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januaryembrs · 1 year ago

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YOU WERE LIKE AN ANGEL TO ME | Spencer Reid x Sunshine!Reader

Request: my DARLING @avis-writeshq says- i’m a menace but i ADORED the spencer fic u posted 🥹 UGH THEYRE SO CUTE YOUR HONOURRRR 👹if it’s okay, may i request another fic with the same couple 🙈 perhaps one day reader is not as sweet or chirpy as she usually is, or she gets injured or threatened in the field? much love and lots of kisses xoxo 🫶

Description: Spencer swore he wanted to hate her. She was too happy, too chirpy, too much for a guy who spent months rotting in prison. But how could he ever hate her when she cried in his chest like that?

Length: 5k (I'm feral for these two)

warnings: post prison reid. Angst. depiction of suicide from the Unsub. gory language used. guns mentioned. mention of $nuff video and other murders. Nothing that hasn't been done on CM already.

authors note: if y'all want to see more with these two just SAY because I am all ears I would die on this ship

There were a lot of times in his time at the BAU that Spencer had wished he could have changed the outcome of their bad guy, surprisingly enough. There was the time they found their UnSub a few minutes too late, and one of the victims fathers decided to take him out then and there with a shotgun to the head. He was just a kid. There was the entire time he was with Tobias Hankel, and he lived in a state of both fear and sympathy for the boy trapped in his own body after years of abuse. There was Nathan Harris, the kid who had stopped him at the subway station and practically begged him for help to stop his urges to murder, only to slit his own wrists before Spencer could get to him because he thought he was tainted.

He could see how it was easy in their job to get wrapped up in saving the day, in saving everyone they could. He just had hoped, on some stupid grace of a god he didn’t even believe in, that she would have at least remained untouched by the bad luck.

Spencer had always thought, since the first day he had arrived back into the office after his stint in prison, that she seemed to just waltz through life easier than anyone else. He knew the concept of luck was not quantifiable, that it was just a coincidence that good things happened to some people, and bad things happened to others. He always grouped himself in with the latter, because what was his entire life if not one bad hand of cards after another?

Part of him had been seething with vitriol jealousy when he first met her. He hated how the elevator doors seemed to open without hesitation for her, no waiting required. He hated how her hair never seemed to fall out of place, while his required primping and preening to upkeep. He hated how she was always so happy, whether it had been she’d been given an extra cookie at the bakery for free, or her coffee had just tasted super delicious that morning, or the road works clogging the city had been put on hold the one day she needed to drive into the office. She was one of those people, he had decided, that life just seemed to smile down upon, and she beamed back in that dazzling grin.

He felt sick to his stomach for ever wishing it gone, especially when she looked like she might never smile again.

They never liked to say that they had easy cases and hard ones, all of their cases were difficult to process. But this one had been a handful above the rest.

“UnSub has been killed on site, all units stand down,” Luke said into the radio, and the entire squadron took a sigh of relief, all of them except him.

Because he saw that look in her eye, the way everything sparkly about her seemed to have vanished.

They had been following Bobbie Wrids for a week. Five bodies in, five men shot between the eyes execution style, almost six by the time they’d arrived on the scene.

She’d gone with Tara around the front of the abandoned building; Penelope tracked their newest victim, Henry Frond, through his phone pinging off the nearest satellite towers, and it had been straight forward from there. Or at least it should have been.

Because by the time Spencer and Luke arrived in their own SUV, Penelope had time to access the rest of Henry’s phone, and it was clear to see the victimology behind all six men.

They were distributing snuff videos of women, some between themselves, some to other usernames on the darkweb, and Bobbie Wrids’ daughter had been one of them.

Bobbie had become somewhat of a vigilante, but he was a grieving father above all. He was a wounded animal chomping at the bit to soothe the ripping pain of his daughter's murder, the same one those men were getting off to.

Tara and her exchanged a glance as Penelope relayed the information over their headsets, her once serious expression falling into something sombre and sorrowful. How could she arrest a man she couldn’t help but feel sorry for, one she couldn’t help but think wasn’t entirely wrong in his actions.

“Bobbie Wrids,” Tara’s voice was stern, cutting through the silence of the desolate building. Their footsteps were careful as they made their way through the hallway, down to what had once been a rec-room, or perhaps a staff room, where they knew Bobbie had Henry, “This is the FBI, we’d like to talk,”

They heard nothing, and she looked up to the older woman hesitantly, her finger hovering over the trigger the way Spencer had taught her. Tara took a minute, knowing she was leading the charge here with the girl being so inexperienced, before she nodded to the door knob and the rookie twisted the handle, pushing the peeling wood open gently.

Bobbie Wrids stood in the centre of the room, moth eaten couches either side of the damp rug, the ceiling tiles half caved in from wear and tear. Henry Frond was already a pulp in the UnSub’s arms, and yet it was Bobbie that her eyes shot to first, sympathy shooting through every fibre of her being when she saw the distraught look on the father’s face.

He was grieving. He was grieving his little girl’s death. He was looking for a solution, and this seemed to be his best bet.

“Bobbie,” Her voice was shaky, her and Tara frozen in the doorway as the man brought the pistol to Henry’s beaten face, cocking it towards his temple before they could even explain themselves. “We’re going to come in, is that okay? We just want to talk, just let us talk-”

They had only edged closer by three paces between them as she was speaking before his knuckles turned white and he squeezed the gun tighter to Henry’s skin, the barrel contorting the flesh, “Don’t come any closer, this pig isn’t worth your mercy,”

“We know,” She said, her and Tara slowly stepping over a fallen ceiling tile, cracking under her boot as she met his desolate gaze for the first time, his head snapping to her. “We know what he did, Bobbie. What they all did.”

His throat bobbed, his bottom lip quivering and the sight of it, a man so broken, forced a frog into her oesophagus, and she willed herself not to cry.

“They hurt my little girl,” Bobbie choked out, his face turning mauve as the tears began to build behind his eyes, “She was my girl. She was only eighteen.”

She nodded, his wetted hues seemingly permissive when she stepped closer to where he held Henry hostage.

“I know, I’m so sorry for what happened to her,” She said, her voice croaky, unstable as she wrenched it into something audible, “I’m so sorry,”

“He doesn’t deserve mercy, none of them did,” Bobbie spat, his forearm crushing against Henry’s trachea in a vice-like grip. The man floundered, a wheeze coming from his lungs, not that she felt much sympathy for him.

She sprung into action, flicking her gun onto safety and holstering it, Tara doing the same as she lowered her weapon to her side. He profiled as a vigilante; he had no reason to hurt them.

“Bobbie, listen, I know they didn’t deserve to walk free, okay?” She said, taking the smallest step towards where the men stood, “But she wouldn’t want this for you, would she?”

The man flinched, his jaw hard as a rock with how he clenched his teeth together, as if holding back a sob.

“Come on, Bobbie. Let him go, we have enough evidence to get him sentenced. We can get you a plea deal, I know a good lawyer,” She begged, because she wasn’t beneath it, because she knew he was a good man backed into a corner, “Please,”

Maybe it was the way her eyes were soft when she looked at him, or the fact two more agents burst into the room from the hallway, Spencer’s eye immediately falling to where she was stood so close to their UnSub, her gun out of hand. Tara stood by, but that wasn’t good enough for him. He edged with light footsteps until he was behind her, his gaze cautious, never leaving the gun in Bobbie’s hand.

“Please,” She repeated, and Spencer saw Bobbie’s shoulders drop, every sliver of resolve draining from his body at her gentle tone, a deer approaching a hunter.

Henry was thrown to the floor, the man practically dead weight as he gasped, almost retching at the feeling of air sucking back into his chest frantically, and Luke and Tara were quick to wrestle him into cuffs, the woman reading him his Miranda rights.

Spencer almost made a grab for her then, because she was still creeping forward towards the man who had a loaded gun still live in his hand. He didn’t care for one second that the statistics said Bobbie wouldn’t lay a hand on her since she wasn’t part of his list. He didn’t care that every sign pointed to their UnSub being benevolent towards women, especially younger ones, that she fit his daughter’s description. Spencer didn’t care, he wanted her as far away from that gun as possible.

His heart lurched into his throat when Bobbie did in fact make a lunge for her, just not the way he’d feared. Because she had grabbed him. She’d pulled him into an embrace, a hug, kind and sweet as she always was.

Spencer cursed her for being so soft. It was going to get her killed.

“Agent,” His voice was terse, worried if you dug a little deeper than the sharp surface, but she didn’t listen to him. She held Bobbie tight as the man unravelled on her shoulder, falling into heart breaking sobs and it was then Spencer realised she was crying with him.

“It’s going to be okay, you’re okay,” She was shushing him, the killer, reassuring him he was safe, as if the killing thing wasn’t still between his fingers that clutched at her back with rough hands.

“They killed my girl, they took her from me, and then they laughed about it,” He wailed, and she nodded, squeezing him even tighter if that was so possible, “No one would listen, the police didn’t listen, I had to do something,”

“I know, I know, I’m so sorry,” This was wrong. She wasn’t supposed to be sympathising with the criminals. But she couldn’t help it, she couldn’t help the gasping urge to comfort the man who had lost his whole world, “I’m listening. Tell me about her,”

“She was so beautiful,” Bobbie whimpered, sniffling into her shoulder. Spencer felt his chest twinge at the scene. He hated that she was so soft. “She never hurt a soul,”

She cried with him, though hers were choked down as much as she could get them, her wet cheeks the only proof she had ever let them slip.

“I’m sorry,” She said again, because no matter how many times she repeated those two little words, it would never bring his daughter back, “I can help you,”

He pulled away from her shoulder, and it was only then that Bobbie Wrids even noticed Spencer, his face taut in anxiety as he watched the man’s hands still holding onto her body as if she was the only thing that kept him upright, which Spencer wouldn’t be surprised if it were true.

He fished the cuffs out of his back pocket, his finger never leaving the trigger as he stared down at their UnSub cautiously. He knew he may be being cruel, knew that ten years ago he would be just as caring as her. But that Spencer was long gone. And what remained was screaming in terror that she was in the line of danger, that she was holding the danger in her bare hands like she didn’t see the jeopardy she was putting herself in.

Bobbie pulled away to look at her, the creases around his eyes deep chasms, and even with the smattering of grey hair, the stubble, the cold, empty look of someone with nothing left, she thought he might have been a handsome man once. He looked at her with a ghost of a smile, and one of his callused hands came up to tuck her hair behind her ear as if it had been second nature to him for eighteen years.

“You’re a sweet girl,” He murmured, and she blinked at him, her chest easing at the way his wails had subsided into something quiet. She could help him, she swore she would help him. He was a good man beneath it all. “But no one can help me anymore, sweet girl,”

And with that he lifted the pistol beneath his chin and pulled the trigger.

—

She heard someone scream before she realised it was coming from her own throat, but her ears were ringing and she couldn’t open her eyes. Her face was wet and hot, and for a second she thought it was tears, but she was beyond crying now. She felt arms pulling her back into a strong chest, and someone was murmuring to her, or perhaps they were speaking normally and the sound of the gunshot had knocked her hearing. Either way, it was like someone had pulled a bag over her head as she brought her shaking hands up to her eyes to wipe.

She managed to crack her lids then when the sludge was gone, only to see the room still a blurry mess. She could make out, in the haze of blobs and crimson tint, Bobbie’s body slumped to the floor, a dark puddle seeping into the rug as those long arms tugged her out of the room. She only then looked down to her hands where she had rubbed her face and she caught the same claret plasma coating her fingers, her white shirt, her pants, her arms. It covered her head to toe.

It was in her eyes, she realised when she saw the ichor coating her fingertips. It was blocking her vision, turning the world a vivid wine colour, and she thinks she whimpered, or perhaps it was a moan of horror seeing the puddle beneath Bobbie’s body growing larger by the second.

“I don’t understand,” She said out loud, her head spinning, and she brought her fingertips up to her eyes again, maybe to get the blood out, god there was so much blood on her face, or maybe because she hoped to everything out there that she would clear her sight and find it all a terrible hallucination, the product of one too many nights of sleepless tossing.

But when she rubbed her lids again, this time seeing the scene a little better, Bobbie was still dead. She had still been too late.

“You’re in shock, you need to breathe,” A voice instructed her over her shoulder, and it was from the same person who had their hands around her waist, pulling her away from the crime scene, as CSI filed in from behind them.

She tried pushing the arms off her, weak because she couldn’t feel anything that wasn’t the horror in her stomach, and it took her a second before she listened to their words and realised she was holding a breath in her chest, the way a toddler does when they’re overwhelmed.

“I don’t-” She gasped, the air rushing through her lungs, so fast it made her cough, “I don’t understand, I was going to help him- I don’t understand- why?”

“I know, just breathe for me, sweetheart,” Spencer. She only just realised it was Spencer speaking, because he had never called her that and the gentle tone he’d taken was nothing like his usual, civil cadence. He had been dropping a few jokes the past few weeks since she’d driven him home, had been more touchy feely with correcting her form when she was at the shooting range, had delicately touched the small of her back when they were navigating a crowd together. He was slowly cracking from his statuesque expression that hadn’t left his face since he’d gotten out of prison, but the softness with which he held her waist was entirely new.

“Spencer, I don’t- I don’t get it,” She said, her voice bubbling into a sob as she allowed herself to be pulled away with no fight left in her. He took her into the hallway, turning her body from the sight of his hand lifeless on the floor with little to no effort. She was damn near limp in his arms, “Spencer, I don’t under-understand, I was going to h-help him, why would h-he do that-”

“Shhh, you need to breathe,” He murmured into her hair, trying to lead her out the front of the building and far away from where she’d just been front row seats to a messy suicide, “Come on, just breathe for me, baby, and then we can talk,”

But she wasn’t listening, and he wasn’t offended. Spencer knew it was the shock. He knew the symptoms by how her respiratory system had picked up in a matter of seconds and it was like she had gone from zero to a hundred. She let out a long whine, tears collecting the blood on her lash line and her chest seized into action, gulping down air, too short to do anything for her lungs, and her legs began to buckle beneath the two of them.

Spencer stopped in the hallway, realising she was in more shock than he must have thought. He knew she was sensitive, hell it was one of his favourite things about her. He knew she felt everything so deeply, burned too easily, like a daisy wilting in a dry heat, or candyfloss melting in his mouth. Spencer knew, as awful as watching death up close was for any agent, it would hit her hardest of all of them.

He moved around to her front, his hands migrating from her waist up to her shoulders, brushing over her upper arms soothingly. But her body felt numb, her head felt heavy, and her eyes were glazed over, down a rabbit hole entirely away from him, even when one of his hands cupped her wetted cheek gently.

“Just breathe, hey, look at me,” He tried a firmer tone, and she bent to his will too easily. It was a punch in the gut seeing everything shining and pretty leached out of her eyes, as if she had become soulless in a matter of minutes, as if she had lost all hope in the world the second Bobbie pulled that trigger. She looked like hell, blood still fresh on her cheeks, in her hair, smeared around her eye sockets where she had scrubbed so hard to get it off her skin, “You need to calm down, you’re going to faint if you don’t breathe,”

She nodded, or something close to it, her eyes falling down to the floor, and she seemed to wrestle for control over her chest then. But what came after was worse, Spencer thought. Her brows screwed together, her eyes welling up with more of those fat tears, and her lips dropping into a devastated pout, her eyes trailing over the mess on her uniform, on her hands.

“Spencer, I don’t understand, I tried to help him, I wanted to help him,” She sobbed, sniffling to herself miserably, and he barely even thought about it when he pulled her into his chest, not caring that her skin would dirty his shirt.

His hand wound into her hair, stroking her sweetly as she buried her wails into his vest. He used his other arm to pull her close to him, which she seemed to have zero qualms about as she clawed at his back to keep him close, as if she didn’t want to face what was going to happen when they left that building.

Spencer regretted ever thinking her sunshine was too bright for him.

–

She hadn’t smiled in a whole week. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She had given Penny a very forced smile when she had fussed over the younger woman the first day she got back, had said thankyou with downcast eyes and a fragile grin when the blonde presented her with a framed picture of a puppy to keep on her desk ‘incase she needed something nice to think about,’

She hadn’t looked at it once, because they both knew it wouldn’t do anything, no matter how much she pretended for Penelope’s sake that she would put it to good use.

He had taken her out for coffee on him that first day, but by the time they had got to the front of the queue, he had been doing almost all of the talking, which had become rare nowadays since he had come home from Mexico. Usually, it had been her filling the silences, because he knew in her right mind she hated the sound of static nothingness, she found it awkward and unnecessary when she could talk to anyone without thinking about it too hard.

They had got to the desk, the barista smiling up at him as he ordered his usual, before he turned to look at her as the woman serving asked her what she would like. But she wasn’t listening, she was watching out the window, nothing particularly invigorating beside a bird cleaning its feathers on top of a stop sign.

He said her name, putting his hand on her back and her head whipped around, her eyes empty as they looked up at him expectantly, “What do you want to drink?”

She blinked, waking herself from a stupor, and looked at the barista with an embarrassed expression, “Hot chocolate, please,”

And that was all she really had to say until lunch rolled around, and she excused herself to head home early. Emily smiled at her reassuringly, her eyes wary as she watched their happy-go-lucky rookie head for the elevators with a desolate look in her eyes.

Spencer hoped she would come around on her own, or maybe even be brave enough to talk to someone about the thoughts rattling around that head of hers, but she just didn’t. She stayed as silent as possible, only ever speaking when spoken to, asking Emily if she could finish off her reports at home, to which the Prentiss woman never protested.

But Spencer had had enough. He’d worried himself sick over her, and where all thoughts of how endearing and lovely and charming she was had sat in his head before, now it was all just ways he could think to make her smile again.

It was the following Tuesday by the time he braved action. She had gone home after their midday briefing, apologising to Emily with tired eyes that seemed to be growing more and more heavy by the day, like she hadn’t slept a wink in a fortnight. Which Spencer thought was entirely possible.

He pulled up to the house Penelope had not so discreetly told him was hers, definitely not because he’d asked, and definitely, definitely not breaching any human resource policies about distributing fellow workers information (meaning Spencer had almost certainly not begged Penelope for the address with those puppy eyes of his he knew could bag him anything).

The peonies in the window bays were wilting but her house was something out of a fairytale. He wasn’t sure why he was really so surprised. It screamed her, everything about it, from the toadstool post box to the little green, cast iron bench that sat in the garden, the metal forged to look like florets of ivy holding the sitter upright.

He rapped the brass knocker, the metal cold under his long fingers. Brushing invisible dirt off his shirt, he hoped she would answer as the present squirmed at his feet.

“Just a second,” He hushed, and as if she heard him, the front door swung open to reveal her bare face he hadn’t seen since he’d helped her wipe the blood from her skin in the back of the ambulance.

She looked at him with furrowed brows, before they quickly shot to the floor, to her cobbled pathway that had clicked under his shoes, and her face washed with a shock.

“Oh my god, Spencer!” She crouched to her knees, a slobbery lick immediately meeting her cheek as the Spaniel rubbed his wet nose up to her ear, sniffing her unique smell, as if it was a bag of Class A’s, “I never knew you had a dog,”

“I don’t,” He replied, kneeling with her to ruffle the soft fur behind the canine’s ear, “This is Ace. He retired from the Bomb Unit a month ago and Penelope sent me his handler’s number. They said he’s the happiest dog in the world,”

“I would be too if I stopped so many people from blowing up,” She said, but before he could ask what she meant exactly by that, Ace had jumped up and attacked her entire face with kisses as if he too thought that statement was worth silencing.

And she laughed. She laughed louder than she had in days, weeks, her eyes crinkling in joy as the little pink tongue stole away her sorrow, tickled away the traces of the blood that had tainted her skin.

Spencer smiled, his eyes watching her face scrunch in a squeal, hands eventually coming up to the elderly dog’s jowls to gently push him down.

“Oh, you are the sweetest guy,” She said, and the words had him tugging at the leash to lick her all over again, “Yes you are, you’re the sweetest little guy around, huh?”

She chuckled, scratching down the mutt’s neck, and her eyes flicked back up to Spencer, who watched her with more intent than she’d realised.

“Petting and receiving affection from pets causes spikes in serotonin in our brain and reduces anxiety, did you know that?” Spencer said, Ace pushing his muzzle into the palm of her hand to prove a point.

Her smile wavered slightly, and she looked at his hazel hues that seemed to see right through her, “Look, I’m sorry I’ve been so off lately, I just can’t sleep at the moment-”

“Don’t apologise,” He cut in, though his tone was kind, and the two of them stood back up to their full height, “What happened was horrifying, even some of the longest serving agents I know would struggle seeing that,”

She scoffed, unusually pessimistic coming out of her mouth, “You wouldn’t,”

His head tilted, not quite understanding what she meant, because she hadn’t sounded cruel when she said it. Then again, he didn’t think she was actually capable of that emotion.

She looked at him, a flash of something vulnerable in her eyes, something like that day he’d held her in the hallway; too fast he almost missed it.

“You’re so brave, Spencer, you’re like invincible. I mean, you survived prison and your mom getting kidnapped and you bounced straight back to work like it was nothing. I can’t even watch a murderer die without spiralling out of control,” She huffed, rubbing the bridge of her nose and before he could respond on just how wrong she was, before he could tell her that that was exactly the opposite of what had happened because he had damn near changed every inch of himself in prison to stop himself from breaking, he caught her murmuring and he thought he might just have been punched all over again, “I wish I was like you,”

His jaw clenched, eyebrows furrowing into a frown as he stepped towards her, and her head shot to him, worried she may have said the wrong thing by mentioning everything that had happened, everything Pen had specifically said was a touchy subject, and she opened her mouth to apologise.

“Do you know how unbelievably glad I am that you are nothing like me?” Spencer said, his voice bordering on furious and her fumbled for a reply, worried she had truly pissed him off.

She wouldn’t blame him for hating her. She’d always worried, until perhaps that day they’d gotten into her car and she’d driven him home, that her very essence annoyed him.

“I’m sorry-” She started, but he shook his head.

“Stop apologising,” He said, his hand reaching up to grab where her fingers tugged together nervously, his hold featherlike, his face softening when he saw her expression, “I don’t want you to be anything like me. I like you just how you are,”

She sighed, eyes doe like with emotion as she looked at him, “Really?”

He smiled, a rare and genuine smile as she seemed to glow under his words, “Yes, really.” Spencer allowed himself to enjoy the way that the twinkle returned to her expression when he smiled at her with something almost like the old Spencer in him, before he cleared his throat, “We all like you. Everyone on the team likes how you are,”

She paused, nodding to herself as if knocking herself out of a silly daze, and Ace bounced on his hind legs trying to get her attention again.

“You don’t think I’m too sensitive?” She asked, holding her palm out for the dog to nuzzle at with that wet nose of his.

Spencer shook his head, “Sensitive is good. It means you feel something. Means you feel the good things deeper too,”

Her smile was blinding, because she’d never thought of it that way before, and she looked like her old self again. Spencer wasn’t stupid enough to think she was never going to think about Bobbie again, he still thought about that first UnSub he’d tried to save. He still thought about Tobias Hankel. He thought about them all.

But he was going to make sure she never turned into him. He didn’t think he’d ever forgive himself if she did. He’d protect her sunlight even if it burned him to know he could never have her the way he wanted. Because she was everything good, and he was him.

She looked down at Ace, the life returning to her as she stood aside for the two of them to enter her house, “Tea?”

Yep. Spencer felt something run hot knowing she would always be out of reach. Didn’t stop him from thinking about it, though.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #dr spencer reid #Post Prison!Spencer Reid x reader #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fic #matthew grey gubler x reader

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gazemaizeisdead · 2 months ago

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there’s a scene in fat albert 2004 where live action kenan thompson fat albert, who has accidentally escaped the fictional television world of his cartoon series and become real à la barbie, meets his creator, bill cosby.

it’s a unique film. i’ve seen it about thirty times. the opening credits are in comic sans.

it’s the worst film in the tiny but horrible microgenre of films in which an established, questionably marketable character with diminished cultural relevance is mysteriously transported to our reality. rocky and bullwinkle, harold and the purple crayon, garfield, enchanted (it’s disney, which at the time was only beginning to toy with the cloyingly affectionate self-awareness that has since swallowed it whole, so an expy blend of all stock princesses is used in the place of any particular ip). if you loosen up the parameters of that definition a smidge you can easily come up with another fifty or so awful, bizarre live-action adaptations of various properties with similar narrative structures and plot beats, but i’m curious about this very specific type of hyper-meta fish out of water isekai movie, stories that are less interested in the characters they are ostensibly about and more about the modern world’s current reactions to those characters, and choose to discuss that in the most convoluted, literal way possible.

this type of story is simultaneously extremely high-concept postmodernist analysis and the laziest paint by the numbers shit it’s possible to create. live-action adaptations even at their best betray an inherent disrespect for animation, implying it to be a secondary medium that exists as a temporary placeholder or poor man’s substitute for reality, that characters are only worth caring about if they look as real as we do or exist in a world like ours. there’s no genuine artistic reason to make a woody woodpecker movie, an avatar movie, a death note movie, a live-action pinocchio, they’re all cynical soulless cashgrabs but they at least do attempt to adapt and actually BE what they purport to be. dan aykroyd yogi bear and light turner and matthew lillard william afton for the five minutes they wanted to pay him to be in the fnaf movie are simply poor facsimiles of themselves and they suck because of that bad mimicry, we see and hear the contrast and know immediately it’s not the same. the project of live-actionization is misguided because even before awful executive-driven creative decisions (which all these movies have in spades) very often whatever is being adapted simply can’t be translated properly to its new medium. you could give a film a 500m budget and airbending will still not look as good as it does in 2d, where one can easily and stylistically show the movement of invisible wind and have a character float and defy gravity in a way that is instantly believable in a way that a real human being moved by CGI is not. neil patrick harris and hank azaria as hard as they try, as talented as they are cannot legitimately sell me on the idea that they’re actually being hardcore smurfed in the way that an animated gargamel can. these movies reach for a perceived authenticity and fail to reach it, not understanding that the mediums they are stealing from almost always allow for a greater seeming realness than live-action can, especially when portraying the fantastical.

the isekai movies go one step beyond this disrespect because they refuse to even play the part. yes we’ll make a rocky and bullwinkle movie but we cannot simply DO rocky and bullwinkle, we can’t do a scooby doo and just make a bigger irl version of the formula, we must have this elaborate meta routine so we can continually point to the audience and share a laugh together about how dogshit and unimportant rocky and bullwinkle are. the people who make these movies are so embarrassed by the concept of taking these ideas seriously that they must even in-universe create further removal from the realness of this to insulate us from the possibility of caring. rocky and bullwinkle must be a fake tv show even in the movie, even in pretend land they must be from a deeper pretend land. it’s fine if you want to do commentary on the property (preferable, in fact, that makes it more interesting!) but this commentary is almost never allowed to extend beyond the singular joke of every gamer webcomic ever made: wouldn’t it be fucked up if fictional thing were REAL?

wouldn’t it be fucked up if rocky and bullwinkle were in a REAL car? you bet it fucking would be. (robert de niro produced this movie and plays the main villain)

obviously we’re in a post-barbenheimer world and the only movie of this kind worth comparing fat albert to is barbie, which is notable for being the only good execution of this premise (i would call enchanted competent; it’s funny but a mess). the barbie comparison is especially interesting because fat albert is a cracked mirror to barbie.

like barbie, fat albert and the cosby kids exist in a cartoon world where characters are simultaneously performers and platonic forms of themselves, and where they operate with an unspecified degree of awareness of their own fakeness; a background character in fat albert’s philadelphia mentions having done guest spots on the jetsons. like barbie, al is snapped out of his usual routine by the personal crisis of one of his fans, when her single live-action tear falls on the remote as she watches his show and magically falls into his fictionalized philadelphia. the magic tear allows him to hear her crying and a portal is rended between the two worlds; he enters reality, naively tries to solve her social and emotional problems with platitudes, and is forced to grapple with the tenuous nature of his existence and mortality and the complexity of the real world.

i’m just ken is replaced with fat albert performing an extended rap cover of his own theme song. fat albert spends as much of this movie trying to help the main character make friends as he does trying to fuck her adoptive older sister (“my big al”, she calls him).

without getting into “barbie politics” barbie works because it wants to be a movie about barbie, the thing it’s named after. it takes “barbie lore” seriously. at least half of barbie actually takes place in barbieland, a world that the movie cares about making authentically fake and different and weird. the mechanics and nature of barbie’s existence and barbieland are the most important part of the movie. all of these bad adaptations have the obligatory familial infighting/accidentally thwarting a jewel heist/stopping the evil CEO from demolishing the neighborhood to build a megamall/helping larry bird get his basketball talent back from the aliens plot and so does barbie but it’s an excuse to talk about more interesting abstractions. there is a subplot dedicated to barbie helping to reignite a mother and daughter’s bond but this isn’t the core of the movie, it really is about barbie, literally and metaphysically. fat albert too isn't "about" helping a girl make friends and find herself, it's about fat albert, but it resents that about itself.

fat albert 2004 has about six minutes of actual animation, it rushes to get kenan thompson on screen as quickly as possible and stays there as long as it can (presumably a factor of cost more than anything else, as with all of these films). in barbie the ideas and philosophies of barbieland and real life both naturally affect each other, are reflections of each other, which is an obvious worldbuilding choice that makes intuitive sense; the media we consume is a reflection of the real world and vice versa. there is nothing inherently wrong or bad about the link between the two worlds, says barbie, though it is often the conduit for harmful ideas.

fat albert’s philadelphia and our philadelphia do not share this connection, albert’s intrusion in the real world is a perversion of the natural order and, we later learn, a physical impossibility in the long term. halfway through the movie, the cosby kids begin to be influenced by the real world: mushmouth gains the ability to speak coherently (“don’t call me mushmouth anymore! just call me… mouth!”) and dumb donald removes his ski cap, learns to read, and goes to the library and speeds through 22 volumes of african-american history. this is portrayed as profane; as dumb donald says before jumping back into the TV halfway through the movie: “"i've become smart enough to understand that... we've entered into a world where we do not belong. if you try to become something that you're not, you lose the essence of who you really are."

albert, still on his love quest, at first refuses to rejoin them; he goes off on a date with protagonist’s older sister, which goes well until a child recognizes him and shames him for not being in the tv where he belongs. “we need you! what would mr. cosby think if you don’t go back?” al’s stunned by this; he has no response, but it inspires him to seek answers. in the next scene he decides to find out. he walks up to bill cosby’s house and knocks on the door.

in barbie the discussion barbie has with her creator, ruth handler, is the emotional climax of the film. when barbie tells her she wants to stay in southern california, ruth warns her of the dangers of being human, but does not ultimately stop barbie from doing so; she points out that she is incapable of doing so even if she wanted to.

fat albert mirrors this discussion; albert is told of his conceptual origins. as barbie is based on ruth’s daughter, he is based on a deceased childhood friend of cosby’s, the grandfather of the girl he is trying to help (which is why the movie is careful to repeatedly stress the point that the older sister he’s fallen in love with is only his granddaughter by adoption). there isn’t a parallel moment to the one in barbie where handler winks to the audience about her criminal conviction but that’s probably in the film’s best interest.

albert pleads with cosby in the same way as barbie. more than anything, he wants to stay in the real world. cosby, like handler, encourages him to recognize his own power as an icon, but informs him that his fate is inescapable. if he stays in the real world, his colors will begin to fade and he will soon “turn into celluloid dust” and die. how cosby knows this is not explained; presumably little bill also visited him in the past and suffered a similar fate.

even when done cynically (as it always is) to adapt or remake anything to reject the source material in some way. it’s a paradoxical relationship, because to do it you have to both like (or at least be interested) in what you are recreating but find some aspect of it unnecessary or outdated or lacking or worthy of change. the animation to live-action adaptation often must navigate the additional paradox of wanting to make the unreal real, and the end result, formed by people who don’t care and are only in it for a paycheck, is usually bad art.

in the end fat albert acknowledges his own unreality and crawls back in the tv. the final scene is a saving private ryan style ending where all of the real life elderly inspirations for the cosby kids leave flowers on the real fat albert’s grave. here it hits you: the only moral of the live action fat albert movie is that a live action fat albert movie is a really shitty idea that would kill fat albert.

i agree.

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thanatika · 3 months ago

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people complain about long-term settlements in fallout being too ramshackle, and basically looking like they were just built despite the fact that the nuclear apocalypse happened 200 years ago. "people should be building proper, long-term structures and not just building shacks out of rubble at this point" is the argument i hear, applied to places like the new vegas strip or diamond city in fallout 4.

and i don't 100% disagree, but i do feel like this logic assumes that the bombs dropping 200 years ago is the only disruptive thing that's happened in these places? "the wasteland is a living place, people should be rebuilding and not just living in rubble" <- yes, but the wasteland is also a living place filled with constant power struggles and warring factions and regime changes. maybe that city isn't what they managed to build in the last 200 years since the bombs dropped, maybe it's what they managed to build in the last 30 years since the last time they got attacked by another place and almost wiped out.

it just doesn't seem that unrealistic to me, is all, especially if you've been to areas that have been afflicted by poverty and scarcity for hundreds and years and seen that these sorts of conditions do actually exist. humans persist under all sorts of harsh circumstances.

ETA: this post got a lot more attention than i expected, and people are taking it as some bethesda fallout vs non-bethesda fallout thing, which i don't get because i think all of the games are guilty of the "people living in 200 year rubble" thing that gets criticized so much. as i mentioned in the tags, this post was inspired by a cleanup mod for new vegas. and to be clear, i'm not saying that all the games necessarily execute this concept well, but it does make sense as a concept and isn't the gaping plothole a lot of people take it to be. like, look up what slums in the poorest countries in the world look like. imagine what what would happen to social norms in a world where everything blew up and you had to start over with practically no resources and no central government.

#mine #fallout #this thought inspired by this really well made mod i saw that replaces the walls around the strip with like #professional looking reinforced ones #and gets rid of all the rubble #which like. yeah i think the strip could have a BIT more cleaning up but still #fallout meta #fallout new vegas

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tahbhie · 5 months ago

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The Act of Writing Psychotic Characters

Part 1: Attention vs Intention

It's been a while since I received this request, and I ensured I took my time with the thoughts, evaluation, and analysis. This topic will be covered in three parts, so here's the first.

Before we proceed, please note that I am not a psychiatrist, psychologist, or any professional in that field. This is just an insight into how this kind of concept can fit into your novels.

Okay, let's begin.

The Attention vs Intention part of this topic will discuss two ways of portraying these type of characters in scenes.

First, you need to understand that psychotic characters aren't psychotic based solely on their speeches or actions. If that's all you have in mind before approaching a story, you might leave a huge gap in the execution.

Rather, it's how they feel—the desire to satisfy their current emotions.

They have drives and motives, but most especially beliefs which, in most cases, are hardly understandable by other people. It's wrong and unacceptable by society, but to them, they wouldn't do it any differently.

That's why most psychotic characters have no remorse. You simply can't apologize or feel sorry if you don't 'believe' that you're in the wrong.

➜ Attention Psychosis

Psychotic characters whose main purpose in a story is limited to presence (i.e., showing up in scenes and visibly serving the role of a psychotic character) are attention psychotics. You don't flesh out their backstory or why they are who they are.

Their drives and motives aren't talked about enough to the point of justification. Readers hardly care about them, but the action they bring to the scene creates a rich narrative with the purpose of psychosis.

In summary, their role is minor. We see such cases in movies like The Babysitter.

Let's agree that none of the cult characters in that movie are exactly sane, as their main aim is to end their victims’ lives in the sickest ways possible. However, there's a certain character, Max, who simply enjoys the idea of "killing and seeing people bleed."

That has exceeded the central idea of being a cultist who gets involved in blood sacrifice to achieve their 'dream life' like the rest of the characters. It's now something more and different.

Something that has to do with homicidal ideation.

Max worked in a diner where he dealt with people that annoyed him so greatly that he wanted to kill them. So he got the opportunity to join a cult and do just that.

It was plain clear this guy had something else going on for him, but throughout the movie, his character had no special attention or even a peek into his thoughts. Although, it still worried the audience. Job done.

➜ Intention Psychosis

When a story is centered around a character's mental state, their motives, drives, beliefs, actions, and the story actually unfolds by going deeper into this concept, you have intention psychosis.

If not entirely, at least mostly, it defines the entire plot surrounding that character. People get to understand why they are who they are, their mode of action, what drives them, and even a peek into how they perceive the world around them.

Such scenarios are seen in movies like The Joker and Pyramid game (Korea). The audience gets a glimpse into their overall life and understands at least to an extent why they are the way they are.

Their beliefs get twisted for certain reasons, and there was just no stopping them. Here the characters were more than a presence; they were a central core.

In the movie Joker, we watched Arthur’s impoverished life unfold, with every event and incident worsening his condition further.

Baek Ha-rin in Pyramid Game literally created an entire game system to watch a student, who happened to be her old friend, suffer both physically and mentally. She went to great lengths to carry out this nefarious act under the guise of the game. Although this movie encompassed more than just this storyline, it was hard to ignore the unhealthy drive and actions of the young lady with an innocent face.

Before incorporating a psychotic character in your novel, determine their form of portrayal and appearance in the overall story. Are they going to serve as an attention psychotic or an intention psychotic?

Inspired by @sothera

Stay tuned for the next part!

۝ Before you go! ۝

My Characters and I is an extensive one-on-one coaching session designed to create characters that leap off the pages and become best friends with your readers.

What's a great story without remarkable characters? Spots are filling up fast, so grab yours now and get ahead of millions of writers out there.

👇👇👇

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animeyanderelover · 9 months ago

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I already did this concept with Dazai in those Hc's so I will not add him in here again.

Tw: Yandere themes, possessive behavior, obsession, delusional behavior, clinginess, manipulation, blackmailing, bribing, paranoia, attempted murder in Nikolai's part, isolation, abduction, death of reader in their previous world

Tags: @shumidehiro @izanami78 @leveyani

Isekai'd into their world

Nakahara Cuuya

🟠Bullshit! That’s the initial reaction that Chuuya has when he finds out. There’s a limit to how much he is willing to believe even though throughout his life he has seen some things you’d have to witness with your own eyes to believe in them. It is true that there is nothing about your past he has been able to dig up as your life has seemingly started the moment you were discovered by an elderly couple on the streets. You’ve always claimed that you couldn’t remember anything before you where found and since there has been nothing the police was able to find out about your past, they gave up on the case as you were slowly assisted into society. Chuuya doesn’t believe your claims though that you suffer from amnesia. He might be hotheaded but he’s been working for the Port Mafia for years now, has even been made an Executive. The one skill you develop in this position is to get a fairly good read on the person in front of you, on their body language as well as on whether or not they speak the truth or not. So whilst he has no solid proof about whether you lie to him or not, there is this intuition that he has in his guts that there is something you are hiding.

🟠His overprotective and paranoid thoughts tend to spiral so his first assumption is that maybe there is someone after you and that you’re on the run. If that is the case you don’t have to worry. Chuuya can and will provide protection if someone is after your life. The longer you remain silent about your past, the more impatient he grows. Chuuya hasn’t always been honest to you either, especially regarding his position in the Port Mafia. But you needlessly fuel his anxiety as you don’t reveal anything, only feeding his paranoid thoughts as he wonders what you could hide that is so atrocious that you don’t even want your lover to know. Yet when you tell him the truth finally, sensing that he is close to snapping, he gets mad at you. Are you mocking him?! Don’t lie to him now! He doesn’t believe you. He doesn’t believe you until you see yourself forced to reveal everything you know about him. You know about Sheep, about Arahabaki, about the Port Mafia and about so much more. Only then does he believe you. The truth did not ease his worries though. No, instead Chuuya feels betrayed. Betrayed that you have known everything about him from the very beginning.

🟠He can’t hide. He can’t pretend anymore either. What’s the use? You know everything about him. With no facade to hide anything anymore Chuuya grows weirdly aggressive yet vulnerable. He doesn’t know how he should deal with this situation where he had no control over what he reveals about you and what not. It is fucking weird to know that in your world he doesn’t even exist and is instead a fictional character. What do you even think about him when he stands in front of you? Do you even see him as a real person? With really nothing to lose anymore Chuuya just abducts you then and there, unable to come up with another solution on how to handle this situation. Obviously he doesn’t tell anyone else about you though as he himself has to properly come to terms with the truth. As heavy as the feeling of betrayal sits though, there’s also desperation and paranoia. Desperation because he feels like he deserves to find out more about you as well since you already know far too much about him and paranoia now that he understands that you’ve died before in your world. You can’t be fine after all that happened, right? He’s going to help you.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

🍎Fyodor has always deemed you to be someone who stands out from the common crowd, for reasons he doesn’t understand either. Perhaps it is because your eyes perceive what others can’t see as he will never forget his first encounter with you. The glimpse of pure fear in your eyes as you gazed at him, seeing the demon disguised as a man. The way your body flinched away from his touch as he reached out to you, sensing the doom that would befall you the moment he’d feel your body. Only very few people have ever been able to realise him for the higher being that he is and it is the fact that a common sinner like you sees right through him upon first meeting him that makes you special. Fyodor tests his theory out only once by cornering you, giving you no chance to hide behind others as you are left alone with him. The sadist in him is relishing in the untarnished fear he sees in your eyes, purple orbs gazing at you as you slowly move away from him. He doesn’t follow you but he doesn’t have to. You poor thing now can’t run away from him anymore. You’ve dared to catch the devil’s interest and for that you will greatly suffer for Fyodor only knows how to take and destroy.

🍎It is when he figures out that you have no past that you only deepen his obsession. It’s intriguing. No past sins to judge you by, no trace of an existence stained in impurity before you appeared in this city. No matter how much research Fyodor does, he’s unable to figure you out. You’re a mystery to him, to a messenger of God. Oh, it is indeed a dangerous game you are playing. What could you be possibly hiding from him that is so forbidden that not even he can know? It’s like you’re trying to trigger him and it is this lack of control, the inability to cast divine judgment upon you as you are incomplete without a past to hold you accountable for that leads Fyodor to do something he normally never does. He rushes the process slightly, lures you faster into the spider’s web until you are trapped. The first thing he asks of you to confess is your past, the one thing he can’t find out about you. What are you? Are you a sinner or are you something more? No normal human should be able to deprive him of information he can always gather. The time for your confession has finally come, the day of your judgement has at last arrived. Now then you little mouse, confess.

🍎If only you would know how much you fuel his obsession the moment you are forced to reveal the truth to Fyodor. A sinner always pays with death to free them of their sins yet you have already died in your own world before you were brought to his own. You are free, or at least freer, of sins than anyone else on this planet. So before this world can ruin you once more he is going to isolate you, to shield you from the impurities of this world. After all it is the duty of an angel to bring salvation to those who are worthy. Now he also understands why you were so afraid the moment you saw him. What was the first time for him to ever meet you was after all only the first time for you officially meeting him as you had seen him multiple times before as nothing more than a fictional character in your own world. Maybe there is a scientific explanation of how it is possible for you to be transported into a world that was only fictional in your old reality but Fyodor pushes another agenda onto you. Have you ever considered it to be the will of a higher being? Have you ever considered it to be a second chance given to you? Don’t you worry too much. He will help you flourish in this world.

Jouno Saigiku

♦️BadumBadumBadumBadum. The melody of your heart when Jouno finds you one day stranded in an alleyway is certainly a good indicator of the fear and the anxiety currently swirling around inside your mind. Be assured though, he is here to help the little wounded puppy he's found himself right now. You'll just have to tell him who you are and where you are from and he'll get you safely back. That is at least the plan, the only problem is that you refuse his help. Hmm, that is strange. You're acting a bit suspicious, you know? Your little heart is telling him that his appearance seems to have only increased whatever stress you've already felt before. Is there something you're trying to hide from him? Even though his eyes are not able to perceive you, you don't strike Jouno as someone who has done something wrong that would force him to take actions against you. Still, he interrogates you, at least until he has gotten his confirmation that you haven't done anything criminal nor plan to do so. Technically that should be enough yet your heartbeat still hasn't calmed down. He's the reason. You're afraid of him. A reaction that usually only the bad guys have when seeing him.

♦️The Hunting Dogs are heroes even internationally, normally citizens like you rejoice when seeing him. There are still things he'd like to ask you but you actually seem to gather some courage, tell him shortly that he has no reason to keep you trapped any longer since he has gotten his comfirmation. He isn't exactly pleased with the tone you use but he lets you go, though he's still quite dissatisfied with what he has gotten. As if fate is smiling down upon him though he soon has the pleasure to meet you again. You're still as close-lipped as the first time he met you but since he has now figured out where you work he decides to make acquaintances with your co-workers who are far more talkative. He can sense you standing there in the corner, your heartbeat going crazy as they tell him that you've recently started working here and haven't told them much about your past either. So you really just keep it a secret from anyone. That only makes him more curious, you know? With his position it is relatively easy to gather intel on you though it is when he is served with little to nothing that he truly starts realising that you must carry quite the secret around.

♦️That is the kickstart of his obsession as he wants to figure out what it is you are hiding. What is the dark secret you don't want anyone to know about? His only clue lies in you and so he torments you with his visits, constantly attempting to guess what it is you are hiding only to never figure it out. How could he have known that you died in your previous life only to be reincarnated into a world that was purely fictional in your old world? It is after the abduction that you are left with no choice but to spill out the truth and as much as he would like to ridicule you for such an otherwise blatant lie, your heart is not lying. You're actually speaking the truth. And Jouno doesn't know how to reply to that, just staring at you with a furrowed face as if considering what the best response or even best reaction is to the truth he has so desperately wanted to know for so long now. You think that you see a glimmer of unease appearing on his face before he suddenly bends down, his hands grasping your chin. Just how much do you know about him? Even though you are his beloved Saigiku has ever considered revealing too much to you yet perhaps you already know too much, leaving him strangely vulnerable.

Nikolai Gogol

🕊️To Nikolai you have always been entertaining. He has the fondest memories of the both you meeting for the first time, a sentiment you most likely don't share with him. After all it was obvious from the very first encounter that all that you felt for him was dread even though his disguise should have been immaculate, able to fool anyone else. He hides his sinister and twisted character when he needs to do so yet you have seen right through him and it is this seemingly keen intuition of yours that has gotten him so invested in you. Nikolai has never meant for this interest of yours to stay nor to develop into a burning passion that threatens to rip him off the wings he so desperately hopes to obtain. The demon threatening to steal his soul is none other than you, his crooked feelings for you spinning and turning as Nikolai finds himself trapped between two clashing desires. One is to obtain his freedom by murdering you, another one is his desire to keep you and share his sad fate of isolation and oppression due to his own feelings with you. It is a constant inner fight and more than just once has he considered ending your puny life yet there is one factor that ultimately stops him.

🕊️He plans to torment you, to ruin the life you have so carefully built for yourself and the freedom you have in it yet it is the little information he can gather that has him pausing. No family, no friends, no past. You are essentially like a ghost who appeared overnight. He has no past which he could use to chain you down, nothing personal he could hold against you and that knowledge that he can't properly oppress you unless he knows about it torments him and only infuriates him more as if you were indirectly mocking him. Fine, he'll cut the games short then. When you wake up the next time, it is in a little cage with a cheerful Nikolai asking you how you're doing and if you have slept well. That grin only widens and turns into somethin hideous when he sees your eyes overflowing with fear. Yes~ Let that fear corner you and tie you down. Share your suffering with his own. There is still something, you precious dove, that he really needs to know. Only then can he fully drag you down to the bottom of despair with him after all. You need to tell him a bit more about your past. Your family. Your friends. He needs them for his plans. Imagine his surprise when he sees the relief appearing on his face.

🕊️That grin on his face disappears as he realises the truth, even if only for a short moment. It isn't the fact that you are from a different world, it isn't that you died in your previous world either that sobers him down for one or two seconds. It is the realisation that you will always be freer than he will be. There are no family, no friends, no pets he could use to play with and to break you with. There is no information he can obtain about you unless you tell him yet here you are, knowing already so much about him since he was a fictional character in your old world. Half of your wings he will never be able to clip off. For one frightening moment his hands suddenly wrap around your neck and start squeezing down with enough force to have you gasping and choking before all of a sudden he lets go, leaving you to cough for air. When he bends down he has put on that playful appearance once more, whispering to you that it's still too early for you to die. He must say, you managed to catch him off guard for a moment there but that's alright. If things are more difficult there are more entertaining after all. He will make sure to plug every single feather off of your wings until you're just as broken as him.

#yandere bungou stray dogs #yandere bungo stray dogs #yandere bsd #yandere chuuya #yandere nakahara chuuya #yandere fyodor #yandere fyodor dostoevsky #yandere jouno #yandere jouno saigiku #yandere nikolai #yandere nikolai gogol #yandere x reader #bungou stray dogs x reader #bungo stray dogs x reader #bsd x reader #chuuya x reader #fyodor x reader #jouno x reader #nikolai x reader

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yuikomorii · 2 months ago

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In your opinion, how would you rank the games from best to worst written?

// As much as I love DL, I feel like a lot of the games were somewhat unnecessary, since they added very little to the story. That said, I’m sure there are people who genuinely love every single one of them and I totally respect that!

1. Dark Fate

Each route featured plot, character development, and romance. The introduction of the Founders was interesting, and they made for some really compelling villains too! It’s not a flawless game, but definitely the coolest one of the franchise.

WALL

2. Lunatic Parade

I know it’s just a fanservice game, but the concept of Yui’s heart being replaced with a Kleinod and her needing to reclaim it with the help of the Diaboy of her choice was really touching. You could clearly see how desperate everyone was to save the person they loved, proving that their feelings were pure.

3. Chaos Lineage

It’s frustrating how much potential this game had, only for it to be so poorly executed. But, no one can deny that it showed character growth not just in terms of their own personality, but also in how the characters’ relationships evolved. I didn’t like it at first, but then I started paying more attention to the dialogue, and realized that the interactions were really engaging.

4. More Blood

I agree that the Sakamaki routes were boring and downright frustrating, but the Mukami lore was so entertaining! I also liked how even the Sakamakis were shown to be capable of genuine love by the end of their routes. They weren’t completely softened, but there was visible development, which was nice to see.

5. Vandead Carnival

Overall, it was a cute game, though the writing was dumb at times. I only ranked it this “high” because at least the routes were less repetitive than what’s next.

6. First game/ unofficially called HDB

Did it have funny scenes? Yes. Did it have fanservice? Absolutely. But did it have an actual plot? Not really. The closest thing to a storyline was in Reiji’s route, and even then, it only showed up in the last section. The whole game is basically just fetish content for masochists, with repetitive chapters, which is fine if you’re into that, but there wasn’t any development that could be called real development. In the book, it’s literally confirmed that there was no true love between Yui and any Diaboy, so in the end, it all felt kinda pointless.

7. Lost Eden

What’s worse than having no plot? Having a bad plot. This game had no reason to exist, especially since DF already gave the franchise a perfect ending. Not only that, but it unnecessarily ruined so many relationships between the characters. At least with HDB, you knew what you were getting into with its S&M themes. But here? The bad events weren’t even the fanservice type—they were straight-up torture p0rn. This game was so dark that it was boycotted in some countries and remains the lowest-rated Diabolik Lovers game to date for a good reason. It’s just that, for me, the other games delivered a better experience.

#admin

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bloodyinkandquill · 4 months ago

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Phighting x Reader Valentine’s day special

IF TEXT IS IN RED ITS NSFW OR SUGGESTIVE

sorry for my disappearance, executive dysfunction, the day this will be posted (valentines duh) i’ll be flying out to spend two days with my partner 💜 im so excited to see them i love them so much hehehe, anyways same idea as christmas one what do the phighters do to celebrate valentine’s with you?

Sword:

- I picture him as someone who doesn’t go quite all out he still wants to do something nice for you. He’d get you a bouquet of whatever your favorite flowers are and in your favorite color too (if they grow in that color). If they’re roses he definitely cut his finger on them, he’s a little stupid but you love him. While not insanely fancy or expensive he takes you out for dinner as well, he didn’t consider making a reservation so hopefully wherever he planned has room. He gets you a super cheesy card but writes a super sweet message in it which makes up for an eye-rollingly cheesy card.

- He might wanna but he honestly doesn’t care either way, if you want to he’s absolutely down, if not he’s not going to be sad. So it’s your call.

Skateboard:

- He forgets about Valentine’s until like, the day of or before if you’re lucky. So you either get a very hastily bought gift of some chocolates, or him lying that he’s waiting till after to get the discount chocolates. You see through him but laugh and go along with it. To make it up to you he says whatever you wanna do for a date he’s down, as long as it’s not too too expensive.

- Bro is taking you to pound town. Or if you’d rather take him to pound town he’s okay with that too. Those were his exact words, while he didn’t/doesn’t do anything extravagant for Valentine’s he is definitely down for some Valentine’s sex. It’s nothing specifically Valentine’s exclusive but he does want to do it for the literal holiday of love.

Biograft:

- Similarly to Christmas he has the dictionary definition of the holiday but it doesn’t know much outside of that. But similarly to everything else he would love you to explain the tradition to him more, especially in your own words and opinions. Since it doesnt really grasp the concept of gift giving you don’t have to give him anything and it might not get your anything, obviously if you wanna give him something he’s not going to say no. And if you tell it that you want something special he’ll get it for you.

- Apologies I don’t do NSFW Biograft stuff.

Katana:

- He would unironically call it a corporate holiday, he’s that kinda guy. He is absolutely not against celebrating it he just doesn’t understand why such a big deal is made out of this day in particular, especially since in his words ‘I love you everyday why do I have to show it to you today specifically?’ If you want to celebrate it he’ll get you something small, and take you out on a date, somewhere secluded though since he doesn’t want to deal with the big crowds of Valentine’s day.

- He doesn’t care either way, it’s up to you honestly, since he doesn’t care much for Valentine’s it’s not anything he specifically wants to do. He will though he has no problem with it.

Ban Hammer:

- Gets you the most big obnoxious gift possible, especially just to embarrass you. Like big ass teddy bear and a big bouquet. He’s a dork but he’s your dork. Unfortunately he probably has to work for some amount of time because criminals don’t care that it’s Valentine’s so oh well you suppose. To make it up to you he takes you out to a really really nice restaurant, no reservations, he’ll just use his power of being the warden to get them to give you two a table. And dinners on him get whatever you want, he’s got the bux for it.

- Oh absolutely, he could barely contain himself during dinner, while nothing unique about it he just wants to since it’s Valentine’s and he wants to ‘show his love for you’ (like he hasn’t already.)

Rocket:

- He gets you something obnoxious as well, big stuffed animal but not specifically a Valentine’s themed stuffed animal just a big one, maybe a shark or axolotl, who knows. You spend the day together at his place, lounging around, watching shows, making meals together, even if he’s a hazard to any kitchen he enters. It’s sweet and he’s very cuddly and clingy, more so than usual. Might get you a card, if anything it’s homemade and actually really nice, he hates saying sappy stuff but he can put up with writing it down.

- You’re at his place all day, probably spending the night. What do you think? 100% dude, it doesn’t even have to be exclusively at night or even in the evening, you’re there all day he might wanna when you’re both just chilling on the couch watching TV.

Slingshot:

- One of the busiest days possible for his cafe, so you probably won’t be able to see him that day, you celebrate on a neighboring day. He bakes you a pastry you really like specifically customized to be Valentine’s themed, hearts and pink and red type of thing. Gives them to you in a heart shaped box to top it all off. As for what you do when you do celebrate I think he’d take you on a picnic, makes all the food, especially homemade bread to make sandwiches with and obviously pastries galore. Somewhere sunny and green.

- Yeah, he wants to say I love you in as many ways as possible, one of those being making love to you. He might make a special pastry to get you both in the mood if you catch my drift, he tells you about it though it’s nothing you don’t know about.

Hyperlaser:

- He’s got work basically everyday, that includes Valentine’s day. He also doesn’t see much of a point to it, he thinks it’s over the top and pointless. He’s alright if you want to do something but he doesn’t really want to, and doesn’t plan anything, and unless you specifically ask he doesn’t get you something. He’s not that much of the romantic type, like a at all. Sorry you knew what you were in for when dating him.

- Doesn’t particularly want to, he’s not a low libido so it’s only if you really want to. It’s not that he doesn’t want to specifically he just doesn’t have much desire to.

Shuriken:

- Again one of the busiest days for the cafe, he doesn’t have much of a chance to see you. So similarly to Slingshot he instead ops to celebrate on a different day. He doesn’t really care what you do as long as you spend the day together, and he has some way to show off, he’s a bit dumb but he wants to impress you as much as possible. Gets you something Slingshot baked, probably pesters him into making you something specific.

- Again only if you want to, he could but he’s not specifically wanting to. Not to say he’s against it but after work tires him out he doesn’t have that much energy to get freaky with.

Scythe:

- She is going to make it a day to remember that’s for sure. Robs the nicest bar she can find for the nicest alcohol one can steal. Takes you on a fancy ass date, probably held the place at gun point to get in without reservations but it’s Scythe what else do you expect from her? Gets you an expensive gift to top it off, she’s got expensive tastes what can she say? Also don’t worry if you can’t get her something, she is absolutely alright being gifted something else.

- Once you get home from the dinner there is fucking rose petals making a trail to the bedroom, and oh my gods if she’s rough or intense normally crank that up to fucking 13. Bed is covered in rose petals but there’s only a 60% chance you make it to the bed before she fucking jumps you. Again if you didn’t get her anything she says seeing your blissed out almost passed out face more then makes up for it, it was the part she was most looking forwards to. Hope you didn’t have plans for the day after, she is not holding anything back.

Medkit:

- On the complete opposite side of the coin he makes no big deal out of it. While he doesn’t do nothing per se it’s nowhere near fancy or extravagant. Scythe might make him work too, so he’ll probably just take you out for a nice-ish dinner. Gets you something small but meaningful, no card or flowers, he writes enough for the cult- I mean church, and he thinks flowers as a gift is pointless, they wilt and die rather quickly so why bother?

- He’s tired but if anything does any up happening it’s very slow and sensual, he normally is but he wants it to be especially so for the day of love. It’s definitely making love rather than just having sex and definitely not pure fucking.

Boombox:

- Bro 100% writes you a personalized love song, he probably doesn’t even release it it’s for you and you only, not for anyone else. He also gets you your favorite candy, a big bag of it.

(sorry these are probably getting shorter ive been up since 5:30 for my flight. i’m about to pass the fuck out)

- Yeah, he wants to for sure. Probably does something cheesy with it though, rose in his teeth on the bed, he then bursts out laughing and ruins any mood he was trying to set. But oh well you still do it and it’s nice. He’s always pretty sweet in bed and especially so with it being Valentine’s.

Subspace:

- Doesn’t have the day off since holidays aren’t big in Blackrock, but he’ll do stuff before and after he leaves. He orders takeout from your favorite breakfast place to have together before he leaves. When he gets back he gives you your gift, what does he get you? Sorry no clue again i’m about to pass out. Oh well it’s nice and nothing obnoxious or something you’ll never use, it’s practical but nice and sweet.

- Probably, as long as it’s not a bad pain day for his rot, if it is he’s huffy and puffy because he wants to have sex but his condition is getting in the way. Just kiss him repeatedly and he’ll melt and will stop complaining. If you do though he will be more intense with it then usual, not that hes normally gentle by any means, but he was probably pent up during work thinking about it so he’s basically pouncing on you as soon as he returns home, whenever that is.

Vinestaff:

- Once again, cafe is busy as hell so you’ll celebrate on a different day. She gets you a vase of beautiful flowers she grew herself, she grew and cared for them for weeks in preparation, taking even better care of them than usual. And that’s saying something considering it’s Vinestaff. You go out for brunch somewhere not fancy but definitely nice and maybe a tad pricey but it’s alright. Also she gives you, so so, many kisses all day, you’re going to be scrubbing off lipstick for like 5 minutes straight. Not that you’re complaining.

- I sound like a broken record but if you want to she’s absolutely down, but isn’t specifically looking forward to it, she could take it or leave it.

Coil:

- Gifts you something really nice he stole from a Blackrock noble, and a thing of assorted chocolates. He’s more boastful then usual but you know it’s because he loves you and wants compliments from you in return, he absolutely compliments you as well don’t get it confused, he just is also being more self complimentary then normal. Definitely doesn’t do a card, loving words are not his forte but oh well.

- Oh without a doubt you’re fucking on Valentine’s. Doesn’t even have to be at night he’s raring to go anywhere you happen to be, and do not expect him to be sweet and gentle during it, he is the hellhound he’s going at it like an animal. But he’s super sweet and caring afterwards don’t worry.

im so fucking tired i’m going to post this and then hopefully pass out, i also kinda need to pee but the seatbelt sign is on </3 , anyways happy valentine’s everyone have a great day and hope you enjoyed!

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fantastic-nonsense · 5 months ago

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As a Wonder Woman fan, what's your exact opinion of Yara Flor? I see she's been received quite negatively in some parts of the internet (namely South American portions).

This ask is making me once again think about how every single piece of Yara Flor concept art is god-tier and the concept of introducing "an Amazon from the Amazon" was absolutely galaxy-brained and then DC just RUINED it by making her an adult from Idaho and doing absolutely nothing with her supposedly indigenous Brazilian mythological roots.

I'm actually super angry about how Yara was handled. Yara was the first new major Wonderfam character in 20+ years, had a ton of hype and reader buy-in, and had a fantastic initial concept; she was a desperately needed new legacy character and DC just fumbled it in every way possible. Yara could have been a vital addition to the lore, especially since the core Wonderfam is so heavily white and we've needed a new Wonder Girl for ages. But instead of creating that added dimension, we got......that.

I just...there was SO MUCH MOMENTUM AND EXCITEMENT for her, and then she absolutely bombed because no one at DC sat down and planned out who she was or what her story was going to be, then gave her introduction solo to a woman whose lack of research and care is offensively tacky at best and outright racist at worst. Joelle Jones' awful writing for Yara's initial solo combined with the bait-and-switch of introducing her not as an indigenous teenage girl from Brazil (as advertised) but as an adult woman from Idaho completely torpedoed Yara's hype and sustainability as a character.

Jones failed to define who Yara is, what she cares about, and why she matters to the rest of the Wonderfam despite having 12 issues and an event comic to do so. She also didn't do the research and DC refused to put someone on the book who would or had lived experience, and it shows. Yara's backstory was bungled horrendously, her lore is offensive, convoluted, and contradictory to the already established Amazonian lore, and she has no real, lasting connection to either the Themyscirans or the tribe she supposedly hails from. All of which were huge mistakes.

The Esquecidas (the Amazonian splinter tribe Yara is theoretically from) have successfully been integrated into the larger Amazonian mythos (thankfully), but Yara herself is just kinda there because she's effectively a dead character. There's nowhere for her to go since her introduction was fumbled so badly. I'm sure there's a lot of scrapped plans sitting around at DC while someone tries to figure out how to make her into a workable character, but at the moment she's basically unsalvagable as-is and needs a bottom-up revamp.

tl;dr most people, including me, like the concept of Yara. We like the execution a lot less, for a variety of reasons (mostly racism and cultural ignorance issues, but also narrative incoherence and a lot of missed opportunities). She's technically fixable, but she's fundamentally not sustainable as she's been built thus far.

anyway, forever thinking about the sheer wasted potential of not introducing Mainverse!Yara as a young teenager so she could actually reasonably be titled "Wonder Girl," be in Jon and Damian's age group to give her a natural group of friends, and have a natural narrative path forward for her stories

#it's been 4 years and I still can't believe DC has Rafael Albuquerque on speed dial and didn't put him on Yara's solo #asks #dc comics #yara flor #wonder girl #wonder woman #wonderfam #dc fanwank #joelle jones #this is a joelle jones hate blog

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xamag-draws · 1 year ago

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BBR thoughts 2024

Since I mentioned that I finally dusted off an old project of mine and was ruminating on how I'd remake it, I thought I'd elaborate a little, now that I've solidified some concepts. For funsies

This is gonna be a bit of a long and unfocused one, but I don't share my personal thoughts here often, especially the stuff about my projects I always marinate in. And for once it's something that people have existing context for, so hey why not

So for anyone who hasn't been following me for a gajillion years, The Black Brick Road of OZ was a webcomic that I posted around 2013-2015, back when I was in highschool going on college (which is kinda crazy to think about). It was sort of a darker twist on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, although I definitely leaned a lot more into dark humor more than anything in those first few chapters

I don't think it's available to read anywhere anymore, and I know people have been asking me about it. So here's the full proper archive of BBR, as full as it can be with deceased Flash

I totally used it as an excuse to shamelessly and self-indulgently experiment. It had interactive pages and GIFs and was wayyy too overproduced for what I could handle or what was necessary, but I did have great fun making it while it lasted

Unfortunately, that excess and the fact that I've changed too much as a person by the time I was in college is what ultimately killed it. The direction I wanted to go in was practically unrecognizable from the original idea started back in 2011, so there were many old hold-ups that I felt ruined it

At the time I kinda wished I could start/rewrite it all over, but considering that I pretty much had the entire script done at that point, it felt like a pointless sisyphean task. So I just put it on a shelf and didn't look back for about 8 years, because I didn't know what else to do

Now to be fair, the nature of my art has always been iterative and cyclical; when I feel like my creative juices have run dry I prefer to leave a project to marinate and move on to something else; cycle through other old things and bring in new skills and perspectives into the mix when I'm ready again. Not very productive, but it is what makes me happy to work on my OCs; I'm doomed to hit a wall with them eventually and I need some time to be able to find a new direction

So that said, I'm glad that BBR was left to marinate for that long. I don't think I was prepared, emotionally or intellectually, to tackle it again until now. The Wizard of Oz book (and the entire series of them, really) has always been near and dear to my heart, but there's a lot of context around it that I'm only unpacking now that I'm older

I think I always inherently feel negatively about the stuff I've made in the past, like its faults always jump out to me more than the positives, especially the more time passes. I've never liked that, and I do really appreciate the kind things people have to say about BBR to this day. The fact that it still can be recognized and remembered is very sweet

When I left it, I already found it "kinda cringe", and that feeling only deepened with years. When I took my first look back at it, asking the question "how would I rewrite it now?", at first I took a very cynical approach, as in "everything would have to be torn down"

But the more I sat on it, the more I found that I still see some merit and charm in the ideas I was putting out; I just didn't know how to execute them at the time (not to pretend that I know what I'm doing now, but I certainly know more at least). Turns out a lot of my old concepts could be changed substantially with just a few small tweaks. So I'd say that's a nicer way to think about my previous work

If you haven't seen yet, I posted a first draft of my new designs for some of the characters (the main group, the Goods and the Wickeds). Definitely subject to change, but more or less how I see them now

I'm just playing with these concepts; by no means would I attempt to remake BBR right this moment. Call it a pipe dream among my other ones. But just for fun, this is the direction I'd like to take:

Nowadays I'd probably make it a visual novel, with more emphasis on the visual part than the novel because I'm no English prose writer by any means. It'd still let me play a little with the interactivity while helping cut some corners on the drawing part (only some, I imagine I'd go hog wild anyway)

I've always intended for some events inspired by the sequel books to take place in BBR's past. Stuff like Jinjur's revolt or Ozma's rule preceeds the main events here. So I think it would be fun to follow the past of a few key characters alongside the main story. One chapter focusing on the present quest to see the Wizard, then one focusing on the past events (that are maybe reflective thematically); rinse and repeat

I'm also sticking a little closer to the original text in some regards. Not everything that I enjoy from the books would be translated here, it's still just a very loose fantasy on the material; but I'd like to be closer in spirit at least

I like mature, wise and powerful Glinda, I like kind and vulnerable Tin Man, I like the Wizard being a pathetic yet loveable liar, so I'm sprinkling in more of that for example

I'd like to keep some whimsy, but make it more grounded and a bit more serious to be coherent in tone. I think the original TWWOOZ book was a more realistic fantasy in some ways, even for the standards of the time; I like its simple but vivid tactile descriptions and details like bringing attention that Dorothy needed to eat and sleep

I find it funny that Baum specifically was averse to making his books scary or unpleasant, finding that unnecessary for telling a compelling kids story, but they still can get pretty dark and disturbing, at least for our modern sensibilities. Let's just say that I intend to use the Evoldo and Chopfyt storylines for my purposes. In that way, I feel like a "darker" Wizard of Oz retelling can still mostly be tonally in line with the original and balance it with enough heart and occasional humor

I slowly grew to appreciate the quaint old-timey quality of the original series, as well. The first book is both timeless and very much a product of the 1900s. Originally I tried to give it a little modern or at least anachronistic spin, but it was moreso because it's what I knew best, so these days I'd rather intentionally lean into the time period. Still not fully historically accurate by any means, but at least directly acknowledging the influence

The events of the story span across 40 years of these characters' lives, so I'm drawing inspiration from the entire so-called La Belle Epoque: the time period around 1880s-1920s. Basically I'm cooking, and my soup is old Victorian fashion morphing into Edwardian fashion and slowly inching towards flappers

Some new Dolly outfits

Lots of crazy things, political changes and innovations were happening at the turn of the century, which I think is noted and reflected by Baum in the books as well; the character of Tik-Tok might not blow any minds now, but he was one of the first robot characters in literature at that point; and don't even get me started on Jinjur, etc. Plenty of really interesting stuff one could lightly ponder in an Oz adaptation these days

Aesthetically, art nouveau has always been a big artistic influence for me, and it'd definitely be its time to shine here. John R. Neill's illustrations of the Oz books often keep me company as well. Nouveau architecture in particular fits that fairytale whimsy extremely well imo

I'd allow myself a little bit of art deco here and there, but ultimately its intimidating geometrical splendor is an antithetical to the flowery nature of nouveau and I associate it with a completely different era. Definitely fitting some characters like my Wicked Witch of the West, but shouldn't be overused

One of my main problems with the original BBR was that eventually I lost track of what it was even about; and the original ending felt too mean and unfulfilling to be worth it. Now I'd like to stick to the theme of home and family as my main theme, but in a different, more bittersweet way than in the book

An interesting connection I made is that a lot of my aforementioned older key characters (the Witches, Jinjur, the Nome King, etc) all came from the same reformatory as kids, that's how they know each other. In my recent research I learned that in those reformatories it was usually frowned upon to release the children back to the families, which were seen as the original corrupting influence regardless of the circumstance. The reformatory did everything in its power to cut that connection and make itself the only family those wayward kids were supposed to know and love. That's an unexpected tie into the theme of home that I'd like to explore as well

So yeah that's the current state of it. I have a bunch of outfit concepts I'm slowly cooking, although I'm now sure whether I'd post them... But I do miss these funny guys, and I'm glad some people still do as well :)

#my art #xam rambles #the black brick road of oz #long post #ohsees tag

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moki-dokie · 5 months ago

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there's been a bit of a Hot Topic going around bsky (and twt too i guess) about why my age group (particularly in the US) doesn't cook at home much anymore

and there's been a whole lot of takes ranging from dogshit to good and intelligent to total confusion from folks in other countries. neat stuff right. decided to throw my 2 cents in from my own perspective as part of the demographic.

the tldr of it being: there are *several* factors that make it not worth it nor cost efficient anymore where it once was. obviously that isn't gonna be the case for everyone, but it is the case for an overwhelming majority, me included. and this isn't even including, you know, a whole population of disabled people who are physically unable to cook for themselves but I sort of figured that was a given. but maybe not, considering...

then this absolute genius comes in

thank you buddy for having no reading comprehension and missing quite literally every single point i made that it isn't strictly about the dollar amount of the meal itself. like. okay??? good for you i guess.

sure, there will be some meals where that is very true. I could make a bigass pot of ham and beans that'll last me a whole week for about $10. hence why i added there will always be some meals cheaper to make at home. but that completely disregards every. other. point.

it is not, and has never been, about the direct cost of the meal itself. that's just one of a handful of reasons that factor into the whole conversation. there are going to be times that eating out will be more expensive price-wise, but when it checks off like 5 different boxes i couldn't fulfill myself for whatever reason, that price balances out. and we really are in an age where we're having to negotiate the worth of every action we take and every minute we spend on something. i don't know why thats such a hard concept for people to grasp.

legit nobody is arguing it *should* be this way. it shouldn't. we all recognize this. in the ideal world it would be both worth it and affordable to make every meal at home and leave eating out for special occasions, as was the case when i was growing up. and i totally get it that our parents, many of whom raised us by their lonesome, managed to do it fine so in theory we should be able to as well. sometimes, yeah, it really is a matter of sucking it up and doing it no matter how exhausted you might be. that's true for all facets of life tbh. but it shouldn't be that way all the time every time.

and, i don't know about the rest of you, but for us? it really was a whole fucking To Do to clip coupons and plan Shopping Day. I'd spend a couple hours clipping from a few different newspapers and the mail fliers we collected. then we organized them by store. then mom would plan out which stores we would go to for which items,the route we'd take since sometimes it meant going outside of town, the timeframe for everything since it was typically an all-day event. like, a whole day of planning and a whole day of executing JUST to grocery shop, and that was back in the 90s/00s. Inconvenient, yes, but still actually worth the trouble. couponing saved SO much money back then, especially if you knew the stores that would double them. coupons like those don't exist anymore. period. now the ones that do are like, pennies off or bogo deals and otherwise it's app this and app that for any sort of savings - which even then might only be like a meager 10% off the purchase. in no way is it worth my time and effort today to do the same thing we did when i was young.

anyway. so yeah. for a hell of a lot of us, sometimes going out to eat or ordering in is in fact the most worthwhile way, and sometimes even the most cost efficient way, to feed ourselves anymore.

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aliteralplant · 10 days ago

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𝕊𝕠𝕝 𝕩 𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕖𝕥 𝔸𝕣𝕥𝕚𝕤𝕥! ℝ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕖𝕣 (𝔾ℕ)

Ok, lemme just put a quick AN here.

it has been a VERY long time since i have written fan fiction. i mean, like 2020 long time. HALF A DECADEEEEEE. I may be rusty lol.

anyway, ive had this idea in my head for a while now. I mean, hes an art major, it makes sense for a street artist to be an art major, and street art tends to be found in some pretty abandoned, unsafe areas. cool concept, now lets see if i can execute it right.

Word count: 1,679

█▓▒▒░░░-------------------░░░▒▒▓█

It was quiet in your room. As well as it was outside, hell, even those noisy neighbors on the other side of the wall were passed out asleep. But not you. You had plans. The plans in question? A little vandalism, that's all. People have grown allergic to whimsy, to fun, to color. The buildings of your city are plain. White, brick, grey, boring.

You scroll through your phone, waiting for the clock to hit 1:00AM. Unfortunately, this godforsaken city had gotten tight on artists like you. They had to "maintain appearances", or at least that's what the police officer said last time you were caught. "No more second chances" he said. You didn't want to test that.

Your phone buzzes. It's go time ho. You mumble to yourself, cursing past you for being such a meanie. You're already wearing the clothes you need; black jeans, a dark grey hoodie with some band on the back, and your favorite face mask, with filters of course. You grab your backpack, wincing at the weight of it. It's filled with spray paint cans in every color an artist would need, and then some.

Looking at yourself in the mirror, all you can think is "I look like I'm about to rob some bank." But you know better. You know the spot, what time to be there, what time to leave. But what to paint? You step towards your window, hoping that maybe a look at the not-so-great outdoors will inspire you. As you reach closer towards the cold glass surface, panicked shuffling forces you to stop. You freeze. Looking closer, you see that your window is.. open? How long has it been open? You don't remember opening it. Infact, you had to close it this morning.

"Maybe I just didn't close it all the way..."

You go to close the window. You're shaken, but not deterred. Hell, if someone snuck into your apartment, then its a great idea to leave! You gather your items once more and head out the door, double checking you locked it.

Its cold outside tonight. But not in an uncomfortable way. The air is crisp and refreshing. It reminds you of home, in a way. The quiet calm air accompanied by crickets and dreams. But there are no dreams here. This city is dead. In spirit and in art. There is another difference of the atmosphere in the city though. Especially tonight.

You feel eyes on you. Piercing into your very soul. You look around, but no one is there. "I'm just paranoid, I'm just paranoid, it's just the adrenaline," You say, as if repeating something makes it true. Sure, you're about to break the law, but this isn't new for you. This anxious feeling is. It's abnormal, you haven't felt this way since the first time you blessed a wall. You try to shake it off, its just nerves, its fine. Suddenly, you're where you need to be. An abandoned warehouse, boarded up and most importantly, empty. A blank canvas, if you will.

But how to get in?

You walk along the side of the building, hoping to find a broken window or a busted door. They forced the ladders up. You curse. You've planned this for too damn long to give up now. You circle the building again. Big mistake, its huge. Your legs are tired from walking. Your shoulders are tired from carrying that heavy backpack. You. Are tired. You decide to walk around the opposite side of the building once more, maybe you missed something. Maybe you'll get lucky. Maybe.

You make your way over, dragging your feet as you walk. And you are glad you did. A ladder that was previously locked up way above you now touches the ground. How did you miss that? You thought you were thorough. But you don't care. You shoot up the ladder before any unsuspecting passerby can see you. You're in.

Looking at the open space in front of you, all you see is potential. Beautiful untouched slabs on concrete surround you. Clearly, no one has been here in a long time. Oddly, there is no artwork around you though. This is a street artist's paradise? Where is the street art?

It doesn't matter, you're going to fix that. You drop your backpack, pulling out all of your paint and sorting them by color. You look at your canvas, realizing yet again you don't know what to paint.

Thunk.

"HOLY SHIT!" You shout, whipping your head around. You see someone, a man, a tall man, with a large bag would sit on his shoulder, if he hadn't have dropped it.

It's Sol. Thank god it's just Sol.

"Shit, you scared me." He steps toward you, shocked expression on his face. "Uhm, YOU scared ME. Who just goes to abandoned buildings slamming their stuff around?"

"I could ask that to you."

"Does my stuff look slammed around to you?" You spat, still shaken.

And then you realize, why is he here? How did he know about this place? It's pretty desolate and not well known. That's why he chose it. So you ask, "Why are you here?"

"To paint, obviously. And based on all those cans around you, you're here to do the same thing."

Snarky bitch. He was always like that, even in class he just always had something to say. You don't respond and turn around, facing your "canvas" once more. He walks up to you.

"So, what are you going to paint?"

It's a good question. You still don't know. So you ask..

"What should I?"

He hums, clearly brainstorming. If he's going to be here he can at least help you. You turn to look at him. The windows are not boarded on this floor, letting the moonlight seep through the broken panes of glass that were once windows. It hits his face, showering him in a soft white light. It brings light to his face, almost caressing it. He looks ethereal. His hair is down, a sight you haven't seen before. It's messy, but not in a "God, when was the last time he brushed his hair" way. It frames his face perfectly, the green streaks shining in the dim moonlight.

You take in his his outfit. He's dressed similarly to you, but his hoodie is much more lame and his facemask is pulled down. You pull yours down too. The filters it has aren't much use right now. If you're not painting there isn't much need to wear it.

"You're staring."

"No, I'm waiting on you. Hurry up."

He scoffs, feigning hurt. Putting a hand to his chest, he looks at you, putting on an over the top dramatic face. "You can't rush the process! For shame!"

You roll your eyes.

And then he speaks "I have an idea anyway. You like flowers, right?"

"Who doesn't?" You say. But the more you think about it, the more you realize he's right. Hell, you were talking to Crowe about flowers just today. Or that would be yesterday now, considering its 3:35 in the damn morning. Good thing you've nothing to do tomorrow.

"True," he says, hanging onto the word. "I have an idea. What if we made some flowers as planets in a solar system?"

Holy shit that's a good idea.

"I think I'll take you up on that actually, that's a good idea."

And so you do. You paint. Your beautiful blank canvas begins to take life. Hydrangeas, roses, and orchids flow over the once blank wall. Sol takes four "planets", you take the other four.

"But what about pluto?" You ask, wondering about the forgotten dwarf.

"Pluto isn't a planet."

"Well that's not it's fault! We should add it!"

"It still isn't a planet. Do you really feel like adding every dwarf in the solar system?" He says. sarcastically.

" Well pluto is special, it was a planet once.."

"Yeah, once. Not anymore. No pluto."

"Fine.... Anyway, what are we going to make the sun?" you ask. Neither of you have thought of that. All these planetary flowers have nothing to orbit. A few ideas rattle around your head. Another flower. A vase, with the stems of the "planets" sitting inside. The actual sun. And then it hits you.

"An eye." "What about an eye?"

You both said the same thing. Great minds think alike no doubt.

"Well, it's settled then." He says, a dumb smirk on his face.

"But who's going to make it?"

A good question. Apparently, you two have very similar processes, working your way from the inside out. You now stand right next to him, looking up at the painting. You walk towards your once neat pile of paint, now scattered. You toss him a can, saying "Lets to it together!", flashing him a smile. If it wasn't so dark, you could've seem the blush creep onto his face.

With the two of you working on it together, it takes no time at all. Your work is finished. A once blank wall, covered in beautifully placed paint, stares at you. "It's beautiful.", you mutter.

"Just like you."

"What?"

"Nothing."

You look at him suspiciously, but notice something. The lighting on his pretty face has changed. You look towards the broken window. The sun is rising. You look at the time.

"5:43 AM..."

"Is it really that late?"

You panic, "It's really that early! We need to leave before we're stuck here until it's dark again."

Sol agrees. He climbs back down the ladder first, catching you when you slip on the last bar. He calls you clumsy, you call him a dick. He walks you out of the alleyway, and asks:

"So, there's much more wall to cover. Same time next week?"

"Sure, but you're buying the paint this time."

"Fine by me. Seeya at class."

He walks off waving a hand at you as he turns around. You head the opposite direction practically sprinting down the street. You feel the same set of piercing eyes that watched you earlier again. However, this time you are not anxious. You're too busy brainstorming ideas for the next time you meet. You make it back to your apartment, nearly breaking your bed with the force you slam onto it. Before you pass out, you look at your window. Its closed.

Your final thought before your much needed sleep?

"I thought I locked that window..."

#tkatb #tkatb sol #tkatb solivan #the kid at the back sol #solivan brugmansia #tkatb x reader #solivan x reader #solivan brugmansia x reader

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angstyhikka · 2 months ago

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Critical review on Carved and Modeled - Wittebane collaborative album - The Owl House by @a-magpie-in-gravesfield

On the day of the premiere, the four horsemen of the apocalypse (that’s me, @lasymit, @tuumcleander and @levshany) sat down with jokes and banter to watch the hour-long musical album. The project is impressively high-quality for fandom work, and the sheer amount of effort put into it commands respect. There were a few songs we especially liked, which deserve special mention.

A Dark Beginning, depicting the execution of Caleb and Philip’s parents, was dark and atmospheric—the music perfectly matched the tone of the narrative.

Witch Hunters, a song about hypocrisy, nailed the emotional weight, particularly the lines about how their parents “lost the game” they’re now forced to play.

I Can Be Your Friend! was also great—it perfectly captured the character’s energy and was dynamic as hell. The concept of Philip meeting the Collector in the in-between realm when he first crosses worlds is genuinely interesting. Too bad their relationship isn’t explored further.

Curse is absolutely magnificent—from the voice acting to the body horror atmosphere, it’s our favorite track.

Disclaimer

First off, we deeply respect Magpie for their dedication, enthusiasm, and the high-quality merch—clearly the result of painstaking work, with carefully chosen materials and lovingly crafted designs. We also appreciate their attentiveness to every customer and the monumental effort poured into this project!

What follows is serious criticism and our raw reactions. If you’re part of the project, loved the album, and are sensitive to critique, please stop reading here. Otherwise, we’re open to discussion—just keep it civil. We’ve done our best to make this critique constructive and not hurtful (we kept some cursing and CAPS for humor, because otherwise it would be a boring long read). Our goal isn’t to offend but to voice our perspective.

We disagree with Magpie’s interpretation and feel it’s important to say so, especially since this project is massive, gaining traction fast, and some fans are calling it "100% canon" and "better than canon". The fandom’s response has been overwhelmingly positive, likely because this is one of the biggest fan projects of its kind, made with contributions from so many people. Philip’s fans are proud that our fandom can produce something this ambitious.

But in our view, much of this fan-made story contradicts canon or works worse than the original series. Below, we’ll break it down.

Analysis

A Dark Beginning – Tragedy for tragedy’s sake. The music nails the vibe, but the uncle character could’ve been anyone—this song exists solely to hang Caleb and Philip’s parents. This plot point only matters until the second song and then vanishes.

Witch Hunters – The song itself works well as a follow-up to the previous track’s buildup. But despite expectations, the brothers’ conflict with society’s beliefs goes nowhere. Caleb briefly mentions being tired of pretending to be a witch hunter, then it’s dropped. This tension could’ve resurfaced when Philip decides to kill all the witches, but his motivation there is shaky too.

Daydreaming – Caleb dreams of a better life. But it’s unclear what’s weighing him down—everything around him looks rosy, romantic, and peaceful. The lyrics spell out his struggles, but visually, he’s just chilling and daydreaming. We don’t feel his pain.

Distance – Caleb tells Evelyn he wants to leave Philip behind… but also loves him. Why not just take the kid with them? Philip, a literal child with no malice or grudge against Evelyn, watches them sadly from afar. What’s the conflict here?

Struggling Light, Only For A Few Days – No real motivation or tension in Caleb’s decision to abandon Philip. Author tries to parallel Caleb and Luz, but it doesn’t work—Philip is a minor, and Caleb is almost an adult responsible for him. Again, why couldn’t they take Philip with them? Even if Caleb’s tired of parenting, we don’t see any emotional breakdown—just whining. Evelyn supports Caleb but doesn’t push back. She’s just… there.

They could’ve had her egg him on, making Philip resent them both, leading Caleb to make a rash, impulsive choice to leave without Philip. Or shown Caleb blaming Philip for all his problems. But none of that happens, so his motivation falls flat.

The Other Side – Caleb feels zero guilt, which is infuriating. He writes letters he never sends and even smiles while doing it! There’s no explanation for why he can’t return. Maybe the portal couldn’t reopen? Not a word about that. It feels less like he’s chasing a dream and more like he’s just oblivious, acting like a selfish ass with no self-awareness.

Were They Right? – Philip’s suffering again, somehow blaming himself. He’s not allowed to show negative traits. Where’s the betrayal brewing if he never saw the note? Why doesn’t he blame Evelyn? He and Caleb don’t even have one conversation in the whole album—not even before their fight.

Now Philip starts believing the witch hunters were right, that Caleb was enchanted… but nothing leads him to this. He just changes his mind over time. No trigger.

If Philip already thinks Caleb was enchanted, why doesn’t he act on it when they meet? Why not grab him and run? Instead, he kills him. Seems like he realizes Caleb wasn’t enchanted after all but keeps lying to himself. Except the lie’s so weak it doesn’t even convince him, so his real resentment spills out, and he kills Caleb. So is the delusion there or not? If it is, why doesn’t it work? If not, why include it?

If he believes in the enchantment, why not attack Evelyn, the supposed enchanter? If he’s just comforting himself, he could’ve picked a better lie. Why even chase Caleb if he doesn’t believe he was taken by force? Why is he so easily swayed that he kills Caleb on sight?

Cover Up – Over a piece of paper, they’re ready to burn him without trial. The story desperately lacks the systemic oppression that would’ve shaped Philip into who he is. The villagers’ vengeance feels half-baked, but at least the momentum’s engaging.

Finally, we get Philip’s motivation to find his brother.

I Can Be Your Friend! – A high-energy, dynamic song that perfectly fits the Collector’s vibe. Nothing concrete happens—it’s just Philip and the Collector vibing in the in-between. Fun stuff. Too bad the Collector disappears afterward.

Where Is Home? – The first murder feels unearned, and Philip has zero reaction. The description calls it an accident—let it be so—but killing someone point-blank over apples? Really?

WHERE DID THAT DOOR COME FROM SO FAST? WHAT DID HE MAKE IT FROM? DID HE JUST FIND A PORTAL IN THE BUSHES?

Has He Forgotten? – Cavelyn ex machina, resentment with no setup. Philip’s moping again. Earlier, he thought "maybe he was enchanted," now he’s suddenly certain it’s magic and leans into the delusion. The lyrics are too on-the-nose, the tone clashes with the visuals, and the pacing’s off. His motivation needed time to develop—this is a pivotal moment, but it’s rushed.

It feels like Philip just pulls out a knife out of nowhere. The song seems to frame it as a crime of passion, but he’s eerily calm when making the decision. Psychopathy fits Philip, but you can’t have it both ways—here he’s cold and calculating, in the next song he’s rage-fueled and impulsive. Which is it?

Murder – Caleb’s "I’ll always be there for you" rings hollow when he never even tried to return. This ties back to Caleb’s weak motivation—he’s completely oblivious to the consequences of his actions. Screw the note! He should’ve known it wouldn’t explain or justify anything, even if Philip read it.

We can’t tell who Philip’s attacking—Evelyn’s not in frame. If it’s Caleb, WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING WITH HIS BACK TURNED? Why stab him? Is he angry? Trying to "break the spell"? Maybe the "spell" is a metaphor for his (unshown) resentment.

How did he spiral like this? No buildup except one mention in Were They Right?. Philip seemed to want Caleb back, but then he kills him because… he’s mad? Hurt? A fucking idiot? Does he genuinely believe Caleb was enchanted? The framing’s so vague we’re not even sure if we missed hints or if they just weren’t there.

WHERE THE FUCK WAS EVELYN THIS WHOLE TIME?

The lyrics say "SOUL IS TORN APART," but Philip’s face is stone-cold, like everything’s going according to plan. Delusions need REASONS, CONFLICT—they don’t just pop up. The emotional core is missing. Instead, we get "depression in my mind, misery in my behind", with none of the doubt that should be there after KILLING THE PERSON HE LOVED MOST.

The Door – Why doesn’t Evelyn, knowing where Philip is, try to kill him? Why is HE so calm, thinking logically AFTER MURDERING CALEB—the most traumatic event of his life? WHERE’S THE BREAKDOWN? THE SHOCK? THE DESPAIR? This should’ve shattered him—horror, tilt, depression. He should’ve cycled through grief and gotten stuck on denial, fueling his future canon actions.

This needed its own song because the dissonance between event and reaction is jarring. You could argue psychopathy, but even psychopaths aren’t usually this detached. Even for them, core motivation has to come from somewhere emotional.

There’s so much fanart of Philip losing his mind digging up Caleb’s body, but here he’s just… lonely. Sticking to canon here undermines Philip’s motivation, especially for his future arc. It’s flat. Pathetic. Frustrating.

The audience can’t connect Philip’s emotions to his choices because the initial conflict was undercooked. Now the story doesn’t work. Caleb’s role in Philip’s life feels interchangeable—it could’ve been anyone. This breaks the Grimwalkers’ concept—if he just needed someone, why not make it literally anyone else?

Why does he want to kill all witches? Over Caleb? But he seems to give zero shits about Caleb to dedicate 300 years to this crusade.

Canon Hollow Mind pictures don’t fit the narrative and feel illogical. If you’re using them as a foundation, the story should’ve been different.

What Now? – Evelyn leaves him in her world… WHY??? So he can genocide her people? "Let’s lock the maniac who murdered my child’s father in a room with my entire species"—BRILLIANT plan. Her reasoning—"I won’t let you hurt anyone else"—HOW does hiding the portal stop him, dumbass? Why not execute him publicly?

Philip wants to kill all witches so his people will "forgive" him. How he reached this conclusion is unclear. Is it guilt over Caleb’s death (which we never saw)? Who knows.

Later, he claims he’s "protecting" humanity from witches luring them with magic, like Caleb. COOL. Then why the earlier motivation? Why the contradictions? Is this his delusion or bad storytelling? Since it’s not clear at first glance, it feels like the latter.

He does express doubt—saying he’ll "believe the lie" to avoid pain—which is a great angle, but it’s buried under noise (like Evelyn’s portal door).

And, by the way, why didn’t he kill Evelyn? Their conflict has no resolution. He kills Caleb but ignores her, even though he blames her and all witches for this mess.

He wonders if Caleb was enchanted… but he already killed him over it. This doubt should’ve come before the murder.

So he makes Grimwalkers to "prove" Caleb wouldn’t betray him without magic? And because he’s terrified of forgetting Caleb’s face? But earlier, his motives were different. It’s a mess. Does he want revenge? To "save" Caleb? To protect humanity? Too much for one song—pick a lane.

Grimwalkers – He’s not deluding himself anymore. He knows killing Caleb was wrong. So why keep making Grimwalkers? The song implies he’s addicted, afraid to forget Caleb. But without the delusion, where’s the guilt? Why does he regret killing Caleb but not the Grimwalkers?

Again, Philip’s murders are treated with bizarre indifference—no reason, no emotion, in lyrics or visuals.

This song’s motivation isn’t bad, but it clashes with his inconsistent behavior earlier. The overall message still falters.

CURSE – ABSOLUTELY FLAWLESS. NO JOKE. WE’VE BEEN REPLAYING THIS ON LOOP. Best song in the album. The visuals sync perfectly with the music—his madness is on full display. THIS is Philip. Deranged, obsessed, desperate, agonizing under crushing guilt.

It echoes Transformation from Jekyll & Hyde, taking the best elements we’ve always associated with Philip. The whispering sends chills—his torment crawls under your skin. The vocal delivery masterfully conveys his fractured mind, pulling the audience into the horror. Priceless.

Why does it work? Because it’s a self-contained vibe—no narrative, just atmosphere. And the atmosphere is perfect.

The Titan's Will – Just canon events retold Hollow Mind, with no added depth. This song adds nothing. Cut it, and nothing changes.

Mask Of Gold – The lyrics mention "all the lives that were lost," but no kill besides Caleb’s was justified. Even Caleb’s death felt rushed. Philip rarely seems troubled by any of it—we see hints in CURSE (guilt) and Grimwalkers (doubt).

Which "lives" is he mourning? If it’s Caleb and his own, that’d make sense. But he shows no remorse for anyone else. The tragedy falls flat.

The tone doesn’t match what Philip should feel. The lyrics don’t fit the context.

It’d be more effective to show his melancholy creeping through his imperial routine—how, despite his busyness, intrusive thoughts break through his denial.

What we see—him indulging in sadness—would’ve destroyed him over 400 years. If this happened often, he’d be dead. He survives on hatred and denial, especially before the Day of Unity. He’s too busy to sit around staring at a world he despises.

Conclusion

We need to say why this post exists: It hurts to see Philip treated like this. This character means a lot to us—we’ve spent ages analyzing his motives and psyche. Seeing a project that glosses over both claim canonicity is disheartening.

This was meant to "fix" canon (where everything’s bad), but it fails just as hard by clinging to canon while creating new plotholes.

It ignores historical context that should’ve shaped Philip’s trauma and worldview, flattening his character.

There’s not one scene fully dedicated to his emotional pain—the core of his character. No standout moment focusing on his psychological damage—unlike CURSE, which highlights his physical agony and guilt.

We don’t want this project to become the "definitive" fandom interpretation. Canon left gaps in Philip’s backstory and motives, letting fans theorize and adding depth. But this album’s story leaves no room for interpretation. It offers half-baked "solutions" that raise more questions than they answer.

The attempts to patch canon’s holes clash with character motivations, making them shallow and their actions nonsensical. They’re hard to believe.

To understand their motives, we had to rewatch the album ON MUTE because the songs’ moods often clash with the events, distracting from the story. On first watch, we missed key details—there was no emphasis. We thought there was no improvement over canon. The album wants to tell a story, but its structure gets in the way.

We rewatched it twice and wrote this review to dig deeper. We did find some compelling ideas about Philip’s motivation, but it was as exhausting as dissecting the original show.

Magpie, if you’re reading this, we truly hope this critique doesn’t hurt you. Its goal is to offer constructive feedback on character writing. Whether you take it or leave it is entirely up to you.

Thanks for reading.

#philip wittebane #toh #the owl house belos #caleb wittebane #the owl house #belos #emperor belos #wittebane brothers #wittebane #evelyn clawthorne #critical review #p.s. magpie told us they are okay with this post to exist #this post is for discusson #not for hate #we are totally chill in person #nothing personal just LORE

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jaehaeryshater · 4 months ago

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Ygritte and her daughter Bael Whitewolf

art by: @nautieval

I am so grateful that my oomfie worked on this commission for me. This is literally my fifth Ygritte commission 😭😭😭 at this point I’m her biggest fan. I think that it turned out so beautifully. It’s also the first art I’ve paid for that includes Ygritte’s daughter beyond the fashion sheet Nata made me for the entire House in December. I love Ygritte and I love Bael, I’m so happy to see them together and see Ygritte as a mom. Obviously she has many faults and is a violent person, but at least with small children she canonically does have a soft spot and I think she would have loved being a mother so long as she didn’t have to compromise who she was a person.

This is from my AU where Jon becomes King Beyond The Wall before he abandons the Freefolk. The AU predicates on the theory that the Others will only negotiate with a Stark and that all other attempts to get rid of them will fail (obviously I don’t think this is true canonically but the AU is if it’s true), based on the very first chapter of AGOT where the Others were communicating over Royce, perhaps they were wondering whether he was a Stark, which would mean they should capture him instead of killing him. It actually isn’t all that relevant if it’s true, only if the Freefolk believe it is. Mance wants the best for his people and he wants them to survive, so he passes his metaphorical crown to Jon. That’s when Jon forms House Whitewolf and he marries Ygritte since he decides he will try to negotiate with the Wall instead of going back to them entirely (his need to feel important and needed of his own volition, especially since his brother was also King, is also a factor as to why he stays). Please please please, I am begging you, don’t complain that he’s married to Ygritte instead of Val. This all occurs without the Battle of Castle Black and with who Jon is as a person, the responsibility he feels he owes, and the fact that he believes he is in love with Ygritte, is the reason that in an attempt to maintain as close of a character as he was in the books, he marries her. If you want an AU where he marries Val, I encourage you to make it because it is quite fun to do. Back to the timeline, Bael is born on the march down to the Wall, where Jon is hoping he can get the Freefolk through. They don’t stop for long for her birth, only during Ygritte’s labor, then they continue, as time is of the essence. Bael is Jon’s heir until her brother is born three years later, which is a foreign concept to the Freefolk as they previously did not pass Kingship on that way. But she shares Jon’s blood and should Jon come to pass, she would be their only hope of ever communicating with the Others. She’s also important in the negotiation with the Wall as Alliser tries to coax Jon into giving up all his demands and surrender himself for execution as long as they let Bael and Ygritte through the Wall.

Ygritte is a very good mother and protective of her daughter. She loves her with all her heart, as does Jon, but as Jon is incredibly busy, she does have a special connection with her oldest child. She raises her up like a Freefolk woman and she’s as soft with her as a quencher of the Freefolk could be expected to be. She’s so proud of the human she’s created and that she has fulfilled her ultimate person from the Old Gods. When Jon is off in battle, she serves as a regent in her daughter’s best interest.

I have a whole headcanon post for this AU and House Whitewolf, if anyone is interested. I posted it on either November or December. I cover everything from Bael to the rest of the children, the children’s hobbies that are influenced by indigenous cultures. I talk about where the Freefolk eventually settle as well as what changes Jon makes to their culture and how him being King is different than Kings of the past.

I cannot think @nautieval enough, they honestly got this out really fast for me and didn’t need a lot of references. The art is super pretty, their commissions are open as of now so I of course encourage anyone and everyone to reach out and purchase a commission from them.

#asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #a clash of kings #a storm of swords #acok #asos #ygritte #free folk #oc #oc art #commission

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lustlovehart · 6 months ago

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I know I’ve expressed it before, but I absolutely love this monster au and its Reverse set up too, especially with how the dynamics change! No matter the universe and its setup, MC is surrounded by besotted, dangerous individuals, whether monster or man.

I wonder how this setup would work with Jack, since he and Hunter!MC are coworkers even if separated. Perhaps he met Monster!MC prior to becoming a hunter, spared by them for some reason or another and, after being inspired by Leona too, Jack decided the best way to find Monster!MC again was to learn from the best and track them down.

Love how Malleus is so clearly already obsessed with them even before meeting them and returns frustrated and in love to the point few of his faction even comment on his brooding. Poor guy just wants to woo the beautiful monster he’s been assigned to kill, but he will ignore the orders from Crowley because he acknowledges it’s a stupid order.

And just all the scenarios of the Event dudes too!

Human Fellow quickly going from personal to romantic gain after meeting Monster!MC is so funny, especially when he’s not affiliated with the Hunter organization. He’s probably spared by them for this reasoning:

Monster!MC to Human Fellow: You’re stupid, I like that in a man.

That or the fact he’s accompanied by young Gidel and Monster!MC has some boundaries about killing kids or leaving them orphaned. Either way, they’ve now added a conman to the list of their dogged pursuers.

This is probably just a random idea, but Neige’s blurb for the reverse au makes me wonder if he did meet Monster!MC in another lifetime, only to recall them via his dreams/memories (depending on how old MC is here). Perhaps as a besotted young royal who saw the beauty of the monster long ago, only to die tragically before he could express his love or before they could return it. And perhaps there is a near forgotten law from ages past of some forgotten kingdom, whose destruction is credited to Monster!MC, that Riddle finds that would have pardoned a monster from execution via marriage to someone of high standing.

A law Riddle may keep in his back pocket to justify his obsession while finding a loophole to executing Monster!MC. One that a few others might discover if he’s not careful…

Rollo, Rollo my favorite Catholic guilt menace. You are not immune to hot monsters in your area.

Seriously, love this au and all the fun scenarios fit paints, thank you for the brain rot and creativity!

Jack is such an interesting concept in both Au’s! There’s a certain masked stoicism he gives off, whether he has a tail or not, he gives the vibe of one wagging behind him whenever in your vicinity, even when avoiding eye contact…! When I think of one of Jack and Monster!Mc’s first meetings, I imagine you falling out of a tree again except this time, Jack is there to accidentally catch you (Through push ups. When you fall on him, he stays in perfect push up form. It’s you first sign there’s… definitely something different…) When you don’t attack him despite having him underneath you, his curiosity spikes once more. Leona busts into their lounge complaining about you escaping once again.

Maybe… Jack can prove himself to Leona if he catches you (totally has nothing to do with you though, definitely not.)

He has no idea this will actually backfire on him.

Ahh!! I’m so glad the Malleus idea is appreciated!! It’s actually a parallel to Twst!Mc knowing absolutely nothing about Malleus in their first meeting. Meanwhile, Malleus knows everything about you! He knows your capabilities, your height, your weight, your hand size, but.. He knows nothing about you. His only wish is to know your favorite color, your favorite time of the day, perhaps your favorite… gargoyle? Crowley knows about his ever growing infatuation with you…

He always tries his best to tell Malleus you’re just a heinous murderer… But then he glares at him, and the Foundations all powerful leader, backs away immediately.

Fellow is so silly, he looks at you with dollars signs in his eyes, and then you growl a “Shoo” too him with your face in view, and the money is replaced with heart eyes. And ugh!! You’re so right about Monster!Reader not killing younger humans!! Both Mcs have a semblance of kindness. While Hunter!Reader may have a much much bigger soft spot than Monster!Reader, M!Reader doesn’t like the thought of killing a mortal who hasn’t even had the chance to do anything wrong yet… The hearts in Fellows eyes grow bigger while he schemes about having Gidel expose you’re human empathy much more.

You’re actually right about Neiges whole meeting MC in a different life!! It’s really up to interpretation but my idea with it was more like, Neige remembering Monster Hunter!Reader instead! I was listening to “Birds of A feather” by Billie eilish when I was writing his part and then these lyrics popped up and I was struck with inspiration!!

“I knew you in another life. You had the same look in your eyes…” I like to think, even though Monster!Reader is the reason his comrades are on the verge of dying, for single moment, you and Neige lock eyes. He recognizes the way they soften… A more humanized version tenderly smiling at him as they decorate his wings with pretty paint. Except, he never remembers having bright feathers flailing behind his back. Neige is the only one who experiences this phenomenon. When he brings it up the rest of the Reverse cast, they look at him in confusion for these so called dreams.

I do love the idea of him being a prince though, and forbidden romance!! Maybe while Neige damsel in distress carries you away, he confesses a love he never remembers existing. And then… You’re left wondering… How the hell did the royal from 200 years ago find you again? The one who… Begged you to rule over his kingdom with him?!

Riddle finding loops holes in rules is also yummy?!? He wants to follow rules so bad… Finding loopholes almost feels like breaking them in truth, but then again, many less than legal actions have happened within the other units (Not Heartslaybul though, he’ll never let that happen). Before you know, You wake up painted in red roses, Riddle crouching next to you. The pattern is inconsistent, but that’s not the point…

“One is forbidden from yearning for a clean, unsullied, pure monster.” You shiver with the feeling of red paint dripping down your head. “You’re not clean anymore. You’re dirtied with red.” Your clawed hand reaches to wipe the paint from your face, but calloused hands stop you. “That means it’s not forbidden.”

I like how rather than having four ways to treat you like everyone else (Depending on the Au and its Mc), Rollo only has 2. His attitude depends on soley whether you’re a monster or a human. For a human, it will always be “You’re pure, untainted I love you I shall forever stand by you.” Meanwhile 💀, Rollo has a more domineering countenance if you’re a monster… He’ll call you all mannerisms of a devil, yet the beating in his chest can’t stop the fact he heavily yearns for your touch. He’s convinced you’ve hexed him. He’s litterally that Plankton meme. “Oh no, you’re hot!”

I’m so happy my brainrots have been enjoyed by you! I’m always looking forward to your comments on Monster!Twst posts with your thoughts! It’s amazing to see and feel how much you enjoy the Au and my writing ( ´ ▽ ` ).｡ｏ♡

#monster!twst #askves #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #yandere twst #yandere twisted wonderland #yan twst #achromaticbibliophile #vesperwrites #malleus draconia x reader #riddle rosehearts x reader #neige leblanche x reader #fellow honest x reader #jack howl x reader #rollo flamme x reader

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