#and just basically letting it run in the background 90% of the time while i just watch vids in youtube and scroll tumblr

[aria0fgold]

Idle games are like cocomelon to me.

[solar-sparky]

Could you tell us more about your agent 24 (if you do agent 24) if you would be so kind 👉👈?

Rubs my hands together with malicious intent

Okay so! Let's talk about Char (Charlie/Agent 3) and Al (Allen/Phyto/Agent8) these two goobers :)

(They/Them and He/She respectively)

A bit of background for each:

Char experienced something in the past that caused them to be way more solitary, not completely cold-shoulder, and struggle with "I cant save/help anyone.". They join the Splatoon to help Cuttlefish, since the whole mission goes well and they defeat Octavio, it gives them a boost in confidence, not a lot and they are relatively quiet about it. They finally felt useful for once.

Al (Phyto at the time) isnt a soldier, she is a mechanic. While not strictly working with the government/military, she is called in to work for them pretty regularly for stuff like weapon and tech repairs. Another job he does is Zapfish care, pretty self explanatory, he does weekly checks with the zapfish.

The first time these two interact is during the Splatoon 1 storymode. Al only recently started hearing rumors about an inkling running around and taking the zapfish, at first he brushes it off. It's not until she goes to do her zapfish checks does she find out that it is in fact true and she runs into 3. Al does try to defend the bulb where the zapfish is, but not being as skilled in combat as 3, he does not come out victorious and the zapfish is taken away.

After that, everytime that Al goes to check on the fish, all the bulbs are shattered and empty. (Except for one that she finds, that's where her funny looking little zapfish comes from. Its name is 1202.)

Fast forward to the arc of OE.

Al had been planning to leave the domes for a while (about 2 years) and finally she had a plan; take the abandoned underground train tracks that Al discovered a while ago far enough. (how the gang end up in the deepsea metro is never explained so we're going with this.) Unfortunately for them this is the area 3 and Cuttlefish are surveying/exploring and that also leads into the deep sea. They dont get into a fight (Per Al's signal) and instead they somewhat travel together until they reach kamabo co.'s territory where in then security gets them.

Cuttlefish and 3 aren't deemed useful/worthy so they are just taken to one of the abandoned platform stations, Al on the other hand is taken to be sanitized. The process begins but near completion, it is interrupted by 3 taking an unconscious, nearing death Al and hauling him back to the safe spot is with Cuttlefish and 1202.

I have a bunch of headcanons for how this primordial ooze works but to put it simply, since the sanitization process was not complete for Al, it leaves her in very critical condition. Getting back to Cuttlefish now, Al is basically gone, no response from him, no breathing, no pluse, no nothing and his digits are going white (if you dont know, when inkfish die, they turn completely white/translucent. I like to also think that Splatoon inkfish, after a short amount of time after death, dry up and flake away.). Cuttlefish and 3 cant really be carrying a body around for, multiple reasons and make the decision to leave Al there, off to the side and covered. However, Al's zapfish protests and squirms out of Cuttlefishs hold and rushes over to Al thinking Al is just sleeping. Normally 1202 would wake Al up by jumping on him or tugging at him, and if all else doesn't work, even if 1202 can produce little electricity if any at all, it would shock Al. After a few tries, the shocking works and Al is back, however now about 90% sanitized; having no memories except for only remembering 1202, which he then proceeds to carry around everywhere. It is worth to note that Al cannot speak during the OE arc, and he communicates through different means.

Instead of being who knows where in the canon storymode, Char actually stays with Cuttlefish and Al on the train up until 3/4 of the way through where Cuttlefish tasks them with finding an alternative route incase Al's mission and the telephones promise dont work.

A bunch of stuff happens on the train like;

- Char, while technically saving Al, feels really guilty for her state

- Being sanitized, Al does not experience pain and pair that with her inexperience, leads to her being pretty careless when doing tests and comes back the the train with injuries almost everytime. Char starts to get a little worried, even though the wounds heal very fast. They proceed to start pulling Al off to the side after stations and bandaging her up.

- With the mem cakes, Al does recover their memories. He tries to explain to Cuttlefish, Char and sometimes Isopadre by using the mem cakes, the best way I can describe it is like Al playing with the mem cakes like toys to tell a story.

- Al had 2 friends down in the domes, Aurora (Octoling soldier) and Skip (a failed DJ Octavio clone; Octotrooper)

I dont have a design for Aurora but I do for Skip!

Continuing on, Al has mem cakes of these two friends of his and when Char heads out to proceed to find a different route, he gives the mem cakes over to Char. Why? Just incase, Al knows they may have gone looking for him (this does turn out to be true).

Anyways, skipping ahead (I'm skipping Char's mindcontrol phase cause there is some stuff from that chapter that havent shared and want to keep for myself for a little while longer :)) after the defeat of the NILS statue, Al almost dies again from overexertion, both her and Char do go to the hospital. Char is omitted from the hospital sooner than Al due to Al's critical condition and it is atleast a month or so later that Al is finally sent home.

I'm waiting to see what the deal is with side order before I commit to splat3 storystuff with Al but that's the mostly full story!

Some little fun facts

- Sometimes on outings, Al likes to bring along Finch (Agent 4) because he finds them silly. Char is completely okay because Finch kinda just does his own thing.

- Al is decently clingy to Char.

- Both being Aroace (as with most of my characters) their relationship is funny in the way that while they call eachother partner, they are sorta in a way like "oh but we aren't like that, just really good friends." Which in a way that's literally what they are but they dont know the right word it for a very long time.

- Allen has more energy when compared to Char.

Anyways that's it for now :)

[heyclickadee]

Okay, here’s the slightly evil, kind of sad, but mostly happy in a somewhat melancholy way (basically just a lot of feelings here) thought I had about Tech and Phee having kids, if that should ever happen:

So, operating under the assumption that Tech comes back, let’s say he and Phee do get together. And let’s say they stay together, and end up more or less space married. Let’s say they both want kids, and, after a lot of discussion about the war going on in the background and how they’re going to raise them and keep them safe, they end up going ahead with it. They don’t really settle down in any one place, but they’ve got their own ship with plenty of room, Pabu (maybe) is a good, stable home base to go back to when needed, and they’ve got a huge family for support. Those kids, if they have more than one, are loved. They have tons of uncles, somebody is always around, maybe some of the other batchers have partners (or not) and also have kids or adopt kids (heck, let’s throw Riyo in there, too, since she and Echo are a popular ship—they end up together but they don’t want kids, but they do a lot of work helping younger clones when they’re not fighting the Empire, Hunter took in several of the clone cadets they rescued from Tantiss, Wrecker is the favorite uncle but Crosshair is the favorite babysitter, they all manage to visit Cut and Suu once in a while, and and both Omega and Lyana are delighted to have little cousins running around (I kind of headcanon that Shep and Lyana kind of adopted Phee into their family after she found Pabu, so even if we’re going with a version of Phee that was formerly a Jedi and and doesn’t really know who her birth parents were, her kids are going to have family on both sides).

And this all exists just as a headcanon for something that could maybe happen after season three, depending on how season three goes, buuuut I like it. It’s just this nice little thought of this big, chaotic family, way bigger than just our six batchers, that’s structured a little weirdly, because clones, and everyone has their problems. but they’re all doing their best for each other and there’s a lot of love in it. And then I started thinking about clone aging.

And we all know clone aging sucks, but: let’s say clones really do age at twice the normal rate once they reach maturity, and let’s say Tech is chronologically, like, twelve but physically in his late twenties. A hard late twenties where he could pass for anything between thirty and fifty, but late twenties all the same. Suppose he gets the best case scenario and manages to live till he’s physically 90. Chronologically, he’ll be around forty-five. So, close to best case scenario, barring dying violently or getting sick, he’s got maybe another thirty-three years in him. That might seem like a lot (and it probably is to a clone), but to put that in perspective, I’m thirty-five. If I die in thirty-three years, I’ll only be sixty-eight—I’ll have died pretty young. And I’ve already been alive almost three times as long as many of the clones have. The clones do not get that much time.

There’s a lot to be explored with that in regards to Phee; I’ll be honest, the potential, “This is going to be over faster than either of us are going to be ready for,” “It is—let’s do it anyway,” is part of why at draws me to the ship, because there’s something a little defiant about two people going into a relationship knowing one of them was built to die faster, and choosing to live their lives how they want despite that. But there’s also a lot to be explored in how Phee and Tech would handle that with their kids. Because—they’d tell them. They’d have to sit down and tell them once they got to a certain age. Tech is going to be lucky to see them hit their twenties. It’s not like they wouldn’t notice their dad and their clone uncles getting old so much faster than their mom, Omega, or their uncle Shep, or anyone else they know. They’d ask questions, and it’s not like Tech wouldn’t be up-front. But I don’t think it’d be an easy conversation for any of them to have.

[scarlet--wiccan]

good afternoon in a avengers issue quicksilver was like Wanda is the only one who love me am I the only one who was bothered by that I mean what about Luna maximoff she adores him like my dude I love his character but he can be a bit of a you know what let’s keep this kid friendly he is a bit of a fart nugget I don’t like how marvel keep skipping over her anyway that is my opinion what do you think on it

Good afternoon! This is my inbox, not a private chat. If you have a question or are seeking any kind of information/critical analysis from me, I would really appreciate you making an effort to write legibly. I'm not saying this to be judgmental-- it's not a matter of language, it's just a matter of respect. Most people can do better than firing off a run-on stream of thought with no punctuation.

And if you want to ask me about a specific issue or incident, please cite the series title and issue number. There's no guarantee that I can know what comic you're talking about otherwise.The Avengers has been around for over 60 years-- "a avengers issue" tells me nothing.

I assume that you are asking about The Avengers (2023) #14, which is part of the Blood Hunt event. In it, Pietro has joined an ad hoc group of Avengers to take down the vampires attacking New York City, but his main goal is to rescue Wanda, who has been taken captive by the vampire leaders. Each of the heroes in this issue are introduced with a brief inner monologue, and Pietro's describes how he's driven away most of the people in his life except for his sister, who, in Pietro's words, is the one person left who loves him.

The purpose of this scene is to introduce Pietro as a new character to the book, as it's his first appearance in this volume, and establish his primary motive-- rescuing Wanda-- along with relevant information about his background and personality. All of these elements come into play, and are given greater nuance, as the story progresses, but this is just the introduction. These are extremely common writing conventions.

Pietro's impatience, prickly attitude, and personal priorities create tension with his teammates, but those tensions are resolved when Pietro demonstrates that he can be patient and cooperative when he needs to be. He is not being a "fart nugget," as you so evocatively described him-- he's actually showing a lot of growth, while still maintaining core personalities traits that have been part of his character for 60 years.

As for Luna-- she's not being overlooked here, as she and Crystal are mentioned at the top of Pietro's monologue, where he indicates that he has driven them away. Again, this is a simplification, but it's not untrue-- Pietro and Crystal have been estranged for a long time, and while Luna does love her father, but I wouldn't say she adores him. You might have missed it, but there was a whole decade or so where their relationship was really rocky after Pietro stole Terrigen crystals and coerced Luna into undergoing unregulated Terrigenesis. He initially lied and blamed these actions on a Skrull shapeshifter, but because of her powers, Luna knew the truth. Pietro eventually came clean, and Luna did forgive him, but she has a much more cynical view of him now. Pietro doesn't have custody of Luna, and her appearance in Scarlet Witch was the first indication in years that that even see each other any more-- in 2018's Quicksilver: No Surrender, Pietro saves Luna from an energy monster while lamenting that they're basically strangers.

Luna was an important presence in the late-90s Quicksilver series, had big plotlines with Pietro in the wake of HoM, was a very present and active character in All-New X-Factor, and has had cameos in every Quicksilver or Scarlet Witch-titled series in the last six years. As far as children of divorce go in superhero comics, that's actually pretty good. If it feels like she's not getting enough page time, maybe it's because Pietro himself doesn't get as much page time as he should, on top of the fact that the Inhumans have been basically shelved since 2018.

[cocogum]

Hating on Ending D will get you nowhere.

Don’t underestimate it.

One thing that pisses me off about this stupid fandom were the reactions of the killugon fans once they heard about Ending D.

Nah cuz let’s talk about it.

These ppl are seriously acting delulu rn.

They weren’t too much before but now it’s just ridiculous.

I’m starting to see a reaction pattern here through this plausible ending:

1) Some are saying that Togashi said this as a joke therefore, he’s just fucking with us and hasn’t actually revealed anything.

2) Togashi will never use this ending because he scrapped it.

3) Togashi said that his personal favorite ending was Ending C but he said that the majority of the fans will hate it. So it doesn’t mean that he’s super ecstatic by Ending D.

4) This ending is way too shonen and cliché for him to actually use. Since it’s so basic, it doesn’t scream his style. Therefore, even if the ending happened, it wouldn’t feel real.

5) The fans who like this ending are problematic and homophobic.

I’m so sick of hearing these same things come out of their mouths so let me just clearly explain why this is all ridiculous:

1) Why would Togashi ever joke about something like his plausible passing and the work he’s been working so hard for which started in 1998?? The dude has never once joked around with the questions he received about hxh. He’s also been the type to spoil some people through interview questions too so if we follow your logic, that would mean he would’ve also lied about the fact that Kurapika and all the phantom troupe members would die.

2) We shouldn’t act so hasty when it comes to this ending just because it got scrapped. Togashi did say that he took it out from the endings he was planning on using but it doesn’t change the fact that he: a) actually took his time out of the day to think about the idea in the past and b) said that he’ll use it if his time runs out and if he can’t come up with a greater ending better than the three ones he already got.

3) Yes, it’s true. Out of the three ones we got, Togashi’s favorite ending was the third one, Ending C. So what? He said he kept it around simply because it was his favorite.

That also means he’s not so into Ending A and Ending B. An author doesn’t have to specifically use their favourite ending to end their series. They have to think about what the audience and what the majority of the reactions would be like to the ending they came up with. So since he estimated that only 10% of the fandom will like Ending C and 90% of it will hate it, there’s a very high chance he won’t even attempt at using it for the ending. Also, we have no idea what the ending is about.

4) The ending may sound basic and very shonen-like but so was Yu Yu Hakusho’s ending. Or rather the ending of the main character Yusuke. If you don’t happen to know, Yu Yu Hakusho was Togashi’s old work and in it, the main character Yusuke comes back from his adventures to marry a girl named Keiko, his childhood friend.

5) Did you ever stop to think that maybe some people just didn’t like killugon? Shocking, I know. We just plainly don’t like it. It doesn’t make the most of us homophobic or problematic in the least, stop trying to shove that dumb idea onto other killugon fans’ throats. Some of us are just not into yaoi and have tried to get into it but just don’t see the appeal (i’m personally more of a hetero and yuri fan) of it. Also, some of us would be delighted to see more female characters taking more major roles in hxh. It would be refreshing to see since the main cast is all filled with males while the females usually take minor roles like mothers, instructors, teachers, supporters for some male characters, (ex: Mito, Kikyo, Abe, Noko, Palm, Bisky, Coco Loo, Coco from Heavens Arena, Melody, Alluka) or are just in the background most of the time (ex: Canary, Amane, Tsubone, Shizuku, Machi) (wow these almost sounds like SHONEN ROLES FOR WOMEN).

[koalatysleep]

Kuwameshi Play-by-Play: The Chocolate Shake Date Scene!

Folks, I can't even begin to describe how HILARIOUS this canon scene is, coz each character in the scene is in such a different headspace from each other that it's basically a romantic comedy of errors! 🤣🤣🤣

In a nutshell: Yusuke had phoned Kuwabara for a 1-1 date before he bumps into Keiko, Keiko crashes his date with Kuwabara without realizing she's the third wheel from Yusuke's POV, then when Kuwabara thinks he's the third wheel and tries to leave, Yusuke pounces on the excuse of the tailgating thugs to escape from Keiko without having to admit to Kuwabara that Yusuke wants to be with him alone, and when Keiko realizes that Yusuke's trying to shake her off, she persists in sticking with Yusuke until he pulls out his last resort of the porn buying excuse to shake her off so he can finally get Kuwabara alone! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

It's HILARIOUS!!!

Don't quite follow how the above happened?

Let's break it down!

First we find out that Yusuke didn't contact Keiko at all in the month he's been training with Genkai, and she only bumps into him through sheer chance. This tells us yet again that Yusuke is not in love with Keiko although he obviously cares for her deeply as his found family. (Sidenote: We've already seen this via Yusuke's outraged reaction to Keiko nearly kissing his "unconscious defenseless body" in Episode 4. I also wrote about this in Chapter 4 of The Good Fight if you want more meta in fic form!)

This scene is from Keiko's POV, and since she's in love with Yusuke, we hear a romantic background music when she first spots his figure walking down the street in a bright blue light, before the figure resolves into Yusuke looking heroic and dashing to Keiko's eyes:

Guess what? The last time we saw a similar scene with the SAME BRIGHT BLUE LIGHT and the SAME ROMANTIC BACKGROUND MUSIC, it was from Yusuke's POV in Episode 13, when Kuwabara's spirit saved Yusuke from the demon fish!!!

Do you see what I'm saying here? Yusuke was already in love with Kuwabara back in Episode 13! Look at how heroic and dashing Kuwabara looks to Yusuke's eyes!

OMG I can't contain my glee!! The storytelling through the subtextual cues of lighting and background music is so masterful!

(Sidenote: I've already screamed in my Undercover Love Story meta that Yusuke actually fell in love with Kuwabara in Episode 3 and has been falling deeper in love with Kuwabara since then, so this is yet another proof point of that!)

Back to the Chocolate Shake Date! After Keiko's POV scene, it cuts to the park where we see it's 3.10pm, and Yusuke is now showered and changed and he's slicking his hair back into his usual style on the park bench with Kuwabara.

First of all, this is the 90's where no one has a mobile phone. If you wanted to meet someone, you had to call them at home a few days beforehand to arrange a date/time to meet. You can't just call them on the day itself, because people aren't necessarily at home or they may have made other plans!

The fact that Yusuke and Kuwabara met up on Yusuke's first day back means that even though Yusuke didn't contact Keiko at all in the month he's training with Genkai, Yusuke called Kuwabara while he was still at Genkai's, to arrange a meet-up with Kuwa!!!

Do you see the difference in Yusuke's behavior for Keiko his found family / sibling, versus Kuwabara his romantic love interest?

What's more, he was so eager to meet Kuwabara that he rushed to the park without styling his hair, probably coz he was running a bit late after bumping into Keiko!

No one arranges a meetup at an odd time like 3.10pm, you'd meet at 3pm! The fact that they showed us the 3.10 time on the clock and then Yusuke slicking his hair back tells us Yusuke cared so much about meeting Kuwabara that he rushed there before he was fully ready!

Suddenly we have more context to understand why Yusuke looked so chirpy and spirited when he was walking home earlier on! Yusuke was looking forward to what he thought was his 1-on-1 date with Kuwabara!

And here I just have to scream a bit about their body language! Look at how happy our boys are just catching up with each other! How their bodies are angled towards each other! How they connect with less of their emotional armor when Yusuke indirectly tells Kuwa the real reason he doesn't wanna brawl Kuwa is coz Kuwa's only just recovered from horrific injuries, and Kuwa responds by indirectly admitting to Yusuke the reason he asked for a brawl is coz he really wants to see Yusuke's new moves!

If you listen very closely to the original Japanese audio track, you can hear birds chirping in the background when Kuwabara and Yusuke are talking to each other!!! Birds are our audio / visual analogy for Kuwameshi romance! 🐦🐦🌈🌈❤️❤️

Our boys are connecting emotionally even without life-&-death fights, and I love it so much!

And here's where the hilarity kicks up a notch! Keiko's so happy that Yusuke's back, she doesn't realize that she's the third wheel from Yusuke's POV!

She crashes his conversation with Kuwa, and we see Yusuke make the classic anime hand gesture when characters are peeved at something undesirable happening:

Then we see Yusuke cover up what he and Kuwa were really talking about with the movie excuse, taking the chance to touch Kuwa with his elbow while pointing at Keiko with the peeved anime hand gesture. Here's where Keiko looks surprised that Yusuke is drawing Kuwa back into the conversation, being physical with him, and seems to be saying that he wants to watch a movie with just Kuwabara:

Keiko persists in sticking to Yusuke by joining them for the movie, so Yusuke has no choice but to agree reluctantly, since he doesn't have any legit reason why she can't join them. Yusuke still has his emotional armor on, so he doesn't wanna outright let Kuwabara or anyone else know that he actually wants to be alone with Kuwabara.

Nonetheless, we start to see that our boys are mirror images of each other from this scene onwards (people who are attracted to each other tend to mirror each other)!

Look at how miffed Yusuke looks that Keiko hasn't taken a hint to let him be alone with Kuwabara!

And even though Kuwabara thinks Yusuke and Keiko are together romantically, he can't help sounding out how Yusuke feels by telling him Keiko must have been worried about Yusuke and is happy he's back, coz while Kuwabara's still in denial about his feelings for Yusuke at this point in time (and he also thinks he can't directly express how he feels about Yusuke for various reasons like Keiko having a 'claim' on Yusuke), he is nonetheless deeply in love with Yusuke so he's subconsciously and/or very subtly sounding out how Yusuke feels about Keiko.

Also, coz Kuwabara thinks he can't express his feelings for Yusuke directly, he expresses his feelings for Yusuke through other female characters like Botan and later on Yukina (this deserves another meta of its own another time, in psychology we call this Transference).

In this instance, Kuwa's Transference manifests when he indirectly tells Yusuke how he feels by saying Keiko must have been very worried about Yusuke and is now very happy Yusuke's back. Kuwa's actually telling Yusuke Kuwa himself was very worried about Yusuke and is now over-the-moon Yusuke's back!

Yusuke reacts to this with a blush for the first time ever in the series! Yusuke didn't blush when Botan/Sayaka kept insisting he likes Keiko romantically in Episode 4, he didn't blush when he seemed to be thinking about Keiko resuscitating him with mouth-to-mouth in Episode 5, so why is Yusuke suddenly blushing now? It's certainly not coz he's in love with Keiko, we've already established that. It's coz Yusuke can sense on some level what Kuwa's really telling him! At the same time, Yusuke tries to let Kuwa know equally subtly that he's not romantically interested in Keiko with his super non-committal comment of "Oh, yeah?" to Keiko being worried about him!

My god, there are so many layers of subconscious, semi-conscious and subtextual communication happening between Yusuke and Kuwabara in just this little exchange, underneath what they seem to be talking about on the surface!

And then when Kuwa still thinks he's the third wheel and tries to do the noble thing to leave early so Yusuke and Keiko can watch the movie alone, he nonetheless uses one last excuse to be close to Yusuke with his headlock! It was a very long headlock with both our boys prolonging it as long as they can! They did not want to leave each other's arms even after Keiko calls to Yusuke from ahead!

This is when Yusuke pounces on the excuse of the tailgating thugs to make sure Kuwabara doesn't leave, without having to admit to Kuwabara that he wants him to stay!

He then uses the excuse of urgent shopping to try to escape Keiko so he can be with Kuwabara alone, without having to admit to Keiko that's what he's trying to do!

LOL what can I say, Yusuke's emotional armor is real strong, he's just not comfortable admitting his feelings to anyone at this point in time!

Kuwa initially thought Yusuke was gonna ask him to run his urgent shopping errand for him (thus his split second of peeved look), then he looks so surprised when Yusuke tells him he wants Kuwabara to come with him! This tells us Kuwa just never thought Yusuke would pick him over Keiko!! Kuwa's eyes are on Yusuke 100% of the time throughout!! And look at Yusuke using any excuse to touch Kuwabara, this time with the back of his hand on Kuwa's chest!! Ahhhh these body language tells are CHEF'S KISS!!!

When Keiko realizes that Yusuke's trying to shake her off with the urgent shopping excuse, she persists in following (she is a go-getter after all!), and this is when Yusuke pulls out his last resort of the porn excuse so he can finally get Kuwabara alone to himself!! It's HILARIOUS!!!! Yusuke was so desperate to get Kuwabara alone, he straight out implies he's buying porn!!!

OMG this is such a good romantic comedy of errors!!! Is it any wonder that the entire scene at the Chocolate Shake stand started with such comedic background music??

Who says anime isn't sophisticated in its story-telling? This is a masterclass in Show, Don't Tell subtext!

[wirewitchviolet]

All the seriously queer stuff in the back half of Sailor Moon

In case it wasn't obvious when I released a little mini-RPG a few months ago where you basically play as the villains, I've been gradually making my way through the entire run of Sailor Moon for the past year or so. Specifically I'm watching the 2014 Viz dub that covers all 200 episodes, trying to be as faithful as they can with it. It's been a really interesting experience, since I absolutely watched the old DiC dub back in the day, saw a fansub of one of the movies around the same time, and heard plenty of things about the missing seasons (particularly the infamous "cousins" thing from the Cloverway dub) over the years, and now I have all the context. And the context gets really shockingly overtly queer, turns out!

So first, let's just all get on the same page with the English language localizations of Sailor Moon over the years. Back in the 90s, Sailor Moon aired… well everywhere, with the English language version being a dub from DiC, which I will go to my grave defending as probably the best dub of anything I can think of. Fantastic casting all around, changes to the soundtrack that were actually for the better (keeping all the melodies but recording new versions that… aren't optimized to sound show-perfect when recreated by the cheapest sound generators one can shove in a toy, plus some original songs shoved into a few episodes). They did make some edits/cuts, but pretty minor ones, especially compared to the complete reworkings most anime of the era went through when coming to American TV, and I'm still not used to Luna not being prissy and British here.

That dub only lasted up through the second season. Past that, there was a dub of seasons 3 and 4 from Cloverway, which had some really questionable performances, and is where the infamous "they're cousins" bit came in. This also aired on TV in some places, but didn't have nearly the same omnipresent distribution as the DiC seasons (… and now I'm feeling old as I ponder whether to explain how local TV affiliates did their own thing back in the broadcast days). Then in the early 2000s there was a DVD release from Pioneer with cut/uncut versions of everything, apparently, which may or may not have recycled those dubs. I don't really have the energy to track that down, specifically. Anyway all the rights expired, gathered dust forever, then Viz picked it up and did this new faithful localization, and it took me about a decade to spot it on a streaming service.

So we've got 5 seasons, 200 episodes total, and a hell of a lot of formulaic structuring here. Every season (or half a season) we've got some main villain with an evil plan we may or may not get any details on, and some small number of underlings who then take their 5-10 episode long turns pursuing their goal in a way that inevitably generates monsters of the week, and meanwhile every season we have another conflict on the good guy side where someone is trying to locate some special person and ignoring the 50 or so obvious signs which main cast member it is while the audience gets frustrated. Oh and each individual episode has the same rigid structure of everyone getting caught up in some wacky teen trend, then there's a monster, they transform and fight a bit to no real end, then Sailor Moon gets around to using a finisher because that's literally the only thing actually capable of ending a fight. Honestly it's less "formulaic TV writing" and more like some sort of daily meditation. No way in hell I'd be able to sit through all of it if I had to look at the screen the whole time. This is background viewing while I work. Oh and I'm assuming everyone has at least enough passing familiarity to understand that if I say the name of a planet I'm talking about a teenage girl who's the reincarnation of some sorta magical girl/sentai squad member.

Season 1 has pretty gay vibes in places, but MOSTLY there's plausible deniability for all of it. We spend about half the season just establishing the characters of Moon Mercury and Mars, then quickly bringing in Jupiter and playing it up like a big shocking reveal for Venus. There's also a bunch of relationship drama between Moon, Tuxedo Mask, and the guy who runs the local arcade that she has a crush on and spends a while thinking is actually Tuxedo Mask instead of his actual identity of uh… a college-aged guy we're saying is the destined love interest of this 14-year old girl he's frankly pretty abusive towards. So, a lot of straight nonsense there. Meanwhile the evil queen's got these 4 generals, two of them are plainly dating, and no matter how you slice it, that's pretty overtly queer, but there's a valid argument to have over how we actually should slice it.

I was aware at the time that the DiC dub just ran with Zoicite here being a woman, making this a straight relationship, and I kinda figured they did a bit of tweaking and editing to hide that this was actually one of those bishonen types who were popular at the time who happened to be gay. Honestly though, watching it through a modern lens, it is REALLY hard to not just see a woman here, even when we're throwing he/him pronouns around. Like, if I'm handling a new dub, I'm just going to say Zoicite is a trans girl, who I'm at least headcanoning as being out for years, on HRT, and at that point where she can put on a suit designed for a man and nah that's a woman wearing a suit. Kinda just wraps around and makes me appreciate the old dub's handling more than the new one.

Season 2 (or R) doesn't really give us anything to work with, if I'm honest. There's probably some gals-being-pals energy amongst the main cast here and there. That's kind of always low-key present, especially with Jupiter, who has the whole big tough girl who wears long skirts thing sorta gay energy, and I want to say she ends up going to a dance with Mercury somewhere early on because one of them can't find a date otherwise.

But, we've got this filler arc with two dark elves in a tree who just kinda both hit on everyone of the opposite gender while the main cast sits in a holding pattern, then we get a proper villain squad not really getting enough spotlight time to have much of anything going on, and this whole weird thing where Moon and Mask's annoying toddler comes back from the future to… brainwash Moon's parents into thinking she's their daughter, and then she gets turned into an evil adult, and there's this whole bit about her having some sort of grim reaper/time guardian as a nanny (this is Pluto, the outer planets really have different things going on)… but again, mostly straight/cis flavored nonsense.

Then suddenly here comes season 3 (or S, pronounced "Super" which makes things real confusing), from a director who would later go on to create Utena, and in addition to just being the single best season of the series for a number of other reasons, everyone is canonically into girls now! It's shockingly overt about establishing that too, and reiterating the point several times.

It all gets started with Uranus and Neptune showing up. We kind of have this three faction conflict this season, where there's a proper main villain and squad of monster making minions, but then there's also this overtly queer power couple whose goal is basically to check out the "pure hearts" monsters of the week keep ripping out of people because they need to check them for these three macguffins they need to… reform the holy grail of all things to give to their leader they're too oblivious to know is actually Moon.

More importantly though, aside from making it abundantly clear that these two are banging every night, they have this very open relationship where Neptune is more than cool with Uranus hooking up with any given girl she's inclined to, and/or grabbing gals for threeways. And like, this isn't me taking a broad interpretation of things, it's weird how directly they just come out and say this. The other thing we have going on is that Uranus is just, like, the butchest of the butch.

Literally everyone just assumes she's a guy when they first meet, and quite a few people go into serious denial when corrected on the matter. And she kinda tends to react to all the misgendering with the sort of bemused nonchalance that makes it pretty easy to read her as actually being nonbinary. I swear there's an episode where she clarifies she's not a guy with that particular sort of emphasis suggesting that doesn't necessarily narrow things down to just "girl," too. And apparently Crystal actually DOES bite the bullet and flat out state she's nonbinary (or at least "both male and female"). That's cool, but there is no way in hell I'm going to sit through Crystal.

Anyway, point is, everybody wants to hook up with Uranus. Everyone. There's a whole episode where the power couple straight up takes Jupiter out on a date, the rest start gossiping about her being out on a date with two girls, everyone starts off shocked, then someone clarifies who it's with and everyone's like "oh, well yeah then I'd take them up on that too," with a little extra push back from Mars before she gets called out as trying to stay in the closet when she's clearly got a stash of photos of hot girls in suits.

This of course really makes me wonder about that Cloverleaf dub and why they went with that whole "cousins" thing to avoid addressing the overt queerness here, instead of taking the same approach DiC did of just making Uranus a guy. This would technically introduce the problem of having a guy in a miniskirt for fight scenes, but, eh, that'd be easier to edit around than you'd think. Uranus generally enters a fight scene pre-transformed firing an attack off from offscreen, arguing with the core cast a little, and leaving. Attacks are stock animation you can drop in anywhere, so that much is easy enough to chop out or replace with Neptune's attack. I don't know how one would even begin to cut around all the overt gay stuff though.

Nothing especially queer going on with the evil side of things. The villains are kind of amazing but too career oriented for relationships. I guess just for the sake of giving full context for the seasons most people haven't seen and fill in the obvious hole in the roster I can mention the eventual deal that the little goth girl Chibi-Usa spends the season hanging out with turns out to be the main villain's daughter, Sailor Saturn, and kind of the antichrist? Like I said, the outer planets aren't just cast expansions, they really have their own stuff going on. She also dies and reincarnates, doing so the long way where she sits the next season out being just a baby, which once again begs the question of whether when everyone dies at the end of the first season they just kinda magically come back to life with missing memories just as a temporary thing for a filler arc to play with or they really dd all reincarnate and have new families a decade and change later. Weird that that never got firmly pinned down.

Anyway though season 4 (AKA Super S, which is pronounced "Supers" and now you see why I prefer just numbers)… sucks and you should skip it. No sense of stakes, no real character work, non-threatening villain, shockingly dull monster designs, no outer planets, an ending that just drags on for what feels like forever and has no payoff. The only things it has in its favor are the inherent absurdity that people are wondering if Chibi-Usa is like full-on dating Pegasus (yes, the horse) and Fish's Eye.

So we have two different miniboss squads this season, the latter of which is a quartet of permanent-child acrobats working for the impressively titled if boring in practice Dead Moon Circus, preceded by three animals-turned-into-humans-by-a-witch with a weird What-you-originally-were's Eye naming scheme. Two of them are just dull slutty guys, but Fish's Eye is plainly and overtly a trans woman, and gets something of an arc about being willing to give up her own humanity for the greater good. It's a shame she's stuck in the practically unwatchable season, but at least she's on the REALLY short list of major villains who gets to have a happy ending. Usually even when someone has a nice redemption arc with the power of love and friendship they still get bumped off by another villain.

Different localizations have done different things with her. Some go "crossdressing gay guy" some just say she's a woman and leave her transness out of it. The 2014 localizaton is pretty unambiguous about though, so, that's really nice. Casting could be better, but still.

Then finally we come to season 5 (Sailor Stars), which I think is even more queer than season 3 was, which is really saying something, and was also directed by someone who would go on to helm another girly show with a serious case of The Genders, Ouran High School Host Club. Structurally it's a bit weird, because the first few episodes are just straight up taking a mulligan on the terrible finale of season 4, this time with the outers in (Saturn hyper-ages back to her standard 10 or whatever and gets a bunch of inexplicable knowledge and memories which is cool but never really paid off), the main villain doing something, and as a shocking rarity for the series, this whole mini-arc where characters are broken into pairs of one inner one outer and get to bounce off each other in a way the series frustratingly usually never does.

More importantly though, at least for this post's purposes, basically the first scene of the season is Uranus and Neptune having a flirty exchange ending with something along the lines of "let's save the pillow talk for when we're actually in bed together later tonight," which sort of sets the tone for just how blatantly these two are talking about their extremely active sex life in no uncertain terms, out in public. Some of the other characters are a bit weirded out by their complete lack of filter, but hey whatever.

The real proper start of the season though has our core cast finally starting high school, once again reminding us that everyone is at LEAST 4 years younger than everything about their designs, interests, and handling of responsibilities would indicate. This also reminds us how deeply creepy the Moon/Tuxedo Mask relationship is, but fortunately he hops a plain to America and is straight up out this season, and as an added bonus Chibi-Moon finally goes back to the future. Before you get too excited she IS shortly replaced with an even younger, barely verbal new mystery gremlin called Chibi-Chibi whose existence nobody can account for, but at least she's actually cute and not akin to the baby from Dinosaurs. More importantly though, as the girls enter high school they end up in a class with the titular Sailor Stars, AKA The Three Lights, AKA Fighter Maker and Healer, a popular boy band who are also a new mysterious set of Sailors with what I assume are intentionally quite confusing gender shenanigans in play.

Normally, they are hot lanky boys, boastful about their masculinity to the point of it bordering on misogyny, but also super super femme, with earings, hair down to their ankles, and very noticeably female VAs in both Japanese and English. Then when there's a fight they're very plainly hot lanky girls in bikinis and one of them has an attack shouting "Star Gentle Uterus!" before hitting a monster with a glob of liquid to a disgusted reaction. And their transformation sequences (and bikinis, and some shirtless scenes) make it absolutely crystal clear that yeah there is some magical reconfiguring of their bodies when making the switch. The show pointedly avoids elaborating on what the deal is past that in terms of which they form they started with/feel more comfortable in/why they switch it up/etc. which would normally frustrate me as one of those Schroedinger's Queer Rep situations, but I very much get the impression that we're going for intentional confusion and ambiguity in service to a general message that if you're into someone you shouldn't have hangups about their gender or what it says about your own sexuality and just kind of accept your feelings and them as a person and I am pretty OK with that.

The cast is too. Mercury Mars Jupiter Venus and for good measure Luna all kinda spent the entire season fixating on how to hook up with any/all of The Three Lights, meanwhile at basically any moment there isn't a fight scene or some plot exposition happening, Fighter is VERY ACTIVELY pursuing Moon in a sexual fashion, with pretty overtly stated tension before damn near every commercial break over whether this is going to be the scene where Sailor Moon gets absolutely railed by this maybe-genderfluid pop star from another world. And I have to just say as a brief aside that while we obviously never go there, I kinda wish we did? Tuxedo Mask is WAY too old to be dating someone Moon's age, even if we do the thing where we just add 4 to everyone's stated age. Plus he kinda treats her like absolute garbage for the whole show, and even when they're in a more wholesome mode the whole thing feels toxic and messed up. Meanwhile Fighter here is literally the same age, clearly into her, and beyond the one character flaw, an actual decent person. Though again, really damn forward. Still beats the hell out of the guy in college dating a middle schooler, and kinda flirting with his own prepubescent future-daughter.

There's also this huge confrontational thing between Fighter and Uranus, where it's slightly unclear if Uranus is being protective of Moon, violently jealous because Neptune is totally and surprisingly overtly open to hooking up with anyone from this boy band too, or just kinda trying to defend her position as the hot androgynous badass who swept into town with the intent of hooking up with every girl in the zip code eventually. Meanwhile Fighter thinks Uranus is a kind of toxic macho dude and really questions the whole "she's not a guy" thing, which is, you know, interesting. Pluto never really weighs in on this because… Pluto kinda lives outside of time and space and has maybe 8 minutes of real screen time in the entirety of the show.

Past that, we've got a bunch of other gay stuff too! We're back to cranking the general queer energy of the core cast up past the point of plausible deniability with regards to each other and a random girl trying to pass along a love letter with some confusion as to who it's for. It also bears mention that when the full deal of the new characters and their gender flipping comes to light, Jupiter makes an active point of making it clear that she is still 100% down and like, hey, I already knew you were the least conflicted of the bunch about how bi you all are, but I appreciate the active refutation of transphobia is still cool. We've got an honestly adorable pair of villains where one is frankly such a bimbo she's completely incapable of doing the evil general thing on her own or preparing her own food, and her hyper-competent girlfriend helping her out while also having to come up with cover stories because they're supposed to be pitted against each other. They'd definitely get a nice happy ending in one of the even numbered seasons, especially once it's made clear that they're very much being coerced into the evil stuff/taking things down from the inside, but… yeah this season ends up going super dark.

I don't want to totally get into how absolutely pitch dark the big 8-part series finale gets and spoil the hell out of it since if it wasn't clear, the odd numbered seasons are all really good stuff you should watch on your own, plus this one has a bunch of genuine twists, but I have to get into some of it in my mission of explaining how gay it all is. Consider yourself warned.

As happens kind of a lot in Sailor Moon finales, the bulk of the season 1 cast gets killed off once the main villain steps in to start getting her hands dirty, but here it's early enough on in the arc for Moon to really process it and give it the weight that maybe it'll actually stick this time. In particular of course she's worked up about Tuxedo Mask turning out to have died off camera at the start of the season (the impression to that point being that he's too distracted with a trip to America to check his messages or maybe just straight up ghosted her), but then almost as broken up over losing Mars, because yeah, those two in particular actually end up with a surprising amount of low key romantic tension between them by the end of things.

Then once it's time to get the outer planets off the table, all four of them end up in a no-win situation against the villain, who does that villain thing of of offering them a choice of just being killed and having their souls ripped out to be made into new stars (this is kind of her whole thing, see), OR if anyone's up for it, they can switch sides, still get their souls ripped out to be made into stars, but given funky magic bracelets that allow them to stay alive, just, you know, corrupted by evil and acting as her new villain squad. It's actually established right before the last one gets vaporized that all her original henchgals are in fact the Sailors of other planets she forced into the same deal just before the last one gets vaporized for failure, making it that much tragic in retrospect that the cute competence-disparity couple didn't make it.

Anyway, Uranus and Neptune actually take the deal. Like, zero hesitation. Part of it is eventually explained as Uranus having enough faith that she's too into her girlfriend to be fully corrupted and might get a chance to sucker punch the villain with her own soul extractors (which she IS it just doesn't work), and failing that Moon'll probably swing some kinda deus machina (which is an admittedly safe bet, honestly). But another part of it really is just "yeah screw it, if I still get to be with my girlfriend I'll take being evil over being dead" and they really do go through with it and promptly murder their oldest friend and a very young girl. Don't let anyone tell you Sailor Moon is one of those power of love and friendship always triumphs sorta shows. I don't know that the power of love and friendship even ties the scoreboard if we tally things up over the whole series. Oh and the final final final showdown has a nude Sailor Moon with angel wings just trying to hug it out with the main villain, which I guess could also maybe be read as a bit queer.

So yeah. Sailor Moon. When you don't have a puritanical edit, it's queer as hell. Everyone's bi or non-binary-and-sapphic. Several different flavors of trans rep. Goes out on a note of not getting hung up on gender. All of this in a roughly 30 year old series now, aimed at young impressionable girls. … actually for that matter it's also a show aimed at girls with really powerfully horny monster girl designs all over the place. Possibly relevant.

Oh yeah, and maybe consider throwing me some money via Patreon? I can't actually cover next month's rent as things stand.

[fredbydawn]

Not to be an old man, but I do kinda worry about the attention span of gen z.

I had a friend about 6 years younger than me and whenever I suggested we do a movie night they would always suggest a movie (90% of the movies they suggested we’re made in like the last 5 years mind you) by saying “you HAVE to watch it, it’s so bad!” and we would watch it and it wasn’t even a so-bad-it’s-good movie, it was just boring and kinda poorly made. and while the movie played, a movie they INSISTED I watch because they loved it so much, they were on their phone or doing a jigsaw puzzle the whole time, like these movies were just made to be background noise

meanwhile it became a running joke to them that “you say every movie is fantastic” because I would recommend movies I thought were actually good and worth watching. and when we did watch them, my friend couldn’t keep up. they would get frustrated and call the movie stupid because they weren’t used to a movie expecting you to pay attention to the plot.

like for instance they recommended we watch this time travel slasher movie which basically consisted of characters telling the audience exactly what was going to happen in the next scene for the entire film, my friend thought it was great. I recommended we watch The Thing, which creates a lot of suspense by withhold information from the audience and letting them come to their own conclusions about who might or might not be infected, and my friend said that it didn’t make any sense and couldn’t believe that the movie was generally well liked

[patchdotexe]

ok heck it uhhh stickmolus

(this is still one of my fav drawings for it. the guuuyyyys)

it is! a Henry Stickmin au! taking place in our Limoliverse setting, which is the catch-all name for.. several stories we haven't made any content of except character designs and incoherent tumblr posts. um. hm. WELL the part that matters is that everybody is aliens!

it's a very loose adaption of the whole series, except with the twist being that henry is jumping between routes willy-nilly and potentially even creating brand new ones as he goes thanks to breaking things in unexpected ways. you know how it is with spaghetti. also there's a lot of background worldbuilding that we are very bad at actually implementing

(also it has an askblog! @stickmolus is in a weird limbo state on account of the exhaustion and my difficulty to keep up an ongoing interactive project, but its fun to read and i still think about picking it back up. i want to so bad. i am my own worst enemy)

quick hits:

Henry is.. something! nobody knows what his species is, including himself. he just straight up spawned one day and immediately began doing crime. this immediately got the attention of the CCC, especially once he started pulling out every power and item out of his back pocket and launching between timelines at random.

everyone's response to him is some form of panic on account of him being an Unauthorized Fucking Thing. speaks english but also writes in minecraft galactic and can make nether portal noises. he's not mute but there's a pretty big language barrier he's trying to work around and when he is able to talk to people he's pretty sparse with words. his head is weirdly shaped and i admire max's ability to actually Make A Whole Ass Sculpture Of This Guy oh my god i just looked over at my shelf and got emotional

i did animation memes with all 3 of triple threat and henry's is RENARD!

Charles is a pilot for the Limolian military and is certified in both air and space travel! good for him. he's a limolus, which is kinda the "mascot species" for the setting seeing as its. named after them. they've got your basic run-of-the-mill psychic powers tropes and are heavily inspired by Giegue from the Mother series! i could talk about them for a very long time. LET'S TALK ABOUT CHARLES.

charles was stationed on earth for a while and as a result is considered kinda Weird because he picked up a lot of earth culture stuff. he's fluent in both english and lilio so he's henry's translator, although his translation is pretty loose and skips details and basically he is not reliable no matter how hard he tries. i love him

his animation meme is BAM BAM! and it was really really fun to make. i love drawing charles i love thinking abt charles he is My Boy

ELLIE oh my god this drawing doesnt have her tattoos. what the hell. ellie is ALSO a limolus! they can be colours besides red its just that ellie and charles are both red. anyway. she's very good at telekinesis because canon ellie already uses the force, so that's her solution to most problems. her relationship with henry is a bit rockier from the get-go due to a communication barrier on Several Levels, but theyre able to get along! ..in some routes. oops.

uhhhh she's actually got some pretty intense backstory that hasnt come up yet because Ellie Has Not Appeared On The Blog At All for the love of god why did i pick the order i did its gonna be FOREVER until we see ellie AUGH. but she got locked up in the wall for some Pretty Serious Crimes (like uh. treason?) and even in timelines where she joins up with charles there's some friction because of that.

her animation meme is Wolf in Frenzy which is probably the best one ive made so far ngl

Reginald's anatomy is terrible and i hate drawing him. also he's a musae, which are very long/tall and very venomous. the toppats overall are a ragtag group of people of various species and various backgrounds, in stark contrast to the govt which is like 90% limoli. also he's a pathetic noodle of a man but that doesn't stop him from being a tricky bastard

i didn't animate him but he shows up in RENARD for like 5 seconds if that counts

uuhhhh also i have a "#stickmolus au" tag. which is probably pretty incoherent. im tired

[socalwriterbee]

Better In Time Chapter 4: Stars in The City

Catch up on Chapters 1-3 Collide Memories of Us and Delicate here!

Choices Book: The Nanny Affair

Series Name: Better in Time

Chapter Title: Stars in the City

Pairing: Marie Castro (MC) x Wyatt Kent (OC)

Word Count: 9,280

Rating/Warning: Fluff, Some Adult Situations

Song Inspiration/Mention: Where Do I Sign by Brett Eldredge, Beautiful Crazy by Luke Combs

Series Summary: For two years Marie thought Sam would change, be the man she wanted and the father she knew he could be. But broken promise after broken promise, Marie leaves the city she has come to know and the man she fell in love with. Moving across the country back to her home state of California, needing to put the ghosts of her past behind her and move on with her life. Meeting someone new was out of the question until one day on the beaches of Malibu she meets a handsome stranger she befriends.

Chapter Summary: It's finally here!! Marie and Wyatt's first date! Will everything go smoothly as planned or will disaster strike and end things before they begin.

A/N: Friendly reminder that this series has 3 POV’s Marie’s, Wyatt’s and Sam’s. Chapter 4 will have Marie's and Wyatt's POV, Sam will be quiet (up to no good of course) for the next couple of chapters!

A/N 2: Prompt has been used from Pinterest. Will be in bold.

A/N 3: Apologies in advance My editor (me) is still out or has given up after many rereads.

Some Characters/Settings/Storylines used or mentioned belong to Pixelberry

Enjoy!

✨✨✨✨✨

Marie

The smooth voice of Bruno Mars sings in harmony with the 90’s style R&B beat that played throughout my bedroom, removing the last heated roller from my hair watching the perfect brown curl cascade down just past my shoulder.  

It had been a busy Saturday, I had practically been getting ready the entire day. Not because I take that long, mind you, but Wyatt called and we spent a good time talking on the phone while I gave myself a mani.

I could hear the guys in the background telling him to get off the phone and help them load the car, after what I’m assuming was another morning out in the water. When we weren’t talking we’d be shooting texts back and forth, which has me wondering if we’d have anything left to talk about.

We pretty much covered the basics of what there was in getting to know each other. All that remained was the deep stuff and I had barely touched the surface on my end.

Running my fingers through the curls, breaking the chunking curls into soft waves. Bruno’s voice stops and is replaced with the ring of my phone, indicating an incoming call.

Rolling my eyes as a smile spreads across my face, which has been happening often in recent times, Wyatt was never gonna let me finish getting ready. 

But the name that flashed across makes me squeal, jumping up and down with excitement. 

“Jenny!”

“How’s my BFF doing?” She asks, her voice echoing off the walls to my bathroom.

Taking a deep breath to calm the excitement that was coursing through me and exhaling before answering her. “Better, just getting ready.”

“Getting ready? Please tell me your seeing that blue eyed hunk.”

“Yes, I’m going on a date.” I say, pressing my lips together. If I kept smiling like a fool my cheeks were bound to hurt before the night even got started. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt this much excitement slash nervousness.“Our first date.”

“Marie! How am I only hearing about this now? We spoke not that long ago!” Jenny began to ramble. “I knew he’d forgive you for being a total bitch about —.”

Taken a back at the comment my friend made. “Hey!” 

“What? I’m only repeating what you said. What was his name again?”

“Wyatt—.” The smile that I tried to fight back won and I grin like a fool as his name leaves my lips. 

“God…even his name makes one ache you know where.” Jenny interrupts.

I feel a warmth come to my cheeks. “Jenny! Is that all you think about?”

Her teasing laugh comes through the phone. “Looking at you sounding all prudish all of a sudden.” 

Rolling my eyes once more at her comment. It was a good thing we weren’t FaceTiming because I could at least hide the rosiness that settled on my face with Jenny’s words. 

I wasn’t blind, Wyatt was good looking, no good looking wasn’t doing him justice, those blue eyes made me go weak in the knees, literally, with just one look. 

His touch would send shivers to every inch of my body, I could imagine what those lips of his would feel like against mine and on me. And yes, the ache had been real but whatever what going to happen between Wyatt and me, this time around in a relationship I wanted to take our time and let things come naturally and not rushed. I’m even getting ahead of myself with the whole it’s gonna be relationship thing.

But it was more than the physical attraction there was something there that I couldn’t put my finger on just yet. Something more, I dared throw out in the universe to find out before we started anything more between us.

“Marie. You still there?”

Jenny’s voice brings me back to our conversation, having to hide the fact that I didn’t hear anything after she called me prudish.  “Sorry. I..uh I need to finish getting ready.”

“Oh no you don’t.” The phone begins to chime to change into a FaceTime call. 

Hitting accept my beautiful friend, who now has her brown hair colored blonde with the ends light pink comes on the screen.

“Your hair!” “You look stunning!” The two of us call out to each other at the same time.

“I just finished with my hair.” Needing to change from the tank top and shorts I had on and just a few touches of makeup was still needed. “I’m not done.” I tell her.

“Just open the door like that, you don’t need to worry about what you are wearing or where you are going for that matter. A night in could be what the doctor ordered to get he who shall not be named out of your system.”

“He’s not Voldemort, you can say his name.” Shaking my head at my friend, again was that she ever thought about? “Since I have you Jen, tell me what you think of my outfit.” I tell her changing the subject. 

“Where is he taking you?”

Biting my bottom lip and shrug at her. I honestly didn’t know what Wyatt and I had planned to do tonight. “I don’t know. He didn’t say, he did say to be comfortable. Can I show you what I picked out.” 

“You can. But you know me M, I’m gonna tell you to take me into that closet of yours to pick something else out.” 

Waving her comment off. “You lost just a smidge of credibility after that Wal-Mart outfit you picked out when I was going to Italy.” Calling out as I step out of my bathroom and grab the simple soft gray t-shirt and black jeans.

Lifting up the shirt and placing it over my chest. “You will never let me live that down will you. One mistake and that’s all you remember!” Jenny chuckles out. “Cute, it’s still sexy and it does tell him that you are up for anything.” 

“Not bad right? Now shoes, Jen. I’m debating on wedges or going with the classic black and white chucks.”

“If I say wedges you’ll go with the chucks so I’ll say chucks.”

I watch as she walks through her apartment, our apartment once, months ago. Seeing reminders of the life I lived there, has me missing my friend, a life from the city that gives so much optimism to all those that went there including my younger self…

“Hey now, no tearing up. Marie I know that look and I miss you too and in a few months we’ll see each other and it would be like old times.” Jenny reassured. “Our four day weekend it set!”

But it wouldn’t be like old times. 

I wasn’t the same person that left New York all those months ago, well at least I could tell myself that. Only time would tell and I still disliked that saying of time but why was it becoming so much harder to ignore?

In time would I still be worried that there will always be that little reminder tucked in the corner of my mind that the thought of him or worse a piece of my heart that still after everything yearned for him.

Waving those thoughts away, today was not the day to let that come into play. It wasn’t fair to Wyatt and it wasn’t fair to me.

“I can’t wait.” I manage to say without sounding like a Debbie Downer.

Jenny gasps as her face lights up. “You could bring Wyatt.”

“I don’t know if that is a can of worms I want to open. Remember this is our first date.”

“Your first date with the guy that you saw every week for months when you would go to the beach. The guy who pulled you out of the water, the same guy that introduced you to his family and friends. And Marie, the man that has you absolutely giddy when I first called.”

“Your point?”

“My point is that you’ll be together come September and if your not I’m gonna hit you upside the head when I see you.”  

Laughing at the words that come out of my best friend. “Regardless of all that, this night can still go horribly wrong. You know like me not being ready, Wy should be arriving any minute now.”

“Aww look at you calling him Wy.” She teases. “It makes my heart swell with happiness for you Marie.”

“Bye Jen.” I roll my eyes with a smirk.

“I expect a call with all the deets. ALL.THE.DEETS!!” She says before I end our video call.

Standing in front of my full length mirror once fully dressed, I tug at the hem on my tee, playing with the soft gray fabric. “Can’t get more comfortable than this.” I blow a strand of hair away from my face.

My heart pounding against my chest at the sound of the doorbell ringing through my apartment. The nervousness that I tried to tame, turns up a notch and my hands become palmy. My heart racing faster as I walk out of my bedroom, down the hallway and inch closer towards the front door. 

Taking a quick glance around my apartment making sure nothing was out of place, just like the last ten times I checked when I went to look out the window to see if Wyatt had gotten here early before finally getting serious about getting ready.

Swinging the door open, the soft woodsy scent of his cologne invades my senses as he stands on the other side of the door frame. Standing tall, Wyatt has his hands tucked in the pockets of a pair of faded dark blue jeans, a white tee and a matching dark blue jacket. His eyes meet mine after his blue eyes take me in and a smile coming to both of us as we stand there inches from other.

“Hi.” His deep voice greets me. “You look breathtaking.”

If my face was rosy before it is now a bright red with his compliment. “Thank you. You’re looking very handsome yourself. Come in, just need to make sure everything is off and we’d be good to go.”

Stepping aside to let him pass, watching as he enters my apartment, it wasn’t anything big. The living area connected with the kitchen and a hallway that led to my bedroom. There was also a small patio I had set up with a table and a couple chairs. One of my favorite spots to unwind after a long day at work.

Wyatt turns around to face me. “Nice place.”

There was a some nervousness in his voice I hadn’t heard since meeting him. Wyatt had always seemed confident around me and right now he was a little fidgety. Which makes me nervous in return. 

Maybe this is too soon.

“Thanks. Make yourself at home, umm— there is water, wine and ginger ale in the fridge if you like something to drink. I’ll be back in a bit.” Giving him a quick smile before turning and heading towards my room, hearing a soft ok as I leave. 

*****

“Really, it’s not a big deal. Your cold and I’m more than happy to give you my jacket.” Wyatt says from across the table. 

Fighting back the chatter of my teeth, when the breeze that sweeps off the oceans surface and makes its way inside the restaurant. “It’s ok. I—.” 

My sentence is cut short as I watch Wyatt get up from his chair and shrug off his jacket and make his way towards me. “Here, I should have done this when we first got out of the car and before we made our way through the pier.”

The warmth that his body left in his jacket smooths the goosebumps that spread through my own. The scent that lingered in his jacket that is uniquely his has me forget a simple thank you. All I could do is watch as he makes his way back to his seat, silently thanking the heavens above and the surf below with how a simple white shirt stretches over his muscular chest and biceps. 

The color white doesn’t seem so plain against his sun kissed skin, I was reaching for the glass of water to stop me from ogling at him or worse being caught doing it.

“Better?” His softly asked.

Nodding. “Yes. Thank you.” Grateful that my manners spilled out.

“Sorry, I should have told you to bring a jacket or something. It cooled down a bit more than I thought.”

“No need to apologize. I should have gotten more information on where we were going.” I tell him, pushing the long sleeves back. “You know other than wear something comfortable.”

Wyatt reaches over the table. “Let me help you with that.” 

I lean my arm over the table, Wyatt takes the cuff of his jacket in both hands and rolls it in, stopping when it meets my wrist. Without asking, I give him the other, he does the same thing with the other sleeve.

As he rolls the sleeve, I press my nose down and smell the collar of his jacket that is sticking up, forgetting to fix it the moment it was put on. My eyes close as I inhale, his scent was intoxicating and I wanted to get lost in it. I’m reminded of where we are and who is sitting across from me that is until I hear him give a low chuckle. 

“You saw that didn’t you?” I say.

That earns me a deep laugh. “It’s hard to miss when all I can see is you.”

My face flushed and almost instantly it was getting a bit warmer before I could say anything to further embarrass myself, Wyatt words beat me to it.

“That blush suits you. It gives me some insight, which tells me I must be doing something right.”

“Well you do have a way with words. How can you not make a girl feel special.” My voice sounding sultrier than I wanted.

Before either of us can say anything our server brings out our meals. After thanking him, Wyatt and I fall into a comfortable silence within the first bites of our meal. 

He brought us to the Santa Monica Pier for our date, a place I hadn’t been to since I was a teenager. The last time I had been here was with my mother and father before my mothers passing. 

My preteen self coming along to enjoy time away from the books I’d lose myself in. Not old enough to be annoyed at spending time with my parents and not young enough to be awed by the excitement of the games and rides. 

But that had all melted away when I’d glance and see my mom and dad acting like high school sweethearts, which they were. We played games, each one of us trying to out win the other and getting on the rides seeing which one gave up first. 

My vision blurs with tears at the memories from that night so many many years ago, threaten to ruin the beginning of our night.

“Marie.” My head snaps up to see Wyatt’s face covered with concern. “Everything ok?”

“Yes.” I place down my fork on the edge of the plate. “I was remembering something about being here.”

Wyatt curses under his breath. “I didn’t think being here would bring memories of…him.” He grits out, his voice covered with hurt.  “I’m sorry.”

I watch his shoulders deflate just a touch. Who wouldn’t be hurt or disappointed when your date is possibly thinking of their ex, I would understand but that wasn’t what was running through my mind.

Shaking my head. “No…no…No!” Taking a deep breath, also wishing that wasn’t the first thing he thought of whenever I got emotional, he wasn’t off either but that wasn’t what I was thinking. I reach over and give his hand a gentle squeeze. “It’s not that, the last time I was here was with my parents before my mother—.” I begin to clear things up. “Before she passed away.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Giving him the best smile I could muster at that moment. “It’s ok, you wouldn’t have known about my mothers passing and it’s a happy memory that I have from here.”

“I’m glad it was. Mind if I ask you to tell me about her? I’d love to get to know who she was.” 

“Not at all. More than happy too. Just tell me if you get tried of me talking.”

“Not all all possible.” Wyatt flashes his pearly whites, a smile that makes butterflies flutter. 

Before I knew it I was telling Wyatt about my mother and my childhood with my parents.

✨✨✨✨✨

Wyatt

I saw the spark enter her eyes as she spoke of her mother and the same brown eyes glisten with tears when she spoke of what I can only assume were the last memories she had of her. 

Marie had been quiet as we got in line to get onto the ferris wheel. Her infectious laughter and excitement as we played games and walked hand in hand was gone. Maybe the memories of her family were too much.

Her fingers now played with the small plush dragon we, well she mostly won, by popping the balloons while I missed, getting the dart stuck on the cork board. I proudly stood next to her impressed by the arm she displayed with that throw.

“Penny for your thoughts?” I ask.

She looks up at me, the multi-colored lights of the pier dance across her face, giving me small smile. The look that sweeps over her face before being replaced with the look that was hard to read at times. It was a look that had me guessing if she was remembering something else and this time I do think it does have something do with Dalton.  

Before she could answer we take our final steps up to the front of the line, with the attendant letting us through the gate. Taking our seats, we seat across from each other, the door closing to our pod leaving just the two of us as we ascend and leave the noise behind. The pod sways as it comes to a stop to let other riders on before we still at the top.

Marie sits across from me in my jacket, her hands gripping the edge of the seat, I’d be a fool to say that I didn’t love the way she looks in it. I had to control myself when I sat across from her at dinner while I rolled up the long sleeves as my fingers faintly touched her skin and while we walked around the pier hand in hand. 

Deep down I knew it wasn’t the right time to kiss her, no matter how bad I wanted too. Right now that was all I wanted to, I wanted to lean in and kiss her, make her forget whatever casted that look across her face.

“It’s not fair.” Marie says as she looks past me, instead of at me. 

Waiting for her to say more, she says nothing else.

What wasn’t fair was something I want to ask but at the same time afraid to because of the answer I may be given.

“The last time I was on a ferris wheel I was with two very funny and handsome young men.” Marie answers my unasked question with a lightness to her voice. “And it’s not fair to you to be compared to them because it’s no contest. Sorry and if you ever get the chance to meet them—umm well no scratch that, that is highly inappropriate.”

Marie finally looks me and laughs, once she sees the shocked look on my face.

She went on a ferris wheel with two guys? No, not two guys, two young men.

I’m trying to wrap my head around what has prompted her to say this and no normal scenario that would make sense to me plays in my mind.

“I should explain.” Marie starts.

“That would be helpful because what I maybe thinking is not normal.”

“Oh please share. I want to know what is going through that head of yours, you’re hard to read at times.”

“Here I thought I was an open book. I’m horrible at hiding things. You on the other hand Marie are hard to read. I get flashes of it but then you uhh get this look.” I finish sheepishly as I run my fingers through my hair. 

Marie’s face goes from happy and a bit teasing to serious, no emotion displaying across her face but there is that little glint in her eyes that is telling me not to take it too seriously, for now.

“This…this look.” She motions to her face with the pointer finger. “Had to be taught and mastered. Give no emotion to the press unless it was an event or planned outing. The less they see the real you the better.”

I scratch at the beard along my jaw before moving to sit next her. Wrapping my arm over her shoulder. “I wouldn’t ever want you to hide what you feel or don’t feel when you are around me. Now I’m dying to know about these two young men you went on a ferries wheel with.”

Marie lets out a small chuckle before tucking her hair behind her ear. The sound of a rollercoaster mixed with screams and laughter become louder as we begin to move. “Tonight also reminded me of a day the twins and I played hooky, we went to Coney Island.”

I could see from the corner of my eye that those boys mean the world to her and that no matter what happens between us I wouldn’t come close to them.

“We played games, just like the one we played, went on the ferris wheel and ate so much junk food. Sofia wasn’t so happy about that when we got home.” She laughs at the memory.

Sofia Russo, Dalton’s ex-fiancée, I scanned through the articles on her when I had gone down that rabbit hole.

I’m brought back to Marie and our date at the sound of her soft voice telling me about that day. “I wasn’t sorry for taking them. They were kids and I had promised them we’d go and she was being unreasonable in my opinion.”

But I couldn’t focus on what she was sharing with me, something gnawed at me the way she talked about that day and how I practically did everything she did years ago with the twins. 

I had taken her down memory lane, first with her parents and second with the family she left. The only thing I selfishly hoped for was for her to stay here and not realize what she may want was back in New York.

*****

Marie and I walk side by side, my hands tucked in the front pockets of my jeans, gone was the hand holding, at least on my end. We walk through the Pier, surrounded by running kids and loved up couples holding hands and sneaking in kisses. 

That could be us but here I was kicking and distancing myself from her. What I thought was a perfect date turned into a disaster and something she already did with the boys she nannied for and no matter how much I tried to tell myself it was just them, they still had a father that she loved and more than not did the same thing.

“Wy.” Marie snakes her arm through mine. “Penny for your thoughts?”

I look down at her giving her a weak smile. “Why do I get the feeling that our night is coming to an end?” I ask her, turning away from her and looking straight ahead as I weave our way through the crowd.

“Is it?”

I can’t answer afraid my voice would crack with disappointment so I just give her a nod.

“I thought everything was going well. The night is still young and I have something in mind for the next part of our date.”

I raise my eyebrow in surprise at her. The self pity party that I’m having begins to melt away slowly. “Do you now?”

Marie nods.

She surprises me and I’m feeling hopeful once more. “Here I thought I was in charge of the date. Are you hijacking my date?”

“I would never.” She teases. “I was just thinking that the both of us could have a say into tonight. You know since I was the one who asked you out.”

We reach my car, opening the door for her waiting until she is settled before making my way to the other side.

“You didn’t give me the chance to ask you.” I say as I get in.

Marie leans over, her body pressing into mine. Her perfume invading my scenes, the sweet scent of magnolias and citrus, as she looks at the dash. “No need for a fill up.” She says as she looks at me, she is so close that the smallest movement would seal our lips together. She smiles and sits back in her seat buckling up.

“Marie?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you gonna tell me what you have in mind?”

Her laughter fills my car. “Right. That would help wouldn’t it.” I nod at her, waiting for her to continue. “I was thinking we should see the stars.

“The stars?”

“Yeah.” Marie unbuckles her seatbelt and opens and jumps out the door. “Mind if I drive?

Maybe there was hope for this night after all.

*****

“There.” I point to the next parking structure on our right. “This one isn’t hard to miss.” I joke, Marie had missed the last three parking areas that we passed. Not to say she was a bad driver but she was kind of distracted with the outside world.

“Why are we here?” I ask, wondering what we were doing on Hollywood Blvd.

“Well Mr. Kent. I’m gonna show you the stars.”

“Isn’t this a little touristy?” 

“Of course. That’s the fun of it. I’ve never done it before and we just did the Santa Monica Pier, which is super touristy as you put it, now we are doing the Hollywood Walk of Fame.”

“Alright.”

“Oh and the Chinese Theater, Pantages and Dolby. One could go on and on and all the stars we get see.” Marie tells me enthusiastically.

We walk the down Hollywood Blvd. stopping and looking down when one of us spots a name we recognize. Further down there are side shows and artists singing, we stop for a moment to enjoy them. The look on Marie’s face can only be described as if she was spending the day at Disneyland and not the streets that have caused many heartbreaks then successes. 

“Let’s get a picture with them.”

“You know you have to pay them to take a picture.” I point out, not thinking twice as I pull out my wallet to take out some singles to had over to the person that must be sweating bullets under that costume.

Taking Marie’s phone, she poses and smiles while I capture the moment of her standing next to a Nickelodeon character. 

“Thanks.” She tells the character. “How did it turn out?”

“Good.”

“Come on there are more up ahead. I’ll pay you back but you have to take pictures with me.”

I shake my head. “I’m not having you pay me back. And I’ll agree to the pictures as long as I get to take one with Marilyn over there.”

The night continues with us walking down the street as we hop over to the other side before an idea strikes.

“Let’s go.” I pull her along. “I’ve got an idea.”

“Where are we going?” Her voice filled with excitement as I begin to pull us away from The Walk of Fame and towards where we parked my car.

“Can’t say.”

Moments later I’m pulling out of the structure I glance quickly over at Marie, seeing the lights of the city and all the entertainment that Hollywood Blvd provided shine against her skin and light up her whiskey eyes as if she was seeing it all for the first time, even after spending an hour or so walking the same sidewalk we drive by. 

“I have to show you.” Was all I could say before my concentration settles on the roads of LA, we did need to get there in one piece and the city wasn’t known for having the best drivers.

The feel of her hand on my knee sends a warmth through me and my focus faltered just a bit that I stepped on the brake a bit harder then intended. “You could tell me.”

“Do you like surprises?”

It wasn’t a trick question but she took her time in giving me answer of she was contemplating on which direction her answer would take. No matter what she said my response was going to be the same.

“I do like surprises.” Marie whispers, an answer I was able to catch before a car behind us honks loudly.

“It wouldn’t be a surprise than if I told you.” I tell her as I merge on the 101. I smirk as I catch her cross her arms at not getting told the surprise. “That little pout is adorable.”

“I do not pout.” She uncrossed her arms and placed her hands on her lap, unsure what to do after being called out. “You think I’m adorable?”

“I think you’re beautiful.” I tell her. 

“Wyatt—.”

“The little pout and arm cross thing you did is like I said adorable.” That bit comes out with a chuckle, earning me a playful shove and a smile.

“You make me sound childish.” A bit of humor in her voice states. “Can you tell me now?”

After getting off the freeway the drive up was a bit quieter than I expected. Hoping the way up wouldn’t give to much away. The houses and the winding road would be a bit vague for someone who wasn’t from California and another reason I didn’t have the GPS on. Marie had been gone for years and even when she lived here there had been things she hadn’t done. So I was banking on that to help me keep it a surprise.

My heart pounded against my chest as we went up the mountain, surely it was something Marie heard with the inside of the car being as quiet as possible. She hadn’t said anything after asking me again where were going. I could only imagine what she was coming up with as to where I was taking her.

The soft sound of her voice cuts through the silence. “This is like serial killer location. Going up a mountain no other car has passed by, how many dates have you brought up here Wyatt?”

I hold back a laugh as to where her mind went. “You’re the first. Here I thought you liked a little bit of an adrenaline rush.”

“Running for my life was not what I would say counts as a rush one wants to experience.”

“You won’t be running… for long.” I continue. “I was thinking that if you wanted to see stars we could actually see stars.”

I drive close to the side of the mountain as a car coming down pass by us, making the last turn before it comes to view and I hear Marie gasp. “The Griffith Observatory.”

The lit up white dome building sits in front of us, shining bright against the night sky. The warm lights that surrounded the grassy area seeing people coming and going. “Well shit..” I curse under my breath. There was a bit more people than I hoped would still be out here but we could still make this work.

“What is it?” Marie asks while I pull into an empty parking spot, perhaps I wasn’t unlucky after all. Prime parking is unheard of, so I’ll count that as a win.

“I just thought maybe it would be just the two of us.”

Marie’s laughter fills the car at my words. Her laughter sinking deeper in my soul and finding it impossible not to fall harder for her than I already am. Some would call what I have as being whipped, that someone being my younger brother but I didn’t care. 

Once she finishes and catches her breath she says. “That is adorable.”

“You think I’m adorable?” I mimic the words Marie had said earlier. Hearing her seatbelt unbuckle and her door open without an answer to my question. “Come on.” She calls out from outside the car.

Killing the engine and getting out, I stride towards her. Taking her hand in mine, we blend in with most of the people that are still up here. Couples on a romantic night out, the rest and few families walking around and seeing The City of Angels at its brightest.

Marie tugs at my hand, a few steps in front of me, leading us through the grounds of the observatory. I nod and smile at the people who stare at us as we walk by them. Marie drops my hand as we get to the end and stops once she reaches the railing. The faint smell of her perfume once more hypnotizes me slightly until I see that I’m about to bump into her. I wrap my arm around her waist to soften the blow of my body bumping into hers.

“Sorry—.” My apology dies in my throat when Marie covers my arm with her hand. The softness of her hand almost has me missing her question.

“Have you ever seen anything so wonderful in your entire life?”

It was a rare night to see Downtown Los Angeles so clearly. The city lights shining bright a complete contrast to what was directly below us, the dark and rough terrain of the mountain. There was hardly any smog surrounding the city, again that was rare. It wasn’t as beautiful as seeing the Eiffel Tower illuminated on a Parisian night or seeing New York City from The Empire State Building but it was a part of home.

“Did you just quote The Little Mermaid?” My lips brushing the whispered question against her ear, my chin coming to rest on her shoulder.

“So that movie you know.”

“It’s a classic. It happens to be Olive’s favorite movie, she forced me to watch it with her. Even went as far as calling me a guppy.”

Marie turns to face me, the stars glowing in her eyes, the ones that I could get lost in just like the first time I saw her.

“Thank you for bringing me, it’s beautiful.”

Reaching up and cupping the side of her face, the both of us drawn to each like moths to a flame. 

Feeling Marie’s hands wrap around my waist. “Come, lets go see the stars.” I say before leading her to the other side of the grassy area a bit further away from the crowd.

Removing my jacket she had been wearing since the pier, she places it on the ground. Spreading it out and giving us something to lay on. Watching as she takes her spot and lays down on her back, patting the empty spot next to her, Marie wanting me to join her.

The feel and warmth of her body as I move next to her relaxes me. The dark sky twinkling above us. The laughters and murmurs of the crowd fading away as the stars brings us to focus on the things that are otherworldly and out of our control. 

Marie’s hand brushes against mine, that soft subtle movement makes the hair on my arms rise. Her breathing steady, turning my head just slightly watching the rise and fall of her chest. A faint smile on her face, the brown in her eyes now seem lighter with the light from the moon shining down on her. 

“What has you smiling that like?” I ask, wanting to know her every thought.

Marie turns to look at me, the smile never wavering. “I don’t know if I should share. Last time I did you wanted to end our night prematurely.”

I prop myself up on my side and rest on my elbow, looking down at Marie her brown hair spread out against my jacket. Her eyes searching for an okay to continue down possibly another memory that I’ve unknowingly unlocked tonight.

Leaning over, I run the back of my fingers down her cheek. “Tell me about it.” I say.

“I was remembering a time a few years ago, after taking Mason and Mickey to the museum, the three of us headed to Central Park to star gaze.” She whispers, the way she speaks those words and how her face lights up gave me another glimpse of the love she has for them.

“That must have been something. The stars in the city, I hope the company is well matched.” I tell her, looking back up at the night sky. “Tell me about that night.”

“The company present is well matched, diving into more of the deep stuff tonight I see.”

I smirk at the thought. “I think that is all that is left after everything we’ve talked about.”

“And who’s fault is that? That day happened to be my unofficial first day as the boys nanny, I had been moving in when a call came in and uhh—.” Marie hesitates a bit. “Saa.. he had to go handle a PR nightmare, so it was just me and the boys. That night I may have used that opportunity to learn more about who his fiancée was and what she meant to them.”

Marie turns and looks away from me, trying to hide the rosiness creep up on her as if she been caught doing something she shouldn’t have. A PR nightmare? I couldn’t recall any disaster before the wedding but then again it was most definitely handled. “Aaah, so you used the twins to find out more about…”

“Very hypocritical of me I know” Marie says cutting me off.

“I’ll plead the fifth to comment on that. You wanted to know more about someone you felt something more for, I’m in no place to say anything.”

“Yeah, I’d say this night—.”

“—has me going O for two.” I add before she could call it a disaster.

“O for two?” Marie looks at me curiously.

“Strike one with the Santa Monica Pier. My Pier to your Coney Island. Strike two with The Observatory. My Griffith Park to your Central Park.

“I guess your right. What are the odds of that happening.” She says leaning back down. “I wouldn’t say O for two that's a bit harsh, not out of the park but maybe a single or a stretched out double.”

I throw my head back with a laugh.

Noticing Marie wraps her arms around herself, the chill of the night might be settling back in. I swear my heart could have stopped for a second when she turns and looks at me with these come get me eyes. 

I lean down and whisper to her. “Dance with me.”

Marie gives me quizzical look. “There isn’t any music.”

In one swift movement I stand and straighten myself out, extending my hand to her. “Have you never danced without music? It’s one of the things one must do in life. ”

“I can’t say that I have. What are the other things one must do?” 

Marie places her hand in mine and I pull her up to her feet. 

“One, dance like no one is watching, even if it is with no music. Two, travel the world. And three, love like you’ve never been hurt.” 

Our bodies pressing into each other, my hands resting on the small of her back, running my finger tips up her arm and back down taking her hand in mine once more. I curl them in and rest our entwined hands on my chest. My other hand still remaining on her lower back, feeling the smooth soft skin under my fingers with the slightest movement her shirt rides up. 

I lead her to our own rhythm, swaying gently side to side, I look past her not trusting myself to not trip over my own feet and trying to control my rapidly beating heart, my heart that threatens to spill out what I feel for Marie.

“Wyatt, may I ask you something?” She asks before I could answer her first question she throws another one at me. “How is this whole friend thing going?”

Looking down at the woman in my arms, realizing she had never stopped looking at me, I wince at the question, my little mantra making a comeback and mocking me. “Too shit, if I’m being honest. You heard that?”

“I think they all did.” Marie says, pressing her lips together fighting back a laugh. “If I’m being honest, I didn’t hear you say it. Olive told me right before she had me change, you know giving them the chance to leave you and me alone.”

I nod, remembering the not so subtle move my sister and friends made that night.

“Friends don’t make each other feel like this.” My tone turning serious with the words that come from deep within my soul.

“Make one feel like what?”

“Like maybe one day you could be my everything.”

Marie’s body goes still, stiffening against mine. I drop my head and close my eyes shut, I curse myself for saying such a thing. We don’t even know what this thing between us is and I’m over here thinking of a lifetime with her.

Marie moves against my hold, I don’t want to see her put a well deserved distance between us, so I keep my eyes closed.

My eyes open at her soft touch against my cheek, a tenderness as settled across her features that is accompanied by a small smile. 

My breath hitches when she leans up and her lips replace the touch of her hand on my cheek.

“Maybe I could get you to sing a song because this whole dancing with no music is kinda driving me crazy.”

“You’ll definitely go running for the hills if I do and I'm still not ready to let you go.”

The small side to side picks up again as I lead her in our little corner of The Observatory, the sounds and sight of the City of Angels around becoming an afterthought once more, right now it’s just the two of us in our own little world.

Without thinking and with a clearing of the dry lump that has formed in my throat, the lyrics that almost perfectly describe Marie and what I am feeling flows past my lips.

‘When she gets that come…get me look in her eyes…it kinda scares me the..way she drives me wild—.’

I look down, getting lost in the why she looks at me, jotting down to memory every last detail of her features, the way the corner of her eyes squint, the many ways her lips form a smile, the way she stares back at me with a look that makes my heart stop and beat like crazy at the same time, the way her breathing picks up when I pull her closer to me.

I pray it’s enough to last me a lifetime. 

‘When she drives me wild…beautiful, crazy, she can’t…help but amaze me…the way that she dances…ain’t afraid to take chances…and wears her heart on her sleeve—.’

My eyes close when Marie’s fingers caress the nape of neck. The hair that peppers my arms raise with excitement.

‘Yeah, she’s crazy but..her crazy is beautiful to me’

I don’t know when we stopped dancing or when one of my hands moved to the back of her head bringing her closer. Leaning in, gently nudging my nose against hers, seeing if she is comfortable with this closeness. The last time I had been this close she had pulled away and that was before I told her she could be my everything. There was a whispering touch of her lips ever so close to mine, searching her eyes, seeking permission to go a step further. 

My eyes widen before they close when Marie’s lips crash hard against mine, If I wasn’t holding onto her we would have taken a step back at the force of her kiss. Her kiss softens letting me feel just how soft her lips are, almost exactly as I imagined they would be, if not softer. 

Feeling her begin to pull back I press firmly against her lips, rewarded with a slight parting that I take advantage of, her body molding into mine and arms wrapping around me as our tongues move against each other. Her taste invading every part of me.

A moan escapes from her encouraging me to keep going.

My lungs begin to burn as they beg for air. But at this moment everything I need is right here in my arms, reluctantly I pull back before kissing her softly once more.

“I had to get you to stop singing somehow.” She murmurs breathlessly smiling against my lips. “Did you call me crazy?”

“Beautiful.” I whisper.

*****

Shortly after Marie surprised me with a kiss, I drove us back to her apartment. Her hand in mine as we climb the stairs. She glances over her shoulder at me and gives me one of her heart stopping smiles.

The ride over had been quiet at least between us. Marie had turned on the radio and I welcomed the musical distraction, it was hard to focus on the road when all I wanted to do was look over and glance at her.

Marie had been getting the first in everything when it came to us. She had asked me out, she kissed me, not that I was complaining. If taking things at her pace was the way to continue to be with her then that was something I’d be happy to do.

She didn’t run when I said what I feeling. My so called confession of a premature love that was blossoming.

Our night winding down as we took the last step up to her apartment. Two options run through my mind for how this night could end and one of them was wishful thinking. One, I bid her goodnight, be a gentleman and make sure she is safely inside then head home and contemplate in calling her before falling asleep with the image of her running through my mind as sleep took over.

Or option two, which in my own opinion sounded a hell of a lot better, was getting lost with her seeing just how those cover cling to her. Who was I kidding, I was getting way ahead of myself with giving myself the thought of option two.

“What are you thinking?” Marie’s soft voice asks me.

It was at that moment that I notice that we are standing at her door, turning to me her free hand running along my bearded jawline, closing my eyes at the sensation that courses through me. I would never tire of this caress from her.

Leaning down, pressing my forehead against hers. “How I don’t want this night to end.” I sigh.

Marie drops my hand from hers and pushes her body into mine, taking a quick step back my hands on instinct go to her waist, steadying her and myself as I feel the cool railing press into my back.

“It doesn’t have to.” Marie’s words a feather touch against my lips.

The look on her face tells me she wants something more and hell I do to, why lie to myself. Her lips parting as if she was going to say something but I don’t give her a chance. My hands go from her waist to tangle into her hair as I crash my mouth against hers. 

This time taking control, the tenderness of our first kiss under the stars long gone, now replaced with a hunger that was hiding in the shadows now coming to the forefront. Marie’s tongue slipping into my mouth, getting a moan out of me as her arms wrap around my neck.

I give her hair a slight pull, earning me a grin I could feel. I untangle my hands from her, running them down her back until my hands cup the roundness of her ass. Giving it a squeeze as I lift her up, she wraps her legs around my waist like we’ve done this many times before. 

Marie grinds herself against me, the strain in my pants getting a bit tighter. My hands going under her shirt, running along the smooth skin of her back. My eyes open at the loss of Marie’s lips on mine, seeing the hunger in her eyes that surely match mine. The clasp of her bra at my fingertips, one quick snap of my fingers and it would open. One pull up and her shirt would be over her head.

A groan rumbles in my throat at the image that would be displayed in my arms.

“Spend the night with me Wyatt.”

I don’t have time to answer or fully notice the slight hesitation in her words when there’s a cough coming from behind us. Marie’s head snaps back and I look past her.

A man stands firmly inside the open door, almost as tall as me but just a few inches shorter. Dark hair that is peppered with white. Brown eyes that match the woman in my arms, looking at me with a glare of being caught of doing something inappropriate. He folds his arms over his chest, this mystery man looks as if he is waiting for Marie or myself to say something. 

Words fail me. My racing mind not so much, how much did he see? How long had he been standing there? Did he see me grab her ass? Lift her up and watch her legs wrap around me? Or did he just see when my hands, that are still under Marie’s shirt, crawl up and get ready to undress her out in the open.

Any of those possibilities couldn’t get more embarrassing, well no scratch that, I did have something straining against my pants, lucky for me Marie was covering that up.

“Dad! What are you doing here?” Her voice sounding very nonchalant for the situation we find ourselves in.

Shock takes over as the words that Marie as spoken begin to register in my mind. 

Dad?

I hear that right, right? 

Dad! Dad?

Fuck…Fuck…Fuck!

I literally groped Marie in front of her father. My hands instantly drop and I slowly peel Marie off of me. Marie smiles sweetly at me before turning around to face her father as if he didn’t see what we were doing and what that could have lead to. 

With her turned away from me, she looks composed all the while I was squirming on the inside while I stood frozen under the watchful eye of her dad but from where I stood it felt more like a death stare.

From the moment Marie asked him what he was doing here to when he finally answered felt like time stood still.

“I wanted to make sure you arrived home safely.” His stare softened when he looked at his daughter. 

I watch as Marie shakes her head at him. “I didn’t give you a spare key to spy on me. It was for emergencies.”

“And my daughter going on a date isn’t an emergency?” The corner of his mouth twitches up into a smirk.

“No it isn’t!” Marie says with a bit of humor behind it. “What I should do is take it away.”

I watch as her father plays the hurt card at her words and hearing Marie laugh, dropping and shaking her head. “You wouldn’t do that to your old man. Would you? Where are your manners Mija, I’m assuming this is Wyatt.”

Marie turns to me and mouths sorry and for the first time since being interrupted I feel the blood pump through my veins once more, I smile softly at her. Taking a side step away from Marie, I walk to her open door with my hand stretched out.

“Sir.” I nod to him. “Wyatt Kent.”

His hand shake firm as he introduces himself. “Alejandro Castro.”

Mr. Castro looks past me, towards his daughter. “Come inside Marie, it’s getting late. I’ll walk Wyatt here to his car.”

Marie closes the space between us, giving her dad a quick hug. “It’s not that late. Wyatt and I were going to have a night cap. I could walk you to the car if you want.”

Mr. Castro stands next to me, giving me a firm pat on the back of my shoulder. “What do you say Wyatt. Walk an old man to his car?”

I look at Marie and then her father, I must be caught between some joke. Mr. Castro wasn’t that old perhaps in his fifties.

“Now you want him to walk you to your car? What happened to you walking him to his car?”

“That wouldn’t be a problem right?”

“I umm.—yeah I mean no sir no problem at all…” I run my hand through my hair nervously. “I’ll call you.” I tell Marie. The look in her eyes fades the slightest at my words.

“Nonsense Wyatt. Marie couldn’t stop talking about you and it would be such a shame for her to wait on your call. ” Mr. Castro speaks up. “Join us for church tomorrow. You do go to church don’t you?”

“Yeah..yes.” I lie, my voice coming out as a prepubescent teenager. I just lied. Why? I kick myself mentally, I lied through my teeth to the one person that can shut down any possibility of dating the woman in front of me.  

“Dad! What are you…Wyatt you don’t have to.” Marie scrambles to say. “Dad you don’—.”

“Don’t miss church on Sundays and Marie, Wyatt already agreed.” 

I look back and forth between them, her dad having a cheshire cat like grin and Marie rolling her eyes at him.

“Come on Kent. It’s late and time to call it a night if we want to be up bright and early dressed in our Sunday best.”

I watch Mr. Castro kiss his daughter on the cheek before turning around back to me.

“I’m so sorry about this, goodnight Wyatt. I had a great time.” Marie says.

“Me too.” I lean in to give a peck on her cheek but Marie surprises me once more and lands a gentle kiss on my lips.

“I really am sorry. I hope to see you tomorrow.”

I nod as I turn and fall in line with Mr. Castro, looking over my shoulder to get one last glimpse of Marie before walking away for the night. Catching her smile at me before she closes the door, I wait until I hear the locks on her door turn before taking another step.

Hearing a grunt come from the man next to me, not knowing if that grunt is of disapproval at what he saw or a grunt that earned me some points waiting for his daughter to be safely behind closed doors.

There was only one way to find out and unfortunately there was a chance that I’d be finding out while I was on my knees asking for forgiveness.

tags: @cariantha @thenannyaffair-fanfics @txemrn @issabees @nikirennie87 @choicesficwriterscreations @chemist-ana

[pjwarriorcats]

Into the Wild

So… what’s the deal with these cat books anyway?

If you’ve spent a decent chunk of time on the internet, you’ve probably encountered them in some form at least once. While by no means the largest fandom on the internet, nor even the largest book series fandom, Warriors fans are pretty prolific, particularly on art-sharing websites and on YouTube. 

The series itself began in 2003 with the release of Into the Wild. Since then, the series has only grown tremendously, with over 90 additional chapter books, graphic novels, super editions, guide books, ebook exclusives, and more (quick note for your own reference: I myself managed to read an even 60 of the main series books before I finally gave up). The children’s book series is written by Erin Hunter, a pseudonym shared by a team of writers and editors, currently consisting of Victoria Holmes, Kate Cary, Cherith Baldry, Tui Sutherland, Inbali Iserles, and Clarissa Hutton, and formerly Gillian Philip (fired after a run-in with what she called the “woke warriors” of publishing—more on that at another time). Different books were worked on by different members of the team, so the pseudonym was devised in order to keep them all organized together when placed on a library shelf.

[Alt Text: The cover art for the first Warriors book, with an orange cat sitting in a separate box, against a forested background where two more cats approach each other: Artist credit]

The books are about feral cats who have created an organized society of four Clans (each with around 15-20 cats) for themselves in the woods, complete with traditions, customs, a code of rules to live by, and a religion to follow. Built around this general premise, the series has since followed multiple plotlines, and many different characters have starred as the reader’s point of perspective in each book or arc.

These books hooked their claws into multiple generations of young readers. People found enjoyment in discussing their favorite characters, predicting future events, creating fan artworks, arguing over their favorite Clan and territory, and so much more. Furthermore, the basic premise outline left plenty of room for people to devise their own characters, Clans, and stories. Communities popped up around the internet, filled with people’s original Warrior Cats characters, sharing them with each other, creating artwork and animations, writing fan fictions, drawing comics, and developing stories. Roleplay forums related to these original characters (OCs) began appearing everywhere that they could, anywhere that had even the barest technological capability for it: DeviantArt and Wattpad comments sections, Minecraft multiplayer servers, online MMOs like Animal Jam, even MIT’s Scratch programming website. It was everywhere.

And it still is.

I can’t account for DeviantArt or Scratch anymore; it’s been a long time since I’ve traversed through those forums. But I can say with certainty that the Warriors Community has not stopped talking and creating and sharing what they’ve made since it began. The books are one thing, but it’s the fandom I really find fascinating, even all these years since leaving it.

There’s not really any way to consume every single bit of content created by the fans of the Warrior Cats books; there’s just too much of it. I’ll give you as big and as varied a sample as I can at a later time. There’s some extremely remarkable things out there that they’ve created. But the truth of the matter is that not every piece of media made in Warrior Cats’ honor necessarily deserves to be consumed, nor every creator supported. The series is not free from controversies, ranging from accusations of cultural appropriation, to zoophilia, to ableism, and more, and I hope to discuss some of those, as many as I can, as well.

Long story short: there’s a lot to say about the Warriors fandom. Let’s get into it!

[Alt Text: A digital painting of a large cream cat and a small grey cat running together through a birch forest. Artist credit]

[stories-n-such]

INTRODUCTIONS

You can call me M, and most of the writings here are about one of my LARP characters I've had over the years. (I'll intro them below) There are some things I'm going to have to tweak in a lot of these stories, to separate them slightly from the world they are based in, due to me not owning that world. I'm don't really consider myself much of a fanfic writer, because I don't tend to write stories with non-ocs, and mostly only My OCs and the characters they directly interact with. Hopefully you like what I write, and please feel free to send an ask or leave a comment on anything.

Character Introductions (kinda)

So, now that I’ve posted a bit about each of them, lets give some basic backstory my two main OCs that will be seen in these stories. Both of them were made first as LARP characters, and most/all of the other characters in these stories are either the characters created by my friends for the same LARP, NPCs created by the LARP staff for the story, or background characters I just kinda… made up for narrative convenience.

First we have my miscreant cat, Xane Darastrix. He is a black and silver/grey cat with blue eyes. He loves to dress in bright colors and as little of a shirt as he can get away with. (The cultural group in the LARP that he was from was based on stories and stereotypes about the Romani people, so bright colors, loudly enjoying life, that sort of thing.) (he's actually the picrew that’s the pfp for this blog) Xane himself is an incorrigible flirt, and pretty much omnisexual. With that though, he is surprisingly respectful, doing his best to curb the propositions towards characters that said they weren’t interested nor comfortable with him acting like that. He spent most of his tenure as my main LARP character basically illiterate. He could only read and write about as well as the average 6-7 year old in modern times, and was only really good with making sure anything he had to sign wasn’t getting him scammed. As a fighter, he was a skirmisher, running around the edges of the battlefield with twin daggers and only really putting himself into the middle of things when someone needed help.

The other main character in my stories is Trisara Page, also known as Tris. She is a purple humanoid dragon, with muzzle, wings, tail and all. She was raised in a library, and is (unintentionally) VERY Autistic coded. She is bad with social situations, and she learned much of her etiquette from about 90 year old books designed to teach young ladies how to properly behave. As such, her normal outfit includes a skirt and petticoats, and (given her wings, which are HUGE) since she can’t wear normal shirts, she used aprons that she added fabric to as halter-top style shirts. She is a mage, uses every type of magic available to her, and as a backup carries a massive glaive as a weapon. As she adventured, she ran into a small group of others who kind of… adopted her since she was hopeless out on her own, and almost walked into some very dangerous situations. She ended up dating two of them (who were married to each other as well but yeah SHE didn’t know that for a long ass while) and was very close with the other three. She started out VERY lawful good, which slowly was eroded to neutral/chaotic good behaviors.

I started out both my characters with little to no trauma. The closest thing was Tris never knew her actual parents, just the librarians who adopted her. And Xane was addicted to a drug called kinnip (think catnip, but it relaxed him). So yeah, any trauma that they come out with is from their current story, not backstory.

[jordanraye47]

part 2 cause i love her

- is a surprisingly good dancer, but only at certain areas.

- ^ hip hop and rhythmic gymnastics, she’s great at and all. ballet or jazz, just pull the plug man

- sometimes she has little tics due to such high amounts of energy being built up in her body without her being able to let it out

- she has just given up when it comes to hair

- ^ don’t brush curly hair while it’s dry? fuck you her hair can handle it

- very specifically i know 100% she likes miranda lamberts album “crazy ex girlfriend”

- one time she just chopped off half her hair and suddenly came home carrying her own hair in her hand.

- “athletes do nothing for our society! they get money for being a little bit better than others on tv and we praise the. for it and let them get away with crimes just for that? that’s so fucking weird. except eva i love her” - izzy 2007 or something

- oh my god she loves micheal cera

- have you ever seen samantha eve? that’s izzy just in another body she has possessed

- funniest trauma dumper ever

- ^ “my dads six feet under, kinda like how your hairline is six feet over noah. yeah, talk about decomposed.”

- i will not shut up about how i wholeheartedly believe that izzy and heather used to be besties and shit oh my god i should write a fic on this

- my mom just came into my room to complain about how the hairs of a toothbrush i got 1 month ago is already falling out cause i brush a little aggressively, so i’m gonna say izzy’s toothbrush has seen better days (it went through world war three)

- bro yall need to hear me out on duncan izzy and cody trio. they’re basically siblings bro. all that energy. french-fucking-canadians.

- seriously i’m so disappointed and shocked we didn’t get more duncan and izzy content cause wdym they aren’t basically siblings on the run from the government?

- i like to think that izzy’s mother wants her to be elegant and lady like, so out of pure spite she becomes a deranged unhinged bitch

- you guys i should actually make a td skins au. cause skins is running in the background and i hear “im thinking of leaving school, growing a beard, and joining a circus.” yeah that’s YET another au to go

- researching psychosis purely for izzy headcanons and fics.

- we all know this girl has the memory of either sheldon cooper or a 90 year old dementia patient, so if she forget to take anti psychotics for one day, the others will just find her staring out the window without blinking claiming that someone is watching her

- idk she has the angst potential ever

Izzy headcanons that aren’t an entire fic🔥

Answers scam callers the best way possible “hi welcome to Pete’s roadkill pizzeria where yesterdays loss is todays sauce, how may o help you?” Like that’s her duty

Considering she’s a literal famous actor, she probably has a social media accounts, and even though she rarely posts, when she does, she’s on the damn edge of being canceled.

^ “damn getting arrested for no reason🔥 guess orangre really is the new black”

Speaking of spelling mistakes (no I don’t know how to spell organge), she has dyslexia.

She’s not th favourite kid we could all tell.

Regardless of how much she smiles normally, she can not for the life of her smile for pictures. So 90% of the time her pictures looks like an alien that hasn’t quite figured out where they are, or just a thumbs up.

Thst or that stupid Lin manuela (I think that’s his name) pose.

Speaks crazy many languages, including ASL

She has very good curls, just doesn’t care to take manage them (yes this is me being desperate for representation of girls with curly hair that doesn’t know how to mangene them)

That and the reason she wears the bathing cap is because chlorine FUCKS UP curly hair ong soaking from experience 🙏

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Scarlett is her older sister.

dicorced nightgown porch cigarette mom and Texan truck motel dad that doesn’t give a shit what their kids do.

Always slightly thrown off when someone is nice to her bushes so used to Noah and Eva’s “mean love” or whatever you call it.

This girl did NOT have friends in school she BIT the other students

Favorite subject is art and sience (I have dyslexia you stuf don’t correct me)

So smart and also so stupid ^ “so what’s the square root of 589 iz?” “24.269.” “ok so do you think Pluto should be considered a planet?” “No of course not he’s a dog. Did you not watch Mickey Mouse”

“Parents got confused and chose daughter on anti-psychotics”

deadass i think her pshycosis is a genuine problem to her but it’s so easy to take it as a joke so she just goes along. (Read “artificial lawns” on AO3 by necrosys its very well explained there)

Has THE most vile t-shirts ever and she wears them in public with a pair of long ads jorts like she’d Adam sandler

Like these <33 - she lives on a farm it’s true she told me

She’s actually pretty funny she just can’t tell a joke without laughing at it herself

She is banned from the kitchen in every kitchen in the world

Izzy Cody and Duncan would be such a fucked up trio I’d love them

I got this from @kijosakka but she’s a really good braided us give her like 20 minutes.

Still has all her baby teeth in a jar

I wanna write some angsty ones so bad but I’m not putting you guys through all that.

I truly believe that Heather and Izzy used to be so good friends but after Heather got a teste of sweet popularity she didn’t hesitate to leave Izzy behind.

She has a secret room in her room

Snacks on yogurt and frozen fruit

She’s covered in freckles so badly like it’s top to toe

Can raise one eyebrow

her mother or herself are the only ones that cut her hair

^ and she has probably never been to a proper hairdresser

That’s all i have for today don’t forget to like and subscribe if you want morir epic content 🔥🔥

[chocobothis]

Time to Get ✨Controversial✨

For background, I straight used to run a moderately successful imagines blog for Haikyuu!! so I actually have a lot of background with reader-inserts. I never did multi-chapter long form and tended toward a bullet point. I also fucking love creating OCs and have been since before I knew what they were called. So I've been on both sides of this.

I heavily prefer to read and only exclusively write OCs now. There's a bunch of different reasons with I enjoy it more being the biggest one. The next is there just comes a point when something goes for multiple chapters that "y/n" is just an OC without an official name or description. To tell a complex, or even just fulfilling, story there comes a point where the MC has to be three dimensional and being as vague as possible isn't it for me. Stylistically I also just dislike y/n (and it's siblings "your h/c", "your e/c", etc.) because it's a reading interruption. Second person makes it easier.

Now for my bit where things aren't very inclusive or feel very token-y inclusive. A lot of these things read as straight up CisHet or at the very least Cis. I am neither so I can absolutely clock it. (Side Note: This is a problem I find in a lot of canon x canon as well, particularly if it's a wlw ship.) It's genuinely why I prefer to see headcanon lists just using second person; it's easier to be vague enough to be enjoyable. Also, a lot of things I see are just boring? It sounds mean but that's what it is to me. Like, we're in this Cool Fantasy Setting and my place in this is as the damsel-in-distress or hidden from the action person who can't fight and follows traditional feminine gender roles? If there's multiple species options then y/n is also human 90+% of the time. I didn't unlearn those to have my leisure activities shove me right back in. There's also just the general character takes I don't enjoy or rudely shoving characters aside to fend off the jealous.) (As an example for the last one this comes specifically from a lot of Mandalorian y/n. The reader is a Basic Human, like not even a Mandalorian, who can't fight and was hired to babysit Grogu. Which means y/n's money/transportation/etc is dependent on Mando. Literally this is what I was supposed to want growing up: a big strong man to protect me and our child while being the breadwinner.)

With all of this being said, I still check in oneshot reader-inserts on occasion. It sounds pretentious but it's like ""market research"". As I plan things I like to know what's the current "trending tags" so to speak. Because the chance of me getting engagement with OCs is more probable to be from people who also read reader-inserts. Since they're already stepping away from canon x canon. Outside of the y/n character there's usually some sort of apparent trends in execution of tropes. Also things like fanon for this specific character is easy to pick up.

I don't let this sway my overall writing or my OCs. At the end of the day me and my little committee of fellow raccoons chilling in our dumpster. However, it's nice to know what the current up and up is. If, for example, people are really into enemies to lovers then working on my ideas featuring that could get me extra engagement. I'm also not lying and saying I don't want praise and interaction because I do. It's a very human thing and it's 100% okay! I'm just not bending to cater to everyone but me.

As a sort of last thing there's a lot of different subtopics to discuss specific to OCs. I'm not getting into it on this because I've wrote enough. But, I just wanted to point out that I'm aware of it. This is specifically about Y/N versus OC fic and how I feel and why.

People can read and write whatever they want! I'm not here to police anything. All that matters is everyone's having fun in their own sandbox.

Reblog as to why you prefer what you do pls n thxs <3