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justanotherbirdbrain-blog · 3 months

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A Workshop for Creating Magical/ Fictional Crystals: A Guide from a Geologist

Hi folks, its me, here to talk about fictional writing again! Today I'm just tackling the idea of magical stones/mana stones by looking at existing minerals today and some neat properties that they have, and how you can apply these things to a fictional world. The goal is mainly to help you if you are stuck trying to come up with a unique magic system, or a unique identification/characteristic of your mineral.

First Things First: Mineral Shapes

I am exhausted, petered out, down-right fatigued by seeing every mineral depicted with having the crystal structure of calcite and quartz. There are soooooo many cooler, more interesting crystal structures, don't you think you would stop and take a look at a perfect cube in nature? It is completely unsettling.

Second: Color

Color within minerals can either be really important, or not important at all! It is your choice to decide if color is going to be something that means something to your mineral. But what are some times when the color is important? Well.... there are some elements that are called chromophores, this classification just indicates that these elements, when present, will determine the color of whatever they are in. So, if you wanted to treat mana like a chromophore, you could say, "Oh everything that contains mana turns green!" This could mean that regardless of the mineral, if that mineral is a specific color, it means it contains mana. This concept is exciting because you can just stop here and use minerals that already exist! You can also use it as an indicator for a magical ore! Chromophores are typically metals, so if you are making a new metal weapon, making the ore of that metal a unique color would make a lot of sense!

However, your mineral can also just be every color of the rainbow like quartz and perhaps that's what makes identifying your mana stones elusive and create an illusion of scarcity that your character can solve.

There are other things that can change the colors of minerals, like radiation damage, and electron exchange, but I think that is beyond what would be helpful! So lets talk about some unique color properties that happen in nature that seem magical in the first place! Maybe you don't need to design a mana stone, but you want a unique gemstone that only the royal family passes down or something (IDK).

The first one is the alexandrite effect! This is where a mineral can change color in natural light vs. incandescent light. (the mineral itself is not changing, but the lights contain different amounts of different colors that then get absorbed by the stone). Even if you don't use electricity in your fictional world, you could have the colors change in the presence of light magic. This could create fun misunderstandings about what the mineral is reacting to!

Pleochroism

Pleochroism is something that most minerals have, it is frequently used to help identify minerals in thin sections, however minerals are usually not pleochroic enough for it to be visible to the naked eye! Pleochroism is just a fancy name to describe the change in how light is absorbed based on the angle of the mineral! So if you scroll up to the first image where I showed a lot of crystal shapes, most of them have angles where they are longer and shorter! This will effect the way light travels in the crystal. Tanzanite is a popular mineral that does this.

Photochromism

This is when a mineral will change color (in a reversible way) when exposed to UV light (or sunlight), I am not going to go too into the details of why this is happening because it would require me to read some research papers and I just don't feel like it. The mineral that is best known for this is Hackmanite!

Alright! These are all the really cool color effects that might inspire you or maybe not, but now I am going to talk about how you might find your minerals within a rock!

When I see a lot of magical caves/mines, typically I see them with some variation of a geode honestly, but most minerals are not found like that! Now I am sure most of you guys have seen a geode, so I will not really talk about those, but I will talk briefly about porphyroblasts which is when the mineral grows larger than the minerals around it, this happens in metamorphic minerals!

sorry random stranger, but this is an image of garnets inside a finer-grained rock at gore mountain in New York!

Another way you might find minerals is in a pegmatite! This is when all minerals are really large! This is a formed from really slow crystalizing magma!

But something else to think about is that your mineral might just be massive, it doesn't have to have distinct crystals, it may be similar to jadeite where small grains grow together which leaves it looking smooth and seamless! A note about all of these is that you would have to mine into the rock to find these, there would not be any natural caves in these rocks! Caves are only ever really formed in limestones and maybe marbles (rocks that react with acid).

How can your characters identify these minerals?

Typically when you are out in the field you will look to see what type of rocks the minerals are found in (The overall texture of the rock will tell you how it formed). If you know how the rock formed, it will narrow down the amount of minerals you need to think about by quite a bit! Next, you are going to look closely at it and observe its crystal structure, does it have an obvious crystal? if so what is the general shape? If it is broken, how did it break? Did it fracture like glass or did it break along uniform planes. Some minerals have a thing called cleavage (breaks along planes of weakness). If a mineral exhibits this habit, it will again help narrow this down. Next we can look at color. Color can be misleading, because minerals like quartz can be any color imaginable, but minerals like olivine will always be green! The next thing your character can do is test for hardness, minerals all have a specific hardness that can help identify it as well.

After you go through all of this, your mineral might have some special property! This could be magnetism, fluorescence, reactions to acid, or any of the color changing effects I mentioned above! Other than that, your character can take it back to a lab and do a number of things to identify it, but the most typical thing would be for them to make a thin section (very thin piece of the rock) and observe it under a cross polarized microscope!

On that note folks! I hope this helped in some way in thinking of new magic mineral properties! I have other guides that explore some different fictional worldbuilding issues you might run into, but if you have any topics you would like me to cover please that I haven't mentioned already, let me know!

#geology #rocks #creative writing #fictional world #worldbuilding #dnd #dnd worldbuilding #worldbuilding stuff #writing resources #info post #information #writing

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faesystem · 5 months

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As an ambulatory wheelchair user I have so many thoughts about how people draw/write disabled!Scar. This is sort of a guide/insight from a disabled person about writing/drawing disabled people.

Specifically in regards to wheelchair users.

Do not get me wrong, this fandom is genuinely probably the best group of people I have ever seen when it comes to drawing wheelchairs. I do not believe I have ever seen Scar fanart where he is in a completely unusable, horrible, hospital chair. It is so clear people have taken the time and energy to research into wheelchairs and I love it. I am in no way saying stop that.

I just think people could maybe put a little bit more consideration into him being disabled beyond visual appearance.

I saw a really amazing artwork of SL!Scar and he is in a sports chair. Which is really cool, in many ways, as it shows some thought being put into the setting. If I were in combat, I would in fact like to not be knocked from my chair or have my chair tipped over.

Yet, you have very limited mobility in a sports chair. It is, by design, made to prevent you from tipping over. Which means that you are incapable of going over bumps, really, let alone natural terrain.

Just in general, there really is not any wheelchair that exists in our world that would allow wheelchair users to exist in a setting like the life series.

So, I have some ideas:

- Horses. Hands down my biggest suggestion. Especially with Secret Life they fit in very well with the setting, everyone uses them, and it fits the bill perfectly for what he would need. Especially considering Scar is an archer, it makes a lot of sense for him to be on horseback. It suits him and his style of fighting so well.

- Some sort of redstone power chair. There are all sorts of ways you could design something like this. Perhaps with pistons that push down against the ground, allowing for jumps. Perhaps just a series of pistions functioning as like a bunch of little spider legs. There are a lot of things you can do with that, you can get very creative.

- For my Vex!Scar lovers, you could have magic be used as a mobility aid. Perhaps a magic wheelchair, or perhaps a magic exoskeleton.

And with all of the ideas, considering how they fit into the setting really changes everything. What are the strengths? What are the draw backs?

With horses, they are strong and fast and agile. But they are big, it is hard to fit into small spaces, and they can be killed.

With some sort of redstone chair, I feel as though it would make sense for it to be robust and strong. Depending on how it is constructed, something fast and agile or perhaps something a bit slower and more clunky. Is it loud? How would stealth work in something like that?

When it comes to any sort of magic you do not want it to fix the disability. It is a mobility aid like any other. Not perfect, not the same as not being disabled, just another tool with its own unique draw backs. Perhaps magic is draining or it takes concentration. Would he tire quicker than others? Would he require food quicker than others? Is it possible for him to lose focus on it in a stressful situation, leaving him stuck until he can calm himself down?

Other things to consider are really specifically the setting as well as what disability you are giving him.

I feel as though on Hermitcraft an option like a redstone chair just makes a lot of sense. Multiple redstone chairs, even, all constructed differently for different uses. Such as ones for building. How does long distance travel work with the chair and how you lore your setting? Is it something he can put in his inventory? Is it something he remains in when using an elytra? Does that have any draw backs, such as being slower or needing more rockets or being less coordinated in the air?

I feel as though in the life series a mix of vex magic and horses makes a lot of sense. The magic is good for small spaces and short trips and emergencies, but it is too tiring to travel across the map with and too much effort to maintain when he needs to concentrate on battles. That would be where the horse comes into play.

As for what disability, well, it truly depends. Most of my rambles here have been based upon paraplegia, because I often times see people making him an ambulatory wheelchair user just because they do not know what to do otherwise.

Not that making him an ambulatory wheelchair user is a bad thing by any means. I am one and I adore reading stories like that. It is just a bit clear that a lot of you are quite lost as to how to navigate hurdles disabled people face, so you make it so he can walk over those hurdles. Which, once again, I am not shaming you for! This post is just to show there are other options

But in the case of him being an ambulatory wheelchair user: why is he one?

Mobilities aids are disabling unless you need them. You cannot access spaces or you do not have hands free or any number of things. What to the Scar you are writing makes using mobility aids helpful instead of a hindrance? What times are they more trouble than help, and what cost is there for not using it?

A good example is if Scar can walk around short distances with minimal difficulty/drawback, but long distances are painful or physically not possible.

Look into different disabilities and consider it. A lot of people tend to default to chronic pain because that tends to be quite a common one across a lot of disabled people, but there are a lot more different reasons why.

It could also be that he is very slow because of his disabilities. I have muscle weakness sometimes because of my FND, and it is like moving through sludge whenever I try and move.

It could also be that the mobility aids are a preventative measure. He does not need to use his wheelchair, unless he has done too much walking and then his body refuses to support his weight. He does not need to use his wheelchair, but when he does not he is a lot more likely to dislocate something and then yeah he can't walk. He does not need to use his wheelchair, but he is a fall risk especially after a lot of walking or running. Him being in his wheelchair prevents him from falling! (And if he's a fall risk, maybe he's strapped in too!)

I just have so many thoughts and I wanted to share them.

I see so many of you putting in effort already and it warms my heart. It is why I feel comfortable enough to make this post, because clearly you all care a lot about representing disabled people well.

If you have read this far thank you so much. Let me know what you think or if you have any questions.

Edit: I made a rough redstone wheelchair design. It is one of the few reblogs that has comments, if you filter for that you should be able to find it. If not, reply to the post and I can send you the link to it. :]

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aesethewitch · 4 days

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Ambient Spells

The idea of the ambient spell isn’t so uncommon. My use of the word “ambient” may throw you for a bit of a loop. An ambient spell is any spell that permeates a space in an unobtrusive way. They affect the area surrounding their vessel and require little to no maintenance or upkeep. They’re long-term workings that require varying levels of effort to put together and cast. Depending on what exactly you need, they can be as simple as setting out a bowl of salt or as complex as crafting a home decor piece from scratch.

I always recommend making ambient spells that are self-fueling. I often refer to them also as “set it and forget it” spells. They’re the crockpot of spellwork — work up front for a slow burn output.

Chances are that you’re already aware of or even know how to create ambient spells. Any spell that affects the vibe of a room, for example, would count as an ambient spell. Lighting incense specifically to invite in positive energy counts. A ward that sucks up baneful magic and transforms it into blessings also counts. The primary idea of an ambient spell is that it’s making a change to your environment in the background. It’s the cool breeze in summertime, the subtle piano at a fancy restaurant, the scent of fresh-baked cookies fading as the day goes by. Positive, but not overt.

When to Use (or Not Use) an Ambient Spell

By their nature, ambient spells are fairly general workings. They can be quite powerful, of course, just like any other spell. The thing to keep in mind is that they’re not ideal for targeted magic.

For example, I wouldn’t create an ambient spell to banish someone from my life. I might make an ambient spell to make an area unwelcoming to them, or to anyone who would do me harm. The unwelcoming vibe might discourage them from coming around, sure. But it may not work outside of the area the spell lives in; and it may not get rid of them for good.

Similarly, an ambient spell might make a good general ward for keeping out loud, unwelcome spirits, but it wouldn’t specifically cast out the one particular spirit who’s been causing problems. It might discourage their behavior, but it wouldn’t necessarily get rid of them. A concentrated, single-use banishing spell would work significantly better for that purpose. Afterwards, an ambient spell can keep the area clear of that spirit’s influence.

I also wouldn’t use an ambient spell to draw in specific success. General success or money, absolutely — whatever wants to come my way is welcome, via a basic money bowl set up next to my wallet. But if I specifically want a promotion or a particular amount of money, I’m not going to leave that to the ambient money spell. I would craft a spell specifically for what I’m looking for.

When deciding what kind of spell to cast, keep this idea in mind. An ambient spell is best for behind-the-scenes results that happen without your concentrated effort. When you want something specific, a more targeted spell will work better nine times out of ten.

Creating an Ambient Spell

It’s possible to create an ambient spell with nothing but energy work. However, I often find that these fade quickly and don’t lend themselves well to self-fueling. They tend to need more active upkeep than I prefer for a spell that’s meant to be set and let go. I recommend choosing an appropriate vessel of some kind to contain the spell to help it last longer.

How do you decide what’s an appropriate vessel, though? And how do you set one up? How do you make a spell self-fueling? Let’s start from the top and go in order.

Identify the Purpose

Decide what the spell will do. This is going to define the components and the way you’re going to cast the spell. In my experience, ambient spells work best when they’re given a single purpose. For example, I wouldn’t make a spell that’s a ward and a cleanser and a spirit welcome mat. It dilutes the purpose. Choose a single, clear motive for the spell.

Choose a Vessel

Now that you know what your spell will do, it’s time to decide what it’s going to look like. The vessel you choose should reflect the spell’s purpose in some way.

An open bowl works well for absorbing energy. Why? It’s open. The face of it is open to the room, ready to take in whatever kind of energy you assign to its contents.

A closed jar, on the other hand, would be good for repelling. It’s closed off and sealed — a one-way road going out of the jar and into the room to clear it.

A wreath hung at the door could serve a lot of purposes, depending on what it’s made with. I would use a wreath as an agent of transformation or as an energy emitter to release a certain energy into the space.

A stone makes a solid vessel for protection or grounding. I have one on my working altar to help keep me in the moment and create a good environment for working magic.

When you’re choosing your spell vessel, keep in mind how visible you want it to be. Certain vessels are going to naturally be more obvious than others. A wreath, for example, is hard to miss — but it also just looks like nice home decor. A jar full of herbs and things would be more obviously a spell, but they can be small and easily hidden.

I have both obvious and hidden ambient spells peppered around my home for varying purposes. If you’re keeping your practice a secret, you’ll likely want to keep your spells more obscure or hidden. But if you aren’t, and you can make the choice of whether you want the spell to be in plain sight or not, consider the effect you want the spell to have.

If you want the spell to absorb bad vibes, baneful magics, the evil eye, or other negativity, a hidden spell might serve you well. Hiding the vessel somewhere means that whoever’s casting against you may not expect the resistance. On the other hand, if you want a vessel that allows friendly spirits to visit you during the holidays, a beautiful centerpiece on your dining table that’s charmed with spirit-friendly magic might serve the purpose.

Choose an Energy Source

Ambient spells need to draw energy from somewhere. Think of it like a battery. The ingredients you put into the spell may provide a temporary charge, but if you want the spell to be long-term, it needs an input. How will your spell recharge itself?

If you want the spell to be shorter-term, only a few days or so, then you can skip this step. But if you want an ambient spell to last a while, like a ward or vibe-adjuster, you’ll need to think about this carefully.

Like when choosing the vessel, the energy source should match the purpose of the spell. For example, I have a simple room refresher spell set on a table that’s central to my home. The purpose of it is to take anxiety and negative thoughts to turn them into positivity. I set it up so that the act of walking past the bowl swirls the air around it, and therefore also the energy around it. That kinetic energy fuels the bowl’s magic and keeps it going. I don’t have to actively recharge the bowl or its contents, because we walk past it constantly.

Another example would be an ambient spell to help you do the dishes. (Whether that’s remembering to do them or finding the motivation for it is up to you.) The fuel for the spell could be the act of walking into or past the kitchen, running water elsewhere in the home, or even cooking or eating.

The energy source could also be something like lighting a candle next to or over the vessel on a schedule, if you prefer. This would add an upkeep step, of course, and wouldn’t be my first choice. The only ambient spell I do this with is my money bowl, and that’s because it’s tuned to be able to shift focus from day to day depending on what exactly I need (commissions versus tips versus discounts, etc.).

Setting Up an Ambient Spell

Decide where you want to place your spell’s vessel ahead of time. If you have pets or kids, make sure you put whatever it is out of their reach. If the vessel is something like an uncovered bowl, you’ll want to be sure that it isn’t going to get knocked over. Similarly, if it’s made of glass, you don’t want it to fall and shatter. If your vessel needs to be hidden somehow, determine where you’ll keep it. It would be smart to make note of where the spell is and what it looks like in your grimoire or spell notebook just so that if you forget about it, you can identify it later on down the road.

After you know where you want to put it, it’s time to choose ingredients and fill your vessel. The components you decide on should, obviously, match your goals.

Casting an ambient spell is much the same as casting a regular spell. The only thing to keep in mind is that an ambient spell has a sort of prolonged release.

Upkeep and Care of an Ambient Spell

For the most part, ambient spells should require little to no upkeep. With that said, you should still do routine check-ups on them. I include them in my regular rounds when I check on my wards and various protections, but you could do yours whenever it makes the most sense to you.

Depending on how you decided to fuel your spell, you may need to do a bit of feeding. Whether that’s lighting a new candle, refilling a cup of water, mixing around a pile of herbs, or giving the vessel a little shake, do so anytime it feels like the spell’s energy is flagging. It may take some practice in sensing energy to know exactly when a spell needs refueling. This is partly why I suggest creating a schedule to check in on the spell; ambient spells are a great type to practice sensing spell energy, since they’re typically long-lasting and may wax or wane depending on the day.

If your spell is fully self-fueling and it doesn’t seem to be working anymore (or at all, even from the start), it’s time to take it apart. Discard disposable components according to your practice’s tenets. Cleanse the rest for future use. I would suggest washing your spell vessel alongside magical cleansing.

A Ready-to-Use Example

Here’s an extremely simple example of an ambient spell I use in my home to keep the main living area light, fresh, and conducive to getting work done. Since both my partner and I work from home, it’s important that our areas have an aura of focus.

Materials:

- A small bowl, preferably green or brown - Enough salt to fill the bowl halfway - A few pinches of dried rosemary

Instructions:

1. Ensure the bowl is clean and dry. Pour salt into the bowl until it’s halfway full. 2. Sprinkle dried rosemary into the salt and stir. 3. Instruct the spell, in whatever way makes sense to you, to exude focused but calm energy into the space. 4. Place the bowl in an area that is frequently trafficked. 5. Leave the bowl in place until it no longer provides a fresh, focused energy to the space. Dispose of the contents, clean the bowl, and reset the spell.

Notes: - This spell is powered by movement specifically, because both my partner and I work from home, and we pace when we’re having a hard time focusing. The spell draws in the energy from our pacing and the frustration we’re putting out to fuel itself. It then transforms and releases the energy as calm, focus, and productivity. - I suggest a green or brown bowl because this spell is meant to work for our jobs. Green for success, brown for grounding. Personally, my bowl has both colors. - When instructing the spell, you can speak to the bowl, write a petition, do an incantation, or whatever else you like. This is the most personal part of the spell, and it’s what makes the thing Go. It’s up to you to decide how it’s going to work.

Final Thoughts

I would hesitate to call ambient spells “low energy” spellwork. While they can be low-energy-friendly in the long run, and they can be extremely simple to set up (such as the one I described above), they aren’t always. Ambient spells do require an up-front energy cost. Even so, I find them very rewarding and useful.

Folks who visit my home often comment that it’s an inviting, friendly, good-natured space where they can leave their worries and anxieties behind. That’s on purpose. I’ve got ambient spells in place that eat up anxiety and spit out positivity. I’ve got ones that repel hexes and are charged by sunlight. All of these spells are long-lasting and well worth the effort it took to create them.

I hope this little guide is useful to you! If you’ve got questions, feel free to send me an ask. I’m happy to ramble about ambient spells or other types of magic as much as you’d like.

And if you did enjoy this post, consider dropping a couple dollars in my tip jar! Supporters of all types (tips, commissions, shop purchases, and memberships) get early access to posts like this, sometimes up to two weeks early, and every bit helps me keep the lights on.

#aese speaks #spells #spellwork #my spells #witchblr #witchcraft #witch community #beginner witch #ambient spells #practical magic

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faeriekit · 4 days

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Immediate Roadside Assistance Required

Phic phight fill for sapphireshield (no tumblr listed)

Warnings for: extremely mild depictions of domestic violence

The car that pulls over is a SUV. Beige. Kind of grimy. There’s a mom at the front; inside, Dani bets there’s probably one or two kids.

The mom rolls down the window. She looks nice. Kind of soft. Tough, in a kind of mom sort of way, but soft enough to see a girl with her thumb out at the side of the road and actually pull over. It’s a sweet gesture; Dani has a vague idea that hitchhiking hasn’t been trendy since the eighties, so this’ll have to do.

The mom sticks an elbow out the window and looks Dani up and down. “You alright, sweetheart?” she asks, a different twang on her tongue than the vowels Dani’s been used to all her (short) life. Dani might be out farther than she thought.

Dani grins. For this mom, it’s nice ‘n sweet. “I’m good! I need a ride, though; I’m trying to get to my stepparent’s place. Tryin’ to get as far as the border.”

The woman flattens her lips. She probably thinks Dani’s a runaway, but she’s not. Dani’s something a lot worse.

“You sure?” The mom looks up at the sky, even as her kid squeals about something snack-related in the back. “It’s about to get dark out, honey. Storm’s coming.”

Dani’s grin doesn’t let up. “I’m gonna go meet my brother! I already know where I’m gonna lay up, so don’t worry!”

The mom is for sure worrying; worrying her lip between her teeth, and worrying over a scruffy kid in a torn-up hoodie. “...Well. ‘Long as I get to see him when we get there. Hop in.”

Dani grins, and hops up in the car.

It’s a little warmer in there. Smells like cheerios; there’s a baby, Dani notices, in the back seat. It’s got her middle two fingers in its mouth and big brown eyes.

Dani waves. The baby stares, since babies do that, and Dani occupies herself by making funny faces over the shoulder of the passenger seat, eager to elicit a giggle from a little kid. She loves little kids. She wishes she’d been allowed to be one.

“You might want to turn around and buckle in, young lady,” the mom drawls, wiping stress off her forehead. “Don’t want you to die if we end up in a crash.”

I can’t, Dani doesn’t say, because she’s nice. I’m already dead.

So she turns around and buckles herself in. The mom flicks on the radio, and a woman’s voice starts growling over an electric guitar and a roughed-up drum kit. It sounds fun.

This ride’s going to be good. Dani grins, all teeth and brimstone. There’s a storm rolling in, bad luck hanging in the air like vapor and sparks. Lightning’s on its way.

It’s a long way to the state border. Dani’s going to enjoy every minute she can with the window down, electricity in her fingers, and the quiet humming of the driver singing along.

They make it to a rest stop about three quarters of the way there.

Dani’s not against stopping, so she just peeks out the window, watching cars and exhausted drivers slog through the paved flats of the rest stop parking lot. “What’re we doing?” Dani asks, entertained in her own way. Maybe this nice mom is going to try to hand her off to CPS!

It wouldn’t work, but, you know. It would be kind of annoying, if ultimately well-meaning.

“Diaper change for the baby,” the mom offers, and, yeah, that’s practical. “Vending machine break for me. Bathroom break for you, probably.”

Oh, that checks out. “Alright!”

The child lock pops, and Dani hops out of the car; she waits, patiently, for the mom to bring out the baby, who looks even more luminous asleep and spitty than when it's awake.

“It slept through a lot of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Dani admires. The baby gets held to mom’s chest, a blanket wrapped around them both. “That’s cool.”

“He’s heard a lot of Joan Jett since he was born. I’d be shocked if he couldn’t sleep through a hurricane at this point.”

Dani trots after the mom, patient in her wake. They don’t look too much alike, so maybe there are other people wondering if they even know each other at all, or if Dani’s getting kidnapped or traded away for cigarettes. Or probably they just think Dani’s getting babysat, helping watch a baby while the mom ends up driving them over and away from wherever Dani’s landed herself this time.

The diapers the baby uses are a thick, sort of plush material. They look soft. There are little pastel teddy bears on them: one blue, one pink. Dani gets to touch one when the Mom asks her to pull one out of the big blue bag. There are a whole lot crammed in there; they’re packed in so tight that it’s hard to pull one out of the stack without pulling out all the others, but the baby can only wear one diaper at a time!

“Thanks, sweetheart,” the mom says. It’s the nicest anyone’s been to Dani in ages. She’s glad she lived long enough to hear a soft mom call her sweetie and sweetheart for no reason other than being convenient. “You have to go?”

Dani shakes her head. The mom gives her a look. “We’ll be in the state for another hour. You want to try, at least?”

…She hesitates. The baby doesn’t notice, busy playing with its toes as its mom tries to wriggle it back into its butt covering for the sake of covering its butt. She doesn’t usually have bodily functions that actually…function. But the mom lady didn’t know that.

Whatever. She’d play a game of Snake in there. “‘Kay.”

Dani goes into a stall, flicks open her phone, and manages to eat like twenty little pixels before she actually runs into her own little snake body and dies. Ugh. It doesn’t take up too much time— how much time are humans supposed to spend in the bathroom, anyway??— so she fires up a new game and almost gets through it before she hears someone yell. Dani jolts.

The baby starts crying, faint and far away. Dani quickly grabs herself together and puts the phone away. If something’s happening— something happening to the mom and the baby—

Dani dashes out of the bathroom. There’s a guy at the door. There’s a guy holding the baby by the arm so that the baby is dangling and the guy is yelling at the mom who’d driven Dani here, physically pushing her when she tries to get her baby back.

The instinct to hit him is impossible to wrangle. It’s too bad, but Dani has to help the baby and the mom. Hitting him might hurt the baby, if she isn’t careful— doubly true if she uses an ecto-blast.

She goes invisible instead.

Carefully pulling the baby intangibly through the man’s grip is a quiet, tense process. The baby keeps crying and crying and crying, but the more she hides it, the quieter the cries seem.

And then there’s a baby shallowly crying in her arms.

The guy doesn’t even realize, too busy shoving and hitting the mom who’d done nothing wrong. Dani hates this guy. He reminds her of Vlad— too angry that he isn’t getting his way, and never understanding why no one’s obeying him fast enough.

Dani hoists the baby into one arm, mirroring the way the mom had carried it into the rest stop when they first came in. The hold doesn’t feel as secure as Dany thinks it ought to, but it frees up a hand.

Dani grabs the mom’s hand.

The woman disappears into thin air. The guy looks so spooked.

Dani giggles. Either way, it’s super easy and simple to fly the mom and the baby through the bathroom walls, and hiding them in the bathroom cleaner closet seems safer than hiding them in a stall. Dani doesn’t pause when the mom gasps, frightened by the change in scenery; she pops the baby into her arms and disappears back the way she came.

Dani Phantom has a guy to beat up.

There are lots of ways to scare humans, Dani finds; humans are afraid of the dark, and afraid of what they can’t control. They’re afraid of pain, and they’re afraid of loud noises. Humans aren’t afraid of everything all the time, but they can be afraid of more things when they’re combined than when they’re not.

So Dani flexes her aura. The lights flicker in the main room of the rest stop. The man stops, but his hand is still raised.

He looks to see where the baby is, and realizes that he’s empty-handed. The woman is gone.

The lights go out.

Dani loves being seen sometimes. She doesn’t like being bothered, but she loves attention when she knows no one can call the cops on her; so she drips green. She lets herself glow, gloopy and malformed, as she pulls herself through the wall. She turns melty eyes onto the man who took the baby from its mom.

The guy kind of looks like he’s going to piss himself. Good.

Dani starts to fake cry. It starts out as little sniffles— and then moans, and sobs, Dani clawing herself out of the wall until she’s floating, midair, half-formed and wailing. She kind of hopes she looks super spooky, like one of those CGI gross guys from Stranger Things, or that girl who walked down the stairs in a spooky backbend one time.

The guy steps back. Great. Dani inches forwards. The guy steps back again, face pale as a china plate, looking inches from giving up the ghost and bolting off to the parking lot.

Excellent.

Dani takes her hands off of her face to show melting, distorted features. And she screams.

The guy is gone in seconds. He should just be a sprinter instead of bullying moms and their little babies! Dani huffs, hands on her hips. Whatever. As long as he’s gone, he can do whatever he likes.

Dani barely remembers to set her face right before going to get the mom and baby out of the closet. It doesn’t matter how human she looks, though, because when she opens the door back up for them, the mom looks like she’s seen a ghost.

Dani grins, and probably her teeth aren’t showing anything too weird or spooky. “That guy left! Can we go now?”

The mom takes a deep, rattling breath. She does that thing where she touches her forehead, her chest, and then the air above her shoulders. No one’s told Dani what that means so far, but she’s seen it a lot.

“...Sure, sweetheart.”

Dani beams.

They make it to the edge of the state just as the rain starts to pour down. The mom is still looking for Danny by the time Dani points them into a gas station, but Danny’s not here; Dani made him up long enough to get a ride as far as she thought she could get tonight. The mom is still peering through the gloom of the driver’s side window as Dani turns herself transparent and flies out and away.

The mom was nice. The baby was nice. Dani liked this ride.

She walks, intangible, through the rain. The highway is dark, and wet, but Dani’s optimistic; sometimes people feel bad for her, so she gets more rides in a thunderstorm than on a sunny day. After an hour, somewhere on a rural road she’s never seen nor heard of before, Dani sticks her thumb out for a low little car going exactly the speed limit.

The car has a little old couple in the front and passenger seat. They look like grandparents. The grandpa rolls down his window, white eyebrows pushed together. “You need a ride, honey?”

Dani grins.

#Phic phight #Phic phight 2024 #Danny phantom #dani phantom #danielle phantom #LOVE the idea that Dani becomes a national cryptid on accident #Dani does what comes naturally but her instincts are SO fucked #alright that's my last one. I'm tired.#faer fic

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fourmoony · 2 months

Note

Hiii I hope your doing well !!! I was wondering If you could do james and reader (established relationship) where they are out together somewhere with new people and (like me) reader has a lovely thing called anxiety, I feel like he'd notice right away despite being the opposite. (I'm a sucker for james entirely i need some sweet encouragement from him) I don't know what it is but I tend to feel totally invisible and lonely in Public places, despite being with friends or ppl that i do know. For some reason ppl tend to acknowledge everyone else n leave me out, which I've struggled with for a very long time unfortunately !!

So if you can somehow incorporate that, for me and anyone else who's ever felt that way, that would be great :)) I'll leave it up to youu ♡♡ p.s. I'm obsessed with ur writing

thanks for requesting, angel! <3 1.6k f!reader modern!au

as someone with an overwhelming friend group, learning the difference between not being included and having friends who will just talk into the abyss and if you can keep up, cool, was key lmao

James' hand hasn't left your thigh since you sat down at the table, a sweet encouragement that you relish in. It's a grounding touch, encouraging squeezes here and there when you manage to involve yourself in the conversation. Even when your food had been served, James' touch didn't falter as he stabbed rather uncoordinatedly at his pasta with his left hand.

His thumb moves in small circles against the inside, a distracting touch only in that his hand is dangerously close to disappearing under your skirt. You worry someone will see, get the wrong idea, and that will just send you spiralling for weeks, the awkwardness heavy in your chest. You're an over-thinker, you analyse everything, every movement, every tick of someones jaw, the light of their eyes, the tone of their voice. It's a blessing and a curse, really, your ability to instantly sense change within someone.

You can't help but notice the way that the conversation has carried on without you. Sirius and Remus are bickering, a fire in their eyes that you know very well means they're enjoying it despite their exasperated stances. Further down the table, Lily, Mary, Dorcas, and Marlene are gossiping about someone they went to school with, yelling excited agreements about the person in question, the injustices they must have committed against the girls. Even Peter is louder than normal, caught in a heated debate with James about the upcoming Six-Nations game.

There's not a conversation happening that you feel equipped to join, nor one you've been outright included in. James has assured you multiple times, too many times, in your opinion, that his friends are just loud. You know this - knew this when you agreed to dinner. You love them all. They've always been kind, never cruel. But in the lulling moments, where you realise just how much of an outsider you are in comparison to a group of people who've known each other for over ten years. They grew up together, learned valuable lessons together, have memories that were key, intrinsic moments in their lives. They have a history that you're not a part of.

Sometimes, that feels impossible to compete with. Even when James reminds you that his friends aren't not talking to you, they're just... talking. They're the kind of people to talk to fill a silence, and if you're listening, great. James often calls it 'talking into the abyss'. None of his friends ever actually require a response when talking, they're the kind of people to just keep going until interrupted. Sometimes, even when interrupted.

The table is a loud cacophony of everyone interrupting each other and it has your palms slick and pulse beating in your neck.

The waiter has long since abandoned trying to get you all to close out, even as the dessert plates have been cleared and all that's left are the half-empty, warmed glasses of various alcohols that remain on the table. James must feel you shift in your seat, because he squeezes your thigh in acknowledgement, his eyes flicking away from Peter for half a second. When they land on you, his head turns, conversation long forgotten. Peter doesn't seem fussed, just turns to try and split up whatever row Sirius and Remus are pretending to have.

"All good?" James asks, eyes soft.

His brows are hooked in the middle where they're furrowed, body shifting to face you easier. You nod, lips rubbing against each other. You're scared to talk, scared to be betrayed by your own voice. You've held your own most of the night, you don't want James to forcibly enter you into a conversation. It's not fair on him to have to deal with you, like this.

You should know better, though. James only frowns. It doesn't suit him. Your boyfriend is bright like the summer sun, always smiling, always cheerful. He's the colour between yellow and bright, pure light. Frowning doesn't suit him. It hurts your heart.

His head dips, close to your ear, voice soft as he asks, "You wanna head home?"

"No," You shake your head, frown matching his, "No, Jamie. I'm okay."

His lips press to your cheek, soft and warm, and then he smiles. The heavy feeling in your chest eases a little, just looking at him. James often thinks he has to be proactive to help you in difficult social situations. You've never had the guts to tell him all he has to do is smile real nice at you and just a smidge of that grey cloud budges.

James groans, loud and obnoxious and makes a show of stretching. You avoid looking pointedly at the way his top pulls up his waist at the movement, heat swirling in your cheeks from the mere idea of his skin being on show. Conversations halt for the impending goodbye, and you swear you see relief on Remus' face at not having to be the first to bear the bad news marking the end of the night. He gives you a warm smile that you return, another smidge of that anxiety lifting.

"You off?" Sirius asks over his pint glass.

James nods, "Shattered, yeah."

There's a mixture of goodbye's to both you and James as you sling your coats on. James makes half-hearted plans to see everyone at some point over the next week, gives both of your cuts for dinner to Sirius in cash, squeezes your hand in delight when Lily declares that she'll text you tomorrow to see about coffee. There's a look in her eyes that says she hopes this time you'll accept. She's asked multiple times, sometimes through James, sometimes texting you, herself. She never seems put out when you politely give her some excuse or other, never asks questions as to why the idea jars you so much. You're glad, because you wouldn't have an answer as to why.

The air is cool against your flushed skin when James holds the door and ushers you outside. The sky has turned a dark, midnight blue and you silently wonder how long you actually spent inside the little restaurant. The door swings closed and James is at your side, hand immediately in yours and spreading a calm warmth all over you.

"They really love you, you know?" James speaks thoughtfully.

You should've known your boyfriend would want you to talk about it. You've never had anyone who cares enough, before. But you're trying. Same as he is.

"I love them too. You just," You sigh, shoes scuffing along the pavement as you walk towards James' flat, "You know how I get after too much social interaction."

Your boyfriend hums in acknowledgement, thumb rubbing a soothing pattern across the back of your hand. "I know, lovie. I just wanted to remind you."

"I'm sorry we had to leave."

James halts walking, tugging you back until you're facing him. A passer by mutters something under their breath at the two of you standing in the middle of the street. James doesn't pay them any mind, but your pulse thunders for a fraction of a second at the risk of conflict. James squeezes your hand, "You don't have to apologise. I'm happy you came, and I was ready to leave, anyway."

"You didn't say anything until you noticed I wasn't talking to anyone, though." You counter.

James is silent for a moment, trying to garner the words. Then, "I love when you involve yourself in conversations with my friends. It makes me happy to see you all together. But I'll never force you to do more than you're willing to. We were in there for three hours, love. Any normal person would be exhausted of them, by then."

You huff a laugh, turning to pick up a walking pace again. James follows, allowing the silence to overcome you both as you think of a response. He's so patient, always so patient and sacrificial. You wonder if he'll ever tire of that. The thought scares you.

"Is it too much, for you?" You ask, then clarify, "To feel like you're always keeping an eye on me, saving me from social situations just because I can't function normally."

James' immediate answer is No.

Simple. Plain. It's all the answer you need, but he goes on, anyway.

"Everyone has their thing. Remus is a lot like you. Sirius brings him out of his shell, sure. It's why they're always bickering. But for years, Remus used to just... brood. Wouldn't talk, just observe. Maybe for different reasons, but it was the same thing. He's still here."

You smile. Remus has always been rather lovely to you, almost like he knew, somehow, that his friends can be overwhelming. That social settings can be overwhelming. "So it doesn't annoy you?"

You feel like a child asking for reassurance, but you know James will always give you it, no questions asked. And he means it, too.

"Never. You take part in as much as you want, I'll never be upset with you for saying you've had enough." He tells you, his flat appearing in the near distance.

"I think I'll go for coffee with Lils this week." You announce, feeling pleasantly calm with the admittance.

It doesn't send a spike of anxiety through you like it did when she first asked. Not when you know James won't be cross if you have to leave early, or call him from the bathroom for a get-out. If you become exhausted, if you don't want to be social anymore, it'll be okay. You're sure Lily will understand. You hope she will.

As much as an effort as James' friends have made with you, you feel it necessary to make some in return.

"She'll be over the moon, love." James says, pulling you closer to his side and pressing a kiss to the side of your head.

You smile at the affection, feeling the clouds lift as though James' personality singlehandedly batted them all away. The sun after a storm. You're grateful for it. For him.

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arminreindl · 4 months

Text

Fossil Crocs of 2023

2023 has been a year with its ups and downs, but one consistent thing has been its fossil crocs at least, giving us another interesting variety of species and genera not known before. Like last year, I'll go down each of them (including phytosaurs) and give you some key notes. And since I've done my best to make individual posts for them I'll link those when available. I'll also try to give translations where possible, but do note that sometimes I might switch around a word due to it just sounding awkward otherwise.

Scolotosuchus

Starting us off is Scolotosuchus basileus ("royal scythian crocodile"), a basal, rauisuchian-like animal from the early stages of the Triassic. An animal roughly 3 meters long, it is primarily known from vertebrae and some other material, which however does have interesting implications. Based on the anatomy of the vertebrae, it has been speculated that Scolotosuchus performed a lot of rapid movement of the neck, presumably while hunting. Furthermore, it might be that Scolotosuchus lacked osteoderms, instead having developed a bracing system for its body much more like that of dinosaurs and mammals. Artwork by @knuppitalism-with-ue (he'll pop up quite a lot)

Colossosuchus

Fast forward to the Late Triassic, the hayday of early Pseudosuchians, and we find our first phytosaur of the list. Colossosuchus techniensis ("colossal crocodile of the Indian Institute of Technology") was an enormous animal from India's Tiki Formation. This one is known from undisputably better material, perhaps some of the best on this list as we have an entire bone bed of these guys, possibly representing a mass death site. Size estimates of the large specimens generally range from 6 to 9 meters in length, also making it the largest animal of this list, with the authors favoring an estimated 8 meters for the largest individual. Of course this is all subject to change, as we don't know the precise proportions (the downside of a bone bed is that all the bones are kinda jumbled together and god knows what belongs to what). Artwork by Joschua Knüppe again, a female being courted by an overconfident and confused Volcanosuchus (told you so)

Kryphioparma

Ok I won't bother you with this one too much. Kryphioparma caerula ("blue mysterious shield") is an aetosaur from the Late Triassic Chinle Formation of Arizona. Now aetosaurs are cool of course, but the thing is that Kryphioparma is known from exclusively osteoderms, their large armour plates. While thats valid, its also not really exciting (as you could have guessed from the absolute lack of artwork). Best I can say is that it coexisted with a bunch of other aetosaurs, which surely would have been a sight to see back in the day.

Venkatasuchus

Now Venkatasuchus armatum ("Venkata's armoured crocodile") is in a similar boat. This Indian aetosaur too is only known from osteoderms, tho at least a lot more of them that were found together, meaning we got a much better idea of its shape. There are some interesting implications it has on paleogeography and how different animal groups spread across Pangea, but that's probably beyond the scope of this post. There is at least some art of it tho, including one piece by Joschua featuring Jaklapallisaurus, an early sauropodomorph.

Mystriosuchus alleroq

Now we got our first new species of a preexisting genus. While I did my best to make posts on new genera, which typically went hand in hand with their respective wikipedia pages, species are a different matter since they'd require me to overhaul and research the whole genus. Which for Mystriosuchus would go all the way back to 1896.

Anyhow, Mystriosuchus alleroq ("jawbone spoon crocodile") is the newest in a long line of Mystriosuchus species and has been recovered from western Greenland of all places. Like Colossosuchus it is known from multiple individuals, at least four in fact, And like Venkatasuchus, it appears to have wideraning implications for the spread of archosaurs during the Triassic. Oh look its Josch's art again, neat.

Jupijkam

The final phytosaur and the final Triassic taxon of the year, Jupijkam paleofluvialis ("horned serpent of ancient rivers") was recovered from Nova Scotia Canada and represents one of the northernmost phytosaurs (alongside obviously our friend Mystriosuchus alleroq above). It is far less complete than the other phytosaurs I covered so far, but still nothing to scoff at. It's also one of the youngest known phytosaurs, possibly having lived during the last stage of the Triassic. There's no art but here's an image of its snout from the original paper.

Turnersuchus

And with this we have reached the Jurassic and somewhat of a double feature. Ordering these via chronology makes this almost like storytelling. Turnersuchus hingleyae ("Hingley's and Turner's crocodile") is the oldest and basalmost named thalattosuchian, a group of crocodylomorphs that took to the seas. As such it shows a mosaic of features, already having begun to reduce its limbs, having a moderately long snout and still bearing osteoderms, which some of its descendents would come to lose. Turnersuchus dates to the Pliensbachian, a stage of the early Jurassic, tho the paper mentions how its not likely to hold its title as oldest member of its group for long as even older material has been discovered and is awaiting publication. Artwork by Júlia d’Oliveira and Joschua Knüppe

Torvoneustes jurensis

While Turnersuchus gives us a glimpse at what the earliest thalattosuchians were like, Torvoneustes jurensis ("savage swimmer of the Jura Mountains") represents them at one of their most derived. At 4 meters long, it must have been an impressive creature, entirely smooth and lacking osteoderms, highly reduced arms and a tail fluke to boot. There are some interesting features, as unlike other species of Torvoneustes, this one does not appear to have been as durophagous, instead appearing to be more of a generalist. It's the last Jurassic croc of the year and practically lived at the opposite end of this time period relative to our previous thalattosuchian, during the Kimmeridgian. Artwork by Sophie De Sousa Oliveira, not to be confused with Jùlia who drew Turnersuchus.

Comahuesuchus bonapartei

From marine to terrestrial, Comahuesuchus bonapartei is a member of the Notosuchia, land-dwelling cousins to the Neosuchia. This new species is known from the Cretaceous of Argentina and was described on the basis of a lower jaw, which differs from the previously described species of Comahuesuchus by the fact that the teeth are situated in individual sockets. Its jaws were short and wide, being described as U-shaped, giving it a somewhat pug-nosed appearance. In case you're wondering why I don't have the translation of the name thats because I can't access Bonaparte's first paper, so all I can say is that the new species is named after famed Argentinian paleontologist Jóse Fernando Bonaparte. Artwork by I mean you probably guessed it, its Josch again.

Aphaurosuchus kaiju

I have some mixed feelings on Aphaurosuchus kaiju ("powerless kaiju crocodile"), not just because I have to rewrite its genus wikipedia page that I am no longer happy with. No, Aphaurosuchus is a great genus in my opinion, given the complete nature of the holotype. But I do think that the species name of this second form is a bit of an exaggeration, seeing as it is to my knowledge not that exceptionally big. So why name it kaiju other than to sound cool? I also think it just kinda becoms funny when you consider the meaning of the genus name. Anyhow, it does look pretty mean, but thats to be expected from a baurusuchid. It lived during the Late Cretaceous in Brazil and the phylogenetic analysis that accompanied its description had some interesting implications that I'm curious to see tackled in the future. Other than that it's just another baurusuchid from a place crawling with baurusuchids, which tbh is pretty cool itself but doesn't really help make it stand out. Arwork by Paula Zeinner

Dentaneosuchus

It is the middle Eocene. France is entirely occupied by mammals. Well, not entirely... One indomitable reptile still holds out against the invaders. Yes, I am of course talking about Dentaneosuchus ("frightfull crocodile"), the titan of the Eocene, the terror of the jungle. Easily among the most exciting finds, this animal was an enormous sebecid previously thought to be a member of the genus Iberosuchus, but recent research not only shows its distinct but enormous. With a lower jaw around 90 cm long, it rivals even the famed Barinasuchus of Miocene South America. The total body lenght is of course a matter of debate given how little we know about sebecid proportions, with the paper lowballing it at 3 to 4 meters and I personally recovering something more akin to 5 meters. Regardless of the specifics, this would make it easily one of the top predators of its time, tho sadly this was not meant to last. It was among the last non-mammalian apex predators of Europe, before climate change and competition from mammals eventually drove them to extinction. Arwork by Joschua Knüppe and @mariolanzas

Baru iylwenpeny

Our last three entries were all members of the Notosuchia, the terrestrial crocodiles that existed from the Jurassic to the Miocene, so lets jump to the other major group of the time, the Neosuchians, specifically their most recent branch, the Crocodilians. Yes finally we are getting to crocs in the stricter sense.

Baru iylwenpeny ("divine crocodile thats good at hunting") is an animal we also knew for a while under the informal name Alcoota Baru based on where it was found. This year I spent a lot of time writing in the Mekosuchinae, Australasian crocodiles of the Cenozoic and just when I had finished the page for Baru, this guy got published. It's the largest, most robust and most recent member of the genus. Good at hunting is a good choice for the species name, as this animal was over 4 meters long with a head commonly likened to a cleaver and a hunting style speculated to consist of inflicting a lot of trauma on its prey with its massive teeth. I could gush about Baru for ages, but thats the important parts. It lived in central Australia during the Miocene only 8 million years ago. Artwork by the incredible @manusuchus

Antecrocodylus

Now for the last crocodilian described this year and one I remised to make a dedicated post for due to time constraints (I had a busy few months). Antecrocodylus chiangmuanensis ("before Crocodylus from Chiang Muan") is a close relative of the modern dwarf and true crocodiles from the Miocene of Thailand. It is only known from the back of the skull and an associated lower jaw, but it serves to highlight how little we know about the crocodiless of eastern Asia during the Miocene, which is a shame given that this region is crucial to deciphering where true crocodiles originated.

Alligator munensis

And our final taxon is Alligator munensis ("Mun river alligator"), which, obviously, is a member of the modern genus Alligator and thus most closely related to the still extant Chinese and American Alligator. Likely having been split from its Chinese relatives when the Tibetan plateau was lifted up, this species lived during the middle Pleistocene in Thailand and may have survived until the Holocene. It's head was short and robust and its teeth globular, which could indicate that it fed on hard-shelled prey like clams and snails. It was also small, likely not much bigger than 1.5 meters. Artwork by Joschua Knüppe

And that should be all of them, all new species and genera of Pseudosuchians described this past year. It's once again been fun to look back and I hope that you find them just as interesting as I do. Lets hope that 2024 will bring equally fascinating discoveries.

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empresskylo · 1 year

Text

ghost thought you hated him, but he had no idea why. he didn't remember ever doing anything to cross you. when you're stuck doing a mission alongside him, he gets curious enough to finally ask. (reader has similar personality as ghost and also wears a mask)

a/n: basically the reverse of this fic i did. also here's some fanart to help you visualize better (;

cw: slight nsfw content, nothing serious. uncomfortable sexual remarks from side characters.

simon "ghost" riley x fem!reader

wc: 3.8k+

masterlist

“Come on, Soap! Please!” You whined, interlacing your fingers together and looking up at the much taller man with your eyes twinkling in desperation.

“As much as I like it when you beg…” he paused, smirking at you, “No. If it’s that big of a deal, lass, talk to Lt.” You scowled at him and his eyebrow kicked upwards. “That’s not a problem, is it?” He asked, a teasing tone in his voice. You rolled your eyes and turned to storm off. “You’re much more enjoyable when you want something from me, you know that?” He laughed as he went in the opposite direction.

Your next mission involved you infiltrating the neighboring town, making your way through the busy streets, dressed as a civvy–at least that's what Soap told you.

With Ghost.

Fuck.

You were a goddamn sniper, why on earth would you be assigned to do hand-to-hand work? And the last thing you wanted to do was talk to Ghost about it, hence the pathetic pleading with Soap to get you to change positions. But of course he loved to torture you. He knew you didn’t like working with Ghost. It wasn’t like you hated the guy. In fact, it was pretty much the opposite of that. He distracted you. You got flustered and jittery whenever he was nearby, and that didn’t exactly work well when you needed steady hands and a clear mind–devoid of such attributes literally put people at risk.

At first you wrote it off as being intimidated by him. He was massive and daunting. But then you felt your whole face go warm at the one bawdy joke Soap made while Ghost was beside you. The joke wasn’t even directed at you; solely being near Ghost when someone made a crude remark had your mind racing. These types of feelings didn’t mesh well with this field of work. And, theoretically, if someone you worked with ever returned these awful, embarrassing feelings, you didn’t think you were capable of letting someone in. So you decided it was best to just stay away from your lieutenant as much as you could.

You adjusted your mask as you slipped into the bunks, grabbing your stuff for the mission. You slung your backpack over your shoulders and made your way outside. You wore a black, slim turtlenecked shirt, black cargo pants, and black boots. Your gator mask was snug over your nose, your hair loose. You weren’t geared up like usual–it would be pointless knowing there would be an outfit change required to slip into town.

The bright sunlight burned your eyes as you stepped out into the cooling air. You looked down at the vehicles and spotted only one humvee left. Soap waved up at you. “Bloody hell,” you mumbled as you hustled down the steps. You slid into the seat beside Soap and sat back, sighing.

“Cheer up, lass. It’s not so bad doing the groundwork.”

You glared at him, making him laugh heartily at you. As cold and reclusive as you were, Soap didn’t seem to mind all that much. And while it definitely annoyed you at times, you also enjoyed his silly humor and uplifting attitude. It was a nice change of pace to the rest of the dark bullshit surrounding you on a day-to-day basis. But you’d never tell him that–though, you suspected he knew already.

“Why would you want to send in the two people who always have their faces covered to go blend in with locals?”

Soap nudged you. “Because you’re not trying to blend in with locals.”

You raised a brow at him. He roiled in your distress, you wanted to punch him so badly. “You’ll be infiltrating the hideout at sundown.”

Okay, that was a little better than blending in with regular people, but still, you had questions. “But why me?” You paused. “What? Ghost can’t handle a few bad guys on his own?”

The weight of the humvee shifted. “Got quite the mouth on ya,” a deep voice grumbled. You felt your cheeks heat. You slowly looked up to see Ghost stepping into the vehicle, sitting across from the two of you. The vehicle rumbled and began to move.

Ghost’s eyes were locked with yours. You felt yourself shrink under his gaze. Fuck. He did something to you. Something that wasn’t good. Something that made you libidinous, unnerved with the weight of his eyes on you.

If you were really going to have to tough this mission out with Ghost, you hoped it would at least go smoothly. The last thing you needed was your hands freezing up because of some snarky remark he’d make on the comms, flustering you.

“I'm that bad, huh?”

You snapped out of your thoughts, realizing Ghost’s mask was shifting as he looked at you–those must have been his words.

Uncomfortable with your silence, Soap spoke instead. “Lass is just privy to working alone. Come to think of it, she reminds me of someone else I know.”

Ghost’s eyes darted to Soap’s, a wide grin on the mohawked man’s lips.

Ghost trailed his view back to you, but you were already looking out the back of the vehicle, trying to ignore the two men beside you.

There was something about you that he liked. Maybe it was the fact that he saw himself reflected in your visage. Not that Ghost would ever like someone like himself, but you seemed to understand where he came from. You even wore your mask at all times like he did. Something drew him to you, making him curious. Interested in why you hated him.

Standing in the shadows of the safe house, you slid on the outfit provided. “Jesus,” you grunted, the top you slid on tight around your chest. It was made to look like members of the gang you were scoping out tonight, the goal of this mission was to get one of the men alone and bring him back here.

“‘Bout ready?” A husky voice echoed behind you. You jumped, quickly pulling your mask up before turning to him. You felt his eyes rove your body, his eyes lingering on your mask that you hastily shoved back above your nose.

“Who the fuck picked this shit out? It doesn’t fit.”

Ghost’s outfit seemed to fit him just right. “It looks fine,” he grunted before turning away, his fist clenching.

You sighed before following him. You looked down and noticed how your breasts billowed over your bra, strangled by the tight clothing. Even though no skin was showing, this shirt was revealing way more than you were comfortable with. Soap must have been the idiot who picked out the size.

You matched Ghost’s stride, a few feet behind him. “We’ll enter separately,” he told you as you entered into the cool night air.

You nodded, your hand instinctively brushing over your gun hidden in the waist of your pants.

You turned your comm on and made your way down the path you had gone over earlier on a map with Soap. There were two snipers watching you from the adjacent buildings, ready if something went wrong.

You felt uneasy as you approached your target building, seeing men much bigger than yourself outside its doors.

They looked at you as you approached, their faces hidden beneath masks, mirroring you and ghost, preventing you from recognizing any of them. You paused in front of the one guarding the door, looking up.

“Here for the meeting?” He asked, something sinister in the way he spoke. You nodded, your fist tight, hoping to god he let you in and didn’t sniff out your true intentions.

The gravel crunched as two other men walked up beside their friend, their eyes taking you in. “Cute, little thing.”

“Haven't seen you at one of these before.”

You turned your head. “First one in this location,” you said cooly, your insides boiling at the way they were demeaning you. Feeling sick as they looked you up and down.

You were certain they weren’t fooled, their eyebrows raised, letting you know they had sly grins on their lips beneath the thin material stretched across their faces.

The guard stepped aside, letting you pass.

“I’ll see you upstairs,” one of the other men called to you before pulling out a cigarette.

When the door behind you closed you let out a deep breath.

“Fuck. Soap! So that's why you needed me!”

“Sorry, love. There were no other women on the force who could help out,” Soap’s voice genuinely seemed concerned.

You sighed, knowing the only reason you got past them was because of how engrossed they were with your body. Men were so stupid. Then you realized that’s why they would let Ghost in too. His tall, muscular frame was certain to impress the other men. Make them uncomfortable even. They wouldn’t turn away a guy built like him from coming to one of their meetings, even if they had never seen him before. You blushed thinking about Ghost’s frame and the way his shirt spread taunt over his chest.

“Didn’t give you too much trouble, did they?” A rough British accent spoke into your ear. You felt a chill run down your spine.

“Apart from them eye fucking me? No.” You paused. “Where are you?” You asked him, hoping your voice sounded more solid than it did in your ears.

After snaking around the inside of the building, hearing a commotion on the top floor, you made your way up the stairs. Your eyes narrowed in on the men in the room, searching for your prey. You spotted a smaller man on the outskirts of the crowd of masked men, thinking he’d be best to get out of the building without alerting any of the other members.

You moved to enter the room when large hands grabbed your arms and pulled you into the adjacent dark corridor.

You looked up, surprised to see Ghost hovering above you. “Shit. What are you doing?” You asked, your eyes shooting bullets at him and your arms on fire from where his fingers wrapped around your bicep.

“You were about to walk in their without me.”

“So?”

“This is a team mission,” he growled. “Those men are dangerous.”

“Oh, and what? Because I’m a girl you think I don’t know that?”

He rubbed a gloved hand over his face, your body warming realizing his chest was almost touching yours. The hall was small, his frame engulfing you. He actually had to put effort into not leaning up against you.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

You rolled your eyes, pushing your way past him, your fingers tingling as you touched him. “Whatever you say, Lt.”

Ghost grumbled something behind you, aggravated with your attitude.

You both entered the room, eyes darting to the two of you. A few of the men smiled. You weren’t sure if it was because they were admiring Ghost’s build or your clearly defined chest. Probably both.

The meeting began and Ghost hovered near you. You felt a presence on your side and looked over, a man a good foot taller than you looking down. He bent over and whispered in your ear, making goosebumps rise on your neck. You had to stop yourself from snaking away then kicking him in the balls. You couldn’t make out what he said with Soap muttering something in your ear, but you definitely heard him call you “doll.”

A few of the other men looked at you like you were their next meal, making you clench your hands, your nails digging into your palm. Fuck, you were so bad at this close-up shit. You’d do anything to be propped far away in a building looking down the scope of your sniper right now. You felt like you were intimidating enough to get by, but when surrounded by men much larger than you, you were an easy target.

You felt someone grab your waist. Your hand instinctively went to your knife, fed up with these men already, when you realized it was Ghost. You looked at him in confusion as he shifted you so you were standing in front of him. He had slid you away from the ogling men without even glancing down at you, the men in the room getting the subtle hint that you were Ghost’s. And no one would dare challenge Ghost if they had any brains–he was easily the biggest man in the room. You suddenly felt protected with his frame towering behind you. He claimed you, in front of everyone. Your chest was pounding loudly.

Your ears warmed, but you kept a scowl on your face, frustrated that you weren’t hearing a thing from the meeting because your thoughts were now swarming with Ghost. Your body was tense as you felt his proximity close behind you.

You tried to erase the feeling of his fingers on your hips, but they lingered like a phantom.

Almost an hour later, you both had slipped out of the room, waiting to pounce on the next guy to exit, which should be the smaller guy you spotted earlier if your timing was correct. Ghost stood a few feet in front of you, shadowed in the dark as you both waited.

A man came out close to where you were, digging in his pocket for his phone when you grabbed him around the neck, your hand covering his mouth, pulling him against you. He struggled, dropping his phone in the process. You prayed no one could hear the shuffling of bodies as you fought against him.

The man grunted then elbowed you in the chest, making you stifle a groan. Before you could swing him to the ground, Ghost’s fist collided with the man’s cheek, knocking him unconscious in one punch. You held the man as he went limp in your arms. You gulped, trying to settle the fluttering in your stomach at Ghost’s raw strength.

Once you made it to the bottom of the stairs, the man slung over Ghost’s shoulder, you broke the silence. “I had that,” you snapped. You weren’t sure why you were so upset. It probably had something to do with the fact that Ghost had made you flustered again and again. You were more mad at yourself than anything.

Ghost’s eyes flickered to yours, something unreadable in his expression, likely anger. “This is a team effort, soldier. It doesn’t matter that ‘you had it.’” You slid out a back door, the sky dark now as you motioned to Ghost that the coast was clear.

“You’re so full of shit,” you mumbled under your breath, not sure if you were talking about Ghost, or yourself.

“Lover’s quarrel?” Soap’s voice sang over the comms into both of your ears. Your face went hot.

“Shut the fuck up, Johnny,” Ghost growled. You felt a chill spiral up your spine at the way his voice vibrated in your ear. It was like he was leaning over your shoulder and speaking with his lips only inches away from your ear.

You hurried on ahead of Ghost, worried you might fumble or stutter with how fast your heart was beating.

Once you made it back to the safe house, Soap had appeared before you two to haul the guy you captured away into the other room as he slowly came back to consciousness.

Soap’s footsteps echoed down the hall as Ghost shoved you against the wall, his forearm extended over your neck, holding you in place. “Have I done something to you?” He snarled, his eyes shooting you daggers.

Caught off guard, all you could do was shake your head. Your lips frozen.

Ghost freed you before moving into the living room. “Yeah? Then why are you so fucking spiteful towards me all the damn time? Thought it might just be your personality, but I’ve seen you with Soap. Clearly you have something against me and it’s distracting.”

You were distracting Ghost? You pushed the thought that was quickly rising back down, you were obviously distracting him in a bad way. This was nothing to blush over.

And yet…

You followed him as he sat on a wooden chair, the safe house dark now that the sun had set.

“I know I’m not the most likable–” he began, but you cut him off.

“I don’t hate you.” Your voice was meek as you sat on the couch, taking your gloves off.

Ghost’s eyes traced your outline in the dark room, taking a long moment before speaking again. “Why do you always wear that mask?” He asked out of the blue, his mind still curious as to what he could have possibly done to make you hate him. He wasn’t even sure why he cared so much.

Your eyes shot up at him, your hands squeezing the gloves resting in your hand. “I could ask you the same thing.” You don’t know how, but you could tell he began to smile under his mask.

“You ugly under there? Is that it?”

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing… The lieutenant was teasing you. You rolled your eyes, trying to control your composure. “Quite the opposite,” you said, your voice not as confident as you wanted it to be.

Ghost’s eyes lingered on you a minute longer before he got up and began shuffling through the files sprawled on the kitchen table.

You got up and peaked down the hall, making sure Soap was still preoccupied in one of the rooms with your hostage.

“I don’t hate you,” you said again as you appeared beside Ghost. You looked down at the files, his fingers stopping. You looked up, tracing his fingers up to his chest, and then his vibrant eyes. He was staring at you, waiting for you to say more. You cleared your throat. “I, uhm. I guess, you just… distract me.” You could tell he raised an eyebrow. “Intimidate me.” You corrected, your ears warming. You were certain Ghost had known you had a little crush. You thought your demeanor was obvious with the way you always seemed nervous around him. The way you’d avoid him. The way Soap would tease you when Ghost was in hearing distance. You didn’t think that he would think you hated him.

“I don’t believe that,” he finally said.

You gulped and Ghost noticed the way you were suddenly shy. He saw it then. It finally clicked. The way you were shy around him. Not cold or put off. But fucking shy. You, of all people, were shy. Ghost’s cheeks suddenly felt hot as he watched you squirm under his gaze. It was that bloody mask’s fault. It made it hard to read your face most of the time. How could he be so oblivious?

“Tell me,” his voice was deeper than earlier, startling you, needing to hear you say it.

Your eyes nervously bounced between his, your hands clenching. He took a step closer, invading your personal space. “I don’t avoid you because I hate you,” you started, looking at his feet.

He reached a hand out and shoved your chin upwards so you were looking at him. He quickly removed his hand and you almost whined. “Go on,” he egged.

You swallowed hard. This was so embarrassing. You were about to come clean, things were going to become so awkward between the two of you—well, more awkward at least. “I avoid you because I like you.” There, you said it. His eyes were squinted as he studied your face. After a long moment of heavy silence, Ghost laughed. It was a beautiful sound that sent jitters through your body.

Your face stayed stoic as you watched him. Ghost couldn’t believe that this was all because you had a little crush. His fingers came out to hook onto your mask, his eyes searching yours for permission. Without speaking, you let him. He pulled your mask down, peeling it away from your face, letting Ghost see the scars that lined your chin. The scar that cut through your lip. You wanted to cave in on yourself.

He just stared at you, not saying anything. You were feeling very uncomfortable as he dissected you, regretting ever saying anything at all. You should have just let him think you hated him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—“ Ghost cut you off as his hand slid along your jawline. Your breath caught in your throat. Ghost reached up to his own mask, pushing it up to the bridge of his nose, his thin lips and scruffy jaw becoming visible to you, along with his mirroring faded scars that sliced through his skin. He smirked. “Not so cocky now, huh?” His eyes danced between yours. “Cat got your tongue?” He teased, enjoying the way you had done a complete 180. Usually you were cold and grumpy, like him, but now, locked under his gaze, you were stuttering and blushing. Something inside Ghost melted a little.

Before you could retort, Ghost was bending down, his lips hovering above your own, his breath hot on your face. Your eyes were wide as he gripped your chin in his gloved hand. When you didn’t pull away, Ghost closed the gap, your lips connecting. You were shocked at first, not sure what to do. But after a moment, after Ghost began to move his lips, you did as well, in sync with his. Your hands instinctively came out and grabbed onto Ghost’s jacket as he hunched over, pushing you into the wall from his sheer strength as he kissed you. You went on your tip toes, smashing your lips harder against him. His arm rested on the wall behind you, holding himself steady as he bent in half to reach your lips.

There was something heady and passionate in the way he kissed you. It was unlike any other kiss you ever experienced. Ghost softly pulled back, his eyes trying to read your own as you looked at one another breathlessly. “Ghost,” you whispered, unsure of what else to say.

“Simon,” he corrected, his lips still hovering above yours letting you feel his hot breath against your face.

Soap cleared his throat from behind you two. You jumped, startled. Ghost stood up straight, his back still to Soap and waited for you to pull your mask up before he turned around.

Soap leaned against the doorway, his eyebrows wiggling as he looked at Ghost. “Sorry, didn’t realize I was interrupting something.”

Ghost growled as he walked towards Soap. “Not a fucking word, Johnny,” he said harshly as he pushed past Soap to go into the other room where your hostage was being kept.

You took in a unsteady breath, you probably should follow him. You had a job to do.

Soap had a big grin on his face as you went to walk past him. “Was ‘bout damn time,” his Scottish accent was heavy. You shoved him, your body language betraying you, displaying just how embarrassed you were. “What?” Soap asked, playfully raising his hands as he turned to follow you down the hall.

As annoying as Soap was, you felt a smile form under your mask. This was not how you thought the day was going to go. Fuck. You were screwed.

#ghost #simon riley #ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #cod #ghost cod #ghost fanfic #simon riley fanfic #ghost mw2 #ghost call of duty #fluff #angst #ghost angst #cod mw2 #simon ghost riley

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txttletale · 4 months

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Your discussions on AI art have been really interesting and changed my mind on it quite a bit, so thank you for that! I don’t think I’m interested in using it, but I feel much less threatened by it in the same way. That being said, I was wondering, how you felt about AI generated creative writing: not, like AI writing in the context of garbage listicles or academic essays, but like, people who generate short stories and then submit them to contests. Do you think it’s the same sort of situation as AI art? Do you think there’s a difference in ChatGPT vs mid journey? Legitimate curiosity here! I don’t quite have an opinion on this in the same way, and I’ve seen v little from folks about creative writing in particular vs generated academic essays/articles

i think that ai generated writing is also indisputably writing but it is mostly really really fucking awful writing for the same reason that most ai art is not good art -- that the large training sets and low 'temperature' of commercially available/mass market models mean that anything produced will be the most generic version of itself. i also think that narrative writing is very very poorly suited to LLM generation because it generally requires very basic internal logic which LLMs are famously bad at (i imagine you'd have similar problems trying to create something visual like a comic that requires consistent character or location design rather than the singular images that AI art is mostly used for). i think it's going to be a very long time before we see anything good long-form from an LLM, especially because it's just not a priority for the people making them.

ultimately though i think you could absolutely do some really cool stuff with AI generated text if you had a tighter training set and let it get a bit wild with it. i've really enjoyed a lot of AI writing for being funny, especially when it was being done with tools like botnik that involve more human curation but still have the ability to completely blindside you with choices -- i unironically think the botnik collegehumour sketch is funnier than anything human-written on the channel. & i think that means it could reliably be used, with similar levels of curation, to make some stuff that feels alien, or unsettling, or etheral, or horrifying, because those are somewhat adjacent to the surreal humour i think it excels at. i could absolutely see it being used in workflows -- one of my friends told me recently, essentially, "if i'm stuck with writer's block, i ask chatgpt what should happen next, it gives me a horrible idea, and i immediately think 'that's shit, and i can do much better' and start writing again" -- which is both very funny but i think presents a great use case as a 'rubber duck'.

but yea i think that if there's anything good to be found in AI-written fiction or poetry it's not going to come from chatGPT specifically, it's going to come from some locally hosted GPT model trained on a curated set of influences -- and will have to either be kind of incoherent or heavily curated into coherence.

that said the submission of AI-written stories to short story mags & such fucking blows -- not because it's "not writing" but because it's just bad writing that's very very easy to produce (as in, 'just tell chatGPT 'write a short story'-easy) -- which ofc isn't bad in and of itself but means that the already existing phenomenon of people cynically submitting awful garbage to literary mags that doesn't even meet the submission guidelines has been magnified immensely and editors are finding it hard to keep up. i think part of believing that generative writing and art are legitimate mediums is also believing they are and should be treated as though they are separate mediums -- i don't think that there's no skill in these disciplines (like, if someone managed to make writing with chatGPT that wasnt unreadably bad, i would be very fucking impressed!) but they're deeply different skills to the traditional artforms and so imo should be in general judged, presented, published etc. separately.

#ask #ai art

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onskepa · 1 year

Text

Na'vi mating with humans headcanons [Poly].

Hello everyone, so I must confess, I have been looking at some Avatar [NOT THE LAST AIRBENDER] 1 and 2 "the way of water" stuff. From fics, to fanart, headcanons, all that good stuff. So here I am reading all this amazing stuff and I thought, "why not put my 2 cents in it?" so while I dont have any fics, I thought I share some headcanons of my own.

Most I have noticed is using either Na'vi reader, or Human reader. And/or both if the author has their person of interesting be an avatar, being in a poly relationship with our two lovely couples: Jake & Neytiri, and/or Tonorwari & Ronal.

And, if it is not a poly relationship, it be a normal two person relationship, that being with either [Tsu-tey, Ronal, Tonowar, Jake, Neytiri, Norm, etc]. Reading all those stories I have begun to list a few things.

In this first headcanon, its going to be as the title suggest, Na'vi with human. If you guy's wish to use some of this stuff as inspiration or ideas for your future fic's, I am cool with it, but please credit me. Anywho, lets start.

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

Olo'eyktan & Tsahik

(btw this is for any Na'vi tribe in general not just for Tonowari and Ronal)

I feel as the two top leaders of the tribe, having a human as their third mate can mean many things.

Such as: Having a human for a mate shows their rank of status in the tribe. If being leaders weren't enough.

After a long day of doing their duties, they go home happy knowing their little mate is waiting for them to relieve their stress. In more ways than one. {use your imagination I aint going that deep]

Having a human mate will influence how they view the world. The Na'vi seeing their world as its ecosystem as normal as it can get, while the humans see it so different and something so beautiful. The humans may see the same thing every single day but sees it as it was something new to them over and over.

Have a change of paste in life. Talking and sharing things with their human mate is something the leaders look forward to at the end of the day.

The leaders being excited or happy with their human mate wants to know more of something or ask them questions. The leaders seeing it as a sign they their mate relies on them for information.

Speaking of, they enjoy it when their human mate searches for them, having their small eyes only on the leaders and no one else. They can get very protective and if not, a bit possessive should another Na'vi get too comfy with their human mate.

would hiss or give the other Na'vi a warning before shooing them away. Might get a scolding from their human mate but will shrug it off and lead their little human somewhere else.

Should the Tsahik get pregnant, the Olo'eyktan wouldn't be as stressed or worried that their Tsahik is in a vulnerable state. Having their human mate near the Tsahik calms the Olo'eyktan a bit. Since the Tsahik wont be alone.

And if the human is trained in the ways of healing, then the human mate would help the Tsahik if she were to feel morning sickness or dizziness. Giving the Tsahik comfort and a sense of peace.

Assist the Tsahik in duties in which she cannot anymore due to her belly growing. Things that require bending down, gathering plants, and herbs, grinding them, or anything that require lots of energy.

Once the newborn Na'vi is born, automatically, the human mate will be their second parent. Cherishing and nurturing the new born.

when the Tsahik is busing once again with her duties. The human mate will make sure the baby has their needs met, make sure they are clean, fed, and overall comfy with, hopefully, little crying as possible.

Having soft skin brings great benefit for Na'vi baby as they will cling more so the softer and warmer texture. Showing big trust and love to their third parent.

As the Na'vi baby grows, they become attached to all three parents, but will secretly favor their human parent. Since they bring a type of comfort that is different from their other two parents.

Since being the child of the two leaders, they wont have much time to play with their child as much as they want to. So the human mate comes in and plays while teaching showing around the Na'vi baby. Will continue to as the baby grows.

Being a human mate/parent to the Na'vi is something refreshing and somehow brings great comfort to all. Being so small yet have a massive mind and spirit.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that is it. I might add more or change of few things. I am ok with what I put but I know I can do better. If ya'll want more or something else, I don't mind. Thank you for reading this!

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6mmad · 2 years

Text

"i wanna be a homemaker for you"

homemaker: one who manages a household especially as a spouse and parent

heavily inspired by @belphego-or post called "obey me bros as househusbands" it's so good!! please give it a read

link is right here!

lucifer

He doesn't wanna admit how much he likes the idea of coming home from work to see you waiting for him

"Like" , of course, is an understatement. He loves it. The idea of you trusting him enough to dedicating yourself that much... It feeds his pride like nothing else

Naturally, his brothers are still in the house, he can't be without them and they need him as much as he does them.

Regardless of this fact, being a homemaker for Lucifer means that you live like royalty

Groceries? You get only the best ingredients and food. Clothes? Don't worry you have a walk-in closet. Super expensive hobby? He's got it covered.

You wanna buy something stupid that costs too much? "Tsk tsk......buy it before I change my mind, MC."

Doesn't really care if you're an expert at cooking or cleaning, he just has a very strict affection schedule, MC. If he's home by 11pm you have to be in his arms by 11:15pm, no ifs or buts.

He knows that being a homemaker is draining work so expect to see a spontaneous "Be ready by 10. We're going out, I Love you" every other weekend.

mammon

Someone pinch him cause YOU??? are trusting YOUR FIRST?? to provide and care for you and he gets the pleasure of coming home to you..... EVERYDAY???

Ego boost to the max, he's so ready to brag about this anyone and anything with a pulse

"Sorry, Im just rushing' cause I got someone waiting for me at home, ya kno?"

"Me? I slept like a baby, especially after the dinner my MC cooked for me"

Being a homemaker for Mammon means you're getting spoiled with gifts. Are all your basic necessities met? Yes. But did Mammon also randomly buy you a 600$ foot massager cause you got a foot cramp yesterday? ...Yes.

You're Mammon's best friend, so trust that when he gets back from work you're gonna hear about everything that happened and who has beef with who.

Mammon likes to check in on you the most, texting you throughout his work day and asking you if there's anything you need or want.

His favorite things are good morning kisses and goodnight kisses, knowing you're the first and last thing he sees everyday makes him feel all his hard work is worth it.

levi

When you first propose the idea to Levi, he can't believe it, just the image of him coming home to you in an apron is enough to make him lose his cool.

But soon enough he understands that he has to work hard for you since, after all, providing for someone isn't free and he refuses to cheap out on his Henry

Levi is a dedicated husband and part of that means that he absolutely requires you to do your job..

...the job which is kissing him goodbye before he leaves for work

Levi will do anything and everything you ask him to do, he just wants your love and attention in return. Kisses, hugs, words of approval, you name it.

Being a homemaker for Levi means that you live to your taste. Sure Levi has his gaming room, but everything else is up for grabs.

You want to completely remodel the kitchen? Give Levi a little kissing and loving and all of a sudden you have an appointment with an interior designer

If you're happy then Levi feels like he's done his job. He knows being a homemaker requires a lot of trust in your part and for that, he swears to be the best partner he can for you.

___a/n

this came out longer than i thought i would, so i only did three brothers for now, maybe i'll do more (???)

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mortiferumsomnum · 2 years

Text

Burgers are How You Summon the Almighty Ghost King

EDIT: MASTERLIST

***

Look. Bernard didn’t think it would actually work.

But, there he was. The Ghost King! In all his.... teenager glory...

“You are the Ghost King... right?” Bernard asked, handing the teen a ham sandwich he just put together.

“Oh, thanks,” said the teen, accepting the sandwich. “And, yeah. But I haven’t had my coronation yet, so a friend of mine is overlooking some things until I’m ready.”

“Cool,” said Bernard. Then, he gave the teen an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry for summoning you, dude. When I read in the pamphlet that you needed ketchup and mustard drawn in the constellation of Corona Borealis, I really didn’t think it would work because it involved condiments and not... you know... blood sacrifices?”

The teen nodded. And after swallowing, he said, “It’s cool. I’m just surprised that the summoning requirements changed that fast across realms after a few jokes I made. It seems some ghosts just don’t leave things be. They probably worked this fast to tick me off...” The teen snorted at what he said, before continuing with a casual wave of his sandwich, “I should change the requirements again, into something more complicated maybe.”

“I could give you some ideas!” Bernard said. Then he gasped. “My boyfriend is REALLY good at contingencies and plans! He could give you some ideas, too!”

The teen frowned worriedly. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked.

Bernard nodded, a bit enthusiastically because his bangs were hitting his eyes. “He’s amazing like that! And this isn’t just bias talking! He’s really good at almost everything, it’s insane! He’s a dork, but-”

“Okay! Okay,” the teen laughed. “I get it, he’s amazing.”

“Hell yeah, he is!!” Bernard said, hoping his smile isn’t too dopey.

O_O_O_O

Tim blinked. He blinked at the evidence of the summoning. He grimaced at the black ants that’s marching towards the mess.

Then he blinked at the white-haired teen in some kind of hazmat suit that blinked at him with eyes that reminded him too much of Jason. But Danny’s face looks kinda... familiar...?? Nah, no it doesn’t. But the green eyes does make Tim internally theorize that neon green is associated with death.

Then, he blinked at Bernard’s excited smile.

“Okay, first off, this summoning ritual is insulting,” Tim said, gesturing to it. “There’s barely any drama.”

The white haired teen ducked his head in embarrassment. “I was joking with some of the ghosts in charge of changing the summoning rituals... I don’t exactly understand why it’s important to have something that can summon me when the Ghost Realm and the Living Realm should be kept separate but... well... they insisted. And I was annoyed. And hungry. So, I said the next best thing that came to mind.”

Tim nodded. If he were less tired, he would be snorting in amusement and making some kind of joke Kon would be proud of. But right now? Tim had been awake for the last 71 hours and 45 minutes, a quarter of an hour before the hallucinations sets in, and the only thing keeping him going is coffee and Bernard’s promise for a sandwich. And Bernard, bless his boyfriend, is REALLY GOOD at making sandwiches.

“Okay,” he said, sitting down at the table and taking a bite out of his sandwich. “What if the ritual involved making sandwiches?”

Bernard frowned at his boyfriend. He rubbed Tim’s back, which was heavenly because Bernard’s hands were pleasantly warm. “Are you okay, Babe?”

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “But like you said, we’re just putting together ideas, so I’m also just spouting everything that comes out of my head.”

The teen nodded in understanding. “Right? Food’s just that powerful!” Then, his face turned serious. “I want it to involve making a burger. Not bought, but made from scratch from the summoner.”

Tim nodded, bringing out a notepad and wrote down what the teen said in the most illegible scribble Bernard’s ever seen. Hmmm, maybe Tim needs some rest.

“What should be the ingredients?” Tim asked, not looking up from his notepad while twirling his pen.

“We need to find the best burger there is in this world,” the teen said. “And then, we write down the ingredients for it, the step-by-step process of how it should be prepared, and what kind of soda it should be paired with.”

Tim nodded, jotting down what Danny said.

Bernard was honestly amused and worried. “Are you sure this is the kind of summoning that you want?”

The teen nodded. “It shouldn’t just be a burger bought from some fast-food burger joint. It has to be a Burger that I would be HAPPY to eat when I get summoned and have to listen to some creepy person’s plan for world domination!”

“Not everyone who will summon you will want to dominate the world,” Tim said.

The teen crossed his arms. “Then they should have no problem inviting me to a meal over a talk about how to save the world or whatnot.”

Tim circled some... scribbles and then closed his notepad with a snap, clicking his pen with finality and nodding towards the teen.

“By the way, what should we call you?” he asked the teen, who blinked at him. “I get the ‘names hold power’ thing, but I thought that only applies to the fae?” Tim asked, looking to Bernard for confirmation. And when Tim has to look to Bernard for confirmation, you KNOW that the young man is that badly sleep-deprived.

The teen laughed. “Don’t worry! You guys can know my name,” he said. Then, with a grin, a silver light circled around him and transformed him into a regular looking teen with black hair and blue eyes while wearing a Nasa shirt and a pair of jeans. He then held a hand out, and introduced himself, “I’m Danny.”

Tim blinked. Danny looked... a lot like Damian. Which should be concerning because his skin was just as dark as Damian’s a while ago... maybe Tim was too focused on the glowing green eyes? Damian also has green eyes... Huh. Does being a ghost make other people unable to recognize you when you’re being one?

Tim looked to his watch. It’s also 4 am. Oh...

Then, Tim looked to Bernard. “The hallucinations has set in.”

“Dammit, Babe!” Bernard screeched before catching his idiot boyfriend.

_______________________________

*loud cackling* I’ve been drowning in Danny Phantom and Batman crossovers for days!!!! It was only time until I contributed something to the fandom! XD

Unfortunately, I’m not that good with multi-chapter fics, so I’m going to share the ideas I have for this AU!!

So:

- It’s a Danny and Damian are twins AU! Danny was an unnamed baby. He was weak and he was close to dying. Ra’s wanted him dead. Talia faked the baby’s death and tasked a loyal subordinate on his way to another mission in another state to drop the baby off somewhere safe. If the child were going to die, he should die in a place where he’ll feel love and care as a final gift from his mother.

- That love and care comes in the form of a two year old red head named Jazz who was out on a stroll with her giant father. It was sisterly-love at first sight on the baby left on the doorsteps of some old man that hated kids. Jazz wanted to keep the baby. And Jack, unable to say no to his princess, picks up the baby with such care, it was fatherly-love at first sight for Jack as well. Once the baby was brought home, cleaned and put into the yellow onesies Jazz once owned, Maddie had arrived home from shopping for some parts. One look at the baby, and it was motherly-love at first sight, too. When things start going wrong at their home, and the children are left to their own devices, Jazz would always care for her brother first.

- (I really didn’t think much about how they separate because I didn’t focus on that)

- Now, other than the explanation Danny gave, the importance of having a summoning ritual for the ghost king in this AU is in case the world truly is in danger and requires the ghost king’s help. Of course, while Pariah Dark was king, the summoning rituals were made difficult for the very reason that Pariah was an evil tyrant and shouldn’t be summoned because he will destroy the world rather than save it.

- Now that Danny is King, the ghosts know that the kid won’t be abusing his powers, not even in the human world. So, even if it were a joke, it was really alright for his summoning ritual to be easy. Plus, they really did want to tick him off and make him learn the hard way that he should take what they’re trying to advise him seriously. Clockwork even told them it was okay!

- Thankfully, it wasn’t the Guys in White or, Ancients forbid, his parents that summon him! It was someone who’s like Wes, but chiller. Danny Really Does need to make it more complicated.

- But having his summoning ritual involve Making Burgers?? That’s the only easy part. Danny wants to also put in them being able to imitate the Mona Lisa Portrait, the Chicken Dance - SCRATCH THAT! MAKE THEM DO THE COFFIN DANCE!, and---

- Tim is looking at him with JUDGMENT. And Danny is offended because it was Tim that suggested Sandwich-making in the first place! And then, Tim AGREED to the burger making!!

- Tucker thought it was a great idea when he returned to attend school! Sam doesn’t really care as long as the Burger doesn’t involve killing a cow by their hands and instead involves ground beef processed in the market.

- Tim tells him that they can make it complicated, but they are REMOVING THE MONA LISA AND COFFIN DANCE IDEA, and, like, Fine! Maybe having art and dance skills shouldn’t be a requirement!

- Tim then suggests that maybe the summoner should know the true value of ghosts, or, have knowledge that ghosts are sentient beings.

- Because Danny gives them a whole run-down on the laws involving ghosts that’s kept hush-hush by the government but is really there and hasn’t been changed. Tim wonders if Jason is really a zombie like he claims to be, or is actually half-ghost like Danny. But pushes it aside, because right now, researching on the internet on different burger recipes is confusing the fuck out of Bruce and Tim is thriving on it.

- But, to test Tim’s theory, Tim invites Jason to help them cook the different burger recipes. He advises Danny to be invisible while Jason does it, and he agrees. So, he transforms and turns invisible. But the moment Jason is there, Danny drops his invisibility, walks up to Jason, who’s in a daze, and cries while hugging the man.

- The Ghost King has many powers. And seeing how a ghost had died is one of them. (A headcanon for this au, because why not? I think it’s pretty angsty and cool! But also, it’s like after defeating the previous Ghost King, the powers associated with being Ghost King is also passed on? For now, Danny is still training on how to get a hold of these powers. But in the future, he’ll be able to control his powers, so he won’t be seeing the past of every ghost he meets without their consent. Consent is sexy, guys.)

- While Danny is hugging Jason, the corrupted ectoplasmic energy was getting purified. But Danny can only do the purification in small doses. And, well, he doesn’t need to hug Jason to purify him, but Danny doesn’t want to tell Jason that because the big guy looks deprived of hugs. So a daily dose of purification hugs is recommended for our resident undead.

- Jason grumbles, but assents to it because he hasn’t felt this light in years. He also helps them make the burgers.

- “We should just say ‘Get Jason Todd to cook your burgers, buy some root beer, and draw the constellation with melted chocolate’” Danny says, enjoying the burgers.

- Bernard nods, licking a finger clean of ketchup and mustard. “You gotta teach me how to make burgers like this, man,” he says to Jason. “The only burger patties I cook are the ones already packaged.”

- Jason smirked. “I’m still a student,” he said. Bernard and Danny were in disbelief. But Tim only nodded. “Alfred is the real master. He’s British, but the only food he messes up are the waffles and mashed potatoes. Everything else, he’s excels.”

- “But... anyone can make mashed potatoes???????”

- “We have a bet going on that he messes them up on purpose because Bruce likes them that way.”

- It’s when Danny de-transforms that Jason blinks and goes, “Whoa, you look like the Demon Brat!”

- Which then just proves Tim’s theory that maybe being a ghost has something to do with people recognizing them as humans. Maybe there’s an instant glamour when you’re a ghost for strangers to be unable to recognize you? Maybe when the ghost allows it, you’d be able to recognize them even as they appear or transform in front of you? Do all ghosts have the ability to appear human? Or is it just Danny? Can Jason transform?? But is Jason even half-ghost???

- (In this au, I’m having the glamour only working on halfas., but only because they assume two identities. When you’re a full ghost, you don’t have a different identity just your ghost one. Jason is not a ghost, he’s mostly human, not fully, because even as a human there is ectoplasmic energy running in his veins. Jason’s eyes will be glowing when he’s experiencing strong negative emotions, but these negative emotions are now more manageable. So, Jason is a human with ectoplasmic energy running in his veins. He doesn’t have two identities to switch with. No glamour for him, but being purified does make him a little bit stronger. Not superman strong, but the kind when you’re on an adrenaline high.)

- But also, yep, Tim wasn’t imagining it. Danny did look like Damian.

- It was then Bernard takes out his board full of red string and shares his theory on why Danny could be Damian’s long lost twin brother. Tim was probably asleep when he put this board together.

- “Assassins? Really?” Danny asked, amused. “I mean, I know I’m adopted, but why would I be associated with assassins? Wouldn’t the assassins be watching over me and keeping a closer eye on me in case my twin can’t take over as heir and they’d need a placeholder??”

- And so Bernard goes on, on how Danny was the weaker one of the twins. And maybe the boss wanted only the strong one, and maybe his mother had some ounce of motherly sympathy for him to be brought into a loving family before he eventually died. And there wasn’t any assassin assigned to him because they were so sure he’d die. Danny did explain to them that he got sick easily when he was younger. But after the accident that killed him, he didn’t get sick anymore. (Danny didn’t tell them that he’s still alive, though. He just told them he died, while he’s in the ghost world, he defeated the previous ghost king, and now he’s the ghost king).

- Cue Tim and Jason sweating in the background. Bernard could be right, because he mostly was right about Damian being associated with Assassins. But Danny doesn’t look convinced, just indulging, so thank goodness for that!

- So, it goes to a question on whether he wanted to meet Damian. But Danny tells them that he’ll think about it.

- So, they get on with choosing which burger “felt right”, but Danny decides to bring a burger he loves. From Nasty Burger. And asks Jason to try and make a better version.

- “Timmy, look for the recipe, will ya?”

- Danny is amused at the illegal hacking that was going on, but even if the recipe for Nasty Burgers might be a well-kept secret of the burger joint, he has no doubt these nerds will be able to find it.

- Tim downloads the recipe, Danny brings over the Nasty Burgers, they taste it and comments that it goes on par with Bat Burgers, to which Bernard arrives with his own batch for Danny to try.

- And, they were right. They are on par with each other. They both have their own distinct flavors for their patties, it’s unreal!

- Danny then decides to let both be a requirement for the ritual. A better version for both Bat Burger and Nasty Burger as improved by Jason Todd.

- After a full week of trying to make the perfect nasty burger and bat burger, Danny has to include all the other requirements for the ritual (like the root beer and how the constellation will be drawn, and that one requirement Tim suggested of the human having to have understanding of ghosts being more than just ghosts... Does Jason make a poem for Danny about it? Yes, he does. But nobody but Danny knows about this.)

-Finalized, The summoner has to read the poem out loud, draw the constellation with barbeque sauce, and place the ready-made burger by the summoner in the middle.

- Once Danny has put everything together, and tells the ghosts to update the summoning ritual, he asks Bernard to test it out (Jason ended up taking Bernard as a student in cooking).

- Danny appears in all his Ghost King glory, complete with a Nasty Burger Crown and Blanket Cape, with some cool neon green light show and some cool fog.

- It was a success! And they eat pizza as a celebration because they were sick of burgers already.

- They say good-bye to Danny. Danny tells them that he’ll still be visiting for Jason’s daily purification hugs, and they make plans for meeting up together.

....

- One day, Damian as Robin catches Jason in his safe-house watching a movie with Timothy, Bernard, and... a clone of himself? But that’s a story for another day.

#dc x dp #dp x dc #danny fenton #bernard dowd #timothy drake #tim drake #jason todd #timbern #goddamn this is long what the fuck #do i know anything about these two franchises other than what i read on tumblr and ao3?? NOPE!#i haven't revisited danny phantom nor read the dc comics and it shows #might post later on ao3

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catboybiologist · 28 days

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Y'all ready for a certified neurodivergent moment?

I had to sit through a thing I absolutely did not need any info from, and typed up a massive outline of the soulsborne pokemon game I just talked about. Massively cringe, yes, but hey it's not just living in my head anymore.

I've had this idea brewing in my head for a while now, pretty much ever since PLA came out (and I found it kinda disappointing tbh). Even though Hoenn has lots of love, it still feels like the most "grand" region in terms of the scale and themes of its lore, so I liked the idea of using it for a legends game that focused on the initial clash of Kyogre and Groudon. I had so many ideas brew in my head, and I guess now I sloppily typed them out.

Obviously this isn't actual game design. This is just me being cringey and detailing my dream pokemon game. At 26 years old. Anyways.

Pokemon Legends: Jirachi

In the times when Hoenn was young, the earth and seas shook. Titans roam the land- powerful individual pokemon that shape their environment to their liking. Humans and pokemon work together to keep them under control, but the earth and sea themselves shake, and Titans only grow more numerous. One day, a human wishes on a shooting star to become a hero and save their land, and something from up there answered.

In this game, Jirachi would be a kind of invisible "questmaster", giving an in-game reason for path markers, quest markers, and points of interest marked in stardust and sparkles. Once the main plot is completed, Jirachi would be able to join your party.

Core combat

The gameplay would be souls-like or Monster Hunter like, but with direct parallels to mainline pokemon mechanics. The six stats would be the same, and the four moves your pokemon can learn would be equivalent to the attack interface of a soulslike game- four trigger buttons. You would take direct control of one "primary" pokemon at a time, and use it as a souls-like character.

HP, Def, and SpDef would be largely the same, with the added benefit that less damage taken means more resistance to trips and staggers.

Atk and SpAtk are also pretty clear cut, scales your damage output per move.

Speed would be analogous to stamina or endurance. Dodging would work as in soulsborne games, and consume stamina. Most pokemon walking, running, attack speed, and dodging speed would be largely equivalent, but high speed pokemon would be able to sustain rapidfire attacking, frequent dodging, and continuous sprinting for longer.

Accuracy would be reworked into lock-on or charge up time- eg, a low accuracy move requires you to stay in one place for a longer amount of time before releasing, to charge up or lock on (imagine how swag ass this would look with focus blast).

PP would correspond to cooldown time. Each move would be infinite use, but have a cool-down after its used. So a move with high accuracy, but low PP, could be used instantly, but not spammed. High PP, weaker moves would then see an increased niche as a "default" light attack that can be spammed.

Attacks could also be ranged, up close, AoE, and have other features that would need to be tweaked and balanced in implementation. They wouldn't one to one map onto their in game counterparts, but this would at least provide a vague guide for how these moves work that builds on players assumed existing knowledge of pokemon games.

Special attributes, like never-miss moves and priority moves, would have features that play into this- eg, priority moves could be spammed with no cooldown, and never-miss moves would be immune to inhibiting effects.

Stat changes could be temporary effects applied to yourself when using the move, like a buffing spell in soulsborne games.

Nonvolatile status effects (paralysis, burn, sleep, etc) would work similar to monster hunter- invisibly accumulating triggers that occur as a side effect to to moves, or in the case of moves that directly trigger status like Spore or Thunder Wave, they would not do direct damage, but instead add massive amounts to the accumulated status trigger.

Field effects (weather, terrain, and special effects like wind, gravity, etc) could be set by regular pokemon moves in small areas, but would also be frequently encountered in the overworld.

Examples: the vibes of potential starter pokemon.

This is all just for the purpose of giving examples of how I envision some of this stuff working. Assume each pokemon would have regional variants that scaled their stats appropriately. This is just to show how different playstyles from the mainline games would translate to this format.

Lucario: example mixed offensive pokemon

Moves like aura sphere could be used with no lock on time, and little to no cooldown, forming the basis of a normal, light, ranged attack.

Moves like Close Combat would have no lock on, but give a temporary debuff and have a long cooldown time before they could be initiated again, making for a quick to use but infrequent heavy attack.

Swords dance and/or nasty plot could be used to provide a temporary buff for a period of time.

Focus blast would take a long time to charge and lock on, making you a sitting duck.

Reuniclus: example tanky pokemon

Light Screen and Barrier could lay down static areas on the ground. When an ally pokemon is located within them, they provide their corresponding defensive buffs. Cooldown for reusing them starts when these floor areas disappear.

Recover could be used to heal, but would have a long cooldown.

Liepard: example technical pokemon

Yawn would inflict direct sleep "buildup", but over time as opposed to instantly.

Fake out would instantly proc a stagger from the enemy, but could only be used in a certain time range upon being sent out.

Moves like taunt and torment function as usual.

The trainer and overworld traversal

Even though the player has direct control over pokemon, the MC is still a trainer, and pokemon are still capture in balls.

The trainer would be on the sidelines, with idle animations ordering the pokemon to do stuff.

Only one "controllable" pokemon could be outside of a pokeball at a time, or all of them could be stowed in pokeballs to directly control the trainer. The trainer can interact with NPCs, gather items, etc.

The trainer would also order "helper" pokemon. One or two "helpers" could be added independent of the party that would follow the trainer around constantly. Each pokemon has a list of field "helper" abilities they're capable of doing, independent of what moves they know. By targeting something that a helper pokemon can interact with in the world, the trainer would order that pokemon to zip out and interact with it. Think Republic commando. This takes the role of HMs and other field moves. For areas that require things like Surf of dive, the helper pokemon would exert a field of influence that essentially allowed the primary pokemon to act normally- eg, a surf helper would cause an area of surging upwards surface chop that lets the primary pokemon walk on water, or a dive helper would create small air bubbles centered around wherever the primary pokemon breathes from.

The trainer can also provide small support in the form of items, but this would be limited to encourage sensible use of stat boosting moves.

Pokemon would still be captured in pokeballs, but after they are fainted by the primary pokemon. Fainted pokemon could either be captured in a pokeball, or "relieved" of unique held items and resources before releasing them.

Pokemon would not gain experience by defeating opponents. Instead, each one would have material requirements to both level up and "customize" them. Like upgrading a weapon in Monster Hunter, every pokemon would have unique material requirements to level up, change nature, upgrade IVs, allocate EVs, or learn and relearn certain moves. This incentivizes a postgame loop, but could be curved to make the main game give you adequate materials to avoid excessive grinding.

The gameplay and story structure

The gameplay loop is basically monster hunter.

There would be a large number of normal-sized pokemon out in the world, that could be easily defeated and either captured and looted. But, frequently, a "Titan" would appear- a large, boss variant of a particular pokemon. Some pokemon can only be captured from their defeated titan forms, even if they appear in their regular forms.

These titan forms would appear semi-randomly, and requests to "quiet" them by defeating them would take the form of quests posted in the hub regions. These quests would then essentially be a monster hunter hunt- going out and fighting a particular titan.

Titan forms could be unique, or vaguely modeled after existing megas.

The world is divided into 8 main regions, and at least one "bonus" region. There would be 4 ocean regions, and 4 land regions. Each region would be seperate, but open to explore within that region (damn you can really see how much I've played MH:W)

Each region would have a drop table of pokemon that could potentially appear as titans.

Each region would also have one, single titan pokemon that gives the region its character. These 9 titans would be new, unique regional variants.

Each region, and by extension, each boss titan, would be directly associated with a different regional effect. So essentially, the boss titan and the field effect of a region would be reflective of its character.

The plot, like monster hunter, would be a gameplay loop of increasingly powerful titans within a region, building to the boss titans of each region. Once the 8 primary titans are defeated, it triggers the endgame main plotline.

The world

As mentioned previously, the bulk of the gameplay loop and storyline would be defeating increasingly more powerful "titan" pokemon, until you encounter a particular individual pokemon that is actively shaping that region and has ultimately caused the other titans along the way to be empowered.

Each region would have a dominant type, several field effects that come and go within certain parts of the area, and a unique boss titan. Each boss titan is about equivalent difficulty, and the player is encouraged to spread their efforts around to proceed through the "tiers" of titans evenly across the world before making it to the boss.

Hubs: Slateport, Lilycove.

Self explanatory, these would be the hub towns. Like in PLA, no other cities would be founded yet. Mt. Pyre would be integrated as part of Lilycove, and important characters and exposition could happen there. It would be an active cathedral. Kyogre and Groudon wouldn't be "known", but vague, amorphous titans of earth, sea, and sky would be referenced.

Land Regions

Meteor Cliffs and the Tranquil Plain

A gentle, grassy plain south of Mt. Chimney gives way to its southern slope. The slope, pockmarked with craters, has not been extensively explored, but is thought to hold deep caverns.

Regional effect: Pyschic Terrain

Regional Titan boss: Metagross (Steel/Pyschic)

Main game route equivalents: Meteor Falls, Rustboro City, Petalburg Woods, Petalburg City, Oldale Town, Littleroot town, 101, 102, 103, 104, 116, 115

Towering Forest

A deep, lush forest, sometimes so dense that you can't see the sky, fed by the crystal clear river cutting through it. The tangle of the canopy shudders under the weight of unseen pokemon above.

Regional effect: Grassy Terrain

Regional Titan boss: Tropius (Grass/Steel)

Main game route equivalents: Fortree city, Safari Zone, 119, 120, 121, 123

Jagged Stones

Deep, rugged canyons hide a basin-like desert, where a raging sandstorm elicits mirage-like visions.

Regional effect: sandstorm

Regional Titan boss: Tyranitar (Rock/Dragon)

Main game route equivalents: Verdanturf town, 117, 111, 112, all desert subregions

Volcanic Slopes

The peaks, caverns, and North slope of Mt. Chimney know no peace from the continuous onslaught of lava.

Regional effect: harsh sunlight

Regional Titan boss: Camerupt (Fire/Ground)

Main game route equivalents: Mt. Chimney, Jagged Pass, Fiery Path, Lavaridge, Fallarbor, 113, 114

Oceanic regions

Thunder Bay

An unrelenting, static haze hovers over the inlets of of Thunder Bay, impeding exploration of its deep subterranean caverns.

Regional effect: electric terrain

Regional Titan boss: Manectric (Electric/Dark)

Main game route equivalents: Mauville, New Mauville (replaced by a cave entrance), Cycling Road, 118, 110, 134, 133

Shifting Floes

A chill falls over the NorthEast seas of Hoenn, a climatic anomaly. Scattered islands and shifting ice platforms are continually coated with a snowstorm.

Regional effect: snowstorm

Regional Titan boss: Froslass (ice/ghost)

Main game region equivalents: Mossdeep, Shoal cave, 124, 125, parts of 126 and 127

Misted islands

A mysterious area of the ocean in which islands seem to shift locations as they phase in and out of sight.

Primary Area effect: Misty Terrain

Regional Titan Boss: Altaria (Dragon/fairy)

Main game route equivalents: Dewford Town, Granite Cave, Southern Island, Mirage Island (location changed), 105, 106, 107, 108, 109

Deep Blue

The open expanse of the ocean, and the islands within it, hold secrets beyond comprehension in their depths and constant storms. It is said that there is as much below as there is above.

Primary Area effect: rain/underwater (same effects as rain)

Regional Titan Boss: Wailord (water)

Main game route equivalents: Sootopolis city, Cave of Origin, Sky Pillar, Ever Grande City, Pacifidlog, Seafloor cavern, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, parts of 126 and 127

Special Area: the Delta Stream

Ripping across Hoenn's skies is an air current known as the Delta Stream, which powerful pokemon use as a causeway between regions and across the world.

Only accessible in the postgame, and with a "helper" pokemon that can fly. This entire region is above the clouds, and the only points that poke up are the peak of Mt. Chimney, Sky Pillar, and an updraft over Mt. Pyre.

Primary area effect: tailwind

Regional Titan Boss: Salamence (Flying/Dragon)

The Endgame Plot: after the titans are quieted

Once every boss has been defeated, the endgame storyline starts. Despite every titan being quieted, the land still quakes, and the seas still swell. The elders of Mt. Pyre urge you to investigate these at their source: the inner lava chamber of Mt. Chimney (subregion of Volcanic Slopes), and the depths of the seafloor (subregion of Deep Blue).

As you can probably guess, this is the introduction to Kyogre and Groudon.

The first fight with each of them uses your own pokemon, and gives you a "false" win- after you "faint" them in a suspiciously easy battle, they each revive into their primal forms, and head to the mountain island that would become Sootopolis. Hear, they battle on a kaiju-like scale. The MC watches the destruction from Mt. Pyre.

For the second time in the game's story, the MC makes a wish: this is beyond me. I wish a savior would come. Jirachi directly unveils itself for the first time to answer the call, touches the MC, and speeds off into the distance. A cutscene follows Jirachi to Sky Pillar (only a raw, uncarved spike of rock at this point), where Rayquaza is seen coiled around the top. Jirachi leads Rayquaza into the upper atmosphere, where it undergoes a primal/mega evolution. It pivots, shooting down towards earth, building speed.

The player takes control of M-Rayquaza as it slams down to earth, staggering Kyogre and Groudon away from each other, and engages in a special fight where they have to defeat both of them.

After this, Kyogre, Groudon, and Rayquaza may each be found at Seafloor cavern, Mt. Chimney, and sky pillar respectively, and may be defeated and captured. But its highly implied that they only go along with this willingly, and will freely resume their duties as the lords of the land once the MC passes on.

After the plot is completed, steps and murals start being carved into Sky Pillar, allowing access to the Delta Stream.

The post game would allow for infinitely generating Titans, rematches with previously captured Boss Titans as "enrichment" for them, and general gameplay loop grinding for items to train pokemon.

Yay, okay, no ones gonna read this far but uh. Yeah. That's the general idea I had. Hope it made at least some sense LOL

#pokemon #pokemon idea #theorymon

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wherevenusholdssomeofficespace · 1 month

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Why the Llama Incident works

The noodle incident is a trope done in A LOT of shows (PNF has a whole TV tropes page dedicated to its noodle incidents). Technically getting disowned and raised by ocelots is a noodle incident in pnf... we never do know what gets him officially disowned and how he ends up in the care of the ocelots). The noodle incident is meant to just showcase that this character has a history of some sort.

Generally speaking, explaining a noodle incident is a bad idea because the unknown has infinite potential. The intrigue is part of what makes it interesting. People can come up with ideas that are absolutely out there themselves. Usually, coming up with something that will live up to the hype is impossible because the hype of the event has built it up to impossible levels.

Emphasis on the usually.

They literally called it a llama incident. They knew what a noodle incident was, and were purposefully playing with our expectations that it would be an unrevealed event. And, as I said before, PnF has already dealt with its fair share of noodle incidents that go unexplained.

And as a noodle incident it served its purpose. Generally a noodle incident will provide context on what the status quo is without spelling out the details. In Rollercoaster the Juggling Monkey's noodle incident tells us that this is not the first time Phineas and Ferb have had a Big Idea (in fact we never do get what Phineas and Ferb's first Big Idea was). In Milo Murphy's Law the Llama incident tells us that Milo and Melissa were getting into Murphy's Law shenanigans long before Zack came into the picture. Showing us that they're so familiar with each other that situations that might require more context to another person doesn't.

Now bear with me as I go on a bit of a tangent that I promise is related.

The main cast of Milo Murphy's Law is a trio, and one of its members is defined by being the new guy. Zack is kind of an audience surrogate. Melissa is Milo's childhood friend and Milo has lived with this all his life. Generally, they don't need to explain anything to each other, nor do they need to explain anything to their class who is already at least passingly familiar with Milo. But they do to Zack.

I don't necessarily think MML NEEDED the audience surrogate character per se. Quite frankly I think audience surrogate characters are rarely necessary. You can always just start with a group of friends and fill in context via implication. I think it's just significantly harder, because you run the risk of alienating your audience by not allowing them to get settled in what is going on or having your characters talk about things like they don't already know what is going on.

But I don't think its at all an inherently bad storytelling method. I personally find outsider POVs delightful, and a good audience surrogate character is an outsider POV, at least at the start. Zack being new to the whole Murphy's Law allowed him a story about choosing to engage with the hazardous kid, winning him loyal friends and a set of skills he never would have dreamed of before. We get to see him grow, and we wouldn't have seen that if he was Milo's friend the whole time.

On the other hand he also has a bit of a wild background, as the former lead singer of a locally famous lumberjack themed boy band. Which gives Milo and Melissa the chance to join a band. Or for Milo to have a real birthday party. A change in status quo provides opportunities for growth and change, for the whole cast, which is useful in more overarching stories... like MML. It's not NECESSARY of course. Zack could have been a classmate that had always kept his distance before he accidentally got tangled up with Milo and decided he was cool. But there's nothing wrong with him being straight up new either.

And at the most basic level, Zack's complete unfamiliarity provides a nice contrast to Melissa's familiarity and Milo's day to day life. Zack is starting from 0 while Milo has been dealing with this every single day of his life.

So Zack isn't going to know what the Llama Incident is. And while noodle incidents being unexplained is fun for the audience, it isn't going to be so fun for someone who is constantly living with people who know what this Llama Incident is. Of course they could have told Zack the noodle incident off screen, it would have made for a good gag to cut into the story with Melissa and Milo finishing telling Zack the story. But instead, we are treated to an episode that has Zack really beginning to slot into his life as Milo's friend.

Back to the main point.

MML is one of the only shows with enough sheer chaotic energy that it could actually pull off making a group of seemingly unrelated references into a cohesive genuinely interesting story. The whole show is things that could feasibly be noodle incidents, which makes it easy to get a baseline for what could have happened. Milo uses stuff in strange ways all the time, getting tangled up with weird animals and ending up in strange situations. There's no REAL reason to feel like we're missing out on too much. It sounds like a normal Milo situation, just with only him and Melissa... and the fact they keep bringing it up.

And really, if you think about it, its just Planned in Advance Meapless in Seattle. Meapless in Seattle was meant to be a bunch of unrelated clips meant to be a noodle incident of sorts. We wouldn't know what exactly would go down in that fake episode. But they managed to bring everything together into a really fun episode that made sense and honestly lived up to the hype. (At least for me). I mean. They somehow made it work. That's a feat in of itself.

The episode "Llama Incident" starts out implying a completely different noodle incident. We never learn how the kids end up on that branch. That's not important. That stuff happens all the time. Is the Llama Incident more interesting than the other stuff Milo gets into? Not particularly, but it DID involve him using more stuff he didn't normally use.

And the Llama Incident is told in the format of a story. Changing up the format of the episode is always a good way to make an episode feel fresh. I mean, look at The Remains of the Platypus. It's just an episode told backwards but its delightful chaotic fun. Or Delivery of Destiny. Really the only difference is the day follows the perspective of a delivery guy, but we get all our normal plot beats. But both are some of my favorite Phineas and Ferb episodes. If you remove their gimmicks they're pretty basic. Phineas and Ferb build a cheese themed amusement park, and Doofensmirtz's plan is only slightly more novel with brainwashing Perry. Phineas and Ferb building a ride and Doof juicing city hall are pretty typical of them, but Paul's semi-outsider POV (and being one of the closest characters we get to having the full picture of the story we the audience see), makes it feel fun and fresh. It makes the Llama Incident feel special. Even if it isn't my favorite unique episode format, it's still something fresh and fun.

So Milo and Melissa sort of tell the story a bit out of order, because they forget what pieces Zack would and wouldn't have context for or would or wouldn't find interesting. And, again, it's told as a story to Zack, so he asks questions. It's told while they are hanging from a branch, where they cut back to every once and a while to remind us that hey, the group is in the middle of a whole other Murphy's Law incident. We're getting two for one today.

But through the episode we get a bit of a Zack character arc. We've already established that Melissa and Milo are used to this, even if you weren't aware the way they were casually rating it at the beginning of the episode should tell you all you need to know. But Zack isn't completely used to this yet, so he's just nervous. He spends the episode using the story as a distraction, but being genuinely invested. In the end, the story acts as an inspiration to Zack, and he's able to help the group get out of the situation. AND for his trouble, he gets his own mysterious incident to reference. After half a season, he's truly part of the group now. He will continue to grow of course, trying to become braver and cleverer, and he's already made strides since the first episode. But even if Zack isn't really any less part of the group before or after its still a significant moment in Zack's character arc.

And then the Llama Incident comes back the next episode. The date was memorable to Milo, even throughout all of the other chaos in his life. And sometimes that's just how life is. And he uses his knowledge of the event, the way it stuck in his mind, to save him, Dakota and Cavendish from Pistachion's in Missing Milo. What we thought was going to just be a noodle incident, a running gag that functioned to establish just how used to this stuff Milo and Melissa were, turned out to be a plot point. To be fair we didn't NEED to know what the Llama incident was for Milo to choose to go there. We didn't need to know about the Llama Incident to know it was typical Murphy's Law shenanigans. It could have just been more out of context llama stuff. But now we the audience are in on the joke, so when Cavendish and Dakota express confusion, we can revel in the fact we know something they don't. Especially about two characters who themselves were slow revealing information about themselves to us... sure by that point we know their deal but at one point they were as mysterious and out of context to us as the Llama incident. And now we know what the Llama Incident is, and what their deal is.

The Woodpecker incident also is vaguely referred to later with the woodpecker whistle. We may not know the full story there, but it is still satisfying to see Milo's adventures giving him the skills and tools to deal with bigger, actually hostile, threats.

And at the end of the day, even if the Noodle Incidentness of the Llama Incident is ruined, it was immediately replaced with the Woodpecker incident. Which admittedly is never mentioned, but it doesn't need to be. The point of the Llama Incident was to draw attention to a specific incident to make a gag out of it. But they have incidents all the time. And we're privy to most of them. We sometimes get references to other incidents that we never fully get the context for. But we don't need context. We know how it'll go anyway because we have a whole show of effective noodle incidents.

#mml #milo murphy's law #zack underwood #I talk a lot about him specifically so he gets special mention

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