#answered for that fandom ask thing but I ended up ranting WHOOPS | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

principalcellist · 7 years ago

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zetsumei-shuuto asked: “17 - A show you used to love but eventually hated or vice-versa.”: Sword Art Online (SAO for short).

OH, BOY. PREPARE YOURSELF. (Spoilers - but this rant is good so read it anyway.)

When I first watched SAO, I was honestly entertained. I thought it was good (I mean, I’ve seen better, but I have also seen worse), it had a lot going for it - visually stunning, neat concept (though not too original), well choreographed fight scenes, and a somewhat bland-but-believable cast. The neat thing about SAO was the horror-tinge to it, the oppressive atmosphere, and the knowledge that any character could die - and you couldn’t really figure out who at first. But then the ALfheim Online arc happened and it just was just so, so bad. And the more I thought about the anime as a whole, the more I saw of it, I just disliked it more and more. But at least it was bearable, right?

NOPE. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Then the second season of SAO came out and I only got, like, two episodes in before I dropped it like a hot plate. I still sort of like the first part of SAO’s first season (we’ll just call it 1st/1st to save time), but the rest of it is absolute shit. Admittedly, with as cute as 1st/1st was, even it was still shit.

SAO is ass. The first arc and the second arc and the whole second season entirely. Bad from the OP to the ED, and everything in between. I feel like most people over the age of 14 agree with that, too. The main thing the fans can’t agree on is WHEN it started to suck. Some would say it happened when Kirito defeated the mechanics of game coding through sheer willpower. Or when they locked up the only real likable character in what was essentially a rape cage and reduced her to nothing more than a piece of ass that needed to be saved by the Hero. Or when they made Kirito’s kind-of-not-really sister (not-really-sister enough to make it more acceptable, I guess?) into a love interest. Or when literal tentacles got involved. And boy, gee wiz, there really is a lot of sexual assault in SAO!

But, to me there is a single point were SAO went from being pretty alright to being (possibly) one of the worst shows ever made; The introduction to Yui.

Now let’s do a quick recap for those who DON’T know the character: Yui is a little girl Kirito and Asuna find wandering the woods alone and blah blah shit happens and they decide to adopt her as their daughter. Yui is cute and innocent and might as well be holding a timer counting down to her sad death. It’s cheap and lazy enough to introduce a cinnamon roll character who’s too pure for this world simply for the sake of killing them off, but the biggest problem with this relates to what exactly Yui is; a fully sentient AI whose purpose is to monitor the psychological states of players and help to keep them on-track. However for some reason, she was trapped and not allowed to help players, only to watch them suffer. (I don’t know why the game’s creator would bother programming this AI if he wasn’t going to use it. I guess because he’s just a sadistic asshole?) Anyways, Yui spent years being horribly depressed watching everyone else be horribly depressed, until one day she found Kirito and Asuna, who are apparently the ONLY PEOPLE, in all two years of being stuck in the game, who had learned to enjoy themselves. But being an AI also means she is the only character in the show who’s able to come back after she dies. This in itself is a problem.

When a character dies, it changes the story and from then on the writers have to write around that character, they can’t reply on said character to finish a narrative or ease a situation or build another character up. So when a show like SAO acts like death means something and then revels that the writers aren’t willing to sacrifice a potential plot line, it’s like watching Mickey Mouse take his head off at Disney - it ruins the magic.

So, arrived the end of episode 12 and I watched as Kirito and Asuna mourned over little baby AI. They don’t just kill Yui off in the most predictable, cliché way possible, they also do it while immediately undercutting all of the dramatic undertones of the moment. Because, as Yui is fading into magical game code balls of light, Kirito pulls some technological wizardry from his ASS in order to store her “soul” (for lack of a better word) in an inventory item - and because of that dumb dragon feather episode, we know that that means Yui isn’t completely gone, that she can come back. I mean, they could have at least left it ambiguous as to whether or not they could bring her back but NO. THEY CAN’T LET ANYONE THINK THEIR PRECIOUS WAIFU WON’T COME BACK.

And the most asinine thing is that while Kirito is performing super-coding on the game master console, he reveals in an off-comment that he’s somehow a PHD-level programmer. First of all, HOW?? It’s just NOT BELIEVABLE that any person is capable of pulling off what he does, especially not a 14-year-old boy. And it just ruins his character forever. He was already STUPIDLY overpowered, but at least the writers made it seem believable - like it made a bit a sense that he was powerful because they told us it was because of X item with Y reason. Like that he had been a beta tester for the game, therefore of course he knew a lot of the mechanics already . Or that him practicing kendo in real life was why he had such good reflexes. BUT THIS WAS JUST SO RIDICULOUS, I HAD TO CALL BULLSHIT.

Let’s go back to Yui; how on earth does Kirito manage to store her soul in an inventory item WHEN SHE’S AN AI - THE MOST COMPLICATED PROGRAM CONCEIVABLE?? Her code would have to be HUGE to account for the broad range of situations she might have to deal with - not to mention the program would need to be capable of rewriting itself on the fly in real time. So Kirito is taking that immense, complex code, saving it’s current state of operation, and converting that information into a custom item ALL IN THE SPAN OF LIKE 10 SECONDS??

NO. IT’S JUST NOT POSSIBLE. IT’S SO FUCKING STUPID THAT IT HURTS.

From that point forward, the show really doesn’t have any dramatic stakes - it can’t, really! Kirito has been established as a character who can do basically anything and we now know for a fact that anyone actually important will not die. Kirito is an unstoppable badass and he has the entire female cast riding on his nuts and because he’s apparently so ludicrously amazing, it’s hard to feel any tension in any scenario he’s put into. You already know he will win. Even in the final boss battle, he beats game code by sheer willpower alone (AGAIN).

And even more pressing in the aforementioned Yui scene is the question of WHY? Why is saving Yui as an item the thing Kirito decides to do when he had access to the game master console? If he clearly had enough time to isolate a huge, complex code like Yui’s and write a custom script to save her as an item, why didn’t he - gee, I don’t know - GLOBALLY REACTIVATE THE GAMES LOG OUT FEATURE??! He had access to the fucking source code! It would’ve been a lot simpler to set that one value from “false” to “true” or maybe enter a few lines of code if it had been written out to stop the log out function. It would’ve been easy and saved the lives of thousands of people! But, no. Saving his “wife’s” tamagotchi was more important than that.

But let’s move on from the beginning of the suck (or the biggest suck until that point?) and keep going!

Asuna is probably by far the best thing about SAO. At the beginning, she falls squarely into the Type-1 Tsundere archetype, but her character progression actually makes sense. At first, she was trying to get out of the game ASAP and always felt stressed and on edge because of this. Eventually, Kirito invites her to sit and relax and try to actually live in the world they were trapped in, and she calmed down a lot. After the two year time skip, Asuna is obviously happier and more clear-headed, and her attraction to Kirito is apparent and not fetishized. The fact that the two of them naturally fall in love and develop a functional relationship was such a breath of fresh air. The times when Kirito and Asuna were alone were genuinely soft and romantic and enjoyable to watch. My metric for how good a romance is basically boils down to how envious I feel when watching it, so when Asuna was staring at Kirito’s sleeping face, I definitely started feeling some type of way.

Which brings me to the outrage I had for the ENTIRE SECOND PART OF THE FIRST SEASON (2nd/1st for short).

Holy. Christ. Almighty.

If SAO wasn’t already bad enough, the 2nd/1st is an entirely separate story where everything is worse, but in a different way. Whereas 1st/1st was baffling, unbelievable, and structurally broken, 2nd/1st is boring, offensive, and even more contrived. It’s like a buy-one-get-one-free of the shit emoji. The things that make 2nd/1st so offensive directly involves Asuna. Where she shined like a star in 1st/1st, now she is downgraded so the Hero has someone to save.

During the entire arc, she’s trapped and constantly assaulted by the show’s antagonist while she so patiently waits for her knight in shining armor to come. She only gets maybe two sizable scenes in the whole arc; one of them being her attempted break out, which results in her being caught and groped by disgusting and completely out of place tentacle monsters, the second being when the antagonist does everything short of raping Asuna in the final battle. The only apparent purpose for this is to make the viewers hate the antagonist I guess, but it also is what made me go from dislike of SAO to outright hate.

I hate SAO for making me sit through that bullshit. I don’t fucking want to watch Asuna get sexually molested. I don’t understand why it was necessary or why it was drawn almost erotically - like you’re supposed to jack off to it and that actually offended me. For 11 episodes, what 1st/1st built up to be a strong female character who kicks ass and gets to be in one of anime’s few functioning relationships, gets degraded into a locked-up princess who is constantly at the sexual mercy of the villain holding her captive. It was gross, disgusting, creepy, and it had no business being in the story.

At the end, Asuna and Kirito are reunited in the real world and the series at least offers an almost-satisfying resolution. We see how all the characters interact and how they plan on moving forward. But the whole time, all I could think about was how much more satisfying it would have been to witness it after the 1st/1st, instead of having it come after all the pointless, disgusting, absolute GARBAGE we were forced to sit through.

SPEAKING OF CHARACTERS! Remember Kirito’s kind-of-not-really sister? Well, her name is Sugaha and her entire character boils down to two words: “Loves Kirito.” Every thought she has, every action she takes all revolves around the fact that she’s in love with Kirito. As viewers, we already know everything that Suguha is going to experience before it even happens. The moment we’re aware that she’s in love with Kirito (which is instantly) we know that she’s going to be let down and that she’s going to find out that the character in the game is her brother. We are then subjected to around eight episodes of Suguha being flustered over him, before she finally realizes everything, confesses, admits defeat, helps him out like she was already doing, and resigns from relevance. (Let’s not even BEGIN the whole they-are-related thing. That’s a new rant in itself.)

Oddly enough, I thought that giving Kirito a set goal for the arc would make it better at first. Instead of jumping around through a bunch of stories over a large span of time, he has about six days to save Asuna. Giving him a clear motivation right from the start was a good idea, and I again started to feel like maybe - just maybe - I could start to like him again.

Remember how I said Yui was the point were SAO started to really suck? Well, in the 2nd/1st, bringing her back was the best decision the writer’s made. Kirito shows more character depth around her and giving him a teammate that he was as close to as Asuna was a good way to make him happy and more relatable. And, due to her nature of being an AI, she could make navigating around ALfheim much easier and more linear and she was just as motivated to save Asuna. (It’s hard to hate her, tbh. She’s adorable and sweet and doesn’t piss me off.)

But that’s pretty much my only praise for that arc. Even with the clever setup going into it, what actually happens in the 2nd/1st ends up being a boring slog through a completely unmemorable world, populated by characters that I probably wouldn’t remember existed if I didn’t have a Wiki helping me keep track of it all. (Hey, remember Eugene? No? He’s the guy who shows up out of nowhere and has a gigantic, ridiculous battle with Kirito in episode twenty. Did you know his name was Eugene? I sure didn’t.)

I can’t even pretend like this story takes up an enormous amount of time or is horribly distracting like Suguha’s arc, because it actually happens so quickly that I couldn’t keep track of what was going on before it was over. I was also distracted by the fact that Kirito uses magic and transforms into some kind of giant Satan monster and completely destroys an entire group of players out of nowhere (which he never does again - even when he’s fighting hundreds of CG robots in the final dungeon.) (What the fuck is happening!??)

Every ounce of good sense that this arc started with is completely squandered by the way that it’s constructed. The second half of the arc consists of some boring, tensionless action scenes that go on forever, followed by a final battle that is offensive to all senses. Once again, Kirito overpowers the limits of game coding because he’s the protagonist and he’s a hero and he’s so powerful and blah blah blah.

Okay, so after all is said and done, SAO’s original creator (you know, the guy who DIES but is now somehow a ghost in the game??) gives Kirito what is basically the source code for the SAO game, and Kirito releases it onto the internet, spawning the creation of hundreds of new MMO games on private servers around the world (because that doesn’t sound like the most insane and dangerous thing which anyone has ever done.) Then finally, after years of being traumatized and tormented in the world of virtual MMO games, Kirito and his friends (AKA, all the girls who want to suck his dick) all meet up inside of ALfheim Online, and Kirito mods the game so that the entire final dungeon of SAO is now playable in that world (you know, so that he and Asuna can play through BOTH of their worst nightmares all at once.)

What a happy end.

I’m not even going to bother sharing my thoughts about the second season of SAO. Just know that it’s horrible and I hate it.

#kiki #cassie gets real #sword art online #long post #answered for that fandom ask thing but I ended up ranting WHOOPS

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kimistorm · 3 years ago

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My Heart Gone Missing [Chapter 7]

Fandom: Studio Ghibli (Howl’s Moving Castle)

Pairing: Friendship! Howl x GN! Reader

Warnings: A touch of hopelessness

Masterlist

You looked down and saw that the invisibility was wearing off. Whoops, you forgot about that. You identified the closest window and threw yourself out of it. The window shattered with a smash and you fell onto the hard ground outside. You didn’t waste any time and sprinted away from the house. You ended up in the middle of the Waste, but luckily for you, you knew some of the landmarks and could find your way back home.

The wind screeched past you and you ducked your head in an attempt to shield your face from the prickling wind. You risked glancing behind you to see if you were being followed, and to your relief, you weren’t. It was just you, the wind, and the Waste. You frowned at the sun, it was a little too late for your liking. It would be sunset in an hour, so you hoped that you’d make it back home in time.

“Ugh!” you shouted up to the sky and then kicked a stray rock. “That was a dumb plan! There were so many holes!” you berated yourself and threw your hands up into the air. “Maybe Marius is right.” You grumbled and shoved your hands into your pockets, “this is hopeless.”

This continued for quite awhile. You trudging your way through the waste and shouting at yourself all the way. “In what universe would that plan have worked?” you shouted to yourself, “how was I supposed to find it? What if he didn’t have it? What if it’s not a spell?” you let out a dry laugh, “who in their right mind would leave a spell dictating how to turn into a bird lying around?”

“You seem rather upset.” A voice mused beside you.

“Gah!” you shrieked and nearly punched the owner of the voice. You would’ve, if you had better aim. You placed a hand over your rapidly thumping heart, and silently yelled at yourself again. ‘What have you done? It’s Howl!’ Said person looked at you in both an amused and upset way.

“Would you care to elaborate on what has made you upset?” he asked.

You stopped walking to avoid leading him straight to your house. ‘Maybe he hasn’t figured out that I broke into his house?’ you thought. “It’s nothing.” You waved a hand.

“You’re rather far from the town.” He observed.

“Oh, uh, I guess.” You shrugged.

“Hmm, you wouldn’t have happened to pass by a house, would you?” he asked, “it was broken into very recently.”

“No.” You replied immediately and looked to the side to avoid looking into his own.

“Are you sure?” he probed.

“Yes.”

“I find that improbable.” He frowned, “you’ve been ranting about something peculiar for quite awhile.” You cursed at yourself. Were you really that loud? “What business do you have with a spell like that?”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You tried to answer haughtily but tripped over your words.

“What business do you have with a spell that will turn you into a bird?” he enunciated slowly.

“No.” You replied. You then furrowed your brows at the word that had spilled out of your mouth. Howl too looked confused at what you had said.

“What?”

“I said no. I don’t have any business. That you need. That we’re talking about. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You stumbled over your words again and fought the embarrassment that was threatening to consume you. You wished you could do that invisibility spell again. That’d be helpful.

“I still find that improbable.”

You crossed your arms and turned to face him, “that sounds like a you problem.”

“You know, I’m a wizard.” You fought the urge to give him a biting remark about your childhood days, “I might be able to help you.”

You were taken aback and stared at him like a fish out of water, “I, uh, what?”

“You could tell me about the business you have with the spell.” He sternly looked down at you, “that’s dangerous stuff you want to mess with. Only a certified wizard or witch can do a spell like that.”

“Then why are you helping me?” you couldn’t help the question from spilling out of your lips. This was the perfect opportunity for you.

“I’m bored.” Was his simple reply.

“Wow, you make me feel so good about myself.” You turned away from him and muttered under your breath.

“I’ll ask it again. What business do you have with a spell to turn you into a bird.” He looked at you with intense blue eyes that almost made you want to turn into a plant and wither away in the Waste.

“You just look so cool as a bird and I wanted to do it as well because there’s a war coming and I just want to go and do something because I’ve done nothing since I’ve graduated from the Academy and I may have just made a deal with a water demon and it was sort of spur of the moment I mean nothing!” you clapped your hands over your mouth. You didn’t mean to tell Howl everything, but it didn’t seem like he was making you say anything either. The words seemed to have a mind of their own and wanted to be heard.

Howl raised a blond eyebrow in suspicion, “right.” He nodded slowly. “Guess I’ll just let you do your thing then.”

“Yeah. Do that.” You nodded. This was your chance to get away without any serious repercussions. You were determined to not let this chance slip.

He gave you another suspicious look and disappeared. You frantically looked around, as far as you knew, there was no teleportation spell. “Maybe he’s invented another spell. One that teleports.” You sighed, “guess you don’t remember me at all. Howl.”

Taglist: @pogpixelz

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yossariandawn · 4 years ago

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fanfic asks: 1, 4, 6, 9, 15, 20, 50, & 51!!

1. What was the first fandom you got involved in? Honestly, FDTD is the first fandom I’ve done anything approaching real involvement in! I was a long time lurker of many different fandoms, but this one is where I actually made accounts on the different platforms for myself, created stuff past a one off here or there (that mostly never saw the light of day lol) and actually interacted and even made friends in! However, if we are going for the first fandom I discovered, that would be Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms? Since I’m only counting this one, nope! Though I will admit, several months ago I did start to see some of the rude or even nasty stuff that is scattered throughout probably all fandoms, directed at real people, normally over characters or ships. And I did make me think real hard about how much time I was putting into this, and whether it was something I wanted to continue to be a part of, even if it is pretty rare overall here. I decided to stick around, and I’m glad I did, but I definitely am trying to be much more conscious with disagreeing publicly when it comes across my dash.

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in. FDTD SethKate. Shoot, the only other kind of involvement in fandoms that I have OTPs in are Falling Skies Hal/Maggie. The Punisher’s Frank/Karen probably get in on just a technicality, since as much as I love them together, I could see them being happy with other people, but ONLY AFTER the events of the show and the impact they had on each other. I did make some vid requests waaaay back in the day for Life With Derek vids, since I couldn’t make any myself at the time! Here is one I found, but it’s not great quality anymore for some reason, and isn’t shippy, lol It’s Casey and her supportive therapist Paul, which is something I loved (VERY MUCH IN A NON ROMANTIC WAY) And I shipped Derek/Casey pretty hard, but I’m not sure they really reach OTP levels. And a fandom I am very much not in does hold the only other OTP slot I currently have (General Hospital’s Jason/Sam) which I talk about for question 20. The truth is I’m not really normally an OTPer, most shows I watch I couldn’t care less about the ships by themselves as long as I think everyone is acting in character and in interesting ways. Which is a prerequisite for me liking a show in the first place, so 🤷‍♀️

9. What are the best things about your current fandom? The people and the talent. AND THE SHOW, which I adore, for all its faults! But the people have really made this into something special.

15. Is there an obscure ship which you love? Hal/Maggie from Falling Skies probably qualifies for obscure, as there is shockingly little stuff for my favorite badass alien invasion resistance fighters duo.

20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking? OK, so this one may also count as obscure, they have a big presence on youtube but basically nothing on tumblr. Jasam aka Jason Morgan/Sam McCall from General Hospital. I don’t watch soaps as a general rule (not knocking them, by any means, they just rarely have stuff I am interested in, and the nature of the format makes it hard for me to stay invested) and when I first got cable I started catching glimpses of the late night reruns on the SOAP Network of some of the weirder ones, like Passions (haha thanks Spike for referencing it enough to catch my interest) and Port Charles, General Hospital’s confusingly related (but not really?) spinoff show. And then one day I noticed one of the Port Charles actresses (Sam!) was now on one of the big deal soaps, but was playing a different character! IN THE SAME TOWN?! but during the day, with less/no vampires and more/all mob antics. ANYWAY, end result is I got increasingly sucked into her storyline, and THEN THE JASAM STUFF HAPPENED, which it was so my kind of thing it’s not even funny. PARTNERS! IN CRIME! AND IN LOVE! BADASS SOFTNESS AND TRUST AND PEOPLE WHO LOVE AND PROTECT EACH OTHER AND THEN REALIZE WHOOPS WE’RE IN LOVE OH NO WHAT WILL WE DO. And the downside of loving a soap opera character or pairing is you just have to accept the fact that at some point they will become completely UNRECOGNIZABLE, either through characterization or actual recasting. 🤣 So while I did stop watching after the god awful “Sam sleeps with her stepdad and Jason has a secret love child” arc, I did tune back in for both their Mexico Road Trip Reunion and their (First) Wedding! And I still rewatch their 2004-early 2006 storylines on youtube, and I will always scan the supermarket soap mags for little glimpses into how things are going for them, which seems to be pretty well actually! They are definitely a real Legacy Couple now, and Jason the Original is apparently back too, which is nice.

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction? Spuffy 😂. I don’t know how I found the first fanfic I read (other than clearly way to much free access to the internet) There’s a chance I was watching fanvids first, which led into finding out about fics. AND IN MY DAY THERE WAS NO YOUTUBE, so fanvids were much harder to find! RIP Buffyverse Database (i think that’s what it was called lol) But Spike was my favorite character on Buffy, and I fell so hard in love with the IDEA of Buffy and Spike having a romantic connection and acting on it, right up until it started actually happening in Season 6. It was a wild ride for twelve year old me, but I learned a ton about what kind of things I like in relationships, and want kind of things I VERY MUCH DO NOT LIKE. And for anyone who likes Spuffy, this is completely a personal preference, not a dig at the couple. I do understand the appeal, it’s just didn’t end up being what I wanted it to be.

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go! Ok, so this is a bit of advice with some rant mixed in! If you send anon stuff to a writer, please remember you are talking to a real person, and someone who has put themselves out there in some way enough for you to comment on. If you choose to go anon, the very fact of your anonymity means that the only information they will have are the contents of that one message you’ve sent, and that you’ve chosen to not take the risk of putting yourself out there in the same way the person receiving the message has. And if all you are sending in that message is a correction, or disagreement, or (in more extreme cases) even an attempt to police your fandom by telling someone else that they are participating wrong (meaning not in a way you agree with) then your message? May not be given the good faith extended to people who DO put themselves out there, however imperfectly they do it. Good and effective communication is so hard, I really understand, and it’s a skill that all of us are still learning and sometimes failing at. I’ve been really impressed by how I’ve seen people handle messages I know I would not have been able to do with such grace! Personally, at this point the cons of anon stuff outweighs the pros for me, but everyone gets to make their own choice on how they handle their inbox thankfully! (anon asks can be toggled off and on, and you can even block anons instead of answering them!) But anon or not, we should all treat each other kindly, even people we disagree strongly with. And if you do, you may even change someone's mind or learn something new yourself. I know from personal experience it’s way more effective than the alternative, which doesn’t make it easier, but does make it worth trying.

Thanks for sending these in @alwaysupatnight! 💖💖💖

#about me #ask games

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maximumsnow · 4 years ago

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: A Hat in Time (Video Game) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: The Conductor (A Hat in Time), The Conductor's Grandchildren, Hat Kid (A Hat In Time) Additional Tags: The grandchildren have names because I could not find a way around it that would be believable, Don't think too hard on them, This was mostly canon compliant until I decided to be self indulgent at the end whoops, Parental Conductor, THIS IS VERY MUCH A FIC I HAD WANTED TO READ BUT HAD TO WRITE Summary: Of all the things that could have happened on the cruise, The Conductor definitely hadn't bet on the ship sinking. He has to find his grandchildren before the worst can happen.

Aka, It kills me that you find The Conductor in an empty playroom in Rock the Boat. There's no way he could have known the babies were safe while he was stuck there, and if he even remotely cared about them, I wouldn't imagine him taking it well.

The Conductor hadn’t even spent a full day on the ship, and when he was back on dry land, he was going to file a complaint. He’d been searching for a bathroom for the better part of an hour, and he was extremely lucky he literally stumbled upon a seal who knew where it was.

Said seal was trying to clean a giant mess in front of the only door to said bathroom.

“WHY IS THERE ONLY ONE BATHROOM ON THIS PECKING SHIP?!” He was practically jumping with anger as he yelled. The pleasant buzz from the alcohol had long since worn off, and his irritation about the situation was only building to a proper explosion.

“I’m vewy sowwy, but we’we wowking on it.” The seal seemed appropriately apologetic, but was otherwise unfazed by Conductor’s loud anger.

The moon penguin in front of him snapped literally and figuratively, "Stop bothering them! I can't hold on for much longer, and if you-"

He checked out of the tirade the penguin clearly needed to direct at someone. Even though the penguins had a strong loyalty to that peck neck Grooves, he really didn't have the energy to fight them with the same fervor. They weren't the one constantly driving him up the wall, and he had other things to focus on.

Such as getting through that door.

Somewhere between getting called "a has-been director" and "the worst thing to happen to bird cinema since The Birds," the Conductor realized that the seal had made absolutely no progress on cleaning the mess. Every spill that was sopped up with the mop was replaced by a new glass falling out of the cart.

It was like watching the new tech owl trying to wrangle the lights.

Making an executive decision, he decided he would take matters into his own hands and jumped ahead of the still ranting penguin. He heard them squawk indignantly, but he was already bolting towards the wall by the blocked off door.

He used his momentum to climb up the wall and hopped onto the walkway that apparently served as a roof for the bathroom. The seal had ignored him as they continued their neverending task, but the moon penguin’s dropped jaw was hilarious. Apparently they forgot that he still did his own stunts.

Cackling, he turned away and dropped down the other side. There was a tool cabinet flush against the wall, and at the top, he saw what he was hoping for. The opening didn’t even have a vent cover, which made things even easier. Clambering up the drawers as if they were stairs, he was FINALLY inside.

Along with another seal with a dining cart.

He had more urgent matters to take care of though, so he brushed away the question of, “How the peck?!” For later.

He had to pass by the seal again as he washed his hands, so he asked, “Ah, need some help?”

“No thank woo. My fweind will let me out once they’we done.”

He still had a drink with his name on it and, and was not about wast time arguing. “If ye insist,” he casually said before jumping for the vent opening and climbing out. Once he was on the tool cabinet again, he paused as he tried to figure out the quickest way to the bar.

This ship was convoluted, not like his train, which was mostly a straight line. Sure it would get tweaked for certain movies, but for a train to actually go, you couldn’t deviate from the norm. But this thing didn’t have stairs where they should, and in order to get anywhere, he had had to jump and climb.

That was not an easy task while toting around five rowdy little ones.

He hopped onto the balcony so he could get a better look at where the next jump was when the entire ship violently tipped to the side. The Conductor gripped the railing to keep him self grounded, but he nearly lost his grip when the ship tipped the other way.

“WHAT THE PECK IS GOING ON?!” He screeched at a seal that flew by. Whatever was said was lost in the ruckus of the ship tipping once again, and he caught them with one hand as they were flung back in his direction.

One of the bulky Mafia humans on a balcony across from him yelled, “Driver must have lost mind!”

“Captain was on bweak!” The seal helpfully added.

They were jerked as the ship swerved, causing him to scream,“THEN WHAT PECK NECK IS STEERING?” If he wasn’t clinging for dear life, he would be stamping his feet.

Any further conversation was cut short by a loud metallic screech as the ship jerked to a dead stop before tilting. With the side that the Conductor was on sinking straight into the water.

The seal started to squirm before insisting, “Let go, mister! I can swim!”

Given that he couldn’t hold onto the struggling seal with only one hand, he had to take their word for it. The water was already close enough that the fall wouldn’t even faze them, and he needed to get out quickly.

Once the seal was in the water, a few others were already pulling up a lifeboat to their area, and they directed all the passengers towards it. If it wasn’t for the owl and penguin clearly calling the shots from the boat, he would have wondered where the sudden competency came from.

Shifting his grip, he pulled himself upwards so that he was balanced on the railing. At first he was going to make a jump for the lifeboat, before something icy gripped his heart. “OI, PECK NECK!” he yelled towards the boat. He didn’t care which one answered, “Have ye been to the children’s playroom!?”

“No, sir! we’re trying to get everyone close to the water first,” The owl responded. That was all he needed to know, and he jumped for the still intact bounce pad. “S-sir!” He could hear the owl call for him as he used the spring to trampoline upwards, but he had other priorities.

The little ones were in danger, and he couldn’t wait for someone else to find them.

His jump carried him almost half-way up the side of the ship, but there wasn’t an easy place for him to land. Expletives left his beak as he realized this fact, and his claws screeched against the metal as he slipped back down the side. The fall was halted when he managed to grab onto a window ledge and pull himself up.

All he could think was to jump to the next balcony he could see and keep going up. Even as the ship leaned further over, he fought gravity itself to reach the next hand hold.

He couldn’t let them die. He promised his daughter he would take care of the children on this trip, and that they would all have a good time. She wasn’t supposed to worry about them drowning while they were with him. He couldn’t let her down. He couldn’t let them down.

Even if it meant he died trying to save them.

With the speed that had carried him through the opening of Train Rush, he managed to climb nine-tenths of the way up when he saw a problem. There was a patch of pure white and then glass before the railing at the top of the ship.

Nothing to hold onto.

And the water was only climbing higher.

His best bet was to jump and pray that he could reach the railing. With no time to lose, he took his only available option.

Which thankfully worked out; he was able to grip the railing that kept people from falling off the top of the ship and pull himself over. Just in time for several pool toys and floats to slide down and bounce into him.

If he popped one or two out of frustration when trying to get them out of the way, no one needed to know.

With everything turning on its side and sliding, the path to the playroom was perilous. He could even see the icy pool water spilling out and flooding the lower level of the deck. From his position, he could see that the remaining vacationers were scrambling to the exit on the opposite end from his destination.

None of them were carrying little balls of yellow feathers.

All the pool chairs on the upper level where he was were heaping together into a miserable pile. At least one tipped over the edge once it hit the glass. But, it meant there was a mostly clear path to the dome that he knew covered the playroom, and he took off running.

Until the angle became too much for him to keep his feet on the walkway.

His chin hit the boards before gravity rolled him back towards the railing he just left.

He couldn’t fail. Not now. Not when he was so pecking close.

Pulling out a knife, he jammed it into the wood to stop his descent. The pain in his shoulder told him he would feel that in the morning, but he would worry about that when the little ones weren’t in danger.

He tugged the knife a few times to ensure it was well and truly wedged in before pulling himself up and grabbing the edge of the deck. The angle of the ship now meant that once he was over the edge, he could stand on it, and once there, he prepared himself for a dive towards the still open door to the playroom.

The landing was a bit rough, but he was finally in there.

And it was empty.

Unable to believe what he was seeing, he called out, “Ainsley? Maisie? Innes? Rory? Alister? Yer grandpa’s here!” As each name came out, his voice became more desperate and pleading, and it nearly cracked by the last word.

All he heard was silence other than the sound of water leaking in.

Speaking of which, he could feel the chill of the arctic ocean through his shoes, and he clambered onto the desk before the water could soak more of his clothing. Still frantically looking, he noticed that the circular playpen, while still attached to the floor, was tilted so that the opening was hanging over the water that had already accumulated.

His heart stopped.

The little ones couldn’t swim.

He jumped into the water in a panicked frenzy. With frantic movements, he swept his arms around as he searched. His arm bumped into something, and without hesitation, he grabbed it and swam up. Once he surfaced, he got a better look. A part of him was afraid of the answer, but he needed to know.

It was a dinky toy.

“RAAAAUGH.” Screaming in frustration, he threw the toy against a wall, uncaring of where it landed. Which, after bouncing a few times, it slid right back into the rapidly swelling pool. “WHERE ARE MY PECKING GRANDCHILDREN?!”

Any further screaming was halted as he felt the cold bite of the water finally getting through his desperate and angry haze.

He already knew that he couldn’t handle arctic water well after the incident in the pool.

They have no chance of surviving that.

The thought weighed him down even more than his currently wet clothes. Climbing out of the water was difficult thanks to his shaking limbs, and he wasn’t sure if that was thanks to the physical or emotional numbness.

With the ship almost completely on its side, he couldn’t see a way out, so he pulled himself into the concave curve of the glass-like dome that was once the ceiling of this room.

And waited.

He wasn’t sure for what. Even if he was found, would he be able to live knowing that he had failed his precious grandchildren? He shouldn’t have left them to drink for hours. He hadn’t even explored the boat for other activities he couldn’t do with them around. He had just wasted his time in one spot on alcohol and not spending the last few hours of their lives with them.

He was an awful grandfather. An awful father. Maybe his other daughter was right. Maybe he was just a selfish bastard who never cared for his family.

Thoughts continued to spiral as he stood up, and he couldn’t help but contemplate the water before him.

Until a loud splash brought him to the present, and jerked his attention back to the very crooked entrance.

It was the hatted lassie.

She was jumping across the platforms with the skill and speed he expected from her, but he couldn’t figure out what she was doing here. She should have been on one of the life boats! He was about to say as much when she got to him, but she picked him up without any preamble.

He couldn’t help but squawk at the sudden action, and he gave a half-hearted reminder about his feathers that she clearly wasn’t paying attention to.

Unwilling to potentially drag her down with him by struggling, he kept quiet as he let her carry him out of the playroom and to the last life boat. He couldn’t help but shiver as his damp clothing was exposed to the wind, but the minor tremors did not deter the lass.

When they made it to the boat, there was a fair amount of rescues there, including two Express Owls. Who looked overjoyed when he saw them.

“Conductor, your grandkids have been looking for you! We went ahead and sent the other boats on-”

“Don’t wait up for me pup. Get in a boat and scram. This is my dang ship, and I’ll go down with it,” the Captain’s voice echoed over the water.

The immense relief at finding out the little ones were safe was then shattered when the lass started running back to the boat. Likely to rescue the stubborn captain.

“Wait, lass, where yer going? You wanna save HIM?” He shouted at the fleeing child. The Captain was a Walrus for Peck’s sake! He could hold his breath long enough to swim away if he wanted to! And if he didn’t want to… well, the lass shouldn’t be risking her life!

“I’m not gonna hang around a sinking ship! If you don’t make it back quick, we’ll leave without yer!” Some part of him had hoped that would scare her back, but she was already climbing into the top of the ship and had clearly ignored him.

“She saved some of your kids, you know?” The moon penguin whispered to the frustrated owl. “I don’t think she has it in her to leave anyone behind.”

While he knew that was true, it didn’t ease his agitation. The ship was already halfway sunk; they didn’t have much time before they would be endangered too. They couldn’t wait forever.

The boat couldn’t stay so close to the ship and had to move, but between the seals moving some capsized life boats around and some of them staying back to guide, there was a clear path from the ship to their boat. He could only hope she saw it.

Waiting was agony, and there wasn’t much room to pace. “Where’s the lass? The ship is sinking, we gotta get out of here.” After about a minute, he yelled again, “Get over here, lassie, We’re leaving NOW!” It was only thanks to his light weight that he was able to jump up and down to express his impatience.

The Express Owl that had the misfortune of being right next to him rubbed his head to clear the ringing from his ears.

After a minute, the lass hopped down from an icy ledge while carrying the Captain. The sight made the Conductor do a double take. Sure he knew that she was light on her feet and good at jumping, but that didn’t necessarily translate to carrying someone ten times your weight. He hadn’t thought much on her carrying himself since he wasn’t much taller than her and significantly lighter, but this was strange.

The relief returned, however, and overpowered the confusion. She was a strange one, yes, but she was consistently strange.

And safe now.

Everyone gave their thanks to the lass as the boat caught up with the others, and the Conductor threw in his own deeply felt appreciation. “Aye, thank you lass. The little ones haven’t learned to swim yet!”

Speaking of.

He could hear the excited peeps from his grandchildren when they saw him. Alister was waving his rubber knife around with excited glee, and it was only thanks to a strangely alert seal that kept him from jumping out of the boat and towards his grandpa. Of course the Conductor couldn’t help but wave and make a silly face at him.

When he could tear his attention away from the little ones, he noticed something… familiar glowing in the middle of the boat with his grandchildren. A glowing hourglass.

Oh PECK.

He heard the Captain say something about the shiny thing on the glacier, and while that caught his attention, he was a lot more worried about something so dangerous in the middle of his grandchildren.

Before he could make his own path, the lass must have come to the same realization and booked it over to claim the Time Piece to send back to her ship and away from clumsy and curious hands.

The time piece itself vanished in an instant, but the lass remained this time. She sunk onto the bench, and he could tell even from this distance that she looked exhausted.

He decided to hop over now that the lass had claimed her prize, and the little ones immediately started to climb all over him. Unfazed, he picked them all up for the best group hug he could deliver. Maisie was initially reluctant to let go, clutching him as tightly as her beak held her pacifier, so he cradled the little one in one arm as he placed the others down.

With the little ones assured of his presence, he joined the lass on the bench. Innes crawled up to sit on his lap still clutching their sunhat, and the others all hovered around him before settling near his feet and leaning against his legs.

He wasn’t sure why the lass hadn’t left yet; generally, once she had her Time Piece, she would leave as soon as possible. He opened his beak to ask the question, but as he turned, he noticed that she was hunched over and trembling.

Thinking about how they were in the arctic and how she had just been hopping and running around in the water, it concerned him. Quietly, he asked, “Are ye cold, lass? Need anything to warm ye up?”

What he hadn’t expected was the lass to turn her face up to him and for her to be crying. “I’m sorry!” she sobbed before burying her face into her hands.

At first, he was confused. “Why are ye apologizing? It’s not like this-”

Before he could complete that sentence, she wailed, “Yes, it is! I saw that Time Piece and. And.” She couldn’t keep talking before another sob broke out. Whatever she had been about to say was lost, and she instead said, “Almost hurt everyone...”

The puzzle put itself together. The Time Piece. She wrecked the ship and endangered all of their lives for one of those hourglasses? A part of him really wanted to be angry. It was a very loud and vocal part of himself.

But the other part saw a clearly guilt-wracked child, and his parental nature told the angry part to peck off.

He shifted the little one in his arm to the other side before reaching out to gently touch her shoulder. “Ye didn’t mean it to turn out like this,” he stated when she looked up at him in surprise. “Everyone was talking about how the ship couldnae sink, and well. How were ye supposed to know?”

She clearly didn’t accept that. “It doesn’t matter… I still-”

“Beatin’ yerself up over it isn’t gonna help, trust me on that one, lass. We all make mistakes. Some of them terrible. But everyone got off that death trap, thanks to you.”

The lass glanced around at the few lifeboats that were around them. “There’s no way that’s it!”

“Lass, ye saw the way to get on before the boat left the dock. It thinned out most of the crowd since they couldnae get on board. Everyone who got that far had to fly or jump.”

After a moment, the lass leaned into his touch until she let him give a one sided hug. The shaking had lessened by then, he noted.

They stayed in that position for a while, and now that he was still, the dampness in his clothes was making itself known again. The lass noticed and asked, “Why are you so cold?”

“I uh, might have taken a dip earlier. While trying to find the little ones.”

The somber look returned to her face, and he kicked himself at his callous reminder of what they had just gone through. The moment was interrupted by a seal with a penguin perched on top approaching their boat, and the penguin asked, “We got some blankets stored in our boat, need any?”

“YES!” The lass shouted. “He’s like a birdcicle at this point!”

That got a loud laugh from the Conductor. “Ye need one too, lass!”

After they got blankets brought over, the Conductor got the little ones wrapped up in their own so that they would nap for a while. Their rescue boat was still a distance away, and he didn’t want them to get into any trouble before then. He noticed that Ainsley’s white hat was damp somehow, so he plucked it off. She chirped in protest but calmed down when he let her hold onto it like a toy.

With his limbs free, he cocooned in his blanket and watched the lass follow suit with hers. Eventually, she ended up leaning against him again, and he finally said, “Ye could just go back to yer ship, right? It’ll be safer for ye.”

“Not fair to you guys...” She mumbled.

It really didn’t sit right with him that she insisted on suffering along with them, but arguing wasn’t going to change her mind. “… How about ye head back once the rescue boat gets here? We’ll be safe by then.”

The lass mulled it over before finally agreeing. “Sure. That’ll be… fine.” A yawn interrupted the reply, and she jerked away.

“Ye can sleep, there’s not much to do other than wait.”

She must have been tired enough to not argue, because she simply leaned back against him, and her breathing slowed after a few minutes.

With all his charges accounted for and resting, the Conductor smiled in relief. He was tired, for sure, but he would deal with that later.

“Rest well, lass.”

#A hat in time #My writing #The Conductor #The Conductor's Grandchildren #Hat Kid #Other characters are loosely referenced #But not much

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malereader-inserts · 5 years ago

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Under Your Nose

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairing: BAU team & Psycho!Male!Reader Summary: It’s taking them days, if not weeks, to find this smart killer. Even though it’s right under their noses. Word Count: 1,914 Request: “Can I request a Psycho!Reader with the Criminal Minds team, please thank youuu (hope you are having a good day!)” A/n: Call me a weirdo, but these are so good to write about

Tapping.

It’s the one thing that was slowly driving Spencer insane, then it’s abruptly stopped as you looked at him.

“You alright Spence?”

You softly gazed at him, he looks up from his notebook and his writing, Your sweet as honey voice stops his mind from thinking as you innocently sip from ou hot chocolate. It’s almost as if he short circuit just fuses out as you looked at him concerned, you reach out to him but pausing.

“Stuck on a case, you know how it is,” Spencer says, with a tight smile as you nod and recoiling your arm away from him.

“Understandable,” You nod, shrugging your shoulders, “You and the team always figure it out, I believe in you. I mean you are the genius?”

There was a slight venom upon the last word though you were fully aware that Spencer was too distracted to take note of your tone as you lift the mug up to your lips, the glare held longer than usual as Spencer looks over to you across the table that separates you from strangling him - the urge and you know he’s not armed, shame you two are in public space.

“I guess...” Spencer stutters over his words as you raised an inquisitive eyebrow, “I’ve known psychopaths before this one is just too good...”

“Oh?”

“One per cent of the world population are psychopaths, unable to feel emotion correctly and are profoundly selfish,” Spencer started to rant as you slowly nodded, not caring for another of his lecture - he’ll be called back into work soon, you’ve got his schedule down to a tee.

“Spencer?” You called out to him, interrupting his lecture, five minutes in as you point to his buzzing phone on the table, “Looks like you have to go.”

“Oh,” His shoulders deflate as you placed the mug on the table, “I guess I have to, will you-?”

“I’ll be fine, Spencer, I’m a big boy,” You teased lightly, watching his cheeks flush red, you wonder how quickly you could make him blush if you pointed a knife towards him, “Go, catch this psychopath, tell the team I say hi.”

“Of course, yes,” He nods, closing his notebook and sliding it to his bag, “Garcia would love to see you again.”

“I know.”

There was an unsettling feeling in Spencer’s stomach when you said that as you looked up at him as he stood up with a straight back. There was a glint in your eyes but he questions it not as he just nods and awkwardly takes his departure.

You breath easy as you watch him rush back to work, you leaned your hand back down on the table and started to tap.

Eyes slowly becoming disinterest as you watch Spencer disappear into the crowd.

Garcia meets you at a bar, she rewards herself with a break on a Friday night knowing full well she’ll be back in work to help solve the case. JJ and Emily are by her side and they’re feeling the tension in their shoulders

But, upon your smile both charming and welcoming they come to their senses to drop their guard with you. You motion to the drink of alcohol you’ve bought them.

“One drink, on me,” There was a cheery tone and they fall for it, “You guys need it, really, you do!”

Not that you cared about their welfare, you rather get the drunk as quickly as possible but alas, you have their trust and it’s fun to wave food in front a starving man, so oblivious and yet so obvious.

“How’s work?”

“Quit,” You shrugged, “Hate being tied down, you know? I’m taking a break for a bit.”

“How will you be...?” JJ asked, sipping on her beer, head already spinning- she wonders have you drugged her glass but you cannot because you’re the sweetest person she knows.

“Oh, don’t mind me, I’ll be fine,” You shrugged your shoulders, waving your hand, “Come on, go enjoy your night!”

That night to drive the girls back to Garcia’s place, too out of it to notice how you stole their money. You unloaded their guns and took the bullets from them. Knocking on the living room door as the girls groaned and looked at you.

“Here, I brought some water for all of you, can’t have you going into work hungover,” You bring them the water, “Well, I best be off, tomorrow will be a great day.”

“Ugh!” Emily groans, her head spinning, she shouldn’t have drunk so much though she can’t even remember how much she drank.

You really took the pleasure in getting them drunk, you felt no remorse in doing so, there was no motive and no gain just all risk. A little fun game to keep you entertained before you go exploring the night for another victim to keep your thirst of murder manageable.

“Say, before I leave, have you checked the victim’s house properly?” You asked, a tentative tone to your voice as you tilted your head, intimidating that three trained FBI gets scared of you, “You might have missed something.”

When they come into work the next day and follow your advice, they find more evidence, which you put there the night you left them plastered. They don’t question how much you know about the case despite being confidential and to you, you sit back watching they play so oblivious as you play too obvious.

There was a knock on your apartment door.

You looked up from your book, it’s been days since you last heard of the team. The classical music on the vinyl on blast as it calms your senses, though the buzz caffeine leaves you aching to fulfil the need to do something.

However, when you open the door you see Morgan looking exhausted and with Hotch.

“What can I do for you guys?” You questioned, “Where’s Rossi?”

“Just your company,” Morgan says, you nodded and let them in.

“He’s drinking away alone in his home,” Hotch answers the second question of yours as you take the answer, shame you didn’t get to see him.

Your apartment is clean, nothing out of the ordinary and nothing to spark curiosity in Hotch, as the two men ventures into your apartment. You paused the vinyl and swapping it for something more tasteful such as Queen and lowering the volume.

“The girls send their wishes for taking care of them,” Morgan says, missing how you grin at yourself in the mirror and fixing your hair even though it was barely a noticeable change.

Self-absorbed in your actions and in yourself, the two profilers miss because you were too good and everyone gets a little vain.

“Well, that’s what friends do,” You shrugged as venom drips from your words before clearing your throat, “Still working on that case?”

As you recall it’s been three weeks since Spencer came meeting you at the coffee shop, it has been their longest investigation yet and it’s sweet as you thought it could be.

“I don’t know how our unsub is doing it, there is no pattern, no link, he’s doing it for fun. A murderer, a psychopathic murderer.”

The term "murderer" was now reserved for psychopaths. There were those that took life and crumpled under the weight of guilt, even if they'd no choice. There were some who killed when necessary and never lost a wink of sleep over it.

There are others who have made it a whole new hobby, look at them the wrong way and they attacked with lethal force, which is where you stood now, sort of. That last group are the only ones considered murderers now.

The term applies to you as much as it does to a wolf or a bear. Killing in self-defence is just a given. Killing for resources is a grey area. Killing for fun, well, it is a hobby.

“Anything I can help with?”

“If you can catch this sick son of a bitch, then, go ahead,” Morgan seethes in your armchair.

You flash him a smirk, enchanting as your eyes sparkle, “Now, now, Morgan. I’m not a genie.”

The team stood in front of the whiteboard looking at maps, the pictures of the victims and the information, but nothing comes out of it.

Garcia’s fingers are starting to cramp and ache, hoping for a break as the team starts getting headaches.

“Hey, hey,” Your voice echos in the debriefing room, the telephone hadn’t even rung, so they were all surprised to hear your voice.

“Not now, (Y/n)...” Rossi rubs his forehead, stressed.

“Aw, still going over that case, I’m bored!” You shouted down the phone as Rossi press the end call button, “Tsk, weren’t you taught manners, Rossi? It’s rude to hang up.”

“What the-”

There was a chuckle on your side of the call, “Anyway, as I was saying, I’m bored and I’ve been watching you stare at the same thing for the past two hours.”

“What do you mean-?” Hotch asked, roughly.

“The cameras been hacked,” Garcia says frantically from her seat at the round table.

“Whoops,” Your voice calls out and suddenly they can hear people in the background, “Come find me, will you? Come find me and entertain me.”

“Listen (Y/N)-” Morgan almost shouts at you, his was getting inpatient with your vague answers, “We’re busy and if you’re interfering.”

“Me interfering? Oh, yes, I am because this is my case. Shame, I could have this pretty girl fall to her death,” There was a whimper on your side of the phone and then the realisation hits them, “Or this sweet innocent man drown.”

“It’s been you,” Spencer gasped.

“Yes, yes, I thought we got over this,” They could hear you roll your eyes.

“Why are you doing this?” Emily asked, leaning on the table to get closer to the telephone which was stationed in the middle of the table.

“Because I am a proud man? I enjoy my hobbies?” You questioned, “Funny, these two aren’t much of a screamed unlike the others, bless, victim two was a screamer until she annoyed me too much and you know strangled her.”

JJ looked at the board to see the cause of death matched up, nodding to the team about your affirmation.

“And victim five was loud too, you know, begging is very satisfactory. It’s almost a big win, but when they get too much, oh my god, you just have to take a knife to the throat, you get what I mean?”

JJ once again nodded, seeing how victim five matches your violent description of murder and death, then another whimper could be heard from your side of the phone.

“The longer you’re listening, the less time you get to save these poor unfortunate souls,” You hummed, “Well, it’s nice to catch up with you, maybe I’ll call again-”

“NO-!” Hotch exclaimed but you hung up as he looked sternly at Garcia who looked lost in her search.

“That sick son of a bitch!” Morgan seethes and hisses, “Right under our noses, and he’s gloating about it.”

“He is a psychopath, Morgan,” Spencer reaffirmed, hurt that you weren’t being truthful to him or the team, “He does this out of pleasure.”

You looked at the time on your watch, before making a dash for it, the two of your next victims fall to their demise as you departure to building unseen. Now, this is definitely a cure for your boredom.

#bau team #bau team x male reader #bau team imagine #criminal minds #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds x male reader #x male reader

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takaraphoenix · 5 years ago

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So, @kimmycup tagged me in this game. Let’s do this. Alternately titled:

Let me rant about the difference in receiving feedback on FFN vs AO3

Because I am really getting lost in the math behind “most popular” fic. And it’s most definitely more than just “reaching a different audience” when the feedback for one and the same fic differs between over 1k comments on one site vs not even reaching 100 comments on another site.

Author Name: Takara_Phoenix

Fandoms You Write For: Okay so let‘s only involve the ones I am still actively involved with, not the ones that are like... eight years old and I haven’t thought of them once, yeah? That’d be: Percy Jackson, Shadowhunters, Marvel, Rise of the Guardians/How to Train Your Dragon, Detective Conan/Magic Kaito, Vampire Academy, Jungle Book, DC Comics/the Arrowverse, Descendants

Where You Post: AO3 and FFN, but occasionally also on tumblr - when it’s prompts or drabbles

Most Popular One-Shot: Depends on where you ask. And what you define as popular. Personally, the only value I see are in comments - kudos are literally just the press of one button, they mean nothing, and hits aren’t an indicator of much either considering it counts as a hit even when you opt out after a paragraph.

I’ve only had my AO3 for five years now, meaning that the fics on FFN still had four more years to simmer on there and gather attention, I suppose. Meaning, a fic posted for the first time obviously gets more attention than a four years later mass repost on another site.

On AO3, the oneshit with most comment threads would be How to Court the Prettiest Omega Ever in Five Years or Less, my first PJO ABOverse fic, featuring Nicercy. Which, you know, is only 37 comments on there. Seriously I genuinely blame the existence of the kudo function for the overall lackluster comment-response on AO3 because “press one button vs actually writing words”... but that’s a different conversation to be had. (I mean, seriously, in comparison, this fic has 51 comments on FFN... and it is by far not the one with most comments I have over there).

The clear winner if you look at FFN is Something Went Wrong, my first Minotaur/Percy smut fest with a whooping 116 comments. And yes. Positive. Genuinely did not expect that when after weeks of debating, I decided to post this story. *chuckles* (Again, for comparison, this fic got a total of 8 comments on AO3... eight... the difference there is staggering... Which, I’d like to tag on that, on top of the kudo-nonsense, the fact that AO3 displays total amount of comments to the readers and not comment threads is also misleading and I don’t think it helps, because I think you’re more inclined if you see it’s only 8 comment-threads in total on a fic you like vs it showing you 16 comments as the total comment-count.)

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: THIS IS TOO HARD TO ANSWER. I’d have to consult my chart, but that hasn’t been updated in ages. Because overall amount of comments means little if you don’t also take into account the amount of chapters - 50 comments on a oneshot are a lot, 50 comments on a 5 chapter fic, not so much, and 50 comments on a 50 chapter is frustrating to receive.

Okay, let me go full nerd on this one. Y’all know I love charts. There was a time where I was interested enough in finding this out that I had a chart going of all my multiple chapter fics. With a collumn on how many chapters the story had at that point in time, how many total comments on AO3, how many total comments on FFN and what, by combining those two numbers and dividing them through the chapter-count, was the average amount of comments per chapter.

However, that chart had last been updated on December 31st 2016. There’s been a lot of influx, lot of new stories and other stories gaining/losing popularity, so when I now say Meet the di Angelos with a 2016 average of 57,25 comments/chapter, that is completely exclusing ten fics I wrote since then.

Damn now I really wanna update the charts...

Also if you can’t tell by now how much actual feedback and comments mean to me, I genuinely don’t know how else to convey it... xD”

If you go by total comment-count - which, again, is misleading because you gotta keep the chapter-count in mind - it’d be Chasing Fireflies on FFN with 1749 comments (on 102 chapters. And, again, for comparison, 88 comment-threads on AO3. 88 vs 1749 is insane) and Percy and the Ghost King of Summers High on AO3 with 749 comments (on 50 chapters. On FFN that’s actually on 990 comments. Far smaller difference here compared to other stories).

Though I dunno, if you measure popular by fanart received, Summers High comes in with five, while my Chasingverse is in with 6... and multiple fanfictions written for it.

Favorite Story You Wrote: Favorite to write, or favorite to reread? There’s a difference there. I’m insanely proud of Chasing Fireflies and the plot and world I created there, the character development. I... don’t really reread it it’s over 500k long I don’t have that time.

Currently, I am really loving The Primal Instinct, it is sooo much fun to write, I get to put basically all my favorite headcanons in there, I’ll get to write Aline and Helen more and Jace’s interactions with others, it features both my favorite OT3s at once. (And it is faaar from my most popular one. Just, feel like mentioning this because my numbers-obsession may read as only writing for comments, which I don’t, I mainly write for myself. The comments are just... very, very nice treats to receive. Also, I love numbers and charts and were curious to see if there is a kind of trend there in what does receive most attention sooo...)

Story You Were Nervous to Post: Uuuh every new thing. Every time I step outta my comfort zone. Trying out a new pairing for the first time. Venturing into a new fandom for the first time. Experimenting with a new kink and wondering if this would be too much. Literally every single time, still.

How Do You Choose Your Titles: On a whim. I suck at titles. Mostly I try to force alliterations because I am a sucker for alliterations, but otherwise I do try to go with “as it says on the tin”, or I try a pun/being clever. Aside from my Triton/Percy fics. Every single fic I’ve written for them is named after a song from Disney’s The Little Mermaid franchise and I have yet to run out of songtitles to use for fics and hey, by then they’ll probably have included a new song in the live-action remake so there’s that! :D

Do You Outline: Depends. Oneshots? No. I just write those. Multiple-chapter fics? ...Depends. xD

If I have a clear vision for where it’s going to go, I do tend to divide into chapters and make myself small notes on what goes into said chapters. Mostly, it’s just a rambled “and x happens and then y” at the end though and then I see how I can make it fit into chapters.

Complete: 795 stories on AO3! Damn, I’ve been busy.

In-Progress: As of right now, 4. Because this week features my Ace Awareness 7-parter, though technically we’re right now down to 3 multi-chapter fics because the next one is only due to be released and join the rotation!

Coming Soon/Not Yet Started: Well, that is two entirely different things now.

Coming Soon:

Shadowhunters, Asmodeus/Jace, “The Royal Consort of Edom” oneshot on the 23rd

Shadowhunters, Magnus/Alec/Jace, “Nesting 101″ oneshot on my birthday this Saturday

Percy Jackson, Nico/Percy, “Something Borrowed, Something Green” oneshot on the 30th

Shadowhunters, Magnus/Jace, “Dancing with the Monsters in the Night” an out-side-of-schedule oneshot for Halloween

And I do think that that is what constitutes “soon”.

Not Yet Started:

HTTYD/RotG, Hiccup/Jack, “The Origin of the Blue Hoodie”, planned for November 27th

Shadowhunters, Magnus/Jace, “Set-Up by the Guard-Cats”, planned for December 4th

Descendants/PJO, Nico/Percy, Ben/Carlos, Uma/Audrey, “Demigod Defenders of Auradon”, planned for December 11th

A-and that is as far as I have planned my schedule ahead. Those three are the only fics on my personal schedule that I haven’t started working on yet. I don’t like to plan ahead too much, because then you just completely lose interest in the story by the time you get around to actually writing it.

Do You Accept Prompts: Prompts, not so much. Requests, yeah. For one, prompts always seem so demanding, while requests are more polite - and also more structured. Prompts are always like “here have one quick trope thrown at your head” and like... I do have a well-enough planned-out schedule with more than enough fics of my own set, I don’t need to try and turn one random prompt into an actual story. But if someone has a specific request, a pairing and an actual plot, that they really wanna see, I do always hear them out, I may not always like the pitch and thus not accept them all, but on the overall I do accept requests.

More inclined to accept birthday requests than random requests, because random requests would be put into the rotation of my schedule and, well come on that shouldn’t be a surprise, they tend to be pushed off then in favor of fic ideas I came up with myself because there’s nearly always more enthusiasm about writing an idea that you came up with yourself than the idea of someone else. Whereas birthday requests have a set date that doesn’t disturb my schedule and I am a big softie who has a weakness for getting gifts myself so I do like to do something nice for someone so they get something special for their birthday.

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: Most excited to write? Well, that’d be the Descendant/PJO crossover atm, because that is something very new and shiny and I do love shiny, new things to experiment on. But also The Prince of Pluto, my next multiple-chapter fic that I have already started writing.

Tagging: Whoever wants to do it! <3

#Fanfiction #Comments #Tumblr Tag Game #this turned out long #xDDD #About Me

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fluffymusketeer · 7 years ago

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Hello! I don’t know if you’re still doing it, but for the fandom ask: J,X and Z? Thank you and your doll photo shoots give me life :)❤️

Hi Kitty! Thank you sweetie, yes of course I will answer these for you :)

J: Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over tumblr

Ooh let’s see. I’m quite new to Tumblr and tend to aggressively curate my dash so it’s pure sweetness and fluff and SNK (I need such therapy with this manga!), however, I pretty much fell into Star Wars because I went hunting for Reylo on tumblr. I had always been a trekkie and never into Star Wars, but I saw The Force Awakens as a casual fan and had some curiosity about whether others were shipping this pairing, had a mosey through the tumblr tags, and the next thing I knew I was reading 100k worldbuilding fics about the Chiss Ascendancy and Kyber Crystals and I somehow ended up a Star Wars nerd. The power of wanting two characters to smooch 😂

X: 3 OTPs from 3 different fandoms

So! Ereri from SNK obvi, I’m very fond of Bellarke from The 100, and back when I was in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom (many years ago) I was hardcore into any Willow ship but Willow/Tara were my ultimate OTP. I still miss them, sniffle.

Z: Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go

Ooh! Ok. Um…. I love shipping? Like, I love it to the point it frustrates and upsets me when people are so rude and dismissive of shippers all the time. I know ship wars suck and there can be bad behaviour everywhere online, but my experience of shipping throughout my life has been of this amazing space of creativity and collaboration, of people supporting each other in exploring their imaginations and (often) sexuality. I am convinced the vast majority of us are good fans who simply contribute art and fic and other awesome stuff to our fandoms. I dislike when people belittle us, people who have probably never bothered to think about why such spaces may be important, to women in particular, but also to everyone who feels the mainstream culture of sexual expression does not reflect them. I really value how shippers engage in fan spaces and with media, the sheer creative energy and enjoyment (writing romantic fanfic and creating art requires just as much knowledge and attention to detail as any other fan activity). There is something so wonderful to me about seeing a person love, love, love their ship - even if it’s not a ship I ship - and it saddens me when people can’t respect this, either by belittling shipping or getting into arguments about it. We should try harder to respect positive fan engagement, whatever format it takes, and ignore those “fans” who wish to constantly turn fandoms into exclusive rather than inclusive places.

........that was more a rant than a ramble in the end, whoops 😂

Anyway, Erwin and Levi are still in their lingerie so I took a photo for you! (We’re all kinda licking our war wounds after Chapter 105, but it’s impossible to be mopey when looking at their serious little faces trying to pull off negligees.)

#ask meme #answered #danni's dolls #obitsuroid #kittyboo8015

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fitzykreiner · 7 years ago

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To me, what really pisses me off is how Shamier was treated this season. Like you said he may have had other projects but you can work around it and not just have him appearing just to be in episodes but you can actually give him a storyline. And the thing is, they need him so fucking much, he saves the day almost every single time. Then he just disappears because he doesn't get any recognition for all that he does for everyone. There were so many opportunities missed. It's Problematic as fuck

yep!!!!!!!! that’s what i’m saying -- fine, the actor has other projects going on, that doesn’t mean you have to then half-assedly write the character. :/

im putting a cut bc im just gonna answer all these asks that y’all sent me like a week ago,

What I really hate about this whole situation is how hardly anyone is calling them out on their shit. Like shit how do people expect us to feel watching this show as POC's when the POC's on this show are treated like shit. Idc if they add another cast member and they're POC, it won't take away from the fact that one of them is a lead and constantly sidelined, one is now a villain and was treated like shit and one is only there for comedic timing and to give googley eyes at doc.

“one of them is a lead + constantly sidelined, one is now a villian + was treated like shit, & one is only there for comedic timing + to give googly eyes at doc” you........just hit it right on the fucking head there. im so pissed. dolls was treated like an actual nuanced main character, then he wasn’t. rosita was given an AMAZING story by having her be a revenant yet be kind and just tryna live her life, then they decided to somehow pull off the double trope of “poc sacrifices themself for white friends” + “poc is the villain”, like what kind of racist two birds w one stone kinda bullshit.......and then ya, jeremy. he’s never really been anything but comedic relief apart from the few hints that he’s got an interesting past + him saying that he never left purgatory bc he doesn’t fit in there but no one asked him to fit in anyway .

What hurts even more is how all three POC characters have been used to prop up the white male character. Dolls has just been sidelined the whole season and am I supposed to believe that wynonna didn't give two shits about him in the finale when this is the same woman who fought so hard to save him in 2x01. Rosita was treated like shit from doc. And then Jeremy treats him like he can fucking walk on water. I didn't mind him but this and his fans have made me hate doc with a passion now.

it really feels like there’s a divide in the writers’ room between who likes wyndolls(+dolls) and who likes wyndoc(+doc) bc its just.......one or the other whenever either make an appearance. like i feel like when an episode is written by a person who prefers wyndoc, dolls barely makes an appearance or is mentioned maybe once, and vice versa lmao. i really wish they would make up their minds instead of having one wyndolls episode, then a wyndoc episode, then a wyndolls episode, ad infinitum. plus ya this season had way too much doc praise from everyone imo.................whoops

I know you don't hate doc but what makes me even more mad about him, is that he constantly makes mistakes and treated people like shit. Like how tf does he get away with this constantly??? Yet whenever Dolls makes a mistake it's the end of the world and he needs a talking to. I really don't know if I can carry on watching this I want them to pick a ship and just stick with it (hopefully wyndolls) because the whole triangle is convoluted as fuck and it's making me dislike the show.

i think doc has truly grown from who he was back before the well happened, but he still is an asshole and can be a shitty person (esp re: rosita lmao). i think he’s a flawed man and that’s... acceptable, but what i don’t find acceptable is that, like u said, he’s never called out on it. in order to deserve all the praise he got from every character this season, he really should have apologized to ppl abt things he’s said and done.

lmao.......u know why dolls’s mistakes are treated more seriously and actually brought to his attention vs. doc’s mistakes.......You Know Why

I just wanna say thanks, it feels good to be able to rant like this, so many people treat this show likes it's perfect when it's extremely problematic at times. I'm fucking praying, like down on my knees praying that they don't carry on this romantic wynd*c bullshit in S3 and this love triangle because wyndolls is far superior and shit I think everyone knows it. I think a lot of the fandom is a lot more receptive to their relationship because it's so beautiful compared to that mess.

no probs im always here for u to rant to!!!!!

Coming from a hardcore wyndolls shipper this shit has really hit me hard. Trust me I know they're a fictional character and it's just a show but I've been through so many times of my fav characters (who happen to be POC) either getting sidelined or killed off and I'm not sure if I can deal with it anymore. And the person who I'm really upset for is shamier. Because shit man he deserves so much better. This has actually made me lose so much trust in the writers and I have no hope left for S3.

listen u don’t have to come here and justify why this has affected u so much to me, i understand completely. a lot of people (including me) cling really tightly to some fictional worlds & characters and when the creators fuck up it hurts. also ya shamier no doubt deserves better, tho im happy he’s out doing other things too, not just being wasted by wearp

I was just reading all your asks on the finale and I remembered wynonna telling doc that she never would've kissed dolls if she knew doc was back and I'm just like... what! That whole sentence just contradicts one of the main themes and relationships of S1. Listen I loved the moments that we got of wyndolls in S2 but this forced wynd*c relationship has me feeling so disappointed in the show. when S3 is back on I'm just gonna wait to see how dolls/wyndolls is treated before watching. I cba

rip i just had to look up what “cba” meant bc i thought maybe u ran out of characters and misspelled a word and i just never got the second message alkdfjalkdsalk

no really that so came out of left field bc like???? wynonna + dolls were being built up the entire first season, it was all leading to dolls admitting his feelings and them kissing. (remember when wyn dared dolls to admit that he cares for her?? and he couldn’t? so she called him a pussy and walked away???? then he finally did admit that he needs her in the finale? im crying) wynonna + doc was just them learning to trust each other and fucking in the forest that one time, there was nothing OVERTLY romantic abt their relationship compared to wyndolls.

I just don't get how they expect me to believe that forced ass relationship. She literally looks at dolls like he's her whole world, and when he came back she looked so relieved and happy again. I hate love triangles in shows and this season especially has made me intensely dislike doc, especially after 2x03 with that whole "I ain't doing it for him" comment. And his treatment of Rosita and his actions during 2x06. I cannot deal with this shit and I really don't trust them anymore, not at all

oh ho hohoho boyyyyyy i forgot abt the “i aint doin it for him” which, first thing, is such BULLSHIT, doc cares abt dolls, it’s been established. anyway, im this whole ask,,,,,.

#wearp #xavier dolls #wyndolls #doc holliday #im still bitter if it wasn't clear #also sorry these responses are more than a week late #anon #asks

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