#depending on what point in plot i draw him at hes either a normal happy dude in a relationship

[krenia]

"Finally it charged time to transfer the Marie piece and finish all the shipart—"

*random Aiden 30 minute [something] instead appearing*

[colorseeingchick]

Hello, colorseeingchick, I hope you’re having a nice day, and congrats on reaching 200 followers! I wanted to say I really like your Kuroko no Basket posts. I was recently looking for some small fanfics of Kuroko no Basket and I am glad I’ve found yours. I am also looking forward to reading your “Oh! Baby Series” of Tsukishima.

For the 200 Follower event, I would like to request a Kuroko no Basket matchup. I’d prefer to be matched with a male and my pronouns are she/her. I am currently 16 years old, I have brown skin and dark brown eyes. My hair is a dark brown color(almost black), very curly, and it reaches toward my mid-back. I’m 5’2” in height and I am an Aquarius(For Midorima).

I usually like to watch anime and read in my free time. I really love chocolate and exercising. I dislike people that lie a lot, peanuts, peanut butter, pecans, almonds, avocados, and onions. My hobbies are writing, drawing, reading, watching tv, singing, and playing the Piano. I think I’m particularly talented at writing since everyone seems to like my writing very much and right now I’m practicing my creative writing skills.

Personality: When I first meet someone, I tend to be quiet and just observe everyone. If anyone comes up to me, I usually just introduce myself, and depending on who the person is I may strike up a conversation. If I don’t then the person that’s talking to me will usually make conversation and I will quietly listen. I would usually just nod or say things like (yea, right, mhm) to show that I am listening. If I begin to feel comfortable I will give my opinion on the subject or try to strike up my own topic. But once I get really comfortable with that person I can become very goofy. I’ll start randomly dancing in the hallways and make weird sounds when I’m with that person. And depending on the person this can either increase or decrease in weirdness. I’m very good at listening to people especially when it comes to a person talking about their passions. My friends and family tend to laugh at a few things I say. They’re never really jokes there just situations I’ve been in and Apparently, they’re funny. I don’t tend to touch people, the most I really do regularly is either is put my hand/elbow on the person’s shoulder(Doesn’t matter if they’re tall or short) or begin poking them in odd places.

Negative Things: If someone is sad or insecure about something, I don’t know how to react, I usually just stare at them while they cry to themselves. I would not suggest that any of my friends come to me for emotional support. Unless they just want someone to listen to them. I don’t know how to take compliments. Once someone compliments me I usually just stare at the person or say thank you very slowly.

Additional: Since me and my friends were in chorus, we would usually just begin singing our chorus songs very loudly. It didn’t matter where we were, we would just begin singing. There was a time where my friend called me super sweet because I was checking up on them during the pandemic. My friends also said I give the best presents and truthfully I struggle trying to find presents. I want to give my friends something they can use or they really like. For example, I gave my friend a drawing notebook and some art supplies since they like to do art. I’ve been told that I have a mean resting face and that I act more mature for my age. I also asked my friends to describe me and they said, “Beautifully, Creative, Loving, Silly, Writer, Fashionable, Pretty, Innocent, and Nice Hairstyles.”

I swear I don’t where they’re getting these nice compliments. Hopefully, this is not too long.

Hello noodleman!!!! This was perfect do not worry. They compliment you because you're amazing haha. I always see you in my notifications and it makes me so happy :) I’m very excited to do both your matchups! For KNB, I’ve matched you with…

Akashi Seijuro!

We all know Akashi is a powerful man who’s been through a lot. As a girlfriend, you would be the one to both compliment his power and balance out his emotional state, even if you don’t intend to. And that would be the source of the beauty of your relationship with him.

You were a student at Rakuzan who would mind her own business. Akashi was in your class (ranking at the top) for the new school year, and you two sat next to each other. Akashi (this is the OG Akashi- the nice one) would introduce himself to you, and you would do the same. You observed Akashi quietly. The way he was so put together. His calm demeanor. His pretty eyes and how they were keenly watching everything. You didn’t realize he was observing you as well. While you both were just normal acquaintances at that point, things were about to change.

One day, you heard Akashi talking about basketball next to you. You could hear how passionate he was about it from the way he talked. The person he was talking to walked away, but you couldn’t help but ask him about basketball. Watching him talk that way was so enticing.

He looked at you for a second before smiling kindly and asking, “would you like to learn about basketball?” From there, you two would have a very engaged conversation with Akashi fanboying in a way that was as classy as fanboying could get, while you were listening attentively. You had to leave for the end of the day, but you left with a smiling Akashi out the door of the classroom.

The next major interaction between you two happened a few days later. You were doodling in your notebook when you heard him speak. “You’re very talented at drawing.”

You smiled awkwardly at the compliment, unsure of how to respond, so you just looked at him. He didn’t mind though. He just smiled back. “If you draw again, I’d like to see.” He then left soon after.

While you didn’t doodle again, you decided that maybe you were comfortable around Akashi, more than you thought you were.

A major shift in your dynamic happened one day when you were writing down intensely into a journal, stopping only when your hand hurt, taking time to think about your next words when you felt a light tap on your arm.

“Excuse me, if you don’t mind me asking, what are you writing?” He genuinely looked interested, which caught you by surprise.

And so you explained the short story you were writing. Akashi asked questions about the characters, the plot, where you got the idea from- all sorts of things. You both didn’t realize everyone else had already emptied out. “If you would like to share your story with me sometime, I would love to read it. And if you’d like to come by and watch my basketball team play, let me know.”

He was surprisingly easy to talk to. And that was the point where you both got closer. As you got closer, talking and learning more about each other, you both started to fall bit by bit. You both had a long list of hobbies and talents, much of which overlapped. Akashi was mesmerized by your singing, though he knew you wouldn’t like to hear the compliment if he gave it to you. Instead, he just asked you to always sing and gave you his full attention when you did. It went without say he loved your writing. He was a talented musician himself, and you found his game pretty entertaining- the way he dominated on the court.

He asked you out after Rakuzan had taken a big victory before the winter cup. You’d come to watch the game.

“Will you celebrate with me?” He asked you.

“With your team?”

“No, actually.” He’d smile at you and step closer, but had not invaded your personal space. “I’d like to actually get some time with you, on a date.”

He was pleased you said yes. The date went well. He’d learned you were mature, which is what he was looking for in a partner. He already knew you were talented and a good listener. It wasn’t long before he asked you to be his girlfriend officially.

Your dynamic with Akashi was well tailored. Being the captain of Rakuzan, he had an image to maintain- one of power. And having a girlfriend who he knew to be intimidating as well (your resting face was intense) was a fitting situation. He knew you observed and listened well, which is why he could trust that you would be thoughtful- something that was also very important to him. You also cared for efficiency and purpose. But what he didn’t realize he needed so badly was your goofiness. After you two had gotten as close as you were, he learned how funny your stories were and saw you in your most comfortable states. He loved your fun goofy side. It helped him live a little, too. He enjoyed elbowing you back when you did it to him (it was the most innocent playful thing he’d done). It didn’t bother Akashi all that much that you didn’t know how to deal with other people being emotional. He wasn’t one to show negative emotions all that much and didn’t project that expectation onto you, which made it a bit easier. He knew that if he needed to talk it out and have someone listen, he could always go to you.

Overall you and Akashi managed to balance out on a lot of your ideologies, world views, hobbies, and life practices. While some were the same, others were different- but in a complimentary way. It’s quite a beautiful dynamic, really.

~~~

Ahhh I really hope you like it! Lemme know what you think hehe. I'm excited to do your MHA one too!

[yodawgiherd]

You Were Never Truly Gone ch.8

>>>Read on AO3<<<

Soooo, you guys saw the leaks? Bruh.....

This was it, her triumph, everything Kiyomi was hoping for. The pair was together in front of the altar, flanked on both sides by the mass of Faceless guard, each member hidden behind the traditional mask. Standing in the first row Kiyomi admired how gorgeous Mikasa looked in her white wedding dress, head covered by a hood. The Shogun was right there with her, dressed in black as a counterpoint to his bride, the smile on his face genuine and Kiyomi felt a pang of pride in her chest.

See? I told you that she’s beautiful.

Everything falling into place, as she listened to the Shogun recite his wedding vows, Kiyomi’s mind was already plotting on what to do next. She was the hero now, the one who brought them the new symbol, and she had to make sure that the other nobles remembered that, first she would….

The man was finished, and now it was Mikasa’s turn to speak. The priest looked at her expectantly, nudging her to begin her vows but the girl didn’t say a word. Instead, her gaze scanned the crowd until she found Kiyomi’s, forcing their eyes to clash. Confused, Kiyomi mouthed for her to go on with the wedding. But to her horror, the Ackerman girl didn’t comply.

An exceptionally cruel smile parted the blood-red lips.

And then the Shogun was stumbling back, a dagger thrust in his chest. One of the Faceless moved drawing his blade, and before anyone could do anything he rammed it into the groom’s back.

Chaos ensued.

Screams from everywhere, sounds of running as people panicked while Kiyomi stood where she was, staring at the scene. The treacherous guard pulled down his mask, revealing that shitty beard and green eyes that Kiyomi despised. Eren Yeager, the bastard, reached out and took Mikasa’s hand, pulling her into an embrace. All around them, the rest of the Faceless guard followed his lead, drawing their swords and hacking into the gathered nobles, blood splattering all over the temple’s walls.

Kiyomi couldn’t move. She stood and stared as the two kissed in front of the altar, the place where she was supposed to have her greatest victory. Instead of that, she was looking at the greatest loss as people around her kept dying, cut down by the Shogun’s guard. To make everything worse the ground itself shook, and faint stomps could be heard.

Separating from Mikasa’s lips, Eren looked her straight in the eye, his triumphal grin disgusting to look at.

“You know how I told you that I can’t restart the rumbling?”

Cracks ran all over the roof, and his next words confirmed Kiyomi’s greatest fear.

“I lied.”

A colossal titan’s foot came through the ceiling, and Kiyomi didn’t even get the chance to scream before she was crushed to a pulp.

Waking up with a gasp Kiyomi clutched at her chest, staring wide-eyed over the darkened room. Cabin, it was the cabin, she was still at the ship. A dream, nightmare, nothing else. Breathing deep to dispel the terror, she squeezed her eyes shut while massaging her temples.

It would seem that Eren’s sudden re-appearance did a number on her mental state, and Kiyomi couldn’t even say that she was surprised by that. He was nothing short of a monster, and she was right to hate him, right to despise that man from the bottom of her heart.

No, pull yourself together.

It doesn’t matter that he’s back, the plan is still going, Mikasa agreed to it. There will be no assassination and titan army, that was in the past and wouldn’t happen again. The horrors of the past were nothing but a memory, a terrible one but gone forever. Calming herself with measured breathing, Kiyomi laid back on the bed, looking at the moonlight dancing on the cabin’s ceiling.

It will be fine. Everything will be fine. Just a few more days…

The week-long voyage was supposed to be a beautiful dream. Kiyomi imagined it sometimes, how it would feel when she is carrying the fabled Mikasa Ackerman back towards Hizuru, saving her nation and the world in a single stroke. It was the moment of her greatest triumph, years of plotting and sacrifice finally bearing that sweet, sweet fruit. She wanted to spend the time wisely, get to know the Ackerman girl – the future wife of the leader – better, maybe plant some seeds into her that she could collect on later. Yes, it should have been great, a dream come true.

It was a purgatory instead.

Any time Kiyomi saw Eren she couldn’t help but feel the anger in her rising. He wasn’t even doing anything, just talking to the sailors and soldiers, joking with them even, the bastard truly had no brakes. They all liked him, she heard, Aaron was a popular guy and it made her teeth grit. Nobody knew that they were laughing around with a monster, a man that started an apocalypse.

No, to them this was just Aaron, a friend of the Ackerman girl.

It was even worse to find the two lovebirds together. Kiyomi was never big on romance, always putting career in front of her personal needs, and it didn’t feel good being slapped in the face with it. It was everything, all the little gestures – watching them eat together, passing by as they strolled along the ship corridors hand-in-hand, catching them stargazing while they laid on the roof. She had no issues with Mikasa having fun, laughing, giggling, and being in love, she hated that Eren got to experience it too. It wasn’t fair, not to the millions that he trampled.

Her mood got even worse when she saw them kissing, hidden in corners of the ship, once in a cargo hold too, it made Kiyomi miserable. Didn’t help that after three night of relatively peaceful sleep, bar the nightmare, she was once again awoken by: “Ah, Ah Eren, right there! Don’t stop!”.

That night she didn’t lay in bed and waited for it to end. Fed up with the two, Kiyomi left her cabin and leaned on the railing outside, popping a cigarette between her lips. Smoking in silence she stared over the waves, contemplating her situation.

Hizuru was getting closer and closer. In just about two to three days they would arrive, and she would present Mikasa to the people as their new symbol. Her marriage to the Shogun would be quite an event requiring a lot of planning and plotting on Kiyomi’s part – there were nobles to talk to, bribe, charm and threaten. After the Rumbling Hizuru more or less fell apart, shattered into pieces as many small-time barons took advantage of the chaos. She was serious about needing Mikasa, because through her – and the child of course – they would gain a unifying symbol.

Kiyomi sighed, tapping the ash into the ocean.

So much work, and so far from over. Picking the correct baron and convincing him to have his son marry this imported girl was difficult. He didn’t know Mikasa, and even with Kiyomi’s assurance that she is a beautiful and very dignified young woman it wasn’t easy. She managed, in the end, but now she had to think about what will happen once the future Shogun finds out about Eren. Or Aaron, doesn’t matter.

Mikasa was from the ideal “princess” – she was no delicate flower to be protected and that required a strong man in her life. She wasn’t a shy virgin with a blush on her rosy cheeks that could be presented to her future husband on a silver platter. None of that.

If Kiyomi would describe Mikasa with one word it would be powerful – both physically and mentally she was admirably strong. Quiet but not to be underestimated, not easy to manipulate either as Kiyomi found out recently. She played on the old woman’s desperation perfectly, forcing her to accept terms that would normally be impossible. Her having a lover was scandalous on its own, but that the person was no one else but the genocidal maniac everyone believed to be dead, now that was the cherry on top.

Bah.

Nothing to do about that now. Kiyomi was played for a fool but that would end soon – Hizuru was her stomping ground, the Ackerman girl knew no one there and would be dependent on her. Maybe the marriage would be rocky but as long as it produced an heir then everyone could walk away happy. And if the sounds that woke her said anything, it was that Mikasa could do that activity necessary for having children very well.

“Sulking on your own?”

The voice. The voice she hated with her entire being. Gritting her teeth around the cigarette butt, Kiyomi turned to see Eren coming to join her at the railing. Everything about him pissed her off. The way his hair was messy, tousled by someone’s fingers. The dark bruises that bloomed all over his neck. The scratches she could see, disappearing beneath his shirt. The half-cocky grin he wore, knowing very well why she can’t sleep.

“Felt like having a smoke.”, she growled, letting the irritation show in her voice, “Want one?”

Maybe getting him to smoke would kill Eren sooner. To her dismay he shook his head, declining the generous offer. Eyes traveling towards the Ackerman’s door, Kiyomi saw that it remained closed, Mikasa not coming out to join them.

“Where’s your “friend”, Yeager?”

“Sleeping. Exhausted, for some reason.”

Sure, some reason.

“And you came out here why?”

“Needed a breath of fresh air. She is very…  intense.”

Kiyomi’s lips curved into a frown.

“You are just rubbing it in at this point.”

He shrugged.

“You wanted to know.”

Letting the breath out of her lungs create a large puff of smoke, Kiyomi turned back towards the ocean and continued staring into the distance. Maybe ignoring him will make Eren go back. An assumption which proved to be wrong, as he spoke to her soon after.

“You never asked how I came back.”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.”, more ash fell into the rolling waves, “Nothing but trouble for me.”

“That’s fair. I would say that I’m sorry for causing it to you, but… I’m not.”, she could hear the bliss in his voice, “Being alive is amazing.”

At least he wasn’t lying to her, Kiyomi could appreciate honesty.

“Figured as much.”

Eren’s resurrection didn’t interest Kiyomi in the slightest. She couldn’t care less how he managed to cheat death for the last time, it didn’t mean anything. The practical woman that she was, Kiyomi was only interested in how it impacted her own planning.

To be frank, it threw a giant wrench into it.

Yet there was something else she would like to ask, and there would probably not be a better time in the foreseeable future.

“Tell me, how can you be so calm when you know what Mikasa will do once we get to Hizuru?”

“What do you mean?”

“She is going to marry another man, have a child with him. That doesn’t bother you?”

“That’s the terms of the deal Mikasa made with you. This is her show now, I’m just tagging along on the ride.”

“Ha, that doesn’t sound like the Eren Yeager I know.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”, one of his eyebrows lifted, “My previous mindset got me killed, you can’t blame me for trying something new.”

“Still, going from full active to full passive is…”, she studied his face for a second, “Strange.”

“Maybe, but I need to stay hidden and Hizuru gives me that. A sanctuary.”

“Indeed, as much as it pains me, I have promised that to lady Mikasa.”

“You hate me, and you have every reason to.”, Eren’s voice remained passive as he spoke, not rising to answer Kiyomi’s obvious verbal attacks, “I’m not going to apologize for what I’ve done and I can’t take it back either.”

“Good, because your apology would mean nothing to me.”

This time he finally reacted, a chuckle leaving his mouth.

“I do wonder if we will ever get along.”

Kiyomi’s scowl was the only answer required.

“Don’t count on it.”

“As you say…”, pushing himself away from the railings, Eren did that half-mocking bow again, “Good night, lady Azumabito.”

When the door of Mikasa’s cabin closed behind him, Kiyomi threw the cigarette into the ocean, angrily staring after it. Damn him, damn him to hell.

The morning of their arrival’s day found Kiyomi lecturing Mikasa in her cabin, giving her a few last-minute tips. The girl was looking great, happy and elated even, making the old woman forget all about the pesky Yeager.

“We will be arriving in the port and from there we will have a parade through the city.”, Kiyomi began her instructions, “You requested it and I made sure that the public will be there to see you. May I ask why you wanted one in the first place?”

“I want to give the people something to look forward to, I feel like they deserve as much, especially after I made them wait this long.”

Thinking about the working class already – Mikasa had some good instincts in her.

“Very good. The parade will take you to the palace, where I will show you to your chambers and give you a chance to freshen up. Come evening, the ruling council will gather and we will meet them to discuss the wedding preparations. Also, you will meet your husband there. Sounds good?”

The Ackerman girl nodded, taking it all in.

“I believe that you will take good care of me. Of us.”

Of course, couldn’t forget that parasite. And the goat. Then again, Kiyomi had nothing against the goat, it was a rather well-behaved animal. Eren on the other hand….

“I’ll have “Aaron” put on a uniform and march with the soldiers. I doubt that anyone will notice him, and not like people will be looking at them – all eyes will be on you, lady Mikasa.”

“As long as we can reunite in the castle, I like your plan.”, a firm nod, very military-like, “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

They could hear the shouting of the crowd from afar, the water carrying the sound rather efficiently. Standing on the deck, Mikasa looked at the fast-approaching shore, seeing the masses that gathered there in her honor, stomach doing little flips.

“Hey.”, a hand closed around her fingers, “Relax, we will be okay.”

Eren was right there next to her, dressed in a Hizurian uniform, offering a smile in these trying times. She managed to mirror his smirk, despite the twisting of her guts.

“I know. We are together, so there is nothing that I can’t handle.”

The ship’s horn indicated that the shore was even closer now, and Eren left with a last fleeting kiss. Kiyomi took his place almost immediately, ready to accompany her on this perilous journey. As Mikasa studied the port, she noticed that it was very modern, even more than she thought it would be.

“The buildings,”, she said out loud, “look very recent. Did Hizuru rebuild the port?”

“We had to, this area was completely devastated during the rumbling.”

“Oh…”

“Most of the damage had been fixed, but there are still areas which are nothing but trampled ground.”, Kiyomi’s face was sour, “We don’t have the manpower to fix it completely, and lack of proper leadership does not help.”

“That’s why I’m here, no?”

That brought a smile to Kiyomi’s face.

“Yes indeed.”

With a last booming horn sound, the ship backed into the harbor and the gangplank was lowered. The soldiers fanned out first, Eren among them, joining the forces that were already hard at work, keeping the shouting crowd away. Horses were brought when Mikasa and Kiyomi touched the ground, but that was not all. A small group pushed its way towards the two of them, moving to the left and right in a protective formation. They were wearing masks, hiding their identity, but from the lack of alarm on Kiyomi’s part, Mikasa figured that they weren’t here to hurt them.

“Who are they?”, she whispered to the older woman.

“Oh, I should have told you. These are the Faceless.”, Kiyomi quickly supplied, “Personal guard of the Shogun and his family, elite soldiers that will die for you in a blink of an eye.”

“Do they ever take these masks off?”

“Only if it is requested by their charge, otherwise it is a great dishonor. Why?”

“Just curious…”

So a personal guard that was supposed to stay with her all the time and never take off a mask covering their face? Hmmm…

Mounting up in a swift and practiced movement, Mikasa waited until Kiyomi also managed to scramble up on her horse.

“You know, we could have used cars.”, she said, watching the older woman struggle.

“We could, but horses are more regal and also it reminds the people of where you came from.”

“I thought that my origin is a thing to be forgotten.”

“Not at all! Your past is what made you who you are, and it reminds us of the strength you possess. Managing to survive such a nightmare you were thrust into takes incredible skill and dedication.”

Unsure on how to reply to such praise, Mikasa directed her eyes towards the crowd instead. There were so many people here, cheering for her, and it made her heart race. Finally, Kiyomi managed to seat herself properly, clicking her tongue at the mount before addressing Mikasa.

“Shall we?”

The parade through the city was quite an experience. Mikasa had never waved so much in her life before, but here she was, doing her best to appear both dignified and cheerful as she returned the endless love of the people. It reminded her of the times when she and Eren watched Survey Corps return from their expeditions beyond the walls, albeit grander in scale.

The ruckus subsided when they left the port city behind, moving through the countryside towards the capital. There were next to no forests left, trampled beneath the titan’s feet, but the meadows and rice fields stretched to the left and right of the road, restored in the years following the rumbling. High and up, they rode for a few hours before the other city rose in front of them.

The capital was situated high, mostly in the mountains, and because of that a large part had escaped the destruction, Kiyomi said. There were people waiting for her, cheering as their group rode past, and Mikasa was once again forced to smile and wave like an idiot. Eren, hiding between the soldiers, had a time of his life watching her.

The palace was also much greater than anything that Mikasa saw in her life. It was more like a whole city, hidden behind additional walls, towering over the rest of the land. Untouched by the rumbling, it remained as grandiose as before, taking her breath away.

“I take it that you like your new house?”, Kiyomi purred from the right, “A step up from a cabin in the mountains, is it not?”

Mikasa wasn’t sure that she could agree with that statement but forced herself to nod either way.

Still in a bit of a haze from this all, Mikasa was led to luxurious chambers that felt out of this world, with Kiyomi saying that all this is hers now. It was crazy, considering that the most she ever owned was a tiny cabin. And the old woman was all smiles and nods until those dreaded words left Mikasa’s lips.

“Where’s Eren?”

“I… I’ll send for him.”

Both to give them a little privacy and because being in Yeager’s presence annoyed her, Kiyomi left soon after, saying that she will be back to escort Mikasa to the meeting with the ruling council. Finally reunited with her lover, the pair shared a hug before she pulled back.

“How’s Yams?”, she asked, curious about their animal companion.

“See?”, he grinned,  “I told you that you’d miss him.”

Mikasa playfully slapped Eren’s chest.

“Answer the question.”

“In the royal stables, loving it so far.”, he looked around, “Same as you it seems, this is quite the place.”

“Mhmm, not the same without you though.”

“I doubt that I can stay in your chambers without people gossiping.”

“That depends…”, she took a hold of Eren’s chin, making him look at her.

“Have you ever considered joining a royal guard?”

It was almost evening when Kiyomi came back, knocking before opening the door, flanked by two Faceless, to the Ackerman’s chambers. Mikasa was sitting at the table when Kiyomi came in, Eren was staring out of the window, and neither paid too much attention until she cleared her throat.

“We should get going to the meeting, lady Mikasa.”

“In a minute. First, we need to talk.”

A small crease formed between the old woman’s eyebrows.

“What about?”, she asked cautiously.

“I think that it would be better if you sit.”

“I think that I can decide that for myself.”

Coming closer, she leaned on the table. Eren also changed his position, standing behind Mikasa and putting his arms on her shoulders in some sort of protective gesture. Kiyomi didn’t like this – the closeness of the two, the air of mystery suddenly shrouding Mikasa’s words.

She didn’t like it one bit.

“If you have something to say,”, she forced her voice to remain level, “then speak.”

Exchanging a quick look with Eren, Mikasa put her hand over his before meeting Kiyomi’s gaze. And then she dropped a bomb that shook her to the core.

“The thing is, I do not plan to marry the Shogun.”

Her eyes, her grey eyes were burning into Kiyomi, and she felt her knees go weak. Her butt met the chair as she folded, doing so at the same time as Mikasa’s next words finding their way into her ears.

“I never did.”

[hedwigstalons]

High Expectations - Ch22

Next instalment of the military boys for you with WASP!Gordon and Air Force!Scott.  Lots of love and thanks to @willow-salix for putting up with my musings, moaning and general self doubt.

Earlier parts: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One

AO3 chapter link

Chapter Twenty-Two

The bar was dark and packed to bursting point.  Gordon nursed a juice while keeping half an eye on the door for Scott. It was probably just as well that the army had been allocated a different bar he reflected, he wasn’t sure many more bodies could safely squeeze into the already crowded space.  The US Army, buoyed by being on home turf, had scraped a narrow victory in the competition and the walk from the barracks had been accompanied by the sounds of celebration from across the base as the resident personnel decided to toast the victors.  In light of this the event organisers had decided it was perhaps wise to keep the visitors separate from their hosts, a winning team could get a little over enthusiastic in their celebrations, especially with an entire base full of compatriots on hand to buy them drinks.  It meant that the designated non-Army bar was crowded but at least Gordon knew he and Scott would definitely end up at the same place.  

Ordinarily he would be in the thick of the action after an event.  Before, the short time between the end of a competition and heading home had been one of the few points in his life when he was free of responsibilities and obligations and he usually took full advantage of the freedom.  His misspent youth could be carefully plotted out on a calendar in regimented bursts around his swimming commitments before the daily realities of training, school and looking after Alan kicked back in.  

Tonight he wasn’t in the mood for indulging in a few hours of hedonism, especially after Scott’s prior warnings about underage drinking and military police not making for a happy combination; it wasn’t worth risking his fledgling career for.  The more physical pleasures that often followed a competition were also off the cards in a shared dormitory of strangers.  Most of those present though didn’t fall under the state’s age restriction and the alcohol was flowing freely.  A glass thudded down on the table in front of him, slopping some of the contents onto the already sticky table.

“Get that down you, Tracy.  You earned it.”  The sound drew his eyes away from the door and back to the table of WASPs around him.  He hoped Scott would turn up soon, after the swimming was over he’d managed to avoid the cretins he’d had the misfortune of being thrown into the pool with but with everyone confined to one place there was no escape.  Not all of WASP fell into the obnoxious category but there were a few individuals that he was quite glad he’d be unlikely to cross paths with ever again.

“I’m good, thanks.”  He nodded towards his own glass, still half full of apple juice.

“Ah, c’mon, you’re off duty.”  An uncoordinated hand slapped him on the shoulder, jolting him forwards with the force of it.  WASP might not have won the competition but they hadn’t done badly and a sizable chunk of the points had come from Gordon’s success in the pool.  Points that were being celebrated with a few too many beers and a fair quantity of hard liquor.  “Lighten up a little.”  

The glass was shoved closer, nearly falling off the edge of the table into his lap.  He wasn’t too sure what was in it but it sure as hell wasn’t apple juice; from some of the sniggerings and mutterings and looking at who had supplied the drink he strongly suspected the glass contained a lethal mix for the sole purpose of getting him blind drunk.

“He said he’s fine.”  A hand reached down and covered the glass, dragging it away towards the middle of the table with a scraping sound.

Gordon looked up, then up further.  Scott towered over the table, exuding an air of command even during his down time.  Blue eyes were set into what Gordon clearly recognised as protective mode, his mouth thin and his jaw clenched, daring those at the table to challenge him.  Grateful though he was to have his brother finally show up he really didn’t need Scott to antagonise the rest of his team over one drink that he’d had no intention of touching anyway.

“Sorry folks, family reunion time.  I’m sure one of you can put that drink to good use,” he flashed a placating grin as he quickly stood up and stepped away from the table, drawing Scott away before tempers could flare.  Those that hadn’t been at the pool were looking a little bemused at Scott’s sudden arrival and departure which must have come across as fairly rude but Gordon could already feel the tension from the swimmers who had butted heads with his brother before and he was keen to avoid an argument.  “Do you have to rub everyone up the wrong way?” he asked when they were finally clear of the WASP delegation.

“They’re idiots, and drunk ones at that.”  Scott was in no mood to suffer fools, he’d had enough of that already for one day.

“I know, but you’re late and I didn’t really have anywhere else to wait.  And they aren’t all idiots, there’s just a few bad apples on the team.”

“If you say so.  What the hell was in that drink anyway?”

“No idea, but I had no intention of finding out.  I could have handled that by myself you know.”

“Sorry, I should have trusted you.” Scott at least had the decency to look a little shame faced, sometimes it was hard to remember that Gordon was no longer a kid and was capable of making his own decisions, usually the right ones. “I just know what it can be like, the military can be a bit heavy handed with the drink when it’s in the mood.  Speaking of which, do you mind if I grab a beer?”  

“Go for it,” Gordon shrugged, just because he was sticking to juice didn’t mean his brother had to.

Scott gave a grateful nod and worked his way towards the bar, his movements still stiff and tense.  He ordered a beer and knocked the whole lot back in record time before leaving the empty bottle on the counter top.

“Jeez Scott, is everything okay?” The ferociousness with which Scott attacked the drink had surprised Gordon and he sensed that Scott’s mood wasn’t just down to his encounter with the WASP team.  The man before him certainly wasn’t the carefree brother he’d enjoyed sparring against just a few hours earlier.

“I’m fine.  Can we get out of here?” the tone suggested Scott was anything but fine.

“Sure,” he nodded, following on in Scott’s wake as they made their way to the exit.  Once they reached the cool night air Gordon tried again, it was clear from Scott’s bearing that something was bothering him.  “Now are you going to tell me why you’re storming round like a thunder cloud?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Bullshit, Scott.  You show up late looking like you’re spoiling for a fight then knock back a drink at mach 3.  You either tell me what’s going on or I’ll set Virgil on you.”  

Scott grimaced but he could tell from Gordon’s expression that he was deadly serious.  At least Gordon was likely to have some understanding and sympathy whereas with Virgil he risked being subjected to an anti-military guilt trip and he definitely wasn’t in the mood for that.  Normally his immediate younger sibling would be his sounding board but on this their opposing views were likely to be a stumbling block, no matter how well intentioned his brother's counsel might be.

“Not here,” the area immediately outside the bar was busy with people taking a break from the heat and crowds inside and there were a few too many Air Force personnel around for his liking, “let’s take a walk.”

They headed off into the darkness, their subconscious steps leading them by mutual consent towards the nearby athletics track.  The bleachers were empty in stark contrast to the crowds of the previous day and the whole area was shadowy with just a few security lights illuminating the gates.  They settled onto the hard planks and took a few moments to just sit quietly in the darkness.

It was Gordon who cracked first, the slumped shoulders and stony expression worn by his brother were still a cause for concern.  Scott looked tired and not just in the purely physical sense.

“So spill, how come you were so late tonight?”

“Just had to deal with some stuff from my CO.”

“Still not gelling with the new guy?”  He had been treated to a few choice words in the past about Scott’s thoughts on his Commander and they were far from complimentary.

“Not that new anymore.  But no, he still doesn’t trust me to lead my unit and questions my every decision.  I guess the feeling’s mutual though.”

“How so?”

“His orders are...urgh.”  He dropped his head into his hands for a moment, his fingers carding through his hair in agitation, before straightening and gazing unseeingly over the empty track.  “My last mission, it was a complete disaster.  Pretty much everything I predicted would happen, did, but when I tried to talk to him about it before we flew out I just got shot down,” there was a heavy pause, “just like two of my unit,” Scott muttered darkly.

“Ouch,” Gordon winced.  “I didn’t hear about that; must have been reported while I was on the subs, it can be hard to keep up with the news down there.”

“It wasn’t reported.  The whole mission was top secret, even the guys’ families think they were on some training exercise that went wrong.  Look, I really shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”  He turned towards Gordon and even in the darkness the silent plea could be seen.

“Understood,” Gordon tried to reassure him.  He knew there would probably be times in the future when he needed to speak to someone outside of the service despite it being against orders and if you couldn’t trust family, who could you trust?  “Whatever you say goes no further.”  This moment was between him and Scott, one serving brother to another, and he could feel his shift in status from dependent child to equal.

“Thanks.” The quiet nod that accompanied it conveyed a depth of feeling that showed just how much Scott was dealing with.  “You always hear rumours about the secret stuff and you think it’s going to be all exciting, but the reality is...it’s bad.  This isn’t what I joined up for.  The guys from my unit weren’t the only casualties either, there were civilians in the area, innocent people who had no choice in all this.  Collateral damage is how my CO referred to them, callous bastard.”

It was the first time Scott had spoken to anyone outside of his immediate unit about the mission and the relief at being able to criticise the orders without reprimand was palpable.  He’d been on the other side of this conversation a couple of times as some of the men and women who served under him had felt the need to talk but he’d always been the listening ear and had always been required to respond on party lines, that the sacrifices were worth it for the bigger picture, despite his desire to scream that he’d thought it was a fool's errand and that he hadn’t wanted to lead them into danger.  But none of them had been given a choice, it was a case of fly or be court martialed.  Now, with the lives of those who trusted him on his conscience, he wondered if court martial would have been the better option. 

Gordon sat in silence, realising that what his brother really needed was someone to just listen as he worked through his own thoughts.  His own meagre service history, still in the early stages, had him completely devoid of experience in the field of combat and the moral minefield it could evidently come with.  In the deep shadows of the stands Gordon could almost feel the ghosts that haunted his brother's memories, turning the figure that was normally a poster boy for patriotism into a hunched and brooding shell that looked far older than his twenty-six years.

As if sensing the scrutiny his brother was subjecting him to Scott mentally shook himself and straightened.  The doubts and worries were locked away again as he visibly morphed back into older brother mode; strong, dependable and emitting a feeling of self-assurance.  He might have let his guard slip for a moment but he had worn the mantle as head of the pack for too many years to be comfortable showing such vulnerability for long.  He was already doubting the wisdom of telling anyone about his problems but the call from his CO earlier in the evening had left him angry which always clouded his judgement.  Venting had helped a bit and he was grateful that Gordon had been there, listening without judgement in a way that their father or Virgil never could.

“So what’s this posting of yours?” He asked, flipping  the focus back to  Gordon.  “You said in the ring you wouldn’t have any time for training.”  

It was a clear sign that any conversation about the Air Force and Scott’s thoughts towards it was over.  The walls were back up and Gordon knew that, despite that momentary show of vulnerability, any further probing wouldn’t be welcomed.  It was troubling just how much Scott was affected, biggest brother had always been so confident, but tonight Gordon had seen a side he’d never been privy to before and he wondered how many other times Scott had worn the mask to protect the rest of them from his doubts.  

Much as he wanted to help Scott he really didn’t know how and he still had his own problems to unpick.  Now it was his turn to be in the spotlight.

“No, I think my sporting activities are going to be on hold for a while.  Um, I’m being given command of a craft.”

“You’re getting a Merlin? You really must have impressed them during the training to get your own sub so quickly.”  Scott couldn’t help but feel a flush of pride at Gordon getting that level of recognition so early on in his career.  Really Gordon should have been bouncing at the news so to see him so flat and brooding was a worry and he wondered what the problem was.  “You had to know it was coming at some point, commanding a unit is kinda the deal with being an officer.”

“S’not a Merlin, it’s a bathyscape.  I go in a little under a month.”

“A bathyscape?  I didn’t even know WASP had those.”

“Yeah, it’s a research posting; unlike the Air Force, WASP isn’t all about combat missions y’know.  I’ll be out there for a whole year, looking at underwater farming methods.”

Scott whistled, as first assignments went it was a big one but perhaps not in the direction Gordon had been hoping to take; his brother has made no secret of wanting to get a place on the sleek and fast Stingray, the whole point of volunteering for the Merlins was as a stepping stone to this, and a research bathyscape was the polar opposite.   “That’s a long time, is that what the problem is?  At least you know your way around a farm, or was a sea tractor not quite what you had in mind as your first mission command?  You don’t sound too excited about it all.”

“It’s not a sea tractor,” Gordon snorted at Scott’s abysmal attempt to lighten the mood.  “I know underwater farming might not be everyone’s bag but I’ve been really enjoying the oceanography and marine biology parts of my training.  I think that’s partly what got me picked for it.  A whole year is a bit longer than I was expecting but this is a big deal.  This project could really make a difference and I’ll be leading a sizabe team so it’s an honour to be chosen.”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming on.”  Despite everything he was saying there was a distinct lack of excitement from the aquanaut.  

“It’s the whole research element.  The project is joint with CalTech and I’ll be sending our findings on to their marine biology team.”

“What difference does that make?”

Gordon tried to meet Scott's eyes but couldn't, nervous about whatever reaction he might get to the news he hadn't yet been brave enough to voice.  Compared to the issues Scott was facing this seemed minor in comparison but it was still giving him sleepless nights.  His stomach churned, the butterflies inside him evidently practicing backflips or something.  He hadn't told anyone about this, not even Virgil, but he trusted Scott to give an objective opinion and be honest with him.

“Well, most officers have been to university.  It turns out that they like those of us who haven’t to get qualified on the job.  Part of the deal with CalTech is that the research papers can count as course credit.  If I study for a few extra units while I’m down there then by the end of the year I could earn a higher ed diploma.”

“That’s great news.”

“Is it?  My CO is talking like it’s a done deal but I’m really not sure.”

“What’s not to be sure about?”  

“This is me, Scott.  The family screw up.  Part of the reason I’m even in WASP is cos you finally got Dad to see sense that I wasn’t cut out for College.”

“You are not a screw up!” Scott exclaimed, cross that even now their father’s past needling about Gordon’s academic abilities was still able to drag his brother down; sure he wasn’t in the same league as John but then very few people were and it didn’t mean he wasn’t bright in his own right.  “Now you listen up.  I didn’t go against Dad cos I didn’t think you could hack college, I did it because I could see you’d make a damn good aquanaut.  You’re made for the submarine service but that doesn’t mean you’re incapable of anything else.”

“But studying at undergrad level, it’s going to be a lot of work.”  

“Gordon, you work harder than pretty much anyone else I know.  You certainly worked harder at school than the rest of us,” he took in the raised eyebrows that framed a look of pure skepticism.  “I mean it.  You might not have got top grades but your marks were still good even though some of the subjects didn’t come naturally and you did all that around your swimming and Alan.” 

Gordon scuffed at the planks, his fingers absentmindedly attacking a stray splinter in the wood as the empty seat on his far side suddenly became very interesting.  Scott seemed to believe in him but he just couldn’t summon up that same faith in himself.  “But what if I fail?  I don’t think I can do it.”

There, he’d said it.  Ever since he’d been called in by his commanding officer and given the details of the posting the study element had been dragging him down like a millstone.  He’d realised pretty early on, even during selection, that he was the odd one out, underqualified compared to most officers.  What he hadn’t realised was that WASP would not only support him to gain a degree but it was assumed that he would be taking on this learning as a matter of course.  From that moment on the gnawing dread had been eating away at him.  He enjoyed the study topics and he’d proved himself worthy of the command element of the posting but instead of looking forward to the opportunity all he could think about was the impending failure because he couldn’t foresee any other outcome.

“Look at me, Gords.  You aren’t going to fail.  It’s a diploma of higher ed, right?” Gordon gave a slight nod of confirmation.  “That means it’s first year stuff and I know that when it comes to the ocean you’ve got that more than covered.  What you’re going to be missing is the general skills and for those you can always ask the rest of us for help.  John has written more scientific papers than is healthy, Virgil can generally spot any flaws in logic even if it’s not his subject and I’ve done so much Harvard referencing I could probably do it in my sleep.”

“Harvard?  But you went to Yale.”  

“Harvard referencing is how you say what books and papers you used to write your assignments.”

“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Gordon groaned, kicking out at the bench in front, “I don’t know any of this stuff.”

“It’s alright,” Scott slung an arm round Gordon’s shoulder, wishing there was some magic pill he could give his brother to dispel the self doubt.  Gone was the confident aquanaut, even the thought of returning to study had Gordon regressing to the kid who worried each term if his report card would meet the lofty ideals of the father who demanded so much.  “No one knows this stuff at the beginning and there is no shame in that.  Normally you would get a load of seminars at the start of your course but that’s going to be a bit tricky if you’re underwater.  I don’t know how it will work with you doing it through WASP but CalTech should give you some support and if they don’t then you’ve got three older brothers who have all been there.  One of us will always be available to talk you through it, not that I think you’ll need any help.”

“You really think I can do this?”  He pulled out of the hug and stared at his brother as though trying to gauge his honesty.  The way Scott was talking he made it sound so simple.  

“I’m sure you can.  But if you get stuck with anything don’t brood on it, just ask.”

“Yeah, I can really see that one going down well.”  Gordon rolled his eyes, remembering the last time he’d attempted to ask for homework help.  “John already thinks I’m an idiot.”

“No one thinks you’re an idiot, Gords.  I know John can be a bit...acerbic at times but he’s mellowed since he left Harvard.”  Scott made a mental note to have a quiet word with the would-be astronaut; for most things the word ‘can’t’ was just a challenge to Gordon, something to be proved wrong, but when it came to anything academic Gordon was evidently still plagued by crushing self-doubt.  The last thing he needed was for a disparaging comment from the family genius to send Gordon spiralling.  It was true John had been a lot more approachable since starting at Tracy College, living with Virgil and having Alan as a frequent visitor seemed to be grounding him more in family life, but he could still be a bit abrupt if you caught him at the wrong moment.

“If I do this can you promise me one thing?”

“What’s that?”

“Please don’t tell Dad, I really don’t need him breathing down my neck about grades.”

“Promise.  Dad won’t hear a word about it until you’ve got that certificate in your hand.”

The sigh of relief was audible in the still night air as Gordon released some of the tension that had been knotting his insides.  Sat there with Scott, being given assurances that his brothers would be on hand if he needed them, he felt a lot more confident about the whole thing.

[fasterthanmydemons]

I'm so sorry you lost a loved one but let me tell you that what you do deserves so much admiration; you managed to turn your pain into something to improve your writing and understanding of the twins if they lost the other. Turning tragic events of one's own life into something that can help you be better at something takes a tremendous amount of strength and you deserve so much credit for it! I also headcanon Pietro as the "weaker" one I just want to protect him. I think Mantis could help him.

{out of breath} Thank you, I really appreciate you saying that. I just thought I would offer some of my own perspective, since I’ve gotten comments over the course of writing Wanda that I make her too emotional, all she thinks about is Pietro, she cries too much, things like that. And I hadn’t realized until people complained about that sort of stuff that I was just  going off of my own experiences since the MCU provided me with absolutely nothing to indicate Wanda’s actual grieving process. But like her, I am an intuitive, empathetic, emotional individual, and so I figure well, she might feel and do similar things when processing her grief.

I’m three years out from the death of my loved one, and I can say that I still have nightmares about being with them when they died, I still cry at random references in movies and songs to people losing a loved one in a similar way, and even random things like people on news broadcasts crying about loved ones they lost suddenly for whatever reason will make me cry. Sometimes I have really lucid dreams where I can clearly hear my loved one’s voice, see their face, feel them hug me, smell their shampoo or other things they used to use, they say things they used to say to me... and it seems so incredibly real. And those dreams are either happy or I’m like sobbing in the dream and begging them to stay with me. But either way when I wake up, reality hits me in the face and I just wish I could go back to the dream world. Like I’d rather be there with them than here alone, heh.

It sounds stupid, but things like this happen on a regular basis for me, three years out from their death. On a daily basis people will say something that will remind me of them, or a song will come on the radio that they loved, or just any number of the multitudes of things we used to share and love together... and it’s just either complete rage that they’re gone too soon or sudden grief that hits me so hard I can’t not cry. I hate it when it happens when I’m driving because then I have to pull the car over, heh.

But my point is... that’s the reality of being very emotionally attached and even emotionally dependent on a person and losing them unexpectedly. Three years after they’re gone, your life still revolves around the way they used to be in your life. I still, even after this long, have that feeling of just waiting for my life to stop being so strange and go back to normal. So imagine now, Wanda... three days out from Pietro dying. Or three months. She is not going to be okay. Civil War took place what, less than a year after Ultron? And the Avengers cleared her to be in the field on an actual mission? I think that was very irresponsible of them.

And I’m not by any means mad at or trying to call out people who kinda complain that my Wanda is different than in the movies. She is, heh. That’s why I say canon-divergent on her blog. But really, it just goes to show that like... people that don’t know Wanda from the comics and don’t know how emotional she can get, and people who don’t have writer’s brains who are constantly filling in the blanks between the lines of canon material with their own extrapolations, interpretations, and imagination, really only take canon at face value. So yeah, my Wanda does cry a lot more, and mention Pietro all the time, and seem a lot more broken and unable to move past his death, but that’s because to me and drawing from my own experiences, that’s more realistic to me than never mentioning him ever again and never shedding a tear for him past the immediate time after he died. But I also write her with muses that are helping her to cope and adjust and process everything afterward. I do write her being strong despite feeling torn in half by Pietro’s death. So it’s not a static state for her to be in that much despair, but it is an important part of her character, her life, her development to go through this really dark period. 

I haven’t had nearly as much of a chance to write Wanda post-Endgame, and I feel like now that WandaVision is looming, a lot of the AUs I would come up with obvious don’t lead into that kind of... strangeness? XD (Although I do have a starter inspired by the concept of WandaVision and by what happened in the comics right here if anyone is interested in reading it.) But I would love to explore how different the loss of Vision is as opposed to Pietro. She loved Vision, but Pietro was her other half, really. No loss is ever going to hit her as hard as Pietro’s. Having said that, I feel like... you know when people’s pets die and they run right out and get a replacement animal to kindof “transfer the love?” I’m guilty of that, haha. I feel like Wanda needed someone to love and Vision was there and she had a connection to him through the mind stone, and he did save her life, and so maybe under other circumstances she might not have looked to him or felt the same about him, but having lost Pietro, I think maybe she tried to fill some of that void with Vision. She’s older after Endgame, things have set in with Pietro, but Vision’s loss is still new. She’s a different person after Pietro, and now she’s changing again without Vision. So... I would love to explore how her grief differs with that loss vs. Pietro’s.

And now... as to the last part of your ask... I haven’t seen the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, and Mantis was never one I followed in the comics, so I only know her from Infinity War and Endgame. But I thought she was absolutely adorable, haha. But yeah, Pietro is physically strong, physically healthier, stronger in personality as far as being forceful and extroverted, but Wanda is emotionally stronger. She can overcome so much more emotionally than Pietro can, and she doesn’t really even believe that that’s true. The thing with Wanda is that she has fairly low self-esteem at various points in her life, and so if she’s told that she’s not good enough or if she’s left to think that herself and given someone like Pietro who will always protect, always shield, always do for her... she will just allow that person to take care of her. And she’ll just believe that she’s so fragile and needs that sort of support from someone. But the reality is that she can survive and endure and overcome just fine all on her own. Unfortunately to realize that, she has to be forced to do it, by losing her loved ones or being pushed into situations that leave her with no choice but to adapt or die. Pietro, if given the same choice, would let himself die, either through a conscious choice or simply because he would succumb to his own despair.

How could Mantis help him, though? Like I said, I’m really not familiar with her, although I did notice in Infinity War that she had some mental abilities like Wanda. Could she help to sort of even out Pietro’s emotions or something? I don’t even know anyone who rps Mantis but that would be an interesting plot to do, heh.

Okay why can I never answer an ask like this without gabbing on for four miles, haha. I’m sorry for the word spam folks. XD But thank you for sending in these asks, I love them! =)

[3w-writer-with-wings]

Maybe Judai for the ask thing? (ㆁᴗㆁ✿) if that hasn't been done of course ^^

Why I like them/why I don’t

To be honest I didn’t like Judai that much at first. He was cute but other than that he was just an average overpowered character to me and his outgoing persona didn’t really help. The first time I watched GX it was in my native language dub and Judai happened to have the same voice as a character from another show that was extremely annoying, so I wasn’t that fond of him at all. Around the end of the first season, the airing stopped and I continued with English dub and while he was slightly likeable with a different voice I still didn’t like his character at all. But then season 3 happened… and it changed my mind. He felt like an entirely different person and the plot finally started getting interesting. It was like the new season made him start taking things seriously and with each new episode, it felt like he slowly started revealing his true self. And at that point, it finally started making sense why he was so happy and outgoing the first two seasons - he was lonely as a child and card games was the only thing that made him happy, so it makes sense that once he got accepted to school all about card games where he met new friends made him all excited. This was already hinted once in season 2, after his loss to Edo where he could no longer see cards and was convinced he has nothing else to do in Duel Academy so he just left. From all protagonists, Judai has by far the most unique development and from where VRAINS is now, Yusaku is likely to follow Judai’s journey of self-discovery. In a way, both of them are complex characters that are dealing with their breaking points in their own way. 

One other thing that I really love about Judai is his ability to talk with Duel Spirits. There have been several characters in other series with the same ability, but no one had as much focus as Judai had. I absolutely loved his connection to Yubel, about how obsessed she became with him to the point of hurting other people and how much she wanted to protect him at the same time. The fact that Judai uses Super Fusion in order to merge them together was a really nice conclusion and in a way, it symbolized the fact that Judai matured.

What I like about their appearance

The fact how normal he looks compared to other protagonists XD. Like seriously all protagonists are either embodiment of rainbows (Yuya and Yuma) or edginess (Yugi, Yusei, Yusaku) and Judai is just an ordinary teenager in a simple school uniform and a puffy hairdo that looks like a Kuriboh.

Do I prefer their dub names or original names?

Judai and Jaden sound very similar so I tend to switch them depending on the situation because some of my friends are not familiar with his original name. In my fanfics I use his original name most of the time, but honestly, both versions sound okay and are not that different compared to some other dub names.

OTP

Spiritshipping all the way! Judai X Johan is not only my favourite GX OTP but my second favourite OTP of all Yugioh series! (they are just a little behind Keyshipping and Puzzleshipping). From the first episode where Johan showed up when Ruby and Winged Kuriboh played together and when Judai welcomed Johan to the Duel Academy, I knew there was something special about to happen. And boy was I not ready for this! The way those two dorks interacted with each other, how others described Johan as “Judai with a southern accent” and just every scene where they showed up together - it was a blessing! And when Judai went to look for him and how he sank deeper and deeper in depression while trying to find him was absolutely heartbreaking. And when Johan came back and Judai was instantly better was just so wholesome to watch. In my headcanon they really are more than friends, they just don’t show it that obviously and I’m completely fine with it. Their personal lives shouldn’t interfere with the plot and deep down I believe that they settled down once Judai returned from his travels. In my perfect reality, they founded a school for people who can also talk with the Duel Spirits and the two of them help others control their abilities.

NOTP

I’m not really sure about Fusionshipping… It just doesn’t feel like a ship at all. I already hate Ryou’s overall character since really, he duels just for power. To him, Judai is not even a rival, just a mere opponent that might pique his interest if he is strong enough. Even in the show, he appeared only when the plot demanded him to do so and had little to none motivations other than power. I completely lost respect for him when he said he wanted to duel Supreme King aka. Judai’s alter ego ALL WHILE JUDAI WAS UNCONSCIOUS AND SUFFERING FROM TRAUMA INDUCED FEVER JUST A FEW METERS AWAY FROM HIM. Like dude chill out, not everything is about power. I was so glad Edo called him out on it cuz seriously this dude would be the worst possible boyfriend. It was even worse when he tried to “help” Judai overcome his trauma cuz really he had zero empathy to help someone as traumatized as Judai. If those two were to date, it would either be over fast or would result in a really unhealthy relationship. 

OT3

Competitorshipping or Jun X Judai X Johan is actually something I didn’t know I liked. I do ship Judai with both Jun and Johan, but I’ve never really seen all three of them together. This all changed when I got a request as a secret santa to make a story with three of them as a functioning relationship. I wanted to change a request at first since I’m not keen on writing threesomes, but the more I thought about it more I thought it could work. So in my story, I made Jun and Judai into childhood friends that befriend a transfer student Johan and together they become roommates during their college years. After graduation, they separate for a few years, Judai travelling overseas to pursue his career in acting and coming book illustrating, Jun marrying and getting a son and Johan opening his own clinic. Eventually, they all live together again since Judai gets a new job nearby and Jun divorces and gets custody of his son. Johan and Judai help him raise his son and the story continues with Johan and Judai adopting a child (my OC). If you’re interested you can read it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16790146/chapters/39405268 I still have three more chapters to go. While I was writing it, I realized just how much the three of them interact in the anime, especially with all bonding over the fact that they can talk to Duel Spirits. It’s a relationship that could as well work and I’m sure they feel the same way about it.

The favourite card they use

It might be useless, but Winged Kuriboh is by far my favourite monster in the whole GX. It’s simple but gives away just enough nostalgia to make it work. I love how much Judai interacts with it and in a way Winged Kuriboh is his constant companion, providing him comfort whenever it can. I also love how it used to belong to Yugi and was given to Judai because “something was telling him it belongs with him” like Yugi could hear its voice. In my headcanon, Yugi knew Judai was a reincarnation of the Supreme King and gave him Winged Kuriboh so the spirit could help him control his power. Winged Kuriboh is not just a spirit, it is Judai’s partner.

The favourite moment they were in

When Judai merged with Yubel it was like Judai made a huge step in his life. For the first two seasons, he approached his problems with confidence and a grin on his face. He was having fun, not really thinking about his actions. This was all a mask to run away from his past of loneliness and fear. With season 3 the past finally caught up with him and he was forced to face it. Yubel wanted him back after she was discarded and Judai knew it, afraid she would find him again. After seeing his friends fading away, succumbing to Supreme’s King power and being scared of using Fusion, Judai is literally lost of what is he supposed to do. In the end, he finally faces Yubel, claiming all responsibility on himself. It may seem like Judai succumbed to his yandere stalker when he played Super Fusion, but from what I’ve seen it, he did it as a way to apologize. It’s true that it was his parents who sent Yubel to space and he couldn’t do anything about it, but for someone who has a superhero deck, this was Judai’s heroic sacrifice. He was scared and unsure of what could happen, but in that single moment, he made a very mature decision. He knew Yubel would only stop once the two of them are together again and he did it so his friends would be saved. This was when he truly acted as a hero, giving everything up to save someone who has been putting him in so many dangerous situations, because when he forgave Yubel he was ready for the true battle.

Least favourite moment

A basically entire first and second season when he acted like the way overpowered character. I know this was necessary for his later character development, but some episodic plotlines and duels were just plain stupid and completely unnecessary considering how many of them were there already. 

Would I fuck, marry or kill them

How about if he adopts my child OC? XD Yeah I would definitely marry this dork. He is sweet, childish and full of energy and at the same time he is mature and knows how to handle the situation. In my slice-of-life headcanon he is an actor and comic book artist, living with his partner Johan and together they raise their shy adoptive son. I think he would make a great dad and would be great with kids in general, like organizing birthday parties, babysitting and having art workshops with children. 

(Here’s Judai with my OC from my fanfic Safe in Your Arms ;) I used several references for this drawing )

[douxreviews]

Parade's End - Series Review

"What I stand for is gone."

"But to live for. You have something to live for."

Without question, "Parade's End" is the best television miniseries I have seen in recent years. This five-part installment from 2012 is something as rare as a classic love triangle both expertly crafted and superbly acted, with a sentimental and optimistic ending which feels both earned and logical, while simultaneously addressing political questions, moral values and social class dimensions in such a way that it does not come off as shoehorned but rather as a vital element of the story.

The show is based on a series of World War I-era novels written by Ford Madox Ford. This review does not go into detail on all the storylines but nevertheless it does contain spoilers for the entire series.

The reason I came across this gem was me looking through the filmography of Adelaide Clemens. I was very impressed with her role as Tawney Talbot on the television show Rectify and I wanted to see more of her. Okay, so maybe I just thought she's one of the prettiest girls I've seen on screen over the last decade. Sue me. Anyway I wasn't disappointed.

The two other main characters of the drama are played by Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock, The Hollow Crown) and Rebecca Hall (The Prestige, Transcendence). We all know they're talented performers and every single one of the cast brought their A-game to this series.

This is a very beautiful show, a wonderfully filmed BBC costume drama at its finest. One nice touch is how it often establishes the time frame for a given scene with people reading period newspapers, such as the famous article of Kerensky vowing to continue the war against Germany. The dialog sometimes comes across as a bit stilted, but I believe it's more of a conscious choice than anything, lending a certain formal way to how the characters speak, and it's often supremely clever, packed with the trademark English dry humor. It wasn't exactly hard to find stunning screenshots for it.

The protagonist of the show is Christopher Tietjens, who is probably the most perplexing character of the series. The two ladies competing for his affection - in their own and vastly dissimilar ways - are his wife Sylvia and the young, idealistic and well-educated suffragette girl Valentine Wannop, who is quite a bit below them on the social ladder.

Christopher is an anachronism, and this is that which drives the entire plot of the story. It defines his problems, drives the action and points to the solution of the piece. He represents the old values of the bourgeoisie. It would then be easy to dismiss him as a mere reactionary but this absolutely misses the point. Christopher embodies an idealized version of the morals of the bourgeoisie during and after the French revolution, the values of the class at a time where it was still a revolutionary force. He's actually speaking out in favor of the women's vote at a tea party even before he meets Valentine.

As she notes, Christopher is living in a "glass cabinet" - he is championing a class, a system of values and a society which no longer exists, and perhaps never truly did, more resembling the role of the perfect feudal lord. He is a devotedly ascetic, old-school moral man believing in leading by example and protecting the rights of those under his charge. More than this, he is invested in what he refers to as the "parade" - the sanctity of marriage and keeping up appearances so as to not disgrace oneself or one's peers. In one of his most confusing yet significant ramblings, he tells Valentine how he's joining the war to "protect the 18th Century from the 20th". No, Valentine, I didn't quite get that either.

In contrast, Sylvia Tietjens is a monster. It would be rather boring if she was just a monster, but she isn't. She's a spectacular monster, played with incredible panache by Hall. Sylvia is representing the rotten bourgeoisie of the beginning of the 1900's, the laissez faire attitude - the vampires and exploiters of men to the point of virtual slavery, spitting at those beneath her. She is completely amoral and depraved, even seemingly taking pride in being so. She's the embodiment of the upper class as a cancer. In her most comical and recurring theme she consistently accuses Christopher of being "too perfect" such as that she comes off feeling inferior to him, yet her response is never truly to attempt to better herself, but rather to provoke him into striking back and lower himself to her level with increasingly outrageous behavior, being unapologetically unfaithful and scandalizing him at every turn. I would think there are very few actresses who could pull off a line like "you forgave, without mercy" in a way that makes herself out to be the victim.

Her weakness lies in how she gradually becomes absolutely obsessed with Christopher precisely because, after everything she does, she is still utterly unable to break him. In a ridiculous sense, Sylvia is in touch with her times and her social status - the predatory Capitalism, the subjugation of the colonies, the trampling of the working class under her iron heel and a life in shameless luxury - whereas Christopher is not. This is further indicated by the ire Christopher is drawing from his peers, precisely because of his devotion to his work, his utter inability to compromise his ideals and his brutal, acidic verbal beatdowns of other men in power who fail to respect or even be honest towards their subjects, leading him ultimately to be regarded as the most vile and debauched man in London due to slander from his enemies - an adulterer and a traitor to his country, none of it true. He can't even help doing his job well when it goes against his own interests, as evidenced by this brilliant piece of dialog between him and Valentine:

C- "The French were bleating about the devastation of bricks and mortar they've incurred by enemy action. I saw suddenly it was no more than one year's normal peacetime dilapidation spread over the whole country." A- "How wonderful!" C- "So the argument for French command of the Western Front gets kicked out of court for a season." A- "But weren't you arguing against your own convictions?" C- "Yes, of course. But Macmaster depends on me."

The third player, Valentine Wallop, is a symbol of the petty-bourgeois sympathizing with the plights of the proletariat amidst the increasing social contradictions of her age, which at this time and place were actually threatening her class with extinction. She's working for the vote for women and she's intensely pacifist. Her little brother, occupying a rather small role on the show, is a socialist and later a Bolshevik, writing her a postcard in Latin from the front, afraid it will get picked up by the censorship - "long live the October revolution!"

Where a lesser work would find this a golden opportunity to insert some synthetic plug against Communism, "Parade's End" significantly has Valentine exclaiming to her horrified mother, "well, it's enough to make anyone Bolshevik sending men and boys to murder each other in millions!" She is the least nuanced but most admirable of the three characters - outspoken, disrespectful of authority, perhaps a bit naïve and with a big heart.

This sets the stage for our drama - the love triangle between the moral traditionalist aristocrat, the corrupt would-be tyrant from his own class and the moral revolutionary commoner.

The conflict is symbolized by the Tietjens family tree at his grounds at Groby estate, where people from all walks of life have been hanging good luck charms for centuries. It is a symbol for tradition and the bond between the ruling class and its subjects. The tree's roots have grown too deep and wide and threaten to destabilize the very ground on which the estate is seated - another symbol for how the morals of times past have turned into obstacles for the needs of modern Capitalism - but in Sylvia's inimitable, shallow manner of thinking the main reason she wants to get rid of it is because it "darkens the view out the window". That, and out of spite for her husband, who dearly loves it and all it stands for - as he says, "young men and maidens have made their marriage vows under the Groby tree for longer than memory."

Her mother urges her to stay her hand and wait for her son to decide what to do with it once he is Lord of Groby but Sylvia bluntly states that his son will "grow up to be a Tietjens", so she won't even give him that choice. When she has the tree cut down with no sanction, that is the breaking point and the true conclusion of the triangle, in a single stroke showing Christopher that all the old values he lived for are dead.

In the end, Christopher chooses and chooses wisely. As his godfather told him on the field of battle, "well, there are no more parades for that regiment. It held out to the last man, but you were him", and as he himself says to Valentine, in a defining, game-changing piece of conversation: "My colours are in the mud. It's not a good thing to find oneself living by an outmoded code of conduct. People take you to be a fool. I'm coming round to their opinion."

The final shot of the series, with Christopher burning the last log of wood from the tree in the fireplace, dancing with Valentine at the post-war party with his fellow soldiers, is one of the most satisfying ends to any show I have ever seen.

It is good precisely because when I watched through this series for the first time, I fully expected Christopher to die in the finale, bleeding out in some ditch half-way to Belgium and setting up the standard tragic conclusion, as most of these great stories do - but this ending sends a powerful message. It is possible to change, and it is possible to find happiness even after you have let go of all your old baggage and sentiments. It is not a happy ending for the sake of it. It's a happy ending because ultimately that is what best serves the story.

There are of course many other characters in this drama - the timid, upstart Macmaster and his hypocrite mistress, Christopher's dad who commits suicide poisoned by false rumors about his son, the likable Irish priest most likely connected to the Irish Republican Army, executed on false charges of treason by Ulstermen, and Christopher's brother, who finally comes to understand him and take Valentine's side against his wife, and they are all well-crafted and well-played - but if I were to address them all, this would turn from an essay into a novel. You might as well go read the novels.

It's inspiring television. In one word, it's perfect.

Thomas Ijon Tichy

[deitiesofduat]

I was wondering if u can do a bunch of random facts/headcannons for the main cast?

Oh man, I mean, I’m happy to try, but I’m not sure where to start for the entire cast of 10… well, now 11 gods. I know have some that are scattered around the blog’s tags, and also in places other than tumblr, but It’ll take me a bit to find them or think of new ones without revealing spoilers, hmm…

So here’s what I’ll try that’s similar to the 1 Like 1 Fact meme I did on twitter a while ago: for every note this post receives, I’ll add a DEITIES-related headcanon or fact about the main cast. The main cast includes Set, Horus, Anubis, Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Bastet, Sekhmet, Thoth, Ra, and nowwwww Sobek – and maybe the Set Spawn and the big bad serpent too, if relevant. You can add a note by +liking this post, and if you’re interested in learning about a particular deity, you can mention their name in a comment (and it’s not necessary to reblog this, unless you want to!).

This should help give me a bit more focus and time to think of some decent non-spoiler headcanons/facts to share. I’ll come back to this post in a few hours and add any many as I can, depending on the amount of notes it receives, and I’ll bump and place them under the cut for easy access. So yeah, go for it /o/!!

[1] Been playing with a headcanon where Horus’s Eye can see an object’s or person’s weak spots – though only for like, a moment once it’s activated, cuz I’ve wanted to avoid him being OP (but then again… he’s a literal god… so >>)

Also a related-headcanon where he can see a person’s past injuries thru his Eye too, including the hidden ones that have long-ago healed and left no visible scar. I’d like to draw the ones he “sees” on others one day if I keep it…

[2] Set is the only one of his siblings that doesn’t have an avian sacred animal, and for a while I wanted to keep it that way and literally keep him “grounded” compared to his family (sans Anubis). But I found that he’s sometimes also associated with crows (and falcons??? interestingly enough), and even though I haven’t found solid evidence of this yet, I also like the idea of him being associated with bats even before I read about it in Kane Chronicles I swear– So those 2-3 animals are probably some alternate animal form that he has but just rarely takes.

[3] Actually while I’m at it– aside from the Sha Animal, here’s a list of 30-ish animals that I keep as Set’s canon forms in DEITIES verse (based on a combination of historical speculation, recorded myths, and personal headcanons), and would love to eventually draw him as one day:

Aardvark, African Wild Ass (and Donkey), Giant Anteater, Baboon, Bat, Boar/Pig, Bull, Camel, Crocodile, Crow/Raven, Dog (some sort of sighthound?), Fennec Fox, Fish (Eel?), Gazelle/Antelope, Giraffe, Goat, Goose, Hare/Rabbit, Hippopotamus, [Spotted] Hyena, Jackal, Jerboa, Okapi, Oryx, Panther, Rat, Scorpion, Shark, Snake (Viper), and Zebra/Quagga.

[4] RELATEDLY… I REALLY REALLY like the idea of Set somehow acquiring a Thylacine form even tho it’s in no realistic way in the current timeline because thylacines weren’t native to Africa let alone Egypt. BUT… I JUST… THEY REMIND ME OF SHA ANIMALS SO MUCH o)——–

[5] When I was considering the color schemes for the main cast, I once briefly envisioned a purple/violet scheme for Nephthys, but decided to scrap it because (1) I wanted her colors to contrast with her sister’s and match a bit more with her husband’s and son’s and (2) I found that purple was nigh impossible to find in AE wall art and admittedly worried “maybe it won’t look authentic if I use those colors;;;”

Even though I’m happy with her orange/black/red scheme now, I’ve recently found that purple is a common association / kemetic UPG (or doxa?) with her?? SO THAT WAS INTERESTING… I don’t think I’ll change her color scheme for DEITIES, but maybe I’ll draw her in an alternate purple outfit one day to see how it looks on her >>

[6] One of the reasons why I like Horus, Anubis, and Bastet as their own casual friend group in DEITIES verse is that, because they’re all relatively young gods, they all share the experience/pressure of being measured up against their older royal relatives – Horus being seen as both his father and mother’s legacy and feeling the pressure to restore his family’s throne; Anubis being know for his infamous father, and even having his paternity questioned (via rumors and “myths”); and Bastet being the youngest of Ra’s daughter, sometimes being compared to her sister’s roles and achievements.

They’re all really good at masking any pressure they feel, but they also probably confide in each other about it more than with others, cuz they’ve all “been there.”

[7] Relatedly, one of the earliest version of DEITIES Project, before it was known as “Deities Project,” had Horus, Anubis, and Bastet as the main trio. That’s been changed “for reasons” since then, and their characters were quite different back then, but it might be fun to explore a story that focused on the 3 of them someday.

[8] Okay ya’ll know the part during The Contendings where Horus and Set are racing in stone boats and Horus “wins” by painting his wooden boat to look like stone? I have ideas for how that entire race happens in DEITIES verse that would be fun to explore as a side story, but in order for me to give Horus a “legit” way to win without outright cheating, he covers his boat with stone casing/accents, and after he wins and is confronted about it… well…

HORUS: “The rules we agreed on were to sail a boat made with stone. They said nothing about it needing to be made entirely out of stone.”SET: “…”HORUS: “ :)c ”SET: “…” *Internally raging*

[9] I’ve headcanon’d that Nephthys has her own set of ~7 Shabti who act as her personal assistants while she’s conducting her nightly duties, or working around her home, but I haven’t decided much more past that (still debating on how she acquired them, and if she more-than-likely named them…).

The concept and number were loosely based on how many of the other goddesses had their own sets of 7 as extensions of their power and/or control (7 Ribbons of Hathor, 7 Arrows of Sekhmet, Isis’s 7 Scorpions), and I thought it’d be neat if the Goddess of Service had her own Shabti that exemplified that part of her domain.

[10] Thoth is an avid lover of puzzles, trivia, and strategy games, and he’s also exceptionally skilled at games of chance. He doesn’t gamble or make bets often because he understands the risks, but when he does he tries to be calculative about it… and also has a natural knack for luck going his way (EX: That one game of senet that he won to help assist Nut with having her children… which is another story for another day)

[11] Ummmmm Isis is the only one of the main cast who I haven’t drawn a ref of her sacred animal form yet… or at least, not digitally. Her animal is the kite, but I’ve been debating on a while for what species to base her design on. I like the idea of her kite form looking like the Black-winged Kite, although those species aren’t native to Egypt… but some are native to Africa… and they’re so fricken pretty and they fit her colors so well so I might cave on this ffffffffffff–

[12] While we’re on the subject of sacred animals (and to help me get somewhat closer to the note count lmao I’m trying guys–), Horus’s falcon form is based on both the Peregrine falcon and the Lanner falcon, with more simplified markings for my own sanity when I draw him in dozens of panels.

At one point, I considered making his falcon form leucistic to contrast more with Anubis and Set, buuuuuut I also liked the brown colors on the falcons’ normal coloration, so I kept it. (That and more leucistic birds of prey are hawks, so… maybe for Khonsu tho if I don’t change him to an owl, hmmmm…)

[13] Okay continuing thoughts on animal forms, Bastet is able to shift her cat form into nearly any coloration or breed she desires (aside from her eyes, which remain green), but for the purposes of DEITIES I draw her as a brown cat with light gradation markings. I knew of the Egyptian Mau but also realized the spots would take a lot of effort to redraw in the panels where she appears as a cat (much like the spots on falcons for Horus). I also personally really like solid-colored coats on cats, and in particular I liked the coloration of the Havana Brown, so it may be a little less authentic but it did factor into her colors as well.

[14] I'm still debating on Sekhmet's main hairstyle and want to play with it a bit more -- not the arrangement per se but whether to keep it as locks or to make them more obvious twists -- or perhaps a combination -- since I can see her with both style at certain points in time. Either way, at full length Sekhmet's hair is very long: if she were to loosen her tie and let it fall, her longest locks would reach past her hips.

[15] I initially gave Set yellow eyes because even though he's often depicted with red eyes, I didn't want to over saturate his design with just... well, red -- especially in his animal form where his entire body is covered in red fur (red eyes + red sclera would have been, a lot). I like how his yellow eyes provide some contrast, and I've since found some story-related reasons where his eyes might play some role in the plot… but anything further might be spoilery 8')c

[16] It took me a while to settle on Osiris's "resurrected" skin tone because there were a lot of sources that describe his skin as being green, or blue, or black in coloration. I even tried them out in an earlier color test that I shared on patreon, but I eventually went with black since the color has had various meanings in Ancient Egypt that include both life and death. (It also gave me some opportunity to give green skin to Ptah and blue skin to Hapi to help vary the designs for each of those gods).

[17] Relatedly, Osiris's mortal form is a naturally dark skin tone, but following this death he can no longer appear in that form. He is also unable to travel to the overworld / realm of the living, though I'm still debating on how restrictive this is (if it's limited to his physical body or if he can split his soul under special circumstances, or with assistance). Regardless, most of his correspondence with other deities have to be arranged within Duat for this reason.

[18] I haven't made any plans to designate a spouse or romantic partner for Ra. I understand that there were a number of goddesses that were associated with him in the myths and often said to be his wife, but for that reason it was hard to settle on choosing one -- or multiple, and I realized that for the purpose of the main story it might not be necessary. I also kinda like exploring the idea of this high king and powerful creator deity who's also a happily single father, and where it's not for tragic reasons like the separation from or death of his spouse (not to knock that trope at all tho sdjfdsf). I'm not opposed to him being shipped with anyone though, I just don't think I've been inclined to do it myself lmAO;;

[19] RELATEDLY, while Ra's daughters (Sekhmet, Mafdet, Hathor, Serqet, Bastet) don't have a biological mother, I like to think that they were raised in an environment with a lot of parental figures and mentors to go around, aside from just their father. I haven't quite settled on how it was organized though, but I know that the daughters regard Thoth as something of an uncle/secondary dad (tho their dynamic with Thoth is can vary a lot from the one the have with Ra), as well as their teacher and mentor. I can also see where other gods like Khnum, Khepri, and Bes, and goddesses like Neith, Seshat, Taweret, Ma'at, and Mut, might also have played some direct mentor role in the daughters' upbringing and sense of self.

[20] (squick + implied nsfw) I uh… have this minor gag headcanon where Horus, Isis, and Osiris just don't eat fish. They just… don't. And it's entirely based on that one part of the myths after Osiris's death, where a certain part of Osiris's desecrated body ended up in the river and was swallowed by a fish 8')c (should be noted that I'm not saying that event did happened in DEITIES canon, but I'm also not disputing it either >>).

Apparently that was considered a bad omen, and I still find conflicting information on whether consumption of fish was taboo for some or all in Ancient Egypt (I think "for some" makes better sense, cuz why would an entire society that resides near the Nile river pass up on a perfectly available food source?? But I digress, I might need to review this again so take my thoughts with a grain of salt--). I also admit that I've seen it mentioned that fish are not ideal food offerings for Isis and Osiris?? and I can imagine that maybe Horus adopts the distaste for them as well. Either way, I go with the DEITIES canon that while most people and deities happily consume fish, Horus and his parents will not, and they don't enjoy it as offerings either.

I’MMMMMM gonna end it here for now cuz my headcanons have run dry for the time being, thank you guys!!

[disneydreamlights]

So, while most of the Norts in the MMO AU follow the rule of "personality traits through the filter of Xehanort", Terra-Xehanort would be different, due to Terra/Eraqus and Xehanort constantly struggling for control. That, combined with his amnesia, would result in Terranort developing a split personality. One is how Terra views Xehanort, which would later become Ansem, and the other how Xehanort views Terra, which would later become Xemnas. Extracting Terra's heart wouldn't fix this.

...Which would explain why neither Ansem SoD or Xemnas aren’t a lot like Xehanort at all. I’d imagine it must’ve driven Xigbar crazy though. (Good.)

So, what keeps the Dandelions from being total gamebreakers once they're freed is that they are, for the most part, pacifists. This means that they'd just serve the in-universe explanation for where the other players in Multiplayer come from, unless there is an in-universe explanation for them to be more involved in the plot. Additionally, I imagine most of them would hang up their Keyblades to live normal lives after being freed. And to be frank, I wouldn't blame them.

I wouldn’t either given all that the MMO AU puts them through.

As for the Keykids running the Ice Cream shop, they'd both be Dandelions due to being from different Unions and not wanting to have to fight each other. They would not wear their ice cream uniforms at the Dandelion meetings, since they're not on the job, and the ice cream is more of a hobby. They would both wield Sweetstack though, even when off the job. All the Sweetstack Materials would be Ice Cream ingredients. Strelitzia and Mog were their favorite customers.

As for how the fact that they're siblings would be revealed? After you ask them about Ven's whereabouts (which wouldn't be easy seeing as they change what World their located in every day), Black Hair would remark on how surprising it is that they get along despite being in different Unions, while White Hair would bring up that they're twins. Cue the flood of angsty oneshots about them fighting and killing eachother in the Keyblade War until they're revealed to be Dandelions.

As for why they're running an ice cream stand? It was the family business, and they both want to keep their family's legacy arrive. They open up the shop whenever they both fill their Daily Quotas. And I just now realized that I accidentally created two OCs with a cute yet angsty backstory while trying to come up with an excuse for Sweetstack to be in the MMO AU. Although I kinda wish I knew how to draw because I just realized my imagined uniforms for them aren't in the canon game.

Ice cream twins you’ve got me sold I am now invested in these characters.

As for where the Ice Cream Vendors would run their shops on what day? Dwarf Woodlands outside the mines on Monday, Wonderland by the White Rabbit's house on Tuesday, Agrabah's Bizarre on Wednesday, Olympus Coliseum by the stands on Thursday (In the Underworld near the entrance in October), Beast's Castle in the Courtyard on Friday, and Daybreak Town in the park on the Weekend. They'd sell ice cream to the spectators during your matches in Olympus Coliseum, just to give the tournament more flavor

Can we buy ice cream while we watch matches or is it just the NPCs and they’re just there to add more character to the Olympus Coliseum stands and as a cute Easter Egg.

You know, after COM put forth the idea that death was the best possible ending for Repliku and that beings like himself could never be happy because they're not real people, I'm REALLY glad that the future games that remember he existed treated his demise as something tragic and not some kind of "mercy kill". His death always made me so mad because it was ultimately POINTLESS to the plot and a great example of a WASTED character. There's a reason I NEVER go down the same route canon did with him

That’s because it wasn’t really a mercy kill. Repliku shouldn’t have existed, it’s true, but once he did he also didn’t really deserve to die. He deserved a better life than the one he got, and its why the fact that he had to face Riku and die all the more tragic.

You know what, can we just have an AU where Namine stops Riku and his Replica from fighting to the death so that Repliku has the chance to be his own person and go on a journey of self discovery? Although I feel like he'd be relieved if Riku got a Keyblade and he didn't just because that would be one difference between them both. He'd probably also style his hair differently from Riku as part of that "forging my own identity" thing. It would be difficult and painful, but at least he'd be alive.

So I don’t quite have that at my disposal, but:

How do you feel about a 500+ chapter AU in which we get to see Repliku saved on the brink of death and shoved into a completely new universe where he is the only Riku? Because I can supply that for you it’s basically the starting point of one of my favorite fics.

Okay so, in KH3, while Roxas would have grown alongside Sora, Ven would not have aged a day while he was in the Chamber of Waking. This means that Roxas would look older than Ven. Vanitas would also look younger than Sora, due to not aging while his Remnant survived through sheer force of hate. Poor Ven, he's ancient but looks younger than the 3 year old.

This is one of the most hilarious things I have ever heard rip Ven.

I imagine Back Cover would be where all the vitriol that was once directed at Brain would then be redirected at Lauriam. Because once you see a 14-15 year old flashback to how he lost his sight and friends just days after the fact, and witnessed someone murder their closest friend, it's kinda hard to not rethink things like that.

I mean all my hatred towards Blaine if I had any would be immediately redirected towards Lauriam once Strelitzia is dead so I don’t even think I’d need Back Cover to hate him, assuming she’s revealed before Back Cover releases at least.

Laurie would lie about Aced killing Strelitzia before 2.8 released. In Back Cover, the famous Case of Luxury scene would be shown when Ava asks Luxu if he's the traitor, and cut back with the implication that he told Ava what the Master told him. The fun-sized Chirithy Ava squeed over was totally Nightmare Chirithy. Invi and Ira would be fighting during Ava's confrontation we Luxu.

Hey Lauriam don’t blame my son for my daughter’s demise.

Anyways, I’d like that transition more. Tbh I kinda wish we did get to see the Keyblade War unfold. It’s one of the only things I don’t like about BC is that it doesn’t follow X to its conclusion.

Okay so, in the MORNING AU, I imagine that the Mango could continue past KH2 depending on why the Manga ends there. As such there would be a Manga Adaptation AND Novelization of KHX. The novelization would have the default male protagonist, while the Manga would have the default female protagonist, and have her be part of Anguis. They'd also be characterized differently, the novel protagonist being more timid and the Manga protagonist being more snarky.

So yeah, the protagonist of the Manga would have Lauriam and the Keyblade Wielders from the Neoshadow Arc as party members until the Neoshadow Trio become Darklings. She'd leave the party after Lauriam blames her for what happened to their three party members. The Novel protagonist MIGHT be an Ursus Wielder, not sure yet. Aced would terrify both of them, since neither could defeat Ava when she was holding back, and Aced would actually be trying to kill them.

SNARKY FEMALE MANGA PROTAGONIST I AM ALL FOR THIS SHIT.

If they’re part of Ursus, I doubt they’d be afraid of Ursus. If you ask me, I think novel protag should be a member of Leopardus though. Creates good contrast versus Ava, and could create a lot of interesting arcs.

Both would have Medals in the "Toon Medal" deal. The Manga protagonist would have a Power-type Medal while the Novel protagonist would have a Speed-type Medal. The first time we hear either say their names would be when Ephemer is introduced. Neither protagonist would talk much, though the Manga protagonist's thoughts would serve as narration. The first time the Manga protagonist speaks would be to tell off Lauriam at the end of the Neoshadow arc before leaving his Party.

So, the Novel and Manga protagonists would both have Medals in the "Toon Medals" deal. The Manga protagonist would have a Power Medal while the Novel Protagonist would have a Speed Medal (if in Ursus) or a Magic Medal (if in Leopardos), in accordance with the idea that all the Keykids are the type that their Foretellers are strong against. They'd be the closest thing we'd have to Medals based off the Player, though both would be treated as distinct characters.

I think there should be a KHUx Toon Medal deal later on actually, where you can get Player and the five Foretellers, since in Ux they’re dead and could be used as medals.

So, MMO AU 0.2 would be virtually unchanged, save for the more intense version of "The End of a World" cutscene that I'm already forming a new idea for in my head, but that's a story for another day. But there would be one other change. You'd actually be able to see what abilities Aqua has on the difficulty you're playing on. Aqua'd have Treasure Magnet on both Beginner and she and Mickey'd both have it on Critical. There still wouldn't be prize drops in Critical, it's only there to taunt you.

...Wow, that’s cruel. Good thing I don’t play Critical because I’d cry I think.

So, in the MMO AU, starting up Back Cover in 2.8 would play a "spinning heart scene" like in the game. Unlike the games, the little screens would depict moments from past Kingdom Hearts games instead of moments from Back Cover. The music that plays over the spinning heart would be "Ventus". The credits themes would be "Case of Foretellers" and "Cavern of Remembrance". I'd probably keep the cutesy recap opening, just without the annoyingly formatted text layover. That was just BAD.

Actually maybe "The Dream" would be more appropriate than "Ventus". Anyway as for how I'd change "The End of a World" from my original idea would be to have the Keyblade Graveyard get absorbed by Kingdom Hearts. THEN Kingdom Hearts explodes, vaporizing the entire universe save for Luxu who survives by hiding out in the Realm of Darkness before Kingdom Hearts can absorb him. I mean, escaping from that to fulfill his role would be kinda difficult.

Honestly please change the entire intro. Maybe keep some of it but that intro could’ve been done so much better than they actually did.

Wow, honestly poor Luxu. Hiding in the RoD to survive doesn’t sound like it’d be fun.

So, I've lost track of what all I've sent you over the past couple of weeks, but I did have one idea that could be cool: imagine if there had been a movie based off the fall of Radiant Garden. I imagine that Xehanort would start out as the main antagonist until he splits between Ansem and Xemnas, at which point one of them would take over the role. I don't actually have as many ideas here as I do for the MMO part of the MMO AU.

I don’t need as many ideas make it a full length movie collaboration between Disney and Squeenix and I’m sold.

So, Sora would be conspicuously absent during Strelitzia's solo game as well as during the Epilogue DLC is that for the final phase of the final battle against Xehanort, Sora would trap himself and Xehanort within Kingdom Hearts. While the final clash would only be about as long as the battle against Xemnas' final form, outside of Kingdom Hearts, an entire year would pass during that duel. Fortunately, Sora would escape as soon as Xehanort is defeated, unscathed save for losing his powers again.

Damn...Poor RIku and Kairi. THey’d probably be searching for ways to rescue Sora the entire time instead of doing anything involving the other characters.

I kinda can't help but notice something mildly amusing about the MMO version of Back Cover. Mickey Mouse (or rather, a holographic double of him) is basically a herald of the apocalypse. I mean, his appearance is what tells the Foretellers that the people in the Book of Prophecy's Holo Worlds can leak out into the real world, explaining where the Heartless came from. Lauriam and Ventus just confuse them, because they KNOW they're not holograms.

GUYS THE WORLD IS ENDING CAN’T YOU TELL IT’S BECAUSE OF MICKEY FREAKING MOUSE. XD

So yeah, Invi basically accuses each of the other 4 Foretellers of being the traitor throughout MMO!BC. First she accuses Aced when he tries to kill her for talking Gula out of their alliance. Then she assumes it's Gula upon learning that Ira thinks that's the case. Then she accuses Ava upon learning about the Dandelions. Then, upon learning of Aced's true role, decides that IRA must be the traitor. The fact that Ira intends to wipe out everyone who fights in the Keyblade War doesn't help.

Okay so, Invi is kinda like Aqua in her devotion to the MoM, save for the fact that she LITERALLY worships him. That's kind of why her last words implied she was okay with the World ending, she had pieced together that the MoM WANTED the apocalypse to happen, and who is she to defy his will? The MoM is, amused by her worship of him, and he probably could have told her his true goals without her lifting a finger to stop him. It's Ava he's worried about.

So yeah, the reason he's so uncharacteristically serious around Ava is because he needs her to get Ven and Lauriam into the Unchained State. He needs Xehanort's plans to end a specific way in order for his eye that he placed in his Keyblade to end up in Kingdom Hearts, while Xehanort needs to drop Ventus off at the Land of Departure to notice the darkness in Terra's heart. Ava and factors he knows he can't control (the Gazing Eye doesn't see everything), could make everything fall apart

You know given how Invi was meant to invoke appearances related to Aqua with color scheme the fact that she parallels Aqua is really fitting.

Him being super serious around Ava makes sense if she’s the biggest threat though. Taking her more seriously means she’s less likely to mess things up for him.

[hsj-scenarios]

My internet friend is an idol AU with keito and the reader knowing about jump please!

Note: I wrote this as if Keitopinionweren’t a JUMP related blog but something that Keito had started on his own asa sort of release so, for the purpose of this, keitopinion will be referencedbut there won’t be any mentions of JUMP in his entries, there will also be madeup entries where I did my best to try and portray Keito. Hopefully I’ve done mynumber 1 justice! – Mod C

It had been a long day. Concert prep wastaking a lot out of Keito and, while he definitely enjoyed it and was excitedto be doing lives soon, he couldn’t help but be happy when he finally made ithome. Throwing his jacket down on the couch, Keito pulled out his phone andmade his way into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of juice. He paused, handon the fridge handle and a smile spreading over his face as he read the messagethat was waiting for him.

ABeautifulDream: I listened to that song you recommended. How do youalways know what kinds of things I like?

How could I not know? Keito thought. Typing a quick reply, he slid his phoneback into his pocket and finished grabbing his snack before going into theliving room and settling on the couch.

OddlyCharmingGentleman: I have my ways （⌒▽⌒ゞ

OddlyCharmingGentleman: I’m glad you liked it though! I have a few more Icould recommend if you want.

This had become a regular occurrence inKeito’s daily life for the past few months. He hadn’t intended on making anynew friends, especially not ones that he couldn’t see or physically talk to. Hehad simply been looking for a way to express himself outside of his activitieswith the other boys. Keito had just wanted a place to share his thoughts andmaybe see if there were people out there who felt the same way that he didabout some things. So, he set up Keitopinion, a regular blog on a regularserver squeezed between thousands of other entries by people all over theworld. He had a few readers, but there was one who had stood out.

ABeautifulDream: Of course!

ABeautifulDream: How are you, by the way? Spreading happiness bygiving up your seat on the subway? hahaha

This person, whoever they were, not onlyread his blog but commented almost every week and had since the blog wascreated. They ran a similar one of their own, where they commented on orreviewed movies, shows, and books that they were enjoying and Keito found itinteresting, so he began to comment on their posts as well. “I liked thatmovie, too!” “I heard that author was good, but I haven’t read that book yet.Maybe I will when I have time haha.” “Ahh, you should warn for spoilers!! Ihadn’t seen this episode yet.”

Aside from general encouragement on eachother’s blogs, Keito hadn’t expected much. That is until they shot him amessage to apologize about spoiling the episode. The two had been chattingregularly ever since and getting to know each other. It was a refreshingfeeling for Keito to be able to talk to someone outside of the company whogenuinely just liked talking to him and not Hey Say Jump’s Okamoto Keito.

OddlyCharmingGentleman: Hahaha nothing like that today. You make fun butdoing things for other people really does make me happy

ABeautifulDream: I know, I know haha I actually really like thatabout you. It’s nice, most people aren’t like that.

There was that familiar pull in his chestthat Keito occasionally got while talking to them. It had been happening moreoften lately as the two of them got closer and he had been trying not to payattention to it. As much as he loved talking to this person, he didn’t knowthem or even what part of the world they lived in or really anything. Butstill, those small compliments and the very frequent offhanded flirting werestarting to get to Keito.

OddlyCharmingGentleman: What about you? Did you have a good day?

ABeautifulDream: Could have been better, but I can’t complain either

And so, the two of them talked for over anhour, Keito letting them retell that day’s events as he got ready for bed. Thatone coworker who was always causing trouble. The project they were working onthat they were both excited and nervous about. The coming weekend and whattheir plans were.

ABeautifulDream: But enough about me! What did you do today?

Drying his hair from his shower, Keitocouldn’t help but frown down at his phone. It was times like this when he felta bit bad about the friendship the two of them had built. While they hadmaintained a certain level of anonymity, neither asking for full names or evenwhere the other was from, it wasn’t very fair that they were being so open tohim and he could never honestly answer when they asked how work was or what hedid during the day. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. But he wasn’t exactlysupposed to be running the blog in the first place, so telling his friend thathe was an idol was out of the question.

OddlyCharmingGentleman: Same old, same old.

OddlyCharmingGentleman:JDC241.JPG

OddlyCharmingGentleman: Thisweek’s playlist! Let me know which songs you like, okay?

ABeautifulDream: Will do!Last week’s Pink Floyd was great, by the way. And I liked the bit of jazz youthrew in too. How do you come up with these playlists?

OddlyCharmingGentleman: They’rejust the songs I listen to the most throughout the week haha nothing special

ABeautifulDream: I’d begto differ. You’ve got great taste!

ABeautifulDream: I’m not saying it’s not a good book. I’mjust saying some of the characters lacked depth. Great plot, great writing.Just needed a bit more character development.

OddlyCharmingGentleman: You’realways such a critic

ABeautifulDream: Hi, nice to meet you, let me redirectyou to my review blog. Oh wait, you’ve been following it for months now hahah

OddlyCharmingGentleman: Okay hahathat’s fair

ABeautifulDream: And it’s not even like she does anything! She showsup late to every meeting, criticizes everything the rest of the team suggests,and then has the nerve to take credit for things when the supervisor says helikes it!

OddlyCharmingGentleman: And this person still has a job because?

ABeautifulDream: She’s the chair’s niece…But! On the plus side, I’m ashoe in for a promotion once this project is finished so I’ll be in a differentdepartment and won’t have to worry about it.

OddlyCharmingGentleman: ✧*｡٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و✧*｡

OddlyCharmingGentleman: That’s me celebrating

ABeautifulDream: Hahah thanks Keito

OddlyCharmingGentleman: Okay explain again why you think I’m a spy?

ABeautifulDream: Well, you’ve never told me what it is you do for aliving and you’re always very vague when I ask how your day was, so I figurethere’s no way you have a normal job.

OddlyCharmingGentleman: And so your first thought was spy?

ABeautifulDream: No…it was just the most interesting

“Honesty”

What does it mean to be honest with someone? I’ve been thinking about thesekinds of things a lot…Expressing yourself fully, telling someone something evenif there may be consequences…There’s no doubt that being honest with yourselfand the people you care about is the right thing to do.

So, why is it so hard?

I think sometimes honesty is selfish. You’re selfish if you are dishonestbecause you are not taking that person’s feelings into account. But you can beselfish if you are honest, too. Why? Because what if the consequences aren’tworth it?

These are my thoughts lately. To be honest or to keep it to myself to saveeveryone the trouble.

Hopefully, I will figure it out.

Keito clicked post on his most recententry. It had been a few days since he had talked to his friend, a bitoverwhelmed and exhausted from rehearsals, the concert drawing closer and closer.They still messaged, though, even if Keito didn’t have time to respond. He wasgrateful for that because seeing that they thought about him made him feel good.

ABeautifulDream: Update on the work project: we’re halfway there andmy supervisor said it’s looking good!

ABeautifulDream: Today’s weather? Cloudy with a chance of meatballshaha I’m babysitting and this was the movie of choice

ABeautifulDream: I’ve been listening to Nirvana a lot lately thanksto you.

ABeautifulDream: There’s a concert I really want to go to, but I’mscared that tickets will sell out before I can buy them. Wish me luck!

ABeautifulDream: In my Keitopinion, I think honesty is always thebest policy. Do you want to talk about it?

The last message reached him not longafter he had made the post, the soft chime from his messenger catching him offguard as he was cooking dinner. Did he want to talk about it? He did, more thananything. He wanted to share his excitement for the concert tour with hisfriend. He wanted to tell stories from rehearsal the same way that they toldstories from the work conference room. He wanted to talk about the new song hehad written and how 7 was going to perform it as a special stage and he was sohappy because he really felt useful.

But what if it changed everything? What ifthese months of friendship dissolved when he told you who he was? He didn’twant to bear the weight of another scandal, but he also didn’t like not sharingequally in this relationship the two of you had. Putting down the knife he hadbeen cutting vegetables with, Keito couldn’t help but laugh a little. Relationship. Was that the right wordfor this?

OddlyCharmingGentleman: Hypothetically speaking, what are the chances thatwe would ever meet?

ABeautifulDream: Well that depends on a lot of things. Where and howfar away you live. How well I feel like I know you. Whether or not you’reactually a spy

OddlyCharmingGentleman: Hahah I promise I’m not a spy. I was just curious isall. And we certainly wouldn’t have to if you weren’t comfortable with it. Ijust thought I would ask.

There would be no point in being totallyhonest if they had no intentions of meeting Keito to begin with. He would feelless guilty about concealing who he was if there was no chance or really anyreason for you two to meet in person.

ABeautifulDream: Hmm…How’s this sound? I did manage to get tickets tothat concert I wanted to see and it’s this weekend. The friend I was going togo with is sick but, if you’re serious about wanting to meet me, maybe we couldhave lunch and go together?

OddlyCharmingGentleman: What concert is it?

ABeautifulDream: Ah, I know I know you’re a jazz and classic rockkind of guy, but hear me out when I say that this idol group is really good andthey’re one of my favorites. They’re called Hey Say Jump!

Keito couldn’t log out of his messengerfast enough, cheeks flaming after he had read the message once, twice, threetimes. Of course. Of course, they were a JUMP fan. Knowing that left him withmixed feelings. On the one hand, he felt honored that Jump was their favoriteidol group and happy, if not even bubbly, at the fact that they were open tothe idea of meeting him. But, they were a JUMP fan. There were too many waysthat meeting could go wrong, too many ways that he, the group, his fans couldget hurt. Too many ways that youcould get hurt. Even though Keito wanted to believe that wasn’t his maindrawback, he knew that it was. Best case scenario where you didn’t care that hewas an idol and your friendship or even relationship continued after you foundout, Keito didn’t want to risk exposing you to the treatment that often befellthose that dated idols.

So, instead, he lied.

OddlyCharmingGentleman: Ah, I’mnot really into idol music. And, like I said, it was a hypothetical question.It wasn’t like we would be able to meet anyway…

ABeautifulDream: Oh haha…Yeah, I guess you’re right…

Messages became a lot less frequent and heknew. Keito knew that he had hurt their feelings and thinking about it botheredhim but not thinking about it made him feel guilty. The days leading up to theconcert, even though he didn’t post on Keitopinion, he still logged onto theserver to see if you had posted anything. For 3 days, there was absolutelynothing. Until the day of the concert.

He was in the dressing room, one of thefirst ones ready for the opening number, so he was relaxing. Or at least tryingto. Knowing that somewhere in the audience sat the person he had been chattingwith, the person he had gotten so closed to only to push them away, left himwith mixed feelings. He needed to do his best for every single person out inthe audience and for the other members. He needed to do his best for them, too,and so he checked their blog one last time before the show, surprised andrelieved to see a post for an hour before.

It was a picture, something that theynever usually posted in an attempt to keep up that anonymity, and a fewsentences. It took Keito a while to make it down to the actual post because hecouldn’t take his eyes of the picture.

There you were, standing on your own infront of one of the concert posters, the biggest and most beautiful smile Keitohad ever seen plastered across your face. You were dressed comfortably butcutely and in your hands was a big Keito uchiwa. He couldn’t help but smile ashe looked at you, that same pull in his chest returning, his heart pounding abit at the fact that you were attractive. Scrolling down, he looked at yourpost.

Not my usual content, I know, but I’m so excited to be seeing Jump today!I’ve been dreaming about this for so long! And, to my number one, OkamotoKeito, I’ll see you soon!

Again, he was hit with a wave of mixedemotions. You looked so happy to be at the concert, so happy to be seeing yourfavorite group and so ready to proudly wave an uchiwa for your favorite member.Him. But he had lied to you. He was your favorite member and he had lied toyou.

A tap on his shoulder from Kota let Keitoknow it was time for them to head towards the stage. Taking one last look atthe photo in your post, Keito made up his mind then and there, setting hisphone down on the table and following the rest of the members.

That night,he saw you. You were fairly close to the end of the stage so, when the membersran down to sing Asu e no yell, he could see you, waving your uchiwa andsinging your heart out. He knew that he was wrong, that you would probably hatehim if you found out who he was, but at that moment you were smiling so muchbecause of him, so much because of what he and the rest of the boys were doing,and he wanted you to remember it. He wanted this to be a good night for you andfor you to remember your number one in the best way possible. And so, wheneverhe was on your end of the stage and whenever the performance would allow, hesmiled at you. He waved at you. He sang for you. Because he never wanted to seethat smile leave your face. Especially not because of something that he did.

ABeautifulDream is online

Keito read those words over and overagain, debating whether or not he wanted to message you. True it had been goingon a week since you had talked to each other, a few days after the concert. Hehad seen the long addition you had made to your first concert post and feltkind of bad because of how happy he was seeing you fangirl over him. It wasn’tvery fair of him to do that to you, but you were happy, so was it really wrong?

He was surprised when you were the one whomessaged him first.

ABeautifulDream: Hey. I know you’re online. I also know you’ve beenlurking around my blog.

OddlyCharmingGentleman: How’d you know that?

ABeautifulDream: I have a view counter…Although I was only guessingat it being you.

OddlyCharmingGentleman: I was just checking in on you…Was curious about howyou were doing?

ABeautifulDream: You know what’s a great way of checking in? Sayinghi.

OddlyCharmingGentleman: You got me there.

Keito paused for a moment, fingers restingon is keyboard. You had said that you believed that honesty was the bestpolicy, so Keito was going to do just that. He was going to be honest.

OddlyCharmingGentleman: So, I have another hypothetical question for you…

ABeautifulDream: Okay, let me hear it

OddlyCharmingGentleman: If I were to have a few days off from spy work,would you still be interested in meeting me?

ABeautifulDream: Why would I do that? Hypothetically speaking…

OddlyCharmingGentleman: Ipromise it would be worth it.

Keito was nervous. And honestly a bitsurprised with himself. After convincing you to meet him, he had called in afavor to get the two of you some privacy. He wanted to be able to talk to youwithout too many watching eyes. He wanted to be able to talk to you as the himyou had spent months getting to know, not the him that was an idol.

So when he saw you waiting for him ata table at his friend’s café, Keito needed a second to breathe. Checking hishair in the window and fixing his clothes, he let out a breath before goinginside. You had been reading a book someone had recommended to you to review,but when you heard the door open, your head instantly turned to look.

You were at a slight disadvantagebecause he hadn’t told you what he looked like. Keito had prefaced your entiremeetup on the need for you to trust him and, because of how sincere his requestwas, you agreed. Maybe he was shy and didn’t want to send a picture in case youwouldn’t want to meet afterwards, you thought.

However, when you saw the man makinghis way towards the counter, your heart stopped and you hurriedly looked backdown at your book. Noting that you hadn’t gotten anything other than a muffin,Keito stopped to order drinks for the both of you before clasping his handstogether awkwardly and moving to join you at your table. Your heartbeat onlyquickened when he sat down across from you.

“(Y/N)?”

His voice was gentle as he said yourname and it wasn’t long before you were putting two and two together. Here hewas, Keitopinion, your OddlyCharmingGentleman, the obscure blog owner that youhad allowed yourself to chat with for months because he was willing to listenand didn’t judge you, even when the two of you had differences of opinions.Here he was, your number one, a member of Hey Say Jump, an idol. Here he was,the man you had developed a crush on and had also had a crush on for years.

“Keito…”

Giving you a shy smile, he said, “It’sreally nice to meet you.”

[elizabethisjustakitten]

A study in representation: Why bisexual John Watson matters.

I started writing an angry rant about sherlock queerbaiting and bisexual representation in television and it turned into a short essay about why John Watson is the bisexual hero we all deserve. Read under the cut if you want.

For many of us the strongest media product that occupied our minds in january was BBC drama Sherlock. In the course of 7 years this masterful piece of television taken over our hearts and minds in what we could call only a expertly crafted mystery. Not really a crime show or a police drama, Sherlock was always focused more on wrapping psychological metaphors into what appears to be “the case of the week”. It took fans years to decode very carefully crafted clues about the relationship between the self-called sociopthic detective and his blogger. Or so we thought we did.

If you take BBC Sherlock, remove the emotions played on the show and the carefull progress of relationship between John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, the only thing that would remain, is a very propostrious and self-indulgent crime show. The creators showed us this in the last episode of the season, where they virtually removed any and all shown ties between Sherlock, his brother and John.

Sure, there were emotionally draining scene between some characters, but they all served to the fact, that the three characters that remained locked together in a room, didn’t show a geniuine emotion towards each other trough the whole episode. This could clearly be seen on moments when Sherlock points a gun to himself and either of the two characters by his side does not react. It’s not as they couldn’t, but if they did, it would ruin the nartative where Sherlock gets hit by a tranquilizer dart before he can kill himself. During the course of the whole episode they sacrificed the trustwortiness of characters and their personality for the sake of the plot.

In the end, fans remained disapointed in the confusing ending of something that could be called a luke-warm homage to every horror movie ever made, rather that episode of Sherlock. The most disapointing was perhaps the idea, that the most hard-working part of the fandom got laughed at for their work. The fans that took their free time to crack the coding and every metaphor in the show all thought they have it all figured out. Even the creators of the show played into our cards with certainly strange but, what remained the most insightful episode in terms of looking into brains of Sherlock Holmes- The Abominable Bride. This special episode, being all part of Sherlock’s imagination, clearly draws few disturbing yet exciting clarifications about what the detective really thinks of his friends and coleagues. Some really toughtfull theories link Sherlock’s and John’s adventure in this episode to the unfortunate marriage of real John Watson to Mary Morstan and Sherlock’s own feeling for his friend. There’s really no other sound explanation for the infamous scene where Holmes and Watson are hiding in the shadows, waiting for the bride to appear, talking about romantic entanglement and impulses.

They even noded to certain conspiracies presumed by the fandom with the secret society that formed in the mids of Victorian London and planned to turn what we know upside down. There was a number of nods to the theories and the conclusions people from the fandom drawn from previous episodes. This whole process left us feel hopeful that we finally cracked the enigma behind the writers intentions.

Even creator Steven Moffat did assure fans that he is coding the show in such manner that in the end we would be able to predict future events in the Sherlock universe. By decoding all previous information we received, there was only one output; BBC Sherlock is a love story in its core. It’s a story of a man drained of his own feeling and sense of self, that is slowly coming to embrace the fact that he is in fact capable of emotions. And the one pulling him out of his shell is no one other than John Watson.

That’s the reason why the core fandom of the show stayed so shook after the last episode. Those of us identifying away from the heterosexual spectrum felt even more betrayed. Because Sherlock was promising us long deserved representation on a show that wasn’t primary understood as romance in the first place. There was potential for normalising a queer relationship in such manner that wouldn’t be disturbing to the show, nor a shockingn factor. Rather it would tie everything together and make sense of so much unexplained acting choices.

For me, it’s not really Sherlock Holmes being gay, that seemed that revolutionary. From the first moment on the show Sherlock was heavily queer coded for the audience. The infamous dinner at Angelo’s, pink phone, bathrobes, or -as Sherlock himself observes- ammount of product in his hair and the way he takes care of his appearance. Nobody would be surprised by this revelation.

The alluring part was John Watson and the group that he could represent. If the finale we all hooed for, would have happened, John Watson would become pioneer in bisexual representation. As a middle-aged white male with military background and mostly average skills John Watson represents the group world often associates with power. His doctor training even gives him a note of credibility, stating him an inteligent middle class that made something of himself. The poster picture of heterosexual man within him and his average cold-headed personality makes him the perfect candidate to break all the rules of this idea how queer people should look like. John Watson is the hero we all deserve by this point in history of television or only in context of recent political climate.

For me, BBC Sherlock had an opportunity to shatter the image we have about bisexuality and how average queer person behaves. They would create a character that already appeals to straight and queer alike and make him the face of normalising lgbtq+ people everywhere. They just had to take that one step further.

But they failed. That sunday night, the group that wanted most to root for this show, stayed dissapointed. We felt cheated, shattered and not enough to be acknowledged by the show we are grown to love. Show, that presented itself on their advertising for this season and all over social media as queer positive, wasn’t brave enough to make the difference, to land that plane and bring us all home. And for what? For getting higher viewing numbers?

So many viewers felt dissapointed and ridiculed in the season finale. It was one of the biggest cases of queerbaiting in the recent history. BBC One even tweeted about Sherlock being in love this season prior to s4 airing. There was countless nods and jokes about how love conquers all and we should just hope and see if it’s our cup of tea. In the end, there was no romantic ending, or not an explicit one. Even thoug we got an image of Sherlock and John living together, if we want to be bolder even being happy together, the ex-wife narative gave it a strange mood of displacement in that moment. The last scene didn’t fit the episode as a whole in the slightest and put off the viewer even more.

The other problematic part can be the fact, that most villains on the show expressed, one way or the other, very dangerous predatory behavior toward a same sex at some points in the show. Though it could be understand as John’s or Sherlock’s own consciousness battling with their sexuality, there’s so many dangerous ways this plays into spreading homophobia and negative stereotypes about queer people. Contrasting this with an openly gay heroes in a loving and normal relationship could have erase such precedens this show has had on portraying queers as dangerous and vile sexual predators. But instead of taking this matter into acciunt, they yet again introduced another predatory queer character that wasn’t even ashamed of confessing to rape.

What they didn’t realise is the impact. Not only the one they could have if they made our wishes true, but the one they made on their viewers. Not only they portrayed queer people in unnaceptable light to straight following of the show, but they send a message to young queers everywhere watching and hopping to see themselves on the screen. And the young LGBTQ+ community asked themselves: Is this really us?

When I was young, I didn’t have any tv show or a book that would showed me it’s ok to be what I was. It took me a long time to realise that the feeling I developed for some girls around me was actually attraction and not just wishfull thinking to be them. It started with young Emma Watson in Harry Potter movies and I dismised it because I already knew I liked boys, so there wasn’t more to it, right?

It was the hit series Glee that helped me made peace with my struggling sexuality. I simply wasn’t straight or gay, I was bisexual. And since that moment I kept searching for that one character that would make me proud, that could put a face to my sexuality and maybe show some basic explanation I could point at and say “he’s like me, that’s how I feel”. I desperately wanted that representation, that magical piece of storytelling that I could show to my family and friends and make them understand. Most character I came across were very problematic in clearly defining their sexuality. There were either gay or straight and there wasn’t any middle ground allowed to land me as a person that discovered she doesn’t want to put herself in either cathegory. If I found a character that could cross into that middle ground, there was always some problem. It was often them being a butt of a joke, problematic relationship with one of the sexes, or even really weirdly framed relationships that weren’t healthy. Or simply they were defined as gay or straight depending on the relationship they ended in on the show.

John Watson was my white whale among the sea of character I couldn’t really embrace as representation for me. He was a mediocre, normal man with positively crafted personality. He wasn’t the shining star of the show, Sherlock always was. He was the friend that probed usefull to have, loyal to the last bit, caring for people around him, in an estabilished relationship with a woman and yet portrayed trough the show as romantic interest of a man. John Watson was the opportunity to show that ones bisexuality doesn’t get erased the moment he enter a monogamous relationship with either sexes. He could also diminish the popular belief that bisexuals are really inconstant and fickle people, often frivolously changing partners. There’s so much stereotypes we believe queer people to be that John Watson simply isn’t. He was everything I ever searched for in merits of breaking the stereotype and represent what being bisecual really means to me. Just being as everybody else.

Representation matters. It might not matter to the fandom, that will always view the story of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson as a tale of untold love, but it matters how our views are presented to the world. The world generally sees but does not observe. Showing an explicit romantic entanglement between these two characters would make the world open their eyes to the possibility that queer relationships are just relationship after all. Portraying two of the most famous characters in this light would be a huge step for queer portrayal in the media.

It pains me to think that bisexual representation lost such a valuable opportunity. This chance to show queer love in show that has such a massive following with both leads played by international stars, was one of a lifetime. And though I haven’t really given up the hope there could be something more still in the horizont, The Lost Specia if you will, that would tie all the lose ends of this series and give us what we as a community deserve, my hope is slowly fading. I will wait untill next Sunday and then I will put my tinfoil hat to rest and resume my search for the white whale elsewhere.

Dear Steven and Mark, this is a plea to you, don’t let us down.

Sincerely,

Your queer fandom.

[moonshroooms]

Hey here are some OC questions I found and am now answering cause I’m a dweeb

I got the questions from here:

http://ocaskmemes.tumblr.com/post/152807102007/some-oc-questions

in case someone finds this random post and wants to do the same questions as well :3

1. Your first OC ever?

Ah geez. I mean, technically I made a story about a baby unicorn when I was like, 7, but we’re not gonna count that one really. I’ll say my first OC (who I roleplayed as on the official forums), was a cat based on the series Warriors named Moonshine. And yes, she’s where I got my nickname from.

She was a silver tabby with icy blue eyes, and yes she was essentially a self-insert, lol. Overtime she grew into her own person, namely being much more patient and wise than I. (And overtime I grew up to be less like her anyways). She was a medicine cat and eventually I tied in a Forbidden Love™ from her Old Clan™ and her being in love with him caused her entire Clan to go extinct. Which really wasn’t her fault in the end and would’ve later been revealed to be one of the evil ancestors of my evil cat. But whatevs. Eventually her ex-lover found her and they were allowed to be together and have two adorable kittens, one of whom is absolutely bonkers and lovely and the ancestor of two later cats who eventually became human characters. <3

2. Do you have a personal favorite among your OCs?

I could nevaaaaar. While they’re listening. But keep it between us, yeah?

From my Warriors OC (all of whom are RP characters), are two cats named Grayskies (originally just Gray), and Snowfeather (Originally just Snow), two sisters. Gray is super srs and uptight and the best older sister and makes sure Snow doesn’t accidentally kill herself and Snow is a silly and conniving and random and acts more clueless than she really is. Snow ended up having an unhealthy attachment to her sister due to their childhood and, understanding it was unhealthy, purposely pushed Gray away so Gray would open her heart to others and have a romance with my friend’s OC, and is slowly devolving into madness not being the one most important person to her sister anymore. In the end she knows being the only other person in her sister’s life isn’t good for either of them, and she loves her sister more than anything and strives to make her sister happy and healthy, but didn’t try to fix herself either. Something, something, she ended up being tricked/forced by her brother-in-law’s evil dead twin to having his demon kit baby that she tried to kill in the womb by starving herself, something something. We got really out there with our RPs they were so fun honestly. As a side note, Gray and Snow are also my two characters who were later turned into humans. My friend and I loved Gray and Will’s (her OC), relationship dynamic so much we made them human. We actually had them bust into our new roleplay (and I plan on adding Snow in too, albeit a much healthier and less-obsessed Snow).

From my own personal story that I’ve been working on since like, 2013 (really slow-going, since I want it to be a comic, and 2013 is when I started drawing). Geez. There’s six characters. I feel bad about choosing from these guys. I think Caimen is my favorite from all of them right now. It’s a constant toss-up between him and another character. He’s a red-headed half-wolf boy and he’s a sweetheart. Most of his/everyone’s story is they’re genetic amalgamations of animals (though recently been debating to rethink the story into a fantasy instead). Caimen’s sweet and thoughtful and mega-crushing with my other OC. He ends up being a bit co-dependent with her (due to the wolf genes and childhood trauma yadda-yadda), but I planned on having an arc where Kitty (le crush) and maybe the rest of the group are gone and he realizes that without her (and the rest of them), around he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He realizes he thinks of himself as part of a group rather than an individual and has difficulty making decisions without the other’s influence. He’s not 100% sweet-kawaii-desu though. Anyone he views as a ‘lower rank’ than him he tends to be incredibly hostile towards and even cruel in some cases. He and Kitty have a tendency to gang up on my other OC (and while that OC is an absolute asshole and deserves it usually, he doesn’t deserve that antagonizing all the time).

And from my current RP with my friends (though it’s been on hiatus for a long time. RIP), I think my character Kit (Kitchi), is my favorite. It’s not really a big pool to choose from, since there’s really only 2 characters I have (with another on the way, but I haven’t played as her much yet). He’s the most adorable werewolf you ever did meet. Upbeat, optimistic, respectful, friendly, playful. He’s one of my most fun characters to date. He was actually morphed from a story I made long ago about wolves with elemental powers. Originally he was a descendant of ice wolves who meets up with a wolf who was a half-breed between fire and earth (giving her incredibly dangerous lava powers), and something something they go on a journey with others to extra murder people who tried to murder the lava wolf. I never did finish that story. Kit later was refurbished into my old Warrior RP with my friend into Kit/Kitpelt. Same personality, sans magical powers. I ended up never being able to play as him (since back then basically anyone without a major plot or romantic interest was dumped by the curb and forgotten and nobody wanted to be sweet on the little sugar muffin), but I still really liked him. And when my friends and I started up a new RP after a like, 5 years hiatus, BAM I turned him into a werewolf. (She was even excited to see him around and learn that he’s the same Kit from our old RP). He’s been waiting to pounce all this time and his moment is finally here, and he’s a wonderful goblin that everyone loves inside and outside the RP, I’m so proud. He even has the ice powers from his original story (though he didn’t get them naturally. That’s due to his dangerous siren friend and all their hilarious misadventures and her almost killing him a lot).

 3. Have you ever adopted a character or gotten a character from someone else?

Noooooooooooooooope!

 4. A character you rarely talk about?

Mmm. Probably characters from any old stories I never finished. But of currently active OCs, I’d say it’s my character Emily. She’s a part of my big story with my genetically-spliced children and is a normal human. She was the last of my main cast I created, which means she’s the least-developed of them all (hence why I don’t talk about her much).

She’s a 28-year-old half-white half-hispanic (I haven’t discovered/decided specifically what race/nationality she is yet. I only ever decided: something that speaks Spanish, lol) biological/chemical scientist. She’s got wavy hair that’s all over the place, freckles for days, big body, and a big brain.

Her mother (who’s the Hispanic parent), is a CEO lady of a large company and is very Business and Pantsuits. Though she’s very much in love with her job her and Emily are close and she loves her family dearly. Her father (the white parent), is a car mechanic (or maybe a car designer, haven’t decided yet), with a passion for inventing anything he feels like at the time, productive or not. Him and Emily are incredibly dangerous together and there’s next to nothing they can’t create. Emily was raised mostly by her aunt (Tia in Spanish, right?), who’s a lady who loves children (based on my own mom, tbh), but never had any of her own. After Emily was born she coincidentally ran into financial trouble and moved into her sister’s house to help raise Emily and get back on her feet while her parents were working. After she picked herself up again (during Emily’s teenage years), she successfully opened a day-care business where she gets to look after all the children she wants.

Emily herself joined our story after being kidnapped by my animal children and forced into being their doctor after one of them gets Horribly Ill (which is later determined to be asthma). After spending time with them she feels even more guilt about the Illegal Experiments which birthed them (though she didn’t have a direct hand in it. They were already born long before she joined), and defects to their side (losing her job in the process which means she has to move back in with her parents). Emily landed the job at the place the children were made, because they were really secretive and basically like Everything Here is Confidential If You Can’t Handle That Go Away (I’m not exactly an expert on underground operations okay sue me my story’s not very developed either). But she was fresh out of college, couldn’t land a job or pay her bills, and didn’t want to disappoint her parents, so she took the job.

After joining the group of misfit children she becomes a bit of a co-leader with the ‘actual’ leader Talon (who is incredibly grateful for her presence because despite being 18, he’s still a child who needs guidance himself and isn’t really qualified to care for 4 other genetically-altered children alone. Or at all). Emily’s very smart, curious (almost to the point of being nosy), and a bit of a worrywart. She gets a little into the children’s personal space when she starts investigating their anatomy or behavior and rambles way too much. She’s also not good with blood and bruising. Drawing blood from a needle or other female-related blood situations are fine, but someone gets a papercut or a bruise from kicking the table and she just flips the fuck out.

Emily is also incredibly protective of Caimen against his girlfriend Kitty, mostly because Kitty is incredibly Hand-sy and Flirty and Em acts like she’s gonna corrupt him.

Overall Emily tries to atone for what the Facility did to the kids and what they forced their lives to be like, and certainly gets flak from the children when they find out how much/little she knew about the Facility’s underground operations. I really need to develop her personally and her relationship with the other characters, as well as a bunch of other things.

 5. If you could make only one of your OCs popular/known, who would it be?

Kit, because he’s a lovely sausage that needs to be shared with the world.

 6. Two OCs of yours that look alike despite not being related?

Kitty and Caimen. I made them almost back-to-back when I first started drawing and Wasn’t Good At All, thusly they have similar design. Later on I got waaaay more diverse with both facial and body type. And down the road Kitty and Caimen got more noticeable differences, but they’re still pretty similar and on more than one occasion someone assumes they’re siblings. I’m probably not going to majorly change their designs just for the sake of making them different either. If I suddenly come up with a design that fits them better, I’ll do that. But I won’t do it for differences-sake, not when the rest of the cast is as diverse as it is. Two unrelated people looking alike isn’t unbelievable either – me and my one friend are often asked if we’re sisters.

Kitty’s a small, bony little thing that’s more muscle than anything else. Tan skin, dark brown/mottled hair, bright yellow eyes. I’ve debated whether or not she gets a normal collarbone or not since cats don’t get any o’ that. Her facial shape is very angular, with more of a triangle-shaped face and tiny nose.

Caimen’s in the middle between gangly-14-year-old and starting-to-fill-out-more. He’s got no noticeable muscles or fat, but isn’t bony either. Light skin, strawberry blonde hair, and I’m not sure what his eye color is yet, surprisingly. I have a hard time deciding between green and hazel. I’m probably gonna go hazel, tbh. Caimen’s got a rounder face and soft features.

One of the biggest things that’s similar with them are their animal-inherited parts. Kitty has the classic slitted pupils of a cat that expand and contract. And Caimen has slitted pupils that stay one size, but yo 2013 me, you remember that wolves don’t have slitted pupils right? I know it looks cool and you like the more feral look to it, but that’s anatomically wrong ya dingus. I can’t bring myself to give it up though, it doesn’t look like Caimen without it.

And yeah, they do have the basic cat/wolf-ears-and-tail design. I fretted over the basic design a lot when I first created my story, but personally? I really like these designs. And I know it’s not incredibly creative, but I wasn’t really striving to have a child with the body of a human and the upper torso of an actual wolf, or one of their legs is feline or it looks human but is shaped like a bobcat. I wanted my character to have some opportunity to be amongst normal humans, and them looking ­too inhuman would ruin that. (Though Kitty and another character Snake Eyes are the most animalistic out of all of them and really have to cake on the disguises to get by). And overall I like these designs. I know they’re everywhere but I don’t mind it much. This is the kind of story I’d want to read. Surely someone else has the same taste as me. And if someone drops the story because they’ve seen the design before and find it boring then they’re really not the audience I was looking for anyways.

And more than that, the one thing I’m proud of with specifically Kitty’s design is that my cat-girl has whiskers. Do you know how much that bothers me? Why don’t more cat-girls have whiskers they’re like the biggest staple of cats people name their cats Whiskers. I named my cat Whiskers. And I mean actual protruding whiskers, not lines painted on the cheeks like Naruto.

 7. Are your OCs part of any story or stories?

All of them, personal stories or RP stories. Absolutely none of my OCs were born in a void without at least a semblance of a larger story. I don’t understand how people make characters but not even have at least a vague idea for a story? Like they’re just there?? Are you magic??? How????

 8. Do you RP as any of your OCs? If you do, introduce one of your RP OCs here!

Tons of them! No like literally, back when I RPed Warriors my friend and I had literally hundreds of characters (many of which were dropped by the wayside honestly).

But that was years ago so we’re not gonna talk about them.

Instead we’re gonna talk about Cara (who I briefly mentioned earlier), my lovely little siren.

Cara’s a red-headed and very dangerous 22-year-old siren. In a strange turn of events that almost resulted in child murder, Cara befriended a young 16-year-old werewolf boy (they were 19 and 13 respectively, when they first met). In order to continue being friends Cara promise to stop literally eating humans and devouring their souls and lives a ‘normal’ life on land.

As a siren she can enchant men with her voice and hates women (though not because she’s a siren. There are reasons and experiences as to why). She is the depiction of a siren that usually crisscrosses with mermaids, but I do have a little history planned out that some original sirens (which are birb women), were saved from drowning by mermaids and mermen, who they fell in love with, and down the line aquatic sirens were born (and there’s still a distinction between aquatic sirens and mermaids, and boy do sirens hate mermaids).

Cara is very superficial, flirty, bombastic, a tad crude, and very dramatic. At the very least, on the surface. Sirens live in a kind of animalistic world, and only a few of them have some semblance of a society. The first human Cara ate was her father, a kind sailor who was dragged to the depths by her mother, and kept alive to raise the future child (though in her defense Cara was like, 6, and didn’t really understand the implications of sucking out his soul until after he was dead). When Cara was 13 or so her mother chased her off after they got into a spat over some food and Cara was on her own since. Because of multiple reasons that I won’t explain now, Cara believes that she (as a siren and as a female), is an inherently evil creature, and even if she does good things it really doesn’t change who and what she is at her core.

Despite her very loud personality, Cara desperately wishes to be someone people can view as a lady. Currently she tries to act more sophisticated and lady-like than she is, an act that comes across more like a child playing dress-up and quickly falls apart if someone triggers her quick temper.

Currently in our big supernatural RP, Cara has a romantic interest in the form of my friend’s fairy-banshee half-breed. Whether or not Cara would be able to ‘love’ him honestly is up in the air. I suppose we’ll find out :D

 9. Would you ever be willing to give any of your OCs to someone else?

So my friend often draws my character Gray (which includes any tiny, funny comics she might’ve drawn), since she’s rather woven into her character Will’s story. In fact she came up with a drawn design of her before I did (since I didn’t draw at the time, though I did tell her what the human version would look like) and she’s got her character pretty spot-on. One day it came to our realization that I had never actually drew her human version. Anyways, while I never ‘gave’ Gray to her, if I were to give someone a character, it’d be Gray to my friend.

 10. Introduce an OC with a complicated design?

Eh, I don’t know if I really have that tbh. I suppose one OC I had back when I first started drawing; a girl named J.C. who could turn into a raptor-like beast. That raptor was so fricken hard to draw and I only drew like one, shoulder-up drawing. But it’s easily one of my most proud creations.

 11. Is there any OC of yours you could describe as a “sunshine”?

Kit, hands-down. And human-Snow.

 12. Name an OC that isn’t yours but who you like a lot

I love my friend’s OC named Dante. And I literally know next-to-nothing about him, but he’s just a little unhinged and loads of dangerous and oooOOOh boy is that my favorite combination of traits! And he’s a cutie too :P

 13. Do you have any troublemaker OCs?

Absolutely. Troublemakers are the best kinds of people.

My character Kitty is pretty chaotic, and Snake Eyes is an asshole for the sake of it. Another character of mine, Hex (short for Hexagon), is a troublemaker, too.

 14. Introduce an OC with a tragic backstory

Hex, the character I mentioned above, has a pretty sad backstory (at least of characters I haven’t already mentioned. They pretty much all have a weird or sucky backstory). It does get a happy ending though.

Hex was created by J.C. (through a lot of magical power mumbo-jumbo that’s too long to explain here). J.C. turning into a raptor caused her mind to start forming two halves. Eventually the other half began to have a conscious until one day Hex said one word: “I”. And in that moment she realized she was a thing, a someone. And she desperately tried to find a way to get J.C. to hear her and know she existed. J.C. was all that she knew of the world. She was everything.

But unfortunately Hex’s voice were perceived as dark and evil thoughts, since Hex often disagreed with J.C. not killing people who tried to harm her. Eventually Hex grew powerful enough to change J.C.’s physical form. She greeted J.C. as a reflection in a puddle, turning J.C.’s face into a scarred, half-beast monstrosity. Since Hex was manifested from J.C.’s frequent transformation into her raptor form, that’s half of what Hex looked like.

Having half her face morphed against her will into a creepy abomination understandably terrified J.C., especially when she connects that this monster is where the thoughts of killing others comes from. J.C. calls Hex a demon and disgusting and Hex is completely confused and heartbroken. And eventually that pain grows to hatred. She was rejected from the being that created her and that she loved and admired with all her existence. And when the one thing you know rejects you, what do you have left?

Hex began to grow stronger over time, gaining more dominance over J.C.’s mind and body. Eventually she used the extra power that built when J.C. transformed to create a body of her own. Hex looks like J.C., but with pale, almost gray skin, and darker hair. The left half of her body being a mix between skin and scales, her hands devolving into a more claw-like shape. The left side of her face is scaled and scarred, with a shredded and veiny fin-like ear and much too-large eye that’s the same as the raptor’s eye. She runs off after separating from J.C., later returning in multiple attempts to kill her unintentional creator.

Eventually J.C. realizes from stuff and things and events, that Hex isn’t actually evil or a demon, she just wanted J.C.’s acceptance. And she’s hurting and doesn’t know what to do to make it stop. She’s almost a child in this world she leapt out into, and doesn’t know how to act and communicate what she needs. And when J.C. finally accepts her all the malice melts away. Hex quickly joins the group J.C.’s in and becomes a powerful ally with very strange powers and abilities.

Shortly after she joins the group, J.C. and co. realize Hex had no name. And after they tried to put their heads together for a name for her, Hex asks if she doesn’t get a say in it. She reveals to them her name will be Hex, and when they look at her for more indication and to why the flip-flap did you name yourself Hex of all things, she just tells them it’s short for Hexagon. And then she leaves like that didn’t just spawn more questions than it answered.

And as a side note: Hex where’s an outfit that’s very akin to a stereotypical genie outfit, because that’s exactly what it is. After shoving herself out of J.C. in the weirdest birth ever, she runs around naked for a while before realizing human people where clothes. She walks into the first clothing store she finds, a Party City Halloween-costume type place, grabs a genie costume, and leaves.

Dang this character is great why did I drop this story

 15. Do you like to talk about your OCs with other people?

No, because no one ever asks me. Which is very sad and also why I’m doing this ask thingy myself XD I do wish my friend’s would ask me questions though. I always ask them questions about theirs, even when it’s small, cause I know I’d want someone taking an interest in mine, ya know?

 16. Which one of your OCs would be the best at biology (school subject)?

Other than Emily, the literal biology scientist? Talon (a character I think I mentioned but didn’t name), would be a wiz at biology + have a passion for it probably.

 17. Any OC OTPs?

All of them. Everyone. Everyone that exists all at once.

Kitty + Caimen

Snake Eyes + Arachnea

Talon + Emily (though for poor Tally it’s his one-sided crush on her and isn’t reciprocated).

J.C. + a character I have an idea of but never created/named.

Gray + Will (does it count if it’s not my OC?? It does now)

Snow + Lewis (Will’s evil twin, with whom they’re in a mega dysfunctional relationship A+)

Cara + Bishop (my friend’s OC)

Kit + Anna (my other friend’s OC)

 18. Any OC crackships?

Naaaaaaah. Well wait.

Yeah.

Cara and Kit. Cara is very defensive and protective over Kit, and while they’re explicitly just friends seriously, it hasn’t stopped me from writing a piece or two where they end up in a very close Predicament. Cara didn’t grow up in a human society and therefore has no qualms or care about Minors = Off-Limits, so she did attempt to instigate something once or twice (though it was out of habit rather than interest), but miraculously Kit managed to keep things strictly platonic.

HOW-E-VER

I do have a few other pieces, which is the result of a never-gonna-happen-this-is-just-for-my-eyes-and-a-random-guilty-pleasure-cause-I’m-dumb AU where, due to whatever reason I never bothered to explain, Cara takes ahold of the siren magic she’s been subtly smothering Kit with over the years to ensure that he doesn’t turn against her (like she fears will eventually happen). She convinces him that he’s in love with her, which he believes. However he can’t stop the feeling that something is off. He knows that he does love Cara and she’s very important to him, but it just feels off.

In a different instance, (which is more true to their canonical history, but ultimately never happened and is still just for me cause I’m a dweeb), Kit kisses Cara out of anger from being dumped by a girl he really liked (and Cara’s subsequent unrefined attempt at comforting him). And when Cara kisses him back and it gets a bit heated, he immediately regrets it (thinking to himself that he’s not treating Cara like a human and hates the kind of person that uses someone as a rebound), and stops everything. To his surprise Cara isn’t upset (with either the kiss nor breaking it off), and only asks him if it helped. And when he admits it didn’t Cara gives him a hug and lets him cry and mope.

That second one is less of shipping and more solidifying how important Kit is to Cara (mostly in the ensuing conversation. He’s the first friend she’s ever had, after all, and she wants to help him however she can), and random sexual tension is there cause I’m complete garbage.

Yes I’m melodramatic for no reason and a complete trash gremlin fite me

 19. Introduce an OC that means a lot to you (and explain why)

Eh. Honestly I’ve mentioned all the ones that mean a lot to me honestly.

Moonshine is the first OC I’ve ever made. Kitty, J.C., and Caimen are the first OCs I made when I started drawing. Kit is just a loveable fuzzball.

Wait I thought of someone.

Ami, a wolf from a large story I made and the first story I’ve ever completed (and also the only story I’ve ever completed, not including shorts/oneshots XD). She was the leader of a pack of wolves who were forced out of their territory due to encroaching humans. It’s only of the few/only story I have with absolutely no supernatural/magical elements (if you’re not counting the fact that the wolves speak to each other like humans, lol).

Honestly it’s the story I’m most proud of, simply because I actually finished it. It’s pretty unrefined and I was kinda young when I wrote it. It’s obvious there are heavy influences from the Warrior Cats series, and also the wolves don’t run like a wolf pack does realistically at all.

But Ami’s story actually came to a close and a happy ending, and so she (and the rest of the cast), are very important to me.

 20. Do any of your OCs sing? If they sing, care to share more details (headcanon voice, what kind of songs they like etc)?

Cara, my siren, obvi.

For Cara’s voice, though she’s crass and rude and loud, I imagine the type of singing you hear from Celtic Woman, for example. When she’s doing her enchanting than it’s more sounds that words (and any words she does sing are usually in foreign ‘siren language’). It’s a haunting voice, like a singing spirit, beckoning you to investigate, to find out who, who is that? Her enchanting specifically focuses on instilling emotion rather than a command. It’s an invitation, a suggestion, to do what she wants.

Other than that she really likes R&B.

Caimen too. I imagine he really likes to sing, and has a fantastically high voice for it too. I don’t have any type of headcanon for his voice, however. I imagine he’s the type to like all types of music, but especially softer songs with a lot of emotion.

 21. Your most artistic OC

Arachnea, who I’ve only mentioned by name. She has a passion for makeup, fashion, and hair, and basically anything attributing to your appearance. Looks at a face like a sketch, and all she needs is to add a little color to finish it off. She loves being able to dress herself up (though her circumstances rarely allow her to do so), and be able to express her style and personality through her outward appearance.

 22. Is there any OC of yours people tend to mischaracterize? If yes, how?

Nah, because no one ever asks me about them.

 23. Introduce OC that has changed from your first idea concerning what the character would be like?

Oh geez, a few. I think the character with the most drastic change was Caimen.

Originally Caimen was created mostly as Kitty’s romantic interest (though it wouldn’t be all he is, obviously). In all honestly, Caimen’s ‘personality’, if you can call it that, was strikingly similar to Kisshu my long-standing OTP from Tokyo Mew Mew. I’m embarrassed to even think about it. Ugh. Originally he was cheeky and mischievous and flirty, and Kitty was not having Any Of It. Kitty’s personality was pretty different too back then, actually. Anyways, as time went on, Caimen quickly got a personality of his own and nOT ridiculously similar to my guilty-pleasure anime, and Kitty went on to be the cheeky asshole instead, which was honestly who she was from the beginning if it weren’t for me shoe-horning what I ‘wanted’ them to be like.

 24. If you could meet one OC of yours, who would it be and why?

AlL OF thEM.

But if I had to choose, probably Arachnea or Kit. They’re the ones who are honestly the friendliest and the ones I’d probably get along with best.

 25. The OC that resembles you the most (same hobby, height, shared like/dislike for something etc?)

AlL OF thEM.

No but, while they’re not self-inserts, it’s easy for me to pick out any part of me that might have slipped into the character (or that we just happen to share), even character that I share mostly nothing with.

Either way

Other than Moonshine, who was basically a self-insert (at first), Arachnea is the character I share most in common with personality-wise.

She’s shy, and not very confident in herself, but strives to be good to others in the same way she hopes others will be to her. She’s rather self-conscious, more in her abilities than anything else, and can get discouraged quickly, and takes other’s criticism to heart way too easily. Sometimes she needs someone to push her, even when it’s something she wants to do. Underneath she does have her own backbone, and if it comes down to it, she’d rather be a subject of ridicule than do something she doesn’t want to do. Arachnea is working towards being a more confident and assertive person, and is making great strides to being as bright and shining as she wants to be. Arachnea’s much more extroverted (despite her shyness), than I am, probably 10x nicer and calmer, and much more interested in fashion than I could ever hope to be, lol. But she’s a lot like how I was a couple years ago. I like to think I’m a bit more of the person I want to be, like hopefully Arachnea can be the person she wants to be one day.

 26. Have you ever had to change your OC’s design or something else about them against your will?

I’m not even sure what this question means. Like. Their design was too similar to someone else and I had to change it? Nah. Thankfully all my characters look like I want them too. And since I’m not legally publishing anything, no need to worry about legal anything ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 27. Any OCs that were inspired by a certain song?

Naaaaah. But plenty of songs that resemble my OCs.

 28. Your most dangerous OC?

Cara, definitely. And not just the male enchant-y powers either (though there is a dragon nearby she’d have total control over should she utilize that power). My sirens, on top of their singing, have another feature. By consuming human souls (and the souls of incredibly powerful creatures, or each other), they starting to grow pearls in their skin. These pearls are vessels of power, be it physical or magical (with different colored pearls having different levels of strength). A siren could, theoretically, become infinitely powerful by growing enough pearls (since consuming the souls of others expands their lifetime. Indefinitely, if they keep eating). Cara went on a massive killing spree before meeting Kit and has enough pearls to consider her incredibly dangerous to other supernaturals most other siren she might come across. Powers tend to develop based on personality and other traits. Cara’s actually an eel-like siren and has electricity powers that she was born with. She later begins to develop heat ability (not fire, heat), that she has trouble controlling due to her inexperience. She’ll actually burn herself if she uses it outside of water for too long/too hot, but she’ll be able to control it eventually. She used to have ice powers, but (from circumstances I won’t explain), those powers were transferred to Kit.

Either way, while Cara’s not infinitely powerful, she’s my most dangerous character currently and the character that has the potential to be the most dangerous creature on the planet.

 29. Which one of your OCs would go investigate an abandoned house at night without telling anyone they’re going?

Kit, seeing as he investigated a siren that already tried to eat him once.

 30. Which one of your OCs would most likely have a secret stuffed animal collection?

Talon, Arachnea, and Kit. But Talon and Arachnea would totally own up to it and Kit would be embarrassed to the moon and back.

 31. Pick one OC of yours and explain what their tumblr blog would be like (what they reblog, layout, anything really)

Kit would probably run a supernatural blog, full of both real and fake supernatural sightings, information, discussions, jokes, and more.

 32. Which one of your OCs would be the most suitable horror game protagonist and why?

Probably Kit or Arachnea. I don’t play many (or any), horror games, so I don’t know what the stereotypes are. But Kit would be the type to get himself into dumb situations over curiosity alone, and would probably be creative enough to get himself out of some sticky predicaments. And Arachnea is a beast when push comes to shove. Though she prefers to not fight physically, she’s literally my most muscular and physically strong character (not counting supernaturals), and if it came down to it she’d sock a zombie right in the face and probably knock its head off.

33. Your shyest OC?

Arachnea

 34. Do you have any twin characters?

I do actually, though they’re hardly fleshed out at all (I haven’t even decided on names). Kit has adoptive twin sisters, a couple of were-foxes his parents found abandoned in the wild. They managed to find them early enough in childhood development so they wouldn’t grow up into completely feral children (though they tend to prefer their fox forms to human forms).

 35. Any sibling characters?

Yes, yes.

Kit, as mentioned above, has adoptive twin sisters.

Gray and Snow are sisters (though I haven’t decided if their human versions are twins or not).

Cara likely has dozens of unknown siren sisters.

 36. Do you have OC pairs where the other part belongs to someone else (siblings, lovers, friends etc)?

Gray’s husband Will belongs to my friend, Snow’s boyfriend Lewis belongs to the same friend, and Cara and Kit’s romantic interest belong to my friends!

 37. Introduce an OC who is not quite human

Almost all of them. Let’s talk about one I haven’t said much on. Snake Eyes.

Yes, the characters in one of my stories have names that are almost all animal puns and there are actually reasons for it. Kitty was often taunted by people shouting ‘here Kitty, Kitty’. As a child she assumed it was her name. Talon was an uncreative kid who came up with his own name and relating it to the fact that he’s part bird. Arachnea read about the Greek mythology of Arachne and named herself Arachnea after her, since she’s part spider. Snake Eyes didn’t have a name until long after he met the main group. Arachnea used gambling to survive and explained at one point what snake eyes were pertaining to dice. He decided on his name based on that. And finally Caimen, who chose his name not based on what animal he is but what his favorite animal was at the time, a caiman. Keeping in mind that literally all of them are/were children when they named themselves and let’s be honest how many people would have the stupidest name if their 13-year-old-selves were allowed to legally name them? That was my point :D

Anyways back to Snake Eyes.

He’s part snake (black mamba, specifically. Fun!), and is an asshole. The biggest asshole around. You could see this asshole from space.

Physically he’s so fun to draw. He’s of Asian descent (haven’t decided what specifically though), but due to his snake-genes and him being the most animalistic-looking of the group, it’s not easily apparent. I did draw him if he wasn’t gene-spliced though and maaaan, Asian eyes (elapids? Or something like that. The folded quality they have to them?) are a little difficult to draw. I don’t know if it’s because it’s actually difficult or because I never drew them before, but it’s clear I’d have to work on it a bit. His limbs are a bit long for his body, as is his neck. I draw the back of his head a bit differently as well. There’s not much of a hook to it, the back of his skull goes straight to his neck in a smooth slope, and it gives him a more snake-like quality to the shape. He has fully functional venomous fangs (which I always draw reallyreallyreally big, though I should probably think about making them like, not saberteeth XD).

Coloring-wise, Snake Eyes is actually albino. His eyes are indeed pink rather than the usual human albinism coloring of light blue, but since his eyes are ‘snake eyes’ they’re pink and red. He’s also got himself a nifty, super skinny forked tongue and that weird tongue-hole snakes have. His skin is very fair and hair is light blond. Also he doesn’t have eyebrows, because snakes be hairless. So no eyebrows, eyelashes, or body hair (when he gets to the age of body hair doom), but I just couldn’t bring myself to make him bald though. I couldn’t. XD

Snake Eyes, as I’ve mentioned, at the beginning and end of the day, is an asshole. In the place him and the group grew up he was basically deemed everything they wanted him to be. They way they lined up for his genes to go went all exactly to plan, he had the perfect temperament and attitude, no major health problems. Except one: the albinism. So rather than being told he was perfect he was constantly told he was almost perfect. Cancer, eye problems, the albinism made him a risk factor for all that (and more, for when I do more research on albinism). Now, in actuality, the albinism didn’t really put him at a disadvantage for anything they needed him for. The reason they told him that was specifically to make him feel inferior, like he had something to prove. So he’d always, without fail, do everything he was told with little need for restraint because he wanted their approval. And it worked. Snake Eyes grew up with a massive inferiority/superiority complex (I’ve done little research on the two, and thusly am unsure which one fits his behavior more accurately). He constantly put down the other experiments in the same boat as him, antagonizing and reminding them that they’re more flawed than he is, lower ‘rank’ than he is, and completely expendable unlike him; that if it came down to it they might just be used as a guinea pig. All the while he feared his own flaws and needed to remind himself that there were others who were horribly flawed (which they hardly were, but he acted like it anyways to comfort himself).

Eventually, after the facility disapproved of a failed mission of his and his near-death experience because of it, Snake Eyes decided he’d never gain their approval, and that it wasn’t worth it to never hear that he was perfect. And he successfully escaped due to their belief in their control over him and thinking they needed no devices to ensure he didn’t leave. He did stab a tracking chip out of his arm with a dirty sharp rock and nearly bled to death as a result, but he gets saved by lo-and-behold, our ragtag group of escapees that he failed to catch in the first place. And, being a person who will do anything that benefits him regardless of pride or morality, saw fit to join them when Arachnea was willing to put up with his bad attitude. Eventually he comes around and is legitimately on their side, but Arachnea is definitely the main reason he stays, as Kitty and Caimen hate his guts (and he lovingly reciprocates), and Talon and Emily are mildly agreeable towards him at best.

Eventually he grows more confident in himself with some support from Arachnea. Unfortunately for everyone this didn’t result in him putting others down less or becoming less of a pain, but instead becoming completely self-absorbed and convinced of his own greatness. And I honestly love every second of it. And the worst part is that he is as great as he often spouts he is. He’s very intelligent, physically capable, and dangerous to-boot. He’s snarky, sarcastic, and intentionally antagonizing to Kitty and Caimen (purely to prod a reaction or violence from them only for him to smirk that he could enrage them so easily). The only person safe from his prickly tongue is Arachnea (though he was certainly cruel to her at first). He came to admire her quiet backbone and endless compassion (and learned at some point her fist is very painful), and fancies her the only person he doesn’t find annoying and he’s genuinely fond of.

I do have a bit of a romance with him and Arachnea, but there’s a 3-year age gap, so that doesn’t happen until they’re at a much more acceptable age. That, and Snake Eyes is asexual, so it takes him a while to figure out. And though doesn’t fancy Arachnea physically, he enjoys her company and knows she’s the most important person to him and wants it to be reciprocated. Arachnea on the other had is a big fat romantic sap and, while she’s the one that gets a crush first, doesn’t push him to do more than he’s comfortable with. There’s a bit of angst on her side at first after she realizes her feelings for him and her believing it would be completely one-sided. And *cough* when they’re both ConSEntiNG adULtS and whatnot, while he’s completely neutral to the deed, he does ‘pamper’ her from time to time iF yOU kNoW what I’m SAYiN’.

Down the road him and his group will probably get tighter bonds (or at least a somewhat positive relationship), but I haven’t really thought that far ahead in the story. Or at least, I haven’t found the trigger that starts the slow process of them working together better.

P.S., Snake Eyes being an albino black mamba means he’s a white black mamba and that amuses me to no end.

 38. Which one of your OCs would be the best dancer?

Caimen and a side character in the same story as him named Candy (Candace). Caimen is already pretty in-tune to music and rhythm anyhow, and while he doesn’t ‘know’ how to dance, were he ever to take classes he’d be A+ bomb at them. And Candy is a big party girl and, while she’s certainly no professional, knows how to shake it how she likes, albeit she may look silly from time to time :P

 39. Introduce any character you want

Hey, let’s introduce a couple of side characters I have!

Amy and Candy (Candace). These are a couple of minor characters in the story I’m writing with all my half-animal children. They’re part of Talon’s co-workers and a large backstory for them happened to crop up despite me not intending to make one.

Amy and Candy met in the 4th grade. Amy Luong is a very shy Vietnamese girl with a love for writing stories. She’s always alone with her nose stuck in her notebook. One day Candace Carter, a very outgoing Welsh girl, snatches her writing from her hands and reads it. Candy quickly falls in love with the story and characters in the little she scans and makes Amy a deal: They’ll be best friends and make a team. Amy writes the story and Candace plays the roles. They’ll become a famously successful and beloved duo in Hollywood!

And Amy’s reaction is: ‘what the fuck who is this girl give me my notebook back ur rude the hell?’ And calls Candy out on her rudeness, the fact she read her notebook without permission, and is angry that Candy thought any of it would be okay. Candy counters that she’d seen Amy turn people away before when they asked to see the notebook and this was the only way she’d see what’s inside. And while Amy admits to herself that it’s true, it doesn’t make it okay. And she flatly turns down the ‘plan’ Candy laid out for them.

After a lot of pestering, a bit of stalking Amy to her place of residence, a lot more pestering (much to Amy’s chagrin), begrudging hanging-out time at recess, and a fantastic display of acting talent, Amy finally opens up and the two become friends.

And the two work towards the dream little Candy decided for them long ago. Candy works towards the big-screen and Amy strives for a spot behind-the-scenes. They both know it’s a lofty and risky dream, but it’s a dream they want to work for and a dream they have passion for. And with their personalities clashing and working together, there’s certainly no shortage of stories and ideas that have a real chance of getting them into the film industry.

Amy’s very much a shrinking violet kind of person. And while she definitely didn’t appreciate Candy trying to forcefully barge in her life, she’s happy to have her as a friend in the end. She likes all things with a story, from comics to cinema to anime and reading. She’s a very smart and creative girl, but a bit socially awkward and very stubborn.

Candy’s almost the exact opposite; a social butterfly, confident, bullheaded, and a bit manipulative. She loves being in the spotlight and being in charge. She could get behind not only acting, but directing as well. Hollywood is her ideal fantasy and she has the looks, talent, and drive to make it a reality.

These two characters are just fun to write, especially the way they work off each other. Candy especially is a bit odd in that one quickly learns to not make promises or play along with Any of her ‘pretend’ schemes, no matter how ridiculous, cause you never, ever know when she’s serious. Amy accidentally made a blood pact that if they’re still single the day before one of them turns 40 they’re going to elope and marry each other so, as Candy puts it, “no one can call us old spinsters.”

In a little side-story I made, after Amy comes out to Candy, Candy asks if Amy had ever had a crush on her. Amy admits that (while she’s like a sister to her now and couldn’t possibly think of her that way) yes she did have a crush on her when they were younger, a little bit after she’d started warming up to her. She recalls that she squashed the feeling since she was embarrassed by not just a crush, but a crush on a girl, and what Candy or anyone else might think of her. And as time went on she matured and accepted and was happy with herself, and happy her family and friends were accepting and it didn’t matter to them who she was interested in if she was happy. And she tells Candy:

“You were pretty, and clever, and inspiring. And you still are, honestly. And later on the closer we got, the more I got to know the real you, I realized,”

And Candy’s gushing at this point because who doesn’t love compliments?

“That I dodged one hell of a bullet.”

Candy: :|

“Like, Candy I love you, but you are the hot mess of a hot mess. I’d probably pull my hair out if I had to be your girlfriend.”

Candy: :/

“Like my god I feel so bad for your boyfriends. Remember that one time with Andre when you—“

“AlRiGHtY theN hOneSTY hOur’S OVER.”

 40. Any fond memories linked to your characters? Feel free to share!

I think my fondest memories are when my characters slapped me in the face and said ‘no that’s not how I act I do things like this’ and go completely opposite of what I envisioned.

Most notably was Kitty, who was originally a design I drew that would represent me and was a blank model I could use for vent art. I didn’t even get to draw her a second time before she seemed to grab me by the collar, shout what kind of person she was exactly, and chucked a random story and two other characters at my face. It’s certainly a decision I’m perfectly happy with, as the result birthed many characters I absolute love and a developing story that’s kept me going for years. It’s definitely the story I’ve stuck with the longest, despite it all not being fleshed out. It’s so much fun.

Second is my character Snake Eyes, who I originally had as a pure villain character and was slated to die. But at some point all these ideas started cropping up about how he’d interact with the other characters in a non-hostile setting and hmmm, I bet he might actually get along with this character. And at that point it felt like he was completely offended I planned to kill him, like, did I even know who he is? How dare I, lol.

 41. Has anyone drawn fanart of your OCs? If yes, maybe show a picture or two here (remember sources & permissions!)

Yes, I suppose! My friend has drawn my OCs and aaaaaah I die whenever it happens it makes me so happy! She’s a much better artist than I since she’s been at it since she was little, but I love her art style so much and love seeing her take on the characters! AAAAAAA~

 42. Which one of your OCs would be the most interested in Greek gods?

Arachnea, considering her namesake is based on some Greek mythology. And my character J.C., who’s very lost and doesn’t know what she wants to do in life, but has a passion for history and lore and legends.

 43. Do you have any certain type when you create your OCs? Do you tend to favor some certain traits or looks? It’s time to confess

Oh dear I do believe so >~< For one I have a bit of a bias towards drawing somewhat attractive people in the face department. I’m not gonna say every one of my characters is Aphrodite or anything, but I certainly haven’t drawn anyone that’d be considered unattractive, at least by my standards. On that note, Emily is probably the most average-looking I’d say, though she’s not unpleasant to look at. I don’t know man. They don’t all have the same face or anything and have a mix of traits that people might consider conventionally attractive or unattractive. Kitty for example is very bony and angular, with a small button nose and very thin lips. Arachnea controversy has a big/wide nose, with full lips, sort of half-lidded eyes and thick eyebrows. Snake Eyes has a very long oval-shaped head, a flattened face, and large eyes. Emily’s got kind of a baby face, with a little nose and eyes, and a really big forehead and freckles all over. Talon has a very square jawline with a prominent nose and wide chin. They’re all different. I guess it depends on your taste on whether or not they’re all attractive? Snake Eyes, going by the description, seems like the most ‘unattractive’ person, but I think he’s one of my cutest ones tbh but eeeeh maybe I’m not the best judge of faces.

Second, in the personality department, I definitely favor my characters that are more animalistic, or have a primal side to them (see: Kit). I mean, I have so many beasty characters for a reason; animals are my passion. So when a character sees the world in the way an animal might, or whose priority in everything is survival, or has a trigger in which they become more beast than man, I get so invested in their psyche. And while not all or even most of my character have that, I certainly favor the ones that do. It’s so interesting to think about.

 44. Something you like about your OCs in general

How fun they are. Even my character Gray, an uptight pantsuit all-professional type lady, is fun to write. And though much of Gray’s humor comes from her being a straight man, she still can roll with the punches and dish it out occasionally. They’re all just a joy to write and watch, mostly when they interact with each other. And I have a blast making their day or breaking their spirits. I love when they do something unexpected that deviates from what I originally imagined.

 45. A character you no longer use?

Tons, I’ve listed a bunch already. Moonshine and 99.99% of all my old Warrior OCs. Plenty of OCs from stories I never and will never finish. There’s so many. I only regularly think and write about a handful of them now.

 46. Has anyone ever told you that you treat your OCs badly?

Nope, because no one ever talks to be about my OCs.

 47. Has anyone ever (friendly) claimed any of your OCs as their child?

See above answer.

 48. OC who is a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure

Arachnea and Kit. They deserve nothing of what I do to them. And there’s nothing they can do to stop me.

 49. Which one of your OCs would most likely enjoy memes

Kit is confirmed to like memes. He’s 100% garbage. He and my friend’s OC write ship fics about the other characters in our RP and send them to each other. Their favorites are the crack pairings and genderbend AUs.

 50. Give me the good ol’ OC talk here. Talk about anything you want

Blah I was gonna talk about my OC Kitty, since I’ve mentioned her a bunch but didn’t introduce her. But I made the mistake of going to bed before answering the question and now I’ve lost my motivation so pbbbbbbth. Maybe I’ll go back and edit this one day, but that day is not today!