#because you know if you watch enough dragon ball stuff they start throwing one piece and naruto at you

[myupostsheadcanons]

Talk about something a little different... hm....... How about.............. uhhhhhh.......... One Piece?

Ok.... *scratches head*

The Three Weapons, Pluton, Uranus, and Poseidon... are Terraforming engines. Pluton (the ship) raised islands and Red Line from the sea, Poseidon (the mermaids) controlled the Sea Kings and created calm seas, Uranus (likely) controls the weather. Their world is a colony world. The Celestial Dragons know full well they are from space. The rest of the population... not so much.

The Devil fruits are based off the Immortal Peaches from Journey to the West. A heck of a lot of One Piece is based off of Journey to the West, which also shares that inspiration with Dragon Ball. The Kai Tree in Dragon Ball Super is basically their version of that Tree (so was The Tree of Might and the Universe Tree things in SDBH).

Kind of a Voice Actor funny thing.... OP vs DB thing.... Ace and Piccolo have the same VA. Luffy and Krillin have the same VA. Raditz and Buggy have the same VA.... Ace (the older brother) died by getting a hole in his chest and then Luffy was carried off to safety by Buggy... harhar, unintentional funny thing... So out of Luffy’s brothers (Ace and Sabo)... one died with a hole in his chest and the other one got amnesia and was saved by Dragon (Luffy’s father)...

Kind of funny, considering Raditz got the hole in the chest and Goku (who had amnesia at one point) was saved by the Dragon Balls.... Also Dragon rebelling against the system, not unlike how Bardock was starting to get reeeeally tired of Frieza and the Saiyans being dumb as fuck. Not to mention Luffy’s Devil Fruit ended up not being the Gumu-Gumu fruit but a God Fruit that gave him Luck powers and cartoon-logic powers (he isn’t made of rubber, he’s got rubber hose animation powers)... so Luffy and Goku had plot armor from supernatural sources....  (now Gear 5 looking awfully sus to perfect Ultra Instinct).  Luffy = Sun God, Goku’s name Son Goku.... there is also SinGoku, the former Fleet Admiral, that turns into Budda... which is also a Journey to the West reference (Budda trapped Son Wukong under a mountain after eating all the Immortal Peaches)...

Also, keep in mind that the end of Journey to the West the scrolls of enlightenment were completely useless... and blank.

Stupid Fandom Thing that is tickling my jimmies right now: The CrocoMom theory... seriously it has been the funniest and one of the longest running crack theories out there and it is 99% likely not being true, but it is absolutely entertaining. Crocodile once being a woman, maybe more likely, but not really Luffy’s mom on top of that unless they’ve been running their double life longer than expected (Crocodile was being used as an Alias and wasn’t a real person, but someone they said they worked for bc nobody would’ve taken them AS seriously as a woman, and they took up the mantel officially after Ivankov did the change thing... maybe make sense considering how Buroque Works was set up to have double names and secret identities for everybody). Crocodile has a lot of Peter Pan influences, having a hook hand and his alias as Crocodile being the main thing (Captain Hook being hunted down by a Crocodile after Peter Pan cut off his hand and fed it to the beast) ... so my additional crack to this theory on this is that if Crocodile was a woman at one point, their name might have been Wendy, after Wendy Darling.....

there are, however, also some strange story parallels between Crocodile and Dragon.... the obvious one being their names. Crocodile in Japanese shares letters with the word for Dragon.  The Sand vs. (allegedly) Wind/Weather powers, there is over lap... both being elemental and amorphous... IE: Sand storms (Sabels). (Dragon could also have Uranus in his possession, which is that Sky terraforming machine.. but that is a whole other theory). Dragon and Crocodile were both at Roger’s execution (so was like half the old cast apparently)... they could’ve ran into each other at some point as Rookies (another thing that Crocomom advocates point out).  Dragon (or Luffy’s weird luck power) saved Luffy from being executed by Buggy, then he stopped Luffy from getting caught by Smoker and all of them were scattered by a wind storm.... Crocodile did save Ace from being executed (but Ace had this whole Marty McFly chip on his shoulder about not backing down from a fucking fight so... that didn’t end well later), and also stopped Luffy from being killed by Mikawk and even sent him away in a sand storm (to be caught by Buggy) after stopping Lava Admiral Dude.... so... Crocodile the MVP of Impel Down/Marinefort... and then vanished from the manga for the next decade-plus. (PS: also Crocodile’s VA also took over the voice for the Eternal Dragons in Dragon Ball... so... that’s cool too)

[reinerispretty]

I love your writing 🥺 Can you do a Sokka imagine where the reader is a firebender so Sokka doesnt take well to her joining the gaang at first, and they always bicker/ throw sarcastic comments at each other and the gaang is so sick of it! But one day they are forced to be alone together (they go on a mission?) and sparks fly n they kiss or something 😳 they return to camp and the gaang is like... ok why r u guys tolerating eachother and u guys r inseparable and super couply from then on!

hi!! sorry i’m just now getting to this!! i like to put lots of effort into my requests so i wanted it to be the best it could be :D hope you enjoy!!

---

(Y/N) had always been very proud of her firebending. Not everyone in the town she had grown up in were benders, so being able to bend one of the elements was a great honor. Because of her powers, she was on track to join the Fire Nation military. These plans changed of course, as soon as she met the Avatar and his friends. She had helped them escape capture and joined them on their adventures. They were all pretty hesitant about her joining, but eventually Toph vouched for her by saying that she wasn’t lying when she told them all she had ever wanted was to help people. 

(Y/N) had been traveling with their group for a few weeks and was slowly starting to build friendships with the other members of her group. Aang absolutely refused to learn firebending from her, but watched and laughed as she made little dragon puppets out of fire after dinner. She and Toph became fast friends, as they both had a similar wit and nonchalance about life. Katara took a bit to fully warm up to her, but (Y/N) was relentless and eventually they could exchange pleasant conversation as they cooked dinner. Even Appa licked her when she brought him hay, and Momo had started sharing his berries with her. The only person who didn’t like her at all was Sokka. 

“I don’t want a firebender joining us,” He had said pointedly when she first joined the group. He had been outvoted, of course, and now whenever (Y/N) did anything, he had something to say in return. If she arranged the sleeping bags, he complained about their positioning. If she made dinner that night, he complained about the taste. It seemed like he went out of his way to make her feel bad. 

Initially (Y/N) had tried to understand. The Fire Nation had hurt his people, so it was only natural that he was apprehensive toward her. But then his words started to hurt. One day, he had mentioned that she had betrayed her own people, so it would only be a matter of time until she betrayed them, too, and (Y/N) had had enough. She threw her bowl of soup to the ground and stood up. “What’s your problem?” She demanded. 

“My problem is with you,” He spat. “You’re Fire Nation, you can’t be trusted.” 

“Don’t you think that if I had even thought about turning you all in to the Fire Lord, I would have done it already?” 

“I don’t know what goes on in your little spy brain!” 

“I know what goes on in your brain: absolutely nothing!” She let out a frustrated scream and turned on her heel, marching into her tent. The rest of the group stared at Sokka awkwardly. 

“She’s such a piece of work,” He grumbled, sipping on his soup. “Can you believe her?” 

Over the next few weeks, whenever Sokka said an insult toward (Y/N) she’d shoot one right back. If he wanted to be a pain in her side, fine. She’d be one in his, too. 

“You sure your twig arms can handle that firewood?” She asked him as he brought wood for their campfire. 

“Hey, at least I’m doing something. What, are you too busy plotting how to take over the world to help?” 

Their conversations were just insults and sarcastic quips, and eventually the rest of the group started to get sick of it. One night, as they sat at dinner, (Y/N) and Sokka were bickering because they had been forced to sit beside each other. Toph drove a piece of earth between them and flung them in opposite directions. “Would you guys quit it!” The girl shouted. “I only have four out of the five senses and you guys are driving them all crazy!” 

“Sorry, Toph,” (Y/N) apologized, brushing herself off. “You know how he is.” 

“Me?” Sokka exclaimed. “Toph, you know how she is!” 

“You arrogant, good for nothing--” 

“Ow!” Aang shouted, clutching his foot. The group stopped to look at him. “Ow, ow, ow, I think I stepped on something. My foot really hurts!” Katara rushed over to take a look and furrowed her brows. 

“I don’t--” 

“Oh, Sokka,” Aang sighed. “I don’t think I can go on that mission with you tomorrow, my foot just hurts too bad!” He gave Katara a big wink. 

“Oh, of course!” She said, finally getting what Aang was trying to do. “I have to stay here and help Aang heal. I’ll need Toph’s help, too, so (Y/N) is the only one who can go on the mission with you.” 

“I’d rather go alone,” Sokka said, crossing his arms. 

“Please, how are you going to defend yourself if you don’t have a bender with you?” (Y/N) asked with a roll of her eyes. Sokka balled his fists and stormed off to his tent, mumbling angry, incoherent sentences. (Y/N) yawned and retreated back to her tent for the night. 

“I’m not really injured,” Aang said. 

“Really?” Toph deadpanned. “Couldn’t tell.” 

“I just wanted a break from the two of them. They’re always fighting!” 

“Who knows,” Katara said with a smile. “Maybe the trip will bring them closer together.” 

The next morning, (Y/N) and Sokka begrudgingly walked side-by-side to their mission. They were doing a stake out of some Fire Navy ships to see what kind of weapons they were storing on them. They climbed up to a tall hillside, where they could comfortably watch the ships. As long as they were quiet, they wouldn’t bring any attention to themselves. 

Sokka’s plan was to stay there for a full twenty-four hours. Every time (Y/N) thought about being around him that long, she nearly gagged, but she had to swallow it down because she knew this mission would be for the greater good. Hopefully, there would be more watching than talking.

They set up their tents behind some rocks so they would not look suspicious. And then, they sat. And they sat for a long time. (Y/N) was growing increasingly bored, just watching soldiers go in and out of the ships. She sighed, laying back down on the grass. 

“What exactly are we looking for?” 

“Nothing.” She propped herself up on her elbows. 

“Excuse me?” 

“We aren’t looking for anything. Well, not anything specific. I just want to know what kind of weapons they’re using so I can write to the Mechanist to create better ones for us.” 

“So...we’re just going to watch?” 

“Do you not know what a stake out is?” 

“I do! I just didn’t know it was going to be a full day of doing absolutely nothing.” 

“Look, if you don’t want to be here, fine. You can go back to the camp. I can handle myself.” (Y/N) scoffed. 

“I’m not leaving you here alone, Sokka.” 

“Then I suggest you stop complaining.” (Y/N) rolled her eyes and reached into her bag. She pulled out two sandwiches and laid them beside her. “What are those?” 

“Food,” She said, sliding a sandwich over to him. He took it suspiciously. “It’s not poisoned, you dummy. I got up early this morning and went to the market so I could make stake out snacks.” 

“Oh, thanks. I guess.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

They sat in silence for what felt like a lifetime. (Y/N) watched the soldiers intently and had even made up backstories for some of them. The smaller soldier was named Lee, and he was a fiesty little fellow, but he was a new recruit. He had good ideas, but no one really wanted to listen to him because he lacked authority. (Y/N) sighed as she watched him talk to his commanders. Poor Lee. 

“I recognize that one,” she said suddenly, pointing at one of the soldiers. “He and I went to training camp together one summer.” 

“Oh, so that’s your friend. Great.” (Y/N) furrowed her brows. 

“I never said he was my friend.” 

“I just assumed, since you were both all ‘Go Fire Nation!’“ He sarcastically pumped a fist into his air. 

“You make a lot of assumptions about me for someone who doesn’t know me.” 

“I know exactly who you are. You’re a spoiled girl from the Fire Nation who wasn’t satisfied with her life and only wanted to join us to run away from your probably mean family. You don’t want to make change, you just wanted an out.” 

“That’s not true at all, Sokka. I grew up poor. Dirt poor. And when I say that I mean it, because the floors of my house were literally dirt. No one asked me if I wanted to join the Fire Nation military, they told me I was going to. I was brought up my whole life surrounded by people who told me how great my nation was. If everyone’s telling you something and you have no reason to believe otherwise, you start to believe it. I know I’m not perfect, but I’m really tired of you thinking that you know who I am.” She pulled her knees into her chest and tucked her chin on top of them. 

Sokka sighed. The sun was setting behind them. “It’s obvious I don’t like the Fire Nation. They’ve caused a lot of pain to me and Katara and to thousands of other people. So when you joined, I guess I just projected that anger onto you.” 

“I understand. But I’m not the entire Fire Nation.” 

“I know, it’s just hard to separate the two sometimes. I can literally see the Fire Nation inside of you. You’re decisive and strong and stubborn--” 

“I’m just going to focus on the first two. You really think those things about me?” 

“I mean, yeah. I’ve seen you talk your way out of fights but also kick some major butt. As much as I hate to say it, you’re pretty cool.” (Y/N) smiled and opened her mouth to respond, but her eyes widened as a giant fireball plummeted toward them. 

“Look out!” She shouted, tackling Sokka out of the way. They both grunted in pain as they hit the ground. 

“How did they even see us?” Sokka asked. He grabbed (Y/N) by the hand and led her up the hill. They abandoned all of their camping stuff (as it was currently on fire) and ran down the backside of the hill, away from the Fire Navy ships. (Y/N) spotted a cave and pulled Sokka inside. They both leaned against the cool rock, breathing heavily. 

“Well, so much for the stake out,” (Y/N) said. Sokka laughed. 

“We’ll have to wait here for the night. The ships are supposed to leave at dawn tomorrow, so we can travel back to camp then.” (Y/N) nodded. The sun had fully set behind them and the cool chill of night was setting in. She shivered. “I can get a fire going,” Sokka said, and began to collect the debris that was scattered around the cave. (Y/N) giggled. 

“Sokka, I got it.” She kicked some leaves and sticks into a pile and kicked a flame on top of them. They sat across from each other with their backs against the cave walls. 

“So, how’d you know you were a firebender?” He asked. (Y/N) shrugged. 

“I think I started coughing fire one day. My family expected it though. My father had been a firebender.” She pursed her lips and stared at the ground. “He was sent to fight in the war. He didn’t end up coming home.” 

“I’m so sorry,” Sokka said quietly. She shrugged. 

“I feel torn about it, you know? Because he fought for hatred and injustice, but I also never got to find out if he supported the war or not. The Fire Nation doesn’t really care if you want to fight. They make you do it anyway.” 

“I always wanted to fight, ever since I was little.” Sokka said. “But now while I’m living my dream, I see how nasty it actually is and understand why my dad didn’t want me to.” 

“Well, you’re a pretty good fighter, so I’m sure he’s proud of you.” Sokka smiled. 

“I’m sure your dad is proud of you, too.” (Y/N) grinned. “Listen, I’m sorry for being so mean to you. I guess I was projecting feelings on to you that I had towards the Fire Nation, and it wasn’t fair. But in my defense, everything you did just made me mad. Like the way you cooked soup, or how pretty your eyes were, or how nice your laugh sounded...” Sokka trailed off, a blush appearing on his cheeks. “I said that all out loud, didn’t I?” 

(Y/N) nodded, trying her best to contain her smile. “Alright,” Sokka said. “You can just kill me now, I guess.” (Y/N) burst into laughter. 

“It’s really okay, Sokka. I’m sorry for being mean to you as well. Everything you did made me mad, like how you constantly teased me, or how cute your ponytail looks, or how funny your jokes were...” 

“You...you really think my jokes are funny?” (Y/N) nodded before sliding to sit at his side. “Can I try something?” (Y/N) nodded again. Their faces were just inches apart and she could tell the fire was dying by the dim glow it left on Sokka’s cheeks. He touched her own cheek with his hand, before pulling her close and slowly connecting their lips. (Y/N) felt her face grow hot, but she still let her eyes close and reveled in the feeling of his kiss. They stayed like that for a while, long after the fire went out. 

When they returned to their friends the next morning, they walked hand in hand. Aang and Katara’s mouths dropped open and Toph stamped her feet on the ground. “There must be something wrong,” She said. “Are they...touching each other?” 

“Hey, guys!” Sokka said, a bright smile on his face. “Aang, how’s the foot doing?” 

“Uh, pretty good,” Aang said, pretending to lift his foot as if it were injured. 

“What’s um...going on here?” Katara asked. 

“Sokka and I had a pretty good stake out,” (Y/N) said. She let her hand slip from his. “I’m gonna get started on lunch.” 

“Alrighty,” Sokka said before planting a kiss on her cheek. He sighed happily as he watched her walk away. “Aang, I really have to thank you for pretending to hurt your foot.” 

---

Permatag List!

@musicalkeys , @aroyaldarknessblr

[rametarin]

I’ve feared this for a while

The news that the new guy behind manga and anime wants to cleanse Japan’s media depresses me.

In my pre-teens, girls were really.. negatively affected, mentally, by the body issues and complexes that said the girls in comics were just sex objects and the boys that liked comics were just being willfully indoctrinated in ‘male gaze’ patriarchy boot camps.

It was the same problem when you read WH40K stuff or played Pokemon in front of clergy in the late 80s/later on, the mid 90s. Your Christian friend might throw a fit about ‘satanic monsters’ or your feminist friend might get on a soap box to hear themselves talk about how enlightened and ‘critical’ they were, or browbeat you into their little fantasy that “having this conversation with somebody” was improving society. Y’know, to give themselves a little ideological dopamine rush.

So you had to be very careful what girl you tried to relate with about liking comic books, or else out would come the accusations that comic books were just jingoistic right wing brainwashing books that objectified women and upheld sexist societal standards. That meant many boys feared sharing their interests or collections for fear of being seen as a Worthless Boy to many girls. Whom were keyed, either willingly or trained by their queen bee friends putting the fear of ostracism in them, to parrot that party line.

But then something amazing happened...

Japanese media hit US shores. And it was cute. It was feminine, often to the point of androgyny and neotony. The depictions of girls were often hyperfeminine and cutesy, often bordering on the infantilized.

BUT. it was in this.. AMAZING cultural and art donut hole! Because the American radfems could speak ad nauseum about old white men being sexist and hateful and misogynist oppressive pieces of shit, cogs in a white supremacist cultural war machine...

But white girls cannot speak over non-white minorities to decry other cultures as sexist, oppressive and wrong. You noticing any parallels with Islam right now, in the hearts of many people that claim they’re “leftists,” and, “progressive,” and therefore cannot be sexist or racist? Oops.

And then oh look, more VISIBLE, FAMOUS femake MANGAKA and more integrated women in DECADES of establishment! Cutesy female-led incorporations of sexy things!! Oh NO!! They’re in that junior radical feminist blindspot; you’re not even supposed to ASK about the hypotheticals of if GIRLS sexualize themselves in media, because, “well girls in media wouldn’t do that, that’s just a disgusting boy thing. :^) So I refuse to even answer that. Until the industry and status quo in comics changes, it’s a boy’s club.”

Well here the Japanese manga community is! Featuring GIRLS, telling SEX JOKES and being scantly clad and SEXY and having FUN and being innocent and joyful! oh look and it’s written and drawn by MINORITY. WOMEN!!!! From one of those oppressed foreign non-white cultures!!! Where women doing stuff professionally is VERY progressive and also an undeniable contribution of women doing anything! Look how puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure this is! It’s everything you radfems claim you want! EVEN MINORITY REPRESENTATION!!!

Radical Feminism of the time FUMED at this thing in the periphery being both sexual and EVERYTHING they CLAIMED they wanted from media in order for it to be good, but they bit their tongues. Because all the girls that started to enjoy Sailor Moon, learned about the censorship of Japanese media by foreign companies to market it in the west and how Japan had more mature, ‘pure’ depictions of female nudity and saccharine sweet sexuality, and they were growing deaf and dumb to the radfem’s rhetoric.

And.. I really can’t underline enough. If you’re in your mid-late 30s now, you SAW the visible shift. From when comic books became taboo and the girls got angry about being infantilized, made into sex objects, everything sex related had a negative light that, “boys didn’t respect them for their MIND an SOUL,” and other gripes all evaporated when Sailor Moon’s blonde meatball ass swung in like a Japanese wrecking ball, like a Lisa Frank notebook heroine come to life.

And comics and fiction and the culture became FUN again. No more walking on eggshells, no more avoiding being painted in that disgusting negative light by radfems pretending they cared about equality so much as defining radical feminist largesse as “equality” and selling it to less deep down the rabbithole women as egalitarianism.

And now the very seat of that shining culture is under attack by insiders that are carrying the foreigner mindset. Entire manga studios are being build and founded under Black Lives Matter and Privilege Theorist mindsets. Anime itself is under attack as a social culture by these fucking assholes.

So, 3rd party studios won’t have to add in those disgusting, stupid jokes in Dragon Maid about “the patriarchy,” deviating from the dialogue of the original just to be propagandic platforms. They’ll platform and edit the original material by sympathetic “critical lenses” wearing editors and silver spooned CEOs.

I’m going to be honest. I’m going to be sad to see Japanese media get the same ridiculous standards and sentiments of censorship in the west. A moratorium on blood, mention of death, and any scene with a NIP SLIP will be seen as juvenile, childish, perverted, and objectification of the female body. Bugger the fact you can have all these things and it’s perfectly healthy, but no, “we MUST ENSURE OUR SOCIETY IS FREE OF BAD THINK! MEDIA IS SOCIETY’S PSYCHOLOGY! PSYCHOLOGY MUST BE PURE OF BAD THINK, ELSE SOCIETY’S SIGNING OFF ON THIS BEHAVIOR!” Bullshit.

We all remember growing up with anime and manga in an era when everything even hinting at sexuality and violence was behind a few layers of bubblewrap and judgemental eyes. Everything more mature than Carebears highlighted and stigmatized so overbearing parents could tell if it had anything their little Johnny or Sarah shouldn’t even have agency over knowing, as long as the parents could have it. It was a cultural and mental refuge. It was where you could have your nip slips and innocent sexuality without judgement or accusations of being a disgusting person.

And more importantly it changed a lot of girls opinions or prevented them from swallowing that party line and going deeper down that rabbithole altogether.

Imported Japanese media returned a sense of both youthful innocence as well as tolerant maturity to western expectations of art and illustrated literature and I argue bridged that gap between the dark and gritty for-adults 90s stuff parents wouldn’t let kids even know existed, and.. fucking Carebears.

We still have webcomics for anything-goes, anyone-can-access, but that will come under threat next. Just you watch. Demanding anything with a nipple or even a mention of sexuality must be behind a government watched paywall so you can’t even access it without committing theft or fraud that the government can punish a person or their guardian over.

I really, really, really do not want the Japanese to experience the sort of horrible social climate that I remember looming when radical feminism sold itself to the girls as progressive, and made men depicting women inherently oppressive and evil. Where it sustains itself on the hysteria and personal emotional insecurities and complexes of millions of women normalizing that into a societal expectation that they then fear being judged by.

It was truly an absolutely miserable period of time to grow up as a comic fan and as a person, because the stigma was biting. And the contrast between the warm, open, free, inviting and friendly waters afterwards?.. Like going from swimming in cold arctic lemon juice to tranquil tropical seawater.

The existence of Japanese manga and what it did to the social climate of comic and cartoons fans cannot be understated enough.

I mean, yeah, at the time, folks like Joss Whedon helped with Buffy and shit, but we don’t talk about him and people like him. It was the 90s.

[subwalls]

memory (in all its forms)

/ unfinished & unrevised, basically a “dre gets the memories knocked out of him and is very confusedly on lmanburgs side while his friends bite and scream and shout for him to come back and also the dragon is evil and controlling them that’s why the no end rule is in place” etc

“Surrender,” says the masked man before Wilbur, the black metal of a netherite axe held level with his throat. Flanking him are his—subordinates? Generals? How does Dream handle rankings in his SMP?—friends, each armed with loaded crossbows and drawn swords. 

Wilbur remains calm, but Tommy does not. His young right-hand man bristles from head to toe as he spits, “Never!” The fact that his throat could be split in an instant doesn’t daunt him at all.

He really does need to talk to that boy about deliberately aggravating L’Manburg’s fully decked out enemies when they themselves have nowhere near the same level of armor. That’ll have to be later, though; for now, Wilbur settles for exchanging a look with Niki over their heads and putting a hopefully calming hand on Tommy’s shoulder.

“You’re not getting anything out of us,” Wilbur says firmly. “Even under threat of death, we won’t surrender—we’re not carrying anything we can’t afford to lose.”

Sapnap snorts. “Clearly,” he says, raking a dismissing glance over their visible lack of armor and weapons. “Except Tubbo over there—what’re you looking at, buddy?” An upsettingly familiar gleam edges into his gaze, the same kind of look he usually gives groves of trees before he razes them to the ground. “Why don’t you share what you got with the class?”

Wilbur glances over, puzzled, just in time to see Tubbo tuck a shimmering bottle of something up his sleeve. 

“Nothing!” the boy says, unconvincingly. He glances towards Wilbur. “Just, you know. Drugs. For when we’re really in trouble.”

“On Dream SMP grounds? Oh, you’re really in for it now.” Sapnap tsks at them, but Wilbur barely hears him. 

The way Tubbo said that, the way he’s looking at Wilbur with as though waiting for him to catch on to something… Wilbur’s heart skips a beat with hope. Tubbo had said something about keeping his project with him wherever he went, because it’s usable now. Not perfect, but at least it does something.

They just have to make sure none of their own are within splash radius. 

Wilbur turns a critical eye to their surroundings. He, Tommy, Tubbo, and Niki are cornered against a cliff face by Dream, Sapnap, and George. Four versus three sounds like it should skew in their favor, but they’re hopelessly outarmed. Any show of resistance will be met with immediate death.

Stall. They have to stall, and hope that some glimmer of opportunity shows itself despite this incredibly tight situation. 

“Look,” Wilbur says, keeping his voice level. “Keeping us here isn’t helping your case at all. We might not have anything, but you won’t get anything, either.”

… 

Dream snarls, stomping towards him. “You—”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish; glass shatters against him, splashing potion residue everywhere. As he doubles over, coughing, Tubbo pops out of his hiding spot to shout, “Wilbur, come on!”

Unfortunately, the whole point of this trap is that there’s only one way in and out, which means Dream stands between him and Tubbo. The leader of the SMP isn’t exactly threatening right now, with how he’s slumped against the wall like he can’t keep his balance, but Wilbur’s still nervous to scoot past him. Even fatally nauseous, it’s not that hard to swing an axe. 

“Wh-what was that?” Dream says, much fainter than he’s ever sounded. “I don’t—ow, my head—” He folds to the floor in seconds, curling into a ball and grabbing at his head. The disorientating effect must be insane, because he’s struggling to the point of actually dislodging his own mask.

Wilbur’s pretty sure he even sleeps with the damn thing. For him to be pawing at his head so furiously as to knock it off… 

That can’t be right. Wilbur hesitates, watching the normally infallible Dream shake to pieces on the floor, and can’t help but feel as though something has gone horribly wrong. 

“Wilbur!” Tubbo hisses. “Hurry up!”

“Hold on,” Wilbur says. The potion is supposed to nauseate and poison, not completely knock out, but the way Dream has fallen eerily still on the stone ground makes him think he’s genuinely unconscious right now. Unexpected, yes, but not unwelcome. A whole slew of new possibilities are open to him now, and his fingers itch to get a hold of one. “Where are the others? Are they back safely?”

“Um. Yeah, I think so.”

“Good. Help me with him.”

“With—what?” Tubbo watches in bafflement as Wilbur goes over to Dream and kicks the axe away from his limp hand. “What are you doing?”

“What do you think the people of Dream SMP will think if they can’t find their leader anywhere, but his stuff is still sitting around?” Wilbur can’t access Dream’s inventory, but taking off his shield and armor is a simple enough feat, especially once Tubbo joins him. “They’d think he was killed, right?”

“Yeah. They’d probably check his bed, or spawn.”

“And what if they don’t find him there? If they can’t find him at all?”

“Then… I don’t know, maybe something went wrong?”

“Exactly.” Wilbur grins. “Something went wrong. And without Dream to check for world functionality, they’d have to consider that it’s broken broken—”

“So they’d go to the End to start it over!” Tubbo lights up. “Oh, you’re so wise, Wilbur.”

“Thank you, Tubbo.”

“Should we leave the mask, too? Just to be ominous.”

Wilbur glances to where it’s fallen on the floor, having slipped off its wearer’s head. It’s incredibly well-cared for, despite the number of conflicts it’s seen, but there are a few chips along the edges. “Sure,” he says, “why not? It’s not like Dream is going to need it while he’s in our dungeons.”

Tubbo blinks. “Do we even have dungeons?”

“We have a bunch of random rooms, I’m sure we can turn one of them into a dungeon,” Wilbur says. 

… 

The door creaks open. Everyone looks up as Eret steps out of the interrogation-slash-holding room.

“Uh, Wilbur?” Eret says. “I think we’ve got a problem.” 

… 

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who are you?” 

“Um. ‘Dream’?” He looks uncertain—nothing like the militaristic leader of the Dream SMP has always been. Maybe it’s because he’s younger than expected, without that unnerving mask on. “Eret said my name was Dream.”

“Who is George?”

“I don’t know.”

“And Sapnap?”

“What?” 

“Sapnap.”

Dream blinks owlishly, without a single hint of recognition. “Is that a name?”

… 

Eret snaps his head up. “Wait,” he says, “that stuff wasn’t just invis?”

“Of course not,” Tubbo says. He straightens proudly. “I cooked up a new potion to help us out!”

“Oh,” Eret says. “You said it was a last resort, get-out thing, so I kind of assumed...” 

Tubbo shakes his head. “Nah. I mean, it definitely wasn’t supposed to erase anyone’s memory. It was just supposed to give someone nausea, so we couldn’t be chased. It might’ve been poisonous too? I couldn’t tell if it was just because I was feeling sick from the nausea or if it’s a actually a part of its effects.”

… 

“What did you do to him?” Sapnap snarls, pushing down on Tommy’s blade.

“We didn’t do shit!” Tommy spits back, struggling to throw off Sapnap’s heavy axe. A tinge of fear trickles along his veins, because Dream is just a room away, blissfully unaware of his forgotten past about to come knocking. “He—we just ran away from him!”

Sapnap twists his weapon with is blade catching on Tommy’s sword hilt, nearly knocking it out of Tommy’s hands. Tommy manages to shuffle back before Sapnap can split his head from his shoulders, but he’s far from safe. “Bullshit!” Sapnap says, eyes blazing.

[twelvemonkeyswere]

for the meme, yuck and also dancing dragons????

Hey Bots 💖!!!! Thank you for asking about these!! :D 

yuck

oh dear. well, this one’s called “yuck” because that’s the feeling I had while planning it skdjskdj. it’s a 9.5k outline (with snippets and an added spreadsheet) for my “what if JB had met before the handchop in court and there wasn’t a war AU”, which is also my “Rhaegar lives but Jaime still kills Aerys AU.” It began as a sort of exercise in curiosity because I was interested in the question of “would JB pay attention to each other if they did not meet in the excrutiatng circumstances they met”, and how that would come about. It spiraled into me creating a whole AU to make it work skdskdj. It includes many self-indulgent things like JB meeting first at a ball for Jon’s birthday (he’s legit, but Lyanna’s still dead), JB working together to defeat a boar while in a hunting party, Brienne looking for the royal kennels and finding out Jaime is already there and is friends with the dogs, Brienne’s dad getting injured and Jaime stepping up to help, wet shirts, etc etc. The idea was for them to first butt heads as usual but slowly warming up to the other. I left it when it threatened to eat me alive a la Audrey II. It’s also one of the first times I was trying to write JB so I’d likely change many things now, but I’m still fond of some of the moments there.

Dancing Dragons

(thank you for asking about this one because this is another I really want to pull off!!!!! 💖💖💖)

This one started because I was thinking about the “feeding maidens to the dragon” trope, and how maybe that is a rule people have misunderstood for generations because humans have short lifespans while dragons could potentially live for millenia, so our scales (heh) for measuring time and our memories about events would be very different.

So in this story there’s a village that has been living since forever at the bottom of a mountain, and suddenly one day the mountain starts to tremble, and they hear roars coming from the mountain, and they realize there’s a dragon there. it had been so long since anyone had seen a dragon they thought it was all stories, so they turn to their annals, where their ancient wisdom is preserved. and it says the only thing worse than a dragon is a roaring dragon, because it heralds the coming of more dragons, and the only way to qualm them is to give them food. so it’s either everyone piching in (which they can’t, because winter is about to come) or feeding the dragon... people. But it has to be a maiden, and even then it might not work. so they select maidens, and they pull straws to decide who gets to be thrown into the hole. I wanted the story to focus on Hay, who is around 16 or so and she gets selected. the whole village is about to fight at the last minute because not everyone is okay with this idea, but others are scared their own daughters will get chosen. so Hay decides enough is enough, and that she will walk up the mountain herself, and figure out what the hell is happening if no one else is.

it turns out when she gets there, the dragon is nesting. she is moving rocks around and digging because she is preparing for a possible egg (like a turtle, she was also born in that mountain, and returns periodically to it), and she’s been roaring because dragons are very scarce, and she needs to try and find a mate, which is more diffcult with each passing century. Hay hears the dragon’s stories about the other maidens she had seen arrive to the hole. Her favorite story, though, is about how dragons court each other. It’s all about dancing. They swing and soar together in the air, not unlike macaws who mirror each other when they fly, and when the dragons finally connect, it is the most beautiful dance anyone could witness. Sadly, the dragon has never been able to actually see or participate in one, because she hasn’t been able to find another dragon in a long, long time. In the end I wanted the story to be about loneliness and the nature of stories themselves, and finding friendship and companionship in life, especially when a partner may never come.

There’s a bit after the read more in case you’re interested!

Come ask me stuff about my WIPs if you want!

Step by step she attempted the descent. She held with hands and toes to rocks and ledges. As she went along, the darkness receded, and once she thought she’d never see the end, her heart pounded faster in her neck as she distinguished the creature.

The dragon was so massive Hay couldn't make out its real shape until she got to the bottom. The sleek, long body twisted around and onto itself, like a curled up snake. The scales glittered, even in the poor lighting, and the wings held tight to the body. It was dark red, and when it didn't move it looked like the rocks surrounding it. 

Hay watched from behind one of those rocks, agape. 

From time to time, spasms jittered the dragon’s body, and the growls became stronger and harsher. It would soon scream again. Hay wondered if it would deafen her or kill her instantly. She realized she was hoping, instead of wondering, and felt sorry for herself an instant before the sound came.

The walls grumbled.  Rocks and dirt fell from where the dragon growled, and then again as it pushed the debris to the side. Hay caught a glimpse of the face at last. Yellow eyes, long snout, vapor coming from the nostrils, and the bared teeth. The creature attacked the wall with renewed force, and it growled and scratched until another piece of rock fell to the ground. The dragon stopped, heaving through its warm body. Hay could feel the heat even from her hideout.

“Ha!” the dragon let go, twirling its mouth in a smile. Hay blinked rapidly. “Take that!”

Its voice was strong and powerful, full of smugness and satisfaction. 

“Bloody stupid thing,” it murmured, pushing the rock to one side and making room among the dirt. 

The dragon was carving.

“What the fuck,” Hay heard herself say. 

The dragon’s face shot up from its work, twisted in a snarl. A batch of steam rose from its open jaws. 

Hay covered her mouth with a hand, but the dragon was already advancing. The horrible, reptilian irises of its eyes widening and slinting as it searched among the dirt and residue.

Hay sank behind the rock, crouching with her face to the wall and willing herself to disappear into the ground. Rage shot through her then. She had come here to die and save her village, had she not? Yes, one part of her brain said. But how would the dragon know what she had come to die for?

She wasn’t able to dispute with herself this point as a puff of air resounded over her head. There was a sharp breath intake, and then another, and then another. Hay’s knees and hands were shaking nonstop, as the dragon followed the smell. The movement stopped, and Hay glanced up slowly.

The dragon’s eye was fixed on her, peeking from over the rock. She wanted to scream, but couldn’t get the sound through her chest.

“A human?” the dragon whispered. “What the--I’ll be--”

The dragon pushed the rock aside with its snout. Hay quickly turned around to face it, but found herself pushing her back against the rock wall.

“Hu-man,” the dragon said, speaking slowly and deliberately. “Can-you-un-derst-and-me?”

Hay didn’t reply, awestruck.

“Damn,” the dragon continued, looking up at the edge. “How long did I sleep? Did you forget how to talk, hu-man?”

Hay kept gaping like a fish.

“Of course you wouldn’t know if you did,” the dragon shook its head. “What will I ever do with you.”

The dragon’s intonation was hard to follow, as the long snout moved in funny ways as it made an effort to form sounds. But they were human sounds.

Hay saw as the dragon tried to shift all its weight again to examine the cavity it had been making, and she stepped forward before she could think more about what she was about to do.

“Please have mercy!” she blurted. The dragon stopped, looking over the place its wings began. “Please have mercy of my town!”

The dragon furrowed its brow--or at least that’s what it looked like in the long, scaled face. 

“Your town?”

“I’m a maiden!” Hay continued, throwing herself on her knees and extending her hands. “I’m not married, and I’ve never been with-with child.” She wasn’t sure why she was mentioning this, but the elders had thought it was important. “Please take me, but don’t take my people!”

She closed her eyes, bracing herself for death. She hoped it was quick, and as painless as possible. Maybe the neck would snap immediately, and she wouldn’t have to feel the heat inside the dragon’s belly. 

Minutes passed in silence. She peeked an eye open. The dragon simply watched her, a combination of pity and awkwardness in the pitfire of its stare.

Hay coughed. “You’re not--you’re not going to eat me?” 

The dragon blinked. Its eyelids were transparent and parted sideways, like a cat’s.

“No?”

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 20: You Really Do Hate Cats!

(CONTENT WARNING: This blog post contains discussion of phobias, child abuse, and people doing the worst thing to intensify those problems. Those things are in the show, I didn’t just bring them up out of nowhere.)

Well, it’s that time again. Time to grab a balloon and tell my friends what I think of an episode of Ranma 1/2. We’re starting the first arc of season two with this episode, though oddly enough I feel like I mostly remember what stuff is going to happen in it. But maybe I don’t remember right? I’d love it if that is the case. Though...speaking of that...there is a certain character I have dreaded appearing in this series, and I’d hoped he wouldn’t appear for a while, but I checked and he appears this season. I...I thought I had more time. Oh well, let’s do this episode and I’ll worry about him when he gets here.

Okay, well, for the most part, this episode is actually a lot better than I remember it being. As it turns out, some of the details mutated in my head in the decade since I last saw it, and I actually thought things were worse than they were.

The episode starts in the Kuno manor, where our favorite swordsman is practicing to once again fight Ranma Saotome. But he’s not alone, because for the first time we meet Kuno’s henchman, Sasuke. He’s a ninja, and he’ll do whatever Kuno tells him to do, but he probably won’t do it very well.

From there, we see Ranma’s dad is training him in stupid ways again, and they get back to the house to find Shampoo has mailed Ranma something from China: a pink cat. That’s a problem, because Ranma has a severe cat phobia. It’s not random, either, Genma directly created it. See, when Ranma was 6, Genma thought he should teach his son Cat Fu, which he heard about from an ancient martial arts manuscript. The way to teach it is to cover the disciple in fish sausage and through them into a room with starving cats.

Obviously, that just ended up traumatizing Ranma, and the very next page of the book would have told Genma that training someone that way is very stupid. Kasumi, drawing on the common misunderstandings people have about exposure therapy, thinks that just inviting a ton of cats to be around will help, but of course it doesn’t, it makes Ranma even more distressed. Sasuke is hiding under the floorboards though, and he runs off to tell Kuno about Ranma’s weakness.

At first, Kuno says something about how he could never cowardly use an opponent’s weakness to unfairly win, but then he still makes Sasuke tell him about it, because he can still use it to win in an honorable way. The plan they go for is pretty ridiculous: they leave a note in Ranma’s locker that Akane’s been kidnapped, and he has to go to the gym to save her. But Akane is standing next to Ranma as he reads the note, so he knows that’s not true.

He goes anyway out of curiosity, only to find Sasuke there dressed up as Akane. With the wrong color wig. Even though the trap keeps failing, Ranma walks into it anyway because he has nothing better to do, until he realizes what is going on: cats. But Ranma manages to fight the fear and pretend he’s okay, hoping to just take Akane out of there, but then it becomes clear Sasuke took the extra step of also bringing an enormous tiger.

That’s when we cut back to Genma and Kasumi, and the old man explains that he tried curing Ranma of his phobia, but his way of doing so was to just keep throwing him at hungry cats, only changing the type of food attached to his body. All of it just made the problem worse, but it also actually led to Ranma developing Cat Fu. When Ranma gets scared enough, his mind just let’s go and he mentally becomes a cat.

That happens in the basement of the school, making it easy for him to beat the tiger and escape, just in time to kick Kuno’s butt without even trying. But he doesn’t stop there, and starts running around the school still acting like a cat. Akane follows him just as the dads show up. Genma says the only way to break Ranma out of it when he was a kid was with the help of a kindly old lady, but she’s dead. So, Genma tries dressing up and doing it himself. That fails, so they try catnip, forgetting that Ranma just thinks he’s a cat, so the stuff doesn’t really affect him.

The situation does kind of solve itself, as Ranma doesn’t attack Akane, as she’s afraid of, but instead curls up in her lap to purr. The whole school is watching, so that’s embarrassing for her, but then he kisses her and she freezes for a second before throwing Ranma into the school pool. Oh, and the pink cat is watching and didn’t like that. The curse activating returns his brain to normal, and Ranma has no clue why he was thrown in a pool. Akane walks home, cursing Ranma for doing that, but sounding conflicted.

So, the big thing I misremembered about this episode was I thought Genma did all the cat stuff with 0 thoughts about how it would affect Ranma and not giving a crap how it affected his son. That is actually not the case, he’s clearly really torn up about the phobia, though he still says some bad stuff about Ranma being ‘unmanly’ for having a phobia. He even tried to cure Ranma, a few times. It’s just that, well, his actions still traumatized Ranma. Sufficient ignorance is indistinguishable from malice, as they say. Genma is still, on the whole, abusive to Ranma in my opinion, but he’s not as bad as he could have been, I have to admit.

This was also just a funny episode. The comedy largely worked, even if some of the jokes didn’t quite land. Kuno and Sasuke were especially good, and I found Ranma fighting his fear both humorous and kind of inspiring. The man has a hell of a willpower. Not going to lie, the Cat-Ranma just immediately going for Akane’s lap and then kissing her was cute, I really liked that. Of course, I’m a sucker for anything with them, so I’m an easy mark there.

It’s also interesting how this works as the first part of a large arc, because if you didn’t know that was the case I can imagine thinking this was just a standalone episode. The pink cat was the impetus for the plot, but it’s what will drive the coming episodes forward.

One thing I found annoying was how different the dub and sub were this time around, in terms of script. The dub had a lot more bashing of Ranma for being scared of cats, including from Akane. That isn’t in the subtitled version at all, and I thought the episode worked a lot better there. I’m always a fan of taking liberties with a localization in order to make the story work better in the new country, but I don’t think we needed Akane insulting Ranma for his trauma.

Hey, a Character Spotlight again! Haven’t had one of these in a bit, and this one is for Sasuke Sarugakure. Let’s start with his voice actors. In the English dub, he’s voiced by Robert O. Smith. Does that name sound familiar? It should, I talked about him recently, since he’s the one who voiced Genma Saotome in the dub as well. His voice for Sasuke is extremely comedic, going for an over-the-top pathetic voice. He makes Sasuke just sound like comic relief, which he is. What’s interesting is what the other actor does with him.

In Japanese, he’s played by Shigeru Chiba, another voice actor from this show in Japan who is just known for a billion things. Standouts include Buggy the Clown in One Piece, Emperor Pilaf and Raditz in the Dragon Ball franchise, and dubbing over John de Lancie as Discord in the Japanese dub of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I was completely shocked to hear him play Sasuke with more gravitas, using a very serious voice that one would expect from a ninja, which clashed perfectly with the situations and his character design to make the comedy far better than in the dub. One of those rare times I’m actually preferring the Japanese version!

As a character, Sasuke is interesting because he’s not in the manga at all. For reasons none seem to know, the creative team for the anime decided to delay introducing minor character Hikaru Gosenkugi, and replaced him with Sasuke. We’ll get to Hikaru when he appears, but I don’t really mind Sasuke’s addition to the show. Giving Kuno a henchman just makes his dynamic even better, and there’s something I just really like to Sasuke’s almost naive way of trying to plot and scheme. I don’t actually have any deep analysis, at least not as of yet, just wanted to give him a moment in the Spotlight for being something interesting.

I didn’t expect to like this episode so much! It wasn’t great, there were parts I didn’t care for, but on the whole I’m happy to see my expectations overcome. I’m putting this episode in the middle of the pack, at the #10 slot. It was fun, but it has a lot of better episodes when it comes to making me smile. (Or cry.)

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’  

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 19: Clash of the Delivery Girls! The Martial Arts Takeout Race

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 17: I Love You, Ranma! Please Don’t Say Goodbye

Episode 20: You Really Do Hate Cats!

Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan

Episode 18: I Am a Man! Ranma's Going Back to China!?

Next time we’ll continue this tale with "This Ol' Gal's the Leader of the Amazon Tribe!" which, as you might guess from the title, will introduce a new character. This one’s actually from the manga! See you then, y’all.

[tommynikkivincemick]

three way call — part 9

Summary: Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx find themselves in the frustrating predicament of being infatuated with the same woman. This calls for a competition.

Author’s note: What’s up fuckers, it’s been a minute! Sorry for the long hiatus, but shit’s been fucked! But now I’m back and will hopefully be writing more. This will probably be the last chapter of three way call, but I’ll totally write an epilogue if y’all would like one. Also sorry if I forgot anyone on the tag list, I haven’t been keeping up with requests very well. Sincerest apologies. Enjoy.

Warnings: Language, alcohol, mild violence, the usual.

Over the following weeks, Tommy, Y/N, and Nikki became inseparable and the Terror Twins became the Terror Triplets. The trio would constantly be touching, kissing, cuddling, sitting on top of each other, or excusing themselves to go have sex. They knew how each other member of the throuple liked their coffee and what kind of cigarettes they smoked, how they tossed and turned in bed, their preferred brands of beer, and what toppings they liked on their pizza. Y/N knew that Nikki didn’t think Crown Royal was worth the money as far as whiskeys went and that Tommy preferred sativa over indica because it didn’t make him feel as hazy. Nikki knew that Tommy didn’t like cheap vodka when doing shots because he’d thrown it up so many times before and he knew that when Y/N made the coffee, it somehow tasted better despite being made the exact same way by everybody. Tommy knew that Y/N only used Sally Hansen nail polish and owned every shade of red ever made, or so it seemed, and that Nikki only burned dragon’s blood incense, only from this weird little hole in the wall shop downtown.

To Vince and Mick, the closeness was nauseating. Vince was tired of fourth wheeling in his own home and tired of being kept up all night and some of the morning by “Oh Tommy, oh Nikki, oh Y/N,” and the pounding of the headboard on the wall. The most blissful times were when Y/N was at work or the trio decided to spend the night at her apartment instead. However, when Y/N was away, the boys had begun to play, testing boundaries romantically and in the bedroom at all hours of the day. Even band practice has changed; Nikki with his perfectionist tendencies harped on Vince and Mick as usual but suddenly everything Tommy did was perfect. In Tommy’s eyes everything should be dialed back a bit, unless it was his drumming or Nikki’s bass.

“I’m so sick to death of those three,” Mick said one day while the Twins were visiting their third at work.

“Oh, shut up, you don’t even live with them! They’re so far up each other’s asses, you can’t even tell where one ends and the others begin at this point,” Vince bitched.

“Don’t get me wrong, Y/N is great, and I’m glad they’re all happy, but when it affects the band is when I draw the line.”

“I know! Nikki and Tommy have been skipping practices and they’re god damned lucky all of our gigs have gone smoothly. I mean, hell; Sixx is supposed to be the leader of this band and who was it that had to call back that Zutaut guy about scheduling a meeting with those record exec guys? Fucking me! I mean, we call Nikki the leader, we call Y/N our manager, and Tommy’s the second in command, so they need to start fucking acting like it if we’re gonna score this record deal.”

“Should we break them up?” Mick asked, a devious sparkle in his eye.

“Absolutely not. Good material has been flowing from Nikki like fucking water; have you read the lyrics for new piece? ‘Looks That Kill’, or whatever? It’s bitchin’, and I don’t even care that it’s about Y/N. He told me what he wants for the instrumentals and it’s gonna be awesome, the whole next album will be.” Vince gushed.

“They’ll tire themselves out eventually,” Mick sighed, “Until then, we suffer, and also tell them to get their shit together.”

Meanwhile at the record store, Y/N swore she was about to throw her lovers out of the store.

“When’s your lunch break?”

“When does your shift end?”

“We miss you!”

“Just close the store for a little while, we won’t tell...”

“Yeah, come on, baby, live a little!”

She loved Tommy and Nikki— really she did— but today they were making her want to tear her fucking hair out. The Twins were especially needy today and it seemed like their whining and pleading wouldn’t ever stop.

“Guys, you’re gonna get me fired, stop it!” She hissed, slapping Tommy’s hand off of her ass.

“Your boss is never even here! Nine times out of ten, you’re the only one working in here,” Nikki reminded, taking another cherry sucker from the bowl on the counter, and watching as Tommy slid behind her again.

“Yeah, but there’s customers here and sometimes the owner’s son comes by to check in and... and...” Her eyelids fluttered and her train of thought went off the tracks as Tommy began kissing her neck and nibbling her earlobe to distract her, “Tommy! I’m gonna slap you in the face if you don’t stop it!”

“But don’t you like it?” He whispered.

“I love it, that’s the problem. You two go home and I’ll see you in an hour for lunch, yeah? I’ll even call in sick for the rest of the day and have what’s-her-name cover for me.”

“Fine,” Nikki pouted, “You promise?”

“I promise, lover,” She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him gently, “But I promise nothing if you two don’t get out and let me get some work done.”

“C’mon, Sixx,” Tommy huffed and leaned down to give Y/N a kiss on the cheek, “See ya later, sweet thing.”

“Later, babes,” She smiled and waved goodbye as they left at last.

She sighed a sigh of deep relief and sank into her chair that sat behind the register. Finally she could take a breather and get some work done. Then the phone rang.

“Mötley residence, Mick speaking, can I please speak to Y/N?”

“Black Cat Records, Y/N speaking, what’s up, man?” She greeted.

“Are the boys still there?”

“Nope, just left. Why, did you need something?”

“No, no. They’ll be home soon enough, I’m sure. We’re having a band meeting later, though, and you need to be there, too.”

“Yeah, got it. Good news or bad news?”

“Little of both. Well, little bad, lot of good.”

“Okay, I’ll be off in a little under two hours and I told the boys I’d call in for the rest of the afternoon. See ya later, Mars man.”

“See ya later, Terror Triplet.”

She chuckled at the name and hung up. As she stuck price labels on a new shipment of records, she wondered what the news could be. The rest of the morning drug on slowly with few customers and boring music on the radio. No Mötley Crüe, that’s for sure. Finally, it was time for the lunch break. Y/N made a quick call before she left.

“Hey, Sylvia? Can you cover me this afternoon? Yeah, yeah, band stuff, you know. Yeah, I’ll tell the boys you said hello. Thanks, hun, I owe you one.”

She was lucky her coworker picked up and was even luckier she agreed to cover her. Even though her boys annoyed her, she still couldn’t wait to go home to them. Y/N was also anxious about Mick’s news. There was so much on her mind that she couldn’t even pay attention to the Blondie song that was on the radio as she drove to the Mötley residence. She climbed through the window of the apartment to find all of the boys laying around the living room in various states of undress.

“Why are you all half naked?” She snickered.

“It’s hot as balls, babe. Our AC broke, I think,” Tommy whined.

“Did you hit it?”

“A little,” Vince sighed, “It didn’t help.”

Y/N hummed to herself and went to the other window, kicking the air conditioning unit as hard as she could, to no avail.

“Damn, that usually works. Oh well, is there cold drinks in the fridge?”

“Yeah, Vinnie went grocery shopping today. We got beer, Diet Coke, bitchy wine cooler things, and some other shit,” Nikki replied, fanning himself with a random piece of sheet music.

She kicked off her shoes and shirt and grabbed a Coke from the fridge, sitting on the floor between Nikki’s legs and leaning her head on his thigh.

“Why are you wearing these leather pants, babe? Aren’t they hot?”

“Fashion before function, sweetheart,” The bassist shrugged.

“So Mick,” Tommy piped up, “What’s your big news?”

The guitarist sat up in his chair, and cleared his throat.

“Good news first. Do you guys remember that Zutaut kid?”

“Dorky rugby shirt?” Tommy asked.

“Yeah, that’s the one. He talked it over with Electra and called today saying they want to sign us as soon as possible.”

The boys and Y/N erupted in a chorus of whoops and hell-yeahs.

“So what’s the bad news? I don’t think anything can sting after that,” Nikki grinned.

Vince shifted uncomfortably before addressing the rhythm section and their lady love.

“Nikki, Tommy, Y/N, let me start by saying we love that you guys are happy together. But me and Mick feel that you’re letting this relationship consume you a little too much. Nikki, you’ve been letting Tommy get away with murder during practices. Tommy, you’re going soft with Sixx and Y/N, man. And Y/N, you’re our manager, but you’ve been devoting more of your time to the guys than the band as a whole. You should have been the one to talk to Electra and tell us we’re getting signed, you know? But we’ve been having to pick up the slack and that sucks.”

The trio nodded guiltily. They knew their priorities were a bit skewed as of late. Y/N had been meaning to call Electra for days, Tommy had been slacking and not taking his position as second in command seriously, and Nikki was too in love to whip Tommy into shape again. It wasn’t fair to Mick and Vince, and they knew that.

“Yeah, I mean us being together makes us happy, but maybe we should’ve considered if it would be good for the band,” Tommy sighed.

“Maybe taking a break would be the best thing for the band,” Y/N mused, words soaked in sorrow.

“Hey, no! You don’t have to take a break from each other, just even out your priorities a little more, you know?” Mick offered, “Tommy still acts like a ten year old but has more grown up moments since you guys started this. Nikki broods less and the creative juices really seem to be flowing. And you seem really content, and me and Vince don’t want to take that from you. You just needed to be straightened out. It’s cool, just focus on the band more, okay?”

The three nodded and sighed in relief. Y/N excused herself to go lie down because it had been a long day, and Nikki followed. Tommy would have, but insisted that Nikki’s bedroom was too stuffy for the Los Angeles heat with no air conditioner. The bassist opened the window in his bedroom to allow for some air flow as the manager removed her shirt and pants to lie down on the dark sheets.

“Were you serious when you talked about us taking a break?” Nikki asked, sitting on the floor beside the bed.

“Only half. If it would be better for the band, I think we could all agree on it. But it would kill me not to be with you and T-Bone anymore,” She whispered.

“Yeah, I get it. I don’t think I could go back to not being with you two dumbasses,” He cracked a smirk, “The bed’s too big without a couple extra warm bodies next to me.”

“I bet you’d write some killer breakup songs, though. Everybody loves a heartbreak,” She joked, fanning herself with a magazine from the table.

“I wouldn’t love this heartbreak,” Nikki sighed, leaning his head on the mattress, inches away from hers.

She took the memo and kissed him deeply before the sounds of chaos erupted from the living room.

“Damn it, Tommy! Don’t drink all the beer!” Vince whined, “Grab another one and I’ll... I’ll shoot you with a staple gun!”

“Did you leave your bag out there?” Nikki whispered.

“Mhm,” Y/N hummed.

“Is your staple gun from the store in it?”

“Mhm, wh—“

There was a metallic pop, followed by shouting.

“FUCK, BLONDIE! YOU MISSED MY EYE BY AN INCH!” Tommy shrieked.

“HALF AN INCH!” Vince yelled back.

“Oh, fuck,” The couple in the bedroom sighed in unison, before going out to join back in the chaos.

Tag list: @jayprettymuchomw @kayladurin @crazysaladchopshop @iamtiber-andtiberismusic @loveofmyloif @saints-of-the-universe @tommyfuckinlee @oh-well1 @cranberribread @princesadeltoro @prostidudes-for-justice @miriampraez @tarahell @n-osebleed @valentines-in-london @bohemian-war @cuntlord0606 @holding-on-to-my-youth @abbysdogcollar @deacontaylormercurymay @fuckyeah-motleycrue

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

First Loves, Gentle Kisses, and Families (Sriracha, Part 28.)

Description: A problematic college student gets the worst summer job of the ‘83 - Jim Hopper, the Chief of police in your hometown will have you as his secretary since his old lady Flo has two months lasting holiday. It was agreed so Hopper could let you far away from all the trouble.

Part Summary: Eleven bringing more people to your life was something that was terrifying, yet fun and full of adventure at the same time. And there were more exciting news about to come from the Hawkins Lab.

A/N: The Snow Ball is approaching, romance is in the air, everyone is feeling good, this is going to be fluffy.

Word count: 2.3 K

Tagging: @nemodoren​, @creedslove​, @missdictatorme​

Master list: H E R E

It was just a matter of time before you found your way to at least respect the children Eleven was friends with. There was this Sinclair boy, Lucas, who always had some dumb jokes that made you at least chuckle. There was Dustin, who sometimes had the front teeth and sometimes he hadn’t got any because of some weird illness he had. There was also Maxine, who was quiet, but she liked to cook with you and Eleven. You already knew Will and his Dungeons and Dragons and you’ve seen Mike around already, so there was no surprise there.

Just before December was about to start, you first noticed that Mike and Eleven maybe are a thing. You noticed those careful touches that you shouldn’t see, you could notice how aware Mike is around you and how El blushed every time he looked at her.

Once, you asked Hopper about that when you were about to lay in the bed.

“Hey, I feel like you’re keeping some secrets away from me.” - You furrowed and put on your pajama pants, putting your hair in a comfortable hairstyle, so it wouldn’t bother you during the night. Hopper's eyes closed as he tried to guess what you're talking about. His eyes popped out then, figuring out that you had found out about the lab stuff, and his arm hugged the blanket a bit tighter. - “You do?” - Hopper mumbled, his voice cracking a bit.

“Obviously. I feel like there is something weird every time I get back to Hawkins, like, you know, there’s something different. Almost… Almost as if you and El are keeping some secrets and other things away from me. Did you know anything about that?” - A clear amusement could be heard in your voice, which made his testicles crawl back inside of his belly. Was he about to be bitched down as a fourth-grader who came home late? Were you about to turn into a furious, yelling, plate-throwing demon he was used to? - “Do I know about what, exactly?” - The man asked as he watched your body laying down next to him, cuddling to him in the ice-cold late November night.

“You didn’t see that? El and Mike? You hadn’t noticed?” - You giggled, turning your head at him, smiling. Hopper could feel the damn relief falling off of his back. It was just El and Mike… Well. It was his daughter and that little Wheeler bastard you were talking about. That was when his eyebrow got a spasm.

“Oh, come on, don’t be a jackass. First love is the most beautiful one, James.” - Your laughter could be heard when you watched Hopper having a facial expression of rock. His hand was thrown over your waist, yet his body was ridiculously tensed. - “Hopper, stop this, don’t act like a fucking idiot. She is our princess, yes, but this would come over the time either way. And I like this Mike Wheeler. I know him since the day he was born, he’s a good kid.”

With that, Hopper shoved his face into the pillow, grunting annoyedly at you supporting Eleven’s damn choice. This battle was lost even before it started - he knew that he could go against you and your opinion, theoretically speaking, but you would pull out such arguments that it would make him sit on his damn ass. - “I’m with these two together way more than you. I know how Mike acts around her and I know he’s damn sweet to her. Let it be Hopper.” - You whispered to his ear before you slowly brushed your fingers under his t-shirt. Yes. This argument and battle were lost long before it even started.

The life went on, how much more could you possibly say? You went to work, studied in your free time, took care of Eleven, her friends and Hopper - the life in its entirety has never been better when you thought about it. Eleven was properly happy for the first time in forever and you couldn’t be happier about that.

It was a week after December started - and a week remaining to Snow Ball. Early Christmas, Hopper called it jokingly, but he was right. When he came home that day, you hadn’t expected him to be there that soon. You were pleasantly surprised because you and the kids were just in the half of a karaoke marathon and you were just staying Ghostbusters with a small help from Will the Wise himself. Hopper watched you with an amused smile - there was something magical about watching you work with children; whether it was studying with El or making dumb things with the whole gang, you always made it fun for both sides.

Last time he came in and you were just doing stuff, you played D&D. And oh my, you were just lost - visibly lost at what the hell was happening. Mike and Lucas helped you with building a character and you even got pretty far into the story, with the help of the boys, of course, but you still didn’t have any idea about what the goddamn hell is going on. You only knew that some kind of Minotaur had sliced you in half and just like that, you were dead and out of the whole story.

So this time, seeing you slaying Ray Parker’s song, that was a pleasure. And it was damn sweet when you repeated Who you gonna call? and the gang yelled back Ghostbusters! with lots of laughs as the melody slowly faded away.

“Would you mind if I steal Mr. Parker here for a minute or..?” - Hopper asked once the song ended.

“Only if Lucas and Dustin won’t cheat during Never Surrender. Mike, you’ll watch them and if they do cheat, points down.” - You said, a bit sad that you won’t see Dustin and Lucas chaotically yelling the romantic song. They were bickering about something, but you just walked to Hopper, smiling at them. - “Yada yada yada, can’t hear you. Do your best and don’t cheat or you’re out. I’m not playing games with karaoke.”

Hopper took you to the bedroom, sitting you down on the bed even if you said it’s completely pointless. Only when you finally sat down and heard Corey Hart and Dustin in sync yelling the first verse, Hopper gave you a completely normal envelope. You smiled at him before taking it out of his hands. And boy, when you finally opened it, you were taken away, watching that piece of stamped paper in your fingers.

“Merry Christmas, baby.” - The man kneeling in front of you whispered, smoothing both your thighs. You started shaking with excitement. Your eyes were scanning the paper to see if it isn't fake. But it seemed to be real.

“Is… Is this… Are you for… Is it even real? Are you telling me..?” - You whispered, watching the adoption certificate of Jane Hopper, presumably Eleven, in your palms.

“You’re now officially a proud mom.” - Hopper smiled with tears in his damn eyes. It was so pleasurable to see you as happy as you were in that moment. You were crying like a baby, let’s face it, but you tried to contain yourself just because there was only a piece of cloth between you and a room full of teenagers.

This was something huge, something you thought you would never achieve. That piece of paper was saying that Eleven is yours and no-one could deny that. And the document was even official, which was just breathtaking. You cried along with Jim in the backroom for the next ten minutes before you walked into Lucas and Max performing Material Girl from Madonna. And Lucas was just slaying the whole text while Max performed the backup vocals.

Not an hour from that, while Hopper decided to read something, the moment you didn’t like came by - Steve Nanny McFee Harrington came to pick up the boys and Max to drive them home. But you weren’t quite done with the contest, so you walked into the cold evening and looked at him. That was a thing you haven’t done before. You haven’t spoken to Steve in almost a year, which was crazy to think of since he was a big part of your life before.

“Hey, wanna come in? It’s freezing out there!” - You called in the direction of the car, smiling at the boy. He watched you like a dear in the headlights, trying to make out if you’re making fun of him or not. But when your smile widened even more than before, he stopped the engine and walked to the cabin, hearing first notes of Runaway, Max's song of choice.

“Hi there.” - You whispered with a smile, looking at the boy. Steve seemed to be mature. You didn’t know why or how was that possible, but the boy in front of your eyes looked… Really like an adult.

“Yeah, h-hey.” - Steve got out of his lips before you closed the door after him. The kids waved at him before continuing with their little karaoke. You, without hesitation, prepared Steve some warm chocolate so he wouldn’t freeze. The cabin was warm enough, but that boy just seemed to be cold. - “Haven’t talked to you in a while… How… Are things?” - He asked awkwardly as he looked around the cabin.

There was Eleven’s drawing hanging on the fridge, a lot of her pictures, there were even pictures of her and her friends there - you especially loved the one where Dustin was pretending that he had rabies when you made them Hopper’s triple-decker extravaganza one evening. There were pictures of you and Hopper side by side, pictures when you were alone with El - like hugging her on the couch or cooking with her. It was obvious that you had a family life and that you’re happy with it. It felt strange to see his former best friend’s sister, and his past crush, to have such a life at such an age and to be happy with it.

“They’re going just great. A year ago, I wouldn’t ever think that I can have a life like this, yet, here we are. It’s kind of a miracle.” - You smiled, giving him the mug, making yourself one as well. - “How are you? You and Nance are still hitting it off?”  - You smiled wickedly, but as soon as you could see his miserable face, you knew that you hit some soft spot in steve.

“No. I was, in fact, a terrible boyfriend and she started dating Jonathan Byers a month ago, they seem happy, tho. A terrible boyfriend, would you believe that? Just as you always told me.” - Steve turned the awkwardness into a joke, but you punched his shoulder with a giggle.

“I have never told you that you’d be a terrible boyfriend, Harrington. I just told that you and me? That wouldn’t work. And I told you a million times, again and again.” - You told him, looking him in the face with a smile on your lips, feeling a bit better around him each passing minute.

“Turned out I’m the best single mom Hawkins High basketball team had ever seen.” - Steve said proudly, which made you laugh again.

“Listen, dude, I love you and I always did. But not in the way you desperately wanted me to. You’re like a little brother to me - whatever happens, call me, we can hang out, talk things out, yeah?” - You offered him a sisterly hug and Steve accepted, smiling into your shoulder. - “Don’t you forget I’ve seen you running naked around our pool when you were small.” - You whispered, making him hug you even tighter.

He got over the crush some time ago, but the shock of you dating Hopper was just so huge, that he never brought himself to say hi to you when he met you in Hawkins. He couldn’t wave at you or look you straight in the face. It was just so hard - you were turning his offers down him for years at that point, but you fell in love with a total shit like James Hopper? That wasn’t fair.

But now, it felt just good and natural to hug you as a friend only. It didn’t feel pressured or weird. Steve started to see the value of a true friendship after he started hanging out with Dustin Henderson and his douche friends. And he could see why you and Hopper were making things work so well - when he looked at your mutual relationship without his jealousy, he could see why your bitching-down nature could hold a man like James grounded in reality and why his nature could make your head make fly in the skies.

“But we’ll sing karaoke now and we’ll show these teens how to slay a song hm?” - You asked, more like told him straight forward, and dragged him in front of the couch. Steve tried to resist with laughter, but in the next minute, you were yelling the text of Total Eclipse of the Heart into the hairbrushes like the whole mattered on this performance. Hopper was standing there, in the doorframe of the bedroom, watching as you made Steve laughter on many occasions when you just fucked the words up because you wanted to.

And for the first time, Jim wasn’t a bit jealous when it came to Steve - because no matter if the boy was a prick, they get to know each other during the second incident in Hawkins. And no matter how hard he tried to get under your skirt previously, that kid had a heart of gold. He just needed friends because, in reality, Steve was lonely. And it felt right when Hopper saw you two jamming to the song.

[completelypeccable]

Can I Have This Dance? Chp 4

Previous - Here - Next

Chapter 4: Dancing in the Dark

Barbara Gordon

////Sorry it took me forever to write this chapter.  I ended up starting the Two for One Deal story to get a better perspective on the characters’ relationships, then changed this chapter like 12,394 times.  I recommend listening to the song (Dancing in the Dark by Imagine Dragons) before reading, but you do you.  I’ll also link it right before it ‘plays’ in the story. Hope you like it, it’s a lil angsty. Sorry Dick.////

3:14 AM

Damian al Ghoul has been missing for 13 hours and 27 minutes. 

The rest end up at her apartment in various states and at various times. None of them have stopped moving. Not since...

“Hey,” Tim said- and the poor kid was so tired his voice wobbled on a monosyllabic word- breaking the silence. Barbara was focus, filtering and cross referencing and scanning any possible location within a 5 mile radius from the past two days at 15 minute intervals, then 5 minute intervals. 

She pushed her glasses up her nose and the world came back in focus. Blood dribbled onto the counter. 

Stephanie’s voice snapped at Jason to drop the knife.

Barbara watched Jason enter the gift shop for the fifth time. 

Jason growled, but the blade left his bleeding fingertips, clattering to the counter.

The kid pulled the fire alarm. Jason grabbed his arm. 

His wild eyes were glowing, hair sticking every which way. 

The blast. She paused the video feed. 

Cass draped herself over the man’s back. His eyes refocused, but the glow flickered in and out, mouth twisted. Cass murmured in his ear. With a shudder, he buried his face in his hands.  

Barbara kept seeing the explosion, the panic, the outpour of smoke, even as she wheeled over and shifted Jason’s hands away as gently as she could, Tim already bringing over the bandages. Jason bit his other arm and muffled a scream. Barbara felt useless, and so frustrated. She couldn’t fix this, hadn’t come up with any new information in hours. They didn’t understand and they were a family of detectives.  They would rather shoot themselves in the foot than be this clueless. 

Jason laid his head on the table. 

It’s going to be okay. She breathed without conviction . We have to fix this.

Barbara pretended not to notice Tim’s sniffling, but Cass handed him a tissue anyways. Over and around each fingertip the white bandage danced. 

Barbara took a deep breathe and tried to keep her hands from shaking. Her chest was a vacuum, collapsing with the shell of her chest. Hot tears stung the back of her eyes. Where-

Don’t fall, don’t you dare fall.

She needed, she couldn’t be the only strong one- 

Duke slipped back out the door, fully suited. 

She would do this for them, of course she would. She taped the bandage down. 

She could do this. Alone if she had to, because she was freaking Oracle, but-

Tim leaned his head against Stephanie. 

Where the hell was Dick?

———-

Tim was crying. “Barbara, I- we need some help.”

Time slowed down. Tim didn’t cry, he didn’t lose his cool over nothing. She didn’t feel the bowl leaving her hands, nor did she process anything other than the phone against her shoulder as she flung herself to her laptop. The soup didn’t even burn her legs like it should. All she heard was the thump thump thumping of the blood in her ears.

Please, please. 

“What’s wrong, Tim?”

Haven’t we lost enough people?

“We weren’t in suits, and then this guy-And-and there was an explosion-“

Barbara stopped breathing. 

“And then- I’m sorry, I’m really sorry-“ He took a long, shaky inhale, coughing on the exhale. 

“Tell me what you need me to do,” she whispered. Dread was a 50 pound weight on her chest. 

“Damian’s gone. And we can’t find him.”

————————

“I don’t know, okay? He was there, he was right there!”

“Somebody needs to stop Jason from killing that kid-“

“Maybe he deserves a couple life checks-“

“He doesn’t know anything. He said he was payed by a random man.”

“And do you trust that?”

“Tells truth.”

“Whatever. That piece of-“

“Any identifiable traits? Just ‘some guy’?”

“He wore a ski mask.”

“Basic.”

“Too basic.”

“I just pulled up the schematics. There was a sewer entrance inside the building.”

“I didn’t see-“

“It was too dark and smoky to see shit.”

“I’m going to make him hurt so bad-“

“That won’t help anything, we need to look-“

“We’ve already looked! We looked everywhere!”

“We must have missed something! A kid can’t just disappear!”

“The sewer system is a damned labyrinth because Gotham is an emo hell hole.”

“Would you just shut up and let me think?”

“I’m going back-“

“The police are there by now, idiot. In case you forgot, we’re absolutely useless in the daytime.”

“Well maybe I’ll suit up then, and shove my mask up your-“

“Duke. Look.”

“I looked, Cass, I’m so sorry. I barely saw anything.”

“What see?”

“Duke if you saw anything at all, you have to tell us right now.”

“I already told you! All I saw was that he got knocked out then dragged into the building. Then the smoke was too dark to-“

“Wait, you saw through the smoke in the fire at Antonio’s two months ago, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“So why couldn’t you-“

“I don’t know, okay? I’m trying-“

“We’re not blaming you, Duke. It’s not your fault.”

“Your powers have only gotten more controlled, so something’s different this time.”

“Smoke.”

“Was there something about the smoke?”

“I mean-“

“Was it the building itself, maybe? The location, or I dunno, magic?”

“Wait, wait, the smoke. When it happened, I think...”

“Come on, sunshine, spit it out.”

“It just seemed darker, okay? I know it sounds stupid, but-“

“No, you’re right. I was too freaked out to notice, but it did seem really dark in there.”

“Is this really a bench mark? We need to stop running into burning buildings or some sh-“

“Okay, so we know the smoke was darker, Damian was isolated, we were scattered by a perceived threat, and there was a quick exit through the sewer.”

“We still have no idea who did it, or where they took him.”

“Benefit?”

“There’s a lot of people willing to kidnap a billionaire’s son.”

“Then who would know...?”

“What do you mean?”

“Who would know where to find him, and why would they do it the way they did?”

“Can we just-“

“They knew how to distract us. Our civilian identities wouldn’t have fallen for the hoodie kid.”

“Oh my cheese nips. What if they knew about Duke-“

“Light.”

“They would have known to obscure his vision.”

“And who would want just Damian? Who knows all of our identities? Who is pissed as hell and has been acting like a crazy person for like three months now?”

“...”

“Shit.”

“... has anyone called Dick back?”

————————

Tim was on the phone. 

“Where’s Damian.”

Barbara hacked into the line. 

“What do you mean?” Bruce replied, smooth as butter, but cold like the butter you left in your fridge and destroyed your toast when you just wanted a nice breakfast. The worst butter. 

Barbara sipped her third cup of coffee. 

“What did you do with him?”

“Aren’t you a little detective? Don’t you have some sort of a silly mission to go play with your friends?”

“Bruce, you bastard, I don’t know what kind of a sick game you think you’re pulling, but I want my brother back!”

Bruce laughed on the other side of the line, deep and long. 

Tim white knuckled the phone.

“Didn’t know you to have such balls, kid.”

“Didn’t know you were auditioning for ugliest Disney villain.”

Bruce chuckled. Barbara stared wide eyed at the feed, Bruce smiling all teeth at the camera in his office at Wayne Enterprise. 

“Always a pleasure, dear.”

Click. 

Tim screamed. 

—————

Tim and Jason were the only ones left awake with her when Dick came through the window, hitting the floor and rattling the room. He stumbled into the table. Jason caught his arm and steadied him. 

“Dick,” Barbara started, fury and grief warring in her chest as she ripped out her headphones. “Where the hell have you-“

Dick jerked out of Jason’s grasp. Barbara stared at the bloody hand print on the table. 

“-been,” she finished lamely. 

”I-“ Blood dripped down his arm, more splattered across his torso and left leg. It was hard to tell if it was his. A breath rattled in and out. “Dami-“ his voice broke.

The rage in his eyes scared her. Barbara reached for him, but he jerked away. 

“Dick,” she whispered. 

He tossed a flash drive onto the table. A bloody fingerprint marked the side. 

“Barbara,” his hands were shaking. “Please-“

Barbara flipped it open, careful not to touch the sides, and inserted it into her computer. 

———————— Duke watched as Stephanie roundhouse kicked a guy in the ribs, and he hit the ground with a gasp. 

The bats were out to hunt, and it wasn’t even twilight. Like rabid animals, the feral look in their eyes screamed danger.

Jason, Cass, and Tim took to the sewers while he and Steph scoured the surface world for clues. 

Look at this stuff, isn’t it neat?

Duke bit down his own bile, the dread and grief of every loss he couldn’t deal with hedging in his vision from each side, and threw a punch to cover Steph’s back. 

“Where is he,” she snarled. The criminal whimpered, shoved against the wall. “Where is the bat?”

Where is our snarky kid brother?

Family is family. And Duke’s had a tendency of disappearing.

———————————

It was encrypted video footage, half deleted, half scattered, with enough security to put the US military to shame. 

But they had never met Oracle.

She was angry. She was scared. These could be used, sharpening her wit, a match thrown into a barrel of gasoline. Nothing and no one couldn’t hide from her. She would burn everything down to find what they hid.

She cracked it in less than 15 minutes. 

The world and the buzzing in her head could wait. Concentration and a challenge we’re a sweet relief. She reassembled the code from the scattered bits they gave her, pixels coming together in a cacophony of code. 

And she smiled, victorious, twirling one headphone in her hand. Her fingers hovered over the play button. 

Don't throw my name 'round here like that

“Dick?” 

The present came back, though. 

“Dick, maybe you should let me look at that arm now.”

Barbara looked up. Dick was shaking, clutching his tricep with one hand, blood slowly oozing around his fingers. 

You could get us in some trouble Talking that way and

“Come on, you need-“

“I need you to leave me alone,” he growled. 

Monday you got me that's a fact You could get me in some trouble

Jason just sighed. “Come on, Dickibird.” 

With no small degree of apprehension, Barbara watched him grab his shoulders. “Up we go.”

I don’t need nobody

“Get your hands-“

His voice broke. The tears fell. Jason dropped down to kneel beside his chair. 

“Hey, hey-“

Dick flung himself up and away, knocking into the counter. Red hands yanked his hair. 

“Dick-“

If you ever 

A desperate voice rose, shook like a tree losing all its leaves in a single storm. They watched, frozen, as the steady, reliable man shattered. 

Want to join me

“Don’t touch me, don’t- don’t,” he cried. “I don’t deserve-“ 

Dick slid to the ground, sobs wracking his body. 

Baby, I’ll be dancing in the dark 

“Dick,” Tim whispered, lowering to the floor. 

“Don’t, don’t-“

“Dick.”

“It’s my fault, it’s all my fault, I promised him-“ He gasped for air. 

If you ever want to join me

Jason dropped beside him and grabbed his hand. 

“Breathe with me, in and out.”

“I can’t, I- I can’t-“

“Shh, come on. In, 2, 3, 4-“

“Jay, I can’t fu-“

“Out, 2, 3, 4.”

Baby, I’ll be dancing in the dark

He pressed a palm hard against his eye. 

Dancing in the

“I can’t breathe, I-“

Join me

“Come on, you can do it. You’re okay.”

Dancing in the

“Okay?!”

Dick slammed his head into the counter. 

“This- it hurts more- more than dying, Tim.”

Join me, baby

“And they let me die, and-and I let them take him-“

Dancing in the

“And I didn’t- I wasn’t there-“

“We’re gonna find him.”

Join me, baby

Dick covered his face with one arm and wailed. 

Most days I’m keeping to myself 

Jason pulled him into a half-hug, half-hold. Tim scooted over and threw his arms around them. Dick collapsed into them, sobbing harder than Barbara thought a person could. 

Living in my little bubble

Tim was crying. Jason’s voice was wet and thick. “We’re gonna find him, Dick. We’re gonna get him and he’s gonna be fine.”

Throwing my weight and moving my body through the sea

“I love you guys, I love you so much-“

“We know, Dick,” Tim whispered. 

“I love you so much- if you-I- I can’t even-“

Jason shushed him, resting his chin on his hair. 

You could come join me                                                                               Moving like the weekend

“And he’s- I couldn’t-“

“We know, Dick.” Jason let the tears fall. “We’re worried, too.”

Dick pushed both hands into his eyes, hard. “He-It’s not- Damian,” his voice cracked. 

I don’t need nobody 

“It’s not the same with him,” Tim murmured, with that soft compassion, that understanding he always managed to give when they needed him most. “We know. He’s like your baby.”

If you ever want to join me, baby I'll be dancing in the dark

Dick bit his hand and yelled, a grief to rend the ceiling with him. 

If you ever want to join me, baby I'll be dancing in the dark

Jason and Tim held him together. 

Barbara couldn’t fix this. She had to fix this. 

She didn’t know her heart could break this much. 

Dick gripped Tim’s head and Jason’s arm, struggling for air. Treading underwater. She played the video feed. 

Dancing in the No. Join me, baby A laugh. A deal. Dancing in the And the Batman- That bastard- Join me, baby That absolute monster- Dancing in the -let this happen to his own son. Who the hell was he? Join me, baby A handshake and- Dancing in the Ra’s al Ghoul stood above his unconscious grandson. Join me, baby Barbara wanted to scream. She wanted to sink her nails into their bare flesh. She wanted to see Batman scared and painted red. If you ever want to join me, baby They needed to find him, where was he, they had to get him back. I’ll be dancing in the dark What were they doing with him? He’s a kid. Dancing in the What the hell was going on? Join me, baby They had to be missing something. If you ever want to join me baby Suddenly, this shitstorm just got worse. I'll be dancing in the dark Whether it was the raw fear, the sound of Dick’s ragged heaving, or the complete loss of reason within the last 24 hours, Barbara sat there staring. Baby Whoever was involved- Dancing in the It didn’t matter if she didn’t know where or how or why yet. Baby She would. And she was going to destroy them.  

///Oracle is going to e n d them. #Dick is a good dad. #Jason is a good brother. Comments are always greatly treasured like i am the dragon and they are the priceless gold artifacts that I keep for bedding and staring at appreciated :) //

[lvllns]

5 questions for writers!

i was tagged by @goblin-deity​!! thank you so much owen!!!

i’ll tag: @allisondraste​ @serbarris​ @arlathen​ @trvelyans​ @lavellane​ and i am probably missing a few writers so if you wanna do this, consider yourself tagged!!

some of this is under a cut bc it got long since i am incapable of picking “short” things that i like oops

1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why? Oh Isseya for sure. A lot of it is because I have her so fucking fleshed out after writing so much of her. I know her like the back of my hands and she is so damn easy to slip into and write. I did really enjoy writing Solas as well, that was a whole experience.

2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write? Friends to lovers is so good and is my absolute favorite. Tending wounds is another good one. FOUND FAMILY, give me that good good slow burn friends to lovers with a side of found family actually.

3. Share your favorite description you’ve written? from rare is this love.

This is what they are. Protectors that are forgotten about until they’re needed to stop the world ending and even then, when they fall nobody notices unless they take an archdemon with them. Nobody will remember Riordan. Nobody will talk of how he flung himself at a fucking archdemon and wounded it enough to ground it so the two of them could have a chance. Isseya knows, she knows, she will spend the rest of her life talking about him but it will not matter because only the name of one of the last two Grey Wardens of Ferelden will be spoken in taverns after the sun has gone down.

also this from ritl:

Isseya moves, stands on the handles of her daggers and leaps. Comes straight down with her longsword and uses her momentum to bury it deep into the skull of the archdemon. It sinks in cleanly, but slowly, so slowly. Her arms shake.

There’s a blast of heat and light. Bright and hot. She closes her eyes, looks to the side and holds steady pressure. Forces the blade to stay deep in the beast. The leather of her gloves starts to smoke a little, her hands begin to ache and it’s too much. It’s too much and her arms hurt, her eyes hurt even though they’re closed. Her right foot slips off the pommel of the dagger that she’s using as a foothold, and she swears.

The archdemon is thrashing around, screaming and bellowing and twitching. Its massive body rolls around, knocks soldiers and dwarves and mages and elves around. Sends them flying and Isseya knows death throes when she sees them but she hurts all over. Her body slams against its neck as her other foot slips off the dagger and she clings to the longsword, desperate to end this.

And right when she thinks she is going to have to let go if she wants to keep her hands, the dragon falls to the ground with a deafening thud.

Everything goes silent and dark and the heat recedes. Isseya lets go and falls to the ground. Lands in a heap and curls into a ball. Her head knocks against the stone and isn’t that just great. Every single part of her aches and has a heartbeat. She flexes her hands, winces when the leather gloves crack and she tries to pull them off but she is shaking so bad she can’t get a good grip so she gives up.

The sounds of battle still ring out around her. No doubt the last few darkspawn getting their heads removed. She reaches to her belt and pulls a thick, red elfroot potion free. Pops it open and swallows it down without even a grimace. It won’t heal her, not even close, but it numbs everything enough that she can climb to her feet. She braces herself on the shoulder of the archdemon. Dips her head low and takes a few deep breaths before she steps away.

Her knees knock together, legs shaking from sheer exhaustion, but she takes another step. And another. Gets herself to where she can see the fighting. Where she can see the darkspawn retreating and soldiers cheering and there is so much blood everywhere.

Isseya looks around and finds herself locking eyes with Alistair. He’s a mess. His gauntlets are gone, his shield is dented and his hair is stuck to his head. Blood and ash and sweat streak his face, deep cuts that will scar mar his skin but —

But he’s alive.

And so is she.

Isseya laughs, high and strained and pushes herself into an unsteady, limping run. Thinks that when this is all done, she is never running again.

Alistair drops his sword and catches her when she leaps at him. She throws her arms around his neck, legs around his waist, and laughs into his hair. Laughs and cries and kisses the top of his head. The metal of his armor is uncomfortable where it pushes against her but she does not care.

They’re alive.

4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written? This is from salt.

“Solas?”

He startles. Jumps and sends an apple flying through the air. She catches it easily and her brows turn down as she looks at him.

“I am —”

“You went somewhere and it didn’t look very nice,” a small smile as she hands the fruit back to him. Her fingers brush his and he barely keeps his body from blowing apart.

He shakes his head violently.

“Memories,” his smile is more teeth than anything. It only makes her look more concerned. “They return in pieces. Sometimes I find myself swept away,” his fingers drum against the table to the beat of an old song that he has not heard since a party at Dirthamen’s many years ago.

She hums before setting to work peeling the orange. “My name’s Abigail, by the way.”

He thinks he has never been so off in his entire life. “Ah, please pardon my inability to remember how one handles a conversation.”

Abigail snorts. “‘Handles a conversation?’ It’s just talking Solas,” she waves an orange segment around as she speaks. “Handling implies that it’s uncomfortable,” a blink as she leans across the table. “Are you uncomfortable?”

“I — No?”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes.”

He takes a bite of the apple and leans back in his chair. Wills his heart to stop trying to beat right out his throat. Is this really all it takes, to catch him so flat-footed? A nice conversation? Pretty eyes? He rolls his shoulders and flops his arm over his face.

“Yeah, you look like you’re having a blast over there.”

and this bit from rare is this love:

“Zevran” her voice is barely above a whisper and holds his gaze until he looks at the door. “This seems...like it is very important to you.”

“Don’t get the wrong idea about it,” there he goes. Walls and bricks and stones to hide behind. “You killed Taliesen. As far as the Crows will be concerned, I died with him. That means I’m free, at least for now,” his body is tense, like a trap ready to spring and she is reaching right for the trigger. “Feel free to sell it, or wear it...or whatever you’d like. It’s really the least I could give you in return.”

Something odd nudges in her chest. At the spot where that plant took root so many months ago.

She turns the earring over in her hand.

“So...not a token of affection, then?” She tries to keep her voice light but immediately he freezes. Amber eyes wide like a spooked halla.

Somewhere in the back of her skull, glass shatters.

“I...look, just...just take it,” he stands now, runs a shaky hand through his hair. “It’s meant a lot to me, but so have...so has what you’ve done. Please, take it.”

He’s pleading with her to take this earring and ah, that’s it. There’s fear laced throughout. Fear and nerves and he is looking at her like she is on the verge of tearing his heart from his chest.

“I - Zev, vhenan,” he flinches and she holds the earring out toward him. “Please believe me when I say I want to take it but...I can’t,” shaky hands pluck the gold earring from her fingers and she watches as he chases every emotion from his face and oh how it hurts to be closed off from him so suddenly after all this time. “I think...I think it means something more to you and I won’t take it until you can be honest about what it means first.”

“You are a very frustrating woman to deal with, do you know that?” The words are sharp and he takes another step away. “We pick up every other bit of treasure we come across, but not this,” he opens his mouth. Shuts it. Shakes his head. “You don’t want the earring? You don’t get the earring. Very simple.”

“You’re being childish,” gold eyes narrow and he snorts. “You are! Zev, we have to communicate, to talk about things,” her voice softens. “This doesn’t, Creators guide me, I care about you Zevran. I love you and whatever you need to work through, I’m here for you but you need to let me know what's going on. I'm not, fuck, I know there are things that will take time, on both our ends, but I can’t accept this when it is clearly more than just the pretty earring you’re trying to pass it off as.”

He says nothing. Hands scrub over his face before he pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I - Give me a few days, please,” twists the leather around his wrist, eyes flicking to her own and he looks terrified.

She takes a step closer, just enough so she can touch his arm briefly.

“You can talk to me about anything, you know that right?” Her head tilts as she wraps her arms around herself. “This won’t...what we have, it will not work if we don't communicate with each other.”

“I know. And I promise I will tell you, I just…” a heavy sigh, a hand through his messy hair. “A few days Isseya. Please.”

“Whatever you need, it’s yours.”

She watches his face crumble, a hand covering his eyes for a moment before he dips his head and quickly leaves the room.

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?: SO MANY. I have a ridiculously large modern au plotted out and I want to write Isseya/Zev meeting there so badly. Also really want to write Penelope/Fen in that au bc oh BOY that’s good stuff. I also have an Alistair/Hawke thing that’s been rattling around my skull and I so desperately want to write them meeting up at Skyhold after everything that’s happened since the Blight.

[xiaolindude]

when does it stop // raijack ficlet

There’s a lot of uncertainty in Rai’s life at the moment. Not only is he directionless and lost without a cause, but now Jack Spicer is popping in and out of Rio as he pleases; Rai can’t help but wonder how and when this is all going to end.

---

“Is it just me or is it really fucking loud in here?!”

Raimundo is not, by nature, an anxious person. Sure, he’s insecure, uncertain about a lot of things, impatient, often over-dramatic… the list goes on, but anxious isn’t on there. It’s a rarity.

So this weird, uncomfortable buzzing surging through him right now (not to mention the associated nausea) is remarkably unfamiliar. So unfamiliar that it’s just making him feel worse, because what the hell is going on?!

His heart hammers, palms sweating; he feels his blood pounding wildly in his ears, notices the shake of his fingers and the way his entire body twitches with unused, nervous energy. What’s happening to him? He’s sick. He’s gotta be sick. He needs to sit down. Or maybe run, he can’t decide.

Jack just stares.

“Uh… no, it’s not that loud. Rai, are you—”

“It is loud. That overhead voice thingie?! What were they thinking, making that so loud? What, they wanna deafen people?” He mutters a few things in Portuguese, the words coming too fast, tripping over each other on their way out. “And there’s too many…” Too many other noises! Too many other people! Too many colours! Too much of everything. It’s like everything has been amplified ten times over and he’s starting to feel closed-in, trapped, stuck in this supermarket with Jack and too many strangers.

They’d only come out to stock up on junk food.

As if out of nowhere, there’s a hand on his arm and Rai whips around wildly, only to find Jack closer now and wearing a concerned frown.

“You’re being weird, Pedrosa. What’s happening? You okay…?”

Rai can’t answer. They’re exactly the questions he’s been asking himself.

His panic must show plainly on his face because Jack let’s his hand trace down his arm until their fingers are linked together and he gives Rai’s a squeeze.

“Alright, Wind Bag, let’s go. You can finish this freak out somewhere else.”

For now, Rai doesn’t have the presence of mind to argue. They leave empty-handed.

After the oppressive heat and noise and crowds of the supermarket, it’s a relief to be outside. He stands smaller than usual, huddled in on himself and trying to ignore his shortness of breath and the crazy rate of his heart beat. He watches Jack’s mouth open as if to speak, only for the other man to seemingly thing better of it and start walking in silence.

It doesn’t help. Rai wishes Jack would speak, just so he has something to distract him from the endless thoughts spiralling in his head. Where has all this come from?! One minute they’d been happily bickering over which chips to get and the next, Rai was suddenly thinking about stupid things like his direction in life and the choices he’d made and the very real possibility of Jack leaving Rio one day for the last time. Forever.

The thought has his throat sticking and something in his chest tightening like it’s been screwed up into a tight ball. It’s all weight and pointy edges and he doesn’t know how to shift it, and the more helpless he feels, the worse it gets, and the worse it gets, the more helpless he feels.

It’s awful. He can’t bring himself to voice any of this and he’s silent but twitchy as they walk, eyes darting all over the place and his hands shaking, even the one Jack is still holding.

It’s only when they’re back in the Airbnb and Jack is hanging up his jacket that something inside of Rai snaps.

“What’s happening?” he asks, mind too full-up to worry about the way his voice trembles.

Jack looks up and frowns at Raimundo like he might be crazy. “You tell me, man.”

That is entirely unhelpful and has Rai clenching his teeth. “I don’t know!” he blurts. “I don’t know anything!”

He stalks past Jack, goes to throw himself down on the couch but then thinks better of it. No, he needs to keep moving.  So he paces instead, staring unseeingly at some point in the distance and trying to push down the rising feeling of nausea.

The sun has gone behind heavy clouds and there’s no lights on; the place is quiet and dark, but Rai prefers it that way. Less overwhelming. Way better than the supermarket. Jack’s voice is quiet and careful, like he’s choosing his words deliberately, but it breaks the silence suddenly enough for Rai to jump a little.

“Sounds a lot like a panic attack from where I’m standing…” Jack’s voice almost sounds sympathetic.

What?! A panic attack?! He’s never had one of those in his life! Why now?!

Still, it’s good to have a label and a reason for what’s happening with him, plus it’s something he knows Jack has experienced a few times. He’d seen it at least once and had felt utterly helpless, unsure of what to do or say to help. But Jack’ll know what to do, right?

“I hate it. How do I… when does it stop?”

“… I don’t know? When it stops. I guess?” Rai glares; Jack just shrugs. “It depends.”

‘It depends’? He’s heard that one too many times for his liking. A lot of stuff seems to ‘depend’ these days. What if he asked Jack ‘hey, you keep leaving and I get why, but you’re always gonna come back, right?’ That’d be another ‘it depends’, he imagines. The thought worsens the sickness in his stomach, and he paces faster, practically frenzied as he lifts a hand to clench in his hair, panic throbbing through him and making his limbs ache.

“Just… jeez, breathe, Rai… Okay, can you just tell me what’s got you so worked up out of nowhere?”

Rai wants to get mad, but the look on Jack’s face is genuinely concerned. Caring. So he swallows, staring for a couple of moments before letting out a sharp sigh, shaking his head and resuming his pacing.

“Everything? I dunno. I don’t know where it came from but I feel like such shit. Like, dude, what am I doing? With my entire life, I mean? I was supposed to be a Xiaolin Dragon! But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t even go Heylin. I can’t… I keep trying and I can’t do shit! And now…?” He scoffs. There’s no need to finish that thought. Jack knows well enough how badly Rai is floundering these days.

“And you?” His tone is suddenly accusatory. “When are you gonna leave Rio and just not come back, huh?”

“’When’?! Like that’s a given?!” Jack actually has the nerve to look affronted; Rai glowers right back and there’s venom in his words as he spits them out.

“Would it be a surprise? You’ve done it before.”

Harsh, but true. If Rai wasn’t enough to stick around for five years ago, then he sure as hell isn’t now, when he’s completely devoid of purpose or direction. This is like round two for them – some insecure, bitter part of Rai has just been waiting for Jack to decide he’s had enough and take off again.

For a moment, Jack looks like Rai slapped him. “Did you really…” His voice rises in anger for a moment, only for him to cut himself off, take a breath and stride over to Raimundo, grabbing his arms and pulling him to a stop. Rai tugs back, resisting. “Will you just stop for a second? Fucking hell, Pedrosa, just stop. Stop.”

Finally, Rai does. He stares at Jack, face drained of all anger, and now? He just looks scared. And about 10 years younger.

Jack swallows. “I can’t promise anything. But you know I have no intention of leaving for good.”

It’s not enough. Rai winces, screwing his eyes shut for a moment and turning his head away. “You can’t promise anything, Jack, that’s exactly it. You can’t… give me a solid answer. And I get it, but I never know when I’m gonna see you again and I can’t…” He shakes his head, turning away completely so Jack doesn’t see the tears in his eyes.

This whole panic attack thing can kiss his ass. This is the worst.

“… I don’t know what to do.” His voice cracks; he hears it and it’s painful and pathetic.

There’s a moment of heavy stillness and then Jack’s hand is at his shoulder, turning Rai around to face him. Rai’s gone too far – he waits for Jack to yell at him, to argue against his accusations and answer back and maybe call Rai a name for good measure. What he is absolutely not prepared for is a very gentle, mournful look and to be pulled into a tight hug.

For a second, Rai is stiff in Jack’s arms, just processing what’s going on and trying to make sense of it all. It’s too easy, though, to melt into the embrace and he presses his face into Jack’s shoulder, arms winding round his neck. This lasts a while. They’re silent and still, except for Rai’s shaking and Jack’s hand easing up and down Rai’s back.

“This is a panic attack,” Jack eventually mutters into Raimundo’s hair, and his voice is about as gentle as Rai has ever heard it. “It sucks ass, I know, trust me. But it’ll pass.”

Rai doesn’t know what to say. He’s not even sure he could speak if he tried right then. Being held and comforted and listened to and taken seriously had always meant so much to him, but from Jack? It means so much more. He knows just how big a deal it is that Jack is being so tender with him.

He’s getting lost in his thoughts again – it’s too good, it’s going too well, he’ll want to leave soon, he’ll get bored – and the panic is bubbling up in his chest when he’s caught off-guard by the gentle press of lips against his head. He blinks in surprise, swallowing and nuzzling closer into Jack.

Saudades de você. “I… I just missed you.” Well. He had. Was that stupid? Pathetic? They were never even really together. But they’d loved each other, that much Rai was absolutely certain about.

“That’s pretty gay, Rai,” Jack murmurs playfully; Raimundo actually smiles at that. He feels Jack smile too, but doesn’t look up, not ready to pull away from the hug just yet. Not when it really does feel like Jack is physically holding the crumbling pieces together.

“Strictly off record,” Jack adds in a would-be-casual voice, voice still soft, “I missed you too. But don’t go blabbing and ruining my reputation.”

This actually makes Rai laugh, the sound more a breath than anything. It hits him that his breathing has calmed enough for him to be able to laugh like that and with this realisation, he notices that his heart rate and swirling thoughts have slowed too. He draws back a little so he can look at Jack, who lifts a hand and brushes his fingertips along Rai’s cheekbone. Rai leans into the touch, eyes closed, letting out a slow, shaking breath.

Jack waits for Rai’s eyes to open again before speaking. “I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

Rai swallows, gazing right back and nodding his head.

“… ‘kay…”

Despite it all, Rai can’t help but believe him.

One hand curled into a fist at the front of Jack’s shirt, he drags the other man in for a kiss that’s a thank you and a please and a cry for help and a plea to stay all in one, knowing that Jack will listen.

--

Rai doesn’t thank him until later.

They’re curled up in bed, legs tangled together and each lost in their own thoughts. Rai’s still shaken, but the worst has passed and he knows that Jack is to thank for that. His first panic attack was one of the worst things he’s felt in a long time and he’s unspeakably grateful that Jack was there to talk him down.

A strong, callused hand lifts, fingers brushing through Jack’s hair and kissing him slowly, easily, because dammit, all of this feels so good and natural. “… obrigado, meu querido,” he murmurs, nudging his nose against Jack’s and watching his eyes light up and his cheeks flush at the term of endearment. He knows how much Jack loved that. His arms wind around Rai; Rai settles in, thumb rubbing circles at Jack’s hip.

“Hmm… how do I say something cute and sappy, like ‘you’re welcome, my love?’” Jack asks, clearly in two minds – half teasing, half serious.

Rai laughs, ignoring the faint blush on his own cheeks and starting to talk Jack through the pronunciation. “C’mon, man, you know ‘meu amor’, I told you that one yesterday…”

If nothing else is certain in this moment – and it sure as hell isn’t - he at least knows Jack loves him. That’s enough.

[foxydivaxx]

Abel and Cain Chapter 2

Izumo will play a huge role in this story eventually. A lot of the dark Teen movies like Cruel Intentions, Heathers , a certain TV show with dragons and the Craft inspired this story. Yes, Rin is not hundred percent innocent folks and you are all in for a terrible shock here.  Both Okumura bros are batshit here just a fair warning. Some pretty dark and disturbing stuff guys.

YUKIO POV

I walk into the room to find it completely vacant. Heck Kuro is nowhere to be seen. I heave a sigh of relief because it meant one thing; either Mephisto took that bastard away or some Exorcists came for him. Either way I am glad that he is nowhere to be seen because what I am about to carry out is very dangerous and disturbing and Rin being Rin would get triggered by it thanks to how hyperemotional and sensitive he is.

Met Izumo on the way who came looking for Rin which I find highly surprising. Isn’t she supposed to be this cold, detached, high and mighty bitch who puts herself above others and only cares for that weak friend of hers. What is her name? Oh yes Paku. Yet here is Kamiki having some concern for my foolish brother. But then again, I have always noticed how flustered she acts whenever Rin was around. Which means that my hypothesis of her is true. Kamiki does have a crush on Rin. But that goes beyond that. She seems to be very understanding and sympathetic of the guy, lashing out at anyone that dares to make fun of him. Still I do not see her as a threat yet. Just an annoying little ant that can be dealt with eventually.

Anyway, I get out of the room and head off to the one place that Rin and no one in particular knows nothing about and that is my secret sanctuary, a special lab that I created in the another block of the dorm that no one knows about.

Yes I am kinda like Batman but worse because I do not care about humanity or anyone. I only care about serving my own needs. And in order to do so without anyone knowing, I have to control stuff behind the scenes.

I power up the computer system and sit and wait for it to boot. Once that is done, I then begin to connect to a secret database only I know. From there, I hook myself to the camera I have installed in Shura’s home. That’s right. I secretly installed in Shura’s home to keep a good eye on the bitch and monitor her every move. I now know her every move and now it is time to act.

“Everything ready boys?” I say into the microphone. Beelzebub then whines. “I still do not see any use in any of this shit.” I simply roll my eyes. Beelzebub is even more cowardly than both Amaimon and Rin combined and that is saying something.

“Quit your complaints and do your job.” I command him. Iblis then says “Pay him no attention boss.” I hear some scrapping which means that Iblis must have hit him. Thank God for Iblis. At least we have one competent Demon King that is hands on in more ways than one. I think you are getting the picture here.

I watch as the duo make their way to Shura’s place, masking their presence from her. Shura was in her bathroom having her bath. I smirk evilly at this. This should be easy if Shura does not put up a fight that is.

 RIN POV

“Let me get this straight. Not only were you an A-star student back in the day but also you were the IT boy?” Amaimon asked. I simply grin and nod at that. The ride of our destination has been enjoyable so far as all four of us have been chatting, mostly saying nasty stuff about Yukio hence the current subject of discussion.

 “Boy do I miss being on top and having people kiss up my ass.” I smirk fondly at the memories. Mephisto simply chuckles. “Kissing up your ass? And in what way?” My evil smirk gets nastier. “I try to play nice and all but when the situation calls for it, I play bitches like a giant chess board, moving the pieces the way I want.”

That’s right folks. Rin Okumura, or at least the Rin that you thought you knew was not and still isn’t a complete innocent ball of sunshine. No. The real Rin is a lot more darker than that. You are talking about a boy that lost his virginity at a young age. Do not ask me the age. Not only did I get high grades that were higher than all the shit Yukio brags about currently but also, I was the quintessential bad boy of the hood that everyone and I mean EVERYONE wanted to be like and wanted to date. And boy did I shag a load of people along the way. Way more than Yukio.

If teachers gave me grades I did not want, I would wait till everyone else is gone, corner the teacher and seduce them into giving me what I wanted. Oh yes, I was that bad of a person and I miss being a  bad boy.

Yukio thinks he’s the shit but guess what? I was and will always be that bitch. That benchmark he aspires to reach but can never quite get to. Yukio and I do not have and never had a picture perfect brotherly relationship.

The mere thought of being friends with that imbecile sickens me. He is the true pathetic loser here not me. The true difference between Yukio and I is that I try to play nice with everyone except him. He is a total jerk to everyone and has always been since day one though I will admit that his acting has sort of gotten better.

I act nice and can be nice. However like everyone else, I do have a dark side which I reserve for those that piss me off. I can be cold, calculating and manipulative when the need arises, something that Yukio clearly has forgotten about. Yukio and I have been having this rivalry ever since we were kids over every little thing. Whenever Father Fujimoto or the other priests were around, we would act like normal kids who would play with each other.

But when none of them were around, we would immediately turn on each other. Our fights were vicious back then. I remember throwing knives at Yukio’s head and Yukio doing the same to me. Yes we have always hated each other as kids but hid it well enough.

It got to a point that that whiny pussified bitch Yukio went to report me to Father Fujimoto, accusing me of bullying him. Funny since I was out with my friends when he reported me to Dad. I got grounded and that was when the bitch blackmailed me into downgrading myself for him. Big mistake. Now after years of humiliation at his hands, I want that bastard to suffer for every single shit that he has done to me. And I will gladly make sure of that of course.

We soon arrive at our destination which was this massive black gothic like mansion. Said mansion from the outside was so large, kinda like a little luxurious castle shaped like the letter U with dark grey bricks. There was a large oak tree by the left. I glare at Mephisto. “Someone sure loves to live fancy huh?” I say. Mephisto simply laughs. “Oh come on. You can’t blame me now can you? I love luxury and therefore must surround myself with it at all costs.”

I snort. “Touché.”

We then get out and walk into the house. I take the time to look around. The mansion was so massive and clean with dark gothic décor all over the place, starting from the chandelier. And the exquisite furniture. I feel most at peace with this shockingly. Must be my inner demon.

“This will be your new home kiddo.” Says Mephisto. I simply grins. “Ah this is more like it.” At that moment, a butler, who seems to be an elderly male demon with white hair and demon horns sticking out of his head dressed in a black suit walks into the room. “Haruto please show Rin to his room.” Mephisto instructs the butler who nods and motions to me which I do.

NORMAL POV

Shura hums as she gets out of the shower, drying her hair with a towel. The past couple weeks have been stressful thanks to Rin’s situation. She does not blame Rin for his actions. If anything, it was bound to happen anyway. However she would have preferred a far more pleasant situation. She can understand how the others feel in regards to Rin’s Satanic lineage especially if one considers the Blue Night and its terrible aftermath.

Regardless, Rin is such a nice guy deep down and does not deserve the shit people are throwing at him. She and Izumo are the only ones so far that still care and like Rin despite his lineage. Ironically she and Izumo have been having private conversations and in fact, it was she that told Izumo to go fetch Rin so that they would take him off campus. But it seems someone had already beaten them to it.  Definitely Mr Pheles.

It was then that she stops in her tracks as she feels a very powerful presence in the room. Tch….demons.

Before she could dash over to grab her sword which was in her bedroom, Iblis flash steps behind her and opens his mouth, spewing out a mouthful of flames at the lady, causing her to fall back and groan in pain. She tries to get up but Beelzebub grabs Shura and throws her so hard in the wall that she feels her spine crack. Shit….

Both demons exchange evil smirks before taking it in turns to beat up and straight up torture her, making her groans turn into screams.

Yukio meanwhile watches this sickening act with glee, letting out a psychotic evil laugh. “Now this is a wonderful piece of beauty right there!”

Once they were done, the demons disappear from the scene, leaving Shura’s bloodied corpse behind. Hours later, Izumo arrives to meet up with Shura but lets out a blood curling scream once she sees the horrible mess that lay before her.

Meanwhile, Mephisto and the others were eating their dinner which was a massive buffet of various human food, obviously out of consideration for Rin. Rin would have to admit. Haruto is a pretty good cook though he doubts he would be able to beat him in that department. At that moment, Mephisto’s phone rings. Sighing, the Demon King of Time pulls out the phone and picks the call. “What now?” he says in an irritated tone.

Once the caller on the line tells him what had happened, Mephisto’s eyes widened in shock. “WHAT?!” Rin lifts up his head. Whatever this is, it has to be serious. Once he was finished with the call, Mephisto sighs. “What happened Mephisto?” Rin asked.

“I’m afraid we have to return back to True Cross. Something bad just happened.” Astaroth glares at their brother. “Will you quit beating about the bush and get straight to the point here?!”

Mephisto nods and then says, “I’m afraid to say this Rin but I was just informed that Shura your teacher is dead…..”

Rin feels the world around him collapse. “T-That’s impossible….no….” Mephisto sighs and nods, a grim expression on his face. “Unfortunately it is true. She was apparently attacked by some powerful demons who are yet to be identified.”

Rin then clenches his hand as tears flow down his eyes. Astaroth hugs his younger brother whilst Amaimon gently pats his shoulder. “Any ideas who could be attacker anuie?” Amaimon asked. “I wouldn’t know till we get to the crime scene.” he says. Rin then wipes his tears and then says in a low angry tone, “Whoever it is that killed Shura, that person shall be destroyed…”

Yet another cliffhanger. I know. Don’t get mad at me folks. So what do you think? 

[sepiadice]

NavyDice Campaign (2019/8/30): Poor use of Apples

So I was sitting about, attempting to play more Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Due to a pleasant kismet, it was my first day off of four in a row. I was also awake until Four AM being sick, so it was a mixed sort of day.

Anyways, I suddenly got a text from NavyDice[1] asking if I was up to play Dungeons & Dragons in about ninety minutes, at a location I hadn’t yet visited that was a half to full hour away (depending on traffic).

So obviously I agreed. Because I’m desperate and IndigoDice’s campaign has apparently fallen.[2]

So I got the address, plugged it into the Google Maps app, and went off, listening to a Dungeon World Actual Play podcast episode,[3] brainstorming my character since my original plan to transfer Autumn Quill over had to be abandoned due to everyone else playing a spellcaster.

So time to experiment with other new things. Like using the full strength of the Souvenir Mug Rule!

Anyways, this new campaign features three members of the improv group (Navy[4] GMing, as well as GoldDice[5] and LimeDice[6]) plus a friend of NavyDice who we’ll assign the nickname… Tetrahedron.[8]

In true NavyDice fashion, prepare for time shenanigans!

CAST

Acer ‘Maple’ Palmatum (SepiaDice/Me) Level 5 Elf Fighter. I recalled this image while brainstorming, and decided to just run with it.[9] While making the character, I’d decided she had a military history and a desire to help the helpless. Also likes cute things. We’ll see if any of that pays off. I’d give her a Scottish accent if I could remember to do character voices. As she’s named for a tree, her given name is probably actually ‘Palmatum’.

Garland (LimeDice) A spellcaster of some sort? 

Poppi (GoldDice) Another spellcaster, who used Intelligence and Wisdom as her dump stats so… there’s concerns?

Mumble (Tetrahedron) Bard. Talks very quiet, as is his namesake.

Once characters were complete, we took turns inventing a brief history of the party and why we’re hanging out together.

For the actual campaign, we heard of a job dealing with a band of brigands bothering a town. We travel there and meet with the local marshall, Masem, who is grateful for our help.

The party rents a place at a bed & breakfast and waits to be needed.

So we open on the party doing small things that reveal character. Garland is reading a book. Poppi is mesmerized by a pretty mobile that was hanging about. (I forget what Mumble was doing). Maple is doing push ups.

A knock comes on the door. It’s Masem. The brigands are coming to attack the market space. Maple follows the marshall, the squishier party members follow behind.

In the market, Masem and Maple pose as they wait for the brigands to arrive. Garland and Mumble position themselves for optimal support. Poppi gets distracted by apples, and failing to purchase them since everyone else ran.

Combat ensues. The first wave of six brigands fall to sword and spell, and a second wave (featuring a very definite midboss) arrives, and similarly gets cut down.

As the citizenry start to celebrate, Maple hears a ticking coming from the midboss.

After a short back and forth between me and NavyDice to determine if Maple would know the concept of a bomb, we determine she wouldn’t immediately come to that conclusion. Maple investigates the midboss, and discovers he has a vest under his shirt with many magic scrolls that are starting to autocast. I decide that’s enough information to follow my initial instinct, and Maple shouts for people to run.

Maple attempts to scoop Poppi up, but fails the strength check, kinda ruining the moment but whatever.

Most of the town’s out of the blast range as the scrolls deploy in a massive fireball. Once the smoke clears, Maple removes her excess equipment and gets to work cleaning rubble and moving bodies. The local lord rides a carriage down to thank the heroes (our party) and announce a feast. Maple irritably asks him why his bodyguards aren’t helping with disaster response, and the lord sends the guards to do so.

The rest of the party goes to enjoy the celebratory feast the lord was announcing, but Maple stays until the work is done. I’d decided to play her as a Capital-Aytch Hero, so that’s what I’m sticking to, possibly to my occasional detriment.

Eventual she notices those helping the effort beginning to get awkwardly antsy to attend the feast, but don’t want to leave before one of the people who just saved the market from brigands. So Maple relents and leaves for the party, probably with plenty of soot on her.[10]

Everyone’s gathered at the feast, medals are awarded, toasts are started, all that stuff ceremony that Maple lost a taste for due to her time serving in a military.[11]

Then the church bells ring, and a darkness envelops the town, killing everyone.

Cycle 2

There’s a knocking on the front door.

Ah, so Navy is repeating a campaign he’s told me the story of. I decide not to beat around the bush and just let Maple be immediately be on the ball. Call it battle-won instincts of quickly reading the situation.

Maple answers the door and tries to inform Masem about the groundhog day loop we’ve entered, but the marshall is too concerned by the brigands to listen. Maple instead runs off to the market without listening to the mission text.

This time, she intends to save more people.

This time, she’s not going to waste time with the random mooks.

This time, Maple heads straight to the mid-boss with the bomb vest. If she can stop him before he gets to the marketplace, maybe she can mitigate the damage.

However, running towards the guy triggers some attacks of opportunity[12] from the generic brigands, but Maple ignores them. They don’t matter.

However, when she’s facing Bomb-Vest and the brigands flanking him, their combined attacks do drop her to exactly zero, and Maple falls and I begin making death saves.

Then Poppi decides it’d be hilarious to throw an apple at me. Tetrahedron points out that any damage taken while in this state means autodeath, so GoldDice rolls to hit.

And succeeds. Killing Maple with an apple. My friends, readers!

So I’m out of the cycle, and tune out because I’m an inattentive jerk and wanted to try and find the visual reference for my character.[13]

Eventually, the brigands are felled through a method that nearly kills Mumble, the local lord rides his coach down for easy publicity points as he rewards our party and mourns the fallen, there will be a feast, Maple will be given a hero’s funeral, and other familiar notes.

Some investigation might’ve occurred? I think mostly it was just a tad more somber because Maple died.

Then the church bells ring, and a darkness envelops the town, killing everyone.

Cycle 3

There’s a knocking on the door.

Okay, this time the party’s a little smarter. Mumble uses Leomund’s Tiny Hut to contain the explosion, and only he and Bomb Vest dies.

Okay, successfully saved the innocents. Maple takes the time to fill Masem in, who is skeptical despite magic being real so such temporal shenanigans shouldn’t be out of possibility. But using the evidence of (limited) precognition, Maple gets him to accept that maybe this is a thing that happens.

Masem gets called away to a crime scene, and Maple and Garland invite themselves along. Because information is important, and you don’t know what’s relevant.[14] Poppi goes to church, because… well, out of character, to investigate the church bells. In character, Poppi thinks its the Lord’s Day.

Someone blew a hole in the side of a vault, then a second one to escape. Masem investigates with the help of player characters who do what they want by virtue of being player characters.

We manage to, through the powers of basic deductive reasoning and basicer math, figure out which safety deposit box was emptied despite the bank manager’s attempts to be as unhelpful as possible.

Masem gets called away to officiate an execution. Maple assigns Garland to stay back and keep investigating as she keeps following Masem to learn what his day’s like.

Garland and two to three town guards (played by NavyDice, Tetrahedron, and myself)[15] do some more investigation of the vault, before eventually finding and descending into… either the showers or just inexplicable underground tunnels. The guards banter about why they’re taking orders from this random spellcaster guy, how this is an obvious horror movie set-up, how Garland’s orders to split up flies in the face of local bards tales of Scoobert Doobert and the company of mystery,[16] and other fun. They die there when the cycle ends.

Maple follows Masem away, and learns they are hanging the leader of the brigands they’ve been fighting. Which is fun.[20]

Public death spectacle concluded, Maple and Masem go to attend the lord’s feast. Maple notices Masem getting called away for some new distraction, but she decides not to push her luck in case observing it would affect it, and because she’d inserted herself a lot into Masem’s day as is.

Then the church bells ring, and a darkness envelops the town, killing everyone.

Cycle 4

There’s a knock on the door.

The rest of the party wants to regroup and discuss. Maple wants to save people and immediately rushes off, ignoring pleas that people dying don’t matter.

Instead of helping, Garland and Mumble decide to investigate the bank early, and Poppi hangs out at the church belltower to watch what happens in the market.

I roll percentile to determine Maple’s fate. 08. So, due to negligence by the rest of the party (again), Maple dies. Again. As does Masem. And a bunch of innocent standerbys. And also the lord’s manor via explosion I think? I was still trying to find that piece of art. Which I found used as a gentle nudge to the rest of the table that Maple’s a girl. Cut, but still obviously feminine.

Anyways, no one gets to learn what Maple learned yesterday, because screw them, they left her and everyone else to die, and Maple doesn’t write off anyone if there’s a chance to save them.

And there’s always a chance.[21]

Anyways, Poppi spends the day observing while Garland and Mumble annoy a bank clerk, find the brigands hideout, and Mumble convinces one of them he’s a god.

When Maple dies, I use it as an opportunity to take a break and look through social media. Tempers out of character knowledge and lets me take a break from being Permanently ‘On’ for hours at a time.[24]

Eventually, the church bells ring, and a darkness envelops the town, killing everyone.

So ends the first session.

I’m excited for the rest of the campaign, though I am (progressively) remembering details from the last time NavyDice ran it, so hopefully that doesn’t ruin the fun. Especially since I’m super excited to play Maple, and I don’t want to add her to the list of characters who deserve a second chance.[25]

Until next time, may your dice make things interesting.

-

[1] Who has not formally adopted the ColourDice naming convention, but does have a D&D Instagram? [2] I’ve got plans for that group, however, so stay tuned. [3] Concluded my prejudices against Powered by the Apocalypse is true and I will never willingly touch it. [4] Previously credited as Lyons. [5] Previously credited as Maddie. [6] Previously credited as Jose. He assigned himself the color green, but my brother took that color and I couldn’t convince him to pick something more specific. I rudely haven’t consulted Jose on the reassignment. He can yell at me if he reads this.[7] [7] No one reads these. [8] I’ll figure out a consistent guest player naming convention one of these essays. [9] Next time: glasses. Maybe. [10] There’s an amount of Vimes in this character. Actually, Maple may turn out to just be Sam Vimes. Which I’m okay with, even if I want to play her with an amount of bloodthirsty glee when fighting bad guys… [11] For once, 5e’s dumb background rules actually helped flesh out my character in a satisfying manner. [12] A mechanic I don’t think has ever added fun to D&D. It always feels petty. [13] Which took hours to find! But the references are saved to my phone now. [14] Hint: anything the GM draws attention to is relevant. [15] Always allow players to play NPCs so they can take the mickey out of other players. [16] GM tip! Always let real world media exist in universe. Makes it easier to make references, and justifying it is a lot of fun![17] [17] GM tip! Regardless, someone will always be confused by the concept of sandwiches due to the apocryphal tales of John Montagu, despite insisting sandwiches only existing since the 18th century is ridiculous, and evidence of similar food arrangement has existed long before the famed event.[18] [18] There was a tedious argument with the High School group that I’m apparently still annoyed by. But Good Eats has my back, so I’m confident.[19] [19] While my footnotes are cascading, I’ve been humoring the concept of a ‘Adventurer’s Cookbook’. Which would likely just be a camping cookbook with genre writing as flavor, and the recipes arranged in esculating terms of difficulty. [20] Not actually fun. [21] One of this campaign’s experiments: using the ‘It’s what my character would do’ defense. Because I like to try and justify things.[22] [22] Maybe someday I’ll experiment with justifying Failure to Communicate and Teacher/Pupil relationships.[23] [23] Because, to be clear, I really hate both. [24] GM tip! Let players (and GMs) take breaks. Either by pausing the game, or letting there be lulls where portions of the table can get away from losing focus and think about Other Things. [25] A list that includes Trix and Teddi.

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E7 (Feb 27, 2018)

There were a few more (vague) references to the first campaign in this episode than usual, so I’ve tried to keep them non-specific/spoiler-free for folks who are still catching up.

Tonight’s guests are Marisha Ray and Liam O’Brien!

Announcements: Marisha’s feeling better but now Matt’s sick (general consensus is that he’ll be feeling well enough to DM on Thursday); Vox Machina: Origins number 5 will be released on March 7; Laura and Travis will be at Emerald City Comic Con, where you can pick up a physical copy of Vox Machina: Origins number 1 at the Dark Horse booth; ECCC Critter meetups will be on Thursday March 1st at 7PM for a live watch of the show and then March 3rd from 7PM to midnight, both at the Raygun Lounge; the C2E7 podcast is available this Thursday; shout-out to the awesome mods in the community; tomorrow at 11AM Pacific, Brian will be hosting a stream with Sideshow Collectibles, unveiling a statue (tragically not of Sam’s body).

@critrolestats​ for this episode:

Beau has rolled the most natural 20s this campaign. Her total is 13: one in episode one, and then two in each subsequent session.

Khary’s opening roll was the first time a guest player’s first roll was a natural one; Kit Buss was the only guest to start out with a natural 20.

There have already been 18 references to Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law” in the campaign. 13 of them happened in this last episode.

Khary mentioned to Liam ages ago that he was about to start DMing for his daughter, which is when they started trying to get schedules to match up for his guest appearance.

Liam’s having fun getting specific with spell components rather than going for the “Apple remote” approach of using a focus to cast spells. The descriptions will mainly focus on more novel spells (he won’t still be describing Chromatic Orb in detail at level 20).

The Geek and Sundry Facebook/Instagram has the video of Khary destroying the cursed die. The pieces were stolen from Dani’s desk over the weekend. The plot thickens.

Marisha talks about how it can be fun to set yourself up for failure a bit, like with the ball bearings. Everyone decides on the next T-shirt: “Critical Role: Embrace the Failure”.

Liam has a bucket list of spells for Caleb, some of which he doesn’t want to mention yet because they’re story-related, but he does really want to get his hands on Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion.

Marisha felt a little warm and fuzzy inside knowing that Beau nearly had her own practically-goldfish moment. She was less concerned about the fall damage than what was potentially at the bottom of the pit.

Gif of the Week: ♪It’s DnD Beyoooooond!♪

The reason Caleb and Nott are together is because “they’re two pieces of garbage floating around in the world like plastic bags”. They were in a little podunk town jail; it wasn’t a major thing, but it was where they met. They both have no place to go. Caleb has “things that he sticks to, but his moral code is dicey. Survival is good, getting by is good, breathing.” Everyone’s still figuring out the relationships, but Liam has been surprised at how much Caleb cares about Nott’s safety.

Both agree that the short rest was worth it.

Beau is surprised by her own fighting ability. She’s always had some natural skill as a reckless fighter and basic training from the Cobalt Soul monks, and Marisha’s been describing her attacks that way: wild haymakers, etc.. “No one’s going to start as fucking Bruce Lee.” But now she can take those solid natural instincts and build upon them, trying to show a progression. Even Marisha was surprised when she succeeded in catching the arrow out of the air.

Liam gets asked who smelled worse: Caleb or Vax in the armor. Pre-year break, Vax smelled “weirder”.

Beau has theories about Caleb’s shut-down last episode. “Beau has Percy Syndrome: she thinks she’s the smartest person in the room right now.” “Caleb is not dying to know much about any of you fuckers.” Combination of not knowing them too well yet and wanting to keep his head down.

Fanart of the Week: Shakäste and Nott!

Another winner: Vox Machina: An Exandrian Musical! Everyone’s been listening to it on repeat. Marisha: “Matt and I cried so much.”

Beau didn’t see the rescue of Nott as risking her life to save her. “She has teenage arrogance, ‘I’m going to live forever!’” She’s driven by cockiness at this point. She knew she could close the gap, so she thought she was the one who could do it.

Had any of them thought about killing the baby manticore? Beau threw out the idea of selling the baby manticore, but she was mainly concentrating on getting in and out and not dying. Caleb thought that if they could kill everything in the room without dying themselves, they should do that.

Brian asks about the grey-morality tone of the new campaign. Marisha talks about the balance you have to strike, “almost a metagame element”, of wanting to be a team. Liam points out that character flaws introduce an element of unpredictability. Marisha notes that the same character qualities can often shift from "good” to “bad” and back, depending on the situation. Marisha: “Tonally, Vox Machina acted emotionally a lot more so far. We don’t have that yet, that connection.” Liam: “It feels like we all want to mess with the system a little more and come at it with a sideways approach, just to see what happens.” Marisha describes how they set the tone with Vox Machina earlier, and how that gives them a little leeway in the new campaign. Brian zeroes in on the notion of “the human heart in conflict with itself” being a great source of drama and excitement for a viewer. “As you guys get closer in the game, those stakes get higher.”

The Nott-Caleb relationship was a last-second decision that “has complicated the fuck out of what I’ve got going on,” but Liam’s delighted to have that complication, because that kind of thing is the heart of the game for them as actors. He points out how episode 85′s massive emotional impact was the perfect example of that kind of messiness.

What Beau doesn’t like about Molly is the same stuff that Beau doesn’t especially like about herself. Marisha suspects it’s the sort of thing that can develop into mutual respect in the long run.

Liam gets asked about Caleb’s moment at the end of the episode. Marisha: “Answer! Answer! You never answer shit!” Liam brings up how Taliesin’s talked about how Matt will take the bare-bones story they provide him and flesh it out in a surprising way. Marisha: “No one’s backstories or secrets are safe from Matt Mercer at this moment.”

Talks Machina After Dark:

Fave tracks from Vox Machina: An Exandrian Musical: “Burn”, “Animus”, “Dear Kaylie”, “It’s Quiet in Town”, “The Room Where it Happens”.

Sometimes Matt and Marisha will go over specific events in the battle where a single moment was clutch. Nott going in when she did saved Fjord from a full round of attacks at advantage. Beau saved Nott by jumping in even with the attack of opportunity, because with her 1 HP, the next full round of attacks would’ve killed her. Jester didn’t have the speed to get to Nott, so Beau saved her by getting her closer to Jester, but then Jester went down... and Fjord succeeded on his wisdom saving throw, which let him save her so she could save Nott. No matter how messy things seem in the moment, laying them out like that show how it can all work out.

Note-taking in D&D! Liam, on trying to decipher scribbles post-game: “Either slow down when you write or don’t bother.” Without the pressure of the cameras, Marisha would do things differently. In the last campaign, she had one book for specific enemies she could refer back to, but fell off on keeping it up around the time they were mainly just fighting specific dragons rather than dungeon-crawl stuff. She currently takes notes chronologically, with specific symbols/annotations to indicate names of cities, NPCs, plot points, etc. Liam: “What are all the dickbutts for?” Marisha: “That’s Laura. She keeps stealing my notebook. ...no, that’s not true.” Marisha brings up some advice she got: keep your notes concise and make them look interesting; she also does doodles now that can draw her attention while flipping through and looking for something in particular.

Theories on Shakäste? Liam: “I think he’s the wind.” Marisha: “I think he’s what we might be in 20 years if we all live.”

“What were your immediate thoughts after Nott stabbed the manticore baby?” Marisha: “The fuck?! (...) Just because it was necessary doesn’t mean it was any less brutal.” Liam: “Caleb has seen Nott do wild, unpredictable things that have a high rate of success. She is a Golden Snitch. It just kind of works out.”

[renlyisright]

Season 8 Predictions Reviewed and A Retrospective

It’s over. The last season of the throne-game-series has ended. The surviving characters continue their lives to new adventures. I have some final thoughts before I drop the curtains myself. First, reviewing my predictions from before the season:

No, the White Walkers won’t kill everyone. A bold prediction but I stand by it. The Night King dies and with it the majority if not the whole army, and that’s it. The insta-win button gets pressed.

Correct (easy) prediction is correct.

The defense of the North will be the doom of many many characters. I’ll say that the Stark family is quite safe excluding Bran, who may die because he’s too big a weapon. Edd survives because that’s what he does. If Beric is still alive he gets a final death. Jaime does something stupid and glorious and dies, which doesn’t do any good to Cersei’s thinking. The rest (all the various side characters in Jon’s and Daenerys’ groups) I can see either way, depending on the circumstances. Some shock deaths, some last stands, some sacrifices, the usual.

Shock death: Edd, check. Last stands: several, check. Sacrifices: several, yep. But Bran survived, Edd didn’t, Beric didn’t and Jaime did, so ¼ of those was correct (and Beric was the easiest one).

Sam, Gilly and little Sam all live happily ever after. Lalala, I can’t hear you.

THEY DO! This was the best part.

Qyburn goes all Frankenstein with the body of the wight and ends up doing something stupid right in the capital. He won’t survive the season, there’s a Hand pin on his chest.

Qyburn did die, but he didn’t do any experiments with the body of the wight. That would have been a fun if time-consuming way to tie up the two plotlines of the Dead and Cersei. After saving the world, the heroes come to King’s Landing, where Qyburn is just testing out stabbing someone with a knife made from the weird substance found in the wight’s body...

So is on Tyrion’s chest. Hmm. But I don’t see him dying. As I said, I’m optimistic. The world will need clever emphatic people after all this. Bronn retires with a box of treasure.

Tyrion didn’t die, and he still has the pin on his chest. Bronn’s box of treasure is Highgarden and a position as the Master of Coin.

Cersei is far too dramatic to leave the throne alive. Her baby will get born before that happens, and Daenerys has to decide what to do with her. I’m thinking that the baby is a girl. Send her away? But what if she grows up to gather an army, just like her? Can she take that risk? And if she can’t, how is she different?

Nope, Daenerys attacked before the birth happened, and what would another dead baby have mattered in that attack?

Daario Naharis shows up leading the Golden Company. Elephants on an open field, thank you. Team Jon and Team Daario will have a bitter fight, which ends with Daario’s death.

Daario didn’t show up, not even to fight on Daenerys’ side. But his Second Sons will have work to do, on one side or another, once the masters hear that the dragons are gone. And I don’t feel bad about missing the elephants. Daenerys would have just burned them.

Speaking of Jon, since him and Daenerys ruling together would be too simple, I’ll throw a curve ball and say that Jon will sit on the throne, as going from a bastard to the king of seven kingdoms would be a nice escalation… but Daenerys has worked so hard for it, Jon has never wanted it, she deserves it more… hmm… maybe have a vote? Jon winning the game of thrones without ever wanting to would be funny, I’m not going to lie.

You sweet summer child. Oh boy oh dear. Still, there was a vote, and someone won the game of thrones without ever wanting it.

Theon will rescue Yara in a final triumph after a large PTSD attack. Euron dies, Yara rules the Iron Islands. This happens early in the season as Euron is such a nice mid boss before Cersei and the Night King.

Euron lived for surprisingly long, and neither Yara nor Theon ever confronted him again. Yara got the Islands back off-screen.

The Hound and the Mountain almost have the duel the Hound promised, but something zags instead of zigging. The Mountain dies anyway, but the Hound doesn’t.

Here I was trying to be clever, and see where it got me?

Was that everybody? Melisandre predicted that both her and Varys will die on Westeros, but didn’t specify the date. I don’t think Varys gets to see the world he has spent his life trying to create, and Melisandre goes down while keeping the Dead at bay with the Lord of Light’s powers, because she has fulfilled her purpose or something like that. I would like for the Lord to stop treating people as his pieces on a game board.

Yeah, Lord of Light, stop that. 

So, picking five deaths now is like shooting fish in a barrel (not that I have ever tried it), but that’s the tradition here. More main characters give more points. Let’s see, Cersei, Jaime, Qyburn, Euron, The Night King. Plus as a bonus Beric, The Mountain, Daario, Varys and Melisandre. Very conservative choices, says I. Random generator picks the following out of 31 names (for the record, two seasons ago it was 50, and now I tried to list absolutely everyone still alive): Daario, Cersei, Jaime, Qyburn, Tormund. Once again the random generator copies my answers. Least likely to die, it says, are Robin Arryn, Gilly and Lord Royce.

As Daario didn’t show up, he also couldn’t die. Computer also guessed Tormund’s fate wrong. Otherwise we were both correct, but they were easy choices. See how I didn’t pick anyone from the Stark family? I would have been wrong but that would have been bold.

And the final big thing: What’s the ending? How does this end? Things may go super bad in between, many will die horribly or get tortured, but in the end Westeros will survive. My ending would be that the Dead are defeated, but the Winter is still on, and the food shortage will be a very big problem. One character will say to another “We will survive this if we only work together”, and fade to black. The end. Then the audience can review the rest of the show and come to their own conclusion of whether these people are doomed and will all die, or if they have learnt something in these eight seasons.

That last Small Council scene was the closest to this, but it wasn’t underlined. Tyrion pointed out how they have poor to feed, but the talk quickly turned into the usual small council squabbling. So… have they learnt something? The last scenes with the Night’s Watch and the wildlings working together did end with a positive note, but I’m not so sure about the South…

So it’s over now. Laughs were made, tears were shed and faces were palmed. And finally, I can’t no longer be spoiled. I have lived in my own bubble where I watch an episode (a year or more later than others), write my own commentaries, make my own theories of all the mysteries, come up with my own inside jokes and then move on to the next episode. If someone said something about the show I quickly nope’d out. It’s been fun.

So, now that I am done, will I travel to the wonderland of the Internet and read stuff about the show? Maybe some analyses, to see if I thought the same as others? Maybe there’s some funny memes? Do I feel like finding out?

Nah.

I have some idea about the general opinion of the show in the Interwebs (I believe the proper expression is “burn it with fire”), and don’t feel like negative engagement is my thing. It’s the whole “Nobody hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans”-thing which didn’t sit right with me even when I was a big-time SW fan, and I don’t want to step into that again. Covers of the score, art, yes, bring me that, but otherwise I feel like I can continue to enjoy this show as only a viewer, without lateral engagement.

There’s going to be a spin-off series, House of the Dragon, starting in 2022. Will I do the same with that series? Never say never, but I grew almost nine years with this show, I don’t know if I will have time in the future to spend a work day’s worth of hours per episode. And I’ll likely have read the general lines of that series from all the tie-in-books of ASOIAF, which will make theorizing either super easy or super frustrating, the latter if the makers use the written stuff the same way the makers of period pieces use history books.

Speaking of that, these last two seasons had that sort of feeling. Like, if you read actual history books, obviously what really happened was a lot more messy, with continuing small skirmishes, less intense interpersonal drama, many more claimants and bannermen, and Daenerys was actually three different people composed together (one of them died of pneumonia between important stuff), that sort of thing. When the historical events were divided into 13 episodes, the important battles stayed (in a simplified form) and other details were scooped around them.

As a final bonus, some superlatives.

Best character: Olenna Tyrell. No contest. The Queen of Thorns, now and always. Not someone I’d like to spend time with but extremely entertaining when on screen.

Best main character: Oof, this one is much harder. Generally I let main characters do their main character stuff and attach myself more to the side characters. Those who are not chosen ones or master assassin trainees. Is Sam main character enough? He had his own plot lines. That’s good enough for me. Being a coward is not easy, and by still doing brave deeds he was braver than most. He valued knowledge and earned his happy ending with his family. And he was just so charming. So Sam is my pick.

Character whose death I most enjoyed: The choice is between Joffrey, Stannis and Ramsay. With Joffrey and Ramsay I was just so happy that they were finally out of the show, and seeing Stannis get executed by Brienne for killing Renly was really sweet. Tywin’s death was almost this. First he gets smacked by Cersei’s confession that the kids are not Robert’s, and his precious legacy is a lie, then his hypocrisy with Shae is shown, and finally he gets shot while in a privy. A big contender there, but losing him from the show was a big loss, so that drops points.

Best episo… no, that’s too hard, best season: Season 4. The King’s Landing stuff that season was just superb. Tyrion, Tywin, Olenna, Oberyn, Varys, Littlefinger, Cersei, everyone was at the top of their game. Losing most of them by either death or exile was a big loss. And the battle on the Wall was great.

The element I could most do without: Boobs on the screen just to have boobs on the screen. I like boobs as much as anyone but I prefer lore lessons and boobs separately, mixing them together didn’t enhance either. 

Most visceral reaction to death: Oberyn’s death. It was just… eww. Of all the horrible deaths that one was the most awful in the way it was depicted.

Biggest surprise: The Red Wedding. So great, so awful. In the book universe: How much the fourth and fifth novels differed from the show. I don’t envy anyone who, after adapting the third book, had to adapt essentially two road trip novels with several new plotlines started and nowhere near resolved when the books suddenly just stop. They were nice reads and hooked me, but I don’t feel anywhere closer to the end after them than I did after A Storm of Swords.

Best king/hand -combination: If Stannis would ever in any possible reality agree to it, I think Renly as the king and Stannis as the Hand would have been a good combo. Renly being the charismatic second Robert with some reforms (he complained about Robert only hunting in his last years), and Stannis as the one leading the boring administrative work.

Most useless gods: The Seven. For the most wide-spread religion in Westeros, they certainly didn’t do much. Or if they worked in mysterious ways, they sure were glad to give all the credit to the

Most frustrating god: The Lord of Light. Aargh.

Character most likely to have just walked to the wrong set: Mace Tyrell. I’m not sure he ever figured out what kind of show he was in. But he was glorious.

Best battle: Blackwater gets points here for being the first. I was used to Rome-type fade to black (which the first season used too), so an entire episode spent in one battle was something great. And the wildfire explosion was just awesome.

Best example of season one’s budget: The royal hunt of the great boar consisting of the king and three others walking in a forest.

Best beard: Ser Rodrik Cassel. Eight seasons and none could surpass him.

Best dresses: I liked Daenerys’ dresses this season, but now that I’m refreshing my memory with pictures, she also had a great blue one in season 3 and a white one in season 5. I also liked Cersei’s wide-sleeved red dress in season 2.

There, the end has come and I survived the game of thrones. Does that mean that I won it? Now I have several seasons’ worth of Blu-Ray bonus materials to watch, time to get on that. If you read this far, thank you for sticking to it. 

Even if you supported another claimant. Now that every claimant is dead, it’s time to put old quarrels to the rest and work together. Dreams of spring to everyone.

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Hey, it’s Ranma Rewatch, I’m on episode 7, and I don’t want to waste too much time with the preamble. I am super excited for this episode, my boi is here, I really hope it holds up, see you after I watch it again!

That wasn’t exactly how I remembered it, but not in a bad way. The episode starts with a short scene that has become pretty freaking iconic, and has been sampled in dozens, if not hundreds, of AMV’s: A man cloaked from head to toe, walking through a desert, his eyes barely visible under goggles. It is a really cool shot that catches the eye right away.

We cut from that to that same person approaching a small village, deciding to throw off his concealing clothes to reveal his typical yellow and green outfit, with a bandanna around his head and an umbrella on his back, which he takes out to slow down his descent when he jumps off a cliff. This village happens to be being attacked by a huge wild boar, wrecking everything in its way, but this fellow is able to stop the animal with little effort and send it flying. When the grateful villagers approach, he only has one question for them: where is Furinkan High School?

At first they don’t understand the question, until they look at what he has for a map and realize it’s of Tokyo. The problem is, this young man is on Shikoku, a completely different island in the archipelago. They point him in the right general direction, and he reveals before the scene ends that he is specifically trying to find Ranma Saotome.

Speaking of the show’s titular character, we get a small scene of him in his cursed form being blackmailed by Nabiki into wearing women’s clothes because all of his stuff is in the wash. After that, we get another scene of the mysterious umbrella-wielding stranger asking someone for directions to Furinkan High School, but this time he’s in Hokkaido. Once again a completely different island, only this time on the opposite end. Fun fact: Hokkaido was the inspiration for Sinnoh in Pokemon!

We get another small cut-away to Ranma in various outfits, then another of our new character somehow ending up back in that village he was in earlier. The point is being made clear to us: he is terrible at getting where he wants to go, but is also so inhumanly strong and resilient that he has no trouble surviving in the wilderness in the process.

What seems to be the next day, he finally gets to where he’s going, just as school is letting out for the day. Ranma is being chased by Akane for something, though we don’t know exactly what. (Of course, we know their dynamic well enough by now to know it’s almost certainly something Ranma did to annoy her.) The newcomer slams into the ground where Ranma is landing at the same time, leaving a crater in the cement from the force of his landing, all while screaming how Ranma has to die.

The problem is, Ranma has no clue who this guy is, which pisses him off to know end. Even after he brings up that his vendetta has something to do with Ranma never showing up for a duel, Ranma still struggles (and fails) to remember this guys name, but luckily he gives it to Ranma anyway: Ryoga Hibiki. They went to Junior High together, and they’d agreed upon a duel, but it never happened because Ranma wasn’t there when Ryoga arrived.

Now, Ranma protests that he waited in the agreed upon empty lot for three days before taking off for China with his dad, which is honestly more time than most people would have waited. As we already know though, Ryoga can’t seem to get anywhere quickly, so he got there on the fourth day. Oh, and the lot was right behind his house.

The crowd of students who only moments before considered him with awe over his fantastic martial arts abilities are now looking at him like a buffoon, and Ryoga is ready to get his revenge on Ranma already. But Ranma puts a pause on that, runs out, and comes back with a bunch of different kinds of bread. Why? Because bread was the reason for their duel in the first place. Their school was only for boys, and getting food at lunch was a nightmare. Ranma ended up snatching the last piece of bread just before Ryoga could get it time and time again, and all the bread he brought was one of each type he’d taken years before.

But Ryoga doesn’t care about that, making it clear that the bread isn’t something he cares about anymore, that Ranma has put him through hell, even if Ranma has no clue what he’s talking about. But before they can get a proper fight going, Ranma runs away, losing Ryoga enough that when he starts busting up the school looking for him, he ends up going the wrong way and out of the area entirely, leaving Ranma and Akane to wonder where he went. We do get to see where before the episode ends: once again back in that village that had the boar problem, where he gets a meal before running out into the evening to find Ranma once more.

Like I said before, this episode wasn’t entirely how I remembered it. Namely, there was a lot more humor than I remembered. For the most part, that’s not a bad thing, there was actually some really good comedy, and I don’t feel like it trampled over the more serious parts of the episode.

If it isn’t clear, I am going to say right now that I did still love this episode. The animation was really on-point, some of the visuals of Ranma darting around people or the brief combat he gets with Ryoga just looks beautiful. Also, even though we don’t get a fight between the two just yet, it’s already solidly communicated, through Ryoga easily beating the boar, barreling through steel barriers, and hitting the ground so hard it destroys concrete, that he is strong as hell.

As much as I love the opening desert shot, I actually think my favorite part of the episode is some of the conversation between Ranma, Akane, and Ryoga. Ranma straining his brain to remember who Ryoga is killed me. It was weirdly relatable too, I’m sure many of us have run into someone who obviously knows us, while we can’t even remember how we know them, let alone their name. The fact Ranma actually specifically bought one of each bread he’d taken from Ryoga before was kind of cute, more than I expected of the usually flippant martial artist.

There’s also an exchange I’ve seen on Tumblr a few times in screencaps and gifs, and there’s a reason people love to share it. When Ryoga says he’s going to destroy Ranma’s happiness, there’s this shot of him freaking out, only to turn to Akane and blankly ask if he is happy, to which Akane doesn’t understand why he’s asking her. They take such a trope-y line from a character seeking revenge and turn it around into a really good joke.

There was also a really interesting thing I noted in terms of translation. After hearing about the string of times Ranma stole bread from Ryoga, Akane makes an analogy to why it mattered so much, but it’s different from dub to sub. In the English Dub, she says the straws broke the camel’s back, a common phrase that seems to fit the situation. But in the English Sub, she says (loosely remembering) “enough dust can make a mountain”, and I think that actually fits much better. After all, we soon learned that the bread isn’t really why Ryoga is angry, but once you do know everything that happened that led to Ryoga’s rage, that analogy fits perfect: it isn’t so much one specific event, as a collection of small events that collected into an enormous vendetta.

All my compliments aside, I did have some issues with the episode. Some of the comedy didn’t really work for me, and that was most true with the early scenes of the Tendo girls trying to dress Ranma in Akane’s clothes. Some parts did make me chuckle, but on the whole the mini-plot made me uncomfortable. Primarily because, as I’ve said before, I feel like the best way to look at Ranma’s cursed form is as a trans man. Even though his body has changed, his gender hasn’t, he’s still a man. The scene has Ranma protesting again and again that he is a man, even as they try to dress him as a woman. The idea of some cisgender folks trying to force a trans man into women’s clothes just...isn’t very funny to me. It’s kind of terrible, at least from a more queer perspective. That complaint done, let’s do the character spotlight.

Oh come on, who else did you think I was going to do? If it isn’t clear yet, Ryoga Hibiki is my favorite character in the series, and he has been since I was a teenager. Who knows if that will remain true this entire watch-through, but so far I’m not liking him any less. I’ll get into why, but first let’s talk about his voice actors.

The voice actor I’m more familiar with, his English one, is Michael Donovan. Like most of the actors for this dub, he’s someone who worked with the Ocean Group for a lot of series around this time period. That said, if you’re a fan of the Fate franchise, he has done some voices in Ufotable’s recent anime adaptations, playing Risei Kotomine and Zouken Matou. In Japanese, his voice actor is one Kōichi Yamadera, and he continued the pattern of voice actors who are well-known in Japan for dubbing English works. He’s most well-known for dubbing over Jim Carrey in a lot of movies, but he’s done a ton of others as well. In anime, some of his notable roles include Spike Spiegel, Beerus in all the recent Dragon Ball movies and anime, and Gentle Criminal in My Hero Academia. Seriously, diving into this guy’s list of roles is like swimming in an ocean of great roles.

So, how do they do? Well, so far I’d say I like both of them a lot, but they do play Ryoga differently. At his core, Ryoga is actually kind of a perfect microcosm of the tone of the series itself. Ranma 1/2 is simultaneously a shonen battle anime, a romantic harem series, and a wacky comedy. Ryoga is someone who takes himself very, very seriously. His desire for vengeance against Ranma isn’t a joke, and neither is his ability as a martial artist. But he’s also a doofus who ends up crossing the length of Japan several times because he can’t follow directions properly and the reasons (so far) for his hatred of Ranma are completely laughable.

I wouldn’t say that Michael Donovan’s performance lacks seriousness, in fact when he wants Ryoga to sound menacing I think he does it well, but on the whole he leans more heavily towards the comedic parts of the character. Meanwhile, Yamadera’s Ryoga hasn’t really sounded silly once to me. He plays the character dead straight, and let’s the comedy come through in the contrast between that demeanor and the circumstances around him. We’ll have to see as we go, but I actually might be preferring the Japanese performance so far, a rarity for me.

Okay, so, why do I love Ryoga so much? There are SO many reasons, many of which I won’t go into just yet because I’ll save them for when they appear in-series. But there is still a lot shown in this episode that I feel I can discuss. To start with, I adore his design. I don’t mean the cloak and goggles, though those are absolutely awesome, I’m referring to his standard mode of dress. The yellow and green as a color scheme, with accents of black to top it off, is something really unique. I don’t know enough about art to really articulate why, but I just love every touch of his design. My favorite small touch has to be the yellow strands wrapping around his lower legs, clashing with his otherwise dark green lower half. I have no clue what they’re supposed to be for, but they just add something, almost making him look more rooted to the spot of wherever he’s standing, more solid.

That is a good word to use for Ryoga in general. Even though we haven’t gotten to see him in a proper fight just yet, we’ve seen quite a lot of evidence of his main attributes. In Dungeons & Dragons terms, Ryoga is making out his Strength and Constitution. He hits like a truck and he can be hit by a truck without slowing down. I love that because it contrasts so perfectly with Ranma’s strength: his speed and precision. I adore it when rival characters actually have qualities that make the fights between them more interesting from the contrast, and Ryoga fits the bill there quite well. He’s also a good foil in terms of personality: Ranma is easy going, likes screwing with people, and is quite quick-witted; Ryoga has a hot temper and a long memory for grudges, hates it when people trick him, and tends to let his emotions do the thinking for him.

I will say it feels like his character has some classic Early Installment Weirdness, as he uses his umbrella quite a bit in this episode. If I remember correctly, after his introductory arc, he doesn’t use his umbrella much at all for the rest of the show, preferring to rely on his fists. It definitely feels like they hadn’t quite nailed the character completely yet, if that makes any sense.

Ryoga is also doing that thing where he’s seeking revenge and really angry, but refuses to talk about why, drawing out the mystery as long as possible. While that trope can become annoying, I don’t really mind it in this case. This isn’t a situation like Godot from Ace Attorney, where Ryoga is purposefully hiding it for some grand plan or something, or to teach a lesson. Ryoga doesn’t go into specifics because A) he thinks Ranma should already know; B) Ryoga is very mad; and C) he doesn’t want anyone else to know his secret. I’m not saying it isn’t stupid that he doesn’t tell Ranma why he’s mad, but I am saying that it’s in-character.

Are you surprised that I adore this episode? You shouldn’t be, I’ve been gushing about it this whole time. Even with the parts I found more rough to watch, this is still my favorite episode of the series thus far, putting the rankings at:

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

The big question is: will the next episode of this four episode Ryoga arc be even better? We’ll find out next time with Episode 8: “School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga”. See you then!