#almost forgot 2 tag lol

[devilishdelights]

read my thirteen fic <3 :]

cw for body horror, gore, death (real death AND your unhinged girlfriend, double combo deal!), traumatizing you (the MC. but remember i also give you a girlfriend so it cancels out), ghosts, zombies, more death, maybe eventually some making out, who knows.

[a2zillustration]

Croissant makes a good point tbh

| First | | Previous | | Next |

[[ All Croissant Adventures (chronological, desktop) ]]

[[ All Croissant Adventures (app) ]]

[having-a-hyperfixate]

Don’t mind me sprinting to try and get this thought in order before the Anime Expo panel. I need it to be out in the wild Just In Case.

So, a few of the Gung Ho Guns have gotten reworked for Stampede, yes? To varying degrees.

Ninelives is apparently not a horrific flesh mech, Dark Souls boss thing, according to the end credits of episode 3.

E.G. the Mine just got a HUGE upgrade and didn’t get owned 3 seconds after he showed up.

Monev was an actual character with a fubar backstory and emotional impact instead of just Some Guy who trained in a basement for years specifically to kill Vash. (and Orange is SO EVIL for this)

Elendira is. *gestures futilely* There is so much going on there but yeah. She’s going to be terrifying once she achieves adult body and loses (drops?) the childish attitude. Also because of the whole Plant hybrid thing her nails truly are literally infinite sooooo.

So I have some thoughts about Hoppered the Gauntlet.

In Trimax, Gauntlet’s narrative weight comes from the fact that he makes Vash remember, which by extension makes US, the reader, understand what July really meant. Before that we had heard mention of it a few times as ‘a city destroyed in a single night’ and talk of there being ‘no survivors’ but we had no actual connection to it, and also no real idea if that was even true. But in Stampede, we saw July happen. We were there. So even if Vash’s memory is still shot afterwards, and he doesn’t remember Lost July, we the audience DO. So having the Dragon’s nest play out exactly the same isn’t going to have the same narrative punch in the gut that it did in Trimax. It can’t.

There’s also the fact that, given how we’ve met most of the major players in the story, or had them mentioned at least (hi Milly), it feels kind of Odd™ that we haven’t seen someone has emotionally impactful as Gauntlet yet.

Unless we have.

We saw with Rollo/Monev that Orange is willing to have the person’s regular name be one thing and then have a second Eye of Michael code name. I suspect that is going to happen with Gauntlet; either because EoM or because he has decided on his own to lie about who he was.

And yes, I do in fact have someone in mind.

I checked myself the translation there is accurate; the only change I would make is calling the gun ‘gaudy’ instead of ‘shiny’ but that’s not a huge deal. Also for the record, the original tweet is from Jan. 11, well before he makes his reappearance for the season finale. So when it talks about a ‘reappearance’, it is talking about seeing him again in July. Original tweet here, tweet containing the translation here.

I think Chuck Lee is going to be our Gauntlet. That he made it just far enough out of the city to survive, but that he was badly maimed in the process, and that his family didn’t make it. He’s the ONLY member of the military police with a unique design. He has an actual name, and the director himself tweeted about his backstory. His gun is so unusual that we would recognize it anywhere. Hell, I referred to him as ‘the gold gun guy from episode one’ when one of my friends didn’t recognize him immediately. His gun is so incredibly recognizable. Almost like we need to be able to recognize him by that alone, when everything else about him has changed.

THIS could be how narrative weight for Gauntlet is established in the Stampede universe when it can’t be done the same way as in Trimax. Taking a character who has, in a way, also been with the audience ALL ALONG, who was there with us for two pivitol moments, the beginning and the awakening, but who comes at it from such a horrifically different angle and bringing him back in such an agonizing way. Because he was very much in the wrong with his stunt at Jeneora Rock, but his rage over the loss of his family in July would be justified, even if we know it wasn’t Vash’s fault.

(Also, the IRONY of him ending up as one of Knives’s lackeys when Knives is the one that caused all of this? Damn.)

Footnote: I have Thoughts on why they can get away with adding Milly to The Squad late. That is a whole other Thought but tldr; (and also I haven’t actually written it out) Milly is the most perceptive of all of them she doesn’t NEED an extended intro to Vash to Know.

[negiwave2000]

[spamsandsuch]

All of the valentines cards i got from the undertale newsletter lol

[anteros-art]

day 3: onisato - song

this vampire is NOT binary

[kitteqq]

happy pemis day!!!!!!!

[balmungkriemhild]

Siegfried Alter, or "what if your aunt's elderly yorkie was a dragon man and that dragon man was the supposedly dark side of a famed hero forcibly brought to the surface via Holy Grail War Shenanigans/Grand Order Mishaps/Miscellaneous Misfortunes" bonus doodle

[keeps-ache]

think this is funny. anyway. the Thoughts are back at it again

[matoitech]

you are not you, you are a mirror / you only work when you’re the same

[ignisgayentia]

me all day being like, 'why am i blacking out every 2 secs is this just part of getting old???' then suddenly remembering i forgot my anxiety medication last night and am GOING THROUGH WITHDRAWALS ;-;

[cerealmonster15]

ummmm uhhhh. florid? jamiazu?? applejuice?!?!?!?!?!?!?

sillies. bye !!!!!!!!!

[joyfuladorable]

SPOILERS FOR DAMES AND DRAGONS (LEGENDLARK) ARC 8 EPISODE 1

@damesanddragons said Fran Angst (Frangst) REAL!!!

Bonus work sketches under the cut:

[mirersc]

CHAOS REVERSED - ROUGE ADVENTURE 2 SCENES

“I don't understand, how could G.U.N mistake me for the likes of yours!?” Rouge spitted out with annoyance dripping in her tone, her hands landing on her hips.

“You think I am happy that they mistook me for a girl!? Well, guess what, I am not, however I don't whine like you,” Knuckles crossed his arms and huffed under his breath, Rouge in front of him seeing suddenly red.

“Why you! I'll have you know mister, that I do not WHINE!” she glared at the echidna and her fists tightened. Knuckles on the other hand chuckled, “Oh, really? Then what are you doing now? Oh wait– I know. Watch!”

He cleared his throat and pitched his voice as much as he could, “Look at me, look at me! I'm whining like a damsel in distress, because G.U.N mistook me for an echidna. An incredibly hot and handsome echidna. Why couldn't I be like him?”

Rouge almost choked at the imitation, “What!? Oh, no, I believe that you take this further than you actually should. You don't want to see me truly getting mad. You just don't, so you better cut that attitude short, if you don’t wish my heels planted on your stomach, stinky piglet!”

~~~

“Relax doc’. I'm not here to steal anything this time. After all I learned my lesson,” Sonic grinned at the scientist, however the other didn't share the same joy.

“I doubt it, rat, though I would be definitely lying, if I were to say that I am not the slightest interested to learn the reason behind your– uninvited presence in my base,” Eggman glared through his glasses and crossed his arms.

Even after the many times Sonic had helped him carry out his plans, he would be insane to start trusting the hedgehog like a decent teammate. For all he knew, he could be working for that annoying bat, if he deemed that the prize she gave him was worthy of putting his quills in danger.

Sonic might have been wearing his heart on his sleeve, but that didn't mean that he didn't master the art of deceiving, thus why Eggman was always wary around him. Or at least, until he was certain that the hedgehog wouldn't betray him.

Speaking of the devil, a chuckle escaped from his lips, “Oh, why are you always that bad-tempered? I still haven't uttered my second sentence and you are already fuming? Chaos, Rouge must have been getting on your tail more and more lately, Eggy.”

Eggman bristled at the name, “Don’t call me that, you, pig!”

It had been bad when that kid had started calling him that. He didn’t need more underestimating. He hated disrespect with all his inner being.

And Sonic of course knew that.

Toying with the cuff of his glove, Sonic gave a side glance to the human in the room, “Maybe, when you stop messing up my species each time you try to insult me I won’t. For now, I think I will be enjoying myself.”

That insufferable fool!

He wanted to shout, to curse, grab a broom and make the other get lost from his sight, but the only thing he ended up spurting was a choked mumble, “Grrr– if you didn’t have ties with the emeralds I would have long gotten rid of you, pest.”

A blue ear twitched and emerald eyes darkened, “What was that, Eggy?”

A pair of red-fabric covered arms raised up in response. “Ra–! I mean– nothing, Sonic. Eeeverything is just– perfect~” the doctor sang and and clapped his arms with feigned joy.

That got the hedgehog before him to retrieve his collected look and fall back to a relaxed stance.

“That’s what I’ve thought. Now, what would you be up to this time? I didn’t make all this wah here to be leaving without some thrill, you know.”

Eggman sighed internally, wishing he could facepalm. This was gonna be a veeery looong road to world domination.

~~~

"TAKE THIS!!!" Vector spinned his hammer and then with mighty force broke the wall. Shadow, Maria and Rouge were left speechless.

Meanwhile, the crocodile dusted himself and smirked at his friends, "I know, I am awesome, no need to gauge at me like that. However, feel free to continue, I love the praise."

Immediately Shadow broke into a fistful of chokes and Maria yelped and patted his back, “Shadow! Don’t worry I got you. Deep breaths.” This brought a chuckle out of Vector as Rouge whistled, "Dear Chaos, hun, you seem like a daredevil with this baby in your hands.”

Vector let out a huge grin, "Obviously, Rouge. You expected anything less from this crocodile in front of you?"

Rouge walked in front of her friend and gave him a wink, “Certainly, no, hot stuff.” She then whispered to him, “Next time keep it a bit mild though if you could, hun, sunshine over here–,” she pointed at Shadow, “–doesn't function quite well after seeing super hot demonstrations like mine and yours.”

“You know that I… *cough* c-can hear you, Rouge *cough*.” Shadow glared at the bat as he tried to compose himself and he would carry on scolding Rouge hadn't it been for Maria to interrupt him, “Shadow, no! Please calm down and let your cough subside. We don't want you choking for the rest of the trip.”

Rouge and Vector laughed, when Shadow groaned and Omega let out a cheerful buzz. Shadow was just too easy to tease at times.

The sound of footsteps reached Rouge’s sensitive ears, but before she could warn anyone, a chuckle got her first, “Now that would be a hilarious sight to watch, am I right?”

Teal eyes made eye contact with a pair of emerald and violet ones and team D.I.A with Vector took a fighting stance. Sonic let out a disappointing whine, “Gah, really? I try to partake in your nice conversation and that's how you treat me? I am most definitely let down here, guys.”

Rouge knew that this was the hedgehog's way to mock them, but she couldn't help, but feel somewhat bad at how she behaved around the younger. Usually this wouldn't affect her, but hanging around with younger children did certainly leave an impact on her.

Still she managed swiftly to reply back, “I’m sorry, blue, but I don't indulge in conversations with Eggman's sidekicks. That, unless you decide to take a visit on our side, sugar.” The hedgehog seemed to debate for a second Rouge's offer, before Knuckles punched him in the head, “Are you serious? Do you honestly consider that bat's offer? Remember you have a job to carry on, or are you having second thoughts?”

“Me? Second thoughts? Pleeease, Knux, now where did that thought come from?”

“My name is Knuckles for the last time, hedgehog!”

The echidna tsked, not letting Sonic time to respond and stepped forward calling upon a chaos spear in his hand as he did so, “Party time is over. I am not letting you go any further than this.”

~~~

“Have no fear our dear hero here, for Vector the Great is here!” Vector opened up his eyes to see an annoyed and bruised Rouge inside the cage. His eyes widened in shock, “Holy chaos Rouge! How did you end up like this?”

Rouge shrugged as she let out a sigh, stretching her wings as she did so, “Long story short, hun, let's just say that G.U.N is getting more and more on my nerves lately. I might end up like sunshine in the end…”

~~~

“Have we made any progress yet with the chaos emeralds? Last time I checked, I believe you'd promised me that all emeralds would be under my control, right, Knuckles?”

Eggman let his gaze fall on the echidna and he in return crossed his arms nonchalantly, “No need to worry, doctor. Soon all emeralds shall be in our disposal. There's only one left to find; the yellow one.”

Huffing under his breath, Eggman grinned, “Brilliant! That means we are one step away from my glory to shine and my Eggman Empire to rise!” He turned to look at his computer, typing several algorithms and chuckled, “We just have to find the last chaos emerald and then not even Rouge will be able to stand in my way, oh, ho, ho. This is splendid news.”

Knuckles continued watching Eggman for a few minutes, before finding himself getting starstruck by space’s illustrious light. A small smirk found its way at his lips.

Soon he would have his revenge. Both Locke and Tikal would find justice.

Suddenly a whistle captured both the echidna and the doctor’s attention and they looked behind them to see Sonic perched atop a generator with a newspaper in his hands.

Eggman scowled, “What is it, hedgehog? If you have no news, find another place to laze around.”

~~~

Chaos Reversed is one of your swap sonic AUs where the sonic characters swap roles and powers with each other, but on this one they keep their personalities the same for the most part. Everyone except the villains themselves are swapped, thus why Eggman’s role the same. The swaps aren’t only between two characters.

Roles!

• Rouge is Sonic and Sonic is Rouge.

• Knuckles is Shadow and Shadow is Knuckles.

• Maria -still a human- is Tails and Tikal is Maria.

• Locke is Gerald. Gerald remains in his role but the backstory is different.

• Vector is Amy -no, he isn’t in love with Rouge, pleease-.

• E-123 Omega is Maria’s creation instead of Eggman’s.

Feel free to ask questions about this au! Some things are different and some remain the same.

[scarred-but-still-smiling]

Sinking Feeling

The other side of the story...

A sequel to A Risky Play

Also on AO3

Flying across The Great Bridge towards The Ancient Capital, Scott's magical eye was caught by a dark and ominous aura in the waters below. Swooping down, closer and closer to the water, his curiosity was quickly swallowed by fear as he saw what the thing giving off the glow;

A body.

Scott adjusted his trajectory and dove down, splashing into the water. The body was face down, but from its clothing, he immediately recognized it as Pixlriffs.

"When I said I was coming over to see him, this isn't what I meant!" Scott muttered to himself, barely keeping his anxiety down enough to be of functional help.

He was far too scrawny to both hold onto Pix with one hand and swim them to the shore with the other, Scott knew that, so he took of his sash and looped it under Pix's arms and then under his own, tying them together back-to-back, before he struck out for dry land.

Pix wasn't the lightest, though he hadn't really expected him to be; it was clear his career as an archeologist had given him a very impressive musculature, and muscle wasn't light. Those thoughts, combined with the sheer effort of swimming them both to safety, were just barely able to distract Scott from the fact that Pix didn't seem to be breathing.

Huffing and puffing, Scott felt his very expensive shoes sink into the mud of the lake edge, and he untied the sash that secured Pix to his back, turning and putting his arms under Pix's and pulling him ashore.

He was already analysing Pix's state as he laid him down; unnaturally deep scratches all down his arms that were filled with a watery sculk that, to his horror, didn't seem to be bleeding, a constant low glow of sickeningly dark magic under his skin, sharp claws that looked to be made of sculk, even more sculk all up his neck and going up through his beard and spidering up the sides of his face and into the outer corners of his eyes.

As soon as Pix was on a stable surface, Scott immediately took his pulse, trying to ignore the squelching as his fingers went into a patch of sculk, and his own heart lurched as he felt nothing.

Pix had no heartbeat.

Scott acted fast, ripping open the loose shirt the other man wore, exposing his bare chest and stomach; it was far paler than the rest of him, though that was to be expected, and he noted that Pix wasn't nearly as chisled as he'd always imagined, in fact having a healthy amount of fat on him. But even here, Scott saw sculk, in patches across his stomach, across his chest, matting parts of the body hair there.

Scott swallowed hard. Fuck. Stay on topic Smajor, you can oggle him later when he's not technically dead.

Placing his hands over Pix's heart, Scott threw his whole body weight into chest compressions, keeping a steady rhythm in his head. Five reps, check the pulse, five more.

After five cycles, Pix still hadn't regained his heartbeat, though Scott had noticed that, as he was pumping the other man's heart manually, the sculk seemed to be... fading? Like, his face was clear now at the very least.

Which was lucky, because the typical protocol for if the patient hadn't started breathing on their own was rescue breathing, also known as mouth-to-mouth.

Taking a deep breath, Scott leaned down and interlocked his lips with Pix's and breathed for him, repeating the cycle of chest compressions and rescue breaths. At one point, during one round of compressions, he heard a sickening snapping sound and felt Pix's ribs give way beneath him, but he had to keep going.

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, Pix spasmed, eyes flying open, coughing violently and spitting up fluid just as Scott was pulling away from a round of rescue breaths, spilling water and sculk down the sides of his face.

Scott flinched at the sudden sound and movement, and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw what remained of the sculk on Pix's body be actively absorbed into his flesh, which, definitely not good, but there were more important matters to attend to right now. Namely, Pix being alive.

"Scott?" Pix coughed and then immediately winced, yeah that was gonna hurt, "what happened?"

Scott's ears might as well have burst into flames, and he quickly shifted away, unable to meet Pix's eyes, or look at him in general honestly. "Pix! Oh thank god you're okay. What, uhh, what happened?" He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, "well you see I was on my way over to see you to ask about froglights, but as I was doing so I caught sight of something in the lake? Anyway I flew down to see what it was and I saw you just floating there face down so I jumped in and pulled you out, but you weren't breathing so I had to, uhhh," he tried to look at Pix, his eyes falling on the other man's lips, and he felt his entire face ignite, and he hid behind his soaking wet fedora. "I kinda had to do mouth-to-mouth CPR to get you breathing again."

Pix tried to sit up, but was stopped immediately by the pain, "ah, that explains this," he groaned. He set his head back in the grass, "Thanks, Scott, really. You could have just let me respawn but you didn't. I appreciate that."

Scott was at a loss for words; that smile, that gentle tone, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. He saw Pix pause for a moment, and watched as his ears also turned red. His mind raced; had Pix figured it out? Did he feel-

"Also, uhh, if it's any consolation, I don't, remember? Any of that?"

Scott didn't know if he felt relieved or heartbroken. Of course Pix didn't reciprocate; how could he have fooled himself into believing otherwise. But also at least there wouldn't be any awkward conversations later?

Pix's voice snapped him out of his spiralling thoughts, "Hey, uh, do you happen to have any healing potions on you? There's something very time sensitive I need to do so I don't have the luxury of waiting for my ribs to heal on their own."

"Oh! Of course!" He threw down an enderchest and rummaged around inside, soon pulling out a shulker box and producing a potion from within and holding it out to Pix. "Here."

As Pix took the potion from him, Scott felt their fingers brush against each other and his heart was almost the one that stopped next.

He watched as Pix drank, the magenta glow of the healing magic flowing from the bottle at his lips, down his throat, and spreading out in a pattern of swirls through his tissues.

But, now that he was paying attention, there was something else; with every heartbeat, Scott could see, ever so faintly, the dark colour of the sculk move through Pix's body.

Pix sat up, wincing slightly, and then got to his feet. "Thanks again, Scott, really." he said, his voice tender, Scott's stomach doing flips. "Also, I'm pretty sure you deserve free froglights for the rest of the season for this, if you ever need any just pop over to the orchard and help yourself."

Scott watched as he looked himself over, and he noticed it again; the sculk under his skin.

Pix pulled out some rockets and turned to leave, "Now then, if you need me, I'm gonna head over to False's place and see if she can help me with the whole Cub Situation. I'll see you around man."

In any situation other than this, Scott would probably be focused on Pix's wonderfully toned shoulders, the gentle valley along his spine, all the beautiful shapes that made him up, but all he could see was a dark pulsating mass of the sculk's vile magic where his heart was.

"Pix! Wait!" he tried to call out a warning, but Pix was already gone.

He had a bad feeling about this...

[shinied]

annndd phase 4 for iron moth!