#i just see characters with short fuses who have the ability to grow and be seen as the good people they are and i get emotional

[thelaughingmerman]

I actually do have the words to describe how much I love Max but it’d be just a rambly mess.

[obnoxiousselfdiagnosedneurosis]

For the meme thing, Hashirama <3 (or madara if you'd prefer)

Pick a character I am likely to have Feelings/Opinions about and I will give and explain the top five ideas/concepts/etc that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them.

Choosing Madara bc I don't think I have a solid grasp on Hashirama, much (also I'm sorry for answering this WEEKS late):

1) I was thinking of talking about what I think are his some of his core traits separately (caution, power, control) but I've decided to group them together because they're all derived from his relationship with violence and how it's shaped him as he grew up.

In a world where it's almost a miracle to grow past 20 and where he's already lost three of his siblings at a very young age, he's always going to be on his guard, always watching his back, because it's easy to be caught unawares and to lose your life or someone close to you's unexpectedly in his line of work. He's always observing, double-checking, making sure, questioning. And not even just on the battlefield! Even when he's given his "trust" to Hashirama and agreed to the alliance and to build their new village, he's still not 100% on board, he's still taking mental notes, preparing himself for and predicting outcomes; this is almost too good to be true, is this really going to work, is this really going to last, is this really the answer? Pretty fitting, really, that one of the first things we learn about him is that he's always watching his back.

And of course, he often turns to power. It's the only thing he knows, in their lives driven by violence, that actually, indisputably works. Growing powerful and winning battles, being feared for your strength and intimidating others into submission, those not only keep you alive but keep you thriving. Only those with the necessary strength can move anything around. Power is quick, easy and dependable, always.

Both of these tie into the need for control, because to be able to predict and expect where anyone might attack and to have the strength and ability to actually deal with it is to always turn the situation in your favour. He'll always make sure he has full control over a situation in the end, especially when in the end he feels that he has no one left to trust but himself.

All of this is fundamentally tied to having grown up a child soldier and having seen nothing else but violence even into his early adulthood. He was raised on it, and honestly can't see a way out of it.

2) He needs tangible proof that something works and/or is possible before he'll go along with it. He's not going to be convinced into agreeing to something he's certain is doomed to fail, and it'll take a whole lot to get him on board with something he doesn't see having a 100% success rate either. Ties into the caution thing a bit, but he's a planner. A good one? Arguable, but even if things don't go entirely as he's laid them out in his head, he generally gets the job done that way. And is it really "taking risks" if you're confidently powerful enough to offset the consequences of them?

3) He has a bit of a temper. You could call it a short-fuse when he was a child, but that's something you train yourself out of as you grow and as an adult you'd expect him less to fly off at you for sneaking up on him unexpectedly. His anger isn't any less difficult to deal with, though, it just comes less in immediate bursts and more in long brooding periods that are difficult to shake him out of without aggravating him more. He'll get over it... at some point.

4) This is true for every Uchiha character we see honestly but it's always important to point out that love and the loss of it are an important part of shaping who he is. They tie into a lot of his feelings of guilt, and duty for his clan.

That he wasn't able to protect his other three brothers that died always weighs on his mind, so that amplifies the protectiveness he has over Izuna, his last remaining sibling. Tying into point 2, it's why he chooses his brother and his allegiance to his clan over Hashirama, no matter how badly he would have wanted to stay friends with him; because, to him, it was the safer choice. He would rather stick to his own side and focus on protecting all he can rather than wade into the uncertain and face risks he couldn't control.

His insistence, also, that the Uchiha would be better off not in Konoha and his fear that the Senju would come to oppress them is heightened in part I think by Izuna's death and the fact that he came to agree to a ceasefire only after being defeated by Hashirama and that members of his clan were defecting. When Izuna's gone, all he has left is his clan and the fact that he's their leader and that their future rests on him. Inevitably, he's going to be more suspicious (and he wasn't entirely off on that either).

5) I think I've said everything that's important so to close it off. I just think you Get Him more if you acknowledge that he's gay.

[dapper-shipping-forever]

2, 4, 5, 6, and 7 for the self insert lore asks?

I'm gonna answer about my M.agi s/i for this !

2) Normally, I fit my s/i's in as early as I can into canon. For this s/i, she is introduced a little later, but also fairly early in the series. Phrasing this with as little spoilers as possible, she is introduced when Morg and Aladdin are traveling together to Balbadd. The scene she first comes in is pretty inconspicuous; they simply run into each other in a small town in the desert, and they have a short conversation; it's mainly meant, in a meta sense, to briefly introduce her and set the scene for her proper introduction a couple scenes later in the same episode. This scene gives a taste of her personality and as she's walking away, Aladdin notices she is wearing a djinn metal vessel on her hand.

4) She's a main character; she travels with the main cast sometimes and is fairly important overall.

5) Because of her djinn metal vessel, she can control plants. She can basically make any plants grow, but it has to be theoretically capable of growing in that environment either way, like not necessarily native but has to be able to be cultivated there; she can manipulate those plants freely, and can shape them creatively somewhat. She is capable of creating oasises, this takes substantial magoi. Something else her djinn metal vessel allows her to do is convert sunlight in magoi, appearing sometimes as if she simply has nearly infinite magoi, though to balance this I'm thinking she can maybe only do it while she's djinn equipped (something all djinn metal vessel users can do where they like invite their djinn into their body and transform). Also something I invented and I think would be neat in canon, I like thinking maybe she can do an extra ability I call full djinn equip, which is essentially fusing with her djinn, but this is pretty dangerous since it requires a lot of magoi and she is only able to do this because of her ability to turn sunlight into more magoi, and she can only do this with constant sunlight, if she was away from sunlight for a second the transformation would stop; also she has to be super careful to not fuse with her djinn too much, as if she fully fused then the djinn's magoi is far more powerful than her's and she would basically never be able to seperate from her like she would just become a part of her djinn, but this form is stronger than normal djinn equips. Again as far as I know thats not anything in canon and it's an op move I just invented.

6) No, but I do want her to have some lmao

7) I do have other M.agi crushes, and I think they have little crushes on her. Namely Ren, who is honestly close to just being an f/o; when she's in the kou empire they get pretty close and he does get some feelings for her (which makes Sinbad jealous the second he sees that lmao)

[sapphic-loser16]

Could you tell me anything about the Chiaroscuro Triforce Trio if you’d like?

Anon, you are the light of my life and I would literally die for you /j. Imma do this by characters so I don’t spew onto the page.

So let’s start with Link! Beautiful baby boy, holding him very gently. One of the things I like most about his characterization is his general distaste for heroes and his ability to see good in everything. Link doesn’t believe in the heroes of legend, mostly because when he was little he put all his hope in the. One day, a recon squad came back with only two survivors (they were ambushed by Yiga), one of them being Sheik. That was the only time he had ever seen his dad cry, and from that moment on all the faith he put in the heroes of legend was shattered. His ability to see the good in everyone comes from Ganondorf, interestingly enough (which I will get into :3). In general, he had conflicted feelings over the Chain, and especially his own status as Hylia’s Chosen himself. I’m planning on exploring this in the next chapter!

Sheik/ Evanthine, my beloved kickass monarch. Evanthine has more of a pessimistic outlook on life, which is mostly shaped by her experiences. Her father, Rowan, came from Labrynnia to make an alliance (read: bid for power) with the Hylian princess. Rowan is a piece of shit and poisoned the queen of Hyrule in order to gain control of the crown. He was also abusive, both verbally and physically to young Evanthine, who was about 5 when her mother died. If Evanthine wouldn’t have met Ganondorf and Khel, she would have ended up dead, or just like Rowan. She has a strong sense of justice, but also has a short fuse. If the resistance ever wins their war, she will become the queen of Hyrule, something she dreads out of fear of becoming just like her father.

Ganondorf my blorbo my light my life my everything (I would literally ramble about him forever if you’d let me). Ganondorf had sort of a rough upbringing. He is the son of a Sheikah spy and a Gerudo soldier. Once the Sheikah learned he had impregnated someone, he ran off, and Gan’s mother died in childbirth. He was then adopted and raised by the Chief of the Gerudo, Ailish and her wife. Growing up, Gan was always seen as sort of a bad omen to those outside of the Gerudo people, but to them he was just a little kid who was a big nerd and had a good heart. At this time, the Gerudo were fighting for more rights under the banner of Hyrule (did I mention Rowan is a piece of shit, because he is). Gan and Ailish lived in Castle Towne for a little, which is where he met Evanthine. They (along with Khel) became fast friends, and were practically inseparable. After shit went down with the Yiga, a bunch of stuff happened with Gan that technically counts as spoilers (which I can talk about if you want.). Fast forward 5 years, and he and Evanthine meet again, fall in love, badda bing badda boom, they’re married.

Due to the shit happening in the five year gap, Gan’s kinda screwed up both mentally and physically. He has the mentality of ‘because I suffered greatly, no one should go through that type of pain’. He’s self sacrificing to a fault, and will run himself into the ground to make sure that no one will suffer on his behalf. (Side note, he blames himself for Melora and the Yiga. That’s also a spoiler ;)). He chooses to see the good in everyone because he refuses to believe that Hyrule and it’s people are too far gone. He also has most of the memories of all previous Ganondorfs. These usually come to him in the form of dreams, which is why he will actively avoid sleeping.

[sweetdreamsofgelato]

I just finished another read through of Midsummer Misadventures and I have a question! Feel free not to answer if its one of those yet to be revealed things, but it seems clear that the reader is very much in denial of her feelings, but does Henry know how he feels about her? Does he care about her as more than a friend and is just waiting for her to catch on? or know that their rivalry comes more from love than hate? Again, no pressure to answer, I just love picking writer's brains!

Hey there Bonnie Nonnie,

I adore these questions! Thank you so much for asking. 😊If you have any more, feel free to slide into my inbox at any time.

So the short answer to your question is no, they are making discoveries in parallel and in real time. He's not been secretly pining over her. Whilst they don't tolerate each other well and there's no friendship to speak of, they clearly share a bond that neither wishes to acknowledge and the rivalry is more a result of their own arrogance/ignorance than from love or hate.

I'll try not to give too much away, but I will leave a more in-depth explanation beneath the cut to give some insight.

I liken their dynamic and rivalry to playing chess. Lots of moving pieces, lots of potential, but as players, they are overly reactionary, so their strategies are inherently flawed. Inevitably, someone blunders terribly or makes an unexpected move that throws the whole game into chaos.

They do have a Pride and Prejudice vibe in that Reader and Henry mirror each other in many ways, and they both need that reflection—that person who forces them to see themselves, flaws and all. That can be exceedingly uncomfortable and is only magnified with two characters who have deep-seated control issues. This discomfort can be misinterpreted as incompatibility, but in actuality, they are two sides of the same coin.

Reader and Henry may see themselves as oil and water, but I think they are more fire and a powder keg, and close proximity is the fuse.

In youth, they were too immature to have the ability or desire to understand any deeper meaning around their conflict. They simply reacted to each other without much thought to anything other than keeping their guards up, and so when they became adults and had more control over their situations, they overcorrected by intentionally keeping as much distance as possible. It wasn't because they sensed any potential attraction; it was purely avoidance. (They each have their own reasons, some of which have already been mentioned and some that will be revealed as the story progresses.)

The irony is that having spent so much time avoiding each other, they've actually muddied the waters of their understanding of each other, and they can (and will) act on a lot of faulty assumptions.

I think we see from Reader's side that she is curious about Henry's motivations, and she is certainly in denial about that curiosity because to wonder means, on some deeply repressed level, she cares. It also means she will be forced to admit to inaccuracies in her collective knowledge of who he is, which is going to lead to some intense growing pains.

All that said, I want to emphasise that romantically, neither Reader nor Henry has a clue what they feel. Unearthing that undercurrent of physical attraction is just the kick-off for both of them scrambling to make sense of a situation neither thought possible.

*insert maniacal laughter*

[eccentricpony]

Hello dear! I kind of did a spin on this request, and the story starts around the time of their first meeting and shows the progression into a romantic relationship. Mildly inspired by Tenma’s home screen quote to practice a kissing scene.

I think it’s a good blend of angsty, spicy, funny, and fluffy, but you be the judge! I am quite fond of this piece, and I hope you are, too!  <3

Bad First Impressions

Despite your best efforts to suppress it, a dramatic sigh rumbles past your lips. And to think that you had actually looked forward to working with Tenma Sumeragi. You had watched his performances in a few teen dramas and found his ability to be quite impressive, and he was highly lauded among other actors in your professional circle for being the consummate professional and perfectionist. More like pretentious and pompous.

“…and you there-“ the haughty redhead pointed towards a mousy looking boy sitting at a diner table on set.

“Uhh, B- Bill?” the mousy boy responded meekly.

“Yeah, sure – no one just stares at the person across from them without saying anything at all. It’s creepy and weird. That goes for you, too, guy with the glasses.” He moved an accusatory finger towards Bill’s dining companion. “Haven’t you guys ever heard of “peas and carrots”? I mean, this is amateur hour stuff that you don’t even need any skill to execute…”

“Can you just close your mouth and do some work, Sumeragi?”

You could hear a pin drop in the spacious sound studio. The cantankerous teen star whipped his head towards you with a pointed glare. You were an up-and-coming actress in the teen drama scene, and although you were a year older than he was, his acting resume was at least three times the length of yours. Sure, you were pretty, and you seemed passably talented, but you had a long way to go before you could even reach the echelon of his level of expertise. And you had the audacity to criticize his judgment??

“Excuse me?!” His eyes raked up and down your form, sizing you up in an attempt to appear intimidating. The manner in which you nonchalantly rested your hand upon your hip, head-cocked and eyes rolled; it was utterly disrespectful to him, a major authority in the industry, not to mention disrespectful to your fellow actors, to the very sacred space of-

“And to think that I had heard you were a competent leader…” you continued in a jaded tone. There was a visible flare in Tenma’s cheeks, the fury sizzling behind his eyes red hot.

To his credit, he certainly had a high level of talent, but that gave him no authority to degrade his teammates, whether they be fellow actors or the key grip. You weren’t normally this abrasive, but charming teen cutie Tenma was a self-important bully who was surrounded by “yes” men. This suave schoolboy star needed a wakeup call. The scandalized celebrity opened his mouth to commence a tirade when the director stepped in.

“Now, now, please folks. Let’s be civil…” Pinching the bridge of his nose, he glanced between you both with a pleading look.

With a final sour stare in your direction, Tenma transformed back into TV’s favorite high school hottie with a heart of gold.

“Yes, of course,” he replied, and you also nodded in consent. Everyone placated Tenma, endured his toxic attitude because he brought them money. But one thing was for sure, you had no intention to relinquish control to tyrannical Tenma.

Japan’s Newest Sweetheart

Tenma rushed down the street, tipping the brim of his hat further down his forehead, his alarming speed drawing attention from passersby. But he couldn’t slow down now; it was only a matter of time before Igawa caught up to him and asked where he was going, and why he was going by himself, and what was he looking for after all, and a number of other questions whose answers he would very much prefer not to explain.

With the convenience store in sight, he quickened his pace until he reached the threshold, throwing open the door with a tenacity that startled the cashier. Returning upright from where he hunched over his newspaper, the shopkeep threw a cautious eye to the young man at the doorway, wearing a suspicious amount of accessories and panting like he was running from the law.

The ginger on a mission performed a quick visual sweep of the displays until he located the object he desired. Bounding forward, he approached the magazine rack and flipped open the arts & entertainment periodical to the index. …page 31…

Rifling through the flimsy pages of the gossip rag, he at last reached the article which he had sought. There looking up at him was a page-wide spread of you, armed with an impossibly charming smile and a sparkle of mischief in your eyes. The page opposite of your come-hither headshot bore the headline “Japan’s Newest Sweetheart.”

It was infuriating. You were a nobody – barely any experience at all, and certainly not in anything particularly noteworthy – yet you were the one pushed to the forefront of advertising. His eyes flicked back to your picture once, twice… I mean, it was a good photo.

Ignoring the manner in which his throat seized when met with your 2-dimensional gaze, he directed his attention to the article. His eyes tripped along the words, “captivating new series… “ “character growth and development…” – aha! He spotted his name among the text and focused on the containing paragraph.

“blah, blah… he’s a true veteran in the industry…” Tenma puffed up like a rooster at this remark. Damn right, I am. He continued to read your commentary, mouth silently forming the shape of the words, scouring each sentence for more well-deserved praise. You went on to describe the characters, their struggles and how the cast related to their roles… One line in particular raised his brow. Tenacious young man?? Young man, what? She’s like, one year older than I am! He rose his head, appalled that you would speak of him like a child. He turned back to the print, reviewing the sentence a second time. She’s not even a whole year older, we’re practically the same age. He bent his brow in concentration. He counted back from your birthday. Yeah, totally not even a year old. Tch. He chose to ignore the fact that he recalled your birthday so quickly and glowered down at you while you beamed right back up at him.

It was undeniable that he was pissed off due of all the attention you were receiving when he was the lead. Possibly because… well, maybe you did deserve it. He had come to respect your acting ability over the past few months, in particular your impressive ability to become truly immersed in a role.

But maybe also because…. well, you looked good in this spread. Like, really good. Your smile was intoxicating; why didn’t you smile at him like that?  On second thought, maybe it was for the best that you hadn’t. His hardened exterior would likely dissolve, and he’d be a stuttering, fumbling mess. Scanning your features, he noticed that they airbrushed away a tiny birthmark on your face. Or maybe it was a freckle?  And they did something to your eyebrows, they just looked off. Why would they even do that? They were perfectly fine eyebrows…

“Hey, buddy, are you going to buy that or not? This ain’t a library.”

Tenma’s head shot upright, dazed for a few moments before he comprehended the words spoken to him. His tense fists gripped the wrinkled magazine tightly, fragile pages strained and starting to tear. Loosening his hold, he spared a final glimpse at your face before neatly closing the pages and smoothing out the bent cover.

“Uhh, yeah. I am.”  

Sliding his shades further up his nose with his pointer, he coolly ambled to the checkout area and lay the gentleman’s digest upon its surface. The material refused to remain flat after its recent abuse, leaving your shirt and neck visible beneath the dog-eared pages. The employee recognized the article right away.

“That new actress is really something, huh? They say she’s going to be the next big thing.”

Tenma scoffed but offered no discourse, handing over the required yen.

“Pretty cute, too,” the young worker added as he slipped the purchased item into a plastic bag.

“Yeah, whatever,” Tenma huffed heatedly, snatching the illustrated booklet containing your first big media premiere and returning to the sidewalk to await Igawa.

Salty to Sweet

“Don’t they teach you how to stay on task in Middle School? Or are you in High School?  Your lack of common sense is misleading…”

“Funny,” Tenma retorted caustically, though more annoyed at himself than you. He had been finding it challenging to focus as of late since he bought that magazine and he kept screwing up on the same damn lines. His short fuse was growing ever shorter with every butchered word.

You could see that Tenma was downward spiraling; the spark he always carried behind those big, vibrant eyes was fading fast.

“Look, why don’t you try something else…” you started, preparing for opposition.

“What?” the taller boy began, with no small amount of skepticism. Ignoring his sour attitude, you stood opposite him and continued in a calm tone.

“Try talking to me about something you really like while staying in character.”

“Talk about something I like?” Tenma replied incredulously. “What am I, six?”

“Sometimes I wonder, with the way you hide your vegetables under your mashed potatoes during lunch, so no one notices you throwing them away.”  You smirk knowingly, pleased with the look of surprise on your fellow actor’s face.

“You saw me do that?”  Tenma stared at you with a look of both wonder and bewilderment. He was certain no one could see him do that, and you sat at another table entirely! How on earth could you have been paying close enough attention to him to spot that, unless…

“Everyone knows that,” you deflected quickly, the rosy tint on your cheeks belying your innocence in the matter. “So what are you going to talk about?” Your bitter scene partner rolled his eyes. As a veteran in the industry, he felt pretty foolish having you talk him through basic acting exercises. Yet….  There was no question that he was struggling with the script, and no better ideas came to mind. With a sigh of defeat, Tenma offered the one outlet that came to mind.

“Bonsai…” he mumbled in a barely audible tone.

“What was that?” you ask, leaning it. Your close proximity fuels a steadily growing warmth along the back of his neck. He takes a sudden step backward and repeats himself louder.

“Bonsai! Are you deaf?”

“Bonsai, huh?” You smile with amusement. “Well, that’s something you don’t read in all your magazine interviews.”

“Reading my interviews, are you?” he responds dryly, but his stomach does a flip. He thinks back on the magazine he has featuring you, kept privately stashed away in a box under his bed. The thought that maybe you had a magazine featuring him tucked away somewhere in your bedroom causes chills that ran down his broad arms and shoulders.

“Nevermind that,” you grumble, brushing a stray hair out of your face. “Well, bonsai it is, then. Whenever you’re ready.”

You spend the next few minutes listening to Tenma ramble on about bonsai pruning, the proper tools to use, and even the proper light, pH and moisture levels to ensure optimal bonsai health.  Despite the fact that you now know more about bonsai trees than you would have ever cared to know, it seems that engaging, dynamic Tenma has returned. He comes to a full stop after finishing a discourse on bonsai diseases; his head now feeling clear, he’s convinced that he can recite his lines without hesitation.

“That was really good,” you commend him honestly, mirroring the pleased look on his face.

“Naturally,” he boasts in a cocky tone, feeling confident following his flawlessly delivered bonsai monologue. “It’s amazing how pleasant you can be when you’re not yelling at me,” he jibes, looking rather pleased with himself. You raise a brow at his renewed brashness, but you’ve always been quick on the trigger.

“It’s amazing how handsome you can be when you’re not scowling,” you reply with a smug expression, reveling in the crimson darkening his cheeks.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” he mumbles with an air of mild embarrassment irritation, rubbing the back of his neck which is now damp with sweat.

“Who says I want to go anywhere with you?” you shoot back with a patronizing smirk before turning your attention back to the script. “SO, where were we?” you inquire loudly before he can get a word in edgewise. Thumbing through the marked-up pages, you see in your periphery that he is doing the same.

“Scenes 12 and 14 we did, 17 we did… no need to go over scene 28…”

“Why are we not practicing scene 28?” Tenma inquired in a cheeky tone. He knew exactly which scene 28 was: the kissing scene. You hadn’t gone over it yet, in read-throughs or on set. After you had just bested him in a mini battle of wits, this would be a great opportunity to even the playing field.

He had performed at least a dozen kiss scenes; it was old hat for him by now, and he knew for sure (not that he had googled your TV and film credits or anything) that you had never performed one. He was certain you’d flounder in search of a clever comeback, then, admitting defeat, blush profusely and outright refuse to do it.

“Fine, let’s do it.” You were no fool, and Tenma Sumeragi couldn’t bluff to save his life.

If Tenma wasn’t youthful and in great health, he might fear he were having a heart attack. Words seized up in his throat, and he could only manage a curt nod. He walked in a small circle, shaking his limbs as he often did while getting into character. He could do this, this was nothing. He had kissed, like, at least 12 girls before. 12! That was more girls than most men kissed in their entire lifetime! Wasn’t it? He couldn’t really think straight. With a long breath in, and out, he reformed his strategy.

He would perform a star-worthy kiss, absolutely knock-your-socks-off amazing, and then swagger out of the room while you were still swooning and dazed. His ego swelled a bit at the thought of leaving you desperate for another kiss, but his blood ran fast and furious at the thought of… well, actually having the kiss.

“I’ve seen the way you look at me,” you started in the tone of your character’s persona, the sudden smoldering look in your eye plucking at his every last nerve.

“At lunch, in the hall… even waiting for the bus.” Slowly, you crossed the floor towards Tenma’s frozen form. “You’ve given me flirty smiles, you’ve given me teasing winks, but there’s one thing you have yet to give me...” His pulse pounded in his ears as you leaned in closer, far closer than you had ever been before. His eyes flicker anxiously to your mouth, his breath held tightly in his throat.

“A kiss” you purr, biting your lip with the thrill of anticipation. Your lip bite just about crushes any dignity that remains in Tenma; tracing the lines on your lips with a wanton stare, it takes him a few seconds of feeble gaping before he remembers he has a line.

“Come and get it,” he whimpered, his line in a tone more befitting the token band geek than a smooth high school hunk. And get it, you did.

His script is lost to the floor as you press your lips onto his, his body rendered both limp and tight all at once. He did not expect this kind of kiss from you. Or maybe it was because he was used to a stage kiss, with twenty people watching and instructions from several individuals on how to hold his mouth at just the right angle for the camera. This… this was a kiss kiss. Your soft mouth was moving fluidly against his with such hypnotic, sweet caresses that he was convinced that he had never truly kissed someone before now. It was humbling but delicious; he had no control, and he couldn’t care less.

He couldn’t contain the small whimper of disappointment you drew from his throat when at last you pulled away, slyly wiping your reddened lips with the back of your hand. Tenma watched you with a mixed look of shock and awe, as though you had just miraculously materialized from thin air. Practice was over.

“Don’t lose that script,” you called over your shoulder cheerfully as you exited the practice space. “I think you could use another review of that scene.”

The Premiere

The Interview

You: …and it’s been bittersweet, but we’re both ready to move onto new projects. Isn’t that right, Tenten?

Interviewer: Tenten? That’s adorable, is that your nickname for Tenma?

You: Yeah, I call him Tenten because to me, he’s a ten out of ten. [You place an overly-dramatic kiss on his cheek]

Tenma: [Feigns a gagging sound while seated beside you, but reciprocates the kiss] That is a heinous lie, by the way, on both counts. [Tenma’s ability to poke fun at himself is refreshing, his overall manner humble and gracious, demonstrating his tremendous growth from child star to the consummate professional actor.]

Tenma: Actually, one of my fellow trou- uh, one of my friends at the Mankai Company, Kazunari, gave me that nickname.

Interviewer: The Mankai Company, that’s right! You’re putting on a production soon, aren’t you?

Tenten: We are! I’d love to give you the details of our production if you could publish them alongside this article.

Interviewer:  Absolutely. [Turning to you] And do you usually attend Tenma’s performances? I know both of your schedules are rather hectic these days, with all the job offers you’ve both received following the highly successful final season of your most recent television drama.

You: Yes, absolutely; I attend every one.

Tenma: In the front row, every performance. [He links his arm in yours, speaking with a tangible sense of pride]

Interviewer: I’ve noticed you have at least a half dozen bonsai trees in your apartment. Is that a mutual hobby?

You: Well, it’s our thing. I mean, it’s his thing really, but it’s kind of both our thing now. [You smile at Tenma with affection]

Interviewer: And, I’ve been meaning to ask - that framed script on the wall there, is that a keepsake? Or a valuable script from one of your favorite films perhaps? [The interviewer gestures to the worn script hanging above the mantle, protected and held in place by a thick pane of glass, bearing a large penned “SCENE 28”]

Tenma: Yeah, it has a…  special meaning. [Your boyfriend contributes, glancing into your eyes with a knowing smile that only you two could understand]

[villerie]

Where are the films about female geniuses?

Men outnumber women approximately in 89% of the films (1990-2018), so it’s not a surprise that male characters have more room for variety and advancement in terms of personality, capabilities, backstory... pretty much anything.

Growing up, on TV screens I saw tech geniuses who created ahead of its time machines, invented new chemical compounds... I also watched excellent detectives magnificently reading people and the motives behind their actions, and even greater ones - who could see through both humans AND chemical formulas with deadly accuracy… Great examples for a kid/teenager! Role models! Inspirations! And yeah, I used to imitate them. I tried to copy their walking style, manner of speaking, I imagined I had their abilities. But there was always a clear difference, a thick wall, between me and them – it was gender.

I generally used to think that I would fit perfectly to be a non-conformist, completely unpredictable, obsessive, brilliant scientist (pardon my teenage god complex), but all the fictional characters that met this standards were men. ‘Genius’ female characters would usually make badass and resourceful sidekicks, who often lacked some kind of depth.

„Sherlock Holmes gets to be brilliant, solitary, abrasive, Bohemian, whimsical, brave, sad, manipulative, neurotic, vain, untidy, fastidious, artistic, courteous, rude, a polymath genius. Female characters get to be Strong.” 

It made me feel weak in my femininity, because one thought followed me around everywhere I went, a thought that no matter how clever, how unsociable and baffling I will be - eventually, one day there will come a time when I have to give up this complex inspired personality that I have developed. This is because there is no place in the world for clever, unsociable and baffling women. There is no place for women who have complex personality. The stories of the people I modelled myself on could never be mine. That’s what I learned from the films.

At this point, it started to make me furious when someone attributed to me something that reminded me of femininity (e.g. commenting on my appearance, or saying ‘All girls do that’ about something I did). Even when I found out about existence of one brilliant female character, Lisbeth Salander, she was described as "a pale, androgynous young woman who has hair as short as a fuse, and a pierced nose and eyebrows", which strengthened my belief that a genius character cannot be feminine, even if they’re a woman…

I know that we have no right to define what’s exactly feminine and what’s masculine (because it’s all a social construct), but any female genius character I have seen on the screen was always more similar to fictional and real men than fictional and real women I have ever came across. It made me try hard to be societally considered ‘manly enough’ as a woman because I believed that this way I could earn the society’s permission to be clever, unsociable, baffling, complex.

All I needed that would free me from all the worries concerning my femininity back then would be even one complex female genius character, whose entire personality doesn’t revolve around being a ‘strong woman’, and who visibly does not regret being born a woman in the man’s world. Not just tolerate being a genius yet a woman, but somehow show that they thrive in being both.

Not ‘genius, yet a woman’, but ‘genius AND a woman’.

But here another problem arises. Even if this character existed while I was growing up (who knows, maybe they did), I would most likely not even have a chance to discover them as their film/series would not be a part of mainstream media. After all, we need to admit that equal on-screen representation of the genders will change little if still only films portraying genius male characters will be widely promoted and therefore better known by mass.

If the film industry (mainly Hollywood, which unfortunately is the main supplier of visual content to popular culture) has such a problem with writing and portraying female characters, when will it finally be time to see on the screen well-portrayed, for example, non-binary characters?

What we see on the screens has a big cultural impact.

[s-creations]

Return the Flames - Chapter 1

All at Dead Bird Studios knew of Amos' (The Conductor's) ability. How the owl could suddenly erupt into flames if angered enough. When the studio first opened, Dominic (DJ Grooves) was told that Amos had his ability under control. Nothing to worry about. No possible loss of anything from an open flame.

A few years later however, and that control seems to have lessened to a dangerous degree.

It should have just been a simple, week long drive to fix the problem. It really should have been.

Dominic should have asked a lot more questions and should have been prepared for a twist ending.

_________________

Fandom: A Hat in Time Rating: General Audience Relationships/Pairings: The ConductorXDJ Grooves Warnings: Eventual depictions of violence, slow burn relationship, named characters, attempt of an accent, being hunted down, a race against time (sort of).

 It’s amazing how one outside source could influence an entire planet and change it’s view. Okay, maybe the ‘entire planet’ might be an exaggerated size. But, big key players were involved with the overall growth. So, it felt as if the world shifted when the time wielding child left to race among the stars once more.

 Mustache Girl, discovered to be named Mu when the dust settled, had seemingly disappeared. Her usual hideout had been cleared out. With no signs of her remaining there or found to be anywhere else on Mafia Island. There was a theory that Mu had hopped onto one of the many shipment boats and had left said island as soon as she could. If that was true, it would be nearly impossible to find her. No one could fully tell if this was a good or bad thing.

 The Mafia boss had officially retired when he couldn’t find a new body to use. Apparently the price      was    too high to pay for someone to give up their own. Losing that intimidating edge and just being gross, he announced his leave and traveled to the nearby mainland. There he found his new calling: being the store manager to a small fish market operation. Apparently, no one wanted to argue about prices against a goo of a human being that survived in a jar. Between the harsh words and rather disturbing appearance, people lost their argumentative spark quickly.

 The rest of the Mafia scrambled to figure out what to do with themselves. It took a lot of soul searching and late night conversations for a solution to be found. They reached the conclusion that they all worked better when they’re told what to do and decided to turn the island town into a high end luxury resort. Cooking Cat had taken the chief helm and taught a large team of Mafia members how to be proper cooks. It would be bad if a customer complained about food poisoning.

 Subcon Forest, while still downright terrifying and with Vanessa a heavy threat over the citizens, had seen the number of lost souls consumed by that place dropped. The Snatcher had apparently changed stance on determining which souls were meant to be taken. Namely those who were weighed down by a lot of sins. If asked, he would claim it was due to those being more filing when eaten. No one had the needed bravery to really question the twisted spirit’s reasoning. So, more living beings started leaving the woods. Confused, with their souls still in place, and all at the cost of a high-five.

 But the biggest change came from Dead Bird Studio. If one was interested in movies (which was a good majority of the planet) they knew of the rivalry that ran that place. Or      did     run that place. The Conductor and DJ Grooves announced, shortly after Hat Kid’s departure, that their feud was over. More or less. Everyone knew that years of animosity couldn’t be solved or swept under the rug, to be forgotten about overnight.

 So, it was an difficult uphill battle to learn what it meant to actually work together peacefully. Between Conductor’s anger and Grooves’ rather smug attitude, it was a hard progress. Both directors used a lot of late nights to find even ground. After a few months, they had reached a level of comradery that couldn’t really be qualified as ‘being friends’. Business partners was probably the best title.

 Which was still an achievement to marvel at, if Grooves was completely honest. But the worry of getting into a shouting match with Amos was now at the bottom of Dominic’s list.

 When the studio had been open for the first few months, they gained the title as the ‘studio with the hot headed director’. Dominic seeing first hand how deranged the other could become. The penguin could chalk it up to first time jitters. After all, opening up a business in the same building with someone you deemed as a rival was not the most calming experience. Add on top of that the tense world of film making and Grooves was surprised he didn’t eventually turn to biting off a few heads when things went wrong. But as Amos’ anger seemed to grow, Grooves began to worry that the director was going to have a heart attack from his numerous outbursts.

 What he was not expected was for the owl to suddenly have his ears erupt into      flames    . The only thing that pulled Dominic from his shocked state of mind when the sprinklers suddenly activated. All in attendance having to evacuate until the place was dried out.

 Unable to ask Amos directly (and already knowing the director wouldn’t have answered his questions anyway) Dominic had gone to the Express Owls for answers. He had been told that their director suddenly creating flames was something normal to see. Amos even had occasions where he would actually have smoke rising off of him. The penguin asked how this was even possible. As far as he knew, this was not a normal occurrence, and working with someone who could burst into flames at any time seemed a dangerous factor. Especially if it became a worry they’d lose the studio because of this. But Dominic was assured that Amos had his ability under control. That day was just a build up of bad moments that tore at the owl’s patient until it was just released.

 That didn’t mean Dominic didn’t start carrying around a small fire extinguisher whenever he had to be near Amos.

 Amos, on his part, was not a bird who opened up about anything. So, he never explained to anyone why he had this ability, with the Express Owls just accepting the idea their boss could handle himself. And, true to their word, Dominic didn’t see that many open flames coming from the angry owl. During their early years that was.

 Now, however, the worry had reached a new level of concern. Because Amos’ anger seemed to have suddenly grown. Even after the feud was put away. The control the other director had over the years seeming to have disappeared. Now the owl bursting into flames, full flames covering his body, when his mood was even. With another worry arising when he was around open flames and his anger made those grow dangerously. So much so, Dominic put his foot down on allowing open flame to be anywhere near the studio. Which annoyed Amos as now his movies lost a touch of authenticity. In turn causing the owl’s already short fuse to become shorter.

 It had become a dangerous, endless cycle. One that Dominic had to intervene before things got too out of hand. Something he was going to take care of today. Because he was afraid if he waited too long, they’d lose the studio they’d just started to work together in.

 Recording was done for the day and the studio practically empty as Dominic made his way to the Western-themed portion of the building. Asking a few lingering owls where their director was, he was directed towards Amos’ office. The partially closed door had light emitting from the cracks. Dominic gave his thanks before heading over. Raising his hand up to knock, the penguin paused hearing Amos’ daughter’s name.

 “Amelia...no, listen… Aye, ‘m aware. But you’re in no condition ta take me… I know, I know… No, flyin’ is too dangerous. Ya know know I hate those death machines and there’s no easy exit for me ta take in case of… In case I have an episode.”

  Dominic leaned against the wall, frowning. He probably shouldn’t be listening in.

 “There are no tracks that run there. Besides, the train will be in use. I can’t change that just ta better me. No- no, that’s not what I mean… People rely on the train… I don’t know who ta ask. I don’t know anyone who would want ta travel that far.”

 Amos laughed softly after a pause on his end. “Uh oh, someone sounds fussy… Aye, I'll keep ya up ta date as best I can… No, no, don’t ya fret about this. I’ll figure somethin’ out. Rest well Amelia, I’ll call tomorrow. ...Love ya too.”

 There was the clatter of something heavy hitting the table. Dominic could only assume it was the owl’s phone being dropped. Braving his chance, the penguin pushed the door open. He found Amos, bent over the writing table with a discarded cell phone next to him. The owl looked in complete shambles.

 Feathers were ruffled, randomly sticking out at odd ends. Some were even starting to turn gray. The familiar white button up had its sleeves rolled up over the elbows, the cross suspenders hanging limply from the black pants they were connected to. The similarly colored jacket was pooled at the Conductor’s feet.

 “If ya have somethin’ ta say, come in and get it out.”

 Amos’ growl broke Dominic’s stupor and the penguin closed the door behind him as he entered. “So-”

 “How much did ya hear.”

 “Enough that you know that you need to get somewhere with no reliable way to get there.” Dominic answered, pulling another chair towards the table.

 “Didn’t know ya were one for eavesdroppin’. Hopin’ ta find a usable script for yer movies?”

 “I’m going to ignore that last comment. I came to see if you were okay. Your ability is getting out of control and it’s becoming a concern. More than it’s been previously.”

 “‘M aware of that. That’s what I was tryin’ to fix.”

 “You need a ride to get there? To wherever this ‘fix’ is supposed to be.”

 “Great deductive skills.”

 Dominic let out a heavy sigh, tamping down the slowly rising anger within. “What I’m trying to say is that if you need a ride, I would like to offer my assistance.”

 Amos sat up at that, ears perked up. “...What?”

 “I will offer you a ride.”

 “Ya don’t even know where I’m goin’!”

 “It seems you’re desperate to get where you need to go. With your flares, it would be foolish for you to travel alone or in a confined place that you wouldn’t be able to leave when you needed.. So, let me help you.”

 “...Are we...alright enough with each other ta be stuck in a car? Together? For so long?”

 “How long is this journey?”

 “I need ta get ta Starlight Peak.”

 “I- That’s halfway across the planet!”

 “Ya can see why this is a bit of an issue fer me.”

 “Why do you need to get there?”

 The owl huffed, ruffling his feathers further. “I’ll explain, if ya promise you’ll take me, and ya don’t ask further questions.”

 “Those are pretty high demands.” Dominic crossed his arms.

 “This...is not somethin’ I want a lot of people to know about.”

 Dominic wasn’t ready for that answer. For as long as he’d known Amos, the owl has never been one to share any personal information. It took Dominic almost 8 years to learn he had a daughter and a few more months to know about his grandchildren. Which was really the only thing Dominic knew. Amos was short tempered but closed-lipped. Loud but private.

 So, seeing him here, quiet and withdrawn, ears folded and arms crossed…

 Dominic didn’t like it.

 “I will take you and I will not share with anyone what you’re about to tell me.”

 “And…”

 “And I will not ask further questions.”

 Taking that as an adequate answer, Amos sat up and faced Dominic properly. “I have this… ‘condition’ where I have this… I have fire burning in me.”

 “Ah...I wasn’t ready for that. Wait, like an actual fire?”

 “Aye, where did ya think my fire came from?”

 “To be honest, I’m not really sure. Now that I know however, it kind of makes sense.”

 “Well, that fire is burnin’ brighter everyday. More than what I can contain and control. There’s something at the peak that will help tamper that fire back down.”

 “Tamper the fire down? What does that-”

 “Ah, ya said ya wouldn’t ask questions!”

 “Alright! Alright…” Dominic raised his hands in defense as Amos glared him down. As the owl sat back down, Dominic felt himself relax. “It’ll take us at least a week to get there and back.”

 “Aye, ‘m aware.”

 “We’ll need to shut down the studio for that long.”

 “Ya worried about fallin’ behind on filming.”

 “You wish. I’m more worried about the paparazzi. If they get wind of this, they’ll have a field day wondering where we’re going.”

 Amos groaned, leaning back in his chair. “Peck, I forgot about that. Do ya think we could slip out without the peckin’ buzzards findin’ out?”

 “You’re joking, right? The first day we don’t open, they’ll be hunting us down. If not the day before we depart. Speaking of, when do we need to leave? I’m assuming the sooner the better.”

 “That would be ideal. But I do have a few things ta take care of before we do.”

 “How about the day after tomorrow?”

 Amos nodded to that suggestion. “Sounds like our best idea.”

 “Best get to packing then.”

 “Aye...and leave your peckin’ platform shoes here!”

 “You just don’t care for style.”

 “Do ya really want ta climb a mountain side in those shoes?”

 “...Fair point.”

[appleb18]

I Wanted Believe in Steven (A Critical Steven Universe Post)

Steven Universe, a popular show that has won the hearts of so many people. It had good songs, talks about mental health and relationships, a lovable cast of characters and it’s revolutionary for representing LGBT. As the show finally wraps up with Steven Universe: Future being the series finale, I want to say this… I used to believe in Steven Universe. I truly got into it when it first came out and then I started to appreciate it more as the show progressed even with the flaws. However, as time moved on, the show’s flaws have outweighed the strengths, making my enjoyment decline and become critical and nitpicky towards it. So I believe it’s time to point out the many problems with the show.

The Glory Days of Steven Universe 

Before I begin ranting about the show, I want to talk about when I actually liked Steven Universe back in seasons 1-3. It was when everyone actually enjoyed the show before it went downhill. 

- So before Steven became really annoying, I actually liked him when he was developing in season 1. He was very immature at first but he gradually grew. He became a member of the Crystal Gems and finally summoned his shield. 

- Peridot’s redemption was handled very well and I enjoyed her character throughout the whole show.

- The show once balanced filler and plot. 

- I enjoyed the Crystal Gems chemistry back in seasons 1 - 3. They acted like a family with Garnet being the wise guardian, Pearl being overprotective, Amethyst laidback and Steven maturing.

- The songs are great.

- The messages are relatable such as “Love Letter.” Garnet tells Jamie that love-at-first-sight doesn’t work. It takes time and a lot of work. You must know the person first before you begin to love someone.  

Those are the reasons why I enjoyed the show back in the day. Now it’s time to talk about how the Crewniverse messed up everything. 

Inconsistencies. Are. Everywhere 

Steven Universe is well known for having no consistency and that’s one of the major problems with the show. While I can forgive season 1 animation because let’s face it, not every show has good animation like Phineas and Ferb. Though having characters go off-model consistently gets really irritating to watch. It’s irritating because most of them are professional storyboard artists and yet they’re doing a very sloppy job.

The reason behind unprofessional animation is Rebecca Sugar wanted her crew to have artistic freedom and have their own stylistic choice. They can draw whatever they want as long as the viewers can recognize the characters. There are many problems with this. 

While it’s nice to see the artist's own style it doesn’t work with a cartoon that’s story-driven. You’ll probably argue that some shows like Adventure Time and American Dragon go off-model. However, it’s just redesigned and they stick with it till the very end of their respective series. 

Also, shows like Ren and Stimpy and Flapjack go off-model because for comedic effect.

So stylistic choice doesn’t mean artists can draw whatever they want. It means that a character has their own style. 

Terrance and Philip from South Park 

Elmore characters from The Amazing World of Gumball 

Each of them has a unique character design. It’s not the Korean animator's fault for it, they’re given what the Crewniverse drew, trace it and just animate it and they can’t fix their errors. What makes it upsetting is that animation pilots and shorts made by a single person or independent team with very little funding have more consistent and appealing animation than Steven Universe. 

I ain’t an animator, but I know when animation goes off-model. Sadly, it’s not just inconsistent art that the show suffers from, but inconsistent writing and discontinuity as well.

Such as in “Are You My Dad?” Aquamarine and Topaz knocked out Steven and then she abandoned him while they took Lars, Sadie, Onion, Jamie, and Connie. Then in “I Am My Mom” they lure him and The Crystal Gems out for information to find Greg. So if you wanted to get information to find him, why didn’t they just grab him when he was knocked out? 

Also, why did Aquamarine agree to Steven’s terms? Her wand is the most broken weapon in the show. She could’ve grabbed everyone including The Crystal Gems.

Garnet couldn’t tell Steven about her future vision because it wanted him to go more? If she just told him about Greg's capture, he would have understood. Also, she gave him future visions in “Jailbreak,” “Snow day” and “Future Boy Zoltron.” Why didn’t she do that for that kind of situation? 

The Crystal Gems, who have special abilities, summon weapons and powers that fought Gems and Corrupted Gems and yet they were beaten by a freaking Steven Catus, Really? 

We saw Lapis control the freaking ocean in “Mirror Gem”, “Ocean Gem” and “Why So Blue”, so why didn’t she use that to remove the injector?

After 6,000 years of waiting for Pink Diamond, Spinel got news about her Diamond and that she gave up her physical form to give birth to Steven. It changed her appearance from happy go lucky to edgy. Now she wants vengeance. So I’m wondering how was she able to get an injector and a scythe, then go to Earth in under a few hours? 

In “Giant Woman,” Pearl explains that two gems have to decide to fuse together and they have to sync with each other to do it. In “Change Your Mind,” Steven fuses with the Crystal Gems midair while they are in their gem state.

How the hell did Connie get affected by Blue Diamond’s pathokinesis when Lapis Lazuli arrived in “Reunited”? 

She was fine when BD did it the first time.

Mean Lapis and Bluebird are still on the loose. I know most shows leave things unanswered but you can’t leave two villains out there. They can still do harm to others 

I really wish the Crewniverse showed more professionalism because there are so many errors in the show and some of them are so simple to fix, yet they don’t and that’s what I call lazy. 

The Cast of Characters Don’t Do Much

I used to like the cast of characters, even the humans I enjoyed watching. When season 4 - Future came in, they got ruined. Most of them don’t do much in the show. I feel like they got sidelined because the Crewniverse had no idea what to do with them. 

Let’s first talk about The citizens of Beach City and how they are the most boring characters in the show. At first, they weren’t so bad because they did have a role to play in the story like when The Cool Kids talked to Steven about his mother when he found out that she was a war criminal and he blamed himself for his mother not being around anymore. They also helped him not get scolded by The Crystal Gems when they found Peridot’s escape pod. 

There’s even some slice-of-life episodes that I did enjoy watching such as

“Sadie’s Song” 

 And “Historical Fiction”

But now they don’t react to any Gem situation anymore. They just stand around and serve no purpose to the plot. Look at “Future”, throughout the whole epilogue mini-series, the humans didn’t do a dang thing in the series. For example, The Cool Kids, Lars, Sadie, and Shep don’t talk to Steven about his mental health when he was about to crush them with his force field. It just makes it feel that they don’t care about him or oblivious about that experience

Then they didn’t do squat when Steven became a monster and I know they're just humans but their friends and the show focus on them a lot, so they have to use them. It made me wonder why they even focus on them in season 4 and season 5 if they're not going to serve their purpose in the story. 

Now let's talk about the more interesting characters and how the Crewniverse wasted them. Many Gems and few human characters (Lars, Greg, Connie) get them characters to grow, face struggles and have moments that can make a character likable. After all that, the Crewniverse had no idea what to do so they just left them. 

Peridot’s redemption was well written. from season 1 - season 3. From a villain that has unknown technology and feels more alien than the Crystal Gems to a member of the Crystal Gem. As much as I love her development and she’s my favorite, however, she doesn’t do much in the show. Most shows that give a lot of development to a character are part of the main cast but in Steven Universe's case, she gets put in the barn with Lapis Lazuli and does nothing. She’s never involved in major story arcs such as she didn’t come along to help Steven to get his dad back in Zoo Arc and didn’t help with beach city citizens getting kidnapped in Wanted Arc. 

Even in the Pink Diamond Arc, she has no part to play. All she was in that arc was a punchline and a hyperactive character with no defining moments. While it’s nice she has a new outfit, it doesn’t change anything. 

Peridot had the potential to be a really great character but she got wasted because they had no idea what to do with her.

Pearl and Garnet never got their own character arc. When they fused with Steven to become Rainbow Quartz 2.0 and Sunstone it was rushed. I know they didn’t have time to do their arcs but if they cut townie episodes and focused on their bond it would’ve felt more impactful for him to fuse with them. Season 4 could’ve been Garnet and Season 5 could’ve been Pearl. Just look at Amethyst where she finds mutual respect and love for Steven and that’s really great to see. With them, we don’t have a moment like that.

A good example of using characters is Regular Show. They used their characters pretty well, giving each of them a good amount of screen time. 

Benson’s drum solo 

Getting to know more about Skips history

Muscle Man setting his ashes free at Great Trucker Graveyard 

High Five Ghost reunited with his love interest 

Pop’s proving that he’s part of the guys for Guys Night 

Rigby graduates high school

Mordecai painting for Benson

And what I like the most about is they all have a moment together as best friends. Such as in “Parkie Rewards,” although Benson doesn’t win an award, the gang made their very own award and paper trophy. Benson made a speech about how he appreciated his staff workers. 

I really wish Steven Universe had something like that and I really wanted to see more of Lapis, Garnet, Amethyst, and Bismuth but sadly the writers aren’t giving them much to do anymore. 

A Shift of Pacing 

Steven Universe really wants to tell a story like most cartoon shows are doing such as Over the Garden Wall, Adventure Time, Owl House and many more. They keep adding episodic episodes in the middle of unresolved conflict and have the concluding rushed. An example of this is the Cluster arc. 

Peridot tells The Crystal Gems that the Cluster will emerge at any time… AT ANY TIME! So the gang planned to create a gem drill to destroy it to save the Earth. So instead of working on the drill, they kept delaying it like 

Garnet told her story to Steven of how Ruby and Sapphire met 

Celebrating Steven’s birthday 

Peridot processing on becoming a “Crystal Gem”

I know Peridot was working on the drill and I like Peridot’s redemption but it’s a life or death situation. You can’t do other things when the Cluster can emerge at any time. The way they resolved the arc was really rushed. The Crystal Gems finally locate the whereabouts of Malachite and so Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl go to Watermelon Island and fuse to Alexandrite to defeat her. Then the Cluster emerges and it’s up to Steven and Peridot to deal with it. Instead of destroying the Cluster, he talks to it and it stops itself from emerging by bubbling itself. The way the writers conclude the arc was so anticlimactic and rushed. It ended two major plots, Malachite and Cluster in two episodes and Steven just talking to it was ridiculous. The Cluster arc should’ve at least had two episodes and Malachite should’ve come after the event because she was briefly mentioned in three episodes. 

Adventure Time has a mini-series that primarily focuses on plots. It resolves conflicts and it doesn’t waste any time such as Islands, Stakes, and Elements. 

People tend to blame the network for the inconsistent schedule and hiatus. While it may be true, however, it’s not really a big issue with the show. Gravity Falls isn’t consistent with its schedule but it has better pacing than Steven Universe. From Nov. 26, 2014 - Feb 16, 2015, the ep “Northwest Mansion Noir” was released, another month of waiting for “Not What He Seems.” Then we have to wait for four months, July 13th, 2015, for “The Tale of Two Stans.” Then there’s Steven Universe where we have to wait for six months for the next episode and it is just Towney episodes and it doesn’t even matter to the plot. So I pretty much don’t understand why people are complaining about the Steven Universe hiatus when Gravity Falls, a well-written show, has a hiatus as well. 

They could’ve had a well-written story if only they weren't so focused on the human side of Steven and cut most of the filler out. 

Action Doesn’t Have Consequences 

In most shows, movies, and video games, characters will make rash decisions that have other characters disagree and even have a bit of a falling out.  

Look at Gravity Falls “Land Before Swine.” Stanley doesn’t like Mabel’s pet pig, Waddles, and he left him outside when there was a Pterodactyl in town. Stan left Waddles unattended and caused him to get captured.

Soos messed up a lot in the episode. Without thinking, he barged in as Dipper developed the film which ruined a good picture of the dinosaur.

He tries to be optimistic when Mabel finds out Stanley left him out however it ineffective when he ravels the yarn back up and thus cut the clear path and accidentally break the lamb

To prove their worth is by Stanley fights the pterodactyl to save Waddles 

And Soos and Dipper make up when he apologizes and he admits he made mistakes.  Dipper and Mabel then took Soos advice to follow his lead and walk in a straight line as for dinosaurs' eyes are so far apart and that it can’t see in front of itself and the plan went well. 

So with Steven Universe, most characters in the show have done pretty terrible things and the show never atoned for their actions. 

In “Island Adventure”, Sadie trapped Lars and Steven on an island by hid the Gem portal with leaves so she can hit on him.  Although she saved his life by poofing the gem monster with a pointy stick, it doesn’t help the fact that she trapped them for a month! It is also idiotic that the show treats Lars as he’s the bad guy where in reality, Sadie is! 

Amethyst, although I do like her character development in the show, however, she did pretty a messed up thing and they never resolved it. In “Maximum Capacity”, Greg finds out that he’s missing the fireworks and Amethyst shapeshifts from Steven to Greg to cheer him up. She changes back and gets mad at him for not spending time with her. So she shapeshifts to Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond which causes Greg to look away and it’s the second time she has done it, and then Steven comes in to stop and question both of them. Amethyst feels guilty and left. So in order to make things up, she came up with an idea to clean that the Crystal Gems can clean out Greg storage. So this is really messed up. She shapeshifted as his wife and not only it scarred Greg but Steven as well and yet the writers never decided on how they can properly make it up. That’s so horrible. 

Lapis Lazuli took the Earth's water, almost killed Connie, broke Peridot's tape recorder and called it garbage, and she took the barn. When she finally comes back to help the Crystal Gems to fight against the Diamonds. Her response to everyone was “hey”. She never apologized for anything she has done. I know she has PTSD but it doesn’t excuse her actions. 

The only character that actually feels guilty and has to make amends of her wrongdoing is Pearl. She deceived Garnet by keeping rebuilding Gem communicator so she can fuse with her to form Sardonyx to make herself feel better. Steven and Amethyst find out and spill the beans which gets Garnet mad and Pearl feels guilty. In the last episode of the Sardonyx arc, they get trapped by Peridot. When they were about to get crushed, they two finally talk and Pearl apologizes to her and calls herself “just a pearl” and Garnet tells her you are your own gem and that makes her feel better and fused to Sardonyx once again. 

Now it’s time to talk about the second major gripe with the show that everyone has and it’s the Diamonds being redeemed. The Diamonds are tyrannical fascist dictators that caused genocide many species, colonized many worlds, corrupt gems, shatter gems that don’t obey, have an army, gems that are off-color are put to the underground, and force fused shattered gems into a Cluster. After what they have done, you think they need to pay, right? Unfortunately, since Rebecca Sugar said ``there are no villains' ' and the show is about empathy, the Diamonds, especially White Diamond, get a clean slate. So it’s fine to have a villain be sympathetic and have a sad backstory, it makes them more human but having them redeemed is something you should never ever do, especially what they’ve done. They have very little screen time to show their development and have doubts about their empire. 

Then they made them worse when in Steven Universe: “The Movie” and “Future” 

In Steven Universe: “The Movie”, The Diamonds become clingy aunties to Steven and tell them don’t do evil things anymore like calling other species “equal lifeforms”, disband their arms and not shatter gems.

In Steven Universe: “Future”, The Diamonds abilities have a completely opposite effect towards Gems such as 

Yellow Diamond’s ability to change from poofing gems to fixing 

Blue Diamond’s ability to change from sad blue orbs to happy blue clouds 

White Diamond's ability changed from manipulation to control her for a brief moment. 

Having them become good and having emotions won’t cut it. They can’t atone for what they’ve done for the past millions of being fascist dictators and just saying “I’m a good Diamond now” can’t wipe away their past actions. It doesn’t work like that! 

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, A SHOW FOR LITTLE GIRLS, have a better-written villain redemption than Steven Universe and I ain’t kidding. Discord was the main antagonist for “Return of Harmony”. All he wanted to do is cause chaos. He was defeated by the mane six at the end of the second part of the episode.

In season 3, “Keep Calm and Flutter On”, Discord was reformed by Fluttershy because Princess Celestia believes he can be a good ally and knows that she can do it. 

Throughout season 4, everyone still doesn’t trust him even though he’s friends with Fluttershy.

In the season 4 finale, he sided with Tirek and he betrayed them because he thought he’ll be rewarded for it. 

Then he was betrayed by him. After Tirek and Twilight fought, she gave up her magic to save her friends, including Discord. It made him realize that friendship is more precious than anything of what he’ll give him and that’s when he’s been fully accepted as a friend to the mane six. 

I also want to talk about Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond. While many fans in the community and the Crewniverse always point that she’s terrible and I agree she is. Such as leaving Spinel for 3,000 years, cracked her first Pink Pearl, abandoned her Diamond duties to be free, started a Gem war that cost many Gems to shatter to pursue her own goal, bubbled Bismuth, gems got corrupted, and left Steven with the burden. It is indeed bad but when compared to the Diamonds, she’s more of a saint than them. At least she does develop, doesn’t shatter gems and save the Earth from the Diamonds. 

With story pacing being all over, villains and even characters aren’t paying for their actions and a cast of characters aren’t doing much, what’s the most problematic of the show? Well, it’s a combination of all my problems into one and that is…

Steven “Center Of” Universe

The major problem with the show, the one that brings down the show a lot and it’s Steven Omnipresence. First off, I don’t mind when a show has a protagonist point-of-view like Ben 10, Phineas and Ferb, Over the Garden Wall, etc. As long as it's written well and keeps the story moving, it’s fine but with Steven Universe, it has tons of problems. Steven's point-of-view is the cause of all its flaws and I can’t stress it enough about it. 

So let’s first talk about the obvious one and how it’s only Steven's perspective. The problem with this is we only see things if Steven is there to witness it. The show introduces a fascinating world of Gems and yet the show doesn’t dive into that because Steven doesn’t care about and all he does is hang around Beach City. Steven will never explore unless he chooses to and some major plot points are offscreen which you should never do, especially it’s a story-driven show. An example of this is “Wanted Arc’” and yes I’m using it the third time as my example because it really is a terrible arc. When Steven comes back home, he had some information about Homeworld, discovered that there’s a mystery about Pink Diamond shattering, Off Colours, Steven can bring back people from the dead and Lars in space. With all that, what does Steven do? Nothing. Throughout his adventure in space, he never mentions it to the Crystal Gems and instead of that being the main focus, it’s townies and Connie. While Steven is doing Beach City fluff, Lars is actually progressing the plot by him developing and escaping Homeworld with the Off Colours. I truly wonder why the Crewniverse believes that Beach City is more important than Gems? 

They got interesting lore and I truly want them to explore it more but they had to waste all that and have the most major plot points be offscreen for Steven's perspective. 

The second problem with Steven p.o.v is his contestant presence. The show will always be about him, no other characters get the spotlight or do anything unless he’s there. There’s rarely a scene that doesn’t have Steven and it’s frustrating when there’s a well-rounded cast of characters that I want to see more than him. We’ll never see them interact with other characters nor explore different parts of the world. Other shows have done it such as 

Amazing World of Gumball - “The World”

Adventure Time - “Varmints” 

Avatar: The Last Airbender - “Zuko Alone” 

Rick and Morty - “Tales From the Citadel”

Imagine how great it will be if explore more of the cast like  

Uncorrupt Gem characters and Curley Lapis going by their day in Little Homeschool. 

Lars becoming a space pirate 

Lapis and Peridot becoming friends 

Pearl meeting up with Mystery Girl

Volleyball recovering from her trauma

Ruby and Sapphire being their own individuals 

They got a lovable cast of characters that I want the show to further explore and yet the Crewniverse don’t do anything with them and that’s such a missed opportunity.  

Then the third most egregious problem with Steven p.o.v is he’s the communicator. The show tries to message that talking things will work but no one really talks to each other unless it’s Steven. Characters barely make their opinion or a chance to speak for themselves while Steven's opinion will and shall always be in the right and we barely see characters talking to one another. Examples of these are…

When Steven bubbles Bismuth, Pearl and Garnet don't say a thing and just let him. They don't question why he did or lash him out for it. They just went along with it. Steven decided to unbubble her in “Made of Honor “ for a wedding without talking to anyone else about it and again, they still haven’t asked questions and they just went along with it. 

In “Reunited”, instead of Crystal Gems look at each other to find their strength like Garnet telling Pearl she’s her own Pearl, Pearl telling Amethyst she’s isn’t an accident, and they tell Garnet that she’s a great leader, Steven has to remind them what they are supposed to be. 

Blue and Yellow had issues with the Gem Empire but too afraid to say to White Diamond. Until Steven arrived and that’s when they tried talking to her.

The Diamonds become good because Steven tells them being a fascist dictator is bad and they agree. They disbanded the Gem Empire and changed their abilities to help Gems under two years. 

Steven made Pearl talk to Amethyst. 

The message the show tries to tell that people should communicate is completely flawed because rather than have other characters improve their lives by talking to one another, they made Steven the messiah that every character looks up to. Steven will change your mind and you have no choice in the matter. 

Conclusion

With the end of Steven Universe, I  want to say that this show could’ve been better. Steven Universe was created by Rebecca Sugar, a former storyboard artist for Adventure Time and the one who mainly writes episodes about Marceline and wrote songs for the show. When she announced that she's left AT to make her show, I was excited and had such high hopes for it. I really want this show to succeed and it could’ve been the next Adventure Time, My Little Pony Friendship is Magic or Gravity Falls but sadly it failed to do so. The show flaws outshined it the strength by it was handled unprofessionally, wasted their characters, the pacing is all over the place, no character pay for their past actions and Steven’s point-of-view. I don’t think it’s the worst show I’ve ever watched nor a masterpiece, it's just a disappointingly average show in my personal opinion. I hope Rebecca Sugar and her crew not just see this as their progressive show by representing LGBT and messaging but also see what they would have approved of on the show and how they could’ve made it better. I had a lot of good memories when I first watched the show. It had the potential to be better but it never filled the promises they made.  

[thenexusofsouls]

Muse: Ethan Cavender

[Bio and other information below the cut!]

Type of Character & Fandom/Source Material: An OC/canon mashup (an OC that is very heavily inspired by a canon character and therefore not wholly original) inspired by the character Ben in the movie The Apparition (2012)

FC: Sebastian Stan (but not from The Apparition, haha... Ethan is about a decade older than Ben)

Race: Human

Age: 32

Sexual/Romantic Orientation: Heteroromantic/heterosexual, but hard to ship as his last two girlfriends were killed, so he’s not looking to endanger anyone else by starting a relationship

Occupation: Survivalist; online electrical/computer/robotics engineering consultant

Family: Parents he hasn’t seen in a decade; girlfriend, Lydia (deceased); girlfriend, Kelly (deceased)

Potentially Triggering Material in Threads: body horror (partially severed limbs, stretched faces, body parts stuck onto bodies in the wrong places or orientations, and/or bodies stuck in walls or other solid objects); demons; ghosts; insomnia; paranoia; PTSD; depression

Negative Personality Traits: He can be reckless, defensive, and standoffish. He sometimes gets nasty with people to purposely push them away so he doesn’t endanger them.

Positive Personality Traits: He’s a genuinely good person who just doesn’t want to be the reason why anyone else gets hurt at this point. He’s a lot braver than he realizes.

Background: Ethan was a typical midwestern kid growing up, and he always loved building things. despite his string of mind-numbingly boring jobs at places like Home Depot, Ethan was on his way to becoming a electrical and robotics engineer. He made it all the way to his senior year of college at age 22, but then dropped out without completing his senior research project or graduating. This was because of an incident that resulted in the death of a friend and his girlfriend at the time. Ethan and two friends, Patrick and Greg, and his girlfriend, Lydia, all of whom were students at the same university, decided to all work on one research project together, using space in the basement of one of the university buildings to set up their laboratory. Their disciplines spanned engineering, psychology, religious studies, and history.

Their hypothesis was simple: all paranormal events that cannot be explained by science are manifestations of the human mind. In other words, things like ghosts and demons exist because people believe they’re real. Once you believe, you can be affected by them. By using a trigger object (an object used in paranormal investigations to invite the energy of a spirit or entity, usually something from their life or visually representative of something the energy would be attracted to) and an electrical field designed to help focus all their brain waves on the trigger object, the four of them focused on a statue used in a similar experiment previously years ago and attempted to create an entity with their minds. At the time, they believed they were successful, because something did show up. It killed Greg and pulled Lydia into a nearby wall, never to be seen again. Ethan freaked out, quit school, and moved back home.

Two years later found Ethan moving into a new house with his then girlfriend Kelly. Everything was fine at first, but then strange things began to happen. The neighbor’s dog walked into their house and died. Things were moved around in the house. And odd occurrences like clothing being tied up in knots and objects being fused together began to happen. Around this time, Patrick reached out to Ethan, telling him that for the past two years, he’s been living in a Faraday Cage of sorts, a metal electrified cage that emits certain frequencies. This was apparently the only way he could stave off and survive the entity they “created” with their experience two years prior. The entity was captured during the experiment, and Patrick tried to get rid of it, to send it back where it came. Unfortunately, the opposite was done and the creature was set free. Not only were they completely misunderstood as to what the entity was, but it was far more intelligent than was previously thought. It also is angry that it was held captive and is systematically going after everyone involved with the experiment as well as their loved ones. Patrick contacted Ethan to warn him but also to ask for help in trying to destroy the creature again.

Long story short, it was a disaster. Patrick and Ethan set up another lab with Kelly’s help, and thy successfully purged the house of the creature... except for the garage. It hid in the largely metal-encased garage and was unaffected by the frequency-emitters employed during the purge attempt. Not realizing the entity still lived, the three let their guard down, and soon Patrick was killed, dragged into a dark room and never seen again, and Kelly was also killed, pulled partially into a wall and left there by the entity to die. Ethan assumed the entity would come after him next, however, with him being the last one left alive that had any part in the experiment that pulled it out of its own dimension and imprisoned it, the entity has decided instead to slowly torture Ethan. It hounds his sleep and doesn’t allow him much REM sleep, it manifests in frightening ways that give him nightmares, and it attacks and kills anyone who tries to help him or get close to him. Ethan travels with a cage similar to that which Patrick survived in for two years that he can put together in a short amount of time to protect him while he sleeps. Otherwise, he just stays on the road, working online because he’s not able to hold a normal job.

About the Entity or “Apparition”: This creature is not something that was produced by the minds of the college students in that original experiment. It is actually an inter-dimensional creature, basically an as-of-yet undescribed species/lifeform that exists in a dimension parallel to ours. The combination of mental energy and EMF (electro-magnetic frequencies) utilized during the experiment created a rift that let the creature come through. The attempt to send it back, left this rift open, and now the creature can enter our world and pull others into its world. It’s highly intelligent and methodical in its study of humans and the human world. It is curious about tangible life, for it is mostly an incorporeal being. I say mostly because it can manifest as a solid being for a time, and it does so partially to try and understand our anatomy but partially also to scare us and test our willpower, fears, and emotional endurance.

Because it does not fully understand humans and our world, its manifestations are often frighteningly grotesque (if you’ve seen any of the movies of The Thing, it’s kindof like that). It will try to look like a human, but the limbs are bent in weird ways, the head is on backward, the eyes are missing, things like that. So it’s trying to mimic and doing a poor job. Also, it likes to “play” with the human world, so an indication of its presence is the manipulation of solid objects such that they are changed on a molecular level. So... finding your flat screen TV suddenly embedded halfway into the wall as if it had always been a part of that wall. Having the wooden spokes of a staircase be curled in all different directions as if the wood had always been curved. Seeing chairs all melded together as if they’d always been that way. Those are all exampled of the entity playing with our environment in an attempt to better understand it.

In addition to not being able to cross certain EMF fields, the creature is also averse to bright light. It will avoid stepping into it directly and will become agitated if light is shined on it, such as with a flashlight or spotlight. It also does not like being filmed and will attack anyone with a camera or a phone pointed at it. It kills in two different ways. Either it grabs you and pulls you into its dimension, which either kills you once you get there or you get stuck halfway along the way and are killed by whatever solid object your body merges with, or it kills you simply with its residue. The creature leaves behind a black, bubbling, nodular substance or stain that is poisonous to living beings of our plane.

Here are some concept artworks of the creature in its natural form, which is incorporeal (trigger warning for demons/ghosts/skeletal creatures X,X,X), and when it tries to manifest solidly and mimic humans (trigger warning for body horror! X)

Potential Starter Ideas:

Your muse could meet Ethan and think he’s completely batshit crazy, heh. The entity has a habit of backing off for long enough periods of time to make it seem like he’s crazy. It seems to take some pleasure in this.

Your muse could offer to help him try and get rid of the entity, whether your muse is skilled with parapsychology or engineering, or even has magical abilities. Maybe your muse has connections to high-ranking/high-powered/cutting edge technology agencies that might be able to help sever the attachment between him and the entity or maybe even capture, kill, or send it back to its own dimension.

Since I write in the Marvel fandom, I welcome any and all magic user muses or SHIELD agents or anyone else who thinks they can help my rather hopeless and sleepy boi, heh.

Fun facts: 

Despite the very much not-funny reasons why Ethan is incredibly sleep deprived, the fact that he is often makes him turn to humor to lighten situations. He makes the worst jokes when he meets someone, trying to make the best of a crappy situation.

Ethan finished his degrees online, and now has a duel Masters in Electrical Engineering and Materials Science.

He’s gotten to the point where he can have short conversations with the entity in which it appears to understand him or at least be paying attention to what he’s saying. However, such encounters usually end in the entity becoming enraged and frightening him in some way with an upsetting manifestation, sometimes involving faces that look like either Lydia and Kelly.

[entity9silvergen]

Oblique- Chapter 3 (Sanders Sides Fanfiction)

Previous Chapter, Full Story

Story Info:

Summary: Unable to experience romantic attraction, Remus feels incomplete. Unable to feel sexual attraction, Roman feels less than. Maybe as the King, they decide, they will feel whole again. Their partners and friends, however, know this isn’t the solution and seek to help them realize there’s nothing broken about them before it’s too late.

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Characters: Logan, Patton, Roman, Virgil, Nate, Remy, Emile, Seth, Toby, Janus, Remus, Unnamed Orange Side, Romulus, Dragon Witch

Relationships: Logan/ Patton, Virgil/ Roman, Janus/ Remus, Remy/ Emile, Toby/ Seth, Nate/ Orange Side

Other Tags: AroWriMo, Aromantic Remus, Asexual Roman, Spider Virgil, Snake Janus, Orange Side, 7th Side, Additional Sides, No OCs, Short Vid Characters

Author’s Note: This chapter takes place directly after chapter 1.

Warnings: Internalized acephobia, internalized arophobia, minor fighting, mentions of sex

======================

King Creativity. The most powerful of all the Sides, an omnipotent force of Thomas’s mind.

Romulus. An old friend to many Sides, someone who vanished long ago.

Two sides of the same coin. 

Virgil knew him as the King. Janus knew him as Romulus. That probably had something to do with the vast difference in their reactions. Virgil hadn’t been around when Romulus was. He’d formed much later but Logan, Patton, Janus, and Remy had told him a bit. Roman and Remus didn’t remember much, Seth had formed right after, and the rest of the Sides hadn’t appeared until the time Virgil had so they soaked up the stories like sponges. 

Logan often spoke of his abilities. He could do so much. He gave Thomas so many ideas and could bend the mindpalace with a mere thought. Patton liked to play with him. As children, they had many adventures together. Remy’s stories were more real. Just little tidbits about his quirks and personality, often teasing and fond. And Janus… He was Janus’s friend. Which must be why Janus looked so shocked right now.

Virgil couldn’t imagine what he must be feeling right now. As much as he and Janus hissed and fought, Virgil felt something akin to friendship for him deep down. He would never wish the sheer pain Janus had on his face onto anyone.

Was he happy to see his friend? Relieved to see him whole once more? Or was he horrified his partner was gone? That Remus had done something so drastic without telling him? Was he afraid of the King’s power? Virgil didn’t know. It was hard to read Janus’s face sometimes. Good feelings, bad feelings, it was all there in a big melting pot. Virgil wanted to slap him. When Virgil looked at the King, all he could see was something that had stolen Roman from him. He couldn’t hope to fathom Janus’s thoughts.

And that made him angry. 

Not at Janus. At Romulus, the King. And maybe Remus. Roman would never want to merge. He’d bet almost anything that Remus made him. He wouldn’t be surprised. Remus was always jealous of Roman’s role in Thomas’s mind. That he was the more dominant side of creativity. The King was powerful. He’d just taken out the Dragon Witch without breaking a sweat, for fuck’s sake. Remus probably wanted that power. Right? Maybe? Possibly? He knew it was cruel and unfair to pin everything on Remus but he couldn’t bear the thought of Roman willingly leaving him right now.

But when the King sauntered over, Virgil couldn’t bring himself to hate him.

The group hadn’t moved. Remy, Logan, and Janus were all standing around him, shocked and emotional at the sight of Romulus, on what had been a battlefield not a minute ago. None of them moved, somewhere between frozen in shock and wanting to run to the man who’d been their friend so long ago. But as the King neared, it became apparent something was wrong.

“Help me,” the King croaked as he stumbled over. Tears ran down his face, leaving clear tracks through the dirt caked on his skin. His steps were uneven as he stumbled and his weapons fell from his hands. He crouched down but he didn’t try to pick them up, instead just letting himself collapse onto his knees. “Help me.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Remy asked, visibly alarmed as the King reached out weakly for them.

“I think- I don’t think they merged properly,” Logan stuttered out. He stared at the grey-clad man with wide eyes before somewhat regaining his composure enough to explain himself properly. “Roman and Remus have always been able to refuse if they wish. They-”

“They have,” Remy interrupted. His sunglasses had somehow returned to his face but it was clear his eyes were fixed on the King behind them. “Not often but they have. A couple times. Here. In the dreamscape. By accident. And on purpose. They haven’t done it in years. But it was always fine. And Romu- The King never looked like this.”

“It feels wrong!” the King screamed into his hands, seeming to forget the other Sides were there. “It feels so wrong. What’s wrong with me?”

“They must not have been in the right state of mind when they fused,” Logan continued hurriedly. “He seems to be in pain. Perhaps Roman and Remus were distressed when they attempted to fuse? And that caused… this.”

“It hurts,” the King moaned. “The reflection’s gone. It’s not art, it’s not bleeding. It’s just empty. It was empty before but now… I thought I’d be whole! But it just feels worse.”

“What’s he talking about?” Virgil asked, sliding a foot back defensively. “He’s not making any sense.”

The other Sides ignored him. Janus got on his knees and took Romulus outstretched hand before glancing back at the others. Worry shined in his yellow eyes. “We have to help him.”

“I don’t think we can-”

Logan was interrupted when the world cracked.

A massive fissure sliced through the terrain, unnatural rays of light flowing out of it. Smaller cracks appeared in the earth around it, these ones filled with unnatural wails and shrieks. Virgil could feel his spiderlegs begin to sprout from his back as his guard went up. Something was coming.

Tentacles shot out of the holes like trees in a forest and unholy creatures began crawling out of the fissures. The cracks and tentacles cut off Virgil’s line of sight and he lost view of the others. Logan and Remy, he knew, were together and he’d bet Janus and Romulus were close to each other. It was just Virgil who was isolated.

Not for long though. Virgil extended his extra climbs, lifting himself to the air, and waded through the forest of writhing tentacles in search of the other Sides. There weren’t any creatures going after him quite yet but he didn’t doubt they would soon.

“Someone get help!” Virgil yelled into the void as he kicked a tentacle that suddenly lunged for him. “Tell them the dreamspace is attacking!”

=================

“Someone get help! Tell them the dreamspace is attacking!”

Janus heard Virgil’s voice but he couldn’t see him. He couldn’t see much of anything. He wasn’t really sure where Romulus was anymore. He’d been right next to him but then the world began shaking and a wave of anguish barreled into him and he was knocked senseless.

Was this what Romulus was feeling? What Roman and Remus were feeling when they tried to merge? What was making the dreamscape so disordered? If so, Janus couldn’t blame them. It was an overwhelming feeling and he was just experiencing it secondhand. If this was what they were feeling, he was surprised the situation wasn’t worse.

The feeling began to fade, just a little bit. Chances were that the King was just moving away from him, not that he was getting his emotions under control. The world around him was still as entropic as before. Maybe even more so. He could hear the roars and bellows of manticore chimeras crawling out of the ground. The tentacles reached for the sky, growing thick and dense like a forest. Carnage had enveloped the dreamspace.

But Janus was a slippery snake and he knew how to avoid this kind of chaos, well experienced too. He weaved between the trunks of the tentacles and avoided the creatures surfacing from the terrain and made a break for the exit.

The exit to the Sides’ rooms and realms wasn’t a true exit. There was no door or portal to step through. Just a vague ring where Sides could sink out, rise up, or appear freely. The area was currently untouched by the King’s creations and Janus wasted no time throwing himself onto it and sinking out.

His momentum made the transportation awkward. He ended up appearing a couple feet off the living room floor at an odd angle and fell onto Patton’s lap, kicking something out of Toby’s hands in the process.

“Shit!”

“My pokemon!” Toby yelped, scrambling to catch his DS before it hit the ground.

“It’s a turn based rpg, you don’t need to- It’s fine if you drop it,” Seth sighed as Janus rolled off Patton and onto the floor. “You okay, man?”

“Everything is great,” Janus responded, feeling the lie slip out. “Roman and Remus totally haven’t merged and the dreamscape is very calm and peaceful right now. I definitely know if Logan, Remy, and Virgil are okay.”

“Oh that’s good,” Patton said pleasantly. Then he seemed to catch up. “Wait…”

“What the fuck?” OJ said, sitting up from where he was lying on the floor a few feet away from Janus. “That’s… What the fuck? Why?”

“I know,” Janus exclaimed. He got to his feet. “Don’t follow me. We should totally let them all die.”

“Oh no,” Patton whimpered as everyone got to their feet and followed Janus as he sprinted back towards Remy’s room. “I hope everyone’s okay.”

“I doubt they are but we should be able to help if we get there fast enough,” Emile assured him. He broke ahead of the group and opened Remy’s door, ushering everyone inside.

Last time, they hadn’t needed to visit Remy’s room to get to the dreamspace but thankfully Emile seemed to know his way around the sassy Side’s room. If the situation was any less dire, Janus would’ve taken the time to soak in the messy array of coffee cups, scarves, and hoodies. Thomas really needed to work on his self-care habits but they could worry about that later. Creativity was the concern right now.

“Walk through here,” Emile instructed, opening Remy’s closet. Janus didn’t hesitate and stepped in, standing back on the teleportation ring in the dreamspace in a heartbeat.

The other Sides seemed a bit put off by the unusual method of transport but quickly forgot about it when they saw the state the dreamspace was in. The forest of tentacles had expanded into something akin to a lush redwood forest, the tendrils stretching like the tails of cats until they licked the clouds, and the gaps in the terrain had only grown wider. And, now the creatures that lurked within were visible. 

Horrendous mash ups of animals were prowling around, some on the ground and some in the air. Their eyes flashed red and green as they yowled. Janus normally didn’t care for the fabrications of dreams but his heart went out for them. Their anguish was reflecting Romulus’s. They had to help him.

“Seth, Patton, don’t find Logan and Remy. Put them in danger. Make sure you stay in harm’s way,” Janus barked, his tongue still doing strange things in his mouth. Was he panicking? Maybe. He couldn’t remember the last time he had this little control over his lies. It was fine though, everyone knew how to decipher his speech when he was like this. “Toby, OJ, Nate, play with the creatures. Let them hurt you. Make them grow. I’m not going to look for Romulus and Emile shouldn’t come with me.”

Everyone seemed to understand his orders except Patton but Seth dragged the fatherly figment after him without resistance. OJ made some snappy remark but Janus was too distracted to hear what it was. Soon, it was only him and Emile.

“Do you know where he could be?” Emile asked, eyeing the horizon warily. The whole dreamscape was disordered. It’s dreamlike, fuzzy quality had somehow grown more intense and faded. Maybe that was what happened during nightmares? Shit, Janus hoped Thomas wasn’t sleeping right now.

“Yes,” Janus answered, looking around for any sign of the King. “I think- Don’t look. There’s Virgil. Down there.”

Emile looked down before realizing it was one of Janus’s twisted sentences. Virgil was using his spiderlegs to climb up one of the tentacles. That one looked dead, dried and unmoving. He was pretty far and pretty high up. Janus didn’t know if their voices could reach him at that altitude. But then Virgil seemed to spot something in the distance and took off, leaping between the tree-like structures.

“Follow him!” Emile exclaimed as he began hurrying after him. Janus could feel his serpentine characteristics grow more prominent as his adrenaline kicked in. Vision sharper and movements more agile, he quickly pulled ahead of the therapist and disappeared deeper into the bizarre jungle.

He only slowed down when Virgil began sliding down one of the tendrils and landed heavily in a clear patch in the frenzy of plants and animals. He froze, not advancing any further, which gave Janus a chance to catch up.

It was a relief not being surrounded by those thick, winding pillars and atrocious creatures but the clearing was unsettling in a different way. Within it stood Romulus. Janus felt a flash of joy upon the sight of him but it was quashed immediately by the dire sense in the air. They were in the eye of the storm and it was clear Romulus was its source. 

The King was sitting. He looked so much like Remus right now. Remus wasn’t good with feelings. He was normally very expressive but not always in a positive way. He always made the most destructive creations to let his feelings out. But when it was bad, he’d just curl up. He didn’t think Janus knew but there were so many times Remus would just sit in the shower or ina closet and cry. It was worrying but Remus always came out feeling better, ready to make a brand new slime pit or cut nipple holes on OJ’s shirts.

Janus could imagine Roman coping similarly but he’d never seen it himself. Roman always had more positive creations but they were more uniform than emotive. The things of stories and fantasy, creative in their own right but not the way Remus was. He’d bury his feelings with stories and wild adventures. Maybe he sat like this too, when he was alone and at his worst.

It’d been a long time since Janus had seen Romulus. They’d still been kids, still playful and innocent. Unseparated by the idea of Light, Dark, and Neutral. They’d been a family. Right now, sitting in the one tranquil spot in the middle of a sea of horror and havoc, Romulus looked like that kid again. And that hurt Janus somewhere deep down.

This was his friend but it also… wasn’t. This was some uneven fusion of Remus and Roman, not a true King Creativity. He was his own man but he’d still taken Roman and Remus and it was painful to be reunited with him knowing the brothers were sacrificed to let it happen.

And it was no solace knowing the King was so distressed. No, that made it worse. If Romulus was acting normal, then at least he knew Remus was doing okay. But with the world falling apart more and more by the second, Janus couldn’t help but be afraid. For Thomas’s safety, for Remus and Roman, for Romulus, for his fellow Sides, everything.

Romulus seemed to notice the newcomers and looked up. He seemed to relax a bit at the sight of them. He was still a mess but he looked a bit more like his old self. God, Janus really wished he had the chance to see his friend in all his former glory. Not this… shell of the man he was meant to be. Janus didn’t want Remus and Roman gone but Romulus deserved peace as well.

“Dee,” Romulus whispered and reached out. Janus went to his side in a heartbeat, despite Virgil’s glares, but stayed silent. He wanted to comfort him but he didn’t trust his mouth right now. His presence seemed to be enough though. Romulus smiled, a look of happiness filling his eyes, but his face was still tight and uncomfortable. “I don’t understand what’s happening to me. This has never happened before.”

“Logan said you fused wrong,” Virgil told him, coming over. He looked uncertain, like he was meeting a stranger. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. Janus didn’t bother dwelling on it.

“I’ve never… that’s never happened before,” Romulus said quietly with a frown. He hiccuped. “Normally… Normally I just feel whole again. My two Sides come together and then I come back. I spend time with Remy and I use my powers then I split again. Which hurts. A lot. But, guys, this hurts even more than splitting. It- It feels like something’s wrong. I just want… I want to separate again. Please, help me.”

Janus had never seen Romulus so… sniveling. He always acted so regal and grand. Strong and confident. Something must really be wrong to make him like this. What had been going through Roman and Remus’s minds when they fused? Janus didn’t even know they could fuse but it sounded like something both of them would hate. What was so bad that they felt like they had to?

“How do you separate normally?” Virgil asked, shifting onto his knees so he was on eye level with the King.

“I don’t know! I think… Normally it wears off?”

“Wears off?”

“I never want to unfuse but I think Roman and Remus do? I split when we all start getting tired. I’ve tried splitting myself but we’ve been apart for so long. I still feel… It feels like I should be together longer but it just feels so bad. I want to unfuse but I can’t.”

Janus glanced at Virgil, sensing that this was more up Virgil’s alley than his. “You know who I am, right? I’m Anxiety. I know how it can feel to be overwhelmed and how hard it is to regain control when I’m like this. But it’s possible. Just breathe with me. Come on, let’s breathe in for four seconds. One… two… three… four… Good, now hold it for eight. One… two…”

Janus coiled up beside Romulus, leaning on him slightly, as he tapped along to Virgil’s counting on the back of Romulus’s hand. The touch could be grounding or overstimulating, Janus didn’t know, but Romulus didn’t protest so he figured it was helping. They ran through the exercise a couple times before Janus could feel some of the distress wash away from Romulus’s body. And soon, he began to split.

======================

Emile was a bit annoyed when Janus abandoned him but he couldn’t hold it against him. He’d be worried if something happened to Remy, though this situation was far more than just the disappearance of a partner. Emile knew he could never really relate to what Janus was feeling at the moment so he wasn’t that mad.

He ended up having to fight off a manticore chimera on his own. Difficult, considering Emile was far from a fighter. Unlike the Dark Sides, he had no unique animal abilities and unlike the Light Sides, he didn’t have the raw power to turn the tides of a battle in his favor. He ended up just running around in circles until his screams attracted another one and the second beast attacked the first. Not the best strategy, Emile knew, but it worked so he couldn’t complain.

He found Janus in a sheltered haven separated from the madness the rest of the dreamspace had fallen into. It was oddly quiet in there, save the low voices of the people within. Janus was there, along with Virgil and a man Emile could only assume to be the King. He’d never met him himself but Remy liked telling stories about him. This man fit his descriptions perfectly.

Well, almost perfectly. He looked kind of crumpled right now. Upset. Lost. Emile’s heart immediately went out for him. He wanted to help, to talk to him and figure out what was wrong so he could make the pain go away. Janus and Virgil seemed to have it handled though. They were guiding him through one of Virgil’s breathing exercises. Virgil and Janus’s extra limbs and scales had receded and the King looked much calmer as well. Already things were looking brighter.

Soon enough, the King had split and Roman and Remus lay in the stained grass.

Roman was coughing. Remus was lying on his back taking deep, heaving breaths. Their grip on the dreamspace slipped and things seemed to calm a bit but they both still looked wild, overwhelmed, and confused. Emile felt like this was a good time to make his presence known.

Both Janus and Virgil spared him a glance when he moved inward but they were focused on comforting their respective partners. Both twins were gasping for air, eyes and noses running. They were holding onto each other, like they weren’t quite ready to be apart yet, but also clung to their partners like lifelines. Neither had noticed Emile yet.

Emile got down as slowly and quietly as he could, coming into the brothers’ line of sight. He offered a weak smile and felt a flash of relief when he saw the recognition in their eyes. He was familiar with fusions, being a fan of Steven Universe and all, but this was real life. Roman and Remus had lost their memories after the first split, he had no reason to think now would be any different.

“Why did you feel like you had to split? Is there something wrong?” Virgil asked as quietly as he could after a few minutes. In his hold, Roman visibly stiffened. Remus looked away, not wanting to answer the question either. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk right now but…”

“You scared us,” Janus jumped in. Remus wiggled a bit so more of his body was draped over him. “I know you didn’t mean to but I don’t know how we can help you if you don’t talk to us.”

Remus and Roman exchanged a glance. Emile could sense their hesitance. And a number of other emotions. He wasn’t as empathic as Patton but he was still Thomas’s inner therapist and was strongly connected to the mental wellbeing of everyone in the mindscape. He could probably understand what was happening better than anyone.

“You feel inadequate,” Emile spoke up, trying to voice their feelings to the best of his ability. “You felt like something was missing. You thought that feeling would go away if you fused.”

“We thought we’d be whole,” Roman admitted softly, “but we just felt more broken.”

“Logan said something about their feelings affecting the fusion?” Virgil brought up. “Could that be part of it?”

Emile shrugged. “Maybe that was why Romulus was so distressed but it probably didn’t affect the fusion. Roman and Remus are their own fully fledged, complete, rounded Sides now. They’re not meant to do that.”

“If we’re supposed to be complete, then why do we feel so broken?” Remus asked, sounding more hopeless than Emile thought the normally joyous Side was capable of. 

“You’re not broken,” Janus soothed. Remus’s face said he felt otherwise. “Why would you think that? Because of the split? That was so long ago.”

“Because we lack what the other has,” Roman spoke up. He stared at the ground, not wanting to meet anyone’s gaze. “I can- I feel so much love. But Remus doesn’t. Not like me. And he can do… stuff. I can’t. It makes me feel weird. Like it’s wrong.”

“That’s what this is about? Roman, it’s fine if you don’t want to-”

“But I told you, I do want to,” Roman interrupted his boyfriend. “I want to feel… those feelings but I just can’t. And trying makes me feel bad.”

Emile was confused for a moment but Remus was nodding along like he understood. “We feel incomplete. We thought maybe we’d get those feelings if we were one again but we just… didn’t. I don’t understand why. Maybe Logan was right about our feelings affecting the fusion. Maybe we needed to calm down first or something.”

Something clicked in Emile’s mind. “You’re aspec.”

The four Sides titled their heads to look at him. “What?”

Emile smiled. Everything was making sense. “You’re aspec. Aspec, it’s an umbrella term for people on the asexual and aromantic spectrum. You see, there are different kinds of attraction but sometimes people don’t experience one or two or any of them. And that’s okay. It’s natural in humans. It probably has nothing to do with the split. It sounds like Romulus is aroace himself.”

“...What?”

“Say again?”

“Sorry,” Emile said and tried to slow down. “So, you understand attraction, yes? It’s a feeling, a desire. What draws us to others. Sexual attraction is what gives us the desire to perform sexual actions with people and do more physical things with a partner. Romantic attraction is what gives us the desire to pursue a romantic relationship and do things typically associated with the emotional side of a relationship. Most people experience both but some people only experience one or neither. Someone who doesn’t experience sexual attraction is asexual, or ace, and someone who doesn’t experience romantic attraction is aromantic, or aro.

“Asexuality is a spectrum. A lot of different experiences fit into the term and some asexuals still like or want to have sex. The same goes for aromanticism. A lot of aspec people are in queer platonic relationships that aren’t romantic or sexual in nature but aren’t necessarily  not. Those relationships are still equal to romantic or sexual ones. There are many kinds of love but it’s also okay to be loveless. That doesn’t make us any less human- er, doesn’t make us any less of a Side.”

Emile was not expecting Remus to burst out crying when he finished.

He wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen Remus cry. What he’d been doing before was silent, more of a reaction to being overwhelmed than crying. But here he was, sniffling and sobbing his heart out. Janus made a noise of concern but Remus was smiling.

“Thank you,” Remus breathed. Emile had never heard more gratitude in anyone’s voice before. “I felt so wrong for so long. I owned it, obviously, but I still felt so bad all the time. And- and now you’re telling me that it’s okay? That it’s normal not to feel love? I mean, I care about you, Janus, but I don’t think it’s the same way you love me. Is that okay?”

Janus gave him a watery smile and nodded genuinely. “It is, Remus. I’ve told you so many times, you’re more than enough. I’m just happy you can understand that now.”

Roman smiled at his brother, looking happy for him, but there was still something hidden behind his features. “I don’t… I don’t feel that way. I still feel kind of broken. Are you sure this isn’t from the split?”

Emile nodded. “Like I said, you’re your own Side now. And asexuality and aromanticism occur naturally in humans. There isn’t a reason for it other than that’s just how they are. A lot of people on the asexual and aromantic spectrum still feel broken though. There’s a word they use to describe it. Amatonormativity is the expectation that happiness comes from the pursuit and maintaining a monogamous, heterosexual relationship that is both romantic and sexual in nature. Even if you disagree with it, we still feel that pressure and it can take time to accept who you are.”

“I- thank you, Emile. I’m truly grateful,” Roman said before glancing at Virgil. “I think… I think I need some time to figure this out. For me. It has nothing to do with you though. You know I still love you, right?”

Virgil nodded. “Yeah. I know. And there’s no hurry to figure yourself out, Princey. Remember how long it took us to accept we’re gay? We all did it at our own times. This isn’t any different.”

“We should probably find the others,” Emile said, getting to his feet. Roman and Remus jolted, started. They looked around as if they were seeing their surroundings for the first time. They might as well have, being as disoriented from the split as they were. But the others would be worried and they shouldn’t waste time.

“We did this?” Remus whispered before breaking into a grin and springing up to survey the cove cut out from the forest of tentacles and listen for the howls of manticore chimeras. “Nice!”

“What do we tell the others?” Roman said in a more serious tone, rising to his feet but still leaning heavily on Virgil. 

“Whatever you want,” Emile told him. He glanced between both Remus and Roman. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Aspecs are as valid as any other member of the lgbt community. You don’t need to come out if you don’t want to or you’re not ready.”

“I want to,” Roman said, “but I’m not ready. Um, Janus, can you come up with some good excuse? That’s at least kind of believable?”

Janus smirked. “What kind of amateur do you take me for? Deceit’s the name and lying’s my game. Those suckers won’t know what hit them.”

Both Remus and Roman laughed, already sounding better. Emile exchanged a glance with Virgil, the other Side looking a lot less worried than he had a few minutes ago. Everything would be okay. Maybe not yet but soon hopefully. Roman and Remus weren’t broken and now they knew that. It may take awhile for them to accept it but until then, they’d have support from whoever they needed it from.

==================

Author’s Note: The portrayal of the aspec experience in this fic is not 100% spot on. There is a wide variety of experiences and very few are like this. If any of this speaks to you, I encourage you to do further research.

[distant-rose]

Hey so, care to share any of the mood boards and /or playlists that I'm 99% sure you have your your next gen marvel universe?

Okay, I know you sent this like yesterday morning, but you’re asking for me to share a piece of a universe that @justanotherwannabeclassic​ and I have been developing since…July? Which is insane but I made my first post about our Earth-6828 universe on the 26th July 2019. We have an estimated ninety-three characters for this universe that categorized as a next generation or involved in the next generation narrative. Ninety-three characters. Nine. Three. It’s insane. WE’RE INSANE. We created an entire universe over the course of a half year.

Anyway, with that many characters, I don’t think it’s possible to share everything on the internet involving them. So, I’m gonna focus on the OG team - the Daughters of Liberty. They’re the catalyst for Earth-6828 universe and they’re eleven women from different backgrounds and skill sets. We deliberately made a all-female team that’s diverse and we really have fun playing with them. So I’ll share some mood boards and playlists that I made for them.

NOTE: Please note that when I make playlists, I’m a weirdo with very specific rules. I make playlists made of songs sung by the genre of music I think the character would listen to, in the gender they identify with and I only do one song per artist. So, a character like Bekka who likes old school country and jazz, she’s a big fan of Duke Ellington and Miles Davis and Wendy Nguyen who is folksy really likes the Lumineers and the Mountain Goats but neither of those artists are featured on those lists because both characters are female and I like to think of the songs as being from their perspective. It’s really weird but I feel the need to make the disclosure.

I’m gonna put this under the cut because this is gonna be LOOOOONG. Also, if you’re interested in other characters and nuances of the universe, you’re also welcome to hit up not just me but also Shea because she’s done some amazing work too.

Valeria “Val” Richards

Val Richards is an Earth-616 canon character and the daughter of Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) and Susan Storm (Invisible Woman). She’s the smartest woman in the world and holds more degrees than she knows what to do with. She’s constantly working on a new degree and really hates the amount of condescension she gets sometimes from people who don’t believe how smart she is and underestimate her. It’s half the reason she’s involved with the team - she wanted to show that she and the women she works with shouldn’t be underestimated. She’s the team coordinator and is the most tech savvy. She’s known for drinking her weight in coffee, listening to Led Zeppelin on full blast and always having her hands in one project or another. She has a habit of never going to bed because she’s constantly involving herself in a project and because she’s constantly blasting music, her hearing isn’t always the best. She constantly has people repeat things since she often can’t hear them. Though she’s not involved with the family business, she’s got a great relationship with her parents and especially her brother, Franklin, who is without a doubt her hero. She’s a part of the LONGEST slowburn I’ve ever written and it took SIX YEARS for her and the team empath Wendy to get together. 

Val’s Playlist: Classic and Hard Rock, this is the type of music that Val generally listens to when she’s in the lab. It features Lita Ford, Pat Benator, Joan Jett and The Pretty Reckless. I think shows a lot of her attitude and some of her anger.

Eleanor “El” Rogers

El Rogers is an Earth-85826 canon character and the daughter of Steve Rogers (Captain America) and Sharon Carter (Agent 13). She is a professionally trained spy and is a specialist in various forms of combat. Though she offered the mantle of Captain America to Dani Cage, she is very proud of her father’s legacy and sometimes nags Dani on how she should handle things, which sometimes leads to some contention between the two. Prior to the starting the Daughters of Liberty with Val Richards, she was a SHIELD agent and often known as “Espionage Barbie.” Growing up in the spotlight, she’s a gifted and knowledgeable public relations specialist and has more than a few headaches trying to manage this team and the array of personalities she deals with. Despite her PR skills, she’s naturally more introverted and prefers to spend her time with her close friends and working on her art. Though she’s more like her mother, she did inherit Steve’s sense of justice and morals while also keeping questionable company seeing that she often finds herself in some morally grey company, namely a couple of rebellious Southern mutants and three SHIELD trained professional killers. Most people often see El as perfect but she is riddled with anxiety and constantly beats herself up for not living up to people’s expectations. Before her father’s death, she was seen as very upbeat and friendly, but has been much more subdued and even more argumentative. She’s incredibly stubborn, which often gets her into epic fights with Dani and Meredith, as well as the leaders of the Avengers (Sonny Stark) and X-Men (Olivier LeBeau).

El’s Playlist: El is very much a pop music kinda girl, but her playlist comes with a bit of a twist of her anxieties, depression and desires to live up to that expectations that have been put on her. It features Taylor Swift, Elle King, Demi Lovato and Ruelle.

Danielle “Dani” Cage

Dani Cage is an Earth-616 canon character and the daughter of Luke Cage (Power Man) and Jessica Jones (Jewel). She’s the current Captain America and it’s a job she’s very ambivalent about because as much as she is honored by being bestowed the title, it comes with a lot of pressure and criticism which Dani is not great with. Due to her super strength and invulnerability, she rarely uses the iconic Captain America shield which is one of the many things she gets criticized for by El. Like her parents, Dani is tough as nails, a little rough around the edges and swears like it was its her job. Despite her short fuse, Dani has the biggest heart of them all and tends to come from a place of compassion rather than a place of judgment. This doesn’t stop her from being one of the sassiest members of the Daughters of Liberty however. When she’s not shouldering her duties as Captain America, Dani is working out her frustrations in the gym through boxing and acting as a volunteer for the Harlem Boys and Girls’ Club. Dani is a creature of habit. She goes to the same gym that she’s gone to since she was a little girl despite having a gym in HQ, she eats the same thing for breakfast and orders the same thing whenever she goes out for dinner. Her teammates often make fun of her because of this habit, but with all the stress in her life, she clings to these habits as a source of comfort and normalcy. Dani is best friends and incredibly close to Lucy Rand, who is about 85% of her impulse control. Sometimes the only thing keeping Dani from punching out her teammates and the occasional reporter is Lucy.

Dani’s Playlist: Her playlist is the perfect workout playlist because it’s intense and high energy R&B, Hip-Hop and Rap songs. It’s an ode to black excellence and being unapologetically awesome. It features Beyonce, Cardi B, Lizzo and Salt-N-Pepa.

Lucy Rand

Lucy Rand is an Earth-21722 canon character and the daughter of Danny Rand (Iron Fist) and Misty Knight. She’s a highly skilled martial artist and gifted detective. While Val might be the most intelligent person in the world, Lucy is skilled at picking up social and culture nuances quickly and reading people despite not having empathy and psychic abilities. Despite having great tragedy in her life and losing her parents at a young age, she’s a very positive person who tends to do her best to make any difficult situation manageable. Lucy’s anger rarely comes out but when it does, it usually is when people disregard the sacrifice her parents made. Though privately, she’s very upset with them for not being there for the major events in her life and though Luke Cage and Jessica Jones had a big hand in raising her, they are not her parents. She has a permanent job at handling Dani’s short fuse but she wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. Like Dani, Lucy is very involved the community, but she has a lot of other outlets including knitting hats and managing the Instagram of her favorite little gremlin - her hairless cat Dobby. Lucy is the type of person who tends to put the focus on everyone but herself, something that the team does their best to curb. Very rarely is Lucy in any photos, mainly because she’s normally the one taking them. While she’s not field commander like Dani and El, she’s certainly the team negotiator when it comes to arguments. Needless to say with the amount of big personalities on the team, there is a fair share of fights she needs to break up and while Dani might be her best friend, Lucy’s most trusted companion is her jumbo sized bottle of migraine reliever pills. 

Lucy’s Playlist: Like Dani’s playlist, Lucy’s playlist features a lot of black excellence, but completely genre. Like Lucy herself, it’s a playlist with a lot of Soul and with a focus on fluidity rather than high energy. It features Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Whitney Houston and Ari Lennox.

Rebecca “Bekka” LeBeau

Bekka LeBeau is an Earth-41001 canon character and the daughter of Remy LeBeau (Gambit) and Anna-Marie LeBeau (Rogue). She inherited her father’s kinetic manipulation and her mother’s enhanced durability and flight. A complete Daddy’s Girl, she’s an incredibly gifted thief and has a penchant for using her abilities to blow shit up. However, instead of using playing cards, Bekka’s weapon of choice is…random objects from the dollar store? Don’t be surprised to see this chick throws weaponized plastic army men or marbles at your face. Despite her charisma, revolving door of men and natural extroversion, Bekka rarely opens up to people nor does she let people get close to her. This is a result of a very traumatic event in her childhood that completely changed both of her and older brother’s lives and caused her mutation to develop early at the age of eight. Due to this, she often suffers from nightmares and can be seen putting her absurdly gifted baking skills to work in the middle of the night. She’s the unofficial chef of the team and has introduced the team to a lot of Cajun cuisine. She’s a proud New Orleans girl and prepared to stomp your Southern stereotypes out of you. A running gag with Bekka is that despite being a very observant person, she is a penchant for refusing to see what’s right in front of her if she doesn’t want to see it such as her brother and best friend hooking up or that a certain ginger SHIELD agent is madly in love with her.

Bekka’s Playlist: Like Bekka herself, her playlist is a mixture of old school, new old and a little bit of subtle darkness. It has a mixture of Old School jazz, Classic Country and Southern Rock. It features Billie Holiday, Delta Rae, Dolly Parton and Gin Wigmore.

May “Mayday” Parker

Mayday Parker is an Earth-982 canon character and the daughter of Peter Parker (Spider-Man) and Mary Jane Watson. She inherited Peter’s enhanced physiology and wall-crawling abilities. While Mayday has her father’s intelligence, smart mouth and penchant for science, she’s more of an athlete than a nerd. She’s an avid lover of basketball and even played two years of Division Three basketball at Empire State University. She is a very frustrated New York Knicks and New York Mets fan and is often antagonized by Dani Cage, who has a tendency to be a very obnoxious Yankees fan. Though Mayday has a spot on the Daughters of Liberty team and often works outside the team as a research chemist, she has struggled with her identity since she stopped playing basketball. While she is currently Spider-Girl, she always views it more as her continuing her father’s work rather it being her own thing. Despite being incredibly bright and formidable fighter, Mayday also struggles with a lack of confidence and anxiety. She is often makes sarcastic jokes and often at her own expense. Mayday is loyal friend and often agonizes over the fact her superhero duties sometimes make her break her promises to her friends and family. However, she’s found a good support system in her girlfriend Nancy Lu, a telekinetic member of the X-Men and in her mentor, Val Richards. Though she is seven years older, Mayday often mothers her younger sister Annie, whom she sees as reckless and impulsive.

Mayday’s Playlist: This playlist is a mixture of Alternative and Rock music. It has a lot of songs that deal with self-esteem and discovering who are you is enough. It features Paramore, Avril Lavigne, Halsey and P!nk.

Anne “Annie” Parker 

Annie Parker is Earth-18119 canon character and the daughter of Peter Parker (Spider-Man) and Mary Jane Watson. Like her sister, she inherited her father’s enhanced physiology and wall-crawling abilities but that’s where their similarities end. Like her mother, Annie is an incredibly outgoing personality. With her love for pink, glitter and partying, most people look at Annie and think of her nothing more than an empty-headed party girl who does stupid shit and has nothing to add to the conversation. Wrong! Annie has one of the world’s highest IQs and is usually the smartest person in the room. She’s gifted in both sciences and mathematics. At the start of the story, she’s a student at Empire State University and is pursuing two degrees in Mathematics and Physics. She’s got an endemic memory which helps her manage her schoolwork, hero work and social life. Annie wasn’t initially invited to be a part of the team, but Mayday convinced Val and El to bring her on in hopes of curbing Annie’s partying. She’s a bit of hedonist and often does things to an excess. Since she was a child, Annie has been known for her bubbly attitude and infectiously positive attitude. This was developed at a young age as she rarely saw her older sister happy (not understanding that her sister suffered from depression and anxiety) and she made it her personal mission to make Mayday smile. Annie is a fearless girl with a big heart who doesn’t often think before putting herself in harm’s way, which unknowing stresses out her older sister more.

Annie’s Playlist: This playlist features a lot of Pop, Hip-Hop and Dance music. It’s high energy, upbeat and makes you just want to have a good time. Honestly, a good chunk of these songs have featured on RuPaul’s Drag Race as Lip Sync for your life songs. (Annie is a massive RuPaul fan). It features Arianna Grande, Britney Spears, Rihanna and Tove Lo.

Meredith “Mere” Pryde

Meredith Pryde is an Earth-41001 canon character and the daughter of Piotr Rasputin (Colossus) and Kitty Pryde (Shadow Cat). She inherited her mother’s phasing power, tech skills and ability to make epic callouts. She inherited almost nothing from her father, whom she doesn’t really remember since he died when she was young. She was raised mainly by her mother and her aunt Illyana Rasputin. Meredith joined the Daughters of Liberty so she didn’t have to deal with her brother Cameron second-guessing all of her choices and telling her to calm down. When Meredith sees injustice, she does her best to correct the situation and she doesn’t care who she has to call out. When she’s not doing work for the Daughters of Liberty, Meredith is active activist who is involved in various projects but especially on mutants’ rights. She attends and supports every march she can and her instagram is full of all her favorite protest and march signs that she sees. Aside from being involved in activism, Meredith’s second favorite activity is trolling her teammates, especially those who tend to be nonplussed about things. She’s notorious for her pranks and for playfully flirting with her teammates’ siblings to make them uncomfortable, namely Bekka. While she’s a notorious flirt, she has no interest in relationships and will punch you in the face if you ask her if she has a boyfriend or girlfriend. Though she is involved with the Daughters of Liberty and various movements, Meredith often suffers from loneliness because she doesn’t have a lot of time for herself and fostering her friendships. She’s every girl’s friend, but no one’s best friend. 

Meredith’s Playlist: This playlist highlights Meredith’s confidence and unapologetic nature. She is who she is, and you can take it or leave it. It’s an eclectic list which has mixture of Pop Rock, Pop, Alternative and R&B music. It features Superchick, Billie Eilish, Lily Allen and Icona Pop.

Wendy Nguyen

Wendy Nguyen is a character Shea and I made up, she is not related to anyone. Shocker. She’s a licensed therapist who often treats other superheroes and was actually assigned to El Rogers after the death of her father. She is an empath who is capable of sensing people’s emotions and when she touches them, she gets not only your emotions but your thoughts and even your memories. Her senses are incredibly strong and she often cannot be in the same room when someone is feeling things a bit too strongly, particularly her teammate Maya Ayala during the team’s first year together. Because she feels people’s emotions so strongly, Wendy is often confused whose emotions she is feeling - hers or someone else’s. This is one of the reasons it took her so long for her to admit her feelings for Val. Wendy is often seen as a quiet and thoughtful person who does her best to make her teammates confront their feelings for both her sake and theirs. She has an affinity for tea and has the world’s most absurd tea cabinet which is filled with tea from all over the world from her many travels. She also as an affinity for butterflies, which she views as being similar to human emotions - intense, sometimes beautiful but fleeting and fragile. Wendy often wears gloves to keep herself from accidentally touching others and taking their thoughts and memories without their permission. The ethics of her ability sometimes is a struggle for her since while they allow her to be good at job, however she feels them without control or consent from others. She rarely goes out with her friends in public areas mainly because being around so many people who are feeling a variety emotions is too much for her and causes her to have splitting headaches.

Wendy’s Playlist: Best described as folksy and acoustic. Wendy prefers most chilled out music because feeling others’ emotions can be very overwhelming. However, there’s a range of emotion here because she feels a lot. It features Of Monsters and Men, Regina Spektor, Jolie Holland and Hannah Connelly.

Yasmin “Yas” Khan

Yasmin Khan is a character Shea and I made up, she’s the niece of Kamala Khan (Miss Marvel). Like her aunt, Yasmin has Inhuman heritage alongside holding Pakistani and African heritages from her parents, Aamir and Tyesha. She was exposed to the Terrigen Mists and gained abilities similar to her father in which she can create psychic force fields, however she also has telekinesis and touch-telepathy. Yasmin is a practicing Muslim and while most of the women don’t wear hijabs nor expect her to wear one, she often feels to try and normalize Muslim practices in a society that is suspicious and often hateful towards her culture. She likes to joke that it covers up her bad hair days. Yasmin loves fashion and color, and though she is often the most modest wearing person in the room, she is definitely the most colorful and enjoys outrageous patterns. She is a big lover of pop culture and can often be seen playing Pokemon Go and watching shows on Crunchy Roll on her phone. She has a massive sweet tooth and can be seen in the kitchens watching Bekka bake in hopes of being allowed to have a bite. Though she doesn’t drink, she is best friends with Annie and often accompanies her on nights out and makes sure her friend doesn’t get into any trouble. Yasmin is one of the few people who isn’t out with her personal identity and this is mainly due to her fear of people hurting her family due to the rampant Muslim prejudice in the United States. As one of the youngest members of the team, her teammates are incredibly protective of her and have actually a designated plan ready to cheer her up if they ever see Yasmin is upset, which is called Operation: Yas Smiles. 

Yas’s Playlist: Like Meredith, Yap’s playlist is very colorful and has a diverse range of generics from R&B to Soul and Rap. It has a range of emotions since while Yas is a very cheerful person and absolute sweetheart, there’s some anger there at how she and other Muslims are treated. It features Mona Haydar, SassyBlack, Daya and Azealia Banks.

Maya Ayala

Maya Ayala is a character Shea and I made up, she’s the daughter of Hector Ayala (White Tiger) and the niece of Ava Ayala (White Tiger). Nothing happy ever happens to the Ayala family and unfortunately that saga continues with Maya, who witnessed her entire family and boyfriend being murdered in front of her during a shoot out in the Bronx. She took up the mantle of White Tiger and has been on a search to find their murderer. Before becoming the current incarnation of the White Tiger, Maya was a former competitive gymnast who was almost on the United States Olympic team and was working as a gymnastics coach. However, since the incident, she’s put all of her energy into getting revenge for her family and joined the Daughters of Liberty to honor her aunt and to use her resources to get justice. While her focus is on revenge, her greatest desire is to see her family and her boyfriend again. At the beginning, she kept herself from her teammates because she didn’t want to get attached, but after awhile, she became very close with Wendy, Val, Dani and Lucy. Maya has a secret love for telenovelas which she tries to keep quiet because she’s afraid of being seen as stereotypical. Despite this, she’s very proud Latina and gets pissed off when people write her off as “Mexican” or “foreign,” especially since her family hails from Puerto Rico and she’s just as American as anyone else. However, occasionally she does share her culture with the others, and occasionally makes arroz con gandules and pollo guisado with Bekka for the team. 

Maya’s Playlist: This is list is a mixture of Latin Pop, Alternative and R&B. It holds a mixture of Maya before the loss of her family and after. A lot of the latin pop are from gymnastic routines she would create. However, there’s also a lot of anger and sadness here, which is understandable. It features Audri Nix, Ciara, Lana Del Rey and Skylar Grey.

[edream93]

A Queen’s Loyalty

Super sorry to @demons-like-music-too​ for this late @descendantssecretsanta​ gift. None of these characters wanted to give me an easy time while writing this. Hopefully you’ll still be able to enjoy this Uma/Audrey oneshot with a hint of Humaudrey.

It had been fun. His flirtations had been crass but his attention, anything that wasn’t a look of pity like from her grandmother or a look of fear like when her eyes connected with Chad’s, was better than nothing. 

They had danced, spinning around and around for so long that Audrey could pretend that he was some prince from a faraway kingdom. Harry Hook definitely had the jawline of a prince. She even told him that which caused him to look at her with an unreadable look on his face before he erupted with loud boisterous laughter. 

“Ye want me to be your pretty little boy toy hanging off yer arm, lass?” he asked with a wicked grin as he dipped her. “Want me to be your little Isle pet?”

Rolling her eyes, Audrey shook her head. “I’m not really interested in just a pretty face.” Her eye caught Ben and Mal in each other's arms, surrounded by their friends as they stared adoringly at each other. 

The pain had dulled but the wound was still tender. Audrey doubted that it would ever go away, but it would be tolerable. It would have to be. 

“Then what is a princess like ye wanting?” the pirate asked bringing her attention back to him.

“Loyalty,” Audrey said firmly without hesitation. “I don’t remember much about...before, with the scepter. But I remember watching you and Ursula’s daughter. It was so easy to see that you would follow her anywhere.”

He cocked his head to the side, his face unreadable as he searched for something. He looked somewhere over her shoulder, staring off at something. Before Audrey could ask what he was looking at he cut her off, intense gaze on her. 

“Loyalty,” he murmured “has to be hard won.” Suddenly, he spun her around out of sight from the rest of the party, pressing her back against a wall. The smell of cologne, leather, and gunpowder set off warnings of danger in Audrey’s mind as he leaned closer. “A good pirate often doesn’t have much to their name but the loyalty they’ve gained. What does a bonnie pink princess like ye know about hardship?” he asked.

His gaze fell to her lips and Audrey couldn’t decide if she wanted him to kiss her or not but the air around them felt charged with intensity, and Audrey wanted one moment of not being a princess. Of not having every decision she made being judged by whether it was proper or not...

“Harry. Chill.”

Audrey jumped, pushing away from the boy whose lips were mere breaths from hers. Guilt and the image of being on the Tourney field embarrassed and heartbroken flashed through her as her eyes turned onto the frightening scowl of the sea witch Ursula’s daughter.

Uma stood, arms crossed and eyes narrowed as she took both of them in. Audrey swore the air around the teal haired girl was thick with charged energy though her face showed no tell of what she was actually feeling.

Audrey sputtered, attempting to speak, to apologize. Despite not wanting to necessarily ruin Mal’s life at the moment, she definitely did not want to follow in the path of the future Queen first year in Auradon. 

Before she could get out an apology though, Harry was already pulling away from her.

“Darlin’” he purred in greeting, all swagger and sharp angle as the intensity that surrounded them melted away, Audrey not even an afterthought. 

Audrey felt her cheeks warm as the son of Hook easily placed himself next to the sea witch’s side, kneeling as he kissed her hand with such reverence and care that Audrey had to look away from the intimate action. Total devotion, Audrey thought with not a little jealousy.

She allowed herself to feel embarrassed, cheeks warming in shame. She was a princess. Though her memories of the last few days were murky beneath a fog of purple haze, she remembered watching these two through the scepter. A princess didn’t allow herself to act with so little class, especially in front of a sea witch who could potentially have a short fuse and turn her into pond scum.

However, before the delayed panic and pleas could rise within the Audrey, Uma spoke.

“It’s getting late, Harry,” she said as if she had not just walked in on a scandalous scene, expression bored. “Just because the barrier is down doesn’t mean you’re off from doing your sweeps. Mal,” she said not necessarily with contempt but not overly filled with fondness, “forgot that there are actually people who actually deserve to be on the Isle, namely our parents.” 

Harry snorted, slinging his arm over her shoulder. “Always cleaning up the wee dragon’s mess, aren’t we?” Uma frowned but otherwise didn’t look too bothered by their closeness, even hooking her pinky with the hook dangling from his hand around her shoulder.

They were already turning around to leave, when Audrey remembered that breathing was something that human beings needed to do. She almost sighed in relief, wanting nothing more than to go to her room and wash off the last week or two. However, Uma stopped and Audrey held back a gasp as the sea witch stared over her shoulder at her with an intense and unreadable look.

“Stealing from a queen is not a smart move to gain her loyalty.”

Cold fear ran through Audrey at those words. 

Of course Mal would legally be queen of the Isle and of Auradon but Audrey had heard enough whispers, seen the way that those from the Isle seemed to defer to Uma once the barrier had been brought down and the bridge built. 

This was it. Audrey had angered a sea witch, proclaimed Queen of the Isle by flirting with her beau and now Audrey would be cursed, turned into sea foam, and-

Harry was suddenly at Audrey’s side again, slipping on the ring that Audrey’s mother had given her for her sixteenth birthday back onto her finger. An elegant thing where the band was made out of rose gold twisting vines and small delicate roses. It was Audrey’s favorite ring.  

When had he taken that off of her? She hadn’t even realized it was gone until he was replacing it. 

“Sorry lass. Bad habits,” Harry grinned widely with a discomforting giggle before pulling his calloused hand away. He winked at her, mouthing the word “loyalty” before quickly catching up to Uma who had already started walking away again. Audrey watched them until the crowd of still celebrating people quickly swallowed them up, neither pirate in site. 

Letting out a very unladylike sound, Audrey slumped against the wall, heart pounding against her chest and not quite sure what just happened.

---

“Audrey! Will you please stop fidgeting? It’s a beautiful necklace, which is saying something since it came from pirates.” 

Audrey glared over the rim of her tea cup at Evie. They were sitting in Evie’s workshop in her castle. Audrey was supposed to be having a dress consultation done for an upcoming royal event she had to attend. However, the dress consultation had quickly turned into a consultation about a particular pirate captain, who was now also the liaison for the Isle and co-leader for the Isle Rehabilitation Initiative. Said pirate captain had also sent Audrey a deceptively beautiful necklace with a teal rose shaped pendant made out of sea glass that Audrey was adamant the sea witch had cursed.

“Is that supposed to be reassuring? Not only was I probably given a cursed necklace but it was probably a stolen cursed necklace. What else am I to think when it comes from the same person who threatened me for stealing her boyfriend.”

“That she wanted to thank you for advocating to keep Sammy Smee together with his younger twin brothers?” Evie sighed, setting aside the jacket that she was creating for the Queen of Hearts’ youngest son, Ace. The young boy would be coming to live at the quickly filling castle towards the end of the week. “The Isle born pirates always had a strong sense of loyalty to each other, more so than anyone else on the Isle. Since Harry is her first mate and the Hooks and Smees have a long history together, she probably felt indebted to you,” Evie reached for her own cup of tea, frowning at how lukewarm it was. “Isle kids hate owing a debt, especially to outsiders. Never know when someone will use it against you or what for.”

“I was just fulfilling the requirements of my community service,” Audrey softly said. 

As part of her punishment for breaking into the Auradon Museum of History, stealing the crown and Maleficent’s scepter as well as her stint as “the Queen of Mean”, Audrey had been assigned to community service work. The majority of her work was helping Evie prepare for and help with the adjustment of Isle children who would be better off living under Evie’s protective care than staying on the Isle. 

Queen Leah had initially not been happy but Audrey took the punishment with aplomb and grace of a princess who wanted to repent. Who wanted to do better and grow from her narrow minded shell. Besides, despite their initial first meeting what felt like years ago, Audrey found herself appreciative and in awe of Evie’s ability to balance a fashion line, mentoring Dizzy with the development of her accessory line, housing more than a dozen Isle children, and assisting with the rehab of one marginally disgraced princess. 

It didn’t take long for Audrey to admit that Evie was a princess in every way but the title. They weren’t necessarily friends, but it was easy to talk to Evie and not just feel heard but also understood. After all, they had both grown up with the legacy of their mothers’ hanging over their heads.

Setting down her tea, Evie gave her a beautiful smile, moving over to sit next to Audrey. She briefly took the other girls hands in her own for a brief squeeze. “Not that many people would pull connections to get the son of a villain’s sidekick a stable job so that he can support his two younger brothers,” she said before letting go of Audrey’s hands. “Listen Audrey, things on the Isle…” looking down as she searched for her words. “They aren’t, they aren’t always as straightforward as they are on this side of the bridge.” Evie looked up, a strange look in her eyes as she stared at something across the room. “We didn’t have the concept of love, not really or not as publicly shown like it is over here. We had loyalty though.”

Audrey followed her gaze and saw a small table with two picture frames. One was a recent picture of her and Doug, taken shortly after the barrier was brought down. The other frame held a picture of Mal, Evie, Jay, Carlos, and Ben right after Ben’s coronation as king. When Audrey turned back to Evie, there was a soft smile on the other girl’s face.

“If you’re really worried about Uma being after you or not, just talk to her,” Evie advised. “She’s a sea witch but also a pirate. A pirate of her word,” she added when Audrey opened her mouth to protest. “Besides, she’s been working with Ben on the adjustment efforts for the Isle. Uma is passionate, not stupid. Things are too delicate to be threatening a princess who easily fell for Harry’s old flirt and snatch trick. It was essentially business as usual for Harry and I’m sure that Uma knows that you weren’t interested in stealing her first mate.”

Audrey rolled her eyes but nodded before switching the subject to the work she was doing raising money for Evie to find an even bigger castle and staff for Isle halfway home. Days later, if Evie saw Audrey where the sea glass necklace, she didn’t say anything, just smiled knowingly.

----

Weeks passed. And then a month.

Audrey’s community service ended two weeks ago but she continued to work with Evie, creating fundraisers and promoting the need for Isle informed trauma care at Auradon Prep for both Isle and Auradon born. Some days she would be at Evie’s castle, helping to wrangle some of the more energetic children to eat their vegetables before they could stuff their faces with cake. And some days she sat patiently, helping the smallest children to those who were very nearly close to her in age sound out their words as they read, the summer before the school year being used as a literacy crash course. 

Chad and her grandmother didn’t understand why she would want to continue with her community service work when she had met the requirements but Audrey merely politely kissed her grandmother on the cheek and temporarily blocked Chad’s number before diving deeper into the Isle Rehabilitation work. 

Surprisingly, Audrey found her groove when it came to keeping some of the rowdier Isle children in place. Apparently her short stint as the Queen of Mean was known about even on the Isle and had given her a pretty hefty amount of “street cred” making it very easy for the younger children to quickly get in line with just one look. Even the older ones felt more comfortable going to Audrey if they needed anything rather than their assigned Auradon peer mentors. It was nice to be looked at with awe and not fear and distrust. It was surprising that the people she had once thought were Auradon’s enemies were the most forgiving.

“Moldy bread for your thoughts?”

Audrey startled, brought back to the bench she was sitting on from her thoughts. She had been watching Carlos and Jay teach some of the younger Isle kids how to play Tourney. It was a nice day and Evie had forced her to take a break. Audrey looked next to her, eyes widening when she saw who had interrupted her thoughts.

 “Uma!” She squeaked, causing an amused tilt of the sea witch’s lips.

“So you do know my name,” she said while leaning back on the bench with a combination of casual ease and an air of deadly grace. 

“Of course I know your name,” Audrey nervously brushed invisible wrinkles from her skirt, folding her hands delicately in her lap when there proved to be no wrinkles to be smoothed out. 

“Wasn’t sure,” Uma yawned, chuckling when the Smee twins tagged teamed Jay and knocked the older boy on his back. “Atta boys!” she cheered, a wide genuine grin spread across her face. 

Audrey found herself staring. Uma looked nice with smile, she thought distractedly. Definitely better than the scowl that Audrey had last seen her with when she caught her with Harry.

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” the sew witch grinned, her brown gaze on Audrey.

The world screeched to a halt and the only thing Audrey could do was hide her face in her hands. “I said that out loud, didn't I?” 

Uma merely smirked. 

A few minutes passed as Audrey wondered if the ground beneath her would just swallow her up and end her embarrassment. Jay and Carlos continued with their Tourney lessons, Jay explaining the importance of trust and teamwork. 

“So,” Uma broke the silence between them. “A little blue bird has been sayin’ you’re avoiding me and after I got you that pretty necklace. Looks good on you by the way,” she said reaching out and gently stroking the pendent. Audrey felt warmth rush to her face as the tip of Uma’s fingers brushed against the sensitive skin of her collar bone. “Gil picked it out. He has a good eye for things like that,” Uma moved her hand away to toss her long waves of teal hair over her shoulder.

In the sunlight, Audrey was mesmerized by the strands of gold hair that was brought out in the light, difficult to notice unless you were up close. 

“I’m not jealous or out to get you because you were with Harry,” Uma suddenly said.

Eyes widening, Audrey managed to get out, “You weren’t? But aren’t you two, a thing?”

“The labels in Auradon don’t always perfectly match with the ones from the Isle,” Uma shrugged tilting her head back to bathe in the warm light of the sun. “It’s like explaining to Gil the difference between a grape and a berry when he’s never had the reference for any type of fruit to begin with.”

Audrey found herself frowning, once again reminded how sheltered her life had always been. “Evie mentioned something similar.”

Uma nodded. “But passion, drive, initiative? Loyalty?” she smirked as Audrey’s eyes widened. “That’s something that translates well anywhere,” she bumped her shoulder with Audrey’s. “That’s why I want you to help me with some of the Isle Rehabilitation initiatives I’m working on. Hence the necklace to butter you up.”

Carlos let out a loud cheer, running around with one of the Smee twins laughing on his shoulder, narrowly dodging Jay’s grab with his own twin on his shoulder. 

“Why me?”

“You impressed me. Didn’t know a pretty in pink princess could care about what happened to Isle kids.”

“It’s not that big of a deal. Evie does the same thing. I don’t see why you don’t just go to her.”

Uma rolled her eyes. “Seven seas, give me strength,” she muttered before turning to fully face Audrey on the bench. Audrey only had a second to process Uma leaning in towards her before their lips met. The sounds of the beautiful day and the Tourney lesson faded away as Uma’s lips pressed firmly against hers. Audrey was frozen, brain failing to process how to respond until Uma slipped a warm but calloused hand against the back of Audrey’s neck. Her other hand combed along the scalp of the princess’s head, bringing out an unexpected moan that parted Audrey’s lips further, giving the sea witch further access.

Audrey melted against Uma, feeling like she was drowning in the best way, surround in the sea witch’s attention. The voices in her head that constantly went back and forth about proper princess protocol were silent, everything else put on pause to just lose herself in this unexpected but not at all unwelcome embrace. She was just Audrey.

Uma smirked at the whine of protest that Audrey didn’t even have the energy to pretend to be embarrassed about letting out as she pulled away. “That’s why,” the sea witch explained.

Audrey glanced over at the area where Carlos and Jay had been giving Tourney lessons only to see that they had left, only Harry Hook grinning at them as he leaned against a nearby tree. When their eyes met, he winked at her, mouthing “loyalty”. 

Uma got to her feet, looking cool and collected, the only evidence of what just happened being her tousled hair that Audrey just realized she had been running her hands through. 

“No more avoiding me,” Uma ordered more than said. “Doesn’t do well for the others to think we’re not on the same page.” 

Audrey licked her lips, tasting faintly sea salt. “And,” she began before clearing her throat. “And what page exactly are we on?” 

Uma grinned, already sauntering away towards Harry, a little bit more of a sway in her hips as both Harry and Audrey watched. “That two queens are better than one, of course,” she called over her shoulder.

[deepstheeskimo]

‘The Power of Four’

Right, everyone is picking Lions squads with less than a year to go until the next South Africa tour is meant to happen. Only so much brainpower I want to put into considering the pros and cons of scrummaging abilities though so I’ve gone for the Deeps Cult Lions XV made up of past tourists from of the last 20 or so years.

1. Allan Dell. What better way to start than with a South African born Scottish prop that only got called up as part of the ‘geography six’? In the squad: Andrew Sheridan (built like one of those GM bulls) and Tom Smith (badly underrated player, 

2. Keith Wood. The ragin’ potato. Came to Quins and inspired a character in the first ‘book’ I wrote aged 8. Weird obsession with belly buttons, understandable obsession with trying drop goals from 40 metres. In the squad: Shane Byrne (1- mullet 2- not actually very good) and Andy Titterrell (Pro Rugby Manager 2 legend and extremely small man)

3. Kyle Sinckler. Why? He’s my guy, that’s why. He’s the opposite of that ruddy faced, sweaty tweed rugger culture. He makes me smile.  In the squad: Jason Leonard (The Fun Bus. Non-playing tour captain. Once ruffled my hair - give him all the ale he can drink.) and Adam Jones (The Hair Bear. My sister used to see him all the time in Neath Tesco - give him all the pic n mix he can eat).

4. Martin Johnson. Looks like a character from a Guy Ritchie film, universally loathed by opponents and taped up his fingers(??). Summed up by the saying ‘Last time I saw a mouth like that it had a hook in it’. In the squad: Paul O’Connell (has some weird mythical power about him. Came to Quins with Munster and made south west London echo with ‘fields of Athenry’) and Simon Shaw (his emotional final interview post 2009 third test, aged 37, was pretty special) 

5. Doddie Weir. Could not be anyone else. Farmer strength. Permanently looked 20. Built for Lions tours. Still fighting the good fight. Go on big man. In the squad: Nathan Hines (perma-suspended and a ‘tartan wallaby’) and Maro Itoje (Sometimes it’s not all about drinking and bungee jumping. Itoje’s one of the few that would be able to have an actual conversation) 

6. Peter O’Mahony. One of those players that always grows into a series and ends up being important. Entirely unremarkable player but must be nasty to play against. Can’t actually imagine he’s that nice to be around at all. Big ‘school bully’ vibes. In the squad: Richard Hill (the only one of England’s 2003 RWC forwards that didn’t vote Brexit) and Alan Quinlan (Hit form at the right time, finally being picked in 2009 after a good but near-miss career. Expresses immense pride in selection. Then gouges someone. 12 week ban. If that’s not a cult player then I’m not sure what is).

7. Sean O’Brien. Another one with farmer strength. Thick in the arm, thick in the head but unlike a lot of the others won’t ever let you down. Plus on a tour you need characters and I bet, deep deep deep down he’s actually got a personality. Well, maybe. In the squad: Martyn Williams (a face that belongs in a back office of a mid sized electronics company. Somehow helped to invent modern rucking) and Sam Warburton (picked only so I can annoy people by saying his name as War-burrton’ not ‘Wabatan’ as they seem to say. Also looks like an Easter Island statue)

8. Scott Quinnell. Just rugby league all over. Overweight, comedy accent, illegal use of a plaster cast on his arm, despicable post-career lad culture DVDs and even had a stint on Soccer AM. If you kick him, all the Quinnells walk with a limp. In the squad: Ryan Jones (about the only player to come out of 2005 with credit) and Andy Powell (body of a god, brain of, erm... Great on tour as he’s a six foot five version of that kid in school you could make do anything by saying ‘oh go on!’)

9. Chris Cusiter. Born in Aberdeen which obvs piques my interest. Somehow got called up aged 22 while playing for the ill-fated Border Reivers. Played in Scotland, England, France and Australia and now lives in California running a whiskey retailing business. International. In the squad: Matt Dawson (over the head dummy try) and Austin Healey (absolutely horrible grinding shithouse). The two of these would be encouraged to collaborate on deliberately provocative articles similar to what they wrote in 2001.

10. Jonny Wilkinson. The best player of all time. Note to self, don’t hang around him too much because you’ll look pathetic and probably annoy him. In the squad: Mike Catt (Utility back. My fave) and Finn Russell (Joué Joué 🍷)

11. Ugo Monye. A huge part of my weekends for about 10 years was getting excited every time he touched the ball. Top scorer on his one Lions tour, shock. In the squad: George North (need a scapegoat for when we lose 49-0 to Japan in a warm up game) and Jack Nowell (wouldn’t play a single game, only being taken to let the squad mock him and call him a yokel - bet he’s got a dead short fuse).

12. Rob Henderson. Looked like, acted like, presumably ate like and definitely played like that guy from your local club who played England U16s and let it get to his head. And gut. Crash ball. In the squad: Scott Gibbs (hefty) and Gavin Henson (Insane talent, probably got good stories and even if he’s a prick he’s nicer to look at than some of the other options).

13. Ollie Smith. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Life gave Sir Clive Woodward the entire player pool of Britain and Ireland and somehow he picked Ollie Smith. In my team because he just looks like a nice guy. Defo pro-HS2 and his dad would pick up the bar tab. In the squad: Brian O’Driscoll (meh, guess he gets a place) and Will Greenwood (but only with bleach blonde hair. He genuinely almost died on the pitch playing for the Lions, looks like Shaggy and is a rarity in being a Lions player selected while playing Championship rugby).

14. Dan Luger. Always looked like he’d just come off a 10 hour shift at B&M. Even made skintight shirts look baggy. Played for Perpignan and Toulon before it was cool. Tryscoring machine. Injury prone as fuck.  In the squad: John Bentley (so long as he isn’t a massive sexist like on the 1997 documentary) and Christian Wade (I will never forgive rugby union for wasting his talent).

15. Neil Jenkins. Ol’ dependable. Looks like a man off the street. Can imagine he’s almost always terrified around these peacocking ‘alpha males’. In the squad: Tim Stimpson (remember him?) and Iain Calamity Balshaw (Brendan Laney never played Lions so he’s there to mess everything up instead)

[xsorakim]

task 005 - zodiac signs

question 1

What is your character’s zodiac sign? 

Aries. 

question 2

List at least 3 negative traits that your character’s sign has. Does your character exhibit these traits? Give examples or explain a time when they have behaved in this way.

Self-involved Impatient Impulsive 

Sora most certainly exhibits at least two of the above. Self-involved is perhaps one of the most accurate descriptions of her. Growing up in a wealthy family ( the daughter of a father who owned hospitals and a mother who worked in one of those hospitals as a doctor ), she was always striving for perfection and in doing so, she started to believe that she was perfection. Without a doubt, she is selfish and, with the exception of very few people, she will always put her needs before the needs of others. Examples of her acting such a way are in just about every conversation that she has with someone; somehow, she manages to make the conversation all about her. And if she can’t make the conversation about her, she’ll still throw in bits and pieces here and there that make her feel like the conversation is mostly revolving around her. Once again, the only exceptions to this are when she’s talking to someone she genuinely cares about and they’re having a hard time. She tends to reel it back a bit in situations such as that.

Without a doubt, patience is a virtue that Sora severely lacks. She wants what she wants when she wants it and doesn’t particularly enjoy being told that she has to wait for it. An example from this group that proves that she’s impatient was her lack of ability to handle Abby during open house and the way she kind of ran away from her at the end there, because she was incredibly close to snapping. Point being, the only brat she has the patience to deal with is herself. 

While Sora can often times be spontaneous and make impulsive ( or rather, reckless ) decisions while intoxicated ( such as climbing onto a roof ), there isn’t much that she does where she doesn’t put thought into it first. This doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s cautious, because she isn’t afraid to take chances, but she at least thinks before she does something that could potentially harm her and asks herself it if it’s really worth it before she does something incredibly stupid. 

question 3

List at least 3 positive traits that your character’s sign has. Does your character exhibit these traits? Give examples or explain a time when they have behaved in this way.

Independent  Generous  Optimistic 

Sora will shout from the rooftop that she is independent and doesn’t need anybody ( she said something akin to the sort during the brief time that she was at Riley and Teddy’s birthday party, actually ). One of her mottos in life is not to trust anyone, because most people are unreliable and will smile in your face while they stab you in the front. When caught in a bad situation, it is incredibly difficult for her to swallow her pride long enough to ask for help and she will only do so if she feels there is no other option ( such as begging for help when she was drunk and stuck on a roof ). I have this head-canon that she is perfectly okay with the idea of spending the rest of her life alone, because as long as she has herself, she knows that she’ll be perfectly alright. She’s convinced that no one could offer her anything that she can’t give herself ( this includes things such as romance and sex, like if she wants to buy herself flowers, she will and she isn’t shy about worshiping her own body, so to speak ). 

Generous is an iffy one, but I think that she has the ability to be. While she’ll deny it until she is blue in the face, she does care about other people and I think that’s obvious in the small things she does for her friends, like how she’s always attempting to lift Kenzie up or attempted to assit Elliot in finding his cane. Her generosity only comes out when she’s around people she cares for, however, and does not extend past them because she just doesn’t have the ability to care for anyone who isn’t already important to her. In certain situations, however, I think her soft side tends to come out more because she isn’t as cold as she may wish she was and is truly just a marshmallow under that ice princess armor.

I suppose she can be optimistic. She’s always trying to lift her friends up, which is in a way her trying to spread optimism to them, but I think a lot of the time she just prefers to think of herself as realistic. The glass isn’t half empty or half full to her. She doesn’t see the point in being sad all of the time or focusing on the things that she can’t change, but that doesn’t mean that she thinks life is rainbows and butterflies all of the time, either. 

question 4

If there are any specific opposing traits that your character has which isn’t typical for their sign, what traits are they? (i.e. Their sign says they’re stubborn but they’re actually a pushover) Give examples of this opposing behaviour.

While she does have the ability to be generous, I think she is more avaricious than anything else. She isn’t likely to give anything away, so much as she is to keep it for herself and want more, whether this is money or material things like clothing, jewelry, etc. Another trait that is listed for an aries is that they are short-tempered and while Sora has quite a temper, she’s more the type to let things simmer and boil over when someone least expects it. When she gets angry, she uses it to her advantage at a time that she sees fit, so she definitely doesn’t have a short fuse by any means. 

question 5

Which zodiac sign associated traits does your character exhibit that would be obvious to others? Which traits aren’t as obvious?

Self-involvement is definitely one of the more obvious traits for Sora. Quite certain that, if asked, anyone who knows her would say that she’s selfish and puts herself first at all times. Her independence is always incredibly obvious, because she doesn’t tend to cling to others and is never bothered with spending time alone; even prefers it at times and she isn’t afraid to let someone know when she doesn’t want to be bothered. I don’t think any of the traits are less obvious because she’s just not afraid of being herself and doesn’t feel like she has to hide any parts of her personality. 

question 6

Overall, do you find that your character’s sign suits their personality? Why or why not?

Without a doubt, her zodiac fits her. Both the negative traits and positive traits certainly suit her. I don’t think it would make any sense if she wasn’t a fire sign. 

question 7

Which aspect under the “In a Nutshell” header do you think describes your character the best? The least?

The aspect that suits her the most is that they enjoy being the center of attention. Sora’s stated herself that she’d love to be the center of the universe, and while often times she is exaggerating, it is true that she craves attention. Not only does she crave it, but she somewhat thrives off it. In her mind, the world revolves around her and everyone else is simply just along for the ride. As for the aspect that suits her the least, it’s definitely the part about “wanting is always better than getting” because there will never come a day where Sora wants something and is satisfied with not getting. As stated above, she wants what she wants when she wants and she will stop at nothing to get it. To say she is shameless would be an understatement. 

question 8

Which aspect under the “Deep Inside” header do you think describes your character the best? The least?

The aspect underneath the ‘deep inside’ header that fits her the most is that underneath that independent exterior of hers lies some insecurity. It isn’t something that she will ever show, but she does feel quite a bit of pressure to always be perfect. This has a lot to do with her father and not wishing to disappoint him, despite the more rational side of her being aware that he just doesn’t care. All he cares about is the family name, and she’s afraid of tarnishing it by not being the perfect daughter he expects her to be. However, the part about such insecurity resulting in self-doubt is definitely not accurate for Sora. She never, ever doubts herself. She’s always certain that the decisions she is making are the right ones, and isn’t like she truly cares whether they are right or wrong, as long as they benefit her. 

question 9

Read the “How to Attract” header of your character’s sign. Do you find this accurately describes what would draw them to another person?

I’d say that the ‘how to attract’ section is accurate for her. To say Sora is picky would be an understatement. She won’t date you and she probably won’t sleep with you either, but one way to guarantee her interest, at the very least, is to compliment her constantly. Admire her, treat her like the queen she thinks she is, and someone might actually have a chance. However, if the person attempting to get her attention isn’t interesting in the slightest, seems stupid or is too afraid to share their opinion, she’ll undoubtedly back off because it is true that she gets bored easily. It is also true that she doesn’t like being controlled. She wants to be the one in control of everything, and the only time it’s fun for someone to play tug of war with her is when they’re in a bed. 

question 10

Did you already have a birthday chosen for your character? Had you considered the sign associated with that date? If you don’t find that your character fits the descriptions of their sign, which of the other signs do you think they’re like?

I actually filled a wanted connection for Nora and she had the date picked out already for the twins ( Ian and Sora ). I’d certainly say that she knew what she was doing when she picked the birthday for them, because Aries is the perfect choice for Sora. 

question 11

Are there any additional descriptions you found in your reading that stand out to you or also describe your character well? What were they?

Underneath the ‘temperament’ section, it says that Aries don’t like taking orders and enjoy getting their way, and that they tend to get moody whenever some attempts to tell them what to do, which is very true for Sora. Tell her what to do and she will likely throw a tantrum, because she doesn’t like not being the one to give the orders. 

[tyrantisterror]

Revenge of the ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest: ENTRY ROUNDUP!

Twenty three wonderful monsters were submitted by twenty three wonderful people to the second ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest.  Let’s give them all their due before the winners are announced, shall we?  Just as with last time, I went ahead and sketched them all, because I’m a masochist who enjoys hurting his carpal tunnel ridden hand, and because I feel like it gives every monster a fair shake.

@bugcthulhu starts us off with Rohobaron, a hot-headed retrosaur/crocodile chimera that can superheat his body to ignite the landscape and incinerate enemies with a touch.  Despite the fairly nasty powers, Rohobaron actually has a somewhat sweet personality, being quick to make friends and staunchly loyal to his allies, though his short fuse can also make him drag his friends into danger.

Design-wise, Rohobaron’s got a very solid concept, with those dynamic fuckoff-big arms and horns  being the most obvious selling points, along with little dashes of character like the gharial lump on his nose and the heavily armored plates on his chest.  You wouldn’t confuse him with the other retrosaur kaiju in the series, that’s for sure.  The idea of a monster this burly and gnarly looking being a sweetheart is the kind of “appearances can be decieving” thing that ATOM thrives on, and giving a kaiju powers that reflect its personality (in this case, hot-headedness = heat powers) is always cool.  There are some minor continuity issues with the bio given what’s going to happen in ATOM Vol. 2, but Rohobaron doesn’t lose points for not reading a book that isn’t fully written yet.  All in all, a wonderful submission!

@akitymh is next with Charlotte, a retrosaur of the herbivorous persuasion.  Exactly what clade of herbivorous retrosaur it belongs to is intentionally unclear, as Charlotte has a thagomizer like an armored goliath, but also shares some quirks with horned goliaths, despite lacking horns itself.  A missing link, perhaps?  She’s also unusually large for an ATOM kaiju, which suggests she’s been around for a long time - reinforced by her calm and sometimes protective nature, as the older kaiju tend to be less fight-focused than the young ones in ATOM.

Charlotte’s design is very interesting, and I like the idea of having some retrosaurs who don’t quite fit into any one given clade - it makes it more like real life taxonomy to have some oddballs here and there.  Her smattering of armor plates gives her and interesting look, and I like how her long hind legs allow her to go bipedal as well as walk on all fours.  Her neutral personality also makes her stand out among the mostly fight-happy monsters of ATOM.  All in all, a solid entry!

We continue the prehistoric theme with @ariccio50‘s marvelous armored retrosaur, Scolosurtr!  An genetically modified armored goliath, Scolosurtr’s most prominent features, as you have no doubt noticed, are the two massive yet hollow spikes on his back, which are connected to the kaiju’s two massive hearts and occasionally shoot projectiles when he’s pissed (though this is painful for the reptile to do).  Scolosurtr can superheat his blood as a defensive mechanism, which in turn allows him to melt the ice that often clings to his body in the frosty countries he tends to roam.  The armored monster is very easily stressed out, particularly by his fellow kaiju, and will even bite his tail in an attempt to calm down.

Scolotsurtr’s design is rad as hell - I love a giant monster that looks like a mountain, and the mini-volcano shaped shoulder spikes are such a cool pokeon-esque design feature (I say that as high praise).  His icy, antisocial personality is a fun contrast with his fiery look, and the personality tick of biting his own tail to calm down is a very endearing quirk.  Also, can we appreciate how wide this fella is?  Just an absolute unit.  His powerset allows him to stand out from the mostly tooth and claw fighters of ATOM, while still being balanced thanks to the pain it causes him to use it.  A very well rounded entry!

@scatha5 brings us our fourth entry, the enormous armadillo Rerradon!  Shy but willing to fight when backed into a corner, Rerradon is a formidable enemy when roused, with thick armor keeping him well defended and enough claws and spikes to make other monsters rethink their choice to attack him.

Mammalian kaiju are, as many have noted, very rare, and Rerradon is an excellent contribution to their small but growing ranks.  I’m a sucker for armadillos too, and Rerradon keeps all the traits I love about them while still having a unique and monstrous look to him.  My favorite detail on this fella, though, is one of his alternate names - “Dracula’s Weird Dog.”  Why?  Well, because of the fact it references some obscure monster movie trivia - both in the 30′s when the Bela Lugosi Dracula first came out, and the 50′s when it was prominently re-released, armadillos were not a particularly well known creature, and would have been considered exotic and strange by most Americans.  As a result, the film-makers of Dracula put an armadillo in the vampire’s haunted castle, banking on viewers thinking it was some sort of strange monster.  And, at the time, it works - most people who saw the film had no idea what the strange lizard rat thing was, though I imagine anyone living in the Southwest probably wondered why the hell an armadillo was in Transylvania.  Obscure references to monster movie minutia are exactly ATOM’s jam!

Our next monster is @quinnred‘s flying saucer mimic, Mogul!  An enormous descendent of the sea cucumber, Mogul needs both Yamaneon radiation and water to survive, and causes a great deal of chaos in the process of feeding until scientists realize dehydration can drive the creature away,  While too simple in nature to exhibit much of a personality, Mogul’s mysterious nature and accidental imitation of interstellar travelers allows it to leave a mark nonetheless.

An incredibly clever design that I wasn’t quite skilled enough to capture in my sketch (you should always check out the links to the originals here, folks), Mogul is tailor made to a great 1950′s style monster story.  You have the initial mystery with an inherent red herring built into it (i.e. everyone thinking the creature is initially a UFO), the startling discovery of what we’re really dealing with, and a creative solution that scientists come upon when studying the monster’s biology.  While Mogul’s simple nature means it might have trouble in a kaiju vs. kaiju story, it’s incredibly well suited to a stand alone tale, the kind that could really flesh out ATOM’s giant monster crisis.

@cerothenull brings us our first big arthropod, Acanpetax the enormous assassin bug!  A gnarly insect that wears the bones of kaiju its killed as armor, Acanpetax is a cruel and vicious hunter of its fellow monsters, though over time its vicious ways soften.

Kaiju bones turn to Yamaneon when they die, and Yamaneon crystals are shaped in a way that would give them a very coarse, spiky texture (if my muddied memories of Geology 101 are correct, anyway), making the insect’s armor even more evil-looking, which is great for a monster that (initially) plays a Heel role.  This guy has the makings of a great villain monster, and I like that, in ATOM fashion, he still manages to get a heroic turn over time, especially the implication in his bio that it comes from communicating with the spirit of the snake monster whose skull he currently wears as a hat.  It’s delightfully weird!  A big bug with a solid visual to work off of and a great role and character arc baked into his personality, Acanpetax is a strong contender!

(no seriously you really need to check out the original postings, my sketch here does not do this fella justice)

@evolutionsvoid also shows ATOM’s big bugs some love by bringing the fungus infested Megaria into their ranks!  Originally a larval cicada that was parasitized (and likely to die) by a fungus, Megaria’s sudden transformation into a kaiju brought her into a more balanced symbiosis with her parasite.  Neither an attacker or a protector, Megaria is a spectator of kaiju fights, and will eagerly watch her fellow giants battle without participating herself.  She is a force to be reckoned with when backed into a corner, though, as Megaria’s fungal growths have given her a variety of sound-based abilities, many of which she is not fully in control of.

It hasn’t been touched on in ATOM much yet, but plants and fungi are affected by Yamaneon radiation in a very similar manner as animal life, and Megaria presents a fun opportunity to explore that.  The idea of a parasite and its victim becoming partners post-mutation is really interesting, and Megaria’s design is just as interesting to look at as its concept is to think about.  Her fungal symbiote also gives her a great number of unique powers and abilities to make any fight scenes she’d be in unique, while her personality as a kaiju spectator allows her to stand out (I can see her making cameos in other stories as a background monster).  Another solid contender for the contest!

@highly-radioactive-nerd takes us back to the past with the helmeted retrosaur Tsunoking!  Technically a paleo tyrant, Tsunoking sports several defensive adaptations that are similar to those sported by many herbivorous retrosaurs as well, though perhaps his most notable adaptation is the crown of horns that gives him his name (see, he’s pointing to it in my sketch!  It’s a nice crown.).  A proud but honorable monster, Tsunoking is a powerful fighter who prefers to fight similarly powerful foes, and is also rather fastidious when it comes to personal hygiene.

I love the chimeric mix of features here - the dragon-y snout, the pachycephalosaurus dome skull, and the ankylosaurus tail club all give Tsunoking a very unique silhouette among the many carnivorous retrosaur kaiju in ATOM, and would no doubt provide some fun speculation for ATOM’s paleontologists.  The vanity gives his heroic personality a fun flaw to work with, and I likewise think his Samurai-esque honor code could be interesting to work with in a story.  A wonderful prehistoric monster to add to the roster!

@dragonzzilla brings us a very strange and melancholic monster, the bipedal caribou Najjuk!  In addition to its striking humanoid stance, Najjuk emits a great deal of toxic gas as a byproduct of its Ice Age biology, and its inability to cope with warm temperatures results in it becoming incredibly aggressive and dangerous whenever it leaves its arctic environment.

There’s a clear (but not too heavy handed) metaphor for global warming in the threat Najjuk presents, as the warming of the earth leaves it less cool spaces to seek refuge in, and the caribou’s methane emissions actually contribute to the problem that’s destroying its home.  The monster also has a great deal of pathos built into it - a herd animal that is the last of its kind, forced to live in a habitat that’s too inhospitably cold for most other kaiju to tolerate, making it an incredibly lonely monster.  Combine the symbolism and pathos of its plight with a very striking mammalian design and you have an incredibly unique entry into ATOM’s menagerie of monsters!

@virovac gives us a truly bizarre entry with one of the most clever descriptions I’ve read so far, the low budget monstrosity known as Nematerror!  A mutant roundworm, Nematerror is one of the monsters considered too simple in nature to have a personality, though it still seeks what it needs with enough voraciousness to be considered a threat.

The really ingenious thing about this entry lay in its description, as virovac chose to describe how the creature would look if it were an actual prop in a low budget 50′s monster movie.  Made from a garden hose, stuffed socks, and some other trash, Nematerror is the kind of cornball monster puppet idea that could only be carried out in the atomic era of creature features, the kind that Joel and the bots would have a field day with.  There’s even a description of how its hose nozzle could be turned around to represent a nematode’s malleable mouth parts!  It’s very clever, and definitely the sort of idea that suits ATOM’s love of cheesy monster movies.

@skarmorysilver brings us the old and crusty mole monster, Gnomoran!  A sadistic curmudgeon, Gnomoran is a deeply unpleasant monster to face in battle.  With venomous spit and caustic pus secreted from its many facial sores, Gnomoran’s natural weapons give it a revolting edge, which is made all the more nasty by its mean-spirited personality.  However, Gnomoran is also in immense pain, as its healing factor has been thrown off kilter, giving it the kaiju equivalent of cancer.

The design of Gnomoran is excellent.  Like many of the previous ATOM CKC entries, it plays on the secret connection between ATOM and my Midgaheim stories, in this case using my mole-derived Gnomes/Dwarves as a starting point, and working back to show their more explicitly rodent-like roots.  The star-faced mole nose, long beard, big ol’ horn, and lumpy tumors all give him a bunch of iconic design details, and his power set of venom and caustic pus is uniquely gross.  He’s a great Heel monster, with a nasty attitude to match his equally nasty looks and power set, all while still having the ability to be sympathetic.  Figuring out how to explain why his healing factor has gotten so out of whack presents a bit of a continuity hurdle - Gnomoran has symptoms of both cancer and old age, which normally aren’t possible in an ATOM-verse kaiju, so that would need a good explanation.  But design and personality wise he’s a damn good fit!

DA user Lediblock submitted the chicken/retrosaur hybrid Galiente!  Made by splicing DNA from Tyrantis’s blue nemesis, the Terror, with that of a chicken, Galiente is a panicky, defensive monster who is tormented by the knowledge that other kaiju find his flesh ridiculously delicious.

Galiente’s design is a freakish mix of reptile and bird that goes for body horror, with a patchwork mix of scales, feathers, and raw skin, twisted limbs, and, somewhat inexplicably considering the two animals it’s a mix of, velociraptor feet.  The result is a very tortured looking creature, which fits its nervous and tragically aggressive personality - Galiente is a monster that picks fights because it fears it will get hurt if it doesn’t make the first move.  There’s a sadness that goes along with its wretched appearance and attitude that’s very sympathetic.  The monster’s backstory would probably need some tweaks, though - the many ways it is tied to Tyrantis specifically seem a bit unnecessary, with the “people mistake it for Tyrantis” angle being a bit implausible (and somewhat redundant, given Tyrantis already has two enemies that are his twisted doppelgangers as is), and I’m not sure a monster hunting organization would recruit a chicken farmer into their ranks, no matter how good his business savvy is.  Still, a plausible backstory wasn’t one of the contest requirements, and design and personality-wise Galiente is a very solid concept.

@protagonistprepblog submitted Gentil, an armored monster with a sweet disposition!  Gentil is designed to be something of an earth elemental, with a mix of traits from various creatures associated with that element.  He sports a healing mist/aura, a poison blast from his mouth, venomous claws, and the standard kaiju powers of strength and nigh invulnerability.  He’s also smart enough to join an organization specifically to help people.

Gentil has a very striking design, albeit one that’s (intentionally) hard to place taxonomically.  He would probably be the result of genetic modification in ATOM’s world, though the way his creator described him as the kaiju of the Earth Element makes me think the intention is for something more magical in origin.  The sweet personality suits his name very well, and as far as monsters go he’s very friend-shaped.  Most of Gentil’s information was shared with me by his creator via DMs, and he’s a very thoroughly developed concept, albeit one that seems to fit a story of protagonistprepblog’s creation a bit better than ATOM.  A wonderful submission nonetheless!

@dinosaurana submits the nuclear gator known far and wide as One-Armed Louie!  Already a menace when he was just a big, one-armed alligator, Louie became a true menace when he survived the explosive failure of a nuclear power plant, resulting in a number of wild mutations that, among other things, allow the massive crocodilian to assume a semi-bipedal stance.  Louie’s aggressive nature and history of getting into mischief ironically make him a pretty good kaiju to have around, as he will more often than not turn those shit-starting instincts on his fellow giants and end up keeping them in line as a result.  Even Jim Madson, a gator hunter turned kaiju wrangler, can’t help but appreciate how the “rat bastard” has become something of a boon to humanity since becoming freakishly large.

One-Armed Louie brings a true crocodilian to ATOM’s cast, which warms my reptile loving heart.  One could argue that the retrosaurs are all just very weird crocodiles, of course, but while that may literally be the case, most of them don’t look like crocodiles - they don’t have that pure crocodile vibe - and Louie makes up for their deficiency by being very much a big ol’ crocodilian.  Big ol’ gators and crocs are a giant monster movie archetype just as much as big ol’ bugs, and Louie gives them their due very well.  He also looks absolutely hardcore, which fits his aggressive “rat bastard” personality to a T.  A very solid entry for the contest!

@iamthekaijuking submitted the modified martian monster Nyergolep!  Originally from the planet Mars, Nyergolep was kidnapped by the Beyonder Alliance and experimented upon until it developed psychic powers.  Designed to be a sort of anti-Kemlasulla, Nyergolep is a nervous wreck who hates combat and desperately wants to escape the Beyonders.

Nyergolep’s design takes a lot from Kemlasulla’s, albeit with a lot of twists - fitting for the “Anti-Kemlasulla.”  Its tentacles are much more massive than its legs, with the roles of each set of limbs being reversed (i.e. using tentacles for locomotion instead of grasping, using legs for grasping instead of locomotion), and it lacks all of the armor Kemlasulla has, including the bony plates protecting the head and eye.  The result is a very fragile looking martian, the squishy mage to Kemlasulla’s rough and rowdy fighter.  I like the wiggly line of its upper jaw the best - don’t ask me why.  “Nergle’s” design is a little too closely tied to Kemlasulla’s for me to give full marks in that category, though I do love that wiggly mouth.  Its personality is pretty damn good though, fitting with the other shell-shocked war veterans in the Beyonder Kaiju army.

@dragonseeker-rex submitted the cactus/bird hybrid Orothorn!  In a story that feels like it came from one of the more light-hearted Twilight Zone episodes, Orothorn began as a normal gilded flicker that happened to befriend an cowboy actor named Mick Auricson (specializing in playing cowboys was A Thing in the 1950′s) after Mick nursed the little bird back to health.  An ill-placed dynamite explosion near a hidden Yamaneon deposit not only supersized Orothorn, but fused it with some of the nearby cactus (violent bursts of Yamaneon radiation can do this kind of shit on occasion), creating a massive, thorny-skinned bird monster with a heart of gold and a fondness for humans in general, and Mick Auricson in particular.  The feeling is mutual, as Mick even commissioned a special kaiju-sized scarf for the bird to wear (which I forgot to illustrate, whoops!).

Birds are lacking in ATOM’s roster (we don’t even have any in the core 50 files), and Orothorn is a unique take on the concept, with cactus thorns sticking out from between his feathers.  Him being a kaiju that specifically emulates the heroic behavior of a cowboy (actor) is also adorable and so very in line with ATOM’s sensibilities, it’s genuinely cute and I love it.  It’s a giant bird with cactus thorns that wears a scarf and thinks it’s a cowboy, how can you not love that?

Dracosaurus Rex submitted the enormous tuatara kaiju Tuatani!  Initially mistaken for being a retrosaur, this three eyed reptile can shoot energy blasts from his third eye and carries a virulent disease in his blood that infects any who encounter it.  A lonesome creature, Tuatani is very placcid during the day but will go on nightly rampages from time to time, apparently in a fit of vengeful despair at being the only one of his kind.

A clear homage to the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Tuatani nevertheless has a lot to set him apart from his inspiration, with a multi-eyed motiff that sports an actual third eye as well as several eyespots.  The loneliness that drives him to lash out is a nice nod to both the film and the short story that inspired it, and his status as a Tuatara descendant would make him the last modern reptile missing from ATOM’s pantheon.  The nature of the disease in his blood would need some elaboration, as the immune systems of ATOM kaiju are very strong (being able to regenerate white blood cells almost instantaneously makes it very easy for them to learn which micro-organisms need to be destroyed), but it’s an interesting power for the monster to have.  A very solid entry!

@umbercario-sablesable gives us the giant silkworm, Munchy!  A caterpillar whose head, jaws, and true legs are covered in a metal alloy. Munchy lives to eat, and with metal jaws he can eat quite a lot of things!  While the insect will eat any non-living matter it comes across, it prefers not to eat living things, which makes it one of the few monsters who finds buildings more appetizing than the people inside them.  Though Munchy has little desire in this world outside of sating its gluttony, it isn’t a malicious creature, and so long as your house isn’t in its path you have little to fear from the monster.

Silkworms have a short but important role in kaiju history, as Mothra’s larva form is based on a type of silkworm, so making a silkworm kaiju plays into a very grand tradition.  Munchy goes for a more morally neutral route than Mothra, though, taking the voracious appetite of a caterpillar and exaggerating it to a proper kaiju scale.  The simplicity of it actually makes for a rather unique kaiju, as Munchy’s single-minded desire to eat as much non-living matter as possible makes it a very different sort of antagonist than the somewhat more complicated kaiju villains of ATOM.  Add to that the massive variety one can find in silkworms and you have a recipe for a very good monster!

(Apologies at the possible inaccuracy of my illustration - google could not find images of the  wakabayashi landrace species of silkworm that he is specified as being, so I had to just look up silkworms and hope I was somewhere in the correct ballpark - and then I missed the detail about his first pair of false legs being long enough to give him a bipedal stance so uh... well I think he’s still pretty cute, that counts for something?)

Sir K brings us the lung/ryu kaiju Yokaigon the Incredible!  Mistaken for a retrosaur by its initial discoverer (we certainly have a lot of scientists in ATOM who are very bad at taxonomy), Yokaigon is capable of affecting the weather like some of the few psychic kaiju in ATOM’s setting, suggesting latent psychic powers on the reptile’s part.  He is also able to absorb electricity and may or may not be able to fly.  Introverted and antisocial by nature, Yokaigon isn’t driven to seek out combat like most other kaiju, and prefers to be left alone.

With a backstory inspired by an absolutely terrible dub of Varan the Unbelievable!, Yokaigon is a fun homage that winks at some of the mythic creatures that existed in ATOM’s universe long before the series takes place - a surviving Loong/Ryu, much as Kraydi is a surviving dragon and Gorgolisk a surviving basilisk.  While Loongs aren’t covered in my Midgaheim Bestiary project, I have done sketches of what they would be like before, and it’s fun to see them mixed with a suitamation look here.  I don’t think a sea monster necessarily needs to make storms to still feel appropriately mythical, but the hydrokinetic ability to summon sea storms is plausible enough in ATOM (I’ve got a Yeti who summons blizzards in roughly the same way, so who am I to judge?).  And people always want more dragons.

@toothlessloveshiccup brings us the prehistoric arthropod Insectra!  Despite appearances, Insectra isn’t actually an insect, but actually a much older arthropod that is more closely related to horseshoe crabs.  Forged in a conflict between natives and an encroaching military force in the South Pacific, Insectra protects the local human civilization of her island home while repelling those who would destroy it.  With EMP blasts in her already powerful arsenal, she is a formidable enemy for anyone, man or kaiju, to face.

Insectra’s design has a great Hanna Barbera bug-monster vibe, the sort of thing you could see going toe to toe with the Herculoids or Space Ghost.  It’s simple in some places, but to the point, with great big spears for hands and wide, stompy feet.  Her motivation as a protector is a great nod to Mothra, while having an even more explicit anti-imperialist bent to it.  A very well rounded entry for the contest!

Shadyserpent brings us the draconic reptile Karax!  Another mythic creature sneaking into the world of ATOM, Karax is a serpentine beast whose vestigial wings allow it to fly (Yamaneon’s ability to defy gravity doing some of its most implausible work yet).  With terrible venom and a better-than-average healing factor, Karax is a deadly opponent, the dragon-like beast is thankfully more focused on collecting shiny objects than waging war against man or kaiju, though his desire to add to his hoard sometimes causes trouble.

See?  I told you people like dragons!  Karax’s design retains the ATOM-approved level of scientific plausibility, with his wings being fairly simple/under-developed compared to the more fantastical dragons of my Midgaheim stories.  He retains the prehistoric monster vibe that other Midgaheim survivors like Gorgolisk and Kraydi have, towing the line enough to fit in with ATOM’s menagerie while still winking at the mythic side of things.  His fondness for shiny objects is both a nice nod to his draconic nature and a fun character quirk that can get him into  the kind of trouble that stories are made of, and the fact that he’s also got more than a few references to the classic giant monster movie Reptilicus is also a plus!  A very good entry.

@titleknown brings us Neuro-Idiom, a brain monster who creates psychedelic mass hallucinations!  Formed from a bunch of aliens fusing their minds together, Neuro-Idiom conjurs other creatures out of thin air with its psychic powers, and has pretty much every other psychic power to boot!

Neuro-Idiom’s primary design, that of a big walking brain creature, fills a monster archetype that hasn’t been present in ATOM thus far - i.e. the big, ambulatory, disembodied brain, and yes, that is a SUPER popular archetype for 1950′s/60′s monster fiction.  Its psychic projections also pay homage to various monsters in fiction that were actually just the manifestations of an unsound mind - the Id monster from Forbidden Planet, the crawling brains of Fiend Without a Face, and the Crackler from Godzilla: The Series are examples of this concept.  The backstory of this monster would need to be reworked since it kind of ignores that “kaiju” in ATOM is a word with a very specific meaning (you can’t have a kaiju without Yamaneon involved), and the monster having amplified versions of EVERY psychic power makes it significantly more powerful than anything in ATOM’s canon, so that might have to be toned down a bit as well, but all in all it’s a lovely brain monster!

@drrockso20 brings us our final entry, the massive bison Chief Wrigley!  With gorilla-like arms and enormous horns, this big bovine has the muscle he needs to protect his herd and territory from any creature that dares to challenge it!  He’s not all brawn, either, as Chief Wrigley is clever enough to use the environment to his advantage, and even makes use of simple tools from time to time.  He can telepathically communicate with others, and can sometimes generate electric blasts from his horns.

With a very unique design, power set, and personality, Chief Wrigley has the makings of an excellent protagonist/hero kaiju, the kind who could headline his own corner of ATOM’s kaiju-verse.  Bison are a really underused basis for a kaiju, too - they have very unique heads, and their bodies are build in a way that’s very good at conveying mass.  With just enough special powers to make combat scenes interesting, but not so many that he feels out of place in ATOM’s world, Chief Wrigley is a strong contender in this contest!

Those are the entries!  Who will be the top three winners, and who will get the grand prize?  You’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out, but for now, let’s appreciate how many wonderful monsters we made here!  In a way, they’re all winners in my book, even if I can’t give prizes to the whole batch!