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lilith-little-world · 1 year

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Sneak Peek of Chapter One|| The Isekai’d Oracle||

This is very short and I will be posting more sneak peeks of the wip chapter and drawings of possible spoilers for future scenes. For clarification, this is a Sun Wukong x Reader, for each chapter my minimum word count is around 10k words, usually, I try to push for 20k. The most I had done is over 50k words for a chapter (still fucking proud of that). It may take a while tho. I will upload the story on Ao3, Wattpad, or both.

Also, this will be unedited and will have a lot of grammar mistakes. There are going to be huge or small changes when the finalized chapter, comes out. So enjoy the first part of the first chapter.

Summary: The reader was pushed beyond her breaking-point, and wishes for a new life. Not knowing, it had set in stone her destiny. Thrown into the world of the Lego Monkie Kid, she earns the title, “Fated Oracle”, who has returned to give her guidance. The bad news, she doesn't have a clue what's happening and regrets ever wanting a new life. Yet she decides not to change the ending but change the path towards it. Will she succeed in not having everyone go threw angst? Is it possible that the Monkey King will not fuck over any new friendships and have everyone mad at him? Let's find out if our precious reader makes the story all fluff or have it ruined by angst and pain.

The campus was busy as any other day. Students walked to their classes, and clubs doing activities or talking to their friends, everyone was enjoying their sunny and bright day. Then there was you, stuck in the campus library, quietly crying. Shame and embarrassment never hit you. Is it so bad to have a break from the constant shit the world dumps on you? Apparently, it is.

The students ignore your display of raw emotions. Nothing new, many students before you, would seek the endless bookshelves. To have a spot to cry in. It's the only area on this campus where the possibility of some alone time exists, even though it was public.

When was the last time you took a break and just be yourself?

You sob while watching an animated show on your barely working laptop. The only thing comforting you on this terrible day. The 2D Lego characters act out the ending of the series. Well, for now, as the foreshadowing of season 4 plays. It had been a while since you had last seen the show. Rather busy with the fuckery of this year. You close the laptop when the screen fades to black. You stare at a random corner, letting your mind think.

The current enemy.

Earlier in the school year, you made sure to be on top of your classes and get good grades, only to fail. How did things get so bad? You did everything right, and chose the “correct path”. So, why isn't everything working out?

A few faces pop into your head, almost in a taunting way. Of people, you can blame this unfair situation you’re in. Yet you didn't have the heart to do so. Still, your infuriated mind replays the memories of how this mess came to be.

Midway into the first half of the semester, your parents had gotten sick with the flu. Sadly, you were the only child that had “enough spare time” to take care of them. It made you miss a few in-person tests during that small period but nothing your overall grade couldn't deal with.

Luckily, your parents had gotten better, soon after. The moment they were in stable condition, you had already packed your bags. Ready to go back to the college campus. Then life decided that it didn't hit you hard enough.

Consequently, your mother had gotten into a small accident at work. The day you were planning to leave. Luckily, it wasn't anything serious, yet somehow, your help was once again needed.

However, what got you upset the most, is how the professors weren't sympathetic to your current situation. Refusing to allow you to retake the tests or projects. Next thing you know, the zeros started to pile up and destroyed your once-good grades. Even though you tried to stay on top of the online work or trying to be part of the group projects yet it wasn't enough. So now you're failing the whole semester because a sorry excuse for a professor wanted to be an asshole.

This was going to be your last year, but that isn't the case anymore. Worse, you don't have enough money left to redo the semester. Dealing with your family and school was stressful enough, but what took the icing on the cake was that you had to work during all this. Being a server for some rundown diner, working late nights. You went beyond your limit and still kept pushing forward. Naively thinking that things would have gotten better.

You tried, and you failed.

What a cruel joke that is being played on you. If only something can whisk you away so you don't have to worry about this anymore. This isn't even the major you wanted to take but had done it to please your parents. Wasting your time on this damn absurdity, trying to play it safe. All because it was the “right path” to choose. Now here you are crying in a damn public library because you ruined your life. If only some greater power takes mercy on you and gives you a new life. A new start.

Then you'll make your own path to choose.

“Hehe, as if someone can be that generous.” You said to yourself. Closing your eyes, taking a breath.

“I don't have time for this. I already wasted enough. I need to be at work soon.”

Quickly pulling yourself together, you put away the laptop in your bag. The world doesn't stop spinning for anyone, after all. Anyway, you can always postpone a good cry for later and you can rewatch the series anytime.

The sun was setting, bringing the cold night. You shiver from the cold winds, regretting not bringing a jacket. Regardless, being cold or not, you waited at the bus stop around the corner. A few others wait along. The minutes pass by longer than usual. Cursing to yourself when you realize the bus is going to be a few minutes late. Another misfortune event on this godfucking day.

The sound of loud rumbling breaks your negative mood. The bus slowly came to a stop, the brakes hissing. A part of you wanted to say fuck it and not go to work today. Nevertheless, your body automatically steps in and shows your bus pass. Already have the actions mesmerized.

‘Guess it won't hurt to be on autopilot.’

That quickly, you zoned out and let your body lead. Only to check in when noticing your stop and putting your bag in the break room.

You put a black collared shirt on top of yours. Getting a hair tie out, you pull your hair back to a semi-high ponytail. It wasn't much but was better than being yelled at for not having it up.

“Alright, time to work and suck up.” You said, mentally preparing yourself.

This job was okay, depending on the night it was going to be. Either the diner is extremely busy or dead, and both are horrendous. Be stuck with countless people and their orders or have nothing to do for hours and get paid less for it.

You really need to find a better job.

“Come on sweet cheeks, customers are waiting already.”

Not caring to give a response to the head chef. Getting the menus, you put on your best smile.

“Hi, welcome, hope your evening is going great! What drinks do you want?”

You scribble down and go back to the counter, getting the drinks on the tray. The bell on the door jingles, letting you know that more customers have arrived.

‘It’s going to be a busy night, huh?’

The small restaurants slowly fill up, soon getting cramped. Luckily, other servers showed up so you didn't have to serve every customer.

“Hey, it's your turn to clean the restrooms.”

“I'm a little busy doing my job.”

Your coworker scowls.

“They can wait a minute or two. The restrooms can not.”

“That isn't my fault, Tom. My job was to wait tables, not clean the restroom. Also, we both know the customers can't for a goddamn second.”

You had never been on good terms with your coworkers. Since you like to mind your own business. Regardless, this person standing in front of you was just rude. Thinking he can boss you around.

“Yes but it's your turn to clean the restrooms.”

“Which I know, and I'll do it after I finish serving this table. You know since that's my job that I'm getting paid for, so it takes priority.”

The chef rings a bell. Tom just smirks at you. Rolling your eyes, you get the plates.

“Remember straight to the restrooms.” He said a little too cheerfully.

You hold back your groan and put on a smile. Placing the plates on the table with a group of people around your age. They chat away, talking about plans or stories. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming. You nearly get lost in it before remembering your job.

“Is that all?”

They nod, not paying attention to your presence. You glance at the clock on the wall. Your shift was coming to an end soon.

‘Better get to the restrooms before Tom has an aneurysm.’

The restrooms weren't even messy. People would rather not use the small area, so it didn't get too dirty. You just swept and mopped, making the room smell pleasant. Didn't even take long before you finished.

“Can't believe Tom made such a big deal out of this. I get that some people just like to be pricks but meeting so many in my life seems overkill.” You said to yourself while taking the bag out of the trash cans.

“Bet that fucker is having a good laugh. Hope he does, at least one of us is enjoying our night.” You dumped the dirty mop water down the toilet.

Now you can end this night and go home. The broom and mop go back to the janitor's closet and take the bags out back. You stop and look at the employee parking. Tom had been bragging about his new car. You slowly walk to it, getting a good look. The car was nice, new, and clean. It also seems he left the door unlocked.

“Fuck it.”

You open the door and tore the bags open. The dirty toilet paper covered the seats. You left the bag there and shut the door. Trapping the putrid smell. A genuine smile finally stretched across your face. Entering back into the establishment, humming. You went to the break room and grabbed your bag. Pulling out your phone and headphones. Ignoring the other coworkers who were on break.

“What got you in a good mood? You looked like you were about to shit your pants when we talked.”

“Oh, I just saw a funny scene out in the employee's parking lot. Some bozo got their car trashed.” You said vaguely, glancing at the man whose face turned pale. He immediately ran out of the room.

“Well see you all later, hopefully not.”

You left the restaurant before the chaos exploded. Only halfway on your trip back home when you finally got a phone call from your boss. You ignored it and tried to enjoy the bus ride.

There weren't many people there. Good, you never liked how these things get so crowded. The bus was oddly going a little faster than usual. You didn't question it, trying to focus on your phone. Scrolling through your feed, until your screen starts to glitch, and words appear.

Welcome back…

There was a loud screeching that tore the air. As the world became a blurry mess.

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popculturebuffet · 7 months

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Mutant Month: The 2021 Hellfire Gala: The X-Men Conquer Mars: Comissioned by WeirdKev27

Hello all you happy mutants and welcome to our big finale to Mutant Month! Over this month we've taken a look at the X-Men's first apperance in animation, one of their greatest stories ever and the debut of one of the greatest x-men period, so it's only fit to end this monumental mutanty month with some fireworks: We're taking a look at the first annual Hellfire Gala, aka one of the x-men stories I brought up the most for some time: that time the x-men colonized mars, now known as planet Arakko.

For those of you who like Kev, who comissioned this, stopped for a second from scrolling and went

Allow me to present you with the grand tale of how Mutantkind terraformed an entire planet as a one two punch of solving a massive looming diplomatic crisis... and using it as the big main event of their version of the met gala. Your invitation is on the table, so take it with me, get your flowers pinned on so you can go through the gate, and join the party under the cut. Afterparty on Arakko bitches.

Well, How Did We Get Here?

So to get to the Hellfire Gala I have to get into the krakoan era of x-men, an era tha'ts reaching it's twilight but is still ongoing and has been one of my favorites in comics.

This era of X-History comes after a fairly bleak time in x-men comics: See in the mid 2010's, Marvel tried outright dismantling the x-men. Since the MCU didn't have the rights to them, Marvel was trying hard to not give Fox any more ammo, forgetting they still got mech money out of the x-men existing. They also just outright canceled fantastic four. Because who needs the founding family of the marvel universe if we can't merch the hell out of them amirite?

So despite the X-Men having JUST WARDED OFF EXTINCTION a few years ago, post secret wars they decided to push the Inhumans , anothe rgroup of superpowered beings they'd already set up clevery and uniquely as their own thing last era without stepping on the x-men's toes, as the new x-men and to shoe out the old.

What followed.. is one of the dumbest things i've seen in all of comics. So to push the Inhumans.. they decided the best way was to make the cloud of terrigen mist that created new inhumans... TOXIC TO MUTANTS. So that the Inhumans were casually allowing a toxic murder cloud to kill tons of people.. just to keep more of them existing.

I.. cannot find the words for how tonedeaf, short sighted and just plain moronic this was. You can't just.. kill one group to make another group popular. Queen didn't consume the beating hearts of all four beetles to become awesome. They just were. And the inhumans books.. were GOOD. Charles Soule was doing an utterly fantastic job on them and continued to for the entire run. You didn't need this shit. Instead it sunk the inhumans so that the followup, Royal, by one of my favorite writers in all of comics Al Ewing, got cut short and the inhumans were then mostly killed and those left put into exile. Except Lockjaw. Everyone loves a giant teleporting dog monster. He could stay.

Afterwords while Disney didn't have the rights back YET, Marvel realized they couldn't just magically flimflam fans and tried a half hearted attempt at boosting the x-men: They returned to sorta prominence.. but the new runs weren't given a huge push in the marvel universe as whole. We got the underrated classics X-Men Blue and Iceman, the former finishing up Cullen Bunn's awesome magneto trilogy and the latter redefining Bobby now he was an out and proud gay man, but the other flagship book at the time, yes there were two, x-men gold had a great status quo (Kitty Pryde as Xavier's School headmistress and x-men leader, and the institute now being located in central park), but was given to Mark Guggenhiem instead of a more compitent hand, resulting in a series long rehash of better stories... and one actually GOOD story mixed in.

It was clear while Marvel was willing to use the x-men again, they needed to actually use their whole ass. Enter Jonathan Hickman. For those not familiar with him

Jonathan Hickman is one of the best writer's in comics, and has had storied runs on all three of Marvel's biggest teams, all having a major impact and all really dang good, with a knack for longterm plotting, high sci fi concepts and quotable as hell lines and arc phrases. Hickman left marvel after Secret Wars 2015, his grand finale to his avengers run and intended as an end to his time at marvel so he could move on to new horizons, planning to give the compettition a ring. And while sadly that meant we didn't get what would've been likely THE definitive teen titans run, though i'm sure we'll get it some day as DC would be nuts not to let him do it, Marvel simply had an offer too tempting for him to pass up: Run the X-Men.

Something I never knew before his interviews for this era.. is that while Jonathan Hickman liked marvel... he never really read most of their comics before his runs. When he did Fantastic Four and Avengers, he studied heavily. Granted it shows how good a writer he is that it dosen't show and he clearly gained an apprceation for both. It's also a NEEDED reminder for comic book writers: YOU CAN JUST RESEARCH SOMETHING YOU DON'T KNOW. I know it sounds obvious but plenty of writers , Brian Micheal Bendis in paticular, don't seem to understand that.

For X-Men though, they were his intro into comics, the books he picked up as a kid. The playset he always wanted but during his first run at marvel the timing just never synched up. So Hickman gathered a crack team of writers and took an approach I feel most lines in comics should follow: he set up a writer's room, allowing the writers of all the books to bounce ideas off each other, which made the books better, and approach that's stuck even after he left and will hopefully.

The results of all this hard work? House of X and Powers of X, a set of two interconnected mini series that serve as essentially one big mini series setting up a brave new world for mutantkind. Hickman used the various attempted genocides on the x-men as a backdrop, including the m-pox, and another one that took place in the crappy uncanny x-men run between series that i'll no doubt have inflicted on me one day. And more importantly the fact that Mankind and most other heroes had done the bare minimum to help if that.

So the X-Men decided to once again start their own country. Except unlike previous attempts, they made an effort to become a global power, to play the game of nations. In this case they created plants that helped stave off diseases like althimerz, and leveraged them in exchange for acceptance a nation. Xavier had given up on his dream and instead had a new one: suing for peace.

If that sounds divisive.. that was the intent. That you get why the x-men are doing this, but also see that this has a real danger of them loosing their way and making shadier decisions... not helped by them offering amnesty to ALL mutants including past foes. Exploring the complexities of this is what makes this era so fantastic: the x-men are hoarding world changing advancments.. but after the world spat on them for so long while good men did nothing half the time, you can't blame them. As Cyclops expertly puts it in the first issue.

And yet many have issues with how dogmatic the ruling body of Krakoa, the quiet council is being, the shady decisions, the backdoor deals. It's a mixed blessing: Mutankind has home, saftey, wants for nothing.. but is the price tag worth it?

They also have one other thing, a secret to the world at this point: Resurrection. For years, in part thanks to seeming non mutant ally revealed to be secret mutant Moria Mactaggert, long story, and her longgame planning, Xavier had worked out a plan to cure death. It was both a way to raise the stakes.. and to just as importantly undo a LOT of crappy shock deaths for mutantkind, to bring back characters who'd been dead for DECADES and no one simply had gotten around to them. Death was over, mutantkind was truly immortal.

The process is also unique, using the five, five mutants working in concert, turning the non viable eggs made by goldballs, now dubbing himself egg, into viable clone bodies using a combination of reality warping from former foe proteus, life giving powers from elixer to make them viable, time from tempus to speed them up, and the boosting powers of Hope, the mutant messiah, to make this all possible.

So as a result, any mutant come back, mutants now had freedom and fancy organic warp gates, and a homeland on Krakoa, a mutant who as once an island that walked like a man but was now the benevloent home of all mutantkind.

So your probably wondering how all this somehow esclated FURTHER. Well that's a lot as the Hellfire Gala is the result of a few ongoing story beats all rolled together in a delicous tortilla.

The first is the gala itself. The Hellfire Club was normally the x-men's foes, a group of rich assholes who used their secret society to try and conquer the world through BUISNESSS! and other persuits. And also often wore bondage gear because Chris Claremont is not shy about his fetishes.

For Krakoa though, they became the Hellfire Trading Company. Emma Frost, teacher, x-man and 100% that bitch, had built up a huge fortune again during the meantime and was convinced by Magneto and Xavier to invest it in the children. It's a consitent thing: While Emma can be cold, has a sarcastic tounge bar none, she's always cared about the future of their species and always been protective of young mutants.

So Emma , in addition to a seat of the table, runs the BUISNESS side of things, and thus the inner circle of the hellfire trading company became the large shipping end for mutantkind. They buy the drugs, they light the fire, they are Humankind's main suplier. While other parts of krakoa focus on the growing of the life saving drugs, Emma's the one who markets and ships it, with two others to help: Kitty Pryde, her former enemy turned close friend who as head of the Marauders, lead a pirate crew of x-men to save mutants trapped in countries who didn't go for Krakoa's deal and do drug shipments, while Sebastian Shaw, king of the assholes and enemy of emmas, was given the job of smuggling. He also tried to Kill kitty suprising no one. And Emma and Kitty responded by beating the piss out of him and leaving him in a wheelchair for a while, suprising even less.

Emma being her usual extra self, decided the best way to show off their power as a nation, their wealth and what they could offer.. was a giant ass party with friend and foe alike invited. So threaded throughout the first year and a half of the marauders was Emma's plans for the Gala, with her having Magneto buy an island to host it on. It's such a character rich thing: buying a whole ass island to throw a giant party that's one part diplomatic work and one part "go fuck yourself racist assholes". It's Emma Frost.

The second part leading to all of this was a myth arc that spread through the first year of the comic. One of Mutantkind's most dreaded foes, Apocalypse.. willingly joined them and was given a sympathetic backstory: turns out his "survivial of the fittiest schtick" was because his wife had to send Krakoa's other half, Arrako, into the gates of hell to save the world, taking their children, his original four horseman, because of course Apocalypse has four horseman have you seen the man? He's not subtle.

So he inacted a plan to bring Arrako back, leading to the event X of Swords, where Arrako, taken by the demons they were fighting the amenth, planned to invade earth. Thankfully they pissed off Saturynyne, omniversal magistreix and registered asshole who turned it into a tournament arc: ten swordsman from each side, winner takes all.

Naturally this contest ran by a manevloent schemer from beyond dimensions and against demons had consequences: one of the mutants on our side, Gorgon, died, Doug Ramsey got married, and yes that was indeed a match, and storm killed the embodiment of death. Normal x-men stuff. I really don't have time to go over it all as it's 22 issues long. Not hyperbole. It's a decent if entirely bloated event.

The climax is what's important: the rules got broke, and while Xavier and Magneto's plan was to do nothing and hope it works out, sacrifcing the mutants they had trapped there, Cyclops and Jean grey said

Especially since their son Cable, a cool teen at the time, was in danger. So Cyclops gathered every mutant he could... aka PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE ON KRAKOA NOT ON THE QUIET COUNCIL to storm the gates, leading to an epic battle, and the freeing of Apocalpyse's wife genisis and his remaning kids. Apocalypse decided to have a family road trip across amenth as part of the deal, but in trade the x-men got Arakko back.

The problem was.. Arakko had just spent the last centuries fighting demons and living to eat, murder and conquest. So while Krakoa doubling size was a good thing on paper, as was the new mutants added, in practice it set off a massive political powder keg, with the Arakko mutants gleefully ransacking nearbye areas and refusing to not conquer. While the x-men were fine to inheret the earth once humanity burned itself out, the Arakko didn't want to wait. They needed somewhere to go.

So that dear friends and readers brings us to the gala itself a massive crossover event.. but a unique one. Every issue of every x-book intersected wtih the party of the summer, but only the four we're covering today were the big takeaway points. It was a fun crossover too, a way for all the books to intersect, while leaving the core trim enough to let someone just wanting the big takeaways to only have to pick up 4 books that month. I MIGHT do the rest another day but honestly besides saving kev a lot of money.. it just made more sense to just do the core storyline, to do the part you all came here for, and maybe do the other issues some other day. Thankfully future gala's are much smaller for next year and beyond.

So let's mosey on over shall we as the festivties begin.

Mauraders #24: The party kicks off naturally with Mauraders, the Hellfirecentric book. We open with Kitty, Sebastian and Emma all awaiting the guests. Emma is wearing one of three outfits she has for the night and all of mutantkind is wearing their finest.

Okay Kitty's wearing her finest, emma just has a giant cur cape with an x cut out, because her brand and what not, and a giant head piece that says NOTICE HOW RICH I AM, and Sebstian Shaw is dressed as some sort of war grandpa, wearing a suit LESS fancy than what he usually wears, but weirldy bedecked in tassles, with a fur cape and supervillian eyepatch. I mean the last part's on brand for him but all together it's just fucking weird even by the standards of this gala, held off the coast of two giant monsters.

So as Emma waits security, done by X-Force Krakoa's black ops division, lets in our first guests , fitting them with flowers so they can pass through the krakoan gates for the gala and any afterparties. The Krakoan Gates are giant flowery gates world wide that allow mutantkind to pass through them.. except kitty pryde due to how her powers work: since she goes THROUGH barriers, the thing kinda futzes out with her.

Our inaugral guests are naturally earth's mighteiest heroes, the avengers, consiting at the time of the Captain America (Steve Rogers), Iron Man (Tony Stark), Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers), Thor (Odinson), She Hulk, Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes) and Blade. yes THAT blade. It's honestly a good roster I liked a lot, bringing things back to the classics while adding a few weird touches like Blade and Robbie. The run itself.. was hit and miss, paticuarlly having She Hulk as a regular hulk instead of her usual self, despite the previous run of her solo having finally gotten her out of that state.. for no clear reason really. It was just bad. Thankfully those dark times are over and the tv show's only made sure that won't be happening again. Tony flies in on his own, not trusting the tech and you know.. being kind of an asshole he has to make a bit "NOTICE ME EVERYONE" entrance. Also boarding are the world's greatest heroes, the Fantastic Four, along with their children Franklin and Valerea and The Thing's wife Alicia Masters. Things are a bit rockier between these groups so gather up people as it's time for EVEN MORE EXPOSITION

So since his introduction Franklin had been a mutant.. and since he and the team as a whole had come back in Dan Slott's run, his power had been shorting out. Krakoa, wanting to both help him and naturally add another powerful mutant to the pile, reached out, and unsuprisingly fighting insured between both sides, Reed Richards pulled a Richards and disabled his son's ablility to use the gates, Franklin ran away, ended up with Doctor Doom, and both sides settled things long enough to stop it. IT's a story I will likely cover some day and ended on a positve note: Franklin would alternate between both the baxter buildling and krakoa, while Xavier, not pleased reed had the kind of tech he did, erased the gate supression tech from his brain and told him to his face he'd done it, to tell reed "never again"

So naturally FF writer Dan Slott's reaction to this promising, engaging new status quo was to say "fuck it" and retcon that franklin just MADE HIMSELF into a mutant with his powers, once they were gone he wasn't one, and Xavier basically told him go the fuck away. It is one of the dumbest, most waasteful, egotistical, selfish moves i've seen in comics, doing this simply because you had to share idaes and plans with someone else. At the time of this writing it hasn't been undone, but I woudln't be suprised if current writer Ryan North or future writers undid this or at the very least found a good angle for it.

For now we do at least get this page.

I assume it was a smart, well thought out intellectual GO FUCK YOURSELF YOU OLD MAN. Also while i'll defend the cerebro helmet, I love the look and while the usual version wht the black jumpsuit is plain, it works for the story that's being told... this version is just.. what Iam I even looking at. The extra uncessary packs on his helmet, the gold and green, and then he has the fucking gall to say that to Franklin. I do like him bonding with Kitty, who the mini established was tight with the kind after the 80's era crossover where a younger frankllin talked a younger kitty out of unaliving herself. Another series to add to the pile.

So the party kicks off with a concert from Rhapsody, a forgotten mutant who sadly died during he one apperance in the first peter David Run of x-factor who can make people see things via music. By linking her up to some telepaths, the conert allows everyone present to participate.. except Doom whose naturally being a mopey pants about things. DOOM IS ALWAYS A MOPEY PANTS FOR HE IS DOOM!

The party then goes into full swing and we get some nice moments. ben, upon seeing a bunch of the marauders and an aim guy playing dice on a boat chastizes them.. for not telling him

While Cap and Doom have a stare down watched by celebrity guests Run the Jewels, two of my faviorite rappers in existance as a duo, Killer Mike and E-LP

Before Cap can close his eyes and count to fuck, Emma steps in to stop them, with Doom incensed at mutantkind for considering themselves superior, pot meet kettle, but we get a rare doom laugh , an da great joke when Emma, insiting the mutants haven't claimed earth..

So the party moves on. We get some specific plot beats for Mauraders itself i'll gloss over, some reunions of old friends as Northstar and Vindicator catch up, and Cap talking to his old aqunatince Henry Peter Gyrinch. For those who haven't heard of this douche... good. But since I brought him up Henry was Marvel Comics token asshole beurcrat: he was first introduced making the avengers job harder, tried to bring them to court over Scarlet Witch wanting to you know, leave, as is her right, was the head of the anti mutant witch hunts of the 80s, has joined several sense, and tried to deport all aliens on earth during Dark Reign. In short no one likes him, he's working with Orchis, the big bads of this era, surprising no one, and everyone everywhere celebrated when he died a few months after this. He's there to compare Krakoa to latveria and call steve an optimist for.. not assuming the Mutants are evil.

We also get one of the greatest scenes in comics as Emma oggles caps and plans to see america's ass up close.. only to read that she reminds him of his mother telepathically, horrifying her. Note that Cap's next solo run.. fully confirms that despite this, she STILL went for it and he was fine with it, his current girlfriend Sharon Carter being fine if he steps out as their apart for months at a time. It's cool. And yes folks, Cap has a mommy kink. And that is awesome.

We then get a nice scene of Emma gathering her staff including Jumbo Carnation, a mutant designer introduced to die during New X-Men and brought back here to do most of the fashions for this event, and Somilier, an expert mutant chef to thank them all.

Cue the fireworks.. which we'll get to shortly, but we see the reactions of everyone: All the bigots in attendence are rattled, as is Doctor Strange, who understandably needs to duck out to figure out what the hell this means, and Tony, who congradulates Cyclops on solving one problem.. but warns him he might of made an even bigger mess. But this being steve rogers he also ends his stern warning on "I just hope you know what you people are doing". He's worreid sure, they just conquered mars and knows what the backlash will be.. but he also is aware they likely know what their doing and as always has faith in the best in people.

Onto X-Men

X-Men #21

While the Hellfire Gala kicked off and continued a lot of exciting bits of the Krakoan Era it also marked a major ending: The final issue of Jonathan Hickman's ongoing X-Men title, with the previous one having set up his proper exit with Inferno later that year.

Hickman's X-Men was the flagship title for the books, a series of one to two issue stories that set up the world of Krakoa and showed off how this nation worked.

And naturally for the viewpoint character, Hickman picked the very first x-man and one of mutantkind's finest, Cyclops. Scotty needed the rub. Since AvX a chunk of X-Books had demonized him as some form of boogie man. While his killing of Charles xavier was shocking.. it was also while he was posssed by the phoenix force, and thus not in full control of his actions. Most characters.. blamed him for it anyway despite there being no logic and treated him as Magneto JR for the crimes of... saving mutants from racists trying to attack them and doing what he was doing. This was compounded by the aformentioned M-Pox era, which killed him off after he FINALLY got everyone's accpetance back.. and once again treated him like a villian for... destroying a cloud of terrgin mist that was killing his people.

He then got brought back from the dead after his teenage counterpart brought from the future, long story that.. but was plopped into that awful uncanny run.

Scotty needed a break, so thankfully Hickman took a special intrest in scott. It helped that with Xavier back and back allegedly doing the right thing, Scott could take a night off of being the leader of all of mutantkind and just enjoy having his dead wife back, a son that's not older with him and presumably regular threesomes with wolverine, who not only is ALSO dating Jean during this era, but lived in Scotts house on the moon. Also , Scott had a house on the moon.

With Hickman leaving though, Scott needed a new direction and Hickman set it up for him on his way out in the aftermath of x of swords. Scott, who was the leader of Krakoa's great captains (their security and people authorized to form a team for whatever threats face this sacred land), and Jean , who was on the quiet council rulling Krakoa, were both utterly fed up with the council's bullshits, from refusing to resurrect Scott's ex wives or any clones period, to sketchy rulings like the one in X of Swords. The two decided there had to be something outside them and that Krakoa still needed heroes.

See while the book was called x-men, Hickman cleverly got away with not actually having a formal team for his tenure. Scott and Jean stepped down to change that, founding a new team. The premise was genius: the team would last for one year in and out of universe, a tour of duty, and be picked entirely by Krakoa itself at the gala.

As a sweet bonus to this already great concept, Marvel left some of the voting up to real life: while most of the team was picked by incoming writer Gerry Duggan, the last member was left up to the fans, a tradition that carried onto the next to galas. In this case Polaris, longtime x-man, twice time x-factor leader, and daughter of magneto won.

We open issue 24 with a followup to something from House and Powers of X: During the mini when building Krakoa Xavier and Magneto approached Namor, prince of the deep, to join the nation. He refused as he had a powerful empire thanks.. and once again refuses when they approach him at the party. They control an island. he controls 75 of the oceans. Call him when you have something more to offer. This plot thread.. never really went anywhere, as Namor turned himself in at the end of Jason Aaron's run on avengers and Atlantis was a non factor by the time the latest gala ended in a bloodbath. We do get this outfit for my boy magneto

Unlike Charles who.. I sitll don't get what he's going for, Erik pulls it off. It also begs the question WHY charles wore his big ass helmet to the party. Max had a WAY cooler helemet that matched his outfit and went with a bitching top hat chuck, what's your excuse.

We then get right to the point: the X-Men vote. And how it's done.. is endlessly cool. Jean telepahtically reaches out to every mutant everywhere.. and the vote happens. The Human Torch is a bit confused... partly because he's not sure how his rap went down

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But mostly because he dosen't know what the heck their doing. Dr. Strange fills him in.

It's a truly awesome way to do it too: it not only left a nice hook for the series, as each person's pitch is shown over the course of Duggan's first year on the title, it's just a neat concept and way to do it. As for who made the cut...

This is such a cool page. I love it dearly. It helps the x-men picked for duty all got great gala outfits, from Rogues which resembles her first uniform, to Shrio's dope as hell suit and wearing his sunfire mask because why wouldn't you if your mask was that sweet, to synch's techincolor suit it's awesome.

So a breakdown of this roster for those less familiar with the x-men. Besides Cyclops, Jean and Rogue, who shoudlnt' need an intro, we have Wolverine, Laura Kinney, also known as X-23, wolverin'es female clone and certified badass, Sunfire, an arrogant frenemy of the x-men's with fire powers and a proud japanese heritage, the aformentioned polaris and Synch, a member of generation x, the 90's class of teenage x-men, recently ressurected after spending a thousand years in a vault. Long story. It's a stellar roster and while Duggan's first year on the book was rocky, it can't be denied this was a great choice for his first for the most part. My only gripe is a lack of diversity, with only two members of the team who aren't white. Otherwise it's a good selection.

So after this we get two pages of Sinsiter being a gossipy bitch before we get to the ending of this issue, a truly amazing scene with a bit of meta flare. A tad cheesy.. but the kind of cheese I like.

So after another cameo by Patton Oswalt, as seen by RTJ the gala had a lot of real life celbreity cameos thrown in, all approved by the people themselves, Kevin Fiege, head of marvel asks Scott a simple question

Is it a tad cheesy to have the head of marvel literally ask a character whose key to their next big franchise his story? Yes.. but I can't help but love it. It's just a fun way to have Cyclops give his story and given marvel comics actually exists in universe, it's not a stretch to say some form of the mcu does either, simply running on the same "offical authorized story" deal they have with most heroes, changing it up for ones whose id's aren't public.

Due to image limits and not wanting to overdue it, the speech stretches over two full pages, i'll have to due with quoting it. But it's one of my faviorite moments of this era so far, and it gets to the heart of who scott summers is NOW.. and just who he is.

"I was blind. Blind to how the world worked...and then I met a man who taught me to see—see how things really were. I loved him for it. And because I loved him—because I believed in him...and, in a way, worshipped him—I claimed things that he had faith in as my own. He called it his dream. It was a good one. But the world, you see—the waking world—were we all live...it is a killer of dreams. A destroyer of things you believe in. So when I grew older, I realized it was foolish to...deify him. Honestly, it's unfair to expect that kind of perfection from anyone. After all, we're all flawed and imperfect... There is no real difference between any of us. No matter how much we believe the lie that there is. You see, he wasn't a savior. He was just a man—a mutant—like me. And his dreams—which still make me smile to this day—are no more valid than anyone else's. Including mine. So what's my story? I'm a dreamer. I'm an X-Man."

Scott is the guy who belviies in Xavier's dream more than the man himself, and while he sidestepped it for a while, as the world wore him down.. he never truly gave up on it.. and he'll never stop fighting for it. So as Scott walks off Emma cues the fireworks.

Planet Size X-Men

So before I get into this one , some context: When this issue happened.. what the fireworks were.. was a suprise. It was kept deathly secret and the reactions seen in marauders were a tease the x-men had done something MASSIVE. While for our purposes here you know the twist I just wanted the context for readers that the x-men colonizing a whole damn planet.. was a massive well done suprise. IT's something this era does well: it hides spoilers VERY well and even when some info has to come out via solicits, it does a great job not telling us everything.

So we open the issue with the reveal of what their doing: The narration is a flashback to someone talking to Forge, the x-men's resident inventor, about IF what their about to do before our eyes is possible. And to start they need a ton of iron, and to plunge it into the planet, then get it nice and hot.

The first part.. is easy given the master of magnet is around and we get a lovely shot of Magneto hauling a giant meteor. This issue's done by Duggan with art by Pepe Laraz, who also did art for House of X and is a phenominal artist, so he not suprisingly knocks it out of the park here. Using the metal they open the planet and as forge puts it "perform open heart surgery" using a team of Hope and Vulcan, Scott Summer's youngest brother who has energy powers> They get it bubbly, Max stirs the sauce with his powers.. and next up is Iceman, who proudly announces himself to the party, whose all viewing this telepathically thanks to Emma Frost

We then flash back to a few days ago. Magneto TRIES to talk some sense into Iscaa the unbeaten, annoyed at the Arakkil shenanigans I mentioned before, but she's unmoved. As long as their of this planet, they'll act as they have and conquer. This likely gave Max the idea.

And his timing for it isn't bad as the Hellfire Trading Company have another problem: their suplies for the lifesaving drugs are running out. The X-Men were doing most of their production in the savage land, a land where dinosaurs never died out, but the super science golden girls stole most of it, so they REALLY need a new place for production. Mags asks to borrow Emma's spaceship.. and prepares his pitch.

The next day Cap and Cyclops talk at westchester, with Cyclops assuring Cap there's a solution to the arakko problem, which gets him to come to the gala. Max pitches his plan to the quiet council and it's a rare unanmous "YES".

Cut to the morning of the gala and while Mags has a lot of the pieces he needs.. he needs more. So he first goes to Jamie Braddock, brother of Bestsy (Formerly Psylocke now Captain Britan) and Brian (also Captain Britan), and half mad reality warper, who Mags convinces to help out. He also goes to Arakko and their own council happens to have three Omega Level Mutants (Mutants with no upper limit to their powers, something firmly defined in this era after being vauge for years on end), who fit the bill: Lacuta the Knower, Sobunar of the Depths, and Xilo the first defender of this broken land.

Back in present day Sobunar goes first: Sobunar contains an ENTIRE ocean within them, so they simply donate a little water and have jamie expand it into an ocean. Storm captalizes on this, using her powers to the strongest they've ever been to give the planet weather, giving the dead red planet wind for the first time.

Next up is Xilo, who.. tears off his head and combines with the land.. he's also a caterpillar. Because why not. With Elixer's help he restores life leaving the next step for the final member of our trio, Lacuta. Her power.. is knowing the precise location of everything. So using her , Jean Grey and exodus, a centuries old telepath bar NONE, shove the ENTIRETY of arakko through the external gate, a magical super krakoan gate, to mars.

WIth that Arakko is on here.. and Arakko itself, which like krakoa is alive, sighs happily at it's first bloodless victory in a long while. A diplomatic area is set up as is a memorial to honor those who could not make it

The downside of the review format is I really can't show you just how awe inspiring all this is. I do have images an dcan show you some of it but the compression here and how much this issue makes use of the full page makes it impossible to translate. It's why while my reviews are good on their own merit, they'll never be a subsitute for the media in question.

So after this Arakko needs it's own SWORD station. SWORD was once the space verison of SHIELD, but with SHIELD ending and Earth's own space branch, alpha flight, being laughably ineffective, former SWORD head Abigail brand went to mutantkind fo ra space program, resulting in their revivail. And since they need a base here, Jean and Quinten Quire, professional loveable scamp, implant the idea of one in his mind. Jean says she's making him pregnant with it.. and soon regrets her word choice

I... didn't doctor any of this. All of this actually happened. Jean Grey made a man pregnant with a space station. That's canon. That's part of this landmark in x-history. God bless you X-Slack, one and all.

Elixer has one last idea.. and this time it's just transmitted to prevent more of .. that... so Jamie gladly obliges, creating port promethus, a massive hub for all the space ships a comin. With that all of Krakoa is welcomed to..

With that we get some data pages, a bold announcment proclaming this the captial of our solar system, a person in the goverment reporting, and nasa being disapointed by mutantkind just anexing the planet but hoping they can visit.

And before we move on to the direct ramifications in story.. let's talk about those fireworks shall we? The Terraforming of Mars into Planet Arakko.. is one of the biggest, genius and insane swings i've seen in a comic. It's all perfectly built up too: from the beginning of this era i'ts been built up how much power omega mutants have, how much stronger krakoa can be it's ties to space via the shiar and brood. And over in SWORD, which had recently launched and will close out today's look at the gala, they subtly laid the seeds: SWORD had been further pushing the idea of a "mutant circuit", i.e. using a group of mutants in concert to do a task, the first being of course the five and SWORD having a circuit in it's first issue bring a super metal from beyond time and space. The idea of seeing just what mutants could do with their powers and a whole nation had been seeded... it's here it sprouts. In what's implied to be an hour at most, with the world watching, mutantkind terraformed a dead planet. While both terriotires had different goverments the fact remained mutantkind now had a PLANET.

It's also nice in that even if Krakoa as a nation tumbles into history... this is something that really CAN'T be easily undone: Mutantkind created a new planet stuffed with mutants, where alien dignitaries have visited, and that humankind will NEVER forget happened. Even if it all collapsed the sheer scope of it is something that can't help but have impact. It's the kind of status quo shift you could ONLY pull off in this era, with these characters, at this time, a perfect allinging of the planets... to let another be reborn.

It also has a lot of nice fallout that's still being felt: A whole book would end up dedicated to this new concept, X-Men Red, which is one of the best of this era and one of the best x-books period, and it's not even over yet. We'll likely look at that next year, or at least part of it, but the idea of this warbased society grappling with peace is fascinating as is humanity grappling with loosing one of it's biggest pieces of the sky. There's so much that's been done with this concept, so much more to do and it's one of my faviorite in the x-men's long history of awesome ideas and was brought about stunningly, with the issue being one long showstopper. They hyped the hell out of this one moment.. and man oh man did they deliver. All that's left.. is the afterparty.

S.W.O.R.D. #7

SWORD opens with Captain america, standing alone reflecting his thoughts. This opening is one of th emain reasons I wanted sword as part of this: this scene helpfully frames what happened from a human perspective, by showing how the best of us grapples with what just happened. And also DOOM, who'd tell you he was but you know DOOM. Cap decides to humor him this once and share his thoughts.. mostly because Victor points out they are both faces of their nations and the weird irony of that tickles our hero a bit. The speech that follows.. is gorgeous, showing that SWORD, and future x-men red, writer Al Ewing, one of my personal faviorite writers, REALLY gets cap. I mean he really gets pretty much any character he rights but still.

Cap relates the story of his waking up from the ice. How soon after.. he felt hopless, a shocking thing to hear from Captain I Can Do This All Day, but understandable: Everything he knew and loved was gone and he'd missed decades. Tony gave him hope by showing the moon landing, showing how much humanity achieved.. but got quiet when Steve asked where the colonies were... what had come NEXT. It's a sad statment on the fact we just kinda.. gave up on space after realizing it was too expensive to exploit.

I belivie in a better tommorow is a cap line up there with classics like "I'm loyal to nothing except the dream" and "No you move", and this scene is expertly done: it shows the two sided coin: Steve is well aware humanity kind of gave up on mars and other planets aside from mapping them, but still wishes they'd worked together.. instead of their next iteration swooping in and taking it all. It's the lovely double edged sword of this all: The Mutants had every right to do this: they had the power, the technology and the need. But it still means they took it for themselves and only themselves.

So while Cap muses about this and Doom heads off to do Doom stuff, we cut to SWORD"s station the Peak where director Abigail Brand, who nick fury wishes he could be, is explaning the situation to a council of galactic ambassadors from very marvel races and factions. Notable faces include Orbis Stellaris, who'd become VERY important soon enough, a guy named Riitho representing the interglactic empire of wakanda, a real thing that exists, long story I don't quite know to be honest, Smasher, former avenger, wife of x-man and former avenger Cannonball, and representive for longtime x-men space buddies the shiar, paibok the power skrull representing the kree skrull alliance and three of the guardians of the galaxy: Star Lord represnting his in comics half home of spartax, Noh Varr aka marvel boy represtning the Utopian Kree and Richard Rider , the man called nova representing earth. Ewing adopted Richie who'd come back from the dead but hadn't got a lot to do, making him a focal point of his run on Guardians and then bringing him over to X-Men Red after that.

Richie in paticular is nettled they didn't tell anyone, and while Frenzy, part of SWORD's security, points out he was kinda busy with guardains stuff.. he still has a point: While Krakoa coudln't afford to tell EVERYONE or someone would've tried to stop them, and they DID need this space... they didn't tell ANYONE they were doing this.

The rest of the delegates are ambivalent: For humanity , mutantkind terraforming a whole planet is a big whoop. And while the SPEED is impressive, terraforming a planet is pretty standard procedure for the empires present.

Thankfully Mutankind brought Abigail brand to the negotating table: she's lived in space her whole life, knows it better than earth, and her whole reason for restarting sword is that she's sick of earth being so ambiviliant and reactionary: they've been invaded COUNTLESS times.. yet the heroes wait. In the previously reviewed epilogue to empire/gay wedding of the century, she quit Alpha Flight entirley because head at the time Carol Danvers.. didn't think to consult her or anyone abotu the crisis and instead cried avengers assemble.

So she decides to take a page from the krakoan book with some space flair: like Krakoa, Arakko won't be recognized without something to give and since the healing plants aren't really a huge get, she has something more: Mysterium,. the metal they plucked from the white hot center of the omniverse.

It's a COOL as hell call back: why did they plunder time and space.. not because they could. .but to get the sol system a foot in the galactic door. See at the time of this run, something running out of Ewing's guardians run as Al ewing tends to use every book he writes to follow up on others, Ewing had the clever idea of the galactic community being in a pretty crappy place: after so many wars, sieges, and attempted conquests, they were battered and the economy suffered. Mysterium... is the answer. Expensive, as seen here super useful for space travel and recovery after all the nonsense the unvierse has been put through.. and a perfect Bribe. Abigail is upfront about it too: as I said this is the same as Krakoa using the drugs and Abby says that outright: a new currency to help the unvierse recover.. in exchange for recognition. Abby's logic is also flawless here: Earth.. has a ton of nations, their all squabbling and generally can't agree on how to treat their own people much less aliens. Arakko is one goverment and thus allows them to simply negotiate with them instead.

Naturally though for a confrence like this.. someone has to ask...

I said he had doom stuff to do.... I didn't say said stuff wasn't in this issue did I? Doom demands to know: who speaks for sol. Given how Victor is, tyranicall and very personality based, he demands an audience with it's rule: who is it's king. Who is it's monarch. And naturally for this story... the answer is badass as hell. It's also the answer every X-Men fan predicted, but it's no less awesome

It's a perfect choice: Storm really hadn't done much in this era up to this point... but in interviews HIckman and others constantly said they had more plans for her and "great stuff coming up". This is the payoff: Storm is once again a queen... and a perfect fit. She's peaceful enough to lead the arakkil in a new direction.. but she's still storm. It's part of what makes Orroro such a great character: she can be gentle, kind and fair.. but god help you if you think you can win a fight with her. And given Roro now has to deal with both a planet of warmongers AND various galactic empires ready to try to exploit this, not to mention eventually Abigail herself trying to exploit this for her own ends, a LOT of people are going to need god's help.

This conversation continues into the next issue, but for our story, the end is not on the grand new red planet.. but back on Krakoa. Magneto is quitely having a drink to himself.. and has a guest.

So one last bit of backstory for this run, for the non comic guys in the audience, hi kevin and such: In the comics Wanda, during a mental breakdown after being manpulated by her own brother, depowered all but 200 of mutantkind. Give or take obviously because comics, but still most were left powerless thanks to her. Wanda DID do her best to atone once she returned much later, helping restore mutantkind.. but instead of undrestanding she wasn't in her right headspace, no one thought "hey let's get her a threapist instead of try to kill her".. no really that was the storyline. Bendis I swear.

Anyway, instead Mutantkind turned her into the boogeyman

Yes a bogeyman, "The PRetender" as it was later revealed she wasn't a mutant because marvel didn't have rights to them at the time. And while I do wish this era had turned her back into one.. the directoin they went was clever.. and this scene is part of it. Wanda comes to her once thought to be bio dad: she skipped the party because well.. she knows what they say and the pretender can't sit at the throne.

Magneto's response? one of the best moment's in the characters history and clear proof of why Ewing was given the character for X-Men Red not long after

It's a heartbreaking well done speech.. and honestly an angle for helping undo the hasty unparenting of Magneto I never considered: Keeping Wanda not a mutant.. but having Magnus still consider her his child. Have him realize after buildling paradise.. that he'd been a pretty crappy father to her, even if he turned out not to be his dad, how he wasn't much better to his biological daughter Lorna. and That even if she's seen as the pretender.. that Wanda is his kid and deserves better. It's also a nice aseop: that you don't NEED to be biologically related ot be family. She's his daughter. End of dicussion. And he will fix this

The how ended up being convoluted, but did result in Wanda going from the pretender, to the redeemer by setting up the waiting room, a way to bring back mutants who didn't have an imprint in cerebro. It's a touching end to this story.. I mean granted the story ACTUALLY ends with magneto suspected of her murder, but it'ts not where we're ending

The Hellfire Gala is one of my faviorite comics events. IT's a unique take on one: instead of a big fight or a big crisis.. it's just a party. It still has all the gravitas and after effects: Wanda's very temporary death leading to her excellent new era under Steve Orlando, the start of Magneto's character arc for X-Men red, a whole new setting with vast ramifications, a new team, and lots of other smaller setups. It's no suprise they did it again the next two years. It's a story packed with both the fun breezy character moment's you'd expect like Emma discovering steve's mommy kink or RTJ getting ready to watch doom fight steve all day, or gambling time, and the big stuff needed to justify it being an event, all organically threaded from here.

We'll no doubt return to krakoa and I already have plans to return to the x-men next year. For now though... we've reached the end of x-men month. As we enter spooky season.. thank you for reading, my x-men.

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luxudus · 11 months

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Barosaurus and the Morrison Formation.

I just finished all my final projects and graduated from my high school, meaning i finally have the time to start posting again! This was a project I made for my high school art class where i had to illustrate something into 4 quadrants, each quadrant being done with differing materials. I was originally considering doing my sophont species: the Xy'ktals. But decided to do something more paleoart related since it was outside of my comfort zone at the time. This project took me almost 2 months to make, I started working on it in late march and submitted it in late may. And almost half of it was spent researching the life of this formation and trying to accurately reconstruct it. I hope you all enjoy this art piece

My Statement

As an artist who loves the natural world, I became fascinated with the field of paleontology long before I discovered my love for the possibility of alien life. I was introduced to the field by the Jurassic Park film franchise and was thrilled by all the big monsters made to scare. I bought their toys, watched most of the movies, and enjoyed most of it. Eventually I phased out of Jurassic park. Many years later, when I was into designing aliens, I found a youtuber who made me rethink how I designed alien life. Teaching me that the human body plan is far from universal and we would likely make first contact with something that looked more like a jellyfish or a worm than a human. While browsing through their other videos I found out they did paleontology, and once again my eyes were open. To see what the natural world looked like before mankind came to be was amazing. Getting to see plants and animals beyond my wildest dreams, so different they might as well be considered aliens. Yet they felt familiar, they felt relatable. That is what made me fall in love with the field.

Nowadays I casually look into paleoart, looking into the depths of time and into the earliest ages of life as inspiration for my own alien worlds. While working on this assignment, I realized that not many people are up to date with the modern idea of the prehistoric. Most still think of them as scaly screaming scrawny slaughter machines. Some might even still think of them as the lumbering dim-witted kangaroo-like lizards of the 1800s to 1900s. With this work i intend to change that My goal with this assignment wasn’t just to draw dinosaurs, but to show everyone just how amazing the prehistoric world was. But most importantly, these were animals at the end of the day, not movie monsters made to scare. They lived simple lives of joys and sorrows, felt love, played with each other, and found happiness in the small things. They were no different than the animals of the modern world.

Introduction

To showcase this, I drew the many species that lived in the Morrison formation of Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. A basin of sedimentary rock dating to the Jurassic period 150 million years ago. Back then this place was a semi-arid environment, home to swamps, floodplains, and savannahs. But this place didn’t look like modern savannahs now. For one, angiosperms such as flowers, leafed trees, and grass only evolved some 10 million years after all the dinosaurs went extinct. Meaning almost none of the familiar plants were present in the jurassic. Instead of our familiar faces, Conifers, Cycads, and Ginkgos took the role of trees, horsetails were a common sight, and Ferns took the niche of grass. In fact Ferns were so prevalent they became their own biome known as the Fern Prairies

The animals are also far different too. Unlike the depictions spurred on by Jurassic park, of big, gaunt, and mindlessly ravenous reptiles designed to kill. Through finely preserved fossils we now know most of them were covered in varying degrees of feathers. Some may have had simple hair-like feathers while others were almost birdlike in appearance, since birds actually evolved from dinosaurs. Pretty much every dinosaur that didn’t have a beak had lips covering their teeth. Their hands would have faced each other rather than pointing downwards. Lastly we know that pretty much all of them were covered in enough fat and muscle to not have every detail of their bones poking out like a starved animal The winged bird like-creatures named Pterosaurs too have changed a lot. We now know they were also covered in fur, and were possibly brightly colored too. their hands faced each other in the same way the dinosaurs did. Surprisingly they walked on the balls of their feet like us, and some were even postured like us too.

Barosaurus: the main star The dinosaur that’s the focus of this piece is a young male Barosaurus as he stands near a conifer tree. Relaxing in the cool moist air brought on by the passing rain of a Cumulonimbus cloud Barosaurus was an enormous species of herbivorous dinosaur that helped define the Morrison formation along with many other species. They were a part of the clade Sauropoda, a group of herbivorous dinosaurs renowned for their extremely long necks and equally long tails. Barosaurus wasn't the longest or the strongest sauropod. but it was still impressive at a staggering 82-89 feet long. This behemoth was so huge their front arm alone was as big as a human. Most sauropods had a uniquely weird set of feet. The hind feet were round and had 3 toe claws that pointed outward. While the front feet were horseshoe shaped, with the fingers all fused together and an empty space at the center. Only the “thumb” has a claw while the rest of their fingers were bare, save for possibly a collection of jagged scales that aided in traction. Like mentioned earlier, Barosaurus was an herbivore that specialized in high level browsing. They were also surprisingly flexible, the structure of their neck vertebrae gave them a wide range of motion, allowing them to eat tons of plant matter in wide sweeping motions without having to move an inch.

Despite their sheer size, the juggernauts of the Jurassic were still preyed on from time to time by Allosaurus and maybe Ceratosaurus. To counter this, the Barosaurus has a few weapons at its disposal, It could possibly rear up on its hind legs to make itself look even larger or even to stomp on incoming attackers. But its greatest weapon was its tail. It was thin and flexible, allowing the Barosaurus and its relatives to whip at their attackers with a thunderous crack, stunning the predators and possibly leaving long stinging cuts in them. Speculated here, the Barosaurus was given a vibrant set of brown and black patterning as a way to distinguish themselves from other sauropods. They possess a large black dewlap to displace heat all in one area while the main body remains light in pigment and the head mostly white. Several Eye-like patterns run down the neck as a form of sexual display as they could potentially swing their neck around as a display of their flexibility to mates. The tail by contrast is a bright green as both a warning sign to predators and a way to communicate with other barosaurs. And long spines run from the head to the tip of the tail, making their whips even deadlier to any predator even considering going after them.

And now It's time to talk about all the other species that make this formation famous. Organized from left to right

Tile 1: Graphite pencil and Fine art pen An Ophisthiamimus basks under the sun on a rock in the foreground. They were a 3 inch long reptile that specializes in insect feeding. Despite its lizard-like appearance it was actually a Rhyncocephalian. A near extinct order of pseudo-beaked reptiles that dominated the early mesozoic, but were beaten back by tue lizards. The only surviving species of this clade is the Tuatara of New zealand

An old bull Brachiosaurus wanders across the drylands. They were a tall species of sauropod dinosaur that had a length of 57-72 feet long and weighed 28-47 metric tons. They were so big their forearms were as tall as an adult male. They Were herbivorous and browsed on high up plantlife such as the leaves of conifer, ginkgo, cycad, and tree fern leaves. Speculated here, they could have had a large and flappy dewlap to displace heat. They may have also had several sets of inflatable neck sacs for sexual display since it was found internal air sacs ran down their neck and invaded their bones to reduce weight.

A small herd of very young Dryosaurs head towards the brachiosaurus for protection, in the same way a school of small fish orbit around a whale. Dryosaurus was a species of small and nimble ornithiscian dinosaur that may have grown to be 7-9 feet long. They were Herbivores that fed on low lying plantlife, picking them out with their pointy beaks before chewing them with a set of cheek teeth. So far no fossils of fully grown Dryosaurus have been found yet, so illustrated here instead are very young members of this species. Heavily Speculated here, they might've had a set of feathers turned quills on their tails and arms to stop larger predators from grappling on them. This feature was purely speculative and might've never existed on them.

A female Harpactognathus catches an unnamed early mammal from a hole in the ground. They were an extinct species of generalist pterosaurs that hunted small inland vertebrates and had a wingspan of 8.2 feet long. They were a part of the family Rhamphorynchidae, an early group of pterosaurs known for possessing toothy beaks and a long, thin tail.

Tile 2: Colored pencil and fine art pen A young male Allosaurus tries to get with a female of the same species with his elaborate courtship dance. Flailing his arms, rhythmically stomping the ground and bowing his head to reveal the bright red crest, the female however is unimpressed. Allosaurus was a species of 28-32 froot long theropod dinosaur that was one of 3 apex predators of the Morrison formation. They were discernible by the 2 pointy crests above their eyes. They specialized in hunting large prey such as stegosaurus and will sometimes come together in packs to even hunt sauropods such as Brachiosaurus and Barosaurus. They would've used their short but sharp teeth to slash into prey like a machete and used their short but muscular arms to hold onto their prey. Speculated here, they could have sported black stripes and white splotches in an attempt at disrupting its outline and masking its eyes and ears. As well as having intricate mating dances that would've shown their flexibility and persistence.

A young female dryosaurus hides behind the Barosaurus' leg, waiting for the perfect opportunity to avoid the allosaurus and reunite with the herd.

A male harpactognathus takes off on the back of the Barosaurus. Speculated here, they could've had some sexual dimorphism like their azhdarchid cousins

2 Mesodactylus play around on top of the back of the Barosaurus/ They were a small species of pterosaurs that belonged to the family Anurognathidae, a group of small round and furry pterosaurs. They were estimated to be between 4-5 centimeters in length. Sadly not much speculation went into them, other than a faint stripe on the underside of their wings, and the potential presence of play behavior. Something seen in all young mammals, some reptiles, fish, and even bees.

Tile 3: watercolor paint, a bit of acrylic paint, and a bit of Graphite pencil A herd of Camptosaurs run towards a lake after a long odyssey across the muddy drylands They were a species of medium sized Ornithopod dinosaurs that were 20 feet long and 6 feet tall. They were somewhat related to the previously mentioned Dryosaurus but are closely related to Iguanodon. One of the first dinosaurs ever discovered and named. They have 5 fingers on their front arm but only the front 3 end in claws They were somewhat slow herbivores that may have lived in small herds, browsing on medium sized plants and competing with the many similar sized herbivores in the region.

A pair of male Gargoylesaurs rest under a conifer tree Gargoylesaurus was a small species of armored herbivorous dinosaur ranging from 10-11 feet long but less than 3 feet tall. They are an early member of the family Nodosauridae in the Suborder Ankylosauria, meaning this dinosaur is related to the somewhat famous Ankylosaurus. Not much was speculated here other than the presence of a blue stripe running down their face as a form of sexual display

A lone Cycad tree amongst the fern prairie

Tile 4: Digital art

A stegosaurus gets inspected by a young and curious Ceratosaurus

Stegosaurus was a medium sized herbivorous dinosaur that was 23 feet long and 10 feet tall at the back. They can be easily recognized by the large asymmetrical dorsal plates running down the neck, body, to the tail. As well as the presence of 4 tail spikes named the Thagomizer. They were herbivores that fed on ferns, horsetails, and cycads with their uniquely crown shaped teeth. They could’ve possibly been carriers for Cycad seeds the same way elephants help disperse the seeds of savannah trees. Speculated here, the dorsal plates and thagomizer are brightly colored orange as a threat display towards their predators such as Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus.

Ceratosaurus was the second of 3 apex predators of the morrison formation. They were a medium sized carnivorous theropod that ranged from 21-22 feet long and 5.2-6.5 feet tall. They are discernable by the 3 hump shaped crests on top of their head, their long and slender teeth, and the presence of osteoderms running down their body. They shared the same habitat as Allosaurus, and could’ve possibly fed on similar prey such as stegosaurus, ornithopods, and possibly sauropods. Uniquely it has been suggested that Ceratosaurus could’ve fed on fish too as a way to avoid competition with Allosaurus Not much has been speculated on their design other than a bright yellow face as a form of sexual display and horizontal stripes possibly as a form of motion dazzle camoflauge.

A Kepodactylus soars across the fern prairie with an unnamed reptile in its mouth. Kepodactylus was a species of medium-sized pterosaur from the family Ctenochasmatidae, their distinct from other pterosaurs by possessing a crest akin to the later on azhdarchid pterosaurs while also having teeth akin to the Rhamphorhynchoid Pterosaurs. This species had a wingspan of 8.2 feet long The illustration of them eating a reptile, along with the patterning is entirely speculative as there was very little information to go off of.

Another male Barosaurus observes the one in the middleground, wary on whether or not it could become a friend or foe. Despite our conception of large herbivores being gentle giants, that idea couldn’t be further from the truth. Many cases in our modern world show large animals such as Goats, rams, boars, water buffalo, rhinoceroses, and even elephants will retaliate against their predators to devastating effects. Hippos of all animals are the absolute epitome of this truth, they are extremely territorial and frequently kill everything that comes too close. At least 500 people die from them every year. In some cases they will even kill baby hippos that they didn’t have a hand in creating, just to ensure their own bloodline succeeds above all others. It was very possible that prehistoric life could’ve matched this aggression, if not exceeded it. With the barosaurus’ ability to rear up on its hind legs, It could’ve used this to clash with other barosaurs. Whether it be over territorial disputes, fighting for potential mates, or simple distrust.

A male stokesosaurus basks on a pile of rocks in the foreground, getting ready to fan out its neck plumage to cool off Stokesosaurus was a 10-13 feet long theropod dinosaur that was apart of the clade Proceratosauridae and the superfamily Tyrannosauridea. Meaning this dinosaur was a somewhat distant relative to the world famous cretaceous era superpredator Tyrannosaurus rex Speculated here, Their coat of feathers is a stark black to combat UV radiation, they possess a patch of neck plumage that could fan out to displace heat. With the streaks of white stripes helping break up its outline and cool down what could’ve been the heat sensitive parts of its body. They could’ve also had a white underbelly to form countershading Fun fact: one of my friends has the same last name as the first part of this dinosaur's name, so as a tribute to our friendship I modeled the patterning and coloration of him. The neck plumage a tribute to his hair, and the coloration based off his clothing

#paleontology #paleoart #jurassic #morrison formation #my art #artist on tumblr #cloud art #landscape #dinosaur

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cadaverdolls · 10 days

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Heyyyyyy…. I got a math test in like 2 days and I’m like 3 chapters behind… so ya. I’ll be gone for longer periods of time with less output till I can get my stuff together. (Already do that but eeeee.)

Todays plushie is of a pc from @rttnpnkpmpkn

I was trying to make the doll more simple. The dolls i usually make are for pretty purposes only so they wouldn’t be used for making the doll (inspo? Yes, but the company would need to redraw into a simple and clearer form to actually be usable.)

The hair has more defined lines for it to be able to have the embroidery lines put there. I was doing more research on dolls recently so I’ll talk about stuff more below.

Doll break down below

Braids, animal traits (just any limbs that aren’t the usual base, even elf ears), braids, multi color hair, complex embroidery, and other stuff will cost extra with companies. I never really brought up what is and isn’t part of the initial cost. Usually the price you pay is for 1. The design they make with you and 2. The doll itself. The doll will not be clothed as that is extra (an entire outfit for them is usually around 20 dollars) and will not have a skeleton (makes them posable) unless extra is payed. What I design for is the usual 20cm dolls but there are more the exist. The second most common is 10cm, they are used for keychains or as a child for the 20cm dolls (from what I’ve seen people do). Dolls with things like animal ears, elf ears, tails, wings, etc usually have 20-30 dollars added on to the original pricing. Big body mods such as spider bottom half, octopus bottom half, longer limbs, etc, generally large changed to the body are both hard to find pricing for and hard to find customs of. There are premade dolls that are like this but having one made personally is something I have seen as of yet so I have no reference for it. Also a know most doll makers sell the clothes and also have custom clothes on their stores as well. 10cm is usually 70-80 dollars while 20cm is 100-200. Buying around the holidays gives opportunities for discounts on websites like Etsy.

Why did I bring up the extra limb thing and body mod? Well a lot of DOL characters have large chest and I was thinking for a while on how that would work on these dolls. For past dolls I’ve been doing different things, not doing the chest, just putting embroidery for chest lines, or drawing them on. So I decided I wanted to actually see if this was possible. Probably is!

Drawing wise I’d say I put to much detail on the bell. It’s kind of funny so I didn’t change it but I’ll do a more simple one next time I do a doll in the ‘drawn for manufacturing’ style. Also I don’t know whether or not I made the eyes too wide? I picked a reference photo where the character was very small and far away (not a good move on my part).

#plushie gun

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sunshinemoonrx · 9 months

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I've been thinking about the original folkloric Arthur

Not a king, not a knight, but a great hunter and a humble soldier.

I'm not really an artist but I spent all yesterday filled with the urge to draw this version of the character, so here's a post that's 50/50 doodles and historiographical rambles about him.

I wanted to do scenes depicting the feats this earliest 9th-century Welsh folklore describes him doing, so first I needed a design for the guy.

Notes on my choices and historicity:

-These earliest local Arthur legends are recorded in an appendix to the Historia Brittonum (c. 830), where he is referred to as simply "Arthur miles" ("the soldier"), a protector-figure in south Wales. The name Arthur is thought to derive from the Latin "Artorius", so I've just written it here to create a consistent Latin version of the name and title. That doesn't mean it was his "real name"; there probably wasn't a specific real guy. Some have floated a 2nd-century Roman general named Lucius Artorius Castus as the "real king Arthur", but there's a 600-year gap between his life and any mention of Arthur, so that's extremely unlikely.

-The visuals are a mix of historic (he wears a tunic, a mail shirt and a cloak with an early medieval brooch) and the kind of anime boy that appeals to me personally. I can't tell you why I was so sure he had to be black-haired, it just felt right. I tried to avoid depicting him as too elite a warrior; I imagine the necklace was obtained as plunder from a raid. For his build, I wanted him to have some mass but not to look like a modern gym bro, and that crashed headfirst into my predilection for messy twinks, and I ended up drawing him (and the other characters here) with kinda "curvy anime babe" proportions, I guess, lmao

-The 10th-century Annales Cambriae say that at the battle of Badon, "Arthur carried the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders and the Britons were the victors". This is probably referring to to a shield design, but I thought it'd be fun to interpret it as a back tattoo. The practice is attested as being practiced in the north of Britain from a 786 synod in Northumbria. The English clergy weren't fond of it and actually tattooing a cross isn't attested until the crusading era, plus from a modern perspective the vibes of a guy with just a big Christian tattoo are a bit questionable, so I decided to pair it with something else. Earlier Roman accounts of Briton tattoos mention animal shapes, and Welsh legends often depict people or their souls becoming birds (early modern Cornish folklore even held that Arthur survived in the form of a bird), so I went with a wing-pattern.

-The precursor to Excalibur, Arthur's sword Caledfwlch ("hard-cleaver", Caliburnus in Latin, Calesvol in Cornish) isn't magic yet, and his spear and dagger are given equal prominence, so I depicted it as the kind of straight sword common at the time, derived from the Roman spatha design.

-One of the two prior stories recorded in the HB is Arthur's fighting and killing his son Amr ("fab Arthur", "son of Arthur", is my translation into Welsh); I drew Amr in a half-tunic/half-dress because, again, I just kinda wanted to

The other story involves Arthur hunting the great boar Twrch Trwyth (Troit/Troynt), so that was the next thing to design:

This is very cool to see referred to this early, because the hunt of the Trwyth is the climactic set-piece of Culhwch ac Olwen (c. 1100), the most complete Arthurian tale we have from the period after the Historia Brittonum transformed him from a minor local figure into a magical warrior-hero for all the Britons and centrepiece of Welsh legend, but before Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae further began his transformation into the chivalric king popular in France and across Europe.

In Culhwch, Trwyth is a king who was turned into a boar by God as punishment for his sins, so I came up with a human design as well as a big pig design. The king in question was probably intended as a Briton, but I thought it would be fun to depict him as a Saxon, Arthur's enemies in the HB, especially as Saxon warriors often wore boar-crests on their helmets. I did one take with a mostly historic boar-helmet, and one more fantastical, almost like a boar-themed Kamen Rider helmet, as if rather than becoming an actual boar he became this more fearsome but still humanoid warrior.

I also made his sword slightly asymmetrical, to mirror the seax knives that gave the Saxons their name. Their actual main battle swords were straight, but I thought it was a fun touch for this magical tyrant.

As for the boar-form design, I like depicting monsters with sketchy outlines, like they aren't fully solid creatures of this world.

And that's how we get our first scene proper!

The legend recorded in HB says that when Cabal (Latinisation of Welsh "Cafall"), Arthur's dog, was hunting Troynt (Trwyth), he left a paw-print in a stone, which Arthur then assembled a cairn under, and if the paw-print stone is ever removed, within 24 hours it returns to the mound. (Cafall is also featured in the version of the hunt in Culhwch!)

Anyway, I can't really draw animals that aren't big scary creatures, so I didn't want to draw an actual dog. So since I'd already turned Trwyth into a guy, I figured why not just turn Cafall into a guy too? Plus, I get to draw a guy in a collar with a dog-tail and a little fangy. So win-win, really.

I also wanted to draw a version with the human Trwyth, and I figured I'd combine that with the story of Amr, and just do a page of swordfights:

"...on fatal field / we fended our lives, as the ranks clashed in battle / and the boar-crests rang..." -Beowulf

The Amr (or Amhar) story relates that Arthur built a tomb for his son, and that every time it is measured it comes up as a different length.

The fact this is such an early story is also very interesting, because one of the most famous parts of post-HRB chivalric Arthur is the killing of his son Mordred. Early Welsh references to Mordred (Medraut or Medrawd) portray him entirely positively. I do wonder if when Mordred became the more famous son of Arthur the story of Amr got folded into his, but we don't have evidence to do more than speculate.

I also now realise that my human Trwyth looks a lot like a Ringwraith, and honestly the more medieval lit I delve through the more moments of "oh that's why that bit of Tolkien is like that" I have.

Those were what I originally wanted to depict, but in doing them two more ideas occurred to me. One was depicting the Arthur of the Historia Brittonum itself (not just the pre-existing folklore it recorded), this local hero plucked into a much grander stage, cast as a pseudohistorical general leading his people against the Saxons.

This one came out very "edgy teenager on Deviantart", but fuck it, kill the part of you that cringes and be free, right:

The title comes from one of the medieval Welsh "triad" texts, each one a short line listing the "three great X of the Isle of Britain" to help bards remember. Arthur is referred to in many of them, here as one of the "Three Red Reapers of the Isle of Britain". I thought that was a good fit for his war-hero portrayal here. Also I tried moving the cross-tattoo lower down to make it sluttier.

HB's Arthur is an interesting middle ground. He's leading the Britons as a whole, but he still has one foot in his humble origins. He's named as Dux Bellorum, "battle-leader", and it's specified that the kings of the Britons were under his leadership although he was less noble than them. It's only somewhere between the grander Welsh legends that sprung up after this and the HRB that he would get upgraded to king.

For the final picture, I was inspired by a much more recent piece of Breton verse, a 19th-century gwerz (ballad) telling of Arthur arriving in Brittany (on account of being king of all Britons) to slay a dragon and getting help from Saint Efflam. The core story, though, is remarkably consistently preserved from the Vita Euflami, the original saint's life written around 1100. I was captivated in particular by the verse in the gwerz where Arthur announces himself:

Me zo roué ar Bretonet Artur an terrub lessanvet Deut aman deus a Lannion Evit tistruji ann Dragon.

I am the king of the Britons/Bretons Arthur, known as the terrible Come here from Lannion To destroy the dragon.

For one, the way the lyrics flow in the Breton just kinda goes hard, but the bombastic tone and the length of time the story was transmitted across brought a scene vividly to my mind, inspired by the persistent story of Arthur's prophesised return: Modern travellers in the Breton countryside being set upon by a dragon, only for Arthur to miraculously appear with this declaration, defeat the beast and vanish, his original task as hunter and protector fulfilled once more.

So I drew that! Once again, I like sketchy impressionistic monsters. Also, I think the people in the back are lesbians, but that's less of a conscious decision and more just what happens when you ask me to draw two people.

And that's what's been occupying my mind for the past few days! There's a couple more things I could do. Cai and Gwenhwyfar (precusors to Sir Kay and Guinivere) are characters I'd love to whip up designs for, and there's a bunch of really wild scenes in Culhwch. But that'll only be if I'm still feeling this specific creative energy.

Thanks for reading!

#arthuriana #medieval welsh #culhwch and olwen #king arthur #catia learns to draw

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seventeenlovesthree · 1 year

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Since I’ve been in rambly mode recently, I wanted to pick up some of the points I thought were highly interesting when it came to “how Digimon actually tried to foreshadow (and allude to) Taichi going into politics”. This will not be a FULL analysis, because I always like to include picture evidence to further my points, buuuuuuut I still wanted to get my general thoughts out of the system.

The rant I went into started with the simple notion that I was wondering whether or not Taichi has learned/will learn more languages in the future - since Kaguya-sama’s Chika Fujiwara is supposedly able to speak 5 languages, as her parents are diplomats and Taichi may or may not have become studious (or may have Koushirou develop an auto-translator-device for him, the jury is still out there).

Considering how we saw Taichi already being in his fourth year of political sciences on university level in Kizuna, I was wondering about the transition period here. Because despite the fact that he still seemed pretty aimless by the start of the movie and hadn’t even decided on the topic of his thesis yet, he at least must have had a general idea of where he wanted to go - right?

If you take it at face value - Tri as a whole was contextualizing it by making him not wanting to fight at first and find a better alternative with less damage. That's even what Yamato of all people says about him in the last movie (with only Koushirou going "Nope, I will not risk more lives by letting a reboot happen, I’ll find a different solution" as additional impulse control, but let's not dive further into that).

Either way, the first half of the first Tri movie WAS about Taichi not having figured out any career choices yet - and thanks to being exposed to Daigo working for the government linked to Digimon affairs, his experiences and especially his DEATH may have had a huge impact on Taichi wanting to change the course of how the Digital World is perceived already (especially by the public/media), strengthening the relationships, etc. So in that regard - Tri may actually have succeeded in explaining why Taichi went where he went. It may not have been pleasant to watch him falter so much, but considering everything he went through, it's NOT unlikely, because that's what he HAD to overcome.

But before looking at that, we of course have to include 01 and 02, because the epilogue was interwoven here. Besides Koushirou, he was the most committed to Digital World related shenanigans in 02, adding Yamato at times, but Taichi was already pretty involved there. All iterations of the anime Adventure timeline confront him with making unpleasant choices for the sake of everyone time and time again and while that visibly stressed him every single time (and required some punching to get out of his system), it was basically the best preparation he could have gone through.

Going even further back, in 01, throughout the first half of the season, he displays more of your typical Shounen growth attitudes - overcoming his recklessness, etc. -, nothing too outstanding here, but if you squint, you can already see that as him having to become more "moderate". Once he gets called "leader", he doesn't really apply that to himself yet, BUT he absolutely has the sense of responsibility, not only because he is used to that as a big brother, but because he IS a caring, perceptive person under that layer of "head-through-wall"-attitude of an actual 11-year-old.

And then in the second half of 01, he was seen contemplating a lot more, weighing options (even if Yamato still told him he was reckless, but we know Yamato is an unreliable narrator due to being influenced by his own dark cave arc at this point).

In sum, you may not expect the sporty leader stereotype to go into politics, but his personality structure actually made him want to look for options that were suitable for the most amount of people involved at some point! And the relationship between the real and digital world became more and more important to him as well!

The only thing they struggled with was finding a good transition, because they spent SO MUCH TIME on Taichi not knowing where he wanted to go (which is VERY relatable of course!!!). Personally, I like to believe they just wanted to make Taichi's story more complicated, because the focus HAD to be on him due to main character syndrome. He was so put together in 02 already and then hormones and depression and abandonment issues hit him... Him wanting to go back in time, because everything seemed simpler (even though his brain was pretty much lying to him there, because nope, that wasn't simple, that was at least 8 near-death-experiences in a row, you are traumatized, my friend), because he felt like he was more courageous back then. When, in reality, life DID become more complex, yes, but like Agumon said in the stageplay: There are simply more things he learned he wanted to protect.

#my two cents #taichi yagami #tai kamiya #digimon #digimon adventure #man i love this boy so much and making sense of his arc is a lot of fun #as frustrating as it can be at times it's actually more consistent than you think #meta

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miammey · 1 year

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Chapter 1 of my Elf/Fae and Sorcerer AU I guess

Jouno never wondered to far from his home, he never had a reason. The farthest he gone was to visit his best friend/half sister Teruko.

Jouno and Teruko were very different, for one Jouno was a Forest elf while she was a Mountain elf. So while he stayed on the first floor, she live in house hanging from the near by cliffs. And so while he had the ability to grow and heal plants, along with talk to animals, she had the ability to walk on air by bending and changing the air around her. She could also in a way fly and create clouds, by extending the air flow around her, and manipulating the air pressure.

Then there’s their personalities. While Jouno was a quite, introverted type of person, Teruko was loud and out going, and most definitely a peoples person. One thing they did share however, was their short temper towards certain things. Such as having to deal with the criticism that neither of them had been courted yet.

You see in elf/fae culture, it is quite expected for you to get courted and then wed, not long after you turn 18. And matter what happens, you must stay with person you are with.

Understandably, neither Jouno and Teruko wanted this, but that didn’t stop others on persisting them. Their parents were no help. They often get ‘love’ letters from potential courters, letters that they burn or rip into pieces.

Never the less, they both had each other, and to them that’s all they needed.

So when Teruko came knocking on his door one early morning, Jouno was less then surprised.

Teruko- hey Jouno, you up yet!

(Jouno just grumbled to himself, having to be woken up before dawn)

Jouno- yes, and what do you want? It had better be good, for having to wake me this early.

Teruko- oh it, just get dressed and meet me outside

(Jouno again grumbled to himself, but did has Teruko instructed. When he eventually open his door to meet up with Teruko, Teruko was standing at the entrance, making Jouno jump a bit)

Teruko- come on follow me

(Despite telling him to follow, Teruko just grabbed Jouno by the arm, and began to drag him to wherever they were going. Jouno of course, tried to pull away)

Jouno- woah- woah Teruko, what this all about

Teruko- you’ll know when we get there

(Eventually Teruko let go, and lead Jouno further and further out the forest, to the point Jouno began to get a bit concerned. That was until he spotted what he assumed to be what Teruko was talking about.

It was beautiful fresh water stream, that seem the to have a bright blue bioluminescent glow to it. Alined with large, smooth, round, white rocks. However inspecting closer, he noticed small purple, blue, and pink crystals peaking through the rocks. They seem to be also bioluminescent glow to them)

Teruko- so was this worth being woken up for

Jouno- yeah sure, but I’m still upset about that

Teruko- whatever you say J

(Teruko and Jouno sat by the river and had random conversations, it was until the sun started to come up did Teruko decided to take her leave)

Teruko- enjoy the river J

Jouno- yeah yeah

(The next half hour, Jouno just stared down at the river, admiring it, and often taking a drink from it every now and then

But then Jouno suddenly felt something was off, like he was being watched. He looked around but could spot anything out of ordinary. But then something, or should I say, someone caught the corner of his eye.

There stood a very tall man. His golden colored eyes starring back at him. First thing that Jounk noticed was that he definitely wasn’t and elf/fae. He has long dark hair, that was in a ponytail. He wore what looked to be a skin tight, black, turtleneck jumpsuit. Along with long dark cloak that faded into purple further down. He wore what seem to be dark loose pants with a dark purple scarf tied around his waist, perhaps to act like a belt.

It was..enchanting.

The two stared at each other for period of time, before Jouno decided he should probably take his leave, he got up while still keeping his eyes on the man. He just hope the man wouldn’t follow him. And thankfully he didn’t.

Jouno’s could imagine what it be like having to explain to this to Teruko)

And that basically chapter 1, may write a chapter 2 in Tecchou’s pov, but we’ll see

ANXNANXJA THAT’S SO GOOD!!

#asks

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mamamomimomi · 1 year

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ENDLESS PIT (Chapter 6 of 16)

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Pairing: Touken/Kanetou

Genre: Crime, Romance, Mystery

Synopsis: While attempting to apprehend Tokyo’s most dangerous criminal, FBI agent Kaneki Ken keeps running into a certain short-haired enticing woman in sites linked to the case. Human AU.

AO3 FF.net

Touka wrinkles her nose in reaction to the overpowering sweat odour. She has never been a fan of crowded places in general, but clubs were a whole other level as there were people humping against each other and releasing their hormones on anyone who gave them even a passing glance.

What a hypocrite I am, she thought. She'd done the exact same deed with the hot cop she'd met a few weeks ago. It wasn't even her style to sleep with people she knew—let alone random people. She hadn't had the opportunity to do so anyway. Nobody considered that when they were on the run from the city's most dangerous person.

In all honesty, the white-haired officer had come as a complete surprise. She had no idea that in such a short period of time, she would become so enamored with someone and give herself to them. She was drawn to his innocent yet captivating face, so what could she say? She simply couldn't resist playing with the legendary Sasaki Haise of the FBI, but it seems she went too far and got entangled with him in a number of ways. The player who had succumbed to temptation and had lost the game was she.

She became that way after years of being barred from physical and intimate contact.

It had also come to light that the agent wasn't being as good of a boy as he ought to have been. What kind of cop would sleep with a criminal, anyway?

But she had absolutely no regrets about it. She had unexpectedly enjoyed it for a first timer, and he was a good fuck, fantastic even. He turned from the personable agent he was to the animal she had given herself over to, of all places, in a filthy bathroom. She had anticipated their meeting to be a quick makeout session, but when his mouth began to lick at the planes of her skin, it was so sinful that the only thing she could think of at the time was ripping both of their clothes off.

When a body bumps into her, she is startled out of her trance and rubs her eyes to clear her mind of any lewd thoughts so she can concentrate on the task. She was wearing more casual attire than she had on previous nights when she had gone to the club, allowing her more freedom of movement if things went south. She was aware that Souta the clown was waiting for her to show up with the goods he had been after, so she decided that the best way for her to get inside the club was to mingle with all the dancers. The dancefloor was so dark and crowded that she doubted anybody would notice her among the crazed youngsters.

She keeps an eye on the bouncer who is guarding a certain door and watches the people walking by while glaring menacingly at them.

Touka continues to move to the music while cautiously observing the wealthy people enter the secure room and half-wishes Kaiko had been one of them. But neither he nor she were dumb and ignorant. He won't risk having his identity revealed, especially if there is a rumor that he was the ringleader behind every brothel in Tokyo. She couldn't care less. She hoped to avoid him at all costs and complete her task as quickly as possible, but she was afraid that if her efforts failed, they would have to face each other.

When she spots some important people entering and leaving the secured door, she smiles and almost laughs at what is in store for them. When the FBI shows up at any moment, they will have to bid farewell to their freedom and reputation. She giggles to herself and keeps moving her hips seductively.

"Let's get down to business. I presume we can now eliminate V from our list," declares Marude, watching the agents sitting around the conference table.

"Yes, director," replies Akira. "The club has been observed by each of us in turn, but nothing has been discovered. There must either be nothing there, or they are being extremely cautious."

"Undoubtedly, some sort of illegal activity is going on down there," Kaneki cuts her off, leaning back against his chair to stare at his superior. "As I've mentioned in my previous report, I've witnessed some prominent people meeting with the owner, though I'm not sure if this has anything to do with Kaiko's sex trafficking ring."

"If so, we'll be extremely fortunate if we can capture them and put them into interrogation," mutters Hide. "Kaiko, however, doesn't always carry out the operation in the same location. That would surely be reckless of them."

"Thoughts, Mado?" asks Marude.

"V has quite a bit of a reputation," responds Akira. "Bringing women in skimpy clothing to flaunt for money would be too risky."

"I see," murmurs Marude. His assistant, Mabushi, was jotting down the details that had been given to them on his laptop.

Despite the fact that Marude Itsuki detests his position as the department's director, he is unable to change it since Kishou turned down the promotion.

"We'll continue to periodically check on V, but in the interim, I want each and every one of you to identify some other crucial areas to keep an eye on," says the director with a sigh, stepping away from the board.

"What about the older Fueguchi?" asks Nagachika. "Should we continue to monitor the location where we found her?"

"She was discovered near the mall. I doubt the big boss would operate in such a public place," answers Akira.

"After she had been killed, the victim was left there to try to fool us. Since the last sighting, have any of you discovered anything concerning her daughter?" queries the director.

There is a general 'no' around the room, and Maru clicks his tongue, reclining in his chair to pinch his nose bridge in frustration.

"We have to track down that girl. Something tells me she's in grave danger if her mother has been murdered so ruthlessly," says Kaneki firmly.

"They probably caught her," suggests Nagachika.

"I doubt that. The young girl would have certainly met the same end as her mother if they had managed to capture her," interjects Arima in his neutral tone.

The agents exchange a somber look as they recall the mutilated body they discovered lying behind a dumpster, and a shudder ripples through their bodies. DNA tests confirmed that the sticky mess they had collected between Fueguchi Ryouko's legs and on the rest of her naked body belonged to at least seven different men, proving that she had been conscious when she had been tortured and abused. Even one of the rookies puked after seeing the decaying corpse, as it was such a horrifying sight to behold.

"She's on the run then," concludes Akira.

"If that's the case, she ought to have come to us," protests Hide. "Why would she stay outside without our protection? Kaiko's men patrol every nook and cranny of Tokyo, not to mention he has many connections, so he can find her quickly. She has nowhere to run."

Akira raises an eyebrow and returns, "Not unless she is concealing herself with someone who is adept at eluding Kaiko and his men."

Kaneki and Hide exchange a glance, having realized they are both thinking the same thing. If the young Fueguchi was sheltered by someone capable of such a thing, it would undoubtedly be that enigmatic woman, Touka.

Thanks to Yoriko's polariod, the white-haired man has confirmed that the mysterious woman and Yoriko's best friend are the same person. It feels surreal to know who the dark-haired woman was, and Kaneki finds the idea of knowing her name strangely intimate, more so than his encounter with her at the club.

If they had run into each other, Fueguchi Hinami would have unquestionably stayed with her. After all, as far as he knew, Touka had been monitoring Kaiko for a few weeks—possibly even longer. The young girl would definitely be safe with her, at least for the time being, because it was obvious that Touka knew what she was doing and wouldn't endanger the girl.

After collecting Ryouko's body and learning that she had been gang-raped in a shadowy alley, the FBI also kept patrolling the city, but they had not come across any dead bodies, as would undoubtedly be the case if Hinami and Touka had come across the dangerous man.

The idea makes the white-haired agent shiver, and he berates himself for having such a thought. If it had happened, he probably wouldn't have been able to forgive himself. He has an odd attachment to the woman and is troubled by the knowledge that he could have saved her by simply arresting her.

"If Kirishima knows where and how to look for Kaiko, it may be because of Hinami. That is, if she's with her, " whispers Hide in his ear as the others keep discussing the findings.

"Do you think she's protecting her in the exchange of information then?" asks Kaneki in a low voice.

"Yep, it's feasible. It makes sense considering that Hinami suddenly vanished from the radar," nods Hide.

Kaneki was about to speak, but stops himself and hisses in pain when he feels a pointed object step on his foot underneath the table. He glances sideways and sees their blonde superior, who was sitting beside him and glaring daggers at them before turning her head to look at the director, who kept talking about their main objective.

Mado Akira, who was a few years older than Kaneki and Hide, had been a member of the force for a while, prior to their recruitment. She had been Amon Koutarou's first subordinate after her late father passed away, Amon's mentor. Because she blamed him for her father's passing, the blonde woman had a deep-seated hatred for him. She had grown to care for him along the way, as their relationship strengthened and they began to function well as colleagues. Well, as a lover as well.

"Okay, everyone, it's almost ten. It's time to call it a night," declares Marude, clapping his hands together.

"Finally," Hide groans as he stands up and stretches his arms above his head. "I'm starting to grow tired of your voice, Marude-san." The blond man managed to make crude comments about Marude despite his high position as the director.

"Get out of here, kid, before I spank your arrogant ass," snaps the annoyed director.

"Will do," he replies, walking towards the exit. But before anyone could leave the room, a black-haired young boy barges in with a blissful expression on his face.

"Director! Hanbee just received a call," beams Suzuya, leaning against the door of the entrance as he suckles a lollipop. "There was a woman on the phone, claiming that she had a lead on this Kaiko guy."

"What did she say?" asks Marude in a demanding voice.

"That there's an event for the prostitution ring at V tonight," he reveals.

Everyone stares at each other. If the call proved to be a real lead, the club was apparently not as safe as they had believed.

"Save for Arima, everyone is staying out tonight, so sit your asses down," says Maru, leaving no room for argument. "Get ready. We can't pass up this opportunity. We're going to check this out."

Touka smirks as she observes one of the guards scurrying inside the club with an alarmed expression on his face and moving toward the large man manning the entrance to the secluded room to whisper something in his ear. The large man's expression turns sour and nods to his companion before he enters the protected room as the guard leaves with his hand on his gun that was tucked on his pants.

"Perfect," she mutters, following the huge guy discreetly, making her way between the clueless dancers.

She peeks inside the room and notices Furuta, the clown, chatting animatedly on the phone while seated at his desk. The big guy was nowhere to be found.

"-they're at the door, demanding to investigate the place - Ah! yes, yes, of course." Pause. "I've already sent that big mammoth to hide your toys and the shitty clients downstairs. They should be out of the FBI's sight."

Touka watches the strange man as he listens intently to whoever is on the other end of the line.

"I'm not sure why they came here; we've taken great precautions, and nothing unusual might have led to this - I, no, she's still not here. We haven't seen that fucking woman yet."

He clenches his teeth and spits out a curse under his breath before regaining his composure.

"We'll get her."

He hangs up the phone and gets to his feet to approach the curtain behind him. To Touka's surprise, he draws it aside to reveal a door, which he then opens and enters. She quickly and quietly approaches to block the door from closing with her foot, peeking inside to see there were stairs leading to a basement of some sort. She could hear his footsteps descending the stairs. Looking behind her to make sure that no one noticed her, she then descends the underground stairs, finding another door on the end. When she peeks inside, she discovers couches scattered around with tables and barely touched drinks on top of them.

"Probably where the wealthy gentlemen sit to conduct transactions," she mutters to herself, clicking her tongue, and looking around the room for any sign of that clown or his men before fully entering the room.

When she hears the unmistakable creaking sound of a door opening on the side, she quickly ducks behind on one of the sofa and peeking over to see the big guy from earlier emerges from another well-hidden door that was attaches to the wall. The big guy has a furious expression on his face as he runs upstairs, back to the surface of the club. Touka quickly stands on her feet to peek inside and enters the concealed door. When she closed it behind her, she noted that it was hardly noticeable to someone who was unaware that it existed, as it was practically a part of the wall.

She finds herself standing in another hallway, but this one is full of doors, and she can hear quiet voices coming from the closed rooms.

Touka stands still, hiding in the darkness provided by the door while holding onto her gun in case something unexpected happens. After contemplating, she carefully approaches the first room with her back to the wall, then places her ear against the door and hears a low, masculine growl coming from inside. Touka was well aware that Kaiko's dolls would carry out their "dealings" with the clients in these rooms.

The door to the hallway suddenly springs open, and Touka hurriedly opens the door she was leaning against to enter, interrupting the two occupants on the bed inside. A middle-aged man stares at Touka with surprise, as the bare girl sitting on top of him keeps moving, clearly unaware of Touka's presence.

"Are you here for threesome?" asks the man with excitement in his voice, holding the girl by the hips to stop her.

"You can say that," mutters Touka in a chilly tone.

The man's eyes linger admiringly on her body before opening wide when he sees the gun by her side. Alarmed, he attempts to open his mouth, but she quickly pulls the weapon out and points it at him.

"Scream and you're dead," she warns him, her voice calm yet venomous.

When the girl on top of him, who appeared to be barely of age, seems to have noticed her presence, she quickly jumps off to hide under the covers out of fear, leaving the naked man lying down with his deflating penis covered in juices. Touka frowns at the sight and looks down on him with disgust.

"Look, I'm so sorry if I offended you in any way. Please, don't kill me. I can give you whatever you want! I have money! Please, just don't kill me! I have a family," he pleads for his life, taking the covers from the girl and wrapping them around his body. The girl yelps, and jumps off to hide underneath the bed.

"Family, my ass," scoffs Touka. "Money can't buy what I want anyway," she mutters, more to herself than to him, before a knock on the door interrupts her.

"Mister?" asks a voice that Touka recognized as being Furuta's. She hurriedly makes her way to the door as she casts a menacing look at the quivering man.

"Say something stupid, and you could lose your dick for good," she mouthed.

He nods, terrified of her. "Y-yes?"

"We're currently having some problems, so I'd like to ask that you keep quiet until I tell you otherwise." They could hear the little laugh on the clown's voice.

Touka listens intently and continues to point her gun at the man, observing how he cowers in the face of her threatening stare. Furuta appears to be walking from room to room, telling the occupants to remain silent while the authorities upstairs inspect the premises.

"Will do," answers the man, sinking further into the mattress. She can hear the low sobs coming from the girl hiding behind the bed, and Touka pities the young girl for being dragged into such a lifestyle.

When she hears the cryptic clown's footsteps getting farther away from the room, she shoots the man another glare.

"Stay here if you don't want me to carry out my threat."

He nods hastily, sweat starting to form on his forehead. She quietly opens the door as she leaves the room. In the dim hallway, she notices Furuta knocking on the other room, with his back on her. She sneaks up behind him, covers his mouth with her hand to keep him from alerting the guards, and pins his front against the wall.

"Don't move," she whispers, pressing the barrel of her gun against his back.

She turns him around with her hand still covering his mouth as he mutters something that she is unable to hear due to the sound being muffled by her hand. His eyes squint before becoming animatedly wide when he recognizes the short-haired woman who had made them many promises.

"Now, I'm going to remove my hand, and if you do something remotely suspicious, I won't hesitate to press the barrel," she mutters and removes her hands, searching him like she had done to the white-haired agent.

Furuta looks like he's about to burst into tears, but the way his eyes gleam with mischief tells her otherwise.

He gasps dramatically, and cries out, "I hate fighting, so let's do this peacefully! I left my weapon behind because I knew that the FB-motherfucking-I would look suspicious and definitely detain me if they searched me and discove -"

He stops mid-sentence when the impatient woman raises her knee and strikes him in the face with it, resulting in his front tooth getting knocked out of its socket.

"Shut the fuck up, will ya?" She hisses as she keeps searching him.

The man cradles his throbbing face, blood oozing out of his mouth as he tries to put his tooth back.

"Now," she starts after she finished searching him, "You're going to lead me through each room as if I were one of your other patrons. I want you to show me every occupant of every room, not just your clients, but also your toys."

He nods quietly while holding his extracted tooth in place, and she smirks triumphantly as she pushes him forward while pressing the gun up against his back. He opens the first door and peers inside, and Touka takes a look over his shoulder. The bed's three occupants—this time, a woman, a young-looking man, and an elderly man—were acting rather vivaciously and didn't give a damn about the visitors.

She inspects them from her vantage point and notices that the young man and woman both have a numerical number tattooed on their wrists. In the end, Touka's presumption was accurate. Not only are these clowns ruining the lives of innocent women, but also those of men.

How disgusting and despicable.

"Let's keep going," she tells him, retreating back as he closes the door.

"If you could let me know what you were looking for, this would be simpler, you know," he comments, despite losing a tooth, he still manages to keep his cryptic smile.

"Shut up," she groans, pushing the gun further into his back. "Just follow my instructions if you want to survive and keep your remaining teeth."

As the two of them move through the rooms, Touka witnesses scenes and body parts she had never anticipated seeing. When they reach the remaining room, Furuta hesitates before opening the door and walking inside with Touka close behind. There are about twelve women and men inside, sitting motionless on the ground. When they hear the door open and see Furuta, they immediately lower their heads, bodies trembling in fear.

She's right. Their business practices involve transgender people, men, and women offering sexual services.

"These are the ladies and gents that weren't requested for the night," says Furuta. Touka observes them all, sighing in displeasure, and grimaces when she notices that half of them are young enough to be in high school.

"I still don't know what you were looking for," Furuta sighs, and pauses. "Or who," he adds, maliciously.

That seems to tick her off before she kicks him forward inside. She turns him around and slams him against the wall as he bites his tongue in response to the sharp pain against his front.

"Little missy, it seems like you enjoy seeing me in this position," he laughs, and she huffs.

"Eat shit!" She snaps, and he instantly goes silent.

Touka's eyes searched the room for a way to restrain him, wishing she had handcuffs on her, when she noticed that one of the male escorts on the ground, who were watching them with curiosity, was wearing a pretty shawl around his neck. She smiles triumphantly and motions for him to come over. The young man with dark hair widens his eyes and looks down in panic.

"Calm down, I won't do anything that would hurt you. I just want you to come closer," tells him Touka in a voice she hoped to be reassuring. "I just need that shawl around your neck. I won't hurt anyone other than this clown."

Touka gives a tentative smile, and the young man nods before crawling over to her and giving her the shawl. She thanked him, and she quickly encircled Furuta's wrists with the soft cloth, pushing him down until he was face-flat on the ground.

"Now everyone," she tells them, bending down to grab the keys dangling from Furuta's belt, "I want you to watch over him for a bit while I'm out there."

A few of them reluctantly nod while the majority of them remain silent, and Touka stands up to leave the room, leaving Furuta frowning in her wake.

Unlike when she had first entered it, the second hallway with lots of room was quiet and devoid of the moaning and grunting. She carefully opens up the well-hidden door to take a quick peek over at the first hallway. When she's sure that it's safe enough, she walks over to the front door that leads up to the club's surface and rests one ear against it while holding a gun in her hand. Outside, she can make out some muddled voices.

"-nothing. There is only one hallway with numerous sofas and tables, but it is completely empty," says a male voice.

"Have you found the club's owner or any of the managerial staff?" asks a feminine voice.

"The guys upstairs claimed that he wouldn't be here tonight. We asked them to call their boss, but he won't pick up his phone," replies the first man.

"Sounds suspicious. Do you think he knew that we'd be here to investigate them?" says another male, and Touka smiles when she recognizes the voice of the white-haired agent.

"That or the call was a total fabrication."

The success of her strategy makes Touka smile. Even though she ultimately failed to find what she was looking for, calling the agents was a ruse to get the guards to leave the area so she could explore.

Touka hides behind one of the sofas and waits until the woman—who was likely the operation's squad leader—gives orders. When she hears them leave and head upstairs, she moves stealthily towards the door, and she glances back to make sure no one was following her. She was about to exit and sneak out of the place unnoticed when she bumps into a broad chest. She looks up, her eyes bulging, when she sees her favorite agent's surprise-filled grey eyes gazing down at her. She hadn't seen or even heard him, but he appeared to be hurriedly descending the stairs.

He opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, she smirks at him and grabs him by the collar, dragging him towards the secret passage.

"Woah, wait," he spouts as he nearly trips over his own feet. She ignores him and drags him inside of an unoccupied room, shutting the door and pushing him up against it.

"Being pushed around has never been something I've enjoyed, but lately, it's turned into one of my favorite things," he says, swallowing his own spit. "I'd say I'm surprised to see you here, but it's the least unexpected thing that has happened to me in the past few weeks."

"I'm glad to see you, too," she winks.

"That wasn't the impression you left with after our previous encounter," he comments, his eyes darkening, and he looks so good with that expression that it causes Touka to wet her lips with her tongue.

"I was in a mood," she replies after a few seconds. "Don't make me change my mind now and tie you up again."

They exchange heated looks after a brief period of silence before Kaneki seizes the opportunity to speak. "I'm going to venture a wild guess and say you're the one who called the station."

"Bingo," she snaps her finger, releasing him and walking backwards. "I felt that you guys needed my extra help, and I was clearly right. Without me, you would never have discovered this area."

As he becomes suddenly aware of his surroundings, the agent looks around and furrows his brows. "What exactly is this place? And why didn't we see it when we were inspecting the other corridor?

"It's some sort of hidden passage," she explains with a shrug. "If I hadn't been hiding when the big guy opened this door, I probably wouldn't have noticed it either. Don't feel bad, Sasaki, if I had used more legal and ethical means like you did, I probably wouldn't have found it either."

He groans, leaning his head against the wall with a low thud. "Oh, how I wish you would stop calling me that."

"Why? What would I call you then?" She asks, looking at him through her lashes and leaning against his form.

"By my name," he breathes out. "Kaneki Ken. Or just Ken."

The warmth of her body abruptly leaves him as Touka moves away from the agent with a troubled expression on her face. She did not imagine him saying his name. She had not even attempted to look for it past the codename he was known by—Sasaki Haise, for fear of becoming overly attached to the man. Even though she only had one mission, she had already failed it when she became entangled with him.

Kaneki looks at her face with worry, but before he can ask her what was wrong, she slips back into her smug expression.

"I hope you aren't expecting a name from me right now," she says.

"I don't need it," he replies under his breath. "So, could you please tell me what's down here before my partners start looking for me? They'll assume I got in a pinch if they don't see me with them."

She simply scoffs, turning her back to walk away from him. "Follow me, agent Sasaki."

He could only comply, irked that she wouldn't address him by his real name, and at the same time, he struggled against the urge to grab her and push her against the wall as the swing of her hips made his mouth dry.

He follows her to the end of the hallway as she stops and pulls out a set of keys from her pocket, reminding Kaneki of the time she stole the key for his handcuffs. She unlocks the door and gestures for him to look inside, and the white-haired agent casts a wary glance her way. He didn't want his comrades to catch him with his tail between his legs yet again, since she had a habit of getting him stuck in certain places.

Despite this, he peeks inside and his mouth forms an O when he notices the women and men huddled together on the floor a short distance from a certain scowling man who appeared to have his hands tied in some sort of scarf.

"See, agent, I did all the work for you. There's even the boss you guys were looking for," she smiles, winking at him. "Also, check their wrists. There is a tattoo on them that verifies they are, in fact, victims of human trafficking."

"You are one brilliant woman," he mutters as he inspects each one of them, and Touka feels a jolt in her heart, but she chooses to ignore it in favor of gazing intently into his face.

"Who the fuck are you? Are you working with that woman? I should have listened to the boss, you're going to bring us down now," says Furuta, glaring daggers at them.

"You should maybe speak more respectfully as I am the cop here," replies Kaneki, lifting an eyebrow. "I guess this goes without saying," he starts, walking towards him and taking his new set of handcuffs out of his pocket, "and Akira-san would have my head in a sling if I don't follow protocol. So you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law-"

Hot damn, thought Touka, watching him with undisguised desire. I can only imagine him using that authoritative tone in bed.

"-you have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you - damn," he takes a deep breath, cutting himself off mid-sentence.

"What? You wish you didn't have to say those Miranda Rights?" Laughs Touka, leaning against the door to watch him with amusement.

"Damn, right," muses Kaneki, as Furuta watches the exchange with astonishment. The white-haired agent pushes him against the wall, and the dark-haired man curses them both for being fond of shoving people against vertical surfaces. It was probably some sort of weird fetish thing they had going on between them.

"Now, you're going to stay here while I escort the lady out, understood?" he commands with a strong voice.

"Know who my father is, you fucking nuggets?"

"No, why? Your mother didn't tell you?" Kaneki asks in an innocent voice, and Touka suppresses her giggle behind her fist.

"Fuck you," spat an enraged Furuta.

"I don't do charity work." Kaneki leaves the man behind and walks out with Touka on his trail, looking at him questionably.

"Escort me?" She inquires. "No thanks, I don't need that. Just like the big girl I am, I infiltrated this place on my own and will leave on my own."

He stops walking. "Let's make a deal then," he starts, turning around to look at her. "If you tell me what you're searching for, then I'll let you go."

"How about I shoot you and walk away, hm?" She suggests, folding her arms against her chest.

"With what?" He smiles and pulls something from his vest to dangle in front of a dumbfounded Touka. "This gun? It seems like you're not in possession of it anymore."

"Son of a bitch," she groans out, embarrassed at being so easily played out. This time around, the roles were reversed. She shouldn't have been shocked since this man was an FBI agent after all, and it is evident that the training he went through was worthwhile.

"So," he continues, "how about you tell me why you're looking for Kaiko?"

She flexes her shoulders and shoots him a heated look as she considers her options. She could try to fight him and run away, but he had her weapon and was clearly physically stronger than her. Without her gun, it would be more challenging to get away from the guards encircling the club. Her plan would be put on hold indefinitely if she allowed him to arrest her, so she only had the option to accede to his request.

"How about I tell you my name? Don't you want to know the name of the woman you fucked in the upstairs bathroom?" She taunts.

His eyes seem to darken, and his smile stiffens up. "Why should I? As you yourself stated, I don't need it. It was a one-time thing only, so why?" He replies, reciting back the words she told him after their heated encounter.

"Vas te faire foutre," she sneers, indubitably angry.

"You already took care of that." He smiles with undisguised trepidation. "So what are you going to choose? We can't play this game anymore, I'm the cop here, after all. Give me a reason to let you go."

"Fine," she snaps out coldly, and he goes silent, watching her intensely. "I'm not looking for that little fucker. In fact, I don't really care about him."

When she notices his bewildered expression, she replaces the annoyance on her face with a broad smile.

"Surprised?" She chuckles. "I don't give one or two fucks about the man, he can go fuck himself. I'm looking for someone else."

"And who could it be? One of his subordinates?" he asks.

She scoffs in amusement. "You're not even close, though. Actually, I'm looking for a woman and a man that Kaiko's minions have taken away from me. He sells both men and women, that's why I have a notion that he might have included them in his small collection. That's also the reason why I'm pursuing his prostitution trade and came here to check out the event that happened tonight."

"Is that why you shelter Fueguchi Hinami? To get information on the prostituted?" He demands.

She furrows her eyebrows at him, folding her arms underneath her ample chest. "How do you know that?"

"I'm an agent, baby, don't forget that. It's my job to figure things out and decode riddles," he grins lopsidedly.

"Who's the one coming up with nicknames now?" She muses. "So, can I have my gun back already? I need to leave this place as soon as possible."

"Not until you name the people you're looking for."

"For fuck's sake," she huffs in frustration. "They were my guardians and very dear to me. There, happy now?"

"Very," he responds, clearly amused.

There were no longer any signs of the hostility that had once existed between them, allowing for a more tolerable yet tense atmosphere. She impatiently reaches for the gun as Kaneki approaches her and hands it to her. But just as she is about to grab it, he takes it away from her reach and grabs hold of the same hips that had been testing his patience. He then presses her flushed body against his and seals her lips with his own.

Despite the strong hold he had on her hips, his lips were gentle. She barely feels his lips on hers and yet her heart flutters wildly because of it. He deepens the touch after a second, his warm breath sucking her own, and dives down further. She remains motionless for a brief moment before melting into the kiss and expressing eagerness in response to the warm familiarity of his touch. The pleasurable feeling sends sparks through her brain.

He walks forward, causing her to step backward and lean her back against the wall.

Can't restrain himself, Kaneki brings his other hand to rest on her cheek, angling her jaw upward and deepening their kiss as his tongue fights for dominance inside her mouth. She can't stop the pleading mewl that leaves her throat. His mouth opens and his teeth clamp harshly over her lower lip, and Touka gasps, panting out as he kisses around the ridge of her lips before covering them again with his own.

It wasn't long before they both needed to breathe. Kaneki leans back, leaving scorching lips and heavy breaths behind as remnants of the kiss, and stares intensely into her eyes. Touka, who is still dazed from the passionate kiss, feels something cold press against the palm of her hand, breaking their eye contact to look at her hand.

"Your gun," he says, clearly proud of his performance.

"Uh - yeah, thanks," she stutters, clearing her throat.

"I believe you ought to leave before my team arrives," he suggests. "Again," he adds.

"I should. Yeah, I think I should," she repeats dumbly, nipping her lips and looking at the door leading to the club.

She casts him a worried look and detects a frightening glint of longing in his eyes. He had promised that he would figure her out, but Touka feared that he had gone beyond what he had promised to do.

"You solved a significant portion of the case and handed it to us on a silver platter, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to report you to my unit," he tells her, smiling down at her. "From now on, you'll need to exert more caution."

"Don't worry," she retorts, coming back to her old self. "I excel at what I do. Check the other rooms as well, you might discover something interesting there."

With those words, she turns and walks away from him. He watches her go, as he has done many times before, his heart racing from that one simple kiss. It appears that being apart from her for extended periods of time caused that to happen to him.

"I hope you soon find Koma-san and Irimi-san," he calls before she can exit through the door.

She turns to face him and nods before completely leaving the premises, without realizing what he had just revealed. Kaneki shakes his head, chuckling to himself as he waits for 10 minutes to make sure that she is already gone while checking the other rooms before turning his earpiece on.

"Akira-san, the premises need to be locked up, and nobody should be allowed to leave. The call wasn't a hoax, you might want to head down to the basement to see this…"

#touken #kanetou #kirishima touka #kaneki ken #tokyo ghoul re #tokyo ghoul #my writing

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