#Plus it was part of the Anniversary Swap

[whysamwhy123]

Hmmm...what if I continued Voice in the Dark?

Maybe? At some point? Somehow? Just a little...

[remidyal]

So I'm going to start speculating a little about future D20 seasons, just because we're running out of JY and thinking about that makes me sad.

My guess is that we're getting another four side quests, plus the replays of the Time Quangle live shows, before whenever the next IH season is (probably jan or feb 2025). From Dropout's production schedule, most likely at least two, probably three, and maybe all four are either already filmed or filming presently. The strikes may have disrupted this somewhat, however.

We know the names of two from the 5th anniversary video; we also know from the JY FAQ for a fact that one of these two, called "Never Stop Blowing Up" is next.

In the last few years this has been the slot for a campaign not GMed by Brennan or Aabria; I'm going to actually guess that there's a decent chance Brennan also won't be a player though I'm not at all sure of the timing with paternity leave and all. What the season is from that title could be a lot of things, though social media stars or stuntpeople have been guesses I've enjoyed. I think this is going to be a new setting, rather than something set in a preexisting universe, but I could be wrong there and there's been speculation that it might be something Starstruck (in which case I WOULD expect Brennan at the table).

GM possibilities for this or any other season even just from among people who have played on D20 before are too widespread to even do a complete list; highlights who have played on but haven't GMed for D20 and who I understand have experience (and would be excited to see) include but certainly aren't limited to Jasper, Ify, and Anjali from various side quests. Among the IH, Siobhan has made it fairly clear that she's not interested in GMing. I don't know if Ally has experience or not but they would obviously run something wild and I'd be here for it. Lou I believe has DMed home games but not actual plays; I'm uncertain if he'd be interested in running for a show, but I'd certainly watch if he did. Emily and especially Murph have a ton of experience as well but I think NADDPOD is kind of too much for Murph at least to GM outside that. Zac is low-key the IH I think is the most likely to end up GMing a season; rotating heroes is a thing, of course, but I don't think the workload there is as high as NADDPOD's.

We also know a Dungeons and Drag Queens 2 is coming at some point. The most likely format for this is a straightforward sequel with Brennan GMing for either the same four players or four different Queens, but I would actually love to see one of the players from the prior run step into the GM seat if any of them have gotten deeply into the hobby in the meantime. If they swap Brennan out for another DM here, this would maybe be the one season where I'd be delighted for it to be Murph, simply for the makeup possibilities. (One possibility is simply that he wears Cody Walsh cosplay for the season.)

I also think (or maybe I'm just trying to speak into existence) that we will get another 10-episode Aabria-GMed season this year, probably as the lead-in right before the next IH season for the third time running. Burrow's End and ACoFaF are both out of this world, stellar seasons to me (MiMa is... complicated by how much I want the property it's mocking to fade from memory, but that isn't its fault or hers) and I want to see what she does next.

Last, probably between D&DQ2 and that 10-episode season if that happens, we'll probably have another 4-6 episode original. If Brennan DMs D&DQ2 and Never Stop Blowing Up, this will probably be someone else; otherwise, not much to go off of.

It's possible that the live shows end up filling in one of these slots and are treated as a season until themselves, but I think they're going to be released not all in a row but rather to fill weeks between seasons. This might just be a greedy hope on my part, though! I do hope Brennan sits out at least one season, and I'd love it if the person who GMs who isn't Aabria or Brennan is someone who's done less prominent projects. (I'm actually talking myself into really rooting for a Zac-GMed season, though Ify's been my main hope for a long while.)

One thing that does seem to have shifted lately, specifically in Dropout's marketing - in the past, they were always extremely secretive about seasons past the currently airing one until it was complete, with the names not even known until the release of the season trailers. This changed a little when they teased Matt Mercer gming a season (which turned out to be RavWar) during Never After's airing; it's changed much more in the last two seasons, with a teaser for Junior Year coming out before Burrow's End had even started airing and with the names of multiple seasons being given in advance. It wouldn't surprise me if we continue getting little seeds for future seasons as we move forward.

[thelazyhermits]

For those of y'all who might be curious after hearing about recent ENG news, I am aware of the fact that Tsum Part 3 is coming to the ENG server this week, which still blows my mind since I really was NOT expecting to see this event this year lol, but I don't intend to start writing a fic for it in the near future cause I wanna first at least wait until the event ends.

Plus, I'm currently working on my version of the JPN 2024 Halloween event, which is what I'm in the mood to write at this point in time, so more than likely, I won't start on my final tsum fic until after I finish the other fic first.

Also, it might take me a little while to do the tsum fic simply cause I haven't completely decided what I wanna do for it. Like I'm thinking I should go with a theme like I did with my second tsum fic, but I haven't decided what that theme should be.

I'm also considering throwing Grim's tsum into the fic despite it not appearing in the event cause I'm honestly half-expecting Grim to get a tsum-themed SR for the next JPN anniversary or for a future anniversary since we always get a new Grim card every year and I could just easily see him getting his own tsum card eventually.

If that were to happen, I think I would do a tsum swap between Yuu & Idia since Idia would obviously want Grim's tsum over his own and Yuu would like to keep Grim's tsum away from Grim cause those two would not get along at all 😂

Anyway, I just wanted to give y'all a quick update about Tsum Part 3. Also, if y'all have any ideas for the tsum fic, I'd love to hear them! They might provide the inspiration I need ^^

[zeestarfishalien]

Zee's Fic List

This is not all of them or all of my prompt responses but most of the main ones.

My Graveyard Song (DP x DC) Church Grim Danny AU: There’s an unmarked grave in the back of the Gotham City Cemetery (Is being updated both on Tumblr and on AO3) Here’s the link to the master post on tumblr

Satiate (DP x DC) Mature content mind the tags; Ghost Cannibalism AU: A gory horror comedy fic about Jason and Danny meeting and Jason learning there’s more to the dead than meets the eye. (On AO3 only, part of the “It’s a Ghost Eat Ghost World” series)

The Mysteries and Marvels of One Morgan Sterling S&D Tier Power Swap AU: a 5 things plus 1 fic The 5 times Morgan leaves Alex confused and the one time Alex actually gets answers (On AO3 now with companion fic!)

Another Duckin’ Day (DPxDC) Tim Drake x Danny Fenton; Tim is moving out of Wayne Manor into an apartment with his boyfriend. What does that have to do with ducks? (oneshot)

D-Day (DPxDC) Duke Thomas x Danny Fenton; Danny just so happened to forget to tell Duke a couple of maybe might possibly be semi-important things. 1. He's Phantom 2. Things get weird on the anniversary of his death. (oneshot)

All Dolled Up (DPxDC) Jasmine Fenton x The Outlaws (Red Hood, Starfire, and Arsenal); When Jazz ventures forth from Amity, she causes quite the stir, especially among a certain vigilante trio. (ongoing)

Peace was Never an Option (DPxDC); The Infinite Realms are taking matters into their own hands and outing the United States' sins to the world in an attempt to avoid war. A gift to Tathy for the BatPham server's 2022 Secret Santa!

Invasion of the Body Swapper (DPxDC): There's a new ghost in town. Jason gets more than a little caught up in the chaos. My gift to Arlie from the Batpham Discord Server for the 2023 Batpham Secret Santa event!

Tumblr: go to work AO3: go to work (DPxDC) one shot song fic of Danny overworking himself. It’s only mildly a crossover. Based on the song “go to work” by kiwifrooot

Things we shouldn’t start (DPxDC) one shot? fic with Danny as Duke’s attack falcon, aka the phalcon au. AO3: Like Holding a Couple of Grapes

DPxDC Week 2023 Masterpost

Demon Twins "the better twin" ficlet on Tumblr only: Here

Idk what to call this but it's essentially Danny taking on conner through mentorship after a misunderstanding with the rest of the league. Just a ficlet only here on Tumblr

[xthelastknownsurvivorx]

2023 Writing Roundup

Thanks @inexplicablymine for the tag! This was a lot of fun to do

January

Satisfied (Never Have Been, Never Will Be) — RWRB, T, 833

Or, a rewrite of the lyrics of "Satisfied" from Hamilton set at the beginning of Philip and Martha's wedding, except Alex is a little flirtier and a little less repressed, told from Henry's pov.

February

Some Element of Mystery — RWRB, M, 4k

Or, five times that Alex thought Henry was a stripper, plus one time Henry corrected him. Written for the informal stripper!Henry fest.

March

Was working on finishing my master's thesis instead of fic for the most part, though I did write a few drabbles and make progress on my reincarnation au (see November)

April

Burn (They're Watching Us/I Hope That They) — RWRB, T, 295

Or, a rewrite of the lyrics of "Burn" from Hamilton, set immediately after the email leak, told from Alex's pov.

May

Graduated/finished my master's 🎉🎉 while also writing more of my reincarnation au (see November), including some major revisions

June

Got sick for part of the month, then spent the rest of it furiously working on my brownstone anniversary exchange fic (see July) doing tons of (probably unnecessary) research about Saturday Night Live and royal weddings.

July

SNL | Season 45 Episode 2 | HRH Prince Henry & FSOTUS Alex Claremont-Diaz — RWRB, M, 9k

Or, the fic in which I said bet and sent firstprince onto Saturday Night Live instead of having Alex go to London for a weekend. Written for the Brownstone Anniversary Fic Exchange.

August

Spent the month trying to make a lot of progress on reincarnation au (see November) and finally got some betas

September

Had a bad case of writer's block for most of the month, then went insane and wrote something for firstprince week (see October) despite promising myself I wasn't going to participate

October

Not a Day I Don't Miss (Those Rude Interruptions) — RWRB, T, 2k

Or, a Henry character study set during the week following Henry running from the lake house, loosely inspired by Taylor Swift's "Last Kiss". Written for firstprince week.

November

Red, White, and Royal Switcheroo — RWRB, T, 6k

Or, a body swap au set during Alex's "make nice" trip to England in which Alex and Henry have to play at being each other, and Alex discovers Henry's role is, in fact, very much not much easier to play. Written for Halloween, Huh?

Every Time My Heart Swings Back to You — RWRB, M, ~90k (ongoing)

Or, a reincarnation au set mostly in the modern era with college students Alex and Henry trying to piece together the story of their past lives as a knight and a prince through a series of non-linear flashbacks.

December

Trying my best to finish reincarnation au while also plotting out a very ambitious fic for a new fandom (mysterious lotus casebook) that I'll be trying to tackle in 2024. Also the month I got super into cdramas/c-ent.

--

Wow, compiling all this made me realize I wrote a whole lot more than I thought: posting 9 stories and writing around 50k new words! I also participated in a lot more fan events than ever before and finally begin sharing the story that's been living in my brain and docs only for almost three years. All in all, a very satisfying year for me while also looking forward to new projects in 2024~

I'm probably one of the last wants to get to this but tagging a few others who I don't think have done this (let me know though if you have) @14carrotghoul @formorewishes @affectionatelyrs @anincompletelist @celaestis1 @celeritas2997 @cricketnationrise, plus open tag because I'd love to see anyone else's writing year in review~

[sexynetra]

7 for anarcia for the asks

7. ”go ahead, leave. i don’t care anymore just leave,”

I didn’t go into this intending to write hurt/no comfort but… I’m so sorry 😅

~~~~~~~~~~

Anetra was exhausted of this. She was exhausted of the constant fighting, of the passive aggressive remarks, of the thinly veiled resentment. She still loved Marcia. She would always love Marcia, but she didn’t know how much longer she could last like this. Something needed to change.

Her chest felt tight as she watched the clock on the wall tick over to the 9, the untouched dinner abandoned on the dining table long cold. She had no clue where Marcia was. She had stopped asking, for the most part. It never got her any answers anyways. And she wasn’t even certain she wanted to know. Confirming her suspicions would hurt more than the what-if’s.

Still, she felt her heart clench even more when she finally heard the front door unlocking a half an hour later. She didn’t want to do this. Doing this meant losing the most important thing in her life. But… in a way, she had already lost her.

“Marcia? Babe? Is that you?” She called out from where she was curled on the couch, date night attire swapped for cozy sweats and reading glasses, already on her third cigarette of the evening. She heard Marcia’s heels clicking on the hardwood floors before she saw the familiar coiffed blonde head of hair poking around the corner. She looked beautiful as ever, and Anetra could hardly look at her.

“Yeah, just me. You didn’t have to wait up for me, babe—“ she trailed off, eyes making their way to the smoldering cigarette still delicately held between Anetra’s index and middle finger. Marcia let out an indignant disgusted noise, crossing her arms and glaring at the offending object. “I’ve told you a million times not to smoke in the house. Plus, you told me you were trying to quit. Where did you get those cancer sticks anyways? I threw away all the packs in the house last week.”

Anetra closed her eyes, taking a long drag as she contemplated what to say. “It’s the only thing that helps me relax anymore.” She settled on finally. “And I’ve had a hell of a lot to be anxious about over the past few months. So forgive me for falling back to old habits, but I’m not sure you get a say in how I live my life. You certainly don’t let me have a say in how you live yours.”

Marcia’s eyes narrowed dangerously and Anetra steeled herself for the coming blows. “I don’t know what you’re trying to imply, Anetra, but I would be very careful how you proceed if I were you. You’d best not make any claims you can’t back up.” She hissed out and Anetra snapped, pushing herself to her feet and storming over to where Marcia was in the doorway.

“Oh, fuck all the way off with your empty threats. You don’t scare me. If you had nothing to hide, you would have told me where you were the first god damn time I asked you! But no. You’re fucking cagey every time I ask, and you’ve been getting home later and later and I have enough self respect to not let you string me along like some naive lovesick fool.” She growled, feeling her face going pink with anger.

Marcia took an instinctive step back, but the angry expression never left her face. “You don’t own me. You don’t get to know where I am 24/7 just cause we’re dating. You have no right to control me. I’m your girlfriend, that should be enough for you to trust me.”

Anetra threw her arms up in frustration, a humorless laugh escaping. “I never once wanted to control you, oh my god. I haven’t gone through your shit, I haven’t followed you anywhere. I’ve let this shit slide for months now. You’ve missed date nights, my performances. Family dinners, events, our fucking anniversary, and you still won’t tell me where you are or who you’re with. I want to trust you more than anything but I’m not an idiot. You don’t get blind trust anymore, you lost that privilege.”

Marcia’s jaw twitched and Anetra thought she saw a hint of sadness pass over Marcia’s face, but it was back to anger almost immediately, and Anetra half wondered if she had imagined it.

“God, you’re so fucking insecure, it’s crazy. Im spending time with my friends and staying late at work. You’re creating these fantastical stories about me to try and justify how controlling you are. I don’t have to put up with any of this, you know.”

Anetra stared at her, mouth open. Anetra was far from perfect, but she was far from a controlling partner. She had let so much slide without so much as a word of discontent slip. And she was done. “Go ahead, leave. I don’t care anymore, just leave,” her voice cracked on the final word and she had to blink rapidly to keep her tears at bay. She heard Marcia’s sharp inhale and brought the cigarette back to her lips, praying the nicotine would keep her calm enough to get through this.

“Wait, Anetra, babe, I didn’t—“ she started but Anetra cut her off before she could get her thoughts out.

“I’m serious. I can’t do this anymore. I love you, but… I just can’t. I’m sorry. Please just… just go.” The first tears spilled over and she clenched her eyes shut, embarrassed and overwhelmed. She felt Marcia’s thumb on her cheek a moment later, swiping at the wayward tears, and she flinched at the contact. “Don’t… don’t do that. Please. This is too hard already.” She whispered, more to herself than to Marcia.

Her resolve nearly broke entirely when she felt Marcia’s soft lips pressing a kiss to her forehead, wracking a small sob out of her. “I’m not letting you go without a fight, Neech. I can’t… I won’t. I’m gonna fight for us, even if you won’t.” She whispered against Anetra’s skin. Anetra wanted to believe her. More than anything in the world.

But she didn’t. “I’m sorry. I wish that was enough.” She sniffled, stepping back. Marcia’s jaw flexed and she looked down to the floor.

“Yeah. Me too.”

[melmosdogtreats]

Can Dogs Eat Doggie Cakes? A Fun Treat Explained!

As dog owners, we all love spoiling our furry friends, and what better way to celebrate special moments than with doggie cakes? These pet-friendly treats are popping up everywhere—from birthday parties to pet bakeries—and they look as delicious as human desserts. But the big question many pet owners ask is: Can dogs eat doggie cakes? Are they safe and healthy for our pups? Let’s explore the ins and outs of doggie cakes and whether they make a suitable treat for your canine companion.

What Are Doggie Cakes?

Doggie cakes are specially designed cakes made for dogs. Unlike regular cakes, which contain ingredients that are harmful or indigestible for dogs, doggie cakes are made using safe, pet-friendly ingredients. These cakes can come in a variety of flavors and styles, often resembling mini versions of the cakes we enjoy.

Ingredients commonly used in doggie cakes include whole wheat flour, peanut butter, pumpkin, oats, and yogurt. Some even have dog-safe frosting made from ingredients like cream cheese or unsweetened applesauce. These cakes are specifically crafted to avoid toxic ingredients such as chocolate, raisins, sugar, and artificial sweeteners like xylitol, which are dangerous to dogs.

Are Doggie Cakes Safe for Dogs?

Yes, doggie cakes & Canine Cakes are generally safe for dogs when made from approved ingredients. Since they are created specifically for canine consumption, the chances of your dog having a negative reaction to them are slim. However, as with all treats, moderation is key. Overfeeding your doggie cake can result in an upset stomach or weight gain, so it's important to treat it as an occasional indulgence.

It's also a good idea to check the ingredients list before giving your dog any cake, especially if your pup has allergies or sensitivities to certain diet. For example, while peanut butter is commonly used in doggie cakes, some dogs are allergic to peanuts. If you're making a cake at home, you can easily swap out ingredients based on your dog’s dietary needs.

Why Choose Doggie Cakes Over Regular Cakes?

You might wonder why you can’t just give your dog a small slice of a regular cake. The main reason is that human cakes contain many ingredients that are harmful to dogs. Sugar, for instance, is not a necessary part of a dog’s diet and can lead to obesity, diabetes, and dental problems. Chocolate, a common cake flavor, is toxic to dogs and can cause serious health issues, including vomiting, diarrhea, and even death in severe cases.

Other ingredients like butter, dairy, and some oils can also upset a dog’s digestive system. That's why doggie cakes, which are free from these harmful ingredients, are a much safer option. Plus, they often contain ingredients like pumpkin or oats that offer health benefits, including better digestion and skin health.

When Can You Give Your Dog a Doggie Cake?

Doggie cakes are perfect for special occasions! Whether you’re celebrating your dog’s birthday, adoption anniversary, or just want to treat them for being a good boy or girl, a doggie cake can add some extra fun to the day. Pet bakeries even offer customized cakes with your dog’s name and favorite flavors, making the celebration even more personalized.

These cakes can also be used for social gatherings, like doggy playdates or events at dog parks. If you’re planning a birthday party for your pup and inviting other dogs, you can be sure everyone can safely enjoy a slice of the doggie cake.

How to Make Doggie Cakes at Home

Making a doggie cake at home is easy and allows you to control the ingredients. Here’s a simple recipe you can try:

Ingredients:

1 cup of whole wheat flour (or gluten-free flour for dogs with sensitivities)

1/4 cup of peanut butter (make sure it’s xylitol-free)

1/2 cup of pumpkin puree (unsweetened)

1 egg

1/4 cup of water

Optional frosting: plain yogurt or cream cheese

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C) and grease a small cake pan.

In a bowl, mix the flour, peanut butter, pumpkin puree, egg, and water until well combined.

Pour the batter into the cake pan and smooth the top.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Let the cake cool before frosting with plain yogurt or cream cheese.

This recipe makes a small, dog-safe cake that your pup is sure to love!

Conclusion: A Fun, Safe Treat for Your Furry Friend

Doggie Cakes for Dogs are a fun and safe way to treat your dog, especially during special moments. With ingredients specifically tailored to their dietary needs, you can feel confident that you’re giving your furry friend a treat they’ll enjoy without risking their health. Whether you buy one from a pet bakery or make one at home, doggie cakes are a great way to celebrate your dog while keeping their well-being in mind.

Remember, while these cakes are safe, they should still be given in moderation as an occasional treat. Your pup’s health and happiness always come first!

Read Also: Top 5 Homemade Dog Treats Your Pup Will Love

[marvel-m-lee]

Hemsworth's Tickle Monster •Part 1- Reunion•

Fandom: Marvel

Words: 1664

●○●This is a Tickle Fic●○●

(Set in 2018)

Mini Series Summary: Its Marvels 10 year anniversary and Robert set up a party for some of the actors. Y/n is known for enjoying being tickled, and shes the youngest avenger. You see where it's going.

-

"How long till we get there?" You asked, both you and Sebastian were in your car driving to a meet up with everyone else, it was the 10 year anniversary of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and RDJ set up a picnic for some of the actors.

You, Stan, Maccie, Evens, Hemsworth, Johansson, Ruffalo, Hiddleston, Cumberbatch, Rudd, Pratt, Olsen, Bettany, Holland, Batalon, zendaya and a few others were coming.

He set it up because he thought it would be nice for us all to meet up again. You were all going to some field for the whole day to have a massive picnic and at night you were going to binge the movies!

"Not too long, only 20 minutes" You sighed, you have been in the car for almost 40 minutes and had to get up pretty early. Stan came to pick you up at your house and convince you to have a nap. Plus he had your favourite blanket in the car at all times.

You and Seb began to chat, "Who you most excited to see Sebby?" Stan concentrated on the road but turned to look at you with one eyebrow furrowed in thought. "Hmm, not too sure, Maccie and I will probably annoy the shit outta Tom though" You laughed, you knew how much they liked to annoy and tease holland, they liked to do it to you too but were more careful, you were both the kids in the group.

"Poor Tom, you always tease him" you both laughed before he took one hand off the steering wheel and squeezed your knee. "AH! Sebastian!" You giggled and pulled your leg away, it was too early for this.

"Aw, I'm sorry doll" He winked at you before continuing to drive. He had picked up calling you Doll from your scenes together while acting. It just caught on after a while outside if acting.

You rolled your eyes, knowing that that wouldn't be the first time he'd try to do this. Seb and Maccie loved teasing you about it, everyone knew you enjoyed being tickled, it slipped out one time and word spread but no one treated you differently, well other than a few pricks on the internet but they were all homophobic and racist too so you really couldn't give a fuck about them.

Everyone else found it adorable, RDJ would tease you because he was like a dad, see you and Tom were around the same age but you'd been in the MCU since Scarlett had Downey had plenty of time to get to know you. And unsurprisingly when he had found out, he wasn't shocked at all. He says it was his "Dad Sense".

"See look, were here now" Seb exclaimed as he turned into a parking lot between a bunch of trees. It really was like the middle of no where, there were fields fir Mike's and bushes surrounding so if any fans drove past they wouldn't know we were there.

"Alright, get out" Seb ordered, you smiled at him as he turned off the car and you hopped out grabbing your handbag from the back. Stan stretched then walked to the car boot and opening it pulling out two blankets, two towels and a big shopping like bag. You gave him a questioning look before he shoved the towels in your face.

"Thank's for offering to help" He teased.

"I didn't know we had to bring these things?!" You asked in a panic, you had only brought a purse with a few bits and pieces, Seb on the other hand had brought almost everything.

"I know, I got it for you" he laughed as he began walking, you quickly followed him, the towels still in your face.

"Why didn't anyone tell me?!" You asked, kind of annoyed how you couldn't help. Seb had thrown the blankets over his shoulder and held the bag in his hand, you on the other hand had your purse in the inner corner of your elbow and held the towels folded with two hands covering your vision.

"Because you're a kid, dont worry holland didn't bring anything either"

"I'm not a kid! Im 19 you beefcake!" It's true, you had been in the mcu for around a decade and joined as a kid, but sadly that just meant everyone else knew you as a kid and even now saw you as one. Well sometimes.

"Can you drink alcohol?"

"Um-"

"Can you drive?"

"Yes!"

Seb turned to you with a raised brow. "Really?"

"Partly...." you admitted.

"I'm not a kid though Sebastian! I'm just- young"

"You're a baby, a coot wittle baby" he pitched your cheek and began baby talking you making you blush. You just rolled your eyes and turned away to him in which made him poke your side and laugh at your reaction.

"Oh fuck you" you true to sound serious but couldn't help it, you never meant the rude remarks you meant, you cared for them all dearly.

"Sorry doll, but you're not my type" Blush arose on your face but what did you expect? Stan enjoyed a good sex joke or two.

"Oh shut up, you only wish you could get this" you remarked as you placed a hand on your hip trying to look confident, then almost dropped the towels and tripped-

"Hey y/n" Luckily someone caught you, the Australian accent told you straight away as he helped you up. "You alright? Not going on a trip without sending me a card right?" You laughed at his jokes, Hemsworth was definitely one of the funniest, no matter what he did he made you laugh.

"Yeah, thank you, I'm glad someone can help me" You shot a look at Sebastian when elaborating the word 'someone'. He just laughed at you as you all walked in.

Your confidence now gained back on you and as you entered the mini arch of thick bushes when you saw everyone you handed the towels to Chris and made some sort of strange Y with your arms and bowed.

"Your saviour is here!"

All heads turned to you, the youngest avenger in the team who seemed to have some of the best confidence as a kid- as long as you werent being flustered.

Everyone laughed and then Chris threw the towels over you and picked you up over his shoulder making everyone laugh harder. The area already seemed to be livid.

"Chrisssssssss!!!!" You whined, unable to even see.

"Yessssssssss?" He mocked as he wondered to a table with everyones things on and placed a bag there.

"Put me down!" You kicked making him laugh and just swap which arm he held you with to the other shoulder, he then took the towels off and placed them on his bag so you would know where they were. Sebastian followed and once he had put his stuff down Chris turned to him and asked him if he knew where you where.

"Sebastian where did y/n go?"

Sebastian just laughed and looked around, "I dunno, she was right here a moment ago?"

"I dont know... I'm sure she'll be fine though" That's when you began to feel Chris' fingers slowly start to curl in on each other and wiggle, see he was holding you over his shoulder so you could see his butt, and held you around the waist to make sure you wouldn't fall.

"Chihihissss!" You began to squirm but thanks to his large build it didnt seem to faze him.

"What was that?" He asked looking around as his fingers began becoming quicker, now also squeezing your sides.

You giggled on top of him in his grasp, wiggling away unable to do anything trying to keep in your laughter because it was only 10:30 or something in the morning.

"Robert? This music is great!" He teased as he helped over to RDJ who put a thumb up, knowing they were teasing you.

"Chrihihihis! Stapppp" you tried to squirm away out of his neck but he just turned and rubbed his beard into you, a fountain of giggles and laughter mix flowing from your lips.

He then continued to tickle you with his fingers and began to dance, flopping you and himself around.

"This mush is the bomb!" He yelled as he was almost in the centre of the area catching everyones attention.

"CHRIHIHISSS!!" Your giggles and laughter mixed between one another, the teasing made you blush but the audience of all your co workers? Oh god- it was too much to actually see them all. And so helpless too.

"Wait did someone hear y/n?" He asked looking around for you, then he picked you up with both hands and held you above the ground.

"There you were! We were all so worried! We thought you had been taken by the tickle monster!" He then began to wiggle his fingers into your sides and belly, moving to your ribs before cradling you in one arm and tickling you with the other.

"CHRIHIHISS NAHAH!" Your laughter echoed, infectious and adorable at your helpless state.

"Aw but you love it dont you?" The teasing was becoming a bit too much as you tried to wiggle out of his grasp. You were 19 and being tickle tortured by Chris Hemsworth in front of all your coworkers and friends!

"Aw here we go, is she all worn out? Awww" he cooed at you as he tucked a piece of hair behind your ear, stopping his attack.

He put you down and you almost doubled over with ghost tickles, giggling having to hold onto Sebastian for support.

"Ihihi hate yohohou"

"You love me" he winked st you before giving your pink cheek a kiss and walking over to Hiddleston and Ruffalo.

"Oh today's gonna be fun for you y/n" Stan chuckled, everyone knew that wouldn't be the last time you were tickled today.

[troquantary]

Didyme, Part 2: Something, Something, Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Continuing from here, and we’re doing sub-parts for this bit. I’m genuinely surprised I had this much to say. (And fun fact, I almost lost the entire goddamn post, but fortunately I was copy-pasting into Word just in case. Not today, Satan.)

2.1. What Canon Tells Us

Didyme’s murder by Aro (and with Caius’ apparent assistance, either during or afterwards), is only mentioned on the page in Life and Death, the 10th Anniversary gender-swapped version of Twilight. Edythe/Edward mentions it briefly when discussing the painting of the leaders Carine/Carlisle brought back from Volterra, but it’s just background information with little narrative weight. I bring it up just to highlight Caius’ involvement and knowledge -- I’ll get back to that.

Now, here’s the “canon” backstory we have to work with. Per the illustrated guide, Didyme was Aro’s younger sister, and he turned her at some point after meeting Marcus, Caius, and Athenadora. Interestingly, the Guide doesn’t say anything about Aro returning to Didyme out of brotherly love; apparently he just wanted to see if she would have a powerful gift like his, only to be underwhelmed (”disappointed,” according to his Guide entry) by her actual ability -- she made people happy just by being around them. Then she and Marcus fell in love, sharing “the strongest romantic bond of any of the Volturi” (from Marcus’ Guide entry), and this prompted a suddenly very single Aro to seek out his own mate, Sulpicia. The Guide says Didyme “distracted” Marcus from Aro’s goals, and that the pair eventually made plans to split off on their own, leading Aro to murder Didyme so he could hold onto Marcus and his valuable gift. Although nothing written so far suggests that Aro even liked his sister, the Guide does state that Aro “truly loved her” and that his grief upon killing Didyme was genuine.

Apparently Caius’ role in all is was something Meyer thought up later, because none of the leaders’ Guide entries mention him being in on it. (You can’t see me, but I’m staring pointedly at Part One.)

2.2. Fuck Canon, Actually

(This just seemed like the funniest place for a cut. Continued below~)

I’ll be honest with you, person who’s persistent/unfortunate enough to still be here: very little about this murder scenario makes sense to me. I’m going to start with the “disappointing” nature of Didyme’s gift and that it was supposedly much less useful to Aro than Marcus’, because that’s just...stupid, frankly, and there’s no way Aro would have missed the inherent utility of Didyme’s gift. I don’t even have to read into anything to get this idea -- the Guide itself shows us how useful it is! It says right there in Marcus’ entry that Aro went off to turn Didyme, and returned with his sister, “along with the first members of the guard -- vampires who were drawn to Didyme’s aura of happiness.” That is a direct quote.

Just -- I practically shrieked when I read that. You’re telling me that Didyme’s gift was the stated reason their coven got its first subordinates, and I’m supposed to believe that Aro thought that was disappointing? Fuck off! Fuck off!! Even if Didyme’s happiness aura isn’t as powerful as Corin’s opium haze, well, Aro doesn’t have Corin yet, does he? He has every reason in the world to want to keep Didyme around, drawing other vampires to his cause -- even if most of those vampires aren’t gifted or skilled enough to join the guard, it’s still good PR.

At this early stage in the Volturi’s rise to power, it isn’t a good time to lose Didyme -- or any of his inner coven, really. Yet Aro apparently considered her disposable enough that he killed her. I can’t square this with what we know about Aro: that he’s still coherent despite holding god-knows how many people’s lives in his head; that he’s very intelligent; that he’s cunning, charming, and persuasive. Aro, once he learned they were thinking about leaving, would have tried to talk to Didyme and Marcus and done everything in his power to convince them to stay just a bit longer, until the Volturi’s position was more secure. And maybe he did; the timeline of all this is hazy, but nothing in the Guide suggests that Aro jumped straight to duplicity and murder. Clearly, though, whatever negotiations or arguments he presented failed. So what does their desire to leave the Volturi at this critical stage say about Didyme, or Marcus for that matter?

2.3. What It Says About Didyme and Marcus (Mostly Headcanon)

Brace yourself, because we’re into full headcanon territory now. To follow me, please refer to @therealvinelle ‘s meta about the larger mission of the Volturi and why they’re necessary, because I’m starting from the perspective that the Volturi are ultimately a force working in vampires’ and humans’ favor. While Meyer and the Guide would have you believe that Aro’s just power-hungry, actually looking at the impact of the Volturi and the benefits of enforcing secrecy shows that his broader vision isn’t just world domination, but establishing a world in which vampires and humans can both thrive and endure. There’s no way the rest of the inner coven was unaware of this goal; we know Aro talks a lot, so he’s certainly talked his coven’s ears off about this.

Now, we know very little about Marcus and what he was like before he was all dead inside. Based on what would be a logical balance of personalities, with Aro as lead decision-maker and Caius as ruthless enforcer, it seems likely that Marcus was originally the voice of reason and/or mercy. I also think Marcus would have had a strong sense of duty. The Guide says that Aro was the first friend Marcus had as a vampire, and I believe that Marcus cared about him very much and was committed to the Volturi. I think he would have been genuinely conflicted about leaving, especially considering the stabler, safer world the Volturi have been striving to build, and which they haven’t yet secured. Again, it’s a very bad time for any of the leadership to split off -- but in the end, Marcus and Didyme are going to do it anyway.

What for, though? Why leave? @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin has an interesting take on that question here: that Didyme saw that she and Marcus would be locked into the Volturi life and a thankless existence for eternity and tried to opt out while she still could. I like it a lot, it’s a great post and that scenario makes sense, but the tone of it feels...too forgiving. Maybe that’s because I’m evil. But the way I see it, given the magnitude of the Volturi’s mission, and its (at best) very tenuous grip on power at the time Marcus and Didyme plan to leave (they haven’t even defeated the Romanians yet), jeopardizing the entire operation so that they can pursue their romance unburdened strikes me as...well, fundamentally selfish on some level, so much that I find myself side-eyeing Didyme and Marcus for it. Although to be clear, it’s not the desire to live their own lives apart from the Volturi that I find selfish, just the timing of their departure.

Honestly, I’d like not to vilify another female character if I don’t have to. Given everything I’ve just said, I see Didyme in much the same way as I see Bella: not a bad person, but someone with definite selfish tendencies. At best, she’s likely short-sighted or naive if she doesn’t see how leaving the Volturi at this stage is fucking them over in a big way. However, I hesitate to read into the happiness aura as a straightforward indication of Didyme’s fundamental goodness; I think she probably was kind, charming, and delightful to be around, hence the nature of her gift -- but that capacity for selfishness is still there. (I’m certain Meyer wants us to take her gift as proof of Didyme’s goodness, to reinforce how evil Aro is for killing her...but I think I’ve made my disdain for what Meyer wants me to think pretty clear.)

2.4. MURDER MOST FOUL

I am not saying it was justifiable or okay for Aro to murder his sister. I’m really not. It’s actually better, from a character standpoint, that it isn’t okay -- that Aro has to carry this with him for the rest of his life while Marcus sits in the throne next to him, reduced to a husk, so that in effect Aro has lost them both after all. It’s got that Greek tragedy element @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin​ mentioned in her post. (Even better from that standpoint, the Guide implies that Aro found Chelsea relatively soon after killing Didyme, which compounds the tragedy.) I mean, it’s terrible, and it hurts me because I love Aro, but it’s compelling stuff.

What I am saying is, I can see how their insistence on leaving might have deeply hurt and offended him. And that brings me to my issue with the calculated murder scenario the Guide gives us -- I still think Didyme’s gift is too valuable for Aro to throw away by killing her in cold...venom (or whatever), even as the price for keeping Marcus in the fold. Plus, there’s the fact that Aro does love Didyme, and I imagine her gift makes it very difficult for people to think of harming her...when they’re calm, anyway.

Yeah, the only way I can really see the murder happening is if Aro killed Didyme in the heat of an argument about her leaving, possibly even by accident -- except you can’t accidentally kill a vampire, can you? It’s a very deliberate process wherein you have to dismember them and burn every piece, which also means it probably takes long enough that any irrational, overwhelming rage would wear off before you were done. But now that you’ve started....

I mean, at that point it would certainly be awkward to put your half-rubble sister back together, and Aro would be in a whole other load of shit even if he did. It’s possible, given what we’re told, that Aro could have lashed out and yanked Didyme’s head off before snapping out of it, only to realize that his sole option now is to finish the job. If he doesn’t kill Didyme now, she and Marcus won’t just leave, they’ll be sworn enemies of Aro from then on. And thanks to Didyme’s gift being the draw for a lot of the guard, and the inherently bad look of a leader who would brutally attack his own sister, a chunk of the guard would probably leave with them, destroying Aro’s plans. No, the only way to salvage it is to follow through.

Then Aro has to call in Caius for help with the cover-up, because it wasn’t actually planned and it’s just pure luck that no one walked in on the murder as it was happening.

And maybe Aro learns a hard lesson about learning to let people walk away, leaving the possibility open that they could be drawn in again. Because if Aro had just waited, he would have found Chelsea, and with her gift he could have had Marcus and Didyme back again.

Assuming everything didn’t fall apart as soon as they left, of course. But that’s a whole other what-if scenario.

[facets-and-rainbows]

Blue Exorcist 10th anniversary book Q&A session

The 10th anniversary book has a section where Katoh answers 100 questions submitted by fans on Twitter, so here they are translated/paraphrased! May contain manga spoilers up to the recent flashback arc, so be warned.

(Note that I’m playing it very fast and loose here because there are A HUNDRED OF THEM, so not exact wordings, but it should capture the gist. Lemme know if there are any you want elaborated on)

1. Katoh likes the feel of traditional drawing more than digital but is impressed with how far digital has come

2. Meph THOROUGHLY ABUSES spacetime to watch all his shows and ensure that he gets all the merch he wants

3. Did the girls take all of Yukio’s school uniform buttons in middle school? Yes, they did (apparently it’s like A Thing for girls to ask for a button from their crush at middle school graduation, based on some sad movie from the 60s where a guy who got drafted as a kamikaze pilot gave a girl one of his uniform buttons to remember him by)

4. Rin's tail is about a meter long

5. There are tons of servants working at Mephisto's mansion. Belial is in charge of them

6. Katoh borrows from all sorts of neat real locations when making settings

7. Katoh identifies with pretty much all the characters the most! Except Lucifer.

8. Demon designs she's proud of include the impure king and hachirou, pretty much anything that was the main one in an arc

9. Katoh lists a bunch of her favorite musical artists/music she’s listening to recently: King Gnu, Official Hige Dandism, Kenshi Yonezu, BAD HOP, Sakanaction, Keyakizaka 46, Hypnosis Mic, Aimer, B’Z, Queen Bee.

10. Awww the rabbit manga that characters are often reading isn't just Robo to Usakichi, it's an even older one that she drew as a little kid

11. She likes industrial style interior designs

12. Rin and Yukio alternated who got the top bunk growing up, because they couldn't agree on it lol

13. Katoh cares a whole lot about panel layouts and speech bubble positions, might even be her favorite part of the process (it shows!)

4. Katoh does NOT have a mashou, lol

15. Rin has probably been practicing in secret so he can learn to carry stuff with his tail

16. Izumo probably got into shojo manga around 1st grade, her mom had some around the house

17. Specialty dishes: Rin - lots of stuff but especially nabe Yuri - stuff you can throw together quickly Shiro - stuff he learned from Yuri and/or cookbooks, alongside teaching Rin Yukio - Does. Not. Cook.

18. Can't pick a favorite place she's been on research, but there's no place like Japan

19. Kinzou's band isn't currently meeting because demons, but he's probably still thinking of new songs

20. Hardest characters to draw: anyone with detailed flowing hair. Hardest to write for: Lightning and Gedouin. She had to go read books about serial killers specifically for material for Gedouin, lol 

21. Suguro actually gets a dorm room to himself, though allegedly Yukio is technically assigned as his roommate, lol. Didn't end up that way what with Yukio being a teacher and also Rin’s whole...situation

22. Shiemi makes some of her own hair accessories! Cute

23. Katoh doesn't mind if you include stuff with fan letters but check with the editor first

24. Time for making each chapter: Planning/storyboarding: 1-5 days. Sketching: 3-5 days. Drawing/inking: the rest. Just...the rest of the time

25. Neither Suguro nor Izumo have dated before and neither is currently dating. But that's probably just because things were hectic for them! It could happen

26. Yukio breaks 5 or 6 pairs of glasses a year, someone get this kid a strap or something

27. How many spare glasses does Yukio have? Check the fanbook lol it's in there (dang it Katoh)

28. The demon she wants us to pay the most attention to is Lucifer. Because plot.

29. What's under the Order's big meeting table? It's a BOTTOMLESS PIT and if you fall in it you DIE that's what makes it COOL (laughs)

30. What are the job requirements for the angelic legion? Literally just Arthur liking you and inviting you to join

31. She WANTS to do more character profiles but just hasn't gotten to it

32. Rin's tail feels like a cat tail, texture wise

33. The "red Assiah fire" is literally just actual fire nothing special

34. Rin's current hair color is light blue fading to white at the ends

35. Thoughts on Rin's growth: she likes that he stays positive in awful situations and she also thinks it's very main character of him to face the past instead of avoiding it

36. Mephisto didn't purposely surround Rin with stuffed animals when he woke up after going crispy. Mephisto's bed is just Like That

37. Kurikara was based on a cool sword she found in a sword book, but that one was technically just a ceremonial sword. The symbol on it us a Sanskrit letter kaan (sp?) associated with Fudou Myouou

38. Kuro can communicate with normal cats and hangs out with them often

39. Sometimes Shiemi's skirt is extra fancy around the hem what's up with that? Apparently it's an optional accessory that comes with the skirts help I haven't noticed this and don't know any fashion terms in any language

40. When coloring, Katoh always tries to have an overall theme in mind ("emphasis on blue" etc) so it comes together in the end

41. Yes the twins are genetically related to Shiro because of Goro (she says they're like his nephews but I say GENETICALLY at least they'd be indistinguishable from his children)

42. Strongest mom of all the strong moms around here? Yuri! Did you SEE her give birth??

43. Are you careful about your own health Katoh-sensei? Not particularly! Her mom has had to bring her food at work sometimes! Don't do this at home kids

44. At the dating events Shura goes to, does she drink cocktails in moderation? Yeah, she probably downplays her normal drinking habits at these things. But normally she's down for just about any kind of drink

45. Lucifer just really likes oysters okay

46. How many pages of manga does Katoh draw in a day? If she's being good about self-care: three. Maximum number ever: TEN

47. Mephisto is one of those folks who can eat like a garbage compactor and never gain weight. Possibly because his body resists that sort of change the same way it resists aging etc

48. First food Rin cooked: fish burger type patty. Yukio's favorite things Rin cooks: fish simmered in soy sauce, yellowtail with daikon radish. It's fish all the way down

49: Did Rin ever get more monthly allowance from Mephisto? It doubled! He gets TWO 2000 yen bills now (rip) [T/N: That's uh, that's USD $37.26 a month or 33.10 euro]

50. Why isn't Rin more popular with the girls? He gets nervous talking to them, plus he's too oblivious to notice even if he DID have some fans

51. Why change Suguro's hair? She gets bored with keeping everything the same, and she wanted a visual representation that he was getting serious and going into kind of a training arc

52. Things Katoh pays extra attention to when drawing: trying to capture the feel of whatever she's drawing (like "that looks warm and soft" or "I bet that guy stinks" cough Lightning cough)

53: Does Rin take after Yuri more? (He's got her eyes!) Katoh tried to draw Yuri so she looks like both twins. Personality, too - Yukio has her smarts and Rin has her optimism

54: Do you ever wanna be like Mephisto? Well she'd like to be able to get away with just ANYTHING EVER, but no, let's not be like Mephisto

55. Konekomaru not only carries around a cat toy in case he meets any cats, he MAKES cat toys to carry around based on what he thinks the cats would like

56. How'd you come up with Shima? Go read the fan book!

57. Do the kids have Twitter/Instagram accounts? Rin - probably not. Konekomaru might be on some social media. Paku and Izumo are totally on instagram

58. Is there something Rin makes that you wish you could try? All of it! That's the whole idea! He's good at cooking!

59. Will we ever have a (G-rated) reveal of what ALL of Mamushi and her family's tattoos look like? Maybe! She'll think about it

60. Does Arthur have a repertoire of different hairstyles? Not really, he just puts some of it up on the top. Heck he might even have people to do that for him

61. If you wrote a shojo manga what would it be about? She'd have to do a lot of research before even coming up with a story, since there are so many style differences between the genres aside from just the subject

62. The other two of Mephisto's top 3 favorite foods: Cup ramen and....f-fried bubblegum?? Is that a THING???

63. Where do you start when drawing a character? Usually the outline of their face but if it's a complex pose/composition she'll start with whatever's in the foreground (like hands)

64. If Katoh could have a familiar, what demon would she choose? Mephisto. As the all-powerful author, she might actually be able to command him as a familiar!

66. If you swapped Yukio and Rin's relationship around what would change? not much, you'd pretty much have Rin going to the Illuminati and Yukio going to the past

67. Top 3 foods/souvenirs to try in Kyushu? Well she doesn't know what’s good CURRENTLY but when she was there she always used to like burdock tempura udon, hakata torimon (a kind of manju with white bean paste inside), and Chikae style cod roe. today I learned Katoh went to high school in Kyushu

68. Katoh listens to music a lot while she's storyboarding, then when she and the assistants are all drawing and inking they put various videos/movies and stuff on in the background

69. For all his hitting on girls, is Shima actually popular with the ladies at all? He's got enough girls in his life that he probably COULD find a girlfriend if he really wanted, but the double agent thing tends to get in the way. He still wouldn't be as popular as Yukio though (side thought/translator’s note: Shima would be proud of being number 69.)

70. Katoh has the ending planned out in a big-picture way, but there are still a few details here and there that she's fretting over

71. It's cute when the boys put their ties over their shoulders when they're working on something! Where'd that come from? She just figured a tie might get in the way and that seemed like a realistic way to get it out of the way

72. Looks like Yukio is getting some facial hair! What about Rin? They're both about the age for it, but maybe Rin can't grow a beard yet. Maybe a little peach fuzz here and there

73. Katoh's favorite blue exorcist merch? There were some exorcist licenses a while back, and the exorcist pins. Basically it's really cool that these little accessories she drew ACTUALLY EXIST NOW, LIKE YOU CAN HOLD THEM IN YOUR HANDS

74. Okay realtalk how long do we have left, I don't want the series to end yet? We're solidly in the second half by now but it's not, like, ABOUT to end yet

75. Katoh would be a Knight meister, based on what characters she likes to play in games and such

76. How many people in the whole exorcism cram school? More than you think! She doesn't give a number but apparently licensed exorcists also attend classes for new meisters, etc, so there's a wide age range attending

77. How's Arthur feel about, like, studying Taming on the way to becoming Paladin? He's at least mostly accepted that you have to use demons to fight demons effectively

78. Konekomaru started wearing glasses in his first year of middle school, so like 7th grade (more recent than I thought!) He has one spare pair, in contrast to Yukio lol

79. Katoh's current obsessions? Ghost/scary stories! She's even been going to live readings of them recently

80. Media Katoh consumes for inspiration? A wide range of foreign teen drama, horror/suspense, shojo manga, light novels, anime, etc. Special focus on things where two boys are in conflict or there are brothers involved

81. If they weren't exorcists what jobs would they have? Rin - chef. Yukio - doctor. Shiemi - uh, florist?

82. Inspiration for the design of True Cross Town? Katoh and her assistants gathered up a bunch of references, picked out stuff they felt matched the tone, and mashed them all up together

83. Did you use any references etc for the school/exorcist uniforms? She says she probably should have but she just kind of made them up before publication

84. Favorite part of drawing? For color pages, picking out a color scheme. For black and white, drawing in all the little details (though she doesn't always get time to lately)

85. Once again confirms the demon kings' weird hair is a representation of their horns. ADDS THAT PEOPLE WHO CAN'T SEE DEMONS CAN'T SEE THE WEIRD HAIR

86. Now that Yukio's at the Illuminati, where's he gonna get his Jump SQ and spare glasses? Well he probably never planned to stay for long, but hey it's a big ship and they might have an optometrist and/or newsstand there

87. Do you base the demon characters on any references etc? Not really, she just gets a general idea of popular demon designs and then makes up her own in her own style

88. Merchandise Katoh personally wants to have made: stuff that an adult could just use in their day to day life. Also, it's not gonna happen, but if her favorite figure brand made AoEx figures she could die happy

89. If Beelzebub's host body was a beautiful woman, how would Shima react? Would the womanizing win out over the bug phobia? Katoh replies that Shima would probably just faint from being near a girl that pretty, before the bugs even got involved

90. Will the twins ever get to smile and eat dinner together again?? We'll just have to wait and see!

91. What do you check at a "scenario check"? what's a scenario check man I dunno They check for people being out of character or the setting feeling off. They had a lot of these checks for the anime, but they also do them for the drama CD, games, and all that other stuff where multiple authors are involved

92. Why does Shura use baldy as an insult for people who are clearly not bald? She feels like they have some kind of metaphorical, mental kind of "baldness" and she's calling them out on it. Whatever that means

93. After Blue Exorcist ends, what do you want to draw next? She has SO MANY IDEAS, SO MANY

94. Did Katoh make up the Shinto chants that, for example, Izumo used against Gedouin? They're assembled from bits of actual Shinto prayers according to what feels right in the scene

95. Yukio reads the Jump SQ, right, and, just hear me out here, he likes gag manga, right? Does this mean he reads Salaryman Yukio? It's something he would read, but let's say that in the AoEx universe there's just a very similar manga that he finds oddly relatable

96. What do Yukio and Shima do in their free time on the Dominus Liminus? oh my god you guys this ship has so many amenities.  Yukio probably spends time reading in the library, which they totally have. There's also, like, a gym, and a movie theater, and a THEATER theater, all of which are free. Shima probably hangs out at the pool (!) and goes to the movies, and hits on illuminati girls, lol

97. Easiest character to draw? The ones with boring simple hair, lol. Lightning gets an honorable mention for ALSO not having eyes in most shots, but Rin wins--he was specifically designed to be easy for Katoh to draw because that's what you want in your main character

98. How do demons understand gender? They just possess whatever feels like the best match to how they feel in Gehenna, whether that's a man, or a woman, or a rat, or whatever

99. Where do you start when you're coming up with a story? She starts with character design and how the characters relate to each other. Currently she's just continuing an existing story, so she works on splitting up the overall plot into episodes and fleshing it out with scenes and information about characters

100. When do you feel most happy? She honestly feels like she lives a very happy life overall. Mentions noticing a lot of little things, like how nice her cats' heads smell when she cuddles them or taking a nice cold refreshing drink of water. There's happiness in everything. aww.

[popculturebuffet]

House of Mouse Patreon Reviews: Timon and Pumba or Hakuna Mehtata (patreon review for WeirdKev27

Hello happy people. And it’s that time of the month again: Kev’s monthly review of House of Mouse for it’s 20th anniversary! Still not on Disney Plus... still. 

And this one is themed as earlier this week Kev had me review the LIon King for his birthday, so instead of randomly choosing an episode as he usually does he just outright picked this one because the timing was too good and I agree with that choice. 

So was this episode the top of pride rock or should it be thrown to the hyena’s? Join me under the cut to find out

Starting with our shorts for the episode...

Pluto’s Magic Paws:

This episode is admittedly at a disadvantage with me. See while i’ve taken an interest in classic disney shorts, I loves watching them and wish Disney would put more hd ones on Plus for all to enjoy, there are two genre’s of them, if you will I avoid: Ones focusing on Mickey’s Dog Pluto, and ones featuring Chip N Dale tormenting Donald. I avoid them if I can and the only way you could get me to watch them is if say you ambushed me with them in the middle of an episode I was doing because one of my patron’s, and the only guy who comissoins my work, say asked for the episode and neither of us bothered to check what the shorts were. So anyways this patron sponsosred episode, you can get a patron episode a month yourself if you join my patreon for five bucks a month and even lower paying members get one free review on signup, hint hint, features a Pluto short followed by Chip N Fucking dale. 

So yeah let’s talk about WHY I don’t like Plut shorts> Pluto isn’t a bad character, he’s a dog, a loyal companion. But his shorts tend to lean into either animal abuse, i.e. the poor doggy going through shit for our amusement that isn’t funny, the tired and terrible trope of “pet gets blamed for something new interloper did, or some third thing that I still don’t like anyway. 

I don’t HATE Pluto as a character, but he works best as a supliment to Mickey or a partner to him. The Hooch to his Turner. I will never get why he spun off into his own adventures. Goofy and Donald I get. Besides being registered boys with me, both just had oodles of charm, personality and humor that lent themselves to being spun off into their own corners of the world. Pluto.. is just Mickey’s dog. 

A pet character CAN be awesome on their own and go off into wild adventures: Snoopy is the greatest example of this, going from Charlie Brown’s dog to an imaginative weirdo who plays doubles tennis with a bully, takes birds on camping trips, goes to see his long lost sister and her gangly nephew in kansas city, has a whispy mustached brother who live sin the desert and gets into his own shenanigans, got trapped under an icicle, had his house burn down, took Peppermint Patty and Marcie on a race around the world, and so , so much more. And he’s not the only one: Garfield was so charming he overshadowed his owner in the strip’s prototypical form and took over as main character, while Opus went from Binkley’s odd but endearing pet to Bloom County’s star and my spirit animal. 

It’s just with Pluto.. they don’t expand his character or anything he’s just.. a dog. That’s it. And just being a dog can be a fine character, again to use yet another comic strip Lynn Johnston mined plenty of good slapstick out of the Patterson’s Dog Farley and later Farley’s son Edgar. Here though they either make Pluto sympathetic or give him nothing funny TO do. Most Pluto shorts are just dog tourture porn and that’s just not something I WANT to see and those that aren’t are just boring. He’s boring as a character. 

This one is not an exception and the only intresting part is the gimmick itself, two magical gloves from a magician who get swapped with Mickeys and try to escape to get to the show, only for pluto to chase them, then use them. But despite an intresting premise the gag’s are pretty sparse, the only two really memorable ones being the gloves hyjacking a fire truck and a sequence where Pluto uses them to flipi the tv channels, with puns on various disney afternoon and one saturday morning shows, the ones that stood out being Darkwing Dog and Brand Spankin New Dog, complete with similar logos. Otherwise i’ts eh. It’s not as bad as the cupid one, that was insufferable, but it’s just not.. funny. It has a decent premise but the fact I spent more time explaning why pluto dosen’t work than actually descrbing the short should tell you it’s just.. not much of a short. There’s not anything really to mock even it’s just a bunch of stuff that happened. it’s okay but it’s just nothing really worth your time. 

Mickey To the Rescue: Cage and Cannons

Ironically the best short of the night is the shortest, as it’s one of the recurring “Mickey to the rescue bits”. Pete kidnaps Minnie, Mickey has to go through some new supervillian lair to get her. I do love these though and this one is fun as Mickey has to outrun a bunch of canons with spring loaded boxing gloves in them. 

Yup. It’s fun though and Minnie even gets to help with her own rescue using her bow. it’s really fun nice stuff... anyways now back to my suffering

Back To My Suffering Golf Nut Donald: 

Now to clairfy I have nothing against Chip N Dale RESCUE RANGERS. I haven’t seen much of the show but that’s more due to me procrastinating on watching things rather than actual disinterest. I just forget, things pile up and then boom there’s season two. It happens. 

But the show does genuinely intrest me: the idea of two chipmunk detectives and their mouse friends, one a loveable oaf the other his cute genius daughter, solving crimes and fighting a literal fat cat all sounds pretty damn fun. So yeah Chip N Dale as detectives wearing indiana jones and magnum pi’s outfits, very good.

Chip N Dale in the classic shorts though?

The problem is most shorts have someone either slighting the two by accident or MUCH more often the two just.. making someone’s life hell because they want to steal some food. There are ones where Donald is genuinely a Donald Dick, kicking them out of their home or trying to steal their stuff, but for the most part Donald or Mickey or Pluto, because Disney apparently plotted my suffering years in advance, genuinely are just going about their day when the two little shits decide to ruin it. 

And once again , like Pluto you CAN make a good story out of this: A lot of great looney tunes come out of animal tries to steal from asshole and the whole premise of Tom and Jerry is Jerry being a loveable scamp to Tom’s sometimes asshole. It doesn't always work and sometimes Tom’s just trying to stay in his fucking home making jerry the asshole, but you get my point: in slapstick the target needs to be unsympathetic so they DESERVE what’s coming. In these shorts it’s often not the case and their just trying to live their lives. 

This one however. is uniquely bad in that it TRIES to have Donald be unsympathetic but he dozen’t do enough for it to work and thus his punishment seems excessive. In this one Donald is a janitor at a Golf Course who finds their offering a trophy for best golfer and sets off to do just that. 

So he gets a near perfect game and is on the last hole when a tree inhabited by candarian demons ends up in his way. Look you look at those two little bastards and tell me there isn’t a page of the necornomicon just for them. So he does what any resonable person does and whips out a chainsaw to cut the tree down so he can keep golfing. Yes Donald just rendered two creatures homeless so he could win at the most boring, whitest, and most pointless sport, instead of you know just putting around, still probably winning anyway. And yeah I don’t like golf and why yes this dosen’t help.  And this is from someone who LIKES Happy Gilmore a hell of a lot and thinks Caddyshack is pretty good. You can make a good golf story. Mini Golf however gets an enteral pass from me: that shit is actually fun no matter your age. 

So this makes donald unsypametic enough right? 

The thing is while what Donald is unsympathetic and dserves commpuance, chap and dumbass are also unsympathetic, attacking the guy without both confirming Donald felled their home. (Which.. he did but they have no way of knowing that), or trying to TALK to him first. They just go into vengance mode automatically and cost donald his trophy. It just makes the rest of the short a slog because there’s NO ONE to root for. Donald chopped down a tree to win a game he probably woudl’ve won anyway, and Chapped and Dildo attack someone on the assumptinon they did something wrong. 

Finally the short is just not really funny, so it dosen’t have anything to paper over this problem resulting in just a real slog to get this episode done with. It was a waste of my time and while not the WORST house of mouse short, it still sucks more than a giant robot made out of vacums that is constantly sucking at a college level. 

Timon and Pumba: Okay onto the reason we’re all here, our wrapround bit concerns everyone’s faviorite disney duo, Worker and Parasite!

But that episode is lost to time so instead we got one about Timon and Pumbaa. The best bit is at the start when Mickey announces the two are tonight’s featured performers.. and we get a cut to an entirely salty simba complaning about how they get all the attention while Nala just looks confused. I love everything about this and have so many questoins: When did Simba start resenting them? Is he mad he didn’t get his own show? Why is Nala suprised by this? How do his dad’s feel about this? Why is their a child versoin of him also running around Young Link Style? And was he also this bitter when his son got a show instead of him decades later?

Anyways, while Mickey does his bit donald TRIES to greet Mushu.. who brushes him off like a jackass for doing his job of greeting people. Donald TRIED getting his revenge decades later by getting Mushu written out of the remake despite the fact it really ddin’t clash at all with the whole magical kung fun narrative, but that ended up backfiring as he got spared being in the remake that was shot near modern concentration camps.

Donald’s day dosen’t get much better as he finds out he has to do goofy’s job and bring Timon and Pumbaa their snacks because Goofy got stuck in the sink. Even though there are plenty of serving penguins, and pluto, and others who coudl do it instead of you know, the co-manager of the club whose already busy working the door. 

It dosen’t get better when he actually does the job, through gritted beak, but Timon, being timon is less of a professoinal about it and more gripes about them not being the cream filled kind. Pumbaa naturally eats them all. These two are a PERFECT fit for HOM: they have a great duo act, are hliarious together, are popular with both adults and kids watching and fit well. It’s really fun to see the two transition from two weirdo husbands to two wweirdo husbands who do a live show for people vegas style in a mouse’s night club. 

So the idea of the two being a double act is good.. but the show falters from here deciding instead to do something fun with it or play into Donald more instead going with a cliche: two friends have a fight over something stupid , breakup and end up coming back together. I mean in this case it’s two husbands but still, the cliche remains. 

And while this is the second time in a row i’ve complained about a plot being predictable I have to stress for the umpeteenth time I DON’T have anything against cliches if you use them creatively. But this episode uses this plot in it’s most basic and boring form. Even the reasons WHY the two fight are stupid and trite instead of character based: Pumbaa wants to do stand up, Timon wants to do magic, they fight over it. 

The next step is also predicable. Donald is sent to fix it and while he TRIES to, Pumbaa ends up instead making a long hilaroius speech about how Donald is “happy” being number two and getting none of the credit, while doing more work than mickey despite being co owner. The issue here is this is SUPPOSED to just be Donald being egostistical and thus siding with Pumbaa because he feels mistreated even though he isn’t. But the thing is.. the episode backs this feeling up: Donald works the door but no one cares about his job clearly if M ushu is any occasion and isn’t doing jobs because he’s co owner and feels responsible.. but because everyone else is too busy and piles it on him. 

I’m not saying Donald shoudln’t be pitching in on other work ocassionaly but what’s damming is MICKEY is doing Donald’s job. Donald should be comforting the guests, getting them hyped etc, preparing them for their sets while Mickey rests between his own MCing sets. And it’s not slacking off, Mickey took over the duty himself, without telling Donald, then expects donald to do less for no credit. These kind of eps where Donald feels unappricated only work when Mickey is his normal self: being a kind, thoughtful guy who only takes advnatage accidentally and TRULY apricates his best friend and buisness partner. Here he just comes off as a dick especially in the finale which we’ll get to. 

For now Donald teams up with Pumba and what COULD’VE been a funny runner.. ends up lasting all of two minutes. Something i’ve noticed is that the season 1 wraparounds.. are really poorly paced, being based more around just filling in space and being fairly simple instead of exploring things and as a result have so far, outside of the first episode, been the weakest ones. They have good setups, but the stories themselves lack heart or character and just come off as basic problems of the week to fill in time. 

The resolution is also REALLY weak: Timon does his magic act and bombs horribly, though there is a funny runner of him having kidnapped thumper to be the rabbit in his hat, and PUmbaa saves him turning it into an act. Pumbaa gets the respect he was owed and Timon appricates him, which is cute but not worth the rest of this.. or the final scene where mickey TRIES to apologize to donald only to get pissy when he wants to change it to house of duck.... instead of coming up with a better name that represents both he just says no like he entirely owns the club instead of co owns it with someone else. HAHAHAHA micheal is a real asshole this episode. 

Final Thoughts:

This was not a good episode.... the shorts were weak, even taking my hatred of pluto and chip n dale shorts into account they aren’t good even by those low standards, and the main plot has a GREAT setup.. but devolves into a cliche story that resolves absurbtly instead of doing ANYTHING with it. It’s just a really weak episode and one I don’t intend to eve rwatch again if I can help it. 

Next Month: King Louie’s legally distinct brother visits the house of mouse! Swingin! 

[coeurdastronaute]

Essays in Existentialism: Stud 9

Previously on Stud

“It’s been awhile.” 

“Near a decade?” 

“Well there was that convention in Prague. Maybe six, seven years ago?” 

“And the reunion at the Hargrove Estate.” 

“The presentations in Oslo?” 

“I think… I think that was right around when m mom--” Lexa furrowed as she tried to place the time that seemed to slip away from them. “I guess Prague was the last time.” 

“Five years then,” her old friend from college nodded thoughtfully. “Time is a dangerous thing. I hate it.” 

The lounge was intimate, dimly lit and clean, freshly modeled despite being an ancient and ritzy institution in its own right. Dark woods were illuminated by soft lights, large paintings covered the walls in dark gold frames. The chairs were velvet and the drinks were perfectly crafted from the best labels. The clamor of the familiar crowd in suits and ties and diamonds and dresses was just a murmur behind their secluded table 

Maggie James hadn’t changed a bit, just matured into a fulfilled version of herself, or so Lexa liked to imagine. She still had deep brown eyes and a heart-shaped face. Still had a soft smile. Her hair was cut shorter now, above the shoulders and wavy. Her demeanor was more assured, more herself, than the unsure girl in college, or even the graduate assistant at a presentation in Prague. 

“I have to say, I hadn’t expected to hear from the CFO of one of the largest companies on the planet after reading my lowly article and research.” 

“I don’t know about lowly,” Lexa smiled after sipping her drink. “I thought it was a good article. And your research was thorough.” 

“I just observe and postulate. Those other companies were the ones doing the hard part.” 

She was naturally demure. Maggie was not someone who had to work for a living. Her family owned an ancient merchant conglomerate and she was vaguely related to a Kennedy and a Duke or something. And though she had her phases, Lexa remembered her from school as someone who wanted to do her own thing. She didn’t cut up her black card, but she sure didn’t care to rely simply by biding her time. Lexa always liked that. 

They hadn’t been especially close, just gravitated to similar circles and were in the same degree program, naturally leading to an affiliation that boarded somewhere between acquaintances who knew too much and friends with no actual ties. 

The real surprise had been when Maggie actually returned the phone call Lexa gave after a few weeks of obsessing over the research and generally annoying her girlfriend with facts and tidbits, filling up a notebook with her own questions, ideas, and things she’d read. She’d garnered a lot of attention with her article and research. It almost wasn’t worth it for her to return the call of a somewhat acquaintances, somewhat friend that she hadn’t seen or heard from in upwards of six years. But Lexa’s last name was on buildings in almost ever major city, and regardless, she got a return call. 

“I did call you about the article, but also to catch up,” Lexa promised. 

“And remember those good times in college?” 

“We did have a few of those, didn’t we?” she grinned, looking over her glass, earning a shaking head and heavy sigh and smile. 

“Much to my girlfriend’s chagrin.” 

“You actually told her some stories?” Maggie raised her eyebrows and chuckled. “And she let you come tonight?” 

“Encouraged it actually. She’s sick of hearing me rave about your work and research. I’m allowed to have an intellectual crush on you, and that’s it.” 

“She’s a saint.” 

“You have no idea,” Lexa agreed and signaled for another round. “Last I heard, you were engaged to some Lockeridge. Didn’t work out?” 

Maggie held up her hand and wiggled an empty ring finger. 

“He didn’t particularly care that I was interested in anything other than the usual marriage retirement activities like kids and needlepoint or whatever.” 

“A shame.” 

“I heard you decided to go outside of the pool or acceptables,” Maggie shrugged. “I only have a few questions: How, and how did your father take it?” 

“You know my dad. He wouldn’t know acceptable if it shook his hand. He actually adores Clarke. And it was sheer luck. She just happened to be best friends with a mechanic I use to fix up old cars.” 

“Kismet.” 

“How did your parent’s take the loss of a Lockeridge hyphenation?” 

“Mom went into full mourning, black outfits for a week and three weeks in Italy,” Maggie recited as Lexa laughed. “Dad complained about his lost deposits on venues.” 

“And now?” 

“Now, I research sustainable and ethical management in corporations.” 

“I meant--”

“I don’t even own a car, so I haven’t run into any mechanics, and I was almost hoping you’d broken up with your saint and that’s why you’d called.”

“It actually our three year anniversary next month.” 

“Disgusting. You’re buying the drinks.” 

They both shared a smile and shook their heads, amused at themselves and the situation of their lives, both wondering how they hadn’t taken the time to be better friends, although a few drunken make outs had certainly ended any hopes of that back then. 

“I’m assuming you want to talk to me about the article and your company?” 

“I was having fun catching up, but I take sex off the table and now you’re all business.” 

“I know your time is valuable, and I don’t want you to think you have to waste it catching up,” she explained, leaving Lexa slightly baffled. 

“Your time is valuable too, and honestly, I am kind of having fun catching up. I kind of fell out with the old gang after Mom.” 

“I heard you did the falling.” 

“Probably,” Lexa nodded in agreement as she swapped out her empty glass for a new one. “I worked myself raw for three years straight.”

“But you still hear some of the rumblings from the old guard?” 

“Some. Care to fill me in on more before I proposition you?” 

“Intellectually?” 

“Strictly.” 

Maggie took a large sip from her drink and eyed the girl across from her, at ease and amused at their conversation, ever charming and wildly sexy without even meaning to do it, Lexa was someone who made her attention feel like nothing else mattered, and anyone would want to be within her company to experience it. All were welcome, but it was a blessing to hold her focus for an extended period of time, in any capacity. Maggie remembered making out with her in the bathroom of a club. She remembered making out with her at a party on the Lower East Side. She remembered Lexa’s messy waves, leather jacket, and fiery eyes that remained, even a decade later. But they weren’t for her anymore, and she was alright with the disappointment if it meant working with her. 

“Did you know Emma Hunton-Blather?” 

“Not biblically.” 

“I wouldn’t imagine so. She’s an ultra-religious mommy blogger now.” 

“Yikes,” Lexa winced. 

“And Francine Christenson already divorced twice.” 

“I think I saw one of those.” 

The evening was easy. The drinks flowed and the two caught up with their previous acquaintances. Lexa was grateful that it was going well considering how nervous she was about approaching an almost stranger. 

The drinks kept coming and before she could talk shop, Lexa was drunk and just enjoyed having fun.

XXXXXXXXX

“I love her.” 

“Oh god, not this again,” Clarke groaned, rolled over, and tugged the pillow with her over her head. 

“Not like I love you. I just am fascinated by her research.” 

“Is that what you call her boobs?” 

“Oh no,” Lexa shook her head, wobbling slightly as she plunked down on the edge of the bed and began awkwardly tugging off her shoes. “I can’t even seen boobs that aren’t yours boobs. I am boob-blind now.”

Despite herself, Clarke smiled at her drunken girlfriend. It wasn’t often that she came out, and when Drunk Lexa did, she often enjoyed it. There wasn’t any jealousy against Maggie James, just that Clarke liked a little more attention than she was getting with this new project. She also wished this old project hadn’t made out with her girlfriend, but that was neither here nor there. She’d feel the same way if Lexa was obsessed with recycling. She’d hate it and vote for global warming to make her stop fixating. 

Before she could finish with her shoes, Lexa flopped backwards, fully clothed and half on the bed. 

“Clarke. Hey, are you sleeping?” 

“No, darling. I’m up.” 

“I wish I’d never made out with Maggie, because I think we could have been have friends.”

“Good. Keep not making out with her and you can be.” 

“Ahhhh,” Lexa pointed at Clarke and laughed before letting her arm fall back down. 

“Plus, you could use more friends.” 

“Nah. I don’t.” 

“You do.” 

Clarke moved, putting the book she’d fallen asleep reading on the night stand and moving her way around the bed to help the pitiful thing that couldn’t get undressed. She stayed at Lexa’s strictly because it meant sloppy drunk needy Lexa. She also expected her about two hours earlier. 

“You need more friends. It’s good to have them.” 

“I have Gus,” Lexa listed, counting on her fingers as her girlfriend tugged off her shoes for her. “And Aden, and Anya, and Dad, and Indra, and um. And Maggie. And, um… uh…” 

“Only one of those are age appropriate, not related to you, and not salaried.” 

“And you! You’re my best friend. Who needs more than that?” 

She didn’t mean to, but Clarke smiled at that as she moved to unbutton Lexa’s shirt, earning a smile and laugh despite already closed eyes. 

“Oh, are you getting me naked, Ms. Griffin? Naughty naughty.” 

“How much did you drink?” 

“A little bit.” 

Clarke just shook her head and pulled Lexa up so she could pull off the shirt. She moves to the pants next, instructing her to lift her butt so she could tug them off. Lexa remained fairly still as Clarke searched for a spare shirt for her to sleep in. 

“Hey, hey, Clarke. Hey,” Lexa called in a whisper. 

“Hm?” 

“You really are my best friend.” 

Clarke smiled, her cheeks growing warm as she slid the shirt over the drunk’s arms and head, careful not to poke an eye or pull hair. Tenderly, she got a rag from the bathroom and wiped her face as best she could, earning almost purrs of contentment with the treatment. 

“Are you ready for me to fuck you?” Lexa ventured, wiggling her eyebrows. “I’ve been thinking about it all night.” 

“You’re drunk.”

“And you’re beautiful.” Clarke pushed her girlfriend’s shoulders so that she fell back in bed easily. “Perfect. You can be on top.” 

“Get under the covers. It’s time for bed.” 

“Fine, but you should know that I am a good lay.” 

“I’m aware,” Clarke grinned as Lexa climbed in obediently. 

“I’m like really good at giving you orgasms. And you seem to like them.” 

“Oh, I do. But I’m tired and you’re drunk.”

“Those are two true facts,” Lexa nodded and yawned, rolling into her usual spot. Her arm was held open until Clarke joined her in bed. 

The lights off and the pair finally ready for bed, Clarke snuggled into her spot and felt Lexa’s warmth, enjoying the feeling of having her back. 

“Hey Lex?” Clarke whispered as arms held her tightly. 

“Change your mind about sex?” Lexa returned. “I’m still down.” 

“No. I just wanted to tell you that you’re my best friend, too.” 

“Good.” 

Her arms pulled tighter and Lexa kissed Clarke’s shoulder before falling into a very contented drunken slumber. 

XXXXXXXXX

Lexa loved her office. She loved that it was quiet and that even though she had taken a smaller role in th day to day operations, it was still there for her to work, uninterrupted and unimpeded. She loved her desk. She loved her view. She loved the certainty that came behind sitting her name plate, as if it told her who she was. There was a certain power that she took from it all. 

“Thanks for coming down,” Lexa offered as Maggie took a seat across from her desk. “I think i forgot to explain what interested me most about your research at drinks the other night.” 

“Yeah I think the fourth round of whisky made it a little difficult to keep track of complex ideas.” 

“I had a good time.” 

“Me too.” 

“My girlfriend let me know that I need more friends. The problem being that I don’t particularly like or trust most people.” 

“Or you’re too busy to put the effort into it. I get it. Trust me,” Maggie nodded, relaxing slightly as Anya brought in some coffee and placed it between them. “Thank you.” 

“I was told that all my friends work for me or are related to me,” Lexa explained as she sipped her coffee. “And even though I would consider us friends, or potentially friends. I want to hire you.” 

“I already have a job.” 

“Yes, but I have lots of money.” 

Maggie snorted at that, smiling, amused at Lexa’s candor. 

“I have lots of money too.” 

“I knew you would say that. I also knew that there wasn’t much I could offer you to sway you away from a fun research and doctoral position at a great university. I’m sure you find teaching rewarding.” 

Lexa stood from her desk and grabbed a folder from the corner, carefully looking it over in her hands. 

“The interesting thing I found in your report was that you were advocating for a system that not one single major corporation would even contemplate putting into existence.” 

“I’m sure some--”

“Free housing? College tuition? Four day work weeks? Work from home? Private insurance? Officer salary cuts? Who in there right mind is going to do that?” 

“I thought you were interested in my research.” 

“I am. Because my job was killing me. And I have a hypothesis for you.”

“I think that’s my job.” 

“You haven’t accepted yet,” Lexa reminded her as she leaned against the front of her desk. “If I implement your suggestions, will I not hate my job anymore?” 

“There’s no way for me to measure that.” 

“True. Will I feel better if we are a more ethical and knowledgeable company?” 

“Yes.” 

“Will we turn a profit?” 

“According to my data, yes. Although the scale of your business,” Maggie shook her head. “I wouldn’t even know where to start hypothesizing on when.” 

“Hypothetically,” Lexa continued, smiling at how easy it was to get her interested. “What would you need to start testing your hypothesis? In real time. At this company.” 

There was a quiet that settled as Maggie stared at the CFO. Long and tall, Lexa crossed her arms over her chest, the mystery folder tucked under her arm. Her shirt was folded precisely up to her elbow, her collar pressed and pointy, her glasses perched perfectly and her hair coiffed with enough effort to look like it wasn’t trying at all. She didn’t betray a thought though. 

“Off the top of my head, I’d need access to everything. I’d need months of internal research and auditing, plus at least a handful of accountants and assistants. I don’t think you understand what you’re asking.” 

“I do.” 

“You can’t.” 

“In this folder,” Lexa grinned, and held it in front of her friend. “Is one of our middling branches based in London. I want to give it to you.” 

“A company?” 

“Kind of. I want you to hire your team. I want you to help me implement your changes. I want to create a better world. I had to think of something that no one else could give you, to entice you. Is it working?” 

“Consider me enticed,” Maggie nodded, slowly accepting the folder and flipping it open, her mouth slightly agape. 

The buzzer on Lexa’s desk sounded and she pushed off, walking back to her chair. 

Ms. Woods, the car is here to take you to the airport. 

“Thanks, Anya. Give me a few more minutes.” 

“Going somewhere?” 

“Three year anniversary weekend,” Lexa smiled. “I had a bit of a rough year last year, but it’s all coming back around.” 

“You are incredibly good at multitasking. You’re pitching me while planning an epic event and doing how many other things.” 

“Take the week to think about it. Everything you need is in that folder.” 

“I’m going to need more than a fifteen minute meeting with yout see if this is even for real.”

“It’s real,” Lexa promised. “We can figure everything else out together, when you accept.” 

“If.” 

“I’ve been told I’m very persuasive. Take the week. I’ll be back next Tuesday and we can talk more then, if you’d like.” 

“I thought maybe a consultation, but this is…” Maggie shook her head and stared at the folder before shutting it quickly. “Hell of a friend.” 

“Come on, I’ll walk with you out,” Lexa offered as she grabbed her bag. 

XXXXXXXXXX

The ranch was still slightly visible in the sunset, the timing only slightly off with their arrival for the romantic weekend escape. Tall pines and cedars eclipsed it while the mountains stood tall and purple in the distance against a firestorm of clouds in the fading summer light. The cabin was one of her favorite places on the planet, and she couldn’t think of anywhere more secluded and perfect to hide away from the world with her beautiful girlfriend to celebrate three absolutely life-changing years. 

“I would have been happy with just a hotel room downtown,” Clarke chided as she entered the giant house. “This is too much.” 

“I figured it was a good excuse to use this place. It’s been years since I’ve been out,” Lexa explained as she dropped their bags in the foyer. 

She made sure everything was stocked and prepared and the staff wouldn’t be around. The caretakers didn’t mind a week off, and she was just excited to be away from the city and back somewhere quiet. 

“Is this the ranch your mom liked?” 

“Yeah, she’d make us spend a lot of spare time out here.” 

“I can see why. It’s beautiful.” 

“She designed it. Found an old hunting lodge and decided to convert it to a modern home. It was her labor of love.” 

“Thank ou,” Clarke smiled and hugged her girlfriend before kissing her cheek. “Show me around.” 

Lexa wasn’t particularly good at feeling so good, but she’d been excited and planned everything for the past month. So she took Clarke by the hand and showed her the grand room, the high ceiling and giant windows that looked out at the trees and the mountains as far as the eye could see. The fireplace was already roaring and inviting, but she took her toward the pool and hot tub area that went from outside to inside. She excitedly told her stories about being a kid, and all the stuff her and Aden would do. 

By the time they made it to the bedroom she wanted, Clarke flopped onto the bed and gave up trying to figure out where she was in the maze of a house. 

“So we get this whole place to ourselves for the next few days?” Clarke asked as Lexa gracefully slid beside her in the giant bed. 

“Mhm, so go ahead and just take your clothes off now. I actually should have told you that at the door.” 

“But I brought very cute lacy things you like me to wear.” 

“Oh, wait, yeah,” Lexa nodded eagerly. “That’s all you can wear.” 

“You’re ridiculous.” 

“I’m yours.” 

“And sappy.” 

“Incredibly.” 

But it was perfect, and Lexa didn’t care that her girlfriend was mocking her. She leaned forward and kissed her. She pressed Clarke into the bed and went about the task of celebrating. 

XXXXXXXXXX

“I need you to carb up because I have a few more things planned for you,” Lexa explained as she reached forward and took another slice of pizza. 

“Shut up.” 

“I mean it. Dad keeps the W stored in the garage and I have waited three years to--”

“You can’t be serious,” Clarke laughed and shook her head, pressing her palm over her chest with how amusing she found it. 

They were tangled in the sheets. They were tired and sated and happy and now nearly full from the dinner of pizza and beer. 

“That’s the real reason I decided to come here,” Lexa grinned. “The romantic, candlelight bath and fireplaces, and privacy were all a ruse. You’ve been ruse-d.” 

“I can’t believe I’ve kept you around for three years.” 

“Me neither.” 

“I should get a medal.” 

“I agree completely,” Lexa decided as she hopped up from the bed. “Wait right there.” 

Nearly tripping over herself, the CFO took the corner out of the room so quickly, Clarke was certain she hit the wall. The sound of padding bare feet could be heard in the bed, and for the life of her, Clarke wasn’t sure why it made her fall a little more in love, if that were even possible. 

In a flash, Lexa returned, hopping into the bed, quick to hide whatever was in her hands. 

“This was supposed to be a year of no gifts,” Clarke chided. 

“I’m terrible at following directions. I don’t know if you knew that or not yet, but it’s a harsh truth you should start to understand.” 

“You should listen to me.” 

“I should,” she nodded and held out a velvet box. “I’ll start tomorrow.” 

Clarke eyed her girlfriend warily and frowned at the blatant lie. But Lexa shrugged and smiled, nudging her to open the box. 

“Oh, Lex, this is…”

The keychain was a tiny logo of Lexa’s company. It was plain and simple and cost exactly $2.95, and now it was dangling from Clarke’s finger as she furrowed and smiled at it despite all else because it was certainly not what she was expecting. 

“It’s too much. You shouldn’t have.” 

“You deserve the best,” Lexa explained, scooting closer. “Last time we did this, I wasn’t read. You weren’t ready. It wasn’t right. But now...I think it’s right. I think I want to be with you all of the time. I want to come home from business trips and see you. I want to cook dinner together. I want to sleep with you every night. I want to live together.” 

Her hair was a mess, and when she was nervous, she talked with her hands. Clarke watched the entire thing without moving a muscle, because she might scare Lexa if she did. Instead, she looked at the key chain in her palm and listened. 

“You’ve been making a lot of moves lately, Woods.” 

“Well, the girl I love keeps pushing me to do better.” 

“What if you get sick of me?” 

“I won’t.” 

“What if I get sick of you?” 

“We’ll get a big place, so you can ignore me when I bug you,” Lexa promised. 

“You’re ready for this?” Clarke asked, giving her a hard look. 

“Very. Are you?” 

“Very.” 

Before she could say anything else, Lexa launched herself at her, and Clarke was tackled and kissed happily.

NEXT

[disneyat34]

The Three Caballeros at 34

A review by Adam D. Jaspering

Mickey Mouse is, and always has been, the face of the Walt Disney Corporation. Perhaps it’s because of legacy or favoritism, because Donald Duck has often proven himself more popular. To expand on a quote from Walt Disney, it all started with a mouse, but a duck pays the bills. Never was this more apparent than in the 1940s.

As morbid as it seems, World War II was a great boon to Donald Duck’s popularity. Mickey Mouse represented an unflappable, upbeat everyman. He became popular during the Great Depression when people needed their morale lifted. Donald Duck was an angry fighter who got knocked down, and stood right back up, fists swinging. That sensibility was celebrated by many during the war. Seeing the influence he had, Walt Disney capitalized on his creation.

Donald was commissioned by many sources during World War II. The US Treasury, the United Way, and the Canadian Film Board all commissioned cartoons from Disney Studios. His likeness was merchandised in countless other places. Within months, Donald Duck was promoting war bonds and celebrating American resilience coast to coast.

Later, Donald joined the US Army, encouraging enlistment. As an act of patriotism, Disney produced seven of these shorts at cost for the armed forces. Why he opted for Donald to join the Army as opposed to the Navy, as is often suggested by his sailor outfit, is a mystery. Donald wasn’t the official face of the war effort, but not for lack of trying.

In 1944, three separate events lined up. First, World War II was still ongoing.  Second, Disney Studios was celebrating Donald’s tenth anniversary. Third, the follow-up to Saludos Amigos was nearing completion. It was time for another cinematic saga of comradery in the western hemisphere, this time featuring Donald Duck front and center.

Saludos Amigos was a rush job. Disney Studios churned it out for immediate financial returns. The writers and animators had unused ideas leftover. Some ideas were more dynamic and required money and time, not available in 1941. Now with a foot-hold on the Latin American film market, the studio was able to make a proper follow-up. That was The Three Caballeros.

The Three Caballeros uses the 10th anniversary of Donald Duck’s creation as a framing device. Throughout the film, Donald opens a multitude of gifts from friends and well-wishers. Each gift prompts or frames a new vignette. Like Saludos Amigos, the vignettes of The Three Caballeros were created to foster international goodwill between Latin America and the United States.

The first gift is a projector and film canister. The movie is The Cold-Blooded Penguin. It features a penguin named Pablo who dislikes living in Antarctica. Pablo hates the cold, and wishes to live in a tropical climate. One day, he pools his resources, and sets out on an ice floe for warmer weather.

Astute readers will notice the error immediately. What on Earth is a cartoon about a penguin doing in a film about Latin America?

It’s true, Pablo’s journey takes him around some of the coastal geographic features of South America’s west coast. These aren’t so much landmarks as name drops. We hear the narrator mention the Straits of Magellan, Cape Horn, Juan Fernandez Islands, Vina Del Mar, Lima, and the Galapagos Islands. But what’s depicted onscreen are rather nondescript landforms. These could be any straits, any coasts, and any islands.

The Cold-Blooded Penguin’s ties to South America are incredibly tenuous. Plainly, it does not belong as part of the film. So much so, it’s not even worth commenting on the animation or story. You could make the greatest rotisserie chicken in culinary history, but if you serve it atop an ice cream sundae, no one will care how the chicken tastes. 

The short shamelessly tries to mask itself as an extended cutaway from a larger feature called “Aves Raras,” or “Rare Birds.” The non-penguin half of this short does indeed focus on the indigenous fauna of South America. Somewhat farcically, but also with an informative nugget. This infotainment is what The Three Caballeros aspires to be, and achieves in certain quantities. 

Unfortunately, the filmmakers either get lazy or distracted. Strewn among the cultural aspects are nonsense and unsupportive jokes. Either the filmmakers were padding the film or afraid of losing the attention of a younger audience. The end result bogs down quality with unnecessary jetsam.

The highlight of the Rare Birds segment is the Aracuan Bird. This bird has a high-pitched, sped-up voice, and a warbled laugh. He has a screwball sense of humor, and an innate ability to antagonize all those who he comes into contact with. He has a bright red crest, a yellow beak, and oversized eyes. He debuted four years after another cartoon bird with alarmingly similar characteristics: Woody Woodpecker.

Woody Woodpecker first appeared in the 1940 short Knock Knock. Walter Lantz created the character, and licensed him to Universal Studios. The similarities between The Aracuan Bird and Woody cannot be ignored. I can find no information explaining this coincidence. There were no complaints filed, and no legal action by Lantz or Universal. It’s rather unlikely Disney’s animators resorted to plagiarism; we can only assume it was an unintentional, subconscious reproduction.

The Aracuan Bird appears here, and in two more brief scenes. He then disappears for the remainder of the film. One would think he would be a running gag, appearing regularly throughout the movie. Or at the very least, he would be a main feature in his own vignette, his other appearances being callbacks. He would certainly be more on-theme than The Cold-Blooded Penguin. 

The Aracuan Bird is an unpleasant reminder that The Three Caballeros was a pile of ideas leftover from Saludos Amigos. He is introduced, then subsequently forgotten. The movie was the production of different animators and writers, working independently. They each had their own ideas, and didn’t seek consultation. These ideas are threaded together as best as possible, but big gaps in style and substance exist.

The next vignette is The Flying Gauchito, set in the pampas of Uruguay. It is the story of a child, looking for the approval of the gauchos of his village. The boy goes on a hunting expedition, finding the rarest game of all: a winged donkey. 

The donkey is named ‘Burrito,’ the Spanish word ‘Little Donkey’ (which existed long before the popular Tex-Mex dish). Gauchito returns home with his newly acquired winged steed. Rather than show him off, Burrito is entered in a horse race. It’s one thing to show-off your luck. It’s another thing to demonstrate your worth.

What makes The Flying Gauchito special isn’t its story. Will and determination overcoming the established norms is a common moral. The true strength of the short is its utilization of an unreliable narrator. Gauchito’s journey is narrated by his older self, narrating from an omniscient standpoint in the future. It would be easy for him to tell the story accurately. Instead, he’s forgetful, indecisive, and admittedly unsure of specific details. 

This narrative style creates not only a humorous structure, but humorous accompanying animation. Whenever a detail is “corrected” or second-guessed, the corresponding imagery is swapped out. In quick succession, the characters onscreen are left helpless as their world is ad hoc corrected. They must endure a shifting landscape and environment before they can react accordingly. This gives them a sense of instability, like they’re wearing roller skates, or walking a tightrope. It’s an advanced narrative technique, and it’s executed well.

With two and a half shorts finished, Donald Duck moves onto his next present. Inside is his friend and Saludos Amigos costar Jose Carioca. Jose is just as jovial and passionate as ever, but now smoking a giant cigar shamelessly for all children to see. We’re a long way from the warnings of Pleasure Island.

Jose introduces Donald to the Brazilian city of Baia. In a combined mood of nostalgia and admiration, Jose begins a long musical serenade. As his memories and thoughts are manifest to reality, we are swept away in the romantic imagery. The pinks and purples of the city at sunset are wonderfully done.

The two avian friends find themselves at a celebration on the streets of Baia. They’re joined by singer and dancer Aurora Miranda, plus a small army of samba dancers. The interplay of cartoon and human is outdated by today’s standards, but to an audience in 1944, it must have seemed groundbreaking. The technique is used extensively throughout the remainder of The Three Caballeros, and to great effect. It’s a gimmick, but a gimmick employed and accomplished well.

Exiting the glory of Baia, Donald opens his next gift from a stranger in Mexico. The unfamiliarity is temporary. Inside the gift is the loud, ecstatic, pistol-packing Panchito Pistoles. This firebrand is so eager to meet both Donald and Jose, he declares the trio “The Three Caballeros.” Finally, forty minutes into the picture, well past the halfway mark, we meet the last of our title characters.

After a fiery song and dance number, Panchito introduces Donald to the piñata. Panchito identifies it as a Mexican Christmas tradition (The Three Caballeros was scheduled for a December release date). Until this point, Panchito has been a quite vocal and boisterous individual. Hearing him tell a reverent and humble tale of Christmas tradition displays his hidden depths. Panchito could have been a shallow and one-note character. Instead, we see him capable of many things.

Cracking open the piñata, Donald is treated to a tour of Mexico’s most popular sights. Panchito summons a serape, which flies like Aladdin’s magic carpet. The Three Caballeros visit the exotic locales of  Pátzcuaro, Veracruz, and Acapulco. 

Until this point, both Donald and Jose were nothing more than enthusiastic partygoers. They enjoyed the celebrations and sights of their destinations. And they never shied away from the pleasant company of a gorgeous woman. For whatever reason, upon visiting Mexico, something stirs in the mind of Donald. 

Going forwards, every woman Donald encounters is an object of lustful desire. Singing girls, dancing girls, sunbathing girls; Donald wants them all. Jose and Panchito do their best to subtly remind Donald he is a cartoon duck in a G-Rated movie, but Donald is driven by his id. 

It’s a common cartoon trope for a character to be so blindsided by a woman’s physical attraction, they lose control. From the works of pre-Hays Code Betty Boop shorts, to the then-contemporary Tex Avery, it was a well-established joke. Donald, however, is completely insatiable and unstoppable. It starts funny, gets ridiculous, and then turns downright disturbing. Donald Duck is insatiably in love with these Latin beauties, and cannot be tamed. It’s a running gag that runs far too long. Panchito shouldn’t have shown Donald a hot beach, he should have shown him a cold shower.

The movie ends in quite an interesting way. Instead of a traditional song and dance number celebrating Mexico, the remaining twenty minutes of film is a surreal, avant garde display. More than ‘Toccata and Fugue’ from Fantasia. More than ‘Pink Elephants on Parade’ from Dumbo. Things are odd, formless, wild, and baffling. And lots of fun.

The Three Caballeros’s primary problem is how unbalanced it is. Any ten minute stretch is vastly different from any other. But it is unbalanced in a linear fashion. As the movie progresses, it becomes more cohesive and more audacious. Things are always building towards the (literally) explosive climax.

It begins with one short that doesn’t belong in the film at all. It moves onto a second short that, while more appropriate, could easily be excised. Jose is introduced, giving the movie more structure and narrative harmony. With him, more advanced animation techniques are employed. Panchito is introduced, giving the film a solid shape and definition. Finally, we’re treated to a grand tour de force. Disney’s animators use every trick to deliver a mindboggling trip for the eyes and ears.

The Three Caballeros as a group existed as Disney second-stringers for many years. Donald Duck remained as popular as ever, but it was rare to see Jose or Panchito acknowledged by the studio. Early in the 21st century, the cult popularity of the film prompted a resurgence for the forgone trio.

The Three Caballeros are featured at the Mexican Pavilion of Epcot Center (despite only one of the three members being Mexican). Don Rosa wrote two sequels for the trio, published in comic form. They’ve appeared in Disney television shows, such as House of Mouse, and 2017′s DuckTales. They even star in their own series on Disney+, where they become globetrotting fantasy heroes.

The Three Caballeros expands on the ideas of its predecessor, Saludos Amigos. A multitude of animation techniques continues the celebration of harmony in the Americas. Music, laughter, and a love of exploration unite us all. While the end result is something of a mixed bag, the highs are demonstrably high. It will stimulate some viewers while outright confounding others. But in the end, the wild, surreal adventure is a voyage worth taking. Hasta luego.

Fantasia Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Pinocchio Bambi The Three Caballeros Dumbo Saludos Amigos

[callioope]

Author Interview

tagged by @theputterer -- thank you :) 

Name: Liz

Fandoms: In terms of posted fics, mainly Rogue One and Star Wars (OT). I have at least one fic posted in A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, Community, and Howl’s Moving Castle (book). But I also like The Clone Wars and Rebels. I’ve been reading mainly ATLA fic for the past couple weeks. 

Where you post: AO3 and sometimes here on tumblr. There are a few drabbles I’ve posted on tumblr that I really ought to crosspost on AO3 for posterity. 

Most popular one-shot: “In Which Sophie is Late, and Howl Noses Around in Her Business” (Howl’s Moving Castle) With 698 kudos. Uh. Wow. I was not expecting that! It’s literally my only HMC fic (although I do technically have other unfinished drafts) and it’s not even a year old, and surpassed my second most popular one-shot which was posted in 2015. Pregnancy trope is popular I guess. It is amusing to me that my most popular one-shot is not in my favorite OTP fandom (rebelcaptain). Howl’s Moving Castle ended up having a wider audience than I anticipated. 

Also as a disclaimer, but popularity is weird to gauge because do you go by hits or kudos or comments? I went with kudos because hits could count people who clicked on my story and then didn’t like it. But it’s hard because hits also include re-reads, so, idk. 

Most popular multi-chapter fic: “The Last Stark” (A Song of Ice and Fire) 815 kudos. This was finished in 2013 so it’s had plenty of time to accumulate the kudos. It’s a Gendrya Anastasia AU (“Aryastasia” was my working title for this one lol). So again, popular trope, in a popular fandom, in a popular ship. This fic is so old when I reread it, I usually find myself wanting to edit it, especially the ending. I was so ready to be done writing this that I think I rushed the ending. Oh well, writing plots is really difficult!

Fic you were nervous to post: Every fic? lol. I’m never not nervous to post a fic. But I’m definitely more nervous posting in a fandom for the first time. So posting “Whatever I Do (I Do It To Protect You)” (Rogue One, rebelcaptain) was pretty nervewracking, especially since it’d been awhile since I posted anything. [OOOH, fun fact, but WID celebrated it’s 4 year anniversary yesterday! Ha, that’s funny.] I was working on this fic for weeks before I posted it. 

I was also super nervous to post my Jeff/Annie Community soulmate AU, “Intro to Neurochemical Compatibility” because (a) first time posting in that fandom, (b) I decided to use script format which I know is not everyone’s jam, and (c) the premise is just so ridiculous! But I had fun with it. 

Also gift exchanges are always nerve-wracking because I worry the giftee won’t like it. My giftee never responded to my 2020 rebelcaptain secret santa fic so I’m actually constantly worrying that they didn’t like it and feeling bad that I failed them. :/ 

How you choose your titles: with so much agonizing. gosh it’s so hard and honestly i have so many titles that i hate. I’ve got a couple song lyric titles. a couple quotes. a couple “how to...” apparently that was a whole phase I went through. Either the titles come to me immediately, or I put off choosing a title until the absolutely moment I need to post it, and then spend hours agonizing over a quote/song lyric/phrase that fits and probably begging others for help.

Do you outline: YES. Possibly overly so. I’ve ran into issues in the past, when I was much younger, where I didn’t resolve problems proposed early in the story. So I need to know where the story is going in order to lay the proper groundwork. Also, if I do not write things down I forget them five minutes later. I also think outlining is a useful trick to jumpstart writing, so if the muse just isn’t present, I’ll try to lure her out by outlining. 

Complete: 19 fics. 

In progress: Oh boy this is so hard to count. As far as what’s posted? Technically only one: “How to Lose a Spy in 10 Days” (Rogue One, rebelcaptain). Despite the fact that I think the deadline was extended multiple time, I procrastinated and ended up rushing chapter one to meet the rebelcaptain rom-com challenge deadline. Didn’t really have a proper outline for this one, even though I knew vaguely what I wanted it to be about. I wrote chapter two but I hated what I wrote so I ... I kinda abandoned it. I mean technically, I never consider a work abandoned, I always intend to get back to it. Some day when I have the inspiration I will. But this idea ended up being a challenge I didn’t feel ready for at the time, and then my interest moved on to other ideas.

I also had a longer story planned for “you must become an island (the horizon is all we have)” but only posted one part of it to finish it on time. Ideally this fic would be part of a series, but again, motivation is needed so we’ll see

Technically I have 22 rebelcaptain ideas alone (including some listed in this post) at various states of completed, plus a handful of Community and HMC ideas. Of the ones I’m most interested in, there’s probably about 14 that I really hope to finish and post some day. 

ETA: omg i totally forgot that i was idly considering trying to finish my rebelcaptain soulmate AU in time for Valentine’s Day, but at this point I haven’t had any motivation to write so I don’t think that’s gonna happen. that fic has been sitting in my drafts since 2018 and in my drafts it will continue to sit.

Coming soon: “soon” is relative but these are currently the ones I’ve focused the most on recently:

Fencing AU (rebelcaptain)

You’ve Got Mail AU (rebelcaptain)

Post-War Fic with @allatariel (rebelcaptain, plus a LOT of other ships, includes Rebels characters, OT characters, and... maybe some others :) )

Palm Springs/time loop AU (Jeff/Annie)

Do you accept prompts: Wellllll here’s the thing. When I’ve asked for prompts, I haven’t been the best at fulfilling them in a timely manner. For that reason, I don’t encourage prompts but I’m not opposed to them. (I suppose technically exchange fics are prompts, and I wrote a bunch of fics in 2017 for rebelcaptainprompts, but I’m not gonna count those because I don’t think that’s what the question here is really going for)

“The Climb (A Lie, A Hero)” (Rogue One, rebelcaptain) was actually a prompt. 

I solicited prompts for my birthday in 2019, which I didn’t end up fulfilling until exactly one year later. 

Technically the You’ve Got Mail AU is a prompt, someone prompted me to write a fic for my favorite go-to comfort movie.

And, uh, the certain someone who tagged me for this meme prompted me in a comment back in October 2017 to do a Luke and Leia swap where Leia grows up on Tatooine, so that is sitting in my WIP list. 

Yeah, this is why I don’t solicit or encourage prompts. The return rate is just not fair for the prompter. 

Upcoming story you are most excited to write: this fluctuates on any given day. the fencing AU is so close to being done (well the first draft anyways) so i really really want to just finish it! But yeah it’d be anything on the coming soon list above.

tagging: @allatariel, @cats-and-metersticks, @lothcatlovesysalamiri, @veritascara, @brynnmclean and anyone who sees this and wants to do it! also ofc per usual no pressure if u don’t want to.

[script-the-skeleton]

FE3H AU that I want to write but don’t know 100% of the lore of the game to accurately depict.

After trying multiple times for a golden ending, Byleth resets one last time with a new plan that could be her last

She remeets Sothis. “How many more tries must we do this? It will never work, we have tried everything! Oh? Well, I have always wondered what would happen in the End.”

Byleth smiled at her father and calls him such for the first time before heading into battle.

Byleth takes the knife for Edelgard but doesn’t rewind time. She dies, the last thing she sees is Eldelgard’s terrified and regretful face. In that moment, her hair turns the light green and the Ashen Demon is no more.

Jeralt is heartbroken, and furious because Rhea definitely did something to his kid with that hair, so he agrees in a rage to go back to the monastery. He wants to bury Byleth with where he thinks her mother is buried and fight with Rhea.

The Lords all are affected from Byleth’s death, they asked this person for help and they died for them. Claude is silent, Dimitri prays for her soul to be put to rest, and Edelgard can’t comprehend why a stranger would throw away their life for her. She feels extra guilty since the bandits were her fault and now she killed an innocent. None of them can stop apologizing.

They get to Garreg Mach and the real differences begin here. Jeralt yells and argue with Rhea, but can ultimately do no more than demand Byleth be buried with his wife. He stays for a month for her funear before leaving with his mercenaries.

The third teacher is Jeritza, but he somehow gets stuck with the Blue Lions. Hannerman is with the Black Eagles. Maneula is with the Golden Deer.

That’s when the clock breaks.

The three main lords start seeing and hearing things. They’ll blink and they’ll see a different proffessor in front of them. They’ll hear the song of the goddess from dark corners or the slashing a bone sword going through enemies. They remember timelines that shouldn’t exist in fragments and they are all secretly going insane.

Hubert tries to push Edelgard to continue with their plans, but she was so affected by Byleth’s death that she tells him to hold off. She doesn’t know why, but it pained her so much that one death. Hubert obliges, but TWSITD are restless.

Throughout the story, the respective teachers help each house. Mercedes finds out Jeritza is her brother and them connecting again leads him to branch off from Edelgard’s plans, because he doesn’t want to hurt his sister. Manuela recruits Dorathea with her aspirations to continue opera and even helps Ignatz with his paintings. Hannerman recruits Lysithea and they research over her multiple crests. Edelgard hears about this and joins, coming to realize how much TWSITD are responsible for her pain and not the church.

TWSITD attack even though Edelgard has declared that she would no longer help them and would activly fight against them if they pushed. They are pushed back from the tomb and other holy areas, the the crypt that supposedly held Seiros’ remains was empty, no sword in sight, as they three lords defeats their soldiers.

After that battle, the three lords no see a figure take shape in their rooms. They are mix between Sothis and Byleth, making them look slightly younger than Byleth, so around 17 or 18, and they don’t know who they are, not even their name. The talk to the lords and act like Sothis did in the game. Dimitri thinks its another ghost from the past, projecting the mercenary who died for them, and ignores it. Claude talks to it every once in a while and has pleasent conversations. Edelgard tries to ignore it, but eventually uses it as a therapist whenever she needs to talk to someone.

Remire Village and the attack on Garreg Mach have little to no causalities. Flayn was never kidnapped, so Monica never showed up, and Jeralt wasn’t even there so he never died. The Flame Emperor also never makes an appearance in general.

The following month still left a lot of people feeling dour for reasons they didn’t understand.

Edelgard recieves word from visiting her father that TWSITD are planning one more attack to steal the crest stones. She is crowned emperor and quickly runs back to the academy. She admits to Dimitri and Claude, after the ghost tells her to trust them, that she was being puppetee by TWSITD and that she hasn’t followed them in months, she leaves out the part where she tried to kill them at the beginning of the year, and ask for their help.

They agree and take on the battle in the maseuleum, or however you spell it. TWSITD are there and they fight back. They all notice a figure up on a magnificent throne, she is sitting upright and unmoving and was wearing clothing of the goddess.

“It’s her!” They all say at once as they recognize an older version of the ghost, the greened haired Byleth on the throne, a sword in her lap.

Rhea comes in after the enemies retreat and tells them to leave the area. Edelgard pushes and asks why that woman was on the throne and not buried, and how come her body hadn’t rotted away since she died. Rhea refuses to answer and even threatens them to stay quiet, but still thanks them for protecting what was sacred.

Edelgard thanks the two lords for helping her and she tells them that she will be leaving school early to help dismantle TWSITD.

Following that day for the next five years, the only time they ever see the ghost is when it is asleep and drapped over a chair.

FIVE YEARS LATER!

Edelgard declared her empire seperate from the church, cutting all ties off except for trades while still allowing the faith, without declaring war. Rhea is furious about this but Seteth makes sure she doesn’t do anything rash. Edelgard is still looking with the help of her classmates for the remains of the Agarthins, who have been hiding from her.

Claude is leader of the alliance and is setting in place laws that would end discrimination against foreigners and those without crests. He even visits Almyra frequently, though no one is exactly sure who. He never officially said anything against the church, but it isn’t a secret that he isn’t a believer.

Dimitri no longer sees ghosts of any kind and is a fair ruler to his kingdom. He is the only lord that has close connections to the church and even still talks to Rhea. He has good relations with the empire also, so much that the people say he and Edelgard are like siblings.

Hannerman, with the help of one crest stone that Edelgard slipped him after that one attack, learned the secrets to multiple crests. Lysithea and Edelgard are both free, leaving them with no crests which they are fine with, and their lifespans have lengthened. Their hair even turned back its natural color.

As for the ghost, it always appears in the highest ranking chair to fall asleep in the room the lords are in. Edelgard can no longer sit on her throne without feeling rude, so she is never near it. Dimitri has swapped out his throne for another chair, lying and saying he wasn’t worthy for his father’s throne. Claude doesn’t have a throne, just the head of a table, and he never really sat down when he talked. The ghost also shivers frequently, like they are cold. Weirdly, putting a blanket over it seems to work.

Then, on the 1000 year anniversary of the church being built, the ghost vanishes and is no where to be found. All three lords are going to the ball held at Garreg Mach for their reunions and to show that they hold no ill will to the church. When they get there, they all have the feeling like something is wrong, but they can’t place it.

Individually, they all go to the goddess tower, for they make out the image of the awake ghost. When they make it up there, no one but the living are there and they finally realize that they can all see the ghost. They come to the conclusion that this was something that had to do with the corpse in the basement.

The ball is interupted with spears of light start blowing up the world. Fives years without war led to the Argathins seeking power and they are attacking. All three groups, plus some of the church, find and defeat all the Argathins.

This part isn’t expanded on here because there isn’t much to it except its the endgame of the Golden Deer/Silver Snow path and they defeat the big bads while everyone is still alive.

After the battle, they all go back to the church and go look for the corspe. They find it along with Rhea, who fights them to keep them away.

They defeat her and she admits that she tried to raise the goddess back with Byleth, who held her power. The ghost reveals herself to be the fusion of Byleth and Sothis to Rhea and yells her out mom style about how idiotic is was to try to bring her back at the risk of other people.

The ghost explains how she wanted a perfect ending where everyone was alive and no one fought, and they only way to that was her death, which kickstarted Edelgard realizing her mistakes. She asks them to say hi to Jeralt for her, says goodbye to her daughter, and fades away.

This whole AU I really wanted to explore what would happen if Byleth did die and I realized how much that would’ve affect Edelgard. The war might’ve still happened, but Edelgard was pushed forward by how Byleth was treated by Rhea and by TWSITD. I also like imaging a timeline without Byleth where all the lords keep seeing her and can sometimes talk, but she isn’t really there. I just imagine Dimitri’s internally screaming, Edelgard’s seen weirder, and Claude still calls the ghost teach through instinct and just spills the tea of his daily life to her.

[angelsdevils]

Fuwa x Reader

Title: Anniversary Lemon Warning: Sexual Themes

[Not much lemon in this one but enough that it should still be warned about]

You walked into the bathroom to see your girlfriend of three years brushing her teeth. She looked at you through the mirror and you gave her a sleepy smile as you wrapped your arms around her waist. She leaned against you before spitting the toothpaste out and gave you a small smile.

“Happy Anniversary baby...” You said kissing her neck slightly which caused her to blush slightly.

“Happy Anniversary...” She finished brushing her teeth before rinsing her mouth with mouthwash. She turned around and wrapped her arms around your neck placing a kiss to your lips gently. You instantly kissed her back and the kiss soon began to heat up and you gently pushed Fuwa against the bathroom sink. She let a small whimper out and parted from the kiss causing you to pout.

“(Y/N)... wait until tonight. We have things to do today.” She said, pushing you to get ready.

“Okay... fine. I am still meeting your friends today?” You asked tilting your head to the side, and she nodded her head.

“Yes... plus they will love you as much as I do.” She winked slightly and you sighed getting ready for the day. When you were done, she grabbed your hand leading you to the old E-Class building. You were confused as to why she was leading up a mountain.

“A mountain?” You asked, looking at her and she smiled, still pulling you.

“This is where I went to middle school.”

“You climbed this hill everyday?”

“Yepp and trained in gym class.”

“No wonder you have so much stamina in the bed.” You said out loud and she froze blushing a bright red.

“Don’t say that out loud!” She said covering your mouth and you laughed slightly behind her hand before moving away. You grabbed her by her waist and pecked her lips quickly causing her to get a little bashful and shy.

“I love it... don’t worry I won’t say such things in front of your friends. After all that is only for me to know and them to never find out.” You said and she laced her fingers with yours as you guys finally reached the mountain. You looked around and saw several people up here.

“Oh look its Fuwa... and.... Her girlfriend?” A guy with orange hair said, and Fuwa nodded her head with a smile.

“Sorry I am late... (Y/N) wasn’t expecting the hill.” She said and you waved and a guy with a camera began to take pictures of you and Fuwa.

“Are you sure its okay for me to be here? I mean this seems to be something for you guys.” I told Fuwa but a guy who looked princely walked up to you.

“Don’t worry Fuwa already asked, we all wanted to meet you. I am Isogai, that’s Maehara.” He began to introduce everyone and you smiled, shaking everyone’s hands.

“So how long have you and Fuwa been dating?” Kayano asked and you looked at Fuwa with a smile.

“Today is three years.”

“Whoa... so long that is so cute.” Hara said and you laughed and she was blushing slightly.

“Yeah I have no intentions of leaving this cutie...” You said pinching Fuwa’s cheek and she swapped at your hands, blushing.

“Shut up...”

“Did you guys need help cleaning? I want to be useful.” You said and they nodded and you guys began to clean.

“Random question...” You looked over to see Okajima and he smiled widely.

“Yes?”

“Are you guys active... like in that way?” Just then Fuwa and all the girls beside you began to beat Okajima. You and the rest of the guys sweat dropped slightly.

“He was the class pervert.” Chiba said and you nodded understanding.

“That is none of your business Okajima~” Fuwa yelled blushing a bright red.

“Your face is red, that means you are!” He yelled before she began to beat him with a broom and you laughed with the others before wrapping your arms around Fuwa.

“Don’t lose your cool.... Calm down or no anime for a month.” She froze and pouted slightly lowering the broom.

“Okay...” She said and once everyone was done cleaning you all took a break sitting in the classroom. Most of the questions were directed towards you and Fuwa who she took over talking so you wouldn’t say anything embarrassing.

“Though... I did want to do something....” I said after Fuwa finished talking and they all looked at you confused. You turned to Fuwa and she looked at you confused and hesitant as to what you were going to do. You did manage to talk to Okajima before you guys finished cleaning and what you had planned needed him. He made sure he snuck away from the group to get into a better position to capture the moment.

“Even though I love spending time with you and your friends... it’s still our anniversary.” You said and she nodded her head as you pulled a gift from behind your back.

“Is this for me?”

“Yes... open it...”

“Now?”

“Yes...”

“Can’t it wait until we are alone?”

“Nope. I can’t think of a better location.” You said and she sighed beginning to open the box, you glanced at the group and they realized what was happening and got out of the way. She saw a small black box inside of the larger box and looked at you confused as you took it from her and got on one knee. Fuwa covered her mouth as you smiled widely and some squeals were heard from other girls.

“Yuzuki Fuwa, I am terrible with words... I can only show actions. So I am just going to get straight to the point. I love you, a lot... more than life itself honestly. I want you by my side for all eternity. Will you please do me the honors and be my wife?”

“YES!” She practically yelled and jumped onto you hugging you, she was sobbing and you couldn’t help but laugh as Okajima continued to video the reaction. He then began to take pictures of you two and Fuwa wiped her tears and you placed the ring on her hand.

“I love you so much (Y/N)...” She said hugging you again and everyone began to clap.

“That is so sweet.”

“I am sending this to everyone.” Okajima said.

“No need, it will take too long since you used a professional camera, I have it on my phone too.” Maehara said and posted it in the group chat. It soon went crazy with congratulations and others wondering who you were.

After the day with Fuwa and now your friends as well as well as the proposal, you and Fuwa decided to grab dinner at one of her favorite restaurants.

“How do you like them?” She asked and you smiled.

“They are very lively, and I am glad they like me as well.” You said with a wide smile. She smiled, glad you got along with her friends as your food came, and you both began to eat.

“I hope today wasn’t boring though, I mean I know it was our anniversary.” She said and you shook your head.

“Are you kidding? I got to spend the entire day with my beautiful girlfriend.”

“You are such a dork.” Fuwa said and you laughed as you smiled shrugging your shoulders.

“I can’t believe you proposed in front of everyone...”

“Well it was the perfect place, you talk highly of that place so I figured it would be the best place. She nodded her head with a smile as you guys continued to eat. When you both finished you paid and you both walked home hand in hand.

After arriving, you both went straight to the bedroom and she cuddled into your side. You wrapped you arms around her and she leaned up pressing a kiss to your lips.

“I love you Yuzuki...”

“I love you more.” She said and you rolled on top of her and she blushed slightly as you kissed her lips repeatedly. Your fingers trailed along her legs and up her thighs, you felt her shiver and you broke away from the kiss. You lifted her leg up and began to press kisses up her leg as you maintained eye contact with her. She covered her mouth blushing as you kissed her thighs and nibbled on the extremely soft flesh.

You hooked your fingers underneath her panties and pulled them down and lifted her skirt up a bit. She avoided eye contact as she began to moan, as your tongue dipped into her core. She gasped and arched her back as you began to thrust your tongue deep inside of her and she whimpered slightly.

Fuwa tangled her hands into your hair tugging on it slightly as your name left her lips and she whimpered slightly.

“A-Ahhh (Y/N)... please...” She begged and you began to thrust your tongue deep inside her faster and twisting and folding your tongue. She felt a release build and it wasn’t long before she came on your tongue. She cried out softly covering her mouth with her free hand letting your hair go. You pulled away and climbed back on top of her kissing her lips again which she instantly responded. You both didn’t want to continue too far just because you both craved cuddling more.

© [@angelsdevils] all rights reserved. none of my posts or stories should be modified, reposted etc. I do not own the character, but I own the plots to these stories.