#I am DELIGHTED by how anime bullshit it is :D

[phoenixiancrystallist]

DAY 9

(╯°□°）╯ MOUNTAINS

Still looks like a bouquet of dicks to me. I can't win. Oh well, MOVING ON, next we're doing the foreground :D ...of the background...

[laissezferre]

notes on a fic

ok so i don't usually do this. however i wanted there to be a place where i could put all the easter eggs in @vandrawsing and i's reverse bang collab just for my own benefit. under the cut are references, allusions, comments, and general notes on Francis and the Frog Prince. (best viewed on desktop in my blog theme)

chapter 1

Once upon a time in a swamp in the forest, there lived a frog named James. Not Hops or Croak or anything more suited to a frog, no; this particular frog believed in a great many things, the greatest of which was that how one seemed was infinitely more important than how one was. -- reference to The Hobbit. "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell... it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

“I don’t know, old boy,” said the duck named Duckdy. -- truly delighted how everyone seems to enjoy "duckdy". i thought it was too on the nose, but then just went ham in the end. i do what i want!

May Bear and Stars keep you safe; fare thee well!” -- if animals in the forest had a "god", i think it would be in the form of a bear

And with that, the bear-witch disappeared, as quickly as James’s sire had left after he was spawned. -- heh, fuck u lord gambier

“I put it to you that there is nothing as easy as being a prince. They go about their days wearing what they like, eating what they like—and all they need ever do is smile and then everyone will love them. Is that not the perfect life, Duckdy?" -- james dahling! he just wants to be loved!

“God’s teeth!” the rider exclaimed. “Is something wrong, master?” “I think a bird shat on my head.” -- i read some writing advice some time ago that a character's first delivered line must bear weight and say something about their character. this is francis and jopson's :D

He buried his wet nose into the warm wool, breathing in its pleasant, heady smell. So calm and pliant was he that when the satchel opened he had not noticed it at once. -- jeames likes how frauncis smells. it's very comforting for him!

“What in God’s name is happening here!” -- this is james' line in the show, but i gave it to francis as a kind of reciprocation

“By my troth, we are quite alone.” -- i looked up famous shakespeare quotes and i believe 'by my troth' came from much ado about nothing

The man was much older than his servant. His thin red hair had streaks of white at the temples. -- V and i discussed what francis' hair situation would be in this fic. and they said that they preferred to illustrate francis as a redhead with white streaks.

What sorcery is this? -- meme time!

“—must take it to the castle, surely. See if the physic can make head or tail of it. -- 'physic', shakespeare once again, from macbeth

Until that instance, James had not known that it was possible to be looked at but not seen—and James dearly loved being seen. -- episode 8, "a man like me will do amazing things to be seen".

chapter 2

James looked down at the rest of his body and saw himself clad in the finest clothes he had ever seen. -- james's clothes here were inspired directly by V's preliminary sketch during the claims phase of the bang

“How—what—who are you?” he demanded, and James, still reeling from boundless joy, could only say, “Why, I am beautiful!” -- from les mis, in the chapter where a grown up cosette looks in the mirror and realises that yeah she's hot

Once upon a time, in a kingdom called Fitzjames, there lived a prince named James. -- figured that a story within a story was the most efficient way for james to deliver his bullshit

With nothing but his royal dagger on hand and his loyal duck at his trail, Prince James left the castle under the cover of early dawn. -- actually a call-forward to chapter 4, when a heartbroken james leaves the castle under the cover of early dawn

“Cartography,” Jopson put in. “I am to be a royal cartographer—like Sir Francis.” -- i considered many occupations for francis here. scholar first, then an astronomer to be more specific, and then settled on cartographer bc this period had gorgeous maps.

They showed such a chart to James then, a draft map of the merchant isle of Sabine. -- y'all know sabine

Something of that must have moved Sir Francis, for he smiled and slowly blinked his eyes, like James had seen felines do. -- francis is described as having cat-like characteristics several times in the fic

Whatever James could think of, it would appear on himself the very next day — fitted doublets with leafy brocade, silky hoses in juno pink, stunning shoes of cattail leather. -- V was adamant that i vividly described all of james's clothes :D

“—miracle that he found the time, what with all the voyages he enlists in. I rather think he’s applied to the next one by now. We are all very glad for him, truly. And for you too as well, Your Highness. ‘True love’, ha! And at his age. Who knew?” -- this character was originally ned little, but after a bit more thinking i realised that nah ned wouldnt be this cringe

“Well, that is no trouble at all! You may take Francis’s instruction.” -- sophia has been matchmaking francis since time immemorial. what a good sport!

“Don’t leave,” James said, as feeble as a newborn bird. -- james and his abandonment issues, he is baby!

“Oh,” he croaked. He cleared his throat and looked away in embarrassment. “Well then—um—as you wish.” -- as you wish!!! from the princess bride

“You are a natural, my prince.” -- i assigned james a pet name for different people in his life. he is 'old boy' to duckdy, 'dear fellow' to sophia, and 'my prince' to francis.

“A bee,” Sir Francis said, lifting his hand so James might inspect it. “My family’s crest. Diligentia fortunae matrix, as we like to say. -- the bee is from the flag that the terror crew designed in 1840 for capt crozier. the flag's motto: diligentia fortunae matrix, or "success is born out of hard work".

“Be valiant, bold, and loyal. Be thou a knight in the name of the Bear!” -- actual words said during a knighting, "be thou a knight in the name of the king."

There were swords on the ceiling. And mirrors on the walls! And with each swirl of a lady’s skirt it seemed to multiply a hundred-fold in the hundred looking-glasses watching over the milieu. -- the mirrors and sword chandeliers (as illustrated by V) are the decorations aboard hms terror in the erebus and terror ball of 1841, hobart. "The mode adopted in lighting the supper room was inimitable, for, independent of numerous chandeliers formed of swords and cutlasses neatly fixed, holding hundreds of wax lights, there were arranged all round the sides numerous small mirrors, each containing two lights, which reflected double forming the most brilliant light that could possibly be conceived."

Just then, a churlish man with a forehead taking up half his face made his approach. -- i was not sure how to describe sebastian armesto so i brought up a picture of him and yeah, that was my first impression :D

James watched with fascination as Sir Francis placed a doting hand upon Evans’s shoulder, the boy looking up at him adoringly. -- "No ship's boys, Evans." "Sir, please." (pat) "You'll be with me."

“Ah, then it is my own company that pleases you!” “Yours and none other.” -- bruh i was blushing when i typed this up, i didnt think francis capable of flirting so well

James’s hair was plaited with green ribbon -- ribbons on the hair were part of medieval fashion, but for women. this was a way of calling back to "the dress".

“Your prince desires you—” he croaked— “to cease your flattery and dance with me instead.” -- a little slip from james's subconscious here. your prince desires you. period.

Now, there were many things about James that had ceased when he had become human, but one enduring quality was that he made up in perseverance what he might want in sense -- reference to irl james fitzjames's actual words about himself in a letter to john barrow, 1844

Oh, but he would leave His Majesty had he known that his regular trump was here! There is much we must speak of, Frank. -- letter from james clark ross to francis beaufort, 1841. "Crozier hopes to be held in your kind remembrance he is a regular trump."

James paced back and forth on the gravel path until his feet made a long furrow on the ground. -- i wanted to match this closely with the cairn scene, so yes i put them on a gravel path to match even the sounds.

“I’m a fake, an imposter; I’m a failure of a prince.” “I challenge anyone in court to tally up your virtues and then call you a fake... It only makes you a man.” “I didn't know any of that.” -- precisely

“That is the very issue, Francis. I am not.” “You are not—what are you not, James?” “A man!” -- missed opportunity for trans james, i know i know

He turned slowly towards Francis, every part of himself heavy with dread. Even the very sockets of his teeth ached. -- episode 8, "I'm tired all the time, no matter what the hour. And I'm bleeding out of the sockets of my teeth now."

chapter 3

James let out a groan and threw himself aggressively onto the nearest fainting bench. -- a reference to fainting couches from a later period. chairs with cushions weren't a thing yet in the middle ages, so fainting bench it is.

“How is it that you could draw me without having ever seen me?” “‘Tis very simple, of course. I had only to envision to myself what a perfect prince should look like, therefrom your face and form came to me in a dream.” -- i like to think this is how the real clements markham came to his idealised version of james fitzjames

“Aye, Prince James. They are to accompany you and provide other means of company should you be of the persuasion.” - george barrow you kinky fuck

“Good fortunes, Your Highness,” said Prince Hickey. -- an early hint of hickey's true identity. the real princes refer to james as 'prince james', as they are equal in rank, whilst hickey calls him 'your highness'.

“There are many things I wish to say to you, but now that I am in your presence I daren’t speak the words.” “Oh? Speak the words, Prince Hickey,” said James. “Of all I know in this world, and of this world I tell you, I doubt there is a gift on Earth that could still impress you. -- hickey interrogation scene, "Captain, I want to say something, but daren't speak the words." "Oh, speak the words, Mr.Hickey." "Of all I know in this world, and of this world I tell you, I I do not believe it is an animal we battle."

Instead pray accept this humble gift for your humble friend.” -- mofo had his eye on the prize all along!

He tried to show himself in good spirits, yet one glance from Francis reminded him that it was fruitless to misdirect one who knew him so well. -- episode 1, "I tell you, one glance from him I have to remind myself I'm not a fraud."

“May I see?” Francis said. “I might hurt you.” “I don’t mind.” -- "i'll take care of you." "it's rotten work." "not to me, not if it's you."

His eyes lingered on James’s crown, on the thin, milky substance that bled from the roots of his hair down to the back of his ears. - james's bloody, scurvy-ridden hairline but make it frog toxins

“The people there call it a steam bath,” Master Jopson had once said of a similar contraption. -- aka a turkish bath

“James, did anyone ever tell you that—um—that your tail was—an unusual size?” “What? No. Is it important?” “Not at all! Believe you me it is not the girth that counts but the way in which you wield it.” -- robin hood: men in tights, "This means you've always been my one true love because it's the right size!" "It's not the size that counts! It's how you use it!"

“Help me, Francis,” he begged. “Help me out of it.” -- reader, i was cackling! cackling, i tell you!

“Are you certain you can do that, James, hm? Are you certain?” -- the smut scene was supposed to be a dream sequence but V advocated that it be real, no regrets, 100% an improvement and waaay funnier than the original idea

A wild sound came from Francis then, a cross between a gasp and a kitten’s cry that punched out of him as he trembled. -- cat reference #2

One of his legs instantly shot out; Francis caught it deftly, then he pushed it back until both of James’s knees were sprawled at the waist. -- V had this idea of james's legs sprawled open bc it was the most comfortable position for him when he was a frog :D

He reached out and tugged at Francis’s shirtfront, pulling him down until only Francis’s hand was keeping their faces apart. -- if francis only put down his hand then they could've kissed and this story would have finished!

Francis heaved against his own hand, his breath streaming down onto James’s taut neck, like the cool touch of a spring wind, a fleeting caress. -- neck sensory overload but less euthanistic this time

Francis held James until the tremors waned, until his vision blurred, and a great, gentle peace descended. -- from goodsir's line in ep 1, idk why i appropriated it, "I have been there when souls have passed. A great peace descends."

James beamed lazily and pressed his nose back into the pillows. -- a callback to james smelling francis's hat. he just likes how he smells!

“Oh no, truly! Prithee stay there as long as you like, James. You are welcome at any time—” was what Francis had started to say, but James had only to extend his hand for Francis to quiet and come to him like a well-trained cat. -- cat reference #3

You are meant to be cherished, James -- an inversion from ep 1, "He is my second. Now, if something were to happen to me, you would be his second. You should cherish that man."

And I’m sure you believe as well that nothing else will do. -- from the failed proposal flashback, "That will not happen." "It must. Nothing else will do." "Well, then this will be the great tragedy of your life, Francis."

Please, take this compass as a wedding gift. -- look i'd just gotten a really nice compass replica from the royal museums greenwich and i really wanted to feature it in fic somehow

I never saw myself as a hero-knight, James -- oh you will honey

But I assumed then that for just one time I might have been—for you. -- ah for just ooonnee time, i will taaakkke the northwest passaaaagge

chapter 4

You see, in my struggle to compose a poem for you last night, I had left the taper ablaze. I am not harmed but for my eyebrows -- the real clements markham died from being overwhelmed by smoke when his bedclothes took fire from the candle while he was reading in bed

I am sure that Francis will not leave you wanting for too long. Fret not, he shall come upon it soon. He has had some practice after all.” -- savage sophia!

“Not long ago, Francis was the manner of a man who mourned every second on dry land... gone for months in the world’s most perilous corners, -- again from the failed proposal scene

When I heard that he was sending out his deputies to surveys instead of himself, I was more than impressed—I was relieved. For I knew that at last he had found a reason to stay, that reason being yourself of course... He would swing out in search of his stars... and neither I nor our offspring could ever convince him to simply stay. -- ww1 poet wilfred owen to siegfried sassoon, 1917, "You did not light me: I was always a mad comet; but you have fixed me. I spun round you a satellite for a month, but I shall swing out soon, a dark star in the orbit where you will blaze."

When James was but a mere frog, he had eaten something he ought not have. His belly had hurt for hours until he had spewed it out and rinsed its contents. -- i googled weird frog facts and simply had to put in this disturbing trivia

He reached out a trembling hand and picked off a spot of glue from the bottom of the cap, wherein an unseemly object had been attached. Francis’s very ring. -- like this

“My dear Prince James... I think you have made a horrible mistake.” -- reference to scene where sophia is crying as they wait to be let in to the naval meeting, "Oh, don't they know we can hear them? I have made a horrible mistake, Auntie."

Yet instead he was in his room, morbing the morning away. -- it's james's turn to morb! "I do know there hasn't been a single meal we've shared, a conversation when you weren't morbing on about what you're due."

A single tear ran down James’s cheek. -- baby...

“Avast that now, you fiend!” -- from ep 8, "Damn your eyes! It's your captain! Avast that now!"

In essence, Francis looked devilishly handsome. -- a parallel to james's transformation in chap 2, "In essence, James looked utterly princely."

“I’d seen the drawings—in the storybooks. Beanstalks. Giants. That sounded nice. -- reference to ep 10, "I'd seen the drawings in the weeklies. Oahu. Maui. That sounded nice."

I ain’t no fool. I’ve read all the stories -- a parallel to james's own false understanding of fairytales, "I am no fool. I have heard all the stories—I know how true love is found." james and hickey are both fascinated with stories yet they have vastly different take-aways from it which affect their life decisions.

this creature must be the magical goose in the fairytales, the one who lays golden eggs. -- i can't make hickey a villain-villain in my fics so i always resort to portraying him as having misconstrued something important and thus making mistakes bc of it. in my victorian detectives au, hickey mistakes francis as james fitzjames the detective, thereby abducting the wrong guy. in this au, he mistakes duckdy as the magical goose. i think it ties well with how in canon he misconstrues his own connection to the tunbaaq and assumes that he can tame it.

He paddled desperately away, creating enough distance for Francis and his horse to leap majestically in one big arc from the embankment to the water and come between them. -- hero-knight i tell you

And then you will bugger off, Master Hickey, lest the watchmen hear of your disrespect.” -- i didn't know what the police force was called in medieval times, so once again i looked up the useless guys in much ado about nothing

“Disrespect to who, eh?” “To James! Who remains the king’s guest. And to the king himself. -- again from hickey's interrogation, "Disrespect to who, sir?" "The girl!" "And now to me."

You have therefore committed several acts against the Crown: theft, calumny, brutality, kidnapping. -- again, "You have therefore committed several acts against the Articles: desertion dereliction of duty, insubordination, brutality disrespect."

Francis waded across the swamp towards James, like a moon to its planet, destined to approach and fall in orbit. -- "I spun round you a satellite for a month, etc etc"

“Do you not yet know?” “Tell me.” “I had to see you. That’s all.” -- callback to chapter 1, and also episode 8, "James had not known that it was possible to be looked at but not seen—and James dearly loved being seen."

“But Francis... I’m not a prince anymore.” “No, you’re just James. And that’s just perfectly fine.” -- these were the ending notes from V's original prompt. i liked them so much that i was determined to end the fic in the exact same way!

[emilianadarling]

Get to Know Me - A Tag Game

thank u for the tag, @aureutr 😊 EDIT also @ace-din-djarin!!!!! 

rules: tag a few people you want to know better; make a new post, don't reblog!

favorite color: red! ❤️

currently reading: listening to ‘The Anthopocene Reviewed’ by john green, most recently over my lunch break when I lay down in my room and dozed lol. 

last song: ”The Longest River” by Anciients, played ambiently in the background by my spouse. (I am not one to put on music for myself much, I get exposed to so many excellent curated lists via him lol)

last movie: hmmm. uh. It can’t be Last Night in Soho... I watched that months ago... hmm...

last series: Either “The Legend of Vox Machina” (such a wild and delightful experience as a Critter!) or Season 2 of Channel Zero -- No End House on Shudder (still part way through that one!)

sweet, spicy, or savory: savoury every day of the week baby but also fuck me up with spicy while ur at it

coffee or tea: coffee, daily. my partner owns like 9 brew methods and I know how to use exactly one (1), the clever dripper, so I use that. 

three ships: ooh! - Din/Luke (Star Wars, currently working on the second in a series for this ship, the sequel to through power, there is victory on AO3)

- Percy/Vex’ahlia (The Legend of Vox Machina/Critical Role, my little shipper heart has been so overjoyed to see them most recently in animation, the sheer delight of visual animated media!!) and,

- ... hoo boy this is hard. I have been reading a LOT of Obi-Wan Kenobi fic for these last many months, but I am very (EXTREMELY) fluid with those I ship him with. True fandom bicycle for me for sure. Gun to my head though, glitterglanger got me fucking good with Transactional States so for the ‘what if?’ factor alone, I may have to say Jango Fett/Obi-Wan Kenobi lol. 

first ever ship: hmm. Ron/Hermione, perhaps? as in, my first online fandom shipping experience.

currently working on: “only as strong as the warrior next to you”, i.e. DarkLuke fic part 2, currently at 60k. I’m midway through the third act, and have never written this much without sharing something before. it’s KILLING ME lol but honestly also it probably a good learning experience. most recently, scenes I’ve been drafting have been focused on politics, art, and Empire within the Galaxy. 

favourite piece of clothing: asked my partner (mr d) and he said ‘cardigans’ lmao. (”that’s not a piece of clothing, that’s a genre of clothing” I said. “pffft” he responded.) BUT -- my response is: 1. for pure value over time, my red button-up coat, and 2. my moose housecoat for comfort-bumming around lmao

comfort food: Poutine tbh, all kinds, for pure comfort value. If we’re talking specifically hungover comfort food, switch it up to Subway Chicken and Bacon Ranch sandwich lmfao. 

favourite time of the year: autumn/fall!! fuckin LOVE me that autumnal bullshit like the basic bitch I am

fav fanfiction: EVER? 😱 If we’re talking pure compounded comfort and joy over time, The Student Prince (Merlin/Arthur AU) by FayJay is RIGHT up there honestly. Specifically, on audiobook -- dear god I’ve listened to that so many times and still the story of the relationship is so solid and the writing so enjoyable. Perhaps next up for sheer impact and notability is my dear friend (years after I read this series omg I was so starstruck to be friends with her) is the icarus verse by green_postit (Star Trek, Mirrorverse Kirk/Bones), ft. some of the best fucking titles in the history of fanfic IMO. (icarus in retrospect, the pugilists, skeleton men. FORMATIVE for me as a writer tbh.)

honestly, wrapping it up I’m also a fan of my own fic “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To” (Steve/Bucky, Steve/Peggy, Wartime) from back in 2014 if I’m honest. I really felt so sated and satisfied when I wrote that fic and shared it, because I wanted so badly to read it I brought it into existence. :) so that brings me a lot of long-term joy, also. 

... wait fuck I wanted to keep this to three but peradii’s “wonderterror” (Star Wars, no ship) is world-endlingly good, ft. Eldritch Luke and Leia, so. gotta sneak that one on too I guess!!!

Tagging @glimmerglanger @universeinorbit @seekthemist @avelera @reena-jenkins @mneiai @gyzym @himboskywalker  @peradii @thebatwiggler​ 

[usagi-mitsu]

Werlyt & Gaius - a bunch of thoughts.

I am a little late to the party. I know. But I just finished the Emerald weapon and before I go to try out the „not Zenos“ weapon as in „Diamond“, I need to get my thoughts on the story straight.

Perhaps I have been spoiled by 5.0s brilliant MSQ and cannot appreciate the inherent beauty of at least decent writing any longer. But this felt so wrong and out of tune with the rest of the game. I started writing this 2 hours ago! I wanted to one in bed by now! XD But I had to get it out of my system… so….

Spoilers for the MSQ and Werlyt incoming??? And no I did not re-read this so not just spoilers but also writing errors incoming. -.-

The good

These fights are epic! I have only ever cleared the normal versions, but I loved those. They are amazing. The callbacks to Eula (her being a woman here! When did they discover that???), Regula (may he rest in peace) and Gaius himself in his prime were delightful. But I could do with a little less rotating, ok? A dragoon has positional, you know? And being allowed to pilot my very own mecha was like *chefs kiss*. On that front? Well done Square Enix!

I am also glad they were able to get another use out of Porta Praetora! That place looks amazing with the wide open field and the lake – and Ala Mhigo across it. It was one of my favourite Stormblood areas and I am always glad to return there. And of course… being able to visit the allied camp again… And Werlyt itself. It’s simply a beautiful place. It reminds me very much of southern Greece. If you’ve watched the movie Mamma Mia you know what I mean.

The music too was really nice. But I don’t think I’ll… you know… listen to it on repeat as I am doing with other parts of the soundtrack.

I’ve also loved how much amazing lore we got about Garlemald and especially the garlean military. And the military abroad. The way soldiers not from the mainland get treated. I love learning about these things.

Gaius

The man. The legend. The guy yelling in Prae.

He’s so very boring here. He has so much potential as a character and maybe I’m missing something, but all throughout this story he has been nothing but passive. He’s a reactive character in this storyline. You know. The guy who made deals with Lahabread (the d is intended), tried to take over Eorzea, lead a whole army, stood idly by as the moon dropped, almost died but then decided just not to die and then though „hm… I’ve got so much freetime now. How about I go and hunt some ascians?“ That guy is NOT a reactive character. He is active. He goes out of his way to make shit he wants happen. And in here? He seems too starstruck and devastated by his adopted kids actions to actually have one clear thought.

The only explanation I have is that he might have gotten hit in the head by something on his way to the ruby weapon. I get why he would rely on Cid for help, but the WoL??? The alliance? If you wish to be an ally and help or something, fucking act like it. You were a former legatus and I expect you to live up to your name – even after retiring.

And yeah.. I guess it’s hard having to watch your kids willingly, knowingly dying. But you fucking raised them. You are a big part of the reason to why they are in that predicament. So like… Aside from that I don’t even get why you are in this story at all.

And for the record: I’m not sorry for him. I’m just flabbergasted by all the bullshit we’ve been learning about him.

To be quite honest, I think this story could have worked just as well or maybe even better, if we got another man as the „hero“ of the story. I am talking about none other than our engineering, hammer-swinging, ex-enemy - of course talking about Nero!

The MSQ has long established that his research into the Ultimate Weapon had been taken, twisted and turned – Estinien had to experience this first-hand. I’m not saying that Nero was in need of a redemption arc and I cannot remember if these weapons were of his creation or even stem from anything he did, but it would make so much more sense for me, to have him confront his past in the garlean military like this and be responsible for the death of his former colleagues. Soldiers that he served with, whom he faught with. Give me Nero and them working together to get the weapons going and him bonding with them as his pilots to a degree. Comrades. Not that strange familiar bond that Gaius appareantly has with them. … Scratch that: Let Gaius be the father figure. Him being that wouldn’t change Nero’s relationship with them, but maybe his with Gaius as his superior.

The story wouldn’t even need to try and redeem Nero: He has already gone through major character development with the MSQ and the Omega raid tier. It would simply be Nero, confronted with the things he created, hopefully instilling more morals and a sense of responsibility for his creations. Heck: Let Cid yell at the guy! Seriously! Cid sticking around to help out would make so much more sense if it was Nero instead of freaking Gaius! Cid hated the guy! He might be a professional, but he is not one to torture himself by staying around a guy he (as far as I know) detests.

Make Nero the central figure and give Cid and Gaius the roles of „angel and demon“: One desperately trying to reach out to his old friend, reminding him why they became engineers and trying to make him realise that he can’t just run around designing weapons and leaving the scematics for everyone to read; while the other has trouble letting go of his imperial past and is struggling to see the errors of his ways – if Nero was wrong, than he (Gaius) was wrong too -and of course they did all of this for their home, to further their cause, and to bring peace to the savage lands of Eorzea, who had been fighting amongst themselves for so long… You get the point.

And you could still have these gundam themed fights. But I think everything would make so much more sense in general.

But speaking of which-

The children

I do not truly care for any of them. And that is a shame: I do think there are great characters and dynamics hidden behind these very few cutscenes. When they were first introduced I was wondering why I was suddenly watching „heartwarming“ cutscenes of my foes as children – until I realised that I was supposed to care and that they were supposed to make me feel pity for Gaius. I was supposed to feel bad for him, because they died and he blames himself. But while their fates so far have been gruesome, I cannot say that I am sad they died. They chose to die as they did. There were a myriad more options. And they chose that.

Actually. Their whole story makes me feel like they were huge masochist from the very beginning. They could have just run away and gotten help from someone more competent than them, but they stayed in an abusive military arrangement just so nobody else got hurt?? Please. Use your brains next time. And for the Berserk-like torture scene? I mean. I get what was implied here. But was it necessary? As a writer myself I follow the rule that torture and sexual violence should never be used in a story, unless it must be in there for the story to work or to bring across a vital point important to the story or it’s moral (or if you are writing porn and you are into it – but we are talking official in-game content here). But the violence towards these „children“ seems unnecessary for the plot and the violence of their deaths by piloting the weapons is already gruesome enough. Sometimes it’s better to leave things like this out – the emotional torture of feeling stuck and having a martyrs complex would have been enough here, I think. If the rest of the story had been well written at least.

(I believe my utter lack of sympathy shows how little character developement they had. I love tragic characters, who choose to suffer for the good of other people – even better if those people don’t even like them. It’s just my thing. And those kids are just… well.)

Their reasons and especially why they were making Allie out as the one who would need to survive was also just… weird. Like. I feel like 75% of what happened would not have happened, if they actually talked to each other, used their brains and had done something about their problems. But no…

These characters are also so exchangeable with basic anime/j-RPG character tropes… I only remember Alfonse, Rex and Allie – because I just did the Emerald weapon. And right afterwards I thought, „huh. So… Fullmetal Alchemist?“ Which brings me to my third point …

…the story at large.

„Pacing is a virtue“ or was it patience..? Anyhow: The author of this story should have had more patience with his story and characters and taken a bloody break! And I am not talking about the obvious blunder of „How is Allie feeling?“, „she is in shock and you cannot talk to her“ turning to „oh yeah if you are careful you can talk to her now“. I mean. WTF. That was MAYBE 10-20 in-game minutes of dialogue.

But everything was moving so very fast – and not even in a good way. There are few things better than a fast paced, action rich story about a group of young people trying to safe (their) world. But if you try to cram in two expansions worth of character development and story telling into about two hours of content each patch.. Well, then you get whatever the hell this is.

Gaius is a very interesting character and while I did not understand why they needed to bring him back in 4.4 (?), I do see how he could be a good asset for endwalker. And his involvement in 5.0 with Estinien was just a dear delight. So I am not opposed to learning more about him, to watching his character grow and changed with time. But I am not ready for badly written content of which 50% get told by suddenly induced echo-sequences. I mean – weren’t there rules for the echo at some point???

I’m not sure which one of the devs said it, but the feature that let’s you play an NPC is super convenient for them to tell the story, because before they could only show what happened where the WoL was.

And that’s just it. Rule number 1 in writing anything is „Show don’t tell“. It feels like they literally turned this one around for these cutscenes. While Valens torture and diet-Fandaniel-routine were very much „show“, the rest of the story was one long cutscene of exposition: We get exposition by Cid, by Gaius, by echo, by Gaius and his crew again, then by Allie. Before having to watch scenes we are not there for.

BTW. Dear square Enix: Your writers are capable of writing amazing villains, antagonist and despicable assholes. You don’t have to write „asshole, must die“ on Valens name card. And I also think the „WoL, strike here“ sign above his head was a tad bit too much. Nuance, dear writers. Nuance. Or perhaps I just got spoiled by these last few foes in the MSQ.

When I said I wanted to just be able to punch a bad guy for once and not feel bad about it, I did not mean this! I meant that I just wanted to play training dummy with Danny-Boy.

(Oh! And as far as I’m concerned you can just… sideline Gaius … „would be killer“ and the lady? Make them targetable NPCs with Dialoge to read. Let them stand somewhere accessible and comment on the latest developement. But ffs don’t give me hour long speeches about how you are going to kill Gaius if he does something you don’t like. The guy could and would wipe the floor with you if he felt like it. -.- So. Please. Shut up.)

Conclusion

Basically. I have to finish the Diamond weapon. But I doubt it will change my perception of this story line even in the slightest.

To be perfectly honest though … bringing Gaius back, having this story with and about him, forcing a sort of redemption ark here. It feels like they are really „grooming“ him to be a morally grey ally in Endwalker, with perhaps a big part to play in the endgame. At this point I wouldn’t even be surprised if they pulled a GoT and made him „King in the North“. Or if they had him die a heroic death to save the world, but especially his country. And to do so they need us to think his sacrifice means something. Or that he is the right person to lead Garlemald into a new future (I don’t think he is). But: For one, neither we (the players) nor the characters need to find him worthy of throne or death by heroism for his sacrifice/ascension to work. To be a useful tool for the story, only the other garleans who might oppose the alliance and scions need to deem him or his sacrifice „worthy“. And only they. And Ishikawa-san has all of 6.0 to accomplish whatever the hell she needs him for. He did not need to be the center of his own botched redemption ark. If that’s what they wanted to do. Or maybe I’m looking at this all wrong and all they wanted was to give the writes in training some literal training grounds to test their abilities.

But! On a positive note: I have yet to be told that raids and other side content are canon to any degree. So when playing the next story quests I’ll blissfully ignore all that happened in Werlyt and if it get’s mentioned (because they do that sometimes when you’ve done certain content) I’ll just ignore it.

Happy ignoring! Also: GIVE ME MORE NERO CONTENT!

[doctor243]

The End of the World

Thank you for all you wonderful people sending me fic requests, I prooomise i’m getting to them TT.TT I know I haven’t written in too long, but I promise this chapter is worth it :D Btw does anyone still say ‘Lemon’ or am I just old...

Chapter 4: Promises

Characters: Tony Stark x Natasha Romanoff, Morgan Stark

Warning: angst, smuuuutt

AO3 Link

Somehow, they’d managed to maintain their embrace while travelling from the living room of sheets and empty mugs to Tony’s bedroom. Clothes were haphazardly tossed around the room and neither of them knew who was undressing who. Neither of them cared. Natasha’s fingers were desperately tugging at Tony’s hair while his fingers dug into her back, their sloppy kisses loud and frantic.

They’d barely made it to the bed when they were completely naked, and Nat was climbing on top of Tony, holding onto his length with a shaking hand before dropping her hips down. The relief and pleasure that they felt had them both groaning like old wood under pressure (no pun intended). As she furiously thrust her hips against his, her fingers clawed at his chest, while he responded in kind, pulling at her hips while he took in her green eyes with wonder. Those bright green eyes that were now hazy with desire and madness. Even in his drunk state, Tony tried to take in everything; the feeling of her soft bum in his hands, the sight of her bosom bouncing with every beat, and the sound of her voice as she sang her ecstasy.

With a grunt, he slammed her hips down and came hard, his cock throbbing within her with enough force to send her over the edge with a cry. She fell forward onto him, her hair a mess and her soft breasts pressed against his chest, illuminated softly by the Arc Reactor on his chest. The room was silent for a few minutes, barring the hoarse panting and the occasional whispered name. Tony turned his head to look at Natasha, and immediately kissed her. Her eyes widened in surprise, but she had no more time to recover, as Tony had already gotten hard again and was thrusting against her with all his might. She cried out as she felt his teeth land on her neck, his fingers tugging at her taut nipples, all while his pounding never ceased.

The rest of the night passed by in a blur, but by the end of it, she was sobbing into a pillow while Tony took her from behind, one hand fisted in her red locks, the other around her throat. Her hands were filled with sheets, and she was sure that she’d ripped them at one point. When he slammed into her one final time and spilled himself into her, she cried out into the pillow as her hips quivered and her toes curled, before she collapsed and Tony followed, his heavy body gasping over her shaking mess of a body.

::::::

Tony realised quickly how much he had missed kissing. Not just making out, but every sort of kiss. When he opened his eyes to the sunlight streaming in from the windows and onto the beautiful body that lay on top of his, curled up and refusing to let go, his eyes instinctively travelled to her lips. Red. Luscious. Swollen. Oh, how he longed to bite them.

Just a quick peck, he thought.

But just as he was about to lean in, her eyes opened, and his heart roared. ‘Just a quick peck’ was no longer gonna do. He surged forward, capturing her lips with the fervour of a lover who had been away too long; which was ironic, considering they’d never made love before last night. Natasha, for her part, moaned in delight as she wrapped her arms tighter around his head. His hand roamed down to her bottom and squeezed just as he growled and gently bit her lip.

“Ow,” she giggled as he pulled back and smiled at her fondly.

“Good morning,” he hummed. “Did you sleep well?”

“Did I sleep well? Yes,” she considered. “Did I sleep long?” She grinned at him teasingly. “No, you goddamn animal.”

He responded by sealing her lips and his hand continued exploring her body, as if there was a spot he’d missed last night.

“I love you,” he whispered into her ear.

Her hands froze in his hair and her breath hitched. Her eyes widened and she stopped moving. Immediately sensing her shock, he pulled away, worried.

“Nat?” he whispered slowly, but still she didn’t respond, eyes in alarm.

“Daddy!!”

Within two seconds, he was off the bed and had hastily pulled on his pants. “Hey sweetheart,” he cooed as he opened the door ajar, making sure to block any possible view of the bed. “You’re up early.”

“I want pancakes!” Morgan grinned, bouncing up and down in excitement.

“Ok,” Tony smiled in reply. “I’ll get dressed and see you downstairs ok?”

“Ok!” his daughter agreed, before sprinting downstairs to the kitchen. Tony turned around and saw that Nat had sat up, but was not any less alarmed than she had been two minutes ago. He sighed.

“Look, Natasha,” he began his apology. “I-”

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out, and in a flash, she had slipped out of bed and closed the bathroom door behind her.

Tony let out another defeated sigh before picking up a shirt and slipping it on. Clearly, she needed some time alone. As he trudged downstairs and plastered a smile on his face, his heart felt heavy and he wondered if he had ruined a perfectly good relationship by acting too rashly. In his defence, he thought with a grumble while whipping up the pancake batter, she’d jumped him first. In her defence, he’d kinda insinuated that he wanted to establish that her role in this family was bigger than she would acknowledge. Wait, her defence? She doesn’t get a defence, he’d only said good stuff.

Morgan watched with interest as her father visibly argued with himself, beating the white liquid relentlessly, a frown set upon his face.

“Daddy?” She piped up.

“Yes, honey?” He answered, looking up and finally placing the large bowl on the table.

“What’s going on?”

He looked at her wide eyes and smiled. “I don’t know, kiddo,” he chuckled as he pulled out the frying pan and turned on the fire. “I wish I did.” Chocolate chips? Chocolate chips.

He felt a tugging on his shirt and looked down to see that little Morgan had hopped off her place on the barstool and was now looking at him with her arms open wide. He broke into fond laughter and lifted her into his arms, while she wrapped hers around his neck determinedly.

“Everything will be ok,” she whispered, squeezing harder.

“I know, baby,” he hummed, flipping the pancake with his one free hand. Somehow, he managed to make a whole stack of pancakes with one arm carrying the koala of a child he had, and not a single one was burnt.

By the time Tony had put the empty dishes in the sink and turned on the faucet, there was still no sign of Natasha. So, with a sigh, Tony diligently cleaned up before begrudgingly heading up the stairs to his bedroom. Yet, when he opened the door, he found the room empty, and his bathroom door open. She wasn’t here. He sucked in a deep breath and picked up the mess, resolving to take a shower before looking for her.

Unsurprisingly, she wasn’t in her room, but her room faced the lake, and when he walked over to close her open window, he saw a spot of red and black at the edge of the lake and smiled tiredly. There you are, Widow. Five minutes later, he was approaching her from behind, not even trying to be silent. She would know if he was trying to sneak up on her, and if he happened to succeed, he was definitely not coming out of that situation unscathed.

She had her leather jacket on and a clean pair of jeans, but if one looked too closely at her neck or her hastily braided hair, the evidence of their activities the previous night was more than obvious. She stood without a hint of acknowledging his presence, eyes trained forwards while her hands remained in her pocket.

Tony grunted as he sat down on the ground behind her, waiting for her start this conversation. She didn’t speak or move for another twenty minutes, but that was alright, Tony Stark was nothing if not a patient man. That was utter bullshit – his leg was shaking with anxiety and he had all but chewed his fingernails off by the time she spoke.

“I’m sorry, Tony,” she whispered.

He sighed, even has his heart ached and he unconsciously reached for his Arc Reactor and squeezed it. “No,” he replied forlornly. “I’m sorry. I was wrong to say something of that magnitude to you. I understand if you-”

“No!” She exclaimed, head whipping around as she stared at him with red-rimmed eyes. He was taken aback. “No, you don’t understand.”

After getting over his momentary shock, he patted the spot next to him and looked up at her again. “Then tell me,” he answered.

She seemed to think about it for a second before gingerly sitting down beside him. His eyes landed on her bottom and he tried his hardest to push away the memories of her gorgeous rump from the previous night. There’s a time and place, Tony, he counselled himself.

“Many men have told me that they loved me,” she said finally.

Well that makes me feel special, he thought with a scoff, but when she glared at him, he raised his hands in apology.

“Many men have said that they loved me,” she repeated, slightly irritated. “And I have said it back to them many times.” She looked down and started pulling at the grass. “But I have never meant it.”

Tony watched her fingers tug at the ground anxiously, eyebrows knitted as she tried to pull the words out of her soul like she was extracting teeth.

“Those men loved me, but it was because I made them love me. It was my job to seduce and then be reused. I go into the field, make them fall in love with me and then take whatever I need, no matter the cost, and then I leave. I know how to exploit human emotions, Tony, and after I’m done using them, I break their hearts and disappear.” She looked at him in the eyes and he swore that he could see the broken glass in those green orbs.  

“Do you understand what it’s like to tell a lie so much that you don’t know how to say the truth?” She said, her voice quivering, and he knew that his heart broke right there. “When you said that you loved me, do you know how guilty I felt? My first instinct was that I made you fall in love with me. That somehow I had manipulated you.” Her tears were flowing unabashedly, and it took everything for Tony not to pull her into his arms.

Instead, he placed a hand on her cheek and wiped her tear with her thumb. “My love for you,” he whispered. “Is my choice.”

“I know that,” she choked out, pointing to her head. “I know that in here. But emotions aren’t logical! It felt like I tricked you! It felt like I was being selfish, because-”

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Because I love you too,” she sobbed, and this time, self-control be damned, he reached forward and roughly yanked her into his arms. “I’ve loved you for a very long time.” Her hands pulled at his shirt and his arms tightened around her shoulders.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He whispered, voice wet with emotion. “I’ve loved you for quite a while too.”

She just dug her head deeper into his chest.

“How could I be sure that I wasn’t making you feel that way?” She replied. “How could I be sure that I wasn’t manipulating you? How could I not feel like I was stealing you from Pepper?”

Tony pulled away with a smile, looking at her with such kindness that she began to sob again. “Oh, my beautiful Widow,” he whispered as though the answer was simple. “As long as your actions come from here,” he tapped her chest, “and not here,” he tapped her temple. “Then I know you’re being truthful, and not manipulating me.”

She looked up at him with her large wet eyes, pleading. “Promise?” she asked.

He chuckled. “Promise you’re being your true self when you’re around me?” he replied.

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Tony, I’m bawling my eyes out in front of you.” He laughed, but when he kept his eyebrows raised expectantly, she buried her face into his chest again bashfully. “I promise,” she mumbled.

“Promise you won’t leave me?”

She stilled when she sensed the fragility in his voice, and she deliberately looked into his eyes. “I promise.”

Satisfied, he took in a deep breath. “Then I promise too,” he placed a kiss on her head. “I promise that I love you, not for what you’ve done for me, but for who you are. You are strong, beautiful, and kind. You are loyal, and you will never let me down.”

“Oh my god, Tony,” she raised her head in embarrassment. “Shut the hell up. Hasn’t there been enough crying today?”

He laughed, but leaned down and placed and kiss on her waiting lips, and even as he tasted the salty tears that they’d both shed, his heart bloomed with a sweetness he’d long forgotten about.

“Let’s go make you some pancakes, eh?” he asked.

“Actually,” she smiled sheepishly. “I’m kinda craving cheeseburgers.”

Previous Chapter: Here

Next Chapter: Coming Soon!!!

Masterlist: Here

Tags:  @littlemsstark3000 @katebishopofearth @black-ironwidow @ironwidow @ironwidoww @natashastarkotp @ironwidow10 @natashastark3000 @latinatasharomanoff @616tonesnat @natashastarkov @shipsomarvel @natasharomanoffhasmyheart @natashalieromanovs @katiktwilight​

Please let me know what you think and tell me if you wanna be tagged so I can alert you about future chapters^^

[cinaja]

Before the Wall part 20

Masterlist

Summary: Five hundred years before Feyre Archeron is born, the world is much different from the one she lives in. Humans are slaves, seen as little more than animals by the Fae who rule. But things are beginning to change. Talks of rebellion is spreading and on the Continent, some Fae territories begin to consider the potential gain of War. All it takes is one spark and everything will explode.

----

The Autumn Court is beautiful, but its beauty is a strange one. The forest is full of colours, so vivid that Miryam barely knows where to look, yet the entire land seems laced with a scent of decay.

Absentmindedly, Miryam tugs at the sleeves of her dress, wishing she had brought something warmer. The Autumn Court is not cold by any means, but Miryam was born in a desert country. Next to her, Helion waves a hand and she is immediately warm.

“You okay?”, he whispers. Miryam nods, but he still gives her a questioning glance. “You seem worried.”

Well, what can I say? My lover is just meeting with one of Hybern`s deadliest generals and trying to seduce her. So yes, I may be slightly worried.

Before she can think of an excuse, though, the guards pull open the huge doors to High Lord Beron`s Forest House and she is able to step inside, Helion half a step behind her.

The wealth that greets her inside would be enough to make most people stop and gawk. Golden chandeliers, silk carpets on the walls, doors made of pure gold. Miryam only gives her surroundings half a glance before she continues walking. She does her best to ignore the guards trailing them, staring at her. All of them are High Fae, there is not a single faerie in sight. Mor`s warnings are ringing in her ears and make her senses go on high alert.

The walk to the throne room seems endless. Helion links his arm through hers and leans in to whisper into her ear, “A joyful place, right?”

Miryam smiles and nods. “Have you been here before?”, she asks.

“Once or twice.” Helion is grinning, but there is a tension in his face. Strange. Miryam doesn`t know of any tension between him and the Autumn Court, but she isn`t stupid enough to ask here, where the guards are sure to report their words back to Beron.

Finally, they reach the throne room. Two guards open the door for them and Miryam walks in, head held high.

High Lord Beron is sitting on a throne made of antlers at the end of the long throne room. His red hair looks like living flame, the red aura of his magic is glowing brightly around him. There is a cruel cast to his mouth, though, that has Miryam become even more cautious.

Miryam steps forward and inclines her head. “My Lord. Thank you for inviting us.”

Beron doesn`t reply. He just watches her. Sneers. Miryam holds his gaze.

“Look at that”, he finally drawls, “Is the Alliance running short of proper politicians, or is there another reason they are sending a child to represent them?”

“My Lord, I am-“, Miryam begins, but he cuts her off with a wave.

“I know who you are, girl. Don`t take me for stupid.”

She bristles. “If you know my name, then perhaps you should use it.”

“Careful”, Beron hisses, “I am a High Lord – I do not allow half-breed filth to talk down to me.”

Helion takes a step forward, but Miryam holds out a hand to stop him. She says, “And I am the emissary to the human-faerie Alliance. You`ll find that I do not take kindly to being insulted, either.”

Beron studies her for a few seconds. “A witch alright”, he says with a smile that sends a shiver running down Miryam`s spine. “We shall discuss business later. But first, allow me to show you the pleasures my court has to offer.”

He claps his hand and a band starts playing. Courtiers begin milling around. Beron turns to one of them without sparing Miryam another glance.

Helion laughs and links his arm through Miryam`s to lead her away. “Could have been worse. Do you want me to stay with you, or-“

“Go enjoy yourself”, Miryam says. She remembers Mor`s warning, but she doesn`t want to look weak in front of these people and hiding behind her Fae companion will certainly be seen as a sign of weakness.

Helion winks at her and vanishes amongst the assembled Fae. Miryam spends the next few minutes in tense conversations with courtiers who either look at her like she is a piece of dirt staining their pretty palace, or a particularly pleasant meal. Typical High Fae arrogance.

Finally, Miryam has had enough and pushes her way through the crowd to a quiet corner. From there, she has a good overview of the throne room. She spots Helion almost immediately. He is talking to a pretty Autumn Court female with red hair. Or rather flirting with her. He keeps casually touching her arm and smiling with enough heat to make the female blush. Only after a moment does Miryam recognize her as the Lady of Autumn. Indeed, Beron is watching the pair as well, his lips pressed together into a thin line. What in the Mother`s name is Helion thinking?

Miryam is about to go over and do her best to prevent a disaster when she gets the weird feeling of being watched. She looks around the room until her gaze settles on a young Autumn Court male whose aura marks him as the Heir of Autumn. Eris. When he notices Miryam`s attention, he smiles slightly and dips his chin. She frowns in return and he begins making his way through the crowd towards her.

Once he is standing in front of her, he bows to the waist. “May I have this dance, my Lady?”

“I`m sorry, but I do not dance.” At least not with you, you pig. It is a struggle to keep the disgust out of her voice. She tries not to think of Mor, or the part this male played in her suffering.

Eris smiles. “Make an exception. You won`t regret it.”

“The lady said she doesn`t dance.” Suddenly, Helion is standing next to her again. “You heard her.”

Eris smirks. “A pity”, he says and stalks off.

Miryam turns to Helion. “Thank you”, she says, “But I-“

“You could have handled yourself. I know.” He grins. “I would have expected nothing else of Miryam Godsblessed.”

“Oh, don`t call me that.” Bad enough that the soldiers keep whispering that name behind her back. Miryam sighs. “Well, I`m still glad you`re here.” She nudges him in the side. “How is flirting with our host`s wife in front of his entire court helping this diplomatic meeting?”

Helion gives her one of his dazzling smiles. “Oh, it is absolutely vital.”

Miryam arches an eyebrow. She doesn`t buy that swaggering bullshit for one second. Something is bothering Helion, she can tell. But before she can find a subtle way to ask, Lord Beron`s voice rings out over the crowd.

“Helion!”

They both turn to face the throne. The High Lord is holding out a letter.

“Your uncle is asking for your presence in Day. There appears to be an emergency.”

Helion frowns. He barely skims the letter Beron hands him, then turns to Miryam. “He says it`s important.”

“Go. Just don`t forget to pick me up later – if I get stuck in Prythian because of you, I`ll be pissed.”

“Thank you”, Helion says and rushes out of the room.

Miryam returns to her corner. It doesn`t take long, though, for trouble to find her. Eris Vanserra stops in front of her, an expectant expression on his face.

“What is it?”, Miryam asks.

“You still owe me a dance”, the male says, smirking.

“I told you: I don`t dance.”

“I don`t believe you. Why won`t you dance with me?”

Miryam hesitates, then says, “I`m friends with Morrigan.”

She wonders if she imagines Eris flinching. A second later, his arrogance is back. “A pity”, he drawls, “I thought you had class.” Miryam bristles, but he just laughs. “Come on, now, I`m your host`s son. Refusing to dance with me might be considered a slight.”

The worst part is, he is right. There`s no polite way for her to refuse. So Miryam grits her teeth, takes the hand he offers her and lets him lead her to the dance floor.

She almost immediately regrets it. Being this close to Eris, having him tough her, makes her skin prickle. His hands are on her waist, pulling her closer. Miryam`s first instinct is to push him away, but she can`t do that – it would be a political nightmare.

“Not so bad, is it?”, Eris drawls.

Then, he leans in closer until she can feel his breath on her neck. Miryam doesn`t think she`s breathing. She wonders how her feet are still moving when she is all but frozen with fear. Too close, too close, too close.

“Now, you listen to me”, Eris whispers into her ear, his voice so soft she can barely understand him, “And if you want to survive this night, I`d suggest you do exactly as I say. This is a trap.”

----

Jurian awkwardly sits down on a rock next to Clythia, but he makes sure that there is still lots of empty space between them. This female is a general in Hybern`s army. She slaughtered countless humans – his people – without mercy. If his spy`s reports are anything to go by, her sister and her delight in torturing humans before ending them. Yet, he is sitting next to her like nothing is wrong. His every instinct is roaring at him to draw his sword and just kill her.

“I know you`re hesitant”, Clythia says, breaking the silence.

“Not so much hesitant as confused.” And repulsed. “I got the impression that you don`t hold humans in the highest regard.”

Clythia waves a hand as if dismissing the comment. “You`re different. Not at all like the other mortals. They are worms, but you…”

It doesn`t seem to occur to her at all that Jurian might mind her insulting his people. That he might not want to be considered an exception or spend so much as a second in the presence of a female who considers his kind to be less than animals.

“What about me?”, he asks, hoping that his tone doesn`t show his anger.

“You belong with me.” At least she doesn`t say belong to me, but Jurian isn`t sure if she sees a difference. “I`ve seen it – seen it long before I ever heard your name. We will be together.”

She says it with such certainty that Jurian shivers slightly. If she`s a seer and she`s seen them being together… No, she has to be wrong. Or maybe she`s lying. This can`t be his future.

He pulls himself together. He`s a soldier, for Cauldron`s sake. This is just another mission. He shouldn`t let it get to him.

“Well”, he says, “what an interesting future. You may have heard, though, that I am in a relationship. Happily.”

Again, that dismissive hand wave. “Inconsequential.” Clythia smiles. “I`ve been a seer for three centuries now and believe me: The future does not lie.”

Jurian briefly considers her words. She is sure of herself. Obviously believes that she has won already. Jurian knows opponents like that. They are usually arrogant and don`t look past the first impression. Easy enough to trick. Even better, she doesn`t seem to consider that Jurian might be seriously opposed to the idea of this relationship.

As if to prove him right, Clythia puts her hand on his leg.

Jurian makes himself give her his best lazy smile. “Why don`t you show me what that future`s going to be like, then?”

----

“That`s not possible”, Miryam whispers. She keeps dancing, keeps her face neutral, even as her mind begins to race. “I`m a guest in his house – he wouldn`t dare harm me.” Not even Ravenia, for all her cruelty, ever broke that rule.

“Continental rules”, Eris replies, “They don`t hold as much sway here. And he doesn`t need to harm you himself – he can just stand by as others do.”

“Why?”

She can feel Eris sigh. “Is that really the pressing thing to discuss? We only have minutes!”

But Miryam still hesitates. She doesn`t trust Eris. He might well be lying and if she acts on his words only to find out that he was tricking her, it will be her who jeopardizes this alliance. If she acts and turns out to be wrong, it will be the biggest mistake she ever made as an emissary – it might cost her any standing she has within the Alliance.

“Why?”, she repeats.

Eris groans. He twirls her around, then pulls her close again. “The Loyalists offer quite generous terms – far better than anything the Alliance could give us. Your head is the asking price. I assume you know why.”

“What`s the plan?” Miryam has to keep from glancing around in the room to look for anything that seems out of place.

“That letter to Helion was forged – they wanted to get him out of the way. A group of soldiers will arrive to take you away in… five minutes.”

Miryam curses. If he`s saying the truth, she is really and truly in trouble. “What do I do?”, she breathes.

“On my note”, Eris says, “you will shove me away. Make a scene. Then, you storm out of the room. You need to go down two flights of stairs. There is a carpet with a huge deer on it. Behind it, you find a hidden room. Wait for me there.”

Miryam nods. They keep twirling around each other. Then, Eris pulls her close again.

“Now”, he whispers.

Miryam doesn`t hesitate. She shoves him away from her as hard as she can – which, given that he`s Fae and she`s not, barely makes him stumble. Around them, people stop dancing to stare at them. Miryam darts forward and slaps Eris. (She can`t quite contain a feeling of satisfaction at the surprise on his face.)

“You bastard”, she hisses, “How dare you touch me?”

She turns around to glower at the Fae who are snickering around them, then turns to Beron who is watching her from his throne.

“I need some fresh air”, she snaps.

Without waiting for a reply, she stalks out of the room. The guards at the doors do not stop her.

Instead of trying to go to the meeting place, Miryam lingers by the door. She paces like she is simply a female annoyed at some male`s behaviour during the party, but keeps shooting glances through the doors. She can`t leave – not without being absolutely sure that this is indeed a trap. It might be reckless, but anything else would be political suicide.

She doesn`t have to wait for long. Only a few minutes pass before a group of people appear in the middle of the throne room. All of them are armed and bearing the Black Land colours. Miryam stumbles back a step as she recognizes the male at the front.

Artax.

For a second, Miryam is frozen with old fear. Then, her instincts kick in. She spins around and runs. Thank the Cauldron, none of the guards reach out to stop her. Miryam dashes down the stairs. She already took the first flight when she realizes that she is going to lead Artax straight to the meeting place and if Eris isn`t waiting, she will be done for.

So instead, she turns to the right on the first landing and sprints down the corridor. She hears steps following behind her, almost lazily. She has nowhere to run and they know it. Artax probably enjoys the chase. She needs to buy herself some time, but how is she supposed to do that against the head of the Witcher`s Guild?

Miryam dashes around the next corner. The guards follow her with their eyes, but don`t move. Apparently, Beron`s twisted view of guest`s right means that his guards won`t touch her.

The next corridor is empty. Then, out of nowhere, a female steps into her way. She is dressed in servants` colours and marked as a faerie by the antlers poking out of her brown hair. It is too late for Miryam to jump aside – she crashes straight into the female. They both go crashing to the ground.

“Sorry”, Miryam gasps.

She pushes back to her feet, but then, she pauses. The female had to have come from somewhere. Indeed, there is a small door in the wall, almost invisible. The servant`s corridors, of course – those existed in the Black Land as well. Steps are approaching from behind. Miryam pushes the door open and slips through. She pulls it shut behind her the moment Artax rounds the corner.

The corridors much smaller and darker than the huge hallways of the palace. Miryam keeps running. At each crossroad, she takes a different turn. Soon, she is completely lost, but she can still hear steps following her. She looks back over her shoulder to see if Artax is already in sight, and –

Suddenly, the ground is gone from under her feet. Miryam barely has time to yelp before she is falling.

She lands in something soft. Clothes, Miryam realizes. She is lying in a pile of clothes. High above her, there is a hole in the ceiling – likely used by servants to dump the laundry into. Miryam quickly rolls to the side and presses herself against the wall.

It doesn`t take long for Artax` face to appear in the hole. Miryam doesn`t dare breath as he looks down onto the pile of clothes. After what seems like an eternity, he continues on the corridor. Miryam sags with relief.

Even though she got rid of her pursuers, it takes Miryam almost an hour to get to her meeting place with Eris. The Forest House is a maze and Miryam has to avoid anyone who might see her. She has just begun to believe that she`ll never find the hidden room when she rounds a corner and comes face to face with the carpet.

She pushes past it and into the room beyond. The carpet falls back into its place and a flame flickers to life – right in front of her face. It illuminates Eris`, who pushes off the wall he was leaning against.

“Finally”, he hisses, “I thought you had been caught.”

Miryam is shaking, but manages to glare at him. “Just take me out of here, please.”

“Not so fast”, Eris says and takes a step back. “First, I`d like to discuss my conditions.”

“Your what?”

“Well, I´m risking quite a lot by saving you. It would only be fair if you were to repay me.”

Miryam glances towards the door. She is sure Artax is still searching for her, and if he finds her here… “What do you want?”

“A favour”, he replies, “to be decided later.”

“No.” How stupid does he think she is? “You could ask anything. I won`t do it.”

“It will be within reason. And I don`t see how you have much of a choice. You can stay here, of course, but you`ll find that you`ll have a hard time winning this war if you`re dead.”

Miryam hesitates. Damn that male, he is right. “Nothing that harms the war effort”, she says.

“Alright.”

“And I won`t sleep with you.”

Eris snorts. “I honestly don`t know where you get the idea that I´d have an interest.” He holds out a hand. “Do we have a deal?”

There are steps approaching outside. It might just be guards – or it could be Artax.

“Yes”, she says and takes his hand. As soon as their fingers touch, he winnows them away.

They land in a forest that looks as old as this land. Miryam is shivering in her too-light dress. She doesn`t know where she thought Eris would take her, but she certainly didn`t expect this.

“Where are we?”

“The Middle. I´ll send word to Helion that he can pick you up here.”

Miryam nods. Something about this forest seems off, but she tries to tell herself that it can`t be so bad. She survived the trek through half the Continent on her own – she should be able to last a few hours here.

“Why?”, she asks, “Why save me?”

Eris gives her that insufferable smirk of his. “Your death would have been a waste. Alive, you may yet be useful.”

“Of course”, Miryam mutters, “How could I believe you`d ever help my for any reason other than your own gain.”

Any amusement vanishes from Eris` face. “I had my reasons. Back then, I mean.”

“You left a girl of seventeen in the forest to die. You truly believe any reasons you might have had make it fine?” Miryam hesitates for a heartbeat, then adds, “I thank you for your help, though.”

Eris gives her a mocking bow, then vanishes, leaving her alone in the forest.

----

A/N: I thought quite a lot about how to portray Eris. On one hand, it is made pretty clear that he is not as horrible as he seems. But I also really didn`t want to dismiss Mor`s suffering or excuse his actions, so I choose a middle ground (I mean, I don`t like him, so I wrote him as a kind of self-serving asshole, but still not as bad as his father.) I hope that worked out!

I also feel like I should probably tell you that I don`t write sex scenes. I don`t like reading them and I certainly don`t feel comfortable writing them, so all sex scenes in this book will be fade-to-black.

Tags: @sjm-things @herpowerisdeath @clolikescloquetas

[ashesarrows]

SOLUTIONS AND OTHER PROBLEMS REVIEW: BONUS SEGMENT

This is a piece of this review that didn’t fit into GR’s character limit. I’m continuing it here instead. After you read this, you can return to continue reading the rest of the review, which follows naturally.

After the first chapter, you hit an “EXPLANATION” in which Brosh writes that there is no Chapter 4, “because sometimes things don't go like they should.” I was mixed on this—it felt like an author TRYING to do something rather than DOING something, but I do find it funny and it feels Broshian. Didn’t think much of it. I also didn’t think too hard about Brosh joking about the idea of saying “nobody knows what the fuck they’re doing, and there is no Go[d]” to a child, because it made sense in context. 

#6, The Kangaroo Pig Gets Drunk, was the first sign of something off. It’s a story entirely about how pets have no idea what’s going on or why we do the things we do to them. There’s no punch line. It’s observational humor without the humor, which makes it just... an observation. One which makes me go “yeah. so?” and keep reading while wondering why on Earth that was in there.

#10, Losing. This story opens with a fable about an orc that gets hit on the pinecone and doesn’t know why. The moral: sometimes bad things happen for no reason. Brosh meditates on how everything started to seem meaningless to her because she couldn’t explain it. This is, as she tells us, where she was at mentally when she got to The Serious Part.

This is arguably the strongest part of the book, as many other people have already said. Brosh talks about her health issues and her sister’s death and mentions her divorce. I found all of this to be, again, classic Brosh with the honesty and humor of a friend telling you about something awful they can laugh about now. She just can’t laugh about it all the time, and that’s okay too. The delicacy this story is handled with is beautiful, and it contrasts sharply the relative weakness of opening with heavy-handed fables or throwing in random made-up silly-sounding facts to try to ‘lighten’ this, again, extremely beautifully-written piece about her life. In my opinion, the best part of the entire book is when she eschews words in favor of just drawing different scenes from her life with her sister. That’s when you see Brosh’s talent: the ability to portray something more than real in her art.

Unfortunately, this story ends with an extremely sudden two-page spread about a mortality bus. It’s jarring. I can’t tell if it’s funny or connected to the story or just there.

#14, Fairness. I do want to emphasize that I’m skipping a lot because many of these stories are very good. I didn’t lie at the top—this is, by and large, a good collection, even if it’s not the same consistent perfection as <i>Hyperbole</i>. I just don’t have the space in the main GR review to really talk about how good the book is without losing space for my more pressing concerns about it. Also, there’s nothing like several normal stories in a row to lull you into a false sense of safety.

This is the point at which the nihilism comes back. There is a guy hammering shit at ungodly hours next door to Brosh, and she can’t understand what kind of a god would allow this. Fortunately, you don’t notice so much because it’s only in the middle of the story, and ultimately Brosh gets her revenge and so it is fine. 

#15, Plans. I do not have the emotional capacity to talk about this yet. We’ll do that at the end of the GR review. 

Immediately after:

Didn’t we just do this? I mean, the art is gorgeous, but didn’t we just do this, a couple of times?

#19, Fish Video. It’s a charming story about a childhood video Brosh dug up recently, wherein her two-year-old self tries to befriend a dead sardine. The potential is clear: there’s a delightful absurdity to her persistence in the face of insurmountable odds. Were this story in Hyperbole, that’s likely the angle Brosh would have taken.

As it is, the story ends without ending as Brosh tells us she found it devastatingly relatable. It’s not about the positives but the negatives of this story, and it lets you down. She stops talking when the video ends, and that’s it. There’s no point, again.

And then you get to #20, The Ugly Duckling 2, and Brosh is complaining about how the story of The Ugly Duckling prepares people for the possibility that ugly children will become beautiful but not for the possibility that they will stay ugly—which she claims is what happened to her. She rewrites the story and imagines telling it to a group of children, to be told off by a nearby adult and then irritably telling a story about a frog who goes sledding “because why not” since that’s what the children want to hear.

Sorry... what?? I mean, I’ve seen photos of Brosh. She’s a deeply average woman. There is nothing about her that anyone would say looks “ugly��. And I get that self consciousness doesn’t allow for people to realize that sometimes, and that’s fine, and the gender politics of why Brosh draws herself the way she does are fascinating, but at the end of the day, what the fuck. What is the point of this story? “Sorry kids sometimes you are ugly and you stay ugly?” NO! Holy God I am angry about this. I feel like I would be less angry if Brosh weren’t explicitly fantasizing about saying this to children en masse. And, no, she does not seem self-aware enough about how fucked up that is.

And, look, I’m no Ugly Duckling defender here, but this angle is so obviously not the solution. The solution is so obviously “physical appearance is more complex than ugly/pretty and these conventional standards are Generally Bad and you yourself are far more complex than your physical appearance,” and/or “adults who wished you would grow up to look secretly beautiful: I did that too! Turns out we should just be happy with our appearance because (see previous solution).” It just boggles my mind that Brosh would veer into such a harmful worldview and then share it with the world, particularly when teens have in fact always been a part of her fanbase!

THIS is when I realized the depths of Brosh’s current nihilism. She’s skyrocketed from “everything isn’t hopeless bullshit” right back to the beginning, and her work takes you there with her. It’s like all she wants to do is evangelize the worldview that everything is awful because nothing matters. Nihilism isn’t inherently bad; Brosh just insists that if there isn’t a meaning to everything then that must be a terrible thing that we suffer under. And at this point I recognize how badly Brosh must be suffering to perpetuate this.

#23, A Nonspecific Story About An Animal, is our third fable, and it’s transparently about Brosh. The Animal flails around as random terrible things happen to it; it can’t overcome them. And again you feel like Brosh just said this so eloquently a few stories ago, so why on Earth is she saying it poorly now?

Brosh talks about this desire to explain everything to you in Losing, and how she ultimately can’t, that it will never be explained enough. It’s not worth trying. She knows that. This story feels like a failed attempt at explanation—which, again, she predicted a few stories back. So simple to edit. It only just occurred to me that, when Brosh writes in her acknowledgements that she edited this entire book verbally, maybe that was something her publisher should have considered. Also, what the fuck? While everyone else was working on Zoom, Brosh’s publisher forced her to edit a book filled with art verbally?

The final story, #25, Friend, is another almost-story, which makes it a huge letdown as an ending. It’s anticlimactic. And it hurts more because it’s so close to being a poignant story of self-love; it just needs that final push. 

[onthevirgeofdestruction]

Plea for My New Self

Sanders sides Vampire College AU - it’s gay - it’s full of fun fluffy tropes - a bit o’ hurt/comfort - mostly fluff

Words: 5,800  Warnings: Food, blood-drinking, extreme sass Characters: Virgil, Roman, Logan, Patton, Deceit Ships: Anxceit, Prinxiety, Analogical, Eventual LAMPD/CALMD Universe: Plea for my New Self Genre: Fluff, Gay nonsense

Chapter 27: Paper Wings

Chapter 1 for New Readers - ffn mirror

   Virgil waved to Deceit when he saw him down the hall, beaming delightedly. He was dressed up like a rich guy from the 20s again. He looked great in the black cane, hat, gloves, and a 3 piece suit. Did he wear this stuff to court or something? It was hot, but Deceit definitely looked out of place in college dorms, where if people were in a clean shirt it was considered dressing nice. Deceit raised an eyebrow at him and smirked, looking bemused.

   “Pat, can I put you down and greet my beloved?” Virgil asked. Patton nodded and Virgil bent his knees and lowered Patton down carefully. As soon as Patton was clear, he hurried down the hall and right into Deceit’s arms. Virgil wrapped his arms around him and hummed in delight.

   “Darling, you look tired,” Deceit cooed, kissing Virgil on the cheek.

   “I unintentionally got them sugared up,” Virgil rolled his eyes. “It’s so good to see you. Please consider staying the night. I miss you so much,” Virgil leaned his head against Deceit’s affectionately and held on to his waist.

   “Absolutely no funny business in the dorm,” Roman demanded, walking up to them and moving past to unlock their dorm room door with a little huff.

   “On one of those tiny lofts? Please, we’re not animals,” Deceit rolled his eyes and motioned towards the lofts with disgust. “It’s nice to see you to, Roman,” Deceit added derisively.

   “Charmed, I’m sure,” Roman said, just as sarcastically, and opened the door. He bowed, motioning for everyone to go in.

   “Is the prim and proper gentleman in the know yet?” Deceit asked, pointing to Logan and separating from Virgil’s arms to walk into the dorm.

   “We’re trying to put him in the know, but he’s stubborn,” Roman rolled his eyes. Everyone else filed into the Dorm after them.

   “Please do not talk about me like I am not here,” Logan huffed. Virgil sighed and let Deceit go, walking up to Logan and holding out his hands. Logan took them carefully. Roman closed up the dorm room door behind everybody.

   “I’m sorry. You’re here with us physically, but we’re trying to catch you up intellectually,” Virgil said gently. “Roman and Patton think you deserve to be in the loop as my boyfriend. You said you were interested in the possibility. Hi, I’m a vampire and I’m not just making things up,” Virgil explained carefully, speaking slowly and trying to maintain a neutral tone.

   “He still doesn’t believe you,” Deceit said flippantly, spinning his cane as he leaned against the loft frame.

   “There’s no such thing as vampires,” Logan repeated, sounding very annoyed.

   “You could probably bite him and he’d rationalize the change,” Roman rolled his eyes, crawling up into Virgil’s loft with Patton right behind him.

   “Isn’t that a delightful idea,” Deceit purred.

   “Roman,” Virgil huffed angrily. “Consent,”

   “Oh, that’s something you could do. What’s Logan’s blood type?” Roman suggested, probably recalling the whole debacle when they went clubbing.

   “That’s an oddly personal question,” Logan furrowed his eyebrows.

   “Do you mind if I tell you?” Virgil asked, holding up one of Logan’s hands.

   “Go ahead, I suppose,” Logan said. Virgil sniffed at Logan’s wrist carefully.

   “O-negative,” Virgil supplied. It smelled a little off, though.

   “Yes, I am a universal donor, but I have mild anemia and can’t give blood often. Statistically, you should have guessed O-positive. Why did you guess O-negative?” Logan furrowed his eyebrows at Virgil. Ah, anemia explains the strangeness of his blood’s smell.

   “I didn’t guess, I can smell it,” Virgil said, lowering Logan’s wrist.

   “He still doesn’t believe you,” Deceit chimed in, he had climbed up on to the loft and was laying across the edge of the bed and watching.

   “How exactly did we end up with a peanut gallery?” Virgil looked up to them with a grimace.

   “Don’t mind me, I’m just one of those people who can’t look away from a train wreck,” Deceit had a cheshire grin, holding his head upon his arm and swinging his cane lazily off the edge. Virgil narrowed his eyes at him. Deceit better not get any roofing tar on Virgil’s sheets. Deceit lifted an eyebrow but still looked amused nonetheless.

   “Your guess was surprisingly accurate, but I’m becoming worried about your mental health,” Logan said, sounding concerned.

   “Do the roller coaster thing!” Roman cheered from the loft.

   “It was a terrible idea when I did it for you and it’s a terrible idea now,” Virgil rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry for doing it in the first place,”

   “D, you do the roller coaster thing, then,” Roman prodded him, looking extremely hyped up about it.

   “What in the world are you talking about?” Deceit rolled his eyes and frowned, shooting a quizzical expression at Roman.

   “Turned can’t do it, Deceit only has enough capability to flit,” Virgil explained and Deceit huffed sourly. Honestly, it was still kind of a sore spot with them, so Virgil couldn’t blame him for the annoyed grimace, especially since Virgil was likely mirroring him.

   “Well, that’s bullshit,” Roman huffed and crossed his arms.

   “Roman!” Patton shot angrily, pushing him on the loft.

   “What, it is!” Roman blurted out defensively and motioned widely at Deceit.

   “I don’t like that language whether or not it is!” Patton pouted sourly, leaning back up against Roman with a pout.

   “I’m very glad you invited me, Patton,��� Deceit smirked, not looking away from Virgil and Logan. “I wish I had some peanuts to throw, even,” Virgil let go of one of Logan’s hands and rubbed his face in exasperation.

   “What exactly counts as proof, then, Logan? I’m really trying here,” Virgil asked, trying to ignore the idiots on his loft.

   “Drinking blood, I suppose,” Logan said, seemingly baffled. Virgil squeezed Logan’s hand in an attempt to be affectionate.

   “Okay,” Virgil said resolutely and let go of Logan’s hand. He went over to his mini-fridge and pulled out a bag of blood. Virgil still locked it in case someone broke in, but the process was certainly tedious.

   “B-positive? Really Virgil, is that what you spent so much money on?” Deceit said derisively, bopping Virgil on the shoulder as he passed by the loft to drop it in the heater.

   “You try eating anything next to Roman some time,” Virgil rolled his eyes and motioned with his head to the still-fuming Roman on the loft.

   “Fine. Hand me a bag,” Deceit said, flipping his fingers and snapping impatiently with his free hand.

   “Is now really the time?” Virgil asked incredulously. Deceit jumped down from the bed and pulled a bag out of the fridge himself.

   “Oh, look, O-negative,” Deceit drawled the opposite of nonchalantly and leaned against his cane.

   “Nuh-uh, if you really want to see what it’s like grab A or O-positive,” Virgil said crossly, pointing at the fridge as he waited for the heater.

   “I don’t even drink those at home,” Deceit sauntered over to use the bag heater after Virgil extracted his.

   “Sassing me about it is okay, though?” Virgil raised his eyebrow and smacked him lightly on the shoulder as he passed.

   “Of course,” Deceit smiled airily and flipped his hand. After the telltale click, he sat in Roman’s chair, crossing his legs. It seemed like a safe distance still despite the extra blood in the room. Virgil sighed and sat on the floor next to Deceit and bit into the bag. Ugh, three people watching him feed was grating at best. Deceit pulled the curtain closed just enough to cover himself while he fed. Bitch. Deceit smirked down at him while he drank. Four isn’t any better. Virgil just tried to focus on finishing the bag while Deceit looked exceedingly entertained. Patton and Roman watched with interest, and Logan watched oddly with his arms crossed. Virgil looked up to Deceit again, but he just shook his head. Virgil finished the last sip, draining the bag. He waited for his vision to clear and huffed, shaking his head.

   “Seriously? I just drank blood in front of you,” Virgil threw up his arms in frustration. “Isn’t that proof?”

   “I assume those are bags of punch,” Logan said, motioning to the bag in Virgil’s hand. “Incredibly realistic bags, that is, but not blood,” Deceit cackled and pulled open the curtain. Virgil took Deceit’s empty bag and got up to toss them in his garbage can.

   “That we heated? Is that a thing?” Virgil looked to Roman in bewilderment. Roman just shrugged, snickering a bit. Virgil looked to Deceit. “At least tell me you get why I bought all those rares,” Virgil sighed with resignation.

   “You’re just being dramatic. Everything bagged doesn’t taste good in my opinion. I only do it for you and the fact that it’s more convenient than hunting,” Deceit shrugged. Virgil groaned in frustration.

   “I should have had Roman take off his shirt, then you’d get it,” Virgil grumbled quietly to Deceit. “If watching me literally drink blood isn’t proof enough, Logan, what is? Or are you happier pretending that I’m just a super pale guy with pointy teeth and cool skin who drinks goth aesthetic fruit punch? Because I will understand if that’s what you want,” Virgil said in disillusionment. He couldn’t believe this. Virgil rubbed his head roughly, pulling at his hair a bit. He saw Logan look perplexed through his fingers, but Logan didn’t respond.

   “You could eat human food and get sick,” Deceit offered with an impish smirk.

   “Ugh, no, I’m still paying for those Jägerbombs. You can eat, though,” Virgil grinned at Deceit.

   “He’s not my boyfriend,” Deceit flipped his hand and flipped the way his legs were crossed, holding up his cane with both hands in front of him.

   “Virgil, did you drink underaged?” Logan asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

   “I am hundreds of years old,” Virgil groaned. “D, back me up,” Virgil motioned to Deceit.

   “It’s true, he’s a man-child,” Deceit laughed and Roman joined in. Even Patton tittered before catching themself and looking upset.

   “D, that’s mean,” Patton pouted. Deceit crossed the room at a faster than human speed and swept up Patton in his arms, who looked dazzled and starry-eyed at him.

   “I thought so,” Deceit cooed, letting them go and climbing back down. Deceit hugged Virgil from behind with one arm. “Patton, do behave, you know I can hear your thoughts near Virgil,” Deceit said and Patton blushed so wildly they turned scarlet red and they quickly buried themselves under Virgil’s weighted blanket. Pat knows blankets don’t block thoughts, right? Deceit exhaled a tiny amused breath through his nose.

   “You can read thoughts? Virgil, is this where you are getting this from him?” Logan asked, motioning to Deceit.

   “Pick a number, Lo,” Virgil requested automatically. This was easy to prove. Well, it should be. He hoped it would be. Oh, hallowed fucking Hecate, it better be. 

   “Nine-thousand four-hundred twenty-seven and two-hundred fifty-seven ten thousandths. Interesting choice,” Deceit cooed. “It clearly wasn’t a random lucky guess, you made sure of that. You may as well abandon that train of thought,” Deceit pressed into Virgil’s neck and he melted slightly.

   “Wow, what a number,” Patton said reverently, peeking slightly out from under the blanket and still a shade of bright pink.

   “He’s a witch!” Logan shouted, pointing at Deceit. Virgil and Deceit absolutely lost it with that declaration and broke down laughing. Virgil doubled over and took Deceit with him while they cackled manically. He straightened back up and wiped his eye facetiously.

   “He’s not a witch, Logan, he’s a vampire, get with the program,” Roman rolled his eyes. He was drinking the espresso again, damn it.

   “I… what?” Logan said, blinking. “I’m sorry, perhaps I shouldn’t have-,” He started to apologize.

   “It’s fine, Logan, D’s been called way worse things than a witch in his day,” Virgil said humorously and let out an amused exhale.

   “No, no, grovel for forgiveness, by all means,” Deceit chuckled lowly and pulled Virgil closer.

   “You’re such a bastard and I love you for it,” Virgil whispered and Deceit shook his head and rolled his eyes, stealing a quick kiss. “He's kidding, by the way,"

   “Was that cold reading?” Logan asked, tapping his finger on his bicep. His expression was a blend of annoyed and confused that Virgil could completely relate with right now, but perhaps for the opposite reason.

   “Cold reading wouldn’t give such a specific answer like that you know it. I can feel you grasping at straws,” Deceit provided, flipping out his hand and nestling his chin against Virgil’s neck.

   “Do. The. Roller. Coaster. Thing,” Roman said intensely, articulating his words with claps. He stared Virgil down and leaned forward to grasp the bed railing expectantly.

   “Fine!” Virgil shot and flailed his arms. “Logan, if I could tell you that I can walk on the ceiling like a vampire can in the old stories and then did it, would you believe me?” Virgil asked.

   “I suppose,” Logan said motioning with his hands. Virgil flipped to the ceiling with Deceit still attached to him, turned his head to give Deceit a kiss, and dropped back to the floor.

   “Are we cool, now?” Virgil asked impatiently. Logan stared at him dumbfounded for a moment.

   “How did you set that up? There are no visible wires anywhere,” Logan said, eyeballing the ceiling. “Ultra high strength fishing wire?” He muttered, walking around Virgil and Deceit, looking for strings by waving his hand near them. Virgil was about ready to pull out his hair. Life was a mistake.

   “That’s a good idea, love, grow your hair,” Deceit said. “I always thought you looked stunning with longer hair,” He cooed, running his hand through Virgil’s hair.

   “Vampire tales don’t normally include that particular skill, what’s the point?” Virgil rolled his eyes and exhaled heavily.

   “We want to see! We want to see!” The peanut gallery chanted. Holy fucking shit, how did the night descend into this madness? He almost considered using his gift just to get out of here.

   “Can I just say that this night has devolved in a way I could have never anticipated?” Virgil sighed and motioned to the room, feeling extremely defeated.

   “They’re your friends love,” Deceit purred in Virgil’s ear.

   “Oh, like you’ve been any help, you catty son of a bitch,” Virgil hissed and glowered at Deceit, who just grinned toothily back at him.

   “I do try,” Deceit said airily, but clearly smug.

   “Less insulting D and more hair growing!” Roman jeered.

   “Yeah, what he said! And also apologize! And also I thought we were friends!” Patton added, their words running together, still clearly hopped up on sugar even if Virgil couldn’t hear their elevated heart rate.

   “You are friends, D’s just a b-” Virgil sighed. “A wonderful and considerate being that I genuinely appreciate having in my life,” Virgil said dully and rolled his eyes.

   “I think you calling me a bitch was more flattering,” Deceit laughed breezily. “Give the people what they want, love, you have plenty of blood. Long and black and down to your hips like you used to wear it, please,” Deceit requested, sounding very confident in his choice.

   “I might pass out if I grow it that long,” Virgil objected. Roman looked fascinated, leaning forward, and holding the railing again.

   “And I will be here to laugh at you the whole way down,” Deceit purred. Virgil groaned loudly.

   “But we are friends, right?” Patton asked, sounding concerned and holding on to the weighted blanket tightly.

   “We’re friends, I’m just taking the mickey out of Virgil,” Deceit kissed Virgil’s cheek. Virgil sighed and pulled out his phone.

   “We’re getting back to the Vampire thing, Logan, and I’m perfectly aware of how ridiculous this all is. Believe me. But I need to take a minute to grow my hair for the annoying and raucous peanut gallery, who I know have been drinking my espresso,” He shot a glowered up to the two of them. Patton recoiled, but Roman just looked proud of himself. “And I’m keeping the purple,” Virgil added bitterly and shot another glare at Roman, who just cackled back this time. Logan crossed his arms and shook his head dismissively. Valid. The most valid person in the room, even.

   “Black,” Deceit insisted firmly.

   “Ombre!” Patton supplied. Virgil shrugged. That works. Deceit nodded.

   “Grow your hair already, you whiny punk!” Roman jeered with his fist in the air.

   “People can’t grow hair at will,” Logan said as Virgil’s eyes lit up in the selfie camera and Deceit backed up so Virgil could rake his fingers through his hair. Virgil kept pulling it out until his vision swam and he stopped, sliding his phone back into his pocket, feeling dizzy. He held his head for a moment, trying to catch his balance.

   “That’s not waist-length,” Deceit pouted, flipping at the hair partially down his back and tapped his cane impatiently.

   “So cool!” Patton cheered.

   “I was going to pass out, D. I at least need more blood. You know bagged doesn’t go that far,” Virgil exhaled, leaning back against Deceit. Deceit held on to him, holding him up. He might have pushed it too far, even. Deceit kissed his head affectionately.

   “So who’s the volunteer? Logan, perhaps, since you’re so determined to rationalize everything and Virgil can’t possibly drink your blood?” Deceit asked. Patton squeaked.

   “I have bags, D,” Virgil rolled his eyes.

   “How in the world did you do that?” Logan said, walking around Virgil and Deceit again, then stopped to clean his glasses when he completed the circuit.

   “It’s real if you want to feel it,” Virgil offered, feeling exhausted.

   “I want to feel it!” Patton shot up their hand in the air and leaned off the loft to reach. Virgil went to go lean against the Loft support and Patton started running their hands through his hair. Roman reached out as well.

   “I better not find gelato in my hair,” Virgil hissed. Deceit played with the end before leaning back towards Virgil, wrapping one arm around Virgil’s neck and raking his other hand through Virgil’s hair affectionately.

   “So no volunteers? What a shame. Blood, blood everywhere and not a drop to drink,” Deceit shook his head pitiably. Roman looked like he was about to say something, but Logan got to it first.

   “I volunteer,” Logan raised his hand partway.

   “You’re kidding, you don’t even believe vampires exist and you’d let me drink your blood?” Virgil asked incredulously, narrowing his eyes at Logan.

   “You’ve rationalized literally everything Virgil as done tonight,” Roman laughed, brazenly drinking more espresso. Virgil sighed and held on to Deceit.

   “Do it from the neck!” Patton cheered. Virgil rubbed his face again. He knew what he did to deserve this, but also what did he do to deserve this.

   “I’m not Brooding Logan, Pat, he doesn’t even believe me,” Virgil glowered at his boisterous friends.

   “I’ll drink from him if you won’t,” Deceit smirked and taunted him.

   “No thralls! Dorm rules!” Roman shot, holding out a finger.

   “Rude, Roman. Rude,” Deceit huffed and knocked his cane on the floor to punctuate his offense.

   “I’m serious Virgil, I volunteer,” Logan said, holding out his arm.

   “It’s not consenting if you don’t even believe in what you’re consenting to, Logan, there’s no way I’m doing that,” Virgil shook his head adamantly.

   “I appreciate your concern, Virgil, but I am an adult and I am curious if you can actually drink my blood,” Logan insisted, raising his arm to Virgil’s face. Virgil looked between Logan’s arm and face for a moment.

   “That’s consent, love, and I know you’re thirsty,” Deceit smiled and nudged Virgil.

   “He’s mildly anemic, I wouldn’t even consider it unless he had some food,” Virgil rolled his eyes.

   “Is cold pizza okay, Logan?” Roman asked, getting up from his spot. Patton pouted at him for moving.

   “I suppose?” Logan said.

   “Well, sit down and I’ll grab you some pizza,” Roman supplied, crawling off the loft, heading to his mini-fridge. “Will you buy us a toaster oven, Virgil?”

   “Sure,” Virgil nodded. He climbed up on to the loft and laid down in front of Patton. Deceit laid on top of him, possibly to be a little shit, but Virgil could not care less.

   “You want cold pizza, Pat?” Roman asked, pulling out a pizza box.

   “The answer to that is always yes,” Patton nodded. Roman passed Patton a slice of pizza and held open the box for Logan to take a slice and put it down on the table above the recording equipment. Roman sat at his desk and stacked two slices on top of each other to eat them together. Virgil sighed as Deceit stroked Virgil’s hair while they laid on the bed. Virgil closed his eyes and enjoyed the contact.

   “I have finished my slice,” Logan supplied from below the loft. Virgil didn’t bother moving, because this was clearly ridiculous and out of hand and he was tired and didn’t want to deal with any of this.

   “No, no, you’ve got an offer for fresh blood and you are getting up or I’m doing what Patton’s thinking about,” Deceit said, rolling off of Virgil and pushing him off the loft, pushing him over the railing with ease. Virgil grunted when he landed upright and glared at Deceit. He watched Patton bury themselves in the blanket again. “It’s very tempting,”

   Virgil sighed and held out his hand to Logan. Logan handed over his arm and Virgil cut into his wrist and started drinking. It was absolutely heavenly after growing his hair that long. Fresh blood was so unreasonably delicious. Virgil drank appreciatively. Logan’s blood, in particular, was almost gourmet. He must take ridiculously good care of his body.

   “Stop, love,” Deceit supplied from the loft and Virgil stopped and sealed the cut. Logan pulled his arm back curiously, examining where Virgil drank from. He seemed very considerate for a moment, not having an immediate reaction. Virgil sighed and laid back on the floor with a flop, closing his eyes. If he still didn’t believe after blood loss Virgil was completely out of ideas and would just have to accept being a weird purple-eyed goth albino to his boyfriend.

   “How does your circulatory system work? Does it pump the blood you drink? Do you warm up if you drink more blood and your body pumps more of it? Do you digest the blood any?” Logan started asking a stream of questions. Ah. He finally believes, and all Virgil had to do was drink his blood. Logan kept rambling off questions Virgil couldn’t possibly answer.

   “Woah, woah, I can’t answer that stuff, I have no idea how I function,” Virgil held up his hands and angled up to look at Logan. “Or how D functions, for that matter,” Virgil added.

   “Yes, vampires don’t prefer being experimented on while we’re alive and don’t have corpses to study when we’re dead,” Deceit offered, rolling off the loft and laying on the floor with Virgil. Patton took the cane left on the bed curiously and started looking at it. “I’m glad you could finally join us, Logan,”

   “Are you going to join the clan, Lo?” Patton said, hanging off the loft to look at Logan in the chair. Logan was still staring mystified at his arm.

   “Patton, I love you and your enthusiasm, but please drop it,” Virgil sighed, dropping back to the floor silently, as much as he would have preferred a dramatic thud, his downstairs neighbors surely wouldn’t.

   “Why? I want Logan to join!” Patton pouted, hair still flipped oddly from looking at Logan.

   “I’m so tired,” Virgil groaned in objection.

   “Speaking of, finish growing your hair, love,” Deceit smirked.

   “You’re the actual devil,” Virgil huffed and sat up, pulling his phone back out to finish the job. Deceit smiled at him and Virgil finished pulling the rest of the hair out to waist length. Deceit pulled him into a sudden kiss as soon as Virgil finished, and Virgil melted into his lips, reaching up to hold him. Where the fuck did that come from?

   “What can I say, I’ve been nostalgic,” Deceit responded Virgil’s unasked question.

   “I’ll keep it this length if you stay the night,” Virgil tempted Deceit.

   “How about you stay the night at my estate?” Deceit counter-offered. “You don’t have work in the morning,”

   “Roman drank my entire espresso, there’s no way he doesn’t want to watch movies in a pile half the night. I thought you’d like to join. How about I go with you after they pass out?” Virgil countered. Deceit smiled knowingly and looked very pleased with himself.

   “Pat had some too, actually,” Roman smirked. “I’m pulling out the air mattress, so get off the floor,” Roman said, kicking Virgil.

   “I think I require another slice of pizza,” Logan said, putting his hand to his head lightly.

   “Of course!” Virgil shot up, holding the box open for Logan to get another slice.

   “You would be willing to answer all my questions, right?” Logan asked with concern.

   “Yeah, I’ll answer what I can,” Virgil said. “I’m just not that sure how I work, biologically. And I won’t submit to any science that could be made public,” Virgil added. “But I don’t mind if you want to poke at me in private,”

   “Nice,” Roman said salaciously and nodded. Roman and Deceit snickered together. Virgil rolled his eyes. Logan only blushed a tiny bit.

   “You’re very cute when you blush,” Virgil smiled at Logan while Roman and Deceit both set up the air mattress. “You, uh, don’t want to break up with me or anything do you?” Virgil asked nervously.

   “Um, no. I admit the news is jarring and I feel a little ridiculous for not seeing it. I apologize for not listening to you,” Logan said, somewhat sheepishly.

   “I’ll order hot food, what does everybody want?” Virgil said, pulling out his phone. Roman and Deceit put the sheets on the mattress and Roman went to go set up the projector to the ceiling.

   “I need something high in iron, like leafy greens or beef,” Logan supplied, sounding very distant.

   “Burgers, I guess, since it’s both?” Virgil asked if that was okay. Logan nodded.

   “I’ll take a chicken or turkey burger,” Patton said.

   “You know what I like, you can pick a burger for me,” Roman said, messing with the cables for the projector and the laptop. “Just not whatever kale burger that Logan is probably getting. I hate kale,” Virgil made the order and Deceit flipped on the teakettle, then pulled Virgil in for another hug.

   “If you’re not feeling touchy, you can take my loft and the weighted blanket. We got a projector like you suggested,” Virgil offered.

   “I wouldn’t mind the contact. I’m feeling a bit chilly,” Logan admitted, still sounding kind of blank.

   “Sorry. Half of us can’t exactly help with that,” Virgil chuckled. “You’ll have to cuddle Pat or Ro if you want warmth,” Virgil suggested weakly. He felt bad for upsetting Logan so much.

   “Would making Logan a Brood cure his anemia?” Patton asked, crawling down from the loft and pulling the extra-large weighted blanket with them.

   “Yes, since it’s mild. Assuming Virgil kept giving him venom anyway,” Deceit said, motioning for Virgil to come over as he sat on the air mattress.

   Patton flopped down and buried themselves in the blanket on the air mattress. Logan more tentatively sat down and picked up a corner of the blanket to lie under.

   “Is this ‘brood’ thing a vampire something I am not aware of?” Logan asked, shifting closer to Patton but maintaining a few inches of space.

   “Yeah, and I’m too tired to explain it right now, but Patton would probably be happy to. As long as they can promise to not try to convince you to join my undead legion,” Virgil sighed, aware that Patton wouldn’t agree to that already. Patton crawled behind Virgil and sat down.

   “I’m making no such promises and also I’m going to braid your hair,” Patton chirped, reaching out and taking handfuls of Virgil’s hair.

   “Drop your shields,” Roman Pushed Virgil as he laid down, taking the spot where Patton was before they started braiding Virgil’s hair.

   “’M so tired,” Virgil mumbled and yawned.

   “Drop ‘em,” Roman insisted again, pressing his head to Virgil’s side. Virgil complied and yawned again, this time much wider. “I just realized I’ve literally never seen you yawn until now. And we live together,” Roman said, almost as if he was in awe. Deceit laid in Virgil’s lap and dropped his shield, too, and Virgil sighed in relief, feeling the sweet sensation of a beating heart. He’d normally be all over kissing Deceit by now, but he was completely exhausted from the hair growth. Deceit’s smug smile was plenty of satisfaction, though.

   “I’ve never grown like two feet or whatever of hair in front of you before,” Virgil said blithely. “What are we watching?” Deceit got up and a cup of tea.

   “I was thinking Dead Poet’s Society. Y’know, for you poetry nerds. It’s also it’s a brilliant movie, so us non-poetry nerds can enjoy it, too,” Roman offered, pulling the laptop closer to himself.

   “What, not a Disney film? From Roman?” Virgil asked with mock horror. “You don’t have to be afraid to tug, Patton, it takes a lot to pull out my hair or hurt me,” He added tiredly, realizing he barely felt anything on his scalp. Deceit pressed the mug of tea into Virgil's hands and settled back down next to him, laying partially in his lap.

   “You promise?” Patton asked hopefully.

   “Thanks, D. Yeah, go for it,” Virgil nodded and enjoyed the smell of the earl grey D made for him.

   “I didn’t think half the audience would want cartoons all night long,” Roman explained with a slight shrug.

   “I am not a big fan of cartoons. I do have a soft spot for studio ghibli, though,” Deceit admitted, reaching out for Virgil’s hand.

   “Who doesn’t?” Patton tittered.

   “How about Princess Mononoke after this, then?” Roman suggested and Patton cheered in agreement.

   “D’s favourite is actually Nausicaä, but good guess,” Virgil smirked.

   “Princess Mononoke is Virgil’s favourite, don’t let him distract you,” Deceit shifted to sit up slightly with Virgil to increase the amount of contact.

   “I would have guessed Kiki’s Delivery Service,” Patton chimed in. Patton’s fingers raking through Virgil’s hair was very relaxing.

   “That’s his second favourite. He would have cried if he could,” Deceit chuckled.

   “You can’t cry, Virgil? How do your eyes remove irritants?” Logan asked curiously, shifting to face Virgil, moving slightly closer to Roman.

   “It’s like a thin film. Almost like snake eyelids, but I don’t shed them. It’s why I can’t change my eye color, the film fucks with my glamour. I just use eye drops or water to wash them off. D’s is more like a goo, he can still cry but the tears are weird. He’s also only moved by schadenfreude,” Virgil chuckled.

   “That’s true,” Deceit smirked playfully. 

   “Logan’s never seen you change your glamour, you dork. Do a cat eye,” Roman chided him and jabbed him in the side.

   “Ugh, I’m so tired already,” Virgil moaned but pulled out his phone and changed his makeup to a cat eye with purple eyeshadow and a mauve lip, just to give Roman want he wants so he’d shut up.

   “Oh, glam,” Roman purred and finished loading up the movie. He rolled over to look at the ceiling and Virgil leaned back so he and Deceit could look up. Patton kept playing with Virgil’s hair.

   “Are you doing okay, Logan?” Virgil asked, glancing slightly down at Logan. He had been very quiet for that.

   “Yes, I am…” Logan paused and then made ‘explosion’ hand motions around his head. “No words," He added.

   “Oh, yeah, mood,” Roman agreed. “Pat’s still playing with Virgil’s hair, so if you want body heat you’ll have to settle on me, Logan,” Roman chuckled. Logan nodded slightly and moved closer to Roman. Roman held out his arm and Logan seemed to reluctantly move in, stopping only an inch from Roman.

   “Sorry to have to throw you to the Sharks, Logan. I’m actually colder than room temperature. Roman and Patton use me like an ice pack,” Virgil smiled.

   “I’m not a shark,” Roman made an offended noise.

   “Please wake me for food if I fall asleep,” Logan muttered.

   “Of course, Logan, plenty of iron for you soon. Sorry for, uh, melting your brain and stealing your blood and all,” Virgil apologized sheepishly. Logan just shook his head and closed his eyes. Virgil glanced back up to watch the movie projected on the ceiling.

   “Logan’s not mad, love, just tired and confused,” Deceit cooed.

   “And I’m sorry about it,” Virgil said hourly.

   “I will bite you,” Deceit narrowed his eyes.

   “Roman said no funny stuff in the dorm,” Virgil chuckled slightly. Patton froze for a moment and Deceit laughed.

   “Yes, exactly,” Deceit purred. Virgil rolled his eyes.

   “So, you…” Patton started to ask.

   “We do. He might,” Deceit smirked. Patton froze again and took much longer to resume playing with Virgil’s hair.

   “That’s so annoying,” Roman narrowed his eyes. “At least have the common courtesy to talk telepathically,” Roman huffed. “I don’t like being left out of conversations,”

   “I think D’s teasing me again, I’m not sure,” Virgil stifled another yawn.

   “Oh, I’m accomplishing a lot, I assure you,” Deceit purred, reaching up to caress Virgil’s cheek.

   “Maybe no more confusing Logan with stuff, at least until he eats. He deserves time to process this. Not everybody can be as balls to the wall as Patton,” Virgil sighed.

   “I’m ‘balls to the wall’?” Patton asked.

   “It’s an old pilot thing,” Virgil grunted. “I thought people still used that phrase. I guess it died out. It means going all-in. People still use poker phrases, right?” He asked absentmindedly and yawned again.

   “Were you a pilot?” Roman asked curiously.

   “No more additional information, watch the sad movie,” Virgil said, pointing up. Roman groaned but looked up, pressing his head against Virgil’s thigh. Virgil hummed happily as Patton took out the braid they were working on by running their fingers against his head. Patton started a new one diligently, different strands being pulled about in ways Virgil wasn’t fully aware of, but was happy to feel Patton having fun. He’d probably wear whatever Patton ended up deciding on.

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[nightowlfandom]

Park Jimin- Treat You Right.

REQUEST FROM PROMPT LIST- RIGHT HERE (Pssstt, I also do some anime stuff too wink wink)

EDIT-Thank you to @asanjms for the awesome title suggestion!!!

 Also I'm looking for ideas for a AU series, any suggestions would help out a lot.

Also feel free to drop me a chat thingy if you wanna talk! I’m always looking for new friends. Also if you’re on Duolingo, make sure you do your lessons today! 

...

"Are you sure I'm not intruding?" You asked shyly. A bad breakup had left you too distracted to realize that the repairmen were going to be working on your apartment all week. Sleeping in a half fixed house didn't seem so practical.

Yes, a bad breakup, which was two weeks ago. It ended that badly.

"Of course Y/N!" Hoseok pat your shoulders. "You should have asked us sooner."

You looked down, guilt streaming through your face. You hated making people worry, especially your friends. It was a habit you tried to break. Well, they were all almost your friends. In all honesty you were sure Jimin didn't care where you ended up or how you got there. He had been glaring at you all evening. His sharp eyes pierced the side of your head. Well, you didn't 100 percent ask him if he hated you, but you were sure he did!.

"I promise the minute my apartment is all fixed you won't see me for the rest of the month." you mumbled, 'guilt' slapped across your forehead...or at least it should have been.

"Y/N stop. It really is okay." Jin sat by you. "We love you, of course we aren't gonna leave you in the dust!." he scoffed. "Just hope you don't mind messes." he chuckled.

"Ummm I guess not." you shrugged, smiling shyly. You stared down at your nails, feeling a bit at ease. "Um...where exactly can I sleep?"

"We'll figure that out, but for now you make yourself at home!" Namjoon instructed. "If anything you'll take one of ours and we'll sleep in another room. Unless you're okay with sharing a room with one of us." You noticed Jimin stalking away. He probably had an annoyed look on his face. You'd probably be too. You relaxed, allowing yourself to breathe. It was times like this you were thankful for your friends.

"That's perfectly fine." you said quietly, not wanting anyone to change their comfort in short supply of you.

...

"What are you doing up?" an annoyed looking Jimin found you leaning against the counter in the kitchen. You looked up, a string of instant noodles hung from your lip, making him raise his brow. You nervously stared back down, embarrassment tracing your every move.

"I'm hungry." you focused back down on your food. Didn't know eating was a problem with him now. "Is that okay with you?" you mumbled under your breath.

Either he did hear you and didn't care to ask you to repeat yourself or maybe he did hear and chose to ignore you. "So, heard it didn't end well with your boyfriend...what gives?"

You shut your eyes. Don't you DARE start crying. Not in front of Jimin, anyone but him. Well the other boys were all out doing who knows what... so you couldn't cry period. If your now ex-boyfriend didn't see you cry at that moment then re-imagining it shouldn't do shit.

"Hey...are you crying?" he walked closer. You turned away from him, furiously wiping your eyes. Your sleeve was wet...DAMNIT, DIDN'T YOU JUST SAY NOT TO CRY?!

"No, not at all!" you kept your voice surprisingly even. "You must be seeing things."

"Hey." you felt a pat on your shoulder which made a tingle shoot up your spine. "You are crying...Y/N...what happened." he said in a warning tone.

"I said it's fine Jimin." you swallowed the lump in your throat.

"And I say bullshit." he huffed. "Something's obviously eating at you." he made you face him.

"I caught him cheating okay?! The girl he was with dumped coffee on me...and dumped her plate of who knows what on me too" you snapped. "...then she took a picture of me, claiming she was gonna post it. Is that what you wanted to hear?" you clenched your teeth to keep from wavering too much. "Then he said I was a fool and that I was a pity-test."

Everyone in that place legit stared at you as the two walked out. The manager of the restaurant had taken you to the employee bathrooms to help you. Thank good that coffee wasn't hot. They even let you use the employee back door to leave so you wouldn't have to face the crowd again. Since that day everything's just been....shit

"Y/N." Jimin's voice softened.

"Forget it." you put your eating utensil down. "It's done and over with." You suddenly felt your hand being grabbed. You stared down at Jimin's hand, which covered yours gingerly.

"It most certainly isn't done and over with." he sighed. "Why didn't you tell any of us sooner?!"

You glared at him, hearing his words.

"Don't say 'us' like you would have cared to help console me!" you huffed. "Don't use 'us' as if you would have had any part in helping me either." you glared at Jimin, secretly wishing you had the Medusa stare.

"Y/N you're being ridiculous." he sighed, his cold stare from earlier returning.

"Am I?! I seem to remember being the target for your hateful stares and snide comments towards me. Ever since I became friends with Namjoon, you've been staring at me like I don't belong anywhere near you." you ranted. "I'm not being ridiculous...I'm being honest."

"How would you know I'm glaring at you? Unless you've been paying really close attention to me." he raised a brow. "Unless you've found a way to stare at my face without me knowing. You don't know about my emotions either, Y/N."

Oh no...you were caught!

"Uh...well it's not hard to notice." you stammered. "Y-you're not hard to miss."

"Oh really?" a cocky grin made it's way to your face. "Am I making you nervous Y/N? Do you like me or something?"

"Me?!? No!" you lied. "Shut up! D-dummy." you stared down at your feet. Pfft not like you liked him or anything and convinced yourself to hate him! “Just leave me alone, please.”

"Y/N...why did you start dating that guy." he asked. "Be honest.."

"A little thing called Parents Who Want to Control Every Aspect of My Life "you replied. "They made me get with him." you shook your head. "If I tell my parents...they'll say it was my fault he cheated- Why am I telling you any of this?! Not like you care." you rolled your eyes, about to walk past him.

You heard the front door slam and loud laughter follow.

"Hey Y/N, hey Jimin!" Jin met you two in the kitchen. "Hey Y/N. I wanted to talk to you about where you're gonna sleep. Jungkook's room is a mess, Taehyung snores-"

"She can share with me." you heard Jimin interrupt before walking out the kitchen. Wait, what?! No! Hold on! What type of-

...

"We're only sharing a bed. It isn't the end of the world." Jimin sat shirtless on his bed, tapping away at his phone screen. He looked up at you standing by the bathroom door. You were scared for dear life. Sharing a bed...with Jimin no less! Wtf?!

"Well I've never shared a bed with anyone other than my parents and that was when I was nine years old and scared to sleep alone." you rebutted. "Give me a minute okay?"

"Sure."

You stared at the empty spot next to him. Okay, this was it. Awkwardly, you walked over, sitting at the edge of the bed. You stared down at your feet, taking deep and seemingly troubled breaths. Was your love life really meant for this? Nothing more than...how could you even say it.

"You plan on going to sleep any time soon?" you heard a voice mumble. It was only then you really had the urge to have a snack.

You remembered Jungkook had found your favorite dessert and bought it for you. You wanted it...now.

"Nope!" you got up, trotting out of the room. "I want something sweet!" you skipped off. Dessert here you come!

Okay now you were super sleepy. You had just finished your food and were struggling to keep your eyes open as you got to Jimin's room. Sleep, sleepy, sleepy.

You groaned as you landed on the bed. It was a lot harder if a surface than you thought. Not mention there was a certain rise and then dip where your head was.

"Jimin, has anyone told you that you have a very uncomfortable bed?" you yawned, trying your best to get comfortable. "How do you sleep like this?"

"Well, I usually start by actually being on the bed." you heard from right below you. That comment caused you to look up, seeing Jimin's face right in front of you and you looked down to find yourself laid against his torso.

"Oh shit." you suddenly said. "I am so sorry!" you got off of him. "I was sleepy and your shirt blended in with the sheets!"

"Oh really?" he smirked, leaning up on his elbow. "You don't have to be scared of me baby."

"Me? Scared?! I'M NOT SC-" you were cut off by his chuckling. "Not like I have a thing for you or anything pfftt."

"Don't lie to me Y/N, and don't pretend that wasn't on purpose." he whispered. "Come here."

You were suddenly pinned onto your back to your surprise and partial delight.

"That was an accident." you said, feeling your head spin.

"Sure it was." he chuckled. "Maybe if that asshole couldn't treat you right, maybe I can."

Before you could reply, Jimin hovered his mouth over yours. His hand moved up under your shirt. “Do you want me to treat you real nice, Y/N.”

‘J-Jimin.” You said lowly, wanting to be quiet. As if taken by something, a completely different Jimin brushed stray hairs from your face.

“You’re beautiful you know that?”

“Huh?” you were taken by surprise at his words. Jimin’s head dipped into the divet of your collarbone. His lips traced a line alone your chest, leaving what felt like a burning trail along your skin.

“We can’t be too loud, we might wake the boys.” he said urgently. “B-but I-...” he pecked your lips multiple times, each little kiss getting longer and longer. “I want to-” he cut himself off with another peck to your lips. “I want to make you forget about him.” 

Wordlessly, you tugged at the hem of Jimin’s shirt. There was no use in trying to act like you hated him anymore. Deciding you were impatient, you straddled Jimin’s body, looking down at him. His warm hands trailed up and down your waist. 

“I knew you liked me” he winked.

“Oh shush.” you pouted, leaning down to kiss him again.

(cock block bitches ha!)

...

You sat at the restaurant table, tapping your fingers against your drinking glass. Your mind was quite literally wandering about, thinking about absolutely nothing important.

"Y/N" you you perked your head up to find your ex-boyfriend staring down at you. "Is that you?"

"Hm, Hey." you crossed your arms, raising to your feet. "Fancy seeing you here." you perked up a brow. His eyes trailed down your body, he'd never seen you dressed like this before. The way you wanted to dress when you were with him but never got to.

That girl...the one who humiliated you was behind him, clinging onto his arm seemingly for dear life.

"Yeah. You look...amazing." he bit his lip. "Really."

"I'm aware." you raised an eyebrow, causing a few passing waitresses to erupt in a giggling fit. He looked real dumb. "Wish I could say the same." you raised an eyebrow, making him laugh.

"C-could I buy you a drink?" he asked, prompting that girl to slap his arm and glare at you even harder.

"Sorry, she's with someone." a voice spoke from behind you. You turned to find Jimin walking up, wrapping an arm around your waist. "Hey beautiful."

You noticed both of them looked like they've been hit with a truck. Shocked as hell.

"You got over me that quick?" he looked slightly mad.

"You're not that hard to forget about." Jimin laughed. "Come on, Y/N. It smells like trash in here." he grabbed your hand.

"Later." you waved to the girl who looked even more upset. "Really? 'Trash' " you giggled once you two got outside.

"I could have said something else." he shrugged. “Now...you’re place or mine” he winked.

“You’re a mess” you rolled your eyes, chuckling.

“You love it.” he winked.

[totallycorrectteentitanshcs]

Headcanon: Beastboy and Cyborg play D&D when they’re bored and sometimes Star plays but doesn’t always understand

yall are boutta find out just how nerdy i really am 

dnd squad: beast boy, cyborg, speedy, aqualad. every so often they’re joined by kid flash, jinx (very seldom but she’s so fun to play with), starfire, and when she’s visiting, kole. 

beast boy was a dm one (1) time and it was absolute utter chaos and nothing got done

cyborg is a hella good dm but will not take your bullshit 

jinx is also a good dm but she’s also a Demonic dm. she can and will let characters die if the players are being dumbasses and running into trouble 

beast boy used to be a druid all the time all the time because of that one way to change into animals as a druid (i think i’ve never played druids) and had really creative ways to get out of trouble 

cyborg likes being paladins, dwarves, and he had a dragonborn character too 

starfire delights in every single character and she always, always chooses some badass warrior. her favorite class is fighter and she lvls up as a dual wielder so she just. cant stop wont stop

beast boy has the weirdest luck like he’ll spend a whole battle with shitty rolls and then immediately afterwards he’s like “ah screw it i want to scream so loud their ears bleed” and he rolls a nat 20 and inflicts d8 sonic damage + a modifier of like, 3 or something, and immediately wounds everyone in a 60 ft radius 12 damage and theyre like . BEAST BOY. 

starfire would like to do many many things please but she has to roll for them and oftentimes they dont make Sense regardless so she’d need a hella good roll. the rare time she gets a nat 20 they all look to cyborg with complete utter hope in their eyes and he’s like ugh ALRIGHT

speedy and aqualad argue in game just as much as they argue irl. whenever cyborg’s playing as a character he smacks them, in game. they receive quite a bit of d4 damage this way. sometimes more if cyborg forgets he has like, brass knuckles on. once after a battle he accidentally knocked speedy and they had to revive him with a potion fhdklfkk

aqualad likes being a cleric but once he got pissed at speedy for constantly gloating his ranger skills and now refuses to heal speedy. the one (1) time he conceded was when speedy was rolling really shitty death saving throws and aqualad was the only character within range to heal him and now he holds it over his head 

[cinnamaldeide]

#Hannigraham Meet-Cute Challenge: Infos

After having successfully concluded our Accidental Hannigraham sex initiative, and survived Christmas holidays, @fhimechan and I decided to promote another monthly project to fill this 2019 with delight and amusement in the form of fanfiction. This may not become that kind of party, but there’s still some promising ideas we recently found out, and we can’t wait for you to see them as well!

As you can read, this challenge will focus on meet-cute scenarios, universes where Will and Hannibal meet for the first time in an entirely different way. No analytical ambush, rather a serendipitous meeting in a coffee shop, an awkward moment in the libraty, a casual encounter in the middle of a fresh crime scene. We know you are very creative, there would be no need for us to provide prompts for your imagination to work, but this is a challenge after all (˘⌣˘ ) there should be something challenging. We selected twenty prompts from @meetcuteprompts for you to choose. You select one, you write your wonderful story, we collect it and promote your work in a post with the other entries of that month (◕‿◕)☆

#22: A is having a quiet night at home – that is, until A’s apartment neighbour begins blasting music. Frustration levels rising, A goes to knock on the neighbour’s door to ask them to keep it down… at the same time B, the resident on the other side, is about to. Need more detail? Click on the post.

#32: A checks into a cozy inn while on a cross-country road trip, beyond tired and ready to collapse. When A gets to the assigned room, he or she is in for a surprise! Someone else, B, is already in the room. Uh-oh.

#117: A is a professional assassin hired to take out a client’s cheating husband. But the client also spoke to B, a close friend, who has made it his/her’s own mission to also kill the husband. Unfortunately, both A and B have chosen the same night to do so, and it just so happens that B is a bit clumsy… and keeps getting in A’s way.

#143: A’s blind date just left, mumbling some sort of excuse about leaving the stove on. Confused and feeling rejected, A sits orders another beer at the bar, wondering where s/he went wrong. B, who had witnessed the situation, goes over and says sympathetically, “I think I know what went wrong… there’s something in your teeth.”

#162: A is interviewing potential roommates and is having very little luck. When it comes to B, A says, “I’m so sorry, I don’t think this is going to work. I can’t live with someone that I’d like to ask out.”

#166: A is at a coffee shop and sits down at a table, only to find a book on the chair. Intrigued, A starts flipping through it, and realizes it’s actually someone’s journal that had been left behind! And it’s fascinating. Unfortunately, B, the journal’s author, rushes back to retrieve it… and is horrified to see A reading it. But A, having gotten a feel for this person through his/her writing, asks if they want to go out sometime.

#176: A works at a pet store and is utterly surprised when B bursts through the door in a hurry and walks up to the cash without looking around. Out of breath, A says, “Please don’t ask why, but what do capybaras eat?”

#180: There has been a series of recent break-ins in A’s neighbourhood. B, a cop, knocks on A’s door to recommend safety measures and to ask if A has noticed anything peculiar — A hasn’t really seen anything, but invites the cop and his/her charming smile inside for coffee and a bit of false information so s/he might stay a while.

#207: A meets B and falls immediately for them, but B clearly doesn’t feel the same. After being rejected, A calls on Anteros, the avenger of unrequited love, to exact vengeance on B.

#210: A is a writer struggling to find inspiration for their next book. The publishers are breathing down their neck and the pressure is almost more than A can take. When A comes across an old Greek book in a thrift store, A brings it home and flips through the pages.... only to come across an old chant that was supposed to bring inspiration to those who read it out loud. A gives it a shot and... oh dear. Oh, oh dear. Somehow that summoned B, one of the Muses, to A’s living room.

#215: A is brought in to the police station for questioning about a crime they know nothing about and is put in an interrogation room… with B, who is another suspect in this particular case.

#231: A is hanging out with a friend but ends up stopping to look at some lingerie in a shop window. A is still chatting away, thinking that their friend has stopped with them also, and turns to where they assume their friend is to jokingly ask: “Wouldn’t I look sexy in that?” But it turns out that the friend had kept walking and it was B, a total stranger, who A had spoken to.

#232: A is in a public place and temporarily leaves their things where they are seated so that they can use the bathroom. When A returns, A notices B, the person sitting at the next table, putting A’s phone back on the table. A demands to know what they were doing with their phone, and B tells them that the phone was ringing non-stop and it was bothering everyone. Also… “Your friend is drunk and I think they want to sleep with you.”

#234: A and B are both looking for a movie to rent and, coincidentally, they have the same movie in mind! They reach for it at the same time and, oh, there’s only one copy left! After a few minutes of ‘oh, go ahead, you can have it’ from both sides, they agree to rent it and watch it together.

#239: A is sitting in a cafe trying to casually read their book, but is distracted by B’s loud phone conversation at the table over. B tells a joke over the phone, which makes A crack up unexpectedly – B looks over at A, annoyed that they were eavesdropping, but also appreciative that at least someone liked their joke! B hangs up and offers to tell A another.

#240: A stops at the pub near their house to pick up some food on the way home (they make the best fries in the neighbourhood) when A receives a phone call – and some terrible news. A starts crying and B, the bartender, asks A what’s wrong. As A opens up to them, B gives A a drink on the house, and helps talk them through it.

#246: A was fatally wounded in an accident and suddenly finds themself looking down at their own lifeless body in confusion. B is a reaper and offers A guidance… but A doesn’t want to do the whole follow the light bullshit. A wants to flirt with the cute reaper.

#248: A is a barista and has come to recognize the regulars and their orders. One day, B walks in and A greets them, starting to prepare their order, when B stops A with a sigh: “I’m not who you think I am.” After receiving a blank stare from A who has no idea how to respond to that, B continues, “I have a twin. I’m the other one.”

#251: A is in their backyard enjoying the nice weather when an animal saunters into view. A looks for a collar and finds nothing, but it lets A have a few cuddles before going on its way. The same thing happens for the next few days until one day, B appears trailing behind! “Aha! So this is where you’ve been running off to.” Ah, one more thing. The animal is B’s familiar.

#252: A is in the public library and notices a strange book that looks like it doesn’t belong in this section. A moves along to another genre, but it seems that this book is in every section… almost like it’s following A. How peculiar! When A finally picks it up to see what exactly it is, B appears out of thin air, and simply says, “I’ve been waiting fifty years for you.”

These awesome ideas have been selected arbitrarily among many others, which are as great and intriguing. If you’d like to fill a prompt we haven’t included, you’re free to do so; let us know and we’ll welcome your work in our collection, if not in our monthly update post. But if you’re willing to fill one of our choosing, you can choose the next: we will in fact substitute the filled prompt with another (of your choosing of ours, if you don’t have a particular preference), gradually running as many of them as possible, always trying to propose something new for you to sink your teeth into :D Our mission will be to achieve as many stories as we can obtain during the whole year with your help, our beloved fanwriters and fanartists!

That’s right, you’re welcome to provide fanarts as well as fanfictions, my deers ♥

Everyone can write or draw as many fanfictions or fanarts as preferred, and as long as you like, but please remember this is still about the meet-cute trope, so every work shall involve the tag Different First Meeting. Any rating, any length, any warning, if adequately tagged, will be accepted. We only ask of you to not be disrespectful and to stick to the prompt you choose, and honour every part of it :9 please include a link to it in your work, so anyone can read it!

We won’t book prompts, but we’re confident you’ll find something inspiring among our selection ;) and if you don’t, we’ll appreciate your reblog and hope for the following month to be more fortunate! In respect of our past initiative and our own preference, we’re concentrating on Hannigraham works. We know this is not as exciting as the Accidental sex, but don’t forget there’s no reason you can’t evolve the situation into something more... compromising ;) you’ll decide if there’s inevitable sex in store for us this time around!

Since we all know how Tumblr works, I’m tagging everyone I tagged in my last Accidental Sex post and hope that some of you are interested in pursuing this project with us. So here we are @a-hannibal-mess, @allionne, @ambar-gris, @andiemerizein, @angelchild1302, @avegetariancannibal, @ayden5956, @blackrose34, @bloodyilaria, @blueeyednightwing, @bonfire-choir, @cinelitchick, @crisisoninfintefandoms, @cutaneousmarginalpouch, @diemetzgermeisterin, @doyouacheforhim, @electrarhodes, @erodingthebluff, @eonblueinmay, @evolvingmydesign, @ethicsbecomeaesthetics, @fleeingdawn-blog1, @fragile-teacup, @gampire-thoughts, @gaycannibalbuddies, @grahamsdogs, @h4nnibalism, @hanfangrahamk, @hannibalatemyheart, @hannibalsbattlebot, @hannibalsimago, @hannigramfam, @hannigramfanfic, @hannigram-a-b-o-library, @hannigramwich, @hanniwinsagrahamy, @hunter-and-star-chaser, @ishipthemsogoddamnhard, @jadegreenworks, @jackalope-in-glasses, @janespetticoat, @kiyofan, @kobayashihatori, @krey-9-jorce, @louistennbookmarks, @mazephoenix, @maxaminkle, @mefistox, @mcsci4518, @midnight-stag, @purplesocrates, @saralecter77, @shaeshae-style, @slashyrogue, @snakesnlace, @stagswag, @sweetthingwithfeathers, @thatredbean, @thesilverqueenlady, @the-winnowing-wind, @tiggymalvern, @tinyenthusiasttriumph, @thenecronon, @whimsy-by-joja, @wiith-my-hands, @wlectergraham, @xcheekbonesandblueeyesx, @yes-yeah-yesh, @zigzag-wanderer many thanks for having indulged us so far, please bear with us a little longer if you please ^^ In @fhimechan’s or my next post, those who reblogged this one will be tagged again, and so on, trying to keep involved those who show their interest and support to us, leaving alone those who’d prefer not to be involved any further. I hope this will prove an efficient strategy, everything considered. We’ll handle things differently on Pillowfort, where we created a special community for anyone interested (o´▽`o )

In the hope of having said everything I needed to say, let me with you all a promising New Year, rich of amazing experiences and the loveliest fanworks. Fannibals are not done yet!

[lowkeyunhinged1-blog]

so a while ago @wildxplosion posted some fantasy banter she’d come up with, and now i am here to show you my own! i like to think that i am real funny.

tagging everyone that is included because they must suffer.

@wildxplosion, @quirkoficeandfire, @dekuthehero-dekiruyo, @glamie, @quirkless-wonder, @weightless-grasp, @chimeran-companion

Katsuki: I know how to get people’s attention. Tamaki: When we first met, you set my cloak on fire. Katsuki: And I got your attention, didn’t I?

Rokku: [Sitting on Todoroki’s horse.] It looks like I need this more than you do. I hope you don’t mind. Shouto: Actually, you should probably know that- [Shouting in the background.] Rokku: That’s my cue to leave! I’ll take good care of your horse until I sell her! Shouto: -she always finds her way back to me. Katsuki: Fuck. That means they’re coming back.

Rokku: Fine. Fine! The horse wants me to stay so I guess I’m staying! Everyone: [Silence.] Deku: [Uncertainly.] Yay?

Katsuki: You know the prince likes you back, right? Rokku: I have no idea what you’re talking about. Katsuki: He was staring at you the entire fucking time we were at that stupid ball. Rokku: Katsuki, everyone was staring at me. I was the most beautiful person in the room. Katsuki: You know what? This is why I don’t fucking help people.

Shouto: She likes you. Rokku: Okay, there are two problems with this. One, she is a horse, are they even capable of deciding these things on such a whim, and two, if she liked me, then she wouldn’t have kept bringing me back. Shouto: Maybe she knows something you don’t. Katsuki: Like what? How to make the rest of us fucking miserable?

Rokku: I could get you a fire imbued sword if you wanted, you know. Katsuki: For the last fucking time, I don’t want any of your stolen shit. And I’m not a fucking fire mage! Rokku: Tamaki says differently. Katsuki: Tamaki is scared of his own fucking shadow! Tamaki: I-I am right here, you know. Rokku: He’s also trained for years to master his magic and his ability to sense magic auras hasn’t failed us yet. Somehow, I trust that more than the word of the crazy dragon man. Katsuki: What the fuck did you just call me? Rokku: Did I stutter, Katsuki, or are you just going deaf from all the dragons roaring? Crazy dragon man. Like a crazy cat lady, but a man with dragons. Katsuki: I fucking hate all of you. Rokku: And we love you too, despite your questionable living arrangements.

Camie: And this is my husband, Tamaki! Tamaki: W-wait, what?! Rokku: You got married and didn’t tell us?! Tamaki: We’re n-not married! Camie: Then why did you wear that ring I gave you? Tamaki: [Blushing furiously.] B-because it made you happy. You said you l-liked that we matched. Camie: Is that not marriage? Tamaki: Not really. M-marriage is between two people who l-love each other, and it has to be officiated and there are rules. Camie: [On the verge of tears.] Do...do you not love me? Tamaki: Th-that’s not what I said! Camie: He doesn’t love me! Tamaki: N-no, I didn’t mean...I do...I care about you a lot! Camie: So you do love me? Tamaki: [Trying not to spontaneously combust.] Y-yes. Katsuki: For fucks sake, get a room. Rokku: Shhh, this is the best thing I’ve seen in ages.

Camie: Wait wait, so you can do partial transformations too? Tamaki: Yes, l-like wings or fur or something. Camie: Can you make your head a fox head? Tamaki: Yes, I could. Camie: Will you do it for me? Tamaki: [Blushes, but performs the transformation as requested.] Camie: [Delighted noises.] That’s so cool! Rokku: [Watching as Camie runs off to tell everyone what her “husband” can do.] Why do you indulge her so much? Tamaki: [Transforming back and blushing furiously.] Because l-look at how happy it makes her. Rokku: That is disgustingly cute. Katsuki: What the fuck is wrong with you? Shouto: It’s nice that he wants to make her happy. Katsuki: No one fucking asked you. Camie: Did you guys know that my husband can turn his head into a fox head?! Isn’t he the best?!

Katsuki: You stare at him way too fucking much. It’s creepy. Rokku: [Dragging their gaze away from Shouto.] I won’t get to watch him for too much longer, so I want to enjoy it as much as I can. Katsuki: What the fuck are you talking about? Aren’t you going back to his castle with him for your happily ever after or some shit? Rokku: [Smiling sadly.] He’s a prince, Katsuki. He’s a prince, and I’m a thief, and how will that look to his people? He has bigger things to worry about. He has to run a country. Gain the trust of his people. Produce an heir. I would just...get in the way of that. Katsuki: Bullshit! You should- Rokku: I won’t make him choose, Katsuki. There is an entire country relying on him, and I won’t...I can’t make him choose. Fuck, but he’s made me a better person, and I won’t do that to him. Katsuki: That’s so fucking stupid. All you’ll do is make both of you miserable. Rokku: Then so be it. He’s a prince. It was never meant to last. Katsuki: You’re so fucking stupid. I’m going to tell him. Rokku: No need. He already knows and has agreed. Once this is over, he’ll clear me of my crimes and I’ll be free to start an honest life for myself. Maybe one day...no. This is for the best. We both just need to move on. Katsuki: This is why I’m going back to the Dragon Lands. Fuck this shit.

Yamikumo: Why does he never wear a shirt? Deku: I don’t know. It’s kind of...distracting, isn’t it? Rokku: Only to those of us with poor taste.

Tamaki: S-so sensing magic auras is pretty easy, but d-differentiating is where it’s a little harder. Take Katsuki, for example. F-fire magic resonates similarly to all elemental m-magic, but it is the most...aggressive. You should compare that to the air mage we f-felt in town the other day. Yuu: Yes, his magic feels...dangerous. Tamaki: Fire magic can be. It’s the easiest of the elemental auras to p-pick out because of how aggressively is resonates, though, s-so you’ll always know what you’re up against. Katsuki: For the last fucking time, I am not a fire mage!

Tamaki: Yamikumo...is that a Trico? Yamikumo: A what now? Tamaki: A Trico. I’ve only ever seen pictures of them, and they were thought to be extinct. Where did you find it? Yamikumo: He was being held by hunters. I freed him and I think he’s just imprinted on me. Tamaki: This is incredible. Do you think he would let me examine him? I’ve always wanted to see one and I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance again. Yamikumo: If you don’t hurt him, he will probably let you. Katsuki: This is the first time I’ve not heard him stutter. Rokku: I’ve never seen him so animated before. Deku: What is that? Tamaki: I’m pretty sure he’s a Trico. Deku: I thought they were extinct! Tamaki: So did I. Yamikumo says he might let me examine him if I don’t hurt him. Deku: That’s amazing! Can I help? Katsuki: Fucking hell, now there’s two of them.

[ladyyatexel]

Hahah, now we have like an inverted diagram of franchise consumption or something. Having finished everything last night, I now have Further Extensive WTF Thoughts, but I'll keep those for another late night post only 10 people will appreciate. I've been looking up as many Japanese clips from the anime as I can to see more of Yami Bakura laughing and haunting the hell out of people, though. Especially because he gets to do a lot more of that in the anime, vs the manga doing stuff like 'okay, so he goes and kills several people playing a card game to get himself into this bullshit tournament, one panel of a baby goth getting absolutely Fucked Up by the spirits of the dead, moving on' but I definitely don't have the patience for all the filler dueling. My larger mental map of how the anime is structured and such is based on 15 year old memories of the dub and a consistent consumption of the Abridged Series over the years at this point, haha

There's an image somewhere that motivated my decision to go manga for this weird detour through Past Interests Town in addition to being That Kid and it was a comparison of the shot of confused and injured Bakura after Yami Bakura stabs himself (again!) in order to do whatever the fuck Marik is up to and it was like, "4Kids - a bandage; Original - some faint pinkish stain on the bandage; Manga - bandage but also his arm is absolutely drenched in blood" and I was like, ah, yes, my preferred version has been clearly laid out for me.

So yes, 4Kids is definitely the reason you did not fixate on Ryou Bakura, haha. I was really into him back in the day, but it was so early on in the story of things, I didn't even know the full spectrum of bullshit. I was very, oh, this pretty kid is kind of tortured and sad and he's haunted, I will draw big eyed fanart, because I am 16. Somewhere, there is the start of pixel dress up dolls, even. I did not fully appreciate at that time how much I liked twisty creepy shit and my friends all actively discouraged it, so even if I'd known how messy he got I don't know if I would have been able to get into to properly. Now that I'm 'allowed' to like things scary and creepy and soaked in blood, I enjoy it even more because I'm not trying to mask the feeling. And now, getting to see what was removed or altered and that Bakura's actually like, "I'm a huge nerd who gets obsessed with model making and detailed RPG storylines. I'm unsettling and weird! Do you want to touch my actively bleeding arm wound?? It doesn't even hurt, so weird! Check out my collection of cards featuring undead ouija board playing broken dolls! :D I'm confused a lot because I'm blacked out 50% of the time. I don't love that so much, and would like my friends to not die, but, look, tarot cards!" I like him even more than I did as a dumbass teenager. He's a Delight. I do not need to convince you of this, you also like 90s/2000s era art covered in blood. But Still, my enjoyment now and my general feelings of indignant outrage that he was not treated better compel me to yell about him when the moment strikes.

(Am I currently obtaining the 2016 movie because Bakura gets to have Some Moments both in character and wardrobe and it's based on the manga continuity? Yes. Yes, I am.)

I am glad you liked my horrifically photographed doodles! I will at some point make them not horrific photos and post further ones likely for your benefit only. I was definitely trying to do something like merging the vibes. Many of those characters are unrecognizable without the shape of their hair, or the distinctions of how evil they are at the time is based on what absolutely not possible thing their hair is doing, so I was looking into ways to maintain recognizability while also taming some of the sharp angles. There's also stuff like, 'how much of a distinctive nose or face shape can I give this character before they stop clicking in my mind as that character but still don't all look like clones with crazy wigs'. So there's some facial feature drifting happening while I figure out where things should go, but they've been fun to do.

Yami Bakura songfic sounds like one of the most early 2000s things I can think of, well done.

Thank you for enjoying me talking about Yu-Gi-Oh, my childhood best friend can only withstand so much after she endured me liveblogging like four volumes of the most ridiculous part of the manga at her.

I Went On A Manga Binge

So you don't have to

For those of you who have wisely avoided the shreds of it I've left around the blog thus-far, I had some weird notion to go re-experience Yu-Gi-Oh uuuuuh a week ago? We'll go with that. Time is meaningless.

I'd been able to read a good portion of the early manga at the end of highschool, and somewhere in my stacks and stacks of paper is fanart from this dark time, so you know I cared. I also still own a Dark Magician action figure somehow, so. I'd also watched a large portion of the anime with my brother because it had been laced with some kind of crack and we couldn't look away? I remember when we both were just like shit, wait, don't change the channel, I can't stop looking at it. And the next thing we knew we were waiting for new episodes and I was doing research on the Japanese original because I was that kid.

Anyway, unnecessary backstory out of the way, here are some... let's call them Observations and Consequences of having read somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 chapters (and growing) of a manga primarily hinged on card games from a spectrum of sources ranging from boringly lawful to sketchy as fuck.

Surprise actual character that develops in typical shounen fashion being Jounouchi. My limited experiences with the 4Kids dub and only early manga had not painted him in a particularly good light. I don't know if episodes were being aired out of order or if I had just missed the ones that established that he was making shit up as he was going along, but Wow I liked him a lot more going through the manga than I ever did watching the (dubbed, heavily edited and censored and thrown into a slurry machine) anime. I'd managed to come out with the impression that he was just as reasonably experienced with the game as Yugi back in the day. Wild.

I'm now reading every single comic-style post on Tumblr backwards.

Striking inverse to first point, wow, I don't like Seto Kaiba. Though he gets points for his general philosophy of the future, and the line I read in my sketchy online combo of scans and scanlations in which he said, "If God is in your way, you run him down," was Metal As Fuck. I somewhat shame-facedly admit to enjoying him a lot more as an Abridged Series character. (I watched Abridged as it came out back in the day! The experience of watching the anime with my brother had been so fresh that I got all the in jokes about the way things were edited and dubbed, it was great. Series remains influential part of my life to this day, which is hella weird.)

I almost understand how Duel Monsters works now. I don't want this.

That said, wow a lot of the decisions made in the anime made everything a lot more ridiculous than the admittedly already ridiculous original. I got the distinct feeling in the manga that the Duelist Kingdom stuff we were seeing was designed to be used and exploited in ways that don't make sense in an actual cardgame just played on a table like a normal person and this was part of testing everyone to think higher, differently. Maybe this is obvious to everyone already, I don't know. I had always liked that it was very, 'Not so fast, I'm going to blow up the moon to change the tides,' but I'm not really sure the anime gave enough explanation that this was an extra layer added to things for that event? You can see people actively getting used to it in the books, and people who aren't considering the real or 3D nature of it getting owned, but my memory of anime version is everyone just like, 'oh, shucks, fuck me, I forgot to consider the phase of the moon before i played this card, can't believe I forgot.' No one calls Yugi on any of this stuff because it's valid play in that situation. Plus Yami Yugi had mad trickster energy in the beginning and it suited him to think of ways to do things inside these little simulation boxes the way it suited him to set perverts on fire. I imagine the real card game trying to emulate this element as something that would be to its detriment, but I neither know nor particular care haha

Ryou Bakura.

Really, though. I think he became kind of casualty of 'wow, we have a lot of characters who really aren't able to do anything in this story anymore,' despite the fact that his whole inner life could have been as interesting as Yugi's. I always like thinking about the possibilities of stories in which main character falls into magical world and is given magical item and told they're the hero and then they find out they've been the bad guy the whole time. The first several volumes of manga were about the quiet weirdo kid that no one talked to who was always blacking out and turning into a fucked up version of himsef because he was so attached to his ancient Egyptian jewelry, so like, Bakura could have much the same shit going on. I want to know what's happening with him so much. He clearly doesn't love being possessed, but he's also so drawn to the ring. Despite it having stabbed him at least twice and him knowing it's a danger to him and his friends, he keeps being pulled back into it. You see so much more of him being like, 'Oooh, a creepy thing, I love that! :D' in the manga than ever in the anime, which I'm all about. Also more blood. I'm very about that as well. Though my memory of the anime also made it look very much like normal regular daily Bakura was just a weird facade in places before he ever would have been. I think that was it trying to compensate for what people didn't see from the Toei anime, but okay whatever, that I love everything about this guy is not news, I don't need to talk about Bakura excessively here, I'm pretty sure that's gonna show up on my blog by itself

On a related note though, damn, more of these people need to talk to each other. Can we have some existential crisis support clubs or something. Can we get like some apologies or something? "I respect you as a duelist." "Cool, but you literally built a tower designed to specifically assassinate me and my friends? You were supposed to get Better after I retaliated by putting you in a coma, but you kinda didn't." "Why would the coma have made it better" "I just told you it didn't" ---- "Sorry I went along with the plan of your evil parasite stabbing you, misled you, and then also jumped in and took up some real estate in your head too." "I understand, I also have an evil thing inside me that does things while I'm blacked out." "...no, I was conscious for all of that." "Oh." "..." "..." "..." "Do you like Ouija Boards?" "sure okay" ETC. Like damn we are reading shounen manga because no one is talking extensively about their feelings here and I'm tapping my foot angrily.

Holy shit there are so many mythologies happening at once. The ancient family guarding the Egyptian Pharaoh has a surname that's a Mesopotamian goddess. None of the god cards make any Egyptian sense except Ra, and just like. Baaarrrrely. Somewhere either Evil Ring Bakura or Mar/lik makes a reference to cremation and spirits being taken to heaven with smoke which several things, but definitely not Ancient Egyptian. Marik/Malik meanwhile is clearly trying to head Arabic, along with Rishid, but then, hey, our sister is just Isis. Goddess McGoddess. Sometimes they're the same goddess! Her name could be Isis Isis or Ishtar Ishtar. Meanwhile, all the obviously 'occult because Christians think it is freaky' stuff. ~ancient egyptian pentagrams~~~This isn't a complaint, I guess so much as a 'Wow, I can kind of see the cultural spot the author was coming from and where he was aiming' kind of thing.

Wonder where things would have gone if the card games had not been latched onto the way they were.

Managed to forget how gross the pre-cardgames stuff was on the sexual harassment front. I'm glad there was a sort of explanation of everyone drifting away from being dick heads and that that decision was made. It got way more comfortable to read after no one was bringing Yugi p*rn on VHS.

Yugi looks better with a nose, glad we got that upgrade.

Interesting to watch the series style shift as it goes away from being horror to being over the top cardgames and friendship (with blood!). The first picture of Mokuba is fucking Jarring. Also noticed that the nicer a character is, the less their teeth are defined.

Glad manga did not go as completely off the fucking the rails about Marik's face. I never got as far as seeing him back in the day because college occurred, but I remember seeing pictures and stuff and being like, "what in the Fuck happened to that dude, I think the house style has collapsed in on itself"

Things the author Really Likes: motorcycles, belts, SHOES, holy shit the shoes. These are some of the most lovingly rendered sneakers I've ever seen. All the detail on his characters goes straight to their feet and then it's stretched upward until it forms stiff peaks. Gently fold in 3000 years of trauma and bake face down in a crumb coat of scattered mythology. Remove when you roll two zeros.

Where the fuck am I going to put the extremely large omnibus volumes of this comic I purchased in order to balance out how much I would be reading for free on the internet. I should have grasped that a three in one edition would be Thick and yet somehow I was still :O when it arrived. Have I strategically purchased volumes that contain my favorite parts, maybe, what's it to you will i eventually get the whole thing because incomplete book series gnaw on my soul? yes

Wish the transition from "I've murdered several people in delightfully karmic ways" to "all you need is friendship in your heart and cards in your hand" Yami Yugi/Pharaoh had been discussed more/transitioned better. Buddy, where did you get this approved for television high horse? Please go back to strangling people with yo-yos or at least tell me why you stopped.

I still can't tell anything that looks like a big robotic monster apart from any other big robotic monster. My dude, I can't tell cars apart, all these monsters look the same.

Yami Yugi fascinated me way more in highschool? Maybe because it was still super early and the anime was like 'we need to torture you about his origins WeEkLy. Now I'm just like 'wait hold on, can we go back to Bakura and Marik for a minute, there's some extreme unpacking to do here?' Those two are paying so much more in baggage fees here my guy wow

Violently uninterested in any of the spinoff media

[minaminokyoko]

Wonder Woman (2017): A Spoilertastic Review

*slowly puts on armor from head to toe*

So.

Wonder Woman.

Get ready to hate me, unfollow me, or whatever you have to do, because I think it’s…

Mediocre.

Adequate.

Fine.

Just fine.

No more, no less.

And having been a fan of Wonder Woman since I was a kid, this is almost as bad as if the movie had been as terrible as BvS or Suicide Squad.

However, before you foam at the mouth and start lighting your torches, hear me out.

For the sake of argument, let’s say you went to a restaurant and ordered a four course meal. The appetizer wasn’t good, but it was okay. The salad was godawful and the entrée was even worse. Then, someone hands you a slice of cake. You’ve just eaten shit, so the cake tastes delicious. However, is the cake good because it’s the normal levels of enjoyable that a cake should be, or is it good because you just finished eating shit? That’s my central issue here. I think that Wonder Woman is an okay film that came after three unsatisfactory films in the DCEU, and so now everyone’s turned a blind eye to its problems. This is not to say that Wonder Woman doesn’t have good qualities, because it does, and I will highlight them. But I have to say that I can’t applaud this film because Wonder Woman is one of the most iconic heroes of all time, and I’m pained to have to say that I think they didn’t do her justice. Let me argue the case for you below.

Overall Grade: C

Pros:

-From the moment she was cast, I’ve been dreading seeing Gal Gadot as Diana. Not because she isn’t a good actress—I haven’t seen her in anything, so I can’t judge her talent—but because to me she doesn’t feel like Wonder Woman. I can’t explain it to you. It’s a gut feeling. I look at her and I just see an actress in a costume. It’s not like other heroes where they fit into the role seamlessly. For all his faults, Henry Cavill fits as Clark Kent. Chris Evans fits as Captain America. Scarlett Johansson fits as Black Widow. Christian Bale fit as Batman. To me, Gal doesn’t fit, she was just cast. Now, that being said, she does a better job than I thought she would portraying the lighter, more naive side of Diana. She was able to sell certain parts of the character quite well, especially the righteous outrage and the emotion of failing the people in the village. I still have actors I would have preferred in the role, but she did fine, which is much more than I can say for other people. (*cough* Ben Affleck *cough*)

-Disclaimer: If you feel compelled, you can troll my Tumblr and see that I have been a Chris Pine fan since 2009 and I fully admit that what I’m going to say is quite biased, but I’m going to be honest anyway: I think Steve Trevor was the best part of this movie. Yeah, yeah, throw the rotten fruit at me, but I mean it. I think Chris Pine lent so much charm and heart to the film that while Gal was trying her best, I think the movie wouldn’t have been as good without him. Steve is able to ground the characters around him and bring a vital sense of connection between them all. It’s not that Diana wasn’t enough. It’s that she is a goddess and so it’s difficult for us as mere mortals to bond with her, and so seeing her through Steve’s eyes really breaks it down to a level that we can understand. He is the most sympathetic and possibly the most layered character, since the film oddly enough doesn’t spend quite enough time with Diana’s traits for us to get a feel for who she is. I have him figured out moreso than her, and so I’m more connected to him than to her by the end, but we’ll get a little deeper into what I mean in just a moment.

-There’s plenty of action. They don’t skimp on Diana fucking dudes up, and that’s what we need. Man of Steel had a ton of faults, but they got the action right. It’s nice to be in an age where it’s possible to believably have us see Diana’s strength and invulnerability.

-Finally, finally, fucking finally, someone in the goddamn DCEU got a clue and realized, “Hey, maybe Diana shouldn’t be a homicidal maniac or a depressed alien raised by a cynic! Maybe she should be hopeful!” For once, we don’t have to deal with this depressing bullshit that David Goyer and Zack Snyder think we want. Diana is idealistic. Even though she is brought down to our level later on, she isn’t a dark cloud who stomps around being a hypocrite like Crazy Steve aka BatAffleck (I am not calling that maniac Batman no matter what you say) and Superman in this ‘verse. Thank you. Thank the gods that they adopted her hope and light into the story and didn’t try for a “gritty realistic” angle like they did with BatAffleck and Superbrood.

-The chemistry between Gal Gadot and Chris Pine is one of the better parts of the film as well. They feel much more natural than anything else. It’s not a romantic plot tumor and it doesn’t tear the whole film down at all. They also rely on each other in a way that’s well done. Their partnership makes sense and again, it isn’t forced, which can happen when screenwriters don’t know what they’re doing.

 Cons:

-So as a woman, I am in no way unused to seeing characters Stuffed into the Fridge. Sadly, it happens about twice as much to women characters as it does to men, so I always groan when it still happens in modern day fiction. This movie is an example. I am really, really cheesed off that they killed Steve Trevor in the first Wonder Woman movie. That…fucking…sucks. There is so much more character to unpack both for him and Diana, so killing him off in a sacrifice makes me furious. Do you know why? Because you can go back through the comics and the animated series and the animated films and find some really good character development for Diana as she has to come to terms with being borderline immortal and seeing her loved ones die. Do you know why we all cried our fucking eyes out when Peggy Carter died in Civil War? That’s why. Steve had to watch the love of his life die slowly in a hospital bed, having missed most of her lifespan asleep in the ice. That’s powerful. We can connect to that. All of us fans have lost someone in life and we know how it feels to be helpless. They should NOT have killed Steve just to make Diana go Super Saiyan. You just cheated her years and years of character development. She earned that relationship through blood, sweat, and tears, but no, let’s take the easy way out and just stuff him in the fridge so she can angst about it before beating Ares. Kiss my ass.

-The movie takes too many goddamn shortcuts. I’m not talking about the pacing. I’m talking about important character beats that we should have seen, but for some reason, didn’t. I hate it when films do this. Let me give you some examples. First, they skip from Diana as a preteen to Diana as an adult. No. Stop doing this, movies! Fucking stop it! One of the easiest times to emotionally connect with your characters is through adolescence. This is how we find out hopes, desires, and personality traits. Don’t skip it. I can only give you a handful of Diana’s traits because they did a time skip back then and it’s not fair to her to rush through what should be an important section in setting up who she is, why she is, and what’s important to her. Second, they miss out on a fantastic opportunity for Steve and Diana to bond on the boat. Sure, it was funny, but both of them should have like 39043506945657056 questions for each other, but all they do is quip about sex. That is an utter disappointment to me. Yes, Steve and Diana bond later, but it’s too brief. Characters’ introductions are vital to emotional connection and to getting us to root for them on a real level, not just a superficial one. This should have been a longer scene with more details about the two of them and where they came from. Third, and most infuriating for me personally, they skipped the goddamn sex scene. What. Is. Wrong. With. You. This is the second most annoying thing about the movie to me. We’ve just seen Steve and Diana travel together and fight together and then bond a little over a dance. Why in perfect blue fucking hell would you skip over the sex scene? It’s baffling. There is no reason why you skipped it, and I’ll tell you why. On a superficial level, it would actually be a Call Back to Diana’s quip about men being necessary for procreation but not pleasure. Well, why don’t we have Steve change her mind? I’m sure that would have been delightful, and you wouldn’t need to be graphic about it. Cut to the aftermath, where Diana’s trying to catch her breath and Steve’s leaning over her, grinning his ass off, saying, “What was that about men not being necessary for pleasure?” That’s funny and charming and it’s pay off for a previous scene.  Not to mention it’s implied that Diana is a virgin, so it adds to the weight of her trusting Steve enough to be intimate with him. Additionally, considering how Steve gets Fridged at the end, this would make it hurt us even more when he dies if we saw him and Diana making passionate love to each other and shedding the walls they’ve built up as soldiers and warriors. Again, you don’t have to be graphic. With a PG-13 rating, you can have a love scene without full nudity. Last, fanservice! For God’s sake! You have two insanely gorgeous people at your fingertips and you just fucking skip it?! (No pun intended.) What the hell is the matter with you? Sure, I got Wondy running around in a metal miniskirt and Chris Pine’s gorgeous body except for his little Trevor exposed, but for Zeus’ sake, throw me a fucking bone here! Literally! Look, I say all that to say this: the movie skims through moments that are incredibly important and that transform a film from being okay to great. Great films hit those beats. Great films make sure we love the characters and understand who they are, what they want, and how they are impactful to each other by the end. Wonder Woman just checks one or two boxes and keeps on trucking. If Wonder Woman was a D-list superhero, then I wouldn’t bitch about it as much, but this is fucking Wonder Woman. She is the cream of the crop. She is the most recognizable female superhero in existence. You owe it to her to give your best writing, and you just gave her the bare minimum. No, sir. That is not okay with me.

-Coinciding with the shortcuts in character are shortcuts in logic and story. I almost peeled my face off several times because there are a lot of plotholes that the movie just breezes past like it’s nothing. It’s weird that DC has contracted the Marvel disease of under-developing the villains. By far the most egregious story gaps are who the fuck Danny Huston’s character is and how did he get that way and WHY did he get that way? Fuck, man, it drives me crazy when superhero films are so concerned with having a twist at the end that they just completely gloss over any basic knowledge. We need proper set ups and explanations so that we know the stakes and know the limitations of our characters. We are told nothing about Danny Huston’s character and so we don’t get if he was even capable of beating Diana at all. Plus, any seasoned moviegoer knows that he’s not Ares, just a Red Herring, but the movie could have at least tried to sell it to us. I was just checking my watch by the time Diana confronted him because we know old chubby Danny Huston is not going to have a final showdown with the fit and trim Gal Gadot. Furthermore, the plotholes extend over the period of time that I mentioned above, which is Diana growing up. Um. So we see her bracelets repel a blow from a sword. And we never see Diana experiment with this, or ask questions, or do anything at all to investigate. Therefore…how does she know she can do all the amazing shit she does later? Not deflecting bullets. I’m talking about being invulnerable and jumping super high and then the serious Deus Ex Machina with her conducting the lightning through her bracelets. How the fuck did she know she could do that? One scene after she deflects the sword and there was a huge shockwave would have been an excellent place for her to try out her new powers. Why doesn’t Diana ask a single question about what happened? Why does Hippolyta think not preparing Diana for war, like every single other fucking person on the island, is going to do her any good? We see that Ares didn’t come looking for her, so what’s the problem? It’s not like her powers gave off some kind of beacon. Oh, and speaking of plotholes, Zeus, why the hell did you just make the island invisible? Why isn’t it some kind of forcefield to keep mankind out? They literally just sailed into it, bro. You suck. You’re really bad at protecting people. The least the movie could do is have the island be surrounded by a hurricane or a magic storm like the Bermuda Triangle or some shit instead of just being invisible. I just have too many plot related questions that movie glosses over, like Diana walking barebacked into a goddamn house full of rich people with an obvious sword in her dress and no one says a fucking thing to her. And that’s the tip of the iceberg. I can think of 3404354 more questions the movie just didn’t address. This is what makes a movie not stick with me. You can’t just gloss over things like that because as much as I try to enjoy the movie, there’s a little frustrated voice in my head asking all these questions and distracting me.

-Nitpick: The side characters are forgettable and I wouldn’t notice if you took them out completely.

-Nitpick: Etta Candy deserved more screentime and could’ve been a good supporting character to help characterize what we didn’t know about Steve.

-Nitpick: All…the goddamn…fucking…slow motion. This movie has Zack Snyder’s grubby fingerprints all over it. Slow-mo should be used sparingly, but it’s in every last fight scene and I want to pull my hair out since it’s so cliché. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it irked me a lot. There was so much slow-mo that it felt like a parody.

 In the end, I know it doesn’t matter to other people what I think. I know we’re in an age where people think less and less and accept what’s in front of them. “It’s just a movie. Stop being so critical.” Well, I’m sorry. I won’t do that. I love Diana. I have loved her since I was a kid and I have always looked up to her strength and passion and kindness. This movie is just okay. It does what it needs to do. I know it’ll make money. I know people will tie a blindfold on and ignore the flaws because they just need so badly for it to be flawless. That’s fine. I just think Wonder Woman deserves to have a phenomenal film because she is a phenomenal woman. She inspires me. So don’t think that I’m tearing her down when I say that the movie is mediocre. I just think this interpretation of her has been weighed and measured and has been found wanting.

 Kyo out.

[rocketbcssarchive]

Reading your pokegirl post, you really dislike May so much just because she came after Misty? Reading your thoughts about Dawn you're pretty much praising her for doing similar things May did just with slight variations. Why would you be "grinding your teeth" as you put it, about May? Really sounds shallow especially since it's been what...15 years since Misty left?

Okay, for like maybe half a second I considered being an adult and taking the high road by either deleting this anon or answering this as diplomatically as possible. But yanno what? You decided to come at me during a week where my patience for bullshit is actually so far into the negatives I’m surprised that reality hasn’t twisted itself together. So hold onto your diaper, friend, we’re going on a ride.

Hi nonnie.

You’re not slick.

You can pretend all you want that this has nothing to do with Serena and that this is really all about the defence of May or that this isn’t really some Misty vs Serena shit, but the fact that you decided to seek me out when:

a) I haven’t spoken about the pokegirls in months. Really, the last damn time I’ve even mentioned May or Dawn or Serena or what not was probably for some dumb meme ages ago. No really, I know what post you’re referencing and I’m actually amazed at how you managed to find it since I can’t even find it. And this is my own damn blog. So what do I take out of this? That you seriously are so out of touch with reality and so obsessed over your anime ship that you dug through one of my tags or that you had that one post saved when I first made it just so you could come at me months later? Juuuuust a little creepy, my friend.

b) You send me this collective of stupid directly after my friend writes a meta about Serena comparing her to her manga counterpart which had nothing to do with Misty or barely any of the other pokegirls.

You are that offended that someone on the internet, some stranger you haven’t met and will never ever meet doesn’t like your favourite anime waifu that you decided to go to this much effort to… what? Prove me wrong? Change my mind? Try to convince me that Serena isn’t the most boring and useless character that she turned out to be?

Here is my recommendation on how to deal with people who don’t happen to like your favourite character/ship/whatnot: go outside and touch some grass. Enjoy the sun. It’s summer. Perfect opportunity to get yourself some vitamin D. Then sit down and think about maybe devoting all this time and energy you took by doing something productive and iunno, positive? Something that makes you happy?

Like kudos to you that you happen to enjoy a character who is basically the animated equivalent of plain white bread. Really, I’m happy that you can enjoy all those god awful episodes with her and can somehow convince yourself that she didn’t actually exist for ship baiting. I am so happy for you that you’ve managed to overlook the fact that Serena is a character who’s actually a bad role model for young girls since clearly the best way to deal with one’s unrequited feelings for a boy who barely noticed her at first is to hide them for as long as possible and finally express them by forcing herself on her crush and then running away before she can deal with the consequences of her actions! Yup, girls, if you’re currently having romantic troubles in your life, please look to Serena and her example.

Oh and please continue to send these asks. You have no idea how delighted I was when I saw this while I was bored at work. I can guarantee you though that after this first ask, I won’t actually be responding to anything else, heck, I won’t even block you since I want more of these. Please and thank.

And have a nice day ♥

[windbiter]

mothman ep thoughts&prayers

first of all, the windbiter sounds are awesome. I’m not really focusing on the others, cause they have been talked about so much in this fandom already

when Ryan says Wingatron and how it’s a bad name, Shane looks actually so delighted. They do cut after that, but I bet Shane was like holy shit, that’s a way cooler name.

why does the mothman statue have butterfly wings if they’re supposed to be like batman’s??? Ryan you lied to us

holy shit guys, mothman has chesthair........

beautiful amber/ pure terror eyes

SHANE’S SCARF looks so niceeeeee

that sixpack mothman has looks just like there was 6 hotdogs carved into his skin. wait why is mothman a he?? maybe they’re nb species

the way the boys pointed out that ass. not straight. definitely not

shaniacs should all change their name into mothmaniacs

Shane said “thank you” to Ryan when he opened the door for him. just pointing it out, yknow

feels weird/ feels right is pretty much how their relationship would work tbh

BUT THEN Ryan tries to open another door for Shane but Shane just full on goes from the other passageway :D what’s on ur mind boi. he didn’t even hold the door for Ryan :D

I like how they both immediately said that the people couldn’t have made this up for the tourism, but Shane doesn’t trust Ryan’s bullshit sniff test

Ryan just str8 up acting like the mothman. what the hell were these guys on when they made this ep

that pizza looks so damn good tho I’m salivating

Shane not breaking eye contact when wiping his mouth. that’s not a straight

hahaha the pizza place owner trying to push back as much as possible, but still trying to sell the story, I mean.... go full on or go home. Especially in this town.

*church bells ring* “it’s time” - I wonder what this town’s religious people think of mothman. is he a creature of god?

the mutated birds theory is quite cool, but birds don’t act like that around humans.... this must be a full cryptoid

yeah... we don’t want you to get shot. but shane can get shot bc at least he would not die in that horrible yellow vest

are you a beer guy, a wine guy, or a field mice guy?

this... 1966′s youth was... pretty damn hardcore. double date at the TNT, cracking open a few field mice with the mothman. nbd

... some grass ...

the mothman mating calls are just. straight up the worst/ best thing they have done this far. it’s just like the hotdaga. you either hate it til you die or you laugh until you’re crying

Shane’s hair looks like he has put lots of stuff in it this time. what happened lol?

Ryan’s facial expressions are gold. enough gold for a worth it episode’s highest price place

how come they don’t die laughing over their own dumb sounds

how do you even file a report about seeing the mothman? like what, do you accuse scientists or ??? just say that there’s something dangerous out there??? I want to see this report

watch yourself! you watch yourself! you watch yourself! these.... kids

I love that little smile Shane has when Ryan says “he only moves when he wants to”. such a sweet inside joke feeling

and lmaoo, Ryan’s wink after that!!!! so precious

“batman, you’re my favourite superhero!” *mothman sounds* “never mind...” - honestly, this here is why HotDaga is so popular. Shane is a damn script genious

“shaped like a male” does that mean he has a dick?????? please answer Marcella my friend needs to know

holy shit Shane what is going ON in your head. You want people to come to you, naked, in a forest or a field, and offer themselves as a fest to you?? man I am kinkshaming

Ryan crushing that post-it note and throwing it at Shane’s big-ass forehead is great. I’m down for it

“Marcella, where did you get your sight?” “Ah, the Mothman hit me up with it”

one thing I have noticed in the fandom is that people either love the fact that Ryan pointed out Rick & Morty or they cringe. Still, cringe tho

popcorn-eating and freakishly laughing mothman is goals. having the time of his life

this bunker is so much creepier than some ghostly action places they’ve been to...

Home Alone: Mothman

Shane wants to own a taxidermied sandhill crane in his room. what the fucc. that’s. demonic

Ryan looks like a RAVE nun. what more can I say but holy

another good cryptid hunt by the masters of the Mothman Call

“we should be on Animal Plant” hahahha

the last bit where they give Mothman a “last chance”. what is this, holiday sale?

also I was sad to see no ending clip had been provided :/