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life-in-the-monster-haus · 2 years

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you sound extremely white…. especially in your posts defending Gil and blaming shit on Lagoona, like….

your posts only convinced me even more that those two shouldn’t be together.

girls shouldn’t have to put up with racism for the sake of a guy and implying that lagoona should just go “that sucks 😢” whenever gil mentions his parent’s racism? Like wtf how is that a better lesson for kids than her wanting her boyfriend to stand up for himself? and if protecting lagoona from racism is oh so terrible for gil, just…. have them break up ffs. don’t encourage kids to stay in relationships like that where one has to endure racism for the other cus otherwise the person with racist parents gets punished.

Like, way to make it POC’s fault for racist parents being abusive to their kids? “it’s all lagoona’s fault cus she forced gil to take a stand against racism even tho his parents would punish him” like wow. you truly sound very white.

let’s also not gloss over the fact that you called Lagoona a bitch at one point for crying when Frankie asked her about boys. or you calling Draculaura a cow at one point too like wtf??? so maybe lay off the gendered insults for girls??? before jumping to the defense of a character POC dislike and who’s flaws you excuse as trauma cus you see yourself in him.

I'm gonna put this answer under a cut because some folks get cranky when I make long posts, even though there is a feature in your settings that can auto trim long posts, I get blamed anyways... it's easier to blame the person than to address the problem directly isn't it?... hey! that's kinda what happens to Gil! let's discuss.

Saying someone sounds white based off text and nothing else. 🚩🚩🚩

I'm Puerto Rican, thanks for asking. But I blamed shit on Lagoona because, some stuff was her fault, specifically stuff that put Gil directly in harms way. Maybe your cool with dumping your personal baggage on a disabled 16 year old but I'm not and no one should.

My posts were never written to prove that Gil and Lagoona are meant to be together, perfect for each other OR even good together, you're confusing me with a shipper, at most I've stated Gil is decent boyfriend material and I stand by that. The entire reason I write them is to prove Gil is an innocent and defend him from slander that this annoyingly prevalent sub-section of the fandom has been spreading that has absolutely NO basis in canon, if you read my posts like you claim to you'd have known that. I'm not really sure WHY Gil has become the fandom punching bag, Maybe it's because he's less masculine than the other MH guys? is it because he's Asian coded? is it because he needs a device to breathe? Maybe it's some unholy combination of homophobia, racism and ableism. fuck if I know, so I went looking: I watched hundreds of webisodes, days worth of movies and countless pages of teen wank in diaries so that y'all didn't have to and I put it in an easily digestible format but I guess that wasn't good enough for you hmm?

Girls shouldn't have to put up with racism for the sake of a guy. you're completely correct and I don't think I ever made that claim. UNFORTUNATELY saltwater people DO face racism in the G1 Monster High universe and Lagoona would face that same racism regardless if she was dating Gil or not. The racism isn't radiating from Gil, Lagoona says herself there is a long standing system of oppression against saltwater monsters which I covered here.

Also don't put words in my mouth, it's poor form- especially in a text based forum where people can go back and re-read everything we both said. I never once implied "that lagoona should just go “that sucks 😢” whenever gil mentions his parent’s racism" I said it was wrong of her to force him to tell his parents that he was seeing her, especially when she knew they had a threat hanging over his head. Also Gil doesn't just go around mentioning his parents are racist, it's just a fact that exists in this universe and when he IS forced to talk about it, it's always spoken with great shame. Like when he tried to dump Lagoona during the Gloom Beach arc, Y'all think they should have broken up? well here you go. Gil tried to break things off with Lagoona before they were even officially dating, he knew it was painful and tried to spare her. But she likes him and he likes her, so obviously that didn't work.

Gil DID stand up for himself, A LOT. I documented it WELL with pictures, links and colored words for emphasis! I practically spoon fed it to the reader from a silver platter, a child could understand it. If you read my review well enough to understand it to the point that you have a problem with it that you just HAD to tell me about, you'd know that. But clearly you gave my review as much attention as you gave canon because here is what happened in canon again since I don't think you listened the first time it aired or when I said it. In Episode 24 Gil defends Lagoona against Mr. Hack's bigoted statement that Sea Monsters are bad parents, they weren't even dating at that point they were just classmates. He defends Lagoona directly again in Volume 2 where he speaks directly to his parents (Probably his Father?) On the phone in front of Lagoona. THAT phone call? got him sent to a Boarding school far away as punishment for defying his parents wishes and wanting to be with Lagoona and he was there for the entire summer and half of the next school year. They are still TECHNICALLY not dating by this point they are just hanging out and into each other - even without the reward of Lagoona, Gil STILL stood up for her, got punished for it and came back for more because he directly defends Lagoona to his racist parents AGAIN in Volume 3 where Lagoona isn't there, it's just him and his parents so you know how he feels is genuine and not performative, there's a whole episode about it called "Defending your Lagoona" ... I didn't even need to write what I did, the episode should have been enough proof but clearly no one pays attention to either canon or context because some key component of understanding clearly got lost in translation. I'm gonna ASSUME that most of y'all just haven't watched G1 in literally 9 years and have FORGOTTEN the subtle things that make Gil a good kid, it's like y'all watched the first half of skull shores and were like "Wow, Gil is a piece of shit!" - without finishing the movie to know that he saved everyone in the end. People cite Gil being "wishy washy" or "spineless" as reasons why they don't like him, but the shit this kid has been though? He could be getting flogged off screen like Jesus in "the Passion of the Christ" for defying his parents for all we know: he's scared of his parents for a reason but he has been ALWAYS loyal to Lagoona and he stood up to Mr. Hack, Farnum and his own parents for her... the kids spine is made of iron. Some of y'all can't get your man to take a shower for you meanwhile Gil is out here chewing bigots a new one for Lagoona.

Rebelling against your parents prejudice and wrong beliefs to live a life that makes you happy is a GREAT message for kids to learn.

"if protecting lagoona from racism is oh so terrible for gil, just…. have them break up ffs. don’t encourage kids to stay in relationships like that where one has to endure racism for the other cus otherwise the person with racist parents gets punished."

Do you want to watch a show where they are constantly pining for each other because they can't be together? Because I don't... If I wanted to torture myself with love that is there but also isn't there I'd watch Miraculous. Lagoona also never endured any racism directly at the hands of the Webbers, she was just told not to date their son and they didn't even tell her themselves, Gil was always the messenger and he softened the blow as much as he possibly could. while it sucks that she keeps getting bad news it's not really quite the same as experiencing it first hand. But any story-line where the racists get what they want is a bad story-line.

"Like, way to make it POC’s fault for racist parents being abusive to their kids?"

... Did you seriously just try to tell me that G1 Lagoona is a person of color. Blonde haired, green eyed, beach waved hair, light skinned, tiny nosed, Australian, voiced by a white woman, Lagoona... is a person of color... I'm not saying that any of these traits in of themselves automatically makes G1 Lagoona white OR that people of color can't have any of these traits. I'm just saying that all of them PLUS how she's handled in the show with her privileged Yacht owning parents AND the sheer nerd rage from fans at her being Latina in G3 and thus "no longer white" are things that make her white. I know many people have head-canons that shes Aboriginal and that would be fantastic if it was true. But let us not give Mattel too much credit to think that far ahead. for all intents and purposes, G1 Lagoona is white.

HOWEVER, what she is going through IS a common struggle among people of color and I think Mattel did this intentionally to avoid torturing an actual person of color. Little brown kids get subjected to racism enough, they don't need to watch the cartoon mermaid go through it too. or maybe now I'm the one giving Mattel too much credit they probably just wanted to show "Look! white people have it tough too!"... Honestly? this whole allegory would have worked better if Lagoona was a dude and Gil was gay. None of you would have dared to force Gil out of the closet if Lagoona was a dude and his parents were homophobic, but for some reason because it's racism and not homophobia it's okay!? to put Gil at risk!? Would y'all be like "Maybe if Gil just wasn't into men he wouldn't have these problems!" being homeless because of being gay and being homeless because of racism is STILL being homeless, he gets disowned either way.... Make it make sense folks, because it doesn't. Didn't an actor recently get forced out of the closet and it was widely regarded as an awful thing? So why are we so gung-ho to make Gil tell his racist parents he's dating a girl he knows they won't like? Would you do that to him if he was gay and wanted a boyfriend? probably fuckin' not.

I never said everything was Lagoona's fault she is ALSO young and still learning, but somethings were - like him getting sent to boarding school. I realize that Lagoona is a fandom darling and most of y'all's precious little meow meow but she was wrong for that. And I don't hate that, I LIKE that we get flawed characters! Do I love it? No! she was wrong! BUT I LIKE that she was wrong, part of being young and learning is screwing up and making mistakes! we deserve complex characters who aren't perfect in every way. Being pushy and assertive is part of what makes Lagoona a compelling character - but it got someone hurt in this instance and she should learn from that... THAT is good writing... and it's one of the rare instances of good writing we get with these two but I'll get to that in a minute.

"let’s also not gloss over the fact that you called Lagoona a bitch at one point for crying when Frankie asked her about boys."

Once again putting words into my mouth, By making this statement it LOOKS like you read Page 2 of my media analysis but did you though? because context is SUPER important. I did not call Lagoona a bitch for crying, I called her a bitch for being mean to Frankie. Frankie went to Lagoona whose supposed to be their friend for advice but instead Lagoona made it all about her and was then sarcastic to Frankie's plight because her problem is worse and She's aiming for the gold medal of the Pain Olympics. I hate the pain olympics, there are no winners, only losers.

"you calling Draculaura a cow at one point too like wtf??? so maybe lay off the gendered insults for girls???"

And why DID I call Draculaura a cow?... Was it because she was cheating on her black boyfriend with a white guy? 3 seconds after he walked off screen!? because I'm pretty sure it was because she was cheating. once AGAIN we are in a situation where context is important! In the exact same page just discussed I took an entire sidebar to explain why Draculaura was being a cow. I have absolutely zero respect for cheaters and I could have (and should have) called her a lot worse. I'd also like to say that as far as insults for girls go? Cow is fairly mild I could have called her another C word that is frequently used against girls but I went with cow to keep it classy~. also side note: there are male cows, I think they're called Steers... but it's still a cow. Anyways I don't think you really care what I call Draculaura, I think you're now just trying to paint me out as some type of misogynist... which, just proves you don't follow me or know anything about what I preach here you're just mad that I defended a boy whom you're assuming is white.

"before jumping to the defense of a character POC dislike and who’s flaws you excuse as trauma cus you see yourself in him."

UHM... I don't recall reading anywhere that Gil is disliked by POC specifically!?!?! I can't track the barometrics of Monster High tumblr... In fact from what I can gather if TikTok & Twitter are anything to go by most of the people who are hating on Gil are overwhelmingly white... but at the same time I'm not polling anybody either. But just for the record I'm Latine and my friend who helps me out with MH & Gil lore, @peppapigvevo isn't white either... Sooo if your point is that POC are the ones who don't like Gil... I'm here to tell you that POC are also the ones defending him.

But Gil canonically doesn't really have a ton of flaws and the tiny ones he does have stem from him being young and inexperienced, frankly I wish he had more, it would give people a legit reason to hate on him instead of their reasoning now which boils down to: "His parents are racist and even though HE isn't racist I'm gonna blame him anyways because someone on social media told me to and I haven't watched the show in a decade so my memory of the lore is fuzzy at best but I saw Lagoona cry once so Gil MUST be the bad guy!." Which... Y'all are expecting perfection from Gil and that's a ridiculous standard for anyone to live up to let alone a 16 year old boy. But I'm not like... making up trauma for Gil, based on how much he fears his parents THAT is a trauma response that they have instilled in him, it's there I didn't invent it. healthy normal kids don't fear their parents the way Gil fears his, I can only assume he is afraid because they have given him a reason to be afraid. a statement I have also said, several times, in my posts that you claim to have read and take issue with.

Was Gil and Lagoona's relationship written extremely well? No. But do I think Mattel should have never touched the issue of racism in their show? also No! it took a lot of guts to put a story about prejudice in a kids cartoon and MH is for little kids, their target demographic is 6-11yr olds, obviously MH skews a bit older, otherwise none of us would be here. But I'm glad they covered this topic, I don't much care for shows that shy away from scary issues or talk to kids like they're stupid because kids aren't stupid, they're little proto humans who learn things way faster than we do and we should treat them as such. Not only did they touch the topic they did so with a main character and they didn't sugar coat it! we saw the pain Lagoona AND Gil went through because of his parents racism. Touching this topic at all is huge, was it perfectly handled? absolutely not! they never actually resolved the issue, Gil's parents never learned a lesson, got comeuppance or accepted Lagoona, Gil never got to date the girl he likes with family approval there was always something looming in the background. which is... fine?... things aren't always wrapped up nice and pretty with a bow in real life, sometimes things are messy. However, one thing that bothered everyone, including me was towards the end of G1 the writers didn't really know what to do with Lagoona and Gil so they just kinda... rehashed the same fight 3 or 5 times... it happened in the webisodes, diaries and the movies. and that's sloppy on the writers part, the same fight being milked for drama isn't Gil's fault and shouldn't be blamed on him... but it is. Gil is just the messenger and y'all shot him on sight.

Mattel:

Gil:

However, that wasn't the end. Gil and Lagoona may not have got the fairy tale ending some people think they deserve or the tragic breakup that other people think they deserve but they did get closure. Gil's Mansters diary takes place after the events of 13 wishes and his parents wrote out a list of chores for him to do while they are out on a trip and before he goes to stay with Deuce for the weekend and the last thing he SAYS they put on the list is as follows:

"+ Don't date Lagoona. They didn't actually write that. I just know what they're thinking. Actually, we don't really talk about that directly very much anymore. We kind of just agree to disagree, especially since Lagoona was wished into a freshwater monster and back again. I think they saw how miserable I was during that whole time, and I believe it made some kind of an impact.. hopefully."

and that was how the saga of Gil, Lagoona & The Webbers ended. Not with a roar but with a whisper. It's also canonical proof in his own words that Gil was, in fact miserable during 13 wishes just in case anyone doubted it after my review.

It's not a happy ending or a sad ending it's not even a peaceful ending. it's an uneasy cease fire... which is good enough? I suppose. Gil's parents love him enough to let it go (after both Lagoona and he endured great personal struggles), They know he's dating Lagoona and he knows they don't like that, Lagoona knows they don't like it, I'm sure Lagoona isn't welcome over for dinners or anything but the issue has been dropped. Gil and Lagoona can finally date, no strings attached.

I'm sure that's not the ending you would have written, my very grumpy anon. But relationships are complex and sometimes the solutions to their problems are complex too but love finds a way to triumph over bigotry.

And that is a message that we could all learn from.

#monster high #gil webber

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pocketbelt · 9 months

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Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster (PC/Steam Deck)

This is the most interesting release of the FF Pixel Remaster series, because FFVI far and away has the most tweaks, changes and additions of any of them. As if they were slightly apologising for not committing to a IV style remake as has been long clamoured for, Square went a bit above and beyond for this one.

Far and away the most notable change is FFVI's famed Opera House sequence, which has been glamoured the fuck up; the stage environment is in full 3D via the "HD2D" engine Square use for the Octopath games and similar, with the normal sprites intact, and there's now an actual vocal performance in multiple languages (though you can't set which language you want to hear separate from your text language, a missed opportunity). Yeah, they actually sing their lines now, and it does genuinely enhance the sequence. It looks really nice, the singers' performances are fantastic, it's a delightful go.

Like FFV, there aren't too many versions of FFVI for the runnings of "best version", but I think it pretty easily goes to the Pixel Remaster version. It's not just because of the Opera House stuff; a lot of work went into this version specifically, from rolling back the overt censorship of the GBA and US SNES releases to making certain areas easier to parse visually, to adding little resupply points in longer sequences and making tweaks for a smoother experience (you get to retry Sabin's Blitz inputs and the game is more generous about parsing your inputs). Far away and the greatest is the ability to, when viewing the Equip screen, scroll to characters not in the active party but who are recruited and tweak their equipment, removing or adding stuff on the fly as you need it or get it. That's an unholy godsend because FFVI is a fucking monster of a game, with 14 recruitable party members and multiple sequences (including two full dungeons) where you need to use and manage 2 or 3 parties to get through them. Hell, this version automatically un-equips a character when they leave, dumping their shit into your inventory so it isn't just lost or stuck on them (which mainly matters for Shadow, who cycles in and out of being recruited multiple times).

As before, the console versions of the Pixel Remaster get a special note; in addition to some extra tweaks like the font and swapping soundtracks, it makes one notable change in making Deathgaze visible on the world map (he's an optional boss that roams the skies and must be run into with an airship to fight, and he'll flee and retain his HP across encounters). That's interesting, and is useful in a technical sense, but it does also rob you of the experience of flying into him blind and scrambling to beat or survive him, and later having to hunt him down for his riches.

The GBA version did have bonus content in the form of four extra Espers (including Leviathan, the notable absence from OG FFVI) and two optional dungeons housing Shinryu and Omega, but as before I don't think these are game-making additions, certainly less so than the Necromancer and Gladiator jobs from FFV Advance. Also, it could've been bad emulation from when I last played it but even on actual hardware I remember the GBA version of the soundtrack sounding "off"; there's apparently tweaks to vocalisation tracks and so on, but I think it also just got fucked up.

Having come to the end of the Pixel Remasters, I'm quite impressed they managed to live up to and achieve their goals; providing actual quality modern remasters of the original six Final Fantasies. They are, broadly, the best versions of these games and really convey them and their intended experiences very well. If you haven't played these old FFs, I think of course you should; I, II and III are still fine games in their own right, accepting the considerable simplicity of I and II due to their particular antiquity, but the Super Nintendo trilogy stand well on their own with no caveats.

Final Fantasy VI in particular is a game of remarkable scale and ambition, with mechanical depth, encounter design, dungeon design and gameplay systems that are remarkable even to this day: there aren't many RPGs where the final dungeon requires you to manually bounce between three separate parties who all must be equally capable of fighting its bosses and encounters. It allows for considerable freedom with its mechanics and systems, allowing you to completely disable quite a lot of bosses if you just know how; status effects matter quite a lot, from Slow to Sleep to Berserk to beneficial ones like Protect, Shell, Haste and Vanish all becoming key to snaking through tricky fights.

More waffle under the cut, but in short, FFVI PR is excellent, and it's the best way to play what is, essentially, the root of the next six Final Fantasies and the bar which so many others of the genre looked to and tried to meet...right before Final Fantasy VII hit and set another one entirely.

I mentioned it above, but it's really easy to gloss over the sheer scale of Final Fantasy VI and what it does in its gameplay when looking at it in isolation. You play FFIV or especially FFV right before it, and the jump is fucking insane; in particular, the visual leap and the shift in the art style of characters to bigger, more expressive sprites obviously influenced by Secret of Mana (which released the year before) is striking. The extensive use of Mode 7, the leap in cinematography, cutscene choreography (characters blink their eyes in response to things, they have more sprites for nodding, looking certain ways, poses for more actions, and this lets a lot of unsaid things be depicted!) and direction, it's not unfair to say it's pushing the SNES to its absolute limits. All the stops come out; it's the most populated world map of the NES/SNES games, much more of it and its locations are used, towns are not only often bigger but much more dense and intricately decorated, as are rooms and other locations.

NPC scripting is more elaborate, allowing characters to have routines across multiple rooms and houses of a town, and for one-time events to stand out without needing to be called attention to in their own cutscene or forced aside (Shadow walking to the pub when you first see him, Relm failing to be sneaky as she follows you up into the mountains, Umaro coming out of his cave's secret exit next to the Narshe Mines hours and hours before you'll meet him, etc). The line between the battle screen and dialogue scenes is blurred, character sprites bounce around and move aside to talk mid-fight, full dialogue boxes can be brought up in battles, scripted fights with unique single-fight-only characters and set-ups (the Magitek suits at the start, for example). The sheer amount of assets used for story sequences or one-off bits only to never appear again is insane; it's no wonder Square jumped hard at the chance to use CDs, they needed the space badly. I don't doubt if they had CD space for FFVI, every town would have its own tileset and there'd probably be even more crazy flourishes and setpieces throughout.

I mentioned the multi-party stuff and it's insane going from IV and V to VI. IV has a lot of characters who rotate in and out of the party, and by the end you have a fixed group of five, V has one rotation and you have four members throughout the game; VI has 14 recruitable characters in the endgame and expects you to use up to 12 of them! One is missable (Shadow) and two are hidden special members (Umaro, Gogo) unrelated to the story, and you can, technically speaking, do the final dungeon with just three characters (one in each party), but you'd have to have some mad luck or have done some insane grinding to pull that off. Technically, everyone outside of Celes, Sabin and Setzer are optional; you have to go get them yourself and the game doesn't railroad you to them once you have the Falcon airship, but even so, it's an insane scope jump from the fixed parties of four and five members.

The final battle makes you set a grand order of 12 characters, and it cycles KO'd characters out for the next in the line when you jump across phase transitions (which is slightly annoying, because what is there to reviving them when you have a dualcaster with a Gold Hairpin, and thus can do two piss-cheap Arises a turn?), so it does try to involve everyone and let you create this mad plan and decide who has to go when. It's an attempt to utilise a significant roster of full characters that the series would never quite attempt again.

Incidentally, swapping between parties even on older platforms (PS1 aside, bless its poor laser) in the multi-party sequences is pretty quick and done by a button press. I feel like bringing that up because I still remember Yokai Watch 3 needing you to go to a specific spot, hit a button in a menu and then sit through a loading screen to swap parties on the 3DS. I can forgive a loading screen when swapping between them outside dungeons, but in dungeons, when they're in side-by-side tunnels on the same map? Good lord.

I saw a tweet last night that said that classic Japanese RPGs are intrinsically incompatible with the demands and constraints of modern AAA game development. It meant that the best ones boast lively towns and sprawling worlds and such that the minutae-obsessed hyper-realistic super-expensive ultra-games simply can't do because they need 5-6 years and $315 million to make a new 12 hour story even with two games of assets to draw from ahead of time. The truth of it strikes me even now; the upcoming FFVII ReBirth seems like it'll be the first or at least closest to making that old classic style of FF work in the modern super-high-end context, but even it's doing so by being a remake of an existing beloved game, and having a prior entry to build the entire bones, foundation and extensive pile of assets first. And it may still have a gigantic budget issue to face on its own!

There are intrinsic fidelity and graphical quality gains made by the advancement and enhancement of technology, and staying firmly behind that forward trajectory allows you to reap much of it while still making excellent games. This, distinctly, has been Nintendo's approach since the Wii and the Switch, for all its hardware isuses, flaunts the merits of such a style immaculately. Developers need to either dial back to their way, or figure out the ways of Capcom and, I hear, Falcom; either have your whole own inhouse dark sorcery toolset to alleviate costs as much as possible, or dial back fidelity entirely. Falcom does both; Capcom cheats its high fidelity by extensive, clever and obvious asset reuse to cut corners (Resident Evil 8 was as much an asset farm for Resident Evil 4 Remake as it was an original production; Monster Hunter Rise cribs extensively from Monster Hunter World, which has its own extensive asset reuse all over the show, etc). But, the Insomniac leaks revealing deranged budget numbers for clearly iterative games anyway tell of the unsustainable strain of these projects anyway - the costs, it seems, of anchoring yourself to open world game design.

Also related to that, of note, in keeping with my habit of tracking the iteration across Final Fantasies, you can see the exact roots for VII's materia system, VIII's junction system and IX's ability system in VI, each one directly. Yeah yeah, materia are also magic rocks, but the way Esper magicites both unlock spells and also provide stat boosts on level-up is a pretty direct forebear to VII binding spells to their own materia and also providing a distinct array of stat-boosting and modifying materia separately, all plugged into slots the way Espers are equipped to their own 'slot'. Conceptually the junction system also draws (harh) from this, both in equipping summons to characters, but also directly 'equipping' spells to stats to modify them as well, allowing you to define characters as you see fit or figure out how to make omni-lord monsters out of everyone.

IX's ability system is even more overt; you equip Espers and gain AP across fights to gradually permanently acquire spells. Further, some equipment pieces actually also teach spells, most notably the Paladin Shield gradually giving you Ultima; that's just IX's equipment system directly, only it's up-front about what gives what and gets more modular in what Abilities and Skills do.

The continuing thread is one of allowing customisation and player-driven development of characters and their roles in parties, while also giving characters defining aspects and unique traits to, well, characterise and distinguish them. Only Terra has Trance, for instance, and she has a set of spells she learns by level-up without needing Espers or Equipment (including unique spell Meltdown); FFVII and VIII mostly lean on everyone's unique weapon types and Limit Breaks to distinguish them (Cloud's giant swords, Barrett's gun arms, Tifa's gauntlets, etc), and then IX rolls back to VI's style of giving everyone an "archetype" themed after an old FF job (Zidane's a Thief, Vivi's a Black Mage, etc) but without the freeform allocation of magic. In that respect, VI, VII and VIII look to uphold the freeform customsation aimed for in II, III and V in new and more nuanced ways, and they lead to quite complicated systems when you get into their midst. Interesting that IX goes back to the "fixed" characters of IV, and then X would be mostly in the vein with a level of customisation opening very late into the game, only for X-2 and XII to be wholly freeform again (XII coming closest to II's style of "everyone is mechanically interchangeable" in particular).

And then XIII keeps everyone being mostly mechanically interchangeable with some subtle differences, XIII-2 continues that vein with an injection of free-form customisation via the monster taming system, and LR/"XIII-3" is just a job system but with a single character. From that we get XV being basically an action RPG with a single character, and then XVI just being a lame action game. Off to the side, VII-R draws cues from the PS2 lot and is an actually excellent action RPG.

The "decay" in the mainline games, such as it is, is not with LR, to my eye, it's much more nuanced than that and one day I hope to go over the iterative nature of FF in more detail, and how that aspect explains where the numbered titles have gone wrong after XIII.

I mentioned before that Kefka is often held up as "the best Final Fantasy villain because he actually wins", but I don't think that really works. Yes, he obtains godlike power and becomes a de facto deity of magic at the 'midpoint' of the story, but once he's done that, after a year of doing some world ravaging he mostly spends his time sitting atop his tower, occasionally terrorising some town or another but mostly just...sitting up there, letting the world slowly die. Most of his motive speech when confronted at the end, of ranting about how all things will die or be destroyed in time and so on, doesn't feel like a deeply held belief but the ranting of a madman who was just freshly agitated. His callous disregard for the value of life and willingness to do things like mass-poison a resisting nation and commit war crimes don't feel like the result of some deep-held nihilism or fear of/submission to entropy, but just the mad antics of a sociopath given power.

Hell, he disturbs the statues of the Warring Triad and overthrows Emperor Gestahl to "build my own empire", implying he directly sought the position of power and control he gets, but then what does he do with it? He could raze the world and end all life much quicker than he does, but he doesn't. To that end, I don't think he can be said to "have won", insofar as he brings about an apocalypse and then seems to run out of steam in the aftermath. He gets his empire and just lords over it, his speech at the end is just something he invented in the moment when crossed/stepped to by people who seemed (and then proved) to be capable of ending him.

I don't think he's any more successful than Xande or Exdeath, the former achieves essentially the same end and the latter is very much in the process of doing it, and both have more clearly defined goals than Kefka seems to. He's about as active as Exdeath and while in some way more shocking (the mass-poisoning, as mentioned), is about as destructive in the end.

For my money the best FF villain is Emet-Selch specifically from FFXIV's Shadowbringers expansion; his story and character there are excellent, much more tragic and personal, it's so well done (and he certainly beats the shit out of Endwalker's villains and their story). I might actually think out a villain hierarchy some day but suffice to say while Kefka's a fun villain, and his final fight is genuinely excellent, he's a far cry from the series' best offerings.

#pocket-media-tag

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sofipitch · 2 years

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Okay I know you said episode 6 might not be that bad if it wasn’t poisoned by what happened in episode 5, and you’re right! Normally, I would’ve loooved messy and sexy Loustat scenes (I’m not immune to Sam Reid’s tits out for us all to gawk at I’ll admit it) and YET it STILL irritated the shot out of me because SPOILER……,,

Lestat still fucking cheats on Louis with Antoinette after Louis takes him back 🙂🙂🙂 Jesus FIX IT. Do I laugh or cry at this point lmao Claudia, bby please take out the trash for us lol

Also, I will say fandom is predictable in the way they will defend and support their problematic white boys rights and wrongs at all costs. Don’t get me wrong I’m a Lestat apologist myself cause he’s hilarious but before the show it seemed more fun and tongue in cheek like we all know he’s a dumpster fire (affectionate) but the tone in fandom now is…erm something else that’s for sure lol

Yeah Lestat cheating on Louis throughout most of their relationship, like how badly can you fuck up a romance story 😭

It's not like bad compared to the DV, but with the abuse, Lestat constant cheating, and then lestat not loving Claudia. To me to the core of IWTV rests on their unholy vampire family, I could have watched 10 seasons of just ep 4 and ESPECIALLY the happh bits. Like I knew it wasn't always gonna be happy but damn the AMC writers really put the family through the shredder. Amd if they want to adapt like ALL the other books, Lestat is gonna leave Louis for others so much more that if they ever get to Prince Lestat and Lestat asks Louis to come back to him I will be the friend texting "DUMP HIS ASS" the whole time. They just made Lestat worse for the drama but it actually lowered my desire to want to see the story continue so they can see it through

#vc #asks

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floppyhatwitch · 9 months

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Last new year's eve, I made a resolution that I would learn to draw by drawing one page every day of 2023. I was meant to post this recap on January 1st, but it turns out that I have like a full thesis worth of infodumping about this project, so it got pushed back. Art dump time! <3

(editor witch here. This post is LONG. Like, tumblr-can't-save-the-draft-properly long. I've decided to split this into multiple parts to mitigate formatting issues and pulling my hair out when it inevitably comes out wrong. This is part 1 of 2)

Long post incoming! Art under the cut :)

First off we have the OG, the Day 1.

I try not to pass judgement on my earlier works, because getting more confident with drawing was the entire point of the resolution. However, I can definitely say I've improved a whole bunch since then. It's basically just copied from reference material and the proportions could use a little work.

Fast forward to Day 11 where I had the first piece I thought was kinda good.

Still goes pretty hard tbh. Love a good beholder.

The first piece I ever got a compliment on was this goopy texture text stuff.

Unfortunately since all the early drawings were done in pencil, a lot of them have been ravaged by the unholy nature of graphite smearing.

Day 49 is another one of my favourites, I'd just won big in a no stakes poker match against my mates and thought I'd celebrate with a rendition of Mr Green.

On Day 100 I decided to draw my top 100 favourite pokemon. It took SO much longer than I anticipated, but I still think it was worth it.

After passing the Day 100 mark I thought it was about time to start varying my materials, so I gave pen drawing a go.

I learnt crosshatching and absolutely loved it, it's still a staple technique whenever I go for pen exclusively, highly recommend.

By Day 121 I was fed up of fumbling MY way through drawing faces so I decided to really crack down and try and learn.

As you can tell, it was a long and arduous journey.

By Day 125 I had filled up the first sketchbook and started a new one. As has become tradition, I decided to draw V2 again to see if I'd improved.

While still not my best (that one's coming up) I'm definitely a lot happier with how this one turned out compared to the first. Being able to see how I'd improved gave me so much inspiration to keep going.

Day 136 was the first time I decided to crack out the coloured pencils, so I commemorated the occasion by depicting one of my homebrew DnD deities bring colour to the material plane.

Banger after banger Day 137 is still one of my favourites. One day I'll make it into an album cover or something.

Jeff Bezos exploding in space because his stupid fucking cowboy hat isn't pressurised at all.

Day 142 I started experimenting with including the day number in the art itself, which was a trend I continued throughout the rest of the project.

After seeing Across the Spiderverse, I couldn't just not dedicate two pages and 4 hours of my life to making a tribute piece to the film. I still absolutely adore it, it's easily my second favourite film of all time (right behind the first one).

On Day 163 I recreated the Creation of Adam with my hand and my son.

This is my son btw:

I love him dearly and he is an excellent muse (he sits so still!)

Anyway so the next day I drew my top-secret creative process since so many people were asking for it.

Gettin naked and eating paint in the forest, duh.

Day 178 I made a spidersona, which is kinda my first ever OC? Like official one anyway.

Gave him a spruce up and a colour for ArtFight (which is SO FUN OMG)

Day 183 was the halfway mark (if you round up from 182.5) so I had to pay homage to the modern classic.

The face is my favourite bit.

Speaking of ArtFight, I made a whole cast of characters for it! I was a little apprehensive to participate at first, since I still wasn't super confident in my abilities, but it turns out that the community is super welcoming <3. If you wanna see the whole shebang you can check out my profile here, but my most popular character was Alice.

Which is awesome because we need more rollerblading rep in this world. We have Jet Set Radio and Ramona Flowers, but we need MORE.

I went to see the Barbennheimer double feature and had the time of my life during it, so I had to go home and make art of it.

Come to think of it, I use art to commemorate a whole lot of stuff. Isn't that neat?

On Day 221 I had just finished my first real short film for school and I was so happy I had gotten it all done. It was like 30,000 words of documentation, 7 months of work and I had to act as a man in it (damn you gender binary!) So I personified the relief of completion as the spectacle of gratuitous violence.

On Day 230 I finished Act II of Ultrakill for the first time (which at the time was the full game) and I couldn't get over just how hard Gabriel's monologue goes so I had to draw my favourite intro ever.

I still haven't played layer 7 though so no spoilers pls.

My son again! This time he's posing like Kali Uchis in her album "Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios)" I won't pretend like I understand what that means, but the album sounds so beautiful and the cover is to die for so I put my son in there.

Day 235, the first full appearance of Spider-Girl. She's talking to her friend (Batman Beyond) who is trapped by the Riddler and forced to write a analytical essay of 12 Angry Men. Fun little detail with the day number is that Doc Ock actually threw the D at Spider-Girl as an attack.

frog cowboy :)

I don't remember drawing Day 244, but I think it's actually really nice. Like an abundance of material slowly being wasted on someone hesitant to accept it or something. Idk I was probably sleep deprived to hell.

It's kinda pretty right? Some little art fairy must have broken in an done it for me

DAY 252! A momentous day. It was my second time switching sketchbooks and so I had to give V2 another crack and...

Still my favourite drawing of V2 I've ever done. Getting the ricochet coin in there as a framing tool is just so slay.

On Day 254 the pen I was using to take notes at school was finally laid to rest. I captured its final lines in this piece.

It's actually kinda moving. That pen was so good.

This is the part where I circle back and remind you that this is too long for one post, so check out part two here

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rayvenden · 2 years

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Just my KH20th Announcement Trailer thoughts and text dump

First are my quick thoughts and then I go into analysis mode. This post is more for me than anything lol

They're delaying the Dark Road finale AGAIN? The bastards

BRAIN AND HIS HAT IN 3D!

WEIRD LONDON SCALA IN 3D!

I'm going to be playing this mobile game even if it's shit and even tho it looks like another gacha

STRELITZIA IN 3D!

TWEWY style subplot for Quadratum mayhaps? POG

No platforms announced for KH4? Please my one big fear is that it's going to be PS5 timed exclusive. T-T

Dark Road:

Not me studying the missing upperclassmen of Scala to see if anyone looks familiar (like a somebody of Luxord and Demyx, but I don't think they fit that bill). However this looks like it's probably Baldr's missing sister.

---

Missing-Link:

These devices in Missing-Link are probably "links" lol. (Gee how would I have ever guessed)

Apparently the title Missing-Link refers to this taking place in the time between Union Cross and Dark Road (to link them). Makes sense as... that's what the game is.

Missing-Link could also be

-a missing link in a chain of memories

-a lost page of the Book of Prophecies

-a missing star connecting a constellation? (i.e. Yozora or Nameless Star reference)

-a missing person (plenty of candidates lmao. Nameless Star, Subject X, Ava, the population of Daybreak Town, the population of Scala ad Caelum, even Sora. Plus I am sure there will be even more murders *cough* 'missing people' during this game.)

Side note; I think it'd be cool if you got creepy correspondence from a missing person's link. 👀

It's probably also a slight reference to D-Links from BBS, which is how you tap into the trio's and Disney characters' powers. So your link is probably canonically how you use the medals shown. You probably equip your medals to set which moves you can use, like how it works in UX, with a mix of BBS since it’s now in 3D with 3D moves.

Cue me getting hype as hell. I love BBS style customization. UX had plenty of customization but now that it's in 3D we can actually get a heckton of recognizable moves from across the entire series as equippable medals. Watch me equip all Sonic Blades and just nope off into space.

Okay two things here:

First off, gotta be a reference to Yozora (don’t you know, he has a copyright on the night sky). Secondly, it's probably safe to imagine that we'll be dealing with another Real Daybreak Town VS Data Daybreak Town situation here. Since the "stars shown contorted", I think that means that things aren't quite right. 👀 Like, perhaps the constellations don’t line up right... BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT REAL *gasps in shock*

KH4:

Actually I don’t think I have a lot to say here. It’s beyond cool that the Dark Seeker saga is done and we’re getting the start of The Lost Master arc. Seriously the Master of Masters is such a fun character, so I’m excited.

This might be a good spot to find some ingredients:

Oh right I guess people are freakin out cause Star Wars might be in KH too lol:

Also it makes sense that Strelitzia found Sora since they both heckin DEAD

WAIT SEVEN WHOLE DAYS

DO YOU REALIZE HOW MUCH CAN HAPPEN IN SEVEN DAYS

Do I smell a KH2 Roxas style intro????????? DOES THIS CONNECT TO THE YOZORA ENDINGS? WHICH ENDING IS CANON? IS NEITHER ENDING CANON? IS ANY OF THIS REAL, OR NOT? AAAAAAAAAAAAA

anyway

Ignoring his very concerning words, this appears to be the Master of Masters and Luxu due to their stances. Which alright, we were already wondering how MoM got to Quadratum, but now Luxu is here as well? Is it that fucking easy to get to Quadratum? I mean it’s not SUPPOSED to be that easy. Sora and Strelitzia got there by DYING. They’re straight up DEAD. Xigbar went and faked his death and had a chat with the Foretellers and then apparently just moseyed on over to Quadratum??? They got some sorta secret backdoor to just go back and forth as much as they want? Well okay, maybe it’s not dissimilar to the dark corridors I suppose...

Edit: Look at this gremlin man

This is the look of a man who knows too much and is having the time of his lives. I guess if you went through what the MoM forced you to go through, maybe you’d learn to have fun with it lmao

Also, the Master of Masters wanted to vacay in Quadratum to get away from the Darknesses who were chatting him up in UX, but where there is light, darkness will follow, so lookie here he introduced KH’s darkness and heartless and shit to this world, good job buddy.

Edit: I forgot the Donald and Goofy at the end bit. It’s probably Hades which makes sense because why wouldn’t you wanna talk to the Lord of the Dead to get ideas on how to bring back a dead person lol.

Editing again because this on twitter appears to have more information if you’re interested! There’s a bunch of info including something I’m personally excited about:

#KingdomHearts #KH 20th #kh 20th anniversary #KHDR #Dark Road #KHUX #Union Cross #KHML #Missing Link #KH4 #Kingdom Hearts 4 #unholy text dump #someone stop me

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bunnyrobber · 6 years

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drawing in black and white is so fun why did i ever bother with colors??

someone yell at me to draw smth, preferably from gravity falls, fnaf, or bnha

#requests #please #you can do it anonymously idc #text #christine is resting #yeah i'm temporarily abandoning my unholy sharpie collection #gonna dump a bunch of dumb dipper and mabels bc i'm trying to narrow down a good design #i keep adding really unnecessary details to her sweater #yes i know she isn't bedecked on the sleeves with like four extra stars but it looks cool #also #crosshatching is just too much for my lovely thick line drawing pen #it doesn't even artistically skip even if it wanted to

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pumpkincentaur · 4 years

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Unholy Holy Things Worldbuilding | History, Lore, & Magic - Godsblood

Godsblood. The driving force of governments all across the Continent, and the reason humanity won the war against the tyrannical Gods. A most glorious gift indeed.

When the first Occisoran Emperor, Tiberia I, slew Zenobiel, first of the Gods to fall in the Greatest War, something within her changed. She was told by Malusiel, the Bloodied Traitor, to defile the corpse of the freshly-slain Zenobiel and drink his divine blood, and she followed Malusiel’s instructions, as he had promised her untold power would be the result.

And, miraculously, it was. The Bloodied Traitor had not lied. With the power of the slain Radiant Knight flowing in heir veins, Tiberia I was able to fight back against the Gods and raise a human force against them--a human force of Godbearers, who had killed Gods and drank of their essence just like she had. The power that became known as Godsblood won the Greatest War for humanity. The Gods’ own power sealed their fates forever.

But with that power comes a price, as the Gods knew all too well.

Godsblood as it is now is hereditary. It quite literally runs in the blood, passing between parent and child, down the family lines of the original warriors that fought and killed the Gods themselves. There are two types of Godsblood--Channel Godsblood, which channels the power of the God it comes from, and Vessel Godsblood, which carries the very soul of the slain God, passed down through a family line.

That was the price--true Gods are not so easily killed. Though the Gods were greatly weakened, and their bodies forever destroyed, the fragments of their souls that survived continue living in the hearts and minds of the descendants of their killers.

Taglist and more information under the cut. If you would like to be added to the taglist for Unholy Holy Things, please let me know, either by responding to this post or sending me an ask!

The basic premise of Godsblood is this: hereditary power passed down through the family lines of the original killers of the tyrannical Gods. However, the premise being simple does not mean that Godsblood isn’t a little bit complicated. However... exactly how Godsblood works will be explained in the actual text of Unholy Holy Things, as this magic system is integral to the novel’s story, and I don’t reaaaally wanna dump my entire concept publicly for the whole world to see before the book is finished. Sorry!

Taglist: @elywritesbydarkness, @scaevolawrites, @sprigofbasil, @maskedlady, @metanoiamorii, @anomaly00, @error-404-error-not-found, @hekat-ie, @aurieeeeeenyx, @kaseylynnwriting, @unholieds, @jauntymushroom, @tae-mv, @veiliza

#writeblr #writblr #writers on tumblr #novels on tumblr #unholy holy things #uht worldbuilding #myedits #i'm back with CONTENT #and it's MAGIC SYSTEM CONTENT #there's a bit more about it on the WIP page but the actual mechanics are definitely being saved for the actual book #sorry lol #blood //

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boop-le-snoot · 4 years

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PARTY FAVOURS I A VENOMOUS INTERLUDE

Did y'all know symbrock is canon? Well, now you do. Reader's favourite deadbeat surrogate uncle is in town and he brought a... Friend. No warnings, just a boatload of crack and fluff, as usual. Reader being mouthy. Takes place a little bit into the future - around after chapter 32: spoiler alert is useless because we already know a tonybrucestrange/reader quartet is the endgame. 💖💝✨

"What," I had to pause for a second for my brain to catch up with my eyes. "The fuck?!"

It was truly a miracle I could say anything out loud, at all. Words weren't valid enough to describe my shock and confusion. The scene unfolding in front of me resembled and unholy cross between a B-rated horror movies about demonic possession and some deep-sea Eldritch monstrosity.

The eight-feet tall black, oozing dude in front of me? Yes, you, with the teeth. Ctulhu called, he wants his tentacles back.

The creature honest to god rippled, like some nightmare-fuel goth Jell-O, rapidly shrinking in size within seconds. As more of the black tar-like substance receded, a much more human form started to appear under it. Worn jeans, leather jacket, ungroomed beard and the look of a biker gang member coming off a serious bender.

"Uh, Princess?"

"Eddie. Fucking. Brock. Uncle Idiot." I punctuated each word with an increasing widening of my eyes. The world was fucking nuts. Two and two did not compute - Eddie might have looked threatening to some people - like white suburban Karens - even without the... Gooey squid-on-steroids thing he had going on. The man was built like a fucking brick shithouse, but I knew him way too well. Eddie couldn't be that badass to save a life.

"You two know each other?" Tony shrieked indignantly, a coarseness in his voice that indicated only one thing: my boo was well into his third drink. Hell, I didn't blame him - that gaping toothy maw was fucking gnarly.

Hands on my hips, I caught myself slipping into a mute rage, storming over to the 200lbs worth of pure dumbass and knocking him right in the face. "You! Didn't tell! ME!" A black tendril wrapped around my wrist, carefully but firmly securing it and preventing me from causing my non-related uncle any more physical damage. Although I must admit, my knuckles probably were more affected than his jaw. "You! Are! A MUTANT!!! HOW COULD YOU?! How could you NOT tell ME?"

I trusted the man with my soul and most embarrassing drinking stories. Hell, I called Eddie in a stoned haze the very same night I lost my v-card. I just thought we were bros, you know? I saw his whole fucking life implode more than once and personally flew to California to ice his injuries and his hurt ego countless times. I was done dirty in the worst way.

"I'm not-" Eddie's sigh was long-suffering. "I, uh, I have a parasite..." He sounded meek, in the same way he used to describe his drunkenly misconduct when I made our family driver bail out his ass outta jail in the morning.

"TAKE THAT BACK!" A deep gravelly voice thundered, seemingly coming out of his chest?

"Okay, okay," Eddie smiled. It was strangely soft and un-eddie-like. The only person he smiled like that was... used to be Anne. "This is Venom. They're an alien and we're, uh, a thing. It's a recent development." The tentacle unwrapped itself from me as I took an involuntary step back.

Even barring the fact that Eddie was dating an alien, this was way too fucking weird for 3 o'clock on a Sunday. I always knew the reporter was, for the lack of a better word, a little weird but he really took it to new heights. With Thor and Loki looking... Like that, I could see a human dating some sort of a hot alien. But with Ctulhu looking the way he did just minutes ago? Did Eddie seriously let all of those teeth in close proximity of his dick?

I had a "ERROR 404, common sense not found" hanging over me for the longest time. The others were quiet behind me, too, even Tony - one of my boyfriends, the most likely to cause utter chaos, was hanging back and expecting me to do something.

"Venom," I clarified, just to fill the silence with some noise while my brain processors re-synced.

"WE ARE VENOM." The tentacle that was sleek and black now had two completely white eyes and a smaller-scale version of the toothy grin that had drooled all over the common room carpet. Their voice had an interesting effect: it was so deep, the air around them vibrated slightly when they spoke.

I tilted my head examining the appendage. It was considerably less terrifying when it wasn't five times my size. "What are you?" And most importantly, are you a threat to my favourite non-related family member? I left that statement unspoken although it was obvious I was ready to fight it? Them? If need be.

"A SYMBIOTE," They replied, swaying the head-tentacle slowly. "WE LOVE EDDIE AND KEEP HIM ALIVE AND HEALTHY." So, they understood the actual question.

"Which is fucked up because Klyntar usually behave in the opposite way." Hearing Thor swear was, perhaps, even more unsettling than finding out about the symbiote-alien-boyfriend thing my uncle had going on. The thunderer himself was nursing a jug of golden liquid. The good Asgardian stuff, he must've been really fucking bamboozled.

"Okay. So anybody wanna fill me on the details before I beat up my favourite idiot?" I sighed, pointedly looking at Tony.

"I thought I was your favourite idiot!" He immediately retorted, hurt, but nonetheless opened his arms to give me a grounding embrace. We may have sucked face for a few seconds, because why the hell not, Tony was an amazing kisser and his tongue down my throat was very calming.

"Hold up, what the fuck?" Now it was Eddie's turn to act all offended. "Aren't you a little too young for him?"

"You and your most likely carnivorous goth space pudding can fuck right off if you're not going to be supportive of my very inappropriate, very polyamorous relationship with three incredibly hot boomers," I shot back, slipping into some resemblance of normalcy. Me and Eddie go way, way back and shitting on each other's bad life decisions was the founding stone of our bromance. Hell, he was the guy who showed me the wonders of sarcasm at an early age! Wonderbaum!

"There's three of them?" Eddie's voice pitched and he gaped, palming his face.

"SHE HAS A POINT, EDDIE. WE EAT PEOPLE. BEING UNSUPPORTIVE WOULD MAKE US LOOK LIKE AN ASSHOLE." Eddie's buddy stated, sounding almost fed up. So, they were sentient enough to recognize how much of a pain in the ass Eddie could be. I could work with that, disregarding the cannibalism comment, of course. What the fuck was up with that?

"Yes, Eddie, I also periodically bump uglies and trade disgustingly sweet text messages with the Hulk and a badass wizard," I rolled my eyes at the reporter's following gasp and angry muttering. "Venom, I like you."

"WE RETURN THE SENTIMENT. YOUR CHOICE IN MATES IS VERY WISE, CONSIDERING YOU ARE A WEAK MORSEL. THEY CAN PROTECT YOU."

"Shut up, Squid. I'll still kick your motherfucking ass if you hurt Eddie."

The emo space goo laughed, a terse scratching noise, showing way, way too many teeth for me to feel comfortable but I allowed myself to be placed on the couch between Tony and Eddie nonetheless. The initial shock of seeing a talking octopod with fangs passed quickly - I've seen Stephen's "trophies" he brought from his otherworldly journeys and Lovecraftian horrors were, honestly, pretty low on the gross/creepy scale.

"Both of you, explain. For the love of fuck," Tony sighed, emotionally exhausted and drained of his usual bravado.

"Eddie was my dad's friend until he moved to Cali, I've know him for fifteen years, give or take. He taught me how to ride a bike and bake the best pot brownies," I shrugged. There wasn't much to say. "I visited him whenever I could but you know, with school and then you guys, there wasn't that much time to iron out the details." I have Eddie a death glare, pointing to Venom's floaty head with my eyes.

Eddie nodded. "What she said..." And then launched an elaborate tale about some company called Life Foundation, some evil dude named Drake and his own alien pudding named Carnage, who was one ugly motherfucker judging by Eddie's and Venom's combined "ew" face, their aching need for human brains to survive and other, more trivial things, like mental breakdowns in a lobster tank and getting dumped by a fiancé and eating their way through a HYDRA base after being captured and tortured. What a wild fucking ride.

"Sounds like you had a rough year," Everybody's dumbfounded silence was ended by Tony who took a slow swig of his whiskey before speaking.

"Yeah, no shit," Eddie muttered, twisting his black coated fingers in elaborate but frankly pretty shapes. His alien wrapped around his neck like a tube scarf and additional tentacles appeared between Eddie's hands, gently prying them open and enveloping them in a sort of a hug? It was hard to compute, the black mass appeared to be totally amorphous.

"How's your anxiety?" I asked, damn well knowing Eddie's mind tended to run like Tony's: zero to sixty in point five with no clear destination. Having an alien inside of him must've really thrown Eddie for a loop.

"It's, uh, better. Venom helps," The reporter admitted, still staring at his hands but the crease between his brows had disappeared and the expression he wore was kind of fond.

"Good. You know, Venom," I thoughtfully addressed the definitely sentient creature. "Eddie is a bigger dumbass than me, which is saying something. You ought to keep a really close eye on him. If not for me, he'd probably be dead from alcohol poisoning, like, years ago."

"WE ARE AWARE. WE CAN ACCESS EDDIE'S MEMORIES." A head manifested itself on a thicker tentacle, floating over to look me in the face but maintaining a respectful distance and staying out of my personal space bubble. "AND WE ARE THANKFUL. EDDIE IS THE PERFECT HOST. WE LOVE EDDIE."

I felt the corner of my mouth tilt upwards at the alien's proclamation. It was child-like in its blunt honesty but carried a certain weight with it. It told me whoever tries to separate those two in any way would get eaten faster than they could say "SIKE!". And honestly? I would help Venom hide the evidence.

"I literally had you for thirty minutes but I would kill everybody and then myself if you two got hurt. This is too soft, I can't." I snorted, extending a curious hand towards Venom. They looked so shiny. I had to touch them.

And they let me. Venom butted their head into my palm and let me gently run my fingers over their slightly cool, slippery flesh. It felt like putting my hands on a surprisingly sturdy yet bouncy piece of flubber. I purposely avoided the small maw and the endless rows of sharp teeth but managed to accidentally brush against something rough and scratchy - as it turned out, the Symbiote had a very long, very dexterous tongue. And didn't that give me a bunch of interesting mental images.

"Oh my God, NO!" Wanda moaned from somewhere, the voice mortified and disgusted.

"Why are you touching the people-eating alien?" Bruce yelped, entering the room with several people in tow. The scientist looked worried, a little bit green around the edges. The tablet in his hands beeped periodically, signifying the ongoing sciencing bender he was in process of.

"WE WOULD NOT EAT THIS HUMAN. WE ARE FOND OF THE MORSEL." Venom defended, well, venomously. Eddie wisely choose to stay silent, trading a knowing look with Tony.

Stephen Strange sighed, briefly closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose with a jagged movement. "One day, Princess, one day you will stop collecting people that are obviously bad for your health and your future. That, or space in the tower will simply run out." With a deeper, calmer sigh, the sorcerer landed in front of me on the floor, sitting cross-legged and subtly begging for a head scratch. Which meant just placing his always neatly trimmed curls under my free hand. His jealousy was about as subtle as a foot in the face.

"I'll just ask Tony to build more floors, duh," I rolled my eyes with force at the obvious solution, giving into Steph's demands, beginning to card through his hair. It was calming both of us, really.

Bruce came over to give me a kiss and my other boyfriends didn't even grumble about the scientist placing himself in my lap, crawling over both Tony and Stephen to get comfortable.

Our dynamic was unconventional and more than a little weird, but it worked for us and the rest of the team most certainly didn't complain about the vast decrease in conflict that came with the territory. Come to think of it, all of us were more tactile than just a group of friends sharing a house and I was very much on board with that. None of us except select few (looking at you, mister doctor) were hugged enough as children and we were making up for it in spades right fucking now.

"Girl has a type," Wanda remarked, like the messy little shit she was. I stuck out my tongue in retaliation.

The Avengers' brain trust began talking about Venom's slightly inconvenient diet that directly resulted in multiple felonies for one Edward Brock, and as much as I tried to follow the flow and make my own, however feeble, contributions to the scientific side of the conversation, the new life form was much more interesting. I asked Venom several questions and they deemed them acceptable enough to answer - which evolved on both of us absolutely geeking out over the differences in our physiology. The space pudding didn't hold back one bit, insulting the inferior human biology with gleeful gusto.

"They need a chemical called phenethylamine," Bruce sighed, having deduced it through discussion since Venom and Eddie both protested aggressively against any kind of invasive testing. "I can synthesize it. No more head-chomping, no more murder."

It made perfect sense. Except it didn't. "Brucie-bear, you're a brilliant fucking scientist but a shit psychologist." I interrupted whatever came next. "Venom is a person, like me and you and, yes, even Hulk. Tell me this: if you found a way to get rid of Hulk, would you stop sciencing in the gamma radiation field?" I looked my boyfriend straight in the eyes, hoping for a spark of common sense. "Do you see my point? You science, Tony engineers, Steve draws and Clint bakes. Venom hunts. It's who they are, you can't give them a pill to make it go away."

The weight of my word landed in the room like lead, heavy. The only source of sound was the TV, playing the news quietly in the background for the longest time. Those few minutes felt like hours until Thor expectantly turned towards Eddie/Venom.

"IT IS SO. WE ARE AFRAID WE CANNOT INFLUENCE OUR INSTINCT TO HUNT PREY. KLYNTAR ARE APEX PREDATORS." The little black goop sounded almost apologetic. It was hard to hear undertones with their voice being so deep and grating. "BUT WE CAN TRY." Okay, I could totally hear the hope. Finding out the Eldritch horror could make puppy eyes was... Terrifying, to be honest, because they fucking worked.

"Got any better ideas?" Tony asked me sarcastically.

"I do, actually." I leveled a look with Natasha. She understood. "HYDRA goons. The aliens that, for some reason, keep invading New York every month or so. Stephen's adventures in Hell. Do I need to continue?"

"Wait, hold on," Steve raised his palms. "We don't kill HYDRA, we deposit them in SHIELD custody."

I snorted at the naïve Captain. "And what do you think happens to them there? Did you honestly think they just let torturing, murdering, world-domination planning psychos back on the streets?"

Steve frowned in confusion. "They go to prison?"

Natasha choose that moment to step up. "It's not uncommon for them to possess certain enhancements to be deemed too dangerous to be released back into society. Some of them are low-tier mutants and inhumans. Trust me, Steve, the lethal injection is a much more humane treatment than solitary life imprisonment in a ultra-high security prison." Romanoff stated with a trace of compassion. "And some mutants, we can't contain for prolonged periods of time." She added quietly, looking away.

Rogers was staring blankly into the wall, mulling over the information in his head. His intensive thought process was plainly visible on his face. I heard about some kind of fiasco with HYDRA agents suicide-bombing a city in Europe few years ago and Steve was there, along with Wanda and Sam.

"Venom is a whole person, and even if they look like they could be the main character in Call of Ctulhu video game, we can't just disregard them like they are some kind of badly behaving pet. They're my honorary uncle's boyf-sorry-significant other, for fuck's sake," I threw my hands up in the air in exasperation. "Y'all should know I don't fuck with people who give shit to one of my own. Don't disappoint me like that." I finished, feeling more tired than I had in months. I didn't regret giving into the found family dynamic, however I didn't exactly sign up for hard choices like them vs my long lost uncle, y'know?

Great, now I had a headache and three very concerned boyfriends glaring at me for unknown reasons. The urge to pace always manifested strongly within me as the emotional atmosphere rose in the room. With Bruce dangling off my lap, I couldn't do even that and I felt the restlessness blossom into irritation more and more with each passing second of my existence.

Eddie remained silent, looking down. Venom had mostly receded into the reporter's body, save for a few tentacles tightly wrapped around Eddie's palm.

"Alright," Steve suddenly said. "We can work with that."

"Princess, you look like you're either going to cry or yell any second," Bruce said softly, squeezing my shoulder and pulling me closer.

I immediately hid my face in his chest, taking several deep, shaky breaths. "Eddie is family. Y'all are family. It's terrifying to have to choose between the two." I said, after a brief moment of hesitation.

The reporter made some sort of a choked gasp, quickly masking it with a cough - I knew him way too well to miss the way he was fighting back tears of his own. Bruce understood, he really did understand me - hopped off my lap and let me hug Eddie properly, my happy-sad tears soaking through the collar of his tee.

"You're, uh, welcome to stay. I'll have a guest room prepared." Tony cleared his throat, passing his half-finished glass to Stephen who swallowed the liquid in one gulp. My boyfriends were so fucking emotionally illiterate. Disaster humans.

Huh, I really did have a type.

Later that night, I made the mistake of barging into Eddie's room with a bottle of really fancy whiskey I liberated from Tony's overstocked liquor cabinet. Visiting my uncle and boozing and smoking on the balcony, for old times sake, was my plan and...

I failed the mission successfully.

I didn't bother knocking. As soon as I saw a pair of bare feet, my eyes traveled further up on the couch on their own volition. There were so many tentacles, a writhing, oozing silky black mass and Eddie was making sounds, unmistakable noises-

"UNSEE. UNSEE. OH MY GOD, UNSEE, UNSEE." I stumbled back into the common room shivering.

"What happened, is everything okay?" Bucky stood up as soon as he saw me enter the doorway with my face scrunched in a grimace of regret. I felt like I've gone through the five stages of grief in the shortest time possible for a human being.

Somwhere, I heard Wanda's sudden moan full of pain and misery. "Please, stop THINKING about it!"

"Brain bleach, oh my God," I cringed. "Where's the Clorox?! I have decided I don't need my eyeballs-"

"Oooh," Tony's proverbial lightbulb lit up. The engineer sounded like he was about five seconds away from building a space ship and permanently moving to another planet. "They're together-together..." Tony intercepted me nonetheless, doing the most effective thing to make me stop speaking and thinking bullshit. He kissed me. With lots of tongue.

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub @mostly-marvel-musings @vozit @littlegasps @pilloclock @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads @hermione-grangers-wife @individualistfem @sleep-i-ness @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney @dee-vn @justanotherblonde23 @fanngirl19 @persephonehemingway @softie-socks @schemefrenzy @letsby @cutenessloading @romeo-the-cactus @jelly-fishy-babie @mikariell95

#party favours #bun writes #tony stark x reader #bruce banner x reader #stephen strange x reader #eddie brock #venom #stephen strange x y/n #tony stark x y/n #bruce banner x y/n #tony stark x you #bruce banner x you #stephen strange x you #venom is babey fight me

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abacus-and-paper-money · 3 years

Text

Some Modern/High School AU Shit That I Came Up With Because Fuck You

- Helene and Anatole are both cheerleaders

- Dolokhov is The Nerf Gun Kid

- Natasha has the MOST aesthetic Instagram page

- Mary has a hard time with common core math homework poor baby

- Balaga is the bus driver lmao

- Sonya lives on coffee and Natasha tries to drink black coffee too to look grown up but always ends up dumping an unholy amount of cream and sugar in it

- They are All Theater Kids because legally they have to be

- Marya drives a red pickup truck because she DOES okay

- Pierre is the kid cramming at 3AM who texts you asking if he can borrow your geometry book tomorrow

- Helene can break into people's lockers

- both Natasha and Anatole are easily distracted by pretty rocks, coins, and the like.

#a queue which I composed

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a-spectacle-in-the-morning · 4 years

Text

“A Whole Lot Left to Lose” -- Rafael Barba

Summary: You slept over at Barba’s place after turning up the night before embarrassingly drunk. Now you have to deal with waking up in his bed, further workplace awkwardness, and serious arguments about coffee.

Notes: Follow up for this, which is a follow up for this. I’m still unwilling to admit this is becoming a series even though it definitely is turning into one. Catch me on the sixth part saying “a follow up for this, which is a follow up for this, which is a follow up for this…”

And sorry my posting has been so sporadic. School and life caught up to me and I had a nasty case of writer’s block.

You awake to mid-morning sunlight and unsettlingly soft sheets. For a sweet second your brain idles, still half asleep, and you relish in the softness of your unknown surroundings. Then your thoughts snap into focus. You’re in Barba’s bedroom, curled up in Barba’s bed, absolutely tangled in Barba’s sheets. And you’re still in last night's clothes. Incredible. Nothing adds to waking up with an increasingly pounding headache like remembering how you made an idiot of yourself in front of the guy you’re catching feelings for.

The analog alarm clock on the nightstand reads around 9:30 and you let out a sigh of relief. You’re not scheduled to go into work until noon, and for a brief moment you consider trying to apologize to Barba before you leave. But then a vague memory of stumbling through his living room and spinning like a toddler unexpectedly comes back to you. Sneaking out without confrontation is clearly the only option.

The door to the room is slightly ajar and you lay silently for a second to listen for sounds of movement. All you hear are the faint sounds of morning traffic, so you force yourself out of Barba’s bed. You spot an acoustic guitar resting on a stand as you tiptoe across the floor. If you ever shake off the embarrassment of this whole ordeal you’ll have to ask him about it.

When you get to the living room you find the couch oddly empty. You had assumed after Barba had given you the bed he would have slept out here. Curiosity outweighs caution, and you wander in search of his office. He said he had a lot of work to do last night, you had just assumed he would’ve been finished by now. There’s light coming from underneath a door near the front foyer and you risk cracking it open to peek inside.

Assistant District Attorney Rafael Barba, who you’re accustomed to witnessing completely decimate opposition in the courtroom while wearing stupidly expensive three piece suits, is asleep at his desk. An array of paperwork is splayed out beneath his head. You have a weird urge to step fully into his office to place a chaste kiss on his forehead or maybe wrap a blanket around his shoulders. You’ve clearly been watching too many rom-coms. Instead you just take a few more seconds to appreciate the sight in front of you then gently shut the door.

When you get home you are instantly happy for the familiarity, but the couple of hours before your shift are not as relaxing as you’d hoped they would be. You try to catch a few more hours of sleep, but your bed doesn’t seem as comfortable as it usually is. You try to mindlessly watch something on your phone, but you keep checking to see if Barba has texted you. By the time you finally settle, make yourself a box of mac and cheese, and finish eating it’s time to head into work.

If there were to be an action figure for Barba it would come with about twenty pairs of suspenders and some form of a cup of coffee. Possibly a white mug, like the ones he uses with the machine in his office, or something disposable from a local coffee shop. Either way there is no way his favorite caffeinated drink would be in the kind of over-sized thermos you used to take to class with you in college. Bizarrely, that’s exactly what Barba’s currently carrying with him as he makes his way towards Liv’s office.

Instead of striding past your desk like he usually does, Barba slows before fully passing you and stops. The hairs on the back of your neck raise and suddenly his hand is flat on your back; right between your shoulder blades. His fingers press just a bit deeper into your back and you realize that he’s leaning over you to place something on your desk. The thermos that caught your eye just a few seconds ago now sits between your computer and a newton’s cradle your dad got you as a graduation gift.

Before you can look over at him or turn or even say thank you Barba’s hand is sliding off of you. His middle finger traces a line from the center of your back just below your neck, all the way off your shoulder. Intentionally or not the action sends goosebumps down your entire arm. You don’t realize you were holding your breath until you hear Liv’s office door shut and you let out a massive sigh.

The world around you returns to focus. God, when did it get so out of focus? And you immediately wish you were anywhere in the world than at your own desk. Carisi has the most dumbstruck look you’ve ever seen. You’re afraid his jaw might drop off if it dangles that low for much longer. And when you try to avert your gaze elsewhere you land on Amanda’s devilish grin. The two of you aren’t amazingly close, but you’ve gotten a few drinks together and without even telling her she’d picked up on the tension between you and Barba. You’d told her that even if he was into you you weren’t ready to dive into a relationship with him. He was a lot and you were busy.

But now Barba had walked straight up to your desk, touched you intimately enough, and handed you coffee like he knew you hadn’t slept well. Like he was the reason you hadn’t slept well. That’s what every other member of the SVU seemed to be thinking, at least. Except for Fin who looked to actually be falling asleep at his desk.You can’t blame him. You certainly could use a bit of unconsciousness yourself right now.

It’s nearing five and your thoughts are churning in your head. A massive storm is sloshing around up there and leaving you with absolutely no energy. You’re one of the last ones left; Sonny and Amanda having left for dinner about an hour ago. Fin packed up shortly before them and Liv shortly after him. Normally you would’ve finished your work before everyone else. Tonight the paperwork is taking twice as long to get through as normal. You want to blame it on your hangover, but the headache is nothing compared to the onslaught of distracting thoughts about Barba.

After reading each sentence you’re bombarded with an even lengthier montage of the ADA. You’re just getting the image of him in pajamas out of your brain when you remember the weight of his hand on your shoulder this morning. At this rate the thirty pages you have left to get through are going to take hours.

You would throw it in for the night and head home, but you’re afraid the distracting thoughts will get worse. And probably more graphic. With your focus completely shot and a whole lot left to lose you decide to head over to One Hogan Place. You make sure to grab the thermos before you leave.

“What the hell were you thinking Barba?” you remain surprisingly monotone as you practically slam the thermos onto his desk.

Barba sits looking at you wide eyed for just a second before a little sly grin ghosts his face. You’d rushed over from the SVU, making sure to get here before Barba left. Your face is probably flushed from the cold and the slight jog you just did. The jog also got you a bit worked up, hence the aggressive placement of the thermos.

“That you would be hungover and need a pick me up?” Barba offers.

“You can’t do this kind of shit. People talk.”

Barba remains seated behind his desk with the smuggest look. He isn’t responding. Why isn’t he responding? He always has the wittiest comebacks and he’s just sitting there looking at you. You take a chance and make your way around to stand next to him. He doesn’t rise from his seat, but he swivels in his chair to face you.

“You don’t want them thinking we’re something we’re not, right?”

Barba laces his fingers together in his lap and leans back in his chair. “Let me make sure I have this right: you want me to be… meaner to you?”

“No, you-” you squint down at him. “Will you just shut up for a second?”

Barba’s smile grows, but he stays quiet.

“I couldn’t think straight because of you. Do you know how frustrating that is?”

“I think I have an idea-”

“Hey! I said zip it, counselor. You don’t have an idea. No idea. Because every five minutes it was back to you up here,” you tap at your temple for emphasis. “And then I’m finally focused enough to read a sentence or two in the unholy stack of paperwork in front of me, I glance up, and this,” you hold out both of your hands, palms upwards, and direct his gaze at the thermos, “this is sitting there.”

Barba’s smile has dropped. It’s been replaced by something unreadable. Wonder? Amusement? Confusion? Maybe a bit of annoyance? You can’t quite place it and it’s incredibly frustrating.

You let out a deep sigh and turn to lean against his desk. “Sorry. I’m not usually like this. I don’t make these grand” you wave your arms around, “whatever the hell this is…”

Barba stands and moves to wait in front of you, but remains silent.

“Sorry for busting in here and verbally attacking you,” you shrug. “And for dumping this on you. And for probably making this uncomfortable. You know what? Maybe I should just leave and we can forget about all of this. Go back to whatever bizarre, semi-flirty thing we had going on before.”

Barba clears his throat, putting his hands into his jacket pockets. “Are you finished?”

You nod.

“Can I speak now?”

You roll your eyes, but nod again.

Instead of making a counterargument he takes his hands back out of his pocket and steps closer to you. Then his hands are on either side of your hips pressing into the wood of his desk. Maybe this is his counterargument: being this close to him is otherworldly. Everything comes down to the green of his eyes and then his lips are on yours. Before you have more than a second to process what’s happening he’s pulled away again.

He pats his desk once then steps back. “I think I have an idea.”

If you had asked yourself this morning, with your pounding headache and mountains of overwhelming embarrassment, how your day would end, kissing Rafael Barba would be the last thing you would’ve guessed.

You stare at him for a few seconds, unable to breathe, then awkwardly say, “Sorry for making you sleep at your desk last night.”

Barba lets out a sheepish laugh. “You saw that, huh?”

“Happen often?” you glance over at the coffee machine, already knowing the answer.

“More than I’d like to admit.”

There’s a beat of silence. You glance up at the framed Harvard Law degree that you noticed on the first day you met him. Still ostentatious.

“How about you make up for those drinks you owe me by taking me out to dinner?”

“Oh, so the coffee counts for nothing?” Barba jabs.

You reach out, emboldened by the kiss, and straighten out the lapel of his jacket. “Coffee is its own thing, Barba. This is about whiskey.”

“Ah, I see,” his gaze follows your hand as it drops from his chest. “It might take more than one dinner to make up for the tab you racked up last night.”

You squint at him, stepping away from his desk and towards the door. “If you’re gonna be a dick about it I’ll ask Carisi instead.”

Barba pushes his chair in and starts packing up his things. “Just give me a minute. Where do you want to go?”

I know I said there would be some smut with my next Barba fic, but I really wanted to continue this story and these two ain’t ready for it yet. It was enough work to get them to kiss, goddamn it. I’m thinking of continuing with at least one more part though, so high probability of smut adjacent stuff soon!

And apologies for the growing fixation on coffee in my fics. I’m not a huge caffeine addict, but I’ve recently been really missing my favorite coffee shop in one of the libraries on my campus. I can still remember the last dark roast I got days before classes were moved online…

#rafael barba x reader #rafael barba x you #rafael barba fanfiction #law and order: svu fanfiction #rafael barba fanfic #rafael barba imagine #law and order: special victims unit fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #rafael barba #law and order: svu

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ellewritesathing · 5 years

Text

Infernal - II

Summary: In your sleepy little town of Greendale, nothing ever slept for long. And ever since October, everything felt like it was waking up. Everything except for you, that is. One teensy trip to Hell (and an infuriatingly cute guy) later and suddenly you felt wide awake.

Word-count: 2.5k+

Masterlist Prev. | Part 2

A/N: thank you guys for all the support for Part 1!! i really appreciate it and i hope you enjoy this one 💕 (also this is my first time making a tag list, could please you let me know if it worked properly?)

Things went back to normal so quickly that your trip to Hell almost felt like a dream that you just couldn’t shake - the only visible sign that it ever happened being the carefully covered bruise on your forearm. That’s just the way life was now; spikes of supernatural intervention and then the lull of Baxter High. But then Sabrina burst into Harvey’s garage again, holding a gigantic book in her arms and calling for a Crisis Fright Club meeting. Another spike.

She explained how one of her new duties was dragging souls to Hell and that she needed your help to get the next guy. Jimmy Platt. Her plan was that once she took Jimmy’s soul, you guys could grab his newly-dead body and she could use it to house Lucifer and free Nick.

“So, it’s like Freaky Friday!” Harvey said. His enthusiasm made you laugh, which you quickly stifled when you noticed that your friends were still on edge about the whole ‘reaping the ice-cream man’s soul’ thing.

“It’s called a soul transference, but kind of,” Sabrina said.

The four of you agreed to take the Spellman hearse and steal Jimmy’s body while Sabrina took his soul to Hell, but she grabbed your arm before you could follow the others to Harvey’s pickup truck.

“What’s up, Brina?” you asked, trying to hide the hesitancy in your voice. She seemed unsure for the first time since you’d met her, and you doubted it was because of the body-snatching. “Do you need to talk about being Queen of Hell?”

“No, it’s not that,” she answered. She bit the inside of her lip for a moment as she chose her next words. “Well, I mean, it kind of is. Do you remember Caliban, the guy from the beach who’s also trying to rule Hell?”

A face like that was hard to forget, but you didn’t want to tell Sabrina that.

“Yeah, why?”

“I want you to stay away from him,” Sabrina said. The words tumbled out of her mouth and she worked quickly to explain what she meant to your arching eyebrows. “Not in like an ‘I forbid you from seeing him’ kinda thing, just be careful if he shows up. I don’t know anything about him except that he’s bad news and clearly has a thing for you.”

“First of all, I don’t think demons have things for anyone,” you said, overcompensating for the rush you got when she said he was interested in you. “And second, this is the same guy that wants to enslave all of humanity, right? Not really my type.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t really into the bad boy thing at first either-” Sabrina looked over at Harvey and Roz for a second when she spoke - not long enough to seem significant to anyone who didn’t know her, but long enough for someone like you. “But things change and I just want you to be careful if they do. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Trust me,” you said, using your other hand to move Sabrina’s off your arm and interlace it with yours. “The only way I’m going to get hurt is if the ice cream man tries to make a break for it.”

She gave you a not entirely convinced smile before the two of you piled into the back with Theo. You picked up the hearse, played musical chairs with the seating chart, and then waited for something to happen after Sabrina left to reap her first soul.

Rather disappointingly, the only thing that did happen was Sabrina coming back empty-handed and confused. Undisappointingly, Jimmy had kidnapped a little girl in order to extend his contract, and if he died then she rotted away somewhere in Greendale.

---

The last thing you felt like doing was going to the pep rally after Sabrina accidentally got locked in Jimmy’s murder-freezer and Lucy got returned to her mom, but there was nothing else you could do. They had a plan and you were just backup if it went south. The plan did not include you trying to kick Jimmy's teeth in.

You didn’t want to third-wheel Theo and Robin or Harvey and Roz, so you picked a spot against the fence where you could still be a part of the pep rally but you had some distance from the over-eager teens. Leaning against the fence, you got lost in your thoughts until a voice woke you up.

“I thought it was tradition for all the pretty girls to dance up there in their little outfits, not for one to be left behind in the shadows.”

You turned your head to see Caliban waiting for you to respond, so you rolled your eyes and crossed your arms over your chest. He was bad news, even if he was attractive bad news. Like a car crash that you just couldn’t keep your eyes off. Did car crashes usually have such phenomenal bone structure?

“And I thought it was tradition for all the demons to be in Hell, not hitting on unaccompanied minors,” you said, doing your best to seem unrattled. Ignoring the smirk on his face and turning your gaze back to the cheerleaders, you continued, “You do know that Sabrina will kick your ass if she finds you here, right?”

“I think the Morningstar has other priorities at the moment,” he said. The sand crunched under his feet as he came closer. “But you can try to kick my ass, if you’d like.”

Casting a glance at him before turning away, you reminded yourself not to get involved. A pretty trainwreck was still a trainwreck, no matter how much you wanted it not to be. The ground shifted again and Caliban was right next to you, lifting his hand slowly to move your hair off your neck. The places where his fingers brushed your skin lit up.

“You truly have no idea what you are, do you?” He asked it like he was telling you a secret. Despite your attempts to seem unnerved, your jaw clenched. He moved in your peripheral vision and took something out of his pockets. Stepping in front of you, his hands lifted to drape a necklace over your head. “The shell is from the Shores of Sorrow. When you’re ready to find me, just break the shell. Use it wisely, love, because it only works once.”

Choosing to look at his face instead of the necklace, you noticed something in his eyes that made you think at least part of what he said was true. There was something else that made you feel like you didn’t want to find out which part it was.

Determined not to be unnerved, you put on your best war face and straightened up. “And why should I believe anything you say?”

“Why should I have any reason to lie to you?” he asked, seeming amused by your standoffishness.

“Because you want to get the Throne, which means you have to go through Sabrina,” you said, taking the necklace off and wrapping the rope around the seashell as you spoke. The shell was white with specks of faint color creating patterns along the outside. A very pretty trainwreck indeed. You reached for his hand and lay the necklace in his palm. “And you’re trying to go through me to do that.”

“Do you really think so low of me?” Caliban asked.

You couldn’t tell if he was genuinely hurt behind that stormy expression of his or just trying to manipulate you. You looked down at your hand, still holding the back of his, and saw your sleeve had rolled up. Pulling away, you tugged your sleeve down to cover the ugly yellow- purple that had been sticking out. Looking back up to say that yes, you did think that low of him, you found Caliban staring at your forearm.

“You didn’t get that in Hell.”

He said it so matter of factly that it sent shivers up your spine.

“How would you know?”

Harvey called out to you, breaking your staring contest and signaling that it was done. When you looked back, Caliban was gone. The necklace lay in the sand where he had been. Telling yourself it was better if you had it than some unassuming girl, you picked it up and shoved it into your pocket. Then you rushed over to your friends like you hadn’t just consorted with the enemy. The very distracting enemy.

---

In an effort to prove that you were right to distrust him, Caliban challenged Sabrina’s right to rule with a challenge to find the Unholy Regalia. The first part was finding the Crown of Herod, so you spent the day at the Academy with Ambrose trying to figure out where it could be. Zelda was hardly enthused about your presence, but Hilda asked what the harm was of letting you poke around under Ambrose’s supervision. Besides, she said, they had bigger problems to worry about than you reading about witches.

After scrambling to find the location of the crown, Ambrose left to find Sabrina, leaving you alone in the Academy’s library. Figuring this was the only opportunity you’d get, you started looking for books about … something. You didn’t know what Caliban meant when he asked about what you really were, and your dad had told you countless times that Delilah was based on you. If she wasn’t human, that had to mean that you weren’t human either, right?

Or that your dad was crazy. Either option seemed equally possible, if you were being honest with yourself.

One of the books you pulled was about changelings; fairies or demons that replaced human babies and terrorized their host families. But you knew it wasn’t right. It just didn’t click with you, and you doubted that they’d just dump a fairy with humans without an evil instruction manual or a card with the time and place of Evil Babies Anonymous. If you were a demon or a fairy, you felt like you’d know about it.

Sighing, you checked your phone. Multiple texts asking where you were, if you were coming to the carnival, and did you need a ride. You sent off a few texts that all essentially said the said thing: you’d meet them there as soon as you could.

You made your way back home and dumped all your school things and research on your chair in the corner of your room. You grabbed a jacket and pulled your hair up into a ponytail before heading out the door so none of your friends put out a missing person’s report on you.

“Bye, Dad! Don’t wait up!” you called.

Just before opening the door, you heard your dad say something that you didn’t quite catch. Hand hovering over the doorknob, you had to decide between heading out or see what was responsible for the nagging feeling in your stomach. The nagging won.

“I thought you were going to the carnival with your friends,” your dad said with an easy smile when you leaned in his doorway.

“Yeah, I am but I thought you said something,” you said.

He seemed to be doing better today at least. The good days used to be the norm, the bad days were a foggy nightmare that you woke up from with a stack of your dad’s homemade pancakes, and then you turned sixteen. Now you could count the number of good days on one hand.

“Oh.” He straightened up in his chair. “I just said to be careful. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and all that. Have fun.”

“Wait, what did you just say?” you asked, muscles tensing slightly. He couldn’t know about Herod’s crown.

“To be careful,” your dad blinked.

“After that.”

“Have fun?”

“Right,” you said. He’d forgotten what he said. Another lapse in memory, did this still go in the good day pile? “Will do.”

The Carnival was way more unsettling than you expected. You couldn’t find your friends anywhere, all the sounds were too loud, and the lights got brighter and brighter as the sun set. Your dad’s words ringing in your head didn’t do much to ease the anxiety either.

You jumped as one of the games rang out next to you and a hand reached out to steady you. You pulled your arm away and caught the hand with your own, twisting it at an angle and waiting for the wrist to snap.

“Easy,” Caliban warned, leaning into the movement to protect his wrist. “You could hurt someone like that.”

“That’s kind of the point,” you said, dropping his hand and crossing your arms over your chest again. Even though you acted like it didn’t, this place felt a little bit safer with him next to you.

“Oh, I know,” he said with a devilish smile. He ran a hand through his hair as he stepped closer to you. “I see you kept the necklace.”

He couldn’t have - you were very careful to hide it under your clothes - but you knew he expected you to check. That would give him an answer as to if you kept it. You didn’t move or say anything, but you did jump when another game celebrated a victory with loud chiming.

“A little on edge tonight, are we?”

“Only because there’s this guy that keeps popping up whenever I’m alone,” you said, turning and starting to walk again. “People are telling me to get a restraining order, but I’m not sure it’ll do anything to stop him. I think something more dangerous and less orderly might be what I need.”

“Perhaps I could be of some help,” Caliban said, making it clear that he understood what you were implying but refusing to acknowledge it. “I happen to have an affinity for doing dangerous things.”

“Oh, I bet you think you do,” you said, stopping and turning back to look at him again.

A dangerous thing with an affinity for doing dangerous things looked back at you. Maybe it was your anxiety clouding your judgment or maybe it was the way the Ferris wheel lights caught in his eye, but all you wanted in that moment was to forget Sabrina’s warning and kiss him. After all, one dangerous thing never hurt anyone; it was always the harmless things that got people damned. Like apples. And Caliban was hardly an apple. Though if you thought about it hard enough, maybe that meant he was the snake.

Realizing that it had been almost a minute since either of you had said anything and a smile was slowly etching its way across Caliban’s face, you shifted your weight and asked, “Don’t you have places to be, people to torture?”

“Now that you mention it, I do have somewhere I need to be.” He ducked his head slightly as he spoke and took a step back, readying his hands for whatever spell he was about to cast. Looking back at you with a smile that managed to be both conniving and grim, he added, “Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and all that.”

“Wait, what did you-”

But he was already gone, a few burn marks on the ground the only evidence that he’d been there at all.

Taglist: @peachesandknives @caliban-is-my-girl @t-a-i-l-o-r-m-a-d-e @music-movies @miss--moose

Part 3

#caliban #caliban imagine #caliban x reader #infernal #chilling adventures of sabrina #caos

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