#but also she DOES spend a solid chunk of the story not named that. but idk if that matters bc youll still KNOW who she is

[cartoonrival]

and by god i will put harry the cabbie in my kte rewrite

[somegirlsnerdywords2]

Anime i’ve Watched

That begin with a N (Part 2)!

Yep this is how i’m going to bring over all the anime and manga i’ve watched and posted about on the old blog. It’s not so detailed but it will have to do. Anything new I watch or read from this point on will have their own posts.

Net-juu no Susume  (Recovery of an MMO Junkie):

Genres: Game, Comedy, Romance, ONA 

Synopsis:  For the first time since graduating high school, 30-year-old Moriko Morioka is unemployed—and she couldn't be happier. Having quit her long-standing job of over 11 years, Moriko quickly turns to online games to pass her now-plentiful free time, reinventing herself as the handsome and dashing male hero "Hayashi" in the MMO Fruits de Mer. With the pesky societal obligations of the real world out of the way, she blissfully dives headfirst into the realm of the game, where she promptly meets the kind and adorable healer Lily. Befriending each other almost instantly, the two become inseparable just as Moriko herself becomes more and more engrossed in her new "life" as Hayashi. Eventually, Moriko adopts the reclusive lifestyle in its entirety, venturing out from the safety of her apartment only when absolutely necessary. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Moriko, a timid 28-year-old corporate worker named Yuuta Sakurai has also logged onto Fruits de Mer from the other side of town. Coincidentally bumping into each other at the convenience store one night, both write off their meeting as no more than just another awkward encounter with a stranger—however, fate has more in store for them than they think. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2017 with a total of 10 episodes

My Thoughts: The male lead wears glasses! In case that’s something anyone but me cares about... Aside from that I can’t remember much about this one which is never a sign of an amazing anime so it’s up to you friends! Will you watch it or leave it?! 

Nijiiro Days:

Genres: Comedy, Romance, School, TV Short, Shoujo, Slice of Life

Synopsis:  Nijiiro Days follows the colorful lives and romantic relationships of four high school boys—Natsuki Hashiba, a dreamer with delusions of love; Tomoya Matsunaga, a narcissistic playboy who has multiple girlfriends; Keiichi Katakura, a kinky sadist who always carries a whip; and Tsuyoshi Naoe, an otaku who has a cosplaying girlfriend. When his girlfriend unceremoniously dumps him on Christmas Eve, Natsuki breaks down in tears in the middle of the street and is offered tissues by a girl in a Santa Claus suit. He instantly falls in love with this girl, Anna Kobayakawa, who fortunately attends the same school as him. Natsuki's pursuit of Anna should have been simple and uneventful; however, much to his dismay, his nosy friends constantly meddle in his relationship, as they strive to succeed in their own endeavors of love. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2016 with a total of 24 episodes. Each episode running about 13 minutes in length. 

My Thoughts: Love the manga, which I keep meaning to finish because it is a completed title... and I should probably finish it before manga gets even harder to find online with the way things are currently going... 

Anywho, the anime! Pretty good. The episodes are about half that of a normal anime but you have a 24 episode count so it’s basically the same as having a 12 episodes run with the usual running time!  I’d watch it is you want more content after the manga, but keep in mind that the anime does not cover the entirety of the manga! 

No Game No Life:

Genres: Game, Adventure, Comedy, Supernatural, Ecchi, Fantasy

Synopsis:  No Game No Life is a surreal comedy that follows Sora and Shiro, shut-in NEET siblings and the online gamer duo behind the legendary username "Blank." They view the real world as just another lousy game; however, a strange e-mail challenging them to a chess match changes everything—the brother and sister are plunged into an otherworldly realm where they meet Tet, the God of Games. The mysterious god welcomes Sora and Shiro to Disboard, a world where all forms of conflict—from petty squabbles to the fate of whole countries—are settled not through war, but by way of high-stake games. This system works thanks to a fundamental rule wherein each party must wager something they deem to be of equal value to the other party's wager. In this strange land where the very idea of humanity is reduced to child's play, the indifferent genius gamer duo of Sora and Shiro have finally found a real reason to keep playing games: to unite the sixteen races of Disboard, defeat Tet, and become the gods of this new, gaming-is-everything world. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 7/10

Finished airing in 2014 with a total of 12 episodes. 

My Thoughts: I have a laundry list of things i’m meaning to watch, read or do. Watching the No Game No Life movie on Netflix is one of those things. Anyways! I recall this one being alright, nice art/ animation/ character design and an interesting premise but too short and underdeveloped. One of those animes that may have benefited greatly from a longer run or second season. 

No.6:

Genres: Action, Sci-fi, Mystery, Drama

Synopsis:  Many years ago, after the end of a bloody world war, mankind took shelter in six city-states that were peaceful and perfect... at least on the surface. However, Shion—an elite resident of the city-state No. 6—gained a new perspective on the world he lives in, thanks to a chance encounter with a mysterious boy, Nezumi. Nezumi turned out to be just one of many who lived in the desolate wasteland beyond the walls of the supposed utopia. But despite knowing that the other boy was a fugitive, Shion decided to take him in for the night and protect him, which resulted in drastic consequences: because of his actions, Shion and his mother lost their status as elites and were relocated elsewhere, and the darker side of the city began to make itself known. Now, a long time after their life-altering first meeting, Shion and Nezumi are finally brought together once again—the former elite and the boy on the run are about to embark on an adventure that will, in time, reveal the shattering secrets of No. 6. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2011 with a total of 11 episodes. 

My Thoughts: Just read the manga and watch this as extra, I can’t remember if the anime covered the entirety of the manga’s story but either way check out that source material first! The manga series is also completed which is a huge bonus. High point: The relationship between the two leads. 

Noragami:

Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Supernatural, Shounen

Synopsis: In times of need, if you look in the right place, you just may see a strange telephone number scrawled in red. If you call this number, you will hear a young man introduce himself as the Yato God. Yato is a minor deity and a self-proclaimed "Delivery God," who dreams of having millions of worshippers. Without a single shrine dedicated to his name, however, his goals are far from being realized. He spends his days doing odd jobs for five yen apiece, until his weapon partner becomes fed up with her useless master and deserts him. Just as things seem to be looking grim for the god, his fortune changes when a middle school girl, Hiyori Iki, supposedly saves Yato from a car accident, taking the hit for him. Remarkably, she survives, but the event has caused her soul to become loose and hence able to leave her body. Hiyori demands that Yato return her to normal, but upon learning that he needs a new partner to do so, reluctantly agrees to help him find one. And with Hiyori's help, Yato's luck may finally be turning around.

My Rating: 8/10

Finished airing in 2014 with a total of 12 episodes. 

My Thoughts: Yes! Watch it! Love it! And also read it. Big downside: The updates for this manga are slow and the story is unfinished obviously. Upside: Two whole seasons of anime goodness, and if we’re really lucky we’ll eventually get another? Ok maybe not... but a girl can dream! Also this anime has one of my all time favourite opening themes! Amazing! 

Noragami Aragoto:

Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Supernatural, Shounen

Synopsis:  Yato and Yukine have finally mended their relationship as god and Regalia, and everyone has returned to their daily life. Yato remains a minor and unknown deity who continues taking odd jobs for five yen apiece in the hopes of one day having millions of worshippers and his own grand shrine. Hiyori Iki has yet to have her loose soul fixed by Yato, but she enjoys life and prepares to attend high school nonetheless. Taking place immediately after the first season, Noragami Aragoto delves into the complicated past between Yato and the god of war Bishamon. The female god holds a mysterious grudge against Yato, which often results in violent clashes between them. It doesn't help that Bishamon's most trusted and beloved Regalia, Kazuma, appears to be indebted to Yato. When lives are on the line, unraveling these mysteries and others may be the only way to correct past mistakes. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

My Rating: 9/10

Finished airing in 2015 with a total of 13 episodes. 

My Thoughts: Another amazing opening theme! Seriously this series really knew how to pick them! Also have crushes on a solid chunk of the cast... so there’s that. 

[pulpwriterx]

THE RISE AND FALL OF KYLO REN (CHAPTER TWO)

Chapter Two: The Punk and the Godfather

Two Years Later

Han Solo had no idea what Snoke’s Number One guy would want with a smuggler like him, but he was about to find out.

The Stormtrooper brought him and Chewie to a conference room.

The big man in a black mask and a black cape sitting at the head of the table brought back some bad memories.

Han was in the presence of another Vader.

He could feel it.

“Take their binders off. Leave us.” The man told the trooper.

The trooper did as he was ordered.

“Come to the head of the table, gentlemen.”

Han sat on one side of the Man in the Black Mask, and Chewie sat on the other.

“Did either of you pirates ever wonder what the Empire did with sixty years of the spoils of Galactic war? I know more than do do. A good chunk of it ended up on this ship. The Finalizer. I asked Master Snoke for this ship. But he wasn’t inclined to give it to me. So, a couple of years ago? I took it. The ship is mine. And so is everything in it. Did you know that before I took this ship, the Galactic black market was completely disorganized? A bunch of small time operators, with no supply chain, and nobody in charge. Untalented amateurs. Now? You can get whatever you want, on any First Order ship, or base. And to some extent , along the Outer Rim. For a price. But that’s not enough for me. It’s so small-time. But then again, Captain Solo? So are you.”

“Look, pal, if you’re going to kill us, kill us. But I’m not going to sit here and listen to shit like that coming from a guy like you!”

“Sure you are. Because there’s money in it for you.”

“Money?” Han asked.

Chewbacca coughed into his hand.

He was trying not to laugh.

“Yes. Money. And something better than money. Did the trooper walk you past the hangar. Did you see the black, streamlined YT-2400? She’s my ship. I called her the Hellfire. You know how I could afford a ship like that? I’m sitting on a gold mine. Imperial gold coins by the chestful, guns and coaxium are just the tip of the iceberg. But I have no Galactic network. No connections, outside the Hutt Syndicate. Not like Han Solo does.”

“You want me to go into business with you?”

The masked man kicked a black chest over to Han.

“That’s one of my chests full of Imperial Gold Coins. I also have a First Order Captain’s Medal for you. And one for your co-pilot. And don’t worry that I’ll make you do all the dirty work. The Hellfire is the fastest ship in the Galaxy. She made the Kessel Run in 11.5 parsecs. I had to fry three engines, put in an experimental space-time hyprerdrive, fry another engine, spend a fortune on streamlining and retractable hoods for my guns. Not to mention I almost got myself killed, several times. To do it, I had to fly the Hellfire sideways through a pocket in space-time while at lightspeed. But I did it. I beat you, you old pirate son of a bitch.”

The truth finally hit Han Solo like a ton of bricks.

“Ben? Ben, holy Mother Force, is that you inside that tin can, kid?”

Kylo Ren released the mechanism that loosened his mask, and took it off.

“Who the fuck else would it be?”

Han had about five faces that he normally made.

He cycled through all of them in less than a minute.

“Am I going into business with you, or with the First Order?”

“Me. They’re convenient for my purposes.”

“Who?”

“The First Order. I’ll use them to finish my grandfather’s work. But there’s only one problem with finishing his journey.”

“There’s no money in it.”

“Not a red farkling cent. I’ve already got my command crew loading up the Falcon. They’re loyal to me. They won’t talk.”

“Because they’re afraid of you?”

“No. Because I’m a good commander, and I never ask them to do anything I won’t do. Because they respect me. And because I cut them all in for a piece of the action. You’re my father, Solo, and I don’t want to kill you. So I hope you take the deal.”

“Listen to him talking tough, Chewie. Kid, I never knew you took the family business so seriously. I just thought you wanted to get away from Jedi School.”

“Well, I did that, didn’t I?”

Kylo Ren smirked.

“Yeah, you did. Of course I’ll take the deal.”

“Good.”

Kylo Ren took his glove off, and extended his hand to his father.

He and Han Solo shook on it.

***

“But you can’t leave me, Kiera! I love you! I freed you and your whole family from slavery! I saved your life! I’ve given you everything you ever asked for. Tell me what more you want? Anything? Anything in the Galaxy? It’s yours. Your family. Do they need a new house? More money? Anything.”

“Kylo, I am grateful to you for your mercy and your generosity. In spite of everything you do, you’re still a good man at heart. And you really are some kind of man. But I can’t live like this, anymore! Your secrets, your moods, your nightmares! You’re…a whole bunch of guys, and some of them? They scare me. I hate to break your heart, I do, because you’ve given me everything. And I know I’ll never find another man like you. But that’s part of the problem. I’m an ordinary woman. You don’t need an ordinary woman. You need somebody like you.”

“You’re leaving me, too! Just like in Jedi School! Why? Why do you all leave me?”

“Your love’s too heavy on the human soul, Kylo. I’ll never forget you. Or what you’ve done for me. But I can’t bear it. You’re going to break me. I can feel it.”

Kylo Ren sighed.

“I understand. I’ll take you back to Tattoine. But not before I buy you that garage you always wanted.”

“You don’t have to do that, Kylo.”

“Yes I do. If you have to leave me? I want to make sure you do it with a solid-gold parachute. Will you still be my mechanic?”

“Yeah. And when you come to get some work done? Don’t feel like you need to stay at an inn.”

***

“Kylo, let me in.”

“Go away, Phasma!”

She let herself in.

“Why do you do this to yourself? Every time, you think this one, this girl’s the one. I love her, and she’ll never kick me in the teeth and take me for everything but the clothes on my back. And every time, you’re wrong!”

“Maybe if you had more than two days a week for me, Phasma?”

“That’s more than enough, Kylo. But maybe we’ll make it three, for a while. Unless we try to kill each other. Now, wouldn’t you like to take a bath, and shave, and brush your teeth? You stink of self-pity and Huttese whiskey.”

***

Kylo Ren's face, behind his mask, was incredulous.

“I’m not following you, Solo. What the fark are you talking about?"

He really wanted a drink.

But he had the mask on.

“Look, Ren, you’re kidding yourself if you think Her Generalship is done with you. And if you think Snoke is going to continue to let me live? It ain’t gonna be money, money, money, and business as usual, forever. She’s going to push from one end and he’s going to push from the other. And eventually? We're going to be in a tight spot where Leia sends me to get you, and Snoke orders you to get me. So we have to make a plan for it.”

Kylo Ren called to the barmaid.

“Bring me a pitcher of Corellian Ale, a bottle of Huttese whiskey, a packet of cigarillos and a double serving of tonight’s special. And whatever Captain Solo wants.”

In the dark, smoky cantina, Kylo Ren took off his mask, and gloves.

In the three years they had been in business, he had never done that.

Ben had a black eye, and a full beard under it, and his hair fell to his shoulders.

Two of the fingers he ran through his hair were taped together, and all of his knuckles were black and blue.

Even in the dark, Han could see that the kid wasn’t at his best.

But that wasn’t all he could see.

“I know. I need a shave, and a haircut, and I look like hell. You were in the Infantry. You know what the Imperial Dirty Work is like. That, and Kiera left me. They always leave me. Where the fuck are my drinks?"

“Everybody is so full of shit! You don’t look like Vader, you look like me!” Han said, proudly.

"Great."

"Don't worry about that girl, kid. You get too serious about these women who are just in it to take what they can get from you. Let it go. She just wasn't the right one for you."

"Who is?"

"You'll know when you meet her. The Thunderbolt will come and knock you right on your ass."

The food and drinks came, and Kylo hid his face from the barmaid.

“How about a cold pack? He’s hiding his face because it looks like it’s been through a machine.” Han asked the barmaid.

“Yeah. I think I look like both of you. You, and my grandfather.” Ben said, after she left.

Kylo drank half off the picture of beer. He also tossed back the slick, viscous, oily Huttese whiskey, right from the bottle. Then, holding the cold pack against his injured eye with one hand, he started shoveling his food into his mouth with the other.

Han was going to ask him if he always drank like that, but it was obvious that the kid was tired, he was in pain, and he probably dragged himself out of bed just to come to the meeting.

“So what’s your plan, Solo?”

“Well, Kylo Skywalker had to come from somewhere, right? Back on Arkanis, he has to have a father. With a name. And papers. And a story. And who could a guy like Kylo Skywalker, AKA Kylo Ren trust to watch his back other than his own father?" Han said.

“You want to join the First Order?"

"No. I want to join my son, and make sure he doesn't die in battle, get assassinated, or drink himself to death."

There was a commotion at the door, and a tall blonde woman in an Imperial uniform pushed her way over to the table.

“What are you doing in this dive, Kylo?”

“Meeting my business partner, Captain.”

“Business partner!”

Phasma looked from one man to the other.

“Business partner! You are so full of religious nerfshit! That’s your father, isn’t it? Don't lie to me, Kylo. It's VERY obvious. Are you trying to impress him? He doesn’t look impressed! He looks worried and sad! Why are you always such a child?” Phasma insisted.

“Don’t talk to me like that, in public, in front of Solo!”

“Solo! What kind of a way is that to talk about your father? If I had treated my father with that kind of disrespect, I would not have lived long enough to learn enough from him to give him a warrior’s death! I didn’t know this meeting was with your own damn father! He would have waited, until you were in presentable shape!"

“Phasma, don't lecture me. I’ll leave with you when we’re done talking! Business doesn't wait until you're at your best."

"In your case, Kylo, that would be never."

Han averted the next phase of what he figured would be a long argument.

“Hold up, Vader Junior. How bad is he, sister?”

“My Lord Ren is supposed to be in bed.”

“I thought so. Well kid, think about it. Next month, we'll iron the whole thing out. Figure out when Han Solo disappears and Papa Kylo turns up.”

Ben pushed the bottle of whiskey across the table.

Han took a drink from it.

Kylo turned to Captain Phasma.

“Sit down. You came for this, Phasma, now you’re in it. But I’m warning you. Don’t try to cross me. Or Solo.”

“Or you'll kill me? You couldn’t.”

“No, but I could, sister. You want me to kill her, now, kid?” Han asked.

Casually.

“That won’t be necessary. Yet.”

“I wouldn’t cross you, Kylo. I can’t cross your son, General Solo. I owe him the debt of my life and my honor.”

“Oh. I see. And that’s all, huh? OK. I’ll play along. So, you get it, Ren?”

“So far. But then what?” Kylo Ren asked.

“Well, you and Captain Blondie have to keep up appearances and back my new identity until the war is over. It won’t be a farkling picnic for me. But it’ll keep the business going, and it’ll keep me alive. I know you don’t think you’d ever feel guilty about killing me, but trust me, Junior. Once I’m dead? You’ll miss me.”

Kylo finished his picture of beer and banged it on the table.

“You were a terrible father, Solo.”

“You hear that, Captain Blondie? I’m a rotten father. I left his mother. I’m in business with him. I meet up with him, in that mask. I never see his face. He calls me Solo. Every time I see him, I risk my life. His mother won’t see him. His uncle abandoned him. They won’t come near him, because of their fucking precious religion. Not now he’s embraced his inner Vader. But I don’t care. He’s my son. Whatever he does, whoever he is? He’s my son. And I’m with him. That’s right, you spoiled farkling brat! I’m a rotten father.”

"Okay, so you're not as bad as you used to be. But I'm worse than ever. Worse every day. Let's face it, Solo. Nobody in this farkling Galaxy gives a damn about me."

“I do. Why the hell do you think I don’t wanna die? Somebody in this family has to know what the fark is going on. You got some brains, alright, kid, but your mother and your Uncle Luke? Their heads are are full of Jedi nerfshit, and they don't know what the fark is going on."

Kylo Ren raised his pitcher.

"I'll drink to that, Solo." He said.

Link to Chapter Three- Tainted Love

[slo-liveblog]

Witch’s Heart: Bonus Stage Final Thoughts

Hello hello! Honestly I can’t believe I finished Bonus Stage after all this time... took me quite a few months, oof. Many thanks to the handful of you that stuck around during all that, and to the few new people who popped in too! Hope you’ve all been taking care of yourselves, and don’t mind the long post.

CHARACTERS

Claire: After finishing the first game, I didn’t know it was possible to love Claire even more. I was absolutely wrong. The way she took charge at the end was incredibly powerful and I’m so fucking proud of her, even if it’s sad as hell. I really really like how the game both criticizes and respects her unconditional empathy, I think there’s definitely room for both conversations and they’re both incredibly fascinating. I do think she suffers from some of the most writing pitfalls out of everyone, though. Like I said while playing, there’s really no reason given why she wouldn’t confide in Leon, or at least acknowledge that he’s likely the person there she can trust most. In addition, I found it really bizarre that Claire just... never tried to talk to Reynaldo or Sirius after learning about their pasts. Like, at all. I understand why the emphasis on Ashe was important, but it was jarring and kind of unsatisfying to see Claire act so uncharacteristically by not even really acknowledging them after their stories were over. It’s more of a story problem than a character problem though, I think, and I understand why it had to be that way especially considering the conclusions will touch on a lot of the missing pieces- I just wish there could’ve been more of a justification for it. The way her personality was explored through her interactions with everyone, and how other characters were depicted based on their reactions to her ideals, was incredible and I would die for her.

Ashe: Oh Ashe. Fuck Ashe. I do appreciate the depth given to his character, he’s definitely far more complex than I expected and kudos on that. I don’t really empathize with him as much as I do the other four mains, but I do think his writing is incredible and his relationships with Leon and Claire continue to be some of the most interesting to see play out, if not THE most interesting. Star shaped carrots man. Fucked up. Super excited to see how his dynamics with everyone continue, and he’s probably the character I’m the most interested to see make decisions going into these conclusions. His arc feels the most... unfinished, he’s never really reached any sort of closure at any point of the story so far and especially not bonus stage so it’ll be cool to see where he ends up.

Reynaldo: MY BOY. I’M SO FUCKING PROUD OF HIM... going into bonus stage my expectations for him were pretty much rock bottom from the moment I realized he didn’t have a single line in the opening scene outside of saying his name. Like, I kinda made my peace with the possibility that the writer just wasn’t that interested in developing him, and would rather spend time on the rest of the mains. But holy SHIT did he pull through in the second half of the game. The subtle but noticeable build to him deciding to side with Claire was so, so well done. I still wish there was a little more solidity to his characterization- I do have to reach way further to understand him than I do any of the other mains- but I think what we DID get for him was wonderful and god, I appreciate him so much. Definitely the character that improved the most for me from the first game to bonus stage. I can’t wait for his conclusion, here’s to hoping we do in fact get it this year. The way his similarities with Claire were set up makes me SO excited to see how their relationship develops when it’s actually the focus, and how he’ll be fleshed out more in general so we can finally have a clearer picture. Because to be honest, as much as I like the development he was given in bonus stage... there’s still a LOT of gaps to fill in with him.

Sirius: continues to be the perfect human being 1000000/10

Leon: Sweet baby boy whose expressions always make me cry. Leon is still a character I’m sort of on the fence on. Like, he’s very well written and easy to sympathize with. But I realized I’m always far more interested in how OTHER characters react to HIM than the other way around, though. He’s not really a character I personally would find interesting in general, he’s a little simple for my tastes, but that doesn’t mean I’m not 100% invested in seeing him end up happy... eventually. Something tells me it might be a while.

Charlotte: I feel like Charlotte definitely got the short end of the stick in bonus stage, moreso than any other character. Her only memorable scenes that I can think of off the top of my head were when she told Leon he could kill everyone but Claire, when she thought about how Ashe probably can’t be saved, and when she reacted to Claire after the completion of Ashe’s backstory. None of those scenes even come close to hitting the same level of intrigue or emotion as the sparse Charlotte scenes had in the first game, even if that last one does have some interesting bits in it. I said at the end of the first game that we’d only really scratched the surface and I was interested to see more from her and, well, my opinion hasn’t changed. I don’t think there was much I would’ve wanted out of her here anyway unlike the boys, so I’m not especially disappointed. Just hoping we get more excellent Charlotte moments somewhere down the line.

Zizel: I would’ve liked Zizel’s deal to be... a bit more built upon, to be honest? I could just have missed things along the way, but her triumphant moment is a little harder to get in to when we know almost nothing about her or the way she thinks beyond stuff reveled about her in the same scene. I could definitely see that her siding with Claire was being foreshadowed, but I think there needed to be juuust a bit more characterization given to her for that particular development to have the impact it seemed to be going for. Still, it was a good moment, and I think it definitely made up for a lot of the sore lack of Zizel in both games. Can’t wait to see what she does from here.

Lime: Goddddd. Okay look, I still love Lime probably more than I reasonably should. She’s wonderful and I love her design and her personality and her backstory and her motivations but... yea she’s a very very bad person. Bonus stage did really make it clear that she’s not just lashing out occasionally, and this isn’t anywhere near harmless teasing. She’s full on the primary villain of the game, in some ways, and has been doing pretty horrific stuff knowing (and intending for) exactly what she’s causing. Which we sort of knew in the first game anyway, but now it’s very explicit. And like, damn dude... I do wanna see what’s gonna happen with her. It’s tough, wanting to see a character get their comeuppance and stop hurting others while simultaneously just wanting good things for them. this really is how y’all ashe stans feel huh

Side Characters: I gotta say, I really loved a lot of the smaller characters introduced in bonus stage and the way their presence added to the development of the mains. Dorothy and Nicholas, the old dude and the thief woman (I didn’t actually realize until just now but nobody in Wilbert’s backstory had a name, huh. It may not have been intentional but considering that he might literally just not remember that far back I actually really like that decision.), and Ashe’s family and friends were really smartly integrated into the story’s themes and I appreciated that a lot. also lucy and coco rights

Overall This one gets a fucking 10/10 from me chief, some small issues certainly but as close to perfect as they get, in terms of the kinds of stories I like.

STORY

I debated breaking this up into chunks, like I did in the first game with the scenarios, but I feel like the writing quality is more or less consistent throughout the game so it would be a little redundant. I definitely need more time to think on bonus stage before I have a really solid opinion, but at the moment I kind of think the story was even better than the first game? My only major issue was the aforementioned use of Claire’s character, where she’d only really react to the boy’s backstories as she finished hearing them, with the exception of Ashe’s. And her not confiding in Leon. But other than that, it was a constant rollercoaster, with pretty much every scene being jam packed with 3000 layers of character development and relationship building with lore sprinkled in. The elements that were amazing in the first game, like the fun dynamics between the characters and the subtle and unobtrusive exposition, are nothing but improved upon. I do wish we got to play more with the idea of the demon girls living alongside the mains, I think that aspect was severely downplayed almost immediately after it was introduced, but I’m crossing my fingers those potential dynamics get some time in the conclusions. Once again, my biggest gripes with the story are just that I feel like there’s so much more to explore and I can’t wait to see how the rest plays out. still giving this bitch a 10/10 on this one it was everything I wanted and more

GAMEPLAY

Combat: This was kind of... not even really utilized in bonus stage, which I didn’t actually realize until just now. There weren’t any real “boss battles” in the way there were in the first game, the closest thing to it would I guess be Dorothy’s showdown. Considering I didn’t even notice, I think that was a perfectly fine decision. The climax worked well without any actual fights. The battle mechanics continued to be functional and everything, just... not much of a thing.

Demon Requests: It could just be because I played a lot of bonus stage at a very different pace than I did the first game but the demon requests didn’t feel as frequent or intrusive this time around. I was always really excited to get to the request portion anyway cause of the photo booth and all the cool new areas, I had a super fun time using the deep sea bubble and I think overall the stuff that was added to the fantasy spaces was really neat. also lucy and coco rights

Minigames: Very hit or miss. It felt like the minigames were either so quick and easy they were hardly memorable or so tedious they made me wanna die. Take that with a grain of salt, though, I’m really bad at video games. There were very few of them anyway so it doesn’t matter much, but I guess it would’ve been nice if the minigames were less... Like that. To be fair, they were all still pretty charming or cool conceptually. Can’t really complain about getting to fucking shoot people as Dorothy even if it was hell to play.

Overall The demon requests were actually really enjoyable this time around, but the minigames and combat were kind of downplayed. Not to big of a deal, though, it’s not as if they were a focal point of the game to begin with. 7/10

ART & SOUND

Character Design: Not much to say that I didn’t already say after the first game, but the special bonus stage outfits are absolute bangers and I wish they got shown more often. And maybe I would’ve liked the guys to have a little more variety to their suits. But that’s nitpicking, Claire and the demon girl’s dresses are absolutely gorgeous.

Sprites and BGs: The overall art quality definitely got shaky in places but I gotta say, they pulled out ALL the stops for the sprites in this one. Ashe just fully has an entirely new set of them, and everybody else gets tons of new expressions too, all of which are super super good at conveying incredibly specific emotions. All I’m saying is, this would be a totally different game for me without the sprites, and I was always ecstatic to see new ones and figure out what was going on in the character’s head based on them.

OST and Sound Effects: Again, pretty much the same deal as the first game. I think there was a bit of a higher frequency for songs that made me immediately want to search for them so I could listen to them later though, thank god for that. So many good tracks.

Overall Continued to impress me, and then some. Only a slight improvement from the first game, in my opinion, but even that is pretty impressive since I didn’t have many issues with the first game to begin with. 8/10

So uh, in other words, I really really loved this game. Cannot WAIT to start best boy’s conclusion!!!

[mycngs-blog]

                it’s  ya  girl  𝒅𝒓𝒊  (nineteen  —  twenty  next  week  !,  she/her,  pst),  a  soft  edgy  born  with  a  name  that  means  "dark  one  of  the  lord"  on  friday  the  13th  !  some  fun  facts  are  that  i  have  the  incredibly  dangerous  combo  of  high  ambition  and  poor  time  management  and  i’d  Risk  It  All  for  a.c.e,  ateez,  and  loona  !  so,  anyway,  here’s  my  girl  olivia  !  if  you’re  interested  in  plotting  connections,  feel  free  to  im  me  or  ask  for  my  discord  (where  i  would  be  Way  easier  to  reach)  !

                𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐆  𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐄𝐘���𝐎𝐍.  𝐒𝐇𝐄/𝐇𝐄𝐑.  𝐂𝐈𝐒𝐅𝐄𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐄.  ╱  was  that  𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐀  𝐌𝐘𝐔𝐍𝐆  i  just  saw  in  the  hideaway  lobby  ?  i  hear  the  𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐓𝐖𝐎  year  old  spends  most  of  their  time  𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆  𝐀𝐒  𝐀  𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐇  𝐓𝐔𝐓𝐎𝐑,  but  i’ve  always  just  seen  them  𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆  𝐑𝐇𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐌  𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐒.  they  live  in  𝐀𝐏𝐓  𝟓𝐂  and  i  often  see  them  in  the  halls.  they  always  give  me  a  vibe  of  𝐃𝐎𝐆-𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐃  𝐏𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐒,  𝐂𝐔𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐃  𝐉𝐄𝐀𝐍𝐒,  and  𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐒  𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐃  𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐒  𝐓𝐇𝐄  𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐒𝐓.

* ╱  𝒒 𝒖 𝒊 𝒄 𝒌  𝒔 𝒕 𝒂 𝒕 𝒔

𝗕𝗜𝗥𝗧𝗛 𝗡𝗔𝗠𝗘:  olivia clarisse myung  

𝗡𝗜𝗖𝗞𝗡𝗔𝗠𝗘𝗦:  vi, oli, no one calls her liv tho

𝗔𝗚𝗘:  twenty-two  

𝗗𝗢𝗕:  january 12, 1997 

𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗘𝗧𝗢𝗪𝗡:  santa clara, california

𝗭𝗢𝗗𝗜𝗔𝗖:  capricorn sun, pisces moon 

𝗢𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡:  bisexual  

𝗢𝗖𝗖𝗨𝗣𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡:  tutor

* ╱  𝒃 𝒂 𝒄 𝒌 𝒈 𝒓 𝒐 𝒖 𝒏 𝒅

originally hailing from santa clara, california, the myung family was nothing short of a series of tech success stories. her father a machine learning engineer and her mother a user experience architect, it was to no surprise when olivia's older siblings (a sister 6 years older and a brother 4 years older) followed suit and found themselves pursuing similar careers. they were coded to be a stereotypical silicon valley family, so growing up, expectations were high for olivia, the last of the bunch.

olivia was that girl in school who knew she was smart and made sure everyone around her knew it as well. in high school, a lot of people didn’t really like her because they perceived her as a show-off, which she totally was, but she’s aight once you get past her insecurity-generated superiority complex. her parents were overprotective and pressured her to do better than her classmates, so she just grew up conditioned to be super competitive because she was kind of scared of her parents and therefore scared of failing them.

she majored in statistics at uc berkeley and ended up finishing in three years with plans to go into data analysis (she’s really good with numbers and doesn’t quite understand how people have trouble with math… Nerd).

a few months out of college she got offered a position with a startup company in seattle that she had interned for remotely in the past, so she made the trip to washington!

however, the company later began to experience major losses and had to let go of employees, which unfortunately included cleo, before dissolving completely. she had only been working there for about half a year.

olivia wasn’t ready to return home, wasn’t ready to break the news to her parents that she — in her mind — had failed, so she remained in seattle and kept up this lie of being a successful data analyst for a rising company, when in reality, she put all of her marbles in the wrong bag. she didn’t want to be the one to fail when everyone else in her family was succeeding, she didn’t want to be the disappointment, so she lied. she wasn’t that close with her family, so the vague information that their daughter was making Big Moves would suffice for them to sprinkle into conversations with their colleagues.

currently, she’s trying to get back on her feet and secure a stable position of a similar caliber, but in the meantime, she’s been back and forth between different jobs and also getting paid to tutor people (mostly over skype, sometimes irl). not being certain of what she’s doing terrifies her and Sucks because she’s not used to the feeling of not being good enough.

* ╱  𝒑 𝒆 𝒓 𝒔 𝒐 𝒏 𝒂 𝒍 𝒊 𝒕 𝒚

olivia is like... accidentally blunt a lot ?? not even gonna lie, she really does not think before she speaks sometimes (book smart but not street smart Big Time)

i don't think she ever really had a Solid friend group growing up; she was the type to be on the border and never really belong to any specific set of people

she has, like, Zero patience and a low tolerance for stupidity, so how she manages to tutor people is something many people cannot comprehend

olivia's like the gordon ramsay of academia: rude if u act like u know everything, kinder and understanding if u genuinely want to learn something or get better

her demeanor is so deceiving i would say ?? she's the opposite of someone who looks intimidating but is actually really sweet — she's like a siren or some shit, seemingly approachable but once u do approach, u regret

despite the fact that she's quite cold 90% of first encounters, over time, she does warm up to people, which bring the coldness probability to about a 50% depending on how she feels about u

she’s not heartless i promise !! it’s mostly a front bc she was Played a lot growing up and has some trust issues :// when ur smart n want friends sometimes it’s ok to be used right ?? haha ?? :(( ??

her way of caring for people is .. tbh .. kinda awkward ?? she has compassion but she doesn’t really know how to express it without feeling kinda weird about it KSDLHDS she’s the type that wouldn’t be comforting emotionally but she tries .. her Best in her own way 

did i say rly guarded ?? superiority complex turned impostor syndrome ?? someone PLEASE validate this girl , living in her siblings’ shadows did Not do her well

secretly a romantic but she thinks love is a privilege she hasn’t quite earned yet

in short, i’d say she could be classified as a Classic Tsundere

i feel like i didn't list that many redeeming traits DSGJSDG but she's got some !! she's dependable and a hard worker !! if ur close to her it's ride or die !!

* ╱  𝒇 𝒖 𝒏  𝒇 𝒂 𝒄 𝒕 𝒔

can speak english, korean, french, spanish, and knows asl

owns a large collection of books; really into personal essays

has never been in a serious relationship; claims she’s too busy but really just lacks the ability to be vulnerable so she prefers things to be non-committal

when she was 14 she had a crush on this guy but then people found out and it eventually reached him ;/ he asked her out after school with some people around ;/ she accepted ;/ turned out he was joking ;/

can play the viola, clarinet, and piano

really really really good at rhythm games, especially osu !! played local tournaments before but when her parents found out she was investing a fat chunk of time into the activity, they had her stop ;/ now that she doesn’t live with them anymore, she’s taken it up again

surprisingly holds her alcohol well and is an affectionate drunk; perhaps if u met olivia when she's drunk she wouldn't be as intimidating

incredibly bad at responding to text messages !! it's like a roulette, she either replies within seconds or the text is lost forever and suddenly it's been months

[alltheworldsinmyhead]

      OUR FUTURE WILL BE A BRIGHT ONE: CHAPTER TWO 

                            eremika soulmates through time modern au                                   

                                                (  ao3/ff.net )

GIGIL

FILIPINO, a physical response – like trembling or blushing – to the situation that overwhelms your self-control

i used to wish upon the stars, the toys I once adored

forgotten now, are rolling ‘round the corners of the floor

finally, my dreams have counted up to one hundred today

someday, I’ll trade them all for just this very one

it’s really not bad trying something new every once in a while

especially if I can do it with you by my side

RADWIMPS - nanadenomaya

Destined. Promised. Twin flames. Joined souls.

Soulmates.

So many names for the one phenomenon that goes beyond human understanding and rational thought; wild force, exhilarating and powerful like a tornado. A seed of magic planted in the solid ground of reality.

The scientists, of course, try to rationalize it. It’s a simple thing, basically, they say. If the pair of souls was born and reborn time and time again near each other if two people have met and fallen in love and shared lives together multiple times, if, against all laws of probability, they found themselves through time and space, it just has to create a bond. A bond that becomes stronger and stronger each time they have to part ways – a bond that, after centuries,  transforms from something alike to spiritual connection into a physical pull. As simple and as complex as that.

But this explanation doesn’t cover everything and certainly doesn’t stay true to the magic of it all. Legends and stories fill in the gaps in scientific logic ; mothers tell their kids that the pain of the first meeting is the pain of all the times they had to say goodbye to each other, school children whisper and giggle about how the heat of touch is all the passion and desire soulmates had for each other in all their lives. Not everyone is blessed like that, but those that are, add even more to the whole mystery; watching a pair of bonded soulmates is a strange experience, as they always seem to exist in a different universe, in their shared bubble build on secret smiles and subtle touches.

As a kid, Eren always wondered; will he be able to read someone’s mind? How is it possible, to just meet someone and bam! they’re yours forever? Holy shit, will they share thoughts, will they talk to each other without opening their mouths?

He would spend hours playing in the summer heat with his best friend Armin and just talk about it. They would imagine a thousand of possible “first meeting” scenarios per minute, wondering how it would look like, feel like. Armin would bring his parents’ heavy scientific books and read them to Eren, patiently explaining all the complicated terminology and then they would tell each other fairy tales, rationality and magic and wonder blending into one.

It all sounded just so cool and unimaginable, no matter how many times his mother tried to cool down his enthusiasm.

“It’s not all sunshine,” she warned him, time and time again as soon as he started babbling about wanting to meet them now. ” It’s not as easy as it sounds. This desire to protect someone, to be by somebody’s side, this can be more destructive than anything else in the world. “

And of course, he didn’t listen. Why would he?

He couldn’t wait to meet them. He couldn’t wait to get to know them. He couldn’t wait to remember their past lives.

Mikasa, on the other hand, never quite believed in the notion of soulmates, no matter her having one. It was… bizarre. And she couldn’t understand why somebody would want that. Surely, normal relationships aren’t anything worse or less. Where is privacy, where is a place for little, intimate secrets when the other person can read your emotions like a book wide open?

Around the age of eight, the perspective started to scare the shit out of her.

One evening, perched up on a kitchen stool, she quietly asked her father how she can check if she even has a soulmate and he ruffled her hair affectionately and told her there’s no way to do that, that that’s something you don’t even know you’ve lost until you’ve found it. That some people are born with this ache, but it’s so constant that they become numb to it and just simply live their lives like everyone. That they are not aware that they’re drenched in gasoline until they cross eyes with that other person and touch their skin and catch on fire.

“Why eyes?” she asked then, even diligent, and he kneeled down in front of her.

“The eyes are a door to your soul,” he told her. “The skin turns lighter or darker, freckles and birthmarks disappear and rearrange. Sex changes, hair becomes blonde as the sun or dark as the night. Even your character transforms, your little quirks and interests and the way you talk. But eyes? Those never change. At least that’s what I heard.”

And his face darkened a bit and she is reminded that he and her mother were not destined, that he had no memory of any previous lives, that he didn’t remember eyes of any other woman or man from his past. And so she wrapped her arms around his neck to cheer him up but the anger burned in her stomach; why did he long for a soulmate? Wasn’t her Ma enough? How was his life somehow lackluster because he was not cursed with burning in pain every time he touched his wife?

And so Mikasa decided, right there and then that she would never have a soulmate. Period.

…

The reality, of course, caught her off-guard, her usual self-control gone and forgotten. Where is her unflinching gaze and calm demeanor when she needs it? Where are her silent goals not to fall prey to the whole soulmates nonsense, fall in love in a normal way, stay Just Mikasa, without any added past lives and pain and a person that would suddenly appear in her life and would expect to stay in it forever?

Beside him, she can hardly walk straight. The whole world is spinning in front of her eyes, she feels as if she had a dangerously high fever and she’s afraid she may not be able to find a way to the apartment in which she’s been living for the past three years. His mere presence is just intoxicating; this physical pull towards him, pain piercing through her every time she as much as steal a glance at him.

This want.

But before she can dive head first into the ocean of shame, she starts to wonder, if all those strange feelings are really hers. As the pair of them quietly makes their way through the streets, she begins untangling them; slowly and methodically, ignoring her racing heart and sweaty palms.

Wait. Stop. This is mine. And this is not.

With a wave of surprise, she realizes that although the boy beside her – the one that keeps staring at her and can’t stop smiling, the one that not only trips over his feet but he also skips cheerfully every few steps – this boy wants her too. Just as badly as she does. That she makes him dizzy, that she takes his breath away.  He leans closer and closer to her side, and he seems to do it unconsciously. The warmth simply radiates from him; all the enthusiasm and curiosity. Yes, he doesn’t seem half as troubled and lost as she does, probably, she concludes, because he’s a way more adventurous person than she is, but make no mistake, Mikasa; he may be the smoother one in this situation, but it doesn’t mean  he doesn’t feel the same things you do.

Because he does. She knows it. Eren’s desire burns right along hers and somehow, instead of making her even more flustered, it comforts her somehow.  

Her place really is near and soon enough they leave the freezing wind outside and the matching rhythm of their steps echoes on the empty staircase of her apartment building; Eren steals glances at brick walls and peeling paint, and the obvious lack of elevator. He’s mostly just surprised; Mikasa, in her nice black coat and leather boots looks more like someone living in one of those modern, glass-and-steel skyscrapers in the center, rather than downtown, in a building that has probably seen a huge chunk of last century.

They climb ten floors in silence interrupted only by Eren’s silent wheezing every few seconds, at which Mikasa hides her smile under the scarf.

“Well, no shit you’re so fit, ” he says when they reach the top of the staircase. He sounds slightly winded and he’s clutching on the railing, sending her a grin.

“How do you know if I’m fit?” She turns her back on him, fiddling with keys and fighting blush.

He’s about to say something along the lines of: “Because you just went all the way up like it was nothing” but she adds:

“You haven’t even seen me without these clothes on.”

‘Yet’ hangs in the dead silence that follows, the single word so heavy that it almost turns into a physical being, into a third person standing in between them.

She yelps – and his heart skips because how adorable – and covers her mouth with both hands, keys slipping from her fingers and falling on the floor. And he just clutches on the railing even tighter and simply bursts into laughter, because how could he not?

“For a moment you got me there, that was smooth, I’ll give you that,”  he manages to utter.

“Oh my god,” she gasps, leaning her forehead against the wood of the doors. “Oh my god. It wasn’t supposed to sound like that. “

His fit of laughter lasts for a few more minutes before he senses some kind of uncomfortable buzzing under his skin; it’s like an itch, only more burning and unpleasant. He raises his head up to look at Mikasa and realizes that she’s still standing frozen with her face pressed to the door, slightly flinching each time she hears him laugh.

Oh god, she’s really not the joking type, is she?

“Oi, Mikasa,” he says quietly, straightening up and taking a few steps closer to her. “Hey, I get what you meant, okay? Don’t get all worked up about it. “

Before his brain can process his actions, he places a hand in-between her shoulder blades, his fingers gently patting her back.

She shivers slightly underneath his touch and all the blood in his body seems to flood his brain and buzz in his head.

“Sorry,” comes her muffled response. “I don’t know – how to deal with all of this.”

When she turns around to face him, she is greeted by the sight of his loop-sided grin.

“That actually makes two of us, you know?”

She does, actually, know this. Under the layer of good humor, she can sense the nervousness in him; can see it in the way he licks his lips and scratches the back of his neck every few seconds. And so she nods with a small smile dancing on her lips.

“Let’s go and warm up then, okay?”

Her apartment is small and so disgustingly clean that he cannot help but feel ashamed when he thinks about his own flat; Armin’s books and notes thrown haphazardly on the kitchen table, Jean’s unreal amount of hair products taking every free inch of space in the bathroom and his - well –stuff pretty much everywhere.

Mikasa’s place has none of that. The walls are all painted white and there’s not a single smudge on the cream-colored carpet laying on the floor, nor a wrinkle on the curtains obscuring the window. It should feel clinical and cold, this overwhelming sea of whiteness, but it doesn’t; somehow, despite being so pristine, the apartment feels strangely intimate.

It’s clearly a space that she spends much time in and there are traces of this domesticity  everywhere he looks – in a neat row of cacti on the shelf by the window, in a collection of beautiful, black-and-white photographs adorning the walls, in a bunch of chipped mugs by the kitchen sink and in a warm-looking blanket cocoon in the armchair.

“You want something to drink, maybe?” Mikasa asks politely, gently setting his red scarf on the shelf by the door, her other hand outstretched as she waits patiently for him to hand her his jacket.

He flinches, realizing he has spent the last few minutes standing in the middle of her living room and gawking, leaving traces of melting snow all over her floor.

“I- um, sure, sorry. “ He tugs on the zipper sloppily, eyeing with horror the ever-growing pool of dirty snow water near his boots. ”Shit, I‘m so sorry, let me mop this up, wow, you have it so clean in here, I just- sorry -“

Suddenly, he hears a snort and looks up at her and- is she smirking?

Sure, it’s subtle and barely-there (seems she has regained some control over her facial expressions) but still, the smirk is there and what’s more, he can feel her amusement across the bond.

“Forgive me.” She sends him a small grin. “You looked so horrified. Don’t worry, let me put on a kettle for some tea and we’ll clean it up.”

She hesitantly reaches out and pats his shoulder, her eyes sparkling with humor.

Somewhere, on the back of his mind, he realizes that’s the first time she initiated the contact between them, but most of his brain is basking in the feeling of her fingers touching his skin through the thin material of his shirt.

The warmth. The warmth.

He’s sinking in it, bathing in it almost; he probably looks like a goddamn idiot staring at her with the goofiest smile and puppy eyes but he just fucking can’t help himself.

Mikasa unlaces her boots and puts them by door; she orders him to do the same and, as Eren watches her rummaging through the kitchen (a braided crown of black tresses slightly undone; the straight line of her spine underneath her blouse as she leans down; her long, long legs gracefully moving her from one place to another) he feels something blooming in his chest; something new and hesitant and small, but maybe even more powerful than a lightning strike on the street half an hour ago.

[childpsychnurse-blog]

The Bad Kid

Disclaimer: all names and identifying information about patients have been modified. Please see “About and Disclaimer” for more information.

I don’t know what my first post should be about.

Sometimes my work is sad. Sometimes it’s funny. Sometimes it’s hopeful. Sometimes it’s disheartening. Sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes it sucks. A lot of the time it’s downright weird.

I love it and would not trade it for anywhere else, at least not right now.

I think the first story I’ll share is one from when I first started, back when I was still learning how to coach and advocate and manage behaviors and be a part of this wild and crazy thing. It may not be the most interesting story I have but it was pretty instrumental in my own development. There were two defining moments in this day: one that taught me about myself and about the vulnerability that still touches us as staff, and one that greatly deepened my understanding of my patients and their humanity.

A little background: on my unit everyone starts as “coaches,” including the nurses. The coaches are a little like the CNA’s of the psych world. You could also call them mental health techs. They’re the ones who are the most “on the floor.” They wake kids up, take them to breakfast, teach them skills’ groups, run their schedules, chart on them, call nurses with concerns, monitor conversations, and basically do a good chunk of the ground work. They’re amazing, and the thought process is that anyone who will be managing the coaches (such as the nurses) should have a solid handle on the job first. The work they do and skills they learn are also pretty foundational to all the behavioral management the nurses do, hence all the nurses spend a few months working in the coaching role. The reason I’m sharing all this detail, although perhaps it is a little excessive, is that this story is from when I was working as a coach in my first month or two as a new hire.

My assignment on this particular day was to work with our younger teenager group. Working with this group can have pros and cons from a staff’s perspective. They can be a lot of fun, have a great sense of humor, and tend to be more engaged than the older teens who can check out and be “too cool” for peer groups. They can also be super sassy and overly fueled by peer pressure and insecurity. Some of our kids are very sweet and they come to our unit for a variety of reasons, so groups (and individuals) can change a lot. This particular hodgepodge of kiddos I was to work with was a bit notorious for being difficult to manage.

I was having a terrible day with them.

They were arguing with me about any sort of limit or task demand I tried to impose, they were whispering to each other and sharing personal information (a big no-no for lots of safety reasons), and we were making very little progress on much of anything. I found myself swept up into a series of power-struggles and on the verge of tears but trying to put on a tough front.

One kid was particularly challenging. He was in for aggression or something like that, I don’t really know and it doesn't really matter. He kept calling me bad words and pulling the rest of the group even more off-track. He was in and out of group, and emotionally I was done with him pretty early on in the shift. He’ll come up again later in this post.

Eventually another patient went into a crisis that necessitated the rest of us leaving and transitioning to a different area of the unit. We sat in the living area, arguing, and me wondering how the hell I thought I could do this job.

The first defining experience that came out of the day for me happened in that living area. Another staff was over there with a kid who was assigned to have an individual staff rather than being in a peer group. This kid was asleep, and the staff came over to check in with me.

“Hey, how’s it going?”

I look at her. “It’s okay. Well, I don’t know. I’m stuck. I don’t know what to do with this group.”

She nods at looks at the kids, drawing penises and writing down phone numbers and cuss words, then looks back at me. “You need a break.”

“Nah, the shift’s almost over. I’ll be fine.”

My coworker shakes her head. “No, you NEED a break. Trade with me. [My patient] is sleeping anyway; you just have to be here so he has access to a staff. Get some charting done, I’ll finish out with your group.”

Almost reluctantly but with a great deal of unacknowledged relief, I agree. She takes my group and I go sit in the nursing station and chart while checking on the sleeping patient.

There were a lot of things going through my head. First of all, I’m supposed to me a nurse. I went through an incredibly intense program and I did it. I got here. I’m supposed to be a leader. I’m supposed to be strong. Did I just fail? I think I might have. I shouldn’t have been power-struggling that much with the kids, that wasn’t helping anyone and was making it worse. I was letting them control me. None of my interventions worked, I can’t be a leader here, who am I kidding?

Then, in the middle of the nursing station, another thought. What does it mean to experience weakness as strength? We’re only human, after all. If I’m around people in crisis, I’m going to be in crisis too. What I can control is how I chose to respond to it, how I chose to take care of myself, how I chose to cope. And it’s okay for the kids to see that, maybe even healthy for them to see someone model functional ways to deal with that kind of emotion, and also to see the impacts they can have on other people.

It’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to ask for a change. It’s okay to have an emotional reaction, even if you’re the staff. This job is hard. These kids are sick. You didn’t make them sick, but you can help keep them safe. You do need to take care of yourself if you want to last here, and taking a break is sometimes part of that self-care.

I was fortunate enough to have some follow-up at the end of that shift that would become the second defining moment for me in my job of that day.

We moved our sleeping friend and I was back to helping with evening routine and getting kids into bed. The patient I mentioned earlier was sitting in the hall, refusing to brush his teeth, go into his room, or complete pretty much anything that had been set out as an expectation. He was chatting with a peer.

“This unit used to be one floor, you know, then they added upstairs,” he told the peer. He glances briefly at me, then away. “I’ve been here a lot. I’m a bad kid.”

This kid has, quite frankly, been pissing me off and hurting my feelings all day. His words in that moment, however, grab at my heartstrings and completely catch me off-guard.

“Dude,” I tell him, “you’re not a bad kid. You’ve made some bad choices but they don’t define who you are. You can still make good choices.”

He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “Y'all only ever say something when we’re being bad, nobody says anything when we’re being good.”

He’s right and I know it. Not about the entire unit: lots of staff members are good at positive reinforcement. But I haven’t been doing that today and chances are that a lot of coaches haven’t been recently, especially with this guy. I own it.

“You’re right. I haven’t said anything when you’re doing a good job, and I’m sorry. I should have. That’s on me, and I’ll work on it.”

He shrugs and doesn’t say much else. Shortly thereafter though he does go back into his bedroom and go to sleep.

I’m a bad kid.

Is that a story I tell myself when I’m frustrated with the kids? That they’re just bad kids? Does that thought, lurking in my subconscious, influence and drive the way I interact with them and the interventions I choose?

Some of these kids have been through hell. Some of them have lived on the streets, been abused, grown up in the foster system, and/or never had any sort of positive role model. And that’s not even factoring in the pressure of whatever is going on in their heads: anxiety, depression, shame, or voices outside of their cognitive control. They do make choices and they need to take ownership of their actions, but sometimes those choices are infinitely harder for them because of factors way outside of their control.

And they’re just KIDS.

They’re not bad kids. They’re just kids. They want the same things any kid wants: love. Acceptance. Security. Food. Water. Safety. Rest. Look at Maslow’s hierarchy. We see that all the time.

As it happens, I worked with that particular group again a few days later. The personality of the group had evolved slightly due to discharges and admits but was more or less the same, and my friend from the previous shift was still there. I focused really hard on praising that patient when he was making good choices, however small they were. I worked on not power struggling with the group and talking to them like adults. I let them know I expected them to be respectful and take ownership of their own learning and skill building because it would help them, but I wasn’t going to patronize them and was willing to be flexible on how we ran the day as long as they were respectful and somewhat engaged.

They had a great day.

And I had a great day with them, working with the group of great kids that just needed a little extra help and compassion.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael After Midnight - Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens

And here we are, the big finale! After spending a good chunk of my other reviews making jabs at this film and its derivative nature, calling it out for its unoriginality, and basically just mocking this film to Hell and back, I must really hate this movie, huh?

Mmm… nope.

Despite my near-constant jabs at how this film is, essentially, a retread of A New Hope, The Force Awakens is still fun, exciting, and even an interesting stepping stone to move Star Wars in a new direction. In fact, I kinda think this movie gets a lot more shit than it deserves these days; typically when South Park spends an inordinate amount of time bitching about something, the hate is overblown (see: their episode-long diatribes against Phil Collins, Bono, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, etc). It may not be a perfect film, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the first two prequels.

So what’s happening in that galaxy far away this time around? Well, there’s a new, evil empire group of people called the First Order, fronted by the emotionally unstable young villain Kylo Ren. The plot kicks off when a stormtrooper named Finn decides he doesn’t want to deal with this violent killing shit and helps the captive rebel Poe Dameron escape captivity. Crash landing on a desert planet, he tries to get the droid BB-8 to safety, and meets the spunky scavenger girl Rey. Together, the two jack a hunk of junk spaceship – which happens to be the Millenium Falcon – and escape, running into none other than Han and Chewie. What follows is a journey of self-discovery, adventure, and a plot to destroy a massive weapon made to wipe out entire star systems in a single shot. Can the heroes save the day?

The film definitely cribs a lot from the original movies, for better and for worse. At the very least it sticks a lot to puppets and practical effects, but no amount of excellent puppets and makeup can hide the fact this film shamelessly retreads a lot of beats of the original trilogy, especially A New Hope. Giant planet-destroying weapon, wretched hive bar the characters go to, the death of an important mentor figure, a lonely young person living on a desert planet who wants freedom… And then there’s the stuff it cribs from the other films, like Phasma, who is clearly trying to emulate the mystique of Boba Fett and failing to, causing her to be one of the least remarkable characters in the film. But, for as much crap as I give this for recycling the old movie, I will agree it was probably necessary to do this. Filmgoers in this day and age, with the bad taste the prequels left in their mouth, were probably expecting nothing from a new Star Wars. It was best to play it as safe as possible and show the world that, yes, a Star Wars experience like the originals could still be delivered in this day and age. I wish it was less derivative, but I can see WHY it was derivative.

What I can’t see is why they didn’t create some better characters. Now, don’t get me wrong; there are some fantastic characters in this film, of particular note Finn, the Stormtrooper with a change of heart. Finn is such a charming and likable character, and with this movie he easily cements himself as one of the best Star Wars characters ever and one who will hopefully get to develop even more over the course of the sequels. This is as much his film as Rey’s. Kylo Ren is pretty cool and has an interesting concept going for him, being Vader’s grandson and Han and Leia’s kid who turned to the Dark Side, and yet struggles with being pulled towards the light. He has these epic temper tantrums, showcasing that he is incredibly mentally unstable, and is in general a terrifying character for just how unsettling he is concept-wise. That he’s a pretty boy under that helmet makes it even worse. Again, hopefully he gets some more development over the next few films though, because there are still quite a few wrinkles to iron out. As for non-main characters, Stormtroopers really steal the show in this movie, such as the ones who do an about-face when they notice Ren throwing one of his psychotic tantrums, JB-007 the Daniel Craig Stormtrooper Rey pulls a Jedi Mind Trick on, and, of course, the now-iconic Stormtrooper that, when faced with a lightsaber wielding Finn, calls him a traitor, tosses his guns aside, and beats the shit out of him with his baton. The sheer amount of balls this Stormtrooper has immediately endeared him to fans, and amusingly enough he overshadows the character they were PUSHING to be the ensemble darkhorse, Phasma. And I don’t think I need to say this, but the original cast is absolutely fantastic.

The problem lies with how underused a lot of the other characters are. Phasma is a huge example, but there is also the character played by Max Von Sydow for one scene in the opening. This character is cool, he’s wise, he’s played by motherfucking Ming the Merciless… and he’s dead by the end of his intro scene. There are cool characters like the thugs Finn, Rey, and Han face off against or some of the characters in the bar, but they’re underused as well, getting very brief scenes before disappearing from the film or dying. And then there’s Poe, who at least has the excuse that he was originally slated to die; still, it sucks he’s barely in or essential to the plot, because he’s a really charming character. Luckily the sequels will give him more to do or at least that’s how it seems. Oh, and Han, Luke, and Leia never reunite onscreen. What a waste.

And now, for the elephant in the room… Rey. Rey is one of the most divisive characters in the film, with some people claiming she’s a Mary Sue. I imagine the people who say that also love eating paint chips for dinner because I’m not sure how else they could come to such a braindead conclusion. Rey is NOT a Mary Sue; she is simply a very poorly handled character. A lot of stuff about her needs to be surmised by thinking on the details, such as how she’d know the Millenium Falcon so well, which can be inferred from her history as a scavenger. There’s also stuff that the novelizations expand upon, which doesn’t exactly help a filmgoer unless they want to sit and read the story they already watched. Then there’s stuff that’s clearly going to be explained in sequels but seems really wonky here, like her being able to use a Jedi Mind Trick despite being a novice to the Force. Rey’s an okay character, but the way they handled her and the stuff she can do is just so weird and jarring. I definitely think she’ll improve in the next couple of films, but this is a very mixed first impression.

Not much else can be said here; it’s a very safe, familiar experience that doesn’t mix things up as much as it could, but does show that the kind of stuff that made Star Wars great can be made done in modern cinema. It’s a solid first step; we must remember that A New Hope is not exactly a flawless film itself, and was followed by two far superior sequels. We can only hope that will be the case here. As it stands though, this is a solid Star Wars film, a decent spectacle in its own right, and a mostly fun continuation of the series. There’s a few hiccups here and there, but it’s still a lot better than its numerous detractors will have you believe. It’s just not the greatest star Wars film ever made, either. It’s good, and maybe that’s all it had to be for now.

The next one comes out in a few months, just in time for Christmas in fact. Let’s hope that the next Star Wars film pushes the story and characters in newer, fresher directions… but even if it doesn’t, let’s not get too salty. The Force Awakens may have some wonky storytelling and retread a lot of the old movies, but it’s proof positive that sometimes, doing something samey can be pretty enjoyable in its own right.

[disappointingyet]

Atomic Blonde Director David Leitch Stars Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, Sofia Boutella, Toby Jones Germany/Sweden/USA 2017 Language English, German, Russian (one line of) Swedish (with English subtitles) 1hr 55mins Colour

Charlize Theron adopts Harry Makepeace’s hairdo and lamps some Commies

Atomic Blonde is a Cold War action movie set in Berlin in November 1989 that relies on you setting aside whatever you know about the real Cold War, the real Berlin and the real 1989*.

There’s an interesting idea at the heart of the movie, though, and presumably its graphic novel source (if you didn't know the film’s comics origins, you’d guess within the first minute). On the eve of the Wall coming down, both sides of Berlin were full of people whose business was the Cold War and whose future was uncertain if it ended abruptly. At the same time, there was a younger generation in the East who had simply had enough of boredom under Communism, sensed (or just hoped) it was all about to crumble and just wanted to party.

Against that high-stakes backdrop, we have Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron), top MI6 operative with a supermodel’s wardrobe, in town to look for a Stasi defector (Eddie Marsan), who has the file that includes the name of a mole inside British intelligence. 

Let’s politely bypass the mechanics of the plot, which has the usual double and triple crossing and twists that make everything that has happened before nonsensical. It’s that kind of movie. 

And rather like a Hollywood picture of the studio era, it takes a shortcut to characterisation by having actors rehash parts they have played before. So Toby Jones as MI6's second-in-command is a minor variation on his Percy Alleline in Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, James McAvoy as the agency's rogue head of Berlin station is in Irvine Welsh mode and John Goodman’s CIA man any one of the sinister figures of power he has played in his latter years.

As for Theron, she has to convince us that she is someone who can clobber a Soviet bloc thug round the head with a portable hob while wearing a expensive minidress and heels. While she gets an amazing wardrobe, she also has to spend a chunk of the film visibly battered and bruised. It’s the kind of thing the Academy still confuses with acting in more middlebrow films – but then Theron always been willing to de-glam if necessary. I think she earns at least a 4 on the 5-point Statham scale of looking at home in an action movie.

If you’re between 40 and 50, you could probably assemble the soundtrack yourself. The rules: has to have been released in the ’80s, preferably by a German-speaking act but known in the English-speaking world. That those songs are mostly from the early ’80s and would have been neither current nor oldies in ’89 is, again, not a stumbling block in this cartoonish version of history.  

More problematic for enjoyment of the film, I think, is that it is often unclear which side of the Wall we’re on. Which is pretty vital in a Cold War story**. It’s a big failing, and one that’s down to plain sloppiness.

What the film does get right are the action sequences, most of all the extended fight up and down the stairs of an East Berlin tenement. It’s brutal and inventive.

There are a number good things about Atomic Blonde: the action, Theron’s clothes, some of the set design and cinematography. On the other hand, the dialogue is terrible, the plot cretinous, there are no laughs, and the whole Berlin November 1989 aspect often wasted (and made worse by having news footage from the time running on TVs around the place). It’s by no means terrible, but I wanted to like it a lot more than I did.

*It’s just possible I’m not the intended audience for this movie.

**So when I was eight years old, we went to both Berlins. My memory (not necessarily reliable, but my father says pretty much the same thing) is that West Berlin’s whole sense of identity was its not-Eastern Blocness – it was as loud and neony as possible.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Belated thoughts on The Doctor Falls

(Spoilers, obviously)

A late “review” owing to me being out of down and offline for the Canada Day long weekend. Now to make up for lost time...

I make no secret of nor do I apologize for the fact I was very disappointed with Series 10 as a whole. I stand by my opinion that it is - taken as a whole - the weakest season of 10 we’ve had since the series returned. BUT, in the 9th inning, Steven Moffat managed to score a home run, even though it was more of the “players fumbling to catch the ball” inside-the-park homer than a “knock it out of the park” blockbuster. It ranks a solid 3rd behind The Name of the Doctor and Hell Bent among Modern Era finale episodes and for the most part left me smiling (albeit a sad smile).

More thoughts after the break:

I’m going to get the negative stuff out of the way first.

I have mixed feelings about how Bill’s fate was handled (not the fate itself). I love the fact that Moffat managed to come up with a way to get Bill out of her dilemma and reunite her with Heather in such a way that promises future adventures (Big Finish and Chris Chibnall take note). It’s great that we finally got a pair of Moffat companions (including Nardole, though more on him in a moment) who basically survived their time with the Doctor. However, I wish Moffat hadn’t copied what he did with Clara and Ashildr in Hell Bent: making the companion immortal and sending her off on adventures with an immortal companion of her own (only difference being the romance direction: with Clara it was separation from her OTP; with Bill it was reunion with her OTP). I spoke to a few friends who watched it on Saturday and they were very upset by this. Not because they were Clara fans (believe me, they aren’t - in fact they pretty much hated Series 8 and 9) but because it was so similar to what happened last season. And I am annoyed at people saying that this is setting up the spinoff everyone wants, when that’s exactly the same thing they said with Clara and Ashildr in 2015! (That said, I agree with everyone who says getting the four together would kick ass. Big Finish, again take note.)

I also wish Heather had been referenced more during the season. If she was supposed to be Bill’s OTP, why was she basically forgotten for 10 episodes? As a result, while it was great to see Heather return, it still had a feeling of deus ex machina about it that was unfortunate. And any viewers who missed The Pilot and jumped on late - they were screwed figuring out what the heck that was all about with the woman made of water. 

One last negative was the fact we were left with no real resolution for Nardole. We saw him setting off with a bunch of kids and a girlfriend(!) but the impression given is they were still dead because they’d be spending their time moving up the ship and eventually the Cybermen would regroup and get ‘em. I hope Moffat plans to resolve this at Christmas because I felt the story wasn’t completed. This one I’d hate to have to leave to Big Finish to flesh out but perhaps they’ll have to.

OK - negative stuff over. Time for the positives.

Despite the fact I disliked World Enough and Time on the whole, I said I loved the opening and the closing minutes of that episode. Well, The Doctor Falls was basically all “opening and closing minutes,” (you can take that literally as virtually every scene felt like a teaser or cliffhanger and the longer running time flew by) and it was great and exactly the type of episode I was starved for this series. Had Series 10 had more of these I might have even joined the chorus of those calling Series 10 the best, even without Clara.

Despite the criticism I just stated, I loved how Bill and Heather were reunited (read my complaint again and the bottom line is I wanted there to be more of them) and Pearl Mackie gave her best performance ever as Bill. The character had a shaky start in my opinion, but Mackie was exemplary and Bill stands proud with the other iconic companions because of it. She’ll go far.

And Matt Lucas was great as always, and in some respects I’m going to miss Nardole more than Bill (ironic since I hated Nardole in the 2015 Christmas special). That’s nothing against Bill or Pearl Mackie, but even though he was shoehorned in to a good chunk of the season, Lucas just felt right once it was decided to make him a proper companion, and that was something that occurred to me way back in Return of Doctor Mysterio. I’d say Lucas would go fear but the guy’s already gone far. So I’ll just say he’ll go farther.

The Master Twins were amazing and had terrific chemistry and while I don’t believe for one second that this is the end for the Master (the Missy incarnation, perhaps), it was a unique resolution to Missy’s arc that I’m sure had many going “why hadn’t we thought of that?” I also found it fascinating to see how the Saxon Master reacted to having a female incarnation (despite the Doctor’s comments last week, Saxon seemed to suggest Missy was his first/only female version). He wasn’t that thrilled about it, really, which caught me by surprise. It added an unexpected depth to their meeting. I only wish we saw Simm regenerate into Gomez but then maybe that opens the door for another incarnation, if Missy is truly the final Master. I kind of hope she is, because it would be great to think that in the end, after teasing the concept for 46 years, the show finally made good on the promise of redeeming the Master. Plus, let’s be honest, male or female, who could follow Michelle Gomez?

And then there was Peter. What can I say? I mean, his speech about kindness is one they’re going to be quoting for years. And I hope the other Doctor actors are ready because just as with the Pandorica speech and the Zygon Inversion speech, they’re going to be asked to recite it forever. I’ve given up on awards, but Peter Capaldi is in my opinion the best actor to ever pilot the TARDIS, and I’m not just saying that because he’s the incumbent and I liked Whouffaldi. No - all the actors who have played the Doctor were amazing (yes, even him - whoever you want “him” to be). But Capaldi is the best. And I am including Sir John Hurt as I say that, with no disrespect intended to the late legend (or any of the others).

The regeneration - I mean, wow. And to see him repress it. That’s new and will make the Christmas special absolutely fascinating to watch from a performance perspective, alone.

David Bradley as the First Doctor? I don’t know about that. This isn’t 1983 when Richard Hurndall could step into William Hartnell’s shoes because no one had DVDs of any of Bill’s episodes. Apparently we’ve already had some viewers state confusion on Twitter over who this old guy is. I’ve no doubt that David Bradley will do a good job, but recasting an earlier Doctor, especially one with such a different acting style... jury is out. Much as I like Bradley I actually would have been more in favour of Sean Pertwee appearing as his dad. Ask me again on December 26.

Finally, of course, me being a Whouffaldi fan I cannot end this without mentioning the Clara flashback. I can’t begin to express how important this was. For her to have been omitted ... while it might have worked from the memory block perspective, it would have made the sequence feel incomplete. Does it mean the Doctor remembers Clara? Actually, we know that he does to a degree already - he says so to Clara herself in Hell Bent that he remembers their adventure together and has been able to piece together a lot about Clara, and at the end of the episode he sees Rigsy’s portrait of her, so he now remembers her face and, thanks to the diner, her voice. But then again - he would remember her face and voice from the diner if it was a “fresh” memory, right? Instead, he remembers her as she was in Last Christmas. So is it possible that Bill’s tears did more than give Twelve a stay of execution? That they - or the fact the Doctor is mid-regeneration - have undone it. Time will tell. I’m aware of certain tabloid reports today (also mentioned on the BBC) and I refuse to get my hopes up. But maybe it was foreshadowing. Or Moffat simply realized that to leave Clara out of a roll-call of every Modern Era companion would have made him look like a dick. Either way, we got a final direct reference to Clara to end the season on. (And River fans got one too, so everyone’s happy.)

One of these days I’ll do a proper postmortem on Series 10, going into detail as to why I didn’t care for it as a whole. But for me the finale hit all the right notes and leaves me looking forward to Christmas, even though a sad milestone awaits.

PS: Because there seems to be a lot of people harping online about Clara’s appearing in the flashback and the potential for her to appear at Christmas (of the “don’t bring her back ever” variety) let me state for the record that as far as I am concerned Bill Potts and Nardole are welcome to reappear or be referenced any time. Hopefully they’ll get a nod at Christmas.

[imagineclaireandjamie]

hey mods! i was just wondering how long it usually takes you guys to fully write a prompt/do you "sketch" out the whole story or just make it up as you go? i sent in a few prompts, you dont have to do them, just curious to see if you've written them!

Hi anon! 

The short answer is that it really depends on the mod and on the prompt! 

-Common Scenario 1: Prompt comes in. Mod Z comments ‘OMG I LOVE THIS ONE I MUST HAVE IT’/’I HAVE A HEADCANON THAT FITS THIS PERFECTLY’. Other Mods cheer from the sidelines. Mod Z gets so inspired they write and queue it pronto. 

-Common Scenario 2: Prompt comes in. Mod H loves it and claims it but knows it may be a while before they write it. If another mod is interested in filling, sometimes a polite discussion takes place to see if Mod H is interested in giving it up. But in any case, there are some prompts in our drafts that are claimed, have promise, and are just waiting for the Mod to have the time/proper moment of inspiration to actually write it. 

Here are some specific thoughts from a few of the mods on their own processes: 

Liv: Usually, I tell can tell right away if I can or cannot give the prompt what it deserves. There are certain characters, relationships, events, etc. that appeal to me more than others, so I obviously gravitate towards prompts that somehow include them. In terms of my ~process: I’m a very slow writer (mostly because I can’t turn off my self-editor) so it’s a bit of a slog. I have absolutely no idea where my story is going when I first begin, though the very last line of the fic comes to me before anything else. This is helpful because, more often than not, it captures the feeling or mood I’m going for. So then I just write towards that line - and however I get there is usually a surprise to me! 

Bonnie: Like Liv, I tend to write *slowly*–I usually do a brain dump of the basic flow of the chapter, and then layer in more and more detail/precise dialogue. I do lots of re-reads and edits, even after the fic is in the queue, but I almost never start writing before I have a sense of the basic arc of the installment. Most of my imagine writing to date has been for FMM (for better or for worse, that’s just where the inspiration has been!), so it’s pretty evident right off the bat which prompts fit in that universe. But there are other prompts that speak to me as well–mostly to do with paternal!Jamie feels (shocker. i know. who’d’a thunk?) that I have saved in the drafts for a rainy day. I definitely don’t ever spend time on prompts i’m not inspired by–I’d rather let the prompt marinate for a few weeks/months than slog through it before I have a vision for making it special! 

Lenny: I’m usually pretty quick with knowing if I want a prompt or not but then I sit on them for a while. I’ll throw down some basic ideas for the fic but then it needs to stew. If it’s a one-shot, it’s usually just a matter of finding a solid chunk of time so I can write the whole thing in one go. But I have a habit of taking an idea that probably should be a one-shot and stretching it quite a bit (*cough* Visit to Virginia *cough* Collision Course *cough* Fergus through the Stones *cough* just about everything I write). Luckily, this “decision” also tends to happen pretty quickly. Once I have an overall plot planned (and probably outlined in a draft), if it’s one of these multi-part fics, I shelve it so that I don’t have too many going at once. When one of these plotted, multi-chapter fics is finished, I’ll start on another one of the ones I have hanging out on my “shelf.” I try to alternate between the multi-parters I have started and throw a few one-shots in every once in a while so I’m not stalling for too long on any particular multi-part fic. As for writing installments or one-shots, I’m a very linear writer and kind of just sit down and go. I edit as I go and if I do get interrupted while writing, I read through it and edit when I sit back down but I don’t revise a lot, I move on to writing the next thing (but a lot of that is because I have my big three fics over on my main blog to keep going). 

MBD: I’m the same as Lenny in regards to knowing whether or not I like the prompt within moments of seeing it. After that, if it’s something I really get inspired by, I tend to be able to roll off a few thousand words –if not the whole thing– in a matter of hours. Sometimes, as with Mute, Renewed and Voyeurs, I will write a few of the beginning chapters and then even some of the later ones and it’s just a matter of filling in the gaps from then on in. If I sit down to write a chapter of a multi-chap fic I usually write it from beginning to end. I can’t, even if I know the middle and the end but not the beginning, write bits and bobs here and there and then work around that. I have to write beginning, middle then end. Which can be hard when you *know* what you want to write as the ending. If I did it like that I know I’d get myself all in a tizzy. I do have some prompts that I put my name to that I definitely had a specific plan for and then something else got in the way. Once I’ve lost the initial plot for it, it does take a bit more planning to get going, but I’m usually committed to finishing it once something strikes a chord. Even if it does take months to begin and end. In regards to characters, I think it’s fairly obvious how I choose them (she says ;)) but i have started pushing the boat out a bit, with support. ♡

If there are specific prompts you want to follow up on, feel free to come off anon. We’d be happy to let you know if the prompt has been claimed or not. :) 

Love, 

Da Modz

[immortalonus]

Valerie's Weird, Creepy Robo Suit (P2)

So now that I finally managed to finish the first chapter of the fic I actually built this headcannon stuff for in the first place, my head no longer feels like it's crammed with swiss cheese, and I now feel all set and ready to make the next part of this multi-post series. Hurray!

#2: Stuff the Red Huntress can do/powers.

So the way I figure it, Valerie has the potential to be, if not a match to Dan Phantom, then at least powerful enough to hold her own against him for a solid decade while simultaneously protecting an entire town.

If we take into account the fact that Dan Phantom is powerful enough to destroy an entire world and a huge ass chunk of the Ghost Zone while he was at it, then a Red Huntress capable of standing up to that must be pretty frigging OP.

I sort of kept that in mind while building her power list, which I imagine being a little something like this:

>>>dimensional storage spaces. (AKA Valerie's bags of holding)

I mean, she has to keep all those guns somewhere, right? Not to mention her hoverboard and all her other cool toys. Some kind of folded space/extra dimensional area as a fundamental part of her suit makeup just makes sense, sorta like super pockets for her super-suit.

Specifically, I have it written out so that she has three, each roughly the size of a very nice walk in closet: One for general storage, one for her engine/power center, and one for her material manipulation/generation centers.

A) general storage:

Teenage Val's favorite of the three spaces, this is the place where she puts her spare homework, guns, and the bits of her suit that aren't permanently bound to her body. There's a lot of junk there, but it's also where she keeps most of her weapons, hoverboard, and any raw materials for her material manipulation/generation centers.

(For those of you who haven't noticed, I am terrible at coming up with cool names for things.)

If Valerie wants to take anything into this storage unit, she would need to make direct physical contact with the object in question. If she wants it out, it will default to appearing against whatever part of her body she first touched it with: So any gun she grabbed with her left hand to send in storage will return to that left hand when she brings it back out, unless she wills it otherwise.

Valerie's general storage, like all her subspaces, is uninhabitable, but only because it never crossed her mind to fill it or any of the others with air. While I doubt she'll figure this trick out anytime during the runtime of Where You Belong, Somewhere down the line, when she and Team Phantom have cleared everything up between each other, someone, (probably Tucker,) is going to ask her about that, and Valerie will spend the next week kicking herself that she could totally have had a space to pull off her armor and relax in during her hell hike through the Ghost Zone back in the day.

B) Engine/power Center

This is the bit where I wish I had literally any knowledge of physics/engineering/ect, and any attempt to educate myself didn't cause pounding headaches every time I tried. I could've made this whole section so much cooler.

Basically, engine and power centers for the Red Huntress Unit do exactly what you'd think they would: Provide and distribute energy to all of its processes and systems.

This engine is pretty big (it takes up the entirety of Valerie's second subspace,) and can run on basically any energy source with varying degrees of efficiency. Since Valerie lives in Amity, its primary energy source is ectoplasm scraped up from the atmosphere, but it could conceivably run on solar, fossil fuel, and even organic energy sources, once Valerie has processed them a bit into something simple enough for the Red Huntress Unit to use. (This last one would be painfully inefficient and probably lead to starvation on Val's part, so lucky her she lives in a place this would never be something she'd need to do.)

How does this engine keep the Red Huntress Unit charged when it's all a bunch of separate pieces without a bunch of charging cables running around everywhere? Well that's easy, it's quantum entanglement, son!

Basically, as I understand it, when you entangle two particles together, their states will influence each other no matter how far apart they happen to be separated. While it's impossible to influence these states IRL, this is fiction, so I've taken the liberty of bending the rules a bit.

Supposing it's possible to control the properties of any given particle, and you were to entangle two or more of these particles, it should be possible to transfer information and I think also energy? instantaneously across time and space.

Which means if you were to take say, a battery called battery A, and quantumly entangle it with battery B somewhere across the universe, it should be possible to use battery A to charge battery B, even though battery B is far away from any and all charging cables.

If nothing else, it's a pretty gosh darn cool explanation for how the Red Huntress Unit can send information and charge power across all it's separate parts, IMHO.

I also like to imagine this is how stuff like the power sources for Valerie's laser guns, or her hoverboard engine, get charged up, too. They're all connected to that main engine room, which provides them energy on an as needed basis.

C) Material Manipulation/Generation center.

Probably the trickiest of Valerie's abilities for me to conceive of and explain, the material manipulation and generation centers are responsible for both weapon creation and suit repair. They are also one of the most energy intensive, time consuming, and complex functions native to the Red Huntress Unit.

Just like the engines, Valerie's Material manipulation and generation centers take up the entirety of their respective subspace, and provides two very important functions:

1) Limited material generation:

Because the Red Huntress Unit is not a divinely powerful suit (Technus just ain't that good,) It's ability to create and replicate materials is limited to the unique materials that make up The Red Huntress Unit and all it's associated parts. And it's only able to do this thanks to the fact that the suit and most of its materials is made up of unique polymer strands, which, when combined with some nanotechnology, are capable of replicating in a manner very similar to DNA/RNA within a cell.

Whenever Valerie Damages her suit, the material generator would pull the polymer-nanobot combination associated with the damaged portion, and set about on repair.

There are some portions of her system, however, and a bunch of her weapons, that do not use these unique polymers, forcing the Red Huntress Unit to resort to using the other part of this system: Material manipulation.

2) Material Manipulation centers:

For everything else, the Red Huntress Unit can pull apart, recombine, alter, but not generate or create from nothing *most* materials, with a few caveats:

A/// material manipulation is limited to the molecular level: So if Valerie gets a chunk of plastic and runs it through her material manipulation center, she can't use her manipulation centers to chop up the component atoms of the molecule and re-arrange it into some non-plastic substance.

I would personally tell you this has to with the bonds between the atoms being too strong for her manipulation centers to safely pull apart, but considering we are well into the realm of silly nonsense style sci-fi physics, the actual reason why probably doesn't mean much.

B/// Material manipulation relies on resources being available in one of her storage units (usually general storage,) to supply the base materials for whatever's being made.

I think this would go without saying, but I thought I'd spell it out anyway. If Valerie wants to make herself a shotgun, she'd need to go find enough iron, plastic, and wood for her manipulation centers to make it for her.

C/// to create an object, Valerie either needs to mentally picture every part of the thing she wants made in extreme detail, or upload the schematics into her system.

Following along with the idea that Valerie's manipulation centers can't really make something from nothing, the shape of what her systems would form the raw materials she's provided them into would need to be guided by something.

It should be noted that Technus himself provided a few of these schematics when he first created the Red Huntress suit, which is where stuff like her laser cubes comes from, but for the rest, Valerie would either have to imagine it for herself, or find an object or weapon that's already been made for her to copy.

D/// The Red Huntress Unit can neither create nor manipulate organic material of any kind.

I will confess here and now that the practical, out of universe reason for this one is related to my desire to give Valerie an even harder time in the story I made all this up for lol.

There is an in-story reason for this restriction, however, which has to do with the Red Huntress Unit's origin in technology and death, making it an existence to far removed from life and living to interact with biological processes in too much depth. Bonding with a living host like Valerie is about the extent of its ability to interact with the biological beings, and even that came at the expense of some of her humanity. A part of her is permanantly a cyborg now, because that's what the Red Huntress Unit needs to properly interact with its host.

In addition to being unable to create food no matter how many organic compounds Valerie tries to cram into her material manipulation and generation centers, this also means the Red Huntress Unit has issues repairing any damage inflicted its host.

Which is to say that if Valerie gets hurt badly enough, her systems will prioritize her survival over her biological integrity, and replace whatever's damaged with the kind of artificial systems it can properly mantain and repair.

AKA Valerie is at risk of being forcibly turned into a robot piece by piece if she takes too much damage.

Well, that was a big post, even for me. There's still some more headcannons I've been playing with for Valerie and her suit, but I think I'll save those for part 3: More cool stuff.

[paulisweeabootrash]

New Year’s Mini-Review Pack 2019

Another year is over and I want to make the mini-review pack from last year a yearly tradition to announce it.

Sometimes I watch shows that I have something to say about, but I don't feel like writing a real review of them.  Here are the five I want to highlight this year.

Happy New Year, nerds!

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1. Food Wars (2015)

Episodes watched: 7

Platform: Hulu

Souma is in the family diner business, trained by his father on expert renditions of “low-class” foods.  He expects to continue in the family business, and even rescues the diner (via cooking, naturally) from sabotage by a developer trying to pressure his father into selling the building so it can be replaced with high-rise apartments.  But despite that, his father shuts down the restaurant “for a few years” to go abroad and sends Souma to a fancy boarding school for aspiring chefs.  The school is sprawling and eclectic in a way only anime boarding schools can be.  And, like any self-respecting anime boarding school, it naturally has three things: an absolutely nonsensical student government, an extraordinary level of old-school elitism, and most importantly, duels.  Disputes can be settled through challenges of head-to-head Iron Chef-style cooking, with wagers riding on them ranging from "you have to join this club if you lose" to "you're expelled if you lose".  As far as I’ve watched so far, there are a few episodes focused on setting up the premise and main characters and a few focused on these competitions between students.  Although the latter concept can be tedious because I’m not much of a tournament show person, it is nevertheless fun because this show commits to its absurdity.

Classic W/A/S: 6 / 7 / 3

Weeb: Ludicrous school setups!  The main character progressing through a series of duels!  Tentacles!  In-depth descriptions of Japanese food!  It's not the kind of weeb that makes it incomprehensible to those not familiar with the tropes, but it's certainly very Japanese.

Ass: This show has been described to me by several people as "literal food porn", and... yeah.  The cold open scene to the first episode contains... uh... basically tentacle porn.  I'm sorry.  The feelings of characters' pleasure (or revulsion) in food is depicted metaphorically and absolutely over-the-top, often with the pleasure of delicious food being heavily sexualized.  And there's plenty of sexualization of both male and female characters even outside of these scenes, although it never crosses the line into full nudity.

Shit: Very well-drawn!  The food is particularly gorgeous, as you'd expect, but the other imagery is creative, and the melodramatic writing and music are not bad, even fitting for so outlandish and cheesy a concept.

PS: I haven’t actually tried making it... yet... but the gag dish introduced in ep. 1, grilled squid with peanut butter, sounds good to me, despite the negative results you can easily find... and others seem to agree, since the concept predates the show.  Just make a peanut-butter-based-sauce rather than just using peanut butter and it should be fine.

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2. Hinamatsuri (2018)

Episodes watched: 12

Platform: Crunchyroll

Hina, a time-traveling middle-school-aged psychic, arrives in our time, in the apartment of a very confused yakuza operative, Nitta Yoshifumi, who takes her in.  Shenanigans ensue, mostly centering around hilarious misunderstandings and the dubious life lessons Yoshifumi and other mobsters impart.  Mostly, the comedy and story are propelled by Hina and two other girls we meet early on: another time-traveler, Anzu, who is sent to retrieve her, fails, and gets stuck in our time, and Hitomi, whom Hina meets as a classmate when Yoshifumi enrolls Hina in school under the name Nitta Hina (claiming she is his daughter), and who gets intimidated into taking an after-school job as a bartender that she struggles to keep secret. The show's format is two segments per episode focusing on different slice of life-ish stories (though with solid continuity and more ongoing plot than you might expect for that characterization), and is usually comedic but also veers into drama and incredible sweetness.  Hina is deadpan, bad at conversation, and unable to unable to understand the context or motives of what others are saying, in a way that honestly almost makes me think autism(?), but I'm guessing is probably supposed to just be "she was raised in the creepy time travel organization and they didn't train her to socialize".  Anzu is a different outcome of the same deprivation: after not returning Hina to their own time, she moves into a homeless camp and quickly takes in the life lessons of the residents, becoming earnest, helpful, and incredibly resistant to spending money, but completely baffled and amazed at how our world works.  Hitomi, the only "normal" one, is just... the best.  The episode about her first becoming a bartender felt like a backdoor pilot, and if it were I would absolutely watch that spinoff.  The first segment of ep. 10, also starring Hitomi, is the funniest "compounding misunderstandings"-style comedy I've seen in a while... and I'm a big Arrested Development fan, so that means something.

Classic W/A/S: 3 / 2 / 3

Weeb: There are some distinctly Japanese traditions depicted, but most elements of the show could be moved to a different setting and "reskinned" for different cultures' organized crime, foods, shopping options, homeless camps, etc., without sacrificing any of the plot or comedy.  Mostly, its distinctly Japanese features are that it relies on imagery and exaggerations that absolutely scream "comedy anime".

Ass: Sexual humor and references, occasionally, but not going to far. Recurring nudity, but not full and not for fanservice.  Actually, it seems as if they've taken a cue from Terminator and assumed that, for whatever reason, you have to time-travel naked.

Shit: This show is practically made of reaction images.  Although it's not the best animated, it's very consistent, clean, and expressive.  They do well with how they did it.  The show practically demands a second season in its last episode, and I think it could make it all the way down to a score of 2 or even 1 on here if they do so and upgrade the animation a bit.  The characters are distinctly and pleasantly designed and rarely does a scene go by that isn't hilarious not because of some kind of rapid-fire jokes thing but because each segment is set up so well and characters play off each other.  Hina's lack of affect gets a little tiresome, but the other characters are great, and usually get a large chunk of an episode's screentime.

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3. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?  Arrow of the Orion (2019)

Episodes watched: n.a. — movie

Platform: in theater

Picking up sometime between the first and second seasons of the main series of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon (or Danmachi for short, derived from the Japanese title), this follows the main cast of Bell Cranel and his ragtag dungeon-crawling party on a new quest. Artemis, Greek goddess of chastity and hunting, is in search, via Hermes, of an adventurer who can wield "the Orion" (a drastically OP spear with the power to kill gods themselves) to destroy Antares, a monster who keeps wiping out adventuring parties and has become a threat to the entire world because [spoiler].  A love... square... ensues between Bell, Hestia, Lili, and Artemis, and other various shenanigans happen that will make much more sense if you've seen the main show and its companion/spinoff, Sword Oratoria. I personally didn't find the affection between Bell and Artemis particularly believable, and I didn't expect the ending to go quite the way it did, but I try not to complain about a story not being the story I wanted it to be.  Watch it if you're already a Danmachi fan or really really like weird takes on classical mythology.  Skip if not.

Classic W/A/S: 3 / 4 / 4

Weeb: Prior knowledge of Danmachi helps immensely, but is not strictly required as there is a and although the show is another "what if we just mix a bunch of mythologies together?" and "what if a real world functioned on RPG logic?" premise, it does occasionally have an idea thrown in that will be foreign to much of the American audience (even if not distinctly Japanese), such as the Buddhist idea of gods themselves being reincarnated (something that also came up in Noragami).

Ass: As the after-credits interview feature says, they wondered whether or not they should keep -sigh- the panty shot.  And they went with "yes".  Also, peeping on women bathing has, unfortunately, become a running joke whenever Hermes appears in Danmachi, so be prepared for that.  Without giving spoilers, though, let me just say I hope not all of the nudity comes off as sexual.

Shit: The monsters are hit-or-miss CGI, sometimes blending with the 2D animation of the rest, sometimes looking so jarring it's actually funny. The 2D art is usually beautiful, though, and as much as I love the show, this is definitely an art upgrade overall.  The plot has a few dumb elements, honestly, or at least not well-enough-developed ones, that make me wonder if it could have worked better as a story arc in the show itself (actually developing a relationship between Artemis and Bell).  The score is a mix of reused tracks from the show plus some new stuff that sounds pretty Jurassic Park-era John Williams to me.  A few subtitle choices are noticeably different from the show, but not consequential to understanding things.  There were a lot of ugly audio glitches, especially early on, but I hope that's a problem with the equipment at the theater I went to and not the editing of the movie.

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4. Supernatural the Animation (2011)

Episodes watched: 1.

Platform: Hulu.

This show follows Sam and Dean Winchester, who -- yup, you're on the right blog, and yup, that's "Supernatural" as in the long-running American live action series.  For those not familiar, the original is a sprawling drama set in basically "our world except all mythologies and folklores are true", and follows the aforementioned Winchester brothers, who hunt monsters in situations that range from their straightforward monster-of-the-week investigations to meta-humor to multi-season story arcs involving multiple trips to Hell itself.  My wife is a huge fan, so I've seen a lot of episodes just incidentally, and enjoyed some of them, but haven't really followed the show.  She assures me, though, that this anime adaptation is loosely based on the first two seasons.  So loosely that at first she thought it was some sort of interquel or sidestory.  The first episode comes off feeling like you're supposed to already be familiar with the main characters -- that they're brothers, that they're monster hunters, why they're looking for their missing father -- because not much actually gets explained.  It’s unremarkable and badly-executed and ugh.

Classic W/A/S: 3 / 1? / 7

Weeb: Although the source material is American (and further back, European and Middle Eastern, given the influence of European folklore traditions and the Abrahamic religions on the choice and depiction of monsters), it's presented in a very Japanese style. This is especially true in reworking the original's horror tendencies -- the blood splatter from offscreen and the writhing, lurching body horror that is the shapeshifter seem much more like what little I've seen of Japanese horror than American.

Ass: I forgot to write anything for this immediately after I watched it and I don't care enough to go back and check but I don't remember anything that would fall under the headings of fanservice or general nudity.

Shit: Variable.  There are occasional moments of bad CG, occasional low-frame-rate weirdness, and disjointed storytelling compared to what I've seen of the original.  The art style is pretty interesting, though, because it's not something you see animated much -- its angular faces and stark shadows remind me of the darker end of American superhero comics.  Although it's certainly not the technically worst show I've reviewed in either story or art, I find it extremely unpleasant and do not want to continue past one episode.  If you feel like doing so, feel free to tell me if it gets any better.

Content: Violence and horror imagery is somehow both less extreme and more successfully unsettling (at least to me) than those in the original live-action show.

[ntrending]

The weirdest things we learned this week: virgin births, composted humans, and naked South Pole scientists

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The weirdest things we learned this week: virgin births, composted humans, and naked South Pole scientists

Don’t try this at home. (DepositPhotos/)

What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple, Anchor, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every Wednesday morning. It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Popular Science can muster. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show.

Fact: You can now (legally) compost a human

By Eleanor Cummins

For years, activists in Seattle, Washington lobbied for the right to compost humans. Instead of preserving your dead body with toxic chemicals or cremating it in one last giant poof of carbon, Katrina Spade, founder of Recompose argued we should instead turn ourselves into life-giving soil. Unfortunately, that wasn’t exactly legal—a lot of things you could potentially do with dead bodies aren’t. But in May 2019, the Washington state legislature made headlines around the world when it legalized the process. Come May of 2020, you, too, can be composted. Hurrah!

That doesn’t mean all our pressing decomp questions are answered. The company’s website has many serene renderings of what this facility would look like—a lot of plants and sun-drenched reflection spaces and honeycomb containers full of dead people. But how the process actually works is unclear. (Something about a steel vessel and unnamed microbes.) If we look at the way composting other forms has worked in the past, we turn up the biggest question of all: What will they do with dem dry bones?

Fact: Virgin births happen surprisingly often

By Rachel Feltman

It’s a tale as old as time: Boy meets girl, boy and girl make babies, boy goes away, girl just keeps having babies, sperm-be-damned. Parthenogenesis is rare, but well documented in reptiles and fish: female animals that are designed to reproduce sexually can, in some cases, create offspring that are basically their own clones. Most of the cases that make headlines are in snakes and sharks, because they’re frequently kept in captivity. If a snake spends a solid chunk of her reproductive years in a tank alone—or with only other female snakes—she’s probably much more likely to pull the parthenogenesis move than she would be in the wild.

The evolutionary benefit of this is pretty clear once you think about it. If resources are scarce and the population drops, parthenogenesis can help the species squeeze out one more generation in the hope of outlasting environmental hardships. The lack of genetic diversity can become a problem given more than one generation of this sort of propagation, but it serves animals just fine as a stop-gap. There are weird twists on this method, too, like the “kleptogenetic” salamanders that steal genes from other species instead of using the more traditional form of sex cell combination. And if a truly parthenogenetic birth is too much work, some animals can simply store sperm for years and years at a time, using it only when resources are favorable for their future pups. In 2015, a captive shark in California set a sperm storage record of 45 months.

So could a so-called virgin birth occur in humans? True parthenogenesis has never been recorded in a mammal, and when our sex cells try to turn into embryos without outside assistance things very quickly go awry. But in at least one case that we know of, that sort of process did help make a baby. Listen to this week’s episode to hear more about this strange case study.

Scientists are working to turn stem cells into sperms and eggs, which could theoretically allow two same-sex to have a biological child together. They’ve already done the deed in mice!

Fact: Researchers at the South Pole sprint naked through 24 time zones in the dead of the Antarctic winter

By Alex Schwartz

Here’s some very chilling information about what life is like at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. On the surface, Antarctica seems like a very tame continent sprinkled with groups of scientists diligently carrying out experiments—and penguins. But there’s also some pretty weird stuff going on down there: rocket-powered planes, underground neutrino detectors, and ATMs at the edge of the world, just to name a few.

But one of the strangest things in Antarctica is a ritual of sorts called the 300 Club, where presumably very bored scientists experience a temperature change of 300 degrees by sitting in a sauna… and then stepping outside. Okay, not just stepping: they make a run 100-yard run in temperatures of -100F or colder (and that’s before wind chill) to circle the ceremonial South Pole, crossing through all 24 timezones in the process. They only wear snow boots, because sweat from the sauna would make any underwear freeze right to their skin. Dangerous? Definitely. Stupid? Probably. Delightful? Well, it certainly delighted us. Check out this week’s episode to hear more about the researchers who make this daring run—and what can happen to their nipples in the process.

If you like The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week, please subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts (yes, even if you don’t listen to us on Apple—it really does help other weirdos find the show, because of algorithms and stuff). You can also join in the weirdness in our Facebook group and bedeck yourself in weirdo merchandise from our Threadless shop.

Written By PopSci Staff

[winstonhcomedy]

“Dope A-F” - 4/12 - 4/18 - “This Doesn’t Feel Good Anymore”

Laydees and baybees I can’t lie to you. I have been having a really tough last few weeks with my mental health. Honestly I think I am an imposter and don’t deserve to be doing any of the shows I have been doing. I’ve been struggling at work due to a lot of increased crisis/stress situations, comedy has gotten to me, and a lot of other stuff I don’t really want to divulge on the blog. I am writing this because Monday was the rock bottom of it. Since Monday I have started to come back. I’ve been focusing my energy on positive things, and really working through some actual issues I have. II feel renewed, and I know even when it is tough I have a lot of amazing people who care about me. I know this is a super long and probably never-ending journey, but I am going to do everything in my power to not succumb to it like I did Monday night. Thanks to all of my super understanding friends/loved ones. You are amazing and I love ya a bunch.  I might start talking about my mental health in here more often because this blog is extremely therapeutic and cathartic to me. I mean it when I say I love all of you, and just wanted to thank anyone who has ever read this. Thank you so much. 

SO WITH THAT SERIOUSNESS OUT OF THE WAY! Let’s get to catching up this lovely little blog. So let’s do it!

4/12

I legit could not have been more happy for a work week to be over. I had a half day at work and was just so mentally and physically exhausted I felt like I was going to die. 

I was going to be doing an opening spot in front of Chris Alan at The Southern. He was headlining a show in the main room and we were all super excited for it. The lineup was going to be Alex Castagne hosting, then me, Brandon Beswick, Paige Campbell, and then Chris closing it out. 

It really started to fill up after we got there. A lot of comics came to hang out like Kenn, Jake Snyder, McCallie, Keaton Ray, Abdulla, Sean Wells, JR, and some others. We also had some of the fans of the local scene out for the show. We sold about 120 tickets which is an incredibly huge deal. 

The show starts and Alex goes up and has a good hosting set. We can all tell the crowd is tight for some reason. They are definitely shying away from race material, and honestly they aren’t giving Alex what his jokes deserve. He does well though and gets some big pops. He then brings me up.

I hated this set. I didn't do poorly, but I wanted to slaughter so bad. I was dumb and tried to do race stuff to try and win them over. My first two didn’t do well at all and then I went into other material that killed and then back to race and it worked better. I don’t know I feel like I screwed myself so I was crazy upset. I didn’t bomb, but I didn't kill. I had one of the better sets, but still I could have done better. I’d give this set a C+ or B-.

Then Beswick went up and they were a little tight for him to. He definitely won them over and the show continued to build. His closer hit super duper hard so that was awesome to see (especially since he worked it out at Host Battle). 

Then Paige went up and did well also. The only thing he lost them on was his chunk on trans people. It’s not an offensive chunk of jokes, but people are just weird about that topic. Other than that it was a solid lineup. 

After him Chris went up and absolutely destroyed for an hour. He did a bunch of new, and didn’t care what the audience thought. They loved it though and showed why he is such a great comic and integral part of the scene here. 

After the show we all hung out for a bit and caught up with those that came to the show. I was starting to feel terrible and in my own head so I decided to go back to Lucy (Sam Padgett’s gf) place with some of the guys and chill for an hour. We did that and it was super fun, but I just wanted to leave and get some sleep. So I did. I went home feeling awful and passed out. Ready for the next day.

4/13

The next day was ok. Depressed most of the day, but the good news was I got to spend it with my dog and family before heading into town. There was just an open mic this night. It was going to be at Intermission Beer Co. It is one of my favorite mics, and is always a good hang. There is usually a pretty ok crowd, and they're a little older and white, but it’s a good group of people to learn how to work. It is a room that James Muñoz started, but Jacob McFadden runs it almost every single month. I ask for a spot and around 5 I head into town.

I get there and as I pull up so does Jacob and his gf. We talk and I help him bring the equipment inside. As the night goes on more and more comics show up. Bryan Williams is there ( and he is incredibly sad and frustrated, Liz Carr (who is going to be the new host of the show after Jacob moves), Aaron Shoemaker, Ben Oliver, Jack Gerow, and then bunch of new comics including this dude who kinda looked like Drake. I don’t remember his name but it was his first time and his family came with him from Stafford to watch.

The show starts and it is just incredibly weird. No one is really doing super well. Most of the audience stays but no one can really crack them open. Jacob got some laughs and seemed to have them on board, but as the night went on it was just bomb after bomb after bomb. Including Bryan Williams who I named the Eeyore of Richmond comedy. He bailed early on his set and was really in his feelings. We talked about his set afterwards and he will be fine.  They don’t always go well, and sometimes you got to switch stuff up, but you should never ever bail on your time. 

Eventually I go up and I have a really fun set. I do some newer stuff, and some light crowd work. The best part is the audience is really digging it. I’d give my set a B or B+ but I definitely had one of the better sets of the night. I got laughs all the way throughout and I felt pretty good about it. 

After my set I stuck around until the end and just hung out with everybody. Most everyone else dipped out, but Jacob/his gf joined me at Buffalo Wild Wings. We had a blast, ate a lot of food, and got a huge dessert. It was a super great night. He then showed me Moe Singleton’s rap album, and I realized it was something I had to talk about at Host Battle the next night. It was an incredibly fun night, and stayed my depression for at least one day. I still had the weight of my week on my back, and I could tell that I was close to losing it. 

I headed home and got a good night of rest before the next day. I knew I had Host Battle, and I was super worried about the attendance of that show, and how it would go. The last time we did it in Richmond my good friend Keith Marcell had a breakdown and threatened to kill me and Chris. It ruined the show, but also it was one of those things where he was having a bad time and couldn’t keep it together. With everything I have going on I worried I would lose it, but I can usually table that stuff until after I get off stage. I got home ridiculously late, and passed out. I needed some time to think, and I got it thankfully.

4/14 

I used my day to pretty much do nothing. I helped around the house, spent time with my dog, and just lounged around until I came into town for Host Battle.

This was the premiere night of Game of Thrones, there was a huge storm coming, and honestly Sunday night shows in Richmond are usually pretty poorly attended. 

I get there and use the next hour or so to get everything set up. I move the tables and chairs to where I want them, get the lights and sound right, and wait for everybody to get there. As we inch closer to showtime I realize this is going to be a poorly attended show.  Other than the comics on the show Mu Cuzzo, Paige Campbell, Alex Castagne, LE Zarling, Moe Singleton, Rebecca Hyman, Nick Deez, and Brandon Beswick there was maybe 6 or 7 people there. They weren’t huge laughers and this was going to be a long show. IT ended up being a blast even though no one was really killing. Hopefully it was productive and fun for everyone involved. I’d give this show a C-. 

Chris and I riffed up top and got basically nothing. I was in a bad mood and just trying to hold it together. Paige did ok, and so did LE. LE had a good story about her new house and there are definitely places she can go with it. Alex set was a ton of fun and so was Mu’s. Mu was super nervous but he ended up having a blast. It was Paula his gfs birthday so we wished her a happy bday and hopefully it was a good time for her. 

Nick had a good time and so did Rebecca. We got some good laughs out of their sets. Then Moe came up and his was the set of the night. We talked about his engagement and busted his balls. WE talked about his hip hop and I even played some over the speakers. Honesty this is why I love the show. Even when it is bad it is fun to do, We closed with Beswick and he had a good one too. Honestly this was as good as the show could have gone. I packed everything up and headed out to pass out. It was a super fun time, but I was officially done mentally and had started to feel super sick. I think my allergies were kicking my butt as well. I went to sleep and ended up calling out of work the next day because I couldn’t take it. 

4/15

The next day I enjoyed my day off from work. My allergies were killing me but I wanted to make sure I got to get a set in. So later that night I met some friends for dinner at Texas De Brazil to celebrate Jacob moving. Alex, Beswick, Jacob, Buhse, his gf, Braman, Nate Izquierdo, Clay Shoaf, and Francesca Lyn all came out. It was a super fun time, but I wasn’t feeling really great by the end of it. I then drove to Charlottesville for The Southern.

This is when I hit my low point. I don’t know why, but depression hit me hard on the ride up there. I got there and honestly talked to people for a bit, but I just wanted to head home. I grabbed my backpack and told Chris and Paige I might head home. I was not in a good headspace. 

I took some time to myself outside, and Brandon came out. We talked for a bit, but then everybody came outside and it made me feel super anxious. I headed back in and just decided toot really talk to people and just do my set. I was going up next to last so I had to sit through a lot of comedy. It was incredibly hard to be there, but I did it. I slowly started talking to people again, and tried to not let my poor mental state get to me. 

When it was finally my turn to go up I made myself do super new stuff. Stuff that I really wanted to try, and I had a very fun set. There are some good nuggets in there. The show was lightly attended but the audience was into it. I’d give this set a C+/B-

The only problem is I felt so bad that even doing well sucked. Like it didn’t feel great at all. This was a lot of personal/family stuff, mixed with mostly comedy/work stress, and feeling ill from my allergies all rolled into the worst night in a long time. 

After the show I got to talk to my friends about some serious stuff, and had several people reach out to me which made it so much better. Paige and I had a long talk about depression on the phone and honestly it made a world of difference. I am very happy I have friends like him and Chris and everyone I talked to that night. It meant the world and honestly after going through that I felt like I was on the right track to feeling good again. 

I know mental health will always be a work in progress, but with each and every day I truly feel like I am building to being a better person and in better control of my anxieties/depression/issues. So thanks again. I think writing about this stuff when it happens will allow me to be vulnerable and will help me process when my brain lies to me. I went home, passed out, and got ready to go back to work.

4/16

The next day at work wasn’t easy, but it was way better. I had a better attitude and simply talking to people about it, and taking a day to get better physically and mentally made a huge difference.

I immediately felt better about everything, and I loved seeing the kids at work even when they were upset or frustrated. I love these dudes, and that’s why I keep doing it. 

My show this day was in Arlington at Busboys and Poets at Shirlington. Allan Sidley runs this room and I was going to be doing about 8-10 minutes on it. I was happy he booked me. He had told me that this crowd is usually pretty PC so to bring some woke jokes I was nervous about this. I know I can work any crowd, but recently I had been wanting people to like me for the material I love, and not just the stuff I know will work for them. So I had to really think about my set. 

I get there and I was the first comic on the spot. I did some writing and just hung out for a while. The room started to fill out and it was going to be a nice diverse crowd (I’d say 60/40 white to black split, and about 50/50 men and women). They had sold 50+ tickets, and then they had some walkups which was nice. So the room was pretty full by the time the show started.

Allan got there and we chatted a bit. His mother was at the show, and he seemed pretty stoked about that. We had a nice talk and then the other comics showed up. Nathan Luft, Ralph Cooper, Blaire Postman, and Tommy Taylor Jr. This was a super dope lineup even though Nathan is the only person on the show I know pretty well.

Allan goes up and does a fine hosting set. He goes a little long, but he is just trying to crack this audience. After him is Nathan who had biked 7 miles to get there so he had to change in the bathroom into his show clothes. He goes up and does pretty well. He has to try to crack them too. They are getting looser, but they do seem to be pretty PC.

After him is Ralph Cooper and he starts super strong. He has some stuff about race that hits really hard and was cool to see. He had a couple of spots that dipped, but other than that he really had them with his race material. It was awesome. They seemed primed and ready.

Following him was Blaire Postman and I had never seen her before. She was super high energy and really connected with he female portion of the audience. Everyone enjoyed her, but she had some of the ladies dying. It was fun to watch. It had me excited. I wondered if I could follow this since I had decided to not go the super woke route, and just do my material. 

I go up and absolutely slaughter. It was a hot ass set. I was supposed to do like 10 and I never go the light so I did about 15. They loved everything I did. I didn’t have any dips, and the best part is IT FELT GOOD TO DO. It felt so good to really connect, and be through that mental shit I was dealing with. I felt like I belonged. After my set I said my goodbyes and headed home. It was a nice 2 hour drive, and I got to catch up with some friends on the phone on the way home. I loved it I’d give this set an A-/A. 

4/17

The next day I decide to go check out Clash of the Comics and possibly be one of the judges if they need one. Then afterwards is Home Sweet Home.

I get to clash and put my name in for Colby Knight who is coming from Lynchburg. He rode with Jake Snyder, and Alex Castagne came out to perform as well. I was told I could be the fourth judge but was asked if I was ok with one of the other people who was judging. I told them that if they were judging I’d rather not be involved. I’d still stay for the show, but I just wouldn’t want my name attached to it. That person was told and they decided to leave the venue and not to be a part of it. So I ended up getting to judge anyway. 

We were having a great hang before the show. Stella Naulo (a new female comic who is eager to learn/work) came out to support and there were plenty ion other comics on the show or just chilling like Big Scotty, Tank, Remo, Tony Harris, and then a bunch of new comics I’ve never seen before.

The judges were Brock Hall, Dylan Vattelana (who was also closing out) and myself. We get situated and fill out our scorecards and the show gets started.

It was kind of a weird crowd and the show did not start out hot. The first few comics were super new and did not do well at all. They couldn’t hook the audience and the presentation wasn’t there. The first really good set was Alex Castagne. He got the crowd and did his material. It all hit and he closed strong.

Big Scotty had a strong set as well. Then there were a few more bombs in there. Jayron had a hot one and Tony Harris also killed. It was actually some tough competition this month. The next few comics did pretty poorly and the crowd was ready to be done. We went to the back to add up the scores, and gave them to Liz.

She went on stage and announced the order. Jayron came in third, then Alex was second, and Tony Harris won. It was a crazy close vote. Good to see all of them do well, and that bodes well for clashes in the future. After the show I said goodbye and headed to Home Sweet Home.

I get to HSH and there is an actual crowd there which was amazing. There are new comics and they are actually doing well and a lot of my buddies are there chilling. Kusterer, McFadden, Stella, Jesse Jarvis, Danny Dunlea, Tom Hall, Liz Carr, Kate Carroll, and a bunch of others. 

I watch a few comics and get my set ready to go. When it is my turn I get brought up to a classic Jacob McFadden intro. “This next comic sometimes does this really offensive character and he pretends to work at a school for autism, but he really works at a WaWa.” So I went up and ran with it and went through my new stuff. Most of it worked. I got some good responses and made a solid impression. I felt good about this set. It was productive and I am feeling good again while on stage. I’d give it a B. 

I then went downstairs and just talked shop with everybody. We riffed new bits, busted balls, and just had a blast. It was a super fun night and I stayed until the end of the show. I needed a night like this. It is so good to be able to pull through this mental and physical shit. I am on my way to a better place and nights like tonight remind me of why I do this.

4/18

This is one of the nights I had been worried about for a while. I am closing out a show at Kindred Spirits. I need the stage time. I love the opportunity to do a longer set, and I like doing shows outside of the city. It is unpaid (we are benefitting St. Judes), and I don’t really know any of the other comedians on the show (other than Alida Harper). 

I invited Stella the previous night to come check it out. She was curious about crowd work and what it was like to work different rooms. I figured since there were no shows it could be a good opportunity to check it out. 

I got there pretty early and just kind of unwinded and relaxed. I could tell this was going to be a more country show with a bunch of white people. It was a super nice brewery out toward Goochland. The set up was great and although I don’t really drink the beers looked and sounded amazing. 

The show runner was this guy named Mike Ward. He used to do comedy in RVA a long time ago. Long before I started and he pursued it pretty hard. After that didn’t work out he got the opportunity to run a monthly benefit show here and decided to go for it. So he books some active comics and also a few of his friends who haven’t really done standup before. So I am very nervous about this show.

I meet the other comics who are super new and then Alida shows up. She is pretty nervous about this country suburban crowd and I am getting the vibe it is not going to be good.

The audience doesn’t even look like they are there for comedy because there is a dude playing sad music for an hour. A great musician, but not really setting the mood for comedy. Then St. Judes sets up a donation table which includes I giant vinyl poster of a bald child suffering from cancer. Which also does not bode well for comedy. 

Everybody on the show is super nice. It is an ok sized crowd. Apparently one month they had like 100+ people there, and this month it was closer to 30 to 40 which is ok. 

Stella shows up to check out the show and her and Alida hang out while we wait for it to get going. The dude who is in charge fo the St. Judes thing gets on stage to start and he just talks about the charity, and raising money. He then proceeds to get an audience member on stage and shows people how to get donations. He asks the dude if he likes kids. The guy says yes. He then asks if the guy likes cancer. The guy says no, He then asked for 1000 dollars. The guy said no. Then he tells them, “Oh so it sounds like you hate kids and LOVE CANCER,” It was one of the cringes things I have ever seen in my life and a bad way to get donations. 

Then Mike goes up and does about 20 minutes, but the first few he is talking about he charity some more. So the comedy show had been going on for 10 minutes and it had all been about kids with cancer. 

The comics each went up and a few did ok. A dude who did comedy with Mike from year before went up first and he did alright. Then a guy who was brand new went up and did about 30 minutes. He told stories, and it was not good at all. He had an audience member be a plant, and that bit didn’t work at all. Then this other newer guy Kent went up and he had a fine set. Half of his stuff worked, but no one was really destroying.

Some people had started to leave, and the rest of the audience seemed restless. Every time someone mentioned people not donating the St. Jude’s guy would just scream they were “MONSTERS”. It was getting ridiculous. There was also a dude who brought his two kids with him. He also clapped when a comic said, “we all know a c**t”. 

Alida is nervous but she goes up and has a fine set. She is definitely the best so far. She had their attention and got some actual good pops on her material which was nice to see. She responded to a few hecklers and got some good lines in. It was a successful set, and fun to watch.

Then it was my turn. By this point I have my set ready, but I know I am just going to do crowd work. I go up and I just start working them over. I talk shit about how I’m not getting paid, and how no one has donated. The guy yells monster and I shit on him. I talk about how everyone should donate but not the way that dude said to donate. If you do what he did people are just going to wish you have cancer. This was risky but got a huge laugh.

I am having an awesome set. I talk to the guy who brought his kids and wife and talk about him being dad of the year, and shitting on him. It kills as well. I start working the front two tables, and they love it too. There were a couple of dudes in the front I talked to like they were a couple and they ate it up. I made fun of a lady who was a marketer and asked her to do marketing for this show so people would show up. Turns out she did, and she was embarrassed. So that was great. I also went in on the guy who did comedy for the first time and ran the light by 30 minutes. 

My set went on for about 20 minutes and I closed with one joke. I was proud of this set and I’d give it an A-. I got paid in beer that I will just end up giving to a friend, and I got some follower on IG and I got people to donate money so that felt dope.

After the show I got to meet a bunch of people, and got a lot of compliments. I got to give out some business cards, and got to kind of unwind after my set (I worked my ass off and was sweating by the time it was done). I then said goodbye and got to talk comedy for a while after the show with Stella. Her head is in the right place and she wants to work hard. I love when new comics are at least determined to get better. I then headed home and passed out. I have to go to DC the next day and I’m nervous as always. 

CAUGHT UP AGAIN LAYDEES! Nothing can stop me. Not even my. weird feelings. I am through it now and will be fighting everyday. You are all the best laydees and baybees a guy could ask for. xoxoxo until next time sweeties!!!!

[lunchtops]

Pairing: Viktuuri (Viktor/Yuuri, Yuri!!! on Ice) Rating: G Warnings: None Summary: Yuuri gives Viktor exactly what he wants, for his birthday.

I wrote this for @duesterkitsch for the @yoisecretsanta18 exchange! Merry Christmas, and happy birthday, Viktor!

If you would rather read on tumblr....

Viktor meant it, when he said he didn’t care to celebrate his birthday. There really wasn’t a deep reason behind it; there was no tragic backstory, no birthday or Christmas-related trauma that had soured him to the whole experience. Quite the opposite - some of his best childhood memories were of birthday parties, before his skating career effectively served most of his schoolyard friendships, and aging grandparents became too old to visit him. His first pair of ice skates had been a birthday present. His beloved dog, Makkachin, had also been a birthday/Christmas present. If anything, his reason for not wanting to celebrate was actually quite boring:

He could never justify wasting time on something like that.

Between choreographing his own routines, choreographing routines for his fellow skaters, fitness training, practice, coaching Yuuri (and all of the unique challenges that entailed), and now planning an impending wedding, it was harder than ever to make time for anything else , let alone a completely frivolous party. Growing older wasn’t an accomplishment, it wasn’t something Viktor had to work for, or even did of his own free will. It was something that everyone did, and he wasn’t special or different because of it. If he was going to set aside time from his responsibilities and career to do anything, he’d prefer to take a nap. Or at the very least, spend that time relaxing with his dog and his fiance.

Unfortunately, despite expressing that preference, very explicitly, multiple times , Yuuri was planning something. Exactly what that something was, Viktor had no idea; Yuuri denied the fact that he was scheming, when Viktor confronted him. But the (admittedly, very adorable) pink flush that spread across his cheeks, and the way he avoided looking Viktor in the eye whenever the subject came up, gave him away more than words ever could.

Yuuri was up to something.

Viktor’s chest felt heavy with dread.

Maybe it was a bit unfortunate, that Viktor, of all the people on earth, was part of the minority who didn’t care to celebrate his birthday. Having a Christmas birthday meant that, if someone - a very cute, thoughtful, but misguided someone - wanted to plan a party, there was very little on his schedule to clear. His personal trainer took the day off, most of his fellow skaters were long gone on trips to see their own families, and even if they weren’t, the rink was closed. Even Yakov insisted on taking a half-day for himself; after their typical morning routine, he was completely free of commitments, without so much as a happy birthday mumbled in Viktor’s direction.

Because he’s planning to tell me later, at the party, Viktor thought. It was all so transparent! He didn’t know how Yuuri expected him not to find out!

Even his ploy to get Viktor out of the house was so obvious. Makka’s so wound up, from being cooped up all day. Take her for a nice, long walk, I’ll try to have dinner going by the time you get back.

Viktor, for the first time since Yuuri had come to live with him, didn’t want to go home. He stared at the doorknob for a solid minute before he opened it, steeling himself for the loud, boisterous Happy Birthday! that was sure to greet him-

But when Viktor opened the door, all was quiet. The apartment was almost exactly as he left it. Viktor glanced around the room, not believing his own eyes; no friends, no family, no decorations or gifts or cake. Just Yuuri, two bowls of some sort of soup, a large loaf of bread, and a few blankets neatly folded on the couch.

“Yuuri, what’s all this?”

“It’s your birthday present.”

“Yuuri, I don’t understand.” Viktor could feel his heart pounding in his ears. Could it be… No, it was only a matter of seconds before the rest of the guests jumped out of their hiding spots to surprise him, causing him to jump out of his pants with fright. And then he would have to spend his evening smiling and laughing, socializing even though all he really wanted was to sit down, eat some of that soup, and maybe even go to bed early for a change.

But they never did. No one jumped out, no one shouted, Happy birthday, Viktor! Nothing, silence.

“The present is…?”

“Nothing.” Yuuri replied simply, arms crossed over his chest, proud as a peacock. “I asked you what you wanted to do, to celebrate your birthday, and you said, nothing . So, that’s what we’re going to do.”

“Nothing,” Viktor repeated. That unbearably heavy feeling, the one that might as well have been a dumbbell sitting on his chest, evaporated instantly.

Yuuri nodded, his expression smug. “Absolutely nothing.”

“I don’t know if I know how to do nothing,” Viktor laughed at his own confession, his smile growing wider. Maybe that was an odd thing, but the more he thought about it… He couldn’t remember the last time that he had absolutely nothing to do.

The revelation seemed to shake Yuuri, though. His own cocky smile faded, and suddenly, he looked stumped. “... I’m not sure if I do, either.”

“Well, I’m sure that between the two of us, we can figure something out.” Viktor reached for Yuuri’s hand, bringing it to his lips to kiss that warm, gold band nestled snugly around his fiance’s fingers. “I, for one, think we should start with that soup.”

“Alright.” Viktor wondered, if Yuuri guiding him to the sofa, was something of an extension of his promised evening of doing nothing; Viktor didn’t have to decide what they were eating, or where. He could just go along with whatever Yuuri had in mind. “It’s nothing special, I just used what we had in the fridge, but- Well, it fits tonight’s theme, doesn’t it?”

“I’m sure it will be delicious, my Yuuri.” Viktor settled into his spot on the sofa, wrapping his favorite blanket around his shoulders. It was soft, thick but not too stifling. He and Yuuri usually bickered playfully over who would get to use it, but Yuuri didn’t even try for it this time, settling for the red and yellow quilt instead.

Viktor carefully picked up his bowl of soup, making a small show of smelling it before he took his first bite. The broth wasn’t quite hot enough to burn his mouth, and the large chunks of vegetables and beef were all so tender that they fell apart in his mouth.

He tapped his spoon against his lips thoughtfully. “Ah, but maybe some salt?”

Yuuri got up to fetch him the salt. And the pepper, too, a few minutes later, when the soup was still just a bit too bland. He refilled Viktor’s water for him, and got him a glass of wine, when he suggested that, maybe, tonight would be a good night to open up that bottle they’d been saving for a special day (which, subsequently, had been sitting on the counter, forgotten and gathering dust for months now). He even agreed to Viktor’s first choice in entertainment for the evening, despite the fact that Yuuri didn’t seem to care much for Russian soap operas. Even with subtitles, he had a hard time keeping up the plots and subplots.

In Yuuri’s defense, this particular serial was about five redheaded women who all had names that began with the letter A . Not exactly the easiest story to follow. Half of the time Viktor wasn’t sure which woman was which, but for him, that was always part of the fun.

Viktor wouldn’t have minded, if Yuuri had objected. He was only half paying attention to the show, himself. As exciting as the drama between Anastasia and her ex-lover (and, according to another jealous ex, distant cousin) Aada was, Viktor had something far more entertaining in his living room.

Their living room, he mentally corrected, looking down at the man curled up next to him. Yuuri’s hair was short now - cut just a little too short at his last appointment, which he claimed not to care about, but Viktor had caught him looking at it in the mirror with a melancholy expression multiple times - but somehow managed to look just as ruffled as it did when he wore it longer. This close, Viktor could see the fingerprint smudges on his glasses, and a few stubborn blackheads on his nose that, despite his coach’s best efforts, still refused to go away. His brows were furrowed, his mouth turned down in a frown, as he focused on the drama playing out on the screen in front of them. His lips were pressed into such a thin line, that Viktor could barely make out their usual shade of pink.

He was the most exquisite thing Viktor had ever seen.

He loved Yuuri so much that, sometimes, his entire body ached with the intensity of it all. Sometimes his chest felt so full of affection that Viktor worried it might burst open. Sometimes it felt like his heart was doing quad flips in his chest, over and over again. Every day with Yuuri was a new surprise, a new adventure. Even just sitting together, like this, doing absolutely nothing at all, was more satisfying than any extravagant date with any other person had ever been.

Which, he tried not to think about too much. That wasn’t a particularly pleasant mental image.

Viktor leaned around, the angle a bit awkward, but he wasn’t going to let anything stop him from kissing away the wrinkle between Yuuri’s eyebrows. “Don’t think about it too hard, my Yuuri. It’s supposed to be for fun.”

“It just doesn’t make any sense!” Yuuri extended his arms towards the TV in exasperation. “Anna and Anastasia have been rivals since the first season. Why wouldn’t Anastasia be suspicious of her motives? She’s just going to believe what this guy’s saying?”

Viktor frowned. Wait, what? “What does Anna have to do with this? She’s still vacationing in Italy.”

Yuuri shook his head, “Pretty sure she’s the one who just introduced this long-lost uncle. Not that he really is anyone’s uncle, I don’t know why anyone is buying that, it’s so obvious that he’s just there to mess everything up and steal their money, like everyone else on this show.”

“Yuuri, that’s not Anna.”

“It’s not?”

“No, that’s Catherine.”

Yuuri’s eyebrow twitched. “Who the hell is Catherine? That name doesn’t even start with the letter A-”

“My love,” Viktor couldn’t help laughing. It was so like Yuuri, to get so invested in a television show. “Like I said, you’re thinking too much about all of this.”

Yuuri groaned, slumping against Viktor. His weight felt warm and comfortable, and Viktor wrapped his arms around him without so much as a second thought. Being with Yuuri was always so natural, so easy - well, maybe it wasn’t always easy , but even when it wasn’t, knowing that, at the end of the day, he wanted to be with Yuuri, and Yuuri wanted to be with him…

It made everything else easier. It made everything else less stressful. That gold ring on his finger meant that, no matter what, Viktor had something. Someone . And having someone, having Yuuri , filled a void that his career and all of the money in the world could never hope to fill.

Viktor chuckled at himself; that little moral was a bit on the nose for Christmas time. How unlike him, to be so predictable…

He reached for the remote, flipping the power button. He could order the series on DVD, if Yuuri really wanted to finish the story. But today was his day, and Viktor had had his fill of Anna and Catherine and all the rest of them. “Come on, my Yuuri, let’s just go to bed.”