#the fanart is peak though so go look at that if you need reasons why you should start it

[anydaynowany]

i really need to get more people to listen to red valley, i’m suffering with not enough fan content to feed the hyperfixation gods

[softestvirgil]

i had left the tss fandom after DWIT bc the fandom got too toxic for my tastes, i came to peek in after POF and not much changed. since i ended up between hyperfixations recently i decided to pop back in, and color me surprised when i look at you, one of my favorite blogs in general, having tscrit. and trust me when i say it was a weird breath of fresh air to see.

there was a lot i missed, fandom wise, and it seems to have peaked (?) in a way. im glad a lot of the things thomas has done and seems to be doing is out for discussion now. i will admit though, the idea of the fandom dying makes me sad, i was here when "Battling with Anxiety" had come out, it was one of my first few fandoms that posted fanart for, so it does hurt, but i definitely do understand the anger/frustration/disappointment at thomas and co for the lack of content, because that had also been a reason i left for a while.

i wish it could go back to how it used to be, but it doesnt seem to be the case. :(

(sorry if this makes zero sense, i have thoughts but dont know how to word them in a coherent way)

It’s been very cathartic to finally talk about this stuff. I’ve talked to friends and my boyfriend about it in private but never actually had the guts to talk about it on here until the other day when I saw some other people posting about it. I always wanted to. So many times I would type out a post and then delete it. There were many reasons why. I was scared of getting hate, I was scared Thomas might see (I don’t know why) but this stuff needed to be aired out and not only do I know that because of the amount of posts I’ve seen but also because of the amount of messages that have flooded my inbox over the last 48 hours about it.

[bimbosupreme]

mephistopheles love post

the equivalent of a mental breakdown tangent is all going under a read more

yes believe it or not that freaky ass literally not even human clown in fgo gets love, and love from who? me and like 3 other people

first off

ok and with that out of the way,

i’m not even familiar with their lore. Reason why i stopped caring about the lore behind faust and mephistopheles is that an interlude happens that shows that mephistopheles is just some homunculi made by some mage nobody named faust. and even then the interlude doesn’t talk about the lore behind the novel, its just you helping mephy kill faust

that being said though i would hope the developers expand on their origins more and potentially even release a “true” mephistopheles (a girl can dream)

So, they’re not even the real deal demon known as Mephistopheles in the first place, and i can hear u going “well that’s lame” and like, no, we just need to redirect our feelings from appreciating a demon to appreciating a homunculi who has a weird characterization in the fate universe

Design tangent:

Fgo was actually my first gacha, and so when I came across this servant I kinda instantly fell in love with their design, I love the colors used in their final ascension and overall appearance. The hat that has horns but they're not quite horns, theyre these weird colorful pointy twisty things, the large garish butterfly ornament on their chest (which isnt ugly at all and somehow works so well with their everything on them) is cool, the tights are so cool to look at, i mean look -- a checkered pattern with golden lining on the shorts portion, the tits out look like yes we get it youre insane, the gloves??? purple and also cool, plus theyve got this gradient thing going on? and the fingers have this line going through them, thats so cool. actually the only other servant that comes close to this in terms of “out there” colorful designs is probably final ascension kama and qsh ( i love them both). Also, mephy has this scissor weapon?? thats so cool lol i dont see any other servant wielding giant scissors (for the love of god give mephy an animation update i need to see them use the scissors while doing flips) and they also have this bomb obsession going on? cant relate, but the bombs designs are so so cool i mean its a fucking centipede -- no idea if centipedes are a thing in the original faust but thats something Ill have to look up at some point. ALSO mephy is wearing heels oh my god anytime people wear heels is an automatic win. No clue whats going on with the hair but its kinda cute (dont question me on that) and it has curls and the hair colors are cool i mean its like a lavender thing with darker purple highlights? i love colorful things and i love people with wacky personalities so. Oh my god their tail how could i forget that its so cute and dumb i almost forgot it was there, like what is that even a whip? i dont.. but its got these little purple tips to them that are kinda cute/cool but more cool because tails are fucking up there alongside heels in terms of cool stuff on characters. and of course their fluffly cape -- again no idea what the designers were going for i mean look its a mess of a design i have no fucking idea what any of it means and i hope they explain it someday because that hair and the butterfly and the tail and the hat and the fluffy garb and a bomb obsession?? and this got the go ahead - yeah lets add that to the game like what

ALSO LETS TALK ABOUT THEIR EYES

appreciate these with me for a second

god.

oh and the blue lipstick and face paint god thats a cool design ugh

they can be normal too or at least as normal as possible i mean they even trimmed their eyebrow here lol but you can see the not so well hidden insanity/goofiness peaking through with the inside of the suit at the bottom being highlighter purple and a green shirt with gold accents underneath the black coat at the front <3, fuckin hate that hairstyle tho bro we gotta get that middle part hairstyle outta hereeeee--

TAKE A DETOUR AND LOOK AT THIS LINK THOUGH THIS IS THE MOST NORMAL AND BEST IVE SEEN THEM IN FANART. THE POTENTIAL IS THERE. WE CAN HAVE NICE THINGS AND THEY LOOK GREAT ITS POSSIBLE. I HAVE TEARS STREAMING DOWN MY FACE FROM THAT DRAWING.

anyways this is me going off all about why i like their design! but we haven’t even touched the nitty gritty of it all. their personality! what personality you may ask? havent they always been some weirdo laughing a lot and saying dumb shit all the time? well yes and no

Characterization:

True to their dumb little clown design mephy also acts like one.

Some servants bond 1 lines are like “fuck off” and some actually talk to you, nah this bastard mephistopheles’ just laughing. and for the second bond line it seems to imply theyre fuckin with you more (showing up and dissapearing and saying ‘afterimage’) so thats nice that theyre actually making some effort to mess with you in a way? some servants take a long time to actually interact with you so this shows theyre not afraid of interacting with you and thats just at bond 2. and of course the third bond line implies they were probably trying to betray you, its stated in more than 1 place that mephistopheles (actually isnt this a caster class thing?) will betray you or attempt to do so. So the third bond line seems to imply that their attempts have been stopped by you and that’s what they say after some failed attempts. So after stopping this freak from doing some shit their next bond line is actually doing a confession! a jester being honest who couldve seen that one coming but theyre 100% not lying, they really arent a demon but a homunculi made by faust

speaking of faust we’re going to backtrack a little into their interlude that i brought up at the start of this post, its one of those dream interludes and it starts with mephy asking you to help him plant bombs for their eventual reuinion/showdown with faust -- in the meantime faust keeps sending golems in an attempt to kill both you and mephy

When you track faust down, it’s shown that faust was your typical mage, inhumane and uncaring. It’s also pointed out that this faust killed innocents, but this typical mage behavior is boring to mephy, and they say that boring typical behavior is why they wanted to kill them

 so i really cant blame mephistopheles for being the way they are, being raised by this type of guy, even if mephy was always messed up and wacky from the beginning its no reason for faust to attempt to kill him.

Mephistopheles also shows up in salem, cu alter’s interlude, and of course the knk crossover event, and some other things im most likely forgetting but those 3 are ones that i find notable

anytime they show up theyre actually helpful, in salem mephy points out that the nature of the being responsible for the salem epic of remnant is something alien rather than a typical foreign god, mephy also tells you that time is also being sped up and in their weird way they try to cheer you up by spouting some nonsense at the beginning (guda needed some kind of distraction from the grim events that had just transpired at that point in the story), i cant quite remember what mephy did in the knk event but they were a part of your group and were helpful the whole time, actually @/zeravmeta does an amazing analysis of their role in the knk event as well as some extra character analysis here

mephistopheles is kinda cryptic in a weird way though,

like overall i mean theyre a jester homunculi in appearance so yeah its to be expected but come on i love morally gray characters, despite their supposed betrayal hints scattered around here and there

they have this one line that always gets to me

and this line is said with a completely serious face too

the rare serious mephistopheles face! its kinda grim to see that line, no laughs, no nothing, their voice is kinda serious and monotone too. of course this could be just to get you to lower your guard but its still kinda out there that they have this rarely used portrait and that line, so i like to take it as being said to you when youre by yourself and with sincerity

and at least sei (with her wacky outfit and all lol) seems to get along with mephy and thinks theyre nice woohoo

so at the end of the day you have this guy that laughs a lot and gives mixed signals

and they fuck with you

and will most likely try to kill you more than once but hey thats just another tuesday at chaldea

Before I finish last thing I want to point out is this snippet from the fgo source material book which provides more information on servants, and this specific translated bit under mephistopheles

at the core of it all this homunculi....can be your friend! you just need to not go into despair i guess

of course this entire post is an overanalysis into an underwritten character, quarantine + all online college classes have done this to me, i have a douman icon what did you expect

OH...BEFORE I REALLY SIGN OFF AND FINISH THE POST HEY CLOWN LOVERS CHECK OUT THESE FANARTS AND FANARTISTS...

THE FIRST ONE IS HASENDOW YES THE DOUMAN DESIGNER... <3

i cant believe they drew mephy

twice !

and for those of you on twitter check out @cuz_pb and @L0VEYAMA003

[ladyyatexel]

I Went On A Manga Binge

So you don't have to

For those of you who have wisely avoided the shreds of it I've left around the blog thus-far, I had some weird notion to go re-experience Yu-Gi-Oh uuuuuh a week ago? We'll go with that. Time is meaningless.

I'd been able to read a good portion of the early manga at the end of highschool, and somewhere in my stacks and stacks of paper is fanart from this dark time, so you know I cared. I also still own a Dark Magician action figure somehow, so. I'd also watched a large portion of the anime with my brother because it had been laced with some kind of crack and we couldn't look away? I remember when we both were just like shit, wait, don't change the channel, I can't stop looking at it. And the next thing we knew we were waiting for new episodes and I was doing research on the Japanese original because I was that kid.

Anyway, unnecessary backstory out of the way, here are some... let's call them Observations and Consequences of having read somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 chapters (and growing) of a manga primarily hinged on card games from a spectrum of sources ranging from boringly lawful to sketchy as fuck.

Surprise actual character that develops in typical shounen fashion being Jounouchi. My limited experiences with the 4Kids dub and only early manga had not painted him in a particularly good light. I don't know if episodes were being aired out of order or if I had just missed the ones that established that he was making shit up as he was going along, but Wow I liked him a lot more going through the manga than I ever did watching the (dubbed, heavily edited and censored and thrown into a slurry machine) anime. I'd managed to come out with the impression that he was just as reasonably experienced with the game as Yugi back in the day. Wild.

I'm now reading every single comic-style post on Tumblr backwards.

Striking inverse to first point, wow, I don't like Seto Kaiba. Though he gets points for his general philosophy of the future, and the line I read in my sketchy online combo of scans and scanlations in which he said, "If God is in your way, you run him down," was Metal As Fuck. I somewhat shame-facedly admit to enjoying him a lot more as an Abridged Series character. (I watched Abridged as it came out back in the day! The experience of watching the anime with my brother had been so fresh that I got all the in jokes about the way things were edited and dubbed, it was great. Series remains influential part of my life to this day, which is hella weird.)

I almost understand how Duel Monsters works now. I don't want this.

That said, wow a lot of the decisions made in the anime made everything a lot more ridiculous than the admittedly already ridiculous original. I got the distinct feeling in the manga that the Duelist Kingdom stuff we were seeing was designed to be used and exploited in ways that don't make sense in an actual cardgame just played on a table like a normal person and this was part of testing everyone to think higher, differently. Maybe this is obvious to everyone already, I don't know. I had always liked that it was very, 'Not so fast, I'm going to blow up the moon to change the tides,' but I'm not really sure the anime gave enough explanation that this was an extra layer added to things for that event? You can see people actively getting used to it in the books, and people who aren't considering the real or 3D nature of it getting owned, but my memory of anime version is everyone just like, 'oh, shucks, fuck me, I forgot to consider the phase of the moon before i played this card, can't believe I forgot.' No one calls Yugi on any of this stuff because it's valid play in that situation. Plus Yami Yugi had mad trickster energy in the beginning and it suited him to think of ways to do things inside these little simulation boxes the way it suited him to set perverts on fire. I imagine the real card game trying to emulate this element as something that would be to its detriment, but I neither know nor particular care haha

Ryou Bakura.

Really, though. I think he became kind of casualty of 'wow, we have a lot of characters who really aren't able to do anything in this story anymore,' despite the fact that his whole inner life could have been as interesting as Yugi's. I always like thinking about the possibilities of stories in which main character falls into magical world and is given magical item and told they're the hero and then they find out they've been the bad guy the whole time. The first several volumes of manga were about the quiet weirdo kid that no one talked to who was always blacking out and turning into a fucked up version of himsef because he was so attached to his ancient Egyptian jewelry, so like, Bakura could have much the same shit going on. I want to know what's happening with him so much. He clearly doesn't love being possessed, but he's also so drawn to the ring. Despite it having stabbed him at least twice and him knowing it's a danger to him and his friends, he keeps being pulled back into it. You see so much more of him being like, 'Oooh, a creepy thing, I love that! :D' in the manga than ever in the anime, which I'm all about. Also more blood. I'm very about that as well. Though my memory of the anime also made it look very much like normal regular daily Bakura was just a weird facade in places before he ever would have been. I think that was it trying to compensate for what people didn't see from the Toei anime, but okay whatever, that I love everything about this guy is not news, I don't need to talk about Bakura excessively here, I'm pretty sure that's gonna show up on my blog by itself

On a related note though, damn, more of these people need to talk to each other. Can we have some existential crisis support clubs or something. Can we get like some apologies or something? "I respect you as a duelist." "Cool, but you literally built a tower designed to specifically assassinate me and my friends? You were supposed to get Better after I retaliated by putting you in a coma, but you kinda didn't." "Why would the coma have made it better" "I just told you it didn't" ---- "Sorry I went along with the plan of your evil parasite stabbing you, misled you, and then also jumped in and took up some real estate in your head too." "I understand, I also have an evil thing inside me that does things while I'm blacked out." "...no, I was conscious for all of that." "Oh." "..." "..." "..." "Do you like Ouija Boards?" "sure okay" ETC. Like damn we are reading shounen manga because no one is talking extensively about their feelings here and I'm tapping my foot angrily.

Holy shit there are so many mythologies happening at once. The ancient family guarding the Egyptian Pharaoh has a surname that's a Mesopotamian goddess. None of the god cards make any Egyptian sense except Ra, and just like. Baaarrrrely. Somewhere either Evil Ring Bakura or Mar/lik makes a reference to cremation and spirits being taken to heaven with smoke which several things, but definitely not Ancient Egyptian. Marik/Malik meanwhile is clearly trying to head Arabic, along with Rishid, but then, hey, our sister is just Isis. Goddess McGoddess. Sometimes they're the same goddess! Her name could be Isis Isis or Ishtar Ishtar. Meanwhile, all the obviously 'occult because Christians think it is freaky' stuff. ~ancient egyptian pentagrams~~~This isn't a complaint, I guess so much as a 'Wow, I can kind of see the cultural spot the author was coming from and where he was aiming' kind of thing.

Wonder where things would have gone if the card games had not been latched onto the way they were.

Managed to forget how gross the pre-cardgames stuff was on the sexual harassment front. I'm glad there was a sort of explanation of everyone drifting away from being dick heads and that that decision was made. It got way more comfortable to read after no one was bringing Yugi p*rn on VHS.

Yugi looks better with a nose, glad we got that upgrade.

Interesting to watch the series style shift as it goes away from being horror to being over the top cardgames and friendship (with blood!). The first picture of Mokuba is fucking Jarring. Also noticed that the nicer a character is, the less their teeth are defined.

Glad manga did not go as completely off the fucking the rails about Marik's face. I never got as far as seeing him back in the day because college occurred, but I remember seeing pictures and stuff and being like, "what in the Fuck happened to that dude, I think the house style has collapsed in on itself"

Things the author Really Likes: motorcycles, belts, SHOES, holy shit the shoes. These are some of the most lovingly rendered sneakers I've ever seen. All the detail on his characters goes straight to their feet and then it's stretched upward until it forms stiff peaks. Gently fold in 3000 years of trauma and bake face down in a crumb coat of scattered mythology. Remove when you roll two zeros.

Where the fuck am I going to put the extremely large omnibus volumes of this comic I purchased in order to balance out how much I would be reading for free on the internet. I should have grasped that a three in one edition would be Thick and yet somehow I was still :O when it arrived. Have I strategically purchased volumes that contain my favorite parts, maybe, what's it to you will i eventually get the whole thing because incomplete book series gnaw on my soul? yes

Wish the transition from "I've murdered several people in delightfully karmic ways" to "all you need is friendship in your heart and cards in your hand" Yami Yugi/Pharaoh had been discussed more/transitioned better. Buddy, where did you get this approved for television high horse? Please go back to strangling people with yo-yos or at least tell me why you stopped.

I still can't tell anything that looks like a big robotic monster apart from any other big robotic monster. My dude, I can't tell cars apart, all these monsters look the same.

Yami Yugi fascinated me way more in highschool? Maybe because it was still super early and the anime was like 'we need to torture you about his origins WeEkLy. Now I'm just like 'wait hold on, can we go back to Bakura and Marik for a minute, there's some extreme unpacking to do here?' Those two are paying so much more in baggage fees here my guy wow

Violently uninterested in any of the spinoff media

[jkbabies]

"𝗝𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗞𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗶𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗴𝘂𝘆 𝘄𝗵𝗼'𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗮 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗴𝘆𝗻𝗶𝘀𝘁."

"𝗛𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝘀 𝗠𝗶𝗸𝗮𝘀𝗮 𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗿𝗲."

"𝗝𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗺𝗼𝗺 𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗠𝗶𝗸𝗮𝘀𝗮."

"𝗝𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗠𝗶𝗸𝗮𝘀𝗮 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗿. 𝗛𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿, 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗣𝗶𝗲𝗰𝗸 (𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗿 𝘂𝘄𝘂)."

"𝗝𝗲𝗮𝗻𝗞𝗮𝘀𝗮 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁 𝗠𝗶𝗸𝗮𝘀𝗮."

"𝗠𝗶𝗸𝗮𝘀𝗮 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗯𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗼 𝗘𝗿𝗲𝗻. 𝗦𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗝𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗻. 𝗦𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗵𝗶𝗺."

*𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗴𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗻*

(In which I will defend Jean Kirstein from fanon fuckboy jean enthusiasts and Mikasa Ackerman from the eternal love bullshit enthusiasts.)

First of all, Jean and Mikasa are two fictional characters who are well-loved pre-139 and post-139, but alas, the incel-ness and misogyny in the fandom has also reached its peak during the same time. Which brings us to this never-ending discourse of "I wanna find fault in Mikasa's husband even though I don't believe he's her husband I'm just making sure he's ruined before the second part of the final season starts because I'm a bitter stan who can't swallow the pill of maturity and acceptance". Like bro, seriously. Jean is a textbook nice guy that's really a misogynist?😂 Has a mother kink for Mika?😭 Could not differentiate between taste in hair and taste in personality for more than, idk, ten years?🤢 It's just so funny because...because these takes are something you lot should've addressed before the extra pages if IF they were issues in the first place. But alas, Mikasa has found peace and chose to move on with someone who's not a dead man (how surprising) so of course, the natural course of action would be to attack them instead of be happy for them! 😁 Mind you, I don't believe the husband is Jean but I'm gonna nitpick his whole existence anyway. Oh, wow, look at that dream, he's a drunkard! (And now everyone is analyzing every bit of the first panels of 127 but when jk shippers pointed it out, none of them batted an eye because it was just a "harmless dream" amidst a battle between life and death.) Look at that, people were reasonable back then! Don't I miss those times🥺. Does it ever drive you crazy just how fast the night changes?😔 For example, people before acknowledged Jean's admiration for Mikasa as either not important to the plot or very respectful and dignified. But now, oh 𝑓𝑢𝑐𝑘, his long-standing crush (if you could call a decade-long feelings for someone that) is something shallow😲! We've broken the code! It's been a shallow crush all along! That's the meaning of the dream! Screw him! Pair him with Pieck so he gets to be with someone that we are absolutely not using as a shipping tool! We're not like the jeankasas who self-insert on Mikasa! They hate her, you know?! They absolutely do! Oh, those vile pieces of shit, we should trash their fanarts and harass their authors and artists, stalk their twitters and send weird asks on their CCs! It's the only way to go about this! We shall disturb their peace every single day because God knows what our purpose in life would be if we weren't constantly making disturbingly stupid takes about Attack on My Ship, I mean Attack on Titan!! (This is how y'all sound, and I sadly do not have the mindset that would get me 3k likes on Twitter because I'm not an em shipper and therefore cannot be excused no matter what I say 😔.)

Point of the matter is, there's really no reason to suddenly trash a character simply because of the threat that he somehow ended up with the main girl character of the show. None of you who trash him even believe it's him anyway, so what's the catch? If Jean's not the husband, then why do you feel the need to create threads addressed to "delusional jk shippers" and find fault in shippy tweets as if that would suddenly raise Eren from the dead and tell you you're doing a good job of mischaracterising two of the most important people in his life? I promise you, there's no harm in imagining Mikasa as a full-fletched woman who's steering life in the direction she chooses, and if that's marriage, then fucking support her. If that's being with a family, then don't fucking reverse psychology your definition of feminism and say that she's not actually happy. Are people in AOT really that monotonous? You can't continue visiting an important person's grave while also finding purpose and peace in your life? (Cuz I sure fucking hope Kakashi does not feel this way, but I digress). Just let us ship them in peace, and go ship em like you've always done. You don't need to always wage war with other ships to feel dignified. (Aside from the "jk shippers" who always feel the need to trash on em without any basis, comment on em fanarts, and send unnecessary hate to your fandom, then of course, you can all duel to the death idc 😑.) Let's all rest this case. Romance is not the point of AOT (or so I fucking thought, anyway), so we should not even be having any of these love fights over 2d (and well-loved) characters.

(Speech ends; rage subsides. Thank you for listening to my rant.)

[lidoshka]

I follow you on Deviant Art and I discovered my favorite Voltron fanfictions thanks to your fanarts. How did you find them? I loved, among the others, "Where the light doesn’t reach", "Eternal Night", Discordiansamba's ones and "Desideratum": do you have more suggestions? We could do an exchange of fanfiction reviews if you want. I like long, well-written stories with Keith as a main character, space worldbuilding and deep emotions. With the Galra Keith trope also.

 You started reading Voltron fics because of me? Really?! That’s really cool!

ヾ|*ﾟ∀ﾟ*|ﾉ

Ahh! Yeah, I totally agree, we need more fanfic recs… in the last few months I’ve been doing art for other fandoms, so I haven’t checked new fics, but I do have some I like here so I’ll start!

Now, I don’t think any of these fics is longer than Eternal Night, but they are still cool, I also added some info of what I remember from each fic:

cobbled glass by ShirosRedKnight (SweetFanfics) One of the first things Keith learns about himself is that he is different. AU where Keith was always part of the Blades of Marmora and the Paladin's of Voltron come looking for the Red Paladin.

[Keith is galra but looks human] [can’t remember any pairing]

It's A New Start Series by Darkscales In which Keith, raised Galra and forcibly drafted into Zarkon's army, escapes from the Empire and proceeds to steal (then subsequently become adopted by) the Red Lion.

[Keith is very galra] [can’t remember any pairing]

 your sharp and glorious thorn by arahir

To end the war they inherited, Keith marries the King he lead an army against

[Sheith] [mostly Keith POV] [Keith being galra but still human-looking]

 Collision Course by winterysomnium Keith gets adopted by the Galra empire rebellion, basically.

[Keith being galra but still human-looking]

 Secret of the Blood by exclamation AU version of season 2. When Keith and Shiro were thrown from the wormhole, they crashed by the Blade of Marmora headquarters and were captured. When the Blade reveal the secret of Keith's heritage, Keith must decide if he can trust these people... and if he can trust himself.

[Keith angst] [can’t remember any pairing] [Keith is galra but looks human]

 The Blade of Memory by exclamation (ß same author as previous one!) Kan has no memory of his life before he was found injured and adrift by the Blade of Marmora. When he comes across a slave that seems to be the same species as him, he decides to rescue him. But saving Matt broke a number of the Blade's rules and helping Matt further would mean going against Kolivan's orders.

[Keith angst…ish] [can’t remember any pairing] [Keith is galra but looks human]

 hound by story_monger (is there any rec list that doesn’t include this one?? XD) Keith has a lot of practice being alone; you might almost say he's good at it. When he finds himself seriously injured and stranded on an unknown planet, he knows he's not alone there

[Keith angst] [can’t remember any pairing] [Keith POV] [beign galra is not part of plot]

 baby, you're a dark star by Thesis When the Lions are separated from the castle, hurled out of the wormhole into distant corners of space, Pidge still finds Allura within an hour. Then Shiro, alone, injured, delirious, asking if they've found Keith yet. They force him into the healing pods and get back to searching. They find Lance, they find Hunk. But they don't find Keith for sixteen months. And now that they have, Shiro is starting to think - maybe he didn't want to be found.

[Sheith] [Keith is galra but looks human]

 Insomnia by GriffinRose They reunite after the Wormhole Incident all in one piece. Mostly. But some scars can't be seen. Keith can't sleep, no matter how hard he tries.

[mostly Keith POV] [being galra is not part of plot…or was it?]

 nothing can breathe in space by idrilka The truth is: what Keith wants or doesn’t want won’t bring Shiro back. The truth is: nothing can breathe in space. (Or: the story of how Keith and Shiro come together, come apart, and come together again.)

[Sheith] [Keith angst] [being galra is not part of plot…or was it?]

 The Heat Was Hot and the Ground Was Dry by justheretobreakthings A glimpse into Keith's year living in a shack in the desert.

[Keith POV] [Keith angst…ish] [has a Spotify list on the last chapter] [can’t remember any pairing]

 Small Heart, Made of Steel by inkfishie The fight with Zarkon, the battle with the Galra fleet, the crash; It came back in small measures. Keith finds himself stranded and alone.

[mostly Keith POV] [Keith angst] [survival stuff] [being galra is not part of plot]

 For Everything a Reason by flyingisland

In Keith's life, the only true absolute was that everyone would always leave in the end.

[Sheith] [very Keith angst] [Keith POV]

 these old bones by achievingelysium

He’s always been fascinated with dinosaurs. Keith isn’t entirely sure why—maybe it’s because their footprints are still here, even after so long. Maybe he’s hearing the echoes of history calling for him. Maybe, just maybe, it’s because he sees himself in those old bones. A Keith character study told in three parts.

[Keith angst…ish] [can’t remember any pairing] [being galra is not part of plot..or was it???]

 The Long Way Back by fio As a gladiator, and now Champion, Shiro has given up hope of ever returning to Earth. But when his captors deliver his 'prize'—an omega, a descendant of both Galran and Altean blood used by the Galra to breed with the strongest aliens they capture—he's offered a chance to escape. There's just one catch: Shiro has to get him pregnant to do it. [Sheith] [it’s 40k words] [smut but I can’t remember in which chapter] [Keith is very galra]

 The Faeries' Midwife by zjofierose the line between dream and nightmare, between asleep and awake, has always been a hazy one for Keith. Voltron makes it all that much worse.

[short] [Keith angst] [can’t remember any pairing]

 Sands and Stars by Neyasochi Keith’s no stranger to shit going sideways, but mistakenly assaulting and robbing a crown prince is definitely the peak misfortune of his considerable criminal career. Suddenly in the custody of the royal guard and slated for a swift and unceremonious execution, he figures his short life is over. Imminently. But then Prince Takashi offers him an alternative.

Part 1 of the Bond and Blade Series

[Sheith] [slow, slow burn] [mostly Keith POV] [Keith is galra but looks human] [It’s medieval!au-ish babe!]

 familiar voices and careful hands by bobtheacorn Keith hesitates, then lifts a hand to pat Hunk's arm. It's awkward returning the comforting gesture, but it seems to help Hunk calm down so Keith is glad that he does it. He keeps reaping the rewards of reaching out to the people he cares about, even if small things are the only ones he can manage right now, and he can't help feeling grateful.

[can’t remember any pairing] [team bonding] [keith angst…ish]

 i never meant (i only wanted) by ADyingFlower It's a lot farther to Arizona from Washington D.C. than he thought it would be. The sun beats down on his scalp and dark clothes as he travels the roads of national highways, occasionally trying to hitchhike when he could. Not often, though. His soles burn into his feet, but he doesn’t dare stop.

[Keith POV] [Keith angst] [being galra is not part of plot…or was it???]

+

Well, that’s my fav ones about Keith... I didn’t add any WIPS nor any of Discordiansambas’ cause you know those ones already, but just like you I also like long stories with lots of worldbuilding, angsty stories... I love stories where they explore what being a galra hybrid means to Keith!

[hidingoutbackstage]

infodump to be about resident evil handsome <3

Ohhhh my gosh where to start.

Honestly I'm just gonna talk about my favorite characters and why I like them, and also the problems I have with them

It'll be under the cut, for those who don't care lol

Gonna start with Rebecca because she's the fave that I have the most issues with. I really like her character, she's smart, she's strong, she's a good fighter, and she's witty, and for all of those reasons she's fun to watch and play as. My issues with her are that Capcom has absolutely no clue what to do with her. She's a side character in the first game that doesn't get to do much except get told to stay out of the way, in her own game, RE0, she's literally the main character but ends up feeling like a supporting character for Billy's arc, and holy fuck is she nerfed in Vendetta. She has that scene at the school making the antidote in the lab, and has a good scene where she fights off some zombies before hiding and getting rescued. She tells Chris what she knows and they go find Leon before she gets kidnapped and gets to do absolutely nothing else for the rest of the film. She's a damsel in distress, is almost forced to marry the villain because she looks like his fridged wife, and is infected with the virus and rendered immobile until Chris and Leon rescue her. Like that entire scene she's just sitting on the table writhing and moaning makes me so uncomfortable. Capcom made a great character, they just didn't know what to do with her (and apparently STILL DON'T considering she's not even in Welcome to Raccoon City) Also, can she not be older? It's impressive that she graduated from college at 18, it shows her incredible intellect, but that doesn't mean she has to be 18 in the first game, does it? Can she not be more adult-like? Idk

Next is Claire. Claire is great! Claire I have less issues with, considering the franchise has been nicer to her character recently. Obviously the peak of her character was in the RE2 remake, but she had other great moments too, I liked her a lot in the darkside chronicles, but also like Rebecca, it seems like the game doesn't always know how to use her character, or end up sidlining her for the male characters. Example, Code Veronica, she's fine, but she's way too broken up about Steve imo (maybe I just hate him) and once she's reunited with Chris she's kind of a player 2 to him. And in Revelations 2 she's kind of just a catalyst for change in Moira. And holy fuck don't get me started on how nerfed she was in Infinite Darkness. She is TOTALLY the B story to Leon's A story and even has her damsel in distress moment with the acid. I liked the ending of ID and I liked the story but I just wish there'd been more Claire.

Leon is fine, I love his character arc from RE2 to Vendetta and all the bits in between, I just think because he's so popular it gets exhausting lmao like Capcom knows how popular he is so they milk it for all it's worth and with there being so many fans there's obviously going to be a lot that I don't like/don't agree with. That's probably splitting hairs though, I do think he's the best-written and best handled RE character Capcom has by far

Jill Valentine my sweet summer child you deserve so much better. She's never been overly sexualized (if you don't count whatever the fuck was going on in RE5) which like. The bar is on the floor but something about Capcom's treatment of her character always kind of rubbed me the wrong way. The character herself is fantastic, do NOT get me wrong, I just wish Capcom had done things differently like not make her version of the RE1 playthrough "easy" mode or not incapacitated her for days in RE3 making her totally useless (not that I don't mind playing as Carlos, mind you) her popularity is well earned, I wish there was less fanart that sexualized her but whatever, and I love her friendship with Chris, definitely one of my top 3 platonic RE relationships.

Chris needs to stop being in so much RE content or I'm gonna go insane. There rlly was no reason to include him in RE7 other than to connect it more to the other games, but his "not a hero" dlc is pretty alright. Obviously his inclusion in 7 led to his role in 8 and oh my g-d I cannot forgive that ridiculous plot point of not telling Ethan about Miranda impersonating his wife. It's so dumb. His rivalry with Wesker never felt earned, but it was always entertaining to see. His rivalry with Arias was fucking stupid and completely unearned (I know they only had one movie to make it happen but still. I love that movie and hate it all at once) Also RE5 is unforgivable except for giving us Sheva so y'know Chris is a mixed bag for me.

Ada is a great character that gets treated like absolute shit. I love morally grey characters, and Ada is a great example of one, and the fandom almost always ruins her somehow, or Capcom finds ways to use her that I typically just personally don't like (like honestly that Ada clone shit in RE6 is ridiculous and totally unnecessary) She's done fantastically in RE2 remake which I love, and I'm honestly glad Capcom somewhat knew to pull the reigns when it came to the idea to have her in RE8 that was ultimately scrapped (it would've made no sense, it was ridiculous, I would not have liked it) so Ada is also another mixed bag for me. I also wish she had more of a connection to this stuff than (for the most part) Leon. Her mission doesn't always involve him, but she's only ever really there when he is, and it irks me.

Ethan Winters sucks and I don't like him and don't care about him and the whole RE7&8 fandom is wrong for liking them and yes that includes my boyfriend

Sorry about that. He's a fine character, he's a protagonist you wanna root for, especially in 8, but man do he and his story get on my nerves.

Alcina was just fanservice and gamerbait and for that reason I can't bring myself to like her, sorry guys. Same goes for Heisenberg even though he was less fanservice-y and a little more interesting than Alcina

Yeah that's all I got, if you read through all this, I am kissing you on the mouth

[fandom-sheep]

MCC 18 SEP 21

Yellow Yacks and Cyan Coyotes with a little Aqua Axolotls. Part 1/1

The only reason I didn’t forget MCC was because I got the notification for Eret.

I have Wilbur on my TV. I’m going to watch Eret on my phone. And I’ll have Tommy on my iPad probably.

Wilbur throwing a tantrum and saying he won’t play.

I feel like a true Gen Z member with my multiple screens of minecraft.

I’m only just getting the Wilbur notification.

I love watching everyone run around before MCC and scale things.

Griefing the thumbnail. 😂

Wilbur just causes problems on purpose when it comes to group photos doesn’t he.

He just loves finding ways to cause problems.

Wilbur got a coconut!?!

I didn’t mean to type the question mark originally. But I am a bit confused.

Wilbur just stocking up on coconuts

True friendship is a quote book. I have several.

Baby banana boo.

Wait. I heard the word tumblr

Scott what did you do with tumblr?

I’m scared. Only Eret permitted on tumblr.

I remember watching hole in the wall as a tv show as a kid.

Wilbur’s glasses that don’t do anything.

There are September discounts for subbing?

Neato.

The conversations in my work discord are something else.

Not surprised that Wilbur is going for top swearer of MCC

But my residents are going to walk by my door and judge me.

Alright I apparently wasn’t signed in to twitch on my iPad and it took me entirely too long to learn to remember it.

Tommy looks like he’s really concentrating. Oh wait never mind.

Wow the yaks are in first currently. I might be cheering for a winning team for once.

Alright I have my iPad split screen between Tommy and the MCC website.

Everyone break the elevator!

In the game, not in the building I work. I don’t want that paperwork.

Stick together and place many block.

I’ve been in Wilburs position. “I’ll be captain” “yeah let’s let Wilbur be captain”

Not a single POV I have up is synced. But that’s life.

Oh not starting out strong.

Just keep going. Ignore the falling people just like ranboo last time.

We are at the absolute bottom for this game.

Where’s a bag of popcorn or something?

“Stay down there. That’s how I won that one time” -Ranboo

Down they go.

They didn’t have anywhere to run.

Second round!

Oh that wasn’t their best idea. It was fun seeing Erets POV of that.

Go Teams.

Turning down the volume on yellow yacks to listen to aqua axolotls.

Aqua please. You have so much potential.

Nope.

Switching audio again.

Yellow back at the bottom.

Ranboo ranboo ranboo ranboo

Down he goes. 😂 the timing of that was funny.

Please. Don’t die

Wilbur. Scott. Please.

Scott uncovering the creeper.

Their plan is literally just sit and be.

To be fair that’s my plan for everything I do.

Oh cobwebs are smart.

I’m eating very salty Chick-fil-A chips and need water.

We are still doing ok. Wow.

Cobwebs man. The real MVP.

They are still in 10th

COBWEBS!!! And Wilbur standing on the edge of a block.

THEY WON THAT?!?!!!!

It moved them from last to eight. But still. Wow.

Holy cow. How did that happen.

I always forget what the acronym game is.

Oh yeah. Wilbur snuck and found this. I remember.

Go team!

Oh the website updates faster than the game. But we’re starting off decent.

I’m going to have to take back that statement aren’t I?

Go go go go

Fly fly fly fly

Build build build build

Go Wilbur!

Rafter strat.

Wilbur found the rafters and everyone else loved it.

Blocking his own jump. 😂

I really should do the inside joke chair emoji thing for laughing. But I don’t care.

Tiktok is nice. Depends on the side you are on, but it’s nice.

We are doing halfway decent. I’m proud of us.

Wilbur is struggling and I think he might cry.

Not bad. I don’t think.

Power sweater.

This game in MCC has rainbow road vibes

I’ll have to make that it’s own post since I feel that’ll be popular ish.

Holy cow we hit first on the website!! How?

Ranboo sweet one.

They said no peaking to Wilbur.

Wilbur making them block stuff off and the like is so funny.

Run yaks run!

I missed the moment Wilbur just mentioned. Oh well I’m sure I’ll see the clip.

First last first.

Hey 4th overall. Look at em.

Wilbur switching to full screen to show us his M&Ms.

Let me balance my water bottle on the bedpost above my head. No way this could possibly go wrong in multiple ways.

Double coins. Gorgeous.

Chickens are being sniped.

What’s going to work? TEAM WORK!

I don’t think I have ever watched a game of grid runners in my life?

Alright game should start any second because it started on the website.

Alright stream is delayed about 13 seconds.

Go teams go!

Wilbur just sniping targets.

We’re doing ok.

All this dirt.

Go go go

We’re completing things first.

Cake!

Wilbur got in!

Now they eat

Oh but they are falling.

Oh wow the painting is complicated. My friends and I would fail to communicate so fast.

Is this lever thing just find the button but complicated?

Go you got the levers!

Items grab!

My friends and I would seriously struggle unless I was allowed the lead. But I would lead us off a cliff.

Everyone get ready to go in as soon as the cake is done.

Exit! You guys are so close! Please!

Woohoo!

Go Ranboo! Go Scott!

Come on guys. Come on. Good communication.

I think I like watching Wilbur with MCC because he had a similar strategy to what I would do.

Wilbur why did you try to act cool!!!

They keep saying they are miles ahead but not according to that scoreboard.

You placed 3rd. Good job y’all.

I’m excited for bonuses.

They have another minute until the others run out of time.

Good soup.

Oh wow. Ranboo and Wilbur really are always totgehe.

We are doing well. I see the board changing on the website so much.

Where will they land.

Looks like 2nd or 3rd

Fourth overall. Not bad.

Lap time is logical.

Audience vote?

Look at me redownloading twitter.

Can you not see how others have voted on twitter?

Oh there it is. It only showed mine for a sec there.

Battle box looks close. I voted ace race.

Oh it all looks close right now.

Long break my beloved.

I don’t have time to start my laundry but still. My beloved.

Game 5/8 so MCC won’t be too much longer.

I look up and Wilbur is shaking his ass at George. I’m not surprised.

Phil and Sneeg judging Wilbur.

Wilbur twerking on Phil and Sneeg joining.

Poor Phil.

Wilbur just having visited so many random places with so many random words just gathered.

Oh wow parkour tag is low. But so is sands.

Oh wow it was a tie. Between Sands and Parkour

“Wilbur is Sand Daddy” -Scott and then all the agreement noises.

Sands of Time is my favorite practical game

Maybe because Wilbur is really good at it. And Ranboo had been trained by him.

This is just good.

I swear Sand daddy is going to kill me during this.

I am just going to pass away.

My stream delay though.

Wilbur who says he stays very quiet as he makes circus music noises.

Minecraft Rhinos. Because I can’t spell their real name.

I don’t quite understand sand of time. But I like watching. It’s like college football.

I am missing the only college football game I care about for MCC.

Go Team.

No blue yet.

All the mobs.

“You better not die” sung to the tune of Santa clause is coming yo town. -Wilbur

Keep it up guys.

Oh no. They lost the key.

Oh good they found the key.

You can tell Wilbur had a musicians brain. He just hears something vaguely lyrical and starts singing a song.

Gotta promote your band whenever you can I guess.

I listened to the last Ep for like an hour and a half yesterday while I went about my day.

I wonder how we’re doing?

Only a few seconds.

I could warm a heating pad in the amount fo time they have left.

Ranboo doing these puzzles so amazingly.

Quit caring about what others think. Just do your thing.

I swear the sand daddy thing.

I love the cage of shame for not tracking your sand.

I zoned out. Red cyan orange?

We’re almost 15 minutes into sands.

I want to play Minecraft on my iPad right now.

Wait the website updated. We were 6th?

Yikes. I thought they did better.

3rd overall though!

Wait what was that about most influential improv thingy? Good for them.

Build mart!

Oh Ace Race. Wilbur calling Ace Race his girlfriend now.

I want to see the enemies to lovers fan fictions of Ace race and Wilbur.

Oh wait I can do that. I can verbally tell one like I have others in the past.

I’m excited to watch this.

Wilbur flirt with the race.

I’m not mentally prepared for this.

Everyone just joined because they don’t want to miss Wilbur x Ace Race.

Oh no. He’s not doing so well.

Oh Wilbur is giving us more.

Complicated history…

Whispering to Ace Race and Solidarity.

You’ve got it Wilbur.

Keep on talking. Keep your brain busy while you play.

Mommmm Wilbur is flirting with Ace Race again!

He’s whispering though so I can’t quite hear it and will have to find a clip channel that added subtitles.

Oh teams are changing on the website.

“What are you doing in my women Philza?” -Wilbur

“I will end your bloodline which is canonically also me.” -Wilbur

I can not track all the quotes from this. That’s beyond my abilities.

Wilbur did halfway decent, but it still uncomfortable.

Ace Race is a person now. Also the fact that Wilbur compliments Ace Race so much.

Sally v. Ace Race.

I want to find that fanart now.

Scott honey. Confirmed cannon is everyone fancies the fish.

4th. Not bad.

We’re still talking Ace Race x Wilbur

Build mart! My dearest buildmart!

I miss them sliding around in the sleds.

Grab da flowers!

We’re in 1st at the minute.

Come on yaks!

No coyotes!

Hurry hurry hurry.

Work discord going it’s thing again.

Oh we’re dropping fast.

Move the redstone! Thank you

Alright back on top. Keep it up.

Nevermind.

I love the way the build spaces for the different teams work.

Who is the person on the build?

Oh first again? Nevermind.

Oh we popped up to second. We’re so behind. Come on.

Duck!

Good soup energy. Now all I can think is the bi wide energy song.

Time is running out.

Yeah we aren’t catching up to first. Just hold second.

Where is granite?

Game over.

Third overall now. Not bad. Last game time they can possibly pull it into dodge bolt.

I need to go get a picture with the President of the university for a game with my work.

Good Soup.

I’m sitting here making popcat noises while waiting.

Game time! Go team! Survive!

Wait where did the steamer go? I wasn’t paying attention.

He’s back.

He’s swearing for his points on the swearing list.

Is pee a soup? No. I don’t think it’s think enough under normal circumstances.

Karl is apparently swearing according to Twitter. Good for him. He deserves to swear some as a treat.

Everyone running and leaving shubble.

Oh good they are all together.

Just keep running.

4th so far.

Cars. Beep beep.

Ranboo breath child.

Calling Wilbur like some kind of golden retriever.

Bow boy

Scott is leader now. Because otherwise they are arguing.

We are playing the don’t die strategy.

Come on team.

Did I put my cut in this post? I did.

Ranboo having stolen the airdrop. And he has a thing!

Oh the boarder is right behind them.

They are fighting Dream?

Nice Will.

We’re in fourth.

Boarder is right there.

Sapnap? Nope.

Pink attack and they book it.

Oh no. There goes Wilbur.

Is it just Scott?

Scott vs the world.

Just Organe and pink. They came third.

GO ORANGE!

Please. Please let us do it.

Overall third. Pink overtook yellow.

Sadness.

Ranboo has achieved: Found Hated Game

Ranboo has been hit by Survival games so many times now.

If they had just lasted a tiny bit longer they would have come second.

Cheering Orange I suppose.

I have no skill at picking winner POVs.

I have 3 teams I was at least kinda watching. And none of them are in dodgebolt.

Gosh can hear Ranboo tweaking.

Wow. Yellow yaks just as a team twerking.

What is Wilbur chewing on? Wilbur don’t chew on things that probably aren’t meant to be chewed on.

I can hear the band outside of my window. I think my campuses football game is starting.

The drum line practiced outside my window all the beginning of the semester so it’s fun seeing them march to the stadium.

Oh and there are the cheerleaders.

Oh right I was watching MCC! Who’s winning?

Come on Orange. So close.

Wait I looked out my window. Why is the band walking back to where they were?

Along the sidewalk?

I thought it was game time for a minute.

Oh dodgebolt could go either way.

Distracted by Jesus.

Grian! You got this!

Nice Grian.

Oh Grian has a chance!

Oh!

Oh!

It’s so close!

Ooo ooo!

I’m so invested.

I SEE THE CONFETTI IN THE SITE! But I don’t want to miss the shot.

Come on Grian.

I know you do it. But you’ve got this

YESSSSS

Woo hoo!!

That was a good MCC. Now to do the chores and homework I originally planned to do today.

That was a nice stream.

Scott is separating Ranboo and Wilbur?

Please. Scott.

Don’t separate the beings.

You know. Twitter needs to politely bully Scott into keeping Ranboo and Will together.

Oop and that’s Wilbur done. That was fun.

See y’all next time!

[whenihaveyouromione]

When I Have You - Chapter 1

This can also be read on ffn.net and ao3

A/N: This story will follow the lives of Ron and Hermione from the end of DH, to the epilogue and then beyond. This places all of my head canon in one story, along with tidbits of canon provided by JKR throughout. I like to stick mostly to canon post war, so I've followed the books to a T, and mostly everything post war is canon or canon-compliant. There will be the odd change, most barely noticeable.

Also, standard message that this in no way follows the Cursed Child plot at all, and I ignore it completely. This includes Hermione becoming Minister for Magic (which I know is something people like to include), as it makes no sense in comparison to the other canon JKR has provided. Plus, I hate Cursed Child, so… yeah.

Also, prior to reading this, please be aware that this story is intended to be LONG, it is intended to be an extremely slow burn. The chapter length is currently unknown, but I am predicting well over 200 chapters by the end. This is also not action packed, nor is it filled with unpredictability. This is a story where I go into excruciating detail about their lives after the war, but the intention is to be no surprises. Everything you think will happen, WILL happen. Please be mindful of that before going into this. I don't want anyone to be left disappointed. The idea is to detail their lives, not to have you on the edge of your seat with anticipation! If that's what you're after, this story is not for you.

This story also will contain implied sex. Sex scenes resemble 90's sitcoms — you have the before, you have the after, but none of the in between. They also talk a bit (not a lot, because it's not my focus) about sex. I am writing about their relationship, so it's obviously going to exist, but it's not going to be detailed, just implied.

Also, last but not least, this story has an Instagram account. As it's so long and detailed, I've decided to add some hopefully additional entertainment to it. The handle is (with no spaces) 'whenihaveyou . romione' on IG. Please feel free to follow. If for some reason you can't see it on here, feel free to PM me for it. I'll be posting small sneak peaks, responses to questions, etc on there. I'm even throwing my hand up to attempt some fanart on my own story, but I promise that writing is more my thing lol.

And now, to the story (I swear the future a/n's won't be this long). I hope you enjoy, and as usual, your thoughts, comments, questions, are all appreciated!

----------------------

Chapter 1

Ron brushed a stray strand of hair away from Hermione's face, which lit up at his touch. A smile graced her lips, but her eyes remained closed for a few moments longer. It was their favourite way to spend their afternoons; lying on his Chudley Cannons spread, arms around each other, sometimes dozing or sometimes talking. After long days of preparing for the coming funerals and Flooing to Hogwarts to help with repairs, it was always nice to come back and not think about the devastation that had befallen the wizarding world. While everyone grieved, these few moments together were a welcomed solace.

When laying beside her, Ron allowed himself a few moments of happiness. Because that's what she made him feel: happy. When she'd thrown her arms around him and kissed him in the middle of the war, he thought he'd loved her then. Now, ten days later, he realised how mistaken he'd been. This was love. Spending almost every moment, day and night, with her; holding her, kissing her, had made him fall helplessly in love, and for the first time ever, he was almost certain that she felt the same way.

He kissed her lightly on the lips, running fingers through her thick hair. She smiled against him, her eyes finally opening.

"We should go down and help the others with dinner," he murmured. "Before Mum comes looking for us."

As was to be expected, Molly had been a mess since the end of the war. Fred's death had impacted all of them, but no one more than his mother. For the first few days, they'd not seen her as she kept herself locked away in her bedroom, Arthur bringing her every meal. On the third day, she'd ventured out for a few moments before taking one look at everyone and bursting into tears. She'd spent another two days locked away after that.

She was out and about now, but out of respect for her feelings, Ron felt it best to keep his sudden relationship with Hermione secret. He did not think his mother would take kindly to one of her sons finding happiness in such a dark time.

They'd intended to keep it secret from everyone apart from Harry and Ginny, but word had gradually gotten out amongst the rest of the Weasleys. Bill had stumbled upon Ron placing a kiss on her forehead one evening before going to bed. Charlie had caught them holding hands in the Burrow's garden another night. Percy seemed to just know, and Arthur had awkwardly found them in a passionate embrace one morning in a Hogwarts' corridor.

No one spoke of it after, though. Everyone seemed to know better than to mention anything in front of Molly, so meal times resulted in limiting their affection to smiles across the table. That made these moments alone even more special.

Hermione sat up, resting her back against the headboard and yawning. Today had been especially difficult; after days of being hounded by the press as they demanded answers and spat out ridiculous theories (at Hogwarts, of all places), Harry had Disapparated to who knew where and hadn't returned. If he had any sense, he would have gone somewhere no one would find him. Ron suspected he had gone to Grimmauld Place.

"You think Harry's alright?" Hermione asked, rubbing her eyes.

"No, not really," Ron said. "But I can't blame him. The media have been unforgiving. It's easier for us to brush them aside, because they don't care as much about us. Can't imagine what it's like for him."

"How long should we give him?" Hermione asked.

"A few days." Ron shrugged, feeling his mood darken. "Fred's funeral is in three days. Lupin and Tonks' the day after that. I can't imagine him missing them."

Hermione looked less convinced. She looked at Ron, clearly worried. Ron placed an arm around her shoulder and drew her to him so that her head was on his shoulder. "He'll be alright," he assured her. "He just needs some time."

There was a moment's silence, and then, "Ron?" Hermione's voice cracked as she spoke his name.

"Hm?"

Silence again. Ron squeezed her tighter as he felt hot tears against his shirt. It wasn't unusual for these moments to end in tears, for one reason or another. They'd both had their fair share of crying over the past week and a half. He'd lost count of the number of times she'd been there for him, especially after the first few days when the memories of Fred haunted him most clearly. They still did, but he'd managed to get them under control for the most part. Though, he was dreading the funeral.

"Hey."

Hermione lifted her head at the sudden voice appearing at Ron's bedroom door. It was Bill, looking at them both with defeat. "You two better come down soon, otherwise Mum'll send a search party. She wants to start dinner, and Dad is fighting her…"

"Mum wants to cook?" Ron asked.

Bill nodded. "She's insisting. Ginny is really giving it to her, but she's refusing to listen." He smiled slightly. "I guess it's good to see some of the old fight back, eh?"

Hermione pulled away, wiping the tears from her face. "We should go and help," she sniffed.

Ron nodded, and they both climbed off his bed. Hermione left ahead of them, walking past Bill as if slightly embarrassed that he'd seen her cry. Ron went to follow, but Bill stopped him by clasping a hand on his shoulder.

"You alright? Dad mentioned what happened with Harry today."

Ron nodded. "Yeah. I think a part of me knew it was coming. He's been one moment away from an explosion all week. We've just got to give him some time."

Bill nodded, squeezing his shoulder. "Let me know if you need anything."

"Thanks," Ron said.

Bill let Ron go past, following him down the stairs without speaking. Everyone was in the kitchen, Ginny arguing with Molly.

"We told you, Mum! You're not doing anything. The rest of us have got this. Look —" she threw a hand in Ron's direction, "— Ron's here now. An extra pair of hands, an extra wand! We'll have dinner ready in no time."

"Come on, Mum," Bill said, gently placing his hands on Molly's shaking shoulders. "Let's go and sit down." He slowly guided her from the kitchen and into the living room.

After she was gone, Ginny rounded on Ron. "Your appearance a little earlier might have been beneficial, you know." Her eyes flickered to Hermione, softening when they saw her tear-stained face. She looked away. "Sorry," she mumbled.

"It's alright," Ron said. "We're here now. Where do you want us to start?"

It had become the norm for all the children to prepare the meals each night, with some help from Arthur occasionally. It was the least they could do to make things easier, but since their mother had decided to venture from her room, insisting that they could handle it had become increasingly harder. Ron suspected she wished to busy herself by cooking for her large, yet broken family.

Tonight's preparation was sullen. Even the occasional laughter that had occurred other nights was gone. Ginny's mood was dark, her hurt at Harry's disappearance obvious. Like Ron and Hermione, she'd chosen not to share her relationship with Harry to her mother. If that was what it even was. Harry had pushed most of them away, including Ginny, and had snapped at all of them more than once in the last few days.

Dinner was even quieter, with no one speaking apart from asking someone else to pass a bowl over. Ginny, who had been the most cheerful of the bunch, said nothing at all and barely touched her food. Molly watched her with concern, but said nothing, perhaps understanding why her daughter was so upset. There was an emptiness around the table, one that could only be filled by Harry's reappearance — and, Ron thought, George's. Both were as much part of the family as the other, but neither wished to see anyone.

Hermione helped Bill and Charlie clear the dishes and do the washing up, while everyone else moved into the living room. Ron sat on a conjured two-seater couch that really needed a good clean, saving the second spot for Hermione when she returned.

A small chatter started around the fireplace, with Percy talking of how the Ministry was looking to get things back to normal in the coming weeks.

"Something needs to be done," he said to Ron. "In this time, people need leadership and we currently have none." He then lowered his voice so that only Ron would hear the next part. "Between you and me, the talk is that Kingsley Shacklebolt will be appointed the next Minister for Magic."

This surprised Ron, and yet, it didn't at the same time. He looked at his brother. Percy had become somewhat more enjoyable to be around since the end of the war. Ron didn't think they'd be best friends any time soon, but at least he didn't get the urge to roll his eyes everytime Percy opened his mouth any more. He was Ron's brother, after all, and finally, Ron was able to see him as such.

"That's a good choice, don't you think?" he said.

Percy gave a curt nod. "Yes, I think so."

Hermione, Bill, and Charlie came in after that, and Ron shuffled over so that Hermione could sit next to him. Instinctively, he reached for her hand, but she jolted it away and nodded her head in his mother's direction.

He flushed, his face turning even redder when he saw that his mother was watching the two of them, her eyes narrowed.

"Great," Ron muttered to Hermione, "now she probably thinks you're rejecting my advances, or something."

"Wouldn't that please her?" Hermione asked.

"I don't think either way would please her."

Slowly but surely, people began drifting off to bed. Bill left via Floo for his home — as he did every night — while Charlie and Percy headed upstairs to their respective bedrooms.

When Ginny announced she was going to bed fifteen minutes later, Molly's eyes flashed to Hermione. "I suppose you'll be wanting to go to bed too, dear, so as not to wake Ginny?"

Hermione jumped, her cheeks reddening from the brashness of Molly's voice.

"It's fine, Mum," Ginny said. "I'll be fine."

"But, you don't want to wake her, do you Hermione, dear?"

Hermione had not spent a single night in Ginny's room since being there, just like Harry hadn't spent any in Ron's — an arrangement all four had been happy with. Ron had a sneaking suspicion that something had finally clicked with his mum, because she was now watching Ron as if waiting for him to react.

"Right," Hermione said. "I-I'll go, too. Goodnight, Mr and Mrs Weasley. Ron."

"Er, night, Hermione," Ron said. "See you in the morning."

After Hermione and Ginny had disappeared, a silence fell over the living room. Ron could only stand it for a few moments before he jumped to his feet and said goodnight, too.

Taking the stairs two at a time, he was disappointed to find Hermione not waiting for him in his room. He knew it had only been ten days, but the thought of falling asleep without her suddenly made him feel lonely. He'd become accustomed to her presence, her smell, sleeping with his arms around her, and waking to find her cuddled up against him in the mornings. It was a feeling he had hoped would last longer; forever, if he dared think it.

Unable to help but feel angry with his mother, he changed into his pyjamas and climbed under the covers. It was cold, and he had far too much space in his magically extended bed.

He tossed and turned for what felt like hours, and just as he was finally drifting off to sleep, he was woken by soft, warm lips against his cheek.

"Hermione?" he mumbled, making out her figure in the dark.

"Who else would it be?" Hermione asked, pulling back the covers and falling in beside him. "Ginny figured your mum would come and check to make sure I really was there — I think she suspects I've not been sleeping in the spare bed — so we had to wait."

"Did she?" Ron asked, rolling over and wrapping her in his arms. Instant warmth washed over him, and he buried his face into her hair.

"Yes."

"I'm glad you're here now." He kissed her shoulder and held her even tighter.

"Ron?"

"Mm?"

"What I wanted to say before, when I… couldn't…"

Ron loosened his hold on her, and she rolled over so she was facing him. He reached for his wand and lit it. He'd not realised she'd wanted to say anything before. "What is it?" he asked.

Under the wandlight, he saw her smile. "I wanted to say that I… love you."

The wand slipped from Ron's hand. He scrambled to find it from within the tangle of covers and relit it. "You… do?" In the mess that was the aftermath of war, it only occurred to Ron now that despite his intense feelings and love for her, he'd not actually said those words out loud. He'd thought them — every moment of every day — but he supposed his brain had been so convinced that she knew how he felt, that he had just assumed it was something they'd said to one another.

"Yes," Hermione said, her face practically glowing in the dim light.

"Oh, geez, I didn't even realise —"

"It's okay, Ron. I don't mean to rush you. I just wanted to tell you." She sounded so calm, so pleased with herself.

"What? Rush me? Oh, God, Hermione, I love you a ridiculous amount it's not even funny. I thought I told you that? Why have I never told you that?"

"Preoccupied?" Hermione suggested heartfully. "With a war, with losing our friends…"

Ron kissed her hard on the mouth, to which she responded enthusiastically. He felt her heart beating furiously against his chest, she was that close to him. The kiss deepened — by her, not him — and Ron became suddenly aware of every part of her. Her hands, in particular, had become rather adventurous, running along his arms, his chest, trailing further down... (Merlin, she was enthusiastic)... and then it hit him. He understood. And his bloody nerves got the better of him.

He pulled away, staring at her, the wand still in his hand. She stared back, her cheeks flushed, her breathing heavy, clearly determined to not feel embarrassed by her advancement.

Ron, however, didn't know what to do. Like forgetting to actually tell Hermione how he felt, anything other than holding her at night had not been a priority for him. He loved her deeply, he sought her comfort, but the grief still lingered and he'd not even contemplated taking their relationship further. Well, it had crossed his mind, but not as a serious thought. Not until after the funerals…

But now that it had been presented to him, even if she hadn't said the words directly, it seemed highly appealing.

"Have you, er, been thinking about this?" he asked, pulling completely away from her and sitting up in the bed.

"It's not something that spontaneously popped into my mind, if that's what you mean," Hermione said. For the first time, her voice sounded flat. "Sorry if I scared you. I just thought… I should probably have asked. Do you want to?"

"Yes!" Ron said, a little too quickly. He blushed, but then noticing the smile on her face he added, "Merlin, yes. I love you. I want to. You just caught me completely by surprise. That's all."

"Sorry." Hermione also sat up, facing him. "Perhaps I was a little too forward."

"No, no," Ron said. "I liked that." He grinned, albeit awkwardly. It didn't stop his body from tingling all over, though. A seed had firmly been planted in his mind now, and it was a good seed. A fantastic one.

"Just not tonight?" Hermione guessed.

Truthfully, as much as the idea thrilled him, it terrified him just the same. He was more than happy to kiss her, to hold her hand, but the concept of sex was something different. The insecurities he felt about being so intimate washed over him, just like they had done when Lavender had asked the same of him all those months ago.

The only difference this time was that he genuinely liked Hermione a whole lot more...

Taking his silence for hesitation, Hermione said, "I'm sorry, Ron. I didn't mean to —"

"Don't be," Ron said, reaching out and running a hand along her exposed arm. "You just made me start thinking."

"About?"

He watched her, his heart beating rapidly as he did. She was just incredible. Amazing. She was perfect, and there she was, scarred as much as him from the war, but wanting him. Ron. She loved him.

"Not tonight," he said, shaking his head. "But tomorrow? As nice as it was, you throwing yourself at me isn't exactly how I imagined it to go… not for the first time."

She smiled and nodded. "Okay," she said, and she crawled slightly forward on the bed and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around her, now realising how much he wanted her back, how much he wanted to be with her. Now, he had to exercise a whole lot of control because her touch set his skin on fire.

"Hm," he chuckled, pushing her away.

"What?" Hermione asked.

"Maybe we should… take a break," he said, uncomfortably.

"Why? Oh," Hermione flushed, seeing Ron's own red cheeks. She climbed off him. "Right. Sorry." She laid back down on the bed with Ron beside her, though he dared not touch her again just yet.

As he drifted off to sleep, his mind trailed to tomorrow night, and despite his heart pounding in his chest, and his sudden sweaty palms, it couldn't come quick enough.

His last thought before falling asleep was of Hermione, and how he simply could not control just how much he loved her.

----------------------------

And there is the first chapter of who knows how many! I hope you enjoyed, and remember, if you'd like some extra content, or just to interact, please follow the Insta (no spaces) 'whenihaveyou . romione'

This will also be published on ao3 (under FireTheCanon) and Tumblr (handle is 'whenihaveyouromione').

A MAJOR, HUGE, MASSIVE thank you to Autumn (insertcleverandwittytitlehere) who has graciously offered to beta this for me. Your feedback and help has already been AMAZING, along with your encouragement. THANK YOU.

[1magine-engine]

1404 (Prologue)

Fandom: Haikyuu!! Pairing: Kuroo Tetsuro x Youtuber Reader Words: 1500+ Posted: 26/11/20

Song(s) Featured: Moon on the Water by The Dying Breed (from Beck MCS)

“It’s actually really exciting.”

Tetsuro nods, knowing Kenma means it, whatever he’s talking about. Probably something about Bouncing Ball corp. and the new game they have in development. Really, Kenma hasn’t stopped talking about it since the project started almost half a year ago and while Tetsuro is interested enough to usually listen to him rave and gush, today’s just not that kind of day.

“-and the new voice actor I have in mind is really good. We save a lot of time and money cause they speak in both languages.”

Yup, they’re probably phenomenal if Kenma is so easy to compliment them. Tetsuro racks his brain trying to remember who he’s talking about.

“I’m actually thinking about having her as a guest on stream soon.”

Uh huh.

“Oh and I’m also going to shave my head and give my hair to that middle school girl who won’t stop messaging.”

Good for them.

“Okay, how many of those have you had today?”

Tetsuro looks down at the cup of coffee he’s forgotten he’s holding. “Uh…” his brows furrow and it’s enough for Kenma to pry the cup out of his hand and set it on the far end of the table.

“And you’re always telling me to get proper sleep.” Kenma gives him a look, sipping on his own drink. He exits Discord, Tetsuro’s sagging back, drooping shoulders and lifeless eyes, more concerning than his followers’ Rule 34 fanart. “Seriously are you okay man? Have you been sleeping? At all?”

Tetsuro shakes his head, the mere mention of sleep enough to slump him over the table completely. As far as he knows, a waiter hadn’t wiped it after the last couple of people who sat down, or before he and Kenma took their place. He finds he doesn’t care. “Stupid neighbors, always either fighting or fucking all night. It’s been going on for a month now.”

“Oh that’s rough.” Kenma winces, handing him back his coffee, knowing lunch break doesn’t last forever and Tetsuro has to return to his office as a zombie. “Tried filing a noise complaint?”

He was about to, one week into the couple’s constant spats, but hearing them scream at the top of their lungs at each other about money troubles and barely keeping themselves afloat stayed his hand. Tetsuro knows how difficult it is to get an apartment in his building, a prime position near the business district at a reasonable price. He also knows his neighbors to an extent, at least what they do for a living as a preschool teacher and a struggling musician. As much as he needs his sleep, he’s not so heartless as to put them out on the streets. “It’s fine,” he promises as he downs the rest of his coffee. “I’ve been living next door to these guys for almost two years now and they’ve always seemed happy before this. They’ll work through it and I then I can get some sleep.”

“If you say so,” Kenma says but he still stares down and shakes his head at the next waitress who tries to approach them with a pot of coffee.

It’s a month and two weeks in that Tetsuro reconsiders that noise complaint or at least considers gathering his neighbors from the same floor and staging an intervention. Mrs. Mamizuka across the hall has expressed her concerns to Kuroo in the elevator one morning, telling him they’ll surely notice how loud and disturbing they’ve become when they realize she hasn’t been giving them as many of her baked goods as she normally does. And Tanaka who’s taking up residence at the end of their hall has advised him to just go out at night, go to the convenience store next to the building and wait till they tire each other out or go partying with friends.

Oh, to be a college student again.

He’s not even in his mid-twenties and he wishes for the energy he used to have, the kind that could drive him through all his classes on just 3 hours of sleep. Maybe then, he could finish his damned paperwork. Maybe then he wouldn’t fall asleep on the bus and miss his stop.

“Been up working late nights Kuroo-san?” the night guard, Sato asks him when he drags his feet into the lobby after midnight.

Kuroo nods, also wishing he had half the middle aged man’s energy, because even at the latest hours of the night, Sato-san greets every tenant and guest with a smile. Kuroo could only force himself to return it. “Something like that.”

“Well you look pretty tuckered out. You should probably put off whatever you’re working on for the night Kuroo-san.” He wags an index finger like a weather man telling a fact about nature on the news. “Sleep is important you know.”

Doesn’t he know it.

When he crosses the threshold of his apartment, he doesn’t bother turning on the lights. He heads straight for his bedroom and musters up the energy to take off his jacket, tie, socks and shoes. The night is silent, save for a light chorus of crickets outside his window. He’s gotten home later than he would have any other time, a crescent moon sitting just past its peak outside his window. And he hopes, oh does he hope, that it means his neighbors have already fought all they can fight for the night. Or maybe the husband hasn’t come home yet and that’s why it hasn’t started. 

He regrets even thinking of it when he settles into bed and hears the distant sound of a door being unlocked and slammed open.

Tetsuro sighs, already rolling over to each for his messenger bag, his earphones sitting somewhere at the bottom. He stops his rummaging when no bedlam disturbs the night. Footsteps prick his ears but they don’t stomp and aren’t followed by booming voices trying to talk over each other. He rolls back over, leaning towards the wall and hearing nothing. Odd. More shuffling and trudging draw his eye up to the crag ceiling, to the apartment above his.

The kind elderly couple who used to live up there had mentioned wanting to move to the country for months. “The air is fresher there, better for old people like us,” the wife chuckled at him once when he’d helped carry her groceries across the lobby to the elevator. Not a week later, Tetsuro was helping the husband and their son move furniture out, just in time to miss the beginning of a hard spot in their neighbor’s relationship. But whoever has taken their place isn’t so fortunate but then again, maybe it’s him that’s out of luck. In the darkness of his apartment he stares up at the ceiling, brows furrowed.

He prays, prays to whatever kami watches over the luck and serenity of apartment buildings that it isn’t another couple that should’ve broken up yesterday. Hell, he’ll even take a new family with a rowdy kid. At least kids are usually out by 10 with their parents careful not to wake them, not banging on the walls or banging each other. No movie he’s watched or game he’s been in has ever left him in such suspense. After some more shuffling and gentle creak of chair legs against a wood floor, there’s silence. 

Tetsuro sits up, holding his breath.

“Full moon sways, 

gently in the night of one fine day.”

A car drives by, the doppler effect of it rushing down the street drowning out the first few notes of an acoustic guitar. Deft fingers play with practiced ease but do so with languid movement, catching on the strings more than plucking them. The voice, high and crooning, is the same, beautiful but almost lazy. Tired, he realizes, is a better word; she sounds as tired as he remembers he feels, once all the irritation at his neighbors and frustration with missing his stop ebbs away. Laying back down, he listens.

"On my way,  looking for a moment with my dear. 

Full moon waves, slowly on the surface of the lake. 

You are there, smiling in my arms 

for all those years."

Even as the song switches to strumming with the slightest bit of force, Tetsuro finds himself sinking deeper into his pillow, eyes growing heavy.

"What a fool, I don’t know ‘bout tomorrow, 

or what it’s like to be, Ah,"

He’s never heard the song in his life, neither does he remember enough of his English classes from high school to understand everything, but he doesn’t need to.

"I was sure, I couldn’t let myself go, 

even though I feel, the end."

Her voice and her guitar are muffled by the layers of wood and concrete between them. His window is open to let the cool night air and silver light of the moon in and he can tell hers is as well but she drowns out the chirping of crickets, the cars that drive by and even Tetsuro’s own thoughts as little by little, then all at once, he falls asleep.

"Full moon sways, gently in the night one fine day 

You were there, smiling in my arms,

 for all these years."

When he opens his eyes, it’s slow. Sleep inertia from a deep sleep is always worse but he finds his eyes widening as it goes away in minutes and he feel more rested than he has in years.

He blinks, staring up at the ceiling.

“Huh.”

[ckret2]

So I've been deeply pulled into the Radiosnake pairing bc of your fantastic writing! Problem is, now I have fic ideas but no knowledge of the Hazbin background. Can you tellI me where I can get more Hazbin info? I've only watched the pilot and read your stuff. I heard there were comics??

That is an excellent question anon, because right now it is really hard to get Hazbin background easily.

Okay, so, the canon info on Hazbin Hotel can be sort of sorted into four tiers, from most to least canon.

Tier 1: The Definitely Canon

There is, of course, the pilot. And then there is an Angel Dust prequel comic, only seven pages of which have been released so far. We’ve been told it’s gonna be finished and we’ve had glimpses of in-progress prequel comics for a couple other characters—most prominently Alastor’s and Charlie’s—but so far that unfinished Angel Dust comic is the only one that’s been officially released.

Finding the in-progress comic pages is... a challenge. Nobody, as far as I can tell, has been specifically collecting all of the pages we’ve seen so far. I was able to scrounge up:

Couple more Angel pages

some Alastor pages

another Alastor page

a random Alastor panel

another random Alastor panel—I’ve seen the full page of this before, Alastor goes “Hello ladies!” and they go “HELLO ALASTOR~<3″ but I can’t find the full page now

There’s a smattering more canon panels on the artist faustisse’s twitter, but I haven’t dug them all out, and some of the posts I’m gonna link in a lil bit have a glimpse of another panel.

If you haven’t already heard of Helluva Boss, I recommend looking into it as well. It’s a second series being created by the same folks, different cast of characters but set in the same version of Hell, so any canon details we learn in Helluva also apply to Hazbin.

Helluva’s pilot is here. Plus a cute music video here.

Earlier this month, during a BLM charity stream hosted by show artist Ashley Nichols—she runs regular streams under the title “HuniCast”—they released a few sneak peaks of future Helluva scenes, all compiled here.

And that’s it for canon. Two pilots, a music video, a smattering of future scenes, part of one comic, a few WIP pages/panels from other comics.

Tier 2: Pseudo-Canon

Everything else we currently know about Hazbin (and Helluva) are things that the creators have told us. Consequently, they’re all pseudo-canon—and likely subject to change in the future as the shows and comics are further developed and released. Some details that were released/described in the past have been contradicted at other times, or else radically changed by the time the pilot came out.

(For example, when Alastor was first created years and years ago as an OC with no plans for Hazbin, he was a demon deer who could shapeshift into a human shape—now he’s a demonized human with a few deer traits. And Charlie and Cherri Bomb used to look very different.)

So until and unless they make it into canon, all these pseudo-canon details are subject to change and should be taken with a grain of salt—but, they also comprise most of what we know about the characters’ backstory and the as-yet-unaired characters.

Pseudo-canon info on Hazbin is scattered mainly between two sources: the creators’ twitter accounts, and livestreams where they take questions and talk about the making of the show. If you and livestreams do not get along (my ADHD and livestreams do not get along), or if you don’t want to wade years and years back into twitter accounts to dig up every scrap of info on the characters the creators have ever mentioned, collating all the pseudo-canon info is gonna be hard. (It’s gonna be hard even if you do want to sit through the streams and dig through all their tweets.) Lots of fans, me included, depend on the absolutely heroic work of various fans who are willing and able to watch hours-long streams and collate a list of canon factoids released during the streams. I’ve reblogged as many of these posts as I’ve been able to find:

Alastor’s sound design (on twitter)

Alastor's Sound Design (post I made with screenshots of weird—but very interesting—subtitles slipped into the aforementioned video)

Sir Pentious and Cherri Bomb’s sound design

Niffty and Husk’s sound design

Charlie, Katie, and Tom’s sound design

Intro song’s sound design

Happy Hotel’s sound design

details from Faustisse (including a pic of a couple costume designs. Most of these posts come from zatyrlucy, who’s been doing a fantastic job of going stream-by-stream to get lists of details from the regular streams by Ashley Nichols and by comic artist Faustisse.)

more details from Faustisse (including a pic of the Von Eldritch family dining room)

Faustisse 3 (better look at that table)

Dollymoon’s Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART ONE (Shoutout again to dollymoon for compiling these, we’ve never spoken but I am eternally grateful for this service. Dollymoon’s posts are THE single most reliable compilation of Hazbin Hotel’s nebulous pseudo-canon facts that I have found to date, including both links to the sources and timestamps where applicable. Dollymoon’s URL has changed since making this post so the “read more” link doesn’t work but the “source” or “reblogged from” links direct correctly to the new blog. Incidentally, the risk of other blog creators deleting their blogs/posts or changing their URLs is why in info posts like these, I always link to my own reblogs rather than their original posts—their original posts might vanish without warning, but I know I ain’t gonna delete my posts, so these links will still work in the future.)

Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART TWO

Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART THREE

Faustisse 4

HuniCast - Australian Wildlife Relief charity stream

I think this was a faustisse stream (the original source deleted these posts, so the comic pages that were originally behind that read more cut are now gone.)

Faustisse stream 6?

And those are all the masterposts of factoids I’ve managed to collect. If anyone has more masterposts, chuck ‘em at me.

Even this isn’t all the knowledge that’s been released about the show. The posts that dig the farthest back are Dollymoon’s, and even they don’t comprehensively cover all of Hazbin’s production. A couple of these characters, Vivziepop created as a teenager, so there’s some truly ancient concept art floating around out there that will have details that probably aren’t canon anymore... but might still be until something happens to actively contradict them.

Tier 3: The Wiki

The wiki is kind of an absolute mess. It’s a chaotic blend of things actually seen in the pilots/comic, things mentioned at some point in some stream somewhere, and wild fan speculation based on what they headcanon as plausible based on the above, all mixed together with very little indication for which is canon, pseudo-canon, fanon, or speculation. Most of the statements on the wiki don’t have citations.

(And, on top of that, half the main characters’ info gets split up into separate tabs instead of just having a normal-ass wiki page, AND their image galleries are on COMPLETELY SEPARATE pages that are linked to in one of the tabs, and the most important characters all have TWO SEPARATE GALLERIES. Which doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the facts hidden underneath those tabs, but nevertheless drives me up the wall.)

Some things on the wiki were added according to info released so long ago it’s probably changed by now. Some are possibilities that got reported as facts. Other things on the wiki have unambiguously changed, or else are just flat-out incorrect. (For instance, at this moment Alastor’s page still lists him as an overlord, even though it's been confirmed that Alastor is not an overlord despite his power level because he isn’t interested in and didn’t pursue that position, per this stream. For a little bit, somebody’s fanart of their headcanon human Alastor got added to the wiki as concept art.)

tl;dr: the wiki should never be trusted as a primary source. The wiki’s better than it used to be. Even so, at this time, it’s only trustworthy to fill in the gaps of what you already know is true from other, better sources.

The thing it’s good at is it more or less compiles all the known info all in one place. Trying to figure out who the hell this Vox guy is is really hard if you’re reading for mentions of him in compilations of a dozen different streams, much less if you’re trying to comb through those dozen streams yourself, plus a dozen more, plus three different artists’ twitters. In comparison, it’s really easy to, say, just go look at Vox’s wiki page, where all the trivia is compiled. (And Vox’s page is actually one of the better cited on the wiki. Look at all those numbers!)

So, if you need to find out who this character is you’ve never heard of before, if you want to see a full list of the thus far named characters, if you don’t remember whether Alastor likes coffee or tea, if you want to know what Angel’s twin sister looks like, if you need a reminder of Sir Pentious’s death year... check the wiki. It’s an okay starting point.

But, if you see a “fact” on the wiki that you yourself don’t remember from straight out of the pilot, and it doesn’t have a citation that links to a tweet or a stream... regard it suspiciously. And do not trust it unquestioningly as fact until and unless you have seen the source.

Tier 4: Noncanon Creator Shitposting

I’ve mentioned Ashley’s HuniCast streams a couple times. The biggest draw of them is that she usually gets several of the voice actors in the streams, where they’ll happily say nonsense in their character voices. For the most part, they’re not sharing any actual canon info they’ve been given on their characters, just goofing around pretending to be their characters. Nevertheless, a lot of the things that happen in streams get accepted as broad fandom headcanons, like Alastor being into dad jokes. (My favorite, for obvious reasons, is this one.)

It’s easy to find the source audio for all this wonderful nonsense by searching youtube for “HuniCast highlights,” and then rummaging around for animatics people make out of the audio. The only one noncanon video of this sort I can think of that didn’t originally come from HuniCast is a lone one from Alastor’s singing voice (who’s a different voice actor than his speaking voice).

So, obviously, none of these are canon. But they do come from some of the people actually involved in the creation of the show, and they are in the characters’ canon voices, so a whole lot of people treat them as semi-canon anyway. (Even the wiki lists “dad jokes” among Alastor’s likes, which to my knowledge hasn’t come up anywhere except for HuniCast streams.) Since they’re so broadly-known, they’re worth knowing about as important sources of fanon, even if you don’t want to adopt them into your own headcanons. They’re basically the same level of canon as blooper reels.

[teganberry]

Hi Everyone!

I wanted to start making proper update posts from time to time so I can keep track of things and let you all know what’s going on. I’ll cover what I’ve been up to, what I’m hoping to do in the upcoming months and maybe include a few sketches and the like.

I’ve put everything below the cut so I don’t clog up your dashboard with text. I’m going to cover of some general life stuff, animatics, AU updates including Dark Light, as well as some drawings that I’m not going to include in any other posts!

Ok, let’s start with what I guess we can call the not so great stuff.

Basically I’m not well. Please don’t worry I’m not suffering from anything life threatening. I don’t want to go into detail about what’s going on but one issue I’m having as a result is that I’m exhausted and dizzy all the time. I can sleep for several days and still be exhausted. To say it’s made life a bit difficult is kind of an understatement, but luckily illustration is something I’m still able to focus on, and hopefully it will continue on that way.

You may be wondering why I’m telling you this and the reason is that just in case I do go MIA off tumblr or socials for a while you’ll understand why so you won’t worry, and know that I will come back. While I adore communicating on these platforms with you all, certain elements have become very stressful for me which isn’t helping my health. Worrying about whether my content is good enough, fear of fandom drama, confusion as to whether people I really admire as creators consider me a friend or an annoyance. Worrying about followers, stressing over who does and doesn’t follow me back (does it even matter?), and dealing with hate. I’m clearly overthinking everything but piling it all on top of everything else that’s going on, I really do feel like I’ll need a break from it very soon.

Thankfully I have a great support network IRL who helped me through the last time my health was less than awesome, so I know I’ll get through this lot as well. I’m also incredibly grateful for the support I get from all of you for my content, you’re all so wonderful. And I’m so glad I’ve made genuine friends through tumblr who I can chat with and just have a laugh. You’re all the absolute best! Ok, no more emotional sappy stuff I promise, though I do have one more bit of not so fun stuff. But this one has a silver lining!

Animatics

I’ve decided to take a step back from making Kingdom Hearts animatics. I’m not going to stop making them completely but for the foreseeable future I’ll probably only make very short little animations and parodies. The longer formats aren’t viable for me right now and I get the strong sense that they’re not the content most people want to see from me, which is all good. It’s better I take that time and energy and channel it into illustrations for you all, and work on original animatics for my folio.

This does unfortunately mean I won’t be continuing the Verum Rex animatic story. I’m so very sorry to anyone who was hoping for a continuation, however, I will be taking many of the concepts from that video and reworking them into Dark Light including my version of Subject X. I had started work on another Verum Rex animatic, but as it won’t be going ahead I’d like to share a couple shots with you all here.

Dark Light

Now speaking of Dark Light! I did mention I would have an announcement at the start of this month and well, now we’re here and I got nothing >.<

Ok, It’s not that I have nothing I’ve got some line art, but again due to health stuff I’m going to push the announcement back to the end of the month so I have the proper amount of time to do all the setting up I need to do. Illustrations and graphics take time after all. As a consolation there will be a sneak peak of something I’m working on at the end of the post!

All the AUs

And finally an update on my two other AU’s, Atlantis and J-Pop Idols (yes I hadn’t forgotten about that one). While I’m going to focus most of my energy into Dark Light, I’m going to treat these two AUs as my side projects, so you can expect to see sketches from time to time, some full illustrations and even a bit of writing. I intend to flesh out both stories a lot more over the next 12 months, so hopefully you’ll all enjoy what I come up with!

I think that’s pretty much it for now! Though I’m also going to try and do more fanart for fandoms outside of Kingdom Hearts, my brain can only take so much of Nomura’s fever dream at a time haha!

Thanks so much everyone, and here’s the little look at some Dark Light content! Yes of course it was going to be Kairi

[official-alan-dabiri]

I make my own HotS Content: Samuro

So with the new cadence of patch notes, I feel like this blog needs to provide something else. Sure, I love the glorious fanart, especially stuff that I can plant a flag in and yell that it’s Heroes of the Storm content now. But I feel like a nontrivial number of you are here to listen to me yammer about the game, not just as a filter for the blizzard-related tags to present you with tasteful fanart and not a bunch of thirsty AU ship art. (Seriously, why are people so horny for Junkrat?)

As such, I want to talk about an issue that has become close to me in recent times: Samuro. First of all: yes, I have been talking about him a lot with Blackstorm and others in the Wind Striders discord. Yes, I have been playing him a lot in the last couple of weeks. Yes, I have seen the mountains of hate heaped on the hero on Reddit and elsewhere. And, finally, yes, I think I know better than everyone else on the issue regardless of their level of expertise or in-game rank.

Because I know how I can get, the rest will be under the cut.

Let me start by saying that the core problem with Samuro is one that has always been close to my heart. I’m not going to dump out my tragic backstory here, but let me just say that character balance has always been an issue I’ve been very concerned with, and Samuro is the best example I can think of for the most central issue to it: the problem of invulnerability.

Premise: Invulnerability isn’t inherently overpowered. The problem arises when invulnerability is paired with a strong - or even just middling - offense. A character’s capacity to kill must be balanced against their capacity to die. Valla puts out some of the most absurd damage numbers, but she pops like a bubblegum bubble under the slightest bit of pressure. Yrel can jump into the enemy team with impunity and soak up all the damage in the world, but is little more than an annoyance to all but the squishiest heroes.

Some of the best heroes in the game bend this rule. Xul and Rexxar are two of the highest winrate heroes in the game because they have great survivability while still outputting good damage. Especially Xul with his recent rework putting so much more damage into his kit with the new buffed skeletons while actually making him tankier with a few new talent options. Chen is another example: while for the most part, he puts out very little damage but is an unkillable annoyance, after level 10 he has the ability to press R and just choose a member of the enemy team to kill. Greymane outputs ridiculous damage, and while he lacks sustain, he has baseline armor, good mobility tools, and a safe range that all make him much harder to kill than other ranged assassins who do less damage than he does.

So what does that have to do with Samuro?

Samuro, optimally played, is functionally invulnerable. A player at peak skill with Illusion Master can only die when they make a mistake. He can always escape. He can always self-cleanse your CC, bait out your heroics, soak all of the damage you deal on a clone and then swap out of the fight to the clone that he had soaking another lane this whole time when you think you have him. And he leaves a clone behind that he can use at will to jump right back in a few seconds. He is just not going to die. Ever.

This is, obviously, overpowered, right? A hero that you can’t outplay? A hero you can’t kill?

Not necessarily.

Samuro has two big weaknesses, and they are both his requirement to reach late game. If your team has a single knockback ability, Samuro has no ability to get into attack range until he has his engage tool at level 13. If your team has literally any healer, Samuro has no ability to kill anyone inside of their effective range until level 16.

So is he overpowered? This is the same as Chen, except he doesn’t come online to do damage until even later, right?

This is the core of the problem. Samuro is a melee assassin. People respond to him uncloaking in their backline the same way they do to a Zeratul or Valeera, or a diving Greymane or Illidan. Those heroes demand an immediate and violent response. Samuro specifically exploits that expectation. Basically any time pre-16, you can almost entirely ignore him. Pressuring him with autoattacks and maybe a knockback or a slow will force him out long before he can do anything useful.

So then why is his winrate so high? Why so much hate?

Two reasons: First, once he has 16 he can and will demolish your entire team. I’ve done it, and I’m a terrible Samuro. But second: because nobody knows that he isn’t a Zeratul or Illidan. Samuro appears in your backline, and suddenly real resources are diverted onto him. Heroics are burnt to dislodge a hero who is not a threat warranting that level of response, and Samuro just doesn’t die. Then when his team moves in, that’s a resource that isn’t ready again. And these responses are spent even pre-10, let alone pre-16. The result is that Samuro gets a high winrate from enemy teams not knowing how to deal with him in the early game, and so they lack an advantage going into the late game.

So he’s not a problem, then? He’s balanced, impactful, and interesting. He just needs to be better-understood by the playerbase.  He doesn’t need any changes. Right?

Again, not necessarily.

In my opinion, one of two things needs to happen. First: Samuro could be moved from Melee Assassin to Bruiser. If you look at Samuro as a bruiser, suddenly he’s a lot less of a problem. Players will respond to him the way they do to Yrel or Chen. Changes made to him in the future can focus him towards that role, enabling him as a nigh-immortal distraction instead of trying to balance around damage output. But I recognize that I want this because I’m an offlaner at heart. Ultimately, the only change the hero needs is one of perception. I like him right now because I can do Chen things when Chen is banned. It ain’t broke.

Why fix it? Because many of the Samuro onetricks have left the hero, and the game entirely, because they feel like Samuro is undertuned. Why? Because they don’t feel like he has any impact. The high skill requirement of the hero is not rewarded. This confused me, as it seems like immortality should be reward enough, but they suffer the same misconception as the people who think Samuro is overpowered. They feel like their reward should be damage output, because Samuro is an assassin, and there’s no way to leverage your skill into more damage until the late game.

As such, the other thing that could happen is that Samuro needs to lose his immortality in exchange for damage. There’s a lot of ways to do that, and the most interesting of them is attaching a damage boost to his escape abilities, to incentivize using them aggressively instead of defensively, giving him the choice to play aggressively, leveraging player skill to know when and where to risk death in exchange for damage. I think Harsh Winds is really good design, forcing the choice between using Wind Walk for safety or for damage, and applying that same logic to Image Transmission - either early game or baseline - could be just the ticket. An easier change would be to just nerf his cooldowns but increase his attack damage, which ultimately seems more likely because Blizzard is lazy, and while it will make the hero much less fun, it would push him towards the role everyone expects of him.

Most likely, though, is just a straight nerf, thanks to his high winrate and the extremely vocal detractors. This would push fans of the hero that much farther down towards giving up on the hero - and HotS itself - entirely. It is unfortunate, because the hero is really interesting from a design perspective. I’ve toyed with the problem of invulnerability from a design perspective for literally sixteen years. I would hate to see an interesting skill-based interpretation of it fall any farther than it already has.

[beihonglin]

does anyone know whats happening with lu dinghao??

So about a month ago, Banana Culture released a statement on their official Weibo account: 

Because TANGRAM member Lu Dinghao’s personal actions have severely affected the progress of the group, the company has decided to indefinitely halt his group activities. TANGRAM will continue activities as 6 members with Lin Chaoze, Jiang Jingzuo, Qiu Zhixie, Bei Honglin, Li Ruotian, and Gao Maotong. The company will also continue to give TANGRAM our utmost support. We are grateful for the fans who have continually given us attention and love. The company and the members will give back in full and repay everyone with better mindsets and works. Thank you.

(translation: TANGRAMSubs)

There are people who have mistranslated “personal actions” (个人行为) as “behavioural issues” to get retweets and afterwards blocked people who have tried to correct them. Do note that this is a mistranslation - there has never been, nor will there ever be, explicit confirmation from anyone that Dinghao was suspended from TGM for behaviour problems.

What has been confirmed, though, is that Dinghao is no longer a member of TGM. He removed the TGM- prefix from his Weibo handle and changed his bio from “TANGRAM 男团成员” (member of boy group TANGRAM) to “香蕉娱乐旗下艺人” (artist under Banana Culture Entertainment). 

Anything from here on are fan-spread rumours on Weibo - just know that nothing is confirmed and use your own judgement when reading them. 

Dinghao’s fans (Milus) believe that because Banana has not been explicitly promoting TGM the same way other groups that came out of Idol Producer do (e.g. Nine Percent and ONER having advertisements for products everywhere), Dinghao has not been able to reach his full potential. They believe that as a result of Banana not promoting TGM, Dinghao was forced into signing contracts privately outside of his contract with Banana (rumours say that this was a contract with L’Oreal) in order to maintain his popularity. Because of this breach of contract (the “personal actions” referred to in the statement), Banana removed Dinghao from TGM and are ‘putting him in the freezer’. 

There are also speculations that Dinghao broke his contract because he was confident that another company would be able to buy him out, but because that deal fell through, he’s ‘stuck’ in Banana’s ‘freezer’. 

Do take note that these speculations are from solo fans have been clamouring for Dinghao to go solo since Idol Producer ended - they believe that he is too good/popular for any group. They attend TGM events to support Dinghao and only Dinghao, and look down on the other six members and their fans. Their main intention is to paint Dinghao in the most innocent light they can, so remember to take that bias factor into account. Use your judgement as to how much of their reasoning you want to take seriously. 

There are also speculations that this happened before Lunar New Year and that Dinghao and Banana have been in legal negotiations for a while; the only reason why this statement was made was because TGM was preparing their spring comeback and Banana needed a way to explain why TGM was coming back as six. 

So those are the rumours as to what happened with Dinghao. Below is what has been happening since then.

There mostly have been two main reactions to TGM coming back as six - the fans who are angry at Banana and the fans who intend to continue supporting the remaining six members. 

The fans who are angry at Banana are mostly angry at the fact that since there was a breach of contract, Banana will be unlikely to promote Dinghao with TGM until legal issues are cleared. Which, to me, is ironic because Dinghao was the one who broke the contract in the first place. (Although it can be argued that Banana’s promotion strategy (or lack thereof) forced him into breaking the contract, it’s also worth pointing out that none of the other members who have been offered private contracts broke their contracts.) Either way, because of this, these fans refuse to support TGM’s comeback because Dinghao isn’t in it. Understandably, a large portion of these fans are Dinghao’s solo stans. This segment does not just comprise Weibo fans - there are plenty of international fans on Twitter and Youtube who share the same sentiment. 

This surge in anger at Banana correlates with a surge in Weibo hate comments against TGM. In the weeks after Banana announced that TGM would come back as six without Dinghao, there were more and more Weibo posts and comments insulting a six-membered TGM as well as accounts that posted death wishes towards the six members themselves. These peaked after Dinghao changed his profile picture to unnecessarily dramatic fanart of him looking beaten up, which most of his impressionable and defensive fans read into as Dinghao being ‘bullied’. Of course, correlation does not imply causation, so think of this what you will. 

There are, of course, many other fans who continue to support a six-membered TGM, and a segment of these fans will also support both TGM and Dinghao in whatever path he ends up on. 

Anyway, stream Stay With You (eng subs here).  

[marleyward01]

Hey there @love-letters-x-cardigan-sweaters, I'm your SJ Secret Santa!!

Your prompt was 'Christmas at the cabin' and I really hope I’ve nailed it for you!! Also, I have an art blog (@marleywtoons) as well and thought I'd draw you some SJ fanart to go along with the story SO you get 2 gifts in 1!!

Merry Christmas, hun! Enjoy xoxo

White Christmas

It's snowing the morning of Christmas Eve. The first time it has since they'd arrived. Sparkling white flakes float from the sky blanketing everything in sight with a thick layer of frost. He watches the dance of the specs as they fall lazily by the window. It's a magical sight. But it's got nothing on the woman lying in his bed. 

She's curled up in sheets, hair a mess, and sleeping soundly. He doesn't need to check if she's naked beneath the thin material, he already knows she is, and the leg she's strewn comfortably across his side of the bed makes him long to run his fingers along the smooth, pale skin. And he would, but he hardly ever gets the chance to simply take her in. It's like admiring a piece of fine art, you wouldn't dare touch it for fear of spoiling the image. You simply...enjoy it.

Despite the weather, its toasty warm inside the cabin thanks to the fireplace. The place smells of coffee and wood and her. A unique scent that makes him feel home. He's always enjoyed the cabin, even as a child it was his favourite place. All the surrounding nature, the cosiness, the quiet. It was perfect for him, and he never thought it could get any better...until she finally agreed to join him.

She's been here before, of course. Plenty of times since they'd began this dance. But this is their first Christmas together, alone, at the cabin and he intends to make the most of both it and her before they eventually have to part ways once more. It's for that reason that, for the first time since Charlie's death, he's actually made an effort to decorate his getaway home.

He was a little rusty, didn't even know where he'd put the decorations all those years ago, but eventually he pulled something resembling 'festive' together for her. And it didn't go unnoticed or unappreciated. She loved it. Loved how warm and inviting the place felt with hues of red and green scattered around every room. Loved the way the fireplace seemed even more dreamy even though it only had one lonely stocking attached to the end. And she had especially loved that, while he had done the hard work finding a tree and positioning it inside, he'd left decorating it to her. And for him, he'd loved watching her place each decoration upon the branches with such unwavering concentration that he would swear she was approaching it the same way she did with the tech they found off world. It was heartwarming to say the least.

There's a sharp inhale of breath from the bed and he perks up at the movement. She stirs, body slowly stretching lazily like a cat. An arm reaches out to smooth over his side of the bed and he can tell she'd been expecting to find his skin beneath her fingers by the way her face scrunches when she doesn't. Its adorable and he smirks as her eyes slowly flutter open.

She regards him with curiosity, a sleepy “hey” falling from her lips before she rakes her delicate fingers through her hair. He's mesmerised by the way she moves. She has no idea how amazing she looks. “Hey”, he replies softly.

She beckons him towards her by patting the bed and he's helpless to refuse. The bed dips and rolls her into his side as he crawls his way above her. She giggles at the movement and shuffles herself back so she can peer up at him. “Morning,” she whispers before pushing up to brush her lips against his.

It's chaste, he suspects that's because she's self conscious about morning breath – she needn't be. She tastes just fine any time of day which is why he replies “Mornin, Carter!” then leans himself down to kiss her again.  

When they break apart, she's in a dreamy state of bliss that he no doubt mirrors. He loves waking up to her. Loves being able to kiss her and touch her. Run his fingers through her hair. Feel her nails lightly trail up and down his back. It's the small things. The intimate touches. The soft love.

When she opens her eyes again, she asks about the smell of coffee. The smell is stronger now and even he can't deny his own desire for caffeine. He'd brewed it earlier he tells her which elicits a sigh of utter happiness.

Reluctantly they leave the bedroom. She steals one of his oversized sweaters, something she seems to do every time they spend time together alone. He doesn't mind, though.  It's big enough to cover most of her body leaving him with the fantastic view of her long legs peeking out beneath the bottom hem. Its sexy as hell and watching her pad barefoot through the cabin dressed like that is a view he could never tire of.

They settle into an easy routine of making coffee together and before long they're curled up by the fireplace looking out the window at the snowflakes drifting by. Personally, he loves snow. Loves the cold. Always had. There was nothing like skating on ice or seeing the landscape draped in a blanket of white. It's one of his favourite times of year. And he tells her this. Rambles on about the days he played ice hockey as a teenager and how he almost broke his leg one time as a kid when he tried to jump into the frozen pond outside. He expects a giggle,or smart retort, but when he glances at her, her brows are furrowed and eyes distant. He's on instant alert.

When he asks her what's wrong; “It reminds me of Antarctica!” is all she says. He doesn't need to ask her to explain. He knows. Remembers. Between nearly dying there the first year of their gate travels then the whole frozen in an ancient pod fiasco, he doesn't blame her for associating the weather with the emotions that raged during those times. If he hadn't been so out of his mind during both those instances he would probably feel the same. He watches the snow fall with her for a moment before he gets an idea. “Go get dressed, I wanna show you something!”

She complies, curiously, and before long they're rugged up and trudging through the snow away from the cabin.

The trail he leads her up isn't difficult, even with the snow covered ground. And it's not that he doesn't think she could handle something rougher, they've certainly been through worse, but it's just not necessary for this journey. They trek upwards until they reach a peak that provides a perfect view of the cabin, pond and surrounding woodland. Its beautiful, he knows, and he's pleased when he hears her gasp at the scenery.

It's still snowing as they look over the horizon. Light flakes falling gently all around them. Its dreamy. Cold and wet as it feels, but still such a magnificent sight to behold.

“It's not like Antarctica here,” he says softly, after a while of taking in the view himself. She hums in agreement and he can see her shoulders sag, stress caused by the memories slowly easing away from her. After a while she turns and regards him with rosy cheeks and warmth in her eyes. “Thank you,” she smiles, eyes so full of adoration.

“Always,” he reminds her then moves forward to brush a sparkling snowflake from her nose. He's not surprised when she immediately leans in for a kiss. He reciprocates eagerly. Lips cold, and noses icy. They still melt into each other perfectly.

The heat from their combined breath warms their mouths until he can feel the softness again. She tastes sweet and warm and if it wasn't for the cold now stinging his fingertips, he'd quite happily stay there, on that peak, kissing her forever.

When they pull away, the heat radiates, but it's a different heat. The kind that makes them wordlessly rush home to the warmth of the open fire and the glow of the lights on the Christmas tree and the comfort of the bed. The kind that elicits soft moans or rough groans, or sometimes both at the same time. It's the kind of heat that keeps them wrapped around each other until their stomachs grumble...and then until their tired limbs succumb to sleep.

And after they fall asleep, it's he who wakes first again. The first rays of sunlight stirring him from his sated slumber.

It's snowing on Christmas morning, but he doesn't notice this time. She's wrapped around him and his hands stroking that exposed leg the way he wanted to yesterday. The smooth skin feeling like silk beneath his touch.

Outside the snowflakes fall silently, and its beautiful...but with all the magic of a snowy Christmas morning, it's got nothing on the woman lying in his bed.

[sage-nebula]

Misty!

First impression:

I was eight years old so I literally do not remember specifics, haha. I do know that I liked her a lot, though, to the point where I named Red “Misty” in either my Red Version or Blue Version playthrough. (I know that would make things confusing given Misty is a character in the game, but child!me didn’t care as much.)

Impression now:

I love her and I’m so proud of the progress she’s made.

Favorite moment:

HMMMM, it’s hard to say because there are so many. The scene where she jumps into the ocean during a storm and saves Ash’s life during The Power of One comes to mind. The scene where she lets Togetic go because even though she doesn’t want to say goodbye, she knows this is what’s best for Togetic comes to mind. The scene where she tames and bonds with Gyarados despite her trauma comes to mind. The scene where she mega evolves her blue sweetheart in her renovated Gym comes to mind as well. There are so many great Misty moments; that’s what makes it enjoyable to be a fan of her character! 

Idea for a story:

Maybe showing just how she trained her sisters to be able to handle the Gym in her absence, or a fic where she becomes the water master of the Kanto Elite Four at some point in the future.

Unpopular opinion:

This is a petty one, but I don’t care, it needs to be said: Misty would not have long hair when she grows up. Honestly, seriously, canonically, she wouldn’t. We see older!Misty in the Johto games, and her hair is still short. We see older!Misty in promotional artworks, and her hair is still short. We see adult!Misty in the unused trailer for Mewtwo Strikes Back and her hair is STILL SHORT. Long hair is a pain in the ass to deal with, especially when wet. Misty spends all her time in the pool. There’s no reason why she’d grow her hair out and have to deal with that mess, especially when every single piece of canonical evidence we have for what Misty looks like when she’s older shows her with short hair.

And also?

I also feels like it completely undermines a major part of Misty’s character arc, which is her overcoming the feeling of being in her sisters’ shadow and truly realizing that she really is sensational the way she is. Fanart of Misty with long, flowing locks makes her look like an orange-haired carbon copy of her sisters. It gives off the impression that Misty can’t be beautiful unless she styles her hair and fashions her wardrobe to look like Daisy, Lily, and Violet. And that’s complete nonsense. Misty used to say that she was the fourth Sensational Sister with such outrage and anger because deep down, she feared and felt that she wasn’t. Her temper dialed down as her confidence in herself grew, and by the time she leaves the main party---and especially once she saves the Cerulean Gym---she’s come to realize that she truly is sensational the way she is, and her sisters (or Daisy at least) begin to realize that as well. Misty doesn’t need long hair to be beautiful, and everything we see of her in canon---including, again, a trailer showing that anime!Misty ALSO has short hair as an adult---promotes the idea that she wouldn’t grow out her hair to match her older sisters. This is the Misty hill I choose to die on.

(inb4 “people can draw what they want!!!!!” --- Yeah, they can, and you’ll notice that I’ve not sent this to a single artist, but rather I’m talking about it on my own blog, untagged in the sitewide tags. People can draw what they want, but it’s been a pet peeve of mine for over a decade now and, just as people can draw what they want, I can say what I want. You’re just going to have to deal with it, friend.)

Favorite relationship:

This is probably going to sound cliché, but her relationship with Ash. I love so many things about this relationship and I’m really glad that it’s the one that I got to grow up with.

To begin with, I love that even though there is mutual romantic attraction between them (in the Japanese version as well, don’t let the haters fool you, they lie on purpose because they figure people won’t check), that’s not the core of their relationship. The attraction they share developed naturally, over time. They started off as traveling companions / friends / and even rivals of a sort first, and as they got to know one another, that attraction started developing. And it showed in subtle ways. It was little things like how they immediately reached for each other and held hands when Brock suggested they do so in a foggy forest, leaving Brock to fend for himself. It was Ash waking up after the shipwreck to see both Misty and Brock passed out on the beach, and panicking as he went to Misty’s side before he was just like “hey Brock.” It was Misty physically assaulting Ritchie in front of an entire stadium of people (and broadcasted on national television) because she thought that he did something to make Ash not turn up for his match. These moments aren’t inherently romantic, but they do show how much the two came to care for one another over time. And as if that wasn’t enough? We have Ash seeing Misty surrounded by shoujo bubbles and sparkles when he sees her in her yukata in “The Ghost of Maiden’s Peak”; we have Misty getting huffy and jealous when Ash shows attraction or interest in other girls (“The School of Hard Knocks”; The Power of One); we have Ash being so distracted by Misty being interested in another guy (Danny) that he falls off a mountain and nearly dies, and then later dejectedly asks “what about me?” when Misty rushes to great Danny instead of him. We had evidence that they did have romantic attraction for each other, but those moments were in the background of their relationship. They were best friends first, romantic interests in second.

And the thing is, they were best friends. They competed with each other at times (and Misty was always shown to be on equal footing with Ash; that wasn’t a new development for SM!), but they also supported and helped each other. They’re both snarky and sassy as all hell (especially in the OS, when Ash was at his sassiest), and they snark together, too. They’ve got similarities and differences that complement each other and make them an interesting and dynamic duo to watch. Despite what people think, they only really fought regularly in their early days (and even then, their fights were rarely so serious as to actually hurt each other’s feelings; since they have similar snarky mouths, they didn’t take most of it to heart). Most of their relationship was spent getting along and having friendly bants.

Anyway, Misty’s relationship with Ash helped both of them grow as trainers and people. Misty helped show Ash the ropes since she had more experience than he did, and Ash opened Misty’s eyes up to the different possibilities the world had to offer. Their relationship is one that’s beneficial to both of them, on every level, and I really like that.

Favorite headcanon:

That she becomes the water master of the Kanto Elite Four someday, probably. She achieves her dream at last. ♥