#like before it was always implied they’re the same age so they were technically twins

[damndeacon]

I’m not seeing enough people talk about how adorable the replicants are as babies especially yums scrunched face 😭😭😭❤️

#also the fact that this basically makes them twins??? #like before it was always implied they’re the same age so they were technically twins #BUT THIS IS THE SAME POT AT THE SAME TIME THESE ARE TWINS BABEYYYY #solar opposites #yumyulack opposites #jesse opposites #tervo #terry opposites #korvo opposites

[still-a-morosexual-help]

OBEY ME! LESSON 46 DETAILED SUMMARY + THEORIES

This lesson’s got two locked chapters that I can’t unlock :’)

D takes them to the casino where they meet Mammon in the Lamp event outfit. When he laughs and tells them that they must have forgotten who he is if they think they can take the money MC ignores all of this to ask him wtf he’s wearing. Mammon blushes and tells them that they have no right to criticize what he’s wearing considering what they’re wearing. Then he says also Lucifer wtf happened to you!? He laughs and teases Lucifer about getting shrunk and how he could accidentally step on him and kill him rn or how Beel might eat him as a snack. I saw someone say that Mammon was a little shit who was also BabyTM and like Yess!??? I love when we get to see more of the asshole side of him specially when we already know how soft he is. Man’s an onion :’) Beel says he wouldn’t do that unless Lucifer hid inside a piece of cake and Beel swallowed him whole without realising. Lucifer, off screen: “You’d better realise I was there!” And Like??? That’s the point Lucifer wants to argue? Not the fact that he wouldn’t hide inside a cake? Mammon says whatever and that he’ll take Lucifer from them so he can have fun with his new toy anyway RIP to Mammon who dies after this lesson. “Mammon, Avatar of Greed, Appears”- gonna have Pokemon Battles from now on, I can’t believe this what this dating sim has evolved into :D Mammon uses wind to lift Lucifer up and bring him towards him. MC has a flashback to the previous night and commands Beel who transforms into a demon and whose body starts moving on its own, Beel then cancels out Mammon’s spell and uses a wind spell to send Mammon flying. Beel transforms back to his human form and is shocked by what happened. Solomon says MC did a good job commanding Beel though they weren’t able to draw out all his powers. They get the armour, which Beel thinks is too flashy but MC tells him it looks great which he is happy about. D tells them about a rumour of Satan attacking a town up north.

As they walk through the woods Lucifer talks about how much he’s gonna love beating the shit outta Mammon when he’s back to normal and waves MC off when they ask him to go easy on Mammon. Beel says that Lucifer used to be a lot nicer to Mammon in the celestial realm and how the two of them would team up to go argue with Raphael. Solomon asks if it was Diavolo who got Lucifer to change and what exactly Lucifer had to do to reach the status they now enjoy in the Devildom. Beel seems shocked at this and ask Lucifer if it’s true. He says he doesn’t remember. There’s growling & they’re suddenly surrounded by ghosts. Solomon: Oh yeah lol this is called the Black Phantom Forest. Everyone else: WHY the FUCK didn’t you say so before!? They run from the ghosts and set up camp beside a lake, MC & Beel talk. Beel says how they’ve all changed from their time in the Celestial Realm and he can’t remember when he stopped resisting the urge to constantly eat. But how somethings are still the same and how the brothers have always been together and how they always will be. He brings up the three things the butcher said to maintain a long relationship and how even though they may sometimes falter at the “respect each other” part when it comes down to it the brothers have all three things with each other (Not me sobbing like a baby. It’s the found family trope for me guys). Beel says how he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to fight Belphie if they meet him in the game and how he has so many people who he loves that he doesn’t know who to put first and that he knows many people would kill to have that kinda problem and that as both an angel and a demon he’s being lucky to have the people he loves. MC gets to hold his hand, lean on his shoulder or say nothing and guys I love Beel so much he’s just so pure god. Okay so theory part: I 100% believe (& it’s implied in canon and in the chats too) and the main reason Lucifer is so mean to Mammon now is because he’s scared if he doesn’t discipline him then Diavolo will and he’ll end up with another Lilith situation. That being said I NEED to know how Lucifer came across Mammon in the celestial realm and what he said to make Mammon so loyal to him. PLS om! Give me the boys backstory? I like to think Lucifer raised Mammon the same way Simeon is raising Luke and that’s why you can see some of Lucifer’s traits in Mammon whenever he becomes serious about something and why Mammon sometimes slips up and calls Lucifer “Dad” and why Lucifer becomes so happy about it. I also think the others would have been older than Mammon was when he first met Lucifer, when they eventually joined the family which is why they share far less traits with Lucifer and why (as far as we know) none of them have called Lucifer ‘dad”. If this is true it also brings up a real interesting dynamic between Satan and Mammon that would be useful when writing fics. You know a little deeply buried resentment and envy about Lucifer having been more of a father figure to Mammon than to the person who is technically his actual son, and since we know for a fact that right after arriving in the Devildom Lucifer starts going through an existential crisis and Mammon’s the one who steps up to look after the others I 100% believe Mammon’s the one who did most of the work in raising a newly created Satan and who taught him how to control his anger so well (cause lets be real it definitely couldn’t be any of the others) which also gives backstory to Satan’s “do you think Mammon’s actually the most decent of us” homescreen comment and more importantly adds spice to the relationship dynamic you can work with in fics.

When they wake up Beel is thankful that they didn’t get eaten. Solomon: not like you would have noticed with all the fun you had *wink wink* Lucifer: wtf Solomon:*WINK WINK* Me: bro they were just talking…  they find out game time and real world time pass differently and come across a treasure chest in the middle of their path. Solomon: Lets open it! :D Lucifer: Expect that’s definitely a trap… Solomon: Exactly! Which is why we should open it! :D MC: Lets open it! :D Lucifer: Why is the entire human species so fucking stupid!? Why were you created without any self preservation!? Who approved this!?  They find medicine, a warding bottle and cat ears. …They put Lucifer into the bottle and Lucifer’s really going through it in this huh. But opening the chest pulls up an inescapable battle with the final boss, and Satan pops up fully immersed in the villain role with an evil laugh and everything. Luci asks MC to use something from the chest and they use the cat ears and Lucifer’s disappointed when they actually work. But it only deals 222 damage to Satan’s 870k HP. Satan paralyses them all and steals bottled lucifer and calls Belphie to finish the others off. I can’t remember if I mentioned this before but how did the brothers know that Lucifer was gonna be mini before they even got home, it would’ve had to be quite a bit in advance for them to so perfectly set up everything… And you know Solomon was really determined to open that chest (I mean so was MC but the whole of season 1 was establishing that their curiosity was gonna get them killed) so…

MC tells Belphie they don’t want to fight him and Belphie says he doesn’t want to fight either but at the same time Satan agreed to give him mine lucifer for a whole day if he defeats them. Beel’s still reluctant and Belphie says Beel doesn’t have to worry cause Belphie isn’t the same small/weak person that Beel always had to protect (and holy shit I need more info on this too?). Beel eventually agrees and says that Belphie’s strong, he tells MC that they weren’t able to use his entire power against Mammon cause he was holding himself back unconsciously but that he was ready now. MC makes Beel do a bunch of wind attacks and they defeat Belphie who’s impressed. Beel says that the magic was actually MC doing it not him (even though he was the one that executed it). Belphie says he’ll join their party if MC promises him that he’ll be allowed to poke at mini luci. MC tells him there’s a damned line and he’ll have to wait his turn. Solomon wonders if MC should be going around giving the right to annoy lucifer to others but also he wants that right too. Even though Lucifer was kidnapped since he’s still in the bottle he’ll be protected so MC’s test is still ongoing. Odd that there was a bottle that would protect Lucifer should he get kidnapped in the chest that was a trap… look we all know Solomon is shady enough that he’s probably behind this right?

During dinner at a tavern the twins are sickeningly soft with each other and Solomon watches them with a smile. For the night the twins end up sharing a room with each other, with Mc and Solomon alone together. In the middle of the night MC wakes up to Solomon still up and looking sad. They ask him what’s up. He says despite how much they walked he still isn’t tired and that seeing the twins together made him lonely. Seeing how much they love and care and understand each other and how they were always together made him wish he had something similar but how when you didn’t age it was difficult to from lasting bonds like that in the human world. MC tells him that all of them care about him and he says he hopes so. Solomon: Lol just the two of us in a room in a game, wouldn’t it be crazy if we made out? MC can either kiss him or kinda stare awkwardly. If they choose the second he apologises for suddenly putting them on the spot and says he won’t try anything else. So this might be kinda an unpopular opinion and I’m genuinely really happy that the side characters are getting more screen time and development because I desperately needed that but I’m not really onboard the romancing option with them? I’m happy they’ve got their own cards now and I love the devilgram stories and romance options in them but I don’t think it makes sense in the context of the main storyline? Barbatos has almost no interaction with MC and though they haven’t shown it yet it’d be weird if he was suddenly into MC. Diavolo spent 2 whole seasons simping over Lucifer why is MC suddenly an option? Besides Diavolo always seems so lonely and I really want him and MC to be really good friends, I want Diavolo to have a friendship where there isn’t some condition that hangs over it like there is with his relationship with Barbatos and Lucifer. The same goes with Solomon. I just want him to have a good solid friendship where there isn’t expectations or power between them. He also initially only seems interested in MC for their power and as a way to train them and eventually genuinely softens up to them, Just the request to kiss seemed outta nowhere? I don’t know why but with Simeon he seems above crushes? I always imagine him seeing MC as another cute kid Lucifer picked up (despite MC being an adult) and having a sort of soft indulgent attitude towards them. I don’t know I think I just want MC to have some friends who aren’t trying to sleep with them.

Solomon is extremely chipper the next morning and Belphie grumpily makes a comment about him having fun and sdfjdvnsjdokd they just talked. Belphie uses his magic to teleport them to Satan’s castle and Beel asked why he couldn’t do that the previous night, Belphie says grumpily cause then Solomon would have missed out on the fun and Solomon agrees and THEY JUST TALKED!? Satan has managed to transform Lucifer into wolf Lucifer and is shaking his bottle hard enough to make Luci wanna puke while Lucifer asks him to stop. MC tells satan to stop and he tells them they won’t be able to defeat him cause they skipped right to the boss battle without taking the long route and levelling up. MC says they’re not gonna fight him cause this whole thing is fucking stupid. Satan says it’s not cause he’s having fun. MC gives him one of their free therapy sessions about how important the bonds between he and his brothers are and how they don’t care more about helping the brothers all get along than some stupid star. Beel comes out spitting facts, saying they all know that Satan actually cares about Lucifer and how that embarrasses him and how he needs to stop hiding it by lashing out. And how Lucifer needs to get his shit together and be honest with satan. That he needs to tell Satan that Lucifer knows he’s his own demon and a really good demon at that. Lucifer says FYI but I never said you weren’t your own great person and Satan blushes and says that unless he wants to look childish he has no option but to accept the olive branch. He tosses Luci to MC. Belphie complains about having stupid older brothers and Solomon says he’s disappointed in Satan and reveals himself as the true secret final boss and FUCK YEAH! I CALLED THAT SHIT! Kinda – I thought he might have just given them a heads up about Luci’s condition. On a different note, Satan needs serious therapy. They all do tbh.

Solomon congratulates MC on what they’ve done so far but says they still haven’t accessed Beel’s full potential and that he’ll give his ‘adorable apprentice’ one more shit at it. Solomon summons Asmo who complains about how long he was made to wait and how he nearly gave up and went to the spa and that no one likes a selfish man. Solomon tells Asmo that he can tell him all this after they get back to the real world and I genuinely want the backstory of how they met and just more about their relationship. At Solomon’s command Asmo uses charm and paralyses Beel and at MC’s Beel uses another wind attack. Asmo says he’s never seen beel do something of this calibre before and he seems more powerful, even more than he was in the celestial realm, Asmo yells at Solomon for just standing and seeming impressed instead of helping him. There’s a bright white light.

Back home with everything back to normal Beel, Lucifer and MC are hanging out by the pool. Lucifer is in an unexpectedly good mood and MC has earned a star, which glows slightly from its place on the symbol etched to the back of their hand. Inside Solomon is feeding the other brothers as punishment. Mammon is sobbing his heart out and Levi is out cold (possibly dead). Satan is given Levi’s remaining share of food and Asmo is in tears. Belphie had made a run for it the second they got home and is nowhere to be found. Solomon talks about how nice Lucifer actually is and how he really loves his brothers cause he just made Solomon make them dinner instead of punishing any of them…. Love that the canonical reason why none of these demons tell Solomon about his food and allow themselves to get tortured is cause they don’t wanna be rude and hurt his feelings. And he thought no one cared about him. If that isn’t love I dunno what is. Beel and MC take a walk while Lucifer sits by the pool and in his words basks in “their screams of agony” While blushing beel says he’s grateful for what happened and how that star is proof that they got closer. Mc can either thank him or say that the star belongs to him. I think they kiss after the second option? For the first Beel says MC’s the one who did the work of drawing out his power. Over the echoing screams from inside Beel asks if they feel like they forgot something and ndfjkfjkdjfefjkn THEY FORGOT DIAVOLO I’M!!!!???? poor baby

#my posts #my theories #obey me spoilers #obey me! #obey me #swd obey me #shall we date? obey me! #obey me shall we date

[absynthe--minded]

for the ship questions: all the odd numbers for russingon??? please and thank you

all the odd numbers!!

okay I am answering this one First but there are some other asks I technically got first so I’m going to exclude a few for the sake of answering all of them! I hope that’s okay. Below the cut for length and some quasi-NSFW discussion.

PRE-RELATIONSHIP:

1. How did they first meet?

this is actually the plot of one of my fics! Finno goes to a party with his parents, wanders off to get drunk and enjoy the free food, and winds up getting very drunk and then seeing Maitimo and assuming he’s a Maia because of how hot he is. he is in fact so very drunk that he straight up forgets that “Curufinwë” and “Fëanáro” are the same person and doesn’t understand why Maitimo is like “what the fuck why are you talking to me oh shit you’re hot”. (Maitimo ditches his date to the party to climb a tree, drink wine, and deal with the fact that he’s suddenly interested in a boy.)

5. Did either of them try to resist their feelings?

Maitimo tried so fucking hard to resist his feelings. He basically tried to be like. Gay But By Telperion’s Light Only. he’d write poetry and burn it, he’d stare into the stars and the silver light and be Dreamy and Distant. (Finno leapt into having feelings with his whole self and everyone knew he was pining after someone. He kept trying to play it off as nothing serious, but everyone around him knew. Everyone.)

7. What would their lives be like if they had never met?

Maitimo would be married to the daughter of one of Fëanáro’s first and most loyal allies in the Tirion court. Her name was Cirissë, she was chosen for him by Fëanáro (with the clear caveat of “if you’d rather marry someone else please give me the name and I’ll arrange it”) and the expectation was that they’d have at least one child named Cantëafinwë. As the eldest of his House and since he didn’t have any great works or passions of his own, his “job” was to carry on Míriel Þerindë’s legacy. If he had objected to this or found something else to do with his life, Fëanáro would have given way, but Maitimo prior to meeting Findekáno was okay with having an arranged marriage. This wasn’t a decision made in spite of his feelings - he’d never said he wasn’t all right with it.

Findekáno would probably be drifting through life without really any sense of purpose - I’m going to assume that history goes very differently if they don’t meet, because not meeting implies that even the Darkening doesn’t quite go as planned - and I think he’d have settled for the single life, floating from party to party and social event to social event without ever really being rooted in something.

GENERAL:

1. Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go?

Findekáno was the one who insisted they become proper friends and start spending time together, and who introduced Maitimo to the joys of fucking around in the meadows outside Tirion on their free days. He was bold, and intense, and bright, and constantly smiling. But it was Maitimo who confessed his feelings. They went out one day - it was Finno’s begetting day, and Maitimo had gotten him a falcon (they took up falconry as an excuse to be out and about and alone for days, but they’d been using Finwë’s mews and Finwë’s birds) and they were with their horses and their birds, and Maitimo very shyly admitted that what he felt was more than friendship.

Finno kissed him, and he almost fell out of his saddle and off his mare.

5. What’s their height difference? Age difference?

Their height difference is a little ridiculous. Maitimo is eight and a half feet tall, which is Very Tall by elvish standards. Finno is seven feet tall, which is on the taller side of “average” - his mother Anairë is taller than he is, and Artanís is like 7′9″. He comes up to about his husband’s sternum. Maitimo isn’t really built, though? He’s actually quite delicate and slender when you look at him on his own, but compared to quite a lot of other elves he’s buff as hell just by virtue of needing to be muscular to move all those bones around. Their age difference is actually something that’s kind of hard to calculate but I’ve worked it out - Maitimo is 90 solar years older than Finno, he was about the human equivalent of eighteen when his husband was born. They met for the first time when Maitimo was 190 solar years old and Finno was 100 solar years old - they were both adults, in the same stage of life.

7. Who takes the lead in social situations?

It depends on the social situation tbh! Findekáno tends to take the lead in most things that involve being a bright and shiny polite happy public figure, because he’s charismatic and intuitive and good at that kind of thing, but Maitimo will lead if it’s one of his few areas of expertise or if his husband is floundering. He does have a flair for the dramatic and it’s a very natural thing for him.

9. Who whispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear?

They both do, because they’re fortunate enough to have a telepathic bond that lets them communicate silently in a room full of other people. It made for some fascinating council meetings the few times they wound up sharing a space in that way.

LOVE:

3. Who uses cheesy pick-up lines?

Elves don’t really have cheesy pick-up lines, but they’ve both fallen victim to sappy poetry. Maitimo probably holds the record there for sheer number of dumb things he’s said solely for the purposes of getting Finno’s attention, though. There are. A Lot of those.

5. Who initiates kisses?

Maitimo. Always, constantly. His primary method of affection and of emotional expression is “Kiss Husband” and he does it all the time.

7. What are their favorite things to do together?

I’m excluding sex from this because the answer to that question is “sex”, honestly. They like cooking (Maitimo cooks and Finno watches him), and going riding, and one time Maitimo climbed the side of a cliff and Finno went along with it solely to stare at his ass. Finno is terrible at archery and at the harp but he’ll do both of those things because they make his husband happy. They like reading, and discussing what they’ve read, and if they’d had the chance they would have enjoyed the theater.

9. Who’s more protective?

see this is sort of a weird question because like

Maitimo is Obviously Protective. He glowers, and he glowers protectively, and he does things like plant spies in Nolofinwë’s household so he can keep an eye on his husband’s movements. He considers himself Findekáno’s guard, and he’s very very paranoid so he’s very very good at guarding. (The one time he saves Findekáno from orcs and from Sauron he has several mental breakdowns all at once.) Maitimo is the obvious answer here.

But Finno will cross a room in half a second and vault over like sixteen tables to smack you with his riding glove and demand you duel him if he’s all the way on the other side of the hall and thinks he heard you considering insulting Maitimo.

It goes both ways tbh.

11. What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise?

The in-universe songs that apply to their relationship are basically all written about them, lol. I tend to headcanon that the song Findekáno sang is preserved through the ages to some extent and its ultimate form is the song that Sam sings in the tower of Cirith Ungol? So take that as you will.

Out of universe... well, I have a shitton of playlists, but I’ll leave you with the song that inspired my Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang fic, “Last Train Home” by Ryan Star.

13. Who remembers the little things?

It depends on the little things. Maitimo remembers every detail of every military operation he ever devised, but Findekáno remembers what day of the week it is.

DOMESTIC LIFE:

3. How many kids do they have, if any? What are they like?

Gil-galad would have been their kid in a happier world. He’s the biological son of Lalwendë Finwiel and Gildor Inglorion of the House of Finrod, sent to Barad Eithel when his mother and father were missing-presumed-dead after the Dagor Bragollach, and Findekáno adopted him as his ward and heir but didn’t keep him in Hithlum due to the danger.

(They do, however, have three additional children that they don’t find out about until Valinor, because Sauron is a mad scientist and he had unrestricted access to Maitimo for sixty years, and because Findekáno bled all over the Thangorodrim cliff-face when he slammed face-first into it. Those children are Autamar Autahala, whom I’ve mentioned before (he’s their eldest and the only one who’s descended from both of them), and Alya and Ailinwë, twins who are descended solely from Maitimo. Their three kids show up at their house one day, the same ages as they were when they all died, and that’s a fun time for everyone.)

Gil-galad is brave and fair and just and all that good shit you need to be a king. Autamar is kind of terrifying because growing up in Angband and being groomed to be a puppet ruler will do that to you, but he’s very smart and very dry-witted. Alya and Ailinwë died when they were quite young, but they’re very bright, and Alya is as fond of horses as Maitimo is. She also likes knives.

5. Who’s the stricter parent?

Maitimo. He’s got more experience parenting, as opposed to Finno who died and then suddenly found out that his ward had claimed him as a father - Maitimo basically raised his four youngest siblings, and Elrond and Elros, and he’s very good at being the strict dad. It’s the one thing he’s actually strict about outside his military work. But he’s actually a giant marshmallow underneath his stern exterior and he really wants to be a good father.

7. Who kills the bugs in the house?

This is a non-answer but they don’t kill bugs as a rule they’ll either let them outside or allow predator bugs to live in their spaces - lots of spider neighbors who pay rent by eating gnats. But as a rule Maitimo will do the gross or unseemly things just because he wants them done. Finno is a bit more of an obvious coward when it comes to those things.

9. Who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning?

Maitimo doesn’t sleep as often as Findekáno does, but Findekáno can usually entice him into coming back to bed.

11. Who likes to dance?

Maitimo is the one who really truly loves partnered dancing. He leads. Findekáno can and will dance alone, but it’s only after he marries that he truly becomes enchanted by the high romance of a good querië.

#guys this is long this is SO LONG #RUSSINGON #absynthe's headcanons #tolkien #moriquendii #replies

[olliedollie1204]

for future reference

Virgil works at the reference desk. Logan is looking for a very specific book.

Pairings: Platonic Virgil and Logan

Word Count: 3,613

Tags: Librarian Virgil, Kid Logan, (very loosely) implied but not shown romantic Moceit

based on that one tumblr post that is maybe the cutest thing i’ve ever read? also, Logan mispronounces some words because he’s Babey, so I included a guide at the end to clarify what he was trying to say.

also i meant to make this short and simple but i tripped and came up with an entire new AU, so hopefully if y’all slam that mf like button I will find the energy to write the sequel

(Read it on AO3!)

Working at the reference desk was cool. When you walked through the main door of the library, you’d never suspect that nestled beyond the rows and rows of adult nonfiction, far away from the busyness of the community room or the chaos of the children’s section, was a neat and well-tended desk, behind which sat just one man.

That one man was currently alternating between scanning the sea of tables and chairs in front of him, and reading a cheesy romance paperback under his desk. Listen, he had an image to maintain, okay?

Virgil had always liked the solitude of a good library, almost as much as he’d liked the books themselves. Despite spending many long hours hidden away among dusty shelves when he was younger, he'd never thought about actually working in a library. He wasn’t a people person, and libraries, unfortunately, tended to attract people; so when he found out there was a position where he could get away with isolating himself behind a computer monitor all day long, where his main form of social interaction was helping patrons fix the printer approximately nine hundred times a day, where he could read or play Temple Run or just sit still and daydream for hours on end? He was sold.

He supposed he had to thank the library’s set up for his lack of work; truly, most people never made their way this far into the building, and those who did were usually just looking for a place to sleep for a few hours, so it wasn’t uncommon for him to go an entire shift without speaking to a single person.

It had looked like today was going to be the same, with Virgil halfway through his shift and having only spoken to one patron who was looking for the bathroom. He had just gotten to the part in his book where the farmhand and the farmer’s son were trapped together in the barn during an unexpected thunderstorm, shirts dripping wet and faces flushed from humidity and passion (and maybe Virgil had read this one once or twice already, don’t worry about it).

It was a perfectly normal day. Until the kid showed up.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Virgil certainly did not jump about a foot into the air at the kid’s sudden appearance, but it was a close thing. The librarian quickly sat up in his rolly chair, dog earring the already well-worn novel and shoving it back under the desk.

“Uh, hi,” he replied, gazing down at the child in front of him. He was small and scrawny, with wildly scruffy hair and a large pair of glasses on his face. As Virgil sat up taller, he was able to see that the kid was actually tiny, his chin barely reaching past the edge of the desk. Despite his small stature, he had an oddly serious look on his face.

“How can I, uh, help you?” Virgil asked haltingly.

“I need to find a book about baby names,” the child informed him plainly. His quiet, high-pitched voice felt completely at odds with the grave importance he seemed to place on his request.

“Oh?” Virgil said for lack of a better response. He quickly scanned behind the kid, looking for an adult that might’ve misplaced their incredibly somber toddler, but he quickly brought his attention back to the child in front of him as he nodded.

“My dads told me that I’m going to be a big brother soon and I need to find the names for my baby twin brothers who we are taking from a woman in the city because she is a sugar-ette and she is giving us her babies to keep,” the child replied in one long breath. Virgil blinked at the sudden influx of information.

“Ah,” he replied, absolutely nailing this conversation with this random, unaccompanied baby. “Let me… look that up for you.”

He paused for just a second before jerkily turning on his monitor, opening to the library catalogue’s search engine. Instinctively he opened the filter and clicked ‘search for keywords’ and typed ‘baby names’, until he looked down at the… really small child in front of him, like damn, were all kids that small?

“Um. How…”

How old are you? How many letters of the alphabet do you know? How stupid am I gonna look if I send you to the checkout desk with an armful of dense, high-level books about etymology?

“How high is your reading level?” he settled on. To his surprise, the child puffed out his chest in pride.

“I am five and three quarters years old and I will be going into kindergarten in Set-member and Dr. Picani says that I am reading like a kindergartener and I even can read first grade books, too.”

Okay. Virgil didn’t know who Dr. Picani was, but that wasn’t important. Kindergarten to first grade reading level. He switched the filter to adjust for that new information, but he was quickly met with the realization that the kid was looking at him for… some sort of response, because that’s how conversations work, Virgil, come on.

“That’s cool,” he replied lightly. Lucky for him, the kid didn’t seem to mind his lack of social graces. He just nodded, rocking back and forth on his heels as he watched Virgil type.

“And my Daddy gave me a bunch of chapter books for my birthday and I already read them all because that was last year and he and Papa said that for my next birthday I can get some more chapter books but I hope they are mit-sery books because I like the mit-sery books most of all. Dr. Picani told me that’s because I like to collect and organize information. I like it when Papa reads the mit-sery books to me, even though I can read all by myself, because he is always bad at solving the mit-sery and I have to explain it to him every time.”

At first, Virgil had merely been listening with a polite interest, nodding a little as his eyes scanned the page for what books they had checked in, but as the kid continued to talk (and Virgil was seriously starting to wonder if he ever ran out of breath), he realized he was now listening with a genuine interest. This kid seemed pretty smart for his age, even with his tendency to mispronounce words in his rush to get them out of his mouth, and it was honestly kinda endearing. This coming from Virgil, who was running out of excuses as to why he couldn’t help out with any of the children’s programs that the library hosted in the community room twice a month.

He pulled his eyes back to his computer. “Okay, so, um, it looks like we’ve got a couple books that you might want.” They had more than a couple books about baby names, of course, but Virgil really didn’t wanna hurt the kid’s feelings by giving him a book that was too difficult for him.

“I’m gonna write the titles down on this piece of paper,” Virgil continued, pulling out an index card and one of the weird tiny golf pencils that were at every desk in the library for some reason. “Here’s what the book is called, here’s the last name of the person who wrote it, and here is the number of the shelf where you can find the book, okay?”

He finished writing and slid the paper across the desk to the kid, who hesitated for a moment before taking it.

“... Thank you,” he said stiffly, turning on his heel and marching away. Virgil wasn’t gonna look away until the kid was out of his sight, but to his surprise he stopped just about ten feet away from the desk, looking between the paper in his tiny hands and the tall rows of shelves.

Virgil stood up suddenly, feeling like an idiot. He’d just told an infant to go look for one specific shelf in a giant room of identical shelves. Alone. Fuck.

“Hey, kid,” he called softly, moving around his desk and hurrying to the child. The little boy turned to him, eyes wide behind his glasses lens.

“How about I help you find those books, okay?” Virgil asked, trying not to tower over the tiny child. The kid looked around for a second before nodding quickly.

“Okay, I think that is a good idea, because I know where the books are in the playzone but I think this li-berry is really big and— and maybe I’d get too lost and my dads are scared of me being lost and so I don’t wanna make them scared,” he finished, looking down and scuffing the toe of his shoe against the carpet.

Virgil raised an eyebrow at the end of the kid’s sentence. “Do you know where your dads are?”

The kid nodded quickly. “They’re having storytime in the group room!”

Virgil nodded. He knew there was an adult book club happening in the community room that day, so that definitely made sense. But still, he leaned down, catching the boy’s eye with what he hoped was an appropriately stern face for the circumstances.

“Do your dads know where you are?” he asked. As he expected, the kid began to look slightly guilty, scrunching the hem of his navy polo in his hands.

“Um…” he started. It was the first time Virgil had heard him pause between his words. “Well, technically, they told me to stay with the li-berrian, and they thought I was gonna stay in the playzone with Ms. Dot, but technically, if I can stay with you then I am with a li-berrian and so I’m not in trouble.”

There was a note of self-satisfaction in the kid’s voice, like he’d just solved a riddle as opposed to trying to explain why he disobeyed his parents. Virgil got the feeling that this was a kid who knew how to use his words to his advantage.

“Okay,” Virgil replied, gently pulling the paper out of the kid’s hand and scanning what he’d written. “We’re gonna go look for some books, but then I’m taking you back to the children’s section— uh, I mean the playzone— and Ms. Dot is gonna watch you until your dads are done, deal?”

The child nodded, watching Virgil with intensity, and the librarian gently ushered him to the side and led the two of them down a row of books.

“What’s your name?”

“Logan,” the little boy replied, running ahead a little and turning to wait for Virgil to catch up. “What’s your name?”

Virgil reached Logan at the end of the row just as he answered, “Virgil.”

Without warning, Logan darted ahead again, reaching the end of the next row before turning around to face him. “Daddy says I should call the li-berrians Mr., Ms., or Mx. What are you?”

“Mr. is okay,” Virgil replied, a little bemused by his childish bluntness. “And be careful, okay? I don’t want you to trip and hurt yourself.”

Logan trotted back to Virgil, walking backwards for a minute so he could look at Virgil while he talked. “I’m sorry for running, but I really want to find a book about baby names because my dads are busy making the babies’ bedroom and buying all of the baby clothes and toys and ex-cetera and I want to be a good big brother and I want my baby brothers to have names that are good but my dads are really busy and they don’t even know what they want to name the babies yet!”

Virgil smiled at the indignation in Logan’s little voice. Of course, he knew there were far more important preparations to make when expecting a new child (let alone two new children at the same time), but to a child as young as Logan, the name was probably the most important decision to be made.

“Well, they should be on the next shelf over, so let’s—”

Logan took off before Virgil could finish his sentence, running halfway down the row and looking at Virgil expectantly.

Virgil scoffed, an amused smile on his face. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”

As he entered the row, he began scanning the numbers on instinct; he knew these stacks pretty well, but he didn’t have them memorized.

“Okay, 929.4,” he muttered to himself, bypassing books about genealogies before coming to the section for baby name books. “Here they are.”

Logan came towards him, standing on his tiptoes as he reached his arms up high.

“Mr. Virgil, may I please have the biggest book, please?”

Virgil looked back at the shelf, immediately seeing which book Logan was talking about. He pulled it out, holding it in both hands as he scanned the cover.

“‘Ten Thousand and One Baby Names For You’,” he recited, passing it down to Logan. “Is that enough names to choose from?”

Logan’s eyes were wide, struggling to open the heavy book while still keeping it in his arms. “I never even knew there were ten thousand and one names!”

“Same,” Virgil replied, helping Logan open the book without damaging it. “I think this book has lots of names from all over the world, plus some super old names from the last century.”

“Like the 1990s,” Logan said, nodding seriously, and Virgil had to pretend to cough to avoid laughing outright at the kid’s earnestness. He turned back to the shelf, pulling out a thinner yet still dense book.

“And this one is called ‘The Story Behind the Name’,” Virgil explained, holding it down to show Logan. “It tells you more about what the names mean, where all of the names came from… stuff like that.”

He held the book out for Logan to take, but to his shock the child was looking at him with something akin to distress.

“Do names mean things?”

Virgil blinked. “Oh! Uh, sometimes? Not really. But some names have things that they used to mean, a long time ago, but a lot of people don’t know what they meant. Like—”

He hastily flipped the book open to the ‘L’ section, skimming the page before he found what he was looking for.

“Like, ‘Logan’, for example, is an Scottish name,” he explained slowly, “and it apparently means… uh, ‘from the hollow’? Which, I don’t even really know what that means, so. It’s not that important nowadays.”

He looked back at Logan, who was looking into the distance with a pensive look on his face.

“But what if I give them a name that means something bad,” he pondered slowly, and Virgil’s stomach swooped at the idea that he’d just given this kid something to worry over.

“Well, here,” he said hurriedly, holding the second book out to Logan. “If you take this one, you can check that the names you pick mean good things. Some people like to choose names that remind them of something good, like nature or history or— or their favorite book characters.”

That perked Logan up, causing him to eye the book with a new interest. “Really?”

His gaze flicked between the second book, and the much larger book that he still held in his arms.

“I think I should take both,” he said after a long moment to think. “Just in case.”

He smiled up at Virgil, who literally couldn’t stop himself from smiling back if you’d paid him. Logan was just too darn cute.

“Well,” he said, “how about I carry your books and take you back to the playzone, and you can get started reading these before you check them out?”

Logan nodded, somewhat reluctantly handing Virgil his large book as the two made their way out of the nonfiction section. “That is a good idea, because I am already checking out a lot of chapter books and my book basket is full and so I think my dads will help me carry these books to the checkout counter because they’re really big books.”

“They sure are,” Virgil said conversationally, holding a hand out to stop Logan as another librarian walked by with a cart. Before he could take another step, however, he felt something small and soft wrap around his free hand. Virgil looked down to see Logan holding his hand in his own tiny grasp.

“Papa says I shouldn’t hold hands with strangers,” Logan informed him, idly swinging their hands together, “but I don’t think we’re strangers because I know your name and you know my name and you’re helping me carry my books because you are a nice li-berrian.”

Virgil felt an inexplicable surge of protectiveness over this child he’d met only fifteen minutes ago.

“Sure,” he replied softly, letting Logan continue to talk as the two walked hand in hand back to the populated side of the library.

He almost didn’t want to interrupt Logan when they did finally arrive at the playzone, but he wanted to make sure this kid got back to where he was supposed to be before his dads found out he’d left. Dot looked at him from behind Logan, her eyebrows raising at the sight of Virgil a) not behind his reference desk, and b) attached to the world’s chattiest five year old.

“Hey, Lo,” he gently interjected when Logan took a breath, kneeling down to be on the young boy’s level. “I’m gonna set your books down with your book basket, okay? Where is that?”

Logan paused, eyes flitting around the colorful rug. “Um… it’s… oh! It’s right there!”

Virgil’s eyes followed where Logan was pointing. There, on the ground next to one of the large plush sofas in the reading circle, was one of the library’s book baskets. From here, Virgil could see at least a dozen junior chapter books poking out of the basket.

“Oh!” Logan exclaimed, darting forward and grabbing the handle of the basket in both hands and tugging it back over to Virgil. “Mr. Virgil, look, I raised my hand and asked Ms. Dot if I could please have the storytime book to check out for a little bit because I liked it a lot, even though it’s not a mit-sery book, but it is about cephalopods and those are octopusses and squids and ex-cetera, and she told me to turn around and the shelf behind me had tons and tons of books about cephalopods, and I picked out this book because it has pit-chers but it’s not a pit-cher book, it has chapters, too—”

Logan flopped onto his butt in the middle of the carpet, pulling out each book one by one and explaining to Virgil exactly what it was about and how many chapters it had and how he couldn’t wait for bedtime so he and his dads could read them all together. He chattered on and on and on, and Virgil didn’t even realize when he joined Logan in sitting cross legged on the floor. He didn’t have to talk much, but every now and then Logan would actually pause to breathe, and Virgil would ask another question that set the young boy off onto an entirely different spiel that lasted another ten minutes.

It was so different from working at the reference desk, quiet and hidden and isolated. Different, but not bad.

“Mr. Virgil?”

Logan’s voice was suddenly quieter, and it snapped Virgil back to reality. He looked at the kid, who was looking at his own tiny hands folded neatly in his lap.

“Yeah, Logan?” Virgil asked. “Are you okay?”

Logan nodded. “Yes, thank you, I’m okay. I think you are maybe the nicest li-berrian ever.”

The sincerity in his little voice nearly made Virgil reel back in shock.

“Really?” he asked, and normally he might be embarrassed about how insecure his voice sounded after receiving a compliment from a five year old, but Logan nodded immediately.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Ms. Dot and all of the other li-berrians are nice but I think you are the nicest because I broke the rules and you didn’t tell my dads and you gave me the name books for my twin baby brothers and you let me hold your hand and I like talking about my books and you liked hearing me talk about them. So I think you are— I think you are the best li-berrian I ever met.”

Logan fell silent, looking down at his lap and fidgeting with his shirt hem, and Virgil was honestly a little speechless.

“Oh,” he said slowly. “Um, thank you, Logan. I think you are… the best reader I’ve ever met.”

No sooner were the words out of Virgil’s mouth that Logan looked up at him with wide-eyed shock.

“Really?” he squeaked. Virgil was literally going to get a cavity from all of this sugar.

“Yep,” he replied. “You’re smart and kind and you care a lot about your baby brothers. Your dads must be very proud of you.”

Each word of praise was brightening Logan up bit by bit, and he switched to sitting on his knees and bouncing up and down.

“Will you play checkers with me?” he asked, hands flapping in excitement. “I always want to play checkers but Ms. Dot says I’m not old enough, but you’re definitely old enough, right?”

Virgil laughed outright at that. He thought about his reference desk, sitting unoccupied on the other side of the library. He looked at Logan.

“Sure, kid,” he replied, standing up with Logan’s book basket. Logan grabbed his free hand, and Virgil let him lead them both to the game table, Logan already explaining the rules in anticipation.

Yeah. Different, but not bad. Not bad at all.

~

Post notes: As promised, here's the guide to Logan's incorrect words!

Sugar-ette: Surrogate Set-member: September Mit-sery: Mystery Li-berry: Library Li-berrian: Librarian Ex-cetera: Et cetera Pit-chers: Pictures

#sanders sides #sanders sides fic #virgil sanders #logan sanders #my writing #my posts #for future reference

[moonaft]

The Killing Frost - Review

I usually wait for my library to have a copy before reading the latest book. Not this time.

Honestly, this is more of a live blog than a review.

Spoilers up to The Killing Frost and June 2020 for the Patreon stories.

Before I begin, I want to mention that I have physical copies of only some of the books. These are Rosemary and Rue, One Salt Sea, The Winter Long, The Brightest Fell. As of yesterday, I count the Kindle copy of The Killing Frost in that number and will pick up a physical copy eventually. Everything else I borrow from the library, which are usually always available. This series is something I keep re-reading because there’s something new every time I read.

“It doesn’t matter what I wear to the wedding, we both know it’s going to be completely covered in blood before we reach ‘I do’“ and we’re off to a wonderful start. I’m so glad Toby has become genre-savvy. She can now anticipate and plan for being covered in blood. That’s character development.

“My name is October Daye because my mother should never have been allowed to name her own children.” No, your name is October Daye because Eira wanted children named thematically after their parents and the Torquills went for all the months of the year. You can blame September for that one. Or I suppose August is older than January, so blame Simon.

Interesting that she’s accepted that one day she’ll burn out the rest of her humanity.

“Now I live in a house that I own free and clear, thank to Sylvester” Does he still pay property taxes on it, or is that Toby? Does Sylvester have an accountant, and if so, are they fae or human?

Toby, you could definitely get married at the courthouse and then do a fae wedding. They won’t recognize the mortal one but you can still say you’re married. Do Tybalt have any form of human id? I guess they could magic something up and confuse the attendant.

Hi Karen! Something I forgot for my “Open Question” post - why does Stacy have two Seer daughters when Seers have been nearly extinct for centuries?

How’s that for a plot hook? Your seer niece lets you know what you’re doing and with whom. Easy.

After everything Toby’s been through, she has a right to be paranoid when someone knocks at the door after Karen’s done warning her.

Could still be a trap. Negative points for not confirming with Tybalt first.

His date idea is very romantic, I will give him that.

Does Tybalt even have a last name? I don’t remember if he does.

It’s always fun to recognize people before the narrator mentions them by name. Hi Patrick and Dianda! This isn’t suspicious at all.

Does Dianda use the same wheelchair whenever she’s on land? If so, where do they store it? Or do they haul it with them? Is there a storage unit filled with Undersea fae stuff?

Patrick, this isn’t weird at all. You’re digging for something. Given that the summary says Toby needs to invite her legal father to her wedding, I assume you’re trying to make sure he’s there.

I’m not convinced Simon’s trying to wake up Evening. He doesn’t like her, and if losing his way home made him forget August even exists, I’m not sure he’d return to Evening given a chance.

And there’s the actual kicker - by not inviting Simon, Toby allows his boss to claim offense. Evening claiming offense on his behalf is a very very bad thing, and that’s why it’s important he’s there. I am certain Patrick’s parents weren’t at his wedding, but they probably washed their hands of him when they heard who he was marrying. And their liege probably didn’t care about a landless Baron in another Kingdom, so there was no consequence.

The Luidaeg did tell Toby she has to find Simon - along with two other tasks. What happened to those?

Looks like Patrick does have the broad strokes of the plots of The Winter Long and The Brightest Fell - given how much Toby doesn’t tell people, I wasn’t sure. She didn’t tell him about Poppy prior to the Ducky of Ships, after all.

Patrick and Dianda do want him back - looks like I might right that he goes to Saltmist when this all clears up. And they really want him to divorce Amandine, which, yeah. That marriage is not a good one. I firmly believe that if they do divorce, both Toby and August would declare for Simon.

“Bring him home” from Les Mis starts playing. It’s interesting that Dianda is the one telling Toby this.

“You and Tybalt have been banking on my ignorance throughout this whole process, and now your reward is that you have to go with me to look for Simon Torquill, and Tybalt can’t come” I love how she rolls with it. This would have been unheard of in The Winter Long. 

“And yes, I actually wanted him to be there when I did that, if it was even remotely possible.” Aww. It’s a shame her relationship with Sylvester is deteriorating at the same time her relationship with Simon is growing, but it is growing.

I assume Spike, being fae, is also functionally immortal and won’t die of old age.

“I hardly wind up ambushed and alone at all these days.” True, thanks to your ever growing cast of rotating characters.

I love Toby’s continued roasting of Evening and Amandine.

If Evening’s been in the Mists for a thousand years and also popped for Tam Lin in Scotland 500 years ago, how is she getting back and forth between the two? Though she convince Torin to take Saltmist when she was asleep, so maybe she’s just been dreamwalking.

Hi Marcia! What weird things are you going to do this book that no one’s going to pick up on?

Dean and Quentin are cute together.

Wait, this means Toby needs to invite Amandine to her wedding. Fuck.

It’s the Summer Roads key again.

Right, Ceres could do it too. And Toby’s actually thinking of the consequences of her actions.

Quentin will be a force of reckoning on the High King’s throne.

Hi Etienne! You could totally go visit Toby whenever you want.

Randomly appearing magic door - technically, the knowe could bring them directly to the Moon Garden if it wanted to. It wants to bring them to this door, and let them know something’s going on.

Blood for the blood door? Toby has a right to Shadowed Hills, and the knowe knows and likes her. Maybe this is a way of helping with her eventual claim?

“Cool. Good to know. We’re all going to be eaten by weird magic flowers.” “Let’s face it, this isn’t much of a surprise.”

It’s Raysel’s bed/coffin. Given that they’re looking for Evening, I don’t like the parallels to Raysel’s Firstborn. 

Neither Evening nor Simon have an interest in Raysel, but Sylvester doesn’t know that.

I love October’s speech to Sylvester about Rayseline.

It would likely be good for Raysel to spend a year with Toby at her house. She can meet Toby’s teens and live without her parents for a while. Might be awkward when Dean shows up but that’s a conversation they need to have.

Interesting that Raysel’s magic changes - did she get more of her father’s scent?

Summer Roads key is weird, and definitely more plot related than it appears. Given that it’s currently a MacGuffin to get to Evening, that’s pretty powerful.

What is this weird black bubble.

Shit, May got impaled.

So this is where Simon stored Luna and Raysel for 14 years. I personally wouldn’t anchor a formless void holding a Blodynbryd off the Rose Road where she has power, but it ‘worked out’ I suppose.

Toby’s headache is concerning me. I wonder if she’s doing the impossible without knowing it, and that’s what’s causing the magical backlash.

How did Luna and Raysel escape the bubble? There’s been no indication that someone found them, so perhaps they found Simon’s door.

Toby’s talking to Maeve as roses. How is she doing this? Why is Maeve (or part of Maeve?) part of the Rose Road? Didn’t the Luidaeg and Toby turn onto Annis’s Roads at some point during The Winter Long? Did they transition from the Summer Roads part of the Rose Roads into the Winter Roads? Is that even a thing? Why does the Summer Key allow them access to it?

Reviewing TWL again, the Luidaeg used the Key to open Annis’s forgotten road to take a shortcut to Shadowed Hills. Then Luna used the Key to open a Rose Road to Evening. The Key, which “belonged to [Luna’s] grandmother”. Unspecified grandmother. Maybe it’s not a Summer Roads Key afterall.

Roses are the thing that connects all three Branches - Maeve has them, Eira has them, Amandine has them.

Unrelated to the current plot, I think Raysel would be great with flowers. It’s implied that when a mixed blood uses a hope chest to pick one bloodline, they keep something from the missing bloodline. Tybalt’s niece Cailin (Daoine Sidhe/Cait Sidhe -> Cait Sidhe) is extraordinarily good with illusions and can’t shapeshift. August is relatively good with illusions (enough to bind Quentin) and kept her red hair and yellow eyes.

And Maeve (or a representative?) listens to Toby. Wow.

Quentin has strong and unflattering opinions about Evening’s forest scene. I love how the characters feel focusing on the small details. They’ve accepted the impossible and have moved beyond it.

Interesting that there’s no scent of roses before finding Evening’s clearing. Another open question: why does Evening also get apples in addition to roses and snow? What causes the shift between roses+snow and roses+apples? 

And why doesn’t anyone but the Luidaeg recognize that apples are also Evening’s? 

“I wish I’d met Simon and Sylvester’s parents... it doesn’t make sense.” “Most Daoine Sidhe I’ve known have something floral about their magic. Simon doesn’t” Does his mulled cider not count? Fruit isn’t floral? I want to know Septimius’s magic scents as well, because I’m pretty sure Simon got the apple cider from him, via his own mother aka Evening’s daughter Fómhar. The October Daye wiki is failing me on some of these names.

Please let her know that the twins were once changelings this book. Please.

May, I’m sorry you have a literal hole in your body, but I live for magical theory.I need moar.

Hello, Sleeping Beauty. Also, Simon is rather good at archery and I don’t know why that doesn’t come up more often. 

Simon is not looking well. He’s also doing some bizarre leaps of conversation -

October: We came here to look for you.

Simon: Where’s Oleander? 

No one brought up Oleander? I get that the spell is doing weird things to his mind, maybe it’s skipping. 

"who seemed to have stolen most of his memory of who he’d been”

Jossed on him not seeking out Evening, but kinda confirmed on the reason why: he doesn’t give a reason why he’s working with Evening. The spell’s not working as well as it did on August - he is definitely getting confused, if only briefly. 

Is that why he didn’t show up during Night and Silence or The Unkindest Tide? He was stuck in the clearing? What has he been eating? Is he still wearing the same clothes he was in for The Winter Long and The Brightest Fell? 

October: Hey, you can wait here for a hundred years, we just need you to take a trip to see the Luidaeg. It’ll be super quick.

Toby, I love you. 

AND HE REMEMBERS PATRICK. Enough to stand down, at least. But he think’s Patrick’s dead? Oh no no no. Did he think that for most of the last century? This keeps getting sadder. 

At least he’s not hurting May and Quentin. 

I don’t think he sent the Doppelganger in Rosemary and Rue, pretty sure that was Devin. 

He doesn’t remember the events of TBF, interesting. 

Fucking hell, that was too easy. I should have seen it would be too easy. And he thinks Amandine modified Toby’s memory?

I guess May doesn’t need to worry about infection. 

Helpful pixies! Glad to see more of them. Toby better deliver that dinner soon. 

“Also to be fair, the terrible disaster was usually either my fault or happening to me” True words, Toby. 

Hi Walther and Cassie! 

HI Luidaeg!

If her debts are currently balanced, then she did work off the other two from The Unkindest Tide. 

Yeah, pretty sure Simon hasn’t broken the Law yet. 

Emotionally mature Toby strikes again. She’s been so this entire book. The amount of difficult conversations so far is pretty large. 

This focus on Stacy not wanting her kids to date is interesting, unless it’s a red herring. And she grew up with Toby in Shadowed Hills. Not Firstborn, I won’t guess one of the Three - Marianne? But she was fully grown back during the earthquake. Did her fae grandparents have a human partner like Simon and Sylvester’s parents, and her fae parent was also a changeling? They moved away after their child died because they couldn’t deal with the grief? A hope chest moving her blood? How old was October when she met Stacy?

Hi Arden!

Recap time with the Luidaeg. 

A solution with Dianda and Patrick? If he goes and lives in Saltmist, he’s far from people who want to harm him. 

If Simon’s so good at using other people’s blood, then potentially he could use Amandine/August/Toby’s blood to be a poor man’s Dóchas Sidhe. For healing, maybe?

‘Her husband could only hear the ones who belonged to him” - huh, interesting tidbit about Oberon. 

Torquill lore! Finally revealed to Toby!

Off to Goldengreen. Return of the water trauma for Toby, boo. 

Oh my god she’s an otter. So cute! Yes, everyone should be an otter. Bite her, Toby. Do it. 

Marcia! Does Marcia not know that Simon exists as a separate person from Sylvester? Acacia at least understood that Simon wasn’t Sylvester, even if she didn’t get the concept of twins. I’m not surprised she survived Simon’s spells - Evening seemed to completely ignore her in TWL. And Firstborns tend to get mind whammed if they think about her for too long. More evidence for the Titania theory (or Maeve, if she’s in multiple pieces).

That many spells can’t be good. 

I am not surprised that Toby asked how to give Simon her way home. This family has a tendency to pass around debts. 

Also, now would be a good time to call Tybalt. Might be faster than driving to Half Moon Bay. I guess the plan is to steal a Selkie skin and swim to Saltmist since Goldengreen was a bust? But yeah, he’s probably not up to date with TUK if he’s been stuck in the clearing for a year. 

“evil hot potato” good phrase. This stinks a little of self-sabotage.

Diva did need to be shifted, interesting. 

Simon wouldn’t have gotten away with it, there’s nothing natural about a boy eating 6+ bowls of soup, especially if he kept doing it past when he’s physical ill. Poor Quentin.

Interesting that Simon’s not trying to cause harm. His superpowered spells are doing a terrific amount of damage, but nothing that can’t technically be reversed if they have the power to do so. Even Quentin was harmed only because he couldn’t stop eating, and that wasn’t Simon’s intention. 

Dean admittedly is not have a good day. Neither is Quentin. 

Simon under the Luidaeg’s curse is surprisingly self-reflective. I wasn’t expecting that.

Fuck off, Evening.

I didn’t think we’d get the reason behind why the Luidaeg couldn’t lie in this book, that’s nice.

Go Toby, tear this bitch down.

It is interesting that of the three daughters of Titania we’ve met, each one follows a different school of magic. Guess it shows that schools of magic don’t always follow blood.

Evening has been dreamwalking. Stronger when she’s sleeping? Can’t keep her asleep, can’t keep her awake. Can they turn her into a stone?

Confirmation: Titania was banished, and I assume only Oberon could do that.

“Lady, let alone” Maybe in the first blood changing dream, with her father who I think was actually Oberon? I don’t remember.

Tybalt and Walther also aren’t having good days.

I don’t get what Toby’s figured out.

“Rolling emergency that is your ongoing existence” Love it.

Dean’s day is getting better.

There goes the hot potato. I appreciate that Simon’s first action is to get the Luidaeg to reverse it and I’m sure Tybalt isn’t far behind.

Simon’s spending a good portion of the book confused.

Toby just coughed up a pigeon. I can’t determine if that’s weirder than the Luidaeg pulling it out of her chest.

“None of my enemies are remotely that powerful” I’m pretty sure there won’t be a book where Toby travels back in time, but just imagine what a book that would be. And Simon’s mulled cider is back, nice. And confused again.

Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Thornton?? OBERON???

Is his name a play on ‘root and thorn’?

Did he make himself human so Janet could fall in love with him as human? He’s expecting her.

Her name was suppose to be Almandine? And she doesn’t count as home to Toby, no wonder.

She got Oberon lost in Annwn and then pulled him out again. What the fuck.

Confused man remains confused. “He looked like a man who’d just lost everything” Something tells me that isn’t because he’s meeting his father-in-law/a physical god. Did Evening tell him something about Oberon’s return that hasn’t been revealed yet?

Lots of people get to come home today. This is great.

Time to get status reports. Toby is calm in crisis, as long as no one’s actively trying to kill her.

Let the Luidaeg and her father catch up. Wow. I didn’t expect they’d find Oberon with more books left to go.

Toby owes Walther far more than just one pizza - get that boy home and let him sleep.

Way too tired to consider how the car got there. Is it only one day since the Cat in the Rafters? Is this book taking place over the course of a single day? How long were they on the Rose Roads? Everyone needs sleep and food.

I do appreciate Simon taking responsibility for his actions and while apologizing doesn’t fix anything, it is the right thing to do. Toby hasn’t had a chance to tell him about her meeting with Patrick and Dianda, has she? He assumes he’ll be elfshot.

Not that his opinion matters on the Toby/Tybalt relationship, but I like how he’s being supportive.

Get married in the courthouse Toby, The fae won’t recognize it but it takes pressure off the wedding in Toronto so when that goes south, you are still married. Take May, Jazz, Quentin, Raj and whoever else you can grab at short notice.

Good on Toby for checking in on Tybalt and having a difficult conversation.

Back to Goldengreen. Do let Marcia hit Simon, let her do that. Once again, no one remembers that Marcia’s survived things a thin blooded changeling shouldn’t. And Simon doesn’t want to face Patrick and Dianda. It’s been over a hundred years since he last saw them. I wonder how much of the time he thought they were dead?

Changing people into trees can at least be reversed. There’s going to be trauma, but it’s better that everyone in Goldengreen was a tree or toadstool then dead.

“We have access to Oberon now, we can ask him for more Laws if you think we need them.” Oh god. I love this entire chapter, the dialogue is great and too numerous to quote.

And Simon, Patrick, and Dianda aren’t saying anything. Thank you for taking charge of this scene, Toby, otherwise nothing’s going to get done.

“Not that we’re going to get a honeymoon, since someone is inevitably going to try to  murder or abduct us” If you say it and plan for it, it might not happen.

Toby’s little interjection to Dean, the pro-mammal conversation, this chapter is pure good.

Can Simon say Eira’s name now? It choked in his throat during TWL.

Are they really getting into the Janet thing now?

Side-stepped that conversation. Simon definitely wasn’t expecting his best friend and wife to convince to divorce his wife, and then have his step-daughter and her fiance agree as well.

OT3! OT3! Oh man, I didn’t expect this and I love it so much! OT3! Do it! Also, Dean’s day just got weirder.

OT3!

“hey, kiddo we want to open our marriage and include the man who just turned you into a tree” so many difficult conversations to have.

Oh my fucking god, this is everything I could have wanted and didn’t know to ask for.

Wedding time? IS IT WEDDING TIME? “My mother’s divorce proceedings” THAT WORKS TOO.

Glad Toby is still carrying her knife even to this. She’s going to be wearing it to her own wedding.

I still can’t believe Simon’s the one calling for the divorce but good for him. Prior to this, I assumed it would be Amandine insisting on it. I assume the news got to Sylvester and Luna and I would love to know what Sylvester thinks of this.

Hadn’t realized Evening got Quentin fostered to Shadowed Hills because she wanted to marry him and become High Queen.

Fuck off, Amandine. Poor August. Raj gets one line in this book :(

And now it’s confirmed public knowledge that Amandine’s Firstborn.

Called Toby declaring for Simon, and I love how fierce she’s picturing her human father during this.

Also, I firmly believe if August hadn’t disappeared and Amandine still married Jonathan Daye (and Patrick and Dianda hadn’t convinced Simon to divorce her), Simon would have been a part of that. And if Amandine hadn’t told him and just brought October home one day, he would have helped Toby still see her own father.

Patrick and Dianda have gotten him to sleep and eat, good. He wasn’t looking well a couple chapters (a week?) ago.

He’s still trying to protect August to make choosing Amandine easier. I still think she’s choosing him.

CALLED IT.

Hi Oberon! Nobody recognizes you, that’s interesting. And you can calm everyone in the crowd. So you have some power.

“You have no descendant line to stand for you” Is that why Eria’s focused on breeding pure blood Daoine Sidhe? She gets power from everyone who declares for her? My current theory is that she wants to be the true Queen of Faerie, get rid of the Three and rule by herself.

Surprise wedding! Five minutes after Simon got divorced! I love this OT3 so damn much.

Dean, Peter and Toby all agree, August doesn’t say no. Toby has two new step-parents and two step-brothers? I honestly can’t think of Dianda as Toby’s step-mother. She’s Toby’s punchy friend and also the women who married Toby’s step-father/ fae legal father.

Peter’s the one who probably going to spend the most time with Simon, given that he’s still an enemy in Goldengreen. Is August moving down to the Undersea? She can’t stay in the tower anymore. Maybe she can crash at Toby’s or Shadowed Hills or Tamed Lightning if she doesn’t want to stay underwater. Has she seen January since she got home? Or maybe stay at Muir Woods.

I would love to see the dynamics of this new family. And the conversations of the OT3 in the past week.

I’m glad to see Simon and August out of Amandine’s grasp. She was abusive.

Wait, Toby doesn’t need to invite Amandine to her wedding because they’re not legally related anymore. Excellent.

Really wondering how the news is taken at Shadowed Hills.

What a great book. What wonderful surprises. I couldn’t have asked for more. No one died. Lots of trauma from super powered compulsion and shapeshifting to deal with but honestly, things are better for a lot of people.

To me, it feels like Simon’s story has mostly closed. He can rest and be happy with his spouses in Saltmist, and pop up whenever Toby needs info about Evening’s plan or blood magic, like Walther does for alchemist solutions. Staying mostly out of the line of fire. Good for him. I was so concerned he would die as a result of resolving his story.

Review of Shine in Pearl to follow.

#october daye #october daye spoilers

[megers67]

Saisei Academy OC: Funai Yoshimi

I had wanted to make a teacher OC (for Saisei Acdemy, a quirk reform school made by @miracide) for a while since my previous go-to hero OC didn’t really fit into the setting. Then at 3:30 this morning a scary sound woke me up and next thing I know, I’ve got this utter disaster I adore and it’s 7 am. One nap and some clean up later, I have this profile for y’all. I don’t know how I’ll use him yet, but I like him a lot so hopefully I can put him in something soon! Put under a read more for length.

Name: Funai Yoshimi

Age: 41

Status: Retired pro hero, teaches 2nd year General Studies students (homeroom) and literature at Saisei Academy

Basic appearance: Looks a bit older than his age may imply, but that’s due to his quirk (see below). He has long black hair with a grey streak that he keeps tied up at all times. Due to his back injury, he’s not as athletic as he used to be as a pro hero and his current build shows this. Yoshimi isn’t out of shape and is pretty slim, but he’s not got the muscle mass that he used to. Considering his playful personality, you’d think he’d dress ridiculously, but he’s actually pretty clean-cut and professional (at least at school). Jacket, sweater vest, and shirt in neutral/brown tones and a tie that matches his cane. To be fun however, he will wear an obnoxiously cutesy hair clip. He is also often seen wearing reading glasses.

Likes: Rodents, cheesy crime novels

Dislikes: Alcohol, loud music

Favorite food: Coffee, but he likes eating most things

Hero Name: Flashback

Quirk: Replay

Yoshimi can rewind time for himself by 90 seconds. Allowing him a second chance at that time frame to try to change how events come to pass.

He can’t continually jump back. Yoshimi has to return to when he jumped before he can jump again. Even then, jumping makes him nauseous so he usually has a cooldown time so he can’t just keep trying the same 90 seconds over and over unless it’s an absolute emergency.

These days in his teaching job, he uses it to avoid harm to his students. While he can’t personally move very fast due to his injury, his students are well-trained to respond to sudden instructions from him without question. He will either help a student avoid a trigger, calm down before an outburst can occur, warn other students to move or duck, etc.

Time for him personally is not affected. Any damage, etc. to his body comes back with him. If he suddenly appears different, it’s a good indication that he used his quirk.

Because of this, he technically is older than he may seem going off of his birth year. He has no idea by how much due to the accumulation of his quirk. He frankly doesn’t want to know.

Yoshimi wears a watch at all times to help him keep track of time. Anytime he uses his quirk, it automatically rewinds by 90 seconds. There is a subtle countdown to tell him if he has “caught up” to the point he initially jumped back.

Background info:

Forcibly retired due to injury at 32. The incident that caused his back injury was the same that killed his identical twin, Yoshiki. They were a hero team called the Time Twins. The loss of his brother and forced retirement led to a downward spiral where he became an alcoholic and the relationship with his spouse deteriorated so he ended up divorced. While that sucked at the time, he has gotten his act together, sobered up, and moved on with his life. Yoshimi doesn’t have kids as he hadn’t gotten around to having any before his divorce, but feels that was for the best so a child didn’t have to see their father fall as hard as he did. While at first he might have regretted that, he now has more than enough children in the form of students to fill that paternal void. He has been teaching at Saisei for four years now. He figures he is still a bit messed up in some ways, but knowing the kids need him does him a world of good in motivating him to stay stable, sober, and on the straight-and-narrow.

Due to his experiences, he’s particularly skilled with handling kids with various kinds of trauma and helping to provide guidance on self care. His personal coping mechanisms heavily involve humor and making a fool of himself, but he recognizes when students need someone more solid and mature and gentle and adjusts himself accordingly.

Yoshimi’s current life stage is “try me, bitch I don’t give a single fuck” where he no longer feels shame. He was always a jokester his whole life, but it has simply evolved. He has given up on legitimately trying to be cool so he strives for “dad cool” instead. He oscillates between actually understanding modern pop culture and misunderstanding it but doubling down on that misunderstanding to embarrass and troll his students.

Trivia:

Even though he’s not the oldest instructor at Saisei, he makes jokes that he’s still lived the longest because of his quirk use.

He’s not sure he wants to give dating a try again after his divorce. When asked, he dodges the question by saying he’s in a committed relationship with coffee.

When asked, he says his coffee is black but it really has a ton of sugar in it.

He is nearly impossible to prank because of his quirk. Yoshimi actually falls for shit all the time but his quirk allows him to go back and redo it so he can save face. You can usually tell when this happens because he might look nauseous after a prank failed to land. Sometimes he will let himself be taken by the prank, but negate the effect by going with it because he has no shame. For example, if someone replaces his sugar with salt, he will drink his salty coffee unblinking. 

Yoshimi has taken up cooking as a hobby due to the time he lived on his own after his divorce. Not only does it give him tangible outcomes, but helps others, and it doesn’t just pile up like crafting hobbies might. He has a really obnoxious apron that he wears when he cooks.

He has a pet rat named Kamiko. She is the light of his life. If his students are good and it’s a quieter lesson plan day, he will bring her to class with him, letting her roll in her ball as he lectures. She also likes riding shoulders. If the students are REALLY good when she’s in, he will let them hold her.

Due to his back injury, he uses a cane. He has a few different ones and they’re all painted bright colors because there’s no point trying to be subtle so he might as well be loud with it (he typically uses a bright red or pink one). The only exception is a black cane that he only busts out if he’s really disappointed with his students (like class-wide bad grades) because he’s dramatic like that. He also uses his cane to bang on something loudly to get students’ attention. 

For all the talk about him having no shame, that’s a lie. He does. It’s just about how bad he let himself get when grieving his brother.

#saisei academy #saiseiacademy #bnha oc #megers67 oc

[ask-joeydrewstudios]

((SO. This AU has gotten way more off-canon and hectic than I intended waay back when I first started this blog, so under the cut is a crash-course for this AU and how it differs from canon and other things to take note of for folks that are new and/or who don’t keep up with every single little post. Confused? This should have answers :3c))

FIRST OFF, AN IMPORTANT THING TO NOTE Is that this AU has been going since just after Chapter Two, and a lot of it was planned between chapters two and three. Also, this blog PREDATES and TOTALLY AVOIDS canon. There Is No Bad Ending. Only Happy Times(tm).

It’s heavily implied the studio is in New York in-canon, but I can confirm here that the studio is indeed in New York in this AU.

The toons are really Joey’s creations, they’re in no way stolen from anyone else.

I made and characterized my Joey before we got his first log in chapter three, and for me, voices need to sync to their characters. As such, my Joey doesn’t at all sound like he does in the game. I haven’t found who the voice belongs to, but I’ll update this when I do. Joey’s the only character in the AU with a voice different here than in-canon. (For anyone curious, he’s actually in the realm of sounding like a slightly more masculine Blue Diamond from SU xD it’s very light and gentle like that)

Joey’s a bit out of his mind in this AU, but he’s not uncaring. He’s still into rituals and the occult, but he’d never harm his employees or the toons.

He thinks of the toons as his children, and they think of him as their Papa Drew. They’re a very cute oddball family.

Joey has no (human) family of his own, he lives in an apartment in the studio with the toons. It’s right behind his office.

Henry has not been with the studio since it started. Joey started the studio on his own, and only met Henry later. He was too young to hire at the time, so it was several years before Henry actually got to join the studio staff. Henry and Joey stayed in close contact, though.

Speaking of Henry, he’s more Joey’s apprentice and surrogate son than business partner or anything else canon implies.

Henry’s wife is actually named Dianne here, because I accidentally made him a wife before we knew anything about Linda. Linda still exists somewhere in the city though, she’s just an ex. She broke up with him because of his work habits.

And speaking of Family, I don’t have a lot of family headcanons but here’s what I’ve got in a list: Joey just has the toons, Henry has a wife and a baby, Sammy’s an only child, Susie’s got an oldest brother and an older sister, Wally’s got six other siblings, Norman has five kids (and something like 20 grandkids iirc), shawn’s got a wife and two kids, and thomas had a wife and a kid but she left him and took the kid with her (now he only has his dog, poppy - she is his everything). susie and sammy go on to get married in a year and end up having twin boys, Stephen and Stanley Lawrence, in late 1940.

The toons were made in the first half of 1936, making them all around two years old as of when this was posted. They were made as-is so they were never babies, and they only age mentally. They were “born” with incredibly limited knowledge and experience, and with the way they learn at about the same pace regular human kids would they all have a tendency to act like small children. 

Naturally they do get smarter and wiser as time goes on, but they still act pretty childish and toony even 100 years from now.

The toons weren’t made by individual human sacrifices. Joey bonded his soul to the ink machine so it could produce possessed ink, which can then take on the form and personality of a toon in a ritual. The rituals still need blood, but Joey uses his own.

Speaking of that, that means Joey lacks a soul. This has had subtle influences on him as a person, both physically and mentally, but they’re very subtle.

Also, The Ink can manipulate things that already exist, people and objects included. Even inhaling too many fumes from it can cause one to act goofy. Physical contact or consumption of The Ink will lead to anything from toonish (childish/goofy) behavior to going full toon or ink monster, depending on quantity. explains why wally’s such a darn goofball, with how much of that stuff he cleans up all the time... this boy has inhaled Too Many Ink Fumes

Related to the above, but if The Ink gets into your system and deems you “incompatible”... it’s rare, but it’ll just outright kill you with ink poisoning instead of trying to do something Fun to you. it’s rare, and it hasn’t happened yet, but it can happen. Joey is the only one that knows this.

A handful of items in the studio are possessed by now after coming in contact with The Ink from leaking pipes or other spills.

The toons are ink all the way through, unlike their canon counterparts that have bones and organs. If you tried you could literally punch straight through them, and it wouldn’t hurt them all that much. It’d heal right back up as soon as you moved your arm. In fact, the only things that can harm them are water, religious symbols, and types of paint thinner (acetone, turpentine, etc etc. bleach will probably do it too.)

Because ink can take on the physical properties of other materials, that means the toons don’t just feel like ink - hair and fur still feels soft, fabric feels like fabric, etc etc... but everything’s got a subtle chalky texture to it, especially skin.

The toons have a lot of toon-superpowers, including but not limited to: shapeshifting, toon physics, hammerspace, consuming ridiculous amounts of food, teleporting through ink puddles... If it’s Classic Cartoon Slapstick(tm), they can probably do it.

Toons only really need to drink possessed ink to survive in day-to-day life, they need it much like humans need water. They can (and do) eat food for enjoyment but they don’t have to. They can also eat things that aren’t actually food, for some reason. Bendy’s really the only one that does this. the worst offender is pens, don’t leave your nice pens laying around he will eat them

The toons are all technically imperfect for in-universe unknown reasons. Bendy has a tail, Boris also has a tail and is fluffier than his cartoon counterpart, and Alice’s horns are just bits of hair that stick up. She also has holes all the way through her hands, and a longer dress. (The meta reasoning for this is just that I found it more fun to draw them these ways, they make them a little more my own ;P) (plus we didn’t know what alice looked like from the waist down until ch3 so uhhhhhh I Winged It)

This AU parallels Disney heavily, also they are technically Disney so that means they’re producing a lot of non-bendy related things alongside the Bendy cartoons. This includes full animated feature films that are more or less just like their disney counterparts. Yes, they did a snow white.

Studio never bankrupts in this timeline, it mirrors Disney’s success as well.

This also means that the theme park that was being worked on in-canon actually doesn’t exist for another 20 or so years, as Disney got to their first theme park in the 1950s.

Blog progresses in real-time, minus 80 years. There are slight tweaks to the exact time of day and the studio’s hours of operation exclusively for the ask-blog feature, however. this is why sometimes characters are answering asks at 9PM, when everyone is actually home in-universe

This is more meta but it’s a fun-fact, I try to simulate the ‘late 1930s’ vibe as well as I can, I do a loooot of research. More than I should, given this is a silly AU ask blog. I find history fascinating though so I go overboard.

The studio uses a mix of the current in-game layout, and the pre-ch4 updates layout. For example, there’s that new animation room behind henry’s desk here, but the ink machine and it’s room are still relatively undramatic.

Regardless of what I end up doing with Allison, she will not replace Susie as Alice’s voice. Susie is still and always will be Alice’s voice actress.

Susie’s also not nearly as... insane as her canon-counterpart, but that can be said for just about everyone here.

Alice was actually modeled after Susie. Joey was inspired by her incredible voice talent and general personality, so he made Alice as a character not long after Susie started working at the studio.

The studio was founded in February 1928, and they released the first Bendy cartoon in August 1928.

This will be updated as time goes on, and I’ll put those updates below this note so folks can find them easier instead of trying to remember what changed! c:

#batim #bendy and the ink machine #au #crash course #headcanons

[drundertalescum]

What's your hc age for the undertale characters?

Good question! 

I like to think monster ages range differently than human age ranges, so technically certain types of monsters might have different rates, but for the most part those don’t effect my main cast headcanons.

Frisk

8-12 range. I don’t know a ton about child development milestones or whatever (and those aren’t always reliable), but I feel like Frisk’s age needs to be one where they’ll be more easily held accountable for their actions and choices. Judging from my cousins and my memories of that age, I think 8 is roughly where you start to understand your choices and the effects they can have on the world around you outside of an immediate effect, and it’s important to me that Frisk has that ability. No cinnamon rolls who didn’t know what they were doing aboard my headcanon. 

I like 10 for them. 

Toriel and Asgore

Old. Real old. I always imagined Toriel being slightly older than Asgore, but I don’t really have a reason for it, and I don’t really think that means much when it comes to adult boss monsters. I have a lot of vague headcanons for them, but basically I see them as their equivalent of young adults during the war, and then quite a while passed before they made the decision to have a child.

I imagine they’re in their equivalents of their late 30s since Asriel’s death stopped the clock for both of them. They probably feel their actual age most days, though.

Sans

Old enough to have reasonably had a career that required the amount of schooling required for him to receive a masters degree (heh heh comic sans ms heh heh heh), though I personally headcanon that the Underground isn’t really the best at enforcing standards on education and science, especially after Toriel fled, so maybe that doesn’t mean much. 

25-35, maybe older. Old enough to be tired, worn, burnt out, and find himself at the edge of the other side of it, contemplating contentment, but not quite reaching it yet. I have trouble seeing him as any younger than that. Sans seems like someone who’s had a lot of lived adult experience, but I also think he’s sharp enough that he could be ahead of the curve, which is why I don’t see him as too much older, no matter how much he reminds me of my 60 year old uncle.

Papyrus

Everything about Papyrus screams early 20s to me. 19-25. 

Papyrus strikes me  as someone who’s possibly brilliant and definitely ambitious, but hasn’t had a lot going in his life so far for him to really be proud of. He’s still looking for his niche in the world.  That doesn’t necessarily mean he has NO adult life experience, but I don’t think he’s ever had the sort of happiness it’s implied Sans had and lost. I think if he had a career before Snowdin, it was ultimately not as fulfilling for him. (my silly Illiterate Papyrus AU is a semi-serious/semi-crackfic take on Papyrus having an unfulfilling career before Snowdin) Either way, I think Papyrus is probably more ambitious and also more directionless than Sans ever was.

I also don’t think he’s a teenager. If he was, I think he would have at least tried to hang out with the teenagers in the woods, and he definitely couldn’t have been less popular than Jerry if he did. I love him as this awkward lonely boy but theres limits to how much angst one skeleton can have lobbed at him and that limit is having less friends than Jerry.

I like the idea of him being 20, with UT taking place in 2115 (100 year after the game’s release and 100 years after the first human falls), and CoolSkeleton95 being a hint to his birth year. That’s not definitive at all. I just like it.

(Also, there’s just enough of an overlap on the age ranges of Sans and Papyrus to let me have my twins headcanon.)

Undyne

Mid 20s. Going along with the username thing, I like StongFish91 here as 24.

I think Undyne’s got a lot of optimism and determination and spark that make the most sense to me as a young commander who has been training most of her life for this, but is still fairly inexperienced. Her impatience is a big part of it. She’s READY for a war, and she hasn’t been waiting for one. She hero worships veterans nstead of seeing herself somewhat on her level, and a lot of her references are to childhood instead of earlier adulthood, which feels a lot like someone who’s just taken the reigns and is freaking HYPED about it, but it hasn’t fully sunken in. I can also imagine that the decision to not let Papyrus in the guard is the first real decision she’s had to make in her career as a leader, and she doesn’t know how to handle that without lying and putting it off. It also fits with her pride at the torch being passed to her as a trainer and a teacher from Asgore.

So I think she’s young and inexperienced, which isn’t to say she’s a bad fit for the job. I don’t think anyone wants everyone to see the sun more than Undyne, and it also makes a lot of sense to me that Asgore would meet and train Undyne after he’d already killed the other humans (which informs his attachment to her, as a child who managed to beat him up as well as Undyne not really thinking about the weight killing the humans must be on Asgore). 

I also think that Asgore would choose a younger, hopeful, idealistic person to a position of power over an older, more experienced monster. He cares more about instilling hope than anything else, and Undyne's got that in spades. A young leader to revitalize their hope is very Asgore’s MO.

Alphys

I have no idea, honestly.

18-40, OR potentially the one monster that doesn’t age at the same rate as the other non-oss-monsters in the main cast. 

A lot of Alphys’s personality feels like someone who’s a little older than the others. I can see her as an anxious woman in her early 30s or late 20s  who hasnt had much going on and is kind of floundering under the weight of responsibilities she wasn’t used to before that she thought she would be ready for. 

There’s hints she could be younger but I guess I read her as someone who’s struggled off and on with untreated anxiety and depression, who started to find herself again, and got saddled with the weight of a job and a mistake she didn’t have the support or coping mechanisms to deal with.

I dunno, I’m the least sure about this one, so I kinda like giving her the non-standard aging if i’m going to give it to anyone.

And that’s about it. I don’t have anything solid for anyone else. 

[nightcoremoon]

hugely unpopular opinion here

I'm not gonna vocally support incest because, gross, but like... can we fucking stop putting it next to pedophilia, bestiality, rape, and abuse?

if two rednecks hook up after a family reunion, but they're both consenting adults and there isn't any coercion involved, yeah I find it to be creepy and gross because I wouldn't fuck any of my cousins, but putting it at the same level as the big for of actually irredeemable and bad things just really rubs me the wrong way.

now, fucking your parents or children is wrong from a biological, psychological, and emotional standpoint. if they got pregnant then that child would be super deformed beyond belief. coercion will ALWAYS be present in a romantic relationship between parent and child. sibling fucking is also a straight shot to webbed feet. doubly so if they're twins (dear japan... stop).

but two people whose parents just so happen to be related to each other, if they really wanted to fuck, and they agreed to it, the problems I see it are VASTLY overshadowed by the problems with coercion and biological disasters, pedophilia (kids can't consent), bestiality (non-sapient animals can't consent), rape (no consent), and abuse (I really shouldn't have to explain why that's bad).

I'll make an analogy to put it in perspective.

misogyny is bad. racism is bad. homophobia is bad. transphobia is bad. antisemitism is bad. islamophobia is bad. xenophobia is bad. ableism is bad. classism is bad. this we all can agree on. fat-shaming is also bad. but women, people of color, queer people, jews, muslims, immigrants, the handicapped and mentally ill and neurodivergent, and the poor have all been long victims of stripping civil rights, genocide, lack of representation in media, throughout all sorts of societies and cultures: victimized by bigotry, prejudice, and hatred. fat people are often mocked and receive subpar medical care in modern day america. which sucks, don't get me wrong, but if I were asked if between fat people and, say, black people, who faced a harder time, I'd without question say black people. fat people aren't murdered by police. fat people have never been rounded up in camps and killed off. fat people don't have an identity to strip. being fat doesn't alter the chemistry of your brain or inhibit the abilities of the body or restrict you to a different social class or provide leeway for people to deny you civil liberties on account of their religion on as mass a scale as the others. it can make life as a woman, person of color, queer person, ethnic or religious minority, disabled or mentally ill person, or impoverished person harder when in conjunction with that minority, but by itself, if you're a straight white neurotypical otherwise able bodied christian (or ambiguously atheist) american cis male who happens to be fat, for the love of god shut the fuck up about how much you're ~oppressed~ for weighing over 250 pounds.

and that's the end of the analogy.

in the analogy, non-coercive incest would be fat shaming. bad, yes, but to a much lesser extent than literally everything else mentioned. I know that analogies are difficult for discourse gremlins on this hellsite to understand but I'm hoping people are smart enough not to froth at the mouth and zero in on buzzwords and frame me as some incest-loving fat-shaming bigoted perverted asshole.

and furthermore, a lot of ancient (like, before common era level ancient) cultures around the world often had no choice but to resort to incest in order to keep their people going. egypt, greece, rome, japan, china, india, many native american, latin american, and african tribes, pacific island peoples, scandinavian peoples, countless others i'm forgetting about right now, all have long histories of incest that permeates their culture and religious beliefs. maybe not sibling or parent-child (in all cases; some did that too), but a lot of cousins fucked. and it's super fucked up to brand all of those cultures as evil as pedophilia/bestiality/rape for doing things that we in our current state of society are afforded the privilege of looking down upon. even cultures victimized by many genocides like jews are populous enough now that they won't have to fuck their cousins just to keep their bloodlines alive and probably won't ever considering just how many humans there are in the world.

now, this can totally come off wrong and... bad. one thought that popped into my head was "are you implying that incest was normal in ancient brown skinned people thus suggesting they're rooted in savagery and grossness and thus asserting your own white superiority" are you reed richards because WOW that is quite a stretch. plus exclusively white skinned people fucked their children to keep the family on the throne [well, and egyptians, but that's a tale for a different time], so jot that down.

and of course it doesn't reflect well on me that I'm saying anything other than INCEST IS JUST AS BAD AS PEDOPHILIA/BESTIALITY/RAPE... I wouldn't fuck anyone in my biological family or anyone who marries into it, and I certainly don't wanna be around people who would. and gross fortysomething uncles with leery eyes at their teenage nieces are, well, pedophiles anyway. however, I feel like when it's not coercive it's not as big of a deal and that it shouldn't be demonized- now here's the important part- AS MUCH as the other things that I've mentioned.

now of course, as a person who would never consider anything like that, my perspective is heavily skewed. and as a person who has not been victimized by non-coercive incest (i was sexually abused as a child by most likely either my stepgrandpa who watches child porn and molested my sister as a kid, my schizophrenic methhead uncle who watches child porn and dates women the mental age of children, or my father during a crack and heroin binge, in descending order of possibility, but that's got nothing to do with consensual cousinfucking), I'm not attuned to the psychological effects of consensual cousinfucking, and am not exactly the most knowledgeable person on the subject.

THEREFORE.

if I'm wrong and there's scientific studies done on the subject and there are dissenting logical opinions I would love to hear them because I'm sure there's GOT to be a legitimate, tangible reason why incest between cousins is bad.

*also on the subject, technically speaking every single human on earth is probably descended from the same gene pool. scientifically it's from the first humans who evolved from a common ancestor with apes, theologically (from only a judeochristian perspective) it's from noah's sons ham, shem, and japheth, and I'm sure that there's a hundred other ways to trace back all of humanity to one single set of parents, so in an odd way all humans are distant cousins to each other. I'm curious as to know exactly how far away two people need to be on a family tree for it to no longer be technically classified as incest. fourth cousin? fifth cousin? sixth? ninth? twelfth? this is purely a scientific curiosity only tangentially related to the rest of the post and should be ignored when it comes to the other passages.*

TL;DR I don't have enough of a proper base of knowledge to understand the specific exact logical reasonings behind why non-coercive non-pedophilic consensual incest that won't result in horrible birth defects is bad. I know that it is bad, but beyond just a modern social norm... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ idfk man I just want a link to someone laying it down using science n shit so I can shut down fuckin white supremacists on twitter or something

edit- no anons, no notes. nobody read this lulz

[jetfuel-cantmeltsteelbeams]

Ashlae Summers rolled over in bed, dragging the knitted quilt along her body as she did so. Her eyes opened to stare at the attic ceiling above, listening to the noises below. The house must have just woken up. 

Arik had set her up with a friend after she’d come so close to being caught. An address had been sent to her with no attached note- but when the door had opened and the face of an aged woman greeted her, Ash had panicked. She’d blurted out that Arik had sent her, and that had been it.

She’d been given clothes to change into with no questions asked, warm food shoved in her face, and a warm bed to rest in.

Taking a deep breath in, she counted to twenty before letting it out. “Logan?” She whispered.

In the earpiece she wore, a deep, brough voice answered. “Yes?”

“Come online, please.”

As her eyes focused through the contacts that acted as smart lenses- a creation she couldn’t take all the credit for- a monitor appeared in the center of her vision. Using motion technology, the monitor stayed still as her eyes scanned the information on it.

Good, they’d lost her trail sometime last night. Dead ends.

“Thank you, Logan. Any news on Legolas?”

“No, ma’am. Would you like me to keep an eye out in the background?”

“Yes, that would be helpful.”

“Consider it done.”

Pulling herself out of bed was a feat of will. Every part of her body hurt- but the muscles in her legs absolutely screamed. She managed to drag herself through a shower before a heavy knock fell on the bedroom door.

Dressed in the pajama bottoms and oversized t-shirt that had been given to her last night, she opened the door after throwing her riotous curls into a tight bun before it could dry.

And nearly dropped her jaw at the sight that greeted her. Jaxon Mile- world champion boxer (and title holder in the feline division held underground) stood in her doorway in what looked to be the afterglow of training. Sweat beaded down his temples to pool at the neckline of his wifebeater, his knuckles still wrapped in soiled bandages.

But he wasn’t wearing the cocky grin the cameras seemed to always catch him with. As he looked down at her, his face seemed grim. Taunt.

“You smell human.”

Scrunching up her nose, she met his gaze. “And you just smell.”

That earned her a booming laugh- one that changed his face to the more easy, laid back boxer she was used to seeing from tabloids and magazines. “Arik said you had a mouth on you.”

“Did he also mention my legs and arms? Very handy to have.” The shifter just grinned. “Thank you for letting me stay the night- I was just about to get my stuff and head out.”

And just like that, his grin faded back to the worn look he’d had when she answered. “Arik said you need to be moved from the compound immediately. He wouldn’t say why.”

The silence between them hung like a dead body swaying in the wind until Ashlae cleared her throat. “What, ah, do you know about Arik?”

Jaxon waved a hand. “I know all about his little computer shit. He’s from my pack, so we grew up together. When he calls in a favor, I don’t ask questions.” The relief she felt must have shown on her face, because his grin fell back into place. “So, get your stuff. I’m going to take you to stay with my wife for a while.”

“Your wife?” Jaxon Mile had been one of the first names she’d added to the database when she’d first began charting the underground immortals; the celebrities that walked among men, but weren’t. She’d spent an entire afternoon searching to find everything she could on the feline shifter- leader of his pack, heir of an heir, and suspected to be the inheritance of the Lord of Lions. After she’d been terminated from her organization last year, she hadn’t followed up on any of the thousands of names she’d added to the database, but at the time nothing had popped up about a wife.

The boxer moved past her as if he owned the place- which, technically, he did- to reach for the patchwork bag she carried everywhere. Gripping the strap in his hand, he went to fumble through it as he spoke. “Pretty little thing, my wife. Has a mouth on her, like you. The two of you should get along great-” When he pulled out a black case- the only thing she knew that weighed down the pathetic bag- she snatched it out of his hand with a grin.

“I can’t wait to meet her. When do we leave?”

For a moment, his presence overwhelmed her. She’d read about his kind- the dangers they posed, the beasts they could turn into with only the slightest thought.

And she’d just snatched something from him like a child at the playground.

But he offered her a knowing grin and handed over the bag. “Curiosity killed the cat, right?” There was more to his smile that made her blood run cold- as if he knew what laid in that box and the repercussions of it’s existence. “I have to shower and change. Give me ten.”

And he was gone.

-

Standing in the royal hall dressed in tight jeans and a tank top that had been cut from an oversized Led Zepplin T, Ashlae couldn’t help the blood rushing to her cheeks. “You didn’t tell me we were going somewhere- somewhere this nice!”

Jaxon- who had told her repeatedly to call him Jake- laughed outright as she unbound her hair and tried to calm the riotous brown curls into something less than an afro. “Believe me, it’s not that nice. Come on, I think they’re in the next room.”

“I’m not going anywhere dressed like this!”

“Well, you could strip- but then you’d probably be sentenced to death for being naked in my presence.”

“Your wife’s that jealous?”

“Territorial with a capital T. Come on, now. You look fine.”

With a grimace, Ashlae allowed Jake to lead her through ornate double doors into what looked to be a small gathering.

Twin brunettes stood out to her most; one with a mass of hair that looked as if it hadn’t been brushed in the past week wearing leather pants and a halter sat in an oversized chair throwing knives into the air, the other standing with a tall glass of what looked to be tea wearing a summer dress with floral prints, her hair done up with pins of orchards.

Beside her stood two men wearing identical uniforms that could be stealth suits. One had fair blond hair, who just nodded when he seemed to agree with something being said, and a raven with skin almost as dark as hers who didn’t seem to understand what an inside voice was. The raven had a longsword strapped to his hip that seemed to have just barely passed the test of time.

Off to the side, a woman with vibrant pink hair stood with a baby on her hip- his hair was the color of fresh snow when the sunlight bounced off just right. They were both pale- but her smile lit up the room as she laughed at something her friend said.

The woman beside her must be the queen. With white robes that hung off both shoulders to kiss the floor, everything screamed royalty from the flawless skin to the crown that sat atop thousands of black braids. Her lips barely cracked a grin as she watched her friend giggle, then parted slightly to say something to the babe.

By the hearth, twin boys sat apart. One, on the floor, and the other on the couch with a book in hand. Beside the one on the floor, a tall blonde woman wearing a leather suit stood so still, she might have been a statue.

Everyone but the toddlers that wandered about turned at their entrance, and silence fell. In her ear, Logan sounded faint as he informed her that the signals of the subrealm were interrupting his airwaves before he completely cut out.

All eyes landed on her, and Ashlae wondered faintly if this was what it would be like to wear a meat suit into a tiger’s den.

“What are you doing here?” The raven queen asked, her eyes landing on Jake.

But the boxer beside her offered nothing less than a brilliant smile. “I missed you too, wife. Training went well, thanks for asking. Same time tomorrow- I know you like to be told these things, so you know exactly how long to wait for me by the window.”

The brunette snorted on the couch so hard, she toppled over onto the floor.

But Ashlae caught the slight blush that heated the queen’s cheeks as she drew closer. “I mean, who is she?” she repeated, waving an elegant hand in Ashlae’s direction. 

Jake shoved both hands into the pockets of his jeans before leaning back on one leg. “My friend asked me to keep her safe.”

“So you brought her here?”

“So I brought her here.”

“I want a divorce.”

“And I want to have sex. We don’t always get what we want, now, do we wife?”

As close as she was, Ashlae was sure that she and Jake were the only ones who saw just how big the raven’s eyes got at that before fire replaced surprise. “I don’t want her here- get her out.”

“You don’t even know what she can do! Come on, little cub, show her your tricks.”

It took Ashlae a moment to realize he’d spoken to her. Turning to look up at him, she felt her brows come down in confusion. “Excuse me?”

“The little computer thing you do. Show her.”

Ice flooded her veins as Ashlae realized the extent of what he was implying. With every pair of eyes on her, she took a step back. “I… need to go. I have somewhere-”

With that brilliant smile lighting up his hazel eyes, Jaxon Mile turned the full force of his charm on her, though that warm front had frozen over. “Somewhere you have to go to update your little database?” Turning back to the room, it was with a wide grin that he continued. “That little program that has all of our species, families, and locations on it was made by this pretty little thing right here.”

The raven’s face was stoic as she took in everything he’d said in. Behind her, the others got to their feet. “It’s… got our locations in it? Our families?”

Jake nodded. “It traded hands last year, but she’s the reason it exists.” Turning back to her, he added, “Makes it very hard to keep me and mine safe.”

Ashlae felt her heel connect with wood as she reached the double doors. Suddenly, there wasn’t enough air in the room. “Logan?” She whispered as her eyes met those of every immortal’s in the room. “Logan, answer me.”

From the back, one of the brunette twins whispered, “Is she mental? Who’s Logan?”

But the frequencies in this realm were interfering with her program. Logan couldn’t help her here. Clutching the strap of her bag closer to her, Ashlae struggled to take a full breath.

And finally got a better look at the faces turned to her. If her blood had run cold before, it froze now. In her mind, the faces matched up with the information she, herself had added to that damned database.

Astor Nightengale-Smithe. Notorious groupie and one half of the Throne of Creation. Powers unknown, daughter of God and a human woman who had been brought back to life.

Amelie Nightengale-Smithe. PhD in Art History as well as Physcology and three languages. The other half of the Throne of Creation. Powers unknown, daughter of God and a human woman who had been brought back to life.

Noah Demmekke. Dark Angel. Deaf, thanks to an unfortunate kidnapping gone wrong. In his rescue, a bomb had gone off but he had been too young to properly recover his hearing. Son of Renegade Demmekke and a mortal woman.

Mattea Cross. Dark Angel and Ice Demon. Powers unknown except her affinity for the dark whips she could form at will. Brought back to life after being slaughtered at her grandfather’s hand at the age of four. Daughter of Raychl Cross and Renegade Demmekke.

Evryn and Talyn Demmekke-Blythe. Twin Princes to the Drigulian throne. One, the trained whore and the other, an avid member of the Brotherhood of Knowledge. Adopted sons of the Dark Leader Rue Demmekke and Caydin Blythe- the King of All Angels.

Zatch; Surname unknown. Powers unknown. Heritage unknown. Species unknown. Affinity for the longsword rumored to belong to a kingdom lost to time.

Luna Néomi Lucé. Daughter of a fire demon. Father unknown. Queen of the damned. Sister of Casimir Lucé- son of Lucifer and rumored to be the Destroyer of Worlds. Adoptive daughter of Sythe Lucé; Lucifer.

Nicolette Demmekke. Queen of Angels, reign in Drigulia. Daughter of Dark Leader Rue Demmekke and Caydin Blythe- the King of All Angels.

The toddlers roaming around- were they captured by these monsters? Taken from families that had loved them? To fullfill what purpose?

I’ve never been so fucked in all my life.

[actutrends]

Yes, the Suns really are experimenting with Deandre Ayton and Aron Baynes

Photo by Barry Gossage/NBAE via Getty Images

Yes, the Phoenix Suns are experimenting with Deandre Ayton and Aron Baynes in the starting lineup. Is Ayton at the 4 viable or even survivable?

In the 3-point heavy, pace-and-space NBA, traditional positions of old are fading into legend. Switchability is king, seven-footers who can do more than just post up are labeled as mythical beasts like unicorns, and the league’s current knight in shining armor thrives on ball-handling, playmaking and step-backs in isolation. It’d all feel medieval if it wasn’t such a modern approach to the game.

Unfortunately, the Phoenix Suns appear to be trending back to the dark ages after starting Deandre Ayton alongside Aron Baynes against the New York Knicks Friday night. Though head coach Monty Williams cited the size and physicality of the Knicks’ front line as the reasoning behind the decision, “Ayton at the 4” has almost felt inevitable since the summer.

“We’ve been having discussions about it,” Williams said. “James [Jones] and I had a long talk yesterday. I had been thinking about it, but James kind of pushed me in the corner on the phone and started talking about DA and his ability to not just dive, but pick-and-pop, and do some things that a lot of 4s can do.”

Against a bulky, brawny frontcourt that included Marcus Morris, Taj Gibson and Julius Randle, the unconventional gamble paid off. In just his fifth game of the season, Ayton tallied 15 points, 13 rebounds, five assists and one block, while Baynes added 20 points, 12 boards and one block before fouling out.

In their 19 minutes of game time together, the Suns were a plus-9 overall, and the pivotal turning point of the game was a center-to-center connection when Baynes blocked Bobby Portis from the 3-point line and Ayton recovered the ball, tossing it down court with a Wes Unseld outlet pass that resulted in a 3-point play for Baynes.

Fighting giants with more giants paid off this time, but the first question, when such an unorthodox solution to Phoenix’s problem of slow starts arises, is whether this is the new norm. Williams wouldn’t budge either way.

“It’s not going to give you your story, but I’m going to enjoy this one and we’ll see,” he said. “But I think it’s something that we can grow, I do. It’s putting your best players out there and your best athletes on the floor, your best screeners on the floor.”

The next implied question is whether this lineup can actually work if Phoenix sticks with it.

Over the summer, general manager James Jones hinted that the Suns would consider playing Ayton at the 4 alongside Baynes, but thanks to a 25-game suspension and an ankle sprain in his first game back from that suspension, there hasn’t been much time for experimentation. Ayton played that role in college, and has been itching to return to it.

“‘About time!’ Ayton said of his reaction to learning he and Baynes would start together on Friday. “I’ve been asking them since there was a little rumor, a little tweet saying I was about the play the 4, so I’ve been wanting to play the 4, been wanting to guard out on the perimeter.

“Now it’s just … let me shoot a 3, one day….” he joked, trailing off.

Friday night, it was hard to argue the twin towers lineup worked, even after another sluggish start that saw New York score 37 first-quarter points. With Ayton diving to the rim to attract attention and Baynes launching from 3 (he only shot 2-for-8, but the threat of his shot spaced the floor), lanes opened up for Devin Booker to dissect the defense off the dribble and for Kelly Oubre Jr. to continue his recent torrid assault from 3-point range.

“It’s just really having DA back, he really opens up the floor for us, to get open shots, get an open driving lane, pass, create,” Oubre said. “It’s just getting the right shots and making the extra pass, that’s the key for us.”

Booker finished with 38 points on 14-of-27 shooting, taking only five 3-pointers as he surgically operated from the middle against single coverage. Oubre, meanwhile, was supremely efficient with his 29 points, going 11-for-16 from the floor and a blistering 5-for-7 from 3-point range, many of which were the result of good ball movement leading to kickouts for open looks.

Notice in this clip, with RJ Barrett hovering near Ayton in the painted area for just a second too long, Ricky Rubio (nine points, 10 assists) zips the ball to Oubre in the corner for the open 3. That gravity is invaluable, especially with Booker ignoring the 3-point line lately, Oubre being a mediocre long-range shooter, Dario Saric now glued to the bench and Cam Johnson’s minutes not seeing the necessary uptick to pick up the slack.

“He’s such a big presence down there, you saw when he runs and seals, that’s what we want and that’s the best look for our team,” Baynes said of Ayton. “He draws so much focus it collapses the defense. So I’m just trying to tell him to keep going down, roll, seal, I’ll work off him. That’s my job is to go out there and be in the right spacing and give him the opportunity to go to work in the post.”

Ayton’s effect on the Suns’ two primary scorers has been pretty clear this season, even in a limited sample size. In the four games he and Booker have played together, the star shooting guard is averaging 31.3 points, 7.8 assists and 3.3 rebounds per game on 51.2 percent shooting from the floor and 41.7 percent shooting from 3-point range. In five games with Oubre, the 24-year-old wing has posted 24.8 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.6 steals per game on 57.3 percent shooting, including 57.6 percent from deep.

“I think when DA’s running the floor, that puts so much pressure on the rim,” Williams said. “It gives us a chance to space a little bit, and if we get Devin and Kelly running, then Ricky can operate or we get free as a rim run.”

Ayton’s underrated passing ability will help in pick-and-roll action as well, since the attention he receives in the short roll will also lead to wide-open 3-point shooters (he finished with five assists Friday). However, if it sounds like Ayton’s gravity makes more sense with him in a traditional, rim-running role at the 5, that’s because, well, it does.

“Coach is smart, he did it in a way where I’m a 4 on paper, but on the court I’m still a 5 in a way,” Ayton said with a laugh. “I guard the 4s and still do the 5 on offense — you know … not shooting.”

And therein lies the rub. For a guy who wants to play the 4, Ayton’s lack of a trustworthy 3-point shot will always hold him back on that front unless he’s playing next to a big who can space the floor on one end and defend centers on the other.

Ayton has taken five attempts from distance in his career so far, and he’s missed all five. Whether the shot is still a work-in-progress or it’s the coaching staff that doesn’t want him pulling the trigger just yet (as his frequent jokes about yearning to launch 3s suggest), it’s just not a shot that’s in his arsenal. His mediocre returns from anywhere outside the paint indicate it won’t be a reliable tool in his arsenal for some time.

The unfortunate truth, when asking the follow-up question of “Will this work against anyone other than the Knicks?” is that Ayton has never been the player some tried to bill him as coming out of college. He’s a finesse player trapped inside a seven-foot-one, 250-pound build. He’s a mage lurking within a dragon’s body. It’s not in his nature to bully people inside or take it personally when someone tries to steal his treasure at the rim. Though he’s a capable post-up player and attracts a lot of attention on the block, post-ups are dead; he’d rather be shooting mid-range jumpers and launching from 3. His touch is a blessing near the rim, but a potential curse to his mindset on the nights he’s not fully devoted to being a monster down low, which playing the 4 could very well enable.

“I think the league is changing to where dudes are big and strong and versatile as well, so we want to be the same thing and we want to join them,” Ayton said.

He’s technically right, but these interchangeable bigs and unicorn types that Ayton’s alluding to can also reliably shoot 3s, and they’re usually playing next to an athletic, switchable big man who can space the floor and provide weakside rim protection (which is where passing on Brandon Clarke makes this whole “Ayton at the 4” experiment even more damning).

Baynes is a terrific positional defender, but he’ll struggle as most bigs do when switched onto guards, and he’s often at a disadvantage against centers with his size and athleticism. That puts pressure on Ayton to be able to switch onto smaller, quicker perimeter players as well as protect the rim as a weakside shot-blocker.

“You know that the paint will be protected, but then in one-on-one, especially with 4s that can put the ball on the floor, it’s gonna be tougher for them and we’ve gotta help,” Ricky Rubio said.

To be fair, the big guy has been awfully impressive defensively in limited action this year, and he showed signs of that ability again Friday night, when he came from over to spank one of Julius Randle’s shots out of bounds in a rare display of emotion.

However, this is hardly a recipe for success against teams who don’t play a more traditional, non-shooting frontcourt, teams with more talented guards or teams who aren’t the New York Knicks. In 25 minutes together this season, lineups with Ayton and Baynes have been a plus-4 overall, which means that in the six minutes prior to Friday’s game, the duo was a minus-5. These samples are too small to really glean anything from, but that’s kind of the point: One game against the lowly Knicks made this tandem look far more effective than it really is.

“It’s a work-in progress, but when you look at the teams around the league that defensively get after it and rebound, some of them have two bigs, and they have a big like DA that can guard and block shots and distract shots,” Williams said. “He and Aron only had two [blocks] tonight, but I think he distracted more than that.”

Ayton has the footspeed to stick with quicker players on the perimeter, as he showed in full games guarding LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo last year, but Williams also acknowledged that even though he’s capable of holding his own on an island against guards, the Suns don’t want to give him a “steady diet” on that front. Having Baynes and Ayton together on the floor presents a challenge in that respect, giving opponents two bigs to target with switches in the pick-and-roll.

Perhaps having two of the team’s best screeners to enable dribble hand-offs and free up Booker to work his mid-range magic really did open things up on offense. Perhaps Baynes (36.2 percent on 4.0 attempts per game) really does have the range to viably spread the floor for Ayton’s rim runs on offense, despite his slower release. And perhaps Ayton can grow into heightened defensive responsibilities of sticking with quicker 4s while providing weakside shot-blocking. It just requires a lot of growth on everyone’s part, and that’s saying nothing of Ayton shooting 3s.

“A bit of a change, but we wanted to start from the defensive end,” Baynes said. “Having his length and athleticism out there, you saw he changed a lot of shots, he made some big blocks down the end of the game as well so it’s fun. We can always get better, it was the first time we’ve played that way so hopefully we can get a lot better in it.”

Reading between the lines, even if Saric’s minutes plummeting to 16.3 per game over the last seven contests meant nothing, and even if the Ayton-Baynes lineup was just a matchup-based tweak, we’re going to see this confounding lineup again. More than likely though, this is a medieval experiment that won’t bode well if the Suns choose to stick with it against better opponents.

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