#also if they were dedicated to making worse teams better rather than making better teams worse to create closer racing

[dextixer]

There is no WBY in team RWBY - Volume 9

With Volume 9, our main protagonists, team RWBY got sent down to the Ever After, a fairy tale world based on the real life story of 'Alice in Wonderland". This was done very much heavily in part because RWBY has had problems with developing its main plot together with the characters and their personal journeys for a long time now, in no small part due to having a way too large cast.

And yet... Watching Volume 9 i could never get rid of one question. What exactly was the point of WBY parts of team RWBY being in the ever after, considering that their presence was wholly superfluous to the Volume?

Introspection

Sure, WBY parts of team RWBY did help facilitate Rubys eventual breakdown, but her breakdown could have easily happened without them. In fact, i would argue that the Volume focusing mainly on Rubys introspection would have been better. Or better yet. A volume dedicated wholly to both Ruby and Jaune.

People have complained about Jaunes inclusion in the Ever After, i was one of them. But in the end, he and Ruby have the most comprehensive character arcs in the entire Volume. Yes, the arcs end up resetting in the end. But they were still pretty good on their own merits.

We could have had a return to V4, with Jaune and Ruby leading the charge in the entire Volume. Both dealing with their own problems, supporting each other, and yet also confronting each other at points. Through both conflict and reconciliation both of their characters could have grown together.

We could see parts of it in the current V9. After all, it is mainly the conflict between Jaune and Ruby that is the final nail in Ruby running away. In the story, both of them have also experienced simmilar pains. Both of them lost important people in Beacon. Both of them have an antagonistic relationship with Cinder. Both of them are leaders of sister teams. Both of them have encouraged and supported each other.

And yes, i know that many people are not a fan of Jaune, but we kinda have to acknowledge at this point that the Banana haired boy is not going away. So its best to think about how he could be included in the story rather than how to remove him.

Especially since the WBY parts of team RWBY were pretty much... Unneeded this entire volume.

The Clown

Let us first cover the clown of the team. Weiss. It pains me to call her that, but there is no other way i can describe her with how CRWBY chose to portray her this very volume. In Volume 7-8, she has to confront her dysfunctional family. Almost loses them. Loses her (admittedly shit) father. And loses her home, the kingdom where she was born and raised.

It is true that there are moments in the Volume when we are shown that she is unhappy with the situation. But as far as i remember, at best, Weiss had 2-3 moments engaging with what happened. Most of her screentime in V9 however was spent with her being the slapstick comedic relief. Constantly getting harassed by the magical physics of the Ever After.

And quite frankly. At that point. What is the point of her character? Because quite frankly i do not believe that RWBY has any need, nor any time to spend on the prettier version of Jar Jar Binks. The Ever After already should be rife with wacky characters and various weird occurrences. Why make Weiss into one? A character that just lost her home?

Imagine that in Volume 4 Jaune did nothing but be comedic relief. He grieves for Pyrrha in 1-2 scenes and the rest of the time he is a joke. Would that have been good? Or worse, imagine YANG in Volume 4 being in the same acting position as Weiss. It would just be tone deaf...

And yet here we are. One of the best written protagonists in the show, turned into a clown.

Marriage

Blake and Yang... Im sorry, but at this point i cant even refer to them as separate characters. They arent. Not anymore. Does anyone remember Blake back in V1-V3? Blake the rebel? The troublemaker who wants to make the world better, a determined girl who wanted to atone for her being a part of the WF? Does anyone remember that strong willed woman? I do. And regardless of what one things of the writing of V4-5. For the most part, Blake still had a lot of signs of that rebel. It takes large amounts of bravery to stand in front of your house on fire and tell your countrymen to gear up to stop a terrorist organization.

And then from V6 onward. None of that is there. She is just there to be Yangs girlfriend and nothing more. For crying out loud, NORA, NORA of all characters cared more about equality and social justice in Volumes 7-8 than Blake. NORA! If that alone does not show how Blake was done dirty, nothing will.

So, Blake and Yang end up in the Ever After...

And they are the same as they have always been. Together but not together. The entire "arc" of Blake and Yang this volume was them eventually becoming Official. I have no problem with that but... If that was their entire contribution to the volume... It just further reinforces the point that these characters literally have nothing else but themselves. They are not even characters anymore.

There is no Yang, there is no Blake.

There is only Marriage.

And Marriage contributes nothing to this Volume in regards to having actual character progression. In fact, them almost completely ignoring Rubys mental state and then just going "whatevs" after seeing Ruby commit suic*de just made them look WORSE. And as i stated before, the Volume could have still had Ruby break-down without them.

Congratulations to people for Marriage confirmation. But i personally dont think it makes them valuable to the volume, or needed here.

Point?

So i have to end with simply saying that there is no point in the WBY portions of team RWBY being in Volume 9. All they do is take up screentime and do nothing of note. The roles that they play in Rubys eventual descent into her lowest point could have been just easily done through other means like hallucinations or more metaphorical journey through the ever after, or simply done by Neo and Jaune as it was mostly done in the show.

[quincyhorst]

HC Potpurri - Red Matador: The Defender Trio (+ END)

Pretty much the last characters to cover, José, Antonio, and Rafael. Underrated trio. And yes, there's two missing DFs too, but they belong to different cliques.

Mentioned before, but Rafa and Antonio are from Andalusia (From Málaga and Seville respectively), they became buddies during the Community Cup, blah blah. When RM was formed they were placed alongside José, who quickly warmed up to them. Or maybe he himself inserted into the friend group, who knows...

Note: Despite sharing the position neither Querardo nor Laudelino managed to become part of the group. To put it simply, Que's atitude doesn't match well with the laid-back DFs (I guess only José being almost on his terms); plus, the topic of bullfighting is something that makes the three rather uncomfortable (Albeit their position is neutral). Then again the captain himself prefers to hangout with his forward homies than the ones of his position, so...

Though they DO interact a few times during training, José being the perfect middleman between what the captain wants to do and what the other two DFs can do. (After all, remember the anime mentioned RM had its focus on the defense. There should be a way for them to cooperate, otherwise...)

As for Laudi... Yeah, he's Laudi. What else did you expect. In rare occassions he does join them in, but that'll mean being involved on some bizarre adventure.

Other optional member of this group is Juan, also from Andalusia, so 2/3 DFs are fond of him already. However he struggles to join in by himself, so unless he isn't encouraged he'll most likely won't. When Juan got benched Rafael got worried for him, but at least the keeper's new friendship with Federico was comforting to see.

With Fermín, Antonio and José are intimidated by him (Yes, even if Toni is the taller one), but Rafa is also willing to be nice to the bull keeper.

...And yes, despite his looks Rafael is the biggest sweetheart of the three (And perhaps of the whole team); disliking to see people being lonely. If possible, he tries to pursue and listen to those who do need some company. This comes mainly from his childhood, when Rafa was often left aside by other children due to his "cryptic" aspect. Nowadays on a better position thanks to his flamenco dancing, he wishes to help those who also can't fit in.

Meanwhile, the other two are a mixed bag. Antonio is too laid back and not very talkative, and José is just Pedro with slightly more energy and worse sense of humour.

In few occassions José has compared Rafa to a vampire, mostly as a harmless joke; though he has a tendency of getting annoying with it. However even then its true that the flamenco dancer has some behaviors that can raise an eyebrow at times. A very dedicated goth, or something else? Nobody can really answer (?

Curiosity: In the dub, José and Pedro share the Costa surname, hinting that they could be related. And being honest I CAN see some similarities between their designs. So in my setting, I like to see these two as family. Not sure how yet, they are just fam and that's it. They also played together for Castile and León in the Community Cup!!!

They are on different groups, but Pedro and José still talk every so often. In some occassions the little DF likes to join the other MFs on their pranks.

...For now unlike the other groups, these DFs mostly spend their time on the background, not doing much of importance. But they do have few moments here and there, and I guess the most important one would be Toni's romance with Céleste Astarloza; a french tourist we've mentioned before.

Something interesting to mention about Antonio is that even if Isaac is known in the fandom as the "girl crazy" RM player... Toni apparently likes them that much he needs one to be recruited in-game. I can see him being interested on a romance, though his tendency of being reserved is still an obstacle. Because of that, at first he tended to follow Isaac around, as to learn (and ask him tips) on how to flirt. Yet ironically, NOT following his methods gave him better results. Instead of approaching and flirting straight away, Toni preferred to befriend Céles first, mantaing a proper relationship during the eliminatories, till he was ready to try and flirt. Isn't it too risky to try and romance someone during a month-long tourney? Yeah, honestly. But don't underestimate the Inazuma logic, nor the skills of an artist (?

While they didn't become a full couple when the FFI ended, they did end up developing strong mutual feelings for one another. Céles might have to return to France now, but she promises she WILL find a way to visit Málaga and meet Toni again. And if not, she's willing to invite him and his family to her town.

(Ah, and as for Rafa and José, they did their best as Toni's wingmen (?))

...In a way or another, them being irrelevant does save them from having any discussion or discord before the final Block B match, at least :D

...I think that's all, for now. Thank you for reading this post, and all the previous ones. I think Red Matador is the team I ended up developing the most (At least when comparing it to the other FFI teams posted so far, only BW being a similar case). In my defense not even the japanese did much for these spanish kids except for like 3-4 players, so I gave them a chance myself (?

Hope you guys liked this series! Muchas gracias por su apoyo! 💪

-----

Extra thing, but while I'd love to add some pictures for this group like I did with the rest... José and Rafael are seen together in two animes scene, and so do Antonio and Rafael in another one. But nothing of the three together, F 😭

I did this edit of them to compare their heights, hope this makes up for it (?

[spinningbuster98]

Mega Man X5 Ending (X)

And we are at the endgame!

X and Zero fight!

And it’s dumb as hell!

This is where the plot really starts to crumble, if you remember up until now the games have teased us with the fated confrontation between X and Zero, presenting it as a tragic battle that neither will want but are destined to partake in due to the fate imparted upon them by their respective creators.

And it results in a fight whose motivation is on par with Sonic Heroes’ team battles.

Oh sure, if you get the bad ending you get something much better: Zero gets infected and turns evil and X is forced to put him down. That’s what the series had been building up to! But the bad ending is not-canon! What is canon is X and Zero pointing fingers at each others yelling “Get back to base you might be infected!” “No YOU get back to base YOU might be infected!”.

Although regardless the fight itself is pretty damn lame, too repetitive, not hard enough given the context, it has an absolutely iconic battle theme but the fight will most likely be over before it has a chance to finish.

And then there’s the last level

You may have noticed this video being particularily longer than usual. That’s because most of it is dedicated to the boss rush. The second worst boss rush in the franchise IMO, specifically because the game gives the bosses WAY bigger healthbars than before and even the weaknesses are no longer as effective and so it just draaaaaaaaaags ooooooon and oooooooon....

And finally we face Sigma

People always bitch about X3 Sigma but I’ve always had more issues with him here, specifically his second phase.

He has a shitton of attacks that hurt like hell but there’s not enough room to comfortably dodge them, and in generally it just feels very cheap to me

One thing that has always bugged me is that you can actually hit his forehead jem twice in a row....despite it flashing white which usually indicates that the boss is using I-frames. For the longest times I acted under this assumption, which basically meant I was taking double the amount of time to beat this asshole than what was intended.

Also he has the same Sub-Tank related issue as in X4, only it’s worse here because he’s harder.

Oh and Sigma kinda sorta was supposed to have died permanently here. You wouldn’t have figured this out just by looking at the ending since it’s treated not all that differently than every other Sigma death, but after beating Dark Dizzy Alia mentions that, as a consequence of having spread the virus (which his consciousness is strictly tied to) so much throughout the Earth, it may now be too strenuous for him to resurrect if he were to die again.

I can accept the logic, but why put this very important piece of information in a random post-battle piece of dialogue against a random boss? I know nobody likes Sigma, feeling’s mutual there, but he’s the main goddamn villain! His whole stick is that he never dies, you’d think the game would put much more emphasis on the fact that this is his last gamble, given that this game was supposed to be the grand finale!

This is actually the main reason why I’m kinda glad the X series continued in a way. Yeah what’s waiting next is....not good at all, but this stuff is so anti-climatic and so rushed and stithed together it just doesn’t feel like a proper ending.

Make no mistake: no X game has a good plot. The X series was Mega Man’s first attempt at “darker” storytelling and it shows, since it does just about everything wrong in some really amatuerish ways, just flinging concepts and ideas at the wall hoping they’ll stick execution be damned.

But at the very least up until now I’ve been able to ignore it partly due to the games’ plots being rather minimal but also the game aspects of them being pretty damn solid.

X5 is kinda stretching it on both fronts, and as a supposed ending to a series I would expect something more from it...but it’s not the case.

I heard that Inafune had a really hands off approach with this game, really only giving general instructions to the team, telling them to give it a sense of finality and then presumably going off to work on other stuff, I’m guessing Legends 2 (which came out the same year) and the upcoming Zero series. And unless I’ve missed something this seem to me like a really stupid thing by Inafune, I know he was working on multiple projects at once, but you’d think he’d put some extra effort on the first ever ending to the first ever Mega Man subseries (except Classic).

Well.... I guess there’s only one thing left for me to do now...

It pains me to say it, but it has to be done...

I can try to waste time as much as I want but it would only delay the inevitable....

Let’s prepare for some pain

Because next time?

Next time it’s time

Finally

To play.........

....the final two stages as Zero. And see his ending

Yeah I’m not looking forward to that very much

[lazaruspiss]

Justice League x RW/BY: Super Heroes and Huntsmen (Part One)

gonna be honest i kinda keep forgetting that this movie exists. the animation and music is very... rw/by. for better or for worse. corny quippy one liners. it's very corny. adding a cut bc this'll probably get a bit rambly.

AHHH THE FLASHBACK IS A STILL FRAME. the first thing to make me laugh wasnt even a joke it was the single still frame flashback. well. there was a slight zoom?

it's trying to be funny so bad its trying so hard. the serious dialogue is corny but could be worse. overall its better than the crossover comics? making the DC characters teenagers seems pointless.

oh god the dialogue is so hammy. the fists are hammed. weiss good and weiss dad bad yes i noticed. christ im only 8 minutes in. physically recoiling at some of the jokes. like its nothing jokes its nothinggg.

IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE BRUCE? he's been on screen for like 10 seconds and he already sounds and acts like "wealthy teenage tiktok star tries to pander to the less ~economically privileged~" and god it keeps going it hasnt even been a minute yet. did they make them teenagers bc otherwise bruce wouldve run off and found some little boy to help him solve everything without the help of anyone else. is that why. bc honestly yeah adult bruce is hard to write into a team setting.

bruce continues to be embarrassing but also. im learning that the still image flashbacks are just a thing thats gonna happen in this movie. style wise its very much a rw/by movie, so its just probably not gonna hit for me. its the kind of show i watched in middle school and grew out of by 8th grade. even then, my interest kind of started and ended with the character design and the basic world building elements. emphasis on basic, trying to understand the more in depth aspects is a bit of a waste of time.

oh and im still at the 10 minute mark. "ive already gone through all the other dc x rw/by content" i thought, "might as well watch the movies" i thought.

i think theyre trying to write bruce doing a smart detective thing? unfortunately rw/by is very bad at writing people doing smart things. 1) cant stand bruces voice in this 2) god hes so annoying and this whole scene is embarrassing to watch.

GAHH. THE SAME FLASHBACK FRAME CLARK HAD BUT ZOOMED OUT THIS TIME. true cinema. and i think theyre alluding to time travel as well as dimension travel, so even the rw/by girls get to have weird "we're not where we should be" flashbacks.

diana manhandles the small boy, fun. it also rife with required reading bc if you arent fully dedicated to keeping track of all rw/by lore then fuck you. these movies dont seem to require much DC knowledge but they cram in a lot of references to rw/by lore that i only know from video essays put out by ex-fans.

hey guys did u remember that yang is lesbian. pretty cool right? right?? this movie is going by so slow.

MARI IS THAT YOU?? and jess... girls u deserve a better movie. oh vic got braids? nice. also that joke was nothing. all the jokes are nothing.

the best jokes so far have been. the ones about how convoluted and hard to get into rw/by is. because of course. sigh. i do think the DC characters are better utilized and integrated than they were in the comics at least. seeing mari and jess get animated is really cool, and overall i like the redesigns. a few of the characters have commented on suddenly being deaged but mari's acknowledgement of it is the first to feel like a natural line of dialogue rather than exposition.

montage of bruce learning to use his bat powers so that they can get that out of the way before he joins the rest of the group. separate things that were already discussed being re-discussed so that we can have a "everyone talks at once scene". they. what. huh? they had a normal conversation that landed on "lets split into groups since theres enough of us to reasonably do that. then they have an argument which ends at the exact same conclusion.

are they really gonna have a "yang thinks diana is hot and blake gets jealous" plot line? really? and another love triangle. cy tries to ask nora to explain this worlds weapons, noras boyfriend(?) gets mad and then cy gets mad back and ends up being the one everyone gets upset with. it feels a bit. just. super uncomfortable. cy wasnt flirting he was just. talking to nora.

oh thank god that bit is over. now back to jess! possibly the most interesting character here. her design is probably my least favorite of the bunch tho, just because it feel a bit... too anime? it reminds me too much of my danganronpa phase, lol.

jaune doing plot device things. jess introspection. its not the most interesting thing but its better than uh. whatever happened with cy earlier. sorry im still thinking about that. i think they were just going for hormonal and temperamental teenager moment but it uh. came off weird.

plot twist everything was uh. void. ptsd monster things. the plots about to get convoluted isnt it.

diana is pretty decently fleshed out in this one. and it looks like they didnt lean into the diana being hot as a source of relationship conflict that much aside from a few jokes, thank god.

for fucks sake shut up jaune i dont care about your dead girlfriend.

back to the monster fighting group, dear god theyre doing one of those. 2 guys fight over girl who goes "umm i can take care of myself >:(". GOD SHUT UP. FUCK. ITS A JEALOUS LOVE TRIANGLE PLOT. please let this die sooner rather than later.

bruce describes everything that was just established. bruce is emo. weiss tries to be nice. then back to jess and jaune. "i didnt realize how much i miss this place" yeah well i sure dont miss it. oh pyrra, however your name is spelled, you were the only character death that meant anything. now if only they didnt degrade her story into being all about jaune even in death.

have weiss and bruce just been on the computer this whole time. at least they eventually get a fight scene. lesbians to the rescue time. stuff and things. i still dont care and jaune. fuckin. creator self insert ass. he was originally comic relief/audience surrogate but turned into way too much of a main character. god jess deserves her own movie.

weiss please stop trying to recruit him this is just embarrassing. is this gonna be a whole thing? bruce deciding between earth and remnant? and god you cant put anime style gags in the middle of a serious scene. oh god theyre making bruce insecure about not having powers like the rest of the league. man who could've seen that coming. christ theres still 20 minutes left. FUCK AND A WHOLE SECOND MOVIE.

jess remains the coolest bitch in this movie. god why couldnt it be a jess green lantern movie.

lesbians on motorcycles, blah blah fight scene. oh god we're pretending batman is cool. fake flash? wheres real barry then :/ christ. they think this is a cool twist. tho possessed barry is pretty fun. god the actual canon explanation for making them teens was bc kilg%re figured the hormones would make them easier to fuck with.

obligatory "even teens can be leaders" speech. the determination of humanity or whatever.

HAAA BRUCE AND BARRY MORSE CODE COMMUNICATION. ok thats cute.

so smth smth final battle but theres a mysterious second bad guy so that they still have content for a second movie. i like how they show vixen's powers, that parts fun. jess does main character thing and kills big bad. bruces conflict about going home is resolved. cy goes and makes amends with nora and guy who likes nora, despite guy who likes nora being the one to cause all the conflict in the first place. they make the go home portals. set up for next movie.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Okay, I swear to God I'm almost done my dig through random appearances in the depths of the podcast app search results for Andy Zaltzman, but did you all know he appeared on a 2014 episode of Baltimorons, an American podcast dedicated to fans of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team? When I read the description I assumed that maybe he was traveling in the States anyway and happened to meet some people and thought that doing their podcast would be a fun novelty. So I was quite surprised when I listened, and learned that he called into that podcast. He wasn't in town or anything, he just called from London to Baltimore to discuss baseball for about half an hour. At no point did they explain how this happened.

They didn't actually do all that much baseball discussing; I imagine most guests on that podcast discuss more baseball than Andy did. Andy Zaltzman talked a fair bit about cricket, and the differences between cricket and baseball, and why cricket is so appealing, and some stuff about how interest in sports impacts his satirical writing, and then back to cricket. What did this all have to do with the Baltimore Orioles? Fuck all, but I'm not joking, it did happen.

But as usual, I've found a clip that I want to share:

Most of that clip is stuff I've heard Andy Zaltzman explain before, but I don't think I've heard him explain all those different things at one time before, and I find it interesting to hear him put them all together. Also there were a couple of new things.

They asked him what's so special about sports, which is a question I've heard Andy Zaltzman get asked many times, and his answer always involves some variation of saying "It's better than the world." He used to have a stand-up bit where he breaks this down even more, comparing sports to the economic system, in the way that both those things are just pretend, we made them up and they only work because we all choose to believe in them and strive for their arbitrary standards and enforce their arbitrary rules. But, he explains, things going wrong in the economic system cost lives and it's and inherent tragedy that all those people have to die for something we invented and could un-invent any time, while sport is a beautiful escape from all that, where we get the thrill of feeling like everything happening is a huge deal and really exciting, without any of the danger because no one's life is at stake (usually). We all get to agree to believe in something enough to be psychologically moved by it, but at the end of the day none of it was real. And the worse reality gets, the better sports look.

I've heard Andy Zaltzman explain that lots of times before and I enjoy hearing it every time because it's an interesting take, but I haven't heard him talk as much about the other thing he brought up in that audio clip, that sports are the a rare thing that's truly live. I think that put into words something I've struggled to describe before, and not been able to do so nearly as well as Andy did there. The element of uncertainty, where you don't know what's going to happen next and there is truly a chance the match could go either way, and you're going to be either ecstatic or devastated, sure the stakes are pretend but they sure feel fucking real in the moment, and either way you'll be feeling a hell of a lot of something, either way it'll be something that makes you feel truly alive (if I may be a bit dramatic... but that's the point of sports, we made them up for drama), but for those moments you don't know which it will be, and your actions in those few moments can tip it either way and create years of intense memory.

I've said before that season 10 of Taskmaster was the first season I watched as it came out, rather than all at once when I got into it. By the finale, I was very invested in 1) the fact that I wanted Daisy May Cooper to win, and 2) the fact that I wanted to see Richard Herring lose. It was October 2020, and in that last moment of the last task of the last episode, when they'd gone in with Daisy up by one point and all she had to do was not fuck it up, and she'd built a big enough bridge so Richard couldn't catch her and all she had to do was hope it would last until the clock ran down, and then in the last seconds it fell apart, and I shouted "fuck off" at the TV, quite loudly and entirely without consciously meaning to, just an automatic reaction, and in the moment after that I realized I'd had no idea how much I'd missed this feeling until I felt it again. It didn't even go my way - Richard Herring was fucking irritating and I didn't want him to win - but I just loved feeling something. Obviously I'd known before that that I missed lots of general things about my sport. But I surprised myself by how much that specific feeling - of caring about the outcome of a thing with pretend stakes and not knowing which way it would end - meant to me, when I got it back for a moment.

It's a shitty example, obviously. For me, participating in the sport - as an athlete or as a coach - is a huge part of what makes that feeling special, the knowledge my actions during the uncertain time will have an effect on the outcome (even as a coach, I'm there on the sidelines, and whether I say and do the right things makes a difference). And even when I'm not personally involved, the events I competitions I care about most often involve competitors I know personally, my teammates and my friends (and my enemies), so those are added stakes. Obviously, Taskmaster is a panel show featuring people I do not know, and not technically an Olympic sport. I'm just saying that by October 2020, after being so used to having that feeling so often for years, I'd gone about seven months without it and was so desperately starved for some pretend stakes that Daisy May Cooper's bridge falling down felt like coaching a championship final. I do genuinely think I was addicted to whatever brain chemicals are associated with that, and went through something like withdrawal in those months.

I've explained all of this before on this blog, and Andy Zaltzman has explained all of that before on other podcasts. But I hadn't heard it in a while, and I enjoy hearing Andy Zaltzman explain things that I don't hear talked about all that often.

Okay, I really am almost done my obscure Andy Zaltzman podcast things now. I've got a couple more episodes of Andy Zaltzman's Summer of Sport podcast from 2016, one of which features Nish Kumar, James Acaster, and Dominic Frisby.

Dominic Frisby is the guy who made that documentary of the Tuesday comedian football from about 2001. He actually made either three or four videos like that - I have it on good authority that the other two or three were once on YouTube and both feature Daniel Kitson - but they're gone now many dives into the depths of the internet have not yielded them. Every once in a while I try again. Obviously those dives in search of them have involved a lot of looking up Dominic Frisby, the guy who made them. That's how I know that he is now a hard right-wing comedian who performs at Comedy Unleashed and puts songs on YouTube about how wokes have gone too far, and he has a podcast and website dedicated to "economic commentary" where he mainly discusses the price of gold, but occasionally discusses how immigrants are ruining everything.

I've never heard of this guy outside of those football videos, and stuff I've found by looking him up because of those football videos. I can't work out how a guy goes from making documentaries about Chocolate Milk Gang football in the early 00s, to whatever the hell he is now. Even apart from the added confusion of whatever the hell he is now, I'd quite like to hear the story behind why he made those videos in the first place. And I would, of course, be willing to commit several large-scale felonies if I thought that would get my hands on those missing football videos, the ones that had disappeared from YouTube by the time I started searching for them.

So I have a number of questions surrounding this Dominic Frisby person, and as such, I'm quite curious to hear what he had to say on Andy Zaltzman's podcast in 2016. I've just listened to the first few minutes of that podcast, and Andy introduces him as: "comedian, economist, erstwhile Euro sport commentator, former boxing ring announcer, my Edinburgh Festival flatmate." What the hell? Who the fuck is this guy? He lived with Andy Zaltzman in Edinburgh once? I have kept track, via Andy's various stories across various years, of who's lived with him in Edinburgh. Stewart Lee, in 2005. Daniel Kitson, in 2007. Russell Howard for two years, I'm guessing 06 and 08. I'm not sure he ever actually shared with John Oliver, now that I think of it, as all John's stories of Edinburgh flatsharing are with Kitson. I've recently learned that David O'Doherty was living with Flight of the Conchords in 2003, the Cowgate year, where all those people were on stage. But anyway, in my mental map of which Chocolate Milk Gang members lived where in different Edinburgh years, I did not have Andy down as living with that guy who filmed some football videos and now films videos about how the left is conspiring to destroy the country and everyone needs to buy gold.

So that'll be fun to listen to, though I think I'll save it for my commute to work tomorrow. I am enjoying listening to Andy Zaltzman's sports stories. I love how certain sporting topics can get genuine passion out of Andy Zaltzman in a way that bypasses his comedic style of keeping things at arms length via annoying bullshit (well-written and very funny beloved annoying bullshit, to be clear). He can do a carefully written monologue packed with random lies about historical figures or whatever, but he's usually at his most grounded when he's complaining about his particular hatred for sporting events that play music to inject artificial drama and in doing so detract from the genuine drama that's inherent to sport itself. Or the way the British TV networks' Olympic coverage focuses too much on anything where Team GB might possibly do okay, at the expense of covering other sporting moments that are far more exciting but aren't as big for Britain. Andy Zaltzman is not messing around when he complains about those things, before going back to messing around about everything else.

[rosiheir]

ADELAIDE KANE? No, that’s actually OPHELIA ROSIER. Only 29 years old, this RAVENCLAW alumni works as a WITCH WATCHER and is sided with THE DOUBLE AGENTS ( DEATH EATERS ). SHE identifies as CISFEMALE and is a PUREBLOOD who is known to be MANIPULATIVE, DISTRUSTFUL, and RETICENT but also CLEVER, DEDICATED, and OBSERVANT.

personality.   generally, ophelia is quiet, watchful, and, to a degree, openly distrustful. this is in part due to being largely isolated while growing up ( which is, in some part, her own doing, at least where school is concerned ) and the resentment toward the order of the phoenix her father instilled in her throughout childhood. she doesn’t hate muggles, exactly, though she was raised to believe wizards are better than them - rather, her anger is fixated on the order and those who had sided with them rather than with her family. however irrational, she faults them for the death of the mother she does not remember. to those that she does learn to trust, ophelia is not cold or heartless. she has a sense of humor that is in large part sarcastic and can be very playful as well as loyal to the point of fault.

history.   ophelia and her twin brother zachariah were born into the rosier family in 1995, long known for being death eaters. when the twins were only four months old, their mother, anne rosier nee fawley, was killed in a duel that her husband, peter, believed to be against members of the order. though this was never proven, it seemed the most likely scenario, especially given the rising unrest as rumors of the dark lord’s impending return spread.

peter’s already - present disgust for the order and all that they stood for was amplified by this and he became borderline fanatic where the dark lord’s rise was concerned. when harry potter thwarted this and many death eaters seemed to fade into quietude, waiting and watching once more, he only grew worse - bitter, angry. he took care of his children, but was never a doting father. from the time ophelia was learning to speak, her father taught her that the order of the phoenix and those who would side with them were the bad ones - that they were the ones responsible for the death of her mother. she was raised to consider the death eaters “the good guys,” or so her father would tell her, and voldemort nearly godlike to her. her father instilled in her the same resentment that he clung to so fiercely.

in school, opehlia had few friends besides her twin - before she went, peter drilled it into her head that these were the children of their enemies, and that so few of them could be trusted, that any one of their parents could be the one who had murdered her mother. her brother, on the other hand, who had never been quite as receptive to their father’s anger, didn’t take this suggestion to heart so much as she did, and he thrived at school, became a beater on the ravenclaw quidditch team, was always popular. in some ways, this was when her resentment started to extend to him as well. how could he not see that he shouldn’t be making friends with these people? that their parents had been a part of the organization that had gotten their mother killed and caused their father to become so bitter? he was spending more his summers at their houses than with her and their father. she excelled in most of her classes, but would never make many friends or join any clubs.

when they finished their seventh year, zachariah left - he went off and became an auror, moved out of their house. by this time, they were still close but not so much as they had been before hogwarts, and ophelia didn’t understand him, didn’t understand his motivations or why he was not as bitter over their parents as she was. why he befriended muggleborns, why he spent his summers at the houses of those who had been order members. their father was sick by now, years of silent potion abuse taking their toll on him, and ophelia was the one that tried to care for him until he died, though she didn’t hold much grief for the father who had never seemed to love them. she had, after all, always clung to the idealized memory of their mother that he had long ago painted for them rather than him.

after his death, she joined the ministry as well, however much she distrusted the lot of them ( better to have ears on the inside, she told herself ) and would go on to become a witch watcher for several years. when the winds shifted and rumors of their efforts to bring the dark lord back reached her ears, she was swift to reach out to her fathers’ contacts, to align herself with who she knew to be the right side, and before long found herself planted as a double agent within the ranks of the order.

[maranello]

maybe it’s the history nerd in me but I love a good development war. like it’s serving cold war arms race and it’s kinda sexy

[maraudersftw]

Glazed Glory

Hello, friends! This is my tribute to Shirtless James Potter May, which is now definitely a Thing™

Dedicated to all my lovely Jily Discord buddies! And special thanks to @mppmaraudergirl @the-dream-team @constancezin and @blitheringmcgonagall for making this happen.

“YES!”

A screech tears from her throat, excited and giddy and decidedly drunk, as the small ping-pong ball lands neatly inside the cup of beer across the table. Her partner’s roar of triumph is followed by an enthusiastic slap of hi-five that has her reeling, the blazing heat of his palm rather delicious against her own.

Quite generously, he decides to bestow more of this warmth onto her person when he lifts her off her feet, mad and grinning, arms tight around her waist. His cheeks, ruddy from all the drinks he’s downed, accompanied by the dazzling brightness of hazel eyes, causes something to clench painfully inside her.

He’s just a mate. He’s just a mate.

“James!” she yells, half-laughing, fully breathless. “Put me down, you big buffoon.”

“We won! Again!” he grins, letting her feet touch the floor after another spin.

Before she can so much as inwardly lament on the loss of his comforting warmth, a pair of lips land on her cheek. Heart thundering, she forgets how to breathe, a reaction that is by no means justified given the sloppy, open-mouthed, intoxicated nature of the kiss.

A kiss that is not even a kiss because it leaves her lips feeling petulantly ignored.

“You…are fucking brilliant, Evans,” James slurs, entirely oblivious to what he’s just gone and done. She can only stare at him with poorly-hidden surprise, face blazing, warmer and warmer by the second.

“Er, thank you,” she sputters eventually, immensely grateful that everyone around them seems too drunk to pay their little interaction any mind.

“Another game!” James announces.

But she can’t; it’s impossible now.

“I think I’m done for the night,” she tells him, fingers brushing over his arm apologetically. “I’ve had too much to drink already.”

“WHAT?” he shrieks, betrayed, glasses sliding off nose. “You can’t ditch me now, Evans! We’re this close to being named The Hogwarts Beer Pong Champions.”

“Winning the Quidditch Championship wasn’t enough for you?” she laughs, hands rising above her head to point at the banners and streamers dangling from the common room ceiling.

“Oh yeah,” he blinks, grins blindingly. “I’d almost forgotten about that. Next year is going to be even more amazing. We’re going to win all the matches!”

“I have full faith.”

James smiles, triggering that annoyingly familiar tumble in her stomach. “You sure you don’t want to play?”

“I’m sure. Why don’t you ask Sirius? He’s probably withered away to ash without you by now.”

“Good call,” he says, instantly cupping his palms around his mouth. “Padfoot! Up for a round?”

“Fuck, yeah!”

She saunters over to the drinks table as Sirius walks by to take her place, casually ruffling her hair as he passes by. “What’s the damage, Evans?”

She makes a show of observing James. “Mm, five shots from blackout.”

“Excellent. Gotta bring that down to one.”

“All the best.”

Sirius adopts a ridiculously fierce expression as he joins James, facing off against two fifth-years. “Let’s take them down, Prongs!”

She chuckles quietly at the silliness, fingers pulling out a bottle of butterbeer despite her previous proclamations of having had enough alcohol for the night. With some sensible distance yawning open between her and the stupidly affectionate Quidditch captain, oxygen is easier to draw inside. She sighs, chilling the bottle with a quick wave of wand.

With sixth-year coming to an end, she feels the significance of everything the past year has brought to her life rather tremendously, but especially on the James Potter front. While being his friend has been an experience she wouldn’t trade for anything in the world—well, it’s also a lie, because there is one thing she would trade it for: being more than his friend.

But she worries, quite justifiably, that they’ve already crossed a phase too many in such a short span of time to tease at their dynamics any more. There’s a strange fluttering in her chest every time her eyes land on crazy hair and goofy grins that she knows certainly aren’t friendly reactions though.  

She’s distracted from her thoughts by a sudden wave of excited hoots that ring out through the room. Curiosity piquing, she twists around to spot the fuss, eyes immediately flying to the beer pong table because there’s no doubt that that’s where the eye of the storm lies.

At the sight, the bottle of butterbeer almost slips from her fingers.

James stands, eyes even more glazed than before, crooked grin splitting over his face, bursting with laughter as he chest bumps Sirius. And if she hadn’t already noticed it before (she most certainly had) the action draws her gaze to his very sweaty, very bare chest, no doubt the target of the still ringing catcalls. She watches, mouth completely dry as the muscles in his abdominals ripple with movement when he runs a hand through his hair. It’s almost as if her ogling registers on his radar, because half a second later, James is looking at her.

She immediately lifts the bottle to her lips, hiding the awe-struck expression behind tinted glass. Fuck, was he fit! She’d guessed as much, of course; it was impossible not to when she hugged the boy as often as she did, but knowing and seeing, it turned out, were vastly different things.

“Lily!” he slurs, tongue rolling over the name as he walks over. “We trounced them. Did you see?”

“I think Evans was rather occupied with seeing something else,” Sirius smirks, the look he throws her entirely too knowing.

She takes another swig, unable to reply, unable to breathe, unable to think with James standing so close. The heat rolls off of him in waves, as sweltering as the fireplace in the room. To make matters worse, he raises his hand, swipes a thumb over her cheek. “You’re so red.”

She mumbles something unintelligibly while Sirius snickers.

“Sorry?”

“I’m tired. I’m gonna go to bed.”

And before either of them can protest, she chugs the rest of the beer and all but bolts from the party, heart pounding mercilessly in her ears. She almost makes it to the third step of the girl’s staircase before a hand wraps around her wrist, the warmth of the touch telling her enough. “James,” she sighs, turning around.

“Are you mad at me?” His brows pull together, sweat dripping from his hairline, down the side of his face, over that strong neck to pool into the hollow of his collar bone. She swallows, wondering if it would look too weird if she reaches up and licks it away.

Probably.

“No,” she wheezes.

He steps closer, makes it worse. “Then why won’t you look at me?”

She looks at him then—of course, she does—and something like adoration bursts inside her. “I’m not mad at you, James. You’re just too distracting right now.”

“What?”

Some remnant of Gryffindor courage has her reaching forward, placing a palm over his chest. She feels it, right beneath her skin, when the beat of his heart alters rhythm. “You’re quite shirtless, if you haven’t noticed.”

A rush of breath tickles the top of her head.

“Lily,” James breathes, fingers drifting to her waist, and when she catches his eye again, the look in them has changed wholly. Any previous glaze is wiped clean, replaced by some brightness that wars with the expanding darkness of his irises. “Will you—”

“Wait!” she says, almost moaning when his fingers squeeze her hip. “Not like this. Not now. We’re drunk.”

“I—” he looks down, eyes on her mouth, and she thinks he’ll lean forward anyway, kiss her anyway, fuck it all. It isn’t until he sighs, deep and resigned, that she realizes she wouldn’t have minded. “Yeah, alright.”

“James.”

“Yeah?”

She smiles, slow and confident, because now she knows, and leans forward to brush her lips over his cheek. The hints of stubble feel delectably coarse against her mouth, and even more so when he groans somewhere at the back of his throat. She pulls back sluggishly, weak in the face of her own want. “Ask me later,” she whispers.

James watches dazedly as she takes a step back, then another. Eventually, he finds his smile. “I’ll hold you to that, Evans.”

“You’d better.”

[mylordshesacactus]

Goals Only Matter In Soccer

A recurring theme I hear from people struggling to “figure out” roleplaying is that they feel their characters are flat, uninteresting, or that they’re otherwise bad at character creation because their characters don’t have “goals.” Or, as the flip side of that coin, that they themselves are bad roleplayers because they either can’t remember their characters’ goals, or can’t/don’t enjoy actually roleplaying those goals.

(A short break for shameless self-promotion: If you want some one-on-one assistance with character creation or are struggling to roleplay, I do one-hour consult sessions to give you specific help in tapping into your RPG character. You get tailored guidance with no attempts to tell you what you “should” do, and I get to ethically keep my therapeutic interviewing skills from getting rusty while in grad school limbo. Everyone wins!)

This is getting a bit esoteric. Let’s use some concrete examples.

Some common “goals” might be: A wizard whose goal is to become more powerful or gain a certain form of knowledge, a noble-born character whose goal is to restore their family’s name or wealth, or the evergreen goal of avenging a great wrong like the death of a loved one.

These are all great character goals! There is nothing wrong with having a character with a clear goal they work toward over the course of the game, and making a character with a clear goal is a great way to get started with roleplaying! 

But it is only one method. And it’s not always appropriate.

I’m about to blow your damn mind: Characters don’t need goals. 

The idea that a well-rounded character should always have a “goal” is pervasive, and honestly harmful to good character creation and roleplaying! And it’s even more difficult to overcome because if you look for roleplaying or character-building advice, “give them a goal” is generally one of the first bullet points. This is well-meaning, and it’s not bad advice. But if it leaves you feeling like your character is incomplete because they don’t have A Goal—or worse, feeling obligated to tack on a “goal” and struggle to prioritize it in roleplay—then it’s not helpful.

Characters do not need “goals”.

But all characters need motivations.

As usual, I’m going to use my own characters as an example so you don’t feel like I’m lecturing you. I think I only have one major D&D character who could be stated to have a “goal”--my halfling druid/fighter, who wants to repay her debt to the Circle so that she can make a clean and respectful break and live her own life without guilt. 

But the others? Benny (Benevolence, but only her mom calls her that), my tiefling bard, doesn’t have a “goal” she works toward; in all honesty, her goal was her pre-campaign life. She likes being a travelling musician, she wants to perform and meet people across the continent! Rinda, my dwarven paladin, has five kids at home--her nieces and nephews, who she adopted after her sister’s tragic death in a mine collapse. She’s got no career ambition because she feels that chasing rank or prestige is inappropriate in a paladin, whose priority should be ordinary people and who needs to be accessible and grounded in the reality of the common folk. Her “goal” is to just keep being an honorable, mid-rank paladin and providing for her family.

That’s not remotely helpful in a tabletop RPG! Those are terrible “goals” for a character in a team-based game! If I followed general beginner RP advice and leaned into those goals, I’d end up that dreaded monstrosity, the player who says things like “but why would my character get involved? She would just let the town guard handle it”.

However, these characters’ motivations are a different story.

Benny doesn’t set out with the goal of becoming a hero; it’s not something she consciously works toward or considers a major aspiration. But she is responsible for what she allows, and at her core, Benevolence was well-named. She was raised by loving parents who taught her how to raise working animals and livestock ethically and with compassion, and who taught her the regret that comes of making selfish decisions. Helping others and minimizing suffering isn’t her life goal. She didn’t set out from home with a dream of being better than her parents, of putting good into the world instead of just mitigating the bad...but sometimes people really do just help others because it’s the right thing to do. 

Rinda? Her driving purpose will always be her family. Caring for them is her goal, the thing she intentionally prioritizes, the thing she actively works for. But her motivations are not the same thing. Yes, she wants to stay close to take care of her kids...but her responsibilities as a paladin are important to. She’s a protector who swore an oath, and her children are not more important than children in the next city over who will suffer without her intervention. Her motivation is to make people feel safe, but that’s not really a traditional “goal”. And she’s a stronger character for that!

So: Motivations > Goals. 

Which does NOT mean that your character shouldn’t have a concrete goal! That’s not what I’m saying at all. Rather...if your character has a concrete goal, arising naturally from their backstory, and you struggle to roleplay that goal, it may be because you’re not tapping into why your character has that goal in the first place. Are they seeking power because they’re terrified of a specific enemy? To prove a detractor or an abuser wrong? In order to accomplish a specific task--and in that case, who or what made them believe that task was important? Why is your rogue trying to avenge the death of his sister--and you can’t say “love” or “grief”. Many people have lose loved ones; what made this specific person decide that the only way forward was murder, and that his target(s) were responsible, and that he personally had to dedicate his life to killing them?

(This course of questioning may lead you to realize that you don’t have an answer. If that happens, ask yourself--is this a realization that your CHARACTER might have? That they don’t know why they’re doing this? Follow that thread! If not, it’s possible that you’ve tacked on an artificial “goal” for the sake of having one, and your character would be stronger without that anchor weighing them down.)

Sedge, that druid/fighter from earlier--her goal is to repay a massive debt so that she can be free of the Circle’s influence and live her own life. But her motivation? A mixture of shame and honor. The Circle saved her from a lot of predatory loans from bad people, rescued her, saved her life. She’s embarrassed at ending up so deep in debt and too proud to not repay that kind of kindness, but also feels a genuine gratitude for their kindness toward a total stranger. She wants to do right by them--but hates being a druid--but has always wanted to be the kind of hero who helps others exactly as selflessly as they did. 

It creates a lot of in-depth roleplay possibilities that wouldn’t exist if I’d just left that goal as simple as “acquire X amount of gold to pay off her student loans” and proceeded to play Sedge as simply money-obsessed.

Even if your character does have a clear goal, their motivations can change and come into conflict with it! A heroic character with debts to repay might easily refuse a huge payday if it requires them to do something shady...but they might not. How desperate are they? A wizard whose goal is to unlock the power to cast Wish might see a path to that goal...but pursuing it would mean abandoning a helpless village in the path of an orc army, and if she stays to defend that village, she loses her opportunity.

What wins out, in the end? And what effect will that choice have on her psyche?

Suddenly it really, really matters why she’s so dead-set on learning Wish. Whether it’s out of pride or fear (which might be easier for her to set aside in the face of innocent lives) or out of a deep-rooted belief that something absolutely essential rests on her learning this spell—something a lot harder to turn her back on.

These conflicts can occur with or without a “goal”. But, whether a character has a “goal” or not, these conflicts and intimate, pivotal character moments absolutely cannot exist in a character without motivations.

[blindbeta]

I just saw someone asked about making a character blind in their novel and you responded about ways to avoid it being portrayed poorly. I wanted to ask, could it also help if part of the arc is the character accepting becoming blind?

Like, even if it happens in some kind of accident, or like them becoming blinded as a sacrifice for the team, would it be a bad portrayal for part of the character's story to be realizing it's not the end of the world, that being disabled doesn't make them completely useless, etc?

Or is that sort of arc also ableist?

[Note: I used the words non-disabled and abled interchangeably here. Both refer to people with no disabilities. After a conversation with some of my followers, I decided to make an effort to be clearer about who I referred to when I used words like able-bodied, because able-bodied may, for some people, refer to people without physical disabilities or without any disabilities at all. There are times when the distinction matters, even when people said they can usually tell based on context whether or not able-bodied is meant to include them.]

Writing About A Character Accepting Being Blind After Going Blind - When You Aren’t Blind Yourself

An arc about a character accepting becoming blind doesn’t feel good to me and I’ll try to explain why.

I’d rather read a story about a character who happens to be blind, in whatever way that happened, than read a story where a writer who isn’t blind tries to write about a blind character accepting being blind. I just finished a similar book and it did not go well. There are some things that research cannot teach you. There are some stories that aren’t yours to tell.

I don’t want to read about a non-blind author, especially a non-disabled author, writing negative things about my disability.

A character starting out feeling overly negative toward their blindness already feels bad to me. Why? Because the author has to write negative, sometimes completely wrong things about being blind. When I read stories like this, I am bombarded with stereotypes or myths which are rarely corrected by the narrator, who is usually traumatized and somewhat isolated as they heal. Many of the things they think or say are not checked or revisited. Mean things other characters say or think about them are often internalized by the narrator. Things that, in real life, are said to blind and otherwise disabled people as truths. As tough-love. As part of the supposed -Real World-. As bullying. As ignorant, innocent questions. As rude comments.

All of these things are not even coming from a personal place. The author writing these things- while they probably don’t agree with them, of course- is still not blind at the end of the day.

Readers who aren’t blind may not understand the nuance of why some of the things they read were ableist if it isn’t called out in the narrative in some way, which can sometimes happen when the narrator says something negative about their new disability. This isn’t to say readers shouldn’t do their own research or examine the story more closely. This isn’t to say the author is at fault for the interpretations of readers who refuse to think beyond what is laid out for them. When I say this, I am being realistic. Not all readers are going to be proactive. Not all readers are going to approach a book about a person going blind from a good place.

Most of the time, this is just something the author needs to accept. It is impossible to anticipate the strange interpretations of every reader. However, this narrative can be dangerous to a reader who has never met a blind person. Keep in mind, most people aren’t doing what you all are doing. They just read what is given to them. And if what is given to them is a helpless or self-loathing blind person, they might believe in that image. That book may be the only expirience they have with a blind person and they may not read any other books with blind characters.

Another thing I thought of was that non-blind authors sometimes don’t understand how hobbies and skills translate to blind people. For example, in a story I read once, a character who was going blind practiced playing piano and typing on a keyboard blindfolded so they could learn how to do without sight. However, blind people can already play instruments even if they were born blind. Blind people can also easily type on regular keyboards and, technically, correct keyboard technique means typing without needing to look at the keyboard.

Authors who don’t understand what it is like to go blind often don’t get the nuances of what that person is losing and not losing. And it often shows. They also don’t often include the aspects of blindness that are actually challenging. Why focus your worry on typing on a keyboard when you can learn how to use assistive devices in the kitchen or learn to cope with anxiety you anticipate will get worse after losing vision? Why not try to find accessible copies of books you have or scan or Braille sentimental letters? Why not organize your closet so you can find things more easily?

Obviously this is related to characters who know they’re going blind, though.

It favors non-disabled readers, which is ableist.

Another reason this type of story bothers me is because it is so common. Or at least people expect it. This type of story is one abled / non-disabled people can swallow and feel inspired by. Showing the blind person accepting their blindness also favors non-disabled readers in ways I may not be able to articulate well.

Accepting disability is an arc non-disabled people are comfortable with. It is a feel-good type of story that usually doesn’t challenge people too much, other than to remind them not to bully people. Already, this story is not even for disabled people, or in this case, blind people. It exists to introduce people who aren’t blind to the idea of becoming blind, to blind technology, to inspirational ideas about how blind people actually can do things. Stories like this guide abled people along and prioritize their ideas about blindness. Because the narrator is almost always previously abled, the story is about adjusting to blindness in a way that caters to non-disabled people.

How does a story with this angle benefit blind readers? Even if a blind person has also recently gone blind and wants to see a character who on that journey with them, what can a writer who isn’t blind say that blind writer couldn’t say? Or say better? Or say with more power? With more nuancel? With more personal experience?

And it may seem like saying this arc is ableist is too much. Keep in mind, ableism isn’t just about being rude to or excluding disabled people. Ableism favors those who are able-bodied or neurotypical over those who are not. It favors those who are not disabled over those who are. This story is just another way of doing that. Often, people are ableist through what they consider kindnes. Authors are not exempt from that.

Disabled authors should tell their own stories

This is where I will get some pushback. (I already received some here if you think it will be helpful to know what this is like.)

There are a few parts to this.

First, I want everyone to know I am not telling you what not to write or that this type of story, at least with elements of this narrative, can never be done well. However, the more care you take when writing it and the more you know about why it can be ableist, the better you will be able to write it. I’m still not sure I would want to read a book that is dedicated to this topic of accepting blindness, but who knows?

I also might feel more open to this narrative from a writer who experienced becoming disabled in some other way and was open about it. While they would still need to research blindness, some of the issues I named here could be avoided through having prior personal experience that non-disabled people simply don’t have.

If, however, you find yourself upset or feeling excluded by this post, consider what I wrote again. Consider why you think you are the best person to tell such a story with this particular arc.

I am also not saying that non-disabled writers could never write this topic well. I just question, again, what they can add to the topic of accepting blindness that blind people can’t already add. This is also assuming they were able to avoid some of the issues I listed above that might come up. Which would be difficult on top of doing all the other research they need to do in order to write a book. Why make it harder for themselves?

Now that I’m done with the disclaimers, accepting blindness should be something mostly left up to blind writers. This narrative is so closely tied to the trauma-based / incident-based blindness that it can be hard to separate them, but I feel like the readers of the blog have thought hard to suggest ways to improve or subvert that trope and the problems that go with it. Maybe they can do the same here. Maybe not.

Anyway, the reason I think it should be left to blind writers is because of the personal experience I mentioned previously. Acceptance will come from a more authentic place. Anything that comes before the acceptance will also come from an authentic place and blind writers will know how to deal these issues a little better.

Blind writers will know how to write this topic well. They can center blind readers in a way that many arcs like this don’t.

As a side note, blind writers also need more recognition and attention. This arc is specifically about or mostly about accepting blindness, which blind writers are intimately familiar with. Their stories should be prioritized in this area, at the very least.

If a non-disabled writer decided to do this topic, I think it would help to read and public ally promote books and other works by blind people.

Thank you for asking this question.

This was a really great question and I want to thank the anon for asking. I really appreciate the chance to discuss this topic. If anyone wants to expand on this question or figure out ways to subvert this arc, feel free to ask. Also, remember that I am not authority on stories about blind people, but I feel this opinion in shared by many of us and it should be known so writers can be aware.

Suggestions for alternatives.

1. Include only brief instances of acceptance and / or make it only related to blindness instead of accepting blindness as a character arc.

It will depend on how you do it, but brief, less direct instances of acceptance could be done well. One thing I’m thinking of is Toph challenging her father in The Blind Bandit. This could be seen as a form of self-acceptance for Toph, one which is related to her blindness without being the entirety of her need to accept part of herself, which gives her the courage to disrupt the view her parents have of her. Toph doesn’t struggle with being blind. She struggles with something related to being blind, which her parents being over-protective, limiting her freedom and expression, and putting her a gender role box.

The rest of Toph’s story wasn’t completely about being blind either. The writers, who weren’t blind as far as I can gather, handled this part well, and so I wanted to include it as an example.

Obviously, this can also be done badly, but that’s what beta readers are for. I personally would prefer the acceptance arc only be tangentially related to blindness, especially when combined with the trope about going blind through trauma / incidents / accidents.

2. Start in a different place.

You could start the story or character arc in a different place, rather than starting directly after going blind. This could be years later. After they already adjusted to the bigger parts of being blind. This saves you the need to figure out how to get around it.

Some parts of this ask might help.

3. Focus mostly on the practical stuff rather than the emotional side.

Focus on things like cane skills, adjusting to using screen-readers or needing to increase font sizes to read. Focus on learning to cook. Make the arc less about emotional stuff and more achieving goals. While I can understand how this might bother some blind people, I think it can work if blind readers are consulted, especially readers who went blind later in life. I wanted to include this as an option just in case people are determined to include going blind in the story. I think, if the author is careful, it could go well. A few narrative justifications for not writing the typical acceptance arc include:

-the character was already blind in some way first

-the character has a blind sibling, parent, or friend they grew up with

-the character got counseling or the story mentions they are getting counseling

Alternatively, you could also focus emotional difficulties on the traumatic incident, if there is one, and not the resulting blindness.

4. Write different stories - expand what stories about blind characters look like.

Writers have so many opportunities! I don’t see why they would feel the need to write a story primarily about going blind and learning you aren’t useless now after all, when they could be writing about a blind mermaid challenging the Mer Queen and falling in love with her instead. When they could be writing about blind space pirates creating new technology for other blind people. When they could be writing about a blind witch reclaiming their sexuality and also learning to dance to make their coven less worried about their social life after going blind.

See this post for more ideas about expanding the typical stories.

If you are creative enough, none of my claims that certain topics being best left to blind writers should stop you. If you feel limited, you might be trapped in the idea that blind people only have one narrative: trauma, sadness, helplessness, and just maybe, acceptance. If you don’t feel limited, you are in a good place.

Blind readers want other types of stories, too.

I hope this helps some of my followers. Thanks for the interesting question, anon. If anyone has any questions or would like me to clarify something, feel free to ask. I wrote this at night when I was tired. I have missed some things.

-BlindBeta

P.S. The ideas I pitched at the end are free to use if you feel inspired by any of them.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Guiltrip

So, my week has been hell. In addition to working night and day on final essays for my classes, I've been really busy at work lately, and the second COVID vaccine shot really took a lot out of me this week. And that's not even getting into the bureaucratic nonsense that comes with applying for the MTEL which is slowly making me wonder if I actually want to teach in the first place.

But, despite all that, there was a single light of hope this week that almost made it all worth it.

STAR WARS: THE BAD BATCH, BABY!

OH MY GOD, THIS SHOW IS AMAZING! I ALWAYS LOVED THE CLONE-CENTRIC EPISODES OF THE CLONE WARS, AND NOW WE GET AN ENTIRE SHOW ABOUT AN ELITE TEAM OF THEM? KICKASS! AND IT TAKES PLACE AFTER ORDER 66 WITH GRAND MOFF TARKIN AS THE MAIN VILLAIN? SWEET MOTHER OF GEORGE LUCAS, I CAN'T WAIT! I DON'T EVEN CARE THAT THEY TRADED IN THE COOL SNIPER CLONE FOR SOME LITTLE GIRL CLONE, I ALREADY WANT TO SEE MORE THAN THE TWO EPISODES WE GOT SO FAR! GOD, I LOVE THIS SHOW!

Oh yeah, there was also a new episode of Miraculous Ladybug that aired on the same day too, I guess. It was pretty good. Hell of a lot better than the past three episodes I've sat through.

Let's get into the fifth (chronologically the eleventh) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Guiltrip

We start off in the middle of class where we see Marinette looking at Adrien lovingly.

Because the writers are still trying to push the Love Square on us as if they were trying to sell us some death sticks. And yes, expect a few Star Wars jokes in this review. This episode did premiere on May 4th after all.

Rose suddenly gets a headache, and asks to go to the nurse, saying that “Miss Dora” is back. While walking there with Marinette, she explains that it's a code name she gives when her head hurts and can tell Miss Bustier without letting everyone know. She probably felt a name like “Maya Grain” would just give it away.

At lunch, Juleka gets a text that really upsets her, so Marinette tries to cheer her up. Keyword being “tries”.

Okay, yes, this is referencing the previous scene, where Rose refers to a certain snack at the nurse's office she eats to recover her health whenever “Miss Dora” visits called “Mr. Coffee”, but it's just bad timing. I get Marinette has a habit of not reading the room, but why did she have to use the term “Miss Dora” when she knows what it's being used for? Sure, she doesn't know that Juleka knows, but did she really have to say “Miss Dora”? She couldn't have used any other name instead? It's like making a chemotherapy joke when you just found out someone close to you has cancer. Even putting the context aside, what is this joke's punchline supposed to be? That “Miss Dora” will visit Juleka if she eats her lunch? Even by the humor standards of this show, the joke fails spectacularly.

Marinette bumps into Adrien, and although she stutters a little with a little exaggerated body movement, she does manage to take things seriously so she can have an actual conversation with Adrien about Juleka, who wants to be alone. She explains that the text she got was from Rose, who was sent to the hospital because of her sickness, and the entire class finds out because Marinette texted everyone to come to check on Juleka.

Goddamn it, Marinette. I usually defend you for getting screwed over by the writing, but you really aren't on your A game today.

Juleka explains that Rose got this sickness when she was little, which naturally worried everyone else. To make things worse, Juleka also says Rose made her swear to not tell anyone about her to worry her. Everyone else swears to not let Rose know that they know, and the act of support is actually enough to drive away an Akuma targeted at Juleka.

Unfortunately, nobody ever said anything about being overly affectionate to Rose, so everyone in the class tries to do things for Rose like carry her bags, giving her a pillow to sit on in school, helping her take notes, letting her cut in line at lunch, and giving her apples.

All of this makes Juleka remorsefully tell Rose that she told everyone else, which worries her because she hates all the special treatment, so she goes to tell them all about her illness. While they seem to accept her, the next time she sneezes, they overreact like, uh... how can I make this joke in a tasteful way?

Rose says she's had enough with all the treatment, which makes Juleka feel guilty. In the bathroom, she gets akumatized into Reflekta (yet again) with a Sentimonster named Guiltrip. And then Reflekta immediately gets sucked into the Sentimonster, which will cause it to go out of control. Nice job, Shadowmoth.

While it might not look like much, this is easily my favorite Sentimonster by far. Granted, that's not saying much, given all we've gotten so far for Sentimonsters is bootleg Mothra, sentient candy, a robotic doll, a frog with a body count, yet another evil doppelganger, and an eye, but my point still stands. Rather than actually confront the heroes, it's basically a portal to another world where it can trap people in bubbles that represent their regrets and despair, and turn them into copies of Reflekta.

It's a really strong metaphor which reminds me of the villains from Kamen Rider Wizard, who tried to drive their victims to despair in order to turn them into monsters. Ironically, that show's main villain is also some asshole in white who was risking countless lives just to save someone close to him. In general, the area inside of Guiltrip is visually stunning, and easily the highlight of the episode. It's just so surreal, and it really sets the tone the episode's going for.

Ladybug and Cat Noir arrive on the scene, and also get sucked into the portal, seeing some of the victims before they also start to fall into despair. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is one of the few times where Angstdrien Depreste is thematically appropriate. Cat Noir points out that if they had simply defeated Shadowmoth by now, none of this would be happening, which is a good point. He even attempts to kill himself using his Cataclysm, but unlike RWBY, they don't try to glorify it.

This also leads to Rose managing to fight off Guiltrip's powers with her optimistic personality (so I guess you could say she's A New Hope for the heroes), inspiring Ladybug to compliment Cat Noir. While I'd normally be pissed that this is yet another way to boost his ego, it does fit in with the episode's theme of positive thinking. Well, with the exception of one line where she points out what her time as Ladybug would be like without Cat Noir...

BEING A SUPERHERO IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE FUN. Yes, there are certain benefits to being a superhero, but it is not a fun game you play when lives are on the line. Why are the writers so dedicated to validate Cat Noir's beliefs that being a hero is just a fun extracurricular activity? Has there ever been a superhero who shares a similar mentality and isn't treated like a complete jackass?

So Ladybug and Cat Noir break free of the bubbles, and after summoning her Lucky Charm, a pickaxe, Ladybug realizes she needs more positivity to break free from Guiltrip. As such, she pulls out the Pig Miraculous and gives it to Rose, who transforms into Pigella. Funny how she forgot her little headache condition when she bangs her head like a death metal singer while transforming.

The design is... wait, she's not wearing a skin-tight jumpsuit? She's actually wearing something different?

Yeah, I really like the Pigella design. There's a good mix of pink and white, and the skirt really brings the whole thing together. It really reflects Rose's optimistic and bubbly personality.

So the three heroes find Reflekta, who has been consumed by tons of bubbles. Pigella uses her superpower, Gift, to show Reflekta what her heart wants the most right now. So it's basically a more specific version of the Fox Miraculous? In fact, what do pigs have to do with optimism?

Whatever reason, it works, which helps Reflekta to break free of Guiltrip's influence, letting Ladybug de-evilize her. But because we need to have a fight scene in this episode, the Reflekta clones start to attack the heroes, but Ladybug uses the pickaxe to climb out of Guiltrip and purify the Amok.

So Rose hands the Pig Miraculous back to Ladybug, and the episode ends with everyone treating Rose normally in class, realizing she isn't as delicate as she thinks she is.

So yeah, I really like this episode. Aside from a few stupid things Marinette said this episode, I honestly don't have a lot of problems with the episode here.

I also really like the lesson this episode is going for. It doesn't shame Rose for rejecting the help, and it doesn't shame the class for being to overprotective of Rose either. It tries to find a middle ground, which is an important lesson to learn, not just for dealing with a loved one who has an illness, but for disabled people and other kinds of situations where someone has a disadvantage. Even as much as I ragged on Marinette for the text, it's clear that she isn't the only one to blame. In fact, nobody really gets blamed for anything this episode. It's more of a misunderstanding, and both sides find a balance on how to treat Rose.

It's overall a really good episode, and the second best one so far this season. And you know what? This episode taught me the importance of staying positive, so with that in mind, maybe I shouldn't be dreading “Queen Banana” when it comes out this week.

Wait, what? It got pushed back two weeks? Oh, THANK GOD! Now I feel like dancing. And I know exactly what song to dance to...

[animeyanderelover]

Kisame x reader x Itachi? I feel they both team up and if like someone put there darling on jeopardy they would be very overprotective! What would happen if she got bad enough injured like there legs or arm?

I was pretty excited to write this. This is actually my first time writing about Kisangani because he was requested.

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possessiveness, manipulation, kidnapping, threatening, blackmailing, sadistic behavior, killing, death, abuse

Kisame and Itachi sharing a darling

🦈🍡I actually see both of them entrusting the safety of their darling to each other if worse comes to worse since they’re partners and pretty much the only persons they could ask for help. So you could be either Kisame’s darling at first or Itachi’s darling. I see the chances that Itachi might be more willing to ask Kisame for help since he focuses a lot on his darling’s well-being, he dedicates much effort into it. Kisame is more on the possessive side and doesn’t really like the thought of asking Itachi for help, but on the long run he ultimately wants his darling to be safe as well.

🦈🍡No matter who’s darling you were first, both of them will have a hard time accepting it. If you would be Itachi’s darling, the Uchiha would be silently enraged and extremely tense, knowing that Kisame tends to be a bit more sadistic and he doesn’t want his darling hurt. Kisame would be much more furious on the outside than Itachi and might just start picking a fight with the Uchiha. In a bad case scenario he might also turn his ire out on you.

🦈🍡You’re somewhat stuck in a very unpleasant situation with two highly dangerous men. No one of them is willing to share for quite some time, making it hard for you to deal with those two. They suddenly don’t get semi-peacefully along as they used to do. Itachi is just worried for you, especially when seeing how Kisame downright terrifies you and even hurts you and Kisame feels deep down scared that you will end up preferring Itachi since he’s the “better” guy in here.

🦈🍡But at one point the both of them will feel a bit exhausted from this constant game of who gets you for himself. Not only that, but both of them are also aware of the toll this can have on you. Itachi would be most likely the one who would consider this choice at first and at one point being the idea up, sounding somewhat bitter, but it’s best to do. He doesn’t want to put any more trauma on you than both of them already have and tearing each other apart doesn’t seem like a good thing to do. Kisame would be more dubious about this, but if the darling starts carefully trying to convince him, he might agree.

🦈🍡Despite a rather hard and more tense and hostile atmosphere I feel like after Konan and Pein they would make the best duo in the Akatsuki. Because they actually respect each other and might just see each other as something akin to friends. They’re pretty compatible and work rather good together. There are of course certain things along the road that are rather bumpy, one of them being Kisame’s sadism and insecurities. He just likes scaring and hurting his darling and now that the handsome and gentle Uchiha came into the picture, there is this fear of him that you’ll end up abandoning him for Itachi. And at first he doesn’t really know how to act and talk with you about it and ends up terrifying you, in a twisted desperate way.

🦈🍡And Itachi will catch onto this, he is not dumb. He understands where Kisame is coming from in a very small way, but is also against the idea of the man hurting and scaring you to get what he wants. He acts always cold when he sees it, but would also like to avoid a fight, especially in front of you since there’s the danger you might get hurt. The problem is most likely that Kisame and you don’t communicate with each other. Him because he doesn’t know how to express his emotions properly and you because you’re too frightened. It forces Itachi into a position where he has to play the bridge maker in order to solve the problem.

🦈🍡Kisame is the more cruel one, but also the more love-starved guy which can be used to turn the tables around a bit. Because once his darling starts giving him affection and love, he will turn softer and his soft spot can be carefully, but steadily, be explored and used. It’s what Itachi knows as well and he tries to make Kisame and you understand the problem of the other.

🦈🍡I feel like no matter how much both of them may try to keep you a secret from the Akatsuki, one day someone will find out due to the rumors flying around. There might be certain people who would be curious about the darling which will end in Kisame being far more aggressive than Itachi, who has to hold the man back. They don’t trust the Akatsuki members with you which is why they won’t let you meet them unless a certain situation happens. Pain most likely doesn’t care as long as the teamwork and the missions aren’t affected or else you’ll have to disappear.

🍡🦈In general both of them make sure that you won’t get in danger, especially since people might at one point know that you’re really important for both of them which makes people want to hunt you down, either for the money or to get revenge. Kisame and Itachi are aware of this and since missions of them can sometimes take really long, they will feel not safe to let you all alone when knowing a mission can last a few weeks. Sure, they keep you in an isolated and safe place, but your safety isn’t guaranteed despite all of that. Bad thing is that if someone would find you and you wouldn’t be able to escape, they won’t be there for your rescue.

🦈🍡It leads them after a lot of thinking and discussing to taking you with them as soon as they expect a certain time limit will be crossed over in a mission. They would of course search for a more safe place for you to stay whilst they do what they have to do.

🦈🍡They’re definitely an overprotective duo to have and Kisame is a naturally more violent person than Itachi is which is why more people die on his account than on Itachi’s. Whilst Itachi reasons a bit with people, Kisame doesn’t and just slaughters someone as soon as he’s pissed off which happens rather fast and he’s brutal with it as well. Itachi has to be provoked enough, but as soon as he’s triggered he becomes rather vicious with his enemies as well.

🦈🍡And hurting the darling is something that sets most Yandere off, these two are no exception. Whilst both of them will be ireful, the way they do is different. Kisame is more impulsive and just sees straight red when witnessing such a thing, it leads him to breaking out in a killer mode which is the worst thing someone can do. Itachi is more of a cold madness type and is still able to think more clearly than Kisame is who will go on a rampage. Feel like Itachi would focus more on getting you out of the place and attend to your wounds whilst letting Kisame unleash his full wrath.

🦈🍡Small injuries aren’t enough to make them go into full panic mode, though Kisame and Itachi will still let their ire out on who did it. But if it’s something serious that might just endanger your life, both of them become a bit paranoid.

🦈🍡Feel like the darling might actually be another member of the Akatsuki and will end up as an additional member in their team which would both of them fall for them around the same time since spending so much time with the s/o. In this case things would turn out a bit differently since being an Akatsuki member implies that you can take care of yourself just fine and both of them would end up respecting your powers. Kisame would still be at the beginning more sadistic and rude, maybe because you can and will put up a fight, but Itachi will eventually end up reasoning with him and you helping him doing so would definitely help.

🦈🍡In that scenario there is a higher risk of you getting hurt since you’re always accompanying them on highly dangerous missions and take part in them as well. It’s not like they don’t worry, but in the end both of them would end up being sane enough to know you’re strong, though Kisame might be a bit more on edge. The least they might do is training with you in which especially Itachi would make sure to point out your weak spots and what you could work on to become a good all-rounder.

🦈🍡If you should get seriously hurt in that case, they would become afterwards a bit more reluctant to let you fight directly in battles, Kisame more than Itachi, and it might lead them to temporarily forbidding you to go on missions, at least until you’re fully recovered again.

🦈🍡So both of them make actually quite the good combo together and Kisame will become a better Yandere to deal with due to Itachi’s help to reason with him. It’s most likely due to the fact that they don’t hate or don’t care about each other like some of the other members. They have something like friendship and respect each other. Feel like Kisame might end up letting Itachi make a lot of decisions since he respects his wise and intelligent personality and knows that Itachi tends to think in a long shot term.

[clouditae]

First Love | 11

Yoongi x reader | 18+ | college au | tattoo artist au | angst | fluff | swearing

Word: 2.6k

You first saw him in the multi-purpose room. Later learn his name, and on your third year, as he becomes your neighbor, you discover his lifestyle. Knowing your crush on him was nothing but that, you wanted to find the courage to look for love. Asking your friend for help, you’re pointed in the direction of the expert. Your neighbor, Min Yoongi

Chapter Index

It’s been about a week since you last saw Yoongi. A week since you’ve discovered that he has a past with Sam, the girl you met at the party, but you’re not fully sure if it’s the same Sam and what past they have. 

You never told Ari about this. It was too… embarrassing for you to mention. You did what Ari didn’t want you to get hurt about, and you’re deeply hurt. Sure you didn’t do the actual thing with Yoongi like a lot of girls have, but what you did and what happened after caused a silence between the two of you. It’s not like you’re avoiding him the way he’s avoiding you. He hasn't texted you or talked to you, and Hoseok says there’s usually a girl in his room so he has to wait for her to leave before he can go in. 

Ari would give you worried glances, but you’d brush it off like you’re not about to cry because your feelings for him grew ten times more. When you left his room and went to yours, you lied in bed and cried yourself to sleep. Just like you did the first night of the year. That fear you felt when you were in that room only proved to be right. This ended badly and you’re left feeling empty.

Right now you’re sitting in class trying to focus on the lecture rather than on Sam and Yoongi, and you and Yoongi. You want to know who this girl is and what past they have together to make Yoongi sound so hateful. The only person you can ask is the person who knows him best. Thankfully you’re meeting Ari and Hoseok for lunch after class. 

As your professor finishes his lecture, you pack your belongings and leave the room like a lot of eager students who are just done listening to long rambles about night photography and how to have a better advantage when taking them. Walking down the hallway, you reach the stairwell and follow the group of people heading down. When you’re out of the building, you make your way towards the food court where Ari and Hoseok will be waiting. 

Not having your earphones in, you’re stuck with listening in on others conversations. Nothing is interesting to you; they talk about class or “the bastard is gonna get his ass beat when I see him this weekend—I can’t believe he cheated on me”. Conversations you can care less for. You have your own problems and one of those is how to bring Sam up in a conversation without causing Ari to get suspicious and cause Hoseok to question things. Sweet Hoseok is oblivious, and you want to keep it that way when you ask about her. 

Off into the distance, further away from the court, compared to you, is Hoseok chatting with someone. Your face lights up in realization as you pick up the pace to the food court. With another quick glance at Hoseok, and realizing he’s making his way over, you lightly jog inside and scan the area for Ari. You’re starting to feel the panic as Hoseok gets closer and closer to the building while your eyes continue to glance back and forth in the room. 

Where is she?

“Y/N over here,” her voice rings, hand waving towards you from the far left corner of the room. 

You almost run to her now as you throw your bag on a chair next to you and rush, “Whatever I ask Hoseok play along—I’ll explain everything later—” 

Hoseok has just arrived. “Hey guys,” he says, smiling as he takes a seat next to Ari and places a kiss at her temple. 

You try your best to act like nothing happened. “Hey. Are you guys ready to eat? I’m starving,” you tell them, voice wavering just a bit from the adrenaline of just a simple beating him here. 

“Yeah, let’s get some grub,” he agrees, smiling oh-so happily as he gets up. To your luck he never catches on, but Ari’s now staring at you with a curious look. You give her a begging look and that is all you need to do before she gives up and plays along with your request, but you know she’ll be barking questions the second the two of you are alone. “What are you guys in the mood for? I got an A on my performance so it’s my treat,” Hoseok explains, a huge grin on his face as he wraps his arms around Ari’s and your shoulders. 

“I’ll never deny free food, and congrats, babe.” Ari gets on her tiptoes and places a kiss on his cheek.  

“Thanks, baby, and don’t even argue with me Y/N, you’re letting me pay today,” Hoseok concludes without giving you a chance to deny his offer. 

You sigh, “Then can I have Chinese?” You point to the stand next to the Greek food stand. 

“I’m down for some Chinese,” Ari inputs. 

“Chinese it is!” 

After spending five minutes waiting for Ari to decide what she wants, getting in line and placing your order, and finally getting your food, the three of you sit at the table, munching on your orders. Ari and Hoseok spend a majority of the time talking while you struggle to find a way to bring up Yoongi and Sam. There never seems to be a perfect moment, and the longer you wait, the closer you get to finishing your food and leaving for the day while Hoseok goes back to class. 

But it’s like fate is on your side as Hoseok says, “Yoongi seems to be having a lot of girls over because almost every day when I go to the room, there’s a piece of red tape on the door. This is worse than usual. I know I said this before, but I really want to go in my room once in a while without having to wait all the time.”

It hurts. It hurts more than anything to hear that again, but you can’t let that pain show on your face even as Ari glances at you with a worried expression once again. “Oh, yeah,” you begin, swallowing the lump in your throat, “I forgot to say this last time, but some time last week I heard someone knocking on his door. It was a girl and it sounded like Yoongi wasn’t happy to see her there,” you claim, leaving out the details of being in his bathroom rather than in your room. 

Hoseok frowns. “Really? Did you happen to catch her name or what she looks like?”

“I didn’t see what she looks like, but I think he said Sam?” You try to look like you’re struggling to remember what he said, but his words are so clear in your head. 

You can see the slight shock on Hoseok’s face as he mutters, “Oh.” 

So he does know Sam. “Do you know her?” you question. 

Hoseok can only shake his head as he answers, “Yeah. She’s Yoongi’s ex girlfriend.” 

You need more information. You feel desperate for more information. “What happened between them? It has to be something bad since he didn’t sound happy and you don’t look like she’s a great person.” 

Hoseok picks at his food, taking a quick glance at you. “You can’t tell him I told you this.” 

You do your best not to look eager as you nod. “Of course.” 

“They met when they were sophomores in high school. It was an immediate attraction, and after five months they were dating. They’ve been together for four years before they broke up last year.”

“Why did they break up?” Ari asks, seemingly invested in Yoongi’s past just as much as you are. 

He sits back, running a hand down his face. “When Yoongi is dedicated to something, he’s dedicated. He’s also not good at expressing his feelings. In high school and even now he works on making music, so he tends to be cooped up in his room for days. Sam wanted attention from him—you know, to know he still loves her, but Yoongi struggles with that. Last year Yoongi caught her cheating on him, and that was the end of that.” 

You can’t think of anything to say. He met a girl; he fell in love, and now he’s heartbroken. How long did it take for him to fall in love with her? How long will he continue to let this eat him whole? 

“That must have sucked,” Ari mutters with a sincere tone. 

“Yeah, and I’m really hoping the girl that is in the room isn’t her,” Hoseok groans, taking a bite of his food.

“Never get back with an ex. Especially if they’ve cheated on you,” Ari recites, as if it’s an actual rule written in a book somewhere. 

“What does she look like?” you inquire. You have to know that the woman you met at the party, the nice girl who made you feel a bit more comfortable being there... You have to know that she is not the Sam that broke Yoongi’s heart. But the memory of Yoongi’s dejected look flashes in your head. 

It is her. You know it. You were his distraction in the bathroom when he saw her that day. 

“She has like red blondish hair? Brown eyes. She’s a theater arts major, so if you’ve gone to plays you may have seen her.” He shrugs, finishing the rest of his food. 

“Plays? I’ve been to a few.” Ari taps her chin in thought. “I’m trying to remember a girl with that hair color. What plays has she been in?”

“Uhhh…” he trails off, eyes darting back and forth a bit as he tries to remember. “The last time I saw one was when she was in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. She was Katherine? I’m not a pro at Shakespeare, so I’m not totally sure if she played that character.” 

“Oh! The strawberry blonde? She’s gorgeous,” Ari comments, eyes wide with surprise.

Yeah, she really is, you confirm, remembering how pretty she is and how her laugh was so bubbly and warm. You can feel a tinge of jealousy boiling in the pit of your stomach. She’s pretty, friendly, funny and so much more. Yoongi fell in love with her. He’ll never fall in love with you, and you hate yourself for thinking about that. 

“You’ve seen her before?” Ari asks.

You blink a few times in realization that you said those words out loud. “Yeah. She was at the party I went to. She was the other team I was playing against in beer pong.” 

“Really?” Hoseok baffles, voice louder than before. Ari covers his mouth, smiling apologetically to the eyes glancing in your direction. They’re the perfect couple when it comes to being loud. He removes his girlfriend’s hand from his mouth. “No wonder Yoongi was acting weird when he came back. He was in a pissy mood—more than usual,” he adds. 

“Damn. He must really hate her.” Ari shakes her head, pressing the lock button on her phone to check the time. “Oh, babe you should go. Class starts in ten,” she tells Hoseok, looking to him as her phone goes black once again.  

Taking a quick glance at his watch, his eyes widen before he closes the lid to his box, picking it up along with his backpack. “You’re right. I’ll see you guys later.” Giving a quick kiss to Ari, Hoseok quickly leaves the food court. 

The second he’s out of sight, Ari’s attention is now on you. “So are you going to tell me what that was about?”

You sigh. You can’t have a second to yourself before she bombards you with questions, but it’s just like you predicted. “Well what I told Hoseok was what I told you to wait for.” You avert your gaze. “Except I was in Yoongi’s bathroom when Sam knocked on his door.” 

“What were you doing in his room?” You can see the hint of curiosity and playfulness dance on her face.

“What happened that day was a mistake. Sam clearly wants him back, and Yoongi hasn’t spoken to me since that day.” You can see that Ari wants more information as to what happened that day, but you just aren’t ready to tell her. Tell her what will most likely be the biggest mistake you’ll ever make. “I’ll tell you some time, Ari. Just not now.” 

Her being your best friend, she can tell your distress and can only nod, reaching across the table to take your hand in hers. “Whenever you’re ready, hon, I’ll be here and ready to beat ass if necessary.” You nod, now fighting the urge to cry all over again. You’ve been fighting the urge to cry almost every day, and you feel ridiculous about it. “Want to head back to the dorm?” 

You nod again, closing the lid to your entrée box. You grab your backpack, along with your food and follow her to the trash can to toss the food and follow her out of the building. Walking through the crowd, Ari loops her arm through yours, smiling as she leads you to the bus stop to wait for your ride back to the dorm. 

A short, and somewhat crowded ride later, you and Ari lie in your own beds staring up at the ceiling in silence. “I know I have a paper to write, but right now I could care less what the four main issues Hunston discusses regarding in corpus design are. I think I’d rather talk about the Tokugawa era and its fall than anything with corpus linguistics,” Ari complains, the sound of her feet hitting her bed filling the silence. 

You frown in confusion. “What?”

“Exactly!” she whines, “Why did I decide to take five classes this semester?”

“Why did you?” you ask her, turning to your side to see her through the mirror. She can’t see you though, so it always makes you feel a bit weird staring at her without her really knowing it. 

“I want my last semester to be the easiest,” she answers, her smile spreading across her lips. The smile leaves as she sits up and stares at you. Seeing her serious expression, you sit up and look at her. “If you don’t want to do this with Yoongi anymore you should tell him. I’ll make something up to Hoseok if he asks.”

You give her a small smile as your gaze goes down to your hands on your lap. You know you have to end things with him. If you continue to receive these lessons it’ll only hurt you in the end. You can’t keep pushing yourself onto this hope that he’ll one day fall for you. No matter how much you wish for his attention, you’ll never get it. “Yeah, I know,” you whisper, blinking back the tears. 

You hear her moving around before the sound of her feet hitting the floor causes you to look up. She grabs her white water bottle. “I’m gonna go fill up my bottle and then find Rollan downstairs because I have questions about bringing a cat in here.” You chuckle. “Be back,” she sings, opening the door and leaving the room. 

When the door closes with a bang, you let out a shaky sigh and grab your phone that’s hidden under your pillow. You unlock it, going to your contacts and search for his name. Once you tap on his name and open the text, you type away with shaky fingers. 

[1:14 pm] Me: Hey. After thinking about it, I feel like I’ve learned enough to try and find someone on my own. I won’t be needing those lessons anymore. I hate you.

Deleting the last sentence, you hit send.

[vivid-wisp]

You know how it be suffering from big brainrot being into FNF so I’ve compiled a list of ideas for the characters. This is more so for myself but thought I'd share some of my ideas. Take this as you will, these headcanons are based on educated guesses, actual lore, or just for fun. I also really like explaining my reasoning for some stuff so be ready for that. Long post. :]

Boyfriend / BF

- Is asian specifically Japanese, based on the idea how the dev team like to agree Hatsune Miku is BF’s canon sibling. Can also be asian American.

- Despite his appearance BF is actually somewhat physically strong and capable. If he can’t rap battle someone he’d be down to beat someone up, based on the idea how PA (Phantom Arcade) says he sucks at FromSoftware games and would rather throw down IRL than in video games.

- Him and Pico were exes, but they dated when they were WAY YOUNGER, and this was before when BF or Pico knew how to handle a relationship properly. Pico was the one to call things off. (more on Pico’s section) They may still get kind of flustered around each other.

- For most of his childhood, BF never really felt like he stood out. It leads into the reason why he likes singing since it ironically feels like he's being heard, despite not really liking to talk a lot. He was a very quiet kid back then. He'd always liked singing and rapping, he just wasn't put into a position of intense judgement until meeting GF's father and mother, rockstar and ex-rockstar. Training arc begins.

- BF took courses/majored in music design or sound design in college, but dropped out to spend more time with Girlfriend and practice his musical talent himself seeing as it felt more natural than doing boring classes.

- Despite what people think, BF doesn’t dye his hair. It WAS a different color but a shade, like a lighter blue color when he was younger. (Based on Ninjamuffin/NM's recent AMA answers)

- BF owns a dog, not specific but definitely a large breed of dog that stays at home and is taken care of by his parents. He loves a lot of pets and animals, especially anything blue.

- It’s no surprise BF isn’t the smartest, but this comes from a place of putting on the “bad boy” act and being told he’d never make it anywhere in life so he never tried. BF is really a soft guy who deep down has a good heart and just wants to show his appreciation to the person (GF) who makes him feel okay knowing you don’t have to be the best.

- BF actually CAN speak, but chooses to be selectively mute. More so because he’s not the best when it comes to words, and he’s never felt the need to talk. Don’t expect much because like in Week 6, it’ll likely just be random noises he makes or his signature “beeps!” He still reacts, just with noises. (we ignore the logic of him singing it just sounds like beeps to us the players while everyone in universe perfectly understands) [just saw NM's recent AMA I GODDAMN CALLED IT LET'S GOOOO]

Girlfriend / GF

- GF unsurprisingly, has a very wealthy background and in turn family too. So she’s no stranger to most expensive things. This doesn’t mean she won’t appreciate anything BF gifts her, in fact she’s more than appreciative of anything if it comes from BF her love.

- May or may not be a demon like her parents but she doesn’t want to scare BF, and also has slight appearance anxieties about it so she chooses to hide it by staying in her “human” form. She's self conscious of appearing like a demon, and doesn't want to scare people away just based on her look.

- So yes GF can and will in fact beat you up, a lot more than BF if she really wanted to. Especially if she went into her demon form.

- Also not the brightest, due to her extravagant background she’s been so spoiled to the point where everything is handed to her on a silver plate. Which also means her intelligence. They're both himbo/bimbo dynamic I don’t make the rules sorry.

- Actually really good at singing herself too, she’s a bit more wonky with rapping but she’s still good. Ties into the fact GF is the first to teach you how to rap/sing in the tutorial. If she really wanted to, she would destroy BF in a singing battle.

- Kinda aloof and can be apathetic, but more in the sense of “oh cool" instead of a "not caring" feeling way. Like moving on from something that was most definitely not cool like oh my god does that monster with bloody human teeth have a lemon for a head-

- Absolutely adores the large height difference between her and BF. She loves picking BF up suddenly and swinging him around. It’s cute and funny to her. (BF likes the height difference dynamic too but he'd never admit it)

Pico

- Pico never went to college nor finished, instead he takes up jobs from around the city as a mercenary. He's so skilled to the point it pays well enough he doesn't really need a job. He owns a small apartment.

- He likes spending time when he's not on the job, around BF and GF but this is more so at a distance. He does hang out with them, but don't expect him to show up automatically by their side. Like maybe once a week.

- Despite his original job to kill BF, Pico is very protective of BF and looks out for him albeit distantly. He knows BF can handle himself, but he will risk jumping into a situation if BF needs help. ONLY when he needs help.

- Pico still spends time with Nene and Darnell, but this is more so as an acquaintance thing. They're still friends, but all three of their jobs (as assassin and mercs) make things kind of awkward and distance from one another.

- Pico has a lot of untreated trauma, whether that be PTSD, schizophrenia, OCD, etc, a lot of it is very untreated. While Pico is aware he has some mental health disorders he's not aware of ALL of them. He frankly doesn't care nor does he really feel like dedicating the time to properly help himself, which stems from his upbringing in his childhood, "deal with it" attitude back then. He doesn't think it's a big deal, even though deep down he knows he should seek help. Especially after hanging out with BF and GF who, unsurprisingly, are (relatively) normal in the head unlike his friends Nene and Darnell. His disorders disrupt his everyday life and living routine, he can have a lot of very bad days.

- Pico is a wannabe DJ, he likes to sing and rap but prefers the latter and likes listening to music more rather than doing it itself. When he was a kid he liked BF for his passion for singing and rapping, and admired him in a way.

- BF and Pico went to the same elementary school, and were very much friends. After the events of Pico's School, Pico acted very different than how BF knew him, and somewhere along that path BF and Pico decided to date each other when they were in middle school (at 13-14). This was very much a hasty decision and didn't end well. Pico was the one to break things off due to knowing he couldn't handle the responsibility of another person, especially in a relationship. He had too much on his plate already from the trauma that still haunted him, and also was around the time Pico told BF he would be getting homeschooled instead after many years of decision with Pico's parents. It was best to end things before they'd spiral and get worse.

- While BF was heartbroken, he knew it was for the better even if he was upset for quite a bit. After Pico became homeschooled and left middle school, BF noticeably became more quiet until he'd meet GF near the beginning of high school. Pico and BF tried to keep in contact, but eventually naturally just fell out of touch with each other, both too busy with their own lives now. Pico never really resolved his whole feelings issues, which still show up when he'd meet BF years later again but knows those feelings are best left behind.

- While Pico was very surprised and shocked to see BF again despite being commissioned to kill BF, BF himself was too busy being caught up in seeing an old friend again. Whether that be BF was either too dumb to realize he was being killed or because he was genuinely very happy to see his old friend again, the two had a small reconcile after so many years and decided to rap for old time's sake.

[missnight0wl]

Do you still think Merula is a badly written character now? I still hate her, but it seems that she is getting more and more interesting now, and what do you think she should be written as?

Oh, absolutely. Don’t get me wrong, I love the mole plot, and I’m actually having fun with it – even though it’s rather poorly executed. Of course, it’s a bigger problem than just Merula, because MC is badly written here as well, super dumb, and everything is just too simplified. Still, just because Merula is involved in an interesting plot, it doesn’t make her suddenly a well-written character. Jam City screwed up with her on many occasions, mostly in Y5, and I don’t see how it could be changed other than by rewriting the past events. So, how I think she should be written then?

First of all, the biggest problem with Merula is that we’re being told a lot of things about her, but we didn’t see any of that. Even in one of the most recent chapters, MC said: “I suppose I’ve seen you care about your friends before…” - but it never happened on screen. Never. We were also told that she changed in Y5, but she really didn’t. And Jam City’s first big mistake then was our meeting with Bill at the Three Broomsticks, in Y5Ch2, which ironically Merula proposed herself. MC talked about important issues then, like this:

But what was Merula’s reaction?

We also talked about this:

And what was Merula’s reply then? Nothing. She ignored it entirely. And at the very end, she was like:

And it was just… so fucking patronising. I absolutely hated that whole conversation, I still do. 

Now, I’m not saying that she should’ve had a 180 degree then and be like: “You’re right, MC. I was a terrible person. I’m deeply sorry, and I promise I’ll change”. But even something like: “Oh my god, I’m sorry, all right? Just stop whining. Do you feel better now?” would be better. Just give me something.

Another big problem is that we’ve never seen Merula trying to be better for the others (not MC), which could’ve been pretty easily done right before the Portrait Vault. Y’know, like in that pointless chapter, Y5Ch28, dedicated entirely to Merula. All Jam City had to do is to give us a scene where we encounter Penny, with dialogue like:

Penny: I don’t know, MC. Do you really think you can break this curse?

Merula: Easy, Haywood! I’m on the team this time, so it’ll be no problem.

On the one hand, we’d get Merula with her regular: “I’m the most powerful witch at Hogwarts!”. On the other hand, we’d have an implication that she indeed tried to cheer Penny up.

Something similar could’ve been done with Ben. In Y5Ch29, we had this scene:

All they had to do is to add Merula saying after Rakepick: “I suppose Copper could be useful” or something like that. Again, on the one hand, we’d have Merula sucking up to Rakepick. But also, maybe she’s genuinely recognising that a Muggleborn can be worth something? Instead, we got Merula being a piece of shit in the very next chapter. She questioned MC’s choice, no matter if you took Charlie or Penny. She also was a total sweetheart towards Ben:

With all of that in mind, I just really can’t be bothered when we were told at the beginning of Y6 that: “Oh no, poor Merula! Because of her trauma, she went back to her old mean self!”. No. She was always a bitch. She never changed. And because the writers insisted otherwise, she’ll always be a badly written character. It’s just a too big part of her story to simply ignore it. Jam City might still try not to make it worse, but it can’t be truly good if there’s no basis to build on.

[sasa-gay-yo]

Just Us (Chapter Fifteen: Dedicate Your Heart)

← Chapter Fourteen

I thought I was going to die. Sitting there hearing his pompous ass ramble on about how better his life than ours in the Capital was going to make me go crazy if he didn’t stop. He seemed to enjoy it too. The way his lips curled into a smirk when he heard Jonas groan next to me as he went on and on about the luxuries of the capital and what the Military Police get for their monthly bonus. I was just trying to keep my best behavior up because Ben had threatened Jonas and me before this meet-up. It was even worse than I thought it was going to be too because Catrin wasn’t there to talk over him. I’d rather hear her babble on about her baby and hair salon than whatever shit is coming out of his mouth now. Duran was point-blank lying about all of this and you knew it. MPs just sit around and do nothing in the capital, and now he was accepted to join a special team that was so top secret, he could only tell us every detail? I didn’t buy it. Also, how was he considered an elite soldier? These were all the thoughts running through your mind while he talked. 

“That sounds like an amazing opportunity for you Duran. Maybe we can visit you as a family in the capital after your training.” I also laughed at Ben’s proposal, knowing good and well I was never going to willingly venture onto Duran’s turf where he can bullshit to us even more. If anything, we should show up at a random time so he’s taken by surprise and can’t cover up his lies with a few changes of cash. 

“But enough about me,” he feigned, “What’s been going on with you all here back home?” Ben looked at Jonas and me, then to his wife, and realized that he was the only one willing to talk, so he started off about his job and the cafe. I knew I’d be next, so I was trying to build some narrative in my head that Duran couldn’t pick apart. In the middle of the part where I’m trying to figure out how to not tell him about closing the shop for a period of time, Jonas kicked me under the table. As annoyed as I was, when I saw him move his head towards the back door I was the first one out of my chair. 

“Fresh air,” I mumbled, before walking out, not hearing Duran’s comment when Jonas got up to join me. 

“Those two finally together?” I slammed the door, forgetting that Jonas was right behind, and he walked out holding his head. I mumbled sorry before starting up the ladder to the roof. The spot that Jonas and I always went to do nothing. Once on the roof, it gave a nice view across Trost and I could see the top of the walls where the guns and Garrison sat in wait. A few days ago, the whole of Trost was awoken by cannon fire, and it took all but two hours for the café to be bustling with the rumors that the first titan had reached the outside of Trost. To say it was scary was an understatement, but it was overly annoying that now the people were rejoicing how close the Scouts were to save Trost if anything happened. I don't remember those praises when the mission to reclaim the wall had happened. How easily they could switch up because they needed personal protection astounded me. After that incident, the Scouts had allocated a few people to stand watch every day at the wall to kill any abnormal or call for help if the titans that destroyed Shiganshia were back again. It was morbid, but I was waiting for the day that the Colossal Titan, as people were calling it, reached a hand over Trost’s walls. Staring at them now, I could just picture it. 

“Penny for your thought, Ev?” Jonas took out a pack of cigarettes, a habit he acquired in the past few months, and got something out of his pocket to light it. The roof and outside of my apartment was the only place he could do it without getting yelled at by Ben or his roommates. I had done my best to warm him the first few weeks, but he seemed not to care. Still, I had no idea why he started now when he had years previous to do it.

“Thinking about when the Colossal Titan reaches Trost.” He took a drag and just nodded, counting on comments of morbidity to come from my mouth. It was a common theme now. 

“Anything else less… intense? I’m trying to have a relaxing time up here before I have to go down and listen to Duran’s mouth.” I smiled lightly, dangling my legs off the edge of the building. I had to think of something else to say because that’s truly all I was thinking about. These days, I don’t try and let my mind run.

“I was thinking about paying a few petty gang members to jump Duran on his way back to Mitras. You want to donate a few notes?” He sighed, this time shaking his head, but I could see the smile on his face. It was a tempting offer for the day we’ve had to endure. 

“Unfortunately, my crime funds have run low. If Catrin was here, she’d donate though.”

“She would.” The wind whipped through once, and I put my arms around myself, regretting not storming out with at least a jacket. It was almost winter. One month till the end of the year. Six months. 

“How long did Ben say Duran was staying? Am I going to have to entertain him tomorrow in the café?” Jonas snuffed out his cigarette on the brick before leaning back a bit to feel the wind enter his ashed lungs. 

“The week I think. At least he’s not staying in your old bedroom. Now I can’t stay at home when I want to for the next week. I have a double shift in two days and it was so much easier to come back here and sleep.” I groaned. God, I was going to have to entertain him and his new happy-go-lucky attitude. That was the worst part. While he was still annoying, braggy, and covertly malicious, the only thing that changed is that he seemed less interested in fighting outright. Actually, it was even more annoying because there wasn’t anything to call him out for upfront. He hid his ass well and Ben seemed to be eating up this fake persona.

“At least Ben isn’t forcing you to make food for this fucking family picnic inside the walls. It’s your fault for telling him about the meadow. I have no idea why now Ben feels like we need to be a family again, I’m almost thirty.” Jonas huffed one in laughter.

“I could think of a few reasons why, but I’d like to keep the peace we’ve made tonight.” I nodded, knowing what some of those reasons were.

“I’m glad you’ve made that decision.” He threw the cigarette off the building and I watched it fall and hit the ground. The last spark flew out of it when it hit the mud, and quickly burnt out. I just stared at it for what seemed like forever. 

“If you went back to your old self, you know, became happy again, I’m sure Dad wouldn’t force you on family picnics.” Ah, there it was. The daily comment about my state of emotion. It was different than last time. I wasn’t crying anymore and I didn’t show up to the café with bloodshot eyes from no sleep. No, I was calm. I was living on spite. There would be no tears for someone who would never drop them for me. There was anger. Definitely anger. Sometimes it came out too. The latest victim was Elias who had spilled over a whole pail of water and I yelled at him loud enough for Jonas, who was outside throwing away garbage, to hear. I bought him any sweet he wanted from the corner shop to apologize. He wasn’t the only one I’d let my anger out on. 

Hange visits me now. I don’t know why she does it, and every time she sits in his seat. At first, it was annoying to be reminded of him, but I grew to like her conversation. Once, however, she talked about him, and I yelled at her to stop. She seemed used to it for some reason, not even flinching with my harsh words. Even after, she continued as nothing happened and let me feel guilty. The last time she came, about the same time the first titan reached Trost, I treated her to an extra tart because of it. 

“This is me now, Jonas. Pretty much.” I pushed back the skin on my nails knowing he would protest that. 

“No, it’s not. I’ve never seen you act like this. This isn’t you.” I just hummed, agreeing so he would stop pressing it. I’d try my hardest every day to not think about it. One-track mind. 

“You two! Come back down! It’s time for dessert!” The door slammed behind Ben, signaling he’d gone back inside after yelling at us. Jonas stood up before I could say something back, motioning that the conversation was done. This is how it usually went. He was too overwhelmed with the fact that I had no emotion anymore and then just left the conversation. 

“Well come on then.” 

For the rest of the week, my detest towards Duran was building. He came every day to the café, dressed up in his MP uniform, and talked to everyone like he owned the place. Some of the older women also flaunted over him, remembering the days he was here and making some form of fake past where he actually stayed in the café. I couldn’t even remember a clear time when he was in the café while I was working, and I worked there every day. They must have remembered something very, very different than I did. I just stood there and watched with distaste and told all my grievances to Jonas.  On the day of the picnic, I was about to completely snap. 

The family picnic had included Elias and June and Jonas’s sister. Elias and June had come to the café that morning, asking if they could stay with me since their family was starting another cult meeting and I agreed, knowing it would be a welcoming distraction to Duran. We were now waiting outside Jonas’s house. Waiting for Duran to put his stupid MP gear on. He thought the citizens of Trost would marvel at his status, not having any MPs here, but I told him that they’d rather spit on him. That set him off once, but he easily controlled it. I guess this new squad needed him to control that nasty ass personality to be in it. Good.

“And the person who bought the book said that it was like brand new! Mr. Philpa even commended me on my work! I really think I’m starting to get the hang of it.” I mustered to give June a smile, trying to keep her happy atmosphere up. I would need it today if I was going to be forced to listen to Duran for hours now. Since I insulted him this morning, I was going to have a target on my back the rest of the day. That was very clear when he complimented how well my makeup covered up the huge black circles on my face. Passive aggressive ass. 

“Alright, everyone! Time to head out!” Ben was over the moon that his family had gathered to do something. He was the family man, always. It was probably instilled in him by Mrs. Flynn, at least that’s what Catrin had said, and it was getting to be annoying. I could come to their house to eat, but to forcibly make me make food for Duran who was just going to complain about the flavor? I couldn’t handle that. I swore up and down the kitchen when I was making this last night. As we walked to the Trost entrance, Duran just kept talking, and even at the front of the pack with Jonas and Elias, I could still hear him rambling. It was giving me a headache, which was a telltale sign I was going to burst any minute. This is always what happens when I yell at someone. The anger builds up into physical pain, and I can’t get rid of it any other way. In the dead of the night, I’ll wake up from a dream and find no better remedy than yelling Fuck really loud. It’s embarrassing when I forget Jonas is usually on my couch.

“You good?” Jonas leaned in to whisper in my ear and I just looked at him out of the side of my eyes. He got the memo and continued talking to Elias about his school work. It was too loud in this part of Trost, and Duran’s stupid voice was even louder. This coupled with the fact that people would stop to talk to Ben or even me was getting to be way too much. This is why I stayed in the café most of the time. 

“Eva, haven’t seen you come this way for a while,” the Garrison captain called out from where he and the morning watch were playing cards on a barrel. At that moment, I vividly remembered punching him in the face, and I was tempted to do it again as he stopped the whole party to talk to me. The way he said it was definitely hinting at the fact that I was no longer in his secretly assessed relationship. 

“I’ve just come when you’re not around, Captain. Probably drunk in a pub somewhere.” Duran was the first to hop into the conversation, ready to begin a military circle jerk. 

“Evylnn, that’s not how you talk to a military member! Good morning, Captain.” Duran held his hand out to the Captain who gave one weary look at it and shook it. He remembered Duran correctly and he knew how much trouble he’d gotten into as a kid. He was also probably surprised that he had an MP uniform on when he would throw rocks at the Garrison.

“I don’t know what it’s like in Mitras, but that’s how we talk to them here in Trost, Duran. Then again, what would a military mouse like you know?” He turned and glared, making me reminisce about the real Duran. The signature glare was still there. You just had to wait for it.

“We’re just leaving, Captain. Sorry to bother you!” Ben grasped my shoulder, hard, making me pay for what I’d said to both the Captain and Duran. He pulled me too, right to the front where Jonas and the kids were standing. While he pushed me, he whispered a threat in my ear. 

“If this picnic is ruined by you, you’re paying.” I didn’t react, even though I wanted to roll my eyes at him. It wouldn’t be my fault if I said something to make everyone uncomfortable. It would be Duran’s fault because he provoked me. I just tsk-ed as he let me go and started walking back to join Analee. 

“You don’t know how bad I want to ruin this picnic now, Jonas.” He sighed, but I could definitely tell it was to hide a laugh in front of Elias and June. When we got to the open gate, the Garrison soldiers saw my glare and just let us through without any protest. Usually, this large of a group would be questioned thoroughly, but since I was in it, they knew not to ask me anything. Duran seemed surprised by this and stopped to yell at them for not doing their job, holding us up again. I just stood there, halfway through the tunnel as he blabbed on and on able the Garrison's responsibility like he was their boss. An MP wasn't going to boss Garrison members around, but here he was in his arrogance, trying to do that.

“You don’t know how to do your jobs! If there’s a group this large the-” 

“Scouts are coming!” Someone yelled from above the wall, and when I looked out the entrance, I could see the horses nearing the walls. They were leaving late today, but how could I forget it was the first of the month. 

“Please, Miss. Flynn, we're going to ask you to move and stay here till the Scouts progress through. It won’t be that long there isn’t a lot of them.” I was touched by one of the Garrison soldiers, and I quickly shrugged their hand off of me, not wanting to move. I could see Erwin now in front of everyone, and subconsciously I was looking for the black hair. Jonas was the one to come over and drag me to the side of the tunnel so I wouldn’t get trampled on impact. 

“How could I forget?” I whispered, and I knew he had heard it. Technically, there were supposed to leave by the time I woke up today, making sure I never was tempted to look out my window when they left. Whenever they came back, I would sit in the back room too. I was making such an effort to never see him, but now I was forced to stand here as the Garrison blocked the two sides of the tunnel. Duran and the rest were held back and only Jonas, Elias, June, and I stood in the tunnel. I couldn't even hide. I was there in plain sight and I knew I would be face to face with him. I hardened my face quickly as they approached. He wasn’t going to get to see any emotion from me. Just like he did to me. He stood on his horse right next to Erwin and right in front of me. I didn’t even look at him like I said I was going to do. I stared right at Erwin who was stopped by the Garrison squad leader to do a head and supply count. 

“Commander Erwin!” Elias called out, making everyone who didn’t care about our presence now look right at us. I felt the eyes. I heard some of the whispers. Some of them didn’t die between then and now, and they remembered my face. It was telling too that I couldn’t stare at Levi, but I didn’t feel his eyes on me. He didn’t care about me. I had to remind myself about that. He didn’t care. That’s why he left me. He used me. I just had to tell myself this over and over again to try and forget. I was doing so good recently too. I’d only think about him once a day now, but this instance was going to ruin it. If I even glanced and met his eye, it would all be gone. 

“Hello, Elias. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. You’ve grown,” he looked over to me, noticing that the two of us were just glaring at him instead of looking at each other, “Eva. It has been too long.” I fought back the urge to scoff, but I knew I had to respond. I had to let him know I wasn’t hurt. 

“It has, hasn’t it Commander. If you come to the café with Squad Leader Hange, I’ll treat you.” I smiled. The best smile I had mustered in months. He needed to know I was done. I was past him. I didn’t need him. I didn’t think of him every night. I didn’t regret not sleeping in my bed once with him. He needed to know that I didn’t. 

“Of course I’ll take you up on that offer, Eva. Well, we’ll be off.” He nodded down to the Garrison soldier and they moved the blocks out of the way so the horses and carts could continue. When his horse started walking, I thought it safe to look at him. His eyes were filled with that one emotion. The one that was there when he had nightmares. When he confessed his feelings to me. When he told me about his life in the Underground. The emotion, still unnamed to him, I had labeled pain. He was in pain. I hoped my eyes didn’t display the emotion that I was feeling either. With one look up, and one sheer shot of pain through my heart, I looked back down on the ground. He knew. He knew exactly what I’d been through. What I was thinking. And it was sadistic of me to think that for one second that that look of pain was because he missed me. No, it must have pained him to see how hopeless I was. It must have further proved that I couldn’t live without him. Pain. I was feeling pain. I was feeling it this whole time. These whole six months. 

“You may carry on, Mr. Flynn.” 

“I didn’t know that you knew the Commander of the Scouts, Eva. Fitting.” I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. He was talking about Kristian. I handed the picnic basket of food to Jonas and took one look at Duran and smiled wickedly. 

“I’m sorry you’re jealous that I’m closer to high ups than you’ll ever be, Duran. Maybe if you got on your knees for them like you probably did to get on this special squad of yours, then you’d be in my position. Sorry brother, but I’m not hungry anymore. I’ll be cleaning the café.” Ben didn’t stop me, but I knew he was mad. I’d ruined his figurative perfect family picnic and now he was going to have to deal with a pissed-off Duran and talk about me the whole time. I did feel a bit guilty, but I just couldn’t stand being there. Not now. I took the long way home, making sure not to cross the main road, and walked up to my apartment from the back. I shut all my windows too. Loud. Hoping that maybe if he was situated outside my window in formation, he would hear it. 

I left those upstairs windows closed for what felt like forever. Jonas would always complain how stuffy it felt with no light besides oil lamps in the living room, but I always yelled at him if he went to touch them. I need to stop myself from being tempted. Every first of the month, I would hear it. I heard the horses and the carts match forward. I listened to Erwin’s speech each time. Every speech had a similar form and ended with the famous line shinzo wo sasageyo. There would be some lowered shouts and then they would all ride off to the other gate into the land of the titans. Give your hearts. How to give your heart when it’s in pieces? That’s what I thought every time and if the windows weren’t closed, I would have looked out to see Levi. Was he looking up at the windows like he used to? Giving me a firm nod before they left, only to do the same when I saw them come back. I wanted to know so bad, so that’s why I kept them shut. If I looked and he didn’t do it, it would ruin the illusion in my mind that somehow he still had feelings for me.

Eren, Armin, and Mikasa came back too. One last time before they were off to training camp. I was touched that they would remember my single act of kindness, and I treated them to their last sweet meal for three years. 

“If we can write letters, Miss. Eva, I’ll write one to you.” Armin told me in confidence, and I nodded, telling him that I would like that. Even if I’d known them for so little, it was hard to see them off to training camp. They were cadets now and Eren was still going on about killing all the titans. I guess it was a bit refreshing to see such passion in his eyes, but it still scared me a little. I told him to calm himself down before they stepped off back to their last night in the Garrison storeroom. They waved, even Mikasa, and I made them take a little food-to-go. Once they were done with training, they would be stationed in Trost as cadets before going to be Scouts. They would visit me then, they promised. I would be able to see them all grown up. I also told them that I would probably be able to see them when they graduate regardless, but it gave something for the others to look after. Armin and Mikasa seemed much less enthusiastic to go out in the field and kill titans.

“Their names are Eren, Mikasa, and Armin. At least, Eren said he wanted to join the Scouts.” I passed the cup of coffee over to Hange who seemed to be scribbling furiously in her notebook. I had to even light a candle since she had stayed so late, stuck by some inspiration. After their last exhibition, she’d gotten to study a titan’s gut up close and she said she needed an extra dose of coffee to be able to draw everything. 

“If they want to be in the Scouts that bad they will. Only the top 10 people get to be an MP and then the rest usually go to the Garrison. Scouts are a special breed. We usually only get twenty in good years.” I took a sip of my coffee, not caring about how long I’d stay up tonight. I’d probably be here talking to Hange either way. She seems to have made it her mission to not let me feel lonely. Every time she comes she has little tasks for me or something that she needs to consult people for. I never get sleep on the days that Hange comes, but I feel a bit warmer slipping into bed. 

“I have a brother who went to the MPs, that means he was in the top ten of his class?” I gave her a look of disbelief. There was no way Duran was actually good at what he did. Top ten my ass. He would be bragging about it if he was.

“The only way they would allow that if most of the top 10 pick Scout or Garrison. The MPs need to hit a certain quota every year, so that could be why. What do you think of this? Is it proportional to the titan's body?” She showed me her notebook and pointed to something that looked like a small intestine. I shrugged.

“Hange, I don’t know what titans look like.” She sighed, nodding. 

“You’re right, I forget that you aren’t a Scout. You know, you’re the only person who isn’t a Scout that I know.” I didn’t know if I should take that as a compliment or not. 

“Don’t you have a family, Hange?” She pulled back the notebook and erased the part she pointed out at me, redrawing it. 

“Well, yeah, but they don’t count. It’s just my parents and they don’t really care about titans either. I think they’re just fascinating.” I gave her a light smile before turning to look out the window at the setting sun. The snow was starting to melt now, but relatively early. I wondered what Eren and the others were doing. If it wasn’t dinner, then probably more training. Their first day was only a few days ago and Hange had told me again about the man who trains them. Hard as a rock and yells really loud. She didn’t have him personally, but he spent his last year in the Scouts when she had just joined.

“I wish I knew more about titans and the military. A lot of people I know are in the military, so it would make sense, you know?” She put her pencil down and crossed her hands. 

“If you want to know more about titans I can tell you about all my experiments. If you want to know more about the military, you can ask me. I’ve been there a while.” She pushed her glasses up again and I turned to look at her. Hange really was an almanac in front of me. 

“Do titans really look like they draw them in the newspaper? They look like big humans?” A finger went up as she started her lecture. 

“Titans have faces like humans sometimes, and other times their features are often... oversaturated. We have no idea why this variation happens occurs. Some look like big versions of you and me, and others look like they have giant eyes, a small forehead, and huge lips. Like three feet long lips. They’re naked too, but without human genitalia. It’s just bare down there. Most of the time, they just look like pink humans. Then there are abnormals.” 

“I’ve heard those words before,” I pointed out and she nodded quickly. I wasn’t going to tell her who I heard it from, but I’ve heard it. 

“Abnormals are those who don’t act like regular titans. They might have more intelligence or partially weird bodily traits. Some can jump, others can crawl. You probably heard it when people talked about Shiganshina. The two titans that broke through the walls were abnormal. One was taller than the walls and the other was really muscular and had armored plates on its body. And it was yellowy-orange, which is not a titan color. But you want to know why those titans are even more abnormal than abnormals?” Her eyes lit up in the candlelight, and it was almost scary how she was getting when talking about this. I wondered how the Scouts got so lucky to find someone like Hange to discover these things for them. 

“Why?” 

“They disappeared. Poof!” She yelled using her hands, “Into thin air! No matter which titan they are, the body is always there to cut into. Once we got there, both the Colossal and the Armored Titan were gone in thin air. There was no way that would happen with any normal titan. I just want to know why! This is like one of the biggest titan secrets ever!” They disappeared into thin air?

“That doesn’t make sense.” 

“I know!” She seemed delighted with this information, “You can see why people left this out of the newspapers. The citizens would go crazy if they knew a titan that was like 80 meters tall just walked off!” She went off in her usual manic laughter after that, just overly joyed that a titan like this could have an ability like that and she was one of the only people who could figure out the mystery. 

“Hange, are you supposed to tell me all of this?” She stopped laughing and blinked once or twice before breaking out into a smile again. 

“No.” This made me laugh too. That was Hange’s ability. I don’t laugh unless it’s about her. Really laugh. She says jokes or acts in a way that lightens the mood in the empty café. I thank her for that regularly.

“Hange, it’s getting late, you should probably head out. You have an expedition tomorrow… Unless you want to stay here. I have space upstairs.” This was the first time Hange had come over when an expedition was the next day. She apparently snuck out to come here and it would probably be hard to sneak back in. I knew by the way her eyes lit up too that she was going to agree. 

This is how I found that, besides the length of the pants, Hange and I were the same size. She sat on the couch, a blanket around her shoulders, staring down at the notebook with the same intensity as earlier. This would be the first time Hange had stayed over. Hange was also very comfortable with this idea. I offered her space in my bed and she took it right away. However, this began to be a mistake on my part because she couldn’t stop talking next to me. 

“This bed is really comfortable, what is it made out of?” 

“Feathers.” 

“If you had to choose between eating a whole onion or eating a cockroach, what would you pick?” 

“Can I choose neither, what kind of question is that?” 

“Okay, eaten or stepped on by a titan.” 

“... stepped on.”

“I agree!” At first, it was a welcomed distraction. When I was alone in my bed, these were the times I thought of him. Especially since I would wake up to the sounds of the horses at my front door. I wouldn’t cry anymore. It had been too long. Pretty soon, it would be over a year of loneliness and discontent. I hadn’t seen his face since the picnic disaster, and all I had of him were the letters. The letters that I now kept shoved under my mattress so that I could read them. Over and over. The letters that hid his lies. I fed into the lies too. When I read the letters, I didn’t feel alone. I would revert back to the times when I met him. The times when he wrote me these letters. When I was in love. Who am I kidding, I’m still in love. I never forgot. That’s why the letters are sitting under my mattress, right below my arm. It hurt. It always did. Loving someone who didn’t love you back. I never experienced it till now. This was how Jonas felt. 

“Eva?” Hange asked, seeing that I was staring up at the ceiling, getting lost in my thoughts. I’d have to remember that she was there. I couldn’t wake up screaming into the night like I had before. She wouldn’t ignore it like Jonas did. 

“Yes, Hange?” She shifted so that she was facing me. 

“He still asks about you.” My heart clenched and I closed my eyes. No. Not now. It was fueling me. The thought all the way back in my mind. He was lying. He did love me. 

“Does he?” It was hard to spit out and it sounded like a whisper when it didn’t mean to be. 

“I’m not allowed to tell you everything, but he does. He misses you.” 

“Why are you telling me this, Hange?” I could feel her smile next to me, and I turned my head to see it. It was a smile that was hiding secrets from me. 

“Because I want to make you two happy again. You two aren’t happy like you were before.” I sighed, turning away from her as I felt tears well in my eyes. There goes my three-month-long record of no crying. 

“He doesn’t love me, Hange. You of all people know that.” She tsk-ed, just like him. 

“You’ll know soon. Both of you will. I know it.” I sniffled once, and she already had her hand on my back. Great. She heard me. Was she going to tell Levi about this? 

“It’ll be okay, Eva. Trust me.” 

The next morning, she woke me up. She was already dressed and hopping around the apartment and I just took my first few steps out. The front windows were open too, for the first time in months. The light was radiating down onto the kitchen counter and living room table she was currently sitting at, gathering her things.

“Good morning, sunshine! Isn’t it such a nice day to go see some titans?” I huffed once, rubbing my eyes to get them more awake. This was the earliest I’d been up at in a while. Only Hange would say something like that this early in the morning. 

“Don’t you need your gear?” I walked to the kitchen, looking out at her in the living room. 

“Moblit will bring it. He knows I’m here. He’s a member of my squad.” I nodded, turning on a kettle to make hot water for coffee. I’d offer it to her as retribution for comforting me last night. Maybe I’d ask her to not tell him what happened either. I didn’t want him to know I was still weak after all this time. She just looked down at her notebook, writing more and more things in it, a book to her left. I never knew how she could read so much. 

“Coffee?” I offered to after I poured some, but she shook her head, saying it would make her even more jittery during the expedition. I could already see that when the time entered for the horses to be filling up in Trost’s main drag that she was shaking, not with fear, but excitement. What a weird girl, I thought, shaking my head at her. We talked a bit here and there about the expedition's plans, but at this point, we were both waiting for the Scouts to come and pick her up. I was planning too. Planning whether I would close up those windows as she exited.

When they finally came, she did something unexpected. She grabbed my wrist, letting me put on some proper shoes, and then pulled me down my front stairs to hundreds of eyes preparing for take-off. It was a bit embarrassing that I was just in a single nightgown in front of all of them, and Hange seemed to forget I was only wearing sandals as she pulled me.

“Moblit!” She yelled and pulled me into the middle of the Scouts. Now, I was feeling really watched. Those who survived had now seen my face for the third time. When Hange yelled, a long-faced blonde turned around, ODM gear in his hand. He looked shaken too like he was about to get yelled at. 

“Moblit, this is my friend, Eva! I was having a sleepover at her house last night. My gear, thank you!” The blonde man, Moblit, dropped her gear and bowed to me. I bowed a little bit back, putting my hands on my arms. The morning was still not yet a summer one, so wearing nothing over my slip was making me start to freeze. Everyone here had on a coat and the signature green cape while I was bare. 

“Hello, Moblit,” I managed out and he turned to Hange to talk about something. I just stood there, not knowing if I was able to just leave, or if Hange had wanted to talk more. With every passing moment, I was getting more and more anxious about seeing one face in the field. That’s why I was staring right at Hange, eyes not moving anywhere no matter how tempted I was. 

“Oh my goodness!” Hange announced loudly, making others turn to look again, “You’re freezing! How could I drag you out here like this!?” She turned around to look through the bags on the cart behind her. She was probably looking for something to give me so I wasn’t freezing and shivering. This probably meant that she was going to make me stand and talk to her before Erwin dismissed the families. That’s what usually happened. Some wives, husbands, and families who relocated to Trost would come in the morning to say goodbye for, possibly, the last time, and Erwin would politely dismiss them before giving his big shinzo wo speech. 

“Moblit, do we have any extra capes, I can’t find on-” The green dropped over my shoulders rather sloppily, but I could feel the warmth left behind by the previous wearer. I didn’t want to turn behind me to see who it was though. I knew who it was. So did Moblit. So did Hange. So did the others who were still looking at me. They knew who had given me the cape, and they were surprised at the generosity. I was scared. Scared of the generosity. What did it mean? How did it align with what Hange said last night? 

Mint, lemon, and cedar. 

“Please, don’t expose yourself in front of my cadets.” The horse trotted off to the front, but his foot lightly brushed my back. Just that one touch. That one single second. It sent a chill down my spine. It had been so long since I’d touched him. The last time was our last goodbye. Just like the families here in Trost. I’d held him on my doorstep, right before the expedition, not knowing that it would be our last goodbye.

Hange stood up, giving me the same smile she did last time. It said those two words. Trust me. What was Hange doing? Had she changed his demeanor? Why could I still feel that chill down my spine? Why was I holding his cape so close to me when I should’ve been throwing it on the ground? 

I took the cape off my shoulders, taking one look at it before giving it back to Hange. I wouldn’t let him do this. I wouldn’t let him care about me. The chill, however, was unbearable after I handed it back. It wasn’t just the chill of the morning wind anymore. It was the chill of his eyes still on me as I handed it back to Hange. 

“I-I need to get the… the café, yeah, I need to get it ready.” She nodded, the smile still on her face, and I turned around to go back up to my apartment. 

“That’s cute! Haha, look at this, Moblit. Levi marks his cape with a little L so he knows it’s his!” I stopped walking. I was at the edge of the Scouts, all of them behind me, yet if I looked to my side I would get a view of him. He was always on the right of Erwin. So, that’s what I did. After Hange said that, I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and locked eyes. There it was again. Pain. His eyes were full of pain. Vivid pain that made me feel it too. My heart twisted inside, and I was so close to getting caught if I didn’t stalk up the stairs to my apartment and close the door. I crouched down, my back against the door, the tears coming again. Pain. That’s all I felt. Pain. Why had he done that? Why was I suffering this whole time? Why had he put an L on his cape? What was it supposed to show me? Why were we suffering? Why couldn’t he just tell me plainly? Why couldn’t I understand what he was doing? Why? Why? Why? 

I cried through Erwin’s speech, his words a lot louder this time. They were echoing in my head. About sacrifice. About saving the world. Everything that would make an apprehensive cadet ready to go outside the walls and die. And then he ended it. That one phrase. 

“Cadets! Scouts! The people of Trost! Shinzo wo sasageyo!” The cries lifted in the air. They made my head hurt. I wondered if Levi heard my cries from inside my apartment. I held my head in my hands. 

“I can’t. I can’t dedicate my heart. Not again. Not again.”

Jonas found me like that when I didn’t show up for his morning delivery. The café remained closed that day. And the next. I closed the windows back up too. Jonas didn’t question what happened either. He just stacked up the delivery boxes in the stock room and then left, promising he’d come back later when he was off. When he came back, I was still in the same spot he put me on the couch. He echoed his words from the first time. 

“What did he do?” and I just shook my head. 

xx just a cute little double update for yall

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