#im a mess thanks to these 2

[catsurfavs]

One more

[evgar]

more gunslinger abigail my beloved 🫶

+ sadigail crumbs ofc (u guys why haven't i seen any drawings of abi braiding sadie's hair 😠)

[theroseeatsribs]

silly comic

[hezuart]

Little Nightmares: Channel Change page 3

[1] [2] [here] [4] [5] [6] [7]

~~~

What if Mono stopped hiding? What if instead, he ran away?  If traveling to the past only brings pain and misery, then perhaps the future holds the answer.  ~

How many times will you play dead until you actually die? 

Teamwork may have ruined you before, but it's the only thing that will save you now. ~

[enhanced-operatives-division]

Junicrane/Starstruck Ramble

I will not be brief, all under the cut

To clear some things right off the bat:

No corpse, no proof with Juniper. Obligatory this is set in a canon where he's alive and adjacent to the agency in some way.

Reggie & Juniper are just gay to me, but I don't mind any interpretation of their sexuality

The games are set in 1967/68 to me (based on a couple bits in game) which is before it was legal to be gay in America at least (1971), which is relevant to how I interpret canon as being somewhat grounded in reality, despite unrealistic elements.

This is just an insane amount of headcanons/elements of and AU all culminated into one post. I will talk about some headcanons like they're just facts because they are established in my head, and it saves me over explaining literally everything, however I will explain some parts a little bit for clarity.

Alright. Actual beginning of the ramble:

Juniper is a character to me who had gotten so lost in his job as an actor and a social presence that in the end his whole life revolved around that 'role'. Because of this, by the time he's put into the situation where he's around the Agency, he basically knows nothing about himself, though he doesn't realise at first. Furthermore, what little identity he had has changed in so many ways. He's no longer a beloved famous actor in the prominence of public light, he's legally dead and he tarnished his career just before he was supposed to die, with the bonus of that making him lose the majority of his estate. From that, he also has horrific facial scarring from the electrical burns from literally having his face fried. I believe a friend of mine made a post about this a while ago (I also think they were the first to think it up also), but, to me, Juniper has a permanent trimmer in his right arm (aka his dominant hand) from the electrical current and it is messing with his nervous system.

All in all, he's not doing great, but he's too proud to admit that he's not doing great, because if anything, what's left of his ego is all he has as a defense since he's deep in unfamiliar water.

Before ending up around the agency (I have multiple interpretations of this, so I'm just going to bring it up generally), he'd never actually seen Reggie, and his only impression of him is a single voicemail, which was his only reference he had to later impersonate him. Juniper probably has very little feelings other than the ones he projects onto him because of Phoenix and that, at the very least, he's physically attracted to Reggie to some degree (that's like the beginning of how everything else would tumble into place in this sort of interpretation at least).

And on Crane's side? His feelings towards Juniper are probably very intense and muddled. On the one hand, he adores musical theatre, and that's his now ex-favourite actor. The thought of just casually being around him blows the bit of fanboy in him away at first because THAT'S the GUY, plus the inklings of a celebrity crush which still poke at him. And then there's the rational side of him, which knows Juniper has committed absolute atrocities on the side of Zoraxis, and hates him for that. Then there's how much Juniper comes off as an asshole at first because he refuses to cooperate with anything the Agency tried to put in place. He finds Juniper endlessly frustrating, and yet he's stuck working with him since, afterall, he's the one who knows the Agency's history with Juniper the best. I imagine him acting a lot like how he does IEYTD 1 around Juniper.

At this point, I'm just describing the pitch for a romcom.

I think the start of their relationship with one another largely started with Juniper trying to wind Crane up. It was a way of getting his attention, and I don't think Juniper knows why he's so dead set on that at first, because I don't think he realises he has a crush on 'this grump' at first. (I think that's actually the fun part about these two, because it's almost like a role reversal of the celebrity crush dynamic. This ex-big name actor has a TERRIBLE crush on an average joe and it is KILLING HIM.) But of course the Agency keeps them together because Juniper is at least conversing with Crane, so it's a start.

Through one way or another, they actually get talking casually, at least mildly at first. It takes Juniper a long time to fully deconstruct the wall he's built, and the thing is, Crane isn't the one trying to deconstruct it, at least at first, because yeah, Juniper realises if he wants Reggie to actually like him in any way, he can't keep winding him up. So they talk. Small talk at first, something rhythmic and almost easy to keep to a script. And over time that turns into actual conversations. Genuine ones in which Reggie rips out the occasional one of his jokes which Juniper is endlessly endeared about. The way he smiles just before he makes them, like he wants to chuckle at what he's about to say before he says it. That's probably when Juniper realised that he does have some vague crush on him, and that it wasn't going away.

This is what kickstarts John I can't-buy-you-things-to-impress-you-so-acts-of-service-it-is Juniper to do little things for him. It mostly starts off as him trying to make Reggie his tea how he likes it. However, the nerve damage in his arm makes that hard, as the weight of the kettle and trying to pour is hard all of a sudden. And he refuses to accept that, so he tries for a very long while. Long enough that Crane would go to investigate what was going on. And when he does see Juniper leaning over a cup with the kettle as he uneasily tries to pour it, and when Crane asks Juniper responds so matter-of-fact that his intention is nothing but genuine. And it catches Reggie off guard because Juniper hadn't done anything like that up to that point, and his very apparent vulnerability is so clearly on show.

It shifts something between them.

From that point on, conversations are longer, more familiar. Both of their attitudes soften, and Reggie makes more jokes. Juniper learns how to better use his left hand while strengthening his right back to a point where it could be used again. Slowly, they're both spending time with one another not because they have to, but just because they can. Little bits at first, not too far outside what they already were doing, but those little bits turned into long bits to a point where the other person's company was genuinely desirable.

As time passes, Juniper probably realises that he doesn't genuinely know much about himself or what hobbies he's into, because he never really had the time when he got big, and his home life in his youth wasn't bad, but it wasn't picturesque. I think Reggie would pick up on it, and absolutely try to introduce him to some things he's into. Some things stick, other things don't (corn husking very much stays Reggie's passion, and John will go with him sometimes because it's him, but it's not something he strongly cares for). Crane introduces him to a lot of music, and it's something that becomes a staple between them, with tracks they listen to more than others (tragically, I know relatively little about 60s music so I couldn't really say what). Occasionally they dance, never anything intense, think slow dancing, but the closeness is nice.

Through all of it, Juniper is battling the worst crush of his life, and he can't stand it, because I think he struggles to read people since he doesn't have anything like a script or a director to refer back to, so he has no idea if Reggie likes him back or if he's just desperate for that to be true. I think because of that any sort of confession between them would be incredibly raw, not only because of the time they live in making it hard for them to be truthful about how they love, but because it's a complete show of Juniper who's worked to be this better person. I don't exactly know how that would go, mainly because I don't have one set version of their dynamic, this post is just a generalisation of main consistent points.

Reggie does like him back, because he's gotten used to Juniper being just this guy, not a figure in the public eye, not a Zoraxis lackey, and not any sort of Agency operative (despite being under their care to some degree). He's someone he genuinely cares for, because they've given one another the time of day to learn one another, and I think because Reggie was a field agent, he was a lot better at reading Juniper than Juniper was at reading him. Eventually Juniper's company becomes something he could see around him for the rest of his life, and I think he accepts that he likes Juniper a lot more gracefully.

I think any affection directed at Juniper would at first be met with him feeling a little muddled. Reggie was a very physically affectionate person when he could be, and sure the initial flirting with one another came with the occasional little touches, but everything now was so deeply intentional. I also don't think Juniper would almost ever get over the novelty of being able to kiss him, or many other gestures, because it made the fact that they were together so very real, and it was great. I do think it comes easier to Reggie, and it's a big way of showing how much he cares, so it's important for Juniper to try and show it back because he knows how much it means to the other.

I like the idea of them eventually living with one another, too. I think Juniper would have always had a quiet little daydream of sorts where he does just live a domestic quiet life, and he can with Reggie (well, as close as they can get between the Agency and Zoraxis always being at odds), and he loves that, and he loves him, and it's immense.

I think they cook for one another a lot, it helps Juniper work on his dexterity in a controlled environment, which means a lot because it's a huge point of insecurity (that and his scars). He does improve, and Crane is proud of that and shows it and it's great. I also think they'd probably cook together too, because they can deal with being in the kitchen together and they work well with one another. It's probably a good way for them to unwind because over time they can do it in relative silence.

As I said before, I also think music is a staple in their household, and that Reggie listens to things on vinyl almost all of the time because he likes the background noise. Sometimes Juniper will catch him chuntering along to the music which he finds endlessly endearing. I wouldn't put it past his dramatic ass to also join in to fluster Reggie, but I also don't think Reggie would mind that terribly because Juniper has listened to the music enough to know the lyrics, and that's huge to him.

I don't think they are without rough patches, no relationship is, but I think the good part about them is that they're willing to talk about it (... eventually). They're used to long conversations, and while they're often less fun conversations, they're needed and they know that, and it works out.

Alright. I think I'm done for now. I haven't mentioned everything, but this definitely got the worst of it out of my system. If you ever want to hear any specific thoughts my ask box is open but other than that, behold my general dynamic for these two which has been festering in my head for years. I think they're great

[deus-ex-mona]

just a v e r y rough tl of lxl honeymoon 2: collab boogaloo

be sure to check out the anime (which hails from the ultimate box of the album) if you're able to!!! and support the official release!!!

all screenshots in here are from the trailer btw

Aizo: Hi Julieta! I’m Aizo!

Yujiro: Hello Julieta, I’m Yujiro.

Aizo: Today, the two of us, LIPxLIP, are on a trip.

Yujiro: We’ve come to Izumo as a reward for completing our album.

Aizo: We’ll be sharing a little glimpse of today’s trip with you guys, so enjoy!

Yujiro: We’ve been here since yesterday, but let’s start off with our wake up call!

Aizo: You’re showing them that?!

Yujiro: Good morning, everyone. It’s 6am. It’s still too early to have breakfast, but I’m going to show you Aizo’s sleeping face.

Yujiro: He sure is asleep, hm?

Yujiro: He’s drooling.

Yujiro: Aizo, you’ll be late. You’ll be late, you know?

Aizo: Eh? What?

Yujiro: It’s already 9 o’clock, hurry! Get up!

Aizo: Ah? It’s 9?

Yujiro: You’ll be late for work!

Aizo: Why’re you filming me?! You’re lying for sure! Stop it!

Yujiro: [laughs] And that, Julieta, was Aizo’s sleeping face!

Aizo: And here we are at the breakfast table. We’re about to have our breakfast.

Yujiro: Aizo has woken up too.

Aizo: Wow, Yujiro, you’re having Japanese food as expected, huh? Ooh, isn’t that Izumo Soba?

Yujiro: And you, Aizo, are having Western food as expected… Wait, what the heck? You’re having pasta first thing in the morning?

Aizo: I just felt like having it today. Even you feel like having Western food in the morning sometimes, don’t you?

Yujiro: I guess so. I wouldn’t eat pasta in the morning, though.

Aizo: I’m sure the Julieta watching this will be like “I just knew Yujiro’d be eating Japanese food and Aizo’d be having Western food”, huh?

Yujiro: Maybe they will. We do give off those impressions, don’t we? Just like how we’d have either coffee or cocoa respectively.

Aizo: I got it. Wanna change the impressions we give off by trading our breakfast meals?

Yujiro: I don’t wanna. I want to eat my soba.

Aizo: Yeah, yeah.

Yujiro: Julieta, which do you prefer? Western food? Japanese food? Tell us, okay?

Aizo: Yum!

Aizo: We don’t usually shoot vids all by ourselves, huh?

Yujiro: Though you say “usually”, this is the first time we’ve done it, right? The staff always tag along with us.

Aizo: They plan all kinds of programmes for us too, right? Yeah. So, where do we go now?

Yujiro: Ehh, I don’t know. You decide, Aizo.

Aizo: Me? You decide, Yujiro. I dunno where to go either.

Yujiro: You decide, Aizo.

Aizo: Eh?! You’re kidding! Hmm… I can’t think of anything.

Yujiro: Planning ahead sure is important, isn’t it?

Aizo: Yeah. Let’s just walk around for now.

Yujiro: And so, we’re now at the footbaths!

Aizo: Phew, it’s hot in here!

Yujiro: We came here too last time, didn’t we?

Aizo: Yeah, back during our live tour, right?

Yujiro: Oh right, Aizo, how do you feel about the release of our second album?

Aizo: Of course I’m happy ‘bout it. I mean, releasing even just one album’s already pretty amazing.

Yujiro: Yup. The fact that we’re able to release a second album is all thanks to our Julieta, right?

Aizo: Yeah. We’ve gotta try even harder to meet their expectations, huh? How do you feel about the album, Yujiro?

Yujiro: I guess I feel differently about it than I did about our first album.

Aizo: Eh? How so?

Yujiro: I feel as though I wouldn’t have been able to do it alone. It’s all thanks to the support and expectations of our Julieta that we’re able to stand on stage. And, as that stage grows bigger and bigger, I get the feeling that I wouldn’t have been able to respond to the size of the stage all by myself.

Aizo: Yeah, I feel the same way. I’ve had thoughts like “Why are there 2 guys in LIPxLIP? I could do it by myself.” before. But this has made me realise once again that going at it alone would just mean halving our power.

Yujiro: We’re able to develop better together as a pair than we would have on our own. I'd say that we’re indispensable to each other for sure.

Aizo: Yeah, we are. Plus, things would sure get boring without a rival around, huh?

Yujiro: Yup. Aizo, the friendly rivalry between you and me… Wait a sec! This is going to be a bonus video! Isn’t this conversation getting embarrassing?!

Aizo: Yeah, it is. But isn’t it fine for us to talk about our true feelings when the two of us are on a trip together?

Yujiro: I guess so. We’re alone on this trip together, after all.

Aizo: Yeah. Aight then, let’s end this off with a word of thanks to our Julieta.

Yujiro: Thank you for getting our second album, Julieta.

Aizo: Thanks, Julieta.

Yujiro: This album is packed with our thoughts and feelings. It'll make us happy if you listen to it many times over.

Aizo: You’ll listen to it, won’t ya? We’re going to keep growing from here on out, so follow our progress, yeah?

Yujiro: Follow us, okay?

Aizo: Till we meet again, Julieta!

Yujiro: Bye bye Julieta. See you around.

Aizo: See ya!

[goombasinastack]

splatoon 3 hot take turned impromptu essay

was stuck offline in splatoon 3 because internet was actin up and i realized how pretty the photomode splatoon 3 filters are compared to the actual game

i was taking photos on brinewater and thought. damn. this game looks fine but i miss how VIBRANT splatoon 1 was! i wish i could play sploon 3 with this photomode filter on all the time. and brinewater is the best map for this because of the sunset lighting! so i went to one of the worst offenders mapwise for general color—undertow spillway. it is a warm gray mess:

for someplace underground, it’s WAY too warm of a tone—even if there are skylights, they aren’t very well defined, as they’re off in the background—they’d be better with some light shafts to pop out more, imo.

so here’s undertow with photomode filter #6 (this would’ve been a video but tumblr limits to 1 video per post):

and i think this looks a lot nicer, colorwise! the icky warm gray is shifted to a soft pink—and while that’s still not in keeping with the lack of obvious skylights, it works better than warm gray.

so then i opened ibis x paint and got to work on a filter that would hopefully help elevate the entire game’s look:

on top is photomode filter #6, in the middle is the original screenshot, and on the bottom is my proposed filter.

i upped the contrast, brightness, and saturation a bit, then added a 5% pure magenta (#FF00FF) overlay layer on top of that. then i added a slight gaussian blur to emulate antialiasing, which nintendo refuses to do for some reason!

and i wanna play splatoon like that! i miss the vibrancy and intricacy of splatoon 1…

incoming splatoon 1 essay‼️

not only were the colors eye-bleachingly bright, but the overall game feel was much more immersive—especially in ink physics. you could paint trees, and the ink would drip down through leaves as if it were rain… ink splatter would respond to the movements of platforms, keeping its intertia as it dripped! you could see the textures of surfaces through the ink, as if it were an actual liquid instead of a layer of thick oil. 3 doesn’t have any of those special touches.

there’s also the music… 1’s ost feels so much more WEIRD and experimental than the later games, and that really helps cement that this is not human society—this is a new thing—which tracks for splatoon 1, as it was so zany nobody had ever seen anything quite like it before! splatoon 2 follows this sheer melting-pot of brashness and creativity with evolving and varied styles—where once was punk and weird samples in Squid Squad is now groovy rock in Wet Floor, jazz in Ink Theory, and also whatever Sashi-Mori was. also i <3 chirpy chips. splatoon 3’s music goes back to that punk, but i feel that it loses some of the charm and creativity of the first two games. C-side is pure metal, and hardly uses any weird instruments. there have sparsely been other splatbands involved with regular battle music—Yoko&tgb call back to the jazz of Ink Theory which i love! Off the Hook’s new tracks delve into a new style in piano rock. but the main band kind of falls flat to me. :(

let’s talk stages. in splatoon 1, stages were wildly different from each other, including skateparks, construction sites, underpasses, malls, sewage plants, and other locals that are culturally underground. the rest of the trilogy moves away from this in a story standpoint, as ink battles evolve from punky, diy competitions into full-fledged championships in 2 and 3, with advancing battle infrastructure as time progresses. that’s fine, and honestly it’s cool to see that kind of worldbuilding! but in 1, each stage was designed about and influenced by the area it represented. Arowana Mall is a straight line with high vantage points on the second/third story because it’s a mall. Pirahna Pit features convenyor belts that shuffle refuse around because it’s a trash plant. Blackbelly Skatepark has so many hills and valleys because it’s a skatepark, for goodness sake. splatoon 3’s original stages have some of this charm, but it feels lost in ambiguity. why doesn’t Mincemeat Metalworks have small moving platforms on cranes or other heavy machinery? Idk, have some grates and one-way drops, and a car on a post. why isn’t there any water incorporated into the stage design of Brinewater Springs? Idk, have 2 paintable walls and a tetris piece. 3’s original stages have little to no connection between their locals and the geometry, which make it feel same-y compared to previous games.

maybe this is because of the inflexible philosophy of the designers—or their corporate oversight, maybe. for stages, you need to make a straight line or tetris piece with few routes to push, in an effort to promote the game’s main premise of Chaos. for music, you need to make punk songs that aren’t too weird so they don’t drive away the parents. maybe the little ink touches could have been missing because development was rushed?

i honestly dont know why it happened out this way—perhaps the splatoon team just needed more time to cook, in order to squeeze out that extra 20% of game feel? or maybe it was that speculated corporate oversight, i dunno. things WERE missing on launch—notable exceptions being X rank, online tableturf lobbies, and no more than three salmon run maps. i know we’ve yet to even get the DLC but for being about 75% of the way through the game’s content lifespan, but splatoon 3 feels incomplete. there have been improvements, yeah! i just wish there could’ve been more. i would rather have waited another year for splatoon 3 if it were polished that much better, y’know?

i honestly feel like splatoon 1 captured that creative, no-holds-barred mantle of Chaos better than 3 does. 3 feels… flanderized, in a way. the curse of trilogies, perhaps? writing about it more, it feels like not only have the in-game sports of turf war been ripped out of its seedy home and thrust into the spotlight, and gone “mainstream” (see: massive squidsport companies investing in multimillion battle lobbies with holograms and lockers [sunken scroll about that!], flying coffee machines that grant you brief invincibility, new rules and techniques that allow squid surges and rolls, etc.), but also the Real Life Physical Video Game Cartridge of Splatoon has been popularized massively with the sequels on the Switch. maybe i’m not missing the “vibrancy” of splatoon 1 when i look at the colors and photomode filters of splatoon 3, but instead the inherent punkiness and counterculture inspiration that i see in the original.

fuck capitalism, i guess!

[nomairuins]

i like overthink everything now it makes me feel so dumb. i used 2 be able to just talk 2 ppl but nowadays every single thing im like Is that actually going to make them hate me. Yes probably. and then i just dont respond which makes ppl hate me. this is how it is

[void-of-unparalled-chaos]

The Healthcare horrors persist

Hhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[cianmarstoo]

Hiiiii!! I totally agree with your Hc that Alex has ADHD! Does he have any hyper fixations that lead to MerDer having to indulge for a week then he is like over it 😭

He does!!!

I think he has some that he's always into but his interest level ebbs and flows- things like sharks, dinosaurs, Lego, star wars, and bugs: Very sterotypical masculine things, though he does start to branch out more to things he was taught to see as 'girly' - he goes through 2 weeks of insisting his nails get painted a different colour every day then after that its like the nail varnishes are none existent he just forgets about them

I think when he's big he takes up random things like moutain bike riding for 3 weeks, building a pc, taking a tamagotchi everywhere, trying to do diy, and he gets really into what he sees as retro gaming things like the playstation and gameboys

whenever he starts a new hyperfixation Mer and Derek encourage him to have fun, but also insist on setting healthy boundaries such as 'no its time to have dinner, the giant bug toy needs to stay in the living room' or making sure he sleeps and isnt just up all night with his latest happy

of course most, if not all, of the surgerons he has a long term hyperfixation on surgery, including random facts about historical surgery because he watched a 5 hour youtube essay

[glass-trash-bab]

Augh I love my dnd character so much. I love him so much. And I love all the characters from his backstory that the rest of the party doesn't know yet.

I have so much love for them and I can't even form a coherent thought.

Also hi mutuals I'm sorry I haven't posted shit all yeah. I'm knee-deep in this dnd hyperfixation and almost everything I'm drawing is revolving around that.

[i-am-totally-not-a-lizard]

Wow

[potatobugz]

Thanks for the spider demon content. All i can offer is this screenshot as a thank you

Also what are your hcs for their height gaps?

he's definitely a honk shoo kind of guy to me... splendid. thank you u_u !

as a token of my gratitude i offer you: the Speight Chart

I also like to think Spider Queen is a little taller than Syntax when she's not in her spider mech thing.

woe, bonus age headcanons go!

- Syntax: it makes sense that he would be the youngest since he was turned into a spider demon far later than anyone else was. but he's like... late 20's to early 30's. adult man.

- Huntsman: in contrast: OLD MAN. i still like to think he was turned from a human into a spider demon as well but like hes probs been a spider demon for a while. also physically like idk 40 ? probably? im not good with numbers

- Goliath: (way) older than Syntax, younger than huntsman. because of the whole Being A Spider Demon Thing. he is squashed in the middle u_u

- Spider Queen: also of course she is just the oldest by nature of being The Spider Queen. it makes sense to me

[sprite-periodt]

Things I was absolutely not expecting to learn tonight

@redderthanatomato is a meanie

Being directed where to tickle yourself is sodosdhskqndk

Even tho “good girl” is my preference “good boy” makes me soft as hell

Verbally hearing “There’s those giggles!” Oh. My. Fucking. Gohoddhaodkslwld. I’m dead I’m actually not here. and they made it worse afterwardss!!

Being called out for happy stimming brofosjqodhwlel shut up???

FACIAL EXPRESSIONSSHAKDND FOND SMILES SMIRKS EYEBROW RAISES OMGGGGG???

“(real name). (real naaaaaame). Look at me.” BYE

being playfully mocked as well as counting down makes me super giggly or whatever,,,,,

“You’re meheannnnn”

“I know!~” HELLO???????

Going off on a giggly tangent making her laugh too and her saying in that tone “Don’t think I’ve forgotten” WHAHATDWIDOSKEL

verbally hearing what you want to do to me and how you can’t wait???? trying to kill me yeah?

“See you’re already laughing!” SHUT👏🏾UP👏🏾

“What was that????🤨🤨🤨” In that tone??? GONE.

[of-solitude-past-and-present]

YOUR WRITING>>>>>

I don't know how you came up with Naga Scaramouche but I've been brain rotting for days now 😩

Do you have any ideas how'd he'd react if someone goes out of their way to look for reader after they disappeared?

Especially if they mightve been a love interest at some point or the person clearly has feelings for them 👀

(referring to this)

A friend of mine actually came up with the idea for naga scara!! Together, we fleshed out the plot. It wasn't originally a fic, though, it was just a rp that got me brainrotting afterwards. I couldn't stop thinking about the whole concept until I finished writing Hidden in the Sands. The fic literally wouldn't leave me alone unless I was working on it LMAO

I'm going to take this as an excuse to talk a bit about the behind the scenes here (you have NO idea how much I've wanted to infodump about this fic)–originally, the reader was actually my friend's interpretation of Lumine and Sanad was originally my Alhaitham. I also played the part of Kuni himself. It was a bit awkward, actually, because Alhaitham and Kuni had to talk to each other a little bit and it felt like I was talking to myself.

I've changed the personalities of the reader and Sanad greatly, as you might have already guessed, since Sanad behaves nothing like Alhaitham; Sanad's more like one of those "prime examples" that Alhaitham talks about when he says, "Book learning alone is not enough to cultivate intelligence." Sanad is, intentionally, a very flawed but still reasonably likeable character. I want to talk about him too. Oh boy, looking back on this I sure did talk a lot about an OC I don't think anyone genuinely cares about.

I wanted to make him come off as normal, like an actual human person. He really is just a regular dude, he's just been kinda brainwashed by the Akademiya, as shown by the lines, "The Akademiya has declared them to be just baseless nonsense, so of course I don't think they actually exist." and "Desert dwellers tend to be... fearless." He's absorbed many commonly held beliefs (and biases) in the Akademiya, a textbook example of someone who's been taught what to think rather than how to think. I wanted him to be realistic. However, he's still funny, charming, and overall good-willed, even if he's spineless and very easily led.

I've greatly changed the fic from the original rp, and only the base premise (yandere!naga!scara and the whole "commissioned to find the culprit for some strange murders in the Hadramaveth") remains the same. It went through several versions at first. In fact, before I came up with Sanad, I was going to have Cyno replace Alhaitham! But ultimately, I realized Cyno was actually competent and I might have had to write a proper fight scene, which I did not want to do. You can still see a remnant of the first draft I chose to leave in (from when Cyno was the disposable companion) in the bad joke Sanad tells at the beginning of the story.

Using Sanad also had other benefits that I feel helped pull the fic together!! His cowardly nature gave reader a chance to endear themselves to Kunikuzushi, for refusing to abandon Sanad even after he (frankly, understandably) ran away. Even this early on, I had decided that whatever backstory naga Kuni might have had, it absolutely had to revolve around betrayal since canon Kuni's backstory is so deeply tied to it.

It's a really minor pet peeve of mine, and it doesn't bother me too much, but I usually don't really like it when the yandere starts to fixate on the object of their obsession for no reason than, like, "love at first sight" or "they simply caught my eye for some vague reason I cannot put into words." It's not bad, per se, and it's not even a solid rule of mine! I can think of several fics I love that don't give a solid reason, though the characters in those have such a dynamic that you still understand why one became so interested in the other to begin with... (I'm making this more complicated than it is, I think, but I'm beginning to think it's just I just don't care for it when the MC has the depth of a piece of paper.) Anyway, I'm getting derailed again, but I chose to give Kuni a reason to empathize with the reader in the form of Sanad and his "betrayal" because of this preference of mine.

However, and I think I've touched on this a bit in a previous post, this wasn't the only reason Kuni decided to spare them. In fact, even after he decided to leave you for last, he still thought he was going to come back to kill you. What really interested him was your insistence on saving Sanad even after what Kuni perceived as a betrayal. Why would you try to help someone who didn't even make an attempt to help you? It doesn't make sense. You're too soft, it's endearing.

Whether or not Sanad's actions are justified is debatable, though I personally understand them. He's never fought in his whole life. If you, the experienced monster-fighting adventurer couldn't do it, how could he? He doesn't even have a sword. It's certainly cowardly and rude to say the least, but given the circumstances, I think it's the choice most people would make in that situation. Of course, it's absolutely something Kunikuzushi could have (and did) twist into something completely different. I think I made it pretty obvious, but contrary to what Kuni said, Sanad had no such malicious thoughts when he left you there. Kuni is extremely jaded; his perception of the world has been mostly shaped by the betrayals he's experienced, and he's no different in this AU. As I said before, Sanad's not a terrible person, just terribly average. If he had survived, he absolutely would have had survivors' guilt.

Anyway!!! I'm not sorry about the infodump, thank you for giving me the slightest reason to tell you all about it. Here's what you actually asked for.

Kuni views most people as inconsequential, little more than helpless ants. He doesn't care about them in the slightest. If anything, they irritate him. So when someone shows up–an old friend, a crush, anyone–his first thought is to get rid of them if they venture too far in, and especially if they see him. Even if he doesn't know that they know you. If he lets them go, more will come. If he finds out they're looking for you, specifically... well, it doesn't really change his plans. He's going to kill them no matter what.

It does motivate him though, to be a bit crueler, to make it last a bit longer. What they are to you doesn't change the outcome, but it might sour his mood a bit more if they were anything more than friends or family. It's not likely that he'll leave them be long enough to find this out, though. Logically speaking, they're probably not going to tell a monster like him all about the friend/family/crush they're looking for in this desert, especially not when he's clearly unfriendly.

It's not totally impossible, though. This hypothetical person would have heard all about the strange attacks (as mentioned in the fic), so seeing a large half-snake person could make them realize that Kuni was most likely the cause for your disappearance (even though they'd assume it was murder and not kidnapping). Even so, I doubt they'd have a little chat over tea about who all Kuni has murdered recently.

Anyway, I digress. Assuming he figures it out somehow, whether or not he tells you about them depends on his mood and your behavior. Unfortunately for you, dealing with people irritates him. Especially when they're specifically looking to take what's his from him.

He'll come back covered in blood either way, but if he's in a bad mood, or you haven't been on your best behavior, he'll tell you all about what they looked like. He makes sure to mention that they were looking for you, and describe in detail everything he did to them.

"I'm going to leave his corpse out to rot in the sun," he hissed into your ear, pulling away to look you in the eye, "for the vultures and serpents to feast on. It serves him right. He was on a fool's errand; it's impossible to retrieve what's lost to the sands."

[opens-up-4-nobody]

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