#//it’s a lot of work to have it so it’s not horribly overpowered for story reasons and on here bc that wouldn’t be fun for the other person

[mechahero]

//can’t wait for the day i get to have lambda explain his knowledge on what it’s like to twist and bend reality to pull off some weird and abstract concepts and how complicated it is sometimes and have the person he’s talking to be like

[ultraviolet-cello]

Aw man. Today's the last day of @tristampparty and I am surprisingly sad about it. I'll be catching up the days I missed at some point, but I've chucked all that I've written, including today, into a google document and I apparently wrote 7.5k words over the course of episode 6 to today.

That's! A Lot!

I really wanna thank everyone who reblogged and gave me their additional thoughts/commentary, and special thanks to Revenantghost for organizing this whole thing! you do good work for this fandom i am giving u a gold star

With that, here we go into Episode 0 - High Noon at July. CWs for pregnancy discussion and a less detailed than last time but still present analysis of sexual assault and transphobia, marked with a [CW] Ofc, spoilers for Trimax and Tristamp

Cowboy kid Knives is something u can pry from my cold dead hands but it's also,,, I don't watch a lot of westerns, but the way Knives describes it seems like he likes the high action and justice. Which yea. yeah.

A lot of ppl interpret Vash then saying that he doesn't like that sorta stuff as him having always had pacifistic tendencies but I don't really read it that way? I just see him being rather similar to Trimax Vash - chill kid with his own interests and hobbies and Knives being the very oversensitive kid so outshines him initially.

Regardless of version of Trigun (except 98. 98 didn't know shit about knives lmao), Vash and Knives have always started off wanting to coexist and be peaceful; it's just how they reacted to it later that differs. In this case, Knives wants to stand up for his friends and make a peaceful world through that, and Vash is more passive in that he just wants to have faith in humanity.

Not to mention they are kids. Young, idealistic kids. This is pre-Tesla, they don't know the extent of how horrible the world is. The loss of innocence and subsequent breakdowns relating to The Horrors is yet to come.

[CW] Mmmmm they really don't make the pregnancy imagery subtle now do they dfgkjdfjk

I also think there's like - merit in also interpreting Knives as trans. Not Just because i think he's also very trans coded (A lot of his breakdowns and story arcs have reflections in how some trans men overcompensate masculinity in a Bad Way. That's a very small subsection of trans guys btw but I am speaking from experience. I got better tho). Anyway it makes the fact that Knives is disregarding Vash's bodily autonomy very much Worse if you take the male plants are trans analogy into it.

He's so far gone that he's willing to do to Vash what would be the worst thing to be done to him; Violating his body to rebuild and make him a perfect independent ("remind him of biological reality"), physically overpowering him ("taking the aggressor, commonly masculine role in sexual assault") to do what he wants. Disregarding the wants and needs of the Plants ("women +fem-presenting ppl that he originally set out to protect because he knew their experience and wanted to help and still has that trauma from witnessing that trauma")

Ofc that's just a reading of the scene, but I quite like it as a trans guy because that makes a really good villain with trans themes/motifs! I hate him so much (affectionate)

No, no she doesn't. Meryl is making a choice and she's gonna damn well stick to it! She's been given agency and she's gonna spend it in the most eldritch horrific scene that someone on that planet could spend it lmao. Well, no Knives takes most eldritch and horrific. Meryl's second tho

Okay this fucking scene drives me INSANE. This is a memory, clearly, but it's one that's being tampered with. Vash asks Knives if they can get along with humans, and then Knives immediately messes with the memory to make sure that he says that he'll protect Vash no matter what. But that is very clearly not what was originally said, so... What did he say? What was present day Knives so desperate to cut off?

I've talked about the narrative being biased against Knives a lot, but something I haven't talked about is that Knives kinda tries to contribute to that narrative a lot. He wants to seem like he never cared about humans, he wants to seem like he always planned this and was going for justice ever since he was a kid. He tells Vash the Tesla incident was just a small grain of sand, he uses Luida to tell everyone he wants to kill Rem, he's unbearably cruel to Vash to make his point. The only difference is that he wants to be right.

So he doesn't let us see what the kid version of him says, because that would contradict the narrative he's built for himself.

I really wanna give props to Studio Orange here for both the design and way they modelled the wing here, that's a really difficult task when the guy you're putting a wing on has a tight as hell bodysuit. But the anatomy holds up surprisingly well!

Also many people have pointed out that the plant mech looks a lot like Rem, and Knives staring into the face of a Plantish representation of his mother that is created and controlled subconsciously by his brother and saying he was rejected is. It sure is a scene!

ONCE AGAIN. INCREDIBLE EFFECTS. I also would like to once again point out the angelic motifs of Knives' design here.

Also Vash saying this is SO important because Meryl!!! is so important!!! I see a lot of people brush Meryl's space in the story off and it Enrages me because Meryl is one of the most important people to Vash. Aside from our frontline yaoi soldier Nicholas D. Wolfwood, Meryl has one of the most tangible impacts on Vash's character.

When Vash is in his breakdown in Trimax, Meryl is the one to kneel at his side and believe in him; When Vash is having his god awful horrible mindscape time in Tristamp, Meryl does the same. When Meryl is kidnapped in Trimax, Vash instantly jumps out of a window in the chance of getting her back. Vash trusted her enough to fire the ion cannon in the sand steamer episode. He immediately went to July the moment she and Roberto were kidnapped.

Meryl has so much faith in Vash and she's insane for that, but Vash recognizes her and that faith pays off in giving him the strength to carry on. He heard her voice, too :]

Also oh to be floating slowly down to the floor while you're a meter away from a cube with the power of an atom bomb while someone named Millions Knives is summoning millions of knives in front of u. Meryl has guts, man.

And now that Vash has gotten his gun back, he's back to using it as a tonfa! (check I think my analysis of episode 7 for more on that). Watching for the swing blocks, the forearm guard, and thwacking the knife tendrils out of the way

This fight scene has soooo much love and care and detail in it I love it so much actually. From seeing Vash's bullets to all the expressions and beautifully detailed firing, there's so much detail in a quick space that you really have to slow it down to see everything.

Seriously how strong is Knives to be able to have a feasible chance again Vash's prosthetic - and Vash matches him! Also the chomp

Now something that I have the shakiest of theories on is that after summoning The Cube, Vash starts moving in a far more controlled manner, he stands still when reloading, he has his movement flurries and then stands still to aim. Which uh. Studio Orange works in 3d, but those are 2d animation techniques. He's moving like 98 Vash.

There's a lot I admire about Studio Orange's use of 3d (I am a mid-tier 2d artist lmao) but I love love love that they're able to get all these really nice, creative camera shots that would be impractical in 2d (all those overhead shots, for example, have a chance of turning about bad/looking weird in 2d, and puts more strain on animators, but 3d you have the models from every angle already. 3d isn't easier by any means, but it does have its strengths)

Also. how Did Wolfwood get over here, dare I ask. mans climbed a tower in just a few minutes what is Wrong with him

Also a nice detail, Vash usually has perfect trigger discipline, but he falters here against Knives, probably because he's been already shooting, but hey, he's stressed. I'll give him a break.

I also appreciate exactly how superhuman Wolfwood is now. Tristamp Wolfwood is on a different level. Like 98 Wolfwood is just some (attractive) guy, Trimax Wolfwood has a lot of gory body horror going on and a subtle kind of endurance/strength, but Tristamp Wolfwood just jumped off a very tall building holding a grown woman and the Punisher and was fine.

Oh hey, same symbol on the tower as was on the sandsteamer and on Vash's wanted poster - symbol of July, probably

Very horribly, Knives probably did just save Vash's life here. But also the rest of July's life (though ofc he just extended the timer)....

I'm not quite sure When Vash started using plant bullets, but he's definitely using them now. Also the nails on his prosthetic are a nice touch!

THE FLYING SAUCER STRIKES AGAIN. I wonder if that's gonna be the basis of the Ark, if that's the route season 2 goes.

I also. Was that allI the Plants collected that escaped in this, or were there a bunch still running in July that get obliterated too? Did Knives inadvertently cause the death of more plants? I mean, when Knives gets revived in Trimax he definitely causes the death of at least 2 plants (there are a couple of bulbs in the background of the blast radius, plus the one that was used to revive him... she uh. Didn't look like she was doing so hot)

Vash's little speech is always so,,, intense. He has such a strong sense of character and it's admirable how well he sticks to his morals despite it all.

On a more body horror note, Knives can survive a long fucking time trying to grab The Cube. In Trimax he gets hit with the angel arm and practically disemboweled instantly, but Tristamp Knives can take over a minute of just like. being right in the direct path of fire. They're really gonna have to work to reconstruct him. Good luck, Legato!

UFO SPOTTED !!! LEAVING JULY AS IT IS DESTROYED !! NOT CLICKBAIT !!!

^ I made that long ago and needed to use it somewhere dfgkjdfg

[RAUCOUS CHEERING]

And ofc I have to bring up Eriks :] I don't actually have too much to say abt him. Studio Orange strip this man and make him bark like a dog next season or we will riot

CHRONICA MENTION!!!!! YAYYYYYY

And that's kinda. It.

Man I have had such fun over the last 12 days, I've really discovered a love for analyzing and theories and putting that out there and chatting with people about Trigun :] I should do this more often lmao but I do want to get back to drawing. I'll find a balance, then!

Thank you all for coming, and Wow if you made it this far I must be doing something right lmao.

[getvalentined]

@takenbynumbers: tseng for the ask game - 13, 24, 35, 44. :)

[For the Random Character Asks game.]

13. Dumbest thing they’ve ever done?

Canonically? Probably that time he messed up that mission with Veld and almost got them both killed. (The one that leads to one of my favorite lines from Veld, which basically translates to "...They say that subordinates are a lot like their superiors, so maybe I'm still naive, too.")

Headcanon? When Tseng was about seventeen he once accidentally stole one of Veld's extremely expensive pens after a group meeting, didn't realize it until two days later when he found it in his desk drawer, and proceeded to spend the next week trying to sneak it back into Veld's desk instead of just telling him that he'd accidentally walked away with it.

After a series of failed attempts that landed three colleagues in trouble (all of whom insisted that they would willingly sacrifice themselves to keep Tseng out of trouble because Turks are and have always been ride-or-die, even in exceptionally ridiculous situations), the incident was resolved when Reno finally just took the pen from Tseng, slipped it into his pocket, and walked into the armory.

A few seconds later he walked back out, holding up the pen like a lighter at a concert. "Hey, Chief! Isn't this like your sixth-favorite 'I'm a rich bastard' pen? I don't think it goes in the materia locker."

As it turned out, Veld had been so busy over the past week and a half that he hadn't even noticed it was missing. He thanked Reno, theorizing that he'd accidentally carried it in there himself when getting kitted out for a field assignment, and just accidentally left it in the locker.

(This event may be why Reno was given the vice director position upon Tseng's promotion within the department, but neither of them will confirm or deny the possibility.)

(Also I know the Ultimania says that Reno is 25 during the Crisis but that makes absolutely no sense with the timeline of the Compilation so I reject this as soundly as I reject Sephiroth being born in 1980.)

24. Most annoying habit?

For simple habits, like tics, Tseng tends to use fountain pens not because of any preference of his own, but because he will fidget with click pens or snap the lid on and off capped pens over and over and over until everyone around him wants to strangle him alive. Veld got him into fountain pens so that he'd stop doing that during mission briefs and meetings.

For more complex issues, as indicated in the story above, Tseng is horribly indirect in social situations. This is doubly true when he thinks someone else has a problem with him, which leads to him asking questions of mutual acquaintances, making observations and constructing timelines to try to figure out whether he or the other party is in the wrong, and overthinking every previous interaction he can think of instead of just asking the other person what's going on.

This is less annoying for the people who don't realize it's happening, but for everyone else there's a lot of "Just ask him. Oh my god. Just ask him what's wrong! Tseng you are THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS OLD just ASK HIM if he's mad at you!"

35. Their idea of a perfect day?

Even with alarms off, Tseng wakes up a little after sunrise, even on the weekend. He rolls over, slings his arm over Reeve in bed and stays there until Reeve wakes up about an hour later. They get up, Reeve checks his phone—Tseng takes it from him, because they're off work today. He goes through Reeve's notifications, snoozes all of them for 48 hours, then gives him back his phone.

Reeve makes coffee while Tseng makes sure Cait Sith is set on assignments for the day, and then both and and Reeve see him off for the day. Cait Sith won't connect directly with Reeve except in an emergency, and Tseng isn't worried about that; he can take care of himself, and things are quiet these days anyway. The biggest problems they have to deal with these days are ordinary people with legal agreements, not overpowered superhumans with lethal aggression.

Tseng gets dressed before Reeve, because Reeve likes to shower first thing in the morning and Tseng likes to shower before he goes to bed. He makes breakfast while Reeve is washing up, and gets a call from Reno that he's letting Elena off early today because she has a date. It'll mean they're running a little skinny through the weekend, but the mission board is almost empty so he's not pressed about it. Tseng says that's all right, he trusts Reno's judgment, and he'll talk to him on Monday.

He pages through the worst gossip rag in Junon while Reeve eats breakfast, periodically turning the magazine around to ask if Reeve thinks a particular photo of this or that public figure was taken by Kunsel. Reeve agrees with him every time, except for the one of Vincent, and they both admit that Kunsel is too scared of Vincent to have done that. They spend some time theorizing who would have taken the chance, going well past the point that breakfast is done, but don't reach a consensus before an alarm goes off and it's time to head out.

Up on the roof of the WRO's executive housing facility, Tseng and Reeve load up one of the organization's aircars—like an airship, but stripped down to the smallest versions of the barest essentials until it's not quite the length of a travel trailer—and spend the next few hours in the sky. The autopilot gives Tseng some time to read, although it always makes Reeve anxious. This is funny, singe Reeve helped develop the aircar in the first place, so he knows there's no risk of them going down just because Tseng took his eyes off the instruments for a few minutes, and Tseng teases him about it until Reeve begrudgingly concedes.

They touch down in Costa, but not on the landing pad—not even properly in town, instead settling just past the cliffs that divide the commercial, public beaches with the less-accessible stretch of shoreline to the north. Reeve unloads the aircar and Tseng sets up, propping up an umbrella, unfolding chairs and draping them in towels, situating the cooler and pulling out one of those cheap premade smoothies-in-a-pouch for lunch. He gets changed while Reeve has his own lunch, and they spend the rest of the day at the beach; around sunset they get back in the car (leaving all those things they brought on the sand, no one can get here except from the air and everything is replaceable anyway) to head into town, where they get dinner from a food truck on the side of the road as they walk from the landing pad to the hotel where they'll spend the night.

Tomorrow afternoon, they'll head home. But for a little over 24 hours, there's nothing but sunshine and sand and water, ice melting in a plastic cooler, slightly-uncomfortable folding chairs and sand-crusted towels. No work, no responsibilities, no crises to avert.

And when Tseng goes back to work on Monday, he'll remember exactly why that work is worth doing, which feels pretty perfect to him.

44. Their happiest memory?

I would say that Tseng doesn't have a lot of happy memories, but that's not really it. The thing is that for Tseng, happiness is a fleeting, finite thing; contentment is possible eventually, but happiness is different, happiness is deeper, and it isn't until after the world has come to and end multiple times that he finds it in a more permanent sense. Before that, his happiest memories are...not what most people would consider pleasant? But they're happy nonetheless.

Pinned under rubble when he was too young and too naive to know when to give up, sure that he was going to die, and then having Veld show up to save him after insisting over and over that he wouldn't.

Security footage taken from Kalm, seeing Aerith under a blue sky for the first time and knowing that it was where she was meant to be, that she was finally getting to see the world that belonged to her.

Sitting in the forest outside the Forgotten Capital, bruised and bleeding after days of torture at the hands of the Remnants, watching Vincent work on treating Elena's injuries—first, before Tseng, because she was unconscious and he wasn't—and eventually turn to Tseng and declare without a hint of uncertainty that she would pull through.

If asked, Tseng would say that he has a lot of happy memories. Nobody else would think they're happy at all.

[blindmagdalena]

Did you or do you ever struggle writing character x reader fanfiction? I read it quite a lot but I just can't get used to writing in that format. I'm writing an OC x Homelander story, though.

I had never created an OC before, but I am certainly more comfortable writing a character that has a name, face and backstory of their own than using a generic reader. Particularly when I'm writing about the character's past and other individual characteristics, addressing the reader as you seems so weird to me. It makes me feel like I can't give in to specifics because it breaks the illusion.

Also, I've enjoyed the act of creating an OC. Giving them a name, a story, motivations, designing their psychology, etc.

However, I find it discouraging to see that OC x HL stories are nowhere near as popular as HL x Reader and I worry that I may not find an audience. When I post anything in ao3 it gets like two likes and in tumblr I'm just ignored completely 😢

Could you please give me some advice pls?

oh my darling! i hear you. the disparity in interest between x oc content vs x reader content is undeniable, but it's also inevitable. all the reasons you describe struggling with reader perspective fics is why it's so popular: the lack of detail allows the reader to adopt a nebulous perspective, whether they see their own oc in that situation or their literal selves. it doesn't require them to get to know or become invested in your creation, it allows them to indulge in what feels like their own.

i don't think readers get enough credit for their suspension of disbelief and the mental work they put into filling in the blanks that authors leave. similarly, it's absolutely difficult to tell a compelling story while leaving what is often the perspective character a near blank slate. that said! the fics i get the most feedback on are where the reader does have a stronger personality. people love banter, and even if the reader's voice doesn't always feel like something they would actually say, it always produces much more engaging interactions.

i've definitely had my struggle with this in the past, but i'm still learning. the series i'm working on right now, Guilty Pleasures, features a reader with quite a lot of personality, and i've established things about her that i wouldn't normally go into such detail, and the response to it has been great! your reader perspective SHOULD still feel like a character with thoughts, motivations and feelings. otherwise, the story is going to fall a little flat.

if it's easier for you to write the reader perspective as if they're your oc, you should do that. there's a delicate balance between too much and too little information when it comes to reader fic. sometimes taking liberties really works, and i think you'd be surprised how well readers can stretch that illusion. reader perspective should resonate, but not be so overpowering that the actual person reading doesn't like them.

but you absolutely do not need to force yourself to write a particular style of story if it's not something you actually enjoy. i also write and enjoy oc fic! i honestly think my oc fic Eat Your Ego is some of my very best work. unfortunately, it's rare that any of those chapters ever break close to 100 notes, whereas even little reader drabbles will see 2-3x those numbers, sometimes more.

but i write it because i love it, and it's the story i want to tell. that's what matters! and because of my dedication to the story, people have been kind enough to trust me with their time and investment. oc fic will never have the same broad appeal that reader fic does, but that doesn't make it less valuable. you just have to invest more in promoting yourself and convincing people that your story has something to offer them.

my best advice is just don't give up! i'm horribly erratic when it comes to the creative projects i work on, but i've been writing Eat Your Ego for over a year and it has gathered a lovely little following. feedback on that fic means SO much to me. even though there's less of it, the joy it brings me is immeasurable because that fic is special to me. don't give up on your story! it deserves to be told. 🖤

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

HII GM!!! i hope u had good worming time ehehe :3 anyway. now that you've spent some time w/ the undersiders & met a lot of the brockton bay wards & some of new wave + the prt!! i wanna hear ur thoughts on them in general + the world so far if u have any!! & also ur thoughts on like.... how powers happen & brian and taylor's origin stories etc if thats also something you've been thinking abt!! eyes emoji eyes emoji..

i am having SO much fun w worm. physically making myself put down my phone and walk away so i stop reading and do the productive things i promised myself i would do this weekend.

I AM SO. WARY. OF THE WARDS. I DONT TRUST THEM. its rlly cool 2 me that they all have powers that i myself would consider like. Bad or Scary. the emotion manipulation thing, the literal warping of time and space etc those are all things that i would be like. this feels overpowered to the point that i almost expect it more from a villain character to build dramatic tension. which. i guess in the meta sense still works bc theyre being set up as antagonists rn but you know what i mean!!!!!

i fully think we've reached the point where taylor is in way too deep to the extent that changing anything now would end horribly bad for her on both sides. shes still holding onto this thought that shes gonna have this dramatic reveal where she puts the villains in jail and the heroes welcome her with open arms. but after that conversation with armsmaster thats just !!!!!!! not going to fucking happen!!! it doesnt work like that!!! also there keep being these little sidebars and moments where she admits to herself that shes excited about villain work or like..a chance to hang out with her new friends. girl you are not going to join the protectorate i can see right thriugh your dumbass.

<< side note on all of this i have a little bit of a theory for this. i think tattletale probably. knows. she joined with the intention of betraying them eventually. im still sort offff kind of unclear as to the extent of lisas powers and how they work but at this point i dont know how she couldve possibly missed that huge elephant other than the possibility that she is intentionally ignoring it.

ANYWAY. IVE STRAYED FROM YOUR ACTUAL QUESTION IM SORRY I JUST LIKE THE UNDERSIDERS A LOT. i have a lot of thoughts on the meta of the story and the role reversal of "villains good heroes bad" that i know some cape media does sometimes and im not exactly sure jf thats what worm is going for but i AM AWARE OF IT . and i think that is playing a little bit of why i am biased like this. but this is not to say i dont like the heroes i wan 2 know everything about them. however i dont trust them. SUPER interested in what Amy's got going on w her dad and the fact that she fucking turned off taylors powers????? despite saying she wasnt gonna mess with brain stuff?????? i think amys gonna get rlly fucked up about something pretty soon. i could see her snapping and turning into some crazy supervillain esp in the last interlude where she talked about how much pressure she and others put on herself w healing everything and everyone.

uhhhhhhh what else. hey powers coming from trauma is pretty fucked up huh!!!!! u know whats rlly funny is like. i sort of expected it to be somethinf bad like that but i was also wasnt expecting the angle that like. the powers are unrelated to whatever the event was??????? like im sure u could find ways to connect each of their powers to their trigger event but its not ljke. obvious ?? i guess?? like taylor wasnt bittem by a radioactive bug that gave her bug controlling powers u know??? im rlly rlly excited 2 learn abt more characters trogger events just to like. expand the data pool and see if yhere is a correlation between the power that they get and the event that happens. or if the power theyre born with the potential of having is just set in stone or whatever. does that makr ANY sense

[gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun]

In defense of trashy ya dystopias

Okay, I’ll admit it: Hunger Games is an excellent book. It is powerful and well crafted, and deserves to be an eternal classic. I’m not sure any of the ya dystopias that followed it were quite so good, and I understand why they get mocked so often. Still, I think they deserve a better rep than they get.

Now, I understand that some ya dystopias are really, really bad. The only literary criticism that would call them good art would be a reader response based method that just says “well, some people like them so they must be good!” I don’t think that’s exactly how art works, but to an extent, that’s true. If a book inspired someone, encouraged them to read, and broadened their view of the world, who are we to say that it’s not worth reading? No matter how terrible a book is, it can at least make someone a bit more passionate about reading, and that’s value enough.*

First, I have to talk about Divergent. It makes me sad how many people hate that series. There are some valid criticisms, but most of it doesn’t make sense to me. People accuse Tris of being flat and basic, saying she’s an overpowered Mary Sue of a blank slate. That in particular confuses me. Tris isn’t dull and underdeveloped, she’s depressed. She’s reactive because she doesn’t care enough to be proactive. She’s numb, which comes across as her being unemotional. Now, we can debate whether that makes her a bad choice as a main character, but I won’t stand for her being painted as a bad character.

I was horribly depressed when I read Divergent. Watching Tris made all the difference in my life. I related to her when she threw a chair from the roof and watched it shatter on the concrete below, wishing she could follow it. I would have followed her to her death when she convinced herself that dying for her friends was noble sacrifice, not suicide, not the easy way out. I nearly cried when she realized at the last moment that she didn’t want to die, that she had to choose to keep going. I watched her build her life back up, even through the misery, pain and loss. I watched her find happiness, and I broke down when she gave it all up to protect someone else, someone who was trying to throw away his life out of guilt and grief. She sacrificed everything she had to give him a chance to fight through it and become someone better. She would have done the same for me. I needed to keep going, to honor that sacrifice and follow in her lead. Tris taught me to fight, and I am so grateful.

The Maze Runner was one of my favorite series. My longest completed story I’ve written was a trilogy of (unfortunately very straight) TMR fanfiction. I know it’s pretty garden variety dystopia, but it was very meaningful to me.

I think part of what made it special was having a male protagonist. Most ya dystopias are centered on teen girls, the intended audience, and while TMR could have used more diversity of gender in the cast, it was nice to see myself in the main character (although I like to believe I’m not that stupid). Thomas is also a very competent MC, which is always appreciated, and it feels earned more than Gary Stu-ed.

TMR has, despite not having any canonical evidence, a lot of gay ships in the fandom, probably because the boys all have a ton of chemistry and there are no girls (pretty much). I was deep in denial (see my straight fanfic), but TMR still gave my budding queerness a place to grow. While insisting that being gay was wrong and my homosexual crushes were Not Gay, I still managed to have very strong feelings on which Maze Runner ships are correct (Newt X Alby and Thomas X Minho, Newtmas shippers fight me). Being represented, even if I didn’t know it at the time, was so important to me.

Lastly, TMR taught me bravery. It taught me that even if things are just going to get worse, you have to try and make it out. I look at the world around me, and it’s not hard to imagine the Flare, or WICKED gaining power. Us kids have been handed the burden of fixing the world, and I need all the courage I can get. Like I say in my fanfic (the AWWWB series on Wattpad, first book called Good Grief), “Maybe the universe is just cruel. But… if we don’t know what’s outside of the Maze, then we’d better hold on to the fact that it’s just as likely to be a good place as a bad one.” We have to keep hoping that something better is coming eventually, even if it never does. We have to keep fighting.

I don’t have any others in mind right now, but I want to hear about other books (dystopian or not) that made more of a difference than they’re given credit for. Seriously, I want y’all to defend Twilight, to champion the Matched series. Tell me how they changed your life.

*note: books that spread harmful messages are different than poorly written books, but that’s a whole conversation by itself, so we’re going to be idealists in this post and pretend that’s not an element while acknowledging that in the real world it’s a true and harmful thing

[bakugokemkatsuki]

Wrath (Fluff Version)

Levi Ackerman x Reader

**Genre: Fluff **Note: Reader is not gendered **Key: Y/N- Your Name Colors: Levi, YN (Talking) **Word Count: 522

Levi Ackerman is what many would call frightening. He was on the shorter side but if anything, that only added to his intimidating demeanor. Everyone knew not to cross him and when they did his punishments were by far the most horrible of anyone’s. Luckily as long as you did as you were told and kept everything perfectly clean, he wasn’t bad. Honestly, he wasn’t a bad guy once you got down to it. He had just been through a lot.  Levi was your captain and for the most part you were a good soldier and had been one of the few people to have not had to bear his wrath. You quite liked Levi and as far as people go, and he tolerated you more than most. It helped that you found him to be quite attractive. You would never admit it to anyone, but you had a bit of a crush on your captain. Knowing Levi, he didn’t do relationships. He only had one goal, to slay every titan. So, you buried your feelings and kept everything on a professional level at least until today. Today you had been slacking off during training and Levi was quick to notice. After training Levi confronted you and demanded some extra one on one training during dinner as your punishment. You were just grateful it wasn’t stable duties. Those were the worst. When the time came you went to the training field where Levi was already waiting for you. “So, you finally show up.” “I’m still five minutes early captain.” Levi gave you a small tch and training began. Not long into training Levi could see you weren’t really trying and decided to talk to you. Talking didn’t seem to work and you seemed unbothered. He decided to take you on with hand-to-hand combat instead, and within moments you were pinned under him on the ground. “Trying to scare me by overpowering me huh captain. Too bad I’m not scared of you.” “ Oh is that so? Well then why is your heart beating so fast?” You suddenly noticed just how close the two of you were, you could feel his breath fan you face as he spoke. Without thinking you say, “Well because you’re cute.”. Shocked neither of you moved or said anything. After what felt like an eternity Levi spoke. “Y/N… you like me?” Blushing and being unable to look him in the face, you reply. “Um... Yes, I have a crush on you Levi. Also, would you mind getting off.” After quickly getting up and helping you up Levi finally said what you always wanted to hear. “It’s crazy, for so long I’ve only had one goal. I always block out feelings do to always losing the people I care for most, but you you’re the exception. I like you too Y/N. But if you wouldn’t mind could we take this slow?” “Of course, Levi!! I’m just so happy you feel the same way. And I promise I won’t let this get in the way of the main goal, saving humanity.” You two happily walked to grab dinner after that.

**Note: I was trying something new out with this story and the talking lines being color coded and bold. LMK what y'all think of that or if you'd prefer I just left it normal.

[autisticsupervillain]

It's Fictional Throwdown Friday!

This Week's Fighters...

The Terrarian vs Paper Mario!

Conditions:

Mario has absolutely everything except for the Pure Hearts. Terrarian has everything. Speed Equalized.

Scenario:

The Terrarian intends to steal the Crystal Stars to use them to make a new weapons set. Mario stands in his way.

Analysis: The Terrarian

The land of Terraria, despite it's unassuming exterior, is a chaotic and dangerous one. The universe was created as an experiment by the Gods, a test to see if some form of cosmic balance could be maintained. However this balance was threatened by the dread god Cthulhu, who sought to bring all of Terraria under his domain. Luckily, the ancient race known as the Dryiads were able to overpower the dark lord, fighting it to the very last man and crippling him irreversibly. This forced Cthulhu to retreat to the dark side of the moon, where it would attempt yo regain its strength to one day attempt to conquer the world once more.

That day was soon to be fast approaching as a cult arose, seeking to revive Cthulhu and bring his horrible reign down upon all. That is when our hero enters this story: The Terrarian themselves. They were a simple nobody of unknown origins until the mysterious guide appeared before them one day and sent them off on their quest to prevent Cthulhu's return.

And luckily for all of us, The Terrarian has many.... many.... many tools on hand to help them fight the forces of darkness. This dude has more armors than Tony fucking Stark, each of which designed to help them combat that numerous beasts infesting Terraria.

Every armor and weapon at their disposal bolsters their already superhuman strength to some degree, which says a lot when they're capable of killing ghosts and blasting zombies into big meaty chunks with just their bare hands. Many of their armors, as well as their healing items such as potions, campfires, and statues, can speed up their regeneration, which is already good enough to help them recover from having their face ripped off. On top of that, many of their armors allow them to duplicate ammunition, allowing them to mow you down with their variety of gattling guns and magical crossbows with complete impunity. And if that wasn't bad enough, their most powerful armors can increase their capacity to summon minions as well as allow them to turn invisible.

On the topic of said summons, they're completely intangible, unable to be harmed even by those who can kill ghosts and effect souls. This is especially problematic when you have to deal with all the other things the Terrarian's magic can do. They can make it rain damaging blood from the sky, bring down small meteors just by swinging their sword, can freely teleport just about anywhere is sight or teleport all the way back to their base, and even nullify your ability to heal from it all. Their ranged weapons are equally deadly, capable of shooting poisonous projectiles, intangible projects (that go straight through everything that isn't you), giant fucking lasers, the works. Really it'd be easier to list all the ways the Terrarian can't kill you.

I don't think that the Terrarian wouldn't be willing to use this on you either. They can be shockingly ruthless in the pursuit of their goals. For example, they were perfectly willingly to permanently sacrifice their Guide's life to get a shot at killing the Wall of Flesh, unleashing the spirits of Light and Dark and causing untold chaos in the process. Hell, they even helped hasten Cthulhu's return just so they could kill it themselves and solve the problem for good. So you can fully expect some ruthless tactics out of them. Magically enducing confusion in you to get an opening? Check. Sucking out your very life force until you're nothing but a dead and empty husk? Sure thing. Spraying you with a weapon that corrupts you into a mindless servant of the all consuming Crimson, omnicidal Corruption, or over zealous Hallow right down to your very soul? Yes, they'd do that.

And good fucking luck retaliating properly, even assuming you could hit someone who can fly, teleport, and turn invisible at whim, their numerous charms and armors grant them resistances to poison, mind control, fire, ice, and many, many more. Hell, they can even resist your ability yo nullify said resistances with the right gear. And if that's not good enough, they can even transform themselves at will into a form that gives them a better advantage, such as a merfolk who can breath underwater or a werewolf with increased strength at night.

Even with all this at their disposal, the Terrarian does have some considerable weaknesses. That being that a lot of their stuff relies on their gear. If you take that away, you'd be left with an incredibly experienced and skilled fighter... but that's about it.

Having said that, they're still an underdog ehen compared to their competition. The Terrarian builds nearly all their gear themselves and has used it to slaughter entire armies and even outright gods in the span of a single night. For example, the Celestial Towers that sealed away the Moon Lord (Cthulhu), are powerful enough to pull the moon closer to the Earth in the span of seconds. The kinetic energy generated would measure out to 152.98 Ninatons of tnt, or 9x more than the energy needed to destroy the Dwarf Star OTS 44.

Source:

And keep in mind, this isn't even the Terrarian at their peak. They would later fight against the same Mokn Lord who was stated to be capable of destroying the entire realm of Terraria.

The loot they got from beating the Moon Lord is even stronger still. When you're powerful enough to beat gods who can destroy stars, you're powerful enough to do damn near anything. The Terrarian is far more than a simple Minecraft clone. They're in a league all of their own.

Analysis: Paper Mario

Mario "Jumpman" Mario. You know who he is and what he does. Even if you've never touched one of his games, you probably know everything about Mr. Video Game. This humble plumber has risen high ever since his humble days chasing after Donkey Kong Sr. Being basically the only competent form of security that the peaceful Mushroom Kingdom has, Mario has rescued its resudents and princess from the clutches of the nefarious Bowser countless times. But some of his adventures are a bit.... craftier than others.

For the sake of this analysis specifically, I'm treating Mario and Paper Mario has two distinct entities. While Nintendo has gone a bit back and forth in the past as to whether or not Mario and Paper Mario are the same guy, with several games in both series referencing the events of each other's games as canon while at other times treating the two as completely distinct entities, so really, you're fair to read them either way. Mario has about as much continuity as Tom and Jerry most days anyways, so for the sake of fairness, I'll be limiting Mr. Jumpman to his arts and crafts arsenal today. Even when treated distinctly, Mario and Paper Mario should powerscale off each other in stats regardless, because Paper Jam is a game that exists.

Not that being two dimensional has made Mario's arsenal any less vast. The usual arrangement of hammers, fire flowers, and mushrooms with various effects are all here and accounted for. Paper Mario is just as capable of making big jumps as his three dimensional counterpart and has saved his version of Peach just about as often. And what's unique in Paper Mario's arsenal is often times uniquely devastating.

Mario's papery proportions allow him to move in unique ways. He can flip between 3-d and 2-d to avoid attacks and reach otherwise impossible areas and he's been "cursed" with all manor of shapeshifting abilities, from the power to turn into a paper plane and soar through the sky to the power to the ability to turn into a paper boat to crosd the sea! Mario can breath in the vacuum of space (except for when he can't) and survive space radiations completely unprotected.

Moreover, Mario's inventory is versatile and deadly. The mega star can make him grow absolutely gigantic and let him plow through everything in sight, while his Pixl allies give him a whole host of powers. Tippi analyzes his enemies for him, giving him advice and informing him of their stats, Barry creates, well, barriers to protect Mario from threats, Carrie turns into a floating platform to carry Mario and pals out of danger, and Thoreau lets him pick up and throw enemies and objects over twice his size, among many others.

Over the course of his first adventure, Mario would rescue the seven Star Spirits, allowing him to overcome Bowser's wish granting star rod and nullify his invincibility. Mamar sings a song to put enemies to sleep, Skolar rains down stars from the sky, Muskular decreases the enemy's strength, Misstar restores his health, Klevar stops time, and Kalmar transmutes the enemies into stars. The Crystal Stars can give many of the same abilities, on top of powers such as creating Earthquakes and sealing away beings as powerful as the Shadow Queen, who could cause earthquakes all over the world and covered the world in darkness.

Yet, despite all that variety, Mario's most powerful and arguably strangest ability comes in the form of things. Real life objects of incredible power that can be used to absorb and redirect poisons, melt entire mountains, and even spin the entire planet! Such a feat, if performed on Paper Mario's world, would generate a kinetic energy equivalent to 154 exatons of TNT. That's enough to shatter the moon!

Source:

And that's on top of being considered equal to his mainline counterpart. The same Mario whose power stars can create galaxies, who could survive the universe being reset, and defeated the Megabug, a dimensional instability that was going to destroy Mario's entire dimension.

2-d or 3-d, Mario is one of most powerful video game characters Nintendo has ever created. No matter what side series he hails from, Mario is the mascot for a reason.

Throwdown Theme:

Throwdown Breakdown:

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. This is a big one.

The arsenal on both of these combatants is absolutely massive. I don't think I even touched on half of it in either of their run downs. And both of them have ways of killing each other right out the gate. The Terrarian could always just corrupt Mario into a unicorn, but Mario can just as easily turn the Terrarian into stars. As video game characters controlled by the player, neither side really has a go to openinh move in combat, so determining who wins the quick draw is difficult. And that's on top of all the abilities that just counter out, like flight, because they both have several ways of doing it.

On one hand, Mario cannot destroy or guard against the Terrarian's summons, as even people who can punch ghosts to death bare handed can't touch them, meaning Mario's ability to fight Boos wouldn't help and he'd be getting harassed all fight. On the other hand, Mario's ability to shift between two and three dimensions would provide a similar level of Intangibility, as Terrarian has never shown to hit a foe who becomes incorporeal in such a manor. On the third hand, Terrarian has even more ranged options, with a huge plethore of guns, bows, and magic staffs, whereas Mario heavily relies on either massive Area of Effect attacks or attacks that are relatively close range.

Both of these combatants can either defeat beings who or are comparable to beings who can defeat people who can threaten to destroy the entire universe, so there's no considerable gap in power. Any attempts to buff or debuff stats would get swiftly countered out anyways by potions and power ups.

So what's the deciding factor here? Well, there's a few things that work in Mario's favor here.

1. Unpredictability. As vast as the Terrarian's arsenal is, all their weapons are at least things that look like weapons at first glance. Mario, meanwhile, can just summon a giant chicken or stop time with a stop watch, or spin the Earth with a fan and you don't know which until he does it.

2. Analysis. Tippi is going to be able to give Mario a tip that the Terrarian is very dangerous and very versatile, cluing him in to the fact that he should open up with a winning move first, while Terrarian is going in blind.

From there, Mario could just stop time or put Terrarian to sleep before turning them into stars. While Terrarian could just as easily open up with an instant win move, they both wouldn't know to do so and would have no way of predicting Mario's arsenal because of how out there it is.

As versatile as these two god killers are, Mario is just that little bit... craftier.

This Throwdown's Winner is....

Paper Mario!

[artzychic27]

I’m watching Hotel Transylvania, and…

Marinette: Another school day, and another successful year of refuge… FROM THEM! *Points dramatically at a screen with faint images* … Psst! Marc!

Marc: *Staring at a lightbulb* Huh? Oh, sorry. *Turns off the lights so the students can clearly see images of humans on the screen*

Marinette: These are recent human images our surveillance has uncovered. They are getting fatter so as to overpower us. And they are wearing less clothing, allowing more movement to strangle us or cut open our heads and put candy in them. But they will never find us here. *Screams at an image of a child licking ice cream* Evil villain! You will never win!

—

Chloé: Excuse me! Excuse me! Have you lost it?! You wanna go out there with those horrible humans you always tell us about?! That’s why the school was built! They hate us! They’re vicious! And they’re VERY LOUD!

—

Nino: Guys, she can handle it. But seriously, watch out for fire… Fire bad

—

Ivan: *Tackles Adrien into a closet* Who are you?! And how did you find this place?!

Adrien: Oh, I’m Adrien. And I was mountain climbing with some of my guys, and heard this story about a spooky forest. And who’s not going to go into a spooky forest, right? So then I see these goofy looking guys on fire. And I just kinda followed them to this, like, amazing castle.

—

Adrien: *approaches Rose* Wow. Seriously, I just have to ask you- How are you pulling this off? I mean, it looks so real, like I could just put my hand right through… *Sticks his hand through Rose’s rib cage*

Rose: Aah! FRESH! *Slaps Adrien across the face*

—

Adrien: What exactly is this place?

Mme. Mendeleiv: What is this place? It’s a place built for all those young monsters out there, lurking in the shadows, hiding from the persecution of humankind. A place for them and their companions to come to and be themselves. A place void of torches, pitchforks, angry mobs. A place of peace, relaxation, tranquility, where they may learn to harness their abilities…

Adrien: Cool. So, it’s like a school for monsters?

Mme. Mendeleiv: … Yes, exactly. “A school for monsters.” Way to sum it up.

—

Juleka: Look at me. *Her eyes glow red* You remember nothing of this encounter. You have no memoirs of this place, or the monster you met. Now go and never return…

Adrien: … Wait, never return to the school?

Juleka: What? You were supposed to forget the hotel. I just used my power to erase your memory; I look straight into your eyes.

Adrien: Maybe it’s the contact lenses.

Juleka: The what?

Adrien: These little plastic things that help me see better. Hold on, let me just try and get them out real quick. *Holds his eye open and tries to get the contact out*

Juleka: Oh, that is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen!

Adrien: Almost got it.

Juleka: Stop doing that! Please stop doing that! Fingers away from the eyeballs! Enough!

—

Louis: *Gets blocked off by haunted armor* What is the meaning of this?!

Nathaniel: *Descends to the floor* Louis! You’re coming with me! *Makes a grab for Louis, only for him to dodge and kick him in the jewels* AAAH!… Why did that hurt me?

—

Marc: Sheep!

*Simon pulls over before the car hits the sheep, but swerves, and the car goes off road for a bit before getting right back on the main road on the side of a mountain*

Simon: Alright! High five! Don’t leave me hanging!

Marc: *Points* Lots of sheep!

*Simon slams his foot on the brakes before they can hit the large heard of sheep in the middle of the road*

Ismael: I got this one. *He gets out of the car, eats the sheep within a matter of seconds, goes back in the car, and picks some wool out of his teeth*

Marc/Simon/Jean: … *Glare at Ismael*

Ismael: … What? Now there’s no sheep in the road. Let’s go.

Jean: That was pretty sick, man.

Ismael: You eat lamb chops, it’s the same thing.

—

Ivan: The only way they’d know the real us, is if we show the real us.

Juleka: This could work.

Nino: You mean scare them? We haven’t scared people in centuries. I don’t even think I have it in me anymore. *Weakly growls* I got nothing. I really got nothing.

Lacey: *Sighs* Let’s move this along. BURN BABY! *Her whole body lights on fire*

Nino: *Screams* FIRE BAD!

—

Aurore: When the moon comes out, the real monster fun begins!…

*Cosette plays Worth It on their phone*

Aurore: Being scary, right guys?… *Sees her friends dancing to the song* Guys? Guys! Come on! *Turns off the song*

Jean: Come on. Everybody likes that song.

—

Marinette: Chloé and Zoé are gonna conjure up the biggest sandstorm you’ve ever seen. Hit it!

Chloé: Sandstorm? It’s been a while.

Marinette: Not my problem. Do it. Say your spell.

Zoé: … Okay… We got this! Just try not to faint.

*The two stand atop a stome slab and begin chanting and making a series movements that aren’t humanly possible… Until Chloé twists her ankle*

Chloé: AAH! My ankle!

*A handful of sand drops down from the sky*

—

Marc: This is how they learn. You throw them and they figure it out.

Science Kids: …

Marc: … What? It’s how I was taught.

Kiran: I wanna fly now!

Marc: Okay, little moth, you know big brother’s right here if you need him.

Simon: I can’t watch. *Takes out his contact*

Reshma: Please don’t!

Marc: Here… We… Go! *Tosses Kiran off of the tall… tall… very tall tower*

*They all run to the edge and watch Kiran continue to fall while Marc remains unbothered*

Zoé: … He’s still not flying.

Marc: He will.

Ismael: … Still not.

Marc: It’ll happen.

Aurore: … This is a tall tower.

Marc: That’s why it’s good.

Lacey: You should get him.

Denise: He’s gonna fall and break into a hundred little pieces.

Marc: He’s taking his time.

*Kiran screams*

Cosette: MARC!

Marc: I did that my first time.

Jean: He’s getting too close to the ground!

Marc: … You know what? He’s not gonna fly. *Flies after Kiran*

—

Jean: *Playing the organ* Now husband and wife feel the strain and the strife~

Everyone: Shut up!

@msweebyness @imsparky2002

[the-zapped-part-timer]

Penn Zerothon Day 4

I'm Super!🦸🏼‍♂️

My Ramblings: I love that Phyllis quietly downplayed the fact that she's zapping them to the Superhero World, she knows Penn will go berserk! His excitement is adorable and I adore the voice acting. I wish I could get that excited for things. Also we see that Phyllis does in fact live and sleep at the Odyssey. Interesting to see her outside, that would've been neat to see her out and about in town more often.

Very Boone to be using the woman's bathroom. Boone really doesn't ever mind wearing a dress or a skirt and if he's a lady, he's rolling with it! Love him for that.

If I had my dream since I was 6 come true, I'd bawl my eyes out!

Funny that only Sashi has an actual Superhero name. At least with Boone we get an idea,  but Penn? Left out to dry.

Wonder if the Super Dog is what got Sam Levine on Super-Pets? I know that's not how it works but it would be funny.

Captain Super Captain is a treasure, RIP Adam West. His force fields look awesome.

Always with the dramatic entrances, eh Rippen? This tells me that your hide out may be underground. Also was the car smashing really necessary? You didn't even throw them!

I love all the Superheroes just yelling their names out like overpowered Pokémon.

What an interesting sound when Larry first springs out of Rippen's suit... also I like expression when Rippen uses his new found super speed. Ya scrambled his brain cells, Rippen! Do you think he was ever embarrassed about having Sashi's powers? Probably thinking I have to take them not because I want but that she can't have them.

Larry almost killed an old man.

I will never be tired of the mystery behind Penn's superhero logo. The theories are endless! We got:

An 8

A dollar sign

Two awesome snakes just hugging

An 8, again

A stack of two donuts

A snowman

And my favorite, two awesome cookies hugging

Like where did you get "two awesome cookies hugging." Rippen? He almost sounds a little innocent here. Also how he said "snowman vibe" is so unbelievably sassy. Rippen really said "HEY" at Penn so annoyingly, I love it.

Penn's great wink is going to someone who desperately needs it.

My god, the remodeling kitchen story and the fact that Rippen's reading his mind? All the same info swirling in his brain? Amazing already. Probably a headache coming on and then BAM! RANDOM ITEM STRAIGHT TO THE DOME! His expressions, he's so confused. Comedy gold.

Also I need you all to do yourself another favor, when Captain Super Captain messes with Rippen's robo-leg wires and says: Captain Regular Captain! Look at his legs. Damn...

I love the idea of Rippen and Larry just getting arrested. We get to see Rippen's nice and simple suit, very stylish.

Just this out of context:

Rippen: To be honest, Larry, it feels better not to have you in my belly.

Larry: Really? I was starting to feel at in there. It was kind of cozy.

And we end off with Penn accidentally destroying the city. The day is saved indeed, mission accomplished.

~The Characters~

Penn Zero: Must have sucked that he wasn't super for most of it because you know, it was his dream since he was 6. But happy he learned that powers aren't everything, it's the inner self within that matters. I'm sure he will still never not freak out when they're zapped here.

Boone Wiseman: Doesn't do a whole lot but I do wonder what he's read in others minds that he didn't bring up. Would've like to see that as a gag. Unused potential.

Sashi Kobayashi: Poor Sash. I don't think her power is that bad, don't underestimate the power of smell! It can be so horrible for so many people sensitive to strong odors.

Rippen: This has been on my mind for years! The fact is he is not a supervillain in this world, no powers! My headcanon is that the villain is bitter about that an wants to steal everyone else's powers. Anyways, so close to winning but the power of teamwork saved the day, as always. I just need to know how this guy and the mutant parasite met!

Larry: Super helpful in this world, he can use his special power and not hurt anyone... hugs! I really like that he played a huge part in the plan and actively participated. He even pushed an old man! Evil points!

Dimension(s): Cool world but raises plenty of questions, mainly: what is the entire world like? Is everyone super? If everyone is super, are they really super? What's it like for people not born or accidentally turned super? Can you accidentally become super? I wanna know! Even the politics!

Forms: I like Sashi's because I like skunks, they're cute! Helps that the purple and green combo slaps. Boone's is alright, he looks good. Penn's... not a huge fan on the yellow to be honest with you. But still looks good, especially those two awesome cookies, hugging.

But Rippen's design is awesome! He's just a guy in a giant mech suit but so what? I like it. Larry's is also really cool! He's just a little purple man worm and apparently worms are my jam now so yay!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Fast and the Floor Rugs🧞‍♂️

My Ramblings: So, they've fought vampires before and of course Sashi kills them in the most slow and painful way imaginable... did she do this to Rippen, who we see a photo of as a vampire. Probably not, I think it's possible Larry did, as we see in the picture in that particular episode, I'll bring it up again.

Is Phyllis reading a romance novel? It's a nice deep red and says something with love on it. I can't properly see it. But good for her.

Penn and Boone didn't even make a peep when they saw Sashi, they both just smiled, but not in a joking way, more of a you look cute today kind of way. I like their smiles. But also I understand her threat, so far in these episodes, I notice a lot of the time we see Sashi last and the boys say something that can come off as them making fun of her. They're never malicious, I just understand her wrath.

There's that monkey obsession of Boone's flaring up.

Bikers! A good twist on the obviously Aladdin inspired world. Interesting to see a lot of evil or mean bikers in media when in real life, a lot of them are nice, some the nicest and most helpful people. Like Bikers Against Child Abuse. Anyways, Rippen's face when Larry vacuums his rug.

Is it a can of worms to bring up the hero being white in a predominantly non-white place? There's something about that, right? I mean, going back to Aladdin... it's certainly a subject.

I like the conflict at hand between Penn and Boone, I mean, Penn isn't entirely wrong but I still feel for Boone, he's trying his best. Probably hurts more considering this is his family's thing to be wise and helpful to the heroes and him failing at that... ouch. I understand both of them, I've been on both sides.

Trouble in bromance land? Yes, Rippen, actually! His little giggle before saying that. Also his expression and sigh when he realizes that Boone is stuck in the lamp. I like him face and voice, ok? And him scoffing at John DiMaggio biker like a peeved off teenage girl? Great.

It's so funny to see Rippen obey to being pulled over by a cop. Like he's evil but he for some reason respects the law... for a minute. He did that earlier with the carpet train, he just sat and waited impatiently while Penn just flew over it. Trying to be a kiss-ass to the cop while fruitlessly trying to find his license on the empty carpet. Until he realizes it's all pointless and he's evil. Shining gold as ever. Larry didn't even try to help or speak to the cop.

More good advice from Sashi, she's kind of like a Wiseman herself, lots of pep talks from her. Very good scene between Sashi and Penn. She didn't even wanna talk about Boone behind his back, that would've been easy to do but nope!

Why did Rippen have to use the pliers to to fix the lamp below the screen... by his crotch? With loud cranking!? Come on, you know that had to look a bit sus right?

Boone was ready to square up against Rippen so fast, if it wasn't for the fact he was a genie, I believe it would have been over for the poor villain. Boone seems tough he's just a bit cowardly, which is fine! Rippen is too! Too bad sass and pettiness got to Boone from a moody Rippen, an adult man.

To think, Sashi almost died because of Penn... as a monkey.

We adore Boone being difficult towards Rippen either on purpose or not! Gets worse for old Rip, Boone and Larry start to bond over baby nickels! Rippen is too much for me right now, I'm dying of laughter.

Do one of th bikers laugh at Penn's carpet and say "it's small"? I think so.

WILHELM SCREAM! Also Penn killed 3 bikers... not even a joke or a possibility that they survived. Nope! He got them, they're dead! Larry could've almost died we don't know, he blasted off to who knows where.

Awww, Boone being the team's anchor! Sounds mean at first but Penn brought it around. And putting a hand on Boone? I love them. I cherish this dream team. Too bad Rippen's gotta be a problem.

Boone? It's big brain time. Legit one of my favorite episode endings, he's so clever! He so easily manipulates Rippen and uses his own desires against him, even if that's not part of his mission! Great job, Boone! Everyone, clap for Boone! Just so subtlety twisting his words from "annihilate Penn Zero" to "I wish you would make Penn Zero expire", of course Rippen will say exactly what Boone said because he learned he needed to be so damn carful with his words like with the GPS and wanting peace and quiet! I feel bad for Penn, he must have felt so terrified at first. BUT HE TRUSTED HIM! And all that happened was him turning into expired milk! EVERYONE CLAP HARDER! Rippen just being like: alright kill him for real and Boone is like, nah, you already used all your wishes. Go cry about it, bitch!

And Rippen goes out in the funniest way imaginable! I need to clip this and talk about it forever!

I love Boone. I love this dream team. I cherish all of them. But Boone? This is your day! Shine!

I would have been pissed about the Sultan.

~The Characters~

Penn Zero: A low-blow towards his buddy but obviously some feelings he's had over time. Which understandable, I would be frustrated by that, I have been before. But glad that he felt guilty by that, it's good to be honest with your friends but coming off as a jerk doesn't feel good either. Just need to sit down and properly talk about stuff like that.

Boone Wiseman: Like what I said earlier, the ending was awesome, Boone, your a genius! But before that, the break up, I really felt for him, Like I said, it would crush me if my friend said that and that was my whole family's thing. Even though, technically we don't know that yet and sadly don't get that much attention as Sashi's family dynamic. Happy it all turned out right in the end and not in a way where it's like, why are you still friends. It's easy to mess that up.

Sashi Kobayashi: Sage advice from the non-wiseman, that's kinda been her role so far besides the bloodthirsty Sidekick.

Rippen: So damn funny! Like, I died. His raising anger and frustration is so good! The ending? Biggest and funniest L so far!

Larry: Not much to do but funny. This starts a good friendship between Boone and Larry, their bot so different the two.

Dimension(s): Desert... that's it. But the concept of how carpets are just motorbikes is good.

Forms: All great! Especially Genie Boone, I like his pointed ears! Penn's beautiful ponytail and Sashi as a monkey? Adorable. Biker Rippen and Larry ate hard.

[cthullain]

Why you probably shouldn't read Torpedo 1936 *:ꔫ:*﹤

₍ ᐢ.ˬ.ᐢ₎˚୨୧ I rant about Torpedo for an undetermined amount of time under the cut ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆ Cw: Discussions of sexual assault/rape/racism/homophobia etc. (I will be including images of torpedo-hitting women alongside examples of racist caricatures to illustrate my point, there will be no nudity referenced)

Okay, so to preface I have read all of Torpedo 1936, volumes 1-5 + I've read the first issue of Torpedo 1972 (which is a much worse can of worms). And I did like aspects of Torpedo, so much so that I am collecting the volumes because I really like Bernet's work. So I'm going to quickly write down what I liked and then I'm going to go onto why I personally don't recommend the series in the slightest. What I liked Surprisingly enough, there are a lot of normal and goofy moments in this comic. It's humorous, and the only reason I could make it through the entire series without ripping my hair out For silly gags, there's a running joke that Torpedo kind of messes up words and I really enjoyed that, it was cute in a kind of corny way.

In addition to that the amount of times that he gets his ass kicked is humorous. I loved the idea of a tough assassin getting his shit kicked because it doesn't make him seem overpowered + I'm a sucker for a Himbo character and slapstick humor.

(Why did he think fighting a horse would work. Is he stupid?) The art is fucking phenomenal. Jordi Bernet is an incredibly talented artist and his linework makes me want to cry tears of joy whenever I see it. Torpedo's design is simple yet the linework makes it iconic and truly emphasizes the kind of noir style that he has going for him. The writing itself also has a lot of good moments, the first issue is still one of my favorites, and there's this charming repetition gag when it comes to a lot of stories. In which one character suffers due to making a mistake and Torpedo ends up taking advantage of that only to fall into the same trap. There are a lot of good stories, Abulí is by no means a bad writer, he knows how to tell a cohesive and entertaining plot. What I disliked To put it bluntly, Torpedo has an insane problem when it comes to being horrible to everyone, but especially women. There's a level of corny 1930s sexism that I can tolerate but Torpedo completely crosses the line. If there's a woman in a comic you can almost always expect that woman to be raped or sexually assaulted in some way. At the beginning of the comic, they shied a little bit away from it, having Torpedo give up if the women struggled or just having him physically assault women, as the comic continues any kind of subtly gets thrown out of the window and we are just shown explicit rape content.

The violence and misogyny to women in this is insanely prevalent and it's one of the main reasons why I don't recommend this comic at all. It serves no purpose in the plot, and quite frankly, there's no reason for it to be there at all. Torpedo is not meant to be seen as evil, he is never condemned by the narrative for hurting these women in the long run, it just exists for shock value (and also possibly because Bernet was a porn artist ex. Cicca Bang Bang). There's a lot of content about Luca (Torpedo) having sexual and romantic relationships with older women when he's very much a child. None of this is treated as an actual issue of this child being taken advantage of by older women, and more so framed as Luca having been a "womanizer" since birth. It's gross and uncomfortable.

There is so much racism in this comic. To quite literally everybody. The comic is incredibly uncharitable to black people but it's not great to Jewish people, Puerto Ricans, Asian people, etc.

People of color are also predominantly drawn to be heavily stereotyped, a problem that is especially prevalent when looking at how black people are portrayed specifically.

This comic is just generally homophobic. I can't attest to the Spanish text as I'm not paying 15 euros to check if Torpedo uses homophobic Spanish slurs. Still, in the English translation, he very much uses homophobic slurs. I can't remember him saying the F slur, however, he does call a butch woman the d slur.

(For the record I really love this character and would've happily praised her cute design if it weren't for the fact that she takes part in a gang rape later in the story)

In the light defense of this comic, a large portion of the time Torpedo's stereotypes and negative biases against people end up being to his detriment as they usually outsmart him, there's also a large number of times where this isn't the case, and racism and sexism just happen for the sake of happening. This abundance of vitriol and sexism crosses the line of period-accurate horribleness and is the major reason why I wouldn't recommend Torpedo to anyone. Women are routinely brutalized, called bitches, raped, and throughout it all Torpedo is consistently portrayed as a cool womanizer. He is rarely ever punished by the narrative for his consistent abuse of women and the rape is so prevalent that it is a genuine detriment to the reading experience. I'd understand making things dicier if you wanted to portray a story set in an older time, however, Torpedo just has too much, all the time. It truly takes what could have been a good story and makes it something I don't think a lot of people would want to waste their time on and I don't blame anyone for that.

Closing notes

I liked Torpedo as a whole. However, I would personally never recommend this story to anyone else. Good moments are largely overshadowed by a continuous pattern of racism, sexism, and brutality towards marginalized groups. So much so that it destroyed any enjoyment I could have for the issues that they were in. If you are keen on reading the story despite all of this I can't stop you, so I'll recommend my favorite issues. The Front (Volume 4), Who is Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf (Volume 4), The Godmother (Volume 4)*, Coyote (Volume 4), First Issue in Volume 1

*The Godmother Contains Luca Torelli kicking a woman in the ass. Literally. Not as bad as other comics but it should be noted since it happens once

Anyway read the comic if you want to I'm not your mother, I just don't recommend it. I like Luca's character design so I'll probably draw him later. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[drawnecromancy]

Happy STS!

Your characters and story but it's the middle ages. What roles do they have in the society? Are they royalty or something else? How does your story change?

(Also unrelated but I was curious does the place that Claire comes from have a name? I read until page 22 of the webcomic and I want spoilers because I am horrible at handling suspense)

Ahh, hm. About 90% of my stories are in some kind of medieval-fantasy setting, besides Break of Dawn. There is, also, a medieval fantasy past to that story - you can find that in the tag "before dawn : the age of the gods", that is mostly full of random thoughts and snippets. I have a lot of thoughts about pre-Dawn things because I am completely unable to do anything modern for more than half a second before turning to medieval fantasy again.

If we're just teleporting everyone to the normal middle ages, Claire doesn't get powers and her family doesn't die HAHA (<- so so evil.); the whole story cannot happen because its inciting incident is... genuinely, a half god from space arriving and going "I don't like how things are around here. Let's destroy everything that makes this place special, and turn it into what I think it should be !".

We could have a completely different story, turning Dawn into some queen that has invaded the country and having a ruthless rule, and killing Claire's family off for whatever reason to jumpstart the moment where we start following characters, but that's not really something I'd want to explore. The point of Break of Dawn is that it used to be medieval fantasy, but no one remembers, and magic is actively erased, history rewritten, people killed to hide it.

I'm having trouble just imagining Break of Dawn in the middle ages because it... really is not made for it to work there at all, haha. It would be an entirely different thing, I'd probably cut down the number of characters, as we wouldn't need the overpowered 3 of the Undercity; Dawn could just be assassinated. Etc, etc. Vincent would be interesting as an evil advisor, though... Claire would likely start out as the child of farmers, and if I'd figured out a way to murder her family, she'd become a traveler/adventurer with her Brand New Dads, I guess.

The problem here is really that it's not meant to work there at all, and that everything else I write is already medieval-flavored, haha.

Here's what we could do, i guess :

Claire's family gets murdered for ??? reasons. She gets picked up by two errant adventurers. (knights, maybe ?)

She meets Vincent, who's like 2 years older than she is, because he's the son of her new dads' friends.

After some growing up, Claire and her dads live with other people in the capital city of the country, she gets a baby brother.

They eventually have to rescue Vincent and his new baby sibling, while Vincent's parents get killed, because they were doing shady shit.

This whole time the adventurer dads are doing shady shit, but they aren't explaining to their daughter that they're straight up trying to murder the queen.

??? Vincents gets abducted by his uncle, becomes nobility and the queen's evil advisor.

The dads die.

Claire becomes an adult, raises her two little brothers Sacha & Kyle, falls in love, blah blah.

When her brothers are teenagers, Sacha gets abducted, Vincent is the one to save him and get him back to her.

Meanwhile a stray seer (at least that's what that 16 year old claims to be) is picked up by Kyle

Claire and her family go avenge the Witchmann dads and murder the queen. I don't know what happens to Vincent.

That's it. I'd just straight up get rid of the Sky City and everyone in it. Sorry Elysia, Val, Mark, Melyane, and Ava. They wouldn't work in a pure medieval setting, the core of their existence is because of magic. Val, Mark and Ava especially are reminders of the past before Dawn.

(Also : while the little town she grew up in doesn't have a name, mainly because we're never going back there in the story, i can tell you the story currently takes place in the region of Lonna. I don't have a finite map as of right now, so I can't like. point and go "this is Lonna". The capital of Lonna is called Kello, and it's a place that will eventually appear. Currently, Claire and the Witchmanns are quite far up north of Lonna, I think ? I'm not 100% sure; geography in Break of Dawn isn't really something I've thought about. Also, Hoo Boy :) while I wouldn't consider the name of the region to be a big spoiler, there's a couple of places that could technically be considered spoilers if you want them : the Sky City, the Academy, the Undercity, the labs. >:) we'll be exploring them eventually ! Though, thankfully, Claire won't be the one getting put through these things for once.)

(I also, like, don't even tag break of dawn spoilers as spoilers most of the time when i'm talking about characters or events that won't appear for a while, so if you ever see mention of... literally any character that isn't Claire, Sandy or Percy in a post of mine tagged Break of Dawn, it's currently technically spoilers. OR it's before Dawn. One or the other. Sometimes both if it's about the Emperor ! So if you want to learn more about anything, don't hesitate ! i love rambling, lol)

[strigital]

hey there, handsome beans. how are y'all?

bet y'all were wondering where tf Meg's gone again. to make long and complicated story short: a few physical illnesses followed by a severe mental crysis followed by more sickness followed by more mental problems. there was, among other things, an autistic breakdown which as we know doesn't go away easily. i will be severely honest with you guys. i do not know how i am still alive, given how horribly suicidal some of these days are. i suppose having pets does make a difference - no matter how selfish the suicidal ideation is it never manages to overpower the motherly need to love and protect these small creatures that so wholly depend on you not just for food, water and shelter, but for companionship as well… Belle, despite having only been out of shelter for like three moths, has been working her little butt off trying her damnest to convince me that i am needed: from following me everywhere like a shadow to crying like a child whenever there's a closed door between us… anyways, what was i talking about? ah yes… the horrific state both my mind a body ended up in. i honestly have no idea where this all came from. it was like one day it was sunny and calm and the next morning i woke up in the aftermath of a severe hurricane, ruin and corpses all around me. perhaps it was all brewing for a long time and i simply failed to notice the telltale signs. after all, there's no smoke without fire. there must've been a trigger. a final drop, a straw that broke the camel's back. sometimes it felt like a horror film, full of terrible thoughts and feelings that paralise you in a fetal position in the corner of your bed and keep you there hostage for days on end. some other days there would be flashes of unexplainable happiness that lasted barely a few hours and left you feeling panicked. most days there would be this prevailing feeling of numbness that wouldn't allow you to eat, let alone take care of daily chores. i've been having severe nightmares. i've plunged my body into a state of starvation. i've turned my home into a horror house of dirt and clutter. i'm failing behind in college and my boss at work is extremely unhappy with my productivity. i've lost ability to feel time: days muddle together, all i ever feel is a desire to sleep all the fucking time.

worst of all is that i cut contact with my closest people, among them - my dearly beloved husband, who still fights cancer on the other side of the planet, wondering where his useless wife gone. i've decided that it would be better for all of them, especially my hubby, to not see me in this condition. that the best i can do for them is to remove myself from their already busy lives and free them from any heartache i may cause, me being out of my mind and all. i did, however, used the very last of my strenght to reach out, to try and call for help… the suicide prevention line was a fucking joke that left me even more desperate than i was before i contacted them. i did, however, join a local autistic group on facebook and lurked there quietly, absorbing their experiences and sifting through for any sliver of hope. and i foud it. a doctor, who may just be the only specialist on adult autism in this entire country. getting an appointment with her was a small war in of itself. and she will cost me a lot of money… but as of right now i feel like she is the only person who can pull me off of the edge, before i tumble over and plummet into the abbyss. 29th of november i will sit my ass on a train and ride to another city to meet her. i pray to whatever will listen that she will take me seriously because neither my current psychiatrist nor my psychologist do. anyone i tried talking to these past two months on the matter of my crisis never offered me any help, only useless advice like "you should talk to a priest" or "have you tried reading a self-help book?". i'm drowning over here, karen, a priest and a book will only be of use during my funeral… the meds have become useless, even when i double or triple dosage.

most of all my heart aches for my husband. he tried calling me a few times yet i was too broken and lost in the dark to even have the courage to call back. i know i have no right to scream for help to a person who had been at war with a third stage cancer for almost three long difficult years. but i am teethering on the edge. i feel like that tiny hedghehog from an old soviet cartoon - lost in a thick fog, calling out for someone, anyone, looking for a way out. and the fact that no one understands or tries to understand hurts even more. the only one's who do are those anonymous people on facebook, fighting similar battles to mine. and when i read a letter from an anonymous mom who, like me, reached her breaking point and cut off any contact with her family in preparation for a final act and she only writes on facebook to find someone, anyone, to tell her what she truly needs and wants to hear in order to swerve off of this path of self-destruction i cannot help but feel an odd likeness to hope. i am not alone. but these people, those like me, simply do not exist within an arm's reach… god almighty, i so so hope the doctor will fix me. i am so tired waking up everyday with a desperate desire to die and walking all day with an invisible noose on my neck which only grows tighter every day.

i will go now and try to record a longwinded voice message for my husband… again. i will try my bestest to apologise, to try to explain, to ask for help. but how do you even begin to explain that your life so suddenly, so abruptly and seemingly our of nowhere became an open bleeding rotten sore, that only grows everyday, infecting more and more of your soul? i don't know. i never had this kind of crisis before in my life and, as if by some cruel divine joke, right now i have no family, no friends to turn to, beside my cat and my dog.

i will not ask of you to pray for me nor wish me luck. y'all have your own busy, messy lives. i only ask that you take care of yourself and your loved ones, so nothing like that ever happens to you or them. trust me when i say that no one will believe you, because this wound is invisible. they will tell you to feel grateful for having two arms and two legs and a roof over your head. meanwhile you will slowly rot away until one day they'll gasp: "how did this happen? they were such a happy person, nothing was wrong in their lives!" that's so fucking unfair, but it is the world we live in. and i know that oversharing like this on the internet is an incredibly stupid thing to do, but… i don't know. maybe another person with similar hardships in their life will read this and realise that they are not the black sheep of the human species and that shit like that happens to others too. i know this thought brings some very mild comfort to me, so maybe it will also brings some to them.

so stay strong, my beans. god knows i'm trying to. love you all and, hopefully, see you in the near future again with memes and stuff,

-- Meg K.

[scattered-winter]

knockoff lord of the rings sounds interesting!!!! talk <33

HUGGING U !!! this is my fantasy story!!!! it only has a few elements from lord of the rings (which were formative to my developmental years so i couldn't possibly write fantasy that didn't have SOME level of inspiration from that lmaoo) but i started calling it knockoff lord of the rings as a joke and well. it stuck. hopefully i can figure out another title for it tho gahlksjdlkahslg

for this one i still haven't really figured out the Main Conflict that brings the cast of characters together (it's some kind of End Of The World Stopping The Bad Guys stuff but. hell if i know) but i DO have all the main team figured out <33 they're all some of my oldest and most developed ocs, and they're super special to me because i've had them for a long time. if i ever end up actually publishing any of my works, i would want it to be this one just because of how attached i am to these ocs and i want to see their story told <33 I'LL INTRODUCE U TO THEM!!!

this is akka!! she's my oldest oc of all time (i made her when i was 6 <3 she's gone through a LOT of revisions since then and she used to be INSANELY overpowered and she still kind of is but in a more muted fits-into-the-worldbuilding way. but regardless she has a VERY special place in my heart <3) she's a dragon!! there are 2 main types of dragon, elementi (fire, water, etc) and alloyi (metals and minerals, much rarer and more powerful) and she's alloyi <3 her metal is copper !! so as an alloyi dragon she has harder scales, enhanced strength, and is just all around more powerful than a normal elementi dragon. but the dragon king ""drafted"" her into his private guard when she was just a hatchling (he does the same to all the other alloyi dragons because they're so powerful and he doesn't want them to be a threat to his rule) and so she was raised to be a killer pretty much from birth. but on her first mission she was ordered to kill civilians and she refused, and so she had her ability to take her dragon form stripped away by the dragon sages and she was banished. so she started wandering the human kingdoms taking work as a mercenary, and she also started tracking down dragon sages to try and get them to return her dragon form to her. she's rough and abrasive and an asshole and she likes to think that she's a loner (spoiler: she's not <3 she met a guy while doing mercenary work and they SPEEDRAN enemies to siblings and now theyre inseparable) and she's also a huuuge softie. but she's not gonna tell anyone that. and she also has trust issues <333333333333 and she's asexual and kisses girls sometimes but only when its convenient. but at her core behind all the prickly grumpy assholery she's soooo kind and wants to be gentle but doesn't quite know how and she has a bleeding heart that she's had to hide to protect herself and ouhgughghghhhh <333333333333333333333333

this is vinali <3 (vin for short <3) he's a forest elf !! he's bffs with a giant wolf named onyx and was exiled from his tribe for it so he and onyx became mercenaries around the human kingdoms. this is how they met akka <3 he and akka are now practically siblings !! and when the team gets together, he's the mom friend <3 there isn't a lot of romance in this story because i want the central focus to be found family but there IS a pairing in the main cast and he's part of it <3

this is orla !! she's the ringleader of the team <3 she was a knight until she realized the king she was supposed to serve was working with the enemy and so she decided to take him down w the power of friendship and the magic sword she found <3 she hired akka and vinali to help and instead of having a normal mercenary job they ended up joining her found family <33

this is kione !! he's the son of the corrupt king and he's still doing everything he can to take his dad down (the king is a HORRIBLE father btw) and eventually he becomes the king after they win the war and he . is actually a good king lmao

this is ether !! he has. probably the most lotr inspiration lol do u remember those ghost guys under the mountain ?? yeah. ether's kingdom was cursed to roam their lands as spirits unable to move on to the next world but the curse didn't really take as much of an effect on him so he was still able to Think and Reason and he was like. more alive than a ghost but definitely more dead than a human. and he was also able to control the ghosts around him and he basically . just wandered his ruined home for HUNDREDS of years not able to remember anything about his old life (not even his NAME. ether isn't his real name but he doesn't know what else to call himself. and he can't remember his family or how he got there. <3) and when he joins the team they manage to break the curse and the ghosts all move on to the afterlife but ether stays behind. because once again. he isn't fully dead. and he even becomes 99% alive after the curse lifts (he's still cold all the time. and slightly unsettling in other ways) (and he still has his ghost controlling powers <3) but he joins the team on their mission and has to relearn how to be alive <3

and last but not least, halo !! he's a sky elf who was kidnapped by slavers from his tribe when he was young and he managed to escape a few years later but he didn't feel like he'd be able to go back home because after the things he'd done he didn't think he'd fit in anymore </3 and so he just kinda wandered around human kingdoms stealing and fighting to survive until he sorta accidentally joined the found family group <3 he has catholic levels of guilt and also insane amounts of trust issues and trauma Up To Here <3 he's the other half of the pairing and it takes a long time to work up to it because he's so withdrawn that it takes a while for his walls to come down. but i love himb <33

wip title ask game

[fidgetyhands]

John Varley's Titan / Wizard / Demon series portrays, among other things, what happens when a powerful alien geneticist who has spent decades listening to all of Earth's radio / TV transmissions loses her grip on reality. It's an interesting and horrible premise.

(I do not necessarily recommend the series, although I still remember it fondly from my youth.)

If we're nominating targets for old B-movie-style "bwa-ha-ha, they thought it would never work, but I'll show them all!" unrealistically overpowered characters, a mad communications expert would allow for a lot of story options. Maybe they convince everyone to keep our left elbows covered because of Sin. Maybe we all find ourselves starting phone conversations with too-ra-la-too-ra-lay. Maybe we start having Wordless Wednesdays so our words can be saved up to build a ladder to the stars.

One hill I will die on is that it's always infinitely funnier for mad scientist characters to have an actual area of expertise, and the narrower it is, the funnier it gets. Like, they're mad scientists. They can branch out from it. But it's a very special thing to be able to point to the person who built a death ray/engineered life in their basement/etc and be able to confidently state what they got their PhD in.

"Doc Brown is a mad scientist" Well yeah, obviously.

"Doc Brown is a mad physicist" Now we're getting somewhere!

"Doc Brown is a mad nuclear physicist" Specifically conjures up images of a guy who spent his PhD doing a million repetitive cyclotron tests and eventually said fuck this, I'm building a time machine instead. Comedy gold.

[bakugokemkatsuki]

Wrath (Angst Version)

Levi Ackerman x Reader

**Genre: Angsty but not to bad **Note: Reader is not gendered **Key: Y/N-Your Name Colors: Levi, YN (Talking) **Word Count: 551

Levi Ackerman is what many would call frightening. He was on the shorter side but if anything, that only added to his intimidating demeanor. Everyone knew not to cross him and when they did his punishments were by far the most horrible of anyone’s. Luckily as long as you did as you were told and kept everything perfectly clean, he wasn’t bad. Honestly, he wasn’t a bad guy once you got down to it. He had just been through a lot.  Levi was your captain and for the most part you were a good soldier and had been one of the few people to have not had to bear his wrath. You quite liked Levi and as far as people go, and he tolerated you more than most. It helped that you found him to be quite attractive. You would never admit it to anyone, but you had a bit of a crush on your captain. Knowing Levi, he didn’t do relationships. He only had one goal, to slay every titan. So, you buried your feelings and kept everything on a professional level at least until today. Today you had been slacking off during training and Levi was quick to notice. After training Levi confronted you and demanded some extra one on one training during dinner as your punishment. You were just grateful it wasn’t stable duties. Those were the worst. When the time came you went to the training field where Levi was already waiting for you. “So, you finally show up.” “I’m still five minutes early captain.” Levi gave you a small tch and training began. Not long into training Levi could see you weren’t really trying and decided to talk to you. Talking didn’t seem to work and you seemed unbothered. He decided to take you on with hand-to-hand combat instead, and within moments you were pinned under him on the ground. “Trying to scare me by overpowering me huh captain. Too bad I’m not scared of you.” “ Oh is that so? Well then why is your heart beating so fast?” You suddenly noticed just how close the two of you were, you could feel his breath fan you face as he spoke. Without thinking you say, “Well because you’re cute.”.  Shocked Levi gets off you and helps you up not saying anything. “Levi I’m sorry! That was inappropriate and I shouldn’t have said that.” After another pause Levi finally spoke. “Y/N… Be honest with me. Do you have feelings for me?” You take a deep breath before replying. “Yes Levi, I like you.” “Y/N… Don’t… Don’t do that to yourself.” “What do you mean?” “Don’t fall for me… I only have one goal and that is to kill all of the titans. I’m sorry if I ever gave you the impression of more.” Your voice began to shake while holding back tears, “No I knew that from the beginning. That’s why I never said anything. Anyways I think I should go. So sorry Captain… Please at least let me stay in for squad.” “Sure Y/N. And um.. You deserve happiness and a future. Don’t give up on that for me.” You ended up skipping dinner that night and cried before starting to pick up all the broken pieces and focus on the goal ahead. Freeing humanity.

**Note: I was trying something new out with this story and the talking lines being color coded and bold. LMK what y'all think of that or if you'd prefer I just left it normal.