#and not just in haha funny ways in oh you are deeply traumatized ways

[eggzbenadryl2]

this is funny bc i am in inpatient rn hahahah </33 i thought i told you? like a week ago? but maybe i forgot, my bad </33 but i wont deny that your answer triggered me deeply omg i want to starve so badly...

they tried outpatient but as i didnt gain weight, it has been a week or so since i came into the hospital for a checkup and said like "yep, you are staying. tell your mom to bring you clothes and bla bla bla" and i was like "oh 👍"

my mom almost kills me haha. not that its expensive as we have public healthcare but she talks about what others would think of her as a mother if i am in hospital for anorexia UWJSHZJSJ. not even worried about me. i guess cause its not serious, as you said </3

sorryyy didnt mean to tell you what to do :(( i was just worried, as i never did that before... but if you say its a must it hurts then its true right? youd never lie to me, you are my older brother <3 you just want to keep me safe and teach me, i know

i will try my best not to cry too much :(( can i have a teddy bear to hug while you r4pe me? so i feel a little better?

i am a little bit dissociated already by reading you talk about my abuse and trigger my ed so i kind of not understood well the explanation about hitting me... maybe you will have to show me with a practice? :(

hehe can we call it princess treatment from now on? <3 other parts in my brain call me stupid for saying that, but i think itd be a cute name! traumatize me until i forget about all that happened before you 💓 id love it!!

-🐑

No, you didn’t tell me about being in inpatient. You must’ve starved yourself so well you don’t have any braincells left to remember. Aw, was that really enough to trigger you? How fucking sensitive are you? I wasn’t even trying to be mean, honey bun.

Yes, everything I tell you is true. You fucking listen to what I tell you, alright? I’m the only one who knows what you need and you should just take it without question. I guess I could give you a little teddy bear to cling to while I violently r4pe your stupid fucking holes. Fuck, that’d be so fucking cute.

Haha, you’re so cute and dumb. That’s okay, you don’t need to understand. I was just trying to be nice and explain it to you since you didn’t seem to understand how your own brain works. I’d be happy to show you instead. Stay cute and stupid for your big brother, okay? I like you so much better this way.

Sure, we can call it princess treatment. It’s a very cute name. Very fitting too since you are my little princess after all and what I’m doing to you is just another way of showing you how much I love you.

I’m just curious.. do you have father or is it just you and your mum?

[notebeans-galaxy]

my younger sister and i have discussed this at length but i really can't wrap my head around just how similar my family is to the batfamily. it is every bit as dysfunctional with direct parallels between 4 batfamily characters and me + 3 other members of my immediate family. i genuinely think that if i wrote something myself about my older siblings it wouldn't be as accurate to their personalities as jason and dick are. hell, my relationship with my older brother is a mirror of tim's with jason down to the attempted murder and somehow coming out of that with a decent relationship years later. i am fully serious he tried to kill me when i was about 7 or 8

not everything's the same, of course (for one, we're not fucking vigilantes lol) but it's enough to be really disconcerting when i see the batfam interact with each other. especially how they argue.

[mmikmmik2]

If you were to sort the Infinity Train cast(s) into the Major Arcana a la the Persona games, which Arcana would you give everyone?

anon I had SOOOOO much fun thinking about this, thank you so much for sending me this. I sorted all the major characters, plus a few other entries, based on a mix of Arcana symbolism, Persona series character archetypes, and general vibes. I came up with answers I feel pretty good about for all but four of the Arcana. (Was really tempted to say Strength is every human character who doesn't board the train because they can handle their problems on their own lol.) This is going to be a long-winded post, so I thought I’d post just the list as an image (which hopefully won’t be too blurry!) rather than wrestle with Tumblr formatting trying to make a short list, and put a big text wall under the readmore talking more about my picks.

If this list does end up illegible, the same info is under the readmore as text! Plus some characters for Magician, Strength, Justice, and Death that I didn’t want to add to the “official” list because they’re more based on headcanon. (Although my reasoning for some of the “official” picks is pretty weak lol.)

One-One as 0. The Fool

Oh my gosh, what am I?

IT is great at fleshing out character backstories and families, so One-One at the beginning of S1 is one of the few characters who really feels like a blank slate. He's got a lot of his baggage back by the end of the season, and I think One and One-One are more similar than they seem at first glance, but S1 does seem to have been very formative for One-One and how he thinks about what he's supposed to be doing and how he relates to other people. So it does kind of feel like his fool's journey.

Alrick Timmens as I. The Magician

The magician begins the journey... by beefing it on a dirt bike, dying, and sending his wife flying off the deep end. Rip.

Alrick was an engineer like Amelia, so I could see him suiting some of the themes of the Magician, like conscious thought and manifesting ideas. His apparent playfulness and insecurity are similar to the Magician characters in Persona.

Kez as II. The High Priestess

“We can’t make this decision for you, Kez.” “You know what to do.”

I thought really hard about making Kez the Magician because just like every Magician since Persona 3, she's dumb, horny, and insecure dlkjasfdkl

(and also her showing up at the start of the story arc and being helpful but also super needy is very Magician)

But the idea of "intuition" really does suit Kez. Sometimes her intuition is as bad as her conscious reasoning, but I think that's a lot because she's so confused about what happened with Jeremy, and Morgan making Kez feel like she did a bad thing by helping him.

Tuba as III. The Empress

She made me feel like I was warm all the time.

Tuba's a mom. Sorry, this one's not that deep, haha.

Simon Laurent as IV. The Emperor

Highest number! I'm the leader now.

Simon has a lot of issues, but the one that felt the most prominent to me was his unhealthy relationship with power, authority, dominance, and rules. Another quote I considered using here was what he said in Grace's memory of meeting Amelia: "I never thought I'd get to see the Conductor with my own eyes. He's perfect! Everything finally makes sense again." In his emotional crisis, he thought everything could be fixed just by the existence of a huge, scary, powerful, male authority figure, even if they weren't doing anything helpful or informative.

Atticus as V. The Hierophant

I like to think that our stones are sturdy and handsome, like the Corgis that crafted them.

Atticus is a figure of traditional authority who deeply loves the history, society, and culture of his people. He often provides spiritual wisdom and encourages Tulip to get out of her own head and engage with the world around her. Also in Persona, Hiero is the Dad Arcana so it's very funny to me (a) to make the little dog be Hiero and (b) that the little dog really does have the strongest Wholesome Dad Energy of the whole cast.

Jesse Cosay as VI. The Lovers

Don't tell me what to do. I'm not going to be a part of anything like this, on or off the train.

This was my first and easiest pick lol, Jesse is sooooo Lovers. Like, the focus on choice and personal values and relationships? Yep, that's Jesse. It works on an "actual meaning of the Arcana" level and a "vibes with the Persona characters" level lol... popular, upbeat, and having such an identity crisis.

Lake as VII. The Chariot

I'm my own person, who is getting off this train!

I don't know if Chariot captures all the ways Lake grew over the course of S2, but I feel like they had the most externally focused conflict of all the IT characters, which suits Chariot. They've been fighting to stake out their personhood from start to finish, and they took action and used their willpower to achieve that goal. Also they have at least a little jock energy which is a prereq for Chariot tbh.

Frank as VIII. Strength

I dunno, I kinda imagine him as a simple man and easily underestimated, but with a lot of heart. The Cat may say they're keeping things casual but I don't think she'd take him with her on her private vacation unless he had some kind of inner toughness that would let him stand toe-to-toe with her.

Morgan as IX. The Hermit

I need to be alone right now. Kez... maybe... we can talk later.

I like that Morgan embodies toxic self-isolation and stonewalling and rejection, but that she seems to be moving towards the positive aspects of Hermit and taking some time to calm down and process and think. I like it when characters can embody the best and worst of their Arcana.

Tulip Olsen as X. The Wheel of Fortune

We have to adapt to the changes in our lives. It's the only way things can get better.

Tulip has a lot of themes and conflicts, but this one is a clear standout as the most important. I also like it for Tulip because, while she has to handle a lot of difficult and even traumatic situations, some of the change that challenges her isn't as unambiguously bad as e.g. the death of a loved one. It really is just change itself she's struggling with, and that's Fortune babey. Also, from the perspective of the train itself and lots of other characters, by reversing Amelia and One-One's positions again and changing how One-One administrates the train, Tulip is the one giving the wheel a spin. That's fun.

Lucy as XI. Justice

One of my friends once described the Justice characters in Persona as "the ones the player character is ultimately accountable towards", and I like to think of Lucy as kind of being that for Grace (...since Hazel has excused herself). Lucy is the Apex kid we see Grace interact with the most, the first Apex kid Grace admitted to herself that she had harmed (see Grace very briefly showing distress and then regret when Jesse points the harpoons at his face and she stops him), and the first person to confront Grace when she came home in The New Apex.

Min-Gi Park as XII. The Hanged Man

I don't know if we'll sell a single album, but we'll figure that out as we go.

Min-Gi sacrifices his "realistic", "sensible" goals for a more personally (spiritually, even?) enriching life that's beyond his control and outside of the expected norm. Like the Hanged Man, who dangles foolishly upside-down, but as a deliberate choice and in a state of serenity and enlightenment. I also think this arcana suits a reading of Min-Gi's character development as starting off going slower as a way to stall and live in denial, but then going slower with deliberation. Compare his arrogant insistence on refusing to act in The Astro Queue Car to his patience and care in The Castle Car and The Train to Nowhere.

Jeremy as XIII. Death

This isn't about the death of his family - I'm thinking of his reluctance to admit his number was going down. He cared about Morgan and Kez, and it's possible both that he may have really wanted to stay with them despite his exit and that that might even have been a healthy choice - they're real ass people with feelings and everything, not holodeck characters. But I also think Jeremy was using his life with them to avoid moving on out of that fog (because it was hard and it hurt and he didn't want to think about what that would mean for him and Morgan) and Morgan was enabling him.

Ryan Akagi as XIV. Temperance

Maybe the experience is the point. I wasn't just rushing you. I was rushing myself.

I think this one speaks for itself. Also, the other quote I considered putting here, from The Art Gallery Car: "You told me I can't appreciate the song without taking in the rest of the album. I need the whole package."

The Cat as XV. The Devil

I always do the right thing.

Honestly, this is one I really wasn't sure about. The Cat isn't a great pick for a lot of the meanings of Devil. She is definitely consumed by material comforts, and the short-term rewards of ignoring her issues at a long-term cost, though. This is more of a "vibes with Persona characters with this arcana" pick... Devil characters tend to start off being somewhat exploitative or even antagonistic towards the player character, and gradually showing a more conflicted and genuine side.

Amelia Hughes as XVI. The Tower

There's a hole in the universe where Alrick used to be.

Amelia's life is defined by catastrophe and upheaval - both those she's suffered and those she's inflicted on others.

Hazel as XVII. The Star

I'm going to keep loving you like you're still here.

When I think of "The Star" as a small but inextinguishable light in the darkness, Hazel seems like the obvious choice. Although we left her deeply wounded, I think she still has a flicker of her hope, faith, and purpose.

Grace Monroe as XVIII. The Moon

But it's unfair for me to tell you how to understand yourself. I mean, I don't even fully understand me.

Grace is probably the most complex and dynamic character on the show and hence one of the most difficult to place. I considered Empress, Strength, Devil, and Judgement for her... I think ultimately, lies and illusions are the most unifying theme of her character arc. Also, from a Persona angle, her pursuit of status out of a lack of true self-worth reminds me of Ai and Mishima.

Alan Dracula as XIX. The Sun

Brought together by the majesty of a superpowered deer!

I'm sorry dkjasfklads this is largely because I thought it was funny to have this completely inexpressive dead-eyed deer as Sun akfk but also... like... it kind of works okay!!! Think about the genuine joy and comfort and positivity he brings to Lake and Jesse (and me)!

The New Apex as XX. Judgement

"Then what are we gonna be?" "Guess we'll have to figure it out?"

This is kind of a Persona mythology gag again because of Judgement being a group social link near the end of the narratives of P3 and P4, when the protagonists have pierced through the lies and actually figured out who the villain of their game is and are ready to really start making progress.

0 as XI. The World

Ah, train does it again!

It's an ending and the completion of a journey, but also the beginning of a new one. And the world is literally what the passengers receive at the end of their train journey. Welcome home.

[chdarling]

Ok I’m so glad someone mentioned wolfstar tag bc I have thoughts.

I’ve never read any Wolfstar not because I am anti-Wolfstar, but because I am really picky about how James and Lily are portrayed in fics. If the characterization is off, I find it hard to read. (That’s a whole other issue bc there’s little about James and Lily’s personalities, but there are obviously hints here and there and it’s up to writers and readers to take those liberties and make those interpretations.)

Anyway, one of the reasons I love your writing is because the story and characters you’ve created are so believable to the point that I feel like it’s canon. You expand so much on each person’s character while fully understanding what drives them. You know their deepest desires and how they act on them.

That said, I’m so excited that you’re including background/light Wolfstar because I can totally see Remus and Sirius being broken young men trying to go through this world feeling unloved but finding solace in each other. And I feel that because you’re so rooted in canon and doing it justice in TLE, the way both Sirius and Remus will likely realize and act on their feelings will be the slowest of burns and authentic to the times of mid-late ‘70s. To each their own on how Wolfstar is told— that’s to say there’s no right or wrong to how we indulge in fics (because this is my escape and I’m sure it’s as well to everyone else who reads fic)— but I feel like although being queer/gay at the time was more accepted than, say, in the ‘40s, it still isn’t as accepted as it is today, 50 years later. Both Sirius and Remus are known to have struggled with their identity anyway, but also realizing they are queer/gay/bi would have been that much more difficult to come to terms with. I can’t wait to see how they come together even though it will likely be a long road ahead for them.

Lastly, I also didn’t realize this was going to include Wolfstar when I first read TLE1. Now as I reread, I can totally see it in how Sirius and Remus are portrayed however subtly, which is why I’m so excited to see what you have in store. Wolfstar isn’t some far off HP ship (no hate! but some are very not canon) but it’s rooted in the way JKR initially wrote them. And after 10 years of reading HP fic, I now am realizing that they probably should have been canon just based on pure compatibility.

(P.s. sorry for my horrific punctuation)

Ooooh I love this message thank you ❤️❤️❤️

I can totally see Remus and Sirius being broken young men trying to go through this world feeling unloved but finding solace in each other.

This! This this this! This is exactly how I feel about them hahaha. They are such flawed characters living through impossible, deeply traumatizing times. Their relationship is going to be messy and difficult and at times painful…but oh what an angsty joy to write 🙃

but I feel like although being queer/gay at the time was more accepted than, say, in the ‘40s, it still isn’t as accepted as it is today, 50 years later.

Yes, I tend to view wolfstar through this lens as well, although I’m self-aware enough to admit I’m definitely leaning on my own experiences here as well haha. It’s funny, but as a someone who grew up as a closeted teen in a super conservative part of the US, I see kids today from that same part of the country being openly out and I’m just…floored. Absolutely out of my mind happy for them and all, but it’s still astonishing to me. My school had publicly-funded bible study and banned us from starting a GSA lol. The world has changed so much in even ten years.

ANYWAY that was a tangent. But yeah, I can’t imagine dealing with this as a teen in the 1970s, and I also imagine wizarding culture to be fairly conservative. And as you point out, they both have all these other identity issues to work through, and I think for Remus in particular he's dealing with "well it doesn't matter anyway because I'm an unlovable werewolf" on top of that. :(

And after 10 years of reading HP fic, I now am realizing that they probably should have been canon just based on pure compatibility.

As the aforementioned closeted queer teen, I used to be so upset that Wolfstar wasn’t canon, but now I just find it hilarious. Like JKR wrote the most the obviously queer-coded characters she could muster…

Lycanthropy being a metaphor for AIDS? We only get one canon scene of Sirius as a teen and she takes the time to tell us that he’s blatantly ignoring female attention? Giving Harry joint Christmas presents? One’s a wolf and the other’s a dog? One's the moon and the other’s a star? Lie low at Lupin’s?!??!

…and then she panicked when people pointed out their obvious gayness and coupled Remus off with the only single female character left lmao.

(For the record I am all about bi Remus, no Tonks hate here, she is queer AF too, I adore her, and I absolutely believe we can love more than one person in our lives, just…lol)

Anyway, wolfstar is such a fascinating, messy ship to me, even if I’m not always convinced it was a happy or successful one, canonically. It won't be a major romance in TLE, but to the extent I explore it, hope I can do it justice. I’ll try!! 😊❤️

[dathen]

The ableism towards Jon is also why I kinda hate the "Jon is stupid" joke, like yeah Jon has made some dumb choices. (Which are actually mostly tied to impulsivity rather than lack of intelligence but I digress.) Now its gone from "why'd you smash that table my guy" to "haha Jon is socially awkward what an idiot" and its... yikes.

(Oh boy I have a whole tag dedicated to that discussion because I figured people might want to blacklist it.)

It’s funny because the Q&A’s literally say “stupid protagonists are one of our least favorite horror tropes” and “we’re more interested in exploring the real effects of trauma and mental health, and having characters react realistically when they’ve been through so much vs having them ~go insane~”  So you get characters (not just Jon) making terrible choices that are deeply rooted in trauma responses, PTSD, and self-destructive tendencies.  Like I’m sure most of us were like NOOO JON THAT’S A STUPID DECISION NOOOOO, but then looking back in that context, we can see what led to them.  That’s honestly one of my favorite things about The Magnus Archives as a whole; it’s so rare to let characters be affected by their trauma, and it’s so rare when that’s allowed to manifest in ugly and messy ways vs. just “this character is extra sad now.”  

But send it through the “flatten everything into a joke” machine and you get weirdness like “Jon’s trauma responses are him being stupid, the girls’ trauma responses are them being badass.”  A perfect example is Basira and Jon charging off to Ny-Ålesund.  In the text you have dialogue exploring in detail how it’s a trauma response for both of them:

Not like there’s normal trauma, you know?  But it’s pretty common.  The most important thing becomes control, engaging on your own terms.  Even when it’s stupid or dangerous.  Anything to not feel helpless.

And then I keep! seeing! posts!  About how Jon’s an idiot for charging off, and it’s good Basira is there to ~be the brain cell~ and keep him on her leash!  Which both dismisses that Basira is also traumatized and erases her complexity, but is just downright nasty about Jon’s mental health.  

....WHICH, BACK TO YOUR ASK, I can see how that spread to that character as a whole , and how much it lends to the “Jon is so stupid and deserves to be bullied for it and all his smarter friends laugh about it” trends.  I remember Jon’s obliviousness about relationships or Martin liking him was mostly received at first as “haha, what an ace mood, I can never tell when people are together or when they have a crush on me either.”  It’s such a huge jolt on both an ace and aro level to see how it’s become “Jon’s so stupid, of course Melanie and Georgie are together, why would Georgie help Melanie recover if they weren’t dating??”  Can we please go back to the ace culture jokes!!  Why is “[character] is such a stupid idiot” humor so popular anyway??

[spockandawe]

Hi.....if you don't mind me asking, what are your top 10 favorite books? And why? Sorry if you've answered this question before....

This is an interesting question, and a difficult one! Which is why I let it steep for a few days while I was in a bookbinding fugue, haha XD

I’m not sure I’ll be able to answer it, because my level of fondness is highly dependent on how recently I read a book/how many times I’ve reread it, with an optional nostalgia modifier if something made a huge impression in my youth. And when I’m picking favorites, as the number of potential [thing] expands, the more I end up dithering and fretting that I’m forgetting something HUGE as I choose. So rather than a selection of top ten, I’ll just run down through some of my favorites! I’ll split it as five cnovels (recent reads, current genre hyperfixation) and five more conventional english-language novel (realistically, probably more like series, unless a standalone book occurs to me), and I’m not going to rank the conventional novels.

SO. Regular novels first. There’s a heavy recently-read/frequently-reread element going on in here. 

The Imperial Radch trilogy, by Ann Leckie. Okay, I am a sucker for a nonhuman protagonist, which is going to pop up in at least two other entries. And I’m also a sucker for themes of what can be perceived about a person externally versus their internal world, and Breq delivers like WHOA. She has SO MUCH going on in her head, and even though we’re in there with her, she still hides lots of her emotions from us. And characters like Seivarden hit me in character development buttons that I’m a sucker for, and the whole idea of consciousness being split across multiple bodies is DELICIOUS to me. Also... love me a sentient spaceship. ‘The Ship Who X’ series by Anne McCaffrey isn’t going to make this list, but I also love it a lot. (also, a universe of ‘she’s made me realized how STARVED i was for that degree of representation in certain genres that i love a lot, but don’t often see myself in as often as i might like)

The Murderbot series, by Martha Wells. Another nonhuman, sometimes-human-passing protagonist! Another one processing MASSIVE trauma of a sort that I, the human reader, have to slow down a lot and try to comprehend from an extremely different life experience! I like that a lot, it really forces me to LINGER on the nature of what a character is feeling. And oh my god, Murderbot’s voice is one of my favorite pov voices of all time. And watching it work (or go hogwild on its own asdfdgd) is absolutely delightful. I love literally everything about this series, except what happened with Miki. Other than that? Flawless.

The Books Of The Raksura, by Martha Wells. Martha Wells is a DELIGHT, y’all. Also! Another heavily-traumatized, nonhuman protagonist! And this time, like... It’s a fantasy world with huge amounts of sentient species, and the protagonist grew up away from his people, who are basically a bunch of feral homesteaders (LOVE THAT), and is trying to figure out how to reintegrate into their societal structures as an adult. That desperate desire to belong and feeling of discomfort and not-fitting-in, and the connections he makes and the way he DOES find a way to fit... like if u crey every time. Also, as far as we’re shown, it’s a cheerfully bisexual, polyamorous society, and *grabby hands*

Discworld, by Terry Pratchett. God, what do I even say about this series. It was a PARADIGM SHIFT. It’s bitingly funny, and also just plain biting, and full of huge varieties of interesting stories, set in a fascinating world, with a series of protagonists who I love too much for words. Vimes! The witches! Moist!!! They’re all so WONDERFUL. I still haven’t read the last book in the series yet, because then it will be Over Forever, and I can’t deal. This one is heavily nostalgia-tinted, but also, I stand by it.

The Belgariad/Mallorean, by David Eddings. Okay. Also very nostalgia, and the choice I can justify the least. But these books CLICKED with me. I’m afraid to reread them, because I’ve been wallowing in queer fiction for so long I’m worried about what the compulsory heterosexuality will feel like, and I know both series are very... episodic, in a way that isn’t necessarily great literature. But I dunno! Feels good, man. It’s high fantasy with a magical system I like, segmented worldbuilding of a sort that isn’t necessarily WELL-MADE, but it’s like... comfortable and easy. And something about the style and the character voices just clicks with me. I have no idea how well these hold up in the present day, but I do love them, and I’ve been planning to reread at least The Redemption Of Althalus by the same author as a standalone before I commit to a 12-book rereading of this universe, but.... I like em XD

--

Cnovels! I think I can rank these, so let’s go for it.

Fifth favorite: The Disabled Tyrant’s Pet Palm Fish :B Look, it’s ridiculous. It’s a transmigration story where the lead enters this fictional universe in the body of a fish, where he is adopted by a prince who eventually falls in love with him, and YES IT IS TAGGED MPREG, BUT HOLD ON A MOMENT-- I don’t know! I came here to point and laugh, but I’m honestly having such a good time right now. It’s really cute! And sweet! The main character is delightful, and the love interest is that particular flavor of semi-socialized upper-class young man, where like, can he do court politics? yes. can he politely express his affections for the main character? uh....... less so. It’s a really fun read, and I felt very sincere emotions about this prince who is passionately, deeply in love with his pet fish!

Fourth favorite: Mmmmmm, Mo Dao Zu Shi, I think. I struggle here, because it is NOT an easy book to read or show to watch, but having consumed the story, I love it to PIECES. I know a big draw for me is the protagonist, specifically, and his relationships to the people around him. And the more I cared about him, the more I wound up caring about the people around him, who I’d kind of neglected before, if that makes sense? It’s a story that really rewards some good old pondering. I didn’t care that much about Lan Xichen, but then I started thinking about how Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji relate to Lan Xichen, and then oh no, I care SO MUCH about his emotions, and now I’m thinking more deeply about how Lan Xichen relates to Jin Guangyao and Nie Mingjue-- It does lose points in this ranking because it IS hard to get into, and I would struggle to keep everyone straight even more if I didn’t have the show visuals to lean on, but it is still story I enjoyed VERY much.

Third favorite: Erha, but I feel REALLY, REALLY BAD that I can’t fit Yuwu on this list too, and I just want to loop them together. It’s time travel fixit fic, but it’s the book! Yes????? I love this. I love the striking character growth we get to see, and the changing perception of the world as the main character relives through events he already experienced and sees things in a new light, and I adore how Mo Ran’s growing guilt goes hand in hand with his growing love. And Meatbun in general... like, my god. I haven’t read another author who’s able to yank me through emotional whiplash so hard and fast. She makes me hoot with laughter one moment and then burst into tears the next. It’s absolutely wild. I love mxtx, and I think svsss/tgcf are gentler entry points into the genre and deal with lighter themes, but meatbun is seriously an UNBELIEVABLE writer if you can deal with the darker topics she covers.

Second favorite: The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System :V Look, I love it. I just love it. I love, again, characters dealing with the aftereffects of old trauma, plus I do also love seeing NEW trauma piled on top of it. I love having a main character with emotional dysregulation issues who doesn’t necessarily make good decisions, but doesn’t just leave me thinking ‘jfc what an asshole’, and I think that’s a really hard balance for an author to strike, especially without us getting direct pov. I love themes of being wanted and insecurity about being wanted, which is Luo Binghe’s major, major damage. And this is my first transmigration story I ever read, and the contrast between a main character who read the novel telling us about what’s totally going to happen versus the ground shifting under his feet is INCREDIBLY delightful to me. I’ve read other transmigration stories I enjoyed, but none that got my attention quite as much as this one.

First favorite: Tian Guan Ci Fu ;u; It’s so good. It’s so well-made! It’s so LONG, and it meanders, but also, I would scream if anyone tried to trim anything out of it. I am here a lot for the ship, honestly, but I also find the plot themes VERY interesting. I am very much here for reading about characters trying to process old trauma that’s been dredged up by new events, and also very here for the themes about how characters either pass their traumas along to the next generation, or try to shield the next generation from taking the same kind of damage (see: mdzs). And I’m also very much into tempering stories about pain with like... memories of kindness, and small acts of kindness repaid with an outpouring of devotion (see: svsss). But the craftsmanship in this book is just... DIVINE. I’m always reluctant to start rereading this one, because I have a terrible time stopping. There’s nothing about this book that I don’t like.

[idolish7rabbitchats]

Isumi Haruka: Wonderful Octave Rabbit TV Part 1

Haruka: “RADIO STATION “Twelve Hits!””?

Torao: Yeah… That was the radio show IDOLiSH7 and the rest appeared on last year right?

Minami: Throughout the year, TRIGGER and Re:vale have appeared on it too.

Toma: Right! We’re gonna be on that “Twelve Hits!” this year!

Torao: Heeh.

Toma: What, your reaction is weak!

Torao: It’s not unusual to get a radio job right? Why are you so excited.

Toma: Oi oi…. It’s “Twelve Hits!” though?! It’s a radio show that any Japanese person knows, it’s a famous show!

Toma: It has existed since we were children, you heard it at least once right?

Haruka: No. I only watch RabbiTube.

Torao: Hahah, you are such a modern kid. Well, I haven’t either though.

Toma: No way?!

Minami: I have. It’s a radio show with one monthly broadcast in which the personality changes every time right. 

Minami: I appeared on it once when I was young. 

Toma: Seriously, Mina…! That’s amazing…!

Toma: I sent messages countless times but it was never chosen. I see, so Mina was on it huh….!

Minami: My my. If you open your eyes so wide, your eyeballs are gonna fall out. 

Minami: I don’t feel bad that you are staring at me passionately to the point that you’ll sacrifice your eyeballs.

Haruka: Hiih…. Don’t say scary things...!

Torao: I see. I understand that it’s an amazing radio show for which you could sacrifice your eyeballs.

Toma: ...Cough. So anyways, we should accomplish this amazing job too!

Toma: Those guys’ radios from last year were super interesting!

Torao: You listened to them?

Minami: So you listened to it huh.

Haruka: You listened to it?

Toma: Wa-Was it bad to listen to them….? Why are you looking at me like that!

Torao: No reason.

Haruka: No reason?

Minami: No reason, it’s nothing. 

Toma: You guys get along only at this kind of time...

Minami: I was impressed by your positive attitude of collecting other people’s information other than your friend Nanase-san.

Torao: Hm. It can’t be helped huh. Touma wants to be friends with them huh. It’s that we’re not enough huh.

Haruka: Torao, don’t get sulky like a brat. He won’t understand unless you tell him directly that you want him to entertain you.

Torao: I’m not being sulky. Even if Touma keeps talking about things other than us.

Toma: …...It just seemed fun to me that they were giving each other requests… I was longing for that kind of thing...

Toma: I was listening while thinking that it would be fun to do that with you guys!

Torao: Heeeh…?

Haruka: Hmmmm…?

Minami: Inumaru-san, did you want to give us requests?

Toma: Yeah! There were some ridiculous ones too, but somehow it feels like they were members!

Haruka: Ahh….. Oh right, Kujou Tenn was excited when he pulled his little brother’s request huh.

Toma: Yeah yeah! So you listened too!

Haruka: Eh? Ah…!

Haruka: I-I didn’t listen to it! It was just coincidentally playing in the car is all.

Toma: If Haru knows the radio, that’s easier! This time, it seems we’ll be getting requests from the listeners too, not just the members.

Toma: Please think of it properly!

Minami: Understood. You have to answer no matter what it is huh.

Torao: Even though people wanted me to, I never asked someone; it’s new.

Haruka: Let’s rampage like us on the radio too!

Toma: Right, we’ve all gathered huh. Let’s give our requests for Haru!

Minami: Yes. I thought of a request that suits Isumi-san.

Torao: That’s a nice smile, Minami. Are you thinking of a good idea?

Minami: That’s right. I’m very excited about it myself.

Toma: S-Somehow that smile is suspicious… It’s a request he can do on-air right?

Minami: Yes, of course. The variety corner will surely be hyped up. 

Haruka: Variety huh… Haaahh...

Toma: Hahah. What is it, Haru. You look depressed. You don’t want to do it?

Torao: I get it. Maybe he feels lonely right? At the radio recording, we wouldn’t be there huh.

Torao: You have a surprisingly cute side huh. 

Toma: Is that true..?! Although you dance as the center onstage with us, you’re still a highschooler huh...

Toma: Sorry I couldn’t notice that! We’re members so say anything. We’ll support you!

Haruka: ….Hah?! I-I’m not feeling lonely at all! Don’t misunderstand it!

Minami: Then, what’s the reason you’re thinking deeply?

Haruka: ……”Twelve Hits” is a talk variety radio show right? I was wondering what would be the right way to talk.

Minami: The right way?

Haruka: Yeah, like a role model for a variety show. Kujou Tenn had been saying that sort of thing before. But, I still don’t really understand.

Haruka: Television and radio might be different though. But, I’m the last one to show up on “Twelve Hits!” as ZOOL.

Haruka: If I'm gonna show up, I want to do it perfectly!

Toma: Haru….! You were really thinking about variety jobs huh..!

Toma: That’s amazing huh!

Haruka: Wh-...! Don’t rub my head..!

Torao: You don’t need to think about the right way. You’re the radio personality. Whatever you want to talk about is right isn’t it?

Minami: It’s as Midou-san says. The listeners want to hear Isumi-san’s topics.

Haruka: Really…?

Toma: That’s right, Haru! You don’t need to be mindful, if you talk like with your friends it’ll be fine.

Toma: Like with Izumi or Yotsuba! And… Was there someone else?

Haruka: I-I have other friends! I just exchanged Rabbit Chat IDs with a classmate the other day!

Minami: Mm, that’s great.

Haruka: It was just to get their contact info for a group project though...

Toma: Oh, our conversation went off! Let’s give our requests!

Toma: It might be nice if they’re things that can also support Haru. Like a topic that helps him practice variety!

Torao: Heeh, like what?

Toma: Let’s see….

Toma: Ah! Like an impromptu comedy skit!

Haruka: That’s too much! I haven’t done comedy before though!

Toma: So then isn’t it fine? It’s worth hitting the taller wall! Be a man, go for broke!

Minami: What if he broke and shattered and it traumatized him forever.

Torao: We would gather his ashes. Maybe Touma huh.

Haruka: That’s not funny though….

Toma: What, are you scared?

Haruka: I-I’m not really scared or anything! ...Impromptu comedy is easy!

Toma: Yeah, if it’s Haru, you can do it! I’ll tell you the theme on the day you’ll do the radio.

Torao: Haha, you have a lot of courage. Then, I’ll request you talk about something too.

Torao: How about doing a presentation about our charm as ZOOL for the listeners?

Haruka: Presentation… Is it like selling products? Like we see on the TV at midnight...

Toma: They sell really sharp knives and such. Something that can easily cut through a pumpkin or something! 

Haruka: Seriously?! Is there a knife that can cut like that?!

Toma:  A pineapple too.

Haruka: An amazing knife…!!

Minami: My my. So the theme for the comedy skit will be teleshopping?

Torao: Well, ZOOL is a product in a sense. Haruka, try to sell ZOOL to all the listeners with your talk. 

Torao: Fascinate the audience across the radio, make them think that they want us so much they could pay anything. 

Torao: How about it? It’s most suitable for practicing your talking right?

Haruka: What a pain… It would be easy if I showed them our performance. Can’t I sing on the radio?

Torao: If you want to practice like you’re standing onstage, I wouldn’t mind that either.

Haruka:  ...Got it. I’ll try.

Torao: Hahah, you are unusually sensible.

Haruka: Saying unusually was unnecessary. Even though it’s painful, I can’t refuse the request right?

Haruka: And, I understand that Touma and Torao are saying it for my sake so...

Minami: Fufuh. Then, shall I give the well-behaved Isumi-san a carrot?

Haruka: Carrot?

Minami: The carrot from a carrot and a stick. Because you got sticks from the other two.

Minami: Please request something from the three of us. Your birthday is close, so we would do any service like adults.

Haruka: Eh?! Is it fine for me to request something? ...Anything?!

Minami: Yes. Anything. We have the son of a noble family too.

Torao: That’s the first time I’ve heard that. Well, I don’t mind tho.

Toma:.... Mina’s request is a normal one for the radio huh. It was a waste to worry about it...

Minami: Fufuh. I said a request that would suit Isumi-san didn’t I?

Haruka: ...It feels weird. The impromptu comedy seems hard but, all of them are for me...

Minami: Today it was just for that feeling though. 

Torao: Just accept it gratefully.

Toma: You guys aren’t honest huh…! Everyone just treasures Haru that much huh!

Haruka: Hmmm? … Eheheh!

Haruka: It might not feel so bad huh! But it’s annoying to just be spoiled.

Haruka: So I’ll do the radio perfectly and surprise you guys!

[vaguely-concerned]

The Mandalorian Chapter 13 rewatch thoughts; the reduced salt edition

or at least I’m trying to be more constructive with the salt in this one let’s goooo

- god I miss the armourer so much. look at how fucking cool she looks, this is the mando design I hunger for so deeply, WHY would you give me boob plates back instead haha 

- I will say with the way it’s presented this place feels way too small to be called a city lol (and I think that limited scale hurts how much I’m willing to accept the magistrate as a credible opponent to go toe to toe with ahsoka freaking tano. maybe if we’d seen directly the extent of the magistrate’s power and influence and not just the burned out wasteland that power leaves behind I’d be more on board with it. canonically she’s clearly been extremely rich and influential on a galactic scale, while the aesthetic filoni takes from samurai movies in this has a lot more to do with local warlords and smaller stakes. this is not the only time the adherence to that aesthetic without adapting it for the emotional story at hand or giving it a spin for novelty hurts the episode #hot take. it’s empty homage without quite understanding why the moments you’re emulating work so well in the context of the story they serve.) 

this might be because how it’s filmed makes it seem like there’s just one big main street towards the magistrate’s palace, it’s implied to be quite a bit bigger from the establishing shot as the crest comes flying in? 

- LOVE the implication that din lets baby play with the silver ball pretty freely while they’re on the ship but sets the (completely sensible tbh) boundary that he can’t bring it with him somewhere outside where he might lose it for good. that seems like reasonable dad-ing, din, well done. 

anyway my heart is hurting because that silver ball is like a comfort item for the kid and it’s pretty clear from the very start that he has some kind of understanding of what might happen on this planet and so does NOT want to go out there, but also... that thing is narratively introduced as the baby’s way of saying ‘dad, don’t forget me, don’t go’. it’s what made din go back for him the first time, and that’s a connotation it still has both in the audience’s mind and for the characters. and I need to go cry in a corner for a while be right back

- not for nothing but in this scene of the baby being faced with din and a jedi standing side by side as if to present a choice, din literally has the sun right behind his head like some kind of fucking halo

 gee I wonder what the baby’s choice is going to be fsadfjkhasdkjfhs. (he! loves! his dad! so much!!!!!!!)

- I wish they’d done more with the bored punch clock villain, hey-I’m-just-here-for-the-paycheck-man vibe of the guard captain guy and maybe given his nonchalance a bit of a darkly comedic tint, I think it would’ve made a better moment when he’s facing off with din towards the end if he had more... character. make him a bit more of a dark mirror of the soulless gun for hire people have seen din as in the past (and as the magistrate seems to now), do something interesting here. maybe even make it more of a mexican standoff with him holding a gun on an innocent or something so there’s something here for din to lose, it still does the western thing and lets you have that ramping tension you need for when you cut between the sword duel and this. hell, have him actually give up and walk away to show that he doesn’t fucking care about any of this, he did evil for money without any driving passion or conviction behind it, and let din decide if he’ll let him walk away scot free or not after what he’s been part of, that’s a neat subversion of the trope as well! as it stands it’s just so... empty   

- baby says ‘mada! mada!’ again when they try to approach the vendor who appears to be serving foodstuffs! so maybe a word he has for food or maybe something like ‘lady person!’? (he says it when frog lady is gone on the ice planet and also as she’s walking into the razor crest for the first time. he did seem more interested in the eggs at that point, sooo lol)

din reacts to him speaking too, he glances down at him <3<3<3

- the baby seems to sense ‘ooof this is scary, time to hide’ on his own before they go into the magistrate’s place, din doesn’t appear to signal anything to him  

- there’s a lot of deliberate silence in this episode, but the sound design that gets space away from the music somehow isn’t as immersive to me as it usually is on this show? I have no idea why, though 

- ‘a jedi plagues me’ is somehow so fucking funny to me. the tl;dr for a lot of star wars villains through the ages

it also still cracks me up that din is immediately like ‘ma’am you can’t afford me’ fsdhfaskf

- I’m so happy din talks to and reassures the baby when he puts him down in these situations now, I remember being SO SAD when he didn’t back in chapter 7. he’s learning all the time!

- I think we should all be very happy this fight is cut off almost as soon as it begins, because I’m pretty sure ahsoka could kick din’s ass real bad and that would be terrible because I love him (listen din definitely has his moments, but up against a force user for the first time and said force user being one of the most powerful and battle-experienced jedi alive? probably not huh, if he survives that it’s on pure fatherly love and desperation and nothing else)

- this seems to be the baby asking ahsoka to carry him back to be with din (mando certainly seems to be what they’re ‘talking’ about right before) and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen 

din’s fingers are also doing the nervous curl-uncurl thing as she puts the baby down, and it remains the sweetest goddamn character tic, he’s adorable

in the long pause after he tells her “he needs your help” he’s sitting SO TENSELY, it’s only when she at least promises to test the kid that he relaxes a bit

baby (well, grogu, but he’s also baby) recognizes yoda’s name and seems to almost ask ahsoka ‘yoda is here???’, and her blink in response is like ‘no, I’m sorry’ 

- I still deeply dislike how it’s actually done in the episode, it’s so clunky and it annoys me on a craft level, but I do like the overarching thematic narrative of both mando and the baby being on this journey towards specificity and remembering themselves, of reclaiming the particular nuances of an identity that make up a self after a series of traumas have stripped it away from them. at the start of the show neither of them has a name (and din doesn’t even have a face) and they’re basically presented as broad archetypes, The Mandalorian and The Child. and now we’re slowly unearthing things that make them this specific child, grogu, this specific mandalorian, din djarin. it’s rediscovering parts of yourself you might have thought lost as you heal from trauma and I do like that very much, it’s touching and the emotional throughline this show should never lose sight of   

- oooooh no baby glances over at din when she asks him to push the stone back ;______________; it’s so awful because you can just tell... he understands that if he does this thing din might leave, but also people have clearly tricked him into using the Force before and given him this traumatized kneejerk association that if he uses it where people can see him Bad things might happen

oh okay so I think din just subtly misunderstands the baby’s appeal to him here, he thinks that look towards him means ‘dad help I don’t understand what’s being asked of me’. I guess he doesn’t have any way of knowing how complicated the baby’s past is with this yet, it’s a good try

- I’ve seen people take ‘he understands’ as baby understanding everything that’s said to him all the time, which is patently not true haha. he understands quite a lot, in the way toddlers actually understand quite a lot of what’s going on around them, even a bit of words spoken to them before they’re especially verbal themselves, but he clearly mixes up his colours still sooo

I also suspect he’s played this game before -- surely that must be one of the most obvious activities the jedi would do with the smallest children, playing Force catch basically? but he still doesn’t trust it, or her. (on the other hand he does trust that din would never hurt or trick him. help me I’m drowning in my own tears)   

- personally and from anything else in this show I don’t think din would be this impatient with the baby after hearing, less than half a minute before, that he’s terrified

but hey I’m not the man in the cowboy hat what do I know (yes I’m bitter characterization matters okay lol)

- it’s both funny and so sweet that the same music plays during this father and son playing catch scene as when baby lifted that mudhorn fkdfha

- for my money din reacts exactly perfectly to grogu finally Force pulling the ball -- he’s excited and happy, signalling that this thing doesn’t have to be scary and dangerous and that when shared with the right people it can be a good joyous thing, he moves over to the baby so they can share in this victory and attune, and crucially he doesn’t demand more afterwards, which the baby must have gotten before from some of the assholes who’ve been experimenting on him. it’s just the celebration and satisfaction of having done the thing without demands or threats or any ulterior motives. HIM!!! DAD!!!! 

tattoo this straight onto my heart... the way baby cheerfully offers it back to din... sdkjafhksdfhsakdjf 

- din breaths out roughly and unevenly through his nose almost like it’s been punched out of him and starts fiddling with the silver ball (which is still his primary tell for anxiety/stress!) when ahsoka says “he’s formed a strong attachment to you” :) listen if I have to know that all of you fuckers are going down with me 

- see the thing is... if you don’t know who ahsoka is in pretty deep detail, you might take her at face value here instead of understanding that she’s actually projecting her own feelings and traumas onto this. if you absolutely have to use this character for this part of the show you have to set her up better specifically so someone who’s never seen a single episode of clone wars can grasp the basics of where she is emotionally and what her motives are, so that her role in this story makes sense. as it is it’s sort of a compromise between pleasing old fans (who can do quite a bit of inferring to figure it out) and approaching audiences who don’t know anything, and it falls flat    

(for the purposes of this show I aggressively do not care where thrawn is, and so I’m just annoyed when we find out what this was actually all for haha)

- still feel reluctant to discuss too much about ahsoka because of the whole... situation with dawson, but I do like that she lets one of the guards leave after disarming him because he’s cowering and giving up, and that she still has her padawan braid wound into her belt. also I think the effects on her and her outfit are completely fine, my problems with her this episode are all writing craft and real life stuff 

- when you get first the jet pack sound, then din coming down kicking that dude in the face, then the mando flute kicking in as he lands properly... the only time the action in this episode made me go ‘fuck YEEEAAAAH’ it’s awesome

- again, just like with the idea of having a samurai/ronin movie standoff and a western standoff at the same time: having the scene be mostly silent except for the almost musical sounds of the light sabers hitting the beskar spear is such a cool concept, and it does not work in action. I don’t know enough about filmmaking to tell you why it doesn’t, but it doesn’t.

there’s also something about... the ahsoka vs. morgan scene apes the deliberately staged, ritualized, exaggerated almost like how you’d perform it in live theatre aspect of the duels in the genre, but in an empty way? why are they acting like this, what’s their relationship to each other, what’s their individual code of honour that makes them let the other person slowly theatrically disrobe before going for them? just plucking the aesthetics out of a tradition and plopping them down in your own thing without thinking about the whys or original context of it leaves it without meaning 

(also let morgan express something of her own character other than I Am Evil rather than having ahsoka drop the entire exposition on her. maybe you could have her snarl some illuminating lines while they’re fighting so you get the feeling of the bitterness and brokenness that has fuelled her and burned the woods of this whole planet. in some ways she’s not that unlike din and ahsoka, she lost everything in the clone wars too and was motivated very differently by it than they were, play that up so the situation’s relevant to our protagonists! I’m sorry for all this nitpicking but I HAVE to figure out how this could have been done better for my own sake haha)     

- ooooooh the way din says “I can’t accept” when offered the spear is in fact almost an exact echo of when the armourer offers him the signet in chapter 3! I thought it sounded familiar, it’s delivered in such a similar way. huh. din has some Feelings about earning things and when he hasn’t earned something, doesn’t he

- din also cares A LOT about not breaking his word, to the point of being willing to stoop to some quite dishonest methods to avoid giving his word in the first place, and I find it utterly delightful 

- baby closing his eyes again after din wakes him like he’s thinking ‘maybe if I don’t wake up dad won’t go’ or even ‘at least this way I won’t know it happened until later, when it’s over’... pure emotional torture :) thank god din’s entire soul is clearly howling in protest and he took the slightest chance ahsoka gave him to not actually go through with it 

- so this is the second time we get someone telling din he’s like grogu’s father. well, the armourer gives it more like a command/almost a religious obligation, ‘until it is of age or reunited with its kind you are as its father’, ahsoka is stating what’s obvious at this point but says ‘you are like a father to him’... maybe they’re doing a rule of threes thing and the last time it’s ‘you are his father’ and it sticks?

- anyway din cradling the baby so close to his chest with both arms all the time instead of the more practical way he carries him around in the crook of his arm sometimes... my suffering is deep and endless   

[baejax-the-great]

Hey I realise you’re getting hate for this and I genuinely understand if you don’t want to explain, but if you were willing I’d like your input as to why you thought the finale was terrible. I personally loved it, but I acknowledge that there’s a lot of room for discussion and I’d love to hear yours! If you don’t want to post it publicly where you could receive tons of hate you can always message me, or ignore me entirely that’s absolutely fine!

Hoo boy. I really did not expect my 4 note post to get noticed by more than just like two mutuals, so this is all a little confusing.

I don't generally like to spell out my dislikes, because like I said, I think it's good that people enjoy things. I don't want to ruin things for other people. If you liked the finale and don't want to see someone's negativity, by all means, ignore this post.

But since you asked, I'll put it all under the cut for my negative feelings about a beloved show (and what is apparently a beloved season) and massive spoilers.

First, for what it's worth, I enjoyed the first 8.66 episodes and probably would have overlooked most of this had I not hated the ending as much as I did. It was pretty and fun!

I think my two main issues with this season come down to two major writing issues. The first was a lack of planning, the second was the Marvelization of the series.

1. Castlevania is a 10 episode show with 20 minute episodes. Given this, having two big arcs was a mistake. They simply could not wrap everything up in one season in a way that made any sense, so they chose not to. Everyone in Carmilla's arc acted wildly out of character, including Carmilla herself, who went from being shrewd, cunning, and a planner, to suddenly completely deranged. Lenore had also previously been cunning, and was now demoted to uselessly hanging out with Hector. Hector, who previously was easily manipulated and not cunning, now had secret plans that master manipulator Lenore had no inklings of. And three minutes after the four women agreed on their plan, they all suddenly had issues with it. Add in Hector having no real motivation for wanting Dracula back (he never agreed with his agenda in the first place?) and it was just a messy arc and the writers took the easy way out by literally bombing it before it went anywhere.

2. The Marvelization: Sypha, Trevor, and Alucard all looked fantastic in this season, had incredible fight scenes, and dropped witty one-liners. Fun! But beyond that, there was no character growth, no moments of love or tenderness between any of them and just no depth.

Alucard-- Alucard was traumatized by season 3, opens season 4 drunk, alone, miserable, and with bodies on spikes outside his house. Turns out two minutes with the FOURTH "Woman-who-can-kick-my-ass-and-is-slightly-unhinged-but-super-clever" cured him of all his issues. Haha, isn't it funny I killed my ex boyfriend and girlfriend after they tried to murder me while we were fucking teehee? I'm so glad Julia Sypha Saint-Germain's non-verbal GF Greta was there to give him a nice, heteronormative ending or whatever.

I would have been MUCH happier if they didn't throw a random romance his way and if they had, you know, dealt with ANY of the trauma both in S3 AND S4. I mean the man just watched his parents get brought back from the dead and then die AGAIN IN HIS CHILDHOOD BEDROOM, but, you know, a quirky woman held his hand so it's fine.

Belmont-- The ENTIRE point of Trevor's character growth was that he made friends and that made him better. He starts the show alone, miserable, drunk, and over time he finds friendship (not just romantic love but friendship, come ON). But he ends the show facing off death alone while his friends do nothing to try to help him (they are both capable of flying?? Oh well, you got this, Trevor). This battle added no new info about Trevor and added no emotional depth to him. We know he does shit alone and doesn't care enough about his own survival. That's been true since ep 1. Trevor getting the shit kicked out of him while he fights is just an average day, so I don't know why they dragged this fight out.

Sypha-- This is where my qualms with S4 became fury. Honestly, I was willing to overlook a lot of the bad writing until the writers leaned hard on the "man dies but leaves woman pregnant so part of him kind of lives on and it's not a total tragedy because she got a baby out of it." This was the trope and the part of the ending that personally offended me deeply (and it's my own issues with this trope so I don't expect everyone else to hate it as much as I do!). But blah blah man of the old world dies but brings in a new world and also his spawn will live in it or some shit. Even if Trevor ended up surviving, it was garbage, and like I said above, did nothing for Trevor's personal character arc. Being a father? That would be a much more meaningful arc for Trevor than anything that happened this season.

Sypha, I guess, grew this season in that she swears now. That's fun. Oh, and she's better at Greta's job than Greta is, so... cool, I guess.

Like Marvel, S4 basically didn't show a deep connection between any of the characters, not even Sypha and Trevor, tbh. But the fact that S3 showed how deeply Alucard missed Sypha and Trevor, and the two of them never once even thought about him? That also stung. I loved seeing the reunion, don't get me wrong, but it was still weird. It wouldn't have taken much for Trevor and Sypha to learn about the plan taking place in Dracula's castle and then express some sort of concern about Alucard. Instead, they reunited with him without even knowing they were going to. It was just emotionally very flat, and I found this a missed opportunity given how much their friendship made the show fun.

Oh, but hey, Dracula got a happy ending? Because I was really, truly, worried about that. ?????????

So yeah. Everyone in the Carmilla arc acted out of character with the previous season, and everyone in the Dracula arc was very hot, very shallow, and in the case of Alucard, very out of character.

[xiaomomowrites]

well if u want some ANGST what about mikasa dying in the trost battle early on in the series and eren's last words to her were some aggressive shit and oof

Introduction: I’ve been thinking about this encounter for awhile now lol. Man I’m so glad you requested it, I was waiting for some angsty shit sksksk this was really fun to write, I hope you enjoy! - u.n.

Oh and, just a warning, this one isn’t pretty. It gets a little graphic. Might be a bit much if you can’t stomach a little blood/death. This one was wild haha. Read at your own risk! -s.a.

Alright here we go Battle of Trost

Takes place shortly after she gives up and lays down her life

She stands up when the titan decides to come fuck w her and prepares to fight

As we all know, titan boi comes into save the day

Except he doesn’t lol

He steps right next to Mikasa and she goes flyin’

The way she falls back isn’t as graceful as we have seen. Instead, she flies back and hits her head against the concrete, landing on her arm wrong and somehow accidentally impaling herself on the small blade she was holding moments before (don’t run with scissors, kids)

The blade is deeply seated in her abdomen, but she doesn’t take it out. It’s the only thing stopping her from bleeding out

She’s suffering from traumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage (tSAH). Blood is filling into the space that surrounds the brain and it’s no bueno

Suddenly Mikasa feels the urge to vomit, and becomes very dizzy. Despite the adrenaline rushing through her veins moments ago, she feels extremely fatigued

The hard concrete floor has never felt so comfortable

She’s losing vision. The last thing she sees is Eren’s titan pounding the other titan’s head into the ground, and the sound of his roar

The last thing she thinks, though, is, “I love you, Eren. I wish I had told him sooner.”

Mikasa blacks out, and because the bleeding had been so severe, not to mention the blade in her stomach, she dies before anyone can find her

Let’s take a moment to take in consideration Armin’s perspective: he thinks he lost Eren to a titan, and then he stumbles across Mikasa’s dead body only moments after her “I’m stronger than all of you” speech

It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, and he wants nothing more than to shut down and die at this point. The rest of the 104th won’t let him. But! While he’s being dragged away, Armin takes her scarf from her neck and covers her with his jacket

Movin’ on down the road, Eren is pulled from his titan

Mikasa isn’t there to cry on him. This time it’s Armin, grieving the FUCK out of the situation, and feeling nothing but guilt 

Right after the situation with Kitz and the Cannons™, Eren lands himself in the infirmary to be looked over

He notices the scarf on Armin’s neck, and no Mikasa in sight. He frowns. It’s horribly out of place

“Where’s Mikasa?” Eren asks. Armin had been silent the entire time, sitting in the chair next to him but staring at his hands blankly. 

Wordlessly, Armin begins to unwrap the scarf from his neck and puts places it in his hands. Eren doesn’t wanna touch it. He doesn’t want to accept the possibility that she’s gone. 

Armin takes his fingers and forces it closed to where he’s gripping the fabric. They both are.

“Eren,” he starts, not even believing the fact that he’s able to speak. “Mikasa… Mikasa isn’t- she’s not-”

“You think this is funny?” Eren speaks. His eyes are wide and blank. Armin can pinpoint the exact moment anger begins to override his entire being. “Not a fucking joke, Armin. Where is she?” 

“Eren,” Armin cries, “Eren, I’m sorry-”

“No, no. Fuck, no, I’m being serious-!”

“So am I!!” Armin yells and brings his face closer, choosing his next words very carefully. “Mikasa is dead.”

Eyes are wide and unblinking; his gaze shifts down to the scarf in his hands. 

“Who did it?” his voice is dangerously quiet.

Armin’s face contorts, depicting the five stages of grief all in five seconds. “Eren…” 

“Who did it, Armin? Was it a Titan?”

“Yes,” Armin swallows hard. He was technically telling the truth.

Eren lets out a choked noise, balling the scarf in his lap. Tears are running down his face. Hot, angry, fat tears roll down his cheeks and onto his neck. They fall into the scarf

“She’s not… no she’s not. Mikasa can’t be…”

Dead. The word sits with him heavily. The fact sits with Eren heavily, refusing to mix into his being like oil and water. 

He has a whole crisis about her being gone, never being able to see her again

Eren suddenly felt his stomach sink and the urge to vomit was at his throat, remembering his last words to her.

“I’m not your child or your brother!” 

“Don’t die,” Mikasa had said. Eren laughs bitterly; look who ended up dead. 

Ew he hates it, he hates himself. 

“I’m gonna kill them all,” Eren vows. 

Armin winces. “Eren…” 

“Every single one of them.”

“Eren that would include you,” Armin interrupts, here goes nothing. “Your titan… it killed Mikasa.”

postscript:

“How did it happen?” Eren’s voice echoed in the empty room, though his voice was barely above a whisper. His eyes were dead set on the hands in his lap and his entire body was unmoving. 

“I don’t really...think we should be talking about this right n-”

“How did it happen, Armin?” this time he was looking right at him, and the emotion behind those eyes was almost too much to handle. Armin shifted uncomfortably under his gaze and focused his gaze on the scarf in his lap. 

“I...I don’t think you meant to do it, Eren.” the blond’s voice was soft, afraid  of the volcano of anger erupting in his best friend. This kind of anger was different; it was boiling, brewing, it was a silent anger, it was laced with an ugly hatred that Armin couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was truly harrowing..

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Armin studied him, sympathy filled his eyes. It was misdirected anger; it was understandable. Of course this would hurt him, but there was something else in Eren’s expression that was telling him what his words wouldn’t. They must have fought before this all went down. 

Yikes.

“I mean, she wasn’t eaten, if that’s any consolation.”

“It’s not.”

“Okay,” he eyed the way Eren’s grip on the scarf tightened. “She died of blood loss and head trauma. When I... when I-I saw her…” Armin’s gaze shifted down at the memory, bile creeping back up his esophagus and his eyes began to water.  “God, Eren, when I saw her...it wasn’t pretty. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stay long enough to see. Not that I wanted to. I think...I think she might have fallen on her blade and hit her head.”

Eren breaks eye contact, but doesn’t move a muscle. 

He wants to scream, he wants to throw up, he wants to get up and go on a destructive rampage. 

Suddenly he hears more of Armin’s quiet apologies somewhere off in the distance, underneath all the weight he’s feeling on his shoulders. The room is spinning. He feels absolutely numb, and his chest feels so damn tight. It becomes hard to breathe, and the next thing he knows, his best friend is beside him, reminding him to inhale and exhale. 

He thinks he’s doing it. It sure doesn’t feel like it, since the room still felt so tight. The walls were closing in even tighter with each breath, and no matter how much he squirmed, there seemed to be no escape. He felt a hand take his and squeeze in an attempt to remind him of the present, but time seemed to just be an enigma as his mind played back every single time he had fought with her. Or maybe it was just the important parts. Maybe it was some good memories. He saw her face, her smile, her tears.

And then he was retching, and it was a little ugly. He wanted to vomit, and Armin was crying again. What a fucking mess. 

It might have been ten minutes later, or an hour, but once the room became still again and both boys seemed to have found a solid grasp on their sanity once more, Armin cleared his throat. 

“She loved you, Eren.” It seemed like the right thing to say. 

Eren nods, and he thinks that’s the only reaction he’s gonna get. But then he shakes his head, and grips the scarf in his lap, “I love her, too.” 

[donamoeba]

TRACK 1 || TRACK 2 || TRACK 3 || TRACK 4 Thank you @aliasanonyme for the audio clip!

TRANSLATION

Nao: So, Ikuya, what do you think we should do? How about nininbaori where we eat a piping hot oden stew? (T/N: Nininbaori is a comedy act similar to "Helping Hands" in the show Whose Line Is It Anyway? where two people wear the same large coat and one person acts as the face while the other is the arms. They are tasked to do mundane things, usually eating, and humor arises from the arms never being coordinated with the face.)

Ikuya: Absolutely no way!

Nao: Haha, I was just joking.

Ikuya: You sound like you really mean it, it's scary, Nao-senpai...

Nao: Eh, that's not very nice. Is that your impression on me?

Ikuya: Ugh... well... yes.

Nao: That’s pretty brutal, Ikuya. You're like Natsuya in that sense.

Ikuya: Actually, Nao-senpai, I'm sorry you got dragged into performing party tricks just because my brother decided on it out of a whim.

Nao: I'm used to it. Natsuya has always been like that... pushy, or should I say, the moment he thinks of something he just dives headlong into it.

Ikuya: Speaking of which, Nao-senpai, I heard that you were dragged into joining the swimming club by my brother.

Nao: That's true. He made me sign the club application form on the first day of middle school. It was amazing, the way he forced his way into the swimming club.

Ikuya: That stupid brother...

Nao: Well, it turned out alright in hindsight. But yeah, if he grows up to be the same and keeps being so pushy, maybe I'll be mad at him for real.

Ikuya: I'd be angry with him as well. Since he was a kid, Brother has always liked to get everyone to do what he enjoys doing.

Nao: Yeah, you're right.

Ikuya: He hasn't changed at all. When he finds a soft drink that he likes the taste of, he would buy it every single day.

Nao: Ah, that sounds like him.

Ikuya: And movies, too. When there's something he likes, he makes me watch it again and again, to the point I have the protagonist's lines all memorized. Worst of all, once he enjoyed cycling so much, he said he wanted to share the fun with me and without warning put me onto a mountain bike and took me to a slope, even though I just started on training wheels. Is that even normal!?

Nao: Wow, that's... ugh, so, could you ride it?

Ikuya: There was no way I could ride that bike! I fell hard and cried my eyes out.

Nao: That makes sense... come to think of it, I had a similar experience as well. It was in middle school and we were heading home from school together. We barely knew each other then, but we were in the same class, so it's kind of natural to end up going home together, right?

Ikuya: Well, I guess.

Nao: And then Natsuya said he knew a shortcut and tried to walk a straight path from the school to my house. He didn't even care that there were walls and fences in the way. Haha, I was so shocked! Even though it's the shortest distance for sure.

Ikuya: That stupid Brother!! I'm truly, deeply sorry.

Nao: It's okay, it was quite funny, actually. Since it's a route I'll definitely not take. By only changing the road home a litte, the sights I see on the way changes, too.

Ikuya: Nao-senpai...

Nao: But it was private property, so when we were caught later, both Natsuya and I got a good scolding from it.

Ikuya: Woaaaahhhh!?

Nao: Ikuya, all the different faces you're making are really funny.

Ikuya: Nao-senpai, could it be that you're just playing with me?

Nao: Of course not.

Ikuya: I doubt it.

Nao: Anyway, I wasn't lying when I said I'm not angry with Natsuya, and it's also true that I had fun.

Ikuya: Brother does these things out of good intentions, so if you really are uncomfortable with them, please make sure you yell at him.

Nao: Hmmm... it hasn't been that bad up until now. Besides, if he really goes too far, I'll make him eat the super-spicy lotus root filled with mustard paste in my lunchbox. He gets pretty quiet after eating it.

Ikuya: What an odd way to get your revenge... since Brother can't stand spicy food... but anyway, I'm glad it's not that bad for you.

Nao: What about you, Ikuya? Have you ever been seriously angry with Natsuya? Oh, except for that time.

Ikuya: Ah, well, um, I'm really sorry about it all.

Nao: It's fine. I'm glad both you and Natsuya are really enjoying yourselves now.

Ikuya: Yeah, in a way. Let's see... have I been angry with my brother before? Hmm... oh, I remember, the time when he gave me a box filled to the brim with cicadas that he spent a whole day catching in the mountains, I got really mad at him. I was so traumatized I couldn't stand cicadas ever since.

Nao: That does sound awful.

Ikuya: He was really happy and proud when he brought them back though.

Nao: I wonder if the cicadas looked like gold to him.

Ikuya: Maybe in his mind, they are of equal value.

Nao: I'm surprised you were so attached to him when this is what you went through in your childhood.

Ikuya: I was like you too, Nao-senpai. When all is said and done, I still had fun, and he took me to places that I wouldn't have gone to myself.

Nao: I see. I'm glad you brothers made up.

Ikuya: Well... yeah. Mom seems happy, too.

Nao: Natsuya has grown up a bit too, so he's a good big brother now, right?

Ikuya: Except for when he invented a really disgusting sports drink after reading a bunch of books on training and made me taste-test it... I guess?

Nao: What? He made you drink it as well? Ahaha, yeah it was pretty foul. It has a good balance of nutrients, but he didn't give taste much thought...

Ikuya: Seriously, Brother hasn't changed one bit.

Nao: The child is father of the man, as the saying goes.

[Chimes]

Nao: Oh, it's time for the swimming club.

Ikuya: We haven't decided what party tricks to do yet.

Nao: Let's go with nininbaori and piping hot oden stew!

Ikuya: Like I said, no way!

Nao: Really? Well then, let's just do something on the day.

Ikuya: Huh? We don't have to decide?

Nao: Don't worry, if we can't come up with anything, I'm sure the other can't either. I am sure.

Ikuya: I think... I now understand why you can stay as friends with my brother, Nao-senpai.

THE END

[starsgivemehp]

Take an older fic (or art for our artist friends) from about a year ago or older even and talk about it, show it off and hype it up.

Tagged by @imakemywings​

You’re Always Holding On to Stars

Ok so this fic was actually started more like 10 months ago, but eh, close enough. It’s... not finished... but I will finish it someday!

It’s one of my favorites just because it’s got two of my original Undertale muses in it! Red was the first undertale muse I ever used. He’s changed a lot since my initial characterization of him way back in, idk, 2017? 2016? He’s gained a LOT of depth and backstory, and he can be very nuanced. But on the other hand, he’s fun and not too complicated most of the time. He’s a little shit at times, but he’s got a good heart and he cares about his people very deeply. He’s been through some shit, too, nearly given up multiple times, but he’s still standing, somehow. He’s stronger than he thinks he is, and I just love him. <3

Now Arum, Arum was another super duper early muse, he got the first extra tumblr RP account I made, back when I was doing that. As a horrorfell, he’s got a horrific (haha) backstory, and he’s a salty, salty boy who likes to play “my life sucks more than your life sucks” because he’ll win, every time. He’s got major issues, but he, too, cares quite a bit, even if he hates showing it most of the time. They’re both just tragic and funny and put together, once they work out their issues, they can become a really heartwarming couple.

I remember the first shitposts I did with Arum’s blog were to have him post on Red’s blog, having ‘hacked’ it and mocking him a little. They squabbled and insulted each other and that’s exactly how this fic for them started! But in time, like they will in this fic, they grew to respect and understand each other, and even fall in love. Their mutual love of science really binds them together.

So without further ado, the info you need!

Rating: Explicit

Words: 5,914 (so far)

Pairing: Red/Arum (underfell!Sans/horrorfell!Sans)

Summary: After being left to rot underground for too long, after a civil war and starvation and the loss of too many loved ones, Arum hardly cares that he's on the surface now. There's more food, but the rest of it kinda sucks, and he's too bitter and angry to look for something to give his life meaning. He's just traipsing through, unable to die and unwilling to truly live. This crybaby smaller version of him is only pissing him off.

Red maybe has a few issues. Maybe. Like alcoholism, and a sex addiction, and a little bit of recreational drug use, and okay, maybe he's also depressed and anxious and traumatized, but he's fine. Really. Everything's fine. He isn't going to give up HoPe. Not again. He's... He's gonna make his dreams come true. He is. Maybe. Possibly. But it would be nice if that horrifying people-eater would stop being such an asshole. Yeah, that'd help.

Thus, the hatefucking begins.

Excerpt from chapter 2:

[Red] had lost count of how many drinks he’d had, but that was normal. It wasn’t all that many yet, he was pretty sure. He didn’t feel blackout drunk, just pleasantly drunk. But when he saw a familiar horrifying-looking skeleton settle into a seat just one away from him, he felt like he wasn’t quite drunk enough.

“oh, fuck, it’s you,” he muttered to himself. He didn’t really mean to say it aloud, and he cringed when he did, hoping the guy hadn’t heard. But Red should only be so lucky. The guy - Arum, he thought - swiveled his head instantly, good socket narrowing. He looked Red up and down, leaning on the bar.

“oh, fuck, it’s an asshole,” he snapped back, and Red flushed.

“whatever, at least i don’t eat people,” he huffed, knocking back another drink.

“yeah? good for you. bet ya never starved a day in your life, huh? bet ya never felt so hungry you couldn’t even stand up, or see straight, or even talk. huh? ya ever been in that situation?”

“no,” Red muttered, squirming a little in his seat. Sounded awful.

“yeah, that’s what i thought. so don’t judge me for surviving, you whiny crybaby jerk.”

“crybaby?” he protested, bristling and sitting up taller. “who the fuck’s a crybaby?”

“you! tearing up over lv, oh, life’s so hard with 8, i regret every bit of exp, i’m so precious and need to be sheltered!”

“hey, fuck you! you know what? fuck you!”

“What’s going on over here?” Pyre interrupted, looking between the two skeletons in confusion. Arum’s expression shifted strangely, and he looked up at the fire elemental in something like confusion. Red knocked back the last of his drink, then slammed the glass down and gestured for it to be filled again.

“nothin’, buddy, just a little moral disagreement.”

“Moral disagreement,” he repeated blankly.

“yeah. i got morals, and he don’t got any.”

“i’ll moral my foot up your coccyx, you-” Arum started, only for Pyre to flare up brightly.

“Okay, enough!”

Read the rest here!

[dialoversotaka]

DL Character Meme

Hey guys! Another DL tag game, yay! Thanks for tagging me, ma’ bros @vampiretsuki and @mythicamagic (i feel so loved, srsly)! Anyway, here we go:

Rules: List your top 10 favorite DL characters (it doesn’t just have to be the dateable guys, any characters are fair game) in order. And the answer the questions. Blank questions at the end.

1. Ayato 2. Subaru 3. Shin 4. Carla 5. Reiji 6. Ruki 7. Yuma 8. Kou 9. Shuu 10. Azusa

1. Number 5 (Reiji) has decided they want to completely change up their wardrobe and they take you shopping with them so you can give your opinions on what new outfits they should buy. What sort of clothes are you going to recommend? Wooah, that’s so crazy! Tbh, idk if Reiji would listen to my opinions... anyway, I’d reccommend respectable, but stylish clothes, I think they suit him well

2. You walk into your room one day to find number 2 (Subaru) standing on your bed, dancing to your favourite song while wearing nothing but your favourite underwear. How do you react? I’d start to laugh and cringe at the same time, then I’d make him go out and start listening to ‘’The Sound of Silence’’ trying to make sense of what just happenned and be traumatized for life

3. Number 7 (Yuma) has to go to the dentist but they’re adamantly refusing. How would you persuade them to go? Idk how Yuma thinks very well, so idk a good way for me to convince him... my strategy is usually sweet talk first, and if that doesn't work, threatening is right after, but it wouldn’t work on Yuma since i wouldn’t make him afraid haha

4. You lose a bet with number 6 (Ruki) and now have to be their personal maid for a day. Do you go through with it or do you try to get out of it? I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t ask for anything sexual, but i’m too lazy and doing chores is a pain in the ass for me! But I guess it’s better to put up with it if I don’t want to get punished

5. Number 4 (Carla) takes you to see a horror movie however they end up getting absolutely terrified halfway through and bury their head into your shoulder. How do you react? ...There’s just NO WAY he’d do it, srsly! What about his pride as a Founder King? I mean, I wouldn’t tease him for it, but I’d sure think there’s something rlly wrong with him that day, thinking like ‘’His Endzeit must be affecting him deeply, not only phiscally but also mentally...’’

6. Number 9 (Shuu) surprises you with a cake they’ve baked especially for you. Are you going to eat it? Oh... i must be very special for Shuu if he gets up to bake a cake for me... I guess I would? But before i’d say ‘’...If you put something inside on purpose and i don’t feel good, i’ll make you my butler until i feel better, you hear me?!’’

7. Number 8 (Kou) accidentally manages to completely trash their room, to the point where it’s uninhabitable. They don’t have anywhere to stay while it’s being repaired and so they ask if they can room with you for the next couple of weeks. How do you respond? Kou, I like you, but I wouldn’t, srry! I’d let you have my room and I’d even clean up yours so you could go back to it, I’d even sleep in the dungeons but i wouldn’t share, srry babe

8. Number 1 (Ayato) has decided to learn how to play the trumpet. The downside to this is that, for some reason, they’ve taken to practicing right outside your room around the time you normally go to sleep. What are you going to do? Ayato, my dear husbando, sometimes you go off the edge! But i don’t think he’d listen if i complained anyway, so i’d let it go till a certain extent, and then when i exploded... well, let’s just say that he would be handling a throwing tantrum Kanato, haha...

9. Number 10 (Azusa) recently purchased a cat onesie and they’ve insisted on wearing it everywhere over the past few days. They’ve now purchased a matching onesie for you and they’re being very insistent that you wear it and go out in public together. What do you do? Aww man! How can I say no to cutie Azusa? I’d go once, but more than that I don’t think I would... it’s too embarassing and i don’t like cats so much

10. Number 4 (Carla) is still scared after watching that horror film with you. It’s now late at night and they’re demanding that you let them sleep in your bed with you. What do you do? I’d be rlly suspicious and still think that the Endzeit’s effects were too strong that day, so i’d say there’s no problem and then wait till he was asleep to get the hell outta there and sleep somewhere else (i’m cunning and kinda deceiving when i feel threatened)

11. Number 3 (Shin) confesses to you that they want to be an Olympic gymnast but struggle to even touch their toes. What sort of advice do you give to them? I’d laugh (srry), but then i’d say that he needs to start doing some flexibility exercises every day and gradually he’d be able to pursue his dream

12. Number 7 (Yuma) decides they want to paint a picture of you. They make you sit still for hours while they work on it, only when they finally reveal it to you, the image bears absolutely no resemblance to you. They ask you for your opinion, what do you say? I’d thank him for the effort and say that it’s good, but that it doesn’t look like me so much and say ‘’if you want to try again some other time, just ask me and i’ll do it with joy ok? Don’t be sad! I took 1 year to draw bearable things to the eye and 3 years to get a good looking Foxy OC, so don’t lose hope ok!’’

13. Number 5 (Reiji) buys a large pet python and they try to talk you into keeping it in your room. How do you respond? i’d say like ‘’...Wow, Reiji... i mean, i knew you didn’t like me and eventually wanted to kill me, but i didn’t know you wanted to do so in such a horrible way... If you don’t want me here just say so, you stupid four-eyed pidgeon!’’ and then i’d get rlly mad and lock myself in my room till i got calmer...

14. You go on a Ferris wheel with number 6 (Ruki) but when you reach the top, it stops moving and stays still for a long time. There seems to be some kind of fault, which means you’re trapped with number 6 till someone can get it working again. What do you do? I guess we’d stay in a rlly akward silence and i’d try not to make eye contact with him until he gets annoyed by it and maybe we start having a normal conversation? I hope it would turn out like this, srsly

15. Number 2 (Subaru) proposes you play a game of twister. Regardless of whether you want to or not, you get dragged into it. As you’re playing, you notice number 2 seems to be touching you a lot more than necessary. Do you call them out on it, or take some other course of action? I guess I’d point it out like ‘’oooh, so you wanted to play with me just so you could freely touch me, ya punk? Who d’ya think you are?!’’ just to see his tsundere reaction and enjoy how cute it’d be haha (srry, I’m S, i can’t control it)

16. You’re getting changed in your room when you suddenly hear a noise from your wardrobe. You open the wardrobe to find number 3 (Shin) standing in it. How do you react? ‘’...Wtf??’’

17. Number 1 (Ayato) manages to accidentally handcuff themselves to you. They don’t have a key and for some reason, no matter what either of you do, you can’t seem to get them off. What are you going to do? ‘’Accidentally’’, yeah right! Me knowing Ayato, that’d probably be on purpose and he wouldn’t quit unless it was troublesome, so i’d do my best to piss him off and make him find the key. I mean, unless he wants to spend an afternoon with tantrum Kanato, I’d suggest he found it the quicker he could

18. Number 10 (Azusa) presents you with a bouquet of roses and declares that they have feelings for you. How do you react? Oooh man... I’d be so heartbroken to have to turn him down since I love Ayato... but of course, i’d do it gently and explain to him as calmly as i could, choosing well my words, but i’d feel guilty after... aaah, srry Azusa!

19. You go swimming with number 8 (Kou). You’re having a great time until they pull you aside and tell you that they’ve somehow lost their swimwear. Are you going to help them and if so how? I’d say ‘’how tf did you lose it, srsly?’’ but after i’d help him find it and if we couldn’t, i’d go and buy him a new one

20. Number 5 (Reiji) wrote a love letter to you and slipped it into what they believed to be your locker, however the locker actually belongs to number 8 (Kou) and they didn’t bother writing your name on the letter. How does number 8 react when they find it? Ohoho, I don’t even want to think what it’d be like... it’d end up badly for sure, but still be funny

21. Number 7 (Yuma) gets very very drunk and tries to give number 3 (Shin) a strip tease. What happens? Shin would be sooo pissed haha and i would laugh and cringe (laugh cuz it’d be funny and cringe cuz i don’t like yaoi, just by imagining it i get nauseated)

22. Number 6 (Ruki) and number 2 (Subaru) get into a rap battle and they want you to be the judge. Who do you think is going to win and why? Idk! I don’t have such a great imagination for things like this... i’d have to see it happen to have a conclusion (srry)

23. Number 1 (Ayato) accidentally ruins number 9’s (Shuu) most prized possession and begs for your help in covering it up. What do you do? That is just so predictable, Ayato ruining things haha! I guess Shuu’s most prized possession is his violin? We wouldn’t be able to cover it up, I think he’d find out and we’d be DEAD

24. You wake up in between number 4 (Carla) and number 10 (Azusa) with absolutely no memory of how you got there. Do you have any idea about what might have occurred and what are you going to do now? ...I’d have no idea of what happened, but i’d scream and think the worse scenarios... probably kill myself if they didn’t explain it either

25. You go on a camping trip with number 9 (Shuu), number 6 (Ruki) and number 3 (Shin). What sort of stuff do the four of you do together? Haha, i thin they’d be fighting and nagging about everything the other does and i’d find it funny till it begins to annoy me and shout “STOP FIGHTING, GODDAMNIT!”

26. Number 9 (Shuu) and number 4 (Carla) have somehow swapped bodies. How do they react and are you going to try to help them get back to normal? I think Shuu wouldn’t care so much apart from the Endzeit and i bet Carla would be outraged haha it’d be funny, but i’d ask if Reiji or Ruki could help in some way

27. You’re playing a game of Monopoly with number 5 (Reiji), number 7 (Yuma), and number 10 (Azusa). Who wins and who goes bankrupt and storms off in a rage? Reiji wins of course, the rest goes bankrupt and Idk if Yuma would rage... i think noone would rage, it’s just a game rlly

28. You go on a hike with number 8 (Kou) and number 2 (Subaru). Number 8 is in charge of the map and they manage to get you completely lost in the middle of nowhere. What are you going to do? It’s a possible scenario haha, I bet Subaru would get pissed and they start fighting, but i’d say ‘’calm down for a second and listen!’’ and i’d suggest we rest for a bit and try to find ourselves the right way by analyzing the map well and then keep going once we’re sure of the way

29. Number 1 (Ayato) has given up on learning the trumpet and has taken up the banjo instead. They write a song and play it for you but it sounds beyond terrible. How do you react? He’d be angry if i got honest and said it wasn’t... ideal, but to keep practicing so he could be the best!

30. Number 1 (Ayato) and number 2 (Subaru) get in a fight over you. Number 2 manages to win and asks you for your hand in marriage. How do you respond? Aaah why do you have to divide me like that?? I mean, it wouldn’t be bad to marry Succhan, but my #1 is Ayato! But if he liked me for who I am and not bcz i’m food, i’d have no problem on accepting it

I tag: @shadyraisincookie @soranokiku @tabooneko and @firstbloodkingdl 

[sparklyjojos]

hey i sent you an ask but internet problematic here so i dunno if it was sent? As someone with no experience with neurodivergent people i was hoping you could elaborate what you have previously said about Kars in JORGE JOESTAR (and other characters maybe) seeming neurodivergent. Like, i'd love to know your headcanons about jojo characters regarding this, as well as reasoning for the headcanon's (optional, but i'd love it)

(wow this one sure took me a long time to answer, sorry!)

oh boy, this would be an extremely long post if I included all other jojo characters I headcanon as nd so I’m just going to focus on Jorge (the Japanese one) and novel Kars for now

this won’t be a “this character definitely has x thing”, but just pointing out traits and dialogue that may interest someone who wants to headcanon/write these characters as nd

am I going to be reaching with some of those? yep! but if the Jorge Joestar novel itself taught me anything, it’s that:

so, you know. I see what I wanna see.

(tw: mental illness, trauma, ptsd, suicide - all in the Kars segment)

Jorge:

 – the sheer difference in introductions is telling: English Jorge talks at length about his family, his classmates, his gay puppy crush, and anything else you’d expect to be major concerns for a kid. Japanese Jorge? social life haha what social life, HOPE YOU’RE READY FOR 10 PAGES OF PUZZLE SOLVING

 – no really if the very first thing someone says after seeing all your memories is that you sure spend a lot of time on puzzles then that’s some deep interest you have, a bit of a stereotypical hobby there but whatevs

 – hyperfocuses a lot??

 – (exasperated Kars who’s been trying to get his attention for a good minute:) “You have a bad habit of not hearing when people speak to you.” (Jorge:) “Yeah, if I’m focused on something else. Sorry. What?”

 – tunes out of one phone conversation with Bruno like 3 times

 – figures out how time-based Stands work specifically because he has experience with his internal sense of time getting royally fucked up whenever he’s deeply focused

 – was inattentive (and hyperactive?) as a young kid to the point it affects how the memories on his disc look like: “I was a fidgety child, and the image rarely focused on [Joseph] for long. I wasn’t interested in his story.”

 – visual thinker, good with patterns, can make complicated mental maps and solve slide puzzles in his mind

 – his memory is really good until it isn’t (as far as he’s concerned Funny Valentine’s Stand is called Dirty Whatever)

 – very particular about meanings of words and names, etymology (his arc starts and ends with him pondering over the kanji of his own name, knows latin names of various species like Hydrangea or Ursus maritimus and what they mean literally, that “sorry that name’s taken” line when Rohan calls something a Beyond, etc)

 – doesn’t like (is distressed by?) clutter and things/details being WRONG. (“If details don’t add up right I get agitated, and start searching for a better way. This trait has lead to my room being very clean, and made me a great detective.”)

 – infodumps to Rohan about polar bears of all things, and there’s a moment when he stops talking almost mid-sentence after mentioning they’re called Ursus maritinus and instead of speaking out loud he just thinks to himself that “The scientific name was given by John Phipps in 1774” as if he just realized that’d be Too Much detail to share, I feel you Jorge

 – (after Erina says he has a characteristic soft smile) “I do? I mean, I guess people do say I look like an idiot.”  <– I feel you Jorge v 2.0

 – gets urges to laugh at very bad times (”Cars’ whispered response had an air of such grim realism that I almost started laughing, but he was watching me suspiciously. Whoops.”)

 – sometimes blurts out things, often fails one-liners, even when he pre-plans what he’s going to say something else may come out (“I’d thought of all kinds of things to say, but what actually popped out in that moment? (…) I have no idea what I meant by that last bit but I said what I said and had to live with it.”)

 – sometimes impulsive, like yeah let’s just get up in the middle of the night and search through a 10 km^2 area on a bike for something unprecised while you have several death threats to your name, this can’t possibly backfire

 – (after Jorge quite literally blows himself up by impulsive carelessness) “Cars was still laughing. “You really don’t think things through.“”

 – small point that’s made moot by paranormal things like that being real in the jojoverse, but his tendency to see signs and messages meant for him everywhere and in every event, and insisting on coincidences not being mere synchronicity gives off a different vibe than intended (at least at the beginning before he knows Stands and Beyonds are a thing)

Kars:

 – honestly I could just slap the definition of “neurodivergent = with their brain functioning differently from what’s seen as ‘normal’ in the population” here and point at his backstory in this book and be done with it

 – remember everything I’m writing is on top of his canon image of an asocial genius scientist with poor affect (or, in the anime, varying between stone face and painfully exaggerated expressions) who has a connection with nature and animals, which I guess can? be seen as some type of autistic coding (unfortunately in this case it dovetails into “a loner with autistic traits = snaps and kills everyone” type of coding sooo maybe let’s not go there)

 – novel Kars talks about how when he was younger he didn’t even know that feeling sympathy and wanting to have emotional attachments with others –was a thing– (apparently his race wasn’t capable of it??), and he had to sorta consciously try to understand and learn it through reading human fiction. It came off to me like he relates better to fictional characters (and maybe animals?) than to his race or humans, too

 - ^^(that backstory’s a bit unclear with how it’s told; either just like his race he doesn’t have the drive for social bonding, empathy etc. and his understanding of others is made purely on the intellectual level - that’s relatable for some nd people - or he DOES have those things in a drastic difference from everyone else of his race, which I guess makes him nd by definition. It’s… complicated.)

– on the topic of “consciously learning how to sympathy” - there’s a few times in the novel when he’s a prick not because he wants to be but because he genuinely doesn’t understand why the other person would be upset (”Cars, sorry, but can you put me back at my old height?” “?…isn’t the view better?”), but if that person explains how the thing is upsetting he then backs off like “oh okay” (when Jorge is disturbed about the women’s heads thing - “Yeah. But I just feel sorry for them. I can’t watch this.” - Kars just goes “I see.” and makes them disappear). He still has to work on the “taking your private memories without asking” issue tho

 – that moment in the backstory where Kars became deeply aware of just how flawed and “not up to own potential” he was which launched him straight into unhealthy perfectionism and desire for control and power as a way of dealing with it? relatable

 – and that thing where him becoming much more chill is preceeded by the realization that he can’t ever - and that he doesn’t have to - become an infinitely perfect being without weaknesses, and that he’d still have worth and meaning even when he’s not performing to some ridiculous self-imposed standards?? GREAT, and I love to see lines like this one coming from him: “Cars smiled. “I have no desire to be the leadingman.””

 – he talks about how traumatic events and your emotional reactions to them (“feeling like you’re dying”) can damage your soul. Since he claims to have experience determining soul damage, and the only souls he worked with before belonged to 36 other Karses, we can assume he’s talking about himself as well. (and it’s kinda obvious that having everyone you love die in <2 days, drifting through space for 50 years and then spending unimaginably long time on an empty planet would leave some marks)

 – ^^^also worth noting that even if Kars knew a lot about brains biology-wise, he missed out on practically all of modern psychology after 1939, so of course the way he relates to trauma and mental illness would be different, and more informed by what he learned having spent most of his life around ancient civilizations in the Americas - the concept of soul loss. And it’s not like the book doesn’t wink towards it in other places (English Jorge dissociating during torture is described as him having learned how to remove his soul from his body)

 – Light Dancer Kars speaks about how he wanted to commit suicide, then in the same paragraph says that he and our Kars feel “the same sadness”, which, wow. Earlier there are scenes where you can interpret Kars’s behaviour as passively suicidal; he doesn’t seek death, but if something (burning upon reentry while saving the humans, fighting Dio) did kill him, he wouldn’t mind that much

 – this one is very subjective because you can interpret these moments as just him being very lost in thought / focusing on healing (Jorge sure does), but: when faced with intense emotional stress - like hearing Light Dancer Kars’s existential speech, or almost getting killed because he chose to shield the humans from harm - Kars has a tendency to go non- or barely verbal, motionless, unresponsive to outside stimuli (including people trying to get his attention by calling his name) and staring at one thing / into space, ignoring even a zombie attack or that they’re pressed on time in alternate!Morioh. When I first read it I assumed he just dissociated really hard (ptsd-related?), or was in a shutdown

 – if you pay attention to what traits Kars seems to be holding in high regards - either through saying that X is a good thing about humanity, or bemoaning that humanity doesn’t have X (that he ofc does) - they’re stuff like creativity, perseverance, attention to details, pattern-based thinking, the desire to “figure stuff out”, and good memory. AKA traits often (though not always) increased in autistic people

 - at one point he says: ”In the end, you’re just another human. You see a mystery and think, ‘How odd!’ and put in on a shelf somewhere.” I’m sorry but even in context it sounds like “apparently people can see an interesting thing without instantly getting fixated and wanting to know and understand everything about it right there and then, what the fuck”

 – he tends to be either very invested in what’s going on or bored, no inbetween, and avoiding that boredom is a high priority (”And it seems I’ve run out of time to eat you all… But I wasn’t bored.”)

um yeah that’s all I can think of rn

[doorsclosingslowly]

Literally ALL OF THEM for Riches and Wonders.

THX!!!!!!!! I’m going to do this in chunks. it got kinda long, sorry!

1: Whatinspired you to write the fic this way?

Riches and Wonders is reallya Savage character study in the end. When I started writing Runaways, back whenit was a one-shot, the point was more that I wanted to figure out a way inwhich Maul was going to survive, and didn’t he have that brother with theedgelord name? TCW still isn’t my favourite interpretation of Maul even if it’s funny, but Ilove Savage so much I can’t really diss it anymore

Writing it from Savage’s POVwas because I liked that framing better, and then the story became about hisjourney because I decided writing about near-misses and calling it “Thank Youbut Your Princess is in Another Castle” was funny. So while it was empatheticto Savage’s perspective and I was starting to figure out his narrative voice,it wasn’t really as deeply in his head as it could have been. (Which does work.“There were no words for a long time.It’s good that there weren’t.” Savage in Princess is incredibly depressedand Talzin’s mind-controlled tool, and he becomes more lively after he gets tointeract with someone who thinks of him as a person again.)

(Side note: The way I figure the mind control works btw is that it’sbasically a strong compulsion to obey, not a reshaping of his mind or anything,and he acts the way he does because he’s terrified, depressive, hurt, andthrown into a completely new world so he’s also pretty confused, and when he’snot completely numb, he’s keeping himself together by the skin of his teeth andthe ways he’s learned how to cope as a nightbrother. Which ends up reinforcingthe obedience. And makes him hide his emotions apart from the ones people wantfrom him (rage) because he must be Strong. The goals aren’t his own, but it’shis mind trying to fulfil them: he’s trying to do what Talzin orders withoutreally knowing why but that’s mostly what he’d have done anyway so he doesn’teven think it’s weird. The compulsion can be triggered by the Sisters or brokenlike in canon or when he thinks, I just CAN’T letMaul die like Feral in Princess. I amsoft and the idea that Talzin’s ritual destroyed the person he was is way toosad for me to write tbh. And also makes characterization really really hard)

That more shallowunderstanding I used to have in Princess obviously doesn’t cut it, if I’mwriting an eight-part series about them. So from Curses onwards I thought a lotabout what each of the brothers is getting out of this relationship, the waythey affect each other, and the way it’s both a train wreck and mutuallysupportive. (Your Love Alone is pretty much the condensed version of thatthought process.)

I did a lot of research, especially about maladaptivecoping responses to abuse (focusing on compliance and avoidance w/r/t Savage,because he’s so… quiet before the rage explodes) and it fit with thecharacterization I had in Princess and with TCW. (They’re incredibly maladaptivenow that he’s run away, but self-soothing and advance compliance andpsychological withdrawal are what might have kept him alive as a nightbrother.)

Also I watched his episodes a lot and got upset a lot.Apart from Monster the show’s POV isn’t that sympathetic but trying tounderstand what he’s thinking in every scene… oh boy.

A big part of the characterization ended up justgrowing from lines I put into Princess because I thought they were fun orsounded right. So, “He imaginessurprising Her, conjures up Her proud face when he reports that he has foundMaul, and then discards the thought. It’s never been him She was interested in.Once She sees Maul, She will never look at him again. He thinks he should feelwistful. He is relieved.” becomes this idea that Savage is usually veryaware of how he’s supposed to be reacting, of who he is supposed to be, but he often doesn’t measure up. Everysituation contains the emotions he shouldfeel, and the ones he does feel. Atthe same time, his reactions are pretty reasonable and the expectations he’sinternalized are just… not.

Also, the daydreaming which Savage does in Princess (“He entertains himself with guessing thebusiness his brother does” etc) has increased exponentially. Partly it’sbecause Savage actually knows Maul now, so he can be reminded of his brother byrandom stuff. Partly it’s because I’m really into “This made me think of you”as a bit of show-don’t-tell affection. Partly it’s because Maul is his wholeworld now. Partly it’s that Savage would totally stick Maul’s report cards tothe fridge if he had the chance, or pass around his album of Feral baby photosto everyone who doesn’t run away fast enough. He would talk to a random woman in a bar about how cool he thinks Maulis.

.

Ultimately, I think it’s pretty fortunate that I gotso derailed into focusing on Savage. The inciting What If of Runaways is “Whatif Talzin wanted Maul back 15 years earlier” obviously but the actualcounterfactual I’m writing is more like, “What if Savage was much moresuccessful in the tug-of-war of defining their relationship?” Which isconnected to the fact that they’re in a very different place to canon when theymeet, and that they have the luxury of spending (mostly) unobserved years assmall-time criminals and not as parties in the Clone Wars.

From Princess on but also in the parts I haven’twritten yet, Savage’s decisions drive a massive part of their story. He decidesto run away with Maul, after all.

Which is funny, because he doesn’t think of himself asa person with agency, and obviously most people he interacts with think of himas a tool (Talzin) or a monster or an apprentice who should do what Maul saysbecause they are Sith and that’s how life works. They really don’t think of himas making choices either. There’s a lot of ‘minor’ decisions where he goesalong with little or no protest until suddenly there’s something he can’t bearanymore, and then he just acts. Thereis no leadup because it’s been simmering under the surface, just as feelingsand never vocalized. Like in the show, haha. Mostly silent obedience obedience obedience CHOKE DOOKU & VENTRESS!!!It makes him look like an irrational person from the outside (or a “mindlessbeast” blah blah blah, hate that), but I don’t think that’s it. To deliberatehis decision would have required him to be a more verbal thinker, but mostly: toactually believe he has a choice.

And Savage can’tbelieve that he has any agency anymore. If he is capable of disobeying orders– well, why didn’t he disobey the order to kill Feral? Being a tool sucks, buthis destiny has always been controlled by the Nightsisters anyway. Not being atool – having the power to stop Feral’s death, and killing him regardless…

(This is an absolutetangent but anyway. So I read this Savage/Asajj fic that was enthusiasticdubcon aka ‘they both know he isn’t allowed to disobey her and therefore he can’tactually consent to sex but he’s really into it and after he’s brought to theSisters and before the ritual, he initiates the encounter and it’s his POV which is the only way dubcon can work’, and it was prettyinteresting especially with the woman-centered framing of sex (engulfingetc) but anyway, I had the most horrifying thought right now: Asajj is stillgoing to use Savage’s body to kill his brother. This is probably the mostpsychologically wrecking version of what happens in Monster ever. In theRunaways ‘verse version of what happens, the story Savage tells himself isthis: He has no capability of disobeying at all anymore, so ultimately he isjust the tool that killed Feral. Still traumatizing, but… What do you tell yourselfwhen you ‘willingly’ sleep with the person who ordered you to kill yourbrother? Can you still make yourself believe you didn’t make the choice to kill him? Like it obviously doesn’t makehim any more culpable at all but it would feel So Bad.)

Wow sorry, this is really rambly and way too long. Tosummarize… What inspired me to write this fic this way was that I’m writing apretty long story about how Maul and Savage very slowly help each other, oftenin ways that seem strange or even slightly unhealthy on the surface or involve murder.My mental picture of Maul was much clearer, and that would have been doingSavage a massive disservice. So I watched Clone Wars a lot. And cried.

2: Whatscene did you first put down?

The rape scene, or, well,the ‘Thinking about Maul’s eating habits to mentally cope with being rapedbecause Savage thinks this is something he has to endure and not something heshould and could escape’ scene. I still think it fits with what I’m going for really well tbh, andboth the ‘externally controlled body’ part (less of a magical metaphor here) andthe ‘ignoring his agency’ part and the nightbrothers as essentially breedingslaves part are such major aspects of Savage’s backstory, or I wouldn’t havewritten this scene. When I said that the fic was way out of my comfort zone, Idefinitely meant it. But Savage’s issues with agency are a major part of him, and I thought the take worked and it’s probably why I wasso stubborn in trying to finish Riches even though six months is a fucking longtime.

3: What’syour favorite line of narration?

There is a tongue inSavage’s mouth again, lightly tracing the back seams of his teeth and thensquirming against Savage’s tongue, like the bitten-off tail end of a massiveearthworm, only much less delightful—andMaul doesn’t like rancor flavored with kur-seeds and peppers. He made themost entertaining face on tasting that dish for the first time, and when hestumbled on his unsteady new leg to the fresher to spit it out, Savage onlystarted to feel bad for laughing when he didn’t come out for half an hour. Hewas too entertained to even think about his failure then, even though he cookedit, the meal he’s come to think of as the most comforting comfort food, in thedoomed hope that it would help Maul feel better and stronger after his injury.

It feels wrong to mock him,now that he’s had a while to think it over. Maul’s soft palate is the fault ofthe human who raised him. Besides, Savage should be grateful: There issomething soft left in his brother. Every time Maul hates the meals that Savagelovingly prepares for him, he should be glowing with pride and relief, becausethere is something Maul doesn’t like, and he’s learned to tell Savage about it.

Savage doesn’t know what itwas that he did, but that doesn’t make it any less his greatest triumph: Thefirst day that Maul looked at him, still tied up and after a month of stoicallyforcing down whatever Savage held up to his mouth, and spat the spicedchew-fish back in his face.

“This tastes like shit,”Maul said, then.

It’s one of Savage’shappiest memories, and it’s not like Maul is really wrong about the taste of rancor, anyway.

Savage thinks about theimportance of Maul being able to say “No.” in a moment where he himself (believesthat he) has no choice. The fact that Maul feels comfortable enough to refusethings is something he sees as a major breakthrough in their relationship,because it means that Maul is beginning to trust that Savage isn’t going toreact like Sidious. Savage doesn’t consciously connect it to his own situation.He doesn’t really think about the difference between the things he wants forMaul (and Feral) and what he has accepted for himself.

Also, he’s redefiningsomething that looks like a dick move (Maul insulting Savage’s cooking skills) intoa show of trust and a sign of affection, which I always like.

(Maul won’t try roe today, after all. They’ll slit a few fish bellies,but Savage’s picked the wrong season, and none of them carry young. He will trya piece of raw fish in the end—after much cajoling, which Savage will figurehe’s entitled to, after Maul left the shallow waters with his heavy prostheticand pretended to drown, and then pulled his frantic brother under. Twice.Predictably, Maul will declare that raw fish is disgusting.

He’ll still be complaining about the aftertaste when farmer M’lee makesthe incredibly unwise and terminal decision to check on his fish in theevening.)

+

(M’lee’s daughter will inherit the roe farm. It will lie empty, andsuccumb to rot. She’ll never set another foot on Talasea, not after thathorrifying morning when she comes back from a friend’s wedding to find herfather missing and then dismembered and burned in the peaceful grass.

She’ll die on Coruscant ten years later, destitute and still trying tobring justice.)

Also this one, because I just think it really works the way I wanted it to? It punctures the cocoon of Savage’s POVwhere only Maul really matters. I don’t get to be compassionate to anybody else usually because of Runaways’ tight perspective but I think it’s important to remember the victims

4: What’syour favorite line of dialogue?

This is really hard. It’sprobably this part

Instead of meditating,though, Maul stands up again. He looks at Savage for a long second, paces,picks up the blanket from Savage’s bed, and then he sits down in the corner ofhis floor-nest. He pushes the mismatched pillow-wall on the other side further awaywith a few kicks. Then he orders, “Come here.”

Savage does.

“Sit down,” Maul says.

Savage does, carefully,stepping over the pillow-wall. When he sits, the floor is cool through Maul’sblankets, and hard as well. He scowls. He’s been telling Maul that it can’t becomfortable for a while now, but he’s always been informed that it’s adequate.For lack of actual knowledge—maybe the thick fabric he’d forced on Maul wasenough, even if it didn’t seem like it—he believed him. Now, though…

“This isn’t good for yourback. You need a proper bed.”

“A mattress is superfluous,”Maul says.

“You refused to have ablanket for two months,” Savage reminds him. “And now look at your nest…” Heruns his hand over the wall of pillows to his left, still standing sturdydespite Maul’s show of carelessness in pushing it aside. “See? You can change.”

You can grow to like beds, Savage almostsays, but the words bite into his throat and refuse to come out.

He pats the floor blanketagain, instead.

“You’re deflecting,” Maulsays, mercilessly. “I felt your terror. What happened?”

The start of their BigConversation, where they’re basically talking about nothing at all, even thoughboth Maul and Savage obviously know what just happened. I like things that are very lowkey.

Savage’s instinct is to beMaul’s big brother and his caretaker, even when he’s really out of it. Focusingon Maul (what they are going to do when they meet, making sure they meet,whatever Maul looks like he needs now) is also one of his more effective copingmechanisms, and he’s been doing it the whole time really. He has chased Maulthrough all of Princess, he’s been doing whatever Maul wants during Curses. Unmasked doesn’t really count because it was originally part of Riches It’salso what he’s doing in the flashback at the beginning of Riches, feeding Feralso he doesn’t have to be so afraid of the Sisters coming. He has never reallythought about what is being done to him. Well, Maul isn’t letting him run awayanymore.

It also kinda punctures someof Savage’s ‘I am the big brother and know what your life should have been like’airs. Savage’s been trying to coax Maul into accepting his own vision of whatlife should be like, including making him eat what Savage thinks he should eatand sleeping the way Savage thinks he should sleep, instead of the way Maul’sused to live. Fair play, the way Maul was raised was terrible. But Savage’s lifewasn’t great either, and now, Maul being raised a nightbrother doesn’t lookthat attractive anymore.

(Also it says something about Savage’s decision-makingprocess I think. There’s a kind of reversal of the model thought process, the ‘rational’ ideal… The most consequential decisionbased on his feeling that Maul deserves better than a nightbrother slave’slife, Savage takes right in the beginning. Not bringing him back to Talzin. Twoyears later, Savage is still struggling with that idea though, see also: “Savage cannot think back far enough toreach a world empty of this truth, but he remembers too that Maul wasn’t raiseda nightbrother (for the blink of a second and for the first time, it feels likea mercy), and so the words will have to stumble out.” because he’s neververbalized his reasons for not bringing Maul to Dathomir or integrated theminto his worldview. They aren’t thoughts he knows how to think, but thatdoesn’t mean they don’t influence his actions.)

I also like the space pigeondialogue a lot haha If I didn’t I’d have cut it, because it’s probably definitelyToo Obvious

5: Whatpart was hardest to write?

Going by what I left off until the end, it’s the barscene from the point when Keeu shows up. Because a) I don’t recognise flirtingin real life, so how am I going to write it and b) I knew that if it didn’tmake sense, the whole ending of the fic wouldn’t make sense.

That’s not the bit I re-wrote about a million times,though. That’s Maul and Savage’s conversation about Dathomiri society and theSith code

[tumblunni]

Baron omatsuri and the secret island traumatizes me yet again, hooray!

Ok wow that was a nostalgia blast! Finally goddamn have a physical copy of this thing to own. Its never been dubbed and the only way to get it was this weird manga UK licensed reprint of a bunch of (i think) hong kong english subtitles. The style of the subtitles looks like that, at least. Its all weird and grainy and very very old fashioned early days of subtitling style, which contrasts completely with the modern dvd menus and box and stuff. And its also a weird combination disc of four different movies, it seems they just bought out a licensing package deal or something? And just baked it onto the disc without checking or editing anything. Its not really a funny sort of bad subtitles though, its just awkward phrasings of thibgs that are hard to understand or random typos or whatever, no legendarily hilarious stuff. I kinda dislike it more when subtitles are like this, when theyre like...actually written by a guy who speaks fluent english but he just never watched the actual movie so theres a bunch of rookie mistakes. Also has a strange case of what you usually only see on fansubs- the obsession with leaving everything in japanese to Sound Cool. Nah we cant call them the Tea Party Pirates we have to say the japanese word for that. Nah we cant have this man say mustache when he's doing the mustache pose and talking about his crew of entirely mustache men who all do this mustache pose NO it has to be Chobehige because its somehow deep and edgy to not understand the word for mustache. Like i feel if i was watching this sub first i would have no idea what was happening! At least its not as bad as that older sub i saw where they insisted on translating friends as "crew", even when it was llike..a singular. This one man is my crew and here are all my other crews! Like i feel like that subber probably originally did that dumb old fandom thing of INSISTING that you had to say Nakama in japanese and Capitalized and it was a Very Important japanese word for specifically pirate friends that was Impossible To Translate. And then they just did a ctrl + F replace on the whole thing and made an incomprehensible mess. Also for some reason sanji just yells DOCTOR out of nowhere (chopper wasnt even in the scene) and baron omatsuri's one syllable "oh" is translated as some long string of what seems to be baseball jargon..?

But ANYWAY the movie is still fuckin awesome and i actually noticed EVEN MORE dark shit and subtle storytelling that i missed when i was a kid! The whole 'small child zombie stares blankly at the place where a sword stabbed through his chest and cant understand why he got back up' scene is EVEN MORE emotionally destructuve than i thought! Cos the subtlety of the voiceacting seems to make the poor kid sound so tired and resigned to it? He's desperately asking and his father figure feeds him the same old lies he's done a million times about how he's totally still alive and everything is fine. Like wow i missed that inplication that this has happened before! And then he kinda sounds like he's actually aware that Baron is lying and he's just pretending to believe him to make him feel better. And then he starts turning back into a corpse and he doesnt panic like muchigoro or not realize whats happening like the grandpas do. He just looks straight at his hand falling apart and tries to lie to Baron to make him feel better. *long shot of him from behind before you see whats happened* "I'm just feeling dizzy again. I've got used to it." *him staring blankly at his body falling apart, not even capable of feeling sad about it anymore* "Don't worry...i've got used to it." *thud*

Like FUCKING HELL this film is the best damn existential horror thing ever and why the FUCK did they market it as a fun happy kids film? it probably would have been way more successful if the twist wasnt kept all twisty, honestly.

And also WOW YEAH theres a lot of stuff thats the subtlest goddamn storytelling in the universe and youd never notice unless you watched this film a million times like i did! Like during the intro when everythibg still seems all fun and cute and normal, the advert for the Totally Innocent Not A Trap Super Secret Island Resort is being read over some random shots of waves and stuff. But then right near the end you see those same shots again and it becomes clear that it was literally the view from Baron's eyes as he was falling from the ship and drowning, desperately trying to keep his head above water and strain his eyes to see if anyone else had survived. All the moments that just looked like camera cuts were actually when his head fell beneath the waves. Thats fuckin amaizng you straight up showed the ending in the beginning and we didnt notice????

Oh and also right before THE FUCKIN TERRIFYING MUCHIGORO DEATH SCENE you see him casually mention being 'sleepy' a few scenes earlier. It just passes by without notice and you think that he's just drunk until he suddenly starts going from comedic slurring to fucking asphixiating and the SKIN ON HIS FINGERS PEELING OFF. Oh hey! Another thing i didnt notice before! FUCKING THAT. A fun game for you on your rewatch! Looking out to find the secret finger horror! Ha ha ha...ha...

Also MAN OH WOW all the subtle signs of Baron getting more desparate throughout the movie and how it seems the time limit for the zombies was almost up and he had to kill these specific pirates right now because he couldnt spare even a few more hours. In retrospect it makes sense how he was slipping up and leaving evidence for the heroes to figure him out. And its just so subtly offputting and strange how he goes from making a big fun performance about the festival early on and then starts subtky rushing through the formalities faster. Like you dont eveb conciously notice the tone is changing until suddenly BAM the full change happens and you realise you missed all those signs! And aaaa its so fuckin sad how you see him come running when muchigoro drops dead and he's like fuckin GET OUT OF THE WAY DAMMIT and kneels down next to the body and theb he just..turns emotionless again and goes ITS TIME FOR THE NEXT CHALLENGE. It is time. Its now. Shut the fuck up and do it, i dont have time to deal with this shit, just die so i can bring my friend back. (Tho of course you dont know thats why at the time) And then whats most jarring about the whole scene to me is how he's like "okay fuck it theres no more fun theres no more attractions, if youre not gonna play along then the final game is just i shoot your damn head off" WHILE YKNOW STILL STANDING OVER THE CORPSE OF HIS FRIEND AND STARING DAGGERS INTO THEM LIKE ITS THEIR FAULT FOR DARING TO CLING ONTO LIFE and then a fuckin half finished hapoy fun carnival game sign pops up in the backgroubd and everyone walks past it. Why was that somehow both hilarious and terrifying????? Just fuckin 'whoops we had this thing ready to go but alright its murder time i guess' and everyone IS SUDDENLY PACKING HEAT AND RIDDLING OUR HEROES WITH BULLETS???

And also even more subtly Baron just?? Stays with muchigoro?? Like notice how the entirety of the endgame takes place around where the dude dropped dead. And how when mustache pirate guy saves luffy you see Baron just walking in circles around the same area angrily shooting arrows at nothing in complete desperation even though the dude is gone and itd make more sense to run after him. No he stays standing right there and actually looks really damn relieved when luffy comes back, he's like 'holy shit you really were stupid enough to walk right into my trap jesus christ im so glad but also youre a dumbass'. And he fights entirely using arrows at this point so you might not even notice that he barely walks more than just circling a two meter radius of fuckin DEAD BEST FRIEND CORPSE. Which btw blends intonthe shadows for this entire scene and they only draw attention it again after Baron wibs and muchigoro comes back to life. And UGH MY HEART you see him smile genuinely for the firstvtime and he's like 'im so glad youre okay' and muchigoro is like 'haha im more than okay i can do somersaults!' and generally being a FUCKING TREASURE and this poor fuckin horrible evil man is hugging his buddy and gently leading him away from the battlefield so he doesnt norice he was just fuckin murdering some dudes to ressurect him. God the scariest damn thing about this film is how the zombies dont know theyre zombies and honestky they probably wouldnt even agree with their boss's plan to kill people to keep them alive. They justvthink they live a perfectly normal happy life on hapoy festival island, and he wants them to stay that way and never feel pain again :(

Aaaaand then yeah the infamous scene of revealing this horrifying intestines flower is growing out of the flesh on his back and all the corpses its digesting are pushed against the undulating flesh of its throat like a snake devouring its prey. And its cutesy fake flower face grows infinate eyes as it just keeps laughing and laughing. And then it gets graphically blown apart and the poor goddamn parasite host tries to shove the bloody instestines back into its body, knowing that without this horrifying monster chewing on his goddamn veins all his friends will go back to being dead.

THE END

THE FUCKING END

God it ends so abruptly seriously

I still cry my eyes out every time at the ending monologue of Baron dying and meeting all the souls of his dead friends and theyre crying telling him he shouldnt be here, they wish he'd been able to find another reason to live without him...

And then THE END

JAUNTY MUSIC OVER THE CREDITS

THE FUCKIN END I GUESS

What a great but very oddly executed movie. Seriously i feel it could have worked better if it was given space to breathe and more deeply explore the dark themes rather than the weirdness of trying to fool the audience into thinking it was cheerful and innocent. Like all of this shit happens in the last 30 minutes of the movie! They spend 60 minutes on the fun carnival games! What a strange sense of priorities!!

I WOULD DEVOUR A MILLION HOURS MORE OF DEEP SAD ZOMBIE CONTENT

I am like the Lily of fanfics

Oh yeah btw the horrifying deadly elder god spine parasite thing is named Lily and it looks pretty much exactly like flowey from undertale. This film kinda spoiled me for that game LOL ive never trusted a single talking flower ever since!