#I rushed this one a lot but I’m actually pretty happy with the result? (ty to the default procreate foliage brushes for saving my life)

[aptericia]

Rafiel for the FE artscuffle! I attacked @barbieburnanator! 💕

[prosciuttulipa]

May I request h/c's for La Squadra (individually) getting hit with an aging stand ability which turns them into a child for a few days and s/o (g/n) has to take care of them until they're back to normal? Thank you for your time. Also love your work òwó -⌖

Hello, anon hon! Of course you may! And ahh, I’m so glad you like my work! Thank you for reading it! This is my first headcanon piece for the whole La Squadra gang —  it is quite long, so I might make them shorter in the future (unless you all like these lengths)! 

I also haven’t included Sorbet and Gelato, but if you’d like them added to the list, I’ll write something for them as well! 

The Aging Stand works as such: La Squadra is able to recognize their S/O as someone they’re safe with, but they don’t remember that they’re their S/O, or that they were even adults. However, once they turn back, they have memories of the time they were affected by the Stand. 

Headcanons: La Squadra turns into a child, with Gender Neutral!S/O taking care of them

Risotto:

You almost don’t recognize Risotto as a child — his trademark black scleras, red irises and silver hair are nowhere to be seen. Instead, you find yourself face to face with a kid with light blonde hair - so light it almost looks silver - and the most gorgeous green eyes. 

(You find out when he’s turned back that obtaining his Stand had affected his looks, hence the appearance you were accustomed to. But you can’t help but think that Risotto as a child looks almost...pretty.)

Risotto is a quiet kid, but you get the feeling it’s more out of choice than a duty; his silence as a child isn’t accompanied by the heaviness you feel from him as an adult. In fact, you find that he actually talks and smiles a lot more than you’re used to, voice quiet but emotive; he seems really happy to have someone to chat with. 

Is also a rather helpful and (surprisingly) clingy kid — he likes following you around and observing what you’re doing, handing you tools or items before you even ask for them. What he really wants is to join in on your activities, but he won’t initiate it. You can tell by the way he rocks on his heels that he wants something though, and when you ask if he wants to help with whatever you’re doing, he’s rushing over in a heartbeat, excited. 

When he turns back into an adult, Risotto thanks you for being so kind to him: it’d been a while since he felt that free, and it felt good to be taken care of, for once. He gives you a long kiss, before letting you know with a murmur that you’d make a great parent, and if you weren’t opposed to it, he’d love the idea of starting a family with you someday...

Prosciutto:

Even as a child, you recognize Prosciutto immediately: he’s practically a mini version of his adult self, with his hair neatly slicked back, wearing a button-up and some black pants. His glare is the same too, though you can’t help but think that it doesn’t pack the same punch — he looks more pouty than threatening!

Prosciutto is a very standoffish, but good kid. He’s very obedient and doesn’t make a lot of fuss, but there’s something quite robotic with his ‘please’ and ‘thank you’s. He also seems unaccustomed to having someone else around, often doing activities on his own; when you ask him if you can join him, he looks surprised, but he lets you (and maybe perks up slightly at the company). 

Child Prosciutto is also used to doing the chores. You’ve found him loading laundry into the washing machine, and after meals he goes to wash the dishes, standing on a little stool to reach the sink. It’s very impressive that he knows how to do all of this, but you can’t help but feel a bit concerned — someone had clearly taught Prosciutto to fend for himself at a very young age...what sort of background did he grow up in? 

You get your answer after a while. Prosciutto hadn’t expressed any wants, so you ask him whether there’s anything he’d like. What comes next is heartbreaking: “...I want Madre and Padre to spend more time with me. But I know they can’t, so as long as they come back home safe, I don’t want anything else.” 

You make a vow right then and there to make sure he feels safe and cared for; a child shouldn’t have to worry about issues like that, and the fact that Prosciutto does makes your chest ache. So whether it’s keeping him company or showering him with gifts and treats, you do your best to provide Prosciutto with a comfortable place. When he changes back into an adult, you’re hugging him tightly, promising him that you won’t ever leave him alone. He’s silent, but by his firm grip on you, you can tell he appreciates it.

Melone: 

Melone is a pretty child: his hair is blonde (not lavender, as it hasn’t been dyed yet) but just as long and silky smooth, and you’re able to get a clear view of beautiful blue eyes without his mask. He still favours swooping his hair to one side, though. You initially think there’s a deeper reason for it, but it just seems that he likes how it frames his face.

A very curious and smart kid, Melone isn’t shy about sharing his ideas and knowledge, loving to hear yours as well! Discussions and asking questions are favourite pastimes of his. You notice that Melone has a routine in initiating them: he tugs at your hand insistently, before starting with a “Do you know that…” It’s quite endearing! 

With that, Melone also enjoys reading, a common occurrence to see him poring over a book he’s picked off the bookshelf; you can’t help but smile when you see that they’re all biology books too (ah, that’s where Baby Face is from). You’ll often find Melone padding up to you, asking if you could explain what a particular word or diagram means. However, he gets most excited when you read a book to him, snuggling into your lap and listening with rapt attention.

He’s a bit of a fashionista as well! While nowhere near the eccentric tastes he has as an adult, Melone does enjoy experimenting with his clothing, tying and looping fabric to create new outfits for himself! He also enjoys ‘making’ clothes for you, clipping and knotting blankets together to create some avant-garde looks! They’re surprisingly good!

Once Melone turns back, he’s got baby fever, immediately. He remembers how kind and caring you were while you were taking care of his child self, and he’ll gush about how gorgeous you’d look while taking care of children you two could call your own. And if you think that that’s all you’re going to get away with, you’re sorely mistaken...you’ve gotten him all hot and bothered thinking about parenthood and babies, and you’re going to have to help relieve him. 

Ghiaccio:

Like Risotto, Ghiaccio’s appearance as an adult is a result of his Stand (which he hadn’t yet obtained as a child). While you recognize him from his red glasses and angry glare, his hair throws you for a loop: it’s ginger in colour, in a shade that’s as fiery as his temper. Although his hair isn’t flattened into the style that you’re used to seeing, it seems to have a natural curl and spring to it; you find yourself ruffling his hair a lot...it’s just so nice to touch! 

And speaking of tempers...you find that Ghiaccio is just as loud and agitated as ever, perhaps even more so (hell hath no fury as a small child scorned). But he doesn’t have petty tantrums — more so that he gets worked up very easily and hence ends up yelling. When angry, the noise isn’t nice to deal with, but if the yelling is because he’s getting excited about something he likes, it’s quite endearing. You can’t help but want to cheer along with him! 

Nevertheless, constant screaming is never good for anyone, and Ghiaccio needs to be calmed down —  luckily enough, you have plenty of experience doing that. You remind him to use his inside voice, giving him space and time to wind down. He mumbles to you one day that he appreciates how you don’t scold him when he gets loud: he can’t help but hit MAX VOLUME when getting worked up, and he’s glad that you understand he’s not trying to be a nuisance. 

When more level-headed, Ghiaccio proves himself to be a very bright and confident child, with a penchant for languages! He’s a quick learner, and if you speak more than one language, he wants you to teach him some phrases! He spends most of his time reviewing what he’s learned, and repeating it to you when he has the chance. And if you reward him with a hug or a ruffle to his hair...well, you’ll find that Ghiaccio gets quite affectionate, making sure he does a perfect job to earn another gentle pat!  

Once he turns back, Ghiaccio is completely embarrassed, barely able to get the ‘thank you’ out of him. But before you can say anything else, he’s pulling you into a tight hug, grumbling about how he hasn’t been able to hold you and needs to make up for the lost time. 

Formaggio:

As a child, Formaggio doesn’t look all that much different from his adult self. He has the same flashy hairstyle and street style clothes, but he’s got a bit of a babyface —  you can tell he’d really grown into his features as he got older! Nonetheless, those cheeks of his are perfect for squishing, something you find yourself indulging in as you take care of him. 

Formaggio is quite a normal child: his biggest worry is how to get out of trouble, and he always has a shit-eating grin on his face. As assassins, Formaggio hadn’t said anything about his background for safety reasons, but his child self tells you all kinds of information: that he’s grown up in a big family, that he plays with stray animals that come to his door, that he looks up to his big brother and papa. You hang on to his every word, happy to learn a bit more about him. 

Is the Ultimate Clapback Extraordinaire™. If you think this child can’t talk smack, then you are sorely mistaken. He is ruthless with his comebacks, but you can’t help loving this rowdy side of him, especially when it’s not directed towards you —  Prosciutto comes in one day to check up on the two of you, and you can barely hold your laughter as Formaggio absolutely demolishes the man with his wits. 

He also loves making you laugh! His speciality is impressions and slapstick comedy, with him calling out to you before pulling a face, or a silly magic trick. It’s his way of making sure you’re alright: you find yourself stressed one day (taking care of your boyfriend who is now a child does a number on your mental health) and before you know it, you’re doubling over in laughter at Formaggio’s antics, worries far away from you.

When he turns back into an adult, you teasingly complain that he was cuter as a child, but you both know you’re relieved things are back to normal. He sweeps you into his arms and peppers your face with kisses, promising with that same mischievous grin to treat you to a nice date as thanks for all you’ve done.

Illuso: 

It is honestly a bit terrifying how much Illuso looks the same as a child. His hair isn’t in multiple ponytails - he’s put it in one sleek ponytail instead - but he has the same smug expression you’re used to. His clothing isn’t as revealing though, which is a relief — he might get cold and sick if he’s not wearing enough. 

Do not attempt to play hide and seek with him; you should’ve known better than to trust that honey-sweet plea. Illuso is good at the game, and he knows it. The first (and last time) you play the game, you end up seeking Illuso for an entire day. The only way you’d found him was by calling out that dinner was ready, realizing with horror that he’d hidden in a high kitchen cabinet full of glassware (how on earth did he get up there). 

Disciplining Illuso is also a complete failure. It may be because you’re so soft with him (he is/was your boyfriend, after all), but you can’t say no when he starts to pout, batting his lashes at you in a way that’ll make any heart melt. And if that expression of his fails, he’ll tide you over with his words, mumbling out a ‘please forgive me’, tone apologetic and regretful. Yet as soon as you forgive him, he’s back to being catty and raising hell. 

But you can’t deny he’s sweet. You’re particularly tired one day, which Illuso picks up on. He’s uncharacteristically well behaved, occasionally appearing with little gifts and then disappearing without a sound; you receive some chocolate, a bunch of hand-picked flowers, and some hot water to calm your nerves. When he finally returns in the evening, explaining that he kept himself entertained so as to give you some space, you pull him into a gentle hug, laughing softly when you feel him pat your head. 

When Illuso turns back, the first thing he does is apologize for being such a handful of a child — there’s no denying that he was being a bit of a brat. Pressing a soft kiss to your neck and running his hands down your sides, he whispers into your ear that he’ll make it up to you with some sweet, sweet loving...it’s his turn to take care of you now. 

Pesci: 

Is the sweetest looking out of all of the La Squadra children: his hair is still styled like his adult self, and you can’t help but gush when you realize that he’s missing a front tooth! He tells you that he had lost it a few days ago, pointing to where the tiniest bit of adult tooth is starting to grow in. “I can’t wait till it comes in completely!”

Pesci is still just as shy and timid, though he gets less so the longer you spend time with him. Originally, he finds himself hiding behind large objects (it makes him feel safe), but once you start to get him out of his shell, he slowly drops the habit, coming up and snuggling up to you instead! He’s quite the cuddle bug once he’s comfortable with you!

Your praise is also something that makes him incredibly happy! The first time you say, “You did great Pesci!”, he flushes and gets all cute, stuttering out a thank you before hiding his face. But there’s no doubt that he likes it, so you don’t hold back on the compliments. Eventually, the praise makes Pesci feel more confident in himself — if you believe he can do something, then he’s going to give it the best shot he has!  

Mention anything related to the ocean, and Pesci will lose his mind. You’d decided to bring back a children’s book about sea animals one day, and when you offered it to Pesci, the boy was jumping up and down in excitement, squeaking out a ‘thank you’ before flipping through the pages. The book never leaves his side, and he’s read it so many times, he can tell you the names of all the different sea animals! His favourite one is the clownfish: he thinks it’s so cool that they don’t get stung by sea anemone! 

Once Pesci turns back into an adult, he’s hugging you tightly, stuttering out his thanks for being so nice with his child self. He never tells you, but he ends up keeping the sea animals book you bought for him; it’s a personal reminder of how much you love him, and maybe one day, he’ll be able to hear you read that book to you two’s future children...

[remmyswritings]

Knots for Nott// theodore “teddy” nott x reader

HELLO MY BEAUTIFUL PUFFS! I figured I’d share with you my first of two requests that I wrote/will be writing today. Thank you @booksmusicteaandanimals​ for the AMAZING IDEA!!! The main idea: Theo and the reader communicate through knots. Anyway, I hope y’all enjoy this!!!

tag list: @booksmusicteaandanimals​, @curious-curios​, @summer-writes​, @willowbleedsonpaper​, @strawberriesonsummer​, @jenniweaslee​, @cherrycolakxsses​, @peeves-a-legend​, @heart-of-tempered-steel​

*Not my image, found on Unsplash*

Even after being with Theo for the past 7 years and having been engaged for the past year, you still couldn’t quite believe how it is that the two of you got together. You could still remember how you first caught Theo’s attention all those years ago.

It was already the middle of your 5th year and to help keep yourself calm with all the changes Umbridge was making you started tying different knots on small pieces of string and making braids with them. You had first started making them for yourself, but then your roommates saw them and asked if they could have some, which then led to other students (some who you didn’t even know) asking for you to make some as well. You couldn’t really say that you had created a business since you never made students pay but sometimes you were given something in return, whether it was notes, handmade items, even food (especially from Honeydukes… you had a HUGE sweet tooth). One day, however, you decided that you would share your special knots with even more students, you couldn’t help it with your Hufflepuff nature. And that, gals and guys, is how you meet Theodore Nott.

You had packaged up the knot which was all green and told the owl, “Send this knot to a Slytherin.”

Turns out, the owl hadn’t heard the word “knot” instead they heard the name Nott. At least that’s what you think occurred. Which resulted in Theodore Nott receiving a random package one Wednesday morning, with a little note attached, “I hope you enjoy this knot as much as I enjoyed making it! - The Knot Puff”

Theo pulled out the ivory green knot and couldn’t help but admire the design. You had made a simple knot, one typically used to start braids, and wrapped one string around the other in an infinity design until you close the design with a bowline knot. There was still some string left over, just enough for him to tie the design to his bag, which is exactly what he did. Then Theo went on his way, looking down at the way the green knot stood out against his caramel colored bag. For the next week or so, he waited hoping for another knot from you. He no longer cared if you had sent it to him by mistake, he just hoped that another package would somehow make its way to him.

Blaise, noticing the change in his behavior, tried to figure out why he cared so much about the post. That is, until he saw the design hanging off of his bag. Unlike Theo, Blaise had the chance to partner with you in class before and knew exactly who the knot belonged to. So as to bring more smiles to Theo’s face, Blaise decided to send you a letter… only he sent it to you under Theo’s name and not his own.

While he knew that you were rather smart and observant, he didn’t realize that you would recognize his handwriting. So he couldn’t help but be shocked by the response that you had sent Theo, along with another knot.

“Dear Blaise,

Yes! I know it’s you, don’t think that just because we were only partners for the first couple of months in Potions I wouldn’t recognize your handwriting when I saw it. I mean, honestly, I’m a bit disappointed you didn’t recognize a fellow observant person. And while I appreciate the sentiment of your letter, please don’t you ever do that again, because I swear to god I will stuff a quill up your ass and make sure it stays there. 

Now Theo, I’m happy knowing that you enjoyed my knot. And while I’m sad you never sent me a letter in response, I could understand why. I don’t typically share my identity with students who receive my surprise knots, but I will with you. My name is Y/N Y/L/N, I’m a fifth year Hufflepuff, and sadly enough I had to deal with your friend Zabini for the first half of the year in potions. I will happily make you more knots if you want, just send me a letter!

Love,

The Knot Puff”

Theo couldn’t help but slap Blaise on the back of his head lightly, “Why’d you have to go and write to her?”

“Please, I was doing you a favor,” Theo continued to glare at him, “Ok, it was more like I was doing myself a favor. You wouldn’t stop moping when you wouldn’t get a package so I figured I’d make sure that she’d send you one.”

Theo looked down at the small knot that you had sent him and couldn’t help but smile. This time it was a golden yellow, the color typically associated with your house. He went and tied it next to the first one he had received from you and couldn’t help but feel giddy at the fact that he’d be able to receive more from you.

He thought about it and decided to write to you straight away. The letter was rather simple, but then again so was he. All it said:

“Thank you for the yellow knot. It complements the green one I got very well. I was wondering if you had any light pink colors that you could use to make the next one. That was my mother’s favorite color. -Teddy Nott”

And that’s how your relationship started. It was slow but extremely sweet. You weren’t sure when, probably another time when Blaise pushed Theo, but it went from sending letters and knots to getting Butterbeer at The Three Broomsticks and teaching him how to actually make all your designs at night in either the Slytherin or Hufflepuff common room. There were times when the two of you would act, as Blaise called it, all “lovey-dovey” to the point where he would groan in frustration at the two of you. 

When that would happen, you would merely send him a look, “You know, if I remember correctly it was your idea to send me a letter in the first place so you can’t go around and complain about us being in a relationship now.”

You couldn’t wait to finally be able to call your Theo your husband. You fixed the knots that you had made for today, wrapping them around your wrists as bracelets. There were three: a yellow, a green, and a light pink. The best part was that Theo didn’t even know you were doing this, you got to surprise your love once again on your wedding day. 

As you stared at yourself in the mirror, you saw a head pop into the room through the reflection. It was the man who started this relationship in the first place.

“You ready to go darling,” Blaise stepped into the room with his black suit all prepared and a little pink rose sticking out of his suit.

You could only nod feeling a rush of emotions go through you as you realized that it was time for you to walk down the aisle.

Blaise saw straight through you, “Y/N I know you are probably feeling a lot right now, but I need you to hold those tears in till later because Theo would probably kill me if he saw you crying before you finished walking down the aisle.”

“Oh please,” you sniffled, “We’ll both be sobbing by the time we get to the altar, and besides I know for a fact you are going to shed a few tears yourself.” You smirked.

Blaise walked you out of the room you were in and down the stairs, leading you to the backyard of the house you were in. After everything that had happened, you and Theo had decided on a small wedding consisting of close friends and family. Your friends like Hermione, Ginny, and Luna had come alongside their partners and Theo’s friends like Draco and Daphne Greengrass had also come with their partners. If anyone had told you years ago that your two completely different friend groups would be all together in one venue, you would have laughed in their face. But the war and the pain that you all shared made you learn to move on and forgive one another for everything that happened. 

Just like you told Blaise, Theo and you had started sobbing before you had even finished walking down the aisle. Theo couldn’t help but cry harder at the knots that you had wrapped around your wrist. To him, they were so much more than just pretty designs, they were a symbol of how your relationship started and how much you loved one another, nothing could break the bond between the two of you. And in a way, it was all thanks to that fateful letter Blaise had sent that random Wednesday. 

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

Absolutely not ready and not in a headspace for a proper full on Goodbye SU, “Thank you coming, thank you for staying, thank you for watching the show” type post, so here are some random notes on the latest eps as they occur to me:

- The blatant insistence on not letting us see the left half of Volley’s face ever since she and Pearl unfused is amazing and awful, hahah.

- I miss Uzo Aduba :( I also miss Susan Egan :(

- Pearl still at it with the bass! Aw yeah.

- The big kaiju battle... was a hug. It’s cheesy as all hell but honestly felt super right. Massive hugs for the son boy. Good healthy cry afterwards, too. Huge kudos to Zach Callison, he really really acted his heart out in SUF.

- I really thought they were gonna go somewhere later on with the whole thing about Rose’s portrait - I mean the symbolism of Steven hiding it away is pretty clear, I just thought there’d be a more direct twist/resolution to it.

- Bismuth the Truest Crystal Gem Who Lives and Breathes the Cause getting the flag, with the CG theme gently playing in the background, made my heart grow about 20 times. If asked, I’d have probably defaulted to giving it to Pearl, but honestly? This works on every level imaginable, and forms a nice thematic mini-arc starting with her debut episode and her loud, insistent “We are the Crystal Gems!”-flavour proclamations, culminating in the Forge showdown with:

Don't tell me what a Crystal Gem would do. Nobody is more Crystal Gem than I am!

To the discussion in the Forge in Made of Honor, then to the whole segment of “Who We Are” in the movie and it being a take on “We Are the Crystal Gems”. And now this nice sendoff:

Bismuth, I can’t think of anyone who is more of a Crystal Gem than you.

- I’m bummed that Steven is leaving after the whole... literally building a massive support structure for him thing (and not even just on a long road trip of self-discovery, kid is literally moving out, “possibly forever”), and I seem to be one of the rare people to think this. I love bittersweet, I really do, and it was done nicely enough, but this is a specific sticking point for me I guess. But I’ve also noticed this has a whole cultural element to it that I’ve had nice chances to discuss with friends, so that was interesting I guess.

- EDIT: I CAN’T BELIEVE I FORGOT THIS ORIGINALLY but Pearl bringing up the gag order and once again cementing that as one of the primary roots of her ongoing issues and trauma - the forced secrecy making it impossible to properly process it all.

- Directly addressing and basically spelling out the whole issue of long-running and perpetuating cycles of abuse and the endless parallels and echoes, with Connie there telling White to cut the self-centering crap? I really liked that. Diamonds doing community service, actually actively working to undo the damage they did, in fact devoting pretty much all of their time to very thematically appropriate use of their reimagined powers, tying back into/echoing the shift from Pink with the wall-cracking screams to Rose the healer... good.

Sudden? Yeah. Like with so many things and loose ends of various kinds SUF touched on addressed at least briefly to give some sort of sendoff to, I would have loved to see actual episodes exploring this, more detailed development and buildup, instead of just seeing the result. I’m happy we got what we did and that the endgame of this stuff is what it is, but I’ll always be sad Rebecca Sugar wasn’t just given all the episodes she needed or wanted, no cancellation/renewal limbo, no network shenanigans, in order to tie things together without having to rush anything. Especially since a lot of the stuff that got handled only briefly was some of the things I was personally very invested in. But that’s a whole other discussion and, you know, in an ideal world... etc.

SUF I feel gave a lot of broad strokes, went into some things more than others, chose to speak about things I felt are indeed important to discuss, hinted at a lot and planted many seeds, and I do appreciate what it did. The rest, of course, the fleshing out and endless exploration and gap-filling, is up to (jossing-free!) fanworks, and fanfic in particular. Very excited to see what crops up!

[alkae]

Little Criminals

“Hugo?”

Hugo jolted awake at the sound of his boyfriend calling him from the other side of the library. “Huh, what?”

He glanced around, glasses askew on his face and quickly righted them. “Vari? Darling?”

“Over here, Hugh!”

Hugo looked to his left and saw Varian carrying a large stack of books that was so high that he couldn’t see his face. And that couldn’t happen. Hugo stood and took some of the books from him. “Thank you, my sweet,” Varian said gratefully. With the excess books gone, Hugo noticed an addition to his boyfriend: Ruddiger the raccoon, curled up on his boyfriend’s neck. The second the two made eye contact, they glared at each other.

Neither were particularly fond of one another. Both got a lot of Varian’s attention, so naturally there was animosity between them whenever one of them got said attention.

“Hugh?”

Hugo turned his attention away from the raccoon and instead focused on his lovely boyfriend. “Yes, Hummingbird?”

“I’m going out for the day. Corona is in desperate need of their royal engineer. Something happened with the hot water machines, I think. Eugene probably used the water all up again.” Varian laughed. “He does that. A lot.”

Hugo’s face soured. He wasn’t particularly fond of “Eugene” either. He knew him as Flynn Ryder and the guy was a hack. “Well, you’d better get on that Vari. Don’t want his majesty to get pissy about taking a cold shower. How will he ever cope?”

Varian laughed and nudged Hugo lightly. “Don’t be mean. You’d be equally upset if the same happened to you.” He set the books on the table and Hugo followed suit. Ruddiger continued to glare at him from Varian’s shoulder. Hugo glared back. Stupid raccoon. Wait, Varian was still talking. “...need you to watch Ruddiger.”

What. “What?”

“Oh, well, I don’t want Ruddiger near the machines if they’re unstable. Wouldn’t want him getting hurt right?”

“Yes. That would be a shame,” Hugo replied dryly.

Varian glared at him. “Anyway, he’s going to stay with you, here. Make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble.” He leveled his glare at both Hugo and Ruddiger. “Both of you. Please don’t break or touch anything when I’m gone.” Now he just glared at Hugo. “I don’t want a repeat of last time.”

Last time was when Hugo moved one of Varian’s experiments, resulting in a pretty nasty explosion. Varian had yelled at Hugo for some time and Ruddiger had watched, amused, in the background. Smug bastard.

“Don’t worry, Var Bear.” He always warmed up when Hugo used a nickname. “There will be no incidents this time. I promise.” He smiled in what he hoped was a charming grin. “Relax. I’ve got this.”

Varian looked uncertain for a second before he softened and kissed Hugo, gently and chastely. “I’ll hopefully be back soon.” He took Ruddiger off of his shoulders and held him out for Hugo to take. Both’s stare was as if the other was a venomous viper. But, just to make his little alchemist happy, Hugo reached over and took him, holding the raccoon under its arms and dangling it in the air. Varian made an unhappy noise. “He’s not a doll, sweetheart.”

Hugo plopped Ruddiger down on the table. The raccoon chittered angrily at him. “There. Happy?”

Varian huffed. “Please be nice to each other. For me, okay?” His gaze was so sweet and innocent that Hugo couldn’t help but give in. He had grown weak.

He kissed Varian again. He could feel Varian smiling. “Anything for you,” he said.

Varian pulled away. “I have to go now. Goodbye, my Golden Dove.”

“Goodbye, my Hummingbird.”

Hugo watched as Varian packed up his stuff and waved goodbye as he disappeared through the gold doors leading to the outside world. A world Hugo hardly visited of his own volition anymore. He was gone for all of two minutes before there was a crash. Hugo turned to see Ruddiger rummaging through their food crates. “Raccoon!” Hugo snapped. “Get out of there.” When Varian realized that he and Hugo would be spending most of their time in the Eternal Library, he had filled several crates with food and stocked up on apples for Ruddiger. But he told Hugo that the apples were for special occasions.

“I don’t want him to eat all the apples,” Varian had said. “He needs to leave some for us, right?”

So of course, when Hugo saw said raccoon rummaging through the food crates, he responded kind of negatively. He rushed over to the crates and plucked Ruddiger out of them. “You’re not allowed to have any.” Hugo stomped away and set him down not too gently. In response, Ruddiger chittered at him in annoyance.

“Come on, raccoon, there has to be something for you to do that isn’t eating our resources.” He shooed him away. “Now get.”

Ruddiger shot him one last glare before vanishing around the shelves. Hugo huffed and leaned against the table. “Good. Let’s hope he stays out of trouble so I don’t have to deal with him,” he muttered to himself. He pushed off the table and stalked off, thinking that he would have the day to himself. After all, he reasoned, Ruddiger was smart for a raccoon. Surely he wouldn’t be that much trouble.

An hour later, Hugo was roaming one of the aisles. It was the spell section, which is probably where Ulla got all of her information on possession and tying yourself to a library for 20 years.

He wasn’t really looking for anything, simply in the aisle for browsing. He slid one book with a silvery green cover off the shelf and opened it to a random page. Lucky for him, he was able to read most languages but sometimes he’d come across something that completely stumped him and caused him to call for Varian.

This was not one of those times. He could easily decipher the text and identify it as Saporian. They did have a memory wand so it wasn’t surprising that they had an entire spellbook written. He flipped through the book halfheartedly, eyes glazed. He could never find a spell that actually intrigued him enough to use it. Plus, Varian would kill him.

Unfortunately, Varian wasn’t there that day.

Hugo landed on a page where the top read “A spell for removing pests.” His eyes moved across the words, saving it to his memory. Just in case. It said it would take the pest to another location, somewhere not near where the user was. He was about to read more when suddenly, he felt a weight on his shoulder and grunted as Ruddiger launched off of him to jump onto the bookshelf across from him. “Raccoon!” he exclaimed. “Don’t sneak up on me like that. What do you even want?”

Ruddiger didn’t answer, simply nestling in a spot above a row of books, resting his head on his paws. Hugo glowered at him.

“Raccoon, those are incredibly old and important books. You can’t just use them as a bed,” Hugo scolded.

The look he got was one of skepticism. He suddenly was reminded of the time he used a book as a coaster. He felt his cheeks heat up slightly. “That was one time! Plus, the book was fine.”

The look didn’t go away. He felt his annoyance rise. “Okay. If you’re the epitome of sainthood, you would stop digging through the apples when Varian tells you not to.”

Now Ruddiger looked embarrassed. Hugo grew smug. “Thought so. Now, if you would please extract yourself from my premise and find another place to sleep, that would be nice.” Ruddiger’s embarrassment replaced itself with agitation. He chittered at Hugo, who rolled his eyes. “I don’t care if you normally sleep here. I’m here now, which, therefore, means you can’t sleep here.”

In response, Ruddiger stood as much as he could crammed in between the books and the shelf and knocked one of the books to the ground. Hugo stared at it. “You did not just do that.”

Ruddiger’s next chitter was gleeful. The sadistic little cretin. Another book fell. “Stop that, raccoon!” 2 more books this time. “Raccoon, you better stop this right now or… or…” No threats came to his mind.

Ruddiger chittered. It sounded like he was saying, “Or what?”

Hugo looked around. What could he do for a punishment. His eye caught the book in his hand that he left open to the spell that removed pests. He scanned it again. “Or I’ll remove you! You pest.”

Ruddiger made a movement that was clearly mocking. How dare he mock Hugo? “Fine! You asked for it!”

In hindsight, Hugo wasn’t using his head. He was annoyed and aggravated and he hadn’t read the page fully. He thought the spell was going to take Ruddiger to another part of the library. He thought it would be completely harmless.

When he read the words, he felt the air around him thicken and, despite the lack of open windows in the library, his hair began to blow like there was wind. Ruddiger’s eyes widened as a glowy pink portal opened to the right of him, growing to about the size of Hugo. Hugo stopped speaking when he saw the portal. “Wait! Shit! Go back, go back.” But it was too late. The suction of the portal was too strong and Ruddiger had little to no grip on the shelf. Hugo watched in horror as the portal pulled the raccoon in and promptly vanished without a trace.

He stared at the place where the portal was and then at where Ruddiger had just sat. Then he said, “Fuck.”

He ran around the library calling for Ruddiger, desperately clinging to the hope that he was just in another part of the library.

After 20 minutes of screaming “Raccoon!”, Hugo admitted to himself that Ruddiger wasn’t there and sank to the ground. His panic caused him to continue holding the book in his hand, clutching to it like it was a precious jewel. He sat against the shelf and tried to steady his breathing.

Varian was going to kill him. Varian was going to break up with him if he came back and found out that his raccoon, his best friend, was missing.

Hugo had to get him back. He couldn’t lose the best thing that ever happened to him because of a stupid mistake.

“It’s okay Hugo,” he murmured to himself. “It’s gonna be okay. Deep breaths.” He inhaled deeply, exhaling through the nose. “Alright. Okay. Let’s figure this out. How do I get the raccoon back?”

Something silvery caught his eye. He looked down and gasped. “Stupid Hugo! Of course! The book!” He flipped it open and quickly found the page. He read it outloud. “Warning: if you aren’t careful, you’ll be sucked into the portal as well. Note that the spell is only temporary if the pest is close to where the portal first opened and if it’s undone within 2 hours.” Well. That was just fantastic. “If you wish to undo the spell, say these words. If the pest is not close to the portal, it may be possible to journey into the portal while keeping it open. Such a thing has never been done before.” Then a crossed out word. Hugo squinted and adjusted his glasses. “Impossible? No, no no no. I will make it possible.”

He quickly set to work making a machine that pulled him out of the portal when he needed to leave while simultaneously keeping it open. He went back to where Ruddiger first disappeared and reread the spell. The portal reopened and Hugo wrapped the rope connected to the machine around his waist. He took a deep breath.

“This is for Varian,” he muttered to himself. He leapt in.

The place was basically a junkyard.

Things, random objects, were strewn everywhere. There were also creatures of varying size and color, some bugs, some mammals like Ruddiger. “This place is massive,” Hugo said out loud. “How am I ever going to find that raccoon?”

A low growl surprised him and he turned to see a full sized dinosaur prowling around the junkyard land. His jaw dropped. “No fucking way.” Why was there a dinosaur in here? He watched, stunned, as it glanced around, uninterestedly, and then clomped off. He released a gasp of air. “Alright, I need to get that raccoon, now.”

He untied the rope and then retied it around a particularly heavy object so it wouldn’t go anywhere. Then, he took out the spellbook he decided to bring with him, just in case, and tried to search for a searching spell. Hugo figured that there must be one somewhere. After all, there was this spell, which caused nothing but trouble for Hugo.

There! A spell for finding. He skimmed it and then read it, quietly, so as not to summon the dinosaur. A glowing gray beacon rose in the air, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, and began to float away. Hugo followed it, stepping over broken pieces of metal and junk. He glanced around at the world, hoping he didn’t spot a human. That would be awful. It was already bad that he saw animals that looked like pets. He didn’t need to see a child or something.

That brought another question out of him: did time pass at all in here? Because there were dinosaurs, living breathing dinosaurs, here. So time must not pass.

Wow. What an intriguing spell. If he wasn’t so annoyed by it, he’d be fascinated.

He began to call for Ruddiger, but he kept his voice quiet. And he called Ruddiger “raccoon”, which probably didn’t inspire Ruddiger to come out.

There was a rustling to his left. He and the beacon stopped and he turned. Lo and behold, scurrying out of a pile of trash, there was Ruddiger, holding an apple in his paws. Hugo was both relieved and annoyed. “There you are! You’re coming with me, raccoon.”

Ruddiger glared at him. He didn’t say anything and he didn’t need to. His point was clear. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry I sucked you into a portal. Happy?”

Ruddiger shook his head. “I won’t suck you in another one. And, uh you can have apples when we get back.” Ruddiger pointedly showed Hugo his own apple. “I know, I know. But come on, isn’t an apple from Varian better than some random apple?”

The expression on his face clearly stated that he didn’t care either way. Hugo huffed. “What will it take you to come back, raccoon?”

‘Leave,’ is what Ruddiger’s face said.

Hugo threw his hands up. “You’re impossible. I’m not leaving Varian. You’re gonna have to get used to my presence.”

‘I’m not leaving either,’ Ruddiger seemed to reply.

The two glared at each other. “Raccoon,” Hugo said slowly. “I will drag you back home if I have to.”

Before Ruddiger could react, a screech interrupted their staring contest. They looked up to see a real life pterodactyl or some other flying dinosaur circling them. Even though Hugo couldn’t see that far up, he could tell that he was aiming for Ruddiger.

He wouldn’t let that prehistoric bastard get him.

So when the dinosaur bolted down to grab at him, Hugo pushed Ruddiger back into hiding and felt sharp claws latch around his waist. He was lifted into the air and he saw Ruddiger peek up at him from his hiding place. “Run!” he screamed to Ruddiger. “Go to the portal!”

If both of them couldn’t make it back, at least one of them should. For Varian. Hugo closed his eyes as the dinosaur took him away to some cave. He wished that he could see Varian again before he was eaten. What he wouldn’t give to redo everything that he did.

As he was dropped into a nest, he realized with shocking clarity how big of a brat he was. All it took was being abducted by a dinosaur to make him see that this was all him. He put his face in his hands. Look at me, he thought miserably. Ready to be eaten by a supposedly extinct creature because I was jealous of a raccoon.

The dinosaur surprisingly didn’t eat him immediately. Instead, it decided to go out hunting again, probably looking for Ruddiger. Hugo curled into a ball. How would he escape? Even if he did leave the cave, he had no idea where he was. And he dropped the spellbook during his flight. Maybe this place was like a circle. Maybe he could get out easily.

He wished he wasn’t so jealous. He wished he realized that Varian had a big heart. He wished he wasn’t so horrible to Ruddiger.

There was a chitter to his left. “Oh great, now I’m going insane,” he muttered. Something hard smacked into the side of his head. “Ow! Hey!” He turned and saw Ruddiger, clutching the spellbook and looking up at him with big round eyes.

He was shocked. “Raccoon? You came back for me?”

Ruddiger shrugged. Hugo decided to take it. “Thank you.” Ruddiger tilted his head in a flippant gesture. “No really. Thank you. You know, I think that all this time, we’ve just been misunderstanding each other and we should-” He cut off when he caught Ruddiger’s annoyed face. “Yeah, you’re right. We should go.”

He stood and Ruddiger made his way onto his shoulders. He decided not to complain about this. While they were heading to the exit, a low growl stopped them. “Shit.” The dinosaur was back. Hugo and Ruddiger exchanged a look. How were they going to get the dinosaur away from them? Hugo hid along the wall and thought to himself. There was nothing in the cave but bones, which was incredibly troubling. He didn’t think to bring his alchemy belt with him.

Ruddiger tapped his neck. He glanced over at him and saw him pointing to the spell book. That’s right! But they had to be smart about this. He couldn’t just spit out spells willy nilly. Ruddiger signaled his plan to Hugo quickly: he would distract the dinosaur while Hugo searched for the right spell to get the dinosaur permanently off their back.

“Will you be alright, though?” Hugo whispered. Ruddiger’s face said he was hopeful yet unsure. Hugo took a deep breath in. “Alright. Just… be safe okay? If not for me then for Varian.”

Ruddiger nodded in affirmation. This was for Varian.

Ruddiger scampered off as Hugo hid behind a rock. The dinosaur crawled back into the cave and scanned the room. When he didn’t see his dinner, he roared and hit the wall, causing the cave to rumble. Hugo stumbled and he opened the spell book. What spell would beat a dinosaur?

As he searched, he heard Ruddiger distracting the dinosaur. Or at least he thought it was Ruddiger. He heard something spit and then the dinosaur roar louder. Just that caused the cave to shake. He flipped through the book as Ruddiger led the dinosaur around the cave.

Teleportation spell… no, because what if Ruddiger was teleported with the dinosaur? Deaging spell? Maybe. But it would take awhile and they might not have awhile.

He landed on the spell that caused him so much trouble in the past. He groaned. No, this wouldn’t help him at all.

The second he went to turn the page, there was a huge slamming noise that caused him to turn. He saw the dinosaur with a wiggling Ruddiger in its claws.

He acted on instinct. He ran out of his hiding place, picked up a rock and threw it as hard as he could at the dinosaur. Hugo was never the strongest person. He was flexible and clever and intelligent but in a heated brawl, he would always come out on the bottom.

But he couldn’t just watch Varian’s first and closest friend be eaten.

The dinosaur turned, growling low. Hugo mustered up all the bravery he learned from Varian and screamed, “Drop him you overgrown, extinct, prehistoric bird creature!”

Of course the dinosaur didn’t drop him but it was very intrigued by Hugo. It eyed him as Hugo tried to stand his ground. He didn’t know if he could distract him enough to read the spell he was on: the spell that got them into this mess.

He had caught the words underneath the spell that said that the world generated was randomized each time. The only reason he got the world Ruddiger was in was because he specialized the portal. If he could summon the spell again, he could suck the dinosaur into the portal. Hugo picked up another rock and aimed it at the claw that held Ruddiger. “Put him down!” he repeated.

The dinosaur did, in fact, put him down. However, it wasn’t in surrender. Hugo was simply a bigger, tastier dinner in its eyes. Ruddiger disappeared out of view as Hugo backed up to avoid the dinosaur. He needed time to read.

And that wonderful raccoon gave him that chance as an apple splattered onto the dinosaur’s eye. Coming from experience, juice in the eye wasn’t pleasant. The dinosaur screeched and reared back. Hugo looked around and saw Ruddiger hurrying over to him and leaping onto his shoulders. He took the chance and, in a loud, confident voice, he read the spell.

The portal was huge and the two watched as the dinosaur grabbed at the ground to hold his place. But it was no use; the dinosaur was sucked into the portal and vanished from sight.

They were silent for all of 2 seconds before Hugo whooped. “He’s gone! We did it, Ruddiger!” He swung him around in celebration, book tucked under his arm. Then he remembered himself and put him back on his shoulders, clearing his throat. “Uh, thank you. Really. For saving me back there.”

Ruddiger patted his face as if to say ‘thank you, too.’ Hugo smiled despite himself. “We’ll call it even. Now how about we get out of here?”

Hugo was grateful that he tied the rope to a big hunk of junk because it hadn’t moved an inch since he left it there.

The two exited the portal, Ruddiger clinging to Hugo’s neck. They were more or less spit out and Hugo collided with the machine, breaking it. In response, Hugo broke it further. “Let’s hope we never have to use that again,” he said to Ruddiger. Ruddiger chittered in agreement.

In a show of comradery, Hugo snuck Ruddiger an apple from the crate and one for himself too. “If Varian asks, I ate both.” He winked.

When Varian returned,the two relaxing on a chair at a desk, Ruddiger curled up on Hugo. “Vari!”

“Hugh!” Varian leaned over Ruddiger’s now awake form to press a kiss to his boyfriend’s lips. “How was today? Did you two have fun?” Ruddiger crawled up onto Varian’s neck.

Hugo repressed a smile. “We had tons of fun.” He shared a look with Ruddiger.

Varian beamed. “I’m so glad you two are getting along.” He kissed Hugo again. “Thank you for watching him today. I’m so grateful.”

Hugo released his smile. “You’re very welcome, my dear.”

Varian sighed. “Now. I could go for a treat after the day I had.” He took Hugo’s hand and helped him stand. “Who wants an apple?”

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

Radical Trans Activism

Alright so que the children on tumblr calling me a transphobe and saying there is no such thing as a radical activist. 

Let me be clear in this opening statement. I do not hate or dislike trans people in any capacity. My issue is with and only with trans activists specifically of the radical type. I’ll explain.

Right now there is a subsect of Trans activists that have this idea that everyone can be trans. They use ideas like “If a boy likes girly things, they are a girl.” or “If they are a girl and the like boyish things they are actually a boy”. It doesn’t stop there though. They also will not question a person who believes they are trans at all. All they will do is just “yes yes yes, so brave so bold so great” with zero question at all. Even going so far as to say you don’t need body dysphoria at all to be trans. And their worst offense if that wasn’t the worst, is the fact they coined the term “egg”. As in “You are not actually gay or lesbian. You are actually strait. You are just a trans person waiting to “hatch”. *Also of note, this reinforces that stereotypes for clothing, toys, and products ARE gendered and need to stay separate. Meaning YOU are the ones trying to bring back gender stereotypes and keep them in place. Which is also harmful to people who are gender non conforming or a-sexual*

This type of stuff is all pretty disgusting because you will see activists lie and say this does not happen. But it does. And it happens often. There are even blog sites and discord servers dedicated to “hatching eggs”. How messed up a person do you have to be to tell a person in their late teens early 20′s they they are not gay. What are you saying? A man can love another man unless he’s “actually a woman”. The level of sheer bigotry coming off that is insane. The phrase “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” exists specifically for people like this. Neo Progressives that think progress at all costs, even lives, is the right path. It’s not. And I’ll tell you why. For the past 6 years, LGBT acceptance has been going down. Not because people are becoming bigger bigots. Not even. The reason is that being “hyper gay and angry” became a literal personality. Gay people have always wanted to just be accepted. More over, they just wanted to love who they love and that’s it. It was never “accept that I’m flamboyantly gay and hate everything that’s not gay” never once was that what “Pride” was about. Never once was that what was wanted. 

Now however, we have LGBT acceptance seeing an all time low. Worse than that, pride parades have become fetish parades. You know what that has caused? Even the idea of acceptance in traditionalist countries is now in the tank. Because they one thing LGBT people wanted all up until the early 00′s was not to be considered degenerate just because they love someone from the same sex. “Oh well those cultures are bigoted and they need to get with the times” I hear you say like to morons I know you are. Missing the bigger picture. Obama was anti gay marriage. And the only reason he was for it later on was for the votes for a second term. Meaning you need those countries to accept LGBT people in general as a large group. Instead however you have turned being gay into this “fuck cis people they are all stupid, dirty, unclean, and i’m better in every way because gay people never do anything wrong. Assault? Rape? Battery? Crime in general? Cheating? Nah never.” NEWS FLASH! Gay people are human too. Just like trans people. Just like cis/strait people. But you’ve all turned being gay into a personality type. It’s not. Being flamboyant is a personality trait. And not all gay people are flamboyant. Not all lesbians are butch. 

So how does this all play in to radical trans activism? Glad you *probably didn’t* ask. Just like with the above situation causing LGBT people in other countries to be seen as more and more degenerate as the US is almost always he main stage for that type stuff, you are all tying to erode things that are not fake. I mean people try to say male and female are not even real. Well funny you should say that because if they are not trans is also fake. Why change your body if what you feel is fake anyways. Your body isn’t male. Male isn’t real. See the logic there. Of course you don’t. You are probably either some tween on this hell site trying to act like you know better, or some 20 something that thinks they know everything. Me? I’ve got 8-10 years of psychological studies under my belt. Although, on to the fun bits. You need body dysphoria to be trans; Otherwise you are not trans. The difference is that trans people can’t help how they feel. You with your need to special saying you are trans is insulting as fuck to actual trans people too. Oh and the “yes men” I mentioned earlier? They are responsible for what is now 100′s of detransitions in the UK. Mostly teens-early 20′s. And a lot of them were affirmed left and right. Told that for sure they were trans. THEY WERE FUCKING INDOCTRINATED. And many will never be able to fully detransition either. Meaning their lives are fucked in some way or another. Why? Oh well lets list it off. 

Excess body hair up to and including facial and body hair

Hair loss

The growth of breasts on a biological boy

Weight loss or gain because of the transition hormones

Lower bone density

Less functional immune system

Stunted Height

Possible issues in brain development. 

Possible medical issues based on the hormones received that would not normally affect your biological sex. 

Dysphoria caused by either top or bottom surgery *which is not always reversible* (Which can also lead to depression and suicide feeling you made a rushed decision and made a huge mistake*

And that’s the short list. But the majority of people that were affected by this affirmation transitioning were mostly women. And a number of them were actually lesbians who saw being trans as a way to follow tradition of the male/female dynamic. And a large number were on the autism spectrum. 

So let me put this in a way you will understand. Radical Trans activists, much like the gay “children” today, are going to not only tank acceptance. They are likely going to make it harder to transition in the future. Because when the case number of detransitions reaches the 1000′s and Neo Progressives can’t hide them anymore, legislation will start to pass to protect people from all of this. Even if they are actually trans. And a recent pediatric study showed that over 90% of children with body dysphoria get over it by the time they are teens. The reason you all need to accept this is because you’d willingly ruin the lives of thousands of people just so one trans person can be happy. Which is pretty fucked up. To put that in prospective, that the same as you killing the many in the trolley problem. That’s what happens when you base your life decisions on feelings rather than logic and real life. 

Long story short? You are doing more harm than good. You will be the reason that a generation down the road, actual trans people can’t get transitions. And it will not just be a problem of the middle east or traditionalist countries. This will be western countries like Canada, The US, UK, Australia etc. Both socially and legally there will be more and more road blocks. And you might think it won’t happen but it will. Just like PC language police and woke culture has resulted in racism getting worse over the last few years. 

Take heed to what I’m saying. You can call me a bigot or whatever you like (it doesn’t make you right), but fact is as well intentioned as you might be, you need to understand that what you are doing, and saying, will bring far more harm than good. Also to anyone that sees this that might be trans, take your time, talk to people that don’t just affirm you. Honestly? Seek therapy with a therapist that will talk to you about the pros AND cons of transitioning. Do not listen to people on here, do not just listen to yes men. You need to know for sure before you transition. Just read above as to what can happen to you. You might thing it’s no big deal, but it is. Sure find yourself. But just because you don’t like your body doesn’t mean you have dysphoria. Legit go to and stick with therapy if you think you do have it though. Because fact is transitioning is not a magic fix all. No matter who tells you it is. And be sure to avoid and shut down radical activists. if you don’t, they will be the cause of trans people getting hurt in the future. Be it by legislation or by society or both. Love yourself before you change yourself and beware of people trying to turn you into something that you are not. Especially you younger people. You might think you and your friends know everything but I promise they don’t. And they often won’t be there after you make mistakes. 

[abigailnussbaum]

The Boys - Good & Bad

Being an itemized list of the strengths and weaknesses of the first season Amazon’s superhero show The Boys, based on the comic run of the same name by Garth Ennis, which I haven’t read.

GOOD:

The show looks good.  It’s not tremendously visually inventive on the level of, say, Legion or Doom Patrol, but it’s got a definite style, and not just in the action scenes.  The stagings pop, the street scenes look crisp and interesting, the boardroom scenes take advantage of the set designers’ inventiveness.  There’s the requisite loss of saturation once our two main characters lose their respective love interests, but it’s not color-graded out of existence, the way a lot of other shows trying to evoke masculine despondency do.  A ��gritty”, laddish superhero show conjures up certain expectations where visuals are concerned, and The Boys exceeds them at almost every turn.

There are actual episodes!  With beginnings and endings and common themes!  I had no idea streaming shows could still do that, but The Boys is really good at finding mini-stories within its overarching plot and structuring its episodes around them (which should be a basic implement in a TV writer’s toolkit and instead has all-but disappeared).  Episode 2 is about the Boys realizing how screwed they are by having captured a nearly-unkillable superhero who has seen their faces, and trying to figure out a way to kill him.  Episode 5 is structured around Annie and Hughie’s visit to a superhero-themed Christian revivalist festival.  It gives the entire season a more engaging structure, and pulls you along with the story in a way that most streaming shows don’t even attempt.

There are some genuinely clever worldbuilding choices that emerge from the “what if superheroes, but awful” premise.  The fact that superheroes star in their own movies, for example, or that their power competitions become major sporting events, is hilarious, and perfectly conveys the sense of moral bankruptcy that I think the show is going for.  And the crossover the show posits between superhero worship and white Evangelicalism is an obvious and perfect fit, tying into the latter’s barely-concealed love of power and authoritarianism.  Also, there are some inventive demonstrations of how combining superpowers, limited intelligence, and corporate greed can lead to horrifying results, some funny - The Deep trying to rescue a dolphin from captivity - and some genuinely gutting - the plane crash scene in episode 4 is the queasy highlight of the season, as the viewer realizes just a few seconds before the characters do just how badly they’ve screwed up, and how horrible their future choices are going to have to be.

The cast is uniformly excellent, and pretty much everyone gets a lot of different layers to play.  The highlights are Elisabeth Shue, Erin Moriarty, Jessie T. Usher, and Tomer Capon (bit of hometown pride here, but it’s easy to see why he’s such a well-regarded young actor in Israel), but pretty much everyone is good and interesting to watch.  Even Karl Urban, who gets the show’s most thankless task - he has to carry most of the story while playing its least nuanced character - manages to infuse some humor and complexity into Billy.

There are a lot of interesting, complex relationships, the top one being Homelander and Madeline Stillwell.  As a character says near the end of the season, it’s a relationship that is “hard to quantify” - does he want to fuck her, or kill her, or be her child?  Does she want to control him or does she genuinely get off on his desire for her?  Other relationships are less fraught - Frenchie and Kimiko are incredibly sweet together - but still a lot of fun to watch.

The show seems to understand that at the root of almost every villain, and certainly privileged ones, is childishness.  You see this in the way The Deep sinks into self-pity after experiencing the consequences of his sexual assault on Annie, or the way A-Train becomes obsessed with blaming Hughie for his girlfriend’s death, even though he’s the one who killed her.  You see it most of all in Homelander’s resentment of Madeline’s baby and the attention she lavishes on it.  It’s simply stunning how openly envious this grown man is of a months-old infant, and it makes every scene the two share almost unbearably tense, because you’re just waiting for Homelander to snap and kill the baby.  Which ends up much more effectively conveying the point the show is trying to make than the sudden shock of him actually doing it would have - the fact that this character would clearly feel themselves justified in killing an infant, and is only holding back because he knows there’ll be a fuss, is the sum total of the show’s criticism of absolute power.

(This emphasis also justifies the show’s insistence that Hughie is redeemable, because though he starts out quite immature, he does grow, unlike the superpowered villains.  He starts the season killing a super who hasn’t really done anything to him, just for the rush of it, and ends it saving the life of the super whose selfishness destroyed his world, because he’s actually realized that his are not the only problems that matter.)

Someone seems to have realized that having a female (Asian) character whose name is simply The Female is an absolutely terrible idea, and the show gives her a name as soon as possible.  There’s also hints that she may be regaining the power of speech.

BAD:

The use of violence - and particularly sexual violence - against women ends up privileging men, even when those men are the perpetrators.  Both Hughie and Billy are motivated by the loss of the women they loved, and in both cases the show plumps for the classic approach of single scene featuring the love interest being angelic, and doesn’t bother to shade either of them in or give them a personality or a chance to speak on their own behalf.  And even when the victim is a main character, as when The Deep assaults Annie, the focus is much more on him than on her.  Annie processes her trauma in a scene and a half, and it ends up being folded into her overall dilemma over how to be a superhero.  Whereas the Deep spends the rest of the season coping with the consequences of his actions and folding them into his general lack of self-esteem.  While there’s the germ of an important point there - just because this guy has problems of his own doesn’t justify his assault on another person or make him particularly tragic or compelling - the show’s insistence on going back to that well, even as the season approaches its climax, is simply baffling.

This feels, in fact, like a smaller component of the show’s broader problem with sexual ethics, the fact that it seems to have no way of distinguishing between sexual behavior is depraved, and sexual behavior that is just weird or maybe a bit kinky.  Like, the fact that the Deep has consensual sex with dolphins is not worse than, or even equivalent to, the fact that he assaulted Annie.  The fact that Homelander prematurely ejaculates when he and Madeline have sex isn’t a worse reflection on his character than the fact that he may have raped Billy’s wife.  And yet those cases are treated as equivalent by the narrative.  It ends up feeling profoundly anti-sex, rather than anti-sexual-violence, an impression that is only intensified when Annie and Hughie - the show’s sole “good”, loving couple - have sex that is completely vanilla (and despite Hughie’s earlier assurances that he isn’t intimidated by Annie’s strength, he still ends up being the dominant one in bed, and she even lets him be on top).  It also prevents the show from any serious discussion of the one aspect of sexuality that is unique to its setting, the possibility of supers inadvertently hurting their human partners.  The scene in which Popclaw crushes a man’s head between her thighs is the nadir of the season precisely because it’s played for laughs, for that “aren’t we outrageous” vibe that everyone told me the comic was suffused with.  When actually you could do something interesting and character-based with it, if the show actually cared to.

(Having said all this, I do think that the show is a lot better on the subject of sexual violence than it could have been, and a lot better than the source material might have dictated.  It feels significant that - with the exception of the aforementioned Popclaw scene - we never see any act of sexual assault on screen.  We see Homelander and the Deep scoping out their victims, Rebecca Butcher and Annie, and maneuvering them into a position of vulnerability.  And we see the aftermath of the assault for both victims.  But we don’t see the act itself, in a series that is otherwise perfectly happy to depict consensual sex, even if it judges anything resembling kink.  I also thought the handling of Queen Maeve, as a woman who has lived for years under a sustained campaign of sexual harassment, was extremely powerful - again, the focus is on how the abuse twists the victim up and makes them feel powerless and alone, not on any overt act of violence.)

I really don’t get why I’m meant to care about Billy Butcher.  It’s not even that I don’t like him - I just find him completely uninteresting.  He works as an engine of plot and a way to inject chaos into the other characters’ lives (the repeated device in which he authoritatively promises to solve the team’s problems, only for the show to cut away to him alone, wearing an expression that makes it clear that he has no idea what to do and is about to make everything worse, is pretty funny and effective).  But as a character in his own right and with his own story, he just feels too one-note and monomaniacal for me to care about.  I care what happens to MM and Frenchie and Kimiku and Annie and Maeve.  I even care a little what happens to Hughie.  I simply can’t bring myself to give a fuck about Billy.

I don’t see why I should be rooting for Hughie and Annie to make it work.  It’s great that he feels she helped him rediscover his moral compass, but in the meantime he lied to her, used her, and concealed the fact that he had murdered one of her teammates from her.  Annie has the right of it when she hears his confession and replies “the thing is, I don’t care”.  It would be one thing if their reconciliation at the end of the season was more of an ethical one, a case of Annie choosing to rescue Hughie and the Boys because she knows they don’t deserve to die, not because she forgives him.  But I got the impression that we were meant to read it as a romantic reconciliation too, which Hughie hasn’t even come close to earning.

If you must have interchangeable Middle Eastern terrorists as your go-to, killable background villains, doesn’t it seem obvious that there should be at least a few positive, named Middle Eastern characters in the foreground?  (I suppose Frenchie might count?  But given Capon’s heritage, he could just as easily be a Sepharadic Jew, which doesn’t really avoid the problem of Islamophobia that the show cheerfully blunders into.)

The plot kind of loses the thread towards the end of the season, partly, I suspect, because of the need to set up characters and plot points for season 2.  It’s a particular shame because the plotting had been so strong in the first half of the season.

The sound mix is terrible.  It should tell you something that I even noticed this and worked out the right term to use for it, because I’m usually completely illiterate on these matters.  But after the millionth time you’ve had to raise the volume during a dialogue scene, then immediately lower it during an action scene, you start to wonder if there isn’t something wrong.

Overall, this is a much smarter, more interesting, and more entertaining show than discussions of the comic had led me to expect, but I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t benefitting from the fact that we’re so saturated with superhero stories right now.  There’s less pressure to be the one subversive superhero story, which leaves The Boys room to be more character-focused, and to use superheroes as more of a metaphor for the corrupting influence of power and the evil of corporate overreach.  Its supers feel a lot more like generic celebrities - A-Train is an anxiety-ridden athlete; Annie is a pageant kid; Maeve is an aging movie star whose career and soul have been blighted by ubiquitous sexual harassment.  Characters who are genuinely set apart by their superpowers, like Homelander, are in the minority (and even in Homelander’s case it turns out his psychopathy has more to do with having been raised in a lab).  

Basically it feels like the people who adapted the comic saved it by telling a story that is much more generic than the original, which may be entirely to the good.  But I do wonder whether the second season won’t veer further into exactly those parts of the show that I find least interesting.  The final scene seems to suggest much more of an emphasis on Billy’s manpain and his conflict with Homelander, and the introduction of superpowered terrorists threatens to move the show away from the criticism of power that made the first season work.

[infinitum-imaginaerum]

For your svt prompts: please can you do coups, A 26 bc you’re an amazing writer and I’m a slut for your angst :)

Seungcheol | A.26 “I can’t just sit by and do nothing while you’re suffering so much!” 

Words | 5,640

Warnings | TW; Domestic violence (results), heavy angst, blood, derogatory name-calling.

Notes | So the prompt was make your own, and the requester is supposed to make their own but I JUST WENT AHEAD and picked this since it wasn’t specified and woooo boy. It’s pretty angsty so I hope you like it! Please check the status of the game in my blog’s description before requesting!

Send a bias, a section, and a number and I’ll write you a thing!

The moment Seungcheol’s clenched fist made bone-crushing contact with the side of your now ex-boyfriend’s face; you stood by in awe, wondering how it even got to this point. In the misty recollection of your memory, you’d hardly dredge up telling Seungcheol anything about what was going on between the two of you. Maybe it was that intuition he was always praised for having. Not much of it mattered as you stood there, horrified, with a hand cupped over your mouth as you watched the boy you used to care so much about, tumble to the ground as a direct result of forced contact from a boy you currently care so much about.

It all seemed to come rushing back to you the second Seungcheol looked over his shoulder after the follow through of his strike, heaving for air after they had been pushing back and forth, tugging at collars, name-calling, yelling profanities, saying all kinds of nasty things you’d never be able to wash from your ears—nasty things about you that drew the final blow in the first place.

Seungcheol’s eyes seemed to glitter, even considering the aftermath of events, as he looked at you and retracted his fist to stand upright. He turned to you, but you were wary of him—your hand was still cupped over your mouth and you matched his step forward with a step back. Only the soft shake of his head, the concerned look in his eyes, had you even considering letting him approach you at this point. Were his hands not turned palm skyward and outstretched to you, perhaps you’d have been a little more cautious, but he was showing no signs of being menacing to you, despite the crazed look in his eyes when the whole scenario finally went down.

Your hand had shifted from your mouth and down to the pendant dangling around your neck, a pendant of Seungcheol’s; it almost burned in your palm as your feet continued to shuffle back. Almost silently, you heard him call your name, cooing gently to you in a velvet tone to reassure you it was going to be okay. The tears had cropped up to your waterline, tickling your lashes, more than ready to streak down your face and did so without much more hesitation.

The quivering of his bottom lip as he searched for something to say, his brow drawing together in disgust with himself and concern for you was overwhelming, even as he had finally closed the distance enough to touch your elbow with his fingertips. Part of you begged to tug away, but the desperate plea from his lips kept you stationary enough for him to envelope you, to bring his strong arms and broad body around you to crush you into him, cradling your head against his shoulder as you finally were able to let all of the tears out and into the fine knit cotton of his shirt.

“It’s over,” he whispered.

_______

In the beginning, you hadn’t noticed just how badly you were fading away from Seungcheol, your childhood best friend who had been your day one. The two of you grew up together, in each other’s households—your parents knew him well and vice versa. It took a little more than his gruff voice almost growling your name to bring you from the trance you’d put yourself in, thinking about your situation as you tugged rye grass by their strong roots from the ground, chucking them any which way in a failed attempt to distract yourself as the only distracting it gave you was from Seungcheol.

He’d been a bit different with you as well, getting a little more impatient with how much of a space cadet you’d become recently, especially as he lay in the grass, collecting a number of your tugged rye roots on his body while you mindlessly tossed them in his direction.

The look on his face wasn’t happy as he had called your name repeatedly with no response. Finally, when he’d had enough, he covered your hand with his and just short of barking it, called your name to bring you back down to earth.

“Are you going to ignore me all day?” he asked you.

Guilt boiled in your stomach, a knot tying itself in your throat while your instincts begged to tear your gaze away from his. You knew that would be the wrong thing to do, so you stuck it out and stared back at him, despite how uncomfortable it made you because you knew things were bad between the two of you.

“I’m sorry, Cheol, I don’t mean to ignore you,” you finally replied after he had been searching your eyes for the answers, finally having been granted the ability to do so from this once-in-a-lifetime chance that your gaze actually stayed on his, instead of darting away like it usually did.

“I have always said you can tell me when you’re comfortable… I’m not about to go back on that, but what’s going on?” he asked, in no mood to be playing around anymore, and he made that very apparent with the way his hand clenched around yours when you tried to tug it away. Your gaze finally cast away from his eyes and down to your hands, his hand engulfing yours as you thought about what to say, eventually but inevitably coming up blank.

You weren’t about to discuss with him anything that was going on with your no-good boyfriend; the exact one that Seungcheol had warned you about in the first place. Thoroughly, but not without a lot of persistence, you had convinced Seungcheol that he was wrong about this boy, that he treated you right, and he did… in the begging. But the male in front of you was no fool; he had known you much longer than you gave him credit for.

With your response incredibly delayed as you tried to search for the perfect lie, Seungcheol’s brows rose to create knowing and expecting wrinkles in his forehead that prompted for your answer, an answer he knew he wasn’t going to like. He cleared his throat, prompting you again as it drew your attention back to him.

“I’ve just got a lot going on.”

It was the same excuse you used time and time again. It really just meant you weren’t comfortable talking to him about it, which he tried to respect, but eventually enough was going to be enough.

_______

After that, it wasn’t him asking you what was wrong.

It was you showing up at his door unannounced with tears streaking down your face, a frantic and hysteric mess as you stood on your quivering legs outside his front door. The first time, his throat was knotted so tight he felt like he could barely breathe. Having never seen you like this, it definitely was a wake-up call. His hands shook at his sides, unsure of what to do as he stood there in front of you, watching you stand there in front of him with your arms crossed over your chest, shivering in the rain of the monsoon, makeup messy across your high cheeks and hair plastered to your face.

A solid few moments passed before he regained semi-consciousness, at least enough to drag you through the front door of his home and wordlessly find you a towel as you stood on the tile of the entry way; at least his place was warm.

Of course, it wasn’t the first time he’d seen you cry, but it certainly was the first time you’d come to him completely unannounced, hysteric beyond control with nothing to say as only violent sobs and hyperventilation were able to make it out of your mouth leaving no room for an explanation. Part of him didn’t really need one right now, he just wanted to make sure you were okay as he toweled you off, drying your soaking wet hair before disappearing to find you some clothes to change in to; he knew you probably wouldn’t be leaving.

So after he gave you some privacy to change your clothes, he gathered the big Sherpa blanket that lay across the back of his couch and wrapped it over his back before collecting you on your way into the living room. The fire that had already been built illuminated the slightly russet tinge in his skin, but had his dark brown eyes glowing a beautiful deep amber as he looked at you. He took you into his arms, plopping the two of you on the floor in front of the fire as he cradled you between his legs, wrapping the large blanket around the both of you to keep you warm. Maybe it wasn’t a good move, but with zero protest from you, it couldn’t have possibly hurt.

When your tears had subsided and your breathing had returned to normal, he still didn’t ask you. Maybe now was the time you were comfortable enough to tell him, so he tried to wait patiently. The fire hissed and popped, flickering light throughout the living room, but the warmth from the fire seemed to pale in comparison to the warmth of the body against your back and the breath against your neck. He tilted his head against yours, rocking the both of you soothingly side to side as the tears dried on your cheeks.

“Are you okay?” he asked you quietly. You were shocked by the question, not anticipating that would be the one he was going to ask, but you relaxed into him none the less, without an answer. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to answer him, you just weren’t sure how, so you felt it best to answer simply.

“No,” you replied just as quietly. It was honest, but didn’t give too much away. The truth of the matter was, you weren’t okay, but you were in an indescribable predicament that made it hard for even you to fully understand what the implications of your answer truly meant.

Your answer tightened his grip around you, his chin sinking deeper into the crook of your neck as he held you close. He could still feel your faint but still only occasional shivers, your hair still damp but at least you were in dry clothes. You were soaked to the bone, no doubt, as he had no idea how long you had been wandering around in the rain.

Time continued by without explanation, and you put up a vain fight when he prompted you to stay. With uncertainty about where you were going to go or who you were going to stay with, he thought it better that you were with him, so he offered you—and tucked you into—his bed for the night and took his place on the couch, the large Sherpa blanket keeping himself warm with the displacement to the living room.

_______

It had gotten to the point where even your mother got involved.

In the form of a phone call, Seungcheol was informed that you’d basically fallen off the map. It wasn’t unusual anymore for you to not answer his texts for days at a time, so he assumed you’d get back to him when you could. But when your mother called on him to ask if you were doing okay, he became frantic.

A heartbeat against the cage of his chest felt like it was about to burst through his ribs, his hands shaky on the phone even as he managed to keep his tone flat and even with your mother, informing her that he hadn’t heard from you in a couple of days but wouldn’t mind going over to check on you. What she couldn’t see, behind the phone-call, was the fact that his fist was clenching at his side, couldn’t hear the grinding of his teeth as he tried to be civil with your mother.

Seungcheol had a hunch and a pit in his stomach, neither of which he was very fond of. The situation became a little more urgent when your mother informed him that you were supposed to go over to her place for dinner the night before last and that she hadn’t heard from you since before then, when the plans were made.

Finessing your mom off the phone was a different story—he was trying his best to hang up so he could head over to your place to make sure you were okay. He was seeing red as he made his way, a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel of his car as he drove next to mindlessly to your apartment, with one thought coursing through his brain.

He begged to catch him there, your boyfriend. He begged to catch him doing some whack shit that earned Seungcheol’s clenched fist on the side of his face, or square between the eyes, anywhere he could reach. Only in passing a couple of times had you mentioned that your relationship was slowly falling apart, but every time Seungcheol even thought about trying to pry it out of you, you shut down; he took that chance less and less because he was already losing the you he knew from before and was going to cherish what he had left as you slowly faded away from him.

His ears were lit on fire with the pounding in his head, his heart racing in his chest as he approached the door of your apartment, noticing it was already slightly ajar. The beating just increased, almost deafeningly pounding in his eardrums as he took the knob of your door and simply pushed it open. Upon first inspection, he was already calling your name. A nice porcelain lamp that normally adorned the end table to the couch in your living room was shattered on the floor, the lampshade not unscathed and immediately he was calling your name.

Carefully stepping around the shards on the floor, he worked deeper into your apartment, silencing the pounding in his ears to listen for you, like listening for the rustling of leaves in the forest looking for prey; Seungcheol was alert. Faintly his ears caught the nearly silent sobs muffled by the sweater sleeve dangling over your hand while you sat on your bathroom floor, legs splayed out to the sides of you, and it wasn’t long before he froze in the doorway after having processed the total destruction of your bedroom.

He pushed aside the images of your bed a total mess, dresser drawers pulled all over the floor, clothes everywhere, closet nothing less than destroyed, your nightstand and accompanying lamp and photos toppled over and scattered about as he looked at you.

Your name came as an inaudible stutter from his dry, cracked lips. Erratic shaking from himself was the least of his worries as he watched you shake on the tile floor, your hair a complete mess, makeup all over your face as you continued to sob into your hands as if you hadn’t noticed his arrival. Tentatively, he stepped into the bathroom, shuffling across the floor with one question on his mind, but it didn’t come out as a question.

“If he so much as laid an aggressive finger on any part of you…” Seungcheol trailed off, squatting in front of you to give you a quick inspection, but he couldn’t see anything on the surface. His voice was calm, collected if it could be called that, though his words implied something sinister if there was an affirmation to follow. You refused to acknowledge either way, a sob choking in your throat in surprise at Seungcheol’s gentle touch to push your hair away from your face, gingerly tucking it behind your ear so that he could get a better look at you.

“Did he hit you? Did he grab you, did he assault you in any way?” he asked, delicately pushing your hand away from your mouth so that he could tilt your chin up, bringing your swollen and glossy gaze to his.

The unnerving shake of your head wasn’t convincing enough as your head barely moved enough in his grip to be considered a negative response.

“Don’t… don’t lie to me,” he almost growled, having a good idea where to look first. Again, you shook your head, this time with a bit more conviction than the first, but gave yourself away as you tried to scramble away from him the second his fingertips touched the collar of your turtleneck sweater.

“Seungcheol,” you barely squeaked, pushing against the tile floor until your back was up against the bathtub with nowhere to go. You yelped, and hissed in pain, when he wrapped a hand around your upper arm, hardly aggressive enough to be considered a grab, and he flinched away. His blood was boiling again, even though he looked at you with nothing but pure tenderness, knowing you desired his comfort—he made it clear he didn’t need an explanation, knowing that it was that good-for-nothing boyfriend of yours causing problems as if that was the only thing he knew how to do.

It wasn’t a good idea to push it any further, so he didn’t. He just slithered fully onto the floor and up against your bathtub to gather you into his lap and wrap his arms tight around you as if to protect you from everything bad in the world. Silently, the tears continued to fall from your eyes to soak into his shirt as they did so many times at this point.

All he could do was sit there and soothe you, rub your back and tell you everything was going to be okay, even though he knew it was never going to be okay until something was done about it. Despite the abuse, the cold shoulder that you gave Seungcheol, he would never leave you.

_______

Turns out, Seungcheol did have a breaking point.

After another situation turned disaster at your apartment when your boyfriend showed up unannounced and things got out of control again, as they normally did, Seungcheol offered you to stay with him for a few days to get yourself together and hopefully make a decision he long awaited for. He knew your place wasn’t safe, and neither was your mother’s—he was the only option you had and he basically begged down on his knees for you to come stay with him.

But the situation turned sour pretty quickly.

Accidentally, you’d left the bedroom door cracked while you were changing and Seungcheol, who would be the absolute last person to intentionally peep on you, caught a glimpse of some things he wished he never saw—things he wished were never there. Splotches across your upper arms, your torso, some dark, some fading and greenish-yellow, some big, some small, stains of pain and anguish littering your skin and not even Seungcheol had it in him to ignore it. He’d seen the bruises occasionally, but you always reminded him of what a klutz you were, and blamed it on bumping into things. You knew he had his suspicions, but he never fought you on it, until now.

He wasn’t sure whether to be infuriated beyond fathom, or be hurt for you. Either way, he made his presence known pretty quickly when he cleared his throat and knocked on the frame of the door, not really caring that you were standing in the middle of a lit room half-naked under his gaze. Immediately, you were less concerned by your distinct lack of a shirt than you were about his scrutinizing gaze upon all of the marks of physical abuse across your skin.

“I can explain—”

“You have quite a bit of explaining to do, starting with why you haven’t left that son of a bitch knowing you have two perfectly safe places to stay,” he barked back, short and stinging, you almost sunk away from him as you finally pulled a loose-knit sweater over your head.

“Seungcheol,” you tried, but he was quick with something else to say.

“I’m going to fucking kill that piece of shit for thinking he could ever get away with this!”

His voice was loud, cacophonous as it boomed through his small apartment. He didn’t want to hear your explanation anymore with every intention of grabbing his coat and heading out the door to give that guy what was coming to him. When he turned away from the door, electricity shot through you, knowing you had to stop him.

“Don’t, please!” you cried, light on your feet out the bedroom door after him, clinging onto his left arm with dear life when that was the only thing you could get a hold of. He whipped around to face you, the rage in his eyes palpable through the tense air as he stared you down.

“Why?” he started quietly, “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t go down there and give him the ass kicking of his life? Give me one good reason why he deserves to get out of this when all he has done is abuse you!”

It took everything you had not to shrink away from his rough voice, from the venom he spat in your face even if it wasn’t directed at you. Firmly, you held on, tugging at his arm. Tears stung your eyes, cropping up against your lashes and threatened to spill over in less than an instant. It hardly smothered the crimson rage dusted across Seungcheol’s cheeks, but even still his eyes began to soften on you.

“I’m sorry,” you uttered, almost as a plea to keep him there with you, instead of abandoning you. “I’m sorry for making you angry, I’m sorry for putting you through this.”

The lump in his throat doubled in size as he listened to you speak, apologizing when there was nothing for you to apologize for, particularly for taking blame for things that weren’t your fault. He reeled back from you, violently tearing his arm from your grasp as if he was disgusted, as if you had insulted his family with your apology.

“I can’t just sit by and do nothing while you’re suffering so much!” he retaliated, volume at max once more and you swore it rattled the pictures on the end table of his living room. “I have kept my silence, time and time again, with the hope that you were being honest with me! Only to find that my gut feelings were right the whole time, that you were in danger and screaming out to me the more you pulled away and I should have listened! I should have done something sooner!”

Tears were pricking at his eyes now, which was quite rare—you were fairly certain you’d never actually seen Seungcheol cry, much less in front of you. He was always the rock, the constant place of assurance and stability, the only source of that you had in your entire life and here he was, crumbling because of you.

“I can’t stand by anymore,” he replied, volume toned down, voice rickety and weak as he clenched his jaw, trying to pull those tears back from falling down his cheeks. He reached over to the chair to tug his leather jacket off of it and throw it over his shoulders—his destination not far; he knew where to go.

“Seungcheol, please!” you begged, finally finding life in your feet as you lurched to him, tugging at his arm once more before he turned to you, tugging the necklace off of himself to place it over your head and around your neck.

“I should have done all of this a long time ago,” he muttered to you as you dropped his arm, anticipating he was going to stay, but what came next you just about least expected.

Seungcheol’s dry, cracked, angry lips pressed against yours, begging to transfer emotions he couldn’t quite display through words. Despite the complete surprise, your eyes were quick to flutter closed and savor the way he tasted against your mouth. With enough mind, one of your hands grabbed the opening of his jacket while the other clenched the pendant around your neck. His soft fingers carded through the hair on the back of your neck as he tilted you back just a tiny bit until he broke the kiss, his warm breath against your lips.

“Don’t follow me,” he begged you, coaxing your hand to unclench his jacket. There wasn’t enough time to squeak out his name before he was gone, but you’d be damned if you were just going to let him go.

A disgustingly cocky laugh rang through Seungcheol’s ears as he came upon the group he was just looking to see, along with a couple of your girl friends who often hung out with the group since they all somehow seemed to be affiliated. It never swayed his firm pace though as he approached the group with such fervor, unbridled rage and determination.

“Get off the bike,” he called to the group calmly, pining our now ex-boyfriend who just looked over his shoulder, removing the helmet from his head as he did just that, dismounting the bike. That nasty, cocky laugh filled his ears again, but it just drove him further as he clenched his fists, white-knuckled by his sides as his pace appeared to have no intention of slowing. Some of the girls gasped, mentioning your name, while the boys were getting ready for what was undoubtedly coming.

“Well, if it isn’t Seungcheol,” he laughed, well aware that the match was unfair with his posse to his back and Seungcheol just by himself.

He gathered the front of your ex-boyfriend’s shirt in his hands, roughly tugging him to himself, the taller of the two, “You must think you’re so fucking clever, but I’ve been on to you since day one. I hope my face is the last thing you see before you hit the floor.”

Two firm and strong hands hit his chest, pushing him away from your shorter ex-boyfriend. He laughed again.

“You can have my sloppy seconds, if that’s what you want,” he told Seungcheol before his eyes shifted over the taller male’s shoulders. “Well, well, if it isn’t the slut herself.”

“Fucking excuse me?” Seungcheol growled, launching his hand up so fast there would hardly have been any time to react even if he saw it coming to wrap fingers around the smaller boy’s throat. He slapped Seungcheol’s hand away and pushed again. Many of the girls who were hanging on the arms of their man held them back at the sight of you—supposedly some of your closest friends—to stay out of the scuffle between the keeper of your heart and one who claimed at some point that he would keep it safe, just to trample all over that promise.

“You’re really going to do this, get your ass beat, all for that little tramp?”

“The only piece of shit whose ass is going to get beat is yours,” Seungcheol replied as he shrugged his jacket off.

And there you were, stuck in the middle of all of this as you watched the smooth leather of Seungcheol’s jacket hit the asphalt; suddenly your feet were glued to the floor. It all seemed to be in slow motion, the way your ex-boyfriend chested up to Seungcheol. Your throat was drier than the Sahara, killing anything that could have possibly thought about coming out. For certain, your heart was pounding against the cage of your chest as you watched the tussle unfold in front of your eyes. There was a lot of yelling by not only the boys, but the group in the back. Many sympathetic looks came from the girls, but you felt you couldn’t even look to them anymore for anything. You were so far removed from the group at this point, and by the time it was over—could you even call them your friends anymore? They did help Seungcheol, holding the crew back, exclaiming it wasn’t their fight and they needed to stay out of it. At some point you’d moved far enough to snatch his jacket from the ground, clutching it to your chest, drowning in his scent.

The crunch of Seungcheol’s fist, once so restrained, against the cheekbone of your ex-boyfriend drew a hand up to cover your mouth, the subsequent gasps ringing through the air didn’t even seem to faze you as you watched the bloodied face of a boy you once loved tumble to the ground. You were sure the ground was shaking under you, but it was just you, quivering on your two legs as you stared at Seungcheol, at the way he shook out his hand after the follow through, pained from the contact.

It was hard to look at him the same anymore, after all of the things he said to his fighting counterpart. Nasty things you were certain could never fall from his mouth as they tussled, small punches here and there, but none wound up quite like his.

The breath you were about to take hitched in your throat the second Seungcheol looked over his shoulder at you. His face was slightly bloodied, but you were one hundred percent certain it wasn’t his own blood. His eyes seemed to glimmer, despite the situation as his shoulders heaved, lungs searching for air that you seemed to take away from him. Part of you was concerned he wasn’t finished as the shorter male groaned and writhed on the ground, but he retracted and stood upright, allowing for the crew to come collect the boy on the ground.

Over his back, his heaving shoulders, the back of his dark head of hair, your eyes traveled everywhere until he finally turned to face you. You were sure he called your name by the way his mouth moved, but you couldn’t hear anything over the pounding in your throat. Confidently, you could say in that very moment, you feared Seungcheol in a similar way to your ex-boyfriend. He stepped towards you, and cautiously, you stepped away.

The glossy finish that covered your tear-ridden eyes drew concern onto Seungcheol’s face. He drew his bloodied fist behind his back, as if that was to absolve everything that had already happened right in front of your eyes. He watched the way you gripped the pendant around your neck, the way your breath choked in your throat, the way you looked over him—cautious of him. He shook his head; this was exactly why he didn’t want you to follow him, the fear you would see him differently after everything was said and done.

When you finally were able to speak out his name, he already had something to say to you in reassurance.

“I will never do anything but passionately defend you until my last breath. Watching you stand here and look at me like this… with that hint of fear in your eyes…”

You shook your head, not wanting to hear anything else as your tears finally trickled down your cheek, stepping back when he stepped again.

“I knew you would see me differently after this. I begged you not to follow me. These hands would never touch you anything other than tenderly, but I can see the fear, the hesitation I knew would be there and if I lost you because of it, at least I defended what was right.”

During his small speech, he’d managed to make it within arms-length of you, both of his hands out to you, turned skyward to reassure you there was nothing there, nothing but openness, nothing but affection, nothing other than the Seungcheol you always knew. He touched your elbow, coaxing you towards him until he was able to cradle your head against his shoulder, feeling the tension leave your body as you were finally able to cry into his chest.

“It’s over,” he whispered. “You never have to go through this again. You’ve been so strong and maybe I was rash—I never want to see that level of hurt on you, physically or emotionally, ever again.”

“Please, take me home with you,” was all you could muster as a response against his chest.

His heart panged for you, the desperation in your voice crushing him on the inside. There would be a lot of talking to be had, probably a couple of late nights as you sorted everything out. Seungcheol had saved you from the worst, there was no disagreeing with that, but it would definitely take some time to associate everything you witnessed today with that as something positive instead of something negative. It would take a while before you didn’t flinch anymore, before he could touch you tenderly as promised and have you lean into it instead of check him every step of the way.

He was the boy you should have been with the whole time, from the beginning; his heart had always belonged to you. You hated that it took so much for you to see it, for you to be on the verge of losing him entirely to finally realize your rightful spot all along.

Seungcheol was nothing but patient, kind, and loving as he helped you through the recovery process. He kissed your bruises every day until they were gone, and even after, kissed against your skin to reassure you that he was passionate about you. He held you close when you’d wake in the middle of the night with nightmares of the past. Never did he lift a finger to you that wasn’t tender. He loved you properly, avidly, hearteningly. You were open with him again, his again, the way you should have been, the way you were before.

He wanted to give you the world, but his world was you.

[airiustide]

Fair Warning to my Heart

Chapter 3 of The Water Witch of Biei Village

Summary: The family gets ready for a new addition.  Katara wants to experience this moment with the people she loves. With Izumi and Zuko by her side, Katara knows she can get through anything.

A/N: Please note that some of Katara's birthing experience is based off my own. Everyone has their views on the right way to give birth, and I don't believe a single one of them are wrong, as long a you were happy with the results, so please don't comment if you disagree or possibly feel offended. This is the last chapter to this fic. Thank you all for the likes, comments and reblogs. I really enjoyed writing this.

Chapter 1 2

Chapter 3 posted on AO3

A nice bath did the trick. Katara relaxes with a contented sigh as she wraps a clean robe around herself and sits at the vanity, humming as she brushes her curly, long hair. The palace was quiet now that the day’s events ended.

Summer Solstice was a big thing in the Fire Nation. Across the nation towns, villages, and cities celebrated with their own versions of festivities. It was something Katara liked about the people here. They didn’t have these kinds of celebrations in the South Pole. Their withered, little village could hardly stand as it was before she was even born.

Izumi had her fill of fun today; squealing with excitement over the various venders lined up in the streets with food, gifts and trinkets. The fireworks were a favorite of both mother and daughter.

Zuko wouldn’t have it, at first. The two of them walking through the city alone. Katara convinced him with the promise that they would always stay with his guard during their visit to the city. She reluctantly agrees, wanting to spend this time with Izumi before the baby came.

They had discovered that Katara was pregnant not even half a year after Izumi’s fifth birthday. A result from a visit to the Northern Water Tribe. Zuko was needed to go over new trades. Katara begged him to take her so she could see the ice city for herself. It was breathtaking, nothing like the South Pole. Though, she didn’t care for their customs, the people were kind. Chief Arnook had asked if her and Zuko were married. They explained that the Fire Nation would not recognize a union between royalty and a commoner. Sad to hear that, Arnook proposed that they marry in the Northern Water Tribe; they would always recognize the couple as a union in their country.

There was no need to think it through; they loved each other, and they couldn’t help but jump on the opportunity.

Zuko thought she looked beautiful in a white water tribe parka and Katara thought he looked handsome in traditional water tribe attire; hair tied in a wolf’s tail, a single beaded braid tucked behind his ear.

They made love without precautions that night and neither cared.

Now she was mere weeks away from giving birth. With a request, she had sought the help of Yugoda and several other healers from the Northern Water Tribe to help aid in the birthing process along with Kioko.

Katara’s not at all startled when Zuko storms in the room. He sighs an aggravated growl and tosses his crown on the dresser.

“Long day?”

Zuko barely looks over his shoulder and nods. Katara sees that he’s favoring the left side of his neck where his shoulder meets and gets up, telling him to lie face down on the bed and relax. Zuko removes his armor and royal robes until he’s left in nothing but his boots and trousers, falling flat on the bed with a groan. “You’d think with summer solstice my advisors would go easy on me. Proposal after damn proposal, yet no one seemed to want to come to a compromise or even stick to one subject for that matter.” Zuko groans louder, Katara’s hands working his neck muscles. His limbs fall limp. “Why can’t my days be more like this?” He muffles in the pillow. “Just me, you, Izumi, the baby and your healing hands.”

Katara chortles, planting a kiss on the back of Zuko’s neck. “That kind of luxury doesn’t come with being a Fire Lord. But no one is more capable of handling this than you are, Zuko.”

“Mmm.” Zuko hums when she works through a rough knot in his left shoulder. “There’s a lot of thing I’m not capable of...you make that possible somehow, love.”

Katara shakes her head. “I’m just a healer.”

Zuko rolls on his back, pulling Katara on top of him. “You are more than just a healer. You are powerful, beautiful, and undeniably talented. You’re a true master of your element, a respected diplomat when the other ambassadors don’t know apples from Adam and an amazing partner and mother. I can’t see my life any better otherwise or the lives you’ve touched in this nation.”

Katara smiles ear to ear, cerulean eyes lit up for the man she loved. “You think too highly of me, Fire Lord Zuko.”

“On the contrary, Master Katara, I don’t think enough of you.” His hands slide up and down her arms and he kisses up her bicep to the crook of her neck. “Maybe I should build a shrine to prove a point.”

Katara rolls her eyes, sitting up, and smacks Zuko on the bottom to get him to lay back on his stomach again. “On your belly, your majesty.”

“Feisty.” Zuko teases. “That’s what I really like about you. Shouldn’t I be the one giving you a massage? You’re pretty far along, Kat.”

“This is actually a good distraction. I haven’t been able to sit still for days. I think this is what Yugoda calls the ‘nesting stage’.”

“You really think you’re that close?”

“Hmm...I don’t know, I’m still a few weeks away.”

“Don’t rely on estimations. She’ll come when she’s ready.”

“And how do you know it’s a girl?”

“Instinct.”

Yeah, where have I heard that before. Katara mentally remarks. “Izumi’s been curious about my pregnancy a lot lately. Today, she asked me where babies come from.”

Zuko’s eyes almost pop out of his head. “Please tell me you told her that a messenger hawk delivers them to parents who make wishes?”

“Really? That’s what you come up with?” Katara sighs. “I was honest. I told her babies are born in the belly of a mother as a result of two people in love. And that in some cases mothers have babies on their own due to certain circumstances but that doesn’t change how a mother loves her child. It was pretty deep, but I didn’t go into anything inappropriate.”

“And you believe somehow she understands that?”

“Children a more discerning than adults are led to believe. Give her some credit, Zuko.”

He sighs, knowing Katara was one-hundred percent right. “Of course, love.”

It’s not even dawn yet. A dull pain like an electric shock course across Katara’s abdomen. She sits up in bed, blinking twice, thinking maybe the pain was just a dream. She waits about fifteen- twenty minutes maybe- before she shrugs it off and sinks back into bed. Another pang hits her this time, harder. It lasts for maybe a minute before subsiding.

“Zuko.” She shakes his sleeping form. “Zuko. Get up. I think I’m in labor.”

Katara jumps when he jolts out of bed, frantically turning in circles. His long hair in a messy bun, eyes still glazed and red with sleep. “Yugoda!” he shouts, tripping on his feet, getting back up and running out of the room.

“Zuko! Your robe.” But it was too late. He already stumbled out the room with only his sleep trousers. Katara shakes her head. Her contractions were still far apart, so they could’ve taken the time to get to the birthing room.

Katara sighs, getting out of bed to gather some things. Kioko shows up to help, stating the Fire Lord is currently running the halls in search for the waterbending healer. Katara asks if he had any luck making it to the guest quarters. Kioko only laughs telling her Yugoda is preparing the room for her as they speak. The Fire Lord will learn that once he stops his panicked roaming.

“Should I wake the princess, madam?”

“No. let her sleep a little longer. It’s still early.”

Zuko’s already in the birthing room, being scolded by Yugoda for running around the palace indecent and that he should be setting an example considering his status. After taking an earful, Zuko accepts a tunic Katara brought along for him and the healers begin to undress Katara; dressing her in water tribe bindings for comfort and tying her hair in a loose bun.

“It is most unorthodox, your majesty.” Advisor Chu exclaimed in the Fire Lord’s study. Zuko was there to rush through some final things before heading back to the birthing room. Katara urged that it was okay since her contractions weren’t anywhere near close together. He remembers Mai and how many long hours it took to have Izumi. “For a man, especially of your stature, to be in the room as well as the princess, while she gives birth is barbaric.”

“You dare question the life choices of me and my family?” He wasn’t there for Mai. He’d be damn if he wasn’t for Katara. “Watch your tongue, Chu, that is my wife and the mother of my two children you are speaking of.”

But Chu doesn’t give up. “I’m just saying,” he argues, “since this waterbender has come along, she has been defiant of any and all of our traditions. This is profane! Do you not see what she is doing? Joining you in matrimony in a completely different country, even though the Fire Nation will never accept it? Having you participate in the birth-”

“I don’t need a documented parchment with a stamp of approval for Katara to be my wife. And I don’t need you telling me what’s best for my family and the decisions we make- as a family. You are entitled to your opinion, Chu, but in the end, this is mine. I give my life and duty for this country but when it comes to the people I love, that’s mine to do with what I please, and I don’t need your superficial advice to tell me otherwise.”

This wasn’t the first time something like this was brought up, and frankly, Zuko was tired of hearing it but he will be there for Katara and so will Izumi. This was their wish.

Zuko returns to the birthing room, refusing to give Chu another word. It was mid-morning by then and Izumi was already up and handing Katara a glass of water which she turned ice and crumbled, chewing since liquids wren’t allowed to be consumed while in labor.

“Daddy, look. I’m helping.” The six-year-old grinned happily.

“You all right?” Katara asked, sweat formed on her brow but Zuko could tell she was forcing herself from expressing the pain she was going though. Her problems came first.

“I’m fine. What can I do to help?”

“Her water broke about a couple hours ago but she’s dilating at a slow pace.” Yugoda informs. Katara whines, rocking her hips while standing and leans against the bed post.

“Shouldn’t she be lying down?” Zuko asks worriedly.

Yugoda laughs. “No wonder your woman go through such excruciating births. No. Unless baby and mother are in danger, it’s good for Katara to move as she pleases, in any position she’s comfortable with. I ran a bath for her just in case, there’s a mat on the floor by the bed, and my healers are prepared to aid in anything Katara needs.”

“W-what should I do?”

Yugoda pats his arm, chuckling at his confusion. “You just be there for your partner.”

Zuko can see the relief in Katara eyes as he took her into his arms. He holds her arms as she leans her forehead against his mid-chest, back bent and rocking side to side. Zuko joins her, allowing her to use him in any way she needed. Yugoda checks to see how mother and child is doing. She claims the baby’s head is facing sideways and that Katara would have to kneel on her hands and knees to reposition it. Zuko massages her back; long, low groans drawled out of Katara’s mouth, the contractions now moving to ten minutes apart.

Yugado checks again, the baby now in the right position. She reminds Katara to take deep, slow breaths through the contractions. Katara says the pain is worse in her back. Yugoda concludes that it most likely is back labor.

Hours go by. The healers are on stand by and Katara is now bent over the bed on her knees, Zuko rubbing her lower back with his thumbs. Izumi is lying in front of her, just awakening from a nap.

“Mommy.” Izumi whispers. A small hand touches Katara’s cheek and she smiles.

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Are you hurting?”

“Mmm, only a little bit but I’ll be fine.”

“Oh...okay.” Izumi pauses, contemplating what she should say next. She knew her mother was going through some kind of pain and wanted to encourage her. She then strokes her mother’s hair; just like when Katara would when she was feeling down. “You’re doing a good job, Mommy.”

Katara laughs softly, a huge smile on her face. “Thank you, sweetie.” she reaches out to caress Izumi’s cheek. This was what she wanted since she first learned she was with child. These beautiful moments she could spend with her family. No noise, no stress- just her and her daughter and husband. “I feel so much better now.”

“I love you, mommy.”

Katara kisses Izumi on the forehead, a smile on her lips. “I love you too, Izumi.”

It’s well past midnight when the contractions are now just a few minutes apart. Izumi had fallen asleep again, Kioko holding her as everyone moves to the bathtub. They carefully help Katara in, Zuko sliding in behind her, both hands laid gently on her waist. Her groans get louder, the water at least soothes the some of the pain, but the pressure against her pelvis becomes too much. Through obscured hearing, the healers are telling her to push through every contraction. Everything around Katara is moving in slow motion, she could hardly make out her surroundings. When she remembers to push again, Katara dips her hands in the water, bringing them back up and a cry brings her back.

She brings the baby to her chest, gasping as the weight in her belly disappears. Katara immediately bursts out in tears. Zuko’s running his hands up and down her arms, praising her over and over, sobbing uncontrollably.

It’s a girl.

It was strange how instinct kicks in; bringing the child to her breast once she’s cleaned and placed back in Katara’s arms. An index finger traces down the infant’s round cheek and Katara can hardly believe she did this. 

Katara wakes up. Izumi is still asleep next to her, hues of sunlight stretched across the sheets from the bedroom window. Her eyes flicker to the balcony windows where Zuko is holding their newborn. He’s lit up, pressing their daughter to his cheek and speaking softly.

“Why aren’t you asleep? Did she keep you up?” Zuko looks at his wife and smiles. She had never seen him so at ease since the day she turned around on that airship and wrapped her arms around Izumi.

“No.” He whispers, coming to the bed and pulls up a chair next to her. “I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”

It’s only day one and he’s already at her whim. He won’t survive when he gives in so easily to their daughters. “Have you decided a name yet.”

“Yes…Kya.”

He remembered. Katara couldn’t believe he remembered. She’s so elated that she could hardly come up with the words. “Thank you, Zuko…I don’t know what to say.” She tears up.

“No. Thank you, Katara,” Zuko places a kiss on her forehead, coaxing her to lay back down to rest. “for giving me everything I could ever dream of.”

\

[vitalpen]

A criticism of Persona 5

So I’m gonna preface this diatribe with three disclaimers:

First off is going to be the SPOILER WARNING.  This post spoils the game all over the place as it needs to given the nature of the discussion.  That’s why the read more is there.

Second, this post is long.  Coming in at a lover 2000 words.  So if you ready this, get ready for an essay.

Third: I love Persona 5.  I played through it twice, did every social link, filled out the compendium, and beat the secret boss.  It is a fantastic game with a fantastic story, loveable characters, beautiful art, and menus stylish enough to have their own fashion show.  

That being said, there are things that it does with each character that I can’t help but sigh at in frustration.  There are a few running themes for all of these that I’ll expand on at the end.

A lot of the issues come down to how a character is treated after their “important thing” is resolved. I’m gonna run down them in order of people entering your party.

Starting off, there’s Mona.  Leaving behind how happy I am that he was not just another Teddy, there are points with Mona that make him out to be such a whiny little brat.  Mainly, the section where he leaves the party because he thinks they’re getting too greedy.  Rather than try to get them back on track, he drops them after one bad conversation with mostly just Ryuji (the rest of the party is pretty unclear on where they stand), thus leaving them with no supervision when they seem to need it the most.  There’s also the whole constant insulting of Ryuji to the point where it’s eyeroll-inducing and the fact that backstory wise, he does end up being part way to a rehash of Teddy.  

Actually, speaking of Mona insulting Ryuji, man that guy never gets a break.  Despite the fact that he has a compelling backstory and motivation, after the first palace, he starts to lean pretty heavily toward the “punching bag” type of joke character.  He’s the one that everyone (especially Mona) calls an idiot, he’s the butt of nearly all the slapstick, and he’s the one that gets harassed by the gay stereotypes with some really uncomfortable cutting to black (and that one’s an large issue all on its own).  At the point Mona leaves (with poor justification) Ryuji, understandably, doesn’t want him back and is treated like the bad guy for it.  Even when you aretrying to get him back, suddenly Ryuji is uncharacterisitically cold toward him.  Even near the end of the game, when Ryuji does something incredibly brave and selfless, seeming to sacrifice his life, the game completely undermines it by having the girls beat the ever loving shit out of him when he makes the mistake of... surviving, I guess.

Now, Ann, aside from the way they pronounce her name.  She is a straight up different character in her Social Link than she is in the main story (which is actually connected to another problem that we’ll get into later).  In the story she is typically caring, usually level-headed, if easily annoyed, and loves sweets, whereas her Social Link turns her into little more than a ditzy blond with a penchant for competition that we don’t see anywhere in the main story.  It creates this disconnectio between the two stories that’s really hard to reconcile.

Yusuke is window dressing.  He does nothing substantial for the main plot after the second palace is done.  The majority of his unique contributions could be summed up with deadpan, straight-faced joke moments (that are legitimately amazing every time they show up), dialogue that any of the characters could have said, and saying “yeah, that’s right” in the “every party member gets to say something” moments.

Makoto’s issue involves another theme that we’ll expand on later.  Her relationship with her sister is incredibly unhealthy and never realistically addressed.  It gets to point where she’s actually afraid of her.  It isn’t helped when the rest of the party guilt trips her into installing a virus on her sister’s computer (one of the few moments that I think is legitimately bad in this game). How is this resolved?  Once you do the palace it’s all just gone, despite you not stealing Sae’s treasure.  No counseling, no baggage, no promises to do better, not believable progression, nothing.  That’s not how that works.

Futaba has a similar issue.  After her palace, she is just magically cured of her crippling social anxiety, as far as the main plot is concerned at least.  She hangs out in front of LeBlanc, plain as day, totally fine, never having any issue in the main plot with other people ever again.  No therapy, not even the slightest relapse or difficulty, no believable progression, nothing.  I repeat: that’s not how that works.

Haru... poor, poor, Haru.  She gets nothing when she should have had so much.  She’s introduced at about 3/4 of the way through the story, doesn’t get a proper awakening to her persona and reveal of her thief outfit, never gets a moment of catharsis for her father and arranged fiance treating her like an object in the real world, nor any catharsis about dealing with the emotional trauma of her losing her father in a way that is as crushing as it could ever be, and eventually just ends up kinda telling the one who killed him that it’s no big deal.  Everything about her just gets buried until you’re left with a Persona Q character, which is a game that has a serious problem with reducing complex, multifaceted characters to one-note personalities.

And then there’s Goro “I have daddy issues disguised as an interesting take on personal justice” Akechi.  A character that was waaaaaaaaaaay better before the heelturn.  The switch from morally aligned but methodologically opposed antagonist to mustache-twiddling, muhahahing, train-track-damsel-tying villain sucked all the depth out of him.  They had a three-dimensional character that portrayed an interesting foil in both personal beliefs and public opinion of the party.  And by the end, all of that was stripped away because you have to have a bretrayal in a Persona game, and he gets with nothing resembling a satisfying sendoff.  The fact that he has essentially disappeared from the real world is never even addressed (this is yet a third thing that we’ll get into shortly).

All of these issues culminate in three specific themes.

The first is that the Social Links feel very disconnected from the plot.  P3 escaped this because the party member Social Links were specifically tied to events in the main story and sometimes couldn’t be progressed through until certain events occurred.  P4 didn’t have this problem because the Social Links all resulted from the personal issues that came up in their dungeons with their shadows, so there is connective tissue to the events.  

But the Social Links in P5 feel so distant.  Ann’s modeling stuff, Ryuji’s track team, Yusuke’s painting, Makoto’s friend, and Haru’s arranged marriage and coffee stuff, all have nothing or very little to do with the story.  The only one who didn’t quite have this issue, is Futaba, who got the P4 treatment, complete with confronting and accepting her shadow to gain her persona.  But even that deals more with her social anxiety than her acceptance that her mother’s death wasn’t her fault but actually an assassination.  Because the Social Links, which are literally “character development as a game mechanic”, are separated from the story, it gives the feeling that they’re inconsequential.  We never see the fruits of the character’s labor as they try to better themselves.  As far the main story is concerned, they may as well have not happened.  This is especially salient if you do the Moon social link, wherein you have to teach Mishima not to let the power go to his head, only to later have your party let the power go to their heads (or Ryuji at least, like I said earlier, it’s not super clear where everyone stands during that part of the game).

The second issue is that, for a series whose core themes are based off Jungian psychology (personas and shadows), it’s really bad at handling psychological stuff.  They want to have the drama of things like:

“a character who has social anxiety and intrusive thoughts of guilt about her mother’s death that have haunted her for years” 

“one of your party members has an older sister who’s her legal guardian, but is neglectful of her duties in that role and verbally abusive of that party member, thus creating a dependent relationship that revolves around trying (and failing) to gain her sister’s approval”

“After thinking that she may have helped turn her father into a better person who might love her as a daughter rather than an asset, in mid-celebration, a girl sees her father die on live TV and she may have been the cause of it”

But they aren’t prepared for the fallout that comes with those kind of elements.  Social anxiety severe enough to keep you in your room is typically going to take more than just support from friends to rehabilitate from.  Sae’s abusive tendencies toward her sister are explained by her palace, but they are not excused by it.  The palace’s are physical manifestations of the point where someone can justify anything to themselves, not a mind control device.  Nothing about Sae’s resentment toward her sister (that is doing everything she can not to be a burden) is given any kind of proper follow up.  It needed more addressing than the NOTHING it was given.  And don’t get me started on the rush job that was Haru.  

Her father is killed in gruesome fashion, eyes literally rolling back into his head and leaking blood, after she thought she had saved him from his own cruelty, and for a period of weeks, it seems a lot like it’s her fault.  She is left orphaned, and being pulled every which way by members of her father’s company in the void of power that’s left behind, once again turned back into an asset just after she thought she had escaped that.  This should have been the mother of all gut punches.  This should have been something that took her out of the game reminiscent of Shinji from P3.  This should have given her a hate boner for Akechi twice the size of Aegis’s for Ryoji.  This ruined her life just at the precipice of it getting better.  In one fell swoop, victory was ripped from her and replaced with bitter defeat and loss.  There was so much set up for her to have a character arc.  But we never see her react to it.  No crying, no depression, just back to her sweet, gardening self.  To top it all off, like a month later, she forgives the person who killed him and betrayed your party in a passing comment during one of those “every party member gets to say something” moments.  This is the pinnacle of emotional blue balls.

(Edit: @lightybulb brought it to my attention that Haru doesn’t actually forgive Akechi.  She, in fact, specifically says that she can never forgive him.  While it’s swept under the rug, I totally misremembered on that one.  My bad.)

Pretty much all of this fits into the third main issue that Persona 5′s narrative has.  It has a bad habit of not sticking the landing or following up afterward.  Which sucks for stuff like Akechi, where he was built up the entire game, and personal traumas like Haru, Futaba, or Makoto.  It sucks when it takes away a lot of the character’s depth like it did with Yusuke.  It sucks when the villain backstory and plan is literally just told to you in an exposition the likes of which I haven’t seen in years.  

This is not to say it never sticks the landing, as it very often does (more so in the first half of the game in my opinion), but there are a lot of key points where plot threads just kinda peter off into nothing or are wrapped up way too conveniently with a little bow on top.  

There are ways to fix these issues.

You wanna connect the Social Links to the main plot?  Lock ranks of party member Social Links behind story events.  This intrinsically ties the personal growth to the main plot and lets them talk about story events.  Events from the story can be used to kick of a conversation that moves it to the next level or draws a parallel to the personal situation they’re dealing with.

You wanna have satisfying and believable treatment of psychological issues?  Understand that they are not just something you deal with in a few days or weeks.  Understand that “the power of friendship” (Copyright Anime 1962, please support the official release) is not a substitute for counseling or medication.  Understand that the road to recovery is long, arduous, and sometimes loops back on itself.  It’s anything but a straight line.

There is no set remedy for sticking the landing and following up other than a pretty general good writing tip: don’t leave plot threads hanging and don’t introduce plot threads you don’t have adequate room to include.

Now as previously stated, I love Persona 5 and nothing I’ve said here takes away from that fact.  But I also want to see the things I love do even better for themselves.  That’s kinda the point of this post.

That’s pretty much all I got for this.  If you agree or disagree, feel free to add your own arguments to this, I’m always down for a conversation.  Cheers.

[whatta-babe]

Sweet Cake Sweeter Kisses| Sam Holland

A/N: So I just finished writing a one-shot. Pretty shit. Haha, yeah. I decided to move out of my comfort zone and write an actual one-shot instead of a headcanon. I was inspired by Sam’s Instagram story that he posted yesterday of a Spider-Man cake and the fact that the Holland brothers are very competitive against each other. I hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Light swearing

          It is February 13, and you are mentally preparing yourself for what may or may not be a traumatizing experience. You see, every year your boyfriend, Sam, and his twin, Harry, have a competition on their birthday. Who has made the better birthday cake for their brother? It is a vicious and yearly battle between the 2 boys, and as of right now, Harry is in the lead by 1 point.

        The entire Holland family (including Harrison because he is an honorary Holland) decided that Harry’s cake was better than Sam’s camera design. So yes, Sam is super bitter. You had not been able to cast in a vote because you are incredibly biased towards your boyfriend of 3 years. And no one better tell Sam this, but you are kind of glad that you were not allowed to because you would have chosen Harry’s as well. Shhh!

        But this year Sam decided to bring out the big guns- you. With your super-mega-awesome baking skills (Sam said it, not you) and your literally-oh-so- amazingly-amazing artistic talent (you can quote Sam on that too), you were going to help Sam win this thing.

        It had taken a lot of groveling on his part before you finally crumbled. Honestly what really sealed the deal was when he was pressing gentle kisses up and down your neck. He should not be allowed to do that because he knows how that turns your brain to mush! The nerve…

        But here you are now, tying an apron over one of Sam’s shirts that you had stolen some time ago. You really hoped that you could help him win this year. The reason that you had been so reluctant to agree in aiding Sam was because you didn’t want him to be disappointed in you if you couldn’t help him succeed. Of course logically you knew that he would never be because Sam is the most loving boyfriend of all time but still.

        As Sam strides into the kitchen with his long-ass legs, he dons his own apron. It was going to get messy in there. “Harry is at Tom’s flat right now making my cake so he won’t be bothering us for the rest of the day (mind you it is currently 9:35 am).

        “Great!” You swiftly pull Sam down by his neck to kiss him square on the mouth. When you pull away just as quickly, Sam whines slightly as his lips chase your retreating ones. “Nuh uh, mon ange. We need to start baking.”

        With a small pout, Sam’s freckled face settles into a concentrated one. He is skimming the old recipe book that is laying on the counter top. Your partner had asked you to bring it because you would be making the chocolate ganache cake that you had once made for Sam when he was having a series of bad days. He had been instantly enamored with it, and he was sure that it would score some major points with the Holland judges.

        “While you start baking the cake, I prepare the icing, fondant, the piece that we had backed yesterday, and the tools we need to decorate this,” Sam informs you authorially. You roll your eyes because even though your babe is a total sweetheart, he practically becomes a different person when it comes to making these cakes. His competitiveness with his brother is extreme.

        After 30 minutes of combining ingredients and getting every measurement just right, you finally place the 10x12 pan in the oven to bake. You sigh as you lean against the counter to rest for a second. Sam had been very no-nonsense for the last half an hour, and it was quite tiring. You knew that he just wanted to beat his younger twin, but you had been kind of hoping that this could be a fun coupley activity. But then again, you had also been expecting to be traumatized.

        Speak of the Devil, and it shall appear. Sam seems to materialize out of thin air, and you jump a bit as he comes behind you and wraps his long arms around your waist. He places a smooch onto your shoulder blade before resting his head on yours. “I’m so sorry, love.”

        You frown in confusion. “What are you talking about, darling?”

        “I know that you aren’t having a lot of fun, and I also am aware that I’m being a bit of an ass.”

        You quickly turn in his arms and bury your face into his chest. “It’s ok,” you mumble.

        “No it’s not, sweetheart.” He takes ahold of your chin to tilt your head up. “I’ll chill out.” He then proceeds to press kisses all over your face. Cheeks, nose, eyelids, chin, forehead, lips. No part of your face goes un-kissed as he smothers you.

        You giggle in delight and smush his face against your hand as you push him away. The oven timer then goes off. Perfect timing! Quickly grabbing the oven mitts, you bend over to collect the freshly baked cake. From behind you, you hear your lover groan.

        “If you weren’t bending over a hot oven, I would totally smack that ass.”

        “Sam Anthony Holland, you get your ass to the table so we can decorate this cake! What a little shit…” you finish mumbling.

        You carefully walk over to the table where Sam had set up everything you need to decorate the cake while you had been making it. As you two chatter quietly to yourselves, you cut the cake into different shapes and attach them together with icing while looking at the reference picture as your boyfriend starts almost water coloring the fondant that covers the base of the cake. You two had made that piece yesterday, as it would have been impossible to complete the entire cake in one day.

        When you finish constructing the object, you begin to carefully write the dainty words onto it…

        5 hours, 1 flour, and 3 ½ icing wars later, you have completed your masterpiece. Good God you are exhausted! You better freaking win because if not, you are going to take this beautiful piece of art and shove it in everyone’s’ faces.

        You lean on Sam heavily as he drapes his arm around your shoulder. He’s kind of hanging onto you because he is just as tired. Who knew decorating a cake could wear you so much? You situate the cake in the middle of the platter that the Holland family had gotten the boys a long time ago specifically for these cakes. With the help of Sammy boy you cover it with the lid. Tomorrow you will find out the results.

***

      You are startled awake when Paddy jumps on you and Sam. Both you and your boyfriend groan in pain.

      “It’s time! It’s time! We are going to vote now,” Paddy rushes to speak before sprinting out of the room. A few seconds later you both hear his footsteps scampering back, “Oh, and happy birthday, Sam!”

      You just look at each other in amusement and start to shuffle out of bed. “Happy birthday, mon ange,” you whisper to him as you kiss him sweetly. You then proceed to bend down to grab the oddly shaped present that you had hidden under the bed.

      Sam stares in aw, but refuses to take it. “No, love. You already helped me make Harry’s cake. Plus, just being with you is present enough.”

      You wrinkle your nose at him and grin. “As sweet as that is, babe, just accept it.”

      He sighs in defeat. “Fineee,” he says dramatically before quickly tearing it open.  He gasps in excitement. “It’s us! In a book!” he cutely exclaims.

    “Haha, yes my love. It’s a photo album.”

     Sam takes you by surprise when he lunges at you. You two fall onto the bed because of the momentum. As he starts kissing you, Paddy arrives again.

     “Ew, guys! I told you to come on already,” he whines before leaving once more.

     Both of you giggle together as Sam aides you in standing back up. “Let’s get this show on the road then,” you egg Sam on as you walk together down the hallway into the dining room.

      In said room, every Holland is looking a little bit fatigued but very excited nonetheless. It looks like Christmas day all over again.

      In the center of the table lies both cakes covered with their dish covers to not ruin the surprise. You don’t know about Harry’s cake, but you sure are glad that the Holland parents had gotten these boys such ginormous platters because damn, the one that Sam and you had made was extremely large.

      Paddy is practically buzzing with excitement as he waits for Sam and Harry to stand behind the cake that the other twin made for them.

      The moment the cakes are unveiled, it seems like all of the air in the room is sucked out. Everyone except for you and Sam had gasped in amazement as they gazed at your cake.

      Their eyes are glued to the realistic looking camera and suitcase. Attached to the beige bag is a blue passport, and there are special printed edible pictures adhered onto it with frosting. And perching on top of the case was the camera that you had baked the day before. It is quite the sight if you may say so.

      Paddy breaks the unnerving silence. “Welp I choose Sam’s. Harry’s is cute and all with that La La Land themed, but it’s got nothing on Sam’s! How did you even do that?”

      Everyone murmurs in agreement. “Y/N helped me,” your boyfriend boasts. “Try it! It’ll be the best you’ve ever tasted,” he continues to brag while you try to shut him up.

      You’re blushing when you say, “It’s just an old recipe that I have. It’s really nothing.”

      Tom, who had come home for a small break in his hectic filming schedule, starts moaning then. “Dis is da befst frukn thig eber,” he states. When your boyfriend’s family all agree, you blush.

      “Okay everyone! I think it’s time to vote,” Sam rushes.

      In one minute all the votes are cast, and Paddy finally makes the announcement. “We, the Holland family, have pronounce that the winner of this year’s Sam/Harry Twin Cake Duel-Off is… Sammy “Mon Ange” (at least according to Y/N. I still don’t know that it means) Holland with a 4 to 1 vote! Just saying, Harry, it was mum, and I’m pretty sure that she only did it out of pity.”

      You all laugh at the end, and the whole lot congratulates Sam and you. Sam simply won’t shut up about you! The bragging is never ending with that boy, is it?

      You turn to observe Harry and notice that he looks slightly glum. When you walk over you say, “Aw, Harry. Don’t feel bad about losing! It’s beautiful.”

      Harry nods. “Yeah. I’m honestly not really mad or disappointed about it. Yours is really amazing. Thank you for the cake. I hope Dad took a picture before it was cut into.” Harry gives you a sweet hug

      “Of course, dude! You’re like my brother! I’m glad you liked it. And I’m pretty sure he did. If not, Sam and I took quite a lot yesterday.”

      Sam strides over to you and leans some of his weight on your side as he slips his arms around you. “Let’s try some of that scrumptious cake that you made.”

      You snicker at him. “Scrumptious? Who says that? But yes, let’s. I’m also definitely trying Harry’s though too.”

      Your partner nods his slightly red head. “Yeah! Thanks for the cake, man. It looks really nice.” His arm leaves your body when he wraps his arms around his twin. Sigh. How cute!

      When they untangle from each other, Sam seizes your hand to pull you to the two baked goods. While he cuts a piece of the cake that you had baked together you collect a slice of Harry’s. It really is pretty.

      You and your lover proceed to sit down at the table with the rest of the loving Hollands, but you too are in your own little world. God. You love him so damn much. And helping him out wasn’t so bad. You too had such a pleasurable time doing it together in the end.

      In the enchanting bubble you and Sam had made with the love and affection for each other you and your loving boyfriend feed one another pieces of delectable cake. Sam blushes and giggles as you try to wipe the frosting that he had accidentally smeared on you. When you can’t seem to find it, Sam leans in and kisses the frosting away (that was apparently on the corner of your mouth) before moving to your lips. It is sweeter than any cake you have ever eaten and decide right then and there that there is nothing lovelier than the tender kiss of your soul mate.

@tomhollandhollaatme @peachyyvibes @samhollandsfreckles @webslingerholland

[explosionofpaper]

The Philip’s Best Things of the Year 2017 List

“But Philip, it’s March! Why are you doing your best of 2017 list now?”   Well that’s because it sometimes takes me a while to get around to things, and hey, at least it isn’t April.

Anyway, I had a pretty good time in 2017. There were some really important changes in my life, some great people and events, and a whole heap of good media.

Presented below are some of my favourite medias of 2017. This is stuff I experienced for the first time in 2017, not necessarily stuff which came out in 2017. Also the things aren’t ordered within their sections.

Books

Strange Practise by Vivian Shaw

This was one of those books which I picked up in Waterstones entirely on a whim, and I’m incredibly happy I did (as should be obvious with it being on this list). It explores one of my favourite concepts, that of how the fantastical actually operates in the real world. The main character, Dr. Greta van Helsing (descendent of the usual van Helsing) is a doctor to the supernatural, and through her presence causes the monsters who make up her clientele to feel much more grounded and real than they would otherwise.

The book also makes really good use of public domain characters, placing them in the world such that they feel they belong there, without their public domain status being the spotlight. Another thing the book does well is conveying emotions; in particular it does a fantastic job of conveying emotional vulnerability without it being a synonym for weakness.

Dune by Frank Herbert

You know what Dune is. I don’t need to explain it.

Dune has been haunting my reading list and bookshelf for an awful long time. Every time I would pick out a new book to read, Dune would be there, waving it’s pages to catch my attention and calling “Hey! It’s me, Dune! I’m a classic of the genre. I’m beloved for good reason. You’re not having read me causes you to miss out on many references, and you’re well aware of this. I can explain to you what the Gom Jabbar is. Read me!” And every time I would glance at Dune, think about how long and revered it is, avoid eye contact, and pretend that I hadn’t heard or seen it.

Well this year I finally put that right. It felt good to finally have it stop taunting me, but it felt even better to actually read it, because it turns out that Dune is really fucking good.

The way that the world is built, the interactions between the characters, the way things grow and develop in the book, all of it is just so damn good. It’s Dune, go read it.

City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett

City of Miracles was a fantastic end to a trilogy which I’ve loved. Tying up the major loose ends, answering the major unanswered questions, and taking the world and themes to a wonderful ending point.

The trilogy as a whole did some really nice stuff with the perspective and pacing. Each book has a different main character (though they’re each always important), and they’re set many years apart, decades even. This results in the world feeling and characters feeling very alive and functional in that they’re doing stuff even if we’re not seeing it. The books focus on the three major Divine events since the Blink (incidentally, I’m a big fan of this type of post-big-event setting), and just lets us know that stuff happened during the time between.

The book also contains a bit I adore, in which exposition is explicitly and dramatically avoided in a way which ties perfectly into the characters in the scene.

The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson

I’d fallen a bit behind on Cosmere stuff recently, so I spent a bit of this year catching up. They were all good, but The Bands of Mourning really stood out to me as excellent, and some of Sanderson’s best work. Something I loved in particular about this book was the way in which it managed reader emotions. I don’t want away too much, so I’ll just say that the reader’s feelings are directed in such a way that it maximises impact and catharsis, and really elevates the later parts of the book.

The Tropic of Serpents by Marie Brennan

The first of the Lady Trent books was good, but it really came into its own with The Tropic of Serpents. The way that these books approach dragons, from the perspective of a natural historian viewing them in a scientific manner, is incredibly refreshing; it’s so nice to see Dragons actually fitting in a Victorian era (I think, I get all the eras named after monarchs mixed up) world, and the characters treating them like they belong.

Even leaving the dragons aside, the handling of the era is really good. It deals really well with the struggle of science in the face of politics, as well as the struggles of women and the lower class within the scientific communities.

The Brothers Cabal by Jonathan L. Howard

I love the Johannes Cabal books. Cabal is a real bastard, and that makes him a joy to read about. He’s not evil mind you, he’s certainly not a pinnacle of virtue either, but he’s mostly kind of a good guy. Any shitty things he does are in service of a greater goal, but he’s still a bastard. It brings a texture to his internal conflicts which you don’t really see often.

He’s a great character, but having his brother around elevates him even further. The two of them are fantastic comparisons and foils for each other.

The way in which the Cabal books handle the supernatural is also great. It feels functional and integrated into the world, yet still unmistakably outside of the normal.

Kill All Angels by Robert Brockway

Much like City of Miracles, this was a fantastic end to a trilogy.

The Vicious Circle books are fascinating and notable for a variety of reasons: there’s the way in which they keep two timelines going throughout the whole trilogy; there’s the way it showcases cosmic horror on a human level, as well as placing the horror on that level; there’s the way it handles the idea of humanity, and what it means to loose it; and there’s also the way in which it takes the question “Why is Mario Lopez so weird?” and builds it out into one of my favourite horror series.

I rather not say any more about the series, just know that I really recommend it.

Also when I said “Mario Lopez”, I actually meant to say “A character similar to, but legally distinct from Mario Lopez”.

Games

Doki Doki Literature Club

This game hits like a ton of bricks, and good bricks at that. At this point I think that most everyone knows the deal with DDLC, but I’m still going to avoid big spoilers.

DDLC is one of those games which catches you by surprise, and isn’t what you first expect. It’s got a big old twist, shocks the hell out of you at some moments, and does some terrific integration of mental illness into the plot and characters. All of that is done fantastically, but the thing which really makes DDLC stick out to me is just how good the core game itself is.

The first part of DDLC, before stuff hits the wall, is the best dating sim visual novel I’ve played. That’s super important for setting up and enabling the later stuff, but it’s also just great. If Team Salvato announced that they were doing a pure dating sim, I would be well up for that.

West of Loathing

Considering the amount of time I’ve put into Kingdom of Loathing over the years (spoiler: a lot), it’s should be no surprise that I love this game. However I will say that I was a tad surprised with just how much I loved it.

KoL has always been a game driven mostly by it’s writing and concepts, and this game capitalises on both of those. There’s an awful lot of writing in the game, and all of it is good. Everywhere where there can be a joke, there’s a good joke, and everywhere where there isn’t a joke, there’s some damn good writing which would have had its impact lessened by a joke (to be clear: all of the joke writing is also good; I mean just that there’s always a good reason for jokes being absent).

The story the game tells, and the way it does it, are both incredible; and there’s a real elegance to the game’s art style.

Super Mario Odyssey

This game is a true delight. I’m famously bad at sticking it all the way through games, but this one kept hold of me and I finished it in a weekend. Not that I’ve 100%ed it mark you, but I also didn’t exactly rush through the campaign, I took my time, did a bit of sightseeing and all that.

The game’s also kept me coming back. I keep on finding myself popping back in to pick up a few more moons.

It’s just so joyous, so lovely, so utterly delightful. There’s just so much in the game, and it’s all just so good.

Just Dance 2017

Yeah that’s right, Just Dance. I’d never really played Just Dance before this year, but I have now and I love it. It’s just a whole heap of fun to play, and a nice alternative to going for a run if I want to exercise but don’t want to leave the flat.

I specify 2017 because that’s the one I’ve played.

Monument Valley 2

The first Monument Valley is one of my favourite games, so there was a bit of a worry that the sequel wouldn’t live up to my expectations. Thankfully those worries were unfounded, and I’d put MV2 right up there with the first. It plays like the first, but with twists on the mechanics to keep it feeling fresh. Similarly, it explores the same themes, but from a different perspective. The looks are just as stunning as the first, and go even further in many points, really exploring what the graphic style can do.

Ultimately the game is more Monument Valley, and that’s exactly what I wanted it to be.

Linelight

Linelight was a nice little puzzle game with straightforward, easily understood mechanics and a delightful, simple aesthetic. It managed to excel due to the excellence in puzzle design, and the way in which it conveyed ideas and meaning.

Put simply, if Thomas Was Alone didn’t exist, then these would be the strongest emotions a game has made me feel about such simple shapes. This game however didn’t have a narrator, instead it used just the mechanics to make me attached to some of my companion lines, and did so in a sublime way.

TV Shows

Girls’ Last Tour

I’ll be honest with you; I picked up this show because they dab in the OP. It turned out that was actually a good decision, as it led me to one of my all time favourite shows.

Girls’ Last Tour is a slow paced, intimate show. It’s an exploration of the two main characters travelling through a dead world, and just trying to survive. The world feels empty in a way which few other post-apocalypse things manage, mostly due to the fact that there are so few characters. In the 12 episode run, only 2 supporting human characters are encountered, and each is around for only one episode. This means you really get to know the main characters, and to truly see how their time in this dead world is affecting them.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable

It’s no secret that I love Jojo, and Diamond is Unbreakable is without a doubt my favourite part so far.

I loved Stardust Crusaders, but I had several issues with it. Diamond is Unbreakable fixes damn near all of them, and it really feels like Mr JoJo learnt some lessons from SC and applied them here. The characters are great and you really get to know them, the fights are cool and satisfying, and all the Stands feel unique and interesting.

Then there’s the actual presentation of the show, which is absolutely stunning. The unusual colour palette gives the world a whole new depth, and the soundtrack is just incredible. In particular there’s a certain use of a certain theme, which results in one of my all time favourite moments in a tv show.

Cromartie High School

Cromartie’s really damn funny, though it’s hard to put into words exactly why. I think a large part of it is the show’s absolute commitment to inconsistency. It’s committed to the extent that not even the show’s inconsistency is consistent. Things are forgotten, the forgetting is lampshaded, but then some characters will remember things whilst others won’t. Storylines will just stop, but then they might suddenly restart at a later date as if they had been going all along. It’s a show where nothing is ever really forgotten, but nothing is ever really remembered either.

It’s art is what I’m trying to say. Pure art.

My Brother, My Brother and Me

That’s right, this one isn’t an anime. It is a spin-off from a podcast though, so it’s a pretty nice lead in to the next section.

Do you like the MBMBaM podcast? If yes, then you’ll love the show. If no, then there’s a good chance you’ll still love the show. The podcast is used as the basis for it, but it’s built up into something even greater. It’s not just that it has editing and a budget, it also shows us new layers to the relationship between the brothers, and puts them in the real world as opposed to the podcast void which they normally live in. Everything in the show is so funny, and so good. I really do love it.

Podcasts

Wonderful

Wonderful is an aptly named podcast; it’s a true joy to listen to.

In the podcast, husband and wife, Griffin and Rachel Mcelroy, talk about the things they like. That’s the entire premise, and it makes for a truly wonderful podcast because it’s just so positive and sweet and lovely. There are no rules on the kinds of things they talk about, so they could be as general as a genre of film, or as specific as a sequence of notes in a particular song.

This podcast is the second iteration of Rose Buddies, which was a Bachelor fancast, and shares the same podcast feed, so watch out for that if you pick it up. Not that Rose Buddies wasn’t also a great podcast, but it was of a different style. The fact that I picked up Rose Buddies in 2016 does make the podcast’s place on this list a touch more dubious, but I’m the one making up the rules here, so I’m saying it’s fine.

Pretend Friends

This podcast is a delight. It’s an RPG podcast with the Continue? guys, and I have a history of finding them funny, so it makes sense I like this podcast. But what really elevates it is the game that they’re playing, that being Space Kings. Space Kings is notable in several ways, one of those ways being that it isn’t actually out yet. The GM of the podcast is one of the devs of the game, and the podcast is a bit of a beta test for it. That’s a nice novelty, but the thing which is really great about Space Kings is how it’s built around making a good collaborative story and having a laugh, rather than being built around firm mechanics.

It’s a podcast of a bunch of friends trying to make each other laugh, succeeding, and telling a story about a bunch of friends travelling around in space and getting up to some good hijinks. At one point a cat cuts a spaceship in half, at another a mop fires a gun. It’s a good time.

The Worst Idea of All Time

You know how I said that Wonderful’s place on this list was a tad dubious? Well TWIoAT is even more dubious due to the fact that I’ve been listening to it for years. The reason I’ve put it here is that it ended this year. TWIoAT was a fantastic ride the whole way through. If you’ve ever wanted to listen to a pair of skill Kiwi comedians lose their minds over a few years, then this is the show for you. Whilst I’m sad to see it go, I’m happy that the two of them can start the road to recovery now.

Web Shows

Super Beard Bros - Dark Souls 3

Beard Bros is a long time favourite of mine, and I think that this might well be one of their best series. Brett is just such a fantastic addition to the crew, and allows the other two to shift into slightly different roles. All of them are on utterly top form in this series, and it leads to a fantastic atmosphere, and lovely series.

The core of it is how wonderfully positive it is. Alex gets frustrated at times, but never really angry and seems to be having a great time with the game. Brett’s a fantastically encouraging person, and a true delight to listen to. And it’s so nice to get to hear Jirard chilled out, and finally having the time to make the wrap of the day.

Press Buttons ‘n’ Talk - Phoenix Wright 2

I discovered PB’n’T late last last year (2016) with their playthrough of Phoenix Wright 1. From there I worked my way through the rest of their stuff and caught up in PW2, which was a pleasing symmetry.

The channel is always great to watch, but the Phoenix Wright games are where they really excel. The voices given to the characters really bring the games to life, and they’re off high enough quality, and consistently enough applied that they’re now firmly in my head as the cannon voices for the characters. Even Phoenix himself, who’s handed back and forth between the two of them, feels consistent and has a real identity in his voice.

It’s a good series.

[oxourry]

OnS 57 Survey - Results

At 558 responses, the Owari no Seraph chapter 57 survey has come to a close. 

I will say that since this was my first time doing this, I knew it wouldn’t come without errors. It wasn’t until like 50 responses in that I realized I could have worded things better, not included so much leeway in some questions, left more write in options, and also included a couple more important questions. If I ever do one of these again I’ll have learned from this time.

There were two questions that took in opinions from respondents and in total all of those totaled up to about 600. Obviously, I couldn’t add every single one here, but I tried to include as many as I could to give you all an idea of the current mindset of the fandom at the moment. Things get pretty lengthy so this will be all under a read more.

Also, I know I shouldn’t have to say it, but sometimes this fandom can be demonically soul sucking, so don’t start any of that fandom wank bullshit because there are opinions here that you don’t agree with. We’re all mature enough to rant about it in private. Thank you.

Anyways, let’s start.

Though it was close, it seems the 18-24 age group are the majority in this side of the fandom. Not only that, adding up the other numbers (It should be noted that there was 1 person that responded with 35+, unfortunately, it seems like there’s barely even a tiny line to acknowledge it) minors happen to be the minority in the fandom if even by a small percent.

The graph speaks for itself, though it really does make me wish I could survey the SQ readers in Japan. Would the Male-Female results be flipped?

Among the 86 write ins, Instagram was the most popular with 30 respondents using it as a primary OnS social media platform. Amino and VK were the follow ups with 8 respondents.

I find this one very important. It shows the reaches of the survey doesn’t exactly speak for a diverse portion of the western fandom. Overall, I think it sticks in this little Tumblr niche of ours.

2 (0.4%) respondents began with the Light Novels. 3 (0.5%) respondents began with the Anime and Light Novels. 4 (0.7%) respondents began with the Manga and Light Novels. 15 (2.7%) respondents began the series with all three.

27 (4.8%) respondents have been following OnS for 4+ years (My condolences).

The two below ‘For the art’ and above ‘Other’ say ‘Someone recommended it’ and ‘Seeing posts about it on social media’

Here are a handful of responses from those that chose Other

Soundtrack by Sawano Hiroyuki

I was interested in knowing how would an anime based in Nagoya turned out (I lived in Nagoya for a year)

Found it under "new anime" section and just tried it

I found on mangapark and just checked out of curiosity

I'm a slut for anything Kagami writes. Especially MokuAri.

Played Tales of Zestiria, saw Seraph in the title of OnS, watched it

The option above ‘For the plot’ states ‘I’m not caught up’ and the two options below ‘For the art’ state ‘For a specific plot point/mystery’ and ‘For the fandom discussions/fanart/fanfics/fanvids/memes’.

While a majority of respondents originally got into the series for the plot, it seems like sticking around for a character and ship barely managed to become the new top reason.

A couple of write in responses

because I am a fandom grandma-- I fell in love with it and can't get her lazy ass out

I don´t really know anymore... I´m too deep into and it´s just a part of my life right now

Moving from the demographic questions, this next section was based off of character and ship preferences

Originally, I had omitted the ‘both’ option, but the person I had do a run through of the survey at first claimed she couldn’t pick between them. Given the disparity in the vampire and humans here, my guess is that the vampires really do have audience favorability when it comes down to it.

Shinoa’s squad takes a majority of the audience’s interest with the Sanguinem vampires falling in at nearly half as much. 

Some of the write ins

Honestly, they're all interesting, there are so much we don't know and it really is intriguing.

Hyakuya kids, I refuse to believe that a group that meet for a few months is more important than another group that you knew for years

The Hiiragi Family

Specific characters from each(Yuu, Mika, Guren, Shinya, Ferid, Krul, etc.)

Mika, Yuu, and Shinya hold the crowns for being the most popular in our end of the fandom. Shinoa and Krul trail behind in fourth and fifth place.

Akane was the most popular write in, having 2 of the 9 write ins go to her.

A few other write ins

Is Mika's happiness a character because I can't wait for them to return

Shuusaku

Yoichi's right cheek

Kureto, Mahiru No Yo, and Guren happen to be the least favorites with Ferid in fourth place and Saito and Shinoa tying for fifth after a considerable percent gap.

Tenri had 9 write ins of the 27.

Other answers given were

Seishiro

At certain times, the main character(s) will start to become annoying.

Kagami Takaya

Everyone else that's not Yoichi's right cheek or Mikaela Hyakuya

Mahiru and Mitsuba's weirdly drawn boobs

Mika, Shinya, and Yuu take the lead for most physically attractive with Guren and Crowley following in fourth and fifth.

Gekkoin was the most frequent write in with 4 of the 13 write in responses going to him.

Other write ins included

Everyone's gorgeous tbh

Kureto's eyebrows

An overwhelming majority of the fandom happen to be shippers or at least have a ship they have some positive feelings for. Only 25 (4.5%) of respondents don’t ship anything.

Yuichiro/Mikaela, Guren/Shinya, and Shinoa/Mitsuba take the top three spots.

There were a few popular write ins.

Mikaela/Yoichi (15), Kureto/Guren (8), Kureto/Aoi (8), Krul/Ferid (5), Kureto/Shinya (5), and Lacus/Rene (5)

The next section covered Chapter 57 and general feelings about plot points and the manga.

Though it’s kind of close, majority of respondents seem to have a midway satisfaction with the manga at the moment. There’s a definite lean to the optimistic side of things.

After this, I then asked if respondents could give a more detailed explanation for their answer. I received 346 responses and while I can’t put them all on here, here are a handful of opinions.

This story is still a baby bird, so I'm being patient with it. Besides, monthly manga always feel slower

After the time skip everything became rushed, characters just numbly move from plot twist to plot twist repeating the same "what should we do" conversation every time they get any new info. Characters make worrying statements that the framing shows as positive and people and character motivation driving plot points are resolved and thrown out like they were nothing.

I honestly disagree with those who are just ranting and raging about the last chapters, every (and I have to make an emphasis on this, EVERY) story needs some developement and that may take time, you can't just rush things and expect that complex aspects of the story will be explained in the most simple and stupid way just to go back to the action as soon as possible. I'm okay with knowing more about the story and the characters and get more details to think by myself of what could happen in the future chapters

The story feels like it's been spinning its wheels since the Shinoa squad teamed up with Ferid and Crowley. I actually liked the newest chapter quite a bit since it made some definite progress on the plot, but most of the other chapters don't seem to move things along enough for how many pages they have.

I'm excited we're finally get some plot development with Shikama being the first progenitor, though I feel like some things, like the three-month time skip was unnecessary and created a halt in the story.

Although not perfect, which is why I only gave a 4, I do feel like things are progressing smoothly and we continue to see interesting plot developments as the stories moves on.

I can't say I'm a fan of the direction Kagami is taking, but at least the plot is moving forward.

Generally I like how it is going, I just hope they have a good explanation for Shikama Doji being with Kureto and Shinoa at the same time. I'm excited about how everything will play out and I think they are on a good way.

Reading this manga is like drinking a margarita that you know is spiked with laxatives to be fucking honest

Majority of respondents didn’t expect Shikama Doji to be the First Progenitor while 34 (6.1%) totally saw it coming. Overall, I think the plot reveal caught most people by surprise.

This question was a bit divided. 58 (10.4%) of respondents wish the First Progenitor was someone else.

Among the write in responses we have:

I'm kind of wondering why he is so weak as a demon (e.g. Yuu is a lot stronger than Shinoa, but maybe that is their own strength?) I hope it will get explained

I wanted it to be like Dracula

I'm okay with it, but I also wish it was Yu

I'm not sure. While it was pretty obvious to me it still came out of nowhere, there weren't much hints at all, I just thought it was them via process of elimination, no one else gave off a vibe of being the First Progenitor. So I think it wasn't well developed at all, it's kind of like Scrappy-Doo being the villain of the first movie, except it makes sense in that case considering his history as a character both in the series' plot and in the fandom, and the reveal was better handled.

This question was hilariously split among everyone’s opinions on what Kagami has planned for this part of the plot. It makes me a bit eager to see what’ll happen to see which faction will be right lol

Half of the respondents would love for Yuichiro to just chill out with the next majority hoping Yuu is successful in reviving the deceased and the world doesn’t get harmed from it.

Most respondents don’t believe Shikama Doji will be the ultimate Big Bad. There will either be someone working alongside him or above him. Maybe God? We’ll see.

Majority don’t believe Shinoa will ever be at odds with her squad, though 20 (3.6%) respondents think she will be.

Although a hefty portion aren’t too confident in guessing what Kagami has planned, majority believe Shinoa will unlock the power Mahiru No Yo spoke about by having a desire to protect her squad.

Of the 27 write ins for this portion, some respondents believed this:

She will realize her feelings for Yuichiro, but I don't think it will go as far as having sex or a sexual encounter

One of the 7 sins that is not necessarily lust that awaken some strong desire inside her. Envy.

as seen before, probably killing one of her brothers

Over half of the respondents hope to see the power of family pull through with Shinoa getting the full power of her demon though over a quarter of people hope that she never unlocks that power. 18 (3.2%) of respondents do hope she has sex or a sexual encounter with Yuichiro to awaken her demon.

A few of the 31 write ins:

Something unexpected and cool

By having sex with Mitsuba

By pure wish and strong will

I hope she doesn't because I don't want to see her become her sister. I want to see her grow powerful without the aid of a demon.

Recognising her feelings for Yuu.

Through a sexual encounter with Crowley

While most people believe she is a set antagonist, a significant portion of people aren’t too sure.

Here are some of the write in responses:

Enemy of my enemy type of ally

I believe she was used by saito

Yes but not of her own accord. Seeing that she's mostly demon now.

Part of it, but not the mastermind behind everything

No, Mahiru no Yo is probably just a puppet trying to rebel

Majority don’t believe him to be an antaognist in the bigger picture of things, though a considerable fraction aren’t too sure.

He's just... weird. I don't trust him nor his intentions.

He's like the middle man-ish.

No, he's probably doing everything to contradict Saito, who is trying to contradict Shikama Douji.

I think Ferid is simply doing what Saito manipulates him into doing, by doing the opposite of what he THINKS Saito wants.

Though it’s close, most people aren’t too sure where Saito stands in the end.

I think Saito works for Shikamadouji but intends to betray them

A victim-turned-villain who's familiar with the antagonists' plan and so participated in it

Majority are hoping to see the Michaela factor get more attention in the narrative with the seraph gene falling behind in second place. 

Yoichi getting revenge for his sister

Asuramaru's and Krul's backstory and relationship

The Hiiragi family

The downfall of the JIDA

Explaining what the hell is going on with Guren. He's already with the main characters anyways, might as well give an explanation.

And lastly, I had asked for closping opinions on chapter 57 and Owari no Seraph as a whole before ending the survey. I received around 250 responses. While I can’t post all, here are a handful.

As a whole, I wished that we saw more representations of the characters' mindsets on the current situations. Their minds have to be pretty messsed up after all the things that have happened, but we only see how the characters act so impulsively in the moment and only hear their current thoughts that we don't get to know what they think of the consequences and impacts of their decisions. It may be because of my intense liking for Tokyo Ghoul, but I would really like to see the impact of the many things going on. I think it will help us understand characters like Yuuichirou, Mikaela, Guren, Shinoa, and tons of other characters better.

There is so much potential in the world Kagami has attempted to build, so much that can be explored in this series. There are some really incredible characters if they get the proper treatment. I really hope it doesn't get ruined or that Kagami doesn't take the easy way out with cheap/bad plot devices (such as Shinoa awakening her demon by having sex with someone, especially Yuuichirou, because that's cheap and boring and so unbelievably unoriginal). I adore this series so much, so I hope it gets the development it deserves.

I have faith for a solid story, even if I don't personally agree with every plot point.

WHAT IS MAHIRU ACTUALLY 

Kind of surprising, but overall I think it's okay as long as it's written well and everything ties together in the end. This new reveal could add a bunch of new plot points which might be odd because I think there's a lot of other things the writers need to explain or get into. I guess I'm just trying to think positively about what this could add or mean for future chapters.

Thanks to OnS, I've been able to find a niche I thoroughly enjoy spending many hours enjoying fanfics, shippings, discussions and fangirling over some of the characters.The Anime is Ok, but I absolutely adore the Manga

I want Crowley's thicc in my thrussy 

Needs consistent characterization as opposed to 'whatever mood the situation requires' as it's been doing, if it can pull that off then I think OnS would be able to flow better even if the plot development is slow

If we don't see Shinya's bare chest or dick by the end of this manga, what was the fucking point? @ Kagami 

I think the author worries too much on hitting various shonen tropes, and also making a commercial product. The manga would probably improve if it changed magazines to something less mainstream and less shonen focused.  

If Mika dies by the end of this manga, I will rip my asshole inside out

kagami why

Again, thank you for particpating in the survey! I will definitely do it again at some point if I can and hopefully I’ll be able to give more in depth analyses from the questions provided. Hope you have fun interpreting this stuff as you will lol

[nd43taags]

Please Let Those Idiots be Happy

Yeaaaaaah done in response to a prompt by @dawnieserix!  Also available to read on AO3.  Merle Highchurch is the Taagnus Wingman we all deserve.

Merle Highchurch had been in love.

In mostly abstract ways, of course.  Romantic love, not so much.  He hadn’t dated much, and There were days where he could almost see himself loving his wife as he settled into the future he was forced into, but he and Hecuba simply didn’t get along.  Arranged marriages were like that sometimes.  But he loved his children, and he loved his friends.  

And he had passing moments, nervous glances exchanged with people that didn’t go anywhere.  Moments that he wasn’t even sure he  wanted  to go anywhere.  But he knew.  He knew what it felt like to be in love.

Which was why he knew before his friends did.

Those careful glances.  Those wistful sighs.  Those longing moments spent lingering, waiting for someone to appear while you “happened” to be there.  He knew all too well.  Magnus and Taako were in love.  

Fortunately, it was with each other .  

Unfortunately, they were both failing to actually  do  anything about it.

Merle wasn’t sure if it was because they were nervous or confused or just so monumentally  stupid .  They had baggage, Merle knew that much.  And they were bad with talking about feelings, anyone with eyes could see that.  And they were so…  so  stupid.

It was starting to affect team performance.  Magnus was distracted and unfocused (and that resulted in Merle taking more hits than was necessary), and Taako was over performative and and bombastic (and that resulted in some misfired spells in Merle’s direction).  Both of them were not on their game, and Merle was taking the brunt of it.

Honestly their inability to talk about things was going to get him killed.

So it was partially self interest and partially affection for those two idiots that lead him to the decision.

Merle was going to hook those two up  before  they killed him.

Step one of his master plan was figuring out why they weren’t just  talking  to each other.

Magnus would be the easier of the two to work down, so Merle invited him to the greenhouse to help out with some gardening.

“There’s lots of lifting and shit I need help with,” Merle explained, “I’m an old man, are you going to make me lift fertilizer by myself?”

Magnus rolled his eyes, but did not bother to protest.

The greenhouse was sweltering and humid, and Merle felt his hair frizzing out from it’s bun as they worked.  Lucretia had tasked Merle with growing medicinal herbs for the base because of his skills with plants, but the greenhouse had been in pretty bad shape before Merle had the job.  It had taken a lot of work to get it back to a decent state.

After a few hours of silently helping Merle rearrange planters and cart literal shit around, Magnus sighed deeply and wiped his forehead with his bandana.

“I’m not much of a gardener,” Magnus laughed.  “Never had the time for it.”

“Nah you don’t need time,” Merle replied, carefully tying a vine to a trellis.  “Plants are pretty cool with minimal attention, as long as the little attention they get is quality.  You gotta have love, but you don’t have to devote every moment to them.  They’re pretty independant.”

“That’s… I guess I hadn’t thought about that,” Magnus said.  “All my experiences with gardening have been hyper focused on trying to get things to grow.”

The moisture in the air made every word they spoke seem heavy, and Merle could sense that Magnus was feeling that.  Things said in this garden carried weight.  Exactly what Merle was hoping for.

“You had a garden before?” Merle asked.

“Yeah back… Back when I was married,” Magnus said quietly, and Merle could see his grip tightening on his kerchief.  “My wife was a bit of a black thumb, but she wanted a garden so bad.”

Wife .  The word seemed to echo around the room.  Merle had suspected Magnus had been married (he still wore a wedding ring) but they had never spoken about it.  Merle wanted to reward Magnus’ honesty with some truth of his own, though he had little to offer.

“At least she probably loved it,” Merle scoffed, taking a moment to observe his handiwork and make sure the vine was properly attached.  “My ex wife hated gardening.  Any time I tried to grow anything she’d holler and moan about it being a waste of time.”

“You were married?” Magnus asked.

“It was arranged, but yean” Merle explained, moving onto the next plant.  “Most dwarven marriages are.  You were married too?”

“Yeah… she passed away,” Magnus sighed.

“Fuck, sorry,” Merle said, wincing.  He knew that Magnus had baggage but he hadn’t known what it was.  This made a lot of sense.  His over protectiveness.  His unwillingness to open up about his feelings. Losing someone you love would do that.

“Nah it’s okay, it’s been a few years,” Magnus said slowly.  Merle wasn’t sure if that was true or not.

“Do you like gardening?” Merle asked, swerving away from the sensitive topic.

“I like the idea of growing shit, I like working with my hands,” Magnus shrugged, “I’m not very patient though.”

“Yeah I could see that,” Merle laughed.  “It’s hard to sit back and wait for things to happen.”

“Yeah…”

“In fact I’d say it’s downright uncharacteristic of you to hang back from things,” Merle continued.  “You like to rush in.”

Magnus nodded, unsure where this was going.  Merle gestured over to have Magnus hold the trellis steady as he worked with a particularly stubborn plant.

“Listen… And feel free not to answer me, it’s cool if you don’t want to talk about it but…” Merle looked at Magnus softly.  “Do you  like  Taako?”

“... Yeah?  He’s my friend.”

“No no,” Merle said, shaking his head.  “Like him.  Like,  like like  him.”

Magnus laughed with a hearty, booming laugh that felt out of place in the quiet of the greenhouse.

“Are we in  grade school ?” he gasped, catching his breath.

“I’m serious!” Merle cried, “I may be old but Merle’s seen a crush or two in his time and you?  You’ve got it  bad .”

Magnus was turning red.  “I don’t… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Listen son, you’re human,” Merle said bluntly, “You’ve got no reason to waste time hemming and hawing about  what ifs  and  but maybes .  If you have feelings for someone you should act on them.”

“It’s not that it’s…” Magnus stammered, “I’m not sure…”

“You’ve been hurt, right?” Merle said, putting a dirty gloved hand on Magnus’ chest.  “You’re afraid of being hurt again.  But Taako… he’s just like these plants.  He’s not looking for  all  of your time and attention.  Just  quality  time.  Even if it doesn’t pan out, don’t you want to at least say you tried?”

“How do I even  start ?” Magnus asked.

“Maybe something like ‘ You really are a great a magician, because Abraca-DAYUM!’ or-”

“That’s terrible,” Magnus said smiling, but scrunching his nose up.

“Eh it needs workshopping,” Merle shrugged, “But the point is,  go for it .  You’re not getting younger.  And things aren’t getting easier.”

“I just… I loved my wife,” Magnus said quietly.

“So?” Merle said.  “She loved you too.  She’d want you to be happy, not suffering and holding out on yourself because of her.”

Magnus laughed at that.  “Okay you didn’t even know her, but that’s probably true.”

“Magnus, I don’t doubt that someone who loved you enough to marry you was a one-of-a-kind gal,” Merle sighed with a smile.  “But you’re a one-of-a-kind guy too, and if you  want  to try this falling in love shit again, you should.  Don’t hold yourself back if you’re feeling something.  That’s not you.  That’s not the you she loved.”

“Yeah… Maybe.” Magnus replied, and the smile he gave seemed tired but genuine.  “Thanks for this.”

“Any time big guy,” Merle said, putting a hand on Magnus’ shoulder.  “Any time.”

Taako would be the difficult one.  That was just his nature.  There was no way Merle was going to have a spontaneously deep heart-to-heart with the elf about  feelings  and  love  and all that nonsense.  Taako definitely kept that shit on lock down.

Things would have to be more abstract.

The time came unexpectedly when they both ended up needing to go to Fantasy Costco for spell components.  They tried never to go to that store alone; Garfield’s deals got a little more  sinister  when he got one of the boys on their own.  So they tried to synchronize their shopping trips, and it turned out that Merle ran out of purified water at the same time Taako needed more glass beads and feathers.  So the two of them grabbed their bags and headed to the place where all their dreams could come true.

“I can’t believe you cast enough spells to actually  use  components,” Taako teased as the sliding doors opened.

“Oh I don’t  use  them, I mostly  lose  them,” Merle corrected.  “I can’t find shit anywhere in the dorm.”

“So you’re telling me that there’s probably a bunch of little vials of water and bushels of herbs shoved into the couch or something?”

“I’m thinking more  under  the couch,” Merle shrugged.  “Maybe under my bed.”

Taako grabbed a basket and headed towards the Arcane section, pausing occasionally to look into barrels and vats of ingredients.

There had to be a way to delicately breech the subject Merle needed to talk about.

“So Taako…” he coughed, clearing his throat.  “You seeing anyone?”

Nice.  Perfect.

Taako froze where he was, a bundle of twigs in his hand.  His eyes slid to glare at Merle.

“Why the fuck are you asking me this?” he sighed.

“I just like to keep up with what my boys are doing,” Merle replied.  “This is gonna sound sappy but-”

“Please don’t say it,” Taako interrupted with a moan.

“You and Magnus are like my… weird nephews or something,” Merle continued, “I want to know what’s going on in your lives.”

Taako turned back to the bundle of twigs, inspecting them closely.  Satisfied, he put them into the basket.

“Why, does Magnus have something going on?” he said calmly.

“Oh, it could be nothing,” Merle smoothly replied.  “He’s just pining something awful for a secret crush he has.”

Taako glanced at Merle again.

“Secret… crush?”

“Yeah the guy is absolutely head over heels for someone,” Merle explained, “But the idiot is too shy to make the first move!  Can you believe that?  Magnus being  shy ?”

“Ridiculous,” Taako scoffed, examining a potion bottle label carefully before putting it back on the shelf.

“Yeah I told him there’s no reason to pussyfoot around,” Merle laughed.  “He’s human, he doesn’t have time like that to waste.  But he said all this shit about  not being sure  and  waiting for the right moment. ”

Taako put some dried mushrooms into his basket.

“Did… did he happen to say… I-I mean…  is it anyone we know?” Taako stammered.

“I  think  it’s someone on base,” Merle said sagely, “But he didn’t say who it was.”

They walked in silence for a bit, checking out various semi-precious stones cut into travel sized pebbles for spellcasting.  Taako was suddenly very focused on the errand, looking at every component closely as if trying to see through it to the flaws at it’s core.

When they reached the cages where live bugs and creatures were kept for the more  animated  ingredients, Taako turned to Merle with a frown.

“So,  hypothetically  ,” he mused, not looking directly at the dwarf.  “Say someone has been trying to drop hints for  ages to Magnus, but the idiot has not been picking up those signals.”  He fiddled with his sleeve absentmindedly.  “What was the issue?  Were they being too subtle?”

Subtle was not Taako’s specialty.  Taako could not be subtle if his life depended on it, and anyone with eyes could see that he had been dropping hints.

“ Hypothetically ,” Merle replied, “that person probably didn’t know Magnus had some personal shit to deal with that was keeping him from seeing those signals clearly.”

“Is he straight?” Taako said bluntly, and Merle started to laugh so hard he coughed again.  “Seriously Merle cut the bull, is he straight?”

“I dunno about  straight ,” Merle laughed.  “But he definitely was way more calm about this shit than you are!”

Taako sighed.

“Alright cool, secret’s out,” he grumbled.  “Taako has a crush on the bear.  Taako’s  had a crush since he fucking jumped off a catwalk through a plate glass window to save me from ogres.”

“It’s a very sweet way to meet people,” Merle chuckled.

“But, like, he’s sending out signals that say ‘ Please oh god I’m so alone I need literally anyone to give me a hug’  but also ‘  Stay the fuck away I have issues and I have zero interest in opening up about them’ ,” Taako sighed.  “And I get that.  I do.  I’ve… I’ve got issues too.  But how’s a guy supposed to read that?”

“I mean, you read them 100% accurately,” Merle shrugged.  “The man desperately wants a hug but also sucks at opening up.”

“I just don’t want…” Taako hesitated, watching some crickets crawl around in their cage.  “I don’t want to  say  something, and then things be  weird  between us.”

“He’s a good friend,” Merle agreed.

“And I’ve got so  few  of those,” Taako muttered.

“Listen Taako,” Merle said, gesturing for Taako to kneel next to him.  The elf hesitated, then got down on the floor so he was eye level with Merle.  “I get that you’re not the kind of guy that takes unnecessary risks, and that’s good most of the time!  Saves me a lot of trouble at least!”

“Like you’ve ever fucking healed anyone in your life,” Taako smirked.

“But  loving  people, be it friends or something more, is  always  a risk,” Merle continued, ignoring the slight against him.  “And in this case, it’s a risk  worth taking .”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Taako laughed, rolling his eyes.

“Nah I’m serious,” Merle replied, “I think Magnus is the kind of guy that would be cool with it even if he wasn’t interested.  He’s got a lot of love to spare.”

“You  think ?”

“I  know ,” Merle said with a wink.  “The man is shy, and working through some baggage.  But I think he’s been getting those signals clear as day.”

“So… I should make the first move,” Taako realized.

“Exactly!” Merle cried.  “He’s dense and afraid but so  eager  to love people.  If you wait around for him to figure it out you’ll be waiting for the rest of his life.”

With that, Taako stood up and roughly pat Merle on the head like a dog.  Merle glared at him, but Taako only smiled, and that made him soften too.

“You know… You’re not  completely  shit at this uncle thing,” Taako mused.

It was a few days before Merle saw the sprouts of the seeds he had planted in the boy’s minds.  He didn’t expect them to change overnight, that was too much too fast for troubled men set in their ways.  But they were softening, opening slowly like flowers of their own, and Merle could see that things were about to pop off any day now.

One afternoon Magnus caught him in the common room with a smile.

“I think… I think I want to take Taako out for coffee,” Magnus said.

“Good for you big guy!” Merle cried, patting him on the hip.

“Yeah I just… I think it’s time,” Magnus hummed.

“When you asking him?” Merle asked.

“Ugh  that  I don’t know yet,” Magnus replied sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck nervously.  “Do you think he’ll say yes or…?”

“Magnus, remember what we talked about,” Merle teased.

“I know I know,” Magnus laughed, “I’m definitely doing this.  I’m rushing in!”

“That’s what I like to hear!” Merle chuckled.  “Now Magnus, I have something kinda serious I want to talk about.”

Magnus nodded and bent down so that he was closer to Merle’s face.

“I like you big guy,” Merle continued.  “I like Taako too.  I’m happy you guys are finally going to try and work this shit out.  But I’m a worrier and a dad at heart.”

“Is this… are you gonna  dad  this?” Magnus laughed.

“I’m just saying Taako’s a beloved member of our team, and if you hurt him you’re threatening to  tear the very fabric of this team apart .”

Magnus went a little pale at that, but Merle punched him in the hip gently.

“I’m not trying to scare you big guy, I’m saying… be  careful ,” Merle smiled warmly.  “You’re both pretty fucked up.  Go slow, but don’t hesitate.  Be gentle and thoughtful of each other, and we won’t have any problems.”

“I think I get what you mean,” Magnus said, and the color started to return to his cheeks.  “You don’t have to worry about that Merle, I’ll be careful for us both.”

That same day Taako flicked some tuna casserole at Merle across the cafeteria to get his attention, and in a hushed whisper hissed “Today’s the day, I’m asking Maggie out.”

“Cool,” Merle hissed back with a grin, “Did you have something in mind?”

“Planning dates and shit is  not  Taako’s specialty,” he huffed.  “I’m used to being  pursued , not doing the chasing myself.”

“So no plans,” Merle concluded.

“I figured I’d ask him what he wanted to do and go from there,” Taako mused.

“Good idea,” Merle smirked.

Things were coming together perfectly.

“By the way,” Taako hummed quietly, “You’re not pulling my leg on this one right?  He’s gonna be down for this?”

“Taako I wouldn’t lie about this,” Merle replied, “Magnus is a sensitive guy with fragile emotions.  Speaking of which… Taako, Magnus has been hurt before.”

“So have I, what’s the point?” Taako curtly replied.

“I’m saying don’t hurt him again,” Merle answered.  “I want to see both of you happy, and if you’re not careful with him you’ll  break him.”

“Aaah, is this, like, the doting Dad thing?” Taako laughed.  “You don’t gotta worry Merle.  Taako’s gonna take this one slow and steady.”

“That’s my boy!” Merle cried, and Taako rolled his eyes in response.

It was then that Magnus came into the cafeteria, and Taako hurriedly shoved Merle away.

“Shit shit  shit  get out of here old man you’ll ruin everything,” Taako hissed as Magnus came over.

With a laugh, Merle headed off.  As he headed for the door, the edge of their conversation carried it’s way to him.

“So Taako, uh… I was wondering…”

“Yeah I’ve been thinking we should… go  out  sometime.”

“Oh!  Oh yeah!   Definitely !  You… want to go get some coffee?”

“Maggie I would  love  that.”

Merle knew what it felt like to be in love.

It was something he hoped those two idiots felt for the rest of their lives.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

7x16: TTD Clues (Maybe the Ultimate One!)

Good morning! Let me start by apologizing. I told someone as late as last night that this wouldn’t be posted until Thursday. I was going to do the second part of my details post today. But then I ran out of time to write it and this was already written. So, TTD today. Details tomorrow. ;D

This TTD episode might be one of my favorites EVER. It was so adorable. Poor SMG was quite emotional about leaving, as you might imagine. Then Michael Cudlitz showed up to surprise her with flowers. My heart totally melted!

There were also some important things that stood out to me.

Some things they mentioned about Sasha that back up her being a proxy:

1. “Sasha became the knife.” SMG was talking about how Sasha wanted a knife or a gun from Eugene, but he didn’t give her one, so she became the knife. Kinda cool. And we just always say Beth will be TF’s secret weapon, so it made me smile.

2. “Just one person has to die.” I noticed this in the episode too. Sasha didn’t want Negan killing three people but she finally agreed when he went down to one. The obvious foreshadow there was that she would be the one to die, so only one of TF died, just not in the way Negan expected. 

Two things about this: A) Total dialogue foreshadow. Sasha said only one person would die and it came true. Beth says, “I’m getting out like Noah” and… B) I’ll talk about this more tomorrow but it also reminds me of the fact that, at one point prior to Coda, Rick and TF had three hostages to trade. Okay, I’ll admit the numbers don’t entirely line up here. They had three but it went down to two after Rick killed Evil Officer Bob. And they were trading for two (Beth and Carol) not one. But in that case they started with three to trade and only one person in TF went down (Beth) so it just reminded me of it. And of course this line from the show was emphasized in TWD.

3. The sun moment with Maggie and Sasha was emphasized as well. Okay, here’s the thing about this that I noticed. SMG called it a sunSET moment. It was supposed to be the sunset of Sasha’s life. I had to sit and think about that for a minute. On the one hand, that’s definitely different than in Them, which was a sunrise. I maintain that the only reason for them to link to that scene is to hint at what is coming next. But it also occurs to me that Sasha’s final arc started in Them, with that sunrise. Now it’s ending, and as Gimple himself said, another story is beginning. Hmmm. I wonder whose that could be. ;D

4. They also talked about how there was a behavioral shift in how Negan dealt with Sasha as compared to others. They said he was sincere and almost human. He was genuinely upset that she was dead when he opened the coffin. I thought that was interesting. And if Sasha is a proxy for Beth… Just saying.

Quiz:

1. The quiz emphasized Abraham hating the beach.

It actually mentioned Beth (yippee!) but not her alone. It listed other characters who have appeared in the show (via flashback, dream sequence, hallucination, etc) after their deaths. Bc of Ty’s hallucination, Beth was one of them.

2. It also told us that Roy was the one whose face was eaten by Sasha. He’s the one who was weird with Enid at Hilltop.

Not sure why that’s important. Maybe they just wanted to give him a miniature, douchebag arc so that you’d be sure to hate the dude that got eaten by Sasha?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3. Aaron handed Jerry an apple. Yeah, I totally didn’t catch that. You calmost couldn’t see it. But they wanted to emphasize it in the quiz. Apple Theory!

Another thing that stuck out to me (and many in my FB group) was how much support and sweetness SMG got as she left the show. That kind of thing is always suspicious to us because Beth’s sendoff (or lack thereof) was nothing like this. It felt like such a snub.

Of course, we think that’s because she’ll be back, etc.

But this is more evidence of that argument. I loved Sasha. I was sad to see her go. And as I said above, this TTD sendoff was really sweet and I’m happy for Sonequa that she got such a wonderful goodbye. But I gotta say:

Not so much now, in S7 of course, but in S5, Beth was a MUCH bigger character and story line than Sasha was. The entire fandom (not just TD, but the entire GA) was waiting to see if Daryl would rescue Beth. Even those who hated Beth or Bethyl were still invested in what would happen, just because they feared the outcome or didn’t want it. It was the biggest story line on the show. So even if they decided to go with the tragedy and truly kill her off, Emily’s sendoff should have been more like Sonequa’s: Gimple on the show, support from the actors who were close to her character: Norman and Lauren, flowers, etc. This is the kind of sendoff most major characters get when they leave. Beth didn’t get this. Which is highly suspicious, even two years later.

Finally, the biggest thing!

As is the custom, they asked Gimple what we could expect for season 8. Usually Gimple hypes, saying it will be the coolest thing they’ve ever done, the best season by far, etc.

This time, he didn’t get much time to talk about it. Because they ended up with five people – NR, JDM, SMG, Gimple, and then Cudlitz, they were rushed and couldn’t get through everything.

All Gimple managed to say was that the first four episodes of season 8 would “melt people’s minds and break their television sets.”

Is it hype? Sure. Of course. But think about that. Why would he speak specifically about the first four episodes of the season? In most cases, the first four episodes are largely setups for the rest of the season. The times big things HAVE happened in premieres are always a result of a cliffhanger in the finale. So in S5 with Terminus and then this season with Lucille’s victim, the premieres were big deals because they had to finish the story that left us hanging the season before. But in seasons where there was no cliffhanger, premieres and the first few episodes of the season tend to be pretty tame. They’re new stories that need to be set up. And of course, this was a neatly tied ending. No cliffhanger.

There’s also been a lot of talk in the fandom lately about the 8:00 clocks around Beth. Since she didn’t show up in s7, it’s only natural to look at them now. Many of them could be read as somewhere between 8:00 and 8:05. So that would point to the first handful of episodes of the season.

And remember what I said on Monday: with the callbacks to Them, the very next thing that should happen is the music box waking up. So even though it sucks to have to wait another six months, this is making all kinds of sense at this point.

That’s it for TTD. Anyone catch anything else from it?

[yoongi-jjang]

“Spring Day” + Its Connection to the Sewol Ferry Tragedy Theory

“Spring Day” in of itself is an emotional and beautiful song coupled with the visually stunning music video they released. It took me a bit, but reading some comments and watching the music video multiple times had me discerning what felt like many subtle connections to the Sewol Ferry Tragedy.

The sinking of the Sewol Ferry—which occurred in the spring—occurred in 2014 when a ship capsized and sunk, resulting in the deaths of 304 passengers and crew. Although there were 172 survivors, a large majority of those who had drowned were students from Danwon High School. It was an incident that brought enormous grief and outrage. A thing to note is that shortly before the release of YNWA, BTS and BigHit were revealed to have donated around $85,000 to the Sewol Ferry Disaster 416 Family Council.

Their donation is especially meaningful as it was recently uncovered that there exists a government blacklist on figures in the arts and culture industry. Supporting the families affected by the Sewol Ferry disaster was one of the reasons why people were placed on the list and discriminated against.

Everything from the visual cutscenes to the lyrics just had so many symbolic ties that I could piece with the incident, so I'll just list them here.

[Shoes] The shoes that Jimin is seen holding the M/V had already been a key point of symbolism raised when the teaser was released. Especially the part that showed the pair of shoes being tied up in a tree. In some areas, tying shoes together and hanging them from tree branches indicate that someone has died. Tying them up in a tree is a belief that if the person's spirit is to return, they can walk above the ground closer to heaven. Many have used this to theorize whether one of the members had passed away, most specifically Jin, given his lack of shoes in the WINGS photoshoot. 

Instead of a member, others have pointed out it could reference the death of the students in the Sewol Ferry incident, which is something I've zeroed in on. You can first see Jimin picking up a white pair of shoes at the edge of the sea, along the shore. To me, that was representing the students who had drowned in the sea during the incident. Hanging that pair of shoes on the tree had been to symbolize the deaths of all those who drowned during the Sewol tragedy.

[Birthday] The music video also celebrates what seems to be RapMon's birthday. The first scene we're greeted with is the chaotic slow-motion scene reminiscent of the party scene in “Run”. But the overall feel afterwards seems like a very bittersweet and even solemn experience. Especially when the members are the gathered around the birthday cake with the candle lit, none of them look happy. 

My take is that the birthday, although usually signified as a celebratory and happy event, can also be one of grief and bereavement, especially when concerning the loss of a loved one. Those who have lost a loved one can feel that sorrow when a significant event in that person's life comes around, specifically birthdays. For those who were lost in the Sewol incident, such things like a birthday can be very painful or solemn, and I got the similar sad feeling during that cake scene in the M/V.

[Staircase] I thought that this scene was actually really interesting and powerful. The premise of this cutscene started with six members moving up/down a stairwell, Jin standing alone at the bottom looking up. The others are constantly moving along the stairs, some occasionally sticking their head over the staircase to peek down. Jin then slowly raises his hands, forming his hands in the gesture of one taking of picture or snapshot of the scene he's witnessing. 

The staircase reminded me of a school stairwell, and the members representing the active flow of students as they moved to their next class/destination. To me, it was a representation of the high school students who passed away in the Sewol incident. When Jin lowers his hands later on in the video, the camera pans out to reveal an eerily empty staircase. Now empty due to the loss of all those students. 

[Laundry/Washing Machine] The mountain of laundry that Suga was first found sitting in could have many meanings. It could simply represent the pileup of clothing due to the lack of motivation to do anything—maybe because one is too busy grieving—but I saw it as a representation of all the clothing that the victims left behind after the tragedy. After a loss, victims leave behind memories, but also all of their physical belongings. Clothes can be a painful reminder of what remains after the passing of a loved one, and the large pile of it could represent those who were lost to the incident. Even expanding beyond that, it could even include those around the world who are also suffering with their own issues. 

[2 Jungkooks] Honestly when I first watched the M/V and noticed there were 2 Jungkooks, I was shook. There are 2 Jungkooks that I could distinguish throughout the video. One was always alone, either staring alone out the window on the train or standing outside by himself, while the other was constantly surrounded by his other members. The isolated Jungkook represents those who were affected by the Sewol Ferry incident. When the tragedy occurred in South Korea, there was a lot of criticism regarding the handling of the affair, as well as the seemingly lack of empathy shown by the government in the aftermath. Many, especially parents, felt betrayed and alone in suffering the consequences of such a horrific event. To me, that was Jungkook, who was always wandering alone and desperately searching for others.

The other Jungkook was seen with the members in separate scenes. So here's how I see it. This Jungkook is the one that BTS wants to show. This Jungkook has people he can rely on, people who are walking by his side and supporting him. The critical point in this crossover is when the train rushes past the group, showing the lone Jungkook on the train startling to see what was clearly himself standing on the platform with the others. That was the epiphany: he was never truly alone, he has people with him that he can lean on. To push this further, the lone Jungkook later wakes up on the train, only this time the camera pans back to show the rest of the members also spread out in the car with him. That's the entire point of this album, clearly stated in the title: You Never Walk Alone. In my opinion, this was BTS' way of reaching out to those affected by the incident and assuring them that they weren't alone. There are others who are willing to be there and help. Of course, this doesn't have to center only on those involved with the Sewol tragedy but also those who are suffering with other things and feel alone.

[Lyrics] These are pretty self explanatory. Although these lyrics could mean many things in a certain context, I just felt that some could really connect to the aftermath of the Sewol incident and its sense of loss/grief. 

I miss you

When I say that

I miss you more

I’m looking at your photo

But I still miss you

Time is so cruel

I hate us

Now it’s hard

To even see each other’s faces

The sense of loss and abandonment

I miss you (I miss you)

I miss you (I miss you)

How much more do I have to wait?

How many more nights do I have to stay up?

Until I can see you? (until I can see you?)

Until I can meet you? (until I can meet you?)

Feeling left behind and trying to move on

There hasn’t been a day

That I have forgotten you

Honestly, I miss you

But now I’ll erase you

Because that will hurt less

Than resenting you

Hoping to find closure, finding comfort the happy memories

You know it all

You’re my best friend

The morning will come again

Because no darkness, no season

Can last forever

And a promise to meet again, whenever time will allow

Until the spring comes again

Until the flowers bloom again

Stay there a little longer

Stay there

This was the majority of what was going through my head, but I know so many more elements tie into BTS' message towards suffering and troubled youth in society. Especially the “Omelas” theory, because I also think that ties in and correlates with many of the themes I mentioned above. For now, I just focused this post on the Sewol connection. If anyone has thoughts on this, feel free to start a discussion, I've been really curious in reading about all these theories :D