#If you’re wondering why I can’t just say fuck it it’s because the triangle pattern requires that my stitch count is a multiple of 12

[azure-clockwork]

I was so so hyped to be only a few rows away from finishing the yoke, only to find I miscounted the 276 stitches I was supposed to have an inch and a half ago, so guess who has to frog the entire twisted rib section? Yeah, this this bitch. I hate twisted rib. It takes me so much longer to knit tbl for whatever reason and also just feels worse to do? Oh and if you fuck up and have to reknit dropped or fucked stitches you have to twist em by hand (or at least that’s what I do). And now I gotta redo it. Ugh and I can’t just sub standard 1x1 rib; the twisted actually looks much nicer in this case.

Well hey, at least I get to redo the color gradient that I wasn’t very happy with.

[jujumin-translates]

[A3!] Event | Top of the Blue Sky | Episode 1

Banri: …

Misumi: Huh? Kumon, look, Banri’s over there~.

Banri: (Hm? That voice…)

Kumon: You’re right! I wonder if he’s on his way back from school.

Kumon: HEEEY, BANRI!

Banri: Damn, you don’t gotta yell so loudly. What do you want?

Misumi: Me and Kumon were just about to do a street act~. Do you wanna join us, Banri?

Banri: Sure, why not? You got a theme?

Kumon: The theme is delinquents!

Banri: Delinquents?

Kumon: Yeah. They recently dropped a spinoff manga of the crazy popular “Yankee Star” manga.

Kumon: It’s super interesting, so I wanna be a delinquent too!

Banri: Gotcha. I mean, can’t say I haven’t been interested in that manga too.

Kumon: Really!? Then I guess I’ve got no choice but to lend it to you next, Banri!

Banri: The hell do you mean you don’t got a choice? 

Misumi: I’ve been really into doing delinquent etudes lately too. I’ve been doing them with a leaf in my mouth like this~.

Banri: Nah, you know there ain’t too many of that kinda delinquent nowadays, right?

Misumi: Huh, really? I got it from a manga I borrowed from Azami~.

Banri: That’s prolly ‘cause it’s an over-the-top delinquent manga from ages ago.

Kumon: It makes sense that you’d know a lot about delinquents, Banri. You’re just like a real delinquent!

Banri: …Hey, the fuck you mean I’m like a delinquent?

Kumon: Because it’s true. I mean that as a compliment now!

Banri: “...Quit fuckin’ with me. Today’s the day, I’m gonna wipe that damn smirk off your face.”

Kumon: !

Kumon: “That’s my line, bastard!”

*Kumon throws a punch and Banri dodges*

Banri: “Hah!”

*Banri swings back*

Misumi: “Hey, hey, it ain’t fair that just the two of ya get to get along like that. Count me in. Hyah!”

*Misumi kicks and Banri and Kumon dodge*

Kumon: “A flying kick!?” 

Banri: “Goddamn, he’s for real.”

Passerby A: Huh, is that a fight?

Passerby B: No, it’s a street act! But wow, that’s impressive…!

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

*Applause*

Banri & Kumon: Thank you so much!

Misumi: Thanks for watching, everyone~!

Kumon: That street act was so much fun!

Misumi: Yeah! It was really, really fun~. Thanks for joining us, Banri!

Banri: No problem. I mean, I usually have fun with it too.

???: Excuse me…

Banri: Hm?

???: You’re part of MANKAI Company, right?

Banri: Yeah. You know us?

???: Of course, I’ve even come to see your plays before. I’ve always been supporting you.

Kumon: Thanks, we’re glad to hear that!

???: Likewise. I just came to hand out flyers, but I ended up being lucky enough to see something so incredible like that.

???: Right. Can I give you one of these flyers? It’s an announcement for a newly opened rehearsal studio.

Banri: Ah, sure thing.

Misumi: There’s so many triangle patterns on this flyer! They’re very wonderful triangles~.

???: Haha, seems like all the work I put into designing it was worth it. Well then, I’ll be going now.

Banri: “Rehearsal Studio Blue Sky is Now Open!” huh? Seems like it’s pretty close by.

Kumon: I wonder if that guy just now is a staff member there or something.

Banri: Prolly. I’ll let Director-chan know about it in case we’ve ever got an opportunity to use it.

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

*Door opens*

Kumon & Misumi: We’re home~!

Izumi: Ah, welcome back, guys.

Banri: Perfect timin’. Director-chan, you ever heard of Blue Sky? Seems like it’s a new rehearsal studio in the area.

Izumi: Blue Sky, you mean the place that’s facing backlash on social media right now…?

Troupe Members: Huh, backlash?

[ Next Part ⇢ ]

[chainofclovers]

Ted Lasso 2x10 thoughts

GOOD GOD.

“No Weddings and a Funeral” is like being hungover but also coming out of a hangover. Having a terrible cold but also feeling better and appreciating every breath that comes through your nose. Embarking on an organizational project and accidentally falling into a photo album and crying about the pictures and organizing almost nothing tangible but making a few things more clear in your brain.

So much of this episode is about the AWFUL POINTLESSNESS OF DECORUM. How loud is too loud when you’re drinking stolen wine and shrieking about sex in a church right before your father’s funeral? How should you feel--thirty years later, as an accommodating, anger-averse person--about having been too angry to attend the funeral for your father who killed himself? What expression should you make when you show up really late to a different funeral? Why must you wear uncomfortable shoes just because someone died? What happens in your mind between standing up to give a eulogy for a man you’re still angry with and choosing to Rick Roll your mom and everyone else as an act of complicated love, humiliatingly incomplete until someone else starts to sing? Should you worry about your therapist seeing your normally tidy flat in a full-on state of depression mess? Is it okay to be offended that your boyfriend is so uncomfortable about death that he can’t stop making morbid jokes? Should you care about other people caring that you’re crunching an apple in church or squealing with joy to be reunited with a friend you’ve not seen in awhile? Are you obligated to explain your behavior if your kid doesn’t understand how you could stay with someone unfaithful? How far behind the counter should you sink when your [undefined relationship person]’s mother has just let you know she can see your dick through your underwear? Is a funeral reception an okay place to find a hookup? Is a funeral reception a decent spot for a break-up? Is a funeral reception a good time for a love confession when you know the person you’re confessing to is happy with someone else? And who do you make eye contact with when you can’t look directly at the person asking you if you’re okay when there’s so, so much about you she doesn’t know yet? Even if--for this tiny little moment within a vast swath of many okay and not-okay moments--you’re honest when you tell her that you are?

I fucking adored this episode because it answers all these questions very simply: Show up. Show up for yourself. Show up for your friends. Try not to harm yourself. Try not to harm your friends.

I love that this episode is about the messiness of adulthood and the things we bring with us from childhood and that it takes place partially in Rebecca’s childhood bedroom, and in Ted’s childhood memories. Dwelling in those places (whether physically or mentally) isn’t an automatic recipe for regression, but it does get everyone closer to the things that made them who they are, to the unresolved and half-buried parts of them that still make them tick today.

Forever obsessed with every single detail about Rebecca’s childhood bedroom.

Forever obsessed with Deborah’s decision to Rick Roll herself every single morning of her life.

Forever obsessed with Rebecca’s decision to Rick Roll her father’s funeral as a way to not have to make up a single word about her father and to do something very vulnerable and kind for herself and her mother and everyone.

Forever obsessed with Ted’s decision to Rick Roll Rebecca Rick Rolling her father’s funeral.

Forever obsessed with an entire found family backing it up.

I love that it is Isaac’s leadership that ensures every single member of the team attends the service for Paul.

I am very, very interested in Jamie’s love confession to Keeley because I do think it will spark some reflection in Keeley but I do not think it’ll go the cliched love triangle route.

Each scene with Rebecca and Sam struck (for me, a human being sharing a subjective perspective on the internet) the tender-awkward-beautiful-stressful chord I was hoping it would. I think it’s wonderful that Sam is honest with Rebecca about how difficult it is to keep their relationship a secret, and I love that Rebecca has a million mostly-unarticulated reasons for why she’d much prefer the secret to continue. I like that Sassy, Keeley, and Nora respond to the revelation as friends; they might be tempering their judgments in part because they’ve all gathered to bury Rebecca’s dad, but I don’t think their reactions would’ve been that different even on a happier occasion.

While there are a million and one different reasons why a continued relationship between Rebecca and Sam could cause serious ethical problems, I really love that when people share big news on this show, the people who care about them generally react by trying to see why the person is doing what they’re doing. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t also hold each other accountable, but in my book it’s OK that Keeley’s first reaction was to feel happy that her friend is having some fun.

Also everyone has been making weird judgment calls this season, and this episode felt like a moment of real breakthroughs in terms of people telling the truth about things that happened to them and leaving themselves open to honest responses from others.

September 13, 1991. It’s so tenderly, beautifully, overwhelmingly meaningful that there’s still so much Ted and Rebecca don’t know about the things they have in common in these parallel lives they’re leading. The scene between Sarah Niles and Jason Sudeikis is so beautifully acted, and so is the scene between Hannah Waddingham and Harriet Walter. The way they intertwine to communicate that Ted and Rebecca basically lost the ability to trust their fathers simultaneously, from an ocean away? In the hands of lesser storytellers, it would feel too perfect a mirroring, but here it feels heartbreakingly imperfect. All the things they still don’t know. All the questions they try to ask each other. All the things they don’t dare ask yet. And then the storytellers are holding a candle up to all of it and letting the audience bask in the glow of this connection even if Ted and Rebecca can’t fully understand it yet.

I am so proud that Rebecca and Deborah were able to embark on the beginnings of a conversation about the ways Deborah and Paul’s relationship might have resembled or not resembled Rebecca and Rupert’s. It feels possible that they could get to a point where Rebecca truly internalizes her mother’s pride that she broke a cycle by leaving Rupert, and could maybe even understand why her mother made the choices she made. I love that in the final scene, they’re still relying on their old mother-daughter conversational patterns—the frustrations, the snippy shorthand, the passive-aggression. Mothers and daughters!

I am also proud that Ted—albeit via a joke about Sharon charging him for the house call—indicates that he understands the value of Sharon’s work. He’s changed a lot, all in realistic ways for someone who loves learning and really does want to meet people where they are and appreciate them. I’m very moved that instead of putting himself in a real harmful situation by showing up to the funeral on time at any cost, he did what he needed to do to take care of himself and accept care from someone else. And then Sharon’s suggestion that he think about things he loved about his father? And the way he’s able to share a positive memory of Rebecca’s own father at a time when she really needed it? Gosh.

Awkward, undecorous transition from 1991 to present-day incoming...but SASSY! She’s just, like, a whirling dervish of loyal friendship and not giving a fuck and penis size discussions and being casually, delightfully cruel to Rupert, who so deserves it. Rebecca was going on a real face journey when Sassy goes off with Ted at the end, and I’m sort of *eyes emoji* about all of that, but I continue to feel like Sassy is the most imperfectly wonderful friend-from-the-past kind of person and I love everything she and Nora get to do in this episode.

Keeley saying “That baby is whack” might be my favorite line in the episode? Maybe the whole show? Not really but really.

FUCK YOU, RUPERT. Bex and Diane, y’all are fine. And I truly feel for Nate...whatever scheme he’s getting suckered into. Whatever insecurity Rupert is preying on. I want Nate to go to therapy, too.

I feel like it was an unpopular opinion at the time, but I loved Rebecca’s 2x1 revelation about vulnerability and fear of getting hurt and needing to let someone love her. Sassy doesn’t always word things in the most nuanced way, but I think there’s a real possibility that she did ask Rebecca to really consider what it means to feel either safe or unsafe with a person but to know that in either circumstance, that person could end up causing her pain. Standing in that closet with Sam, managing to make it clear that she’s not asking for a break because she knows he will hurt her but because she has to figure out how to be with a wonderful person who could cause her pain...the growth, man. Makes me emotional.

I emerged from this episode feeling, of course, stunned by all the amazing parallels and revelations and beautiful acting and Rick Rolls and just, everything. I also emerged feeling sad/raw/tender because messiness and decorum and growth and coping mechanisms and death and dramatic irony and not knowing things about people and not knowing what you don’t know...it’s a sad, raw, tender place to be.

To quote a guy who got a whole sitcom (lol) named after him, life is real hard.

[kikis-writing-world]

hi so I’m going to break up with my boyfriend soon, could I get some soft thoughts on a character of your choice comforting a reader who’s breaking up with their S/O?? maybe.. the Pedro character has feeling for reader,,?

Hi Anon, I’m sorry you’re going through that. it’s not an easy thing to deal with, even when you know it’s coming. I wrote something for you, and it turned a little bit fluffy - which I hope is okay. It’s less sad and more sappy/cutesy, so I hope it comforts you as you work through this. Some cheesy Marcus Pike to help you out.

You’d been trying to hide it, but you’d been zoning out all day. You couldn’t help it, knowing what was coming. The end of a relationship was always hard, even when you knew it was time. The connection, the camaraderie, and even as awful as it sounded to say, the routine were all a part of your life and for it all to change… it just sucked.

Of course Marcus picked up on it. He was a damn FBI agent and one of your closest friends. Of course he realized you were zoning out and not paying attention.

“Are you gonna tell me, or do I have to crack open a cold, hard can of tough love?” He teased, although there was no charming glint in his eyes, just worry.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You dismissed automatically, even though you knew it wouldn’t be so easy.

“Last chance.” Marcus warned, miming pulling an invisible can out from behind him, giving it a shake and listening to the carbonation.

“What is that?” You laughed.

“It’s a can of tough love. Don’t make me open it.” He warned with a grin.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“And you’re avoiding the issue.”

“I am not-”

He cut you off, opening the imaginary can completely with an over-the-top sound effect.

“I’m breaking up with Dylan!” You blurted out before he could say anything.

His grin fell, as did his hands. “What? Why? What’s wrong?” He started to verbalize the millions of questions running through his head.

“It’s just… time.” You sighed, shrugging. How do you explain to someone that it’s just not there anymore?

“Did something happen?” He asked, resting his hand on your knee.

“No, nothing.” You shook your head. There hadn’t been any kind of dramatic event that signified the ending of the relationship. It was just dead. “It’s just not there anymore.”

Marcus nodded in understanding. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault.” You scoffed. “You didn’t kill the spark.”

“I know, I just-” He sighed, scrunching his lips to the side as he thought. “It sucks. You think you’re with someone for the long haul and then… you’re not.”

“Yeah.” You agreed. You’d known for a while Dylan hadn’t been “the long haul” but you knew Marcus was speaking from his own experiences. “It’s just been weighing on my mind. I don’t want to do it, but I have to bite the bullet. If it’s over, it’s over, right? I shouldn’t let it drag on.”

“Right.” Marcus agreed, his thumb brushing the inside of your knee comfortingly. “It’s better to pull off the Band-Aid now.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling myself.” You chuckled sadly before dropping your head into your hands. “Fuck I hate this. Can’t we go back to middle school when you could send your best friend to do it for you? Break up with someone by slipping a note inside their locker?”

Marcus chuckled, sliding closer on the couch so he could rub your back. “I know. Life was easier then. When relationships meant holding hands at lunch or sneaking a kiss behind the trees at recess. Now it’s merging bank accounts and moving in together and hiding your feelings over the fear of ruining great friendships.”

You looked up at him, seeing his face turning red. “Marcus Pike has entered the chat.” You teased. “Got something on your mind too?”

His hand fell from your back as he scooted away to put a bit more space between you. “No. No, that was… I was just saying, like… figuratively.” He stuttered. “That shit didn’t matter in middle school.”

“Right.” You quirked an eyebrow at him in disbelief.

“That’s all.” He stuck to his guns, although he wasn’t making eye contact with you.

You couldn’t help it, leaning forward and picking up an imaginary can. You shook it and held it to your ear.

“Tough love? Really? You’re stealing my move?” Marcus huffed, crossing his arms although a small grin had returned to his face.

“What, this?” You motioned to the imaginary can. “No, this is a can of Crystal Pepsi, wondering if I’m going to have to go back to 80’s technology to get the truth out of you.” You laughed.

Marcus joined in the laughter, although he threw his hands in the air. “What does that even mean?”

You got off the couch, heading to your small in-home desk, where you knew there was a notepad and pens. You grabbed them, bringing them back to the couch. Marcus stared at you in confusion.

“You know my secret. Tell me yours.” It wasn’t a question, it was a demand even if you were saying it nicely.

“With these?” He questioned, holding up the pen and paper.

“Like middle school.” You nodded.

Marcus shook his head and sighed, but started writing. You tried not to look, to give him the privacy to write out his thoughts, but you wanted to know. You had a guess, and that guess had your mouth running dry. You honestly weren’t sure if you wanted to be right or not. It could change everything, and were you ready when you were just about to get out of your current relationship-

The thoughts were brought to a halt when the small triangle of paper was pushed into your hand. You looked down at it then back up at Marcus, impressed he had managed to fold it almost perfectly for those silly middle school notes.

“Not the first note I’ve passed.” He shrugged bashfully, back to avoiding eye contact with you.

You slipped the paper open, careful not to rip it apart. It took you a moment, not quite remembering the folding patterns.

Yes/No

I like you but didn’t say anything because you were with Dylan. Also you’re my friend and I cherish that. But maybe we can go to dinner sometime, not as friends? As a date?

You looked up at him, seeing he was watching you read the note. You held your hand out for the pen, which he handed you. You circled the “yes” and handed it back to him, watching him light up as he saw it.

“I do have some conditions though.” You warned.

“Of course.” He nodded, trying to be serious even though he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face.

“I need to figure things out with Dylan first. I don’t want anything to happen between us until then.”

“Absolutely.” He agreed.

“Second, you clean up that can of tough love you spilled all over my carpet.” You joked. Marcus laughed and you joined in, feeling the tension between you dissipate.

“I’ll pay for the cleaning.”

“That works.”

[sailorbadger]

The Fandom’s Least Favorite Character - an analysis on Kate

Kate is probably the most hated character in the Robin Hood fandom. Not even probably, she is the one who consistently gets the most hate. So, what has she done? Did she commit several murders? Did she kill off a beloved character? Did she do something so problematic that she deserves to burn in hell? Did she do war crimes? No, her biggest sin is existing among unfair circumstances.

The title of this post is kind of a lie. This analysis is not really about Kate as a character, but about how she is written, how the narrative presents her and how this all affects the fandom’s treatment of her. I started writing this because I am sick of seeing so much unnecessary hate for Kate. This is just me commenting on larger trends I have witnessed and a decade’s worth of frustrations finally being written out. If you do recognize yourself from some of my descriptions, I hope that this post will give you something to think about, but just know that this is not meant for any one person in particular.

I’m not going to try to convince anyone to think of Kate as their favorite character. I’m not even trying to make anyone like her. I’m just trying to see why she is so hated within the fandom. So, let’s start off with how it all began. Grab some snacks, you’re going to need them; this is a long one.

 Introduction: Is it all Merlin’s fault?

To understand the context in which Kate was introduced to the show, let’s first look at where we left off at the end of season 2. I’ll start with the in-universe changes first. The biggest change obviously is that Gisborne murdered Marian. This altered the whole course of the show. Marian was such a central part of not only the show but also the Robin Hood legends, that at that point it was obvious that things were going to change. Will and Djaq left the show as well. Them leaving is not as dramatic of a change for the show’s narrative since they were not as central as Marian, but they did make up one third of the gang. This meant that there was a need for new characters to be introduced in season 3.

In our world, things changed between seasons 2 and 3 as well. There was a larger gap in production than before (with seasons 1 and 2 coming out in consecutive years and there being a gap year between seasons 2 and 3), and some of the people working on the show left or were replaced. Robin Hood’s spot on the BBC schedule was taken over by Merlin for 2008 so I guess we could blame that show for everything that went wrong in season 3. (I’m obviously joking here but conspiracy theories are welcome.)

The most important change in my opinion – and I think this is even more important to how season 3 turned out than anything that happened in-universe in season 2 – is the fact that Dominic Minghella was no longer writing or producing the show. It’s surprising to me that the fandom as a whole doesn’t ever really talk about this, when in many other fandoms creators or showrunners leaving the show are usually a big deal and mark the end of an era. I myself only found out about Minghella’s departure from the show before season 3 this year, but it seems to explain a lot on why season 3 felt so different from seasons 1 and 2.

With all that out of the way, the stage is set, and it is time to look at how exactly Kate came into the show.

 Six boots, two feet

Season 3 starts off with my least favorite episode of the whole show (see my episode ranking for more details). It tries its best to address the events of the season 2 finale, but in a way that will let it quickly get to the season 3 storylines. Unfortunately, the things that happened at the end of the previous season were so important that they would have needed several episodes to cover the full impact of the events.

Kate herself is introduced in episode 2. She is immediately given a reason to hate the villains and join the fight when her brother dies. She doesn’t join the outlaws right away, but when she does, she essentially has to take over three roles at once. I do not think it’s a coincidence that I think episode 4 is Kate’s best episode and that she’s at her best before she actually joins the gang. That is the point in the show when she is allowed to be her own character rather than someone who is trying to fill a void.

Like I said, Kate has three roles to take over; she gets Djaq’s spot in the gang as “the girl one”, Will’s role as “the peasant with personal connections to the people’s suffering” (and interestingly, since Kate’s family is around, her connection could have been even stronger than Will’s) and Marian’s as “the love interest”. Since the season 2 finale got rid of both of the only female characters in the show, it was inevitable that they would eventually be replaced if the show wanted to include any romantic storylines (it was, after all, 2009, so queer representation was out of the question). With three pairs of boots to fill, and only two feet, it should not come as a surprise to anyone that Kate can’t possibly do it all alone. The show does introduce Tuck and Isabella as well to help fill the gaps, but I think Kate gets labeled as “the replacement” far more often than the other two.

 A triangle without a base is just an angle

Kate had all the potential for a good plotline. Her brother died, making her hungry for revenge, yet this part of her is only sprinkled in every now and then instead of being a part of her character arc. Instead, she is made a part of not one, not two, but three love triangles.

I’ll start with the Much/Kate/Allan one. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t actually exist. All sides of this “triangle” are… weird. The writers try to frame it as a legitimate love triangle, when only one person in it seems to have any real feelings for another character. Much is shown to be interested in Kate, but we as the audience are never given a reason for why he likes her or even how he fell for her. I guess we’ll just have to take his “I fall in love very easily” (from 2x4) quite literally. Kate does not seem to have any romantic feelings for Much, and she seems oblivious to his feelings as well.

To be honest, I don’t think Kate ever really saw Allan as an option either. At best I could admit that maybe she had a slight attraction to him, but I never got the impression that it was something she would seriously pursue. I don’t think Allan was seriously interested in Kate either. His flirting with her is quite similar to his joke-y flirting with Marian and Djaq. My friend and I talked at length about this, but Allan doesn’t seem like the type of person to flirt for real. This could be a whole analysis on its own, so I won’t go too deep into it here. But I don’t think Allan considers Kate a legitimate romantic option.

So, this “love triangle” only exists in Much’s head and in the narrative the writers try to force on the audience. The Kate/Allan side of it is practically dropped the minute Kate/Robin becomes a thing.

Then there is the Much/Kate/Robin/Isabella triangle that is not a triangle either. I already covered Much/Kate for the most part, so I won’t go into it. Since the Robin/Isabella relationship is not that central to Kate’s character, I won’t bore you and myself by going through it that deeply. The buildup for that relationship is practically nonexistent, and so is the end of it. The whole Robin/Isabella relationship feels forced, because the writers didn’t know how to properly replace Marian while coming up with something new.

Kate’s crush on Robin seems to develop out of nowhere as well. It looks like a pattern when it comes to romances this season. Robin himself doesn’t appear to have any romantic interest towards Kate until he and Isabella “break up”. After that point, their relationship progresses way too fast. It doesn’t help that they seem to have no chemistry between them, and Robin treats Kate like a child and then five seconds later proceeds to make out with her.

Honestly, if Kate had to have a romance with a character on the show (and with it being 2009 obviously they could not fulfil my dreams of Kate being bi but that’s beside the point), it should have been with Archer. The two of them had more chemistry in the 30 seconds they worked together in 3x12 than Robin and Kate had the entire season. It would have also made me far less uncomfortable, since the characters would have been closer in age. Which brings me to my next point.

 “There is only one thing worse than a rapist – a child”

How old is Kate supposed to be? Seriously, this show can’t seem to make its mind about her. In general, I do not trust anyone’s age on this show unless it’s been stated somewhere. I know some people try to base the characters’ ages on the actors’ real ages, but to that I say, “fuck that”. Archer is the best example of the fact that this show did not even try to cast people who are the right age, or even look the part. (Seriously, he does not look even close to being 20.)

That being said, Kate is written like she is both 15 and 25 at the same time. I don’t know if the writers had a specific age in mind when they were writing her, but there is a huge difference between those ages. I think it’s the most reasonable thing to assume that she’s in her late teens, maybe at most in her very early twenties. She is still living with her family (I know that most women at the time married in their 20s but it’s not like this show is concerned with historical accuracy) and her behavior is a little immature at times. With all that said, I hope it doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I find it incredibly uncomfortable that all the men that are presented as possible love interests to her are fully grown men.

It is the most obvious in Robin and Kate’s scenes. Like I said earlier, Robin treats Kate like a child and speaks to her in a condescending way, only to then make out with her in the same scene. I must wonder why the writers didn’t just age up Kate. I think it would have been more interesting to make her someone who is already married, and instead of losing her brother, it would be her husband that dies. Of course, I would prefer it if Kate didn’t have to be a part of any of these love triangles to begin with but aging her up would have made the dynamics far less uncomfortable. (I do have to also point out the fact that Meg is also written like she is a teen girl. The show then tries to pair her off with Gisborne, who is even older than the men Kate is being forced into love triangles with. So… yikes.)

 Let’s take a break, drink some water

Let’s take a moment to recap what we’ve learned here. First of all, Kate entered the show in unfair circumstances and with only two feet to fill three pairs of boots. She was only ever allowed to be a part romance plots, and she didn’t get a proper character arc of her own. In general, the women in this season were not written well (not that seasons 1 and 2 were the height of feminist television either), and they were reduced to being love interests or tools to further the male character’s plotlines. Without Dominic Minghella involved and with a full year between seasons 2 and 3, the show lost some of its charm. Unfortunately, this meant that Kate was not the best written character. But I do not think she deserves all the hate the fandom has given her over the years.

 Interlude: Doctor Death

Before I get too much into how the fandom has reacted to Kate over the years, I feel like I should explain my own history with this show and the fandom surrounding it.

I started watching the show when it was first airing here on TV. It was some time during season 2, and once I had seen my very first episode, I watched all the following ones as well. With the finale, there was a problem. I had seen 2x12 and knew that the final episode of the season would air the next week. I was so excited for it, but then my mother decided that we would all go out and have dinner. I kept looking at the clock all day, hoping I would make it home in time. I got home just to see the credits rolling. I’m still a little bitter about it.

After this, I was desperate to see how the season ended. I’ll remind you that this was before it was common for shows to be put online officially. Streaming wasn’t really a thing yet. I did the only thing I knew what to do; I went to YouTube. The thing is, I did not know that what I had been watching was the second season of the show. So, you can imagine my confusion, when I find the very grainy version of 1x13 on YouTube and start watching it. Eventually I figured out my mistake and watched 2x13. At some point I watched season 1 as well, but I honestly don’t have that many memories of when I first watched this show. My clearest memory is being betrayed by my own mother when she forced me to go out for dinner.

Since I do not remember what year this all happened in, I did some googling and if I’m correct, season 2 aired here for the first time in the summer of 2009, with reruns in the summer of 2010. Because I have no other memories for context, I can’t say whether or not season 3 was even out in the UK at the time. Anyway, I did not watch season 3 for a few years. I also didn’t engage with the fandom until 2012, when I joined Tumblr. (A side note: while trying to find out when season 2 aired, I found the episode titles and descriptions. Apparently 2x4’s Finnish title was Doctor Death. There were some real gems on that list but this one was my favorite.)

Over the years, I had read bits and pieces about season 3 on the internet. I was still upset about the end of season 2, and the things I read did not make me want to watch season 3. Sometime in 2012-2013 I finally gave in and watched season 3. I was mostly disappointed by the season as a whole, and as for Kate specifically, I found her annoying. In the fandom, I went along with the Kate-hate that was popular in the fandom at the time.

I did a full rewatch of the show with my friend in 2016–2017. During that time, I didn’t hate Kate as much as I did before. Maybe it was that I had a fresh perspective, maybe it was that I had matured in those few years. Who knows? I was mostly disappointed by the bad writing. Even back then, I wished that Kate had been given a proper chance.

The next proper rewatch of the whole series I did was this past winter. I watched the show in a non-chronological order with someone who had never seen it before. This time, I was angry at the writers and found myself half-ironically becoming a Kate-stan. I also began to really pay attention to how the fandom has talked about her over the years and was unnerved by the hate has she gotten.

So, here we are. Time to take a look at how the fandom has treated Kate. Most of this will be based on my own experiences and memories, so if someone else has a different point of view to offer (especially from the early days of the fandom while the show was still ongoing), feel free to comment! I just wanted to give you my own history with the fandom to show that I have indeed been around for most of the fandom’s history.

 The hate-train for Kate-town leaves from platform 4

It seems that from the very beginning, Kate was disliked. I remember reading negative comments about her way back in the early 2010s (I would try to look for examples, but I just spent 30 minutes trying to find out when season 2 first aired here and it’s currently 1am so I am not spending any more time googling right now). There are fics that make fun of her and how badly she was written, and most of the jokes and dislike about season 3 seem to always come back to her. This attitude has been present in the fandom in other contexts as well. Over the years, the hate towards Kate has come and gone along with the popularity of the fandom.

Every once in a while, someone has tried to either write Kate better or even see her as a character that was let down by the writers. Mostly this has not led to any significant change in the fandom’s attitudes. I feel like whenever some of the older fans outgrow their Kate-hate by either just maturing and realizing it’s pointless or just not wanting to waste their time making fun of her, new fans come in and start the whole thing all over again.

I am grateful, however, that the general consensus in the fandom seems to be (at least in the year 2021) that the actress is not to blame for Kate’s faults. It still does make me uncomfortable that people go so far as to cross out her face on pictured etc. just to show how much they hate the character. This hate that Kate gets feels very misogynistic at times and is at least partially the result of the show’s misogynistic writing, but the actress deserves no negativity for playing Kate.

 What about Isabella?

One thing that is very interesting to note is that while both Kate and Isabella were newcomers in season 3 and were both replacements for Marian in the sense that they were love interests for Robin, only Kate has received a significant amount of hate over the years. So why does the fandom not hate Isabella?

I think that a big reason for why Isabella is tolerated – not necessarily liked, I haven’t seen too many people genuinely enjoying her character – better than Kate is the way the narrative treats them. Kate is essentially forced down our throats. The show is so desperate for us to like her that they end up making her unlikeable. Isabella, on the other hand, is eventually made into a villain, and thus we’re not meant to sympathize with her in the end anyway. (I could write a whole rant about how Isabella’s treatment in the narrative is bad but let’s not do it here.) Isabella also has the advantage of being Gisborne’s sister, so her backstory ties better into already existing characters. I think it’s reasonable to say that Gisborne being a fan-favorite in certain parts of the fandom doesn’t hurt Isabella’s case either.

Isabella is also only involved with Robin, while the show keeps pairing Kate off (unsuccessfully) with almost half the cast. I think she was written in a way that reminds people of Mary Sues, and considering how fandoms tend to not like characters like that, it’s no surprise that Kate got all the hate she did.

 Murder and being annoying – they’re the same thing, right?

So why exactly does the fandom hate Kate so much? Obviously, the writing is a big reason. Season 3 is not written well, which means that Kate is not written well either. She doesn’t really get a storyline of her own, and instead her main purpose is to be someone else’s love interest. I would also add that Kate doesn’t really get hate for her personality. Most of the hate that she gets in terms of character traits revolves around her being annoying, but that’s not really a personality trait. So I think the issue is not her personality, but her role.

The next reason won’t surprise anyone who has spent as much time in fandoms as I have: Fandoms do not like female characters. Well, I should probably rephrase that. Fandoms tend to hate female characters more easily than male characters. I’m not going to analyze too deeply on why this is, as I’m sure someone has already done research on this with references to actual feminist theory. There is a lot of internalized misogyny in fandoms, and female characters get hate for even the slightest wrongdoing, while male characters who commit far worse crimes often have a strong fanbase that will defend them despite these flaws, especially if said male character is played by a conventionally attractive man.

Kate is also blamed for things such as breaking Much’s heart, even though she was never really aware of Much’s feelings in the first place, so it was definitely not intentional. She’s blamed for every small wrongdoing in a way other characters in the show are not. I’ve seen people criticize Kate for small things that she has not even done on purpose. Some of these people then also go on to ignore the fact that Gisborne has committed several murders, taken part in the oppression of the poor and done many many more atrocious things, and paint him as a more sympathetic character than Kate. I understand if you do not like Kate, but it feels misogynistic that the female characters are held to different standards than the male characters. I can already hear some of the Gisborne-fans saying “but I acknowledge his actions and think what he did was wrong! I just find him to be a misunderstood and/or interesting character”. To those people I will just say: Why are you not applying this same logic for Kate? Why are you making outright hateful comments about her? If you don’t like her, why not just ignore her? If you are a Gisborne-fan and have never made these comments about Kate, this obviously doesn’t apply to you. And even if you aren’t a Gisborne-fan, but you do recognize this way of thinking in yourself in regard to some other character, I encourage you to think about it critically. I just used Gisborne as an example since I know he’s perhaps the most popular male character in the fandom (at least if Ao3’s numbers are anything to go by). I’ve also seen a similar attitude from a lot of Allan-fans, though in their case the hypocrisy is often not as obvious, but I’ll return to Allan in a moment.

Many female characters end up getting hate because they get in the way of a popular (often m/m) ship. In this regard, Kate is kind of an outlier since she doesn’t exactly do that, since there isn’t really a ship to get in the way of. Sure, she’s eventually paired off with Robin, but Marian is already dead by the time she shows up, and if people were truly bothered by someone other than Marian trying to get Robin’s attention, they would also hate Isabella with the same intensity. I do think there is one “ship” Kate does come in the middle of, and here’s where we get back to Allan.

Now, the ship Kate does get in the middle of is not in fact canonical. I am of course talking about the popular Allan/OC trope. If you go on Ao3 or Fanfiction.net, you won’t have a hard time finding fics where Allan is paired with an OC. This is understandable, seeing that the show only has four main female characters to begin with, one of whom is already in a love triangle with other people, one of whom canonically ends up with someone else, one of whom is actively hated by the fandom and one of whom just does not interact with Allan.

I want to make it clear that I think it’s fine if people want to come up with their own OCs for the purpose of shipping them with existing characters, it’s just not my thing, especially when those OCs are any level of self-inserts. (I personally don’t feel the need to ship Allan romantically with anyone. I just tend to not like OCs in any fandom.) Since Kate is presented as a potential love-interest for Allan, I think many fans who would rather see Allan with their own character or even themselves view Kate as an obstacle or a threat.

As you may see, this fandom, like many others, unfortunately treats the women in the show differently from the men. Male characters like Gisborne are viewed as redeemable so long as they are attractive, but Kate is irredeemable for… breaking Much’s heart and/or getting in the way of Robin/Marian or Allan/OC? This is something that really bothers me. I don’t mind the fact that people don’t like Kate, it’s the extensive hate she gets that makes me uncomfortable.

 Conclusion: Where do we go from here?

Like I said in the beginning, I am not asking anyone to say Kate is their favorite character or to even like her. I just wanted to provide some things for people to think about regarding how they treat female characters. I think it’s about time the fandom took a proper look at itself and critically thought about how it speaks about female characters. It’s 2021, let’s not hate on female characters just for being a little annoying or getting in the way of shipping.

I haven’t seen the fandom analyze that much why season 3 is the way it is. I would love to see some meta about how Dominic Minghella’s departure and other behind the scenes factors contributed to the story and aesthetics of season 3. I would also love to see some actual analysis on the season 3 characters that isn’t focused on tearing them down. If the fandom never made another post about how terrible Kate is without providing any actual reasons, I would be happy. I can sort of understand this immature hatred coming from 15-year-olds, but I’m disappointed to say that I have seen fully grown adults tearing down Kate in this quite misogynistic way. I know that many people do not intend for their dislike of Kate to come across as misogynistic, but it does not erase the fact that that is how many of those hateful comments appear.

I think Kate had a lot of potential. Season 3 had a lot of potential. It is quite a move to kill Marian in the middle of a Robin Hood story, so they had the chance to take the story to all kinds of places. Unfortunately, the season 3 we ended up with was not of the same quality as the previous seasons. Instead of just hating on the characters or story in general, I think we should focus on really analyzing the season, and even coming up with our own ways of improving it. Many people have already done this (though unfortunately many of these attempts also include thinly veiled hatred towards Kate. It’s your story, why are you not treating her any better than the actual writers of the show?), but there’s always room for more takes.

At this point I will shamelessly advertise my own “Kate should have been the new Nightwatchman” theory and my Nightwatchman-fic. I wrote the latter in a way that would let it be a part of canon if necessary. I think that by refocusing the story and shifting the way we read the text, we can find new aspects of season 3, and perhaps even enjoy it more. That is what happened to me during my latest rewatch, and all it took was watching it in a non-chronological order and talking about it with someone who had never seen the show.  

I’m not trying to gatekeep the fandom and say that only thought-provoking analysis or fix-it fanfiction is allowed. I just feel like people should be more conscious of the message they are sending out when they write hateful comments about Kate, censor her name or even cross out her face from pictures. Is it actually funny? Are you contributing something to the conversation? Is it actual criticism or just hate for the sake of hate? You don’t have to start writing posts in the defense of Kate, but you can just start ignoring her. It’s not that difficult. It’s fine to make jokes, but let’s start thinking about what our jokes say about us.

I once more want to emphasize that this is not a callout post I wrote with any one person in mind. So, if you felt offended when I was talking about Gisborne-fans, Allan/OC-shippers or Kate-haters in general, I can assure you that this post was not about you personally. This is not about any individual person. I’m just commenting on trends in the fandom I have noticed over the years. I don’t think any of you have committed any sins or that you need to be cancelled. I just hope that if you did feel guilty reading this, you’ll realize that maybe this post was something you definitely needed to read. As a woman, I would love it if this fandom worked on getting rid of its internalized misogyny.

I’m not claiming to be right on all of this, in fact I have a lot of bad opinions as well. I hope this post has provided people with things to think about. Feel free to use this as a starting point for your own meta or analysis. I’ll end my rant here, and leave you with this thought:

Kate had a lot of potential to be a good character. She did not let us down. The writers did.

[wunderlass]

I’m feeling so deflated to be writing this post. S1 had its flaws but those could be placed at the feet of a freshman showrunner who could learn from her mistakes going into S2 and up her game. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and S2 was a mess.

S1 had a clear central plotline: the mystery of Rosa’s death, leading to justice in the form of Noah’s death and Rosa’s resurrection. S2’s central plotline was…um. The kidnappings? Leading into the plot to blow up Crashcon? I think? But there was so much other stuff gong on it’s hard to tell.

Carina – if you happen to come stumbling into the tags for reactions – you’ve already acknowledged that you struggle to edit your scripts down for length. And it does show in the finished product. But you also struggle to edit your ideas down to fit into the episode count you have. There were too many extraneous plot threads this season, too many guest characters, and the ideas you had were shoddily and sloppily executed.

There were shining moments scattered here and there and the occasional good episode, but for the most part this season lurched from badly paced episode to badly paced episode. Stuff was crammed into each episode and yet somehow the plot also treaded water until 2x11 when it all kicked off – and this was because so much of what happened in the earlier episodes didn’t feed into the main plot. Even Max’s death, the overarching motivation for many characters at the beginning, was shoved to the side for other ideas.

And the payoffs for each of these storylines was too often underwhelming. Max can’t come back because he’ll be full of dark energy and a destructive force! Resolved in 30 seconds by him blowing up a pile of stuff. Max can’t remember Liz! Fixed in the same episode. That pattern continued with the finale feeling like it was trying to wrap up all these storylines without really having a story of its own. The various cliffhangers from Crashcon were tied up before the title card and then let’s spend the next 40 minutes treading water again.

There were good moments in the finale. Max and Isobel’s discussion, the Maneforrest kiss, Rosa and Helena’s reunion. But as for the rest? Hear me whine:

-          Jesse’s death was anticlimactic. His line about “no more Manes men” makes no sense given as far as he knew Flint (and maybe Clay?) is still alive. His death should have been poetic because one of his son’s killed him but it didn’t hold the weight it should have, possibly because it came so early in the episode.

-          It would have been far better if Jesse had discovered that Harlan killed Tripp and buried him beneath the shed. How awful would it have been for his entire worldview to be shaken by that revelation? How perfect would it have been if he discovered that Tripp loved Nora? If he died after learning all of that, becoming desperate and sloppy in whatever scheme he was trying to pull off (self-immolation via the bomb?), it would have been a fitting ending.

-          So many characters this season were badly served. Alex, Michael, and to a lesser extent Max, had real arcs and progression. Alex especially you can see them setting up his growth for a payoff in the finale. 

-          Kyle was shafted, shoved to the side for the Steph storyline that didn’t feel like it was going anywhere, and I suspect we got a lot of that cut away to make room for other stories.

-          Rosa’s story started off strong and then mostly got tied into rehab or helping Isobel. Them having her out and about in public in Roswell is complete nonsense.

-          Max had a line for Isobel about her becoming her “entire self” this season, and that rang false to me. We’ve only seen Isobel develop her powers. Her personality has shifted each episode, fractured and inconsistent, dependant on what the writers needed her to do. She didn’t get much of a storyline of her own – the abortion was redundant, serving as a political soapbox for Carina rather than anything that served the character – and while she’s found out more about her heritage, that’s never been as important as Michael or Max finding out about theirs. She said she wanted to become more like her mother and that never went anywhere.

-          I was so hopeful that Carina had listened and understood the criticisms with Maria’s handling in S1 and worked to improve it. She certainly gave her increased screentime. Except, so much of that screentime was tied into Michael, and latterly Isobel. She lacked interactions with Liz or Rosa. She was in two whole scenes in the finale and after she broke up with Michael, she disappeared from the story, and if that doesn’t say it all…

-          And that break-up was contrived bullshit. I’m not saying this as a shipper. It felt like they’d planned to have them break-up in the finale and wrote it even though the motivations hadn’t been properly established. Seeds were sown but they were communicating well as a couple and resolving their issues as they went along. Suddenly those issues got un-resolved and were enough to break them up.

-          The most galling part is that so much of what follows comes from Tripp’s diary, and Maria is excluded. This is her story too! Louise was her great-grandmother! Rather than sitting around her in the hospital room reading this stuff, they do it in the Crashdown.

-          Which fits the pattern of what’s happened all season. Maria found out she was part alien and it was about her powers, rather than her legacy, rather than what happened to her great-grandparents.

-          And it became clear that it was done so they could do the Nora/Tripp and Malex parallel.

-          Which completely solidifies for me where Carina’s priorities lie. She’s been clear that Malex is her favourite ship on the show and Michael is her favourite character. But this season has shown that she’s incapable of ensuring her favouritism doesn’t screw over other characters.

-          The sad thing is this really does show up in marketing. Carina always pushes and praises Vlamis and barely ever mentions Jeanine on her SM. Media outlets write about Malex as the centre of the show and they aren’t supposed to be. We have a sci-fi show with a Latina leading lady and nobody cares – not the showrunner, not the media (outside of Latinx-centric publications), not the fandom. I’m not Latina and it frustrates me so I can’t imagine how actual Latinx people feel about that.

-          Maria was dragged into a love triangle that Carina never had any intention of doing justice to. Maria and Michael were always only ever meant to be a pit-stop on the way to a big Malex reunion. Sadly it’s clear the same goes for Maneforrest. Why write something if you’re only going to do it half-arsed? And it clearly was. That’s why the Maria and Michael break-up was so perfunctory and illogical.

-          While I’m on the subject of Maria – last season Mimi was clearly deteriorating and didn’t recognise adult Maria anyway. Now that seems to have shifted to Mimi’s mind moving through time. It’s still unclear if this is the alien DNA or what was done to Patricia Deluca in Caulfield. I don’t understand why they introduced both elements – apart from being able to give Maria a line about unethical science which OH BOY what a contrast with Liz.

-          Speaking of Liz.

-          Wow.

-          If the central storyline was the kidnappings and Crashcon shenanigans, she really had no involvement with that all season apart from the very end. All the investigation went to other characters. Her mother was involved, but not Liz.

-          Let me repeat that.

-          Our lead character was not involved the central storyline of the season.

-          Alternatively, if you think Max learning about his history, and all of the reveals about 1948, and Maria’s heritage etc etc were supposed to be the main storyline…

-          Doesn’t matter because Liz wasn’t involved in any of that either!

-          Liz was a subplot in her own show after they brought Max back. Hell, she was a subplot even when she was working on that.

-          The narrative focus really has centred on Michael, Alex, and later Max.

-          I wonder what they have in common with each other.

-          If you don’t believe me, check out the screentime figures for this season. Liz had the fourth largest amount of screentime in the finale, and she’s only had majority screentime in a handful of episodes all season (2x01, 2x07, 2x11).

-          And then realise that the plot kept moving after Liz left Roswell. She’s just not part of it anymore.

-          I watched the finale and kept asking myself where Liz was because she kept disappearing for whole chunks of time.

-          She was in her own subplot about science for the back half of this season, and honestly, I’m going to have to write an entirely separate post about Liz and ethics in science because NOPE.

-          Max was right. Liz deserved to follow her calling but she had options that didn’t involve risking the aliens.

-          As such the Echo break-up was stupid but whatever, based on this season I guess it needed to happen.

-          Did Max even care that Liz left? He loved her for twenty years and then when he had her, it didn’t matter anymore? What the fuck? Are we ever going to get answers as to why he fell so hard and loved her for so long, or is the “Malex is cosmic” story more important?

-          Also the whole thing about the Genericorp lady not being interested in Liz based on meeting her at the Crashdown was stupid. You hire scientists based on the previous work they’ve done and their credentials. Diego’s word should have been enough to convince her, and then maybe an actual proper job interview to make sure she was a good fit. Not “let’s sneak into her secret lab to look at what she’s working on”.

-          When Liz does leave, she only says goodbye to Rosa and Kyle. Arturo is mentioned but not seen. Which means the whole ICE sequence this season, which should have been a solid motivation for Liz to take the Genericorp job on its own, has been resolved without a proper payoff. All that stress – scenes that I know felt genuinely stressful to some viewers because of how close to home it hit – and we don’t even get to see Arturo seeing his “genius daughter” leave with his future secured.

-          It’s plausible that Liz said goodbye to other characters – Maria, Isobel, Michael – off screen BUT SHE’S YOUR LEAD CHARACTER AND HER LEAVING TOWN SHOULD CARRY SOME EMOTIONAL WEIGHT FFS

-          Compare Liz leaving and arriving at the ocean to Buffy Summers leaving Sunnydale in Becoming Part 2. There is no contest.

-          It’s clear to me that the audience Carina writes this show for is herself. And that’s fine. Plenty of writers do that. But that means she’s writing a show for the women in fandom who like epic mlm romances with lots of angst. And the problem with that is that this show has a Latina lead who is not being done justice.

-          This is not me railing against Malex. There is space in the show for both things. This is me expressing my frustration at a showrunner and creative team who are not taking care with all characters equally.

-          Carina uses her platform to throw in politics and use characters as mouthpieces without considering their impact. She thinks she’s educating the straight white people in the audience without thinking about how scenes of ICE intimidation, homophobic violence, and racism will affect the people who are impacted by those things in real life.

-          Am I done with the show? Probably not. I’ve got fics I want to write and while I’m not hubristic enough to think I can write better than a team of professional writers, I’m going to at least try and do some of these neglected elements of the show justice.

-          Hubris. Remember when I thought that was going to be a theme of this season? Apparently not. There was no theme, unless “no editing, we die like men” counts..

[bananaofswifts]

Your guide to the singer-songwriter’s surprise follow-up to Folklore.

By

CARL WILSON

When everything’s clicking for Taylor Swift, the risk is that she’s going to push it too far and overtax the public appetite. On “Mirrorball” from Folklore, she sings, with admirable self-knowledge, “I’ve never been a natural/ All I do is try, try, try.” So when I woke up yesterday to the news that at midnight she was going to repeat the trick she pulled off with Folklore in July—surprise-releasing an album of moody pop-folk songs remote-recorded in quarantine with Aaron Dessner of the National as well as her longtime producer Jack Antonoff—I was apprehensive. Would she trip back into the pattern of overexposure and backlash that happened between 1989 and Reputation?

Listening to the new Evermore, though, that doesn’t feel like such a threat. A better parallel might be to the “Side B” albums that Carly Rae Jepsen put out after both Emotion and Dedicated, springing simply out of the artist’s and her fans’ mutual enthusiasm. Or, closer to Swift’s own impulses here, publishing an author’s book of short stories soon after a successful novel. Lockdown has been a huge challenge for musicians in general, but it liberated Swift from the near-perpetual touring and publicity grind she’s been on since she was a teen, and from her sense of obligation to turn out music that revs up stadium crowds and radio programmers. Swift has always seemed most herself as the precociously talented songwriter; the pop-star side is where her try-hard, A-student awkwardness surfaces most. Quarantine came as a stretch of time to focus mainly on her maturing craft (she turns 31 on Sunday), to workshop and to woodshed. When Evermore was announced, she said that she and her collaborators—clearly mostly Dessner, who co-writes and/or co-produces all but one of these 15 songs—simply didn’t want to stop writing after Folklore.

This record further emphasizes her leap away from autobiography into songs that are either pure fictions or else lyrically symbolic in ways that don’t act as romans à clef. On Folklore, that came with the thrill of a breakthrough. Here, she fine-tunes the approach, with the result that Evermore feels like an anthology, with less of an integrated emotional throughline. But that it doesn’t feel as significant as Folklore is also its virtue. Lowered stakes offer permission to play around, to joke, to give fewer fucks—and this album definitely has the best swearing in Swift’s entire oeuvre.

Because it’s nearly all Dessner overseeing production and arrangements, there isn’t the stylistic variety that Antonoff’s greater presence brought to Folklore. However, Swift and Dessner seem to have realized that the maximalist-minimalism that dominated Folklore, with layers upon layers of restrained instrumental lines for the sake of atmosphere, was too much of a good thing. There are more breaks in the ambience on Evermore, the way there was with Folklore’s “Betty,” the countryish song that was among many listener’s favorites. But there are still moments that hazard misty lugubriousness, and perhaps with reduced reward.

Overall, people who loved Folklore will at least like Evermore too, and the minority of Swift appreciators who disapproved may even warm up to more of the sounds here. I considered doing a track-by-track comparison between the two albums, but that seemed a smidgen pathological. Instead, here is a blatantly premature Day 1 rundown of the new songs as I hear them.

A pleasant yet forgettable starting place, “Willow” has mild “tropical house” accents that recall Ed Sheeran songs of yesteryear, as well as the prolix mixed metaphors Swift can be prone to when she’s not telling a linear story. But not too severely. I like the invitation to a prospective lover to “wreck my plans.” I’m less sure why “I come back stronger than a ’90s trend” belongs in this particular song, though it’s witty. “Willow” is more fun as a video (a direct sequel to Folklore’s “Cardigan” video) than as a lead track, but I’m not mad at it here either.

Written with “William Bowery”—the pseudonym of Swift’s boyfriend Joe Alwyn, as she’s recently confirmed—this is the first of the full story songs on Evermore, in this case a woman describing having walked away from her partner on the night he planned to propose. The music is a little floaty and non-propulsive, but the tale is well painted, with Swift’s protagonist willingly taking the blame for her beau’s heartbreak and shrugging off the fury of his family and friends—“she would have made such a lovely bride/ too bad she’s fucked in the head.” Swift sticks to her most habitual vocal cadences, but not much here goes to waste. Except, that is, for the title phrase, which doesn’t feel like it adds anything substantial. (Unless the protagonist was drunk?) I do love the little throwaway piano filigree Dessner plays as a tag on the end.

This is the sole track Antonoff co-wrote and produced, and it’s where a subdued take on the spirit of 1989-style pop resurges with necessary energy. Swift is singing about having a crush on someone who’s too attractive, too in-demand, and relishing the fantasy but also enjoying passing it up. It includes some prime Swiftian details, like, “With my Eagles t-shirt hanging from your door,” or, “At dinner parties I call you out on your contrarian shit.” The line about this thirst trap’s “hair falling into place like dominos” I find much harder to picture.

This is where I really snapped to attention. After a few earlier attempts, Swift has finally written her great Christmas song, one to stand alongside “New Year’s Day” in her holiday canon. And it’s especially a great one for 2020, full of things none of us ought to do this year—go home to visit our parents, hook up with an ex, spend the weekend in their bedroom and their truck, then break their hearts again when we leave. But it’s done with sincere yuletide affection to “the only soul who can tell which smiles I’m faking,” and “the warmest bed I’ve ever known.” All the better, we get to revisit these characters later on the album.

On first listen, I found this one of the draggiest Dressner compositions on the record. Swift locates a specific emotional state recognizably and poignantly in this song about a woman trapped (or, she wonders, maybe not trapped?) in a relationship with an emotionally withholding, unappreciative man. But the static keyboard chord patterns and the wandering melody that might be meant to evoke a sense of disappointment and numbness risk yielding numbing and disappointing music. Still, it’s growing on me.

Featuring two members of Haim—and featuring a character named after one of them, Este—“No Body, No Crime” is a straight-up contemporary country song, specifically a twist on and tribute to the wronged-woman vengeance songs that were so popular more than a decade ago, and even more specifically “Before He Cheats,” the 2006 smash by Carrie Underwood, of which it’s a near musical clone, just downshifted a few gears. Swift’s intricate variation on the model is that the singer of the song isn’t wreaking revenge on her own husband, but on her best friend’s husband, and framing the husband’s mistress for the murder. It’s delicious, except that Swift commits the capital offence of underusing the Haim sisters purely as background singers, aside from one spoken interjection from Danielle.

This one has some of the same issues as “Tolerate It,” in that it lags too much for too long, but I did find more to focus on musically here. Lyrically and vocally, it gets the mixed emotions of a relatively amicable divorce awfully damned right, if I may speak from painfully direct experience.

This is the song sung from the POV of the small-town lover that the ambitious L.A. actress from “Tis the Damn Season”—Dorothea, it turns out—has left behind in, it turns out, Tupelo. Probably some years past that Xmas tryst, when the old flame finally has made it. “A tiny screen’s the only place I see you now,” he sings, but adds that she’s welcome back anytime: “If you’re ever tired of being known/ For who you know/ You know that you’ll always know me.” It’s produced and arranged with a welcome lack of fuss. Swift hauls out her old high-school-romance-songs vocal tone to reminisce about “skipping the prom/ just to piss off your mom,” very much in the vein of Folklore’s teen-love-triangle trilogy.

A duet with Dessner’s baritone-voiced bandmate in the National, Matt Berninger, “Coney Island” suffers from the most convoluted lyrics on Evermore (which, I wonder unkindly, might be what brought Berninger to mind?). The refrain “I’m on a beach on Coney Island, wondering where did my baby go” is a terrific tribute to classic pop, but then Swift rhymes it with “the bright lights, the merry go,” as if that’s a serviceable shorthand for merry-go-round, and says “sorry for not making you my centerfold,” as if that’s somehow a desirable relationship outcome. The comparison of the bygone affair to “the mall before the internet/ It was the one place to be” is clever but not exactly moving, and Berninger’s lines are worse. Dessner’s droning arrangement does not come to the rescue.

This song is also overrun with metaphors but mostly in an enticing, thematically fitting way, full of good Swiftian dark-fairytale grist. It’s fun to puzzle out gradually the secret that all the images are concealing—an engaged woman being drawn into a clandestine affair. And there are several very good “goddamns.”

The lyrical conceit here is great, about two gold-digging con artists whose lives of scamming are undone by their falling in love. It reminded me of the 1931 pre-Code rom-com Blonde Crazy, in which James Cagney and Joan Blondell act out a very similar storyline. And I mostly like the song, but I can’t help thinking it would come alive more if the music sounded anything like what these self-declared “cowboys” and “villains” might sing. It’s massively melancholy for the story, and Swift needs a far more winningly roguish duet partner than the snoozy Marcus Mumford. It does draw a charge from a couple of fine guitar solos, which I think are played by Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver, who will return shortly).

The drum machine comes as a refreshing novelty at this point. And while this song is mostly standard Taylor Swift torrents of romantic-conflict wordplay (full of golden gates and pedestals and dropping her swords and breaking her high heel, etc.), the pleasure comes in hearing her look back at all that and shrugging, “Long story short, it was a bad ti-i-ime,” “long story short, it was the wrong guy-uy-uy,” and finally, “long story short, I survived.” She passes along some counsel I’m sure she wishes she’d had back in the days of Reputation: “I wanna tell you not to get lost in these petty things/ Your nemeses will defeat themselves.” It’s a fairly slight song but an earned valedictory address.

Swift fan lore has it that she always sequences the real emotional bombshell as Track 5, but here it is at 13, her lucky number. It’s sung to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, who died when Swift was in her early teens, and it manages to be utterly personal—down to the sample of Marjorie singing opera on the outro—and simultaneously utterly evocative to anyone who’s been through such grief. The bridge, full of vivid memories and fierce regrets, is the clincher.

This electroacoustic kiss-off song, loaded up with at least a fistful of gecs if not a full 100 by Dessner and co-producers BJ Burton and James McAlister, seems to be, lyrically, one of Swift’s somewhat tedious public airings of some music-industry grudge (on which, in case you don’t get it, she does not want “closure”), but, sonically, it’s a real ear-cleaner at this point on Evermore. Why she seems to shift into a quasi-British accent for fragments of it is anyone’s guess. But I’m tickled by the line, “I’m fine with my spite and my tears and my beers and my candles.”

I’m torn about the vague imagery and vague music of the first few verses of the album’s final, title track. But when Vernon, in full multitracked upper-register Bon Iver mode, kicks in for the duet in the middle, there’s a jolt of urgency that lands the redemptive ending—whether it’s about a crisis in love or the collective crisis of the pandemic or perhaps a bit of both—and satisfyingly rounds off the album.

[mylittleshipgoestoot]

That’s What Makes You Beautiful

by mylittleshipgoestoot (Explicit)

Pre-Debate nerves turn an innocent trip to the bathroom into their first time together without Astrid.

Astrid narrows her eyes at her supposed boyfriend, who’s got full-blown heart eyes for his opponent, whose none other than her nemesis, Payton Hobart.  Sure, she’d agreed to their little triangle arrangement, but only for fear of losing River altogether.

There’s something about those dimples, and that little smirk River gives him as he clutches the microphone, and brings it up to his lips.  She can’t quite put her finger on it, but it bugs her.

Little does she know that the smirk isn’t what it seems at all.  River is trying to compose himself as Payton purposely imitates an intimate moment they’d had less than an hour ago.

Explicit Content under the cut - AO3 Link

Payton strides into the backstage bathroom like he owns the place.  He’s nervous on the inside, and there's no sign of his opponent yet.  Even though it sounds ridiculous, seeing River would calm his nerves somewhat.  He critiques his appearance in the mirror. Usually, he’d be confident about it, but today he’s going to be standing next to a Ralph Lauren model on stage.  He pulls a face and starts tapping his foot nervously, knowing that he has to be about god damned perfect to win this debate: not a foot wrong, no buckling under the pressure of it all.

“Payton?”  River would know that nervous foot tap anywhere.

Payton eyes the end stall with the closed door, in the mirror, curiously.

“Pre-debate nerves?”  Payton offers, pointlessly walking toward the stall.  Theirs a weird sort of breath pattern going on in there, and the idiotic part of Payton’s brain wonders if maybe River’s sobbing quietly, obviously overcome by his political opponent.

“Ahhh, ah more like a pre-debate wank,” River replies, raising the volume of his ministrations, allowing Payton to hear him.

Payton’s shell-shocked and his body is very interested, he’s also grappling with how much he wants to see precisely what River’s doing, but at the same time, now is not the time nor place for this.  Imagine the scandal?

“Payton?”  River stops his actions momentarily, and Payton watches as the vacant sign appears and the door swings open.

Well, fuck.  Think about the best porn you’ve ever seen, well, this shits all over that.  River is fucking magnificent. Shirt hanging open, trousers bunched around his ankles, long wicked fingers wrapped around his beautiful cock, and a gorgeous, yet mischievous grin on his face.

“Wanna help a fellow candidate out?”

Payton doesn’t answer, his feet just start walking toward him as if in a trance, and he doesn’t come back to himself until he hears the lock turn again.  He’s sitting down, staring right at River’s perfect dick. He adjusts himself and coughs nervously.

“Er, should we be doing this?”  His voice is embarrassingly high-pitched, and he kicks himself for being so uncool when River appears so confident.

River squats down so he can look him in the eye, and says gently, ”Payton, if you’re not comfortable with-“

“What?  No, I’m comfortable with blow jobs, I just thought we didn’t do ‘this’ without Astrid?”  He’s babbling, offering blow jobs, why does he have zero game, it’s so unfair.

River chuckles lightly.  “Blow job, hey? I just invited you in so I could look at you because it’ll make me come faster.”

Payton doesn't have a response to that, and he should if he wants to be the president one day, but he's not fucking perfect, okay!

River leans in and kisses him, soft and leisurely, like they're not going head to head on stage in under fifteen minutes.  Payton feels drunk on it, sucking on River’s tongue as he runs his hands down over those perfect pecs. Time could genuinely run away on them in here, and it's only when they hear the P.A system announce the debate that they realise they need to get on with it.

River straightens back up and looks down as he runs his thumb across Payton’s swollen red lips.  He moans when Payton sucks on it playfully. He gently pushes his other fingers into Payton’s mouth, covering them with saliva, then wraps them around his dick.

The thing is, Payton’s never actually given anyone a blow job, and River hasn't pressured him at all, but with River pleasuring himself right in front of his face, he can't think of a better time to give it a crack.

Start small, he thinks, hand coming up to caress River’s balls.  He thinks he's doing okay, considering River’s full-body shudder, but he looks up to make sure River’s on board with it anyway.

Should anyone ever have the full attention of River Barkley, as Payton does right now, thank your lucky fucking stars.  River’s eyes are blown wide open, filled with love, and his jaw is utterly slack.

”Gently tug, ” River directs, voice rough and breathy.

Payton doesn't need telling twice; he’s always been very accommodating like that.  He stops playing and gives a gentle tug, one finger accidentally brushing past River’s entrance.

”Shit,” River chokes out, jerking himself more frantically.

Pleased with the response, Payton is spurred on to be more adventurous.  He waits until River is on a downstroke to lick the head of his cock, tongue dancing over it, tasting the salty essence of him.

River moans low in his throat, watching as Payton repeats the action.  ”God, Payton, you look-” River will never be done staring into those big Disney eyes.

Payton beams at the praise.  In all his very short life, no-one had ever made him believe he was worthy, and then he met River.  He would do anything for this man.

Feeling more confident, he places a hand over River’s, following the motion for a few strokes, before taking River into his grasp.  

This is power; he thinks to himself.  Making River bite his lip like that, being the reason for those breathy gasps, this shits all over school president.

Unhurriedly, Payton starts to explore again.  He takes the head of River’s cock into his mouth and swirls his tongue over it slowly.  River groans above him, and a hand comes to rest gently at the base of his skull.

Payton opens his mouth, allowing River to control the pace of his cock, as it slides over his lips and tongue and toward the back of his throat.  It feels so intimate. River is staring down at him adoringly, and nothing else in the world even exists. He closes his eyes, mind going blank and loses himself in the feeling.

Hours could have passed but in reality, its only seconds before River tells him he’s close.

It pulls Payton out of his blissful haze.  As the noise from the auditorium filters back in, something snaps in him, and it gives him purpose.  He wants to blow River’s mind, wants to rid him of his thoughts and troubles for a moment too.  

He slides his mouth as far down the length of River’s cock as he can go without choking, his lips making it to his fingers around the base, then sucks as hard as he can as his lips slide back up again.

River’s knees buckle, and he’s forced to support himself with a hand against the wall.  ”God, ” he says, feeling his self-control slipping as Payton continues blowing him with those beautiful pouty lips.  It feels incredible, freeing, and like he never wants it to end.  

Payton moans as he sucks him down again, the sound of it sends shivers up his spine.  Another moan and River is losing it, his hand tightening in Payton’s hair, as the other lands with an emphatic slap against the wall, “Ohhhhh,” he groans, stiffening and spilling into Payton’s waiting mouth.  River gasps for breath, and takes in Peyton sucking and swallowing down his load, ”Payton, Jesus, ” River manages through an aftershock. He’s stunned, completely blind-sided by how good this could be with the right person.  It hadn't felt anywhere near this good with any of his previous partners.

Peyton let's go of him, reaching for the paper to dab delicately at the corners of his mouth, and clears his throat nervously.  River re-dresses, and curses when he checks his watch.

”Three minutes, ” he says, unlocking the stall door and motioning that Payton goes first.

They wash up together.  Payton sets about straightening up his ensemble, as a set of arms wrap around him from behind, and River grins that wide, warm smile at him in the mirror.

”You look great in pinstripes, and you’re going to be amazing out there.”

Payton looks at the bathroom floor, still not used to so much praise.

”God, ” River says, tilting Payton’s chin back up from the ground, ”You don't know how beautiful you are, do you?”

”Only you think that.”

Payton turns in his arms, and River kisses him gently.  They take a step back from each other, and Payton holds out his hand for River to shake.  River tries not to laugh but shakes the hand regardless.

”May the best man win!”  Payton is all business now, he gives River a comical wave and turns to leave.

”You still going to tell everyone we had sex if I win?” River calls after him.

”Affirmative.” Peyton retorts, and the door shuts behind him, leaving River starting at his grinning reflection in the mirror.  He knows it's the truth too. The man he’s in love with is occasionally hysterical, driven, truthful, and a born leader that will stop at nothing to see his dreams come true.

The end.  Thanks for reading.  AO3

[tanyuu]

end-eavor

Hi! This is my first article-style theory. It’s obviously not like an actual article, you can tell by the deteriorating quality and fact that I used my own headcanons in place of canon information, but I’d just really love to see an article written by a sleep-deprived reporter bashing Endeavor.

 That’s… all this is. It’s just a 7-page rant on why Endeavor is a terrible parent. And then it quickly dissolves into a theory on why Dabi is Todoroki Touya, so… good luck.

 The reporter who writes this (Ella) is me! I’m not actually a reporter or writer at all, but I work around books. So. I’m gonna call bullshit on myself and get INTO THIS!

  YEEHAW!

 Todoroki Enji, also known as Endeavor (#1 in PHR, but #-7,000,000 in our hearts), has at least three children. They are known as Todoroki Natsuo, Todoroki Fuyumi, and Todoroki Shouto. Shouto has been in the public eye for a while now, especially after he was accepted by recommendation into UA.

Shouto was confirmed to be previously the victim of an act of domestic violence. His well-known facial scar (over his left eye), covers a quarter of his face. The cause was confirmed to be his mother's unstable and rapidly declining mental health.

All three of the Todoroki children released statements in the following years to plead their mother as not guilty (and worthy of single custody.) Endeavor harshly refused these claims, and insisted that their mother had endangered his children. (though he did not call Shouto his child. the term used was 'masterpiece,' which implies... certain things.)

In all fairness, Endeavor's stance on the topic is expected. The safety of your children is important. It's a touchy subject though, so all you need to know is this:

 - Rei Todoroki (ice quirk), mother to the Todoroki children, poured boiling water onto her youngest child (Shouto)'s face.

- The cause was deteriorating mental health, but the cause of said mental state has not been released. Ever.

- Endeavor has potentially harmful opinions regarding his children, as well as near POSSESSIVE qualities with and to his youngest child.

Moving on.

Todoroki Natuso (quirkless), has cut ties with his father, for unknown reasons. Speculators and theorists claim that his father MADE him, as to not interfere with Shouto's "training."

He is now working as a doctor near Shizuoka Prefecture, and has saved many lives. His sister and brother are very proud of him. (and we bet his mother is, too)

Todoroki Fuyumi (sparking ice quirk) works as a preschool teacher. Though Natsuo moved out of Endeavor's "estate" (look up the square footage. we DARE you), Fuyumi has not. According to THIS (link) article, she will not until Shouto has graduated from UA. When prompted, she gave no answer.

Now, you're probably wondering: "Hey, Ella? If there's some kind of scandal, why don't you just go right out and say what you think is going on?"

That's the fun part! I legally CAN'T. Todoroki Enji (Endeavor, your #1 PUBLIC HERO) has ordered that no reporters are allowed to comment on 'how he runs his family.' And honestly, I value my job just a LITTLE too much to run the risk of the Hellflame's wrath.

Onwards, I suppose. And time for some (LEGAL) speculation.

If you recall, I mentioned how there are three confirmed children. That's because (and i did some actual digging here) there are FOUR legitimate Todoroki children.

Does anyone else remember the sports festival 6 years ago? The kid who had a CRAZY blue fire quirk? And then there's the fact that five-ish years ago, all of the footage from the semi-finals was deleted. Almost all of it.

Now, (I say with a grimace, here) I found one photo, and anyone with an eye on the news regarding high-profile villains would recognize THOSE piercings.

Why am I bringing up this blue fire quirk kid, anyway? Blue fire, blue fire, blue fire.

Todoroki Enji, ENDEAVOR. THE NUMBER ONE HERO. Lied about his kids. I'm definitely losing my job now, so... might as well just go with this, I guess. How do I know this?

 We're familiar with Endeavor's ultra-move, the jet-stream style fire blast. He used it in the Hosu attack earlier this year, just before he captured the villain 'Stain.'

 What color is the fire in that crazy powerful attack? B L U E.

Sports Festival mystery kid? Blue fire, spiky RED HAIR, turquoise eyes. It's like... younger, amped-up Endeavor.

 I brought up piercings already, right?

 The boy from the sports festival (let's nickname him v2 for now, short for Version Two of Endeavor. because I would pay SO MUCH to see this kid kick Endeavor's ass. i'll be linking a kickstarter for that later, too) has four piercings on his ears, and a triangle of nose piercings on both sides of his nose.

 Blue fire, spiky hair, turquoise eyes, a FUCK TON of piercings, and just LOOK at this smirk: <IMAGE ATTACHED>.

Now, who does this remind anyone of?

The leader of the Vanguard Action Squad of the infamous League of Villains (LoV). The villain's name is 'Dabi,' which means 'Cremation.' Coincidentally, I looked up what v2's quirk was named. After a HELL of a lot of digging, I found both v2's name AND the name of his quirk.

 Cremation.

And as for the name, well, I'd like Endeavor's official and public reason for keeping his FIRST and OLDEST child out of the public eye.

Todoroki Touya.

What am I implying, here? That one of Endeavor's children became a villain? A high-profile villain, involved with the kidnapping of a minor and attempted murder of at least 19? A villain with a criminal record longer than Shiozaki Ibara’s hair?

I'll provide a list of reasons why I (personally, and definitely not free of bias) think there's way more going on in this picture. Thank you for reading this far, by the way. It really does mean a lot, especially considering that this will likely be the last thing I'll... ever write, at least professionally.

To answer my own question, I'm telling you that Todoroki Touya became the villain 'Dabi.'

Now for the REALLY fun part. Why on Earth would Touya even become a villain? And especially as one of the children of such a well-known (but, frankly, not well-liked) hero?

 I have a short list of reasons why this may have happened.

- Todoroki Enji kicked Touya out (reasons unknown, date unknown, all unconfirmed)

- Touya ran away (reason unconfirmed)

- Pressured by villains (honestly? unlikely)

But, drawing attention to the scar patterns on Dabi (Touya?)'s arms and face. It's a fire burn, but not a REGULAR fire burn. From the looks of it, it wasn’t caused by an external force (you can tell b/c of his fingers). But this implies that Dabi did it HIMSELF, which... is a whole new can of worms.

(I swear all of this is relevant. I'm just... speculating. Diligently.)

In order to do so much self-inflicted damage, you would need a few key things.

1) High pain tolerance. (30% of Dabi's skin is scar tissue. That's... a lot. Have you ever accidentally touched a flame? It hurts, and keeping it there would hurt a lot more. Doing something like that and holding the flame there requires a lot of control.)

2) A high sensitivity to your OWN quirk. Now, quirk biologists have talked about how people usually have a natural immunity to their own quirks, especially emitter-types. But, if Touya THEORETICALLY had a body made for an ICE QUIRK (see where I'm headed?), it would explain why he was so easily burned.

But why would he have such a pain tolerance? And especially... towards burns...?

 Well, I'll let you decide that one for yourself, there. I'm not allowed to talk about that, remember?

GREAT! We've answered some questions! (some meaning, like, two)

Now onto a Fun Part™! (It's not fun. Honestly, writing this makes me feel horrible. The things pro heroes cover up, no kids should EVER go through ANY of what I'm writing about.)

So far, Enji's been in the wrong... probably 80% of the time? Some of it (20%) can be marked down as 'concerned parent,' but the rest... yeah.

Anyway! Let's address a concerning topic. There are a few things I'm going to be talking back and going back to QUITE a bit:

- Shouto's refusal to use his fire in the Sports Festival last year (earlier this year? time is a concept, and i'm not familiar with it)

- The difference in personality with the Todoroki trio. (i'd say quartet, but my boss says i'm not allowed to interview a villain, and also. all of these. are still speculation. please pay me)

- How Endeavor (#1 hero. i keep bringing that up just to reiterate who exactly is the current face of the hero world and WHY THE FUCK IS HE STILL TH-) addresses his children

Where were we again? Let me check.

Oh yeah, before I start yelling about Enji being a piece of shit, I'm going to say a few things about myself. This article is very unorthodox, and I shouldn't... technically do this? BUT I'm already gonna lose my job! So, onwards and upwards, y’all:

- My name is Ella.

- I work for a really well-known (and lovely) publishing company, as a writer and editor.

- I get paid XXXXX a year. Which is okay, and better than some other companies, but I'm still... not getting anything out of this, so you can't say I was paid to write this. If anything, I'm LOSING money by writing this. (but i'm in too deep to stop now, so...)

- My hands hurt a lot from writing this. I've written it all in about an hour, but the research has taken me WEEKS. W E E K S, I TELL YOU-

 Todoroki Shouto (15, Half-Cold Half-Hot emitter quirk, aptly named) is a student at UA. He is in class 1-A, the Hero Course. He's been involved with many mainstream villain attacks, such as the USJ invasion, the Stain + Hosu event, and All Might's last stand.

 Shouto's personality can be seen as cold and standoffish, and the media likes to depict him as an aloof pretty boy. Please keep in mind, he's... been through a lot. And I'm speculating that he's been through more than anyone's actually THOUGHT about before. Kudos to him.

 In the Sports Festival in Shouto's first year, his fight with Midoriya Izuku was ALL OVER THE NEWS. The green haired “no bones about it” kid had gotten Todoroki "I'm not using half of my power" Shouto to use his fire. Nobody knows the exact content of the fight, but it's worth mentioning that Shouto smiled during it. Full-on GRINNED.

(the more i think about that... the sadder it is? kid didn't look like he’d smiled very much. ever, actually. WHY COULD THAT BE-)

 Speculation as to why Shouto didn't actually use his fire during the first events (and according to his classmates Asui Tsuyu and Kirishima Eijirou, he hadn't used it all YEAR. not even during the USJ invasion) was rampant through hero forums. Popular theories included:

- Shouto didn't want to one-up his classmates, so he restricted his power to make it fair. (which is understandable, but.... hon.... how likely is that. the damn MOTTO is ‘plus ultra’)

- Shouto was told not to by his father, and didn't, as some kind of rite of passage. (which is a whole NEW kind of 'what the fuck, enji' and i'm just. not touching that theory)

- My personal and biased favorite: Shouto was rebelling against his father after being pressured to surpass him and be even greater. (which, fair. honestly, any kind of intense pressure ESPECIALLY from a high-profile parent is stressful. take music lessons, for example! kids are gonna give up if they're forced to do shit! come ON, endeavor)

Endeavor (in MULTIPLE) interviews, has referred to Shouto as 'his masterpiece,' or 'his greatest work,' or other terrifying names. Honestly. Children aren't property, and although quirks are tossed around like clothes in a washing machine, their uses don't justify the treatment of their people. Especially with all the stigma surrounding "villainous" quirks. (WHICH IS BULLSHIT, OKAY? quirks aren't inherently villainous. sure, some are a little less flashy and virtuous, but fear is irrelevant! it's what you choose to do with what you have that matters. choices affect content of character, not predetermined morality)

BACK ON TOPIC. I'm not sorry. I feel like I could write a whole separate article on why villainous quirks don't actually exist? Should I? Hell yeah. I will, eventually.

Endeavor's blatant favoritism of Shouto is highlighted by the way he talks about his other children. By that, I'm referring to the fact that he outright DOESN'T. Not one WORD on Natsuo's confirmed cure for quirk burns. Not ONE WORD on Fuyumi's (SIX) teaching awards.

 And, most concerningly?

Endeavor has refused to allow Todoroki Rei to leave the mental hospital she was put into (10 YEARS AGO) although she's passed EVERY SINGLE examination. (fuck, i'm not allowed to talk about that. OH WELL if i go i'm going OUT)

 Shouto has affirmed that he doesn't want to work under his father, and will likely be joining a separate agency in the event of immediate hero work after graduation. He sort of implied that his father didn't know when to stop, but then left the interview.

"Didn't know when to stop? Stop what, Ella?" Remember how I mentioned some kind of 'training' way early into this? Mmm-hmm.

 I'm going to do some extreme hand-waving here. This is ALL speculation, and as of now it's ILLEGAL speculation.  

Back to Touya for a second. The records I found said that he won his match, but lost the semi-final due to intense quirk backlash. The time of the first match was INCREDIBLE. 

 6.3 seconds. Holy... SHIT.

(great job, touya! we're all really proud of you!)

Honestly! That's crazy! Record-breaking, even. Second only to... Shouto.

Second to Shouto. Maybe that's... not the first time Touya's heard that phrase.

Anyway. Training plays a role in this, because the difference in control between Shouto and Touya with fire is barely noticable. They both copy a move (left hand swing and then a full-fire short range blast) from each other. Well, maybe not from each-other.

Let's look into the Hosu fight. Endeavor uses a blue-fire jet-flame attack (can't remember if it has a name, only that it's INTENSE and I would NOT like to be on the receiving end of it), but later with the LoV's monsters (they're called 'noumu'), he uses a very familiar move.

 Left hand swing. Full-fire short range blast.

Only this time, there's no eye flinch or subtle shoulder tense. Only cold, hard, fury.

  What am I implying?

Well, I can't legally talk about THAT, now can I?

Thank you very much for reading this! I picked up this style from a few meta posts in other fandoms; the writer has access to information the reader does NOT, in this case the lack of canon information regarding Dabi’s background and/or schooling. I added headcanons:

-Natuso being quirkless

-Touya going to UA

-Touya being a badass (that’s not really a headcanon, though. he’s related to fuyumi. of course he’s gonna be a badass)

[virmillion]

Ibytm - T minus 2 seconds

Masterpost - Previous Chapter - Next Chapter - ao3

Words: 3,330

Logan is careful to leave an extra large tip for the barista this time (we’re talking plural twenties) as he takes his cup with a nod and smile. Gods above knows they’ve more than earned it by now, having seen more than their fair share of spats between Virgil and himself. Technically any number of spats higher than zero is more than their fair share, but still. He feels bad. So he tips extra.

There’s also the small matter of what, exactly, he plans to discuss today. No amount of tips in the world could prepare them (or Logan, frankly) for what kind of retaliation Virgil might unwittingly have in store. Well, a solid hundred might be a good start, but still. Logan is nervous.

“I can’t believe you still haven’t told him,” Roman hisses, watching Logan sink into his usual seat by the window. “It’s been ages, Lo. You see your literal husband every single day. How could it have just not come up?”

“It just didn’t, okay?” Logan stares into his ceramic mug, his reflection murky and distorted by the ripples in the inky blackness. “Why do you think I asked you to come?”

“To act as a buffer and a witness for when Virgil literally tries to murder you?”

“Ha.” It’s the driest laugh Logan can manage as he takes a sip of his coffee, the bitterness drenching his tongue in a scalding liquid flame.

“Really though, I can’t believe you’ve waited this long. How has Virgil not, like, noticed you being at work for way more hours? The training hasn’t exactly been light—I mean, I can’t think of a single day I’ve seen you not be the last one out of the office. Training facility days and literal scuba diving prep excluded, obviously, but still. Wouldn’t that sort of thing come up eventually, be a point of contention, not seeing each other?”

“Maybe, if Virgil would bother to notice my being gone.” Logan scowls out the window, hoping to look cool and broody despite it being a vain and obvious attempt to ignore Roman glaring at him. “What? It’s not like it would’ve ever come up naturally! ‘Hey, Virgil, love of my life, light of my soul, I’m leaving you behind on this spinning hunk of rock to go study the secrets of the universe because one planet is too small for me? Don’t worry, though, I’m just going through a wormhole that’s literally only been theoretical outside of my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s office up until recently, and it’s only been tested in extremely controlled settings that don’t involve squishy organic matter?’ Yeah, that’d go over real well. Thanks for the tip, Roman, I’ll be sure to take it into consideration moving forward.”

“That’s not how I meant it and you know it.”

“Do I?” Logan reaches for the miniature lazy susan of coffee fixins and rips open a few sugar packets, pouring them into his cup and slugging it back before they have a chance to dissolve. “Then tell me, dearest, darlingest colleague and friend of mine. How would I go about sharing that news with my husband? I am open to suggestions.”

Roman pulls the lazy susan closer and snatches some of the creamers, starting up a shaky little tower. “Well, for one, you should’ve been smart like me and told him the day you found out it was even a possibility.”

“It wasn’t set in stone then.”

“And now, nearly a year later, it’s still not set in stone, and you still haven’t said anything. You’re still waiting for the go-ahead on the last round of necessary clearances, not to mention that the literal entire rest of the world still thinks you’re going to the moon.”

“And that’s their fault for assuming we’d needlessly fly more spaceships to the moon. Humanity’s already conquered that point of view, yeah? Not to mention that in doing so, we’ve proved exactly how inconsequential we as a species are in the grand scheme of things, and people assuming we don’t want to expand our reach only have themselves to blame when we exceed their wildest expectations.”

“You can wax poetic all you want about how little it all matters and how much we’ve yet to grow, but I sincerely doubt Virgil is going to care about all that when you tell him where you’ll be once this final request goes through.”

“Oh, like Virgil would’ve had any say in this to begin with. He’d tell me to stay home and stay safe and not expand humanity’s knowledge by any stretch of the imagination, because the least dangerous path in seeking meaning in life is to accept that there is none.”

Roman’s tower, now about seven creamers tall, comes rattling down to the table in an avalanche of white plastic. Logan scoots his cup out of the way in time to avoid it catching any projectiles.

“You want to run that last part by me one more time?” Roman finally asks, gathering the creamers back into a neat little pile. He doesn’t look at Logan as he poses the question.

“What, the meaninglessness of it all?”

“Or lack thereof, mister ‘I’m too wrapped up in my own pity party for my stagnating relationship to bother caring about the other person involved in the damn thing.’ I bet you’ve exchanged more words with me here and now than you have in the past year with Virgil.”

“Even if that were true, it’d be because I’ve been training for a mission, which you might understand if you’d accepted your spot on the crew.”

“What, and leave Patton? And Morgan and Ariel? And Virgil? With you gone, I’d hardly expect them to muddle through on their own. Shockingly enough, I have people who need me down here, and so do you. Not that you thought about that, of course, when you decided pretty much immediately after being asked that you wanted to go on a space death mission, even when I told you you should think on it.”

“We’ve been over this, okay? It’s not a death mission, and it’s nothing short of derivative for you to keep calling it that.”

“And what should I call it instead? A rocket careening through a tiny impossibility in the hopes of not dying on the other side of the solar system? Hell, the other side of the galaxy, for all we know. We’ve never seen anything organic go through a wormhole. We’ve hardly even seen inorganic matter pass through one!”

“Because we haven’t tried. Maybe just call it something like a space life mission if you want to be that dense, I don’t know. The whole point is that we’re advancing the limits of what we know, and pushing our preconceived ideas of our own limits to get there. This is what we need to know if we want to improve.”

“Right, right, because you’re absolutely one to talk about how meaningful life is, when you’re throwing yours away for the possibility of some cool space rocks.”

“That is not fair.”

“Then tell me what you think, yeah? What’s the value of life to a man who wants to risk it all for a maybe?”

“Meaningless, okay? It’s all meaningless, is that what you wanted to hear? Life is inherently meaningless, and it’s nothing more than a flaw of the human psyche for people to fool themselves into thinking otherwise.”

A silence falls, not only over the table but over the whole cafe, and Logan is suddenly very relieved that he remembered to leave a hefty tip. When Roman opens his mouth, Logan physically flinches away from his words.

“Life may be inherently meaningless, sure, but it’s a damned triumph of the human spirit to dare to think otherwise, so you can fuck right off with your little defeatist mentality, because I don’t want to hear it.”

With that, Roman shoves his chair back from the table and storms out of the cafe, leaving Logan alone at a table for four. He sinks lower in his seat, almost sitting on his back as he cranes his neck toward the ceiling, the chair backing digging into his spine. The consistent pattern of square tiles over his head would almost be reassuring, were it not for the discordant cracks and stains interrupting the flow. He closes his eyes in response to a light pounding that surfaces near his temples.

“Wow, weird day all around, huh?” Logan jerks up at the sound of Patton’s voice, accompanied by Virgil’s familiar footfalls. “Logan’s sleeping in the cafe, Roman’s pacing around outside, and Ariel’s professor moves up her exam? Maybe it’s a full moon.”

“It’s not a full moon,” Logan mumbles, straightening out his spine. He forces a smile onto his face as he sees Morgan peek out from behind Patton’s legs. “Hey, Morgs. How’s, um—” He hesitates, looking to Patton, who holds up three fingers. “How’s third grade treating you?”

Her face splits into a smile and she scrambles onto Roman’s vacated seat, sitting up on her knees and planting her hands on Logan’s shoulder for balance. “We just started learning division fact families with the triangle flashcards and the difference between a thundredth and a housandth—”

“Hundredth and thousandth,” Patton corrects gently.

Morgan nods, her pigtails whapping at her ears. “And the difference between a hundredth and a thousandth—one decimal place! Betcha didn’t know that, didja?”

“I had no idea,” Logan says solemnly. Morgan sticks her tongue out at him before getting distracted by Roman’s abandoned creamers, which she begins stacking.

“So, um, what’s Roman’s deal?” Virgil finally asks. “Looked pretty pissed outside. What, did you break the surprise news to him before us? Not go over too hot?”

“Oh, so Logan’s the one with the surprise news.” Patton flashes a bright grin, completely out of sync with his conspiratorial tone.

“As if I could come up with a surprise,” Virgil says, rolling his eyes and pushing Patton up against the window. “Patton, we’re two cis gay men. We can’t exactly surprise you with news of a pregnancy.”

“There’s always adoption,” Patton replies. He watches Morgan’s tower fall, the child not hesitating for a moment to start again. His face drips fondness and love, and Logan wonders whether he’s unknowingly worn that same expression himself. “Okay, so the news, then. Out with it.”

“Wait, hold up,” Virgil says. He patters his hands on the table like a drum roll, nudging Patton for him to join. Morgan only pouts for a moment at her crumbling towers before she adds her own rhythmless pounding. Once he’s seemingly satisfied with the build up, Virgil nods at Logan. “Okay, go ahead.”

It’s weird, to tell the truth. In the movies and the tv shows and the books and the stories and, well, in everything , the person sharing a secret always seems to struggle with it. They fumble their words, they say things out of order, they run it all together until it’s an unintelligible mess, they do everything in their power to keep a secret a secret. Logan almost wishes that were the case for him, rather than what actually happens.

“I’ve been accepted for a mission to Neptune that, on the surface, will present as a mission to the moon. Through the use of a wormhole, the logistics of which we’re still working out, a multi-decade journey could happen in a matter of months. That’s the news.”

A weird quiet falls, and there’s that word again, weird. It’s all weird, a weird mess of weirdness that Logan can’t really explain, because (again, weirdly ), this whole meetup feels like just another day in a coffeeshop with casual discussions about usual happenings. Everything is perfectly and profoundly ordinary, and it’s weird, and Logan doesn’t like it.

Also weird is Morgan, who’s still gleefully drumming away at the table. Patton gives her a look and she stops, smiling sheepishly.

“Oh,” Virgil finally says. Oh. That’s it. Just ‘oh.’ Oh. Not ‘wow,’ not ‘why didn’t you tell me sooner,’ not ‘what the hell is wrong with you, you flaming pile of absolute human garbage?’ Just oh.

Oh.

“Sorry,” Logan whispers, feeling something weird needling at the back of his eyes. He furrows his brow and shakes his head, trying to get rid of the sensation. It works, sort of. A few tears leak out, splattering against the table, but at least the needling stops.

Oh.

“Morgan,” Patton says carefully—too careful, too gentle, too quiet, too weird. “Why don’t you go hang out with Uncle Roman? I bet he’d love to hear about decimals. Bet he doesn’t know about the thousandth place.” Morgan, clearly unaware of the veil of weird that’s descended, sweeps an arm over her tower and books it for the door. The bell is still ringing as the creamers hit the floor, a few popping open and dripping puddles across the linoleum.

Oh.

“Oh.”

“I, um—I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.” It’s all Logan can do at this point to apologize, all he knows how to do. ‘Harder to ask permission than beg forgiveness,’ isn’t that the saying? Whoever came up with that apparently never took into account how damn hard the begging part would be. “Sorry.”

“Oh.”

Patton looks at Virgil for a long moment, affording him the chance to say something, anything more to his husband that kept something so big from him for so long, but Virgil says nothing. Just ‘oh.’

Oh.

“Logan,” Patton exhales, more of a sigh than an actual word, an actual name of an actual person in this actual conversation. “How long have you known about this?”

Now it’s Logan’s turn to exhale, the truth coming out in a forced whoosh, choking him from the inside out. “Almost a year.”

Virgil slams his elbows down on the table and buries his head in his hands, laughing quietly. “A year. A fucking year. That’s rich. That’s great. That’s really, really great.” He keeps laughing, a hollow nothing, as if it’s the only thing that can possibly keep him breathing anymore. “A year .”

“Logan, you mean to tell me—” Patton cuts himself off, his jaw working furiously as an odd emotion seeps into his voice, the likes of which Logan never would’ve thought him capable before. Patton allows himself a few heavy breaths, louder than the faint music playing from the speakers along the ceiling, and lands his eyes somewhere around Logan’s chin. It somehow feels worse than if he would just make direct eye contact. “You’ve been keeping this from Virgil for over a year?”

“Almost a year,” Logan corrects meekly, feeling about as pathetic as a roach squashed under a brick. He wonders whether his heart shrinks to the same size.

“Now is hardly an appropriate time for your particulars.” Patton clenches his hands into fists on the table, and Logan briefly entertains the image of them flying full force into his face with all of the rage Virgil is undoubtedly holding beneath his simmering silence. “Is this—is that why Roman was so mad? Did he not know, either?”

“He, um, he’s known. The whole time, I mean. He kept it quiet for me. He was actually offered an original spot on the crew, too, back when it first—”

“Shut your damn mouth.” Patton takes another long breath, but this one doesn’t seem to steady him as much. “That’s what he was talking about? When he asked me if I would be comfortable with him launching off the planet for a breakout work mission? He knew back then and asked me about it and everything, and you didn’t think it was even worth mentioning to Virgil?”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“You think it matters two ticks whether you meant to? If you pull out of a gas station and slam into someone switching over from the far lane, sure you didn’t mean to, but you still did it. I just— mmnh.” Patton makes a low, miserable noise at the back of his throat and shakes his head, his fists clenching and unclenching. The perks of being a trained museum security guard—Logan is downright terrified of what those fists might do.

“Why didn’t you talk to me about it?” Virgil whispers. It’s the quietest sound Logan’s ever heard, softer than footsteps on loose sand in the shallows of a barren lake, but it echoes as loud as a bag of potato chips at three in the morning in a sleeping house. It shatters Logan to his very core, split into more pieces than the crumbs at the bottom of that same chip bag.

Logan likes to ignore reality through the escapism of his thoughts.

“Over a year ago, when your director first had that meeting, you swore to me that you’d never make that kind of decision without talking to me first, not ever. You didn’t even entertain the chance that you might go, and you—you just—” Virgil shakes his head again, shoving his fingers past his face and burying them in the roots of his hair, now a light brown surfacing beneath the ever-fading purples. “When do you leave?”

“I don’t know yet, we haven’t gotten the—”

“Bullshit. When do you jump off the planet to certain death and leave me behind without a second thought because it’s the only thing you’ve ever wanted in life is to leave?”

“Hey, it’s been decades since the last fatality related to a failed launch, so calling it certain death seems a little—”

“I don’t care how it seems, Logan! I care about how it is, and how it is is that you’ve kept this huge thing from me and Patton for a year now, and you think it’s the kind of information you can casually drop over a cup of coffee.”

“I—I don’t know what you want me to say, Virgil. I feel really bad about this, I do, but I—”

“And you damn well should feel bad!” Patton cuts in. “You should feel very bad about this! That’s exactly correct!”

Virgil ghosts a hand over Patton’s arm, stopping him from getting into a full-on shouting match with a shell-shocked Logan. “I don’t know what I want you to say, either.” Virgil drops his hand to the table with a thud, staring at his palms. Definitely not acknowledging Logan’s presence. “It’s great news, really, it is, but it sucks that you didn’t tell me sooner, and I really don’t think there’s anything you can say to me past that. This isn’t the kind of thing you can just talk your way out of. The time for talking was a year ago, and you missed your chance.”

Logan bites his lip and looks down at his mug, at his distorted reflection within. Patton slams a fist down on the table, destroying the facade of Logan’s face. “I’m gonna go talk to Roman. Maybe he’ll have something helpful to say about why he thought we didn’t deserve to hear about this sooner.”

And now it’s Logan alone with Virgil in an achingly quiet cafe, cheery pop songs pouring from the speakers. “I’m sorry,” Logan whispers. Well, tries to whisper. Nothing comes out, save for a broken squeak. He tries again, but the only sound he can manage is a defeated ‘oh.’

Oh.

Something shifts in Logan’s peripherals. He glances up to see Virgil’s hand resting on the table, palm up, midway across the table. Meeting Logan halfway. Logan stretches his own arm out, placing his fingers hesitantly around Virgil’s, feeling the cold metal of Virgil’s wedding band pressing into his palm. Hot tears bead up at the corners of Logan’s eyes again as he lifts them slowly, slowly, slowly to see Virgil staring blankly back. It’s an aching emptiness, all the absence of matter in the galaxies expanding out around them, two people as two planets orbiting around each other amidst a sky of fizzling stars and dwindling moons.

[fineillsignup]

Taking Chakra Nature to 11: some headcanons

Buckle up because it’s gonna be a long ride.

So one of the things that makes Naruto so attractive as a fandom (as opposed to as a franchise) is that there’s all this tantalizing potential that was never realized, just waiting for someone to pick it up and expand on it. In particular, some writers are worldbuilders by nature and some are just not. (Tolkien would be an example of a extremely worldbuilding-focused writer.) Kishimoto is in the “just not” category.

Chakra nature is a great example of a part of the Naruto world that could be taken up to eleven. Why? Well, there’s the good old “why not” reason, which is sufficient in itself, but also, people just love categorization. There’s a reason why people always want to sort themselves for Hogwarts houses, endlessly prattle about zodiac signs, and why the Naruto databooks include bloodtype. But they don’t! Include! Chakra nature!!!!

That’s frankly ludicrous. The chakra natures in the corner merely indicate which chakra natures that person can utilize, not which is their own nature; this isn’t very helpful because some people like Kakashi can use all five. Moreover, one of the very major characters of the franchise--the anti-hero, Sasuke--is shown to be fire natured yet to largely prefer lightning techniques, making it clear that chakra nature is not 1-to-1 correlated with someone’s most frequent jutsu.

And it’s not like Kishimoto would have had to do a huge amount of work coming up with chakra nature connections to personality and society, because these five elements already exist as a powerful Japanese cultural concept. 

He simply needed to connect that to the Naruto world and its characters.

But I guess I need to do all the work around here! :3c

Regarding kekkei genkai--I headcanon that even people with kekkei genkai have a primary nature, but you could also combine two natures instead.

Earth Nature (Earth, Dirt, Stone) 地 and 土

Examples of Canon Characters: ??? (I don’t think we’re ever explicitly told that a character is earth nature, although many characters use earth release) Examples of Headcanon Characters: Haruno Sakura, Oonoki, Deidara, Suigetsu, Sasori Personality Traits (not all found in each person obviously): Stable, stubborn, inflexible, endurance, short-tempered, wise, reliable, responsible, sense of perspective, patient, centred, literal Common Body Types: Mesomorphic (muscular); may be lean or broad; shorter than average (closer to hell); blunt fingers (but often surprisingly deft and precise) Climate Interactions: Earth natured people tolerate both heat and cold pretty well. When it’s cold they dress warmly and when it’s hot they dress for that too. Sensible. Japanese symbol: square; Naruto uses the kanji 土 rather than 地 for some reason; they both mean earth and the differences are too subtle to go into briefly Why does earth dominate water/water enhance earth? Earth stops the flow of water and can control its shape. Water can imbue earth with more weight and power, including fertile power. What does this mean for the Land of Earth? “That’s the way we’re going to do it. We’ve always done it that way.” The Land of Earth in my headcanon was the last and slowest great nation to centralize/organize, however, slow and steady may win the race as it has had very little internal conflict. Other Notes: Earth nature? In my Sakura? It’s more likely than you think.

Kakashi did the chakra nature test when Sakura wasn’t around and then, as far as we can tell, never even bothered to find out what hers was???? LOLsob. Tertiary materials like games usually make Sakura water natured, but I prefer earth nature for her. She definitely can use earth jutsu. Her personality, strengths and flaws, seems to fall along earth lines rather than water lines. In addition, I just like the balance of Team 7 when Sasuke and Naruto are fire-wind and Sakura is across the circle at earth; most of my headcanon teams follow that kind of pattern.

“Okay, but Suigetsu? Earth nature? Now you’re just fucking with us.” Not at all; I’m going after one of Kishimoto’s own weird choice to constantly remind us that Suigetsu is weak to lightning. Now I’m sure that Kishimoto just meant “if lightning strikes water you’re in for a bad time” and nothing deeper than that, but in the five elements pattern of domination, it’s earth that is weak against lightning jutsu.

There’s no reason Suigetsu can’t be an earth natured person who specializes in water jutsu, anymore than Sasuke’s fire nature stops him from specializing in electric jutsu. Perhaps, and this is all headcanon but it’s fun so just try and stop me, it is Suigetsu’s earth chakra nature that helps keep his body from completely falling apart and dissipating while he’s performing his unique ability to turn into water?

Water Nature 水

Examples of Canon Characters: Tobirama Examples of Headcanon Characters: Sai, Kisame, Hashirama, Kabuto, Personality Traits: Adaptable, flexible, progressive, curious, reactive, emotional, mutable, gullible, empathic, unstable, resilient, morose, sensitive Common Body Types: Endomorphic (soft, higher in body fat); taller than average; long-limbed with flexible joints; larger hands and feet with tapered digits Climate Interactions: Poor water nature people. They hate heat. They hate cold. They hate humidity. They hate super dry environments. Basically, they are volatile and easily bothered by all kinds of things, including temperature and climate. Japanese symbol: Circle Why does water dominate fire/fire enhance water? Water douses flame, obviously. Fire can turn water into steam, expanding its range and potential. What does this mean for the Land of Water? Oh my God, is the Land of Water ever volatile in canon! This can be bad obviously (hello, kekkei genkai genocide) but it doesn’t necessarily have to be so. The Land of Water went within about a dozen years from mass genocide of kekkei genkai to having a leader with two kekkei genkai (the criminally underused Terumi Mei). There’s no inertia here. You can’t ever relax, but you can potentially really change things, including people’s hearts and minds. Other Notes: none at the moment

Fire Nature 火

Examples of Canon Characters: Sasuke, Madara, Itachi, Obito, THE UCHIHA Examples of Headcanon Characters: Tsunade, Orochimaru, Jiraiya, Hiruzen (aka gee I wonder if drama will happen here); Guy Personality Traits: Passionate, reforming, self-righteous, ambitious, driven, creative, focused, confident, fragile, extreme, energetic, motivated, tenacious, greedy, proud, idealistic, resentful Common Body Types: Ectomorphic (lean); high metabolism; average height; great skin and hair (because of their great circulation); either super healthy or near death, no in-between Climate Interactions: Fire people are always hot. They are the people who wear shorts all year round and start a revolution with their tiddies out (yes I’m looking at you Sasuke). They are not particularly bothered by external weather. Japanese symbol: Triangle Why does fire dominate wind/wind enhance fire? Fire consumes air and becomes stronger, like canon tells us. What does this mean for the Land of Fire? I headcanon that because of its central location on the map and prosperity, the Land of Fire has the most diverse population in terms of chakra natures, so while fire nature is the majority there are still a larger number of other natures than most countries. (From a meta perspective, this also makes it more fun to write a Konoha-centric story.) However, the Will of Fire and Konoha’s idealism is a definite Big Mood and something that other nations notice. Other Notes: I imagine that this element is most likely to be the chakra nature of those whose bloodline abilities are strongly connected with Yang Release.

Wind Nature (Wind, Air) 風

Examples of Canon Characters: Y’already know who it is!!! (blaring air horn) Oh and Asuma. Examples of Headcanon Characters: Temari, Baki, Gaara, Chiyo Personality Traits: Free-spirited, distractible, innovative, unorthodox, open, relaxed, compassionate, empathetic, benevolent, charitable, loving, evasive, passive-aggressive, impulsive, withdrawn, avoidant, penetrating Common Body Types: Lean or muscular, average to short Climate Interactions: Throw on a shirt, and then a sweatshirt over the shirt and a cloak around the sweatshirt because wind people are always cold. “Cold hands, warm heart” often applies to them. They like heat and aren’t bothered by humidity or dryness. Japanese symbol: Crescent Why does wind dominate lightning/lightning enhance wind? Well, it doesn’t, because lightning as an element makes no sense. But void, on the other hand, does. Void is a vacuum, and air rushes to fill a vacuum without itself being harmed by the vacuum. What does this mean for the Land of Wind? Wind people have a lot of openness and caring but also voted Most Likely to Sulk for a Hundred Years When Things Go Wrong. The Land of Wind in canon appears to be the least naturally rich in the essentials of life (water, food, etc), and to have the most dickish daimyo, so it’s kind of unsurprising that the Wind leadership collectively got hella depressed after their one bad idea after another failed. Other Notes: They say in canon that the wind chakra nature is “rare” but I’m headcanoning that this just means “rare in the Land of Fire”.

Lightning (Electricity, Void, Vacuum, Nothingness) 雷 or 空

Examples of Canon Characters: Kakashi Examples of Headcanon Characters: Hinata, Neji, Shikamaru, Darui, Sakumo, Killer Bee Personality Traits: Mysterious, thoughtful, reflective, fatalistic, imperturbable,  spontaneous, quick, detached, aware, intuitive, selfless, passive, negative, wise, analytical, elegant, eccentric Common Body Types: Most diversity in body type Climate Interactions: The least bothered by external temperatures. Aware of them, but probably dresses however regardless. Japanese symbol: Jewel-shape Why does lightning dominate earth/earth enhance lightning? Again, it only makes sense if the element is void or vacuum. While air filling a vacuum is essentially unharmed, earth-y substances don’t handle decompression well. (Imagine if Lightning Release could be used for explosive decompression based jutsu... now that’s scary.) What does this mean for the Land of Lightning? “We’re talking about the issues but we’re keeping it funky” is a line from Flight of the Conchords, but it is also how I imagine a culture that is majority Lightning-nature people best functioning. Other Notes: none at the moment

All of the above is just some ideas to play with! And of course there’s the pondering about how chakra nature is passed on--is it genetic? Epigenetic (traits that can be switched on or off by environmental factors)? Do two people who have children together pass on the more dominant nature? Is that perhaps why Wind nature is rarest in the Land of Fire (because Fire and Wind parents will always pass on Fire)? What are the chakra nature patterns in the little countries?

Feel free to play with my ideas, expand, change them, whatever! No need for credit if you do.

[concrete-tiddy]

You know who irritates me to no end (and this will give a A LOT of hate but I honestly don’t care, some of you clearly need to hear this) is how fucking privileged Batfamily fans are.

This whole fucking week I had to hear from Nightwing fans how DC doesn’t respect him. Like what?

Excuse me?

He has his ongoing own solo book. Has had this ongoing solo for years now. For a sidekick, street level hero, that’s plenty of respect. DC likes him just fine.

You know who doesn’t have their own solo book? Wally West, any secondary Wonder Woman character. Hell Nightwing is in more books than Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg, and Martian Manhunter, would you gather that? We got one(1) short Mera spinoff out of Aquaman thankfully, but a shit ton of other main stay characters/legacy characters that can carry their book who haven’t had nearly the amount of opportunity Nightwing, Batman, or Red Hood books to be good, or gain traction, surprisingly don’t have such privileges. And yet you don’t hear their fans bitch nearly as much as Nightwing fans over how “unfair DC is being” to their favorite character.

Jason Todd? Whose fans whine how he “didn’t deserve” what DC gave him? Has his own fucking team. Yes, that’s right. He is the weakest fucking character on his own goddamn team and he still headlines it--hell he even gets his own personal sex Amazon out of it. Because if it can’t be Bruce fucking Diana, we gotta have some Bat kid fuck an Amazon somewhere, right DC? We can’t have those pesky strong female Wonder Woman characters have any semblance of independence from the Superfamily or Batfamily, right? Outside of that all the development goes to Jason emo-edge-lord Todd and I still have to hear his fans piss and moan how “DC just isn’t fair to poor ol Jason.” Yeah, trust me, DC is less fair to Artemis in that same goddamn book.

Damian? Fuck you. Just fuck you. If you for one think this shithead is getting the short end of any stick, let me introduce you to EVERY OTHER DC CHARACTER EVER CREATED. I had to hear people whine about how OP and unrelatable Superman is for years only to hear people defend the logic behind a fucking 10 year old human boy just being practically asshole jesus superspy ninja assassin that is the center of the universe? Give me a goddamn break. What’s more is this character is in EVERYTHING. So please, Damian fans, you can go ahead and burn those “but DC hates my character the most” cards.

Even Tim Drake, who I actually do understand why people feel he’s been shafted, hasn’t had it nearly as bad as EVERY OTHER DC CHARACTER EVER CREATED. He has more appearances in comics than some main members of the Justice League. So once again, get in the back of the goddamn line.

Barbara Gordan/Oracle, okay, maybe you guys have an excuse...................................................way back in the 80s with the Killing Joke. And maybe when Bruce Timm animated an adaptation of that. But beyond that, for a character who was originally a sidekick/girlfriend to a sidekick, I’d say between all her appearances in media to comics, she’s doing very very well. Compare that to someone like Power Girl or Donna Troy. Yeah...she’s fine.

Stephanie Brown, Duke Thomas, Cassandra Cain, etc? Honestly most of these characters shafting problems stem from the overexposure of the characters above. So fans of these need to take it up with your fellow Batfam fans, because it sure isn’t Doctor Fate that’s taking up a potential Cassandra Cain solo spot. I don’t know, compromise. Demand for some mix and match. Instead of a solo Nightwing run where the walking STD gets into a love triangle for the 728394th time, make it a Nightwing/Cassandra Cain teamup. Instead of making a Damian Wayne solo where---I guess judging by patterns here initiated by Tom King and then Scott Lobdell---Hippolyta turns into his personal sex Amazon, make it a Damian Wayne/Duke Thomas teamup. I mean, you guys call it a BATFAMILY. Why not make those books reflect that? Combine the character interactions to free up some funds and authors for some spots to actually develop DC characters who need it.

Basically, if you’re a Batfam fan (specifically those who don’t recognize how good they have it), and am tempted to post and gripe about “how DC just hates Dick Grayson/Jason Todd/Damian Morrison/Tim Drake” just take a deep breath, pause, and take a moment to realize DC and Dan Didio doesn’t hate them nearly as much as they hate the entirety of the rest of their characters.

[preservationandruin]

Oathbringer Liveblog, Part One. Chapters 10-14

Onward! These seem to be averaging out around 4-5 chapters a liveblog, which is a slow pace, but manageable with all the other stuff I’m doing. 

Syl knows what sex is, Renarin is radiant, we learn how Dalinar got Oathbringer, Shallan discusses feminine knocks, I start collecting Rosharisms, Pattern is a chaperone, and Kal sees a card game. 

Kal gets on Syl’s case for nagging him constantly. Her response? 

“It is my solemn and important duty to bring happiness, light, and joy into your world when you’re being a dour idiot. Which is most of the time. So there.” 

I love Syl. Anyway, none of the towns have been attacked, which is...either very good or very ominous. What are the voidbringers doing? Syl is rambling about how she’d be a good mother and teach little bits of wind to harass Kaladin. this village was actually attacked. They attacked a grain storage, though, and made off with the grain. 

They’re gathering supplies. They’re not entirely magical creatures--they still need to eat. Although none of the men actually saw glowing eyes. 

Syl: Oh! this lady thinks you’re pretty! Kal: hi maybe no

Just heterosexual things. 

“Wow. She must be desperate living out here. I mean, look at you. Hair that hasn’t been combed since you flew across the continent, uniform stained with crem, and that beard.”  “Thank you for the boost of confidence.” 

True friendship. Anyway, we get the hilarious tidbit that apprently Syl has learned what sex is. Because people lock their doors but Syl can slip under them. And she’s decided that she needed to research because Kal wasn’t showing any interest in relationships--and then suggests that someone draw Kaladin a diagram. Of course, her reasoning is “people in relationships are happier,” which. Is sweet. I mean, a little misguided, but sweet. 

Syl lowkey starts encouraging Kaladin/Shallan which. No. Do not bring a love triangle into my good christian home in this year of our lord 2017. Back, Satan.  

Kal also has the disturbing revelation that since Syl is with him everywhere, she might just. assume. she’d be able to stick around when he was having sex with people. Apparently his visual reaction to this realization is enough that people might think he’s unwell. 

Oh fucking shit, the Voidbringers are heading towards Kholinar. They have to know where the Oathgates are, and are heading there to get them before the Radiants do. Fuck. 

Over to Adolin! Apparently at one point in his life he was afraid of horses, and makes the point that on Roshar, they seem alien. Which is fair. How the fuck did horses get on Roshar? 

There had been a...bond between him and Sureblood. More delicate and indefinable than the bond between man and sword, but still there. 

Of course, Adolin was the one who talked to his sword sometimes, so he had a habit of this sort of thing. 

Wow, you could almost say that. He talks and listens to...those who have been ignored... (No i will not stop theorizing about Edgedancer Adolin). 

Anyway, Adolin is still mourning Sureblood, understandably. 

Renarin’s learned to make Glys into a blade! Adolin says it’s beautiful. Renarin also--accidentally--pulsed out Radiance and made a version of Adolin that was perfected, one that was complete and whole. He’s lightweaving--just a bit. Adolin is a little floored. And Renarin completely healed Adolin’s broken wrist. 

Lightweaving and Regrowth. And he must have spoken at least three sets of Words, to have Glys as a Blade. 

Another flashback--The Rift, 33 years ago. Is this what Dalinar mentioned earlier? The thing so bad it drove a soldier into the ardentia? 

Anyway, Dalinar just won his own Plate (apparently how he did it involved kicking someone off a cliff, why is he like this). Sadeas wants to know if Dalinar is planning on marrying; Dalinar says he will if Gavilar tells him to; Gavilar wisely and instantly says not to bring him into this. And we get that Gavilar and Navani are married now, and that Jasnah is born. 

Apparently Dalinar was drunk when they went over battle plans. WHY IS HE LIKE THIS. 

But yes, this is Rathelas, the Rift. The time that Dalinar did or witnessed...something. Guess we’ll see what. Anyway, Dalinar wants to get the opposing Brightlord’s Blade; Gavilar points out that he only gets it if he finds the guy first. 

And both of the Kholin brothers run off to start the fight halfway through Sadeas’ sentence. I love these shitheads. Anyway, at one point Sadeas and Dalinar were close enough that Sadeas felt safe tossing his main weapon to Dalinar mid-battle. I mean, it was back when Dalinar was a shithead, so. 

Still, shithead or not, Dalinar has an eye for a battlefield, and realized that where they were standing was a trap soon enough to get Sadeas and Gavilar out of the way. Dalinar and his men weren’t so lucky. This asshole brightlord collapsed his own city onto his people to deal with the Shardbearers. 

Dal is doing some pretty sick moves, though--jumping from bridge to bridge too fast for people to cut them down as he crosses the Rift to get to the enemy. And Teleb--the man he hired earlier--is shooting down his opponents so that Dalinar could get to Highlord Tanalan. I think Dalinar must have impressed him by actually sticking to the promise of “never making you shoot someone you like and your village not getting horrifically pillaged.” Dalinar may have been a shithead, but he kept the oaths he made. 

Dalinar also prefers Plate to Blade, as a note. He points out that if you hit someone in Plate and they’re not in Plate, they’re done for, but with a Blade against Plate you’re against something that can actually stand against your blows. And Tanalan calls out the brutality of the way that the Kholins are devastating Alethkar to unite it. 

A LITERAL CHILD IS  STANDING BETWEEN DALINAR AND TANALAN, SAYING “YOU CAN’T HAVE MY DADDY.” STAB ME RIGHT IN THE FUCKING HEART WHY DON’T YOU SANDERSON. 

At least he had the heart to cut that scene there. Dalinar did end up with the Shardblade, though. It’s Oathbringer. It was the Sunmaker’s own sword. Dalinar won Oathbringer by killing a child. 

Dalinar rammed the Shardblade into the stone and leaned back, closing his eyes and remembering again the sound of a brave boy crying. 

Hey, Hey Sanderson?? Hey. Sanderson. Can you give me a fucking break for once?? I didn’t need this in my life. I didn’t need this. God, no wonder this horrified some of  Dalinar’s men. He killed a fucking child. I suddenly feel so much better about him giving the damn thing to Sadeas. 

Back to the present day. Stormfather and Dalinar are talking; Dalinar asks why the old Radiants betrayed them. 

Some things are better left forgotten, the voice said to him. You of all men should understand this, considering the hole in your mind and the person who once filled it. 

Low blow, Stormy. 

ANYWAY apparently Azir is spreading it around that the Prime Aqasix (Gawx) raised a child from the dead instead of, well, the other way around. Oh man please have Lift show up PLEASE. Anyway, apparently the Azish are negotiating with the Voidbringers. 

That’s...unexpected. More signs that they’re much more sophisticated than people think. Anyway, Azir is stonewalling. Strange, given that they have Lift around, but understandable, given that this could be seen as the Blackthorn wanting to invade. Perhaps, then, Lift could go through the Oathgate herself? But that would involve telling the Alethi that Lift is a radiant...

I LOVE THE QUEEN OF THAYLENAH

The spanreed quickly scribbled a reply. Queen Fen was writing directly in Alethi. “’Kholin,’” Kalami read. “’You old brute. Quit spreading chull scat. What do you really want?’”  “I always did like her,” Navani noted.

WAIT A MINUTE DALINAR WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT HERE: 

There was a weapon that he’d decided to keep hidden for now. It might work as well as a Radiant’s Shardblade in opening the Oathgates--and might let someone reach Thaylen City by flight. 

DID THEY GET THEIR HANDS ON SZETH’S HONORBLADE???

Anyway, Dalinar is feeling like something is off about this conversation, which I think is something he should pay attention to. Anyway, Elhokar is there and pretty goddamn pissed, accusing Dalinar of usurping his throne. Which, technically, Dalinar did. 

CAN YOU TWO TALK ABOUT FEELINGS LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE FOR ONCE. 

Oh man. Elhokar has abdicated the throne in favor of Dalinar. That’s...that’s going to be messy. It was coming, but it’s going to be messy. And Elhokar wants to lead troops back to Alethkar and set things right in his city--he’s pointing out that there’s something very, very wrong there. 

Elhokar’s also like uh yeah can you send Kaladin with me because if I fuck up I want him there to fix things. Also things start sounding more and more like Elhokar has a fan-crush on Kaladin. Just saying. 

Taravangian apparently has a radiant. That’s...I don’t want to be suspicious of a Radiant. And she has to have the actual thing (or an Honorblade) to open the gate. But Taravangian....

Ugh, I don’t like this. More girl Radiants, though! But also. Taravangian. 

If Dalinar failed everywhere else, at least he would have King Taravangian on his side. 

I shit you not this line made me yell “NO” repeatedly aloud DALINAR NO WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT YOU TRUSTING PEOPLE YOU SHOULDN’T I KNOW TARAVANGIAN DOESN’T SEEM TO BE DOING ANYTHING WRONG BUT HE TRIED TO ASSASSINATE YOU 

Anyway, Shallan is practicing being Veil, taking on that additional persona. Shallan’s also drawn more pictures of Urithiru than she realized, which...doesn’t help with the place’s distinctly Eldritch feeling. 

Adolin showed up!...while Shallan had her safehand out. Whoops. He nearly drops all his shit, she shooes him out of the room, it’s great. 

“In my defense,” Adolin said from outside, “you did invite me in.” 

“I thought you were Palona!” Shallan said, doing up the buttons on the side of her dress--which proved difficult with three layers covering her safehand. 

“You know, you could check to see who is at your door.” 

“Don’t make this my fault,” Shallan said. “You’re the one slipping into young ladies’ bedrooms practically unannounced.” 

“I knocked!” 

“The knock was feminine.” 

Anyway, while those two are being losers, we get this interesting note: 

“My name is Adolin Kholin, I was born under the sign of the nine,” Now, since I’ve had it clarified that nine is the number of Odium, uh,,,

LET THIS NOT BE FORESHADOWING I SWEAR TO GOD

Shallan: completely disheveled, missing buttons, hair frazzled Adolin: instant dopey grin

Also, “Ash’s eyes” is a Rosharism. I’m gonna collect these like I do Scadrialisms. Also, Palona mothers everyone. Palona’s Herdazian, by the way!

And then Adolin realizes that, uh, he’s in Shallan’s bedroom. Which, um, might not be proper. Shallan is highly amused that now he thinks about this. And in case he needed to be more flustered, Shallan is always there--

“It wasn’t a lecture. it was a creative application of my tongue to keep you distracted.” 

I would say phrasing, Shallan but I know that this was entirely intentional. Also, Shallan is gleeful that Adolin thinks she has an ego and is confidant, because that means that her attempts to seem like it are working. And then she thinks about her mother’s death and is like, welp, repression time!

Anyway, she formally introduces Pattern to Adolin. Adolin calls him a Shallanspren. Also: 

“Sometimes secrets are important.”  Adolin nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, they are.” 

Wow you get one guess as to what that’s referring to, because I sure have some ideas (cough, murder, cough). 

“Pattern, you’re to be our chaperone tonight.”  “What,” Pattern said with a hum, “is a chaperone?”  “That is someone who watches two young people when they are together, to make certain they don’t do anything inappropriate.”  “Inappropriate?” Pattern said. “Such as...dividing by zero?”  “What?” Shallan asked, looking to Adolin, who shrugged. “Look, just keep an eye on us. It will be all right.” 

Explaining Human Customs to Spren is something I always find amusing. Shallan also realizes that given that Pattern basically believes everything she tells him, he’s not the best chaperone. Also, she tries men’s food. She nearly dies from the spices, downs both her and Adolin’s water, and of course then is when Pattern figures out what she means by inappropriate. 

“Oh!” Pattern said suddenly, bursting up from the bowl to hover in the air. “You were talking  about mating! I’m to make sure you don’t accidentally mate, as mating is forbidden in human society until you have first performed the appropriate rituals!”  

Law of the universe: spren will figure something out at the exact worst and funniest moment for them to figure it out. So now Shallan is dying from shame and Pattern is buzzing “NO MATING” from a plate. Adolin is very amused. 

Anyway, Adolin brought her some of the books he remembered really liking about Makabaki, and turns out that both of them were anxious about considering the engagement because they thought the other one was out of their league. Shallan points out that the last person she liked was an ardent and an assassin, leading to Adolin demanding to hear the story. 

And they’ve just started kissing but Pattern has remembered his chaperone duties. NO MATING! Both Adolin and Shallan end up losing their collective shits. 

Anyway, back to Kaladin, in the rain. Of course. The voidbringers are, apparently, playing cards. They really are just...another army, apparently. Is it something like the Inquisitors, where when Odium (or an Unmade’s) attention isn’t on them, they are more in control? They also don’t have the red eyes. 

...maybe the everstorm just gave them back their autonomy. God, that’s a thought. Maybe it just let them be free and gave them their songs back. That’s certainly what it seems like. These aren’t voidbringers. They’re not even an army. They’re not fighters, they’re not prepared. They try to remember how to play card games they watched humans play for years, but can’t figure out the rules,  because nobody told them. 

They’re just people. Although Kaladin notes a “glowing yellow ribbon” in the air--a spren that they had watching? 

Anyway, Kaladin sees what they’re like, and he surrenders. 

[turnback-kick]

Cycle Brake (2015)

After dinner we help your parents clear the dishes then split– you hold me by the hand, tight, and lead me back upstairs to your room. You shut the door behind us.

It’s the same room you’ve had since you were little. You’ve never lived anywhere else, except for when your dad was on sabbatical and the whole family went to Germany. You were 9, I think.

The blanket, and the desk with your computer and schoolbooks and pictures of your friends, are red. The walls and carpet are blue. Your headboard is soft, and patterned with rose vines, dotted with faded red and green petals.

You have a dimmer, and turn the lights down low. The blanket deepens to blood red, the headboard to black on white. It’s impossible to read the titles of all your books.You guide me to your bed, and we flop down, bouncing, messing up the covers. You pin me on my back, and I laugh. You smile, then clamber over me to your bedside table; you take your lighter from your pocket and light the candle. Vanilla.

“It’s crazy that your parents are so chill,” I say, propping up on my right elbow to watch you light the candle. “To just let me hang out here like this.”

“Yeah,” you say, shrugging. You lean your back against the headboard, and look out the window at the moon, which is blue and huge. “I think it’s cuz my sister had a high school boyfriend, and my parents saw it wasn’t the end of the world. Like, they see there’s nothing to fear.”

“That’s awesome.”

“Yeah.”

I scoot to the head of the bed and sit next to you. I pull my legs up in a triangle, and rest my hands on my knees. You sit cross legged.

I look around your room, breathe in your candle some more. I love it. Seeing where, and how, you grew up. Something about it electrifies me, as much as I’m electrified when you show off your tan, Cali-girl skin in jean shorts and your royal blue top. There are pictures of your parents on your desk. Post-It notes to yourself on your computer. To the left, by the door, a floor length mirror, taped up with pictures of your friends making duck faces at the camera.

And on the floor by the mirror, my backpack. I breathe a little quicker, and it’s hard in this vanilla heat. I remember the condoms in my backpack.

We’ve been trying for about a month now. I can’t stay hard. It’s hard to keep you wet. No matter how much I kiss your breasts, or lap between your legs.

There’s something, about the nerves— we just can’t do it. We’ve strained and grunted and pushed and groaned and nothing. We skip school after lunch to try at my house, frantic before my mom or grandma might come home, and at the place you’re housesitting, feeding family friends’ cats, we roll around on the carpet— and nothing. Afterward, every time, we both hurt, and you’re sore. But we scan beneath us for the telltale drops of blood. And nothing.

I’m sore too. From track, from biking up and down the Berkeley Hills to your house, high over the city by Indian Rock, and from thrusting, thrusting, all the time, trying to break into you. My back and my butt and my tris and my arms, sore; and the pimples on my chest, swollen from the blood pumping through my body every day, burn. I don’t want to think about it.

“My parents fsho wouldn’t let me do that,” I say, still looking at my backpack and not you. “Have someone over.”

“Have me over.”

“I mean— anyone.”

“They think you’re at Tito’s right now?”

I shrug. “It’s my dad’s week right now. I dunno what he thinks. If he texts, yeah– I’ll probably tell him Tito’s, or something.”

I look down to my knees. I feel you shuffle about next to me; cross legged must not be comfortable.

“Why do you hate your dad so much?”

I look at you. You’re looking at me. You have a heart shaped face; bisecting it is your nose, long, almost like a squashed, inverted heart itself, tapering into your forehead and parting, like a delta, at the bottom. On either side of your nose, close to its bridge, your little almond sliver eyes are uncannily large.

“What?” I say.

“Your dad.”

“I don’t hate him—”

“Everytime you talk about him, you get so angry.”

“I do?”

“It’s pretty obvious.”

I snort and smile. You keep looking at me. I look out the window.

“I don’t hate him. I… am just sad.”

“… Do you hate Marisa?”

“Maybe.”

“You can’t hate someone just because they’ve had an easy life,” you say. Your voice is loud, almost too loud, I feel, for this grainy dark bedroom. “That’s not fair. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Well I don’t hate her for that,” I say. “I don’t think I really even hater her. I just am so confused as to why my dad would go for her. Well— not confused.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look,” I say. “From what I know about my mom— my birth mom— she was wild. Just galloping around San Jose, doing drugs and cussing out her parents… and, I dunno, writing poems and shit. And my mom, Leah, you know— she’s scary, right? She did law school and school for public policy at once, decided to adopt and raise two kids even though her dad just died…”

“Yeah…”

“To me, both my moms, both the women my dad has married before Marisa, seem like such warriors. And then Marisa? 10 years younger, country-clubbing Boston white girl? Who he seems too afraid to argue with cuz it’d hurt her feelings? It’s like… what the fuck. I just don’t get it.”

From downstairs I hear water, and voices. I think your sister is down there, maybe with her boyfriend. They turn on the radio. It sounds like sad ranchera. I keep forgetting your sister speaks Spanish. I can’t understand the words— they’re too far away— but I slide down the headboard to press my chest to the bed, try let the accordion vibrate up into my heart.

“Why do you need to understand why he loves her,” you ask. You stay sitting upright and look down on my face. “Why is that up to you?”

I blink. “It’s not,” I say. “But… I just wish I understood. Cuz to be honest I wonder if I do know the reason he’s with her. But the reason makes me sad.”

“The reason being…”

“I bet he’s tired. Divorced twice? One of his exes is dead? After the life he’s had? I bet that guy is ready to just not be alone. To be… taken care of, I guess. And if that means him being less… intense? Less confrontational, less… engaged… awake… then I think he’s ready to take that step. But it just saddens me. Cuz he taught me and Robert so much, about how to, you know, think, and fight, and feel. And he told us stories… read to us every night from his illustrated copy of The Hobbit from the 70s… I want to show you that book, it’s super cool.”

You smirk, but close your eyes. I continue.

“But yeah. He doesn’t read that to Nani. Hasn’t read him that, or The Chronicles of Prydain. And, I know Marisa wants kids… if and when they do have them, he won’t give those stories to those kids either. And will I relate to them? They’ll have a different mom, and kinda a different dad. So… yeah. All that kinda makes me sad, and angry, for my brothers and for him. His softening.”

I look up at you. Your eyes are open again, and you’re still smirking. You slide down to my level. The music from below resonates through our ears, hot and red; sitting so close together by this candle makes heat wrap around us like a towel.

“But you don’t like your mom, either,” you say. “Marisa never puts up a fight, but all your mom does is criticize. Marisa’s too soft. Leah’s too hard.”

I swallow, nod. “Yeah.”

“You just hate them both. Wish Candy was still alive, and your dad was still with her.”

“No.” I look at the ceiling, then away, at your closet to the left of your bed. My body follows, and I turn my back on you.

I breathe in, then out.

“No. I definitely don’t. For how much I hate her, my mom has made me. She’s the reason I can read and write and argue— she’s the reason I’m so bored in school. She’s probably the reason Dad and us stayed in Berkeley. What if we never had her? Where’d I be— San Jose? Still living with my grandparents? Not, not planning past high school— would I be doing drugs? Who fucking knows?”

Two tears pool in my eyes. I grit my teeth. I keep staring into the dark of your closet. Not at you.

But then I spin around to look you in the eyes and say:

“Of course I wish she was still here. I wish that every single day. But she’s not, and, and— I just can’t think that way. Won’t think that way. Obviously it hurts but it’s also made me me, and, and— I just can’t think that way about the past. I can’t. I won’t.”

I turn away again. Clench my jaw, and my fists. I try not to tremble, and try not to let the tears fall. They do. I don’t breathe in, and don’t breathe out; I try not to let the tears fall.

“I’m sorry.” you say.

I hold my breath. Downstairs, your sister laughs. She changes the station. I recognize the slow, synthy intro, By Your Side, Sade.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “I shouldn’t have said that. I know how you feel.”

I cough out a sob. You must know I’m crying now. I feel your hand on my back, and you scratch, slow, up and down, through my shirt. Another sob tumbles out.

“You… do?”

“Yeah. About Nick.”

I turn, tearless. I’ve never heard you talk about him, at least not willingly, and especially not to me. All I know about him I’ve heard from your friends in apologetic whispers.

“About… him?”

“Yeah,” you nod, and sniff. “Sometimes I hate how much I cared about him.”

I nod, encouraging. You’re laying on your side, head resting on clasped hands, eyes cast to the ceiling. You continue.

“How much I still do care about him.”

I stop nodding.

“How I still worry that something might happen. To him. And that it might be my fault. Even now… here, with you… I worry. And then, of course, I hate that I worry. Because he’s lied so many times. And I fell for it. every time. I really thought that he was going to die. And that it’d be my fault. And then just ended up feeling like a fool.”

My breathing speeds up, I reach for your face with my left hand but you catch it, clasp it tight, and keep talking, keep looking up and away.

“And he probably will keep telling those lies. And maybe one day it won’t be a lie. But I’m trying… to not let that… control me? And not feel like his life is my responsibility.”

“It isn’t—”

“But here’s the thing. As much as I know I can’t let myself be pulled into that. I also know I can’t hate how much I cared about him. For him and about him. Right? Cuz, what was I supposed to do. What am I supposed to do? I did what I thought I could, what I thought was right, and I can’t let some… bad… experiences… make me hate that part of myself?

“Because,” and you look back to me, “if I hated that, and thought I was stupid, then I’d have to think I was stupid for wanting to risk caring about… someone…. for caring about you.”

I’m silent. I look to your hand holding mine. The flame has slid down the wick and now burns from deep within the candle, instead of a pure orange flame the room now dances in a filtered dark gold. Vanilla fills my lungs.

“It’s the same with my dad,” you say.

I furrow my brow. “How?”

“How old is your dad?”

“Just hit 40.”

“Right. My dad is almost twice your dad’s age.”

“Right…”

“And I can’t stop thinking about how he’ll die. Like, we all die…. but he will die. It’s just a fact. And I… feel… so scared. And so selfish. And angry. Like, he won’t stop smoking. He won’t stop eating pie and red meat. And I’m like, do you want to live? Do you want to see me get married? Have a kid? Or are you ok leaving me and mom and Beth alone?”

You’re not looking at me either, but at our hands, as well. I run my thumb across your knuckles.

“But then I remember,” you say. “To breathe. And I remember: you can’t change people. And you can’t change the past. And things will happen. What’s gonna happen will just happen. And that fear… it’s… natural? Right? But also… it can’t… hold us back.”

You look into my eyes. We’re holding our hands. It’s sweltering in the room now but our bodies have inched so close. Your eyes shining, I can’t tell if you’re crying or not. I can’t tell if I am either.

“That fear can’t hold us back.”

You kiss me, and neither of us closes our eyes. You shift your weight, rise; swing one leg over me and straddle me, put your hands on my shoulders like you did when we first came into the room, laughing.

“I’ve never heard you talk about those things.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m surprised… usually, you seem afraid. Those things… are scary.”

“There’s no reason for us to be afraid of our past,” you say. “We don’t have to be ashamed. What we’ve done. Where we’ve been. Crying… we should be able to talk about those things that scare us. To look at them, share them… It’s ok.”

I tuck my fingers beneath your chin and cup your mouth to mine. We kiss. We kiss, deep, and your hands leave my shoulders to lose themselves in my hair. I run my fingers up along your legs, rest them on your hips.

We kiss. You press down on to me, your legs, long, squeeze mine; your breasts, heavy, weigh on my chest, and your hair, thin, soft, encircles my face. I know nothing but you.

Our clothes fall away like feathers, line the floor around your red bed. The candle is nearly out but the moon is high, and nearly full, and all we see are outlines, glinting silhouettes. The sweat tracing your shoulder is silver, the low light overhead bathes us in dark gold.

Above me, your face, your breasts like two crescents. You move. Your hips, flowing over me, through our underwear feeling out my stiff ridges, like the way the Bay’s placid tide licks at the Marina rocks. You pull me up and I guide you forth, then back, then to me again. We kiss.

“Should we…” you say.

“I don’t know.”

“I want to.”

“Ok. Do you have…?”

You nod. In one motion you step from me off the bed, to your dresser by the closet. Light blue. You slide open the top drawer, start tossing out socks and underwear, burrowing, rooting. I watch you. Your smooth back in the half light, you balanced on your toes, your thin, strong ankles. You’re a dancer.

You shut the drawer, wave a small blue square at me. A Lifestyles condom. We both smile, and you hold my gaze. You bite your lips. Your thumb flirts with the waistband of your underwear– and then you push them down, your smooth legs grazing past each other as you step out.

I suck in air, blow it out. Realize my breath is even. That I’m full of light.

You straddle me once more. Kiss every one of my abdominals. I flex, and thrust forward, so you can pull my boxers off over the swell of my butt. We put the condom on together.

And you position just above where I am, hard and tall. I feel your heat.

“Nothing…”

And you breathe out, as I do.

“To be…”

And you lower yourself on to me. Smooth.

“Oooooh…”

Our eyes are bright, and wet. Your breasts bob, in time, buoyed by my hands. You push at my shoulders, scratch at my collarbone. You roll into me, again and again, hips cascading down over mine.

And we hold each other. My arms encircle your back. You bite at my neck. I kiss just below your ear. Your hips, rolling. Mine, rising in waves. No seams. No rhythm. Just smooth. Same. Near.

I come all at once. I rush against you, in you. Waves. Like ocean in a shell my moans fill your ear.

I hold you. You hold me, too.

*

I lay in your bed with arms out like wings. Waiting for you to come back from the bathroom. I sit up, turn, straighten the blanket, rearrange the pillows. Pause.

Across your pillows, white with dark roses, and your sheets, white and soft like felt, are smears of red. I wipe at my back. My fingers come away red. The pimples on my shoulders, my back, long blistering and full, must have burst.

Before I can clean the sheets the door opens. You come in, loosely covered in your red robe. Your toes, nails adorned with chips of black, pad across your blue carpet.

“You ok?” I ask.

“Yeah…” you look at me. Your head is tilted. “I’m bleeding.”

I start. “Do you hurt?”

You shake your head at me. Smile.

“No.”

*

It’s 1 am. I’m just biking home. I’m smiling. I want to see my brothers. I know they’ll still be up, eating cereal, watching Supernatural, while the dogs snooze at their side and Dad and Marisa lay in silence upstairs.

I take one last look at your house as I roll down Shattuck, then make a right on Los Angeles, then a left, and I brake at the top of Mariposa.

I balance my bike. Squeeze tight on the brakes. Wind rushes up over the hills, hugging the roads’ curves. It’s cold– but I’m wearing my jean jacket, and beneath that, the hoodie you let me borrow to keep me warm. It’s red, and smells of you. Vanilla, and your floral perfume that never seems to fade, and something wholesome and sweet with a sour hint, like powder, or bread.

I breathe in. I let go.

Brakes and ground fall away, and I tumble into the shadows, and tree trunks whizz on by, and I let the darkness pull me, glide down like easy, and my bike’s tires hum smooth, cutting half circles across empty streets I go, shoulders light and free of shame and lungs hope high and full of truth toward home I go like blue on down the mountain.

*

Home, eating cereal on the couch. Nobody awake.

My brother comes downstairs.

“Sup..”

“Hey man!”

“You’re bleeding.”

“What?”

Robert gestures to my chest. I look down.

My white v-neck is ruined. Splotchy red, blooming out in a radial from my clavicle. Every single one of my chest pimples, knobby and hard for weeks, has burst. Popped.

“What’s that from?”

“My-- my chest.”

“Hurt?”

I shake my head, smiling a bit. “Nah.”

[phantomrose96]

Rebound

Angsty headcanon is now an angsty fic. Whoops

Kirishima had gotten plenty used to the yelling next door. Even with the wall muffling it, he could make out the cadence of different swears, peppered with banging, stomping, and the occasional contained explosion. His floor trembling and desk chattering and lamp wobbling were almost comforting reminders that he wasn’t living alone. Bakugou was safely next door, being angry about something.

It made Kirishima uncomfortable the night that nothing shook. He could make out a muffled something: hisses and mutterings and the shuffling of feet, all distinctly Bakugou, but this was different now.

Bakugou was trying to be quiet.

Kirishima toyed with the pages of his textbook, skimming to see how much was left of the chapter. His hair was down, just a bit damp from the shower, and he’d settled in, wearing sweats and an old t-shirt, planning to knock out as much homework as he could. His non-rattling lamp lit his desk, the rest of the room left in a cozy darkness. Kirishima ran his tongue along his teeth and weighed his options as he heard another muffled snarl through the wall. He closed the book, picked it up, opened his door, and knocked firmly on Bakugou’s.

“Yo Bakugou, did you do the math stuff yet? I don’t get the diagram with the triangle and the sine and cosine stuff.”

The muttering had quieted on the other side of Bakugou’s door. A brief silence sat between them.

“It’s easy. Go figure it out yourself.”

“Yeah but I’m stupid.” Kirishima twisted the knob of Bakugou’s door and found it surprisingly unlocked. He hesitated a moment, the door an inch cracked, before pushing it the rest of the way inward.

“Don’t--!!” was all Bakugou could shout before Kirishima looked up.

Kirishima said nothing at first. He only looked, making sense of the scene. The central light was on, swamping Bakugou’s scarcely-decorated room. Bakugou sat on his bed, sheets still made, still wearing the UA gym pants. The shirt had been discarded, apparently in tatters, on the floor. Kirishima’s eyes were drawn to the awkward bandages, strung like rope around Bakugou’s shoulders and ribcage. Bakugou’s right arm glistened slightly, painted with amorphous patches of raw pink skin.

“Dude, did you burn yourself?”

“Get out.”

“Lemme do the bandaging. I took a first aid class like two years ago.”

“Get the fuck out.”

“How’d you even do that?”

“Training. What the fuck do you think?”

“I’ve never seen you burn yourself training. I didn’t think you like, could even get burned.”

“Only my hands don’t burn, idiot.”

“Oh…really?” Kirishima pushed his way further into the room. He eased the door shut behind him. “How do you not burn yourself every other time?”

Bakugou offered only a glare, tension in his jaw. “Because I’m careful.” He focused again on the roll of bandages, threading it around his ribcage as he passed it from one hand to the other.

Kirishima snorted. “You’re careful?”

“Yeah, I’m fucking careful. I know how to handle my own damn quirk. I’m not an idiot.”

Kirishima sat on this information. He watched the steady twist and wind of the bandages, swooping now over Bakugou’s shoulder. “How?”

Bakugou’s lip twitched, his whole body rigid. “Ask someone else for help with math and leave me the fuck alone. I’m busy.”

“Hey, I’m offering to help you.”

“Yeah well I didn’t fucking ask.”

Kirishima stood rooted. He saw with the little shifts of Bakugou’s arms that the burn pattern along his shoulder was deeper than it first appeared, white along the edges and ridged oily pink in the center, dipping down from the level of his undamaged skin. He’d known Bakugou’s quirk was strong, and he wasn’t sure why he’d never considered this happening before. His own quirk had made him numb to the idea of physical injury, he supposed. A burning quirk must hurt.

“That’s a pretty cool skill,” Kirishima continued, cautiously. “Being able to go all berserker like you do, but also reel yourself in enough to not like, torch your own body. Manly, you know?” Kirishima took a step forward. “So did you mess up today or what?”

Bakugou didn’t answer. He cut the bandage and plastered it flush with his body.

“…Bakugou?”

“You’ve got it backwards,” Bakugou answered, a forced and uncharacteristic calm. “That’s not a skill. It’s just how I’ve been holding myself back.”

Kirishima said nothing. He just watched Bakugou roll his shoulder experimentally, checking if the bandaging would hold.

“Holding back by…by not burning yourself? Bakugou, dude…”

Bakugou pulled his legs up onto his bed. He stared Kirishima down with that same unusual calm. “Back when I was 11, that summer my quirk was the strongest I’d ever gotten it. I’d been working on making it stronger and stronger every summer. I could incinerate whole trees if I wanted to. That kind of strong.”

“…And?”

“And what? I fucking burned myself. The wind blew it back in my face or something stupid like that. Doctors spent a week taking the piss out of me for not being ‘careful’ with my quirk. I just had to sit there and fucking take it while they picked pieces of shirt out of my skin.”

Kirishima winced at the visual. Bakugou continued.

“So I’ve been holding back since then. At least I thought I was holding back, but no it’s been holding me back. I can’t do it voluntarily anymore. It’s like I can’t put out enough to—I trained my body to stop before it—“ Bakugou let out a strangled noise, aggressive, cracking through his forced calm. When he looked back at Kirishima, there was an unrestrained fire in his eyes. “I can’t settle anymore. I can’t half-ass any of this anymore. I can’t limit myself.”

Kirishima put his palms up, heart rate quickening. “Dude… Dude listen to yourself. Look at yourself. You gotta hold back if your quirk’s gonna mess up your body, that’s how it works. You’re gonna—what—burn your whole body so you can get more firepower out of your quirk? That’s crazy! That’s stupid. You can’t just break yourself every time you use it, okay?! It’s not like you’re—“

Kirishima stopped. Bakugou stared him dead on. Kirishima’s eyes widened just a fraction.

“Oh,” Kirishima continued. “Oh, I get it…”

Bakugou moved off his bed, his motions just the slightest bit stiff where his bandaging hindered him. He grabbed a t-shirt from the laundry pile on his floor and slipped it over his head, obscuring all but the highest ridge of bandaging near his collar bone.

“Deku keeps beating me. …Every fucking time. He got his license and I didn’t. He rescued me when I couldn’t— All Might likes him more. All Might chose him. Not me. Never me. So fucking why—“ Bakugou swung his hand out, his palm trailing a thin line of explosions that burst like firecrackers. Bakugou’s breath shuddered. “Why can’t I keep up? What’s he doing that I’m not? I figured it out.”

“Dude…” Kirishima muttered, at a loss for anything else.

“I kept telling him not to underestimate me…but he was right.

“Bakugou—“

“Way back at the start of the school year, the first time we fought, in that stupid fucking battle simulation. He beat me. He said he was holding back, didn’t want to use his quirk, because of how it fucked up his body. But he did use it. He used it and he beat me with it. And even after it fucked up his body that bad he kept on using it. Over and over! He was using power I could never fucking handle because he wasn’t afraid.”

“Bakugou, you’re scaring me.” Kirishima kept his palms up and out, taking another step forward. “That’s nonsense. Midoriya isn’t—“

“It’s not fucking nonsense. It’s the truth. That’s what different between us. Deku isn’t fucking scared of his quirk like I am!”

“You’re not—“

“Not scared? Then why can’t I ever use it at full power, huh? Why can’t I take the backlash? Why do I stop myself!? Why can’t I keep up with him!?”

“That’s not right…”

“Oh yeah?” Bakugou asked. He stashed the roll of bandages and scissors into his nightstand drawer. He walked toward Kirishima, brushing shoulders on his way to the light switch. Bakugou flipped it down, bathing the room in darkness, save for the trickle of light eking through the shut bedroom door. Bakugou, little more than a silhouette, threw himself down on his bed, and he buried his face in his pillow. “Come back when you’ve got a reason why I’m wrong then. Just let me fucking sleep.”

Kirishima could think of nothing more to say. He nodded only slightly, and placed his hand on the door. He opened it, so that a band of hallway light threw itself across Bakugou’s bed. Bakugou was facing the wall.

“Alright… Alright… You’re wrong though. Give me some time. I’ll figure out how to explain it. Letting himself get hurt wasn’t the right answer for Midoriya. It’s not the right answer for you either. I’ll figure out how to explain it better. But I’m sure of it.”

Kirishima stepped into the hall, the wood cold against his bare feet, and he eased Bakugou’s door shut. He stopped just shy of his own room, hand placed loosely on his own door knob.

He wondered if it was worth telling Midoriya about this. Or a teacher. He wondered about All Might’s true form, permanently broken after All Might had pushed it past its every limit.

Kirishima shuddered.

[96percentdone]

imaginepartybabyz

 “someone ask me for viktuuri fic recs so I can just get this post out...”

hey skylar give us... the good reccomendations for the good content I LONG for it...

@imaginepartybabyz Y’know half the reason I wanted to make this post is because of your fics. I can’t rec your own fics to you Noa. It doesn’t work out.

I’m gonna try to keep the super popular fics everyone and their mother has already read off the list. Y’know the ones that show up every fic rec. Anyway let’s begin. Under the cut!

Finished Fics:

Masks off by emulikule  “And so the story goes that a playboy comes to a town, makes it fall in love with him and then proceeds to get himself enticed by the most mysterious person there. Wait... did it really go like that?” Alright so I am weak for stories where a character loves two people, and it looks like a love triangle, but those two people are actually just the same fuckin person and they have a secret identity or some shit. It’s why I like Miraculous Ladybug. This fic??? It has that. Also it has fucking masquerades. It’s great.

Lifetime Record by futuresoon  “Victor Nikiforov is a lot of things: a celebrity, a genius, the world's greatest men's figure skater, the object of Yuuri Katsuki's idolization. He's also been dead for twenty years. When Yuuri returns home in search of something to inspire him to get back into skating, what he finds is someone eager to help, unconventional, and incredibly, desperately lonely.” So I don’t typically like ghost fics because the concept of them makes me depressed. (”They can’t be together really if one of them is dead!!”) But I read this one anyway. Because. it was on the tvtropes fic rec page and didn’t contain garbage, and I have no regrets. Listen if you’re afraid of an unhappy ending. Don’t be. I hate tragedies. I would not rec this if it was one. Believe me. It’s an emotional ride.

lie to make me like you by cityboys “It’s become a game, of sorts, to anyone privy to the fact that the pattern exists in the first place: ask Victor out at the beginning of the month, date for however many days, and wait for the end to come and for Victor to say, always: I couldn’t fall in love with you. Let’s break up.” Now the truth is I really could rec all of cityboys fics because they’re all works of art but I told myself to just pick one so this list doesn’t end up 90% them. And this fic. Let me tell you. It’s fucking beautiful. I think the most wonderful aspect of this fic is there’s tension, but there isn’t like extreme angst. The climax of the fic isn’t incredibly stressful, even when there is build up to it. I think it’s truly wonderful. Also this fic singlehandedly got ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” stuck in my head forever. 

Impostor Syndrome by renaissance “At some point, most people with a childhood crush will imagine meeting their idol, and might even pretend that they're dating. This is the story of how Yuuri Katsuki meets his childhood crush, and how they pretend that they're dating.” Alright we need one fake dating AU on here and this is it. This is peak fake dating AU. It doesn’t get any better than this. Everyone else go home. No but seriously this fuckin fake dating AU. has just so much going for it. At the start it seems pretty standard, but the way it develops. HOly shit. Just. Just read it. 

not gold like in your dreams by ebenroot ““Victor, you could have let some psychopath into your apartment.” “Oh come on, he’s not a psychopath,” Victor chides.Christophe makes a gesture with his hand that says ‘are you seriously this naïve or are you drunk at work again?’. “Victor, you don’t know that. You don’t know anything about him. Whose name am I going to give to the police or face I’m going to describe to the sketch artist when they find your body chopped up like Hannibal Lecter’s side dish? ”-- in which Victor and Yuuri are roommates and Yuuri has a secret“ So this. Is a Penelope AU. AKA a movie I never watched, which should be a testament to how good this fucking fic is because damn. Like. You don’t have to see this movie just read this fic. It works fucking perfectly. Yuuri is constantly hiding his face in Viktor’s apartment and doesn’t give his full name, and Viktor is like “this is kinda sketchy but it’s fine” and then romance. I just made this sound so much worse than it is but listen. I was emotional. I felt things. I don’t always feel things but I felt them here. Just read it.

And Miles to Go Before I Sleep by Orchids_and_Fictional_Cities “Katsuki Yuuri has been cursed to spread misery and grief to those who dare to come close to him. Viktor Nikiforov has been sentenced to wander the earth, unable to die, granting wishes to mortals in the hopes that one of them might give his life meaning in exchange. They meet in a tempest of April snow.“ So I just binge read this all in one go. Okay first. it has gorgeous art. Holy shit. Yes. There’s art. And second. This story. The world it built. The atmosphere. The emotions. That fucking beautiful ending. Oh my god. four chapters of just. perfection. Please. Just. Please. Read this. 

Waiting for the Rain by trashy_cas “In which Katsuki Yuuri meets a stranger who also enjoys frequenting empty parks on rainy mornings. Garden of Words AU“ Here’s another fic based on a movie I haven’t seen, and also won’t see because. eww. Creepy age gap. The creepy age gap is obviously not in this fic. I would not put it here if it was. No this fic is just a wonderful atmospheric experience. It really captures that rainy garden mood throughout and when it ends...it feels a little bit like the skies cleared up and the sun shines again. It’s just beautiful. 

Ongoing:

don't want to be lonely (just want to be yours) by Linisy “This time the flesh and blood Yuuri wasn't around to distract him, and he watched the video intently, hypnotized by the swing of Yuuri’s hips, the look in his eyes that burned with intensity and the strong, confident line of his shoulders. Yuuri was, as always, breathtaking. Victor remembered their first meeting well. Yuuri was the last member to join the group. He was soft spoken, and he stood as if he were trying to make himself smaller, shoulders drawn inward, head tilted toward the ground, glasses slipping off his nose. Victor was surprised to hear that he was the second oldest behind Victor himself. Everything changed the first time he saw him dance. - Vitya, Katsu, Yura, Beka and Chu make up the top idol group SVD. They've been through hell together, living in their tiny dorm and working toward the day they'd finally hit it big. That day has finally come, but sometime over the course of the past three years, Victor has fallen in love with Yuuri Katsuki.” Okay so this fic has just started, and it’s an idol AU, but don’t let that turn you away because it’s masterful. It covers like five different POVs and all of them are so distinct. You can really feel the character they switch to. It has so much potential. 

Lullaby of Birdland by Orchids_and_Fictional_Cities “In another world, their story might have started with ‘Hi there’, or ‘Lovely sky tonight’, or ‘Hello, stranger’. Or perhaps something less cliché, something like: ‘A commemorative photo? Sure thing! ’But in this one, it starts with an electric blue cocktail, the taste of smoke in the air. And: “You have really talented, um. Fingers.” --- Yuuri makes music with his body. Victor makes music because that's all he knows. (Or: After his poor performance at the Grand Prix Final, Yuuri is weary but not broken, and decides to give it one last shot. Victor plays piano three nights a week at a small jazz bar near the Detroit Skating Club, and does his best to get by.)” This fic has this one really clever plot point I can’t tell you because spoilers. But I think about it all the time. And you will too probably!! If you read it. I don’t even like jazz but this fic made me like jazz. Also. The feelings are real. The feelings are real and it’s got the atmosphere of a Jazz Club. Fitting considering. 

On Ice, Yuri!!! by octothorpe “Russia’s rising star, Victor Nikiforov, age twenty-three, has just finished his first Grand Prix Final and is gearing up for Serious Training for the next season. Russia’s rising star, Victor Nikiforov, age twenty-three, is currently standing naked in the Yu-Topia onsen, back arched, silver hair flowing, with one arm outstretched toward a very bewildered Yuuri Katsuki.“Yuuri! Hi!” OR The weirdly-canon-but-not-really Reverse AU.“ This is the only reverse AU that matters. Okay. Every other AU was weird in some way, but this one feels...accurate. To everyone. Also it doesn’t feel gross. So there’s that. Everyone feels true to themselves, and it’s “weirdly canon” like they said, so this fic really does feel like the most accurate version of this AU there could be. Everyone is so IC. It’s beautiful.

Rhapsody by FigureSgayts “He's been a star from the beginning. Both of his parents, Yakov, and all those around him, everybody who has seen him skate, knows it. Viktor, however, continues to see himself as nothing but a potential rising star. After all, he's only sixteen and is just making his senior debut. He can't be as good as everybody seems to be making him out to be, ignoring the small (large) collection of gold medals that he has. As such, all he wants to do is focus on improving and living up to the expectations thrown at him on and off the ice. However, only a few months before the start of his first senior Grand Prix series, a sharp blue smears itself right above his clavicle. Only in his dreams can it be bruise. The late appearance of a soulmark is enough to knock Viktor a little off balance mentally. This isn't to say that Viktor will reject his soulmate. In fact, he's willing to go above and beyond to do all he can for whoever they may be, but first, he's going to claw his way to the top. If everybody expects him to be a star, then so be it. He'll be the star that they want, and once he's at the top, nobody will be able to stop him from giving his all to whoever shares his mark. After all, he is Viktor Nikiforov.” It’s a soulmate AU. But it’s also a Viktor backstory fic. AKA it’s a fucking win win y’all. It has everything you could ever want probably. Warning though Viktor is kinda an oblivious dingus at times and you’ll want to just. argh. Viktor please. But listen it’s really good at super worth it okay. 

The Coin, The Stone & The Rose by Silver_Scribbles “Crown Prince Viktor Nikiforov once had the world at his fingertips; he was rich and powerful and handsome, and he had everything his heart desired. Now, he is a Beast, imprisoned by an Enchantress' spell; hiding away from the world in the never-ending winter of his shame. Katsuki Yuuri is . . . odd, to say the least. Beautiful, but odd. While the rest of the villagers put one foot firmly in front of the other, Yuuri would rather loose himself to his dancing and his daydreams; always wishing for something more than his provincial life. Each is captive to circumstances beyond their control; trapped by unbreakable spells and impossible dreams. However, an unlikely meeting is about to change everything. Hope makes a final play for their salvation as the sands of time run out; but as Yuuri and Viktor learn to find themselves in one another, they also make discoveries that they're completely unprepared for . . . some wondrous, some wretched . . . and some treacherous enough to permanently tear them apart. For who could ever learn to love a Beast?“ Fuckin I don’t like beauty and the beast as like. a movie. And everyone who’s tried this AU up until this fic was doing it wrong with all the bad things about the movie. But this fic!!!! It takes the basic premise (a prince turned into a beast that can only be saved by true love) and keeps everyone in character. No fucking uncontrollable rage outbursts from Viktor. Everyone is just how they should be, and there’s none of the fucking Bad tropes that were in the original movie. It’s basically what the movie should have been. Basically. 

This Conversation by RedTwice “Somewhere along his journey to share himself with the world, Yuuri finds himself travelling to Detroit to train with the world-renowned ice skating coach Celestino Cialdini. There’s just one small problem: Christophe Giacometti’s coach has retired earlier than anyone expected, leading the young skater to Celestino’s door as another full-time student. Yuuri slowly befriends Christophe as they train for the senior circuits together, and finds that this friendship is bringing out parts of himself he never expected to find, for better or worse. Or: Christophe joins Yuuri in Detroit from the beginning, and leads Yuuri down a six-year-long path of self-discovery.“ Do you want a fic where Chris and Yuuri are friends. Do you. Because. This is that fic. The viktuuri hasn’t happened yet but it will, but listen, if you also want that good friendship content. Read this. Read it. Just do it. Just. Read. 

Trade Your Heroes For Ghosts by Naamah_Beherit “Having endured what was probably the worst day of his life followed by a night he does not remember, Yuuri wakes up with a hangover of the century and a desperate plea for the world to forget about his existence. Alas, the world has other plans. So does a certain Russian skater.“ Okay so like. Here’s a great canon divergence AU where Yuuri finds out immediately about the banquet. ANd it’s just. wonderful. it’s just great. Listen. Listen okay secretly all of you have wanted this. I know. I understand. But listen. It’s here okay. You can read it. It’s super good. It makes you feel good inside. All kinds of feelings. Don’t you like feelings? no probably not BUT THEY’RE GOOD FEELINGS.

And finally, everything by komagayda. (Yes Noa. It’s your turn). Everything he write is IC, and while they’re all “weird AUs” don’t we all need weird AUs? Yes. Yes we do. The workings of the worlds he’s built are so fascinating and fun, and the super accurate characterization just brings everything to life. It’s beautiful. ALso. mlm fics written by an actual mlm???? it’s more likely than you think. I couldn’t pick one fic like I did for cityboys because I’d feel like a fucking liar. And I didn’t want this to also be even longer with every single fic. So we’re just gonna do this all at once kids. It’s great. Noa is a great author. 100000000000/10. Get on reading his shit. 

And there you go. Enjoy the good content. Your welcome.