#as long as ankh behaves

[maskedriderrogue]

ankheiji but ankh gets to be a beastformer

[joltik-is-a-smol-bean]

fist things first there will be alot of dividers separating these questions they can all be found Here

This gets long so questions are under the cut!

TWs FOR MENTIONS OF BLOOD AND MEATS!

how many _types do you have?

1 if you only count Vampire, 3 if you count the Werebat paratype and Coyotehearted

when was your awakening? & for how long do you know about your identity?

Vampire back in 2013, Coyotehearted in 2020, Werebat October this year lol

is your _type real or fictional?

Coyote is real obviously, Werebat is fictional, vampire is kind of both as a Sanguinarian I elaborate more on that over on my main blog @sangaverage mostly under

#Irl vampire or #Actually vampiric

do you enjoy being a […] (Just put your label here)

Yes actually! Sorry that answer is so short lol

what's the reason of your identity? You can say that you don't know.

Coyotehearted is because I have such a connection with them! They are fairly misunderstood creatures with such rebellious attitudes and malicious compliance towards humanity it's hard not to love them for it!

Werebat Paratype connects with my vampiric identity I get alot of bat wings in my meditations and other spiritual stuff so I equated the two.

Vampire is because I am a Sanguinarian, Basically an unknown condition that makes us need blood to feel better, the widley considered theory is because there is something in the blood that our bodies have trouble producing on its own, hence the use of the word Vampire, that's a rather simple explanation but again it'll be over on the main blog so I won't go too much into it here!

are you also a part of the LGBT+ community? & does your _type have a different gender/sex than you? Do you even know your _type's gender?

Yep I'm Demisexual and recently questioning pansexual because at the end of the day for me it doesn't matter what you identify as or your orientation is, so long as it's legal, if love/attraction happens then whatever it happens! It just takes a little extra time and a personal connection to get there lol.

All is the same gender/ sex as me

do you think that you were born with your identity or has it "started" during your life?

Vampire is at birth for me but I needed to awaken into it, the other two were 'discovered' for lack of a better term

do you experience shifts? If yes, what kind of shifts do you experience most often? & do you own any gear? If yes, what is it?

wings in meditation, fangs just randomly, 'Twoofs/ 'vamping out' when I'm on need of blood/ energy (again more on my main)

Yep, Vampire has fangs A Legacy Ankh and a few other bits of jewellery, coyote has some ears, werebat has nothing yet really...

is your _type more nocturnal or does it prefer daytime, what is your _type's natural territory/home & is your _type an animal?

All are rather nocturnal to varying degrees, all seem to like the forest especially foggy/ at night, coyote and werebat are obviously animal, vampire certainly behaves like it!

what are your beliefs? Does it affect your identity, does your identity affect your everyday life, how? & does your _type affect your diet?

I assume you mean spiritual beliefs? I am a demonolator and eclectic Witchcraft practitioner, I also practice vampire magick due to my Vampiric identity as a Sanguinarian.

I am technically hybrid as I have learned to psychic feed somewhat, but it's not as 'filling'...

I Don't know about everyday life but due to being Sanguinarian I do need to feed on either something bloody or energy every now and again, my feeding average is once or twice monthly! As such this also affects my diet, only to a small degree but things with high heme iron tend to help if I can't have blood/ blood foods.

(disclaimer I do not condone people randomly try blood drinking but as a Sanguinarian it does help me medically somehow, what you do is up to you bit I will not be held responsible/accountable please be safe as I am, all food and 'donations' are thoroughly prepared/tested as to remove/prevent diseases)

do you have alterhuman friends? If yes, in real life or in the internet?

Yep in real life, S/O is wolfhearted and a close friend is either raccoonhearted or racoon Therian they are still questioning.

Alex's alterhuman ask game!

Reblog this post to let others ask you question(s)!

I tried to make this accesible to all alterhumans.

🌈 - how many _types do you have?

🌌 - when was your awakening?

👾 - is your _type real or fictional?

👽 - do you enjoy being a […] (therian, otherkin, ect. Just put your label here)

🧷 - what's the reason of your identity? You can say that you don't know. (Ex. "My theriantrophy is spiritual)

💚 - what are your beliefs? Does it affect your identity?

⚧️ - does your _type have a different gender/sex than you? Do you even know your _type's gender?

🧤 - do you own any gear? If yes, what is it?

🏳️‍🌈 - are you also a part of the LGBT+ community?

🌚 - do you experience shifts? If yes, what kind of shifts do you experience most often?

🌝 - how does your identity affect your everyday life?

💊 - is your _type more nocturnal or does it prefer daytime?

🤖 - for how long do you know about your identity?

🍁 - do you think that you were born with your identity or has it "started" during your life?

🧸 - does your _type affect your diet?

🛍️ - do you have alterhuman friends? If yes, in real life or in the internet?

🍂 - what is your _type's natural territory/home?

😺 - is your _type an animal?

That's all byeeee :3

[anulithots]

Ankh's apology, Part II [scrapped]

The three days after the battle of the fates were usually days Kamari had to faerself. Usually Kamari won the battle of the fates though, so fae didn’t know if fae still had faer three days. Without a dying fairy to watch, Kamari was left to… sit around by faer tree, not knowing what to do with faerself. 

After a full night of deliberation, Kamari decided that fae should use the three days for faer sanity, lest Kamari feel like fae lost faerself again. Fae would rather not slip up ever again. 

Kamari ended up in worried pacing, wondering if caring for faerself counted as wasting time. Fae spent the first two days doing this, which made the whole thing utterly pointless. 

Pointless things frustrated Kamari. 

The sun rose on the third day, Kamari lied beneath faer tree and considered seeing what mood the elders were in after faer song fiasco. If they were in a good mood, Kamari would beg for forgiveness. If they were in a bad mood, Kamari would cram as many High Protector tasks fae could fit within a day as an apology. 

It sounded like a wondrous plan. Kamari propped faerself up and proceeded to bonk faer head on faer tree’s branch. 

“Wow. I didn’t know the High Protector was such a mess.” 

Kamari rubbed faer head. Ankh. 

Fae had thought over faer conversation with Ankh a few times. Fae decided that ANkh wanted to test Kamari’s loyalties to the elders with a long winded apology right when Kamari was vulnerable. It was a clever tactic. The elders would be proud. 

And here Ankh was, sitting at the edge of Kamari’s tree, judging faer. 

Kamari huffed. “Still here for an apology?”

“You did that already.” Ankh smirked with faer chipped grin. “ And I finalized my revenge plot.” 

Kamari frowned. “And when did I agree to be a part of this?”

“Two days ago.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Then you have a bad memory.” 

Kamari bristled, yet fae tried to remember Ankh’s face again, despite faerself. “Listen, bad memory or not, you’ll find better revenge companions elsewhere. I’m the High Protector after all. I could leak your intentions to the elders. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“Last I checked, you didn’t want to be the High Protector.” 

Kamari swallowed the off-beats of faer heart. “And when did you do all this ‘checking’?”

“You.. er- I mentioned the High Protector and you… you started… crying?” 

Kamari did do that. Fae cursed the fates. 

“... crying or not. I…. you caught me at a… a moment of weakness.” 

Ankh’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “A moment of weakness?”

“It will not happen again.” 

“Reall-”

“Shush.”

Ankh did shush for a moment, two, before fae whispered. “So do you want to take down the system that hurts you?”

“Do you want to get yourself killed for trying?”

“It’s either killed or hated for the rest of our lives.” 

‘Our.’ That’s the word Ankh used. ‘Our lives’. This fairy did things that were tame compared to Kamari’s atrocities, yet the others still hated Ankh. Afterwards, would they hate Kamari too?

If they did, then what was the point of any of this?

Kamari growled. Pointless things frustrated faer. “The answer to your request is no. Good day to you. May the fates wish you well.” 

Ankh flicked faer ears. “We have stories in the Receiver Territory, no doubt in the Guardian territory too.”

“Oh no. Stories. I’m so scared.” 

“Hmmm. But it’s the stories that are scared of you. The plays have never been the same.”

Kamari swallowed bile. “Plays?”

“There isn’t a story told to younglings without the High Protector in it. ‘Fae’ll come and get you if you don’t behave’, ‘Your guardian is only disappointed in you because the High Protector wants to take you away’, ‘Why are you acting like this? You’ll only bring the High Protector to you.’ It’s a whole thing. Even the last play was about how scary the ‘oh so powerful’ High Protector is.”

Kamari wanted to vomit. 

Ankh tilted faer head. “Look. I don’t know what cockroach dung those elders told you, but any youngling would bolt at the sight of you. There’s no way we’re getting out of this unless we take down the fallen fairy system.” 

Kamari didn’t want to believe Ankh. Fae didn’t believe Ankh. But Kamari couldn’t help but think of the elders’ threats. They practically told faer they didn’t have an end for the High Protector. Why else would they threaten faer? Why would they use threats when they could just as easily tell faer that it would be over soon? 

If Kamari decided to follow Ankh’s ‘plan’ then faer entire existence as the High Protector would be pointless. If fae continued being the High Protector, fae could never have the fate fae was promised. There was no way out of this. 

Which meant there was no harm in trying. 

Kamari glared at Ankh. “You have two moon cycles. I’ll leave if this doesn’t work… but I won’t tell the elders either.” 

“So the High Protector has some common courtesy. Who knew?” 

Kamari growled. “My name is Kamari.”

“Much obliged Kamari. Welcome to my revenge plot.”

“I doubt I’ll enjoy my stay.” 

Ankh grinned, chipped and lopsided. “You probably won’t” 

____________

Kamari can't relax and Ankh's uncomfortable with emotion. More at eight. /j

Anywhosies. I'm... not really sure how this is going to work out. I know where this needs to go (it doesn't end well.) but all I have for my middle portion is a lot of random conversations and snippets. So I might do that for a little while until Anuli comes into the picture.

TL;DR - the plot may or may not dissolve from here on out. We'll see. any suggestions would be much appreciated for how the conversations are going and if this is progressing nicely? I don't know what I'm doing. <3

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the tag list! <3

@waitingforthesunrise @sm-writes-chaos @holdmyteaplease @writeblr-of-my-own @osbob-the-existent @awleeofficial @clearcloudlesssky 

[asknarashikari]

Touma relationship with other main Rider headcanons?

Tsukasa: The man has frequently invaded his home, stolen food from his fridge, and more importantly, destroyed his son's favorite plushie. What do you think he thinks of him?

Shoutaro: Shou appreciates his taste in hats... his taste in pants, not so much. But they do get along well, especially since they lean on the moderate side when dealing with the others' shenanigans.

Philip: Philip scares the crap out of Touma, mainly due to his manic curiosity and obsessive tendencies :P

Eiji: Much of Eiji's ways baffle Touma, but they get along pretty well... as long as Ankh stays behaved

Gentaro: 'Nuff said

Haruto: Touma pretty much knows him as the one that went crazy after being banned from plain sugar doughnuts due to health concerns. RIP

Kouta: Touma gets along with him well enough, but he does wonder why Kouta sometimes looks irked when he looks at him. (Hint: it's because Kouta has to look up at him.)

Shinnosuke: Touma didn't really understand his behavior towards the Baby Riders... until he himself became a dad, that is. He's still way more easygoing compared to Shin though

Takeru: He's the first senpai Touma met, so they have a somewhat closer kinship. Touma sends him copies of his books when they get published, 'coz Takeru likes them :))

Emu: Same with Shinnosuke

Sento: After being subjected to his experiments... Touma is rightfully a smidge afraid of Sento making things go boom.

Sougo: He kinda understands why Shin and Emu are protective of the kid. He tries not to indulge him too much, though he's far less stern with him as well.

Aruto: As Touma's immediate senpai, Aruto does try to look out for Touma as much as he could... Touma, while appreciative, wonders if maybe the concern is a little misplaced with the crap he's been through.

Ikki: He does worry for Ikki a lot, but Touma tries not to pry too much into Ikki's business and helps the others get off his back. He would, however, let Ikki's parents know if he had some pressing concern.

[skyriderwednesday]

Untitled Penguin Fic - Chapter One

“Well the good news is it appears that in his mind he is still Lord Vetinari,” Ponder said. “Unfortunately, however, he is of course Lord Vetinari.” -- It’s a lovely day in Ankh-Morpork, and Lord Vetinari has been turned into a penguin. Fortunately for the wizards, he still believes himself to be Lord Vetinari. Unfortunately for everybody else, and Drumknott in particular, he still believes himself to be Lord Vetinari. It’s going to be a difficult few days...

(G Rated, 4436 words)

Chapter Two - Chapter Three & Epilogue

It was at this point tradition that at least once a month, a card with the university’s seal on it would find its way to Vetinari’s desk inviting him to the demonstration of some development or innovation. Typically this would be politely declined with a correspondence card of his own, delicately noting that he had never known magic to advance so fast and he would of course be interested to hear of the results but unfortunately the invitation overlapped with a very important meeting that couldn't possibly be cancelled or postponed - then inevitably shortly after the stated time the next day, there would be a bright flash of light and all of the city’s trees would be transformed into cactuses, and the pigeons were suddenly purple, and several hours later Vetinari’s desk would be piled high with reports of student wizards running about performing counterspells, and the requested follow-up on the demonstration's result would mysteriously fail to appear. This occasion would have been no different, had there not been an additional note from the Archchancellor pinned to the type-set card, and had Drumknott not been able to find anything for it to conflict with. ‘Look, old chap,’ the note had said in so many words, ‘you only have to show up once, and they won’t ask you again. Besides, this one has been going very well, and it’s something like the sixth iteration of the same idea -- they’re sure to have ironed the kinks out by now.’ As such, Drumknott was hovering anxiously as Vetinari buttoned his coat. “I do not understand your insistence at dwelling upon worst-case scenarios,” he said to him. “It is simply unrealistic for catastrophic failure to occur every time.” “But, my lord, the wizards--” “Mr Drumknott,” Vetinari said sternly, “for as often as their insufferable bravado outweighs the evidence of their effectiveness, the wizards do in fact know what it is that they are doing. They very well understand the dangers of magic and the steps necessary to contain it. No one, to pluck a wildly improbable scenario out of the ether, is going to be transfigured into a penguin, and if they are it will be quite swiftly put to rights. Now, do I have to order you to put on your coat?” “No, sir…” Drumknott replied quietly. “Good,” Vetinari said, emptying his pockets of the various debris and detritus from previous outings. “We should not be at the university too long. If you require genuine incentive, I suppose that we could visit the tearooms afterwards?” Drumknott paused in trying to convince the lining of his coat sleeve to behave itself and nodded. “I would like that, sir.” “Splendid, we shall add that to our agenda then.” As Vetinari waited for Rufus to finish putting on his coat, Wuffles waddled up to him and dropped a toy on his foot. “Oh I am sorry,” he said, picking Wuffles up, “we’re going out.” Wuffles’s ears drooped and he whined plaintively. “I promise you we shan’t be long, and I will play when we return. Is that all right with you?” “Wuff,” he licked Vetinari’s chin. “Good dog. I will give you a biscuit and then you will go back to your basket, yes?” “Wuff!” “Very good dog, excellent dog in fact. I assume you would like a red one?” “Wuff!” Drumknott cleared his throat, “Sir…” Vetinari’s eyes appeared over the desk. “Mr Drumknott, you will have your biscuit at the tearooms.” Drumknott sighed patiently. “Sir, I mean to say that the carriage is waiting.” “Of course you do,” Vetinari said, slipping Wuffles a second biscuit as he stood up.

They did not speak much on the way. In fact, other than confirming details of upcoming engagements, Drumknott hardly spoke ten words. As the carriage came to a stop outside the university, there was a small congregation of wizards awaiting them. “Havelock!” Ridcully boomed joyfully as Vetinari stepped down from the carriage, “Great to see you, man!” “Good morning Archchancellor,” Vetinari replied with a calm smile, “likewise. Is that a new robe you’re wearing?” “Oh, this old thing? No, found it in the wardrobe. That is a new coat you’ve got on though.” Vetinari tilted his head, conceding. “Since we saw each other last, yes.” Beside the Archchancellor, buried in a scarf to the point of overdoing it in the current weather, Ponder cleared his throat. Ridcully remembered he was there. “Of course, you’ve met Stibbons, haven’t you?” “I have,” Vetinari said, nodding in place of the handshake neither of them was offering. “I’m looking forward to this demonstration. I understand the development to this point has been going well.” Ponder stuttered nervously, “Yes, my lord. Touch wood, sir.” Ridcully glanced at him, pulling a face at the superstition. His gaze turned to Drumknott, who had been silently tracing the flagstones at Vetinari’s side. “And how are you, lad?” Rufus caught his breath, “Uh... well, Archchancellor.” “Good, good,” Ridcully drew himself up. “We’ll go inside then, shall we?”

There was a colossal elaborate casting circle drawn on the floor of the Great Hall, and chairs arranged around it. The biggest chairs were placed in a position Rufus privately regarded as precarious.  “Of course, you’ll want the best view, old chap!” Ridcully said, and received a look reminding him that the last person to touch Vetinari without permission had ended up on the floor. “You are quite certain this poses no danger, aren’t you Mustrum?” “Obviously!” Ridcully said, sitting in his own chair, “Stibbons has it all figured out -- don’t you boy?” He barked the last part loudly at Ponder. Ponder, providing last minute instruction and adjustment to the students positioned around the circle, laughed a little nervously. “Of course, sir!” Vetinari’s eyebrows furrowed slightly as he sat beside the Archchancellor, gesturing subtly to Drumknott to pull his chair back a little. Rufus swallowed anxiously and twisted his fingers in his lap as Ponder tidied himself a little, straightened his hat and stepped forward to speak to the assembled crowd. “Hello everyone,” he started, “Archchancellor, my lord,” he nodded to Ridcully and Vetinari. “I’m sure you all know why you’re here and what we’re doing, but I’ll give a short explanation to be sure…” Drumknott mostly stopped listening, transfixed by the careful way Ponder was positioning his feet to avoid stepping on or smudging the lines of the circle as he slowly orbited during his explanation. He caught the words quantum, positioning, thaumic, visualisation… but he couldn’t make out what was going to happen when Ponder gave the go ahead to begin. Across the circle, the Librarian was picking his nose. There was a brief round of applause, which Rufus joined a second late. “Thank you,” Ponder said, bowing shortly and pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Alright,” he turned to address the students, still not disturbing the circle. “You know what to do, lads, we’ve done it enough at this point!” A few of the wizards further from the circle laughed, but Drumknott wasn’t sure why. With that, the incantations began. The atmosphere changed, there was a hum building in the air. Particles and flashes of light started to come into view, shapes formed. Rufus watched, there were impressed murmurs behind and around him. “Holding steady! Onto phase two!” He heard Ponder call. The tension in the Archchancellor’s shoulders was starting to relax, and then--

The smoke cleared, leaving all observers plastered in a layer of blue glitter. Peeling his encrusted glasses from his face and spitting out glitter, Ponder stumbled out of what remained of the casting circle. A few of the graduates involved were groaning and cursing, likely more of them no longer had eyebrows… of all the times for it to go wrong, after it hadn’t failed once in testing. He should have known it was too good to be true. Ponder squinted around the hall at the observers. Some had scattered backwards and avoided the worst of it. Others were sitting stunned, caked in a layer of glitter at least half an inch thick. The Librarian was descending from the rafters, his orange fur sparkling. He couldn’t tell which point in the circle had been breached first, where the concentration had been highest. He had a horrible feeling it was right in front of the Archchancellor. He was, what was the expression the alchemists used? Oh right, so godsdamn fired. Ponder found the only part of his robe that wasn't covered in glitter (ugh, it had made it into his pockets…) and delicately scraped the glitter off his glasses. He peered gingerly through them. To his relief, the Archchancellor seemed entirely unharmed, and he was laughing -- coated thickly in glitter, which had settled in great drifts over his knees and hat, but laughing. “Well that was a bloody great bang, Stibbons,” Ridcully said, cheerfully shaking glitter from his beard, “but no real harm d-- oh. Are you alright, old chap?” “Whek,” said the penguin in the next chair.  The penguin. In the next chair. Beside the Archchancellor. It had extremely pale blue eyes. Oh no. The patrician had been turned into a penguin. “Whek,” the penguin-- Vetinari said again. “Oh yes, glitter’s beastly stuff,” Ridcully said, “it’ll take weeks to clean up properly.” “Whek,” Vetinari said more pressingly, the noise translating to furious threats of taxation. “Ook…” said the Librarian, wading elbow deep through the glitter. He peered at Vetinari, a curious orangutan examining an outraged emperor penguin. “Whek!” The patrician shouted, flapping his wings. The Librarian backed off sharply, not wishing to receive a beak to the eye or an uncoordinated flipper in his ear. “Ook…” he said up to Ponder. “Yes!” He exclaimed, breaking out of his shock, “Terribly sorry, my lord, I have no idea what happened there! Uh…” Ponder looked frantically at Ridcully for what to say or do next. He stood up in an avalanche of glitter which buried Ponder’s shoes. “Just a small magical surge! Must have overloaded the circle,” Ridcully chuckled. “Happens all the time, almost entirely unpredictable--” he shot a look at Ponder, who did his best not to whimper, “but it’s a quick fix, I’m sure!” The Librarian looked at him skeptically and sneezed glitter. “Er, aha…” Ridcully looked around, glitter cascading from his eyebrows. “Where is it your young man’s got to?” Ponder squinted, the chair next to the patrician’s had been toppled over and buried in glitter. The Librarian shuffled into the surrounding drift and, after poking for a moment, excavated Drumknott. “Ah, there he is,” Ridcully said. “I can’t find my glasses?” Rufus said blearily, choking on glitter as he was pulled into a sitting position. The Librarian patted his back with one leathery hand and fished with the other. Ponder winced as he bent a twisted hinge back into place and used his knuckle to scrape glitter from the lenses. The glasses were lopsided as the Librarian pushed them back onto Drumknott’s nose. He looked about himself, at the glitter, the toppled chairs and ruptured circle… the archchancellor, the Librarian, Ponder… the visual lack of his lordship… his eyes widened in panic. He started to stand up. “My… lord…?” “It’s alright!” Ponder said quickly, trying to block Vetinari from view. “Don’t-- Don’t panic!” Predictably, this had the opposite effect. “Why?” Drumknott asked with a frantic stare, “W-what’s happened?” “Nothing!” Ponder felt Ridcully frown behind him, “...well, no, actually-- but it’s fine! Not a problem, just--” “Whek!” Vetinari

said. Drumknott saw him. The blood drained from his face. “Sir?!” Oh, please don’t faint… To Ponder's half-selfish relief, Drumknott remained standing. Even so, he seemed to shut down, his eyes glazing over, staring blankly at the penguin that was now Vetinari. That couldn’t be said to be any better. After a thought process that dislodged several more pounds of glitter, Ridcully spoke up. “Well Havelock, if we get you over to… er, Stibbons’s building we should be able to get you fixed…” Ridcully said. “Do you need help getting--” “Whek!” “No, quite right,” Ridcully shook his fingers, having just added ‘bitten by the patrician’ to his long list of accolades, “you’re a grown bir-- man, you can get down fr-- out of a chair yourself. Mr Stibbons!” “Yes, Archchancellor!” Ponder ran off ahead, tracking glitter as he went. Ridcully gestured vaguely at Drumknott, “Librarian, you get him tidied up a bit then bring him along.” “Ook,” the Librarian said, and pulled on Rufus’s sleeve.

The Librarian’s office smelled of book-binding glue and banana skins. He was a surprisingly dab hand with a clothes brush, and by the time a sugar-saturated cup of tea had been pushed into Rufus’s hands there was barely a speck of glitter to be seen. “Ook?” “What? Oh, no... I’m alright, thank you.” The Librarian sniffed and gathered the pile of glitter into a dustpan. He threw it out of the window and shook off his hands for good measure. “So…” Drumknott's voice wavered, “L-Lord Vetinari has been turned into a penguin?” “Ook,” the Librarian said, turning the clothes brush on himself.  “It w-won’t be permanent, will it?” The ape shook his head and shuffled over to a cupboard. Rufus felt strangely comforted. The Librarian offered him a banana. “Ook?” “Oh, no thank you... the tea is working wonders.” He shrugged and started to eat it himself. “You like being an orangutan, don’t you?” “Ook,” the Librarian said through a mouthful of banana. “I suppose it makes your job easier... longer arms to reach the shelves…” The Librarian nodded. “...penguins don’t have fingers though…” He sat back, waiting for Drumknott to come to conclusions. “...I'm sure it will be all right, though... you all know what you’re doing, don’t you?” The Librarian made a gesture that indicated that he might not necessarily say ‘all’ was accurate, but as far as he was concerned Vetinari was in solid enough hands. Rufus nodded. “Ook?” “Hmm? Yes, I’ve finished my tea. Thank you.” The Librarian piled the cup into a small sink on top of some brushes and offered Drumknott his hand.

They walked out of the library and over to the High Energy Magic building. As they passed the Great Hall, Rufus caught sight of a pack of students with dustpans, orders being yelled at them by an irate woman in a housekeeper's apron. “Oook,” said the Librarian as they entered a room with multiple warnings pinned to the door. “Ah, there you are,” Ponder said. “Good timing actually, we’ve nearly finished.” There was much whirring and spinning going on as multiple components of HEX worked at once. Semi-regularly, though only by a liberal definition of ‘regularly’, there was a ting! followed by frantic scribbling as operations completed and were written out in a form intelligible to humans. There was an apparatus similar to a single-person elevator carriage beside the machine, connected via tubes and cabling at the top. Behind a gate that looked like it was more suited to serve a vegetable patch than a piece of wizarding equipment was Vetinari, still very much a penguin. Currently, he was attempting to lift the latch with his beak. He did not appear to be having much success. “Ook?” the Librarian asked. Ponder laughed nervously. “Well, in terms of examination, done…it turns out this whole, uh…” he gestured vaguely towards Vetinari, “...situation is likely to be just a bit more complicated than we’d assumed.” The Librarian gave Drumknott’s hand a reassuring shake and knuckled out of the room. Ponder gestured to a chair, and turned around to face HEX. After a few minutes of silence only broken by noises of operation and the latch rattling, there was a loud TING! A long stream of scribbling ensued, and HEX lifted its writing arm out of the way with a hiss of pneumatics.  “Thank you,” Ponder said to it, tearing off the sheet of paper and turning back to Rufus. “Well the good news is it appears that in his mind he is still Lord Vetinari,” he said, scanning through the write-out. “That makes it much easier to turn him back. Unfortunately, however, he is of course Lord Vetinari. That’s a lot of mind to fit into the brain of a penguin. We might not have much time to turn him back before, well…” “Before what?” Drumknott asked. “The problem with the human mind being put into animals is that it’s too big. Like cramming anything into a space too small for it, one of two things is going to happen. Either the thing you’re trying to cram in there is going to break, or the space is.” “What does that mean for his lordship?” “There's a few ways it could go. His shape could take over, in which case he’ll become a penguin that’s a bit like Lord Vetinari - and that’s almost the best case scenario. Otherwise his mind wins out, and... well... it won’t be very pretty.” “Why, what would happen?” “Uh,” Ponder shuddered. “If his mind wins, his shape will try to change to match it. It’s very rare, and the pictures are terrible. There’s a few frogs in jars downstairs, and I don’t recommend looking at them.” Rufus tried hard to infer his meaning. “...you mean, the penguin would change to be like his lordship?” “Yes... and it would be a horrible mix of human and penguin, and mercifully the attempt would destroy itself.” Drumknott’s face turned a strange shade of grey. “But it’s alright!” Ponder said quickly, “That won’t happen. We’ll turn him back before it gets to that-- I mean, either of those points. He might... er... waddle for a bit once he’s back to his right shape, and he might like fish a bit more than he used to, but he’ll be fine.” Drumknott nodded reluctantly. “Right, I know neither of you like being here much, and it’ll take us a little while to figure things out to turn him back, so you can go home if you want.” Ponder looked around them. Drumknott followed his gaze. The apparatus set up next to HEX was empty. The gate was open. There was no sign of his lordship. “...you didn’t notice where he’s got to, did you?” “Um... no.”

The typical height of an adult male emperor penguin is somewhere around three feet nine inches. As such, the difference between penguin height and Vetinari height had been rather disorientating. However, it is surprising how fast a penguin can move when it puts its mind to it, and even more surprising when the mind behind its motion does not realise that it is inside of a penguin. Fortunately however, even the most determined human-unknowingly-turned-penguin cannot defeat the fact that on the whole a creature whose knees are to be found somewhere near its ribcage is not very good at using stairs. As such, it did not take Ponder and Drumknott very long at all to locate Vetinari. The students passing him did not seem to think it was strange at all that an emperor penguin was teetering uncertainly atop a staircase. The moment he caught sight of them, Vetinari made a highly disgruntled sounding penguin noise at Drumknott. “There you are my lord,” Ponder said as if he was not speaking to a penguin at all. “It would seem the effects are quite minor, if a tad… complicated. It’ll take us a little while to work out how to reverse them, but you can go home while we figure that out.” “Whek!” Vetinari said. “Yes, sir... your height is quite a change, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to work around I’m sure.” “Whek…” he said darkly. “No, my lord, not ridiculous at all!” Ponder said, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “It won’t take us long, I promise.” Drumknott tapped Ponder's shoulder and whispered. “How is it you understand him?” “Oh, I... I don’t,” Ponder replied, “but when you’ve got a colleague who communicates only with ‘ook’, you get very good at understanding what you don’t.”

There was a larger congregation of wizards peering from the door as Ponder walked them out to meet their carriage. Before they left, Ridcully clapped Drumknott on the shoulder, rattling his knees. “Wouldn’t tell his lord about… the beak and tail feathers if I were you, lad,” the Archchancellor said, deliberately muffled by his beard. “It might make him forget his right shape.” Rufus stared at him in alarm. “Might it?” Ridcully shrugged, “Better safe than sorry.” “Alright…” Drumknott said shakily. He looked over his shoulder and cringed as Vetinari attempted to bite the footman. “Ah, my lord--” he said, running over to defuse the situation. “Are you sure you can turn him back?” Ridcully asked Ponder out of the side of his mouth. “Uh… things look good, sir,” Ponder replied, "but it’ll take some work…” “Then get working on it, boy.” “I am, sir.” “Good!”

The carriage ride back to the palace was awkward to say the least. Rufus mostly tried not to look at his lordship. “Whek?” Vetinari said as they passed through the gate. “I’m fine, sir.” “Whek.” It was extremely difficult to figure out just what out of the multitude of things Vetinari could have just said this particular ‘whek’ was supposed to mean. It wasn’t a question, that was clear, but it still required him to say something in return. “Certainly, sir,” Drumknott hazarded. Vetinari gave him a strange look. Before Rufus could attempt to correct himself however, the footman warily opened the door. “Please refrain from biting him this time, my lord…” Vetinari made a kind of disgruntled grumbling sound, but did not try to bite the man as he was assisted from the carriage. He managed fairly well up the outside steps, but it was clear that he wouldn’t fair nearly as well up the grand staircase. The guards peered curiously from their posts as Vetinari attempted a complicated maneuver to get onto the first step.  “Sir,” Drumknott said quietly, “might we use the elevator?” “Whek,” Vetinari said dismissively, trying again to lift his foot to the required height. He toppled over backwards. “Whek...” he said in resignation.

Rufus held his tongue as he helped him up and he waddled towards the lift. Neither of them much liked the elevator. On the whole Vetinari far preferred to be assisted on the stairs than acknowledge it to exist, even as a penguin apparently. He shot the servant attending a silencing look as the man went to question and tried not to spend too much time looking at his lordship as the rising motion of the elevator took the reassurance of gravity out from the bottom of his stomach. He would have to brief the staff, he realised, assure their discretion before rumours of the patrician’s being a penguin could spread. What an effort that would take, and that was without considering delays in correspondence, meetings and appointments… Vetinari could not possibly meet with anyone important in this state. Drumknott offered a silent prayer of thanks that this predicament had occurred the day after the weekly guild meeting. “Whek?” Vetinari asked, noticing his subtle gesture. “I’m fine, sir,” Drumknott said, taking hold of the rail as the porter applied the brake and the elevator came to a stop. “Whek,” Vetinari said in distaste as they exited. Drumknott tuned out the stream of penguin noises that would likely translate to complaints about physics and the mistreatment there of, and a general tirade about how no matter the number of tests and demonstrations carried out, safety devices only needed to fail once, etcetera, etcetera. He made no effort to pay attention when it was spoken in Morporkian, there was no reason to be attentive to it in penguin. Instead he turned his mind to how exactly he was supposed to excuse the sudden clearing of all appointments. Might he say his lordship was ill? That would make sense, and of course people fell ill all the time, but could he say that without affecting Vetinari’s reputation or starting rumours that were more harmful? And if this transformation lasted, if the wizards couldn’t turn him back, if gods forbid Ponder’s worst case scenario came to pass… how would he explain-- “Whek,” Vetinari said, halting his train of thought. They had come to the office door, and he couldn’t operate the handle. “Of course, sir,” Drumknott stepped forward to open it. Vetinari made a small noise he presumed was an expression of gratitude and waddled into the office. Drumknott followed behind him. He would only be called for in moments if he didn’t, even if the circumstance was normal. What was not normal (aside from, of course, that he was following after a penguin) was his instinctual reaction to the raising of a little brown head as they came in. Standing less than a foot at the shoulder, there was no denying that Wuffles was a small dog. Still, that did not change Drumknott’s concern as he approached suspiciously, his hackles raised. “No,” Rufus said sternly. “Wuffles, sit.” Wuffles continued to stalk forward, growling. “Wuffles, basket. Go in your basket.” Wuffles ignored him, snarling, his teeth bared viciously. Vetinari drew himself straight, which didn't change much that he was half his usual height. “Whek,” he said firmly. Wuffles stopped dead in his tracks and sat. He tilted his head in confusion. “Whek,” Vetinari said. Slowly, Wuffles stood again and crept forward cautiously. He sniffed at Vetinari, then drew back. Wuffles yapped in excitement, his tail wagging.  “Whek!” Vetinari flapped his wings in a forward motion. Wuffles bounded around him, herding him towards the desk and nipping at Drumknott’s heels in his fervour. The body language of a penguin could not manage subtlety in the usual manner of Vetinari, and every step he took across the office was distinctly amused. This air of amusement lasted until he rounded the desk. His beak appeared over the top of it. “Whek,” he said, displeased. Ah. He couldn’t get into the chair. “If you will allow me to lift you, sir…” Vetinari made an unimpressed noise but, this time, allowed himself to be lifted without attempting to bite the person doing the lifting. Drumknott put him onto his chair and they stared at each other, neither sure how to

proceed. “Whek?” “I suppose that we should continue as usual until the wizards call for us, sir.” Vetinari gave him a look that indicated what he had just said was complete nonsense again. Drumknott shifted uncomfortably. Outside, the city began to chime the hour. Drumknott's heart dropped. Oh dear. Eleven o’clock. Vimes would arrive at any minute.

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Thinking about Downey and Vetinari hours are so real. They just run things so efficiently what a power couple.

I am always thinking about Downey and Vetinari at any given moment. They’re such a delightful couple for many reasons 🖤🖤

Between the two I think Vetinari works the longer, more punishing hours. Downey seems the sort to you know, actually want to live a life outside work (though as a teacher and master of the assassins’ guild, I suspect there can be a lack of work-life boundary from time to time). Like, Downey wants to go to dinners and the theatre and opera (Vetinari: you can do that on your own. Thank you very much) and take long baths and drink fine wine and eat luscious food etc.

And I mean, Downey is for sure a hard worker - you don’t get to be head of the assassins guild without putting in the elbow grease - but I think he’s got the stronger sense of self outside the job. I don’t know how much Vetinari does, especially as he’s been patrician for 10-15+ years.

But they do make a *great* power couple. Despite the fact that Vetinari has to occasionally reign Downey in when he goes and has daft ideas that he thinks are brilliant.

Vetinari: for the last time, we are not making an Ankh Morpork Empire 2.0

Downey: electric boogaloo. But we’d be so good at it!!

Vetinari: absolutely not.

Downey: but! Empire!

Vetinari: no.

Vetinari goes and distracts Downey. Sends him to go remind a fellow ruler How To Behave or threatens the Assassins Guild with a financial audit so Downey can busy himself getting the account books into order to make sure no one can prove the very obvious tax evasion he does.

Downey gets up to mischief if left on his own too long. Mostly ill thought out “seemed like the thing to do at the time” sort of mischief which is the best mischief.

Vetinari: Downey. Do you. Do you think things through? Like surely in the 53 or so years you’ve been alive, at some point it must have occurred to you to think something through.

Downey: absolutely not. Why would I do that?

Vetinari:

Vetinari: it’s a good thing I think you handsome.

Downey: I am a gift from the gods, it’s true.

But yes! I love them and their complicated relationship that has run a large gamut of what two people can be to each other. 🖤🖤🖤

[painted-crow]

Some Discworld Sortings

@missbrunettebarbie​: Monstrous Regiment, The Truth, the first 3 City Watch books, Going Postal, Mort and Unseen Academicals. And I would love to read those sortings :)).

I already have most of Unseen Academicals’ Sorting written out--I just need to tweak it for publishing :) 

The short version of UA

The cast of UA is a pure-House matched set, aside from some models, and the characters each swap models around and interact with each others’ primaries in interesting ways. Glenda is a Hufflepuff/Hufflepuff, Juliette is a Gryffindor, Trev is a Slytherin, and Nutt, of course, is the loudest double Ravenclaw ever (I love him).

Nutt helps Glenda realize her community’s worldview is toxic and stop seeing herself through their lens. Glenda then stops pushing the same worldview on Juliette and starts encouraging her to follow her Gryffindor instead. Nutt doesn’t remotely fit into the class framework Glenda’s used to, and he challenges her assumptions just by existing. (Glenda also picks up a Gryffindor secondary model from Juliette that’s very healthy for her, but that’s getting into a bunch more detail that I’ll save for the full post later.)

Nutt’s system is very Hufflepuffy, but he sees himself as more of a tool than a person, and Glenda consistently argues with him about this until he starts to believe her. Then she’s his champion in the community, where Nutt desperately wants to belong but keeps getting rejected for what he is. It’s such a good ship, they’re so healthy for each other--and if you’re looking for a wholesome, fuzzy romantic subplot with an autistic-coded character, it’s right here.

Trev slowly un-Petrifies as he starts to let himself care about his friends, and they in turn inspire him to contribute and make something of himself. It’s not immediately obvious that Trev is Burned, because he’s so carefree--but he’s carefree because he isn’t letting himself care. He’s an orphan, and he’s felt helpless for a long time.

We know he’s unburned when he finally prioritizes his loyalty to his living friends over the promise he made years ago to his mother (who seems to represent the last loyalty relationship Trev had, and he's still holding on to her; letting her go means Trev has accepted that he has new relationships and those are real). Juliette’s presence in particular reignites his ambition--he wants to do better for her, be better for her, and that gives him direction in a way that his previous goals of leisure and self-preservation didn’t.

(That’s what’s going on with their primaries. Eventually I’ll get off my butt and fix up the full post.)

A quick sampler of main characters from the other books...

Monstrous Regiment

Polly is a Slytherin primary. The whole reason she joins the army is to rescue Paul (and, secondarily, to make sure she has a stable future when her father dies--otherwise some unreliable relative of hers inherits the inn, she’s not allowed to own it because of Nugganite customs). Ravenclaw secondary, I think, for how much her narration criticizes the others for not having a plan. 

Going Postal

Moist is of course a double Slytherin--he's blatantly obvious. He has a Claw secondary model but he tells us through the narration that he doesn't value it quite as much as his Slytherin. He's also very good at performing Puff secondary and seeming like a reliable people person, but the second he's asked to actually be reliable and hardworking he starts to go nuts and look for dangerous, exciting stuff to do.

The only thing that really ties him to Ankh-Morpork, aside from its general entertainment value every time Vetinari tries to give him a job where someone inevitably wants to kill him, is Adorabelle (who is also a threat to his life, just a little, enough to be interesting). She’s a double Slytherin too, but she spends most of her time in neutral state--yet she’s even managed to turn her neutral state into a game to play with Moist. Of course he’s enamored with her, lol.

City Watch series

Vimes is a Ravendor: he has very thoroughly laid out views about the law and its role in choosing the right thing to do. You could argue that he’s a burned Gryff, given how tight of a lid he has on his “inner darkness” (that shows up more later, and he’s not being entirely metaphorical), but he seems pretty stable and content with his system. Vimes doesn’t trust himself without his checks and boundaries, but he seems to be okay with that, even if he’s secretly afraid that the rules and accountability he’s laid out for himself someday won’t be enough.

His system doesn’t always match up with the law, but he uses the law to make sure he doesn’t stray too far off moral ground and into taking his wrath out on the guilty. Vimes actually gains a really useful reputation in later books as being fair and consistent and impossible to corrupt.

As for his secondary... he’s known as “Vetinari’s terrier.” He thinks he should be better at Ravenclaw secondary (putting together clues and so on) but mostly he runs off charge and intuition. There’s a really silly bit in Thud! where he’s constantly arguing with a magical Palm Pilot Sybil got for him, because he doesn’t have the patience to learn to use it. Whether he likes it or not, he’s a Gryff.

Sybil is either a Puff or Gryff primary; I lean towards Gryff for her. She’s got this very certain, intuitive core to her, and while she clearly holds a lot of Hufflepuffy values, she’s also very hard to sway or influence. She’s very solid in her morality, and I think that’s one of the things Vimes loves about her. Vimes has to work at staying moral 24/7, while Sybil just... is.

She’s a Ravenclaw secondary with a REALLY loud Hufflepuff secondary model. Hufflepuff is how she was raised to behave, and she likes it a lot, but she uses Ravenclaw without even thinking about it--the number of times she just pulls the "I happen to be prepared for this very specific situation" card out of her hat is wild, and she doesn’t even seem to think that what she’s doing is unusual.

It’s most obvious in The Fifth Elephant: not only does Sybil speak Dwarvish, but she sings a piece of a Dwarf opera to get them out of a tight corner, and then she semi-accidentally becomes an expert trade negotiator out of sheer curiosity, reading up on the notes left by the previous ambassador.

Also, it’s really cute that Vimes is a Ravendor and Sybil is a Gryffinclaw.

Carrot is hard to Sort. He gives off REALLY strong Hufflepuff vibes, of course, and he knows everyone and can be empathetic toward anyone. But he’s actually really hard to read. Angua certainly keeps expecting that he’s hiding layers of himself, but that’s probably because she’s got a lot of Slytherin to her (either Slytherdor or double Slytherin, her secondary might be a little singed; her primary definitely is).

I want to say that he’s a Hufflepuff secondary who’s really good at adapting to and mirroring other people, and Angua keeps mistaking this for Slytherin secondary. I think he’s a Gryffindor primary with a lot of Hufflepuffy values, like Sybil, and maybe he has a Slytherin model specifically for Angua (he drops everything for her early on in Fifth Elephant, possibly staking his life on the fact that she’ll come and find him when he does) --but I could be persuaded otherwise.

Phew, this is longer than I thought it’d be.

[abigailnussbaum]

The Watch 1x01 - 1x02

The first two episodes of BBC America’s The Watch aired this weekend, and I’ve seen basically zero discussion of them on my twitter and tumblr feeds. Which I assume is because most of the people I follow are Pratchett fans who have been horrified by the press releases and the trailer (or, for that matter, the lackluster reviews) and decided to write the show off before it even started airing. To be clear, this is an entirely reasonable approach, but there’s nothing else on right now and I was bored.

Quick verdict? It’s not dire, but also not so interesting that you’d feel compelled to keep going with it. In fact, my most powerful reaction after the first two episodes is puzzlement - I can’t understand who the intended audience for this show is. The thinking seems to have been “everyone will be interested in a brash, in your face, rudely comedic fantasy cop show!” And maybe that’s true, but The Watch isn’t particularly brash, in your face, or even that comedic, so what’s left are fans of the genre(s), who are reasonably spoiled for choice right now (the show The Watch most closely resembles is Carnival Row, which is not amazing but still has a greater depth of emotion and a more interesting world). Why anyone would go out of their way to watch a show that seems to be working so hard to stamp out anything original about itself is a question the creators don’t seem to have asked themselves.

More thoughts below the cut.

First, something positive: I quite like the look of the show. There was obviously a lot of pressure from previous adaptations, not to mention the famous illustrations associated with the books, to strike out in an original direction, and I think the show really found one. Instead of fantasized-medieval-through-Victorian, The Watch’s Ankh Morpork combines those period and genre elements with modern ones. So The Mended Drum is now a seedy nightclub with DJ lighting and an open mike stage, and the city’s walls are covered with graffiti tags. The more distinctive settings - the Patrician’s palace, the Unseen University library - are not as interesting, possibly because the budget wouldn’t stretch to make them look really spectacular. But the core approach of the series, that Ankh Morpork is an old but modern city where there are also a lot of fantasy elements, is a fun and refreshing one.

Second, despite all the prevarication and spin in the run-up to the show, this is a Pratchett adaptation. It isn’t merely “inspired by” Pratchett’s novels, as the show’s title screen insists. It isn’t taking Pratchett’s ideas and making its own things with them. I can only assume that these claims were made in response to the backlash against stuff like “Sybil Ramkin, young, hot vigilante”. But despite changes like that, this is actually a fairly straightforward adaptation of Guards! Guards!, which also incorporates elements from Night Watch, plus some rather deep cuts from the rest of the Discworld corpus (the second episode, for example, implies that the ultimate villains of the series are the Auditors of Reality). So yeah, The Watch doesn’t have the excuse of being its own thing. It is a Discworld adaptation, but a bad one, that fails to understand a lot of fundamental thing about the world and the characters.

Third, I think the thing that most strikes about the show is how low-energy it feels. Despite billing itself as something outrageous, and despite some work on the visual front (and in Richard Dormer’s Jack Sparrow-esque performance as Vimes), the show itself feels almost bland. You see this in particular when it comes to the humor. It’s not that The Watch isn’t trying to be funny. There are jokes, and a few of them - mostly the ones original to the series - are mildly amusing. But when it comes to Pratchett’s own humor, the show simply has the actors deliver the gags and references in the most low-key way, and unsurprisingly the result is that hardly any of it lands.

Now, to be fair, this has been a problem with Pratchett adaptations since the 90s. Most of Pratchett’s humor is based in what his third-person narrator tells us about the world, and is hard to convey in a dramatic presentation (Good Omens tried to solve this problem by putting a lot of Pratchett’s narration in its voiceover, with only limited success). But even the dialogue-based jokes are so arch and stagey, that to deliver them successfully would require committing to a lot of very specific, demanding choices from the actors and writers (off the top of my head, the only show that even comes close to that kind of humor is Brooklyn Nine-Nine). It would have to be a high-concept, meticulously executed sitcom, whereas most Pratchett adaptations have been fantasy dramas with jokes. 

So it’s not entirely The Watch’s fault that it isn’t managing to convey the zany energy of Pratchett’s novels, but at the same time, it also clearly isn’t trying to. Its attitude seems to be that simply the existence of things like troll cops or assassins’ guilds who leave a receipt are funny in their own right. And sure, even in a media landscape in which fantasy has been mainstreamed by Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings movies, and Game of Thrones, not a lot of fantasy settings have an orangutan librarian who only says “ook”. But what makes The Librarian funny isn’t that he’s a librarian who is an orangutan. It’s that he’s a librarian who is an orangutan who still behaves exactly like a librarian (while also doing ape things like swinging from the bookshelves and eating bananas), and that “ook” can convey almost any concept in existence. The Watch doesn’t seem to realize this. It seems to be assuming that just putting that stuff on screen, or parroting Pratchett’s lines, will be hilarious in and of itself, while leaving out a lot of the specificity of setting, character, and tone that made the books sing.

You see this also in how it handles its characters. Everyone fixated on Lady Sybil when the promos came out, because that’s the most egregious misreading of the original (and rooted in the most boring assumptions about what audiences want and will respond to). But it’s everywhere. Take Carrot, for example. In the books, Carrot is fascinating because he’s never entirely what you take him for. He’s innocent, but not naive. Principled, but not a zealot. A goody-two-shoes, but not a prig. He’s always a lot smarter than you think he is, and most importantly, he genuinely likes and is interested in people. 

The Watch delivers none of this, and instead makes Carrot your basic hothead rookie who just wants to take down bad guys and sees the more seasoned, cynical officers who keep trying to slow him down as hopelessly corrupted. There’s none of Carrot’s openness, or his genuine love of the city, in this character. Instead he’s sullen and judgmental. And look, we could have a long conversation about which one of these characters is more useful to us and our ongoing conversation about policing (as well as a much shorter conversation about which one of them is truer to the ideas Pratchett was trying to convey about policing). But what feels more important to me, when coming to evaluate a new series that is trying to make an argument for why you should keep watching it, is the simple fact that there are a million places where you could find a character like The Watch’s Carrot, and hardly anywhere where you could find one like Pratchett’s. 

Again and again, it feels as if, in the pursuit of what it thinks of as outrageous, risk-taking storytelling, The Watch jettisons the unique characters from the books and replaces them with ones that we’ve seen a million times before. Angua in the books is kind of neurotic, and extremely thoughtful about the way her condition can incline her to see other people as objects to be used and consumed (which Pratchett later develops into an aspect of his theme of monsters-as-aristocrats). In the show, she’s obsessed with how her lycanthropy makes her “the real monster”. Oh boy, I’ve never seen a werewolf worry about being a monster before! I’ve never seen a scene where they send their friends away just as they’re about to transform! This is cutting edge stuff, I tell you. And while we’re on the subject, it gives me no pleasure to report that Anna Chancellor as Patrician Vetinari is thoroughly meh, because no effort has been taken to convey the character’s intelligence, near-omniscience, and constant scheming. Vimes is intimidated by her because she’s his boss and she’s posh, not because of anything specific to her. She feels almost identical to a million other posh rulers whose job it is to infodump to and threaten scrappy, working class heroes.

Which brings me back to my original observation: that I do not get who this show is for. It’s not for Pratchett fans, because it deliberately drops a great deal of what made his writing and characters special in favor of the most generic, predictable choices. But I can’t help but feel that anyone who is into this sort of extremely familiar cop story will be put off by the dragons and the wizards and the orangutan librarian, not to mention Dormer’s gurning performance. The whole thing is almost fascinating to watch - a work that clearly believes itself to be boundary-pushing and different, when really it’s just dull but with dragons.

[narashikari]

I have to ask, because its been bugging me for a while, but what would you say to the Phase 2 riders (plus Aruto and Ankh) as babysitters? Just the kind of shenanigans that they would get up to with the rider kids.

Tsukasa is a straight up enabler. He just lets the kids run amok and someone else rounds them up for him, usually one of the more responsible kids.

Shoutaro had always been good with kids, even before he became a father himself, and it baffles everyone to no end. He‘s as much of a Child Whisperer as he is an Animal Whisperer. In other words, everyone wants him to babysit their kid and every kid wants to be babysat by him.

Philip would get so lost in his research that he wouldn’t notice if the kid he was supposed to take care of had set the place on fire. Even if it was his own kid.

Eiji usually manages to get out of the babysitting by being constantly abroad. However, when he is around to babysit, he manages to do a fair job of it. To be fair, the kids are usually easier to deal with than his usual companion who can be quite... snippy.

Usually tagging along with Eiji is Ankh, who’s pretty aloof towards everyone, even the Rider kids. In turn most of them are intimidated by him when they were very young, at least until they realize that he’s just a tsundere. He’s soft on Akane though.

Gentaro is good with kids because he’s friendly and cheerful. He’s bad at babysitting because he’s so focused on being friends that he forgets that he has to exert some control over them.

Haruto has the misfortune of having friends whose kids are mostly nerdy science types who have no appreciation for his magic or his plain sugar doughnuts and hence don’t respect him or his authority. Lol

Kouta had past experience with babysitting, as it was one of the many odd jobs he had before his ascension to Fruit Jesus. Still, he was not prepared for the arduous task of babysitting his friends’ kids, and thus chaos ensued.

Shinnosuke has no problems with the kids. The other Riders put him through so much shit that whatever the kids throw at him can’t compare. There’s a reason he’s the Dad Friend.

Takeru is lenient towards the Rider kids, especially Shinnosuke’s son Eiji who is like a little brother to him. He tries to be strict... keyword being tries.

For Mom Friend Emu, it’s the same case as Shin with the added experience from dealing with children daily for his day job (pediatrician). And he can bribe them into behaving with video games.

Sento has six kids. One was quite ill for a long time. So everyone had a silent agreement that he doesn’t need to babysit someone else’s kid when he has to take care of his own family. Also, he’s a mad scientist who has turned people into animals and loves blowing stuff up. Not exactly babysitter material.

Sougo is prone to being way too soft on the Rider kids, and lets them get away with stuff that would probably end with a harsh scolding from anyone else.

Aruto lost the respect of the kids after he cracked one too many puns. His judgement was also called into question when he set the Kiryuu kids loose in a Hiden Intelligence lab. He was just lucky they didn’t take after their Papa in the mad scientist department.

And, as a bonus, Touma- he deals with the calmer, nerdy kids better, since all he has to do is give them some books and they behave for him. He has a harder time with the more rambunctious ones... he passes them off to Ren whose, um, enthusiasm matches theirs and helps burn their energy off until he can deal with them? 😅

[toomanyf4ndoms7]

Study session

Summary: As she goes to Kelly’s place for a “study session” Raven forgets to realise her attire may not be the most appropriate for Kelly’s parents.

Raven’s eyes widened as she remembered what Kelly once says about her parents.

“Super religious, the kind that would probably think you’re possessed by the devil.”

Looking down at her attire, black dress, black hair, black lipstick, and an ankh necklace, Raven realised her mistake and tucked the necklace into her pocket just as the door opened.

Inside the house was a tall and somewhat bulky looking man with a red shirt and blue jeans. He looked at Raven for a moment before he questioned her.

“What do you want?”

“I’m, uh, here to study with Kelly?”

The man didn’t seem to believe her, but let her in regardless. The inside of the house was typical. Cream coloured walls, brown tables, a hanging cross above a fireplace.

Raven kept her eyes away from the layout of the room, instead asking the man she assumed was Kelly’s father where her friend was.

As he was about to answer, a female voice interrupted him.

“Mark! Who is this?”

The woman wore a golden cross necklace and stared at Raven as though she were possessed. Raven once again wished she just wore the black sweater that probably would have avoided this.

“What are your intentions with my daughter?”

Am I seriously being interrogated by Kelly’s parents? Actually, that’s not really a shock.

“I’m Kelly’s friend. My intentions are to study with her.”

The woman seemed skeptical but eventually relented, allowing her husband to lead Raven towards Kelly’s room. As she was taken upstairs and finding herself before a cream coloured door, the man knocked and spoke with a calm authority.

“Someone’s here to see you. Apparently you two are ‘Studying’ together?”

The sound of the door unlocking before it swung open. Kelly still looked the same as always. Though her posture seemed off, more stiff and proper than normal. She was also wearing a brown shirt with white sweatpants, instead of anything red or black.

“Correct. Raven and I were planning to study together. Is that alright?”

He stared at Raven.

“As long as your friend behaves herself.”

“Of course, father.”

Her father turned away, giving one last message before he closed the door.

“Dinner will be ready soon. Your friend can join if she wishes.”

The door closed at Raven questioned Kelly in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Is he gone?”

A finger to her lips and a point to her ear told her the answer.

She listened carefully for the sounds of footsteps trailing off, before a door slamming shut.

“He’s gone.”

A deep sigh from Kelly and Raven saw her posture loosen up and become the girl she’d grown close to.

“Oh, thank god. Sorry about that. My parents can be a little strict.”

“All good. Maybe I should sneak in through the window next time.”

“Maybe.”

Kelly walked over to her desk, a framed photo of the two dressing the side, and sat down in her black and red leather chair.

“So how’d you convince your parents to let you come?”

Raven gave a small scoff.

“Simple. I didn’t.”

“Always the rule breaker.”

“Don’t act all innocent, you remember our sport carnival?”

Kelly fondly shook her head at the memory before she pulled a book from her bag and beckoned Raven over.

“So, this is what I’m thinking we do for that project…”

The two talked for some time, their conversations juggling between schoolwork to home-lives to parents to dinner.

“I should probably head down soon. They’ll be on my ass if I don’t eat.”

She pushed herself from her chair and cracked her neck.

“Well, I better get into character. I can get you some leftovers when I’m done.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Kelly looked at her incredulously, as if her head had split in two, before her face reset back to bored apathy.

“I’m willing to bet you haven’t had decent food since recess.”

Raven opened her mouth to challenge that statement but the sound of her rumbling stomach drew to a close any comeback she may have had.

“Fine, save me something.”

[mxliv-oftheendless]

The Mysterious Disappearance of Heather McMann

I have... no explanation for this story lol. Well, actually I do: I was thinking about how Heather quit the band, and I suddenly thought about how in the eyes of the general public, that have no idea of who she really is or what really happened, this would be incredibly weird. And since I’ve been Buzzfeed Unsolved trash for a while now, this made me consider the possibility of there being an Unsolved video about Heather. And... that’s how this came into being lol. It also serves as a way for me to figure out Heather’s Earth timeline a little. Enjoooy! 

Commentary text:

Ryan

Shane

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

[camera opens on Ryan and Shane sitting at their desk in their office set]

“This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved we take a look at the case of Heather McMann, a former member of the band KISS who played with the band for only three years before disappearing without a trace. This will also be the first time we look at a case involving a famous rock band.”

Shane nods. “Very famous. KISS—everybody knows KISS.”

“Yeah. Honestly, they’re not my preferred type of music, but I did listen to some of their songs while doing my research, and they’re pretty good.”

“They’re very good! I mean they’re pretty iconic, I think. I will say, though, I have never heard of Heather McMann.”

“Not many people have. She’s kind of this forgotten fifth member of KISS.”

“Well, I’m interested. Let’s hear about it, Ryan.” [Ryan opens his case file, and the camera cuts to the slideshow. Music begins as Ryan narrates]

“In 1980, KISS was beginning to rapidly decline in popularity. Although they still had a massive fanbase, they were facing problems. The original drummer, Peter Criss, had left the band after filming the music videos for the singles off their album Unmasked, and was replaced by Eric Carr. In following KISS tradition of having makeup and a stage identity, Eric Carr became the Fox, replacing Peter, who had been the Catman.”

yeah this was the thing that always interested me about KISS, that they had these alter egos and their heavy makeup

yeah that’s

it’s very cool

you don’t usually hear about a band going that extra mile ever

“Remaining KISS members Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, and Ace Frehley decided to introduce Eric Carr as their new drummer during their television appearance on the show Kids Are People Too. And it was also on Kids Are People Too that they would surprise everyone, by introducing their recently-added fifth member, Heather McMann.” [with narration: stock footage of Heather McMann in full costume stepping out onstage, smiling and waving as she goes to sit with the band]

they introduced her, and no one knew it was going to happen?

yeah. the way it happened was, they brought out Eric Carr, the Fox, and then they were suddenly like, “there’s one other person we need to introduce.” and then they brought out Heather McMann.

oh. that’s kinda cool. did she have a stage persona?

yeah, she did. hers was the Black Dahlia.

nice. reminds me of the murder.

it probably reminded a lot of people of the murder

“The unexpected introduction of a fifth member came as a shock to the music world, as well as the KISS Army. Their inclusion of a fifth member, who also happened to be a woman, quickly received criticism from fans. An article of Rolling Stone on the event said, quote, “This will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for the KISS Army. First KISS turns to disco for their album Dynasty, then pop rock for Unmasked, then Peter Criss either quits or is kicked out, and now they introduce two new members at once, one of whom is a girl. KISS has made many blunders, but this is by far the worst. It is the opinion of this author that KISS will be long gone within five years.” End quote.”

now that’s a bunch of bullshit.

eheheheh, I know.

“oh no! a woman is playing rock music! she’s insane! this is the end for KISS!”

hahahahahahaha

joke’s on that guy, ‘cause KISS has been around for how long now?

over forty years, I think

thought so. get rekt, asshole.

“Though, KISS mostly ignored the criticism, and regardless of it, Heather McMann was introduced into KISS as the Black Dahlia, their self-appointed “harmony guitarist.”

I didn’t even know “harmony guitarist” was a thing

heheh, yeah, neither did I

that’s kinda cool

but it is indeed a thing

“While on the Unmasked tour, Heather would work well with the band. Fans who went to shows on the tour felt that the band’s sound was enhanced with Heather playing with them. One fan said, quote, “I’ll admit I was on the fence about Heather being in the band. But the show was amazing. Her harmony playing mixed in with the rest gave the sound something extra that I really liked. It was mind-blowing.” End quote. Also observed was the close friendship of Heather McMann and Paul Stanley. Though many gossip magazines would claim they were romantically involved, both friends denied the claims, sometimes even laughing outright at them. [screen shows footage from an interview, of Paul Stanley and Heather McMann in makeup, laughing together]

Stanley himself said of McMann, quote, “She’s one of my oldest and best friends. We’re practically siblings. I really think that if Heather hadn’t been there to encourage me and my music, there would be no KISS.” End quote.”

gotta be honest, it’s pretty great that they were such good friends

yeah that’s really sweet

it is

are they still best friends?

well I don’t know, because she disappeared

oh yeah (wheeze) I forgot about that

you were so wrapped up in how lovely their friendship was

(wheeze) that for a moment I forgot what we were doing here

heheheheh

“Other than Stanley, many others who knew McMann described her as a friendly, likeable person. Gene Simmons once described her as, quote, “an incredible woman who will call you out and then help you be better,” end quote. Ace Frehley has praised her as well, saying, quote, “She’s the kinda woman who’ll say she’s okay even when she’s great, but then bash you over the head with her guitar if you give her any bullshit. She’s a force to be reckoned with.” end quote. Heather McMann would play with KISS for their Unmasked tour, and was reportedly also a guitar player on their 1981 album, Music of the Elder. Though KISS made many promotional appearances for the album, McMann included, in the end, there was no tour for it.”

why wasn’t there a tour for it?

it did really bad. like really super fucking bad.

oh

like, it tanked

is it that bad?

I dunno, I’ve never listened to it.

we should listen to it after this

“Ace Frehley would leave the band in 1982 while they recorded their next album, Creatures of the Night, and although he appears in all promotional aspects, he didn’t actually play on the album itself. Most of the guitar playing on the album was done by McMann and Vinnie Vincent, who joined the band as their new lead guitarist and adopted the persona of the Ankh Warrior.”

if he wasn’t on the album then why did they do that?

I don’t

seems like a waste of time, honestly

I don’t know. maybe his contract had something to do with it… I really don’t know.

weird decision to make

“It was during the Creatures tour that McMann began to show out of the ordinary behavior. During interviews, she would be completely quiet and not say a word unless prompted to. Paul Stanley would often sit beside her and try to engage her in the interview. People who encountered her often said she looked troubled about something, even depressed. She would also stay off to the side during shows, and according to online accounts would actively try to stay out of photographs. Heather would play with KISS as the Black Dahlia on the Creatures tour up until February 23rd, 1983, when KISS played a show at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan. And then, Heather McMann was never seen or heard from again.”

she didn’t even last until the end of the tour?

nope, she did not

I mean they’re just asking us to investigate this at this point

(wheeze) they might as well just hold up a sign that says INVESTIGATE US

HEY GHOUL BOYS, WE’VE GOT A MYSTERY FOR YA

hahahaha

I love it

but in all seriousness, it is very odd to just drop out of the band you’re in halfway through a tour

yeah, Ryan, it is very odd

“Since Heather McMann was only a member of KISS for three short years, and since no one has ever seen or heard any sign of her, she has since her disappearance fell into obscurity. However, that being said, there are many debated theories on what happened to the former member of the hottest band in the world. The first theory is that Heather McMann suffered a mental breakdown, quit the band, dropped out of the public eye so she could recuperate, and simply never came back. Proponents of this theory point to her odd behavior during interviews while on the Creatures tour, and how she seemed troubled and depressed about something. According to one source, during the night when KISS was staying in their hotel in Syracuse, New York, a cleaning lady was walking down the hallway when she encountered McMann, who was, quote, “sitting out in the hallway with her face buried in her knees, looking like she’d been crying,” end quote. The cleaning lady also claimed Stanley was outside with her, with an arm around her shoulders and appearing to be comforting her. Though, this is from a known tabloid magazine, in the context of them claiming McMann had been dumped by a supposed boyfriend, so take this was an enormous grain of salt.”

regardless of whether or not this theory is true, it is nice that Paul was willing to comfort his best friend like that

yeah that is very nice of him

that’s a true friend right there

like the saying goes, “if you don’t love me at my worst, you can’t love me at my best”

deep

yeah, I know

“That being said, however, critics of this theory point out how, when she was engaged in conversation and when she was onstage with the band, McMann behaved normally. The second theory is that Heather was fired. Proponents of this theory cite her odd behavior during the Creatures tour, and how she would appear to get into arguments with the other band members onstage. Footage recorded of the show in Atlanta shows Heather in the background with Vinnie Vincent, seemingly in a heated discussion. People also point to the story of how, a week before the show that would be Heather’s last public appearance with the band, she and Paul Stanley had a violent argument, yelling back and forth at each other and even insulting one another. People claim that this argument and her odd behavior supports the possibility that Heather was simply fired, and out of respect to the band decided to never appear again.”

wait, what? the best friends were arguing?

yeah, apparently they were

aw man… that’s no fun

“Though, this theory has been criticized, with many people pointing out how these alleged “arguments” cannot be confirmed as such, and that Heather’s behavior could also be simply pressure from the long and intense touring. Accounts of her argument with Paul Stanley also vary in what happened, and were mostly found in tabloid magazines. This theory is also criticized by members Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, who have both individually stated that Heather parted ways with them on good terms. Of the argument, Stanley said, quote, “There was yelling and there were insults. But the idea that it has anything to do with why Heather left is not true. The fact is, she didn’t want to be a burden, she couldn’t be in the band anymore, and asked us if she could quit. And while it was sad to see her leave, it’s what she wanted to do, and I would never make her stay when she wanted to leave.” End quote.”

I can see why people would believe this theory

yeah it definitely is a solid theory

also because from what I could gather, KISS seems to have a history of ambiguous departures

ambiguous how?

well you’ve got Peter Criss, Ace Frehley, and Vinnie Vincent, who all left one after the other, and either they were kicked out or they quit. it’s unclear what actually happened.

you mean like one person’s like “they were kicked out” but then another one’s like “they quit”?

yeah it’s like that

I suppose that’s true. my only hang-up here is that she seemed to get along so well with all of them.

yeah, if she got along so well with all of them, it doesn’t make sense for her to suddenly be fired

they probably would’ve been willing to work with her to figure out any problems, instead of just straight-up firing her

“The third theory is that Heather continued to tour with the band, even after she quit. Former roadies of KISS claim that throughout the 80s, up until 1988, there was a woman with long blonde hair travelling around with the band. One of these roadies stated in a KISS Army forum, quote, “She was a woman who looked like she was in her early thirties, with long blonde hair. She would volunteer to help us load in or load out equipment, and some of us would see her hanging out with the band backstage. One time I even saw her watching from backstage. None of us ever learned her name, because she would always answer with, “It’s not important.”” End quote. There are also pictures from the 80s of a blonde woman interacting with the band. Many people think she was simply a groupie, or a girlfriend/wife of one of the members. Others, however, think that perhaps this woman is Heather McMann.”

I don’t believe this theory

why not?

because it just—if I’m a person who was in a band, and then quit for whatever reason, I’m not gonna continue to travel around with them. I’m not homeless. it doesn’t make sense for her to travel around with them.

that is true. it doesn’t make sense that she would do that.

no, it doesn’t.

then again, it also doesn’t make sense that she would disappear halfway through a tour.

(wheeze) well I guess that’s also true

“The fourth theory is ridiculous.”

hahahahahahahah

hahahaha

right out the gate, you say it’s a ridiculous theory, that’s great

well it’s a pretty fucking ridiculous theory. even for the internet, it’s a pretty ridiculous theory.

well keep in mind, people on the internet believe lizard people exist and that Tupac is still alive

well that’s true

“A handful of fans on the Internet have supported the theory that Heather McMann, as well as all the other members of KISS, are superpowered intergalactic beings who came to Earth to form KISS. According to this theory, Heather McMann is really a witch as she claimed to be, and that she left KISS to return to their true home, which explains why she seemed to disappear without a trace. Now, as to my opinion of this theory? No fucking way.”

yeah, no shit.

(wheeze) it’s so stupid. this theory would only be believable in one of their comic books.

KISS had comic books?!

(wheeze) yeah, they did. they’ve got a ton of weird merchandise.

I mean I knew that, everyone knows about the KISS merch, but comic books?! (wheeze) they know their brand.

hahahahahahah

also, did you say she claimed to be a witch?

yeah, their thing is they have these backstories for their personas. hers was that she was a witch from an intergalactic coven.

I mean… that’s kinda cool. but maybe she shouldn’t have said that

(wheeze)

if it’s going to make people on the internet say “she’s an intergalactic being who went back home to her home planet… Jupiter!”

hahahahaha

what is this, Jupiter Ascending? c’mon now

“Although she was only in KISS for a short period of time, Heather McMann’s mysterious and unexpected departure continues to confound members of the KISS Army. Though Heather McMann has been forgotten by the world, save dedicated KISS fans, many questions still remain: who was the woman fans knew as the Black Dahlia? Why did she suddenly leave the band? And why has she never been seen since? For now, and perhaps forever, these questions will remain… UNSOLVED.”

WHAT UNSOLVED MYSTERY DO YOU WANT TO SEE NEXT?

[we cut back to Ryan and Shane in the office set]

“Final verdict,” Ryan asks, “which one do you think it is?”

“I definitely think the first theory is the most plausible. The rest just don’t make sense.”

“Yeah, I think so too. Though I’m still not certain about the third theory…”

“I still love the fact that she and Paul Stanley were such good friends.”

“Yeah, that is really nice.”

“They were bros,”

“Yeah. Well, Heather, if you’re watching this…”

“Ya got us! We’re stumped. We don’t have a clue what happened to you.”

“Also KISS, if you’re watching this, hope we didn’t offend you in any way.”

“Yeah, that too. I think I’ll go listen to some KISS, actually. They’re a good band.”

“They are a good band. I’ll go listen to some KISS with you.”

“They are, after all, the hottest band in the world.”

-KISSTERIA-

“No, Gene, I’m serious, get on YouTube and put in ‘buzzfeed unsolved’. It’s a new episode, it should be at the top. I swear I’m not making this up!... Did you find it? Okay. Watch it, then call me back. Okay. See you later.”

Paul got off the phone and went over to Heather’s couch, where she was sitting and grinning widely at her laptop, which had been set up on the coffee table. On the screen was the most recent episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved, entitled “The Mysterious Disappearance of Heather McMann.”

“Now, as to my opinion of this theory? No fucking way.”

Heather burst out laughing, falling back on her couch. “Did you—Did you hear that?” she guffawed. “That’s so funny…”

“What’s so funny?”

Heather sat up and rewound the video while Paul sat down next to her.

“A handful of fans on the Internet have supported the theory that Heather McMann, as well as all the other members of KISS, are superpowered intergalactic beings who came to Earth to form KISS. According to this theory…”

Paul’s eyes went wide. “What?!”

Heather giggled. “I know, right?”

Paul shot to his feet. “I need to call Gene.”

“No.” Heather’s hand shot out and grabbed his sleeve. “You don’t need to call Gene. Sit down, and watch the video.”

“If they legitimately think this theory has enough merit to go into their video, then that means we have a problem,” Paul argued.

Heather snorted. “It really doesn’t, Paul. You all have been claiming you’re intergalactic beings since you formed KISS, and no one, apart from fanfic writers on the Internet, has taken you seriously. Relax. Do you want me to rewind the video so you can watch it?”

Paul was silent for a moment, then sighed and sat back down. “Fine…”

Smiling, Heather paused the video and rewound to the beginning. When Velma had messaged her about the video, she’d admittedly been apprehensive of watching it at first. But as she watched the video, her enjoyment of it only rose.

They would no doubt have a postmortem for this episode, Heather thought to herself. She smiled as she wondered what would happen if she got a YouTube account and left a little comment for the boys to read…

[sastheforestspirit]

[Ankh & Shingo]

654 words

Warnings: none

Another dream!♥ It’s right after Ankh return to other Greeeds. My headcanon about Shingo. I like writing  about other’s dreams don’t I ;’’D

*** He opened eyes and tensed at an instant. That was Cous Coussier. He shouldn't be here. Eiji could get him any time. As he was ready to run through the window, he looked at the bed where Eiji should eventually sleep. But the man sitting there was definitely not him. Izumi Shingo, looked at Bird Greeed and smiled. - Good evening, Ankh. Greeed was trying to understand the situation. What.. why was he there? Was this kind of trick to catch him? No... he sensed that he WAS in Shingo's body.. yet that was Shingo as well. - Oi, What is this?! - Ah... I think... I think it's maybe my dream.. but again, I shouldn't be aware of dreaming and... didn't have a proper one since... you know. You possesed me first time... I'm only guessing this is mine.. our head. Kind of? Okay, so this was a dream. Cous Coussier wasn't real, he probably was sleeping somewhere at Maki's place. He was save from Eiji. - So you are awake? Conscious? - Yes, I'm more myself now. I think I didn't shut down like the first time. Maybe it's because you let me use it for more than a day... who knows? Ankh clicked his tongue, he didn't like it. There was no time for fighting over the body with the detective. - Oi, be good and sleep a little longer. I still need it. - I know, Ankh. I can feel how desperate you are. "Desperate", this sounded like Shingo was pitting for him. He got angry. - What do you mean? - Through the body. It reacts to your emotions.. and since it’s my body I can feel it. I'm more... Hm... should I put it that way? More experienced when it comes to feelings than you, Ankh. I can tell when you are angry, stressed or tired. Greeed didn't know what to say. First of all he didn't want to anyone knows about his weaknesses, second of all he was embarrassed by it. Shingo only smiled. - So? What are we gonna do? - 'We'? There is no 'we', detective. - Oh.. I'm afraid there is. I'm lending you this body, it's still mine. Even if I don't really mind and you can have it as long as you need. - You do? - Yes, yes of course, you saved me, you are not hurting me... And I'm worrying about you... - Quit it - Ankh hissed - What do you know? I'm gonna be complete, there is nothing to worry about! - I know. I know Ankh, you are not aware of that, but I know. Just like you discovered the pleasure of eating, hearing things, I learned what it feels to have cores inside you. How much relief it is to get more. How strong you are feeling now with 6 cores and how it's not enough. It's just like I've told you. My physical body reacts to your thoughts. I could feel when you've got afraid of Eiji... - Shut up! - Ankh, unsheathed like never before didn't know how to behave. Shingo smiled again - I will be complete and... won't need your stupid body! - So what are you going to do? - You've heard Maki, we are gonna to make vessel out of me. Since this stupid man broke three of my medals I need a substitute. - He did it so he could save you. - Yea, and was trying to kill me seconds later... - Because he went out of control. - Because he was trying to protect your body. He said so himself, he will find a way to separate me from you. You are human so obviously he cares about you more. I'm nothing but a pile of medals, remember? Shingo got sorry over Ankh, and Greeed takes advantage of it to suppress detective back to corner of the mind. He wasn't sure if the other man got so strong or it was his fault that he came out, but he didn't have time for chit chats.

[tamersa]

I’m thinking  about W and OOO a lot lately (writing fics rewatching some parts etc) and I like OOO as a series more. Still I wanted to know why so I made this VS battle for my own amusement:

MAIN RIDER: Battle between Eiji And Shotaro: Its hard one, both are interesting, have good plot twists, their characterization so nicely made and they both likable. Yet it is Shotaro win here: so relatable, and his range of emotions is great to! The Thing is Eiji was made to be”dried up” and thats the reason why his mental and emotional behave is like it is. First round winner : W THE ONE NEAR MAIN RIDER (LOL): So now it is Ankh and Philip: This one is bit easier. Ankh has way more screen time and is it written so much better. They do have some similarities: both are mind power of the dynamic duo, have some issues with the previous families, crazy hair style and have doubts about their Rider ( or other half) intelligence. The thing is Eiji takes almost no shit form Ankh when he cross the line too much. The Birb man has to pay for his mistakes and sometime the price is huge. Philip on the other hand has his  tragic background but his mistakes are sugarcoated by his partner and not addressed at all. Because of that with more modest screen time his character is not as fleshed out as it could be. Mor rant on Ankh below hehehe Second round winner: OOO FEMALE CAST: In OOO we have: Hina, Chiyako and Satonaka, while W give us: Akiko, Wakana and Saeko. I like Hina I really do, but they didn't use her gimmick as good as they could. She should have throw more barrels or something! Also bit too passive sometimes? Chiyako is spot of supporting chara, funny warm energetic. Yes, good. Satonaka has her good points too: taking no shit from anyone and treating her work as well, work and not some life mission. But then we go to W side and oh boy, Akiko, my love! She is just the best  Rider lady I even saw! Funny, dorky, has more to do, has the slipper, is actually useful even if not have special powers. Well thats debatable too, that wand made from slippers did work lool. But yes even if she is mostly comic relief, because of her Xtreeme was possible! Also She found that devil's tail. And got that name in her dream. She has guts has flaws also but really. I love her to bits. Wakana is interesting too: spoiled princess who suddenly has responsibilities. And Saeko: the dark lady with twisted desires, helping her hated sister in the end. Undoubtedly this round has one Queen:

Third round winner: W SECONDARY RIDER Terui Ryu vs Date Akira and Gotou Shintaro. Well its two vs one and  it shows. Terui has that tragic background, and his bitterness fades away so he could be true city defender. Yet for me it was done bit clunky. There could be put more emotions and struggle into it. He looks cool in the red leather tho. Also he and Akiko are cute together. On the other hand Date and Gotou dynamic is so pure. Also Date is hilarious as hell! Both him and Ryu use Rider suit for other purpose than defend others at the beginning ( well money and revenge), but Date is somehow nicer since the beginning. And Gotous is cute guy who has his own little expansion ark. So yes, sorry red boy, those housbandos  win this one. Fourth round winner: OOO VILLAINS On one side we have Sonozaki's and X foundation, On the other well Greeeds. It looks like one side  have more villain types so it would  win but... Sonozaki family makes Gaia Memories to make super humans and then let only them to live on this planet because some Earth tears or something. Experiments, no one knows who will live. Ryubee  is just laughing old man wit terror, his older daughter is psycho maniac with bad taste for men, younger one is spoiled and doesn't know whats going on at all. It works somehow but not as smooth at it should. Some things are not explained enough some are over explained. And then suddenly some X foundation. Bit messy. For OOO we have Greeeds : incomplete beings who want to be complete but it is impossible so they will destroy everything  to try it anyway lool. They have  different approach to it and later have Dr Maki as weird hybridish psycho who wanted to end the world while is still beautiful. Sounds as messy as W but it is so much better. It is more consistent, we see the twists and dynamics between Greeeds, and the m Maki. I don't like him as a chara but he is made that way to don't like him: sociopath who killed his sister while still a kid, but have issues with her, creep who talks to a doll on his shoulder. He is both comic relief and terrifying at the same time! What a wonderful blend! Also his and Date dynamics are so hilarious I just couldn't stop laughing. Psychodelic af XDXD So because he is consistent in his doing, is a creep is funny dangerous and interesting even if you want to kick him in the balls. Fifth round winner: OOO PLOT Both have interesting stories, not too complicated on the surface, with some twists, with some plot holes and mistakes. OOO has however less of the plot holes ( most of them are from the past stuff like from 800 years ago), the story is more fluent, so fluent that it is hard to see chara development without going 10 episodes behind for a moment and the realization hits you), also there are none “new villain at the end!” no, we know who will be the  ultimate baddie and want to know how it goes. One of the main twists was Lost Ankh. It was interesting and heart breaking. In W main plot is Philip past, his connection to the Gaia Memories and Sonosakis. Plot twist can be predicted quite early but it is still fun. But because of little screen time for Philip and his actual development some moments feel weaker or bit rushed. Yet Shotaro reaction to those are top notch!Still, Eiji and Ankh dynamic story  flow etc is just better in OOO for me. Sixth round winner: OOO OPENING Music is important too and opening is the most characteristic piece of audio for most series. Here you can be biased and I will be. W is more pleasant to the ear, I like the video for it more too. And I mean both what you see in the series and official one. The vocal is more clean in W opening for me too. What to say more? Seventh round winner: W FAVORITE CHARACTER A war between half-boiled and angry birb. I love them both character wise. Are complicated have their flaws as good sides fleshed out, are interesting... but the birb... ah the birb! His story ark! His struggle,  his ambiguous state towards other up until the end. His mannerism (his bird like movements and way he eats lool, he drinks tea with soup spoon! XD), way of thinking and all the changes. They way he goes from treating Eiji as and accessory to fight to having him precious enough to help him fight Maki at costs own existence/life. And he is so relatable. Not for literal stuff ( I don't think any of you is greeed) but  in general: the feeling of not fitting into a group etc. Shotaro is very relatable to don't get me wrong, but his character development is not as deep as Ankh. Both have great  clothes yes! Eight round winner: OOO

SUIT AND MERCH ASCETICS As for looks of  suits of the Riders and gimmicks it will be short: I like  standard double more over TaToBa OOO, but I don't like Extreeme much but I love TaJaDor. Bike looks better in the W animal robots are cute here and here too. Second rider suit is good enough, but henshin gimmick is more interesting in OOO (the medals and  mixing them) So a draw! ENDING

OOO doesn't have that 49th episode and it shows. But with that we have 2 very different vibes endings and both are so good. OOO is bittersweet but gives hope, W I just... god I'm so happy for Shotaro, this soft man deserved the ending. And somehow Eiji deserved his too: you should talk to your birb more Eiji! And shipping aside W should have proper hug and  not that weird thing at the end. Both give satisfaction both are great and not disappoint! Another draw!! BONUS ROUND: BACKGROUND STORIES I could write about all support cast etc but those are equals and we don't need another draw. So I'll will do one more thing as a bonus: background of the charas. Especially our main Riders. In W we know a lot about Philip and what he did in the past yet some thing are presented in chaotic way, we are not sure about important things ( like if his family was dysfunctional before or after Philip's accident), but about Shotaro? Almost nothing. Just that he was bit deliquentish in high school (we are not even sure if it wasn't middle school lool) and that he was with boss  some time before Begins Night. And thats sad because Shotaro is developed in interesting way and his past should be show more to understand better why he was like that. On the other hand we know what we should about Eiji, what made him as he was, why he is living this way. It wasn't long exposition but good enough to understand his ways. For Ankh its bit more messy (because what we hear and what we see on the screen doesn't add up well) but still it is all understandable. Winner of eleventh round : OOO So in all OOO won but not by that much. W is still very good series and both deserve to be watched (and then cried over, and made 1245643 chapters and one shots and drawings to them GAH)

[cakesandfail]

Ok so THREE ships for the shipping post, pick and chose @ your discretion on grounds of this is a bit extra. •Vimes/Vetinari/Sybil •Moist von Lipwig/Adora Bell Dearheart •William/Otto/Sacharissa

buckle up friendo if we’re gonna be Extra then I’m answering every goddamn question, obviously some of these are 21st century Earth things so... just pretend they all live in London instead of Ankh-Morpork for those, I guess

here we fucking go

1. Vimes/Vetinari/Sybil

who hogs the duvet Sam does. Dude is a big fan of pillows, I can’t imagine he’d be any different re: duvetswho texts/rings to check how their day is going Sybil. Sam is v bad at technology and Havelock just sends memes while watching committees happenwho’s the most creative when it comes to gifts Havelock, if by ‘creative’ you mean ‘devious and prone to trolling’who gets up first in the morning Havelock, though let’s be honest, none of them has anything remotely approaching a normal sleep patternwho suggests new things in bed this is definitely Sybil and there’s nothing that will ever convince me otherwisewho cries at movies S A Mwho gives unprompted massages that is an extremely bad idea when two out of three people in the relationship are (justifiably) paranoidwho fusses over the other when they’re sick Sam is the absolute worst for this, as we all found out in Feet of Claywho gets jealous easiest Sam. His self-esteem is terrible and he can hardly believe that one smart, cute, fancy rich person would want him, let alone two. Things can be dificult. He does his best.who has the most embarrassing taste in music I mean I’m pretty sure Havelock wins this one by reading sheet music, the weirdowho collects something unusual ...how unusual are farty dragons? (it’s Sybil regardless, even if the dragons aren’t unusual for Ankh-Morpork she does also have a house full of random tat)who takes the longest to get ready if they’re going out it’s Sybil because she’s got Undergarments(tm) and makeup and a wig to sort out, but if it’s a normal day it’s Havelock because let’s be honest, anyone with a beard like that is definitely a little bit vain and fussy about itwho is the most tidy and organised Mr shiny-circular-saw-brain himself, Havelock Vetinariwho gets most excited about the holidays 100% Sybil (and Sam a bit too, secretly, now he’s in a position to enjoy them)who is the big spoon/little spoon Sam is always the littlest spoon and he loves itwho gets most competitive when playing games and/or sports lmaoooo this is Havelock for sure, he’s clearly one of those people who won’t do anything in public unless he knows he won’t fuck it upwho starts the most arguments this is Sam’s favourite hobbywho suggests that they buy a pet Sybil and Havelock just kind of acquire them tbh, and Sam gave up doing anything about it years agowhat couple traditions they have 25th May is special- it’s Young Sam’s birthday and of course the anniversary of the revolution, so Uncle Havelock comes round for tea and then goes to Small Gods with old Sam, and then stays the night, conveniently disappearing early enough in the morning that nobody else knows he was therewhat tv shows they watch together listen. listen. if they were in modern London they’d be watching the Supervet and getting emotional about it. fite me. also Sybil and Havelock watch nerdy gameshows like Only Connect and University Challenge, but Sam is not here for that at allwhat other couple they hang out with bold of you to assume any of these nerds have any other friendshow they spend time together as a couple does almost getting murdered count because that does happen a lot. Otherwise: naps at bizarre times of the day, fighting over the newspaper, carriage journeys home from parties where they bitch about everyone they hate (ie everyone else who was there)who made the first move Sybil, for every single context where making the first move was necessarywho brings flowers home Havelock does because he’s a ‘show affection through gifts’ sort of person and also a huge nerd who probably knows all about floriographywho is the best cook fucking nobody lol they’re all useless

2. Moist/Adora

who hogs the duvet Adora. And there’s nothing Moist can do about it.who texts/rings to check how their day is going Moist, because he’s a nice cheerful sort of boy (and also likes to be annoying)who’s the most creative when it comes to gifts ...probably Moist? He’s pretty imaginative, I think- that’s not to say that Adora wouldn’t find him good gifts, but his would be more ‘out there’ without being wrongwho gets up first in the morning Adora, unless she’s on nights or Moist has been summoned by his surrogate dad Vetinariwho suggests new things in bed hahahaha ADORAwho cries at movies both of them. Adora will never admit this to anybody.who gives unprompted massages Moist, but only once they’ve been married long enough that he knows when he definitely won’t get stomped onwho fusses over the other when they’re sick I honestly think they’re both the kind of people who are like ‘get the fuck away from me’ when they’re ill so probably nobodywho gets jealous easiest Adora. She’s not worried about Moist, but he’s a very charming dude and other people need to Watch It.who has the most embarrassing taste in music Moist is a big Spandau Ballet fan and you know itwho collects something unusual look, Moist doesn’t actively collect weird shit, weird shit just happens to come into his possessionwho takes the longest to get ready Moist. Just fucking look at him. He wears a gold suit.who is the most tidy and organised Adora, but this does not extend to her private space at all, and their bedroom is a disaster areawho gets most excited about the holidays M o i s twho is the big spoon/little spoon I... think it’s probably Moist. Yeah. Moist.who gets most competitive when playing games and/or sports Adora is the kind of person who’d even try to fight Vetinari if she had to, so.who starts the most arguments see above lmaowho suggests that they buy a pet Moist does, because for all that he complained, he got quite attached to Mr Fusspotwhat couple traditions they have uhhhhh idk if it’s a tradition so much as a regular date night but they definitely go dancing together when they have timewhat tv shows they watch together they hate-watch The Apprentice, and Undercover Boss, and Dragons Den- basically anything where they can judge other people’s ability to run a businesswhat other couple they hang out with work people, mostly. Sometimes they have to socialise with Sam and Sybil, which is a bit unfortunate for Moist and Sam, but Adora and Sybil find their respective idiots very cute when they’re all cross so it tends to work out okayhow they spend time together as a couple the aforementioned hate-watching marathons and dancing. I think they’re probably one of the few canon couples that actually has date nights.who made the first move Moist. It’s canon. He’s a dipshit, but it did sort of work.who brings flowers home Moist does, because he thinks it’s a good idea to do it regularly so Adora won’t assume he’s fucked up every timewho is the best cook Moist- he once spent three months as a cook in a pub while laying low after a scam. It’s not amazing gourmet food, but it’s alright.

3. William/Otto/Sacharissa

who hogs the duvet Sacharissa, because she’s the smallest and the first to get coldwho texts/rings to check how their day is going All of them- they’re journalists, they’re always in contact all the time. In a Roundworld AU they’d have a whatsapp groupwho’s the most creative when it comes to gifts Williamwho gets up first in the morning I think this probably depends on what they’re doing, but it’s definitely not Otto hahawho suggests new things in bed Otto isn’t necessarily going to suggest them outright, but he’s definitely dropped hints about things he used to get up to back in the daywho cries at movies William. He thinks the others don’t know. They do.who gives unprompted massages I’m not sure? This seems like a William thing but he’s also extremely awkward. I think it would be him once they were established as a trio.who fusses over the other when they’re sick Otto- he worries about the other two because they’re mortal and because he’s just generally an anxious kind of dudewho gets jealous easiest William. He’s a bit insecure about his place in the world and, well, Sacharissa is so pretty and Otto is a vampire which makes him automatically 500% sexier to everyone everywhere, clearly anyone hanging around them wants to take his place. (Spoiler: they don’t.)who has the most embarrassing taste in music Sacharissa strikes me as a big 90s pop fan idekwho collects something unusual Otto is definitely a nerd about old cameras/iconographswho takes the longest to get ready I think possibly Sacharissa just because girl clothes take longer- otherwise I don’t think there’s much in it. They’re all pretty sensible people.who is the most tidy and organised William has a stick up his butt about everything ever, so definitely himwho gets most excited about the holidays Otto does, because he finally has someone to celebrate with who isn’t going to get eaten (behave.)who is the big spoon/little spoon this varies a lot, I think? I just kind of assumed they usually end up in a big old cuddlepilewho gets most competitive when playing games and/or sports William. He went to boarding school and even though he hated it, it’s bound to have had some effect on himwho starts the most arguments ...also William lmaowho suggests that they buy a pet Sacharissa. She thinks both Wuffles and Mr Fusspot are very cute.what couple traditions they have They get a takeaway whenever they’ve stayed late at work together to finish a big story. Otto can’t eat it, obviously, but he likes to just sit with the others and hang out. It’s nice.what tv shows they watch together absolutely no news programmes at all, ever. Lots of low-energy stuff like How It’s Made so they don’t have to use any brainpower.what other couple they hang out with sometimes Gunilla and Boddony join in with the takeaway nightshow they spend time together as a couple running about like loons after the next story, mostlywho made the first move William with Sacharissa, Sacharissa with Ottowho brings flowers home Sacharissa does- mostly just because she likes having them aroundwho is the best cook Otto made a point of learning to cook so he could do something nice for his favourite people. He had lessons and everything. He has to wear gloves to handle the garlic, but it’s worth it.

[asknarashikari]

Rate Riders on how bad their bed head is

Touma- his hair is just a giant ball of fluff... and tangles

Haruto- the only reason it’s not a mess all the time is ~magic~. Probably.

Tsukasa- omg get this guy a brush, his hair is all over the place

Eiji- not helped by his and Ankh’s activities

Kouta- it got really bad when he had a mullet

Sento- Sato Taro’s hair sometimes misbehaves...

Emu- Particularly bad when he crashes after an all nighter

Philip- Gets all tangled when he sleeps with his clips in

Gentaro- little bit of hairgel goes a long way for that pompadour

Aruto- has floof, but a little brushing manages to tame it somehow

Takeru- his hair is behaved now that it’s coconut-y (in the words of Marcosatsu)

Shoutaro- manageable enough that he just needs to comb every morning

Shinnosuke- always somehow gets it slick straight

Sougo- doesn’t even need a comb, he woke like this

[firebirdsdaughter]

RANT

The entirety of my tag rant.

I’m not normally this… I dunno what the word would be. Invested? Emotional? I know it’s just a show (and none of this is directed at anyone, I mean, Toei doesn’t give a shit what I think), but…

The thing is that, like Ryusoulger, the show and esp the Horobi and Fuwa dynamic (and Horobi and Jin) helped me get through a really shitty time for me, emotionally. They got me through… possibly some of the closest I’ve ever gotten to being suicidal, depression-wise, a seat they share w/ OOO (and Ankh and Eiji’s relationship) and Boukenger my freshman spring semester of college.

I am not actively suicidal. I have never been actively suicidal. I am very… Well, proud’s not the right word, but it’s the closest I got—proud of that.

But I spent a long spell of unemployment and then being cooped up in the house on furlough absolutely losing my mind. I felt like shit and a failure and I was scared, and mad at everything. I couldn’t get in touch w/ my therapist. Ryusoulger and then Horobi and Fuwa (and often Horobi and Jin) helped alleviate that. Helped get me through the week w/out going insane. I got to completely set everything aside and smile for a bit. I got inspired to write again after having lost interest for a bit. Even just the few-second basement eps came to be so important to me. I was so invested in these two characters and their relationship, it was like, everything I loved about that type of set up, everything.

To see it so completely… Shoved aside and forgotten like that… It’s… It’s really painful. It feels like a judgement on me, like the universe is mocking me for liking something. And if I had been equally as interested in the thing that was wedged in its place, things might be different, but instead I felt nothing for Fuwa and Naki. What started as bland indifference, however, turned to a psychosomatic reaction as suddenly took over everywhere to the point that it was night impossible to stay in my corner bc my corner no longer existed. I suddenly didn’t feel like I had anything to talk to people about anymore. Even now, I know of like, one and a half people I feel like I talk to about Horobi and Fuwa. There was a lot of going on about why Naki and Fuwa were ‘better’ to the point I had to mute or even unfollow bc I was just… Having too severe a psychological reaction. And the fact that it’s literally the canon content itself behaving in this way too just makes it all the more agonising.

And again, this isn’t at anyone. I’m just explaining why I have such an intense reaction, and this is only all spilling out bc I am tired as FUCK and I may delete it later. I’m literally such a mess I’m crying right now. But I want to stop hiding in a corner grumbling to myself.

I know there’s a tag that says ‘I want to be able to say ‘I don’t ship something’ w/out feeling like I have to justify myself’ and that’s exactly what I’m doing, trying to justify myself, but like, proving my point, I guess. I’m at a point w/ my anxiety and paranoia that I feel like I have to go on a whole rambling explanation of my depression and anxiety and coping mechanisms just to say ‘I disagree, I don’t ship this/enjoy it, I don’t understand why it’s so popular’ w/ something (which is also an example of my psychosis bc I am constantly terrified I’m making people angry).

So fine. I don’t enjoy Naki and Fuwa. I think I could have, if things had been written differently. Interesting concept, Nakayama’s a legend, Okada’s a great actor, Fuwa’s my other favourite character, Naki’s actually fourth on my character list bc I am quote fond of the bits of them we got to see, I named the car I use after them, mbjr were always more interesting to me than the heroes excepting Fuwa.

But as it ended up being written, I do not enjoy it at all, and it actually gives me a psychosomatic reaction (which is, admittedly, not uncommon for me w/ notps, I will admit). The fact is, Horobi and Fuwa were not just the exact kind of dynamic I am interested in, but they also got me through some rough shit, and are still getting me through it, and so yes, I am going to be very emotional that this relationship that was very important to me got completely dropped for this relationship that not only does not interest me at all but has things that make me very uncomfortable w/ it, and I am going to have a reaction to it, and I don’t care that it’s popular or that Toei is pushing it, I disagree, I do not think it’s strong enough to warrant all the hype and attention, and it makes me feel unwell, and I should not feel like I’m somehow offending the entire internet for disagreeing. There are people out there victim blaming Horobi for the Ark and Gai’s actions w/out worrying about this stuff, if they can do that, I can bloody say I don’t like a popular pairing and I think it was poorly written and poorly developed and should not have been wedged in instead of another relationship which to me was much more interesting and meaningful and powerful and I should not feel bad for liking different things and bloody go off.

There just was not enough to make me feel at all connected. Esp not for it to be equated w/ 02. Draft horse pack on a shetland pony. And I am tired enough that I refuse to feel bad for this at the moment. I’m tired of feeling bad about all the people I know I drove away and who don’t want to talk to me bc I happened to not like the popular thing or bc I was vocal about my feelings.

I’m sure I’ll feel hella guilty and delete this all later but fuck it right now I’m running on four hours of sleep for ten hours and I don’t care anymore.