#King this is why people keep thinking you two are dating irl

[royalarchivist]

Fit: Alright, my name is going to be "Tio Fabio." Tio Fabio. Tio Fabio. Yeah I saw that sht, I can't believe I was on Brazilian news as "Tio Fabio." I can't believe that sht.

Fit: What should I name the farm, though? What should I name the farm? [Laughs] Everyone's spamming "Minas Gerais" ok, hold on... [He types it out] That's how you spell it, right? Ok, ok. What's my favorite thing? What's my favorite thing?

Fit: I mean, "Pac" would be a good choice, let's say "fofoca." [While laughing] Fofoca. [Laughs] Fofoca. Hell yeah.

[let-them-read-fics]

Blackpink Reaction To Their S/O Struggling W/ Drug Addiction

Warnings / Misc. -- ⚠️ Sensitive Topic ⚠️, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff

A/N: Hey everyone! This request covers a sensitive topic that I haven't been personally exposed to, but I hope that I do it justice. I did my best to handle it with care and be as realistic as possible. Let me know what you think!

PS -- I didn't specifically name any substances or describe them in too much detail; I wanted to leave you room to picture whatever you had in mind, especially if you happen to be struggling irl.

👩 Also, I wrote this as Fem!Reader because nothing was specified. I hope that's alright, anon! Thank you for your patience :)

♡ Happy Reading ♡

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

Jisoo

Discovered it after a few weeks of dating

She's amazing at reading people, so she had sensed that you were struggling with something; she just didn't know what. 

She wanted to wait for you to tell her about whatever it was, but one fateful day she witnessed something that explained it all. 

It wasn't meant to happen; she wasn't meant to see you like this. But, as fate would have it, Jisoo stumbled across something she never saw coming. 

Her footsteps grow louder as she walks her way through the house, peeking her head into various rooms in search of you. The two of you invited some of your mutual friends over, and they've all been curious as to where you slipped away to earlier.

"Baby, are you in here? Everyone's wonder--" 

The sound of the latch clicking out of place makes your heart drop and sets you into motion. Before you have enough time to fully react, though, Jisoo opens the bathroom door to find you sitting on the ground, attempting to shove a foreign substance into a plastic baggy. 

Your hands make quick work of moving it out of view and sitting up on your knees, but she picks up on what's going on. Her eyes land on the material as you shift it behind your body, looking up at her with wide eyes. 

"Jisoo--" Tears are already beginning to work their way into your eyes, slightly blurring your vision. Too many people have walked out on you after witnessing this, and the thought that she might go too is overwhelming. 

She keeps her tone level as she steps into the room and quietly shuts the door behind herself. "Y/N, please explain yourself." 

"I-I'm sorry Jisoo, I should've told you sooner." You shakily say, bringing a hand up to swipe away the few tears that've already leaked out. It's not usually like you to get so emotional so quickly, but seeing the pained look on her face is reason enough. 

"Come here," she utters, plopping down next to you and pulling you up against her body as she leans back on the side of the tub. Her fingers rub soothing circles on your back while you rest your head on her shoulder, lightly dampening the material of her shirt with your tears. "I'm not mad at you for this, but I need you to tell me about it. I want to help you, my love. I can't watch you hurt yourself like this." 

"Okay. Just promise you won't go," you softly say, the syllables of your words breaking here and there from the raw emotion you feel. 

"I'm not going anywhere, Y/N." She presses a light kiss to your temple for reassurance, and her heart breaks when she feels your hands grip at her clothes out of habit. How many times have people told you that and still left you in your time of need? She cradles you in her arms, realizing just how fragile you are in your current state, and tells you to take your time. 

With a steadying breath, you begin to explain your struggles. 

Road To Recovery

Constant check-ins

"Hey honey, we're at the studio now. Are you taking care of yourself for me?"

Helps you deal with the symptoms of withdrawal when they hit

Focuses on distraction and redirection as ways to help you cope

If you're at a party and feel tempted after seeing someone use, she leads you away to distract you from the urge

Helps you find safe alternatives 

Celebrates the little victories

"Yes, Y/N, 4 and a half weeks clean is plenty reason to celebrate. Now mark it on the calendar and get over here so I can put this hat on you." 

Playdates at your local dog café to keep your mind occupied (and bringing Dalgomie so he can make new friends, of course)

Takes you indoor skydiving. She wanted to find a way to give you an adrenaline rush while still being able to participate with you, so that was a happy medium. She battled her fear of heights to do that with you.

Not letting you lose hope if you relapse

"You're not a burden, and I'm not letting you give up on yourself. Not after all the progress you've made. I believe in you." 

Accompanying you to rehab and recovery meetings, if you want her to

Bringing you your favorite snacks and candies when she picks you up

"I got you a little something," she smiles, leaning over the center console of the car to kiss your cheek. "You deserve a treat, baby." 

Whenever you decide to tell everyone about your struggles and recovery journey, she's right next to you for support 

Spends all the time she can with you

Early on, she would get really worried when you missed her calls or took a while to respond, but eventually she got over her fears to some degree

Still checks up on you when she's away for work

"Sorry for missing your call, Chu. Dalgom tried to kill me when I was giving him a bath and I couldn't get to the phone in time." 

Overall, just a very proud girlfriend who sticks by you no matter what

After You've Recovered

Annual "recovery party" to commemorate your sobriety 

Sometimes you invite the girls and your other friends, and sometimes you prefer to just spend the day at home with Jisoo

"Look at how far you've come, my love. I'm so proud of you."

♡♡♡♡♡

Jennie

She would be the only one who figured it out on her own. She picked up on the signs fairly quickly and always subtly helped steer you away from any potentially tempting situations

If you two watched a movie that happened to have a triggering scene in it, she always noticed how you'd look away and subconsciously tense up a bit

"Hey, babe. This movie's kinda boring; why don't we watch that new Netflix documentary instead?" 

If the two of you were invited to parties that were likely to have a bunch of alcohol and drugs, sometimes she'd try to suggest staying in or doing something else instead

You eventually caught on to her diversion attempts, and sat down with her to have a talk. 

"How long have you known?" You ask, pulling your legs up towards your chest as you sit back against the headboard of your California King. 

"A few weeks," she starts, running a brush through her hair until it's untangled. Her damp locks stick to her shoulders as she approaches you, some strips slightly drier than others. "Were you ever gonna tell me?" She inquires softly, facing you as she sits down beside you on the bed. 

"Of course, Jen. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you sooner, I just… I was on my own with it before you. I didn't have anyone to turn to because everyone left once they found out." Your confession makes her chest ache -- it's a physical, honest pain that she feels as she imagines you battling such an unforgiving foe with no one in your corner. She places a warm hand on your thigh to comfort you, knowing just how much her touch helps when you're upset. "Hey, it's okay. There's no point in worrying about that now. I know it's hard to open up, babe, so thank you for doing this. I'm here to listen, alright?"

"Thank you, Jennie. I don't know what I'd do without you." 

"You'll never have to know, either, because I'm staying right here." 

"I love you," you whisper, leaning forward to press a kiss to her lips. 

"I love you, too," she sighs against you, preparing herself for the emotional night you're about to have. For now, she takes a moment to just pull you into her arms and rest her forehead against yours, finding comfort in your steady heartbeat. 

"We'll start whenever you're ready." 

Road To Recovery

Makes various arrangements to ensure that the media won't know of your struggles

Keeps things on lock, especially if you decide to remain private on the matter and not tell the world

If you make a public statement about it, she still does everything she can to keep you protected from the negativity. She knows first hand how tough it can be to deal with, so she never lets you face it alone

You both help each other work through things

"You're my rock, Y/N/N." 

"And you're my world, Jen."

Takes care of you during bouts of withdrawal 

Sings to you to calm you down and help you relax

Takes you to theme parks and rides all the big coasters with you so you can get a similar high that you did from the drugs. She gets to be clingy with you and spend the day having fun, so she doesn't mind it, and you enjoy it just the same.

Suggests fun activities for you to do together 

"We should visit that pottery place tomorrow! I've heard a lot of good things about it." 

You stick close together when you're in public, especially when paparazzi are near

Your presence helps with her anxiety, and you hold her close and tell jokes to keep her attention off of it

Random surprise celebrations waiting for you when you get home

"Hey Jen, I'm home." You announce, shrugging your coat off before hanging it up on the metal rack next to the front door. 

"In here," she calls from the kitchen, effectively pulling you in with that sweet voice of hers. When you reach the doorway and peek in, a dumbstruck smile slowly parts your lips as you see the set up she constructed. 

"Happy 3 Weeks" a multicolored banner reads, displaying the phrase above your dining room table where Jennie sits. "Surprise, honey," she says softly, glancing down at the cake she made for you as she scoots it closer. You approach the table and examine it, practically feeling your heart grow 10 sizes from the love you hold for your girlfriend. 

"Is this why you left practice early?" 

"Mhm," she nods, kissing your cheek before she reaches into a small gift bag next to her chair. "I'm so proud of you," she grins, sliding a thin, glittery headband into your hair. It has two springs attached to the top that bounce in every direction possible, surely making you look like a dork. 

"God, I love you." 

"You'd better keep that same energy after trying the cake. I think I might've added too much baking soda…"

You shake your head and pull her in, pressing kiss after kiss to her lips until she's grinning just as hard as you. 

Going on adventures with Kuma and Kai

Especially to dog parks and other national parks 

Helps you fill things out for rehab and doesn't let you get too stressed about it

Helps you regain confidence in yourself if you relapse

"This isn't the end, Y/N. You're strong, I know you can beat this."

Is right next to you through it all

After You've Recovered

Go on an annual vacation to get away from everything and celebrate your sobriety. You take the opportunity to escape the media and reconnect with each other

"Where to this year, Y/N? Bora Bora, maybe?"

Intimate celebration between the two of you on vacation, and then the girls throw you a party when you come back

♡♡♡♡♡

Rosé

You were really good at hiding your secret from people -- especially those that you care about most. You're always afraid that once they find out, they'll pack up and leave. 

Rosé was one of the first to actually stay

She had been fairly oblivious to your struggles since you masked that side of yourself well, but one day the two of you attended a little get-together at your old friend's house, and your dirty laundry was aired.

"Bro, come on, let's play Truth or Dare!" One of your old friends says, perking up at the fact that he remembered the game even existed. He's already a little tipsy, but so are some of the others. 

"I don't know, dude," you hesitantly start, missing the way that Rosé curiously raises a brow beside you. 

"Come on, we'll keep it tame." Another person adds from the couch opposite you, their voice low. You recognize her as Cho, a sort of frenemy from your high school years. Something doesn't sit right for you with the hint of mischief that shines in her eyes, but your friends' pleas eventually push the feeling away and you relent. 

"Fine, but if Austin gets dared to do some dumb shit like last time I'm dropping out." 

"Like what?" 

"Like what?" You ask back, disbelief evident in your voice. "Are you forgetting the fact that I had to bail you out after you got arrested for streaking down the neighborhood?" 

"Okay, fair point," Austin holds his hands up in surrender. "Just a few rounds." 

--

As everyone's once boisterous laughter finally dies down into quiet chuckles, you turn to Rosé for a quick kiss. She reciprocates and holds you there for a few more seconds, loving the way your lips feel against her own. As you brush your nose against hers and garner a sweet giggle from her, Cho interrupts the moment with a phrase that makes your blood run cold. 

"So, Rosé, has Y/N told you about the time she got arrested for drug possession? Word on the street is that she still can't shake her old habit..." 

Rosie feels the way you tense up at the question and pull away from her, cringing at the exposure you just received. The room goes silent, enabling a pen to be heard if it were dropped. 

"Hey," Austin goes to defend you, about to yell at her for bringing up such a difficult topic. 

"It's fine, Austin," you say, sticking your hand out in front of him to keep him from approaching her. The last thing you want right now is a screaming match about your struggles. 

Rosie finally speaks up after what feels like an eternity, turning to Cho to say, "No, but that's none of your business. And I strongly advise that you don't speak on her name like that again." She cuts her eyes at the other girl, sending an icy glare at her to show that she's serious before giving her attention to you again. 

When a few tense moments pass with no one really saying anything, Jackson, the host, speaks up. "I think you need to go, Cho." 

"Ah, what a shame. The fun was just starting," she mockingly pouts, stopping next to you on her way out the door. Rosé strokes the back of your hand to soothe you, tracing mindless patterns with her thumb until your shoulders relax and you look into her eyes. With Cho now gone, your friends decide to go out into the backyard and give the two of you some time to clear things up. 

"So, I guess we should talk." You start, pulling your legs up onto the couch to sit criss-cross. She studies the way that you begin to nervously fidget and drop eye contact, and the sight breaks her heart. 

"Your past is your past, Y/N, and I won't ever judge you for it. I wish she wouldn't have brought it up like that -- I really wish she didn't," she says, emphasizing the word to remind you of how upset she is with Cho, "But I can tell that you're still struggling. I want to help you get better, and I'll be here with you every step of the way, babe. You mean the world to me." She smiles sadly, trying not to think of how much it would hurt to lose you. 

"Okay," you breathe out, accepting the honest help that she's extending to you. You've been burned and lied to in the past, but you trust Rosé to stay true to her word and assist you on the hard journey laid out before you. "Let's start from the beginning," you say, preparing yourself to retell your struggles from the moment they began all those years ago. 

Road To Recovery

Takes care of you when withdrawal hits hard

Isn't afraid to take the day off if it's bad enough and she needs to

"Hey, Teddy. Tell everyone that I'll be staying home today, okay? I've already let the girls know, too." 

Reassurance to the max

"You're doing amazing."

Is your shoulder to cry on when times get tough

On a weekend trip, the two of you snuck away to the beach to go cliff diving. It was a thrilling experience, and you'll always remember that day with her

Helps you find healthier alternatives to your addiction that can make the transition easier until you fully recover

"Baby, look at this." She says, repositioning her laptop so that you can see what she's looking at. The two of you are sitting on the bed, and her legs are stretched out over yours. "These herbs are safe to smoke and they can help with a lot of your troubles. These over here," she says, pointing to a section of the screen, "help with stress and anxiety. They make it easier to relax." You nod, logging the information in your brain as you run a hand over her smooth skin to keep yourself calm. It's a habit that both of you love. "Thank you, Rosie. Nobody's ever done anything like this for me." You say, keeping your head down as you remember all the people that have left you behind in your time of need. 

"You'd do the same for me, and I'm happy to be here for you." She declares, holding one of your hands within both of her own. She cradles it delicately, just like she does your heart. "I'll do whatever it takes to make you feel my love. I'm not going anywhere, babe." She leans in, connecting your lips in a sweet kiss. 

Keeps your spirits up if you relapse

"You're not a failure, Y/N/N. This is just a setback, and we're going to get through it together."

One of her friends told her about a fun art class that's supposed to help people in recovery let go of some of their resentment and negative feelings, so she brought it up and you agreed to go

It was structured in two parts:

Part 1: Everyone went out to an old car lot that had various old vehicles, electronics, and other things to smash up. Once you let loose and relieved some of your tension, you collected scraps of the things you destroyed.

Part 2: With the scraps you brought back, you were told to create any type of artwork you wanted -- whatever felt right. Collage, graffiti, scrapbook, etc. At the end of the class, you were informed of the driving message behind it: Though the negative feelings and aversions you dealt with in the past may have left you feeling broken, you never really were -- you've always had the power to piece yourself back together and continue on.

After You've Recovered

Taking a month off work every year to travel and experience new things together. Usually consists of going to another city (or even country) and exploring their art museums and other artistics outlets 

The new experiences help remind you off all the reasons you want to stay sober, and they help her have new material for her songs

Lots of pictures and drawings to remember all of your adventures

Collect trinkets to hang up / display, especially around the holidays

The girls have a special celebration waiting for you when you return

♡♡♡♡♡

Lisa

She could tell something was wrong when your behavior started to change over the course of a couple weeks

She suspected other things, but after finding a substance in your bag while on a vacation trip, she was blind sided by the reality of the situation

"Hey Lis, have you seen my swimsuit?" You casually ask, strolling into your hotel bedroom in search of the item. "I thought I left it--"

Your words catch harshly in your throat, nearly making you choke from how quickly you cut yourself off. She's sitting on the edge of the bed with the baggy in her hands, and tears brim in her eyes. 

"Fuck," you wince, closing your eyes as you put your face in your hands. "You weren't supposed to find out like this."

"Why didn't you tell me?" She asks, staring straight ahead, though her eyes don't focus on anything in particular. Knowing you hurt her is bad enough, but seeing her like this makes the pain even more evident. 

"I was going to, I promise. But I've been trying to wean myself off of it," you begin to explain, slowly walking across the room until you're in front of her. You squat down and put your hands on her thighs, staying quiet until she meets your gaze. "I've tried to quit cold turkey in the past but it didn't go down well. I figured I could handle this on my own and not get you involved."

"Baby, I want to be involved. You've been different lately, and having you shut me out didn't help ease my fears. I want to be a part of this, okay? You can turn to me when you feel alone," she says through the occasional tears that roll down her cheeks, "It's my job to help you and keep you safe. So let me," she crouches down next to you as she says the last part, wrapping her arms around you when she notices your lip tremble. "I'm not gonna let this get between us," she says against your shoulder, reminding you of how strong her love for you is. 

"I'm sorry I waited so long," your words are muffled against her shirt, but she can hear how the emotion in them changes your voice slightly. 

"We have to start somewhere, and this is just as good a time as any. I'm right here, Y/N/N."

Road To Recovery

Sweet texts and reminders throughout the day

"Hey baby, have you eaten today? The girls and I miss you like crazy." 

--

"Don't forget about your check-up tomorrow. I already told my manager that I'll be taking the day off, so I'm all yours 😉"

--

"*image attachment* Question: Do you think Lego would look cute in this or do you think Lego would look cute in this? Because he WOULD." 

Stargazing trips to talk about how far you've come

Making treats for the cats together if you have a bad day

Sometimes your withdrawal leaves you with weird cravings, but she never hesitates to race to the store at any hour and snatch up your favorite treats

Learning how to cook together to keep you occupied and give you a hobby (plus she's always wanted to get better at it)

“If you fling that at me, I swear to God I'll--”

"Oops!"

"LISA!" 

Day trips to random parks and open locations to have little photoshoots when she has free days

Once took you bungee jumping for the experience and adrenaline rush

Bringing you into the studio if you're having a hard time and don't want to be alone

Always listens to you and shows how much she cares

Opts out of events if she suspects that drugs will be there to tempt you (considering you're always her plus one)

You still send her to enjoy herself at the events without you sometimes, though it does take a lot to convince her to leave you at home

"Okay, okay! But we're binging that new show when I get back." 

Makes you laugh often and cheers you up when you need it most

She's your sunshine

After You've Recovered

Considering that you're her muse and she's the artist that she is, she hatched a plan early on to document your journey to recovery

"One more, babe. Just like that." She instructs, holding the camera up to her eye one final time. "Perfect." 

"Alright, close your eyes and turn around." She commands while returning to the coffee table that sits in the middle of your living room. Her hands make quick work of putting the finishing touches on her gift for you while you patiently sway and hum to whatever song is stuck in your head at the moment. 

"Annnnnd done!" She shouts, approaching you with a wide smile tugging at her lips as she holds the book out in front of herself. "It's a photo album. I started it the day you told me you wanted to try and get better," she says, smiling softly as she slowly walks you through the beginning pages of the book. "I thought it would be nice to see how far you've come," her eyes remain glued to the pictures she took as she continues flipping, and she fails to realize that you're staring at her now. 

"I'm so in love with you. I can't thank you enough, Lis. This is beautiful." You shake your head in quiet disbelief, genuinely surprised that someone would work so hard on something for you. It shouldn't be a surprise with her though, considering how much she loves you, but it still baffles you sometimes. 

"This gift only shows a fraction of my love for you, but I'm happy you like it. This is nothing, baby; there's so much more where this came from. Thank you for letting me in." She captures your lips in a meaningful kiss, and finds it hard to pull away. You seem to be her drug of choice, but neither of you care to end that sweet addiction.

Annual trips to photoshoots and fashion shows

Being her favorite model (seriously, she could look at you for hours on end)

Always feeling so loved and cherished, no matter what the two of you are doing

[curious-sootball]

Psst, y'all want some GoG theories? Well, you're getting them anyway

Spoilers for books 12-15, if people still care about that; also, generous use of tinfoil.

Why dragon owls are called dragon owls, apart from Lasky slapping a vaguely eastern aesthetic onto a whole location? We later learn that dragon owls are actually hagsfiends, heavily nerfed and kept in the Panqua palace as puppet royalty(which is its own can of worms). It is also said that Theo, the first blacksmith, left northern kingdoms, reached the Middle kingdom and led hagsfiends away with him.

Now, keeping in mind how long that journey is (based on how journey of Soren and Co is described), I really doubt that Theo was actively chased all the way across the ocean–based on how hagsfiends are described, they would've easily caught him(owls are one of the slowest flying birds irl); it is more likely that he was tracked, and his pursuers were roughly a day behind.

Onto the dragon owl thing: that's the name the owls of Middle kingdom came up with. Assuming no hagsfiends found their way to the Middle kingdom before Theo's little stunt, they have seen hagsfiends for the first time soon after Theo's arrival. Those hagsfiends most likely were a group of mercenaries or marauders; add in the fact that Theo was also a known royalist, one of the king's closest friends and a pretty famous owl at that point; survivor of the Battle of the short light, the first blacksmith, the inventor of battle claws, the list goes on.

Think about it: I'm pretty sure there was a hagsfiend who had a bone to pick with N'yrthgar royalty, had at least a bunch of mercenaries with him, was determined enough to track someone across a whole ass ocean, actively used the dragon aesthetic and kinda faded out of focus after the beginning of "To be a King". Yes, Penryck, the Sky Dragon. Since we have very little canon info about hagsfiends who weren't Kreeth and Lutta, a popular fan guess is that he died either during the events of "To be a King" or shortly after; but what if he survived and somehow learned that Theo left his position at Hoole's court(if he had one to begin with), and decided to make sure he would never be heard from again. (I have to admit, this sounds a bit dubious; he had beef with the royal family, not some random blacksmith; maybe he went after Theo since he had no military backup strong enough to take down the king again).

Now, the dates are pretty speculative here, but Tengshu mentioned that his mother had personally known Theo. Yeah, that very Theo. Tengshu is 325 years old, according to wiki; this means that hagsfiends "went extinct" in the northern and southern kingdoms at least four centuries before the main series events, most likely even more (since Tengshu speaks very calmly about dragon owls; this doesn't seem likely based on the descriptions of hagsfiends, even when we take the fact that owls hate them into consideration. After all, Theo got a bunch of mercenaries and a killer of the high king on his trail. Therefore, some time had passed before corvid-like and agressive hagsfiends turned into oversized blue floofs that we see in "River of wind".)

Why did I just go on that tangent about speculative history and timelines? Well, the idea is simple: hagsfiend mercenaries followed Theo and had conquered a good chunk of the Middle kingdom. However, being good at conquest doesn't make one good at ruling: their kingdom(or however it was called) took a nosedive after a generation or two, and they were gradually turned into puppet royalty, permanently inhabiting Panqua palace.

The main downside of this theory is the fact that a ridiculous amount of things get kicked into motion by a single character: Penryck already killed the high king and nearly conquered northern kingdoms, he is the de-facto antagonist of "The coming of Hoole", he's got a lot going on. This is what happens when you write only four characters with distinct personalities for your witch species, Kathryn

Also, if Panqua palace keeps accurate and long enough track of every dragon owl's family tree, there is a chance of tracking those all the way back to hagsfiends who tracked Theo from N'yrthgar, and this could've been a really neat worldbuilding detail. (This also raises a disturbing question – if we assume that there was relatively small population of hagsfiends that moved to the Middle kingdom, does that make those dragon owls horrifically inbred? They've been there for more than four centuries, and since hagsfiends and owls can't crossbreed, their gene pool was just getting devastated. Multiple migration waves make this situation look slightly better, but the implications are still there)

TL;DR: Dragon owls are nicknamed dragon owls after a character, and not only as a shallow reference to asian dragons.

[absolutebl]

This Week In BL

April 2021 Part 5

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Close Friend Ep 2 (JaFirst) - First is a cat. No actually a cat. It was WEIRD. Cute, but creeping towards beastiality. It reminded me of that strange series out of China (@heretherebedork says Youth in the Breeze). The most amusing thing to me was that the cat used Thai formal linguistic register when of course cats would use informal rude guu mueng with EVERYONE. No cat would use pom. Don’t be ridiculous, Thailand. 

Second Chance Ep 5 - still invested, things progressed for all 3 couples, in one direction or another. They cuties. I love them. Carry on. 

Y-Destiny Ep 5 - the “virgin scoreboard” is gonna make the seme real hard to redeem with this pairing. If they bother. This might be a life lesson episode. What does it remind me of? Oh yes. Kids. *SHUDDER* Point of interest: did you notice Team uses ha with Mon? What a pushy flirt. 

Lovely Writer Ep 10 - honestly I just love it when Poppy shows up in anything, why is he such a delightful screen presence? (Gene’s brother) Sorry, distracted. What happened in this one? Oh, ya know, stuff and things. Family drama. (It is just me or have they been giving us some long ass episodes lately?) Obligatory beach trip activated. (Result = dumb probability mathematics jokes.) Next week it looks like we have Keeping Actor’s Closeted 101. You know the Casting Couch? This is the Casting Closet. 

Fish Upon The Sky Ep 4 - early stage confession, how fun. It’s not unprecedented it just usually means we are in 4 act structure, not 3, which means Fish might go more serious than I thought. Honestly? I’m losing interest mostly because I’ve gone from mild annoyance to active dislike of Pi. Happened to me with Tine too. They better redeem this obtuse tsundere uke soon or he’s not tsundere at all he’s just a jackwit. 

Brothers Ep 13 fin - a kiss and the family finds out about the not-so-brotherly brothers, drama, graduation, THE END. My side-dish happy heart made thumps over Q + delivery boy, I’m sad they got so little screen time. My babies KhunKaow did get a tiny coming out sequence as such. I’m seriously considering doing myself a bootleg of just the KhunKaow plot, but that means I’d have to rewatch the whole darn series and I can’t STAND the idea. Which should give you insight into how not good this show it. Very NOT good. Must we get a season 2? Please stop now, Line. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

HIStory 4: Close To You (Taiwan) Ep 7 - Muren is the cutest peanut and anyone who says otherwise can fight me, although they probably have to go through Licheng first. I was NOT invested in these two at the beginning, but as a couple? They own my soul. The other storyline is still the dumpster fire that I can’t decide to roast marshmallows over (knowing they’ll get tinged with eu de trash) or flee from in horror clutching my pearls and my nose. H4 continues to provide the quality psyche torture I’ve come to expect from this franchise. *sarcastic thumbs up*  *** A word on seeing Boxiang show up (side dish from H3:MODC). It was an unexpected pleasure, I loved his pairing (May/December is a winner for me *glares at Method*) but I do think it was a bone from the franchise telling us that we are never getting that spin-off or reboot that people yearn for. However, how AWESOME that Licheng has someone to go to and ask about topping properly. Otherwise he’s sure to have screwed it up. (Pun intended.) 

Papa & Daddy (Tailwan) Ep 1-2 - this came out of nowhere and is ADORABLE. Applies a ton of BL tropes (cheek kiss, his closet, B&W stripes, drag baby around, boop) but what IS it? More slice of gay domesticity than romance. Like 2019′s Kinou Nani Tabeta? or currently airing Close Friend. I enjoy this style, very wholesome, but I’m not sure what to call it. (Bonus points for cutie lesbians.) A bit weird to have a kid with your partner and STILL not be out to your parents. I hope they aren’t going to throw in a break up for dramatic effect. 

My Lascivious Boss (Vietnam) Ep 4 - I’m really enjoying this series. It’s unabashedly queer, although there’s some problematic stuff lurking under the wig. How it ends is gonna dictate if they handled this stylishly. But hot damn the leads ZING on screen together and their crackling prank-flirting is a joy to watch. 

Word of Honor (China) Ep 31-33 - moving into the home stretch. Big rescue and the band is back together (presumably for the final slaughter). Then a death! *this is my shocked face* Did I tear up? Of course I did. 4 act structure is designed for maximum pathos during the final 1/4. Did we all faint from the symbolism of the love token hair stick being gently thrust into Ah Xu’s bun? Sure we did. All that and sill I’m flagging. This is a long-arse show. Save me, Korea, with your iItsy bitsy teenie weenie...

Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding (Korea) Ep 5-6 - I am getting such strong 12th Night vibes from this. Tae Hyung is now brigadier of BL’s historical himbo brigade. (To be deployed whenever you are in need of poetry or a cut sleeve.) This show is all ridiculous charm and I LOVE it. Although, five seconds of Lee Sang is not enough Lee Sang. I had to immediately rewatch Wish You. 

Gossip

Nitiman gave us an actor intro BTS teaser. 

Kang In Soo (AKA Kyang Insoo) posted a cute behind the photo shoot of Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding plus a silly interview with Jang Eui Soo on his YouTube channel (you should subscribe, it’s a fun channel, his fitness regime is both insane and inspiring). 

My Engineer 2 dropped a couch interview with the boys but it feels like one that was filmed a while ago (oh and no subs).  

STARTING SOON: Nitiman, Love Area, Top Secret Together, Be Loved in House, & I Promised You The Moon  

Nitiman (Thai) May 7, One 31. University set, moons, engineering students, enemies to lovers, adapted. - Looks to be a solid 2 Moons knock off, I’m in.

Love Area (Thai) May 8, AIS Play, 10 eps total. Restaurant set, stars Pak Chavitpong (the only good thing about Cupid Coach) and the OST is sung by Jeff Satur (Ingredients). - It’s boys in love revolving around food = my kryptonite, try to stop me from watching this probable trash. 

Top Secret Together (Thai) May 14, Line TV. 5 couples, one IRL (Newyear from I Am Your King), story arcs revolve around secrets.  - I’m getting fatigued by these multi-couple sampler pack dramas, but I’ll try it for Newyear’s sake.  

Be Loved in House: I Do (Taiwan YES!) May 20, Viki. Office set, relationships prohibited at work by a new boss, one of the employees is determined to figure out why. Grumpy/tsundere pairing so loads of drama. - I am so flipping excited for this one. A 4th BL series from Taiwan in less than a year? That’s unprecedented. GO BABY ISLAND GO! 

I Promised You the Moon (Thai) May 27, Line TV. Follow up to I Told Sunset About You with the boys now at university. - I won’t be watching this as I have yet to finish season 1. 

Possibly Gameboys season 2.  - Rumors are all over the place right now on this. 

Next Week Looks Like This: 

Some shows may be listed later than actual air date for International accessibility reasons. 

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here.

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something.

[lyranova]

Heyooooo Lyraaaa 😘!!! I was wondering if um hehe👉👈😅, if you could make a yamichar fic where they accidentally traveled in time and accidentally meet their future child (or children lmao) lol😂, it's okay if you don't wanna do it 🙂 no pressure 😘

Children of the Future:

Chapter 1: Hikari

Of course Lei! I’m sorry this took so long IRL has been busy 😅! But i hope you like this, also I just realized you wanted Yamichar to be the ones who time travel, and instead i made it the child who goes back in time oops. But i hope this is ok! Also, Hikari belongs to the lovely @eme-eleff (thank you for letting me borrow her for this Ilysm 🥰💕!)

Edit: This is Chapter 1 of my new series ‘Children of the Future’, instead of reposting it I decided to edit it and reblog it haha!

Word Count: 1,701

Warnings: None

———

Yami couldn’t stop grumbling, he had been summoned by Julius to come to his office, he claimed there was something important he needed to see. Yami had been confused at first, but he wasn’t really allowed to disobey a summons from the Wizard King. So he walked through the halls that he knew like the back of his hand, deep in thought, when he saw a flash of blonde out of the corner of his eyes. He turned and noticed it was the Prickly Princess herself, Charlotte Roselei. He watched her look up in surprise at him and her face turned a shade of pink.

“ Y-Yami? What are you doing here?” She asked as she came to a stop, she hadn’t seen him for a while, since everyone had been training in order to battle the Spade Kingdom. She watched him tilt his head and do a half-shrug.

“ The Wizard King summoned me, said he had something important to show me. You?” He asked as he also came to a stop.

“ Same here, I wonder if he summoned the other Captains as well.” Charlotte said curiously as she folded her arms, it wasn’t unusual for Julius to call them suddenly, but when it did it usually meant trouble for the Kingdom.

“ I didn’t see any of them, and I don’t sense their Qi, so I think it’s just us here.” He told her with a thoughtful scowl, Charlotte hadn’t seen any of them either, which made this meeting even more curious.

“ C’mon, let’s not keep him waiting.” Yami said suddenly as he began to walk away, she blushed even more as her mind raced ‘H-He wants to walk there together?! Won’t that give people the wrong impression?!’ Her mind screamed, but she shook her head and followed behind him. They could always say they met outside the door or something.

Charlotte watched as Yami knocked on the door, they heard Julius say something on the other side to signal to them that they could enter. Yami pushed the door open, allowing Charlotte to walk inside first, and closed it behind them.

“ Ah good you’re both already here.” Julius said with a warm happy smile, Charlotte and Yami walked up to the desk. It was still hard to believe that the Wizard King was now back to his original self, they had gotten so used to seeing him younger that they would sometimes forget this was him.

“ Why are we here Julius?” Yami asked as he crossed his arms, he wasn’t really in the mood for chit chat, and he assumed Charlotte wasn’t either since she had a small scowl on her face as well. They were both trying to train their squads so they could face the Spade Kingdom, and this was distracting them from doing that.

“ Well,” he said with a sheepish laugh, that only made the two Captains scowl further. “ I went down stairs where we keep the forbidden magic items, and I stumbled across this portal. I don’t think it’s ever been used, anyway, I went down there looking to see if there may be an item to help me change back to my proper age. Well, instead I found her,” Julius moved out of the way and behind him sat a young girl around 19 years old.

She had long dark hair, bright blue eyes, and a small scowl on her face. Charlotte looked her up and down, she was wearing a deep blue top with a pair of dark brown pants, wrist length gloves, and dark knee length boots. But what caught her attention was the cloak she was wearing, Charlotte’s eyes widened as she looked at the insignia, it was a Black Bulls robe, she looked over at Yami and saw he recognized it too. But if he was surprised he didn’t let it show.

“ Why did you give some random kid my squads robe Julius?” Yami asked as he suddenly grabbed a cigarette and put it into his mouth.

“ I’m not just some random kid! Also, if you’re going to smoke it’s best to do it outside or, even better, stop smoking. It’s bad for you.” The young girl remarked as she stood up from the chair she had been sitting in and walked over to stand next to Julius’s desk.

Charlotte and Yami blinked, this kid had quite the mouth on her. But he did as she asked and pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and put it back in it’s case. The young girl smiled in triumph, that's when Yami frowned. That smile, it looked familiar, but where had he seen it before?

“ Anytime I ask you to smoke outside you always ignore me, but when a child asks you too you listen and do it without a second thought.” Charlotte commented with a small laugh and a shake of her head, Yami rolled his eyes a bit, of course he was going to listen to a kid. He wouldn’t admit this to anyone, but he could be a big softie when it came to kids. He looked over and noticed Charlotte had a small smile on her face, he paled slightly, that was the same smile the young girl wore just a moment ago.

“ Hey kid, what’s your name?” He asked, hoping beyond hope that his gut feeling was wrong, that her Qi wasn’t what he saw it to be. The young girl glanced over to Julius who nodded, she turned back to them, her head held high as she announced.

“ My name’s Hikari, Hikari Sukehiro.” Both Captains paled, Sukehiro? As in Yami Sukehiro?! Charlotte turned to look at him, he wasn’t able to hide the surprise on his face at this revelation.

She felt a small pang in her chest, as though someone had just plunged a dagger into it, he had a daughter? With another woman? She shook her head, they weren’t dating so what right did she have to be hurt and upset, at the most they were just colleagues. Nothing more, nothing less. But it still hurt to think of him being with another woman, of him having a child with another woman.

“ This isn’t funny Julius.” Yami growled, he knew this wasn’t a joke, just from the way she stood he could tell she was his daughter, also from the way she had no problem telling him off about smoking. The only thing that confused him though, was why she had the same smile as Charlotte.

“ It isn’t a joke Yami, she came here from the future, at least according to her. I had Marx use his memory magic on her, everything she has told me is the truth and her memories prove it.” Julius said as he leaned back against his desk, Charlotte couldn’t help but glare at him slightly.

“ Why did you call me here then you majesty? Just so you could have a witness in case Yami tried to murder you?” She asked, a little more ice to her tone then she had intended. It didn’t go unnoticed. Julius blinked a bit before looking over at Hikari.

“ Um, I think you need to explain your parentage a little more, Hikari.” He stated with a nervous laugh, the young girl nodded.

“ Yes sir. It’s true, my father is Yami Sukehiro. But my mother,” she turned to look at the blonde haired woman. “ is Charlotte Roselei.”

Charlotte blinked at Hikari. Her? She was her mother?! No, no, no, that made no sense! How could she be this girl's mother? She and Yami weren’t even dating! There was no way Hikari was their daughter!

“ That makes sense,” Yami said suddenly, she whipped around to face him, her face brighter than the sun, and she gaped like a fish out of water.

“ H-How does this make sense?!” She suddenly shouted, she watched a small smirk tug at the corner of his lips.

“ Her Qi first off; it’s a mixture of mine and yours which is why I didn’t recognize it at first. Second, the way she carries herself is the same as you, her eyes are a similar shade although they’re a little lighter than yours, and her smile, heh, that smile; it’s exactly the same as yours.” He said the last part so softly, so warmly, it made Charlotte not only turn redder, but it made her heart melt. He...noticed how she smiled? Of course he did, he was very observant. But what she didn’t expect to see was how his smirk had changed into a warm loving smile, how his eyes had softened.

Charlotte had to be dreaming, she just had too!

“ So, umm...until we can get Hikari back to her own time, she’s going to have to stay with one of you or, if you want my opinion, both of you. Since she is your child and it’s probably what she’s used to, I’d suggest you all find somewhere to stay that’s close enough to each of your respective headquarters. I think it’ll be easier for Hikari to adjust that way.” Julius said with an innocent smile, both Captains couldn’t help but frown, was he trying to subtly get them to move in together? Yami suddenly sighed.

“ Fine, I guess we really don’t have much of a choice huh. Especially since that was an order.” Yami stated, causing Charlotte to gap at him even more, he wasn’t even going to try and convince the Wizard King that them moving in together was a very bad idea?! But as much as Charlotte wanted to argue, she could tell by the tone of the Wizards king's voice that it was, in fact, an order. She also couldn’t disagree, it would probably be better for the young girl if they all did live together. She suddenly chuckled humorlessly at the situation.

Finding out she had a daughter and now being ordered to move in with the man she was in love with who, by the way, was completely oblivious to her feelings for him? This was not how she was expecting this meeting to go!

——

Ah i’m sorry if this isn’t very good 😅! I couldn’t really think of how to end this but I hope some of you enjoyed this and I apologize if you didn’t! Also I hope you like it Lei 🥺💕! Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a good day~!

[words-writ-in-starlight]

The Untamed AU where the cast plays D&D.

For the five headcanons meme!  Sorry for the delay, we had a houseguest!

Nie Huaisang DMs, obviously.  He’s a rule-heavy kind of DM, a “every city has a sewer system fully mapped out and every character has a motive” kind of DM, and Mingjue complains about the books and maps and figures taking up a whole shelf in their apartment, but he also buys his brother a nice DM screen for his birthday one year, so.  If there’s a criticism to be had for Huaisang as a DM, it’s that he sometimes keeps things a little too close to the vest, which is either accidental because he’s a big-picture thinker or on purpose because he thinks it’s funny to watch his party lose their goddamn minds with paranoia.  No one can tell and holy shit does no one trust him because of it.  He killed Wen Ning’s character one time (okay, like, six times) and suddenly Wen Qing’s cleric won’t let any NPCs within ten feet of them without Zone Truthing their ass.

The Party consists of Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, Jiang Yanli, Wen Ning, and Wen Qing, plus Lan Wangji who doesn’t know what DnD is when Wei Wuxian first approaches him but got railroaded into “having friends” and “socializing” by Xichen, we’ll get to him.  

Wei Wuxian is a bard, obviously, he’s the party face and specializes in controlling the battlefield (and their enemies) rather than doing buffs, because they have two clerics and therefore have the buffs thing well in hand.  He also took a bunch of feats that let him use other class magic and between his weird affinity for necromancy and his ludicrous proficiency block (bards, baby), he’s absolutely the most mechanically broken character in the party.

Jiang Cheng is a straight up and down fighter, he has a sword and seven attacks and he’ll make it everyone’s (read: Wei Wuxian’s) problem.  He deals damage to their bard about once per session, on average, and won’t admit that he likes the game, but also gets very annoyed when they’re late.  

Jiang Yanli is also a cleric, and game-changing buffs, like Bless/Bane, are her entire jam, Nie Huaisang understands that Yanli is the most perfect being ever to draw breath but also he hates her so much.  Every time they start a big dramatic fight and they get to her, Yanli very gently says “I would like to cast…” and Huaisang starts marking down stat changes.

Wen Qing, therefore, can mostly save her spells for healing, and also she has an axe.  Don’t ask questions.  

Wen Ning is a ranger and he actually has a great Charisma score (this beautiful child used Con as a dump stat, thus his several untimely demises and his sister’s total distrust of everyone), and Huaisang bridges the gap between Wen Ning’s IRL stutter and shyness and his mechanically excellent numbers by basically making every benevolent NPC they meet adopt him.  His ranger is legally the heir to a dukedom.

Lan Wangji joins the game several levels in, because Wei Wuxian texted him about it every week and then cheated and texted Xichen, who cheerfully bullied his brother into it and then went out to get drinks with Mingjue.  His paladin is basically just Himself, But Sword Magic, and he has never made a non-magic-related Charisma roll in his life.  Jiang Cheng, who does not trust Wuxian to be their party face, is tearing his hair out–Wangji’s paladin has a great Cha score!  His magic is very reliable!  He could be such a good party face!  But no, he seems totally content to let Wei fucking Wuxian get them all arrested by the king of wherever.  No one can figure out how Lan Wangji of all people knows enough about DnD to design his character, actually?  These are advanced weird feats, where did he find them????  (It eventually comes to light that he has been getting coffee with Wei Wuxian once a week and letting him level up his character as an excuse to go on dates.)

The Plot basically starts out as the Sunshot Campaign, with elements of a few other major plot devices sprinkled in for flavor.  Wen Ning and Wen Qing are enemy plants for, mm, three sessions tops before Wen Ning blurts out all their secrets to the rest of the party (”They’re our friends, a-jie!  We can’t–we can’t lie to them!”  “Remember how we’re going to be murdered if we don’t help Ruohan, we can absolutely lie to them.”).  Wei Wuxian is gone for three months of sessions in a row after a massive falling out with Madam Yu leads to him having to scramble to keep his college scholarships and also figure out somewhere to live, and then he moves in with the Wens and his life stabilizes a bit and he gets pneumonia that lays him flat out.  He’s fine, trust Wen Qing, he’s just annoying.  During that time period, it becomes evident that, A, Lan Wangji actually does enjoy at least some of their company on its own merits, because he keeps coming to sessions, and, B, Jiang Cheng is extremely transparently working through some stuff in-game.  It’s the most civilly he’s worked with Wangji this whole time, though, so Yanli will take it.

Jiang Yanli is not saying that she and Huaisang engineered this because she decided that she was sick of listening to her brother pine obliviously, and because she decided that she and Jiang Cheng should bond with their future brother-in-law, and because, okay, the Wens needed some friends in, like, the worst way.  But she’s not not saying that.  Huaisang really does believe that Yanli is the most perfect person in the world, if he was straight he would marry her tomorrow, but also fucking stop Blessing your party, you make his life so hard.

Bonus Sixth Headcanon

Jin Zixuan talks an extremely big game about DnD being a ridiculous game for people who can’t make friends like normal people (he says, like he has even one friend besides Mianmian).  This provides a lot of material for the party to roast his ass when he starts dating Yanli (again, after a short and horrifically awkward relationship arranged by their parents when they were in high school) and she brings him, complete with rogue character sheet.  He’s good at everything that isn’t Being Civil To Other Characters, and to Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng’s abject horror, the three of them work together like a well-oiled machine.

Yes, Jiang Yanli is very satisfied with her life choices, why do you ask?

[thepancakeboi]

74. “I can’t take the loneliness anymore.”

Divergence AU Part I

Next | AU list | Prompt source

Fanfic under cut

10/9

Ren: Have you played never have I ever?

I stare at Ren’s most recent text. Where is this coming from all of a sudden? He’s been unfortunately busy the past several days, as he’s lamented to me over text. Perhaps he found himself some free time. A little curious about the reason for his text, I quickly text him back a response.

-x-

Goro: I have not, but I am familiar with the rules.

Ren: Would you wanna play?

Ren: Ann, Makoto, and Futaba will be there too

Goro: If you don’t mind me asking, why are you inviting me to play?

Ren: I like hanging out with you

-x-

Something about that response, the fact that he enjoys my company, makes me...happy. It’s not the first time he’s said it. He has told me over and over again that he loves being around me and that he would always try to make time for me if I wanted it. I look back down at the chat as I notice another text from Ren.

-x-

Ren: And they’ll gang up on me if you’re not there

Goro: I see... you have ulterior motives.

Goro: Not that it matters.

Goro: I highly doubt that they would “gang up” on you, though.

Ren: Trust me Akechi they will

Ren: Do you wanna play?

-x-

I take a minute to think it over. I don’t know his friends that well. This could give me an easy opportunity to get to know them a little better to improve my plans for them all. Having made my decision, I text him back.

-x-

Goro: I would be delighted to join you.

Ren: Yay! :D

Ren: We’re meeting up at Leblanc at 5

Goro: I’ll be there.

-----

I arrive at Leblanc a few minutes early. Ren perks up as the bell over the door rings, immediately grinning when he notices it’s me. He leads me upstairs to his room up in the cafe’s attic. “Hello,” I say in greeting, noticing that the others are already here.

“It seems we’re all here,” Makoto remarks when I sit down beside Ann, Ren taking the seat next to me. “Who wants to go first?”

Futaba nearly jumps in her seat as she answers, “I will! Never have I ever worn fake glasses!”

“I told you,” Ren remarks while putting down a finger. “I’ll go next. Never have I ever not attended high school.” Futaba makes an overly dramatic wounded expression as she puts down her own finger. She should have seen that one coming.

“Your turn, Akechi!” Ann says.

“Very well,” I reply, mulling over a response in my head. “Never have I ever attended Shujin Academy.”

Futaba laughs as Ann, Makoto, and Ren all have to put down a finger. “This one’s in my party now!”

“I thought you were on my side,” Ren says, pouting a little.

I shake my head. “I wasn’t targeting you in particular, Amamiya-kun. It was simply an option that applied to a lot of people.”

Ann smiles, apparently already having her statement prepared. “Okay, my turn. Never have I ever taken mock college entrance exams.”

Makoto and I both put down a finger while she thinks of hers. “Never have I ever...been told I look drop-dead gorgeous?” I’m glad Ren doesn’t say anything as I put my second finger down, although he looks like he’s tempted. Ann has to put one down as well.

Futaba grins eagerly, clearly still bent on going after Ren. “Never have I ever been in a bathhouse.” Ren somehow has the nerve to smile when I realize Futaba’s statement is also true for me. He’s definitely remembering that day from last month. Futaba seems a little surprised at this. “Hey, I got a two-hit combo there!”

“Never have I ever slept for longer than 48 hours in a row,” Ren immediately shoots back.

My turn. “Never have I ever been to a beach.”

I give a little giggle as everyone is affected besides me. Ren looks at me, curious. “Wait, you haven’t?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“That’s it. Next summer, I’m taking you to the beach.”

...I don’t need my mind telling me that he won’t be alive long enough for the sentiment to matter.

Luckily, Ann is able to draw me out of my thoughts. “Never have I ever fell asleep studying.” Great. I put down my fourth finger. “Wait, you have?” she asks in disbelief.

“It was really cute actually,” Ren says for me. “We were studying together downstairs and he fell asleep leaning against m-”

“I think that’s enough information from you, Amamiya-kun,” I interrupt. “Niijima-san, I believe it’s your turn?”

Makoto nods in acknowledgment. “Yes. Never have I ever spent over 100,000¥ in one purchase.”

Futaba looks straight at Ren as both of them have to put a finger down. “Never have I ever committed a crime IRL!”

Ren looks almost distraught as he sighs, now only having four left. Whether or not he’s being overly dramatic about it is left up to debate. My right index finger twitches, as if my subconscious is tempted to be honest. I can’t, though. If they knew the truth about me...besides, there would be too many questions that I simply couldn’t answer without spinning a giant web of lies. It’s simply too early for that, but...could I really-

“Futaba, that statement applies to you as well,” Makoto remarks.

“Whaaa?”

“Hacking government websites is a crime.”

“Aww, man,” Futaba groans.

Ren smirks, looking rather smug at the moment as he says, “Okay, never have I ever...”

The game continues on for a little while. Ren is the first to be eliminated, largely due to Futaba targeting him, although I am the one to take him out (and not on a date like he suggested when I said as such). Makoto ultimately wins in the end. We’re all departing when Ren asks if I want to stay and play some chess. I accept the offer, surprisingly enthusiastic. I’m not even paying much attention to the game itself. Something is on my mind. Why is it that I am eager to spend so much time with Ren? I know I need to get close to him, but I’m genuinely enjoying the time spent with him. Am I getting too close?

“So, Akechi...what crime did you commit besides being drop-dead gorgeous?”

I nearly drop the rook in my hand, startled. “Huh? What are you getting at?”

“Don’t act like you haven’t. I saw your finger twitch. You wanted to put your finger down, didn’t you?” I don’t bother answering, instead deciding to place the rook down on a new spot. The game is almost reflective of the current situation. Ren has me cornered. “Knew it. But who would’ve guessed? Ace detective Goro Akechi, secretly a criminal? Come on, spill the details!”

“Do I have to?”

“I told you mine. It’s only fair if you tell me yours.”

“Very well...I robbed the 777 in Shibuya when I was eleven years old,” I easily lie. “Happy now?”

“I would be...if you were telling the truth.” He moves his knight, taking the rook I had moved earlier and trapping my king. Checkmate. “If you really don’t wanna talk about it, that’s fine. I won’t force it.”

I’m silent for a few minutes. Ren, true to his word as ever, doesn’t try to force me to talk. Finally, I say, “You won’t like the real answer.”

“You can tell me if you want. I won’t judge.”

His words bring me to a decision. I just hope I don’t come to regret it. Sakura-san isn’t here, leaving me free to say my next words. “We should find somewhere else to talk, preferably somewhere where no one can eavesdrop. Surely you know such a place...Joker.”

His head jolts slightly, the only indication that the name I had heard him being referred to as in the Metaverse means anything to him. I find this confusing. I would have expected him to have a stronger reaction. “I do. Let’s go.”

Ren remains surprisingly silent after that. Normally, I would welcome it, but this silence is...unnerving. He’s rarely this quiet around me, and when he is, he still manages to constantly remind me of his presence. This is different. Right now, it feels like he’s trying to hide in the backdrop and make himself inconspicuous. What is going on in that head of his? I’m almost tempted to ask him what he’s thinking about if only to get him to say something, anything. I don’t. There will be plenty to talk about soon enough.

The time both drags on and speeds right along as we arrive in Shibuya. We exit the train, Ren leading the way up to the station square. He pulls out his phone, looking at me to see if I am ready. I nod. This is it.

The familiar dizziness signals our entering the Metaverse. It’s a feeling I may never get used to. My outfit has changed to my white princely attire. Good. I don’t know if I’m prepared to reveal that just yet. I turn to see Ren in his own thief attire. “How did you find out?” he asks, his voice finally breaking through the uncomfortable silence. His demeanor has changed. He seems more confident, and he has a sort of aggressiveness that he rarely exhibits in the real world. Even his gaze is sharper, more intense. I may know him as Ren Amamiya, but right now, the one I am facing is Joker.

“Your friend...I believe he goes by Skull here? He should learn to keep his voice down.”

“Are you gonna turn us in?”

“I should arrest you.”

“Should?”

“But I won’t.” Not yet, at least.

“And you have a Persona?”

As expected, he’s asking so much, trying to figure me out. I’m not going to stop the flow of questions. “Yes. I do.”

“How did you discover the Metaverse?”

“A couple of weeks ago, I was trying to get evidence of your group’s identity as the Phantom Thieves. I must have been dragged inside.” It’s partially true. I had been gathering evidence to later blackmail them, but I had gone into the Palace on my own volition. That and I’ve been here many times before that day.

“You’re lying.”

I raise an eyebrow, even if he probably can’t see it under my mask. “What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t just discover the Metaverse recently. You’ve known about it for longer than that.”

“And what evidence do you have to support your deductions?”

“That day at the TV station. You thought you heard something about delicious pancakes, but...Morgana was the only one who mentioned them.” I stare at him. Does he mean to say what I think he is? “You know, the cat,” he adds.

So the cat in his bag is the small black and white creature that accompanies them in the Metaverse. And by hearing him in Madarame’s Palace, I- “...Oh.” Now I understand. If I had been telling the truth, I should not have been able to understand the cat in June. “So that’s how you figured it out.”

Joker nods. “What are you hiding from the Phantom Thieves...and from me?”

I turn my back on him. There’s only one thing left for me to do. “Maybe it’ll be best if I show you.”

One of these days, I knew I would be showing him my true colors. Never had I anticipated it would be like this. My outfit shifts and morphs in an explosion of black and red fire crawling up my body. White and red is replaced with black and blue. I turn to face him just as the transformation is complete, the world tinted red by the lenses of my mask.

“A black mask,” Joker whispers. It’s clear he’s trying to process the truth of the matter, that I’m the person he’s been hunting down since Kaneshiro’s Palace. To his credit, Joker doesn’t look incredibly surprised, even if I’m sure he is. He hides it well. “You’re...”

“That’s right,” I reply, my voice nearly a snarl. “I’m the one who’s causing the scandals everyone has been talking about. The mental shutdowns. The psychotic breakdowns. They’re all because of me. Oh, and Okumura? He’s as good as dead.”

There’s that look of surprise I’ve been anticipating. “You killed him?”

“Yes. I did.” I take the mask off, looking right at Joker as I say, “You wanted to know what crimes I’ve committed. Well, there’s your answer.”

“Why?” he finally asks.

“Why what?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“This being?”

“All of it, I guess.”

“My Metaverse activities are all part of a plan that’s been two years in the making,” I start, being purposefully vague. This isn’t where I had been expecting this conversation to go.

“A plan?”

“Yes. A plan to settle a...very personal grudge.”

“Who’s this grudge against?” I put my mask back on, hiding my facial expression. Joker’s latest question is one I cannot answer. He’s not satisfied. “What’s their name?”

“I thought you said you weren’t going to force it.”

“I just wanna help,” he says, about to approach me. “Please-”

“I don’t want your pity!” I yell.

He stops, realizing that right now may not be the best time to get near me. “I’m not pitying you.”

“Oh, really?” I hiss. “Then why go this far to help me!?”

“Because I care about you.” He...cares about me? How could he possibly...? I don’t understand. He should be hating me right now! Yet he claims that he cares about me, even now. “One more thing. If you’re not wanting my help, then why are you telling me any of this?”

My response comes unfiltered, hiding nothing from him. “I...I can’t take the loneliness anymore.”

Joker’s response surprises me even more. “You’re not alone. I’m here. I’ll always be here.” He says it with no doubt or hesitation. He truly believes that he’ll be there for me when I need him. As selfless as ever. But I won’t rely on him. I refuse to let him help me because whatever ridiculous savior complex he has tells him to. As if sensing my thoughts, he adds, “We could make a deal instead if you want.”

“A deal?”

“I’ll help you with your plans if you help me find the man who accused me of assault.”

That has me on edge. “Just what are you planning?”

“I want to help, no matter what it takes. It’s not pity, Akechi. I want to prove that.”

“And you think that, by striking a deal with me, you’ll be able to convince yourself it isn’t? Don’t make me laugh.”

“You wanted to help me, remember?” His question gives me pause. I had offered to help, yes. When he rejected my offer, I had even tried to insist on helping, but he refused to budge. “I wanted to deal with it on my own, just like you. I told myself, ‘It’s just a year.’ But we’re doing this the wrong way. We’re strong, but I don’t think we should be doing this alone. So, let’s do this...together.”

“How idiotic could you get? We’re enemies-”

“Rivals,” he immediately interjects.

“Fine. Rivals. But we’re not meant to work together.”

“Even rivals team up sometimes.”

“You...” I manage to hold back a laugh as I continue, “You have some strange logic sometimes.”

“So?” Joker extends his hand. “Do we have a deal...Goro?”

It takes me a few moments of sputtering over him calling me by my first name to get out a response. I take his hand in mine, making sure not to accidentally jab him with my clawed gauntlets. “Fine. I accept your proposal.”

[gofancyninjaworld]

Meta: What rough beast slouches to be born?

Right, webcomic chapter 125 has raised quite a few questions about cyborgs and I purposely left it aside. Until now.  I’m sorry for the length, but I’m only allowed one ‘readmore’. :(

What we knew

Many moons ago for us, 9 or so weeks ago for them, Genos showed up at Saitama’s doorstep like a refugee from another world, telling a tale of destroyed towns, rampaging cyborgs, and desperate revenge quests.   It’s seemed rather far-fetched, particularly as not much has happened on that front.   Over the course of the story, we’ve had little bits of independent corroboration about the veracity of his story.  The town that he was born in was definitely erased from the map.  Yes, a cyborg is wanted in connection with the incident. 

But where is that guy? Does it have anything to do with the powered suit-flogging cyborgs seen early on the series? Does it have anything to do with the ‘glimpse behind the scenes’ chapter the manga offered us with Drive Knight (but no context as to how that glimpse fitted into the wider story)?  Come to that, where are all the cyborgs?

To start with, there are a lot of cyborgs of various sorts in OPM.  Quite a few moons ago, I wrote a bit about them, drawing a distinction between those who used parts to replace lost function and those who looked at it as a change of identity: “Is the Organization a Claw Analogue?”

 Chapter 125 has been surprisingly good about confirming some of what I surmised about cyborgs, but it’s brought some very good additional information!  On we go!

There are cyborgs; and then there are Cyborgs

Our ambassador through the world of cyborgs is new Neo Hero recruit Koko (Solitude), who modified his body for the world of cyborg fighting, only he was a little too successful and no one would bet on him.  We see him scanning various people and passing commentary on them.

The first to give him serious pause is Webigaza, who lost six months of life to getting her body modifications done -- no wonder she’s pissed off that her rival has self-destructed in the interim.

Koko is shaken by her having 71% of her body modified.

obsessive determination is terrifying to look at

Percentage body modification of the sort Koko is used to seeing, 30% maximum, you can do right here right here and now.  It’s equivalent to losing a leg and most of the other. Here and now, we can also do brain implants to control tremors or fits or some neurological conditions,  replace part of the heart, spine fusions, quite a few bits and pieces.  The sort of modifications Koko is used to seeing are very functional ones that make sense for someone looking to get an edge in fighting for money.  They’re also along the lines of what we’ve seen with One-Shotter or Death Gatling.

If you lose and replace all four limbs, that's 50% of your body modified. While quadruple amputees unfortunately exist IRL,  I don’t know if anyone has had the kind of money, physical fitness and pure grit to do that.  Nevertheless it’s not technically impossible. 60% sounds about right before you're now looking at breaking into the more vital parts of your body.  The point at which the risk involved just can't be justified in terms of restoring function or health. I’m emphasising that because I’m going to come back to this point.   He’s shaken because modifications that extensive aren’t about simply gaining an edge; they’re being willing to exchange serious bodily harm for serious power.  It says a lot about who Webigaza is.

Within the Hero Association, I think we do know a hero round about that 60% mark.  Jet Nice Guy comes to mind.  He sports an armored exterior, powerful artificial limbs (which will need internal reinforcement to not just rip up his body), but his innards are all human. After the way he started to bleed out after Nyan slashed him, I realised that the reason it looked like intestines when the Deep Sea King ripped him open is because they were... >.<  Sorry, dude. 

the worst of both worlds -- too modified to have an easy life, still too weak to deal with the real monsters that exist

Scary enough, but then the security staff come in to stop the kerfuffle that Koko and his buddy, Mars Leo, were causing.  Koko scanned them and was stunned into horror:

as disciplined and ruthless a pair of killers as you could never hope to lay eyes on.  Definitely not frothing at the mouth, these two!

These two have modified themselves so extensively they’re almost inhuman. 94, 95% body modification is equivalent to having only 3.5 - 4.2 kg of live mass left assuming an original live mass of 70 kg.  And, if the similar naming convention didn’t tip you off to it, it’s around the sort of hyper-extensive modification we see Genos having. [See under the readmore for a first-principles estimation I did a long time ago.]  Maybe Drive Knight too if he’s a cyborg.   What kind of power have they exchanged their human bodies for?  What kind of people are willing to do that to themselves? Koko is very sure that he does NOT want to know.

When he tells you who he is, believe him

That’s dating advice often given to ladies overlooking obvious red flags  but it goes with great force in OPM. ONE has characters tell us who they are early on, even if it doesn’t mean anything to us for a long time. 

And he’s had Genos be a particularly straightforward and truthful character.  He doesn’t always interpret things correctly, but he says it exactly as he sees it.  Looking at the way the high percentage cyborgs we’ve met thus far either be very inhuman looking or completely disguised as regular human beings,  he’s chosen an appearance that puts both his humanity and mechanical nature on display.

Something that the chapter has brought up that I've kept saying to people on the Discord and on Reddit: there is no medically justifiable reason for Genos to have a body as modified as he does.   Which Genos TELLS US for fuck’s sake.  His giant wall of text is a synopsis, no more and no less.

When he says that “...I asked Professor Kuseno to perform a procedure to modify my body. Then I was reborn as a cyborg for justice...”  (Viz)  “...I begged Dr Stench (sic) to transform me into a cyborg and I was reborn as a cyborg who fights for justice...” (Boon scanslations, who copied verbatim whoever did the webcomic version). It’s nothing to do with health.  Feel free to have whatever headcanons you like, but please don’t confuse them with the story.

But it doesn’t end there.  I look at Destro and Erimin and realise that there’s another perfectly truthful statement that’s been staring us in the face.

Genos knows. Why would he ask a mechanical engineer who uses a wearable battle suit and pilots armed drones to modify his body, let alone modify it to such an insane degree?  Because he knows that Dr Kuseno knows how to build cyborgs like the one who destroyed his town.

We don’t know if Destro and Erimin have any responsibility for the destroyed town, but someone of their ilk does.   Which brings us to a third nakedly truthful statement. When Genos talks of not believing that he could be defeated by anything other than the rampaging cyborg, he’s not anticipating winning because he’s suicidal.  It’s because he’s aware that if he’s throwing rock, so too is his enemy: mutual annihilation is the best he can hope for.

At least until he met Saitama. And started to hope for not mutual destruction, but victory (check the difference in chapter 108 of the webcomic).

a world away from the attitude of mutually-assured destruction he started with.

Stepping away from the text a bit, it casts a different light on why he’s been so desperate to learn from Saitama. Learning Saitama's secret is his balance-breaker. He wants something other than rock, that is guaranteed to smash whatever rock his enemy might throw.    But that’s not all there is.   As Garou said, once he discovered Blue Fire’s flamethrower, once you know how a freakish weapon works, you know it.  Any edge a new weapon might give Genos is liable to be studied and replicated  (see how quickly Dr Kuseno was able to reverse engineer and adapt the principles of G-4′s curving energy beams).   But Saitama’s strength is unphysical: no matter how closely you inspect his body, you can never relate the physicality of Saitama’s body to the power he can generate.  That unphysicality, that’s what Genos wants too.   It also puts in context why he’s been so fascinated by psychic power and wants to learn it if at all possible.

neat trick, I’ll take two!  Genos dodging G4′s beams in chapter 38, and putting the principle of them to good use in chapter 120

And finally, since in his world, knowledge is literally power, it gives yet another layered reason Genos is so determined to keep anyone else from becoming Saitama’s disciple.  If they learn his secret too, then the advantage he seeks will be lost.  (that it doesn’t work quite that way for Saitama is a fact for us to enjoy and for him to find out).

Nothing is as scary as a human being

Nothing is as scary as a human being is one of the things that Reigen says to Tome on occasion. It’s in full force in OPM.  Monsters may be strong, but they all live in the now.  Only a human being could have put together the Monster Association.   When it comes to cyborgs, their abilities may be inhuman but their thoughts, imaginations, morals and appetites are all 100% human.   It’s a terrifying combination.

There’s something I missed when I likened The Organization to a Claw Analogue. In Mob Psycho 100, the protagonists are children and they're fighting an organisation made up of over-grown children -- adults who have refused to grow up. In One-Punch Man, the protagonists are adults and the bad humans in the story are very much adults too.   With calculated cruelty and depravity to match. When The Organization bares its claws for real, this is going to get so brutal.

If Genos has not been standing still, then neither has his enemy.  From the manga, even if we hold Drive Knight blameless and independent of all this mess, his besting Nyan told us that cyborgs can indeed come crazy-strong and highlighted how much more work Genos had yet to do. It also highlighted how very clever and calculating cyborgs can be -- well, they’re human, duh!  If I was worried for his prospects then,  in the webcomic, Genos is nowhere near as psychologically, physically or emotionally ready as his manga version is.   And the guys who look to be his enemies aren’t going to be cutting him any slack.   They’re very real.  They’re not mad.  And they’re closer than he ever imagined.

Fighting monsters is barely adequate preparation for whatever it is that’s to come.

Whenever Genos gets dragged into whatever it is those cyborgs are up to  -- or runs into it, since he claims he’s still hunting the rampaging cyborg -- ‘rough’ doesn’t begin to describe it.

Extra Stuff

Edited from an answer I gave on Reddit to the question of how much of Genos was still organic about 2 years ago.  It’s unexpectedly relevant!

Short answer: by mass, under 10% , assuming he would have weighed  approximately 70 kg. By function, quite a bit.

 The long answer.

I’m going to write this starting from what is most readily observable and readily inferred to the least. In appreciation of this being a work of fiction that treats physical laws lightly, I too am taking a more-or-less approach and will keep technical terms to a minimum. I'm also not a medic and I don't play one on TV -- assume generous hand-wavium. Items in {curly brackets} are incidental notes you can skip.

Level 0: Canonically observable.  The least controversial observation is that Genos does have an organic brain. Genos does not live in a lab, but is able to live largely independently, including being able to eat whatever he likes with no ill-effect. Not just that, but he lives an active and hard-fighting life that appears to do him no permanent harm (I will return to this in a few paragraphs).  What can we take from this?

Edit: There is also ONE’s initial settings for Genos, which I quote here from the Hero Data Book

ONE: There's no need to visit Dr. Kuseno's place every time when his wrist break down, because he got his own spare parts at hand. Dr Kuseno's Lab is there In case for a big reparation job, a drastic upgrade or an examination.

It’s tempting to think that because we see that he definitely has a brain that’s all there is – the brain in a jar phenomenon, so to speak. Something a lot of people miss is that the spinal cord proper isn’t optional either -- it’s a core part of the central nervous system.  Spinal cords are a lot shorter than most people think they are, averaging 12 inches long for women and 15 inches for men.  The rest are nerve processes that can be cut and will regrow (within limits). We’re also happy to allow for nerves and their endings -- there must be an interface for the prosthetics so they're under the fine voluntary control that we see. However, that’s not all that there can be. The Cartesian mind-body duality is completely wrong when it comes to physiology. Our brains are intimately bound with our bodies and our bodies with our brains. So what does one need?

Level 1: Perfusion. This is the most obvious one. Without a blood supply providing oxygen, glucose and removing waste products from our brains, we have 4-5 seconds of consciousness available, 2-3 minutes in which we can escape brain damage and 8-10 minutes in which not to die. So, number one is a reliable blood supply.  Absolutely necessary therefore are a means of generating the various blood cells, perfusing and distributing them and disposing of damaged cells (red blood cells have a lifespan of 1-2 months). While not as acutely important, a self-sustaining blood supply is also the basis of a functioning immune system.  It's a bit of an oops moment when your super-killer cyborg catches a cold and dies.

Accordingly, bone marrow is essential as a source of hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells. A suitably reduced blood vessel and lymphatic vessel system is also needed to run the blood where it needs to go. {An awesome feature of living beings is that new blood vessels will be recruited to where they need to go and redundant branches pruned back, a process known as vascular remodelling}. A reduced liver and possibly spleen will be needed to appropriately destroy worn out blood cells. At least one functional kidney, in the role of producing the hormone erythropoietin, without which red blood cells will not be formed. Not essential: a heart and lungs, which he definitely doesn't have. How much blood is needed?  I’ll come to that answer once we’ve tallied how much body is needed.

Additionally, since part of perfusion is getting rid of metabolic waste, a liver and kidney will be absolutely indispensable.  

Level 2: Homoeostasis. A living organism has a very narrow range in which its internal environment, such as oxygen saturation, temperature, pH (acidity or alkalinity) amongst other things can vary without harm.

There are around 40 or so hormones, the signalling molecules that keep us going as functional concerns, regulating such things as blood pressure, salt/water balance, available energy, sleep cycle, body temperature, mood, immune system... the list goes on. Each has a stupid number of secondary functions and interacts with others in a ludicrous number of ways (note highly scientific language). Their levels vary and change on the order of seconds to hours. It's a good job that the main organiser of homoeostasis, the hypothalamus, is part of the brain. {Incidentally, this is why a brain-dead cadaver cannot be kept ‘alive’ on life support indefinitely – everything falls out of sync and eventually to pieces.} To do this artificially is to have your cyborg never leave the lab: if you're not constantly monitoring and adjusting levels, then they will die. Fortunately, as mentioned, a living, functional brain has the control network needed to keep everything working without the extensive and expensive effort. Just add air, water and food (in that priority).

At this point, we've already met most of the organs needed to maintain homoeostasis in their capacity of maintaining a blood supply. We need to add some bone, not just to serve as a niche (living environment) for the bone marrow and its stem cells mentioned previously but as a source and sink for minerals, the adrenal glands and the thyroid gland. Finally, one must not forget pancreatic islets -- or it'll be for nothing as he goes into a diabetic coma.

Level 3: Energy.   Speaking of food, a brain needs essential fatty acids for turnover and lots and lots of glucose for energy. It’s entirely possible to supply nutrients as total parenteral nutrion (TPN for short).  People whose digestive systems have completely failed get individually formulated TPN solutions, which requires that they spend several hours a day feeding it into their blood supply. Not something we see Genos do.  And yes, you heard it here: not everyone poops, but everyone sure as hell pees.  While a brain only weighs about 1.5 kg, it uses up about 500 calories a day as glucose, so 700 ish calories a day should suffice for all the needs of his live mass. This bears no relationship to the amount of food we see Genos put away on occasion. Why hasn’t he wrecked his liver in a matter of weeks? The answer would appear to lie in the artificial digestive system Dr. Kuseno has given him which turns food into biofuel. It must be patched into a feedback loop which allows it to only supply what’s physiologically necessary at any given time. Lucky for some!

Level 4: So how much body does that add up to exactly?  Nothing says you have to keep the necessary organs and blood vessel network the same size. With only a 1.5 kg brain to support, many can be shrunk a good 50% if not more. A total living mass of 7 kg would be quite feasible. We know from organ-on-a-chip experiments (and from unfortunate people who have lost part of their organs) that provided the essential architecture of the tissue is respected, they will work fine. Nothing says you have to keep them in the same place as the original organs were -- you can encapsulate it all in a can and shorten the nerves serving the organs to a more rational, manageable length. It's nice and compact and can be protected as heavily as the brain is.

Now we’re in a position to answer how much blood Genos has. There are about 70 ml of blood per kilogram of body weight, so at ~ 7 kg, we’re talking about 500 ml of blood. For comparison, the typical 70 kg person has 5 litres of blood. Why does this matter?  Because it allows us to answer a question many may be curious about: how often does Genos get hurt?

The answer is: Almost Never. With so little body, and with most of that body consisting of aptly named vital organs, even small injuries can turn catastrophic in no time.  Genos will bleed out with around 150 ml of blood loss, which is less than half of what is donated in a typical blood donation.  Horrible and dramatic as the smashes he gets into are, it’s more akin to a Formula 1 race car tumbling end over end and catching fire, only for the driver to walk out unscathed.  His cyborg parts are replaceable and can be sacrificed to protect what’s irreplaceable if need be.

[edengarden]

Hiiii!!! I'd like to request a regular matchup pls 😌 (idk of I can request one or two shows at at time so if it's possible can you do for both bnha & haikyuu? If not then just haikyuu is fine with me)

Appearance: I'm fem, black, 5'1, slightly athletic & curvy-ish figure (lol), short? (mid-neck) hair, straight, dark brown eyes, size 9 shoe size (idek why I'm adding this lmao)

Personality stuff: infp-t, Hufflepuff, Taurus sun, scorpio moon, sanguine, chaotic good, ambivert, a BuzzFeed quiz told me I'm a Pinto bean (do what you will with that info jdskdj)

Positive traits/qualities:

I'm super enthusiastic!! I love hyping people up and being energetic in general! I'm always down to try new things and have fun! If anyone is not feeling appreciated I'm ready to make sure they know that they're a queen/king and they're amazing!!!

I'm optimistic! I like to look at the brighter side of things and I always try my best to find a silver lining in any situation! Positive thinking helps me get through tough spots in my life because there's always hope for something better in the future!!

I'm observant!! I usually like to sit quietly and observe my surroundings. Especially in a new environment. Irl I like to read people's body language to asses their mood so ik how to approach them lol. I also do little things like remembering what they (friends/family) like to order at restaurants or something they pointed out at random that they liked. (Idk if I'm making sense lol)

Negative traits/flaws:

I'm annoying. Sometimes I just like being a little shit and cause mischief (being the youngest child does that to a person) but I think sometimes I'm too enthusiastic/energetic that it can be seen as obnoxious/annoying so I usually try and tone it down so I don't bother people...

I'm argumentative. When I have something to say I have to speak up. I try not to step on any toes but I can't help but argue with someone when our views on something clash. I like hearing different sides of debates though so I always give others a chance to talk. I don't go picking fights but if I feel like my opinion is being disregarded/not heard I will argue until it's known!!

I'm forgetful. Sure I'll remember random stuff like 'what my friend said in that one coffee shop last year' but important things like appointments? Birthdays? Assignment due dates? Idk her 😭 I try my best to write anything important down cause my memory is a selective sieve and it'll keep the most useless/random shit.

Hobbies: I love: Reading, writing, listening to music, learning languages, playing saxophone (I'm still learning tho lol), swimming, watching anime and cooking!

Music taste: any type of rock (punk rock, grunge, j-rock, metal), pop, kpop, RnB, jazz, dubstep, lofi hip hop, rap, bangers from: Elvis, the beach boys, Khalid, Ateez, Kendrick Lamar, p!atd, mcr, fallout boy, Nirvana, BTS, mxmtoon, Marianas trench, twenty one pilots, stray kids, Jay Park, crush, Dreamcatcher, Skrillex, MJ, troye sivan etc

Traits I look for: idk kind, funny/fun, loving/lovable, loyal (idk I ain't picky)

Traits I don't like: (nobody's perfect, just don't be a racist, xenophobic, sexist asshole lol)

Fun facts:

I love playing PC games! Might purchase a gaming pc in the future!

I have four piercings! Just my lobes and an industrial atm but I'm definitely gonna get more done!!

I might get some tattoos too one day :D

I wanna learn how to ride a bike (motorcycle)!!

My love language is touch! I live for hand holding, cuddling, hugging, tickle fights and more!! 🥺

I love learning new stuff and rn I'm learning how to draw, paint, play music on sax, a new language and new recipes! :3

I hope that's enough!! Tell me if you need more! Pls take ur time and stay safe!! Hope you are having an amazing day/night!!!! 💙✨

AAH I’M A SAX PLAYER TOO!!!! I love sax, I love sax, I love jazz?? I love growl notes. Sax is amazing, bless sax. Sax quartets are so fun

Also! I only accept one fandom and one type of matchup per ask, but if you want to get a bnha one as well, you can always send your description through again!! (I like doing it this way bc I feel like it’s fair for everyone?? Also if I lose my progress I don’t have as much lost)

Also WOW do you remind me of my self (we’re both Taurus suns hahahah)!! I have to note everything down in my calendar and reminders because I forget everything that’s not necessary for a grade. It’s insane!!

By the way your request was so well done?? So organized?? Wow, kudos to you bro!! I love it

I’d match you up with... GOSHIKI!!

Omg when I saw your qualities and flaws I was like I HAVE TO I HAVE TO I HAVE TOOOO

The way you fire that boy up is damn near DANGEROUS. But he loves you so much for it!! Oh my god you’re his daily dose of serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins, EVERYTHING. Goshiki can be hard on himself sometimes though, and he really needs someone who’s able to point out the good in a bad (or mediocre) situation. After a while, he’ll really try to have that kind of mindset for himself. In a way, you’re his idol. He admires you so much; you’re all he talks about, aside from his plans of becoming an ace. Also, you somehow know him better than he knows himself. You’ll point out his tiniest habits and he’s just like ??i do that?? Oh wow I DO do that—

He really really hopes you pick up the technique side of volleyball when you watch him play because he totally wants you to tell him what he can fix!! No, he’s not neglecting his coach it’s just that?? You’re there?? And he loves getting your feedback because it’s so validating. HE ALSO THINKS YOUR LOVE FOR LEARNING NEW THINGS IS SO COOL?? It rubs off on him, now he wants to know all about your hobbies and if he can like,, participate in them with you. He’s a bit competitive and as soon as you tell him you play sax he’s got his mind set on learning the saxophone solo from Money. Please help him, he’s not gonna be able to-

Overall?? You’re Goshiki’s Equal (yeah that’s how he thought of you before he realized he had a Crush), and he respects you and he loves you so much. The team tries to tease him for it but lo and behold; his eyes just light up and he could talk about you for HOURS. Tendou learned Not To Mention The One around Goshiki.

Songs!!!

- Money, Pink Floyd (Goshiki started listening to it religiously for the Solo. He didn’t even get discouraged and you’re surprised by that)

- Cradles, Sub Urban

- Burial (feat. Pusha T, Moody Good & TrollPhace), Yogi & Skrillex (buddy thinks this is the epitome of Hype)

- Blackout, David Bowie

[cawolters]

December...? DECEMBER!?

What about September?

November?

October?? What did I miss??

Yes, well, no you didn’t miss any vitals updates. I have reasons for why I haven’t been active on tumblr, and the most honest reason is that I didn’t feel like writing and posting on here since spring.

The writeblr community is so so great, one of the best in the web, but the platform is driving me nuts. Flagging, shadow bans, tag dysfunction and draft erasing/crashing, have just completely smashed my love for making fun and elaborate posts.

However, lots of updates has been made and i keep seeing wips I want to tag list and people i want to hang out with, so I’ll stick around for another decade or so! Hashtag always lurking.

The more polite reason for my absence, and equally truthful I might add, is that I was very busy the last few months —COMMISSIONS! LIFE! IRL NETWORKING!

And now I’ll tell you about it all, starting by answering the Q on everyone’s tongue:

1) Is Flash Fiction Friday Getting Revived in 2020?

In short, yup.

I need it, you need it, the world needs it. We need to WRITE folks. And the lovely prompt Friday will be back with week no 30 (!!) on:

Friday the 10th of January!

I have a capable team of creative and lovely writeblrs on the job as to how we an ensure consistent posting —and just and FYI, we might even end up with giving the FFF it’s own blog.

Run free, be with the people my beautiful prompt creature, inspire! And give me something to read!!

Stay tuned for updates and tell me is you want to be added to the FFF tag list.

Now next up is my scrip update!

2) Querying ‘The Serpent Kiss’

All is well in the land of querying.

or... well almost.

Alrighty, lemme explain below.

So, if you’ve been following me for awhile, you know my third child (whom is not currently teething or using my lipstick as a crayon) is my dark new adult fantasy trilogy —The Serpent Kiss <3

If you donno what I’m talking about, here’s a quick summery of the query process:

I finished the English first draft, two and a half years ago (I think?) and started looking into querying after my fifth draft was done.

I decided very early on that I would feel more comfortable working here in Denmark, where I already have a literary network, and actually understand the cultural unwritten rules when working with publishers!!

Since then I have been rewriting, tweaking, had beta-readers, editors, a sponsored translator (who translated the script from English to danish) BEFORE I started querying seriously in Denmark.

During the time where the book was being reviewed, I’ve kept in touch with houses who showed interest in the book from the get go (encouraging me to push onward), done a lot of social media work (especially on Instagram since the publishers all mentioned the importance of that platform) and attended books cons to physically mingle (it makes a difirence —really).

Ah, and now, finally, we’ve starting to get serious replies back from the Danish publishers.

Let’s look at what they’ve said so far.

(And mind you, this is Denmark. We’re a tiny country and we DON’T have adult fantasy books written by danish authors, so their critique is based on that. YA is what’s sellable and had been for years, buuut I also know that tendency will shift, so that’s what I’m really selling. A new trend basically. Always understand what pov the critique is coming from and don’t stop at the first rejection)

3/5: ‘no thank you, there’s no marked in Denmark for your book’

1/5: ‘we love it but rewrite it to YA and we have a deal’ — I said, no thank you

1/5: ‘we love it as is and we want to give you a deal, but we have to work out the legal kinks, and we will give you final answer by the end of January!’

So I’m awaiting the final judgement!!

But not really, it’s not the final judgement. If the deal falls through, and it might, never pop champagne before signing, I still have four more houses I could send the book to here in Denmark.

And, I could still go the international route and query over seas.

Yup! That’s the update on that!

Next up? The general writing!

3) A Year Of Author

“It’s really hard being a writer... Not on the days where you’re writing, but on the days where you’re not!”

— @CAlisaWolters, Instagram confessions

My year of full time professional writing, meaning mainly relying on my text/skill/art to heave in the cash, is six months down and going — OK!!

Here’s what I’ve learned/done so far:

I’m writing 4-7h on commissions, the second book of the trilogy, short-stories, poetry and another little YA project every day. Yes. Every day. And that’s very very cool and also exhausting mentally. My advice to others: HAVE OBLIGATORY DAYS OFF! (Oh yea and I also won nanowrimo but the project is a secret shh).

I’m somewhat alone most of the time but being a closeted introvert, I don’t mind, but I miss coworkers. That’s why Café dates and write-ins with writer pals IS IMPORTAINT.

Also! Speaking of socializing, I’ve been to five writers cons/events and I definitely recommend making it a priority for all professional authors. BRING BUSINESS CARDS!!

I have a set routine and I’m really happy with it! Early mornings is the best! And Monday is where I don’t write, but keep up with social media and answer mails and run errands! MAKE A ROUTINE!

And that’s the update on THAT!! Phew I’m getting winded, are you? Fear not we one have one last thing to cover. Promise.

4) Personal Life and Drag Kings ^_^

Where to start? Ah I know! I’ll start with the drag king storytelling event because that’s really what stands out!

I’m a mom, a wife, a bisexual, a general theatrical person and a genderfluid jellyfish who uses she/her pronounces, so when someone booked me for a storytelling event, I decided to go in drag. Naturally. Tsh duh.

I’ve really been experimenting with my gender this year, playing with apperence and comfortzones, and discovering that my real happiness lies somewhere between flooofy dresses and black buttondowns. And not just the clothes, but there attitude, the demeanor, the mental space of wearing cologne!! It might not sound dramatic, but to me it’s been A RIDE!

(I’ve been dying to go full drag for a long looooong time and I should’ve gone all out on the makeup —but next time!!! Also the event went so so well and I had the best time! I’m going to do it again!)

And NOW I’m done! Hah not really, but I won’t force you to spend all day reading my updates and this post is already so loooong 💕💕✨💕

The new year looms!! May it bring you love and confidence, and lots of new opportunities!!

Hug hug hug!!

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~Ciao

[dustofwarfare]

Won’t Go Down Easy

Let me just do a quick little post about this fic, what it is, and what it isn’t -- since I see this come up a lot on this one poor blogger’s asks and feel bad since he doesn’t even ship Claudelix and is probably like BUT WHY lol. 

Biological DS-Imperative or “Ds-verse”  or BDSM AU is a fandom trope (You can read about it here if you like). It was never as popular as A/B/O is now, though it pre-dates it and has some of the same elements.  (I am a Fandom Olde, y’all). It’s based on the idea that everyone is either a sub or a dom and has a biological need to fulfill those roles. That in itself can be tricky and problematic (though I sort of hate that word IRT to fictional transformative content but ymmv) to navigate, and it definitely is not a thing everyone has to enjoy or want to read, including people who ID IRL as kinky (which I am, and have been, for nearly two decades.) 

As I have said multiple times on the fic itself, It is in no way based on actual, IRL BDSM practices. It is fantasy. The idea that everything involving d/s dynamics in a fictional setting has to be 100% SSC* (or RACK*, though I see that term used less often these days) in fiction is alarming, because kinky people can, and do, have fantasies they’re allowed to explore via fiction if they want. It does not have to be a how-to manual. It is not the responsibility of kinky folks to educate How to Do Kink Safely in every single fic we write. We’re allowed to push limits, explore tropes, have fun, write -- and read -- escapist fantasy. 

And now, because it’s my birthday and this is my blog and I do what I want, I will Ramble about this fic below. 

I was interested in writing something that explored this trope for several reasons, mostly because I thought it was interesting how it played into the blood-dependent Crests and also the concept of loyalty/chivalry. Also I love ds-verse fics and thought I’d write one to keep my spirits up while in quarantine and in a mentally stressful time, the escapism was welcome. This is Why I Fandom.  If it’s not why YOU fandom, that’s fine. 

No one is sold into sex slavery. Yes, Felix is sent to Almyra by Edelgard (or that’s how it’s implied things happened at the beginning). Yes, there is a reason in the story for that. No, I didn’t just choose Claude and Felix because they’re both hot (which I don’t have a problem with, I don’t care why people ship things, this is fandom it’s for fun), but I have my reasons and this is my blog so I can talk about it :D! 

I was inspired by Felix’s non-AM end card where he’s a Meandering Sword, and also how he might handle a CF-ending where he wanted to switch houses but didn’t and yet still survived the war. Also, Claude as the new king of Almyra struggling to make peace between former warring nations, Felix’s concept of loyalty as a thing to be earned not expected, and Claude’s desire to have someone loyal to him after a lifetime of feeling like he didn’t belong. Add the DS-elements of Felix having a prior bad relationship with a king (mirroring his canon relationship with Dimitri if you recruit Felix and he doesn’t get closure), and that’s what got me going on this train. 

And yeah, I think they’re hot. I’m not writing escapist fanfic for woke points. I’m writing it to manage stress in a pandemic and entertain myself, and for the challenge of the dynamics I wanted to portray. And I like it and I want to. 

The crux of why I get a lot of angry anon hate for this fic is that people hated my take on Dimitri as a “monster”. Look, I like all the characters in this game. I multi-ship, I polyship, I like AUs and divergent canon and one reason I like the game for fanfic is that you can explore different character takes in different routes. A Felix who never gets closure with Dimitri hurts my heart so good and makes me want to make him happy. Dimitri in my story has unresolved mental health issues exacerbated by years of war, and it puts a toll on his already canonically strained relationship with Felix (think what happens if you recruit Felix in CF). Felix tries to talk him out of a war he doesn’t think Dimitri can win; they have a bad night together that affects Felix deeply. 

You might have a different take on a CF-route Dimitri and his mental state. I have different thoughts on it, too, that are story-dependent depending on how I’m writing it or what the central narrative of the fic is. I like Dimitri! I wrote him an entire ‘verse where he’s happy since I was so sad at how I wrote things between him and Felix. But I love the idea of pushing at characterizations in different situations -- isn’t that what fanfic is for? 

Yes, Claude is a Very Good Dom in this. I put a lot of emphasis on consent (I think that’s part of the challenge of writing ds-verse since the fic is not intended to be non-con or dub-con, though I’d like to add that I have ALWAYS included warnings and tags to let readers know in case they’re sensitive to the idea and see it as inherently dub-con; that’s valid and I totally get this is not for everyone, which is why it’s tagged) and the story is a romance, where Claude is a good dom but Felix is also a Good Sub and together they are able to fulfill what the other needs in this context. I like happy endings, communicative polycules, that sort of thing. 

Tl;dr you are MORE than welcome to dislike my story for whatever reason, at the end of the day it just makes me write more of it. I’ve had WAY more positive response than negative, and that’s been honestly SO wonderful. 

There is a vast sea of content out there for FE3H. If my fic isn’t for you, there is bound to be one that is. 

*SSC = Safe, Sane and Consensual, often used as a guideline for IRL kink practices between consenting adults. 

*RACK = Risk Aware Consensual Kink, which often can include edgeplay (knifeplay, gunplay, bloodplay, intense impact play) and is sometimes used to express that consenting adults are aware of the riskier nature of some of these activities that might not fit into standard accepted definitions of SSC, and are consenting to them despite the risks. 

[hoid-library]

Beauty is Cheap

Length: 1433 words. ~5 minutes reading time.

I know what men really want, and let me tell you, beauty isn’t it. Beauty is an extra, a condiment; it’s not the main meal. Sex is. It’s all about sex, and how well you can please cocks, which opens all sorts of possibilities for girls who are insecure about their looks.

Consider this. What good is a girl with a smoking hot body — a true 11 out of 10 — if she won’t suck cock? Those bitches exist, you know.

Men don’t want women who can please their eyes. Men want women who can please their cocks. A 7 who sucks cock is better than an 11 who doesn’t. And a 3 who makes sex easy and can make him cum so hard he sees stars — he’ll fucking fall in love with that girl. He’ll cheat on hotter girls just to be with her.

What I’m saying, girls, is that what really matters in a woman is what’s inside… their holes. Cocks are what matter, cocks and how well you can please them. I can confidently tell you that if a woman is sufficiently submissive, she’ll hook me even if she’s ugly, fat, covered in scars, and a single mother.

That’s not a hypothesis — I have two girls like that in my roster right now, and they both please my Dom side in a way that few subs have managed before. One of them even gets off on being called all the adjectives listed above, which is nice. They both did what every slut should dedicate their lives to doing — they mastered the art of pleasing cock and debasing themselves for male pleasure.

For men, that’s what matters the most in a girl — the sexual pleasure they provide. The reason why most men won’t tell you that is that most of them have never really had a woman dedicate herself fully to pleasing them. Men are used to having to lie, steal, and beg to get OK sex which they think is great because they know nothing else.

Not all men are Alphas like me — sex is scarce for many of them. If you are one of the rare souls who can actually ask to be fucked, you can easily become a guy’s favorite slut. And if you master the art of getting men hard and getting them off in epic fashion, men will damn well fall in love with you, even if they are lowkey embarrassed to post photos with you on Facebook.

And isn’t that a great goal to aim for? Make it your goal to become so sexually pleasing that the men around you would rather be embarrassed than stop fucking you. Attain hotness that runs beneath your skin. Get men to cheat on girls much hotter than you just because when you make them cum they fucking see stars; get them to ditch their friends and the nightclub so they can stay home pumping you full of cum.

You may see hot girls walking around and feel jealous of them. Life for them is so easy! All they need is a little cleavage and men are all over them. And fair enough. Attraction is step 1 in any sexual encounter, and hot girls are natural cock magnets. But what about steps 2 through 10 of that process? What about what happens in bed? Do you think those hotties will spend hours practicing to deep throat cock, learning how to contract their Kegel muscles, and studying all the best ways to edge a man with their tongues?

No. They’ll date cute losers with money and complain to their friends that all the men they meet blow their loads in 3 minutes. They’ll be assaulted by hot men so much they’ll get an inflated sense of self, which will make it very hard for them to enjoy the pleasures of being truly submissive to men. Then they’ll meet that one asshole who makes them feel like a real woman and fall madly in love with them. That’s the life story of 8 out of 10 hot women, especially in their teens and their 20s.

Of course, not all girls follow that standard. Life isn’t a video game; there is no fairness, no game balance. Some lucky whores really do have everything in life — they are incredibly beautiful and have incredible sex with an incredible Alpha who fulfills then completely. Girls like that do exist. But assuming that every hot girl lives that way is like assuming every guy driving a nice car is Jeff Bezos. People who have it that great are rare, and they all worked for it.

But back to you, my insecure reader. There is a path to female sexual success without traditional beauty. Work on your moves, get more social and start making it easy for men to date you — walk up to cute guys and give them a piece of paper with your phone number if you have to. What’s stopping you? How much courage does that really require?

Here are the four steps for success.

First, you get guys on dates — figure out the best way to do that, the phone number idea isn’t bad. Just write “I’m shy, but please text me later :)” with your phone number underneath. Do it to dozens of guys every week to stack the odds in your favor.

Second, while on dates, either get the guy to bed or let them take you to bed.

Third, in bed, blow their fucking mind and work your hardest to be the best little slut he ever had. Ask if you can call him “Sir”, get on your knees without him asking, be proactive. The more men you get to bed the better you’ll be at fucking them.

Fourth, after that first fuck, get to know him. By then you’ll have so much value in his eyes that all the great guys will be all over you.

You’ll have a lot of horrible sexual experiences, but you’ll have a lot of unforgettable ones too. And with experience, you’ll get better at filtering the creeps during the first date. 

Follow this process and, if you can get one cock a month, you will have 12 cocks a year. About half of them will want to fuck you more than once, and once you kick out the bastards, it should still leave you with two good fuck buddies at the end of a year. That’s great cock just one phone call away, year-round for as long as they are single — and maybe even past that. What else do you need to be sexually happy?

In the long term, this systematic hunt for cock will get guys wanting to be your forever partner — begging you to date and even marry them. Guys who will be blown away by your skill and experience that — should you choose one of them — they won’t believe how lucky they are that they get to live with you and have you please their cocks every day. Tell me that idea doesn’t make you smile.

Get a system. That’s the key. Hot girls just bumble around hoping some player will take them to bed, they don’t put in the work; they don’t put in the hours. Get a system like this going and start dedicating six hours a week just to getting sex partners. Within a year you’ll be texting a lot more guys than any popular girl, and you’ll be so confident you won’t even recognize yourself anymore. You won’t have to lose a pound — although dressing cute might be a good idea.

There is no success without work. Not in this life. You know the smoking hot Instagram stars who seem to just get paid to shake their ass around? Watch closely. They have entire marketing companies around them, they make strategic collaborations with other stars, they have an upload schedule and a shoot schedule and a gym schedule to keep their money-maker in order. And they live their lives watching over their shoulder for anything that could damage their reputation. Just being cute gets you likes on Facebook and a bunch of dick pics — making money off beauty takes work. Getting great cock takes work.

Stop bemoaning your beauty and get to work. There are cocks out there that need pleasing, are you going to let all those loads go to waste?

Here’s some further reading on how to pick-up men IRL.

https://www.bustle.com/articles/157588-7-tips-for-picking-up-guys-irl.

— Original essay by King Hoid. April 25, 2020.

[bi-dazai]

Seeing soukoku interacting sexually/romantically isn't a reach and it feels like a natural extension of their canon relationship. There's already plenty of sexual tension between them (see: their entire reunion scene), all you have to do is shift your perception away from the heteronormative and it's blatantly clear. That's why I love the pairing so much - it feels less like a fan ship and more like fans expanding on canon. It's markedly different from the way I read shin soukoku, which have a more budding close friendship dynamic rather than soukoku, for which much of the tension between them is fueled by dazai's need to keep chuuya's attention on himself. Fifteen makes it pretty clear that Dazai is a selfish person, and his actions towards chuuya, much like all other actions, can very easily be interpreted as his selfish pettiness being fuelled by a crush on chuuya and possessiveness acting out. This is especially clear in the arcade scene. Not only does dazai finally have a friend his age, he gets pissy specifically when yuan clings to chuuya's arm as if she's his girlfriend.

This is what I mean when soukoku are clearly coded to be interpreted at some level as having a sexual/romantic undertone to their relationship, especially in terms of dazai's attraction to chuuya.

Dazai, furthermore, has also been coded to bring attention to his interactions with the same sex as well as his gender expression. His use of 私, the more gender neutral pronoun, over 僕 or 俺, the more masculine pronouns used by the other male characters, is a reference to his irl counterparts work. However in the series itself it works as a more gender neutral expression of dazai. Dazai isn't meant to be seen specifically as a masculine or even male character. This then calls to the first episode, in which he expresses that he isn't attracted to men. This calls attention to his interactions with men, and can ease more conservative viewers into a less straight version of dazai. There's a history of bisexual androgynous characters in anime. Also none of the other characters romantic/sexual desires have been elaborated upon or pointed out as blatantly as dazai has in the first episode. It calls into contrast with the way he later interacts with chuuya and odasaku. Odasaku especially carries a one-sided crush undertone on dazai's end. Ive seen and analysed plots similar to dazai and oda's, but none have carried the homosensuality of bsd's. Therefore it definitely seems to be that asagiri has called attention to dazai's tendencies in order to specifically dispute dazai's claim of not being attracted to men . It can also work, of course, as collateral against any homophobic pressures - asagiri can gaycode (more specifically bisexual-code) dazai as far as he likes, and can refer back to the "I have no such attractions" line as a defence. As an author myself, I can say that gaycoding is a viable way to get representation in when it seems impossible. Considering asagiri is writing for a seinen series, it very well may be the case.

Dazai embodies a very androgynous role. He's playful and sly, but childish, especially when he was younger. His character is central to seeing the underlying homoerotic subtext in the soukoku relationship

It can also be argued that much of the promotional material has also been homoerotic - I can picture at least two promotional posters wherein dazai and chuuya were depicted alone together in a Christmas setting. In case you didn't know, Christmas is considered a romantic holiday in Japan and is known for couples going on lots of cute dates surrounded by pine trees and snow and lights. Dazai and Chuuya being depicted alone together near a Christmas tree is about as explicit as you can get without outright declaring that they're together romantically.

Furthermore, there's the fact that having gay-coded relationships sells in Japan these days. Japanese fandom loves pairings, including same-sex ones. Japanese anime and manga producers are not shy of using homoeroticism to sell their content. The west is shy of this - it's remarkably still homophobic and ignorant of gay people, and gay representation is often just some fanservice wlw couple that does nothing but placate the male fetishistic viewers. Japan is slightly better than this (not saying it's good, but better than the west), often leaning into fan interpretations in merchandising and content. Think kirishima and bakugou from bnha, one of the most blatantly gay-coded shounen relationships of the decade. Kirishima and bakugou have both been gay-coded (most markedly Kiri, who is a walking Japanese gay stereotype at times, but Mineta's comments about bakugou during his fight with uraraka are also pretty pointed), and their interactions in canon as well as merchandising and promotional material (the summer festival jacket bit comes to mind, wherein it was implied so explicitly that bakugou gave Kirishima his jacket in a romantic gesture it was two steps away from declaring bakugou having a raging gay crush on Kirishima as canon. Also there's a lot of winter time and Christmas stuff with Kirishima and bakugou as well!) are often used as fanservice to give shipper fans more content. It undeniably points out that the creators of the series have realised the homoerotic subtext, incidental or not, and are willing to engage with it further. That, to put it simply, is a very very good point towards canon-ness.

Anyway this was ten times longer than I thought it would be, but soukoku is canon king and Dazai is head-over-heels in love with chuuya canonically.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #240

end of the year one!

What did you do in 2019 that you’d never done before? Uhhhh. Wow. I honestly don't really know; not a lot. Uhhhh... oh, I was sexually involved with a girl, I worked at a deli for A WHOLE TWO HOURS!!!!, I'm still a shameful shit that being on that damn pill actually drove me to masturbating for the first time (yes, I know it's not "bad," but), OH! I very recently found myself to relate to Neo-Paganism so kinda identify as that now, I finished a full semester of college, and uhhh. It's funny, '18 and '19 kinda blur together for me, so I can't say with certainty when some certain things took place, so it doesn't even feel right putting them here? Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I didn't make one; I pretty much never do. This year, however, I just might. Like I've always thought "dude it's just another day there is literally no actual difference," but I want to focus on the actual symbolism. No, there is no physical difference, but it's the idea I want to appreciate. I want to make something about self-improvement this year, probably mostly about AvPD and its "I'm embarrassed by myself omg people think I'm weird" factor irl, because that FUUUUCKS WIIIITH MEEEEE. I want to be comfortable as me, y'know? Oh, and I should definitely work on independence. Did anyone close to you give birth? No, but my sister is pregnant. Did anyone close to you die? My dog Teddy. What countries did you visit? I didn't leave and have never left America, yaaaaay. Fun. Adventure. What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019? An income. Let photography go somewhere or some shit, please. What date from 2019 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? November 28th, when Teddy was put down. That's something I can never forget. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Said lasting a college semester!!!! I failed my math course as I expected to, but I mean, I lasted. What was your biggest failure? To ME anyway (people have assured me otherwise from their perspectives), it would be the first "professional" wedding I shot. I put so much into that day and the DAYS of post processing, and they never bought any of the pictures. Said they were going to discuss which ones they wanted and get back to me and then poof, vanished. I was very suspicious by another person, I think family, being there taking pictures pretty much just as much as I did, even posing people, and by now I'm pretty sure they used me (or her, idk) as backup. My only guess is my pictures weren't what they wanted so they chose the route of not paying, which, TECHNICALLY, isn't against my terms of service; you just have to pay the sitting fee, you see previews w/ watermarks, and THEN you pay for each photo you actually WANT. That's a loophole I probably need to fix, because I can honestly say $20 did NOT cover my time, hyperhidrosis e x p l o s i o n, anxiety, and my previously-mentioned DAYS-long editing period. Not to mention I was and still genuinely am proud of how the pictures turned out. OKAY WOW I'm seriously ranting but yeah I'm obviously still tilted. Did you suffer illness or injury? Did I? I don't think so. At least nothing serious. I did have a fall, but the resulting bruises and twists were negligible. What was the best thing you bought? A fuckin honeybun from the school snack machine lmao. I don't have my own income, so I just get little cash from Mom if needed for when I go out or anything. Where did most of your money go? See above. So, food lol. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Sara coming on my birthday, Ozzy re-announcing his tour for next year (WITH MANSON Y'ALL!!!!!!!!!!) and Mom and I being like "um fuck yes we're going," and that's all I can think about right now. It's not common I get like, THAT excited. What song will always remind you of 2019? *shrug* None off the top of my head stand out. Compared to this time last year, are you: Happier or sadder? Older or wiser? Thinner or fatter? (I've been at a weight loss stalemate for two fucking years now, so neither.) Richer or poorer? (No personal income, and I don't know the exact financial position Mom's in compared to last year.) What do you wish you’d done more of? See Sara and Dad much more, reach out to more friends, exercise, cleaning alksdjfawei, studying. What do you wish you’d done less of? Sitting on this computer gahhhhhhhhhhhhhh- I honestly would prefer to just not dwell on this "I wish I had..." subject. How did you spend Christmas? Breakfast and gift opening with Mom and my younger sis, then we went to my older sister's house that afternoon to celebrate with her and the kids. What was your favorite TV program? I didn't watch TV. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? No. What was the best book you read? The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. What was your greatest musical discovery? Hm... I don't believe I discovered any new bands, but I got waaay more into Motionless In White. What did you want and get? Making it through my first semester in college, Teddy reaching his 13th birthday, seeing my grandmother for probably the last time, seeing Sara for my birthday, uhhh other things that aren't coming to mind. What did you want and not get? Lose more fucking weight for a change, more photography growth, new glasses, the courage to drive more and get my license, SEE SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK AS WELL AS THE LAST HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, other little things I don't wanna dwell on. What was your favorite film of this year? I do NOT get the hate of the live action The Lion King. I fucking adored it. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I don't remember other than hang out with Sara and the fam and probably eat at Olive Garden for dinner. I turned 23. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Photography reaching the level of being able to call it my *real* job. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2019? Pajamas. Just... pajamas whenever possible lmao. What kept you sane? My mom and Sara, MUSIC, gaming, Mark and the other YTers I love way too much, school getting me out of the damn house. Oh, and medication lmfao. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? The day I don't answer this with "Mark Fischbach," I IMPLORE you to commit me. What issue stirred you the most? I'm guessing you mean political? If so, the Amazon wildfires and how the fucking SA government handled it. NOTHING in the political world has ever had me that livid, heartbroken, and ashamed of the greed of the human race. Who did you miss? A good number of people, plus Teddy of course. Who was the best new person you met? Good question. Probably a teacher or adviser at school. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2019: I think more than anything, there's been a lot of focus on the fact that you can't always run at the first sign of trouble/stress. That's one of my biggest weaknesses: I flee the moment I'm under stress, but now with school, I've had to learn to fight this. It's an ongoing process, but I'm getting there. Some battles need to be fought to reach a better place.

[spectralarchers]

Christine! Writing help question here, if that's okay with you: I saw your reblog on Crowley's blubber/stutter at points throughout GO series and wanted to ask how to make dialogue realistic? Like irl we say uh and backtrack and stuff a lot but I'm wondering how to pull it off well... and kind of on a tangent, I struggle with finding a balance between dialogue and action (too much dialogue in my case). Any tips?

Hi, Ver!

Sorry it took me so long to reply to your ask, I wasn’t around on my laptop much and I wanted to give you a proper response! The post @verdelet​ is refering to is this one, which is a compilation of all the times Crowley in Good Omens just makes noises instead of saying stuff, where I used the following tags:

#HONESTLY THOUGH #THIS IS A GREAT EXAMPLE OF HOW DIALOGUE WORKS THOUGH! #SOMETIMES WHEN I READ A FIC AND THE AUTHOR INCLUDES THESE SOUNDS IN THEIR DIALOGUE I GET ALL HAPPY! #BECAUSE PEOPLE MAKE THOSE SOUNDS WHEN THEY TALK! #AND LIKE!!! YES!!! #EXCELLENT ACTING CHOICES!!!!

I don’t think I have any specific tips, but let me try. 

There’s one scene I always, always, always think about when I think about my dialogue and writing it, and it’s this one from Ocean’s 11:

Which in the script of the movie looked like this:

DANNY (V.O.) And Saul makes ten. 

48 INT. BAR - NIGHT 

48Danny and Rusty look weary from all this recruitment. Anearby TV with the sound off plays a promo for anupcoming Tyson fight. 

DANNYTen should do it, don't you think? 

(as Rusty shrugs)You think we need one more? 

(as Rusty shrugs)You think we need one more. 

(as Rusty shrugs)Okay. We'll get one more.

It’s super simple, but it works so well, because it feels genuine - the whole Ocean’s franchise is really good with its dialogue (a lot of it was scripted, but a lot of it was unscripted too). This was just for inspiration.

But, like, when I write dialogue - especially in action scenes - I try to let it flow naturally, as much as possible - if that means I have to cut up the description of a car flipping over in order to get the swear word in, I’ll do that:

He’d miscalculated the stickiness of the road - or rather, lack thereof. The moment he felt the car skid off the ice, his heart took an unexpected leap into his throat. 

“Fuck!” 

He immediately gripped the wheel tighter and stopped pressing the brakes in the hope of steering the car back on track. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he muttered under his breath as he tried to figure out how long he had before they were done for good.

You can also use the dash to cut up your dialogue: 

The road ahead seemed to be going into a tight turn, though, and in spite of his efforts he may not be able to get the car to stop before they hit the bedrock.

And so, the only thing that came out of his lips as he felt the car skid onto the patch of black ice was “Jesu- fu- hold on!”

“Hold on to what?” she yelled from the passenger’s seat, her fingers gripping the safety belt. 

Turning the wheel completely to the other side, in the hopes of forcing it onto the side, he clenched his teeth. 

It’s like a natural cut up of the word, sometimes people get interrupted in what they’re saying, and it’s totally fine to do it in the dialogue as well. I usually keep in mind that the words needs to get cut off in a place that’s logical - for example, if you’re going to cut off “fuck”, better either cut if off at “f-” or at “fu-” because “fuc-” just doesn’t make a lot of sense, if that makes sense?

I also quite like having my characters repeat things, or look for their words when they’re mumbling, so I consciously try and get them to say things either twice or mumble, like I would in real life. It’s like letting the dialogue tell the story, rather than try and say that they’re mumbling or looking for their words: 

Finally, as the car skid to a halt, she hit him in the shoulder. “You! You absolute- you absolute idiot!” she shrieked as him, as she tried hitting him again, but this time, he caught her wrist.

“I’m sorry- hey, stop- I’m sorry, alright?! I didn’t- I didn’t think the road was going to be frozen tonight!”

“You should have known!”

He made a sound, sharply inhaling. “Huh?! I’m sorry I didn’t! Because I don’t control the weather, okay? And can you please stop trying to hit me?!”

He caught her other hand this time and immobilized her in her seat. 

“Uhhh, yeah, pfff.” She paused for a couple of seconds, before resuming: “You’re always, always, always going on about how well you know these- these- these stupid roads!”

One of my favorite parts of dialogue I’ve written is in chapter 7 of Nothing Burns Like the Cold, when Clint is explaining to Steve why the American military is in Greenland, and he’s explaning the Monroe Doctrine and the whole World War II shebang up in the North Pole, because I feel like I made Clint’s long, long, long monologue break up into more understandable pieces of dialogue. I’ve highlighed the ‘dialogue things’ I did in bold in order to make the monologue feel more natural: 

“Well, I’m not sure if you know this, but the Danish Ambassador to the United States during World War Two decided he wasn’t going to take orders from occupied Denmark, and so whenever he spoke to American politicians or diplomats, he would do it on behalf of the ‘free’ Denmark. He thought that because the King and Government were being held prisoner, none of their orders mattered, and apparently we liked that a lot. Especially because of the Monroe Doctrine, I think- I- I think that was it. Because we got afraid that Nazi Germany would establish bases in Greenland, so when this guy, when this uh- this- Kauffman? Yeah, that was his name, it was a big deal when Kauffman came into the picture and said that he was giving the United States authorization to defend Danish colonies on Greenland from the Germans. He was sentenced for treason by everybody back home in Copenhagen, but it’s basically because of his agreement that we’re still in Greenland. He never put an end date on the agreement, I think they called it something like the ‘agreement relating to the defense of Greenland’ but I’m not sure on the exact phrasing. It just states that the American personnel can stay on site until- until- uh, ‘for as long as there is an agreement’?”

Clint rubs a pearl of sweat off his temple, as he takes a breath.

“The US Coast Guard and War Department established some weather and radio stations, and it didn’t really matter after a while, once the war ended. But, a couple of years after the German abdication, stuff happened - NATO, and other agreements, Denmark ratifying the agreement and everything. It made Denmark and the US closer allies. In 1951 though, the Danish and American nations forced native Kalaalit people out of their homes in Thule, because the establishment of the airbase was of “more importance” than them living there, where they’d been living for centuries.” Clint pauses, as he looks over at Steve.

“It was bad, man. Governments said it was on voluntary basis, but it wasn’t. Kind of like when we put the Native peoples of the Americas in camps and called it a good thing,” Clint spits, as he clenches his hands. “After all of that, Greenland became a key point in the Cold War. I mean they set up… They set up 14 bases in Greenland, Bluie West, and Bluie East. And then, when Operation Chrome Dome sailed around, they used Thule as one of the bases where they could re-fuel and load up the B-52s that would fly around 24/7. That operation ended in 1968 when one of the planes crashed.”

He pauses.

“In Greenland. On the - the indlandsis? The ice sheet? Right out of Baffin Bay, they think. They were carrying four hydrogen bombs aboard. Thankfully, there wasn’t a big nuclear explosion because the safeties prevented it, but the explosion caused the sheet to melt and a huge area to become contaminated with radioactive material. It also sank to the bottom of the ocean.”

Clint rubs his face and spits to the side.

“The clean-up, they called it Crested Ice, I think. I mean the plane crashed and burned, and there was a patch of blackened ice which was just- just huge, man. I’ve seen the aerial picture that was taken then, and it was terrible. Some documents which were released from the clean up revealed that plutonium contamination reached extremely high levels, and there was… It was bad, Steve. The workers who helped clean up were poisoned, and they still haven’t received compensation for their work.”

Sighing, Clint finally says the truth that he doesn’t want to tell Steve: “Part of the entire Chrome Dome operation and the Thule Air Base was to patrol the Arctic border to the USSR and to find you, Steve. ” Clint takes a deep breath, as he sees Steve’s head drop next to him.

And, the whole above quote, which is practically 600 words of Clint monologuing, all the while I was writing it, I was sometimes stopping up and reading it out loud to see where would someone pause, where would someone search for their words, where would they be thinking about another word?

I remember when I wrote it, it was difficult because there was a lot of information I had to write correctly (the whole Kauffman and Monroe Doctrine is historically accurate, as is the displacement of the Kalaalit peoples) but also make it seem like it was someone trying to recall something they’d learned a long time ago all the while explaining it to someone who had never heard of it before.

It’s the same thing when your character doesn’t know the thing and motions for it instead. If we continue in the car crash example I was writing earlier, it’d give something like this:

“You told me the bend would be like- like this,” she says, as she moves her fingers in an S-shaped formation, and he shakes his head.

“Nah, it’s more-” he moves her hands closer together, “-like this.”

It’s breaking up the lines and introducing the actions you need to convey where your words can’t do it for you - in the above example with Clint, when he’s looking for his words, I like to think that the reader can imagine him either moving his hands or looking thoughtful because he’s repeating himself, or he’s mumbling, or talking to himself, and therefore, I don’t have to tell the reader that he’s mumbling, because he’s doing it himself? (Does any of this even make sense???)

And, FINALLY, to answer your last question, any tips on finding a balance between action and dialogue would be writing the thing, and then leaving it be for a couple of hours and coming back to it, to read it with a pair of fresh eyes.

If the action scene slows down too much because of the dialogue, you don’t have to interrupt it with actual dialogue, but you can just write that they’re “exchanging swear words” or “yelling whenever their body takes a hit” instead of wanting to force the swear words into the narrative text, if that makes sense?

Otherwise, I don’t have any tips, other than reading your work again if you feel like you were struggling with it. Eventually, if you have someone who is willing to help you out, get a beta and ask them to look out for your pacing. 

@kate-katiehawkeye helped me SO MUCH with Swallow Your Soul, like, the only reason that story makes a bit of sense if thanks to her amazing eyes. 

I hope that this large and long pile of blubber managed to help you out a little bit? I am not the best at giving advice because I feel like half the stuff I’m doing is a total improvisation thing, so... I hope this helped! :D

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Poniko/Royal-chan and P5R theories lightning round

List of things that she could be (assume I’m talking about the girl we see rather than the voice unless stated, you can also just assume I’m riding the “Poniko is Hamuko’s counterpart in Minato’s timeline” wave too), I’m just throwing everything at the wall tbh XD (I was going to keep going but if I have more I’ll just do a pt 2, didn’t realize the date and I should’ve posted this earlier but hey the new Emperor is getting sworn in so might as well celebrate with this):

The character and voice are different: There are two new characters in the teaser, one who is shown and one who is talking. The one who is talking is a new character, and the one who is shown is the P5FeMC.

Same as #1, but instead of the one shown being the P5FeMC, there’s just two new characters that aren’t FeMCs.

She’s the P5FeMC in the female route, but in the male/Ren route she is another reg character (and Ren is a reg character in her route)

She is the reincarnation of Hamuko/She’s Hamuko in Minato’s timeline/will be related to Hamuko in some way

She’s the Jester Arcana

She’s the Aeon Arcana

She’s a brand-new Fool 22 arcana CoOp

She will be related to the Japanese Emperor in someway (maybe the daughter of a prince/princess, maybe one who married a commoner who’s status was revoked....which has happened a few times 8U), or one of the 4 cadet branches of the imperial family (aka the Shinnoke, Katsura, Arisugawa, Kan'in, the latter three are said to have died out but that just makes them more likely to happen as to avoid a whole “we swear these aren’t based off real people’ scandal Atlus probably wants to avoid), her heritage is probably a secret (maybe even from her)

Her name can possibly be traced back to someone related to the royal family, even up to the Goddess Amaterasu (which is stated the Royal family descended from her lineage). If that was the case how funny would it be if her last name was Amamiya but it was written as “天宮” which means “heavenly palace” (the first kanji being taken from Amaterasu rather than Ame/rain that Ren’s last name has, and while it’s not in the name as “sun” it can be sourced back to Amaterasu since since she’s the sun goddess)

I feel like there might be an allusion to Princess Masako, she seems to be a pretty oppressed figure in the royal family.

Or Princess Mako (who seems to be an internet star in Japan)

(Actually there is a royal child....that....well let’s just say the dates line up timeline wise....I just happened upon it looking into the royal family, but it’d be pretty shitty of Atlus to use it, just plain rude let’s just say. I won’t say why cause I feel pretty bad/icky even....alluding to it.)

Maybe the name “Makoshi” (an alias name used by Princess Mako when she volunteered to help victims of the 2011 earthquake/tsunami, as well as it being her high school nickname)

She will be related to Goro/Shido in some way

She’s Sophia

She’s Sophia’s “champion/player”

She actually has bonds and is a harder opponent because of that

She can access the Metaverse but doesn’t use it in the same way as Goro or MC (she might gather info, but it’s for her to confront people irl rather than manipulate the shadow selves)

She’s the scarf/cape character from the P5 anime 2nd opening

She’s tied to saving Goro

In connection to #15, saving Goro will allow the MC to NOT have to go to juvie for a few months, which frees up that block of time, and thus maybe an extra dungeon (maybe they can bs it as remnants to the Metaverse they need to clean up). And She and/or Morgana will be connected to the bonus dungeon(s).

The lines in the trailer are probably from when they take their field trip, aka 6/10 (which means she might have joined Syuji sometime around the first or second dungeon).

She could be a “Princess Detective” which is another possible reason Goro might have been talking to her. (which means we wouldn’t know which day the interview is), and the “Royal” could be tied to how they are both “Prince” and “Princess” detectives. 

The scene where she is standing in the rain could be the day we send the calling card to Shido (maybe it rains regardless of which day), anime did 12/17, days that rain in-game are Dec 3, 10, and 13. I doubt it’s any other day except Shido or post Shido, since they don’t show their calling card in the Square until that time. 

The title might be in reference to a Japanese card game “Daifugō (大富豪, Grand Millionaire) or Daihinmin (大貧民, Extremely Poor)” also known as “Royalty card game.” You play with a min of 3 people (hmmmm MC, Goro, Poniko possibly), and the objective of the game is to get rid of all the cards one has as fast as possible by playing progressively stronger cards than those of the previous player. The winner of the round is the Daifugo and the last (not loser?) is the Daihinmin. “ In that following round, winners can exchange their one or more unnecessary cards for advantageous ones that losers have.” So I guess there can be multiple winners and losers each round. There seem to be 5 titles, I’ll uses translations of the Japanese one (Grand Millionaire, Millionaire, Commoner, Poor, Extremely Poor....Commoner is neutral btw). “Jokers, other wilds or extra 2s from another deck are used to ensure the cards can be dealt evenly.” (which means, Poniko might be a 2nd Joker, whether she’s an MC or not is a different thing, but She’s probs the 2nd Joker. If she’s not a 2nd joker and instead Goro is, then Poniko might be a deuce, which is stronger than a joker if you play ‘Jokers are wild’ rather than ‘Jokers are deuce too’  or ‘Deuces wild, Jokers high” rules, but I only think this is possible if she and Hamuko’s counterpart, as Hamuko/Minato are shown to be able to summon two Personas at once and thus.....deuce 8U).

If Poniko has a Philemon/butterfly, her’s will look like a “monarch” type.

Her PT glove color will probs be black, red, gold, or orange

She’ll have two outfits, one that’s black, and the other that’s white, orange, or red (basically the opposite of Goro, who’s fake was white but real one was black, her fake is black but real one is white, unless the real one is a different color)

Her PT mask might be black, red, gold, or orange.

She’ll have a red scarf (either in civi form or PT form)

Her name will be Kiku or some form of  菊, in reference to the Chrysanthemum Throne/crest/other stuff related to the emperor. (it also doubles as opposing Ren’s name as an important flower, and reference to Death/funerals/grief/and happiness for Hamuko/P3, it can also symbolize life and autumn...it has a lot of meanings, and her living could show a connection to her being the now-alive counterpart of Hamuko in that timeline). 

Her Persona will be Ishtar, Messiah, or a greek/roman deity 

She’ll be tied to a different Corvidae, like a rook or magpie, similar to how Arsene and Goro are tied to Raven/Crows

This is probably more analysis than a theory, but she’s probably queen of the chess board with MC/Goro being the kings. Question is-is if she’s on the black side or white side or if she’s playing both queens.