#(i vaguely remember liking the show and other characters but i was obsessed with beast boy and raven)

[tisajest]

Starfire’s name is Koriand’r?!?!

Does she have a sibling named Silant’ro?!

[yamayuandadu]

The Two (or more) Ishtars or A Certain Scandalous Easter Claim Proved to be The Worship of Reverend Alexander Hislop

Once upon a time the official facebook page of Richard Dawkins' foundation posted a graphic according to which the holiday of Easter is just a rebranded celebration of the Mesopotamian mythology superstar Ishtar, arguing that the evidence is contained in its very name. As everyone knows, Dawkins is an online talking head notable for discussing his non-belief in such an euphoric way that it might turn off even the most staunch secularists and for appearing in some reasonably funny memes about half a decade ago. Bizarrely enough, however, the same claim can be often found among the crowds dedicated to crystal healing, Robert Graves' mythology fanfiction, indigo children and similar dubiously esoteric content. What's yet more surprising is that once in a while it shows up among a certain subset of fundamentalist Christians, chiefly the types who believe giants are real (and, of course, satanic), the world  is ruled by a secret group of Moloch worshipers and fossils were planted by the devil to led the sheeple astray from the truth about earth being 6000 years old, tops. Of course, to anyone even just vaguely familiar with Christianity whose primary language isn't English this claim rightfully seems completely baffling – after all it's evident in most languages that the name of the holiday celebrating Jesus' resurrection, and many associated customs, are derived from the earlier Jewish Pascha (Passover) which has nothing to do with Ishtar other than having its origin in the Middle East. Why would the purported association only be evident  in English and not in Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Spanish, virtually any language other than English and its close relatives – languages which generally didn't have anything to do with Mesopotamia or early christianity? Read on to find out what sort of sources let this eclectic selection of characters arrive to the same baffling conclusion, why are they hilariously wrong, and – most importantly – where you can actually find a variety of Ishtars (or at least reasonably Ishtar-like figures) under different names instead.

The story of baffling Easter claims begins in Scotland in the 19th century. A core activity of theologians in many faiths through history was (and sometimes still is) finding alleged proof of purported “idolatry” or other “impure” practices among ideological opponents, even these from within the same religion – and a certain Presbyterian minister, Alexander Hislop, was no stranger to this traditional pastime. Like many Protestants in this period, he had an axe to grind with the catholic church  - though not for the reasons many people are not particularly fond of this institution nowadays. What Hislop wanted to prove was much more esoteric – he believed that it's the Babylon known from the Book of Revelations. Complete with the beast with seven heads, blasphemous names and other such paraphernalia, of course. This wasn't a new claim – catholicism was equated with the New Testament Babylon for as long as Protestantism was a thing (and earlier catholicism itself regarded other religions as representing it). What set Hislop apart from dozens of other similar attempts like that was that he fancied himself a scholar of history and relied on the brand new accounts of excavations in what was once the core sphere of influence of the Assyrian empire (present day Iraq and Syria), supplemented by various Greek and Roman classics – though also by his own ideas, generally varying from baseless to completely unhinged. Hislop compiled his claims in the book The Two Babylons or The Papal Worship Proved to be the Worship of Nimrod and His Wife. You can find it on archive.org if you want to torment yourself and read the entire thing – please do not give clicks directly to any fundie sites hosting it though. How does the history of Easter and Ishtar look like according to Hislop? Everything started with Semiramis, who according to his vision was a historical figure and a contemporary of Noah's sons, here also entirely historical. Semiramis is either entirely fictional or a distorted Greek and Roman account of the 9th century BC Assyrian queen Shammuramat, who ruled as a regent for a few years after the death of her husband Shamshi Adad V – an interesting piece of historical trivia, but arguably not really a historical milestone, and by the standards of Mesopotamian history she's hardly a truly ancient figure. Hislop didn't even rely on the primary sources dealing with the legend of Semiramis though, but with their medieval christian interpretations, which cast her in the role of an adulterer first and foremost due to association of ancient Mesopotamia with any and all vices.

Hislop claims that Semiramis was both the Whore of Babylon from the Book of Revelations and the first idolater, instituting worship of herself as a goddess. This goddess, he argues, was Astarte (a combination of two flimsy claims – Roman claim that Semiramis' name means “dove” and now generally distrusted assumption that Phoenician Astarte had the same symbols as Greek Aphrodite) and thus Ishtar, but he also denotes her as a mother goddess – which goes against everything modern research has to say about Ishtar, of course. However, shoddy scholarship relying on few sources was the norm at the time, and Hislop on top of that was driven by religious zeal. In further passages, he identified this “universal mother” with Phrygian Cybele, Greek Rhea and Athena, Egyptian Isis, Taoist Xi Wangmu (sic) and many more, pretty much at random, arguing all of them were aspects of nefarious Semiramis cult which infected all corners of the globe. He believed that she was venerated alongside a son-consort, derived from Semiramis' even more fictional husband Ninus (a mythical founder of Assyria according to Greek authors, absent from any Mesopotamian sources; his name was derived from Nineveh, not from any word for son like Hislop claims), who he identifies with biblical Nimrod (likewise not a historical figure, probably a distorted reflection of the god Ninurta). Note the similarity with certain ideas perpetrated by Frazer's Golden Bough and his later fans like Jung, Graves and many neopagan authors – pseudohistory, regardless of ideological background, has a very small canon of genuinely original claims. Ishtar was finally introduced to Britain by “druids” (note once again the similarity to the baffling integration of random Greek, Egyptian or Mesopotamian deities into Graves-derived systems of fraudulent trivia about “universal mother goddesses” often using an inaccurate version of Celtic myths as framework). This eventually lead to the creation of the holiday of Easter. Pascha doesn't come up in the book at all, as far as I can tell. All of this is basically just buildup for the book's core shocking reveal: catholic veneration of Mary and depictions of Mary with infant Jesus in particular are actually the worship of Semiramis and her son-consort Ninus, and only the truly faithful can reveal this evil purpose of religious art. At least so claims Hislop. This bizarre idea is laughable, but it remains disturbingly persistent – do you remember the Chick Tracts memes from a few years ago, for example? These comics were in part inspired by Hislop's work. Many fundamentalist christian communities appear to hold his confabulations in high esteem up to this day – and many people who by design see themselves as a countercultural opposition to christianity independently gleefully embrace them, seemingly ignorant of their origin. While there are many articles debunking Hislop's claim about Easter, few of them try to show how truly incomprehensibly bad his book is as a whole – hopefully the following examples will be sufficient to illustrate this point: -Zoroaster is connected to Moloch because of the Zoroastrian holy fire - and Moloch is, of course Ninus. Note that while a few Greek authors believed Zoroaster to be the “king of Bactria” mythical accounts presented as a contemporary of Ninus, the two were regarded as enemies – Hislop doesn't even follow the pseudohistory he uses as proof! -Zoroaster is also Tammuz. Tammuz is, of course, yet another aspect of Ninus. -demonic character is ascribed to relics of the historical Buddha; also he's Osiris. And Ninus. -an incredibly racist passage explains why the biblical Nimrod (identified with – you guessed it - Ninus) might be regarded as “ugly and deformed” like Haephestus and thus identical to him (no, it makes no sense in context either) - Hislop thinks he was black (that's not the word he uses, naturally) which to him is the same thing. -Attis is a deification of sin itself -the pope represents Dagon (incorrectly interpreted as a fish god in the 19th century) -Baal and Bel are two unrelated words – this is meant to justify the historicity of the Tower of Babel by asserting it was built by Ninus, who was identical to Bel (in reality a title of Marduk); Bel, according to Hislop, means “the confounder (of languages)” rather than “lord” -the term “cannibal” comes from a made up term for priests of Baal (Ninus) who according to Hislop ate children. In reality it's a Spanish corruption of the endonym of one of the first tribes encountered by the Spanish conquerors in America, and was not a word used in antiquity – also, as I discussed in my Baal post, the worship of Baal did not involve cannibalism. This specific claim of Hislop's is popular with the adherents of prophetic doomsday cult slash wannabe terrorist group QAnon today, and shows up on their “redpilling” graphics. -Ninus was also Cronos; Cronos' name therefore meant “horned one” in reference to Mesopotamian bull/horned crown iconography and many superficially similar gods from all over the world were the same as him - note the similarity to Margaret Murray's obsession with her made up idea of worldwide worship of a “horned god” (later incorporated into Wicca). -Phaeton, Orpheus and Aesculapius are the same figure and analogous to Lucifer (and in turn to Ninus) -giants are real and they're satanists (or were, I think Hislop argues they're dead already). They are (were?) also servants of Ninus. -as an all around charming individual Hislop made sure to include a plethora of comments decrying the practices of various groups at random as digressions while presenting his ridiculous theories – so, while learning about the forbidden history of Easter, one can also learn why the author thinks Yezidi are satanists, for example -last but not least, the very sign of the cross is not truly christian but constitutes the worship of Tammuz, aka Ninus (slowly losing track of how many figures were regarded as one and the same as him by Hislop). Based on the summary above it's safe to say that Hislop's claim is incorrect – and, arguably, malevolent (and as such deserves scrutiny, not further possibilities for spreading). However, this doesn't answer the question where does the name of Easter actually come from? As I noted in the beginning, in English (and also German) it's a bit of an oddity – it  actually was derived from a preexisting pagan term, at least if we are to believe the word of the monk Bede, who in the 8th century wrote that the term is a derivative of “Eosturmonath,” eg. “month of Eostre” - according to him a goddess. There are no known inscriptions mentioning such a goddess from the British Isles or beyond, though researchers involved in reconstructing proto-indo-european language assume that “Eostre” would logically be a derivative of the same term as  the name of the Greek Eos and of the vedic Ushas, and the Austriahenae goddesses from Roman inscriptions from present day Germany  – eg.  a word simply referring to dawn, and by extension to a goddess embodying it. This is a sound, well researched theory, so while early medieval chroniclers sometimes cannot be trusted, I see no reason to doubt Bede's account.

While Ushas is a prominent goddess in the Vedas, Eos was rather marginal in Greek religion (see her Theoi entry for details), and it's hard to tell to what degree Bede's Eostre was similar to either of them beyond plausibly being a personification of dawn. Of course, the hypothetical proto-indo-european dawn goddess all of these could be derived from would have next to nothing to do with Ishtar. While the history of the name of Easter (though not the celebration itself) is undeniably interesting, I suppose it lacks the elements which make the fake Ishtar claim a viral hit – the connection is indirect, and an equivalent of the Greek Eos isn't exactly exciting (Eos herself is, let be honest, remembered at best as an obscure part of the Odyssey), while Ishtar is understood by many as “wicked” sex goddess (a simplification, to put it very lightly) which adds a scandalous, sacrilegious dimension to the baffling lie, explaining its appeal to Dawkins' fans, arguably. As demonstrated above, Hislop's theories are false and adapting them for any new context – be it christian, atheist or neopagan – won't change that, but are there any genuine examples of, well, “hidden Ishtars”? If that's the part of the summary which caught your attention, rejoice – there is a plenty of these to be found in Bronze Age texts. I'd go as far as saying that most of ancient middle eastern cultures from that era felt compelled to include an Ishtar ersatz in their pantheons. Due to the popularity of the original Ishtar, she was almost a class of figures rather than a single figure – a situation almost comparable to modern franchising, when you think about it. The following figures can be undeniably regarded as “Ishtar-like” in some capacity or even as outright analogs:

Astarte (or Ashtart, to go with a more accurate transcription of the oldest recorded version of the name) – the most direct counterpart of Ishtar there is: a cognate of her own name. Simply, put Astarte is the “Levantine”equivalent of the “Mesopotamian” Ishtar. In the city of Mari, the names were pretty much used interchangeably, and some god lists equate them, though Astarte had a fair share of distinct traits. In Ugaritic mythology, which forms the core of our understanding of the western Semitic deities, she was a warrior and hunter (though it's possible that in addition to conventional weapons she was also skilled at wielding curses), and was usually grouped with Anat. Both of them were regarded as the allies of Baal, and assist him against his enemies in various myth. They also were envisioned to spend a lot of time together – one ritual calls them upon as a pair from distant lands where they're hunting together, while a fragmentary myth depicts both of them arriving in the household of the head god El and taking pity on Yarikh, the moon god, seemingly treated as a pariah. Astarte's close relation to Baal is illustrated by her epithet, “face of Baal” or “of the name of Baal.” They were often regarde as a couple and even late, Hellenic sources preserve a traditional belief that Astarte and “Adados” (Baal) ruled together as a pair. In some documents from Ugarit concerned with what we would call foreign policy today they were invoked together as the most prominent deities. It's therefore possible that she had some role related to human politics. She was regarded as exceptionally beautiful and some texts favorably describe mortal women's appearance by comparing them to Astarte. In later times she was regarded as a goddess of love, but it's unclear if that was a significant aspect of her in the Bronze Age. It's equally unclear if she shared Ishtar's astral character – in Canaan there were seemingly entirely separate dawn and dusk deities. Despite clamis you might see online, Astarte was not the same as the mother goddess Asherah. In the Baal cycle they actually belong to the opposing camps. Additionally, the names are only superficially similar (one starts with an aleph, the other with an ayin) and have different etymology. Also, that famous sculpture of a very blatantly Minoan potnia theron? Ugaritic in origin but not a depiction of either Astarte or Asherah.

The Egyptians, due to extensive contact with Canaan and various Syrian states in the second half of the Bronze Age, adapted Astarte (and by extension Anat) into their own pantheon. Like in Ugarit, her warrior character was emphasized. An Egyptian innovation was depicting her as a cavalry goddess of sorts – associated with mounted combat and chariots. In Egypt, Ptah, the head god of Memphis and divine craftsman, was regarded as her father. In most texts, Astarte is part of Seth's inner circle of associates – however, in this context Seth wasn't the slayer of Osiris, but a heroic storm god similar to Baal. The so-called Astarte papyrus presents an account of a myth eerily similar to the Ugaritic battle between Baal and Yam – starring Seth as the hero, with Astarte in a supporting role resembling that played by Shaushka, another Ishtar analog, in the Hittite song of Hedammu, which will be discussed below.

Shaushka – a Hurrian and Hittite goddess whose name means “the magnificent one” in the Hurrian language. Hurrian was widely spoken in ancient Mesopotamia and Anatolia (and in northernmost parts of the Levant – up to one fifth of personal names from Ugaritic documents were Hurrian iirc), but has no descendants today and its relation to any extant languages is uncertain. In Hittite texts she was often referred to with an “akkadogram” denoting Ishtar's name (or its Sumerian equivalent) instead of a phonetic  spelling of her own (there was an analogous practice regarding the sun gods), while in Egyptian and Syrian texts there are a few references to “Ishtar Hurri” - “Ishtar of the Hurrians” - who is argued by researchers to be one and the same as Shaushka. Despite Shaushka's Hurrian name and her prominence in myths popular both among Hittites and Hurrians, her main cult center was the Assyrian city of Nineveh, associated with Ishtar herself as well, and there were relatively few temples dedicated to her in the core Hittite sphere of influence in Anatolia. Curiously, both the oldest reference to Shaushka and to the city of Nineveh come from the same text, stating that a sheep was sacrificed to her there. While most of her roles overlap with Ishtar's (she too was associated with sex, warfare and fertility), here are two distinct features of Shaushka that set her apart as unique: one is the fact she was perceived in part as a masculine deity, despite being consistently described as a woman – in the famous Yazılıkaya reliefs she appears twice, both among gods and goddesses. In Alalakh she was depicted in outfits combining elements of male and female clothing. Similar fashion preferences were at times attributed to Ninshubur, the attendant of Ishtar's Sumerian forerunner Inanna – though in that case they were likely the result of conflation of Ninshubur with the male messenger deity Papsukkal, while in the case of Shaushka the dual nature seems to be inherent to her (I haven't seen any in depth study of this matter yet, sadly, so I can't really tell confidently which modern term in my opinion describes Shaushka's character the best). Her two attendants, musician goddesses Ninatta and Kulitta, do not share it. Shaushka's other unique niche is her role in exorcisms and incantations, and by extension with curing various diseases – this role outlived her cult itself, as late Assyrian inscriptions still associated the “Ishtar of Nineveh” (at times viewed as separate from the regular Ishtar) with healing. It can be argued that even her sexual aspect was connected to healing, as she was invoked to cure impotence. The most significant myth in which she appears is the cycle dedicated to documenting the storm god's (Teshub for the Hurrians, Tarhunna for the Hittites) rise to power. Shaushka is depicted as his sister and arguably most reliable ally, and plays a prominent role in two sections in particular – the Song of Hedammu and the Song of Ullikummi. In the former, she seemingly comes up with an elaborate plan to defeat a new enemy of her brother - the sea monster Hedammu - by performing a seductive dance and song montage (with her attendants as a support act) and offering an elixir to him. The exact result is uncertain, but Hedammu evidently ends up vanquished. In the latter, she attempts to use the same gambit against yet another new foe, the “diorite man” Ullikummi – however, since he is unfeeling like a rock, she fails; some translators see this passage as comedic. However, elsewhere in the Song, the storm god's main enemy Kumarbi and his minions view Shaushka as a formidable warrior, and in the early installment of the cycle, Song of LAMMA, she seemingly partakes in a fight. In another myth, known only from a few fragments and compared to the Sumerian text “Inanna and the huluppu tree,” Shaushka takes care of “Ḫašarri” -  a personification of olive oil, or a sentient olive tree. It seems that she has to protect this bizarre entity from various threats. While Shaushka lived on in Mesopotamia as “Ishtar of Nineveh,” this was far from the only “variant”of Ishtar in her homeland.

Nanaya was another such goddess. A few Sumerian hymns mention her alongside Inanna, the Sumerian equivalent of Ishtar, by the time of Sargon of Akkad virtually impossible to separate from her. As one composition puts it, Nanaya was “properly educated by holy Inana” and “counselled by holy Inana.” Initially she was most likely a part of Inanna's circle of deities in her cult center, Uruk, though due to shared character they eventually blurred together to a large degree. Just like Inanna/Ishtar, Nanaya was a goddess of love, described as beautiful and romantically and sexually active, and she too had an astral character. She was even celebrated during the same holidays as Inanna. Some researchers go as far as suggest Nanaya was only ever Inanna/Ishtar in her astral aspect alone and not a separate goddess. However, there is also evidence of her, Inanna and the sky god An being regarded as a trinity of distinct tutelary deities in Uruk. Additionally, king Melishipak's kudurru shown above shows both Nanaya (seated) and Ishtar/Inanna (as a star). Something peculiar to Nanaya was her later association with the scribe god Nabu. Sometimes Nabu's consort was the the goddess Tashmetu instead, but I can't find any summary explaining potential differences between them – it seems just like Nanaya, she was a goddess of love, including its physical aspects. Regardless of the name used to describe Nabu's wife, she was regarded as a sage and scribe like him – this arguably gives her a distinct identity she lacked in her early role as part of Inanna's circle. As the above examples demonstrate, the popularity of the “Ishtar type” was exceptional in the Bronze Age – but is it odd from a modern perspective? The myths dedicated to her are still quite fun to read today – much like any hero of ancient imagination she has a plethora of adversaries, a complex love life (not to mention many figures not intended to be read as her lovers originally but described in such terms that it's easy to see them this way today – including other women), a penchant for reckless behavior – and most importantly a consistent, easy to summarize character. She shouldn't be a part of modern mass consciousness only because of false 19th century claims detached from her actual character (both these from Hislop's works and “secular”claims about her purported “real”character based on flimsy reasoning and shoddy sources) – isn't a female character who is allowed to act about the same way as male mythical figures do without being condemned for it pretty much what many modern mythology retellings try to create? Further reading: On Astarte: -entry in the Iconography of Deities and Demons in Ancient Near East database by Izak Cornelius -‛Athtart in Late Bronze Age Syrian Texts by Mark S. Smith -ʿAthtartu’s Incantations and the Use of Divine Names as Weapons by Theodore J. Lewis -The Other Version of the Story of the Storm-god’s Combat with the Sea in the Light of Egyptian, Ugaritic, and Hurro-Hittite Texts by Noga Ayali-Darshan -for a summary of evidence that Astarte has nothing to do with Asherah see A Reassessment of Asherah With Further Considerations of the Goddess by Steve A. Wiggins On Shaushka: -Adapting Mesopotamian Myth in Hurro-Hittite Rituals at Hattuša: IŠTAR, the Underworld, and the Legendary Kings by Mary R. Bacharova -Ishtar seduces the Sea-serpent. A new join in the epic of Ḫedammu (KUB 36, 56 + 95) and its meaning for the battle between Baal and Yam in Ugaritic tradition by Meindert Dijkstra -Ištar of Nineveh Reconsidered by Gary Beckman -Shaushka, the Traveling Goddess by Graciela Gestoso Singer -Hittite Myths by Harry A. Hoffner jr. -The Hurritic Myth about Šaušga of Nineveh and Ḫašarri (CTH 776.2) by Meindert Dijkstra -The West Hurian Pantheon and its Background by Alfonso Archi On Nanaya: -entry in Brill’s New Pauly by Thomas Richter -entry from the Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses project by Ruth Horry -A tigi to Nanaya for Ishbi-Erra from The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature -A balbale to Inana as Nanaya from The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature -More Light on Nanaya by Michael P. Streck and Nathan Wasserman -More on the Nature and History of the Goddess Nanaya by Piotr Steinkeller A few introductory Ishtar/Inanna myths: -Inanna's descent to the netherworld -Inanna and the huluppu tree -Inanna and Enki -Enki and the world order -Inanna and Ebih -Dumuzid and Enkimdu

[hopelikethemoon]

Snowfall || Moonbeam III || (Ezra x Reader) {Werewolf AU}

Title: Snowfall Rating: PG-13 Length: 7,100 Warnings: Angst: short conversation of past suicidal ideation, healthy dose of self hatred, discussions of sex with other people and mild jealousy, references to drug use, and mild violence.  Reader Details: To the best of my knowledge, there are no references to Reader’s physical details, beyond being a bisexual woman. I tried my best to keep it as vague as possible. Notes: Oops, I wrote 7,100 words of angst. I’m really nervous about some of the stuff in this chapter, but let’s see! Part three of the Moonbeams series (Moonbeams & Bright Star)

Taglist: @thedaysarenotfull​ @princessbatears​ @djarin-junk​ @absurdthirst​ @hdlynn​ @legally-a-bastard​ @opheliaelysia​ @heather-lynn​ @sabinemorans​ @crazinessgraveyardsandcartoons​ @pedrospunk​ @maybege​ @chews-erotically​ @katlikeme​ @lose-eels​ @youmeanmybrain​ @theindiealto​​ @irishleesh93​ @seawhisperer​ @hdlynn​ @demigod-dragonrider-schoolidol​​ @theindiealto​​ @grapemama​​ @roxypeanut​​ @kochamcie​​ @kiwi-the-first​

“You’re what?” Shiva’s eyes widened as they stared back at you. “You’re going to have to repeat yourself because I hope I heard you wrong.”

“I’m going back to Lykaois and I need those pamphlets you showed me before.” You said, shuffling through the stack of detritus on the floor of their room. “Where are they?”

Shiva’s hands went to their hips, “Why are you going back?”

You let out a frustrated sound, relocating a pile of clothing. “Shiva, please. Where are those pamphlets?”

“I gave them back to the contract counter. I nabbed them after I thought you weren’t coming back from my mission.” 

“Kriff. I needed them.” You gritted out, pushing yourself back onto your feet. “Alright, I’ll just go down in the morning and see if I can get them scanned into my datapad before I leave.”

Shiva grabbed your arm as you started to breeze past them, “What’s up with you? You dropped out of the program, you skipped a harvest, and now you’re obsessing vover a godsforsaken deathtrap moon. What happened to you?”

“I met someone.” You admitted, shaking out of their grip as you lowered your gaze. 

“And they’re forcing you to mine lunaxium? What’s going on here? I’ll kill them.” 

“It’s not like that,” You held up your hands. “Please don’t judge me.”

“I already am.”

“I could tell.” You countered dryly, folding your arms across your chest. “Before I tell you this, just understand that I understand the risks associated with this. I met someone on Lykaois.”

“Have you lost your Grioskii mind?” 

“There is no reason to bring Grioskii into this.” You tried, though Shiva wasn’t laughing. “Look, I know it might sound crazy—“

“Is it one of those monsters?”

“Yes, but—“

“You’ve lost your mind.” Shiva laughed bitterly, “I’ve seen you get yourself into a lot of foolish situations, but this tops all of them. It’s a monster. You know, there’s a reason you’re armed with silverline ammo when you take that mission.”

“You told me it was a myth!” 

“I thought it was bullshit until I thought you were going to die on that hellscape of a moon. That planet is dangerous. You’re not going back.”

You took a step back, “Can I just explain the situation to you? Like two rational people.” 

Shiva narrowed their eyes at you, “You have three sentences.” 

“For fuck’s sake.”

“Two.”

“Shiva.”

“One.”

“I think I could really care for him.”

“Are you kidding me?” They shook their head slowly, “I always knew you had bad taste in lovers, but this…” Shiva took a step towards you, “Do you remember what you told me after Mars?”

“Ezra is not Mars.” 

“No, you’re right. Mars was just a jackass, this Ezra character is an actual monster.” Shiva encroached further on your space. “I’m sorry.” 

You blinked back at Shiva, “What?”

Instead of answering you they drove their stun shaft into your thigh — and stars burst behind your eyes. 

Your head was throbbing as consciousness started to return to you. Slowly, at first, and then all at once the light shining on you from above was too much. You rolled onto your left side and puked over the side of the cot. 

“Shiva!” You yelled, wiping your mouth off with the back of your hand. “You stunned me!”

“For your own good,” Shiva said as they strolled into the cabin, hands tucked behind their back. “Do you want a drink?” 

“Come closer, I need to puke again and your shoes look like the perfect place.” You seethed, grabbing at your head. There was nothing worse than getting stunned — nausea, headache, tingling through all of your extremities. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Shiva questioned as you started to get up. 

“To Lykaois.” 

“I don’t think so.”

Your heart sank when you realized the familiar hum of a hyperspace drive, the rattling of the durasteel grates beneath your feet. “What did you do?”

“You’ve been tied down on the Block for too long. We’re going to take a little trip to your favorite hospitable planet.”

“Shiva, I promised Ezra I would be back.” You grimaced as you felt another rush of bile rising up your throat. 

Shiva handed you a trash bin, waiting until you were done retching before responding to you, “Well, you’re going to break that promise. A couple days on Ay-7 and you’ll forget all about your monster-boyfriend.” 

You groaned and you weren’t certain the new wave of nausea was because of the stun shaft.

What would Ezra think if you didn’t turn up? He’d tried to convince you not to come back. Maybe he’d just assume that you had finally listened to him. That would be something, wouldn’t it? Because you hadn’t listened to him yet.

“Shiva, I don’t think you understand.” You rubbed at your aching head. “This isn’t like Mars or even Alia. This isn’t me falling too hard for someone who is going to hurt me.”

They gave you a skeptical look, “And after Mars, you told me if you ever acted that stupid again, I needed to take you to Ay-7.”

“I would love to have this conversation when my stomach wasn’t roiling.” You complained, closing your eyes as you prayed for your stomach to settle. “Look, Shiva… I know I’ve had a really bad track record with my dalliances. Alia used me, Mars used me… but Ezra isn’t.” 

“No?” 

You shook your head, “No, if anyone is using someone, I’m using him.” You admitted as you rubbed at your forehead. “He can’t even leave Lykaois. Ever.”

“Then you should shake off whatever this is.” Shiva wagged a finger at you. “It’s a deadend situation. Mostly dead for you if you keep playing with a monster.” 

“You don’t understand.” 

“No, I probably don’t.” Shiva narrowed their eyes at you. “But I don’t think you do either.”

“Just take me back, Shiva. I don’t need you trying to keep me from doing something stupid.” You managed to rise to your feet. “Come on, I promised that I would bring him back new clothes. That’s how insidious this arrangement is. Clothes.” You laughed bitterly, “And I practically forced him into accepting that I was bringing him new clothes.”

“He’s a monster. What does he need clothing for?” 

“Because he’s not a monster.” You snapped. “We sit around and we read poetry and talk about the places we’ve been. He was just like you and me before he was attacked. He’s a good man.” 

“You’re not going this month.” Shiva didn’t budge — they were as stubborn as you were. “We’re going to Ay-7.” 

“Fine.” 

You wished there was some way to tell Ezra to hold on another month. You’d come back to him — you weren’t breaking your promise. 

Ay-7 was a den of iniquities that had been turned into a city. Anything you could possibly want you could find it there: black market goods, illicit affairs, high stakes gambling, and the finest dusts an addict could find. 

Shiva had dragged you there more than once to get you to forget whatever situation you had gotten yourself into. But Ezra wasn’t a situation and he wasn’t someone you could just forget. 

“I’m visiting the B,” Shiva told you, raising their voice over the pulsing beat of the music. “Don’t try hotwire my ship while I’m gone.” 

You rolled your eyes, taking a drink of your polish, “Wouldn’t think of it.” 

“Try to have fun.” They patted your back, before vanishing into the fold of moving bodies as patrons danced and drank and enjoyed their night. 

Ezra probably wouldn’t miss you for a couple of days. He’d still be dealing with the effects of the change today and tomorrow. But then he’d notice. 

You had let a lot of people down in your life. That was the nature of the beast — you fucked people over and you moved on. But you hadn’t wanted Ezra to be one of those people. It wasn’t like you had any choice in the matter.

Shiva was lucky you weren’t feeling murderous. 

“Well look who it is.”

Kevva preserve me. 

You downed your polish and rotated in your seat, “Quinn. Lovely to see you.” You put on a blustery tone as you eyed the man. 

“It’s been quite some time since I last caught you here.” Quinn leaned heavily on the bar beside you, ordering a drink for himself. “What have you gotten yourself into this time?” 

“None of your business, Quinn.” You rolled your eyes, ordering yourself another drink. 

Quinn chuckled, nudging you in the ribs. “Is that how it’s gonna be this time?” He arched a brow. “I can play.”

“Quinn, I would rather gouge out my—“ You stopped yourself mid-sentence. “Do you have any plans tomorrow?”

“Might be presumptuous, but I was hoping I might be waking up beside you.” 

You groaned, but you couldn’t exactly be picky right now. “Play your cards right and maybe you will be.” You quipped, resting your hand on his arm. “Can you take me back to the Block?”

Quinn narrowed his eyes, “Why?” 

“Because I need to catch a ride and Shiva’s being an ass.” You told him bluntly. “I have somewhere I need to be and you might be my only hope.” 

“What’s in it for me?” Quinn drummed his fingers against the top of the bar. 

You bit down on the inside of your bottom lip, staring back at him. This wasn’t what you wanted, but you didn’t really have a choice. Did you? Shiva had taken that away. 

You could wait another cycle. But you didn’t want to. 

“Well,” Quinn leaned towards. “What’s in it for me, pretty girl?” 

“Take me to the Block tonight and we can do whatever you want to, Quinn.” You told him. “Just get me out of here.”

Quinn downed his drink before dramatically offering you his hand, “Step aboard. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.” 

“Just the Block.” You told him, downing your own drink and tipping the bartender before taking his hand. 

“I don’t remember datapad privileges as part of our arrangement.” Quinn remarked as he strolled into his quarters with his arms folded across his chest. 

You glanced up at him, readjusting the blankets you had wrapped around your chest. “You should know me better than that.” 

“Fair point.” Quinn chuckled as he approached the bunk. “What are you reading?” He questioned, sitting down on the bed beside you. 

“You’re cracked into the net and I wanted to look up something.” You explained, glancing back down at the datapad you had propped up on your lap. 

Quinn leaned towards you to look at the screen, “Who is he?” 

You smiled sadly at the little ID photo of Ezra on the screen. It had been taken a little over five years ago, before Lykaois. He wore the same crooked smirk you’d come to know, but he lacked that uneasy darkness you’d also become familiar with. 

“Ezra.” You told him.

“Is that who you’re trying to get to?” Quinn questioned. 

“Yeah.” You nodded, sliding your thumb over the screen, scrolling through all of the voyages Ezra had taken. He’d lost a lot of partners on his missions — a lot. “Shiva doesn’t approve.” 

“When’s that ever stopped you?” Quinn chuckled, sucking his teeth before tilting his head to look at you. “You in love with him?”

“I haven’t known him very long,” You rubbed at the back of your neck awkwardly. “It’s complicated.”

“Must be if you’re going on the net to find out about him.” 

“I actually promised myself that I wouldn’t.” You shrugged. “But I just wanted to know.” 

Quinn snatched the datapad out of your lap, “Let’s see what he’s been up to—“

“Wait.”

He squinted at the screen, before looking towards you slowly. “He’s got a D file.”

“I know.”

“For five years.”

You swallowed thickly, “He’s not dead.”

“Who’d he piss off to go into hiding?”

You grimaced, “Like I said, it’s complicated.” 

Quinn tossed the datapad back on the bed beside you as he stood back up, “Get dressed, we’re almost to the Block.”

“Tell Shiva I’m sorry.” 

“I’m not getting in the middle of that.” 

You glared at him, “I think you owe me that much.” 

Quinn shot you a look, “Pretty sure I was just supposed to get you to the Block.” You fixed him with a look right back and he wilted, “I’ll send Shiva your message.”

It wasn’t the first time you had slept with Quinn, but this time there was no amount of hot steam in your fresher that could burn off the time you spent with him. Sometimes, you had to do things you didn’t want to do — just to get by. 

And if Shiva hadn’t dragged you to Ay-7, you wouldn’t have had to. Three months ago, it wouldn’t have mattered to you either. At all. But you hadn’t been able to stop thinking of Ezra. 

What would he think if you didn’t make it to him in time? What would he think when you told him how you’d managed to get yourself back to him? 

You weren’t going to let it get under your skin. Shit happens all the time and you couldn’t always have control over it. This — you had control over. It was a means to an end. 

You hadn’t expected there to be snow on the ground when you landed on Lykaois. It wasn’t much, but it was more than you’d ever seen all in one place before. Maybe an inch. Just enough to leave footprints. 

And there were footprints. Giant footprints, all around the clearing where you always landed your transport. 

One set of prints, emerging from forest and heading into the clearing, before vanishing back into the treeline. Like something had come looking for you. 

Like Ezra had come looking for you. 

Rationally, you knew there were other werewolves on the moon, but you wanted it to be him. 

If Ezra came looking for you as the beast, it somehow made up for the fact that you’d had to get creative to make it back to him in time. 

But it didn’t explain why he was changing outside of the full moon. Was he starting to lose control of his humanity? Would every trip grow shorter and shorter until you showed up to find him—

“You came back.” 

Your heart skipped a beat as you turned around and found him standing there. His expression was almost unreadable as his eyes flickered over your face. 

“I tried to come sooner.” You admitted, taking a step towards him. “Life got in the way.” 

Ezra nodded slowly, his shoulders finally relaxing as you stopped in front of him. “I didn’t think you’d make it this time.” 

You only had a handful of days of before Ezra would be pressuring you to leave — just in case the window of opportunity was narrowing. And given the footprints in the freshly fallen snow… 

“You’re cold.” Ezra pointed out as you shivered, reaching out to run his hand down the length of your arm. “Let’s get you back inside, little lamb.”

He followed you into your transport, trailing close enough behind you that you could feel his body head radiating from him. 

“If I had known that I would be returning during the winter, I would’ve brought you warmer clothes,” You explained as you tinkered with the ship’s heating system, setting it to a comfortable temperature.

“I’m thankful for whatever you’ve brought me,” Ezra told you, “You could’ve just brought yourself and that would’ve been enough.”

You glanced over your shoulder at him with a smile, “I’ll remember that for next time.” You teased lightly, adjusting the ship’s engine exhaust into the central air system for processing. “How was the full moon?”

“I found the others,” Ezra told you, tucking his hands into his pockets. “I ran with them for the first time in years.” 

“That’s good. Right?” You smiled at him, shifting your weight from foot to foot. 

He nodded, “I was able to talk with them about what to expect.” 

Your smile faded, “What to expect?”

“It will get more difficult for me to control my transformations,” Ezra explained to you, rubbing his lips together. “Which we already know.”

“I saw the footprints.” 

Ezra swallowed thickly, “I didn’t think you were coming.” 

“I almost didn’t,” You admitted, pinching at the bridge of your nose as you tried to figure out how you were going to tell him everything. “It’s quite the story.” You told him, holding out your hand, “Let’s go sit.” 

Ezra reached out and took your hand, his thumb rubbing the center of your palm as his fingers curled around yours. 

Instead of guiding him back into your quarters, you led him into the small commons area where you had first brought him inside your world. You still couldn’t look at your little makeshift sofa without thinking of Ezra. 

“I had every intention of being here on the first day,” You sighed as you sank down onto the sofa beside him. Ezra wrapped his arm around your shoulders, his fingers fanning out over your arm, heating your skin through the fabric of your reg shirt. “The night before I was set to leave my friend — you remember, Shiva — decided to kidnap me.”

“Kidnap you?” Ezra chuckled, sliding his fingers down the length of your arm as he listened to you.

“I was trying to track down the information they had about Lykaois. I would’ve done it sooner, but Shiva had been off the Block. I tried to explain the situation to them, but…”

Ezra pressed his lips to the top of your head as you sank into his side. It was so natural to just be with him. It was nice. 

“I’ve made enough stupid choices in my life that Shiva just assumed this was another one,” You tilted your head to look at him. “It’s not.”

He chuckled, “It might be.”

“It’s not.” You assured him, lifting your hand to cup his cheek, rubbing your thumb over his scruff. “But Shiva didn’t know any better. They stunned me and flew me halfway across the system.” 

Ezra’s eyes widened, “What?”

You laughed, “I do not recommend getting stunned.” 

“No, I wouldn’t either.” He gave you a look. “Are you alright?”

“We’re getting to that,” You brushed your thumb over his bottom lip. 

Ezra’s lips tugged upwards at the corners as he looked at you, “Moonbeam, what’s wrong?”

“Shiva took me to Ay-7 which is typically my favorite place to go to just… get lost.”

He squeezed your shoulder, “I remember Ay-7.” Ezra chuckled quietly. “I was rather partial to the scene there.” 

“Me too.” You lowered your gaze. “Shiva dragged me around the city for two days before I finally found a way back to the Block.” You chewed on your bottom lip. “I just wanted to get back to you.” 

“You don’t have to come every month, little lamb.” Ezra assured you, running his hand down your arm. 

“I know, but…” You shook your head. “I enjoy this, Ezra.” You drew a line between the two of you. “I’m not just going to vanish. If something happens, if I change my mind I’m going to tell you.” 

Ezra’s gaze flickered between your eyes and your lips, before he started to lean in to kiss you. 

You stopped him before he could, pressing your hand over his mouth. “Wait.” 

His brows drew together. 

“I ran into an old… friend,” You weren’t entirely certain that you’d call Quinn a friend, but that wasn’t the point. “I knew I could get him to take me back to the Block, but not without a price.” 

Ezra’s voice was muffled against your palm, but you could easily make out. “I know.” 

“What?”

“I could smell someone on you. All over you.” Ezra worked his jaw as he held your gaze. “I told you before, it’s not my place to take issue with that, little lamb. You aren’t bound to this moon or me.”

“I know I’m not.” You sighed heavily. “I just wanted you to know. I nearly burned my skin off in the fresher, I didn’t think you’d be able to smell him still.”

Ezra shrugged his shoulders, “The scent thing is a blessing and a curse.” 

“I can imagine.” You reached out and ran your thumb down the bridge of your nose. “I just used him to get back to my transport.” 

He shook his head, “Even if it meant something—“

“It didn’t.” 

Ezra sighed heavily, rubbing at your side. “I can never leave Lykaois.” He reminded you. “You can’t stop living your life because of me.”

“I’m not missing out on much,” You said dryly, sinking into his side and resting your cheek against his shoulder. “I can’t help that I care about you, Ezra. I can’t explain it.”

Ezra sighed heavily, “Neither can I. In the past five years other people have turned up here, but it was never like this. None of them were you.”

“When I was on Quinn’s ship, I pulled up your old program file on the net.” 

“What?” He squeezed your hip. “Is it still active?”

“No, you were marked deceased.” You gestured around you vaguely. “There was a note that you hadn’t made contact after a week on Lykaois and then a few months later they marked you dead.”

“Charming.” He grumbled. “Anything interesting?”

“We narrowly crossed paths, you know. We had signed up for nearly every single harvest, but just a season off.” 

Ezra chuckled, tilting his head to look at you. “You would have loathed me, little lamb.” 

You rolled your eyes, “You don’t know my taste.” 

He arched a brow, “I think I do.” 

“Maybe you do.” You pursed your lips at him. “It made me think about what could have been if we had ended up on a harvest together. You are just my brand of trouble.”

“And no less dangerous.”

“I saw the number of partners who didn’t make it off-world.”

“I have trust issues.” He offered with a smirk. 

“Me too.” You chewed on the inside of your bottom lip. “I’ve been screwed over too many times on dicey harvests.” 

“Haven’t we all.” Ezra slid his arm out from behind you. He stared straight ahead, chewing at a hangnail on his thumb. “For what it’s worth, I care about you too.”

You reached out and played with the hair at the nape of his neck. It reminded you of that first time — the pull you felt towards him. You couldn’t really explain it, but it was like you were pulled towards him by an invisible string. 

“But this can never be anything more than it is,” Ezra reminded you, his brows furrowed together as he turned towards you. “And it will end before we’re ready for it to.”

“I know this, Ezra.” You traced your thumb over the rough skin of the scar on his neck. “But just because something has an end date, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t let it start.”

“It’s already started,” He drawled out. “Even the beast knows this.” Ezra held your gaze.

“What does the beast want from me?” You questioned, feeling your heart beat faster. 

Ezra my eyes raked over you, “More than I’m willing to give it.”

Your lips parted and you exhaled slowly, “I want to meet the beast.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Ezra snapped. 

“Probably.” You rubbed at your forehead. “I think that’s the general consensus.” 

“No. I’m not risking it.” He gritted out. “I can’t control that part of me. I don’t even remember coming out here to the clearing. I could hurt you and I wouldn’t even know.”

You nodded slowly, drawing your knees up to your chest and resting your chin on your folded arms. “How long do we have?”

Ezra dragged his fingers through his hair, sinking back against the cushion. “Five days, at the most. The prints were fresh, the snow started last night.”

“And you don’t remember?”

He shook his head, pressing his tongue to the inside of his cheek. “I came out here last night, just to see if I had missed your landing. I went back home and then… this morning I saw the tracks outside. I followed them back and here we are.”

“Someone has to have done research. All these years — all the missions here.” You drummed your fingers against your leg, turning to look at him. “I’ll try to figure something out when I go back. If we had a better understanding of when this started — what researchers have found.” 

Ezra pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, sighing heavily. “There’s not going to be a cure, if that’s what you think.”

You stared at him, “But what if there was?”

He didn’t answer you. 

Because that would be false hope and you knew, as much as he did, that if there were the potential for a cure it would come at far too steep a cost. Those greedy prospector programs leached from everyone to line their own pockets.

He’d survived for five years. That was more than the others, apparently. 

“I couldn’t find a copy of Poe,” You told him, picking lint off your pants. “How do you feel about Dickinson?”

“Emily?” Ezra questioned, stretching his legs out in front of him, propping his heels up on the floor. “I’m regretfully not as familiar as perhaps I should be. Is she to be my new companion?”

“She’s with your new clothes in my room.” You told him, “Come on.” You reached over and gave his leg a pat before rising to your feet. 

Ezra followed you down the corridor into your quarters. You hadn’t bothered making up your bed when you climbed out in the morning — too focused on getting back to Lykaois and him. 

“Pardon the mess.” You explained, kicking a pair of boots out of your way as you wandered over to the table where you’d neatly stacked his new clothes. “I hope everything fits.” 

“I’ll make it work if it doesn’t.” Ezra shrugged his shoulders, fixing you with a warm smile. “Thank you for this.” 

“Two new pairs of pants, three shirts, and new boots.” You held your arms out to present him with the garments you’d picked up at the exchange. 

“What do I owe you?” He questioned. 

“Nothing.”

He arched a brow, “I had credits when I came to Lykaois, you know. It’s not like I’m planning to use them.” 

“They didn’t cost that much.” You assured him, but he didn’t look convinced. “Considering them a gift.”

“You’re a gift.” Ezra quipped, begrudgingly taking the clothes from you. “They smell clean.” He inhaled deeply, walking over to your rumpled bed and making himself at home. “You never know how much you appreciate good clothes.” 

You leaned back against your desk, watching as Ezra toed off his ratty boots and peeled away his worn clothes. “What happened?” You questioned with a frown as you spotted a fading bruise at the curve of his ribs. 

“They were not welcoming at first.” He told you, grimacing a little as he pulled the new shirt on over his head and it pulled at that band of muscles along his ribs. “They came around. Eventually.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose, “Ezra—“

“I’m fine.” 

“What happened?”

“These fit nicely.” He ignored you, fastening his new trousers shut, before tucking his shirt into them. “Like a glove.”

“Ezra.”

Ezra continued to ignore you, sitting back down on your bed to pull the shoes on. “A little snug, but I’ll break them in.” He said, before kicking them back off as he sank back onto your bed and reclined back. “They smelt you on me.”

“Oh.” 

“It’s fine.” 

“So, they rejected you because of me?”

He rubbed his hands together, “I’m not looking to be accepted by them.” Ezra met your eyes, “You should see the other guy. I’m scrappy when I need to be.” 

“Don’t get yourself killed.” You told him firmly, before turning away from him to grab the book of poems off your desk. 

Ezra chuckled, “I’m not trying to. Trust me, it’s not my preferred way out of this infernal place.” 

“What is your preferred way?” 

He stretched out on your bed, laying lengthwise across it. “That’s a good question, moonbeam.” He told you as he tucked an arm beneath his head. “If you’d asked me a year ago, I might’ve said something different.”

You climbed into bed with him, laying on your side to face him. “What changed?” You questioned, sliding your foot down his calf. 

Ezra clicked his tongue against his teeth, “I think you know.” He reached in between you, curling his fingers around your hand. He rubbed his thumb over the back of your hand, before bringing it to his lips and pressing a kiss to your palm. 

“In the past five years, have there ever been any other humans who stayed here?” You questioned, drawing your pointer finger over the bow of his lips. 

He shook his head. 

“And none of them have ever cared for someone who wasn’t like them?”

“I don’t know.” Ezra admitted, interlacing his fingers with yours. “You want me to ask them?”

You squeezed his hand, “I’m curious. The rumors here date back for decades. We can’t be the first to…” You tilted your face to look at him. 

“I’ll ask.” Ezra murmured as his eyes flickered to your lips, leaning in to kiss you gently. “Will you read for me?” He questioned, “I believe we’re neglecting our dear Emily.”

“Of course.” You stole one more kiss, before propping yourself up a little more upright as you flipped through the small book of poems. 

You could feel Ezra’s keen eyes fixed on you as you read, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul. And sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.”

He hummed his agreement with that line. 

“And sweetest in the gale is heard and sore must be the storm that could abash the little bird that kept so many warm. I’ve heard it in the chillest land and on the strangest sea. Yet never in extremity, it asked a crumb of me.” You finished, rubbing your thumb over the lines on the page. 

“I know I said it once before,” Ezra started, winding his fingers through his hair. “But I miss this sea. There are a few brooks and streams here, but none of them are the same.” 

You closed the book and sat it down on the bed beside you, “I don’t think I can bring the sea back with me. I could try.”

He chuckled quietly, “I have no doubt that you would try.” Ezra’s brows furrowed as he turned to look at you, his expression sobering. “I don’t want you wasting your life on me, moonbeam.” 

You ran your thumb over the crease between his brows, “I’m not wasting my life. That’s not how I see it.” 

“The night we met,” Ezra started, his breath warm against your palm as you ran your thumb down the length of his nose. “I was contemplating my preferred way out. Five years… it’s a long time to be alone. I’m never getting off this rock and my mind… I bristle at the thought of losing it. It’s the one thing that’s always been mine.”

“Ezra—“

“No.” He shook his head, “I was talking one last walk, exploring an area I hadn’t gone in a long time and then….” He sank back into the pillows and stared up at the durasteel ceiling above. “I caught scent of you.”

“Look, I don’t believe in fate or any of that bullshit, but that has to mean something. Doesn’t it? I won that assignment — it was supposed to be Shiva.” 

Ezra worked his jaw slowly, “I know. I have had plenty of time to think about this. To think about you and what this means.” He clenched his teeth as he turned to look at you once more and you could see a pain there that was palpable.

“I’m not going to abandon you,” You told him, dragging fingers over the ruff scruff-covered cheek. “I know it may seem unlikely, but I do keep my promises.” 

“There is a deeply selfish part of me that doesn’t want you to leave,” He confessed, curling his arm around your waist as he turned towards you. “A part of me that wants to lay claim to you.” 

Your brows rose upwards, “You are jealous!” You shoved at him playfully. 

Ezra caught your arms and held your gaze, “Maddeningly jealous.” 

“I knew it.” You hooked your leg over his, wrestling your way out of his grasp so you could straddle his hips. “I did what I had to do, with what I had to work with.”

He huffed, sliding his hands up your thighs. “I know this.”

“It wasn’t terrible,” You told him — if Quinn was terrible, he wouldn’t have been a mistake you’d made a dozen times over throughout it the years. “But it wasn’t you.”

“I’m flattered.” He drawled out, staring up at you. “But you are not stuck here, little lamb. You are free to roam where I cannot.” 

“Oh, you know me. I’m just raring to get back to Ay-7.” You said with a roll of your eyes, planting your palms on either side of his head as you leaned over him. “You’re allowed to be jealous, Ezra. That means you care.”

He smirked up at you, “I do care.” Ezra ran his hand up your back, curling his fingers around the back of your head as he drew you down for a kiss. 

Maybe it was crazy to care for someone you’d only spent a handful of days with, across two months, but you had done crazier things. If you overlooked the werewolf part of this equation. 

He spoke to a part of you that hadn’t been spoken to by anyone else. 

Ezra’s fingers slid beneath the hem of your shirt, sliding over bare skin as his lips slanted against yours. A low growl rumbled in his throat and you broke away from the kiss to catch your breath. “Little lamb?”

“Yes?”

“I need to leave.”

“What?” You frowned as you stared down at him, “If you need to leave, you’re going to have to let go of me.” He had a vice-like grip on your hips. 

He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, “Something doesn’t feel right.” Ezra’s brows knit together, his lips drawn into a thin line. “Something—“

“You have to let go.” You urged, trying to pry his fingers off of you. “Ezra, please.” 

He didn’t look right either. He hadn’t looked right since you saw him standing outside your transport, but you had chalked it up to the cold weather and the exhaustion of everything. 

“Let go.” You leaned forward and slapped at his cheek, “Ezra you have to let me go.” 

His lips parted as he inhaled deeply, his eyes snapping open and his unfocused gaze fixed on you. “I don’t understand.” Ezra mumbled, his grip loosening just enough for you to scramble off of his lap. “I need you to go. I need you to—“ His words were cut off by a weak groan, his brows furrowing together in pain. “You wanted to meet the beast and I think it heard you.”

“Oh gods.” You clambered off the bed, tripping over his shoes and hitting the floor with a resounding thud. “Shit!” You had seen that holovid before. 

Morbid curiosity had you desperate to see the beast, but you knew better. There just wasn’t anywhere werewolf-proof to go. 

You swore under your breath as you caught sight of crimson blood on your skin where you’d landed hard on the grated texture. 

Ezra noticed too. 

You scooted backwards on your ass, locking eyes with him as he peered at you from an unnatural position on the bed. 

He had told you before — bones break, muscles tear. He hadn’t been lying. 

“Go.” He growled out, a sound far more vicious than you were familiar with. 

You grabbed onto the side of your wardrobe trunk, dragging yourself up off the floor. If you weren’t going to be bruised from his rough touch, the floor had made up the difference. 

There was only one place to hide. 

The fresher. 

You snatched up your datapad and ran barefoot down the corridor, locking yourself into your fresher under the guise of safety. But you had seen the beast — if it wanted in, it would get in. 

 Watching Ezra transform through the video on your datapad was an unnerving sight that you weren’t ever going to forget. He stripped off his clothes and collapsed onto the ground where you had fallen. 

He writhed on the floor, moaning in agony as his body contorted. There was no part of him that looked the same once the transformation began. 

But why? You were days removed from the full moon, he had taken the lunaxium, and nothing was different from any other time you had engaged in a little fun together. 

Why had it chosen now to break loose again?

The beast you had seen in the clearing was Ezra. It’s fur was the same shade of chestnut as his own, with a fleck of blonde that you hadn’t seen before. But it didn’t seem as fearsome as it had that morning — not as it laid on the floor of your bedroom whimpering like a lost dog. 

You almost felt bad for him, if it weren’t for the whole part where he could easily rip you in two with his bare bestial hands. 

When you used to picture your death, it typically ended staring down the barrel of a colleague turning on you. Never in your wildest dreams had you pictured yourself locked in your fresher, watching the transformation of the werewolf that might rip the fresher door off and eat you alive.

Why now? 

He hadn’t seemed entirely right since you brought him inside, but you had been off too. You almost wished you’d just stayed on Ay-7 and waited until next month. But you didn’t want to abandon him. 

You glanced back down at the screen, your heart stopping as you found the view into your quarters empty. You cycled through the camera views, trying to find the rogue beast, but you didn’t need the camera to find him. 

Ezra — the beast — growled outside the fresher door, claws scraping loudly over the durasteel. Of course he’d found you. 

He had heightened senses as a human, with a canine nose there was no doubt he could smell you. Fresh blood, halted arousal, and evidently Quinn. 

You sat your datapad down on your sink, staring at your reflection in the mirror as you contemplated your way out of this. There was one air duct, but there was no way you could climb through it. Your weapons were all laying by your bed, on the other side of the door and the dangerous monster. 

“Never been one to believe in a higher power, but… Kevva, Yrica, Ruke — whichever one of you exists.” You laughed awkwardly as you glanced upwards. “Help?”

 Ezra growled again, before slamming some of his body weight against the door — enough to make you jump backwards and the door groan under the pressure. 

Maybe you were still dreaming. Stun shafts always gave you nightmares. The last few days had been a nightmare. 

You glanced down at the database, staring at the scene taking place on the other side of the door. The camera was mounted further down the corridor, but you could see enough of the hulking monster to know you weren’t getting out of this alive. 

The only weapons you had was a toothbrush, a nail file, a toilet, and a steam shower. 

You could hide in the shower — it would delay your inevitable death by a few seconds. 

If you survived, Ezra was going to disappear. You knew that much. This was over, whatever it was. So maybe you should just open the door and let the monster in.

He growled again as he scratched at the door, his nails grinding over the durasteel and making your ears ring. 

Those would be the same flaws ripping you open. 

Shiva was right — you had lost your mind. 

You weren’t going to go down, cowering in the corner of your shower in fear as your clandestine lover ripped you to shreds. That wasn’t how you rolled. 

This was happening and you just had to accept it. 

You caught your reflection in the mirror again, before turning on your heels to face the door. Your fingers shook as you reached out and hit the button that slid open the door. 

Your heart beat was pounding in your ears as you came face-to-face with the beast on the other side of the door. He was a hulking, massive creature that had to crouch down to avoid hitting the ceiling. 

Ezra growled, a sound that rattled your bones. 

You clenched your eyes closed, anticipating the first blow — but it never came. You opened one eye hesitantly, nearly swallowing your tongue as you realized the beast was just staring at you. 

“Hi?” You tried, not quite trusting your own voice as you stared up into familiar eyes. 

The beast hunched down, sniffing at the air around you inquisitively. It leaned down, planting one fearsome paw onto the ground near your foot as its muzzle hovered a few inches from your face. 

Ezra — the beast — sniffed at your injured hand, before nudging at your arm with a little more force than you anticipated. You jumped back, causing him to growl fiercely at your sudden movement like a feral dog. 

You held up both hands, back up a step. “I’m not going to hurt you.” You told him, staring at his eyes and hoping he understood you. 

The werewolf lowered its head once more, sniffing around you curiously before nudging at your arm again. 

“Do you know who I am?” You questioned as you hesitantly reached out and touched the top of his massive head. 

He growled again, but it wasn’t like the other growls. It was a quiet, almost content sound. 

You gently stroked your fingers through the soft fur by his ear, “Do you like that?” 

Ezra huffed.

“You’re not just playing with your food, are you?” You chewed on your bottom lip as you caught sight of just how massive the teeth in his mouth were. His ears twitched and he growled quietly. 

You had a feeling there was no research into this. 

[good-omens-classic]

Been thinking about the modernization of the narrative of Good Omens from the novel to the TV series prompted by those last posts.  DISCLAIMER: its actually been a while since i either watched the TV show or read the book so i might be misremembering stuff 😅

If i remember correctly, in the early stages of production of the TV show Neil Gaiman stated the aesthetics of Heaven and Hell were being updated to be less like countries at war, as they were in the novel, and more like factions of a corporation, with Heaven being the top office and Hell being the basement.  And he said this was to representing the shifting social anxieties of the time - the novel was written on the heels of the Cold War, and so has a lot of spy and soldier aesthetic to it, whereas nowadays we are all looking with a skeptical eye at Disney and Nestle as large corporations do whatever the hell they want without consequences.

I think this modernization is an effective one, but one that changes the flavor of the narrative slightly, and in a way that makes it less appealing to some people and more appealing to others.  One is not necessarily better than the other, and given one is a new TV show and one is an old novel so it’s hardly accurate to compare the size of fanbases, I can’t even say one is necessarily more or less appealing/popular than the other.  I think that the TV show was well-made, but there were a few small key changes in the writing that move the narrative away from the reasons why I got absolutely obsessed with the novel.  I think that David Tennant and Michael Sheen did a pretty good job acting the directions and script they were given, my main things I don’t like are kind of with the writing decisions (and tbh the costuming still but that’s petty 🙄)

I think it’s probably part of my upbringing, which was fundamentalist Protestant and honestly, obsessed with violence, that I don’t want to engage with a story where Hell is bad because it’s the dirty basement of an office building.  That’s a legit way to depict Hell, and one that has interesting thematical implications, but I personally want to read stories where Hell is fire and brimstone so that I can watch the protagonists defeat that.  I don’t fantasize about breaking free from an office job, or co-workers caught up in office petty politics, stories about finding softness and love amidst an actual war where violence is expected are what appeal to me.  The demons in the TV series are violent, but it’s just because they’re mean people, not because there’s a system put in place that forces them to be....which is honestly kind of part of why I liked the universe of the novel so much, because I liked to see Aziraphale and Crowley fight a system that tries to force them to be violent and fight and stuff?

The depiction of a narrative’s bad guy, even with subtle changes, can have some pretty significant impacts on how the audience feels about the narrative if what they’re looking for in the story is catharsis and wish-fulfillment.  For example, I often see people gripe about their DMs including homophobia and transphobia in their world-building in DnD, as though the ideal setting would be free from those things (and indeed, that’s the ideal setting for someone who wants escapism), but if you want to roleplay a character who struggles and overcomes those social issues, because they affect you in real life and you find it cathartic, constructing a world where those issues are very mild is not going to provide the same outlet that being victorious in a truly grimdark world is going to.  It’s not for everyone, but due to the novel’s vagueness about certain things, it allowed the fandom some level of flexibility in interpreting their version of the supernatural in whatever way they wanted (the only other angel we see “on screen” other than Aziraphale is Metatron, for like 3 pages, so it was really whatever your imagination cooked up to fill in those gaps), whereas the TV show fandom is working with more concrete building blocks.

This leads me to another gripe I have--making God female.  I understand this appealed hugely to a lot of people because they love the progressive implications of God not being male, and how it upsets religious bigots, but I honestly did not think this was super revolutionary or groundbreaking for the reason that Good Omens is a work of satire--it is criticizing God, and honestly?  I don’t think God is super kind and loving in either version of the story, Heaven is harsh and filled with asshole angels, Crowley was thrown out for just asking questions, and God plays games with his/her servants.  Not everyone sees it this way but I honestly feel like God in the GOmens universe is borderline abusive and gas-lighty, as a proxy criticism of the Christian Church, and the church has historically also been extremely misogynistic, so I think that aspect of it kind of falls apart when God is suddenly female.

That line about dinosaur bones being a joke that God played on humans hits differently when child-you went to a school that taught creationism in science class and thought you were going to hell if you didn’t believe what they told you.

But getting back to my main point, the TV show had the narrative updated for the times much more significantly than the radio play that came out in 2015--for that one, it was mostly cosmetic changes, such as tossing in a mention of X-boxes, whereas the TV show updated the basic narrative structure to reflect changing culture.  I think it was an effective change, but one that made the narrative less appealing to me personally.  A lot of people who were in the fandom before the TV show came out, or who just read the novel after watching the show to compare, seem to agree that the worldbuilding and the characterizations have subtle differences between the two incarnations, which to a casual consumer is not really that noticeable, but if you like one or the other because it hits a very specific sweet spot it might make a difference.  For me I liked it mostly because it provided a blank canvas with some very good building blocks for, like, my imagination to run off with, and the TV show closed a lot of those avenues by filling them in with something more concrete.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing and I can see myself experiencing this from the opposite side when I go into fandoms having just consumed the newest incarnation of a thing and quite liked it, only to find the fandom has people who liked it before that adaptation and hate it a lot!  That’s just the nature of the beast and an inevitable side effect of obsessing over something way more than you’re meant to, but it’s also why I’m not really interested in reading or writing fanfiction set in the TV ‘verse.  Anyway Im kind of rambling now but this is just kinda my thoughts and my onion so if anyone has any other thoughts on it feel free to share your onion with me too :)

[prinxlyart]

just any individual toh character hc would SLAP. mebbe ur thoughts on the twins idk this is vague

Nah it’s cool, I can dig it let’s do this

I only put this under a line break cuz it got so long oops lol

Emira:

Defo has a stutter that she went through a lot of intensive and grueling speech therapy sessions for (when she was about 7 years old) that she hated. Amity and Edric both know this and know it’s a sensitive topic for her. They’ll tease her lightly about it, but never in front of anyone else and they know where to draw the line. In my last Vinera post, I mentioned how much Viney adores her stutter. She absolutely loves getting Emira flustered enough to start stuttering. She’s incredibly patient and understanding when it comes to Emira’s stutter and Em’s feelings about her stutter, and she helps Emira learn to be okay with it again. It’s nothing to be ashamed of (and it’s cute).

My girl likes carrots. Like, really likes carrots. As in she’ll eat them straight out of the ground if she’s given a chance to wash it first. She really loves carrots. This is only an issue later on after she and Viney start taking care of beasts together and Emira’s been caught eating their entire stock of carrots that’s meant for the beasts. Viney has to keep the carrots in a secret box away from Emira after that point.

Emira actually really loves beasts/animals but has never been good at handling them. Any time she’d try to approach an animal to pet it, it would try to bite her. She’d get extremely pouty whenever this happens because beasts/animals love Edric. It’s not until after she and Viney start dating that Viney actually starts teaching her how to approach different creatures and her love for creatures reignites.

Emira’s a giant pushover for Amity. Only Edric knows this because he’s also a pushover for her. If Amity ever found out what power she actually holds over them, they’d be in so much trouble. They mask their love for their sister with constant teasing. Yes of course they get annoyed by her, that’s how siblings are, especially when Amity tattles on them, but at the end of the day, they’d help Amity hide the body if she asked. (The few times they witnessed her crying by someone other than their parents, they had gone on a warpath. Nobody hurts Mittens.)

Defo had a brief infatuation with Luz for like 5 minutes before she realized how head-over-heels Amity was. As long as they’re both happy, that’s what matters. She’ll take that secret to her grave though.

L O V E S having her hair played with, but like, only with people she’s super comfortable with. She has so much hair (mostly due to her mother’s wishes) and any time they all have attend some fancy gathering, Emira has to be seen by a stylist in order to get all her hair into whatever wild fancy shape her mom wants for the event. That she hates more than life itself, but whenever she’s upset, Edric or Amity grabs her hair brush and just gently brushes her hair out until she’s chill again. (She absolutely melts when Viney starts playing with her hair). In an act of defiance and because she needed this Change, the moment she and her siblings leave the Blight Manor permanently, she cuts off all of her hair. It’s very reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. Viney loves it. Everyone loves it actually, but the biggest reactions come from Viney and Luz (they both love running their fingers through the newly cut hair because it’s so soft).

She likes to sing to herself when she’s alone. It’s rare that it ever happens because if she knows there’s other people in the same building as her, she won’t chance it. But when she knows she’s alone and no one will notice if she casts a silence bubble around herself so she can sing at the top of her lungs? You better believe she closes any doors or curtains in the area, locks everything, casts that spell and goes nuts. Her voice isn’t all that great, but it’s lovely when she’s singing quietly to herself while she does homework or something. On especially bad nights, Amity will ask her to sing to her. Emira sang to her once when they were like, 3 and 5 respectively, and it’s been their secret thing ever since for especially rough nights/nightmares.

Edric:

Yknow how James from Pokémon is just super good with Pokémon ?? Like, he knows how to treat them, he knows what they like, he asks them gently if they’d like to join them, etc. That’s exactly how Edric approaches creatures. He’s a natural with them, but he and his sister’s natural affinity for illusion magic kept him from pursuing that track of magic.

He’s always wanted a pet, but every time he brings it up to his parents, he’s met with the same firm No as always. He’s definitely gotten in trouble for trying to sneak wild creatures into the house to keep in his room. Thank Titan for Em’s cool new girlfriend who’s not only a multi-track student, but studying the exact subject he wants to study and is super eager to teach him everything she knows. He learns vicariously through her and helps her study for her tests. At first, Emira is suspicious of them, but she knows her brother wouldn’t be so cruel as to try to steal her girlfriend away from her. He’s just a dork.

My boy’s got a sweet tooth. He loves desserts and sweets and fluffy baked goods and often tries to sneak candies when he thinks no one is looking. Chocolate is a big weakness for him. When Luz introduces him to Human Sweets, he’s practically bouncing off the walls. Cotton candy??????? Flan?????? Dulce de Leche en Tabla??? He nearly passes out when Luz busts out what she calls a “chocolate fountain” and turns it on. Y’all remember that one image of a bird bathing in a chocolate fountain from a million years ago? That’s Edric.

Edric Blight LIVES to see his sisters laugh. He would pull all sorts of silly faces and dumb tricks to make Amity laugh when they were little. He still tries to make her laugh, but usually those have grown from giggles to disgruntled mumbling. He’ll never admit how much it breaks his heart and it’s not until he sees her laughing at something Luz has done that he has hope he may still be able to get her to laugh again (it’s also the first time he’s heard her laugh in years and it makes his heart soar in relief. He was almost certain their parents had stamped any concept of laughter out of her).

My boy Edric is so full of love and passion; actually quite similarly to Luz. What makes them different though is that Edric is Aromantic. He’s never had a crush in his life. He’s happy with his sisters and all of their friends and their family as it grows in the future. He has some best friends that he lives with for a while (after his sisters move in with their respective partners), but for the most part he’s chill. He loves his family, he loves spoiling his sisters’ kids, and he’s content with himself. It takes him a super long time to be content with himself, but he gets there. I will literally never get over the fact that his biggest fear is “being alone forever”. He’s never alone. He will always have his friends and family. And, thanks in large part to Luz, he has his parents back. His parents that actually were excited when he cast his first spell and tucked him in at night when he was a toddler, giving him kisses goodnight and pleasant dreams. Not the parents he’d run away from; those were the cold, uncaring, obsessed with fake concepts of popularity and status people he ran away from with his sisters. It took years, but Luz helped bring his real parents back. He loves getting to know them for who they are now that he’s an adult too.

He and Gus become best friends. Like, dumb buddy cop movie levels of best friends. They get into so much trouble when it’s just the two of them and they have the time of their lives. At first, he and Em just sort of took Gus under their wing because he was a little bit of an outcast in their homeroom for being so much younger than everyone else. But he’s a friend of Luz’s and a friend of Amity’s after a while, which automatically makes him cool in their book. They soon find themselves actually enjoying his company, rather than just protecting him from stray bullies, and they find his ability with illusion magic exciting. They themselves are considered prodigies so having another prodigy to show off practice with is super stimulating for all of them. As the years go on (and Emira spends more time with Viney) Edric starts calling more and more often for “Bro Time” where they go do stupid teenage stuff or test the limits of their magic or even just hang out and talk for hours. It’s actually all this time hanging out with just Gus that Edric discovers he’s aro; somehow it comes out that Gus has developed a crush on Edric and (major age differences aside) Edric realizes he’s never had a crush on anyone before. It’s a conversation that sucks a lot, but they’re besties and they manage to get through it. Gus maybe needs to take a day with his original gal pals to just cry about it, but he gets over it just fine. He also helps Edric understand what it means to be aromantic. Well, with the help of Luz and Willow as well; Luz is a walking dictionary for lgbt terminology and Willow’s super good at helping dissect feelings (when they’re not her own cough’outofsightoutofmind’cough).

I genuinely don’t know what he might pursue for a career. Part of me wants him to be independent and do his own thing, but a much stronger part of me wants him to just be part of Viney as Emira’s business. He loves creatures so much and he loves taking care of them, but I don’t want him to feel like a third wheel around his twin sister either. Maybe he becomes a dual track teacher at Hexside specifically for healing and beast keeping so more students can learn about Service Creatures. He can substitute for the Illusion track homeroom when needed, but he’s super passionate about the Service Creature sub-track he and Viney pitch to Principal Bump.

[itsclydebitches]

YYH Recaps: Koenma Appears

Welcome to episode two, everyone! Before we get to the recap proper, I want to continue down Nostalgia Lane for a moment. Remember how last time I mentioned a Hiei bookmark I used daily back in middle school? Well, I tore through an old "treasure box" I created as a kid (a collection containing everything from a shark tooth to a small book on witchcraft. You know, the important things every child needs) hoping to find it... but I didn't. It's a hard life we lead.

However, I did find some other YYH relics that I thought you all might enjoy seeing. Behold — and, if you'd like, laugh at — my collection:

First up is a picture of young Toguro and Genkai that I wanted to use as my bookmark, but found that it was too wide. For the record, I didn't (and still don't) care about Toguro much, he was just the byproduct of finding a cool Genkai picture. Not shown is the back of the image with the names of my classmates because I made them all sign this along with our yearbook.

God bless my friends for putting up with me.

Second is a collection of very pretty trading cards that I ordered from god only knows where. I have vague memories of not finding any at my local comics shop and convincing my mom to let me order on The Olde Internet. Did I want the trading cards to trade them? Absolutely not. They exist to sparkle and make my heart happy.

Finally, I've saved what is perhaps the best for last. Now, you have to understand that grade to middle school age Clyde did not have the education that she would receive later on, which includes a knowledge of the ephemeral nature of fanworks and the importance of accurate record keeping. What this means is that I have absolutely no context for this. No author, no explanation... just the image itself.

Was this a standalone fanart? A part of a fic? Some specific request or just the will of the artist? I cannot answer these questions. I tried a reverse image search (which is, admittedly, the extent of my tech skills) and you know what the single hit I got was? "Fiction." Thanks, google. So yeah, I can only assume that my child self considered Kurama giving a de-aged Hiei a bubble bath adorable enough to save, but the artist wasn't important enough to jot down for future viewing. Sorry about that, mystery artist. And, as should go without saying, if anyone does know where this came from please let me know! Though I suspect that this is a case of a YYH-specific site closing down and the fanworks getting lost along with it. That happened a great deal before the age of AO3 when volunteers decided to put their time and talent towards saving fanworks of all sorts... 

But enough of all that. Let's get to recapping!

As we established last episode, Yusuke and Botan are on their way to the spirit world to kickstart Yusuke's ordeal. Watching this after over a decade of consuming other media, I really appreciate that Yusuke acts like a human person and asks lots of questions about this. When Botan is cryptic for the sake of the audience — we're going to see "the person" who can explain everything — Yusuke is justifiably like, and what person would that be?? I mean, this is also a way to establish basic facts for the viewer and it simultaneously feeds into Yusuke being someone who is difficult for the sake of being difficult — "If someone wants to say something, they should come to me!" — but it's just nice to see a character who doesn't accept cryptic BS because the story needs them to. If Botan gives an unclear, but ~dramatic~ explanation, Yusuke is going to call her out on that.

So she explains that they're going to see King Yama and Yusuke is all whoa whoa whoa, there's royalty involved? Suddenly, he's not so adamant that they come to him. 

Botan tries to reinforce this rare spark of humility and demands that Yusuke be on his best behavior from here on out.

Pff. Yeah right.

But “he can send you to oblivion forever if he wants to!” is a suitable enough threat to cow Yusuke for now. Which is interesting considering that a few hours ago he was happy to accept hell as his rightful ending. Granted, we could argue that there's a big difference between hell and oblivion — a character may not be afraid of punishment in the same way they are a lack of existence — but I'd say this ties more into Yusuke's development at the wake. Now that he's accepted that people care for him and that he should strive to return to them, the threat of having it snatched away actually means something. Even if that line is otherwise positioned as a comedic moment.

Botan flies them through a portal where we see the River Styx below and Yusuke comments on how big everything is. At first I was like, "What are you talking about? You were just flying over some major city in fictional Japan, wasn't that big too?" but this line makes more sense when they reach the palace and you realize that yeah, it's big. As in, the camera blurs while tilting down its length to show how insanely tall it is. Yusuke and Botan are tiny gnats at the gate's entrance.

"Oh man, what a pad!" Yusuke says and sure, that's one way to look at it lol.

Botan announces that she has a "new arrival" and the gates open for them, but so far there's no one else around. One part of me wants to question the time and budget put into this scene because shouldn't there be, like, thousands of people? Even just waiting outside? The idea that this is the hub of the underworld and that Botan is responsible for ferrying all the souls, yet she is guiding just this one (1) dude for a solid day is, from a world building perspective, kind of nuts. But beyond the need to develop Botan as a character (she can't be a part of the story if her job is treated realistically, with all the endless work that entails), I think this choice functions rather well from an atmospheric perspective too. Meaning, this moment is supposed to be rather tense for Yusuke. He just died, just found out the afterlife exists, just discovered a desire to get his life back, and is now about to meet a King who can toss him into oblivion if he's rude — which Yusuke always is. So this is a Very Dangerous Moment and their relative isolation feeds into that. As does the setting. Yusuke flinches back from the hallway, saying that it looks like a giant throat, so he is now literally walking into the belly of the beast. 

Suddenly, the size of the palace isn't an indicator of awesome wealth, just general intimidation. Also, check out the spikey purple mountains in the background and the harsh reds of the scene, especially compared to the soft yellow of the river. All of it is designed to create an, "Oh shit" reaction in both Yusuke and the audience.

Yusuke's image of King Yama matches these surroundings:

Oh wait! Wrong character ;)

He's massive, red, shadowed, and poses a formidable threat. And how does Yusuke deal with threats? By fighting them! Even those he can't hope to beat. Remember, this isn't a situation where Yusuke has any power here, but he still desperately holds onto the possibility that he might. What if he gets off a punch on King Yama's nose? Then goes for his eyes? Yeah, that'll work! 

Overlooking the fact that it absolutely would not — Yusuke's fantasy conveniently skips how he escapes Yama's clutches — what exactly is Yusuke hoping to accomplish here? Somehow take over the entire underworld? Escape as a ghost and live out his afterlife in hiding? We don't know and that's because Yusuke doesn't know. He doesn't think ahead, he just obeys this instinct to fight. An instinct that, crucially, overrides everything else. Botan has already told him that all Yusuke needs to do is be polite and everything will be fine, but it's not even that Yusuke believes that he can't achieve that; that he knows himself too well and, fearing a slip, starts planning for a potentially inevitable confrontation. There are simply no plans outside of battle plans. Yusuke just hears about someone vaguely intimidating and his brain jumps straight to, "How do I beat him in a fight?" no matter the odds, or that other options are readily available to him. Again, much of YYH's characterization occurs though its comedy, so outside of the general humor of witnessing this fantasy, it actually does a stellar job of reinforcing precisely who Yusuke is. In life the only thing he had going for him was his ability to fight. It was his one joy, his one skill, arguably the one good thing he did if we frame those reflexes as "saving" the kid... so is it any wonder that fighting dominates his every thought? It's all he knows.

And, as we'll see down the line, that single-minded obsession is very useful to the spirit world.

For now though, Yusuke finishes his absurd plans to take down King Yama and Botan asks what in the world he's muttering about back there. Which is an unintentionally hilarious line because by the end Yusuke is not muttering, but full on shouting. Botan. How did you not hear him?

Not important. They reach the next door and we get our first inkling that all is not as Yusuke (and we) expect when Botan leans into an intercom to say that they've arrived. Tech in a fantasy spirit world? This feels not only out of place, but rather... mundane? That's the point. When the doors open Yusuke expects his super scary monster, but gets... a whole lot of monsters that aren't scary at all!

The underworld is run by various demons (or ogres), though their looks are contrasted with the harried office worker personalities they've got going on. Someone is running by with a comically tall stack of papers. Someone else is shouting into a cell phone. The first two demons we see cross paths, looking like they're about to punch one another, just as Yusuke expects... except they're just dramatically getting out of the other's way, worried not about the hierarchy of this realm, but the fact that someone is behind schedule. The nerve!

"This place is a madhouse!" we hear somehow shout and yeah, that's the joke. The afterlife is just as chaotic, overworked, and — ultimately — boring as any human office. For all the strangeness of seeing hundreds of demons, this is familiar.

Which, alongside Botan's bubbly nature contrasting assumptions about the Grim Reaper, is one of the first instances of YYH undercutting the viewer's expectations in terms of looks. No one entirely looks the part they play in this tale and if you're trying to teach people to look past surface characteristics... there are worse ways to do it. Horrifying creatures with horns and sharp teeth? Nah, they're just chill dudes trying to do their job. Cutesy girl who looks like she belongs in a mall reading magazines? Nah, she's the Grim Reaper. Terrifying delinquent with a spine-chilling reputation? Nah, he makes faces at kids and saves them from cars.

Of course, the "nah" isn't accurate either. These are monsters with horns, Botan is a cutesy girl, and Yusuke is a delinquent with that reputation. The message isn't so much that people look like Thing A, but get to know them and you'll discover they're actually Thing B, it's the idea that you can be A and B (and C, D, E...) simultaneously. People — or rather, seemingly simple archetypes — can, in fact, embody multiple characteristics at once.

We'll get our third example in just a second.

Yusuke makes a comment about this being the "dead people stock exchange" — accurate — and Botan leads him to a more ornate door past all the desks. It's clear they've arrived at King Yama's office, since she's bowing and formally presenting him to... someone. Yusuke looks around for the giant beast he's imagined, only for a tiny voice to hail him from the ground.

Looks are deceiving!

“This is Yusuke Urameshi and he’s honored to meet you." Botan knows what's up. She knows Yusuke isn't going to express anything of the sort without some prompting. Too bad he's busy cracking up at this apparent child running the show. Side note: Yusuke has a fantastic laugh.

He even goes so far as to accuse Botan of lying to him.

“Why would I lie about such a thing?!”

“Why would the spirit world be run by a toddler?”

It's true! That’s a legitimate question! I love that Yusuke asks questions. The "toddler" goes on to explain that he's actually the "mighty Koenma," son of King Yama, though he's lived fifty times as long as Yusuke, "so watch your mouth." Assuming Koenma knows and/or remembers how old Yusuke is — fourteen — and is good at math, that puts him at seven hundred years old. He looks good for his age!

"And in addition to knowing the secrets of the universe," he says, "I am quite potty trained."

You've gotta love Koenma.

Yusuke's attitude changes drastically once they get down to business. Koenma produces an egg, saying that Yusuke's ordeal is to hatch it and face what comes out. The hatching part isn't difficult, all he needs to do is keep it on his person. The challenge is in the fact that this egg will feed off his spirit energy and that energy in turn will change what kind of creature develops. If his spirit is wicked and cruel, so will be the beast and it will devour Yusuke upon hatching.

However, if his spirit is good and kind, the beast will become a sort of guardian, guiding him back to his living body.

Note though that throughout this conversation the egg is always a "beast." It's a "monster." It's not necessarily intentional, but there's a strong bend towards the negative here in the description that really emphasizes the whole "ordeal" aspect. Koenma briefly reassures Yusuke that he can remain a ghost if he prefers, but he's already made up his mind. Despite another threat of being lost to a void — this time through spiritual digestion — Yusuke takes the egg almost without hesitation.

He regrets it later though.

"I can't believe I did that."

Can we blame him? I'd be nervous about some egg feeding off the energy of my soul too and I'm a former, almost straight A student (damn you, math) with no life-altering regrets and a general desire to put as much good into this world as I'm able. I’m boring. But what if those occasional, mean little thoughts you have add up? What if the prejudices you're still unlearning stack against you? Does the egg care about what you do, or only how you feel about the act? This sort of test would eat me alive!

Maybe literally. 

Good thing Yusuke doesn't have time for an existential crisis!

Just as he's beginning to regret this decision, Botan points out that it won't matter if he passes if he doesn't have a body to return to. Now, why wouldn't he have a body? Maybe because his mom is set to cremate him tomorrow.

Whoopsie.

Yusuke is, understandably, distraught. We get another excellent exchange:

“Botan, is there any way for ghosts to communicate with living people?”

“Yes.”

“SO ARE YOU GONNA TELL ME?”

I swear, Yusuke is the only smart protagonist. I mean, he's dumb as a sack of bricks at times, but that's neither here nor there. Bless this fictional boy for reacting like an actual person. 

Botan explains that people are more attuned to the spirit world when they're asleep, so Yusuke can deliver a message to someone in their dreams. Seems easy enough. They first head to Atsuko, but find that she's raging drunk and nowhere near sleep. 

"You fool!" she yells. "No one gave you permission to die!" Atsuko continues to yell about how plenty of people survive car accidents, so why couldn't you? "Were you mad at me, Yusuke? Didn't I raise you right?"

Botan comments on how sad the display is. Yusuke's response?

“The only thing that’s sad is now she’s got one more excuse to act that way."

Y'all, that's some mature shit for a goofy shonen anime. Yeah, Yusuke recognizes that, while she's obviously heartbroken, his death has just given her another reason to do what she's been doing for years: drinking herself into a stupor. Toss in Atsuko putting the blame on Yusuke — "No one gave you permission to die!" — plus the belief that she did do a good job — "Didn't I raise you right?" — and it paints a rather bleak picture. This is by no means an uncommon theme. Negligent parents, whether they're framed that way or not, are pretty common in shonen series, but it's still rather jarring to re-watch this as an adult and go, "Oh. The situation’s like that." It's honestly a lot when you remove it from YYH's otherwise humorous, casual context.

Yusuke heads to Keiko's next and finds her sound asleep, commenting on how her room looks more "girly" than when they were kids. Check out that smile!

He's about to try and deliver his message, but Keiko is in the midst of a nightmare. “She’s crying… what’s wrong?”

Oh my god. Remember how I just said Yusuke is also the densest protagonist around? Example A right here. You just died, you fool! You just saw Keiko collapse at your funeral. What do you think is wrong??

We get a peek at Keiko's dream where she is — shockingly! — thinking of Yusuke. He's far out of reach, walking away and unresponsive to her calls. Keiko soon trips and Yusuke disappears completely.

Luckily, she has the real thing at her bedside. Yusuke tries talking to her and at first it's unclear if this supernatural stuff is really working. That is, until Keiko murmurs about how heavy he is.

Reassured, Yusuke delivers his message that Keiko needs to help Atsuko pull herself together and, most importantly, call off burning his body. We get this very soft and pretty background to establish their yet unspoken feelings for one another, though Yusuke gets close with, “I’m coming back. I don’t want to see you cry anymore" as he brushes her tears away. Aww.

Keiko wakes, thinking at first it was just a dream, but no, "I'm sure I felt it."

The next morning she heads to Atsuko's to explain the dream, only to first hear that Atsuko had a dream too, this one about Yusuke "living in some other world full of ogres and he kept knocking them down until he became their leader." It sounds absurd, of course, but it brings Atsuko some comfort to think of her boy in a place like that and Keiko backs down. Right, she'd only had a comforting dream too.

Now, there are two important parts to this exchange. The first is that this is an excellent example of how you let the characters drive the story, rather than forcing the characters adhere to the plot you've come up with. Meaning, in the latter situation, our cast would have needed to have their personalities twisted and the viewer's suspicion of disbelief tested to give Yusuke what he needs: a sleeping family member willing to believe his message. But it absolutely makes sense for Atsuko to be drunk rather than sound asleep, so Yusuke can't rely on her. Likewise, it absolutely makes sense for Keiko to be asleep, but not believe the dream once she's woken up. After all, how many times have we been persuaded by something in the dead of night only for things to look more logical and less likely in the morning? The characters act both like themselves and like people who do normal, people-ish things, which means that Yusuke runs into more conflicts. That's good! It not only raises the tension and stakes — now he has less than a day to convince someone — but makes his inevitable success feel that much sweeter. A less well written show (cough-RWBY-cough) would have had the characters change their personalities, behave in unlikely ways, or just come up with a sudden, contradictory solution because Yusuke needs to keep his body. Instead, Yusuke actually has to work for that within the bounds of the rules established and the likeliness of each plan succeeding. The first one fails? Move onto plan #2.

Second, this dream of Atsuko's has some cool implications within YYH's world. Meaning, we're about to learn in just a moment that some people are naturally more aware of the supernatural than others, even when they're not asleep. We'll also see down the line that spiritual awareness tends to run in families... so perhaps Atsuko possesses more than the average mother? I'm not saying it's necessarily intentional on the author(s) part, but we can choose to read this dream as evidence of spiritual awareness — true insight into the world Yusuke was just in and the fantasies he'd had about conquering it — rather than just a coincidental joke for the viewer. After all, Yusuke gets his own spiritual awareness from somewhere...

(Okay, so there's totally another, canonical reason for that, but we can have both!)

So, as Yusuke puts it, “This dream business isn’t gonna cut it.”

“There’s always the final method," Botan says.

“You always this vague?”

I am literally living for these interactions.

Botan explains that the more extreme form of communication is possessing a living person, but there are two rules attached: it has to be someone you know and the vessel has to be someone who is quite spiritually aware, as discussed above. Atsuko isn't a contender because the story hasn't acknowledged that she might be sensitive, that's just my own headcanon now. Yusuke outright says, “In that case I’m screwed. There’s no one like that!"

Cut to good old Kuwabara.

At first it looks as if he's just oh so conveniently sensing a spirit right when the audience has learned he has this power, but in reality it's Yusuke and Botan flying behind him that sets it off. Again: this show is pretty good about keeping things internally consistent, rather than making choices because That's Just How Stories Work, I Guess. Kuwabara's friends note that he's acting strangely and I love this detail that apparently one of the guys is new to their group because the other two need to explain that this is the "tickle feeling." Ever since Kuwabara was a boy he's been able to sense the dead around him. Some nice, some... not so nice.

He looks directly at Yusuke — even though he's not able to see him — and declares that what's following them is “A puny low-level ghost, like a haunted racoon or something.”

I'd support Yusuke's anger more if he hadn't just exclaimed his surprise that Kuwabara serves a purpose 😂

Yusuke is pissed enough though to proclaim that he won't do it, nuh-uh, no way is he possessing this guy's body. Botan's response is one of my FAVORITES in the WHOLE SERIES:

"Here's my impression of Yusuke: look at me, I’m burning!”

Literally 75% of this series is just about a found family sassing one another and I love it.

Obviously this helps Yusuke remember his priorities and he grudgingly agrees to the plan. Botan prepares Kuwabara's body somehow — idk, spiritual magic or whatever — and warns Yusuke that he only has an hour to find someone and warn them because a human body can't handle possession any longer than that. Sure. I buy it.

So Yusuke takes control and please ignore the incredible ethical issues here. The show will never acknowledge them again. 

He blurts out, “Hey, check it out! I’m inside Kuwabara, feeling smooth!"

Istg I don't remember the series being this unintentionally gay. I don't even ship Yusuke/Kuwabara and I'm digging the possibilities here lol.

Back on track, his friends drag him with, “Looks like he’s back to normal” because again, 75%. What's not normal though is Kuwabara (Yusuke) suddenly charging down the street to leave them behind. He heads straight to the restaurant where Keiko's parents work, demanding to see her. They're rightly concerned about this stranger barging in and screaming for their daughter.

Upon asking who he is/why they should tell him, Yusuke makes his biggest mistake: “Because it’s me, you guys, I’m Yusuke!”

Obviously the time limit and raw emotion of knowing who he is has outweighed the knowledge that, you know, no one would believe that. Yusuke has spent the last two days bopping around as a ghost and familiarizing himself with some of the afterlife's insanity. The knowledge of what's normal for everyone else — AKA, not dead boys appearing in strangers' bodies — is not at the forefront of Yusuke's mind.

So, Keiko's parents react accordingly! The father in particular is disgusted by this claim, going so far as to threaten Yusuke with his knife and outright insult Kuwabara's looks: “Yusuke was never ugly like you… we were close family friends with that boy!" His wife chimes in that this kind of joke is particularly heinous on the day of his funeral. Between Atsuko drunkenly blaming Yusuke for his death and Mr. Takenaka grieving for what he might have been, this is one of the few times we see someone just sad for Yusuke's passing, exactly as he was and without regrets or criticism. "We were close family friends with that boy" paints a nice contrast to the delinquent persona Yusuke was cultivating.

As he's thrown out of the restaurant he says, “We should have special passwords for times like this!” Fun fact, my family does! Well, not this exact situation lol. I was given a password as a child to memorize in case my parents ever needed to send someone else to pick me up or interact with me in any way. If the stranger didn't know the password, I was to kick up a fuss. I rest easy with the knowledge that this password would not doubt assist me if I was ever in Yusuke's position!

With Keiko's parents a bust, Yusuke starts sprinting to everywhere she frequents with the hope of running into her. Or at least he tries. 

Yusuke is suddenly waylaid by a group of nameless teens with a bone to pick with Kuwabara. And you know what? I like it. I wonder how much of my praise stems from coming off of RWBY Volume 8, but it's just so nice to watch a story where the plot — simple as it is — hangs together. We've established that Kuwabara is a street fighter. Last episode we watched him start a fight with Yusuke. Yusuke is on a time limit. Now Kuwabara's tendencies have created a new hurdle for Yusuke!

Needless to say, Yusuke kicks butt, even in Kuwabara’s body. 

As one guy is passing out he says, “Man that hurt! I didn’t think anyone could throw punches that hardcore except Yusuke Urameshi."

Yusuke: “Darn, giving Kuwabara a good name." LOL

You think this challenge is finished though? Nah. Over the course of about half an hour Yusuke encounters a comical number of people trying to get even with Kuwabara. 

As always, I like the nods towards this writing decision to help justify it, with Yusuke wondering how Kuwabara has pissed this many people off. If you want to pull off something that has a low chance of happening, it can help to give the characters a "Seriously?" moment. If both they and the audience are on the same page over how ridiculous this situation is, the audience is more likely to accept it once the character does.

By the time Yusuke escapes his hour is nearly up. However, thanks to some coincidental plotting, he spots Keiko's friends just across the street! 

YYH does a decent job of making its characters feel like they have their own lives outside of what's immediately happening on screen and we get a good example of that here. We pick up the girls' conversation partway through, both of them worried about Keiko's state of mind and, given that we'll see in a second that Keiko was in the store with them, it implies that something happened to reignite this worry. They're off enjoying their day, doing their own thing, there was an event we're not privy to, and now we catch the response to that. It just helps make the characters feel more well-rounded even though they are, at their core, one-dimensional background characters who don’t even have names yet.

Case in point: the one girl is still concerned with their image. "People are starting to say things!"

Yeah, your friend's childhood friend just died. Hopefully they're saying, "Poor thing."

Anyway, Yusuke runs up to ask where Keiko is only for both girls to run away screaming. Turns out his face is messed up from the numerous fights and Keiko's friends are easily scared. 

Luckily, Keiko comes out just a second later and Yusuke is faced with the challenge of how to convince her in, oh, about five minutes. Remember, we've already established through Keiko's parents that just saying, "I'm Yusuke" doesn't work. That's why he hesitates. It's not just drama for the sake of drama, he's stuck.

“I’ve known her my whole life, there must be something between us that only I would do!”

Yeeeeaah. About that 😬

Suddenly inspired (I suppose that's one way to put it...) Yusuke runs up behind Keiko and grabs her breasts. “Keiko, nice uniform! They’re so squishy!”

It goes without saying that, like flipping her skirt up, this isn't okay. More specifically, the problem lies in the story framing this as a joke for the audience, something to laugh at despite Keiko's discomfort, rather than the concept of two childhood friends actually be that comfortable with one another. But, as already established, this is one of the more ehhhh aspects of Yusuke's characterization that, luckily, will mostly disappear as the story goes on.

Note though that the show clearly wants us to think highly of this. Not just as a "joke," but as a smart solution to his problem and more evidence of their inevitable relationship — the background becomes the same soft, bubbly background we saw during their dream conversation. And, admittedly, it does work. Keiko instinctively slaps Yusuke hard enough to knock him to the ground and he starts laughing, saying that he doesn't care what anyone on the street says, she hits the hardest.

What I do like about this is that the assault isn't the only thing Keiko bases her faith on. Not only has she already had the dream, we get to see Yusuke from her perspective, showing all the mannerisms she picks up on by superimposing Yusuke's real body over Kuwabara's. Indeed, she says as much: “I knew it was you from the first time you spoke…and it’s not just your stupid gags, or how you laugh. There are ways you move and speak that in a hundred years I wouldn’t forget."

Catch me crying in this club!

Knowing she believes him and that he's almost out of time, Yusuke reiterates his message: please don't burn my body and also keep Mom on track. Only, you know, it's phrased far better than that lol. As he speaks, both Yusuke's and Kuwabara's voices overlap until the latter grows fainter and only Yusuke's voice remains. His body too. It's a nice touch, avoiding the awkwardness of Keiko having this moment with a stranger, even if that is what's happening on some level.

“I know I’ve been a bum to you at times, but please wait for me."

His hour up, now we can get the awkwardness! Kuwabara comes out of his weird trance thing to find Keiko crying against his chest. Wow, he thinks, this girl must be really into me! 

God, to have the confidence of Kuwabara.

Of course, Keiko quickly realizes it's not Yusuke anymore and slaps him too for cuddling her closer. My favorite thing is that when she does this a crowd INSTANTLY appears. I mean they TELEPORT in. We needed an audience for Kuwabara's shame and YYH delivered, all logic be damned.

“Um, sorry about that!” Keiko yells as she runs away, because she's a good person who recognizes that weird spirit things just went on and Kuwabara isn't actually to blame.

“No, that’s okay. I probably deserved it," Kuwabara responds because he's also a good person and I didn't appreciate him nearly as much as I should have as a kid.

Keiko runs all the way to Atsuko's place where she finds her dressed for Yusuke's funeral. She blurts that Yusuke might still be coming back and Atsuko goes, "He already has." Turns out she opened his coffin to "smack him one more time for leaving me" — yikes — and found that his heart had started beating again, just as Koenma said it would. 

Being in a shonen anime, they apparently decide to just trust Keiko's message rather than, idk, taking him to a hospital or something.

The camera tilts up to show that Yusuke has been watching all this, including that both women break down again and comfort one another. Aww. How heartwarming.

What's less fuzzy though is this mysterious egg. Yusuke takes another look and finds that it has developed a heartbeat too, presumably in time with his body's. He theorizes that he did decent things today, right? But Botan (teasingly) points out that he did beat up a lot of other kids. Rather than getting angry, Yusuke remains uncharacteristically pensive, emphasizing the magnitude of what this means for him. He's got to get it right.

No pressure or anything! We'll have to see how Yusuke balances his karmic scales in the next episode. Until then, I'll try not to put all my TV time into Star Trek: Voyager :D 

See you then!  💜

[subukunojess]

So I take it you have a Disney Chills story in mind for Oogie Boogie? I had a feeling you were hinting at that. He would be fun since he's less about faustian deals and more about cheating/gambling and there's DEFINATELY a cautionary tale waiting in that fact.

wELP!

I had this sitting for a while mainly because I had to think about it for a bit. Mainly because of how to portray Oogie in the Disney Goosebumps universe that the author has set up. Now I have seen Oogie since I was around 6 years old and I've been writing him ever since I was around 16(?) so at least for a decade. Two reasons delayed me from creating a story idea:

1) The Oogie Boogie content I have planned so far is darker. Before the new year, I had written a dark one-shot for Oogie before Christmas Eve that contained some of my headcanons about his origins. I was pretty nervous about it due to my fear of making Oogie out of character and being too vague. Other stories I have planned for Oogie involve him being a "boogeyman" and scaring some people, a complete origin story which is most likely "A Bug's Life": Hot Topic edition, an Oogie's Revenge AU which also serves as a Lock, Shock, and Barrel origin idea, something for one of my friends, some Shelley Marie content, and crossovers galore. Except for the Shelley Marie content and crossovers, my plans for Oogie are really dark for middle school. I guess Oogie Boogie grew with me and I have to find a balance for him if I were to write with that age range in mind.

2) Oogie Boogie Bash and Villainous has changed my mindset about Oogie. This was a major reason for me. I'm not saying that Oogie's soft and completely changed after I've seen his work in the Disney Parks. Oh, he's still the Oogie we know and love. Before, he had small roles in the Disney Parks whether he was singing his song briefly in shows, meeting the guests once or twice, or holding a Freaky Fun House show in Beast's castle. He had this scary and confident attitude and he was owning it. 

Then Shelley Marie came. 

I loved Oogie Boogie Bash with all my heart and the Villainous firework show has got to be my favorite show of all time due to the voice acting, the animation, the water technics, the fire, the music, everything. I understand that Oogie was toned down a bit for a younger audience. But then this lovable bioluminescent Lydia Deetz-like child comes along with her giggles and cackles, endangering herself while meeting villains, and then near the end is the most touching, warmest moment that Oogie has ever had to the point where Ken Page just blends right in and it lives rent-free in my brain in the words:

Oogie Boogie is good with kids. 

Now so far, it's only Shelley Marie and it may be just a story, BUT THAT SCENE CHANGED MY PERSPECTIVE ABOUT OOGIE COMPLETELY. 

It would have been difficult for me to come up with a story where he haunts a teen and wins while my mind is going "But wait! Oogie's good with kids now!" and I'm like "Really?!"

So yeah, that's why I took long on this. I wanted to get that out of my chest. But without further ado, here's what I would do:

I do not have money, so I would never get the Disney Chills book experience (hopefully I will). However, with TV tropes and reviews, I'll do my best. In good timing too since the third book "Second Star to the Fright" is out now. If I were to write a Disney Chills story, I would get a spooky title pun. So far it would either be "The Boogie Song" or "To The Brim with Fright". 

The cheating/gambling route is definitely the route to go with especially with the middle school age. I remember the days of board games, video games, tournaments, and the like after school and during the summer. I would also incorporate the "sore loser" aspect since I dealt with that a lot in my life with other people. 

So far, I have the idea of a shy kid who loves to play games and they're good at them until they go against other kids and lose immediately. They doubt their abilities until they find some strange red dice somewhere and they play around with it and keep it. It seems like every time a kid finds the villain item, the villain shows up in some form and offers a deal. Either I could go with that route as well and have Oogie offer the kid a chance to win every game OR have his shadow come out instead, the kid uses the Lucky Dice that makes them win every time and they get obsessed with winning. Things spiral until they become a monster of what they were before and the real Oogie shows up at the end and either takes them away or eats them alive. 

I automatically thought of a boy for the scenario, but it could be a girl too.

So that's what I have so far if I were to create a Disney Chills story.

[dragonherder2030]

So I watched Raya and the Last Dragon-

I honestly was very disappointed with the movie as a whole. I LOVE dragons and main movies and media just doesn’t have much of them that I have seen. So when I saw that Disney was making a movie about and staring a dragon character, I got very excited. I had loved the design for Sisu when she was just a concept art

She was much more colorful and had a very different face, a more regional face. She is definitely more water dragony compared to the actual final draft design. And she is just overall prettier in my opinion.

Spoilers under this point

Another thing is the continuity and main logic of the movie. In the beginning of the movie it is practically about 15 minutes of exposition. It tells that apparently all the dragons are water dragons, every single one since they all look the same, but that there were multiple dragons in the past. These evil creatures made of human greed or whatever started attacking humans, and well I guess other things but the humans primarily. When attacked, they pass through the human and either take or freeze their spirit or something I don’t remember exactly, but the person becomes stone. So the dragons being the most powerful creatures in the world, they tried to fight the things. The dragons were also turned to stone, all but one, The Mighty Sisu. In the exposition it says that she compiled all her magic into the orb, and used it to destroy the things and turn everyone back from stone. Except the dragons. Do they ever explain why it didn’t turn the dragons back to alive? No it does not, it absolutely does not, but ho boy there is SO much more. Later in the exposition, the dragon gem gets broken into 5 pieces, one for each of the tribes. And they each possess a piece of the gem now. So, when the gem gets broken, all the evil creatures from the very beginning just, come back! This is never explained- nothing is ever explained in this movie it was just made for the funnies I GUESS. This movie feels like a really bad book adaption HONESTLY. And at the end of the movie when everyone comes back because it’s a kids movie, it’s just AHHGH everyone is happy now all the dragons come back and everything is dandy. But why didn’t the dragons come back in the beginning? The whole moral of the movie is “Trust good”. Seriously that’s it. And when they put the dragon gem back together at the end everyone is like “oh wow we need to trust each other and that’s how the magic will WoRk”. But explained earlier when we hear Sisu’s whole backstory is that when SHE did the magic fix she trusted her siblings the most that she had in that moment, SO TELL ME WHY DIDN’T IT WORK!!?? It makes no sense to me at least maybe I’m just missing something. But it annoys me so much, nothing makes sense in this movie. Another theory I have is that there were 3 writers. Each assigned to a seperate story arc, one to the beginning exposition thing, one to the middle main part, and one to the climax and final bits of the movie. The thing is, the writers only vaguely know what the past ones did XD.

The next problem I have is with the actual magic and formulation of dragons, as well as what the heck is up with the dragon gem. But don’t worry, I have at least 2 more problems with this movie. So as Sisu gets more and more of the dragon gem shards, she gains new powers. But do you know why? Because APPARENTLY when the gem broke into the 5 pieces, the magic of her individual siblings who gave their magic to the gem was separated perfectly. Ok that may not make much sense. But when we see Sisu’s backstory it shows that her oldest brother made the gem, then each sibling except Sisu put their special magic into the gem. So then, when it broke, the individual gem pieces only had the 1 type of magic in them? Excuse me what? That doesn’t make sense, if I make a cake, then I won’t cut it up and get only egg from one slice, then a bunch of sugar from another slice. It’s just- really bad and they could have fixed it by just- not having the siblings at all. They so easily could have been written out of the story, instead Sisu could have no magic when she is brought back, which she practically has none, her “magic” is that she is a strong swimmer. But then as she gets the pieces she gains back parts of her original magic, that would have been more indering then the siblings. Now the second part of this is the actual powers. Ok, which sounds like more of a power, being able to glow, or being able to fly around by walking on raindrops. The second one right? Well, ThEY aRe BoTh COsIdeReD MaGIc iN tHiS UniVErSe. All the powers that Raya aquires from the dragon gem pieces is being able to do the glow, being able to shape shift into a human, and being able to walk on the rain. Now, that isn’t even the part I’m the most mad about. At the end of the movie when all the dragons come back, THEY ALL CAN WALK ON THE RAIN. LIKE WHAT!? I THOUGHT THAT WAS THE OLDER BROTHER’S MAGIC TYPE! Do you get what I mean by this movie having no continuity? At the end of the movie, Sisu was killed by evil cat lady, and all the dragons come back walking on the rain and just- resurrect her. Ok, I guess that could be explained away as all the magic beings being magical, but I still don’t like how easily they did it. Yet another thing is that Sisu can make a bunch of magical smoke, well not magical but it’s really shimmery and thick, that’s not explained, she just can do it.

Let’s talk about the relationships in this movie. I hate them. No ones characters are developed on or improved except for maybe cat lady- I need to find her name somewhere, but except for Namarii is her name, her and Raya. Namarii’s big stitch is, I don’t even know just not being the most evil person? Either that or the same trust thing, which would mean that her and Raya have the same character arc. Raya in the beginning of the movie is explained to be the daughter of the chef of clan Heart, one of the most prosperous out of the 5 clans. They at the start of the movie had the dragon gem, and the father guy, he invited every other clan over to have a big feast or whatever. So when they get there, young Namarii, all this is happening when Raya is like, 9 I think, but Namarii and Raya become friends over fangirling for Sisu. Namarii has a necklace of Sisu that she gives to Raya. And side note, they act as though Sisu isn’t the SAVIOR OF THIER LANDS, but she’s some really good singer. Well I guess they have to connect to all those youngsters out there with an obsession and that rElATaBlE moment when you fInD AnOTheR oF tHiEr kInD. That just triggered me. But since Namarii is such a big fan of Sisu, Raya, after being shown to be VERY offensive about the idea of the other tribes coming, just decides to show Namarii the dragon gem! But uh oh, twist, Namarii is actually bad oh noooo and everyone comes up and starts to fight over the dragon gem. Then it shatters and the evil things come back. So Raya and her dad are trying to escape, her dad had been injured from fighting an arrow to the leg, but the things are repelled by water. So what does the dad do? He yeets the child into a river(they are on a bridge at this point) after having a minute long conversation with her. Like, could he not just tip himself off to? But hey we have to give them characters angsty backstorys amiright? It’s just so stupid the character motives. So like, Idk 12 years pass by or something since Raya is an adult now. She actually has a pretty emotional prayer type thing to Sisu when she is trying to resurrect her to save the world. This movie has a few ups that I will put at the end. So let’s talk about Sisu now, ho boy, she is the “oh everything will be fixed with hugs and kisses”. You know what this is, this is the same exact dynamic that Poppy and Branch went through during Trolls movie! The exact same dynamic! HECK Disney couldn’t even get original personalities. Sisu blindly trusting everything gets them into wacky situations and causes some conflict between Raya and Sisu but BARELY ANY. And Sisu just seems like- really innocent, she’s oblivious all the time. She’s this ancient beast and she just has the most generic personality and I loath it. Namanii is actually someone I liked. She seemed like the most real character until the very end, just, the blindly “oh everything is alright now and I’m fine with everyone now trauma doesn’t exist”. Also on that point, apparently trauma doesn’t exist in this world, because Sisu lost every single one of her siblings, and just, doesn’t show any sign of grieving or remorse she just doesn’t give a thought to them. Except for the backstory bit but she just doesn’t seem to care. Also just a side note, none of those side characters are developed at all and just there for practically comic relief. The whole resolution of the movie is them putting the gem together and then all “hugging” each other and wow look at that it worked. *inhales* and then when Sisu comes back, she has the most emotionally dead response to Raya, none of the character reuniting is good. You know, if you have seen storks, that near end montage where all the babies are brought to the people? Yeah, that was 100% better then the resolutions of Raya and the Last Dragon. One scene that ticked me off so much was when that ninja baby was reunited with her parents, the mom, oh my gosh, she looked as if she had just found an old purse she misplaced. She did not look- ah I can’t even put it into words just look up the clip to get it.

That’s all that I have to say about the movie, I probably have more somewhere but honestly I couldn’t put it into words. Now, you know, I have to give this movie a few good opinions. The movie looked amazing, great character design(except for the dragons I dispose them) and everything looks gorgeous. As well as the animal design, I wish I could have seen more animals honestly they all looked really interesting and unique.

Sorry this post was so long I just wanted to put my opinions out there.

[verobatto]

Raising HEROS

Supernatural meta, trying to comprehend the pre-series timeline.

This is a meta requested by my friend @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover , and a gift to her! Thank you! 😘💕

First of all I want to clarify, it was difficult to establish an accurate timeline due to the vague data given by the show. I had just a few hints in episode 1x01 , and I had to sneak into my old metas about Dean and Sam childhood.

And about how they were raised and their relationship with John, I already wrote Metas about that here and here, but of course I will take the most important concepts from it.

Pre-Pilot episode Timeline:

Dean Winchester was born in January 24th in 1979.

Sam Winchester was born May 2nd 1983.

Mary Winchester died November 5th 1983 (Pilot episode) so Dean had 4 years old and Sammy had 6 month.

Sam had 20 years old when he decided to go to Stanford, after a big fight with John Winchester, this could happen in September 2003, because two years later, Dean came for him when John was missing in October 31th 2005 (according to Pilot episode) and Dean had 26 years old and Sam 22.

We don't have much info in the show about how many times they switched schools, but it may be several times because is one of the things Sam hated the most.

We know they were living in motels, and Bobby's house, because they had lost their house that nefarious night, and John hunted.

And according to this dialogue here...

DEAN: You're not hearing me, Sammy. Dad's missing. I need you to help me find him.

SAM: You remember the poltergeist in Amherst? Or the Devil's Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing, and he's always fine.

DEAN: Not for this long. Now are you gonna come with me or not?

So John Winchester was always missing for days, but how many days? How many days stayed these two kids alone without their father?

Dean answered that question in this same episode...

DEAN: It started happening more and more, so Dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago. I hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough.

So, three weeks it seems to be the limit, three entire weeks the kids stayed alone when it was a complicated hunt.

Put Bobby in between taking care of them sometimes ...

When do the kids started to hunt alone?

We know Sam got his gun (we don't know if it was his first gun but...) At 9...

SAM: Yeah? When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45.

DEAN Well, what was he supposed to do?

(Dean is always justifying his father's behavior as an obedient good first born soldier.)

SAM: I was nine years old! He was supposed to say, don't be afraid of the dark.

And then in episode 7x03 we know Sam killed a monster alone, when he had 15 years old. So maybe, between 9 and 15 years old, Sam began to hunt alone? But in the way he was surprised with Dean hunting alone at his 26 maybe not. We just don't know.

We suspected Dean started at earlier age, but it surprised me when he talks with Sam, saying he was in another hunting case and his little brother asked: Alone? And Dean replied, 'I have 26!' So, what I'm saying here is... There's an incongruence, about the age we suspect Dean began to hunt and this dialogue.

I think my pre series timeline dies here. Let's talk now about John Winchester and the boys.

John Winchester had a mission.

I truly recommend to read the metas I out at the beginning, because I talked about this before. But basically, John Winchester was an affectionate father...

Gif credit @stilinski-ortiz-dolan

Look how he hugs Dean with love, they really were a beautiful family (even knowing Mary hunted from time to time, according to season 12).

Now, after Mary's death, John Winchester became a gloomy man, obsessed with finding the creature that had killed his wife. He became a soldier with a mission again, and in that shape, there was not place and not time to be the father Dean and Sam needed.

So... We have Dean that had a normal life, with a normal an devoted father until his four years, and Sam, that never knew a normal life and devoted father.

John Winchester had revenge in his mind, so he lived his life hunting and fed his children with that.

Gif credit @agusvedder

This is from episode 7x10, a discussion between Bobby (the second dad that actually treated the kids as kids) and John. We are seeing here the huge difference between being a father and being a soldier training soldiers.

So John raised soldiers, hunters, heros. Strong men. This men wouldn't be surprised by anyone who would want to come in the middle of the night. John tried to fed his son's with the only thing he knew after Mary's death: WAR.

But even so, he loved his kids and Sam and Dean loved him back. John had been an absent father but at the same time, a very strong and present one.

Gif set credit @stir-of-echoes

This is from episode 9x09, both Sam and Dean talked affectionately about John Winchester. They loved their father. And those words those we are parents know very well.

John and Dean

So, if you read my Guilt Heritage meta and my Dean with fears and shame meta, you will understand this point here.

The relationship between Dean and Sam with John were different, the most important difference was, DEAN IS THE FIRST BORN, so as first born, he is obedient, he took the soldier role and followed his father. He took his mission in the middle of a traumatic even that marked his life for ever...

Gif credit @stilinski-ortiz-dolan

JOHN: Take your brother outside as fast as you can and don't look back! Now, Dean, go!

This is the heritage John gave to Dean: a mission, to take care of Sam (not just as a big brother, but like a father and mother, as Dean said in episode 12x22 to Mary Winchester) leading them to the toxic codependency, thinking they just had each other as family and they had to survive together or die together.

The BIG PROTECTOR heritage too, that's why Dean thinks he has to save the world, and to give his life in exchange.

The GUILT HERITAGE, is transmittable from John to him, Mary's death, anyone else's death, and every time he feels he didn't see things coming. Is a huge and toxic, very deep feeling, that acts like an impediment for Dean to love himself, and to think that he deserves to be saved too.

Toxic Masculinity heritage, the ideal of what a Righteous man should be, remember the comparison with Mc Cook in episode 14x06 I wrote in this meta.

That's why in the majority of the show, Dean is always the one excusing his father. But this started to change in the lasts seasons, when Dean started the path toward the self knowledge and self love, mostly in season 14.

He solved his issues with John in episode 14x13 when he had to choose between the man John wanted him to be and the man he was. And we know what was what Dean picked up.

He let John Winchester go, after forgive him and forgive himself too.

John and Sam

John and Sam had a very difficult relationship, but at the end, both men were very alike.

Sam Winchester didn't accepted the Guilt Heritage, and the Big Protector role. He wanted a different and normal life and he fought for it.

When Sam lost Jesse, he mirrored his father's fate, and he became as gloomy as him, and just wanted revenge.

In the end, and while the season rolled up, Sam started to let those dreams go and became not just one of the most stronger hunters, but their leader.

He let his father go too in episode 14x13, and forgave him, bringing peace to John and himself.

To Conclude:

At the end, John Winchester raised two heros, that saved the world that many times as long is the show.

He was a tormented man, with so much Guilt and pain, and he couldn't be over his wife death.

He turned into a soldier, and in that role, the Righteous Man couldn't give those kids the father they needed.

Always Righteous, he raised Dean as a soldier, obedient and intransigent, but Sam wanted to follow a different path.

His huge mistakes as a father were carried by his sons, but understanding and forgiveness came with the years and the running of the series, with the maturity of the characters.

Hope you enjoy this mess! Tagging some friends!

Tagging @emblue-sparks @magnificent-winged-beast @agusvedder @weirddorkylittlediana @michyribeiro @whyjm @legendary-destiel @a-bit-of-influence @thatwitchydestielfan @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @lykanyouko @evvvissticante @savannadarkbaby @dea-stiel @mybonsai1976 @anarchiana @angelwithashotgunandtrenchcoat @trashblackrainbow @destielshipper221b @mishtho @dancingtuesdaymorning @feathered-castiel @bre95611 @zoerayne2426 @justmeand-myinsight @that-one-fandom-chick @proccastinate @studio-hatter @pepevons @liwos-rabithole @poorreputation @mrsaquaman187 @dizzypinwheel @jawnlockwinchester @breathing-oxymoron @a-bit-of-influence @dwstiel @thislunarkiss @ladygon @shippsblog @la-random-fangirl @lets-try-this-again-please @mychemicalobsession514 @destiel-shipper-11

@asphodelesauvage

[eyecicles]

Top 5 of your hot takes about Those!L? Haha whatever you want really, I just want to hear you talk about him basically

Oooh, let’s see (spoilers under the cut!) (also, I want to apologise in advance for rambling endlessly, lol):

1. Just the thought of L as a legendary totally corrupt gay lawyer is an aesthetic I’m in love with. When we first meet him, he’s described as “a bit of a mess with slicked back black hair”, and combined with L’s peculiar facial features, especially his eyes, you get a great mental picture of him. Also, I’m so glad that Those!Light is obsessed enough with both him and fashion to tell us what he’s wearing in great detail. Picturing L in nice suits is wonderful enough, but Light’s internal rants about his shitty sweaters or jeans are great too. I love how his energy his chaotic and refined at the same time. Also, I remember there was a scene where Light thinks that he has “something of winter”, and it’s just intriguing to read how his thoughts about L get slowly more and more poetic and romantic. Sometimes he romanticises him so much that his admiration turns to jealously. He was the first person to make Light wish he could be someone else for a moment and hnghnng, I love it

2. There were at least three scenes involving L that, well, felt like a knife to the heart:

The first one would right after L faked his death. B trying to convince Light that he’s dead indeed is heartbreaking enough, but this little scene here

I found one of L’s old sweet wrappers in my car ashtray when I pulled over, so I threw it out of the window and then regretted it. It was littering. Then the possibility hit me for the first time that I wouldn’t see him again apart from in grainy photographs or in the background, unfocused, in press footage. I had little to show of his existence or his effect on my life, so it was like he’d disappeared completely, and I was so frustrated that a fucking sweet wrapper suddenly held all these memories and emotions – it was pathetic. I’d thrown it away with no ceremony, only shaking hate. 

was so unbelievable painful to read, I had to stop for a moment.

The second one would be when Kira finds L’s picture inside Light’s drawer. Everything is written with such a care and detail, that I had to reread the entire segment a few times, actually. It was equally touching, funny, as it was, of course, heartbreaking. Especially this:

He still can’t understand but stays quiet about it. After a while of looking at the photo in confusion, he starts rummaging around in his pocket for something. I think that maybe it’s for crayons so he’ll draw on the glass and I know that I’ll let him do it and get some absurd satisfaction from the defacement. Maybe I’ll join in and go mad scribbling out L’s face with a furious black crayon, blotting out the only real thing of him that’s left until he is truly gone. But Kira pulls out a toy plane. I’m disappointed. I’m used to it. “Do you think that Eru would like my plane?”

“Yes. I think that he’d love your plane,” I say after a few moments of silent conflicting feelings.

and this:

“Is Eru your friend?“

"Yes.”

“Even if he’s deaded?”

“Yes. He’ll always be my friend.”

…I think this made me a cry a bit, if I remember correctly. (And I don’t cry easily) (Listen, I’m just very sensitive when it comes to L & death because of his actual canon fate)

And the final scene I want to mention isn’t “just” sad - it actually has kind of a happy ending (kind of because when is anything in “Those” truly happy, lmao). It’s when Light goes to L’s apartment with his divorce papers:

Sensing someone in the doorway, I force myself to look up in case I’m in someone’s way. L looks down at me, cast in shadow, but doesn’t say anything. Neither do I. I can’t read him, I don’t know what he’s thinking. I just exhale and feel how exhausted I am, and how relieved I am to see him. I thought you’d left me again, just when I made a clearing for you to take everything I have and make it yours. I’d take your name if you wanted me to. If I could. I’d become your property until the wrecking balls came, and be proud of it.

After a little while, I grasp my hair close to my scalp until it hurts and my eyes scrunch up from pain. For me in another time, this would be a mistake. It wouldn’t have happened. What the fuck went wrong?

L bends to pick up my dropped application for divorce, sees what it is and looks at me like he expects me to explain it. But I don’t have to, do I? I can’t give any more of myself than I already have done. When I don’t say anything, he walks to me and sits against the opposite wall. I’m not sure how much time passes with us sitting like that, but eventually he crawls towards me and kisses me like it’s a thank you. We don’t need words, you and I.

I touch the back of his head as another removal man steps over us.

3. Let’s talk about how fucking funny Those!L is for a moment. The first time I laughed uncontrollably, was when Light locked himself and L in a fucking baby’s changing room at Light’s birthday party:

Then there’s a knock behind him and my eyes flicker away from his to look at the door with someone who’s not welcome on the other side of it.

“Excuse me?” a woman’s voice asks. “Is anyone in there? I need to change my baby.”

L sighs and turns his head slightly to the side. “I’m afraid that you’re stuck with it, madam. You can’t swap it for another one. Kindly piss off.”

I also love his rant about Kitamura, where he just ends Light’s phone conference to force him to listen to him, or his reaction to Matt interrupting their breakfast at an Italian bistro, and especially the scene where Light watches L getting interviewed on TV. It’s too long of a scene to quote here, but as soon as I realised that he integrated the lyrics of “Under Pressure” into his totally inspirational speech, I completely lost it: 

“He’s a victim of a consumerist attitude where children are given money instead of love. He was unequipped to deal with life, and after the incident he’s confronted with the terror of knowing what this world is about. It’s watching some good friends screaming: ‘Let me out!’ And how does he cope? He prays that tomorrow he’ll get higher, higher, high. Drugs,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. He looks quite intense even though he’s talking absolute shit again.

(Also: “Are you going to celebrate with the Prime Minister, Lawliet-san? What do you think he’ll wear?” L stops as if this is a very important question and his smile and compulsive blinking fills me with dread. “Hope… hopefully…” he struggles, as though he’s trying to contain himself. Oh my God. Hopefully nothing? I stand up to shout at the TV. “Don’t say it, you bastard, don’t say it!”)

Anyway, the story his full of gems like that and it makes L weirdly likeable, even though he’s such a little shit.

4. Actually, let’s talk about this: I’ve rarely seen a character who’s such a complete and utter asshole in a way that allows you to still enjoy his presence. And I hate it when the narrative tries to force us to like some edgy, lame dude who’s forgiven for all the shit he does because he’s sexy and vaguely funny. But I never got the feeling that we were supposed to excuse anything shitty L does, mainly because he’s the love interest of someone just as horrible. You completely get why they are in love with each other, it’s not some kind of a beauty and the beast story, or about one person trying to make their love interest a better person. How Light and L treat each other, is most of the time extremely selfish on both ends. They have some tender moments too, but their are also believable. Those!L is exactly how I like my bastards.

5. All of L’s, eh, mental breakdowns are incredibly well-written. I remember when I first read the chapter where his father died, and getting completely blindsided by how deep this character suddenly was. Honestly, the entire scene with Astbury… made me sick to my stomach. It wasn’t at all what I expected, but that’s another testament to how high-quality “Those” is. I felt like that a bit too after Stephen died. And I was absolutely in awe when I realised that his reaction made even more sense when you find out that L himself killed him. I’m just so thankful that I can read a story for free that’s written with so much love and care for a character who isn’t even the protagonist.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 43: Things Get a Lot Less Vague, But it’s Still Pretty Vague

I’m taking full advantage of the laziest time of the year and I’m watching even more Yugioh. I even gave myself a buffer. Sort of. I kinda lost a day playing Octopath Traveler and I don’t even remember that happening.

Now this episode doesn’t have anyone getting struck by lightning, but if that happened, it would have fit right in. A lot happened in this episode. So, to start off, Mai decided to play one of the three cards we were given explicit instructions to never ever play and it has immediately screwed her over via orb.

Everyone else watching the orb has become completely enamored by it. Especially Kaiba, who is pretty positive he can turn this sphere into a dragon. I don’t know why anyone would ever come to this conclusion, but welcome to Yugioh, it’s well into S2 and I’m just still jaw agape and saying “HOW?” at my screen.

Like y’all I don’t know how to play this game, which should be hella apparent from reading any of my posts, but like there is one thing that everyone knows--even I knew--about Yugioh the game. Let me just, once sec

Ah, there we go.

Like sometimes it shows that your game is originally in a language that doesn’t require spaces between words. And like this is coming from me. You know how verbose I am, I freakin love words. But maybe that’s too many words for a card.

(read more under the cut)

And while this is pretty much the worlds most BS card already, what’s even better is that none of this jargon appeared until after Mai played the card. Like basically the card pretends to be completely normal and then is like “Boom, gotcha. I’ll just be a cool Ikea orb lamp instead!”

At this point, while everyone is scrambling around trying to fathom what to do about this huge ass fake sun blinding everyone down in Domino, Marik decides to deposit some more bizarre lore.

I kind of assumed Yugi and Kaiba were born with the correct soul formula to become the reincarnation of these people from 3000 B.C.E. without any actual blood relations but apparently, somehow, you got people from Ancient Egypt migrating to Ancient Japan. Sure, I mean if you did enough trading routes it could happen. It just seems like it would be a difficult transition?

And we could get real head canon and talk about their parentage since there’s a lot we don’t know. Mokuba and Kaiba could have different fathers, since they are quite different looking, which may be how Mokuba is exempt from all this lore while it still applies to Seto (Cuz Mokuba has been staring at that card for like quite a while and he cannot read it). But like, I don’t know if the show will even bother to cover that.

I don’t know if we’ll find out when in their bloodlines Kaiba and Yugi’s Egyptian cursed lines arrived in Japan. Was this during like the Edo period? Was this to set up a really bizarre Shogun Yugioh spinoff?

Wait, is that a thing? I don’t actually know, Yugioh seems to have like 8 spinoffs that all look a lot of the same to me. It may just be 1 spinoff that Netflix keeps changing the preview image of to trick me into thinking there’s 8 of them.

Or, did Kaiba have a relative that showed up in the 80′s and had a crazy weekend and a one night stand? Would Kaiba even know who his real Dad is?

Whatever, I’m sure there’s plenty of fanfic made over the last 20 years to cover this so I don’t have to. Moving on.

And then this kid’s show decided to tie up Mai to a wall or something? Man, Marik and chaining people up, this is the fourth person he’s chained up today! At least this time she doesn’t have a box over her head.

Still pretty kinky though.

Yo did Mokuba just...casually walk out of Marik’s Shadow Realm just now?

Again, do they cancel the game at this point because the equipment is...clearly malfunctioning? Like, this is the part that Kaiba is supposed to have full control of because he made all the equipment they’re using and he’s just...glossing over this? Like, this is the one thing that Kaiba would be like “OK wait, wait, we can’t ship it like this, my company is actually ruined if the game can do this, one sec, cancel everything.”

Nah. They just kinda watch.

And now, Marik decides to say the bird chant so we can hear what was actually written on the card and it was...a...

...it was the definition of what a poem is all right...

This is the lyrics to the Ra poem, just so you can see how bad it is. My search engine history will never be the same, but I just want y’all to glory on how kid’s show this poem is, compared to everything else going on in this kid’s show at this moment.

"Great beast of the sky, please hear my cry./

Transform thyself from orb of light and bring me victory in this fight/

Envelop the desert with your glow and cast your rage upon my foe./

Unlock your powers deep within so that together we may win./

Appear in this Shadow Game as I call your name,/

Winged Dragon of Ra"

Bravo, writers. Bravo. This corny as hell poem with its very awkward meter was voiced over alllllll the other nuts stuff going on in this show and guys, it’s a juxtaposition.

Now at this point, Kaiba has his poem he needs to make the card works--so he no longer needs to translate it--so he can just cancel. He’s got everything he wants now. Time to just cancel. Throw the cursed boy in whatever prison you got on this ship. In fact, just toss him off the ship entirely. You no longer need him. He doesn’t even have the card anymore. Mai has it.

I honestly think Kaiba just spaced the hell out at this point.

Also then Marik follows it up by saying this:

Joey gets wind that this is pretty bad and we’re going to get a very dead Mai--I mean Joey was the one who just recently got struck by lightning so it’d make sense that he’d be the one to say "I know for a real true fact none of you are going to do a damn thing about this unless I do this myself.” So he runs directly over to Kaiba but then I think the show decided to edit out him talking to Kaiba because it just jump cuts to Joey talking to Roland instead.

Like it really felt like Joey went the long way around to get on this platform but I dunno, maybe he tried to punch Kaiba in the Japanese version and that’s why they edited it out? I dunno.

Also, how many times will Joey get DQ’d before he actually gets DQ’d? Will anyone ever in fact get DQ’d in this entire tourney?

As Ra starts warming up his engines to start spewing fire all over the field, Joey decides to take a moment to try and talk to Mai. To tell her that yes, he did have a dream about her, but didn’t want to tell her earlier, because no teenage boy in their right mind would tell an adult woman that they had a dream about them during a near-death experience.

Which honestly most of it was lost on the fact that Mai can only hear him as a sort of ghostly spooky echo.

So then, through the power of...the show only calls if friendship, but it’s very vague, y’all...they break the curse that Marik put on Mai, and she remembers Joey. Also because Joey is touching her face. Like literally touching her. This would have been way spookier if she could not see him at this point.

So Ra is getting ready to fry these two up and I thought “wow, we’re gonna get two bodies at the end of this episode. What a treat!” but there’s a twist.

What? Lol what?

Within like 3 milliseconds, Yugi goes “dammit what are these assholes doing?” and leaps up to the platform and then takes yet another direct fireball hit in order to save Joey Wheeler. No one even asked Yugi to do this--he’s not even competing in this game, but he certainly got up there and took it.

This episode must have been a right up shipping frenzy when y’all were 12.

Marik is so pleased that he got to eff up Yugi more in this duel than the one that he actually tried to kill Yugi Muto in. If I remember correctly he did mention that this all was very convenient--I mean he got 3 in one go and he wasn’t even trying. So, Because Yugi is passed out and because Kaiba will never actually step in and stop anyone in this show unless Mokuba orders him to, Marik walks straight up to Joey and Mai and makes some more nonsense right in front of everyone on this show.

This is right in front of most of the entire cast.

Maybe it’s the color scheme but I got strong Stinky Cheese Man vibes from this magic effect.

I thought of pulling more caps from this point but there was waaaay too much shirtless Yugi in it. In my mind, all cartoon characters, when they take their shirt off, have another shirt on underneath. And if they take off that shirt, it’s yet another shirt. It’s shirts and boots leggings on all the way down to infinity like a russian nesting doll, and the image of shirtless Yugi really puts a kibosh to my world view and I didn’t like it.

No kinkshame, of course, if that’s your thing, well, you got a 18x18 pixel shirtless Yugi right there for you to enjoy. Enjoy.

Now that Mai has been trapped here in this hourglass resort, she will lose her memories of her friends for the rest of time, obsessively watching everyone else's vacations that are full of friends having way more fun than she is having.

This is just Instagram basically. Y’all, this is just Instagram.

And some of y’alls Instagram has shirtless Yugis in it, I just know it.

And not to get too real but like, last episode we went through how Marik basically gave Mai depression--and it says a lot that his way of doing this was illustrated in a show written like 20 years ago in a lot of the same way social media works today. Just throwing that out there. 

Overall, I feel like the theme of the Mai ark is “Marik just sped up what they were already doing and it was super effective.” Mai trapped herself in her own false and negative insecurities. Kaiba failed to moderate anything. Joey waited way too late to say the right thing. Yugi sacrificed himself again to such a degree that he couldn’t save Mai later when Marik was just strutting around cursing people willy nilly.

And I’m not going to lie, Marik’s cargo pants/cape strut was hilarious.

It was probably supposed to be menacing, but this long cut of this ridiculous cast just watching this weird boy go was great.

Up until now Seto has been a very patient impatient person, but now it’s finally his duel, and he’s so excited to duel Ishizu--but y’all it’s just Seto up against a phsycic again. I imagine it’s gonna go real great.

Other than that one guy in town, will this boy ever duel a normal person?

Also...been debating on whether Mai is dead or alive, and her soul still seems attached to her body--like she’s still salvageable? So I’ll say alive for now. Seems more like a dream than like she literally got transported elsewhere.

Dude. It is S2 and I just realized that Mai Valentine is a pun.

Damn.

If you just got here, this is the end of S2 and things are rapidly losing their mind. Click here if you want to read from ep 1

[olympicreads]

king of scars by Leigh Bardugo  rating: ★★★ 1/2 warning: this review contains spoilers. the paragraphs containing them will be marked accordingly.

I’ll find a way. All his life, Nikolai had believed that. His will had been enough to shape not only his fate but his own identity.

I was on the fence about giving this book 3 or 4 stars... Because this is a 4-stars novel, but I know that Leigh Bardugo can do much better, so I thought I’d be more strict in this case. I wish I was giving it the 5 stars it should’ve had, though. However, I can't do that in good conscience, because in more than one way this book was a regression to the bad aspects of The Grisha Trilogy.

I’m not going to say that this book was terrible, because it wasn’t. Leigh Bardugo is an incredibly talented author. The prose was great. The book as a whole was great... If you consider it a stand-alone. 

King of Scars, as we know, presents us three main perspectives: Nina’s, Zoya’s, and Nikolai’s, with a fourth in the second part of the book: that of a new character called Isaak. I will be dividing this review into sections for each character, highlighting my likes and dislikes for each of them.

Nina Zenik

She is the only one that’s had a POV before this book. Incidentally, she’s the one who’s characterization jumped out the most at me, especially in the first half of the book. 

[spoilers] When we first see her, she’s in Fjerda as a spy, working along with a familiar face, Adrik, and a new one, Leoni Hillis. She’s been on a mission for over two months, and for over two months she’s been dragging Matthias’ body along, refusing to bury him, hallucinating his voice in her head. That was my first indication that there was something “funny” going on: Nina had already let him go in Crooked Kingdom: 

“In the next life then,�� she whispered. “Go.” She watched his eyes close once more. “Farvell,” she said in Fjerdan. “May Djel watch over you until I can once more.” - Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 39.

And yet, despite having already accepted Matthias’ death, she drags his corpse along with her. I’m not going to lie: when she finally does bury him, I teared up. Her eulogy was beautiful. That doesn’t mean that it should’ve happened when it did. The importance he is given to Nina is far greater than that he had in Six of Crows. She loved him, but she loved Ravka too. She also loved her friends, and she missed her life at the Little Palace. 

But for the first half of King of Scars, all she thinks about, all she cares about, is Matthias. I thought, “ok, maybe she’s rationalizing all the things that happened during her time at Ketterdam, her obsession with him is just a way to cope with PTSD”... but this all goes to hell when, despite her feelings, she willingly moves in with Brum at the end of her arc. She deserts Ravka and infiltrates Brum’s home instead of, oh, shooting his ugly face? When she’s got him defenseless, she chooses to keep him alive and not take him to Ravka for trial, despite the fact that she’s learned from him that they are planning something that relates to a Lantsov that’s not Nikolai, and that her country is at the brink of a war. She neglects to tell this to her allies as soon as she finds out and deserts the Second Army. [end of spoilers] 

All of this plus the fact that almost nothing that happens during her arc is connected to the other POVs makes for an overall confusing portion, the poorest of the novel, that’d have been so much better if Nina hadn’t had a perspective in Six of Crows. She was wildly OOC, in my opinion. But again, that doesn’t mean that everything about her parts were bad. I loved Hanne, one of the newly introduced characters, and I love her chemistry with Nina. I really hope they get together in the second book. 

Nikolai Lantsov 

I love him. His inner dialogue is one of the wittiest I’ve read, and we can finally see that he’s as sharp on the inside as he is on the outside, despite his insecurities (or maybe because of them). The first half of his story was the easiest, most interesting to read. Learning about his trauma, his struggles, his (literal) inner demon, and how he puts on a smart-ass brave face in spite of everything he has on his plate, plus seeing his wit first-hand, was great. One of my favorite parts of the book, along with Zoya’s, but that’s for later.

[vague spoilers]

The second part, though... I don’t know how much the Grisha Saints are based on Orthodox ones, but I’m not a fan of their storyline. While I’m not entirely familiar with Orthodox tradition, I am (or, well, I was brought up as) Catholic, and unless I’m severely mistaken, there are many similarities in the way Saints are depicted by both. However, the way that they were showed in King of Scars left a lot to be desired, in my honest opinion. Saints are not “edgy” and “inhuman”. Alina was a more accurate representation of the “older” or more primitive versions of Saints than Lizabeta and Grigori were in King of Scars. While the idea of powerful Grisha who helped people in a way that made them be seen as miracle-workers or holy people is alright, them being “beasts” or animals doesn’t follow any traditional lore that I am aware of. 

The idea of them being “wickedly evil”, or of someone like the Darkling being considered for Sainthood is not feasible I think, if not for anything else than the facts that he wasn’t a man of faith, he didn’t perform any miracles, he wasn’t a martyr, and he wasn’t particularly heroic or loved by the people, so I don’t see how he could be proclaimed a Saint or get such a large cult following that is not, let’s say, “Satanist” or heretic (to be fair, neither do most of the characters who have at least a pair of working braincells, but I digress). Hell, one of the Darkling’s own nicknames was “the Black Heretic”, so why the U-turn? 

I suppose, though, that we could be given an explanation for this last part in the following book, so I’m going to be open about it.

[end spoilers]

Zoya Nazyalensky 

I. Love. This. Woman... So much. She’s amazing. She’s one of the strongest, as of now most fleshed-out characters Leigh Bardugo has written, on par with Inej Ghafa, my overall favorite. Her POV was the one I enjoyed the most, her inner dialogue as sharp as her tongue, her story heartbreaking, and her personality as unapologetic but lovable (for those of us not under her glare, at least) as ever. I loved reading about her thoughts, her opinions, her likes and dislikes (though mostly her dislikes), and she’s 100% the type of female character we need more: women who don’t take no shit, but who are still human. Those who are strong but have feelings other than “murder”, that are not defined by what other expect of them, but still bask in the benefits their reputations as heartless give them. 

[slight spoilers]

The only problem I had with her POV, one that is extremely easy to fix, is related to her backstory. It’s established that her father was a Suli man, meaning that Zoya is now canonically a biracial woman. This is amazing! The most beautiful, powerful Grisha in all of Ravka (or, dare I say, the Grishaverse) is a woman of color. However, the way that this was established left something to be desired: there was absolutely no indication other than that of her mentioning it that she’s in any way Suli. Compared to Inej, whose culture is shown in absolutely every part of her character, the difference left me a little bit disappointed.

I’d be completely fine with it if she hadn’t known her father, or if she had been taken to the Little Palace when she was too little to remember anything about her family, but she lived 9 years with her parents, and she never makes absolutely any mention of any cultural aspect that she likes or misses about her heritage. This could be done in different ways: a throwaway comment about liking a particular type of Suli food, an art piece that reminds her of Suli art she liked/hated as a kid, a cultural tradition that she still participates in privately, a type of cloth, anything. None of that is there, though, so I was left with the impression that Zoya was whitewashed. Not in the “common” way, of for example a white person playing a black character, but in the characterization sense. 

A little bit more on that: when you’re writing characters of color, you have to be careful of many things. To name a few: not falling into stereotypes, making sure colorism has no bearing in the story, not oversimplifying issues faced by people of color, especially if you’re not part of that group, and that you’re not putting a “poc” label on a character that is otherwise white. The last one is in my opinion what has happened with Zoya. This can be avoided (and resolved) easily by including nods towards her culture. An acknowledgment that she’s not a monoracial white Ravkan through anything other than just one comment about how her father was Suli would resolve this issue and give us the most badass WoC in the Grishaverse. 

[end slight spoilers] 

Isaak

[major spoilers]

As for Isaak, I don’t have a lot to say about him, because overall I think he didn’t need to have a PoV in the story. He wasn’t a character we knew from before, so we didn’t care about him. He dies at the end of the story, his only purpose is to look like Nikolai and have the shortest almost-romance ever. All of this could have been shown through the eyes of either Tolya or Tamar, who always followed him around, so they could’ve shown the same story with no problem. All in all, his part wasn’t bad, but I didn’t care about it, which could maybe be a problem on itself. 

Lastly, my biggest problem, left for last: it doesn’t make any sense to me that Nikolai and Zoya would willingly align themselves with the Darkling. Zero. They were extremely and personally affected during the Civil War, the book does an amazing job of showing their trauma as a result of it, but by the end they willingly accept to work with him? No. I don’t want to believe that. It’s a disservice to the sacrifices the characters made in The Grisha Trilogy. Are you telling me Alina lost her power, her friends, faked her death and married Mal for that? For the Darkling to be back? This ending is a disservice to her sacrifice. I didn’t like that plot-twist at all, and I really look forward to the next  book, to know how this is all going to play out, because I’m extremely unsure about how good this development will be, story-wise, for the duology.

[end spoilers]

However, and to wrap my longest review yet, I want to say that this isn’t a bad book. The writing is fantastic. The characters, whether I agree with their characterization or not, are fleshed-out and sympathetic. The pacing is great, I read the whole novel in less than two days. While the world was already established in previous books, we got a lot more of depth and information about Ravkan and, mostly, Fjerdan and Shu culture. Bardugo remains one of my favorite writers in the YA and Fantasy genres, but because she is capable of so much, I wanted to give her work a review that reflects what I think of her talent, and of how much more I think she can do as a writer. 

"Yet now that the time had come to speak, Nikolai did not want to tell this story. He did not want it to be his story. He’d thought the war was in the past, but it refused to remain there.”

[inappropriatefangirlneeds]

Gotham s4ep21 “One Bad Day”  Personal Review

“It´s an odd time for a nap” Warning spoilers below 

* “Oh, Jim, you still think that you're the only one who can save the city.” Okay that one was lovely. Almost a bit like that one Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  I love how everyone was vaguely rooting for the same thing: Save the City! while trying to as well reach their own personal goals.  > LUCIUS FOX of course is the precious cinnamon roll that he is and just wants to save the city.  > JIM GORDON kind of just wants to save the city as well. But I do think this whole talk with Edward, as entertaining as it was it was jarring plot wise. Of course we do have the “We're gonna settle this. No, Jim. This isn't the GCPD. Here, I make the rules, so we're not gonna do this until we talk about what I want to talk about.” line that claims Edward is the one that wants to discuss  relationship stuff while Jim is the one who wants to stick to saving the city. But Jim actually brought as much into the conversation as Ed did. Especially if he indeed thinks Leslie is just using Edward he should have just kept this to himself and let Edward run into his misery and laugh about it over the whiskey into which he usually cries. But for Jim it´s at least as important as it is for Ed to plant his flag in that conversation. He´s still asserting “ownership” (for the lack of a better word..) over Leslie Thompkins by claiming he knows her better than Ed does. Ed might have the relationship and the sex but Jim still got the connection to who Leslie really is, ha ha take that Ed (to be read in Jim´s voice.) > TABITHA GALAVAN worries about the city, BUTCH GILZEAN doesn´t comment it but both want a cure for Butch.  > BARBARA KEAN was really endearing in the scene with Jerome. She goes from “not really??!” to “absolutely not on my watch”, her personal stake in it was being nice to Tabitha. How Sweet.  > OSWALD COBBLEPOT is a bit more used to situations like this. He´s just keeping an eye on his goals: Money. While waving the city issue aside “Of course not” just to scramble and struggle and scurry to do all he can to make things better once they went astray. > LESLIE THOMPKINS want´s her “legal knots untangled” and of course save the city as well. It´s a win win thing.  “We solve it and we trade the information for clemency.” “I'm trying to protect what we've built.” > EDWARD NYGMA is bound to act in Leslie´s interest “Well, then the mayor would be wise to forgive Lee and I our indiscretions.”  But he´s in fact kind of the only one to declare that he personally doesn´t give a damn about Gotham. “If Gotham becomes a rock pile, I mind zero percent. I'm only helping you because I'm with Lee now.”  The situation is however one that he´s trying to use to figure out more about his nagging “does Lee even like me” question. > Oddly the show sent BRUCE WAYNE on a much more personal quest this week. By getting him out of the GCPD he´s separated from the Save Gotham plotline. Of course you could say everything that´s against Jeremiah could be useful for that other goal but there´s a split. SELINA KYLE also is just there to “be there for Bruce” what a muffin. * “I almost got killed fighting your ex-boyfriend's rotting corpse.” Everyone is so nice and grown up to each other. I don´t like the whole Tabs, Babs, Butch relationship mess but I really like how they keep treating each other. BARBARA KEAN sees how important BUTCH GILZEAN is to TABITHA GALAVAN and just a small reminder how Tabitha was there for her is more than enough to have her agree to helping her.   JIM GORDON and LESLIE THOMPKINS agree that the past changed things but they still care for each other and respect each other. As icky as the whole situation including Edward Nygma is (rant above and below), that is sweet. Then the third trifecta is SELINA KYLE also despite all the ups and downs being there for BRUCE WAYNE and even explicitly voicing this! It´s not a I hate you but I´m here. It´s also a unmistakable I like you. Progress.  And while we´ve had all those unusual little moments of agreement between Alfred and Bruce we have ALFRED PENNYWORTH acknowledge her by basically asking her to stay for dinner. Sweet.  So JEREMIAH VALESKA and BRUCE WAYNE. I´m not feeling it > Jerome still tries to tell everyone he´s better than his brother and saneTM.  “Are you out of your mind?!” “Why do you keep insisting I'm insane? What's insane about having a backup plan?” / “I'm nothing if not sane. And reasonable. Two things my brother never valued. Which is why I'll be successful where he failed. Well, that and being vastly more intelligent.” > He´s then again acknowledging that his brother was right that there was something inside of him.  “Jerome gave me what I thought was the worst day of my life. But only by losing everything was I  able to face what was inside me.  And I believe I've seen something very special inside of you as well. But to free it, you'll have to lose everything and everyone you hold dear.”  > I feel vaguely remembered of how RA´S wanted to kill everyone that Bruce loved to change him. > While talking to Selina Kyle Bruce wonders if that one day made part of him insane and if Jeremiah saw this and wanted to bring it out. I somehow could not care less. I don´t really feel medias obsession with that “beast/evil inside man” or whatever. Like just don´t? Even Jeremiah made an effort to “just don´t”, and it would have worked if it weren’t for him getting poisoned. That´s hardly relevant. > Then we have RA´s AL GHUL and Jeremiah both obsessing over Bruce Wayne and teaming up. Okay.  > On a side note: Ra´s what good are your visions if you have to makes sure yourself that they happen? How´s that different from you know ordinary people, usually that´s called having an idea. 

* “Ah, Lucius. It's making some kind of weird noise.” “What kind of a noise?” “A bad one, and and it's it's, uh, getting all glowy.” HARVEY BULLOCK so we got the message that mob mentality wise the GCPD  is still pissed because of the Pyg scenario and blames Harvey. But all it takes to get them clapping again is some (dumb) luck of choosing the right 50% option. Okay, okay and the willingness to run up to a bloody bomb. But to be fair all the police still in the city took kind of the same risk, so we are down again to the luck thing.  Look, I love Harvey. But the dynamics of “followers”, including the Valeska ones on this show are just ridiculous. * “Detective. Don't lie to me.” “It's not looking good, kid.”  Harvey keeping to lie to himself about Jim´s likely demise was sweet though. Also hooray for another case of directly addressing an issue (Does it show that I´ve been around too much passive aggressiveness lately, and tbh struggle with that myself .. ) *  “Leave Gotham. Start a new life somewhere else. Alone.” JIM GORDON telling LESLIE THOMPKINS that she should leave Gotham and should start a new life again (2x15). Like that one time when he already did, and she left and started a new life and then Jim shot her husband. Am I a bit sensitive here or is that additional “alone” kind of not okay? Like it feels like an implied if Jim can´t have her no one should. She´s  been through so much and has done so much that she´s not worth anything more than a life in solitude? Like I get why Jim would think that Leslie couldn´t have feelings for Edward (and I agree #Kristen #framedJimlostchild etc)  but hey how about she might think it´s nice that someone is around that cares about her, and even is ready to suppress his own narcissistic goals and ways for the sake of her.. While the scene with EDWARD NYGMA and Jim Gordon tattling about Leslie was funny I hate it in terms of plot. And if Leslie & Ed´s split is going to be about Jim Gordon or in general a “this is my wifey” conflict I´m gonna murder someone. There´s already been plenty of tension in between them before they mashed Jim into this. This could be about Leslie´s ambitions and goals. As much as I´m kind of meh about the whole atoning for her Virus related sins (or her injecting herself the virus in the first place .. ) thing I like that her character got a goal in doing god (even if they haven´t really shown how she wants to reach a better situation for her people in a way that does even seem slightly plausible) while at the same getting some badass scenes and now I fear this is going to be pushed to the background for the sake of everything being about Leslies feelingz. Nothing wrong with emotions but how about we can get her not being about her feels for men and about her feels for what she thinks is her duty. * JIM GORDON got some advanced phone trolling going on. Him being on screen just like the Valeska´s before is almost as good as him keeping hanging up on Jervis Tetch.   * And “A PALE imitation of Jerome”  how on earth could he drop that one with a straight face :D * “It doesn´t matter”  What kind of crap interlude was the SCARECROW scene? Like I appreciate the view, thanks. I also very much relate to just abandoning the task once it turns out to be more difficult than expected. Like a girl against three villains who would have guessed that much trouble. But that´s just a waste of a potentially so interesting character. Like do something with that beanpole of terror Gotham! But hey .. at least his lack of commitment to the task DID in fact matter in the end!  * And srsly why is the one that got tortured going to make dinner? I get that none of the three had an easy day so how about just ordering some food? ALFRED honey make that shower a very long hot and bubbly bath, that´s the least. * On another side note: Why did they spare Alfred? Why have a stand in? Why keep Alfred alive? Did they have something more sinister planned? Bruce killing real Alfred 2.0?  * “ You do realize the city is about to be blown up? It's an odd time for a nap. “You know that she drugged me.” “Yeah. Don't really care.”  * Think. Think. Think, think, think, think, think, think” * “ sighs You're behind me, aren't you?”  * “Would you believe it? They put me on hold.” Whoever wrote JERMIAH´s lines, bless you. They are so polite, polished and yet vaguely unsettling. I love them.  Of course bless Cameron as well! * “I hope you didn't catch a cold in my brother's grave. I know those things aren't exactly designed for the living.” * “No, not Alfred”  Oh hello there Theo Galavan, long time no see ..  they really refuse to do the “beautiful morning” thing with Theo (Aka you can´t have a dying character talk about something going to be a beautiful morning  2x11 and then have them be revived 3x6 and not have them say something like oh what a beautiful morning or not as beautiful as expected) but then repeat that one line with another character ??! Gotham?!   * Oddly it´s even nice to see Oswald getting a dose of what others that went against him had to put up with buuut .. let´s get back to Oswald having the great Plan B´s n stuff again soon pls

[zippdementia]

Part 53 Alignment May Vary: What to do About Those Pesky Dragons!

This was a short session almost entirely taken up by a single combat. I’ll get to that in a moment. First of all, some housekeeping. Before we leave the temple of Maaken, Trakki announces he has something to do. He takes Trellara and lelads her into the altar room.

Trellara is smitten with Traki, but she is not stupid. The temple of Maaken already has an evil reputation and each step she takes into the temple seems to confirm this. She lingers for a moment at the mural showing the three figures rising to rule the world, but she does not comment on it. When they reach the altar room, her doubts finally settle into fear and then a terrible sort of comprehension. This is due in part to a natural 20 on her insight roll, but probably has more to do with the giant pulsating blob of horrible meaty parts resting in the corner of the altar room, yet in clear view (the Soul Jar).

Trellara draws her scimitars but seems unwilling to accuse Traki. The thought of him betraying her is too awful. “No,” is all she says. “I am sorry,” is all he replies, though no sorrow enters his voice. Then he is on her, stabbing at her with the Dagger of Erythnul, burrying it in her shoulder. It’s evil properties drain the life from her and while she is stunned he open palm strikes her, knocking her unconscious.

A dry cackle comes from out of the shadows and the old woman with the slit throat, who once made honey cakes but whom we now know Traki previously murdered and turned into an undead, approaches. “Nazragul is pleased by your decision,” Mama Honeycakes says.

“Then ask him to tell me how to perform the ritual that made you what you are. But I want it better this time. I want her to rise more powerful than before.”

Mama Honeycakes smiles a broken smile.

Soon the ritual is set. Trellara lies with her chest and heart exposed on the altar. Over her hovers Traki, his arm slit open and the blood gushing over her form, staining her white face red. Sitting on her naked skin are pieces of the soul jar, pulsating slowly in the blue torch flame that lights this area. Traki has drawn a rune on Trellara’s chest, over her heart. Next to him stands Nysyries, supervising the work, for she is one who can manipulate the magical weave while Traki is a stranger to that world. Luck alone, and the power of the dagger,  showed him how to bring the old woman back. Now he wants something more than luck.

“Now we begin,” she says, in Nazragul’s throaty growl.

So what’s happening here is a couple of arcana rolls. DC 15 on the first one, to see if Trellara can become anything other than a slobbering zombie who will follow Traki around slowly like a dangerous pet. He passes this, but only barely and with the help of Nysyries aiding him and a fate point (+1 to any roll, remember these? We use them a lot). The second test is to see whether Trellara becomes blood crazed or maintains a semblance of control over her new powers. This he succeeds at wildly!

The dagger plunges into Trellara’s heart, piercing the center of the rune on its way there. Trellara moans, whether in pain or ecstasy, Traki cannot tell. The pieces of the soul jar suddenly move for the wound in the chest, squeezing themselves inside of it, while the blood Traki smeared on Trellara’s face and body seems to be sucked up by her skin, disappearing into it like water poured over dry sand. Trellara sucks in a breath. Her skin has gone whiter than before. Her eyes have sunken back in her head. Her teeth have become sharp points. Yet despite this, she seems to have retained her beauty, unnatural as it might now be. She looks around like a newborn. The hole in her chest reveals a softly beating heart. She demurely covers it with her clothing.

“You have freed me,” she says in wonder to Traki.

Tyrion Ragedrinker, also known as the Blue Bard, sits outside the temple sharpening his axe. He looks up when the three emerge and briefly lets his eyes rest on the new Trellara. “Well, there’s that, then,” he says, and goes back to sharpening his axe.

Trellara has become a wight, with all the good and bad that brings with it. She is pretty powerful now, if not the sturdiest fighter. Definitely more powerful than before! And Traki’s successful ritual means she retains her beautiful voice and a sense of self. She’s a little odd right now, crying tears of blood without knowing why she is crying, and tearing out the feathers of her owl as slowly as possible to see how it reacts (Nysyries has them bent to her will, using her powers to make them actually enjoy being afraid of the group... they are a little twitchy, but they obey). But eventually she will learn to adapt to her new body and will be able to fit in almost as well as any of them. She doesn’t like sunlight, though, and becomes sluggish and less charismatic under its glare. The group is going to have some fun roleplay challenges when they reach Brindol, considering they will have to hide their evil nature during that entire chapter. This just adds to the fun and gives them a powerful NPC ally to boot!

Dragon Leftovers

I have long been dissatisfied with how Red Hand of Doom handles its end game with the Dragons. I’m going to jump ahead a bit here (my players, if you are reading, I’ll keep this vague and spoiler free)... So you’re powering through Red Hand of Doom, having a good time, and then you get to the end of the adventure and, oh, guess what? Your party didn’t kill all the dragons. So now they have to fight them all AT ONE TIME. This is supposed to be a punishment for players who didn’t succeed at routing dragons throughout the adventure and to be honest, it is not an impossible fight to win, depending on your players’ levels and how many there are. But dragons are tough. Young dragons have a CR of somewhere between 7-10, depending on their type. Now, one of these may actually not pose enough of a threat to your party. But two or three of them at once?

Not that I’m saying non-legendary Dragons should fight alone (we’ve seen how that worked back at the Sunken City of Rhest) but they should be paired up with lesser minions meant to keep players from being able to focus fire on them and pin them down, maybe CR 2s or 3s or even a couple 4s if the party is really tough and needs a challenge. You’ll see this happen in the storm battle I’ve set up for Ozyrandion, below. I used Xanathar’s guide for this fight. Looking at Xanathar’s guide, five level 9 characters are said to be equal to taking on a level eight challenge, but I’m not sure I agree with that in practice. At least in my group, I’ve seen two of my party (Traki and Tyrion) take on Ozyrandion at the bridge by themselves and do okay, and that was back at level 6 or 7. At level 9 I have no doubt that all three of them would destroy a single young green dragon and honestly two of them could hold their own in a fight. Thus, I treat my players more like level 13 when using Xanathar’s guide to set difficultly. There are a lot of things that could factor into why this happens in my group, like the fact that we allow epic maneuvers like grappling in mid-air, or it could be the NPCs they travel with, or their aggressive tactics, or my poor rolls, but it seems to balance out a lot better.

Note: A lot of this is gut work more than math work. I pick my monsters for fights based on how well I know my players and how they fight, so I have a good idea of what challenges them. Xanathar’s guide is just there to give me a guideline to judge what I’m doing after the fact.

That said, three young dragons versus my three party members is almost a guaranteed TPK, even using Xanathar’s guide and treating my players as higher level.

But there are story reasons, too, to dislike the way the dragons are used. The players are supposed to believe these beasts show up for one fight in the game and if they survive it then they just disappear from the playing field to go back home. Why would they do this? Why wouldn’t they continue to be active participants in the war? Dragons are touchy beasts: wouldn’t they hold a grudge and seek out the adventurers who escaped their wrath, especially if those adventurers succeeded in getting past them to the thing they were guarding (bridge/eggs/phylactery/etc)?

My advice to GMs running Red Hand of Doom is this: if the players encounter a dragon and survive the encounter without killing it, then look for ways to work that dragon back into the plot before the battle of Brindol. You will have to adjust their fights a bit to keep them a challenge, but I think it lets all the dragons shine more as individual, willful creatures and makes them feel less like obligatory boss fights. For instance, in our game, Ozyrandion lives. I decide to have Azor Khul send him to guard the Ghostlord’s lair instead of Varanthian. Varanthian is a fine monster, and a level 11 challenge would be a decent solo monster fight at this point in the game (and I’ve got other minions in the Ghostlord’s lair who can reinforce if the Behir gets locked down with stun or the like), but I would rather the players get a shot at a reoccuring villain rather than have to establish a new one. So instead of the players fightng her, they have an intense encounter with Ozyrandion and three Manticores who accost them in the middle of a raging storm on the edge of the Ghostlord’s lair.

Here is a list of other suggestions for how to bring surviving dragons back:

Ozyrandion: the haughty green dragon is sent to hunt the players, catching up with them on their way to Rhest or at some other point in the adventure between locations (as I did above). If he fails again but escapes, he becomes obsessed and “goes rogue,” chasing the players down even after the adventure has ended, gathering more powerful allies each time (wyverns, chimera, etc).

Regiarix: if Regiarix and Saarvith both still live, then maybe they attack the elves right after Rhest and launch a side quest to hunt them down in the fens, where they will fight alongside some ghoulish minions. If that doesn’t appeal, or if they survive that, then they join in the battle at Brindol, attacking at the same time as another major event that the players are on their way to help with, waylaying the players and preventing them from reaching their goal. The players have to defeat the two here and if they don’t do it quickly enough, they fail to reach their goal in time, causing the failure of one of the major events of the battle. Note, if you do this, consider giving them extra healing options after the battle.

Varanthian: I think the Behir has the opportunity to become a much more interesting character then just a boss fight. Consider introducing her earlier in the campaign, when the players have little chance of defeating her in combat. Knowing this, she should taunt them, warning them to leave this quest to “better men.” She will continue to dog them throughout the adventure, tracking them for her own pleasure, enjoying the thrill of the hunt more than the promise of the kill, maybe attacking before a big event just to weaken and frighten them.  She will criticize and downplay their actions, mocking any other dragons they face as “inferior foes.” She will only go on the full offensive at either her original Ghostlord’s location, or after the Battle of Brindol. You may even want to consider replacing Tyragun with her in this case and removing Tyragun entirely, as using this method the Behir is a more interesting character then him. I honestly wish I’d thought of this sooner...

Abiathrix: The Red Dragon is the only one that it really makes sense to have the players meet again at the finale, if not defeated earlier. Mostly because there really isn’t anywhere else for him to go, as he’s encountered so late in the story. But having two dragons to fight may be an acceptable challenge. If not, it is very possible he defects and flees the fight altogether. I always assumed he was really a coward at heart and hasn’t run yet only because nothing has really challenged him before. Chances are he will remember the characters who defeated him, though, and will return when he is older and more powerful to wreak his vengeance on the people of the Vale.

Riders on the Storm

The players approach the Ghostlord’s Lair by night on owlback, scanning the horizon for signs of “a giant stone lion” which they’ve been told contains the Ghostlord’s lair. Nazragul says they MUST secure the Ghostlord’s services so that he can use his powers over flesh to shape the Soul Jar into something more suitable for carrying into battle. Readers may recall that the point of the Soul Jar is to release the trapped souls of Nazragul’s army into freshly killed bodies after the Battle of Brindol. The entire point of the players fighting off the Red Hand of Doom is so that Nazragul’s armies will then have the easier time of slaughtering the weakened people of Brindol and bringing the city under his control, fulfilling his age-old dream of conquering the vale and the people (descendants in this case) of Rhest. We’ll see how that goes in a future chapter. For now, the players are suddenly distracted by a massive storm which rises just as they finally think they spot the stone lion. Nysyries knows time is short for her: she has two nights left before she needs to feed again on male human souls or else risk losing her druidic powers forever, as per her pact with the lady of the wood. She is not willing to wait out this storm. Tyrion is all for flying in, too, so the group pushes onward.

The storm bats their owls around and visibility drops to what is illuminated by Tyrion’s magical breast plate and the occasional lightning strike. in this darkness hides four ambushers, who roll very well on their stealth checks... but Nysyries rolls even better on her perception, even beating Ozyrandion’s 25 to hide! So she sees the shapes flying out of the darkness at them. When she calls to her companions to ready for combat, Ozyrandion hears her and realizes the surprise is up. “MY CHANCE FOR REVENGE HAS COME!” he booms.

Combat takes us a couple of hours. There is a lot going on. The Dragon is obviously the heavy hitter, but the Manticores get to roll enough times each turn that they pose at least a threat that can’t be ignored. Complicating things is the fact that the owls pose a big weakness. Yes, as mounts they allow the players to dodge, dash, or disengage for free, but they have little hit points and if killed, the players will be in free fall. Finally, the storm itself makes ranged attacks at disadvantage and is difficult terrain. It also has a special effect that happens each round based on a d100 roll:

1-10: A new combatant is carried into the storm. Choose a flying creature of CR 4 and add them as a neutral creature that selects a random target on its turn. Roll initiative for it now.

11-35: everyone must make a DC 14 CON save or be hit for 2d8 thunder damage and have disadvantage on all attacks rolls this round. Success on save takes half damage and avoids the penalty.

35-44: The clouds gather into a thick mass. This round nothing happens. Next round, roll the dice twice and apply both effects, re-rolling 35-44.

45-55: Nothing happens this round, the storm rages on.

56-69: Everyone is struck by confusion as per the spell confusion for one round. On their turn, if they can make a DC 18 WIS save, they avoid this effect.

70-85: lightning strikes a random character in the storm for 4d10 lightning damage

86-100: Everyone must make a DC 14 STR save or be blown into the nearest character within 20 feet. Succeeding the save means nothing happens to you. Failing the save moves you as described and both you and whomever you hit take 3d6 bludgeoning damage.

My players continually roll the thunder and lightning effects throughout combat, with a round where nothing happens occuring near the middle of combat, so we miss most of these effects, but the thunder and lightning have a big impact on the combat nonetheless, usually in favor of the players, who roll much better on their saves than the monsters do.

The combat starts with Nysyries taking control of the storm through call lightning and trying to strike an approaching Manticore. Traki leaps from the back of his owl, meanwhile, and aims for another Manticore, tackling it midair and tumbling down into the storm with it, stabbing with his dagger and punching with his fists all the while. Tyrion, seeing this feat of bravery (insanery?) follows suit, but not to be outdone, he chooses to leap on the dragon! Hey, he argues, Traki already got to kill a dragon, so it’s my turn!

Ah, classic DnD. Where Dragons become equivalent to big-game trophies.

By the end of the round, things are not going as well. The manticore Traki is, er, riding gives as good as it got, using its tail to reach that “oh so hard to scratch spot” on its back where Traki is and impaling him with a critical hit here. Traki gets hurt pretty badly, dropping below half life as he takes three massive hits from the Manticore. Nysyries finds herself targeted by Ozyrandion, who chooses to ignore Tyrion for the moment (”Disgusting little flea! I’ll deal with you next!”) and instead breathes poison at both her and her owl. It’s a heavy hit. The owl dies instantly. Nysyries is knocked unconscious and begins to fall into the storm. 

Trellara, meanwhile, goes nuts, unleashing the power of her now supernaturally beautiful voice to psychically attack the nearest Manticore. Her voice allows her to either target one enemy for 10d6 damage or ALL creatures within 30 feet for 3d6 damage (halved for both effects on a save, on a DC 13 Con save). The Manticore makes the save and launch into a flurry of attacks on her, bringing her down to half life. A lightning bolt then sparks across the sky and arks its way through Trellara and her owl, blasting her off into the night sky.

Tyrion casts healing word, saving Nysyries, who mid fall transforms into her signature Quetzalcoatl and rejoins the battle. After this, things turn to the player’s favor. Ozyrandion fails a ton of rolls against Tyrion, both in trying to pull him off and in trying to just do damage to him. Eventually, he flies high above the others, heading into the storm clouds to focus on Tyrion alone. The two beat eachother with their various weapons, the dragon missing more often than not, Tyrion having the same problem. Tyrion gets the upper hand, though, when he uses his reactionary Breastplate of Chaos (which has previously had such wonderful effects as turning him permanently blue) to randomly unleash a high level magic missile on the Dragon. This turns the tide, and from here on out Tyrion hits more and more with his berserker axe, going berserk in the process.

Far below them, Traki keeps leaping from Manticore to Manticore, asking each one “Hey, do I know you,” and confusing the hell out of them in the process. He’s thinking one might be the Manticore from Vraath Keep, you see, though that Manticore is actually still lounging around in those ruins, king of his own little domain. No, these Manticores DO NOT know Traki and have regretted meeting him at all. He manages to intimidate the first one into carrying him back into combat (and then this Manticore quickly bails on the fight), from here leaping on the next one. This one has a smarmy British accent and he’s less inclined to surrender, deciding to Kamikaze in the storm instead of letting Traki have victory. Good thing Nysyries is there to save him!

The rest of the fight is easy to describe. Nysyries and Traki together make easy work of the last Manticore, Nysyries diving underneath it while Traki drags the blade of Erythnul across its exposed belly. And Tyrion finally delivers a bad enough blow to Ozyrandion that he gives up on trying to rip the annoying little man off of him and instead dive bombs into a storm cloud brimming with lightning and booming with thunder. Here Ozyrandion meets his end, struck by a lightning bolt. That same bolt rips through Tyrion as he falls, a speck in the black sky that Nysyries turns and speeds towards.

At this point, what I think would be amazing is for Nysyries to catch Tyrion but have him still be berserk. I think that would be amazing. I think Nysyries and Traki agree, they laugh a little and Traki starts to muse about how he could restrain Tyrion until they can knock him out. But Tyrion isn’t for it and since it would be a stretch of the rules to insist that it happens, we move on. I’m usually okay with bending the rules a little in the name of hilarity and fun, but only if everyone is on board. So instead, Nysyries succeeds on her “catch the Blue Bard” roll without incident and we move on to the rough landing that puts them inside the eye of the storm and directly outside of the Ghostlord’s lair (I’ve doubled the proportions on everything here for reasons I’ll reveal once we actually meet the Ghostlord):

Rising from a low mesa is an intimidating sight. A massive lion of stone crouches, as if ready to pounce on a nearby hill. The cyclopean monolith is composed of a dull tawny stone. It looks to be about four hundred eight feet in length, and the top of its maned head rises over one hundred feet from the ground. There seems to be some sort of hollow between the lion’s front paws, in the area bordered by its chest. Likewise, hints of a dark cave are apparent in its gaping maw. The lair is constantly shrouded by a flight of dozens of ghostly lions. These spirits fly in unending circuits around and through the structure’s stony body and head. They are invisible during the day, but append the following description if the PCs approach the lair at night. Dozens of translucent lion-like shapes fl y and caper about the massive lion’s head and body. The shapes sometimes even pass through its stony surface to emerge in a different spot.

As you stare at this phenomenon, suddenly a voice calls out a confused “Now what is happening here?” You turn, and see the professor’s ghostly form standing nearby, looking aghast at the spiral of ghostly forms. Suddenly he is pulled from your side and lifted into the air, making thin protests as he is quickly drawn towards the spiral against his will and joins the other souls in the vortex.

Quick Analysis: This fight was meant to replace the opening fight against the Behir that’s set up for the entrance of the Ghostlord’s Lair. Thus, the goal was twofold. First, to provide a similar challenge (something equal to a level 11 one enemy challenge) which will drain some of the players’ resources heading into this dungeon. Second, to deliver something impressive to start off this dungeon.

On the first point, I think this was a success. The fight ends up being challenging but fun. It could have gone either way for my players, but once they got the upper hand, the fight continued to go in their favor. They definitely have used up a fair amount of heal spells and Nysyries has used a valuable transformation. They will have to decide whether a short rest is worth the risk before moving on next time. Regardless, they won’t be entering the dungeon at full strength. And Trellara is gone, disappeared in the storm. Not dead, perhaps, but missing in the Thornwaste for the time being, along with the surviving owls.

On the second point, it is also a success! This was a memorable fight and set up the environment for us, too. Flying through the storm to get here and then seeing it surround them as they approach the Ghostlord’s giant lion makes this all the more ominous and impressive. If your players fought and escaped Ozyrandion earlier, then I recommend using this fight (or a similar one) instead of the Behir. Save her for more interesting encounters.

[ylc1]

Fanfic Master List (Johnlock)

I left this pairing for last since it’s the one I’ve written more fics about so... well. Here we are! Enjoy!

Burned hearts

Johnlock, complete, 7300 words.

Summary: A retell from the scene at the pool in TGG, in which John is never revealed to be Moriarty’s hostage. Believing himself fooled, Sherlock goes through a bit of a meltdown.

Some personal notes on it: this idea came to me when I first watched TGG. I think that I could have expanded it so much more and make it even more angsty but well… I still like it.

Additional notes: angst, lots of self doubt, Sherlock doesn’t cope well, Mycroft and Greg are very concerned.

Apples and Oranges

Johnlock, complete, 600 words.

Summary: Kid Sherlock is attempting to figure out why would people like kissing. John helps.

Some personal notes: this was a fill in for a tumblr prompt. Just some kidlock fluff.

Additional notes: AU, kidlock, fluff.

Long shot

Johnlock, complete, 44200 words.

Summary: Omega werewolf Sherlock is engaged to human Prince John, after having scared off his last suitor. It seems it might be working out for the best though- at least until the Dark and Immortal Wizard Moriarty rises again.

Some personal notes: when I write original fiction, I tend towards fantasy with a mix of romance. Indulging in my love for both genres was a joy. Also, this was my work with most kudos for a long while, so I guess it shows ;)

Additional notes: A/B/O dynamics, Mpreg, arranged marriage, angst, pining, misunderstandings, Jim being Jim (he’s the perfect fairytale villain, honestly)

Wildest dreams

Johnlock (although victorian), complete, 3800 words.

Summary: Watson puts an end to his relationship with Holmes, in order to marry Mary Morstan.

Some personal notes: have I told you how I love Taylor Swift’s songs? I had been trying to avoid writing this particular fic because I worried about my abilities to write something with such a strict historical setting, but I should probably have stopped listening to the song because it soon became too much :P

Additional notes: victorian (but a bit loosely I think), angst, pining, unhealthy coping mechanisms… HAPPY ENDING

Mistaken impressions

Johnlock, complete, 16300 words

Summary: John is convinced his neighbor’s boyfriend is a jerk. He sort of is, but he’s actually Sherlock’s brother.

Some personal notes: I liked this idea, but as I started writing… I lost my way a bit. So now I’m a bit stuck with is, since I have no idea where exactly I want to go with it, although I have what I think might be the last chapter half-written.

Additional notes: references to past abusive relationships, past drug addiction, unhealthy coping mechanisms, angst, drama, pining, MISUNDERSTANDINGS and some attempts of humor.

Hopeless

Johnlock, complete, 45800 words.

Summary: John’s a slave in Lord Magnussen’s household. When a new slave arrives and the Master takes a fancy on her (although it’s really him), John finds himself doing the best he can to protect him.

Some personal notes: this idea came to me in a dream. Which is why it’s far darker than my usual writings and also the reason for Trans Sherlock. I don’t like fighting my inspiration and well… I went with it, even if it added another layer of complications to this particular fic.

Additional notes: trans character, misgendering, implied/referenced noncon (although there’s nothing explicit), underage (it’s never explicitly stated, but Sherlock is 14 when the fic starts), slavery, sexual slavery, very dark, very angsty, mentions of violence, murder and abuse. It has a happy/hopeful ending, though!

Home for Christmas

Johnlock, complete, 8500 words.

Summary: When Mycroft Holmes informs his family he’s bringing along a friend for Christmas, the household is thrown into utter chaos: Mummy Holmes is delighted, of course and Mr. Holmes is just baffled. Sherlock, however, is determined to figure out what is his brother up to. Mycroft doesn’t do friendships, let alone relationships, so who is this mysterious Dr. John H. Watson and what’s his business with his brother?

Some personal notes: this is the actual summary on AO3, but I really don’t know a better way to describe it ;) I think my attempt of humor did work here, even if it endeded up including a bit of angst (but not much)

Additional notes: Alternate First Meeting, humor, Christmas fic, misunderstandings (of a sort), family.

Black magic

Johnlock, complete, 7400 words.

Summary: John ends up with a magic love potion (he was drunk, don’t judge him!) and in a fit of desperate longing, he gives it to Sherlock. He didn’t expect it to work since magic does not exist, so he’s a little baffled when Sherlock starts acting love-struck.

Some personal notes: this was the first fic I meant to write for the fandom. I never got around finishing until now, when I figured I might as well give it another try. I think it could have been longer, but I had no idea what else to write :P

Additional notes: attempt of humor, magic, a surprising amount of discussion of consent issues, not actually unrequited love.

All is fair (in love and war)

Johnlock, complete, 6300 words.

Summary: Eurus’ “game” forces John and Sherlock to confess long hidden feelings. It turns out as well as you’d expect.

Some personal notes: It started as a rewrite of the “I love you” scene in TFP, turned into a sort of fix it fic. I like it, even if I’m not completely sure the logic holds :P

Additional notes: angst, drama, hurt without comfort, but has a happy ending!

Priceless   

Johnlock, complete 22485 words.

Summary: Sherlock is a Prince with a Kingdom at war. He makes a deal with the all powerful wizard called “the Dark One”; the wizard will stop the war if Sherlock stays with him forever.

Some personal notes: this fic is result of the FandomTrumpsHate auction, for the lovely @sherlock-and-john-getting-it-on​. I was asked for a “Beauty and the Beast” inspired fic with John as the Beast. I asked for the chance to use the Once Upon a Time spin of the tale and this is the result.

Additional notes: magical AU, pining, misunderstandings (they’re both so silly it hurts!), includes my attempt of some proper smut, Jim wrote himself into it and in doing that provided me with an ending :P

Saving all my love for you

Johnlock, 

Summary: Unrequited love is no fun.

Some personal notes: I just wanted to write something angsty, heart tugging. There isn’t much plot, really, just a lot of pining and self reflection.

Additional notes: based on the song by the same title,angst, pining, sad, unilock.

The art of letting go

Johnlock, complete, 47400 words.

Summary: Sherlock convinces himself that if he can’t remember what happened on the stag night, then it didn’t happen at all. Until he finds out he’s pregnant and he can’t keep pretending, that is.

Some personal notes: Oh, I loved working on this. I have a thing for unplanned pregnancies (as you can probably tell) and while writing a character as trans always makes me nervous, I thought it worked well. The story is very angsty at points and it doesn’t get hopeful until the very end so… be warned!

Additional notes: Trans character, Mpreg, angst (a lot), jealousy, pining, Mary and John are married but she isn’t pregnant, pos TSoT, follows HLV more or less.

A fortunate encounter

Johnlock, complete, 4528 words.

Summary: While escaping a group of enemy soldiers, Sherlock ends up in a mysterious island.

Some personal notes: after watching the Wonder Woman movie I couldn’t contain myself and ended up writing this short thing ;)

Additional notes: Wonder Woman AU, love at first sight, spoilers for the movie (somewhat, but not really), romance.

Just friends

Johnlock, side mystrade, complete, 4400 words

Summary: Just friends don’t live together, have sex and generally enjoy a life of sweet domesticity.

Except John and Sherlock do, apparently.

Some personal notes: Cliche, I know, but cute. I became a little obsessed with the idea of friends with benefits due a song :P

Additional notes: alternate universe- college, a little angst, friends with benefits (except not), lack of communication.

The answer

Johnlock, very side Mystrade, complete, 16700 words.

Summary: Friendless and penniless, John agrees to participate on a study conducted by the renowned researcher, Sherlock Holmes, to find the answer to what’s probably the most important question in the world: what’s love?

Some personal notes: this is vaguely based on the book “The answers”, going in the direction I thought the author was going to go when I started reading it (I like my idea much better, I must say)

Additional notes: fake/pretend relationship, a little pining, Sherlock is bad at feelings (and so is John), pseudo science (don’t look too deep into it), lack of communication.

Don’t forget me (I won’t forget you)

Johnlock, complete, 2600 words.

Summary: Sherlock wakes up one day to find he’s the only person who can remember John Watson.

Some personal notes: this idea came to me one day and refused to leave until I wrote it down. It’s just the beginning of a tale, but I don’t have much a plot planned so it’s marked as finished.

Additional notes: Eurus has actual telepathic powers, a little angst, memory alteration, open ending.

And that’s it! They weren’t quite as many as a feared :P 

I hope you’ll enjoy them! Kudos & comments mean the world to me.

And if you can, maybe Buy Me a Coffee

My other lists are here: rare pairs, johnlock & mystrade, mystrade

Last updated 18.12.2018

[softforimjaebum]

knight in a black mask.|wang jackson

bestfriend!Jackson

Word Count: 4k

Genre: Fluff

Summary: I hated birthdays. But all of this changed when a certain Wang Jackson barged his way into my life. 

Author’s Note: I was just in the mood for some Wang Puppy in my life. Just a generally (hopefully) fluffy oneshot. I really hope the first person writing doesn’t bother anyone too much. Thanks for reading!

I hated birthdays. They were my assured, once in a year source of disappointment, a yearly reminder of the fact that at the end of the day, I was alone in this world.

If I think back far enough, I can still remember the butterflies in my stomach from just thinking about my birthday.  But I do suppose that was more from the excitement of wearing casual clothing to school for that one day; studying in a school with uniforms made you live for the simple things like that.

Birthdays in my family have always been calm and collected, just like I was. Not even when I was a really young child do I remember a wild party thrown on my birthday. In fact, I barely remember having a birthday party at all. Maybe once, or maybe twice; but I have very vague memories of it, and mostly I believe those memories have more to do with the pictures I saw of those days rather than actual memories themselves.

The older I grew, the worse the memories of my birthdays got. It got to a point where I started dreading them because I saw people I knew having these friends and family wishing them on their birthdays while in my extremely big extended family, no one really cared for it. They didn’t even remember it for a better part of my existence. Most of my friends had withered away from my life with time; I knew I was pretty terrible at keeping in touch with most people. I just never knew what to talk about except my interests; and my interests were always so different from a majority of my friends.

So birthdays got lesser and lesser exciting as I grew older, still yearning for the clichéd parties and rituals I saw my friends have. Not that I would ever admit it to another soul, mind you. I wasn’t one to show my weaknesses to people, neither was I one to admit how many clichéd things I wanted in life. I was too cool for clichés.

But all of this changed when a certain Wang Jackson barged his way into my life.

I had recently moved to a new city, a new country in fact, so the list of people who were my friends was at an all time low. I was in a small indie cafe, occupying a 4 people table all by myself with my books, bag and coat taking up a lot of the space. Not many people came into this cafe, which was a reason I was more often than not found here, and if it ever got crowded I wasn’t the one to mind sharing the other side of my table.

It was one of the quieter days in the cafe when a fairly loud group of boys came in. They were just loud enough to catch everyone’s attention, including the ones like me who had headphones on. A boy amongst them, wearing a bucket hat gave everyone a slight bow with an apology for the rest of them. They looked familiar to me, but for the life in me I couldn’t figure out how.

I went back to reading the book I was frantically trying to finish, Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami. As of lately, my pile of to-be read books had increased substantially and I hadn’t had enough time to read, but it was Chuseok in Korea which meant a three day long vacation with no homework to be given in at university afterwards. Perfect time to read as much as I possibly could.

It wasn’t until a boy wearing a mask from the same loud group had come up to my table asking for an extra chair did I look up at the one who would come to be my best friend.

“Can I borrow this, please? We’re short of chairs at our table”

“Of course” you smiled, and he thanked you happily.

With that he returned to his table, and I returned to my book.

A couple of minutes passed, when another boy distracted me from my reading. He said he had seen that I was reading Murakami and wanted to have a conversation, and I wasn’t turning down anyone who wanted to talk about books.

When he sat down, I finally recognised him. It was Park Jinyoung, and it dawned on me why I had found that group of boys so familiar looking. It was because I had been staring headfirst at GOT7.

But I was not about to ruin my chances of discussing books with Park Jinyoung over coffee by freaking out in front of him. My impending fangirl reaction would have to wait until I got back to my dorm. I took a deep breath as he introduced himself, and I did the same. He told me how he was a part of a kpop group, and I told him about my university majors.

He asked about the books that were already on my table, some of which I had already gone through, most of which were still in line to be read. We discovered soon after we started talking about the authors we loved and the books we that were our favourites that he was also an avid fan of the Harry Potter series.

Jinyoung told me he was in Ravenclaw, and I told him how I always thought I would be too but ended up in Hufflepuff. Not that I minded anymore, if Newt Scamander was in Hufflepuff I had no complaints about my house anymore.

Like me, he preferred Newt as a character over Harry and told me he was surprised by his own choice. He didn’t think he would choose anyone over Harry, but when he had read the book and then seen Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, he had been proven wrong.

We talked a little more about Murakami before he noticed a book by Patrick Rothfuss, another author who had my heart in his palms. I had been putting off reading The Wise Man’s Fear for the simple reason that the third part of The Kingkiller Chronicles was still a work in progress, and a cliff-hanger in this second installment would drive me insane.

But I had missed reading Patrick Rothfuss, so I had told myself that no matter what, I would at least begin that book.

“Some of my friends from college always recommend I read Patrick Rothfuss but I’ve never come around to it” Jinyoung confessed.

I gasped in shock; I always did when people told me they hadn’t read his books.

“Here” I said, rummaging through my bag to find the first instalment of the series and sliding it across the table to him. “Take my copy. You don’t know what you are missing out on”

“Ah I couldn’t do that! I promise I will buy his books soon”

But I was adamant. Besides, I had multiple copies of his books and I told him the same.

In the end, he gave in with a condition of his own. He would borrow the book, and return it to me after reading it with a book of his own; one that I absolutely had to read.

We hadn’t noticed how long we had spent talking about books. Youngjae had come over to ask if Jinyoung wanted to leave with them or not, it had been over an hour they had been here.

Jinyoung turned to me, “I would stay and talk to you about books, but I really need to get back to practice”

“Of course” I had said, knowing how busy their schedules were.

You would think that Jinyoung and I would be the ones who ended up being best friends, but there Jackson was, two weeks later in the cafe across my dorms, waiting for me with my book in hand.

When I entered the cafe, I completely overlooked him. I had been having a pretty rough week at university; I was a tired, only partly function mess, but when Jinyoung had asked to meet up with me I couldn’t bring myself to say no. My eyes grazed around, expecting to find Jinyoung in a tucked away quiet corner seat, but he was nowhere to be found. Thinking that he was probably running a little late, I sat down on the first table I saw near the door ordering myself a coffee while I was at it.

When my coffee arrived, so did another man. He was wearing a mask and a cap, barely any of his face showing; I remembered I had seen him when I had looked around for Jinyoung. He had his own coffee in his hand and a bag strung over his shoulder.

“Hello, are you looking for Jinyoung?” he asked, the rasp in his voice giving away his identity.

I stared at him for a little while, pondering over the fact that I had casually overlooked Jackson Wang. How many other times had I overlooked celebrities here just because I was a dumbfuck?

Blinking a few times I answered, “Uh, yes I am”

He took a seat, keeping both his coffee and his bag down before slightly pulling down his mask and showing me his naked face.

“Hi, I’m Jackson” he said, reaching a hand over to shake mine. “Jinyoung wanted to come himself, but he was called in for some reshooting schedule out of the blue”

I nodded, and Jackson continued, “He wanted to postpone this, but I was free and really tired of being around the company today, so I offered to come instead”

He flashed me a small smile, waiting for me to continue.

“That’s really nice of you” I said, not really knowing how to reply to him.

“So!” Jackson began excitedly, “You’re a university student. You must know good places to eat and relax around here? Oh and a bit incognito too. I’d like to get rid of this mask while I eat”

I told him a couple of places I went to with  my friends when I wanted to have good food and relax at the same time, starting from the ones that weren’t heavy on the pocket at all to the ones us university students had to save up for.

“Ah I almost forgot, here’s your book” Jackson said, retrieving my book from his bag looking almost as good as new.

“Did Jinyoung even read this? It looks so...neat” I noticed. Usually when I let people borrow my books I expected them to come back to me with dog-eared pages, a creased spine and probably some stains on the book.

“Oh he did. He carried it everywhere with him once he started reading. He was addicted” Jackson laughed, remembering Jinyoung obsessively reading the book. I laughed too, knowing exactly how it felt. I had been the same the first time I read this book.

“But Jinyoung is really good with books, especially if he’s borrowing from another nerd” Jackson clarified.

“Did you just call me a nerd?” I asked, tilting my head a little, accusing him.

He laughed, “Nerds are amazing though”

I laughed with him; he was too easy to get along with.

“Well, it was nice to meet you Jackson. And thank you for returning my book” I said, gathering up my things to head back to my dorm.

“Wait, where are you going?” he asked.

I paused for a second before answering him, “Back to my dorm room?”

“I thought we were having lunch?”

“When did we decide that?”

“When you told me all those places we could have food in”

I laughed at him, shaking my head.

“I’m sorry but I really can’t” I began, already sensing a protest on his part, “I’m swamped. I really am. I have like 5 deadlines this month”

“Okay then let me come help you with your work” Jackson offered.

“You don’t have to do that, I can manage my work but a lunch at some fancy place is what I can’t afford”

“I don’t care about a fancy lunch” he confessed. “To be honest with you, I just want to spend some time away from my world right now”

There was something in the way he spoke that made me give in, ordering take out while having someone helping out with my deadlines didn’t seem awful.

“Okay, but you’re paying for takeout. I am as broke as they come right now. And next time, I’ll treat you”

“You don’t have to pay me back” he said, gathering his own things and putting his mask back on.

“Oh I will, just not when I’m this broke”

He shrugged his shoulders, and I led him towards my dorms. I had to sign him in for a visit, and he chose to write his Chinese name instead of Jackson in case anyone recognized it.

And that is how Jackson Wang had practically barged his way into my bedroom the first day the two of us had talked. He had typed one of my assignments for me while I had hand-written another one before ordering takeout from an Italian place nearby. It turned out that we both were fans of watching Korean dramas for the kick of it, and that is what we had done while stuffing our faces with food.

That day was more than two years ago. Jackson had just...never really left since then. He invited himself into my life and put up a camp whether I wanted him to or not; though I have to admit I would be dumb to say no to him being a part of my life.

He was the best friend anyone like me could ever ask for.

“But Mei, its your birthday! We can’t just not do anything!” Jackson was shouting through the phone.

I sighed; the nickname he gave me was so odd it didn’t even make sense. He called me Mei after the little girl in My Neighbour Totoro. Apparently, it fit me perfectly. I didn’t agree with him, at all.

“Why do you insist on calling me that, Jack-Jack?”

Since he was hell bent on calling me Mei, I gave him a nickname after the baby in The Incredibles.

We both loved animated movies too much; it was one of the things we bonded over. There were a lot of differences between me and Jackson, I was never quite sure how we became such close friends. He loved organic food, and on the other hand I would survive on pizza every day if given the chance. He was outgoing while I was happy to be inside my own room. I constantly wondered how I didn’t end up being best friends with Jinyoung instead of Jackson, we had such similar personalities.

“You know I just find that nickname endearing right?”

“And you know that I hate birthdays don’t you?”

“Look, I was physically not here last time around but now that I am, I refuse to let you spend your birthday sitting at home all alone, eating pizza and watching animated movies all day long”

“But I am happy to spend my birthday like this, its like a ritual” I said. I had already made my plans, even perfected a list of movies to watch and in which order to watch them. It being my birthday I knew I could afford to shell out on the fancy pizza instead of the regular ones, maybe even get myself some wine while I was at it.

The last thing I wanted to do was be in a room full of mostly unknown people, piss drunk and celebrate another worthless year of existence.

Birthdays brought out a strange, depressing existentialism in me; it always felt like I was celebrating another year of being closer to death without having actually achieved much of anything. It didn’t help that I didn’t know any other way of celebrating it, I always did what I had planned to do this time.

But Jackson just wouldn’t have it.

“Jackson you know I hate being piss drunk in a suffocating club. I would really rather be home” I said, still hoping he would give in.

“You think I don’t know that? Get ready I’m coming to pick you up in around an hour”

Without waiting for me to respond, Jackson hung up. I sighed at my phone before tossing it on the sofa next to me and returning to my paused movie and the bowl of popcorn I had been eating before Jackson called.

One hour later, just as my movie was drawing close to its end, I hear the doorbell ringing and I knew exactly who it is. I glanced down at myself, still my fluffy onesie with popcorn crumbs all over it.

Not that I cared if Jackson saw me like this, he had seen me in conditions much worse than this. I just knew he would whine at me for still not getting ready like he had asked me to. But its not like he had given me any choice in this situation; I clearly refused to go out for today and he didn’t listen.

I opened the door to see Jackson with a bouquet and a bag in hand.

“You’re not ready” he noticed, opening his arms to hug me anyway.

“I told you I don’t want to party”

He hugged me, mumbling a quiet happy birthday to me before kissing my forehead.

“I got you some books” he said, holding up the bag in his hand. “Mostly they are the ones Jinyoung thought you would like, but I chose some too”

I smiled at him, “Books are my favourite gifts to receive, thank you”

“I remembered, silly girl. Which is why you are going to go get ready and come with me” he said pushing me towards my bedroom.

I groaned, I didn’t exactly want to get out of my comfortable onesie.

“Isn’t this an acceptable piece of clothing?” I asked him, pointing to what I was wearing.

“Not for what I have planned, no. Sorry, Mei. Now go change” he said, once again pushing me towards my bedroom. “I’ll take the liberty of putting these flowers in a vase for you”

I groaned, but did as Jackson asked. Putting o a simple pair of jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt that was definitely a couple of sizes too big for me, I put on the minimum amount of makeup I could get away with. I didn’t want to turn up at a fancy restaurant with my greasy face.

When I stepped outside my bedroom 20 minutes later, Jackson was sitting on the couch shuffling through his phone. He looked up at me when he heard me approaching him and smiled widely

“Perfect! Let’s go”

“You still haven’t told me where you’re taking me”

“Oh I plan to keep it a surprise” he said, holding up a blindfold.

I instantly took a step away from him. “This is too cheesy Jackson, I refuse”

“If you refuse I will catch you and put it on anyway so you may as well help me out” Jackson said, knowing that I knew he was serious about catching me if he had to.

I must have still looked sceptical because Jackson continued, “Look you stubborn little girl, just trust me okay? I won’t take you any place I know you wouldn’t want to be spending your birthday in”

“Fine”

“Grumpy head”

Wherever Jackson was taking me was a short drive away from where my dorms were. I sat in his car, blindfolded and just a little bit grumpy. I didn’t like to do things I didn’t want to do, but I also knew better than to argue with Jackson about this. He was just as stubborn as me, and if he had planned something for me I knew it wouldn’t be something I would absolutely loathe.

I felt Jackson stopping the car and turning off the ignition, indicating that we had reached out destination.

“Can I take this off now?” I asked quickly.

“Okay” was all I got as a response.

I was quick to undo the light knot Jackson had tied behind my head and removed the blindfold, blinking a couple of times to adjust to my surroundings. I looked around, trying to decipher our whereabouts when it suddenly hit me.

We were outside the little lane which led to my favourite barbeque restaurant. I turned to my left, noticing the all familiar lane, and the restaurant sign just outside of it.

This was the restaurant I had brought Jackson to after a month of knowing him to repay him for paying for the takeout the first time we had spent time together. It wasn’t anything fancy, it was a small restaurant owned by an old lady, but the food was made with the kind of love and care you only expected to find at home.

I had later told Jackson, on one slightly drunk night, that whenever I missed home and the few friends I had back there I always went to that restaurant. It had a strange feeling of homeliness that made my life easier for a little bit.

“You...You brought me here” I turned to look at Jackson, fighting to keep my tears at bay.

I didn’t want to be overly emotional, but the fact that out of all the places he had brought me to my favourite barbeque restaurant made it difficult to not be. I extended my arms towards him, Jackson immediately responding by leaning in to hug me back.

“See, I told you I wouldn’t take you some place you wouldn’t like. But there’s more surprises, let’s go”

He led me inside, where I saw the entire restaurant was empty, barring the few people I honestly would want there if I was hosting this party myself. Jaebum had brought some seaweed soup his mother had very kindly made for my birthday, while Bambam was in charge of the cake.

“It’s that rainbow cake you love, Noona. Jackson hyung especially made us leave early to go get it” he proudly announced.

Jinyoung was there with a bunch of stationery, him knowing better than anyone how obsessed I was with stationery, and Youngjae had brought Coco along with him.

“Jackson hyung told me that if I let you cuddle with Coco you would be happier than any gift anyone could get you” Youngjae said, apologising for not buying you a real gift.

“Well, he wasn’t wrong. This is the best gift” I said, picking Coco up and cuddling her. 

Mark hugged me, handing me a Starbucks gift card.

“I am proud to say Jackson did not, in fact, micro manage this gift” Mark said.

I laughed, and thanked him for his gift. Everyone knew about my obsession for coffee, but Mark understood it.

Jackson had even called in to make an excuse at work for my only friend from back home who lived in Seoul to be able to attend the lunch.

He had made everyone, even Jaebum, wear disgusting birthday hats. They sang me a quick birthday song as I cut the cake and blew out the one candle that Yugyeom had managed to bring.

When we all settled down, Jackson leaned in and whispered, “Oh and by the way Mei, I am staying back all night to have a Harry Potter marathon while we order takeout again”

“Jackson Wang, my knight in a black mask”

“You know you don’t have to spend your birthdays all alone anymore, right?”

I smiled at him, keeping my head on his shoulder as we waited for our food to arrive.

After the lunch, true to his word, Jackson took me back home with some extra bottles of soju and stayed the night with me. We binge ate everything I had planned on eating all alone while watching Harry Potter all night long; like Jackson had said, I didn’t have to spend my birthdays alone anymore. I had a clingy best friend who would always be there to take care of me, and do everything with me that I had always done all alone, even the binge eating non-organic food for one night no matter how much he was against it.

 And for the first time in however long back I could remember, I didn’t turn another year older despising my birthday.