#Agonized a lot about what shit ass opinion to post and ended up with this

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

🔥🥺? Hiiiii btw<3

Hiiii!!!!!!

Opinion- Werewolves are much cooler than vampires however neither of them are as cool as Dullahan (which are frankly underrated), Mermaids (specifically deep sea fucked up monster mermaids) and Dragons.

[deadlockorignalfilms]

I wrote a really long thing about my opinions on the different adaptations of Hunter x Hunter for my personal Facebook

Since I spent like an hour on it and realized no one was going to read it, I decided I should probably post it somewhere else that no one would read it as well

I used to post my stupid art opinions on Tumblr a lot, before I realized that they were stupid and nothing I said made sense

Also I have, like, two friends now, who listen to what I have to say, which is something that I didn't have before. Now it seems like a horrible idea to post my bad takes on my COMPANY'S social media, because I can just say dumb shit to my friends in private instead of screaming nonsense into the void until somebody inevitably ratios me when I say something stupid enough

Anyway here's this dumb word vomit

-----

So far the 1999 Hunter Hunter has been immeasurably better than 2011. Absolutely no contest, completely blows the later version out of the water

except in one regard

Having seen both versions, I think they kind of weren't able to do Heaven's Arena Justice in the original show.

Aside from the most obvious problem, that the hisoka vs kastro fight is completely removed in the original adaptation, 1999's more dark, lethargic and Atmospheric Vibe doesn't really mix well with the fun tournament Arc it's trying to adapt. It kind of just ends up being boring. which is a real shame

The 2011 version has a lot of problems of it's own in the heavens arena section but it gets the tone right. the biggest problem in 2011 being that the show seems unwilling to animate a good fight scene for most of the first 76 episodes. so the fights, the main things that happen during a tournament arc, are really underwhelming.

It kind of seems like Madhouse was so dead set on keeping the characters on model at all times that they had trouble moving them around too much, or having them do anything exciting at all? (until the Chimera ant Arc, when the show gets a lot more High effort). That's just a theory though, I have no idea why 2011's animation is so underwhelming for the first 76 episodes. (The less charitable interpretation is that maybe they just decided not to put any effort in until the Chimera ant arc, because that was the only section they actually WANTED to do, and they were doing the rest of the show out of obligation)

Another problem with 2011 is that the scenes where the characters are introducing the magic system to the audience for the first time are really half-assed, boringly staged with flat angles and no dynamic cinematography or lighting. I should be feeling wonder and amazement but instead I'm just looking at a cup in a boring hotel room while standard OST track 3 plays for the fifth time this episode. So much wonder, much Whimsy

But in spite of those problems, the more adventurous, upbeat and exciting tone of the 2011 version matches this particular story a little bit better then the dreary berserk-like tone of the previous adaptation. Madhouse didn't put anywhere near as much effort in as Nippon Animation did,

( outside of gon vs hisoka there's almost no good great fight animation. the scenes of gon fighting the guy with the dreidels are especially bad, especially in comparison to shows like Naruto Shippuden that regularly have exhilarating fights, with the trade off being that the higher frame rate means that they can't always keep the characters on model )

but at least it's more fun to watch and in the end that's the most important thing

(except for the agonizing nen explanation scenes in flatly lit hotel rooms, which are just unbearably bad in 2011)

Also since I'll probably never have another opportunity to bring this up

While I'm complaining about the 2011 version of Hunter x Hunter

Why is it so horny?

Specifically, why is there so much fan service?

The 1999 version isn't like that, the manga isn't like that from what I've seen, but any time there's a female character on screen madhouse animate jiggle physics for no reason

When chairman and Menchi are having a conversation in the 2011 version, for absolutely no reason they decided to add a moment where the chairman stops listening to her and just stares at her tits. As far as I can tell that doesn't happen in any other version

When stuff like that happens it really just kind of feels like they were bored with the show that they were making.

I'm sorry you didn't like making this show, I also wish somebody else had done it because then maybe it would have turned out good 😕 (well it does get good, almost 100 episodes in)

The pre-chimera-arc good parts of the madhouse Hunter x Hunter are the parts where Togahi's storytelling is so good that it shines through the lackluster adaptation. which to me seems like the ultimate proof that they did a shit job. Since the average anime adaptation is very faithful to the source material, the one job that the adaptation is supposed to fulfill is to elevate the story through movement, cinematography, music, voice acting, and editing. Madhouse doesn't do that until the final Arc, up until that point it's just going through the motions, in cartoon form.

[victimized-martyr]

1, 3, 8, 15, 26

1. where do you fall on the kyman scale? mountain, tie, or pine?

uhhh I’m assuming this is fandom-jargon for top/bottom?? or who’s taller?? more dominant ?? actually lol I still have no idea what these mean sorry, I’m a baby in this fandom. sorry i can’t answer this, idk 😭

3. where/when/why/how do they get together?

lol thats a whole ass fic just begging to be written. My opinion will probably change, and these two are so unpredictable fr so WHO KNOWS how they’ll end up together, if they ever do. Will be an absolute miracle fr. But here’s my attempt:

Where- somewhere private, just them two. Could be either of their rooms, stark’s pond, the woods, hell maybe @ a U-store it.

When- the EARLIEST I can see them get together, is their last years of high school. Otherwise, sometime after college. Not during college… I think the boys’ career paths will divulge and all 4 of them won’t be able to hang as often. They adjust from the definition of friendship from childhood to adulthood lol. So, it makes the most sense to me they get together as adults. I’m talkin, they’re in their early thirties.

why-follow up to above^ Kyle and Cartman are doing… fine in their lives. Bills are being paid, they each have a job, but Kyle stays in south park because firstly, growing up with the debt of the entire city fucks up Kyle’s credit, and also he stays out of obligation to his family (and hey! he doesn’t have to worry about buying a house), and on a deeper level… he doesn’t know what to do with himself. with the boys out of south park, he’s never learned how to live outside those relationships. What are his hobbies? Who is he? What does he want? Cartman, meanwhile, is a wild card. He could be in another country, maybe he’s working in denver as a freelance photographer, maybe he went to los ángeles to do something with his talent, maybe he got stuck in South Park too, taking care of Liane and feeling trapped because she doesn’t have anyone else in south park and damnit Cartman’s a moma’s boy through and through. No matter what Cartman does though, he feels hollow.

Kyle and Cartman learn from their time apart that outside of their fights, they value each other’s company. There’s a mutual intensity, a fierce competitiveness that stimulates their brains, a deep bond that they can’t shake off. They’ve been obsessed with each other since they were in diapers…. they don’t have a choice in staying together in SOME proximity to function. It’s vital to their survival.

how- it’s NOT over a peaceful dinner or a lazy day of hangin with the bros that’s for sure lol. It’s south park. They can’t get a moment’s peace and nothing will ever be mundane. I imagine that it takes a large scale event, laden with toilet jokes or a matter of politics, or some wacky hijinks, where they nearly lose each other.

Kyle has a realization he agonizes over for days on end “holy shit I need this motherfucker in my life like goddamn oxygen, no way, no fucking way, HIM???”

with Cartman, things just kinda click. It’s painful acceptance of what’s been there probably since the beginning. It’s a lot to handle. Prolly to the point he actually develops a fever over it and whines like a diva. “Oh.. all those sexual fantasies of Kyle make so much sense… I’m never going after anyone else that’s not Kyle. Kyle Kyle Kyle!!! Oh god, I want Kyle! It’s always been Kyle!”

8. who is the breadmaker? (follow-up question, who’s the stay-home dad?)

hm… their futures are very muddy to me rn. To paraphrase Kyle in Mexican Joker, the decisions the characters make *right now* affect the future…Post Covid and Future Me’s endings support this idea, that the slightest decision can like, alter an entire career path and character development.

With the direction Matt and Trey are taking Cartman and Kyle as of Streaming Wars, Kyle would definitely be the bread maker. not that Cartman’s lazy (he is, but Kyle would NOT let him be), but because his ambitions change from day to day. As a result his career path will likely not be as conventional (so in Kyle eyes, unstable lol). Cartman, as he’s acting right now, would be absolutely content as a stay at home dad. He’d get to tap into that hedonism left over from childhood “I hardly have to lift a finger! If I want the newest X-box, my hubby Kahl will get it for me 💞”

no matter what role Cartman will take though, he WILL want to be in a position of authority. Be it a Ceo, or director, head detective..even as a stay at home dad, he WILL fight the Becky’s and Karen’s to be THE director of HOA in his town. He WILL be obnoxious about it too and probably integrate aspects of that job into his personality like he did being a rabbi in PC jfjfkgk (seriously who on earth screams about their love of abraham while having sex. Fuckin Werido. He might’ve changed for the better but Cartman definitely let it go to his head hhfhfh he integrates his interests into every aspect of himself, even foreplay. like goddamn Mattrey u made a freak fr)

15. headcanon heights and body types?

basically what we have in canon!

Kyle is the tallest (6’2) and the skinniest, no matter how much he eats. his jersey side keeps him from ever appearing lanky. I imagine he’s got very nice toned legs.

I do believe on some level Cartman IS big boned, so no matter what he might do to lose weight, he’ll always appear “big”. But of course, Cartman is nothing without his blubber, so he’s fat forever in my eyes. I think Cartman’s got a pear shaped body where a lot of his fat just goes to his mid section and ass (indeed, there is truth in his moniker), but was graced with the cherubic looks of his mom, so as he grows up, not a lot of fat goes to his chin. In fact, he’s got a well defined face. Any trace of chub is stored in is his cheeks. He’s a short lil guy (5’6)

26. why do you ship kyman?

Oh god… this is such a loaded question 😭 where do I begin?

in part, I truly can’t see them with anyone else. Does that make sense? Like, heiman arc and Cartman Finds Love showed us that Cartman and Kyle will sabotage each other’s romantic relationships and make it about each other. The gf becomes white noise, or worse, a prop in their fight. I pity any woman that dares come between them.

I also ship them because they have such an electric, rich and iconic dynamic. It’s one of the pillars of the show. There’s literally never a dull moment with them, all their interactions, be it simply playing a game and smiling at each other, teasing each other on the playground, running washington redskins, playing airsoft as a broship, is such a delight to watch.

As I said in the Why section of the ask, they complete each other in ways they might never come to terms with, but is super obvious to the audience nonetheless. They stimulate each other, there’s no one else that can bring out like, every single human emotion as intensely as kyle and cartman do with each other.

also, I ship kyman bc canon dumptrucked all this cosmic shit. They saved each other’s lives unknowingly, they’re the only ones in town to share the same fuckin blood type and kidney, like broh this shit is writing itself I’m just here for the ride.

[bangtanbeforebitches]

The Fall was a Trip - Take 1

An Original work written, produced, storyboarded, edited, agonized over and owned by: bangtanbeforebitches

Starring: Min Yoongi and Actor YN/Reader (from a purposely POC perspective) with guest appearances by everyone else you know and love.

Genre: Bangtan is Bangtan-verse AU, Rom-Com, Interracial Relationship Navigation, Strangers to Lovers, Quick but Slow Burn, Star-Crossed Lovers, Story within a Story, POC POV, K-Drama Indulgent on all fronts

Themes/Warnings: Heavy issues, Honest discussions, Things people probably don’t want to hear, Ridiculous run-ons for the fuck of it, 4th wall breaking, Inner monologue rants, YN is EXTRA AF, Mentions of racism, Childhood trauma resurfacing, Mentions of anxiety, Dangerous situations, a Shit-ton of swearing, Drinking, Probably smut at some point down the line, Some hopefully not so confusing script breakdowns, Usage of basic film and stage production terminology, Excessive flirtation (but Jimin doesn’t count), Fluff on Fluff on Fluff, Smooth moves, Lots of awkward moments, YN is a klutz, Sweetness to rot your teeth, Mood Swings, Denial of emotions, and at some point after therapy- Acceptance.

Format: Multi-chapter, ongoing WIP

Word count: currently 17k

Rating: Explicit, Minors are advised to not pass GO. 18+

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have zero clue WTF I'm doing. I have never been to South Korea-- SO! All the places, references and pretty much everything in this hot mess of a daydream is to be taken as FANTASY. Non-reality based, peoples. Secondly, I would like to say that a lot of the material and conversations and opinions you'll find in these pages have been pulled from my last relationship (8 years with a Korean man- SK born but definitely American as all get out) and my ongoing friendships with his family members both living here and there. I just ask them random ass questions and try my best to not let on that i'm asking for BTS fan fic purposes... cause I would never hear the end of it. Big shout outs to my besties @vyduan and @inkbluelily for pumping me with constant encouragement and hyping me up to do the impossible... actually post. ]

---------- Flashback to the beginning, Two years ago --

Navigating the streets in Seoul had finally started to become second nature.

Thank goodness.

Working up the guts to approach a local and ask for help had always tended to be hit or miss. Either people feigned not being able to understand your Korean, pretended to not know any English (though you had heard them speaking it just seconds before) or they completely ignored your pleas for help and started asking you a dozen rapid fire questions about your hair.

So many hair questions.

It's a constant thing here.

You understand the curiosity. Your curls are on point and frankly, pretty damn fabulous. But people apparently have a negative grasp on the concept of personal space when it comes to foreigners, yet they heed to the utmost levels of hesitation and bodily respect when it comes to physical contact with one another.

But a black girl trying to find the shoe repair shop that’s supposed to be on the corner?

What do her boundaries matter?

One second it's "Oh! You're so dark!" and then that phrase is (9 times out of 10) immediately followed by a darting hand grasping for those shiny springs of kinky wonder and magic.

You’re used to it. No offense taken because… let's be real. You would be offended all the time if you let silly things like their inquisitiveness get to you like that.

And the people here always seem so shocked when they realize you’re able to speak a bit of their language. You assume it’s mostly because they realize that you can understand what they’ve been saying about you in front of your face. Some apologize. Some don’t. Some just politely backpedal and compliment you for attempting to learn Korean at all.

You’re not by any means fluent just yet. You’ve got the basic Seoul dialect pronunciation down but still have a terrible grasp of the grammar structure... but, hey.

At least you try.

----------

You crossed the last congested intersection, a smile stretching across your face while (not) blending in with the flock of despondent souls en route to start the work day. You all, like bees in a swarm, buzzed through the landscaped courtyard, past the lunch stands prepping their menus and tents for service in the afternoon. You, in your merry mood, took a moment to beam up at the massive (and massively intimidating) building that stretched skyward in front of you.

You were lucky enough to have been offered a position as a production assistant at KBSMedia around eleven months ago. It's afforded you opportunities that you could only have dreamed of back home stateside. At the price of your loneliness? Totally, but still very much worth it in the long run. You’ve met countless Korean celebrities, idols, been a part of the crew for two hit drama programs and now, (a drumroll seems fitting here--) finally.

This glorious, low dust and pollutant filled air-quality morning marks day one of a new chapter for both your career and your status within the company ranks.

It's almost unheard of.

Seriously. It’s maybe the second or third time in Korean broadcasting history. You still get a little choked up at the thought of it all.

Today is the day in which you will take a rightfully-earned, long-awaited and over-due, monumental first step on that path leading to a place in front of a camera lens and into the spotlight.

You.

A [COUGH] relatively young, black, American woman.

Here.

In one of the palest countries a person could possibly imagine.

Halfway--

No.

Literally on the other side of the planet.

When the network gave the “OK” for your director's "out of left field" idea to cast you (he personally delivered the news to you with many air quotes and hand gestures) in this thought provoking, meticulously scripted and groundbreaking role… to say that you were shocked would be the understatement of the century.

All the same, you were beyond grateful for the opportunity and more than ready.

Ready to play the best damn "comic-relief roommate of the female lead who basically only says 'Annyeonghaseyo' from the apartment couch, usually with an absurd amount of food in her mouth, providing visual gags with charm and conveying affection and friendly support for the main character" that the South Korean film industry has ever seen.

You even get to improv.

In your pocket are two degrees to backup your talent. You majored in Theatre (with a concentration in Acting) and then continued your graduate studies while pursuing your dreams in New York and rotating through multiple (expensive) performance and film classes.

Cliche.

You are aware.

How you’ve ended up doing so much dang production work, you’re not one hundred percent sure. You had come to realize after hearing "No, but thank you for your time today" so much that that must just be the nature of the business in the most competitive audition field in entertainment.

They say, “You get in where you fit in and you fake it till you make it”.

Even if that mantra takes you across the globe.

----------

"Annyeong, ____-ah! How was your weekend?"

"Lonesome but productive. Just studied at home and dreamt about all the chicken and beer nights I’m going to miss at your place from now on. I’m pretty much off book, though. So, there’s that,” you shrugged and smiled with a wiggle of your dark brows. “How's she coming along, ah jeo-ssi?"

This “older” man, your friend, was the single nicest soul at KBS.

Seung Woo was the daytime front desk security guard. He prefers the term security agent so the position sounds more stealthy and cool. He likes to give off a Bond vibe while working and wears a full suit most days. Steamed creases and all, courtesy of his wife.

It is not required for him to be this extra, that’s for sure.

But this guy, right here? He knows just about every employee in the building. Just like the classic, dashing spy would in a blockbuster movie. He sees all. Knows all. Only really likes a few of these ‘show-biz’ types that pass him by without so much as giving him eye contact (which is how you bonded) but for some reason he took to taking care of you like an uncle, more so than a big brother.

It’s sweet considering if you were back in America you would be considered practically the same age, but here at work? You love getting to use the formal honorifics. You can tell he appreciates the respect.

Though, when off the clock he will enforce the “oppa” card.

Which you enjoy far less.

Because cringe.

He only bests you by a few years. He recently turned 34, but it’s 35 when tracking his life span the Korean way.

You’re turning 31 this fall.

And that’s a good, old-fashioned (or possibly “good new-fashioned”, because honestly? What the hell do you know? You’re still just a kid in the grand scheme of things if you consider the current average life expectancy of an active, healthy, non-smoking, adult female like yourself...)

So, yeah. The point? Right.

You’re turning a plain ol’, solid, traditional for the western hemisphere, starting post-utero, only counting from your first breath, “don’t anyone dare think about adding an extra digit to your years if they value having all of their teeth and toes”-- 31.

You’re clinging to your youth with all you’ve got. Both hands. Maybe your thighs too. You weren’t blessed with this melanin-infused baby face for nothing.

And you were grateful for Seung Woo’s face, just the same. When you started, there was a good stretch when he was the only smile you’d come across until it was time to clock out and head home to FaceTime with your family. You’ve had a friendly banter going ever since your first day when you swiped your ID for clearance through the shiny turnstiles. You’ve been helping him and his partner learn more English in exchange for the daily lessons on how to survive in this building and in this country. You would've given up here long ago if not for his advice and their friendship.

"She's getting bigger by the second. Look," he said and deftly whipped his phone out of it's holster on his hip to show off his wonderfully pregnant spouse.

Yea, he really uses one of those belt clips. The last time you saw one was on your father.

Despite this fashion faux pas, Seung Woo was still handsome as all get-out and a total DILF in the making.

His wife, Chaeyeong, was a former idol who fell for his charismatic smile and bashful eyes whenever she had a schedule at the studios. She had been caught making eyes at him by a photog one too many times (aka, one time) and when her group's contract was up for renewal, she and her company “mutually decided to part ways so that she could pursue other endeavors outside of the pressures from the spotlight that comes with idoldom”.

Or at least that was the story DSP’s PR team came up with in the statement they dropped to the media. In reality, they didn’t want to bother dealing with the dating rumors and Chae didn’t think staying was worth an innocent man with a beautiful heart being dragged through the mud by netizens. So, she jumped ship and went for it. Now, she’s one of the co-hosts on a variety program where they dish out love advice to viewers and she’s been embraced by (most of) the public for following her heart.

While she may be widely considered the prize of the pair to the untrained eye, personally, you think she's a smart young lady for taking him off the market.

Because that man treats her like a queen.

"She's simply radiant, Seung Woo-ssi."

"Thanks, I know,” he said, clipping his phone back into place. “We couldn't handle it anymore and we found out the gender Saturday. I wanted to tell you in person."

"We couldn’t handle it?” you snickered.

“Fine. Me.”

“There you go,” you nodded and smacked his back affectionately. “You made it to 8 months. Honestly, I’m shocked."

This was how you guys worked.

He laughed, ignoring your snide tone, not the least bit put off by your jab about his lack of patience. It was an indisputable fact. You prompted him to continue with a light tap to his arm. "Well?"

His exuberance shined all the way up to his glistening eyes and it felt as though it would burst through the top of his head like the bat signal.

He truly beamed. It was almost blinding.

"Really? It’s a boy?!"

"I could cry!" Seung Woo was unable to contain himself, his body bobbing on the balls of his feet. Any more force and he would actually be jumping for joy, if you will. It was disgustingly cute. He had been praying their first child would be a boy.

Most men over here seem to want male heirs.

“Could cry?” you gave him a look of disbelief, grinning.

He met your eyes. There was no way he could hold out. His whole body sighed in defeat.

“I did cry.”

“That all?”

You placed your hands on each of his shoulders to pull him down closer for inspection. You leaned in towards his face with your dark eyes, sharp as a blade, cutting him deep for the real story.

Which you basically had the gist of already. There were many texts from Chae earlier this morning requesting that you keep an eye on her emotional hubby and asking you for confirmation that he was okay once you spoke to him. She was careful not to spoil the news of the appointment. Though Chaeyeong was your friend too, she knew this would be something that he would want to share with you first.

“Ok, fine. So, I cried. A lot. Aish, I couldn’t stop crying. I cried like a baby. Snotty gross crying. All weekend. At the drop of hat ever since we found out. I couldn’t even start the car leaving the doctor’s and Chae-Chae had to drive us home from the office. She made me take the bus today to be safe because she didn’t trust me to not break down in traffic if a stroller passed me at a stoplight. I only just pulled myself together a few hou-- minutes ago before you got here after sobbing at the bus stop, sobbing at the breakfast truck, sobbing at my locker and sobbing in the bathroom. I had to run out before the team pre-shift meeting because-- surprise, surprise!-- I was a mess when Hee-hyung brought up his son’s birthday party yesterday. I’ve had to go back to the bathroom twice since then just because a baby in overalls and a shark hat was carried by the desk. I’m doing my best with every breath that I take not to scream it out at the top of my lungs that my beautiful wife that I don’t deserve is giving me a son and I feel like the king of the world!! Happy?!”

Seung Woo inhaled deeply and you snorted and clapped your hands.

"CONGRATULATIONS!!"

He let out a sort of squeal-like sound at that and the two of you bounced together in a tiny circle, your celebration possibly a little bit too buoyant for the employees passing by you, drawing attention and some passersby grimacing in your direction. Remembering your place, you broke apart, him coughing into his fist to cover his proud simper and you took to readjusting his jacket and tie.

"I can't wait to come down later and chat but I can't be late today,” you said as you brushed his shoulder off and then pounded that fist that he was now stretching out to you.

“You’re going to kill it, ____-ah.”

“Thanks, Woo-ssi. Oh, and I definitely want a copy of that new ultrasound for my refrigerator!" you stage-whispered loudly to him as you took a blind step back and then started to skip backwards towards the parallel lines of elevators. The lobby around you was noticeably more clear than just a few moments ago. Seung Woo was deep in his own world, pulling out his wallet to stare at the black and white blob of a photo of his unborn.

You paused to watch him fondly before skipping backwards some more.

"We need to take a picture of all three of us, you know. Or I guess now it’s four!!--”

Man down.

Well… "Woman down".

Wait--

Nope. "Man down", too.

You had taken a hostage to the floor with you and he was trapped under your flailing limbs and coif of curls.

"OH! Oh my God, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!" you stammered over and over as you attempted dismounting the lap of the man you had fallen on top of so gracefully.

Obviously, that is a lie.

There was nothing graceful about this moment.

"I'm so sorry! I wasn't watching where I was going and I was just so excited for my friend and--"

A set of hands gripped your waist tightly to steady you and before you could register that they were connected to the person beneath you, Seung Woo's arms were under your own and helping to lift you onto your feet.

Once up on your shaking stems, you immediately hitched your body into a bow towards the gentleman on the marble tile.

This was embarrassing.

And awkward.

You were all of the “awkward”.

All of it.

Every little bit of what comes together to define that which is “awkward”?

That’s you.

Right now.

And your anxiety will probably never let you forget it.

You’ll be at your wedding about to say “I do”-- or maybe this will leave you shook when you’re cutting your cake and you drop a chunk of buttercream on the floor-- so you look down to make sure you missed your dress-- and that’s when you notice the fake marble dance floor sticker tiles and they look just like this floor that you’re staring at right now-- but your fiance had insisted on them because he’s a “classy guy but cheap” and the vendor gave you a discount because he was Korean and you could speak his language fairly well-- he was actually a really nice guy-- but you’ll see it and panic-- and so you close your eyes and have a PTSD-like flashback of these painful minutes-- but when you squeeze your eyes tighter to clear the images everything is suddenly moving in slo-mo-- and now you’re back to when you were 30 and thriving and living in a foreign country-- and your big, dumb ass just had to knock down an innocent stranger-- and you’ll remember rendering him paralyzed, mute and deaf in his left ear from the concussive impact of his head smacking that cold, hard floor-- which led you to losing your work visa, your chance at an acting career, and you were thrown in jail before being shipped back to the United States in a packing crate in the luggage hull of an airplane-- next to a gassy dog and what you think was an unmarked box of snakes… on a plane.

Or much later in life, you’re going to be old and gray-- but probably with no wrinkles because you never had a reason to smile after this-- and you’ll probably be in a cheap and poorly rated nursing home-- with no friends or family who care about you left in the world-- eating questionable cream of corn soup that is neither sweet nor salty-- just no flavor at all-- and it’s definitely not supposed to be green-- and your teeth will be in a cup on the nightstand next to both your hot pink and your purple SMTWTFS pill popper packs that are stuffed with enough meds to kill a giraffe-- and the nurse on meal service will have forgotten your lime jello and cup of ice AGAIN-- and you will STILL be able to feel the tightness in your chest from this amount of awkward embarrassment that you’re currently feeling in this moment-- and you will STILL be able to replay this memory on repeat in your mind like it happened hours and not years ago-- and it will be in full 186,405K resolution-- which is quadruple HD clarity… because that will be a thing by then.

And when your time comes and you think you can finally be rid of this memory, you’ll be born again-- and you’ll be plagued with flashes of this moment in your dreams in your next life-- and you won’t recognize the faces in the scene but you’ll for HELLA SURE know that that shit looked embarrassing as fuck-- and you’ll probably pay for lots of therapy trying to deal with the nightmares-- until you give up and try to recreate the dream-- and then the cycle of trauma will start again.

Ahem.

Very visibly trembling, you dropped to your knees and clasped your hands in front of you, bending your forehead down to meet them. You couldn't bring yourself to make eye contact with the face of your victim. It’s not like you would have been able to see him from your current angle even if you did look up, what-- with all of your hair blocking your view, but still you didn’t dare.

You heard what you assumed were his hands dusting himself off as his companions helped him up off of the floor. They were all chuckling while looking him over to make sure he was alright. You only had a sliver sized peek of multiple sneakers, some bulky ass boots and loafers with the owner’s heels hanging out, ruining the back of the expensive looking shoes.

That should be considered a crime, even if your feet do look that smooth.

"I can't believe-- I'm so sorry! I'm such an idiot. It'll never happen again. I'll watch where I'm going and be more careful, I swear! I'm so very, very sorry!” you apologized as a man stepped between you and the small crowd of people. You stared at the tile with fear-filled, wide eyes and could almost feel his shadow that cast over you. It matched your darkened spirits that were sending you into a spiral of panic.

You peeked up at the man and stuttered at the sheer width of him. He was wearing all black (or at least his pants, shoes and socks) and he was much larger than you. Very much larger than you. “Is- is he hurt? Oh god, I'll g-get a medic and I can pay for the b-bill. It's the least I should do, right?”

Receiving no response more than his unreadable face, you righted yourself up on to your knees and with a flip, tamed your curls out of your vision, smoothing them back into what you hoped was a presentable style. You contemplated what was going to come of you while fixing the neckline of your blouse and then rubbed your hands nervously over your thighs. You were still unable to see past the man in front of you, as his thighs were in your direct line of sight and thick as hell.

You looked up at him the way you had as a child while awaiting punishment in Catholic School, and he mirrored Sister Agnes’ scowl down upon you to a tee. There was no wooden ruler rapping against his palm. So, with scant confidence in your muscles to assist you, you instead rose from the floor aided by Seung Woo’s shaky hand.

He must’ve been thrown by the accident as well. For a guy trained and trusted to protect and defend people in a crisis, he’s got the nerves of a mouse.

Broad, RBF-man then turned, giving you his back and you read “SECURITY” across his jacket. You stilled in place from his profile as he glared at you over his shoulder and scoffed with a tilt up of his sharp chin.

Hold up. Was that “in disgust”? Seriously?

In your heels you were still a few inches shy of being able to see over this wall of a man as he spat a curse at you.

“Yah, this wasn’t assault or anything. Just an accident,” you looked up in distress, holding your one elbow while the hand of that cradled arm palmed the side of your face. You rolled your eyes and rubbed your temple. “Who is this guy, Woo-ssi?”

He didn’t answer. He was holding his radio earpiece, listening to a call. More than likely about the commotion you had caused. This was not what you needed before your big day. It felt like a bad omen.

“Did I break something, sir? I can drive you to the hospital!” you cupped your hands around your mouth to project past the linebacker blocking you and over the murmur of multiple voices.

“Oppa, I'll need to borrow your car or-- Ah, shit! Of all days for you to take the bus,” you groaned and rubbed both temples.

You whipped your head to Seung Woo as he gasped.

“What? I’m sorry. I was just kidding,” you said as he nodded along to his com. “That was rude of me.”

Having been facing you during the majority of this time, making sure that you were alright and then waving along the nominal foot traffic, Seung Woo redirected his attention to the crowd behind him. He let go of his ear-piece and started to shake his head back and forth rapidly, his face and neck paling. He clasped a palm tightly to his mouth.

“I was in the bathroom crying. I missed the briefing…” he mumbled through his fingers.

“Briefing?”

“I’m sorry, ____-ah. Don’t hit me later, please.”

“No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I swear, I’m sorry-- I’m sorry-- I’m sorry-- I’m sorry to everyone!!"

"Please stop apologizing."

That voice was new.

There were giggles.

Male giggles.

“And for the love of God-- HYUNG! I’m fine. Stop touching my pants. Cut it out already, guys.”

That voice.

You knew that voice.

You had heard it somewhere, at least a million times before, you were sure, but you couldn't pinpoint exactly from where. You hesitantly took a step towards the MIB in front of you just as his figure took a step to the side.

This cannot be your life.

[arlingtonpark]

SNK 133 Review

Kiss my ass, @ghostmartyr​! I’m not a bullheaded moron like you! Now I

Oh, the chapter’s out and they already posted.

...

>.<

Attack on Titan is about people who chase their dreams.

Everyone has a dream that motivates them and pushes them forward.

Eren’s dream of freedom.

Armin’s intellectual curiosity.

Mikasa’s love of Eren.

Connie’s desire to honor his mom’s memory.

Jean’s desire to honor Marco’s memory.

Levi’s desire to honor Erwin’s memory.

Reiner’s dream to amount to something.

Etc.

Everyone has a dream, and they throw themselves into hell to attain it.

Eren betrays his friends and murders humanity.

Mikasa, Armin, Connie, and Jean kill their fellow countrymen to get this far.

Levi got blown up, but he’s still kicking. He’s cheated death and he’s ready to fight with only some fingers left on him.

Reiner, like Eren, also betrayed his friends and (tried to) murder them all.

They do this because they see something on the other side. A light at the end of the tunnel.

Is it their wildest dreams come true?

Or is it another hell?

The only people who know are the ones who push on through.

What the series has to say on this is that chasing your dreams, at best, is a messy affair.

Maybe, after you’ve stepped on God knows how many people, you’ve reached your dreams only for the reality to fall flat compared to your fantasies.

Or maybe your dream wasn’t so great to start with, and by the time you’ve realized, it’s too late.

In SNK, characters are never really rewarded for chasing their dreams. They either fail completely or have their dream corrupted right in front of them.

When Kenny spoke about dreams to Levi, he compared them to enslavement or, alternately, alcoholism.

Setting the nihilism implicit in that aside…

In this chapter, the dream the characters are chasing, especially Mikasa, is the hope of getting the old Eren back.

Whether or not Eren truly is different from his old self, or he’s just showing his true colors, the point is that his friends believe the Eren they know is in there somewhere and they can bring him back by talking to him.

So they end up in PATHS realm and see Eren in the distance.

They chase after him and call to him.

When they get closer, they can see it’s child!Eren, the Eren they know and love.

Not the violent murderer, but the innocent, rambunctious twerp.

They struggle towards him, to the light at the end of the tunnel, but the closer they get.

 The farther he is.

Getting a closer look, they see his eyes are blackened.

This scene is geared more towards Mikasa, but the underlying principle is the same for everyone.

The Eren they know was never real. He was a figment of their imagination: the result of their attempt to make out an object too far to see.

He was always like this. A violent murderer.

…

Like, no shit.

Can we just admit that Eren and Mikasa are in an abusive relationship already?

Eren saved Mikasa.

Mikasa and her OG fam were living a nice rustic life. They had a log cabin and subsisted off the fat of the land. (Because they were in hiding from the lynch mobs)

Her parents were murdered, and but Eren saved her.

She would be a slave right now if it weren’t for that, and she would’ve been an orphan if the Jeagers hadn’t taken her in.

She was a helpless kid with no home or family.

So the Jeager household became her new home, and Eren became her new family.

But it turns out the kid who went on his own to vigilante kill some slavers was a real trouble maker!

Eren acts without thinking. He’s A Guy With An Opinion And No Filter. He spoke his mind, got bullied, and picked fights with bullies; come what may.

Mikasa played a big role in her own rescue, but she still credits Eren with rescuing her. She wants to pay that debt.

Eren was a dumb, rambunctious twerp, but he still wrapped a scarf around her, so it was only fair.

That’s just how it is with Eren and Mikasa.

Eren gets into trouble and Mikasa bails him out.

Eren brought her to a new home in one piece, so she’s going to bring him home in one piece too, no matter how often or how bad it gets.

That’s how love works, right?

…Right?

No.

It’s not.

Eren’s a literal child this chapter, but he’s not the only child there.

After 133 chapters, Mikasa still thinks she and Eren are kids in Shighanshina.

“Welp, Eren’s went and got himself in trouble again, gotta bail him out!”

She still thinks it’s her job to bring him home in one piece. Eren is the one causing the trouble as much as anything else, but the dynamic is the same: bad shit happens involving Eren, Mikasa protects him.

But the truth is when your family gets in trouble involving murder, genocide, and revolution, it’s not your job to bail them out.

You don’t owe them that.

Eren is a grown ass adult now. He’s his own person who can do what he wants.

As Eren himself says in this chapter, he is free.

Mikasa is a grown ass adult too, and the final challenge for her character, I hope, is realizing this and what it means.

When Eren was a kid, he’d get into trouble and Mikasa would bail him out. That’s a fine dynamic for kids to have.

But adults?

Eren fucks up, and Mikasa has to do. All. the work. Of cleaning things up?

That’s very abusive.

This is an irretrievably broken relationship.

Eren verbally abused Mikasa until she cried. He demeaned her, called her a slave, mocked her, said he never loved her.

And still, Mikasa is the one begging him to come home.

That is pathetic.

Mikasa needs Eren to come home.

She needs that to happen because she’s still chasing the dream.

Her and Eren living together. A quaint, peaceful, happy life. A life of simple peace with the one she loves.

She’s desperate to keep the dream alive, and that’s heartrending.

Unfortunately for Mikasa, this is SNK, where dreams emphatically do not come true.

Her love is a deranged murderer. And he doesn’t love her.

Her dream is dead.

Armin, Jean, and Connie don’t have massive man crushes on Eren, but the dynamic is the same.

Arriving in PATHS realm, they ask Eren to stop the Rumbling because he’s already made the world his bitch, so why continue?

That’s reasonable.

Then they start blaming themselves for what Eren’s doing.

DOES NOT COMPUTE. DOES NOT COMPUTE. DOES NOT COMPUTE. DOES NOT COMPUTE. DOES NOT COMPUTE. DOES NOT COMPUTE. DOES NOT COMPUTE. DOES NOT COMPUTE. DOES NOT COMPUTE. DOES NOT COMPUTE.

They’re blaming themselves.

For what Eren is doing.

Armin was working towards peace between Paradis and the world. He and Hange were traveling abroad, meeting with potential allies, trying to gain support for Paradis and build a lasting peace.

All Eren did was bum around, not doing anything.

Eren did fucking nothing to help. Not one bit.

Once again, it’s the same abusive dynamic.

Eren does fucking nothing to help, or even makes things worse, and his friends have to do all the work for him.

Now we get to this chapter, where Eren’s victims blame themselves.

Classic abusive relationship.

“I’m sorry I made you hit me. It’s all my fault. I was so mad that you hit me, but I wasn’t thinking about you and how you were feeling. I’m so sorry.”

These people are gaslighting themselves.

They’ve made themselves think they’re to blame for Eren’s actions.

Eren chose to rumble the world.

That was his choice. He was not forced into it.

I know Eren’s been torn up inside about doing this. We all saw how much he cried in 131.

Who fucking cares?

Billions of people are dead.

Who fucking cares if Eren has to live *checks notes* the next year or so of his life with guilt.

We’re supposed to be thinking about Eren’s feelings?

What about the feelings of all the people he killed?

This is a common problem with talking about awful things.

When people talk about things like a school shooting or a murder, there’s always that one neckbeard who turns up their nose at people and says:

“Haven’t you thought about how the shooter feels?”

They ask us to turn our attention away from the victims, and to sympathize with the murderer.

Lots of people go through shit. They live shitty, miserable lives, but they don’t end up killing people.

Spare no sympathy for Eren. He was agonizing over the rumbling because from the very beginning he saw it as a reasonable option.

So from the very beginning he failed.

He had genocide as an option, and he didn’t reject it out of hand immediately. That’s all you need to know about him.

If you take genocide to be a reasonable thing to do, you are a shitty person.

That’s all there is to it.

It’s incredible that this fucking twerp does literally the most awful thing imaginable and his friends bend over backwards to accommodate him.

But that’s how most cases of abuse play out.

The perpetrator takes advantage of the victim, and whether intentional or not, the victim is cowed into accepting it.

Everyone here is tired.

Their hands are bloodied, their will is worn down, they want this nightmare to be over.

So they’ll say anything to make Eren stop. They’ll deny reality. They’ll claim it’s all their fault. If it’ll stop the rumbling, whatever.

It’s another sign of an abusive relationship.

The Alliance is tired, but Eren is the guy who keeps on going. That gives Eren the advantage while making the Alliance desperate.

Relationships like that, where one has all the power and the other is just glad to make it through the day, is ripe for abuse, and we see that here.

They know it’s not their fault, but what else can they say?

They’re desperate to make it stop, so if they have to degrade themselves by apologizing for a crime they did not do, they’ll do it.

That doesn’t make it right.

I think it’s bullshit that the Alliance compares itself to Eren.

And it’s bullshit that we’re supposed to compare the Warriors to the 104th.

The warriors are not the same as Eren are not the same as the 104th.

Reiner and co. were kids. Kids who’d been beaten into believing that Paradis was a threat. Children cannot be morally responsible. They simply lack the capacity for it.

Armin, Connie, Jean, and the others killed their fellow countrymen because they were actually trying to save the world! Funny how that is, huh? Everyone thinks they’re the good guys…and sometimes they actually are.

Connie’s a sinner because he has Daz’s blood on his hands?

The same Daz who thought his patriotic duty was to help Eren murder billions?!

That. Daz. ?!

DazwasagenocidalmaniacIhopeConnieuseshisbloodasfacepaint!

(Was that too much? Sorry. I was in the zone.)

Eren is a shitbag because rumbling the world was his idea and he decided to go for it.

I’m sorry, but this isn’t complicated.

Eren was the one who unironically proposed “Let’s just kill everyone” way back when he first learned Zeke had a secret plan that can save Paradis. Before the sense of urgency that supposedly justifies his rogue behavior had set in.

It’s clear Eren had been weighting going through with that plan since then, and eventually decided to do it.

In sum, the warriors were just children, the 104th are doing the right thing, and Eren is his usual evil self.

Oh, but we’re not done talking about Eren. Or even comparing him to other people.

Because now we have to talk about Eren and Reiner.

I think Reiner is on to something about Eren wanting to be stopped, I just think he’s assuming too much.

Eren did say that he was the same as Reiner, and he probably did mean that in the sense that they’re both blood stained people, but what Reiner forgets is what Eren said immediately after that.

“I think we were born this way. I just keep moving forward until my enemies are destroyed.”

Eren is a man on a mission. He will not stop until that mission is complete.

If Eren knew the fight with his friends would come before he’d even left Paradis, would Eren be so lenient towards them?

If he couldn’t bear to wield the power of the Founding Titan anymore, then why is the last thing we see him doing this chapter is him heading to Fort Salta to eliminate a potential threat to him?

Here’s what I think.

It’s not that Eren wants to die, but rather he doesn’t care if he’s killed.

That’s an important difference.

A killing and a death are two closely linked, but nevertheless separate events.

Even though he thinks he’s done what was necessary, he still recognizes that he’s done an unspeakable deed, so once he’s done, if his friends put him out of his misery, so be it.

But.

Once he’s done.

My guess is Eren will do something to keep his friends at bay until he’s finished rumbling.

Dunno what that could be, though. (Aren’t you glad I’m not writing this story?)

I also think an important reason why Eren is letting his friends take a swing at offing him is that he’s just deranged now.

I don’t see why we shouldn’t take Eren’s words at face value.

“In order to gain my freedom, I will take freedom away from the world. But I won’t take anything from any of you. You are all free.”

Eren is a God; his power is limitless

That power’s clearly gotten to him.

For better or worse, Eren believes in freedom.

Freedom to go beyond the walls.

Freedom to live your life as you choose.

Freedom to be yourself.

It’s easy to indulge yourself when you have limitless power.

I think becoming a God has been like chugging a whole gallon of Kool-Aid for Eren. He gone all in on his freedom ideology because the power of the founding titan has given him the freedom to do so.

Do you really think Eren would be acknowledging his friends’ right to kill him if they actually could do it?

Of course not. Not when his mission isn’t complete.

Eren said he’s taking the world’s freedom away because they threaten his freedom.

Him not taking his friend’s freedom away implies he does not see them as a real threat.

He knows his friends are unlikely to succeed, so he’s decided to indulge his freedom boner, and maybe lowkey flex on them by granting them a fighting chance as a curtesy.

At least until the rumbling is over, Eren’s stance is just as he said it was: if you want to stop me, you’ll have to kill me.

That is to say: if you don’t want me to rumble the world, then why don’t you fucking make me?

Maybe Annie can do it, but who knows?

Let me say, right off the bat, that Annie tagging back in does not contradict what I said earlier about her not having a major role in the finale.

I said that because she had no reason to join that fight.

But now her father is at the final battle, and she has a second guy to fight for in Armin.

So, yeah, I’m not wrong. Totally not.

I really hope this flying titan isn’t a deus ex machina.

A titan that can fly would be a big help, but for this story element to work, it can’t take down Eren singlehandedly. I trust Isayama will come through on that.

But mostly I’m just glad Annie isn’t done yet.

She was tired of fighting like the rest of them, and the series didn’t thumb its nose at her for it, but in the moral code of SNK, Annie was a quitter.

SNK is a story about people who fight.

Annie, having chosen to tap out, had turned her back on what the story considered to be the right path.

Now she’s back, and I don’t know how, but maybe she can kick Eren’s head off again?

I demand satisfaction.

[untitledbkdkblog]

took me a bit longer then I wanted, but I managed to finish before his birthday was over in my timezone. happy birthday blasty, glad you got to spend it with your greenbean

AO3 link

edit: in my rush to post before it hit midnight in my timezone, I forgot to tag @third-winchester-second-potter and thank them for the photo album idea

Three months nine days and approximately eighteen hours, that's how long Izuku had been planning this. This, the best damn birthday ever, as to be proclaimed by his boyfriend Katsuki, as soon as it’s over. After nearly two decades of knowing each other, and three years together, properly, it had been hard to track down every picture of them, but he was sure now that he had found most of them at least. Between what he got from his mom, Katsuki’s parents, and their old classmates from UA, he now had a photo album thicker than most of the books they had to lug around in their third year of high school. But the real surprise, that wouldn’t be till the end, not till after dinner, not till Katsuki got to the last page of the book. That’s the part Izuku had really put the most work into.

Tracking down all the photos, reserving a nice table at Katsuki’s favorite restaurant, making sure no press would be around to disturb the high ranking duo, and worst of all, making sure Katsuki had a nice looking suit to wear, it was all a breeze compared to putting together the last page of the photo album. He had poured his heart and soul into it, and keeping his boyfriend from finding the rough drafts had been hell. He’d take the entire League of Villains any day over trying to hide shit from a pro hero ever again.

    Fixing his tie in the mirror he knew it would all be worth it though. He had made sure tonight was going to be perfect, the best birthday Katsuki would ever have. Taking a moment to take one last look at himself, he nodded. “Alright, go time. This may be a sensitive mission, but I’ve planned out everything. Well, almost everything, but I can’t make a plan for the impossible. That’s just impractical.” Grabbing the nicely wrapped package of the foot of their bed and tucking it under his arm he stepped out of the bedroom, and right into his boyfriend's chest.

    “Damn Deku, took you long enough to get ready,” Katsuki chuckled, grabbing Izuku’s arms so he wouldn’t topple over. “Weren't you the one in a hurry earlier?”

    Smoothing out his boyfriend’s suit, and then his own, Izuku nodded. “We are in a hurry.” Taking Katsuki’s hand he made his way towards the front of their house. “I took the appropriate amount of time to get ready. You’re the one who took twenty minutes to put on that tie, Kacchan.” 

    A sigh, a very dramatic sigh in Izuku’s opinion. “I hate these damn things Deku, is it really necessary? Where are we even going?” Katsuki closed and locked the door behind them, before following Izuku to the car.

    “If I told you,” Izuku leaned into the backseat, placing the present down there, “Then it wouldn’t be a surprise, now would it?” Standing back up, he noticed his boyfriend still standing on the drivers side. “You can’t drive Kacchan, I’m the one who knows where we’re going.”

    “Nah, wasn’t planning on it.” He grinned. “Just enjoying the view.”

    Now it was izuku’s turn to sigh. “Get in the car Kacchan. You can enjoy the view all you want after dinner.” Getting into the driver's seat, Izuku heard a chuckle, and simply rolled his eyes as he waited for Katsuki to be ready to go.

The ride to the restaurant was mostly uneventful, filled with the sounds of the radio, and Katsuki insisting to know where they were headed, as Izuku took a less than direct route there. Both for the sake of surprising his boyfriend, and to make sure no one was following them. Even with the indirect route Katsuki still managed to guess about a block away from the restaurant, leaving Izuku grumbling about a blindfold.

Once there Katsuki ordered, predictably, the spiciest thing on the menu. The two ate and talked, and as it got later watched as the restaurant cleared out. Twenty minutes to midnight Izuku finally gave his boyfriend the present. “Oh can I open this now? And here I was starting to think it was just an empty box you wrapped up to look pretty, Deku.”

Izuku rolled his eyes, laughing. “Don’t worry Kacchan, that's not till next year's gift.” He was fidgeting a bit now, picking at his hands and unable to sit still. Luckily, Katsuki was too invested in unwrapping the book. “Anyways, I think you’ll like this a bit more than an empty box.”

Laughing as he tossed the wrapping paper at his boyfriend, Katsuki looked up at him. “Only a bit more? Damn deku, and here I thought you’d put a bit more thought into my present then that. Or was all the dramatics over the suit and restaurant a ruse?”

“That’s it. You’ve caught me.” He tucked the crumpled up paper under the table for the time being. “All of this was just a cunning ruse.” Katsuki was looking down at the photo album now. “All I got you was a book you’ll probably only look at this once.”

Izuku had feared that Katsuki would simply open it, leaf through the pages, then close it again, but was able to sigh in relief as he slowly made his way through the pages. Izuku kept moving in his chair as Katsuki took the time to stop and look at all the pictures. He frowned, a worrying sight, until Izuku noticed where he was. A little less than halfway is a gap in the pictures, as a startling jump from seven year old Izuku and Katsuki to nearly sixteen year old Izuku and Katsuki was made. A nearly ten year gap in age, that Izuku knew Katsuki regretted. He sighed in relief as his boyfriend kept going, and his expression softened. Three quarters of the way through he looked up. “How long did this take you.?”

“Long enough that Kirishima was a real pal for letting me keep it at his place when I wasn’t working on it. Putting them all in the right order was still only the second hardest part of it all.” He smiled, urging Katsuki to keep going.

With a nod, Katsuki went back to the pictures. “That explains why you two kept making excuses to hang out the last couple of months.” Izuku blushed, a bit embarrassed at having been caught, and Katsuki chukled. “Relax, if it had been anyone but you two I might have been worried, but I have it on good authority that Kirishima’s planning something for you know who, so I assumed he was getting your help on that too.”

Izuku chuckled now. “So you heard that too, huh. Well, yea, we were both helping each other out with our projects.”

“Well now, that sounds ominous Deku. What have you been planning?” Katsuki looked up and grinned, just as he turned to the last page.

With an eye roll Izuku nodded to the book. “Why don’t you finish the last page first. I put a lot of work into that, you know.” Katsuki threw his hands up in defeat, looking down to the last page.On the left page was a photo taken after their last big mission, the two of them standing side by side, hands clasped and in the air above them. And on the right page was a letter. 

“If I told the little green boy, in the beginning of this book, where he would be at twenty two he would think it was a dream come true. If i told that same boy during the empty page where he would be, he’d think I was lying to him. And if I told him just five years ago, he’d think it was impossible. But it’s not. It took a lot of work, on both our parts, but it was possible, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I know you mourn for the time we missed out in middle school, and I do too, sometimes, but our relationship is so much stronger now for it. We’ve moved past that, and worked for a friendship. For a relationship. Built on talking, and understanding, and most importantly, sharing. That little quirkless boy has become the hero he always dreamed to be, and he’s done it with the partner he always wanted standing beside him. Some days I still have to pinch myself, just to reassure myself that this is real, because you make me so happy, even when we’ve both had a bad day at work, and I could never ask for anything more. We’ve known each other our whole lives, and I want to be able to say that, for the rest of mine. Whether I live till ninety nine, or just till next week. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and that’s why, Kacchan, I need you to finish reading this, and look back to me again.”

As Katsuki read Izuku grabbed the much smaller box he had hidden in his suit’s inner pocket, and quietly got down on his knee, waiting for his boyfriend to finish reading. By the time he did look at Izuku, Katsuki’s eyes were red around the edges, and even in the low lighting of the restaurant Izuku could tell they were shiny with the beginnings of unshed tears. He heard Katsuki whisper his name, but ignored him as he opened the box. “I’ve been thinking about how to do this for a very long time, and at some point I realised, I was never going to be able to make it perfect, because no matter what I tried to plan, I always thought of something better three days later. So I decided, why bother with perfect, when I could do something, us, instead. That’s what we’ve done our whole lives after all.” As he was talking Katsuki got down on the floor with him, so they were kneeling in front of each other, both properly crying now. “It seems silly, to ask you to make me the happiest man alive on your birthday, but what can I say, I’ve always taken a shot at what I want.” They both chuckled at that. “So Kacchan, will you marry me?”

It was silent for fifteen, agonizing seconds, before Katsuki pulled him into a hug, laughing his ass off. “Of course I will.” He kissed Izuku once before pulling back to look at him. “You’re a dumbass though, you know that? Not perfect my ass. We could have gotten takeout at home, and you could have shoved it in my face and said ‘let's do it’ and it would have been perfect. You always overthink everything. And I love you.”

Izuku wiped some of the tears away from his own face, laughing a bit. “I love you too Kacchan. Thank you.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m the one who should be thanking you right now Deku. For the best damn birthday ever.” Katsuki smiled, pulling his fiance in for another kiss, longer this time, and full of promises.

[nlights37]

12, 18 and 20 please!

@aenarsnow gets FIRSTIES which means I answer with extra love, of course:)

Let’s GET IT

12.  How do you deal with self-doubts?

Well, I get ‘em a lot, just like everyone else, your standard, run-of-the-mill ‘”This is shit, why am I wasting my time on this, it’s crap, I’ve used the same adjective like 15 times now and also how many ways can I actually describe eyes I should be doing productive things instead of writing fanfic people are gonna hate it anyway, half the people that used to read my shit ghost me at this point ughhhhh this fandom suuuuuucccckkkkkkssss and so do I!!!”

Inevitably, at that point, I email whatever I’m working on to @noordinarylines, who has explicitly good taste, and who I KNOW will be honest with me if she doesn’t like something or doesn’t quite thinking something is working.

Then she reads it an emails me back and tells me I killed her in a good way and how dare I leave her hanging there, where is the rest, hurry the fuck up because it’s crazy mean to cliffhang her like that.

That usually gets my head right.  :)  There are a handful of people that I interact with that are some real, genuine, ride or die people (mostly because I am horrible at things like chatting regularly, etc - like I will genuinely completely fuck up my IRL day if I allow myself to get sucked into things like chats because I get tunnel vision and forget everything else, my full blown inattentive-type adult ADD in full effect).  But there are some real ones out here, and they know who they are, and if I think an idea is maybe worth a shot but I wanna bounce it off someone, or I want another set of eyes on something because I’ve stared at it so long I genuinely cannot tell if it’s any good, I reach out to them, and they set me straight.

Once I post something, tbh, I just let it ride, because it’s out there, and the people whose opinion I care about the most have already told me what they think, so I’m pretty satisfied with that.  If other people don’t like it they can suck my ass at that point, because I ain’t changing SHIT hahahahaha.

18.   What’s your revision or rewriting process like?

Well, here’s the thing about me.  I write it as it comes, and a lot of time I can feel when I’m writing it if it just isn’t fucking working.  I will backtrack then and there and start over.  For me, if I’m in the groove and it’s really rocking along I go with it.  There’s a flow to it, and then suddenly it’s been 5 hours and you’re like ‘IT’S GOLD, JERRY!  GOLD!”

If it’s like pulling teeth to write it I stop and come back to it later.  With a husband, three kids, ‘virtual learning’ and quarantine, my time to write is limited, so I try to make the most of it.  I run scenes for fics in my head a LOT, while I’m in the shower, or doing dishes, or folding clothes, so that by the time I get a chance to write I’ve made my mind up on exactly how it will go and I don’t have to sit there and look at a blinking cursor.

I don’t typically use a beta, not because I don’t think I need one (my frantic spotting of every damn mistake I made AFTER I post can attest to that) but more because once I’m done with something, I’m done, and I wanna post it.  I just get too excited to wait, you know, like a damn puppy who pees in excitement when someone knocks at the door.  I just wanna SHARE IT!

So, the tldr:  I do a lot of revision in my head before I sit down to write.  I don’t usually rewrite because the minute something stops flowing I scrap it :)

20.  Post a snippet of a WIP you’re working on.

Here’s a sneak peek of what @noordinarylines and I have been cooking up for the second story in the Remember the Time universe:

There was something soothing, Daenerys had found, about the line where the sea met the sky, the view afforded from her council chamber one that seemed the best suited for calming her ever-frazzled nerves.

It had been five days since she had taken her tumble on the far end of the island, five days full of the most piercing grief she’d ever experienced, which was truly remarkable.  Her losses, ‘til now, had been great and agonizing, but she could not shake the forlorn mood that had fallen over her since she’d found herself ripped away from what she was now classifying as a sweet, indulgent fantasy, borne of the trauma of her injury, nothing more.

And yet…

Tucked up the sleeve of her coat, always with her, was a rolled scrap of parchment, upon which she’d documented every single aspect of that lovely hallucination that she could remember.  She knew she ought to squirrel it away somewhere safer, hide it from view, leave it behind so she might stop dwelling on these imaginary losses, but she could not.

It had become a talisman, of sorts, something that gave her comfort, just the scrape of it against her skin when she moved her arm as she walked.

She would be mortified, of course, if it were discovered.  She was half-terrified it would slip free, and be found by another, her deepest longings read aloud.  But for now, it eased the walk from her chambers to whatever task lay ahead, and so she kept it.  “Your Grace?”

Daenerys turned from the wide, carved windows in her council chamber, to find Tyrion lingering, watching her with marked curiosity.

Quirking a brow, she did not answer, merely waited.  Her Hand came closer, his fingers trailing down the Riverlands on the painted table as he approached.  “Are you certain you are well?”

“I’m faring well, Tyrion.”  She managed a tight smile, coming to stand at the head of the table, her eyes travelling over the surface rather than meeting the scrutiny in his.  “A few lingering headaches, that’s all.”

“Hmmm.”  Tyrion took another drink, then plucked a carved piece from the table, turning it over in his hands.  When she peeked up, however, he was still staring at her.  “As you say.  Perhaps there is something else that troubles you?”

Dany smoothed her suddenly damp palms down the front of her coat, and kissed her teeth.  “I think we shall all rest easier once we receive word from Casterly Rock, that your plan has succeeded.”  It was enough to shift his focus, and there was a measure of truth in it; Missandei had been beside herself with worry over Grey Worm, and she reminded herself to ask her dear friend just what, precisely, had occurred between them.

Tyrion affected a confident air, and tucked away his wineskin, clasping his hands behind his pace and beginning to pace.  “Yes, a victory is just what we need right now.  And I have every confidence that we will prevail.”  He kept moving, rounding the table, stopping by the depiction of the Northern Kingdom and plucking the wolf from the surface.  His eyes met hers, and she froze.  “How are things with our openly-rebellious friend?  Have relations,” he paused, smirking, “thawed, perhaps, now that you have given him access to the mines?”

She wondered, at the keen tone of his voice, what it was he was truly asking beneath the rather mundane question.  In truth, she had been avoiding Jon Snow, these past few days, at least as much as she could.  The daytime hours were no issue; he was busy down in the mines, and she had seen several carts of the dragonglass he’d been so desperate for, so it seemed his search had been successful.

It was harder once the sun had departed, for they had taken to dining in the main hall, all of Dragonstone’s occupants, and though she tried desperately not to look at him, there were several times at every meal that she couldn’t quite resist.  One night, in particular, he’d been seated beside her, had asked in his low, rumbling voice if her wound pained her, had inquired with a gentleness that had broken her heart anew.

When she’d told him she was well, and not to worry, that she had survived far worse, he had frowned fiercely, as though such a notion troubled him greatly, and it had taken all her strength not to kiss him then and there.

She had resisted the urge, and made cordial, cool conversation with him as necessary, but by the time she’d returned to her chambers she had thrown herself onto her bed and wept.  She was tired of this, tired of weeping, of missing a life that hadn’t even existed, had not been hers to begin with.

Thank you for the ask, good sir!!!

[delcat177]

Text in captions, if that won’t read on text to voice please let me know <3

This is a half-year old, but I only paid Blobs Magician to help me out once and I’m fresh out of delicately painted acorns and he gave me commission rights so I’ll be tipping him a ziploc bag of goldfish later

I feel awkward writing about all of this--there was a bit of jealousy when I got my hyst (not projecting, I was told flat by a trans friend), and I worry that I may be making other people feel alone, anxious, or less-than in their gender by talking about it.  If you feel that at all, please, stop right now.  Don’t look in the mirror, because mirrors are scary. Like, really scary, they have ghosts or stuff probably, but also in the genders sense, so instead, look in your head.   Look at your self.  It’s in there, because it is you.  What is happening to me now is a shell upgrade, a hermit crab moving domiciles.  I was a boy once, then a young man, then a oldman, and now I’m a oldman with a society man shell.  Never mistake the shell for the crab, go “hey crab, I like your shell, I hope you find the perfect shell, because you are the perfect inhabitant” and celebrate that crab.  Because we are all crabs, and we are all beautiful, and we all deserve the shells that reflect us as individuals, and anyone who says otherwise can fuck off into a spiny urchin bush and not have a shell.  Or.  Something.  Did I say I felt awkward?  I AM awkward.  But anyway, drive-in movie totals and such after cut, potential TMI, and protect yourself love yourself, you lovely crabs <333

 (with cut ‘cause longtext is looong)

(ORIGINAL POST)

Alt-text: I'm always the last one to know

so uh

I'm a blithe idiot and somehow never processed or dared to dream that this was possible

which makes the timeline look SPECTACULARLY dumb but I was going through SO MANY LIFESTYLE CHANGES

HYST DATE: SEPTEMBER 28, 2016

2017: Me: Man, living in the townhouse has really amped up my leg game, all that up and down stairs.

Me: I'm down ten pounds since the hyst! Megan: That's probably your natural weight. Me: That or getting there.  Not surprising, I'm not feeding the beast constantly.

Me: *punches Megan playfully in the arm* Megan: OW goddammit Del that hurt like SHIT! Me: oh my God I'm sorry I didn't mean to! Megan: It's okay, just be careful! Me: That's so weird I'm sorry D8

Me: man is it just me or am I good in bed lately? oh right I'm the only one here...I guess it's because I'm more confident?

Me: ghghjh my hair's thinning out at the temples, well been expecting that one for awhile, at least it waited for 30

2018:

Me: Holy shit, the stairs plus the shopping is paying off!  My thighs are HUGE!  I wonder if cracking a watermelon with these bad boys is hyperbole.  I bet I could though.  I BET.

Me: Down to 162 and holding, fuck you past doctors!  I just needed ENERGY goddammit!

Me: Wow, I've lost a lot of weight from my face especially.  That makes me super happy.  Anyway better pluck these stray hairs.  ...have I been yanking these more lately?  Getting old is weird.

Me: (struggling with shorts) Megan: Do you need a belt? Me: I'M WEARING A BELT (lifts shirt to reveal belt double wrapped around hips) Megan: Well then Me: I just need to buy new shorts, my ass is just GONE Megan: In the meantime maybe pay attention to what underwear you have on Me: yeah thank God for boxers

Me: My acne scars are heck of acting up.  I wish I hadn't picked at my face so much as a kid, I guess the pores are just kinda fucked, I've read about that happening.

2019:

Megan: New shorts look good Me: I am so bad at shopping Megan: At least you have them now Me: I'm an assless chap is all Megan: Go to bed Del Me: It's four in the afternoon

Me: My throat feels so *thick* lately.  I haven't been hitting the vape that often, why does it feel weird?  And why am I noticing my own voice more?  I NEVER notice my own voice, I make a point of it.  Am I subconsciously pitching it lower like I used to do talking on Skype because I'm more socially active?  What is my brain I'm so AWKWARD Me: UGH I'm falling back into derma habits, I haven't picked in my face in years, I think I need to change cleansers.  But...my face looks...good?  I guess I had this hiding under that baby fat all these years.  ...I guess? Me: Am I getting a hump from my bad computer posture?  Shit. Me: Oh no, it's not a hump, my shoulders are starting to put on muscle!  That's a relief.  That must be from the...laundry?  Carrying...laundry?

AUGUST 5, 2019: Me: (lying in bed) 2 + 2

Me: wait why am I putting on shoulder muscle now?  I've been doing laundry for years, and it's never done that.  And my legs didn't get this buff with a routine job where I was walking three hours a d--

Me:

AUGUST 14, 2019:

New Endocrinologist: We'll test your levels to make sure it isn't a pituitary gland issue or (some syndrome I've already forgotten the name of), and it could be because there's some small element of testosterone in the estrogen replacement, but the brain does produce androgens.  We can definitely look into switching you to T if you want, but if it's facial hair you're worried about...well, once the follicle is there, it's there.  These are irreversible changes.

Me: No on that then but irreversible,, like,, what I have now,, is forever,,,,,,,?

New Endocrinologist: Forever, and I would expect to continue to see muscle gains if you work out.

Me:

welcome to my second puberty please be aware it apparently involves as many mood swings as the first one but i'm tryin'

Since then, it’s been continuing confirm, confirm, confirm. 

My acne turned out to be little follicles growing in odd places--not fullblown hair, just enough to irritate the skin while it was developing. Tiny tufts of 1-3 entirely white, downy hairs have popped up in a few places on my breasts.  The real fuzz proliferation has been in the southern quarters--with all delicacy, there is no itch like the itch of hair beginning to grow anywhere sweat can proliferate, and I now understand why cis men scratch privates in public.  Having NOT gone through a unified social experience with a peer group accepting of such measures, I am sure there is footage on grocery store cams of someone with an agonized expression walking like he has a weasel down his pants and worrying that 30 is early for hemorrhoids.  Both have settled in for the most part, leaving me with a very fluffy, barely-there peach fuzz mustache that’s only noticeable in the right light, some spare hairs across my chin and neck that I keep in order, and a profound relief that I prefer boy shorts and swim trunks.

I went through a few weeks of being especially rank despite all the showering and was worried that was my new normal, but apparently T sweats be like that, and I’m back to smelling like...whatever I smell like, probably lavender with our fabric softener.  I experienced what I believed was a relapse a month later that turned out to be a false positive--specifically, our thermostat was slowly dying and frog-boiling us until it got hot enough that my sister also went “dear God it is a sauna in here”, leading to replacement of the faulty element and another notch in the “my life is dumb” bedpost.

My face bonebs, which I frankly expected the least out of (when I wasn’t expecting at all), have slowly but surely been rearranging, a visual effect doubled by the much faster redistribution of fat.  I honestly have no idea how this one works.  I know more about dead bonebs than live ones.  I would doubt it if I didn’t have pictures to back it up.  I would say it’s easier to look in the mirror now, but I already stated my opinion on mirrors, do it too much and a skeleton will pop out.  It WILL.  My brain tells me this and it is never wrong about fears and or phobias.  Don’t do it kids.

If there’s been a single most beautiful moment so far, it’s been getting back into Steven Universe after a long hiatus, opening my mouth to sing the opening like I did years ago, and realizing all at once that I was singing falsetto.  I ran it back, dropped a register, and the first names I sang became those who would believe in me most.  There were tears, and later, showing it off, there were fierce hugs.  (Yes, the first ep I watched once I realized was Stevonnie, and YES GARNET GOING “GO HAVE FUN” wah)

I can’t begin to express the validation--I am no gender essentialist’s data point, this is MY experience and no one else’s, but I keep going “my aunt had a hyst and didn’t transition and I had one and I am because my brain makes androgens my brain makes androgens MY BRAIN MAKES ANDROGENS IT HAS BEEN MAKING ANDROGENS ALL THIS TIME IT HAS BEEN TRYING” and living in that, living in “not even SCIENCE is against me”, which is a tremendous thing as a scientist.  (As a scientist, I would be a blithering dullard to claim this is the only thing that affects or proves my gender, and I do not.  Again, TERFs fuck off.  This is simply a very validating thing to me, personally, in my experience.  I’m not thrilled that I have to underline that this hard dammit internet.)

What lies ahead is...I don’t know!  I thought I was done changing, but the post I saw that nudged me to finally do this on here went “you may stop being able to cry for awhile” and this is Important because I have been trying to figure out if I have Sjogren’s but apparently I have androgens which is slightly easier to pronounce.  I’m not sure how I feel about that, because transitioning is a lot of “I’m not sure how I feel about this” and then things being okay.  I would definitely say that the more I learn, the easier it is to feel steady and normal, which is important because the mood swings have been REAL.  This is more than I asked for or bargained for, but I still only have one regret, and that’s that my hyst scars are just slightly asymmetrical and it Bothers Me, but even that is growing on me.

I don’t know how to end this post.  I love you all to death, and I hope if you’re seeking transition, you find it and twenty dollars, and if you’re not seeking transition, you still find twenty dollars.  Thank you so much for you and all you do and are.  Remember--you are great!

Unless you’re truscum.  Then this post isn’t for you (dammit Internet) and you can fall off a boardwalk onto a dead fish.  Have fun with that!

hekk

[geejaysmith]

On mobile, there are no readmores.

Ok, so maybe the key thing that pisses me off is that either way you dice it, the whole "evil Dirk" bullshit is either the distortion of a writer with a noted history of fanfics distorting characters into their most cynical form if not outright mischaracterizing them for an abuser/victim dynamic, or its commentary about an author who lets their own soapboxing overtake the willing suspension of disbelief in the characters' voices and the fabric of the world, rather than anything the character showed signs of being in the actual text. And if you're going to go "but timeskip! People change!" that's a hack move that Homestuck became far too dependent on in its later run, especially after the retcon, that cons the reader into doing the writer's job in order to try and resolve the cognitive dissonance of, say, a character who *actively did not want* to be what he's just suddenly become, and who's showing a level and flavor of asshole he never was.

Also, having a gay character, who a ton of young readers have identified with for years, suddenly turn bigoted alt-right-in-all-but-name just to make SURE you know he's the bad guy? Idk, that just strikes me as an asshole move. One of several asshole moves, like never addressing how the actions of one or several other characters contributed to his feeling guilty, especially about his sexuality when he's the one gay character whose orientation is directly discussed in the story proper, or how the character who can be reasonably assumed to have the a large hand in contributing to that guilt is never held to account, but instead victimized by Dirk with out-of-the-wild-blue-nowhere transphobic horseshit in the epilogue. In fact, would it be going out on a limb here to say that entire plot point seem to exist *only* for the sake of said out-of-character transphobic horseshit?

Sorry, I was about to say "but this is a whole different rant" but like, no, actually, this pisses me off. It *really* pisses me off how *badly* Dirk gets treated as the one prominent homosexual male character, and it has always pissed me off.

But no, really, the biggest thing pissing me off in the "oh this isn't rational to feel this way, actually, fuck it, I don't care if this is rational, these feelings aren't going away and this shit is PERSONAL now" way, is how most of what makes its way to my dash about Dirk since the epilogues dropped just comes off as uncritical about this. That even in trying to "fix" the damage done, it still tacitly admits there may be some validity to it, instead of staring it down and asking "and what the hell is your justification for that, outside of 'Hussie said so'?"

And let me take a moment to indulge in my neurotic impulse to hedge my own words and say, fine, ok, you want to explore evil!Dirk? Cool, your prerogative, we clearly find this character close to our hearts for very different reasons, whatever. But I don't and never want to see it and now it's everywhere, and people aren't taking to say, fascist Jane with the same gusto as they do to drag my favorite character, whose problems and insecurities are so close to my own he's the first work of fiction I've cried for for since childhood, through the mud.

Oh, and is it worse because this is basically just the same "Dirk is a monster" bullshit I've been fighting since the Great DirkJake Tag Discourse of 2014? Yes. Yes it is. I really do believe that Evil!Dirk - not "he has flaws as a person that result in toxic behavior", not "his actions have resulted in tangible harm and that needs to be addressed", but outright malicious intent or at least such utter disregard for the people he loves that intent is an automatic moot point - in other words, the ugly caricature being paraded around in the epilogues under the fig leaf of authorial approval, alongside the ugly caricatures of Jade and Jane, who only further expose the whole farce - in all its incarnations is and always has been an outright mischaracterization that only holds water if you push for deliberating interpreting the text in the most negative way. And I've spent *years* arguing with myself in my own head because fandom bullshit has convinced me that the only way I can hold an opinion and have a right to speak it is if I can have an airtight argument for my stance, like it's some fucking debate club, or something. And I am done. Dirk is not a monster, never was, and I am *done* screaming at myself in my own head instead of speaking out loud because "oh no, what if I'm wrong on the internet? What if randos online think I'm some dumb yaoi fangirl who's doing an abuse apologism?" Who cares? I know what I fucking read. I know the character that I saw.

You know what happens when you grow up isolated and don't have that first great "I wasn't fully cognizant of the fact that other people have thoughts and feelings like I do and acted like an ass and am now facing consequences - oh god I fucked up, I need to make this better somehow" young, when the stakes are low and you forget about it by puberty? You know how that childhood loneliness gives you a paralyzing fear of rejection that leaves you with a guarded persona, makes you agonize there's something wrong with you? How it makes you feel like you're irreparably broken, irreconcilably different?

I do.

So I'm confident that I know what I'm talking about when I say "it looks a lot like Dirk Strider." Coincidentally, it can also look a lot like Jake English. I know because I've been both. And you'll notice, pile of neuroses though I am, I am neither a victim nor am I a monster.

So. Yeah. Evil!Dirk upsets me greatly and always has and I don't want to see it. Except now it's everywhere and I once again have to tread lightly if I want to find any content of him that isn't made directly by me. A thing I loved has become something that makes me feel feelings that suck. *Again!* And I don't have the time or energy to throw into counteracting it at the moment, unlike with TLCstuck and the retcon a few years back. And yeah, this is personal and no one is responsible for my feelings and emotional wellbeing but me, yes, yes. But also this is my blog and I get to pick what goes on it and this is me telling myself "to hell with what people think when they see it, it's Tumblr, this is the house that personal emotional-fueled discourse built", and also if I didn't get this out I'd kind of end up screaming about it in my head again until all I can articulate is a high-pitched screech? I just need to fucking vent this out so I can get on with my goddamn day and it's out of my head? So maybe it'll quit coming back? It's way too fucking early for this? And oops, this post got way too long and a lot more emotional than I was expecting. Hey, crying helps relieve stress, y'know (Note: I'm not actually crying, it's the principle of the thing).

tl;dr, I have always thought Evil!Dirk was bullshit but it still hurts to see, and while I know I have no reason to bear a grudge against the people writing it as people, on principle, there's a part of me that wants to fucking punch those responsible for putting it back in the fandom consciousness in such a big way? Especially when I'm not seeing anyone pick over the horseshit done to other characters in quite the same way.

That is all. Carry on, I've vented my spleen. I'm gonna toss this post to the wind and go back to Wolf 359 shitposting.

[indie-struggle]

The Brass Tacks: 9 Billion Thoughts and Counting...

It looks long, but if you're a writer you should have no problem reading this. There are a lot of writers out there. A lot of writers out there. A lot. Think about how many writers you know and aspiring writers you come across and writers who are working on a script or even a novel, and then think about the fact you're only thinking in terms of your own country... maybe even just your state. Does the world need another fucking screenwriting book? No. There are both sides of the paradigm: McKee's Story, and O'Bannon's Guide to Screenplay structure. The only book on screenwriting that doesn't exist is the one that takes you from point A: as a complete amateur, and then helps you turn your script into a produced film for little to no budget at all, and finally to point B: a festival and distribution. Why doesn't this book exist? Because either they don't know how to do this or they're selfish and want to keep it to themselves. You think John Sayles or Jim Jarmusch wants everyone knowing point A-Z on how to go about doing what they do and get away with it? Actually, they'd probably be okay with it, but they'd never write a book. All the books out there are by hacks who never had anything produced, which is why they have the time and stamina to write them. Now back to the point. There are a fuck ton of writers out there. There are a fuck ton of filmmakers out there. Now I don't know if this is getting through yet, and I don't know if it all got more popular due to consumer product advancement and the internet, or it's always been this popular and I didn't know about it until the internet. Either way, there are way too many hacks. There is too much crap. Self-titled Youtube star: You've written 3 short scripts - not enough. You haven't put in the time it takes to understand wholly and completely the fantastically dreadful and agonizing world that writing is. You don't know shit yet. You need to put in your hours, your dues. You're not going to know enough by reading 5 screenplays and watching comic book movies over and over and over again. You're not - come to terms with that. What the hell do you have to draw from? It would be like a singer thinking they're ready to cut an album after 3 lessons, a show party, and an invite to a backstage orgy a of couple times. Here are my tips from a working, produced writer and director that has tried to help as many people as possible, but still can't seem to get it all through their thick fucking heads. And if you think I'm base or coarse, try working with James Cameron and you'll realize I'm the nicest fucking guy in the state of California - so here's 10 things: #1. Put in your hours. Like anything else, filmmaking: writing, directing, producing, budgeting, electric, gripping, etc, etc - even craft services must know how to cook the food you eat, they don't just flop the first thing they make onto a plate and say, "Well that looks edible. Good luck, everybody." But what does hours mean? It means writing, writing again, again and again and again. Taking breaks here and there, sure, thinking about story, figuring things out, reading, watching, being uncertain, and having zero to fall back on. I want to stress that last part. If you have something to fall back on you'll never get anywhere - you've already set your hindsight on a safety net so you'll never put your whole life and passion into your work. Put in the hours. Put in the years. Get film history and not just American films either - I've said this until I was blue in the face: every writer or filmmaker you idolize film history is soaked in foreign and American films dating to 1920 and possibly before. You’re not going to be like them without doing that. Period. Get to work. #2. You're going to be rejected. Say that to yourself. You... are going... to be... rejected. It is a fact of life. If there is one thing that Stephen King got right in his book to himself. It's that no matter where or who you are, or what you want to do, there will always be somebody who doesn't want you to do it. It's just a fact. Get over it, fuck them. Because if all it takes is someone to say, "I don't like it." to get you to fall to pieces, you never stood a chance to begin with. This is the only rule I know that's 100% true. You have to say fuck what anyone thinks, but still know where you lie, know your skill set, and know your place in the chain of command. #3. There is no how to do it book. If these motherfuckers like [removed] and [removed], [removed], [removed], [removed], and [removed], knew what they were talking about, they wouldn't be writing books or critiquing to make ends meet, they'd be working on the exact thing they're trying to give you advice on. Look at me for example. I've had over 5 feature films made - have I any desire to write a book about it? Do I want to write a book? Fucking no - why? It takes a staggering amount of arrogance to write a "Here’s the rules." book. Perhaps I'll do a seminar if I make it to 80, though. #4. Get offline. Leave, take a break from it. Disconnect. You need something to stimulate your mind. The internet does not stimulate your mind. This is why I hardly post, because I'm outside, doing shit, and stimulating my subconscious through conscious activities. Example: surfing, building puzzles, painting (poorly), walking around town and people watching, taking a class to learn something new, reading a novel and not falling asleep, trying to meet nice people, failing, etc. I was - and I'm going brag now - hugged by a woman who I told to get the fuck off facebook. Why? Because it's a poisonous environment. When you first wanted to do the things you did as a child - that great feeling and anticipation of doing it - did you check first to see what others might think? No, you just did it. People who spend their life on the internet, that's all they got, and it's all they'll ever have. Like assholes at the gym everyday. That's their life. And much like a book, there is no secrets that will plant you in the door to where you want to be out there that’s on the internet. You need to do the work that doesn't require anyone's opinion - especially not from a poisonous swamp. Disconnect. Trust me on this. No TV, no internet. No reading this. #5. No, you don't have a great idea for a TV show. Day after day after day I'm pitched TV show ideas, and they're all fucking terrible. "Well maybe Netflix will--" No, they won't. And if they do, great, fantastic, but what does that mean in the end? Netflix has an agenda. There are reasons you can't see things on there. Even 30 year comedians can't get specials released on there because they're too "risky" or "Dangerous" for this "climate" blah-blah-blah (Nick Di Paolo comes to mind). In the end you'll just be a stenographer pandering to smiling execs under a different logo, is that what you want? To be a tool for money? A whore? God, if my parents could only see me now. If you want to do that, then fine, have at it - but get out of my sandbox - because I bet you dollars to donuts, at the end of the day, you'll feel cheap, hollow, and empty inside if you have any insides left. Just because some random show got picked up, doesn't mean it has the weight or resilience to continue. You must know this. Even pros like David Milch have had shows ripped from his grasp by idiot studio executives that went to Brown and think they know what you want to see. It's bullshit. Netflix is even more brutal in cutting throats - they'll just stop the show, period. At least studios and production companies will say no beforehand, that's the only difference. What makes me so certain? I wrote for one of the shows on there, and I’ve worked with these people (if you can call it that). #6. You must realize that not every story is aimed at a Hollywood studio's idea of a universal audience. Just like not all music is aimed for Tower Records or EMI. Ambitions do not have to be at studio level production budgets. They don't. If that's what you like - making big action packed sci-fi what have you - then by all means have at it. But never (which is something I try never to say) judge someone else's work under a shallow pretense that it's written for the Hollywood studio system. Always keep an objective mind. And if you're not experienced enough to know what a certain story is aimed at, what budget it's written for, what audience it will appeal to (as if that's important), than ask or say nothing at all. Do not assume Sally's cute story about women and their troubles with men was aimed for a studio production, because it wasn't. And you pretending it was makes you look like an inexperienced ass. Avoid that. #7. Yes, no one owes you a read. But, just because someone read your work also doesn't entitle them to be a piece of shit for the sake of being a piece of shit. You're allowed to ignore. Personal preference is not the same as criticism. It's not - never has been. Didn’t I do an article on this? You must know how to dicern between the two. I'm on both sides of this. I've read a lot of crap, but I've read a lot of decent work as well. A lot of the crap was of stuff I liked and disliked, and same with the decent reads. It did not, however, effect my criticism - I set my personal preferences aside - and judged for what didn't work as a story. And you need to do this as well. Judge it for what it is, not what you want it to be, what you would like better, or what you think would sell to an audience - the writer doesn't give a shit anyway - so don't waste your breath on that, they want useful facts about what doesn’t work and why. You need to be explaining what you found that worked, and what you found that didn't work, or was confusing to you. This sets off light bulbs in the writer's head (one hopes), and your criticism becomes constructive. Think of it from another, power-structure perspective: you have little experience in cooking, you're an intern for a famous chef. You eat one of his meals and it's not so great, not your "cup of tea". So you decide to tell him what you would have done and what you think would be better. But, you're the intern - why should the chef give a shit? In fact, you're probably just seen as a fool giving advice to someone who knows what they're doing and instead of being helpful you’re a moron following a set of rules you picked up somewhere. Why? Because you’re not a chef yet. #8. No one is going to hold your hand through this. It's a tough, masochistic art, that sometimes isn't even art. Sometimes it's a slot machine with the idea of praying for a big winner. Fuck, I wish I could tell you it's not. I wish I could tell you that all your dreams are horrifically beautiful and fantastic and lovely and everyone cares about everyone else. But they don't. It's cold out here. You die at the end. You're going to get trampled on, spit at, kicked around, beaten and pushed until the only thing left of the person you used to be is ash with bad knees, a migraine, and a sore ego. That's the way it is. Have you ever wondered why people in the entertainment industry have astoundingly fragile egos? Why they constantly suck each other off? This is why. Things have always been separated between two things: good ones and bad ones. "I thought you were a good one.", "I was worried you were one of the bad ones." There is not enough space here to go into detail on what this means, and how it has effected and affected people just trying to live and make art since 1890, but it's awful and it's a disgrace (read Sidney Lumet’s book). In short, it's the business side. Frigid. Unless you can let things go, unless you have a great bullshit detector or can let it roll off your back. My advice to you is to be as solitary as possible, and work on what you want to work on. It may not pay, but damn it at least you'll be doing what you want to do, and you'll have no regrets in the end because it’s from the heart. #9. Everyone is different. Not everyone is into the same things as you. And not everyone sees orange as the same color you do. Only kids think this way. Doesn't matter what social media says, the media in general, or politically correct congregations. We're not all the same. The "fucks" in your dialogue will be taken by one person as anger or threatening, and another person as just normal speaking. Backgrounds are different, environments are different. Hair styles are different. White houses, or broken fences. Different. We are not homogeneous. Film is also not a soapbox, or podium for political causes and social agendas. If you want to push an agenda, make a documentary. Cinema is also not (regardless of what undeserving rich directors think) about money. Its lively hood and quality doesn't exist on whether or not a certain number of people bought a ticket. You have any idea how many geniuses over time died flat broke and are only now recognized for their feats? Anyone can feed peanuts to a hungry idiot if given the chance. They’ll gobble that shit up. But peanuts never stand the test of time.

“Nobody knows what the hell they’re doing“ - William Goldman

What cinema is about is simple: broadening minds, culturing people about things they've never seen through places they've never been, and reflecting human emotions. Real human emotions, not sentimentality. Fantasy is fun, and has its place, but nothing but fantasy is disillusionment. Ultimately, if you have nothing to say in the former regard, who or what are you doing it for? The money? The pain? Why? Cinema is not just about entertainment. That's what the circus is for - not film. If you're not trying to make an objective moral point, or reflect human nature as how it's seen in a way most can't see it, then what are you doing? What part of this is you? The money? These are the things that you will be asked by a producer or executive. #10. You're struggling, you don't know if you have it, you don't know if you've lost it. You're confused, puzzled, irritated, aggravated, disappointed, hate filled, self-loathing but polite to strangers for some reason... there is no path you can see through the forest. That’s because there isn’t one. But every creative person goes through this, you are not alone. You are not alone. I know it doesn’t help with the pain, but at least there’s that. Whether or not you keep going separates you from those who quit - as cliche as that sounds - it's goddamn true. Find your pace, and just keep going. You’ll know sooner or later if it’s in your blood. If that wasn't enough to motivate you, let me tell you a brief story: When I was a boy, I had one parent, I was emotionally abused on a daily basis by her because I looked like the man who left. My father was somewhere. I was abused by my classmates. Betrayed by so called friends. Chased by the police. Oppressed by my teachers. Sought after by gang members, beaten up daily, fought back daily. I wasn't liked. No idea why, confused. And this was all while dealing with just the growing up part, and puberty to boot. But, I escaped into a world that thankfully wasn't drugs, yet every analyst I've ever seen has told me that it normally should have been. But it wasn't. A lot of bad shit has happened to me, and I've met a lot of people. This is my personal well I draw from. If you don't have one, you usually make one just by living: being a player and not a spectator. I've lived a lot - too much, too soon. But the point I'm trying to make is that somehow I'm still alive. I am alive. I never thought I'd make it to 20. You hear that a lot, but I really didn't. I had 3 close friends, and 2 of them did not. The 3rd moved away, or ran, it doesn't matter - he forgot me, so I try hard to forget him. I had no college education, I had no picket sign with any anti-something on it. I had, and still have, whatever my pocket gives me. That's it. That’s all. And I'm damn happy to have it. Now, I'm long, long past 20. I can’t even remember it. And if someone like me who has been through the things that he's been through can heal from bruises, try to sew up wounds... then you can sit your fucking ass down and finish your goddamn script. I've finished plenty of mine. So knock off the bullshit and just do it. What are you worried about, failing? So what, get back on the bike.

[dazais-guardian-angel]

I’m sorry this blog has been so dead-feeling and sporadic for a while now. Not that anyone probably cares, but if any of my followers somehow still enjoy following me, I’m sorry to you all. (tmi health issues below)

I haven’t “updated” in a long while, mostly because I don’t feel like I’m on the verge of dying anymore, like I did all throughout 2017 to maybe halfway through 2018; my health has been pretty stable for a while now. But it’s almost like once my thoughts didn’t have to be preoccupied with constant terror and depression of the worst kind 24/7, now it’s made room for other things to take hold of me. I don’t have panic attacks anymore (at least that I know of; I definitely had one the other night, though), but I have mental anxiety more than ever about really random and ridiculous things, and intrusive thoughts. I’ve gotten a lot of writing done but at the same time feel more unproductive than ever; I’ve always had bad executive dysfunction, but for the last couple months it’s felt worse. I’ve nearly dropped off of drawing entirely; I wish I did it more, but I’ll never be good enough and it’ll never get enough attention to feel like it’s worth the exhaustion it takes. And I probably have actual depression, if I didn’t before then I probably definitely do now; I’ve started to be able to tell the difference in my moods between days, where I feel really invigorated and into something and wanting to do something, and when I feel really down and can’t bring myself to do anything I mean even more than usual lol and feel like I want to cry sometimes for no reason.

I don’t feel as passionate about stuff anymore, which is probably a BIG WARNING SIGN cause I’ve heard other people say this, but yeah. I’m constantly feeling like I should go “give myself a break from writing”, so I just end up playing small, shorty video games that don’t hold my attention very well, instead of working on my backlog of big games that I know are gonna keep me busy for a while each once I start them... otherwise I just stay at my computer thinking that surely I’ll feel like writing something else soon, because I know deep down I want to work on filling my remaining ideas, and I know I can because I have been steadily uploading the last few months, but then I’ll just end up sitting here doing nothing in the end. Or if I get lucky, write. But it just feels like literally everything I do is happening at a snail’s pace now, for no reason. Getting through anime episodes now is tedious, at least for seasonal anime that I’m just trying out and not stuff I already know I’ll love. Keeping up with manga is hard too, I’m so behind on so many series, except for MHA because the chapters are short and weekly instead of monthly, which somehow helps. I like to read at night before sleeping, but I usually fall asleep so quickly after laying down, it’s frustrating. And none of this should matter because no one cares but me but I can’t stand it, especially when my anxiety is constantly making me worried about how long my lifespan is gonna be and that I need to hurry up and do shit quicker. :))))))

All of those mental health diagnoses are just speculation though, since I haven’t been officially looked at by anyone, cause we don’t know where to find anyone. Maybe adhd meds would help me, but who knows when I’ll be able to try any if I do, because I’m already taking so many physical health meds that my parents are always wary about adding unnecessary ones, especially since we’re so uneducated when it comes to the delicacies of mental health meds.

My health problem has morphed into a swallowing problem; I have extra saliva and mucus that gets “stuck” and won’t go down all the way unless I swallow a lot, and I can’t drink or eat anything anymore, which is literally the most agonizing thing in the world, I’m so thirsty (I’m still getting nutrition; please don’t ask how). I’ve done a couple tests and they’ve been fine, so no one knows what’s going on, and my parents have been lax about setting up to go to a better hospital because things aren’t urgent anymore like they used to be now that I have a reflux med. I mean, at least as far as I know; who tf knows what’s happening to me I also have leg nerve pain from sitting in a wheelchair all day every day, which is nothing new at all, it’s been a thing for years, but lately it’s been absolutely agonizing because I’m too underweight to pad my body and my wheelchair isn’t a good fit for me and getting the people to take the steps to change things takes literal months because they’re slow and lazy as molasses. My back is constantly tight too, to varying degrees, sometimes better, and I don’t know what that is, maybe anxiety, but that’s frustrating too cause it makes breathing ever so harder. So yeah, I’m not fearing for my life anymore, at least consciously, but things are still hard and I’m so tired that they’re still like this and they’re just making my mental health worse. I spend most days not doing anything, suffering in some small annoying way that’s enough to keep me from being able to focus on anything, and going to the relief of bed, to repeat forever.

I’m realizing that I’m just lonely. I’m so lonely. Everything is so different now than it was even three years ago; so many of my online friends are gone, even if we’re still mutuals on tumblr; the first online community I ever joined that first got me into online friendships and animanga has long since disbanded. Various mutuals on here I never really talked to but was used to seeing in my activity are gone. Other friends have changed slightly, though they’re still dear to me; I have new ones that are dear to me too, but yet others that I don’t feel a real connection with, and it feels like we’re just surface level acquaintances. One of my two closest and best of friends, one of the first friends I ever made years ago, abandoned me late last year, and to be honest I don’t know why. I did hurt her, but I feel confident in saying that it wasn’t to a degree that was unforgivable, or at least wasn’t worthy of a chance to redeem myself, so.... yeah, I don’t know why. She had changed a lot by that point, shut down a lot, and when I set her off and she left, it was as if all that time we’d spent so close together meant absolutely nothing anymore, had never happened... I don’t understand it. It hurts so much. I tried to contact her in other ways multiple times, by letter and by email, apologizing profusely, and she ignored all of them. It hurts and I’ve thought about it so much, I know I haven’t truly coped with it yet, but have only tried to ignore it, and I desperately need someone to tell me that I didn’t do anything wrong (at least, not wrong enough for that reaction). Cause right now I just still hate myself for it deep down, am so worried about her, worried about how she is right now, wish I knew what she was thinking/thought then, all because of my mistake..... I don’t understand, I don’t know what to do, and it makes me think that all this time I’ve been a lot more terrible of a person than I’ve ever known, and that I’ll just keep accidentally pushing people away by trying to get too close, just like her.

She abandoned me, the few “adult friends” I’ve had irl abandoned me and never talk to me anymore once they stopped working for us, so I guess I’m just cursed this way. The main thing is that I’m seeking and craving interactions with people that no one I know want to have; I love analyzing fiction and getting into the meta and all that stuff, said online friend who abandoned me and I were on nearly the same wavelength when it came to this kind of thing, and we talked for hours and hours about different series and what made them work and why they didn’t work, getting real Deep(tm), and going against popular fandom opinions we thought were wrong (cause we were/are in the minority who disagreed with some of the praise for certain big name series lmao) lol, and that was my normal for a few years... and to have all that be gone is so alien. We were going to collab on a fic together, and that barely got off the ground before she left. I’m dying to have it all back so much, but none of my other friends are into that kind of discussion like she was, and I feel like a piece of shit for acting like they’re “lesser” than her for that, but that’s basically how I’m unintentionally acting.... and I hate myself for it. But I can’t help it; I don’t know what to do. I just know I’m bursting at the seams practically with so much I want to talk about and do that I can’t and I’m so lonely and it’s all so frustrating and depressing and I’m so tired of it all. So aimless and tired and bored and unmotivated and afraid and wishing more than ever that I had 2016 back, before everything became so fucked up in so many ways.

I’m so sorry, anyone who’s friends with me now reading this; you’re all so important to me and I don’t mean to act like you’re not. I’m just sorry I’m such a mess. I need a new purpose, but I don’t know what that is. Maybe I should use this blog to write more meta posts, besides that one. Maybe I should actually post my fics here, although as everyone on tumblr knows, fics get even less notes than art does, so even though my MHA fics get a decent amount of attention as it is, maybe it wouldn’t matter if I put them here too. Is it obvious I’m just a lazy greedy lonely ass craving validation and attention and friendship at this point.......... lol......... I’m just a wreck, I feel so suppressed and aimless, trapped in a life that’s too suffocating and alone for me. And I don’t know how long I and this blog are going to stay this way, so........ I’m sorry, anyone who cares.

Thank you, everyone who’s followed me and still follow me; I appreciate you all so much, and haven’t forgotten a single one of you early ones I’ve talked to before. Hopefully eventually this blog will feel more alive again, eventually........ eventually.............. whenever I find what it is I need, somehow. In the meantime I’ll just keep reblogging MHA posts like a broken record I guess lol.

[defiestars]

some quick verse + tlj thoughts related info  * *  very uhHHH likely to change as i go / as i remember things more clearly if / when i subject myself to tlj again

i.  recovery   //    in the empire strikes back novelisation luke was in his bacta tank for 12 hours and then slept for another 16 hours for fatal hypothermia.  assuming bacta technology has advanced and become more sophisticated,  particularly because it’s now been synthesised into a suit,  i’d estimate finn’s recovery to have been in the 30-36 hour mark.  (   also, he’s force-sensitive but that’s A Whole Other Topic  !  )   

if we assume:  day 1 post-tfa:  rey staying long enough to get her hot new Grey Jedi Look together  +  organise the gps bracelet plan with leia.  the resistance receiving alerts that the first order fleet is approaching and beginning evacuation plans.  day 2 post-tfa:  finn wakes up,  half a day earlier than he did in tlj,  just in time to offer information on the weak points of the star destroyers and the dreadnought, including helping devise the plan to eliminate the dreadnought’s surface cannons and clear the way for the resistance bombers. 

ii.  allegiance   //   FINN OWES !! THE RESISTANCE !! NOTHING !!!!!!  HE DOESN’T OWE ANYBODY SHIT !!!!!!!  this boy has risked his life and livelihood time and again from the moment he chose not to kill for the first order for complete strangers,  for a movement he had no prior connections with.  even if leaving and becoming a  ‘’’’’’’ traitor ‘’’’’’ to the resistance had been right for his character and a valid development in his character arc,  he does not deserve to be called a deserter for wanting nothing to do with the first order ever again.  like........... does anybody fucking realise that alongside the very possible defeat of the resistance, finn being captured by the first order again probably means he wouldn’t be killed, but  reconditioned  ???????  the first order has had deserters, too !!   they also get tasered !  in the Head, specifically their Brain, where they’re basically restored to factory settings.  not to mention the sheer amount of bravery and courage and heroism it takes for him to turn around and face the organization that destroyed his childhood, enslaved him, and has systematically abused him every day of his life.

with all of that said,,,,,  it makes 0 sense for finn to decide, in the middle of the resistance evacuation, to suddenly up and leave with a shitty ass excuse about needing to be far away for when rey comes back.  like ??????  rey's path is already so deeply and inexorably tied to the rube goldberg machine that is the jedi, the resistance, and the skywalkers,  and finn knows this.  even if he wasn’t fundamentally a person with a moral compass that couldn’t be broken even by two decades of indoctrination into a fascist space nazi regime,  finn does The Things He Does because they’re the right thing to do.  his character arc is not and has never been defined by rey.  i don’t know what dinosaur sloth titty juice rian johnson’s been drinking but repeating parts of finn’s earlier character development to the point of regression is not !!! good !!!! writing !!!!!!!

given that he’s spent 36ish hours in a recovery coma,  finn hasn’t had so much as a Second to process,  or decide,  where he stands in the resistance.  like rey,  he too is looking for someone to show him his place in all this.  unlike rey,  he has no mentor figure, no introspective screentime alone,  no inner dialogue or space to explore who he is now in the post-first order part of his life.  but,  for the time being and given the time-sensitivity of the resistance evacuation,  he is absolutely on the side of the rebels.  these are the people who saved him and protected him,  who gave him the jacket off their backs and something to fight for.  not only does deserting make 0 logical or tactical sense in the middle of an evacuation,  it’s just outright selfish ??  and self-serving ???  none of which finn is, thank you @ryan johnson.

iii.  rebellion   //   so there’s been a lot of differing opinions on finn and rose’s storyline and after agonizing a lot of this i’ve come to the almost final decision that it’s Not As Bad as ppl want it to be.  like a lot of mischaracterisation fuck-ups in tlj,  it mainly comes down to  how this storyline was treated in the grand scheme of tlj and how significant it was to the overarching plot.  canto bight only seems irrelevant because ryan johnson is a terrible fucking writer who thrives off sidelining his characters of color.  thematically, it served it as a damning critique of the powerful ruling class and political economic elites that are actively profitting from the injustice and oppression of war.  rose showing those kids the resistance emblem in her ring is one of the most iconic moments in the film;  inspiring a whole generation of children to rise up against their oppressors is  everything the resistance symbolizes and fights for.  

throwing in an unnecessary oc spitting some half-assed  ‘ everything isn’t always good or bad, sometimes there’s just grey areas ’  message in a parallel of the jedi story and ultimately having the undercover mission serve No Purpose Whatsoever was a shitty move.  in keeping with the fandom interpretation that tlj is a story about failure,  this would’ve been okay  only  if  the detour onto the star destroyer hadn’t been for absolutely nothing.  because there Needed to be fucking somETHINg,  instead of just benicio del toro rihanna.gif winking with the parting words that  ‘ hey sometimes people are just assholes ’.  star wars isn’t a story... about... people being fundamentally shitty..... it’s a story about good vs. bad and the enduring struggle for Balance between them;  People Are Both.  it doesn’t matter what you are but what you  do  and the choice you have to do good or bad.  to counteract the shittiness of dj fucking off,  leaving two poc to be forced onto their knees by a white fascist villain,  and a black character to be slapped upside the face by said white fascist villain we needed Something.  WHERE WAS OUR STORMTROOPER UPRISING, hMMMmm MMm MMMM mMM MM ????????????

bb-8 showing up as deus ex sight gag was funny for 2.5 seconds but now i'm just.... like crait.... a whole Salt Planet.  we could have had, it All ?  i don’t even specifically know where this part of my tlj-divergent verse goes because it actually requires other non-canon characters to exist but.... hey if any ex-stormtrooper oc’s wanna hmu.... u kno where i’m at.  basically,  i picture a handful of stormtroopers defecting,  escaping with rose and finn,  becoming part of  the rebellion that is reborn. 

iv.  battle of crait   //   this... fuc king scene..... god.  let’s just get the wampa out of the way.  rose’s  ‘ that’s how we’re gonna win.  not fighting what we hate, saving what we love ’  was totally narratively undeserved.  this is not a criticism of the character but of ryan, again, the man who was paid millions of dollars to write this garbage.  in under 18 hours,,,, rose has decided that she has gotten over her lifelong hatred for the first order,  her very recent and fresh grief over losing her sister who died Fighting The First Order,  and oH,  she LOVES FINN ?  WHAT.  cool.  coolcoolcool.

in my canon, i’m going to go with the idea that rose did not kiss finn.  but they have a fantastic dynamic,  and rose crashing into him, saving him and saying something similar to what she said but more along the lines of not wanting to lose another person she cares about to the first order would have been much... better....  i view this ship as primarily platonic, at least far as tlj goes.  finnrey and finnpoe barely had any screentime / development so ryan johnson is flat-out playing no-homo games if he thinks he’s going to sail a ship based on 18 hours of knowing each other.  but i’m totally open to seeing where it goes with proper development, etc. in rp,  so if there are any rose’s that would like to plot with me and discuss finnrose stuff please !!!  i’m begging you !!!!  

if ya made it to the end,  thank you,  ur the real mvp,  u are now obligated to message me to plot or yell at me abt ur own tlj salt / headcanons / character analysis. 

[fallen029]

One Last Time.4

Anytime I go back to write a character who I haven’t written in awhile, I like to go back and read the last chapter that involved them, to get a feel for them again. So, for Ravan, that would be this chapter from One Last Time. I don’t post Remember Me stuff over here (no one seems to care much for it here...or at all), but I was reading this chapter back and I really fucking liked it and I was just thinking it’s kinda shitty that something of my work, that I like, isn’t unilaterally on all of my fic dumping places, so here’s a single fucking chapter to something without any context. 

Full Story on FF

Full Series on Archive

.

They were so alike that they were destined to clash.

That's what people always thought, anyways, of Haven and Ravan. Even they could conceded, at least now, to that fact. When they were children, they had so much stored vitriol and animosity for those around them that it was only natural they'd find it easiest to take it out on the only other person willing to give it right back to them. Up until the point they found one another, Haven spent her days constantly being disappointed by her sister, Navi, and Locke for their inability to continue to take the beatings she was doling out without crying to their parents.

Until Ravan showed up. He had no parents, for one thing, and also a resistance to giving in. They'd battle one another til they were both bloodied and even though, when they got older and became friends over time, the feeling of completely expending yourself, losing nearly all of your magic and having to slink home broken, were some of the best memories Haven held of the guy.

She'd always had a penchant for violence. It paired unfortunately well with her spoiled nature. From the time she was given free reign around nine or so, to go and do as she pleased throughout Magnolia, Haven mostly found herself bothering older children in the neighborhood, until, eventually, finally, they'd conceded and throw down with her.

It...usually didn't go her way.

But fuck, there was just something about it. There always had been for her. Something that her mother and father didn't understand. Or, more than likely, pretended as if they didn't.

To get to the pinnacle, to reach your apex, you have to claw your way up from the bottom. Broken, bruised, and bloodied. It didn't count otherwise. All the origins stories of the famed wizard she grew up in the shadows of had immense hurdles and struggles to overcome in order to garner their celebrity. Since she had next to none of that, the only other option was to manufacture it. Cause injury and hurt where none would appear otherwise.

Plus, well...Haven liked it even more when she wasn't the one getting her ass kicked.

Ravan, however, wasn't manufacturing his pain and suffering. Instead, he was coping with the actual fallout of a traumatic event while adjusting to a new life with a not nearly as sympathetic as she should be at times mentor.

And it felt so fucking good to lay into Haven, to really slam his fist into something, into someone, and just let it all out. Getting shocked wasn't pleasant, it never would be, but that slight tick, right before you realize that Haven had scorched you through, where your body seizes up and you kinda feel nothing for a moment…

There was no deeper reason for him hating Haven. Not really. Not any that he didn't lay out quite openly. She was spoiled and a bully and was a wholly rotten kid. Someone had to put her in her place. Why shouldn't he be allowed joy while doing so?

Never once did he consider her anything close to a friend during those early years. At all. Even when he was forced into palling around with the others, he saw all of them, Navi and Locke as well, as obstacles. Ravan didn't want friends. He'd had friends, most of them had died, and now he didn't need anymore. The same with parents. They were dead and Erza was nothing close to either of them. She was just...there. Kind of like how the slayer kids were just there.

But then one day changed everything.

He didn't understand why Haven sat with him, that day, while he embarrassingly wept, exhausted and beaten. The memory now felt jaded by all they'd gone through over the years, but he could attest with confidence before that moment, he'd never thought of Haven as anything more than an adversary. A rival. Maybe not even. You respect a rival; he vehemently hated the blonde. More than anyone else in his life.

She certainly felt the same way about him. He was for sure she did. And yet, instead of mocking him or running off to tattle, she just sat there, in the dirt. Silent. Not trying to give her opinion or force him into something he didn't want. He wasn't to be tricked, of course, and knew it wasn't the case, there was no way it was the case, but…

Why did it feel like she understood?

How could she?

Her parents weren't dead. She wasn't alone. She wasn't lost and broken and lacking any semblance of self-confidence or reliance.

But there was something in it. That day. As he fractured before her. It...changed things. It changed her, maybe, he wasn't sure, but it definitely changed him.

It felt like he wasn't so alone. That maybe there was someone, even a spoiled slayer kid, that felt the same way as him.

They didn't fight as viciously again. Never again, he was pretty sure.

Oh, they fought. They fought a lot. But it only continued to taper off from there and eventually…

Well…

Heh.

Haven was...reasonably attractive, he always thought, when they got to the age where that mattered, and she paid attention to him, when other people just looked right through him, and she never thought he was creepy. At all.

And he knew, if he'd had just been smarter than stupid Locke and had just said something to Haven, or had just cornered her the same way creepy Locke, then...then…

And it was stupid.

All of it was so stupid.

He was so stupid.

He was hung up on dumb shit that happened, god, it was over half a decade ago. Would he still be so bothered by it in a decade? Haven was, at most, mediocre, right? Right? And she was a fucking nightmare to have as even a friend. A fucking nightmare. And she'd fucked Locke's life up, so shouldn't he just consider himself lucky to have not been involved in all of that?

But he was involved in all of that, because he just thought, if they went out on an adventure together, a real serious one, the fucking gauntlet, and he'd get Haven the only thing she'd ever wanted. All she'd ever wanted. Power. More than she'd know what to do with. And then she'd team up with him, she'd be with him, and he'd be fine if she was with him in literally any capacity that wasn't with Locke, and then they could go on to do all of the things they wanted and he just...he just…

He just phased through it because his mind was leaving him and he was going crazy and she was going to go home with Locke and he'd thought they'd won the gauntlet and it was just reaction and he couldn't breath, he couldn't breath, he couldn't breath, he couldn't…

"Come on, Ravan," Haven was taunting, in that moment, as he did the best he could in that moment, to connect his blade to a purple blast she sent his way, an orb, sending it flying off in the opposite direction. "Fuck your swords. Show me your real magic. Defense is for cowards." There was a glint in her eye then, from where she stalked him, both moving in tandem to one another in a contentious dance. Gleaming, she remarked then, "Maybe that's why you're so into it, huh? You little coward."

"Are you… Haven, did that demon…. Did it get back inside of you?" Ravan still stood in his same dance, not on the attack, not until he knew for certain. "When were in the lab? Or-"

"You're a fucking idiot. You always have been. You know that?" She was advance on him now, shaking her head some as her blue eyes flared in the rising sun's light. "You're pathetic."

"Haven, if you're in there-"

"I never liked you. I was never your friend. At all. I was using you, idiot. And not even the good type of using you, like I was everyone else. Because you were such a little sucker that I didn't even have to give you anything, nothing at all, in return for you basking in my attention." She no hint of the demon inside of her. Not an ounce. All her words, her mannerisms, belonged solely to her, another her, maybe, from years past, that had grown and changed, but had to still exist, as all former selves did, beneath facades and layers. Something, clearly, had revealed this once more and, as it sneered in Ravan's face, "So be the same pathetic little wimp you always are and do as I say; fight. Or I else I'll fucking slaughter you. I fucking swear."

There was a strange moment, just a beat, where he processed her words and she took a breath, Haven did, about the same time he gulped one in, and everything felt so still as she came to a stop before him now, his blade drown between them, time having passed, so much fucking time, and yet…

"In my darkest hours, I turn to you, the heavens above. Grant me the power only Raijin can wield!"

It happened so quickly and yet, not really, was it? This was a long time coming, as Haven's arm shot into the sky, which seemed to darken in a blink, dropping voided lightning straight down, her catching it with with no fear, even knowing the pain this could bring. It was, after all, the only way to get stronger.

There was something different about it though, this time, than it had been out on the cliff that day. Much like for the demon, Haven's eye blacked immediately, fully engulfed save the tiny red dot in the center, becoming as tenebrous as the armor Ravan reequipped into, shiny and reflecting the glows of her duel wielded magic.

He thought he was going to have to kill her, before, once. Not so long ago. In the hot summer that granted her rebirth. But first, he'd spent some agonizing hours, dreading his lot in life, which was surely putting an end to the terror that stood before him now. After all, someone had to put Haven in her place.

Why wouldn't it be the one person who would enjoy it?

But he hadn't enjoyed it. He wasn't enjoying this, as she flew at him with such ferocity, such animus vigor, that it was all he could do to toss up his blade, not catching her magic now, but rather her forearm, a power struggle of swords as she pressed her flesh harder against the blade, as if her body were her own weapon.

And wasn't it?

Ravan fell away, just slightly, stumbling in shock as he watched her wound weep blood from behind his visor, his helmet not providing near enough shielding from what he could clearly now diagnose as insanity.

Whatever he'd done, in bringing her back here, in allowing her to come back here, it was a mistake.

"One of us," Haven insisted to him then as she hardly seemed to even feel it, the stinging in her arm as she merely formed a fist and shot a blast of sticky black lightning straight for the man, "is going to die here, Ravan. And if you keep this up, it's definitely going to be you."

It was all he could do then, Ravan could, to jump out of the way of the sickening crackle of lightning, diving to the side first into a roll, and then into invisibility. She wasn't giving him time to think. He needed to think to-

"You do have a death wish, don't you?" Her eyes flew around the clearing wildly. "I know you, Ravan; you can do all the training you want, with your mom's stupid boyfriend and his friends, take in as many lacrimas as you want, it doesn't matter; you will never have enough magic to pull it off for long. This invisibility shit. It soaks up too much magic. So come out, before I have to- Found you!"

This time, she stomped her foot, heavily, into the ground, the crackling following the path and scorching the ground in its wake.

Ravan cried out as, having fallen forwards, intending to duck her next shot of lightning, he was in the direct line of sight for this ground current and it burned him. Through the armor. He could feel it. This was the magic that nearly downed the final monster on the gauntlet.

If he didn't do something, it would certainly fell him.

Shoving up, he phased back into view, taking a few gasping breaths as Haven stood there, stock still, watching him with a heavy gaze.

"I didn't fucking," he growled to her then as his breath caught back up to him, "kill you, Haven. On that cliff. It wasn't my fault."

And it wasn't.

He knew it wasn't. Now.

But oh, he'd spent so long being unable to come to that conclusion.

The day hung in his memory like no other. Even memories from when he was a boy and a sea monster descended upon the shores of his village, killing most of his family, were beginning to finally, fully fade. Just in time though, there was that final monster, on the gauntlet, to bring him a new memory to haunt his dreams.

Locke had come out of nowhere. From the forest or something. While Ravan was busy dodging blasts from the summoned monster. And Haven, she'd been injured, maybe, behind him, but then there was Locke, just like always, in their perfect little storybook relationship where she fucking sleep around on him and he act like the little bitch he always was, bowing to her every whim, and look, he was saving her again, wasn't he? Just like always.

Fucking idiots.

Both of them.

And fuck 'em, right? Fuck them. Fuck the two people who could have changed his life for the better, could have accept him and been friends with him, but no, Haven had him marked from the first time she saw him and made Locke hate him too. Enough so that even once she forgave him, one she turned the other cheek, her little lapdog couldn't do the same. And it had to be because he knew, didn't he? Locke did? How much better Ravan was than him for her? For Haven? And he was jealous because their friendship, their relationship, made sense, but Locke and Haven had long grown out of one another, hadn't they?

Hadn't they?

But here he was, once again, like the little piss ant he was, lost without his queen telling him directly what to do, and she wanted to be the hero. The victor. So that she could just walk right back out of his life, both their lives, really, the two of them, and go on with her power to do whatever the fuck she wanted.

It wasn't fair.

As childish and silly as it was, that's what Ravan realized that day, out on the cliff, as Haven used her special magic that she'd saved up, just for that moment, to presumably kill the final monster, and then sickeningly makeout with her dumb boyfriend over her victory, and it was never going to be him. Ever. He'd always been the replacement, no, worse; he was the placeholder. When Locke wasn't available, when Locke wouldn't understand or blindly agree to her words, he was there to make her feel heard and agreed with and, most importantly, in power.

And for what?

For fucking what?

So he was going to walk away. Not run away. Just leave. He was going to leave before her dumb family showed up, or whatever was going to go down, and he was going to be gone, then, from the cliff and her life, honestly, and maybe if things had ended there, if everything went how it had always gone up to that point, in her and Locke's favor, then this would be a sign. A final straw.

Haven was never going to be with him.

Or even be his friend.

He was going to walk away from that idea, that dream, and just let it die already, leave it in the past, with her, and her dumb actual boyfriend, and move on with his life, actually move on with his life.

And then…

She caught his arm. She'd rushed after him and grabbed his arm and was holding onto him, confused, because in her spoiled little world, Haven just couldn't understand it, didn't get why everything wasn't going exactly how she wanted, how she envisioned it. He was ruining things by having feelings and emotions and not being totally just okay with her boyfriend being all over her when, only a few nights prior, that was him and they were alone then, and everything was so much better, before that moment, and only continued to go downhill since then, and that had been the peak, right? Of their relationship? It was never going to get any better from there, and they were in the descent, and you couldn't break up with someone after hooking up once, but you could destroy a friendship that had spanned a childhood, and the monster threw something.

An orb.

At them.

And he just…

Did what came naturally.

Phased through.

Evaded.

Avoided something that might hurt him only to have it catastrophically fail and hurt him far worse.

"I didn't kill you," he was repeating with a shake of his head then, but his stance was different now and that time, when he let out a breath, it was only to suck in all the vitriol she was spewing out. "But now I'm going to."

Haven grinned then, but it wasn't so sweet, and when Ravan came rushing at her, blades drawn, she was more than ready. She may have even laughed, Ravan thought, but he couldn't be too sure of it, over the sound of the blood pounding in his ears, and she shocked him again, and again, and he was slashing her, but it wouldn't be enough, because there was only one way to kill her, but…

"Try it," she threatened when they fell away from one another, and her clothes were ripped and she was bleeding, rather heavily, from one wound in specific on her shoulder blade, but Haven only had eyes for him as she panted as well. "Won't work, but try it."

She was talking about his signature, finisher. The final move she'd first seen during the gauntlet. The blue hued light that would engulf his enemies, ending them. When he fell away that time, it was with the intention of using it, yes, at least as a threat tactic, but Haven sneered at this as well.

"If you do that," she told him then, "and it works, fine. You killed me. But if it doesn't, because it didn't, in the fucking guildhall last time, then what? Ravan? You're all out of power and time and I finish you off. That's the gamble, right? It either obliterates your enemies or it only slightly inconveniences them and they feast on you. Didn't work on me before; why would you try it now?"

"It didn't work," he replied darkly, "on the demon. But you don't have the demon inside of you anymore, Haven. You're mortal. Just like the rest of us."

His armor was in poor shape. That God Slayer lightning was eating it alive, ripping right through the protective plating and the glass had shattered on one side, on his visor, just barely missing his eyeball as it flew into his helmet, and fuck.

Fuck.

Every time he tangled with her, he wound up having to buy a new suit.

"I'm nothing," Haven assured him, "like the rest of you. And I don't need the fucking demon inside of me, moron. Don't you get it yet? I am the demon." She laughed then, truly, and he heard it, as she looked up at the sky above, at the dark skies that loomed overhead. "I spent my whole life wanting to be a Dragon Slayer, just like my father. I thought that it was what made him so special, being a dragon, but now I know. Now I get it. His magic, the ultimate form of his magic… Lightning. Electricity. Flowing through me. And now..." She looked down then, at her hands, both pulsing with their separate magics, "Combined with the power of my mother, this demonic energy I've absorbed inside of me…" She slammed both hands together and a magic circle appeared before her as she insisted, "I'm fucking invincible!"

The purple beam that came towards Ravan now was laced with the black lightning and it was going to hit him. Unless he phased through it. But if his magic went to phasing through it, in that moment, he wouldn't have been able to divert it elsewhere.

As her magic ripped through the last of his armor, Ravan forced his focus into reequipping his sharpest, most rigid spear into his hand, and he rushed forwards, through the beam, yelling in equal pan as much sa attempting to stay alive, keep oxygen pumping through him just long enough to fall into Haven, the spear piercing her flesh fully, and he collapsed into her as she fell backwards, a choking noise causing the laughter to die off in her throat.

But only momentarily.

While Ravan fell away in absolute agony, the magic making it difficult for him to breath, clawing at his helmet, trying to rip it off, rip it all off, away from him, to get pure access to any air he could get, Haven only stayed there, the spear having torn right through the scarring she already had, from the final monster on the gauntlet, gasping in her own breaths at first.

But then he heard it.

She was laughing again, sickeningly, disgustingly, as blood fell from her mouth and she sounded overjoyed by what had occurred between the two of them.

His armor, spent and done with, faded back into his reequip as Ravan stayed there, on his knees, while tears pricked his eyes and he questioned, "Why? Why?"

"Because you left me."

She was standing then, woozily, but determinedly, stumbling across the clearing to where her pack lay forgotten. Rifling through it, Haven quickly produced some sort of vial, a potion of some sort, no doubt concocted by her dumb boyfriend, and she cried out, when she had to pull in the smoothest motion she could manage, the spear from where it lay buried in her flesh. Quickly, she tossed the liquid from the vial over the gaping wound in her stomach, it fizzling against her flesh as she hissed, and when Ravan glanced over again, it was little more than a scrap.

"You," she got out as her eyes, one marred still, found his from the other side of the clearing, "let me, Ravan. To die. To fucking die. You abandoned the quest and ran and hid, like a fucking child."

He fell then, off to the side, as his body was wracked with shaking and uneven breathing. Tears flowed now, truly, from his eyes, and he couldn't help it. He was crying, as he was unable to properly gather air in his lungs, while Haven only reached back into the pack before coming to stand over him.

"I win." Bending down, she had to force him not to turn his head as she pressed a vial to his lips. "Drink. Idiot."

He didn't want to, but his body ignored his heart, and the searing pain was slowly ebbing away as Haven, exhausted, fell back onto her butt beside him.

"Apply magical poison to the tips of your spears." She looked down at the tattered shirt she wore. "It would have made it less likely I could have gotten to my vial in time. Then you might have won."

'You're fucked," he sobbed while Haven only sat beside him, watching.

"No." And the sky was clearing now as the magic had long died away in both her arms. Staring him dead in the eyes, she only insisted, "I'm chosen."

Time had lost meaning during their battle, but it was coming back to them both slowly then. Ravan practiced his breathing while Haven poked at the wound in her stomach before, eventually, shifting back over to her pack.

He skewed his eyes shut, Ravan did, as she seemed to have little care for his presence as she tugged her shirt over her head and took a bottle of water out, to begin dumping it over her many nicks and cuts. She had to riffle through the pack one last time for gauze, which she began to wrap around her arms while glancing over her shoulder.

"Aw," she remarked dryly. "You mad at me?"

"Fuck off."

And he wanted to.

He really did.

He wanted to leave her then, right there, and they'd just never see one another again, and it would be like he had killed her. Or she him. A fitting end to the worst relationship he'd ever had in his life.

But he only laid there, miserable and somewhat immobile, honestly, while Haven licked her wounds and he sulked in his own.

"I'm not going to apologize." When he snorted at her words, Haven insisted, "I'm not. Ravan. You owed me this."

"What the fuck even was this?" He finally was able to force himself into sitting up, just a bit, as he ran a hand over his eyes. "Haven?"

"I've already told you," she snapped in annoyance. "I wanted to test my powers fully, before I went away with Locke. Remember? And the only way I could do that was-"

"By trying to get me to kill you? By trying to kill me?"

"If you didn't believe it was real," she chided, "you wouldn't go all out. And I wouldn't be able to go all out on you. I didn't do this to hurt you; I did this for me." Then she heard how that ending bit sounded and frowned before saying, "But only because you deserve it. You owed me. Heavily. Consider us all even now, huh?"

But his eyes were still dark as he shook his head and said, "You'll never get it."

"How you left me?" she retorted, annoyed now, like she always was, by someone not understanding her own case immediately while giving no regards to theirs. "How I laid there, dying, and my friend turned his back and-"

"You'll never understand any of it," he kept up, and he felt unwell, but refused to back down. Not over this. Not when they'd already come so far. She'd gone back to her gauze, stewing now no doubt, but he only insisted as he said, "You're too fucking selfish. All the people in the entire world, in my fucking life, who deserved a second chance, to come back, who'd actually mattered, and it's fuck you who gets to come back? Fuck this. Fuck all of this."

"You," she retorted as she turned, just like that, on her heels to glare at him with just as much fire as she had when they were tussling to the death, "don't know me. Ravan. At all. You have no idea what I am anymore. You didn't when we went out on that stupid gauntlet either. You don't know me. And you haven't since I was, what? Sixteen? Fuck you."

But he wouldn't let her have it, the higher ground, even if he still couldn't peel himself up off it. Tone tight, he questioned back, "And you know me?"

"I know that you left me." She tucked the gauze now, dropping her arms as she stared over at him. "And I know that you never apologized for it."

"What the fuck do you apologize for? Huh?'

"Everything. To everyone who deserves it." And she let out a short huff of breath then, through her nose. "To Marin, to Locke, to...my family. I'm a different fucking person now, Ravan. Than I was even six months ago. I'm getting better, every fucking day. Becoming better. And you don't get to come in and tell me I'm not."

She paused, waiting for his retort, but when none came, Haven took a deep breath before slowly taking steps towards him.

"I'm sorry. Ravan."

He refused to look at her, turning his head, but it didn't matter; her words penetrated regardless.

"I am. I...don't say that word very often, but it's true." She was beside him now and it was with a bit of a wince that she fell back, into the dirt beside him once more. "I am sorry. That I...made you keep going. On the gauntlet. That I made you think that I was going to...be your girlfriend or whatever it was, that you wanted. I'm sorry that I laughed at you. Every single time I laughed at you. I'm sorry if I...if I'm… I was ever part of the reason that you hated yourself so much. I was a really shitty kid and you don't have to believe me or forgive me, but I just thought… I'm going to go away, Ravan. For a long time. And...if we really don't ever see one another again...no joking or being a jerk, but… I'm sorry. For being such a lousy friend. And even worse to you, before I was that. I was going through my own things and preyed on you because of it. I can't go back and fix it, but… I'm sorry."

He fell backwards then, Ravan did, flat on his back, to stare up at the clear sky now, blinking some at the harsh light of the morning sun. Softly, he said, "I got scared. Haven. When you… I got scared and I ran and you're right. I was a coward. I've always been one. But you don't know what it was like, after you died. Your father ran me out of my home and your boyfriend turned everyone else against me. I was alone. I mean, I had Kai and Erza and...Marin, but other than that...it was just me."

Haven seemed to consider what he said, but only for a moment or so before remarking simply, "Hasn't it always been that way?"

Considering this as well, Ravan soon found himself shaking his head softly as he replied, "No." Resting his head on its side then, he stared over at her blankly as he added, "Before I always had you."

A silence passed between the two of them then, a shared one, but when Haven looked poised to ruin it, Ravan found he couldn't let her.

So he did instead.

"Why," he asked softly then, turning his head to look back up at the bright, blue sky, "do you love Locke?"

Haven frowned then, not prepared for this, and instead of answering, only countered, "Why do you hate him?"

And, for some reason, Ravan had an answered prepped for this very question. Perhaps he always had and had just been waiting forever for someone to finally ask him.

"Because he has a dad. Who wanted to teach him a bad ass magic. But then he chose something shitty instead and bitched constantly because his dad was disappointed in him." Ravan tossed an arm over his eyes then, not trusting himself to glance over at her. "Because he could talk to girls. Easily. And get them to laugh. And not think that he was a creep. Because they'd think he was cute even though he's fucking not and people thought he was so funny, but he's just dumb. Because Kai thought that he was so great and Marin likes him so much, even though I spend way more time with them and they should like me way more than him. Because his mom is always so nice to him and would pack him lunches, when we'd go out training, and was always there, when we got back from jobs, to ask him how it was, instead of just standing around and making snide remarks because he wasn't as sweet or thoughtful as everyone else. Because…you liked him. Always. More than me. And I have always just been second best to him and… Because if I had all those things then...then I could be just as good as him."

Ravan dropped his arm, after his final sentence, before finally glancing at Haven. Softly, he prompted, "Your turn."

She made a face at him before shrugging and looking off.

"I don't know," she admitted softly, but when she noted, his eye roll, she only insisted, "I don't. I don't… Ever since I was a little kid, he's always just been there. Like Navi, I guess, or you, kind of, but Locke's always cared about me. Really cared about me. And looked out for me. He's just always been my best friend. More than normal people say that word. There's literally always been nothing in the world that would ever make him turn on me. Or me him. And then, when we got older, I just…

"One day, I just realized that… I don't...feel things, sometimes. Like normal people. But when I'm with Locke, it doesn't matter. If I say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing, he just grins or sometimes complains at me, but he wants the best for me, for us, and it didn't matter when I was a horrible person, because fuck, I was a horrible person, but he always knew that I could get better. That I would get better. And he's waited for me. Whether we get there as friends or more, he's just always waited for me and wanted me, no matter what, and that just...means everything to me."

She looked down then, Haven did, to glance at her pendant, holding up the blue gem tightly before saying, "One day, you're gonna find someone who makes you feel the same way. Not someone who makes you feel like shit all the time, like I do, except for the rarest moments, but someone who actually cares about you and you care about too and you're not going to fight, constantly, and even when you do, it's not going to bring you to your lowest, because you know that you're...okay. No matter what. The two of you. I was...never going to always be there for you, Ravan. No matter what happened during or after the gauntlet. Or at any other point. And admit it; you've only ever been into me for stupid reasons. I'm actually a really horrible person."

"You're right." He glaned at her again. "Never did. You're a piece of shit."

"Yeah, and so are you, asshole."

"Haven-"

"It'dda ended horribly." She was looking up at the sky then, with a frown. "If we didn't go to that last monster. Just fucked outta there, together. We'd have ended up hating one another."

"How's that different from now?"

"I don't hate you, Ravan." Eyes falling, she stared straight into his, one still blackened from her spell. "And I haven't in a long time. I wouldn't take you all the way out here to kill you if I hated you; I'd legitimately just kill you." Then she frowned. "Or I would have. I'm a better person now, you know."

"Yeah. I think I've heard."

"It's because of you that I thought of it. You know. Going to Bosco. And that Erza even thought to offer me a chance to help with the resistance." That time, finally, really, her smile felt slightly wry, with just the right amount of irony that he knew, he was sure, it belonged to her, the one he knew, regardless of time or space. "And it's because I died that you're doing what you love now, right? That you finally left the dumb guild behind? So, I guess we really are even, aren't we? Everything in our lives is going to turn out alright, because of one another. That must count for something, huh?"

He sniffled some, Ravan did, maybe allergies, maybe injury, or maybe something else, but after doing so, he whispered softly, "I'm sorry, Haven. For leaving you there. For even mentioning the dumb gauntlet to you. I was being selfish, the whole time, trying to trick you into…into...being with me. I'm sorry for bugging out on you, after we… I'm sorry for getting all weird or...creepy and… I'm just sorry. I guess. For everything."

The sun felt warm now, and she still had a bit more patching up to do, Haven did, so she stood, but not before insisting simply to him, "I'm not."

It would take awhile before either of them were ready to head out. They were both weak and sore, having used up too much of their magic at once, far too early in the day, and the hike back to the train station no longer looked so simple and easy. Still, they had to leave eventually and waiting a day was out, for a good number of reasons, but mostly because they'd only be even more sore the longer they gave their bodies to adjust.

Haven stood though, suddenly, as they were nearly out of the forest, and stopped to look behind them, where they could just barely see the fortress in the distance, looking much more regal and fearsome when only given a small portion of the picture.

"Yeah," she sighed softly, having changed back into the hoodie and with the sunglasses hiding her fucked up eye. "I shouldda torched that place."

Ravan was hiding behind his bandanna, muffling his speech as he said, "Nah. Now you can always go back and loot. When you need to."

"Yeah." She agreed for once, rather than calling him a name or spawning an argument. Turning her back once more, she started walking again. "If I ever need to."

They were both battered and broken when they reached a city, and thought they looked awful, still ventured to find some food, some actual food, before trudging in silence to the nearest train station.

Haven though that they'd be going back to Kai's place together, but it was only once they got there and were looking over board times that Ravan told her to send his regards.

"They're gonna think that I did something to you, out here, all alone," she pointed out and he didn't feel like explain she had. Far too much, in fact.

"I just need to get back. There's no reason for me to go all the way to the coast if I'm headed the other way." Ravan looked off then with a sigh, because it was hard to have a conversation in a busy station. At least when you were so inclined to muttering. "Tell Kai and Marin that I'm sorry, but it's work. They'll understand. Both of them, now."

Haven really wanted him to go with her, but he'd already done so much (and gone through it as well) for her benefit, that she found it difficult to force the issue. But as her train would be arriving soon, before his, she found that she had to get any more of it out, whatever she could, because whatever she didn't might hang over them for a year or two and, as someone who'd already lost so much time, she knew how precious it was, especially once wasted.

It shocked Ravan though, who'd had a pretty shocking day over all, but when Haven, after being silent for so long, suddenly launched herself at him, he nearly fell over.

Hugging him tightly, Haven insisted, as she closed her eyes, "When I get back...no matter how long it's been… I'm going to find you. And we're going to talk about all the shit we've done since we last saw one another. So you better actually be fucking doing something important, alright? 'cause you'll look pretty fucking lame if you don't."

He'd been confused, at first, by her gesture (hugs weren't something Haven just threw out...it might be the first one he'd ever gotten from the girl, literally ever), but slowly, at first, he patted at her back before also relaxing some and clinging to her as well.

"Just watch out for yourself," he insisted as, slowly, they parted, and it was hard to look one another in the eyes, but both forced themselves to do so. "Haven. And...watch out for your dumb boyfriend too. He's really trusting and stupid and… You should just both be careful. I wanna actually see you, when you get back. Not just hear about all the good things you died trying to accomplish."

The train would arrive not soon after that, and Haven didn't realize how hard it would, to say, as a lump rose in her throat, and she couldn't imagine how much more difficult it would be, when she was forced to do it with everyone else in the coming weeks.

"Goodbye," she told him, raising her hand a bit, as if to wave, even though he was still right in front of her. "Ravan."

He raised his own, but it was to tug down his bandanna, and he felt it too, in his throat, but forced himself watch as she turned to walk away, calling out softly, "Goodbye, Haven."

And it had been so weird, everything had been so weird, for the past few days, especially since he woke up that morning, and then she was gone, gone for good, maybe, possibly, and he was more thankful than he thought he would be, for the burning in his chest and the bruises forming over his body, because at least he could be certain, as he got on his own train not long after, that it had happened. That she had happened.

And that it had ended.

For now.

It was evening by the time Haven arrived back in Kai's sleepy, coastal town, and Haven only rolled her eyes, from behind her sunglasses, when upon arriving at his home, her sister and the man seemed concerned over her appearance.

"You should see," she joked weakly, as Lance, who was around the house also, thanked everything he'd convinced Kai to get out of that crazy guild, "the other guy."

"Are we not going to?" Marin asked with a frown.

"He had to head out," Haven remarked simply as Kai got her a med kit from the bathroom, but seemed wholly disappointed his brother hadn't come back around.

"Well," he offered thoughtfully. "'least you guys had a good time, right? Beating up some random guy?"

"Something like that," Haven agreed as Marin still eyed her suspiciously. "Yeah."

Kai insisted they stay another night and Haven obliged (mostly because she was feeling rather weak after all it had taken to arrive back there), falling back into the couch as Lance and Kai left to go scrounge up some dinner for everyone.

Slowly, Marin came to join her sister on the couch, who was sitting with her eyes closed, sunglasses still hiding them from the world.

"Did you and Ravan," her younger sister asked eventually while Haven only gave the slightest notion of listening, "do what you set out to? Haven?"

"Yeah, actually, we did. Everything."

"And...you're going to tell Locke about all of it, right?"

"Yeah, sure."

"All of it?"

And Haven sat up then, at first reaching to remove her glasses, but then catching herself before just crossly questioning, "What are you getting at, Marin?"

But she was far too bashful to admit her knowledge in the matter and only blushed before saying, "I just… I like Locke and I don't want him to get upset with you or for you guys to fight or-"

"Locke and I will always fight." Sitting back again, she sounded unconcerned as she said, "But we'll always make up. He's kind of in love with me, if you didn't notice."

"And you love him too, right? And wouldn't do anything that might ruin that or hurt him or-"

"Are you okay, Marin? Or- Oh, I get it." Haven sneered some before saying, "You got stuck here, seeing how in love Kai is and shit. Between that and seeing how awesome my relationship is-"

"I really don't-"

"-you're just a little jealous, huh?" Haven snickered. "Or feel like you're missing out?"

"N-No, it's not-"

"Don't worry. You're not." Haven reached up to toy with her necklace before insisting, "Being in love sucks. I mean, it's the best thing in the world and Locke means everything to me, but just consider yourself lucky, huh? I know I make this relationship thing seem super easy and rewarding, but it's a lot of work."

Deflating some, Marin only said, "As long as you got everything you wanted-"

"I did." Reaching over, she tossed an arm around her sister, who froze up at this, but Haven only grinned as she shut her eyes once more. "I really did."

[dingoreviews]

Final Fantasy XIII Review

I feel like since this is my first(tm) review I should do some explaining on how this will work. But at the same time everyone and their mom posts reviews for things nowadays so I'm sure you get the picture. Feel free to skip all this and go to the end where I sum it up in one sentence. Don't worry. I won't mind.

...Still there? Neat. Unfortunately for you, you've probably made the worse of the two choices.

As a disclaimer, this rant is purely my opinion and completely subjective. No one is paying me to do this. If you dislike what I'm saying, leave an ask and I will sip my iced tea and laugh about it as I read it dramatically to my friends and loved ones. Anyway, let's continue with me shitting on ranting about the FFXIII series in detail. Potential spoilers, but these games are hella old so if you spoil yourself you can just eat a pint of ice cream and cry about it.

I like to consider myself a Square Enix/Final Fantasy fan. I tend to follow their actions and look forward to their games. Some of my favorite games are made by Square (Kingdom Hearts, Tomb Raider (the reboots) and FFX to name a few). That said, there’s a good chance I’m pretty biased in their favor.

But some of their most recent games have been kinda shaky for me, particularly FFXIII and XV. I’ll save FFXV for another time though.

So FFXIII (or 13 for the casuals) stars your typical cast of generic and angsty characters who, in classic JRPG fashion, have to kill god(tm) with the power of friendship and morals. It's got your pretty generic plot where the entire world/government is conspiring against you and your ragtag group has gotta stab everything between point A and point B. Did that sound like a criticism? I mean as cliche as that all is at that point it's basically Square's bread and butter for FF games so I'm not really worried about all that.

I mean, this is typically the part of the review where you go over the plot of the games right? Well maybe I would if I actually knew what it was. That brings me to my first rant point:

Where's the Damn Story?

There's been a trend in games lately where the devs leave little footnotes and data entries littered about that give you background and fully explain the lore of the world you're in. A lot of the time, that's typically reserved for less important information, like the time sheets for the town's police force or the color of their president's undergarments. You know, things that might be nice to know for people who are really into it, but not necessary to understand what is going on. FFXIII also decided to use this method of storytelling...

While on your epic hallway adventure, FFXIII gives you data entries about background and things when relevant. I, for one, made the assumption that, like many other games, I could save those until later as it wasn't necessary for understanding what was going on right now. BOY WAS I WRONG. Throughout the majority of the game the characters go on and on as if you're already well versed in their world. L'cie? Fal'cie? I mean if you're gonna make up words at least define them for me extremely clearly within the plot and storytelling itself.

Literally everything I understand about the plot of the first XIII game came from reading a wiki after the fact. And that says a lot considering I barely understand it even now. It really shows a failure on XIII's part to actually write a plot in a way that would be clear to anyone who played. Throwing data entries at me as a requirement for understanding the plot is EXTREMELY LAZY in my opinion.

Then there's the characters. Honestly, I didn't like any of them. I mean, I liked Fang and Vanilla (that was intentional) mostly, but they still felt kind of underwhelming. The characters had a lot of potential too. I feel like Lightning had genuine motives behind her actions, but she was as expressive as a spiky haired potato. I mean, at least her design wasn't overly emphasizing her tits and ass. I'm going to pretend that Lightning Returns doesn't exist yet because don't get me fucking started.

Then you get Snow who's just like look at me I'm the dumbass who believes I can save everyone herp. And Hope isn't any better with his momma's boy ass whining all the time. I guess there are character arcs but they only really happen by the weird plot point of hey if you don't fucking grow a pair this giant robot is gonna bury your ass so I'm not sure how much that counts.

Hallways for Days

I had already alluded to this, but the game is extremely linear.

Let me put that in perspective. I love FFX. For those of you that have played X, it is also extremely linear. But despite this, the game opens up in different ways that allow for side tracking and bonus stuff. It's not a whole ton until you get to the end, but it's something I don't mind about the game because there's so much more to it.

Meanwhile, FFXIII is so damn narrow that you could throw a hot dog down one of the hallways and it would get caught between the walls. They have all these lush, beautiful environments that you can only admire from a distance as the hallways the force you in make a sharp left turn away from it all. And then to top it off all those locations are one and done. You cannot go back to a majority of the game environments after completing them. Unless, of course, you restart the game. But why on earth would anyone subject themselves to another 30 hours of hallways anyway?

By the time the game opens up for you to roam and stretch your legs, you're basically in the final chapter. It's a question of "Do I fight the final boss or just grind until I die?" The game opens up so far in and so suddenly that, and this is no joke, when my boyfriend was playing the game he had such a shock from his comfortable, narrow hallways he got too overwhelmed to continue the game. That's a bad way to get introduced to the series, considering that was his first ever FF game.

Press X to Shaun Combat

Now my biggest gripe with XIII is the combat system. I saw combat system, but it’s more like a frustration magnet. So much of it feels less like a tactical system you have to actually control and think about and more like… pressing X until you win or die.

For those of you less familiar with the combat, your team takes actions by filling a turn bar with various commands based on their combat roles (or paradigms). Once they perform all their allotted tasks they then wait for the bar to refill again before taking more actions. This also applies to all of the enemies in the game.

Now, you’re probably saying Well if everyone is taking turns simultaneously based on any number of different timings then the battles must be pretty chaotic and fast paced. Yes, random citizen of the internet, they can be. Or, you know, you can press the Auto Battle option which the action cursor defaults to every time your characters have turns and it usually does the most optimal thing for that character based on their current paradigm.

That means we don’t have to think about anything at all! Let the game do it for us! Amazing! Everything I wanted in a movie video game! FFXIII successfully managed to take a combat system that is normally designed to create situations where players have to think strategically and remove almost all the thinking.

Honestly, that’s not what caused me agonizing frustration while playing the game. What destroyed my will to live most was the various area of effect (AoE) abilities that the characters and, more importantly, the enemies have. The most control you have for your characters�� positions is based entirely on their roles/ abilities used. Nothing stops your characters’ AIs from simply standing next to each other in a big pile. They might as well hold up a big sign that says Hit us with all your AoEs at once! I swear, if I had a dollar for every time my healer character walked right next to my tank character, who was pulling all the enemy aggro and died because they got hit by all the AoE, I’d have enough money to ship a package to Square Enix Japan with a video clip of Hope running directly into an attack directed at another character and a card with a big Why? written inside.

Conclusion

Yeah, you can probably tell that I wouldn’t recommend this game to anyone. I mean it’s pretty, the music is solid, and the internet believes that Lightning has great armpits. (As a gay man I have no comment on this.) But I just don’t think it’s very fun. Despite this, I did manage to finish the game and put a lot of time into some of the side quests. But in general, not a great game.

TL;DR

Battle is boring, plot is thrown at you unexplained, and it probably should have been a 48 hour movie. But hey, it’s pretty.