#ah; i have a funny fact about the character here. this is Gary. he's a powerful... oh; what would you call it.

[parme-san]

^ i deadass feel that i peaked with this drawing i did at 17

[mexicancat-girl]

Ok guys, I can't take it, I’m seriously at my limit here.

Uraraka vs Bakuboi was a sham of a fight and none of it makes any goddamn sense.

Uraraka deserved her win, for multiple reasons.

Shout out to @bnhasalt, who’s post reminded me how indignantly furious this arc makes me.

More under the cut over both how salty I am, and how Uraraka losing against Explodo Kills makes absolutely no sense, even narratively.

(Warning ahead for a discussion on sexism, misogyny, forced fanservice, the blatant favoritism towards That One Specific Character even if unearned in the narrative, and the general incompetence on how to write female characters.

I call B/kugo “Bakuboi” in this analysis bc I don’t want to write his Actual Name out and have it pop up in his character tags. Also, heads up, I’m sorry for how messy and long this rant is )

First, can I just say that Horikoshi is uhhhh Bad at writing female characters?

Which I’m sure many female fans already have an inkling about, but goddamn is it never more obvious than in the Sports Festival Arc. Because hey, at least the female characters are THERE and PARTICIPATING and have their own time to shine! This ISN’T one of those arcs that just stars THE BOYS, so that MUST mean this arc is equal opportunity! Right...?

God, I wish. I wish...

See, the girls are the minority of the Sports Fest in general. It shouldn’t be this way. And quite frankly, the fact that the classes (and UA in general) isn’t closer to being a 50/50 gender split also makes no sense, considering all children are raised in a society that values heroism EQUALLY and almost half the population is male and half female.

But, okay, let’s say I actually believe in the most illogical character ratio imagineable of there being a 2 boy to 1 girl, like this is another round of Naruto But It’s Superheroes So It’s Different I Swear.

We all know that there is going to be an emphasis on Izuku, since he’s the protagonist and he wants to make All Might proud during the Sports Festival.

Pre-Festival, there’s the reveal that Uraraka wants to do her best, with her main motivation of becoming a hero to give her parents a good life. Iida also wants to make his own family proud, specifically his brother, because of his family legacy. 

Since these three are a trio, you’d think they’d all get some time to shine, right? Since they’re Izuku’s friends? And Izuku considers them his equals?

Yeah, no. Wrong.

This arc is dominated by Izuku, Shoto, and Bakuboi. That becomes clear very quickly. 

I knew I shouldn’t expect much, since these three are powerhouses and also the most popular characters of the entire franchise (just look at the popularity polls) but still. I’d thought at least Uraraka would get a chance to shine! Since we get some character development and motivation revealed from her!

But the female characters in general get done so dirty this arc, despite it being first set up as a perfect arc to let the girls have just as much opportunity to participate as their male peers.

The most significant part of the female characters all getting an ‘equal time to shine’ is when He Who Must Not Be Mentioned and Kaminari trick the girls into dressing as scantily-clad cheerleaders. Which is both Tiring and Unncessary.

(This scheme also shouldn’t have worked because Momo is Vice Rep and she is an intelligent girl, top of her class. She would be smart enough to go to a teacher and actually double-check to see if Class 1-A girls really needed to cheer in the activities portion of the Sports Festival. 

But noooo, Horikoshi can’t pass up a chance for FANSERVICE and forcing his underaged female characters to be uncomfortable for The Funnies! Thanks! I hate it!)

The female characters that move onto the final round of the Sports Festival, and thusly have the most attention, are: Uraraka, Mei Hatsume from Support, Momo, Mina, and Shiozaki from 1-B.

Wow, I sure wish these girls could like...show their worth. And maybe NOT get steamrolled and easily tossed aside in their matches because they’re facing Boys and Boys Have Strong Offense-based Quirks, That’s The Rules Folks.

(Before you come at me, I know that isn’t a rule that applies to every single male character in the series, but the strongest and offense-based Quirks tend to go to the male characters, while the female characters tend to get more support-based Quirks. It’s both sexist, but also an inherent trend in media in general. Please Just Let Women Punch Shit To Smithereens And Control The Elements.)

Yes, Mina and Shiozaki won their first rounds easily! And that’s great to see! But then we turn right around, and they're eliminated just as quickly in their second matches! Without even a fighting chance!

Good God, Shiozaki is literally PUSHED OUT OF THE RING. That’s it, that’s how she lost. Same thing with Momo in her match! And Mei straight-up forfeits because her character is based more on advertising her inventions/babies, so she doesn’t even fight.

So essentially, the female characters are shucked away if they’re not used to make the male characters look good, or there for fanservice, or there to show a shallow form of ~feminism~ so Horikoshi can pat himself on the back and say “See! Girls strong! I can write girls!”

And now we get to the meat of things: Uraraka.

Oh, poor Uraraka. Out of all the female characters, your potential was the greatest, and also the most squandered...

As a reminder, at the start of the arc, Uraraka speaks with both Izuku and Iida about how she wants to do well in the Sports Fest. They all promise to do their best. Izuku’s friends admit that they want to face him in later matches, because they want to be his equals.

Uraraka wanted to stand on the same level as Izuku and Iida, but she's the only one that doesn't move on past her first match!

And man, what an absolute bogus match it is.

Is it emotional? Yeah. Did I tear up when I watched it? Sure, every single time! But that's more because Uraraka is one of my favorite characters and I feel empathy for her and thought she deserved better.

The match gets to me because I also hate how Bakuboi is so fucking entitled and gets everything handed to him on a silver platter.

Bakuboi himself is written as, essentially, a Gary Stu. He always wins. ALWAYS. And even when he ‘loses’, he still manages to beat his opponents to the point that they need to be hospitalized (see Izuku vs Kacchan pt 1) or he makes his losses ALL ABOUT HIMSELF by twisting logic to fit his own narrative.

Remember how Bakuboi won against Todoroki in the final match? And was so pissed at him he was ready to Physically Assault Todoroki for him not being able to Get Over His Trauma to go 100% during their match? And even though Bakuboi LITERALLY won the entire Sports Festival, he’s so entitled that he demands a rematch because he feels like he “didn’t actually win”?

Not wanting a rematch for Todoroki’s sake, because Todoroki has been through a rough time and Bakuboi overheard Todo’s Tragic Abusive Backstory. Oh no, that would make too much sense and show too much character growth, we can’t have that! Bakuboi, even when winning the Sports Festival, demanded a rematch because he wanted to beat the shit out of Todoroki AGAIN to assert his dominance.

You see, Bakuboi is always rewarded in the narrative. Even when he loses it’s not seen as his fault. He’s never really punished for it, and he never learns any lessons from his losses.

Ah, and let’s not forget, Katsuki Bakuboi has the Best And Strongest Quirk Ever. Strong enough to even do the impossible and work to his advantage when it shouldn’t!

Like how he SOMEHOW manages to ‘beat the odds’ by breaking the laws of physics to win in Round 2. He manages to PUNCH THROUGH A QUIRK THAT CREATES A SOLID WALL from 1-B’s Tsuburaba in order to get back his team’s headband and move on to Round 3.

Or hey, his finishing move, Howlitzer Impact? Doesn’t make any sense either. It shouldn’t work as a...cyclone? Tornado? Drill thing? 

Look, the logistics of it shouldn’t work. Yes, this is anime, but do you HONESTLY think that a teenager YEETING himself in a fast spiral will somehow accomplish anything more than spreading out some explosions in a circle around him? You honestly think any other character would be able to pull that bullshit off WITHOUT upchucking their entire lunch?

But because it’s Bakuboi, it works somehow. Because Bakuboi’s Quirk is The Shining Beacon Of Quirks. 

Drawbacks? Sure, he SUPPOSEDLY has them. They’re noted in his character profile and everything. But very rarely do those supposed “drawbacks” ever actually come into play and actually, like, stop him. Or slow him down. Or, yknow, ACTUALLY WORK LIKE DRAWBACKS ARE SUPPOSED TO WORK.

Because apparently, human limits don’t exist for Katsuki fucking Bakuboi, nope, not at all!

One of Bakuboi’s "drawbacks" is supposed to be that he can't overexert himself or he can fuck up his wrists/his forearms will start to ache. 

Cool cool cool, except...This rarely slows him down or effects him at all. 

It’s actually astounding he hasn’t given himself Carpel Tunnel, because that would be a natural consequence to over-using his Quirk. Hell, he should be fucking up his arms almost as much as Izuku does to his own arms with a destructive Quirk like OFA! Explosions are dangerous and cause massive destruction, and that should be fucking up his arms SOMEHOW!

But, nope. Bakuboi is as fresh as a goddamn daisy. He can Never Have A Weakness.

(Another drawback is cold weather/Winter season is supposed to weaken his Quirk. Makes sense, since heat would help him produce more nitroglycerin sweat, and the cold would make it hard to sweat. But that sure as hell didn’t stop him during the Joint Training Arc in the future, and he didn’t struggle whatsoever to almost singlehandedly win that for his team.)

Not ONCE does Bakuboi’s Quirk ever effect him negatively and forces him to weaken! He keeps using his Quirk like it's nothing!!

And that’s the crux of the entire problem with Uraraka vs Bakuboi’s match.

Bakuboi apparently has “drawbacks” and “limits”, but he keeps somehow managing to break them without a sweat (ha) and without consequence, essentially PULLING WINS OUT OF HIS ASS.

Bakuboi was using his Quirk LITERALLY NONSTOP during Round 1, and kept using it to throw himself around in Round 2. Logically, he should’ve fucked his arms up and been at the very least SLOWED DOWN by the third round of the Sports Fest because he went past what were SUPPOSED to be his Quirk’s canonical limitations and logic!

It would've taught Bakuboi that he can't fucking steamroll through all his problems! He has limits! There are consequences to over using his Quirk! He’s a human being and he doesn’t have endless stamina like some sort of God!

Hell, every other character has these limits very clearly shown and outlined with their Quirks! Uraraka throws up when she over-uses Zero Gravity. Shoto, before using his fire side, would get frostbite. Iida’s Engines will stall after using Recipro Burst.

The other characters have limitations to their Quirks that slows them down, shows consequences for their actions, but Bakuboi NEVER HAS ANY.

THIS is why he’s a Gary Stu. THIS is why he won his match against Uraraka.

Not because of any logic. Because HIS QUIRK HAS NO FLAWS. And on top of that, THE NARRATIVE KEEPS REWARDING HIM, EVEN WHEN HE HASN’T EARNED IT.

Bakuboi SHOULD have been weakened from using his Quirk non-stop. Bakuboi SHOULD NOT have managed to pull out that “one final big explosion” that ruined Uraraka’s final attack.

Bakuboi was literally hissing about his arms hurting earlier, before their match started. And Uraraka forced him to use his Quirk so much that she managed to amass a ton of debris to knock him out and win the match. HIS EXPLOSIONS SHOULD HAVE SPUTTERED OUT, AND NOT SAVED HIM WITH THAT LAST-SECOND ASSPULL.

Like, I’m preeeeetty sure the entire reason Horikoshi wrote Uraraka vs Bakuboi in the first place was because he was attempting at writing Feminism.

See, Bakuboi Hates Everyone Equally, he’s not a violent misogynist for beating up Uraraka! It’s a Match, he Respects Women And Sees Them As Equals! The Crowd of Pro Heroes are the ones being Misogynistic and Judging The Match Early!

And look at Uraraka, she’s a Strong Woman! She keeps getting back up! That’s the Shonen Spirit! And she’s smart, too! Look at her amazing plan to win--

Oh, wait. Wait, nope. She didn’t win at all! :) Because our shining beacon of perfection Katsuki Bakuboi never loses!! :)) Look at all her hopes and dreams being blown to literal smithereens, because of Bakuboi’s ass pull, even though he shouldn’t have had enough time, sweat, and strength to muster up that last explosion!!! :)))

Can ya’ll feel my incandescent fury right now?

Because Horikoshi can NEVER write Bakuboi losing, Uraraka COULDN’T HAVE WON, even if her winning makes THE MOST LOGICAL SENSE.

This scene was supposed to show Uraraka’s strength. But it feels like Uraraka is being literally spit in her face, for even DARING to TRY to win against Katsuki fucking Bakuboi.

How much more impactful would Uraraka’s breakdown have been, if she had moved onto the Second Round with Izuku and Iida? How she would feel ashamed that she couldn’t keep up with them, with how Powerful their Quirks are? Especially after seeing Izuku and Todoroki’s amazing match, and seen how destructive and close a match it had been?

How DEVASTATED she would have felt, beating BAKUBOI--one of the strongest of their class!--and then STILL managing to lose the Sports Festival?

That would have been SO much more interesting! And even SADDER!! C’mon!

Uraraka SHOULD have won her match! It would’ve provided both character development for herself, and for Bakuboi! Bakuboi would realize he has limits to his body and Quirk, and realize not to underestimate his opponents! Uraraka would realize that she’s strong in spite of her Quirk not being necessarily combat-oriented, but still has a long way to go in being a Pro Hero!

But, nooooo. We can’t have CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, can we? We ESPECIALLY can’t have THE FEMALE CHARACTERS IMPACTING THE PLOT IN SOME WAY, either! Or--what’s this? FEMALE CHARACTERS ACTUALLY HAVING THE SPOTLIGHT FOR ONCE? Perish the thought!

The only good parts about this godforsaken arc are 1) Mei Hatsume 2) Hitoshi Shinso and 3) Izuku vs Todoroki fight and Todoroki’s Tragic Backstory Reveal. Everything else is hit-or-miss, if not completely hot garbage.

Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED Talk, and for reading this entire thing! Four for you, reader. You go, reader.

[adrieunor]

the one where they’re married (1/?)

Fandom: The Good Place  Rating: T  Pairing: Michael & Eleanor Shellstrop (pseudo-Michael/Eleanor) 

amnesia, married-but-not, possibly dub-con bc identity issues but nothing explicit; implied Michael reboot or judge reboot  Notes: found this thing hanging out in my WIP and I don’t even remember writing it. but I had fun reading through what’s here, so I thought I’d go ahead and throw it out into the world. 

Story summary:  It didn’t quite top the discovery of waking up in a hospital bed with potential brain damage, but Eleanor is quite sure of one thing. She’s willing to stake money on it, no matter how out of character or divergent he is from her history:

this man is her husband.

Which, great – wow, whoa and every other questionable w-sound.

Hadn’t thought you had it in you girl, Eleanor thinks.

******************

Eleanor wakes up.

Correction: Eleanor tries.

One moment, it’s the nothingness of unconsciousness and then the sudden clarity of what’s happening? Where am I?— except her body feels like it hasn’t caught up to this decision.

She feels heavy.

All of her feels heavy. From the bottom of her feet to the crown of her head, it feels like every atom of her person has suddenly gained ten extra ounces of new weight. Not enough to be a hardship, individually, but combined together—she’s drowning, suffocated by her own eyelids and the thick, still air that doesn’t give any hint to where she seems to be.

Her eyes feel heavy – the stupid gelatinous orbs feel like they’re suspended in concrete, while her lids struggle to flutter awake.

(It’s a stupid expression, anyway, because it’s more hippos doing ballet than graceful ostriches with large feathered fans prancing across the imaginary stage of her mind.)

Fuck.

It hurts.

It feels good to be able to give a resounding f-bomb in her mind. She doesn’t know why it feels good, just that it does—it shouldn’t, though, since Eleanor has been saying fuck and other double-dog-dare-you words since she was in secondhand velcro shoes. She says “fuck” more times on the daily than her own name, certainly more times than “please” or “thank you.”

Ten seconds of consciousness has her registering how rattled her bones feel. Someone has either taken her brain and expanded it to be too big for her skull, or taken her skull and fractured it, hot gluing the pieces back to fit her brain but accidentally leaving a few behind.

“Eleanor? Are you awake?”

Trying to be.

Even in her mind, the words she wants to respond with feel slurred, fumbled by a dull tongue that’s trying to unstick from the roof of her mouth.

She’s not sure if the keening sound is just bubbling frustration and pain she’s creating in her head, or if she’s really making it. Eleanor wants to open her mouth and let her sad, animal crying out, but it seems, between the last time she was awake and now, someone’s affixed her jaw with lead, super glue, and the caramel they use to cover those cheap, green apple pops.

Eleanor settles for a whimper.

It’s the trembling of her bottom lip that makes her realize something’s brushing against her face, threaded across her nose and mouth and affixed by sticky tape on her cheeks.

Dry fingertips, warm and calloused, brush over her temple. The stray, lanky hair that had been plastered to her forehead, tickling her brow and her nose, is brushed back and tucked behind her ears.

“Hold on,” the same person says, and something clicks or beeps beside her ear. She hadn’t thought of her wrists and hands yet, had only registered them being as weighed down as the rest of her. Now, she’s minutely aware of the tender clasp around her left wrist – a dry, warm steadiness that makes her joints ache painfully.

Eleanor wants to wiggle, wants to shake, wants to fucking jerk her arms and legs about until everything pops back into feeling, but she can’t. Something from inside must be conveyed outside, some twitch or snarl of frustration, because the warm hand gently turns her wrist. Unfamiliar (familiar) fingers slide and brush against her pulse before settling into a new position: her own hand cradled in a larger one, while a thumb that’s not hers gently strokes the tops of her knuckles.

The next sound feels like a land mine detonated in a pocket of silence. A heavy door opens with the force of five hundred hangovers, followed by heels clicking sharply and smartly against a linoleum floor. Rustling fabric, a pen clicking, a folder being dropped down onto a table surface all has her wincing, as if it’s been amplified right by her fucking ear.

Her companion does not let go of her hand, but he grips it until his thumb is a firm, anxious pressure that presses on the space between her ring finger and pinky.

“Is she in pain? She looks—“

Eleanor doesn’t catch the rest of it, but the voice has only picked up in volume, a little, harried but direct. Whatever answer the new body has, she doesn't hear it. 

Amidst the skull-splitting pain that pulsates from her crown down to the rest of her, like a tree suddenly struck by lighting, she registers only one thing: a dry press of lips against her fingers, solemn and unbearably present sensation, before she’s swarmed by other voices and sounds.

******************

Eleanor is only catching every fifth word that is coming out of the woman’s mouth. The ice chips had alleviated the fuzziness on her tongue, but it hadn’t fixed what was wrong in her head.

Her head.

Words like damage, injury, sustained bleeding,

The wailing in her ears had subsided, a bit, since the last time she was awake. It was now a low, thrumming pitch in the back of her mind, like a loud fluorescent light bulb in an office space. She can ignore it, after a while, but it’s there.

Other things that are very much there and present: the man.

******************

Her eyes drift towards his hand, the one that’s not holding her own – long fingers woven loosely to catch her own, between the gauze and IV line – where it rests on his knee. She's not sure what the glimmer is, at first, until she realizes it's two gold bands on one hand, a comically smaller one slipped onto his pinky. 

“Ah,” her eyes drift back up of their own accord to watch the way his brows furrow, mouth open in thought, “I thought it’d be better if I kept it, in case the tests and the machines…”

His mouth purses into a thin line, which only emphasizes the ones carved into the corners of his mouth and his eyes even more – he looks like the type that would frown a lot, Eleanor thinks. He seemed like the bookish-type that would have resting bitch face while deep in thought; a heavy oak desk with a tiffany lamp and a pen tipped in gold wouldn’t be out of place in a room with him, or a really fancy fucking wall of degrees and a sharp suit.

Her shameless eyes stray towards his thin lips, the defined line of his jaw, skipping back to the worn crinkles in his skin.

There’s a lot of something to him that seems to command the presence of whatever space he occupies. The corner he occupies wraps around him like a well-tailored jacket – even in his unassuming navy and pale blue.

 Well, she revises her thoughts; he looked like he might laugh a lot, too. Eleanor bets he laughs with his mouth wide open, or smiles to show nearly all his teeth.

He wasn’t laughing now, of course. Given the circumstances.

******************

He is a man-shaped absence in her memory – she of the forgetful faces and even more forgetful names has seemingly forgotten her own husband, spouse, and partner-- legally bound tax accomplice, all of the above. Michael.

He’s got a face made for

He does a funny

Oh.

It didn’t quite top the discovery of waking up in a hospital bed with potential brain damage, but Eleanor is quite sure of one thing. She’s willing to stake money on it, no matter how out of character or divergent he is from her history:

this man is her husband.

Which, great – wow, whoa and every other questionable w-sound.

Hadn’t thought you had it in you girl, Eleanor thinks. She takes another second, ten, fifteen, a minute, to look appreciatively up and down.

******************

She’s not sure if the muscles in her face contort into the expression of surprise like the light bulb that’s gone off in her head – her jaw is still a little slack and her eyes are slow to blink. He might not have noticed, in between one second and the next, how utterly thrown off she is.

******************

It doesn’t look like a fake; Eleanor has seen a lot of fake gold jewelry in her time to know the difference. It’s beautiful in the way that all the ostentatious rings she would pick for herself would not be. She keeps turning her hand this way and that, until one of the nurses asks if she's having wrist pain. 

Despite protests, a tall nurse with too much arm hair pushes her in a wheelchair towards the curb where a burgundy crossover idles.

“Hopefully we won’t see you too soon,” Gary, Gerry, Gerald – or whatever – his name is, says cheerfully. She squints up at him, and he falters. Eleanor supposes that one good thing about being brain damaged was she now had a legitimate reason to forget people’s names.

******************

The good news: if she had woken up too brain damaged to remember her own name, Michael would have fixed that problem easily—it would have been two minutes, tops. She’s pretty sure he says her name more than he uses any other noun or pronoun.

(Which, by the way, the fact that she still has a basic grasp of grammar makes her, again, want to keep track for curiosity’s sake what her loopy brain has decided to keep and discard. She’d stared at the red plastic dome on her hospital plate before, after a pronounced beat, Michael had reached across and pulled the foil top off of her gelatin.)

******************

It just sounds funny – something in her brain itches like a scab underneath a cast, present but unreachable. The way he says her name. It’s been her name for over three decades, so she knows what Eleanor sounds like, usually, coming out of other people’s mouths (when they’re coming, even!). Even knows what it sounds like sung in different accents, thanks to that fucking song.

(All the lonely people, where do they all belong?

Fuck. Her brain couldn’t have erased that?)

******************

It’s not the porch that surprises her; it’s the honest-to-god porch swing, pale wicker and decorated with springtime cushions. That throws her for a loop; breaks a little part of her brain that isn’t already struggling to function.

(“This…. This broke me.”)

(Something tickles her brain, there, too, but it’s gone.)

It’s a good porch, too. The kind that doesn’t fully wrap around the house, but gives enough room for someone to day drink and – ah, there it is, the little tea table that would be beside the—the ___________. She grasps for the word, shapeless and vague. It’s blurry in her head, the thing she’s thinking about also blurry and distant. Her mouth puckers in a frown.

Michael rolls the car to a commercial perfect stop. Eleanor still jerks in her seat. He unbuckles his seat belt and bounds around to her side, opening the door before she’s even lifted a hand to pop it.

“Here, let me-“

She wonders how often she’s let him do anything, in contrast to allowing him to – her hand moves to rest on the release of the seat belt, staking territory.

Her stomach does one, two, slow flops – a fat pancake turned by an amateur line cook.

******************

She doesn’t need an entire love story’s memory to make an easy conclusion, not when Michael’s eyes sweep across her face with a slow, longing softness while his mouth twitches, again, as if it has something to say he won’t let it:

Michael is in love with her.

Eleanor thinks this should be a good thing, if they’re married, but the conclusion settles uncomfortably on top of her chest – it doesn’t sink in, doesn’t settle into a slot of rightness, and she ignores the feeling of disappointment.

Stupid of her, honestly, to think this observation was all it would take to remember why Michael is in love with her. Or how Michael is in love with her.

(What Michael is in love with.)

******************

They have a cat. She doesn’t know why this is something that trips her up, but it does. She’d nearly tripped up on it, literally, when the thing had slunk up to rub itself against her legs, making figure eights around her legs and Michael’s. Michael had nearly stepped on its tail, foot stopping just before contact as if compelled by muscle memory or a glitch in the system.

“Oh,” he hisses, fumbling with the duffel bag, complementary hospital pillow (the socks she’d decided to “wear out” as she’d joked at the nurse, wiping drool from the corner of her mouth), and reusable water bottles, in his arms, “Vicky, stop.”

“Vicky?”

She hopes she hadn't been the one to name it. Vicky sounds like a bitchy girl name, and in Eleanor Shellstrop's book of past experiences she could confirm this. Twice.

Michael gives up on trying to carry everything into …wherever, instead dumping his load onto the love seat in an adjourning room.

Her fingers trail along the table in the entryway, eyes flickering up to give the large, round mirror at eye-level a glance before she’s turning away. She’s pale as a ghost in this strange grey-blue home.

There’s a kitchen island with real, actual stools that swivel plus a wooden dining table with upholstered chairs. She wants to hiss at how excessive it is – eating a bowl of cereal over a dirty sink was enough for her for years – but she bites her tongue. A voice in the back of her head asks if maybe she had picked some of these, had selected them herself. You don’t build a home for two from only one person’s purchases.

“What would you like first, Eleanor?” His expression is hopefulness strained through a sieve. He doesn’t seem to realize how he leans towards her, curves his entire, tall being to look down at her. “Anything you want, just- just let me know. If you’re hungry, I could fix us a snack before you’re due for your next round of meds.”

It should feel annoying and towering, claustrophobic, but instead, looking upwards at him, she feels watched. Seen. It’s an uncomfortable feeling for someone who has always depended on being able to grift just under the radar, but it also isn’t unpleasant.

His hands are pressed together, fingertips touching, long and lean, like prayer.

“Can I just lay down for a bit?”

Michael’s expression softens. “Of course, Eleanor.”

And he offers his hand, palm upturned, as if the hallway was some long, arduous passage instead of a short walk towards a few doors or a climb up the stairs. Eleanor’s hands are so small in his, but his fingers wrap around hers like old acquaintances—hers have forgotten the intricacies of where to go, his have not forgotten her shape and his thumb brushes, familiar, across her knuckles like hello.

It is a warm and dry hold, and what Eleanor has managed to scrape, glean, and covertly steal in her observations about Michael all lead to the conclusion that this is a good descriptor, the most basic, for Michael himself: warm and dry, like Arizona, but the postcard worthy-parts, not the dumpster fire, trash-bag parts that made her.

At the foot of the stairs he pauses, one hand on the rail, the other holding her hand lifted in the air like a debutante. Something flickers, for a moment, and Eleanor imagines a tall, dark woman in a gown and evening gloves, of all things, poised at the foot of the stairs as if to give a toast. She blinks and the image is gone.

“You know,” Michael says, looking up. His brows furrow. “Maybe we should use the guest room downstairs instead. Avoid the stairs.”

“No,” she says, surprising herself. “I want my room.”

******************

She gives the pillow a sniff, leaning down until her nose brushes against the cotton.

Yeah. That’s her. It smells like the scent of her hair, a little to the left of unwashed and greasy. Faint, but there.

There’s stray, blonde strands of hair that curl, pale and almost invisible, in the space where the pillow had been just before—like sunny, thin worms caught only in a certain slant of light.

Eleanor is playing excavation isn’t she? She is rooting around, examining and putting together all these clues left behind for a relationship, a love; building some semblance of understanding for the ghost of a woman—is she an anthropologist? Or is this a forensic-type investigation?

Is Eleanor Shellstrop dead?

She’s here but not here—the pictures and the gold band around her finger tell her these are her memories but they’re not. Her dumb lizard brain hasn’t ______ it out yet.

Oh. Another word that’s fallen through her fingers before she’s even remembered it.

It feels wrong to roll around, smell, and sleep in someone else’s marriage bed—it’s not the first time she’s done it, but it’s never been her bed.

What other intimacies can she find just sitting in the small-person-shaped dip of this bed? She doesn’t think about the dead flakes or skin, but she breaths deeply and her body nearly lurches into that place between awake and sleep—the familiar smell of bed that can only belong to ones own so strong.

The pillows on this side are fat and soft, just the way she likes them. She knows her head would sink into an orgy of clouds if she were to flop down now. It is tempting to do exactly what she had told Michael she wanted to do.

Eleanor resists—there’s another side to explore, still.

******************

It is during one of these days, where she rolls around on the bed (their bed) like a dog left unsupervised in an empty home, that a thought strikes her. It strikes her so suddenly and with a force that she has to press the palm of her hand to her temple, eyes wincing—

Dummy.

What’s under the bed?

She’d been thorough examining the faint layers of dust coating boxes and folds of laundry on the higher shelves, where someone like Michael would keep his things, that she hadn’t thought to drop below to see where someone like her—past Eleanor, GSTGSD-Eleanor, might have hidden and holed away her own treasure.

The only thing she finds, disappointingly, is a shoe caddy with shoes as big as her head, some dust bunnies, and a laptop still charging. 

******************

Vicky the cat goes downstairs into the basement on a daily basis, almost always for half an hour to one, and cries for attention. It’s a bizarre, attention-seeking, and almost resentful performance and, despite being dead ass annoying, Eleanor can relate. What a mood, right?

******************

Forgotten your password? She clicks it.

The prompt doesn’t help at all: you know it, bitch!!

What? Why would she do that to herself? Except, that is so on brand for her and Eleanor hates, hates, hates Eleanor (herself) and loves Eleanor (herself) and hates Eleanor (herself).

She scowls, flexing her fingers. Vicky takes this opportunity to leap into her lap, tail high and crooked for attention, with her unabashed asshole right in Eleanor’s face.

fuckyou! She types, exasperated; before clicking enter, she scowls and adds an extra exclamation mark for good measure—using two exclamations is just enough to push something over the edge, enough to look off balanced, but three would be too much. She wants to send the right amount of recalcitrant bastard to her past self. And if she’s only got one log-in attempt before the laptop bricks, then, fine. Fuck you, GSTGSD Eleanor Shellstrop.

The little ball whirrs for a moment, before the screen flickers, the desktop loading in seconds.

******************

end thoughts: haha okay so I haven’t watched TGP for a hot minute, not since that finale broke me. but I legit don’t recall what GSTGSD stands for (if that’s a show ref) so fuck, haha, help me out here past-adrie. if there’s interest in this I’ll continue it. 

[moonnightyoongi]

yours | mark

love me like im never gonna leave, love me like im yours

word count: 2k

genre: angst (mainly), fluff, swearing (tehe)

a/n: just can’t stop thinkin of mark

based off the song yours | alina baraz

It had happened more than once, in fact you were definitely somewhere in the double digits but you couldn’t stop. Everything about him was intoxicating, the way he looked at you and the way he smiled at you, the smirk he had on his face when he would open the door to you - it was cocky and even though you hated it nothing could make you turn around and go back home. His voice was smooth and no matter what you asked him he never stuttered, there was a simple answer to everything. 

Except one question.

“What is this?”

You had asked him one night and you swear every single bit of colour he had in his body drained and he was left with his mouth open, small stutters coming out. You looked at him and realised what it was and what it always would be… sex. There was no hope of anything progressing past it so you simply shut your feelings off and continued to fuck him.

“Are you leaving?” He asks as you rolled out of the bed.

“Of course,” you reply searching for your dress, “I gotta get back to the wedding.”

“You already left, why do you need to go back?”

“Because my sister is so drunk she won’t remember giving me the go ahead to leave. Besides I have four missed calls from my mum and I don’t think using the excuse that I’m looking at her and waving is going to work at 1am.”

“Just stay here.”

“Why would I do that? I got a room in a 5 star hotel and a massage booked in the morning,” you frown.

“I want you to stay,” he says.

“Well I want a 5 star hotel room and a massage,” you fire back. His smile falls for a second before he looks out the window.

“Can I come with you?” He asks.

“I specifically remember you saying you never want to meet a family member or be my date to my sisters wedding,” you reply.

“I don’t, I wanna have sex in a 5 star hotel room,” he smirks. You look at him and roll your eyes, he was always so good at getting what he wanted out of you, you would move heaven and earth for him if he asked.

“Get dressed,” you sigh.

“Shall I put on my best trench coat?” He jokes.

“It’s cold, you won’t have a penis left if you do.”

He falls silent and looks at you, blinking harshly, “You’re so crude sometimes.”

“Oh sorry, do you not like hearing about how your penis will shrivel up from the cold temperature?”

He laughs, “Sweatpants it is.””

“Jeans, it’s a 5 star hotel Mark. You can’t stroll in wearing sweatpants.”

“Oh, its the brush your hair before going down to breakfast kinda vibe?” He asks.

“Brush your teeth too,” you reply.

“Can’t have orange juice then.”

“It’s the price you pay to not be judged by Gary, 55, on a business trip.”

“Where do you get these names from?” He asks laughing and throwing on a clean t-shirt.

“They just come to me,” you reply, “Zip up my dress.”

“It’s a very pretty dress,” he says walking over to you, “Floor length gowns suit you.”

“I’m just glad she let me get a navy dress and not that God awful pink dress,” you tell him. You shudder at the thought of the dress, it was a bright pink that made your eyes sore, even the thought of it irritated your eyes again. Of course, it nearly was the dress you had to wear because the meter of the groom thought you looked absolutely delightful ‘like a strawberry cheesecake’. Last time you checked you weren’t a fucking dessert. 

Mark’s hand touched the bottom of your back as you moved your hair out the way to avoid it getting caught in the zipper (again). His touch was soft, like he was afraid he would break you (or the zipper). Zipping it up slowly, he paused halfway through - letting out a sigh.

“Ah yes, do take your time Mark, there’s only a 55 year old woman waiting to chop my balls off,” you say. He lets out a laugh and you feel his breath on your shoulders causing you to shiver, even his light touch was enough to drive you mad. All you wanted was him to be yours.

“Done,” he says obviously coming out of his trance and finishing your zipper quickly.

“Let’s go,” you tell him, “Uber’s nearly here.”

<—>

She was like a dog to a bone, as soon as the Uber pulled up in front of the hotel she was rushing down the stairs ready to pounce on you. Until she saw Mark get out of the car with you.

“Who is this?” Your mum asks surprised.

“My friend Mark,” you reply with an awkward smile. She stares at him before putting her hand out for him to shake.

“Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” he smiles.

“Where the fuck have you been?” She snaps looking at you, clearly breaking out of her Mark trance.

“With Mark, he needed me,” you say. It was partly true, he had needed you - just a different kind of need.

“I had locked myself out,” he says, “My roommates are all out and not answering their phones.”

“We tried to get in through an open window but he nearly dropped me,” you lie.

“That’s so you, even when you’re not the one navigating you get lost.”

“What?” You ask confused.

“Who knows, I asked your father to get me vodka and he got me whiskey. It’s my nonsense drink,” she dismisses, “He’s useless, all men are. Your poor sister, her husband is the worst. He tripped over a table cloth today, how could he miss it? The floor is brown and the cloth was fucking white, not to mention there was also a table underneath it.”

“Go to bed mum,” you cut in.

“Is Mark staying with you?” She asks.

“Yes.”

“You know the rules.”

“I can’t leave the door of the room open, anyone could come in.”

“Leave the bathroom door open,” she says turning on her heel.

“Wh-,” Mark begins.

You shake your head and cut him off, “Don’t question it, she’ll start another conversation that’ll last another 10 minutes and I haven’t got it in me to de-code her.”

“Are you the same on whiskey?” Mark asks as you both walk up the steps of the hotel.

“Gin!” Your mother shouts, “Gin is her mumbling drink. On her birthday last year she started to recite the whole script from the film The Bee Movie. I don’t know know where she learnt it, we were always such Shrek people.”

“What is going on?” Mark asks, eyes raised.

“Don’t ask,” you reply, “Where’s your room mum? We’ll walk you.’

“Don’t be silly, there’s your father. FATHER!” She shouts, “Wait he’s not my father, MICK!”

“Who the fuck is Mick?” You ask her, “Dad! Take her, she’s driving me insane.”

You walk her over to him and he smiles weakly, “She’s been watching a lot of shows lately, Mick is one of the characters.”

“You hope,” you smile before walking back over to Mark, “Let’s get to the room quick, she might start reciting Shrek.”

“Donkey!” You hear her shout as you run up the staircase to the floor you were on.

“It’s begun,” you say looking at him. He laughs loudly as you walk down the hallway to the room you would be staying in. 

“Fancy,” he says kicking off his shoes and unbuttoning his jeans. He looked around intently while all you could do was stare at him, he looked beautiful even with his messy hair and tired eyes. Part of you was so glad he asked if he could come, you didn’t want to leave him - well, ever.

“What are you thinking about?” He asks snapping you out of your daydream.

“My mum,” you lie.

“She’s really funny.”

“Lucky for you she’s so drunk she won’t remember she met you tomorrow,” you say throwing the room key on the desk.

“I don’t mind if she does,” he says walking into the room.

You smile awkwardly once more and lean against the desk, unsure of what move to make. You normally knew what you were going to do when you saw Mark - but this felt like alien territory. Would you lie next to him? Turn the TV on and watch shitty morning television shows? Or would you simply sleep 2 feet apart?

“Come here,” Mark says putting his hands out for you to take.

“What do you want?” You ask accepting them and letting him pull you towards him.

“What are you really thinking?”

“About what to do.”

“We could just relax and watch TV, order some room service?”

“That sounds really nice,” you smile.

<—>

Less than hour later you both sat on the bed eating ribs and watching some stupid quiz show. Everyone answer you shouted was wrong of course, how did people know these things? How didn’t you know these things? 

Times like this felt nice, it was just you two doing normal things together. It wasn’t some quick hook up then ended with you leaving after it was done and feeling shit as you walked out the door, him not even batting an eyelid at you.

“How do people know these things?” Mark asks.

“That’s what I was thinking,” you reply throwing the rib bone on the plate and sighing, “I ate too much.”

“You don’t need to get back into the dress, you’ll be fine.”

“I’ll be bloated for my massage tomorrow.”

“She’ll deflate you,” he jokes.

“He’ll,” you correct.

“A male massage therapist, lucky you.”

“Hm, he’ll apply more pressure,” you say lying down and rubbing your eyes.

“Can I admit something to you?” He asks.

“You always wanted to be a massage therapist?” You joke.

“No,” he laughs moving to lie down next to you, “I really enjoy your company.”

“I bet you do.”

“No, I mean your company. Like that night we played games and the winner got oral,” he says, “I like doing those things with you.”

“Cause’ you always win and get oral,” you tell him. 

He looks at you seriously before looking down, “Yeah, because I always win.”

You almost didn’t believe him till the smirk reappeared on his face seconds later, “Wanna play a game?”

“Goodnight Mark,” you groan turning over.

“Goodnight Y/N,” he whispers.

You never wanted it to be morning. You wanted to stay in this moment with him. You wanted to feel his body heat next to you forever, you wanted to stay up late doing stupid mundane things with him.

You wanted him to be yours.

masterlist

[daisy--sorbet]

heyyy, hope you’re having a good night!! if you have the energy and feel okay answering, what’s up w taz graduation? i haven’t checked it out yet but i was thinking ab it. just asking bc you’re the first person i saw talk ab the show having serious issues, but also feel free to not answer this!! hope you have a good week!

i took a nice hot bath, had a strawberry kiwi capri-sun, and did a nice face mask and i’m feeling pretty good - so, y’know what anon? let’s talk about it. 

for anyone who likes taz grad who sees this post: it’ll be tagged with “taz grad hate” (although i feel hate is definitely a very strong word - it’s for the simplicity of tagging it) - so please block the tag if you don’t want to see this post (especially because i put a readmore on a post before and it didn’t show up on mobile and instead gave the full post). mobile tumblr has a tag blocking system, so please feel free to use it! i don’t mind haha

anyway, so this is... probably going to be a lost post, and i wanna go ahead and preface it: this absolutely isn’t any hate on the mcelroys themselves. i love the brothers and their dad a lot, and while i doubt any of them would ever see this (or have it sent to them, or shown to them, because im pretty sure they try to distance themselves from this sort of thing), i just want to make it clear that criticizing a product is different than bashing a person. which brings me to the point of if i do end up sounding as if im bashing someone - please call me out on it! it’s not my intention to target anyone.

with that said, let’s talk about this campaign.

so my problems are as thus: the railroading, the shipping (a fandom problem, but it’s present in the podcast), the NPCs, and some misc problems others have addressed better than i have.

which. i know. that’s basically the entire podcast. (i promise i’ll bring up some positive points to balance it all out). keep in mind i’ve only personally listened to... what, six episodes? and it was enough for me to drop it. some people dropped it first ep, some dropped it ep four, and others are still forcing themselves to listen.

the railroading

there was a time i could handle travis and his railroading [making sure the story goes exactly the way he has planned], because it was the very beginning of the podcast and that’s what you can kind of expect from a plot-heavy podcast. hell, i wouldn’t mind it if the interactions and goofs weren’t a huge part of why i listen to TAZ in particular (which, by the way, is why amnesty still stuck out to me - even if there was a direction griffin wanted to push them towards, the interactions between the players (or players and npcs) made up for any railroading). it’s kind of hard to not railroad a little when it’s story-heavy and you’re trying to built up a world that you’ve put a lot of thought into. however, a huge part of d&d is the spontaneity. 

it’s kind of why i think balance was so popular. while there was railroading towards the end, there was the presence of improv that made it all good. most mcelroy content is enjoyed because of the goofs. the magic brian moment is memorable. the jenkin’s fight still stands out because it was funny (albeit a result of some bad rolls). the boys teasing angus sticks out because the four would play well off of each other. even without that - griffin had talked about how he had to roll with things (the fact he had planned for a fight atop the train, but ditched the idea for what his family members came up with instead). even in amnesty, a couple moments that stick out to me still are ned with the jetpack taking out a pizza hut sign, and the scene with the water where jake was trapped inside. they aren’t as fun, but they still stand out as “things i didnt expect to really end the way they did.”

with grad, it’s just. one after another. the thundermen want to subpoena a xorn? cool, let’s run with that until actually the xorn gets fed rocks and goes home and who cares about the subpoena now. fitzroy wants to keep his cloak? lets talk about it for a while and you also get no rolls to even try to keep it. fitzroy goes to meet higglemas in his office? oh, why are you here fitzroy? im going to keep asking you until you answer fitzroy? you arent getting out of this scene until you answer me, fitzroy, so just tell me why you’re here already, alright, fitzroy? 

and even later in a episode i read a transcript of: hey argo, remember how you have this whole secret motivation? fuck you, im gonna talk about it here in your dream and reveal it to listeners and remove any tension you had building up, and you dont get a choice to talk about it because this all-knowing villain knows all about it :)

and even NOW in the latest episode, there’s a comment that “we should cap argo’s skills here” instead of just... making the checks higher. rogues are good at certain things and usually arent the best in battles. better hope argo never makes it to level 11, because who knows how people are gonna handle the fact that he gets a skill that’ll make it so certain skills can’t have a roll below 10 (reliable talent). 

(griffin, thankfully, calls travis out for that, but still - travis, why would you even imply that, considering you should be aware of how rogues work considering magnus multiclassed into rogue and you played one on tiny heist?)

and in the newest episode, their Big Bad chaos (which, god, i personally hate that name) straight-out says “dont do this” to the thundermen. travis tries to say, on twitter, “a character saying “dont do this” is different than me saying it” but i need to point out that it’s one thing if you’ve said “no” in character but worked with the PCs doing otherwise, but the railroading says differently.

the shipping

ill try to make this quick, because it’s nothing to do with the fandom (ship however you want, man) - but i really feel the need to draw attention to this.

fitzroy, as confirmed by griffin in a ttazz episode, is asexual. not aroace, but ace nonetheless. and i find it... troublesome that the idea of rainer and fitzroy having a relationship is still pushed nonetheless, despite the fact that fitzroy (to my knowledge) was never once shown to reciprocate any feelings. not to be that person, but i really hope that grad doesnt have any sort of romantic relationships in it (at least - not between NPCs and PCs unless they’re actually like... warranted?). 

i dont know, man. one of my closest friends is ace, and i know she wants a relationship, but i think it would reassure her a lot to see an ace character who isn’t pushed into one in case she ever changes her mind. someone once mentioned that they hope fi/tz/ra/in doesnt happen because theres relationships that have that “oh, you can just date” and it goes upwards there to “oh, you can have sex just to please them <3″  (which, to be honest, is kind of a gross mindset - if someone isnt interested, they arent interested).

also, uh, the TTAZZ where griffin states this, there’s kind of the mention tht the whole sexuality question was posed in relation to the episode “creative thinking” (the dream one i mentioned earlier) - which. uh. i don’t know if anyone caught this, but... rainer straight-up wrote fitzroy a letter in the dream like “are you going to accept my proposal? a girl doesn’t like to be left waiting” which. leaves me with some gross feelings because uh.

if... if the whole thing about fitzroys sexual orientation was addressed here, then why would you push your ship anyway? feels kinda iffy, man.

to which i want to say: fitzroy can date. he’s allowed to date. griffins allowed to do whatever he wants with his character. but when a lot of the flirting is met with nothing, i’m not gonna see the chemistry there. just because travis ships it doesn’t mean it’s canon.

the npcs

ah yes. lets talk about the npcs.

there’s... a lot. a lot a lot. i think travis trimmed down how many were present in a scene, but uh. there’s still a lot. and... uh... i kinda wish there wasn’t?

look, i know im going back to balance/amnesty, but just. hang in there for a moment. chill with me. vibe. 

balance didnt have too many NPCs present at all times in each mini-arc. gerblins had some big names like barry, klarg, gundren, killian, yeemick, and magic brian. rockport limited had angus, jess, graham the juicy wizard jenkins, and all of the tom bodetts mentioned. 

amnestys first arc had mama, barclay, jake, dani, pigeon, kirby, minerva, and that was about it for like. big names? and not all of them were present in each scene. 

in the first episode of grad alone: gary, hernandez, jimson, rolandus, zana, rhodes, buckminster eden, rainer, leon, tomas, hieronymous, higglemas, stuart, jackle, bartholomeus, mulligan, groundsy, germaine/victoria/rattles (the skeleton crew). and those are the ones i wrote down (minus groundsy, who i just. ignores. idk him).

like holy shit, my english prof got onto me for having too many characters in my first chapter and i didnt even have half the amount listed there! 

it’s just a huge cast. does this take place in a school? yes! theres bound to be a lot of students present - but you don’t have to name every single one of them, at least not in the first episode!

the miscellaneous

i don’t know if travis ever actually addressed it, but wheelchair users have actually like... said that rainer’s introduction bothered them, because she was like “please ask me abt my wheelchair :)” when travis saying she was in an ornate chair would have sufficed. 

uh. the colonization vibes people have discussed within the centaur arc. mentioned here, the replies here, and this post (and its replies) here as well.

the overall lack of d&d when the campaign was kind of advertised as a return to d&d if i remember correctly

also no one seems to be taking literally any criticism at all which like. ignoring the petty shit, sure, but people have stopped donating to taz and their listener-ship must have dropped some during this entire time - you’d think that maybe someone could say “we need to find out why people dont like the thing and fix the thing” consider this is. yknow. their livelihood.

anyway uhhh 

tl;dr: travis railroads way too much (even now), the shipping in-game has become pushy and gross (especially bc its shoving a relationship onto an asexual character), theres too many npcs that dont stand out well enough, and no ones taking any criticism about the major issues with grad. 

[mrslittletall]

Title: The Crazy Cat Vicar (Chapter 7) Fandom: Bloodborne Characters: Laurence the first Vicar, Vicar Amelia Word Count: 2.487 AO3-Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20989841/chapters/57443668 Previous chapter: https://mrslittletall.tumblr.com/post/614300380283699200/title-the-crazy-cat-vicar-chapter-6

Summary: Laurence shows a young Amelia his cats.

(Author's note: I had two chapter ideas for this and my Laurence Discord voted that they wanted to see the Amelia chapter first. Enjoy!)

“What's wrong, Amelia? You seem rather upset.,” Laurence asked and the toddler in front of him pouted and crossed her arms.

“You let me win.”, she said.

Laurence had spent the last few hours playing board games with the little girl and in fact, he had gotten easy on her a few times, not wanting to risk tears when he would win all the time, to win board games was easy for him, even against adults, so winning against a toddler was literally child's play.

“Well, if I would have beaten you all the time you would have gotten upset. And now that you win you are also upset?”, Laurence asked. “That kind of makes me the loser in all ways, don't you think.”

“Still.”, Amelia said and turned around, still pouting. If Laurence wasn't infertile and therefore knew that Amelia couldn't be his child, he would have considered that she could have been the result of one of his many one night stands. Despite her young age of three years she was not only very intelligent already, could talk with almost no trouble and she also was bratty. Just like him.

“Come on, Amelia, I am sorry.”, Laurence said, feeling a bit bad about having teased the girl. Smart or not, she still was a sensitive toddler and had to sort her feelings out. “Let's ditch the board games for now. What do you want to play?”

That got Amelia's attention and she turned her head around and clapped her hands: “I wanna see the cats!”

“What... Amelia, I don't think that is a too good idea...”, Laurence said. He had made the mistake and mentioned the cats in front of the girl, but he knew how toddlers were and feared that she would get hurt when she would try to pet them and probably completely disrespect their boundaries. Though, he had a hard time to say no when Amelia looked at him with this big pleading eyes.

“Fine.”, Laurence gave in. “But there are rules. The first rule is, don't touch them without asking me first and the second rule, no loud noises. And be gentle with them. Do you understand, Amelia?”

The toddler stood up and nodded excitingly, already extending her hand for Laurence to take. Laurence actually never had planned to get children of his own, and not only because he was physically incapable of it, but also because he thought he wouldn't make a good father. So how had this little girl managed to worm her way into his heart? Even though he planned for her to become the next Vicar once he would retire (in the far future), he already thought about making it official and adopting her.

As he and Amelia walked out of the room, Laurence spoke: “I have three cats. Mick, Mary and Gary. All of them have different characters and temperaments. Mick is the one who is the most unpredictable, so I would prefer to introduce you to Mary or Gary first. I would say Gary, he is a pretty relaxed cat.”

“Mhm.”, Amelia said, indicating that she had listened to what Laurence had said. For how bratty she could be, Amelia had been raised in the church orphanage, she had been a foundling, abandoned as a newborn (was he really sure he wasn't his... being infertile could mean that there was just a tiny little chance, so tiny that it would practically never happen), so she had been raised to have perfect manners. Laurence knew that she let herself go in his presence because he let her.

“Hmmm... where would Gary be at this time of day?”, Laurence asked himself. The cats hung out around all kind of places in the church. Mick often was notoriously hidden, Mary liked to hang around in the library and Gary... Gary would often hunt mouses that made it into the church. Which made the cellar or the attic most likely, where he didn't exactly wanted Amelia to take. Laurence considered to go to the library to introduce Mary instead when he saw Gary strolling along the hallway. What luck!

“Oh, look, there's Gary.”, Laurence said and kneeled down, laying his hand on Amelia's shoulder. The girl stared at the cat with big sparkling eyes and Gary stopped, turning his grumpy face to stare right back, unblinking, as it was typical for cats.

“Laurence, look.”, Amelia said. “It's leg's missing. Just like uncle Gehrman.”

Laurence had to restrain himself from not laughing out loud, she had pointed out the exact same thing why Laurence had named Gary after Gehrman. As he caught his breath trying not to howl and thinking about how to break to Gehrman that even a toddler thought Gary looked like him, Amelia plucked at this sleeve and asked: “Laurence, are you alright?”

“What? Oh, sorry, Amelia, dear, I am fine.”, he said. “How about we try to see if Gary wants to come over?”

Amelia nodded her head with such enthusiasm that her long hair got all dishevelled and she gave Laurence a grin. He certainly needed to give her a brushing later.

“When you want for a cat to come over.”, Laurence said, “You stretch out one finger.” Laurence did as he said and promptly Gary came over to sniff at the finger. “They just have to come over and sniff at it. And then, you show them your palm and when they want pets... they decide for you.”

Laurence offered his palm to Gary and the cat promptly pressed his head into Laurence' head, accompanied by a deep purr.

“What's that? Is kitty upset?”, Amelia asked, clearly concerned.

“Oh no no no, that is a good sign.”, Laurence said. “It's called purring. Cats do this when they are content. He likes being pet by me.”

“Can I pet him too?”, Amelia's eyes got even bigger than Laurence thought would have been possibly.

“Sure. Just do like I showed you.”, Laurence said, withdrawing his hand. Gary opened his eyes and stared at Laurence with disdain, clearly having expected more pets.

Amelia also kneeled down, even though she was still tiny for a human, she was already bigger than a cat and extended her had just like Laurence had showed her. Gary sniffed it for a bit before he decided that he would like more pets and pressed his head against the tiny hand of the toddler.

“Laurence, he's soft.”, Amelia squeaked and then flinching, clearly remembering that Laurence had warned her not to make loud noises. “He's soft.”, she said in a whisper, making Laurence chuckle, both because it was funny and because the sight of Gary pressing his head into Amelia's tiny hand was adorable.

“Just wait until you meet Mary.”, Laurence said, feeling confident that Amelia would be able to handle her just fine. He just had his doubts about Mick and would save him for a later date. “She is often in the library. Come, let's go, Amelia.”

“Shortlyyy...”, Amelia said, still being engrossed by petting Gary. Laurence waited and observed her, it wasn't like they were in a hurry. As he noticed that Gary started to have enough, he said. “See, he is stiff now and has enough. Stop petting him or he could scratch.”

Amelia immediately let go of Gary and came running back to Laurence who took her hand again.

The both of them walked to the library without incidents, where the librarian cheerfully greeted Laurence and Amelia and offered her candy and soon the toddler was blissfully chewing on some, a thing she didn't had in common with Laurence who disliked sweets. Well, maybe he had liked them before his chronical illness had struck, but he associated the taste too much with being dizzy and feeling weak to be able to enjoy it anymore.

“Mary likes to sleep in the book shelves.”, Laurence explained. “Finding her could take a while though. There are so many here.”

“So many books.”, Amelia pointed out. “How often could you read a bed time story with them?”

“A lot.”, Laurence simply answered. “We would never run out of bed time stories.” Though of course not every book was appropriate for a bed time story.

Luck was once again at Laurence' side, because he spotted Mary in the astronomy section, being curled in at around his eye height.

“Ah, there she is.”, Laurence said and as Amelia looked around, getting gradually more disappointed about not spotting the cat, Laurence picked her up. “Right there.”, she said and saw how the toddler's eyes sparkled again.

“A cloud!”, she exclaimed and then promptly put both hands in front of her mouth and whispered: “A cloud.”

Laurence had to chuckle a bit, that was too cute. Thankfully Mary wasn't bothered a lot, she just raised her head and blinked sleepily at the toddler, then making a big yawn and sitting up, stretching, blinking a bit more.

“It seems like we woke her up.”, Laurence said. “Do you want to pet her?”

Amelia nodded with excitement and Laurence moved Amelia closer to the shelf, so that the girl could offer the cat her hand, she was a quick learner indeed. After Mary had sniffed it intensely, no wonder, Gary's scent must still have been on it, she allowed the toddler to pet her and Amelia giggled at the soft touch.

“So soft...”, she whsipered.

“Mary is the softest cat around here.”, Laurence smiled. Well, her fur was the softest, from the character she had quite some willpower, just like the woman he had named her after.

It felt like Amelia would have liked to pet Mary for ages, but eventually Laurence had to intervene, because he had the feeling that Mary got upset.

“When a cat doesn't like to be touched anymore, you have to respect this.”, Laurence said. “If it gets stiff or growls or even hisses, you better stop or it could attack. And Mary looks rather stiff to me. Let's leave her for now, alright?”

“Yeees.”, Amelia said and withdrew her hand, but still kept her eyes on the cat. “That were, um, two.”, she said, leave it to Amelia to already be able to count just fine. “Where is the last one?”

“Mick?”, Laurence said. “I would prefer for you to not meet him yet. He is pretty... unpredictable. Like, even I can't say what is going on in his mind, I couldn't protect you when anything bad happens, understood?”

“Yes...”, Amelia said, but she looked a bit disappointed. Apparently Laurence had found himself a cat lover as big as himself. That were good conditions if he planned to adopt her. The more they had in common, the easier it would be for them to bond.

“Listen, Amelia, because we are already here, how about I read a story to you?”, Laurence offered.

“Yay!”, Amelia clapped her hands at the suggestion.

“Great, then let's make ourselves comfortable.”, Laurence lowered the girl to the ground and took her hand, guiding her to a part deeper in the library, where there were two armchairs and a rocking chair standing around, some kind of reading corner. Laurence helped Amelia sitting in one of the armchairs and then said: “Wait here while I pick out a book.”

Amelia nodded and Laurence could see like she glanced around the library with interest. He knew it was no trouble for her to be alone for a few minutes, she wouldn't wander off. And she would have spoken up if she needed anything, like food, water or a bathroom break.

Laurence asked himself just which children's book he should read to her as he stood in front of the proper section and eventually picked out a book with short stories, one that he remembered from his own childhood, it made him a bit nostalgic when he thought about how he had sat on his own mother's lap as she had read it to him.

As Laurence returned to the book he saw that Amelia had propped herself up on the arm rest and stared at something on the rocking chair. Inevitably his gaze went there too and he gasped when he saw.. a cat. A cat that he never had seen before.

“Who's thaaat?”, Amelia asked.

“I don't know.”, Laurence said. The cat was from a medium size, a grey tabby with white paws and was sleeping soundly. “I have never seen that cat before...”

Laurence put the book down and picked Amelia up before he sat down, placing her on his lap. “Maybe it wandered in the church because it smelled food. Or followed the other cats.”, Laurence mused, picking the book up. “I think about it later, it seems harmless. How about I read to you now?”

Amelia was more than eager to get a story and after a while the toddler had managed to fall asleep in his arms. “Time for your nap, hm..”, Laurence said as he stroked her hair and gently picked her up, bringing her back to the orphanage so that she could nap in a proper bed. Fortunately, she was a heavy sleeper, just as heavy as he had been as a child.

After Laurence had brought Amelia back, he went back to the library and confronted the librarian about the unknown cat.

“Huh... that isn't one of your cats, Vicar?”, she said, clearly being confused.

“I have never seen this cat in my life.”, Laurence said.

“Well, he once turned up sleeping into the rocking chair and we started to give him some treats.”, the librarian said. “He would always eventually leave, we didn't think anything about it. Like I said, we though it was one of yours. Shall we kick him out?”

“No.”, Laurence said. “When he is already there, he can stay. Have you given him a name?”

“Not yet. We always wanted to ask you about his name, but it was never the right time.”, the librarian said. “Why don't you give him a name now?”

“Hmmm...”, Laurence said. “I guess I need to look at him a bit closer.”

He went back to the rocking chair in which the cat still slept, completely ignoring anything and anyone. Laurence even kneeled down to pet him and he didn't react, well, outside of a slight purr.

“You know who you remind me off?”, Laurence said as he continued to stroke the rough fur of the cat. “The old geezer. Always in his rocking chair, wouldn't pay attention to any of us when he stared out at the lake. I know.”

He stood up and looked down at the cat: “I am going to call you Will.” (Author's note: I hadn't planned to introduce a new cat at first, but then I got the idea for a Master Willem cat which just wandered into the church and made himself at home. Also, I wrote Amelia with my own toddler experience in mind, I have a nephew who is around four years old and it is very typical for toddler to draw their words out or talk in short sentences. Also, Laurence is talking normally to Amelia because baby speech is dumb.) Chapter 8

[thenightling]

Re: Castlevania drama

So apparently Confessavia decided to block me because they “looked through” my blog and saw “anti-SJW content” (SJW = Social Justice Warriors, for the handful who don’t know what that means)  and the recent (and ironically 90% joking) feud with Cisphobia and I. 

Edit: You know, if you’re going to block someone without just cause, you probably should check to make sure the incidents you reference weren’t from an event from twelve hours after the blocking.  I and Cisphobia didn’t interact until after you blocked me and it ultimately ended in the meme equivalent of a playful dance off.  But nice effort in seeking reason to justify mistreating someone who never wronged you.  

The blocker also claimed that my response to their post was dramatic (that was the idea... It wasn’t an attack on them, it was just meant to be a little segway into a rant because of other crap I’ve dealt with here on Tumblr...) and they also said that there is... no one on Tumblr who calls Dracula Problematic.

  (Ha-f---king ha!)  REALLY!?  YOU RUN A CASTLEVANIA BLOG AND NEVER SEEN THAT?!?

...HOW?!

There are Once upon a Time blogs that call Rumplestiltskin problematic, even now, even though the series finale literally had him ascend to Heaven! 

There are people on here who call The Shape of Water problematic.  And at least two people who called Daredevil problematic / Ableist (A blind character) for calling another character (who wanted to kill people) “Crazy.”  

This is Tumblr!  Don’t you know EVERYTHING is problematic on here?!

Ironic.  Funny how someone who doesn’t even know me leapt to such incredible conclusions about me as a person and was so swift to judge and condemn me...

_______________________

My response to this:

Um….  okay….

Before you leap to conclusions about a person’s personality, you probably should have noticed Cisphobia and I were mostly just f–king around with each other and joking by the end of the “argument” and responding to each other with anime memes.   And I never actually disagreed with their intent.

However if you had searched my blog and searched under “Fred Saberhagen” or “The Dracula Tape” “Dracula” or even “Castlevania” there are most certainly conversations from people who called Dracula, and depictions of Dracula problematic.

How the Hell do you search my blog and NOT find me defending depictions of Dracula against people who bashed the character?!

Here is a response I was forced to give after someone went on a long rant against The Dracula tape (a novel by the late Fred Saberhagen) and The Dracula series by the late Fred Saberhagen.  This has happened at least three times but this was the first.

https://thenightling.tumblr.com/post/147441223978/addressing-issues-with-the-person-reading-the

(And that was immediately after the late Fred Saberhagen’s widow joined Tumblr so she had to read people bashing her husband’s book series because the narrator was “problematic.”)

There’s another post (which I can’t seem to find right now) where someone bitched about how it must contain the “Sexism of the seventies” in Saberhagen’s The Dracula Tape (because it was published in 1976.  As if people forget when Interview with the vampire was first published...)

And at least one post talking about how “Creepy” it is he watches a teenage girl sleep in An Old Friend of the Family (also by Fred Saberhagen).  Umm...  He’s Dracula, it’s kind of supposed to be a little creepy.  Even if he is narrating and trying to make it sound romantic, you’re supposed to read between the lines because he’s most the most honest of narrators.

Also check out this Casltevania post where this poor person who wanted a fan fic of Dracula and Lisa reunited in the afterlife was told by other “fans’ that he is damned and it’s never gonna happen- they can never be reunited, ever.   They were bullied about it so I stepped in.

https://thenightling.tumblr.com/post/181241099958/he-will-never-alucardtepesfahrenheit-shame-on

There are other Castlevania fans who were asked to mark their Dracula posts with “Child abuse” . There are people who headcanon that Dracula was a very abusive dad in Castlevania because there are some Alucard fans as protective of their cinnamon roll as Marvel Loki fans. (Yes, I once got a request to tag an Odin post as “child abuse... just for mentioning Odin...).    

Here’s my rant response I wrote in regard to some Youtube comments upset that Dracula in Marvel comics “is no longer straight.”

https://thenightling.tumblr.com/post/183667354468/draculas-bisexuality-in-pop-culture

There’s a Mina RPer on here who bashes anyone who happens to like the 1992 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula because she hates the idea of Dracula and Mina as a couple and tries to shame everyone who likes it, even if they know it’s not in the novel.

There was also someone who joined my Gothic horror group on Facebook (A man I’ll call a white knight) who was very protective of Winona Ryder’s Mina to the point of diminishing the character’s agency to “protect” her and insisted the Gary Oldman version of Dracula “took advantage” of Mina and in his protective / defense of Mina went on rants that made her sound like an idiot and damsel who didn’t know what she was doing or under a spell for most of the film and needed a “Good” man to tell her what to do and think, it was offensive in its sexism disguised as feminism. 

Check out how many people comment on clips from the 1992 film or write essays about Dracula and how he’s going to Hell, completely ignoring the DVD commentary...

But sure, no one calls him problematic... ever... that never happens.  Nope.  (Sarcasm intended.) 

And back in 2011 I started to do online RP depictions of Dracula on IMVU and I, myself, dealt with people coming into the RP room with characters who can “sense who is damned and who is saved.”  Not only did I deal with people certain he would burn in eternal Hellfire but when I’d tell them that sort of power to sense eternal damnation or salvation was too extreme I’d get responses of “lol, he’s Dracula!  It’s not like Dracula can be saved.” Arguing with me when I mention that the idea of his soul being saved / him ascending to Heaven was actually an aspect of Stoker’s original novel as Mina talked about saving his soul which brought the other heroes to tears. And so they were relieved by the look of peace on his face when they killed him (in the novel).    

But okay…

Again, all this happened because I made the mistake of agreeing with the post on Confessionvania’s blog and going on a rant in my agreeing with them... Somehow they (and another person) drastically misunderstood I was being supportive in their stance.  There was ...nothing to disagree with...

You (person who blocked me) made a lot of false and wrongful judgements about me but I don’t have the will right now to defend myself. So have a good day.

PS, let it be known I am pro-Trans rights and am a member of the LGBT community (Pan romantic demi).  I’m a woman. I believe in true equality of the sexes as intended by Mary Wollstonecraft.  I’m somewhere between buddhist and Wiccan in my spiritual beliefs. I am what is considered legally blind (poor eyesight) and have no clue what my paternal racial background is.  But I really shouldn’t require a checklist to be considered a human being here on Tumblr. And yet here we are... again...

Funny how someone can read through my blog, decide I’m a bad person, and the reason for my rant was imaginary and miss all of that, as well as several posts that were in defense of Dracula...

Ah, well.  I don’t like defending myself against strangers but I also loathe misinformation.  So here’s the truth as I perceive it, for better or worse.  Take it or leave it. 

Edit: Note.  I just checked the time stamps.  The Castlevania Confessions blog blocked me BEFORE Cisphobia and I played our little trollish game.  So nice try in attempting to use that as the excuse for blocking someone who never wronged you...   I guess you searched my blog for justifications after the fact and didn’t check to see when things were posted when attempting to use them as righteous reasons to mistreat others.

That’s all right.  I have no interest in liars.  And now the world knows you to be one.  That’s justice enough.  

[ghostantine]

OKAY SO THE ANIMATION MOVIE!

Right so I pretty much loved it??

this here now is quite a detailed take on it cos i guess i’ve talked back and forth about it so much i need give a conclusion

First of all: the set up, that also was the first eps that dropped on cw seed, is pretty much the weakest part of the film in my opinion. also for the film they got bit beefed up with other surrounding world and mood building stuff which helped.

So! Does it live up to the comic? well... yes and no. it has the wireframe of All His Engines but it does divert from it a lot. Most of the diversions are to cater to a certain idea, establishing the Hellblazer universe and tying into material people who know the motion work know. It’s not necessarily a bad thing tho, quite the contrary at one part or another: there is one plot twist early on that might actually be slightly more interesting than All His Engines had. The adaptation of the story clearly aims to bring more insight to Hellblazer as whole rather than adapting AHE, which im not opposed to at all if done well (originally i was really surprised by the choice of AHE to begin with). Unfortunately in some key parts of John’s history as well as key parts of AHE plot, this falls flat and dilutes some potential outcomes. Where it does live up to the comic tho is obviously the basis of the plot but also has very much the vibe and style of the comic (interesting as the art actually is very different and not to my taste). The comic clearly served as a platform to build this story from and they were very respectful for it as a source. They also took off some little off-character and off-canon things the comic originally had, altho on the other hand they did change and remove bits of AHE that were important for that storyline and suspense of it. There is a twist at the end that arguably, in it’s essence, is even more All His Engines than the comic actually was.

How it stands with Constantine Episode 10, Quid pour Quo? Well it’s quite at the similar place as ep10 and comic. I think the animation has more of the vibe of the comic while the liveaction follows the storyline more closely. The animation makes some huge diversions of the Hellblazer canon which i get to later on while Ep 10 sticks very much to the comic established histories of the characters and to execute the 2/3 of the AHE plot in the episode. I think personally that the comic still manages to be the most interesting of these three and the motion ones are tied at very close second place. Mostly cos the animation fucked up at places and the comic edges up by having amazing lines no one bothered to include.

There is a lot i really loved. In general the whole thing’s actually pretty great? I might need to actually rewatch the whole thing without pausing every 5 mins to write down thoughts or tumblr posts haha. I think it held itself together and someone not so emerged into the comics wont even be bothered by the things i find annoying.  It has a much of a noire theme like original comic did and is something i absolutely love. the other thing i did love was that it wasnt taking itself too seriously either and was very much funny when it needed to be and also when things were just so over the top. Just like Hellblazer is, that is very much a Hellblazer approach in tone. I did love the ‘party’ scene so much, it made me so happy in all it’s ridiculousness and how it was right down to the tee my interests ahah. There was couple non-comic plot twists I didnt even think to wait for and i did love some and appreciate others. John was very much in character, probably the most since Constantine, at least in live action, maybe even in comics. I did also really love how people reacted to him cos that’s another people get wrong a lot. He was called out for being a fucking idiot and a bad person but still getting appreciation and interest from his peers and demons trying to fuck him up. All the time they stuck to All His Engines as a reference point it was as good as it gets with these things. Loved Asa the Nightmare Nurse so much! She was cool! Also John got thrown around and had his ass kicked I also like that a lot like all you know. Those little inner demon gremlins were cute too i love them

Obviously there are some problems and things im gonna nitpick next. I’ve talked to an extent about the whole Newcastle thing being SO WRONG and how it could’ve been done right... or at least less wrong. I think on my first watch i initially said i don’t care that much but the more i thought about it and now that i watched it again.... i don���t like it. not one bit. I did also initially say I’m not bothered by the fact that ‘Chas’ in this is actually like Chas and Gary and couple other Newcastle people merged together but... in the end that bothers me too. I would be less bothered if these actually served the plot but they dont. AHE doesnt have these and it still works. You dont need “DEEP WHOLE LIFE OF FRIENDSHIP AND SHARED TRAGEDY” to make a mens’ friendship meaningful, that’s just toxic masculinity. Honestly as much as i love Newcastle as a plot and them introducing Nergal to the mix here worked, i dont think the whole 10-15 mins of botching it was worth it. Either do it well or leave it as a vague thing. One other big thing that always bothers me is the magic stuff. While this did try from time to time to have John just draw symbols, bleed a bit and chant some shit to call up some bigger magical entity, it did also make John do some glowy hands magic shit and referred to him as gifted or some other bs. That’s STILL just WRONG. Why is it so hard for these people to understand? HNGH. There was also some dumb bits here and there like John driving which annoys me so much. The end im not quite sure how to feel about but it’s also VERY MUCH AHE (to the vibe of it, not the actual end of AHE). I still dont like the art and i think they are dumb for the whole “London Hospital” thing, tho I’m mostly just amused by that. They did change some stuff from AHE which i thought was really cool on AHE so that kinda bugged me a bit. Not going too much into the details but it’s the usual diluting of comics plot twists. One big thing for me tho was the lack of a clear “trial and error” plot which is the key part of the comic’s plot structure and also was very much present in the Constantine episode but was missing from the movie. The movie on the other hand followed a different Hellblazer plot structure where “John has an absolute solution which has a huge cost but wont use it until the end”. They gave Chas’ sex scene to John which is a bit unfair. Also the lack of lines like “we bend down and think of England” and John’s joke about skull being a bad condom cos it’s got holes is a huge loss on it’s own too.

And against JLD movie? I do like this way better. Not gonna get to too many details here but this obviously is a Hellblazer based thing and not DC/N52 thing. Ofc this one has bit more canon fuck ups cos it tried to get to so many things but as a whole i think it’s better than JLD and a good adaptation of All His Engines.

tldr; it’s a great little movie and very much enjoyable. it has some obvious flaws but keeps up to the comic vibe, characterisation and plot.

Also let john say fuck 2k18

[bulbagarden]

Welcome to the June 2018 edition of Trainers of Fanfiction! For those of you unaware of what this is, Trainers of Fanfiction is a community event that focuses on the characters created by our talented Writers Workshop authors! These characters will be given interviews, offering them a chance to dive into their backgrounds, or look at some of the unexplored lore of the story they’re from. We’ve got a whole host of characters that’ll be featured this month, let’s get to meeting them! Submissions are now closed, but we will be hosting the event again in the future due to all the interest we got. Thanks, all! Mirror Ash and Mirror Serena Protagonists of Mirror Adventures InfiniteBakuphoon (coming soon!)

Interviewer: Both of you are known for having rather rough pasts. How did you escape from your circumstances, and are there any special people in particular who helped you through it? Also, can you say that you've completely broken free from the chains of your past? Mirror Serena: Hmph... going straight for that question, huh? You guys really have no shame, do you... Hey, Ash! Why don't you answer this question first? People don't know that much about you... Mirror Ash: Well... OK, I guess. Um... where should I start? Maybe I'll talk about my mother first. She... wasn't very nice to me, honestly... I think that she had a very stressful life and that she took a lot of her anger out on me... especially because she had expectations for me that I just couldn't meet. I was never the strong boy that she wanted me to be... I was always more of the "sensitive" type, I think Misty called it. Or the "crybaby"... that was what people usually called me. It's true, though... I tend to cry when I'm stressed... sometimes just a little bit, sometimes a lot. I think that I embarrassed my mother a lot whenever I did that... and she would always tell me that the world would eat me alive and that I'd never become a Pokémon Trainer... or anything at all, really. Mirror Serena: Guess you proved her wrong, though, huh? Mirror Ash: Yeah... I guess I did. But I'll never be as strong as you... Mirror Serena: Oh, come on! You're a crybaby and yet you still managed to accomplish so much! That has to count for something, right? Mirror Ash: That's true. Still, I don't think that I'll ever completely forget everything that I went through before I met Pikachu... that was like the turning point of my life for me. Protecting him brought out strength in me that I never knew I had... and I guess it convinced me that I could keep on going... that I could live a life without my mother and actually accomplish things. I was lucky to have tons of people who helped me along the way, though. Where would I be now without Misty... or Gary... or Serena, Clemont, and Bonnie? I don't even want to think about that... That's all I have... I guess it's your turn now, Serena. Mirror Serena: Sigh... I guess it is. Now, I don't think that I need to give you a whole recap of my life as the daughter of a certain famous Rhyhorn racer, since you guys seem to have beaten that Ponyta into the ground already. But in case you were wondering... no, my childhood wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, for lots of reasons. I think that you can guess the first one... or at least you should. Another reason? Well, you know how my mother and I lived in the Johto countryside for years before we moved to Kalos? Well, I took the country accent with me. Which pretty much guaranteed that I would be the laughingstock of the entire school that I went to when I was younger. It took me years to get rid of that accent, but even then people would always find other things to bother me about, like the way I dressed, the fact that my mother was famous, and other stupid stuff like that. Eventually I grew tired of being teased and bullied, so I gave myself a choice: either I was going to lie down and let everyone abuse me, or I was going to fight back... guess which one I chose. As it turns out, bullies leave you alone really quickly when you bully them back... and oh, did I become good at bullying people... it was like a natural talent that I never knew I had! But I only did that to other bullies, or else I would've become just like them. I kind of got a reputation for being the toughest kid in school after that, which meant that people pretty much left me alone. Not that I really cared for the most part, since no one wanted to be friends with me before anyway. Honestly, if there's one thing that I learned from all of those years at school, it's that you can only truly rely on yourself. Although I have to say that traveling with Ash, Clemont, and Bonnie all of this time has made me change my mind about that a little bit... they're like the first real friends that I've ever had! Now, I'm sure that you would love for me tell you how the rest of my childhood went after that, but I think that I've spilled enough beans for you already. Next question! Interviewer: During your travels, you've been to many interesting places. What would you say has been your favorite so far? Mirror Serena: Well, there was this one place that we went to... but you'd probably never believe me if I told you about it... Ah, what the hell... you know about Reflection Cave, right? And how there's a legend that every mirror in there leads to a totally different world? I always thought that it was just some stupid story, but... it's actually real. How do I know? Because we met someone who looked exactly like Ash... but he was like a completely different person! He was brave, he was strong, and he was absolutely crazy at Pokémon battling! I mean, he actually managed to beat me in a battle! And then we saw these weird evil versions of the Heroes of Justice who tried to steal Pikachu... that's right, *Team Rocket* tried to steal a Pokémon! I couldn't believe what I was seeing... there's no way that they could've been Team Rocket from our world! Eventually we got Pikachu back and we had to send Ash back to his world before sundown... and that's when I actually got to see the mirror that brought him here in the first place. Oh, man... if I didn't believe everything before, I definitely did then! It was like this giant dimensional space chasm thing, and I even got to see different versions of me, Clemont, and Bonnie on the other side! I didn't get to talk much to them, but still, it was pretty obvious that me from over there totally had a thing for Ash from over there. She was so worried about him... not that I actually care about sappy romantic stuff like that. Maybe there was actually something real there, though... if so, then she's pretty lucky to have someone brave and strong like him. I wish that my Ash could be more like that sometimes... or at least be less of a crybaby all of the time. But even if Ash never becomes anything like the Ash we met at Reflection Cave, he'll still always be my crybaby Ash... Wait a minute... you actually had me vulnerable there for a while! That won't happen again! C'mon Ash, it's your turn now! What's your favorite place that you've been to so far? Maybe somewhere in Kanto or Johto or something? Mirror Ash: Well, now that you mention Johto... there was this one really great place that I went to... I think it was called Alto Mare? Wow, that place was so beautiful... it was like time stopped there a hundred years ago or something. The food... all of the water... the atmosphere... everything was awesome. I could've stayed there forever... although I think Pikachu got bored there pretty quickly because there weren't a lot of trainers or battles in a place like that. Oh, and it was also there that I met one of my closest friends... she was this photographer who had lived in Alto Mare with her grandfather her entire life. She had pictures of every single place in Alto Mare... they were unbelievable... maybe the best pictures I've ever seen! We actually spent a lot of time together just hanging around and talking about things... and eventually I told her that she could probably sell her pictures to a magazine or something for a lot of money. She told me that she actually wanted to do that and become a professional photographer and explore the world... but the sad thing is that she couldn't, because she's-- actually, she told me to keep that a secret, sorry... Mirror Serena: Hmm... did you seal that secret with a kiss or something? Mirror Ash: It was just-- wait, what!? N-no, it wasn't anything like that! Mirror Serena: Ha ha! Oh, Ash... I'm just messing with you! Gotta have some fun with this stupid interview... next question! Interviewer: To you, what does it mean to be a hero? Do you see yourself as one? Mirror Serena: Heroes? What heroes? You mean like Professor Sycamore, who probably has more skeletons in his lab than any closet could ever fit? Like Aria, the beautiful and talented Kalos Queen... who's oh so talented at getting whatever she wants, whenever she wants? Like Palermo, producer extraordinaire... or should I say: ice queen extraordinaire? Believe me, I've gotten to know them all thanks to my mother's celebrity status, and they've always made me wonder... are these really what people consider heroes? I mean, I still think about my mother and how everyone called her a hero... or an inspiration... or how they wanted to be "just like her". Which is funny, considering that none of them actually knew anything about her at all. And even after everything that's happened with her, people still call her "the world-renowned Rhyhorn racer" or "the famous Kalosian celebrity" instead of... well, I guess you couldn't print what I really want to say here. Could you really call someone a hero just because they can ride a Rhyhorn really well and say the right things at the right time? Should we worship them like they're Arceus and keep telling ourselves that they can do no wrong... until they do? Hmph... I sure don't think so. Now, you wanna know who I think the real heroes are? Team Rocket. Yeah, I said it... because no matter what some people may say about them, they're the only ones who've actually done anything to protect us from evil people like Team Plasma and the Pokémon Rangers. Tell me the last thing that the League has done... yeah, I won't hold my breath for that. And what does Team Rocket get for doing all of this for us? Not a damn thing, that's what. No fame... no support... no "oh, thank you for saving the world over and over again!"... nothing. And yet they keep doing it all anyway, just because they can! You wanna know what being a true hero is? That's it right there. They don't care about the fame, or the recognition, or even the consequences from stupid people like the League... they just do what needs to be done to make things right, no matter what. People like my mother can't compare to that... it's not even close! Now, do I see myself as a hero? Well, nothing I've done compares to what Team Rocket has done... and it's not as though I haven't done some pretty scummy things before... I was a bully once, after all. So yeah, I'm definitely no hero either... but at least I don't pretend like I'm one. Your turn again, Ash... what do you think a real hero is? Mirror Ash: Uh... I guess what you just said, actually... Mirror Serena: Oh, come on, Ash! I'm sure that you've got an opinion of your own! Mirror Ash: I-I... actually agree with most of what you said... but I'll say this, too, I guess... I think that you don't have to be big and powerful like Team Rocket to be a hero... I mean, if you stick up for someone who's being picked on or something, even if it means that they bother you... then that's doing the right thing, too, isn't it? Serena... you said that you... bullied other bullies, right? Made them go away? Mirror Serena: Yeah, that's what I said... Mirror Ash: So I guess that means... that you really are a hero in your own way, Serena... Mirror Serena: Ah... nah, I don't really think so. Last question now, finally... Interviewer: What do you consider your strongest trait? Your weakest? Have these traits helped or hindered your journey in any way? Mirror Serena: The strongest trait I have is... well, that I'm strong. Nothing ever gets in my way... especially not after everything that I've been through when I was younger. The Serena who let people hurt her and take advantage of her over and over again is gone now... and if she hadn't gone away, then I'd still be with my mother doing those stupid Rhyhorn races and Arceus-only-knows-what-else right now, instead of finally fulfilling my dream of becoming a master Pokémon trainer. And then I never would have met Clemont and Bonnie either, and I never would have met Ash again after all of these years. You know, what I've learned is that when you really want to do something, you just have to go out and do it, and then never give up at it no matter what, or no matter how long it takes. And even when you're at your lowest point and there's no chance that you can win, you don't just sit there and *let* them just destroy you like that... you give them hell until your last breath. That's my philosophy in Pokémon battling, and I guess you can say that's become my philosophy in life, too. That said, I can admit that I'm a bit too strong sometimes, and that it's often hard for me to get out of "bully mode", if you know what I mean. This has actually affected me my entire life, all the way back to when I was super-aggressive towards anyone who even thought about bothering me. I ended up scaring everyone away by doing that, not just bullies... and although I said that I didn't care before, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I sometimes felt kind of lonely. And now that I no longer have to deal with surviving school, I don't always have to be aggressive like that anymore... but bad habits are always hard to break. I've scared a lot of potential friends away from me over the years, including someone from not too long ago who could've been a really good friend to me... I still miss her Poké Puffs. I don't want something like that to happen ever again, so I guess I'm gonna have to learn how to... I don't know, let some things go, I guess? I don't really know how I'm actually going to do that, but I'm sure that I'll find a way somehow. And besides, I did manage to get Ash, Clemont, and Bonnie to be my friends, so I guess I've been improving a little bit already, right? Anything you'd like to share, Ash? Mirror Ash: Well, it's true that I'm kind of a crybaby... and that I get flustered about things more than I really should. I mean, I've gotten a lot better about it since I first started on my journey, but I still cry sometimes... and sometimes I cry a whole lot, especially nowadays... because things aren't completely great for me right now, honestly... but I don't think I want to talk a lot about that here. Confidence has always been hard for me to come by... sometimes I'll feel really good after I win a battle or accomplish something that I've never done before... but then I'll screw something else up later and I'll feel like a failure again. Sometimes I wonder how I even made it this far... and then I realize that my friends have done a lot for me that I should've been able to do by myself... it makes me feel like I'd just be nothing without them, and that I'd be running back to Pallet Town the moment that things got too tough for me... Mirror Serena: Um... Ash? Surely you have positive traits that you'd like to share with the world... right? Mirror Ash: No, not really... sniffle Mirror Serena: Sigh... then I guess I'll just have to do it for you. Ash... I know that I say that you're a crybaby a lot... which you kind of are, yeah... but you're also a lot stronger than you think you are. I mean, you wouldn't even be here right now if you weren't, right? And before you say that it's only because your friends helped you... so what? If you have an advantage, use it! That's what friends are there for... to help you and support you! I mean, you're the one who taught me all about that... so why are you so ashamed about it? And besides, having lots of friends means that people obviously really like you... and they should, because you're a really good person! I know that you don't show it all the time because you're super-shy and all, but I know for a fact that you care a lot about people... that you love your Pokémon like family... and that you have a lot of interesting thoughts about things that you always keep to yourself. Now, here's what I think the weakest part of you really is, Ash. It's not that you're a crybaby... it's that you don't believe in yourself. Which is stupid, because the strongest part about you is that you somehow always find a way to get through it all anyway. And that's true even if it's with your friends... or just you and Pikachu... or even just you alone, because you did that when you first rescued Pikachu, remember? And if you got through something like that once, or twice, or practically a hundred times like you have, then you can do it a hundred more times if you have to. So stop crying over yourself all of the time, or at least not as much as you always do. You have a lot to be proud of, so why don't you remind yourself of that every once in a while? Mirror Ash: Sniff I guess you're right... thank you for all of that, Serena... Mirror Serena: No problem, Ash. Well, it looks like this interview ended on a happy note after all, huh? I hope you guys were satisfied with my answers, because you're not getting anything more from me for a very long time... as in never again! Now off to training... and yes, you're going to train with me too, Ash! Mirror Ash: Wait... right now!? Mirror Serena: Oh, yes! We can't get ready for the League by just sitting around here enjoying the sunshine! We've still got a whole half a day left to do some intense training! Come on... don't try to back out of it now! Mirror Ash: Sigh... alright...​

[gaycey-sketchit]

(Gary anon) Heh, he has more to him, but coming off of Paul's impact hurt him hard regardless. (A handshake between the two is definitely coming soon. And hopefully Gary leaving some mark on Ash again; preferably something different but hits the same as the previous times) They seem to have 'fixed' that by having the baby Cubone join Trace's team in "Let's Go". (Ah, the infamous Coma theory, at least that is not as rampant as it was years ago. Pokemon had quite a lot of)

.

(Part 2) (creepypastas; though the "cockfighting is bad" stems more from outside sources trying to denounce the franchise 'FOR TEH CHILDRENS') It's kinda funny how fans over the years kept trying to put some "traits" {headcanons} from Red unto Ash, but officially, it's the other way around. Red mainly has seniority. (It took a while for Red being mostly stoic to not mean "emotionless with serious eyes to look badass at all times") Probably gave him a voice cause making

(Part 3) him stay mute would've made some scenes difficult to convey or come off in the wrong way. {Though an "inner voice" maybe could have worked}. (Origins Red was more or less Ash with few changes. Blue is just a fun character in general) Yeah, gonna wait until we get more info to properly speculate. (I saw another try to "fix" the screen to include Serena. We know why she was deliberately omitted, but I at least remember there were a few beginning episodes where she didn't)

(Part 4) (join the group yet) Just the fact it's in Goh's possession is a stir in itself; I don't expect it having a HUGE role here other than purifying the water. If it is the Yamper episode. (If this is the last mission for Goh before the trip, I feel like Gary has to show up, even if not the focus. Gotta at least show who got the 3 spots) Oh, Happy Palletshipping Day btw. :D

I'll have to take your word for it because I have not seen much of BW and I don't know when I'll get around to watching it. But Paul was definitely a tough act to follow, rival-wise. I don't think Ash will ever have a rivalry that intense again.

(I keep telling myself I'll watch Pokeani all the way through someday, but I need to enlist someone willing to accompany me on that journey, because if I'm watching alone with nobody to bounce off commentary with, my attention span won't hold out enough to even make it through Johto. I love Pokeani more than just about anything but I am not immune to getting bored during filler episodes.)

Love the significance of handshakes in Pokeani. Especially in regards to rivals. Yeah, hopefully!

Yeah, I remember that--but unfortunately it does not hit the same because of different circumstances. Alas.

I've seen "Pokemon is cockfighting" from the moral guardians who don't really understand what Pokemon is and probably also think it's devil worship because there's a thing called evolution in it, "Pokemon training is slavery" is one that's seemingly mostly perpetuated by a certain notorious FFNet user, who is the most comically bitter and misanthropic person I've ever seen amongst Pokemon fanfic writers (I am talking about Farla). Both show a fundamental misunderstanding of what Pokemon is actually about, and trying to apply takes like those to it is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole or however that saying goes.

But anyway. Yeah, it's a funny situation. All those Ash Betrayal Fics that essentially turn Ash into what the fandom thought Red was (before gen 7 revealed that he's just a nonverbal gay man and he's married to Blue now) meanwhile canon sort of did the reverse. As a video game protagonist, Red was probably originally intended to just be a blank slate for the player to project themselves onto, and he didn't gain his own personality until after the anime and manga came along--so of course even though game Red existed first, who he was as a person was influenced by those (except for him being pretty stoic and completely nonverbal or according to Masters, semiverbal, which is pretty different from his expressive and loud-mouthed counterparts Ash and Adventures!Red; he generally comes across as far more reserved than they do).

It'd be a challenge but I would've liked to see them try. As an autistic person who has difficulty speaking sometimes (often) all I really want out of any adaptation that does something with game!Red is for him to keep a trait I find comfort in--he doesn't talk and people accept it. Another character in the Pokemon games that comes across so strongly as autistic literally gets called a freak without a human heart in-game (albeit by one of the most depraved villains in the series) and like half the fandom speculates he's not even human in the first place, so I have some Feelings on the subject. (That said, I do enjoy that in Origins Red has the same English voice as Adrien Agreste from Miraculous Ladybug, something I can think of a number of jokes about.)

Yeah, Origins Red didn't really bring anything new to the table--he just sort of strikes me as a less interesting version of Ash. But every Blue incarnation is entertaining in their own ways, and Origins' take on him had great moments like "acts all bold and confident about going into Lavender Tower, then sees a ghost and runs away screaming" and that time he was up in a tree waiting who-knows-how-long for Red to come along, probably so he could look cool in front of his rival again after the ghost thing, and we are left wondering how much time he spent climbing up there for that one moment. Origins Blue is a delight.

Very eager to see what the future holds!

It'd honestly be kind of funny if she didn't show up again because her departure made it too difficult for the writers to know where to go from there. But she's probably coming up eventually, and her lack of cameo this time is just because they're saving her for later.

Yeah, though I never really got why people were so mad about that since we knew Goh's goal being to catch every Pokemon would mean catching legendaries eventually, and Suicune's still free to roam. It's really not that different from other characters in the anime who had legendaries on their teams (multiple Battle Frontier people, Tobias... though I suppose people don't really like Tobias either).

But anyway yeah, if it's the Yamper episode the Suicune thing probably won't be too major anyway.

Makes sense! I will be very happy to see him again even if briefly.

Heck yeah, PalletShipping Day!! Despite my valiant attempt I didn't manage to prepare anything I'd currently call passable, but looking at other people's fanart and stuff will be fun!! :D

[radramblog]

Every Mono-Black Commander, Part 2- The Kamigawa Zone

Last week when I was doing this, we had to go through a massive pile of Homelands cards and Portal Three Kingdoms cards- this time we’re going to have to do similar but with the three Kamigawa sets. See, WoTC decided that the best way to do “Legendary set” was to make every rare creature legendary (and some uncommons), so there are a fair few to talk about! In fact, I’m extending the length of this post just so I don’t have to be talking about spirits for two weeks, because much as I love Kamigawa and it’s Kami, that’s a lot.

There’s a few things to get to before that though, so.

Volrath the Fallen (78 decks, 52nd most played)

Volrath is once again an older character that eventually got a newer better different card to represent them, but unlike with Greven this one isn’t completely awful. Now, it is 6 mana with no protection and evasion, but it is not particularly hard to kill someone with that ability- to be fair, though, there’s only one card the deck can run that lets him hit 21 without double strike (it would be 2, but Emrakul is banned, so Draco it is). By the looks, most people are giving the deck an Eldrazi Reanimator backup plan, which makes a lot of sense- if you can’t kill them with a giant commander, why not try a giant space monster? Volrath is far from the top echelons of commander, but he’s an interesting and solid enough pick to build a deck around- a far cry from most of what came before him.

 Greel, Mind Raker (17 decks, 81st most played)

Greel, on the other hand, is a bit more painfully mediocre. I’m not going to act like Mind Twist isn’t a powerful effect, but it’s not as broken in commander when there’s 2 other opponents to deal with, and card advantage effects are more plentiful, and it costs an additional 5 mana and an extra card, and it’s attached to a 3/3 with no other rules text. Man, Prophecy really wasn’t a good set, huh. Art kinda kicks ass, though.

 Cabal Patriarch (9 decks, 96th most played)

This is as good a time as ever to note that despite Braids, Cabal Minion being banned, she’s still got more decks than this guy. He doesn’t even have a name! He’s also a 6 mana card with two abilities that are barely worth it, they don’t kill nearly anything in this format, and for 3 mana and another resource? It’s kinda pathetic. At least at this point, all the legends have actual rules text, but on the other hand, I’d like their rules text to look a bit more interesting.

 Chainer, Dementia Master (423 decks, 16th most played)

Oh shit, there we go! The first card on this list to breach 100 decks, and by a country mile, Chainer is just a badass card. BBB: Reanimate something is just kinda nutty, and the downside is easy to mitigate with black’s myriad sacrifice outlets. Let alone the loops you can get into with stuff like Phyrexian Altar, K’rrik, or Pitiless Plunderer.

Ultimately, though Chainer only really does One Thing. He does happen to be very very good at that One Thing, but it is his One Thing. Considering his contemporary competition, though, I’d say that is far from holding him back. I’ve only played with Chainer once (borrowing a mate’s deck), and I accidentally won the game with Gary. And if that’s not how I want to be playing magic then I don’t know what is.

 Balthor, the Defiled (112 decks, 40th most played)

On the other hand, I’m actually kind of shocked how many decks Balthor has. He’s got an incredibly powerful effect, but not only is it pseudo-symmetrical but it includes a colour you could not possibly have, making it even more likely you’re benefitting not just yourself. Missing out on big colourless creatures is also a pain.

As well, looking at the cards most played in Balthor decks, I’m kind of shocked at how little non-symmetrical graveyard hate is being packed in here. That does seem like the best plan, stocking your graveyard and removing theirs so you get all the value from a big reanimate. At the same time, I genuinely respect living on the edge like people are apparently doing. Fucking go for it queens.

 Visara the Dreadful (11 decks, 91st most played)

Visara is Shauku but less interesting. She’s a murder things commander that will largely have to choose between doing Her Thing and actually attacking, which isn’t particularly great. She can at least kill just about anything, but at the cost of having not much else to do most of the time. Probably give her a pass.

Also, though, what the fuck is she? Like apparently she’s a Gorgon, but she has wings and those look a lot more like giant fuckoff horns than snakes. She must have incredible neck strength to keep that propped up all the time.

 Phage, the Untouchable (267 decks, 23rd most played)

Ah, Phage. The original Big Dick Energy commander, because nothing says baller like a Commander that tries to kill you for daring to cast her. The number of ways to not die to Phage has slowly gone up, although more and more of them are in colours that Phage doesn’t get to run in the zone (White, mostly), but there’s enough there that she’s more than playable.

And what a payoff. I feel like if you get killed by Phage, you don’t get to be mad about that. Like, that’s just hats off at that point. Such a feat deserves nothing but respect. She’s the original and the best “player deathtouch” card, before deathtouch even existed. Can’t even argue.

Also you can’t do it with her in the zone but Fractured Identity targeting Phage is a very funny way to win a game of Commander.

 He Who Hungers (13 decks, 89th most played)

Oh fuck, it’s the KAMIGAWA ZONE. We’ve finally made it. Surprisingly, this is the only Mono-black commander with Soulshift, so I’m not going to bother explaining it.

I’m just going to say off the bat- I love Spirit tribal, and all the Kamigawa spirits are glorious in their gorgeous surreal art and bizzarro effects, and there are actually a lot of things that say Spirit on them even in Mono-Black. With that in mind, just about every Mono-B spirit is draft chaff and the deck will not be good. But you don’t come to He Who Hungers for good, though I suppose Thoughtseizing repeatedly isn’t that bad an effect. He Who Hungers is probably really solid in WB+ where you have plenty of token effects to fuel him, but there really isn’t enough production in Mono-B to support him. Perhaps a shame.

 Horobi, Death’s Wail (257 decks, 24th most played)

Horobi is one I’ve actually considered building, considering their incredibly unique effect. It’s one of those fun commanders that just gets to play a bunch of otherwise really bad cards, and take advantage of them like no other deck can. It’s such a ruthless form of board control, that can often shred through entire swathes just as easily as it does individual threats.

The thing is, though, that dealing with creatures isn’t really something Black needs help with- and that’s all Horobi really helps you do. However, I suppose that does free the deck up for more slots that can deal with more concerning permanent types. Horobi is just kind of a really good control commander, particularly when you’re looking at a low-combo metagame.  Would recommend!

 Iname, Death Aspect (105 decks, 42nd most played)

I really enjoy the three Iname cards, silly as they kind of are, and Death Aspect isn’t an exception. Aside from being one of the sickest looking creatures I’ve ever seen, Iname DA subverts the problem of Mono-B Spirits being not great by giving you access to literally your entire deck’s worth of them, provided you have a mass reanimation effect handy. It’s a pretty ballsy play, considering how vulnerable you will then be to graveyard hate after casting your six-mana commander, but you gotta make the plays to get the wins, right.

Iname is also a great enabler for things like Mortal Combat that care about number of creatures in the ‘yard, because they just dump so many in there. Also I’m pretty sure if you have Syr Konrad out with Iname you…just win? Anyway.

 Kiku, Night’s Flower (29 decks, 71st most played)

In an odd reversal of Shauku/Visara, Kiku costs significantly less but her ability costs significantly more. This does make her probably worse, unfortunately, since 4 mana is a lot to be burning every turn and it’s a lot worse with repeat untap effects like Thousand-Year Elixir. The nature of her ability is brilliantly flavourful, but unfortunately makes it kill a lot less things as well. She’s really neat, but neat doesn’t equal playable, unfortunately.

 Kokusho, the Evening Star (134 decks, 35th most played)

Oh, how the mighty has fallen. Wait, no, Ryusei was the Falling Star, right?

For the unaware, Kokusho used to be banned in this format, and I’m not particularly sure why- like you could gain a shitload of life and deal a bunch of damage with them, but I would hardly call that oppressive. Perhaps it’s because I’ve never seen them in action outside of my own 5C spirits deck. It does scale really nicely into multiplayer, I suppose.

So what does Kokusho do? Kokusho just needs to find a way to die over and over to drain your opponents out and gain a shittonne of life. This will have gotten a lot easier with the recent advent of Supernatural Stamina and related effects, as well as last year’s rules change to death triggers. Aside from that, well, they’re big dragon and they can hit you I guess. That seems less efficient than having them die, so probably just do that instead.

Also can someone explain to me why this card is still so expensive, it’s the only one of the cycle I don’t have the original print of but it’s like 30 bucks and I ain’t paying that, please………

 Kuro, Pitlord (7 decks, 99th most played)

Shoutouts to my boy Braden for running this guy for a bit. Kuro is…well it’s 9 mana plus another 4 every single turn. That’s enough of a turnoff for most people, I think. It does basically just kill everything with that ability, but at 9 you’re probably not at a particularly monstrous life total so it’s a real cost to start dropping 4/4s left and right. I’m not opposed to reanimating this, I guess, but prooobably leave it out of the zone.

 Marrow-Gnawer (1618 decks, 3rd most played)

I am actually kind of shocked this is as high as it is. I probably shouldn’t be, it’s the de facto Rats commander considering it’s basically Rat Krenko but they also get evasion, but I didn’t expect Rats to be as popular as this.

The recent reprints probably helped.

Marrow-Gnawer is a devastatingly efficient swarm commander, as it starts almost doubling your board over and over. The comparison to Krenko is obviously very deliberate, but paying an extra mana to get Fear on the team as well is pretty worth it in my eyes. Requiring a sacrifice makes it a bit softer to removal, but like, no way are they killing some random Rat when they see this guy in the zone. And Rats are pretty replaceable- I mean, just look at Relentless Rats/Rat Colony.

It’s still kind of astonishing that Marrow-Gnawer is this popular, to me at least. I mean, the other Rat options are a bit more mediocre (as we’ll see shortly!), but really? I guess that’s probably why it’s so big, as while there are decently spread options for other black tribes (zombies, vampires, demons etc.), Rats doesn’t really have anything better than this. So here it is, third best. Fucking go off king. Er, Lord, I guess.

 Myojin of Night’s Reach (6 decks, 103rd most played)

Hey wait Myojin is a badass card, sure it’s 8 mana (tied for the cheapest of the Myojin, lmao), but it’s effect is nuts! Just get rid of all of their hands, fuckin get em! Why is no one playing  this?

Oh, you only get the counter if you cast it from your hand? Well, fuck, I guess. Moving on.

 Seizan, Perverter of Truth (188 decks, 29th most played)

I actually designed a Seizan deck and proxied it up at some point, and it was pretty fun. Not good, but fun. Seizan is honestly pretty decent as a more open-ended option, being funnily enough viable both for Group Hug or Group Slug, or some perverted hybrid of both (heh). It’s also just a big beefy idiot, and therefore if you slap some evasion (and like, one more power) on it not a bad wincon for either deck. It’s kind of a shame that they help your opponent draw into an answer for your deck, but that’s the game you play with a card like this. As long as you aren’t at the table where people kill Howling Mine on sight, Seizan probably has a seat waiting for it. I genuinely really like it, and would consider rebuilding it if I didn’t already have, you know, 2.5 mono-black decks already.

 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni (48 decks, 58th most played)

One of the two Other Rat Commanders, and only really because it’s the only other legendary Rat (excluding changelings). She’s also a Ninja which is neato I suppose. I mean, let’s not beat around the bush, Ink-Eyes looks and plays absolutely sick as hell, red mist streaming from her eyes and an effect that ganks some absolutely silly creatures off your opponents. Unfortunately, you can’t activate Ninjutsu from the Command Zone (fuck off Yuriko no one asked), so she’s kind of just stuck trying to pitch in on her own. And she’s not super effective at it. I suspect she’s another 99-er, though she has more decks than most things I’d put in that category, so eh.

 Kyoki, Sanity’s Eclipse (23 decks, 76th most played)

Aside from having easily one of the edgiest (and thereby coolest) names I’ve ever seen, Kyoki doesn’t have a whole lot going for it. For the cost of putting literally Craw Wurm in the zone, you get to exile one card every time you cast a Spirit/Arcane spell. And there aren’t that many good ones of those you get access to. Now don’t get me wrong, I do play Kyoki in my O-Kagachi deck, and everyone tries to kill it on sight in that, so maybe it’s better than I’m giving it credit for. But I wouldn’t put it in the zone.

Holy shit though look at that flavour text, motherfucker almost has as many epithets as it does power.

 Patron of the Nezumi (34 decks, 64th most played)

I’ve actually (briefly) discussed Patron of the Nezumi on this blog before, and spoilers, it isn’t great. Rat Offering is…fine… but they really could have made the other trigger affect your own stuff and maybe the card would actually have been fine. Like, none of the Patrons are spectacular, but this just doesn’t do enough at all. At least most of the rest of them have interesting effects- ironically the one with the best tribe, Patron of the Akki, somehow has the most boring effect. ZZZZ.

 Shirei, Shizo’s Caretaker (970 decks, 7th most played)

Another card that gets to run a bunch of fun nonsense, Shirei has been a fun and popular commander for a very long time at this point. There are a surprisingly huge number of 1/Xs with powerful effects available to loop in mono-black, and it isn’t that hard to protect Shirei long enough to get them off. Add in a relatively recent reprint at uncommon, making them not only affordable, but considering how many of its key pieces are common/uncommon and you’ve got an excellent budget list.

Seriously though, looking at it’s “High Synergy Cards” and “Top Cards” on EDHREC has literally 3 cards over a dollar, and you really don’t need Ashnod’s Altar for this deck to be good. If you told me I had to build a commander deck for 10 bucks, Shirei is one place I’d be heading right for. You get to run Basal Thrull! Everyone loves Basal Thrull.

 Toshiro Umezawa (515 decks, 13th most played)

Okay look I’m going to be biased here obviously because I am literally building this deck, but Toshiro is cool as fuck. It’s spellslinger without Red or Blue, and it gets to do fun stuff like playing the MDFC instants as lands from the graveyard. It’s another unexpected cards commander, and there’s a bunch of fun stuff like False Cure that you can cheekily slide in to really catch people off guard.

Not only is it spellslinger, but he also gets to play mostly at instant speed, which is obviously always a boon. And yeah, it does just get to kill everything and chain Doom Blades if you really want. He’s unfortunately reliant on your opponents having creatures, but that’ll happen, things die in this format. Just a fun commander, shame he was overshadowed by his bloody sidearm.

 Yukora, the Prisoner (7 decks, 98th most played)

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Juzam Djinn but with an arguably worse downside is not a particularly popular commander. I’d be interested in trying them with those “one creature matters” cards from AVR/DTK, but there are much much better things to stack those onto.

It’s probably not that bad in draft, though? If you aren’t running many creatures? Idk.

 Akuta, Born of Ash (10 decks, 93rd most played)

So this is a mediocre creature, that you can reanimate if you have the most cards in hand out of everyone, at the cost of setting yourself back a lot of tempo. Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

 Infernal Kirin (18 decks, 80th most played)

Kay so this one is actually powerful. In O-Kagachi. Like, this can just rip hands apart if you’re doing it right. Unfortunately, locking yourself into Black only with Spirit/Arcane spells is again way too restrictive to work with still, and as a result I completely understand not playing this. But actually though don’t sleep on this bad boy, I’m a big fan.

 Kagemaro, First to Suffer (23 decks, 77th most played)

…is this somehow the first “boardwipe on a legend” so far? Hang on, I just checked and there’s only like two of these in Black, what the fuck.

Okay, well, Kagemaro. It requires a lot of hand presence to kill things, but it also gets around Indestructible, so that’s nice. Look at all those blades its never going to use because let’s be honest this is getting sacrificed most of the time. It’s, like, fine? I guess? I suppose there’s nothing stopping you from loading up your hand and slugging someone to death with this, and while that effect is common in other colours, I’m pretty sure this is the only Black version, and Black is pretty good at drawing, so go for it I suppose.

 Kuon, Ogre Ascendant/ Kuon’s Essence (21 decks, 78th most played)

On the one hand, getting Kuon to flip probably isn’t super hard. On the other hand, the payoff is extremely mediocre, and it’s super disappointing that it isn’t asymmetrical. Like, there’s a few cards you could just play that do the same thing, though to be fair I’m pretty sure all of them are 4CMC or higher. Kuon doesn’t really provide a way of winning the game, either- like most of the things on this list can at least attack, but if Kuon is flipped they’re probably staying that way.

Interestingly, this was the only BBB costed commander at 3CMC until Eldraine, so I guess if you were trying to turbo-devotion this is a thing? But like, why wouldn’t you just use Erebos or something. Also, does the devotion even count if it’s flipped? Questions I don’t want to bother answering.

 Maga, Traitor to Mortals (62 decks, 56th most played)

Our final Kamigawa commander, and therefore the last one I’m going to go through today because jesus this is getting long. This card’s name has only gotten more perfect with age, but the card itself hasn’t done that well. It’s a solid enough leader for giant mana decks, filled with doublers and such, as it effectively has haste with that ETB, but if you aren’t producing excessive amounts of B then I’m pretty sure Maga just sucks. Like in other, less cardboard circles.

 Aight that’s, what, 27 cards? For reference, I do plan on continuing at a 20-ish per installation speed, but I just wanted to burn through Kamigawa for possibly obvious reasons. Now that we’re through Spiritland, we can move onto bigger and better things- Time Spiral, Lorwynmoor, and beyond. Until then.

[themanicgalaxy]

SPN 5X12 Swap Meat

the art is not going well so here we go whee

why does Sam sound like a teenager

oh

OH THIS IS THE SWAP EPISODE LMAO

OH IT'S A TEENAGER

she's hitting on him wow this is So Fucked

*whispers* "are we talking about sex" lmaoOO

oh that swap was Fucked

I do love how Sam gets the "this many hours earlier"

oh to visit old friends, the leather jacket is Back!

the ghosts pitch y'all are doing Great

ah the carved into her skin thing is FUCKED

ah the kid

Sam what the fuck fucking NERD

I'm honestly kinda shocked they even HAD an outside babysitter

oH DEAN WANTS OUT HUH?

Why Sam? is it just Protagonist Boy? what's the thing?

if it's because of the fucking salad shake

oo this zoom in on Sam's Face is nice

whoop the uniform

he's swapped

ah Sam's confused

he's having a really fun time lmAO

AH FINALLY HE TRIES HIS REFLECTION

LMAO he's having fun with Sam being Muscle MAn

aw he's SO SMALL

what the FUCK is your endgame kid?

oh goD NO DON'T LET HIM DRIVE

oF COURSE HE CRASHED THE CAR

oh same place as mystery spot

Ok that's why he trashed the phones I see

"I think I have asthma" uh oh

the mirror trick is neat though

"smart kid" "ugh virgin" sam this is basically you in high school cmon

witchcraft!

"you little satanic bastard" HAHAH

engineer, MIT, SAT

god fucking dammit man

Sam cmon man you've never had a family but you have to know this is wack

THE QUESTIONING BUT IT'S HIM IS GOOD IT'S SO GOOD THOUGH

ah sister knows about the book

lmao of course the nerd kid just knows it

HE LIKES DEAN'S MUSIC AND DEAN GETS CONFUSED ABOUT IT LMAOO

HE HAS TO GO TO HIGH SCHOOL I'M CACKLING

oh his friend has ear piercings

lmao he hacks into Gary's locker

yes I know that's not right whatever

this kid...bro cmon that's cringe

why is he trying to kill them

him and Dean share the one braincell

'not feeling like myself' sksksk

"we can talk it out" why is that so fucking funny to me

Dean please

dammit

what the actual fuck are these kids doing

Dean for once be slightly better with your feelings

although to be fair no one else has noticed Gary

"your whole future is planned out for you" oh of course OF COURSE THAT CONVINCES HIM

oh MY GOD

"we don't drink together that often" :(

"you really are a good guy" WHAT THE FUCK IS THE ENDGAME HERE

ah ok and we're seeing the flirting scene from the beginning

Dean cmon

"my parents are out of town"ahah

of course she does bdsm

"have you idiots been talking to demons" hahaha

you fuckers were NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THE BOUNTY HUNTERS

"yeah, Trev" ahahaha

"gary can't draw" asd;aofhd

Dean's got a bounty on his head uh oh

yeah she looks like a Nora

if he kills her I swear

this is a terrible idea

oh good he at least figured it out

oh no NO THEY WANT TO GET INTO COLLEGE

FUCK

right it tends to possess girls

the demon eyes look really good on her tho

98 pounds of nothing lmao

dAngeRouS warlOck

gary

shit SHIT LUCIFER

oh my FUCKING GOD YOU IDIOTS

you’re deAD

kid I am bEGGING YOU PLEASE STOP TALKING

WHY PISS OFF THE DEMON WHY

sorry fucker you’re dead

“I want so an so to fall in love with me” child

yeah I figured

ok yeah of course the lick blood

“I don’t want to die” uh oh

17..ouch

Dean’s not processing this well huh

“and no one can tell you what to do anymore” uhh

I mean yes but no but also I get it but also fUCK

she’s so clearly lying to you man

oh my god the DUAL EXORCISM IS SO CUTE

well not cute but it’s fun

“adios bitch” “it’s adi nos” LMAO

ah the swap back

aw poor Nora

“my bad” ahahah

“we’d kill you” oof

“your life ain’t that bad” ha

“just rebel damn you” *in a healthy non satanic way

Sam that is some serious Younger Kid Energy ngl

“she doesn’t like satan you moron, she likes you” hahahaha

“I wish I had your life”

“I lied” ahaha

Dean’s face

Sam doesn’t like apple pie life, Dean does?

AWWW NO DEAN’S MUSIC

and THE SONG ROCK N ROLL NEVER FORGETS

1. Sam vs Dean. like. Kinda fucked that they keep saying that Dean wants out and Sam is slowly going like "nah fuck it this is pretty cool" and then keep undoing that. Also kinda fucked how much they imply that they wouldn't be friends, and how it's mostly because they keep crossing their wires(dean goes drinking Sam goes...I don't know, I don't think he makes much of an effort actually)

2. Dean. No fuck it because even though the kid was Sam Coded(magic, straight A's) he clearly was someone Dean felt connected to(music, general Vibe). Like the kid wanted fun, and so does Dean, and he hates the plan. Also I got the vibe that Gary was the oldest so..yeah no that tracks. The difference here is that Dean wants something quiet, wants a family, doesn't want to hunt, which is...also against the plan, so it's kinda like that. Also, I think the whole "Dean's incredibly lonely" comes back, because he's...bad at socializing due to both the "I have to perform this role" and he didn't get a lot of interaction with other people, and his brother doesn't seem to like him. Like Dean is always just spectacularly lonely and Ouch

3. Sam. Listen I get the "rebel against your family" but Sam...that's a youngest child privilege. Like if you've got this plan, and you can't do anything that deviates from that plan anywhere. Like I get it, you were Smart and Magic, but this was like..Sam accepts hunting, he likes it, he's good at it. He doesn't want out anymore, and he's willing to rebel. it was like...good way to set it up. youngest child swaps with oldest. yes

4. Escapism again. Dean and the kid are craving it(I keep saying the kid, it's Gary), and they get a little taste of what it's like. Sam gets it and hates it, which tracks with the office episode.

5. needledrop. ok the "rock n roll never forgets" seems important to the like...stuck-ness of Dean, but also it was used in the episode as like...Dean Music that the kid likes, but Sam doesn't, subtly "They're different"

same with the salad and the "drinking together" sam's straight laced on purpose, I think he's just Like That and it's hard for them? Like I feel like it plays into the fact that without hunting they...probably wouldn't be close

6. overall, it was like...a funny, solid character study, playing off of established lore, with good stuff all around. It was more lighthearted, but well shot, and funny. Like finally! they didn't beat me over the head with the message! good!!!

yeah ok so this might be proof that easy to grasp consequences work on me

[erraticprojectjunkie]

The Gilmore Project: "Pilot"

The Project: The Gilmore Project is an experiment in composition form. As a huge fan of the show Gilmore Girls, I have watched and rewatched the episodes several times over. During my last full viewing in early 2018, I noticed myself watching the show differently than I had in the past and realized that there was a lot of personal reflection being stimulated by the events of the show as well as the music and cultural references. As a result, I decided to start a journey in blog form...exploring each episode and how it resonated with me personally.  Disclaimer: If you have not watched Gilmore Girls but plan to, you'll want to watch each episode before reading these posts. There will 100% of the time be spoilers. I'd be doing this wrong if there weren't. That's the nature of the beast. The Episode: Lorelai: Please, Luke. Please, please, please.Luke: How many cups have you had this morning?Lorelai: None.Luke: Plus?Lorelai: Five. But yours is better.Luke: You have a problem.Lorelai: Yes I do. "Pilot" is the first episode of Gilmore Girls to air. It is the start of the entire Gilmore universe. It originally aired on the CW network in October of 2000. This episode introduces viewers to Lorelai Gilmore and her 15-year-old daughter, Rory (short for Lorelai...yes...her mother named her after herself). It sets the scene for the series, laying out the basics of character relationships. Lorelai and Rory discover that Rory has been accepted to the prestigious private school, Chilton. Lorelai runs into an issue with the ability to pay for tuition and ends up having to approach her wealthy parents (from whom she is somewhat estranged) for financial help. This results in an agreement for Friday night dinners with Richard and Emily Gilmore, Lorelai's parents, in exchange for their funding of Rory's tuition. The Lorelai Angle: I think this is where the project really began...with Lorelai. When the series first premiered, I was in my early 20's. I was in dental school and then, in the later seasons, just beginning to make my way in the "real world". Because of this, I often identified more with Rory than Lorelai, but really never found myself being solidly capable of feeling as if I truly belonged fully in either camp. That's still a bit true, as I can reflect back on things in my life that Rory's situation reminds me of, but now that I'm a bit (ahem) older, I find myself more fully thinking of myself as "a Lorelai" rather than "a Rory".  The primary issue for Lorelai in this episode is one of money. Ah...isn't that just the continuing fun of being an adult? There are always "fun" financial surprises around every corner. As I watched the episode for today's post, we are dealing with the fun of unexpectedly replacing tires on our primary vehicle. There goes money straight out of savings. It seems that there are always things that crop up no matter how good you think they will finally get going. As Gary messaged me this afternoon, "we seem to be having our share of crap...I hope we get constipated soon." At least he has a way of making me laugh about it, but it's always something, isn't it?  Paralleling closer to Lorelai's predicament, there was a time when I had to approach my own parents in need of financial help. At the time, I was not a child, but a fully capable adult (much like Lorelai). I owned my own house and I was holding down a job, but there just wasn't enough there to keep everything afloat. I was self-employed, which really was the crux of the problem. Running a business isn't always all it's cracked up to be. Yes, the scheduling freedom is nice and it's always good to control your own benefits, but it really blows when you have to sacrifice your own financial comfort in order to try and make things work.  The 2008/2009 financial slump hit me and my business particularly hard. I've typically been pretty good with money and I was able to utilize my savings and restructure things a few times in order to scrimp and save where I needed to in order to keep things going. But sometimes there's only so much you can do. Ultimately, I found myself up against a wall, afraid that I would lose everything. Now...hindsight is 20/20 and I probably should have responded to this situation a bit differently than I did a the time, but I felt that I just had to keep making it all work. I needed help.  In Lorelai's case, she really didn't want to approach her parents because they had a sticky history and an uncomfortable, somewhat obligatory, relationship. The assistance from her parents came with strings attached and, several times down the line, she was left feeling incompetent because she had deigned to approach them with the situation at all. This couldn't be farther from the truth for me. Luckily, I have a very good relationship with my parents. I'm able to talk to them about my life and I have nothing but respect for the way they've brought me up. Yes, we've had our moments, but overall I've always felt that they have been there to support and guide me. However, this good relationship did nothing to ease my apprehension about talking to them about my need for help. In fact, it may have made it worse, as I felt very strongly that I had failed. Like Lorelai, I tend to be a bit rooted in a need to provide for myself. I don't like handouts and I don't like feeling like I can't do something on my own. It was extremely difficult to swallow my pride. The Rory Angle: There are many ways in which Rory is me during my teenage years. I was studious and fairly shy (I'm still very much an introvert) and I didn't really have strong connections to a lot of people I went to school with. In fact, I think I'm probably just about as close to my high school classmates now (via the wonders of Facebook) as I was when I was sixteen. I suppose that could be read two different ways, but trust me when I tell you that this means that there are few relationships there that wouldn't merely land somewhere in the spectrum between acquaintance and friend. Don't get me wrong, they're not bad people...I'm just not much of a people person. In this episode, Rory is shown in English class and the teacher gives them the option to complete their reading of the assigned Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or to work on the follow up essay. Rory is shown writing diligently while her female classmates are testing out nail polish and venturing guesses as to what she is working on. Girl 1: Could be a love letter.Girl 2: Or her diary.Girl 3: Or a slam book.Girl 4: It's the assignment. Yep. that was me. Rory has already finished the reading and is focused on her schoolwork rather than social circles. This tendency to be more studious than social is hinted at a few other times during the episode, particularly when she is shown in conversation with her best friend, Lane. In my particular case, I was very much a studious teenager. Schoolwork was a priority and anything outside of that...well...often made me pretty uncomfortable (see the earlier mention of introvert). I really didn't have a best friend like Rory has in Lane due to a falling out with my long time best friend early in sophomore year, but I had a few closer friends that I did enjoy spending time with. Though I still keep in contact with a couple of them and I have developed good relationships with a few additional friends along the way, none has the lasting closeness that we see throughout the series between Rory and Lane. I'm a bit envious of that.  This episode also introduces us to the character of Dean Forester. Rory meets him for the first time in the hallway of the high school as she is packing up her locker in preparation for the transfer to Chilton. It becomes pretty clear that she is interested in him as she (though earlier very excited about changing schools) tells Lorelai, "I'm not sure I want to go to Chilton. The timing's really bad." Ah...the old changing things for a boy. While I certainly changed things about myself and the trajectory of my life several times along the way because of a boy...or a man...the big thing that hit me about this particular interaction was Lorelai's response to Rory's balking. During the subsequent argument between the two Gilmore girls, Lorelai hypothesizes that the boy has "dark hair, romantic eyes, looks a little dangerous?...Tattoos are good too," and then hollers, "Does he have a motorcycle? Because if you're going to throw your life away, he better have a motorcycle!" Ah...now that reminds me of sixteen.  You see, at sixteen, I was all the things previously mentioned. I was responsible and studious. I held a 4.0 GPA and a job. But during the summer I was sixteen, there was also a boy. A boy with dark hair and tattoos. He didn't have a motorcycle, but I think the fact that he was twenty-two and a Marine probably made up for that. (Besides, I'm sure at some point later in life he likely bought one. He's the type.) It was a summer fling that never went anywhere beyond a month or two, but how my dad didn't completely flip over the situation is beyond me. Props to him for that because that required a lot of trust in my ability to not be a complete idiot. That boy/man disappeared from my life as quickly as he entered it and though it's been a somewhat funny anecdote to my fairly lackluster dating history, I hadn't heard from him or seen anything of him in over twenty years. Funnily enough though, I actually discovered earlier this year via a post in my newsfeed (oh Facebook and your weird and sometimes wonderful randomness) that said boy/man is actually now in a long-term relationship with a friend of a high school friend. The world is sometimes very small. Other Musings: When I went through the episode in preparation for this post, I took notes. When I finished, I didn't think I had much. In the end, I wound up cutting about half of the information I had jotted down. This included a few snippets here and there that didn't lead to anything big and some simple things like acknowledging that hearing "There She Goes" by the La's in the intro did nothing but remind me of the Boo Radleys version from So I Married an Axe Murderer. I figure this is how a lot of these pieces will likely go. I won't be spewing out every thought I have, but rather focusing on a few things that presented a larger picture. Sometimes it will be serious, other times it will be silly or just plain stupid. Like I mentioned in the first bit of this post, The Gilmore Project is an experiment. It's an adventure. I'm feeling it out as I go. So...please, feel free to provide me feedback where you see fit. What would you like to see more of/less of? Any things you'd like me to address that I don't even allude to? Crowdsourced creativity can sometimes be a very helpful thing. This post originally appeared on Erratic Project Junkie and is copyrighted by Elle. Find EPJ on Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Goodreads

[ofseaandsky]

10 Favourite Characters

So @shimmershae tagged me in this ages ago but I have been swamped with RL and apparently this required a lot of thinking on my part :-) So I have many more favourites and I suck at inserting gifs so this will be a text only post cuz I am horrible at these things. And I pulled these from all different areas in my life and realised I really should have focussed on one genre... When I get on my computer I will edit this to put it behind a cut. Until then, sorry!!! Without further ado and in no particular order: 10 fave characters Sirius Black- So dear old Sirius Black. I love him and have since I first read about him. He was the first character to suck me in immediately and as his story was revealed I just grew to love him more and more. It's probably the tragic backstory in part and the idea that he never quite fit with who he was supposed to be. I'm a big sucker for people who break the moulds they are set. I actually enjoy both the book and film versions, but I will admit to loving Gary Oldman and he can't play a role badly but I do agree that Sirius and Remus were cast a bit too old. And then Sirius died which yes, makes sense from a story perspective but it really broke my heart. He just had such a shitty lot in life and I don't think he ever knew that he was loved. Roan This was one of my surprise favourites and just like Sirius he had me from the very first episode. I don't really know why he interested me initially, it was just something that happened. When his princely status was revealed and the fight with Lexa that was really it for me. There was just so much that was left unexplored about him and it felt like he really had a story to tell that was important and we never actually got to hear it in canon which is endlessly disappointing. Shadow Moon American Gods is one of the books that got me through a few rough patches and I have always loved Shadow because he just can't catch a break. A trend in my faves I know. But he is so adorably obstinacy about seeing what is actually happening and I always found that incredibly charming. He isn't perfect from a moral standpoint but he does his best and sometimes that is good enough. I love this book and there is no way I could not mention Shadow. And Ricky Whittle is perfection. It almost makes up for Lincolns death. Almost, but not quite. McSweeney - show mainly (bonus) Yes, another character who has just had enough and hates everyone for screwing him around. The show version of him is beautiful because he really needed an expanded story and there isn't as much to go on in the books. And I love me a funny Irishman ;) Lorelai Gilmore Gilmore Girls was the one of only two shows I never missed as it aired. I should have identified more with Rory because we were closer in age and with the sheer volume of reading she does could rival mine, it would make sense. But Lorelai had a different kind of heart. And I loved how hard she always tried. I was really not a fan of the her-marrying-Christopher plot because everyone knows it's Luke forever, but up until then she could do no wrong. I aspire to be as cool as she was as a mom one day. Hermione Granger Yes, she has her flaws but I adore Hermione. I was a bit of a know it all when I was younger too, I never got along with girls and I always turned to books in my time of need. Im happy that she is inspiring other young girls to not hide how smart they are because you should never hide your brilliance. I'm not a Ron fan, I thought that as sweet as he is he's just not a good match for her, but hey. The Doctor I'm going for the general character here, not a specific regeneration (though 10 and 9 are my faves). For me The Doctor has always been a bit inspirational in that no matter how many times people, societies, the universe in general disappoints him he just never gives up. He always steps in to do what needs doing and goes back in again and again and fights harder each time. I'm looking forward to the new season to see how the gender swap influences the story and I'm a bit nervous but in a good way. Carol (to show not comic) I've been a fan of the comics for many years and so I watch the show pretty religiously as well. Some of the character changes appeal to me, some don't. Carol is definitely one that I LOVE. There is nothing I don't like about her evolution on the show. She has risen out of the ashes of an abusive relationship and the death of a child and become a momma bear taking care of absolutely everyone and she still manages to maintain and grow a stronger sense of self. It is just a beautiful and incredibly inspiring character arc. The Joker Ah my favourite agent of chaos. I've never been a huge DC reader or Batman either but The Joker has always been an incredible bad guy. He is sadistic and evil and does it all for the pleasure of creating chaos. He is fun as a bad guy and the fact that we still don't know much about where he came from is intriguing. Harley Quinn Not because of her association with Mr. J but more recently how she has moved on from that relationship. When she first appeared it was quite confronting and controversial to show such an abusive relationship and recently she has truly grown into her own. But throughout she has shown the many sides of being in an abusive relationship and they have all been important, even when she continued to believe that she was truly loved. And it should make you angry and sad and disappointed as a reader because that means they are telling the story right. And seeing her finally break away was really satisfying. Now I don't have much time to read comics anymore so I don't know much about recent story arcs but I'm happy with where I left off with her. And unhappy that suicide squad the movie really gave audiences the wrong idea about them as a couple. Harry Dresden Want an adult, slightly bitter, always accident prone wizard who bribes fairies with pizza? You will love Dresden. The TV show sucked but the books are awesome. There's a zombified T-Rex! Harry is just amazing and I wish I could just sit down in a bar and drink a beer with him. Or ten. And then chat to Bob for hours. Buffy The second show I never missed an episode of growing up. It doesn't really need much explanation. She was awesome. Flawed and angry on occasion but always tried to do the best she could. Iago (Shakespeare) This is where my obsession with villainous characters started. Iago is amazing. He is just cruel and in it for himself and a classic example that there have always been villains like him in the world.