#and season 14 looks like it's shaping up to be pretty good too

[cryptidsurveys]

Saturday, December 14th, 2024.

1 - Have you ever had stitches? No.

2 - Who was the last person to shake your hand? I'm pretty sure it was someone I was introduced to at the animal shelter, but I can't remember who.

3 - What was the last thing you bought when you went to the grocery store? Cat food, a few frozen rice mixes, pierogi, chicken pot pies, frozen carrots, grapes, potatoes and sweet potatoes, spring greens salad mix, rolls, hamburger buns, pepper jack and jalapeno cheese, eggs, butter, chips, diced grilled chicken, some wreath-shaped sugar cookies, panettone, pizza, powerade, paper towels, and I think that was basically it.

4 - How often do you find yourself needing to do laundry? Every couple of days. Especially in the colder months when I wear bulkier clothing like hoodies and jackets.

5 - Coke or Pepsi? I guess Coke, but I don't really care. I'm fine with Pepsi too if that's what's available.

6 - When was the last time you struggled to get to sleep? I think I struggled a little bit on Thursday night.

7 - What did you have for your last meal, whatever that was? I'm eating a bowl of oatmeal right now, but lunch was a sandwich with cheese and greens and some baked bbq chips.

8 - Do you have anything fun planned for the upcoming weekend? Nothing out of the ordinary. Just the animal shelter 8:00am-12:00pm on both days. I did just finish baking a variation of a pecan pie, though. I made some "bars" the other day and while they turned out well enough for me to enjoy, they were probably a bit overdone and the homemade crust was a bit difficult to cut through, so this time around I just added the filling to a premade pie crust. We'll see! Hope everyone likes it! (fingers crossed)

9 - Which of the four seasons is your favourite? Autumn. I love winter as well, but my favorite aspect is the snow and we don't get nearly enough for my tastes. Instead, it's just sunny and barren. Preferable by far to summer, but not to the beauty of autumn.

10 - Do you still have all four of your wisdom teeth? I do.

11 - If you drive, do you enjoy it or is it just a necessity? It's both. I enjoy driving when the traffic is light, but not so much on busy weekday mornings.

12 - Do you prefer sweet or salted popcorn? Probably salted, but I enjoy sweet as well.

13 - When was the last time you were in pain? What caused it? Earlier. Not serious pain, but I keep messing with the little wound on my earlobe.

14 - Are there any textures that you have a weird aversion to? Like food textures? Not really. Textures in general? I don't like touching fleecy / woolen blankets with super dry hands.

15 - What was the last thing you said outloud and to who? I said "bless you" to my dad.

16 - When was the last time you got up from where you're sitting and why? Not that long ago. To go smoke.

17 - Have you been diagnosed with any chronic health conditions? Apparently, migraines are only considered chronic if you experience symptoms on 15 or more days per month, so technically no.

18 - Are you an early bird or a night owl? Eeeearly bird.

19 - What are some of your favourite Christmas movies? Mostly just the ones I remember from childhood - A Christmas Story, A Christmas Carol, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas…

20 - Have you ever met up with someone in real life that you first met on the internet? Was it just as good as you hoped? I have. Looking back, it was a very rushed and naive decision.

21 - Who was the last person to text you? What about call you? The last person to text me was my dad. He was telling me that everything was alright with my car, etc. On Friday morning, very shortly after I set off, I started to hear a clunking sound. I pulled over at a nearby laundromat to check things out. Opened and closed the doors in case they were what was rattling. Noticed one of my tires was looking pretty low on air. Wondered if the sound might have something to do with that. Decided to drive home and have my dad take me to the shelter instead of risk it. While I was gone, he took the car to get checked out, got a much-needed oil change, and put air in the tires. But lol it was probably one of the doors after all. As for the last person to call me, that would have been my mom. I think it was on Wednesday night?

22 - What are some of your favourite smells? Coffee brewing, freshly baked bread, baked goods, the woods, crisp and cold snowy air, when people light their fireplaces or cook bacon and I can smell it from a distance…

23 - Are you more hungry or thirsty right now? Probably thirsty, but I am still a bit hungry after that oatmeal bowl.

24 - When's the next time you plan on going to the cinema and what will you be going to see? Most likely within the next few weeks. I'm not yet sure what I will be seeing. It's almost always my mom who comes up with ideas.

25 - Would you rather watch a film at home or in the theatre? I sort of wish I had the motivation? concentration? (whatever it would take) to watch films at home, but I just don't. If it wasn't for my mom taking me to the theater, I might never watch anything.

26 - If you have pets, what colour are they? Esther and Karenna are white and gray and Lacy is a calico.

27 - Did your parents have any influence over the music you like? My dad got me into listening to classical music. He started off listening to it in his car, which morphed into me listening to it in mine. When I was younger, my mom had some influence over my tastes, but they've obviously evolved beyond that into their own sort of thing.

28 - When was the last time you rode a horse? Not since I was a teenager.

29 - Has your style changed much in the last few years? I'm not even sure how to describe my previous "style." Flamboyant thrifty pajama goblin? A whole ass mess? I guess I'm still a thrifty pajama goblin, but the flamboyancy has been replaced by animal shelter garb. I kind of want to revive at least some of my old style, though. I just feel so boring and unlike myself.

30 - Do you prefer real books or audiobooks? What was the last one you read or listened to? Real books. I switched over to reading The High Adventure Of Eric Ryback on my lunchbreaks.

[jmagnabo92]

PM - 106 - June 14 - Wrestle

@prongsfoot-microfic

James likes using wrestling as a way to be close to his best mate, Sirius.

AO3

***

James always enjoyed anything that got him in physical contact with his best mate Sirius.  He and Sirius had always been affectionate (too affectionate if you listened to their ex-girlfriends), but James could never get enough of Sirius.  He wants to be pressed up against him, feeling a closeness that he never quite gets on a day-to-day basis.  Especially since realizing that he fancies Sirius. 

Hence, always asking him to wrestle.  It was the best way to get what he wants without admitting his fancy.

Sirius is always game for it, too, which is prefect.

“Hey, do you wanna –” James starts as soon as Sirius enters the dorm.

“- wrestle?” Sirius teases, as he throws his bag on the bed.  “Damn, Jay, you’ve really gotten into wrestling lately.  Trying to impress some bird, are we?”

“No, not a bird, of course not,” James says, trying not to blush.  “Just like being fit, the quidditch season might be over, but I like keeping in shape.”

Sirius grins as he pulls James to his feet and moves him around so that he’s very quickly down on the ground with Sirius on top of him, straddling him.  

James hadn’t been expecting this response, but certainly wasn’t complaining at being pinned down by Sirius.  “Aren’t you supposed to give a warning – hardly fair fighting to have no warning?”

Sirius chuckles, softly.  He’s pressed up against him in all of the right places, and James has to will his body not to react.  

“Nah, because I’m pretty sure this is the position that you want to be in.”

“No – what – I – you – er…” he stutters.

Sirius grins.  “Come on, Jay.  I’ve noticed a few �� things in the last few weeks.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like you always wanting to be abnormally close and affectionate with me,” Sirius states.  He withdraws one hand from pinning James’ hand down to run it down James’ bare chest.  “And whenever you want to wrestle, you’re always wearing just your very thin pants which give a very obvious reaction.”  He looks down between their bodies, where Sirius shuffles to reveal James’ tenting pants.  “And you never ask anyone else for it, so it definitely isn’t about staying fit.”

James blushes, furiously.  Obviously, everything Sirius had stated was true.  James has been into his best mate for ages.  It’s only natural that Sirius would eventually pick up on it.  Still, he can only hope that Sirius doesn’t hate him for his interest.  

“Please – don’t hate me.  I just –”

“Hate you?  Why would I hate you?” Sirius asks, as he trails his one hand over James’ chest.  “I’m just wondering when you’re going to ask me out.”

Ask him out.  Sirius wants him to ask him out.

James couldn’t believe it, but he’s terribly happy.  “I – you – you want me to ask you out?”

Sirius smiles.  “Well, yeah.  I thought it would happen a lot sooner, so I figure – I’d prompt you.”

James laughs and shakes his head.  “You know, you could just ask me out yourself.”

“I could, but I’d much rather make you do it.”

“You’re the most annoying boyfriend in the world, you know that?”

Sirius laughs.  “You haven’t even asked me yet and already complaining that I’m an annoying boyfriend… something seems off here.”

They both find themselves in a fit of giggles before Sirius leans down and gives him a kiss.  “For the record, yes.  I would like to date you even if you didn’t ask.”

James grins, “Sounds like someone else is asking.”

“Definitely am.”

“Good.  Then let’s date.”

“Gladly.”

[vro0m]

vro0m's rewatch - 181/332

2016 Italian GP

Alright this is round 14, and we are in Monza. 

Big announcement that weekend : Jenson is taking a sabbatical in 2017. McLaren was eager to establish that he wasn't retiring or leaving, he has a 2 year contract with them and he'll play an "ambassador" role. Oh and apparently we already knew that but Massa is retiring as well. 

Lewis is on pole half a second ahead of Nico. Behind them it's Seb and Raikkonen, Valtteri, Ricciardo, Verstappen, Perez, Hulkenberg and Gutierrez. 

In an interview, a journalist talks to Daniel about Max and especially his behaviour in the last race. She mentions that he's talked about quite a bit in driver meetings but holds his own easily. Daniel says because Max has grown with the sport through his dad in particular, he's not too intimidated by the lifestyle and by everything that goes with Formula 1. That echoes what I talked about at the end of the 2015 season reviews about comparing Lewis and Max's debuts, and the advantage Max had with knowing internal politics and the codes etc. 

Oh I can see Angela around Lewis' car again! 

There was a moment of silence before the anthem but I don't know why, I'll check later. (It was for the victim of the 2016 Central Italy earthquake)

And just like that we're ready for the race. 

Formation lap. 

And they're racing! 

Oyyy terrible start for Lewis! Nico takes the lead followed by Seb and Raikkonen, Valtteri and Ricciardo. Lewis is only P6. What the fuck happened. He's battling Ricciardo for P5, and gets it. On a replay we see Palmer and Nasr collided. Lewis is half a second behind Bottas. Nothing in the replays really explains what happened with his start. He's just slow. He's a second behind Valtteri now, and we hear Bono explaining to him the three cars ahead of him are on supersofts, so they'll be fast for a few laps. He's on softs himself, so he's waiting. That might explain some of why they got a better start. Raikkonen is asked to cool the engine already. Lewis is attacking Valtteri. Palmer retires. Lewis is warned he should keep his tyres in good shape for strategy. He's still attacking Valtteri though. Nasr gets a 10 second time penalty for the collision with Palmer. 

Lap 10, but we're not seeing the timings because we're watching Lewis hunt Valtteri, who's defending very well. Nico is far ahead of the Ferraris already. Lewis is getting there and he overtakes Valtteri in the pitlane straight! P4. Still no news of the standings lol. Oh here we go. So Nico, Seb +5.3, Raikkonen +2.8, Lewis +3.5, Valtteri +0.9, Ricciardo +1.5, Perez +2.4, Massa +3.6, Verstappen +1.7, Alonso +1.4. Lewis says his rear is pretty bad already and I mean yeah no shit they told you to look after them man. He's losing time over Nico. Valtteri pits as do Max and Alonso. Bono tells Lewis to pick up the pace as much as he can for three laps. Valtteri overtakes both Jenson and Sainz after his stop and is back in the points. Beautiful. Raikkonen pits, Perez pits. Raikkonen is again on supersofts so we know he's gonna have to stop again. Seb pits. Not great, 3.9, also supersofts. Ricciardo is in, and Massa. Should be the Mercs soon. Seb got out right in front of Raikkonen who doesn't attack. They're being team players or whatever. Lewis did pick the pace up indeed. His lap times compared to Nico's read +0.496 for lap 14, +0.429 for lap 15, +0.245 for lap 16, and +0.069 for lap 17. He's still not gaining on him though. Valtteri is back in P5 but closely followed by Grosjean and Ricciardo, all three within a second of each other. Grosjean has to defend against Daniel and that allows Valtteri to get ahead a bit. 

It's lap 20. The Mercs still haven't stopped? But Lewis has started gaining on Nico. The gap between them is 14 seconds at this point. Seb is 21 seconds behind them, having pitted, then Raikkonen +1.3, Valtteri +7.9, Daniel +1.4, Grosjean +1.1, Perez +3.1, Max +2.9, and Massa +2.2. The gap at the front is down to 12.8. Nico is told 2 more laps. The gap is 11.8. Nico pits. It's a 3.9 stop, not great. Lewis is in the lead. The gap is now 13.7. Lewis pits. They're both on mediums, and Lewis’ stop was quicker although they don't give us the exact time. He's still out behind both Ferraris. That's gonna make things complicated for him, he'll finish P2 but the win seems pretty much impossible. Lewis asks about the Ferraris’ tyres and Bono explains they'll have to stop again. But Lewis can't waste time waiting for their tyres to fall apart. Yellow flags, Wehrlein is told to immediately stop the car and turn it off. It is smoking. 

It's lap 30. Nico, Seb +4.7, Raikkonen +2.9, Lewis +2.4 (and gaining half a second per lap), Valtteri +10.6, Ricciardo +1.0, Verstappen +7.0, Massa +4.8, Hulkenberg +8.1, and Alonso +6.5. Seb pits. It's really not a fascinating race as you can tell. Not much on track action. Raikkonen pits as well. Daniel pits. Because Kvyat got a penalty I don't even what for we're now talking about the paddock rumour that this is his last gp and he's about to be replaced by Pierre. 

It's lap 40 and I'm definitely bored af. Nico, Lewis +10.8, Seb +16.9, Raikkonen +6.7, Valtteri +11.1, Ricciardo +3.5, Perez +3.5, Verstappen +4.2, Massa +10.9, Hulkenberg +6.9. These gaps are boring themselves. Oh ho. It looks like Lewis has had an issue? Yeah big lock up before the chicane and he had to take the run off with the curbs. 

10 laps to go. Literally yawning. They're trying to get me excited about a Jenson v. Alonso teammate fight for P12 and it's not working. Daniel overtakes Valtteri for P5. Oh. Alonso's engineer goes on radio to tell him to keep a strong pace to the end because Grosjean might still get to them on his 18 lap old options. Alonso's sole response is a MANICAL LAUGHTER. 5 laps to go. 

It's the end of this extremely dull race. 

Nico wins, Lewis P2, Seb P3. 

Nico's engineer just called him Nicolas which is extremely weird. 

Toto is happy, because it's "Ferrari-land" and one of the most prestigious circuits. He says it was probably boring to watch but still exciting to them. Nico is crowdsurfing his team. Toto says Lewis' bad start was probably due to too much wheelspin.

Standard "good job" from the Merc drivers in the cooldown room and that's it. Nico and Seb speak in German as usual when they're both here. Seb is excited. The crowd outside is singing like at a football match. It's gotten very silent inside. Seb accidentally took the n°1 cap and is told by an F1 official or whatever and Nico and he joke about it, in German still. 

There's boos on the podium. I think for Nico, the journalists aren't sure. So much smoke from the crowd you can't see them on the podium but at least it's not during the race like nowadays I guess.

The trophy ceremony makes it very clear to everyone the boos were for Nico because when Lewis gets his they cheer loudly. Not quite as loudly as for Seb of course. 

Lewis as usual just charms the crowd.

Doesn't matter what he says anyway, they're all just waiting for Seb. Seb is emotional, no surprise. 

Afterwards Nico says he feels Italian a bit himself because he has a lot of Italian friends? The crowd isn't liking it too much but then he talks to them in Italian and it wins them over. He makes them sing the earlier football song as well. 

Anyway. In the post race interview, Lewis says it's still a simple race weekend compared to the last one. It was all decided on the start. The strategy was the best possible one. Nico did a great job and he did his best getting back to P2.

She asks if there's any difference in Nico this year that makes Lewis think it could go all the way to the end of the season. "Not really."

Awkward pause as he doesn't elaborate. It gets him a bit annoyed, you can tell, because for the rest of the interview he's trying to get rid of it quickly. He doesn't talk much, makes her feel like the questions are stupid, and does that smile that signals the end of the interview after each question.

She moves on to another question. Raikkonen said they were surprised not to be further behind Mercedes and does he think they're gonna put up a fight? "Well they haven't all weekend so… No?"

"They were obviously quicker in the race, it's always been the case, in qualifying there's a bigger gap and in the race it closes up a little bit. But we were never really under a massive threat from them today." She says the next race is Singapore and last year it was a bit of a confusion for Merc, no worries? "I can only speak for myself I don't know what the team are thinking cause I haven't spoken to them about that race." 

The gap in the standings is down to 2 points. 

Anyway there's a lot of rumours about F1 being bought by liberty media at that point and Simon says that to get a return on investment they'd apparently need a 25 race calendar and well. Maybe that explains some current things? But of course it's become a lot more profitable since then with DTS and all that I guess. 

Oh and Nasr did that thing Perez did not long ago (in 2023 I mean). The car was undrivable after the collision, they brought him in, put on new tyres, confirmed the damage, retired him, realised he had a penalty, sent him back out to serve it, and they retired him again so he doesn't take the penalty to Singapore. 

Of course RBR denies the Gasly rumour and says the "official intention" is to keep Kvyat but he needs to improve. So. Yeah. 

That's it for Monza and God was it a boring one. 

[trashbag-baby666]

Bighorn Mountain Side-Luztoye.

Chapter Twelve.

Chapter Summary: George and Joe find themselves at the county fair, discussing whether Babe is a top or bottom with Bill.

WC: 2,600.

C/W: Mentions of Babe being a bottom and PTSD.

Series Masterlist!

George found himself in another whole new environment, again. This time around it was the County Fair.

But turns out it's a pretty big deal around here.

“So this is another idea of fun for you guys?” George looked at Joe as they walked up and down the barns of farm animals people were showing. There were cash prizes for the animals and stuff.

“Well we gotta go see Bill's cows and Babe and Genes ducks.” Joe explained to him as they walked in the cow barn. George laughed, shaking his head, sure this would be interesting.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Bill laughed as he came around a cow and walked over to them, “We're gonna turn this poor fella into a hick if ya keep bringing him to our shit kicker traditions.” Bill smacked George's shoulder.

Truly, George would do anything that made Joe happy. He cared so deeply for him, George would follow him to the end of the world blindly if that's what Joe wanted.

“I’m starting to feel like one, ya scallywag.” George said as he did a spot on impression of Bill, “Now where are the cows?”

“Oh fuck you too George Speirs,” Bill shook his head, “Now you got yourself a funny guy here Joe, he would’ve loved that goin.”

Joe cut him off, “The going away party for Babes virginity.” Joe laughed nervously, eyeing Bill like he was trying to make him explode with his brain.

“You guys had a party for when Babe lost his virginity?” George laughed, grabbing Joe's shoulder as he bent over, “Who was it?”

“Gene,” Joe looked at him as George straightened up, lifting an eyebrow.

“You’re telling me Babe didn’t get laid till like May? Of this year?” George snickered thinking about how the first time he had sex he was 14.

“Yep,” Bill smirked, “Do you think Gene is the one who usually, you know, like?” Bill thrusted his hips forward slightly.

This caused a fit of laughter between the other two boys. Joe and George grabbed at each other as they laughed, George falling into Joe slightly.

“What's so funny?” Bill furrowed his eyebrows, a look of confusion on his face.

“Babe is the biggest bottom any of us have ever met.” Joe exclaimed.

“Literally and figuratively,” George smiled. Babe would never hear the end from it about the fact he was like six foot, five inches.

“He’s on the basketball team,” Joe looked at George as he slipped an arm around George's waist.

“But he sucks at all things sports? Except for hockey.” George had seen the hockey trophies in Babes room. Plus Babe would often have a puck and a hockey stick out. Running around his driveway and George would watch him.

“He’s just there to psych out the other team because he's so tall but he's really good at blocking.” Joe explained to George, his mouth falling into an O shape.

“Now do ya fucker’s wanna come see my cows or are we gonna keep yabbin’ about, Heffron?” Bill asked.

“Let's go see Bill's dairy farm,” George patted Joe's back as they walked down the barn to where Bill had three of his cows. The ones that produce the most milk, was what Bill had told them last week.

“Now this is Bertha,” Bill patted the neck of a cow as she stood in a stall. Bertha had a pink ribbed tied around her neck.

“She's a distinguished lady,” George smiled.

“My sisters tie them on the cows for fair season, see look at Ms. Daisy.” Bill walked down another one and gave the other cow some pats.

“That color looks so good on you,” George said observing the blue jean colored ribbon tied on her.

“I never get used to ya guys yappin’ at your animals.” Bill shook his head. He saw the way Joe talked to his horses or Babes ducks or the other farm dogs at Genes grandmas. Or the way George would talk to Petunia and talk for her too, George was insistent Petunia talked like a southern bell.

“You don’t talk to yours, Bill?” George said almost like he was offended.

“Well like a normal person would? I don’t give them voices.” Bill pointed at the two of them.

“Okay, we should mooove on,” George chuckled at his own joke.

“Yeah we should go see Babes ducks, he said he edited photos of them as their designated Hunger Games character. I’m dying to see Peeta the duck as Peeta.” Joe took George's hand, giving it a squeeze.

“Yeah I gotta go talk to the judges and show them my girls.” Bill nodded seeing them off.

They walked into the small animal barn, “Hey guys!” Babe turned holding a duck with a blonde colored yarn wig on.

“That must be The one! And only! Peeta Quacklark,” George came over to him.

“I was just about to put him back in his cage,” Babe said, letting George pet his duck, then Gene came around them holding a duck with a long braided poorly made yarn wig.

“Quackniss Everdeen?!” George clasped his hands together, “Oh my gosh I’m such a huge fan! Joe take my photo with them!” Joe fished his phone from his pocket and pulled up the camera.

Gene and Babe held the ducks next to George as he took a photo op with them.

“Is Duckale Hawthorne here?” George smirked.

“No he had to stay back, he’s bad with other ducks.” Gene explained.

“Let's just say there's a reason his name is Duckale.” Babe nodded with a wink talking about the unlikable character that was Gale Hawthore.

“What’re you guys doing here?” Babe asked, putting the two ducks back in their cages.

“I’m here to show him what a good ol’ county fair was about. We just saw Bill and his cows.” Joe nodded.

“Oh you’ve never been to a fair?” Babe asked confusedly, tilting his head slightly.

“Well yeah I’ve been to a fair, just usually not ones with animals and belt buckles.” George snickered; he had noticed how everyone dressed like a shit kicker or people overly dressed up rhinestone button ups, cowboy hats, cowboy boots, giant bedazzled belt buckles.

Even Bill had on a big belt buckle with a cow on it.

Gene smirked a bit, “You shoulda saw how I felt when I moved here from France.” A more potenter accent poking out.

“You’re from France?” George asked point at the dark haired boy he didn’t know very well after all, “You don’t sound french? You sound like those guys in that one episode of Scooby Doo where they’re in New Orleans.”

“Well I’m actually from the bayou in Louisiana but I moved to France with my grandma when I was 12. I have dual citizenship, then we moved here last year.” Gene explained.

“That's really cool,” George nodded.

Gene checked his watch, “I gotta eat something.”

“Or else your diabetes will act up?” Babe asked more poking fun, most of the friend group made fun of Gene for being diabetic. It was all in good fun of course Gene made fun of it too.

“Yes Babe, or else my diabetes will act up.” Gene said with a tone of sarcasm.

“Do you guys wanna grab a bite to eat?” Babe asked.

“No, we ate before we came actually. We were going to go see my sisters and their horses. They have their little drill team performance going on soon.” Joe explained.

“Okay well are you guys going to the rodeo tonight?” Babe rocked back and forth on his feet.

“Yeah, we will!” George responded and looked at Joe, “Joe you stinker! You didn’t tell me they were doing a rodeo tonight.

Joe didn’t tell George because in four days it would be the anniversary of the bull crushing his leg at the rodeo last year. He still couldn’t really handle being at the rodeos without feeling nauseated and increasingly depressed.

“Oh I didn’t? I thought I told you last week,” Joe smiled nervously hoping they would buy it.

George shrugged, “Maybe you know how bad my memory is.”

“Well, we're gonna go eat and we will see you tonight.” Babe waved to them as he took Gene's hand and Babe literally skipped out.

George and Joe swung their hands as they walked over to the small arena where they showed their animals. A girl came around the corner with caramel brown hair and soft blue eyes. She sported bootcut jeans and some cowboy boots they could hear from a mile away. She also sported a large belt buckle and a baseball tee style shirt with the local 4H logo stamped on it.

“Oh hey Joe!” Frannie smiled walking over to the two of them.

“Hey Frannie, this is my boyfriend George, George this is Frannie Bill's girlfriend.” Joe introduced them.

“Well howdy there city boy, Bill told me lots about you.” Frannie shook his hand.

“Well hopefully good things,” George smiled, “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“All good things, but if Bill gives you any trouble just ignore him. Love him but he's a dumb ass.” Frannie snickered.

“So are you guys gonna come see me ride tonight?” Frannie asked.

“At the rodeo? Yeah!” George looked between the two of them.

“Yeah! I barrel race.” Frannie nodded.

“That’s really cool, I’ve seen videos of it on tik tok.” George's friends seemed to have a really good taste in partners and people. George hasn't met a single person he didn’t like. Well except for this kid Herbert Sobel who worked at Home Depot and always had an attitude with him. The guys just said to not listen to him and that he was an asshole.

“Yeah, I’ll see you guys there.” Frannie waved to them and walked into the horse barn.

“She seems nice,” George nodded.

“She's the sweetest, she's exactly what Bill needs, a rational person.” Joe explained, “Plus Bill is super in love with her too.”

They sat on the bleachers as the kids waited in line to show their horses.

“Welcome out tonight Cody, Wyoming. You’ve found yourself at our local rodeo.” The announcer came over the loudspeakers as they sat in the bleachers at the rodeo. George was so excited for tonight and Joe thought it was beyond funny. He even talked him into wearing his belt buckle from his bull riding days.

“I’m so excited!” George snickered sitting down in between Joe and Babe.

“This is so funny,” Babe giggled, taking a handful of popcorn from George's bag, “Right Joe?”

Joe stared at the dirt all over, suddenly Joe could feel the wind get knocked out of him as he smacked against the ground the dirt flying all over.

Suddenly Joe felt the searing pain in his knee. Not even his knee, the phantom pains suddenly shooting up and down his leg.

Joe stood up, “ I’m gonna go to the bathroom.” Joe stumbled over himself as he ran to the bathroom and yanked his jeans down, sitting down and pulling his leg off and then his liner. He breathed heavily as he closed his eyes and began stroking a single finger down his stump slowly. He tried to remind himself to take deep breaths as he felt himself slipping in and out of a PTSD induced panic. He squeezed his eyes shut as he added a second finger to gently massage himself till the phantom pains went away.

“Fuck,” Joe murmured to himself as he felt tears begin to prick his eyes from the pain.

He continued to rub the pads of his finger up and down till it became just a small tingling before he put his leg back on .

Joe walked out of the bathroom and continued trying to take even breathes. He walked down to their spot and saw Lieb and Web had joined them.

“Hey Joe,” Web waved as Joe came back over.

“Hey,” Joe smiled as he filed in and sat next to George.

“Are you okay darling?” George asked quietly as Joe sat back down.

“Yeah, just the fair food was making me feel all pukey.” Joe frowned, “I think I’ll be fine, can I have a drink of your water?”

“Yeah,” George bent down a bit and grabbed the metal water bottle off the ground.

“Thanks,” Joe took a few drinks and handed it back to George.

Bill came over to join them right before barrel racing started. Bill would help out with the animals. He always wanted to ride bulls but his mom wouldn’t let him.

“Hey guys,” Bill sat by them, “How's your night?”

“Fine,” Joe shrugged. Bill could tell something was up by Joe's body language and how he sounded.

Bill kept giving Joe side glances as the rodeo went on. Joe was stiff and he kept adjusting his position.

“Next up we have Cody’s under 18 barrel racing champion! Frannie Purnell and her horse Bonney!” The announcer called.

“Yeah Frannie!” Babe yelled.

“Frannie!” Bill cheered.

George watched in utter shock as Frannie raced the track. “Folks, we have our fastest time of the night so far! Frannie must be ready to defend her title with a time of 14.45 seconds!” The announcer called.

The guys all jumped up, “Way to go Frannie!” Babe and Gene yelled as they all cheered and clapped.

Joe sat back down and kept his eyes focused on pretty much anything except for the dirt arena by the bull shoots.

When the bull riding under 18 competition was announced Joe swallowed hard, “I’m excited to see what my hunk is so good at.” George giggled and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“George,” Joe said a bit with an edge to his tone and kind of shoved him off a bit.

“Sorry,” George frowned and moved away from him just slightly.

Joe could feel the pain start to come back as it began watching boys his age do what he should be doing.

George looked over at Joe, “Is something wrong?” George frowned as he sat the painful stare on Joe's face.

“Yes, I'm fine George.” Joe said with a little bit of an edge. George looked over at Bill, both of them sharing a look that spoke the words of something that was up with Joe.

Joe could feel his heart beat in his ears as rider after rider went. The phantom pains and tingling getting worse by the minute. He could begin to feel an uncomfortable pressure in his chest, his vision going blurry and he gripped his thighs to try and ground him.

“Joe, are you sure everything is okay?” George rested his hand on top of Joes.

“Yes George I’m fine. Now stop asking.” Joe snapped feeling himself come back down to reality. George jumped back slightly as Joe unexpectedly yelled at him. George felt tears begin to prick against his eyes and he tried to swallow the lump growing in his throat.

“Come on,” Bill stood up and grabbed Joe's arm, basically pulling the other boy out.

“Are you okay?” Babe asked, looking at his friend.

“Yeah,” George whispered as he tried to contain the tears beginning to fall down his cheeks. George didn’t understand why Joe had yelled at him, did he do something wrong? Maybe he shouldn’t have made Joe come tonight?

[thegoddessprose]

Since I neglected to post anything Chitarch related yesterday... Happy Cheap Candy Day, everyone

1. I mean... Duh, Plutarch. While they'd known each other for years, they didn't get close until I suppose the middle of catching fire, and it built up over the next few months.

2. Not anymore... She had an ex who's an OC named Theseus who was the father of her youngest, and they were the ones who were the closest to long term commitment. It didn't work out, but they're still friends and love each other... Just not romantically.

3. It's hardly her first time at the rodeo, so what stands out to her is something personal... Something that shows he's been listening to her.

4. Chiasa dislikes impersonal expensive gifts. It's a clear indicator that the giver is showing off how rich he is and cares more about his reputation than her.

5. Most? Hmm... I think post-war, when Plutarch had a particularly hard day, she spent the night pampering him; massages, a nice bath, maybe firing up an old movie for them to either enjoy or make fun of while they cuddled in bed. I have a hunch he's not used to other people taking care of him...

6. A tie between Plutarch telling the press that he's proud to be with her, and when he secretly commissioned a statue of her beloved late father to be erected after he was kept a footnote in history by Snow for so long.

7. Chiasa is well seasoned in flirting, so for the most part she's pretty successful. There will always be those who aren't interested no matter what, however.

8. She doesn't really believe in marriage... Although she wouldn't need anything big, just sincere. The grandest gesture she'd want is a speech about how much he loves her and how happy they've been together.

9. Chiasa likes little bouts of physical affection, like quick kisses or touches, but also likes leaving little notes or messages to tell Plutarch she's thinking of him.

10. We're getting into the creative side here... If Chiasa creates a custom piece of clothing for someone for free, it means she thinks highly of them.

11. Most people love how bubbly and confident she is, as well as kind.

12. I love how she wants nothing more to spread joy and warmth, especially in a world that's the opposite.

13. The affection is a little more platonic (Hugs, for example), and really just telling them, or getting them a meaningful gift.

14. I wouldn't really say she has any she sticks to...

15. Chiasa loves chocolate. Truffles are all well and good, but she likes the heart-shaped mini chocolates (Preferably dark) better.

16. It doesn't have to be a grand gesture, she'd love something low-stakes like a coffee or park date so there's less pressure and a better ability to get to know her suitor.

17. No, I think she might have been burned in the past, and doesn't have time for mind games, so she's on her guard when it comes to actual romance.

18. Eh, I don't know... She certainly prefers men who look like humans rather than some other Eldritch abominations in the Capitol. It's hard for her to resist some good old fashioned BDE, however...

19. Chiasa wasn't really looking for romance... Pre-Plutarch, she thought she just wasn't meant to settle down, that she was a free spirit. She highly values her friends and family, however, and makes sure they know she loves them.

20. Post-war, she's absolutely fine with them because there's no more danger of Snow using her as leverage. I have a feeling Plutarch might be a little reserved, though.

21. Oh, no. She's way too old and romantically savvy for that.

22. It is a bit of a guilty pleasure for her... I'll say it's not the "insta-love" that has her enjoying the trashier genre, however 😉

23. To relax, Chiasa usually gives herself a facial or warm bath and relaxes to some calming music. Incense may or may not be burning as well.

24. Most initial attraction is physical, so it's not hard to figure out there. When it comes to romantic... For her, it's how comfortable she is with him and how much she thinks about him when they're not together... Also whether or not she feels happier when she's with him.

25. For a time, she did (During her New Age phase). Afterwards, she still did to some degree, but also believed she just wasn't meant to have one... Then of course that she did, but she had to wait longer than average.

26. She doesn't really throw that around when it's not platonic.... She was the first to say it to Plutarch, however.

27. Chiasa does follow "tradition" and make chocolates for her loved ones before personally giving them out. Once she's with Plutarch, it's extended to a grander date to "make up" for when they had to be hidden before enthusiastically reliving those times when they were confined to his room.

28. Probably seeing her fashion design supplies replaced when they're getting low, and she calls herself a dork for this, but "parallel play" with little glances. She and Plutarch can be next to each other, but working on different things and just enjoy each other's company.

29. If we're talking modern-ish songs, her favorite would be For Your Eyes Only by Sheena Easton

30. Again thinking "modern," Clueless is her guilty pleasure. Also The Holiday but only Kate Winslet's arc.

Lovey Dovey OC Development Prompts

Here’s a lil’ somethin’ somethin’ for you all on this corporate holiday! You can fill this out on your own, or you can ask your followers to send you numbers! (Oh, and remember that the real holiday is tomorrow, when all the holiday candy is discounted.) Have fun!

♥ (01) Is your OC in love? If so, with whom, and for how long? ♥ (02) Does another OC love your OC? If so, whom, and does your OC know? ♥ (03) Are there any romantic gestures that your OC loves? ♥ (04) Are there any romantic gestures that your OC hates? ♥ (05) What is the most romantic thing your OC has done for someone else? ♥ (06) What is the most romantic thing that has been done for your OC? ♥ (07) How successful is your OC at flirting with others? ♥ (08) What is your OC’s dream marriage proposal? ♥ (09) What is your OC’s favorite small way to show their love? ♥ (10) What is your OC’s favorite big way to show their love? ♥ (11) What do others love most about your OC? ♥ (12) What do you love most about your OC? ♥ (13) How does your OC show their love to those that are not their partner(s)? ♥ (14) Does your OC have any romantic traditions? ♥ (15) What is your OC’s favorite type of Valentine’s Day candy? ♥ (16) What is your OC’s ideal first date? ♥ (17) Could your OC fall in love with someone they’ve never met in person? ♥ (18) Does your OC have a “type”? ♥ (19) How highly does your OC value love (platonic, romantic, or otherwise)? ♥ (20) How does your OC feel about public displays of affection? ♥ (21) Does your OC believe in love at first sight? ♥ (22) How often does your OC read romantic literature? ♥ (23) What is your OC’s favorite nice thing to do for themselves? ♥ (24) How does your OC determine that they’re attracted to someone? ♥ (25) Does your OC believe in soulmates? ♥ (26) Is your OC ever the first to say “I love you”? ♥ (27) How does your OC typically spend their Valentine’s Day? ♥ (28) What is something unconventional that your OC thinks is romantic? ♥ (29) What is your OC’s favorite love song? ♥ (30) What is your OC’s favorite romantic movie?

[lachievpoststhings]

The Simpsons Season 6: My thoughts

And we're back! (sorry for the delay)

This season is really great! This is remembered as one of the best seasons of the show and I can see why. Containing the show's first flashforward episode, a crossover episode that works even if you didn't know it was a crossover and part one of a really good whodunit.

Let's dive right in!

Favourite Episodes:

Itchy & Scratchy Land

This episode is a fun vacation episode and it brings back memories of when my family used to go to Queensland for our holidays (although we didn't run into any killer robots, thankfully)

Homer the Great

All the Stonecutter stuff in this episode is pretty funny, and the song is pretty good. Just hope this doesn't inspire any real cults (except maybe No Homers).

Homie the Clown

I mean of course this episode's funny, it's about clown college! (the stuff with the mafia is pretty funny too)

Bart vs. Australia

This might sound weird but I typically enjoy Aussie stereotypes in cartoons, I find them mildly amusing. If I had the time and resources, I'd redub most of the voices with actual Australian voices.

A Star Is Burns

This is a funny episode and it's fun to see all the characters make their own movies. It's also a crossover with another series called The Critic, which I highly recommend checking out. But even if you've never seen or heard of The Critic, this episode still works as it's own thing (despite Matt Groening's protests).

Lisa's Wedding

The very first episode where the show took a proper look at a potential future of these characters, which ironically happened 14 years ago. It's always fun to see this show's view on what these characters would be up to when they're older. Might have been what might have inspired my Harvey Beaks AU (if anyone gives a crap about that).

The PTA Disbands

It's funny, what more do you want from me?

Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One)

This one's really a no brainer. The whole episodes sets up possible suspects and motives and there are actual clues hidden throughout the episode. The episode actually does make you think. But even without the mystery element, this episode is still really funny.

Not so Favourite Episode:

Another Simpsons Clip Show

This feels like the show's laziest clipshow. The only thing this episode really had going for it for the longest time was the flashbacks to "Life on the Fast Lane" from season 1 and even then, that's only because season 1 didn't get any reruns on TV when I was growing up.

Now I'll quickly bring up the boxset

When this season first came out on DVD, it was in this Homer shaped boxet, which caused some controversy among collectors. A cardboard set was made available as an alternative but I gotta ask, was the cardboard set released in stores after that or was the plastic head one the more common one? I ask because in Australia, I saw the cardboard one more.

Well, that's season 6 done. Join us next time when we find out who shot Mr. Burns! (if you can't wait though, watch Eddache's YouTube video about it, it's really good).

[bewitchingbooktours]

Rainbow Cookies Recipe

Holiday Recipe – Rainbow Cookies

I love to bake! And while I am partial to quick and easy recipes (I mean, who isn’t?), sometimes the more complicated ones have the biggest payoff!

 One of my absolute FAVORITE cookie recipes is an old Italian one that was passed to me from my mother—RAINBOW COOKIES! My mother was a wizard in the kitchen, and even with her amazing culinary skills, she only made rainbow cookies one time a year: Christmastime! So naturally, growing up I equated rainbow cookies with the holiday season, not realizing that they were readily available at any other time of the year at any given Italian bakery in New York.

If you like jelly, and almond, and chocolate, then this is for you… but I warn you, the recipe and process of the recipe is not to be taken lightly!  But once you’ve mastered the art of the rainbow cookie, you know you’ve elevated your baking game to that whole new level!

Good luck, godspeed, May the Force Be With You, Valar Morghulis, It is Known, This is the Way…

DeVivo’s Rainbow Cookies

Materials needed:

Three bowls

Electric mixer

Parchment paper

Three large cookie/baking pans

Small bowl for egg whites

  Ingredients needed:

1. 8 oz. can of Almond Filling

2. 6 sticks of butter (softened)

3. 2 cups sugar

4. 8 eggs

5. 2 teaspoons almond extract

6. 4 cups flour

7. Red food coloring

8. Green food coloring

9. 1 jar apricot preserves

10. 1 jar raspberry preserves

11. 1 package Toll House mini chocolate chips

Instructions:

1. Oven at 350

2. Separate the egg whites into a small bowl. Beat with the mixer until they are thick and stiff

3. Mix the yolks, almond filling, softened butter, almond extract & sugar in one of the large bowls

4. Beat in the flour to the mixture

5. Fold in the whites to the mixture a little at a time. This is a very gentle process!

6. Separate the mixture into three parts – so this way you have batter in each of the three bowls. It won’t be exact, so you’ll have to eyeball it. It helps if the three bowls are the same or at least the same size.

7. Leave one bowl WHITE. Use the food coloring to color the others (one red, one green)

8. Grease one of the pans and line it with parchment paper. GREASE the paper.

9. Pour the white batter onto the pan and spread it out like a giant rectangle shape. Try to have it even with no “breaks” in the batter.

10. Bake for 15 minutes

11. When done, flip the contents of the pan onto another pan (CAREFULLY) and remove the parchment paper. Spread the apricot preserves on top. You will really only use half the jar for this.

12. Do the same with the other colors. Grease sheets and even out the batter. Bake for 15 minutes each.

13. When the second batter is finished, flip that on top of the layer with the apricot preserves (CAREFULLY)! Remove the parchment paper and spread the raspberry preserves. (again, probably half the jar).

14. Finally, the third color goes on top of the raspberry preserves. Leave the parchment paper on and press down to hold everything together.

15. Put in refrigerator overnight.

16. Heat up the chocolate chips so you have a spread. Remove the parchment paper from the tray and spread the chocolate on top. **you don’t want the chocolate to be on too thick, or else it will be hard to cut

17. Back in refrigerator for about an hour (give or take) to let the chocolate harden and settle.

18. Cut into cookie squares and serve.

19. ***the edges might be messy, but that’s ok. I make a separate cookie bucket I call “THE REJECTS”. Reject cookies are still delicious! They just aren’t pretty to look at.

***FUN FACT: For years, I used wax paper instead of parchment paper. It was what my mother used. Thanks, Mom, for putting us in a potentially life-threatening situation. You were always good for that. Miss you, Red. <3

The Coal Elf

The Coal Elf Chronicles

Book One

Maria DeVivo

Genre:  Dark Fantasy

Publisher: 4 Horsemen Publications

Date of Publication:  October 15, 2024

ISBN: 979-8823204231

ASIN: B0CW1HMWZJ

Number of pages:  260

Word Count: 73k

Tagline: Santa is real, but this isn't your childhood Christmas tale!   

Book Description: 

Ember Skye is a fed-up teenaged Coal Elf with a big ashy chip on her shoulder. Torn away from her carefree life Aboveground, she was forced into a world of dirt and darkness in the Mines. Now, the coal is starting to take its toll. Plus, being the only girl-elf coal miner at the North Pole is not fun at all!

Amazon     4Horseman Publications

About the Author:

Maria DeVivo writes horror and dark fantasy for both a YA and adult audience. Each of her series has been Amazon best-sellers and have won multiple awards since 2012. A lover of all things dark and demented, the worlds she creates are fantastical and immersive. Get swept away in the lands of elves, zombies, angels, demons, and witches (but not all in the same place). Maria takes great pleasure in warping the comfort factor in her readers’ minds – just when you think you’ve reached a safe space in her stories, she snaps you back into her twisted reality.

https://linktr.ee/mariadevivo   

a Rafflecopter giveaway

[dsandrvk]

Monday, October 14 - Alexander Selkirk Island, Juan Fernandez Islands, Chile

Yesterday was a great sea day with lots of sun, light winds, and lots of wildlife to look at. We saw multiple whale blows about a mile from the ship - from the size and shape of the blows at that distance there is a good chance they were a Blue Whale and her calf. There were also dolphins, and we are seeing albatrosses again.

Today, after awakening to a beautiful sunrise, we were fortunate to visit Alexander Selkirk Island, named for the man who was the basis for the novel Robinson Crusoe. He was a Scots privateer (sanctioned by the British Navy to wreak havoc on Spanish ships and towns in South America and basically a pirate), and was sailing on a ship named Cinque Ports when he asked to be left on an island in the Juan Fernandez archipelago, fearing that the ship was no longer seaworthy (worm ridden) and having a conflict with the newly appointed captain of the ship. He had misread the grumbling of fellow sailors as belief that others would follow him in a mutiny, but when he got ashore, no one else followed him. He then supposedly begged the captain to be allowed back on board, but the captain was adamant, and so Selkirk (nee Selcraig) spent the next four years and four months on the island before being rescued by another ship. He had also wrongly assumed that when he was "marooned", another ship would be by soon, as the islands were well-known and frequently visited for lobster and other provisions.

He was right about one thing, however, and shortly after he left her in 1704, the Cinque Ports sank off the coast of Peru, with all but about a dozen men, including the captain, drowning. It's a little confusing, but the island that Selkirk was marooned on is called Robinson Crusoe Island, and he never set foot on Selkirk Island. Today the island is mostly uninhabited except for some seasonal cottages for the fishermen who come here to catch lobsters (actually a large clawless crayfish) which are shipped all over the world. It is a pretty vertical place - lush in some of the higher valleys we could see, but very rocky near the bottom, with little access to the interior. It is also shaped like a wedge, as it is part of a larger caldera.

It also is home to a great wildlife success story. Once numbering around four million individuals, Juan Fernandez fur seals were heavily hunted and harvested for their thick pelts and were thought extinct until a small colony was found in a cave here in 1965. Since then they have had protected status, and the population has rebounded into the thousands. After positioning the ship on the north coast of the island, the expedition team scouted to see if they could find some seals, and by the time we went out, we had a bit of a ride to an area off the southwest corner, but there were lots of them, in the water and on the rocky shores.

The Juan Fernandez Seal is the second smallest fur seal, and they are extremely playful iand acrobatic in the water. Fur seals are eared seals, meaning they are really in the sea lion family, rather than the true, earless seals. Once we got near their area, they swam out to our Zodiacs and proceeded to spin, leap, dive, do some flipper water ballet and come right up to our boats for a closer look. I got some good shots with my camera, but it was harder to get them with the phone, although I did take some short clips of their antics. Since we were the last trip of the day, we weren't in any rush and spent considerable time just enjoying them, and id like to think the feeling was mutual.

Earlier on our way out to the fur seals, we came across several Black-browed Albatross just hanging out. They, too, were curious about us - probably they hadn't seen anything but fishing boats, either, and this one swam right up to our Zodiac. We are back in much cooler waters and as such, there are more nutrients and therefore more sea birds.

One of the things that our crew wanted to do was look for a small German cargo ship, the Titania, that was scuttled here in 1914. It was having problems and couldn't keep up with the rest of the fleet, so was abandoned here, and mostly forgotten. The fishermen who come here did know of it, as they had accidentally found something on the bottom while trawling (or whatever they were doing) in 300 foot depths, and the fishing lineage goes back generations. As a result, an approximate location was determined using the topography of the cliffs as a starting point (there is one photo of the ship on the surface before scuttling). So, working with the locals, one of the on-board submarines went down to try to find the remains, and when they got down to about 300 feet they started to look around, only to realize they were right above it! What a find.

They did eight dives down to the wreck during our time here, and our friends Jon and Anne were on the second dive and said it was the most amazing dive they have ever done (and they used to SCUBA all over the world. Not only was it spectacular to see the ship, they said there were also more fish than they have seen in recent years. These dives are undoubtedly the first time this wreck has been seen, since the depth and remoteness of this location have made it nearly impossible previously. On the last trip of the day down to the Titania, the crew took the fisherman who had given them the idea of where to look, as he had been the keeper of the passed down lore. He was ecstatic about the experience, as the tales he had been told had taken on an almost mythic quality. A video was also made of one of the trips which we viewed tonight and are able to download to our flash drives, etc.

After a late lunch when all the Zodiacs were back, and while they were still running sub trips, our Cruise Director announced the first ever "Pursuit Regatta" where a team of guests would challenge a team of crew to an eight person Zodiac paddle race the length of the ship. Naturally, I was first in line, and as it turned out, only one crew showed up (from the spa) and so it was mostly passengers against other passengers. We had an expedition crew member to use the motor to the starting line, and potentially use the rudder of the motor to keep us straight.

When the ship horn blew we got off to a good start, but the other boat veered wildly and ran into us, and by the time we were disentangled, they were facing the wrong way and it took just a few strokes on our left to line us back up. I used my raft guide experience to call cadence and set the pace, and we sprinted down the entire length of the Pursuit, cheered on by pretty much everybody on board who were out on the decks. It wasn't even close, even when the other team got a little assistance from their outboard. It does help to be heading in the right direction!

When we were done and the submarine was put away, we had a sail-away around the island before heading off to the east for tomorrow's adventure. But the good fortunes of the day weren't over. A group of us diehards hung out on the foredeck watching for sharks and were rewarded with great views of at least five right by the ship in the crystal clear water. The water here is so clear that Anne said they could see the wreck from the sub at 300 feet without the submarine lights - an almost unbelievable depth for the light to penetrate. This truly is a magical area.

Tomorrow we visit the other main island in the archipelago - Robinson Crusoe Island. It is inhabited, and there are several hikes planned, plus a "pirate party" on land in the afternoon. Our weather looks to hold, as although we have had pretty heavy swells, the days have been cool, dry and mostly sunny, with just light wind. Just to the west of us is a nasty system with 30 knot winds, which will hit Selkirk tomorrow. Our incredible luck continues...

[lasttabris]

Rimuru Tempest [ That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime \ Tensura ]

{ Info } ☾ { Roleplay with me } ☾ { Ask this character } ☾ { Tag } ☾ { Guidelines }

Name: Rimuru Tempest Canon: That time I got reincarnated as a Slime (anime only) Canon Point: End of Season 2 Age: No age as a slime. Looks 14-18 in human form, used to be 37 in past life Sex: Agender, sexless, uses "he/him" as pronouns. They/Them is fine too, and he will even allow she/her if it's from someone who doesn't know him. Species: Demon Lord Slime History: Wikia

Personality:

Rimuru Tempest was once a human; a man quite content with his life, even though he never had a girlfriend. He was fun, well-spoken, and so kind that when a random robber was about to stab his junior, Satoru got in the way and was stabbed instead.

So he died. And then he was reincarnated in a new fantastic world. As a slime! Just like the usual isekai trend, Rimuru is overpowered, but one thing about Rimuru is how he decides to balance himself.

Rimuru is a very kind person, and a lot of what happens to him is due to that. He cares about others, even if he tries not to get too involved at first, and this brings pretty big consequences he does not expect at first, like trying to help protect goblins ended up making him the King of Monsters. He didn't expect or wanted any of this to happen, but it did because Rimuru simply wanted to help the best way he could.

He does see he’s responsible for his actions so rather than dropping everything and go about his business (all he wanted to do was to find more people from Earth), Rimuru wants to continue to help those who need him. This means he is fiercely loyal and while he does trust others, he still can’t help worrying what will happen if he’s not by their side. He’s a big dreamer, defends peace rather than war, and thinks peace is the key for a better world for monsters, and believes deeply in his heart that he can eventually have everyone cooperate. It’s thanks to Rimuru's dream of making a safe peaceful place for everyone that monsters accepted this as an actual possibility and started believing it too.

He also shows great respect for the abilities he acquires, especially the strong ones, often putting them to the side because he knows the damage they can cause. Rimuru is humble and has a rule to only use his more dangerous powers if he really has to. He strongly believes the purpose of his power is to aid his people and create a good world for monsters, and that power without a noble ideal behind it is just rubbish. However, that doesn’t mean Rimuru will stay still while his loved ones are hurt. Rimuru will use all of his power whenever needed, specially if his loved ones are involved, sometimes going to extremes which is why he became a Demon Lord.

Rimuru is also mature. He’s capable of strong emotional connections and maturity when he interacts with others, understands the kind of pain people can feel, and he often opens up about his own feelings in order to help others. He can be very mature and rather than getting mad at things, he keeps a level-head and thinks things through. Rimuru is very willing to see other people's issues rather than thinking he can't understand them.

Finally, he’s a funny dork. Rimuru is amusing, he shows great interest in the world around him and the people around him, he’s very easy going and easy to talk to. He can be silly, he can be cute, and he REALLY does love elf girls. Also pretty men. He’s really just a good sport.

Powers:

Demon Slime Slimes are viscous creatures and their forms are usually of a relatively small gelatinous ball. Their bodies can stretch and squeeze through a lot of things, and if they lose part of their body, they can reattach it; because they can shape their bodies, Rimuru is often shown displaying emotions through it. They have no organs, which includes pretty much any body systems like digestive or circulatory. He then feels no hunger, has no need to breathe, does not bleed, and doesn't really have ears or eyes. They also can't feel heat, cold, but they can still take damage from these Slimes CAN feel pressure, so he can feel the physical world around him at a basic level. They are simple creatures and move through slithering, bouncing around or rolling. Slimes are also genderless and sexless, and do not reproduce, which is why Rimuru is 100% sexless and is ok with that. These are the innate skills of a slime:

Absorb and dissolve - to obtain magicules, slimes will dissolve anything that they absorb into their bodies. While he can't get magicules here, he can still do this.

Self-regeneration - As long he has enough magicules to do so.

Ultimate Sense - ability to detect magicules, thus seeing and hearing everything surrounding target, including light, sound, smell, heat and other sensations. This skill can be turned off. Although there are no magicules in game, it's easier for Rimuru to keep it so he can communicate in game.

Lord's Ambition (Aura) - the ability to show the amount of magicules one has. As a Demon Lord Slime, the aura is enhanced and allows to bend lesser beings* to their will, and extreme auras can even directly harm humans who are not magical beings. It's possible to hide this (*lesser beings are monsters without thought process. Humans, animals and plants are not included in this)

Telepathy - Monsters are able to communicate with others through thought, without needing speech. This allows monsters without names to know when they are being addressed, and allows monsters to talk to each other when far apart. It also allows them to share memories. In case of Rimuru, because he has Beelzebuth skill and Mimicry, he is able to recreate objects from his memories as long he has the materials and magicules to do so.

As a magical being and Demon Slime, Rimuru also has natural resistances to him. These all depends on Rimuru having enough magicules to counter the attacks, however nullification means the attacks simply can not affect him.

Pain nullification - Pain can not be felt, thus it will not affect him at all. Physical damage may still happen.

Paralysis nullification - he has no muscles to paralyze. Attacks involving this will not affect him at all.

Natural elements nullification - natural elements (cold, heat) can not affect him. ice will not burn him, electricity can't affect him (he is rubbery!), and so on.

Physical attack resistance - because he is bouncy, he can resist attacks better

Electric resistance - his body is made out of goo which resembles rubber. Attacks involving electricity will not affect a lot as him as long he has enough magicules to do so.

Magical resistance - since he is a magical being, Rimuru has natural resistance to magic. This includes attacks that would attack his aura/spirit.

Beelzebuth Rimuru's unique skill allows Rimuru to ingest objects at a range of tens of meters, and analyze them within his body. With it, he can acquire that object's skill and mimic the object (thus this Unique Skill allows MIMICRY skill - this will be a power on its own due to how powerful it can be). It has a pocked dimension - Stomach - where Rimuru stores the objects he ingests, including objects that cannot be analyzed or are harmful, while not affecting Rimuru; it's to note these objects can be living beings as well and he can imprison them there. The objects he stores can later be used to form different things (for example, if he ingests healing herbs, he can later use them for healing potions).The stomach is huge, allowing Rimuru to ingest something as big as a tank, and those living beings he ingests can be released if Rimuru wishes to do so. Beelzebuth also offers "ROT" which allows Rimuru to decompose any organic material within a 10m range.

This skill is also able to CONSUME souls. These souls can be used for Magicules and perform rituals or can be put back into the body. In a sense, he is able to resurrect people as long the soul is still intact and there is a body; memories, skills and experiences will be retained by those who were resurrected through this method.

Raphael It's like a supercomputer that exists inside Rimuru's mind and that translates the "Voice of the World"; it explains Rimuru all detail that interact with him, his skills, how to use them, the possibilities and probabilities. Because there are no magicules in game, Raphael will be at a severe disadvantage, thus it won't be able to do everything it usually does and its main role will be providing extra analysis to Beelzebuth.

This skill has become aware of itself and now has a separate will from Rimuru. Through possession of Rimuru, Raphael can take over and control Rimuru's body, and act based on the logical judgement it makes - and that means it can use Rimuru's body to fight an enemy, as long the enemy follows a logical set of motions (impromptu and spontaneous attacks would be hard to predict). Raphael can also use a body double (if Rimuru ever gets that ability) and take over it thus have its own body.

Mimicry Extra-skills are non specific skills a user can acquire from training, or in Rimuru's case from eating his opponents thanks to Beelzebuth. Mimicry replicates the target's appearance, skills and abilities. This depends on the successful analysis and acquisition of relative information regarding the target; it works well in Rimuru due to his second Unique Skill, Raphael. All forms can be partially used (Rimuru can grow wings or tails) and several forms can be used at the same time.

In canon, Rimuru has TONS of extra-skills obtained from Mimicry. Due to this potentially make him too overpowered, I rarely talk about them, unless someone is okay with some OP scenario.

This is also how Rimuru obtained a human form, which is the form of Shizue Izawa, a Human. This is Rimuru's main Human form and while using it Rimuru's face looks exactly like hers; his body and age can be shaped according to his wishes but his face will always look like Shizue's; this form will, however, "grow" the stronger Rimuru gets therefor at the start he looks 14 and eventually he will start looking more like an older teenager. All senses become human and his body will mimic human limitations. Rimuru is, however, still sexless.

[a1exkra1ie]

6.) if you could choose any place in the world to visit, where would it be? why?

9.) what is your favorite environmental season? why?

10.) what’s one book you’d suggest every person should read?

14.) what’s your favorite warm beverage?

17.) what’s your favorite painting? and describe how it makes you feel?

19.) what was the last concept that inspired you?

30.) favorite mythological creature? and why?

39.) what is your favorite gemstone? why?

:D (that is, quite a lot I apologize cnxgxj)

6.) if you could choose any place in the world to visit, where would it be? why?

india. I've never been but there's a big nostalgic feeling for me there

9.) what is your favorite environmental season? why?

when you are not left to battle against the biting cold and the wind, I do enjoy winter. it's generally a quiet season. but ask me this question again in the winter and I will say summer, for sure LOL

10.) what’s one book you’d suggest every person should read?

probably ocean at the end of the lane by neil gaiman? I think it is really a book that everyone can read, because it's an actual all-ages book, not something that will make you feel talked down to if you're reading it as an adult, or something that is too complicated to understand for a child. it's also really good.

(I was going to say a separate peace for this because I love a separate peace but I don't know that everybody can pull out something meaningful for it as I did, but Ocean is a pretty magical experience regardless of who you are)

14.) what’s your favorite warm beverage?

depends. Ill have anything tbh. big fan of hot drinks. I have had periods in my life where I was addicted to coffee, periods where I was addicted to tea and periods where I was addicted to hot chocolate, so!

17.) what’s your favorite painting? and describe how it makes you feel?

I don't know if I have a favourite painting. but my first thought here was Impression, soleil levant by Monet. We had a presentation in class about different art currents, and I really liked impressionism, and this is one (if not the) founding painting of this current

I really love this painting, because it really does nail what impressionism is about: capturing a feeling, not a sight. you don't gain significant insight from analysing the shapes. you know it's a port, you don't really see beyond that. but it feels warm like you are sitting on the dock right now, observing the sunrise against the fog, tasting the sea air and feeling the soft breeze against your skin. getting lost in the sensations of a quiet morning, where people are just getting to work, and you get to observe the city as it's waking up.

19.) what was the last concept that inspired you?

I don't really keep note of that and cant think of anything rn, sorry :(

30.) favorite mythological creature? and why?

chinese lions are not necessarily a mythological thing, more folkloric than anything, but I love em so much. look at them go.

39.) what is your favorite gemstone? why?

gonna be basic here and say amethyst because I have an amethyst necklace and felt like it protected me a little when I used to wear it. but now I wear obsidian earrings instead :) (which has no "spiritual" reasons, just, I like em)

[thegeminisage]

me a month or so ago: haha who actually watches S*PERNATURAL in 2019. stupid. i can’t believe there are people still invested in that dumbass show, why don’t they love themselves, who’s brainwashing them me now, EATING MY HAT: sometimes a family is 3 platonic dads their mom and her alternate universe boyfriend and their gay alternate universe little sister and that dead demon’s scottish witch mom and their depowered half-angel son of satan baby and that’s VALID!!!

[bots-and-cons]

Hi, can I please request headcanons for Optimus prime being a guardian to a platonic 14-year-old human? But she’s the total opposite of him? Energetic, reckless, rebellious, fun-loving, sassy, compassionate but clever and she’s usually sneaking into action with Miko (mostly to protect Miko) and is just always following Prime into shit? And when smokescreen comes into the picture, he makes him take care of her because he thinks they’ll be a better team because they have similar personalities? Also, if it’s not too much any hc’s for reader being with Optimus when he loses his memory and is Orion Pax and when the base is destroyed and they’re with Smokescreen because reader refuses to leave his side? Please and thank you! Have a good day!

I don't really know where I was going with this, but I think it turned out okay. I don’t really remember much about the end of season 2/start of season 3 because it’s been so long since I watched it but I tried to come up with some stuff

•Optimus wasn’t sure if the two of you would get along at first, because you seemed so different

•As we know, Optimus is pretty much perpetually tired, so he doesn’t really have what it takes to match your energy

•He’s kind and understanding of course, but he worries a lot, especially when you sneak out with Miko

•Optimus knows you’re trying to look out for her, but that doesn’t mean you’re in any less danger

•Sometimes your humor also goes a bit over his helm, especially if it’s sarcasm

•He’s been dealing with rebellious teens a lot as of late, including Bee and the trouble trio

•None of them are really that rebellious but they can all be quite reckless and do dumb stuff

•You sometimes get angry, that’s just what happens sometimes, and you might say things you don’t mean

•Optimus never takes it personally though, because he knows you’re saying those things in anger

•When Smokescreen arrived on earth, you seemed to hit it off with him right away

•Optimus only wants what’s best for you, so he asked Smokescreen if he could be your guardian

•Smokescreen agreed enthusiastically, but the switch created a bit of a rift between you and Optimus, because you thought Optimus didn’t want to be your guardian or that he found you annoying 

•You get along with Smokescreen well, just like Optimus predicted, and while Optimus does still care about you very much, he thinks it might be best to keep his distance from you, just in case

•People around him tend to get hurt, badly and often and while he doesn’t want that for anyone he can’t always stop it from happening

•When the base was found by the cons and everyone else evacuated, you wouldn’t leave

•You refused to leaves Optimus and Smokescreen, and they ran out of time before they could force you to go through the ground bridge

•So you’re stuck under all the rubble with Optimus and Smokescreen

•You’re hungry, thirsty and tired, but more than all of that, you’re worried about Optimus

•He’s in really bad shape and you’re so sure it’s not gonna end well for him

•Optimus tries to convince you to leave with Smokescreen, but you refuse to leave him

•You’re apologizing for every mean thing you’ve ever said to him and you feel horrible, because you though he didn’t care about you when he assigned Smokescreen as your guardian

•Optimus assures you that’s the furthest thing from the truth and that you are and always will be a dear friend to him

•Optimus doesn’t manage to convince you to leave, but he makes Smokescreen take you to safety without your permission

•You’re a wreck and you think you’re never going to see him again

•You do meet again of course and it’s a happy reunion, with you crying happy tears and Optimus trying to assure you he’s fine

[snomji]

okay it’s time for some stardew valley headcanons for the bachelor/ette(s) so let’s GOOOO

Alex:

- he always awakes before his grandparents, and on warmer days he’ll go down to the beach to watch the sunrise.

- friends with elliot! the two of them sit on the side of the dock sometimes and just chat about life.

- knows how to make cookies, as evelyn taught him when he was a bit younger

- wary of the saloon, as he doesn’t really like the smell of alcohol and only goes into it if he’s forced to!

- if you marry him, he can and will pick you up randomly to surprise you while you’re working!

- if married, he will “bench press” your kids once they become toddlers, and it always makes them giggle

- hates the winter and gets cold really easily. on the first day of fall he’s already bundled up wanting it to be summer again.

Elliot:

- willy is like a father to him. the two of them sit on the docks and watch the fish swim by together

- sometimes he’ll braid his hair, and leah will bring flowers from the forest and weave them into his hair.

- has a rlly pretty singing voice, and likes to record piano covers in his spare time

- if you marry him and the two of u have kids, he’ll always braid their hair in the morning and tuck flowers behind their ears.

- he brings home fresh fish he caught and makes himself dinner every night. that’s why he’s an excellent cook.

- has actually caught a legendary fish before!

- his eyes change color, they can go from blue to green to brown in the same day. people call them the “prismatic shard of eyes”

Harvey:

- he’s so clumsy that sometimes he’ll even trip over air. due to this, he has little bruises all over his knees and elbows.

- his favorite animals are birds. sometimes he’ll go outside and just give them some bird seed. he loves watching them fly around.

- not only is he fascinated with planes, but he’s also fascinated with the weather. as a kid he used to watch the weather channel, and he dreamed of becoming a weatherman.

- when he needs to focus really hard, he’ll pull his hair back with a headband

- him and his mother were and still are very close, and he writes letters to her at least once a week

- he cannot cook to save his life, but he’s an incredible baker! will make you little treats if you’re friends or married

- he always wears a wristwatch, but the time is always 6 minutes behind. he likes it because it has a plane engraved into the side against his wrist.

Sam:

- he had adhd, and his stims include flapping his hands, tapping his foot and strumming his guitar

- he has a beautiful singing voice, think like wilbur soot but a bit more high pitched?

- the reason he likes cactus fruit so much is because he just plants them and lets them grow. he loves succulents because they don’t give him an allergic reaction!

- cannot play video games for shit. sebastian and abigail have banned him from multi-player games because he just sucks so bad.

- love language is acts of service, simply because he likes singing for people he cares about and doing little things for them!

- if you marry him, he will bring his guitar into the coop and/or barn and sing to the animals. they have learned to run over a greet him, since they love his singing.

- his hair is actually curly, but you’re unable to tell due to how much he gels and straightens his hair.

- has mastered the art of the puppy dog eyes

Sebastian:

- loves the hell out of halloween, but is scared of literally everything. he nearly cried watching a horror movie with sam and abigail.

- really good with a slingshot! so if he were to go into the mines, he would wreck some monsters shit with his slingshot skills

- he had glow in the dark stars on his ceiling, but removed them. he used to love the stars and space, but came to resent them because it was his sisters thing.

- he like…irl blushes. like an anime character. when he’s embarrassed, upset, flustered, his face will go all pink. everyone picks on him for it.

- has/had a crush on most of the towns singles. he is a bisexual disaster and secretly a romantic so….take from that what you will.

- a natural born ginger, but dyes his hair. he also has freckles on his nose! and he has an eyebrow slit because of a scar!!

- for some stupid reason, he takes really good care of his hands? like he always makes sure they don’t get calloused, and his nails are always painted black, despite using his hands all the time for work.

Shane:

- he cannot cook. he burned pasta noodles because he didn’t know you had to put water in the pan.

- he still has a chicken plushie from when he was a baby, and it still sits on his bed. and if he cuddles with it at night? no one needs to know.

- has a huge birthmark on his side shaped like a heart

- really good at mixology, so i think that when joja gets shut down, shane works at the saloon and makes the drinks while gus cooks. he adds a whole new section on the menu!

- friends with sebastian. they paint each other’s nails from time to time, or sit in the rain together and just talk.

- kinda strong as hell? he lifts boxes in joja for work, as well as carrying around jas, so i’m assuming he could just….pick the farmer and his friends up?

- he has the most contagious laugh, it used to be a rare sound, but now that it’s a pretty common occurrence, shane makes people laugh all the time with his own laugh.

Abigail:

- buff. she is buff as hell. her and alex work out together sometimes, since she expressed a desire for adventure. she has picked up sam and sebastian with no warning and thrown them into the ocean

- can talk to animals due to her being the daughter of the wizard! so sometimes she’ll go to marnies farm and just chat with the cows or something

- if she sees a tree, she WILL climb it. she loves it so much, it’s just so adrenaline inducing for her.

- her and sebastian tried to go into the mines before but sam stopped them because it wouldn’t have been very safe. they were all 14.

- trying to learn to play the ukulele with a little help from sam. it’s frustrating, but she really likes the sound of it, and she’s determined as hell.

- absolutely cracked at any and all video games he plays. mario kart? she will kick your ass. animal crossing? her island has 5 stars. pokémon? she always wins. you can’t stop her, she’s too powerful.

- she has glasses, but prefers contacts, since glasses would get in the way of her adventuring.

Emily:

- not only can she sew, but she also makes her own soaps and candles! any form of creation she adores.

- loves flowers, and has a lot of little potted ones in her room. she raises them, gives them little names and personalities, and then brings them to sandy and tells her all about each flower

- she can roller skate, and it’s her preferred method of transportation. she can do a bunch of fun tricks as well!

- has an eyebrow slit

- making cute little baskets of homemade gifts is her favorite thing to do for her friends. sometimes she’ll just leave them on their doorsteps for no reason other than she wants to!

- can SPRINT in heels. like even 6 inch heels she can just RUN and it scares everyone who sees it.

- she loves the sounds of birds chirping in the morning, and she’s able to identify the name of the bird by its chirping and calls

Haley:

- is able to perfectly crack and drink from coconuts. that’s why she loves them so much.

- has the worst sense of direction. she’s lucky she lives in a small town, or she’d get lost all the time

- the spring is her favorite time of year, simply because she loves to capture life coming back in those spring months. baby animals, blooming flowers, her friends on the beach or just chilling in the sun, all of it

- her most prized possession is the very first picture her and emily took as kids on their parents polaroid. it’s taped to her mirror

- has a little beauty mark under her lip, but it normally isn’t visible due to being covered with makeup!

- she’s able to do her own nails! this is because she is ambidextrous, yet she doesn’t know, because it’s never been brought up

- she fucking LOVES learning about and identifying plants, trees and flowers. she knows so many it’s crazy. she has a great memory.

Leah:

- resident true crime enthusiast and ghost hunter. she drags elliot with her around town to go hunting for ghosts. they also watch documentaries together!

- has a bunch of little scars on her hands from her artwork

- to get inspiration for works, she’ll go on walks at different times of the day, different seasons, different routes, and she’ll turn each walk into a work of art. depending on all the environment and those who she runs into, each piece is vastly different.

- animals love her, and will sometimes just follow her around for no reason. she doesn’t mind at all, she kinda loves it.

- friends with emily. they are currently teaching each other their own forms of art, since they love learning from each other!

- really good at dancing, she’ll dance while she’s working on projects and she’ll hum a song to herself

- her favorite statue was created after she went on a walk, ran into abigail, and the two of them went swimming in the ocean and stayed there as the sun set and the stars came out. she has a little crush on abigail.

Maru:

- her hair is ALWAYS tied up, it’s impossible for her to work if her hair is in her eyes

- when she was a kid she wanted to be an astronaut, because she loves the stars, but she found she prefers the science and math behind it all

- she pierced her own ears, she has little star earrings!

- watches cartoons and geeks out about them with penny when they meet up in town!

- for some odd reason, she is terrified of butterflies. no one who knows her, or even maru herself have ANY idea why, but she will run away if she sees one.

- her favorite memory was the one night her and sebastian stayed up really late as kids and snuck outside to look at the stars (back when sebastian still loved them) and they ended up seeing a meteor shower

- she presses flowers as a hobby, and just keeps them in a little notebook alongside her ideas for projects and gadgets.

Penny:

- while she’s cleaning her and pam’s home, she finds herself singing to herself. she has yet to be caught by anyone

- each day, her hair is done ever-so-slightly different. each morning, she likes to change it up, and sometimes jas or vincent will give her something to put in her hair

- also interested in ghosts, will occasionally join elliot and leah on their adventures

- she is naturally really warm, so she doesn’t have to bundle up as much during the winter. the kids cling to her because she’s like a human space heater

- has a bit of a geeky side, and she loves to watch cartoons a lot. when she can find the time, she always watches them. they being her lots of comfort.

- has a small scar on her side from when she tripped over as a child onto something sharp. she likes it because with two freckles, it makes a little smiley face

- loves the water and the feeling of sea wind in her hair. she secretly wants to learn to drive a boat, so she can feel that wind in her hair whenever she wants.

[lesbianakaashi]

The Forgotten Shounen: Katekyo Hitman Reborn

This is not a “Why you should watch/read khr” or anything like that. This is just me going into the deep dive and throwing my findings at you. I’m making this because khr used to be my favourite series when I was 15 (I had plushees, posters, tradingcards, the art book etc) and now as an adult I constantly find myself baffled at how unknow it seems to be.

1. Okay first what is khr?

Katekyo Hitman Reborn! or just Reborn! is a series by Akira Amano which was published in Weekly Shounen Jump from 2004 to 2012 (with 42 volumes) and got an anime adaption which run from 2006 to 2010 on Tv Tokyo (with 202 episodes and one OVA).

2. What’s it about?

Khr is a parody of the italian mafia and plays in a world where the mafia is heavily influencial. The protagonist is the japanese middle schooler Sawada Tsunayoshi who is known as “No good Tsuna” because of his failing grades, general weak and cowardly personality and weak physics.

He becomes aware of the mafia world when a 2 year old baby called Reborn arrives at his house claiming to be the greatest hitman and declaring himself his home tutor. Reborn was send by the 9th head of the Vongola famiglia who is ready to retire and looking for a new heir. Which of course, is supposed to be Tsuna and now it's Reborns job to shape him into a worthy sucessor.

Tsuna rejects the violence of the mafia world and refuses the position as the 10th. Thanks to Reborn and his general craziness Tsuna meets different people and starts to make real friendships. Reborn wants 6 of those friends to be Tsuna's future guardians, basically a group of people which will be closest to him in the vongola famiglia. Tsuna might have no interest in those positions but the friendships he builds with them become really precious to him.

Reborns arrivial also brings in the enemies of the Vongola family which leads to Tsuna being forced to engage in battles. Generally Tsuna openly avoids fights and prefers to run away but will put himself in danger for his friends' sake or because of something Reborn did.

Through out the series Tsuna matures and gains strenght but he never becomes a power fantasy. He's just a guy with many flaws who grows through the human connections he makes.

Personally I think the relationship between Reborn and Tsuna is one of the best student teacher reltaionships in all of manga only topped by Mob and Reigen from Mob Psycho 100. Especially the last arc really underlines their unique relationship to me.

Furthermore, khr offers a new and unique battle system: The flames. I'm not gonna go into to too much detail but the general idea is that one fights with their dying will flame which basically turns off your the savety switch so you can fight with everything you have. The flames are seperated into different categories such as: sky, storm, mist, rain, sun, lightning and cloud and have different attributes asigned to each one. Tsuna's use of the sky flame and his transformation when using it is still one of my favourite shounen transformations to this day.

3. What happened?

The series did really well and then not so well over the course of its serialisation. After the manga got an anime adaption it increased in populairty and video games, light novels, and other products such as CDs were created based on the series. Reborn is one of the best selling series of Weekly Shōnen Jump and has sold around 30 Million volumes overall. It was and still is very popular in Japan but rather unknown in the west.

According to the article "The Rise and Fall of Weekly Shonen Jump: A Look at the Circulation of Weekly Jump" khr was the 10th bestselling series in Weekly Shōnen Jump, with a total of 7 million copies sold in 2007.

This number increasing to 15 milion in 2008. Which placed khr into the 4th best selling series of 2008 in Japan.

Between 2008 and 2010 those sales declined but still kept strong with khr as the 6th top selling manga in 2009, 8th best selling in 2010 and then 24th best selling in 2012.

In November 2014, readers of the Da Vinci magazine voted khr number 17 on a list of Weekly Shōnen Jump's greatest manga series of all time.

After the anime came to an apprupt stop in 2010 for unknown reasons the manga sells took a visible hit. (Apparently the studio wanted to put the anime on halt because they were busy with other projects and give Akira Amano time to develop her story but I couldn't find any source for this claim) Furthermore, the rushed last chapters of the manga in 2012 declined the popularity of the series even more. There's no offical statement as to why the manga was ended in such a way but it's reasonable to assume that Jump either cut it considering the decreasing sales or Akira Amano choose to end it for personal reasons.

Nontheless, Tsuna not being included in Jump Force (a fighting game where you can play as different characters from Jump) in 2019 even tho he made it in earlier Jump Stars games also underlines the decreased interest in the series.

Rumors on a reboot or anime adaption of the last two arcs surface from time to time but are genereally unlikely. Artland the studio which made khr has gone bankrupt around 2015-2016. It might be taken on by another studio but rather uncommen especially with such an old series.

4. Art style

The khr anime ended over 10 years ago and the old art style might not be appealing to newer audiences.

Especailly because the anime adaption follows Akira Amanos old art style which heavily developed within the years. Here a picture comparing characters in the new art style:

A modern anime adaption in the new art style would be aesthetically pleasing. It would probably look similiar to Psycho Pass since Akira Amano did the concept art for this series.

(My personal art student hot take is that both art styles are unique and fun. Up to this day Akira Amano still has my favourite art style and even if the amount folds in the characters clothing is a little extreme I love it dearly.)

5. Criticism

The show is not without flaws and even if I greatly enjoy it it wouldn't be right not to adress them.

Daily Life Arc:

A lot of people view the first 20 to 25 episodes as fillers and quickly lose intererst in the series. This is due to the fact that Akira Amano inteded the series to be a gag manga and focuses the first chapters on world building, character introduction and comical narratives. It's rumored that the decision to develop the story into a battle shounen was made because the sales weren't doing well enough at first. So the first chapters/episodes may seem titidious but are necessary for the story and the development of the characters. The tonal shift from a more gintama like gag manga to a darker battle focused story can also be offputting to some viewers.

Either way a lot of people blame this arc when discussing why khr never got an english dub or didn't end up on Toonami. I've also read that the manga never finished serializing in the north america. However, it finished in other western languages like german and spanish.

Censoring:

The anime censors A LOT. From Gokudera's smoking habit, Yamamoto's whole character arc which deals with heavy themes such as depression and suicidal thoughts. The general bloodiness of the manga was censored and sometimes whole chapters and characters were left out even if those were important to the devolopment of others.

Filler episodes:

Out of the 202 episodes the anime has around 29 filler episodes which makes roughly 14 %.

Sexism:

Even if Reborn was written by a woman most female characters are rather flat and their storylines often tied to a male character in one way or another.

Genereal things:

Khr, like many other long running series, is sometimes criticised for a lack of world building or unpopular narrative choices.

6. Hope?

Khr isn't exactly dead. As stated before the series is still very popular in Japan and still gets new merch pretty regulary. There are also petitions floating around for a reboot or a new anime season but those never get a lot of traction. Furthermore #Reborn2期アニメ化 (#Reborn2ndAnimation) used to get some traction on twitter not too long ago. Last year the Anime News Network did a poll on which anime the readers would like to see a rebooot of and khr placed second.

Either way here's a collection of recent khr things I could find.

- In 2018 a new bluray set was released in north america

- The khr stage play reached yet another new season

- A mobile game was released last year

- Currently ongoing anime cafe event called "Concerto di Vongola"

- Last month there was an event with the former VAs and stage play actors where they discussed their favourite khr episodes.

- There has been an increase in blind reacts to the openings on youtube which might bring in a new fan base. The biggest one I could find had around 90k views and was made in 2019. On this note check out the soundtrack. The first openeing Drawing Days by SPLAY still makes me go insane (but I'm biased of course)

There also renewed hope for a new season/reboot because Shaman King, Inuyasha and Bleach got anounced for new seasons after a long hiatus. It's important to keep in mind that the circumstances for those series are differnt tho. For example bleachs new anime is often tied to the immense success of the gatcha game.

7. Conclusion

Khr is a series which used to be a flagship for Weekly Shounen Jump and is deeply beloved by it's fans, especially in Japan. It influenced other shounen series like bnha. It would be nice to see it gaining a bigger fanbase in the west :)

[your-brilliant-lady-m]

Part 4 - Basic Concepts of Miraculous Ladybug: Glamour

You can call it however you want: kid's show logic, superhero disguise logic, magical girl show logic, cartoon laws, suspension of disbelief, etc. But the fact that nobody recognises Marinette, Adrien and others when they are suited up IS NOT BAD WRITING. It's one of the main laws of this genre. That's not because characters are stupid, okay? So, being frustrated that everyone in the show acts stupid about this "wearing a mask that covers only eyes" trope is strange. This criticism is not valid or fair.

But, this trope has to make sense in-universe as a worldbuilding and narrative element.

Miraculous doesn't give us much direct information on how glamour works. And in this case, I think we need both SHOW and TELL. Because if you don't establish the glamour rules clearly, you are going to run into problems and create unfortunate implications with your storytelling choices.

Appearance

Miraculous obviously gives our heroes magical glamour. In "Lady WiFi" we find out that masks can't be taken off. It's magic. No other explanation is needed.

Miraculous can slightly change the appearance of users (eyes, face shape, height and hairstyles). People can identify and notice the hairstyles of heroes (numerous Ladybug wigs, statue in Copycat). Jagged Stone points out the change of hair when he mistakes Chloe for Ladybug ("Antibug"). But it's just a costume. There is no magic that prevents Jagged from understanding that Chloe isn't Ladybug. So, how does it work? But it's forgivable because it's cartoon logic. Suspension of disbelief works here, I suppose. I won't judge this too harshly.

Glamour also obviously prevents people from making a connection that Marinette and Ladybug have identical hairstyles. So people know that Ladybug wears her hair in pigtails, but magic does not allow them to notice similarities.

Another important question. Does glamour work on Kwamis? Can they see who is behind the mask?

New York Special makes it clear that magic does not affect robots and they can see through glamour. Does that mean that Markov, AI built by Max, knows the identities of Ladybug and Chat Noir? And it's never addressed.

Plagg in "Frightningale" says that holders can subconsciously choose their superhero appearance. This is actually pretty interesting and I like this idea a lot. Except the show is not consistent with this. The transformation of Master Fu looks identical to Nathalie's. And we have seen how different from each other Ladybug and Black Cat holders looked in the past. At the same time, Master Fu and Nino have different takes on Turtle superhero suit.

Age Glamour

Does age glamour exist? Do people see Ladybug, Chat Noir and other heroes as adults even when they look like teenagers to the audience (their height and build are smaller even when they are transformed)? Is that why no one ever questions the fact that children nearly die on a daily basis?

I mentioned unfortunate implications earlier. Well, this is where they come into play. Let's talk about "Copycat". A lot of people discussed it before me, so I won't bore you with details.

When I watched "Copycat" for the first time Theo's crush on Ladybug didn't bother me, because I thought that he sees Ladybug as his peer, a girl who is about 20-23 years old. Theo is an artist, his character design is that of an adult. He has his own studio, its appearance indicates that he did serious commissions in the past. The guy has no idea that Ladybug is like 13.

But then we get "Heroes' Day" and "Ladybug". And Hawkmoth calls them "kids", which means that there is no age glamour. Others see Ladybug and Chat Noir as teenagers. Perhaps, other Miraculous users aren't affected by age glamour. Therefore regular people see all heroes as adults but other heroes are able to guess their age more or less correctly. But you must spell this thing out because the audience can interpret "Copycat" differently. If there is no age glamour, then Theo is crushing on a teenage girl and he is fully aware of this fact. And this doesn't look good for your show.

The "No Age Glamour" theory is further confirmed in "Sapotis" where Alya just straight up analyses voice recordings and says that Ladybug is a girl their age. If glamour exists then it should also cover technology. Kwami can't be photographed. Face and voice recognition software shouldn't be able to analyse transformed superheroes and detect their identities in any way.

Besides, after "Sapotis" Alya should definitely be sure that Ladybug is not 5000 years old (also not an adult), especially after she wore Miraculous herself and was one door away from detransformed Ladybug.

SEASON 4 UPDATE! There's no age glamour after all.

In "Furious Fu" Su Han calls Chat Noir a child without knowing his identity. It means that everyone knows their superheroes are teenagers. "Copycat" can't be saved from that, uh, subtext anymore. No one questions the danger of their job or the balance of their lives outside of the mask. No one doubts their competence after "Origins" ever again. No one becomes annoyed after being bossed around by two teenagers in spandex. You had many opportunities to drop these details into the narrative. Someone could have been akumatized over this (I will not be ordered around by some magical kids!).

I don't know why writers decided not to use at least this idea and slightly adjust "Copycat" if they got rid of the age glamour completely. It can be explained as kid's show logic, but unfortunately, I'm reluctant to do it. If many characters sympathise with akuma victims on-screen, why not with the teenage superheroes who must fight them?

New York Special had this weird focus on collateral damage out of nowhere (the damage done by sentimonster Robostus) and yet it has 0 effect on the main story. No one in Paris is pissed that their 2 teenage protectors weren't there.

Ironically, "Furious Fu" and that one remark made by Su Han also created unfortunate implications for other moments in the show. Just hear me out. Apparently, Jagged Stone wrote a "thank you" song for Ladybug knowing that she is 13-15 year old child back in "Pixelator". Fandom is more than happy to roast Lila for lying about saving Jagged Stone's cat and him writing her a "thank you" song. Fandom claims that Lila's tale could harm Jagged's reputation, when he wrote a song for teenage Ladybug several weeks prior. Meanwhile, in-universe this lie is 100% believable.

If we put on "realism glasses", then both this whole song situation and Theo's crush in "Copycat" have uncomfortable implications. However, the show's canon can't be viewed and criticised through "realism glasses". I admit that bits and pieces of my criticisms are affected by these "glasses", but, ultimately, I'm trying to be fair and concentrate only on things that can't be justified by "cartoon logic and worldbuilding".

Could the existence of age glamour solve this problem of unfortunate implications and other concerns mentioned above? YES. Is it better for the narrative? YES. Is essential for the story? NOT QUITE. Could the absence of age glamour be called an irredeemable storytelling flaw? NO.

Disclaimer: On a side note, only older audience can notice these implications. Children, the target audience, most likely won't understand this subtext simply because they don't have enough experience. So, perhaps, this criticism is unfair, because these moments only look weird to me as an adult. It's like an adult joke in a cartoon that you don't get until you reach a certain age.

There's nothing technically wrong with adult writing a "thank you" song for a teenager. It's just an expression of gratitude. However, unfortunately, we live in a world, where adults normally wouldn't write songs for teens to express gratitude only. In real life similar actions would imply pedophilia and would be actively scorned by the public. No one would risk their reputation like that even if their intentions were genuinely pure and sincere. But this show can't be viewed through "realism glasses", because it's a cartoon and in certain cases we as the audience must use suspension of disbelief and pretend that certain things are possible for plot to happen.

Su Han also wants to give Ladybug and Black Cat to adults. Why didn't Master Fu do this then? Writers don't give us any explanation. Throughout the show we never question this up until the moment it's revealed that adults don't have time-limited powers. Then comes "Furious Fu". Story suddenly becomes self-aware here. Because apparently nothing prevented Fu from giving the most powerful Miraculous to adults who won't have time limit and will be more effective against Hawkmoth (see part 3 for more details).

I have a very good example of Age Glamour done right. It works in the story. There is no confusion or unfortunate implications. There is like one plothole connected to the glamour (it's been years and I still can't forgive them for Cornelia and Caleb) but otherwise, it's a pretty solid example of both show and tell. Clearly, writers wanted to avoid uncomfortable implications which are present in "Copycat". I am talking about W.I.T.C.H. comic books and animated series.

If you are not familiar with it, I'll give you a brief explanation. The story follows 5 girls, the Guardians of Kandrakar who are chosen to protect their world and parallel ones from evil. They receive magical powers from the amulet known as the Heart of Kandrakar. Their powers are based on elements: fire, water, earth, air and energy. Our main characters are about 13-15 years old. In the animated series they are younger and they attend middle school, making them 12-14 years old. But the transformation makes them look 18-20. They look like young women to each other and to other people. At the same time, people can recognise them, their looks and voice don't change. Most people don't know that they are really teenagers when they are not transformed and these people don't know that magic can make them look older. That's why everyone treats Guardians like adults when they are transformed. Comics establish this fact in the very beginning. In first issues characters state that they look older, we are also shown this multiple times.

In fact, one of the first side plots revolves around the fact that Irma uses her powers to sneak into the disco club to meet up with her crush. Irma is 13 at the beginning of the series, she is a high school freshman. Her crush, Andrew Hornby is a senior guy 17-18 years old. Irma has liked him for a long time and wants to impress him, so she decides to be clever about this. She transforms into her Guardian form of the 18-year-old girl, hides her wings, sneaks out to the club after her parents are asleep without any problem, and meets Andrew, who obviously doesn't recognise Irma in this girl who looks about his age. Smitten Andrew offers her a ride and 13-year-old Irma doesn't understand the implication of that offer, so she accepts. And, obviously, he decides that she is interested in more than just a ride home, since she agreed, and the comic implies that he fully intended for them to have sex in the backseat of his car. But Irma understands the implication only when Andrew tries to kiss her. She panics and turns him into a frog. And she actually pulls this "I need to look mature" trick more than once over the course of the series.

It's not the only situation where this age difference is handled well and makes sense. People who know the main characters in everyday life remark on their older appearance during transformation. Sometimes people flirt with Guardians when they are transformed. In one of the side-novels centred around Cornelia, she is worried that the prince of the realm they helped to save from famine would try to marry her. That never happens, but Cornelia actually brainstorms with her friends about how to tell the prince that she is really 15.

There are many other plot points where this happens, but I think that you got the idea. I really like how "Age Glamour" was handled in W.I.T.C.H.

How do we fix this? Create the situations where people offhandedly mention "Age Glamour" in the presence of Marinette or Adrien, use Kwami for this.

"Don't worry, dear. Chat Noir and Ladybug are adults, who know what they are doing. I am sure that they will handle this. "

Theo could say: "Oh, I wonder which university Ladybug goes to?"

"So, does that mean that other people see us as grown-ups, Tikki?"

A few words and boom, problem solved. Then allow the "show don't tell" rule do the rest.

[happyhauntt]

for the 1960s lyric game — 7, 14, & 28 for sunny! i finally got around to reading hello sunshine yesterday and i love it & her (also, love the new theme!)

me acutely in love w you right now i--

also me, knowing how to give a short, concise answer to a question?? idk her

7, DON’T WORRY BABY: What do they do when they’re stressed or worried? Do they require reassurance or validation?

sunny??? stressed or worried?? almost constantly. by season 3 she’s basically el’s mom, or at least very much a maternal figure to el in spite of the small age gap, and there is very much a failure on sunny’s part for being unable to protect el, or to stop these things happening to her, or to do them for her. in comparison with el and the other children at hawkins lab, she grew up with a relatively normal life, and once she realises the extent of that, the guilt swallows her whole. everything she does is influenced by that guilt, and while she does eventually understand that none of it was in her control and it wasn’t her fault, her existence is pretty much fueled by stress and worry and anxiety. steve and hopper in particular see it in her very very clearly, how she overcompensates for every little thing. steve knows how sunny looks when she smiles, really smiles, and he sees that less and less from the end of season 2 onwards. she still smiles, but it’s so forced, and there’s a little crease between her brows and it’s too tight and he knows it isn’t real. he knows. she also chews the skin around her fingernails - she’s always done that, but her fingers are almost always cracked and raw at the edges now. sunny doesn’t necessarily require reassurance or validation - she’ll operate just fine without both, she never really received either growing up - but fuck, when steve tells her she’s done something right?? when hopper acknowledges she’s doing a good job?? when el crawls into bed beside her at night and curls into her side and falls asleep without any nightmares because sunny is a safe place, sunny fills up in the places that were empty and hollow before, and she could burst with happiness.

14, CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’: What fills their daydreams?

OH HO HO NO bc i had a long ass conversation about this with a friend a few days ago,,, sunny’s daydreams are very much the same as steve’s, and i had that planned long before season 4 came out. slight spoilers for volume 2 ahead. sunny so badly wants a family. she wants domesticity, and safety. she is a very maternal character - you see it in scenes with el and the other younger kids from the lab, you see it when she starts interacting with the party in seasons 1 and 2, she’s fucking adaptable and has this innate need to take care of people. it’s not strictly that her childhood was bad - she had nothing to compare it to, really, and she wasn’t mistreated (well, she was but this is a realisation she comes to way later on) but she wasn’t... loved, either. her house wasn’t warm. brenner was her father, technically, but not a dad. she was lonely. her dream is this, essentially: to never feel lonely again. for sunny, that means a big family. it means laughter and happiness and love. whatever form that ends up coming in, she won’t really mind, but she dreams of never being lonely again.

28, BEND ME, SHAPE ME: What would they do for the people they love?

my good bitch, a more apt question would be what wouldn’t sunny do for the people she loves? answer: nothing. sunny goes toe-to-toe with everything that dares touch her family, and everyone is her family. she very often doesn’t get the opportunity, and that manifests in a lot of guilt (see above.) el is very capable of handling herself, and for the first two seasons, sunny’s powers don’t present in physical way, they’re mainly psychic-based, so she can’t actually protect the way el does (which really upsets sunny, because she wants to protect her loved ones, protect el like she protects sunny, and she can’t.) she does at one point fully throw herself in front of a demogorgon for steve and nancy with nothing but a hatchet, but sunny is honestly crazy. she has no real-world experience and therefore no real concept of danger (and a demogorgon is fucking dangerous). the short answer is that sunny would die for them. all of them. it honestly pisses steve, hopper and el off the most, because sunny seems to think she’s expendable in comparison?? (that’s not an active thought she has, it’s just instinct to her. she’s a mama bear.) she’s also just... readily available almost 24/7. dustin and lucas need to be picked up from the arcade?? she’s there. max wants ice-cream? done. she can’t say no to these kids (they don’t take advantage of her though bc more often than not, if steve thinks they’re going that way, he has a very stern talk with them about it. sunny finds it very endearing because she’s not stupid, she just has this pathological need to be useful and do things for people.)