#and we're also getting the battle results at the end. we're so fucking close i'm super excited 😭😭

[koumeowkami]

oh my god we're being so spoiled for this anniversary it's insane

[alena-draws]

Aha! I have now read the last (??? probably?) chapter of Mha. Thoughts to this chapter and the whole ending itself, and obivously spoilers under the cut!

Ok so first, I don't think it's a bad chapter per se? There are some pretty cool pages in there, and I love seeing the grown up characters! Whatevery happened to Monoma and Denki, they are looking GOOD. I love the little scene between Tsuyu and Ochako, just because we get to see that they are besties, hanging out and telling each other about their lives!

Also Kacchan got a racing car (or something fancy at least)? I didn't really expect him to go for such appearance-things, but maybe just because I'm not a fan of cars myself. And hey, despite the threat Kiri gets to eat in his car, look how far he has come *sniff*

Now coming to the obvious, the Ochako/Deku part. I love Ochako as a character, and I think Ochako/Deku is still really cute. It's a sweet pairing, it has just never been my main interest because I always found the dynamic between Izuku and Katsuku so much more compelling. ^^ I would have preferred not to conform any ships though- I thought the last chapter was ok as an ending, with the way you can now make up your own ideas about how and where everyone will end up. As it seems, Hori did have other plans for Izuku and wanted to close that ambiguous, open Izuku/Ochako part. It's his character, and he can do that.

But there are some things that do leave me unsatisfied, from the ending in general and this chapter.

First- what do you mean Izuku won't join Katsuki's hero agency??? Like----what? And not just from a shipping perspective, but from his whole character arc? I'm not sure if I read too much into it, but over the course of the whole manga, Izuku's main rival has been his friend, and they have been shown again and again as acting as this hero duo - winning to save and saving to win. That was a whole theme!! Where has that gone? Which leads me to my second and biggest unsatifaction with the ending: Where is that important talk between Katsuku and Izuku? Look, I don't need any romantic special talk. What I want though is some kind of closure of their whole dynamic. It was a big fucking plot point that Iuku would go beserk if something happened to Katsuki, a way he didn't react to for anything else. And that happpened not only once or twice but at least three times- the kidnap, the stabbing 1, and the death scene. For heaven's sake, Izuku saw his best friend laying on the ground. That stuff does something to you!! And the only thing we get is a (sweet, but still) hospital scene. And, during all these interactions (at least later, not the fight on ground beta): the hospital at the end and the apology of Katsuki, Izuku only ever reacts but doesn't really say much aside from that? He doesn't start and look for any conversation, and he doesn't really tell us what he feels in these moments. I as the reader would at least expect some kind of talk between them how that last battle made them feel. But no- so now, it leaves me with the feeling that Izuku is either A) not actually that close to Katsuki which however contradicts everything we've seen until now, or B) emotionally really really repressed and oh my god get that boy some therapy and help him figure out his stuff. Or, C) they did that talk behind the scenes which would really suck. Izuku is still the main character. You want the reader to identify with him and confront complex emotions that result from all those hardships together with him- how are we supposed to do that if HE NEVER FUCKING TALKS ABOUT HIS FEELS. I mean, this is kinda what Kacchan gets at in the car. Another interesting scene!

Is this a confession or a push for Izuku to notice potential feelings from Kacchan? Well, we don't know. That's left open and I guess we're really free to interpret. It would be a Kacchan thing to say I guess, and we also have that offer to become hero partners (which you didn't accept Izuku because you have brain damage). Also possible is that the intention of this is that we get that Izuku/Ochako scene. They might be fucking with us and it could be both, because you still can't have someone openly declaring any gay feelings in a shounen manga. I don't want to speculate too much, it's of no use anyway *shrugs shoulders.

So yeah...what I'm miffed about is not really the confirmation about a the Izuku/Ochako pairing. What really bugs me is that this special relationship that exists between Izuku and Katsuki, where they both kind of motivate each other to be the best they can be, in such an intense way they we don't see them have with any other character- that THIS never gets addressed and that we're left hanging in the air, not really knowing what the relationship between these two is now- THAT pisses me off. (again: if you best friend died and came back, you would maybe want to address that in some way?) It feels like the writer left one big theme of the series infinished, and now with this chapter, it feels kinda dismissed to the side. I love Izuku but that passiveness and the lack of insight to his feelings during those last volumes (for the reader and by himself too) does make him feel...a bit hollow at the end to me. Last short topic: I'm also just a tiny bit disappointed that the only conclusion of the quirk theme was that they now start early to teach kids and help communication. Good thing of course, but with the way we heard "Quirks are getting stronger by each generation" and the quirk evolution, I thought there was something bigger coming, so that's been a bit of a let down. Nothing big, just an "oh, that's all?" moment)

But yeah...I think that kinda sums up how I feel about this now. Anyway, no hate for the IzuOcha part, they're pretty cute together!

[zmediaoutlet]

Survey results time.

At time of downloading the data we got just over 300 responses, which is not bad for a survey that was long and complicated to take! I'm sure my shamelessness helped. Being a survey for a specific crowd, we also didn't get anyone (as far as I could tell) taking the survey in bad faith, which is a legit surprise. Special shout-out to the several people who, when asked to write literally anything to say they understood what was going on, wrote "literally anything"; additional shout-out to the person who wrote "penus and hole" (sic). You get it, anonymous person.

I'm going to share the top results for the questions here, but I'll also include the raw data as a sheet at the end in case anyone wants to actually go through it with a fine-tooth comb. This is not a survey where cute pie charts or graphs would be useful or readable, so get ready for some sweet-ass numbers:

Story Genre

Unsurprisingly, our leaderboard for most favorite story genre in the 'Anytime!' category is as follows:

Hurt/comfort (153 votes)

Angst (142 votes)

PWP (139 votes)

We just like the guys to get the shit beaten out of them, angstily, and then they can feel better by jerking off about it. The ideal evening.

The big loser in genre, with 34 buds flat out saying "not for me", was Dark!fic. That said, Dark!fic also got 112 votes (third highest) for "has to be JUST right," so we can probably take from there that while as a group we don't hate dark content, we have pretty strict definitions for a) what counts as dark, and b) what kind of dark we're willing to take.

Gencest/gen was arguably the most 'eh, idk?' of the genres, with respectable showings in every category from Anytime to No; most people don't hate it, but people aren't really seeking it out either. It's definitely There.

Story Setting

The winner of most 'Anytime!' votes for story setting is close to my heart; the podium is:

Bunker era (142 votes)

Canon-close, codas, etc (129 votes)

Pre-series/weechesters (126 votes)

It feels good to know that canon is on our side. This may help explain why various alternate universe settings didn't do so hot with the respondents -- the least fave according to this survey is an age!swap AU, followed by a raised apart!AU. Writers who are making Sam the big brother who lives in Cleveland while baby Dean lives in Seattle, you keep living your truth, but readers are rearing back.

That being said, while Canon Divergence isn't an overall winner, it has a full 149 votes in the 'Dig it' category; so, while we may generally prefer canon, we're willing to be led on a garden path away from it. We just want canon to be within shouting distance, at least.

Canonical Character Variants

Here's where the survey gets more complex. I've always been interested in how and why people are fandoming about things, and simple 'yes/no' surveys rarely dig into that meat. The point of the superego/ego/id separation is to really interrogate -- hey, do you like to read about (for example) soulless!Sam because you find it interesting on a high-minded level, or because your heart-strings are getting tugged even if you think it's kinda dumb, or just because it makes you so hornt-up you can't think straight? All are valid, and all are possible simultaneously, but it's interesting to prod at to see how the interest is working. You might also just be like, eh, it's fine, or GOD, STOP, and that's fine too. So, with all that said:

Superego winners:

demon powers!Sam (202 votes)

soulless!Sam (177 votes)

blood addict!Sam (160 votes)

Y'all like to really brain about how Sam is fucked up. I get it.

Ego winners:

Trials of Hell!Sam (186 votes)

blood addict!Sam (180 votes)

demon powers!Sam (161 votes)

Still all Sam, and no surprise that his saintly pale sleeplessness is winning the heartstrings battle.

Id winners:

demon!Dean (205 votes)

demon powers!Sam (175 votes)

blood addict!Sam (165 votes)

Again, no surprise: fandom girlies (gn) love their bad boys, lol. Soulless snuck in at #4 here with 163, presumably because working out still wearing a belt was juuuust dorky enough to kick him off the podium; #5 was Smith & Wesson at 162, probably because if they'd been left in that AU for ten more minutes they would have been fucking over the top of Dean Smith's desk. Glad we're all on the same page, there.

The nopes here were an interesting mix. In the full-on No Thank You category we had Michael!Dean and Gadreel!Sam (with 52 and 53 votes respectively) -- it would be interesting to know if that was due to dread of the storyline specifically, or just how No Bad Wrong it felt to have it happening. These two also led the 'meh' category, although they were joined on the podium of bad by Endverse!Dean (128 Meh votes), which frankly shocked me. Y'all aren't into his thigh holster? C'mon now. Sure, he murders his friends without compunction, but -- thigh holster!

Story Tropes

These ones were fascinatingly all over the place, which is exactly why I wanted to do this. Going to just run down the S/E/I podiums real quick, then 'Hard sell', then No --

Superego winners:

Outsider!POV (211)

Someone Finds Out (191)

Mental health issues (190)

Ego winners:

Mutual pining (252)

First time (242) AND Sick/injured (242)

First time in a long time (235)

Id winners:

Jealousy/possessiveness (224)

First time (218)

First time in a long time (180)

Now, part of what's interesting about these is how they fall off in other categories. Outsider POV wins handily at Superego with 211, but then drops all the way down to 92 votes at Id -- which isn't nothing, but clearly it's preferred to have a heckin' think about how other people view the incest relationship, rather than thinking it's just So Hot that people might. Similarly, while people do think it's so so hot for one brother or the other (or both!) to be possessive at 224 votes, when it comes to the superego that drops right down to 134 votes, presumably as the brain wakes up and goes RED FLAG!

Entering the land of no thank you, we shall have two anti-podiums:

Real hard sell:

Infidelity (127)

magic/powers!Dean (125)

Unrequited/no relationship upgrade (110) AND "Carver Edlund" fandom

This is a much more mixed bag. Infidelity and Unrequited are no surprise here, because it Feels Bad, Man; magic!Dean also not really a surprise, given that most of our respondents prefer being closer to canon, and Dean is very much our mundane buddy in the show as presented. (A delightful buddy, but a distinctly nonmagical one.) Carver Edlund fandom makes me laugh mostly because it's such a bananas thing to exist in the show. Sam and Dean reading big bang fics about each other? Collectively we just... don't know what to do with that. Weird.

Squick/No/Maybe one exception:

Permanent character death (140)

Infidelity (108)

Eating disorders (102)

Again, no surprise in the anti-winners of 1 or 2 here, but number 3 surprised me, personally. ED fic used to be a pretty big wedge of common tropes that people would seek out. Perhaps it's gotten less popular over the years? Or perhaps just that the people who like it REALLY like it and so chat about it out loud, while those who don't quietly bury it in sand, lo as a cat does with their leavings.

Most extreme delta in 'general interest' (whether that be S,E, or I) to 'ehh' (whether that be Hard Sell or Squick) is first time. Y'all loooove your first time.

Sexy Tropes, Vol. 1

This is where I really wanted to know if people could pull apart their interests between brain and heart and guts. Hopefully people were honest, as requested. Some of them we know are slight liar answers, because the hits on AO3 tell a story that can't be refuted -- nevertheless, here's what people were willing to admit to.

Bulletproof kink/will read any version:

Bedsharing (158)

Incest kink (139)

Size kink (133)

your friendly neighborhood survey creator is jumping up and down going 'wooo' that size kink made the podium. also I hope everyone understood that incest kink meant, like, indulging in the incest of it all via 'oh you're so totes my brother and i want to suck your dingle for that reason specifically', but I realize that could've been clearer.

Easy sell/you don't have to work hard for me to enjoy:

shameless bottom!Dean stuff (151)

switching (147)

voyeurism (138)

the first one here genuinely surprises me considering what I see getting written most often; is this a case of just not being in the right venn diagrams, or the 'easy sell' just not matching up with what people are being sold? Curiouser and curiouser.

Medium sell/not my fave, but I can see how it appeals:

bad/awkward sex (120)

phone sex (114)

in [drug/alcohol] veritas (110)

edging into awkward town in a few ways here: we don't love these, but we can see how it'd be fun. or not fun, in the case of bad sex.

Hard sell/this is unbelievable or uninteresting so you have to work hard to get me to enjoy it:

always-another-gender!AU (84)

multiple Sams or Deans (73)

genderswap (magic) (72)

so, in general, we prefer to keep the penises around and intact, but just one Sam penis and one Dean penis, please. Here, I'm interested that the volume is much lower than in the top category: maxing out at 84 hard sells compared to 158 bulletproof options means that we're willing to give more of these tropes a chance, even if they're not our faves. How accepting we are!

Squick/no/maybe one exception:

always-another-gender!AU (83)

A/B/O elements (65)

multiple Sams or Deans (51)

strong overlap with the hard sell; and, keeping in mind that people were able to choose multiple options, it's possible that some of those were identical votes. Again, please keep the penises straightforward and only two at a time. A/B/O is interesting here, especially given what we know of how well it does on AO3; while it's a big squick for a lot of people, it also has decently high votes in bulletproof/easy, averaging 82 votes. Mixed bag!

Sexy Tropes Vol. 2, Electric Boogaloo

Bulletproof kink/will read any version:

Possessive/claiming sex (129)

Marking (hickeys/bruising) (116)

Hair pulling (103)

Let's glance back up at the Id winners in the story tropes above, hmm quietly to ourselves, and move on.

Easy sell/you don't have to work hard for me to enjoy:

Marking (hickeys/bruising) (135)

Hair pulling (130)

Possessive/claiming sex (121)

Well, that's boring. So let's expand so as not to be repetitive:

4. Dub-con (116) 5. Dom/sub (113) AND Underage (113) 6. Knifeplay (107)

There we go. Pretty easy to put all of those into one fic, too.

Medium sell/not my fave, but I can see how it appeals:

Blindfolds (128)

Painplay (116)

Shibari/rope play (112)

We're starting to lose interest as accessories come into play. Interesting to compare D/s and its relative success against painplay -- so, tell him what to do, but don't hit him while you're doing it. Fair enough.

Hard sell/this is unbelievable or uninteresting so you have to work hard to get me to enjoy it:

Fucking machines (94)

Vore (80)

Mommy!kink (77)

Entertaining mix here, haha. General feasibility may be rearing its head here. (Also, for my own entertainment: daddy!kink got 67 Hard Sell votes. People generally prefer to keep it as horizontal incest, not vertical incest.)

Squick/no/maybe one exception:

Feederism (164)

Vore (161)

Extreme underage (157)

No surprises here, although some fans of the nibbly variety of wincest may be disappointed by vore's poor placement. Note also that 'extreme' is in the eye of the beholder; we'll leave aside value judgments, as we have for the whole survey, and note that people are not indulging in a version of underage they find to be personally past the line, or at least are not admitting to that.

At a glance, the closest matchup between bulletproof for some and a squick to others is bloodplay, with just 1 vote separating the two categories: 44 bulletproof, 43 squick. Next time someone tries to tell you that 'everyone' likes or doesn't like something, please take it with an entire shaker full of salt.

Dynamic & Position Preferences

I tried to encourage people not to think too hard about this one and just answer on instinct. Who knows if that worked. But here are some overview takes:

Toppy/dominant: Sam takes the lead here, with 69% of respondents being in the 'Love it!' category. Nice. (217 votes)

Dom Dean earned a respectable 52% of 'Love it!' votes (163).

However, I was also interested to check out the inverse --

subby!Sam: 44 'Very no thank' votes (13%) subby!Dean: 27 'Very no thank' votes (8%)

It's interesting to leap way back up and compare that against 'shameless bottom!Dean stuff' doing so well in the rated E categories. Makes you ponder.

Actual sex position: Frequently switching takes the win here, with 61% of the vote (194 votes). Sam always topping edges out if people must choose, with 144 votes; Dean always topping is our lowest choice, with 112.

Service!topping: this is a fairly niche fic type, but it does still exist -- I guess in a world of bottoms someone's got to actually get up and do something, and it is hilariously an almost perfectly even split:

service!top Sam: 50.17% (151 votes) service!top Dean: 51.50% (155 votes)

A healthy percentage of people said they didn't care about these questions either way, and more power to them. However, they were wildly outvoted by those who did.

Multishipping Time

Our final categories are when other people get their grubby hands on Sam or Dean, either canonically(ish) or in our fandom activities.

Canonical relationships for Sam

Jess wins, quelle surprise. :) 161 people Dug It and who can blame them.

Amelia LOSES, shocking no one: 112 people said Fuck That.

Eileen was definitely a mixed bag; her results, in order, were: Meh: 92; Fuck that: 76; Worse than meh: 66; Dug it: 44.

Canonical(ish) relationships for Dean

Note here: it was too unbalanced if we only went with people Dean officially dated. However, the show leaned hard into a few unrequited male relationships for him, which we included here, and no one sent me hate about it so I guess that was fine.

Benny wins the Love It! category with 129 votes, barely edging out Cassie at 122. Benny is best boy, so that fits.

Cas loses with a full 99 Fuck That votes, which is probably what we'd expect from a wincest survey. That said, he also got 93 Dug It votes, so it's a pretty balanced showing.

Poor Lisa sits firmly at Meh with 148 votes. It's not that we hate you, Lisa; we just don't really know what to do with you. Which is pretty much how the relationship went in the show.

Shipping Sam like FedEx

We returned to the S/E/I model for shipping as we did for tropes, because it means something very different to go 'oh sure, I can see how that would be interesting' vs saying 'I want them to fuck rawnasty and I don't care why they're doing it.' Apologies if I left out your favorite side-ship but, shit, there's only so much time in the day.

So, we return to the podiums:

Superego:

Ruby (132)

Rowena (121)

Cas (102)

Ego:

Rowena (121)

Cas (106)

Ruby (90)

Id:

Ruby (125)

John (121)

Rowena (118)

So that was going on sedately until Dad came in like a hammer. Fascinating. On the other hand:

No:

Lisa (234)

Donna (222)

Claire (219)

Interesting to me that these three are ladies that Sam theoretically could have got up in but people are not into it, regardless. This is slightly different to Dean's 'no' category -- spoilers for three inches of screen space!

Dean, Shipped by UPS

Superego:

John (129)

Benny (115)

Lisa (99)

Ego:

Benny (134)

John (116)

Lisa (102)

Id:

John (147)

Benny (128)

Crowley (114)

Well. That tells a slightly different story, ahem. Enjoy the various tropes that will be applied, Dean! And then we get:

No:

Amelia (245)

Kevin (223)

Gabriel (217)

Comparing to the Sam 'no' above -- these three are slightly more 'traditional' Sam ships, though the wincest shippers are nevertheless not into them for Sam, either. Dean literally never spoke to or saw Amelia on screen, so it'd be a determined shipper who'd make that happen. Not undoable, though!

Conclusion

Syke: there isn't one to be made. This really shows how diverse the taste is in the wincest community, or at least in the wincest community that a) happened to see this survey over the last five days and b) bothered to take it. This particular group leans slightly toward e.g. toppy Sam, or slightly toward switching, but when you look at raw numbers what you see is that at least one person LOVES every single one of these things, and at least one person fucking HATES every single one of these things, and so -- so what? Write what you want. If you see a niche of something that you love where you feel like not enough people are writing or reading, try to fill it. If you're worried "no one" will like it, well -- you're wrong. Someone will. It just needs to get seen by the right people.

That's where fandom comes in, to spread the love even if something isn't bulletproof for us -- reblogging a post to say, 'hey, my mutual made this thing, look at it!' What a joy it'd be if someone saw it and loved it to absolute shattering bits, and then found their little bulletproof community, and happiness was made. What's the point, if we're not making each other happy.

Thanks for participating if you did, and reading all this if you did. Here's a link to a google sheet (read only) with all the tables of raw data if you're interested. I'll post some of the more entertaining fill-in answers later.

s&d shipping survey results: November 1, 2023 - Google Sheets

[altocat]

EC Sephiroth-Glenn Halloween Event Spoilers

I'm providing a spoiler summary for you guys here, since this concerns (noncanon??) FS content for the Halloween event. Chill dumb holiday fun below the cut.

The FS trio is minding its own business on the Rhadoran island getting the new mako reactor ready when they come across a strange portal! Matt explains that it's used for teleportation. Hojo gets namedropped again.

Glenn, like an idiot, just immediately hops on in. Sephiroth decides to go in to get him. Matt and Lucia stay behind.

They end up in spooky Halloween Nibelheim! Sephiroth says that Glenn is TOTALLY getting written up for being so reckless. He's concerned about staying focused on the mission. Little stickler for the rules!

While he's lecturing Glenn, the portal closes behind him. Now they're stuck here.

Glenn approaches a strange red hooded figure that turns into a spoopy pumpkin thing. Battle time!

This event is in honor of some sort of strange harvest festival for the holidays. Seph dumps some spooky lore. But there are real monsters wandering around. Glenn wants to evacuate everyone asap! Sephiroth advises that they take it slow and logical.

They come across a scared kid without a costume. The kid pleads for them to save his town from the Dark Army (festival lore shit). The monsters came out of a hole somewhere apparently, aka the portal.

So we gotta go find the leader of the Dark army if we want to find the portal materia. Glenn keeps calling himself a superhero. Aww.

To weed out the real monsters from the costumed civilians, we have to go up to them and say "tussle or treat". This is so fucking stupid lmao It's so cute. Glenn and Seph keep snipping at each other. Also cute.

After wandering around the town, Glenn and Seph can't find the army's leader. Montage of them butting heads and having no luck at all! Seph is gonna look into more Dark Army lore to find some clues.

The boy from earlier explains that the Dark Army eats people's feelings (anger, hate, fear, etc.) and they use them to grow. They scare people in order to feed. Glenn decides to go look for a main hideout. Seph, wanting to minimize casualties from this outing, still wants to keep a low profile.

Seph is STILL pissy about Glenn getting them into this situation. Glenn calls him a hard-ass. The monsters are dwindling but STILL no results! The boy points out that maybe they should wear costumes so that they can trick the monsters.

WHERE CAN THEY FIND COSTUMES YOU MAY ASK??? Oh shit oh fuck Seph run baby please.

Sephiroth is VERY suspicious of the boy since he keeps giving them perfect advice. The boy says that he and his friends sometimes go into the mansion to play. HMMMMMMMMMMM.

They arrive at the mansion (fuck). THEY ARE IN THE LIBRARY (FUCK FUCK FUCK). The boy reveals he doesn't know what Shinra is.

OH SHIT SEPHIROTH STARTS HAVING AN EPISODE.

Flashback dialogue HOJO: "ENDURE THE PAIN SEPHIROTH, YOU HAVE YET TO REACH YOUR THRESHHOLD THE MORE YOU ENDURE THE GREATER THE POWER WILL AWAKEN WITHIN YOU HEHE"

SAEDRFGHJGFDSFG FUCK ABUSED LAB RAT BACKSTORY FUCKING CONFIRMED.

Sephiroth seems okay after his brief spell. But Glenn is concerned, especially since he says Sephiroth always overworks himself. Sephiroth is surprised at this. No one has ever told him to take it easy. In fact, it's always been the opposite.

We're interrupted by another monster. Sephiroth is nervous that he led them here, after all they feed off of negative emotions.

Seph and Glenn find their costumes. Seph in his demon costume and Glenn in a pumpkin mask with a top hat.

It looks like we're finally nearing to defeat the leader. The boy reveals that HE'S been the leader all along! Called it. He reveals that in killing all the monsters, he gets to feed on as many people he wants.

After kicking the leader's ass, we finally reach the ending. Seph slices that fucker, while it warns them that so long as negative emotions exist, so will it.

Seph and Glenn seem to reconcile now that the portal is open, even finishing each other's sentences. Glenn suggests that for once, Seph should follow his lead and slack off with him at the festival and stuff their faces with festival food.

Seph's tummy rumbles and he's about to relent. But Glenn gets sucked into the portal anyway. Seph is sad he can't try the pumpkin soup now. Oh well!

In the epilogue, Seph and Glenn return to the others through the portal, still in costumes like idiots. Neither of them remember the events of the festival. So basically square can shitpost all they want without anyone remembering rofl this is SO STUPID AND GREAT

This was a cute story! And not without substance. The reveal about Hojo is genuinely horrifying.

Happy Halloween everyone!

[clash-of-the-wizards]

IMPORTANT COMPETITION UPDATE(S)

Okay, this is absolutely bonkers. I already have OVER 100 submissions, creeping up on 200, in just over 24 hours. SO I'm making an executive decision. Sorry. I'm allowed to do that.

NOMINATIONS WILL BE CLOSED ON MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, AT 6:30 AM EST !!!!

This now gives you guys approximately 38 hours to throw your wizards at me and hope you get in! Best of luck to all of you, by the way, I'm getting some REALLY fun submissions. Keep them coming!

BRACKET COMPETITORS WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28 AT 6:30 PM EST

This allows mod Hermann (me) 36 hours to sort out all of the competitors, discuss with their dad about what does and does not fit the qualifications, gather numbers, and figure out if I need to throw together any losers brackets or short-term polls to determine final slots or battles between fandoms

If a poll does need to be thrown together to sort out a battle between a fandom or a tie in votes, that poll will be open for 24 hours. Whoever wins will be included in the bracket

There will only be one wizard per fandom allowed to be entered in the final 32-person bracket

Remember, if I'm late posting, I'm a human with a life! It will be posted, I promise

ROUND ONE OF POLLS WILL BE OPENED ON WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, AT 7 AM

Each poll will be opened for 24 hours

There will be a 36-hour period between the end of a poll, and the opening of the next round. This allows mod Hermann (me) time to sort out contestants, confer with their dad about whatever the hell he has to say (he is your co-mod after all), and create the next bracket and poster images

Is this, by chance, your first post about the clash of the wizards? Want to participate and submit a wizard? Then make sure you check out THIS POST to learn all the rules, and get access to the form you can submit your wizards through.

ALSO IMPORTANT

I use a plethora of hashtags throughout my posts. Let me lay those out for you so you can sort out the important stuff

#clash of the wizards is for all things dedicated to this competition. Wanna post something about it? Throw that tag at it. I also sometimes use #wizard showdown

#clash of the wizards announcements is for posts like this-- important stuff about the competition and the way its gonna work

#clash of the wizards general is for the funny stuff, like random announcements or twosies shoutouts

#wizard propaganda is when I post about or reblog a post about one specific nomination. Wanna post propaganda about why someone should vote your wizard? Tag #wizard propaganda ! I'll probably reblog it too! And if you tag me in it, I definitely will!

#clash of the wizards polls is where all of the polls will be stored, no matter how dire their results may be! Looking for a poll? Check in there!

#mod hermann loves their dad is a much less important, less official tag, just used to talk about stuff my dad is saying about the competition, since he's helping me co-manage it from his study

And another reminder, have fun! So many of you guys have taken to digging into those NICHE ass sources and are full on infodumping to me in the forms, and you guys have no idea how much I appreciate it. Hell, you've given me a months-long read/watch list just by participating! I picked up The Color of Magic from my local library just this afternoon because of you Discworld fans and that fucking pathetic ass man Rincewind! I'm so so so glad you're all invested in this, and you should be proud to be invested in this too! It's obvious we're bringing a community together, and I love it! Thank you!

Now, enough sappy and business stuff

LET'S GET REALLY FUCKING READY FOR A MAGIC USER BATTLE TO THE DEATH, TUMBLR! WOOOOO!

[ursarangler]

h. ello .

my name is dominique. we are related but that does not matter. i have questions for you .

i am very interested in the strange and unexplained events happening in the regions . i find them very neat . i want to learn more about them as i grow up and. i heard that you went through stuff like that.

i am sorry that happened to you . but also what happened in full . what was celebi like . did you see a. zigazagoon. thank you

thank you for answering my questions . i think you should get more sleep.

— 🎧🐾

▓▒░U(''°ᴥ°'')U░▒▓ hey, kiddo! Please don't tell random strangers online that you're related to them with no context!! I'm not mad at you, I just want you to know that you could really scare the life out of a fella doing that!!

For your questions though σ(￣ᴥ￣ʋ⁠) I wouldn't say I've been through much unexplainable stuff. Really, most of it's just the result of a bunch of men with big egos fucking around and finding out. I did experience some odd things growing up in Unova, though!! U⁠^⁠ｪ⁠^⁠U Lots of strangeness in the woods and out in the more rural parts! I can't remember a lot of it, long ago as it was, but one thing I remember is when I was out at a friend's farm late at night. We were out looking for bugs out by the Torchic coops, and suddenly, the Torchics went all quiet. Next thing I know, there's a whistling coming from in the coops. ▼⁠・⁠ᴥ⁠・⁠▼ I had a bad feeling about all of it, but my friend wanted to make sure there wasn't something in there killing all the mons, so he just tells me to go get his ma and pa, picks up a big stick, and charges on in there.

Kid's been a missing person's case for about fifty years now.

Anyways! U⁠^⁠ｪ⁠^⁠U what happened with the Celebi!!

First off, it put up one hell of a fight!! O-(`ᴥ´Q)/ That's to be expected and all I suppose, being a mythical mon! The psychic armor worked a bit, but I still got tossed around a good bit and not to mention the whole U(”⁠ ⁠⊚ᴥ⊚⁠ ⁠”)U time travel thing. But! V⁠●⁠ᴥ⁠●⁠V like I said! The little critter had no physical strength! The moment I got my teeth around the fucker's head, it was over.

I saw Zigzagoon in the past, but they looked kinda... Different? U(⁠・ᴥ・⁠;⁠)U They looked closer to the kinds they got in Galar, but not quite the same. Weird as all get out. I wasn't really paying much mind to them though because I think I showed up in the middle of a war. I'm not sure what they were fighting about. Couldn't understand a word of what their leader said to me. Shit felt like touching down in Kanto all over again. U⁠ ⁠´⁠꓃⁠ ⁠`⁠ ⁠U A damn mess, really. All I knew was they saw me kill a mythical and figured I'd be of use to their side. They were dressed in red, the other side was dressed in blue. I wound up helping them win a crucial battle and took a fair chunk of the blue leaders out in the process. All in all, I think it took a month or so, but I lost track of time real damn quick. It was just so easy to lose myself out there. The pokemon and I fought the same. Claws and teeth. We don't fully grasp our handlers, but we know we have to fight. Destroy. The praise that rained on me when their necks broke. Ain't I the weapon they needed? The weapon to end them all? Am I not death?

▼⁠・⁠ᴥ⁠・⁠▼ where was I going with this?

Oh! U⁠^⁠ｪ⁠^⁠U They gave me an egg for my efforts! All the best fighters over there had big ol' beastly pokemon by their sides so I suppose they wanted me to keep the fella. U(⁠*⁠´ᴥ｀⁠*⁠)U Be kind of rude to turn the ol' fellas down now, huh? It hasn't hatched yet, but I'm keeping a close eye on it.

After all that, they invited me to some sort of star festival. Something about a pokemon that wakes up once every some odd years? ▼⁠・⁠ᴥ⁠・⁠▼ Figured I'd oblige. While I was there, I saw this little creature taking in energy from the stars. Something... Compelled me to speak to it. I don't know what. I figured it could hear me.

I asked it to take me home.

U⁠^⁠ｪ⁠^⁠U And now we're here!! Anyways, hope this answers things!! It's a bit of a long story, but I suppose you don't seem the type to mind the ramblings of an old man. U(⁠ ⁠´⁠◡ᴥ⁠◡⁠`⁠)U

[aquaaquila]

I only explained a RED HERRING. It's not like I wasn't convinced before by you that Kyoya seemed to be unaffected. However the entire episode of Lion vs Eagle specifically drives the point that both Tsubasa and Kyoya were on equal footing and their battle was less about who was more skilled but who was more determined to win, which seems contradictory once you remember Tsubasa absolutely wanted to win more even before tapping into the dark power while Kyoya just wanted to show-off to his boyfriend rival number 1.

But it does make sense when you remember that Tsubasa's desire for results meant he didn't put all of his passion into the battle and played it safe with tactics and skills he knew normally should succeed, but said skills only work when it's just the battle of experience and not a battle of passion. Kyoya just more passion regarding Beyblade, hence he had more determination to succeed because that's what Beyblade is about, passion. Tsubasa lacked it so he couldn't win and the dark power "briefly" gave him "passion" for a moment to get a second wind, but it was still fake and not Tsubasa's genuine desire but merely acting out on darkness.

Plus Tsubasa is here being observant and Tsubasa does want to deal with his issues, he just doesn't know how, since he's not a people person nor used to having friends, his instinct is not to confess his issues to others and dealing with stuff on his own. He tried to understand what was going on with him, but he was clueless. And he related to Kyoya but didn't necessarily project (though it did kind of end up being as such). And mind you, the audience is clueless about Tsubasa's "deal" (I mean when you don't pay attention to the obvious foreshadowing or just not acknowledge such possibility because how the fuck did this happen and it's only when we learn in Creeping Darkness how exactly it happened) and so far, only Tsubasa seems to have the best idea on what his darkness is so people are looking for answers within Tsubasa, they don't necessarily expect him to be wrong (even though his battle with Yu foreshadowed how he would defeat the darkness and was a great opportunity of teaching Tsubasa said lesson, but Tsubasa instead took it the wrong way and doubled down on repressing his feelings instead of letting them go; this is Tsubasa failure but we as the audience are so not used to it it doesn't register to us either and we also don't conclude that Tsubsa should express more and that he should calm down when attempting to do so is the problem in the first place).

The problem is Kyoya's attitude, not intentions. That's what is throwing people off. While you're not wrong about Kyoya's intention and responses, his attitude just doesn't match the energy and excitement he has (which is also the reason why miscommunication happens between him and Gingka). Kyoya is certainly a positive character upon closer inspection, but people within the show also struggle to see this up close (though they can see it EVENTUALLY) and the audience struggles to see it right away it takes good analysts like you to catch on to such stuff. Kyoya's theatre kid energy is just too powerful for people to even register it, he's so much in character that he put on himself that people legit get confused. And said act and Kyoya being more overdramatic and harsh just grew (like you point out how Kyoya became more dramatic as the series went by and people are asking "why").

Once again I'm explaining why people come to such conclusions, not that they are right. The series never pointed out that indeed it was just Kyoya being exhausted after the travel with Gingka's gang because Gingka's gang never talks about how much they exhaust each other more seriously and how sometimes people who are not used to such environments like Tsubasa or Kyoya need to take a break, so, of course, no one thinks about it because we as the audience followed the gang constantly especially when they're together, so we're used to them, so it doesn't cross us that Kyoya, in fact, is NOT.

Kyouya, the Dark Power and character's development

Some says that Kyoya regresses a lot between Fusion and Masters (and accuse the Dark Power of it) but I disagree.

In Fusion, he’s being drawn in the whole fight against the Dark Nebula, and things went fast : he came to his senses after the Wolf Canyon, learnt of the Forbidden Bey’s existence (you know ? Kyouya Tategami, who didn’t believe in magic and thought it was nonsense until they went to the Dark Nebula Castle), then he went looking for Ginga.

Kyouya isn’t used to be around people who aren’t his lackeys. You can see it when he first travels with Benkei, Kenta and Madoka. He seemed out of place, not really knowing how to react. He let Benkei (after the Wolf Canyon) and Ginga (at Koma) take him into their arms. Some days later he decided he needed something called “personal space” and pushed away people when they are too near to him (like he did with Benkei).

After this, the Battle Bladers was announced. The whole group did their best to qualify and the Battle Bladers began. Kyouya had no time to think about the way he wanted to act with others. Between Fusion and Masters, he had (too much maybe) time to think and plan how he wants to behave with others and, especially, how he wants to behave as Ginga’s rival.

In season 1, he was so angry to have lost against he teamed up with the Dark Nebula (he kind of promise it, but nonetheless…). Then he came back with his worst behaviour ever (poor little town guy who didn’t imagine being in the wilderness was so hard xD). In next seasons, he only went away when he’s pissed off. It’s a great improvement !

Two other examples of improvement : - In season 1, he blames his Face Hunter after he lose against Ginga but, in season 2, he acknowledges the Wild Fang lose because of him, after Nile blamed himself (what he could have easily used). - In season 2, he refuses to be part of the Japanese Team, but in season 3, he decides to travel with the group, while no one asked him yet (it doesn’t end perfectly, but it was a good start).

Kyouya’s wish to defeat Ginga isn’t caused by the Dark Power. It was present since he met him in the first season : their first battle, the Wolf Canyon, his “rivalry” with Hyouma, the Battle Bladers (in particular the semi-final where he spent his time saying he would defeat Ginga, didn’t care about Ryuuga and that Ginga want to fight with him).

Kyouya wasn’t affected by the Dark Power. He had no aura, no flashback of his duel with Ryuuga, no traumatized look that characterized Tsubasa and Hikaru when they suffered the Dark Power. It didn’t do anything to him. His worst (and only) breakdown (or outburst) was at the very begining of the series, after the Wolf Canyon, long before he knew Ryuuga and the Dark Power existed. 

About his obsession of Ginga… Ginga is the very first one who have won over him. Kyouya is (slightly ?) a bad loser. To refuse to become a part of the japanese team is completely in his course of action. He wanted to defeat Ginga and, if he teamed up with him, he couldn’t. So he had searched another way to take part in the World Championship BEFORE he started the selections. When he talked with Ginga after defeating Tsubasa, he told him so with hints and half-words.

So the Dark Power has exactly no effet on Kyouya (and his behavior evolved).

[echo-three-one]

Chapter 36

THE ROAD SO FAR

The TEN Kilometer River

Gary "Roach" Sanderson

Site Hotel Bravo, Afghanistan

The moment Gary was tasked to pull the lever, he had no choice but to follow. Whatever was running in his Captain's mind must be of good reason. The alarm blared and the whole facility was placed on high alert as troops from everywhere started to act more vigilant.

They heard earlier that Gold Eagle would be on the move and the base was to be left to the scientists. Gary believes that Shepherd had no idea they're here, but why ring the alarm?

"Roach, follow me! I could see Shepherd's getaway from outside, we need to stop him!" He muttered, plowing through hordes of enemies that were also surprised to see them. Gary assisted in taking them down, as they moved slowly to the exit.

The trails of the huge plane were still visible when they exited, Price attempted to shoot the vehicle but it looked like it only made a few dents.

"Roach! Man that speedboat! We're chasing after them!" Price ordered. Gary nodded and they hurriedly descended the stairs on their way to the river.

But the enemies didn't know how to give up. Some of them rode jet skis while some of them had speed boats with them, all free riders targeting their weapons on Gary and Roach's vehicle.

Price lied down for cover, only peeking when he's free to shoot or when nobody else is shooting. It was a great tactic and Roach wanted to observe more of it, but he had to focus on the river.

His main target is the plane that's flying dangerously low on the ground, readying itself so Shepherd can jump and fly off to safety, but Price didn't want that to happen.

Whenever he saw Shepherd move from afar, he sprayed bullets to their direction making the general hide back to safety. It was a great stalling move but it didn't quite last long as the river expanded.

Shadow company guard posts were positioned on places where the elevation is quite high and Roach is forced to evade areas with patrols. This made Shepherd's plane angle differently, making it hard for Price to aim at them.

"Roach, we're losing him! Move faster!" Price yelled and Roach navigated them to Shepherd. They couldn't go any faster so the best option to build up speed is to go forward without bumping on to something. This was a river and they were going with the current, so it was a lucky thing.

The plane ascended and the duo was almost in shock that Shepherd made it through it was impossible.

"Sir! They're not yet escaping!" Roach yelled and pointed to the Plane that soared high to evade the ravine.

"A second chance!" Price muttered as Gary braced himself for a narrow river, they carefully maneuvered the narrow river all while evading Shadow Company as they filled both sides with men holding weapons.

Price used his grenade launcher to topple assembling troops by the ravine. Luckily, guard outposts contained explosive barrels adding an explosion upon impact, causing guards to fly across their outposts into the raging river.

Gary was all focused on the speedboat ahead of them, Shepherd must not escape.

"I'm on my last three rounds!" Price roared as he hid for cover while water splashed on them as bullets hit the river. Gary used one hand to toss his rifle, giving the Captain a fresh 10 rounds of grenades to be launched.

"Nice. Let's light these bastards up!" He cheered and shot the two speedboats pursuing after them, sending them to the air as their engines exploded.

"Hell yeah!" Gary cheered as they exited the cave, the plane once again descended as the area became open for exfil once again. By this time, Price only had 8 rounds to distract their escape.

In hopes for the engine to rev more, Gary squeezed his grip tighter as he heard the engine struggle giving them the maximum speed possible.

"Let's end this." Price mouthed, Gary barely heard his Captain but he knew what it meant.

Their boat speeded up quite faster than he had imagined as they were quickly catching up to the extraction. And as soon as they were close, Price fired the launcher at the huge plane, the explosion toppled the three vehicles sending them to the raging river.

Gary quickly ascended to the surface as soon as he dipped on the water, helplessly swimming against the current, down toward a high waterfall. The last thing he could remember was the impact on the ground, a loud crash towards the water before he lost consciousness.

The next thing Roach knew was that he was coughing up river water by the shore, his vision slowly recovered as he looked beyond him. Not far from him was black smoke he assumed that came from the crashed plane.

He struggled to crawl his way to the site, slowly getting up and limping, exhaling a heavy sigh.

He needed to hurry as the sandstorm started to brew up and might obstruct his already blurry vision.

A few more steps. Gary thought to himself as he felt the adrenaline rush, causing him to stand up and endure all the pain of the landing. A temporary boost to finish the fight. From the distance, he already spotted his target, leaning on a broken car, also catching up with his breath.

He carefully approached the General and tried to constrain him by grabbing on his arms, but he never expected the man to be aware of his presence. With one swift swing of his arm on Gary's throat, he found himself choking and gasping for air as he kicked him off, sliding against the sandy ground.

"What is your deal with me!" He growled, grabbing a knife by his pocket and approached Roach, who was still catching up with his breath.

"I did my very best to keep you out of my business, but you really have to find me? For what? Justice?!" Shepherd knelt on Roach's side, raising his hand and stabbed Roach by the chest. Even with the shortness of breath, Roach exhaled longer that he'd expected.

"Shit." he muttered, gasping as Shepherd dug the knife deeper while Roach tried to prevent him from doing so, this couldn't be the end of the line for him. He still wanted to live. There are many more things he could do.

"This is what you get for foiling my plans. I wasn't teaming up with Nero. I was trying to gain the upper hand. And your death could serve as a lesson for everyone in your squad to double check all intel before jumping into battle." He almost chuckled just before a figure sent him flying away from Roach.

This took Roach the moment to endure all pain as he pulled off the knife, blood sputtered from the deep gash on his chest as he quickly stopped the pressure with his hand. He wanted to live. He must survive this injury.

His head lazily leaned to the battle beside him. Price and Shepherd were engaged in hand to hand combat, overpowering one another. They looked very even and if that was the case, Roach wouldn't be alive to see the end of their battle. He blinked and as soon as he opened his eyes once again, Price was already pinned down as Shepherd gave him a heavy beating, taking advantage of his position. Roach felt the ground shook as the two also were distracted. This gave Price the chance to strike back and knock him off on top of him as he struggled to get up.

Neither one was willing to give up their cause and it was such a shame that it was all some sort of messed up misunderstanding, but nevertheless, Shepherd was still wrong. He knew full well that exchanging the IP Address for an advantage placed the world at more risk than it already had.

Roach's ears grumbled as the ground heated up. The rocket already launched and was on it's way to wherever the fuck Shepherd wanted it ro go. Did Alex and Jack not make it? Gary wondered as he leaned back to Shepherd, who was now pinned and tied on the ground. Soap already tied him up while Price approached Roach.

"Can you get up?" Price asked as he lifted Roach up and helped apply pressure to his wounds.

"Hang in there Roach. You can do this!" His words of encouragement were the last words he heard, as after those exact words, the sky turned white and a loud ringing noise filled the desert sky. Alex and Jack did it. They successfully detonated their charges.

The next thing Roach knew was he was already in a chillier place, his back was on a softer platform and the sky was nothing but a swinging lamp.

Everything else was painful as he tried to get up and failed. It seemed like he could only move his bed. He leaned to his left and saw only a white wall while his right side was two more beds where Alexandra and Ghost slept.

Alexandra. She was alive. Roach couldn't help but chuckle at the idea of her surviving. Turns out his optimism was useful this time.

He looked at his chest as the slow rising and falling of his breathing urged him to check on it. He was wrapped in bandages that were still red from the blood and it also looked like he was given a few bags. He was thankful that he made it out of that situation and he was given yet another chance to live again.

"Glad to see you're awake." Soap said as he entered the room, with a bag of frozen peas on his forehead.

Roach wanted to thank him, but he couldn't say any word yet. Any effort of doing something only resulted in pain.

"In case you're wondering. What you did out there was fruitful. Shepherd gave us the bomb maker's name. He called him Volt. Honestly the puns aren't suitable for villains, but he chose well." Soap commented, trying to cheer up the fellow sargeant.

Guess Shepherd already gave up. And he was glad he did. Because somewhere deep inside his mind, Gary believed that Shepherd slightly hesitated on his stab. If he was serious enough, he might've been dead now.

This meant that the key to ending this war is now solely upon the death of Nero.

Next Chapter : The NINE Engines

Notification Squad my Beloved

@smokeywhalee @enderio @samatedeansbroccoli @ricinbach @whimsywispsblog @bumblingbee1

(feel free to pm me to sub or unsub on notif squad)

[em-exceeds-change-zearu]

pokemon ask: all the odd numbers!

[cracks knuckles] okay. OKAY. this is LONG so this is going under a cut because this is gonna take a while.

1. favourite type?

ghost! there are just so many fun little gremlins and goblins i adore to shreds in the ghost type. electric and ice are a close second because aesthetic, but in the end ghost just barely edges them out.

3. favourite DUAL type

uhhh gotta be level with you i love it when shit gets grouped together with the /flying type. i could be entirely unimpressed with a fella and then i find out it's part flying and i'm like captain k'nuckles oohing over that fucking dog

5. favourite trainer

n...hello n. how are you and your complete character arc and sequel exploring the results of your character arc and etc. i adore you.

7. favourite gym leader

tate and liza! i remember them being an absurdly hard obstacle to my newbie ass the first time i played through ruby, and even back then i had already started adoring double battles as a thing. so seeing gym leaders go "here that's our thing now" made me go oooh.

also pokemon masters gives them some cute characterization! liza hanging out with guzma is a particular favourite character interaction of mine.

i also really, really love lenora. having a gym inside a museum/library is like, #goals. it's totally my aesthetic.

(also i don't know if we're allowed to count trial captains, but if we are, i'd also add nanu here. grumpy old man with five million cats and a sad cop backstory. also apparently a bad cop in the anime but that plotline went nowhere lmfao)

9. favourite elite 4 member

shauntal for being a literal ghostwriter. like. how do you beat that? love her. love that gal. pokemas has her mention that she's been friends with her chandelure since she was a little girl and it was a litwick, and she used to read and write by its candlelight at night, and that just immediately brought me back to my days of hiding under the sheets with a book and a flashlight. like. love her. love that gal. good for her and her mountain of ghost books.

11. favourite trial (sun & moon)

sophocles' trial in the original sumo games! not because of its format (quizzes are always boring) but how it's presented as a comedy of errors from this kid trying to do his best in the role that he's given. and of course, that final question that straight up breaks the fourth wall. like. please. i appreciate that humor. i was kinda sad that his trial got revamped in the ultra remakes, it lost a lot of its life and felt more like a standard gym challenge.

13. favourite antagonist team

i want to take team skull home and feed them and give them hugs. they're such dorks. they're just punks who lost their place in the world and trying to carve out their own niche, and that niche is TROUBLE. the little bits of when you can actually see them hurting just kinda kicks me in the nads.

15. favourite shiny pokemon

i mean it's my favourite pokemon in general, but flygon. it's just so bright, and neon-y! flygon is my flagship pokemon in general so the fact that its shiny is cute makes me very happy.

17. 3 favourite pokemon

flygon, dhelmise, sigilyph! flygon has always been my favourite since hoenn, it's my big dragonfly baby. sigilyph has always struck me as a very unusal flying pokemon and i adore how it's modeled after the nazca lines. and dhelmise is just so charming to me in how the actual pokemon is the faceless possessed lump of seaweed and everything else is just it deciding it wants to yeet ship parts at things. love it. you do you, king.

19. favourite pokemon game

the b/w series! i just really love the spritework, the life the region was given, the stories it had, the characters it built...10/10 would absolutely play again even though it does not need a remake but i will accept a port.

21. favourite legendary/mythical pokemon

oh this is hard. early baby me really loved articuno and suicine (it's where i got my handle from! i went by Northwind Gale on the serebii forums because of suicune being the north wind pokemon or something like that, and that just hung on until now im just the Gale y'all know today lmao). but a lot of legendaries are pretty damn cool now that ive grown! zekrom’s a big fave of mine too. big and black and blue electricty glowin’, the way that it appears to a traner filled with ideals, the entire lore behind it is just [chef’s kiss]. 

i kinda like zygarde as a concept, though. a legendary that isn't a singular entity, but rather made up of multiple hiveminded parts that have been scattered across the world to help observe its state of balance. it feels more like a force of nature than a physical being. a representation of what it embodies. it's cool. i appreciate that the anime played with that concept. (almost made up for the absolutely DISAPPOINTING bullshit they pulled with xerneas and yveltal tbh)

23. favourite music track from a pokemon game

oh lawdy. oh lord. god. okay. this is so fucking hard, actually. i fucking love pokemon music, it makes up half my playlist, please don't expect me to actually pick one.

from the main games: r/s/e's trainer school, route 113, gym leader and champion theme; b/w's box legendary, side legendary, black city, village bridge and ending theme; sumo's vs solageo/lunala; swsh's battle tower & gym theme

from the spinoff games: mystery dungeon 2's vs dialga; mystery dungeon 1's sky tower; pokemon ranger 3's vs pokemon pincher grunt; learn with pokemon typing adventure's boss theme; literally almost every fucking song on pokemon masters' ost, what the actual fuck is this thing on

that's off the top of my head! there's like, tons more in my playlist but if i went through that i'd be here all day

25. favourite design of a pokemon

again, dhelmise. it's just so funny. here's a floating steel anchor. it has a face. no it's not steel type. no it's not water type. it's a grass/ghost because the actual pokemon is the seaweed on its face fuck you. sumo really does bring a lot of my favourite "faceless entity has a mockup of a face or doesn't even bother trying" designs like mimikyu, xurkitree, stakataka, etc. i love it. give me more faceless pokemon gamefreak. i want them all.

27. overall favourite generation of pokemon

gen 5! it's not only the era of my favourite mainline games, it's also when we had a lot of fun ds sidegames (well, gen 5 and gen 4) like the pmd and ranger series. it just really felt like the end of an era, looking back, when they were just really pushing what spritework could bring, what the touch screen could do with gameplay. i love it. the fun pokemon designs are just a cherry on the cake.

29. favourite normal type

i've always had a soft spot for the zigzagoon line. they're small and fluffy and good. and thanks to middlest bro i appreciate furret as well. good long bois.

31. favourite fire type

i love...centiskorch. long fire bug. big boy. gets even bigger when gigantamax. all the cute fanart we get of kabu with the pre-evo makes me love it more.

33. favourite fighting type

the only reason i didn't put blaziken up in 31 was so i could put it down here instead. torchic (and hoenn in general) was the generation where my brothers and i started our starter picking tradition based on our faves (i would pick fire types, littlest bro picked grass types and middlest bro picked water). i love this little chicken, love that it grows up to be big kicky chicken. good for them.

35. favourite water type

pyukumuku! it is small, and round, and if it dislikes you it will disgorge its internal organs into the shape of a fist and punch your lights out, and that’s wonderful. 

lapras has also been a long time favourite mainstay of mine as well, ever since we first got one from rescuing silph co back in gen 1! so gentle, so graceful. a wonderful being.

37. favourite flying type

corviknight! it is big, and terrifying, and oh so very helpful. i love the corviknight taxi as a thing, love that people just put themselves into stagecoach shaped birdcages and be carried around. it’s wonderful. corviknights are wonderful. i love my big feathery beast of a bird.

39. favourite grass type

you know it, you love it, it’s dhelmise! again! y’all wish you were as swag as these fellas

41. favourite poison type

gengar! because i love my ghosts, and i can only put so many ghosts into the favourite ghosts ask. but also one of my favourite epsides as a kid was the pokemon tower episode and watching these goofy little ghosts just wanna play with a kid, so they kill him by accident. and then they get to do ghost things. listen. ghosts are good. gengar is a big ghost friend. he deserves hugs. i bet he gives wonderful hugs. hug the giant poison cloud. do it. 

43. favourite electric type

vikavolt! a giant six foot railgun beetle is a good and great friend! treasure it. luxray is also a good favourite of mine, mostly because of the x-ray eyes and yusei hair. 

45. favourite ground type

mudsdale! it’s literally a giant clydesdale horse. what’s not to love. i also really love krookodlie. big old sandigator with sunglasses. absolutely dope. big ground boyes.

47. favourite rock type

so i’ve already mentioned stakataka. i love the idea of horrible little hivemind creatures becoming one big thing. it’s a bunch of blocks! with eyes! and each one is alive! and they’re all living and working together to become this terrifying eldritch behemoth of a wall! i love them! i also love the fossil mons cradily and armaldo and archeops. they’re such fun designs. even if i don’t ever usually use fossil mons in my playthrough because i usually have a full dedicated team by the time i unlock one, i love them very much.

49. favourite ice type

s...nom. i love them. thy are small, and round, and sound like jingle bells. this is partially middlest bro’s fault. he’s obsesed with them and that enthusiasm infected me. but really, snom is just so cute. . . .

i also really love crygonal! “gale it’s just an angry snowflake” yes but it’s my angry snowflake. i’m weak for geometric designs. leave me alone.

51. favourite bug type

galvantula is the greatest bug type of all time and if you don’t agree you can eat my bug lovin’ ass because oh my god. my baby. my baby tarantula. “tarantulas aren’t bugs gale” well pokemon gave it six legs so it’s technically not a spider RIGHT? anyways i loved my galvantula so much that when zekrom insisted on taking a spot on my team to fight N i said “no, fuck off, the galvantula stays” and i sent zekrom to the box. and i fought n on my own with no legendary. zekrom was weaker than my spider anyway it needs to git gud

(i’m sorry zekrom i love you too)

53. favourite dragon type

it’s. the baby. my baby. FLYGONNNNNNN. my number one forever and always. my partner for life the one that weathers the storms and stays by my side. aridsoptera my love i don’t care if gamefreak neglects you until the end of time and refuses to give you fun toys like megas or gigas or regional variants you will always be my number one

55. favourite ghost type

mimikyu my darling. hello my baby hello my darling hello my rag-wearin gal. what can i say about you that people haven’t already said? you’re perfect.

57. favourite dark type

absol! because i fell in love with it the moment i first ran into it in ruby and boy howdy did i spend many, many hours hunting one down after failing to catch the first one i found. the fact that it’s a misunderstood baby that just wants to warn people and gets blamed for shit instead makes me want to give it a hug. 

59. favourite psychic type

sigilyph! like i mentioned before, i love its strange design, i love its cry, love its spritework, what else can i say.

61. favourite steel type

metagross! another hoenn mon that i fell in love with at first sight when steven caved my underlevleled ass in the first time i tried challenging the elite 4. it just looked so badass. and then that one trainer in the deoxys movie who looked like me and carried a laptop around just casually sends one out and i’m like !!!! it is a Sign. it is meant to be for me. there’s this fanart i love of some girl goign throu traffic while just casually lounging on her metagross on some kind of kotatsu or something, and man. life goals. i too want to have a metagross to ride on as i casually trawl the interwebs.

63. favourite fairy type

gardevior is, yet again, another hoenn mon that i fell in love with first sight when seeing another trainer use it for the first time. i straight up restarted ruby the first time i played after beating the champion, just so i could catch and use a ralts early game, so you know it was gonna be a fav for life. and it’s just. it’s never let me down. good defenses, terrifying special attack. and then it gained the fairy typing in gen 6 and became even more terrifying. 

65. favourite pokemon movie

this is a bit of a hard call, but i’m going to say the keldeo movie! it tends to be pretty overlooked, as do many of the b/w movies, but it’s a fun little movie that focuses largely on keldeo’s growth as ash and co help try to protect it from the results of its own bad decisions. frankly, the bw movies in general did a really good job at making the focus legendaries their own characters with their own stories (admittedly the victini movie only made a start at it, but still) which really helped sell them as pokemon i would want to try and get a special event for? 

as an aside, this is also why the newtwo movie is another one of my favourites. she’s written as a fairly compelling character in her own right without needing to lean on og mewtwo as a base, so like...the movie in general doesn’t deserve the hate it gets (if it still gets hate, i remember people backlashing pretty hard against the mewtwo shilling back then). i remember making a writeup about the differences between the two mewtwos ages ago, and i had an ENTIRE writeup on plurk after i actually watched the movie that i’m wiling to share if anyone wants to hear, but lmao this ask is getting so long already so.

67. favourite animated adaptation

i know people don’t like best wishes because of all the lost potential but listen. i like the bw anime and it’s still a favourite of mine to this day. it has lots of little gems in character interaction and animation that xy and sumo take and continue on with, so i genuinely think people don’t give it enough credit. yes, it has its failings, but so does every other season of pokemon.

69. favourite pokemon card

i. i don’t actually have any pokemon cards that i’ve ever collected so like. all th eold ones i had as a kid i barely remember, but i do remember having a blastoise that i really liked. 

71. favourite pokemon tumblr blogs!

IM MAKING A CALLOUT POST ON MY TUMBLR DOT COM @scrawlers AND @wild-battlebond ARE BITCHASS MOTHERFUCKERS WHO TOOK OUT AGES OF MY LIFE. THAT’S RIGHT THEY TOOK OUT AGES OF MY LIFE. ENGAGING ME IN PRODUCTIVE, INTERESTING, ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING DISCOURSE AND CREATING WONDERFUL HEADCANONS

also @jadeazora deserves props for being an amazing source of news and updates! you’re doing thankless work that i’m sure many of us have come to take for granted, but bless you regardless.

73. favourite pokemon merchandise

so when i was a wee 90′s kid, and the local Lotte(tm) asian market still had an electronics section, there was this little pikachu alarm clock that i pestered my mom into buying for me. when it rang it would say “Good morning!” and then play the chorus bars of a song i didn’t recognize at the time, but would later come to know as Mezase Pokemon Master. i loved that clock. i loved it to bits. i would use it as a timer for fucking eveyrthing. i would set the alarm off on purpose so i could hum along to the song.  even when the battery case started falling out and wouldn’t stay the fuck in. i ended up passing the clock down to middlest bro, and i think he might still have it around. i don’t know if the clock still works though. god i need to see if he still has it. i miss that clock. 

75. a pokemon you feel is overrated

if i see another fucking sylveon merchandise i will strangle that fucking fairy fox with its own ribbons. i hate it. i fuckingng hate sylveon and its unnatural ribbonass face. why ribbons. surely you could make a fairy eeveelution look more natural than fuckin pastel flesh tentacle ribbons

77. favourite eeveelution

oh funny thing given the last ask uh. it’s umbreon. i love them. so sleek and wonderful. and the shiny is also peak beauty. a wonderful darling

and that’s a wrap! oh god sorry for the long wait THAT WAS A LONG ASK MY DEAR

[sorry-sorry-sorry]

OBEY ME QUESTION GAME!!

BEFORE YOU START PLEASE READ THIS!

Alright, to start off let me explain how I want you to play this. All I expect of you is to just to either copy the questions or the numbers of the questions and answer them, and once you are done, I guess just re-blog it so others can play this too. I will include my answers under each question to inspire those who aren’t sure what to write or what they would do, and for those who want to get to know me more.

I actually made this because I want to see how everyone actually would react to specific situations so I can, when it comes to writing stories for you all, make them more relatable and not something where you would read the story and think “Umm I/My MC would never do something like this.... “ alright let me stop wasting time now

WARNING THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SEASON 1!!

Questions

1. Is this going to be about you or your OC/MC?

this is going to be about me, I think it will be about the things I would do realistically

2. What were you wearing when you first arrived? (Casual, smart, PJs, etc. Describe your outfit) 

Realistically speaking, I imagine myself arriving to devildom wearing my favourite BNHA hoodie and some black joggers/sweatpants

3. What we're you doing before you got teleported into devildom?

I actually like to headcanon/imagine that MC originally signed up to study abroad and as they go to the airport and sit on the plane, 2 hours into the flight as they are staring out of the window, they suddenly notice how the light suddenly went off around them and everything went quiet, so when they look away from the window to see what's going on they see that actually somehow everyone feel asleep around them, even the stewards and stewardess. When MC looks back out of the window they suddenly see everything is actually upside down, the plane is flying normally but the city/ land that they saw is suddenly now in the sky and the clouds are at the bottom, and suddenly the airplane starts lowering itself into the clouds which start looking more orange and grey. That is when they suddenly hear Belphagore's voice calling for them as they slowly drift to sleep and then end up waking up in devildom.

4. First reaction when you get there 

Once again Realistically speaking, I'd think this was all either A) a dream (based on Q3), B) A big joke or C) A game show or like a Darren brown kinda thing.

I would probably just be laughing at the whole situation out of nervousness and be like " ya guys are joking right? Hahaha very funny.... ok how do I wake up now?"

5. Reaction to finding out their names

The amount of times I'm going to repeat the word 'Realistically' in this post is uncountable, but realistically speaking I would start bursting out laughing when Satan and Lucifer would introduce themselves. I can imagine myself making fun of it and be like "SATAN AND LUCIFER??!! BWAHAHAHAHAHA IF YOU GUYS ARE SATAN AND LUCIFER, I'M BEYONCE! BWWAAAAHAHAHAHA"

I can clearly imagine them getting pissed at me due to this, because imagine someone laughs at you after you tell them your name, quite rude isn't it ? Lolol

6. Reaction to them actually dancing (dance battles )

In the beginning I'd start laughing but then also die out of second hand embarassment. I don't know why but seeing people dance makes me uncomfortable.

7. If you were to stand next to the characters where does your MC/ OC / Do you imagine yourself to reach up to?

(Going from tallest to smallest )

Beelzebub/Lucifer/Diavolo - around the chest area, Def not reaching up to their shoulders.

Simeon / Solomon / Satan / Barbatos - up to their necks

Leviathan / Mammon - up to their chins

Asmodeus / Belphagore - their ears

Luke my cute little sweet baby that I'm ready to kill for - he would reach up to my shoulders lmao

8. Would you miss anyone? When would you start missing them ?

My family? Lolol no, I wouldn't miss them.

I would only miss my friends and my cats probably after satan would talk about cats. I can imagine me missing them after the first week or the second week

9. Who would you be closest to ?

I can imagine myself being close to the following : Leviathan, Asmodeus and Satan. I think I'd be really good friends with levi or asmo though since they are both invested into things that I'm also really into. Ah! I forgot to mention, I'd try to be friends with Mammon if I saw the brothers getting rude to him.

I'd try to get close to Lucifer but be a bit intimidated by him though and Mammon's tsundere act would kinda hurt me, but after I would realize that he's a tsundere I would be be friends with him.

10. Realistically speaking would you go up the stairs when Lucifer tells you not to? 

Honestly, I would respect Lucifer's wishes and not go up the stairs but if Belphagore doesn't shut the fuck up and keeps telling me to come to him, I'd probably go.

11. How would you react after Belphie kills you? What would you say to him ? 

After the whole killing thing and me seeing my dead body, I would be shocked and probably start swearing worse than s sailor and then lunge at him and beat him up out of anger. Honestly If I ever got the chance to make one of my wishes come true, it would be to get in a fist fight with Belphagore, where I would beat the living hell out of him.

12. How would you react after finding out you left the original timeline?

I would honestly be sad about it, yes I get it that in this timeline we still have the same characters but honestly I would struggle accepting the new ones, and end up missing the original ones.

I think it would also result to me constantly thinking, if this Satan likes me, would the original Satan also like me? What would he have done in this situation, etc.

13. Reaction to finding out about being Liliths descendent? 

One word : shit

I would think it would be cool at first but then when I'd realize that the brothers are technically like my great-great¹⁰⁰⁰ granduncle ( ik that it says that human Lilith is not related to the brothers by blood ) I'd be a bit .... disturbed. I'd definitely crack a lot of grandpa jokes with them and joking call them "grandpapi" randomly.

Honestly though it would also make me feel bad about myself because I'd start thinking that they would start treating me as Lilith's replacement or that they are actually trying to find Lilith in me. But I guess after some time I'd get over it.

14. Reaction to the demon brothers being in their demon form ?

It's simple, if they are angry while being in their form, I'd be wary of them for a while, but if they are calm while being in it, I'd be amazed and ask a lot of questions, resulting to me jumping around excitedly and trying to touch them.

15. On the last day, realistically what would you do? Would you hug the brothers ? If you were to leave devildom who would you stay in contact with?

Honestly I'd kiss the character that I'd fall for the night before I leave. I can imagine that it's either Satan, Mammon, Lucifer, Leviathan or Solomon. It's either go big or go home!

I'd take one of those typical Victorian family pictures with everyone in it, meaning diavolo and barbs, the demon brothers, the angels and Solomon, and I'd make a copy for everyone to keep. I'd also maybe make something that they call all remember me by such as personalized keychains or bracelets.

I can definitely imagine myself staying in contact with Leviathan because... You know... Anime lolol and Solomon since he is the only human who I could talk to about devildom and everything that happened there. I'd love to stay in contact with the others but I feel like I won't be able to entertain them much via texting. I'd also love to stay in contact with the angels but I think we all know that won't be possible. Sad sigh

Would I cry? ... Yes, I would get ready eyed and hug them

16. Lastly, What would you tell your family and friends when you return, what will you tell them when they ask you about where you disappeared off to?

Honestly, I would tell my family about everything that happened, I'd tell them about devildom and everything I experienced since I know they would believe me because our family already has some history with demons and spiritual stuff.

However, I'd definitely lie to my friends saying something such as me breaking my phone when I went to study abroad causing me to lose contact as I was gone.

To be honest, this was really fun to make and answer, it really got me thinking about myself and my personality. I really hope you guys also end up doing this, and enjoy yourself. If you guys want I can also make part 2 which will contain scenes from season 2.

Once again I hope you enjoy yourself, and don't forget to re-blog this with your answers so I can see your responses and so others can play this too.

[patchun]

Time for another insane battle. I don't know what I was smoking in the beginning of this run when I decided that somehow, picking Piplup was the best idea, because then I wouldn't have to face Empoleon. No clue. But we're here.

In case you haven't noticed, my ENTIRE TEAM loses to Mamoswine. Literally every member is either weak to ice or ground, or is a piece of paper of a Pokemon. Lickitung is kind of an exception, so I'm going to bet on it.

Dear sister, I'd be amazed if I don't lose a mon here,

Here's how I think it's going to happen:

Yuuma kills Alakazam, but then Infernape comes in and tries to kill Yuuma. I switch into Eirin on a Fire Blast, which should then bait a Close Combat, so I switch into Sekibanki and kill Infernape with Psychic. This should bait in Jolteon, who wants to use Shadow Ball, so I switch back to Eirin and kill it with Seismic Toss. This should bring in Granbull, who wants to Close Combat, so I switch back to Sekibanki who is immune. The Granbull has a Choice Band, so it will probably switch out, so I'll hit either Lickilicky or Mamoswine with a Choice Specs Moonblast. From there, Hina (not pictured in the team above) can probably beat the entire rest of the team, including Mamoswine if needed.

Okay. It did not happen that way at all. Now I'm going to be honest about something - this run is more of a proof of concept, a means of figuring out strategies. Which means, yes, I lost two mons in this battle over the course of two tries, where I reset and tried again with new strategies. Rather than using Fire Blast like in the first attempt, Infernape used Close Combat, which killed Chansey, which brings my total amount of deaths in this run to 3.

Yuuma died to a trainer's Roserade which was easily avoidable had I remembered to equip the Expert Belt. Eirin died to a crit Hydro Pump from Wake's Ludicolo. Koishi died to Lucas in the previous battle's first attempt, and Eirin died to Lucas in the previous battle's second attempt.

You could say that as a result, I'm hardly playing a Nuzlocke, but to that I say, fuck off I guess lol. I'm not trying to replay through this game getting the exact same encounters in the exact same places every time, what's fun about this is figuring out how to use these really weak Pokemon in efficient ways to manage to beat some absurd battles. And with how I actually did this Lucas fight, that's exactly what happened! When I reset, I'm not just relying on RNG to be different, I'm creating a new strategy each time that better fits the situation, and I feel that's exactly what's appealing and exhilarating about a Nuzlocke.

So, what did end up happening?

I led Yuuma, who killed Alakazam with Faint Attack, which brings in Infernape. Because I couldn't be sure if it would Fire Blast or CC, I gave Yuuma a Focus Sash and taught her Dig. Yuuma Dig'd Infernape twice, taking one CC and using her Sash. This brought in Granbull as expected, so I switched to Mokou (on a Crunch for some reason) who was holding a Sitrus Berry to ensure it survived two hits. I Will-O'd Granbull to ensure that Tangela would wall it, then I switched to Kutaka, who resists Crunch, and killed Granbull with Fly. This brought in Jolteon, who landed every Thunder and also paralyzed Eirin, but thankfully Eirin broke through and killed with three seismic tosses. Finally, this brought in Mamoswine, who, despite being weak to ice, Hina completely walled. Hina easily finished off Mamo and Lickilicky for deathless Lucas.

Definitely the biggest MVP of the run right here.

Okay! Restarting the Nuzlocke on the basis that it was boring and I had way too many encounters so I started subconsciously WANTING to let mons die so my box wouldn't be such a nightmare. This time...

Renegade Platinum with only unevolved Stage 1 mons that evolve cross-generationally. This means none of these will be evolving into their superior forms, which should make the run quite challenging if not impossible. Yes, Togetic is there, because it's technically Stage 1, as Togepi is a baby, whereas something like Seadra is not allowed because Horsea is a Stage 1. Speaking of Horsea it seems as though there are no water types on the above list.

So ya know what, what the hell, I'll add three more to the roster.

These guys technically don't evolve in later generations but the idea is the same.

I was using Sangria the Sneasel in my last playthrough and was really appreciating how strong she was, how of all the individually released Pokemon who didn't evolve at the time, Sneasel is probably one of the most actually viable when it comes to stat distribution, and I thought it would be cool to show appreciation to those mons. So here we go!

[gascon-en-exil]

A Game of Thrones 10th Anniversary Season Ranking: Part 2

Link to Part 1

Time for the bottom half of the list. The four seasons here will surprise no one, but the order might.

#5 Season 6

You can tell what I most what to talk about here...but there's an order to these things.

S6 actually has a bunch of great ideas, but they drown beneath the most slapdash plotting and character work the show has seen yet in order to set the stage for the narrower conflicts of the last two seasons. It's notorious for bringing back characters who haven't been seen in a season or longer only to kill them off (Balon Greyjoy, Osha, Hodor, the Blackfish, Rickon, Walder Frey) or awkwardly graft them back into the main plot (Sandor Clegane, Bran). There are plot threads that ought to be compelling but are too rushed in execution, like the siege of Riverrun, Littlefinger's hand in the Battle of the Bastards, or Daenerys's time back among the Dothraki and then finally getting the hell out of Meereen. Arya hits on the only interesting part of her two-season sojourn in Braavos - a stage play, of all things - only for it to stumble at the end with a disappointing offscreen death and some incomprehensible philosophy ahead of the start of her murder tour of Westeros. There's also so much cutting off the branches, enough to be conspicuous; the final shot of Daenerys leading an armada of about half the remaining cast she assembled partially offscreen says that better than anything else. Well, not anything....

Highlight: Without exaggeration, the opening of S6E10 is easily my favorite sequence in all of GoT. The staging, the music, the mounting suspense even as it becomes increasingly obvious what's about to happen, the twisted religious references particularly in Cersei's mock confession to Unella, Tommen throwing himself out a window because he can't deal with the reality of how terrible his mother is, how Cersei gives absolutely no fucks whatsoever about murdering hundreds of people at once in a calculated act of vengeance largely prompted by her own poorly thought out actions - I love it all. It's the single most masterfully-executed act of villainy in the whole show - Daenerys torching King's Landing probably has a higher body count, but the presentation there is all muddled - and if I had any doubts about Cersei being my favorite multi-season major character they were silenced in this moment. The explosion of the Sept doesn't sit perfectly with me, because I liked the Tyrells and because of what I said about deaths like theirs and Renly's in the previous post under S2, but I think that unease only cements the strength of this sequence. It's an overused phrase in fandom these days, but GoT at its best is all about moral greyness that gives its audience room for multilayered reactions. Cersei nuking the Sept and making herself the sole power in King's Landing, which in a sense is just a more overt example of the kind of character/plot consolidation elsewhere represented by Daenerys's armada, is one of those events that's impossible to approach from a single angle if you care about any of the characters involved. And hey, it's not in the books (yet, presumably), so unlike Ned's death or the Red Wedding the GoT showrunners can take the credit for realizing this one.

Favorite death: Even leaving aside the Sept and related deaths there's a lot of good ones to choose from in S6. Ramsey is cathartic but too gory for me, Osha's was a clever callback but a little delayed, it's hard to pin down specific deaths when Daenerys incinerates the khals, and Arya only gets half credit for Walder Frey and his sons when she saves the rest of the house for the opening of S7. I'm thinking Hodor, not so much because I enjoy his character or the manner of his death but because it's a clever bit of playing with language (that must have been hell to render in other languages for dubbing) wrapped up in some entertainingly murky consent issues and some closed time loop weirdness. It's all very...extra? Is that the word for it?

Least favorite death: Offscreen deaths continue to be mostly letdowns, in this case Blackfish and the Waif. Way to botch the ending of Arya's already near-pointless Braavos arc, guys. Speaking of Arya, this spot goes to Lady Crane, whom the Waif somehow kills with a stool or something. It's a dumb way to send off an entertaining minor character.

#6 Season 8

I swear that I'm not putting S8 this high solely because of Jonmund kind of sort of happening. I've never been very interested in either of them and the sex would be far too bear-on-otter to suit my pornographic preferences, but even so the choice to close out the series with them is hilarious.

I really don't need to elaborate on why S8 is down here; everyone who's ever watched the show has done as much in the nearly two years since it wrapped up. I do however need to explain why I've ranked not one but two seasons below it. My biggest argument here is that I don't believe it's fair to critique S8 for problems it inherited from earlier seasons. A non-comprehensive list:

Mad Queen Daenerys: unevenly built up beginning from S1 and continuing in some form through every following season

The questionable racial optics of Dany's army: also seeded as early as S1 and solidified by S3 with the Slaver's Bay arc

Cersei only succeeding because she makes stupid decisions and then lucks out until she doesn't: apparent from S1, directly lampshaded by Tywin in S3, fully on display with the Faith Militant arc of S5-6

Jaime not getting a redemption arc or falling in love with Brienne: evident with his repeated returns to Cersei throughout the show as one of the most consistent elements of his character, particularly in S4 and during the siege of Riverrun in S6

Tyrion grabbing the idiot ball/becoming a flat audience surrogate mouthpiece: started in S5 around the time the showrunners ran out of book material for him and wanted to make him more of a PoV character and his arc less of a downward spiral, although I've seen arguments that changes from the books involving his Tysha story and Shae set him on this trajectory even earlier

The hardening of Sansa's character: began in earnest in S4 and never let up from there

The strange ordering of antagonists: set down by S7's equally strange plot structure - the Night King had to come first with that setup

CleganeBowl and the dumber twists: from what I've heard the whole thing of writing around fans on the internet guessing plot twists started pretty much when the book content ended, so S5-6 maybe?

Yes, there's plenty to criticize about S8 on its own merits...but just as much that was merely the writers doing what they could at that point with deeply flawed material.

Highlight: This may sound cheesy, but the better parts of S8 are almost all the cinematic ones, whether that's E2 being a bottle episode with tons of poignant character send-offs before the big battle, a handful of deaths with actual satisfying weight like Jorah's and Theon's, and an epilogue that incorporates both closure for individuals and the broader uncertainty of messy socio-political systems that GoT has always been known for before working its way back to the Starks at the very end for some tidy bookending. Even imperfect moments like the Lannister twins' death and the resolution of Sansa's character felt weighty and appropriate based on what had come before.

Favorite death: Forget about the audio commentary attempting to flatten Cersei's character; Cersei and Jaime Lannister have an excellent end. Cersei especially, as the scenes of her stumbling her way down into the catacombs as the Red Keep crashes down around her really show off how her world is abruptly falling apart and how she retreats into her own self-interest at the end in spite of her demise being at least partially of her own doing. There's some stupid moments associated with these scenes, like Jaime dueling Euron to the death and CleganeBowl, but I can excuse those when the twins end up dying exactly where you'd expect them to: in each other's arms, in a ruined monument to their family's grand ambitions that, like Casterly Rock itself, was taken from another family.

Least favorite death: Quite a few dumb ones in S8 have become forever infamous. Missandei sticks out, and for me Varys too just as much because of how the writing pushes him to do the dumbest thing he could possibly do purely for the sake of killing him off ten minutes into the penultimate episode. But no one belongs here more than Daenerys Targaryen, killed at the height of a rushed and uncertain villain reveal by a man who takes advantage of their romantic history (who is also her family, because Targaryens) to stab her in a moment of vulnerability - pretty much only because another man tells him that Daenerys is the final boss. Narratively speaking that might be the case, but even so this is the end result of multiple seasons of middling-to-bad buildup. Not even Drogon burning the symbolism can salvage that. Also Fire Emblem: Three Houses did this scene and did it better.

#7 Season 5

...Yeah, we're going to have to go there.

Sansa's rape is not a plot point that personally touches me much. It's terribly framed in the moment and the followup in later seasons is inconsistent at best, but it's not a kind of trauma I can relate to. On the other hand, in the very same episode Loras is tried and imprisoned for homosexuality, and Margery faces the same punishment for lying for her brother. That hits much closer to home, not just for the homophobia but also for the culture war undertones of the not!French Tyrells persecuted by a not!Anglo fanatic who later reveals himself to be the in-universe equivalent of a Protestant. The trial is just one part of Cersei's shortsighted scheming, just as Sansa being married off to Ramsey is part of Littlefinger's, and both of them get their comeuppance in the end...but it's unsettling all the same. I especially hate what the Faith Militant arc does to King's Landing in S5, swiftly converting it from my favorite setting in GoT to a tense theocratic nightmare that only remains interesting to me because Cersei is consistently awesome. What's more, pretty much everything about S5 that isn't viscerally uncomfortable is dragged out and dull instead: the Dorne arc, Daenerys's second season in Meereen, Arya in Braavos, Stannis and co. at Castle Black. The most any of these storylines can hope for is some kind of bombastic finale, and while several of them deliver it's not enough to make up for what comes before, or how disappointing everything here builds from S4. S4 has Oberyn, S5 has the Sand Snakes - I think that sums up the contrast well.

Highlight: S5 does get stronger near the end. As much as his character annoys me I did like the High Sparrow revealing his pseudo-Protestant bent to Cersei just before he imprisons her, and there's a cathartic rawness to Cersei's walk of atonement where you can both feel her pain and humiliation and understand that she's getting exactly what she deserves (and this is what leads into the climax of S6, so it deserves points just for that). The swiftness of Stannis's fall renders his death and that of his family a bit hollow, but it's brutal and final and fittingly ignominious for a character with such grand ambitions but so little relevance to the larger story. The fighting pits of Meereen sequence is cinematic if nothing else, and even the resolution to the Dorne arc salvages the whole thing a tiny bit by playing into the retributive cycles of vengeance idea (and Myrcella knows about the twincest and doesn't care, aww - no idea why that stuck with me, but it's cute all the same). Oh, and Hardhome...it's alright. Not great, not crap, but alright.

Favorite death: I don't know why, but Theon tossing Myranda to her death is always funny to me. Maybe because it's so unexpected?

Least favorite death: Arya's execution of Meryn Trant is meant to be another one of the season's big finale moments, but the scene is graphic and goes on forever and I can't help but be grossed out. This is different from, say, Shireen's death, which is supposed to be painful to witness.

#8 Season 7

I can't tell if S7's low ranking is as self-explanatory as S8's or not. At least one recent retrospective on GoT's ruined legacy I've come across outright asserts that S7 is judged less harshly in light of how bad S8 was. If it were not immediately obvious by where I've placed each of them, I don't share that opinion.

Because S7 is just a mess, and the drop-off in quality is so much more painful here than it is anywhere else in the series except maybe from S4 to S5 (and that's more about S4 being as good as it is). The pacing ramps up to uncomfortable levels to match the shortened seasons, the structure pivots awkwardly halfway through from Daenerys vs. Cersei to Jon/Dany caring about ice zombies, said pivot relies largely on characters (mostly Tyrion) making a series of catastrophically stupid tactical decisions, and very few of the smaller set pieces land with any real impact as the show's focus narrows to its endgame conflict. As with S6 there are still some good ideas, but they're botched in execution. The conflict between Sansa and Arya matches their characters, but the leadup to that conflict ending with Littlefinger's execution is missing some key steps. Daenerys's diverse armada pitted against Cersei weaponizing the xenophobia of the people of King's Landing could have been interesting, but there's little room to explore that when Cersei keeps winning only because Tyrion has such a firm grip on the idiot ball and when Euron gets so much screentime he barely warrants. Speaking of Tyrion's idiot ball, does anyone like the heist film-esque ice zombie retrieval plotline? Its stupidity is matched only by its utter futility, because Cersei isn't trustworthy and nobody seems to ever get that.

And how could I forget Sam's shit montage? Sums up S7 perfectly, really. To think that that is part of the only extended length of time the show ever spends in the Reach....

Highlight: A handful of character moments save this season from being irredeemable garbage. As you can guess from my screencap choice, Olenna's final scene is one of them, even if Highgarden itself is given insultingly short shrift. S7 also manages what I thought was previously impossible in that it makes me care somewhat about Ellaria Sand, courtesy of the awful death Cersei plans for her and her remaining daughter. The other Sand Snakes are killed with their own weapons, which shows off Euron's demented creativity if nothing else. I like the entertainingly twisted choice to cut the Jon/Dany sex scene with the reveal that they're related. And, uh...the Jonmund ship tease kind of makes the zombie retrieval team bearable? I'm really grasping at straws here.

Favorite death: It's more about her final dialogue with Jaime than her actual death, but again I'm going to have to highlight Olenna Tyrell here for lack of better options. She drops the bombshell about Joffrey that the audience figured out almost as soon as it happened but still, makes it plain what I've been saying about how Jaime's arc has never really been about redemption, and is just about the only person to ever call Cersei out for that whole mass murder thing. There's a reason "I want her to know it was me" became a meme format.

Least favorite death: There aren't any glaringly bad deaths in S7, just mediocre or unremarkable ones. I still think the decision to have Arya finish off House Frey in the season's opening rather than along with their father at the end of S6 was a strange one that doesn't add much of dramatic value.

[optimizche]

Eureurong {Part 1} (Park Chanyeol/Reader)

Author's note: Werewolf! Chanyeol. Also, the title takes me back to the good ol' days.

It was a bitterly cold morning that you woke up to. The sun was rising, bringing back colours to the world. Well, not colours. Singular. Colour.

Everything outside, wherever you looked, was covered with a thick, ivory blanket of snow. And it was still snowing, almost as if the gods had taken it upon themselves to drown the world with snow.

The state of the weather gave you a small respite: there was no way you were going to be able to get to work today. The diner you worked at was going to stay closed.

Sighing, you extracted yourself from the warm comfort of your bed. Grabbing your dress-robe, you put it on, slipping your feet into the cosiest, fluffly slippers you owned.

Grabbing your phone off the nightstand, you scrolled through the notifications, as you padded into the kitchen of your small cottage. Putting your kettle on the stove, you began to brew a cup of tea.

Much to your dismay, you hadn't recieved any message from him. Chanyeol.

Your boyfriend. If you could only call him that. He was so much more than just your boyfriend. He was your protector. Your lover. Your mate. And also, a werewolf.

Three nights ago, Chanyeol had asked for your leave.

"I won't be able to see you for a few days, my love," he had said, while the two of you had been curled up in your bed, recovering from a fervent session of lovemaking.

"But why?" you had asked, running your hand along his bare chest.

"I have to stay away from you. My heat is upon me," he had responded.

Despite being a human, you were aware of the concept of heat. It was yet another characteristic that came along with his lupine attributes. But being his mate, you weren't able to understand why he wanted you to stay away from him during his heat. And you had voiced as much to him.

"But won't it be better...if I was by your side? During your heat?" you had asked, a flush rising in your cheeks.

He laughed and pressed a kiss to your cheek. "I'm worried that I will end up hurting you. Our kind, we're especially aggressive during our time. My pack-mates, some of whom have she-wolves as mates, they end up hurting their partners in their heats. And you, my love, you're a human. Much more fragile and delicate than a she-wolf. I cannot hurt you. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did."

And so, with much reluctance, you had relented.

And three days in, you were missing him. Terribly.

You hadn't heard from him despite repeated assurances from him that he would be able to handle his heat. But his assurances did nothing to allay your stress, because you knew that this was his first heat after he had mated with you.

His choice of choosing a human, you, as his mate had caused a great deal of discord between him and his pack-mates. His brothers. Being the Alpha of the pack, everyone had expected him to choose a she-wolf, one who matched him better, in ever aspect of life. One who could give him little wolf pups. Something that you were reasonably sure you could never give him, being of different species.

Your equation with his brothers was also a cause of heartache for you. Most of them looked down upon you, disdain and antipathy in their eyes whenever you were around. To most of them, your relationship with Chanyeol was unnatural. An abomination.

The only reason why they tolerated you was because of the fear and respect they had for their Alpha.

To most of his pack members, your relationship with their Alpha was an anomaly. An abnormality. They detested the very thought of a human mating with their supreme. But here you were. Living, breathing proof that such a relationship could exist. And in their eyes, every breath that you took challenged their most basic beliefs.

Although not one of them had tried to harm you in any way, knowing full well that raising even a finger in your direction was asking for death. You were Chanyeol's mate. No one could touch you. But you could feel the hatred they harboured for you deep within their hearts. The venom they held against you was almost palpable. The spiteful glances. The hushed but bitter murmurs whenever you were around.

It hurt you, despite Chanyeol's best attempts to assure you.

Lost in your thoughts, you had just about taken a sip of tea when you heard a knock on your door.

It made you jump. Who could be calling upon you in this weather?

Your question was answered when you opened the door and found Sehun and Yixing, two of Chanyeol's pack-mates, standing outside.

They both wore worried expressions on their faces.

"He needs you," Yixing said.

"Now," added Sehun.

You knew who he was. And you immediately nodded, making your way to your room to get dressed.

If it were any other members of Chanyeol's pack, you wouldn't have trusted them. But Sehun and Yixing were the only ones who had shown you the slightest bit of kindness.

And if they said that your mate needed you, you believed them.

_____________________

The two took you deep within the woods near your cottage. To where Chanyeol's den was.

It was a stone cottage. Almost like your own. But much more spacious.

Once you reached there, you quietly murmured your thanks to Yixing and Sehun, your heart pounding with anticipation as your ran toward the heavy wooden door and pushed it with all your might.

With a loud creak, it opened.

And the sight that greeted you was equal parts arousing and worrying.

Chanyeol was lying on the floor, completely naked upon the ice cold stone. Enclosing his wrists and ankles were heavy, bulky manacles, the chains of which rattled as he thrashed against them, battling against his instinctual needs.

It was his appearance that caused a direct rush of heat to pool between your legs. Completely bare, his skin was flushed, sticky with sweat. His hair was askew and his bottom lip was red because of the number of times he had bitten it. And between his legs, his cock stood erect and stiff. Almost rock-like and just as unyielding. Flushed a deep red, tip weeping precum that trailed down the shaft in pearly, sticky dribbles.

"Chanyeol," you gasped.

And his eyes flew open.

"_____________?" he asked, his tone one of disbelief. He was looking at you as if you were a mirage. A vivid hallucination as a result of his heat.

His eyes held such a tormented look that it broke your heart. Your mate was in such obvious discomfort, that you wanted only to relieve him. At any cost.

Your hands sprang into action, stripping yourself out of your clothing, until you were as naked as him. Goosebumps erupted all over your body, your nipples hardening, every inch of your exposed skin being kissed by the cold. With a quick motion, you undid your hair, letting it fall freely.

His eyes widened when you approached him, realization dawning on him that you were actually here.

You knelt on the floor and leaned in to kiss him. Hands weaving into his hair, you kissed him messily. Open-mouthed.

And he kissed you back ravenously, growling in satisfaction upon your taste on his lips.

"Little one," he said to you when he pulled away. "Why are you here?"

You smiled at his use of the nickname he had given you. You were hearing it after three whole days, after all.

"I'm here to relieve you," you said, using the keys Yixing had given you to unshackle him.

The second you freed one of his wrists, his hand came up to cradle your face.

"You don't understand, I'll break you," he said, worry and concern evident in his voice. But the desire darkening his irises was all the confirmation you required.

"I'm stronger than you think," you said fiercely, unlocking the shackle on his other hand.

Chanyeol's eyes said it all. He was warring with himself. One one hand, he didn't want to hurt you. In any way. And on the other hand, the wolf inside him, maddened with lust, wanted to fuck you upon every single surface of his den. He wanted to take you over and over until his den smelled of nothing but a heady combination of your come mixed with his.

He was having difficulty in restraining himself, especially now, when you were naked before him. Everything about you called out to the wolf within him. The lure of the creamy suppleness of your skin against his. The way you were biting your lip, working on the locks around his ankles. Your innocent doe eyes, that made you look like the most delectable prey. The scent of your arousal, the ultimate siren call, permeating his senses, begging him to just fuck you.

The moment the final manacle clattered to the floor, Chanyeol attacked you with a feral growl.

A hiss escaped you when your back came in contact with the stone floor that felt more like a slab of ice. But relief came immediately when he lay upon you, pressing his body flush into yours, chest to chest, while he nuzzled your neck.

You let out a gasp at how high his body temperature was. He was burning up like a furnace. Feverish.

"Are you sure?" he asked in a strained voice, rolling his hips into yours, running his enormous length along your folds.

And it was then that you realized how much he loved you. In spite of being driven to the very brink of insanity because of his heat, he was still asking you if you wanted to do this.

You cupped his face in your hands and lifted his head up from your neck. "I'm your mate, Chanyeol. Your wife. Your she-wolf. So fuck me like it."

And how passionately he kissed you upon hearing your words.

There was no time for foreplay and nor was there any requirement for it. You both were prepared. And his relief took priority.

When he sank into you, you cried out, throwing your head back against the floor. His cock had swollen to almost twice its size during his heat. And even though your pussy was sopping wet for him, the penetration made you feel like you were being split in half. In the best way possible.

Once he had bottomed out, he muttered a curse against your breast, his hand groping harshly at the other. His other hand had a bruising grip upon your thigh, holding you open to him.

His eyes were pitch black while he fucked into you, with thrusts so deep that you were seeing stars. Your vision blurred, white hot lights bleeding into your sight and loud cries leaving your lips.

You knew full well that his pack-mates outside could hear you, but overwhelmed by ecstasy, you couldn't bring yourself to care.

Almost as if he could hear your thoughts, Chanyeol raised his face from your neck, where he had been sucking a bruise into your skin.

His words were punctuated with the repeated smacks of skin on skin, his balls slapping into your wet flesh.

"Let them all know you're mine. My mate. My queen," he husked, his already deep voice laced with lust. "Next full moon, I'll fuck you in front of all of them. That'll show them. They'll know that you belong to me."

You let out a high-pitched keen at his words, imagining him take you before the eyes of his pack. Outside in the forest, your naked bodies glowing in the moonlight, moving together as a single entity. While they all watched...

He grinned, his teeth biting into his bottom lip. "You like that idea don't you? Your sweet cunt seems to like it even more, the way it is sucking me even deeper into you..."

"Fuck, Chanyeol..." you moaned.

You were hanging on the very edge, your release so close that you could almost taste it.

And when you came, three thrusts later, your orgasm was so intense that it knocked the air out of your lungs.

Chanyeol groaned at the sensation of your velvety walls tightening around him. But exerting an extraordinary amount of self restraint, he held back his own release.

For a while, he just kept plunging sedately into you. And you knew he was enjoying the way your drenched and tight cunt felt around him.

Even as you recovered, basking in the sweet afterglow of your orgasm, enjoying the slow drag of his cock within you, you could hear the low growls outside.

His pack-mates.

And you could tell that there were more than just Sehun and Yixing outside.

Chanyeol sensed the presence of them all too. And the corner of his mouth turned upward in a smirk.

In a blink of eye, Chanyeol had carried you over to his bed.

His bed.

A structure that was built with wrought iron, large enough to accommodate his gigantic frame and then some. Every inch of the space was covered in fur. Pelts of other wolves. The ones that he had defeated and slain in battle over the years.

And you knew that he had never lost.

Placing his large hands on your hips, he flipped you around, onto your stomach. He lifted you, so that your ass was in the air and you were holding yourself up on trembling arms.

This was his favourite way of fucking you.

The way of the wolves.

Hands palming your rump, he spread your cheeks apart.

"You're so pink, my flower. Swollen. Succulent," he said in a lust glazed voice. And you whimpered, biting down on your lip.

His breath was fanning over your wet flesh, before he sank his teeth into one of your cheeks.

You moaned, the knowledge that he had left another mark on you making you wetter still.

And then, before you could open your mouth and just tell him to fuck you already, he sank into you.

A loud cry left your lips and suddenly all the quiet growls outside fell silent.

Hands firm upon your hips, he pulled you back into him, impaling you upon his length, making you meet his every thrust.

Your own hands grabbed fistfuls of fur beneath you, your back bowing under the severity of the pleasure.

Mouth agape, you cried out his name, your voice a mixture of anguish and ecstasy.

The way your walls clenched and gripped him, reduced him into a mess. Nails digging into your skin, he pulled you flush against him, your back against his chest, bodies slick and sliding with sweat.

"My bitch," he grunted into your ear. "The way your sweet cunt sucks me in. Fuck. I can't wait to see you grow big with my pups in you. You'll look so beautiful with a swollen belly," he rasped, one of his hands running over your lower abdomen.

"My wolf. My mate. My Chanyeol..." you sobbed, eyes scrunched shut as you focussed on the heat flaring up in the pit of your belly. Turning your head, you met his lips.

Open mouthed, you devoured each other hungrily, one of your hands clutching at his dark hair.

"I'm gonna... I..."

"I know, love," he breathed, his hand sneaking in between your legs, fingers rubbing into your clit. "Come for me. Take my seed."

That was all it took for you. And with a lusty moan, you shattered.

He followed just a moment later, his milky and viscous seed spilling within you in hot squirts. His deafening roar as he reached his climax could be heard all through the woods, you were sure.

Slumping into the furs, limbs boneless and jelly-like, you lay there. Sated.

Chanyeol turned you over onto your side and lay beside you. Hand on your thigh, he slung your leg over his hip and he pushed his now softened cock back into you.

"I'm not letting a drop of my seed leave you, my love," he said, pulling you into his arms and pressing a kiss to your lips. "And after a while, I'll fuck more of it into your womb."

"Little pups," you whispered dreamily, your eyes closing as you fell asleep with a small smile on your face.