative function, I love everything they've done with chaos in these games!

Keep in mind though: I'm a writer not an artist, so my interpretation of them is funneled through my literary analysis skill and my very limited knowledge of character design.

[ganondoodle]

genuine genuine genuine question- wwwhy do you not like the zonai? (zonau? not sure if thats like. the worlds coolest plural or a translation difference) given your content with more monstery designs i would have thought they'd be up your alley!! however. i have also not played skyward sword (as much as id like to) and i know most of peoples upset with their existence and the totk storyline is because of its conflicts with that plot? i'm very excited to see what you do with your rewrite/botw2!! given their slight presence in faron in botw, it would be cool to see you repurpose the zonai in some way that doesn't conflict with the plot you're going for, something that makes more sense with the cryptic kinda bare minimum we had in botw? sorry if you've explained your stance on the zonai before <3

hhhhhhhh i had ranted alot about it but i hope you are prepared- (also "zonai" is sonau in german but im choosing to write it with a z so people recognize it at least, im pretty sure zonau is also the orignal japanese word for them)

i am fine with their design, in fact, i LIKE their character designs, however i dont like everything else about them.

and no its also not bc it affects skyward sword bc it doesnt affect ANYTHING in skyward sword, bc skyward sword is the VERY FIRST zelda game in the timeline and totk is nowhere near it, totk draws several paralels towards skysw bc its meant a sort of soft reset for this new era but its really just thematic overlap and references bc those are cool (i know alot of people are trying to convince the entire fandom that totk somehow is crammed into the old timeline but trust me its never anywhere near confirmed nor does it make any sense, heres the lil graphic i made last month to clarify how i think its meant to be understood .. quite obviously even -

i dont mean to sound .. mean, but some people read too much into little phrases or references to older titles (like first king of hyrule .. doesnt have to mean the literal firstest of the first ones in all of forgotten history ever, just the first of THIS hyrule for example), and while im not against theories i am very annoyed when people try to say its somehow canon when its NOT)

with that out of the way;

i dont like how they are 'integrated' into botws world, they feel unnatural and shoved in everywhere, they have been everywhere and did everythign better and cooler and no part of (this) hyrule was untouched by them their architecture feels not integrated well either and design wise its rather bland, while the sheikah shrines for example while obviously not natural and very 'techy' they still build a harmonizing contrast while the totk shrines are pretty laughably unfitting compared to them the basically complete disappearance of all sheikah tech related stuff bothers me immensely bc why would you just get rid of it istead of developing it further (i know about purahs towers and think they are just like a worse version of the previous ones; and before this argument comes up again, them destryoing it all -somehow- bc they were afraid of it being taken over again is a dumb excuse bc then they should be even more scared of zonau tech- even MORE unknown and advanced tech literally falling from the sky) you could have done SO MUCH with the ancient shiekah tech it drives me nuts

i also think it tipped the delicate balance of the kinda medival setting + high tech that botw had set up compeltely over, the zonau tech just .. is so painfully obviously only the way it is to give you little lego parts to glue together (i know its a focus of the game ... or at least the gamePLAY but it could have been done better, again i think they managed the balance perfectly with shiekah tech, its weird and isnt natural but doesnt endanger the believability of it ... the zonau tech just throws that out the window rly ... how cool would it have been if you could built lil guardian walk thingies djknhfkd )

in general they just feel like a complete replacement for the ancient shiekah and are so SO desperately trying to make the zonau the COOLER and BETTER versions of what the shiekah were (you COULD have connected them in a cool way, like there being ancient shiekah labs build in the old zonau mining facilities bc they used zonau tech as basis for their own tech etc)

like instead of building on the set up and potential botw had prepared, they just scrambled to make a 'better' version of botw, like oh no forget THAT ancient civilization we have an EVEN MORE ancient, and EVEN MORE highly developed peoples there that were also everywhere before you but also were never really hinted at- and then repeat botws structure .__.

having an old and forgotten civilization of whom only some withered ruins remain gave botw a much more real feeling, a world with a history that you will never know (you know, bc that makes it intriguing and is just .. a good choice of worldbuilding imo)- and then totk comes along and reveals everything and also nothing, we know too much of them to be intrigued by their mystery and also not enough to actually care about them (also them beign presented as the good perfectly perfectestest kingdom of light that can do no wrong other than underestimate the eeeevil guy while they also had their hands on every part of the land and made all other races be their face and nameless servants just ... thats weird man!! i know its a game, even if its only aimed at kids my god they arent stupid either!! you really present me with that and expect me to take it at face value what argh)

again i think they COULD have been integrated into it, but the way it was done completely threw me off, im not mad about them EXISTING but about how it was DONE in the game

the way they were done robs not just totk but also botw of mystery and intrigue, for example i much rather had them stay a mystery, only ever talked about in some text and some old and almost completely withered ruins left, you never get so see what happened there in the past, you can only guess, but you have to deal with the fallout anyway and thats just ONE possibility, there are so many and it feels like they chose the most boring one every single time

sometimes knowing less is better than knowing half

(maybe i can make it clearer when .. or if i can get to illustrate what could have worked -in my opinion- better .... sorry for ranting again ;__; )

[crispytime]

Who’s the worst father, Gaster (Handplates) or Willaim Afton?

Embarrassing to admit, my knowledge of the Afton family in the FNAF lore is pretty limited. I only know the 2021 Gacha lore stuff and the FNAF movie, ask me anything more and I'm lost 😭 I won't be able to really go into depth bc again I don't really know William Afton very well. But I might have to go with William Afton being worse. I haven't read the books so I will focus on game and movie Afton.

Gaster and William are both horrendous, but I think William Afton did specifically design his animatronics to kill children which consequently killed his son and daughter, then later his oldest son.

In the movie, Afton already had a bad relationship with his daughter and was even quick to literally STAB her when she went against him and tried to protect Michael and his sister. Lab Gaster and Afton are kind of similar here. They were both quick to go to violence once their kid(s) stepped out of line, I feel Gaster did it more to send a message to not cross him, in a really bad way... Afton did it more as a "Get tf out of my way."

I can't tell if it was out of impulse, or he just didn't care if she lived or not. He did seem to freeze up after he did it, like he was processing what he'd just done so there might be SOME care there?? Vanessa was protecting and helping Michael and Abby tell the truth to those kids he killed, and he knew that if that happened, he'd die. I feel that was more of a selfish thing he did in order to protect himself, and he didn't care what happened to Vanessa because he did immediately go back to trying to stop Michael and Abby. I think he cared more about his daughter's "loyalty" than her life.

It's hard to analyze the game because there's no true emotions tied to Afton's actions, they're just, "He did this and now yadda yadda yadda all his kids died." He might've shown some care with Elizabeth when he kept telling her to not go near Circus Baby because he knew what would happen. Regardless, he neglected Elizabeth and left her unsupervised near a literal death robot and we know what happens next. His youngest son (I still don't know his name, he flipped through like 7 different ones.) literally got his head bit off by Fredbear, you'd think maybe after one incident he'd feel more incentive to protect his other kids if he really did care but he didn't.. Idk which one died first bc that also changed a million times but after ONE of their deaths, if he cared he would've done more to protect them. Even with all the bs Gaster did, he AT LEAST made sure the brothers stayed alive, kept them physically healthy, and were mostlyyy cared for. (bare minimum)

I don't even know who cared for the kids more, if it was Mrs. Afton or William. So I don't really know, he already seems very negligent.

We do have moments where Gaster shows genuine care for the brothers, like protecting them from the Goop monster and healing Sans' exploded head. Refer back to my gigantic rant abt Gaster because I am not retyping all that. Even with Gaster after the void, for the most part he makes amends with the brothers and tries to make up for his cruelty and be the father he never was. He's not perfect but at least it's something ig. We don't really see this w Afton much, I don't know about book Afton, I highly doubt we have fatherly amends though.

The main difference between them is we see Gaster more personally than Afton, we see Gaster's thoughts and feelings throughout Handplates and he tries to fix what he can. while Afton is only seen as this psychotic killer who doesn't care for his family, I don't even know if he grieved his kids' death all that much either. There's a large separation of knowledge between the two characters so I'm not sure it's really fair for me to compare them, plus I'm very biased😭

But based off what I know, Afton and Gaster are both horrible fathers, but Gaster is slightly better because he was able to improve himself and his relationship with his kids, taking a more active role in their lives.

This rant is kinda bad bc I don't really have much to work off of 😔

[princess-of-the-corner]

With Palworld, I did a day's round on Gamedle, with the "Classic" mode being to guess the game based on what is revealed of the cover, and I thought it was something with Pokemon only to use up all of my turns and it to be revealed as Palworld. Looking at one of the creatures on the cover, "That is literally a Piplup!"

Yeah it's.

I haven't done an in-depth look at every palworld creature, but while there's some designs that are original and a number that are 'okay there's the bare minimum /concept/ in common but its own thing', there are a lot that are just straight up 'I can name exactly what pokemon that is'.

[catermeow]

Okay so I watched the minecraft movie with some friends and. I have thoughts. I'm putting them under a cut in case anyone cares about spoilers and because I suspect this'll be pretty long.

Okay so to give the movie a little bit of grace I saw it the evening I came back from a three day competition/convention, so I was exhausted, sore, and very very drained, so very much not in the mood for the kind of tone it was going for. I don't think I would have enjoyed it more under different circumstances but I might have had more fun laughing at it and would have been less critical

The movie was thoroughly unenjoyable, but! let's start with the positives.

The bit at the end where the sorceress keeps trying to stab Steve was actually kind of funny. One of like 2 times during the whole movie where I laughed. The other one was the 'Frodo vibes' joke

Some of the wide shots, both on earth and the overworld, are actually really pretty and I could see how nice this movie would have been if it had tried harder

I do like the piglin designs for the most part

The enderman lore is kinda interesting. Personally I don't care for it but I'm sure someone could do something cool with it

Having the whole theater cheering during quotes from the trailer was kinda fun. I give the movie no credit for this though

I like how devoted they made Steve and Dennis. Accurate to a lot of players and pretty sweet

On to complaints! I'm gonna separate them into different categories, starting with:

General

These are just general complaints that don't fit under any other category. First of all, I didn't like that literally every one of our protagonists is struggling financially. I don't go to the minecraft movie to think about capitalism. I don't want to worry about economic stability in my escapism, so that was annoying. Steve having two elytra but complaining about having almost died to get a single ender pearl was odd. Being able to craft literally anything from real world items could have been really interesting but it got completely brushed over. Having the piglins view a cube shape as an orb but then calling humans roundlings was strange, and both of those things are fine on their own, but together it's like. Can they perceive circles or not. It's not even like the Orb would have been an orb to them anyways, since ender pearls are much more round. The game shop dude was also a jerk, and then he showed up and saved the kid from dying and the movie acted like he was redeemed now. Like no buddy, that's the bare minimum, do better. Also why is that thing called an earth crystal, it's not really a crystal and it's barely from the earth, and also it's very processed by now. Why do the pillagers have an extra one. Also, biggest lie of the movie is that mansion chests have anything in them. And at the end Dennis is going to go with the real estate lady to change her life like he did Steve's, except she has so many other dogs now? So Dennis can just stay with Steve? Also what could he have done anyway? Very confusing. I feel like casting could have been done better also, because that guy just does not look like a Steve. Frankly I think there are too many characters in general. I also don't like the idea that creativity should only be rewarded if it's useful, which seems to underline a lot of this story.

Bigotry

There wasn't anything horribly insensitive to my knowledge, but there were a few bits that felt a bit off. Whitewashing Steve is of course the big one that people were talking about all the way when the trailer came out. There was a bit of fatphobia and ableism as well, with a 'have you lost weight' comment and a focus shot of a piglin getting hit in the stomach that read as trying to gross out the audience with body fat, and then the main villain was the only visibly disabled character (also note that the disability was not present during her 'sympathetic backstory' flashback). The treatment of that principal lady(?) was a bit weird as well, it reminded me of people making fun of women for not performing femininity well enough/performing it in the 'wrong' way. Then the whole thing with Steve and the game shop dude is so clearly queerbaiting, and not in the 'we can't do more because of censors' way. Also, having the ending lesson be 'yeah you were struggling under a capitalistic system and were finally able to find a safe space where you could express yourself freely, but that's actually a Bad Thing and you should go back to the real world and just tough it out until things get better. You just weren't trying hard enough :)' seems thoughtless at best and malicious at worst. Overall, enough things stuck out to me as insensitive and 'why would you put this in a kids movie of all things' that it kind of took me out of the story.

Comedy

Almost all of the comedy in this movie sucked. It's so clear that they were trying really really hard to be funny but they failed so badly. Like I said before, there was only like two bits that I thought were actually funny in the whole thing. The 'as a child, I yearned for the mines' joke at the start was a bit disappointing, because that joke has been told so many times before, and it felt like the people in charge desperately trying to relate to the minecraft community by going 'look! see, we know what your jokes are! we can do them too!' but it just feels wrong. Like a corporate sanitization of what makes minecraft enjoyable. Which kind of sums up the whole movie actually. Then there were the designs for the passive mobs, which I can tell were only like that for a cheap joke and trailer appeal. There was also that one piglin, Chungus I think his name was (which also feels like a bad attempt at being hip with the kids). He comes on with a deep roar and then clears his throat and sounds like a regular guy, both in tone of voice and in word choice. This is funny for about one sentence, and then it gets old very quickly, especially since this guy is actually supposed to be at least a bit intimidating. The jokes through the whole movie are either cheap, tacky, and stick around way too long (the passive mobs and the voice bit), or very tonally clashing and completely ruin the stakes of the scene (the gay joke during the ghast chase scene, everything Steve and game shop dude were doing in the woodland mansion).

Visuals

Of course everybody has been making fun of the pink sheep for ages now, but the entire movie just looked really off. Everything looked so fake, and I get that there's only so much you can do when working with real people in a world like minecraft, but still. The props looked so wrong, like the kind of thing I would expect from maybe a stage production where they'll be seen from a distance and don't need to look good up close. Also they did a really bad job of making the weapons and armor look like they were actually dangerous or like they had any weight to them. They looked more like those plastic versions we have here, which really doesn't work on screen. Also, I didn't notice this myself, but one of my friends said the greenscreen was really bad in some places. Overall the whole thing looked very cheap and plasticy for a movie that clearly had plenty of money to throw around.

Plot

The whole storyline felt kind of forced and random, and there were never really any stakes. It felt like the characters were kind of just wandering around aimlessly, even though they did have a goal. Like they need to go to the woodland mansion to replace the thing they broke, but it's dangerous so they need to get armor. Okay. Except Steve is supposed to be stealing the Orb, and even if he doesn't want to do that, which he says he doesn't, he would still do it anyway to protect Dennis, which is why he's out of the nether in the first place, so why is he doing any of this. Then they get to the village and get attacked, and Steve acts like the sorceress betrayed him, which is kind of true except she did want him dead anyways he was just useful, but since he's not stealing the Orb he's not. Except she doesn't know that! As far as she knows he's still working for her! So why is she doing this if supposedly he's better for her alive? Then they get split up and go to the mansion, except they didn't grab any of the stuff for some reason so they're defenseless, and then whatever happens there goes on. Very confusing sequence all around. Then game shop dude gets a fakeout death, except it really doesn't feel like they even tried. It does not feel like a character died, in-story or out, and I didn't even realize they were trying to do a death scene until after because there aren't any stakes. After that it mostly makes sense until the end, with the aforementioned lesson about going back to the real world. As for the piglin side of things, no major complaints except for the backstory the sorceress gets. That was completely unnecessary, added nothing to the story, and she didn't even get redeemed so it's not like it was an attempt at making her seem less evil for a redemption arc. It's just 'oh she was nice and there was peace and love on planet piglin, but then she got treated badly about her creative expression so now she's evil and somehow also in charge of everyone'. It made the story worse.

Conclusion

This movie is so, so disappointing. There's so much wasted potential. It completely misses the point of minecraft, spending almost no time on exploration or the wonder of this new world. They talk about creativity a lot but creativity is the solution to maybe three problems in the whole movie. The wide shots are good enough that I can so clearly see what it could have looked like if they had actually cared about this. None of the joys of minecraft are actually focused on. Plenty of people have talked about that though, since that was pretty clear just from the trailer. The part that's less immediately obvious is the lessons it could have told. I was complaining earlier about not wanting to think about the horrors of capitalism in my escapism media, but it could have had such good themes! Having the villain be someone taught to dislike creativity by a system that rejects it, having the protagonists all be creative people struggling under a system that does not allow them to survive that way, having this world be one of endless creativity waiting to be explored... this could have been a really impactful message about societal problems, but instead this movie is a joke that fails in almost every way and then tells the audience that the solution to their problems is to just try harder. Any sincerity the movie could have had is sacrificed for a cheap laugh and the belief that they could make a profit off this by marketing it to children, who apparently don't deserve meaningful storytelling. It manages to side with its own villain, disallowing any real creative expression and becoming a pile of corporate, sanitized slop. This movie is a disappointment, and not worth the time it takes to watch it.

[thejasondogman]

My Thoughts on the Switch 2 Direct

I don't own a Switch 1, but one my cousins have one and I got to try it a few times. But I still can't say I got opinions about it (outside of disliking when I experienced joy con drift).

So for Switch 2 I don't have much say. The joy cons being attached magnetically seems more convenient. Couldn't care less that supports 4K. Cool that they made the bare minimum of implementing voice call on the console itself. Also hilarious to see most screens from call with bad frame rate.

Now for the games:

I really liked Mario Kart World. As someone who always has been heavily against the idea of turning the series into "Smash Kart/Nintendo Kart" it's fascinating the variety of weird characters they selected for the roster. I love it. Can't wait to see more gameplay showcasing the grinding and parkour mechanics and more of the open world. My favorite reveal of this direct without a doubt;

I'm very interested in Kirby Air Riders despite not playing much of Air Ride (I played for the first time literally today). And as much as I love Smash, it's so refreshing to see Sakurai getting to work on new game that isn't from that series;

As for Donkey Kong Bananza, I liked but I admit I wasn't hyped because I felt let down that it didn't have much stuff related to the Country games and also that he appears with his new design (I like the new design, and I do agree that it's more expressive than the few times old one (Strikers series and Jungle Beat aside) but I was hoping they would only use it in Mario spin-offs and keep the Rare one in his own games). But having stuff from the older games or not, I'm still looking forward to it. The art direction looks just as good as Mario Odyssey, the gameplay looks fluid and addictive, and I'm very curious if there's gonna be more of the classic characters outside of Cranky;

For the third-parties nothing interested me personally. The fact Yakuza 0 and FFVII will be available for the console is pretty cool tho. And I'm happy for Deltarune and Hollow Knight fans;

Drag x Drive looks interesting. Maybe I'll consider adding to my wishlist;

This wasn't part of the Direct but I gotta mention.... the games prices.... man. And I live in Brazil, which means the prices will be worse than other games (Nintendo or not) already are here. So yeah, it'll take even longer for me to get the console. But like I said in the beginning, I don't have Switch 1 so I plan to get that instead whenever I get the opportunity and finally try out some games from my wishlist.

Overall, a fine Direct. The console itself looks very promising, so does the games. But the prices did kill a bit of my hype.

[jenroses]

I just ordered a bunch of pieces parts that I'm gonna turn into a computer.

I've built systems before, like eh 15 years ago or more, and I cannot overstate how delightful it is that the persistence of modularity means that while the system I'm building now will be functionally the equivalent of dozens of times the power of the computer I built then, the bones of it are all pretty similar.

Motherboard. Cpu. Cooler. Power supply. RAM. Storage. Case. Fans. Graphics card. Operating system. Monitor.

Now some things have changed. You can now buy literally everything with vivid rainbow lights, and for a few minutes I stared at the pretty modern cases with their windows and rave -like interiors, and dreamed of the gayest computer on the planet.

Then I remembered that I'm a photophobic mushroom who computers in a darkened room and hates bright high contrast lighting and spent more dollars to get a case without a window.

Also, water cooling terrifies me. Not because the idea is unsound but because while I'm confident in my ability to insert tab a into slot b to assemble a computer by going slowly and following instructions, the very notion of me handling liquids around electronic components sounds inherently fraught.

So I did not go with components which require such things.

Infodumping below the cut.

(for the curious: fractal design define r5 case, msi pro z790-p WiFi ddr4 mobo, i5136000kf (14 core), 64gb ddr4 RAM, radeon rx6800 16gb, deepcool ak400 zero dark plus cooler, 4x 140mm case fans, Corsair 850w modular platinum ps, 1 tb ssd for the os and a 2tb ssd for the games, both pcie4x4 nvme, and a curved 27 inch 2k monitor. This is upgrading from a 2015 laptop which is still very robust with an i76700 quad core processor, 16gb RAM, 1tb ssd and a gtx950m 4gb graphics card which just this year stopped meeting minimum specs for the games I want to play. I figure the new system could last me another 8-10 years.)

Is 64 gb of ram overkill? Hahahaha yes. But it's about a hundred bucks. Is 3tb overkill? No but it's also about 120 bucks. Do I need a 27 inch monitor? Mayyyybe but it's $200. The real splurge is the video card and CPU, but I'm not going to regret those at all when I'm playing starfield and bg3.

(I'm also going to play every game I've been playing at low settings on ultra just because I can. Subnautica is gonna be so pretty.)

Interestingly, the parts come with three games, including the one I initially decided to build a system for (starfield). The processor comes with assassin's creed mirage and something I didn't recognize. Going with Intel for the processor and AMD for the GPU ended up being very much in my favor that way as if I'd gone ryzen, I'd have ended up with two copies of starfield.

I think the last time I built a system from scratch it had 4-8 gigs of RAM and a 2gb video card and maybe a dual core cpu maybe not. I've done some bare bones systems since then and a lot of upgrades, but not from-the-ground-up.

Amusingly, while doing this, I thought I was going to hand my laptop down to my son. Then I realized that in a pandemic fugue state in 2021 I bought him and my husband computers with part of the stimulus that were basically maxed out refurb systems that somehow are running 32g of RAM each and the only real weakness in their systems are graphics, which hubby doesn't use and which can be easily upgraded for my son for like <$150 to double his vram.

I have minimal memory of buying these systems but it makes sense for how little they complain about them. (old Dell optiplex systems. I think I spent 400 on each of them at the time. With upgrades.)

So since I've been hyperfixated on this process I've been watching a lot of pc building YouTube and it's been very helpful but also very popcorn. So much drama. Le gasp.

My one regret about not getting a flash light up system with lots of rgb is that it would impress the hell out of my 11 year old but I seriously can't deal with that much light up distraction and the extra cost for the components has been spent on a better GPU.

Anyway this is all going to be much cheaper than trying to find a system with equivalent stats prebuilt, and it's been a while since that was true when I was in the market for a computer.

[tetrakys]

What do you think of the person who runs the Beemoov social media's? I tried to like them because they seemed new (like a new person. idk if it is, but the posts feel different if that makes sense???) but it feels like they kind of don't care nor are properly trained to do so? Like they go weeks without posting, then suddenly post then disappear again when it feels like they remember it's their literal job. They forgot to post the crush thing but can play around on Twitter, etc. It feels like they don't care and are doing the bare minimum or less. It also feels like the little bits about the crushes are pulled out of thin air? Like they decided they needed to keep posting and made stuff up just to have something to post if that makes sense? I know it'll take a while for NG, but it feels like they're not really trying to keep our interest 😕. I don't know if I'm even excited for the game at this point because the socials don't give me much to be excited for, and that really sucks. Anyway I wanted to know what you thought about this subject?

About the community manager, I don’t have much of an opinion, I think they are indeed relatively new (there is a staff page on the website) and they also seem young, considering all those kpop reels and the friendliness on twitter. I don't mind, it's nice to have a CM closer to the community, but I agree that they seem a bit inexperienced, and Bee's socials don't feel super organised right now.

The little info on the crushes though, I like them! The game isn't ready yet and people had asked for more posts on New Gen so that's what they're doing. I also think people are taking the info too much at face value and not looking deeper at what they mean?

For example, Roy: "As a Child, Roy nearly dived into an empty pool, but his father caught him just in time!" Yeah we don't really care about the event per se, but it shows us that Roy is the happy type, easily excitable and impulsive. Himbo theory confirmed!

Amanda: "Amanda loves collecting designers bags as well as as many cute rabbit figurines or stuffed animals!" This tells us that she's rich and likes luxury stuff but also likes simple things that are cute. I remember some people complaining at the beginning that she sounded too mean, but this is a hint that she may seem like a rich bish on the outsite, but she's cute and sweet on the inside. Also did you see her animation? She looks adorable!

For Devon: "Devon still has his robot mug, named José, that he won in a middle school science competition." We know from his description that he dislikes science, so this is telling us that he's smart, creative and driven. He manages to be successful even in uncomfortable situations.

Honestly, I find these tidbits very informative, can't wait to read the ones on Thomas and Jason!

[sparklesdogs]

Hello hello :))

How is it going? Anyways here is a review and a bunch of ideas I wanted to share.

Here is my thoughts on the latest chapter:

Can’t wait to see how the story is affected with the autobots leaving earth but yeah I don’t know what else to put here other then that I am excited for what you are going to cook up :))

Anyways ideas galore here are some that I thought of that I wanted to share so bad

Let sari and bumblebee cause chaos whenever they go to Cybertron

It would be funi if first aid was actually demoted and was sent to sentinel and Elita’s team due to him stealing an organ (keferon’s tf Mecha au reference by the way) or from his obsession with wreckers. (It can be why he doesn’t really interact with people that much because he doesn’t want to be demoted or worse yet kicked from the autobots itself due to his obsession causing him to screw up/bros is a freak (affectionately) and doesn’t want people to know that he is one.) So he just takes all the bullshit his team throws at him

Also for the ex Decepticons (like drift or ambulon don’t know if ambulon was actually in the all spark almanac or not but it’s fun to think about it though) do you have any plans for them? Because I was thinking that maybe drift can appear and dratc-*bang* anyways yeah 😎

Was thinking about that one episode where sentinel was paying lockdown to capture the decepticons and it would be funi if Orion’s team (ei bumblebee) going along with it for shits and giggles and only for at the end to throw hands with wasp. for Rachet to kick the crap out of lockdown.(wwe style with the ring and all/j) by the way rodimus along side the jettwins and jazz as they are there to check up on the autobots there because god damn they kinda suck at their job (not you aid keep doing what you are doing)

Also what do you think about hound (i only know his g1 version like the bare minimum. gosh dang they didn’t give him an an actual design, I mean I do understand why that is but at least we have his head in the tfa style) because he is the motherfucker (pardon my language) who is the only bot that can sense where mirage is when he turns invisible. who wants to be a human and experience everything there is to being one as to fully immerse himself. He sees cybertron as dark and barren. He love organics as a whole due to how beautiful they are to him. It would be a fun chapter plot where mirage and Hound are sent to earth to collect samples, where mirage is doing his third party agent stuff with the Decepticons. Hound can become friends with sari while sari can show him the other organics and help him with collecting samples. And by the end of it hound would be like “your world is so beautiful, I am saddened by the fact that I am a cybertronian and not a human being. If I had a wish I would become one so to appreciate more of this world called earth.” Sari is like wow he actually respects my existence and ideas.(bonus points if hound drags first aid with him because my goat deserves a break) Meanwhile Mirage is using the time to get a closer look/picture of the Decepticons and whatever happens to him and them stays between them. (He might tell blurr about it. In an encrypted way I suppose) tldr; hound goes on an existential crisis and wishes to become human while mirage is fucking around with the decepticons (hey it can be where blurr appears in but you probably already have an idea when blurr is going to appear but it’s just a fun idea none the less)

★彡

Oh goodness gracious! Sorry I didn't respond sooner. I got a break and decided to literally spend the entire time replaying TOTK. Think I logged into Tumblr like.. once during the week.

For your first question: I'm doing good, thanks! Like I said, I got a break and was then consumed by the video games.

In regards to your thoughts on the latest chapter:

Welllll. I can't say much about the next chapter or even about the Autobots leaving Earth 'cause it would really be a spoiler! I will say that those who have seen the show already know what'll happen. ;)

Putting a keep reading link 'cause this response is loooooong.

In regards to your ideas galore :D:

Sari and Bumblebee are always chaos. I actually didn't like Sari when I first watched the show. Then I realized that a.) She was voiced by the amazing Tara Strong and b.) She actually becomes really likeable as the show goes on!

In my AU, First Aid was sent to Sentinel and Elita's team because he's a pacifist in (definitely not, according to the Autobots) war time. This makes him kinda useless to the rest of the Elite Guard. Other medics can at least fight to defend themselves or their patients. First Aid won't, preferring to hide his patients to keep them safe. Not very helpful on a battleground, where there is very little cover. He just kinda takes everyone's BS because he knows this. But, as I've stated before, he's always watching. Definitely more brains than brawn.

Omg Keferon's AUs. I love them so much! Empurata Prowl, Mech AU, Shockblurr art, JazzProwl sketches. They are awesome!

As far as I know, Ambulon doesn't have a TFA version? An official one, at least. I'll say that he exists in my AU, but the most I know about him was from MTMTE and LL. I doubt that I'll ever actually focus on him more than a few references or answers to asks.

Drift does have a TFA version! He honestly just looks like Blurr, but with different colors and a different shaped helm. In my AU, he's definitely still Deadlock. Since Orion caused Megatron to "relax" some so-to-speak, the horrors that Deadlock was exposed to in the original TFA didn't happen. So, he had no reason to change to the Autobots to become Drift. I like to stick to the backstory where Ratchet met Deadlock at the DeadEnd clinic, but since we don't know much about TFA Drift, I can really make his backstory whatever I want. As I've said before, Rodimus knows Deadlock. They're pretty good friends (because I loved their energy in the comics). Yes, I ship Dratchet. Though I guess it would be Ratchlock since he isn't Drift in this AU? Will I ever have Deadlock show up? Maybe. Am I mentally shipping Deadlock and Ratchet whenever the two are mentioned? Yes, always.

Yeah, Sentinel and Elita's team are really really bad at their jobs. Here, Sentinel doesn't have the money to pay Lockdown. I would love to keep that episode in the story. Ratchet is, 100% going to throw hands when he shows up. I haven't given him his revenge chapter yet, after all. I still don't have everything worked out about Lockdown in my story. He WILL show up, I'm just still thinking about how. I definitely want to do it soon, but it's still a mystery honestly. IF I choose to do that episode, Bumblebee would definitely play into it. He'd probably manage to rope Blitzwing into it too, since he's one of the ones who does actually get captured in the show.

I'm not going to do that episode for Bumblebee's revenge. Specifically, I want to do it for the episode "Where is Thy Sting", but I know that's a season 3 episode. Since it doesn't have much impact (apart from bringing Wasp to Earth in the show), I could probably squeeze it into the second (current) story arc. Sure, Bumblebee has fought both Ironhide and Wasp at this point in the story, but he's always done it with others around. He's never been able to confront them himself. "Where is Thy Sting" would be the perfect episode since it would be Bumblebee by himself without his team.

Jazz, the Jettwins, and Rodimus are going to be helions together. I just know it.

I like Mirage. I like his and Jazz's friendship in a lot of fanfiction. I don't know much about him or Hound outside of what I've read (so I have to take it all with a grain of salt). I like G1, but the personalities there are almost non-existent. I'm more well-versed in later iterations of the TF characters (Prime, Animated, Earthspark, MTMTE, etc) and neither of them really make much of an appearance there. In my head, Mirage is one of the senior employees of Spec Ops (hence why he's present in council meetings and has a voice there). Jazz and Blurr are his co-workers for sure. As I've said when you asked about Mirage before, he's got his theories. But he works in the background, silently compiling information that he's getting from Blurr and Longarm (though if Shockwave is silently letting certain files transfer to someone else while pretending it doesn't happen, who's gonna call him out for it?). Until the story actually transitions from Earth to Cybertron, don't expect to see Mirage or Hound. I like to think of Hound in this AU as his bodyguard. Officially, at least. Personally, they're at least friends.

But if they DID go to Earth, Mirage would probably bring Hound along as his bodyguard. He can protect himself perfectly fine (and can turn invisible, duh), but try sending a councilman to a strange planet without some form of protection and see how it goes.

Thanks for the ask and I'm SO SORRY it took so long for me to respond!

[glamphantasm]

Heya! Glad to see that you like the questions for the ask game!

Anyway I have some questions about Kai for you!

General Info 05 Which deadly sin best aligns with them? Which one do they embody the least?

Realtionships & Personality 13 What is their greatest wish? What would they be willing to sacrific to get it?

Human 06 Who do they trust more—angels or demons? Why?

Hey thanks so much! <3 Love talking about the boy, so I'll take any excuse (he's taking up 97.35% of my brain meat lately, please send help)

General Info 05 Which deadly sin best aligns with them? Which one do they embody the least?

As a rule, Kai would call himself a hedonist if anyone ever asked. On the surface he is all good times and sensation and enjoyment, and more and want. He's here for a good time, not a long time, etc. *choose your mid-20s cliche deflection* That makes it very simple to say Lust or Greed would be his closest pairings, but it isn't entirely correct. He is very much those two on the surface. For all he portrays himself as nothing more than a good time boy, he works himself to the bone, he will protect those he cares about, he will never ask for help for any of it - he most embodies Pride, but in a very quiet, fierce sort of way. He would quite literally rather die than let another living being see him beneath the masks, behind the facades he's built around himself. Most would be caught off guard to realize that's is his core. Most. He's more seen than he realizes. Least like? Sloth. He allows himself the luxury of basic rest only when he collapses or someone forcibly makes him go after noticing the dark bags beneath his eyes (the only designer he'll ever own, he jokes.) Even then, he will take the bare minimum until he wakes up (most likely from another nightmare), and be on the go again.

Relationships & Personality 13 What is their greatest wish? What would they be willing to sacrifice to get it?

This one actually required quite a bit of thought. His greatest wish is simply to discover the truth. Who he really is, who he would have been without the outside influences that shaped him in ways that a good life never would have. It isn't a realistic, or attainable wish. He considered asking Barbatos once to see if there was a timeline where that was the case - he decided that it would be too much of a bother, the Prince's butler already has too much on his plate to request a favor (or maybe he just decided at the last moment it was really too terrifying to look into that and know what he had lost). For something attainable... it's simple. He doesn't want to go back to the human realm. Ever, if it were up to him. He'd offer himself on an altar for the chance, if it were required. Again - the words will never pass his lips. It will be offered if he deserves it, he hopes believes.

Human 06 Who do they trust more—angels or demons? Why?

Hands down, zero thought required: Demons. Kai wasn't raised in a religious environment, but did end up spending several years with a family who was. He was made to attend services, make the offerings, prayers, all of it. He had prayed to angels and saints and god (never capital G anymore) for guidance, for help, to be rescued, to be healed. No one ever answered. Humans were cruel, in so many ways. He understands the Devildom. At least there, the individuals he interacts with regularly are more transparent in their motivations. That being said? He does like the Angels well enough. Luke is a cute kid, reminds him vaguely of a younger boy he knew in a home - same eager energy. Simeon is kind and Kai knows he owes him everything (including quite literally his continued existence). He's amused by Raphael, and thinks Michael's kind of an asshole.

Questions Here!

[pink-strawberry-kissess]

While I do agree with that last ask that Ada's outfit is truly not appropriate as a spy, I kinda wanted to put in my own little input. For one thing I totally agree with the fact that her outfit is something I could very much see a woman dressing for herself choosing. Not that women don't choose to dress super skimpy, but Ada's outfit in RE 4 Remake is, in my opinion, a pretty popular Fall/Autumn outfit among feminine presenting people (I mean people even joke on Tiktok about how Autumn is stylish black boot season lol) Other than her stilettos, her outfit is not that out there, in terms of comfort even. It's a knit dress top. Those are some of the more comfortable dresses, even if it is body con. It might be tight, but it's not modeled so tightly that it's "weird" if you get what I mean, and it's knit, and it can have some stretch, and it's moveable. (I feel like I can say that as someone who has worn a very similar dress and had to walk for several blocks in the winter) Respectfully, I really disagree that her current outfit is "less appropriate than her original outfit." If you've ever worn a maxi dress, one can know how impractical the long length/can be unless you were to like, tie it to the side or whatever. Shorter dress can be out of the way of your legs. I feel like if you removed her stilettos and gave her more practical boots, it's really not that crazy of an outfit. Frankly, just because a woman dresses femininely, doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Also honestly....? Just because someone has a cold personality doesn't mean they can't be stylish? Like....Wesker's new outfit is pretty stylish as well if we're going to be fully honest. As a female-presenting person, I don't think Ada's outfit has so much overt sex appeal. It's just something I've seen so often as an outfit for this season, and something I've seen other female presenting people reach for when it gets cold. Her boots are kind of doing all the legwork if you'll excuse the pun. I dunno! Maybe I'm just delulu, but yknow?

I also just wouldn't think it'd be Ada if her design didn't communicate some level of flair. RE 4, despite now having a more serious undertone compared to its original, I feel has always been the kind of silly and unrealistic game anyway compared to the others. I mean the Merchant throws a rave when you do well at target practice. You eat raw fish and eggs....? There were Ganados that wore Leon's jacket and Krauser's hat for some reason???? There's a request where you literally are just told to egg a portrait of Ramon Salazar. Ashley is secretly a scene/emo kid???? Me personally, I appreciate this design compared to the past of game design. Could it be better? Yeah, sure. But it's SOMETHING imo. I totally get that we want to go from point A to B, and that we shouldn't accept the bare minimum, but sometimes things also take baby steps. I've noticed the slow shift in other games as well. Mortal Kombat's female characters had people upset because they looked "too" practical and "not sexy enough." League of Legends has been slowly updating its designs (i.e. Janna and Nidalee in their recent Legends of Runeterra art) Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn is designed to look like a realistic person. I dunno!

One thing I will agree on is the game's camera with the ass shots. I can only really remember one (that scene where Ada sees Ashley being taken by one of Salazar' bug guard) but yeah, that was unnecessary. I don't think they did entirely bad by Ada in my opinion because there were several scenes where this male gazey shot did not happen.

Anyway sorry that this ask is super long. I had a lotta thoughts lol.

Respectfully, I really disagree that her current outfit is "less appropriate than her original outfit." If you've ever worn a maxi dress, one can know how impractical the long length/can be unless you were to like, tie it to the side or whatever.

yeah i think i struggle a lot with trying to understand how her original outfit is more appropriate than her remake one. it's COLD, there was no reason for her to be in that type of dress. and the long skirt of the dress is also impractical as hell. i agree that the changing of her boots to a more flatter boot would make her outfit fairly appropriate. we're also kind of assuming that her tights are fairly well fitting since she's not constantly pulling them up lol

but yeah i agree that i think her outfit isn't overtly sexual. it's provocative sure?? the heels are mostly the thing that makes it not practical.

i think that there's a bit of an interesting push for more realistic depictions of women, and the horizon zero dawn reaction was insane to me, but entirely not unexpected. in another case, people were mad that ada's heels were removed in dead by daylight lol. EVEN THOUGH her flats were more practical, people wanted her heels anyways

i feel as though the shots that they used were also not so terrible in terms of male gaze-y. we also got ✨⛓the chain scene ⛓✨ for leon which was literally on the tiktok fyp for just horny video game scene that like SO MANY MEN JUST DID NOT GET.

but the singular ass shot of ada i think was, sure a bit much. but it wasn't so much that i was like, WOW THAT'S SO SEXUALIZING HER, cause i was also like oMGGGADA ADA ADA ADA ADA ADA so maybe im no better than a man lmao

but yeah! i mostly agree with you ty!

[purefandomonium]

Unused Snippet from Connection

I came across this while working on the next couple chapters. I forgot all about it, but it's not something I'm going to keep in the story. So I figured I'd post it because it's still a decent "chapter." I think I wrote it kind of early on but ended up scrapping it because it didn't really fit in how I wanted. Anyway.

RED: I don’t think I ever asked, but what’s it look like out there?

RED: Outside, I mean.

Leann hummed. “That’s kind of a tough question. I guess it depends on how much you understand certain concepts.” She inspected the screen, curious as to how Red perceived that virtual world of his. She doubted he fully understood weather, or sunrises and sunsets, or temperature. The bare minimum she hoped he knew was light and nature, otherwise she was at a loss.

“You, uh, know what plants and stuff are, right?”

RED: Of course.

Something about that particular block of text emitted sarcasm.

RED: I know what the sun and moon are, and what animals are too.

“Do you?” She was genuinely surprised. The sun and moon made sense, but Red knowing about real world animals was odd. “I wouldn’t have thought any previous players would have sat you down and told you about the literal birds and bees.”

RED: I don’t know everything, but I do understand they’re essentially like Pokemon but with no special moves.

She could almost hear the ‘whoosh.’ Unable to stop the grin, she said, “Yeah, that’s sorta right. It’s just… Pokemon aren’t the most scientifically accurate example. And making animals fight is hella illegal.”

RED: …That’s strange…

“How so?”

RED: Do people… want animals to fight?

“Er… no, not usually.”

RED: Then why make a game entirely about making fictional creatures attack each other until one of them passes out?

Leann’s brain failed at conjuring an answer. She sat there, gently spiraling into life-questioning territory. The more she thought about it, the more disturbed it sounded. She couldn’t fathom how Red must feel. After all, he spent many years gathering innocent creatures against his will only to be forced to sic them on others until they beat the opposing creature into submission.

RED: Do you think they feel?

Leann was tugged back to the conversation at Red’s chime. Oh boy. It wasn’t hard to see where this was going. “I… I don’t know, Red. Do you think they can? You’re the one in there with them.”

RED: How would they even tell me if they were like me? The only sounds they can make are those blasted “calls.” Even if they were trying to tell me something, I wouldn’t be able to understand it.

RED: …Maybe they think I’m their tormentor. Maybe, to them, I’m this horrible monster who makes them fight for my own enjoyment. All they want is to run free and I’m the one holding them prisoner.

RED: If I can’t understand them, how could they possibly understand me when I tell them I don’t mean it and I’m just as much a prisoner as them?

She could feel rising panic at the words. “…Red, no. That’s not… For what it’s worth, I don’t think that’s the case at all.”

RED: How can you be so sure?

“Because if I know anything, it’s code. And the code for the Pokemon and the code for you are not the same thing. I don’t know what’s so different about you that you became self-aware, but I do know there’s no chance the Pokemon are.” She didn’t know that. She hoped Red wouldn’t call her bluff. “They’re just… How do I explain this?” She needed something believable. Suddenly, “They’re just placeholders. All they are is a stored sprite and a single sound. That’s it. They can have certain moves attached to them and that’s it. They aren’t designed with anything else in mind.

“You, on the other hand, are the player character. Of course you’re more important than the Pokemon. There’s way more code going into you than them. Besides, if they were sentient in any way, don’t you think you’d have noticed something different about them?” She let that sink in and hoped it would calm him down.

The panic she felt hadn’t been her own.

Red said nothing for a long while. He thought back on all the years he’d been trapped in the game, all the time he’d spent lamenting his fate, and not once did a single instance crop up where the Pokemon had done anything different. Even the glitched ones, though chaotic, had a set pattern they tended to follow. None of them ever deviated like he had.

RED: You’re right. All this time, they’ve never changed. They can’t be like me.

He wanted to laugh at how ridiculous he was being.

Leann was silent for several moments. “Is there a reason this bugs you so much?” This was the first time he’d ever mentioned the Pokemon to her. On the rare occasion they did come up, it was because she was telling him stuff about the current series or whenever she told him about an animal one of the creature’s designs were heavily based off of.

At best, Red seemed to harbor disinterest about the ones in his game. Seeing him get so upset over them now was bizarre.

Though he kept his true self hidden in the void, he could feel Leann’s gaze on his avatar. He sighed to himself. Sometimes thinking just sucked.

RED: It’s just… I always wondered why it had to be me.

RED: No one else became sentient. No one else sees this world for what it is.

RED: I’m surrounded by mindless drones.

“You sound like you got lonely,” she offered, tone gentle. She couldn’t blame him for getting so worked up. Being in his position would be agony for anyone.

RED: I used to love Pokemon. I didn’t really have a favorite, but I used feel a bond with each and every one I caught.

RED: I took pride in my team. I considered them friends. Before I…

“You hoped that maybe they’d be like you, right? Because they were friends to you before everything changed.”

RED: I tried to save them. I didn’t want them to suffer like me. I didn’t wanna make them fight each other, let alone things they had no hope of beating.

RED: …I know it’s stupid.

RED: Out of everything… I always thought they were the one thing I could choose…

“Oh, Red, I’m so sorry,” Leann said around the lump in her throat. The GameBoy felt heavy in her hands as she rubbed her thumbs along the sides, contemplating what could even be said to remedy Red’s mood.

RED: You don’t have to be sorry, Leann. Like I said: it’s stupid.

RED: Once I saw things for what they were, making them fight felt wrong.

RED: But I couldn’t stop it. And even though I knew they’d always come back after resets, it still hurt to watch them get torn apart by the same forces that tormented me.

She felt guilty for ever playing the game the way it was intended. She couldn’t look at the franchise the same after this. She remembered the whole thing with PETA, and while it was still the most ridiculous argument she’d ever heard of, it did carry a bit more weight to it now.

[mocha-sim]

sometimes i catch myself praising the absolute bare minimum from other games/shows/etc. and i have to stop myself and think wow... ys really did set the bar at the earth’s core

[ilikekidsshows]

So I have to ask what your Favourite unification design is for the miraculous and//or to rank them all

So, a disclaimer before we begin: I think all of these designs work. Most if not all of this show's designs tend to work at what they're trying to do. As such, my ranking is based on how few personal gripes I have with each fully functional costume, so there's more complaining than I usually have with Miraculous designs, but that just makes it more comedic or something.

Disqualified: Snake Noir

I’m disqualifying this for one specific reason: it is a combination of two separate designs of Adrien using each of the involved Miraculouses. Of course it’s going to be the best one of the bunch when they had thought about Adrien using the Snake earlier in the series. It would be the undisputed winner due to being a balanced combination of two Adrien designs.

Here's the rest, from least great to most great.

Multimouse variants: these are literally just multimouse with a different accent color and an added accessory. There’s being subtle, and then there’s doing the bare minimum.

Pennybug: The Sailor Moon motifs are on point, but it is far too busy for my tastes (I’ve seen enough redesigns in this fandom to know some people love that, though). Ladybug’s tiny dots turn into really big blotches that come in both black and white. And the white blotches come with neon blue rings around them, to make sure they sear into your eyes from their black background as much as possible. This would have been a top tier design, if it was just a tad less. Also, what is the point of giving your character sunglasses, if they’re just going to be peering over them constantly? I want to like this design, but it’s really not working for me.

Pegabug: This look is actually decent from some angles. We still have the same peeking over sunglasses thing going on, though. The fadeout in the hair is really neat, but it looks worse on the legs, making her look like she’s fading out of existence when against a pale background. The white stomach area is also a tad too large, since it makes the design look unfinished, which might be why they overcorrected with way too many dots on Pennybug.

Bunny Dog: This one looks kinda lopsided. The hat is absolutely adorable and the best part of the design, but the whole “top half is the rabbit, bottom half is the dog” coloring decision on this thing makes it look like someone mismatched the pieces in a two-piece puzzle game where you need to combine head and torso with the correct legs. It also has unnecessary spots. The biggest issue with this design is the challenge brought on by the decision to go with brown. There’s a reason most superheroes don’t wear brown (instead, it’s the color worn by the practical, dependable detective buddy), it’s not an eye-grabbing color, which is exactly what a hero costume needs, so the overall look is a bit more boring than it should be. I didn't disqualify this one for being a design combination, because they introduced Dog Alix literally just to unify her and this design did not benefit from being a combination of two designs.

Shadow Moth: This look is very supervillainous, but it is one of Gabriel’s weaker looks. It’s basically just Hawk Moth with Peacock motifs added on top. It just so happens that the Peacock and Butterfly motifs go well together. It still does more than the Multimouse variants and doesn't have any missteps that take away from the overall look.

Rabbit Noir: This is how you do a Rabbit Unification. The neon blue is used sparingly and it goes well with Adrien’s usual black (like most colors do). I also think that the Tron line thing the accents have going on is on purpose, since they seemed to be going for “futuristic” as a time travel power nod. The fluffy tail at the end of Adrien’s cat tail is a bit too much, as are the lines under the eyes, since they kinda make Adrien look like he’s crying. I prefer the white bell as a nod to the fluff tail, as it was enough.

Dragon Bug: This is a surprisingly good combination of dots and stripes, probably because the stripes aren’t straight. It also shows us when the bigger dots with circles work: when the contrast isn’t too big. I would prefer the design more if the dots were just dots, but here it’s not too noticeable, so it’s easy to overlook. This is a very solid look.

Lady Bee: This design basically combines the best aspects of Queen Bee and Dragon Bug. The gold-rimmed dots are smaller, and the stripes are a more muted shade of gold, decreasing the contrast even further. The bee antennae are a nice touch, along with the drill hairstyle. Even the mask has a cool silhouette of bug wings.

Monarch: Stained Glass Pimp Man is ready to come and steal your Miraculous. Once again, the design does the thing that worked for Shadow Moth: keep it simple, stick to a main motif and add minor details. The stained glass pattern was perfect to include color nods to all of the Miraculous in a way that wasn’t too in your face. The rest of it being purple and black is also good for keeping Gabriel’s designs consistent. You know this is still Gabey Boy.

And, finally, number one:

Shadow Noir: That’s literally an evil Cat Noir and it’s the closest we’ll get to it in the show proper. I love that Adrien and Gabriel’s Akumas share similarities with the monochrome, specifically washed out, color schemes, so Gabriel’s Black Cat looking like Adrien’s Black Cat is just *chef’s kiss*. This design also really showcases just how iconic Gabriel’s Hawk Moth look is, because you can still see it in Shadow Noir in really small details that don’t take away from the symbolism of the look. Although it’s less iconic, I do like that they kept the Peacock influence subtle as well, with the feather motifs, especially the tailfeather, and the pun of it being a feather on the tail is magnificent.