#brilliantly done OP

[calleserrano]

It isn't often that fanart immediately makes me think of a specific work by an Italian Baroque master, but...

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, by Caravaggio (1602)

thomas

[sapphicflower-ao3]

what are ur personal favorite fics? i can be a bit picky and have a hard time finding fics but i love ur writing and i feel like we might have similar tastes based on that :3

i'm sorry it took me like a week to get to this!! i wanted to compile my faves and write notes for each of them... and i went overboard LOL. but thanks so much omg, i'm flattered that you would trust my taste based on my writing!

these are all bkdk obviously :)

i. 'In Case of Fire' - passengerside

post-canon // complete // 11K // E

an absolute MASTERPIECE!!! this author has become a recent favourite of mine, i love the way they incorporate little details into their work and make the mundane so beautiful.

highly recommend all of their other works, especially 'Pacemaker'! so freaking beautiful and fun and the lead up to the confession was a genuine holding-my-breath moment

ii. 'Sun Hands' - yesthisisnarumi

snowboarding AU // complete // 5K // T

i've re-read this one so many times it's SOOOOO good! so fun and so classically bkdk it's insane. everybody say thank you OP for giving us the rival olympic champions to lovers story we needed

iii. 'all that you ever wanted from me was sweet nothing' - maxisnotokay

UA compliant // complete // 11K // T

i dont usually read a lot of whump but this was brilliant, im a sucker for this specific trope and for LOVE CONFESSIONS YEASS!!! obvi it has a happy ending bc i wouldnt have it any other way. a good length too :)

iv. 'Spinnin' On Our Feet' - sage_and_cinnamon

High School AU // ongoing // 47K // M

UNDERRATED AS FUCK and my favourite ongoing fic right now. i usually dont read jock x nerd AUs but this fic is so brilliantly funny and charming and heartwarming and it blew all my expectations out of the water and then some. i've been following it for ages and it's been on hiatus for a good while, but it updated recently and when i tell you it was the best day of my freaking life...

v. 'In Perfect Rhythm' - chalk

Band AU // complete // 50K // E

yes how surprising, a band AU fic in my faves list. anyway shut up, chalk is literally godlike in their writing and this fic was SO FUN and scratched all the itches. nothing gets me going more than awkwardly endearing izuku n rockstar katsuki

vi. 'Last Days of War' - antisora

Pacific Rim AU // complete // 44K // M

GENUINELY ONE OF HUMANITY'S BEST PIECES OF LITERATURE???? fuck. i never have the proper words for this fic, but it is SO gripping and the worldbuilding is so tight and their relationship development is so good and the CLIMAX OF THIS HAS BEEN MORE EPIC THAN HALF THE BLOCKBUSTERS I'VE SEEN. i beg you to read this even if you have never watched Pacific Rim. or maybe go watch the movie and get EDUCATED and then read this! i'm begging you, dear reader!!

vii. 'Ingenium' - crandberrycrush

Astronauts AU // complete // 85K // E

guys i love sci-fi sorry lol. this one is another brilliant fic. OP put so much blood, sweat and tears into research and it shows, it is just very intelligent and the plot itself is HEART RACING and GUTTING and THRILLING. there's a lot of POVs and it really fleshes it out, tho ofc bkdk is the main thing. happy ending obvi! it is the space/astronaut drama that i love and adore, just BKDKified now!

viii. 'The Magic in a Mirror' - totallyrottentomatoes

Magic/Circus AU // complete // 80K // E

oh how surprising, a totallyrottentomaoes fic in my faves list. anyone who knows me knows that i rec this fic all the time. it's one of my all time favourites, if not my favourite of all time lol, and it's really because of the writing and the imagery and the characterisation and the relationships b/w all the characters. it's all just so well done and MAGICAL. no joke, if i could print and bind a fic into a book, it would be this one. no notes. perfection. caters to my tastes so specifically. i could go on about this fic forever but i'll shut up for now

also highly recommend 'The Distance Between Suns' by this author - it's a high fantasy epic with TIGHT AS FUCK worldbuilding, brilliantly written, the romance is BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN, the payoffs are amazing, etc... this deserves to be published and revered

ix. 'Battle of the Bands' - roadtripwithlucifer

Band AU // complete // 168K // E

look i know i always rec this fic, i just can't help that it's like my favourite thing ever. roadtripwithlucifer and totallyrottentomatoes my BELOVEDS. the humour in this fic is so fucking yummy and brilliant, the writing is gorgeous in typical roadtrip fashion, the stakes are gripping, the climax is thrilling, the romance n yearning is INTENSE, the sex is hot as hell, the ending is so satisfying, just..... the whole package.

and while you're here, read other roadtripwithlucifer works like 'Nothing Else Fills' if you feel like destroying your heart :) an angsty and beautifully written time-travel-to-save-my-kacchan-gone-wrong war AU fic. i love OP's works but her more recent fics (eg. after battle of the bands) have had some of her best writing. i adore it when you can feel how an author has poured their soul into their work, you can always feel it in a roadtripwithlucifer work and it's just the cherry on top

x. 'Scar Tissue' - Loriqod

canon-compliant // complete // 18K // E

loriqod is another author with a characterisation that i fuck with so hard... this one was so full of that Yearning and Tension that i so vibe with. bonus points to the plots focus on bkdk's scars like yes pls more of that <3

anyway i might make a part 2 some other time, these are just the ones i grabbed from my public bookmarks. i have a lot of private ones and some of them i forgot to make public oops

hope u find smth u enjoy!

[emperor-kumquat]

Hey!!

I hope you are doing well. I randomly came across your YT video about Starscream’s wings and thought that was adorable (as well as the autobot war crimes). It never occurred to me that them abandoning Starscream there was a war crime (and thinking of it, OP would deffo not have jibed with that). That lead me here and to your story game Mercy. So far I’m reading Discovery and it is BRILLIANTLY done. I chose the OA path lol.

Question: because I love Starscream TOO darn much, which of your storylines includes the fanart someone made for you that showed Overlord ripping off Starscream’s wings? And I saw some of your postings of conversations between Overlord and Stars; I think they might be related?

Thank you and good day/night (also pspspsps Canadian too!)

Thank you for enjoying my stuff! I'm not sure if abandoning Starscream is considered a war crime by Earth standards, but I thought it was worth pointing out how cruel it was to leave Starscream injured with no one to help him. Basically leaving him to die, right? Not very morally superior of the Autobots! When you see art for Mercy online, it is most often official art for the game than fanart. Yep my stuff is not just fanfiction, but part of a huge project turning my fiction into videos with images, sounds, and music! I pay artists or some people volunteer art for it. They work with my direction to get the scenes just right! There are hundreds of images already like that Overlord ripping off Starscream's wings (which I paid for).

You can see most of that art here on Ko-Fi and support the creation of more art by donating!

(Ô Canada)

[hermioneismyrealname]

Genius, but all this really made me think was how wet these two were.

Songkran, Water, and KingUea

Was talking about my Bed Friend Reflection post with @respectthepetty and more specifically she was referencing the observation I made about how strongly water ties into King and Uea’s relationship and it got me thinking. What, if any, possible meaning could be gleamed from this theme?

And well, Songkran happened recently and I really just decided it was time to go overboard in the parallels I drew between the use of water and the defining moments of King and Uea’s relationship. For those of you who (like me until I looked it up just now) do not know, the original myth of Songkran states Indra the king of devas looked upon a city and was sad to see high levels of corruption, thus until they strayed back from sin there would be no rains, minimal food and water, and extreme drought. The people prayed to mother Earth (Siri) and Siri told the people the causes of their misfortune and gave them fertile lands, divine seeds, songs for rain, and pots of powder to cool their skin. 

Songkran is the Thai New Year which is particularly well known, in Bangkok at least, for its water fights. (There are other rituals such as cleaning the home, making merit, elephant processionals, etc based on region) 

Songkran stems from the Sanskrit word “saṃkrānti” or “saṅkrānti” which (according to Wikipedia) means “transformation” or “movement” 

So let’s explore this theme a bit more in relation to Uea and King’s relationship shall we?

The first time King and Uea have sex, Uea wakes up, panics, and returns home where he then enters the bathtub: 

Thus dousing himself in water, water which, in a Songkran transformation sense, should cleanse him of his sin, in this case, engaging in “slutty” behavior, something he was severely punished for as a child by his mother. 

Then, we hit a dry spell for an episode and a half while King and Uea navigate the beginning of their FWB relationship, things seems to be going pretty well. King is, and I cannot stress how much I mean this in a non-sexual way, planting the seeds for a prosperous harvest, and he is doing so when he shoots the I Love You sign to Uea, when he massages Uea, when he goes out with Gun and spends the whole night communicates with Uea, and it is clear by that point that Uea is starting to having Feelings about King. Then King accidentally triggers him, they hit a bit of a dry spell, until Uea finally accepts King’s apologies and re-starts their sexual relationship. At which point, we get the rain:

With a rain-streaked window overlaying them, King asks Uea “Will you let me be a good thing in your life?” and while Uea tries to brush the question off, we know his answer is yes. King has washed away the sins he has committed against Uea (accidentally triggering him) and they are moving into the next phase of their relationship to one another, where Uea starts seeing King as a good thing in his life. 

Third instance of water comes after Uea’s encounter with his family on his birthday. He calls King seeking comfort, and King recognizes Uea’s anxiety and makes him take a bath instead of continuing their sexual encounter while Uea is emotionally compromised. King brings Uea a birthday cake, and while I have not read the novel, I remember there was a post floating around comparing the book and the show that mentioned that Uea is surprised or touched or something to discover that King cares more about Uea than his mother does because he actually gives Uea a celebration for his birthday.

Uea is once again cleansing himself, this time of the sins of his family, and enters another phase of his relationship to King where he trusts that King cares for him. 

And we get secondary movement in the King/Uea department with them sitting together in the pool:

While King has been witness to some of Uea’s present traumas and trauma reactions, Uea has not otherwise been forthcoming with information about his life. He’s mentioned when his mother texts him, or he makes vague and off-handed comments about things not going right for him in life, but he has not told King any actual information about himself and his life…until the pool, where he talks about happy memories living in Lampang with his cousins. Uea is planting seeds and watering them in the hopes of a bountiful harvest. They openly flirt with each other and discuss visiting Lampang together, fully abandoning the behavior of Friends With Benefits even as they continue to define themselves as such. 

Episode 5 marks our next rain-streaked windows event where the power goes out, Uea has a panic attack, and King calms him down.

Uea is able to sleep, in darkness, through the night which is a huge step for him. Over a cover of rain, Uea is cleansing his fears, and it is showing us that the seeds King has been planting to ensure Uea can trust him are beginning to bear fruit. King has become such an honest, stable presence in his life that Uea is able to find safety and security from the sins committed against him. 

We get another drought in Episode 6 with King promising Uea a beach trip (hello water) but having to cancel due to the arranged match. No water, no movement, no growth, their relationship begins to break down and Uea begins to regress, latching on to the ‘Bed Friend’ title between them as a way to convince himself that he and King have not been going through the motions of a romantic relationship for the past few months/episodes. 

Besides the waterworks (King and Uea’s tears) the only instance of rain we get in Episode 7 is actually reserved exclusively for Uea after he stands up to his mother and his step father. 

Under a cover of rain, Uea is cleansing himself of filial obligation and is finally fighting back after years of biting his tongue. He is cleaning house, getting rid of the people who have sullied his life for so long. This marks a personal transformation for Uea, another songkran. 

Now, if you have read my posts about the use of reflections in this show, then you will know I operate under the assumption that the reflections we are given are indicative of the character’s internal emotional states.

So if you combine the reflections as emotions and the water as transformation, you can imagine the weight of King and Uea being reflected off the water when they confess their feelings for each other. King admits he likes Uea, he gets Uea to admit that he likes King, and while being reflected off the water they are able to cleanse themselves of their transgressions against each other (even though I personally think Uea did nothing wrong) and progress their relationship from the ‘friends with benefits’ phase to the ‘seeing each other’ phase. 

One aspect I have not fully mentioned of the ritual of water pouring in relation to Songkran is not only does pouring water wash away your sins, but it can wash away bad luck as well. Uea is a person who believes himself to be unlucky, and he has said as much in the show. But with this admission from King, and with them being now openly on the same page, and with Krit and the arranged match complications resolved, King and Uea (Uea especially) are able to wash away the bad luck keeping them apart. 

And we know from here on out King and Uea are going to be a tight, cohesive unit because they are frequently surrounded by water for the rest of this show. They have removed their sins, removed their bad luck, and are now granted a glorious relationship. (Of note additional rituals as a part of Songkran include washing the feet of your elders and serving delicious food. While they are not washing each other’s feet we are still getting imagery of them with their feet in water and eating food)

Episode 9, we get four minutes straight of rain, from the scene immediately after King introduces Uea to his parents as his boyfriend until King wakes up sick from the rain. 

First, we have our parallel to Uea’s rainy car ride, with King being the one to stand up to his family, say that he loves Uea and he will not be joining his parent’s company. 

He has cleansed himself of his own filial obligations, and he has Uea there to comfort him and try to break him out of the moody headspace he has gotten himself in to. The tire goes flat and King exits in to the rain to figure out what happened, and Uea brings him an umbrella, but King is already drenched.

This is a blessed rain, a rain from Siri, a rain that heals the burnt flesh from drought and allows the crops to grow. A rain that allows for the cultivation of fertile land. In this case, the growth and cultivation of King and Uea’s relationship to one another, and to themselves as individuals as well.

Very Important Side Note:  Episode 9 of Bed Friend aired the same weekend that Thailand was having their Songkran festival. 

Now, forgive me if I get any of this next part wrong, I do not understand zodiacs very well, but apparently Songkran is meant to celebrate the movement of the sun in to Aries. Now, my knowledge of zodiac is limited but I am pretty certain Aries season begins around March 20 or 21st and goes through about April 20th. King and Uea go on their Sea Trip in Episode 10 on March 25th, during Aries season. 

And uh, it might not rain in Episode 10 but…

That does not mean our boys aren’t getting absolutely covered in water at every opportunity. I mean, as evidenced above we have them fully submerged in the ocean, snorkeling.

And in the bathtub where the wine drunk boyfriends are not only being horny on main, but we have a little bit of verse action happening. This is the final water we get in the show before we get Uea’s first attempt at intentionally turning the lights off and we move towards King and Uea’s engagement. 

We get the perfect circle, Episode 1 starts the relationship between King and Uea with Uea alone in a bathtub trying to wash the memory of the evening away and ends in Episode 10 with King and Uea together in a bathtub, feasting from the bountiful harvest they have sowed throughout the show.

[raincitygirl76]

A friend linked to this Felice and Sara edit on TikTok, and it’s brilliantly done. Even though I’m an old crone who doesn’t get TikTok. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be Sara having a crush on Felice or Sara wanting to be just like Felice. But either way, the OP nailed it.

[shootingstarpilot]

Not a question, but I just wanted to let you know that your tags about my Reva and baby Reva fanart literally made my day!! That sense of her young self as a moral anchor was exactly what I was going for :D

I'm so pleased! It's so brilliantly done, you should be very proud- the distinct choice to have her hand gripping adult Reva's forearm instead of holding her hand, which might have been a position more up to interpretation, hit really hard- among so much else!

...And now I'm just thinking about a moment after Luke, after Reva drops her saber, still feeling the distinct sensation of someone clinging to her arm, restraining her blade- after she makes her choice, after she turns back towards the Light- thinking about that phantom hold on her arm sliding down until she feels the faintest sensation of fingers entwining with her own, and the ghost no longer holds her back but walks next to her instead, all the way into the future-

Ah, damnit. I can never escape Big Feelings About Reva.

If any of you don't know what this is referring to, check out OP's BRILLIANT masterpiece right here. I think it really encapsulates so much of Reva's character!

(And it makes my heart hurt. OW.)

[nebulations]

[ID: A Trigun comic done in grayscale with red accents. First, an anatomical heart gushes blood, forming a puddle which shifts into Vash's coat. Vash's gloved hands can be seen sewing up a tear at the hem.

Vash raises his hands, which are now bare and covered in blood. He looks sweaty and distressed, and he raises his coat to his face and cries into it. His clenched hands rip the sewed portion apart, and the red thread leads to a heart whose own stitches are tearing apart. The background gets darker and darker, and the red looks brighter and starker against it.

Then the background returns to white, and brown-skinned hands using embroidery scissors snip a red thread. Wolfwood holds up Vash's repaired coat, grinning proudly, and does a happy thumbs-up in Vash's direction. Vash lifts his head, seeming distant.

Wolfwood holds out the coat. As Vash puts out his hand to take it, the cloth is replaced so Wolfwood is dropping a sewed-up heart in Vash's hand. Vash rubs the coat against his face with a teary smile. End ID]

Edit: OP kindly added this to the og post, so please go reblog from them instead!

(content warning: blood)

Sewed Up Heart

[maximuswolf]

I think Fortnite is a much better game than I realized

I think Fortnite is a much better game than I realized I didn't really care for Fortnite when it came out. I don't even remember what year that was, but I was not that interested. I'm a Halo guy, love them equal starts, so the battle royale is probably the opposite in that instead of a very controlled 4 v 4 match, Fortnite is a 100 person free for all on a map in absolutely fucking chaos.So, an old friend that I used to play Rust with reconnected with me and she and her boy play Fortnite, and my little nephew does too, so obviously I got in on that, if only because "Uncle Bear" has to prove to his nephew he can game on him in his own turf. I didn't have any figures in my childhood who gamed with me, so its especially important that I tried to at least understand the deeper mechanics. I'm a good uncle like that.Yo why do people dunk on Fortnite?The answer is rhetorical. Fortnite is insanely popular, and that includes kids, and those things make people goofy. Some of the replies I'm going to get here are goofy and I really hope the mod team is up to dealing with that because this is a pretty cool topic.So where do I start?Fortnite catapulted the battle royale into the gaming zeitgeist. Its been done better since, maybe even before, but Fortnite took it and made it popular enough that now, nobody even remembers PUBG, let alone that they sued Epic over Fortnite being a battle royale.Fortnite brilliantly uses pop culture to push its entire concept. The end result is monetization out the wazoo because microtransactions bla bla bla whales etc. etc.So I played about two seasons ago with my nephew, and got to platinum III and then the next season dropped and it was way different (Mad max cars???) and I was like "Oh, it was a fluke, I'm over this game"After playing a few matches this season, no, I was wrong. Epic knows what they're doing.They tear their sandbox up every season and drop items from whatever is the theme, and that's one of the best things about the game. It keeps the meta fresh. I found a jet pack in my last match, realized I could use it to roll unexpected people on the ground, and quickly got very one-sided kills.I thought "Oh, this changes things" and then about 30 seconds later somebody else with a jetpack flew over me and scraped me out of the air. Indeed it does.I haven't played enough to talk about much more than Captain America's shield (CAS for brevity)I had used it a few times. I thought it was cool how you could block with it, throw it, and even sprint with it out. Very cool mechanics. That the crosshair is a star is just proof that Epic knows how to make these things ooze with pop culture.I didn't understand what it was good for exactly. My mind was thinking in terms of the riot shield from CoD. Then I had this engagement:Close quarters, I had a shotgun out. Dude come running with the shield. Alright, I've done this, wait for him to drop guard and plug him. So I fire off a shot to try to make him react, and he obviously blocks it, and then immediately throws the CAS at me which hit me and comes back to him. This exposes him so I am spamming my trigger trying to get the next shot but he gets the CAS back and blocks right as I fire, and immediately throws again, and I kept spamming and he worked me into the ground. Didn't even take damage.That's some solid design. Good kill random stranger.So much of Fortnite's massive sandbox is changing every season, and because of that, even in balancing they just have to make sure nothing gets too OP because by the time the meta has caught up, they drop a new season.Anyways, Kuddos to Epic for making such a great multiplayer experience, they'd probably be more bothered by basement nerds hating on it if it didn't make them like a billion dollars. See ya on the bus! Submitted September 01, 2024 at 08:00PM by LuckyTheBear https://ift.tt/n2uBKaw via /r/gaming

[coinamazon]

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[lucy-and-rebecca]

Spoilers for 100 yq chapter 103

Welcome to another episode of me fangirling over Lucy disguised as analysis.

This chapter is one of the most important chapters for Lucy's character development and it was brilliantly executed.

We start off with the Gemini fake out. The thing that worried fans for two weeks turned out to be Lucy's spirits looking for her. While I was pretty sure Lucy wasn't going to lose her arm knowing she was fine was a huge relief.

Then she got into Aries form. I follow the logic on that. It's the only star dress that can offer her protection against physical attacks. Also it is just me or they were intentionally putting the focus on Lucy's guildmark?

Anyways that didn't work. Kiria was able to cut through it and Lucy was about to give up.

This is where things get intresting.

Kiria says no more miracles for you. It could be just because of the translation but the way she says this implies that Lucy being saved was something someone else did for her. In reality only Lucy could have pulled it off.

It's scenes like these with Gemini that make you realise most people don't really know much about celestial spirit magic. Not only that but Lucy's magic is on another level. If you know everything Lucy can do you can predict she was capable of using Gemini or Gemini could come to help her. To people who don't know much about celestial spirit magic and the ways Lucy can use it, what happened would feel like a miracle.

The moments with Laxus were just incredible. When Lucy was about to lose hope Laxus came to her rescue. He physically saved her yes, but more than that his words gave her strength to fight.

This guy who didn't come to help his guild when phantom lord attacked them because he didn't accept Lucy as a member of fairy tail and didn't think she was someone worth protection, broke free from mind control and put himself in harms way almost on instict to save Lucy.

Lucy thought she couldn't do anything on her own. The solution to that is her realise her guild is always with her. It's your typical power of Nakama but it feels more impactful with Lucy. Because the story with her isn't she was weak but then she became OP (I mean it's kinda true but that's not the main point). Her story is she wanted some place to belong and fairy tail accepted her unconditionally and the strength she has now is because of their support.

Lucy is at her strongest when she is fighting to protect someone else.

Do you understand how incredible this moment is? Lucy summoned a spirit to look after Laxus as she was about to do a spell that required three people. Summoning a spirit and keeping their gate open requires magical energy. Virgo said Lucy can maintain her new SD for only sixteen seconds and Lucy said that's all she needed. This shows she calculated how much time and energy she needed to defeat Kiria and made her moves accordingly.

Kiria could slash through anything so Lucy let her. She let Kiria slash at water in confusion while she chanted her spell. Because all she needed was time. She was strong yes but more than anything she was smart. She's the jack of all trades character who uses her power smartly to overpower enemies far stronger than her.

Lucy doesn't have the magical power to do Gottfried by herself so she figured out a way to increase her power and do the spell with other celestial wizards without actually having anyone else there. She had done spells with Gemini before but they aren't here right now. In that moment the only person present there is Lucy. She is just using her magical smartly.

And finally we have this.

That smile is so important.

This fight was very similar to her fight with Mimi. There were two main difference. First is Mimi realised she shouldn't underestimate Lucy, Kiria didn't. Second is, with Mimi even after Urano metria Lucy wasn't sure she had won. Here she knows. She's not even looking at Kiria she just knows she has won. In fact she knew she would win even before she summoned Virgo.

This fight is the perfect mix of last minute power up through power of friendship and a character winning the fight before it even begins because they were prepared and planned according.

One of the things I love about Lucy as a character is that losing is a real possibility for her. Which is why when she uses her head and wins it feels so much more impactful.

[butchtwelfthdoctor]

where do i even start with this oh my god

the endless task of trying to clean up the mess even though it can never be finished but he keeps trying to over and over and over - that's its blood. he's the most human of the doctors but with the most blood proverbially on his hands - that's he's scraping it all back TOWARDS HIMSELF OH MY GOD this is just. this is just paintful.

the 'can't help myself' - he will try and contain the damage to just himself over and over and over he is always so ready to die to save everyone else and yet he always survives when others don't and he always feels like that's his fault. the robot always will scrape up the paint cos that's what it's programmed to do and ten will always try to take the damage because that's what he's always done and it's awful but he can't bear it any other way.

op this is genius and deeply upsetting/pos nghhhhhhhh

cant help myself

[acearohippo]

I have a head canon that Xuan was kinda like, a cryptid when he was in the esper academy. He had probably only ever been close to Yun until then so he had literally no idea how to talk to people. Plus, his transformation had killed most of his impulse control so he was prone to doing dumb things (I also think that transformations, particularly the strong ones, sometimes result in parts of the Devine’s personality influencing the esper). So ling and Lewis knew nothing about this weird guy (1/2)

OP, I think you mean canon?? AbsoLUTELY YES, TO THIS HEADCANON.

Tang Xuan is THE face of the Union, the poster boy, the star, the pride, etc etc. He can charm a crowd, rally a large group, and start giant movements from his sheer charisma alone, but get him to make actual close friends and ?? He has to like??? Actually have a two way conversation? He can't just insert himself, smile brilliantly, and refferree a match to gain friends? Leaving [his favourite] snacks DOESN'T lead to instant BFFs?? But, but he's sitting at the friend table! He does so everyday! He doesn't say a peep, just smiles, but surely we're all friends here!

Just, ah, socially awkward, but make him extroverted so instead of a stumbling mess he's just v intimidating, smiling so brightly with sparkling eyes, randomly popping up out of nowhere.

And him attaching himself to Lewis and Li Ling is giving the poor dudes anxiety cause, damn he must WANNA fight, the little punk ass with his stupidly cute big ass grin.

But no one knows ANYTHING really about him, other than him being the older twin, THE Monkey King's chosen esper, and that he leaves pudding out like a freaking calling card (scares some of the younger/newer espers who think he's putting a hit on them). Oh, and that he can, will, and HAS completely bodied giant ass colossal miramon by himself, almost gleefully and without breaking a sweat.

Honestly, OP, from how it sounds in universe, the citizens and other members of the Union love, adore, worship, and are baffled and awed by Tang Xuan the way the Internet is with Keanu Reeves. Just a pretty man who has done no wrong, looks and acts like a cinnamon roll but will absolutely kill, somehow manages to be a complete mystery while being the most well known celebrity, and shockingly human and humble when you actually meet him.

Tang Xuan is a cryptid, stamped and approved. ✅✅✅💯💯💯

Now, for the shippers... Imagine the SHOCKWAVE of media exploding when it's confirmed/announced that Li Ling and Tang Xuan are/have been dating! Two completely different spheres of popularity (Mr. Fanservice vs Mr. [Insert the equivalent of this world's Internet]'s Boyfriend) becoming an power couple? It would BREAK THE MEDIA. People would lose their minds over Poster Boy!Tang Xuan getting to nuzzle and motor boat Li Ling's Booba™ all day, every day. Fans would rave over sudden pictures circulating of Tang Xuan In the Wild™ more often. It would be WILD.

[leiawritesstories]

Piano for Relaxation

Happy Nessian Appreciation Week! I love these two together and I love writing them. Oh, this will be fun! *grins maniacally*

Prompt 3: Music

Warnings: Absolutely none

Word count: 1405

@nessianweek

~

Despite how much stress she was under, and as a pre-law student her default stress level was “high,” Nesta Archeron never failed to spend a spare bit of time at a piano. Some days, she was lucky enough to steal an hour with the University of Velaris’s prized Bösendorfer grand, which lived on the stage of the concert hall, some days she settled for the baby grand in the recording studio, and some days, she was relegated to one of the crappy and usually out-of-tune uprights in the practice rooms. 

This Thursday evening, she’d managed to get into the performing arts hall before it “closed” for the night. She scoped out the practice rooms and recording studio, mentally scratching the studio off her list of pianos since the “recording in progress” light above the door glowed red. Daring a peek into the concert hall, she smothered a little squeal. The stage door was unlocked, and probably would be for the rest of the night, leaving her free to play the best quality piano on campus. 

She carefully placed her messenger bag by the leg of the piano, retrieved her worn brown leather music portfolio, and set it on the piano’s smooth music rack. Going through her usual warm-up motions, she stretched her fingers and hands, shook out her wrists, and rolled her neck. Then, with a musician’s soft pre-performance exhale, she lowered her hands to the polished ivory keys and began. 

With scales, of course. How else would a musician begin practicing? Fifteen years of piano had ingrained a set of warm-up exercises into Nesta’s muscle memory, and she played methodically through each, from scales to arpeggios to rhythmic exercises, chord progressions and exercises, and her old nemesis, octaves and tenths. 

Now fully warmed up, Nesta opened her portfolio, closed her eyes, and leafed through the scores, opening her eyes after a brief moment. Her gaze landed on the page and swept to the top, seeking the piece’s title. As it happened, she’d passed the first page, so she flipped back a few pages to reach the beginning. 

Rachmaminoff Piano Concerto no. 2 in C Minor, Op 18, II: Adagio sostenuto. 

A favorite.

And an extra challenge to play solo, sans the orchestral cues. 

Nesta debated pulling up a recording of the concerto for background, but decided against it. Using the cues and her knowledge of the concerto, she merely played the first few chords, then slipped gracefully into the floating melody, doing her best to make the music a true sostenuto. 

Her whole focus shifted to her hands on the keys as she played, all sense of her surroundings lost to the lush concerto. Rachmaninoff might have been one of the banes of pianists’ existence, but damn her if she didn’t love playing him. Especially as her very favorite mid-movement run came up. Her fingers flew over the keys in an intricate dance, rolling out the spritely chords and arpeggios, trilling up to the top of the phrase, and slowly descending back into adagio. This movement, one of her comfort pieces, never failed to drive away the pressures of her degree, not even when she was playing bits of orchestral accompaniment with the piano solo. 

So deeply lost in the music was she that she didn’t even register the footsteps that crossed the stage, or the presence of another person by the piano. 

Her consciousness lifted from the piano as she played the final chords, letting them decrescendo into silence before opening her eyes. And then nearly slamming her knee into the underside of the keyboard as she started. 

“God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” gushed the blonde woman standing by the back of the piano. “I just heard Rach II coming from the hall and had to listen, and then find out who was playing it so brilliantly.”

Nesta flushed. “I’m all right, and so is the Bösendorfer, and thank you so much but I’m definitely not brilliant.”

“Yes, yes you are. Or at least that was. I’ve played piano for fourteen years, myself, and never once have I been able to perform Rachmaninoff like that. Aelin Galathynius, by the way,” said Nesta’s audience. 

“Nesta Archeron. Fifteen years, myself. And before you ask, no, I’m not a music major. That’d suck all the joy out of playing.”

Aelin nodded. “Amen to that, and nice to meet you, Nesta. I’m not in music either, but I do play sometimes, usually when I need an escape from the living hell that is cardiology. I’m hoping and planning to be a surgeon. Hooray for expensive schooling!”

“Good Lord, that sounds horrible. But as an aspiring lawyer, I’ll toast to years and years of expensive school and then more years of struggling to pay student loans on a crappy salary.”

“Ooh, a lawyer. Do you have a specialty in mind?”

“Civil, preferably business litigation. I want nothing more than to stop corruption and see that companies are receiving all of their rights, and this is my path to that goal.”

“Impressive. So is Rachmaninoff just a side hobby of yours, then?”

Nesta smirked. “Yes and no. Yes, it’s not my main focus, but no, it’s more than a hobby. It’s how I relieve the intense stress of my life.”

“Me, too,” grinned Aelin. “You know, there are currently two grands on this stage…”

Nesta looked across the stage, where the music department’s other grand, a mahogany Steinway, sat. “That there are. Care to join me? You pick the piece.”

Aelin’s grin turned devilish. “Good thing I warmed up in the recording studio, then.”

Nesta smothered the questions she longed to ask as Aelin carefully folded back the cover of the Steinway, sat down, and shook out her hands. 

And launched into the opening chords of Saint-Saëns’s Danse Macabre. 

With a smirk to match Aelin’s, Nesta took up the phrase. Fresh indeed was the memory of playing this very piece as a duet at age sixteen, with her teacher as the second pianist. Two skilled pianists plus two excellent-quality pianos plus one magnificent piece equaled the notes echoing through the dark, empty concert hall. The Danse wound down, final notes fading into silence, and Aelin and Nesta looked at each other and burst into a two-woman round of applause. Which somehow became a six-hand round of applause, causing both women to turn sharply toward the stage door and notice a broad male frame taking up most of the doorway. Nesta rolled her eyes. 

“You know, most people would either walk away when the piece ended or make their presence known to the pianist,” she deadpanned. 

Cassian Ilnair flicked on a backstage light, granting a view of the grin creeping across his face. “I’m not ‘most people,’ sweetheart.”

“That much is obvious.”

Observing the exchange between the two, Aelin smirked, closed and covered the Steinway, and headed for the door. “I’d better leave you lovebirds alone. Whatever you do next, don’t do it on the Bösendorfer!” Snickering, she left the concert hall, footsteps clicking off towards the dorms.”

“She seems delightful, who was that?” inquired Cassian. 

“Aelin Galathynius, probably my new piano person,” was Nesta’s reply. “Now if you’re done gawking at a real instrument, I need to close up the piano, finish an argument and sleep, preferably in that order.”

“You won’t play for me?”

“Cass, I’m entirely sure you just listened to that whole duet and probably some of the Rach I played before that.”

Cassian widened his eyes in innocence. “But that wasn’t for me, Nes. And Aelin’s right, you are brilliant.” He placed a finger to Nesta’s lips. “No protesting, Lawyer Archeron, you and I both know I tell no lies.”

Nesta snorted. “Right. I am serious about the sleep, though.”

“I know, I know. Far be it from me to deny a chronic insomniac her precious sleep.”

“Uh huh. About as far as your bed is from your minifridge full of caffeine and alcohol.”

“Touché, sweetheart.”

Closing the stage door behind her, Nesta headed for the campus apartment buildings, Cassian at her side. 

“I mean it, Nesta. You’re a brilliant pianist, whether or not you believe it. And you’re going to make an even more brilliant lawyer, sleep or no sleep.”

“Don’t be smarmy, Cass.” But she was smiling, softly, as her fingers tapped out a bit of Rachmaninoff on the soft, worn leather of her sheet music portfolio.

[anon-e-miss]

How is Jazz feeling about having called Prowl a bitlet eater when Tarantulas literally attempted to eat a youngling alive (and was only stopped by Prowl’s intervention)?

"Granny!" Sunstreaker ran across their living room and jumped into Punch's arms. Jazz stood in the doorway as Sideswipe raced after Sunstreaker. With perfect ease, Ori dipped and scooped Sideswipe up in his free arm and cuddled the Twins together.

"Now there's my sweet grandbitties," Punch hummed as he nuzzled them. "Ya been good for yer Geni?"

"Sometimes," Sideswipe replied, giggling.

"Only sometimes?" Punch asked. "Well, ya may still 've beaten Jazz's track record."

"'M wounded, Jazz replied, he got over his shock and stepped through the threshold so the door could shut and lock at his back. "I was waitin' for yer call.

"It was safer to come in comm's silent," Punch replied. "We'll talk. Well, Sweetlings, show me what y'all been up too while I been gone?"

Punch had never seen their berthroom, not this berthroom in any case. They showed Punch the diorama they had made in class, and the toys and crafts they had accumulated. Jazz had replaced everything they had lost in the destruction of the base, and might have gone overboard in his attempts to make it better, make it perfect. His ori looked over his shoulder as the mechlings gave him a tour, he might have already seen, he might have looked around while he had been waiting, but probably not; Punch had his own unique set of morals. Break and enter was fine, snooping outside of the job was not. Sunstreaker took his granny to the art table Jazz had got him and he showed him the picture he was working on.

“This is for Prowl,” he explained. “He said he used to paint watercolours, I wanted to try... It’s smudgy.”

“It’s lovely, Sweetlin’,” Punch stroked Sunstreaker’s helm. “He’s gonna just love it.”

“I want to make for his office,” Sunstreaker explained. “It’s boring. We got’em crystals like you always said we should to the medbay ‘n we made garlands ‘n we put up pictures. It looks happy. His office should be happy, he’s always there.”

“’M sure it’ll be happier with yer picture up,” Punch replied.

The Twins were happy to suck up their granny’s love and Jazz was happy and relieved to have his originator around. It was a relief to have him here. Punch did not pry about the vault and the three horrifying mega-cycles they had lingered there, listening to one of their favourite mechanisms being brutalized. In due time, Jazz thought they would bring it up, in their own way. They were working so well with Rung. He let them stay up passed their berth time to watch a movie with Granny, then Punch tucked them into the large nook Jazz had constructed as their berth. No more pretending they did not recharge best together.

“Ya done brilliantly, ya know,” Punch said when he returned to the living room, after he had sung the mechlings to recharge. “They’re doin’ so good.”

“They feel at their best after they seen Prowl,” Jazz replied. “In their memory purges, they’re listenin’ to ‘m die, listenin’ to all the horrible things they don’t understand. After they seen ‘m, talked wit ‘m, they feel best.”

“Ya had no idea they was so attached to ‘m?” Punch asked.

“I thought they snuck into his office to get a rise outta ‘m,” Jazz replied. “Sides lives to get a rise outta mecha. But no, they been sneakin’ off to see all this time ‘cause they love ‘m.”

“Those two guard their sparks,” Punch said, Jazz shared the regret in his voice. “If they love that mech, he’s worthy o’ it.”

“I know,” Jazz sighed. “‘N I’ve been awful to ‘m. More Bots’ve been awful than not. He ain’t e’er deserve it. I don’t know why he ne’er shared what really happened to ‘m but I can see not wantin’ to talk ‘bout it wit hostile strangers.”

“He wasn’t a turncoat then,” Punch said.

“No,” Jazz replied. “Prowl was a prisoner o’ that madmech Tarantulas. He was his playthin’. His broodcarrier.”

“Primus.”

“Before we took Helix, when it was crumblin’, Tarantulas left ‘m ‘n took his bitlet,” Jazz explained. “From the moment Prowl enlisted, he started tryin’ to get me to go after Tarantulas, ‘n I wasn’t interested in riskin’ mine or my ops necks gettin’ his revenge on his ex. He stopped trying... a while back ‘n I was happier for it. Turns out he stopped tryin’ cause he couldn’t feel his bitlet anymore ‘n he didn’t wanna risk orphanin’ mine by sendin’ me out on a wild goose chase.”

“Ya feel like slag,” Punch guessed.

“Worse than slag,” Jazz replied. “I called ‘m a bitlet eater when I was gettin’ the Twins away from ‘m when they crossed ‘m in the hallway. What I didn’t know was he had saved a younglin’ from actually bein’ eaten by Taratulas, put ‘mself in harm’s way to save a strange mechlin’. I don’t know why he didn’t tear a strip off me. I deserved it.”

“Focus less on what ya deserved ‘n how ya can make it up to the mech,” Punch declared. “Ya want me to sniff out that cretin?”

“I want ya to watch the Twins,” Jazz said. “While I do. I gotta narrow down where to hunt first.”

“I could help wit that,” Punch said. “The Combaticons are on the warpath. The bound with Vortex snapped. Bits o’ the rotor been turnin’ up on their pillows... My guess? He’s not far from Darkmount.”

“There’s a lot o’ places to hide in Polihex,” Jazz said. “That freak’s a mecheater... the Dead End would be a buffet to ‘m.”

“Let’s see if we can’t narrow scrap down further,” Punch replied.

“Prowl said he thought Tarantulas left ‘m in Helix to punish ‘m,” Jazz replied. “If Tarantulas killed Vortex for what he did... It might not be long before he tests Iacon’s security.”

“We’d best keep that mech close then.”

[jamesvanriemsdyk]

Best GMs and coaches in the league ACC to you?

we can start with gms because coaching is a bit more complicated. best gms in the league is easy to look at because like, who has a good team? who has had a consistently good team? whose locker room is the most cohesive, whose coaching staff is the best? who is the best at acquiring and keeping the best players, coaches, staff, etc? and you can see that in the way teams play. 

(putting this under the cut because it got long. and i mean Long.)

so, in no particular order: kyle dubas (leafs), steve yzerman (red wings, i will explain this later), don waddell (canes), julien brisebois (lightning), joe sakic (avs), and kelly mccrimmon/george mcphee (golden knights) (god i still hate that name and also will explain this later too) are the best in the league in my opinion. honorable mention to marc bergevin, who has held onto his job much longer than he arguably should have, but still has a decent team on the ice and a decent coaching staff, although the french rule does severely handicap them (i understand why it exists but it does, it just does). 

david poile (preds) is the longest tenured gm in the league (has been the preds gm since fucking 1997, thats insane, thats legit before i was born, what the fuck), and i do genuinely think he is very good at his job, and that he is very hockey smart, but oh boy have his recent decisions been suspect as hell, and that reflects in the state of his team. doug wilson (sharks), who is the second longest tenured gm in the nhl, is in the exact same boat (the karlsson deal is a nightmare, and also did he just forget that his star core was gonna get old and retire or ??).

with dubas, waddell, brisebois, sakic, and mccrimmon/mcphee all have the same basic strengths: they draft well, they have a fundamental understanding of their team structure and how to manage public perception of the team and everything that implies, and they have two fingers on the pulse of their locker room at all times. im not going to pretend to know as much about sakic and mccrimmon/mcphee as i do the eastern gms, but it doesnt take much to figure it out. look at the avs, and their locker room, the success theyve found after being dead fucking last in the league. look at the knights and their incredible success that theyve found after literally not existing before 2017. ive talked about dubas a lot on my blog, but its incredibly easy to see that waddell and brisebois do the same shit he does, and i can do a deep dive on them if asked. bergevin has moments of brilliance, like the suzuki trade and acquiring caufield and anderson, but things like kotkaniemi’s development and their entire blue line give me a massive pause, which is why he’s not in the main list. he’s a good gm. he’s just not the best.

in regards to steve yzerman: you have to understand that this is the man that built the tampa bay lightning as we know them. this man was gm of the bolts until fucking 2018. tampa bay has been a monster in the eastern conference for years, BECAUSE of the work steve yzerman put in. his team set the franchise record for wins, and he was the first and is the only lightning gm to have won gm of the year. look up the 17-18 roster. it is, essentially, the roster that won them the cup last year. make no mistake, i think brisebois is great, and hes on the list for a reason, but the biggest part of brisebois’ success was steve yzerman’s incredible hockey mind. brisebois essentially had to sell off a fourth of his roster, and the lightning are still a top team in their division and in the league, and thats why he’s there (it is so incredibly easy to fuck shit up post cup win), but the brisebois lightning would not exist without steve yzerman, plain and simple.

what steve yzerman is doing in detroit should be watched very, very closely by every single person in the hockey world. youre fucking nuts if youre not paying attention to them, not gonna lie. the mantha trade was excellent, if really sad if you know even a bit about the wings, but the amount of draft picks steve yzerman has amassed and the way he’s using the prospects and players he already has is really fucking admirable. mike babcock left the red wings organization absolutely in tatters, and i think, honestly, it was always steve yzerman’s plan to go home to detroit and rebuild. if there is anyone who is going to strike absolute gold this draft year, it is steve yzerman. watch the red wings, i am telling you, keep a beat on detroit. they are going to be good. its not an if, its a when.

(real quick on the knights situation: mcphee was the first gm of the knights, and was also president of hockey ops at the same time, and then in 2019 mcphee said he was just gonna focus on his job as president, but we all know hes still an integral part of the way the knights are run, and he and mccrimmon have kinda been building the knight together since the beginning anyway bc mccrimmon was originally mcphee’s agm. so. thats why theyre together)

as for coaches, it’s very simple. rod brind’amour (canes), sheldon keefe (leafs, yes im biased, we’ll get into it), jared bednar (avs), joel quenneville (panthers), jon cooper (lightning), barry trotz (isles), and mike sullivan (pens).

(disclaimer: obviously coaching is done as a team, and assistants and specialist coaches and staff are all very important, but the head coaches set the tone and organize the entire machine, if you will, so im going to be talking about head coaches as if theyre the entire coaching staff. its just easier this way im sorry)

im gonna just start with the easy ones: barry trotz, mike sullivan, and jon cooper have been in the league for years. cooper is the longest tenured coach in the nhl for a reason (again, just look at the tampa bay lightning. its the gm’s job to make the coach’s life easier and the coach’s job to make the gm’s life easier, and this is one of the prime examples of it in the league. its dope as hell tbh), trotz is one of the most respected coaches in the hockey world for a reason (the caps lost something when he walked. they just did. and now the isles are absolute hell to play against and that is largely the coaching of barry trotz, you legit cannot tell me im wrong), and while mike sullivan does have his faults, i think hes found a way to please both management and the crosby-and-malkin unit, which has been really really fucking hard to do. he also led the pens to back to back cups, which you can never really uh. ignore. lmao. so theres those three.

i know less about bednar, but again, another example of the coach and gm working together to make each others’ lives easier. sakic gets bednar the players and staff he needs to make the avs better, and bednar takes those players and staff and makes them into the absolute giant they are. it wouldve been really, really easy to fuck up makar’s development, or bowen byram’s, or sam girard’s, or ryan graves’s, or jost or mackinnon or rantanen’s, but he hasn’t, and he hasn’t just given up on players like burakovsky or kadri, he’s given them new life as players and made them more successful.

joel quenneville is the reason the bl/ckh/wks were a legacy team point blank period. sure they had the talent, sure the gm drafted well, but you do not get the legacy of the chicago bl/ckh/wks without joel quenneville. they fired him on a whim and it absolutely was a mistake, and the moment the cats hired him i literally out loud said ‘oh no’ because i knew exactly what that meant for the leafs and their position in the standings. the panthers are underrated generally, yes, but they would not be the powerhouse they are this season without quenneville. just look at q’s wiki stats. he’s absolutely unbeilevable. he won the jack adams in fucking 2000, before he’d even won any of the cups with the h/wks. i cant tell you what kind of a locker room coach this guy is, but i can tell you his teams win and win convincingly, and that firing him was the biggest mistake the h/wks have made in years.

whenever i talk about coaching, i talk about rod brindamour and sheldon keefe in the same breath every single time because there is no match, and i mean none, for the love inside those locker rooms. the avs, maybe, but my point stands. keefe and brindamour fucking BLEED team spirit, it is at the center of their coaching styles and their teams are good because of it specifically. marner and matthews are good, yes, and they always have been, but they have surpassed all expectation and then some with keefe. aho, teravainen, and svechnikov are good, yes, and they always have been, but they have surpassed all expectation with brindamour. brindamour and keefe have both hashtag played the game, so they Get It, and more than that, theyve grown and changed their understanding of the game as the game itself has changed, and so they can command the authority of their teams while also connecting to them on a really deep level. i should make a note here that keefe and brindamour are incredibly, deeply hockey smart, and that they are also just technically good coaches, skimming their wiki or nhl dot com articles will tell you that, but what makes them stand out to me is that their players would fucking die for them. the leafs would go through the end boards for keefe, the canes would do the same for brindamour. travis dermott said it best when keefe got promoted: boys wanna play for him. beyond that, the management skills both brindamour and keefe have are just frankly amazing (the amount of ego keefe specifically has to manage in the leafs locker room is astounding and he does it so incredibly brilliantly). the leafs and the canes are talented, yes, and would have been talented regardless of who was coaching them. but brindamour and keefe bring both of those teams from talented to exceptional, and the true mark of an amazing coach is not only how many games their team wins, but how they win them, and the leafs and canes have been winning games this year for and because of each other, and that starts with their coaches. what makes a great coach, to me, is not the talent on the team (though that certainly helps), but how the coach manages his players no matter who they are, and how he helps those players grow not just as players as people, because no matter how much pure stats people and twitter hockey dudebros wanna deny it, that shit does affect on ice play, and it does make good players better.

so theres my analysis of the best coaches and gms of the nhl, im so sorry this is so long, oh my god. also, shoutout to @bishops--knifetrick for sending me an ask about this literally a month ago that i just never answered, sorry for that, but here i hope this is good. :)

[yogsandchaos]

Honestly as I read the document, I think this perfectly captures Dream’s mindset in a lot of ways, which as a writer myself i think is rather impressive of the op. Dream is like, the worst of the worst and nothing can change my opinion on that, but learning how villains think make them easier to actually write, easier to grasp the motives and reasoning’s, and make them much more compelling in my opinion. This all reads exactly like something Dream would write in defense in himself, which means op has a really great grasp on how the character ticks, it’s fascinating!

Especially the sections on Tommy! The language of phrases like “Dream can do nothing but-” or “Tommy’s age and vulnerability, while unfortunate, have nothing to do with his reach-” expertly paint Dream as some poor figure backed into a corner and that Tommy’s inherent charisma is a choice he makes maliciously, and sweeps his age under the bus as not important to the TRUTH of the matter. These are brilliantly done abuser manipulative talking point, the switching between victim and abuser is done so well here!

I genuinely can’t help but wonder if it was done on purpose, that maybe the document was written as not actually genuine apologism? The fact that the manipulative language and word choices are so well woven in screams to me that this wasn’t made on like, a rambling whim, that there was real thought put into to figure out how to portray Dream as not an abuser. Blind apologism isn’t so well written, a lot of thought went into this. Makes me wonder how much is genuine and how much is them trying to test themselves with seeing if they can write how Dream would defend himself and think or make a statement on how abusers actually manipulate people and turn themselves in to the victim.