#and then saying a bunch of stuff that doesn’t even make sense as the excuse

[yuripira4e]

2024 sequels and the mischaracterization of complicated lesbians in this essay I will-

[empress-simps]

Line That Leads To You

Pairing: Sirius Black x Fem! Reader AU: Soulmate AU CW: Language, Genre: Angst with a happy ending (don't worry guys) Summary: You make Sirius realize that having a soulmate isn’t all that bad— that he too, will have his happily ever after.

Note: One of my favorite tropes to write, soulmate AUs! Sirius just needs love and affirmation. I love writing for this! Enjoy! Picture is from pinterest, credits to the owner!

You know, Sirius never really believed in those pesky soulmates stuff. It irks him to no end, and makes his head hurt.

The topic makes him snappy, bitter, and it leaves him feeling angry. To whom? The world— the one who’s responsible for everything that has to do with soulmates. He thinks it is a bunch of bollocks. It’s a pathetic little concept that everyone seems to be too invested in.

Sirius would be very much happy to tell you it doesn’t really end with a happily-ever-after.

“I’m telling you, Prongs. It’s just a bunch of crap.” Sirius tells James one time at the drawing room in the Potter Manor. James shakes his head, disagreeing with his best mate.

“It isn’t always like Walburga and Orion, Pads.” James gently tells him, eyes swimming with empathy for Sirius. “Just look at me, Lily and I are together, finally.” Sirius can’t help but scoff, shaking his head in a disagreeing manner.

“That’s because you were already pathetically in love with her before you even knew she was the one, Prongs. Same thing for Lily, but she was quite stubborn trying to deny what she felt about you. You guys are actually made for each other.” James lets out a laugh, the memories resurfacing making a love-struck smile appear on his face (Sirius gave him a disgusted look)

“That’s what soulmates are, Pads. You’re supposed to complete each other, balance the other person out” He pursed his lips and sighed, there’s no way Prongs could understand his opinion on the matter.

Complete each other, huh?

Then can someone give him a reasonable excuse on why his parents broke each other? One descended into madness; the other doesn’t really seem to care as long as the noble house of Black lineage will continue.

Sirius bites his bottom lip, deep in thought as he stares at his pinky, willing the connection to be seen; a red string that was tied into a bow that leads to Merlin-knows-where. It serves as a connection; the string that he and only his soulmate can see whenever they want. He tugs on it curiously, awaiting any reaction with bated breath. He almost scrambled away when he felt the other end also tug it. Sirius was utterly terrified, a shiver crawled up to his system, it’s foreign feeling for the Black’s eldest son. It made everything feel too real. A fact that he desperately tries to deny.

That night, before they returned to Hogwarts as sixth year students was the last time he ever willed to see the annoying little string in his pinky, not caring if his supposed other half was finding him or already found him.

Maybe it had to do with his twisted upbringing. He saw how his father cut the string tying him to their mother, the purple string that bound them together turning gray and withering away.

He saw how Regulus flinched, no one should’ve seen a scene like that, but they did. Someone severing their connection to someone who should’ve been with them through better or for worse, the one that fate intended for them. Their life got worse just after that, forcing him to flee and leave his younger brother behind at the deranged hands of Walburga Black.

“You should eat more, Reggie.” You turned towards the quiet and reserved Slytherin, pushing his plate closer to him, which made him wince. “I am quite full.” You raised a brow “None sense, all you did was sip pumpkin juice so you better do as I say or I’ll tell Evan and Junior.”

“Do you know that you boss people around quite well?” He grumbles, shoving a few spoonsful of dinner in his mouth as you hummed in approval, cracking a small smile. “I was told.” Your eyes flickered to the Gryffindor table, it seemed to gravitate you, pulling you in.

Looking down at your pinky, you willed the string to be visible to you. Seeing the red string attached to Sirius Black made your stomach churn; was it butterflies? Unease? You don’t particularly know, having mixed reactions to the string that leads to your other half.

You’ve known for over a year now, keeping it to yourself as you quickly figured out that he wants nothing to do with his soulmate.

“Reggie! Reggie!”

You exclaimed, slapping the poor boy’s arm as he was currently staying in the L/n Manor. He looked in your direction, quite annoyed, he was interrupted reading his book. “I’m reading, Y/n. You know, you should too. It’ll do you some good.” He sassed, trying to find which part he stopped reading. “My soulmate! They tugged the string!” You gushed, “They must be looking for me too, right?” You asked no one in particular, you can still feel the tingles you felt, how your heartbeat picked up, and how you felt like you were in could nine.

Quite the opposite from what Sirius felt, huh?

You never told him, never planned to. It was quite clear what his views are on the concept of soulmates when you saw him snogging different girls every week. It wrecked you; you swore you felt your heart stop beating every time you see him loving a girl other than you even just for a week. It sounds stupid and all, but you would give up everything just to know what it feels like; how he will look at you with love and adoration in his eyes, how his touch and kisses would linger on your body, and how his voice would sound like as his breath fans in your ear, whispering promises of love.

You looked at him from the Slytherin table; so close yet so far.

Regulus noticed, the all too familiar broken look in your face. His heart hurts for you, even if you do not tell him, he already knows. Seeing his brother’s indifference, Regulus’s gaze hardened. How could he have the guts to do this to his soulmate?

The memory of their mother's despair, the way she withered away after their father severed the bond, was etched into his mind. Regulus does not wish for anyone to feel that way, he does not wish upon it even in his worst enemies.

It was a pain no one should endure, a lesson that should have been learned.

Yet there sat his brother, laughing with his friends and willfully ignoring the pulls of his heart. The person who held the other end of this unseen tether, was beside Regulus. Your soul ached as you watched your soulmate. It was a betrayal of the heart's deepest connection, and it stirred a tempest of fury within Regulus that he struggled to contain.

“My brother is foolish. Eat.” He states, pushing your food and placing the cornbread on his plate to yours. She cracks a smile, chuckling. “Alright, Reggie. You’re lucky I love you.” You pat his curls, proceeding to eat the bread, smiling a little. Reggie never really shares his food with anyone, except for you. You’re the only exception.

“Padfoot.” Remus starts, looking out of the window as Sirius lays down lazily in his bed, looking at nothing.

“What, Moons?”

“If I say that I have an inkling on who your soulmate is, would you… look for them?” Remus asked cautiously. Peter and James perked up, eyes wide with shock. How could Remus possibly guess who his soulmate is? Unless… They’re also in Hogwarts?

“Don’t start with that crap, Moony.” Sirius sat up; a scowl displayed in his features as his grey eyes turned stormy.

“Don’t you even feel the slightest amount of guilt in your system as you snog other girls?” Remus frowned.

Sirius’s scowl deepened, his hands clenching into fists. “Guilt? For what, Moony? For not wanting to be chained down by some ancient magic?” His voice was a low growl, barely containing the emotions that surged within him. “I won’t be dictated by fate. I make my own choices, and I refuse to be bound by a bond I never asked for.”

Remus’s expression softened, the lines of concern etching deeper into his face. “It’s not about being chained, Pads. It’s about finding someone who complements you, who understands you in ways no one else can.” He paused, his gaze steady and piercing. “You’ve seen what happens when that bond is severed. You’ve seen the pain it causes. Is that what you want for yourself? For your soulmate who’s probably hurting somewhere?”

Sirius looks down, biting his lip and playing with the rings on his fingers. “I don’t plan on severing our bond, Moons- “

“Then what the fuck are you doing?” Remus spat, Sirius flinched, looking at anything but them. He knew deep down that Remus was right. He can’t deny he also wants to look for his soulmate. The only thing that was holding him back is that he’s scared. What if your story would end similarly like how Walburga and Orion’s did? Dread fills his system as he reflects on how he slowly realized he’s becoming like his father. Peter and James exchanged a glance, the weight of the conversation settling heavily upon them.

“I’m scared,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. “Scared of finding her… Scared of repeating the same mistakes.” He paused, his gaze lifting to meet Remus’s. “But you’re right. I can’t keep running from this. It’s not fair to them, and it’s not fair to me.”

James offered a supportive smile, feeling happy for his friend. Sirius stood up, his posture straightening as if shedding the weight of his fears. “I’ll do it. I’ll find her,” he declared, his voice steady. “I owe it to both of us to at least try.”

“That’s our Padfoot.” Remus breathes a sigh of relief as Peter nods encouragingly at Sirius.

The next daylight soon came. Sirius gulps, looking around the great hall, feeling quite overwhelmed at the number of students entering for breakfast, eating, or chatting amongst themselves. For the first time in a long time, he willed the red string of fate to reappear within his vision.

Ah, there it was. The red string connected to someone from the Slytherin table. Sirius felt his heart drop, seeing the end of the string connected to your pinky. “Y/n?” The name left his lips in a hushed awe, his heart skipping a beat as he saw the string connected to your pinky. You, who laughed with such ease beside Regulus, were the missing piece.

Whether it was some brotherly instinct, Regulus looked at him, shooting him a warning stare as if to say: ‘If you hurt her, you’ll never see the light of day ever again.’

Remus raised his eyebrows in surprise, knowing eyes set on his friend. “Found her, Pads?”

“Yeah. Found her, Moony.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” James chimed in, a grin spreading across his face as Peter silently cheers him on. “Go on, before you lose your nerve.”

Sirius took a deep breath, trying to shake off the weight of Regulus’s protective stare. It was a silent challenge, a vow to keep your heart safe from his brother. With a nod of acknowledgment, Sirius stepped forward, crossing the small distance between the Gryffindor table and Slytherin.

“Y/n,” he said, standing before you, the red string pulsing with a life of its own.

You stilled, slowly looking in his direction. Eyes wide with surprise, searched his for a moment before softening. “I was wondering when you’d come around,” you teared up, making Sirius’ heart ache.

Sirius extended his hand, the red string wrapping around both your destinies. “Let’s talk, yeah?”

And in that moment, as your fingers intertwined, Sirius knew that whatever the future held, he had made the right choice. For in finding you, he had found a new path that began to unravel, one filled with hope and courage. The buzz of Great Hall continued, but both of them felt time still, feeling the bond weave into their souls deeper.

Sirius’s and Y/n’s story had its flaws, but it was theirs, uniquely woven by the red strings of fate.

[andhumanslovedstories]

I’ve been struggling lately with the feeling that my job is pointless. Intellectually I know it is not—nursing is one of those professions where you get to be real smug about knowing the value of your work. But it’s still felt very pointless. Like I’ll start a shift thinking, “what am I even doing here,” and end it thinking, “what have I actually even done.” It’s been a ROUGH couple months.

But I had a really good shift last time I worked, which was good for the soul and also a very useful data point. I got to do pain management advocacy and symptom management, met a bunch of cool patients, did education for new nurses, and had several long heart to hearts, which the kind of midnight heart to hearts that I think are the most important part of night shift, all of that while being well staffed with very pleasant and appreciative patients and coworkers, and I was still like. Pretty depressed. I had a sense of satisfaction and moments of joy and meaning, but it turns out that one good shift did not cure the depression that has been latched on to me for the last few months like some kind of fucked up mental health leech. As I realized I was still depressed and that it was still interfering with my life even when everything was going well, the sense of peace washed over me was the best I’d felt in a while. Because I was like, okay! None of my usual stuff as worked! I have no excuse not to try something new to get my brain out of the shit ditch it’s slipped into.

So I’m applying for short-term disability. I’m worried I won’t get it, and I’m not sure what the next step is if I get rejected, but I feel so much better having decided to pursue it. It’s so much fuckin paperwork for sure, to a degree that’s overwhelming except that that the form could be a checkbox that says, “you want money?” and I’d be like “THIS IS TOO MUCH.” I’m totally not writing this post instead of finishing an email to my manager. I’m definitely not writing this post to avoid dealing with coordinating all my various care providers. I’m certainly not at every moment worried that I’m secretly faking all this so I can get three to nine weeks of a cool summer vacation.

I was thinking about how I almost flunked nursing school in my final semester because I turned in assignments late for a class with a “no late homework” policy. The professor said that this was reflective of real life, where if you miss deadlines you’re just fucked. I ended up appealing my grade and passing, because frankly it was a weak reason for making me repeat a final semester when there was no issues with my actual work or knowledge. During my appeal, I was like “I also think this policy is ableist. Harsh penalties for late work hurt students with health problems, especially chronic health problems when you aren’t asking for one week off due to the flu but instead for a general and never ending flexibility. I’m not trying to make an excuse but explain why this policy is a bad one. Disabled healthcare workers are an asset to healthcare.” I’m trying to remember my own argument as I pursue help. My depression and ADHD and eating disorder do help me be a better nurse, not because like depression gives you superpowers, but because I manage my chronic illnesses every day, in ways that range from hardly noticeable to life or death. Being kind to patients means being kind to myself, and vice versa.

I’m rambling. I really do not want to do this paperwork or send these emails. And I’m not sure if I deserve the leave I’m trying to take. But I miss being love with my job. I miss enjoying it. I wouldn’t judge someone else for going on medical leave, and my job doesn’t want me to burn out or quit. It almost feels like I have to be skeptical of applying for leave because no one else is. Everyone I’ve spoken to has been very supportive, including my manager. And considering how many unpaid days off I’ve had to take lately, disability leave would be an improvement over some of my recent paychecks. All in all, short-term disability makes sense and seems like a reasonable response to circumstances. But FUCK. I wish it required like 90 percent less documentation.

[pukanavis]

Fuyume Hanamura Idol Story 1

ーThe Yumenosaki Academy library, two years since the establishment of ES.

Fuyume: Excuse me?

Are there any fairy tales here…?

Oh, the shelf over there is the section for picture books and stuff?

Thank you for your help.

~...♪

(Ah, she was right. Yume recognises a bunch of the books over here.)

(They’ve got a good selection to choose from but the categorising is a mess. They’re just randomly thrown onto the shelf without any care for alphabetical order or release date.)

(Oh well…apparently no one has any love for fairy tales…)

(‘The Little Mermaid, ‘Momotaro’, ‘Tale of The Bamboo-Cutter’, ‘Snow White’, ‘Urashima Taro’, ‘Cinderella’—)

(Oh! It might not be the one Yume was looking for but he’s in the mood to read Cinderella today.)

(This story is another one that Yume adores.)

(It’s a tale about love being rewarded.)

…♪

Fuyume: …? Hm? Oh, uhm, you’re that nice person from earlier—did you need something?

You were so kind to Yume earlier, so he’d be happy to give you some company.

Huh? The Yumenosaki Academy library is off-limits to anyone that doesn’t work for or attend the school?

How could you tell that Yume isn’t a student here?

Ooh, cause Yume isn’t wearing the uniform…?

That makes sense…no biggie, Yume will be sure to wear the school uniform next time.

Yume is really good at sewing, so it won’t be a problem…fufu ♪

Huh? That’s not the issue?

Yume doesn't like anything you’re saying right now.

Here he was thinking you were a nice person.

Fuyume: Huh? Yume’s name is Fuyume Hanamura.

And you are? …Anzu-san? You’re a graduate of Yumenosaki?

You’re here at your old school to do some producer work, huh? It made you feel nostalgic so you’ve been walking around the grounds…? 

Oh, is that the case? Hmm…♪

Then, aren’t you and Yume in the same boat? Yume goes to a middle school separate from Yumenosaki and you’ve already graduated…right?

It sounds like neither of us are allowed to be here.

Let's work together then, okay? If you pretend you never saw Yume, he won’t go around yelling, ‘There’s a trespasser in here!’ …♪

What do they call it? A contract, business, bargaining? Let’s do something like that…♪

If you’re willing to comply, Yume will leave you be. He isn't particularly interested in you anyway.

Yume is just here to read some fairy tales.

…♪

Fuyume: Huh? Did you need something else? You want to know what Yume is reading?

Ehehe, you’re interested in fairy tales? Sounds like we can get along.

Ehehehehehe. Yume is just reading a picture book about the massively popular princess, Cinderella. Though, he actually wanted to read something else. 

Maybe you’ve heard of it? For some reason, no one in Japan knows about it—it’s a fairy tale about an amethyst. 

Even if you don’t know the story, maybe you’ve heard this quote before?

—”The amethyst broke into pieces.”

Fufu. I guess you haven’t heard of it. Oh well.

Basically, it’s a story about an ordinary girl that comes across an amethyst that can grant any wish that she desires.

In fact, she actually fuses with the amethyst and becomes a crystalised-human of sorts.

It’s a curse put on her by an evil witch…ehehehehe ♪

The plot is kinda similar to ‘The Happy Prince’. Actually, something like ‘Arabian Nights’ or ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ might be a better match.

After transforming into the wish-granting amethyst, the girl wishes for her crush to pay attention to her, or to become better friends with people—

With each little wish she makes, the amethyst uses its power and gradually begins to crack—

Aah…♪ Eventually, her body becomes so fractured that it crumbles away and she loses all of the love and friends that she had been granted.

Her loved ones view her like a monster and chase her away in fear.

After everything, the final wish she makes is—

Fuyume: —Ah, wait, Yume thinks you should read it for yourself to find out what happens next. Spoilers are a crime!

Ehehe. If there’s one thing Yume can say, it’s that he empathises with the amethyst girl and even admires her.

At the end of it all, the final remaining piece of her—

Becomes a ring that showers the wedding between her best friend and the one she loved in joy.

After everything, her final wish is—wait, oops, Yume just realised how much he’s spoiling. He’s really really sorry.

You don’t mind? Really? You’re super kind, you know?

Ehehe. You see, Yume shares the same wish as the girl who became a ring.

—-“I wish for your life to be full of joy.”

During her final moments, the girl whose selfish asks led her to break apart used her last wish to bring someone else happiness. 

Ehehe. Yume doesn’t have the power to grant wishes but he’ll do everything he can to achieve that too.

For example, Esu goes to Yumenosaki so Yume snuck in to watch over him in secret.

Huh? Does Yume love Esu?

It depends how you define ‘love’ but yep, Yume loves Esu.

But it's sad, isn't it? The reality we live in isn’t a fairytale.

—The amethyst already shattered long ago.

[americasass91]

Use Me

Hello there! I know I’ve been M.I.A. for awhile. And literally haven’t written anything in like 8 months. I’ve been going through a shit ton. (Divorce, job change, all kinds of fun stuff) And I really lost my spark to write. And then the Fnaf movie came out. And seeing Josh Hutcherson on screen again lit a fire inside of me! That boy was my original crush (long before Evans). Peeta Mellark will forever have a piece of my heart. That being said, here’s a little something starring Mike Schmidt! I know, I know. It’s not a Chris Evans character? What’s wrong with me? Josh is fucking pretty. That’s what’s wrong with me. Like, I have a problem. Don’t get me wrong, I still think Chris is pretty and hope the best for him. But…he’s not been my muse lately. I said a long time ago that I wanted Josh to fuck me like a screen door in a hurricane. And it apparently still holds true today! So, I hope you enjoy it even though this is not a part of your regularly scheduled programming! Also, this takes place after the events of FNAF. Also, Also. Not sure if the people on my Taglist for Chris’ characters want to be tagged in Josh’s. If so, just let me know!

*DISCLAIMER*, If you’re under 18, this is nothing for you to be reading. Go away.

Words: 3.3k

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Smut, p in v smut, oral(f rec), unprotected sex, language, Mike being good, um I think that’s it

💙💙💙💙💙 

“Listen Y/N, I’m gonna need you to stay and work the next shift.”

You turn around and look at your manager as if she had suddenly grown 3 heads. “Excuse me? I don’t think I heard you right. It sounded like you said you needed me to stay and work the next 8 hour shift.”

She rolls her eyes as she goes back to charting the current patient she’s working on. “You know that’s exactly what I said. Look, I have no other options. Hannah called off.”

“Again? This is like the third day in a row! How is that fair exactly?” You put your patient’s paperwork down and cross your arms over your chest as you stare at her expectantly.

She doesn’t even bother looking at you as she answers. “I don’t know what to tell you Y/N. She says she’s sick. I can’t have her come in if she’s sick.”

Now it’s your turn to roll your eyes. “If by sick you mean hungover! She literally posted on Instagram last night about her night out on the town!”

She glances over at you. “There’s no way to prove if that was from last night or if it's older. Now just get back to work and I’ll let you have an hour and a half break instead of an hour.”

Now you’re pissed. “Yeah, see, that's not going to work for me. I’ve already been here for 16 hours because Kim was late. I’m not working Hannah’s whole ass shift. I have plans. I finally get to see my boyfriend after weeks because our schedules weren’t lining up. I’m not staying.”

“You really don’t have a choice. I wasn’t really asking you, I was telling you. There’s no one else to cover.”

Tears started welling up in your eyes out of frustration, exhaustion, and the possibility of not being able to see Mike again. “There’s a bunch of other people that can cover! What about you? You’ve only been here 8 hours. It would make more sense for you to stay.” 

She turns in her chair to look at you now. “Y/N, I have actual plans. My husband has a work party. And the rest of us have husbands and children to attend to. Not just ‘hanging out with my boyfriend.’

Now you’re seeing red. “So what you’re saying is because I’m the only nurse on this floor not married, I get the shitty end of the deal and have to cover when other people call off?”

“No. If you had legit plans then I’d be more sympathetic. But you haven’t even been with this boy that long. You don’t need to spend every free moment with him.”

“I’m sorry but who do you think you are? My mother? Because I’m a grown ass woman. And if I want to hang with my boyfriend on my time off then I’m going to! I don’t really need your approval for it. I’m not staying.”

You grab your Stanley and start heading towards the locker room to grab your stuff. 

“Y/N! If you don’t stay, then you can forget about this job.”

You turn around just before reaching the end of the hallway. “Well, then I guess you’re going to have to stick around and cover Hannah’s shift. Stick it up your ass, Jan. I quit.”

You don’t even stay to hear what she has to say. You quickly run to your locker and grab all of your stuff out before you start to cry. You can’t believe you just quit. And it’s not just because of your boyfriend. You haven’t been treated right since the first week you started. This was just the last straw. You just hope Mike won’t be disappointed in you.

💙💙💙💙💙

After a quick shower and outfit change at home, you reluctantly find yourself pulling into Mike’s driveway and getting out of the car. You haven’t gotten to see him in about 3 weeks and you know you look like shit from not only your long ass shift but also because you cried on the way over.

You head to the front door and open it up. He always leaves the door unlocked when he knows you’re coming over, and get hit with the aroma of pasta. Mike’s cooking you dinner. That makes you want to start crying all over again. He’s the sweetest.

“Babe? Is that you?” You hear him call from the back of the house. He quickly comes towards the front and sees you. His smile falters when he sees the state you’re in. “Babe, are you okay? What happened?” He quickly wraps you up in a hug. 

You try your best to keep it together but a few tears fall. “I quit today.”

He pulls out of the hug but keeps his arms around you. “You did? Babe, that’s fantastic!” He pulls you back in for another hug and picks you up to twirl you around.

Your mood instantly lifts and you can’t help but laugh. “It is?”

He sets you down and pulls you in for a quick kiss. “Of course it is! That place was treating you like shit! And Jan was a bitch! What finally made you do it?”

He lets go of all but your hand and leads you into the kitchen so he can continue making spaghetti. He sets you down at the table and pours you a nice big glass of wine he bought just for tonight. “I want to hear all about it.”

He goes back to the stove and continues making dinner while you rehash the last 16 hours.

He turns around with the sauce spoon in his hand and his other on his hip. “Hannah called off again? Jesus, how does she still have a job? Didn’t she do this to you last year during Christmas?”

Oh, shit. You had forgotten about that. She did do this last year! You had plans to fly home and see your family for the holidays when Hannah unexpectedly came down with ‘the flu’. Jan had called and needed you to work since nobody else could cover. You felt like since you were still new at the time that you couldn’t say no. Now you’re getting pissy all over again. 

“Oh my god! You’re right! Maybe the bitch has some vendetta out against me. I’ve never done anything to her though! I’ve been nothing but nice!”

Just then your phone dings, alerting you of a text. You quickly check it. It’s from Hannah.

I can’t believe you threw a tantrum and quit just because I wasn’t feeling my best and couldn’t come in. Wow. All so you can hang out with your piece of shit delinquent boyfriend. You sure have your priorities straight.

“Fucking cunt!” You yell as you throw your phone across the table. Then immediately you slap your hands over your mouth just as Mike turns around to see what you’re yelling about.

“What’s wrong? Who was it?”

You remove your hands from your mouth. “Mike, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to curse that loud. I hope Abby didn’t hear me.”

He waves you off. “Babe, she’s not even here. She got invited to a sleepover at Natalie’s house. We’re alone. You’re good.”

You sigh in relief. “Thank god! I don’t want any of my bad habits to rub off on her.”

Mike just chuckles and turns back to the sauce. “If she turns out anything like you, I’d be entirely okay with that.”

You can’t help but feel a blush creep up your neck. He was always saying sweet stuff like that. You get up and hug him from behind and press a kiss to the back of his neck. “You’re too sweet.”

He turns around in your arms and grabs your face and gives you a proper, toe-curling kiss. “I mean it.”

After a few more shared kisses, Mike finishes up dinner and fixes you both a plate and a glass of wine for himself. As you’re sitting there twirling your spaghetti around your fork, you can’t help but think about Hannah’s text again. And then all of the little snide remarks she’s ever made to you come flooding back.

“Babe?”

You snap out of your thoughts and Mike comes back into focus. “Yeah?”

He puts his fork down. “I asked if there was something wrong with the spaghetti? You’ve hardly touched it.”

You look down at your plate and realize you’ve just been twirling it around your fork. “No, it’s fine. Just thinking about what Hannah said and how much it pisses me off. I’m sorry, I’m not meaning to ruin our time together.”

He smiles and grabs both of your plates and gets up and places them on the counter. He comes back over and holds his hand out to you. “Come on.”

You grab his hand with no hesitation and let him pull you out of your chair and let him lead you to his bedroom.

He turns around to face you right before you get to his bed. “First of all, you could never ruin our time together. I love getting to spend time with you no matter what. Second of all, it sounds like you need to let out some anger and need a distraction.”

You can’t help but feel all tingly at the smirk he’s giving you. “What did you have in mind?”

He backs up a little and sits on the bed and looks up at you. “Use me, Y/N.”

You shake your head. “What? What do you mean?”

He reaches out to grab your hands to pull you towards him. “I mean use me. Use me to distract yourself and to take your anger out on. I’ll be a good boy and do whatever you need.”

That almost had your knees buckling. “Oh.” He lifts your shirt up and starts pressing kisses along your stomach while running his hands from your back to your hips and down to your ass. You’ve never been in this position before. Sure, you guys have only been together for like 5 months but anytime you’ve ever been intimate, he’s been the one who’s taken charge.

He pulls back and looks up at you. “Use me, baby. I got you. Tell me what you need.”

You decide to run with it and take control and blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “I wanna sit on your face.”

He lets out a little whimper as he moves back on the bed. “Fuck, baby. Please sit on my face. I want you to suffocate me.”

He lays back and patiently waits for you to remove your pants and panties. You hesitantly climb up on the bed. You’ve never done this before with anyone but have always wanted to try it. You climb up until you’re straddling his waist and lean down to kiss him. 

He returns the kiss enthusiastically and grinds you down onto him so you can feel how hard he already is for you. It makes you let out a small moan into his mouth. The making out only lasts for a few more minutes before you pull away and start climbing up until you’re hovering right above his mouth.

Before you fully lower yourself onto him you grab his hair and yank so that he has to look at you. He lets out another beautiful whimper. “I’m going to ride your face until I can’t think of anything else but your tongue. You’re going to be good and make me cum as many times as I want, right?”

He nods instantly. “Yes, I promise I’ll be good for you.”

“Good boy.” You tell him, which makes his eyes roll to the back of his head. Hmm. Who knew he had a praise kink?

You let go of his hair and grab onto the headboard with both hands before you slowly lower yourself onto his waiting mouth. 

He immediately grips your thighs and pulls you even harder on him and starts eating you out like a man starved. “Oh, fuck!” You throw your head back and start grinding on his tongue. He gives you a few more licks before he sucks your clit into his mouth and starts lapping his tongue back and forth against it. “Oh, god. Fuck, Mike! You’re so fucking good at that.”

Your praise has him moaning and whimpering into your pussy, heightening the experience that much more. He moves his right hand towards your ass and gives it a nice squeeze before moving towards your pussy and immediately inserting two fingers.  It makes you start grinding faster, feeling yourself already close to the edge.

He starts pumping his fingers in time with your grinding, pushing you even closer to the edge. You can’t believe how quickly he got you there. 

“Mike, please! Gonna cum! Make me cum.”

He pumps his fingers even faster and lightly bites down on your clit, knowing it’ll make you fall over the edge.

You scream his name out and grind on him until it’s too much and you lift yourself away from his mouth. To which he whimpers out, “where’s that pussy going? I wasn’t done yet.”

You let out a breathy laugh. “Jesus. I almost passed out from how hard I came. Give me a minute.”

“So I did good?” He looks up at you with big eyes and his chin glistening with your juices.

You pat his hair. “You did so good, baby. Made me feel so good.”

He smiles and wraps his arms around your thighs and presses soft kisses to the inside of them. You close your eyes and take a minute to enjoy that before you look behind you and see his erection pressing painfully against his jeans. You need that inside of you. Right now.

You remove yourself from his face and he lets out a little whine. “Don’t worry. I’m not done. Need your cock, baby.”

You’ve never seen him undo his belt and slide his jeans down that quickly before. It almost makes you chuckle. “Eager, are we?”

He nods as he pushes his jeans down far enough that his cock springs free and hits your ass. “Need to feel you around me, babe. Please.”

You lean down and pull him into a kiss which he returns generously. You can taste yourself on his tongue. He grabs his cock and hits it against your ass, signaling that he’s ready for you to slide onto him. You take the hint and lift up and back until he catches at your entrance. He’s the first one to break the kiss as you slowly slide down onto him. The little whimpers he lets out as you sit flush against his thighs is music to your ears.

You decide to tease him and just stay resting there for a minute while looking down at him. He has his eyes clenched shut and a death grip on your hips. He opens his eyes after a few moments and looks up at you. He reaches his right hand up and places it on your cheek, caressing it with his thumb. “Go ahead and use me babe. Take what you need from me.”

You slowly start moving your hips back and forth, never really lifting them up and down. The friction against your clit is so delicious. You place both hands on his chest and start moving your hips a little faster. “Oh, fuck baby. You feel so good. You’re so deep.” 

“Yeah? Am I making my girl feel good?”

You smirk down at him. “Oh, yeah. You’re being so good for me.”

He lets out another whimper as he grabs you by the back of your head and pulls you in for a heated kiss. This one sloppy and desperate. His hand that’s still on your hip starts moving you a little harder against him. He pulls away from your mouth and kisses his way up your neck towards your ear. “Come on babe. Cum on my cock. I can feel you clenching around me. Cum for me so I can be good and cum for you.”

This time you’re the one letting out a whimper. “Yeah? Want me to be your good boy and cum for you? Fill you up?”

“Please.” You whine out, moving your hips even faster than before. You can feel your orgasm coming like a freight train. There’s no stopping it. 

“Oh yeah. I can feel it. You’re gonna cum for me. Do it. Make a mess on me babe. Please, I need it.”

“Yeah? You need me to cum for you? Need to feel me cum? Oh, god Mike. I’m almost there. Please don’t stop.”

He continues helping you grind your hips against his. You’re almost there. Just a little something…..

“I love you, Y/N. So fucking much.”

That did it. You’re pitched off the edge and silently scream out. The edges of your vision going white. You can vaguely hear Mike whimpering out your name as he does as promised and fills you up. You slow your hips down until you can’t move them anymore and slump down against him with your face tucking into the crook of his neck. He wraps his arms around you and rubs his hands up and down your back.

You both stay like that until your heartbeats return to normal. You lift up your head just until you can see him, almost nose to nose. He’s the first to speak. “So, did I do good for you?”

You let out a chuckle. “You were so good, baby.” You can feel him twitch inside of you at the praise. “But, we need to talk about what you said.”

Mike scrunches his brows for a few minutes before his eyes go wide and he realizes what he said. “Shit, I did not mean to say that.”

You can’t help the disappointment that crosses your face. “Oh, well that’s okay. It was in the heat of the moment.”

He quickly wraps his arms tighter around you. “No! That’s not what I meant. Shit. I one hundred percent meant it. I just wanted to make it special when I told you. Not in the middle of an orgasm. You deserve better than that.”

You smile and press a kiss to the tip of his nose. “I appreciate the thought. But I really don’t need anything special. I already have you.”

His smile lights up his entire face. “I love you, Y/N.”

This time you press a kiss to his lips. “I love you, too Mike. Like, a lot.”

“I bet not as much as I love you.”

Just as you’re about to retort, Mike’s cell starts vibrating, causing you to jolt with fright since his phone is still in his pocket which your leg is pressed up against.

“Jesus Christ.”

You quickly get up so that he can grab his phone. “Hello?”

You go into the bathroom to clean up. You come back in with a wet cloth to clean Mike up. He just hangs up as you come in the room. “Everything okay?”

He smiles in thanks as you hand him the cloth. He goes about cleaning himself up. “Yeah. That was Natalie’s mom. Apparently Abby has decided she doesn’t wanna stay the night so I have to go get her.” He stands and pulls his jeans back up and smooths his shirt out. “Sorry we won’t be alone anymore.”

You pull him in for a quick kiss. “Nothing to apologize for. I love you Mike. And that means loving all of you. Which includes Abby. Whom you know I just adore. Go get her and we’ll have a movie night or something.”

He shakes his head and pulls you in for another kiss. “I still don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

You just smile in return. “After the past year you’ve been through, you deserve to be happy.”

He chuckles as he heads out the door. “Ain’t that the damn truth!”

[whateverisbeautiful]

♥️Reveling in Richonne - TOWL

#34: The Trapped (1.04)

gif cred: @machonnes

Who knew it would take getting trapped to help Richonne finally let some of that tension between them get released 👌🏽...

After Rick basically breaks Michonne’s heart far worse than he tried to do in ep 3, the two still have to work together to make it past these walkers. And one thing about Richonne is that adrenaline-heavy activities always seem to bring them closer together..and also get them in the mood. 😌

So Richonne is in a hall taking a bunch of walkers out like only they can but then they both go for the same walker at the same time. A rare moment of Richonne being in sync but not in sync.

gif cred: @perryabbott

Michonne looks at Rick and says through gritted teeth, “I had this.” And then Rick is all snarly and defensive saying, “I had this.” And I was like if this man does not fix his tone. 🙃 He already has eight strikes at this point. Plus I was like…Rick, why are you having this annoyed energy with her, when you’re the one who has been doing the most hurtful stuff?? 😑

gif cred: @perryabbott

And then Rick wants to try it even more by removing his blade from the walker and splattering some of the gunk on Michonne’s face. Now y’all, this was nawt funny to me when I first watched it cuz I was so in my feelings. 😂

gif cred: @perryabbott

I quickly could see the humor people see in it of course, but when I was in the thick of my feelings during that first watch my extra self was like excuse me Rick, didn’t Father Gabriel go blind getting that stuff in his face?? 😑 Out here all willy-nilly with your wife.

Lol, I was all out of strikes to give at this point.

But, now watching this, I smile because these two are genuinely comedians together. 😂

Michonne looks at him ticked and says, “Really?” And fortunately, Rick has enough sense to know he was wrong for that when he says “Sorry” and then quickly scurries away to kill more walkers. That was cute I admit lol. 🤭 Rick looks like for a brief moment he finally realizes he tried it and is in trouble with his wife.

gif cred: @perryabbott

I also like the use of clashing red and blue light in this scene both for the visual and because I feel like Rick has been associated a lot with red light throughout TOWL and Michonne with more of blue lighting - i.e the difference in their lights during the tunnel scenes in ep 3.

And the way these red and blue lights are making purple here (fittingly, the color of royalty 👑) it’s almost like it paints the picture of how Rick and Michonne are clashing but still somehow on the verge of merging and coming back together. That might be an extra-as-hell observation but hey I told myself I was gonna try to write out every observation I have. 😋

gif cred: @figmentof

So then Richonne run up these stairs as the building continues to aggressively buckle and crack. A walker nearly grabs Michonne and Rick tells her to hug the wall with that irritated tone again and I was very much not here for that, cuz like why does it sound like he's scolding her or something? 🤨

I get Rick is also antsy cuz he’s not trying to have anything happen to her but still I feel like this was giving early season 3 Rick when he’d occasionally have that little posturing sternness with Michonne...and we’ve done come too far to be reverting back to that.

Michonne retorts, “I know that” cuz she doesn’t need the reminder. And then that huge chandelier comes falling down on them. That chandelier ends up being a blessing in disguise y’all, cuz Richonne needed something that was going to snap them out of this funk.

And whenever I hear Michonne still yell that concerned "lookout!" I’m just like aw even when Rick is being mean as hell she still looks out for him. 😊

gif cred: @ricksmarlene

After the fade to black, it’s shown that the chandelier has trapped Michonne’s leg so she’s stuck. I do like that the first thing we see is Rick right by her side tucked away in that corner with her because you know he probably was real panicked thinking this chandelier hurt Michonne and of course, he wants to try to fix it.

At first, you just hear their breathing and then Nat comes to his girl’s aid once again when Michonne uses his lighter to see better. Rick asks if she can move her leg and Michonne softly says, “Yeah it’s just trapped. If I can just…” and she tries to lift it but this thing is heavy and it won’t budge.  

gif cred: @nerd4music

Rick says, “Okay on the count of three” and they try to lift it together but it still won’t budge. They can see and hear walkers coming up the stairs and so Michonne shows that she too can make unserious statements like Rick when she says, “You should go.”

But that’s not even remotely an option to Rick so he doesn’t respond to that and just tells her, “Grab that. Handle those, while I get this thing.”

Michonne says, “Rick, how? There’s no time. You’ve got to go.” And I knew no matter what version of Rick this is, no version’s leaving her here to die. He’d rather die 1000 times himself than let that happen.

gif cred: @coolpartytimefan

There may be a part of Michonne that is genuinely telling Rick to go because she doesn't want the love of her life to die here on the stairwell if she can't break loose. But I also could see that, because Rick has been continually suggesting they have to just part ways and essentially never know each other's fate anyway, she might be feeling like 'What's the difference between leaving me here now or leaving me later?'

However, above all, she knew Rick would never just walk away from her here because they love each other and because - do I even need to reiterate it? - Richonne are...

I like how once again, Rick does not even address the idea of leaving her behind and just starts talking about how the bolts are holding this thing together. And when a walker comes Rick swiftly takes it out and then intently returns to trying to remove the bolts. Michonne turns some walkers into a kabob using her stick and when it gets particularly dicey Rick comes through to give her a knife to use. 

More walkers start making their way closer and so Michonne again tells Rick, “You’ve gotta go.” And this time Rick does respond to it and I love the response.

He just looks right at her and tells her, “That is never happening.” Y'all, I was so mad at him and then I heard him say this and was instantly smiling. This was a heartwarming line.😊

I like how Rick didn't just want to say 'that's not happening," but rather said 'that is never happening" because he knows there are literally zero scenarios where he'd ever abandon her in this state.

gif cred: @nat111love

Now, don’t get me wrong, I still felt some major apologies were needed from Sergeant Major Grimes after the gym scene, but it was nice to hear him say he'd never leave her here, especially because you know that’s what he was thinking in his head every time Michonne suggested he should go.

Rick immediately positions himself to be on the other side of her so he can shield her and take out the walkers. And Michonne is glad Rick was able to articulate that he’s never leaving when she says, “I just needed to hear that.” 

All along she knew telling him he needed to go was crazy and not something they’d ever do. She just needed Rick to see that. She turned this near-death experience into a helpful learning experience for him lol. And the lesson of the day: We don't leave each other behind. 😌

I love the way this episode uses Michonne being literally trapped by the chandelier to parallel Rick being trapped by the CRM. And just like Rick said he’d never want to leave Michonne trapped like this, she’s not trying to leave Rick trapped in his form of imprisonment either.

Honestly, Michonne should have a counselor certificate because all her methods this ep are slowly but surely helping Rick deprogram and see the light. 👌🏽

They keep trying to lift as Rick takes out walkers and eventually they’re able to get the chandelier off her together. I like how the only way it works is through Richonne working together and how with Michonne in a state where she can’t save herself, she’s able to have Rick here wholly determined to protect her. 😊

gif cred: @coolpartytimefan

And while of course for us we have no fear of either of them meeting their demise in this scene, it is technically a life or death situation and it’s nice seeing Rick be so committed to either saving his wife from this situation or dying trying.

gif cred: @nat111love

Michonne stands up and Rick again checks on her asking, “You okay?” Michonne looks in his eyes and says, “Yeah. Thank you.”

gif cred: @machonnes

And then the Rick we know makes a return as he softly and sincerely tells Michonne, “You never have to thank me ever.” 😭 I loved this line so much when I first heard it and love it every time since. 👏🏽🥹

I appreciate how much Rick feels like protecting her is not a burden or obligation. He literally feels that it’s his design to do so. So to Rick, thanking him for this is like thanking him for breathing.

And it’s just really sweet to me that Rick who is known to thank Michonne every chance he gets for everything, doesn’t even feel Michonne needs to tell him thank you once. Like he really said never ever. 🥲

gif cred: @nat111love

He knows and reveres the absolutely priceless gift Michonne is in his life and in each of his children's lives and that’s more than enough to him. So yeah that line was great. 🥰

And Danai knew what she was doing because I wasn’t sure how she was gonna be able to get Rick back in good graces after the gym scene but “that is never happening” and “you never have to thank me ever” were very effective in reminding of the lovable man Rick is underneath who he's been presenting to be the last 30 minutes.

As disappointed as I was with Rick's gym behavior, those two lines on the stairwell made me check myself and say let me not forget that at the end of the day...

He's not completely in the clear yet, but these moments were signature Rick Grimes, loving and being there for Michonne and it was refreshing to see that undying devotion.

That bonding moment of nearly dying together on a stairwell brings Rick and Michonne more in sync as they run upstairs and take out walkers. It’s nice to see them a bit more in unison. It’s like getting literally unstuck from that chandelier made them start to get a bit more unstuck with each other as well. 

Rick notes they need to go back to the room since that side hasn’t started bumping and shaking yet…but honey, it will. 😏

And it will all be because of Richonne and their much-needed, highly anticipated, long-awaited, so-hot-it-could-melt-your-screen, unforgettable moment of reconnection. 😌👌🏽 

[terulakimban]

The “cultural Christianity” stuff is making the rounds again. And what I think a lot of people who object are missing about that designation is that you have to actually leave a culture to not be part of it anymore, and even then, it will still shape a lot of how you first react to things.

I’m American. I have spent, collectively, a grand total of four months (rounded up) outside the US. My parents were born here. My grandparents were born here. I am pretty definitively culturally American, for all that literally no one in my family identifies as “American��� before they identify as “Jewish.”

I can say American culture sucks. There’s a lot about it (yes, I know there’s more than one. Yes, they can be quite different. Yes, there can be a great deal of tension between them. No, that doesn’t necessarily make that much difference from the outside. Yes, that is quite relevant to the extended metaphor I’m going for here) that does. What I can’t do is say I’m not actually a part of it. I’m a citizen. I’m surrounded by other Americans at pretty much all times. I’m not emigrating, I’m not making a point of immersing myself in specific local expat communities as a cultural immersion thing. I’m certainly not “from no country.” I definitely don’t have a more objective sense of American culture than someone who isn’t American and is living here reluctantly. I may have a more in-depth sense of it, but there’s no way they don’t have the basics down, because it is fucking everywhere, and they are constantly running into people who are trying to make them assimilate into it (further) in some sort of attempt to help them be normal. And they, unlike me, have a sense of what it looks like in comparison to something else.

Now. Let’s say I decide I hate America and everything it stands for and I don’t want to live here. But my family’s here, and I’ve got positive memories. I don’t have the money to go somewhere else. So rather than actually leave, I develop a deep fixation on another country. Maybe it’s based on a shallow understanding from stereotypes, maybe it’s a genuine respectful interest. But surrounding myself with a bunch of other Americans while we go on about... I dunno, how much we love England and tea does not erase how we’ve spent our whole lives being American, and it certainly doesn’t erase how we’re still living in America. Let’s say I take it a step further. Let’s say I actually emigrate somewhere. There’s two extremes. Either I fully immerse myself in my new country. I learn the language, I participate in the culture, I genuinely try to immerse myself. Or, I feel uncomfortable because things are weird and different and not quite what I’m used to, so I surround myself with a bunch of other American expats, and we spend all of our time talking about America. Maybe we talk about how much we hated it and how awesome we are for leaving it and how much it sucks and how everyone who’s there is terrible. Maybe we talk about the good things. But we’re still centering our existence around America.

But even in the first of those options, where I genuinely try to acculturate, there’s still going to be things that pop up for the rest of my life where those initial few decades of life in the US will shape my expectations. Maybe they’ll be small things “oh right, sales tax is listed on prices here.” Maybe they’ll be big things “excuse me, what just happened in parliament?” But I will always have that American lens with me. Even if I hate it. Even if I found it traumatizing. That’s not a moral judgement on me, it’s just how formative life experiences work. I can become not-American. I can’t become never-American. 

Cultural existence in a religious framework -any religious framework -works the same way, because religion both has and shapes culture. When I bitch about the omnipresence of cultural Christianity, I’m not calling anyone who is culturally Christian bad. I’m complaining about the pervasiveness of Christian hegemony. When I complain about culturally Christian atheists (which I only ever do in the context of specific behaviors by specific people), I’m not saying “these people are terrible and unredeemable,” I’m saying “there is a very clear pattern of people taking the step of saying they dislike Christianity but then trying to enforce Christian hegemony by claiming the parts they like are secular, thereby effectively coming across from an outside perspective as a continuation of the general attempt at forced Christianization.”

If you hated the Christian family you grew up with and everything about them and Christianity but like Christmas and want to celebrate it, that’s fine. Genuinely happy for you you’ve got something you enjoy! Have fun! Nog your eggs! Deck your halls! Call it Festivus and put up a pole instead of a tree! Do an anti-Christmas where you decorate with Halloween decorations in Santa costumes and celebrate with spooky stuff! But that doesn’t make it secular. It makes it you finding the one bright spot you had in darkness and hanging onto it. I sincerely respect that -it’s difficult to do. The thing is, I’m not in that darkness, and you trying to insist everyone have that light of yours comes across as yet another person shining the interrogation light of “why can’t you just be normal like me” in my face.

I don’t want Christmas. I want freedom from it. “Everyone can have Christmas” in response to “I don’t want Christmas” doesn’t come across as a friendly offer to share. It comes across as an aggressive attempt to force assimilation specifically on people who say they’re actively fighting it.

[skreebs]

Thinking about the ableism toward Jouno in the BSD fandom and it genuinely pisses me off so badly I want to hit people. I’ll be perusing the tag and looking at stuff and then I’ll see some random pop ups for AO3 and get shit like this

Now I don’t 100% know the context of this screenshot, for all I know this fic could be about him before he lost his sight, but either way it got me thinking and thinking got me angry and being angry means i need to complain. Jouno is already pretty shit blind rep, I’ll be honest. He’s the basic stereotype of “blind character has super senses because they’re blind” but can we give blind people literally ANYTHING else??? jesus christ. I’m pissed how BSD writes his blindness so as per usual I had to attempt to fix all of that myself, but attempting to fix it and removing it entirely are NOT the same and one is VERY MUCH SO WORSE. Again, not talking about this fic specifically but other ones I’ve seen that do this, or those “Jouno if he could see” edits. Spoiler alert, blind people can open their eyes.

I dont know why BSD and every other piece of media is so adamant on not giving visually impaired and blind characters white canes and just giving them "super senses" to get around it. It’s incredibly stupid and abelist to portray stuff like this. Disabilities are not super powers and thank GOD they didnt make that his ability but they still gave him that aspect and I guess it can be excused with SOME lore stuff like maybe he got really good senses from his surgeries but it just sucks that it happened that way at all? And then they don't even touch on how horrible having incredibly hightened senses to the point you can HEAR blood would be?? can you imagine hearing everyone internal organs around you 24/7 EVERYDAY? No one talks about that at all. That would be so fucking overwhelming its genuinely insane. Jouno is such a dear character to me, but genuinely when I remember him in canon without any of my headcanon explinations it’s just really sad that all I can say about him as representation is "well.. it could be worse".

I know there’s going to be at least one person saying “theres good blind rep in other shows though!!” Yes! I know! I’m super glad about that! But ignoring the bad ones doesn’t help much. You need to point out the issues to get good results. Recently, and by recently I mean about 17 hours ago, I watched/listened to the first episode of Daredevil, once with audio descriptions, and then after I watched without AD and had captions. I’m super glad that things are more commonly getting AD—it’d be a bit pathetic if the show with a blind main character was not accessible to blind people—but even with Daredevil, Matt still falls a bit into this stereotype.

Don’t get me wrong, seeing a character with a white cane has me absolutely elated, but from the single episode I’ve seen and what I’ve heard, he apparently also has some sort of super senses, and I know in the first episode he can hear heartbeats. I think super senses as a power is fine, but it’s just the fact they always give it to the blind characters. I, myself, am not blind, nor am I really visually impaired, I just wear glasses. However, as someone with a special interest in disabilities and also as someone that is disabled in other ways, seeing disabled rep fall into stereotypes over and over just really bums me out sometimes.

I think Daredevil is great so far from this one episode, I’ll probably be looking at more of it, but that is definitely just one gripe I have with it. I think Charlie Cox putting a bunch of effort into the role with the method acting and talking to people in the blind community and just all of that is amazing, I love to see that in anything, it’s just urrghh that it’s so hard to find a blind character that doesn’t have some kind of insane superpower senses with things. It reminds me of when characters with autism are so frequently portrayed as geniuses or their autism is only acceptable if it helps the neurotypical cast with “gadgets” or something. I dunno. Hard to explain, it’s 11 at night and I’m tired. Just don’t be ableist in any fandom or in real life. I shouldn’t have to even point out why this shit is disgraceful.

[mamasparky]

hiii what if I said, I want to hear YOUR sallowgraham headcanons ☝️😽🤲

Oh shit- I’ve been Reverse Uno card

Ok, a good chunk of our hcs line up so I won’t repeat those but I’ll def tell the rest under the cut

Backgrounds:

I have a lot more about joshua than Edward he’s my fucked up guy

I’m a big transmasc joshua believer - I think his experiences of growing up in new Canaan really influenced a lot of his experiences with relationships in general

Takes a form of wasteland testosterone that is mostly just a low dosage of buffout

His family and the town loved him but they were never quite sure what to do with him and so was inadvertently isolated by them

He has several siblings but was never particularly close to any of them. He’s a true forgotten middle child

Looks a lot like his father

Was never really that close with anyone his age and struggled to find meaningful friendships

Probably travelled alone on his mission trip because they weren’t sure who to send him with

Was taught a lot of survival skills growing up and hunting game is second nature to him - when traveling with Bill and Edward he was the one to make sure they had protein in their diets

Edward grew up pretty easily with his mom but they argue a lot due to both of them being stubborn as hell

He was also every followers teacher worst nightmare and was kicked out the classroom multiple times

Grew up with Bill as his “best friend” and bill never really developed a proper backbone to tell him off and kind of just stuck around because they were mostly friendly

Edward really demeaned him and a lot of the others and was really not popular at all amongst the followers

Did a lot of boxing and loves to fist fight people even as he got older

Edward really got into trying to aggravate and embarrass him the whole time they travelled together and into forming the legion

Joshua hated it yet took the bait every time because Edward is so good at getting under peoples skin

Legion

They got “married” (probably just joshua saying it after they had sex for the first time) pretty young and within a year of the legion being formed

Now you’ll have to excuse me but I’m a huge truther of Vulpes being their bio kid. It makes no sense within actual canon but it is my hill that I will stand on because I think it’s funny

Edward doesn’t know this because Joshua fucked off for a few months under the excuse of “conquests” when he found out he was with child and because he was young and scared of what it meant. He couldn’t face becoming a parent when he was like 21-22 and abandoned vulpes with a tribe in Utah

Joshua never really accepted Vulpes as his own and found excuses to either ignore or mistreat him due to guilt

Edward and him fought constantly with one another and they never really forgave each other for certain fights when one dug into the other and hurt him

Joshua is the really blood thirsty of them two (and has been since a kid) and encouraged Edward to go further and further with his extremes

Edward (obviously) has issues with control and would use their bonded status as a way to control Joshua in a lot of ways.

Joshua was really encouraged through his religion to respect his spouse and be kind of subservient and that translate easily for their relationship. Joshua has a really hard time telling him no and Edward used that for his benefit when ordering him around and convincing him to do stuff

Edward once thought he could take Joshua down in a fist fight and was quickly proven wrong

Edward prefers physical touch as his way of showing love while joshua prefers acts of service

Both are extremely jealous lovers. If either cheated which Edward prolly did a few times- they always blame the affair partner and not each other

A lot of your post Hoover dam hcs overlap with my ideas so I don’t have too much to say there but I do have a bunch of post actual game things. This is all just based around very personal belief that I think they’re a extremely toxic relationship and terrible for one another. There is no canon bases for these but I like them 🤷‍♂️

Joshua wants so badly to come back to the legion despite the acceptance he has gotten from both his family when he came back to new Canaan and the Dead Horses

If given the opportunity he could and would rejoin the legion as Caesar’s legatus and would pretend as if little had happened the past like 6 years

Caesar would only agree to it within very specific circumstances but who is he to deny his very dangerous ex-husband?

Joshua is also a ghoul in very deep denial of it

Edward now has two extremely dangerous Legatus depending on if they won the battle of Hoover dam or not which he can use for twice the expansion

They both become the even worse versions of themselves

If this is a version where arcade is sold to the legion then joshua wants to strangle him for “tempting” his husband

There’s totally a lot more but this is the most I’ve been able to compile in like 30 minutes so you’ll just have to take my scrambled thoughts

[deltaengineering]

Spring Anime 2024: A Wizard is never late

Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku (Train to the End of the World)

If you want a reason for why this post is woefully late, it’s this show: since we’re going in ascending order of quality here, it must come first, yet I have a hard time saying anything about it. I suppose I can start with the most obvious problem: I will probably watch your original anime, but I do that to get away from light novel levels of insufferable dialogue. Yet this one definitely goes with the NisioisiN school of writing, which is to say, talk a lot first, then figure out a point at your convenience. This definitely doesn’t endear the show to me and makes it mildly annoying right from the start, but it could still be salvageable - but then Shuumatsu Train just turns out to be not particularly good at any of its selling points. For a weird show it’s not weird enough. For a comedy it’s not funny enough. For a character drama the characters are too superficial. For a profound allegory, it's much too vague. And even though the parts are hardly stellar, the result somehow still ends up as less than the sum of them. It‘s not a total write-off since at least there is some ambition here, but I really can’t say that being more meaningful than not at all is enough of a payoff for something that is mostly just basic attempts at wacky humor presented in an annoying fashion. 4/10

Yuru Camp S3

So, speaking of ambition. My last contact with Yuru Camp was me getting very mad at S2‘s incessant products and services shilling. Admittedly S3 turns this down to an acceptable level, but that only makes the deeper issue more apparent: Yuru Camp is and has always been astonishingly vapid, and three seasons and a movie in all the vibes in the world can no longer make up for it. I won’t even complain that the show is no longer about camping in any meaningful capacity (since I never cared and at least the local-tourism-and-food lane we‘re in now doesn’t require purchase of specialized gear), but godammit if personality-free blobs looking at small footbridges for three episodes didn’t kill my enthusiasm for any of this mush. It‘s still broadly inoffensive, but at this point I feel like I’ve thoroughly exhausted anything this show is ever willing to offer. And Yama no Susume shows that you can have all the theoretical positives of a Yuru Camp with compelling enough characters, so there’s really no excuse. 5/10

Yoru no Kurage wa Oyogenai (Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night)

I don’t know where this recent trend of cute but reasonably serious girl band anime came from (I would like to think MyGO, but more likely it‘s Bocchi the Rock + the most blatantly obvious and viable way to improve on Bocchi). But here is Jellyfish and uh… it certainly makes an attempt. The first impression is very positive, since Doga Kobo provides pleasant visuals (per usual), but it quickly becomes apparent that it’s the writing that is really holding this one back. It’s not even bad ideas or a lack of ideas, since the concepts this show wants to tackle are generally quite good. But pretty much every execution on those plot ideas is botched in some way, be it by resolving them in a stupidly simple way (impostor syndrome? just do your best!) or by just having a character read out their character arc really dramatically. A bunch of plot points don't even make sense when you look at them in context of the ostensibly real world this show takes place in, and the ending is a massive nothingburger. It's all stuff that's barely passable when something like Love Live does it, but in something that aims higher it seems like a first draft at best and more likely just extremely amateurish. One can only wonder if you gave such a concept to a seasoned veteran like Jukki Hanada... 6/10

Tonari no Youkai-san

Tonari no Youkai-san started out as a rather simple show that I really liked: a mostly but not exclusively lighthearted depiction of a world where Youkai are real and the weird situations that can create, with likeable characters carrying it along. But then it became apparent that what it really wants to do is back-to-back KEY-style sadpiano scenarios. While those aren't bad in moderate amounts, the fact that every scenario now had to be about some heartbreaking backstory no matter what quickly became rather tiring. And then, if it wasn't apparent enough that this show was writing itself into the weeds, it capped the season off with a completely bizarre sci-fi multiverse action arc where everyone dies (very sad!) but then comes back alive because power of friendship beats entropy or something. Well, at least I prefer laughing at this nonsense to being annoyed at contrived tearjerkers, I suppose. I wouldn't call it quality though. 6/10

Dungeon Meshi (Delicious in Dungeon)

When the Dungeon Meshi started, I just didn't get it. The hyperbole around this show (mostly coming from manga fans, I think) was clearly not befitting a very mediocre gimmick anime where even the gimmick had been done better elsewhere multiple times. I do have to admit that as it went on, I could start to see where people were coming from: Once the cooking dies down a bit, the characters start to develop a bit and it finds its pace, Dungeon Meshi's "default mode" is an entertaining adventure anime with some nice characters, decent humor and engaging action. So far so good. However, I'll still call the show merely above average because it's in its default mode less often than you'd think. Every time I started to like something, Dungeon Meshi immediately had to head off in some random other direction that I don't care for: The cooking I did not care for in the beginning becomes vestigial but never stops taking up airtime nonetheless. The nerdy exposition about dungeon mechanics should not merit more than a footnote in a splatbook, but never stops taking up a lot of airtime nonetheless (it's also a painful reminder of the "worldbuilding over narrative" nonsense that I hate, but Dungeon Meshi isn't the worst offender here so I'll let it slide). The show expects me to care about other, far less interesting parties after I just barely mustered up enough enthusiasm to see Chilchuck as more than a spare Marcille when Marcille can't play the tsukkomi herself. Falin turns into a tragic zombie chicken. They adopt an annoying cat. It goes on and on and I'm not thrilled. I will admit though that I will likely still watch the sequel, mostly because Trigger really does a fantastic job with this adaptation on all levels, which at the very least manages to keep it watchable even in the doldrums. I just wish the source material was more consistent. 6/10

Kaiju No. 8

Every season there's some random anime that isn't particularly great, but still competent enough to merit a watch. It's usually some light comedy like Torture Princess, but every once in a while it's something else. This season it's Isekai QC, but in spring it was something even less likely: Kaiju #8, a Jump-brand premium shounen. Yeah, that's a surprise. It just doesn't do anything particularly wrong, apart from the genre staples that it must do wrong: The pacing is bad, but just regular bad. The tone is all over the place, but just regular all over the place. The protagonist isn't as good as he first seems, but not as bad as he could be either. It starts out as "less miserable Attack on Titan where people shoot at huge monsters with guns at shounen powerlevel efficiency", which is extremely awkward, but eventually it settles into a more standard "hit bad guy with sick special attacks" groove, which isn't exactly exciting but at least clearly something the show wants to be. In short, nothing special but the bullshit does not exceed the maximum level I will tolerate as the price of entry to epic dudes epically fighting in an epic fashion. There always is a point with these where you have to ruthlessly cut your losses, but it did not reach it in its first season when the average genremate reaches it within the first episode. That's... something. 6/10

Nijiyon S2

I wasn't even going to write about this because what is there to say about Nijiyon, except that Nijiyon is that rare mini spinoff that actually gets better and starts to outshine the main show at points. Half the time. The other half is still very basic and very arbitrary 4koma hijinks, but an improvement is an improvement. 6/10

Bartender: Glass of God

Why did they make a second Bartender anime in 2024? I can't answer this conclusively but I will say that if Suntory didn't pay for at least half of this production, they got something for free. With that out of the way, the most interesting thing I can say about Bartender is how it compares to Gin & Sonic '06. The old one was certainly ambitious, but in a rather obvious way: Treating the Bartender mystique as somthing close to supernatural and presenting it in a very abstract and stagey way. This is great when it works, but just as often merely comes off as extremely pretentious. The new one... just doesn't do any of that. It's a very straightforward, simple story with actual characters and stuff. It's workable enough with some stronger and some weaker episodes, and even though it does not even attempt to reach the highs of the old one, it doesn't sniff its own farts and does its best to avoid the old man machismo stank that faintly polluted the first adaptation. So I will actually call it better in some ways, maybe even on average, but it still can't compete with a show that had a better reason to exist than to get you excited for Yamazaki whiskey. 6/10

Euphonium S3

I've had my ups and downs with Yoof, and I will say that while some nags remain, I am satisfied with how it managed to (hopefully) wrap up. In fact, S3 might be the best the show has ever been. We were never going to get the cartoonish and quite frankly more entertaining presentation of S1 back, but for what it's worth, S3 takes the overcooked presentation and histrionic character writing of S2 and brings them down to a palatable level, and that makes it at least worth thinking about. Another big point in its favor is that it's now finally truly the Kumiko show, and not just the Kumiko stumbles into other people's drama show. Cast additions like Kanade and Mayu are prety great as well so yeah, I had a good time. Really my biggest complaint is that S3 might actually be a little too good at character drama, because at one point it seemed it was on the verge of starting to question a few of its core assumptions. I never expected it to have doubts over whether letting your school club control your entire existence is in fact a good thing, but ideas like Reina actually being as insane as she comes across and that Taki actually being as terrible as a teacher as he comes across seemed extremely promising. But nah, of course Kumiko just had to be honest with herself, that solved all the problems and then the show just coasted to the most predictable ending imaginable. Euphonium always seemed like it could be way better with a bit more risk-taking, but this was a particularly disappointing moment for the show to be itself. Anyway, if you just expect Euphoinum you're getting the good Euphonium here. 7/10

Girls Band Cry

So, about that "Hanada writing Jellyfish" quip I made earlier? What if that actually happened, in the same season no less? Yeah, these two shows are shockingly similar but unlike Jellyfsh, Girls Band Cry does things right... for the most part. You need to get used to the somewhat janky CG animation, but you're getting some great expressiveness in the deal so that's no problem. You'll also have to put up with Hanada's trademark yuribaiting, a pretty weak ending (as if these two shows didn't already copy each other's homework enough) and music that is much too obvously coming from the Vocaloid camp for my liking. Apart from that, GBC is very good. Not quite as good as MyGO (which has even better character dynamics and I still can't get past how shockingly high its quality is for a franchise anime), but it's really close. So close in fact that I don't even feel like pointing out in detail why GBC is good, because it really is MyGO again: Very flawed yet likeable girls try to get their mental in order while swinging between goofy and depressed and occasionally making music. It's not complicated, but when the character writing delivers (i.e., by seasoned pros like Yuniko Ayana or Jukki Hanada), it just works. If this is a trend now, I'll gladly take it. 8/10

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

jjk chapter 253 spoilers under the cut !!

WAHHHHHHHHHHHHH THIS CHAPTER…….. 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 one of my favs in a while i think IT WAS SO SO GOODDDDDD

FIRST OF ALL. GOJO CRUMBS 😭😭😭😭🥺🥺🥺😞😞😞😞😞😭😭😭😭🥺🥺🥺😞😞😞😞😞😭😭😭😭🥺🥺🥺😞😞😞😞😞😭😭😭😭🥺🥺🥺😞😞😞😞😞 I CRIED I SOBBED I STARTED WRITHING ON THE FLOOR IN AGONY……. OUR SWEETIE………

HE’S SOOOO CUTE…. :(((( blindfolded gojo is my favorite ever he’s SO baby…….. i miss him sm it hurts i almost teared up seeing this panel that isn’t normal human behavior 😔😔 ”don’tcha think?” SIR PLS STOPPP…….. :((((( silly little goose…… i need to kiss him all over his pretty face just to hear him giggle (doctors surround me w syringes from all sides)

ok but gojo aside (come home baby the cats miss u 💔) MAKI????????? MY GODDESS?? i ADORE the fight between her and sukuna …. she looks completely feral i’m so enamored <333 wild raccoon coded <3333

and also…… the dynamic between these two……. 😵‍💫😵‍💫 maki being the only one since gojo who sukuna seems to be taking seriously/having genuine fun with???? (all the parallels between maki and gojo have been KILLING me i’m so glad akutami agrees w me that she’s his daughter ever <3) LIKE THAT’S SOOO SICK??? maki nation getting fed silly rn

”at its core, sorcery is all skin and flesh (…) that body of yours is all marrow and bone” BANGER ASS LINE EXCUSE ME??????????? AKUTAMI??????

but it’s also soooooo interesting isn’t it….. sukuna has always had a very specific view of sorcery and how it should be, and maki’s very existence completely goes against that ideal while simultaneously acting as a genuine threat to him… i think it’s so . insanely cool that he essentially views her as an alternative to sorcery?? and it forces him to revert back to the sorcery that he favours, just to prove that it’s superior (which is why he uses black flash for the first time!! at least that’s my read of it rn)…. IT’S JUST SO GOODDDD I’M EATING IT UP‼️‼️‼️

also sidenote kinda but but but . the sukuna theories…. abt him eating his twin……… if those are true then the sukuna/maki parallels are even MORE insane bc she had to sacrifice her own twin for the sake of survival/power but would undoubtedly choose mai over her newfound strenght every single time :(( while sukuna willingly chose strenght over companionship….. yeahhhh they make me ill

what else is there to say ……. kusakabe was there. PHDJDHDJF NO BUT WDYMMMM HE’S THE STRONGEST GRADE 1 SORCERER…… SINCE WHEN 😭😭😭 ??????

jokes aside i think it makes sense considering kusakabe just so happens to Know abt a bunch of stuff he shouldn’t know abt + somehow keeps surviving ???? but i still think it’s so funny how everyone is hyping him up while he’s like . I Am Not The Strongest 💀💀 he’s so funny actually…..

….. this is smth my fuckass brother said that unfortunately made a lot of sense + made me go completely insane but. maybe the reason kusakabe keeps trying to run away is bc he wants to stay alive for his sister….. :((( bc he needs to take care of her/doesn’t want to die and leave her alone the way her son did. sob. T_T that would be kind of a genius move on akutami’s part bc it changes his comedic moments to very heartwarming ones…. i’m actually rlly excited to see where this fight goes wahhhh

anyway back to gojo .

HE’S LITERALLY SOOOO BABY I CAN’T STAND HIM …. 🥺🥺🥺🥺 i don’t think akutami will ever truly understand how perfect this design is . like. there isn’t a single other character who perfectly manages to strike the balance between cute and handsome the way blindfolded gojo does . i’m sorry but it’s true. this is what the ideal male form looks like

[kyojurismo]

🪼 welcome to my 1k followers celebration !

a/n : first of all, i wanna say thank you so much from the bottom of my heart! i’m forever grateful for all the people who take their time to read my work, to show a bit of support and to even interact with me. i consider myself your friendly neighbourhood writer, someone you meet casually, but it’s up to you to decide whether staying or walk forward — what the . . ? ANYWAY, this is my first time doing a celebration, and i’m really excited hehe, so yeah if you wanna know more keep reading ^_^

opening period : well, the celebration starts today ( JULY 10TH ) and finish on ( JULY 16TH ), so have fun and please don’t send anything related to the celebration after this date or else they’ll get deleted. once again, thank you !!! ♡

let’s chat : alright, if you wanna get to know me better, whether you’re curious or just bored, you can send me as many questions as you want and i’ll gladly answer them so we can get more cozy. i’m very shy and i usually tend to mind my own business, but i said this a lot: i love interacting with people. so yeah . . . this is your chance to discover how annoying i am & ask my opinions about literally anything >_<

grab your pen : i write after all, so we’re here thanks to this i guess. here you can find a bunch of lists about different prompts & scenarios you can use to send a request ( for short pieces so it will be easier for me ) to celebrate this milestone.

🪼 RULES BEFORE YOU REQUEST SOMETHING

— nsfw pieces only if you’re 17+ !

— for this, i accept request only about reader x character(s) — i accept fem, male and gender neutral readers.

— the fandom i write for are: kimetsu no yaiba, jujutsu kaisen and spy x family. if you wanna know for which characters in particular, check this post or simply try your luck by sending a character anyway ^_^

— remember to tag the request with 1K CELEBRATION, so it doesn’t get confusing.

— write the full prompt please, not only the number / letter.

🪼 PROMPT LISTS

— affectionate gestures

— fluffy scenarios

— kiss prompts

— super soft intimacy

— protective prompts

— height difference prompts

— soft prompts

— excuses to hold hands

— short angst sentence starters

— soft angst sentence starters

— inexperienced smut prompts

— smutty prompts

— subtle smut sentence starters

— bdsm & dom/sub smut prompts

— five senses prompts

🪼 1K CELEBRATION RELATED STUFF

— fluffy scenario [ sanemi shinazugawa x gn!reader ]

— “you’re gonna be fine. just stay awake for a little longer, help’s already on their way.” [ sanemi shinazugawa x gn!reader ]

— “i swear to you, that as long as i'm alive i won't let a single soul ever harm you.” [ ryomen sukuna x fem!reader ]

— “the way their eyes crinkle when they smile.” [ tengen uzui x gn!reader ]

— back hugs [ sanemi shinazugawa x gn!reader ]

— “i’ll be back very soon, but don’t come out. stay there hidden until i come back and try not to make a noise, hmm?” [ tanjiro kamado x gn!reader ]

— kisses to keep your lover quiet during sex [ kyojuro rengoku, tengen uzui, giyu tomioka x gn!reader ]

— napping together [ yuji itadori, megumi fushiguro, suguru geto, ryomen sukuna x gn!reader ]

— feeding you their cooking and hoping you’ll like it [ sanemi shinazugawa x gn!reader ]

— “first one to make noises loses.” [ obanai iguro x fem!reader ]

— sliding hands under their clothes [ lady tamayo x gn!reader ]

— playing with their hair until they fall asleep [ giyu tomioka x gn!reader ]

— going in for a kiss and either bumping noses or foreheads [ kyojuro rengoku x gn!reader ]

[panlight]

I think having any of the ‘kids’ be C/E adoptive kids doesn’t work well. Edward and Rosalie should have been Edward and Rosalie should have been Esme’s siblings that she raised after their parents died. Emmett is Rosalie’s husband and they live in their own place a little away from C/E. They’re at Uni. Jasper is also at Uni, maybe correspondence. He’s Carlisle’s brother and C/E are letting him use/rent their home while he finishes. Alice is Esme’s assistant for the architectural business she runs from home and she’s letting her live in the attic conversion so that Alice and Jasper can put aside money for their own place. This way Jasper has an excuse to stay home and only Edward has to go to school if he wants.

Siblings of some configuration always makes way more sense. They are just too close in age for the parent stuff to really work at all. Sure, Esme and Carlisle pretend to be in their 'late 20s or early 30s' but you can't tell me that 23-year-old Carlisle standing next to 20-year-old Emmett they would look anything like a father and a son. Just . . . it makes no sense.

Even Edward and Esme, 17 and 26, the biggest gap, is only . . . 9 years. It would make way more sense Carlisle and Esme to be the older siblings (or half-siblings, or whatever) of various groupings. You could, for example, say Carlisle Cullen is the older half-brother of Jasper and Rosalie Hale (different dads so different last names). They're all tall and blond, people would believe they are related. Likewise Esme and Edward have reddish-brown hair, easily could be related. I think even in the guide one of the original cover stories was that Edward was Esme's little brother that she was looking after since their parents died and that makes 400% more sense than "These two people in their 20s adopted a bunch of teenagers."

And then, yeah others can just be the significant others.

They can be a family of whatever configuration in private. If they want to be mom dad and the kids at home, fine. But it makes no sense for that to be a cover story; it just raises more questions than it answers. I mean, we're STILL talking about how weird it is all these years later. You can't tell me Forks wasn't talking about it, too.

[8bitsupervillain]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 8 Matsuribayashi pt. 8

Now, whether or not this sways your heart towards sympathy in the forthcoming events is really something to mull over. Can suffering tragedy at such a young age justify the eventual atrocities one winds up committing in their adulthood? That really depends on you, and your outlook on morality I suppose. Just as a random example, can having an abusive childhood excuse you from ordering the deaths of two thousand or so people?

Probably a smart thing to be doing when you’re not a hundred percent sure if you’re still being hunted for escaping the abuse factory.

Nothing to really do with anything, but how much do you suppose something like the console ports of Higurashi cost to make? Couple million, maybe ten at most (translate into whatever yen amount is appropriate, I used USD)? Obviously you have to pay your voice actors, and the artists for the new art, but it probably isn’t something that breaks the bank right? I know that it’s not exactly a precise tool to use, but according to steamcharts the highest player count for one of these games tops out at around 350 people. Again, not a precise tool because these have probably been available elsewhere for years prior to their steam release (for instance I play them on GOG, except for Hou+ which didn’t release on GOG for reasons I don’t know).

The reason I bring it up is because despite all the new art for some of the scenes, and characters and so on, I can’t help but love when it goes with a relatively low tech option and just zooms in on a characters face. Like the scene where Miyoko is yelling at God in a thunderstorm above. It just pixelates it a bit, and I find that kind of endearing that despite throwing more money at these higher-end ports it still has these small rinkydink workarounds.

Also, and I know I say this a lot, they haven’t quite said who the mysterious voice Miyoko heard was that day. Perhaps they’ll say who it was later on in the chapter, part of me wants to assume it is some aspect of Hanyuu. Even though that doesn’t make a bit of sense considering this scene occurs far away from Hinamizawa.

Another thing I thought about doing just because it amuses me is I’m considering plopping Miyoko’s head onto Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body from Predator.

Yeah, that’s the stuff right there. (The most annoying part is finding pictures for my little shitposts that are actually decent quality, and not 320x200, incidentally I had to get the screenshot myself from a copy of Predator I owned). I don’t know why you people put up with my medium effort sillies.

God’s not done with you yet Miyoko. Although it is remarkable you didn’t get blasted with a bunch of splinters when he struck the tree with lightning. Also, not to keep the plot from moving along, a burning tree does provide some warmth you know? Probably not where you should hide since the people from the orphanage would probably check around the remains of the tree, but you know, temporary solutions.

Also, just a fun amusing fact, when the lightning strike happened here it caused the game to crash. It was pretty funny timing all things considered.

Not to yell at the fictional child, but maybe you should count your blessings kid. You’re out of the rain for the moment, you don’t have to sit in the rain and catch pneumonia. I like the phrase of “it looked like this phone booth had been put there as punishment for doing something bad.” It’s a very amusing line, and it definitely strikes me as the sort of thought a kid would have despite their recent difficulties.

[theredpharaoah]

Hermione clears Jaime with very little effort I fear. She don’t even gotta be in striking distance. This is an interesting take on his part cuz for me, the weakest aspect of his universe is the grossly under-developed magic system. His magic system is quite literally “plot”. Not that JK’s is great. I’ve said a lot about the inconsistencies and under-developed points of her magic system and society as well. But her magic system is still more fleshed out than his. Her weak points is that she never fleshes out dark magic past 3 spells and she doesn’t make the line between light and dark magic clear. We don’t see a culture or specific magics that the dark side are apparently so interested in protecting. The dark side seems to have access to all the same general spells that everyone else has. It would be different if they had private family grimoires full of private spells they’re being barred from using. We don’t see how her feudal society works; what are the purebloods lording over? Is it land they own? Who are the commoners? Half-bloods? And a bunch more stuff. But that being said, I still feel like she has more in universe scaffolding to stand on then GRRM when it comes to magic. GRRM’s answer to everything is that’s the “mystery and wonder” of magic…that isn’t satisfactory in a fantasy series where we’re told magic was perfected to a science by almost every civilization at one point. And Terfling has an advantage cuz her domain of discourse only deals with magical beings. GRRM’s doesn’t, and so when you say people are either born with magic or they can’t use it - it makes things strange. If this was the case, why do they have the alchemists guild? How do they learn magic at the red temples? How did the First Men learn from The Children? And then there’s the Rhoyne and Valyria and Asshai. It seems a little weird that it’s something that can’t be cultivated at all. And I know we generally assume the Children and the First Men interbred, but I’m questioning the logistics of that. Maybe there was some genetic manipulation through Weirwoods or warging or something idk. Also, GRRM’s world building leaves a lot to be desired. A lot of it is just references to HP Lovecraft and other series. There’s only so much you can try and use actual history as an excuse for. Especially when you also make use of your world being very different from actual history - particularly when it comes to trade. And as I’ve stated multiple times; the Targaryens make no sense. The reason they have nothing from Valyria other than dragons is very obviously just “plot”. That’s not good. And this holds for other instances too; the reasons the Blacks lost The Dance? Plot. The reason The Dragons stopped hatching. Plot. We’ve yet to have a good in-world answer for this past speculation. I can’t stand Terfling, but I’m also sick of ppl acting like GRRM is this godly writer above critique. He’s very much at her level. He just manages to get past it because his works is for adults with adult content, and that gives it this air of being “elevated” above some of his peers.

[simp999]

A New Home Ch. 12

Various Splatoon Manga x Skilled! Isekai'd! Reader

Wc: 1.2k

Back to the start! Previous Next

“You gonna eat any more?”

You shift your gaze up towards the yellow-green inkling standing above you after adding your dirty plate to the pile of many. You focus back on the ground below you, or your hand, or the hem of your shirt. Anywhere but Rider.

“Not right now. I prefer to eat often rather than lots at once, it’s harder to battle with a heavy stomach.”

Interactions between you two aren’t very smooth, huh? It’s not like you mind, but you can tell he’s trying to get you talking. Why is he so interested? Is it because he considers you a challenge? Has he even seen your battles? Stealth has, so it would make sense that Rider has as well.

Rider takes a deep breath in and sighs. You look over at him, wondering what’s wrong, but not saying it aloud.

“You. You’re strong, but you came outta nowhere. I need to know more about you.”

Well, that makes things plain and simple, doesn’t it? Wrong, you have no excuses to escape. This means you’re going to have to come up with some fake life stories, and keep it realistic. You’ve already spent some time coming up with your lore before, and now it’s time to test it. The most important part is confidence.

“Alright, shoot. What do you wanna know?”

He looks around, assessing the current company and deciding that here isn’t a good spot. He shoots you a side eye, hinting at wanting to go somewhere else. You slowly follow behind, looking back at the big group of people, trying to see if anyone is going to notice that you left. Tasha gets a glance of you leaving, and you give her a quick wave of your hand. She gives you a nod and you continue to follow Rider.

The two of you make your way to a hole-in-the-wall cafe. You didn’t have any drinks to wash the curry down, so this is actually kind of nice. You order something small, and Rider makes sure you’re as comfortable as you’re gonna get before he starts asking you stuff. Way to make it obvious, mr. skeptical.

“Where are you from?”

“Calamari county, just moved recently.”

“Where did all the skill come from? They don’t have turf or ranked out there.”

“Parents were big fans but were never any good, so they trained me as much as they could get from videos and live streams in hopes that I’d enjoy it. Good thing I did, or I’d have nothing else going for me.”

You take a sip of your drink. This isn’t too bad. This should be over soon, right?

“Let’s battle. I want to see your skill face-to-face”

Carp.

Rider’s supposed to go do hero mode with Goggles anytime now, and you don’t want to mess with that.

“I want more time to learn my team, and to get better with them before taking you on. You know you’re kind of a big deal, right?”

You chuckle a bit, doing your best to still make yourself seem like just a chill fan of his.

“Then a 1v1.”

It takes you no time to respond. Now that you’ve met your teammates, you don’t want to fight without them anymore.

“No. I’m not ready to battle without my team. They have my back and I have theirs, that’s how we’re strong.”

He’s about to object, but there’s nothing he can do to convince you, and he knows it. He sighs again, you can tell you’ve annoyed him. You do make a somewhat valid point, though.

“Fine. I’ll be waiting for the day your team is ready to battle. ‘Till then, focus on being able to defeat me.”

You can’t just let him end it like that, you’re not just gonna let him sound cool and leave.

“I’m not just gonna focus on winning against you, I’ll focus on getting stronger to beat everyone. I’m not a one-trick pony.”

He stands up and takes your drink to the trash along with his,

“Alright, you do that. I’ll see you around, then.”

“‘Kay then. Be safe.”

The words left you unintentionally. Your mind was preoccupied with how hero mode was coming up, and how he’ll have to fight a bunch of octarians.

“ ‘Scuse me?”

“I meant don’t hurt yourself training. I know you’re gonna work hard to try and beat me and my team, but don’t get yourself injured.” 

‘Yeah, smooth. Now that makes it too personal, good job, idiot.’

“Same goes for you. You seem like the type to work your ass off if you want a new skill, even if it hurts you.”

He makes his way out the door and goes back to his team, pretending nothing ever happened.

You make your way over to your team after hearing the waitress bid you goodbye, which made you realise that Rider must have paid for the both of you. That sly-

“There you are!”

Leo was quick to notice you, and you wonder why until you see that the only people left in the plaza are yours and Goggles’ teams.

‘Why do I have to be stuck with the main character? He could become agent 3 any time now, right? Wasn’t he on his way to a team meetup, though? That means it’s probably gonna happen tomorrow. I hope I’m right about this.’

“Well, I’m ready to go home.”

It doesn’t work though, because Milo, Leo, Bobble, and Goggles standing in the same vicinity means that there’s no chance at silence. Headphones slowly makes her way over to Tasha, you assume she’s complementing her skills with her charger. Tasha offers a nod, and that’s about it. Specs comes up to you nervously, and tries to pretend to be as casual as possible. Of course he’s failing, this is Specs.

“How are you such a good team leader?” He quickly pushes his glasses up on his face, distracting himself from the scary presence he’s assumed from you, “Most squids don’t even recognise me as Team Blue’s leader. It’s almost embarrassing.”

You feel bad for the guy, but there isn’t much you can do to help. You gently put a hand on his shoulder and try to make yourself seem a bit more friendly before giving him your best answer:

“No idea, dude.”

You immediately see the way he gets all mopey, letting his glasses fall down his face a bit and you let out a small laugh.

“But seriously, Tasha’s honestly more of a leader than I probably will ever be. She’s better with schedules and organising practices, my only job is to show off and shake the opponent’s hand at the end of any official matches if and when they start comin’ my way.”

“Wait, you haven’t been a part of any official matches yet? But your team is so strong!”

He’s not wrong, you guess you never really thought to join any tournaments or anything. It’s not like you’ve been around long enough for too many to occur, anyways.

“Team just wants to focus on getting stronger for now.”

You see Leo twirl Bobble in a big hug, putting her down and finally bidding them goodbye.

“Bye bye! We should hang out again soon!”

‘Damn it Leo, why must you do this to me? The main cast, no less.’

Next part

May.3.23