#and that was mostly just on making him do the animation

[xxtc-96xx]

Do you think we could get a diagram of the Ketchum household that also shows us the spots where the occupants spend most of their time during the day and where they sleep at night?

I.e. Huey and Newtwo probably hang out in the living room during the day. With Huey's bed being the couch and Newtwo on a mattress on the floor at night. Mewtwo in the garden or kitchen making tea at daytime, then sleeps on a mattress, probably near Newtwo. Pig alongside him the whole time. Delia mostly in the kitchen. And Ash isn't even in the house most of the day except to sleep. 😅

This is just my interpretation of the family's day to day though. 😄

I would but I’ve tried many hours to make sense of the Ketchum’s house layout through the anime screenshots and have deduced it’s an amalgam of rooms that change depending on what they need it for XD especially the goddamn second floor holy shit it does not make sense

….so yeah, your interpretation works fine XD they probably spend a lot of the day outside too

[pparacxosm]

wounded in

(blue-eyed son part 2: electric boogaloo !!!! ; (hate to be that gal but you may have to read the first bit for context); homeless era!patrick zweig x jaded businesswoman!reader; nonlinear narrative; tw office job; tw coworkers; tw mcdonald’s; the sound of music stuff is for myself; i fucking love sound of music; and i fucking love cats (the animal not the musical, though that's lovely too) so there’s that; pushing a patrick zweig can’t spell agenda; tw new england maybe; i gave new rochelle a better rap this time; kiss scene kindaaaa ??..? ; tashi coaching patrick after new rochelle is canon to me; tw descriptions of emojis; what if i told you there’s a part 3; then what)

You hold in a bout of laughter when Patrick brings the drinks to the table.

His hair is longer than the last time you saw him, which wasn’t that long ago, in scale. In bones, in feels like a while.

Dear old New Rochelle. Far enough out that the city is a twinkle on the horizon like a cluster of stars, far enough that there are some actual stars above you, now. It’s odd to see him in New England. It’s odd to see him in jeans. But then it’s September.

There are new lines on his face already. He’s aging quicker now, as if to make a point.

Drinks are on me,

Is the first thing Patrick told you, when you walked in in a juniper parka. Scanned the room, picked out his booth.

Is this the part where you tell me you’ve opened a savings account? you said, trying to seem completely blasé about it. It would have been childish to be thrilled by such meagre chivalry at twentyeight. I feel like I should pay, you’re in my city.

Yeah, but you’ve hosted me enough for now.

That’s what you are, half the time. A host to him.

A museum. Thumbing through a rolodex of all the different shades of blue his eyes could go in one humid night.

You pass on more nights out than you accede to. You got a cat. You’re getting LASIK soon. But what it really looks like is that you’re wearing glasses to show that time has passed.

“What’re you smiling about?” Patrick asks, placing the foamy mug of beer in front of you.

You wipe discreetly under your eyes, spreading the mascara smudge. “Just thinking about how my aweinspiring generosity has rescued you from the misery of total squalor.”

Patrick chuckles. “Well, they say to pay it forward.” He sounds pleased as he lifts his own mug with a wink.

You look out the window. There’s a film of dust on it. There’s dust on the faux-chintz curtains too.

You start to wonder if that’s what he really thinks. That this is him going forward.

Patrick picks up the plastic menu. “We ordering sidedishes or do we want a full dinner? What’s good in Wellesley?”

You try to laugh, though the noise has the distinct tender hue of a sob. But you’re sure you feel mostly fine. “What are you doing here?”

“Hm?”

“What are you doing in Wellesley?”

Patrick looks up at you with bright, twinkling eyes. “Challenger in Boston. Thought it’d be a waste not to come see you.”

You clench your jaw to prevent more runny mascara. It’s stupid. You don’t much like waste either. But you’re not going to weep in front of Patrick like a child.

“You hungry?”

You nod, picking up your own menu, hiding your face behind it.

His hand reaches suddenly across the table, trying to touch yours. You pull away, but make it look like you didn’t.

“Bet you had a hard time leaving Tobes for the night,” he says, trying to lift the mood.

“Um yeah. A little. I like to imagine what she gets up to when I’m away.”

“My sister had a cat, when we were young. My sister was, like, seventeen, and I was eight, so pretty big gap.”

Because he has to clarify those sorts of things. Because you don’t know he has a sister. You don’t know anything.

You find it hard to picture him pinned down in any humane way. It’s always his beautiful leg (now sheathed in denim) writhing in a bear trap. Always his papery wings unfurled and pinned against a picture frame like a butterfly. Something metamorphosed. Something capable of a great change, and that must be tortured for it.

“She found the cat in an alleyway. She called it Patrick.”

You lift your eyes. You feel it bubbling in you like magma, the urge to coo. You feel all soft these days. And maybe that’s just open heart season, and the passage of time. But you see a vivid meridian in your life, and it falls right along the night you met this guy. And this back half is all soft, so you sort of want to blame him.

You swallow.

“Well, that’s sweet.”

Patrick lowers the menu. “Nope,” he shakes his head, that huge smirk on his face, like his name is on every ticket of the raffle, like he’s cheating at something. “Let me tell you what she used to do. She used to put the fucker in, like, a blanket, right? And she’d lift it up like a sack, with him inside, and he’d obviously start clawing and making all of these noises—“

He makes the noises. Just starts whipping his head around and making kitten growls, imitating this cat with his name. You get the sense that this is one of those anecdotes that explains a lot about a person.

“—And she’d come into my room, in, like, the middle of the night—this is real psycho shit—and she’d lift my covers and drop the cat. And the shit would fucking claw at me and bite me, just—“

He’s doing the noises again. And now he’s clawing at the air with his hands.

He stops, and the way he closes his mouth around his grin makes his teeth look like they’re trying to escape past his lips. But it looks sort of lovely.

“When the fuck died, Saskia texted me. She was like, oh, he loved you so much, you should’ve said goodbye.” He pauses, widens his eyes, looks at you with the pointed intimacy of sharing in this ludicrousness.

You roll your eyes. But you catch yourself smiling. You like the idea of him being mauled like that, skin deep. You get the sense that life has done to him a lot of that—those growls and scratches. And that sounds a little fucked. But what you like about it is how he seems so unmoved now, by this psycho shit. This flailing animal, this torture device. Pinning him down. He's laughing.

You try to imagine him as a child, but the proportions are all comically bizarre, in your mind’s eye.

“Pork chops,” you say, throwing the menu aside. “I feel like stuffing my face.”

Patrick gets three sausage egg McMuffins on the way to the New Rochelle Country Club—and fries, and a hash, and a soda—and he’s eating the second by the time you pull out of the drivethru.

There is a compelling sense of chaos to how he drives. Like, he’s so bad at driving. Three different people honk at him in a dozenminute window. And you feel content knowing that whatever had had your heart thumping last night has not shrivelled and died with the morningtime. Though now it’s maybe a partial distress for your safety. But you get the sense that, maybe, this is actually the person you are now. The woman who sleeps beside a rugged stranger and buys him breakfast and doesn’t care how he speaks with his mouth open while he’s eating the fries. Doesn’t care about the writhing mire of half chewed potato on his tongue. The way his lips gleam pink with salt.

“I need to listen to really specific music to, like, get in the zone? If you don’t mind?”

He sounds so uncharacteristically shy, for brief a moment. You have to lean forward and look to see he isn’t joking. He isn't.

“Uh— yeah, of course. It’s your car.”

He slides a Sound of Music soundtrack disc into the mouth of the dashboard.

You laugh so hard you fold over.

He’s got one hand on the wheel, and shifts is his seat, peeling the unfamiliarly clean skin of his thighs off the leather before sitting back down. He’s tearing into his third breakfast sandwich with a reckless abandon reserved for death row. He laughs around the bite, glancing, bemused, between you and the road, and, ultimately, spending more time looking at you.

“What?” he laughs around a halfmasticated mouthful. “What?”

There are tears sluicing down your face. You can’t breathe. You think you can, and then you start laughing again, and you can’t.

“How do you solve a problem like Maria?” Patrick hums cheerily as he noshes. It’s a gross and wonderful noise, the food moving between his teeth, circumventing Hammerstein.

You think the large coke is probably no performance enhancer, not only because he all but tumbles out of the car when it’s hardly halfway parked (poorly, you’ll add).

“Fuck, need to piss,” he says frenetically.

When you know the notes to sing…, carols Julie Andrews.

You’re still laughing. Crying. Your tummy fluttering painfully.

Patrick makes you order dessert too, since you’re celebrating.

Celebrating what? you had to ask, though, at the time, you were wearing an impish, knowing, frankly celebratory sort of smile.

Patrick feigned great offense. He said, I’m fucking here, aren’t I?

He wants you to have sundaes together. You spill some ice cream on your skirt. He finds that funny. He’s always got this weasel smile, like he’s constantly ready for amusement. He’s shaved, at some point between now and then. The hairs on his face are sparser. The skin on his face looks milky and organic like a crinite litchifruit.

The frumpy diner was his idea too.

He’s spent some time on the veritable extremes of the economic spectrum—that’s what life tends to be for him; veritable extremes, scratching him meanly—and now he just wants to play at being the average wage earner.

“You really are welcome to stay with me, if you’d like.”

Patrick looks at you like he’d rather shoot himself.

You sort of marvel at his sense of pride, as if it were a rare stone, swallowing light and spewing it out at all angles. The Sociology course you took in uni had a whole two modules on personal pride. It is one of the few emotions that are unique to humans.

Patrick—for his weasel smile and beastly hunger and feline anti—is remarkably proficient in being human. In the real, visceral parts of it. In wielding his emotions like kaleidoscope hues. Dancing freely in confinement.

“When are you leaving?”

“Don’t worry about that. If you have time for breakfast tomorrow, we can—”

“Mm, not tomorrow, I don’t think. But I have no plans this weekend.”

You say it with this weird, bright intonation, like you’re jesting. Which—a lot of things feel like a bit of a joke these days. But he seems to understand you well enough. Delivers a curt, unspurned nod, and even a smile. Not the weasley, chronicling one. The wolfish one that makes his eyes crinkle up.

“Come here then,” he says.

Patrick leans in for a hug. You can’t avoid it. He enfolds you in a fascinatingly soft, burning embrace. He still smells sort of musky and acrid. Like even though he can shower regularly now, he maybe doesn’t as often as he should. But you find a gross comfort that. This pleasantly fetid, human man. His cologne smells like a wine cellar.

He says, “It’s nice to see you again.”

Something churns in your belly. Maybe the pork chops. Maybe the ice cream. This whole fucking day. You accidentally deleted some files and IT spent five hours trying to help you unsheathe them from oblivion. You felt like a failure. And now you’re here and,

“Fuck, you’re still so cool.”

You push away from him with a forceful laugh.

You used to be able to tell your sister all kinds of things. But, lately, you haven’t been able to talk to anyone about anything.

Working so many years for a soulless corporate hive mind has turned you into an expert at short, polite, and meaningless feedback that only varies with inflection.

“Right”, “Sure”, “Got it”, “Whatever you think is best”, “Already on it”.

Half the time you sound illiterate. The other half, you sound like you could have written Prozac Nation.

When your sister asks, how was New Rochelle? she expects you to say something annoyingly vague and ominous in your cool, collected adjunct’s voice, like: Everything is under control.

But, instead, you say, “Do you and Mark still go to mass? I really want to start giving more of myself away.” And you’re wearing this smile that’s utterly sincere.

That’s what spooks your sister.

Of course, you want to tell her more. Because your sister married a Herman Melville character; one of those grizzly, stinky, sacerdotal men who don’t want to work but don’t want to lose either. You know your tale of Linklateresque, serendipitous connection would render her mesmerised and marginally jealous.

But, soft and charitable as you may now be, you keep it all to yourself.

Patrick is still in Massachusetts a fortnight later. You say you’d have loved to come and see him play, but you’re really busy, and he says not to sweat it. Insists really. Maybe even begs. Do not sweat it.

You text him, presumably a day or two afterwards, and ask how it went.

Smahsed it!, he texts, and garlands the (misspelled) notion with eight sunglassfaced emojis. You counted. Dibner? he texts.

Then, a moment later,

*dinner?

You get to see your first New Rochelle sunrise.

You slink out of bed with toothfairy softness, even though Patrick is sleeping the sleep of death—with a deep, miserable snore like a resounding dirge to prove it—beside you. Your pillow wall, in the night, had collapsed like Berlin in 89.

You step outside. You check your phone, first, but you do go outside. You do believe in fresh air in the mornings, even if you don’t have the fortitude for mindfulness and journaling.

The parking lot is a vast open soul. Regretfully resigned and stunningly silent.

The sky looks like a bleeding mouth, but the hard grey edges around it don’t seem to care. The concrete enterprises and litter splay do not want anything to do with this bruise. A tart, sort of sewery smell makes your eyes water.

Cars drive by too fast. 

You think, in some faraway capacity, you can hear the soft, rhythmic thunk of tennis balls hitting asphalt. But it’s only your heart.

You hear things. You see things.

You don’t want to sound like some haunted Victorian heiress with a mystical past, but you do.

In the break room, mostly.

So you hadn’t noticed before. Your coworker, Sam, goes fucking wild for tennis. Sam’s slobbering lewd and voracious over tennis. It’s hard to witness. In fact, you feel dirty witnessing this. You should call HR. Sam’s in the break room doing an onanistic oneman scene play about tennis.

Or maybe he just kind of likes it.

And you hadn’t noticed it before.

There’s a lot, for your part, that you were content not noticing around the office.

But now every errant tenniscentric commentary makes your hands feel sore and weightless without the presence of a gun.

“No, you don’t get it, Deirdre, this is like if LeBron played a game at some random Y, and got dunked on by this fuckin’ nobody, and then just… quit the game.” He sounds tumid with bewilderment. “Just fuckin’ dipped!” Sam’s incredulous. “Forever!”

“LeBron…?”

“Fuck, Deirdre, you’re killing me.”

You slot the mouth of your bottle beneath the spout of the water cooler. You close your eyes—zombieleaden, uneven on the tiles; it’s only 10—and listen to the halting trickle, trickle… stream. The plastic goes cold against your palm as the water rises.

“All because of some… fuckin’,” Sam snaps his fingers, “Fuck, I forget the name.”

Peter Zeppelin, your mind supplies dryly.

It is then that Sam chooses to notice you. Points his finger. Wide smile. “Oh-ho, here’s trouble!” says Sam.

Sam and you have had enough one on one conversations for you to list on your one free hand, and you wouldn’t be spoiled for digits. But, all the same,

“Here’s trouble!” Sam announces, “Big shot boss babe, huh? Back from kickin’ rear in New Rochelle. I know you’re glad to be back.”

You don’t say anything. You feign responsiveness, flash a stilted smile. But you don’t say anything. Because what would you say?

Outside the men’s bathroom of the New Rochelle Country Club, you fidget awkwardly, standing against a wall and trying to look inconspicuous. Patrick’s duffel sits at your heels like a staunch hound.

Your gaze meanders around the venue with an idle sense of inquiry.

You’d expected a certain echelon of grandiosity, anyway. And the country club is nice—you feel silly casting any judgement at all—if a little outdated. All glossy wood-panelling and pea green outdoor carpet.

You can see yourself, warped and bleary, upon the polished floor. The bar flourishes a glassy sheen and cloistered amber rows of lavish whiskeys.

Through glass windows, golf splays unfurl, ceaseless viridescence, beset on all sides by sharpcornered hedges.

People mill about with the air of the lookedafter, and polo shirts as white as the maw of God.

Which is nice—it’s all nice—and all, but your chest seems to enwreathe a stark state of dread. You feel the sort of nausea that would rack you as a child. Floating in the curtains at your dance recitals, like an anxious little poltergeist.

When Patrick emerges from the loo, he is whistling. Fluting finely the swooping tune of ‘Sixteen Going on Seventeen’.

“You certainly seem unburdened,” you murmur, gaze shadowing him as he draws near. You know you sound unconvinced. For his part, he looks undeterred.

Slings his bag over his shoulder like it is floatable, even as you know it bears the poundage of half a man’s life.

He grins, flashing a canine.

To you, he has just eaten his weight in greasy, leaden carbcloth, and proceeded to piss for twelve minutes straight.

But Patrick seems imbued by morningshine.

He throws a heavy arm around you, squeezes your shoulder. Says, “Look alive!” Says, “I’ve had a good night’s sleep, a hot shower, the breakfast of champions, and I’m about to get paid!”

You wince a bit at his volume, and also because he seems to be emanating a bit of that morningshine. Not to speak of the heat. Searing from his very bones.

If nothing else you admire his buoyancy. In that way, the warmth—even as the sun blooms above you—is a fascinating comfort.

Like something to be shared.

You say yes to dinner.

You keep having dinner. He keeps taking you out for dinner, and to decent places, too, places you haven’t even been to around here.

You’re sitting across from him. You’re eating, as one does. He’s regarding you with something like awe. Though you wouldn’t know it, because he regards, too, his plate, when the waiter rests it before him, with a sort of comical reverence. Even though you’re pretty sure he’s not starving, anymore.

But hunger’s not always about those sorts of things, you suppose. Maybe he's just still hungry.

He’s winning a lot. Must be, if he’s taking you out all the time, and—hey—maybe you can get him to sign something for Sam. That’d be nice of you.

Patrick watches you eat.

You try not to stare back at him. As long as you keep chewing, you won’t have to ask why he’s still here.

“That’s a nice shirt,” he says after a long silence.

You smile. “Thank you.”

He doesn’t text you for months, many months, after New Rochelle. You’d given him your number, because you wanted to put the ball in his court, and—fuck—here’s hoping you didn’t say that.

But you can’t recall.

It’s been months.

So, when you do get the text, you’re pleased to see it’s aptly contrite.

ypu probably think I’msn idiot, it reads, and it’s late at night and you’re already in bed, stewing over NYT Connections.

You eye the ID. Maybe: Patrick Zweig, but that’s implied—so many implicit little shards—because not a lot of people are so tortured by the prospect of your opinion on them so as to text you at 1 AM. So.

Define idiot, you text back.

dictionary defenition is Patrick Rupert Zweih. There’s prpbably even a lil picture of me next to it.

A few moments.

A bad one.

Ten or eleven emojis of abject terror.

You consider this—not a bad picture of him (though he doesn’t quite strike you as wildly photogenic anyway), just... This Whole Wound—and tap the side of your phonecase in tentative thought.

Your full name is Patrick Rupert Zweig? Tough.

Like ypu didnt already look me up.

You blink. Whoa—okay.

Not a humble idiot, I see, you type.

You don’t know where you get the balls. There’s a sweeping litany of long, gorgeous miles between your bed and New Rochelle, but maybe he can smell you thinking as much because,

Im in MA next week

In the registration room, a man with a binder asks his name, and Patrick sheathes his canine in a way that makes him look conspiratorial and bemused. You suppose it’s become an inside joke.

The ATP official seems to gleam with recognition when Patrick does give his name—his real name—and he says, “Oh wow, that is you!”

You can’t see his face from this angle, but you can envisage the way his moue has settled in confusion.

Apparently, the ATP official was a line judge at the Junior US Open back in 06.

You try to think back to what you were doing in 2006. Probably populating your microcosm in The Sims. Trapping little imitations of those who had scorned you in swimming pools to drown.

“You were really something back then, huh?” says the ATP official.

Your eyes flicker to Patrick’s profile. He doesn’t quite know how to respond to that.

The official hands Patrick a packet. There’s a little map of the facility in there, in case he gets lost. His first match is against one Gonzalez, on court seven.

Patrick says, marginally halting, “Hey, so, is there any chance of an advance payment on the prize money.”

The official blinks.

“Because I know I’m guaranteed a minimum of four hundred dollars even if I get knocked out today—“

You frown a bit at that. The official frowns a lot at that.

“Well,” he says, “Generally we don’t give out winnings until a player makes his way through the tournament…”

A beat.

Then,

“You could always just lose today. Then we’d have to cut you a check this evening.”

Patrick hardens to bone. You hope he has another lifeaffirming piss in him. He doesn’t meet your eyes when he turns to leave, but flicks you a glance that seems to ask that you spare him the judgement.

You leave New Rochelle today. Good as the night’s sleep may have been, he knows better than anyone that life’s loveliest things are fleeting.

So—fine—you don’t begrudge him. Instead,

“He seems hopeful,” you say wryly.

“Must’ve been thrown off by my pretty caddie,” he says dismissively. Maybe a little bristled.

The warmup courts, deep blue plane, shimmer in the sunheat.

Patrick takes the asphalt, flicks his racket around by its handgrip as though refamiliarising himself with the palmfeel for the first time in a while. Which—well—doesn’t give you confidence, at risk of contesting Julie Andrews.

He practices his serve. Starts to work the ball up and down the court. Hits a few forehands, a few backhands.

Then,

“He was lying,” he yells to the bleachers.

The bleachers are mostly empty. A few errant loiterers. Bored spectators who have finished their lunch earlier than their friends. What have you.

He’s looking at you, though. With a staggering precision from so far away.

“What?”

“That guy. He was lying. Or… bigging it up. Or whatever. I wasn’t really something, I was just decent.”

He strikes a ball over the net. You can see, from here, the vibration ricochet through the racketstrings with a shudder that has you expecting music to flutter out.

You lean back in your seat, sort of sliding down against the glossy plastic, a tremor of induced electric tickling your bum through your jeans. You cross your arms.

“That’s kind of bullshit,” you call out.

He spares you a glance, sort of doubletakes, and you can see the corner of his mouth tremble with intrigue.

He takes another ball from the basket. Tosses it up. You watch the neon starsphere spin fleetingly in the air before being walloped to oblivion. And what do you know of tennis? But you do think his serve is a thing of beauty. Beauty measured in power and precision, sure (he hits the ball straight and hard and fast and low, just barely clearing the net), but you can also see the way his muscles work beneath his skin. Which—you know.

Patrick walks to the fence that partitions the courts from the stands. He leans over, rests his arms on the palisade, and looks at you.

“This was the whole problem,” he tells you, “Everyone was always telling me how good I was. And it got to my head. And now I’m here.”

It’s a shabby imitation of humility. What it really is, is an attempt to scale down the apogee, so the fall seems less mythic. So the years seem less unkind.

“I didn’t come here to watch you sulk just because some guy was nice to you.”

Patrick grins. His cheeks are flushed with heat, and there are little spots of sweat on the hollows where his skin and bones meet. But he seems to know not to exert himself fully right now.

“You think I’m sulking?”

“I think you seem pretty torn up for a guy who’s going to play a thirty minute match, and walk away a few hundred dollars richer.”

He makes a noise like you’ve wounded him, but he seems elated.

“A few hundred dollars?” he says, raising his brows. “So you’ve lost your faith in me.”

“I have some,” you allow, and you’re not surprised to find that you really do. “Just don’t choke.”

Patrick wears the smile of a newly crowned Miss Universe. He looks touched that you’re being so frank.

“I won’t,” he says, with a sense of finality and what you feel is an incongruous tenderness. “I’m pretty good at dealing with pressure. My parents always used to take me to work with them and tell employees to come to me at random intervals with madeup highstakes scenarios. Like, pretending to have a breakdown, and saying they needed me to help them out and make the final decision. Some of them could cry on command.”

You try and fail to hide a look on your face that divulges how demented you think that anecdote is. But you try to find something neutral to say.

“Well, maybe you’re lucky,” you tell him. “I was horrifically nervous as a child.”

“Not anymore?” he asks, swinging his racket idly, and you get the sense he’s actually very interested in how you will answer.

So it’s hard not to answer him honestly.

“I don’t know,” you say finally, and you look away from his eyes, and instead at the sky. You’re alarmed to find they are precisely the same tincture of aegean. “Mostly not. But if I have to give a presentation or speak up in a meeting, I have to take one of those beta blockers, you know? Propranolol?”

You are stricken, at odd moments, in New Rochelle, in Massachusetts.

You get the sense that he’s trying to be cavalier. But, at the same time, there’s this unmistakable fragility about him. Like it wouldn’t take much to knock him down.

You are stricken by how he’s managed to maintain this cocksure swagger for so long. With such a brittle, aching core.

How easily it all might’ve been shaken by the wrong person, and the wrong word.

You love the smell of your dear kitty’s head right after a bath. The fluff of dandelions and baby bird. You love toweling her, taking her little paws in your hand and prying the toes open.

Toby pretends not to like being fussed over, but she doesn’t put up much of a fight. In fact, most nights, she falls asleep in your arms.

When he pays you the visit, Ms Tobes is breathing evenly in your arms, your thumb caressing the organtender slope of her silky head.

You open the door, and great weeping gales have been jostling your windows all evening. But he is in shorts.

Patrick’s been in New England for nearly a month.

There’s an odd sort of look on his face, and an unlit cigarette behind his ear.

Hands in his pockets, he leans against the door frame, staring down at you. You feel a remarkable heat radiating from the downy flesh of his bare legs.

He doesn’t seem confident, nor does he seem unperturbed. He seems… pensive and maybe even penitent, but he wears it with a fascinating poise. There’s still something wounded and vulnerable about the way of his shoulders, the slant of his mouth. It's the softness that kills you, anyway, you think incoherently. 

You peer up at him, dubious, through the briar of your lashes. He looks down at Toby, at the sweep of your finger over her head. You do not know if it is he or Toby who purrs.

When he speaks, he is whispering very softly, though there’s a frayed, low seep of his voice in his throat. It feels revoltingly intimate.

“When Patrick died,” he says, “The cat. I felt so shitty. I had this weird feeling of—like—I don’t know. Shittiness. Because of how Sassy said what she said. You should’ve said goodbye. What am I supposed to do with that, y’know?”

You swallow. The hallway is so vacant and noiseless you can hear the plush shuffle of his running shoes against the carpet. Dutifully beyond the boundary of your home, even though he’s been here quite a few times now.

“Patr—“ you croak.

“I’m not in Massachusetts for a game,” he tells you, shrugging hopelessly and almost smiling. But failing to. Which you register. “There’s no challenger in Boston. There’s just you. In Wellesley. All these… fucking ponds everywhere. Private schools. Bunch of rich little assholes who need a tennis coach, I bet. All these res—fuck. You know,” he shifts, taking the cigarette from his ear and gesturing with it between the two of you, “We’ve been out, like, twenty times, since I’ve been here, and there’s still, like, fifty restaurants we haven’t been to.”

You stare up at him. Your palms, where they cradle Toby, grow damp. The throbbing organ of your heart takes up residence in your throat. There’s a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall.

You lift one trembling finger to your lips.

Please, don’t say anything else, you beg with your eyes. Please, not in front of Toby.

Patrick’s eyes glint ruefully. Almost ominously. He seems insulted by your gesture, but he understands. He always understands. He never holds anything against anyone.

“No need for that,” he says very quietly. “I come in peace.”

He moves closer, breaking the enclave where the carpet of the hall meets the vinyl of your floor, until he is inches away.

A head taller, yet shrinking, as if you were seeing him from across a room.

He smells very good today. He smells like spice and bergamot and the laundered fabric of his navy blue halfzip. You sort of miss the musk. Of course you think of New Rochelle. You think of Bob Dylan and Hello Kitty and thermostats. Fucking Sally.

You lift your chin.

“I’m not asking you to—“

Patrick leans forward, his nose touching your nose.

“I’m gonna do the tennis,” he speaks the words into your mouth, voice like gravel melting in the sun.

You part your lips. A part of you hates him, hates how he’s insinuated himself in your life without warning. Another part, however, is asleep and betrays you.

He shushes you, though you’re sure you haven’t said anything. It’s just that you’re crying now. Completely still and silent. Weeping like the dead, because the dead weep, too.

He shakes his head, his nose brushing over yours, says shhh like you’re a cat, and, even then, Toby only stirs between your fingers.

“It’ll be good,” he says, and you’ve heard him sound convincing. You know that right now he sounds… something else. And he’s still shaking his head as he whispers, “It’ll be good, I’ll be good. I have a coach, I’m not done, I love the tennis.”

You look up at him. Lick your lips, which, when you’re so close, also means sort of licking his. Sort of licking into him. You want to say, fuck your tennis and fuck you too, but you also want to fuck him and you want to fuck his tennis, too.

You think of New Rochelle.

Patrick’s hand meanders upward toward Toby, and, if his cigarette was lit, you’d see sweeping coils of smoke floating heavenward.

It isn’t lit, but still.

You catch him quickly. You hold him by the wrist.

His skin is nauseatingly warm.

“You love it?” You sound unimpressed now. Your mouth moves over and around and against his as you speak.

“I do.”

“You love it, you love the tennis?” You’re sort of spitting it at him, and he tastes it.

And he thinks of Patrick the cat, how he lay there and was mauled. Pinned down. He thinks he’d let you draw blood, now, if you really wanted to.

“Tennis doesn’t love you.”

“Do you?”

There is time enough for you to answer. But when a sound is finally made it is only Toby, who mewls.

Patrick smiles. You feel the seam of his lips touch your lower teeth. “Didn’t think so.”

He straightens, his lips swiping your nose on his way up. He gently removes his arm from your grasp, your nails scraping is skin.

You exhale sharply. You feel stung.

Poor Toby, caught between your beating hearts. Patrick steps away. He places the cigarette between his lips, and then you do not stop him from touching Tobes. He strokes her gently.

“You got a lighter?” he asks around the cig.

There are three aflame candles in your home right now. He can smell the vanilla. You shake your head. He smiles again. Toby purrs. Patrick’s fingers touch yours between the heather fur.

You feel a strange ignition in your bones.

The game begins.

Everything is quick and violent.

You don’t know if tennis is actually quick and violent, or if that’s just him.

You are astounded by just how much a man can sweat. You are spellbound by the visceral implication of being drenched in one’s own exertion.

Gonzalez is younger. A little bit more thrilled to be here. And he’s got the kind of easy, quick thoroughness that means he probably practices with a ball machine at home, but not a lot of real experience.

Patrick makes brutal work of him.

There is a certain way his muscles tense through his forearm and the pulse travels up his bicep when he strikes the ball. His shirt rises as he twists to send it flying over the net. There is so much laboured breath and dripping skin.

He has you sit exactly where you sat during warmups.

Between sets, he extends his arm, taut and sweatsoused, and points to you with the scratched edge of his racket, one eye closed like he’s mapping trajectory. And he does sort of have this bloodhungry precision in his gaze, like a marksman.

You feel it in your neck, the ache of your focus, how your eyes water for lack of blinking as you swivel your head side to side. You do not close your mouth once.

He hits the ball again, and then again. Each with an almost startling accuracy. Each with a deep and fleshsatisfying thwack that makes your very ear canals thrum with the sort of pain that has you expecting the warmth of dripping crimson on your shoulders.

But it’s not just the force that strikes you. It’s that precision. That bulletgleam precision.

He seems to know, with a profound, animalic certainty, exactly where to place each shot.

At times, they will land exactly where the last landed.

And by the time his adversary cottons on, he has set his hungry eyes upon another target.

It’s beautiful.

You start to wonder if you have ever—ever—looked so fucking beautiful doing any single thing in your life. This strange and beautiful violence. Refined and delicate violence. He is violent and graceful.

Patrick groans when he hits the ball. Makes a guttural sound, a pained sort of sound, like he loses something of himself with each forceful departure.

The sun beams down, and you see his beautiful legs flex aglow with the beautiful gleam of his abject labour.

You think, fuck—

New Rochelle is beautiful.

“You know, I could have gone pro.”

Sam leans back in his Herman Miller chair. Takes a deep quaff of his coffee before pointing to Deirdre with his mug.

“You played for two years in middle school,” Deirdre deadpans, her gaze unmoving from her monitor as she populates a spreadsheet with who the fuck knows.

“This is huge, D,” says Sam, unhurt, “This is like if Jamal Mashburn started coaching the fuckin’ nobody that demolished LeBron at the Y.”

Deirdre seems to have forgotten this analogy, which, for her part, Sam first made months ago now.

“But also if Mashburn was married to Lebron,” adds Sam.

Your computer screen casts depressing polygons across your glasses. You slide your AirPods in. You don’t want to know where Bob Dylan will appear on your Spotify Wrapped.

I met one man who was wounded in love. I met another man who was wounded in hatred. And it’s a hard, it’s a hard— It’s a hard, it’s a hard—

It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Let's talk about zoo animal welfare for a second...

(And I want to preface this by saying I have a 4 year Bachelor degree in Animal Science (focusing in welfare and behaviour with a major in Canine and Equine Science) before I got sidetracked into zoo animals and did 3 internships working with wild canids, ungulates and marine mammals - this involved both hands on behaviour modification/desenitisation as well as hands off behavioural observation and welfare study. I worked for 2 years as a marine mammal specialist and worked specifically in facilities to improve husbandry, behavioural training and welfare practises.

I also worked in a facility in the Asia Pacific, working to improve welfare standards for bottlenose dolphins and continued to work with cetacean welfare researchers after this. I also did a course in zoo management, husbandry and welfare and this involved working in an accredited zoo facility learning things like exhibit design, behaviour management and husbandry with multiple species.)

So a few points to say about zoo animal welfare when discussing zoo standards and practises:

The average person does not have the expertise to do behaviour observation and welfare evaluation in zoo animals - that's why when the general public visits a zoo and says "the animal looks sad" it's worth being skeptical of that claim. But it doesn't mean a gut feeling about a zoo's quality can be completely invalid. Just that it might be worth researching further or seeking more information.

However, with experience, it is possible to analyse behaviour in the context of welfare. And context to that behaviour is always important (for example, Moo Deng showing stress related behaviour towards the specific context of being touched or followed around by her keeper - very much an indication of poor handling practises)

Poor animal husbandry and welfare is not limited to specific countries or regions, however it can be more normalised and accepted under the influnce of cultures and laws. Or even just the culture of the zoo itself such as the "this is the way we've always done it" places.

Being an accredited zoo is a start to good welfare, but it doesn't make any sort of welfare concern obsolete. And accreditation is supposed to ensure that welfare concerns are addressed but because they are mostly run as a volunteer based organisation, they often don't have resources to check into every concern (unless it's a government funded organisation)

A zoo contributing to conservation research is great, but not if it is at the expense of the animals' welfare - welfare should always be prioritised, with research and conservation efforts to follow.

Welfare is a state that is in flux. So a negative welfare state can move into positive welfare state under different influences.

There are multiple factors that influence zoo animal welfare: enclosure/habitat, expression of natural behaviour, guest interaction, diet, enrichment, water quality, hygeine ect. It'll rarely just be one factor, though it does depend how salient that factor is.

Just because a keeper or management of a zoo have been there for a long time, doesn't mean they can't be criticised - it is possible to be still using outdated practises and believing in methodologies and management practises that need updating - that's the whole point of continued education

Having limited resources can often impact welfare. Giving a facility the resources they need to improve is a good start to improving welfare.

Even if an animal is being handled in an inappropriate way for a short time, that doesn't mean that can't have long term implications for welfare eg. if every time your dog jumped on you when you got home and you smacked him in the face once before going on with your day, that doesn't mean that your dog won't learn negative associations with your arrival just because it was one time.

Best practise husbandry of zoo animals involves:

Use of positive reinforcement based voluntary husbandry and health care

All interaction based on choice and voluntary interaction that is reinforced with primary reinforcement such as food

Mostly hands off approaches for the species that require them (ungulates, large primates, large carnivores)

Relatively stable social groups with aggression only in specific situations/contexts that are normal for the species

Back areas for animals to rest outside of public view

Species appropriate habitats to meet species specific behaviour requirements

Five freedoms of welfare being met but goes above and beyond the bare minimum

Poor zoo animal husbandry involves animals:

Being forced into anything such as presentations, education programs, medical procedures/gating

Any use of physical punishment such as chasing, slapping, pushing or poking - negative reinforcement such as bull hooks are also fairly outdated in handling species like elephants

Being excessively handled, chased and touched/restrained for no reason (eg. for social media videos)

Showing signs of avoidance and aggression constantly towards their keepers

Have constant conflict happening in their social groups

Are living in enclosures that are not suitable for their specific specific needs - size is only one factor in this. Substrate, habitat design, water quality ect. are also things to consider.

Are too close to the public/at risk from the public

Have no areas to retreat from the public/rest away from potential stressors

Have no enrichment program/no daily enrichment

Those are all flags that there could be some poor welfare happening and that a zoo is not prioritising welfare

Okay there's the ramble of the day done. Feel free to ask questions for further clarification if needed.

[sugar-crash]

🍬King Candy (Wreck-It Ralph) x (gn) Reader👑

(Beginning Relationship Pt. I Edition!)

(I thought this song would be fitting considering King Candy’s voice is based on the vocal performance Ed Wynn did for the Mad Hatter… That and its… Nostalgic🔑 [I saw the animation meme culture rise and fall.] lol)

- So, as we all know, the more unpleasant parts of his personality (which could tie him to Turbo) are suppressed, and hidden, though they can still peak out when he’s feeling particularly malicious.

- He’s a slime, a real manipulative rat who’s so sure he can keep everyone in the dark, who takes it slow with you at first to try to maintain his hard work.

- There’s a clear wall between what he displays in front of others and how he is, just the way he likes it, but honestly— If you mean so much to him, you get a weird mix of the two (well, more than usual), a kind of sweet goofiness that’s followed up with a snide remark about being the most skilled in some specific topic.

- Again he’s not the best lover, though from his previous indiscretions he has learned to be more open to others feelings— But only for your sake, mostly cause he can’t stand anyone else besides you…. And Sour Bill sometimes, but he’s mostly the personification of a minimum wage worker.

- Spending time together after hours is a must, though he’s more understanding now than he was before, not demanding every moment of your time but relishing whenever you do.

- I think all that time alone before Sugar Rush got plugged in made him lonely, and less stubborn to admit that he wants that comfort from someone else.

- I don’t think it’s much of a far reach when I say maintaining the King Candy persona is something he is very fluid in, but it’s exhausting at times.

- When he gets that seldom time alone without any of his kingly duties he finds himself yearning for your comforting touch, that stubbornness making way as he makes Sour Bill retrieve you.

- I can see moments between the two of you to be on the tamer side, not as many arguments like Pre-RoadBlasters, little to none really, but there are these tense moments where you ask him something a little too close to home and he becomes stiff in your arms if only for a brief moment.

- As much as he wants to be, not only for himself but maybe even you— He isn’t perfect, he isn’t the person he tries so hard to be, that gleeful and peppy voice going flat the second he isn’t feeling it anymore.

- It becomes apparent the more you know him he’s far more serious than he lets on, puffing his chest up slightly when things don’t go his way and he has to play dirty, which he’s certainly no stranger to...

- In comparison to himself when the arcade first ever opened, he’s certainly grown from that childish hatred, for better and for worse.

- He’s more affectionate for one, providing you with comfort fitting to how you are feeling at that moment, little compliments, and gestures of affection to quell your anger and anxiety in a matter of seconds.

- Quick to learn every little thing about you to make sure he’s able to relate to you, though his intentions with this information go back and forth.

- He wants everything on a silver platter, not only for himself but also for you, making the other subjects of Sugar Rush bend over backward for you, even when you object to all the attention.

- I think one of the ways he dotes on you in a way is date planning, various areas in Sugar Rush vary which can be very nice date spots… He seems like the picnic blanket and tea liker as King Candy, as stereotypical as that is lol.

- Though if that isn’t your style, he can always do dates at the castle, like baking— chatting the night away, it’s the simple things in life <3

- Even with his character growth he is far from a good person, which we all know and love for the most part. He’s fully aware that the things he does to bar you, Venallope, the Sugar Rush inhabitants, and even the arcade entirely is cruel, spiteful even. But what could he have done? Let himself fade into obscurity and be characterized after one of his biggest mistakes?

- No, no, not when he still has so much to provide— He’s a person, just like everyone else, better yet he was programmed to be better. Why should he stand aside and let the world spin without him? Why should he look at you from afar when he has every right to want you?

- That’s part of the reason why he’s so adamant about keeping his spot as the monarch of Sugar Rush, he’s the rightful ruler after all.

(Cr cqh’r lncp, hjw cq cr?)

[genderfluid-insomniac]

little regressor reader with wukong and macaque oneshot

You occasionally forgot that sometimes both of your boyfriends stop by without telling you and of course, it had to be the one night you were regressed. Your favorite soft blankets are on the floor with one of them hanging over you like a canopy and one of your favorite plushes in your hand while you watch your favorite movie you watched during your childhood. Your mind is preoccupied with the colorful pictures flashing across the screen on your laptop. When you felt your mind start falling into that fuzzy place you quickly got changed out of your professional work clothes.

The soft and fuzzy fabric clothes eliminate any overstimulation and the yummy snack in the big bowl in front of you with a bag of candy you’d gotten as a reward for all the overtime you had worked this week on the side. When you’re regressed you’re usually non-verbal and have around a 6-year-old mindset but the only ones who even knew were Mei and MK who accidentally found out. The only reason they even found out was that you weren’t answering their texts and burst into your apartment only to see you in your living room watching Bluey happily.

The happy mood quickly changed when you started tearing up and ran into your room hoping that both of you could forget the last couple minutes, it only took a couple of minutes though for them to convince you it was okay and remember you were still regressed. For the next hour, Mei played puppy videos for you while she stopped MK from eating all of your snacks and eventually bingeing a whole season of Monkey King the Animated Series which was mostly MK’s idea. Usually, whenever you felt like you were slipping you would call those two but both of them were busy so you decided to set yourself up with a movie and such for the night.

You ate another piece of candy and were more focused on the movie you were watching when you heard a knock on your window, turned to it with your soft plushie in hand, and locked eyes with both of your boyfriends. Panic shot through you and in an instant, you grabbed your phone, ran into your closet, and shutting it. Wukong and Macaque came over to hang out with you since this week had been busy for all of you but they hadn’t expected this.

Of course, both of their first thoughts were that you were adorable in that outfit and it only made them want to cuddle you even more. “Sunshine, what’s the matter? It’s just us.” the king asked in a concerned tone. However, when they saw you cry in shock at you seeing them Wukong climbed through the window while Macaque portaled in and crouched next to the closet. “What’s wrong, lotus? Is everything okay?” he asked softly and knocked gently on the door. You couldn’t help the whimpers that came out and shakily found Mei’s contact, slowly typing the situation and wiping the tears falling down your cheeks.

Wukong had crouched next to Macaque outside the closet and looked around your room, noticing all the comfy blankets and pillows that created a safe and cozy vibe. It was endearing and frankly adorable to them both but you were in distress and that took priority over anything. You hiccuped but called Mei and put her on speaker as instructed. “It’s alright, Name. I promise that they both won’t judge you and if they do I’ll test if they really are immortal.” Mei said and growled through the phone. Both monkeys stilled when they heard Mei’s threat and Wukong started sputtering out that he’d never judge you only to be hit in the head by the warrior beside him.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed tiredly. “Let the dragon girl explain before we go jumping to conclusions.” he groaned and sat down a foot away from the closet, Wukong following him and watching you crack the door open just a bit. You could make out both of them through your tears and slide the phone to them, holding on tight to your plushie and hoping Mei would take care of everything despite not being there. “First off, Name I’m sorry MK and I couldn’t be there and could you pretty please open the door enough to let them see you? Could you also knock when you’ve done it?” she asked and waited till you knocked after opening the door enough, still curling in on yourself and flicking your eyes back and forth.

”Good job, Name! Such a good job!” she praised and you smiled a bit, rubbing your cheek with one hand and sniffling. “Secondly, this is for you both, this is a healthy coping mechanism called age regression that’s used by people who suffer from different kinds of trauma and people mentally and emotionally return to a younger age. It’s not often seen as “normal” by society because people are jerks but the age ranges from person to person. Name is usually around the age of 6 or 7 and normally non-verbal when they regress.” she explained and you teared up again when Mei mentioned how trauma is often a cause, tightly hugging your plushie and staring at the phone when you felt both pairs of eyes on you.

Both simians’ hearts sank when she explained it as a coping mechanism for trauma and how it must have been weighing on you if either of them found out. Macaque got the general idea of it and now understood why you hadn’t spoken at all, interacting wouldn’t be an issue since he was already good at reading micro-expressions and smiling softly at you from across the phone. “Okay, I think I get it now. It should be easy hopefully to pick up from where they left off before we got here and I’m guessing that they’ll be more emotionally sensitive,” he asked and nodded when Mei confirmed as Wukong looked at you with pity.

It must have been nerve-racking keeping this big of a secret from them both and he couldn’t be mad at you for something this safe to you. His tail lay limp on the floor as you tentatively looked up with tears sometimes falling down your cheeks and he reached out a hand before stopping since you still looked a bit scared. The tough chest armor he was wearing didn’t help him seem cuddly and he took it off before leaving in a random corner of your room, standing up much to his partner’s chagrin and walking over to snatch a couple of candies from the bowl you had. “What you doing? Were you listening to anything of what Mei said?” the shadow monkey asked annoyed.

The king carefully sat back down next to him and gave him one of the pieces of candy he had. By now Mei had hung up and given you the phone back. “I was listening and I’m going to help them calm down!” he retorted and popped one of them in his mouth. As expected it tasted tasty and he looked toward Macaque who also copied him, humming when he ate it and shifting his gaze toward you. You pouted when your boyfriend stole three pieces of your favorite candy and narrowed your eyes when Wukong offered the third piece to you.

“Why don’t you have some? It’s yummy!” he said and further stretched out his hand to you, “Also sorry I technically stole it.” You carefully to the candy from his hand and popped it into his mouth while both monkeys bickered with one another. “Wow, THE Great Sage apologized for stealing?” Macaque sassed him and dramatically put a hand on his chest while you unwrapped the candy, smiling at them both and slowly shuffling over to Wukong. You climbed onto his lap and left your plushie on the floor so you could squish his face with both hands. “Wu Wu” you murmured and cooed which got the attention of both lovers.

They both looked at you as they talked to one another while you stayed confused but happily played with the loose bits of clothing. “Didn’t Mei say they didn’t speak when they regressed?” Wukong asked with a raised brow and briefly glanced at you who didn’t seem to have a care in the world at the moment. “No she said they’re normally non-verbal but seeing as we’re their lovers I’m guessing this is going to be usually as it goes. Your nickname is cute though.” he teased him and you then sat on Macaque’s lap, ignoring the eye roll he got. You got distracted by the very soft fabric of his scarf and nuzzled your face into it. “Mac.” you murmured and decided that it was better than most of your blankets.

Wukong started laughing richly and quickly moved to the nearby laptop and unpaused to the movie when Macaque portaled you both over to the blanket-like nest, moving you to face forward and letting you have his scarf while you were regressed. “Someone’s soft aren’t they?” Wukong teased back and wrapped his tail around your waist, ruffling your hair and passing the snacks to you. He then remembered you had dropped your plushie on the ground when you went to hug him and went to get it however you whined when he got up. Both of them found it adorably cute and you gripped his shirt, looking at him and tugging him back to you. They would look forward to this every time you regressed.

[speedofsoundsketches]

I personally believe if Idw wrote Maria that way and they said "we're just expanding on the character " fans would throw a fit. Dont get me wrong, the Sonic Ova will always remain superior to whatever American Sonic story product comes out. But cant help there seems to be a lot of forced hype over a short manga that's just mostly okay with a lot of flaws.

I can only speak for myself but part of my major problem with IDW is that the attempts to “expand on the characters” are usually by making them speak out loud their thematic modus operandi instead of allowing things to be said on a subtextual level. It’s why Sonic expositioning on his “le principles” sounds insanely forced because he’s never done something like that in the games or at least, never required an essay worth of words to do that. In the games, this is done by letting characters speak through actions first and punctuating that with clear, concise statements during peak moments of clarity. Sonic simply saying “What you see is what you get! I’m just a guy who loves adventure!” after going through an entire game of him showing us this about him is more convincing than long prose on why he thinks everyone should live exactly like he does in a holier-than-thou manner. (Which is such an antithesis of Sonic’s character in the games, he is far more humble and intuitive than ppl might expect.)

The manga did imo a better job of not only writing Shadow than he is in IDW but it was all largely game compliant. Nothing in it really contradicted anything already done in the games in terms of characterization. It just feels like “more of the same” but now we get to see some of the sad, bittersweet and touching sincere friendship between Shadow and Maria, plus the foundation of all the tense internal conflict and insecurities Shadow will have to face and eventually make peace with. Plus my goodness, the RANGE of emotions he has and that he’s not some completely unreachable hardass but has complicated and deep emotions. Plus the action in it? Ooooo stunning. Him knocking out soldiers and stopping a bullet all while tying it with emotional internal declarations he was struggling with and determining that he does still have purpose even if curing Maria failed is so PALPABLE. STANDING OVATION.

His beautiful thoughts on Maria and what she means to him after she dashes away all his fears that she sees him as a tainted experimental animal like the other scientists did when facing their doom like bruh I’m in tears. It’s so well interwoven with the outward kinetic battle and leaves enough room for that which is left unsaid. Shadow speaks through his actions more than words but his thoughts and feelings just heighten the emotional peaks in this short story.

It’s not perfect but this is literally all I’d ever want. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not actually that difficult to please. Just write characters as they are in the games and I’m happy!

[kiame-sama]

do you regret making some of the TWST boys certain creatures and not others? Just curious since so many of them seem to fit so well

(Me bitching about my own ideas, so if you want to see what creatures I was stuck between and why I went with other species, feel free to read on!)

I wish I made Deuce an egg-eating lizard because of his actual obsession with eggs, but I wanted him to be similar to Ace so they could clash/compliment one another better. Satyrs and Fauns are typically seen as interchangeable minus the cultures they originate from depicting their tempers towards Humans as different with Fauns typically being the helping kind and Satyrs being the tricksters.

I also wish I made Cater a fox or a kitsune because it makes more sense than a water nymph given his sly nature and mischievous behavior. But I wanted him to be a water creature so that he can bother Trey on land and in water since Trey is a Kelpie and Cater is always going to accompany/bother Trey any chance he gets.

I contemplated making Neige a siren (going more for the bird-lady pesudo-harpy traditional siren appearance, not the mostly human appearance they have become in recent media), but I felt he was too cutesy for what was typically depicted as a sex icon so I figured it would be better story-wise and conflict-wise with Vil to make him a Harpy as well.

I almost made Divus a Jackal-headed hybrid (think Anubis but with the spots of a dalmatian) but his fur coat that he constantly wears screamed Selkie to me (and seals still call their young Pups, so it worked out really well).

I was tempted to make Kalim an otter based on Floyd's nickname, but that didn't make much sense for his arid home country and sand-themed dorm. Why not make Jamil take care of the most useless Genie to ever walk Twisted Wonderland when he so desperately wants and actual Genie (canon) that can perform magic at a high-level. Sucks to suck, snake boi, you now get to babysit a near useless air-head Genie who is only good at making an Oasis and messes up every other wish.

Some came with their beast halves already canon (Malleus, Ruggie, Leona, Jack, Azul, Floyd, Jade, Crowley)

And some were so close to an animal in their icons and behavior that they just had to be certain species (Lilia-Bat, Vil-Peacock, Jamil- Sand Viper)

Some I wanted to make different colors to match closer to their canon appearances (Vil= albino peacock) or even different subspecies (Neige= Willow Grouse) but later decided to override those ideas for different reasons. (Vil would NOT settle for being one color only and being so drab as to only have white feathers, he would dye them to look like a regular peacock) (Willow Grouse have funny and janky as hell calls, since he is supposed to have a lovely voice I decided to make him a Mourning Dove instead despite the color match of both summer and winter plumage for the Willow Grouse and RSA uniforms)

[dairy-farmer]

Significantly more gen than what I usually send, but consider this; in a lot of shapeshifter AUs that have Tim as a type of cat, they usually make him specifically a house cat kitten. I've seen it several times, usually in relation to a Titan's Tower AU so that Jason can have an 'OMG I was going to kill a baby kitten!?!' moment and adopt him. But I honestly find it a little annoying, because Tim is usually supposed to be 15-16, he shouldn't be a *kitten*, even if he is being neglected in the story! And I object to him being a common house cat!

Instead! I think Tim should be a black-footed cat 😎.(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-footed_cat). Black-footed cats are basically the smallest wild cat in the world (and one of the smallest cats in general), often being smaller than house cats (BFC are you usually 2 to 5 lb and about 14 to 20in long (not counting tail), while house cats tend to average around 6 to 12 lb and 15 to 26in long (not counting tail)). So even a mostly grown Tim would seem like a baby, plus their fur patterns don't look different enough to throw up red flags. But black-footed cats are the best hunters in the cat Kingdom, with a success rate of about 60% as compared to the 30% of house cats and the 50% of leopards and tigers.(Btw, the animal with the highest killing success rate is dragonflies at 97%)

I just love the thought of everyone thinking that Tim is this tiny little pampered house cat, when in actuality he is an incredibly fierce Hunter with a success rate higher than the overall average for mammals (about 50%).

This could be so good in a smutty context with people trying to molest him thinking Tim is an easy target because he's so small but then he wrecks their shit. Only *he* gets decided who's gonna fuck him! And his lover(s) being turned on by how he goes from a ferocious wild best to sweet purring lovebug when he's with them.

Justice for Vicious Tim who is only soft for his family/friend/lovers! I demand more Badass Adorable Tim!

~❤️🦇

tim as a blackfooted cat!! i once read how the biggest prey they can take down are sheep and they do that by getting under their stomachs and ripping out their guts because they're so teeny tiny <3 and tim!!!! canonically he's a little small and very young looking, often getting mistaken as a kid so him being a blackfooted cat and being mistaken as a kitten is so good 😍😍😍😍!!!!

[percyjackson-post]

What the Percy Jackson and Olympians characters would give as birthday gifts

Percy- A homemade baked good. That boy loves birthdays, and he loves baking; you will not convince me of anything else. He’s bringing something with far too much sugar and a truly concerning amount of blue dye. Most often his gift is blue cookies his mom helped him bake.

Annabeth- That girl is spending weeks agonizing over what to get. She needs it to be perfect, and she has to know you’ll love it. Which you will because she managed to track down something you mentioned 7 months ago that you think about constantly. It’s usually a very practical gift, but it is exactly what you need. One year it’s new headphones, another it's a brighter lamp; it's always something you want but can’t convince yourself is a priority.

Hazel- Hazel is making you a homemade card and a personalized drawing. She puts in so much effort, and it’s truly a beautiful gift. The minute she hands it to you, her eyes are shining, and she’s fighting back the biggest grin as she waits for your reaction. It will almost definitely be an intricate drawing of your favorite memory with her.

Frank- His gift is a small handmade trinket that took him a lot longer to make than he’d be willing to admit. It’s intricate and exactly your style. He looks a bit embarrassed and nervous as you open it, but then he's smiling and excitedly explaining exactly why he wanted to make it for you. It’s something like a wooden carving of your favorite animal or a new cover for your weapon. 

Leo- You never know what you’re going to get from him, but you do know it will leave you laughing so hard your sides hurt. It’s also a handmade gift, but it’s less personalized and more something Leo thinks is cool and he knows you’ll also like. The fact it may be a fire hazard is just a part of the charm. His gift is a small animatronic toy that can and will turn into a dangerous weapon.

Jason- He listens a lot more than you give him credit for. He will always end up giving you something super meaningful that will remind you of how much he cares. It’s not an extravagant gift; it’s something you’ll use a lot or will see constantly and smile to yourself as you’re reminded of the memory. It’s a weighted blanket for late nights or a new version stuffed animal you loved but lost.

Piper- Her gifts are always incredibly chaotic, but you realize there is a lot of thought put into them. She’s got a good memory and will pick something very specific that you mentioned off-handedly once. You don’t need it, but life will be a bit more fun with it than without. A ridiculous, bendy straw to drink from bed or a blanket that looks like food—truly,  you will never be prepared for what you get.

Thalia- She tries to be nonchalant, but she’s got a sly smile, and you can see how excited she is to give you a gift. It’s almost guaranteed to be a weapon, but it will be absolutely perfect for what you need. You can tell she spent a long time picking something out for you specifically, but she’s going to play it off like she just happened to come across it. 

Nico- Whatever he gives you will surprise you, that’s for certain. A lot of people joke that he’s bringing some basic dark gift, but that excited 10-year-old boy is still just as much a part of him, however. His gift is something you’ll be able to do with friends and something that will keep spirits high and laughter going. Often it is a card game that you can tuck away and take with you; he knows what it’s like to feel alone on a quest.

Will- He’s giving you a free pass to not be scolded the next time you end up in the infirmary. You need it. Kidding…mostly. He’s getting you something semi-specific from the mortal world that you can share with friends. Sometimes it goes with Nico’s gift, but it’s also something completely his own. A set of movie CDs, a giant container of popcorn (he’s not as stuck up on health as everyone likes to tease)

Grover- Enchiladas. It’s not even a question or hypothetical that guy is bringing over at least 20 cheese enchiladas from his favorite restaurant. You’ll be lucky if they last more than 10 minutes. They’re incredible, and even if you’ve had them 20 times you’re eating, them like the ambrosia of the god

[lilacxquartz]

TO SAVE A BROKEN SOUL • suguru geto x cursed spirit fem!reader

ao3 link • masterlist • < previous chapter • final chapter >

summary: trying to talk himself out of doing something he might regret, he attempts to get to know more about you.

Chapter 6. Origins

Almost as if refusing to let go of you after that moment, Suguru held onto you so tight as if he were about to lose you. With such care and love that he could have given to something human, but it was to something like you instead.

Despite everything, he still desperately tried to convince himself that there was something more to you than what you truly were.

Especially when he got lost in your void-like eyes again and again, staring as though into space and looking for a glimmer of hope, yet the stars didn’t quite exist.

“How old are you?” he asked after a while, quietly dreading the answer. Suguru knew that cursed spirits could look different like that.

“About… fifty, I believe,” you replied in a considerate hum, reluctantly accepting his attempt to make conversation with you. As long as he wasn’t trying to kill you actively, you supposed.

You didn’t quite know otherwise, but you remembered watching as the times at least somewhat changed.

Suguru blanked for a moment, his eyes glossing over your ageless skin. “I guess… you’re not human, so you don’t age the same way.”

A mutual silence was exchange between the two of you as he ran his fingers across your features, your eyes tracking him as he couldn’t help but explore.

Suguru wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for when he kept on touching you the way that he did, maybe though, he was trying to find positivity in you even if it didn’t fully exist.

In an attempt to break the silence as a means of understanding you further, he pulled you in just a little closer to his chest. “So, what have you been… doing… for the last fifty years?”

“Trying to stay out of the way, mostly,” you replied, a solemn look entering your features.

“Oh, yeah. That’s right,” he noted, his brows furrowing as he adopted a pinched look, some guilt manifesting as he remembered that just some time ago, you were quite literally a free spirit and he took that from you. “That’s what you tried to when you ran away from the temple, right? Tried to get out of my way?”

You nodded.

Pausing, he tried his best to steer the conversation forward. “Did you just live there and do nothing else…? Just roam around and hunt animals?”

“Yes,” you calmly nodded again.

“Sounds simple enough, maybe even boring,” he considered, unable to imagine such a lifestyle because he was still so very used to living in at least something that resembled a society.

You tried to retain a calm tone despite still feeling a hint of danger in the air, “It’s subjective.”

Suguru could only nod back, doing his best to understand. He tried to keep his tone as sweet as possible to retain your full attention despite something darker warring within him, even if it didn't make that much of a difference to you.

“Do you… remember how you were bor—how you… came to be?” he asked you, curious to know as much as he possibly could.

“It’s nothing extraordinary,” you replied, “I’ve just always been around. That’s essentially it.”

“You’re a special grade from what I can tell though, so your existence had to have been… materialised, only if you were born from something that had a lot of hatred within it,” he spoke.

You hummed in a curious tone. “Well, my origins come from a village but that’s all I know,” you thought about it for a second longer though, “it wasn’t anything special, but I could always find my way back home. Although, it seems to be destroyed now. Just ruins remain.”

Years ago, Suguru massacred a village to take on revenge for the girls he now treats as his own two daughters, a justified punishment well deserved to make up for the cruelty of non-sorcerers. He wondered if it was too much of a coincidence if it was the very same village he took down, or if it was too much of a stretch to consider. It would have been a sick, cruel joke if you were from that area, born from the heaping negativity and hatred forged from the very same villagers that he took down by his own hands.

A part of him refused to accept such a possibility and he quickly dismissed the idea in an attempt to convince himself that it surely couldn’t have been that very same village.

As he reflected on a conversation he had those same many years ago with Yuki Tsukumo, he recalled their discussion about cursed spirits and energy; about the symptoms of it and the root causes. Yuki had always been critical about how Jujutsu society merely addressed the symptom of the cursed spirit’s existence while she wanted to advocate for tackling the root cause. He, on the other hand, had always perceived cursed spirits as what they were; simply just manifestations of negative human energy and nothing more.

But then he had to go and meet you.

A thought slipped into his mind. Perhaps you were a consequence yourself of the village you were born from and should you be exorcised, then that would be just another instance of treating the symptom. Ironically, by massacring everyone in the village, he had unwittingly put Yuki’s research to the test by attempting to eliminate the cause. Yet, you still existed despite your home being lost to you and you weren’t mimicking the same hatred you were born within because you didn’t live in it.

This little tidbit of information made him feel suddenly uncertain, maybe just as lost as he was when he was just a teenager and still trying to figure everything out.

For example, he still hated those villagers with a burning passion even though he would never have to see them again and neither would the girls, but he still found himself liking you—someone who was born from likely the same sort of negativity—what a mind fuck this whole mess was.

And the more he thought about that period, the more and more confused he felt. Everything seemed to always lead back to the causes of cursed spirits and even now, as you lay beside him in his bed, your back pushed up against his chest, he had no real damn clue as what to really think.

“Do you feel any remorse for the people you feed from?” he asked, seeking to gain a new perspective from you. He had made a decision already, but wanted to hear it from your side.

“Yes… or something close to it,” you confirmed, “I don’t like doing it, that’s why I preferred to hunt in the woods.”

Suguru nodded, understanding properly now that you were indeed different from the villagers, at least in your own way. Maybe it hadn’t even been that village at all. He scoffed at the thought regardless; they wouldn’t have been able to create something like you.

Suguru held tightly onto you as he fell asleep, finding a strange sort of comfort when so relaxed in your presence.

Yet, you remained awake with racing thoughts going haywire in your mind, feeling completely and utterly restless.

You weren’t being confined in the pocket anymore.

So could you technically… just leave?

~~~

Slipping out while he still had his guard down, you crept out of his room, out of his house and raced towards the trees; back to the wilderness where you belonged.

You ran as fast as you could, your stealthy instincts allowing you move relatively unnoticed in the dark. It was how you hunted; by blending seamlessly into the shadows c but lately, you hadn’t had the chance to use it just as effectively.

Maybe you were becoming more human after all, desperate for a place to belong.

But it couldn’t have been back there.

So you attempted to leave, right then and there, blending back into the shadows and off into the inviting forest. The clothes that he had given you felt wrong on your skin as though posing as a constant reminder of the life you were so desperately attempting to flee from.

You missed everything about your own life, but especially just the simple act of being free.

Of being uncontained.

Settling quickly into the woods, you settled on a different forest so that if he chased you, he couldn’t find you so easily again. It wasn’t the same trees that you loved but you were at least finally far, far away from him.

For him to have called your old life boring, was nothing when compared to the life he forced you to endure as his prisoner.

Cursed spirit or not, you longed to be free and now, free you were.

Everything felt so right all of a sudden and you were desperately hopeful to settle back into a life that you loved. For the first time in a long while, you got to experience what it truly meant to be alive and it tasted sweeter than anything you had ever known.

Suguru woke up in the morning completely alone however with you nowhere to be seen or heard, but he knew you pretty damn well at this point and where exactly you would run off to.

He’d find you again, but this time, he wouldn’t let you go.

In the truest way and form.

~~~

this is part 2 of lilac’s bite sized yandere jjk nightmares

[allio-corporations]

Another Hannibal (Hannigram) AU:

This time a G/t au! Or more correctly, a plethora of supernatural (monster/magic) g/t AUs and just plain g/t AUs!

This is a comp of a few avenues of g/t Hannibal.

- Supernatural AU! -

This AU has supernatural creatures, and mixing of different creatures leads to some going underground/traits not present unless something triggers their dna to do so

Will has empathy based psychic abilities, along with some lineage(s) that may explain what happens to him in this AU. One of them being part Veela (think Harry Potter type lore for that creature)

Hannibal has heightened senses, more so due to his bloodlines. A lineage of Wendigo that reappears in the family when he’s forced to eat Mischa. The wendigo traits are able to maintained and keep him civil due to his diet and other lineages. Lastly, he has a third line of inhuman species, called Nephilim - meaning giants but also in some interpretations of the Bible and Torah, it means children of (likely fallen) angels + humans. - It’s giants that are born of angels and humans, but some of the traits go quiet for many generations at a time and can only be triggered in someone due to certain circumstances. It explains the success and power the Lecters had in their lives, both sides, and essentially ensured their nobility (also Nephilim were seen to use magic to change or use abilities other creatures had, but every magic comes with a price of course).

Other lineages types include:

Jack - some type of griffin-human

Bella - siren, think fish type that can go on land and into water whenever

Alana - Selkie (mostly human)

Beverly - Wraith

Jimmy Price - vampire

Brian Zeller - human

Freddie - nymph + banshee (fire based)

Chilton - goblin + fae

Francis (red dragon) - obviously a dragon hybrid (maybe one that’s not seen as very powerful but he’s able to essentially become more feral with each kill)

Abigail - Wendigo

GJH - Wendigo

Randal Tierr - werewolf-esq hybrid (wolf-bear hybrid)

Mason - shape shifter + pig-hybrid

Margot - shape shifter (did not get the expressed pig gene)

Peter - human (with strong abilities to work well with animals)

I’ll think up more of them later, or would welcome any alternative ideas for the side characters aka ones besides the murder husbands

Alright, so some head canons or background situations, and a few different timeline/alteration ideas (I’ll try to make sure I mark ideas for when I write for different jumping off points!)

G/t AU 1: Divergent point from the second half of season 2 (the cases are the same, but Will is convinced to drop accusing Hannibal entirely, and Jack/Fbi stops suspecting him, but don’t think Will was to blame either, they just think the encephalitis confused Will).

- so Will is genuinely connecting with Hannibal, but is still debating on if he’s going to try and take him out on his own or give in to his own wants.

- obviously some aspects of the supernatural exist in this AU

- we’re skipping over their development to this point bc maybe I’ll cover it later. But by now they’re on good grounds (honest with each other, Abigail is alive and they make it seem like the ripper or copycat (who the fbi doesn’t know) let her go similar to Miriam Lass). So the three get a murder family that isn’t fleeing the country yet.

- Beverly is also alive. She didn’t go to Hannibal’s house, and girlie is thriving. (She doesn’t fully suspect Hannibal, but isn’t as social with him now.)

- Hannibal still helps consult on occasion, Will is still helping Jack, but in his own terms now

- After Abgail goes off to college (girlie wanted to go abroad to escape this mess and good for her, we’ll see her later), there’s a new normal. Will is over more often, the dogs usually join him now, the two are kind of together. Others don’t know if they’re properly together, but they essentially are - even if they are still learning to communicate and work around/with each other.

Now we go to the case that starts the shit show;

During one case, one not shown in the series, making one up - Will is pursuing the suspect. Jack got his leg hurt and Will is just going for it bc doing bad things to bad people feels good (he’s being honest with himself and Hannibal, or trying to be, it’s progress).

During the pursuit, Hannibal is slightly behind Will, because of course Hannibal would rather see Will go feral/see what Will does to a suspect.

Perp is some type of fae, so enjoys causing issues and it killing people or greatly changes them. Has bags of powder, think like the Love god episode of gravity falls. But not for love, for chaos and making people be honest/situations kind of like jigsaw.

Perp can tell that Will and Hannibal are kind of together but yknow, they’re them, so he hits each of them with a powder during the pursuit. (Powder’s actions essentially can trigger dormant traits/lineages in person). So it acts the same but the outcomes depend on the person. And while creatures and such are accepted and fairly common, some lines and traits aren’t and haven’t been present since the beginning of recorded history essentially.

Will starts choking from it, Hannibal stops bc if he can’t watch Will further his becoming, and he’s actively in distress, why pursue the fae? So the beloved sassy science squad (this time Beverly), comes in with a great shot, and stops the threat. Doesn’t kill the fae, but he is apprehended properly.

Since both got that powder on them, medical checks out Hannibal and Will, doesn’t know what it is. They take samples, do some tests. Besides higher BP and fatigue the two are fine. So, the two head back to Baltimore until the next case or whenever Will would need something from wolftrap. They think this case is done. They were very wrong.

At home, the two are making dinner and discussing the case. Hannibal is cooking a roast of loin and rump (from a very vocal pig who unapologetically spilled a hot cup of coffee on Will during a previous case). While Hannibal is down in the cellar picking out a wine, he hears a clatter, crash, and yelp from upstairs.

Hannibal, who chided himself on letting Will sous chef while not feeling well, turns the corner, and can’t find Will. He knows he couldn’t have left, and there’s no one else there. No blood, no sign of struggle beyond a knocked over pot and two lids on the ground. The pot had been empty as well when he went downstairs, not even on the stove yet.

After a few more moments of investigating, and calling out for Will, he hears a response - muffled and soft but definitely something or someone calling out his name (though likely he wouldn’t have been able to hear it if he was human). The even odder thing is that the sound came from the pot on the island.

Hannibal lifts the pot, finding what he had hoped wasn’t true: Will, under the pot, on the island, barely more than 3.5 inches tall. Safe to say, Hannibal is amused, and slightly concerned, though has a good theory of what happened.

Realizing that he was right in his assumption on what could make up Will’s lineage, and the fact the powder probably caused this, Hannibal realized that he should start monitoring any changes in himself as well.

Will, on the other hand, is not having a good time. He’s already knows this wasn’t Hannibal, that it was the damn fae who did this, but can’t help the anxiety that is coursing through his veins. Despite being pretty sure that Hannibal wouldn’t harm him - at least to a point he can’t fix - his nerves were still fried due to sensory overload and giant cannibal whose pot he is under at the moment. Likely thinking back to the damn endangered songbirds Hannibal had drowned, plucked, cooked, and ate whole. The only solace Will has from the powder is that his clothes were also affected, preserving his dignity, at least for a time.

Cutting back to Hannibal, he too is remembering the songbirds they had eaten not too long ago. But, he quickly concludes that he prefers Will not on a plate (at least now).

Hannibal has also decided that if there’s anyway he could find that fae, once they figure out the powder composition, he’s definitely stealing his pancreas and lungs.

When the two of them come out from their mind palaces/mind scapes, they work on finding a way to communicate easily without Will going deaf or sensory overload occurring. But before Will gets a word in, Hannibal decides it’s time to relive his days in the medical field, which Will is not happy about. It occurs without real incident once Will just goes with it, knowing it’d be faster than mildly inconveniencing Hannibal’s speed.

The two decide on a mix of whispering and writing things down, with some universal signs or part asl to help as well.

While Will is still partly anxious about Hannibal finding the thrill of the chase when Will inevitably freaks out, Hannibal doesn’t have much of a bloodlust of thrill of the chase when the target can’t escape an area without help, that he is always in arms reach of (at least most of the time).

One aspect that worsens is the amount of cannibal puns and jokes Hannibal makes on a daily basis. (As in his mongoose has turned into a morsel for the snake(s)). Will is not amused.

Will is also not a fan of how cold everything is now. While he didn’t enjoy the night terrors and waking up drowning in his own sweat, being constantly cold if left without a heat source within his personal space definitely was a downgrade in a lot of ways. (Though he didn’t hate the fact that he got to spend more time with Hannibal.)

Jack and the gang do in fact get told a little later about Will’s condition. The pair had been laying low for about 2-3 weeks, trying to play by ear, and take this time to actually work through things, but Jack got nosey, and the cat was out of the bag (more so, Will was out of the pocket).

During those few weeks of working things out, the two actually start communicating like adults when it matters, and learn to work with each other in more domestic settings. (Though domestic, it’s not normal).

Hannibal does essentially spoil Will - new clothes (too many in Will’s opinion), rigs and set ups to move around more efficiently, more warm blankets/articles and heaters around the house to keep Will’s body temp safer, even getting custom made pieces of furniture and appliances, even custom dishware and tools. Because while Hannibal enjoys having Will rely on him, he knows Will and that eventually he’d go stir crazy.

So, to make Will not lose his patience, plus the amusing nature of the situation, Will tags along to Hannibal’s therapy sessions with patients (asleep/listening while in his desk or where his handkerchief resides). Then, Hannibal attends the opera a bit, slightly less than usual, during that time period, reserving out and entire higher up booth to him and Will, as to better enjoy the opera but also be able to communicate with Will when/if necessary. In return he concedes in secretly taking Will to a scene with him, Jack not knowing what’s going on in the slightest. The two do get to hear about updates on what the powder was. (Midwest in origin, a mix of different magic/properties. Definitely needs more time to study and interrogate the fae before Hannibal can throw another proper dinner party).

Hannibal over time does become more unrested, irritable with anyone besides Will. Will finds it endearing but slightly worrisome. It at least keep Jack off his back, to the point where he sends Hannibal footage and pictures for Will rather than try to force Will out there (lessening the chance of Hannibal losing it on Jack).

When the rest of group finds out about Will, they all take it differently. Jack is still too loud, overbearing, and rough (causing a nasty set of bruises on Will’s rib cage once), and it takes Will pleading with Hannibal to not kill and cook Jack by flaying his skin to stop Hannibal from dropping the mask when he found out. Jimmy and Brian are a bit better, too inclined to stare at Will like a lab rat, which isn’t horrible since both are fond of animals, but just feels demeaning. Alana overcompensates trying to act normal and overprotective, so careful to the point of forgetting Will’s still himself. Beverly acts pretty normal, enjoys joking and is more careful, but can read a room better than apparently a psychiatrist (Alana) and the head of the BSU. Will ends up enjoying Hannibal and Beverly’s company the most to no one’s surprise.

Since Will was past his encephalitis, and decided to not turn in Hannibal/accepted his growing becoming, it’s easier to look. But, he doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to. Jack can’t come and force him to do so, thanks to Hannibal. (If Will tells Jack he’s not feeling up to going/not feeling well, Hannibal takes his word for it and doesn’t take him to the scene. The crew won’t show up to try and convince Will, because Hannibal just won’t answer/repeats what Will said and excuses them out. Jack can’t even get them to budge.)

Though they two do visit the lab a fair bit to hear updates on the samples from the fae’s powder that hit them. Plus, do a basic physical and bloodwork once a week, usually if they’re already in the lab for a case. Will only lets Hannibal do his bloodwork, because of his surgical precision and as a form of trust. (Bc they are in the equivalent of a post fall communication era, but hiding in plain sight).

They find the powder isn’t entirely of fae origin, something from the Midwest, and a bit from the north east. Both of their vitals are steady. Will’s vitals come back faster, similar to small mammal’s in metabolism, need for heat, and just a faster heartbeat. Hannibal’s remains very similar to his base vitals, but they do notice while Hannibal’s vitals are normal and Will’s are faster, they’re still in sync with each other. (As in every fourth beat from Will, he and Hannibal sync up. Like a snare roll matching up and beating at the same time a timpani beats. Which I based off the study that couples who are shown to be in love/have high present levels of love hormones end up with matching heart beats/in sync with their partner). The science team find it endearing, Jack not so much, him and Alana are a bit unnerved.

Back to the boys: during the time Hannibal and Will are the only two (along with Abigail to an extent), know about Will’s condition, the two definitely learn to communicate. Because the first week consists of a lot of writing and whispering on Hannibal’s end.

During these early stages Hannibal takes it upon himself to get Will plenty of tools and day to day items. (Lots of clothes, with an accompanying wardrobe, his own bed which honestly doesn’t end up getting much use, small fashionable blankets to put around the house bc Will should not get cold when in this state, plenty of small appliances for hygiene and self care.) (Utensils, plates, kitchenware, furniture that matches the room’s aesthetic while still being comfortable, attachments to help Will get between rooms or on surfaces if need be, etc. But Hannibal still loves carrying Will around/having him within arms reach, and Will doesn’t complain much when Hannibal or eventually Winston carry him around. He hates being grabbed by essentially anyone or anything else though; enjoys being carried around by Winston but not the other dogs. Loves Hannibal carrying him around/Hannibal being the only person Will actively enjoys and seeks out to have physical contact with. He is okay with Abigail or Beverly helping him, but doesn’t like being held by them for long periods of time. Dislikes but tolerates Price (Jimmy) or Alana helping him out if needed. He actively avoids being touched or helped by Zeller or Jack, has risked falling multiple times just to avoid them bc his other options were not in the room or didn’t hear him. And the one time either of the Freddies, Lounds and Chilton, tried to be within a few inches of him, he nearly bit them before threatening to take a finger if they tried anything. Hannibal is was incredibly amused for the rest of the case.)

Hannibal doesn’t mind cooking the extra meals for Will, he enjoys being such a large part of Will’s day, especially considering the meals are just portioned smaller and last longer over time. Though he does let Will pick options more now bc not only is it their communicating + compromising era, but Hannibal is obviously simping for the Graham cracker.

First day, or partial day of this has Will trying to not retreat into himself. With Hannibal genuinely unsure of what do exactly do, because while he could never entirely predict Will, this is on another level.

Will, instead of running warm like he used to, now gets cold easily, so he’s essentially glued to either a heat source or Hannibal, usually the latter. And due to this, the first night, Will ends up sleeping with Hannibal (which would have been like normal for them, but due to circumstances, they had to rearrange). Pillow on Will’s side is swapped for a smaller pillow that won’t cause Will to easily roll off. Then temporarily until Hannibal can start spoiling Will, pocket squares and cuts of old fleece material (that had been packed away for Will to use to mend some of his fishing/outdoor gear) act as blankets. The pillow is set up near Hannibal’s head, and everything goes off without issue. Hannibal also turns up the heating in the house for him.

Even when Will gets proper bedding that is on Hannibal’s nightstand, Will ends up either in his old spot or on Hannibal (with Will refusing to move)

Should also bring back up the lineage stuff - Hannibal’s traits are usually muted, horns and such in one of his forms aren’t often present and usually Will is the only one to detect them, except for his eyes going red. Then he has the original wendigo shape of being longer and emaciated, which was what Will saw when he was sick in S1. Lastly there’s the incomprehensible form of being part nephilim, Will able to detect parts but doesn’t look at it fully, despite seeing Hannibal behind the human veil quite a lot. While Will’s eyes have a slight blue glow to them while he’s using his empathy in a controlled manner.

Hannibal ends up not being the only one with a slight thrill of the chase when Will darts around too quickly (Hannibal has enough self restraint and frontal lobe activity, unlike some, to not act on such impulses 99.99% of the time, at least not without thinking them through first). Jack ends up swiping at Will in the lab. Will had been pacing on one of the examination tables, doing his job. He had gotten lost in thought, and had begun to pace faster and look around the body more before he could zone in and “look”. As he’s turning to look the body in the face, Will sees something in the reflection of the table and a very quick shadow coming his way. Will scurried out of the way, ducking under the partially posed and elevated neck of the body he has been examining. As Will dove to hide, loud squeaks of shoes on the floor, and nearly incoherent rumbling from the others caused him to curl up and begin to lose himself/retreat inward. (Which wasn’t good considering he was just beginning to properly “look” at the situation for this case.)

Thankfully before the hand can reach where he has just been, a faster hand which had been the other mass in the table reflection grabbed the first wrist, twisting it sharply and efficiently. Jack had reached for Will, knocking over tools in the lab, unaware of his own actions/impulse. It wasn’t until Hannibal had quietly, near silent, grabbed his wrist, putting his body between Jack and Will, that Jack had snapped out of it. The rest of the crew were shocked, and a bit worried, not only for Will’s safety but also shocked by the actions of both Hannibal and Jack.

Once the commotion settled down, only then did Will even dare to look out, seeing Hannibal’s back to him, acting as a shield from the entire group. Jack not even being allowed to explain really. Will just quietly asking if everyone but Hannibal leave the room so he could focus, then he’d send over a report later. The team obviously complying, likely due to not wanting to further the situation, they waited outside in the hall.

When Hannibal walked out of the lab, the others noticed Will wasn’t in Hannibal’s hands or in his shoulder. They each had their own guess to what happened. Will hadn’t wanted to see or feel everyone’s eyes on him, especially Jack due to feeling fidgety still. So, he ended up hiding in Hannibal’s inner chest pocket of his suit, allowing him cover and not end up freezing.

Hannibal hadn’t let Jack even stop him as he walked out, knowing it may be rude, but nearly attacking an (unofficial but technical) employee was worse, he thought it fair to walk off, telling Jack he’d get the report and hear from himself or one of the others what the plan was going forward.

While it had been stressful, the two realized fairly quickly they’d both had such a strong reaction to Jack because not only is it a naturally stressful experience (mainly for Will) but also because it’s Jack. This being made more apparent when Beverly had suddenly moved to keep Will from falling off a counter in the lab a few weeks later - Will needing to just catch his breath due to nearly falling. Hannibal had still had a notable reaction though (shoulders slightly raised, more blunt in his tone at first, and moving closer to Will/acting as a barrier more so implicitly). Yet they didn’t leave suddenly and Will had continued his work that day fairly normally, with Hannibal remaining nearby, so not as nearly as strong of a reaction compared to Jack earlier.

This was further proven when Will decided that during a day in - more mundane and no cases, which was rare - that he’d get Hannibal to finally chase him. Will had been bored, unable to work on new lures, the dogs being in and out and besides Winston were too rowdy to safely deal with, and not much else to do. Will began to run around surfaces as Hannibal was reading. Thanks to the add ons Hannibal got so Will could move about easier, and using the coffee table, backs of furniture, etc. he was able to get Hannibal to silently set his book down. Hannibal could tell Will was enticing him, wanting to have a more physical recreation of their old “cat and mouse chase.” Which, who was he to turn down yet another surprise from Will?

Will would swear that if Hannibal had a tail it would have been swinging like a house cat tracking something, his eyes becoming an even more bloody shade of red. Once Will knew he had his attention, he took off towards the floor, where he knew he could get under furniture to prolong the chase. Hannibal, not immediately jumping up, rather watching to see his plan first, had toed off his shoes to be faster, then began the chase.

The chase and stalking lasted for about 15 minutes. During which Hannibal’s antlers had began to be visible, limbs looking more emaciated and longer, revealing that Hannibal was either not focused on maintaining his appearance during the chase or was shedding his human veil for the purpose of seeming more monstrous (possibly to make Will slip up). Didn’t matter which one it was, only that it was just them. Eventually, Will had given away his position on a bookshelf, and had no plan of escape. Will came out from behind the small stag sculpture on the shelf, allowing himself to get quickly swept up. By the time he was caught, Hannibal’s eyes were blood red, antlers longer than Hannibal’s forearms, and his limbs extended + emaciated, with his teeth sharpest they’d been in months. With a slight fuzziness around Hannibal, meaning he really hadn’t been keeping a lid on his veil or himself in check beyond his own nature.

Despite what should be terrifying, astronomically more dangerous than Jack’s mere swipe, Will wasn’t worried, wind slightly knocked out of him by the sudden grab yes, but not fearful. Once grabbed, Will saw Hannibal’s features spike then slowly fade back to what he looked like normally with his human veil tightly sewn on. Hannibal, surprised by how long the chase had been, remained somewhat hopeful that it wouldn’t be a one off thing.

The two going back to relaxing, this time in Hannibal’s study/library. Will going between curling up on the desk, next to Hannibal’s empty hand and book from earlier - Hannibal carefully helping Will relax by massaging the knots and kinks out of Will’s back to the point of him being putty. To then scurry to in crook of Hannibal’s neck & collar bone to lounge. Will moving around periodically to keep himself entertained until Hannibal was heading to cook dinner, once again one of Will’s favorites.

Of course their chases didn’t stop there, Will periodically deciding on days when they usually had little to do, he’d suddenly dash away, and their game would continue until one of them, almost always Will, got tired, or if Will reached a dead end. Then they would go back to what they were doing.

This was somewhat inconvenient at times. Especially when Will decided to run around Hannibal’s office shortly before a patient came in, Mason Verger.

Thankfully, Mason is too self absorbed to notice Will beyond asking Hannibal about his food preferences when he’d possibly picked up on a specific smell (which Hannibal thought he wouldn’t bc again it’s Mason, but because of his piggish nature, smell for him is increased significantly, nowhere near Hannibal’s but enough to smell Will and his, Hannibal approved aftershave/cologne). But beyond the rude remarks, he didn’t see Will quickly retreat to where Hannibal was, across the room. Both slightly tense, but unnoticeable to the untrained eye, until Will was again in Hannibal’s inner handkerchief pocket. With the appointment going the same as usual, Mason being insufferable for an hour.

All of this ends up paying off later during a case though - Jack insisting they join for the arrest, and Will feeling up to it putting them in that situation. In an old warehouse, with unsecured rooms, the assailant, a serial killer, another fae, using different people of different lineages to try and make…. Something. During the arrest, the two had walked in and the perpetrator lunged at Hannibal, causing Will to nearly fall off Hannibal, being placed down quickly as the attacker broke free from his cuffs to try and seemingly steal at least one of Hannibal’s eyes. Will had quickly gotten distance, knowing that he couldn’t fight back. But that mad dash took the assailant’s attention, causing an unprompted chase around the room. While it lasting for less than a minute, the moment the man had nearly grabbed Will before Hannibal had broken the man’s arm - from the bones near his second knuckle to the shoulder joint - and proceeded in dragging him away from Will had been tense.

The two left silently once they saw the man get loaded into an ambulance due to Hannibal’s interference.

Hannibal got a lot more…. Protective (well, possessive) over Will by that point, which didn’t seem to surprise the sassy science trio (more so Jack and Alana were surprised and off put to varying degrees).

They kind of settle into a new normal at this point. Well, normal for them, similar dynamic, but slowly becoming domestic bc it would be really not opportune to remove the scales from the other’s eyes about their nature at this point. So, focusing on finding out what happened/what the two were hit with, is the main focus while working with each other/learning how to be with one another.

Eventually, after enough tests are run and they’re waiting it to hear more news about what is found in the mixture, Hannibal is able to plan a trip to Europe, specifically Florence, with Will obviously accompanying him. While Beverly and Alan take turns watching the dogs. And on their trip, they plan to visit Abigail (she’s been let in on the situation but hasn’t seen the full on perspective).

They obviously travel private, thanks to Hannibal’s connections, and off the two went for a few weeks. And while doing tableau wasn’t out of the question, Hannibal having a set of drawings ready, they’d obviously have to be careful and not do an exact Ripper MO, but they both hoped that maybe this would help them clear their minds before anything else changed, since it seemed no new information would be found for a while.

(And while neither Hannibal or Will would admit it, at least not for a long while out loud, they were enjoying the situation to an extent, Hannibal more so than Will, and hoped that if they figured out what exactly this was, that they’d be able to find a way to control or at least use it again, if Will ever did return to his original state).

That is what I have for now, will definitely update this later. Let me know if yall got any ideas or suggestions to change some details or questions about plot points. This is mainly weeks of sleep deprivation in random bursts mixed with a few of my hyperfixations. I would love to hear some feedback! Thanks for reading.

[bi-hanslefttittie]

KHAOS REIGNS

Okay so I just finished playing the whole thing and finished the three towers for Sektor, Cyrax and Bi-Han (justice 4 him).

Spoilers Below:

My Thoughts (And prayers).

I'll confess that I cannot completely process what happened in the gameplay, my mind is still processing the fact that they killed Bi-Han and the fade to black. Uhhh so this will be mostly scattered points. I didnt feel like replaying for more screenshots but i will do my best with i could screencap.

OKAY FIRST I WAS JUMPSCARED BY HAVIK AS SOON AS I OPENED THE GAME AND THE INTRO PLAYED, WHICH IS PRETTY COOL ACTUALLY. I liked the change of pace we had and the overview is beutiful. The menu is pretty and the incorporation of the towers of Time was great. The new roster obviously is something I like. Also I really liked getting so many skins when I finished playing and the fact that there's new brutalities makes me very happy.

Kharacters.

Cyrax:

Apart from her design being gorgeous, I have a mostly positive opinion on her jugability. Her character was easy to pick up and play with, which made her very enjoyable. She is a noble person with determination and a personality. She is reluctant to follow orders she doesn't agree with and apologizes when she makes a mistake. I think her ending was nice. Her selflessness makes her very endearing and while I felt a bit awkward seeing her scenes with Kuai Liang, the rest was fine.

I came to realize that my issue with her scenes with Kuai Liang weren't so much about her, but the way Kuai Liang was behaving towards her and his brother. Weirdly unforgiving Kuai Liang made me cringe slightly when the scenes became corny and elongated. I think Cyrax as a character has a lot more potential and strength. Not only is she extremely talented and she was deemed honorable of an armor, but she's a confident woman that can throw shade when neccesary. I like that she never bites down an answer and speaks her mind. She has a kind nature but I PLEASE HOPE PEOPLE DON'T UWUfy her.

Another thing I would like to Pin point is how Cyrax prevented Harumi's death. Which I think is curious because Bi-Han was ALMOST responsible for her death. ALMOST.

the fact that she is so willing to die because of what happened is crazy. She's truly remarkable.

I just remembered the I am a human scene and it kinda tugged at my heartstrings considering the history of the character and I really hope she lives a long happy live as a human being... pretty please?

Also can I say how pretty she is????? Like she's gorgeous.

Her tower ending was nice, I like to see her accomodating to the Shirai Ryu and that it wasn't easy for her but Cyrax earned their respect in the end. Good for her!

im afraid of bugs so I can't say much of her Animality...

HER FATALITY IS KINDA CUTE NGL

SEKTOR:

Man, I said it once and I'll say it again. I really don't care if she's good, bad, neutral, i would die for this woman. The sentiment hasnt really changed for me, and I actually grew more endeared to this cocky confident warrior. She is very proud of her heritage and what her family has built. I'm sad we didn't see Madame Bo in this one though, I feel bringing up that Bo is her mom and then not making it important is a bit of a waste? But, yeah, the story wasn't really about her so...

For the most part I really liked her personality, the way her convictions don't waver although she is willing to relent if it is for the greater good (according to her). Sektor comes to me as a bit hypocritical but then again I realize that she saw more to the story than we as an audience do and we don't really know the nature of her relationship with Kuai Liang was before this whole ordeal. Like we know Cyrax and Kuai Liang liked each other once (platonically or romantically I don't really care. But I would love to see a bit of the dynamic before all of this happened).

She is a mentor and is dedicated to keep her promises. I feel that the fact that she wants Cyrax to be the best version of herself (according to Sektor's vision) has a lot to say about her as a character. Specially considering her mom is a mentor too, although in a different way and in a different manner. Bo's training of Raiden and Kung Lao might differ from Sektor's training of Cyrax, but I think she is as dedicated to her craft and her students as Madame Bo. Which is why it pisses her off so much that Cyrax can't fulfill her objectives.

... Yeah I'm living for her making Bi-Han smile. CALLED IT. He is happy around her and she knows it.

I wish I could see more of Khameleon and her though,

Her moments with Empress Tanya were nice, I liked their little banter I wish I could have seen more but then again these characters were sorta... IDK. I mean ignoring the main roster and reintroducing variants from the other universe is kinda awkward.

She is slightly less easy to play than Cyrax on my perspective, but she's fun to use and you can build pretty good kombos with her. Khameleon as a kameo really helped me with her actually.

Her design is really pretty. (im sad that my hc design doesnt match her completely though 😭😭) As for her tower ending I should probably make it a separate posed tied to Bi-Han's ending.

It is a big missed opportunity on making her take charge and not depending on Bi-Han (sure, I love them together, but like, girl) Like it was the perfect chance to get her to advance with the cyber innitiative and take route to what makes her character. She truly has a lot of vision and MK writers have sinned by only telling us about it and not showing us. I WANT TO SEE A SEKTOR WITH GREASE ON HER FACE, MOTOR OIL ON HER CLOTHES, EYEBAGS AND MELTING METAL, WORKING WIRES AND GETTING EXCITED WHEN SOMETHING WORKS.

NOOB SAIBOT:

Man, i want to say a lot about him and at the same time i don't want to say anything at all. I'm conflicted on this dude. Should I separate him from Sub Zero to analyze him or should I simply treat it as a unit?

Well, let's start on the fact that this dude was built, both metaphorically and literally on character assasination. That's it. That's my take on him. Baby I love you and everything but they really said "We have to bring Noob Saibot back somehow -cuz money- so let's make Sub-Zero cartoonishly villanous and let's make him LOSE TO CYRAX, then he will jump into a closing portal where a Titan and his crew are thriving". I literally cackled when he faced Havik and his goons because is like that latino meme "yo contra todos ustedes" (Translation: me vs all of you. Derived from the situation in which a small child decides to have a soccer match agaisnt all the big kids on his own) Yeah, im not amused by a Grandmaster being beat by his subordinate, nothing against Cyrax but this has happened literally more than once. Your character is either a powerful warrior or he isn't. And I'm saddened to say that Bi-Han, both in history mode and playability hasn't been up to the task. (Look at me critique a character I'm so attached to)

As a positive thing. I like that he smiles more in the DLC. I dont think we ever saw him smiling on the base game outside his tower ending which BTW was when Sektor was mentioned which makes me happy. I like that at least we don't have him completely dettached of humanity and see friendship, allyship and a shared vision. (I CAN WORK WITH THIS, ACTUALLY. people often wondered how supportive Bi-Han is of their s/o on fanfics. Y'all got ur answers)

ughhhhhh. Alright I know this is the "Die like my father" dude, but the way Kuai Liang and him speak about the late Grandmaster is weird. AND I WISHED THAT TOMAS WAS MORE INVOLVED IN THIS. LIKE, IT WAS HIS FATHER TOO. We may not share blood but we're still brothers left... where???? Like, at least bring him into the mission instead of introducing comic-relief Johnny Cage (I love him, he is adorable. I smiled every time he appeared onscreen. I don't find him useful at all)

Again im so weirded out by Kuai's attitude but at the same time I get it. Like, on the end pf the story you could really tell these are brothers fighting and part of it is their weakness. which is cute.

Props to the voice actor, he delivers his lines excellenty, and his screams really made me stop laughing and wince. Like, man. What a terrible way to go.

UHHHHHHH onto Noob. I really thought he wouldnt get uncorrupted, like, I saw the way he spoke to Scorpion and said, ah well, this is how it's gonna play out from now on. I'm kinda glad it isn't. I'm not a fan of Noob being Havik's creation... also again. Tomas is needed here. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE A NOOB SMOKE DUO.

Again he lost and uhhh... idk. the whole Liu Kang restoring his mind thing and expecting that the man that was presumably violently tortured to death would act cool headed was kinda stupid to me, but whatever. That's Liu Kang for you.

As for him Killing every person he crosses (good for him!!!) and making it about his ego is funny to me because we are side to side with someone who's rightfully angry because his brother let his dad pass away (And we are supposed to sympathize. Which I do, to some extent), and someone who, again, just got killed in a horrible way and his BODY was used to craft a henchman of chaos and is pissed off because of it (and we are supposed to deem this as wrong because... he is making it about himself?)

Thats the thing for me, actually. The fact that Kuai Liang essentially made it about him throughout the journey (while obeying orders, he still refused to collaborate when it came to Bi-Han, and mentioned A LOT of times about what Bi-Han did, which, fair but it takes from the argument that Bi-Han is wrong for being angry for personal motives)

This IS his fight. Because they did him wrong and for once he wants to escape all expectations and do things on his own terms. Specially considering the level of helplessness he could have felt when yet again someone used him for their cause. This time more literally.

Liu Kang is becoming kinda insufferable to me, tbh but thats only on me I don't have objective grounds for this (Still i find the Invasion's season kinda ironic considering his emphasis on control and the power he holds over individuals to the point of ethem, keeping them dormant)

WHICH BRINGS ME TOOOO

His tower ending. Fuck. Uhhh

Good for him I guess??? I'm glad you found your life's purpose boo, but like it kinda contradicts some of the points i've been making and my argument is now crumbling. Like, if it was so horrible...

also this truly makes me wonder how much does Bi-Han values his own body and if it isnt over the Lin Kuei, if he would perharps considering replacing his body with something more resourceful...

like Machinery.

I kinda like this concept, maybe seeing him mix up ice powers and shadows soon??? As long as they don't fuck it up (They will)

His design is ok. Not a fan but it isn't terrible. It will take me a few more rounds to get accostumed to him as a character.

Havik:

UHHHHHHHHHHHH. I liked the theatrics. He's very dramatic and I love that. His design is gorgeous I really loved the color palettes

He kinda looks like Drahmin ngl. He's a funny character, made me laugh a lot. Which prompted to me making a cock joke in the middle of his monologue to Bi-Han before killing him.

I thought for a moment we was getting Meat back. But one can only dream about things.

I'm sad we didn't get a chapter to play him. I would have gotten more attached.

Yeah, that's it about him. He started imposing but my mind sorta went elsewhere midway through and I think that might be a pacing issue??

OVERALL:

Uh. Yeah, it was a DLC alright. It had a smaller cast of characters, more emotionally charged although clumsier. Didn't have test your mights on it which I kinda missed, I was hoping for something more dynamic like a survive challenge on it or something.

I think it was awkwardly placed and some jokes didn't land correctly, or they did land on the wrong time making the scene lose their intended tension and adding nothing to the story (Looking at you, JC Red Wedding joke)

the animation was gorgeous and some Scenes were beutifully composed like Empress Tanya facing a dragon which, was simply stunning.

Speaking of Tanya. Marrying her to Rain was a choice. Not that I didn't appreciate their dynamic but, you know... Mileena. And stuff.

ALSO TEASING US WITH EMPRESS MILEENA AND GIVING US LIKE TWO SCENES IS A ROBBERY. We need to see said changes in Edenia, like, okay so Shao and Reiko are up to some busines and there's revolts. That sounds interesting, why am I not watching this instead? Idk the continuity on the tower endings concerns me because of it. I hope all those endings finally get a continuation on MK2. PLEASE. There's so much interesting shit there. Including ONAGA.

It was a cute ending. Although I wasn't very satisfied with the resolution of it all. It was fine I guess.

[psychiclounge]

so i’ve been learning dromed,

[coddda]

I wish we could have met in some other way.

Lawlight Week Day 2: Soulmates

If you saw me repost and re-edit this several times uh No you didn't </3

Still frames/Individual gifs:

If you know what every frame is from you get a free cookie. by the way

[egophiliac]

Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !

Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)

I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!

someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)

uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE

[b4kuch1n]

polymer broadcast signal hijack