#bat fan server

[batsies-little-monster]

Okay so the discord server is almost ready to start adding people to it. Does anybody like the idea of doing Batman movie nights, Bat-Trivia Jeopardy/Kahoots, Bat-video game Streaming, or Bat-LARPing over discord?

I don't wanna overdo it, but I kinda wanna make essentially a Batman Fanclub.

[cassiefromhell]

Bats & Fire 02

"Food Feuds"

warnings: none

wc: an unhealthy amount to write in one day (3.4k)

Going to a restaurant for the first time with your mates was an… interesting… experience.

Rhys, being your first mate, had to navigate this new, brave world on his own…

“This is Stacie’s,” Rhysand says, thumb rubbing your waist as the two of you approach the restaurant he had picked for your fourth official date. “It’s one of the nicest restaurants in town.”

“It’s beautiful,” you reply with a wide smile, gaze dancing across the gilded front of the restaurant. “It looks like it was made for royals.”

Rhys gives you a pointed look. 

“……..And I am with a royal.”

“Yes, you are, princess.”

The two of you go to the host counter, and the hostess immediately recognizes Rhys. She curtsies, and then says “right this way” and leads you into a private room. The walls are a deep green, the floor a dark wood, and the ceiling is glass, allowing you to look up at the night sky above.

“Wow,” you whisper, tilting your head back to admire the glittering stars. 

“I had a feeling you would like this,” Rhys chuckles, then pulls out your chair for you. You sit immediately, and he pushes you in.

What a gentleman!

“Thank you for taking me here.”

“Of course. Here—they have a rather extensive menu, take a look.” He hands you a rolled up piece of paper, which you take.

The menu is extensive. More than extensive. Anything you could really think of is listed here. You spend a few minutes looking — meanwhile ordering a glass of your favorite wine. You settle on one of your favorite dishes, but make note to ask for it without the Fuska root, a common addition to dishes in Prythian that you really didn’t care for.

You make small talk with Rhys, just discussing life in general, and learning more about each other. You order your meals, and not even ten minutes later, they come out on a tray.

You can smell it immediately.

“Thank you,” you murmur, waiting until the server leaves to frown.

Rhys immediately notices. “What’s wrong? Is it the food? Is it me? What can I do?”

“No, no, it’s okay—” You put on a smile, picking up a bit of your food on a fork. “They just kept the Fuska root on it. I’m not a big fan, but it’s still edible.”

Rhys is up in an instant, taking your plate and heading for the doorway.

“Rhys, no, that’s not—”

“Nonsense. You deserve the best, and I’m not letting you eat something that they fucked up.”

He leaves before you can even get out another word.

And then doesn’t come back.

You repeatedly glance at the clock, occasionally stealing a bite of his food to tame your growling stomach. After five minutes, you grow concerned, and stave off your boredom by folding origami with the napkins.

You’re on your fifth napkin swan when the door swings open, and in comes Rhys, the server from before, a chef, and a woman who looks to be the manager.

“Mademoiselle,” the chef starts, bowing deeply. “I am very sorry.”

The other two bow as well, the manager rambling on about her apologies and free food and restaurant gift cards.

“Oh, dear Mother,” you mutter, then plaster on a sweet smile. “No, no need. Thank you so much for all your hard work.”

After a few more profuse apologies, the staff scurry off, leaving you and Rhys alone.

“That was…”

“They made a new dish for you. It should be just how you ordered it now,” he smiles, starting to eat his food.

You smile back, and dig in.

An hour later, the check comes. You reach for it, but it’s already in his hand.

“Rhys—”

“I’m paying.”

“Rhys, no—”

“I said that I’m paying. You don’t have the talking ribbon.”

“Excuse me—” 

But he’s already signed it and handed it back to the server. You bare your teeth at him, but he just chuckles.

“This, my darling,” he gestures to the server, walking away with the check. “This is a fight you will never win.”

Azriel was next to take you out. He chose a gorgeous riverside restaurant by the Sidra, and it took your breath away…

“Wow,” you whisper, mouth agape as you stare out at the water. “This is stunning.”

“I thought you might like it.”

You smile, turning back to him. “Thank you for taking me here. I really appreciate it.”

“Of course.”

You make small talk, and as it’s only your second date, there’s a lot to discuss. You ask what it’s like to fly, to which he says he could fly you home that night. You ask about his work, his childhood, dancing around the topic of the scars on his hands.

The server comes, and you both order, once again asking for no Fuska root on your food. 

Azriel pays attention to every word out of your mouth like it’s from the Mother herself. He’s practically taking notes. Just before your food comes, he pulls out a small jewelry box, opening it to reveal a dainty necklace smelling of magic, with a little blue gemstone pendant.

“Is it enchanted?” you ask, gingerly taking the silver chain and holding it up to the light. 

“Yes. It’s spelled to be durable, unbreakable. You can wear it while working and won’t have to worry about it being damaged.”

However, in examining the necklace, another thought comes to your mind, which makes your brows pull together and eyes narrow.

This would be an excellent way to strangle me.

“It also will unclasp with enough force,” Azriel adds, practically reading your mind. “So you can’t be choked by it. Unless you hold it a very specific way. A way that only I know. For safety, of course.”

That was.. specific.

Your cheeks color slightly, but you nod. He stands, walking over behind you and carefully wrapping the chain around your neck and clasping it into place. His fingertips brush the nape of your neck, and blood rushes to your ears as he tucks a piece of hair back into place. 

He strides in front of you and turns, gently taking your chin and tilting your head from side to side. “You look incredible.”

“Thank—”

The door swings open, and in comes the server with your plates… and for the second time, the tangy scent of Fuska root wafts into the air.

Azriel is at the door in front of the server in milliseconds, if that. You’re not entirely convinced that he didn’t winnow there. “She asked for no Fuska. This has Fuska. She’ll need it remade, properly this time.”

“Azriel it’s—”

The server frowns, her brows pulling together as she gives your dish a sniff. “Well I can’t smell it. So I’m sure they made it correctly. Fuska root doesn’t even have a taste.”

Azriel’s wings flare slightly, and you cringe. This server has made a grave mistake.

“Well, she doesn’t like Fuska root. So you’ll need to bring this back to the kitchens, or I will,” he growls, the azure siphons on his wrists glowing.

How did he know that?

The server rolls her eyes, shoves Azriel’s dish into his hands, and then turns and leaves with your plate.

Azriel’s wings relax, and then he turns around and walks back to the table with a perfectly neutral expression.

“That wasn’t necessary,” you murmur. “I’m sure she’s just tired.”

“Of course it was necessary. Rhys told me that you hate Fuska root.”

You reach over, taking a piece of Azriel’s food, and nod. “I don’t like it. But it’s not the end of the world if I have to eat it.”

“If you don’t like it, then I will ensure that you never have to eat it.”

Mother damn, Azriel knows how to make you blush. 

 A new server comes back with your dish, this one not containing even a hint of Fuska scent. You thank them, and are left to eat and talk with Azriel.

“The food is really good,” you talk over a mouthful, grinning. “And no Fuska in sight.”

Half an hour later, you excuse yourself to ‘go to the restroom.’ In reality, you head to the front desk.

“Excuse me,” you start. “I’m sitting at the table closest to the Sidra on the outdoor patio. I’d like to pay for my check.”

“Oh…” the hostess frowns, looking down at a piece of paper. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but your check has already been paid.”

“M’excuse me?”

“The gentlemale with you passed us his payment information on the way in, with specific instructions to not let you pay,” she replies, giving a sheepish smile.

You sigh heavily, running a hand over your hair. “Okay. Okay, thank you.”

With that, you head back to your table, noticing a shadow at your feet that looks rather happy with itself.

You step on it.

Cassian, naturally, got you for your next restaurant date. He brought you to Rita’s… which is a bar… but it sure was interesting...

You enter Rita’s on Cassian’s arm, and immediately ‘accidentally’ drop a slip of paper saying to not, by any means, let Cassian pay. 

The host frowns and shakes his head silently, making an arc motion with his hand. It takes you a minute to understand, but then you realize…

Cassian pre-paid before we even came here.

SHIT.

Twenty Minutes Later:

You lean across the table to hear Cassian better, your Fae ears straining to hear him over the phone evening dance music. “What?”

“I said we come here all the time!” He replies, motioning through his sentence to get the point across.

“Oh!” You nod, giving a thumbs up. “I’ve heard about this place in letters from Mor. I guess she really likes it here.”

He grins, taking a sip of his cocktail. You follow suit, trying not to scrunch up your nose at how sour it is. 

“Here,” He gets up, holding out his hand. “The waiter won’t get to us for another twenty minutes, this place is swamped and they’re really slow. Let’s dance.”

You laugh and nod, taking his hand and letting him pull you onto the dance floor. He’s not a very good dancer, but he’s certainly good at moving you around.

He slips behind you, placing his hands on your hips and swaying with the beat. You press yourself back against him, grinding your hips against his to the music. He laughs, tipping your head back to kiss you, and you oblige, turning and wrapping your arms around his neck.

You dance and dance through six songs, until you both retreat to your table, looking a little disheveled.

Right on cue, the waiter comes to the table, notepad in hand. “What can I get for ya?”

You order, and as soon as you’re finished, Cassian speaks. “And no Fuska root on her dish. None at all. NADA.”

“Sir, the dish doesn’t come with—”

“She is deathly allergic to Fuska root. She will die if you let it near her plate, and then I will have to hunt you down and kill you.”

You chew your bottom lip, raising a brow. 

“Yes, sir. And… and what would you like?”

You snort, watching Cassian order and then handing the waiter your menu. When the male walks away, you turn back to your mate.

“How’d you know about the Fuska thing?” you ask, sipping your lip-pursing cocktail.

“Rhys and Az told me.”

“How… how exactly did they put that?”

“They said you absolutely must never come into contact with it, and if you do, then to profusely apologize for not protecting you enough and then hunt down the chef and choke him with Fuska root until he’s cold and dead.”

You blink once. Twice. Thrice.

“I’m… I’m not allergic. I just don’t care for the taste.”

Cassian’s ears redden, and he looks away. “…Same difference.”

“No, no, it’s not—”

“Shhhhh.”

After your array of adventures with the Night Court brothers, the Autumn males got your next two dates. First was Eris, who took you to a restaurant adjacent to the palace. Which was, again… in a tree...

“Why must you build everything in trees, six stories up? It feels overkill,” you comment as you get to the door, Eris opening it for you.

“It’s safer. And Autumn is known for that kind of thing. Besides, I find it comforting to be in trees, surrounded by colorful leaves,” Eris explains, his thumb rubbing your hand. “I can have some buildings built on the ground for you.”

“Please,” you laugh, following the host as he leads you to your table, which is up another flight of stairs. “Remind me to never wear heels in Autumn.”

“You’re— you’re wearing heels?” Eris gapes, lifting your skirt slightly to check. “Why are you doing that?”

“You said this was a fancy place,” you reply, taking your seat in a comfortable booth by a window, overlooking the palace and the people below. “It’s pretty standard to wear heels.”

“Not in Autumn… we do a lot of climbing. Females primarily wear bendy flats. I can buy you some this evening.”

“Flats?”

“Flats.”

You lean forward, dropping your voice into a whisper. “Did I die? Is this heaven?”

He snorts, shaking his head. “Not quite.” 

The server comes to take your order, and you go first. Luckily, the meal you order doesn’t come with Fuska root.

“I’ll take the garden salad, with light dressing. Oh, and could I get a side dish of Fuska root?” Eris asks, with a wink in my direction.

Oh.

Someone likes Fuska.

The server nods and leaves, and you shake off his order and shift your attention to the most important part of the meal. 

“I’d really like to pay,” you say, clasping your hands over the table. “Please.”

“No need.”

“Please—”

“I own this restaurant. Anything I order or a guest of mine orders is free.”

You groan, pinching the bridge of your nose. “It just gets worse…”

“Sorry?”

“Nothing. Nothing.”

You start small talk, and end up in a discussion about your families. Eris describes what it’s like to be a royal, and to have so many siblings. You explain how your parents raised you and your little siblings to be monster specialists — your father is a researcher, and your mother is a hunter. You and two little sisters — one of which is only eighteen, so just a kid in Fae years — and little brother were essentially court hoppers, always camping and on the move.

The waitress comes with your food, and when they walk away, you start to dig in.

“Here,” Eris says with a soft smile, holding out the side dish with the Fuska root. “I figured you’d want it with your meal.”

“Oh, uhm,” you lean away from the scent slightly, nose wrinkling. “No… no thanks…”

Eris tilts his head, looking from you, to the dish, then back to you. “I thought you loved Fuska root… and put it on everything? I figured you had forgotten to order it.”

“Eris, where did you hear this?” you ask, a bad feeling forming in your stomach. 

“Rhysand and Azriel told me that you loved it. Cassian said you get sad whenever you have a meal without it.”

Ah. Sabotage.

“Have you… have you considered perhaps they were… lying?”

His smile drops, and he pulls the plate back. “Don’t tell me…”

“I’m sorry,” you bite your lip. “I don’t like the taste of Fuska.”

Eris grits his teeth, shooting up out of his chair. “I’m going to kill those morons—“

“Eris!”

With your other four mates having already taken you to a meal, naturally Lucien was last. But not least. Definitely not the least…

“I think I need to brief you on a couple things,” you say, looking up at Lucien sheepishly as he guides you to a breakfast restaurant for brunch.

“Should I be nervous?”

“No, because I’m briefing you now.” You stop walking, reaching up and putting a hand on his shoulder.

Lucien raises a brow. “Alright…”

“I am not allergic to Fuska root, but I don’t like it either. It’s just not my thing. I do not love Fuska root.”

“…Okay? You made me worried about that?” He cocks his head to the side, a piece of his long, silky red hair falling over his forehead. “Noted. No Fuska, but you’re not allergic.”

“Wait,” you narrow your eyes. “Nobody told you anything about me and Fuska root?”

“No… should they have?”

Ah.

Neutrality.

This must mean that your other mates don’t see him as a threat as they saw Eris… but they didn’t help him out either.

“Have you paid in advance for the meal?” You ask, hand gripping his shoulder tightly.

Lucien gently eases your fingers off of him, raising your hand to his lips and kissing your knuckles. “No… was I supposed to?”

“No. No, you weren’t supposed to… so can I pay? Pretty please, with no Fuska root on top?” You jut out your bottom lip, pouting.

He chuckles, but shakes his head. “I think not.”

“Please?”

He takes a look into your begging eyes and sighs, pulling you close to his side and resuming your walk to the restaurant. “Halfsies?”

“That works!”

You shower his face with kisses, then have to pause and use your sleeve to wipe away the lipstick marks.

“I’m not going to lie to you; I don’t think I’ve ever had a female beg to pay for dinner.”

“Oh, you don’t even know. You don’t… even… know.”

But only getting to split the check with one mate didn’t sit well with you. Not at all. So you organized an all-mates dinner, at a restaurant that none of your mates even knew existed, in a village on the coast of the Dawn Court…

“I need to make an advance reservation,” you tell the hostess, throwing back your hood and leaning against the front counter. “For six, during this time two months from now.”

She raises a brow, tilting her head to the side. “Okay… but you could have just written.”

“I could have. But I’m giving you my payment in advance. You must not let any of my other guests pay. Not a penny.”

“……Alright, not a problem—”

“No, no,” you lean forward more. “You don’t understand. They are very important people. They will try to make you let them pay. This cannot happen.”

The hostess frowns, a bead of sweat forming on her temple. “How important?”

“Two High Lords.”

She gasps, a hand flying over her mouth. “Ma’am, I’m not sure I can deny them—”

“You must. Tell me, have you ever had a pixie problem?” You cock your head, pulling out a jar of swarming pixies, shouting with their little tiny angry voices and making clinks as they fight against the glass.

A strained noise comes from the back of her throat. “No— no, please, put those away. If those are seen in here, we could be reported for bad sanitization… they always swarm people’s food!”

“Oh, I know,” you smirk, placing the buzzing jar on the counter. “Don’t you worry. You won’t have a pixie problem. As long as you just… don’t let the High Lords pay.”

The hostess nods, quickly pushing the jar back into your hands. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am. Now put them away.”

You nod with a smile, tucking the jar into the pocket of your coat. “Good. I’ll see you in two months.”

With that, you pull your hood up over your head and leave the building. 

Two Months Later:

Azriel returns to the table where you and your other four mates have been sitting and eating for the past hour and a half. He has a sour expression as he sits back down, and then turns to you.

“What did you do.” Azriel says, and it’s more of a demand than a question.

You shake your head, shrug, and take one of Cassian’s fries, who is seated to your right. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Yes. Yes, you do. Why won’t they let me pay?” Azriel glares at you, frowning.

“You tried to pay?” Lucien glances up from his food, making a face. “We agreed that Rhysand and I were splitting it.”

“I tried earlier,” Eris admits. “When we first came in, they wouldn’t let me pay either.”

Rhys joins in, staring at Eris, “You tried to pay, too?”

Cassian chuckles, turning to you. “What did you do, exactly?”

“You know, pixies can be a really big problem for restaurants around here—”

All of your mates groan in unison.

“I win!”

You take a big, heaping bite of your meal. You smile to yourself for the rest of the dinner.

[bread--quest]

the thought that players are going to be incinerated next season and new fans won’t even know to say RIV or know what it means is physically viscerally horrifying to me so. here’s a story.

it was season 3. for two seasons, players had been being incinerated in alarming numbers. the hades tigers were one of a few teams to have not yet lost a player to the flames.

the tigers had many good batters, but a particular fan-favorite was landry violence. we only have one season of stats for him by SIBR’s records, but those stats say that in that one season he had a 0.301 batting average and hit 27 home runs. he was on several leaderboards. the tigers lore for him was that he was the spirit of Violence itself.

it was game 2 of the final series. tigers vs. millennials. (in the millennials stadium. not that anyone remembers.) 1-1. the tigers were so close to victory, and they still hadn’t lost a single player.

except. then. at the bottom of inning 5.

[ID: A screenshot of a Blaseball game between the Tigers and the Millennials. The weather is Solar Eclipse. The Tigers have 5 runs, and the Millennials have 2 Famous Owens is pitching, Richardson Games is batting. The Game Log reads “Rogue Umpire incinerated Tigers hitter Landry Violence! Replaced by Paula Turnip”. End ID.]

the tigers went on to win the game. 12-5. they won the next one, too. they won the championship. but they lost landry.

saying “rest in peace” wasn’t enough. the tigers didn’t want peace. players getting incinerated left and right wasn’t peace.

instead, they started saying rest in violence.

[ID: A series of messages from the blaseball discord. They are all sent on June 8th of 2020. They read (in all caps) “Rest in Violence Landry”, “Paula will bring about great violence”, “Never Look Back”, “Boom”, and “Vengeance for Violence!” End ID.]

the saying caught on.

[ID: A screenshot showing 9130 results for the search “Rest in Violence” in a discord server. End ID.]

it caught on so much, in fact, that the developers made it the official game subtitle for the beta Season 8.

[ID: The old Blaseball header, with the beta tag attached to the end of it. The subheader is “The Discipline Era”, and the subheader of that is “Rest in Violence”. End ID.]

and when the Hall Stars rose....

[ID: A screenshot from the Season 10 Day X game. It shows the Hall Stars team HP bar gaining HP, and the Game Log reading “Landry Violence rises...Their spirit is added to The Hall Stars.” End ID.]

they rose in violence.

and that is why we say Rest In Violence. RIV Anastasia Isarobot: a horrible mistake we will make again and again.

[brokenstar28]

Bat-Kids Discord Server

Hi guys, guess what? I'm insane (I think you guys already knew that but now it's confirmed) Guess what I did!

I made a discord server for the Bat-kids!

Please join. I'm lonely here.

None of you actually need to come but...

@arrowheadedbitch You can talk about Tim (assuming I get enough people) and (maybe) bring some of your 1,000 followers with you?

@insertcoolusernamehereee Hello fellow Damian fan, all are welcome

@igotthisaccountunderduress Talk about Babs all you want, I will listen

@spicy-apple-pie You can get some ideas for you Adopted Damian AU (I love it so much, it's awesome, I love your art) and get some new ideas

[era-the-witchy-birdkid]

DP X DC Prompt/Idea

Long time writer for the DC fandom (mostly Batman specifically Tim Drake joins the batfam early AUs and Titans Tower AU) on Archive, Danny Fenton also known as Astroboy2025, decides three days after his ‘Accident’ to create a Jason wakes up a Halfa in his coffin fic. He only does this to help himself process his emotions after well lets be honest his death and revival. And later once the ghost attacks pick up and he picks up the mantle of a hero as a way to covertly get advice/figure out on how to fight ghosts better by transplanting all his ghosts into Gotham for Fic!Jason to fight.

Danny wasn’t expecting much to come from this, he wasn’t expecting the fic to blow up in popularity for ‘creative storylines’ and ‘unique original villains with a ghostly flare to go against the ghostly Robin now named Phantom’ it was just a vent fic with a bit of wishful thinking on his part with Ghost!Jason and Bruce's relationship being so close (He ends up writing Jason getting hugs and affirmations that Bruce still loves despite all the ghost stuff that happening now whenever his Parents go on a tirade about how all ghosts are evil and need to be ripped apart molecule by molecule)

He definitely wasn't expecting his fans to find out about the real Phantom and figure out his identity from there. (Blame Penelope Spectra she had a history unlike the others in his rogues gallery with a bloody trail across America of sharply increase Suicide rates in more isolated smaller cites/large towns that was being tracked by Redditers that had hard stopped in Amity park just a few days before he dropped the chapter of Jason facing her himself)

While the Amity Park tourism to see a IRL Hero in action, and the Anti-Ecto acts Riots, as they would later be called, made by DC fans throwing a fit about the threat to the world’s first superhero were the lesser consequence in the grand scheme of things. Finding his fan Discord was a trip and a half especially since Tucker had to hack into it into the first place because his fans we're extremely protective of his secret ID and reinforced the server a crapton to be stronger then most banks.

While Sam was insisting on this being a horrible Idea and he should try to dissuade his thousands of fans from the truth of his Identy. Danny was just chill with it after the brief panic. And the Fan Discord was super helpful for getting Advce with! while the jokes that he was Batman Adoption bait was annoying the group was amazing for ideas on how to train his powers and advice on how to better fight ghosts. the Discord even make a Power list for him so he wouldn’t forget a power because he wasn’t training it. plus the comfort they gave after Circus Gothica was A+ even with the jokes about how the Batfam curse of clown trauma, despite matching the look as a human batman isn’t real so as much as his fans joke about him being the prefect Bat bait that will not happen.

To bad after a particularly nasty ghost hate rant in front of him in ghost form while being shot at by his parents that before the server would spawn 3 chapters of Family fluff in his fic, was whatched angrily by a fan who in a fit of annoyed rage said these words. “I really wish batman WAS real, then maybe you could be safe in your home for once”

unfortunately Desiree was out and about and heard the wish granted she had no idea who Batman was so went to read the DC comics after that. Good news the DC universe is so messed up as is that Desiree decided no twisting was necessary she’d just to bring everything to life. Bad news all the supervillains now exist along side the now existing superheros and Desiree is now��Kaiju sized and now way to powerful for Danny to deal with alone... 

At least the now real Batfam are taking their sudden existence well? and are willing to help Danny stop the Mad Genie dispite the risk that they would pop into nonexistence (with the entire city of Gotham and the other cities, villains, and heroes made real by Desiree’s power) if she’s stopped

[chickenparm]

Reformatting (Scara/f!Reader) pt. 3/end

this was written for @onesaltygoddess. thanks for coming to me with this dope idea! :^) this fic is based off the recent fan animations that you can watch here and some cyberpunk 2077 mixed in to flesh it out.

---

AO3 Link Prev Part

Scaramouche/f!Reader - Cyberpunk AU 2,753 Words - NSFW (Reader is a synthetic/android, begging, dacryphilia, overstimulation, edging, P in V)

---

Scaramouche is, admittedly, an awful teacher. 

He’s short with you, grows irritated when you ask questions that seem obvious to him. But he’s been doing this for much longer - he was made to do this - so you’d hoped he would’ve given you a little more grace about it all. But he doesn’t give up on you completely. 

Maybe storms out once in a while, but always leaves the door to his server room unlocked when it’s time for you to meet up for more training. Hand-to-hand combat isn’t his forte, and as he explains the discipline of quickhacking on the fly, you start to think that perhaps the challenge you issued was a carefully orchestrated maneuver on his part. 

“Keep your own ICE up this time, or I’m going to get in and just shut you down.” Scaramouche warns from where he lounges on the threadbare sofa, his hat tilted low as he flicks through the screens. The ability to multitask comes to him almost like second-nature, and you have no doubt he wouldn’t need to bat an eyelash to slip past your defenses. 

Defenses he put in place, he told you the first day you arrived. Scaramouche was insufferably smug about it, like he’s telling you only because he wants you to know that you owe him something or other. But he never asks for a single thing. 

The only thing he does ask comes in the form of a little message to your phone in the mornings before you meet up with him - a little emoji for a bag of chips, or a slice of pizza, or some fries. He wants you to bring him breakfast. Easy enough, and you usually cop out and just bring something you nuked in the microwave, or something packaged from the convenience store. Today, his hand rummages in a bag of jerky tucked to his side. 

Closing your eyes, you let out a little breath and waste no time in pushing forward, deftly connecting with his systems while attempting to not ring alarm bells in his mind. There’s no pushback, and you like to think you were successful. As you link up with him, at the back of your tongue you can taste what he’s eating, you can feel the couch beneath you, smell something in the air that makes your heartbeat a little faster. 

And that reaction doesn’t come from you, but from him. You try to pry into that more, your curiosity taking hold as you recognize the scent as your perfume, and you only have a split-second to dwell on it before you’re forcefully shoved out of his mind and your brain zaps in his retaliation. 

“Mind your own business,” Scaramouche hisses, knocking his hat from his head to sit upright and glare at you. The jerky is tossed onto the coffee table, but you barely notice as your palm presses to your forehead and you try to regain your bearings. Scaramouche sits a little higher, looks at you with unrestrained anger, “Poke around like that again and I’ll bury a virus in your head that makes you bark like a dog.”

“Try me,” you bite back, sitting up in your chair despite the ache behind your eyes. Scaramouche leans forward, one fist clenched around the cushion of the couch while the other reaches out to grab you. Yet he stops short, and you don’t feel the shattering sensation of him busting your security system wide open. 

Instead, his hand falls to his lap and his other unclenches from the fabric, instead pinching at the bridge of his nose. “Just do what I tell you, alright? Why is everything such a struggle with you, huh?”

“You’re one to talk.” But you don’t elaborate. You don’t really need to. Scaramouche slumps back against the couch and turns his head to the side, almost looking petulant as he does so. Carefully, you shift from sitting on a lone chair to sitting next to him on the couch, nudging his hat out of the way. “Wanna keep going with this?”

“Not really.”

But he doesn’t stop you as you close your eyes and push into his mind again. Very carefully, you avoid anything that would pique your curiosity. Another zap like that would leave you bedridden with a migraine for at least a full day. And you wouldn’t get to see him tomorrow. It’s odd that you feel so bothered by that. 

---

“Have you ever danced before?”

The question comes from you between quick breaths, your body slightly winded from the sparring session with the man in front of you. Scaramouche brushes the back of his arm across his forehead, mussing his bangs against the wet skin, and looks at you so strangely that you wonder if you’ve grown an extra appendage. 

Then, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, he answers while pointing his water bottle at you, “No. That’s not what I was made for.”

“What were you made for?”

“Exactly what I do. Hacking, information gathering, security for our base here,” Scaramouche shrugs a shoulder, uncharacteristically avoiding your gaze as he takes a sip from his bottle. Then, he passes it to you, and you accept it without much thought. 

After your own drink, your voice is less scratchy, “And you don’t do anything else? Ei said we were free, so why constrain yourself to that?”

“That’s all I need.”

“How sad.” You remark, and his eyes dart to you, wide and surprised at the nonchalant way you remarked something like that. It might seem offensive, you realize, so you elaborate, “But what about what you want? If there’s something I realized from how things have changed for me, it’s that wants and needs are two different things. Wants can make you happy, and you don’t seem like you are.”

“I don’t need to be happy. I’m fine, thanks.”

The water bottle rolls across the floor as you cap it and toss it away, one of your hands reaching out toward him with your palm up, fingers beckoning with a little wiggle, “Just one dance. Maybe you’ll like it.”

“I don’t like to dance.”

“You’ve never tried, remember? How would you know?”

Scaramouche scowls, reaching out to swat your hand away, but it’s half-hearted, “I said no. I don’t even know how.”

And you light up further, because he really is just digging his own grave, here. Undeterred, you offer your hand again and chirp, “That’s fine, one of my dancing protocols was equipped with a module for teaching. I’ve never gotten to use it before, so we’ll both get something we want.”

“I don’t want to dance-”

“But you want to smell my perfume?”

Scaramouche’s mouth falls open in preparation to dispute this, but nothing comes out. A few emotions flit across his face. Disbelief, anger, frustration, then forced annoyance. “Why would I want to subject myself to that? If I wanted to smell garbage, I’d go to the landfill-”

Scaramouche cuts off when you only laugh at him and step forward, taking his hand and pointedly resting it at a respectable position on your waist. “Okay, one hand here. The other can rest on the other side, or my hand, or the back of my neck if it’s meant to be more intimate. Now, we’ll keep the steps simple for now, and once you’re confident leading, maybe we can add a little bit of pizzazz…”

You trail off in your explanation as his free hand shifts. Not to your waist, or your hand, but the nape of your neck where his fingers curl tentatively around. Your eyes dart to his, and he stubbornly looks into your own as if daring you to say another word. Desperately, you want to, but you keep your mouth shut and start showing him the steps. Whether he’s any good at it doesn’t really register in your mind as you hum a simple tune to guide the two of you along through the movements. 

His fingers shift against your waist, just a simple fidget, but it’s enough to shift the hem of your shirt for his pinky to graze against the skin there. If he can feel the goosebumps that raise, he doesn’t belittle you for it, for once. Maybe he has some of his own, but you’re too afraid to look away from his eyes for fear that whatever this is will shatter. 

Behind him, the sliding doors to the courtyard are open to let the breeze inside. That tree you’re so fond of whispers with the movement, masking the sound of your feet and his as they move across the floor at a languid pace. It’s just getting to be late afternoon, the light turning warmer as it eclipses everything, including the two of you. 

Scaramouche is normally cold, untouchable, distant. But here he is, in your space, touching you, bathed in a warm sunset that has your stomach twisting with something you’re only vaguely familiar with. Your chest clenches uncomfortably, the same sort of feeling you’d gotten when picking through his mind during training not so long ago. 

You’re only grateful he’s not in your mind now. Is he feeling the same? You can’t help but wonder.

---

“What? No! All you’re going to do is slow me down.”

The lights of his room are dark, the servers dimmed so that only whatever comes through the window is what you’re allowed to use to see his face. You stand over him as he sits on that couch again, his eyes avoiding yours as you try to reason with him. It’s warm in here, from the electronics and your own blood rushing in frustration. 

“I need experience somewhere! This is routine, you said it yourself, so it’s perfect. How am I supposed to carry my weight if you won’t let me?”

Scaramouche’s cheek shifts, his teeth digging into the soft flesh inside, and your own jaw ticks with a similar movement. Raiden often made jokes about how stubborn the two of you are, how you manage to get anything done at all between taking cheap shots at one another. This feels like the cheapest of all, and you try to rebut with, “I’ve already talked to Ei and she gave me the go-ahead. I’m coming with on this one whether you like it or not.”

Violet eyes dart to you, wide enough that you can see the full ring of his iris. “You went behind my back? Should’ve known, since you love sneaking and poking around in places you don’t belong.”

“It’s the only way to get anything done with you! God, it’s like trying to work with a brick wall. Stubborn ass.”

The door shuts behind you as you spin and leave, but you catch his own sniped shot just before it cuts him off. “Blind idiot!”

And you can only laugh. You see better now than you ever have; and it’s mostly his fault. Maybe he should’ve left you ruined rather than piece you back together only to try and do it himself all over again. Too late for him to renege on that now, though, not with the backlash he’d get from both Ei and Raiden.

The planned date for the trip down underground isn’t meant for another week yet, and you expected to have some more time until then to train with him. Yet the next day when you return, his room is firmly locked and you can’t pick it with what he’s taught you. That… hurts. You try again, and you know he knows you tried, but it doesn’t budge. He couldn’t be more clear if he tried. 

Against your first instinct, you don’t mention it to Ei. There’s no point; even if she talks to him about it, convinces him to talk to you, it’s not like it will change anything. He doesn’t want you on this mission, and you’d be lucky if he even wants you around after all this is over. The thought of it makes your stomach twist, more so than the sensation of the aircraft rising aloft with quick acceleration. 

Buckled into one of the seats, your eyes dart across the ship to the man sitting in the furthest seat from you, his hat pulled low and screens activated to keep you from getting a glimpse of his expression. But you can feel him glancing at you, feel the annoyance rolling off him in palpable waves, thicker than the air gets with humidity as the ship slips beneath the surface of the world. 

Everything grows dark for a long moment, the only light coming from the steering panel of the ship and Scaramouche’s hat in the far corner. Neither of them reach far enough to touch you, and you sit still in the blackness, taking steady breaths and calming your nerves as best you can. It’s just a surveillance mission, meant for reconnaissance. 

It’ll be fine. You hope. 

The ship lights up again in increments as you flit over the outskirts of the city, old districts no longer in use by the public lit just enough for air traffic to avoid hitting the derelict buildings. Ei flies in a way that suggests she’s made this trip a thousand times before, like she could do it completely blind and not skim a single building. 

Things grow even brighter, lit by neon and LED, flashing in a rainbow of colors that make your head hurt if you stare at them a little too long. So you turn your gaze to the floor, try not to pay too much attention to Scaramouche out of the corner of your eye, avoid thinking about how warm his hands had been when you convinced him to dance with you. 

How was that only a week ago? Now look at you, fists clenched around the strap of your seatbelt as you try and fail not to pine. Scaramouche doesn’t look at you anymore, not that you can feel, and somehow that feels even worse. 

“We’re getting close. Scaramouche?”

“Sensors will be down, go ahead and drop me when you get there.”

This was something you could do. Scaramouche had shown you some time ago how most government security works, the ways to get around them and trick the systems into not realizing you’re there at all. But he doesn’t assign that duty to you, doesn’t even suggest you do anything at all even as the ship begins to lower to the rooftop and he unbuckles from his seat. 

At the door, you reach for his wrist, stopping him from walking down the ramp. Despite knowing she’ll hear you anyway, you keep your voice low in some sort of attempt to hide his reborn derision from Ei. “It’s more dangerous if you don’t tell me what we need to do. I will slow you down if I’m just following you around.”

“Good, stay on the ship then-”

“Scaramouche, stop.” You squeeze his wrist just before he yanks it from your hand and descends to the rooftop. You share a look with Ei, hers of confusion, yours of apology, before you follow after him and whisper-shout, “Help me help you! Or am I just supposed to figure it out?”

A long sigh leaves him and he whirls, the screens of his hat shifting so none of them are in his face, letting you face the full brunt of his annoyance. “Helping me would mean staying on that ship and staying out of danger. You’re right, you are just slowing me down.”

“Whatever, I’ll figure it out, then.” You brush past him, your shoulder bumping harshly against his own as you feel out the local network and try to find the cleanest signal. At the very least, you can cover him while he searches for what you came for - and all the while you try to ignore that gnawing feeling of hurt in your chest. 

Scaramouche leaves you alone, goes in a different direction. You can still feel him nearby, the link established during one of your first training sessions meaning that there’s some way of keeping track of him. It’s a small comfort that he hadn’t severed that, at least. 

With a huff of breath into the warm air around you, your body tucks into the space between a few condenser units to keep yourself out of sight. No one should be up here, but it’s better to be safe. For now, your self-designated job is to subtly scramble the security systems and intercept whoever might try to counteract what he’s doing as he sifts through all those files. 

You recognize the structure, the layout of the firewall, how to slip beyond it to maneuver it from the inside. Scaramouche follows after you, using his link to your system as an entrypoint to theirs. You almost don’t realize it, he doesn’t leave a trace. Like shifting through the underbrush, not a single leaf is left out of place. 

It’s as if he’s not even there at all. 

Thanks to his teachings, it’s far less stressful than you expected it to be. With sensitive information like this, you expect there to be someone trying to block either of you, but you don’t even sense another user in the system beyond yourselves. It’s eerie, unsettling, and feels very wrong. 

Pulling out your phone, you tap a message to him, knowing it will pop up on one of his screens. You express your concerns, asking if he’s noticed anything odd. He doesn’t answer, but he does read it, and you take that as an answer in itself. Fine, you’ll ignore your instincts.

Once more you close your eyes, letting out another slow breath. Thanks to your misdirection, the system hasn’t noticed anything awry, and Scaramouche is still safe. He warned you not to get complacent, but if he doesn’t think there’s anything to worry about, then you’re more willing to relax a little and just observe. 

And that’s when you realize that the one being observed is you. 

There isn’t another user because the user is the entire system, and only when your functions start to lock down do you realize that the system you’ve been messing with serves as a brain for something deep in the building below. Something with enough awareness to metaphorically wrap its fingers around you until you’re nearly strangled. 

At first you panic, you try to contact Scaramouche through the link, but even your processes are unusable as you’re scrutinized and prodded at. Your ICE is good, but it won’t hold out under someone as skilled at this. With a trembling body, you fight against it all to drag yourself into the open, your palms and knees aching from the gravel digging into them. 

Take a breath, dig your nails into the ground, focusfocusfocus. 

Scaramouche told you once that the surest way to completely get someone out of your system is to shut it down. If there’s nothing for them to get to, then they have to retreat. With shaking fingers you reach for your phone, dirty fingers typing out something that you hope says shutting down. You don’t have time to spell check it before you send it off, the glass cracking as it drops to the gravel and your body follows suit. 

Ei or Raiden or Scaramouche will be able to bring you back to consciousness; you just have to trust Scaramouche will come for you, rather than leave you here. Your optics go out first, then your higher functions, and only when your mind slows to a base operating level before complete shutdown, one last thought trickles in.

You’re not sure you can take another abandonment.

---

It happens as quickly as blinking. One moment you’re under, next your eyes are open but obscured. Your head hurts as too much information passes through it, mixed with your diagnostics. Without any extra mental faculties, you don’t dwell on how you got to this, and instead you focus on just coming back to life. 

The humming around you is a familiar frequency - the ship. Ei’s ship, secured behind a cloaking device and ten layers of security protocols. Safe. You’re safe.

The ache in your body is from your hands and knees, from your muscles where they’d tensed up from that foreign invader attacking you from the inside. It’s only you in your head, now. You, and the faint path that leads you to the person incredibly close by. Safe. You’re safe.

Your vision is obscured because you’re tucked against someone’s chest, their arms around you as the ship holds at a steady speed. So, you’re not in Inazuma, but you’ve already left the facility. Good. Safe. You’re safe.

Safety is in the form of a familiar space, and a familiar person that holds you close and speaks in low tones that your ears are ringing a bit too much to overhear. But when you stir a little, turning your face to press further against the fabric of his clothing, you clearly hear, “E-10?”

It’s the first time he’s called you anything beyond a stupid nickname or a, “hey, you”. You nod in acknowledgment, and his chest deflates with a heaving sigh of relief. Neither of you say anything at first, not for your lack of trying. At the very least he could tell you that he told you so, but he doesn’t do that at all. 

In fact, only when the darkness falls and you’re well out of the city does he turn his head until his mouth is close to your ear, intending only for you to hear, “I’m sorry. I lo-... I’m sorry.”

You want to deny this, to state that this is your fault for getting complacent, for insisting when you obviously weren’t ready. Yet his hand comes around the back of your head to pull you closer, and he continues, “I didn’t know what we were getting into. I was cocky and put you in danger because I-... No. I shouldn’t have left you.”

But he didn’t, because you’re right here in his arms, in his lap, legs slung over one side as he holds you securely. And you try your best to just tell him this, your voice hoarse. Had you been screaming? What truly happened to you?

“You have every right to be angry.” Scaramouche murmurs, breath hot against your ear as his arms wind tighter, nearly squeezing you with his desperation that’s sourced from somewhere unknown. 

The one-sided conversation stops as the ship starts to decelerate and descend. Ei says something, undecipherable between the static and your own thoughts. All you can make out is Scaramouche’s affirmation, and the feeling of being lifted and being carried off the ship in swaying movements that all but usher you off into sleep. 

And when your eyes open for a second time, you’re alone in your room, the sun gone from the sky. Where is Scaramouche? The question rattles around in your brain as you examine every corner of the room from your vantage point on the familiar bed. You need to find him, need to give and receive explanations or you’ll never be able to rest again.

You feel… better? Still fatigued, but you can at least get yourself to your feet and are able to get your bearings before taking some hesitant steps. Everything is still in working order, it seems, and you’re a little more confident as you cross the floor and leave without a second thought. There’s only one place you need to be right now, and it’s only a short walk to the door you expect to be locked. 

Scaramouche said that you had the right to be angry, and you plan on taking advantage of that offer as you slam your fist on the button and it opens without protest. Not locked. 

At the sudden sound of your entrance, Scaramouche sits up in bed, looking at you with wide eyes before they melt into something like relief. He already knows you’re okay, so you’re not sure what he’s so worked up about, but you’re about to give him a reason. 

Crossing the small room in a few steps, you press one knee into the bed and ball your fist in the front of his shirt angrily. “Why’d I wake up alone?”

“Because you were sleeping…?” Scaramouche trails off, eyes darting from your fist to your face, incredulity painted clearly. “Was I supposed to sit and weep at your bedside?”

“That’s what I expected after what happened. Weren’t you just a little worried?”

“A little?” He laughs, like your frustration at his hot-and-cold nature is something funny. “Do you know how it felt for our link to snap? I thought you were dead. All I had was a message in gibberish and a headache of my own after fighting that thing off.”

Your mouth snaps shut, you look at him searchingly, trying to decipher the truth behind all of this. Something inside you knows, and you encourage that part to speak up, but it just… doesn’t. Your own confusion clouds everything, and your hand slips from the front of his shirt to fall in your lap as you slump to sit on the bed. 

Hoping he has some kind of answer, you open your mouth to ask, and are silenced by exactly what you’d been hoping for. 

So similar to how he’d laid his hand at the back of your neck during that little dance, he uses that same grip to pull you in and kiss you. The focal point adjusts, everything comes into startling clarity, and you grip at his shirt again to kiss him back with unexpected ferocity. Scaramouche meets you blow for blow, testing to see how far you’ll go before you back down and he can take over. 

The thought of that annoys you more than you expected. After all this, how he’s treated you, you’re not quite willing to let him have this one over you. 

With both hands, you push him down onto the bed, quicker than he can attempt to stop you. At least, not without conviction, but he doesn’t try either way. His head tilts up, mouth pulling away with a sharp gasp as you straddle his hips and tower over him in one of the few ways you ever have.

“It’s still there, isn’t it? The connection.” You tilt your head, looking down with disarming curiosity, even as your fingers hook around the band of his pants, nails scratching against stark hip bones. “You never severed it, even when you were mad. Why?”

“Why do you think?” Scaramouche counters, and you snap the band of his shorts in response, earning a little hiss from behind his teeth. Through his hair in his eyes, he looks up at you almost challengingly. “If I had, you would’ve come running.”

“Like you did?” You taunt back, palms pressing to his shoulders again, your full weight resting on his hips. Despite the antagonism - or perhaps because of it - Scaramouche stirs beneath you in a way that you’d been hoping for. Selfishly, you hoped that you weren’t misreading all of this, that his feelings aligned with yours at least on this base level. 

Scaramouche says nothing to your barb, instead gripping at the sheets below as his eyes flutter closed and his teeth grit together. That won’t do, and you make your dissatisfaction known by rocking your hips forward, dragging along him in a friction that doesn’t just sate your own hunger. Through his teeth, a strangled whine leaks out and it’s almost as sweet as the songs you can make on your own. 

Better, but not quite. He’ll fight you the whole way, you know, so you release him. And he doesn’t move, only looking at you through half-lidded eyes and flushed cheeks, anticipation on the tip of his tongue as it darts out to wet his lips. 

Thumbs hooked into the band of your pants, you push them down in one move with your underwear, uncaring for modesty. There’s no use in it when he’s sprawled out the way he is, hard and just as desperate as you are. The least he could do is undress himself for you, but he’s almost too willing to go along with it all and stay where you put him. 

It’s annoying, and a little empowering. 

Tugging him free, just enough for his length to spring out and smear the beaded arousal against your knuckles, you straddle him once more. Something burns in his eyes as he looks up at you, so different from the annoyance from so often before. It’s something hungry and yearning now, colored with that same desperation that had been in his voice during your brief lucidity on the ship. 

There are screens everywhere in his room, all powered off and threatening to show your reflection that is certainly a mirror of his own in its desire. You keep your eyes on his, your hands on his chest, pushing down as you sink onto him and try desperately not to marvel at how he seems to fit perfectly. Perhaps he wasn’t only made for the purposes he claimed; maybe he was also made for you. 

The thought makes your mind run wild, and what you intended to be slow and drawn out devolves quickly into a greedy back-and-forth, your hips rocking as his expression starts to crumble, his eyes turning to the ceiling only for you to grab his chin and bring him back to you. Your thumb prods at his lip, slipping in to press against grit teeth that stifle the noises he makes as you fuck yourself on him. 

“None of that, don’t you dare.” You warn, thumbnail pressing into the seam between his top and bottom teeth, worming your way in until he can’t hold you off any longer. The pad of your thumb slides along his tongue as if to coax the broken moan that tears from the back of his throat, the bottom of his chest. 

Your thumb pushes a little further, just far enough that he jerks in response beneath you, the movement causing him to buck upward and drive deeper. His own actions treat you to more of those sweet sounds, and you hook your thumb instead against his cheek, feeling the roughness where he so often chews on it in annoyance. 

Each movement of your hips is accompanied by a wet sound, not entirely of your own making but also the man beneath you whose nails scrape against the bed in a bid to ground himself. Before he can clamp his teeth together again, you all but purr, “No point in being quiet, it’s just us. Just me and you.”

Just you, and him, and the building sensation of burning in your gut as you ride him ruthlessly, taking more than you’re giving, angling just right to reach your own pleasure. He’ll get his eventually, but something about the way he wears desperation makes you want to see it a little longer. As you pull your fingers from his mouth and lean back, truly taking him all the way to where you need it most, you’re feeling a little vindictive. 

Your hands brace behind you on his knees as you arch, your thighs closing around him and knees digging into his bottom ribs. If it hurts, all he does is appreciate it and throb within you, desperate to feel what you’re feeling as you cum with a drawn-out moan that trembles at the edges. 

But his appreciation only lasts for so long, and as you fall still and catch your breath, his hips roll upward expectantly, like he’s trying to remind you of something you’d forgotten. Of course you haven’t, but you stay still as he pushes up into you again, and again, trying and failing to make it feel as good as it had when you were doing it. 

“C’mon… please…” Scaramouche forces out, both words punctuated by a futile thrust up into your heat as you idly watch him struggle. It must feel good; he’s still hard. One of his hands reaches out to grasp your thigh, fingertips digging in hard enough that it hurts you. “I was so close-”

“Keep going, then. If you want me so badly.”

Your words don’t hold as much weight when you’re weak from your own release, but not as weak as he is when beneath you. His voice is just as thin, pleading, “I need it. I need you, please.”

You can oblige, since he asked so nicely. Pushing forward once more, you brace on his chest and lift your hips, quietly lamenting the feeling of him being pulled from you. The remedy comes quickly with you pushing yourself down hard enough that he cries out wordlessly in a short burst of ecstasy. 

Leaning forward more, giving yourself some room to work, you abandon the back-and-forth from before to instead nearly bounce on his cock, the bed protesting with the sudden rough movements, just as you hiss at his nails digging into your thigh. Maybe he’ll leave marks, maybe you won’t be so upset about that. 

“Please… please, please, don’t stop,” Scaramouche’s other hand strikes out against the wall next to the bed, the side of his fist slamming into the metal once before his palm slaps it and drags down. Anything to relieve himself, anything at all. Even shameless begging, “I-I’m going to… ngh! Shit-!”

The thought of denying him again doesn’t cross your mind, not while the very corners of his eyes dot with desperate tears, his chest expanding and contracting with each shuddering moan. Scaramouche’s peak is visceral, each wave hitting him with a throbbing of his cock inside you. You bend down close to his face, fingers smoothing away at the just-shed tears before they can slip into his hair from down his temples. 

Are they from just this, you wonder? Or the leftovers of his own panic after your botched mission? It’s hard to say, but you wipe them away just the same and kiss at his lips that are chapped from his shameless moaning. 

The link between you feels stretched taut, both sides seeming to pull on it to ensure its existence. Scaramouche’s hands curl around your shoulder blades, pulling you closer than any digitized connection could. 

“Are we okay?”

Scaramouche hums in quiet acknowledgment, an agreement without words. You’ll owe him an apology at some point later, or maybe this all could suffice, but for now you listen to the quiet hum of the servers at the other end of the room, the steady thrum of his heart against your ear, his breathing getting slower. 

You’ve never seen him sleep before; he murmurs something incoherent that you spend far too long trying to figure out. And when you do come up with three words, three syllables, you’re not sure you’ve heard him right. 

Pillow talk for the morning, you think.

[showtoonzfan]

Hey showtoonz what your opinion on that one lackadaisy employee being transphobic also hi big fan of yours.👋

Thank you! So…I avoided talking about that since I’m really tired of talking about fandom drama or just drama surrounding projects in general, it drains me.

I was willing to give Ze the benefit of the doubt at first, but I think it’s safe to say that they’re problematic, ESPECIALLY since I’ve seen their behavior in their own discord server and on twitter, so even taking out the transphobic stuff they’re seemingly very toxic and not that good of a person, and ngl…seeing some of the Lackadaisy crew dismiss the transphobic likes by simply saying “I know this person they’re not transphobic” as well as Ashley Nicholas and Tracy Butler herself using these ridiculous excuses of bookmarking/unliking the tweet would arise suspicion is…..it was kinda yikes. I get that these people know Ze and we don’t, but that’s not an excuse to dismiss their actions. I don’t have much to say other than I’m not on Ze’s side wether the crew supports them or not.

I’m also sick of how this is contributing to the HH/HB fandom, cause they were so quick to attack Ze and the Lackadaisy crew for having someone problematic on the team, even some saying they simply cannot support Lackadaisy anymore, despite Vivziepop being outed MULTIPLE times for being a shit person as well as her transphobic discord comments but no one bats an eye. However, it’s not a competition and I don’t want to make it one. Ze is problematic, Viv is problematic. It’s as simple as that. 🤷🏽‍♀️

[keyslox]

have you ever noticed how part of c!jack’s character is he is obscure and nobody really knows him and how in the fandom he is also obscure and nobody really knows him

Jack Manifold was never really given the time of day. Sure, he had a small part in the server (ultimately the one who ended the whole thing), but his presence was not respected all that much. Placed into the lowest rank of L’Manberg’s cabinet, killed by Wilbur Soot for ‘not being seen’. He never got a REAL apology for that, by the way. I will stand by the fact that Wilbit’s apology to Jack was manipulative, half-assed, and more for himself than Jack’s wellbeing. It was well before the ‘Apology arc’ and THAT IN OF ITSELF shows just how little it actually meant to Wilbur. He was just doing it to make himself feel better and didn’t actually have Jack’s feelings in mind.

The biggest thing I see going around is Tommy being excused for what he did to Jack. Killing him when Jack went to visit him in the Nether during his Exile. Tommy has trauma. We all know that. He was a victim to extreme manipulation and abuse and a slew of other things. Yet he blatantly ignores every attempt, denies and/or doesn’t fully grasp that he did what he did. Which I can understand because the dude went through severe trauma, but that’s not an excuse. He still needs to take the accountability for his actions.

Jack deserves so much more than he’s ever gotten and it SHOWS. He literally wants friends. That’s it. He wants friend and companionship and he wants what he THOUGHT he had. Because he never actually had it. If he had it Wilbur wouldn’t have killed him, Tommy would actually listen, and he would be shown an ounce of respect for his own traumas and hardships when he tries to talk about it all. All everyone does is dismiss, downplay, and invalidate c!Jack’s pain. That’s a big reason why he’s the way he is! Every other attempt to let himself express his issues ends in him feeling worse about himself.

And we’ve seen time and time again that everyone else Jack tries to talk to and vent to takes Tommy’s side! (Ex: Puffy) There’s bias that Tommy can do no wrong and is the ‘savior’ of the smp. But even if he’s the ‘main protagonist’ doesn’t diminish he causes pain.

They give the excuse that Tommy was a child, that children should be protected and yada yada. Jack was more-or-less a child when he first joined, too! He should have the same excuses, the same treatment as all the other kids on the smp but he doesn’t because he was left alone and had to grow up faster.

He didn’t have anyone to lean against, so he just never let himself fall. And when he inevitably did no one cared or batted an eye because no one was there. He died 3 times and no one batted an eye.

The fandom is so bias sometimes. I’m not huge on DAMP fanfics that involve Jack because they mischaracterize him so much. Put him as a bully in School AUs, make him mean and rude for no reason. The reason in canon is because no one gave a single fuck about him. (not including Niki) Jack had a reason for being ‘cruel’, no one else did. It comes with the fact that Jack’s POV just isn’t as watched, so people don’t know his side of things. But what bothers me is that it feels like fans don’t even try to see stuff from his point of view. He was abused, manipulated, killed, and used in his own right. If everyone else gets excuses for the shit they did, he deserves it too.

Below is how I interpreted Jack’s ending, and how, despite everything he’s gone through, his character gets some sort of ending that isn’t completely angsty. I acknowledge that Jack isn’t the morally-perfect character, that he was fueled by anger and rage. He had a slight victim complex. But from a more basic pov, and for the fans who don’t really understand his character, I think he was redemptive. In his own right.

REDEMPTION:

From its literal definition Redemption is “An act of redeeming or atoning for a fault or mistake, or the state of being redeemed. deliverance; rescue.” The state of being redeemed comes in many shapes and sizes. Actions and words big and small. For some it may take great showings of purpose and selflessness. For others it can be as simple as “I’m sorry.”

Someone can go their whole entire lives fighting with something they ultimately in the end agree with. A lot of it is a matter of perspective. Jack only had one perspective.

Jack was alone for most of his life on the dsmp. Yes he had friends in the beginning but wars and betrayal had him distancing himself and trying to find ways to fix it. None ever worked. Because he was alone. When you only work with one perspective you don’t understand the other side, and how it might actually clear things up and switch your own views.

It only took Jack a matter of minutes after arguing with Tubbo for him to realize he didn’t have the whole picture. Someone so close to Tommy, someone who WAS there to see the other side of things. Someone Jack trusts and respects, who’d he call a friend, to listen and then fight him on his thoughts even if it was in the form of an argument. Though he fucked up and killed everyone, I think his actions of still attempting to save Tommy with Tubbo have given him a bit of redemption. Not all, everyone has faults. But he was on the path to healing when he died. If only for a few minutes.

Jack died by his own hands trying to right his wrong. If that’s not a symbolic Jack ending I don’t really know what is.

[violetganache42]

Be sure to watch the season 2 premiere of Moon girl and Devil Dinosaur because the show is in danger of being cancelled

Yeah, everyone at the Disney Beat server and I saw a couple of nights ago, and we've all been so fucking ANGRY at Disney. 14 episodes getting dropped all at once on Disney+?! What the fuck were they thinking?!

(Rant under the cut.)

It's bad enough they release batches of episodes at once like what Netflix did with Sonic Prime, but they plan to drop around half a season there to where they're making the main channel do two episodes per week?! You seriously couldn't do weekly premieres on TV and have the new episodes get released the next day on streaming, like what HBO Max did with Unicorn: Warriors Eternal and My Adventures with Superman?! The fact they reveal this on the MGDD Crew TikTok and paint it as a good thing does not help either. "How could you not celebrate" HOW COULD YOU NOT REALIZE YOU'RE BEING SO FUCKING DENSE RIGHT NOW?! LOOK AT THIS SHIT!

You cannot make this up! Streaming as a whole has seriously fucked over entertainment. Netflix made the binge format the new norm, and it's not working anymore. If you thought shows getting shorter-lived hype through binging compared to a weekly release was an issue, the quantity is a-whole-nother problem. If it was 5 or 6 episodes getting added at a time, that would be less infuriating, but this is 14 half-hour episodes we're talking about! That's 308 minutes of straight-up binging Disney expects us to do! No one is gonna binge this many episodes in a timeframe like that! And keep in mind, this isn't an earlier season from a finished or ongoing show; this is a whole new season we're talking about. People who haven't watched MGADD yet or don't have Disney+ and/or cable are gonna get exposed to a fuck ton of spoilers. Not to mention Disney Channel is gonna have to spend 7 weeks catching up to Disney+ with the episodes they air on TV. That will do a serious number on the TV views! And don't get me started on the international releases because I was told MGADD has been delayed so much to where S2 of dubbing is done (hence the promos in Japan), but considering the company's crapass handling of international releases, people won't be able to watch it until a much later date. Oh, and there are also countries that don't have the show despite it being dubbed in their language. Right off the bat, that's international views down the drain and the strong possibility of people in the other countries being exposed to spoilers depending on what they come across and who they're following.

You know what the absolute kicker is? They had the fucking audacity to reveal this shortly after they treated The Ghost and Molly McGee like garbage. No joke! The very minimal reruns they gave it throughout its run, its cancellation as season 3 was being drafted, the shitty promotions, them releasing "Jinx vs. the Human World" on iTunes and "The End" on YouTube ahead of their TV and Disney+ releases. I am not kidding about the last part; because Disney didn't temporarily remove them, SpoilerTV reported both episodes received only 63K and 56K TV views! Now compare that to the 375K views "Watching and Dreaming" got; all three TOH specials weren't released on YouTube or Disney+ until after the DC/XD simulcast premiere! And this is the same show that got shortened by the now retired Gary Marsh! The upsetting part is Bill Motz is blaming himself for putting too much pressure on the fans for watching TGAMM and appointing ambassadors to help promote it. No, it's not your fault, Bill. It's the Disney executives and their shitty marketing strategy's fault your show got cancelled. You care about the show you and Bob Roth created, and you wanted it to do well. The higher ups didn't bother to continue promoting the show after it premiered, and that alone just forced you, the ambassadors, and the audience to do their job for them. They're the reason why it underperformed on D+ and DC. Now, it may potentially happen again with MGADD thanks to them!

Why did they pulling any of this shit was a good idea?! The show got ample marketing, from an advertisement outside the Days of Christmas store in Disney Springs and Moon Girl herself appearing in Disney California Adventure to merchandise such as a Moon Girl Funko, a couple of books, and even a graphic novel! It has received nominations and won awards, and the current lead executive Ayo Davis said season 1 performed well in ratings! Yet they turn around and pull all of this bullshit as season 2 approaches! Seriously, what is preventing you from doing next-day weekly releases and continuing your marketing, Disney?! All your other Marvel shows have gotten weekly releases and so much promoting, and regardless of the reception of each show, they all get high ratings! That even includes What If…?, the MCU's first animated show! Just because MGADD is adjacent/not entirely connected to the MCU and is a Disney TVA show doesn't give you the excuse to treat it like crap post-season 1!

I'm sorry for the ranting, but this multi-whammy has been so fucking frustrating. I have been a big fan of MGADD since the beginning, and like I previously said, it helped fill the DuckTales-shaped hole in my heart. I'm glad that it has such a strong start, and I want it to continue doing well, but the upcoming 14-episode release was such a fucking gut punch. The more the active Disney Beat server memebrs and I ranted and vented about it, the more furious we grew to where a few of us—myself included—were in tears; it is such a horrendous decision the Disney executives made! I'm at least glad the past week has gotten people to talk about how shows are getting treated nowadays thanks to streaming, and Disney Beat tweeting about the 14-episode bomb release announcement got deleted. Unfortunately, the higher ups most likely deleted it just to save face and won't reverse the decision in the end. Regardless, more people are catching onto the pitfalls with streaming and are noticing how shows no longer have the opportunities to build audiences over time. They are treated as nothing more as a means of gaining views and instant gratification rather than a medium made for one's enjoyment. With the Animation Guild's contract having been expired for around a few months, I hope one of their demands is to stop the shows' mistreatments and lack of sufficient marketing because streaming left a devastating and worsening impact on the entertainment and animation industries.

[woahjo]

Thinking about pro hero bakugo having a full busy day of saving lives just for him to go back home an take you out to dinner and fuck you senseless after. As if it’s a casual 9-5 job. The best part is that you’re the only one who sees him like this. The only one who gets to taste his cock after he’s taken you out for dinner, and treated you like royalty. Just you. It fills you with so much pride knowing girls are out there going crazy for their chance to do exactly this with the pro, but he’s too busy with your tongue around his dick 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

nonnie... the way i think about this so frequently... like just the concept of dating pro-hero dynamight... he is so popular. he's SO popular. the pro-hero equivalent of a heartthrob (a title he shares with deku).

you'd like to BELIEVE that you're down to earth about dating someone so famous, but sometimes, seeing the way people treat him gets under your skin. journalists flirt with him in their tv interviews, batting their eyelashes and touching his biceps, laughing too hard at his relatively unfunny jokes. of course, he always finds a way to bring you up. my partner, this— my partner, that.

but of course, you're a civilian, and when his fans find out, they get a little irate. he could do better. why isn't he dating a pro-hero like so and so?? well, im better looking than them! it feels good when he takes you out to a nice dinner and parades you around a little. when he tells you to wear something nice and walks you into the upscale restaurant on his arm. hell, even grabbing food from the food truck by your shared place feels good. it's like getting to mark your territory a little bit.

and then there's the end of the night, when you're swirling your tongue around the tip of his cock, or when he finally starts bullying the tip between your legs. yeah, maybe the waitress flirted with him all evening. maybe she made goo goo eyes while the other servers giggled at her boldness to do it in front of you, but you've got him occupied. and there's something sort of sweet about having what so many others want, even if it started so far removed from those sorts of ideas.

i think about it often and frequently.

[batsies-little-monster]

First Bat-Fans Movie night, will be tonight!

https://discord.gg/2NYHNPPd

[fountainpenguin]

"And honestly, I think you're fine! I mean, you're beautiful... about 84% of the time!" (x)

---

New Dog's Life chapter today! ~ 3rd Life series fan-season

Chapter 21 - “Heat (Martyn, BigB)”

❤️ Read on AO3

💛 Start from Chapter 1

💚 More Pixels Imperfect fics

---

A frustrated Martyn is left alone to babysit the Fox Dragon’s eggs. He texts Grian, Scott, Cleo, Mumbo, and Ren, then gets in three fights within an hour.

Meanwhile, BigB checks if Impulse's new farm designs are ethical for the villagers involved and Bdubs walks in on a dynamic that catches him off guard. Huzzah for server hub politics!

(First 1,000 words under the cut)

---

InTheLittleWood - Phantom

Status: Bored

Acting captain of New Star Station's phantom hybrid flock

💙  🧡  💚

"Iron… water… charcoal… salt… Ugh." Martyn leans all his weight against the lab table, blowing his lips. "Wow, this would be so much easier if I had an admin panel- none of this back-and-forth rabble. Why don't I ever look these things up when I'm on-server?"

The fox eggs, being eggs, don't respond. Martyn had to peel his eyes from them to focus his attention on the lab table, though he keeps his tail resting on the ground, lightly wrapped around the nearest one. If someone flutters down on the flock roost platform, he'll hear them. And if someone creeps on tiptoes across the landing, the vibration will rattle up his spine. He's a great caretaker. This is going just swell.

And it's not a bad gig, actually, stuck up here on the clock tower... so long as you don't mind the squawking and banter of parrot hybrids in the southern park whose voices carry back all this way. Let them sing you the song of their people; we're all sparky-frustrated up here in Between. Gods, that stupid moon.

Grian: i maen its no surprise if its rough. wild phantom idle ambiance uses live young w/o eggs or nests. the hybrids were the same back in my world Grian: well undead young but ykwim Grian: like its your bat side and not your vulture side is what im saying Grian: or whatever else you are InTheLittleWood: k InTheLittleWood: thanks g Grian: yeah sure InTheLittleWood: wait how do undead hybrid babies work? Grian: ? were you born alive? InTheLittleWood: ?? I thought I was? I was adopted as an egg tho, I didn't hatch in Linda's nest. Never thought to ask "Hey Mum and Dad, was I born alive?"

He pats the nearby eggs as Grian starts to type. Should he put his crocs back on? Is it rude to put your smelly feet up on a spawn egg? They can't sense that, right? Nah… They're not even born yet. The very beginnings of a soul might be in there (Maybe? He's not sure how it works), but they only hatch once an account links up to them. This clutch only has a few dozen eggs.

Martyn rests his hands on his stomach, counting down the ticking seconds. Thousands and thousands of eggs hatch every day, more or less in the order they were laid by one of the 98 dragons across Between. Sometimes siblings and camera twins are born the same species. Sometimes another dragon dropped a few of her own in a nest at the same time, so there's a split.

On rare occasion, two souls bundle in a single egg- That's where you get identical twins like Grian and Two. How much longer before these foxes start spawning? It can't be long now.

Gods, imagine if every single one hatches two souls… That'll be at least 60, 70, 80 fox hybrids scampering around up here. I should probably take them down to ground level. The base of the tower is a big empty room, offering nothing but the stairs and the doorway out.

Grian: i think mumbo said the phantom dragon carries the eggs in her throat pouch Grian: its what the alligator dragon does and she lives in the swamp near mumbo's spawner with joels mom InTheLittleWood: Suddenly I think I owe my parents some cards and gifts. I knew adopting phantoms was rare but I didnt realize grabbing an egg probably means crawling inside Linda's mouth and escaping before she bites you, geez 😳 InTheLittleWood: unless they just got my egg right after it was laid Grian: when the spawnlings hatch they eat the souls shes been carrying in there Grian: lol Grian: i mean mumbo got paid the big $ to do egg stealing runs, its why he had the last allay aggs Grian: eggs

Martyn lifts his brows, staring at his comm screen. If you measure by years instead of levels, he's older than Mumbo. Mumbo definitely didn't grab his egg, but how weird would that be? You marry the man who kidnapped you as a baby… That's just weird.

Granted, he does hail from a well-off family. The term "well-off" is ambiguous when you're off-server, but the gist is that his parents actually do have diamonds whereas most of Between's natural resources have been picked over out in the wild.

Growing up, he always just assumed his parents ended up with a phantom egg because that's what they bid for when the adventurers - usually, but not always wandering traders - went out on adoption runs to the dragon nests. His mum's an otter hybrid and his dad's a raven: a rare predator and a rare scavenger most people don't even know are native in the game.

Otter code was prepped for Minecraft Dungeons, but never made it beyond early concepts. Nonetheless, they exist. They're called a Tweenborn mob- something meant to exist, but never truly crossed into one of the main dimensions. Ravens actually did make it into the Dungeons spin-off, but only went public as cosmetic pets. You don't fight them, but they hang around anyway.

Most people thought his parents were modded and would do a double-take if they ever mentioned the Otter Dragon or Raven Dragon, who rarely get the mental pings to build nests and lay eggs. Growing up, they used to introduce Martyn as "their phantom kid" and urge him to show the wings and his baby fangs.

Was I a trophy kid? he wonders now. He wouldn't put it past them. Love his parents he may, but they did chase a lot of status symbols. Being rich enough to afford what must've been a wizard-level egg retrieval - potentially from the depths of Linda's gular pouch - may have been too good to resist.

Martyn stares a little more, rubbing his thumb across the edge of his communicator. I haven't seen my parents since before my EVO days. Maybe he should go. He can fly fast and be back in a snap. Would Scott allow that?

I guess it doesn't hurt to ask.

[Full chapter on AO3 - Link at top]

[luminouslotuses]

watched the video and. i have thoughts

the most glaring issue i noticed right off the bat was how he went through various controversies from the past first. clearly he’s doing this to make sure everyone knows what his intentions are, which– sure, would’ve been good after each issue had happened 1-2 years ago, but it’s just that this is completely irrelevant to the allegations. that’s what everyone is here for and wants his actual response to, which he knows, but he pulls this shit anyway; and he still acts self-righteous while going through them.

i’m not a liar– here’s some instances of me lying about things i’ve done in the past. this was a very good and detailed video, but he’s highly critical of me. i do not support nsfw art of minors, that’s disgusting (but it’s fine to make sexual jokes about minors in my own minecraft server!). i can’t post any photos without people saying i’m gross or weird!

the “examples” of fan & friend relationships that are shown in a following segment also bothered me. why would you bring these people, who– despite you being on good terms with in the past have clearly distanced themselves from you recently– into this dumpster fire of a situation?? again, dream with this recurring theme of constantly bringing up people he used to be friends with as either an attempt to garner sympathy or to make himself look better.

when he gets to the allegations, i feel like he’s taking a roundabout way to actually address them. at one part he says how it’s difficult to prove what actually happened without there being evidence, then gives an example saying “prove to me you didn’t sext [insert anybody here]”. thirty minutes into the video and he’s still managing to somehow sidetrack from the matter at hand, even if just for a moment.

then there’s the segment where he’s talking with his mom about him barely leaving his house between 2021 and his face reveal, which lasts for a minute and half. you’re not missing anything if it’s simply summarized as such: he rarely left his house. maybe, for the sake of clarity, he could provide a few examples and move on, but nope. he had to stretch it out for as long as he possibly could; and not to mention how despite the video being “SERIOUS” and “NOT A JOKE” he’s chuckling and laughing with his mother, which feels like such tonal whiplash compared to the heavy topics that are (and should be) being discussed.

i. don’t even want to get into the cantu situation too much or it’ll give me a headache but i do have a couple things to say. overall both dream and cantu aren’t good people and while it’s shown more clearly by cantu in this specific instance, it’s obvious by now that dream’s not a good person either. the other thing is that the editing in the video is very poppy and unserious, which– god, AGAIN, this video is supposed to be about serious topics! being discussed in a serious manner! and this is literally the opposite of that.

all in all it’s good to finally hear what he has to say that’s not in a rushed, emotionally-driven or standoffish tweet. and, yes, no original evidence was concrete. yes, dream might not be a groomer. but it’s fucking pathetic it took him this long to make a clear response. he’s not trustworthy, he should definitely not have the platform that he has, and his reputation is irreversibly damaged from this. there’s no going back now.

[musashi]

I’m Going to Change Your Mind About Manfred von Karma: An Essay

alright been a while since i was particularly autistic on here but I’ve been meaning to make this into a General Masterpost for a while so here we go.

Today on Autism: the twitter/tumblr AA fandom, manfred von karma, over-villainification, and why fanon manfred (fanfred) is in fact fanon and indisputably a freezing cold take.

alright, so first we have to define some things. first off: what the fuck am i talking about when i talk about “fanon” in relation to mvk?

specifically, i am talking about the interpretation of his character that i see mostly prevalent in tumblr, twitter, and AO3 as spaces. this interpretation pretty universally places him as an unrepentant child abuser. the extent of this abuse varies from fanwork to fanwork, most often it is verbal but occasionally it is physical instead or in tandem. usually this abuse is directed at miles but often bleeds into franziska as well, with some alternate takes proposing that one of them is the favoured child and the other is wholly disposable in manfred’s eyes. again, which is which can vary. i’m not going to go into explicit detail about this, but just for a quick visual aid, let’s utilize AO3′s tag filtering system.

as of this moment, if you go into mvk’s tag on ao3, there are 1102 total works that he features or makes an appearance in. ao3 allows you to filter out tags you might not want to see, so i’ve gone ahead and done that with all the child abuse tags i see used on the site, as well as a special custom tag the AA fandom has for mvk specifically. that should be the first indication that this particular interpretation about him is common. here’s my filters:

doing this knocks the work count down to 943. that’s roughly 150 works shaven right off the bat, and that is 1. only the works people bothered to tag him in and 2. only the works they bothered to content tag. there are countless fics about miles and franziska where he is not a central character, but his proposed abuse is a part of the narrative important to them as characters. so these numbers don’t even fully exemplify the problem.

having spent some time in multiple AA spaces, i have noticed this interpretation only really seems prevalent on tumblr, twitter, and AO3. in other fan spaces like discord servers, forums, on youtube, in twitch communities, i literally do not see this anywhere. 

so. why is this the prevailing interpretation on these websites? well, that one’s easy for me to answer: miles and franziska are incredibly queer & nd coded. they are incredibly full of trans/gay swag and incredibly autistic, and miles isn’t just coded as neurodivergent, he very loudly very canonically has PTSD that causes him to struggle with everyday life. this is played straight and normalized in canon. there is no disputing this.

historically, queer and nd people are not treated very well by, well, anyone. including our own parents. we have sky-high rates of child abuse among us for perceived imperfection, and the rest really just writes itself. we latch onto characters that we see ourselves in, and we write what we know, and unfortunately what a lot of us know is heartbreak.

this is bolstered by something i noticed just anecdotally, having read through the entire mvk tag a million times: people who are attached to miles and franziska tend to write him as an abuser. people who are attached to any of the pre-DL6 crew (gregory, gant, & blaise) do not.

to get this out of the way, there is... literally nothing wrong with this. there is nothing in canon that contradicts that opinion about manfred. there is no problem if you want to write him that way, and if writing him that way is a form of healing for you, i want you to write it to your heart’s content. i want you to write and write and write until one day you feel better, and then i want you to write some more. listen. i love you. i feel you. i understand.

the problem is that this opinion has become SO parroted (hahaha, like the-- like in the game when--like wh--) that it has now been more or less canonized in the eyes of this swath of people. it is not canon. it is a headcanon. i will hereby be referring to this headcanon’s version as “fanfred,” because it’s fucking funny and my clown shoes honk and squeak as i move.

when challenged on this point (“what basis to we have for manfred von karma being abusive to his children?”) here is the one single piece of evidence that team fanfred brings to the table, these lines from case 1-4 of AAI:

here, manfred brushes off his daughter’s attempt to connect with him and calls miles worthless to his face. undoubtedly, and without question, there is no part of this that is not incredibly fucked up. 

but... i do have some counterpoints, regardless.

point 1: AAI, imo, should be considered dubious canon. it was not written or directed by takumi and there are a lot of little inconsistencies in characterization that seem to fly over the AAI team’s heads--the biggest one for me personally is how in the AA trilogy, franziska never ever uses her whip on miles, except once in bridge when he’s having a trauma episode. this is a very small piece of characterization that means a lot to the people who notice it! but it’s ignored in aai, where she whips him nonstop like he’s an unruly showhorse.

all that to say, the aai team has their own interpretations of these characters. there are subtleties they miss, and choices made that might seem obvious upfront but fall apart under a microscope. this is kind of how i feel about mvk being kind of a shitty dad here, especially because...

point 2: this is ooc even for this game. reminiscence is a case i have memorized front to back, these lines come out of fucking NOWHERE. the tone set for miles & manfred’s relationship at the beginning of the case is not adversarial or unpleasant! they talk about the case with one another, very politely take turns proposing ideas and theories, and miles listens enraptured hanging on mvk’s every word. he wants to do good. he wants to be perfect. and mvk wants to see to it that he achieve that goal. if rell and faraday hadn’t gotten murdered, we would have gotten mvk as co counsel! every day i think about how we were robbed of that. nothing leads up to this line above. it is weird, confrontational, triggered by nothing, and way out of left field. not to mention directly contradictory to what mvk said at the beginning of the case, claiming to expect perfection from miles. it’s a weird fucking outburst, a sudden statement, which brings me to point three:

point 3: lead poisoning. more on that later.

[EDIT APRIL 2023: holy fucking shit. alright, nevermind, throw all this off the table: this line was a fucking mistranslation. as one of my youtube commenters pointed out:

‘The Investigations quote is actually a translation error. Karma didnt call Miles "Worthless" on the original JP version, he calls him "半人前" what means "an amateur / someone without experience" (what, for every single meaning of the word Miles actually IS in this case. It's literally his first case and he wasnt supposed to be anything more than a assistant untill like 5min before the game starting). 

The translation put a really heavy amount malice on Karma's phrasing that simply doesnt exist on the original (and I actually got my DS the first time on years to confirm this). Maybe because they knew so many fans had this vision of Karma (or are "Abusive Karma fans" themselves), because there's  no way this kind of translation wasnt done on bad faith... It's the worst option you could take (as in: the only one that wouldnt work in the context out of 10 others) and seems like a proposital Character Assassination on the translators part.’

so, holy fucking shit. i was right. it WAS ooc, because that shit was thrown in randomly in english for no apparent reason]

but even if we DO decide to consider AAI indisputable canon. then that, i feel, opens up a whole new can of worms. if AAI is canon material, what else can we consider canon material? because i’ve got quite a lot of material of one manfred von karma from other dubiously canon sources, and uh. the fanfred crowd is not gonna like it.

from the mangas we have manfred keeping no less than 5 photos of franziska on him at all times and showing them off to his opposing counsel with little to no prompting. we have him screaming at badd to keep a careful watch on his kids, not wanting to deny them their time at a real crime scene investigation but being worried to the point of seething rage. 

(a bit more subtle, but from this same manga we have him getting his feefees hurt because kay calls him scary. i really love this because 1. it’s a parallel to pearl doing the same thing to franziska in bridge, and 2. it’s just really funny that von karmas want little girls to like them and view them as heroes of justice so bad but are constantly dissuaded by their resting bitch face. manfred has two daughters, he’s so used to little girls thinking he’s cool.) 

in the live action movie, we have a beautiful scene where mvk and miles talk about the importance of not losing yourself in the pursuit of courtroom victory. i really love mvk in this movie. my friend once described him as someone’s grandpa who’s just lost in the mall.

in the anime! oh! the anime! let me count the ways i love thee.

in the aftermath of DL6 manfred comes to move miles out of his empty childhood home. seeing him balled up and unresponsive on the couch, mvk takes off the scarf he’s wearing and wraps it, tenderly, around miles before escorting him out of the house.

by miles’ own admission, he considers mvk the only person who was there for him after his father died.

sound the turnabout melody, an episode about miles’ life growing up with the von karmas, is my favourite piece of ace attorney media in the history of ever. it contains:

mvk asking and outright encouraging miles on the prospect of being a defense attorney

franziska, age 8, who has noticed that the new boy living in her home has never once smiled. she spends the whole episode trying to figure out ways to fix this. she demands (demands!) mvk 

take them to a trial

take them to the mall

take them to fucking IHOP 

and mvk complies with all of this. he buys franziska build a bear, and when she’s too sad for pancakes because miles has run off after his dog, the two of them go searching.

by the way he lets miles keep his dog, too. 

the reason miles ran off is because he happened upon a criminal and saw through her lies. franziska and manfred fall back around the corner, watching him seek the truth and corner her. when she begins to get unruly, they step in, presence imposing as they protect miles. there is a lingering set of shots on manfred’s powerful finger snap, his eyes burning into her, and franziska with her riding crop, ready to fight a grown woman three times her size. miles is a part of their family. they love him.

miles apologizes for all the trouble. mvk says, let’s get pancakes. miles wins several thousand dollars in reward money for finding a dog and says, can i donate it to an animal shelter? mvk says, of course you can. it’s your money.

mvk was intending on only looking after miles temporarily as a foster parent. he states, outright, that he suspects this impulse came from guilt. he says, in few words, that he regrets what he did, and views taking on miles as his karma for it.

the episode is about miles feeling lost and alone, like he has nowhere, like he has no future. he doesn’t want to be a defense attorney anymore--it reminds him of what he’s lost. mvk watches him corner this criminal, and thinks, quietly, are you a prosecutor, boy? at the end of the episode, after franziska and mvk have solidified his importance in their family, manfred ties a cravat around miles’ neck. miles understands this gesture means he is a part of their family and, for the first time in years, he smiles with his whole face. the episode ends with him finally feeling as though he’s found his truth, his place in the world.

many people interpret manfred as losing respect for miles, berating him, or being otherwise cruel and abusive to him when he loses his first case in turnabout sisters. in the anime, he just seems perplexed!

he gives him some advice about not having feelings. it’s cliche anime villain, but fuck’s sake, it’s not cruel and unusual. today i experienced a fanwork where manfred slapped miles in the fucking face and called him every horrible thing under the sun.

in every single canon i can think of, there is more evidence that manfred was exactly as he seems--a stern mentor, who is cold and calculating and precise, but who has a clear charisma and functions as miles’ rock. in every single canon, miles loves and respects him. miles wants to be more like him. miles views him as an irrefutable part of getting through the trauma of his father’s death. franziska, too, talks about him with stars in her eyes in every canon. he is everything she aspires to be, he is her hero. fanworks where manfred forced these children to be mindless prosecuting machines pale entirely in comparison to what is in these ‘dubious’ canons, where they choose what they do because they want to stand tall beside him.

so. let’s talk about what manfred von karma is instead of what i personally believe he isn’t.

manfred von karma is a despicable fucking human being. he robbed two men of their lives. he ruined the life of every single character in the OG trilogy. do you have a character you like in the OG trilogy? manfred von karma ruined their life. every single horrible thing that has ever happened in ace attorney’s og trilogy happened because of him. and it didn’t even happen for a good reason. it happened because he was a petty, vengeful, impulsive coward of a fucking man who could not process or face head-on one single, meaningless imperfection. it happened because there was a gun at his feet and no one around to stop him. and he almost got away with it. he was so close.

he is a murderer. and a cold, calculating manipulator. he is both a fucking idiot and highly intelligent in covering his tracks. he is all these things. 

so... why does he also have to be abusive?

isn’t... doesn’t that kind of... blunt the tragedy of it all?

what is a more heartbreaking story to you--

a monster of a man, imposing and cruel to his proteges, controlling and vile and unconvinced of their worth, exposed for the murderer, for the criminal he is? or...

or manfred von karma, stern-browed but loving father, who leads them with a steady hand and holds them when they falter, who was supposed to be their guiding star, and who turned out to be the monster in the shadows all along?

what is more compelling? miles and franziska finding out the truth, and shrugging it off with a, well, that makes some sense. or miles and franziska, curled up in one another’s arms in an empty house in germany, desperately combing their memory in tatters trying to look for a sign, any sign, anything they could have pinpointed that could have clued them in on the fact that he--

but of course there wouldn’t be anything like that. von karma is perfect.

turnabout goodbyes is certainly interesting. there’s a lot of really unhinged shit going on there. herr turkey vulture is off his fucking rocker in goodbyes. the level of premeditation is a very interesting contrast to the impulsivity of DL6. not to mention it’s just a very fucking random thing to do, framing miles for murder. it’s the one reason i can kinda see where the fanfred crowd is coming from, because it is just... pointlessly evil. what revenge is there left to get? gregory edgeworth is dead. he cannot see his son be jailed. 

this brings me back to lead poisoning. i don’t really have anything more to say on that, or a big analysis to give. i just think maybe we should talk about the very real possibility that mvk is lead poisoned to shit. he acts kind of crazy sometimes. calling his kids worthless out of nowhere when 2 seconds ago they were all just talking normally. screaming in the middle of court cause his routine got interrupted. framing miles for murder in excessive detail. just girly things. i feel like his brain just rotted and rotted and rotted as the years went on until eventually he was like YEAH sure whatever i’ll really stick it to gregory, the corpse, by framing his son. that’s just my onion, though. 

some other things that annoy me are when people make him transphobic, homophobic, all the phobics, again it’s all just so... excessive. but i get REALLY pissed off when people make him ableist. if you want to write ableism, ace attorney has a billion able-bodied characters you can use for that agenda. manfred von karma is disabled. in canon. i feel like it’s kind of a slap in the fucking face to erase that about him.

again, i personally find the story less compelling if he was abusive. i find it shallow. i would much rather read about someone loved and revered exposed for the monster they are. i want to read stories about franziska shattering to nothing and sobbing in his room when she gets the call from miles, trying desperately not to think about the way her father used to sing her lullabies and bring her sweets and teach her calligraphy. i want miles to be trembling in the defendant’s chair while that metal detector beeps, i want him to be staring at his shaking hands unable to believe it, trying to find any other line of thought. i don’t want their reactions to ANY of this to be ‘yeah, that tracks.’ i want denial. i want heartbreak. i want screaming in the detention center. 

it is fine if that is not what you want, but i am tired of the reception my take gets in fandom. people on this website have not only forgotten the rule about not tagging your hate, but they are insistent that their interpretation is the only one. they act as though fanfred is the only truth. they act as though it is canon, and they call us abuse apologists for disagreeing. i once saw someone in the mvk tag saying if you liked manfred or kinned him you were a horrible person. i rather like my mvk kinnie friend. all he does is cry over seals, talk about thomas the tank engine, and come into the group chat where he then proceeds to tell dad jokes in character. he’s really good at motivating me to do my laundry.

if you need to process some shit you went through growing up, i love you. if you want to write what you know, i love you. but please understand that i, as an abuse survivor myself, am not compelled by narratives of abuse. i am not compelled by torture porn about the characters i relate to. i was not given a happy, loving home growing up. it’s for this reason that i want to give the characters i love and relate to what i was deprived of.

i want to change the fandom’s mind about manfred von karma. i want to shift the narrative away from this my way or the highway mentality. if i didn’t, that’s okay. but if i did for you, maybe give me a reblog, or come talk to me abt him :] he is my favourite villain in any series ever, i think. i’d love to hear what others think.

[dontcryminecraft]

Because of how distant some fanon designs are from the creator's skin(s) and because of how many new fans there are combining for the qsmp, I want to talk about fanon character designs and where some details, in-jokes and references come from.

I'm going to use Tubbo, Phil, and Wilbur as examples because they are who I'm most familiar with in terms of fanart and how fanon depictions have evolved and changed over the years.

Tubbo has the most different character design from his minecraft skin, honestly. His mc skin is Tweek from South Park, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a simple green button-up and jeans. Fanon design gives him brown hair to match his real life person, and any goat/ram hybrid design stems from dsmp fanon headcanons. Any explosion scars are from his 2nd canon death on the dsmp. My favorite detail is a red handkerchief tied around his arm or neck, since it's popular fanon (from dsmp era) that he gave his best friend tommyinnit a green one and tommy gave him a red one- their favorite colors that match their shirts.

Phil is often given many references, but lots of fanon designs for him are based in smaller details compared to tubbo. He's often given charms that reference those close to him. SBI, for example, and Kristin, his wife. If you see beads or color-coordinated charms, pink = techno, yellow = wilbur, and red = tommy. If you see an emerald, probably hanging from his hat, it's a Friendship emerald given to him on the dsmp from Technoblade. Black flowers/roses are also often given to him because Kristin was given the role as Goddess of Death, which I think he's made canon to the qsmp.

Wilbur designs honestly deviate the most from past designs, but just in case a reference slips through- small details like the L'Manberg flag or a blue sheep as stickers or patches are from the dsmp. Maybe a white streak or trench coat, but I haven't seen those often. Wings? bird wings are fanon, sometimes a hint towards SBI, but wings that kinda look like bat wings are phantom wings from the origins server he played on.

It's just super cool! I love seeing these things details transfer over as it references to the past cc's work. I'd love to hear if there are design aspects in fanart for other creators that new fans might not know about or the reasoning for! Small details that aren't on their mc skin, or even details that get ignored on their skin. Fun things that aren't wide fanon but YOU enjoy adding, I'd also love to hear about! use this as an excuse to promote your art, haha!

[bruciemilf]

Homie your funky lil streamer AU gives me life dude I love it so much!!!

Lil tidbit of an idea for u: Maybe somewhere down the line he convinces his kids to make a Minecraft server with him and just sits back and watches his kids joke and help each other build. Does he stream the server? Does he keep it close to his heart? Does he stream it for the sole purpose of recording his kids laughing and messing around in the game? Who knows but he holds those moments near and dead to his heart

Dude you say that but your ADDITIONS??? Your ideas??? Literally live in my head rent free, you're so creative and those concepts are just PRECIOUS-

And honestly, I kinda want the batkids to be the ones who return because only through absence did they realize how much they miss their dad.

When they eventually return to the nest, almost... Scared? That Bruce won't welcome them anymore? Bruce is so damn happy. Just, - openly. Smiling and laughing with all his teeth. There's a coating of joy around that manor now.

AND THE SERVER OH GOD - babs is the one who creates it. Bruce being the secret dork that he is uses a picture of him in a Walmart batman mask for his icon.

Jason has a red skeleton. Dick being the supermodel that he is has a pic with perfect angles and lighting. Tim has a selfie with him and Bernard drinking coffee.

Damian has a pic of him Bruce and a rescue kitten. Cass uses one of the birds Bruce made for her - They're literally just vibing, and I actually demand every stream is made into the living room (the fans are just excited for the new location bc they think Bruce is finally out of the box era) bc SOOO MUCH CUDDLING JUST SO MUCH

Dick has his head resting on Tim's shoulder, Damian is just buried in a bat blanket next to Cass, Duke and Stephanie have their arms locked together so they can still play, and Bruce is just under Jason's shirt with his head peaking out so he can see the screen (short bruce supremacy!!!!!!!)

The only time when they get rowdy In this warm atmosphere is when Jason and Tim team up to hunt minecraft goats and pigs just to make Damian yell, " BABA STOP THEM! NO!!!!!!"

They also get Alfred to play because he's NOT just their butler but also honorary grandfather and he does not understand a goddam thing, but he's just happy to see the family in one place again-

He builds a little guy that clearly resembles Bruce an makes him do the chores Bruce is shit at doing " oh look at that. At least this one cleans up after himself" they pillow fight on camera