#anyway i think a dangerous amount about these two and this family in general

[midnightdemonhunter]

i love you, jack.

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

Another average day in Family Video:

You are another average midwest small-town teen. You are also completely and utterly fucked.

You lost the rock, paper, scissors game in your friendgroup and have to do the most terrifying mundane task there is in Hawkins: return a movie to Family Video.

For a moment you stand frozen in front of the doors. Unfortunately said doors are transparent, and you can already see the two monsters behind the counter whispering to one another while staring at you. You take a deep breath and enter.

You do not feel brave enough to confront them head on yet, so you browse a bit in the horror section. Your hands start shaking when you see The Exorcist. You had sworn to yourself that you would not rent anything, no matter what. That this would be the last time you entered this godforsaken store. But....The Exorcist man.

While you ponder this impossible dilemma you hear snickering. You swear you can feel two pairs of judgemental eyes staring at you, but every time you look up they seem to be busy with something. You look down at the movie you are here to return: The Shining. They eerily remind you of the identical twins.

You muster all your courage and walk up to the counter. As soon as they notice you they stop whispering.

"Have you read the book?", Steve Harrington asks when you return The Shining. You are pretty sure he has never willingly read a book in his life. You shake your head, no. Their expressions don't change but you get the feeling that that was the wrong answer.

"You didn't rewind the tape", Robin Buckley says as if you have wronged her personally. You curse Tommy under your breath, he had sworn up and down that he had done it.

"You should never trust men", Steve Harrington, a man, says.

You start regretting taking The Exorcist. This interaction could've already been over.

"Did you enjoy the acting?", Robin Buckley aggressively asks. Maybe she is still mad about the tape or maybe she is just an angry person in general. "Specifically Wendy."

"Uh, yeah. It was...really good."

Steve shakes his head in disappointment. You are not sure where you misstepped this time.

"You know this movie is by Kubrick, right?", she continues. You did not, but you nod anyway. "He treats his actors very badly. Especially the female ones. Do you agree with this? Do you think it is okay to jeopardize the safety and well-being of actors if it will result in "a better performance"? After all, actors die, but movies are forever"

You are not sure what the correct answer is.

"I would suspect that your answer is yes", Steve Harrington (who now apparently is also a movie connoisseu) says, holding up The Exorcist. "Considering that they put the twelve years old main actress in multiple actively dangerous situations"

"I...I guess. Dunno."

Steve Harrington and Robin Buckley exchange a long look. Finally, he names the price. The time it takes to search for the correct amount of money in your wallet is longer than both movies combined. You do not dare to look up while you shove the money on the counter and leave, The Exorcist in hand, without another word.

You exit Family Video. Your hands are trembling. You are regretting every life decision you have ever made. You swear to yourself that you will never enter that godforsaken store again. You look down at the movie you just rented. You sigh.

(more)

[familyagrestefanblog]

If the woman at the pool really is Amilie then from S6 onwards we will have 2 orphans in the main narrative: Adrien and Lila

That fact that it's these two is honestly weirdly giving me hope

and yes, Adrien is an orphan. Just because he doesn't live alone and has legal guardian/s and a girlfriend doesn't it mean he isn't an orphan anymore. Marinette holding his hands and kissing him is not undoing the fact that Adrien's mother died harshly of illness almost 2 years ago and he thinks his father now died because Ladybug was partnerless and Gabriel as the only adult member of the Resistance and as Adrien's father - Adrien, who was thought to have been kidnapped - filled in Chat's place to defeat Monarque.

The amount of death surrounding Adrien's narrative right now - if the woman truly is Amilie - is beyond concerning.

Add Adrien blaming himself for Monarque having been cataclysmed in "Destruction" to the mix, plus depending on how Ladybug will go about Monarque's defeat she may use as a cover story towards the world in a panic reaction that Monarque crumbled to dust because of the cataclysm, which would indirectly but very directly include making Chat Noir responsible for Monarque's death in front of the whole world which in normal Miraculous fashion Marinette probably only accepts 20 episodes later to sweep it under the rug because *sighs; unfortunately insert random excuse for why she's blameless*

And let's not forget the fact that Adrien still had to wittness Nathalie having been sick like his mother (though Adrien never saw Nathalie in her worst state) and he also knows that Nathalie and his father were very close to the point where he has already given his blessing in season 3 and in s5 Nathalie has worn his mother's ring.

And now Adrien has every reason to blame himself for his father's death.

Take a damn guess if Nathalie being his legal guardian is enough for Adrien to not be or feel like an orphan anymore!

Then there is Amilie being around who looks like his dead mother and most likely can't stand either of his dead parents

Or Félix being around who gave ShadowMoth the 15 miraculous' which made Monarque as powerful and dangerous as he was (that's an objective fact) which for Adrien also would have lead into his father's death which is gonna be awful when Félix bad mouths Gabriel with Kagami, Marinette, Ladybug or in general.

Depending on what everyone else thinks and remembers, Adrien's friends may bad mouth Gabriel as Adrien's father too since that's what everything has lead up to by "Representation".

And let's not even get into Lila now.

The way Lila at this point would have such alarmingly easy game taking Adrien from Marinette and the rest of his friends and family, and also Chat Noir from Ladybug and her team that has barely ever been his anyway - especially now that there are 4 people in Ladybug's team who know her identity and he will continue not being allowed to be included in any of that, because I don't know how realistic it is to hold onto any hope regarding this - is ... insane. This is absolutely insane.

I know hoping that the new villain will latch onto everything bad and unfair is a shitty and biased thing to do, but Lila's villain narrative will be all about her being an orphan (right? That makes sense with the whole mothers thing and her extreme attention seeking behavior while not having a home. Just dialed up to the worst 11) and now Adrien is one too after.. all of THAT and how Adrinette and especially Ladynoir are at risk because of all the lies and secrets Lila is perfectly aware of.

For me there is a difference between wanting a new villain to latch onto the unfair treatment of a character because of one's own personal biase and just straight up refusing to get out of one's denial to acknowledge it when a new villain not only as an established character but story wise too has every reason in the book to do that now.

Do what you want, but I'm not putting my TRUST into LILA for her to not be as stupid as Gabriel because that's "mean to Marinette/Ladybug"

[brisskwinds]

Kasane Teto headcanon masterpost [remake]

[ don't tag as kin/me/etc.]

Gen lore post for my teto design you see on my profile sometimes!! Figured it was a good time as ever to remake this since the original post has some very dated cringe old info that is still up via reblogs so I think it'd be better if i remade the whole thing LOL. Created in late 2020 when I drew teto with more beastly chimera features and this specific design stuck with me!! I've accumulated a decent amount of xenobiology headcanons related to her specific species of chimera since then. behold my little beastie. Funfact she kinda behaves like a sona/mascot therefore she ages with me!! So at the time of writing this post, she's in her early 20s.

Teto is a species of humanoid chimera with moderate shapeshifting abilities. She's able to appear anywhere between her full chimera form (above) and a fully human form! Shapeshifting was a learned ability in monsters as both a mechanic to better hunt, and also a way to blend in with human civilizations as they progressed.

Teto and most chimera commonly shift to hide their wings to aid in stealth while hunting/stalking prey, and just for general ease of access. which is why drawing her with wings is optional!! I didn't wanna draw her huge wings every time cause thats a pain. Chimera have very large wingspans, so as a result they can sometimes struggle with taking off from the ground, often needing to fly from a jumping point. They're also capable of breathing fire, but only in small spurts, so it's more just used as an intimidation display than for actual attacking purposes.

Chimera are (obviously) fully sapient predator species like humans, but unlike humans, are obligate carnivores! Teto however, ignores this and loves eating non-meat human food and then complains that her stomach hurts all the time. Chimera are also much more in touch with their species's instincts than their human lookalikes, and human behavior is a learned trait. They can purr, hiss, growl, and roar to an extent, though it's more like the kind of roar you'd hear from a mountain lion or bobcat than a tiger. Chimera are also very long-lived, having a lifespan of 100-120 years, with records of lifespans even going all the way to 150! There are two types of chimera, venomous and nonvenomous, and they're physically identical except for their tails. Venomous chimera are a sub-species and are basically genetically identical save for their serpent tails, while nonvenomous ones will have harmless forked tails like Teto. Chimera venom is highly dangerous to humans and small animals, but a human can survive a bite if they seek medical attention within an hour of being bitten. All chimera are immune to their snake tail venom though, even the nonvenomous ones, though a bite will still cause some dizziness and shortness of breath for a short while. If one parent is a venomous chimera and the other not, their child has a 50/50 chance of being either.

The snake tails on venomous chimera are not alive beings, but are rather very intricate natural mimicry used to warn other animals to steer clear of the tail.

I also have designs for other members of Teto's family who I don't draw as often, Ted and Tei! Tei is Teto's cousin in this specific setting, and since I've gotten some questions about this in the past, Tei is not an albino chimera! She's just got white hair and pink eyes, but those aren't a result of albinism. She's teto's white trash cousin

^ last two are photos from my abandoned askblog i will revive eventually i swear to god. lmao. anyway thats about it!! This post will get added onto as I tweak general lore/biology stuff.

I just ask that people not use these designs in their own personal works, especially teto since she's practically like a sona at this point, but people are welcome to draw them if they like!! please tag me i love to see :3

[nevertheless-moving]

i very much enjoyed the eventual explanation for Vin's Whole Deal but i also spent a good chunk of book one and two, (and maybe also more than a few idle moments in book three) waiting for a reveal that she was also a feruchemist. Just. There were so many parallels between her and the lord ruler, you know??

just thinking about the au...

a nice alternate explanation to her unnatural-even-for-a-mistborn grace, strength and power, just a bit better than she should be, and has such wild swings of fortune during a few of her fights because she's unconsciously storing up than releasing corresponding powers in her internal flakes.

of course it's taking her so long to realize - no one wears actual amounts of metal, so she's constantly burning her stores before they get large enough to be noticeable.

she was able to sense sazed's feruchemical store when she burnt it why would that be an allomantic ability i'm still kindof mad we didn't see her even TRY feruchemy anyway au

sazed teaching her...bonding moments...family...

funny moments where sazed and kelsier get weirdly competitive over who's got dibs on the daughter-he-never-thought-he'd-have

I am a SUCKER for zero-dads to multiple dad's trope...

(and thinking about how there HAD to be some feruchemy in the ska population, since the terris people weren't always so separate from the general population)

in addition to noblewoman, thief, mistborn, ska urchin - here's ANOTHER burden, ANOTHER heritage, ANOTHER identity - some pressure to be a Keeper, at least store the books, even if you do nothing else -

imagining reen as a feruchemist, constantly running from town to town because for some reason him, totally ska him, he can do things, things like a misting, but even more obvious, and allomantic vials just make him sick

unconscious feruchemy leading to mental instability (her mother). What happens when you store memories or mental attributes , but never get them back? you're just losing time and strength and willpower to the metal in your groundwater...and it's gone, passed through your body unless you happen to be an allomancer who can burn it back...

duralium-esque shenanigans during book two trying out the lord ruler's youth combo and accidentally making herself into a child. it's resolved eventually but there should have been AT LEAST a few chapters of 11 year old Vin mowing down assassins

HULK PEWTER VIN! HULK PEWTER VIN! FINALLY SHE ACTUALLY LOOKS AS DANGEROUS AS SHE IS! FIVE FOOT NOTHING HULK PEWTER VIN FIGHTING HAMM!!!!

infinite free health combo (somehow? i don't quite understand the mechanic, perhaps it's revealed somewhere else in sanderson books. is it just storing up health? seems like getting flayed would fuck that up. look, we know the lord ruler figured it out, since it's part of his whole Canon that he can't die, a Lot of people have tried)

ANYWAY I am also a fan of "unkillable" character trope where person starts getting too reckless during fights while enemies panic and their loved one's look on in horror because they're still getting hurt

All of the above does NOT help with the whole worshiping thing

staying awake for WAY too long with bronze earring...come on sanderson i know my girl was double deity op but consider if she was even MORE

FERUCHEMY IS OF BOTH PRESERVATION AND RUIN COME ON Y'ALL THINK ABOUT IT

...if it turns out there's an annotation in one of these books that she was actually a feruchemist but it never came up i don't know if i'd be more angry or more vindicated...if there is...okay people can spoil this one (1) thing...

aaah alas - it could have been so sick - feruchemist mistborn fight scene my beloved who shall never be...unless...

[thethistlegirlwrites]

Crypt

Sierra thought she’d seen the worst it could get when she and Pete had to pry silver stakes out of Shay’s wrists with the noon sun beating down on them, and then watched Shay have what amounted to a seizure in the back of their commandeered truck due to lack of blood to heal himself. 

That doesn’t hold a candle to what she’s looking at now. 

The figure curled up in the corner of the crypt doesn’t look like anything more than a dessicated corpse. 

She can’t bring herself to move from the doorway, even though she knows she has to let the medical triage team through.

If Shay hadn’t remembered the bookie from his underground fight days and put the clues together that she was also infected with vampirism, if he hadn’t bothered to try and track her down for Chimera’s pilot program of the pre-fledgling interventions, if they hadn’t found her obituary that listed her next of kin, and if they hadn’t managed to convince the family that they really did need to know where their sister was buried…

Sierra doesn’t want to know how long the vampire in question would have moldered away in this place. This crypt hasn’t been used in almost a century. She wouldn’t have even thought to check it for the vampire they were looking for. 

But Shay had known.

There had been only one attack in the vicinity of the cemetery where Josefina Quintero was buried, in the past two weeks since her internment. That meant one of two things. Either the vampire Joey had risen as was hunting in a place that disguised her actual home earth, or she’d somehow forced herself not to feed since attacking a jogger the night after her burial. 

For a fledgling, either was a difficult concept to envision. Fledglings, especially non-hunters, generally lack much self control in any respect. Planning a feeding routine that hides their whereabouts is generally an action of a more seasoned, less desperate vampire, and forcing themselves not to feed would take a superhuman control that few vampires possess even at Emma’s age.

But Shay seemed to think that Joey could have done it. He’d told Sierra what little he knew about the self-made bookie while they canvassed the area.

“I knew she had something she was trying to protect. She was quiet. Kept her head down. She made decent money but she was never dressed flashy, never acted like she kept it for herself. I think she was taking care of her siblings. But she never once said anything about them. Never let on that she had any family. Because if anyone there found out about it, they could be used as leverage if someone wasn’t happy with their bets.”

“So you think she’s capable of assuming she’s now a danger to them, and stopping herself the only way she can imagine how?”

“If anyone was going to be able to lock herself away, I think Joey would be.” 

Shay had stopped in his tracks and pointed at the old crypt that belonged to the Lucero family. “If she’d be anywhere, it would be there.”

It’s ironic, Sierra thinks, that the final resting place of members of a founding family of the Chimera agency is also the place Joey Quintero tried to save her family from her fledgling self. 

The triage team pushes her aside, spreading out a sort of handled tarp on the ground and lifting the vampire’s huddled body. Somehow, she’s still moving. Just a little, resisting touch on the instinct of a wounded animal, but she’s far enough from her home earth, and isolated from it by the silver, that she can’t even sleep during daylight.

Sierra would have the head of anyone who put a vampire through this kind of torture on a silver platter.

But Joey did this herself.

She probably didn’t know what she was going to experience. Not if she didn’t know there are safe ways to feed, alternatives to real blood.

But she had to have known it would be bad.

And chose it anyway.

Shay is standing about five feet from the crypt. Any closer, and its silver would affect him too. Honestly Sierra’s surprised no one’s ripped it all out of the place yet; this isn’t the best neighborhood anymore. But maybe the people around here have got a taboo against taking from the dead. Or are afraid one of the family members got bitten on the job and don’t want to risk letting them out. 

He’s watching the triage team running back to their van with a look on his face Sierra has seen all too often in the past couple days.

“She’s just blood-starved.” It’s horrifying, and Sierra might never get that image out of her head, but vampires can starve for years and come back from it as long as they’re fed real blood. More than a few grave robbers learned that the hard way over the years. “They’ll take care of her. Get her back.”

“I should have found her sooner.” Shay’s not looking at her, but his eyes are shining with unshed tears. “A lot sooner.”

“Look at me.” Sierra puts herself between him and the retreating van. “You found her now. I wouldn’t have. I would have assumed the silver would repel her and she’d choose the path of least resistance. Most fledglings do.”

Shay flinches.

“Sorry.” This is…a special case. The last person on record at Chimera who’s had this much control was Emma, who locked Arion out of her head after less than a week of being turned. “I’m just saying.”

“Three weeks, Sierra.” Shay rubs a hand over his face, and it comes away damp. “I missed her by three weeks. She was still human.”

“And you’re proof that being a good person doesn’t have to end when your humanity does.” Sierra says. “Someone who could do that?” She gestures behind her to the crypt. “She’ll be a shoe-in for mentorship. Maira will be all over it.”

“I should have thought of her sooner. Told you sooner.”

“Shay. There was no sooner. The pre-turn program just got off the ground days before she died. We were still looking for potential candidates in rehab programs and homeless shelters. Interviewing vampires like you to see if they knew anyone else at risk.” Sierra shakes her head. “You put her name at the top of the list as soon as you saw the checklist of likely markers and remembered how she reacted to blacklights whenever she came near them at the fights. You had no way of knowing she’d been hit by a drunk.” Honestly, Sierra has no idea how Joey functioned apparently normally as long as she did, if she was infected at least by the time Shay met her four years ago.

No wonder she was able to shut herself in a silver lined tomb.

She’d been crushing every ounce of the venom in her system for years.

“I just wish we’d found her before this had to happen.” Shay swallows. “She doesn’t deserve this.”

“Neither did you.” Sierra puts an arm around him. “But none of us can go back. The only way we can go now is forward.” She takes a single step toward the car, and Shay follows. “We can’t save her life. But we can help her have a good un-life. So let’s focus on that. Can we do that?”

Shay nods. “Yeah.”

(You can read this story and more from this universe on my WorldAnvil here!)

@catwingsathena @nade2308 @the-one-and-only-valkyrie @telltaleclerk @ettawritesnstudies  @writeouswriter @the-lovely-wren

[cartograffiti]

April '24 reading diary

This month, I finished 9 books in a whole bunch of genres, some of which were fab!

I read a lot more nonfiction than usual this month, starting with On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes. Alexandra Horowitz recorded her conversations with a variety of experts as they walked through neighborhoods looking for examples of their interests, from bugs to typography to whatever attracted her toddler son. Like some reviewers I saw, I was disappointed that not all the walks were in the same neighborhood, which had appeared to be the premise. I also strongly recommend listening to the audiobook, as I did, because some of the conversational wording transcribed from her recordings is unnatural or repetitive written out. Anyway, a lot of the chapters are interesting, and the general theme of appreciating different things about your area by choosing to key in on a thought is great. A pleasant book.

Two great nonfiction books about clothes: Cally Blackman's 100 Years of Fashion, and Behind the Seams by Dolly Parton with Holly George-Warren and Rebecca Seaver. Both books are about fashion in the 20th century and a little bit beyond, and both are huge, heavy books full of the most glorious, well-chosen photographs. Blackman's is nicely organized around themes and not strictly by year, showing not only high fashion, but also the clothes of counterculture scenes and working women. This is a great resource. Parton's book, of course, is about her own stage costumes, and some other clothes people have made for her. It's also a memoir of her changing style and the professionals who contributed to it. Lots of fun.

The best nonfiction book I read this month (and possibly in the past year) was Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent by Dipo Faloyin. His written voice is exceptionally strong, able to explain large amounts of historical context without it ever feeling dry or overwhelming. Faloyin makes powerful breakdowns of historical misconceptions and contemporary stereotypes, includes a hugely funny "how-to" guide on writing an awful movie set in Africa, and draws memorable comparisons between political corruption in Western and African nations. There is a description of young men striving not to allow anyone outside their friend group to hold the highest offices in their country, phrased so that the final punch line is that they were talking about the United Kingdom that I think is one of the most effective freeform arguments I've ever read. I very much hope other people will pick this up.

On the fiction side, Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto has been on my radar since it was new. I understand why it was such a hit, but I was disappointed! The book was advertised to me as a murder mystery and romance, neither of which I'd say is true. It's a family screwball comedy! It does that very well, but I got tired of the number of plot beats that required someone to be very silly indeed, and I was never sold on Meddy's logic in multiple plot threads. I don't think I'll read the next.

The short story collection Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor is a mixed bag, like every short story collection in the world. I think he's very skilled on a technical level at creating characters with complete lives and histories implied in a short space, and some of them have interesting things to say about how people reach out, lash out, struggle with guilt and illness, and the problem of kitsch (not in the sense of knickknacks, but of the denial of shit). I do find the stories pretty bleak, and I was very unimpressed with the interconnecting elements. The stories that link are about Lionel, a test proctor who recently survived a suicide attempt, and several dancers, two of whom he begins a poly relationship with. Except for the first, these stories neither stand alone well nor build on each other as a sequence. The relationship is written with a dangerous, taboo edge, largely because these people never properly have any conversations about it, which I found irritating. I'm glad to be familiar with Taylor's work now, but I think he gets in his own way trying to shock in all of the weaker stories.

I also read a single Edith Wharton short story that I didn't realize wasn't a novel until I opened the ebook. It's the wonderful "Xingu," in which a ladies' intellectual lunch club finds themselves at a loss trying to talk to their superior and unfriendly guest, until their least popular member pipes up to ask a question about Xingu. They all follow her lead, trying all the while to infer what, exactly, Xingu is. Great little satire of how people want to look current more than they want to enjoy things.

I grabbed Heartstopper vol. 1 because I needed a banned comic for a challenge, and that's almost synonymous with being a popular LGBTQ+ comic for young people. Frustrated hand gestures. Anyway, this is very sweet, would be totally appropriate for middle schoolers as well (it's sold as YA), and I somehow hadn't realized before that Alice Oseman is the same person who did a webcomic about a band I used to read from time to time when I was younger. I would have liked this a lot more when I was a teenager myself, but it's nostalgic and happy, so I may read the rest.

I'm still reading Lymond and in early April I finished the 3rd of 6 books, The Disorderly Knights. I had a very messy response to this one! I did in fact enjoy it tremendously, and it's technically excellent, full of things that grabbed me and kept me excited to read more every night. I love my problematic bestie Francis and many of the people around him. It also most sharply of the series so far shows upsetting attitudes of Dunnett's by participating in '60s rape culture and Islamophobia that I went beyond being critical of to angry about. It simply wouldn't have been published like this now. I still gave it four stars and I may even go up to five when I have a better sense of how it fits in the long arc of the series. In a thinner or less tailored to me series, these feelings couldn't coexist, but they do, and that's very much shared by everyone else I've been talking to the books about. I'm really glad I have people to talk to them about! It's a long-standing but not very Online^tm fandom. I'm already halfway through the next book.

[the-darkness-does-not-bargain]

oh all the talk about ava & lilith and how they don’t think they need to talk about things but need therapy anyway (that isn’t feasible because of the reasons you’ve mentioned) is convenient because i’ve been rotating a bit avalil’s relationship with beatrice and some of the problems in it, and idk the amount/degree but i feel like there’s a bit of a problem because they’re either too hovery, not hovery enough or usually both at the time

avalil are used to accommodating for each other for literal centuries, and often only for each other because while they probably have a ton of contacts and friends either had very few or didn’t have any actual close friends or family and/or life stuff kept them seperated and unable to contact others often, especially with diego’s shadow hanging over ava, and lilith’s general *waves*

so yeah, saying ava & lilith are used to it mostly just being the two of them and the other being the only person in their life that they had to consistently account for is a massive understatement and whike they’re trying and learning to accommodate for beatrice, ava & lilith are ava & lilith so they often tend to veer into one direction too much. and the fact that beatrice is relatively young, super new to the supernatural stuff, and is a werewolf who’s new to being a werewolf which reminds ava of diego a tad too much at times definitely doesn’t help things.

and it’s a bitch because while things are obviously a lot better and more genuine with avalil, their behavior reminds beatrice too much of her parents and family sometimes

semi related (or maybe not at all related, who knows), i’ve been picturing mary and/or shannon as being concerned for beatrice and really wary of avalil at least initially, because of how often the immortals who appear and/or are mostly or completely human or obtained their immortality through shady means. mary and/or shannon are especially shady probably because vincent is or tried to become immortal and manipulated mary & shannon to do so

and depending on if and how vincent is connected to adriel, finding out about lilith’s connection to adriel doesn’t help, along w any problems they might have unwittingly gleamed, guessed or heard from beatrice about her friendship & relationship w ava & lilith

See, what I realized is that they just need to engineer a Lucifer situation where they find an awesome therapist like Linda Martin who can they tell about their immortality. Easier said than done but I have faith in them. Well, I have faith in their friends' ability to find such a therapist, not their ability to attend sessions.

But yeah, they know each other's coping mechanisms and have rearranged everything around them. They don't make comments, they avoid hard questions, they dance around the issues for literal ages. Ava doesn't ask Lilith about what she does when she occasionally runs off, Lilith doesn't ask Ava why she's scared of mazes and won't use the magic she inherently possesses.

And they don't mean to repeat that song and dance with Bea, but it's a tough habit to break. Maybe they come off as unavailable when Bea needs someone to talk to, when really they're just used to not asking upsetting questions.

And I'm sure the others are wary of Ava and Lil, probably especially Mary and Shannon, whether Vincent was involved or not. One or both of them might be old enough to have met another immortal or heard stories about them, and so their danger senses are immediately activated by these two ancient weirdos who have seemingly beguiled their friend.

I'm imagining that however Ava became immortal was accidental. I really do think she might have swallowed the philosopher's stone, meaning that someone else (Reya, perhaps? 👀) was probably trying to become immortal and she foiled them. Maybe Adriel (and by extension Vincent) have and/or are trying to do the same thing with horrifying consequences.

[hyperfixation-tangentopia]

Hello

Wanted to ask

Favorite pizza toping?

Also, any OC lore for your current obsession [shows]?

I like sausage, or good ol' reliable cheese

YOU HAVE ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD MWAHAHA

ROTTMNT OC TIME I WOULD LIKE TO INTRODUCE ALL OF YOU TO THE APOCALYPSE TWINS

So, I was thinking the other day, oozesquitos can mutate pretty much anything biological, right? Plants, Sloppy Jo, etc. And Donnie describes the Krang stuff as "some kind of Krang bio-growth".

And so...

The Apocalyptic Twins were born! This would be set in the Apocalyptic timeline, where basically I made a couple Krang Mutant OCs and shoved 'em in there.

Neither of them have names (yet, I plan on giving them some soon). The first one I usually call "Chaotic Ebny" (or just Ebny for shorthand) and they go by they/them. They have three eyes and an unnecessary amount of tentacles :3.

They have their own lab dedicated to researching Krang stuff (they're a little obsessed with it) and are usually mistaken as a Krang by the infected/Krang Hounds, so they will walk straight into a Krang camp, grab what they need, and bounce without even telling anyone. ...This also means they're mistaken as a Krang by the Resistance pretty frequently and have almost had their head taken off many, many times for it. They also try to mimic people to put them at ease (copy a smile in a show of friendliness, etc.) but it's always like...in the creepiest way possible, completely on accident. (The brothers blame a mix of Donnie and Casey for this one). They also will climb around on the walls and ceilings and chill out like a spider, and don't come out of their lab that often, so they're pretty universally regarded as a freak and plenty of rumors drift around about them. They're aware of it. They don't give a shit.

They run on the mentally of "they're never gonna accept me anyway, so I'm just gonna do my thing and ignore anyone who decides they have something to say about it" and can be kind of unpredictable, but to the people close to them they care very deeply and feel very strongly for. ...This usually manifests in threats of violence, death, and oddly creative torture on anyone who dared hurt their friends or family. To few people's surprise, they're very close with Casey and April, and the three of them love pulling pranks on the Resistance or doing the weirdest shit just for other people's reactions. They also frequently drag Casey Jr. on dangerous trips into Krang Territory (which definitely has backfired them once or twice or...a few dozen times) and will loop Donnie into experimenting on Krang stuff with them in their lab, but while they can be careless with their friend's safety sometimes, they often end up pulling allies out of the way of enemy attacks because their third eye gives them a better range of vision.

Ebny: I forget you're so...squishy.

Casey Jr.: You're literally made of squishy Krang skin!

The second one I call "Tired Transmasc" (or Transmasc for short) and go by he/they pronouns. Also yes, they get to be little trans Krang I don't care. How does that work? Fuck if I know! They have the little frills and can do that mystic nullification shriek, and can also do that Kraangification thingy. The discovery of both of these abilities were...fun ones.

He's generally pretty quiet and prefers to sit and observe, and is more often the picked on one of the two since he's around Resistance members more and has a harder time standing up for himself or brushing off any comments. They're pretty sure everyone in the Resistance dislikes or hates them because they're a Krang Mutant and they're not entirely wrong, and they ended up getting really insecure and watching everything they did really closely because of it. His tone control and reading of social ques is also crap, so he ends up being too harsh with people on accident or his tone making him sound angry when he's more likely just tired, which doesn't help anything.

They're very much the friend that makes sure everyone takes care of themself, which is very much needed in the case of their sibling (who will literally hole up for days because they can last longer without food & water n stuff), but is also really bad at taking care of themself and stays up until 3 AM dwelling on how bad of a person they probably are instead of sleeping. He makes connections quickly and deeply and is very protective of the people he cares about, to the point that he will jump straight into the line of fire to defend someone (even those he doesn't care about them to try to prove he's not a monster), and has gotten hurt in the process many, many times. They frequently find some comfort in Raph and will just perch on Raph's shoulders (a habit they picked up very young) while Raph is doing stuff, in part because it's a good perch for hearing everything and hanging out and in part because absolutely nobody will dare to openly mock them while Raph is around. (It happened once. It didn't happen again.) Raph affectionately calls him his "backpack" or "new shell".

Sooo I was gonna go a bit more in here but. Um. I didn't realize I'd ramble so much sooo yeah. I'm sorry lol trap card activated. I hope you like them :3 sorry this wasn't LMK but like. Ya follow where the hyperfixation takes you lol.

I will provide more like. Backstory (like how they ended up with the Resistance and all that). Laterr if anyone wants it. I know this was a TON to read (and I'm sorry! Ish!) so here's your reward! Little Toddler Krangs! (First time drawing them alright, I'm figuring out exactly how I want them to look).

Your reward for making it this far ^^

[wonkyreads]

I used to write reviews here instead of just Goodreads. I’m hoping to going back to that, but to be honest, I moved last year and don’t have space for my books. This means I stopped taking pictures for the BPCs, so I stopped taking pictures of my recent reads, so posting here felt pointless. I like ranting here, though. Next year, I will attempt to keep that up.

For this year, take an end of the year top worst and best. (And keep in mind these are obviously just my opinions! This list also doesn’t reflect the books I DNF’d because I don’t consider them read personally.)

Top 10 Worst Reads of 2022

10. The Themis Files by Sylvain Neuvel

- So this is a sci-fi trilogy where a girl accidentally discovers a giant mecha hand buried deep underground and grows up to be a scientist and studies/digs up all of these mecha pieces. The first book is genuinely good, but the arguments and plot lines the author decided to take with the rest of the series progressively pissed me off more and more, though. Not a bad series, just ultimately not one I enjoyed.

9. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

- I feel I’m gonna piss a fair amount of people off with this one, but it won’t be the last time in this list. With how popular this book is online I don’t feel the need to explain what the plot here is. The writing of this book was beautiful, definitely, it was the content I couldn’t stand. I’m a fan of angst. This was not angst. This was throwing a shelf’s worth of terrible things into a sack and shaking it up to see what happened. This was actively attempting to make people feel things in a way that felt so over the top and transparent that I found myself hardly caring at all. To me, this reeks of romanticizing queer trauma and just trauma in general. I’m just not here for it. Show me redemption or healing, they’re harder to write anyway since it seemed all Yanagihara cared about was the mechanics behind the story and not the story itself.

8. The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini

- This book is kind of a modern classic and it’s just… I’m not sure how I was supposed to sympathize with the main character. This is the story of Amir and Hassan, two boys in Afghanistan in the 70’s. Hassan’s father works for Amir’s, but the book spends a large amount of time trying to guilt you into feeling bad for Amir, our main character. That’s kind of the whole plot (without spoilers) as I remember it if I’m being honest. The writing was fine and I’ve liked Hosseini’s books in the past, I just disliked the main character so much it kind of ruined everything. I disliked feeling guilty for not liking him. It all kind of got in the way of the message for me.

7. The Bodyguard by Katherine Center

- Hannah’s a bodyguard and Jake’s a down-to-earth movie star who seems to have a stalker problem. I adore the concept, but I think my main problem with this book is that I hyped it up for myself and told myself I’d love it. That and the premise felt like a promise of some kind of danger and by the time anything actually dangerous happened it was so ridiculous I laughed at it. It’s the over-the-top kind of romance I tend to not like, though. I fully admit to skimming the epilogue because I also kind of hate romance novels that do that.

6. We Are the Brennans by Tracey Lange

- Sunday Brennan gets into a drunk driving accident and then must swallow her pride and move back to New York where her large Irish Catholic family pretends they don’t need her either. This book is about family secrets, but all I really remember about it is that it did this really bad, gimmicky thing where every chapter ended with the same exact sentence, usually dialogue, that the next chapter began with. When it’s done a couple times to show that we’re in the same scene we just left only in a different perspective, or better yet the two perspectives don’t hear the dialogue the same way, it’s fine. But it was every single chapter. Every one of them. I’m also super picky about domestic drama books like this. Hard pass for me.

5. A History of Wild Places by Shae Earnshaw

- Honestly, I’m not sure how to some this up without spoilers so I’ll just say it’s a cult-y mystery told in multiple time lines. This is the second book I’ve read by Earnshaw and both were promising starts with disappointing developments for me. For me, the book was too predictable to be satisfying and, worse, often it felt like the most boring option was constantly being chosen. The concept was originally very promising, but the closer I got to the end and realized the twist wasn’t going to be fun or interesting, the more reading the book started to feel like a chore.

4. There’s Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins

- Oof. I don’t know how I picked this book up and didn’t expect it to be a teen slasher. I’ll watch a slasher any day of the week (including the movie made from this book), but reading them is kind of boring. You know the tropes, so when they’re followed it’s anticlimactic. I also found some of the character interactions hard to believe, which didn’t help raise my opinion any. I’m just harsh on thrillers and any books involving “small towns.”

3. Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo

- When his BFF Eddie, and definitely not his boyfriend, dies of apparent suicide, Andrew moves into Eddie’s old house with Eddie’s friends to find proof that Eddie’d been killed. There’s also some supernatural stuff and dark academia themes. This is another opinion I feel will make enemies, and it’s one I’ve actually posted here before. I read this book so early in the year that I’ve forgotten most of the specifics about it. What I remember disliking the most, though, was along the same lines as A Little Life. So much felt like it was just there to romanticize queer pain and what was left outside of that was a disappointingly slow mystery that didn’t really surprise or scare me. I think the conversations this book attempted to have were interesting, I just also think it failed to pull it all off. I didn’t believe or feel these characters. I didn’t care for how much it read like Ronan (of The Raven Boys) fanfic. I was consistently annoyed with smart characters avoiding the plot line or making idiotic choices. Also, I’m still traumatized by how obsessed literally everyone was with Eddie, I’m genuinely avoiding books using that name now. All around, absolutely wasn’t for me.

2. Dating Dr. Dil by Nisha Sharma

- Romance is not my genre. Romance that is so over-the-top crazy unrealistic is super not my genre. This book follows Kareena and Dr. Dil in a retelling of The Taming of the Shrew. Kareena is supposed to get married before her younger sister and her family is pressuring her, also her dad is selling her childhood home. Dr. Dil hosts a TV show and wants to raise money for his community clinic. I disliked Dr. Dil so, so much and Kareena was so inconsistent. The book felt so unedited and contradictory that I was constantly annoyed with it. The balance between show and tell was nonexistent; you can’t tell me what these characters are and not back it up and expect me to like them or believe them. People’s reactions were crazy over-the-top sometimes and if I have to ask of people actually act like that in real life, I’m already frustrated. I adore The Taming of the Shrew. I could watch 10 Things I Hate About You on repeat. I wanted to love this book so, so badly and was so utterly disappointed in what I got.

And last, but certainly least:

1. Verity by Colleen Hoover

- Verity was one of my most recent reads (I, regrettably, listened to it while icing sugar cookies for Christmas) and it follows Lowen attempting to write the end to a book series she’s never read before by snooping through the original authors memoir manuscripts. Or something. I have never read a Colleen Hoover book before and bought this one through audible years ago because everyone seemed to love it so much. This book has a 4.4 rating on Goodreads. I would just like to know how. Honestly. Talk about unbelievable characters! There were so many unnecessary gratuitous sex scenes in this book and just.. laughable suspense. A lot of the “twists” in this book were so predictable, but I do have a few questions; namely, how the fuck did Jeremy’s milquetoast ass get two women to become so obsessed with him so fast? Also, do people actually think like Lowen does? Holy shit. No really, I have SO many questions and I’m fairly certain none of them are the kind Hoover intended for me to have. I could go on for hours but I’m attempting to avoid spoilers and also it’s a fairly loved book and I don’t want to verge into the territory of yucking someone’s yum or anything, I just genuinely don’t understand. 4.4! Jesus Christ!

[frodo-with-glasses]

Hi, qiuck ask for the word game:

Feanor (ions) + passionate

(or, since you said you might not know that much about zhe silm)

Just anything Haldir related (if you need a word then "family"?)

Hope you're having a great day~

Thanks! I am currently writing this at the end of a pretty good day, so I hope that counts. ^-^

I do, in fact, know very little about the Silmarillion—the only info I can currently remember on Feanor is that he is The Source of All the Problems and a crap dad, and all the subsequent Feanorians are Very Messed Up and/or Super Dead, and I think at one point there was copious amounts of arson involved??—but even if my Silm knowledge weren’t so lacking, this is an LotR-exclusive blog, so I wouldn’t be able to comment on them anyway.

So! Haldir, and family!

It’s fascinating to me that although Haldir’s brother Rumil is mentioned by name in the book, he doesn’t speak once; unless he was the unnamed elf who popped his head up to hide the ladder and say “yrch” to Frodo. I think it’s a safe guess that Rumil doesn’t speak the Common Tongue—or at least not well enough to be conversational—so he lets Haldir do the talking, and seems content to follow his lead.

I wonder which of the two brothers is older. I would guess Haldir, but we can’t know for sure. I wonder if it matters. In a timeless land like Lothlorien, where every day is like a year and every year a day, would minute age differences simply cease to have any meaning in the endless march of unchanging centuries? When your parents and your grandparents and your great-grandparents live together in eternal youth, what separates the generations but memories? When you spend hundreds or even thousands of years in the same isolated paradise—where no one dies, few leave, and even fewer are born—wouldn’t you eventually learn every face, every name, and know everyone else with the same intimacy as your own family?

Now, I have my own opinions on Lothlorien and its self-important exclusionary apathy towards the outside world, but I’m going to put that aside for a moment and try to empathize with Haldir and Rumil. Because when all you’ve known for centuries upon centuries was peace and paradise, there is nothing more alarming than a threat to that status quo.

Suddenly, there is danger. Suddenly, there is a real and present threat to your way of life. Suddenly, enemies are crawling in the outskirts of your forests, and although you can deceive them and lead them away from your deepest strongholds, there’s always the niggling fear in the back of your mind that one day it won’t be enough; one day, something will go wrong.

Your brother has also been assigned to the outer forests.

Of course you tell yourself that he can take care of himself just fine. He’s trained hard, and he’s very skilled, just like you. You work together when you can, and when you can’t, you wish him well and go about your duties with vigilance.

You worry that one day he won’t come back.

You try to put it out of your mind.

(But you worry anyway.)

- - -

WORD ASK GAME!

[persoj]

People have entered and exited this café since I started running it. Most look terrified as they enter, wary of this new environment. I find the best thing to do is smile, sit them down with a cup and explain the whole thing to them. I have a script for it now, almost fully memorised. Usually goes a little like this:

"Here, have a cup. Sit down. My name is Ava. I run this café. Right now, you're not quite alive. You're not dead, don't panic yet. But here is where most come before they pass on. Most people who come in here usually make it out alive, though. At the moment, there's probably someone trying to save your life in a hospital or something. Imagine that! Or maybe you've been put in a coma. Like [Name] over there, they've been here for [Amount of time]. Why don't you go and talk to them? They can probably answer some of your questions."

At the moment, the person who I usually refer them too is Jamie. He's been here for about 2 weeks. Keeps to himself for the most part, unless I send someone over. Then he opens up a bit. He told me that he finds comfort in knowing that he'll probably never meet these people face to face. And even if he does, they won't know what he looks like. That's the fun thing about this place. You don't ever look like yourself, not unless you really want to. I think I've changed my appearance about 70 times since I opened this place. Can't even remember what I looked like. I'm pretty sure I was blonde or brunette or something, but I can never be fully sure.

It's been about 10 years since I opened the shop. I've seen lots of people come and go. Some older people (the older ladies are always so nice), some middle aged, some who look too young to be dying. That's the saddest part. Seeing the smaller ones. Teens, little kids, toddlers, even babies. Everyone feels sad when a child comes through. The whole café sort of just quietens, and everyone comes to talk to them and comfort them. The babies are always held and rocked, and everyone gives them a hug before leaving them with me. I have a room in the back just for the babies. The toddlers will usually play with each other, or just the adults in general. Usually puts a smile on people's faces. It can also really help when a new person walks in. Jittery, jumpy, and shaking. Then a toddler approaches them, asking them to play with toy cars. It's always very cute, and the person calms down almost immediately. The kids always seem a little scared. Stranger Danger makes them wary, as it should. But they learn to trust you eventually. Once you've talked to them, gained their trust and handed them a lollipop or chocolate bar or two, they calm down. The teens are easy enough. They're old enough to be told what's happening to them. You sit them down, explain things whilst you bend at their knees, answer what few questions they may have, then leave them in the corner with a drink. They tend to just sit and contemplate. Most young adults do, as well.

Some try to ask me about my story. I rarely tell them. Only if they end up somehow staying here more than a month. After that time frame, they've earned the privilege. I tell them about the accident, the large truck that rammed into me. I tell them about the coma I've been in for the last ten years. I tell them about the people who come and go, and about my family. My parents, my wife, my brothers and sisters and friends and just everyone I can think of. Just because I rarely tell the story, doesn't mean I don't want to. I tell them everything. My entire life, from start to near-finish. It's always liberating.

Anyways, there's a new customer coming in. I think I'm going to give them a blue cup.

Thank you for reading this far if you did :) I'm very new to tumblr and to writing, so any tips are appreciated!

You run a café on the edge of life and death. Souls who have been departed from their bodies temporarily, such as in comas or near-death experiences, can relax in your quaint cafe for as long as they need before they can either return to their bodies or begin their journey to the afterlife.

[musical-chick-13]

Okay, I know I said my Word Ability was Not Good today, but I'm gonna talk about this anyway. I think there are two potential disconnects in the ongoing discussion of Redemption Arcs™.

The first is that redemption arcs can easily fall flat if they are not planned out in advance. I think for one of these to really work, the creator has to know that's the endgame from early on in the story and write in service of that endgame. There are plenty of stories where the creators have been writing by the seat of their pants, which sometimes leads to either cramming in a redemption arc (which is...a complicated process to tackle) because they have no other immediate ideas, or the popularity of a villainous character leads them to put that character through a Redemption Arc, and thus completely change the direction of the story they were telling.

And if you suddenly need to attempt to deal with a moral complexity you weren't prepared to tackle, then there are usually only two choices: either bypass that complexity completely so the rest of the plot can stay on track as planned (and thus not...actually having an arc, so much as a rapid personality shift--which very quickly takes many audience members out of the story completely), or do earnestly deal with that complexity by giving the bulk of narrative time to the character being redeemed. And if the point was not for this character to be redeemed, that usually leads to a sudden, extreme focus on a character who did not have that focus before.

This is not always a bad thing! But I think some of the exhaustion and irritation and anger that accompanies the idea of redemption arcs is that, if they are not intentionally structured (and structured well, at that), it frequently leads to a story--that was focused on people who, within that narrative, were not uniquely awful--suddenly asking the audience to care about and spend a disproportionate amount of time watching/reading/etc. this piece of media on a character who is, if not uniquely awful, then comparatively so. Many times, it draws focus away from the established protagonists and created a severe tonal shift of some sort--and unless these things are planned out in advance and set-up with some degree of care, then that is very hard to pull off.

The second potential disconnect is that I think a lot of people miss how cathartic it can be for a bad person in a story to just remain bad.

Not that this should be the case in every story (nothing should be the case In Every Story), but there are a lot of people who have been mistreated or abused or traumatized by someone. A family member, a politician, a romantic partner, an institution, a boss, an authority figure, you name it. And it is very, very rare for there to be any actual acknowledgement of the fact that what that person did was wrong. Much less to see any kind of justice for the victims. Sometimes it can be incredibly valuable to see a depiction of an experience someone has had where the takeaway is, "Yes, the person who behaves like this, the person who did this to you is horrible, and should be reviled for what they did. There is no excuse. There is no tragic backstory, no mitigating circumstances, nothing that could in any way be interpreted as somehow "cancelling out" what they've done.* They simply just did a bad thing, and you are well within your right to hate them for that." There is a great deal of emotional resonance to be had in a story acknowledging that sometimes the people who hurt you will not ever feel bad about it, and that is on them.

I've seen a lot of talk about how hating redemption arcs suggests that you believe no one can ever change or become a better person, and that that's both a dangerous and unproductive mindset to have. And I will agree that fandom (and the world in general) is...far too frothing-at-the-mouth about the concept of violently punishing people who don't conduct themselves well. But the fact of the matter is that there are still plenty of awful people who don't change for the better. Who become so trapped in their selfishness or violence toward others that they never even consider trying to change. I know that, for myself, if I start seeing villain after villain (slash antihero after antihero) becoming redeemed, it starts to look like the default (or at least overwhelming majority) of human behavior is "people will change for the better" when plenty of people out there have proven that is not always the case.

I know that there is a lot of unnecessary hand-wringing over Romanticizing [Insert Topic of Choice], an overwhelming lack of grace extended toward works that try to tackle thorny or uncomfortable or morally complex subjects in anything but the most watered-down, palatable, neat way. And obviously there are still stories out there that do create thoughtfully-crafted redemption stories or that have awful characters stay awful. There will always be all kinds of stories about all kinds of things. But I do think, for a fair number of people, asking "Why does every character need to be redeemed" comes less from a place of believing that no one is capable of improvement, and more from a place of wanting there to be a more varied depiction of the human experience and the people who make it up. "Everyone, no exception, will always get better, and you will always be able to reach any given person" is just as untrue as "Everyone is inherently stuck in who they are as a person early on in life and no one is capable of change," because both of those are absolute statements.

(And this gets complicated further when you look at which kind of redemption arcs--or, rather, which characters who undergo them--get celebrated and which are either controversial or actively hated. If we look at the pattern of which characters are asked by the audience to get redeemed, most often these are white, abled men. If we look at the redemption arcs that tend to be more widely-accepted or have more people willing to defend them, those arcs also tend to favor men--usually lighter-skinned or white men specifically. I think some of the agitation is over this particular general phenomenon in mainstream media as well. Because it's yet another way that women, people of color, and all other marginalized people get shoved aside to "make room for" and concentrate squarely on the less-marginalized.)

*not that every single redemption arc has all or even any of these present, they just tend to pop up rather frequently

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

It's Gotten Worse

I've given up on The World After the Fall.

Back when Game of Thrones was starting to get big as a book series, I got to the Red Wedding in book 3 and I gave up on it. My take on things was that the emotional center of the series was "will the Stark family reunite?" as a question, and that question had been answered in the cruelest way possible about four times in a row by that point. A resounding, "No." *whack* "No." *whack* "No." *whack* "No." *whack*

Imagine George standing at a table with a cleaver, saying that, and bringing the cleaver down on something that crunches wetly just out-of-frame.

Anyway.

It felt to me as if the premise of the series as laid out in the first book wasn't still at all where it was going, and didn't care to invest emotional energy in new tissue-paper humans who would be ripped apart in the author's hands and thrown in the garbage at a moment's notice.

The characters - (except the witch, seriously I feel like I misread something, she was a main character and then just got written out of the story; I don't even remember a goodbye or a death or a "no, it's better if I don't find her again" or anything) - have proven a little more durable in The World After the Fall...but I have a lot of the same sensation. The comic is up to its third or fourth premise; its third or fourth new vibe, and I don't think the author realizes how much it costs the comic every time it changes gears that way.

The genie was let out of the bottle like two years ago in the comic, and the author's been trying to shove it back in for the entire time since, and the genie's not going back in the bottle but it is getting more and more ugly and squidging around the author's hands in much the same way as this metaphor's squidging around mine.

It's still a really pretty comic, I appreciate the "fight against a broken world" vibe the author's currently trying to run with as the plot's core, and I do feel like it has better legs than the things he bounced from to get where he is...but I find I can't get over those first stories and the consequences he's trying to ignore from them.

And, like, boy do I get it.

I was writing an isekai and it ran like,

Chapter 1: Dude wakes up in his magic tower with his magic generals and starts trying to figure out how dangerous the new world he's in is.

Chapter 2: Something - probably the same force that shoved dude into the body of his videogame character among his magic generals that he'd made up in the videogame - decides that dude having a tower full of magic generals is unsporting to the rest of the world (almost certainly a reactionary opinion to my having recently watched Overlord at the time) and puts them all into stasis and de-powers dude.

Chapter 3: Dude goes into town and accidentally kills the reprehensible nobleman's son by scratching said son with his own magic soul-sucking dagger, then uses mind magic to MIB "flashy-thing" the bar and make his escape.

Chapter 4: Dude turns himself into a kid to preserve mana and gets picked up from the street by a caretaker at an orphanage. He finds out about a plot to use orphaned kids as mana batteries through a program that sends them to a school from which they don't return. Which isn't suspicious yet, because they haven't been gone from the orphanage that long, except to our dude because he's from our world and therefore very genre-savvy.

Chapters 3 and 4...There's the start of a plot there! There's a character at a reasonable amount of power - interesting magic, limited mana pool, a problem-solving style that is much more about finesse than force (which makes it kind of a bad match for Shounen manga but while that's often how I picture such stories in my head I'm not actually a manga-ka), and a threat that can continue to scale with our hero's capabilities (dealing with the nobleman whose son he killed, then the guy who commanded him to start taking orphans, then the entity or group that set up the entire scheme)

Chapters 1 and 2 have nothing to offer the story except limitations, rules that are hard to live up to, goals that will contradict or seem like they should override the goals of the mainline plot, and a whole lot of "why doesn't he just" questions that I honestly have no answers to. If I'd been writing this as a serial manga and releasing it, I'd be in the same position when I came up with chapters 3-4 of my idea as the author of the manhwa I'm dropping is in now.

When I say I get it I mean I really get it.

But that's not a reason for me to keep reading.

I don't want to yuck your yum if you like the series. The art is seriously impressive. And - perhaps the hardest part to say, for me, because it sounds mean - while I don't like the writing personally due to what feel to me like structural flaws, I also get the sense that the author cares about writing well. It's not a sure shot for success for the series' continuation or conclusion, but it's a hell of a lot better than an author who doesn't, right? There's a much better chance that the writing will continue improving. I wish the author felt free to make a clean break and just start a new series with the ideas he now has clarified, because I think that story would be better for being whole, just as I will start my story with "chapter 3" if I ever try to get it out of my head and into a real publishable format.

[myafterlifeisbetterthenyours]

How would IMP, The Goetia's and whichever Hazbin characters you want react to their SO being a clumsy, dense, idiot who messes up in nearly everything except expressing their love for them

With a clumsy, dense, idiotic S/O that loves them oh so much.

Blitzø

Blitzø doesn't really care how clumsy or dense you were, I mean the idiot was an idiot himself, so he didn't really care if you were as well.

And sure, he had to be very specific with you and couldn't keep breakable objects near any edges and sure you weren't the brightest. But neither was he.

And he was awesome.

But Blitzø didn't care about any of that.

He loved you for you.

And sure it was frustrating when you accidentally broke something, or when he was forced to explain to you something a dozen times before you got it. But you always tried your best and that's all he could ask.

Plus, when he got mad at you, you got all sad and you being sad is like, the sadest thing he'd ever seen.

But no matter how frustrating you could be, you absolutely made up for it with just an overwhelming amount of love.

You wwre constantly telling him how much you love him. Leaving him love letters, drawings, and just giving general physical affection.

Kisses were your favourite.

Surprise kisses? Even. better!

Youd pop out of nowhere, giving him a smooch randomly throughout the day.

He loved this of course, the Imp a total sucker for your goofy, spontaneous romance. Always eating it up like the tastiest thing in Hell.

Millie

Millie just loved you.

You may have been a ditz, and not the sharpest blade up her sleeve, but you were her favourite person in Hell.

She just loved your clumsy, lovable and admittedly dim intellect.

Now, it could be difficult to deal with you, not being the brightest bulb and all that, but she also wasn't above admitting she did like being the smarter one in the relationship.

Not that that would have changed her wearing the metaphorical pants in the relationship.

She absolutely loved your affection, you being a hopeless romantic. She absolutely loved your affection.

The woman herself was a loving momma bear and just ate up your affection, the two of you just hopelessly in love.

Funnily enough, her family had a mixed opinion of you. On one hand they saw you as a ditzy, air headed and rather clumsy. A dangerous combination on Wrath.

But they also saw you as an honest, hard working and straightforward person that didn't shy away from hard work, aaand you could take a joke, a respectable combination on for the in-laws, Millie parents eventually warming up to you.

This only making Millie love you even more.

Moxxie

If you were anyone else, Moxxie likely would have despised you.

Your laid back, careless nature. Your ditzy, airheaded behaviour, the way you think everyone is a potential friend and your seemingly supernatural ability to knck things over.

It was infuriating.

But with you being his S/O, it was different.

All those thing that would normally make him want to tear his hair out, he just found them endearing.

Your ditzy bumbling behaviour was cute and lovable the the thespian. You were like a big puppy.

Your clumsiness was something he always attributed to bad eye sight, and your being dense, well... he didn't need sarcasm anyway.

And sure, you weren't good at much, but you loved him. And you made sure he knew.

If he ever needed anything, you were on it in a second, suddenly the sharpest and most competent Imp he'd ever seen until you finished what he'd asked for.

You loved affection. You'd often hold him close, petting, nuzzling, kissing. You loved any type of affection. You being excellent when he got stressed out, holding him close, doing your best to calm him down.

You were his favourite Imp in hell and funilly enough, if you were anyone else, he'd hate you. The man having a little chuckle over that from time to time.

Loona

Loona wasn't a picky person.

She was emotional, hormonal, moody, and often time violent.

And yeah, she hated most the shmucks in this literal Hellscape, seeing them as a fucking bother.

But... as much as she hated to admit it. She had the biggest soft spot for you.

Sure you were a ditz and couldn't not knock something over to save your life, but... all things considered, you were probably one of her favourite people in the world.

You were blunt as spoon and sure, you often said the wrong thing at the wrong time, but you were honest about everything.

She wasn't even sure you could lie, you were just too damned dense to make things up.

And yeah, that could be an issue, like the time Blitzø had asked where you'd been all day, and you without missing a beat just Blurted out that you'd snuck away to make out.

And sure, that was fucking annoying.

But when you saw you'd upset her, you did your absolute best to make it up to her. Going out and getting that chocolate cake you knew she loved. You bluntly apologising for being so stupid.

That being when she stepped in, making you stop. Telling you you aren't stupid, your just dull, and she couldn't blame you for that.

Youd end up, curled up together on the room, eating the cake together, curled up in a surprisingly romantic little moment together.

Stolas

Oh, Stolas just loved you!

Your simple, ditzy nature was just so endearing for the man. He just loved how straightforward you were.

Granted, much of that came from being as dull as a busted light bulb, but he loved that none the less.

Granted, some of his more witty remarks went well over your head, but that was a small price to pay for the refreshment that was your company.

It didn't matter what it was, if he asked a question, he got an honest, straightforward response. Always.

Now sure, most would likely take offence to many of your answers. "does this make me look fat?" Or "do you like my hair cut?" Being a question you'd answer brutally honest.

But to the prince, whom has lived his entire life surrounded by people that would either kiss his ass, or do everything in their power to destroy him.

But you, you were honest because, well, that was who you were. You told him the truth, good or bad, and he loved you for it.

And in the bedroom, well~

Brutal honesty could be extremely arousing. You telling him exactly if you thought he was attractive, usually in brutal detail.

And well, you always told him how you felt, if ever the relationship was in turmoil, you'd tell him exactly the problem.

And the affection!

Oh how he loved your affection.

From the hugs and kisses, the the Lewder things you'd do in private, like taking the man when you felt like it, Stolas making it clear he was DTF 24/7. And well, you weren't dense enough to not know what that was~

You were what he needed. Brutally honest, a little air headed and absolutely gushing with affection. You were the light of his life and no matter how frustrating you could be at times, he loved you more then life itself.

Stella

Stella was something of a perfectionist.

And normally she'd expect as much from her partner.

But you... you were a clumsy, dim witted, moronic and dense as lead.

But by Lucifer, she loved you.

She was so used to everything being perfect, dealing with people who she could never tell what they were thinking. Her fellow Bluebloods always conniving, always with an alternative motive.

But with you... she always knew what you were thinking. Always knew what you wanted or how you felt.

And sure, you had no spacial awareness and wouldn't recognise sarcasm if it smacked you in the face.

But again, that's what she loved.

And you loved her.

And you made sure she knew it.

Mostly because you were constantly telling her. That always making her swell with emotion.

The woman so happy to have you in her life.

You were her safety blanket. Something she could always count on, you absolutely showered her in affection.

You gave affection like Nobles gave insults, you were completely unashamed to tell her you loved her more then anything in the world, anywhere, any time.

Your favourite was coming up to her, calmly asking her lean down.

And when she did, youd give her a big smooch, before walking off, happily going about your buisness.

And yes, you could be frustrating at times, but so could everything else in her life, the woman was just glad she had something to give her some happiness in her Hellish Royal existence.

Here, to tide you over until season 2 is finally out.

[mwolf0epsilon]

@maria-lamb-b & @mintydeluxes-blog thank you for giving me an excuse to throw in my two cents on this very specific topic.

Alright so, I've noticed a bit of a pattern with these three engines that raises some alarm bells in terms of general safety. Not of the engines themselves, mind you, (although it could be said they very much pose a risk to themselves since the fat controller can usually get them repaired, but he's not made of infinite money) but of the people that both work for the railway and frequent it as passengers.

This is a discussion I've had with @british-hero and @milfcutlawquane respectively, and Rogue even tossed in their own thoughts on another engine that they think should qualify on my danger scale, although I excluded him from the list because of a very specific factor that will be elaborated on in a bit.

Anyway...

I'll start off with the more harmless of the three engines. That being Sodor's very own splendid #5 red engine, James.

James is a tender engine of an experimental design (being the only Hughes class 28 with a mogul configuration and a few other alterations that make him unique among his long forgotten/scrapped kin). He's not the biggest and certainly not the fastest engine on Sodor, but he's not a pushover either. More of a working mule with a show pony kind of attitude. He's hard-working when he puts his mind to it, ambitious and has a rather showman-ish demeanor.

And therein lies the problem...

James's vanity and need to prove himself as a splendid and very useful engine makes him a bit of a hazard to work with. Especially when it comes to him rushing into stations and breaking abruptly to make his special entrance.

Not only is it an uncomfortable experience for anyone who might be inside of the coaches he's pulling (it would certainly make for a very bumpy ride, and not at all advisable for people to get up before he's fully stopped at a station), but his crew is also at risk of potentially getting tossed out onto the rails since James has an open cab...

I have a feeling his driver and fireman have had near misses because of his constant showing off, and also have no doubt in my mind that they extensively warn replacement crews to hold on for dear life lest they want to accidentally end up under James's wheels...

I know James likely doesn't intend to do harm as he clearly loves pulling passengers (and people do seem to love him, especially children), but considering the fact one of his first incidents involving coaches was him being so rough that he broke a break-line... Yeah he's not exactly gentle, and he tends to focus more on himself, which makes him a bit of a risk if left unchecked.

Although not as much as Thomas...

I have to admit, for a TV series protagonist, Thomas has had quite a few mishaps that should have ended in human casualties. Of course as a kid's cartoon that's not going to happen, but if you were to look at the world of Sodor as if it were the real world... Oh boy... No amount of plot armour could save his poor crew.

Thomas has a penchant for getting himself into some of the most reckless and bizarre situations... From getting such an inflated ego from teasing Gordon that he ends up down a mine (which is the first instance of where his crew could have potentially been injured or even killed), to smashing into the stationmaster's family home (and coming inches from killing the man and his family as they ate breakfast), to getting himself abducted and put to servitude after getting himself and his crew hopelessly lost in the mainland (how long did his crew go without food or water? How close were they from getting killed in the molten slag vat? Heck they could have fallen off his cab when he was lifted by Beresford!), not to mention the whole Misty Island fiasco (need I say anything about how he ended up there???), every mishap leading up to the Great Railway Show (that crash with Norman definitely should have killed his driver and fireman, and there's no way the bridge jump wouldn't have ended all three of them), and the wretched horror that is his BWBA shenanigans...

The point is... Thomas's impulsive nature makes him a danger to his crew specifically. At the very least he tries to be more careful when pulling passengers, and even shows remarkable consideration for them (an example of this is, instead of relishing in taking a break, he used what free time he had to help a new mother calm her infant by riding around Sodor until the baby fell asleep). He's cheeky, impulsive, and sometimes rude, but he's also compassionate and probably does feel bad when he realizes how much worse things could have gone if things hadn't gone in his and his crew's favour...

Now... Before I reveal who I personally think is the most dangerous engine on Sodor, let me address what Rogue had to bring to the plate:

They suggested that Gordon should also be on this list, because some of his accidents have been the most iconic if not most eye-catching ones in terms of magnitude.

And boy, they're not wrong...

While I agree that Gordon can potentially be a hazard on the rails due to his sheer size, weight and speed alone, I have to point out a very important element of Gordon's personality that at the very least prevents him from being at the top of this list: He's a people-pleaser.

Gordon may be stubborn, impatient, prideful to a fault and even a little ill-tempered and somewhat arrogant at times, but he is also conscientious and values both his work ethic and punctuality. Even if he peacocks his position a little bit ultimately what the boss says goes, even if sometimes what the boss says isn't what he wants to hear (and Gordon has thrown his fair share of tantrums, but he usually does relent in the end if he really has to).

As Sodor's express engine, he has a lot of responsibilities that he tries to uphold with the utmost diligence. Which to me means that, even if he's not the smoothest of rides or even the friendliest (look no further than 'Henry gets the Express'), he at least does his best to do his work right and on time. Which includes putting passenger's safety over his own ('Gordon runs Dry' is another good example here).

Make no mistake! This hundreds of tons giant metal blue beast IS dangerous in his own right, as is any engine if circumstances are just so, but nowhere near as dangerous as...

Henry.

Yep, that's right. The big green gentle giant is the engine I consider most dangerous on the Island of Sodor.

You'd think that's a rather bizarre assumption when Diesel 10 is also around but... Have we ever seen Diesel 10 interact with humans other than Mr. Conductor and Junior outside of 'Thomas and the Magic Railroad'? Have we even seen him pulling coaches or hauling trucks?

As far as I'm aware, due to his rather unconventional (not to mention illegal) modification, Diesel 10 is only used for clearing obstructions from tracks.

And even if he is rather aggressive towards steam engines, he's very easily put back in his place and doesn't really show up much. Overall his entire villanous/antagonistic persona seems to just follow the 'Oh well! Better luck next time!' motto, and really doesn't do much harm overall... He's just a nuisance at best. Which makes Gordon being terrified enough of him to visibly shake a little laughable... It's like Diesel 10 operates on vibes alone.

But I digress...

There's a reason I consider Henry the most dangerous engine. And the reason is... He's the one engine we've seen take control from his crew more consistently than any other engine on the island.

In 'Henry's Health and Safety', after suffering an accident and learning about health and safety from Victor, Henry becomes obsessed with the concept to the point where he takes Rocky without permission and goes about clearing what he considers obstructions and other hazards, causing Percy trouble and even keeping others from using Rocky when Toby derails.

This was not asked of him, he wasn't supposed to be clearing tracks, he just did it because he fixated on his own accident and his desire to make the rails safer. And this is a behavior that he should have unlearned ages ago... Considering his fixation on things that inconvenience him personally ended poorly already...

The thing is... This isn't even my best example for why Henry is a hazard. Ok sure, this is a big engine wrenching control away from his crew... But he's just trying to be useful in a way he knows how to be! Why is that so bad? Thomas does that too sometimes!

Because he's done it while carrying passengers before, and it was much much worse... Especially because, upon analyzing this particular incident more closely, I realized it could have ended in two trains' worth of people dead and at least one other engine totaled...

In 'Henry Spots Trouble', after learning about chicken pox, Henry becomes increasingly more anxious about potentially getting sick. He has no idea engines can't catch it, so when he sees three other engines who coincidentally have spots on their faces, he freaks out.

At first he only speeds up and bumps his passengers about ("like peas in a frying pan"). But when he sees Gordon with a face full of red speckles, he freaks out so much that he completely reverses his controls and surges backwards at enough speed that he can clear Gordon's Hill without any difficulty at all.

I repeat... He's reversing at high speed coaches first... And he nearly smashes said coaches into James who himself is carrying a passenger train of his own.

I'm no engineer, but I know for a fact if Henry had collided with James coaches first, he would have not only potentially destroyed his smaller friend's buffers, footplate and firebox (and potentially burst his boiler), but he would have also crushed his coaches like tin cans...

Worse yet if James had been just a little bit slower to react, he might have not cleared the track in time and his own coaches would have been violently rear-ended, ending in two decimated passenger trains and several casualties.

What's even worse than that is, Henry is so panicked that he doesn't even seem to acknowledge he nearly bashed into James at all and continues to flee and scream for Gordon to get away from him because he's so fixated on the idea his friends have all got chicken pox and that they'll infect him.

Henry is extremely dangerous because, even if he's mellowed out over the years and become less prone to being rude and snappish (ultimately becoming such a beloved and easy to trust engine), he's still incredibly big and strong and has a very flighty disposition that simply doesn't mix well with the two previous attributes. Kind of like an easily-spooked draft horse. A several tons metal draft horse that can turn on his people at the drop of a hat and toss them about with great ease without even realizing.

And what makes this so heartbreaking is that out of the three engines I listed here, Henry would be the most emotionally devastated if he actually hurt or killed someone. Especially if that person were to be any of the passengers that put their safety and trust onto his buffers, or even the fireman that fought to give him a fighting chance prior to his rebuild...

Can't stop thinking about how Sodor has three very consistently dangerous engines, and neither of them is Diesel 10...