#BECAUSE HOO BOY DID MOST PEOPLE. SEEMINGLY NOT. <- SAW A LOT. A LOT A LOT A LOT OF DEATH THREATS

[lucabyte]

I 100% agree with your tags on that post, the best shipping gets fucking WEIRD with it.

i like fluff as much as the next guy but what good is a ship if it doesnt also have the range to make you go ?????????????????????

like "oh so you think these characters are dating?" not necessarily. something is happening though.

which is why i dont usually call myself a shipper in any capacity because i rarely get invested in a relationship in an "i want that to happen/im going to look at fancontent for this" way. i just kind of diagnose things like a malpracticing doctor. then sit back and speculate.

[briuche]

some maybe lesser talked about signs that you might be aspec

(AKA things i had to learn the hard way)

most of this is based off of my own experiences as an aromantic asexual who’s sex and romance-repulsed for myself and sex-positive when it comes to fiction and media. just a reminder it’s totally okay to not relate to my experiences, everyone has a different relationship wih romance and sex, and it doesn’t make you less valid as an aspec individual! this is just how i navigate it!

OK ONTO THE GOOD STUFF

you might be aromantic if:

you can tolerate online relationships (ie. talking over text), but when you spend time with the person irl you immediately feel uncomfortable/anxious/etc.

i dated a girl in the beginning of high school and most of it ended up being online because of covid, and i never wanted to call/facetime with her like she did.

before covid we had one “date” which was watching a movie and talking after

it was a horror movie so during the scary part i reached out to hold her hand cause that’s what i’d seen in all the books and tv shows

physically it wasn’t repulsive (like human contact is nice, holding hands with ur friends can be dope) but it didn’t give me any crazy Gushing Feelings of Love

we basically only texted and did mundane shit like send funny memes WHICH I WAS FINE WITH cause it was the same things i did with my other friends :)

when vaccines started rolling out and people were meeting up irl again i lied about when i was getting vaccinated so i could put off seeing her as long as possible (still was in hardcore denial atp and attributed it to being “shy”)

i finally did see her irl at a double date dinner that my ex gf and 2 other ex-friends and almost had a panic attack and vomited at the restaurant

back on the topic of hand holding: later after dinner when we were walking around outside she kept like moving closer to my side and i thought she was going to try and hold my hand so i literally like Clasped my hands behind my back  because i was so scared she would try something

so yeah after that i was like ‘okay this may not be Allo™ behavior’ 

“liking” someone that you already know likes you, maybe because it would give you a chance to get in a relationship and “feel love like everyone else”

my “crush” on my ex-gf basically went like:

we were in the same science class

seated next to each other in the beginning of the year

she found my instagram and started messaging me on there a lot about seemingly random stuff

i thought it was weird and i was like ‘wait is this someone liking me’

i made a gay joke with her to Test my Hypothesis™ (id’ed as bisexual at the time) and found out she was gay

atp i was like okay i think she has a crush on me...

kept talking to the girl because i had never seen someone have a crush on me behavior and i thought it was pretty interesting

actually hung out with her once for her birthday, first time i spend a lot of time actually with her

getting a better look at her face i saw that she was actually pretty cute (shoutout to aesthetic attraction for not being confusing AT ALL /j)

deduced that i must have a crush on her because i liked her face

also for context at the time i was really struggling with imposter syndrome about my sexuality because i never liked a girl and felt like i was “faking my gayness”, so i kinda latched onto this opportunity so that i could reassure myself like ‘no i was right i DO like girls!!’

but anyways i “confessed” to her over text and later when we met up to talk about it i literally did not care if we dated or not i left the whole decision up to her

in retrospect not a good decision i am mentally scarred. /hj

being called out by partners for being “emotionally distant”, treating them “more like a friend”, etc.

HOO BOY in my breakup text my ex basically went off about how we “felt more like friends that lovers” and complained about like how much time i spent with friends vs with her

i remember just being like ‘?????? i’ve known these people for like 8+ years??? and you for 2????? is the priority not obvious??????’

yeah basically allos actually feel stronger for partners than they do for their friends had to learn that the hard way

not wanting to talk to people about your relationship

one of my friends would always text me to ask “how it’s going!” with the relationship and it always just made me really uneasy and i’d try to shake it off and steer the conversation away with really vague responses like “we’re vibing haha”

conversely, telling A LOT of people about the relationship to show that you finally “did it”

i told my friends about the relationship because everytime they asked me about crushes i would say “i don’t have any” and they’d always follow up with some like “dude you don’t have to lie we won’t tell them!”

the relationship was basically just a chance for me to finally get people off my back and show that ‘hey i CAN love you guys i’m not abnormal or broken!’ :))

not really understanding how relationships work or what you want out of one

my entire understanding of how to navigate a relationship came from 1. AO3 fanfics and 2. whatever my ex wanted to do

she was the allo one and i did not know what the hell dating was about nor did i care to look into it so i just followed her lead for things that “lovers” do like sending “good morning texts” and shit like that even though i found it completely unnecessary and burdening

i just thought that everyone puts up with the parts of relationships that i hated (which is a lot) but NOPE people actually dig this stuff

HEADS UP this is the asexual section so stuff might get a little NSFW, nothing graphic as i’m a virgin but just fair warning! :)

you might be asexual if:

you like consuming erotica or other sexual material but it’s never self-insert, you read/watch/listen to it like you would any other story

it took me FOREVER to come to terms with this but 

you can like sex and still be asexual!!!! you can consume whatever sexual shit you want and it doesn’t make you any less ace!!!!!

for me personally i don’t really like porn and content of real people but i live and breath smutty fanfics (except that Y/N shit) and manga

i like watching/reading about attractive and pretty characters having sex with other characters but i never want said character to do things to me it creeps me out

im perfectly content with admiring(?) their good looks and bodies in these situations without feeling any kind of sexual urge for them

if this sounds relatable you might want to look into aegosexuality !

you can joke about and talk about sexual things, but the idea of those things actually happening is uncomfortable

my ex and i would talk about having sex, throw jokes around like “when are we gonna fuck haha”

though the conversation never got extremely physical or vivid without me feeling iffy

ie. i could talking about “fucking” but specific stuff like “what i would do to her”, body parts, etc. was TOTALLY an ick

i think i honestly was able to partake in it just because there was that barrier of a screen between us, and thanks to covid there was no immediate possibility of us having sex or talking about these things in real life and giving weight to them

your sexual fantasies about yourself and others you’re “attracted” to are ones you consciously decided to have

my exact thoughts word-for-word to myself were “oh wait i’m DATING my gf now i LIKE her that means i can think about her sexually!”

i fr had some kind of mental checklist of what to do before DECIDING to have fantasies about someone

my fantasies were also really vague and just blurry “concepts” of sex rather than seeing our faces and bodies

if i ever tried to think deeper into the “fantasy” with things like touching someone’s genitals, being touched there, oral, etc. it would immediately make me feel like super disgusting and even shudder sometimes

lowkey weird but i’d also choose to think about these things at times like in school so that i could relate to those posts from allos that are like “haha when you’re in class/at dinner/etc. and you’re just spaced out thinking about SexyTime with ur s/o!”

i hate allonormativity

you don’t masturbate to the idea of having sex with anyone, or if you try to include those thoughts it doesn’t really help or turns you off

ok confession i’ve never actually properly masturbated before 

like reach orgasm 

i’ve never ever had the urge to masturbate (i think i have like actually zero libido LMAO), but when i started dating my ex i was like “ok people in relationships usually masturbate and think about their partner, i should try this out!”

so long story short i tried to masturbate, at first i wasn’t thinking about anything and wasn’t feeling it, so i tried to think of my ex during it to see if it would help and it just ended up making things feel even weirder and i had to stop

you’re fine with being a virgin forever

not gonna lie i’m not 100% sure about this one

but no allo i’ve ever talked to has been like “oh yeah same my virginity isn’t a huge deal to me” they all seem to want to lose it at some point

you can recognize that people are hot, but it’s just the sexual attraction that isn’t there

PREFACING THIS BY SAYING I DON’T KNOW WHAT ALLOS MEAN WHEN THEY CALL PEOPLE “HOT” SO I’M GOING OFF MY OWN IDEA OF WHAT IT MEANS

like, i’m 100% ace but i can totally tell when someone (mostly 2D characters though) are like sheeeeeeesshhh like when they’ve got it going on y’know

like i know not all aces are like this

but personally i’m such a sucker cute anime guys with nice abs and arms and shit

and i’ll be like “damn he’s hot” in my head, but it’s in a way where he’s purely eye candy

like i could stare at fanart of this guy for hours and gush about his looks but it’s never in a “damn i’d fuck him” way

it’s MORE than “he is conventionally attractive.” like i have my own personal traits and features i find attractive in people’s looks but it’s LESS than lusting after him, he’s just very nice to look at

if i even think about getting sexual with someone i’ve been “thirsting” for it’s like an immediate mood-killer

if they’re fictional i’d rather just read a story about him having sex with another hot character it’s a lot more fun ;)

like there’s a guy in my math class who is literally DROP DEAD GORGEOUS and i’d admire his looks all day but i literally could not care less about getting to know him or dating him or anything with him

i pretty much don’t even remember him outside of that class like i only remembered him because i’m writing this rn

don’t even know the dude’s NAME LMAO

I THINK WE’VE REACHED THE END!

i hope this post can be helpful to some of you that are questioning! it was also just really therapeutic for me to write these things out and i feel a lot better afterwards :)

[daddywright]

I have only recently got into the ace attorney fandom, and this story was the first story I read, and I feel spoiled! I absolutely loved every chapter, so I'm gonna word vomit here and tell you everything I love about this!

"She offers him a smile. It’s small, tentative, but it possesses a strength that makes a hidden part of him twist and burn with quiet envy." the first time we see nick's wish to be as strong as mia!

Considering the fact that nick didn't have any prominent figure in his life, it makes sense that he would look up to gregory so much

"Phoenix looks up, and starts walking towards Mia Fey

He doesn't stop for two years."

THE RELATIONSHIP THAT MIA AND NICK HAD WAS PRECIOUS AND DESERVES MORE THAN WHAT THE FANDOM GIVES THEM

"Larry’s arms wrap around him, squeezing almost too tight" People forget that Larry and Phoenix were good friends too, and Larry would help his best friend

"Nobody believed him, nobody but Mia" Maya is what Phoenix is to Mia and I adore that

"He wishes, desperately, that he’d said it while she was still alive. I loved you. For everything you did." Not you absolutely breaking my fucking heart

Also the first AA game felt unnatural in the sense of how seemingly unaffected Phoenix seemed at Mia's murder so I'm really glad you wrote it this way

"Expensive. Thoughtful. Too much." SHUT UP NICK YOU DESERVE ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING

Also quick break to mention how I absolutely fucking love your writing style and i wish I was literally half as talented as you cuz the last time I read something that made me feel this multitude of emotions was ocean vuong. And I practically worship Ocean Vuong. So now I worship you too

"You're a stranger to me // When will I stop hoping?" I never really realised just how badly nick musta been hurt by good ol' bratworth before this fic, but now that I have read it, it would have hurt him so bad

"Is this why you never answered my letters? Because I was a reminder? Because it hurt too much?" Honestly what happened to miles and phoenix's friendship hurts so much because it should have never happened, and miles didn't deserve that.

"Maybe Miles Edgeworth is not the man he thought he’d be, either." yo when I tell you this hurt I mean this huRT

Fun fact! My birthday is on the same day as DL-6 anniversary. Gregory Edgeworth died on my birthday. I feel horrible now

"monster. You were nine years old and he's a monster. " No one has made me feel this much emotion for what happened to Miles in a single sentence other than you. I commend you for that

"I love you," he says quietly. He has never said those words to anyone, except for Dahlia Hawthorne.

Maya sniffs in his ear, crushing him tight. "I love you, too."

He has never heard them back.

PHOENIX HAS NEVER HEARD THE WORDS " I LOVE YOU" COME BACK TO HIM ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME WHY NOW I'M SAD

"Tell me everything. Every detail—" Miles is worried bout nick and why wouldn't he? gods you're so gay miles but tbf if I knew someone like nick irl i'd go ballistic too

"He determined the motive for his own assault...with amnesia. Naturally." My man's smart af and he is king

"Is that what she thinks of me? That I'm like that? That I don't care about who the bad guys really are?" Gumshoe noooo you're hella precious! Also this particular chapter was so well written! loved this soo much!

Also taking a minute to appreciate the pacing! Rarely do I ever come across an author who just hits that sweet spot of perfect pacing and you did! so thank you!

Alright so here are a few thoughts that I felt capcom needed to do which you did for us!

no. 1 - Address the trauma phoenix faced with not only dahlia but also with mia's death

no. 2 - Actually fucking flesh out a good relationship dynamic between larry and phoenix

no. 3 - actually! have! phoenix! be hurt! in bridge to turnabout! istg my man would not have dropped from a burning bridge to a freezing river only to have a cold

AUNT FRANZY AND PEARLS MAN!

THEY CUTE

ok so I have a LOT of feelings for bridge to turnabout and HOO BOY BUCKLE UP

So I always thought that in this fic, miles must have felt fucking awful! I mean he very clearly hates who he was and what that has led to but that must have been doubled over with this case! Phoenix would have died if not for mia and it would have been indirectly miles's fault. I think about that alot

Like he said that he very much regrets whatever he did as bratworth in the phone call with gumshoe but i don't think he anticipated this. poor edgeworth

Also I think this was the final nail in the coffin for miles. Phoenix forgave him, after all the fucked up shit miles did, and that made that man go "how is this guy so fucking compassionate awwwww shit I'm in fucking love with this idiotic brave man".

my main thoughts were "holy shit phoenix must have been feeling awful." like to learn that you were in love with a person who turned out to be a murderer but then not a murderer cuz everything you felt about that was real and just...... it must have hurt. He never fell in love with dahlia. it was iris, always. and WHAT ABOUT MILES DURING THIS!!! Like to learn that the man you love was falsely led to believe that he was in love with a person he rarely met and then learn that his ex who is not murderous might still be in love with him because "that was real. that part was real." like damn. people just gloss over this

also I feel terrible for iris F in the chat for iris lads.

Dahlia literally haunting that courtroom scene. I felt mia's power. I felt her desperation. I felt everything and I am once again in awe of the absolute power your writing holds.

also godsdamn pearls had to go through all that shit huh. also FRANMAYAAAAAA THANK YOUUUU

I too, am a hoe confused as to what I should feel towards diego.

Ok anyways we jump to disbarment now

"He just winks at her and says Maya has other talents, and if Mystic Maya overhears, she puffs up at him like the fish from the aquarium she saw once, the one with all the spikes and silly eyes."

you know what constantly amazes me? your ability to change tones so effortlessly. When writing from edgey's pov, the language is sophisticated. precise. when writing from pearly's pov your language is simplistic, child-like. from phoenix's pov it's natural. grounded

"She never knew anybody who made faces like him, growing up in Kurain, and it’s one of the things that makes him special." Yo phoenix is the most amazing uncle ever and we all know it ok he's brilliant

I'M RUNNING OUT OF CHARACTER LIMITS

PEARLY CALLING EDGEY AT FIRST SIGN OF TROUBLE I'M SOFFFFTTTT

“I think I did something really bad." trucy baby no it's not your fault

pearl and trucy bonding supremacy. my girls would fuck shit up

"She’d meant to do this properly, one day." Thank you for giving importance to maya's feelings. thank you for treating her like a real human being. thank you

“Everything that happened...for what? It’s only gotten people hurt. Pearly. Our mother.” Me. Me." I felt so bad for maya here. I wish I could tell you in precise words about how this exact framing of the sentence is what broke me. "me. me" maya deserved more, but mia did all she could

"What do scared kids need? ...Food." not you breaking my godsdamn heart again. phoenix just knows what's it like being a helpless child, and he'll be damned if he ever lets anyone face that again

“‘Course, Pearls,” he says reflexively, before frowning. “What for?” reflexively. if every man in the world could be like phoenix wright then the world would be worthy of the gods

"Another one?" give it 2 years edgey she'll be your daughter too

"after countless hours creating the man’s living space in his mind from the background snatches he’d seen in the man’s ridiculous video calls." NOT ONLY DO THEY VC FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON BUT ALSO MILES ACTUALLY SPENDS TIME TRYING TO RECREATE HIS ROOM?? BECAUSE HE WOULD ONE DAY LIKE TO BE IN IT??? good gods these bitches gay. good for them

"because just as day is light and night is dark, Phoenix Wright is an honorable man." damn straight. you love to see it (it being a 27+ year old man pining for another 27+ year old man)

also hey miles! how do you feel about the fact that the man you love changed his fucking major and degrees halfway through college just so he could see you again only for you to be incredibly rude to him and make him end up in jail! (i bully edgeworth cuz i love him)

"Wright finishes, shrugging like it’s nothing, like his commitment and belief isn’t the most extraordinary thing that Miles has ever faced." it's more than pining at this point. it's incredible faith and trust. Miles had someone who cared about him even after all those years despite him having changed so drastically, ofc he would be surprised. Miles loves phoenix and so do i.

also HOT DAMN YOU WRITING IS JUST * MWAH *

Also the whole segment where they kiss is just !!!!! miles wants! it's beautiful! THEY'RE IN LOVEEE

receiving poisonous bottles which your ex tried to kill you with. My man can't get a break huh

Miles being chivalrous and protective and absolutely stealing my godsdamn heart (and phoenix's too)!

Klavier being the absolute king that he is we stan

The hostage situation section? gods miles must have been terrified.

Phoenix not being able to promise pearly that he'd always come back home and miles hearing it and like... ouch. my heart. you didn't need to do that (but i love your for it)

GODS THE CLIMAX WITH KRISTOPH WAS SOOO SATISFYING AND LIKE MY MAN PHOENIX REALLY PUNCHED THAT BITCH HUH

klavier baby I am so sorry

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL!

and thus my comment ends. I believe I have almost used up all of my commenting limits and i leave with these few parting words : HOLY SHIT YOUR AMAZING AND I LOVE YOU!

also I made a playlist on spotify for this fic! here's the link : https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3k8lRHiO8ZXQDLpiTUL7SN?si=fc3b35b4ab064867

gods this was long huh

GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY....WHERE DO I BEGIN...THE FACT THAT YOU BROKE THE CHARACTER LIMIT ON AO3 AND MADE A PLAYLIST? WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?

thank you so much for all the amazing things you said....i am crying on a Wednesday morning knowing my writing was appreciated this much. thank you!

[jlf23tumble]

Would love to know your thoughts on grimmy x Harry. I think they were close friends who used to flirt a lot. I think at one point nick wanted them to be together. I think the fact that Harry is still closeted still bothers nick.

I disagree with your last statement times one THOUSAND, Nick has never EVER made any kind of indication that he'd even remotely do something as shitty as that, it's wildly against his character, and, in fact, he's done quite the opposite multiple times (like, in actual verifiable media, plus I'm sure he knows a lot more closeted people in the entertainment biz than Harry Styles, and I'd be highly surprised if he was suddenly unfriending them all at the level he unfriended Harry Styles). That's off the table completely for me--I see some truly horrific shit takes in this fandom, and that by far is one of the absolute worst, ugh. But since you asked, I *do* have other thoughts, and I think about them quite a bit, tbh, especially in the wake of this past week. I've had two drinks, so I'll actually share 'em on main, woo hoo! As I see it, there are a few options off the top of my head, and I have time for all of them, in any combination, feel free to share yours, assuming they aren't trying to paint Nick GRIMSHAW as a homophobe:

1. Harry's in an open relationship (in whatever way you want to view that), and Nick was part of it...on the day of the tree-climbing post (which is the last bit of public friendliness on Nick's side), Nick might have suggested he was ready for something more and/or Harry broke things off, heated words were exchanged, real hurt happened, Nick said enough, and then he moved on (and boy did he! he met Mesh in the world's best meet-cute story ever right after this and found what looks like solid happiness...Ralph has a timeline somewhere, but I couldn't find it, this is close).

2. RELATED: Harry and Nick were an exclusive item at some point and officially broke it off around the tree-climbing post, heated words were exchanged, etc. It seems kind of weird that Nick would instantly fall in love with someone else, like, later that week in this scenario, but it's possible! If you want to lose yourself in the gryles rabbithole, I'd start here. Or listen to all of those flirty BBC Radio 1 clips in full, don't just cherry pick 'em.

3. Nick and Harry never had a physical relationship, but Nick nursed a tremendous crush, actually admitted it (on or near the tree-climbing post day), and was turned down, heated words were exchanged, etc., and he was more than ready to move on to someone who loved him back. Nick seems to be the kind of person who makes a lot of room for a lot of friends, though, so a spurned crush seems like a reach, but yeah, still possible, I guess??

4. Nick really did NOT like what was happening with Fine Line (the album) and/or the promotion for it, and heated words were exchanged accordingly. This one lines up the most with the timing. Lily Allen's chat with Nick in September (one month after the tree-climbing post) is a big hint because at the time, you could have read Nick's snark as related to Louis or even Liam, but Harry's a strong contender, too, in hindsight. Once promo kicked off in earnest, Nick was pointedly either taking digs or handling it through omission, and Harry was steering far clear of his show. There was a slight getting together at the Brits in 2020 (right after Caroline's death), but other than that, literal radio silence...until last week. And the words in that message are mighty interesting, too, as was Nick's omitting of Harry in all kinds of places in the lead-up to his final show.

Whatever happened, it IS the most mightiest of interestingness that there are zero tabloid stories about them falling out. Nobody has seemingly picked it up, and it seems like such an obvious buzzy story the tabs would eat up (the only stories even remotely close to it are really recent, and they mention Harry's message, Nick officially saying he never dated Harry, but nothing about how they went from being tight to being something quite frosty, and they were REGULAR tabloid fixtures for years, which is kinda sus in and of itself). Molto curioso!

Oh, and because I can’t just leave it, one of the worst things I saw last week was how much this fandom likes to control its faves. Harry actually did say “I love you” in his message to Nick, and that bit got cut out of most transcripts and at least one audio clip by so-called update accounts...a fandom of literal babies, I can’t stress how much damage you do when you try to control the “narrative” lmao, you don’t own reality! God, it drives me fucking nuts. 

[tumblezwei]

Since you're doing meta on Ruby Rose (which I eat up), can I please get your thoughts on Ruby's arc in Volume 7, regarding her lying to Ironwood as well as her worries on doing what Ozpin had done?

HOO BOY LET’S GO

I think a lot of people like to write off Ruby’s conflict as being hypocritical or poorly written just to make Ironwood look bad, and it’s the top most annoying debate this fandom has created. 

Like, yes, it’s supposed to be hypocritical. It was supposed to get us thinking about how RWBYJNR treated Oz. RWBYJNR and Qrow, in their shock and panic, were downright cruel to Oz, coldly rejecting any excuse he had to offer and caring very little about his sudden departure. Sure, their anger was justified, but Oz suffered for years and years with the weight of his secret as he saw no doubt countless people succumb to their fear and lust for power. 

So when confronted with a situation that’s highly similar to what Oz has been dealing with for millennia, Ruby begins to understand that being a leader doesn’t mean you’re always making the seemingly morally correct choices. 

The core lesson for Ruby, baked deep into the narrative of the story, is what she was first taught in volume 1, by Ozpin himself, no less. The Badge and the Burden. Leadership is hard, and it’s not always pretty. My favorite moment in volume 1 was Ruby’s pep talk to Jaune, because if you really look at what’s being said and think about Ruby’s personality, it’s....not the lesson I think Ozpin wanted her to take from him.

“You’re a leader now, Jaune, you’re not allowed to be a failure.”

“...because it’s not just about you anymore. You’ve got a team now, Jaune. We both do. And if we fail, then we’ll just be bringing them down with us. We have to put our teammates first, and ourselves second.”

It’s put over this soft, inspirational music, and it’s the catalyst for Jaune realizing that he’s been neglecting his team due to his cowardice. But think about what we’ve seen from Ruby since, and what’s always done since she was a kid: repress her emotions and push herself forward no matter what she might be thinking or feeling. 

I say all of this to support my point that I believe volume 7 was the start of us seeing Ruby adopt Ozpin’s bad habits. Sure, in the beginning, they had a justifiable reason to keep Salem and the relic a secret from Ironwood. But as time goes on, and they start to trust him, her team begins to question whether it’s the right choice. So, eventually, Ruby decides that “the right thing” is to not do what Ozpin did and tell Ironwood their secret. And he takes it well! 

Until he doesn’t. 

And then suddenly, the secrets that they kept are being used against them, a man they thought they could trust is trying to arrest them, their new allies fight them without hesitation, all because of the distrust that sprouted over their secrets. 

And so, in volume 8, I think we’ll see the culmination of all of this. Ruby is the leader, this is her responsibility. She can’t let anyone else help her carry the weight because look what letting people in got them in the end. Maybe she tries to go off on her own, maybe she shuts herself off just a little more from her team, maybe she tries to keep even more secrets because, just like Oz, she’s afraid and wary, and this puts her at odds with her big sister who hates when people tell lies and still hasn’t forgiven Oz. 

Or maybe, none of this will happen, and we’ll see these tendencies arise in a completely different way.

[n8thegr8]

Heroes Never Rest

It was a beautiful early autumn day at Heights Alliance dorm building for Class 2-A. The birds were chirping, the felled leaves resting upon the ground, and a 17-year-old boy was running out of the front door muttering, "I'm late," over and over again. The boy's tie was half done, his buttoned shirt not buttoned all the way, and his hair was unkempt, but that was usual for him. That boy's name was Izuku Midoriya, his hero name was Deku, and he was late on his first-ever date. 

A shout came from inside the dorm building. "God damn it, Deku! Were you raised in a barn?! Close the damn door!"

Izuku, still running and buttoning his shirt, shouted back, "Sorry, Kacchan!"

The blonde hot head stood in the doorway, watching the heroic prodigy accidentally collide into a tree when he wasn't looking. Katsuki chuckled to himself. "Eh, I'll let him have it easy today; he has enough on his plate."

Izuku, who recovered from his little meeting with a tree that he swore wasn't there before, kept running, leaves crunching under his red shoes, and a single thought running through his head: Oh she's gonna hate me for this.

Oh God, he probably hates me, was the thought of one Ochaco Uraraka, sitting at a table at Il Ristorante Decente. A semi-fancy restaurant that Yuga suggested added to the mystery of whether or not he was really a Frenchman. The memory played in her head. "Oui ma chere ami, this restaurant is the finest in French cuisine in all of town!" 

Oddly enough, the restaurant wasn't French, it was Italian. 

Where is he? Ochaco thought. A bigger matter was at hand; Izuku was five minutes late, and the gravity girl started to worry. She sighed as she used her phone as a mirror to look at herself. She didn't put much makeup on, she couldn't afford much. Ochaco wanted to look her best for this date, for him. She put her phone down on the table and started tugging at her red sweater. It wasn't the best sweater in the world, but it was hers, and she can't say that about a lot of things. It was handed down from her mother. "Oh, Ochaco sweetie, when he sees you in this, he'll melt! I wore this sweater for years, it's how I managed to catch your father, ya know!" Ochaco didn't know if that last sentence was sweet, or a sign to immediately switch tops. 

Whatever, she thought. Maybe all of this anxiety will go away when he shows up.

If he shows up. 

Another thought flew through her mind. 

Did something happen to him? Is there a big battle and I don't know about it? Or, what if he just did this to make fun of me and he doesn't like me at all? Is he who I think he is? So many anxious thoughts clouded her mind. 

She looked up from her phone and out the window, and by a stroke of luck there he was. Izuku Midoriya and he- oh no. He's too formal. Oh God. Do-does he not get what formal-casual is? He does look cute, though... 

Her gaze followed his every step, a nervous smile crept on her face, and her cheeks reddened. 

He actually showed up! Oh God, now I have to talk to him… alone… for hours... hoo boy.

With each step, Izuku took his heartbeat twice as fast. 

Oh my God, I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this, his thoughts raced.

Oh my God, this is not happening. This is not happening. This is not happening, her thoughts raced. 

Izuku stopped in front of the door to the restaurant.

I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. The green-haired boy took in a deep sigh and opened the door.

Ochaco witnessed the door to the restaurant open. This is happening. This is happening. This is happening.

Izuku turned to his left and saw his date. Oh my God, she's beautiful… I'm overdressed, aren't I?

Ochaco could only stare. God, he's cute.

Izuku shook off his shock and started to walk towards the table, his head was in the clouds. For one reason or another, he was confident. You can see it in his smile and his walk. He can do this. He's gonna have the best date ever today with the girl he likes so much. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, the boy's right foot hit his left and became entangled with each other, starting his fall. 

I can't do this. 

This is not happening.

Ochaco watched in horror as her date hit the floor, hard. 

"Deku!" she cried as she got out of her chair, "Are you okay?" She bent down to grab his arms.

"Y-yeah, I'm okay," he groaned as he started to get up, "Sorry about th-" he cut himself off when he realized he and Ochaco's faces were only centimeters apart. If his face wasn't red enough from that embarrassing fall, it's redder than the red curtains that lined the restaurant's windows. 

Izuku wasn't the only one who was blushing, however, as Ochaco was somehow worse. It was common for her to have a small light blush whenever she was around Izuku, but today is different. Her face started to burn up like it never had before. 

The same thought infected both minds: So close!

The pair felt like the world around them disappeared. Izuku could see every stroke of blush on her cheeks, while Ochaco can count every freckle on his cheeks. After the blushing came the stammering, "H-hey," said Izuku.

"H-hi, Deku," said Ochaco. An awkward silence fell upon the not-yet-official couple. Neither of them had been on a date before. Is there usually this much blushing and awkwardness? These thoughts zoomed through their minds because what was only seconds for the world felt like years for the young heroes.

"I... thought this was a French restaurant," said the flustered boy, breaking the silence.

Ochaco blinked. "Y-yeah, I thought so too." 

The two student heroes finally got up on their feet and sat down. Finally, the date started, and the great debate of the most mysterious student in the class: Yuga Aoyama.

However, the flamboyant classmate wasn't all that they talked about. Izuku embarrassingly told the reason why he was so late and looked so formal. They both talked about school, internships, and their summer vacations, all the nice stuff. 

They ordered their food. Both of them ordered a basic plate of spaghetti and meatballs; they didn't eat Italian, not French, or food a lot, which was their safest bet. The restaurant was plastered with dark red wallpaper, Italian quotes adorned the walls, and the table even had a map of Italy. Again, definitely not France. Eventually, they got their food after a small wait.

As they were eating, they both remembered the prep that went into this date. Ochaco went to Momo for advice on "how to eat proper," while Izuku consulted Kacchan, Shoto, and Ida. 

"To eat properly, you must have both hands on the table, your napkin dressed over your legs, catch any stray food that might fall, hold the fork in your right hand, and the knife in your left."

"Sit up straight, dumbass!"

"Maybe you should make a heart with the food…"

"Midoriya! This isn't hard! Just pretend I'm Uraraka and talk to me! This is vital to make this the perfect date!"

They each had different experiences.

"So how's Mirio these days?" Ochaco asked. "I haven't seen him since his graduation!"

Izuku smiled. "Oh, he's doing great! He joined Mr. Nighteye's former agency, and he's working well as a hero. He has a lot of support gear on since well... you know. It's been difficult for him, but you know Mirio he never gives up and-"

Ochaco just stared at the green-haired prodigy. Some people got annoyed when he muttered, but she found it really cute. There was so much information in that big brain of his, and sometimes he needed to let it all ou- Why is there a car heading towards u- oh my God!

As if it was second nature to her, Ochaco stood up and reached over the table, grabbing a fistful of Izuku's shirt.

"Uraraka, wha-"

Her quirk activated and she pulled, Izuku went flying right into her arms. She held on to him tight and jumped back. As she did this, a car flew through the restaurant's window. Glass flew everywhere, Ochaco prayed that no shards hit anybody. The patrons' many screams were dominated by the sounds of heavy metal grinding and crushing in upon itself. 

The pair hit the ground hard with Ochaco still holding Deku tight. 

"Oww," groaned Izuku.

That was right in my ear, yep, uh-huh, okay. 

Ochaco opened her eyes and was horrified to find that she somehow landed right on top of Izuku; specifically, her head was on his chest.

Oh my God, are you kidding me?

Ochaco looked up at Izuku, his eyes wide open and face red as a tomato. She followed his lead, and the two teens stared at each other in heated embarrassment for a moment before Izuku finally stammered, "W-we should check f-for civilian damage."

Ochaco blinked. "Okay." Ochaco stood up and helped Izuku stand up as well. They checked their surroundings: the car lodged itself into the wall, Glass strewn about the floor, the debris of the past destruction lying around. These two needed to get to work. After checking each person who was in the restaurant and checking the driver in the vehicle, it was decided to call emergency services. Making sure that the scene was safe and all civilians attended, Izuku and Ochaco decided to hit the streets. There they found the culprit: a villain throwing cars into buildings. Izuku and Ochaco nodded to each other and headed out to confront the villain. 

As they ran towards the epicenter of the danger, Izuku pulled out and put on his Air Force Gloves from his backpack and threw Ochaco her Air Pressure Gauntlets. "Did you really bring those to our dinner? And how did you get my gauntlets?!" Ochaco yelled, still sprinting.

"You always gotta be ready for a villain attack, Uraraka!" the boy said as he punched the car flying their way. "And I asked Mei to make spares for your gauntlets just in case your originals break!"

"You're such a dork!" Ochaco laughed as she activated Zero Gravity, leaped to the sky, and started to seemingly fly towards the villain thanks to her Air Pressure Gauntlets. "I'll go on ahead to see what we're up against, and give you the report when you catch up!"

Deku pulled out a small earpiece. "Dispatch, this is student-hero Deku, I need seven ALS rigs at the address nineteen seventy-seven, Coruscant Road, and I need police and pro-heroes two miles due west of previous address…" 

As Deku called for backup, Uravity confronted the villain. She recognized the villain from a news report the other night. He called himself Professor Squid; he obtained a mutation quirk of ten extra extendable arms out of his back. Uravity landed near the rampaging villain. "Halt! I am student-hero Uravity, and I demand you to cease your attacks!" she bellowed, taking a defensive stance.

The villain roared and threw a car at Uravity, which she swiftly dodged. "I don't want to fight, Professor!" Another car flew towards the young hero. "Professor, I strongly suggest..!" Yet another one... "That's it!" she yelled and charged the villain.

When Deku caught up to Uravity, the battle was already over. Professor Squid was buried under a pile of wreckage with a victorious Uravity standing above. "Villain's taken care of."

Deku blinked, a little intimidated. "I-I can see that."

The police arrived, and the villain was carted away to jail. The young couple gave their reports to the police chief. "So this villain just happened to attack in the middle of your d-"

"Yes!" Ochaco said, cutting him off. "He threw a car into Il Decente Restaurante down the street," she said, pointing behind her.

The police chief raised an eyebrow. "Is that supposed to be a French restaurant?" 

Izuku and Ochaco's faces became stoic upon hearing this question.

The pair left the scene after being cleared by the Police Chief and continued on their way. Even though they got robbed of a nice late lunch, that wasn't going to stop them. Both of them wanted this date badly, and they would be damned if it was ruined. Their next destination was the popular SEGA arcade in Mustafu. 

"So, you've never been to an arcade before, Uraraka?" asked the green-haired boy.

Ochaco had a small blush on her face. "I mean… I didn't say I never went to an arcade, it's just…" Her face dimmed.

Izuku noticed her diminishing mood and panicked. "Well, that's why we're going today! To make up for those lost days," he said as he gave a bright smile.

Ochaco perked up. "Okay," she murmured and gave a soft smile. 

The arcade held many joys for the young pair. The lights weren't on, but the lights from the games gave the arcade this techno atmosphere. Ochaco and Izuku spent the next hour going from game to game, just having a blast. Ochaco herself kept coming back to the classic game Flicky, an old SEGA game from the pre-quirk era.

"I used to have this game as a kid!" she said when she first laid eyes upon it. "My family couldn't afford any of the new game consoles, so we bought an old and cheap SEGA Genesis Mini!"

Izuku described the feeling of watching Ochaco play Flicky as an "out of body experience." He knew Ochaco was already extremely competitive, remembering the first sports festival, but what he was witnessing was otherworldly. What was once a cheerful and bubbly person was now completely unrecognizable as Ochaco worked her way to the world's highest score. She was completely silent, her gaze locked onto the screen. Her reactions to the enemies became lightning-fast, as nothing could break her attention towards the game. She even forgot that she was on a date. All that mattered was getting past the high score of 10,871,400 points. 

Izuku got excited for his best friend as she got to 10,870,800 points. She was gonna do it! She was gonna take the world record! Only one more door to put the Flickys in and-

The entire row of arcade cabinets was gone, and at the end of the trail of destruction was an unconscious Death Arms. Izuku immediately ran to the pro-hero, but Ochaco was motionless. She looked down to her hands, still in the same position when the cabinet was still there. She stared at her hands for a lengthy period.

"FUCK," she yelled and immediately ran out the gaping hole in the arcade. 

"Uraraka, no!" cried Izuku as he started to run towards his best friend, phone clutched in hand. "-make that eleven ALS rigs, dispatch!"

Deku ran out the hole in the wall and made a left, he didn't see the ensuing fight, but he definitely heard it. A roar, a human scream, another roar, and a crash of metal accompanied by very loud, "Fuck you!" 

Is Kacchan on patrol?!

Deku finally made it to the fight, but what he found shook him to his core. Standing on a pile of wreckage, with the setting sun casting a red light behind her, was Uravity, and lying under the pile of wreckage was the villain, The Iguana. Deku looked at his hero partner, her glare was piercing, her stance menacing, she glowered at the villain trapped underneath her boots and the rubble. "There, now think twice before you commit a crime next time, jackass." 

Deku stood before the disturbing scene. It wasn't that he was disturbed by Uraraka's sudden outburst of anger; it was more like he'd never seen it before. He made a mental note to write on Uraraka's page to not get between her and a video game. 

He looked up to his date. "So." 

Uravity whipped around and looked down at Deku. "What?" 

Deku swallowed a lump in his throat. "W-wanna go to our picnic?"

Uravity blinked a few times, and her whole demeanor changed. "Yeah! I think it's time for dinner," she said with a smile. 

The picnic location they chose was Dagobah beach, a seemingly popular date spot since the pollution and debris were all cleared by a mysterious person. They chose a spot that wasn't claimed by any beachgoers and set out the picnic blankets and everything. They didn't plan to go into the water, they just wanted to have a nice view of the sunset as they ate their dinner. The pair looked out towards the water, the sky was a beautiful violet hue. 

"Hey, Uraraka?" asked Izuku, who was sitting pretty close to his date. 

Ochaco answered, "Yes, Deku?"

Izuku stayed silent, worrying Ochaco. "Hey, are you okay?" she asked, taking his hand. 

Izuku looked down at their entwined hands and blushed. "Oh," he said, "Um…do, you remember when we first met?"

Ochaco smiled and gave a small laugh. "Of course I do. How could I forget saving you from an embarrassing fall?"

Izuku gave an embarrassed laugh. "Yeah, but I saved you from that Zero pointer."

"I gotta admit, those, what? Thirty seconds? Was a blur, Deku," her lips curved into a smile, "But I remember you. Clear as day, bright as the sun. When I saw you running towards me, I just thought, 'What is he doing here?'" She laughed. "But when I saw you jump high in the air and one-shot that robot. I felt… I dunno. I could only think about how you saved me and… that I wanted to save you too." Her face started to blush a deep red. 

Izuku also started to blush, but his lips also curved into a smile. "And you did. You saved me from being flat as a pancake. It still stings by the way," Izuku said, pointing to his cheek. 

Ochaco giggled. "Yeah… sorry about that, but saving you is what got me such a high score for the test."

"Same here," Izuku said, now facing Ochaco, his heart beating faster. "It looks like we're always saving each other, huh?"

Ochaco suddenly realized how close they were, and blushed harder. "Y-yeah. Like when you saved me from Toga."

Izuku leaned in just an inch closer. "Or when you saved me from thinking, Deku was the name of a loser."

Ochaco followed suit, leaning in just an inch closer. "Or when you saved me from being slashed by Shinsho's scarf."

Again, Izuku moved closer. "That same day when my quirk went out of control, you were the one who held on to me," he said.

Ochaco shifted again, even closer still. "I was so scared for you. Seeing you in pain like that...it shook me to my core, Deku. Ever since the day I met you, seeing you sacrifice your whole shot at your dream school just to save me. I just…" She looked up and realized that they were one inch away from each other. Both teens blushed the deepest red in the world. She felt his breath on her face, and he felt her's on his. 

They were close, closer than when they were at the restaurant. Izuku swore that he can feel her nose slightly tickle his. He's been close to her before, but never this close. Ochaco's heart beat faster and faster as the reality of this situation started to settle in. She's been denying her feelings for Izuku ever since she got her Hero License, she felt that these feelings would slow her and Izuku down in their path to becoming heroes. However, even when she buried those feelings under 2,000 lbs. of concrete, they'd always Delaware-Detroit Smash their way out. Izuku inspires her to become the best hero she can be, and the best Ochaco Uraraka she can be. Ever since the day she met him, he was her hero.

Izuku's face felt red hot as he noticed every detail of Ochaco's face. Izuku was too shy to admit it, but he fell for Ochaco the very first time he met her. When he tripped, and she caught him, it was the first time in his life that somebody who wasn't named Mom, Dad, or All Might ever show him kindness. She didn't laugh at him for tripping, she saved him from being laughed at. It also helped that he found her incredibly pretty. Throughout the school year, Izuku got more and more comfortable around her. He was able to talk to her without becoming a stuttering and blushing mess. However, there were times when she would smile at him, and he'd immediately feel like a Meteor Smash was raining upon him. He knew she was something special. She made her feel not only confident but also good about being "Deku." Ever since the day he met her, she was his hero.

"Ochaco…"

"Izuku…"

They both leaned in, to put away their past tension, to seal their feelings for each other; this was it, this was finally it. They closed their eyes, tilted their heads, and -

SKREEEEEEEONNNNNK!!!

A terrible sound was heard from the ocean as the pro-hero Godzillo, King of the Monsters, was thrown from the blue water and landed right on top of Izuku and Ochaco's picnic basket. Covering them with sand. Another screech rang out as a giant lobster crawled onto the beach. It was Ebiro, the crustacean kaiju villain!

Izuku and Ochaco stood motionless, their eyes wide open. Sand covered them both head to toe, their moment ruined. 

"GOD DAMN IT!" they cried in unison.

When police arrived at the scene, the battle was already over. Ebiro lay there, unconscious, cracks in his carapace, and his giant claw arm bent a way it wasn't supposed to. A very pissed off Deku was standing to the side as Ochaco gave the report to the police. "... and finally, there need to be two kaiju ALS rigs at the site of Dagobah Beach." 

He was silent as he listened to the dispatch operator. "NO, BUT WE ALMOST DID, THOUGH."

Finally done with the report, the Chief of Police, Satoshi, excused them. The sky was a deep dark blue as night had finally set in. Ochaco looked to Izuku. "Wanna go to the gardens?"

Izuku sighed. "Yeah… yeah, let's go." 

And so they did. 

The pair made it to the Mustafu Botanical Gardens, but the mood was shot. They walk side by side in silence, an arm's length apart... This date was supposed to be perfect. Weeks of planning went down the drain for Izuku and a year and a half of battling her emotions wasted for Ochaco. But no, heroes never rest, do they? Whenever trouble showed, they had to respond. It was their job, and that was fine, but they wanted to enjoy each other's company. They found a small stream of water with a small bridge. The two of them stopped there and tried to relax.

Ochaco finally spoke up. "So… this is what hero life is like." She hung her head. 

Izuku sighed. "I didn't know it was going to be this…"

"Intrusive?"

"Yeah."

The pair sighed. Was romance worth it in the hero field? Were they truly compatible with each other? If they decided to go forward with this relationship, would they have to deal with this pull and push lifestyle every day?

Drops of water plopped onto their heads. "Great," Ochaco said frowning. "Rain." The pair ran to the nearby gazebo as the rain came down. They made it, and they started to lean on the rail of the said gazebo. 

"Well, at least it looks beautiful," Izuku said. 

"Yeah, that's true."

More silence.

"Hey, Deku?"

Izuku gave a small sound in response. 

"Do you think this is how it's gonna be for us? Being heroes?"

Izuku closed his eyes in thought and contemplated for a moment. He then opened his eyes and took a deep sigh. "Well, I think that it won't always be like this. There are quiet days, and there are busy days. I guess today's just a really busy day. What a day to be busy, right?" He gave a weak laugh. 

Ochaco smiled thinly. "Yeah, seriously."

The rain pattered on the roof of the structure. 

"I love fighting alongside you, though," said Ochaco.

The world went silent yet again. However, this silence was different, before it was as if the two just had ear muffs on, this time, it was as if they were deaf to the world around them.

Izuku turned to face Ochaco, who was standing close enough, their arms brushed, and gazing at him. The darkness clouded his deep blush. "Y-you do?"

Ochaco smiled. "Of course I do. Why wouldn't I love fighting alongside the man who inspires me to be the best hero around?"

Izuku blinked slowly and smiled back. "I love fighting alongside you, too. You using your quirk in creative and unique ways is just breathtaking to watch, Ochaco. And… you're the reason why I call myself 'Deku' in the first place. I can't picture myself fighting battles without you."

It was her turn to blush a deep red. "D-do you want to keep fighting alongside each other? Like… like…"

“P-partners?” suggested Izuku.

"I had another term in mind, but, yeah, that," she said, leaning even closer. 

Before Izuku knew it, Ochaco was practically in his arms. He looked down at her, and she looked up to him, and the world stood still yet again. He looked into her eyes, the girl who always had his back and always saved him when he needed it. She looked into his eyes, the boy who drove her to be the best she can be. They closed their eyes, tilted their heads, mouths open just a small amount, and then…

Contact. After everything that happened to them today, they finally kissed. The world around them disappeared, all that was left was each other. They broke the kiss. "Ochaco, I…" Izuku was cut off by another kiss. This one, deeper. 

"I know, Izuku, I do too," she said when they broke apart. They engaged in yet another kiss, deaf to the world around them. 

Which was bad, because of the man with a knife slowly approaching them. "Heh, easy picking. Bet they have some coin on them," the thief muttered. 

Izuku and Ochaco left the botanical gardens with spirits high. Even though the mugger tried to ruin their mood, they came out on top.

"Yeah, one Police Squad car to the Mustafu Botanical Gardens, please, dispatch?" He went silent, listening to the dispatch officer, smiling when he looked down at his hand, entwined with Ochaco's. "Yeah, everything went just right," he said as he squeezed her hand. The now official couple smiled at each other and walked back to the UA dorms. 

It was 11:00 PM as they entered the dorms. The lights were off, and they walked as silently as they could towards the elevator and pushed the button. They got in, and the elevator started to ascend. It stopped at Ochaco's floor, and they walked to her dorm. 

They stood hand in hand in front of the door. "See you tomorrow?" Izuku asked. 

Ochaco smiled. "Yeah, we'll walk together to class, okay?" 

Izuku smiled back. "I'm looking forward to it." He gave her a small peck on the cheek. "Good night, Ochaco."

Ochaco beamed. "Good night, D…Izuku." She gave him a quick peck on the cheek back.

There, the couple parted ways for now, but this was only the beginning of their lifelong journey together. Ochaco waited until Izuku texted. He was in his dorm before going in and stood outside, smiling, and giggling in the meantime. She did it! She finally did it! A whole year and a half of having this knot in her stomach bear down on her, and now she just felt so amazing. She got the text from Izuku and walked into her room, texting him sweet dreams, set her phone on her desk, and locked the door behind her. The events of the date played back in her head until the lights suddenly turned on, and every girl in class 2A appeared, sitting in her room.

"So, how did it go?" asked Mina, a coy grin curved onto her features.

This question was asked to Izuku, too, as he found every boy from class 2A waiting for him in his own room.

Izuku and Ochaco blinked. 

"God damn it!" 

Heroes never rest indeed.

[logical-little-lies]

{Chapter 6- Arcade Games}//Soft, Cute, and Far Smarter Than You (Sanders Sides Agere/CGLRE)

A/N: Y'all I wrote this all in one day- I've written a lot today so...be proud please! Please send me feedback if you liked this chapter! It's really fun exploring the sibling dynamic between Virgil and Logan! There's definitely gonna be more of this very soon!

--

"We're here!" Virgil put the car in park, leaning back as Logan got to look around. He had been rambling about something and hadn't been paying attention to where they were going. When his eyes landed on the sign of the building in front of them.

"Is this an arcade?" Logan ran his fingers through his hair, looking at Virgil. It looked like he was holding back an outburst of excitement while waiting for the others response. Virgil nodded, giving him a light smile.

"Yes!" he exclaimed, seemingly happy about this. He realized what he did, taking a breath and correcting himself. "I mean...cool. Thanks."

"You're welcome, but..." Virgil paused, and Logan looked at him somewhat nervously. "You're allowed to be excited. There's a reason I brought you here. It'd be disappointing if you weren't excited."

"Oh, um..sorry. C-can we go in?" Logan attempted to change the topic, unbuckling his seat belt and going to open the door.

"Logan," Virgil made him stop in his tracks.

"Yes?"

"Please don't repress emotions, especially the good ones. You can be happy, Lo."

Logan slowly nodded, biting on his lip. After a moment, he motions to his door. "Can we...?"

"Yeah, let's go." Virgil opened his door and hopped out, Logan doing the same on the other side.

Logan was definitely excited. He loved video games and pizza, both of which he could get here.

He was happy that Virgil surprised him with this.

--

"Okay, so you have your tokens, right?" Virgil checked. Logan took a sip out of his pop, holding up the bag of tokens with a nod. "I'm going to sit here and message your caregiver for a bit. Be good," Virgil sat down in one of the booths by the snack counter, where he had a decent view of the game section.

He'd be able to see Logan at almost any game in the arcade. Logan nodded, "I will." he assured.

"Have fun, I'll find you in a bit."

"Cool, sounds good."

And just like that, he was off to play games. Virgil joined him after a few minutes of conversing with Patton about Logan. About how he was excited to be at the arcade, how he was less anxious when presented with something he enjoyed.

"Boo!" Virgil snuck up behind the boy, startling him successfully.

"Virgil!" he whined, throwing his hands off the controls as he lost the game. "You made me lose!" he pouted.

"Oh, boo-hoo. You can always play again," Virgil pointed out, moving to stand next to him. Logan's cup sat on the ground next to the game, next to his token bag. Logan ignored him, watching as his score displayed on the screen.

He waited for his tickets to dispense before pulling them out, stuffing them into the pockets of Virgil's hoodie. "You good, Lo?" Virgil asked after a few moments. Logan shrugged silently as he put another coin into the slot, waiting for the game to start. Virgil sighed, rolling his eyes before speaking again. "I'm sorry I made you lose the game." he apologized.

"You've been forgiven," Logan glanced at him for a moment, giving him a cheeky smile before looking back to the screen and focusing on the game.

Virgil rolled his eyes again before looking at the screen and watching him play. Teenage Logan was rather playful sometimes, but he'd never admit that. Sometimes, he just wanted to be silly and dorky, he was just shyer about it when he was older.

Virgil picked up on this and went with it, encouraging the playful behavior without calling it out.

"I got a new high score!" Logan cheered, looking down to the ticket dispenser.

"That's cool! Wanna try to get high scores on a two player game?" Virgil asked, watching as he pulled the large strip of tickets from the game, storing them in the jacket pocket as he had done before.

"Sure!" Logan agreed, smiling widely up at him, before grabbing his pop and token bag. "C'mon, I think I saw a two player shooter over here..." he trailed off, grabbing Virgil's hand and dragging him behind him.

Virgil didn't complain though. He followed him throughout the arcade, holding his pop and tokens whenever he asked. He played any game Logan wanted, even if it was the same one over and over again because Logan wanted to win and couldn't.

He purposely lost certain games so that Logan could be happy that he won.

Anything to make his brother happy.

After a little while of playing games, Virgil told him that they should go back to the snack bar to get something to eat. "Hold on, I wanna try and win this," Logan didn't look away from the screen, focusing on the joystick and hitting the different buttons in hopes that he'd beat the video game characters.

"After this round, okay?"

"Mhm, whatever. Sounds good."

Virgil gave an amused smile, watching him focus in on the game and barely register what was happening around him. When he lost, he threw his hands off of the controls in frustration, like he had done earlier. Logan waited for the leader board to pop up, reading through the top spots. Virgil look at it too.

"You got spot four! That's good!" Virgil cheered, watching him bend down to get the tickets.

"I guess it isn't terrible.." Logan shrugged. Virgil noticed that he seemed disappointed.

"We'll conquer 1st place after some pizza and cookies," he promised, taking Logan's empty pop from the ground. "And a new drink for you." he decided.

Logan smiled, nodding. Virgil lead him up to the food counter, letting him take a seat in a booth while he went to go order. Virgil didn't like ordering food, and interacting with people he didn't know, but he knew that Logan wouldn't like doing that while in teenspace either. So he took one for the team and pretended like he was completely confident in his actions.

Logan tapped away on his phone, texting his dad with a smile.

Patton: You having fun, kiddo?

Yeah, we're getting pizza!!

Patton: Don't spoil dinner!

No promises.

Logan shut off his phone as Virgil came back, sliding into the other side off the booth. "Who're you texting?" Virgil asked.

"Dad. He told us not to spoil dinner." Logan informed him.

"Yeah, I figured he would. I'm sure we'll be hungry again by the time he's done with the food. We're just getting a slice each."

Logan nodded. "We'll probably stay for a little longer, try to use up all the tokens. Then we need to head home, we do have groceries in the car."

Logan's eyes widened. "We have ice cream in the car!" he gasped.

Virgil waved his hand. "I used magic, everything's good." he assured.

Logan gasped again. "B-but that's against the rules."

"This is an exception, Logan. It won't happen again," Virgil promised, getting distracted when the person at the counter called out their order. "Gotta go, be good."

Logan rolled his eyes, unlocking his phone again and reading over Patton's latest message.

Patton: I'm sure you have pizza to eat and games to play. Text me when you're on your way home, okay?

Yeah, I will. Love you.

Patton: Love you too, baby.

Logan just scoffed, shutting off his phone and not bothering with the whole 'I'm not a baby' speech. Virgil sat a plate in front of him, along with a drink.

He had a pepperoni slice of pizza, and a chocolate chip cookie, which was exactly the same as Virgil's order. "Thank you," Logan picked up the slice of pizza immediately dropping it back onto the plate because it was hot. "Ouch!" he complained.

Virgil chuckled. "You could use a napkin to pick it up, or y'know, wait for it to cool down?"

Logan smiled sheepishly, grabbing his drink and taking a sip through the straw.

"So, what are you gonna do when we get home?" Virgil tried to start a conversation.

"I was hoping that maybe I could watch a movie with dad. I miss him."

"You've only been away from home for a few hours." Virgil pointed out.

Logan pouted, "I knowww, but still."

"I get it," Virgil assured. "When I regress, I always want to be with Roman. Missing your dad is completely understandable."

Logan nodded, mumbling out a soft "okay".

"Anything else you have planned?" Virgil broke the silence, encouraging him to talk.

This is how anyone would keep a conversation going with Logan. If he wasn't constantly being asked things, he'd eventually not know what to say and trail off, mostly because he would be worried he was talking to much.

Logan tried to grab his cookie first, which Virgil had to stop him from doing. "Sweets after real food, young man." he corrected.

Logan dropped the cookie back onto his plate and grabbed the pizza. "Sorry." he apologized quickly.

"Don't be sorry," Virgil shook his head. "Patton's dad instincts are just rubbing off on me." he joked. Logan laughed.

They kept going like that, laughing and talking about whatever until they were ready to go back to beating games. Logan continued to beat games (and Virgil, in most of them), and Virgil let him have his fun.

Virgil's mission to spend time with his brother had been a success, and they both had a lot of fun. When they climbed back into the car, Logan clad in sunglasses he had used his tickets to purchase, Logan was hyper.

Maybe the candy he exchanged tickets got him there. He was talking, nonstop about anything and everything.

"Maybe you should tone it down a bit? Patton would kill me if he knew how much candy I let you have today."

"He doesn't have to know!" Logan defended, practically bouncing in place as he looked around to determine how close they were to home based off of his current surroundings.

"He's gonna know if you walk into the house this energetic!" Virgil exclaimed, laughing after. Logan tried to stay still, but that lasted less then two seconds, so he started fiddling with his hand. "Okay, okay. You're happy and excited, I get it," Virgil smiled at him before turning around a corner.

"Yeah...thanks for doing this." Logan looked out the window. They were close to home now. "I-it was really fun!"

"You're welcome. I'm glad you liked it. Let's do something like this again soon, okay?"

Logan nodded his head quickly, immediately agreeing. He didn't realize it until now, but spending some time with his brother while he was younger then him wasn't to bad.

It was pretty nice, actually.

He hoped it'd be happening again soon.

[fandomshatelgbtqpeople]

I’m feeling weird about the series the 100. I remember when L died and everyone rightfully got upset and it sparked a whole conversation about bury your gays and wlw rep. Some people really thought this would end the show. But it didn’t? The show went on for several more seasons, it’s still going today, and I don’t watch it but it seems C moved on with a guy and people are happy, so nothing happened? All that outrage and no one actually listened or cared in the end? Or am I wrong???

Cont on the 100: I’m not saying I think the show had to be cancelled, I get that people were still invested in the story and characters. But it just feels strange that after all that outrage, there was seemingly no actual change. Or maybe there was a significant change/response from the show and I just missed it because I stopped watching?

Hi there anon! I was in the100 fandom back in 2016 and hoo boy

I was very involved in the C/L ship and what the writers did there was absolutely despicable and they utterly screwed over their queer viewers. I stopped watching after season 3 but know bits of what happened afterwards. However I have very mixed feelings about that side of the fandom as many were spreading around racist and biphobic (and I’d argue antisemitic about the head writer) views about the show which I started to internalise until I realised what was going on. The part about racism intersects with the biphobia because a lot of fans were insulting the moc lead of the show because people dared to ship him with the bi female lead, and being horrible about him and his actor for the way the writers demonised him during season 3 (I am aware of the allegations that came out yesterday against this actor but this was long before that and we should also separate the actor and the character). An opinion I saw thrown around that I internalised wasn’t that it’s problematic to pair a bi woman with a man which I saw so frequently that I distanced myself from the fans as a bi person. There were of course homophobic fans of the m/f ship but as long as they weren’t being homophobic it’s absolutely fine to ship a bi woman with a man.

Similarly, I saw many of these fans ignore instances of racism on the show. Two weeks after L was killed a black man was brutally murdered on the show which it was suspected was in response to the actor who played him requesting more screen time, and I never saw as much attention paid to this death unless it was as an afterthought. Likewise, the death of Poussey on oitnb took place a few months after and I never saw anywhere near as much attention towards this death of a black lesbian character, and even saw some defending it. That’s not to say it was all the C/L fans. It was a very vocal minority.

I needed to get all of that out. Now onto what I know about what happened. As far as I know, she has not gotten together with the male lead as far as I know, but if I saw they had I wouldn’t be disappointed. Many years have passed in the story’s narrative. The show lost a great many viewers as a result and mass funds were raised by the Trevor Project by fans. A billboard was put up in LA I believe about how LGBTQ fans deserve better in response. I see L’s death frequently included on lists of insidious tv deaths. There has been much more attention paid to the byg trope since and I see active efforts of other series to avoid it nowadays. The100 stands as a warning to other shows even if it is still on the air. So there was definitely a change and people didn’t forget.

TLDR: for the most part the death of L was horrible but the reaction raised awareness of bury your gays and caused the show to lose a great proportion of its viewers. The fans did a lot of good for LGBT media rep even if a vocal minority of those fans were racist and biphobic. I think the instance of L’s death has become infamous and will remain that way.

Do any of our followers who still watch the show have any thoughts?

mod a

[woolishlygrim]

So here’s a thing that has probably been done before but also maybe been done worse: The timeline of Bloodborne.

Like … more or less any Soulsborne game, tbh … Bloodborne is remarkably laconic with its storytelling, leaving a lot of gaps but, more importantly, leaving a lot of stuff that isn’t directly stated but which can be reasoned out if you kind of take a step back from looking at things in terms of a set of facts to be fitted together, and instead look at things in terms of a set of causes and effects, if that makes sense. It’s not thing happens, thing happens, thing happens, it’s thing happens, and since we know who does that thing and what motivates them later on, we can reason out how that thing would then lead on to another thing.

...

Anyway. Timeline.

Massive trigger warning for … hoo boy. References to violence, references to stillbirth and dead infants, references to sexual assault, and references to suicide. Jfc, Bloodborne.

-- So, at some point in the distant, distant past, almost prehistoric, the Isz Civilisation (likely the city of Isz) flourishes in a particular coastal spot on a northern archipelago. The Isz aren’t originally from this place, they hail from somewhere else: Rather, they choose this site for their new city because it is a place within the waking, physical world that passes uncommonly close to the world of dreams.

-- In time, the people of Isz (or at least some of its people) cease to be human, or at least humanoid. We know that they were humanoid at some point, because the Isz labyrinths are laid out for humanoid creatures, but at some point they ascend, and this is likely a deliberate choice on their parts.

-- The mechanism of their change isn’t explicitly spelled out, but since we see in-game one example of a human ascending in a similar fashion, and a great many failed attempts to ascend, we can kind of tease out a rough idea of how it works, namely that it involves gaining more insight into the eldritch truth, and mutations of the blood. Either way, they become the Great Ones, godlike beings who are wholly alien but nonetheless kind and sympathetic in spirit. Every Great One is unique: While they are a species, they are a species that shares no commonalities, with every individual functionally its own species.

-- At some point, the Great Ones ascend in a different way: Their bodies enter an eternal sleep, while their spirits ascend to the dream and nightmare realms. One of them, Ebrietas, is left behind. While it’s never made clear why, the references to her as ‘abandoned’ and ‘left behind’ imply that she didn’t choose to stay behind.

-- Now absent of people, Isz falls to ruin. In time, however, a new civilisation is built on the wreckage: The city of Loran. A desert city despite the coastal location of Isz, we know little about Loran, only that at some point they found the slumbering bodies of the Great Ones (perhaps guided by Ebrietas, as others would be later). They take blood from the Great Ones, blood which can be used to strengthen a person, or heal any injury or sickness.

-- In time, the Beast Plague strikes Loran. At certain times, as the Great Ones brush close to the waking world, those who have imbibed too much of their blood are transformed into monstrous beasts. This is the first time the Beast Plague appears, but it’s not really a plague, not in the truest sense. As we see later on, the more insight into the eldritch truth one has, the more complex, strange, and alien a person’s beastly transformation is, the more they keep their mind in the process, or may even find themselves elevated: Because the Beast Plague isn’t a disease, it’s a mutation. It’s the act of ascending, spurred on by the blood of the Great Ones, to a new form, falling far short of being a Great One but nevertheless becoming something more than human.

-- Nevertheless, Loran falls. In time, the Beast Plague overtakes it, and only monsters remain. The city is swallowed by the sands, and the region goes dormant once again.

-- In time, though, the Pthumerians happen across the same site. It seems likely that the Pthumerians were human, or at the very least human-like, at one point, but they don’t remain that way for long. Anyway, on the ruins of Loran which is in turn upon the ruins of Isz, the city of Pthumeria Ihyll is built.

-- The Pthumerians are wiser than the people of Loran, in a way, or at least more curious. While the people of Loran careless imbibed the blood of the Great Ones, the Pthumerians study, becoming more knowledgeable of the eldritch truth (most likely, once again, under the guidance of Ebrietas). Eventually, they make contact with the Great Ones, and form a kind of friendship with them.

-- An alliance is born. The Great Ones guide the Pthumerians, elevating their civilisation and helping them achieve inhuman forms, less than a Great One but greater than a human, and still keeping their minds. In return, the Pthumerians guard the tombs of the Great Ones, where their bodies slumber. The Pthumerians do seem to eventually partake of the Great Ones’ blood as part of their semi-ascension, but they do not appear to suffer from the Beast Plague (at first), and they seemingly gain a kind of immortality.

-- At some point, a great queen of Pthumeria Ihyll, Queen Yharnam, enters into a marriage with Oedon, a Great One who lacks any kind of physical form (and, it’s worth noting, the only male Great One we ever hear about). The two of them conceive a child together, Mergo. This, we are told, is a preoccupation of the Great Ones, and perhaps not the first time it happens, for each Great One longs for a child, each Great One searches for a surrogate to bear it, but each Great One finds their child stillborn.

-- Mergo, the daughter of Oedon and Yharnam, is no different, born already dead, but there are signs that something truly horrible happened to Yharnam. Her lingering spirit can be seen handcuffed, her body apparently cut open to remove Mergo. Whatever the Pthumerians did at the moment of Mergo’s birth, it was traumatic and violent, and Yharnam does not seem to be a willing participant.

-- Nevertheless, Mergo is stillborn, as all infant Great Ones are. While dead, Mergo is still a god, however, and even a dead god exerts its will upon the world around it. A Pthumerian woman is, through the power of the Great Ones, elevated to a higher form (not, it would seem, a Great One, but something startlingly close), and becomes Mergo’s wet nurse and protector. A nightmare is created to cradle Mergo.

-- After this, Pthumeria Ihyll falls. It’s not entirely clear why, save that eventually they, like Loran, found themselves suffering from the Beast Plague, which consumed their civilisation much as it had Loran. It is speculated in passing that the Great Ones, in spite of their sympathetic and kind nature, may have severed their alliance with Pthumeria Ihyll, withdrawing their support.

-- Time passes. Eventually, humans of the College of Byrgenwerth attempt expeditions into the ruins of Pthumeria Ihyll, and in time a city, named Yharnam for the Pthumerian queen, springs up atop the ruins of Pthumeria Ihyll (which is built upon Loran, which is built upon Isz). Byrgenwerth, led by Master Willem, is primarily interested in learning to perceive more of the eldritch truth, to elevate their minds.

-- However, Laurence, a student of Master Willem, discovers the slumbering Great Ones, and the properties of their blood. While Willem abhors the idea of using the blood, Laurence is fascinated by the idea that they might achieve ascension a far quicker way. He splits from Byrgenwerth, taking several scholars with him, and forms the Healing Church, distributing the blood as a miracle cure.

-- Laurence found allies in this endeavour, of a sort. Micolash, another former student of Byrgenwerth, created the School of Mensis within the Healing Church, devoted to making contact with Mergo. Another scholar, whose name is unknown but who would later take the name Iosefka, establishes the Choir, a section of the Church which, under the guidance of Ebrietas, would endeavour to study ascension without the use of blood. Another student, Gehrman, meanwhile, would keep his distance from the Church -- but when the Beast Plague struck, as it struck every civilisation that abused the Great Ones’ blood, he became the first Hunter, and established the Hunter’s Workshop.

-- At some point, the noble house of Cainhurst take up residence near Yharnam. Their relationship with the Yharnamites is fraught, to say the least, and they covet the Great Ones’ blood.

-- Gehrman takes several early apprentices: Maria, a scion of the Cainhursts; Izzy, a scientist who is fascinated by the beasts; the Crow of Cainhurst, who styles himself as a hunter-of-hunters; Eileen, a woman who would also, in time, come to style herself as a hunter of hunters; Djura, who is dreadfully kind and terribly foolish; and Ludwig, a cleric of the Healing Church who was possessed of an ancient, magical sword, possibly even a relic of Isz, which was both weapon and mentor to him.

-- For all of the Hunter’s Workshop’s goals in containing the Beast Plague, they rapidly find themselves unable to contain it, and their organisation spirals into chaos. Ludwig breaks away from the Workshop to form the Church hunters, recruiting mobs of regular townspeople, but also empowering the Church to form a secret police of sort, a cadre of hunters who were permitted to hide among the populace and strike with impunity if they believed they saw the signs of plague. Maria, for reasons unknown, steals a sample of the Great Ones’ blood and delivers it to the Cainhursts. Their own experiments yield the Vilebloods, an ‘impure’ breed of humanity led by the immortal Queen Annalise, who sets about feeding on the blood of hunters in the hopes that doing so will let her conceive a ‘child of the blood’ with Oedon. The Crow, afflicted by the beast blood, goes mad. Eileen and Djura, both disillusioned with Gehrman, begin to drift away from the Workshop, with Djura gathering his own band of hunters. While Izzy’s fate is unclear, we know that they were a threat to the Church, and were most likely killed.

-- A war breaks out between the Cainhurst Vilebloods and the Executioners, a fanatical sect of the Church committed to wiping them out. The war ends when Logarius, leader of the Executioners and seemingly a man of Pthumerian extraction, dons a crown of illusion and separates Castle Cainhurst from Yharnam. Unable to die by natural means, likely owing to his Pthumerian blood, Logarius begins an endless vigil.

-- At some point, Gehrman and the College of Byrgenwerth discover a fishing hamlet in a symbiotic relationship with Kos, a Great One. In the name of learning more about how to reach the eldritch truth, the Byrgenwerth scholars visit horrifying experiments on the people of the hamlet, cutting them open and carving open their skulls to examine their brains, seemingly while they still lived.

-- Gehrman, facing a losing war against the Beast Plague, and with most of his apprentices and allies having abandoned him in one form or another, does something worse. While it isn’t entirely clear how he does it, since Kos’ physical shape is a gigantic nudiform, he seemingly manages to impregnate Kos in what appears to be an attempt to create an undying, perfect hunter, equipped to kill both beasts and Great Ones.

-- Kos perishes and washes up on the shore of the hamlet. From her dead body emerges the Sweet Child of Kos, the son of Kos and Gehrman. He is ‘wizened’ upon birth, and either born dead or dies of old age shortly thereafter.

-- Responding to the wishes of the people of the hamlet, though, the Sweet Child of Kos, dead but, like Mergo, still able to wield the power of a god, creates a nightmare realm, the Hunter’s Nightmare, and curses every hunter: When they die or lose their minds, they drift into the Hunter’s Nightmare, there to engage in an endless, maddening hunt.

-- The fishing hamlet is destroyed, whether by Byrgenwerth or, perhaps, by simply being transported wholesale into the Hunter’s Nightmare. In disgust at Byrgenwerth and Gehrman, Maria casts her blade, Rakuyo, into a well. She later dies, although it’s unclear exactly how -- but the available evidence points to suicide.

-- In Yharnam, confidence in the Church begins to fail, driven not least by the fact that clerics of the Church, who have more knowledge of the eldritch truth, become the most powerful and most vicious beasts.

-- The situation in Yharnam goes from bad to worse. Perhaps seeking to re-establish the authority of the Healing Church after confidence in the healing blood has been eroded by the Beast Plague, Laurence and the Church poison the water supply of Old Yharnam, and then approach the people of the district with the offer of the blood as a cure. The result is an outbreak of the Beast Plague unlike anything ever seen before. Desperate, the Church and Gehrman seal off Old Yharnam and send in Djura and his Powder-Keg Hunters to burn it and everyone in it.

-- On the same night, Ludwig succumbs to the Beast Plague, transforming into a horrible beast as his mind is shunted into the Hunter’s Nightmare. He is killed, but without his guidance, the Church Hunters fracture, with some of them being absorbed by the Choir and the rest of them becoming little more than a roaming mob.

-- Laurence succumbs to the plague not long after. While his mind takes the form of an ever-burning Cleric Beast within the Hunter’s Nightmare, his body becomes the Bloodletting Beast. While it is decapitated in a battle against Brador, a Church Hunter in the employ of the Choir, it survives this decapitation and flees into the remains of Pthumeria Ihyll. It is never caught.

-- With Yharnam in chaos, and his first plan to create an undying hunter a failure, Gehrman uses the Sweet Child of Kos’ umbilical cord to summon a Great One. The Great Ones are sympathetic in spirit, and so his pleas are answered by Flora, the Moon Presence. The Moon Presence creates for Gehrman the Hunter’s Dream, a dream-realm version of the Workshop. Hunters who are drawn into the Hunter’s Dream can venture out into the waking world as dreams, ensuring that no matter how many times they die, they can always return. But the Moon Presence also imprisons Gehrman in the Dream, to act as its guardian and to guide new hunters.

-- Several hunters are brought into the Dream and allowed to hunt without fear of death. Djura is one, and Eileen is another. Eventually, Gehrman frees each of them from the Dream, an act which also cuts off their ability to dream altogether (and perhaps saves them from the Hunter’s Dream).

-- At Byrgenwerth, a woman chooses to ascend to the very brink of being a Great One, but the imperfect process destroys her mind. The resulting being, Rom the Vacuous Spider, dwells beneath the Byrgenwerth lake, using its powers to shield Yharnam from the encroachment of the Great Ones’ dream realms, and obscure the truth. 

-- Djura’s nephew is struck by a terrible illness, most likely the Beast Plague, but seems to recover from it as something uncannily similar to a Great One. Djura has him smuggled out of Yharnam. His spirit broken by his long career as a hunter, the events with his nephew, and the razing of Old Yharnam, Djura retreats to the ruins of Old Yharnam, there to protect the beasts still living in it.

-- At some point, the School of Mensis succeeds in achieving an audience with Mergo. In doing so, they kick off a resurgence of the Beast Plague. The Player Character, drawn to Yharnam to ‘seek paleblood,’ is drawn into the Hunter’s Dream, as Gehrman’s latest hunter, tasked with finding and killing (or ‘killing’ as the case may be) the infant Mergo.

-- The Player Character kills Rom, removing the last line of defense against Mergo’s influence. The Beast Plague erupts into an even more cataclysmic form. Without Rom to shield Yharnam, Oedon impregnates two women -- the fake Iosefka, who had been attempting to conceive a child with him, and Arianna, a descendant of Annalise who, it would seem, was impregnated with the child Annalise had wished for, as Oedon, being formless and alien, cannot distinguish the difference between them. Neither woman survives the birth, and their children are born dead.

-- The Player Character eventually finds their way to the Nightmare of Mensis, the nightmare realm made to cradle Mergo. Killing Micolash, they proceed onwards to eventually kill Mergo’s Wet Nurse. Without her nurse to nurture her, the dead Mergo finally passes from the world, her long suffering finished. Queen Yharnam bows to the Player Character in thanks, then departs as well.

-- Returning to the Hunter’s Dream, the Player Character confronts and kills Gehrman. The Moon Presence descends, and the Player Character, now grasping almost the entirety of the eldritch truth, and having consumed a massive amount of blood (along with the umbilical cords of four Great Ones -- Mergo’s, the Sweet Child of Kos, Arianna’s child, and Iosefka’s child) battles and defeats it. Consuming it, the Player Character abandons their form as a human and is reborn as an infant Great One -- the first, and only, infant Great One to be born alive.

-- While much of Yharnam is destroyed, there are survivors. Perhaps better for them, there is now a Great One who may yet understand humanity, cradled in the Hunter’s Dream, and when it is grown it will guide humanity towards ascension.

[strawbrymilkshake]

i just watched the first six episodes of the mp100 netflix show for no good reason other than that i apparently hate myself, so to not put my pain to waste here’s a half-review half-rant thing

i guess ill start with the good and make my way to the shit i hated about this show, but as you can probably guess there’s hardly any good

tome was fun, i guess. she’s got that same chaotic™ energy and had some of the only lines i genuinely laughed at, but also she’s the only member of the telepathy club for some reason? and they merged her character with mezato’s, so i guess she’s got more to do. but judging by the sfx i doubt they had the budget for even one (1) more actor, so ig i can forgive them for that. overall probably the only adaptation that both wasn’t painful to watch and actually warranted the changes they made

teru (from the little i saw of him) was also pretty good. the fight had some....changes, but on his own i thought he was fine, pretty harmless adaptation overall. i stopped watching once i realised that they weren’t gonna go all in and give him the cactus hair so points deducted for that

and the last thing i liked about this show: ritsu! they got a young actor who was good and i didn’t have many issues with him. there was one interaction he had with tome that i liked when she introduced herself and he said ‘oh! tome’s my grandma’s name!’ and tome was like ‘...yeah you and mob are definitely brothers.’ the reason why he’s lower than tome and teru is because. for whatever fucking reason. he is in every. goddamn. scene. like even when it doesn’t make any sense. when mob joins the body improvement club? he’s there. when mob is taking down the lol cult? he’s there. the teru fight? he’s there. i lost count of how many times i was asking myself ‘why the fuck is ritsu here?’ he was inescapable. his presence in those scenes didn’t even add anything to the story. also he’s friends with tsubomi for some reason....i guess to give him more things that mob can be envious of?

speaking of tsubomi.....god. not to be like ‘they didn’t understand the source material!!1!!11!1!!!’ but like. please. it hurt. i get that they were probably trying to lean into the ‘guy gets the girl/high school romance’ type show more but uhh....way to horribly misunderstand the source material, guys. the problem with her is that she is in it so much that it almost entirely defeats the point of her character & what she’s supposed to mean to mob. they interact like every other scene! she’s a pretty close friend to ritsu, so that means they interact even more! she’s their next door neighbour ffs! i only watched the first six episodes and i think i still saw more of her than her entire screen time in the anime put together

and apart from her being so close to mob that it completely destroys the point of him idolising her, it also meant that the writers had to come up with a full personality for her and an actual dynamic for her and mob. and hoo boy they really went and decided that the two of them would have the most awkward, unappealing dynamic ever, huh. like there’s this running gag where she always messes up the words to common phrases, and mob has to correct her, and it’s painful every time. which, i guess (????) makes sense for what their relationship is in the manga & anime, where they’re not close anymore and mob doesn’t even know what she’s like/what he likes about her, but in this show, they were trying to push them together to lean into the romance tropes, so their uncomfortable dynamic doesn’t make sense anyway??

the stageplay got it fuckin RIGHT when they went and cast NO ONE for tsubomi. like. the legend jumped out. they got mob pining for a silhouette. chef’s kiss

holy shit this got long fast. ok the rest is under the cut

i guess im just going character by character now so: dimple. weird guy. the cgi was awful, but you knew that already. but he was just....so weird. and by that i mean he was awkwardly,, never there? when teru exorcises him it’s supposed have at least some impact, but in this show he had like three (3) scenes before it (rather than a couple episodes leading up to it) (and also they cut a shit ton out of the middle of the lol cult arc for...whatever reason) so when he gets exorcised here it’s like...oh no.....that guy...........did mob even speak to him more than once.....

speaking of the pacing of this show: it’s horrendous!! good lord i hate it!! the pacing is shit awful, and it feels like they’re just throwing in ‘’’’’’’’interesting’’’’’’’’ scenes that should take place later in the story bc they know that the audience isn’t going to want to stay around for the atrocious writing! case in point: we see the flashback of mob and reigen meeting in the second episode. the second fucking episode. the reason why it’s delayed so much in the anime (and even more in the manga) has a lot to do with the unfolding of reigen’s character depth and they just?? throw it in so early?? it feels like they’re just going ‘oh by the way, he’s good, or whatever. yeah, he’s totally complex and interesting. just trust us, okay, keep watching the show’ and the pacing of that completely throws off reigen’s character arc

i can’t really remember which episode(s) this was in but they also have this weird subplot with reigen going to the bar alone (yknow..like....s2 scenes...) and lowkey being friends with the bartender guy?? i gotta be honest i wasn’t paying much attention during these scenes but suffice it to say: god i hated reigen. like sure, he’s a sleazy character, but they just made him disgusting. netflix reigen does not drink his respect women juice, and that’s all i wanna say about that

also why is he like 40 years old

anyways back to the pacing, apart from throwing in scenes from wayyy later in the plot, this show also tried to have like four or five plot threads going at once. the place that this hurt the most was probably the teru fight, where the anime spends like two episodes entirely on it and nothing else, but in this show it keeps cutting to the start of the big clean up arc (probably just so they could keep showing ritsu) and reigen’s weird subplot 

and there’s other stuff like that, where they kept cutting to the awakening lab & the scars doing psychic stuff or whatever, i guess trying to entice the audience like ‘we swear there’s plot stuff!! it’s not just slice of life!! there’s evil™ people!!’ and i guess they were gonna pull the ol’ switcheroo™ where the audience thinks the awakening lab and the scars are working together but oh no!! only the scars are evil!! the awakening lab was actually on our side!! but i can’t be bothered to watch that far

also in the teru fight, they got most of the message across (don’t use your psychic powers against other people....mob and teru are the same...) but because they kept cutting away from it they lost the dramatic impact of all of it. the choreography and sfx weren’t as bad as they could have been i guess, but they definitely showed the budget. it also didn’t take place in a school (which...fine, whatever) but it led to something i actually did like: teru attacked mob with glass shards instead of knives, and although i do like the knife metaphor + imagery, you could also argue something about the destructive nature of his power use coming back to hurt him in the shards of glass, and also something about reflections or...something. i just thought it was neat, although i don’t know why they changed the setting from the school in the first place

also in the teru fight: it was raining and ???% stopped the rain katara-style mid air, and even though the cgi still wasn’t all that good, i thought that was a rad concept. but then he just made a tornado instead of ripping buildings apart and you get the idea not a lot of it was good

back to things i hate because i don’t have a good segue!! the writing!! bad!!

i see the writers of this show engaged in the age old storytelling practice of ‘tell, don’t show’

when reigen tells mob to be a good person: “ok, i won’t show off my powers or use them against other people. i’ll become a good person”

when mob loses control of his powers and hurts ritsu as a kid: “these powers are awful and cause nothing but trouble. i’m not going to be using them again”

god i wish i was exaggerating

and, going back to the lol cult, for whatever fucking reason they decided to have that latter line of dialogue to be the full explanation of mob’s complex. like i get that there’s a time for exposition and a time for subtly, but take some cues from the original author and maybe fucking explain the main plot device of the show and not the protagonist’s sad vague backstory rather than the other way around. want to confuse and alienate your audience? good fucking job!! you’ve done it!!

and just because this was my favourite episode in the anime and im fucking bitter!! they cut out so much of dimple’s monologue and just had mob get to 100% pretty much after all dimple says is ‘get a clue.’ like. he puts the mask on, it doesn’t work, ‘get a clue,’ 100%. yeah im totally gonna care when this character comes back to try and manipulate mob later.

also....mob...........

i havent talked about him that much here, have i?

okay specifically w the lol cult first, the whole thing where they put the mask on and he’s not smiling is completely devoid of any impact because!! he’s full on emoting throughout the rest of the show!! like he’ll look worried, embarrassed, he’ll cringe or smile or whatever, and the most it looks like is that he’s just slightly uninterested, but otherwise has a pretty good grip on his emotions. unlike the anime + stageplay where it’s clear that he’s (seemingly) completely unemotional. the reason why i bring up the stageplay is bc, while i know that setsuo ito is 10ish years older than the guy that plays mob in the netflix show, i kinda wish that they just....cast him anyway.....bc they clearly didn’t have any hangups on casting adults for all the other middle schoolers, and ito did such a good job in the stageplay. he’s the only guy who is mob to me lmao (kyle mccarley is on thin ice but he can stay)

i mean mob just straight up showing emotions through the show could have been down to the directing as well. also i’m pretty sure a majority of it is bc he’s constantly around tsubomi, so. stupid decisions lead to stupid outcomes!

and that’s basically it for my weird review/rant on this show. the writing’s bad, the pacing’s bad, they didn’t care at all about the source material, i’m not entirely sure if they cared about the audience either, there was maybe two (2) changes i liked, if that, and everyone should go watch the stageplay. there were probably way more points that i wanted to bring up but i think my brain is already repressing the memory of it for my own safety

if i ever try to watch the rest of this show, shoot me

[swanwinged-princess]

The Hunchback of Notre Dame owo

@wouldhope// Disney Headcanon Meme

The Hunchback of Notre Dame - What is your muse’s religious beliefs? Have they ever experienced oppression at the hands of religion?

//Ok well FIRST of all

//And also this is;;; probably gonna be long;;; made twice as long because i’m gonna do one for standard!tutu (the one where she’s basically swan jesus) and one for verses/aus where she’s… at least a LITTLE bit more normal (see: her dad’s not a LITERAL DEITY)

I’m actually gonna start off with the latter here bc i think the former is probably gonna be longer anyway SO

(continues under cut)

In verses/aus where Tutu’s father isn’t a literal, actual spirit/deity/entity/god/what-have-ye (BNHA/affiliated spinoffs; duckverse/anthro/etc.; wizarding world; etc.):

She is… SOMEWHAT religious; definitely not overly so (see: not an asshole about it) but believes in angels/miracles/god/heaven and-or the afterlife. Definitely christianity-adjacent but not any particular type of christianity; possibly believes in hell/purgatory/some sort of punishment system after death but doesn’t really like to think about it, and her qualifications for GETTING there are stuff like, say, ‘committing many horrible murders’ or ‘being an unapologetic bigot’ as opposed to ‘not believing in jesus’ or ‘enjoying having sex’ or whatever.

 She doesn’t really even, say, go to church regularly (she’s heckin BUSY come on), but does enjoy being IN church, especially alone; it’s like a bit of a meditation for her/helps her clear her head and feel closer to god/spirituality/the universe/heaven/her mom.

She also prays pretty much every day- specifically once in the morning and at night- but also prays informally whenever she feels the need, and probably wouldn’t own much religious iconography besides maybe a few cross necklaces– you know, small, tasteful, very expensive; delicate, real silver or gold, maybe a single pearl right in the middle of the cross but that’s about it.

Whereas on the OTHER hand

//HOO BOY//

In main verse and associated, she’s… um.

Ok, so the Swan King may not technically be an actual GOD per se, but, well… He’s close. And people DO worship him. Not as many as there used to be, but they’re still there, and generally speaking basically everybody in the kingdom and round abouts that area observe it (swanianism or something idk) at least casually, by at least saying ‘swansdown’ and ‘swanfeathers’ and ‘by the swan’ instead of, for example, ‘oh my god’. 

There’s, like, one official church, with stained glass and pews and everything, where all the high-class weddings and funerals and etc. get held there, but there aren’t really any ‘priests’ and they don’t really hold services. 

There are lots and lots of old swan statues all over the area from centuries back, and while some of them got moved onto the tops of buildings/in fountains/ended up centers of various village squares, a lot of them had sort of… had temples built around them over the years- it just sorta happened- and that’s mainly where the average people observe their worship. 

Also, the Schwanensee royal family featured pretty largely in the theology, being sort of… the same thing as saints in Catholicism; whenever anybody was born/died on the sacred island a messenger dove got sent over to the mainland and there was an announcement made about it to the village. The sacred island/lake wasn’t really thought of as a real place- it was more like if you could see heaven a little bit from a high window, or if you climbed a really tall tree.

So when the island was basically burned to the ground and almost all the royal family was killed, it was… um….. 

Kind of a big fuckin’ deal.

When Tutu was rescued from the ruins, and everybody saw her, and everybody knew who she was, it was an even bigger deal. Everybody, in unison, basically decided that this tiny, traumatized, soot-covered, gray-feathered 6-year-old was the chosen one who was going to save them from everything from minor disagreements to, y’know, being ripped apart alive/having your heart and emotions pulled out and eaten by flocks of devil birds. 

People even started… worshipping her.

After the initial adjustment period, she actually handled it pretty well; at least externally. Of course, anyone who knows anything about actually being royalty knows that the whole trick is to be royal on the outside and a cobbled-together mess sustained by stress like that physics thing where you hold up a legless table by strings and the buckets of water on it, but as she got older she actually managed to get more of a handle on it. 

All in all, she’s… 

I mean, she’s more or less got it. Apart from sudden attacks of crippling, soul-crushing anxiety. But she really, really, really wishes that people would stop, or at least give the whole actually worshipping her a rest a little. Generally speaking, everybody in the kingdom (or at least in the castle village) does genuinely like her, but sometimes she gets people who want to, like, kneel at her, or try to touch her dress/feathers as she walks past, and when she tries to talk to them they start flinching away and holding up their little carved swan amulet necklaces like they think it’ll protect them and she’s just like dad dammit i am trying to be friendly do i have to say ‘be not afraid’ or something every time i go up to introduce myself to someone???

But yeah, generally speaking it’s not really a problem from the swan-leaning side. Where it starts going wrong is the raven-leaning side.

The swan-leaning people are all in all, y’know, normal fucking people, and their religion-worship-belief-etc. only ever gets to obnoxious-christianity levels. 

But the raven-leaning people can generally be qualified altogether as a crazy ransacking-and-pillaging murder cult.

 And they actually have backup from real, actual infernal blood magic demon stuff, a seemingly infinite supply of flocks of murderbirds and various and sundry quirky miniboss squad-types, whereas the normal people really only have Tutu and, allegedly, the faerie folk (those affiliated with the Lilac Fairy/Queen, at least) but they haven’t been seen in generations so it’s really anyone’s guess on that. 

They do a lot of, you know, general murder and mayhem- or at least they did, but the last really big thing they managed to pull off was the massacre on the sacred island, and technically speaking they actually failed to complete their objective because Queen Leda put Tutu to sleep with some ~magic~ and hid her in the hollow base of a swan statue in the middle of a rose thicket, which, by some sort of ‘coincidence’, didn’t seem to catch fire very much, and they were all too drunk on moonshine and bloodlust, and generally crazy and stupid, to actually look further for any survivors when everything was on fire and there were crows everywhere and they just sort of decided ‘yeah that’s it let’s go home’ and fucked off. 

At the current time, most of them aren’t actually too much of a threat because most of them are the stupid crazy ~3edgy5me~ idiot types– y’know, the kind who’d, say, march around waving factory-produced tiki torches at night and demand a police escort if they’re gonna be shouting in the general vicinity of a pride event because they’re ‘fearful of their safety :’(’ 

so, like, nowadays they’re really only like Team Rocket-level nuisances on a day-to-day basis because the kingdom had learned from their history and swore in a lot more ‘guards’ and ‘knights’- enough to mostly keep the peace in pretty much every town unless things get really, really bad. 

Uuuunfortunately, it’s not just idiots who want to wear black cloaks with pointy hoods to look like beaks and wave big curved swords around– i mean, it’s MOSTLY that, but also a lot of very smart, very greedy, bored, evil, and/or scheming people end up gravitating towards anything that’ll give them a lot of dumb people who they can tell what to do. 

So occasionally- very occasionally- they actually do something that’s… actually impactful, and everybody who gets out of it in one piece talks about how fucked up that was and ‘curse those raven bastards’ and etc. etc., but the crowmen (as they’re informally known) are also surprisingly good at apparently vanishing without a trace so it’s hard to catch them or do anything really constructive about the problem as a whole. 

Weeellllll, okay, ADMITTEDLY a few various gangs of them HAVE managed, by coincidence or the type of brief narrative luck that dumb people like that seem to have sometimes, to briefly kidnap Tutu, but she either gets rescued very quickly OR escapes by herself while they’re arguing with each other about HOW to kill her, WHETHER to kill her, and what the prospects of killing her now or maybe ransoming her and then killing her LATER would be, or they all sort of trip over their own and each other’s feet, cloaks, and swords and blunder their way into harmlessness in one way or another. 

TL;DR Tutu sort of... IS a part of her religion like how Jesus is a part of Christianity/associates and all things considered she’s handling it pretty well. Her entire family was murdered by basically a crazy satanic cult who still run around causing problems, but not as much as they used to, so.... Does that count as religious oppression???

[peachywise]

The Woods, The Night, & You

richie tozier x reader 

– one-shot

– synopsis: Knowing that graduation is coming soon, you and The Losers’ Club planned a little get away camping weekend. It would have been great if you hadn’t gotten lost in the woods with Richie on the first night. But maybe you could make the most out of a crappy situation? (aged up: 18)

– notes: this was requested by anonymous!! “i NEED more teen richie x reader… can be anything, mainly fluffy and maybe a lil sexy” swear warning n all that jazz 

You had never gone camping before, and you had no clue what to expect; Trees? yeah. Bugs? most definitely. Marshmallows? If The Loser’s Club didn’t want you to smack them with a branch, then of course. 

Part of your brain was certain you were going to get eaten by a bear. The other part of you debated whether sleeping in a cold ass tent was worse than a cozy warm bear stomach. Of course, Mike had to go and ruin that great deliberation by informing you there were no bears in the area. Suddenly, you weren’t so sure this senior camping trip was worth it at all. You made sure to tell him that very fact. 

“You said the same thing when we got to your house this morning,” Mike commented from behind his truck’s wheel. He wasn’t wrong, but really, what else did they expect? It had been 6 A.M in the morning, and you were having a particularly nice dream about a certain boy you liked. A certain boy whose name began with ‘R’ and most definitely wasn’t one of your closest friends who, currently, was crammed in the back of the truck right next to you. Nuh-uh. 

“And I’ll probably be saying it again later,” you replied, crossing your arms over your chest. 

Shifting a bit in your seat, trying to make it so you weren’t half sitting on Richie’s lap, you tensed up a bit as his hand moved to grab your waist, steadying you.

“Stop squirming or you’ll make me hard,” Richie exclaimed out loud, and all of a sudden you wondered what it would feel like to toss yourself out of a moving vehicle. By the look on all your friends faces around you and the collective groan they let out, it seemed that same thought had crossed all their minds. How odd. 

“Richie, you really couldn’t have kept that to yourself?” Grumbled Stan from his spot in the front seat. Beverly, who sat on the other side of you, nodded her head in agreement as she gave a disgusted looking side eye to Richie. 

“You know what! I’m just going to take a nap, wake me up when we get there,” you mumbled as you rested your head on Bev’s shoulder. Your last thought before you passed out was a desperate hope that no one had seen your blush. 

When you finally started to gain back consciousness, it was to a gentle voice coaxing you from sleep. “Alright Doll, we’re here, and I can’t move until you do.” Confusion clouded your still sleepy thoughts. Bev didn’t have that deep of a voice. Shit, and Bev hadn’t been wearing dark blue cargo pants. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck– 

As if the holy ghost had moved through your body, waking every single inch of you all at once, your head shot up from where it had previously been resting on Richie’s lap. Too bad for you, you smacked it against the back of the seat pretty hard. 

“Jesus fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone move that fast,” Richie commented, giving you a curious look from behind his over-sized glasses. “What the hell’s wrong?” He continued to question, as you clutched the back of your head in pain. 

“Nothing at all! Uh, it was a spasm? Yeah. Yep. Alright, gotta go,” you shot out in a stream of awkward rambles, as you quickly tried hurry Bev out the other side of you. When she wasn’t fast enough, you ended up climbing over Richie’s lap in an erratic panic, clicking open the door, and making a less than graceful fall to the dirt below. Not even trying to play it off, you quickly shot up as both Mike and Stanley stared at you in an almost fascinated awe. You nearly kicked Mike’s shin when he gave you a knowing elbow shove when you caught up to them. What assholes. They fucking knew. This camping trip was going to be the worst. 

Later that night when each of you had set up your tents and had finally gotten settled, the eight of you sat around in a circle staring at the unlit camp fire. It seemed each of you had forgotten that in order to make a fire, it required wood. Wood you didn’t have. 

“I am not going out into the woods at night to get a stick, no way, someone else is going to have to do it,” Eddie blurted out as soon as each of you came to the same conclusion. Sighing, you stood up and lazily raised your hand. 

“Don’t worry, I got it. A few sticks and we’ll be good,” you offered, as you brushed a bit of dirt off the back of your pants. 

“We might as well collect more than a few. Lucky for you fuckers, I’m an excellent stick collector, so I volunteer my expertise.” Oh lovely. A night in the woods with Richie. Alone. This sounded a hell of a lot like the start to your dream the night before, but in real life, it felt like a fucking nightmare. 

“Well, we all know you’ve at least handled one stick in your life,” you commented, as Stan sputtered out his water in reply. Ben clapped his back. Ah yes, dick jokes. Comedy gold. 

“Let’s get this over with,” you added as you started down the trail in the woods, not looking back as Richie rushed to catch up with you. 

By the time the two of you had collected enough sticks that you couldn’t hold any more, you finally stated “I think this is good, we should probably head back.” Richie nodded in agreement. You’d spent a little longer out here than you probably should have, and you could only imagine the others were wondering where the hell you’d gone. 

It had been pretty silent the whole time you had strolled along. Yeah Richie made a few cracks here and there, but you were a little afraid that if you opened your mouth to reply, you would throw up. Like, everywhere. This past year it had been getting harder and harder to hide your feelings for him, most especially because he made a lot more sexual jokes then when he did as a kid (which, for a little kid, was a fuck ton), and they all seemed to be aimed at you. You really couldn’t take it much more. 

“Hey, Y/N?”  His voice called from behind you. Turning your head to glance back at him, quirking your eyebrow up in question, he looked you dead in the eye and asked in all seriousness, “do you hate me?” What the fuck? 

Spinning around wildly, your eyes wide, you shouted out, “what?” in complete and utter shock. Why the hell would you hate him? Oh god, it was the exact opposite! What kind of idiot was he!? 

“Woah, it was just a question!” He blurted, seemingly a little stunned at your outburst. Seriously? He was getting defensive? Sweet Jesus. 

Dropping the sticks at your feet, you instinctively reach out the slap the side of his arm, glaring him down as you did. 

“What the fuck was that for?!” He exclaimed, dropping his own sticks a little dramatically and clutching the side of his arm. Oh boo hoo, like that even hurt. 

“I don’t hate you Richie Tozier! Why would you ever think that you dumbass?” You blurted out, still a little stunned. Was it something you had said? Okay, you did just call him a dumbass, but when something looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a mother fucking duck. 

“You’ve just been a little cold lately. But forget it,” he began as he bent down to pick up the dropped sticks. Twisting down to do the same, still giving him an incredulous look, he continued by saying, “I’m probably just getting hotter.” Boy, you have no bloody idea. 

As you two reverted back to the original silence, it soon became clear after twenty minutes of trying to find the exit that you were lost. This camping trip was most definitely not worth it. 

Letting out a frustrated huff of air, you turned to Richie and said in an attempt to lighten the mood, “I can’t believe you got us lost. This is tragic, I have to die in the woods with you of all people.” 

Clearly your sarcasm went right over his head as he shot out, “See! You do hate me!” as if he was happy he had been right all along. You really couldn’t help but burst his bubble. 

“No, I’m in love with you, you fucking idiot!” You shouted out before you could even stop yourself. The angry twist that had contorted your face softened into slight dread as soon as you saw his eyes shift from confusion to understanding. Yeah, you should have leapt out the truck when you had the chance. 

“You love me?” He questioned, stepping forward slightly so you could see his face better within the dark forest. “I’m Richie, you know that right?” He inquired, as if he really couldn’t believe what you were saying. 

Slightly uncomfortably in how serious the situation was getting, you tried to joke around and play it off. “Yeah, just don’t let it get to your head-” you started to say, but before you had time to finish the sentence, Richie dropped his stick pile and quickly closed the remaining space between you two. Knocking your own sticks out of your hands, he gripped your waist and leaned down to press his lips against yours. 

Shock washed over you at the urgency of his kiss. Breaking away for a second to catch your breath, he barley let you before his soft, velvet lips crushed against yours again, devouring you as he pushed you up against a tree. Oh man. Yeah, this was way better than your dream. 

Not really wanting to question what was happening out of fear it would stop, you wrapped your hands around his neck and played with the short curls at the base of his neck. As his tongue smoothly brushed against your bottom lip, a brief moan escaped you. Gladly, he took full advantage of your parted lips. 

As the kiss got deeper, you let out a surprised squeak as his arms moved down to your butt, lifting you up so you could straddled your legs around his waist. Your whole body was aflame, and you were loving every bit of it.  

All too soon, Richie broke the erratic kiss so both of you could catch your breath. Resting his forehead against yours, his mouth curved into a sly grin as he commented, “I always knew I was irresistible.” 

Letting out a snort, you untangled one of your hands from his hair to take off his glasses, tossing them to the ground. “Alright, you keep telling yourself that,” you smirked, before leaning back in and kissing him once more. He didn’t argue as he greedily met your lips. 

As his moved his head down, he left a trail of feather light kisses along your jawbone, the corner of your mouth, over your eyelids and behind your ear as he gently whispered “I love you,” back. You were in heaven and couldn’t get enough. Nothing could ruin this moment. 

Well. Almost nothing.

“THEY’RE NOT DEAD YOU GUYS,”  Stanley hollered out, as he caught full sight of you and Richie up against the tree.

Dropping your head to the crook of Richie’s neck in slight embarrassment of being caught, you couldn’t help but let out a small titter as you heard Stanley mutter as he began to walk away, “kind of wish I was, though.” 

[toad-fr]

Novilar Review

So I joined Novilar cause why not and hoo boy is that site dead (a max of 3 people on the site, myself included). Thought when I looked at Lore it couldn’t be worse but at least Lore was actively trying to fix things and being up front.

One of the newest and most damaging bugs to the site is a graphics bug. It makes black stripes appear over your character and pets. Now, I don’t know how easy or not this is to fix but on a breeding site where one of the first things you do is design your own pet, having a bug like this makes it nigh impossible to play.

Now, I shouldn’t be going too hard on this site since it’s still in beta but like. Come on. It’s been reported for at least 3 weeks, possibly more, and no staff has responded or given any indication they were working on it.

Besides that glaring bug, the game was pretty good. It had a compelling and interesting story that left me excited to see what was going to happen. The art was just gorgeous. The games were fun and cute (though I did get frustrated on one but that was my own fault). The gameplay was interesting and enjoyable. Overall good. There were a few big issues though.

The tutorial was virtually nonexistent after the initial introduction (except for one part of the game), which led me to bumble around a bit until I got the lay of the lands. Generally I was somewhat confused. The stores were undescriptive and I had no idea what the items inside were for. The only way I was able to find the potions that are needed to tame animals was because it was briefly mentioned in the initial introduction.

Overall I was very lost as to what to do.

The interface was okay but has a lot to work on. For instance, I would like to see how many explore steps I have left. Also, while exploring, why must I click on an item to be able to claim it? Why doesn’t it claim automatically? There are plenty of other interactions in explore— having players open a pop-up just to claim an item is a bit extreme.

The exploring system was very poorly explained. When you ran out of steps it left a generic “wait a while for it to recharge” message, which is fine if you know how long this recharge is supposed to be. However, when I was looking into a different aspect of the site, it alluded to the fact that it granted you 50 extra turns a day. Which makes me think you have a set amount per day.

In some games that would work great. In this one, a seemingly exploring based game, it does not. Exploring is the only way to earn money besides selling to other users or playing one of two games once per day.

The economy was odd to say the least. Apparel that seemed like it should be cheap was around 8k coins. For reference, through my 100 steps of exploring I got about 6k coins. Now, that’s all fine and good if you want your players to save up. However, the game had ridiculously high prices for the potions needed to tame the animals.

To tame an animal, you had to use a potion on it. The potion would boost a meter by a certain percent. That percent after five turns of using items was what would determine if you could tame the creature or not.

Now, the potions that you could buy came in three prices, the lowest of which being 600 coins and the middle being 1.2k coins. Not too bad, all things considered! Except they only gave you about 10% for the small and about 20% for the middle.

Maybe I’m over reacting about this but it just felt so small. How am I supposed to tame animals if I have to spend a fifth of my money each time for a 20% chance at it. It just felt wrong. The animals you were getting were not incredible. They did not have amazing genes (at least not that I saw) and did not seem to be worth that many coins.

At the very beginning, the game asks you to chose a diety. It states that these cannot be changed and will effect game play. However, when you click on the diety, it doesn’t tell you how it effects game play. I guess the game developers were going for a “choose with your heart” feel but there are many people, myself included, that would pick based on stats.

[honeyedmilks]

i’ve debated a lot on addressing this but it’s the second reply like this made by blogger @labiotte so i thought i should. these replies where made at this post of mine. it’s nearly three am but here i go on my wonky rant.

look, i don’t at all disagree with the fact that any of that stuff happens, and trust me- i’m no fan of it either. but can i first of all make clear that that post of mine was to acknowledge some positivity in korean dramas. 

now, yes there are a lot of terrible male leads and characters but that shouldn’t negate the fact that there are nice boys in korean dramas too. there are lots of boys who don’t do many of those things described in your reply. the way you made your point was worded in a way where i think you meant to mock me for thinking that any of the men in korean dramas could be soft. i don’t appreciate that. you can make a post of your own highlighting these issues that almost every kdrama viewer acknowledges and feels. 

here are some examples of lovely men; baek in ho from cheese in the trap who said these iconic lines. baek in ho himself was a wonderful male character. someone’s made a whole appreciation post for him. i could go on about him for ages. he doesn’t take sexist shit, disrespectful things said to women, and he’s just lovely. 

you have people like joon hyung, though i don’t agree at all with his first kiss scene with bok joo, from weightliftig fairy who cried because his mum basically abandoned him when he was a child and when she came to see him and his current for family- it was for money. he missed her a lot and was ready to welcome her back into his life, thinking she loved him and missed him just as much. when he found out the truth he felt embarrassed for himself and hid away for hours and found comfort as he cried and explained to his worried girlfriend about how he felt.  he was a cute and lovely boyfriend, both supportive and sweet. 

you have one of the softest people in the world- the grim reaper from goblin, or grimsie as i call him. do i really have to explain what made him soft and sensitive and lovely? i don’t think so. i think lee dong wonk cried enough to fill a bucket for me. he cried for sunny, for the things he did in his past life, cried out of guilt, cried when eun tak died, when shin died… he bent all of his rules for his friends even though he’s seemingly uptight. do people forget the cutest thing? the fact that it was his idea to buy eun tak that ice cream cake? 

there’s also shin from goblin too, a man who was also a little fragile inside. he fell to his knees when his bride died, sobbed, and sobbed. he was a renowned general in goryeo and fought countless battles but managed to be the biggest dork when it came to just about everything else. he gets drunk off of one beer and blooms flowers when he spends time with the love of his life. he said that meeting eun tak was the reward of his life. not immortality or powers- eun tak. he’s said he would always prefer to help little children first. he cried reading a contract he knew he couldn’t uphold. he made apple rabbits for a sad grim reaper. he’s a cute boyfriend. he would rather live an eternity alone but have at least a few lives with eun tak. 

there’s ho goo from hoo goo’s love who cried when he saw a women he basically loved give birth, praised her for her strength, understood the strength of woman from his lovely father who was just as soft as him, helped her through labour in the most endearing way, like seriously, was a kind son, is overall a cutie who gets jelly legs from (non forced) kisses, appreciates his mother even more after witnessing the miracle of birth, and the best friend of the littlest baby.

there’s hae joon jae from legend of the blue sea. he was a silly drunk, helped a girl he didn’t even know and even though he stole from her, he went back for her. he helped her and fed her and gave her back the thing he took. you should just see the cute, ridiculous, kind things he does. he is so gentle? he cried when his mum vanished and harboured no ill will against her, he just missed her and wanted to be reunited with her. changed for the better for the girl he loved and for himself as he went from con man to civil servant. thought his girlfriend was cool and nice, loved her as she was when she worried he wouldn’t. he wanted to protect her secret, and allowed himself to be weak in front of her. in his past life he was a cool guy who saved a mermaid from the clutches of a gross ass man.

there’s also jung hwa from reply 1988 who was a tsundre type and a little abrasive but he really was just shy and lovely and a great son who loved his dork brother and dork friends. he never really confessed to the girl he loved after he found out one of his best friends liked her too. he cried when his brother was getting a heart operation, cried when he couldn’t get his feelings straight and do something about them until he found he was too late. in fact so many of the boys and relationships in this show were soft. even the grown men and fathers were lovely. 

there’s park do kyung who had to deal with the trauma of his father dying in front of him as a child and trying to recover his dead body and take him somewhere safe. do kyung was kind, not at all an inherently bad person, and was only ever violent when in pain or angered but he was never the kind of person to attack anyone innocent and nor did he ever threaten oh hae young. in fact there are lots of reasons to like do kyung. because he’s so soft spoken and shy, but at the same time… he was a man with high work standards and a hard worker who didn’t take slackers. he looked out for oh hae young when he saw iffy stuff, that’s one example of many; he’s sped home to get her out of reach from a stranger who was following her, he’s driven out of work to make sure she didn’t jump in front of a car. he was also a good friend, a kind person, he was dorky said cute things, and he had a pack of loyal male friends who trailed after him and tried to cheer him up as he dealt with his mistakes. he cried from guilt and then pain as he hurt and lost the women he loved. he never wanted to hurt her. 

and there are lots of other examples of cute and soft and nice and unharmful and good and emotional men who aren’t mean and horrible and problematic that i could mention. 

but i never say that kdrama boys don’t have their faults, i don’t love how they talk about women sometimes, i hate their wrist grabbing and other such nonsense but please do not say that every man is like that, and you’re tone does imply that i’m an idiot for believing so. like i said, feel free to make your own post. this post i made was directed towards those kind of boys. it was made for positivity and acknowledgement of those boys, and that kind of negativity doesn’t belong there in my opinion. 

[analyticaldragons]

Some Aimless Rambling about HTTYD 2, Featuring a 2-Year-Old First Impressions Review of it, and the Unqualified Thoughts of an Undergrad in Science

Alright, keep in mind that I haven’t seen the TV series, and that this is 2 years old and my first impressions of HTTYD 2 after I walked out of the movie…and that I haven’t seen it at all since then. Still, I’d like to think that it still has some value to it =/

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One thing I noticed was that Astrid, Ruff/Tuff, Snotlout, etc. didn’t have much of a role in the plot. Everything that they did just seems like a sideshow with no conclusion or even aim. Astrid even seemed like she got an intelligence downgrade, with her haring off to find and confront Drago. I get that she has a gung-ho attitude, but she always struck me as a more practical and down-to-earth person than Hiccup - and since it’s been 5 years since the original, I felt that she should have had more of a grasp on that aspect of herself. Venturing into the lair of and then essentially giving away information that Berk was filled with dragons to Drago, who had an armada and was a verified and experienced dragon tamer/hunter was …. not a good idea. I expected better from her. I expected her to be intelligent, capable, and knowing that running unprepared to a leader whose forces are experience dragon capturers was not a very good idea. Eret seemed to be thrown in to be the obligatory “not everyone is as horrible and dedicated as Drago” person in Drago’s armada, but I liked his character arc. The romance gags were, in my opinion, unnecessary. And then there’s the fact that Hiccup basically did everything while the rest of the cast stood by and yelled “Go Hiccup!” or was less than helpful in the case of Astrid and co. The pacing was also off. There was enough information in HTTYD 2 that it could have been a 2 hour, maybe 2hr. 15 minute movie. Instead they pared it down to 1:45, and the pacing suffered as a result. The movie’s plot sped up a lot from the relatively slow beginning and middle. We go from Stoick and Val’s reunion straight to the battle, 10 minutes at most for Stoick’s death and funeral, then rushing to Berk, Berk being destroyed, then Drago’s alpha gets Macross Missile Massacred in the face. There were so many WHAM moments at the ending it took away from the individual impacts of all of them. Stoick’s funeral and death in particular I felt should have been given more time. Hiccup had just lost his father, one of the constants in his life, a person that no matter what kind of disagreements they had, they still had their familial love. It’s a major moment for Hiccup, dealing with the fact that his father died, his best friend was the one to do it, and his dragon-taming abilities were seemingly not all they cracked up to be. Seeing Hiccup just shrug it off and not display any other thought about Stoick’s death for the rest of the movie left me wanting, especially since they took the time to do it in the original. If the scriptwriters had Hiccup’s reaction to Stoick’s death and dealing with his grief and working through the realization that even if his world was shattered, everyone else’s was and he needed to be there to prop them up (maybe catalyzed with Val reminding about “an alpha/chief protects his own”) in between Drago’s assaults on the nest and Berk, it would have given the audience a breather from the action, time to process what the fuck just happened (mind control) and some emotional weight to the story. It’s like Dreamworks didn’t want to be sucked into GRIMDARKDERP ANGST that “darker” sequels often fall prey to that they just passed over it. And the constant preaching about peace with dragons got on my nerves a bit. We all know that Hiccup wants peace and companionship, Dreamworks. Stop trying to shove it down our throats. It’s like DW7 Shu with its BENEVOLENCE.  That’s about all the complaints I have, actually. So onto the compliments. I really liked how the movie made the HTTYD world darker, still had that spot of hope at the same time. Dragon trapping, Drago’s entire “dragon slave army” thing, Stoick fucking dying. But it still had Hiccup and Toothless prevail with the power of their friendship, with the very nice caveat at the end of “The vikings of Berk are peaceful industrious folk, but if you fuck with us and our dragons, we will end you,” which just goes to show that Hiccup and Toothless learned from their lesson and knows that while peace is all well and good, sometimes you have to carry a big, big stick. The contrast between Drago and Hiccup was really nice as well. Drago represented the older generation, with hatred against dragons because of the loss of his arm and what was basically a scourge on the Vikings. He pounded and intimidated them into submission because, to him, they were animals that needed to be destroyed, and when faced with evidence to the contrary, he refused to readjust because he was that buried in his hatred. Hiccup, on the other hand, even though he lost his leg and his mom to dragons and his entire life was dedicated to earning recognition through killing dragons, has the capability and flexibility to forgive and build a new world. It’s kind of like Gundam Unicorn - the old guard is not willing to forget the sins of the past, and was just stuck in the mindset of “Zeon/Feds are EEEVIIILLL,” while the kids are willing to set aside those same sins and having the possibility of making the world a better and more peaceful place. Just replace “Zeon/Feds” with “Dragons/humans” and you’re set. Stoick’s death was the big whammy for me. I was surprised that Dreamworks had the balls to do it, especially in the manner that Stoick died. I knew that at the end, to fulfill Hiccup’s character arc in this movie he would have to realize that he has the potential/has to become the chief, but I expected that Stoick would act as a mentor. Worst case, he gets crippled and Hiccup has to take the reins. But becoming chief like that? Ouch. The only complaint that I have about that, again, is that the director should have paid more attention to it. It also reminds us just why dragons were feared, after pretty much a movie and a half of cuddly pet dragons. Mind-controlled Toothless bent on killing you was scary, in more than one way. The scenery and visuals were great - the island archipelago in the first 20 minutes of the movie was absolutely breathtaking and reminded me a lot of some of the stuff in Kung Fu Panda. The flight scenes were miles better than in the original. Even though I was watching it in 2D (Age of Extinction took up the 3D theater >=T

), every single aerial scene was, simply put, amazing. I just wish I saw it in 3D, personally.

The worldbuilding was spectacular as well. All the new dragon species, the giant map that Hiccup and Toothless was making (how does Hiccup know how far the particular islands are from Berk? Does he have a scale? A sextant?), dragon society (alphas), and the way that Berk had adapted to life among dragons - the races, stables, a complex hangar-like system for doors, etc. It made the entire movie seem like it really was branching out into different and new places that the original one didn’t explore.

Overall I thought this was a worthy sequel of the original. It kept the “fight smarter, not harder” and the “make peace, not war” theme of HTTYD, but hoo boy it got a lot darker than the original. Toothless was still the adorable ball of scaly awesome that he was in the original, and Hiccup and the others all grew up nicely. The movie was dark, but not in a GRIMDERP way. However, there were some things that were off about it, like the pacing and the occasional “it’s a kids movie” thing, but overall it was a good movie. Not on the level of its predecessor or Toy Story ½/3, but I would definitely rewatch it.

9/10

Headcanon is being more and more cemented that Tony Stark is Hiccup’s reincarnation.

Also, Toothless confirmed for the unholy cross between the Avatar and Godzilla. 

——————

Looking back on what I wrote, I’d have to elaborate and add onto some things:

On the subject of Hiccup’s insistence for a peaceful resolution, I’m much more approving of it now. It’s part of his character development over the course of the movie. In the beginning, he’s shirking his responsibilities as the chief’s heir: all he does is wander and explore the Archipelago with Toothless, doing what he wants to do instead of what he has to do. Thing is, his blind idealism is part of that shirking of responsibility. Viking society isn’t soft. There are people who take advantage of their power and cannot be taken away from it, and those who has just as much conviction to their beliefs that Hiccup does towards peace…just that they and Hiccup have mutually exclusive views.

Thing is, Hiccup has encountered enemies like this in the past, and he’s managed to convince them to his side. By the time of HTTYD 2, he’s had nothing but proof that enemies can be turned into friends. For Hiccup, it’s just a matter of talking. It may take a long while, but it’ll do the trick. And without bloodshed, too.

Enter Drago.

Drago is a megalomaniac. Drago believes with all his heart that dragons are an existential threat to Vikings, and if the other chiefs don’t listen to him, well, they’ll be made to. He’s gathered his forces for more than a decade, and hasn’t had a whit of his conviction drained from him.

What does Hiccup do with an enemy who has as much conviction and force of will as he does, just with “dragons are evil and should be exterminated,” and “I want power at all costs”? You can’t reason with an enemy like that. By this point, it’s become a basic ideological conflict, and reason won’t work. Hiccup will have to fight them.

Drago represents the challenge, the realization, the responsibility that sometimes, there is no redemption. There is no second chance. When someone is threatening those you take care of, be it Viking clan or dragon nest, you fight him. Because it is your responsibility to do so. 

This was why Stoick had to die. Hiccup needed to be shocked out of his idealistic mindset of “everyone can kumbaya.” He needed to accept the responsibilities of a leader. Most of all, he needed to acknowledge that he would sometimes need to fight to protect.

Hiccup goes from insisting that every situation has a peaceful resolution, an impossible situation for a leader, to accepting his responsibility, an acknowledging that some people can’t be reasoned with if you don’t want undue harm coming to those you lead.

Also, I’d like to point out that Drago serves as a rather nice dark mirror to Hiccup. He’s literally Dark Hiccup:

The cunning, strategic planning, and exploits weaknesses in his enemies… much like Hiccup exploited the fact that the Red Death wasn’t fireproof on the inside to defeat it.

Drago’s a very successful dragon tamer - by force. Contrast to Hiccup, who gets dragons to follow him by befriending them.

Drago is a very charismatic leader. We’re shown that Hiccup is as well.

They both are connected to Night Furies. Hiccup has one as his partner. Drago killed his and wears its skin as a cape.

They both lost a limb to dragons. Hiccup his left leg, and Drago his right arm. Coincidentally, they’re on opposite sides of the body.

Drago is Hiccup if he was born 20 years earlier and didn’t have his open-mindedness. 

(submitted by bingsu)

[yahoo-puck-daddy-blog]

Trending Topics: A Stanley Cup Final in chaos

Late in the game on the NBC broadcast, they said no Stanley Cup Final game had ever featured as many lead changes as the four last night.

In case you’ve forgotten, they’ve been playing Cup finals for a long, long time. But watching that game, and indeed these entire playoffs, why would you expect anything other than something dumbly historic.

A not-great Caps team finally getting here. An expansion team joining them, and then winning a wild game. And boy if the nuttiness didn’t start early.

No one had scored a goal in the first period in Vegas in the entire playoff run.

And grated that’s not a lot of games because the Golden Knights have closed out series pretty quick. Two against L.A., three against San Jose, two more against Winnipeg. Still, 140 minutes to start games without allowing a goal? That’s pretty good, and it certainly sets you up for success. Especially because the Vegas skaters also scored 10, and at least one in each game.

The thing you absolutely don’t want to do against a Vegas team that seemingly can’t avoid scoring first is take a huge dumbass penalty in the first period.

And yet, Andre Burakovsky said to himself, “I’m gonna be the idiot that does that, actually.” A dumb hitting from behind penalty 185 feet from his own net, led to a Vegas power play and well, we all knew how that was gonna go.

Ryan Reaves was a difference-maker for the Golden Knights in Game 1. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/NHLI via Getty Images)

Colin Wilson’s goal on the ensuing power play was a fair accompli, and it was understandable if everyone felt the result of the game after it was scored.

Not that Washington looked particularly good in the early going, giving up a bunch of shot attempts and getting only a few of their own at the other end. But they were at least keeping those shots from being in dangerous areas and apart from a long, impressive shift from the Vegas top line immediately before that penalty, there wasn’t much to trouble Braden Holtby.

Indeed, Holtby still hadn’t given up a goal on a shot he saw in 130 minutes or so. He didn’t even react to that short Colin Miller slapper because of traffic in front of the net before it was almost past him, but again, once you give Vegas an inch at T-Mobile Arena, they seem more than content to take a yard.

And then Washington scored not once but twice. In just 42 seconds. This was not the normal order of things. The Capitals certainly seemed stymied by the pace with which Vegas plays — and hell, it’s jarring even watching it again after a week-plus layoff — because everything is so, so quick. But once they figured it out, and they sure seemed to. All of a sudden they were around the net, getting pucks deep, all that stuff. Maybe it’s a function of Washington’s depth (perfectly fine) being able to get to Vegas’s depth (not great). Either way, things all of a sudden seemed like they were heading for some serious Fleury-related regression.

Ahhh, but you’ll never guess who came through at 5-on-5 again. Yeah, Wild Bill Karlsson and Reilly Smith. Of course. Why not? Karlsson scored the tying goal, Smith the go-ahead.

And then once again, that felt like it, right? The top line coming through twice is the kind of thing that would have crumpled the Kings, sank the Sharks, and jammed up the Jets, but the Caps got another goal through John Carlson and T.J. Oshie. And Fleury got caught guessing very, very wrong.

We’ve frankly not seen anything like this in the postseason. Yes, every Kings-Knights game was one goal but that was Vegas playing in a very not-Vegas way. Few teams were able to keep up with the Golden Knights tempo, but here was Washington — hardly the best or fastest or most competitive team in the playoff field — doing it.

I think most people probably had this as a pretty close series, and for obvious reasons, but the idea that it would be Washington adapting to the Vegas style and making it look good probably didn’t appear on many prediction lists.

Nor did Fleury turning back into, y’know, 2011-12 Fleury by kicking the puck into his own net in the third period of a tie game. But that “Tom Wilson” goal, hoo boy. Nor did the fourth line — through Ryan Reaves and Tomas Nosek — scoring the fourth, fifth, and sixth Vegas goals (Reaves’ coming after he got a verrrrrrrrrrry favorable no-call on a blatant cross-check from a ref who was about 12 feet away). Nor the Capitals totally running the third period despite getting outscored. Nor did Vegas winning despite Fleury not making one big save all night.

Vegas, by the way, is now up to 10 of its 13 Ws — and 16 games overall — being one-goal or one-goal-with-an-empty-netter wins. Because hey, why not?

Maybe the only thing you could have predicted was the NHL’s “best” refs totally screwing up the third period, which they definitely did, both ways. And, I guess, Tom Wilson trying to kill someone a mile away from the puck. Both those things are entirely symptomatic of the stuff that’s still wrong with hockey, even if the rest of that game felt like a marketing gimmick trying to really get even the most cynical of the sought-after casual sports fans invested in the sport.

Which is, I guess, ultimately the point of all this. Why would you expect anything other than an entertaining mess?

This is the sport! It’s that thing of “if you ever go to a game, you’ll love it instantly.” Imagine if this was somehow your first hockey game? Good lord! You probably didn’t even have to be there to breathe in that apparently electric Vegas atmosphere to get hooked on hockey after a night like that.

We’re through the looking glass. Everything’s out the window now. Just let it all go.

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Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.

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