#but i hate this chapter's pacing

[vibinwitch]

Maaaan I spent 2 months writing chapter 7 of Thanks for Listening and I hate it

Up til now I've been writing from Angel's perspective. His family issues with his Brother (who I just gave a random name to), his bond with his twin sister Molly, a very loose approximation of a half closeted experience in a generally accepting modern world

It has a lot of obvious things I miss doing as a result of starting it just before COVID. To the point that I had fully intended to write each individual day of the horror convention like??? UGH

I hate writing Slow Burns SO MUCH! IM SO IMPATIENT and I really miss going to conventions but I don't wanna write 3 days of convention from Anthony's perspective anymore and I might delete everything I wrote for chapter 7 and switch to Alastor's perspective instead

[dizzybizz]

some haikyuus

[tonguetiedraven]

Yukio and Saburota Todou, an Ongoing Drama

Part Five of my Critically Reading Yukio series. Good news! You can now read the other four parts (and this fifth part!) On ao3! Check it out here. I highly recommend reading them all in order if you haven't. I'm going over the full series and start from chapter two, because there is a lot it's easy to miss or misinterpret Yukio's actions.

(The excitement I feel at not having to hunt down and link all those tumblr parts xD)

Part four covered Yukio's reaction to the trial and started on Yukio's relationship with True Cross itself, manipulative and abusive organization that it is.

We closed off with a scene of Yukio talking with Shura in chapter 15, wherein he discovered that Shura had realized Mephisto was plotting and had helped him reveal Rin so that Rin could use his flames publicly.

We're picking up right where we left off with Shura commenting that she's worried about Yukio. That he's the one that represses his emotions and that people who do that easily succumb to demons.

This is never particularly well explained in the anime, so I'll take a moment to expand on that point. This point.

Exorcist work requires you to face and confront a lot of demons. That's obvious, but it also means that you are interacting with a lot of demons and demons are manipulative and feed off emotions to at least some extent, and they exploit stress, resentment, and anger.

If you are a person who is highly stressed, exhausted, emotionally ungrounded, and pessimistic, you are not going to be well suited to the high volume of demonic interaction that exorcism requires. (You're not going to be well suited to a lot of things. Mental health is far harder to maintain when you are exhausted, stressed, and not living healthily.)

Rin is a character who looks on the bright side of life (yes I'm singing that and if you did too, kudos! That song really applies, funnily enough.)

He isn't too emotionally burdened by his negative emotions or the bad things that has happened. They're essentially out of sight and out of mind for him most of the time. He's coming to terms with everything that happened and keeps his chin up. He doesn't repress most of his emotions, and he's quick to look on the bright side, often unrealistically. And to be a good exorcist, he needs to.

Rin is not the smartest in our cast of characters (he's in the lowest class of our main group) but he's also one of the harder to manipulate because of those facts. He doesn't fall too easily to the alluring words and manipulations of his enemies. He believes in his friends and he believes in trying his hardest. He might not (likely won't) get what the bigger strategies are or understand all the layers of what's going on with the Demon Kings and Assiah and Gehenna, but he's dependable and grounded.

That is, he is until the current arc. I'm writing this when chapter 156 is the latest chapter, and at this point, Rin is repressing his emotions and it's worrying.

Yukio on the other hand... Yukio, for about half of the manga, is fairly healthy and not exactly rested, but he doesn't give off the appearance of exhaustion. He is also very much repressing his emotions. He doesn't let himself mourn his father or really feel his anger about all the things that have gone wrong and the ways he's been wronged and required to do so much. He does not want to be the emotional and weak cry baby he once was, so he tries to go as hard in the opposite direction as he can, and it will lead to problems.

Also bear the above in mind for any character. Fighting demons and being an exorcist when you're emotionally and physically compromised leads to problems. This will ring true for more than just Yukio.

Moving on! This moment in chapter 15.

Yukio basically shrugs Shura's warning off. Entirely understandable as he doesn't respect her and she doesn't respect him and she hasn't given him a reason thus far to take any advice or wisdom she might be offering. She is not, thus far, a safe place or person for him.

She encourages him to be honest with her (meaning to release his pent up frustrations and grief and anger over all the bullshit of the last months, honestly the last eight years since he got pulled into all this exorcism nonsense) so Yukio roasts her. This was probably because it felt good, and it distracted from the conversation they'd been having.

Rin watches from his candles and gets frustrated that he could barely hit one or two and they're talking and joking and messing with each other, and neither one of them have still missed a single target on the highest level.

He looses hold of his flames with his frustrations.

And obviously that doesn't go over well, even when Rin tries to put it off as him finally managing his flames somewhat because he didn't burn them or their underwear! Progress!

Obviously that doesn't go over. Also, that's pair two of Yukio's glasses gone. Both have been destroyed by Rin at this point, but there will be some other causes.

Now we get a little reveal that Shura was trying to help him loosen up and it sort of works. He got to relieve a bit of stress with the practice and probably with telling her that he doesn't like her.

The chapter ends with them getting an assignment and taking Rin's clothes to leave the training area.

Chapter 16 opens with a scene of a kid getting abducted by some weird gas masked figure and the trio appearing at North True Cross which s the poor part of True Cross. It is a BIG town. Not just the Academy.

Yukio's vibe through this entire opening is tired and frustrated baby sitter. He is frowning through this entire interaction.

Shura is complaining and also giving off tired vibes, and Rin is almost feral with his excitement and not matching the general vibe of the others, lol.

We are pausing real quick for this panel

Because that trembling guy in the lower right corner is an important part of this story, and quite frankly, it isn't only Yukio he manipulates (or tries to manipulate) it is, dear reader, you too.

Saburota Todou. An officer for True Cross who is Warden of the Deep Keep. Those are basically the vaults. All the items we don't talk about and don't know about are contained/hidden there. Dangerous things. Things like the Left Eye of the Impure King.

I will tell you now, this man is a liar. As a liar, we have to be careful of everything he says. There are a lot of manipulative and lying individuals in this manga, and he is a big one. They will all seldom tell the entire truth and they will all seldom tell an entire lie. They like to mix them. It makes both harder to tell apart.

Long story short: someone stole the eye, they (exorcists) pursued the masked person who abducted a kid as a shield. He then knocked a lot of the exorcists and civilians down and out with the infectious miasma in the eye. No one knows how the masked man got in the super secret and protected part of the Tokyo branch.

We will before much longer.

Todou tells us this story and he is laying it on thick. He is trembling and stuttering and acting terrified. To the point that Yukio is wondering if he's fit to be in charge. Silently, and to himself, but he's already on alert.

Yukio starts to suggest he and Shura handle the masked man. They're interrupted by the nervous mom before they can, and she begs them to save her boy. Rin hastily say yeah, he promises that they'll rescue him. Yukio immediately grabs him and shoves his way forward to correct Rin.

He clarifies that they can't promise to save the boy and that she should brace herself for the worse.

Now I'm not here to say which is the right answer. I think there was a middle ground. Regardless, Yukio clarifies his reasoning a second later here.

Now this is an important moment to pause on, not so much for the argument itself because they're both right to an extent, but because it happens right in front of Todou. He sees Yukio struggling to corral Rin and sees Yukio visibly agitated by Rin's words.

And I have to point out that Rin called Yukio a wimp. Over and over again the core fear Yukio has of being the weak cry baby again is poked at by Rin. Yes, Rin likely doesn't know that it is a deep fear of Yukio's, but not knowing about a fear doesn't mean you don't hurt or aggravate the frightened. No more than Yukio not knowing about Rin's lingering guilt of Shirou's death gives him a pass for making it worse in their chapter 2 argument.

Neither brother is communicating clearly with the other. They're both stubborn and they're both bringing good points forward, but they cannot and will not listen to each other.

Todou sees and Todous schemes.

They all start heading down to find the kid and the villain who stole the eye, and Rin is (supposedly) left up top with Shura who is honestly just the worst babysitter. She loses sight of Rin pretty much any time he's in her grasp.

The group small talks and it is just instantly loaded small talk.

Look at the way Todou pokes at Yukio. It's subtle and well done. It's an insult while making it sound like he's complimenting Yukio. You're troubled he says, even though we, the reader, should at this point know that Rin is the one with the troubled background by most standards. Yukio has exceled at his exorcism work and his academic work and is currently popular among his fellow students.

The 'troubled background' can really only be a reference to being the child of Satan. Thus far, Todou is the only person we the reader has seen really talk about Yukio being the child of Satan.

Secondly, he also points out that Yukio is young, and we've already seen that Yukio really dislikes being called young and reminded that he is in fact young.

Kato is wasting no real-estate insetting up tension between these characters.

Yukio returns the observation with his own, and with a subtle side eye. He tells us a small bit about Todou's family, a tit for tat if you will.

Rin shows up at this point and Yukio gets, understandably, mad. Rin is a wild card to have around on a mission. He still doesn't listen to orders and he's already made it clear that he thinks Yukio's goals (retrieving the eye to prevent it from being used dangerously) is the wrong goal and their goal should be the child.

The bird is playing the role of canary in a coal mine. It sings and if it stops singing you've found the misama source. (If a canary stops singing in a coal mine, it's come across some dangerous gas and you need to get out. The birds are early warning signs of danger and basically sacrifices.)

I am dismayed to say I don't think this birdy makes it. They disappear part way through and I think it got left behind ;-;

Yukio lets him hold the bird and by all accounts, they immediately run into the masked guy. The masked guy that one shot from Yukio disintegrates. Yukio confirms that the eye is a fake and this entire thing was a decoy, and Todou choses that moment to reveal himself by kicking Yukio in the back.

He's fallen. He's been corrupted. He's the betrayer and the reason the eye was stolen. He's been pretending to be a coward.

Rin grabs the kid and runs, Toudou sends miasma and a shadowy thing at Rin, Rin flames up, and it makes the miasma on the kid grow dramatically.

Yukio can't respond to that or Rin being attacked because Toudou immediately goes hard after him.

And Todou does not stop talking and he will not stop talking anytime he gets around Yukio from now on.

A lot of readers take everything he says as an accurate assessment of Yukio's thoughts and feelings. It's not questioned and it's believed, even though Yukio himself will voice his own thoughts and opinions on Toudou's words and clarify what is actually happening.

I encourage you, reader, to take everything he says with some salt. He's manipulative, and he's talking a lot about himself and putting his thoughts, emotions, and motivations on Yukio.

This. This is what I find people most tend to put on Yukio.

"I decided to recognize my true feelings. I came to hate my family, this organization, and the world!"

As we go through this, we need to be careful who we're listening to. Yukio will spend the next several arcs working through different parts of this and the upcoming statement, but it will never ring quite true. It does not capture who Yukio is or what his motivations and emotions are. (Whenever he stops suppressing them.) He is not Todou. He did not murder his family and try to write it off as enlightenment. He did not steal a valuable and dangerous artifact that caused the death of tens of thousands of people and will go on to cause mass amounts of illness and steal an immensely powerful demon and force it into subjugation.

He is not weak and he was seduced by a demon or the 'light.' And Yukio didn't do all that in front of his daughter and then bring her into a cult.

He lets Yukio up with this statement.

Again, yes and no.

I think we need to pause and reflect on Yukio's relationship with Shirou, complicated and half understood thing that it is. To do that we're going into the past and we're going into it far into the manga future, lol. We're going into chapter 120.

Chapter 120 is post blue night but while Rin is still viewing the past. It takes place shortly before he catches up to the live time. Right before the manga itself started.

It gives us a really important piece of information, and gives us more of a peek into just why Yukio answered the way he did to Shura's earlier question about what makes a good exorcist.

This scene starts with Rin mouthing off and walking off, leaving Shirou annoyed but also hopeful because Rin does make breakfast.

So first and very importantly, "You can hear him?"

Yukio knows that Satan is still around and still attached in some way to Shirou. He knows it's getting bad. So when he told Rin that he knew Satan couldn't get Shirou without Shirou's heart being broken, it was because of this. We don't know how long he's known, but the scene makes it feel like it has been a while.

We see Yukio talking to his father in an adult way, and he's being treated like the kid he still is, mostly dismissed and not made the confident he longs to be. His fears are dismissed and he's told not to worry as Shirou makes it a joke. Shirou doesn't want him to worry because Shirou knows his time is running out and that he's leaving these kids in such a dangerous situation.

Yukio wants to be treated as a capable and professional exorcist. He was raised to be one since he was seven, and he has spent more of his life striving for that goal than not. He is often treated as one when it's convenient -- like when there's a task to be done or a class to watch -- but seldom treated as one when it comes to be trusted with information or with the help he wants to give.

It's a double standard, and over and over again we see that he can never quite escape the perception of being weak and a crybaby to those he most cares about.

I have no doubt that this sort of moment and every moment of trying and failing to get Rin to listen or be cautious for the last months flashes through Yukio's mind as Todou is talking here.

Yukio is visibly shaken, but I don't think it's entirely the accusation that he hates his family. I think more of what he's distraught about is that he didn't anticipate it.

He was caught off guard and up to this point, we've only seen that really happen once. With Neuhaus. Outside of that, frustrated or not, Yukio isn't really taken off guard.

(I'll add in an honorary mention of Rin using his head with Kuro too. xD)

He was caught of guard and compromised, and tricked. Yukio cannot ever afford to be tricked.

Now we the current readers realize this is just blatantly about the Illuminati. Readers at this time didn't. Yukio...

I could see him knowing something about the Illuminati, especially with all the ways Shirou was tied into that from Section Thirteen and the Blue Night, but I also easily see him not knowing it's the Illuminati. I don't think we get too clear an answer either way.

Regardless,

Todou absolutely accomplished his goal.

Yukio is panicked, shaking, upset,

Hearing Todou's words echoing in his head. Do note that Yukio himself is not saying these.

(I also need to point out that he's seeing them smiling and happy while he's scared and crying. Give the boy a hug.)

And it seems to me that this moment

Was learned directly from Shirou. When you are out of control of yourself and your emotions, when you fear succumbing to a demon, harm yourself. Demons cannot stay in those vessels.

He defies the words and defies the emotions, and he defies the meaning in them.

And the job is finished, and it's Yukio bringing the child back to his mother. Not Rin. Rin watches as Yukio takes care of the miasma that his flames worsened.

Rin is visibly mad. He was yelled at during this mission, not entirely deservingly, but the frustrated anger in his gaze feels misplaced with everything that just transpired.

What Rin does not (and honestly will not for most of this manga) see is that Yukio is the commanding officer here. He is the higher rank. He has the right and expectation to give orders and have them followed.

Rin does not have control of his flames -- last chapter had him spending a large portion of it just practicing lighting candles -- and that lack of control and understanding resulted in the miasma worsening.

Rin also does not like to be told what to do and really does not like it being Yukio telling him what to do.

Yukio on the other side of that hates being undermined and not being listened to. At this point, these two don't work ideally together on missions, and it is heightening both their frustrations and their fears and inadequacies. They creating friction and they both have a lot of things unresolved.

This happens mere days after the forest. Neither of them have had a chance to deal with or talk about that (not that we've seen) and they never dealt with any of the Shirou or Rin awakening stuff either. They continue to put off conversations and it results in issues with both of them.

Mephisto, as always, chooses that tense moment to appear. King of Time and Space has the best flare for drama.

I'm skipping most of this conversation because I've assumed everyone reading this knows the overall story. Suffice to say it tells us that the Eye was stolen.

Yukio is given the job to get it. Rin is getting more and more tense through this scene, and they're given one hour to get ready. Yukio leaves with Mephisto, or tries to. He's stopped by Rin.

We're going to most set aside how bizarrely out of line Rin's motivations are here for the task they just had (the implication of 'I'll surpass you' makes all this out to be some kind of contest, extra bizarre when Rin was just the one that pointed out that they should be helping people, but now instead of celebrating the child being saved he's wanting to beat Yukio, and I think we as a fandom need to acknowledge and look more closely at those often passed over and contradicting parts of Rin because it makes him far more interesting and human.)

Instead, I want to look at what this does to Yukio.

At this point, he has far surpassed Rin in most tangible ways. He has a better academic record, a higher rank, more respect among most of their coworkers, and he was the one that finished the mission and aided the child.

But mere moments ago he had felt himself panic and fail the impossible standards he holds himself at. He did not view himself as the winning party in that entire thing.

But Rin did, and Rin is made about it and wanting to beat Yukio.

Yukio...

Grins as he feels settled (at least somewhat) in himself again. Is he suppressing things? You betcha.

I am, unfortunately at my image limit (again) so we're going to end this part here. Todou will be back, and the ensuing drama from that will be much worse.

For now, I leave you with these two brothers who are not communicating efficiently and both about to be in danger of having their heart be weak.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2025: METAL FROM HEAVEN by August Clarke.

This is pitched as For Fans Of GIDEON THE NINTH (by which they mean: ow, and messy lesbians, with a side of immersive worldbuilding) and THE PRINCESS BRIDE (by which they mean: Inigo Montoya and Fantasy Politics). Personally, I would also comp it to ARCANE, for the aesthetics and Loadbearing Mysterious Malleable Resource and class warfare and explicit sex scenes lol.

The titular metal from heaven is ichorite, a weird and versatile substance that's kicking off an industrial revolution. The book opens with the brutal strikebreaking massacre that sets young Marney (our hella dyke--sorry, crawly--MC) on her quest for revenge: She's going to kill the foundry owner who had her entire family of striking workers gunned down. She gets adopted by crawly bandits and becomes a notorious highwayman and prepares for her revenge (because we hate capitalism in this house, and we're working for our Hereafter beyond it).

I loved the prose, I loved the POV fuckery, I loved the worldbuilding and religions and names and community and colors and aesthetics and the ichorite weirdness. I loved the exploration of gender and of grief, of revolutions and of cycles of violence. As soon as I finished, I immediately reread the first paragraph, and holy shit it broke my brain a little (affectionate, astounded).

If you're looking for a messy, raw, tragic, brutal struggle with grief and takedown of capitalism, this might be the book for you--it's definitely not for everybody, but it sure was for me!

[corellianhounds]

My Brother’s Keeper

TBB Body Swap AU

Chapter 4 — Complications II

Words: 1.6k

Warnings: None

Summary: Things never go the way they’re planned.

“Wrecker for the last time, stop trying to dig it up, it’s not going anywhere.”

“Says you. Come give me a hand here, I need the muscle.”

Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose, joining Wrecker where he was straining to lift the outer ring on the ground by the one divot he’d been able to make in the stone with his knife. Hunter didn’t know how deep the rings ran but so far Wrecker was the only one who’d made any progress. There were no handholds or notches to tease the idea of a solution, and eventually Hunter had to stand back up and stretch his back.

Wandering around the temple and scanning the walls with his flashlight, Hunter again took stock of his team.

Echo was in control of himself, which (as much as Hunter felt guilty to think of it like this) was an improvement for Echo. He wasn’t having to adapt to anything he didn’t know, and he had more experience and could help the rest of the squad keep a level head.

That being said, he could see Echo’s irritated expression drifting back to where Wrecker was grating his knife against stone, so maybe Hunter’s senses would take some getting used to. Hunter had long since tempered his reflexive irritation at annoying or persistent background noises, of which Wrecker was rarely in short supply. So much of Hunter’s training had involved figuring out how to tone out extraneous information and by now it was second nature for him to be able to tell which sounds or scents or visuals weren’t pertinent to his assessment of a situation, but that had taken training. He made a mental note to adjust the audio settings on his helmet to help block some of the input for Echo.

Wrecker seemed relatively unbothered once the initial shock wore off. He was understandably frustrated at the change in physicality, but he of all of them rolled with the punches best. Tech was still largely built like a standard clone and could shoulder more weight than the average person, but he was more lean and compact compared to the rest of them. It made him fast and evasive in the field, but his fighting style was patently different from Wrecker’s battering ram approach. Hunter was more worried Wrecker’s tendency to bulldoze through multiple opponents and leap onto or into the fray was going to get Tech’s body trampled. Wrecker had always pushed himself to find what eventual limits and thresholds would restrict him, and his personality was one geared towards learning from experience and experimentation. He’d always operated on empirical knowledge, and if that meant charging headlong into danger, so be it.

On the plus side though, Hunter figured he’d only make that mistake once while he was stuck as Tech before realizing he was no longer nigh-invincible. Wrecker may be foolhardy, but he wasn’t stupid.

Tech, though familiar with Echo’s disabilities and prostheses, was still having to make constant micro-adjustments to how he worked. He couldn’t hold his datapad and type at the same time, and the pressure sensors in each of his limbs relayed the sensation differently than organic limbs, enough to the point Tech had had to make a focused effort to steady himself on his feet and work through the change in balance and mobility. He didn’t begrudge anybody for his luck of the draw; he could still move and shoot, and he had plenty of tools still at his disposal, and Hunter knew he’d also be able to keep track of what Echo’s body would need at any given time.

What did concern him though was Tech’s earlier revelation at not being able to recall information the same way as before. He’d gone very still and quiet in the middle of a thought, prompting a sense of unease to worm its way under Hunter’s skin; Tech’s hesitance as he voiced his theory was incredibly out of character and it worried him to even theorize that switching consciousness wasn’t a clean lateral move; what parts of their minds were they unable to take with them because they were tied to their actual bodies, and how would that affect each of them moving forward? How much, if any, would be lost or seep into them the longer they were in somebody else’s head?

And then when it came to Crosshair and Omega…

Hunter didn’t even know where to start with them. There were issues of both age and physiology at play, to say nothing of their respective personalities and skill sets. Any problems either of them had would have to be handled delicately, and thinking about it made him supremely uncomfortable.

If they could just solve whatever puzzle this was and reverse the effects of the switch, he wouldn’t have to deal with any further complications.

Hunter sighed, aimlessly scanning for anything he might have missed. Wrecker had moved on to another ring trying the same thing he had before in chiseling out a larger gap in the cut stone. Hunter jammed one of the pry bars into the first crevice Wrecker had asked him for help with, forcing it down into the ground, but when he leveraged his weight against it he heard a *k-chunk*.

Everybody froze at the mechanical reverberation, silence filling the cavern as they came to a standstill. Wrecker stared at Hunter. Hunter stared at the crevice.

“Uh, Sarge…?”

The ground shook. Hunter’s stomach dropped.

The earth shuddered again, fissures lancing through stone. Hunter stumbled back and Wrecker darted over the colliding floor plates to the outside rings. The floor cracked and began to shear against itself like waves. Stalactites trembled above them. Their eyes widened and the groaning, trembling cavern started to shake in earnest, the cacophonous sound of stone on stone forcing all of them into action.

Hunter barked orders over the din as they grabbed their gear and booked it for the exit. He saw Omega stumble and pulled her out of the way as a stalactite shattered on impact with the ground and sent rocks flying outward in a spray of dust. The rest of the squad was yelling and clamoring for the outer hall, and he scooped her up as he ran, one arm shielding her head from the falling rocks.

Five sets of boots pounded against sandstone as the outer temple walls collapsed behind them. Echo was in the lead, but when he turned right at the first junction he skidded to a halt, Tech and Wrecker colliding with his back as they all hit the dead end.

“What are you doin’—?!” Wrecker yelled.

“This was the turn to get out!” Echo hollered back, swiftly turning and looking wildly around before racing the opposite direction. The earthquake shuddered through the temple again, more fissures slivering between their footfalls and catching up to them. “Other parts of the temple must have changed while we were unconscious!”

The crew raced onward, hitting two more dead ends and an unfamiliar stairway. Echo and Tech argued as they ran, Wrecker yelling at every close call with falling rocks, and when they reached a blocked fork in the tunnels Wrecker reflexively tried with all his might to lift the boulders out of the way, but to no avail.

Hunter raced to keep up, ducking beneath another column that fell and bridged itself overhead. Despite the danger, something nagged at the back of his mind. The temple, the torches, the runes, the rings…

Hunter’s eyes widened. He shouted up to the rest of the men, getting their attention.

“Echo! About-face! One-eighty for each turn we made coming in!”

The squad hesitated but Hunter was already backtracking the way they came and they scrambled to catch up. The temple structure groaned again, crashing walls and columns raining down around them. Hunter wracked his brain for the path they took on the way in, muttering to himself as he took each turn opposite of what they should have been for the way out. He saw a leftward tunnel that split off into two more and he banked right, adjusting his grip on Omega as he rounded the corner and felt a wave of relief when he saw light up ahead.

All of the clones broke from the mouth of the cave system into warm daylight, a shuddering crash of dust and stone bringing up the back of their party. Hunter kept running a good forty paces through the scrub brush before turning back, relieved to see all of his team catching up to him.

“Let go of me,” Omega growled, shoving fruitlessly at him and wriggling out of his grip, falling to the ground and out of reach. She stumbled away spitting curses under her breath, wiping the debris from her clothes.

… Right, Hunter thought. Not Omega anymore.

Wrecker hooted in victory, entreating a high-five from anybody who’d indulge him, but turning to Omega-as-Crosshair sobered some of that good humor; Omega was bent with her hands on her knees, coughing and having a hard time catching her breath. Wrecker felt a pang of sympathy, striding over to slap her on the back and offer his canteen, which she took gratefully, still occasionally coughing.

Echo righted himself, taking deep breaths and trying to slow his heart rate out of habit before realizing he felt… okay. Better than okay, really. The dying adrenaline didn’t make him feel like he was crashing, just coming down from the high like a hang glider skimming down to level ground. He felt alert, focused, senses buzzing from the input of information every sight and smell gave him. With that came two more realizations of the day:

One: His own body had apparently not been keeping up as well as he thought it had this past year.

And two: This was not the same planet they landed on twelve hours ago.

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[mayhemchicken-varneyposting]

When will Charles return from war -Flora and me

For Flora? As far as I can estimate, about nine days.

For the reader? As of my latest chapter summary, roughly 40 chapters. (I'm not sure of the exact number because the chapter numbering is not consistent.)

[bleaksqueak]

Insomnia is letting up off and on, but I'm still super jelly brained from it case in point, I want to continue back with posting WIPs for the aired pages, but I can't remember what page I left off on now lmao (guess I'll have to dig through my blog to check... eesh. at least it's decently organized by tags?) Not a result of goo brain, really, but equally "AUGH" is that I let my screen protector go for too long without replacing it and now it's slick as snot and I don't have a replacement handy to put on it. This isn't a resulting consequence of goo brain but it does mean I'm going to be trying to draw without any traction while I'm already loopy. Good times ahead!

[aranarumei]

just. for anyone wondering. dungeon meshi is serialized in the Harta magazine, which publishes 10 issues per year in a sort of monthly format—it just skips the months of January and September. and like a lot of monthly manga, dungeon meshi’s chapters tend to be a bit lengthier in page count when compared to, say, a weekly shounen manga.

[fisheadz]

" “Let’s just go through here,” Roy nodded to the building at their right. A decrepit old museum, by the looks of it. “Looks safe enough, and we would have an easier time going across the roofs than the ground.”

Caz shook his head. “Just ‘cause it looks safe, doesn’t mean it is. You know that.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Billy open his mouth. Caz jutted a finger his way, effectively shutting him up. “No. Don’t even start.”

Whatever comment Roy would’ve made at his harsh treatment went unsaid. “It looks better than everything else around here,” he spun in a circle with his arms spread wide to prove his point. “And besides, what if CADAL comes through here? We’d better be off the streets if they do.”

Caz hated how he had a point. Billy went to say something again, and he sent him a poisonous glare, making him slouch a bit lower. "

———

I’m cooking, I’m cooking. Making a oneshot for Still Wakes The Cordyceps. First things first, the museum! This is gonna be fun for all involved I’m sure!

It’ll be on AO3 when I’m done.

[cetoddle]

reading all these bad books btw just makes me wanna write more. i may not have a lot of confidence in my writing but i know i can at least do better than whatever the hell ive been subjected to recently

[cloud-somersault]

alright, chapter 5 just went from being hella sad to fucking gay as fuck so i don't know what's going on anymore

[syndrossi]

me when i'm stressing about the king's landing arc not being as tightly plotted as the vale arc: *barely able to scrape by with 1000 words a day*

me when i go fuck it we ball i write what i want: *suddenly doubling the day's word count*

[aroace-polyshow]

i’m not a huge hater in general tbh so i don’t have very much to say on the manga……..

[organised-disaster]

Burrergh I'm making horrible progress I haven't even started chapter thr-

Oh

[strxnged]

ever just accidently press ctrl+z and lose all of your work on a post

[oldfashionedmorphine]

gonna try writing again even though it’s after 12am…