#how can you love a character that has barely any character?

[thankskenpenders]

The Knuckles show

The announcement of a live action Knuckles streaming miniseries was surprising, to say the least. I mean, what would such a show even be about in a version of the Sonic universe with no Angel Island and barely any characters from the games around? Is he gonna go treasure hunting with the gang from Montana or something? Would a streaming miniseries have the CGI budget to squeeze in any new game characters, even briefly? Rouge? Amy? At least one member of Team Chaotix? Anyone?

Now the show is finally out, and it turns out what they actually made was a comedy show about bumbling deputy sheriff Wade Whipple, the minor comic relief character played by Adam Pally who you might not even remember all that well from the first two movies, with Knuckles as his sidekick. While, yes, Knuckles does get a decent amount of screentime and opportunities to punch bad guys and do cool moves from the games, large stretches of this show focus on Wade's personal life, to the point that a couple times I almost forgot I was watching a Sonic-related show. If you're judging it purely by the metric of how well it adapts and engages with its source material, this surely must be one of the worst adaptations the Sonic franchise has ever seen.

So then, despite some huge complaints... why do I kinda like it?

(This will contain full spoilers for the Knuckles show.)

A brief summary of what the show is actually about because I know half of you aren't going to watch it

The show picks up not too long after the end of the second movie. Knuckles is now living in Montana with Sonic, Tails, and the Wachowskis out of a sense of debt to them, though he doesn't really see it as his home. He doesn't feel like he belongs on Earth, and his life currently lacks direction. After communing with the ghost of Pachacamac, though, Knuckles is instructed to keep his culture alive by teaching "the ways of the echidna warrior" to a new apprentice: deputy sheriff Wade Whipple, who's currently more concerned about winning a bowling tournament in Reno than anything else.

Things are complicated by the interference of two rogue GUN agents - Agent Willoughby, played by Ellie Taylor in a bad wig, and Agent Mason, played by Kid Cudi. (Yes, the artist behind the second movie's credits song is one of the bad guys in this.) They want to steal Knuckles' power and sell it to a former associate of Robotnik's played by Rory McCann (The Hound from Game of Thrones), who now works as a black market arms dealer. Yes, they're still doing the thing where Sonic and friends' quills radiate some kind of super-energy that the bad guys all want. No, I don't particularly love this element of the Paramount Sonic continuity. Anyway, they go after Knuckles and Wade, complicating their straightforward road trip to Reno. Antics ensue.

The Wade show

So here's the thing. While the first episode focuses largely on Knuckles, the entire rest of the show is very much the story of Wade, and by extension the other original human characters invented for this miniseries.

Episode 2 is about Wade having to rescue Knuckles from captivity after the GUN agents get him. Knuckles spends most of the episode in a cage.

Episode 3 is about introducing Wade's Jewish family, including his slightly overbearing mother and weird sister, so that Knuckles can learn about their family traditions and have Shabbat dinner with them (and then save them from bounty hunters that the GUN agents hired).

Episode 4 only features Knuckles at the very beginning and very end of the episode, probably for less than a minute total. Wade is captured by a bounty hunter he personally knows, and Knuckles decides to let that be a trial for Wade to overcome on his own.

The last two episodes feature the climactic showdowns with the GUN agents and their arms-dealing ally, who comes in with a mech for the obligatory final boss fight. You'd think this would be Knuckles' time to shine, but really, these episodes are mostly about the bowling tournament in Reno where Wade encounters his estranged father, wrapping up his own personal arc. While Knuckles does get some fights, a lot of the finale is spent on lengthy bowling scenes where Knuckles isn't in the room or even mentioned. It frequently feels more like a spiritual successor to '00s sports comedy movies like Dodgeball, Talladega Nights, or Blades of Glory than it does a part of the Sonic franchise, and the presence of ESPN 8: The Ocho commentary in the finale only drives those Dodgeball comparisons home. They get so immersed in the bowling stuff that it's genuinely hilarious when the show suddenly pivots and remembers "oh shit we still need to do the final boss fight"

Throughout all this, Wade is the protagonist. He's the character we spend more time with, he's the character who drives most of the major events, he's the character who gets more of an arc. The emotional core is Wade's journey. Knuckles is still present - sometimes, at least - but he's there as Wade's wingman, and also just as the excuse for there to be some fight scenes.

How much Sonic stuff is actually in this show?

Honestly? Not much.

Sonic and Tails are only in the first episode. Sonic gets some good scenes, but Tails gets a grand total of five lines. I counted. Unsurprisingly, Jim Carrey is absent as Robotnik, though he does get mentioned a fair bit. (For that matter, basically the entire established human cast beyond Wade is absent, even including Tom, though Maddie is there in episode one.)

GUN is involved in the story, which helps it feel slightly more connected to Sonic, but it kind of feels like it's GUN in name only. They don't use any recognizable GUN tech, and they don't call in the military. It's just two agents in suits. They might as well be the Men in Black.

The Master Emerald is mentioned as something Knuckles has to guard, but it's never seen. Angel Island is pictured as a drawing during the show's intro, appearing exactly how it does in Sonic 3, but it's never referenced at all beyond that.

I guess the climax taking place in and around a Reno casino is a reference to Sonic's many casino-themed levels. That's something. I'll give them that.

Oh, and if you're wondering if this is the point where we finally start to get actual music from the games: no, it's not. The soundtrack consists of a lot of '80s needle drops, many of which are generic Hollywood picks like "Holding Out for a Hero" for the billionth time, thought it at least has some slightly less obvious picks than the Mario movie. The theme song is '80s rock song "The Warrior" by Scandal. You'll hear it many times. You'll hear the Adventure era Knuckles raps zero times in this. You'll briefly hear classic A Tribe Called Quest song "Can I Kick It?" before Knuckles takes the question too literally and breaks the radio in Wade's car.

Beyond a handful of surface level references for nerds (one of which is admittedly wild - we'll get to that), this is probably the least an officially licensed adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog has ever tried to actually engage with its source material. I struggle to think of another Sonic adaptation that has less to do with Sonic. For as much shit as I and countless others have given Penders for seemingly ignoring the content of the games in favor of building his own convoluted mythos, his Knuckles comics honestly included way more elements from the games than this show does.

Somehow, the one new(-ish) Sonic character introduced in this is the ghost of Pachacamac of all characters. Not even Tikal! Pachacamac! A very minor character nobody has particularly strong feelings about! You can't even use the excuse that they already had the character model, because they completely redesigned him compared to his cameo in the first movie to better match his Sonic Adventure design. And he's voiced by Christopher Lloyd! Honestly, so many of his lines are strained that it sounds like he's on death's door here, but then he'll surprise you with a more casual line like "just do it, man" and it catches me so off guard that I can't help but laugh.

Pachacamac here has basically nothing to do with the game character he takes his name and appearance from. Where the game character was a cruel warlord who kicked off a 3000 year cycle of violence, Paramount Pachacamac is now just this chill old man who gives Knuckles (and later Wade) advice in two episodes of the show. Hell, he also feels completely disconnected from his established role in the movies, where he's literally the guy who shot Longclaw. The show will not grapple with this contradiction at all. He's just here to be a thing fans like me will recognize from the games. Again, if that's all they wanted, it's kind of baffling that they didn't just use Tikal.

I don't love Knuckles in this

But what about Knuckles himself? Well, he doesn't feel all that much like Knuckles to me. Ironically, he sometimes feels like one of the weaker elements in his own show.

Back when the second movie came out, I noted that Knuckles' characterization seemed to be pulling heavily from MCU Thor as a gallant warrior from an archaic alien culture who doesn't really understand modern day Earth stuff. That worked for me in that movie. It was just there for spice. Just a little extra flavor for the character in what was otherwise a very faithful adaptation of Knuckles' storyline in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Without those familiar elements grounding him and with a much higher reliance on comedy, Idris Elba's Knuckles becomes a pretty one-note character in this.

In damn near every scene with Knuckles, he's going to say something about being a proud, honorable echidna warrior, or brag about his glorious feats of strength, or be confused about some Earth thing and call it sorcery, or act like every other character is also a member of some noble warrior clan. He still has his moments for sure, but this schtick kinda gets old fast, and it just doesn't feel like Knuckles to me. His entire character feels derived from the scene in the diner where Thor smashes the cup on the ground and goes "Another!" Sure, I can picture game Knuckles smashing a radio to turn it off and being a little too gung-ho about busting holes through walls. That's Knuckles behavior. But building a barbarian combat pit in the living room so the Wachowski family dog can fight the mailman? Nope. That's some other guy now. It really does just feel like them taking a broad character archetype from something popular that kinda sorta fits Knuckles and just running with that, rather than trying to actually adapt the character.

Oh, but don't worry, he wears the OVA hat for like two minutes! AND he loves grapes! See, Sonic nerds? We read the wiki! That's his favorite food! Grapes! This is gonna come up like five times!

Knuckles kind of gets an arc here, but not as much as Wade does. I think the stuff about him starting to feel at home on Earth thanks to Wade's mom and the way he connects with their Jewish family traditions is oddly sweet. This arc is kind of let down, though, by the fact that Knuckles' heritage is treated as a complete joke. He's a cartoonish pastiche of various historical warrior cultures stuck together in a blender and used mostly for comedic effect. When Pachacamac's ghost appears, he's reading a newspaper and bemoaning the fact that the Mets lost again. This is not the place for a serious examination of Knuckles' feelings on being the last of his kind.

This is far from the only time the show undercuts itself with its jokes and attempts at self-parody. In the first episode, for instance, Knuckles clashes with GUN Agent Mason and his tech-enhanced punches, leading to an extremely on-the-nose inversion of the "Do I look like I need your power?" scene showcased in the trailer for the second movie. Except this time, Agent Willoughby butts in and points out how stupid that line is in this new context, since they're literally trying to steal Knuckles' power. The fight can't just be cool, they have to get cute with it. A lot of stuff like that happens in this show.

Given all these complaints, the first two episodes left me thinking I'd be fairly negative on this show overall. This seemed like the version of the show from the fandom's collective nightmares, one that undoes all of the progress the movie series seemed to have been making towards faithfulness to the games. Like, just look at these cast posters. Is this what you want out of Sonic? Do these excite you?

But then, something strange happened. Over time, I just kind of let the jokes and shenanigans wash over me and basked in how fucking weird this show is.

And I started to actually enjoy it.

Look. The Wade & Knuckles Show was never going to be peak Sonic. But that sure as hell doesn't mean it can't be entertaining.

This show is so fucking goofy

Here's the thing.

The show is funny.

Unlike a lot of other people, I didn't hate all the wedding stuff in Hawaii in Sonic 2, because I thought a lot of it was funny, both in its actual jokes and in the ways in which they tied everything back to Sonic. Tom looking wistfully at some bodybuilders doing Top Gun shit and spraying each other with beer and being like "I wish Sonic had that" is weirdly funny. The twist that those muscle bros are all agents of the newly formed GUN, who orchestrated the wedding as an elaborate scheme to catch Sonic, is funny. Mr. Olive Garden becoming the fucking GUN Commander is VERY funny. Are any of these elements of my dream Sonic movie? No, of course not. But my dream Sonic movie was never gonna happen in live action.

The Knuckles show follows up on the comedy of the previous films by being probably the funniest live action Sonic release yet. Did every joke land for me? God no. There are some stinkers in there that made me roll my eyes. But enough of them landed that it worked out for me overall. A big part of this is the fact that they've got a good cast of actors and/or comedians here.

Adam Pally is funny as Wade, and I found myself liking him more and more as a character as the show went on. He becomes an oddly endearing loser, with some sweet moments in his personal arc that made me feel for the guy. I like Wade more than Tom now, thanks to this show. I will now be happier to see Wade in Sonic 3 than I would have been previously.

The supporting cast is frequently great, too, many of whom are playing completely cartoonish, over-the-top characters. They took a cue from how exaggerated Carrey's performance was as Robotnik and decided to just abandon all pretense that this is the real world. Stockard Channing as Wade's mom is funny, and carries some of the more sincere parts of the show. Cary Elwes as Wade's very British dad who abandoned him as a child to run off and be the world's most egotistical professional bowler is funny. Edi Patterson as Wade's sister Wanda is... well, she's kinda trying too hard, but she has her moments. The Mighty Boosh co-creator Julian Barratt(!!) as a scenery-chewing bounty hunter, who was also somehow Wade's former best friend and bowling partner, is VERY funny. I love this guy.

(Honestly, they should let more people who were on Garth Marenghi's Darkplace be in Sonic stuff. Where's Matt Berry)

This is kind of a stacked cast for a bunch of stupid side characters in a live action Knuckles show! And honestly, that just makes it funnier to me. Even when they're not funny, the fact that this exists makes it funny. They somehow convinced Paramount to give them a bunch of money to make a spiritual successor to Dodgeball about a schlubby guy who wants to beat his dad at a bowling tournament... except also Knuckles the fucking Echidna is there as his personal life coach. My life is richer for the fact that I can say that sentence. I think about all the little kids who are probably watching this show this weekend, going in expecting a show about Knuckles the Echidna and having to sit through extensive bowling scenes and lore about Wade's family, and sorry kids, but I just have to laugh. Wade isn't even on the poster! The poster is just a picture of Knuckles!! They punked those kids!!!

In a franchise where every single aspect is so carefully micromanaged these days, it feels truly special to get an adaptation this bonkers. It frequently appeals to the same part of me that enjoys the fact that there's an officially licensed Knuckles comic in which Charmy Bee's best friend (also a bee) dies of an accidental LSD overdose from a drug-laced chili dog. Or like, everything about the original 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie. Or the fact that they made seven direct-to-DVD sequels to Alpha and Omega, one of which is half a retread of the adventure from the first movie (with more annoying supporting characters in tow this time) and half a literal clip show of the first movie. The sheer absurdity of the fact that these things exist is charming to me. Except, with the Knuckles show, it has the added benefit of frequently being funny on purpose! This is why I'm not sure I'd call it "so bad it's good." Like, it's not amazing, but there were a lot of parts that I enjoyed in the exact way I was supposed to enjoy them.

Look. Here's a list of real lines of dialogue from the Sega-approved Knuckles the Echidna streaming show that they're billing as a pillar of the Paramount+ lineup, to drive this point home. Let these marinate for a minute:

"I only eat grapes, and Cool Ranch Doritos™."

"Annihilate this little girl, Wade. Crush her spirit. Humiliate her so badly her parents won't even look at her again." "Doesn't that seem like we're going a bit far?" "Not far enough."

"So is he Jewish?" "Half, I think."

"I had a friend who when he listened to Alien Ant Farm he could lift a Toyota Corolla over his head."

"I'm in dire financial straits. Due to my lawsuit against an unnamed rainforest-themed restaurant franchise, I don't have two pennies to my name."

"We're here in sunny Reno, Nevada, which is so close to Hell you can smell the sparks."

"You can't threaten me with your Jewish karate chops because I am a federal agent."

"I will say, regardless of how you feel about child abandonment - and I'm against it! - the deals at TJ Maxx can't be beat."

This is a Sonic show in which they got Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel to appear as ESPN 8: The Ocho commentators.

This is a show where Wade's mom insists upon pronouncing "Knuckles" with the throaty Hebrew "ch" sound, and declares that Knuckles is basically Jewish. Later, they watch Pretty Woman together while enjoying a nice slice of key lime pie. Knuckles comments: "I don't understand. This young streetwalker with a heart made of gold, why do the others treat her with such disdain? Is it so wrong to walk the streets?"

This is a show where the fourth episode is directed by one of the guys from The Lonely Island and features a hallucinatory low budget rock opera stage musical put on by the ghost of Pachacamac. It recounts Knuckles' life story, with Wade playing Knuckles and the "evil" Longclaw played by the bounty hunter guy who's played by the Mighty Boosh guy.

Look at this.

And also, Knuckles' singing voice is provided by Michael Bolton, which they proudly announce in the middle of the musical.

And also...

Also...???

IBLIS IS IN IT????????????

Yes, Iblis!

From Sonic '06!!

Knuckles is said to have looked for a mythical power called the "Flames of Disaster" to avenge his clan, which ended up being the power that was within him all along that lets him do fire punches yadda yadda yadda. As part of this, he apparently fought Iblis off-screen at some point, as conveyed with the giant singing papier-mâché Iblis in the musical.

...Then Iblis sings about hitting up Facebook Marketplace

How? How does any of this exist? Why reference '06 of all games? How did Iblis get into the live action Sonic movie universe before Amy and Metal Sonic? Why are they using Iblis and the term "Flames of Disaster" in such a goofy way that completely disregards their original context?

I don't know. I don't know how any of this happened. But I love it. We got a Knuckles miniseries in which Michael Bolton sings the phrase "the Flames of Disaster." The world is a beautiful place sometimes.

Some people will tell you to skip episode four. "Knuckles is barely even in it," they say. "It's dumb and pointless," they say. "They clearly just ran out of special effects budget," they say. These are people whose opinions you should disregard. The episode with the least Knuckles in it is somehow the most entertaining episode of the show. I would, in fact, go as far as to say that if you only decide to watch one episode of the Knuckles show to see what goofy bullshit they get up to, it should be this one.

I cannot be mad at this show. It's so dumb, but it completely owns the fact that it's a dumb and unnecessary spinoff. Inferiority is baked into its very DNA. It's very self-consciously redoing the premise of the first movie, but stupider. It's about The Other Cop from the movies, instead of the competent one. Instead of being into a "cooler" sport, his life revolves around professional bowling. Instead of going to Vegas, he goes to Reno. Even his tragic backstory that shaped his entire life sucks. He was abandoned by his pro bowler dad in a TJ Maxx. Not even a nicer department store. A fucking TJ Maxx. This whole show is a Dril tweet.

They put a ton of effort into making it dumb in an occasionally spectacular way. So much effort was put into that joke rock opera that fans will just write off as stupid filler. They put their whole pussies into it. This is not a poorly made show. This has better production values than half the shit made for Disney+. This was made with love. Maybe not as much love for the Sonic the Hedgehog series of video games as we'd like, but it's love nonetheless.

Maybe this show broke me and these are the ramblings of a madwoman. Maybe I'm just really nostalgic for the '90s and '00s comedy movies all the Wade stuff is modeled after. Maybe the Alan Wake fan in me just really loves it when a story pivots to a silly rock opera for no real reason. I won't discount any of these possibilities. This isn't high art. This isn't something I would recommend to anyone with zero interest in Sonic, and it also isn't going to sway Sonic fans who hate the Paramount universe. I really can't blame them for being bewildered by this show. But for a specific type of person, this is the absurd three-star Sonic-adjacent comedy miniseries of your dreams. It's a mid masterpiece.

Again, I just have to step back, realize the fact that this shouldn't exist, and smile. Sega's too afraid to do stupid bullshit with the franchise like this these days. And I can't blame them, after years of Sonic being a treated as a laughingstock. But part of me misses some of the goofy shit. No matter how much I tore some of the Archie comics apart as I was reading them for this blog, I just look back on stuff like Cal and Al or the Many Hands issues and laugh. And that same part of me looks at this show about Knuckles being the sidekick to this fucking guy, and just goes...

"We're so back."

In conclusion, I genuinely think this was a more enjoyable TV show than Sonic Prime.

I wouldn't go back and rewatch Sonic Prime anytime soon, aside from maybe, like, a couple of the Shadow-heavy episodes. Huge stretches of that show bored me to tears. The writers squandered all of that show's potential. But I would rewatch the Knuckles show, which takes a terrible premise and has a lot of fun with it, in a heartbeat. Even the bowling parts. The bowling scenes in the Knuckles show are more engaging than 70% of the fights in Sonic Prime. I am not trolling. I mean that sincerely, with all my heart. Don't @ me.

Stray observations

There is effectively zero meaningful setup for the third movie in this, unless Wade's family or the two GUN agents come back or something. Project Shadow is not mentioned in this. There is no secret post-credits scene with Gerald

The CGI in this is pretty good. Not quite on par with the movies, but pretty good. Sonic's weird forehead wrinkles are distracting in his scenes though. Please fix that

I wouldn't say I liked this as much as the second movie, which obviously gets a ton of points for, you know. The Cool Sonic Shit. But I had more fun with it than the first movie, which I still feel is a painfully generic family movie that was only saved by Tyson's redesign

"Grapes are an interesting choice for someone who doesn't use his individual fingers."

Agent Willoughby was apparently the one at GUN who had to buy the Olive Garden gift cards and set up the fake wedding. Her origin story is that she hated doing shit like that and wanted to go fight aliens

This miniseries contains another Keanu namedrop because Wade's childhood bedroom has a Speed poster on the wall. I swear, if Sonic doesn't say Shadow sounds just like Keanu...

Knuckles is familiar with Paul Blart Mall Cop

Near the end the ESPN 8: The Ocho commentators say that the 1974 Reno bowling championship was also interrupted by an extraterrestrial, and given that was exactly 50 years ago I can't write off the possibility that that was Shadow. Please for the love of god give us a sequel series after the third movie where Wade takes Shadow the Hedgehog bowling. I need this more than I need air

[himezoro]

Hello!! Could you please do what it would be like to date Luffy?? He's my favorite character and I loved your Zoro headcanons!!

— tysm for requesting !! i've recently came back from my trip and still recovering from my mental breakdown lol, so writing for luffy aka my son is all i need <3 i hope it brings you joy and light ⋆˙⟡♡ i have other requests in my box and i promise to do them all, i won't let you down !!

ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴ : monkey d luffy's guide to relationship (check out roronoa zoro's guide here and here if you're interested)

dating monkey d luffy would include :

endless, countless and heartfelt laughters. luffy is an outgoing and fun person to be around. he's always having fun on the way of making his dream come true, making each day bright and sunny. he won't be trying that hard to make their s/o laugh, his authenticity, fearlessness and lack of danger estimation would do the trick. but expect him to yell his s/o's name everytime he pulls a prank or tests his flexibility by making funny faces. if his s/o happens to be sad, he would also try his best to cheer them up by first, making them laugh to forget about their worry. when in bed with his s/o, he would let soft and intimate laughs escape his throat when talking to them or listening to their stories. laughing is an intimate and loving act according to luffy's guide.

physical touch. luffy's a sucker for hugs, tender gestures and pdas!! he has no shame hugging his friends like a koala, but with his s/o?? they would barely be able to breath lmao. luffy would sleep with his arms fully wrapped around his s/o's back, with his chin on the top of their head, sometimes, he would sleep on top of them with his whole weight just to show "how much he loves them", or with his head on their lap. anyway, luffy’s s/o is always at arms length thanks to his ability, much to his delight. the boy's clingy, but so adorable and natural about it. however, if their s/o needs some space, luffy would understand, although a bit saddened, so expect him to ask for a hug when they're ready. if their s/o really hates physical touch, it would be difficult for luffy to adjust (he's just a big soft plushie please take care of my baby)

receiving random compliments at random times. luffy's very honest and genuine, and even though he lacks real communication skills, he never lies. therefore, if he sees their s/o with a new outfit and he finds it nice, he will vocalize it in his words. "your coat is brown like a juicy steak, it looks tasty! you should wear it more often", "your hair looks like a cloud this morning", "your eyes sparkle like lasers!!".

him being involved in his s/o's hobbies/occupations. luffy is naturally curious. people often feel like he is pestering and "in the way", which can hurt his feelings, but he is genuinely interested in his friends' activities. he has so much admiration for them. but with his s/o? luffy would not only pester and ask what they're doing, he would also be trying to learn alongside them, with stars in his eyes. if their s/o's a fighter and fighting with a particular weapon or style, luffy would sit quietly and watch for some time, clapping his hands and feet at any random movements from their body, before joining and mimicking. if their s/o was reading or doing anything more intellectual or academic, luffy would sit by them, his arms crossed on the table and his head on top and listen to them talk and tell about what they're learning. if his s/o is patient and pedagogical, he would be so happy and confident enough to ask questions. he will then brag to usopp and chopper about his recent learnings with confidence and pride, saying how "(your name) taught me!!" (he will also turn around to his s/o to check if what he's saying is correct). it is very important for luffy to know what his s/o is doing and what they like, and for them to share their activities together. because on luffy's part, he would include his s/o in every single thing, even on shenanigans with usopp and chopper if they'd like.

hungry kisses and messy makeout sessions. the first kiss with luffy was soft, quick and intimate: a simple peck on the lips. also, at the beginning of the relationship, they were few, as the captain is more of a hugger. however, when his s/o would explain luffy that kisses could involve tongue, dear lord. luffy got insatiable. with his first french kiss, the move of his tongue got so messy he let some drool escape from his lips, trailing out from his s/o's lips. he also accidently bit his s/o's bottom lip so hard it stayed swollen for a couple of days. luffy would take note on his s/o's preferences and always surprise them with that one kiss that would leave them out of breathe and shaky. during make out sessions, not only his tongue would be insatiable, but his hands as well. this boy cannot stand still, he would trail his hands all over his s/o's body, especially the inside of their thighs or their ass. oftenly, after pulling away from his lips, he would look at his s/o's eyes and say "more" before diving in again.

aside from the messy kisses from heated and hungry make outs, luffy's kisses are always spontaneous and playful. he's hanging from the chandelier with his legs around it? he'll grow his head down just he can peck his s/o's lips. his kisses are never calculated or protocolar, they're just like his sweet personality. he would try to kiss you when you eat to "taste your food", claiming that it tasted better.

learning to communicate. luffy is not a complete moron, but his communication skills and social awareness may not be the best. their s/o will have to use patience in order to have a meaningful conversation about their intimate feelings or their relationship in general. luffy is a good listener to his s/o, however, his responses are not always fitting to the matter at hand, sometimes even immature. nevertheless, luffy is a willing person, especially with his s/o. he would try his best providing more fitting responses to his s/o's matters and expressing his needs as well, especially if he feels he has been saddened by their behaviour.

entrusting him and reassuring him. of course, luffy is a confident person, not only in his skills, but also in his dream of being the King of the Pirates. however, if their s/o does not vocalize their trust in his dream, skills or character, luffy would be saddened and pouty. it could trigger his jealousy. he is the captain of a fantastic crew with fantastic people and he feels entrusted with that role, but the one trust and validation he needs is from his s/o. if their s/o compliments him or refer to him as "future King of the Pirates", he would be beaming so hard and brag about it a little.

having a number one fan and devoted partner. luffy loves all of his crewmates and would do anything for them. but his s/o is special. he would always cheer them up, be their cheerleader, talk about them at any given times (a little like tom holland with zendaya lol), protect them from the smallest ant, raise them high. he will always stand for them. if his s/o's in danger, the smallest hint of common sense hidden in his brain gets completely lost and he goes feral. he won't let anything happen to his s/o, before letting anything happen to his dream. his dream is with their s/o: there's no Pirate King with his s/o, no matter what. losing his brother already broke his heart, and he knows losing his s/o will hurt the same, so he does not let anything happen to them. <3

he's the definition of a golden retriever boyfriend, but i feel like he would rather eat from your plate than giving you his lmao. he won't mind sharing with you, but he would enjoy stealing food from your plate.

[ruumirmir]

"Hey, hey- did you hear? Lord Regrator promoted someone as the new branch manager of our bank!"

"Don't tell me... it's him, isn't it?"

"But of course, I heard the harbinger is playing favorites now-"

𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕓𝕠𝕪'𝕤 ℙ𝕣𝕠𝕗𝕚𝕝𝕖

When you feel the caress of a mask; an identity, Who do you become?

Finished cooking Pantalone's Loverboy a little bit more with this character layout. While a good chunk of his aesthetic has been pinned down, I probably won't go further to draw any sort of outfit or character design for him. As of now, I'm keeping his finer details ambiguous enough to classify as a M!reader. @eluxcastar comrade wake up new Loverboy content just dropped.

ੈ♡˳ 𝐅𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐢 𝐕𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐤

Under the hierarchy of Regrator's ordinance, Fatuus above a certain level of authority don masks signifying their position. Ordinary agents working with classified business information must never run the risk of disclosing their identities after all. One such mask, dipped in a red of warning and adorned with a platinum wing on it's brow is the telltale identity of the bank's Venator Dux. Whether you stand against him in a negotiations meeting, or battle, he's no less intimidating without the mask.

ੈ♡˳ 𝐇𝐲𝐝𝐫𝐨 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧

"Hydro represents faith, regardless of how misguided it maybe." "This vision is given to people who either have a strong dedication towards something, or have a desire to help or protect others." From wind to water; That day celestia's eye honed in on the fool falling past a shattered window, dragging down another with him. "How amusing..." they'd think, and brush past the reject to bestow heaven's blessing upon the far more pitiful one.

ੈ♡˳ 𝐁𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐱

Also called 'wine red' or 'black rose'. Like the lovely wines of plum occasionally imported from Liyue. Like blood to snow in the region colored head to toe in muted greys and blues.

ੈ♡˳ 𝐂𝐡𝐨𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐦𝐨𝐬

A flower that smells like fresh chocolate. They symbolize peace and tranquility. It is said that Chocolate Cosmos in particular mean “I love you more than anybody can.” Is it more obvious. He offers to pin it on the Harbinger's coat with a knowing grin. A frost-sensitive flower; It requires partial sun or full sun, and flowers from mid to late summer. It cant flourish naturally in a frost-bitten habitat and is artificially kept in greenhouses, only glimpsing the sun every few days through tinted windows. Pantalone barely needs to lift a finger to commission a set of cosmos flowers turned to jewelry for his Loverboy to wear.

ੈ♡˳ 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐒𝐰𝐚𝐧

A Black Swan signifies an insight about yourself that changes your position from one of victim to victor. Black Swan is a graceful reminder to move from any position where you feel powerless and at the mercy of external forces; it is time to reclaim your personal power. A coin always has two sides however; The black swan theory states that, "It is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences."

ੈ♡˳ 𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐒𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝

Equal parts strategic leader and hands-on agent, the Venator's blade is no less mightier than his pen. Come hell and high water, his feathered quill can enlarge thrice over to chase down it's targets with a mind of it's own, like a missile dart. You wouldn't fare better in close quarters either. The feather reinforced with hydro can sharpen it to the degree of splitting icebergs and necks alike. Why else do you think his ink occasionally flows in hues of red?

ੈ♡˳ 𝐈𝐜𝐲 𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝐂𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐂𝐡𝐨𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞

The steely frost seeping into his coat, A heady spice from the smoke warming the air, and the slow bittersweet aroma that doesn't hit you until after he's gone; an aftertaste.

ੈ♡˳ 𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐎𝐥𝐝 𝐅𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐁𝐨𝐲

"I can serenade and gently play on your heart strings Be your Valentino, just for you" "I'd like for you and I to go romancing Say the word, your wish is my command" "Ooh, love (there he goes again) Ooh, lover boy (he's my good old-fashioned lover boy, ooh) What're you doing tonight?"

ੈ♡˳ 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐲

"Faithfulness to something to which one is bound by pledge or duty." "In the shimmering expanse of ice and snow, I pledge my unwavering devotion and undying loyalty to the illustrious Tsaritza, sovereign of this frozen realm. As the frost bites deep and the chill of winter grips our souls, I stand firm in my resolve to serve her reign with pride and honor." "With every breath, I swear to defend her name, her realm, and her legacy, even if it means laying down my life upon the icy plains, for in her sovereignty lies the very essence of our existence. Today, I embrace the cold embrace of eternity, knowing that I have lived and died under the banner of our revered Tsaritza, with unwavering loyalty burning bright within my heart..." And he didn't mean a single word of it. He wondered when that would be the death of him.

[writingonleaves]

were you sent by someone who wanted me dead? (did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed?) - jeremy swayman

pairing: jeremy swayman x original female character

warnings: swearing, pretty angsty. hopeful ish ending because i can't do sad endings, very personal but i think many can relate in their own way, cliche ish, barely proofread

inspired by + title: "the smallest man who ever lived" by taylor swift

word count: 5.6k

author's note: i'd argue almost every piece any author writes is personal, because it has their life interspersed through the words. but this one really is, because a majority of this is the exact same words i wrote years ago after a break-up. heard the bridge to this song and immediately knew i had to write something inspired by it. also trying a new format of sorts (maybe a bit meta??), so i hope you enjoy and lmk what you think!!

~*~*~

When Noelle Betsko walked away from Jeremy Swayman, holding back tears until the call dropped, she knew it was going to be a tough time for the foreseeable future. 

It didn’t matter that the pandemic had forced them apart. She knew she would still feel him for months to come.

She did the only thing she knows how to do when trying to deal with things. The one thing she always resorts to as an aspiring novelist. Sometimes on her laptop when the words were spilling out too quickly for her brain to catch up, tears littering the keyboard. Usually in her old beat-up journal, scribbling in the cursive that Jeremy claimed he always loved (“It makes your handwriting unique”) with the pens he had gifted her just a few months prior. 

At the age of 21, Noelle got her heart broken for the first time. At the age of 26, she’s about to publish her first poetry collection of sorts, all of the poems modeled after journal entries written throughout her life. So not really poetry, though her mother would say otherwise. 

She swallows as she thumbs through the middle part of the first known and binded copy of “miscellaneous.” There are only eight entries in the whole collection that are taken verbatim from her past writing. These are the eight.

May 13, 2020 (three days post-breakup, crying in my childhood bedroom)

I don’t even recognize who I was and who you were in those writings before these pages filled with love and hope and happiness. I can’t even summon up those feelings anymore that I knew existed at one point. Those feelings of complete bliss and love for someone so deep you can’t explain it. 

I’m mad at myself for not being able to conjure those feelings, because at one point, I did love you. How could something that was part of my daily life for over two years just disappear so quickly? 

But now, I’m not mad at myself. I’m mad, but I don’t know where to direct that anger to. I feel a bit empty sometimes, but then frustrated the next. Sometimes I get sad, but not so much compared to the other feelings. I spent enough time being sad during our relationship.

When we broke up, on an annoyingly beautiful Tuesday in May — over the damn phone, mind you, which whatever, it’s COVID. Fine — You told me you felt like you had been putting more effort into us. 

At the time, I didn’t react, but I’ve been thinking about how angry that statement made me. Makes me, actually. I was always very open with how much I gave to that relationship. How much it meant to me. How much it affected me. But I understand that with some people, sharing everything too much equates to things not meaning anything anymore. But you out of all people should’ve known that I mean everything I say.

I felt like I gave so much. I know I gave so much. When I told you I loved you, I always meant it. Every single time. When I told you I missed you, I always meant it. I wished you were right next to me at that moment. I mentally gave so much, because to me, I wanted to. You were always on my mind, always high up on my list of priorities. I never took us for granted.

I’ve been questioning if that was the same for you. Did you start becoming complacent?

The second thing you said that day that hasn’t left my head is that you knew me pretty well. And initially, I remember not thinking much of it. So I don’t doubt that; you always knew right when I was about to cry, even over the phone. You often knew when I was mad or upset, but when I look back now, you never pushed. Which is a good thing, to an extent. But it was a bad thing sometimes too. I knew you often wanted to give me space, but sometimes I didn’t want space. I wanted you to push. To try to understand. Maybe that’s unfair of me; it probably is. I should just say I want to talk about it more, right? 

But if you genuinely knew me, you would’ve known.

After two years, seven months and 12 days,  I still feel like I didn’t know you. Did I ever know you at all?

When people talked shit about you, I always defended you. And I still would defend you now. But lately, I've questioned what I’m even defending. All those good qualities that I thought you had, were they even real? Of course, I know some of them were, to a certain extent. But as I look back on us, there’s a lot of doubt about whether I even knew the person I called my boyfriend for so long. I know there was a point where you cared about me, but I can’t remember when. 

I often felt like I was letting you know so much about my life, but you didn’t do the same. I get that sometimes a person just wants to forget about the bad and focus on the good with a person you like for awhile. I get that. But once that was happening every damn time? That should’ve been a red flag. 

June 7, 2020 (twenty eight days post break-up, outside my childhood room on the deck) 

I don’t understand how you can give so much to something or someone and have it not be recognized or appreciated or enough. If I wasn’t enough for you, how will I be enough for anyone?

I hope one day you’ll truly understand how much this hurt. Not just the breakup, but feeling like I was always being pulled in a direction I didn’t always want to be pulled in. Feeling I was stuck between a rock and a hard place and never ever being able to win. I hate that I settled so much in the last year. Because I should’ve demanded more, even though deep down I knew you were never going to be able to give it to me.

I think back to our past daily texts, and I just don’t get it. At one point, we both meant the things we said to each other. 

Yet we still hurt each other. 

This fucking hurts.

You’ve hurt me so much, but most of it wasn’t intentional, which I think is somewhat even worse. Because I’m not totally mad at you for causing the pain. You never did anything outright to cause me pain, but I still feel like you did. 

Unintentional pain almost stings more than intentional. 

When I asked you out that night after we were both on an emotional high, I took a chance. For once in my life, I took the leap, knowing that I could get humiliated or hurt or just straight up shot down. 

Where did it all go wrong? Or, more realistically, how did we think that we could go through the wrong when it was there at the start?

I’m trying not to blame myself too much. Trying not to tell myself that I should’ve known better. 

All those times, especially at the start, when I would ask you if you genuinely liked me, you always thought I was just trying to be annoying. But you never understood that I genuinely thought that way. My self confidence from the start was lacking, and you didn’t try to understand that, because I come across to everyone as confident and self-assured. 

It hurt, when you would brush things off like that. I felt like you didn’t care.

And then, it got to the point where I stopped asking that question. Part of that is because I did become more confident and you did show that you cared, and part of that was because I knew it would piss you off.

The amount of things I was scared to talk about with you because I knew it would piss you off? I don’t wish that feeling on anybody.

I shouldn’t have been scared. I shouldn’t have been uncomfortable. But I was. And if you did notice like sometimes you claimed to, why didn’t you make it more comfortable for me? Was that too much to ask for? 

So larger than life that at the end, you faded into just the smallest man who ever lived. Fuck you.

Was it too much to ask for when I just wanted to know why you were upset? You didn’t have to ever tell me the full story (lord knows there were times I didn’t), but was it too much to ask for something? You told me once that I’m the person you’ve told the most to. How? You barely told me anything. And when I wanted to talk to you, whether it was about growing up in Alaska or why you were in a bad mood last night, you always brushed it off. Always. 

So I don’t feel so bad about feeling like I gave more effort. I gave so much of myself to you. If you really cared about me like you claimed you did, why couldn’t you show even just 1% of that care back? Or just meet me in the middle?

I could’ve tried harder to meet you in the middle, I’ll admit that. But you didn’t even give me a map or a clue how to. 

I felt so fucking left in the dark. I felt left in the dark about my own fucking relationship, something that I should be completely sure about. If you really love someone and care about them, how can you leave them in the dark? How could you not even see that I was struggling to find a flashlight?

You did care about me. I know that. To some extent and at some point in time, you did care about me. But caring about someone and their well-being isn’t always enough.

Why couldn’t you have worked with me? When I was extending my hand out, why didn’t you reach for it? How can someone just be so blind? I mean, I’m practically always spelling it out for you. 

Maybe I am being selfish. But fuck, I just wanted to be happy. At some point, you made me happy. When did I start making you feel like I wasn’t enough? Why wasn’t I enough for you?

It’s useless, in a way, to keep going about this. Because I know I deserve better. And we’ll both find people who are better for us. We just couldn’t be that person to each other.

I fucking loved you.

I wish it ended differently.

July 8, 2020 (fifty nine days post-breakup, in front of the lake)

I really really fucking miss you. 

I do. 

I miss being able to text you that i love you and not necessarily expecting a response until the next morning. I miss knowing that as soon as you wake up, you’ll text me back and assure me that yeah, you love me too. 

I’m left feeling bittersweet as I look back on memories that are just splashes and not definite strokes on the canvas that used to be us.

I miss having you as a friend. 

I’ve been having more urges lately to want to text you. And it isn’t even anything important. Just moments I experience throughout the day.

Do you get the urge to do the same?

July 19, 2020 (seventy days post-breakup, still in the same damn house)

It’s hard. It really is. And it kinda just hits you at random parts of the day. Sometimes I wake up from a dream that you were in and have to remind myself that it didn’t happen. 

Sometimes it physically aches when I realize that you won’t ever help me put on my jacket again, or complain that my hair is in your face when we’re lying on the couch watching Brooklyn Nine Nine, or groan when I drag you up to dance with me (which you never improved on, no matter how many times I tried to teach you basic rhythm). I can’t view our song the same way anymore, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. 

The other day, I read some simple thing on Twitter. I don’t even remember what it was, but I do remember that for a split second, I could see your smile in my mind. But it wasn’t just any smile. It was the smile you gave me when you took me ice skating that first time. I remember asking you what you were smiling at, and you said that you just were taking in this moment. I don’t know if you took a mental picture that day, but I know I did. That day seems so long ago now. 

In almost anything I do, you somehow pop into my mind or into the conversation. And it’s not even in a harmful way either. It’s because you were part of my life for so long. I see a dog on the street, and it reminds me of how you always stopped to pet every single one we’s see I write something in my messy handwriting, and I remember how you always used to complain that you couldn’t read the notes I’d occasionally leave around your place when you went away. I went to the doctor’s the other day, and they said I was 5 feet and 3 inches, which is just definitely not true, and I almost reached for my phone to text you, because you would’ve cackled and insisted that no, I’m 5 feet 2 inches and it wouldn’t even matter because I’ll always be shorter than you. It’s simple and minute things that make me miss you that much more.

I still can’t listen to some songs the same way anymore, but I can at least listen to them now, which is a feat in itself. I was unpacking from college and found the teddy bear you sent me the first extended time we had to be apart and had to immediately put that out of my sight. From those boxes also came photos that I had decorated my dorm room with, and to be honest, I’m glad now that I let you keep our best one. I deal with all my emotions, besides writing, by making Spotify playlists, and I made a new one earlier this week. I think it’s helping. It’s a slow process, this whole moving on thing, but it’s one that I’m trying to be grateful for, because like most things in life, you just don’t truly know until you go through it.

Sometimes, I find myself wondering how you are and how you’re healing. But, even though we’ve both changed since the day we met, if there’s one thing I know, it’s that you’re incredibly strong and stubborn. I hope that you’re finding some growth in this process too. 

October 17, 2020 (one hundred fifty seven days post-break up, apartment in orono)

It’s been almost 5 months, and you still cross my mind everyday. 

Why wasn’t I enough for you? Why didn’t you fucking tell me what you were thinking? Why was I the one who had to approach you just because I was just so done with the silent treatment?

But I’m not mad at you. Not anymore. The mad phase passed ages ago. 

Closure is a fake word. Even a breakup as mutual and smooth as ours was still left me with so many questions that will probably never be answered. 

Any breakup fucks you up to some extent. I knew it was going to mess me up even back when we were together. But not like this. Never like this. 

But like anything in life, I guess you can never really prepare for what you think you might feel, because most of the time, you discover a whole new side of you that you never thought existed. 

I don’t miss you. I don’t. I don’t feel that love in any way anymore. 

But I did once.

You did too, right?

November 15, 2020 (one hundred eighty six days post break-up, fogler library)

I hate Halloween. 

Though, it did bring me to you three years ago. I’m pretty sure I fell in love with you right then and there. 

Three years later, you texted me on Halloween, five months after our breakup. The universe really, really wanted to fuck with me. 

It was a tough night for you. I knew that. Because I know how you are after losing a game you should’ve won. But that didn’t mean that I owed you anything and had to respond. 

We agreed on no contact if we ever wanted to stay friends. Clearly, friends is out of the picture now, but come on. A vulnerable text after a bad night because you know I would feel bad for you?

Fuck, you know how much I would hate that. You had to have known. 

Just because we’re not dating anymore doesn’t mean that everything about you just disappears. I still know your tendencies. I still know exactly how my head burrows into your chest during a hug. I still know the actions I used to do that would be followed by you attacking me with a hug. I still could point you out in a crowd. 

I looked for you in every crowd for years. 

That stuff doesn’t just go away, no matter how much I want it to. But fuck. Fuck. Why did you text me? 

I don’t regret how I handled it. I probably would’ve responded months ago. But just like you, I’ve grown these last couple of months. 

It was comforting, for a split second, to know that maybe, just maybe, these past couple of months have been hard for you too. It makes me feel human. It makes me feel like I’m not crazy.

I’m glad you texted me. You gave me another level of closure I hadn’t known that I needed until then. 

But fuck, dude. You know me better than that. You should know me better than that. 

I hate Halloween.

November 26, 2020 (one hundred ninety seven days, at the coffee shop i brought you to when you came home with me two years ago)

I don’t regret loving you, but I hate you for what you did to me. 

Or maybe not. 

I hate knowing that even though we haven’t been in a relationship in a bit, it feels like sometimes, you’re on my mind the exact same amount when we were dating. I hate knowing that I gave so much of myself and my love to you, and it always felt unrecognized. 

Fuck, will it ever stop hurting? Will I ever be able to have to stop myself from thinking about you? Will it ever stop?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

Happy birthday. I hope you enjoy it.

June 12, 2021 (three hundred ninety five days post-break up, in boston, visiting a friend)

Tonight, when a friend asked me about you and how I felt about how we ended, I was able to articulate my thoughts clearly. I’m really proud of myself for getting to a point where I can take the lessons I learned the few months after we broke up and acknowledge them in a succinct way without breaking down into tears. Just watery eyes and the occasional voice crack 

I’m also proud that I can say that when we were dating, I lost a bit of myself. For months, it was really hard to admit out loud.

I’m proud of how far I’ve come. Sometimes, I wish I could call or text you about it, because I think you’d be proud too. And I know I’d be proud of you. I am, to be honest. I do break resolve once in awhile and check on you through various avenues.

I still haven’t seen you in person since the last time COVID made us say goodbye. Maybe I never will again. But day by day, I’m starting to accept that and be okay with it. I’m accepting that memories that used to be so painted in my mind are blurry or almost completely erased now. But that’s okay. Honestly, it’s probably for the best. 

I wonder, when you think about it, if you think about different moments that I do. That’s the thing when something ends. You have to be okay with letting go of those moments and realizing that just because you forget them, doesn’t mean they weren’t important. 

I don’t think I miss you. I hesitate in saying that. Because I’ve moved on and handled the aftermath of it better than I think both of us ever thought I could. When you hung up the phone for the last time, I proved to myself again that I’m stronger than I give myself credit for. I think we all are. But we don’t realize it until we’re thrown into a situation that we think we’ll never be able to overcome. 

But we do. Whether it’s because we’re forced to because there’s no other option, it doesn’t matter. Because we get through. We move on. 

I hope you're moving on. 

And then it goes into other topics, graduating during a pandemic specifically and losing what’s supposed to be your last year of no responsibilities before adulthood. There are other poems in here that reference a past relationship, but not as much as these eight. 

If there’s one thing that Noelle did change, it was taking out the details. Jeremy may have hurt her, but he doesn’t deserve someone possibly making a connection between these poems and their shared background. She’s not a famous author by any means, but she wanted to be careful.

Not that she makes that part of her life publicly known. People don’t need to know that her brother was Jeremy’s captain for two years at Maine and that’s how they met. 

Noelle grew up going to rinks. She hasn’t gone to one since they broke up. 

But also, what the fuck? It’s been five years since she’s dated the guy. She really is over it by now, even if his rise to stardom in the Bruins flittering on her social media feeds still sometimes has her swallowing a bit before she can continue with her day. 

Brooklyn is far enough from Boston. But sometimes it feels like it’s right outside her door. 

She’s proud of her first published work. She really is. People believed in her and after numerous notes swapped back and forth with her editor, she did it. She always knew she wanted to work in publishing. She never knew she herself would publish anything.

And here she is now, two weeks after the book release, in Boston, about to do a q&a and a signing. Apparently, “miscellaneous” has been on top of numerous lists and it’s flying off the shelves. Noelle can’t really believe it and tries not to think about it too much, trusting her agent with all of that. 

She’s happy to talk about her work and process though. That she can handle. And she’s grateful for all the love.

After a signing at a local bookstore, she decides to walk the 20 minutes home in the Boston fall. It’s a bit brisk, but she doesn’t mind and she just wanders, belly filled with delicious sushi she inhaled for dinner with an old friend.

Of course it happens the one time during her walk when she doesn’t avoid eye contact with someone. The song playing in her earbuds fade out of her focus and she almost stumbles. 

Jeremy’s eyes were always Noelle’s favorite thing about him. She thought she would’ve forgotten what they looked like by now. But clearly she hasn’t. 

Her eyes quickly cast to the person next to him. It’s definitely a girl. They’re a bit too far away for Noelle to pick out details. But it’s enough. He’s walking on the side closest to the street. It’s a Friday Night in a bustling part of the city. 

It hurts. She wishes it didn’t.

Even from far away, she sees his eyes blink in recognition. Noelle puts her head back down and walks faster. 

(She cries in the shower when she gets back to the hotel. She had debated feeling super sorry for herself and going to the hotel bar but refrained)

She has a few free days in Boston before flying back to New York. When she wakes up the next morning, she debates on going home early. But no, she won’t let a three second glance at someone ruin her time here. She used to occasionally come here during her college days. She loves this city. 

The city may be Jeremy’s, but she can make space for herself here too. 

She takes her time at a cafe, people watching and eating some breakfast. As she takes her coffee to-go, she looks out the window at the bookstore she was in the night before for the signing. She almost drops her coffee. 

Jeremy walks into the book store. 

Now, Noelle is debating her options. What she should do is continue with her day and walk in the opposite direction. But she’s always been too nosy for her own good. And maybe a bit self destructive. She decides to leave the cafe and cross the street immediately, so impatient to where she’s almost tapping her foot as the pedestrian signal stays red. 

As a writer, she’s no stranger to movie moments. The scenes written in books or movies where the timing is too accurate to be real. The situation too good to be true. But after a car speeds through an orange and she can finally walk, she stops in her tracks instead, feet glued down to the sidewalk.

Because Jeremy is right in front of her on the other side of the street. Her book in his hand. And he’s looking right at her. 

The first feeling she can recognize in herself is anger. Anger at the way their relationship panned out. Anger at the way they ended. Anger at the radio silence the years following. Anger at him for everything. Angry at herself for everything. 

The second feeling is, weirdly, shame, which she’s embarrassed by. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. But she feels it anyways. 

The third, and perhaps the most prominent, is emptiness. Five fucking years later, and she’s brought back to the emptiness she felt immediately after they broke up. The emptiness that the person you loved isn’t yours anymore — who maybe wasn’t ever yours to begin with. 

Before she can run, he’s already crossed the street to her. He looks naturally different as someone who you haven’t seen in five years would. But he also heartbreakingly looks the same. 

“We should get out of people’s way,” Noelle manages to chokes out. 

Jeremy laughs a bit. Her heart lurches. “Yeah.” He starts walking and she follows him wordlessly. This is his city after all. 

He leads them to a bench under a tree with beautiful fall foliage. She puts at least a foot between them as they both sit down, staring out at the people passing. She can’t take the silence. 

“I see you bought my book.”

“I did,” he replies evenly. “Congratulations. I always knew you would do it.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. Maybe if she squeezes hard enough she’ll forget when she originally pitched Jeremy the bare bones idea of the exact same book that’s currently in his hand. “Thank you. Congratulations to you too. On everything.”

“You’ve been watching?”

She shakes her head. “No. But, you know Seth and…yeah. It comes up during family calls sometimes.”

“Why didn’t you say hi last night?”

She looks pointedly at a couple walking their dog. “You seemed busy.”

“She wasn’t-that-it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Oh. Because that makes me feel so much better,” she spits out, before taking a deep breath. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. We broke up ages ago.”

“I’m sorry,” she gives him a look and is slightly proud of how he seems to shrink into himself a bit. “I-I know it’s five years too late. I know I didn’t handle it as well as I should’ve. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

The thing is, Noelle always thought that maybe hearing an apology someday would make her feel better. But now that’s heard it, she’s not sure she does. 

She swallows. “I appreciate that.”

“I’ve already read it, you know.”

“Read what?”

Jeremy runs a hand through his hair. “Your book. One of my teammate’s girlfriend recommended it and I asked to borrow it. It’s fantastic,” He looks down at the book in his hand. It’s like the cover is taunting her. “I wanted my own copy.”

“Oh.” 

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me off the hook with the poems I know were about me,” he scoffs, shaking his head at himself. “You could’ve written way worse.”

She can’t help but let out a chuckle. “I thought I was pretty mean.”

“Your definition of ‘pretty mean’ is tame compared to a lot of people,” he says, mindlessly flipping through the pages of the book. “You were always the kindest person, even when you shouldn’t have been..” 

He puts his hand out in her direction, the hand with the book in it. She furrows her eyebrows. “What-”

“Could I get a signed copy?”

“Jeremy. What do you want from me?”

He sighs, taking his hand back. “A chance to apologize?”

“You’ve already done that.”

“Not in the way I want to and what you deserve.”

She lets out a sigh, turning to face him fully. “I don’t know if that would be worth my time or yours. I know the book just came out, but that was five years ago. I’m over it. Forgive and forget, right?”

“But do you?” Jeremy counters back. “Clearly, you don’t forget, which I deserve. But forgive?” 

“We’re just going in circles now.”

“No we’re not,” he says firmly. “You’re just shutting me down because you don’t want to talk about it. I’ve had five years to prepare what I would say to you if I saw you again. You’re telling me you haven’t?”

“Of course I have,” Noelle tips her head back. “But also, what’s the point?”

“The point, is that I still love you.”

“Fuck you,” she says in a strained voice. “You can’t just-you can’t just throw that shit out there. Fuck you.”

He bites his lip, and to her annoyance, he laughs. But she listens more carefully, and it sounds very self deprecating. “I deserved that.”

“Yeah,” Noelle looks down at her feet. “So…what? You still love me?”

“I do.”

“And what are you going to do about that?”

“What are you going to let me do?”

“I live in Brooklyn.”

“I know,” she whips her head up. Jeremy looks sheepish, which she didn’t even think was something he knew how to do. “Seth mentioned it when we caught up a bit ago. I also still follow you on Instagram.”

She tries again. “It’s been five years.”

“And I’m here sitting with you and still feel the exact same way I did back then. Even more, to be honest.” He eyes her pointedly. “Any more excuses?”

Her voice softens. “You really hurt me.”

“I know. And I’m so sorry, Noelle.”

“I hurt you too.”

He shrugs. “We were young and stupid.”

“And we’re still not?” Noelle says with a snort before swallowing. “I’m not the same person you fell in love with.”

“I’m sure I’m not either. But I don’t know if there’s a world where I don’t love every version of you.”

“Even after reading the book?”

“Especially after reading the book,” he sighs. “Noelle, I know this is unfair of me. All of this. And I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to reach out. But I always intended to. And then you’re here? And I see you twice in two days? I’d be an idiot to not try. More of an idiot than I am, anyways.”

“Try for what?”

“A second chance? To be friends? Whatever you want.” He suddenly deflates. “Even if you don’t want anything to do with me. At least I’ll know.”

“Why did you never text me?”

“I thought about it a lot,” he admits. “I tried once, actually, after the high of a really good win. But it didn’t go through. I got the message.”

“The message?”

“You blocked me, right?”

Oh. “Yeah,” she lies. “I did.” She reaches into her bag for a pen and gestures for the book, which he gives to her, a curious gleam in his eyes. “I’m in Boston for two more days, including today.”

He takes the hint immediately. Eagerly. “I have a game tonight, but I’m free tomorrow.”

“Who are you guys playing?”

“Toronto. And I’m starting. Should be a good one.”

She hums non-committedly, scribbling on the inside of the front cover. She hands it back to him with a small, close-lipped smile. She nods at him to read the message.

to my first fan, 

i still love you too. 

xxx-xxx-xxxx

yours, 

noelle

He looks up, eyes shining but a bit confused. 

“I never blocked you. I just changed my number.”

“Oh.”

“And even if I still love you, I’m still mad at you.”

“I know. I’d be more surprised if you didn’t.”

She stands up, adjusting the bag on her shoulder and putting her sunglasses on. “Text me?”

His mouth splits wide into a grin. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

She backs away with one last attempt at a smile before turning down the street.

[lovezbrownies]

Work affair. (Yandere!Boss x GN!Reader)

Masterlist

Synopsis: Your boss never cared much for you, until he did.

Red Ludenhart x Reader.

Warnings: Stalking, breaking and entering, alcohol, clubbing, drugging (to reader), death (minor character), forced memory loss,

Your boss was a tad bit strange, but you can put up with the strange behavior if it meant getting paid. Even if your boss didn’t allow you to step outside of his office and the VVIP area of the club that’s okay, maybe he doesn’t want you to be influenced by lazy workers! Or he doesn’t want any of the sleazy non-VVIP customers to harass you! It was all for your own safety. You think.

Red was delighted to learn your apartment was close by to his club. He would always offer to walk you back home when your shift is regrettably over, he has your address memorized, as well as the entire layout of your apartment. The second fact was not something you were aware of however, you should definitely get better locks. It was child’s play to break into your humble abode.

The first few nights he broke into your home he was far more cautious than he is now, Red didn’t know when your bedtime was, but when he decided to install cameras all around your apartment, he could finally have some peace knowing when you were and weren’t awake. And of course to spy on any guests you have over, watching you walk around and commit yourselves to your hobbies on the weekends.

You were the definition of perfection in his eyes. Red wasn’t one for love and that mushy stuff, he’d always preferred the more chaotic parts of his life than the mushy lovey dovey stuff he’s seen on TV. That's what he’s been saying to himself up until he met you, the new bartender. Red has no clue who hired you but he sure as hell is eternally grateful for it.

It wasn’t a love at first sight situation, nor did you meet immediately. You met the owner of the club you work at a month after you started working. It was during the monthly staff meeting when you did. Red was confused by your presence and asked who you were, after introducing yourself to him he brushed you off. Red didn’t care if there was a new employee, as long as you don’t cause trouble you’re not someone important to him at all.

Red thought you were attractive, sure, but most of his staff are– nothing new. Red doesn’t like the main entrance of his own club, usually taking the back entrance for special patrons, and into the VVIP area. So that means months passed, and the only times he’d ever see you are during the staff meetings. He’s sure you do at least the bare minimum since you don’t get a lot of complaints like other staff. Maybe the illogical assholes every now and then would accuse you of something but the floor manager usually has it handled.

It wasn’t until you had the closing shift while Red was still there that he realized how wonderful you are. Normally he’d be back home before the closing shift, today was different. It was a long complicated process but Red managed to convince an investor to put in double the money they originally invested; it was now 5:50 AM. Patrons have been kicked out, evident by the lack of noise, and Red’s sure the staff have left by now.

Red needed to drink something, and he needed it to be as heavy as possible. The VVIP areas didn’t have anything strong so he went to the general area of his club. Red expected the usual emptiness of the club, but someone was still there, vacuuming the confetti off the floors. In the middle of the large empty club stood you, headphones on as you nodded along to the music you were listening to.

This was something he hadn’t seen before; and he just stood there– watching as you cleaned up, unaware of the predator watching your every move. Eventually, tired of standing there Red just walked over to one of the bars around the club, took his favorite brandy bottle, poured himself a cup full, and kept watching. This time he was leaning against the bar counter. It was cute how you were none the wiser of his presence.

Eventually you turned off the vacuum. Turning around you expected nothing less than perfectly clear floors, which yes that you did see, but you also found the owner of the club, smirking at you, glass half empty. You stood there, motionlessly staring at Red as he stared right back at you. Not wanting to get into trouble for whatever reason you sped off into the restricted area for the staff and booked it to the janitor’s closet; just as Red was about to say something to quell your anxieties.

Well, not Red’s interest was certainly piqued. Picking up the vacuum you abandoned he made his way over to the staff only area, waiting to hear some shuffling but all he heard was the staff’s exit door opening and closing. You left. Not a trace of your existence to be seen. Looked like you were all ready and packed to leave, it’s fine, he’ll just put the vacuum back and see you the next day.

And see you he did. For weeks, he would approach you at the end of your shift, chat, and then walk you back home. A month and a half into your newfound friendship he promoted you to be the VVIP’s sole bartender, firing the old one for reasons unknown. Red watched your every move since, in his club, in your apartment, with your friends, shopping. Wherever you are. There will always be a camera following your every move.

Your boss was a nice man for getting to know you, walking you home as the sun rises, making sure no one bothered you, and when someone did he’d defend you like his life depended on it. Normally, you’d fall in love with a man if he did all that just for you. But you were already in a committed relationship. 

Your husband, Richard, is a military man, striving to be the next Chief. He moved away from the city you two lived in right before you started working at the bar– Rich was transferred over to a different city, and you didn’t want to move away from your family and friends, so you compromised. Richard tries his best to come by and visit, he still pays for your shared apartment, and always calls you morning and night. He is the man for you.

Red knew about Richard, of course he would. Red knew everything there was to know about you, and was he concerned over it? No. Red has connections everywhere. Including in the military, so when an unfortunate accident occurs, a misfire, or maybe a terrible case of food poisoning. Whatever it may be, your ex-husband is now dead. Leaving room for Red to be the sincere loving friend. Yes, come running to his arms, cry to him, it’s late and you don’t want to be alone? No worries, he’ll stay the night!

Red’s been doing an amazing job distracting you from the death of your ex-husband. Hugging you when you need, cooking mouth watering dishes just for you, and buying you many things to help distract you from the grief. Like gaming consoles, knitting yarn, books, art equipment, anything! If he ever sees you show interest in something he will immediately purchase it or at least try to get a hold of it. Whenever you show concern or guilt over the amounts he’s spent on you he softly pets you and tells you that his club is very successful.

Over time, Red truly weaseled his way into your life. He spent most of his nights in your bed; although platonically, as you so claim. Red likes to act like a good househusband when he does sleep over, wake up early, cook breakfast, and shamelessly flirt with you. You two walk together to work, he doesn’t dare think of work up until your shift starts.

Red doesn’t like to harm you, but he has been slipping a few pills into your food; a few anti-anxiety meds, with sleeping aids and here comes the perfect concoction for lapses of memory, causing you to forget quite a bit but not too much to be dangerous. He does this for a while, until you mostly forget about the fact that you had been unfaithful to Red by marrying some rando. Once that happens Red pulls back from the drugging. It was easy to do so, with a spare key to your apartment and him cooking you most of your meals.

You stare up at the ceiling with a soft smile on your face, you ponder how you hadn’t managed to fall in love with your husband sooner. He’s always been there for you, he’s protected you from creeps, and he’s spoiled you even before you got together. You were so lucky that you had him. You looked back down, gazing at the handsome man laying his head on your lap. You caress his hair, your perfect man, Red.

Red loves his little butterfly.

[tash-sho-sho]

Now thinking about it, if it were really Self-Aware AU HSR... I did that anual-event thing, and I had done like... 4,678 or so of battles since I started playing, and like 2,804 or so had Blade in it. Like... imagine an Au where you are so down-bad for them that you use them even against enemies with a high resistance with their element.

Let me tell ya, Cocolia is REALLY resistant agains wind, and I love Blade so much that I still use him... even if I see like 20k with crits and all 🤧🤧

Imagine a Blade (or any character) that since the day he came home, he barely leaves the team.

That you tried to give them the best of the best, and is the only character you completely maxed all their talents.

Anyway, I see this and I feel proud as a Blade enjoyer that WILL make him E6 someday, but as a SAHSR AU... unless they really like you... I'm not sure how happy they would be.... although Blade sees himself as a blade, so he wouldn't mind? At least him.

How would your favorite character feel to be shown so much love?

Blade has was my first limited-5 star. It was supposed to be Jing Yuan, but I lose the 50/50 with Bailu, and I decided that I would save the rest when I saw Blade. I'm soo weak against these characters and I wouldn't risk not having him and his lightcone.

Now imagine how would the rest that didn't came "home" would feel after seeing how much love you give your love one. They are more powerful, and loved.

If you are someone like me, who does not spend in many characters, imagine the jealous stares of the rest that were not chosen. (I've been playing for like 11 months now, and I only have 34 characters, my wants are very specific and I do not tend to fall into temptation!)

I would go into more details but I have nothing going on in my brain, if someone had an idea... you are free to share it, or do a post about it.

Just me showing off my love for Blade(+)

I HAVE PROOF of MY DEVOTION

Hehe... Blade☆♡♡~

Blade set don't like me, I've been farming for months and no luck, I think it's time to give up... but pride is strong and faith is the last thing is lost! Although, I do need to farm for other characters, because no dps is as strong as a dps with a harmony character by their side!

BTW, the abundance path with Blade goes REALLY well, and that 3-star Blessing Path of the Abundance: Becoming One Being goes REALLY well with him, he can become a lil-healer himself! Such a good boy, healing himself and his teammates~♡

[ranbling]

So I have rewatched Chimney and Hen begins episodes, and I thought maybe I was just remembering the negative things that happened to Chim and Hen, but now I'm not indifferent towards Tommy, I actively dislike him (i listed everything he did in my post)

You mean to tell the best option for Buck's first male love interest was someone who was an absolute jerk to Chim and Hen? And I don't want to hear about growth (he was acting the same way with Hen that he did with Chim, I'm not seeing the growth there) and there wasn't even a real apology to any of them. You mean to tell me you believe Buck would date someone who treated his family horribly in the past?

And I get that the 118 was an old school place, but there is a difference between not doing anything against the racism and misogyny (which is not ideal, but I understand that sometimes you'll in a situation where you have to protect yourself by not getting involved) or actively taking part in it. Tommy is a white guy, he's the thing the old captain wants in a firehouse, had he just stayed silent, he would have been safe.

If they wanted to have a character who is already existing for Buck's love interest, they should have choosen Casey the gay firefighter from the 115 (the one is Athena's support group). Hen is probably still friends with him, he could have been the one who is with the helicopter station (and could have been explained with a line "oh I didn't even know you transferred here?" "Yeah I did and when I heard what you're planning to do for Athena I knew I have to help you")

There are my notes I took during the episode, to support what I just said

- okay Chimney comes up with his work bag and Tommy (!!) without the others seeing Chimney makes a comment about him being a delivery guy (they also knew they'll get a probie that day, so I feel like it's definitely a jab at Chim being asian)

- the "you still here?" comment? It's not the end of their shift and the tone of his voice is not like a "wow, how can you still be here and endure how we treat you?" he's just being a jerk to Chim

- Tommy and Sal just ignore Chim when he starts talking to them

- Chimney offers an olive branch to Tommy, and he's like "If I thought about you at all, I probably wouldn't [like you])

- the whole earn their respect before they want to befriend you is just bullshit. There is difference between being kinda distant with someone until you know they're actually capable of not dying, and acting like someone is nothing and looking through them

(I absolutely adore the scene where the past and present is kinda blurring together)

- Tommy thanks Chim for saving his life (which like bare minimum), but there is not like an apology for anything for being a jerk

In Chim begins Sal isn't even named and has one or two lines which are not even directed at Chim, and while the Captain is the one who makes Chim do all the chores and stay behind all the time and eat at the little table, Tommy is the one who is like vocally being a jerk

Now to Hen begins

- there the Captain is the one who starts being a jerk to Hen, but like Sal and Tommy is fast to follow

- the new your bitchiness comment - like it was so uncalled for, why would you even imply someone is a bitch when you've been working together for max. a week??

- so Chim says that even though they accept him inside the firehouse, they don't actually consider him being a part of the team enough to invite him to anything outside of work

( I love Athena's little group of Hen, the gay firefighter from 115 and the other female patrol officer)

- Chim looks so proud of Hen during her speech (i'm not gonna guess what others are feeling, but most of them look annoyed at being called out)

- Sal and Tommy also doesn't give an apology to Hen, they're just good work, shake our hands and let's forget how we treated you

[lesfir]

Astarion fixed me for evil in fantasy. (Okay I've already been fixed.) Really the fandom is so obsessed with a health\healthy relationship with Astarion. More than AA to Tav ever could. Fixing is healing, if look at the story from the outside. It's a plot point. “To do better, gooder”. He manipulated sex, lied, was dangerous from the start, unhealthy, toxic. It's the same character. All attacks on AA are essentially attacks on the dark side of Astarion. These buzzing lectures about how unhealthy it is. Spawn not healthy either, so. The romance with Astarion is unhealthy, so. Fixing/healing/make better version someone you barely know, in your own beliefs, is the most unhealthy toxic abusive thing on planet Earth irl. Chance to be a better person, fantasy, vampire - okay. (I don't believe) and most importantly: I don't care - in past, now deeply I don't like it. But why are you still lecturing about AA&health? The evil of AA is that he won't let Tav go. This is the life Tav has chosen, they can refuse to turn at any time. Then the choice is made. Kinda obviously right away, no? And Spawn Astraion, if you start breaking up with him will say he sacrificed everything only for Tav. Oh, those “break up” choices breaking logic just to explore a character's rage feelings, eh? Same kind of fantasy vampire.

Like:

And so Tav selfish life orientations (rpg) coincide with Astarion - power for themselves, at any cost, don't care about consequences, decadence. Play for ally and lover simply exists in this game. Tav: No one dares touch us, my love. It's also amazing that the fandom thinks character growth = to make character better. Evil characters grow too, learn from mistakes, to gain influence, luxury, find an ally, love.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

if dorian didn't show up, do you think louis would have shot minnie?

I do. I know some people think either he wouldn't have or he would've missed so that's why the writers had him shoot Dorian instead, but mmmmmm no, I don't personally think so. I like to think that if he had taken the shot, his shaky hands would've caused him to shoot her fatally.

Mostly because I'm already so normal about the fact that of the Ericson crew, Marlon and Louis are the only ones with a body count. Well, that we know of, but shown to us in the game, at least. Plus, we know it's Louis' first kill.

Like yeah, Clementine and AJ become part of the crew and they have bigger body counts, and if we're counting indirect kills caused by actions, then Tenn has a count... and I guess everyone has blood on their hands for blowing up the boat... but I'm talking about killed directly with a weapon like....... I lied, I'm not normal about that at all, Louis and Marlon are the ones who have killed someone in Louis' route. I'm also not normal about the fact that Louis kills Dorian and then even as he's clearly in shock, he tries to go with Clementine to get AJ, and then later on when they talk about it, he says it feels like bile but not quite and he's glad he has it in him to do it.... listen, listen, listen... I'm obsessed with that.

Anyway, so if Louis shot Minerva, I think he would've accidentally killed her and can you imagine? He's already enough of a mess after killing the woman who pinned him down and tried to cut his finger off [or succeeded] but he knew Minerva, they were friends before the twins were taken. Even Violet couldn't kill her even though that would've been the smarter thing to do, and we know thanks to meta knowledge that killing her would've saved lives, but Violet couldn't, and I don't think Louis would intentionally either.

Speaking of Violet, if Louis killed Minerva, I hate to think about what that would've done to Vi. I think she might've actually left at that point, like what was planned before it got changed to her being burned. I don't think she would've attacked Louis over it, though, like yeah she attacked Clementine in the cell but Louis? I don't know, but I don't think so just because it's Louis and he'd be a mess about it anyway.

Though if he did kill her, it would be a neat parallel to draw... y'know, because Louis forgave AJ for killing Marlon even though he was pissed and heartbroken, and Violet was annoyed with him the entire time... but could she ever forgive Louis for killing Minerva? Y'know? We already have a similar parallel with AJ shooting Tenn, but still.

If Clementine killed Minerva in that moment, though, then I could see Violet attacking her since in her eyes, Clem proved her right.

So yeah, I get why they added the Dorian kill to his route. It adds another compelling element to Louis as a character, but we also need Minerva alive for episode 4; Louis can't kill her, he can't miss, and he's not going to stay with her because we need Violet to stay on the boat and him to be on shore for all routes.

[infizero]

i cant phrase this well but infinity train book 2 is for the aroace transgenders. lake transgenderism is obvious but nothing in my life has screamed to me queerplatonicism as much as lake and jesse like their qpr readings are off the fucking charts

[bravevolunteer]

michael's physical fate mirroring his emotional trauma is so perfectly engineered to make me fucking insane and that choice was not intentional at AAAALLLL

[wundrousarts]

hi I hope this doesn’t sound like a demand lol but I love how you draw jupiter and I hope you draw him more

your art is so cool by the way I really like your character lineup 🥺

Thank you so much!! I literally never draw Jupiter, on account of my inability to draw 1. adult men and 2. beards, BUT it’s something I need to / want to get better at. The only other time I’ve drawn him was that lineup which I did super quick, so it was fun to try and think of an actual design so I can try to draw him more!

[ID: Three half-colored digital sketches of Jupiter North from Nevermoor. They show him as a kid with messy hair, a young adult with a mullet and mustache, and an adult with longer hair and a fuller beard. End ID.]

Details on my Jupiter design / headcanons (?) for his life under the cut:

I started with the middle— in my layers, I dubbed him to be “teen” Jupiter, originally intending for him as a senior scholar, but as time went on I figured he was more like, early 20s young adult Jove. The Wunsoc sweater is just still there on the adults because I didn’t want to redraw <3

I feel like Wunsoc, especially with Dearborn and Murgatroyd prowling the halls, holds its student’s appearances to a certain standard. Sure, society members are representatives of the society for the rest of their lives once they graduate, but their time in school is their first introduction to that life. It's their debut as society members. We see this in a lot of stuff with Holliday, in Hollowpox and in the one Silverborn snippet, how she's manufacturing an image for Mog and co. and physical appearance plays a part in it.

Going with this: I feel like Wunsoc would expect their students to keep their appearance clean and approachable somewhat. Jupiter gives me a vibe of the kid who had a crazy growth spurt, and was able to grow a beard before graduating– BUT I don't know if Wunsoc (really just the Scholar Mistresses) would be crazy for that. So I imagine that he's relatively clean-shaven for the most part, nowhere near modern Jove, and then starts to grow out his facial hair a bit more as a senior scholar where I imagine things would lax a bit, and then just commit fully to growing a beard once he properly graduates.

So young adult Jupiter is perhaps in his early 20s, a somewhat recent Wunsoc graduate. I'm a mullet Jupiter truther, where his hair is longer in the back, and had to represent that. Younger Jove's is messier and more fun; he's not too concerned about his image as he hasn't quite reached that laundry list of titles and accolades yet.

Present-day adult Jupiter is still rocking the mullet style, just now it's longer and styled a bit more professionally. But let's be real– it doesn't stay this way. It totally gets easily messed up from his hats, and Jove loves to have fun and entertain people, Plus, he's a busy man, constantly stressed and running around. While the hair here might be great for say, a formal meeting or a magazine cover, the hair most folks end up seeing him with tends to be a bit more wild. He definitely starts to resemble his younger self's hair more after a rowdy night or a stressful endeavor.

Kid Jupiter– not much to say here, tbh. I figured I'd stick with the longer hair he has as an adult, kinda rowdy. Not a mullet yet, though! I was thinking of the part in Nevermoor where he starts talking about the rules he broke and stuff he got up to as a Wunsoc student, and how Hawthorne started taking notes, and made his hair similar to the rowdy hair of our favorite bestie. However, while Hawthorne's hair is curly, I'm of the belief that Jupiter's hair is definitely pretty straight. So no curlicues for him </3

Hopefully now that I've started to nail down a design for Jupiter, I can draw him more!! I always have soooo many Nevermoor ideas circling around in my brain. I love thinking about designs for various characters and the reasonings behind different aspects of their appearance.

[aylinaliens]

i find it hilarious people are complaining that extraordinary attorney woo is a ‘fast paced’ romance simply because of the fact junho fell hard at the very start. so let me get this straight: it’s not fast paced if two characters hook up in the second episode (some of these new era kdrama’s are w i l d) but it is fast paced if the ML is genuinely smitten by the FL and expresses said feelings early on (and is it even early on when we are heading into the 9/10 episode without them even dating). okay :)

[daz4i]

controversial opinion perhaps but i kinda hate when youtubers, esp ones with a large audience, pull armchair psychology on villainous or clearly negative characters, when they don't have the disorders they're talking about or some background in psychology or at least talking to someone who has it to make sure what they're saying is relevant. it kinda feels like it adds to the constant demonization of these disorders (like. going "this character is bipolar because they killed someone on a whim" is Not Great to say the least) without any regard to how it affects the real people who live with them

[portokali]

there is. definitely a lot to be said about the merits of having the ability to turn off Shipper Brain Mode and enjoy a story without ever demanding a ship be canon or even shipping any of the characters. however there is something about a hint or a promise of romance in works that aren’t explicitly romantic that makes them somehow more tantalizing and interesting. anyway this post is about james and erin derrygirls where i had 0 expectations of their feelings ever being confirmed and simply entertained the idea of them as a what-if-james-likes-erin-lol on a completely different tab that was left open in my brain but when it Was confirmed in s3 and the way it was left unfulfilled but all the same promised absolutely has done numbers to my brain chemistry like the small and tender crushes of two kids living ordinary lives under extraordinary circumstances. something about that yeah.

[insertdisc5]

🎮 HEY I WANNA MAKE A GAME! 🎮

Yeah I getcha. I was once like you. Pure and naive. Great news. I AM STILL PURE AND NAIVE, GAME DEV IS FUN! But where to start?

To start, here are a couple of entry level softwares you can use! source: I just made a game called In Stars and Time and people are asking me how to start making vidy gaems. Now, without further ado:

SOFTWARES AND ENGINES FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO CODE!!!

Ren'py (and also a link to it if you click here do it): THE visual novel software. Comic artists, look no further ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It has great documentation! It has a bunch of plugins and UI stuff and assets for you to buy! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) You can also port your game to a BUNCH of consoles! ✨Cons: None really <3 Some games to look at: Doki Doki Literature Club, Bad End Theater, Butterfly Soup

Twine: Great for text-based games! GREAT FOR WRITERS WHO DONT WANNA DRAW!!!!!!!!! (but you can draw if you want) ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's versatile! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) ✨Cons: You can add pictures, but it's a pain. Some games to look at: The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo, Queers In love At The End of The World, Escape Velocity

Bitsy: Little topdown games! ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's (somewhat) intuitive! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! You can make everything in it, from text to sprites to code! Those games sure are small! ✨Cons: Those games sure are small. This is to make THE simplest game. Barely any animation for your sprites, can barely fit a line of text in there. But honestly, the restrictions are refreshing! Some games to look at: honestly I haven't played that many bitsy games because i am a fake gamer. The picture above is from Under A Star Called Sun though and that looks so pretty

RPGMaker: To make RPGs! LIKE ME!!!!! NOTE: I recommend getting the latest version if you can, but all have their pros and cons. You can get a better idea by looking at this post. ✨Pros: Literally everything you need to make an RPG. Has a tutorial inside the software itself that will teach you the basics. Pretty simple to understand, even if you have no coding experience! Also I made a post helping you out with RPGMaker right here! ✨Cons: Some stuff can be hard to figure out. Also, the latest version is expensive. Get it on sale! Some games to look at: Yume Nikki, Hylics, In Stars and Time (hehe. I made it)

engine.lol: collage worlds! it is relatively new so I don't know much about it, but it seems fascinating. picture is from Garden! NOTE: There's a bunch of smaller engines to find out there. Just yesterday I found out there's an Idle Game Maker made by the Cookie Clicker creator. Isn't life wonderful?

✨more advice under the cut. this is Long ok✨

ENGINES I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT AND THEY SEEM HARD BUT ALSO GIVE IT A TRY I GUESS!!!! :

Unity and Unreal: I don't know anything about those! That looks hard to learn! But indie devs use them! It seems expensive! Follow your dreams though! Don't ask me how!

GameMaker: Wuh I just don't know anything about it either! I just know it's now free if your game is non-commercial (aka, you're not selling it), and Undertale was made on it! It seems good! You probably need some coding experience though!!!

Godot: Man I know even less about this one. Heard good things though!

BUNCHA RANDOM ADVICE!!!!

-Make something small first! Try making simple: a character is in a room, and exits the room. The character can look around, decide to take an item with them, can leave, and maybe the door is locked and you have to find the key. Figuring out how to code something like that, whether it is as a fully text-based game or as an RPGMaker map, should be a good start to figure out how your software of choice works!

-After that, if you have an idea, try first to make the simplest version of that idea. For my timeloop RPG, my simplest version was two rooms: first room you can walk in, second room with the King, where a cutscene automatically plays and the battle starts, you immediately die, and loop back to the first room, with the text from this point on reflecting this change. I think I also added a loop counter. This helped me figure out the most important thing: Can This Game Be Made? After that, the rest is just fun stuff. So if you want to make a dating sim, try and figure out how to add choices, and how to have affection points go up and down depending on your choices! If you want to make a platformer, figure out how to make your character move and jump and how to create a simple level! If you just want to make a kinetic visual novel with no choices, figure out how to add text, and how to add portraits! You'll be surprised at how powerful you'll feel after having figured even those simple things out.

-If you have a programming problem or just get confused, never underestimate the power of asking Google! You most likely won't be the only person asking this question, and you will learn some useful tips! If you are powerful enough, you can even… Ask people??? On forums??? Not me though.

-Yeah I know you probably want to make Your Big Idea RIGHT NOW but please. Make a smaller prototype first. You need to get that experience. Trust me.

-If you are not a womanthing of many skills like me, you might realize you need help. Maybe you need an artist, or a programmer. So! Game jams on itch.io are a great way to get to work and meet other game devs that have different strengths! Or ask around! Maybe your artist friend secretly always wanted to draw for a game. Ask! Collaborate! Have fun!!!

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye