#like its so much more than 'the power of friendship will save us!!' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

caelesjjk · 8 months

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𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕝𝕖𝕕 - 𝕛𝕛𝕜&𝕜𝕥𝕙

⟶ title: entangled ⟶pairing: spidey!jungkook x fem reader, venom!taehyung x fem reader ⟶au: marvel au ⟶ rating: 18+ ⟶ genre: romance, smut, love triangle ⟶ wc: 7.6k ⟶ warnings: Mnetions of blood and a wound, drinking, Jungkook calls you Data and Taehyung calls you Pigeon, infidelity-ish?? (you'll see), two smut scenes: oral (female and male receiving) mutiple orgasms, overstim, unprotected sex (thats a no, wrap it up) few different positions, making out, sweet kisses, nipple stuff ⟶ summary: Jeon Jungkook is Spider-Man.

He saved your life twice. But he’s also been your sweet lab partner in college for the past two years and now someone who is more than just a friend.

You care about him…maybe even love him. But something tells you that you aren’t quite sure what love even is. How could you when you have feelings for someone else as well?

Kim Taehyung is the handsome stranger you’ve seen around campus and somehow ended up dancing with at Club Onyx. You were upset that Jungkook had stood you up once again and Taehyung made you feel like you were on top of the world.

What you didn’t know that night, is the dark secret Taehyung is trying desperately to hide, but the closer the two of you get the more difficult that becomes.

⟶ authors note: hello darklings, its been such a long time. I apologize this took so long but it's finally here! I can't wait to see what everyone thinks of spidey!kook and venom!tae, they're truly my babies and I have loved writing them. This is only part one, I make no guarantees how quickly part two comes out, but I'll do my best I promise. I'm thinking probably four parts for this. enjoy! tell me all ur thots! Shoutout to M (@here2bbtstrash), Sav (@jeonjcngkook) and Kay (@tea4sykes) for looking this over and correcting my insanity and also assuring me that it's not terrible lol. Thank you all so much for your patience and help.

“So where is he?” your friend Penny says from across the table.

“He said he was coming.” You sigh, stirring your drink with the straw.

“He said that the last two times we were all supposed to study together.” Hoseok gives you a look that’s part sympathy and part annoyance.

“He’s working three part-time jobs. Not all of us have our parents paying for our apartments, Hobi.” You give him a playful glare and he returns it, followed by a poke of his tongue from between his lips.

Part of you wished you didn’t know Jungkook’s secret. That you could go back to the days where you were blissfully unaware of who he was. But back then, being stood up hurt even more because you didn’t know why.

Now you know. You know that Jungkook is Spider-Man. The infamous superhero with powers he acquired from being bitten by a lab altered arachnid a few years ago.

He saved your life. Twice in fact. Both times it was because you were curious, too curious for your own good, and you had been suspecting something was going on with Jungkook.

You followed him one night and watched in awe as he changed into his Spider-Man suit in an alleyway. And not just because he was Spider-Man, but because he was insanely gorgeous. You were hypnotized by the man who had been sitting next to you as your lab partner for most of the year. Who constantly hid his body beneath baggy clothes and bucket hats.

You had always liked him a little more than you cared to admit. And after you found out the truth about him, your friendship grew into something more.

There weren’t any labels; you didn’t call each other boyfriend and girlfriend, much to your dismay. But Jungkook always told you that if the wrong person found out about the two of you, they could use you to get to him. And he needed to be able to focus on his whole saving the world gig, and not constantly worry about your safety.

You understood. But that didn’t mean it didn’t sting a little.

You manage to study a bit longer with your friends before deciding you were far too distracted. You call Jungkook on your walk back to your apartment, but of course he doesn't answer.

So now you wait. And you worry.

No matter how hot the shower water is as it hits your back, it doesn’t stop the worry. You just want him to be safe, even if he pissed you off by not showing up again.

You wrap yourself in your favorite silky robe and get comfortable on your bed with some of your homework you didn’t finish with your friends, slowly getting immersed in all of the calculations and formulas that you love so much. They were a great distraction.

Not sure how long you’ve been studying, you get up to stretch and make your way to your apartment balcony, opening the doors and stepping outside for a breath of fresh air.

The city is always loud, but up here it isn’t so bad. The traffic sounds far away and the lights are just flickers across the skyline. You might even think it was beautiful if it wasn’t for the constant bad lurking around every corner. Or maybe you had just heard too many scary things from Jungkook.

Sighing when he pops into your head again, you turn around to head back inside only to come face to face with the superhero in question. Seeing him hanging there upside down from your doorway startles you just enough to send you stumbling backwards towards your balcony.

Before you can get too far, or even fully scream, Jungkook is shooting a web at your torso, pulling you back and into his arms as he flips down onto his feet. Your head swims from how quickly it happens.

“Data, look at me.” Jungkook’s voice is slightly muffled through his mask. “It’s just me.”

“You scared me.” You look up at him as he removes his mask and shakes out his hair, eyes finally meeting yours.

“I’m sorry, I should’ve been…noisier.” Jungkook smiles and you almost forget that you’re angry with him. Almost.

“What are you doing here anyways?” You shove against his broad chest and feel his arm release your waist. He sighs, following you inside your apartment.

“I know you’re upset I missed the study session…” Jungkook starts to explain, but you twist back around to face him.

“If my friends hadn’t seen you around campus now and then, they would think I made you up, Jungkook. You never show. It makes me look pathetic.” You cross your arms over your chest and wait for the next excuse.

“You aren’t pathetic, Data. I’m just…” Jungkook winces when he reaches for you, a hand moving down to his ribs in pain. “Sorry, it’s healing, it's just slow.”

“What’s healing? What happened to you?” You let the fight go for a moment, closing the space between the two of you and moving his hand out of the way.

Beneath his fingers is a large cut, bloody but half-hidden by his suit. It looks angry and inflamed. What could’ve made a cut like this?

“It’s nothing. I’ll heal up in a couple hours.” He pulls your hand away, blood stained on the tips of your fingers.

“It won’t matter how quick you heal if it gets infected. Come in here.” Your hand wraps around his and you pull him into your small bathroom. You steady him against your vanity and move to grab your first aid kit from the cabinet above your toilet. “Take that off.” You gesture to his Spider-Man suit.

“Yes, ma’am.” Jungkook teases, gingerly working his top half out of the suit. He hisses through his teeth as he peels the suit away from his ribs and lets it hang at his hips.

You are not the universe's strongest soldier.

Your eyes drift over all the dips and curves of muscle. A perfectly sculpted chest and abs you could literally eat off of are right in front of you, scrambling every sense you have in your head. You need to focus. Stay focused on the task at hand and not his ridiculously toned body.

“You okay, Data?” he asks, humor in his voice. That horrid nickname he had given you in your first year as lab partners is feeling more endearing these days. You clear your throat.

“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine? Just tending to Spider-Man’s wounds in my extremely tiny bathroom.” You try to laugh but it doesn’t sound genuine.

You take out some bandages and gauze and get to work cleaning him up. But even as you tape down the gauze, you can visibly see the wound getting smaller. Super powers really are something else.

“Data.” Jungkook’s voice brings you back to reality.

“What?” You sigh.

“Please come here.” His hands reach for your hips and you give in, letting him pull you until you’re flush against him, suddenly nose to nose. “That’s better.”

“I’m angry with you,” you whisper, heart pumping a bit faster in the close proximity.

“I know that you are. I’m really sorry…I swear I wanted to be there.” You look down to see him slip his gloves off and sit them on the countertop before his hands come up to cup your face.

“Then what happened? You need to tell me.” Your hands wrap around his wrists.

“There’s something out there, Data. A…monster that we can’t figure out. It’s strong…and fast. Nothing I’ve ever seen before.” His thumbs brush the corners of your mouth.

“What does it want?”

“It keeps breaking into the Lab across the River. It’s looking for something. No one at the lab is being very forthcoming with information.” His forehead presses to yours. “But Mr. Kim is working on that part.”

Kim Seokjin, more famously known as Ironman. He was a mentor and a good friend to Jungkook. He was helping Jungkook navigate the new world of being a superhero and also gave him a job to help him pay for school.

“Hasn’t Mr. Kim told you to call him Jin over and over?” you tease, hands coming up to rest against his chest. Jungkook laughs quietly, pulling you closer.

“He has. Guess it just slipped out.” His hands move down to palm your ass.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” You raise an eyebrow in question of his actions.

“Just feels like I haven’t touched you in so long.” His warm mouth finds your throat and he presses kisses to the skin.

“Two days is a long time?”

“It is when it comes to you. Thinking about how much I want you gets so distracting.” He nuzzles into the crook of your neck, making you giggle.

“So what I did for you two days ago wasn’t enough?” You let your hands slither down from his chest and over the planes of his stomach.

“Never enough.” His nose skims over your jaw until you’re back face to face and his lips are devouring yours. “I’d like to pay you back.”

“How?” You moan when you’re cut off by his tongue sliding into your mouth.

“Let me show you?” Jungkook pulls away from the kiss, taking your hand and leading you out of the bathroom.

Thinking he means to lead you to your bed, you start to pull him towards it, but he seems to have other ideas, walking you back out onto the balcony. He releases your hand momentarily to slide his suit back up over his shoulders.

“What are you going to show me out here, Jungkook?” You start to feel suspicious.

“Do you trust me?” He jumps up onto your railing with ease, still holding your hand in his.

“Not if it involves you swinging me around off the side of buildings.” You start to pull back, but his other wrist shoots a web at your torso; using his inhuman strength, he pulls you up onto the railing into his arms.

“I would never let you fall. Never. Just close your eyes for a few minutes. I promise it’ll be worth it, Data.” He touches your cheek gently, and even though you want to throw up every time he does this, you close your eyes and wrap your arms as tightly as possible around his neck and your legs around his waist. “Ready?” He whispers in your ear, one strong arm wrapping around your back.

You don’t verbally answer, just nod once before burying your face into his neck.

And then the solid feeling of being on the ground disappears and the sickening feeling of free falling is very apparent. You try to breathe, squeezing yourself around Jungkook as you listen to the whooshing sound of his web shooters discharge as he swings you between the tallest buildings in the city.

“You’re doing amazing.” Jungkook kisses your cheek. “Just another minute.”

You keep your eyes clamped shut until the curiosity becomes too overwhelming, making you dare to peek just the slightest bit. You see the sun setting on the horizon, orange and purple hues slowly disappearing beneath the river. As long as you don’t think about how high up you are, it really is beautiful up here.

You soak in the feeling of Jungkook holding you so tightly because you never know when the next time may be. You hate to sound so dramatic in thinking that way, but it really is a guessing game sometimes . Your hands loosen and slide up into his hair, making him look down into your eyes and smile when he sees how fondly you’re looking back at him.

“Kiss me,” you whisper, even though there isn’t a single soul that could hear you up here.

Jungkook kisses the corner of your mouth and then the other before the softness of his lips has your eyes fluttering closed. This kiss is only gentle brushes of lips, noses grazing in the sweetest way you can imagine, all the while Jungkook is still effortlessly swinging you between buildings.

He shoots a web straight up into the air, letting it connect to the side of one of the tallest buildings, slowly pulling the two of you up until he’s reached the highest ledge, tapping your thighs so you know it’s safe to put your feet down. You kiss him once more before you open your eyes and look out at the nearly complete sunset…a thousand feet in the air.

“Why are we up here, Jungkook? You know the heights..” He kisses you again before you can finish the sentence.

“Can we try something?” He smiles, and it’s infuriating. You’re too weak for this spidey boy. You sigh with exasperation.

“I’m already very wary of saying yes.” You look away from the ledge towards the top of the building, taking note of all the intricate filigree and gargoyle statues.

“Let me make you feel good…up here.” His cheeks heat a little when he asks.

“Is this some kind of weird adrenaline thing? Why would you want that?” Your voice cracks and you sputter, disbelief heavy in your tone.

“I think it’ll be intense…feel so good.” His lips move down and his teeth nip at your jaw.

“It’s insane…” You melt into his touch and the way his mouth sucks at your neck.

“If you don’t like it, I’ll take you home. And I’ll get you naked in your bed instead.” He pulls your shirt over your head, fully knowing you’re about to give in.

“Bed sounds so good right now…”

“Please, Data…just try it.” He tosses your shirt to the side, cupping your breasts and kissing the tops of them.

“What do I have to do?” You feel too good to let the fear ruin the way he’s making you feel.

“Lie back on the ledge, with your arms above your head and your wrists crossed.”

You let him lead you down onto the ledge, every nerve in your body hot and on edge. Jungkook makes sure that you’re settled before he stands back up straight, looking down at you while you slowly move your arms above your head the way he asked.

“You’re perfect, Data.” Jungkook stares at you a moment longer before he aims his web shooter and traps your wrists together against the concrete ledge beneath you.

Your chest heaves at the idea of being completely helpless. He’s taken away your control and your ability to touch him as you please.

He makes quick work of the sleep pants you had been wearing, tossing them away to join the gargoyles on the rooftop.

“Jungkook…” you whimper when he lowers himself between your legs and lies down on his stomach so he can be face to face with your heat.

“Relax, okay? I’m gonna make it up to you.” He kisses a path down your thigh, sucking gently and caressing with his tongue.

You arch your back from the ledge when he pushes your panties to the side and his mouth finally makes contact with your pussy. Just a sweet kiss at first, then a deep, swirling lick to your clit. You pull against the webbing trapping you in place, fingers begging to be in his hair.

If only the citizens of his precious city could see him right now. Face buried and tongue lapping just for you. All of it for you and not for them.

You can feel tears start to form in your eyes from the way your orgasm is already so close to crashing over you. Jungkook has spent quite a bit of time getting to know your body and memorizing the things he knows that you like.

“Come on my tongue, baby. I’ve got you.” Jungkook soothes before his mouth is back to devouring you.

One particularly harsh suck to your clit while his fingers finally join in on the fun is what sends you over the edge, clenching around his digits in spasms.

You’re lucky that no one could possibly hear you all the way up here. The moans and groans that you both make while Jungkook licks up every bit of your arousal are beyond obscene.

“Please get this web off of me,” you huff between breaths. Jungkook slowly raises his head and with a smile on his shiny face, reaches up and effortlessly rips the webbing from your wrists.

You jolt upwards, wrapping your arms around his neck and digging your hands into his soft hair. Your mouths mold together automatically, your tongue tasting yourself from his lips.

“Did you like it?” Jungkook finally asks, pulling you into his lap.

“As long as I continue to pretend we aren’t thousands of feet in the air, I enjoyed it very much.” You both smile and you lean in to kiss the corner of his pierced lip. “You can’t always distract me with your extremely talented mouth though. I just…want you to try and be in my life.” You push some hair off of his forehead before he kisses your lips once more.

“It won’t always be this crazy, Data. I promise. I just want to make sure I help Jin as much as I can with this monster.”

“I know.” You want to tell him that you wish you came first. That there’s always going to be another monster keeping you apart. But that’s the price you pay for loving a superhero.

“Let me take you home?” He stands up, still holding you in his arms.

“Maybe let me put my pants back on first?” You laugh as he sets you down to retrieve your pants from a gargoyle statue.

And then you’re back in his arms and swinging back to reality.

The sun is still warm even though fall is almost in full swing. Leaves are starting to change colors and slowly drop off the trees. You love the smell of them as they dance by you on the breeze.

Something you don’t love is the damn pigeons that have made their home in the nooks and crannies of all the old buildings on campus. They fly down from their nests and make nuisances of themselves with the students, trying to get pieces of food.

You’ve been continuously shooing them away as you attempt to do your homework.

Sitting in the courtyard on top of a patchwork blanket, you’re lost in the numbers and formulas that keep you best distracted these days. So much so that you almost don’t see Jungkook before his head is in your lap and his smiling face is looking up at you, pigeons scattering about from his sudden movements.

“Good afternoon, Data,” he says cutely. You set down your notebook and pen, leaning down to kiss him.

“How nice to see you at school for once,” you tease, pulling his bottom lip gently between your teeth.

“Mm, things have been quiet for a couple of days. I got some sleep…and I missed you.” Jungkook wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you to lay down with him across the blanket.

“What are you doing?” You laugh and push against his chest.

“Making sure everyone sees me kissing you.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” You comb your nails through the hair at the nape of his neck. “If the wrong person sees?”

Jungkook freezes for a moment, his eyes not meeting yours as his face scrunches in concentration. He abruptly sits up on his knees and you follow, looking around the courtyard.

“Something isn’t right.” Jungkook’s voice is low and quiet.

“What is it?” You continue to look around, seeing students walking to class or enjoying the sun in the courtyard like the two of you were.

Your eyes stop when you notice someone by the fountain taking photos with a professional type camera. His head of black messy hair is covered by a backwards black baseball hat. Long legs covered by snugly fit black jeans and his top half in a white button up, sleeves rolled halfway up in the most maddening way.

He must feel your eyes on him, because he’s suddenly looking right at you and you’re able to recognize who it is you’ve been drooling over. You feel embarrassment flood your face and body as you quickly look away, your heart racing in your chest.

Kim Taehyung. A photography student at your university. The best photography student if you remember correctly. You remember having a basic class with him your first year and he had seemed very nice. His smile was sweet, but the two of you didn’t talk to each other much at all.

You did think he was absolutely stunning though, sometimes wishing you weren’t too shy to have spoken to him back then.

Your classes must have all been different after that, but you still see him around campus from time to time. Always taking pictures, but always alone. And last year he seemed to disappear altogether before reappearing when the new semester started.

When you get brave enough to look back up at him, you see he has his camera pointed at you, snapping pictures. You look away again so as not to alert Jungkook of what’s going on. Taehyung smiles when you look up out of the corner of your eye, before moving on to take pictures of something else. Why is your heart beating so fast?

“Everything okay?” Jungkook asks, making you jump.

“I should be asking you that,” you manage to croak out.

“That weird sense of something being off is happening… I should go.” He starts to stand up and you grab his hand.

“What about this weekend? You’re still coming out with us right?”

He bends down and captures your lips in a quick but sweet kiss. “I promise I won’t miss it.” He gently nudges your forehead with his, making you roll your eyes with a smile as you watch him jog across the courtyard.

“Was that Jungkook?” Hoseok asks, sitting down across from you on the blanket.

“Um…yeah. He had to get to class,” you lie. Again. “Hey Hobi?”

“Yeah?” He stops grabbing books from his bag and looks up at you.

“What do you know about Kim Taehyung?” You nod towards the man with the camera, still taking pictures of some angel statues on the far side of the courtyard.

“He’s supposedly the best photography major at this school. He’s also…strange.” Hobi pretends to get a chill.

“Strange? Strange how?” You’re interest even more peaked than before.

“I don’t know, ____. I just heard some shit about him talking to himself all the time, and sometimes he comes to class all beat up.” Hobi brushes it off like it’s no big deal.

You don’t pester him any further, instead watching Taehyung as he takes a seat on a bench and starts scrolling through the pictures he’s taken on his camera.

Maybe people are making things up about him because he’s different. People don’t like different for some reason. But you…you tend to be pulled towards the different. Or it tends to find you when you least expect it.

Saturday night has come and almost gone, and you’re still waiting for Jungkook to show up at Club Onyx to meet up with you and your friends. You’ve been waiting for hours and downing drinks the longer you go unanswered.

You’ve called and texted him over and over with no answer and are finally ready to just give up. Hobi gives you that pitiful look as you slam your phone face down onto the table.

“Fuck this, I’m getting another drink.” You don’t say it to anyone in particular and you don’t wait for anyone to answer before slipping into the crowd towards the bar.

“Can I get a Long Island please?” you ask the bartender when she approaches. You slouch down onto a barstool and see a familiar face on the other side of the bar.

Taehyung. Sitting with a glass of whiskey in one hand and his phone in the other. The hat you usually see him wear is nowhere to be seen. Instead, his curly black hair has been somewhat styled over his forehead. He’s still wearing a white button up, but he’s left the top buttons undone this time, revealing the smooth skin of his chest.

“Here you go.” The bartender hands you your drink just in time for Taehyung to look up from his phone and see you already looking at him.

“Shit,” you whisper to yourself, taking your drink and making a break for the dance floor as quickly as you can.

The song playing isn’t one that you know, but as you chug down your drink you start to care less and less about knowing the song and just let yourself go. You want to have a good time and not mope about Jungkook standing you up once again.

You let strangers grind against you as you move across the dance floor, arms raised above your head and your hips swaying to the beat of the song. You’re a little tipsy as you place your glass down on the nearest table, but not enough to not know what’s going on.

A slower song starts to play with more of an r&b feeling. You watch as people start to pair off, the movements of their bodies making heat rush through you and settle on your cheeks and neck. You start to turn back to find your friends when you feel an arm slide around your waist, making you jump from the suddenness of being touched.

“Easy there, Pigeon,” a voice as deep as the ocean and smoother than satin says against the shell of your ear.

You twist your neck almost too quickly, eyes landing on the face of Taehyung. Your breath nearly disappears completely seeing him this closely.

“What are you doing?” you ask, but you don’t try to move away from him. God, you should move away but you can’t.

“You need someone to dance with.” He smiles and says the words with a matter of fact tone.

“I should find my friends…” Your brain finally starts to catch up and you move from his hold.

“One dance, Pigeon. Would be a pity to waste such a good song.”

“Why are you calling me Pigeon? I have a name.” You fold your arms over your chest.

“I know your name. But the pigeons at school seem to have really taken a liking to you, I couldn’t resist.” His boxy smile widens.

“You’re not being very convincing about this dance.” You try not to smile.

Taehyung puts his hand out asking silently one more time for you to dance with him. There’s that nagging feeling that you shouldn’t, but there’s a bigger part that says Jungkook isn’t your boyfriend, and he stood you up after he promised not to miss this night.

You take his hand.

Taehyung pulls his bottom lip between his teeth and gently pulls you towards him, spinning you around at the last second to press your back against his front. You gasp when you immediately feel him lean over you and press his face into your neck, his nose skimming your skin.

His big but delicate hands find your stomach, slithering down until they reach your hips, slightly bunching your dress in his fingers.

He gently moves his hips and grinds against your ass in the most tantalizing way, reminding you that you did in fact agree to dance. Taehyung groans quietly in your ear when the pace of your hips becomes quicker with more added pressure from your ass into his crotch.

You let yourself relax against him, head falling back against his shoulder and exposing more of your neck to him. His impatient mouth finds the juncture of your neck and shoulder and he kisses a soft line across your skin.

“Can’t believe your boyfriend would leave you all alone out here where the monsters can find you.” Taehyung's deep voice vibrates through your body and settles into your core.

“I don’t have a boyfriend…or monsters.” The words come out sounding breathless as he continues to press your body closer to his.

“We think you do.” His long tongue traces the shell of your ear.

We? You let it go because your brain is too foggy with lust to wonder what that could even mean right now.

“I don’t,” you repeat, pushing thoughts of Jungkook away for just a night. Taehyung laughs quietly, pulling your lobe between his teeth as his hands move up your chest to cup your breasts.

You don’t even care who sees the way he’s touching you right now. You’re becoming so turned on that you know your panties have to be absolutely ruined at this point.

“Come home with me.” He spins you around to face him just as the song ends, your eyes fluttering open as he cups your face in his hands.

“That…I can’t.” Your eyes search his, hoping it will make you realize that you need to walk away. Instead, there’s something that tells you you’re safe, but that you’re also in for a world of trouble. You don’t know how you know, you just do.

“I’ll make you feel so good, Pigeon.” His mouth is almost on yours, lips just brushing as he whispers. This man is fucking undeniable.

“Okay,.” you cave. You just want to feel wanted. You want to matter more than a stranger on the street. You want Taehyung to make you forget how much it hurts when Jungkook lets you down over and over again.

“Good girl.” His warm mouth slots with yours as he kisses you feverishly. Like he’s been starving for years and your mouth is his only source of sustenance. It’s hot, fiery, and all-consuming.

Not even sure when his lips leave yours, you’re suddenly being pulled by your hand towards the club exit. Your brain clears and you look around for Hobi or any of your other friends but you don’t see them. And honestly, you hope that they don’t. You hope they didn’t see what happened on the dance floor and you hope they don’t see you leaving with someone who isn’t Jungkook. That would be far too messy to have to explain.

“Did you drive here?” You squeeze Taehyung’s hand and he pulls you closer to him.

“I did. I didn’t even finish my drink, I promise I’m safe to drive.” He eases your mind as the two of you push out of the door and turn towards the parking lot.

But your mind is only at ease for a mere minute before you realize that Taehyung is leading you towards what appears to be a very, very fast motorcycle. Everything on it is jet black and ridiculously sexy. You wish you weren’t absolutely terrified.

“I’m not getting on that.” You stop in your tracks.

“Why not?” Taehyung grabs the helmet off the back and offers it to you. “I’ll even give you the helmet.”

“I just…that looks dangerous.”

“It is.”

“Glad you’re honest,” you half-laugh.

“The bike is dangerous, but I would never let anything happen to you, Pigeon.” Taehyung swings one of his long legs over the motorcycle, straddling it as he waits for you to make a decision.

“We hardly know each other, Taehyung.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t keep you safe on my motorcycle, or that we have to know everything about each other to feel something.” He holds the helmet out again and you feel your mouth go dry at his words.

The danger aside, there is no going back if you get on that motorcycle with him. There is no way you would have an untainted conscience ever again. Every time you were with Jungkook from this day on, you would have to think about the fact that at this moment, you also wanted Kim Taehyung to fuck you.

That should terrify you more than it does.

You grab your phone and quickly open it to see no messages or missed calls from Jungkook. Your answer gets a little clearer as you reach out and take the helmet from his hand.

“Carefully,” Taehyung says, taking one of your hands and guiding you to straddle the motorcycle behind him. You settle the helmet onto your head, and Taehyung smiles widely when he looks over his shoulder to make sure you’re ready.

When he starts the motorcycle, the vibrations from the engine immediately flood your body. Your arms instinctively wrap around his torso as tightly as possible, and you wait once again for the world to go past you far too quickly. The same way it always does when Jungkook is swinging you between buildings.

When he pulls out of the parking lot, he doesn’t go too fast like you thought he would. He takes his time weaving between the cars and taxis, making his way through the busy streets and closer to the docks.

You don’t entirely hate the motorcycle ride. Nor do you hate the way Taehyung laces his fingers through yours and holds them against his chest, or the way he brings your knuckles to his lips to brush a kiss against each one while he steers with the other hand. You don’t hate the way he sometimes moves that hand down to tap your thigh to let you know he’s about to make a sharp turn. You wish you hated the motorcycle ride.

Taehyung presses a button on his phone and a door on one of the warehouses starts to lift up. He pulls through it, parking the bike once inside. Your legs feel like jello when you take his hand to try and stand up, stumbling a bit in his hold.

“Okay there, Pigeon?” Taehyung grasps the sides of the helmet and helps you take it off. He sits it on the back of the bike before coming back to help you straighten out your helmet hair.

“It wasn’t terrible.” You smile and so does he, fire moving through your veins the longer your eyes stay locked with his. You quickly clear your throat. “So, you live in a warehouse?”

“I used to live in the city. It was just too…busy. I needed space.” He takes your hand and leads you towards some metal stairs. But before he does, you notice several more motorcycles parked inside the open part of the warehouse. Who is Kim Taehyung?

At the top of the stairs, it opens into a large open loft area that has a surprising feeling of comfort to it. There’s a kitchenette off to the right with just the necessities: a fridge, small table, stove and microwave.

The left side of the room appears to be the bedroom. A big messy bed sits against a headboard with intricate black vines carved into the wood. Soft pillows are haphazardly lying in all directions, some on the floor with their feathers scattered across the room. Taehyung visibly stiffens when he sees you notice them.

“Sorry about those…I think I might have a raccoon stuck in here somewhere.” He laughs and moves to kick the busted pillows under his bed.

Strange. He’s a little strange.

“Do you need something to drink?” he asks.

“Should I be worried about being here, Taehyung?”

“What? No. No, I promise you’re safe.” He crosses the room and comes to stand in front of you, concern evident on his perfect face.

“I just…I don’t do things like this. I’ve never even had a one night stand.” You card a hand through your hair and Taehyung tips your chin up to look at him.

“Why does it need to be just one night?” His face softens and his thumb brushes over your bottom lip.

“Taehyung…I don’t know what I’m doing.” It’s barely a whisper.

His head tilts slightly to the side before it spasms slightly, an uncomfortable look painting his face as he shakes his head and gets the spasm under control.

“Stop it.” Taehyung grits between his clenched teeth, mostly to himself.

“Are…are you okay?” Your worry grows by the second.

“Sorry…I’m sorry.” He cups your face in his hands and kisses you sweetly, catching you off guard. “I’m sorry if I scared you,” he whispers against your lips.

“I’m not scared of you.” It isn’t a lie. You aren’t scared, but something is off. And you’re too stupid to leave. “Should I be scared?”

“Not of me.” He speaks as if someone else is in the room.

His mouth finds yours again and lust takes the place of worry and concern. Taehyung easily grabs your thighs and lifts you off the ground as if you weigh nothing at all.

The next moments are a blur of clothing being stripped and bare skin coming in contact with hands and lips. Teeth scrape over nipples and long fingers drown themselves inside your dripping pussy. The warehouse echos with the sounds of your moans and his deep groans.

After your first thigh shaking orgasm, Taehyung sits on the edge of his bed and you kneel in front of him between his knees, taking his far too perfect cock into your mouth. You worship him with your tongue and make him come down your throat, his hands tightly gripping your hair.

Chills run through your sweaty body as he bends you over his bed and eases his cock inside you. Stars explode behind your eyelids while your fingers grip the bed sheets.

“He doesn’t fuck you enough, does he Pigeon? You’re so fucking tight.” Taehyung’s fingers dig harshly into your hips as he mercilessly pounds you from behind.

You can only moan in response, the coil in your stomach tightening and threatening to burst again. Tears slip from the corners of your eyes and stain the sheets you’re so desperately clinging to.

His fingers suddenly start to feel sharper, like they could pierce your skin at any moment, past the point of hurting in a good way.

“Stop,” Taehyung growls and the piercing feeling of his fingers starts to let up. If your brain wasn’t so fogged by your oncoming orgasm you may have questioned who the hell he was talking to.

“I’m so close,” you whine, feeling Taehyung press himself closer to you, one of his hands coming to the back of your head and pushing you deeper into the mattress. The new angle makes you feel him so deeply that even your stomach clenches and the dam finally breaks; you’re falling off the edge of the most shattering orgasm you’ve ever experienced.

Taehyung’s hips stutter as you clench around him, making him moan deep in his chest. When you can no longer hold up your body, he grabs your shoulder and flips you onto your back, then immediately slides his cock back inside your overly sensitive pussy.

You’re so blissfully fucked that it takes you a moment to focus your eyesight on his face. Sweaty black curls sticking to his forehead as you lift your heavy arms and dig your fingers into his hair so you can pull his mouth down onto yours.

“I almost…I almost lost control. You feel so good.” His tongue swipes into your mouth as he angles himself to hit your g-spot with every hard thrust of his hips.

“Please come, Taehyung.” Your nails dig into his back and leave scratch marks across his skin.

“Never wanted anyone as much as I want you…fuck we want you so badly.” He buries his face into your neck as he thrusts once, twice more before you feel him spill inside of you. Hips bruisingly tight against yours as his cock twitches each time more cum fills you up.

“Holy shit.” You move your hands back to his hair and gently lift up to see his face. You swear when he looks at you that all the color has drained from his eyes. They’re solid white.

You gasp and blink once, seeing Taehyung’s pretty brown eyes looking back at you in less than a second.

“Wh-what was that?” You’re still panting.

“What was what, Pigeon?” He smiles and presses a kiss to your cheek before he slowly pulls out and walks to his bathroom, giving you a chance to ogle his perfect little ass and the muscles of his back.

“I just…thought I saw something,” you say when he returns to the bed with a cloth for you to clean up with. You really need to get more sleep if you’re starting to see things.

“Did I hurt you?” Taehyung’s face is suddenly a lot more serious when he reaches out to run his fingers over the apple of your cheek.

You remember the way his hands felt on your hips. How they could’ve been on the verge of piercing through your skin. At least, that’s what you thought when it was happening.

Looking down at your hips, there’s obvious red marks from fingertips, but also scratch marks that just don’t seem like they could’ve come from Taehyung’s short cut nails. What the hell?

“I um…I think I’m okay.” You pull the covers up over your hips a little, hoping he won’t see.

“You should sleep here. I can take you home in the morning, I’m just too sleepy right now.” He pouts his mouth a little and wraps his arms around you, pulling you into his side.

“Okay.” You’re admittedly too spent to call an Uber or argue with him about taking you home tonight. You just need to sleep. Sleep will fix everything. Tomorrow you will wake up and not feel like you’re losing your entire mind.

“…don’t ever fucking do that again…” You hear part of a conversation in your half asleep state. “I swear if you would have hurt her…”

Who the hell is Taehyung talking to in the middle of the night?

“She’s with the spider….liability.” A deep inhuman voice fills the empty air. Your eyes shoot open wide and every nerve is suddenly completely wired.

Are they…are they talking about Jungkook?

“She’s not. She said she’s not,” Taehyung’s voice answers, stress evident in his words.

“We should eat her now…”

“No! You’ll have to kill me if you think you’re ever touching her. And we both know you can’t do that,” Taehyung yells.

You wrap the thin sheet around your naked body and slowly move towards the railing that overlooks the open part of the warehouse downstairs. You stay back far enough so not to alert anyone of your presence.

Looking down, you see Taehyung sitting at a table with his back towards you, wearing his black jeans slung low on his hips and nothing else. He runs a hand through his hair in frustration.

And that’s when it seems like the shadows around him start to move and your heart threatens to burst from your chest. Because not only do they move, but they have a face. A terrifying face that is seeping from the back of Taehyung’s neck and moving around him …as it talks.

“You’re weak for her,” the monster growls deeply, its huge teeth and unnaturally long tongue becoming more apparent as it moves into the light.

“We had a deal.” Taehyung seethes. “I’m literally the only person you haven’t killed when you bonded with them. You need me to get your symbiote friends home and I need you to take down that fucking lab.”

You can barely believe what you’re seeing or hearing. Is this the monster Jungkook was talking about? The one breaking into the lab across the river?

“Aren’t we friends?” The monster asks in a condescending way.

“Not if you hurt ____. She has no idea what she’s in the middle of and it should stay that way.” Taehyung holds his arms out straight and the monster starts to wrap its moving pitch black skin around him…its skin becoming his.

You’re so startled by the sight in front of you that you stumble back, knocking over an end table full of magazines and books. Fuck.

“Shit,” you hear Taehyung say before the monster has completely consumed him. What stands in his place is something you will never forget for the rest of your life.

The monster must be at least 8 feet tall, huge bulking muscles made of that inhuman black skin that constantly appears to be moving. Its huge white eyes land right on you immediately, its mouth and teeth pulling into a wicked smile as it jumps into the air and clears the railing in a single leap. You scream as the ground crunches beneath its feet when it lands in front of you.

The monster looms over you and all the breath in your lungs disappears.

“What…what are you?” you croak, fear freezing you in place.

“We…are Venom.”

taglist: @hanversace @chaelvrx @moonchild1 @rkivewritersblog @ungodlyjoon @ricecakeslove @jeonsweetpea @screamertannie @tearyjjeon @kookrecs @bintificreads @minisugakoobies

series masterlist | main masterlist | Part Two

#jungkook x reader #taehyung x reader #bts x reader #jungkook smut #taehyung smut #jungkook au #taehyung au #jungkook fic #bts fanfic #bts series #jeon jungkook #kim taehyung #bts smut #bts fic #bts fluff #bts au #marvel au #entangled talks

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sananaryon · 1 year

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Boscha and the Collector; The parallels I did not fucking expect

In For the Future, we catch up with Boscha for the first time since Labyrinth Runners (and her only speaking role since Any Sport in a Storm), and she’s doing... well. She rules the Hexside survivors with an iron fist, a disguised Kikimora acting as her advisor, she has a cool new look, she’s revealed to be attracted to women, oh and also she is the episode’s most prominent narrative parallel to the Collector.

hear me out.

The Collector first and foremost is motivated by being lonely. They have spent milennia trapped in a void between worlds with no company other than themselves, desperate for any kind of company or outside stimuli.This ends up leaving them vulnerable to Philip, who pretends to be their friend and offers to let them out, but actually only wants them to use their power for his benefit. In short, the Collector is a lonely kid who’s vulnerability is exploited by an adult who only wants to use them for their own ends.

And then we have Boscha. Over the last few months in-universe, two of Boscha’s closest friends ditched her for new friend groups basically overnight. Then her entire world was turned on its head with the Day of Unity and the ensuing warping the Collector did to the isles, and she loses her two remaining friends who, to make matters worse, sacrifice themselves to save her, which I imagine left her with some survivor’s guilt as well. And with the adults taken by the Collector, Boscha is suddenly thrust into a position of leadership she was ill-equiped for.

Which is when Kikimora shows up. We don’t exactly know how she got into Boscha’s good graces, but going by the credits illustration and her actions as Miki, we can assume that she comforted Boscha through the difficult times and offered some sense of guidance and stability. Of course, Kikimora doesn’t actually care about anyone but herself, she’s just exploiting Boscha’s vulnerability to gain power for herself. Like the Collector, Boscha is a lonely kid who’s vulnerability is exploited by an adult who only wants to use them for their own ends.

Also both adults manipulating them disguise themselves as someone much younger to seem more trustworthy, Kikimora as a child named Miki and Belos as the middle-aged Raine.

And with that connection established, we can also see Amity and Boscha’s relationship as a parallel to the Collector and King.

When Amity shows up in the Boiling Isles again after being gone for months, Boscha immediately latches onto her. Putting aside the gay subtext (is it even subtext? This girl is hopelessly in love), Amity is someone familiar. Boscha has lost everyone and her world has been turned on its head, so of course she wants to reconnect with the one person who can give some sense of normalcy. You can hear in her voice how frightened she is when Amity is about to leave. But, of course, Amity does not reciprocate, and Boscha has to let her go.

Compare that to the Collector. When he’s freed, the Collector latches onto King, calling him his best friend. King was the one who freed him, and his first real friend given what a bastard Belos is, but the Collector also recognizes King as the son of the Titan, someone they always wanted to play with. Again, we have someone who has been alone for a long time immediately latching onto someone who provides a sense of familiarity. And like Amity with Boscha, King does not actually reciprocate those feelings of friendship. That’s not to say King dislikes the Collector, just like I’m sure Amity doesn’t hate Boscha, but he doesn’t see the Collector as their best friend, and mostly just plays along. However, unlike Amity with Boscha, King doesn’t really have the chance to stand up to and make the Collector listen.

TL:DR: Boscha and the Collector are both scared and lonely kids with too much power who latch onto any sense of familiarity and comfort, which leaves them vulnerable to being manipulated by powerhungry adults.

#the owl house #analysis #boscha #the collector #toh spoilers #for the future #can you tell Boscha is my blorbo?

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icedragonlizard · 1 month

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Kirby AU talk: "Friendship Really Does Shine Like A Star!"

This AU heavily rewrites the story of Star Allies, rewrites a small part of the story of Forgotten Land, and does a few more extra things. All the other games that take place before Star Allies and Forgotten Land stay the same.

Four big things happen here:

-The villain group in Star Allies is much more threatening in this AU.

-An extra wave of dream friends accompanies Kirby and co.

-All the dream friends show up in Forgotten Land in post-game.

-Some extra masks are added to Merry Magoland.

Now, let's go into all of this in detail.

Before this AU's Star Allies events begin, there's a prologue of Hyness attempting to use up all the dark energy the cult currently has to power up the Jamba heart in hopes of summoning Void Termina.

However... there's a problem. There's not enough dark energy to activate the Jamba heart. Void Termina cannot be summoned yet.

It's only about 60% complete. The cult needs to expand on its believers to radiate more dark energy to be capable of fully activating the Jamba heart. The cult is going to need to invade planets for this.

And so Hyness orders his three generals, The Three Mage Sisters, to take their armies and invade planets to force people to join the cult against their will. Each Mage Sister has her own respective army of Jammerjabs, and so there are three Jambastion armies out to force expansion for the cult. Hyness will stay at the Divine Terminus to keep watch, as this is the very area where he'll summon Void Termina.

The Mage Sisters start invading a handful of planets with their armies. They relentlessly coerce people in the cult by overpowering them and then throwing corrupted dark hearts at them (like how Kirby throws friend hearts). When someone is joined into the cult by being influenced by a dark heart, it radiates dark energy that the cult will then use to power up the Jamba heart to summon Void Termina.

After invading a planet, the Mage Sisters are then free to run rampant around it, causing random chaos and killing people with their weapons. The planets they invade become stomping grounds.

Planet Earthfall, Planet Misteen, Planet Caverna, Planet Frostak, Planet Towara and Star Lavadom all get conquered by the cult. Not just that, but their respective smaller-sized stars get conquered too.

There still isn't enough dark energy radiated from all those conquests, however. The cult will still need to invade more planets.

After the cult conquers all those planets, Popstar is the next planet that the cult has their eyes on. And it's a much bigger planet than all the previous planets that were conquered, so the cult deduces that it may be able to finally summon Void Termina if it conquers Popstar.

All three of the Mage Sisters come into Popstar with their respective armies in an attempt to dominate the peculiarly star-shaped planet.

This is, of course, when Kirby and all the dream friends get involved. This is when the group eventually bands together to stop the cult.

King Dedede and Meta Knight get captured and are fed dark hearts. Kirby will have to fight them to knock the dark influence out of them.

While Kirby saves Popstar from the cult's domination, the dream friends gradually tag alongside him as they're all trying to fight back as well. They all agree that joining up with Kirby will increase the odds of victory and to finally put the cult in their place. Bandana Waddle Dee is the first one to join Kirby, as they meet up shortly after the grand adventure begins. All of the others then show up at later points.

All the dream friends in the canon Star Allies show up. This, indeed, means the wave 1, wave 2 and wave 3 groups as we know them.

Rick, Kine, Coo, Gooey and Marx show up to join the team early on. Adeleine, Ribbon, Daroach and Dark Meta Knight show up to join the team sometime after Dedede gets saved. Magolor, Taranza and Susie show up to join the team sometime after Meta Knight gets saved.

But the troubles in Popstar aren't over after Meta Knight gets saved. The cult still has strongholds on some places on the planet. The group still has to eliminate those strongholds and chase the Mage Sisters and their armies out of Popstar. And after they get chased out of the planet, three more people then show up to join the star allies.

Yes, that's right. Three more dream friends. An entire new wave of dream friends joins the group. That means even more help! Hooray!

Here are the three extra dream friends that join the group:

Gryll swoops by to join the star allies. This silly onion witch lady was once an adversary to Kirby, but they've made up a long time after. She's a buddy now! She's got many magical powers that she can use to fight the cult with, such as spawning star blocks out of her hands that she can throw in rapid succession, and many other various magic that her broom is able to perform. Gryll seems to enjoy chaos, so she might go a little bit nuts when fighting alongside the others. Gryll also appears to have history with Marx, as they were happy to see each other when she came to join the team shortly before they depart from Planet Popstar.

Drawcia shows up?!? What a surprise!!! She didn't even make up with Kirby before this, but it's still very much appreciated that she seemingly wants to help with the rest! Able to use all the attacks that she did when she fought Kirby a long time ago before this, Drawcia will be sure to make a great asset to the star allies. That being said, though, while Drawcia appears to have softened up a little bit compared to before, she's still incredibly morally grey. She can be considered another 'evil token' star ally, similarly to Dark Meta Knight.

Prince Fluff was hoping for the day he'd assist Kirby in another adventure. He's proud to have finally gotten that chance now! He's a bit of a prideful one. Although Fluff isn't only joining just to feed his ego by adventuring with Kirby again, he's also joining because his home of Patch Land was being threatened by the cult. He found a way to lock up the sock that serves as the gateway to his home to prevent the cult from going there, and then he's ready to join. Fluff can use all the attacks that he used during his adventure with Kirby.

After these three join the team, and after the team leaves Popstar, they go to the Jambastion fortress when they saw the Mage Sisters flee there. They hunt the Mage Sisters down and beat them up again.

But the Mage Sisters still don't give up. They inform that they're still fully intent on getting the dark energy needed to summon their god, and that they've already made a lot of progress in doing so with the handful of planets they've already conquered before this. The time on the Jambastion fortress ends with Zan Partizanne maniacally laughing as she destroys the fortress, forcing the star allies to leave the area and to go save all the planets that the cult has dominated.

The star allies go to each of the corrupted planets one-by-one. They save the planets in mostly the same order as canon, except that Star Lavadom gets visited before Planet Towara. Planet Towara is the last of the conquered planets that the star allies rescues from the cult.

After the star allies free denizens of Planet Towara from the cult's influence, something terrible happens. The Mage Sisters appear to have planned a surprise attack, as they then ambush the star allies, catch them off guard, and they literally kidnap Kirby in the process.

Yes, you heard that right. The Mage Sisters kidnap Kirby. They then fly off, maniacally laughing as they carry the pink puffball with them back to the Jambandran base. This enrages all the other star allies, as they unite closer together with the collective goal to save Kirby.

Although Kirby already gets taken to Hyness before the star allies can get to him. The cult threw a bunch of dark hearts at Kirby, as he was refusing to let himself join the cult, but it still radiated dark energy.

When the star allies show up at the Divine Terminus, they beat up the Mage Sisters and Hyness, and then free Kirby. But after he's freed, Hyness then throws the Mage Sisters and himself onto the Jamba heart in a desperate attempt to power it up, and luckily for them, it just suddenly has enough power to finally summon Void Termina.

The star allies destroy Void Termina. Hyness and the Mage Sisters then end up finding themselves into Another Dimension, which kickstarts events that are very similar to that of the events of HiAD.

HiAD plays out mostly the same in this AU as it does in regular canon, but a difference in the ending. When Kirby throws friend hearts at the four cultists... it appears that there's something wrong.

Francisca, Flamberge and Hyness appear to come out perfectly fine, but Zan Partizanne appears to be seriously injured. She's still alive, but she clearly needs treatment or else she'll eventually die. Hyness and the other two Mage Sisters freak out over this. They profusely apologize to the star allies, and thankfully Kirby forgives them and is willing to help them out in saving Zan's life. Eventually, the cult goes back to their home in Jambandran base just in time while Zan is still alive, and they're able to get the necessary treatment for her to live.

Zan Partizanne survives a close brink of death. And she's then super grateful to the rest of the star allies for helping out in saving her.

Hyness and the Mage Sisters are then onto the star allies' good side.

They, as well as the rest of the star allies, regularly keep in touch with Kirby. This includes Dark Meta Knight and Drawcia, who didn't make up with Kirby before this adventure, but they then became friends with him during it. Kirby grew on everyone in the team afterwards.

All the star allies show up in Forgotten Land after Fecto Elfilis gets defeated. Most of Forgotten Land's events mainly stay the same as in canon, as the main adventure before the Fecto Elfilis fight is not changed. However, after Elfilis is defeated, and when Kirby and Elfilin have to save Leongar, that's when all the star allies show up in Waddle Dee Town, intending to help clean up the mess that occurred.

They all got there through Magolor's ship. The Lor Starcutter was able to locate the place of the Forgotten Land during the events of the main story, and so he gathered up all the other star allies. The Lor traveled through dimensions to get to the Forgotten Land. As they came there and helped clean up the place, they met Clawroline and the others of the Beast Pack. They'd then met Elfilin and Leongar after the latter finally gets saved. Kirby would've needed to help clean up the Forgotten Land otherwise, but it turns out that he doesn't need to. All the other star allies showed up to do exactly just that!

A portal gets set up for people to travel between Popstar and the Forgotten Land literally anytime. This is a gift from the Beast Pack.

When Magolor opens up his amusement park of Merry Magoland some time after, four more masks get added that aren't present in the actual Magoland in RTDL Deluxe. All the 86 masks that show up in the game are still present in this AU's Magoland, but 4 get added.

These four masks are based on Gryll, Prince Fluff, Gorimondo and Sillydillo. Not gonna lie, I'm not sure why they didn't have masks for the latter two when they have masks for the other two in the Beast Pack. And of course, Gryll and Prince Fluff could use Magoland masks since they're in the star allies in this AU.

Now there are 90 masks for Merry Magoland instead of 86.

That's basically it for the major events of this AU. Other than Gryll, Drawcia and Prince Fluff getting accustomed with the rest of the star allies and how those three interact with the others, but that's for another day. I may or may not make a separate post going over that!

With moments like all the star allies showing up to save Kirby after he's kidnapped by the Mage Sisters, and all the star allies showing up at the Forgotten Land through Magolor's ship to clean up the place, the name title given to this AU very much becomes a true statement.

Friendship really does shine like a star!

-----

That sums up the synopsis for this AU! I must thank you so much if you've taken the time to read it all. I know there's a lot here, but thanks regardless if you've gotten through it! This is a big juicy AU.

This is the last of the AUs that I'm making a synopsis for.

Here are the links to the other AUs I've made synopses for:

Dark Stormy Matters: Kracko fuses with Dark Matter in a desperate attempt to finally get back at Kirby with as much power as he can.

Memories Still At A Halt: Accidentally encountering an active clockwork star, Susie makes a wish to it that revives her dad. But he still doesn't recognize her as his daughter after being brought back.

Hope Within The Darkness: Morpho Knight makes the rare decision to bring the Dark Matter Swordsman back to life after watching him get horribly mistreated by the rest of the Dark Matter clan in hades. DMS adopts the name 'Blade' as he tries to fit in with Kirby and the rest of his friends, which ends up being extremely awkward at first.

If anyone decides to come to my inbox and ask something about one of these four AUs, I'd be hugely appreciative! I won't encourage it necessarily, but I'd love to hear people's feedback on any of these.

But with that, that ends the post. See y'all later!

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theresattrpgforthat · 8 months

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May I request some recs for games where you play as a dragon? ::D Thank you for your time!!

THEME: Dragon Games

@foggedover and @vanderlyon both of you asked this question so I am killing two birds with one stone this time around! These games were so much more cute and wholesome than I expected Dragon games to be.

Hot Gay Bro Dragons, by Riverhouse Games.

Bro, he’s your whole world. He makes you feel fabulous. His body is smoking hot, and when you look into his eyes they sparkle like gold.

He’s a dragon. So are you. You’re in love.

This is HOT GAY BRO DRAGONS, a gay game about telling your boyfriend you love him.

This is a silly goofy game about dragons in love, that can work for 2 players but can also play with more! What I really love about this game is when you choose how big of a dragon you are, you also tell your dragon boyfriend about how you feel about him based on his size relevant to yours. The game also encourages you to use phrases like “oh my god bro” and “bro you’re so smoking” and “that’s bro-lliant my dude”. If you’re just looking for a fun goofy time with someone you love, this game can do that for you.

Dragonhearts, by FractalDragon.

You get to be a dragon

You get to kiss dragons

Need I say more?

This Tabletop RPG is about about the clash of over-sized personalities between shapeshifters who can assume human or dragon form, or anything in between. It's GMless—meaning everyone has equal narrative authority—and plays best over one or two 3-4 hour sessions, with 3-4 players.

As a Firebrands hack, Dragonhearts is rather poetic in its character creation and plays through a series of mini games. These mini games include fights, rituals, moments of intimacy, competitions and more - and most of them can be played in whatever order makes sense for your story. This game also comes with a solo game, which each player will play as they set up their characters but might be interesting to play if you want to explore this game by yourself. If you are interested in short, segmented forms of play that can be mixed and matched as your dragons wrestle with emotions and learn about who they are, I definitely recommend Dragonhearts.

Epyllion, by Marissa Kelly (at Magpie Games).

Dragonia faces a threat we dragons have all but forgotten. Inside each of us are seeds of Darkness waiting to take root in doubt, anger, and sorrow. You and your fellow dragons— although small now—must protect Dragonia from the growing Darkness…and learn what it means to be a true friend. -- Tass the Gigantic, Councilmember

Epyllion is a tabletop role playing game about young drakes who investigate rumors, solve problems, and discover the truth of a growing evil in Dragonia. While you play, you and your friends tell awesome stories, explore what it means to be a drake of Dragonia, and discover the value of friendship through magical, whimsical, and heartfelt adventures.

This is an adorable game about young dragons, perfect for all ages. You are young dragons trying to save their home from evil. It gives me the same vibes as Land Before Time, although others have described it to have the same tone as Spyro, or My Little Pony. Epyllion has received many accolades in the gaming community, and its author, Marissa Kelly, is also one of the brains behind the gorgeously haunting game of Bluebeard’s Bride. If the kind of dragon you want to play is cute and trying very hard to be a hero, then this is the game for you.

Hearth Dragons, by M. Davis.

With powerful magic, someone has created you, a dragon. Not a true dragon, no, but one crafted with care and love and given a purpose: to protect your home. With a special ability you were crafted with and a dragon's flame within, many adventures await you and your fellow hearth dragons as you strive to be the best caretakers one can be. And you don't even need to leave the house!

Hearth Dragons is a Lasers & Feelings hack inspired by The Last Dragon Chronicles by author Chris d'Lacey and the Pennykettle Dragons who made the stories as magical as they were. With friends and a game master, you'll make your own clay, paper, or other kind of handcrafted dragon and work together to solve problems and tell stories using your own imagination or the random adventure generation table within.

This is a quick little game with easy-to-generate characters and goals. You’ll create a house together and then do your best to protect it from forces such as an ominous neighbour or a a dangerous creature, from doing things such as ruining brunch or capturing the family pet. This is a great little game, perfect for one-shots and pick-up games.

If you like this creator's work I also recommend their solo journaling game, called An Afternoon As A Dragon, a game about someone who's become a dragon because of a curse.

Baby Dragons, by Litza Bronwyn.

In this game, you are a fierce baby dragon, hatched amongst a variety of other dragon eggs and left to discover the wonders and dangers of the world with your draconic siblings. You must choose if you are better at mental or physical, and go out in search of food, loot, more minions, and/or a better lair.

A simple one-page game that is easy to pick up and play with little to no prep! This is also inspired by Lasers and Feelings, but rather than manufactured dragons, you’re just babies, and you’re more likely to cause trouble than prevent it. If you’re interested in Epyllion but you want something that requires less commitment, you might want to check out Baby Dragons.

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #dnd #game recommendations #asks #dragons

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teecupangel · 9 months

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Okay i know this is a really random rare pair but I can't stop thinking about it.

Kadar/Maria

We'll tie AltDes in there too.

Desmond meets Maria first and forms a friendship with her.

But Desmond saves Kadar at the temple and Kadar decides that Desmond is now his best friend ever. He goes to visit Desmond at wherever he decided to set up shop and he runs head first into a templar knight in full armor. Falling flat on his ass, he looks up at them towering over him and starts to shake.

Only for Desmond to step out of his hut and call out for them to wait and that Kadar is safe.

Kadar watches as the very intimidating knight removes "his" helmet only to add a now very red face to his shaking limbs as he see Maria's face.

This woman is both ridiculously scary and incredibly pretty and Kadar is instantly smittened.

Now queue Kadar trying to court Maria. Even asking the Flowers in Paradise the best way woo a woman. He starts to brings her flowers, fruits, even sweet bread once or twice. Each time he is a stuttering shaky mess but he manages to say more and more to her each time.

Would Maria find it cute how he trips over his words everytime.

Would she be amused that he still trembles when he is near her.

Or just confused why this trained assassin (novice or not) seem so damn uncoordinated whenever she see him.

While this all happens Desmond has met Altair and caught his interest. Which unfortunately means he is now subjected to Altair's version of "courting". So Desmond is off to the side. Watching Kadar be all cute with his gifts and then he turns his head to glare at Altair who has dropped yet another dead body at his feet while Altair spreads his arms in a way that says "well? Are you going to praise me?"

Desmond just pouting about how its unfair he didn't get the "normal" one.

Before anything else, I feel like you might enjoy this AltDes idea that can pretty much be summarized as “Altaïr courts Desmond by giving him items that used to belonged to his target”

Next, I like Kadar/Maria. I think they would be cute together.

I mostly like it because I like to hc that Kadar is attracted to strong people who can kick his ass (hence why he had such a huge hero-worship/crush on Altaïr) so I can totally see Kadar falling in love with Maria after literally falling on his ass.

For this one, we’ll make Kadar fall fast and hard. He’s been nursing a crush on Altaïr for so long that it’s one of the most well-known running ‘joke’ in Masyaf.

Then he met Desmond and his crush transferred to him because he’s so similar to Altaïr in looks and strength but he’s nicer and there’s definitely a savior crush trope in play on this side of the board.

But it’s because Desmond is so nice that Kadar knows his feelings are crushingly one-sided. More than Altaïr because, at least, Kadar knows Altaïr is oblivious to his feelings so he can atleast fool himself in believing there's a chance but Desmond isn’t and Desmond is nice about it even after he tells Kadar that he doesn’t feel the same way that Kadar can’t help but still consider Desmond a friend while having a broken heart.

Because Desmond’s rejection was the wake up call Kadar needed (but did not wish for) to understand that Altaïr would also reject him if he knew (in a more blunt but completely non malicious way).

So when he bumped into Maria and saw her in her knightly visage, looking regal and powerful and as beautiful as the female knights in Desmond’s stories he tells children that Kadar would listen to whenever he visited...

It was love at first sight.

Desmond feared it was a case of Kadar rebounding on Maria after Desmond rejected him.

But…

The more Desmond sees Kadar and Maria together…

The shy slight stuttering and deepening blush on Kadar’s face as he tried to give Maria gifts while trying to act as aloof and cool as Altaïr (it wasn’t working, Desmond had to talk to Kadar and tell him to ‘be himself’ like an unhelpful stock phrase generator) and the bright surprised smile he always made whenever Maria took the gift and thank him…

The soft smile on Maria’s lips whenever she sees Kadar and the vulnerability in her voice when she admitted to Desmond that she had never been courted so sweetly before. No. She had never been courted before as the only relationship she had was a marriage that had been purely contractual between her parents and her ex-husband. So this was… nice. And Kadar was such a sweet man and…

Desmond…

Desmond realized that he was jealous of them.

Of this sweet gentle courting…

The small walks they take to talk about nothing important at all but important in their eyes because they get to know each other more.

The meals they share where they learn what each other liked and enjoyed.

The gifts that littered Desmond’s little hut because Maria was still a Templar (Desmond was working on that) and she couldn’t bring any of these back as it would cause unsavory rumors that may lead to Kadar’s identity being revealed.

And then…

Altaïr started to visit.

He frowned at all the courting gifts that Kadar had given Maria and…

Look.

Desmond wasn’t stupid.

He knew that Altaïr was attracted to him.

Okay.

He knew that Altaïr had feelings of him, complicated feelings that emerged because Desmond continued to support and help him even after he had lost his entire support system, left to fend for himself and having to do tasks for people who should be helping him because it was part of his punishment…

Altaïr wasn’t entirely blameless in this entire thing, of course.

But he had always been lonely and the sudden lack of the usual support he received dealt more damage to him than he let on.

Desmond knew that because of the memories he had gotten from Altaïr’s Bleed.

And he knew that Altaïr’s attraction to him stemmed from that.

And honestly?

Desmond didn’t care if people would think that he had manipulated Altaïr’s feelings, becoming his only light or whatever flowery words they might say.

Because to him…

Altaïr’s feelings for him are just as true as Kadar’s feelings for Maria.

And Desmond wished to accept them.

He truly do.

It’s just…

Desmond wished someone would talk to Altaïr that there are nicer courting ‘rituals’. Look, the death of a merchant that had been a bit too handsy could be forgiven since Desmond knew he had been torturing his servants and paying them less than they deserve.

Being presented with the merchant’s bloody jewelry after his death because they would look good against Desmond’s skin (which Desmond was sure was not meant to insinuate that Altaïr wanted to see him naked… mayyybbee???) was a bit iffy but Desmond knew that the Brotherhood didn’t really give much money to the Assassins in the first place. Just a measly allowance that would be enough to cover their traveling while the bureaus would provide them with food and shelter.

Hell, Kadar was using the bride price their father left for him to pay for all the courting gifts!

So Desmond took the jewelry and thanked Altaïr because… what else was he supposed to do?

Then… more not-so-good people that had done Desmond wrong or had annoyed Desmond or just made Desmond go ‘that man’s gonna die sooner or later’...

Well…

They all started dying.

And Desmond was sure if Altaïr could, he would drag the body in front of Desmond’s hut and present it like a cat delivering a fresh kill by their owner’s feet.

But that would be too risky even for Altaïr.

So now..

One wall of Desmond’s hut was filled with such wonderful thoughtful courting gifts from Kadar to Maria.

And another wall was filled with wonderful thoughtful courting gifts from Altaïr to Desmond.

… which always makes Desmond think of a serial killer’s trophy wall.

#welp #the first part was #markad #or are we going for #kadmar #?#the second part was altdes #oh yeah #while it’s only hinted on #zero eclipse had markad/kadmar #i’m sorry nonny i couldn’t include altaïr actually presenting corpses #i feel like that would be too risky #no usual tags #ask and answer #teecup writes/has a plot #fic idea: assassin's creed #altdes

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thatgirl4815 · 9 months

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Mental Health and Defense Mechanisms (Predictions)

I'm curious how big of a role mental health will have in the series. There were a few snippets in the trailer--pill bottle, "you should save your money for a shrink," hysterical bathtub sobbing--but between the backstabbing/cheating mess, I wonder how much attention this will actually have. (Ideally, a lot.)

As far as I can tell, the mental health/illness trailer bits relate to Top and Ray--predominantly Ray. I predict that being with Sand puts Ray in an uncomfortably self-reflective position, so much so that he attempts to distance himself from Sand by way of yelling at him (see: "What are we to each other?" and "You think my life will be better with you?").

Maybe Ray is just a dick who likes to use people and throw them away. Or, maybe he's adopted a very plausible (yet harmful) defense mechanism. As Khao mentioned in his little character-view, Ray develops strong feelings easily. But if Ray's psychological turmoil really takes up as much of the plot as I think it's going to (gut feeling), then Ray's crush on Mew really isn't about Mew at all, or even Sand. It's about how Ray shapes the people in his life the way he wants to, to fill the void and affirm his own worth. It's rooted in control. To shoutout @bird-inacage’s analysis: Ray needs others to validate him.

Naturally, this means Ray craves the idea of Mew more than who Mew actually is. Mew is who Ray has chosen, and that’s crucial. If Mew expresses romantic feelings for Ray in return, he would be affirming Ray's self-image. Top understandably threatens this careful construction Ray has built (not only Ray's romantic intentions for Mew, but their friendship altogether). Achieving Mew's affection becomes a competition between them, which is its own defense mechanism.

The way it's been portrayed so far, Sand is an outsider. That is to say, he's someone malleable to Ray, especially due to his financial status. Ray can use Sand to get the affirmation he needs, but it isn't enough compared to what Ray thinks he needs from Mew. The integral point is that Sand doesn't seem the type to just roll over and be whatever Ray wants him to be. No, I think Sand's true self, without pretenses, is precisely what Ray needs. That's the ironic bit--Ray has been chasing after something comfortable, something he understands, only to be blindsided by his very real feelings for Sand's true self, not just the idea of Sand that he's constructed.

What I predict then is that Ray's arc will be devoted to his inner reckoning. I'm sure he is someone who is used to having control over his surroundings; his wealth is proof of that. But for all of Ray's financial power, Sand's grip on him could ultimately prove much stronger. Tangible conflict is something Ray understands and can thus manipulate, but raw feelings? People he can’t control?

(Of course, the real kicker would be that Ray is simply a spoiled brat who wants to be at the center of attention all the time for no other reason than that he is a spoiled brat. But I’m willing to bet against this based solely on what Khaotung said: “Deep down, I think he’s someone who needs love.” …was he denied love in another part of his life? Familial affection, perhaps?)

The question becomes then, where do these control issues stem from? That's exactly the kind of heart-wrenching backstory I, myself, need from the series.

...maybe I'm just a sucker for the notion of a control freak finally learning to give up control. I'm theorizing based solely on what little we've been exposed to so far, so I wouldn't be surprised if this goes in a totally different direction. But here's hoping a fraction of this is a correct interpretation of Ray's character.

#only friends #only friends the series #ofts #only friends meta #only friends the series meta #sandray #raysand #firstkhaotung #firstkhao #raysan #sanray #khaotung thanawat #first kanaphan #topmew #forcebook #I don't know where my Ray obsession started but it's in full swing now as you can tell

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mythicalgeek · 2 months

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The Dark Crystal Age Of Resistance is a tragically underrated work of art.

If your a fan of fantasy like Lord of the rings, Harry Potter and Star Wars please give The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance a watch.

Its a prequel series to the 80s movie and it's one of the best fantasy shows in recent years and goes back to classic fairytales and mythical storytelling.

Everything is mostly done with practical effects and only uses CGI where it's really necessary. The show also brings back puppetry and even though none of the character's are humans there's more humanity in this show than most media we get today.

The world of thra is a magical and strange place that you find yourself immersed in, with all the creatures and beuaty of the natural world at full display you find yourself encanted by it.

The gelfings are really adorable and you can't help but care about them, the main three protagonists have well flushed out personalities and each one has a interesting journey they go on that lead them to start the resistance and the quest to save there world.

The Skekies are really creepy and make for some pretty great villains. There motivation and interactions are giving just as much time as the heros, they rule thra with cruelty and manipulation, stealing the live force of the planet and the then the gelfing. There some of the most terrifying villains we've gottan in the last few years and I gotta say, I was absolutely horrifying by them.

This show does a lot of things right and one of them is how it writes the female characters. Deet and Brea (the two female leads) are very feminine heroines who are kind, empathetic, intuitive, clever and strong without it being showed in our faeces. Even when the female characters are warriors or soldiers there femininity is not devalued or see as a weakness. We also have more complex characters like Seledon and the gelfing leaders (who are all female) and it's just so nice to have a fantasy show that handels the female reputation so beautifully.

At the same time the male character's are also written with the same amount of care and respect, for example Rian (the main male lead) is a soldier who after finding out the truth about the skekies, is faced with the hard challenge of spreading the truth while dealing with loss and trauma, we see plenty of moments where his aloud to be vulnerable and we see him grow into a strong leader for the resistance.

We also have Hup who even though he is a side character, is a lovable podling who steals every sence he's in. He dreams of becoming a hero and has such a heartwarming friendship with Deet it's hard not to love him and want more of him.

All the relationships between the gelfing feel so intimate and pure, wheater there familial, platonic or romantic the show gives us so many beautifully written relationship and dynamics, that add to the emotional core of the story.

There's also some political drama with the gelfling clans and the skekies as they try to hold on to there power, it's done in a way that both kid's and adults can follow.

The action is surprisingly good for show with only puppets, we have sowrd fights, flying gelfings dropping booms, wild carriage rides and it's really exciting and done well.

There is only 1 season unfortunately but it's still worth the watch, I do have to warn everyone that there is a lot of scary and truely horrifying moments so if your sensitive maybe give this a pass, but there's a balance between the dark and whimsical and there's so many funny and sweet moment's that allow you two catch your breath.

This series is a hidden gem in the world of fantasy and that's a dame shame because it is everything you could whant from a epic fantasy story that we just dont see a lot of anymore.

I like shows like The Witcher and Rings of power but none of those shows have captured my imagination or sense of wonder like the dark crystal aor did. I have so much love for this beautiful, weird, creepy, wonderful, magical puppet show and I wish it got more recognition for the work of art it truly is.

The Dark Crystal Age Of Resistance is pure magic and deserve so much more attention. It's on Netflix so check it out if your looking for some good fantasy.

#the dark crystal #the dark crystal age of resistance #Netflix #jim henson #star wars #lord of the rings #harry potter #jim henson company #fantasy

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spaceyaceface · 9 months

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Don't Go Where I Can't Follow

Sebastian Sallow and Ominis Gaunt (Platonic) (Or not idk read it how you like)

Word Count: 1.2k

Warnings: Feelings of guilt, murder, almost murder, angstttt oh my god, hurt/comfort

Summary: Sebastian can't give up. Not even after he's killed his Uncle. He's determined to save Anne, and won't take no for an answer.

Or, a brief exploration into the broken(?) friendship between Sebastian and Ominis after everything happens.

A/N: A bit of a deviation from my normal content. No MC to be seen here besides a brief mention. I really liked writing this, though, because it's hard to imagine things go "back to normal" after the catacombs.

They’d all given up on him. On Anne. Even she had made that clear in that damned letter, running off to Merlin knows where. What did they not understand? He couldn’t afford to give up; not when he knew he was so close.

Solomon had destroyed the relic, and Anne had done the same with the book. For a while, those blows had devastated him.

But they hadn’t been able to burn what lingered in his mind.

He’d read that book, over and over, practically memorized it—and he found it was enough to start on. Enough to keep him going.

No one agreed with him. They were too afraid of the power that laid just past their fingertips. Ironic, for the new fifth year he had befriended. Hadn’t they been trying to master powerful magic themselves? What was it that had them so afraid this time around? The fear they felt—both them and Ominis—is what stopped them. It was foolish. Why fear it, when you could control it?

Because he’d felt the way that sort of magic flowed through him. He understood the reins he had to hold, the deep well that was stored so deep, just waiting to be accessed.

There had to be a cure in those depths. Had to.

He no longer asked for help in his studies. Why bother—all he’d get was a no, an argument. Another person telling him he’d gone too far, when he knew he was just scratching the surface.

He’d made new habits. Ones that involved him sneaking around the castle, even in the light of day. Ones that had him skipping classes—none of them mattered more than his sole focus. He skipped meals. Spoke to no one. An endless loop of searching, searching, searching.

He’d find it. The answer. It was out there.

People stared at him wherever he was seen nowadays. He supposed he couldn’t blame them—he looked quite different. His hair had grown longer. Eyes more sunken. When he looked in a mirror, he saw himself looking more and more like Anne, and it only spurred him to try harder.

There was one pair of eyes that never looked upon him—simply because they couldn’t. They belonged to the person Sebastian avoided the most.

Because there was a pain that lingered there—one that hurt more than others. One that reminded him of those moments after he killed his uncle, a twist of the stomach that’ll leave him breathless if he lets it.

He’d labeled that feeling as betrayal. It didn’t seem right, but he decided it was close enough. He’d felt betrayed by Solomon, and betrayed by Ominis. Surely that was the thread that connected them.

But Ominis hadn’t betrayed him completely. Not like his uncle had. No—Ominis had decided not to turn him in. His loyalty had won out for that much—maybe that was why it had hurt even more. That there was some loyalty—some trust—that remained. It just had limits.

It was probably cruel of him to use his old friend’s space in a way he would have so very disagreed with. But Ominis hadn’t been back to the Undercroft after everything had happened, and Sebastian didn’t know of any other place to continue his research. So he defaced the walls with pages torn from books, with writings and notes connecting them.

He was scribbling something down on one of the pages when he heard the door open behind him.

It seemed that Ominis had finally returned.

Sebastian tensed, standing silently. Ominis’s wand let out its constant red glow, and Sebastian knew his friend sensed him, confirmed further when his pale friend faced toward him.

“Sebastian.”

It was strange, hearing his name in someone’s voice. It struck Sebastian that it had been quite some time since someone had spoken directly to him.

“Ominis,” he answered, frowning.

“I need to talk to you.”

His eyes narrowed. “I don’t want to hear what you have to say.”

“You’re not yourself, Sebastian,” Ominis said. “You haven’t been for months.”

“How do you know that?” Sebastian hissed. “You’ve given up on me. Everyone has. I think you’ve all just forgotten what I’m like.”

“Sebastian—”

“But I don’t give up so easily,” he continued, stepping closer to the blond. “Even if Anne is done with me, I’m not finished. Not until I find a way to heal her.”

“I haven’t given up on you,” Ominis spat. “Why on earth do you think I’m here right now? And do you think I want to see Anne healed any less than you do? This isn’t the way to do it, Sebastian. Don’t you feel any of it?”

“Feel what?” he growled.

“Guilt,” Ominis answered. “Remorse. I know it’s eating you whole. Don’t you regret any of it? Haven’t you lost enough of yourself already?”

Sebastian laughed bitterly. “Lost myself? I haven’t lost anything. At least not anything worthwhile.”

“Are you as blind as I am?” Ominis shouted. “What about your mind? Clearly that’s not with you. Your uncle is gone. Your sister.”

Anger anew ignited inside him. “This is for her! All of it!” Sebastian roared.

“She doesn’t want it!” Ominis yelled. They were across from each other, a few short feet apart. “She doesn’t want you, not sick with this madness!”

And that’s when Sebastian realized his wand was raised.

It’s pointed directly at Ominis’s chest. There was a familiar taste on his tongue—like iron, but more bitter. It’s the taste of words uttered once before, words that had taken a life.

His wand clattered to the ground. Before, this time, instead of after. Out of fear instead of regret. The sound echoed from the walls, and it sounded too much like those catacombs.

He’d almost done it. Again.

He looked back up at Ominis, and to his surprise, there was no horror there. No fear, from his best friend being ready to kill him. Instead, there was nothing but anguish, tears flowing freely down his face.

“Please,” Ominis said. His voice was soft. Trembling. Nothing like the shouts from moments before. “Please, Sebastian. I know this path. I’ve followed you, for better or worse, for all my life. But I can’t come with you if this is where you go. I’m begging you, don’t go where I can’t follow.”

“Ominis…” The word came out as a twisted, strangled noise.

He wasn’t sure who rushed to who, or if it was a perfect meeting in the middle. But suddenly, Ominis was embracing him, and Sebastian clung back like he was drowning. A sob made its way up his throat, and hot tears came tumbling down on his friend’s robes.

Those things he had locked away, refused to let himself feel, came forward with full force. The loneliness. The sting of his failures. The guilt. That was what he had felt, every time he had looked at his friend. A guilt and shame so deep and lasting, he feared it would destroy him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, over and over again. Because his friend had warned him, he had seen the end from the beginning, and Sebastian had ignored it. “I’ve lost everything. Everything.”

“Not everything,” Ominis said, pulling away enough to talk to him. “I’m right here.”

Sebastian leaned forward, letting his forehead rest against his. “You’re the only family I have left.”

Ominis seemed at a loss with that, tears anew flowing out. It took a few moments for him to croak out a few words. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I need to stop,” Sebastian said. “I need your help. I can’t do this, not alone.”

“You won’t be alone,” Ominis promised. “Not anymore.”

One feeling came forward, warmer than the rest. One that he decided he would cling onto, with everything he had.

Hope.

#sebastian sallow #ominis gaunt #hogwarts legacy #sebastian sallow x ominis gaunt #ominis gaunt x sebastian sallow #grauntlow #platonic #sebastian x ominis #ominis x sebastian

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kishimotomasashi · 8 days

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I love your takes on the Uchiha clan so I wanted to ask you what do you think of the curse of hatred?? Do you think Kishimoto really intended it to be a genetic curse or do you think he provided a different explanation for it in the text?? What do you think of Tobirama’s view in it??

So in the manga canon, there seem to be two versions of what the fans call "curse of hatred": Obito's, since he's the one who actually uses the term (which he said as Madara, meaning he likely got it from him), and Tobirama's, who provides the "scientific" explanation for why the Uchiha are Like That. Each are respectively in chapters 462 and 619 for reference, I don't feel like screenshotting, lol.

There are also different in-universe reasons for why each character says either. Obito's subscribes to Madara's brand of fatalism, in which he believes that shinobi history never straying from interminable violence for most of its duration proves that they are all beyond saving. Tobirama views the Uchiha with suspicion as a result of having been at war with them for most of his life, and is especially anxious regarding what Madara became and the possibility of anyone else going the same route.

I don't know what Kishimoto actually intended because I don't live in his brain, but from what I gather based on the story, what we're supposed to understand as the "curse of hatred" is more Obito's definition than Tobirama's, since his is eventually the one that matters in the series climax (the whole Indra/Ashura reveal); so a destiny initially understood to be inescapable, but that they will eventually escape because of the power of friendship, and all that. Which isn't to say that I think what Tobirama says about the Uchiha doesn't matter: along with his explanation pretty much just putting into words how the we've seen the sharingan work so far, he describes the Uchiha's propensity for going insane with a different sort of determinism, though one whose imagined consequences are barely distinguishable from the way Obito talks about them as fate. Two sides of the same coin.

But funnily enough, he's a bit more hopeful about it than Obito/Madara seem to be: he does believe in the ability of certain Uchiha to overcome this genetic predisposition to being evil of theirs, which he defines as, uh, being more loyal to the village. We've all gone over why this sucks as a narrative probably a billion times by now so I don't need to go into all of that specifically— but, if we decide to accept that premise for a second, it looks to me like the intention with what Tobirama says within the context of the scene he says it in (which is Sasuke asking the past Hokage to define what a shinobi village is, or is supposed to be, and whether Konoha is worth protecting based on that answer) is that it's supposed to fall in line with the "we can achieve peace if we all forget our differences and work together" theme. True, the Uchiha are like this, but they can also overcome this and work for the greater good, and the whole encounter Sasuke has with the Hokage ends on a hopeful note.

Basically it's more or less "everyone else was a lost cause, but you don't have to be" as a hopeful message. Which is Not Very Good, in my personal opinion, when the context is a whole population, children included, being wiped off of the face of the Earth for the actions of a few. So my opinion of the "curse of hatred" the way it's presented in canon is that it just falls into the typical poorly thought out "fate is real" thing that plagues the latter half of the series.

I think I have a stronger opinion against it when it starts being used by fans of the show in discussions. Though I think we're all long past the era in which these arguments were everywhere (or at least I don't hang around in spaces where they're used), I still hold a grudge against every person who used the idea of the "curse of hatred" to defend the UCM, which was often always in order to shield Itachi specifically from criticism for going along with it and it was like... why are we subscribing to the idea of a group of people genetically being predisposed to evil in order to justify why it was necessary that they died right now. Hello.

#Anon #Ask #Uchiha #so yeah I think the curse of hatred thing sucks

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samueldays · 1 month

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As promised to @brazenautomaton, extended feedback on Princess: The Hopeful - Crystal Edition (PTHCE). This is going to be quite long and probably have more replies, so readmore break early.

This is partly feedback to Brazen and partly review for other people wondering what's going on with it and partly me doing stream of consciousness recapping as I read through it, so it's a little disjointed. Still, better to have it out than not.

Chapter 0: Introduction

When reading the opening of PTHCE about Sincerity and Fear and Darkness, first in the prologue chapter and then in chapter 2 (setting), I was thinking about how much D&D and its descendants 'polluted' the fantasy genre with numbers, game mechanics and LitRPG tropes. Even in works that aren't LitRPG outright, I feel like recent fiction has a lot more level X power, needs Y amount to resist, has Z type element.

Lord of the Rings does not feature the One Ring casting Level 4 Soul-Hook, Will Save DC 18, 2d6 Corruption Damage, or anything even vaguely like that. It simply offers power to the bearer, and eventually Frodo makes the decision that taking power is preferable to getting stung by spiders and beaten by orcs while slogging through the industrial district. (LOTR is of course not alone about this, but it's well known.)

PTHCE is like that too.

People spread fear to others in an attempt to ward it away from themselves, to prevent what causes it or prevent themselves from feeling it. People are afraid of being preyed on, so they must prey on others first. People are afraid of being known, so they can’t let themselves be loved.

So I quite like this opening of PTHCE for not needing another special antagonist or evil force with unique setting adjustments and secret history retcon, especially in the Crossovers of Darkness that arguably has too many of them at odds already.

The Darkness is not invading our world. The foul black ichor of its presence does not surge from outside of reality. It congeals from the world around us like morning dew collects water from the atmosphere. The difference between the power to harvest energy from human beings and the power to abuse humans into compliance is only in degree, not kind.

There are monsters and there is a Darkness antagonist to the RPG, but it's one with less spotlight time and less identity of its own, and more exaggeration of regular forces. From the Glossary:

Ultimatum, The: The extortionate “bargain” offered by the Darkness to all living things who feel its fear: “I will make you suffer, and the only way to make me stop is to inflict me on others.”

(Could use separate scare quotes and speech quotes.)

This also made it feel easier for me to start planning a first test adventure. One of my approaches to a new RPG is to outline a plot for a test adventure early on, mostly from the setting and themes and fluff description, and then see how well the mechanics support it. When the 'antagonist' is a cycle of fear and suffering, I came up with a plot fast.

My outline went like this: The conflict centers on a museum. A pack of Werewolves are subtly fucking with the museum in an attempt to acquire/destroy an artifact there, because they're afraid of trying to approach humans about this openly. This leaves the museum guides afraid too: afraid that they're seeing things, that they're getting old and nutty, that they're going to lose their jobs, so they do foolish things in response. The museum director is influenced by the Ultimatum: afraid that someone is trying to sabotage the museum, he responds by trying to militarize it for security, adding a police presence, locking up exhibits, restricting opening hours, and slightly worsening life for everyone who would like to go to the museum.

I will/did refine this plot while reading through the book and understanding the system, but I think this is a good start for something Magical Girls can resolve with the power of love and hope and friendship. Let's see how it holds up later.

White Wolf fucked around with the term "soul" a lot, this glossary's redefinition tries to band-aid over it, still sucks IMO.

Champion: One of the five Callings.

Currents, Queen of: One of the five Radiant Queens.

Embassy: An optional third type of grouping a Princess can choose to join in addition to Calling and Queen.

Yeah this is White Wolf's Not-A-Class-System of Darkness all right, with the good and bad that comes with it. Those entries are summaries in the glossary in the prologue. The book's numbered chapters start after that with Chapter 1: Calling and Queen, (roughly: character classes and archetypes) and it immediately runs into one of the bad things about the Not-A-Class-System and the White Wolf foundation, the back-and-forth dependencies. From the first Calling, "Champion":

They have a natural affinity for the Kiai Charm to master the chaos of combat, and the Force Charm to exert their will on the world. Like all Princesses, they have an affinity for the Buster Charm, and one additional Charm of their choice.

From the glossary I know a Charm is a superpower. What are these specific Charms? What is an Affinity? There's no page reference. Then it's "Sample Oaths" for a Champion. What's an Oath and why am I swearing one?

It is very much faithful to White Wolf book layout that the book can't be read in order, you have to flip to several later chapters to explain things in the first chapter, with Glossary in the front, Appendix in the back, and several explanatory sidebars through the book, which are not listed in the Appendices.

This is a bad thing, but it's hard to avoid. I have no clever ideas for fixing it. Page references or sidebars might improve it a little.

The not-a-classes are callings of Champion, Grace, Seeker, Mender and Troubadour // Queens of Currents, Flowers, Jewels, Spades, Swords, for 25 combinations.

Chapter 2: Setting.

Once there was a golden age, then the Darkness and its evil minions showed up and ruined things, blah blah.

From there, the history of this world began, the Chronicles of Darkness. If you want the official story you can look at a history book. If you want the true story there’s at least eight types of supernatural creature claiming to offer it and none of them can see all of it.

In spite of what I said above about ordinary darkness, a magical girl supplement can't stick entirely to the regular world or history, so we get the Fearless Kingdoms lost in the Dreamlands, and three other Queens of Capitalized Letters who are different from the Chapter 1 Queens. These 3 are the Twilight Queens who have been fighting the Darkness for ages and gotten fucked up by it.

The 5 reasonable PC-class Queens to follow are the Radiant Queens who were imprisoned until the Moon Landing in 1969, which was such an amazing inspiring feat of hope, it cracked the Darkness's hold on the world and let the Radiant Queens out to start raising protagonists again.

The Radiant Queens still live in the Dreamlands, and they suffer the dream-logic problem of sending unreal people on unreal quests to come back with unreal information. If you, the player character, want your Mentor Queen to give you advice, you need to tell her about your personal real situation. This is both a plot device for keeping the big powers off the board so the PCs can shine, and a clever setup for MLP-style "Dear Princess Celestia, this week I..." letters. I like it!

Also some stuff about how the Darkness spawns monsters and hazards. The secret setting history is decently solid.

Pages 59-60 are blank in the saved PDF version. Reee.

Chapter 3: Character Creation.

Starts with game creation, getting the players on the same page, discussing how the campaign should be designed, this is supposed to be an adaptive character-centric game, unlike D&D mostly-static adventure modules and pick-up games.

Two important elements of character creation are the Calling and Queen that Chapter 1 focused on. White Wolf Editing! *shakes fist*

There's the usual WW 5-dot attribute/skill system, and then the usual new set of special supplement stats, which I'm going to analogize to Vampire as a starting reference.

Humanity stat: "Belief" in magical girl idea(l)s Power stat: "Inner Light" Blood points stat: "Wisps" Disciplines: "Charms"

But instead of the Charms being 5-dot, each has a basic function and several independent upgrades.

Then there's the Magical Girl Transformation, which takes a whopping 30 seconds of shiny transformation sequence, and it comes with super identity protection to allow players to mess around with it safely. Good stuff.

Unless players have been extremely careless, the Storyteller shouldn’t have a supernatural antagonist follow them back to their mundane lives [...] the mundane relationships a Princess has are incredibly important thematically and mechanically and the best course of action should never be “cut off everyone so I don’t put them in danger.” There are things a character could do to make that relationship safer, but they’re tedious and get in the way of playing the actual game, so you don’t want to do those either.

We're still in Chapter Character Creation giving OOC reasons for the IC strength of dual identity protection and the failure of scrying spells, organizing interconnected material in a linear fashion is hard. I don't blame the author, but it annoys me.

In the grand tradition of RPGs borrowing magic words and redefining them, a Princess's transformation catalyst object is "Phylactery". :D

There's an XP cost chart. It is one of the few outright bad things in this version, IMO. Starting with the ambiguity. Cost of Attribute: "4XP/dot". Okay, if I'm raising an attribute from 2 to 3, does that mean a 1-dot raise costing 4XP, or a raise to 3 dots costing 12XP? (Shadowrun got this one right by saying "New Rating x5" as the cost.)

There's a XP cost for "Lost Willpower dot" but not for regular Willpower raises that I can see.

Then we've got explanations of the Belief stat (Integrity, Humanity) and then, at last, explanations of the Oaths that came up two chapters ago, which are not next to explanations of the Callings despite having come up together.

Then, still in Chapter Character Creation of PTHCE, because editing is very hard, we've got a special new mechanic: Flaring Belief. When you fail something or come up against a big threat, you can choose to raise the stakes, giving you a reroll and a power boost, by swearing to achieve some goal that's more difficult or more thorough. If you succeed, the power was free, you rose to the occasion. If you fail at the goal, lose Belief stat! It's great Magical Girl content.

Also appearing in this chapter: Merits.

With that chapter of miscellanea finally done...

Chapter 4: Magic.

Best part of the book, IMO. There's basic effects like super movement, summon object, or magical girl hyper beam, each of which has several upgrades that can be combined to enhance or modify effects. For example, the water-walk movement can be combined with the affects-vehicle movement to drive on water.

It's also the part of the book that looks like the most work, reminding me of the Mutants&Masterminds build-your-own-power pointbuy system. Players will have to figure out how to build the effects they wanted, GM will have to adjudicate, it's quite a loose system.

I'm going to reserve judgment on this until I get a chance to see it in play, but my superficial impression is good.

Then there's options for giving those effects elemental upgrades or elemental restrictions for more themed attacks and character identity and stuff.

Chapter 5: The Forces of Darkness.

While trying to Ctrl-F for this chapter I noticed that funny font symbols have happened, and trying to copy-paste the headline elsewhere yields "Cha???r 5: The For??? Of Dar???s?", possibly ligature bullshit or the result of me saving GDocs file to PDF.

So here we have the monsters, and the monster-associated things like evil places that buff monsters, the ecology of monsters, monster abilities, and a bunch of fiddly little stat modifiers for monsters. Monsters are supposed to embody aspects of the Darkness, which is evil and parasitic and cannot create, monsters have to form around a source of Light and consume Light where it leaks into the Darkness.

First up are the Darkspawn, generic monster-of-the-week gribblies with too many teeth.

Then come the Nightscapes, living location puzzle bosses built around someone's fears that, must be resolved with social and clues while beating up gribblies, which the GM is expected to customize heavily. I like the idea, but as with Magic in the previous chapter, it means this isn't a pick-up-and-play game, this is something where the GM needs to prep.

Nightmares are the minions of Nightspaces, doing specific tasks and inflicting relevant fears for the puzzle bosses. I had a hard time telling the functional difference between Nightmares and Darkspawn at first.

Defilers are where it gets interesting: humans empowered by the Darkness and knowingly choosing to keep doing that, though not necessarily with knowledge of what the Darkness is.

Cataphracts are former humans whose heart and soul has been replaced with Dark Power, sometimes evolving from Defilers.

Enthroned are the campaign bosses: corrupted magical girls, who come with a personalised and controlled Nightscape around them. They are obvious in person for that reason, but harder to spot when posting on the Internet, which is why magical girls should stay off the Internet. :D

Now lemme go back to that werewolves-at-the-museum plot from the start and see how I'm going to work it with this game's bestiary and ecology. First question seems to be: Am I going to have a Nightscape or not? Is this adventure important enough, or is someone fucked up enough, to have one?

I learn towards "no". This is a starter adventure I'm planning.

Let's have some Darkspawn. For example, the Ravenous Darkspawn statblock could be used for a book that came to life, grew teeth and started biting people. (The Ravenous entry appears to be missing a Size stat?) "Books don't bite people", say the boring people, nudged along by Insidious Darkspawn telling them "You saw nothing" and looking important with badges. Traitorous Darkspawn might be nudging the museum director into reacting even worse.

The director is militarizing the place even more, which makes life harder for the werewolves trying to get the plot device in the museum, so this situation is not going to fix itself, only escalate with the likely outcome that the museum closes. This I think is stakes of the sort the Storytelling chapter calls for.

[...] it’s important to keep the stakes lower than you might think. The impulse in both anime and roleplaying is a threat of a world-ending, apocalyptic scale, but ironically making the stakes too high means the stakes are nothing. You can’t go through with a consequence of failure that basically makes the setting cease to exist, therefore, it’s not going to happen. The focus of the Chronicles of Darkness is at the local level. Failure on the part of the players should result in terrible things happening, and the world around them being a tangibly worse place to live, but still recognizable enough as the world that they can actually live with the consequences of the failure.

Possibly there's the risk of a Nightscape being created if the party fails, the museum closes, and the museum guides who have worked there all their lives suffer a breaking point.

I think I'd like some more kinds of Darkspawn in my adventure, and at the book level, I think providing some more would be useful to GMs.

Then I need an agentic antagonist to interact with. The werewolf pack might serve this role, but they can be talked to and aren't outright enemies. Since I noped on the Nightscape, the more hostile antagonist should probably be a Defiler somewhere. I'm thinking either the museum director (empowered to call in unreasonable amounts of security, cops, and city budget with OP social influence) or some other dude who also wants the plot device artifact, can't contest for it directly, plots to steal it in the museum shutdown when lots of items will be transferred and it's easy for some to go missing.

To be continued.

#all #rpg #pthce

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vizthedatum · 3 months

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Another Hinduism/spiritual/philosophy post (based on my current understanding from my readings):

Krishna clearly disavows cults.

He says that the only way to him - for people/devotees to teach his lessons - are for the people who come to him on their own, on their path to moksha (liberation).

We cannot teach anyone who is unwilling to learn, even if they say they are willing - the willingness needs to be ingrained in every, single, part of you, down to your very subconscious.

You must embody it completely and even beyond that. Because to do so is the most powerful act of remembering who you are.

And Krishna purports that through this process, we will realize that this is the only way to break through maya (illusion/delusion).

—

So this is all to say: don’t trust gurus who persuade you via false promises of a happy life, if they are not willing to be honest with you about how you see yourself. I think most gurus are false. I think there are people who provide services that can be helpful, but we must all be careful of who we trust - what is their motivation for helping you?

People do find cults - and I think they’re meant to find them, maybe as a challenge in their own physical-spiritual journey to see that it is yet another mask of delusion. (Oh and Hindus definitely find themselves in cults all the time, lmao)

Much like how many of my past friendships and partnerships were - there were a delusion of what I needed or even wanted.

And as much as I hate to admit it (a weakness of my existence), I haven’t fully let go of many of my maya - I want to, that’s why I study, that’s why I pray, that’s why I seek to achieve enlightenment, that’s why I want to treat people the way I think I should be treated…

I have not mastered many of the elements that Krishna tells Arjun about in the Bhagavad Gita - but it’s not necessarily about mastery, it’s about the process of getting there.

I want to be better - I want to keep learning - I want to keep living.

(I’ve often said this, and I’m not quite sure what he told me, but when I was suicidal in high school, it was ultimately the Bhagavad Gita that saved me.

I picked it up and read it on my own, I stopped listening to my parents’ bullshit, I paused time and meditated on the song and what it was saying, and I came to a conclusion that I cannot remember -

but the spirit of it has always stayed in me, and it is that spirit that propels me to fight to stay strong, to find resources, to find comfort, to feel my emotions, to meltdown, to embrace my body, to worship my goddesses, to find Krishna, to come out as trans, to seek refuge with my friends, to make mistakes, to learn from my mistakes, to be who I am despite of all of life’s challenges.

I strayed away from religion after high school - it shook me to my core because I thought I wouldn’t be a good scientist and because I got caught up in finding love from outside myself -

and now after multiple traumatic life events, I find myself more spiritual and devoted than ever, and I cannot go back. I cannot go back even if I wanted to.)

And because of this want, this compulsion…. which I think is part of the plan anyway, the truth will come to me that it’s always been there.

I think God/Source/the truth is everywhere - it is in every single object/idea we can sense, it is what we experience, it is our inner guiding light, it is within us, it is outside of us, its bigger than us, and it is us. It shows us that no one is better than the other.

I am not perfect nor do I aim to be.

I just want to be me.

—

So this is all further to say that:

We all have it within us to find our own truth, regardless of religion or method.

I will cease to stop telling people who cannot listen (I’ll blog and express myself of course!! People don’t have to listen to me on here, lol!)

Some people need guidance but they will find each other eventually. Connections often tell you what you need to work on.

I hope I continue to find my people/community (and I already have - I’m immensely grateful for my friends from all walks of life).

This is my own truth and journey - it’s something that has brought me immense peace as I continue to navigate this life.

#Hinduism #spiritual growth #healing #neurodivergence #trauma #love #queer #self love #prose #spirituality #Krishna #bhagavad gita #Gita #bhagavadgītā #fuck cults #my journey #healing journey

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misrepresentedmorallygrey · 7 months

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PROPAGANDA

Amy Propaganda

"Despite the fact that Sonic has said outright that she is important to him and someone he's glad to have around, fans choose to ignore that she is shown to be a good friend and has lots of friends- Cream, Big, Tails, Blaze, Knuckles, Shadow, Rouge(? They didn't seem to get along, but she invited Rouge to her birthday), Vector, Espio, Silver, E-102 Gamma, Elise, Belle, Sticks, and again, Sonic- in favor of pretending that she is a creepy, obsessive fanatic and a stalker who forces herself into Sonic's life and the lives of those around him without ever being wanted. It's quite frankly disturbing."

Kairi Propaganda

"The Kingdom Hearts game series is about Mickey Mouse battling the forces of Darkness with an alliance of fashionable anime boys. Kairi is a major character, and one of the few female characters. She is part of a trio of childhood best friends, with the protagonist Sora and their other friend Riku (who had a villain arc and then a redemption arc). Though Kairi is constantly and clumsily sidelined by the canon narrative, she arguably has more backstory going on than any other major characters. She is a refugee from another planet. She implicitly lost her beloved grandma at five years old in the traumatic destruction of their hometown. She was kidnapped and experimented on by an evil wizard-scientist—she escaped thanks to having a magic charm that basically teleported her to her soulmate(s). Then she had to adjust to living on a new planet and being adopted by a new family. In the very first game, when she's 14, she turns out her pure heart is one of 7 in the entire universe to be free of Darkness—she shows a full emotional spectrum of fear, sadness, frustration, defeat, but she isn't vulnerable to corruption. In KH2, she becomes one of the Chosen Ones who wield a magical weapon called a Keyblade. She loves her friends very much, and she has the unique talent to instantly recognize them even when they've been transformed into monsters. She has saved them several times with nothing but the Power Of Love in her heart randomly manifesting in, like, telepathy and teleportation and resurrection—she doesn't even consciously know that she has powers, her love is just so great that it's accepted as a tangible force of nature. She is frustrated and ashamed by her role as a damsel in distress, and she wishes to be stronger and combat-capable so that she join her male friends on their adventures instead of waiting around where it's safe. Also she was kidnapped by an evil assassin clown who's ten years older than her, and then they became friends. NOT ONLY does the fandom plug its ears and claim there is nothing interesting about this character and no potential in her story—Kairi has been demonized by the fandom for about 20 years. Somehow Kairi is useless and boring while also being a Mary Sue at the same time. She was called a bitch and a slut and a whore. She was hated for wearing too much pink and wielding a girly weapon with a floral design. She was criticized as a slut for wearing a short skirt, and for THE PLAYER being able to manipulate the camera into a contrived angle to look up her skirt to see her panties in the first edition of KH2. You can find nearly 20-year-old fanfiction and fanart of her being twisted into an evil schemer driving her friends apart, and of her being gleefully brutalized and insulted. Haters STILL comb for every crumb to make elaborate anti-canon theories about why she's an agent of evil, even though canon has FIRMLY ESTABLISHED for TWENTY YEARS since the very beginning that she's THE ONE CHARACTER incapable of growing Darkness in her heart. The theory is that she exists only as a puppet sent by the main villain to sabotage her friends (the plot for two out of the four main female characters) for all ten years of their friendship. The theory is that she's been using her powers to force her friends to love her—and their Power Of Friendship that is the EMOTIONAL BACKBONE OF THE STORY, and THE MAJOR FORCE OF GOOD IN THEIR UNIVERSE, and THE MOST CONSISTENT MOTIVATION FOR THE HEROES is all Just Misdirection LOL building up to a shitty Plot Twist. The theory is that she's secretly a custom-manufactured Chirithy (a cute talking animal companion that serves and guides humans)—and not a human girl with her own natural feelings and aspirations. AND THEN after stripping her of every important trait and role, these fans claim they're making Kairi more important and interesting than she is in canon. I don't know what causes the fandom to so desperately hate a sweet 14-year-old girl who literally canonically never did anything wrong."

#round 2 #round 2b #females fucked over tournament #sonic the hedgehog #kingdom hearts #amy rose #kh kairi

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paulrobinsonshotel · 4 months

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OK so I was watching "The Day of the Doctor" (you know an actual anniversary special that's worthy of the name) yesterday, and there was a bit of dialogue that fascinated me.

GENERAL: The Omega Arsenal, where all the forbidden weapons are locked away. ANDROGAR: They're not forbidden any more. We've used them all against the Daleks.

GENERAL: No. No we haven't.

(Later)

GENERAL: The Moment is gone.

So by the end of the Time War, the Time Lords had used up all of their most dangerous weapons, with the exception of the most dangerous weapon of all ("The Galaxy Eater").

And what state was Gallifrey in after being saved by the Doctor(s) at the end of the War?

GENERAL: Gallifrey is currently positioned at the extreme end of the time continuum, for its own protection.

I think that's enough to infer that the Time Lords never built any particularly powerful weapons, since they were in no position to defend themselves and had to hide out in the far future.

Which begs the question: What happened to the Moment?

It's not possible from a story perspective that War or Ten took it, and while it's theoretically plausible that Eleven took the Moment with him after the events of DOTD, I feel like the Doctor possessing the most dangerous weapon in the universe would've been a plot point at some point during the more introspective/morally questioning stories of Twelve or Thirteen's tenures.

However, the Moment isn't in the Doctor's childhood barn by the time Twelve shows up there in Hell Bent, so we know it's gone somewhere.

The next time we see Gallifrey in Spyfall, it's been "destroyed", in the sense that it's been reduced to ruins but is still physically standing. And when you look at the Master's dialogue:

MASTER: I took a trip home, to Gallifrey, hiding in its little bubble universe. Not sure how to describe what I found. Pulverised? Burned? Nuked? All of the above. Someone destroyed it. Our home, razed to the ground. Everyone killed. Everything burned.

Obviously, it later transpires that the Master himself was responsible for all this. It's not confirmed how much time passed between Hell Bent and Spyfall, but since Ascension of the Cybermen is set in "the very far future", it implies Gallifrey was still in a weak enough state that it needed to hide there.

Now, while it's plausible that the Master went and got weapons from elsewhere to destroy Gallifrey, I think there's a more interesting proposal:

He used the Moment.

Gallifrey being wrecked but still physically intact seems a bit underpowered for what the show has implied the Moment to be capable of. But it's possible that the weapon has weaker settings. But it's the only weapon that's (presumably) on Gallifrey which has the potential to inflict that level of destruction on a whole planet.

I think there's some huge story potential there. The Master, utterly wrecked by the Timeless Child revelation, his most fundamental belief that the he and the Doctor were equals (and that being the entire reason he sought to rebuild their friendship as Missy) being completely shattered, and wanting nothing more than to make the Time Lords pay, both for what they did to the Doctor and for lying to him that he could be her equal. Considering that in later stories, the Master wants nothing more than for it to end, I wonder if the Master set off the Moment, intending to die with Gallifrey, one last twisted tribute to his friendship with the Doctor. Especially when you consider what the Moment said to the War Doctor:

MOMENT: Then that's your punishment. If you do this, if you kill them all, then that's the consequence. You live.

I think that adds so much to Dhawan!Master's characterisation. Attempting to rebuild his friendship with the Doctor as Missy, being killed by her past self, regenerating (or coming back some other way), discovering that their friendship was built on both of them being lied to and that the Doctor is more important than he'll ever be, and finally, attempting to die avenging the Doctor only to be forced to stay alive by the Moment.

I wonder which form the Moment would take for him? I think it's fair to say that the Master's previous "friends" like Lucy Saxon, Dr Chang and Seb were nowhere near important enough to him to be a conscience for him. But it couldn't have been any of the Doctor's incarnations. That would just make him angrier.

This might just be my favourite headcanon ever.

#dhawan!master #The Moment #day of the doctor #Hell Bent #spyfall #The Timeless Children

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 10 months

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Psycho Analysis: Master Xehanort & His Many Incarnations

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Kingdom Hearts is probably one of my favorite series ever made. It is a unique blend of Square’s JRPG goodness and the magical whimsy of Disney in one of the most baffling and unlikely crossovers of all time, and manages to deliver a wild (and occasionally convoluted) story about light, darkness, and the power of friendship that keeps you engaged even when things stop making any fucking sense—a frequent occurrence, especially in the later games.

Ah, but what is a Square JRPG without some hammy villain out to destroy the world? Enter Master Xehanort, the evil old man. A scheming Keyblade master who desires to rewrite reality to balance darkness and light, he is the ultimate enemy Sora, Donald, Goofy, and the rest of the Mouseketeers must gather up their strength to fight. Truly he is a Square villain through and through.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

You didn’t think this was going to be so simple, did you? Master Xehanort could give Lord Voldemort a run for his money in the soul-splitting department, because grandpa here is able to make an entire Organization XIII with nothing but himself by Kingdom Hearts III. While some of his Xehanorted followers like Marluxia, Luxord, Larxene, and Xigbar are not going to be discussed here (we’ll be saving them for the inevitable Organization XIII Psycho Analysis somewhere down the line), we will be going over the original game’s villain Ansem, Seeker of Darkness; Xemnas, the leader of Organization XIII from Kingdom Hearts II; Young Xehanort, the time traveling bastard version of Master Xehanort; and Terra-Xehanort, the ‘nort who is responsible for the creation of those first two guys.

Also, full disclosure here: I never finished Birth By Sleep and I didn’t play the twelve quadrillion spinoffs between II and III so my knowledge on some of these guys is down to simply reading plot summaries, watching cutscenes, and so on. Still, I can’t let the voters down, so lets dive to the heart of the matter and talk about the convoluted villain from the most convoluted JRPG franchise around.

Motivation/Goals: Somehow Xehanort’s plans are both incredibly simple and also extremely confusing at the same time.

Thanks to Kingdom Hearts being a relatively simple black-and-white conflict where “light = good, dark = bad,” Master Xehanort’s schemes are a lot less confusing than they initially appear. It goes like this: Master Xehanort saw there was too much light everywhere and decided that the universe needed an equal amount of dark and light. To this end he sought out Kingdom Hearts to utilize its limitless power to reshape reality, but as his plan went further along he became corrupted and consumed by darkness, leading to his council of clone nonsense and all the Heartless, Nobodies, and schemes throughout the series as he now sought to end the world and reshape it for seemingly his own amusement.

Real simple, right? WRONG. At the end of the third game he’s confusingly revealed to be a well-intentioned extremist all along, and he just wanted to bring balance after all! Never mind all the fucked up evil shit he did, never mind how obviously sinister the dude is, never mind how his younger self is the most soulless bastard around, just ignore all that because Grandpa was really just trying to help in his own messed up way. And, yeah, this was how he started before every game after showed him going to even more fucked up extremes to achieve his goal, so... yeah. It doesn’t help that the last game tells us he thought the darkness in everyone’s heart was the issue, as opposed to the previously-established “tyranny of light.”

Performance: As if this man wasn’t convoluted enough, his voice actor situation is nothing short of pure insanity.

Ansem, Seeker of Darkness was initially voiced by Billy Zane in Kingdom Hearts. Out of all the ridiculous stunt casting going on in that game, Zane was probably the best actor aside from Hayley Joel Osment and Hayden Panettiere (and certainly a better and more fitting choice than Lance Bass as Sephiroth). Unfortunately, he was one of the big names who was tossed aside when the sequel came out in 2005, which stings really bad considering his career was obliterated a year later for starring in the film Valley of the Wolves: Iraq, a Turkish film that showed the ugly side of the American occupation of Iraq (and also featured Gary Busey as an antisemitic caricature) during the height of the patriotic fervor surrounding the War on Terror. His career has yet to recover to this day, and it’s sad he didn’t have an iconic video game villain role to fall back on.

Of course, it’s not all bad; his replacement, Richard Epcar (Old Man Joseph in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, the title character of Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, and Myotismon and Etemon from the first season of Digimon) certainly tore into the role with gusto, hamming it up as Ansem and delivering the sort of magnificent villain performance you would expect from a man who played an evil Elvis monkey. He’s so good in his role they even gave him Terra-Xehanort to play as well! Twice the Richard Epcar for the price of one! Young Xehanort is decidedly less messy, but still changed from David Gallagher in Birth By Sleep to Ben Diskin going forward. Diskin, of course, is most well known for playing Numbuh One in Codename: Kids Next Door and Young Joseph Joestar in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Kinda funny how both Josephs are playing essentially the same guy at different points in his life.

Master Xehanort’s VA situation is, without a doubt, the biggest tangled mess of them all. When he first appeared in Birth By Sleep, he was portrayed by none other than Leonard Nimoy, a man who needs no introduction and who spent his time going up against the dude voiced by Mark Hamill. Finally we get to see the ultimate battle, Spock vs. Luke Skywalker!

Alas, Leonard Nimoy sadly passed away in 2015, leaving Master Xehanort in an awkward spot. Thankfully, they had an excellent backup in mind for when Kingdom Hearts III finally rolled out: Rutger Hauer, a man who needs no introduction (Ok, maybe he needs one a bit more than Nimoy; he was Roy Batty in Blade Runner and the eponymous character in Hobo with a Shotgun). Unfortunately, his performance wasn’t quite as good as Nimoy’s, though not bad. The fact he was able to carry the burden of voicing a character previously portrayed by a universally beloved actor to a solid finish is an impressive feat only matched by Greg Baldwin wrapping up Iroh and Aku in Mako’s honor. Truly a decent note to go out on!

...Except there was DLC, which featured an appearance from Xehanort. And wouldn’t you know it, Rutger Hauer sadly passed away in 2019, leaving Xehanort voiceless once more. Who could possibly fill the shoes of two incredible sci-fi actors who starred in some of the greatest film and television roles of all time? I’ll tell you who: The guy who voiced Mr. Clipboard in Foodfight, baby!!!

Motherfucking Christopher Lloyd of all goddamn people is now Master Xehanort, and honestly? It’s just perfect. Xehanort looks like he would have that sinister snarl Lloyd gives villains like Rasputin and the aforementioned CGI abomination. This is truly a match made in heaven! Let’s just hope he doesn’t sadly pass away right before he needs to record more lines too.

The only one of these dudes with a consistent VA was Xemnas, who had Paul St. Peter from beginning to end. He previously appeared in a Psycho Analysis when I talked about the Pillar Men, as he voiced the best one (Wammu); it seems playing the best Xehanort squad member was practice for playing the best massive Aztec vampire. You might also know him from Digimon, where he’s played characters such as Wormmon and Leomon. The man has incredible range and never turns in a dull role.

Final Fate: This is one of the most contentious aspects of the guy. All of the incarnations get a pretty interesting sendoff in the third game as most of them come to some sort of epiphany in regards to their lot in life, with Ansem and Xemnas both getting rather tragic farewells where the heroes feel a bit of sympathy for them and Young Xehanort going out gloating to Sora and being an absolute bastard. But Master Xehanort, the big bad who has tortured and enslaved and destroyed and caused untold chaos and devastation in his quest to create a world that fits his idea of balance? He… peacefully goes into the afterlife with his best friend. Needless to say, gamers were pissed this dude had a peaceful ending despite all of the shit he did, especially when he didn’t really meaningfully redeem himself to earn it.

Best Scene: These are the bad guys in an action RPG series, what do you think their best scene is? Their boss fights, duh! Ansem, Seeker of Darkness has his massive marathon boss fight at the end of the first game, where he summons a Darkside and turns into a giant Heartless ship, and if you’d like to count his time possessing Riku there’s that ball-bustingly difficult battle in Hollow Bastion too; Xemnas has his super hard bonus boss fight in the Final Mix of the first game and then his action-packed final battle in the second one, which features you fighting him while jumping down a skyscraper, slashing buildings in half, and a whole lot of lasers; Young Xehanort has his bonus battle in Birth By Sleep and main story fight in Dream Drop Distance; and then all of them get great final duels in the third game, which culminates in the awesome final battle against Master Xehanort himself. The man is incapable of dropping the ball when it comes to boss battles, no matter which incarnation you’re facing. Plus, you get to live out this memetic SpongeBob quote every single game you beat him up in:

Outside of the fights, I think Young Xehanort takes the cake out of the incarnations with the scene where he is verbally flayed alive by Woody of all fucking characters.

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Final Thoughts & Score: Let’s go one by one, shall we?

Ansem, Seeker of Darkness

The first Xehanort we encounter, and honestly it’s hard not to feel a little nostalgic about him. This was our first Kingdom Hearts villain! He’s the one who got us all stuck for hours in Hollow Bastion as kids because Ansem-Riku was an ungodly pain in the ass! And Billy Zane’s fantastic performance led to an unending avalanche of memes, with basically every single line of dialogue Ansem said becoming a meme; Hell, the reason I didn’t bother with a “Best Quote” segment up there is because I would have just been rambling off quote after quote from this guy. And Richard Epcar was obviously no slouch when he took up the role, keeping this original baddie as cool as ever up until his genuinely sad demise in the third game. He’s essentially your average generic JRPG villain elevated by a great vocal performance, cool design, and interesting twists, and for that I think he deserves a nice, fat 8.5/10. The only downside to him I can really think of is that he is overshadowed by Maleficent (who is a way cooler villain), but being overshadowed by Maleficent is a fate all Disney villains must accept.

Xemnas

Kingdom Hearts II is the best game in the series, and Xemnas is the best Xehanort incarnation of them all. It’s not even particularly close, really. Chronologically your first encounter is that sick bonus boss fight in the first game, and from there he goes into the second game as the big bad and gets the most fucking awesome boss fights imaginable, putting the final battles from the first game to shame. Dude can make lightsabers pop out of his hands, how is he not the best Xehanort? Organization XIII were really cool, and Nobody did it better than Xemnas… which is what I would say if so many of the others didn’t have a lot more personality than him. Yes, he’s a great final boss and he’s super badass and he fits into the big Xehanort scheme, but if I’m being honest he never really felt as compelling as a lot of the other Nobodies. Luxord, Xigbar, Axel, they all felt a little more fleshed out and interesting, y’know? Again, though: Lightsaber hands. You can be as vague a villain as you’d like if you have lightsaber hands. Sometimes a simple and fun villain can be great, and a 9.5/10 is a good score for Mr. Mansex here.

Young Xehanort

There is an inherent tragedy to the other Xehanorts. They lack a heart, they lack emotion, and in their final moments they become aware of their own limitations and reflect on their nature, gaining understanding before dissolving away. But not so with Young Xehanort! Homeboy straight up doesn’t give two shits when he’s beaten, because he knows when he dies he’s just gonna go back to his own time and grow up to be the big bad of the series! If you didn’t get the picture in his final moments, let me spell it out for you: Young Xehanort is an unrepentant cunt, and I love him for it. His unique time powers, the voice performance by Ben Diskin, and the infamous verbal beatdown Woody gives him all help make him one of the more memorable incarnations of Xehanort, and I think that warrants an 8/10 at least.

Terra-Xehanort

This guy is the greater-scope villain for the first few games as he is the source of both Xemnas and Ansem, one of the most hideously powerful incarnations of Xehanort due to being a combo of, well, Terra and Xehanort, and nearly singlehandedly kills all the heroes; Donald has to pull out the God-tier magic of Zettaflare to beat him back. The thing is, as I never played Birth By Sleep all the way through, I don’t really fully grasp the sheer scope of his existence beyond knowing he’s a nasty piece of work. I don’t know if I can fairly rate him without all that context; I think, tentatively he deserves an 8/10 if only for the impact he had on the rest of the series.

Master Xehanort

Finally, we get to the big boss. As I’ve said, I never finished Birth By Sleep, but I did play through the third game and Dream Drop Distance, so that counts for something, right? I don’t hate Master Xehanort or anything—it would be hard to since he’s voiced by three of my favorite actors—and he has excellent boss fights, but I can’t just rank a villain entirely on how fun it is to beat the shit out of them. I think his motivations are stupid and messy and he ends up feeling really nonsensical at the end, with his redemption being so rushed it almost feels like what internet weirdos think Steven Universe is. Without him, none of the assholes above would even exist, and yet he gets to go peacefully into the great beyond while Sora yet again gets cockblocked and tossed into a different dimension. Going into this review, I was certain I’d rate him lower because of how bad his ending was, but… nah. He’s too much fun to beat up and just an enjoyable evil overlord character with one of the most convoluted apocalyptic schemes I’ve ever seen, so while he may be hard for me to love, he’s even harder for me to hate. 7.5/10.

Overall, I’m not sure if I’d necessarily call Xehanort one of the all-time greatest JRPG villains—he doesn’t quite measure up to Square’s iconic enemies like Sephiroth or Kefka—but it is pretty inarguable that he is a great, memorable, and iconic antagonist. Maybe it’s just my nostalgia talking, but kicking the shit out of this dude again and again and again across fifty different bodies he’s jacked for his wacky schemes has been fun from day one. I kind of wish the focus on him didn’t eventually overtake and overshadow the Disney villains like Maleficent and Pete, but for what he is, he’s a fun foe. He doesn’t really keep things simple and clean, but the way he’s making me feel tonight makes it hard to let him go.

#Psycho Analysis #Kingdom Hearts #Master Xehanort #Xemnas #ansem seeker of darkness #young xehanort #Leonard Nimoy #rutger hauer #Christopher Lloyd #paul st. peter #billy zane #Richard Epcar #Ben diskin #terra-xehanort #Youtube

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